Recently in BuzzFeed in the article Feds “Ready” For Transgender Discrimination Complaints In North Carolina, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Commissioner Chai Feldblum was quoted as saying: I want workers to know that even though there isn’t yet a federal Equality Act protecting them, even though there is not a state law protecting them, and even though city laws have been removed, they can walk into a federal agency called the EEOC. Their claim will be taken, it will be… Read more.

Recently I came across an interesting story in my newsfeed. It seems Sir Richard Branson, of Virgin Air lost a wager to Air Asia Group CEO Tony Fernandes. Sir Branson bet Mr Fernandes over whose Formula 1 team would be ranked higher in the 2010 Championships. Branson lost the contest and as a result, he must serve as flight attendant on AirAsia’s Perth to Kuala Lumpur flight. It all seems a bit of fun. The proceeds from the flight go… Read more.

As Cristan Williams pointed out in her recent Transadvocate piece Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, segregation against trans women has been occurring at that festival for a very, very long time. Over the years, many intra-LGBT community allies of trans women have spoken out against the policy -- including the Lesbians for Justice in 1992, the Lesbian Resource Center of Seattle in 1999, and the Lesbian Avengers of Boston in 2000 -- and yet words alone haven't moved the Michigan Womyn’s… Read more.

A couple of years ago, I attended a community forum in Denver that was set up so that trans people could meet with local police and discuss our community’s concerns. The police representatives present were from a newly formed “diversity”-type unit that was created to work specifically with marginalized communities, including LGBT communities, and to investigate possible hate crimes or crimes that appeared to specifically target members of these particular communities. The officers and detectives in attendance were friendly, attentive,… Read more.

Last year, I wrote a guest post for the excellent blog Womanist Musings called “Leave the Kids Out of It,” about a brouhaha over gendered Halloween costumes. Now we’ve got another situation where kids are being dragged into adult morality wars. The Girl Scout Cookie boycott, organized to protest the admission of a trans girl to a Colorado troop, was allegedly conceived by a fourteen-year-old girl, but my guess is that she’s getting her faulty information from somewhere above (and… Read more.

It’s amazing what’s expected of us as trans people. We’re supposed to watch our trans sisters succumb to unspeakable brutality on a constant basis. We’re supposed to ignore the fact that we can be legally fired in thirty-eight states simply because we’re trans. We’re supposed to “understand” when we are denied admittance to public places or refused public restroom access based on our appearance or our paperwork. And we’re supposed to “get over it” when someone uses offensive language to… Read more.

Liberal MP Dr.Hedy Fry and NDP MP Randall Peterson just introduced Bills C-276 and C-279 a few days ago in the Conservative majority dominated Parliament. Why did they do so?   Because it's clear that the Great White North and the trans people who live inside its borders need that human rights coverage. A blatant case of anti-trans discrimination has blown up and become international news centered on the Trail's End Farmers Market in London, ON. On September 10 Karen… Read more.

Given the current political climate it looks as if the Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA) is dead for at least the next couple of years. What should we do? We need to look at the example of Haverford. From Philadelphia Gay News: "Haverford is on its way to becoming the 19th jurisdiction in the state to ban LGBT discrimination, as the township commission voted 5-3, with one abstention, at its Jan. 10 meeting to adopt a measure that prohibits discrimination based… Read more.

Todays guest blogger is Michelle Diane Rose. Michelle is a communications student and the co-author of The Color of Sunlight. She lives in Portland, Oregon and works for a non-profit. (I dunno why I've taken to using "teh" instead of "the". A sneer seems to be creeping in from offstage somewhere and I'm thinking it's indicative of something but I dunno what, yet.) Would you hire a tranny? C'mon, this is Oregon, a blue State through and through, right? We… Read more.

A press release from transsexualities.com: Transwoman removed from female washroom by security and subjected to transphobic slurs for using “wrong bathroom” KELOWNA, BC - On Sunday, October 26th, at approximately 2AM, a transwoman was dragged out of the women’s washroom at LeVeL Nightclub. A LeVeL employee who identified herself as Carly Wilson, initially directed the victim, a regular patron, to the male washroom after Wilson was asked where the female washroom was located. The victim pushed the door slightly open… Read more.