Entries tagged with “(in)justice”.


The following is a Press release from the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition. I felt it was important enough to make sure everyone saw this.

For Immediate Release: Dated December 10, 2010

Transphobic Politician Appointed to New Governor’s Cabinet

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC) is extremely disappointed with the announcement this week that Governor-Elect Bill Haslam is appointing Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons as the new Commissioner of Safety and Homeland Security.

Mr. Gibbons has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of concern over the safety of transgender people, especially African American transgender women, in Memphis.

After the February 2006 arrest of D’Andre Blake for second degree murder in killing Tiffany Berry, a 21 year old pre-operative transsexual, Blake remained free for two and a half years on a mere $20,000 bond even after he admitted to friends that he had killed Berry because she had “touched” him. On July 28, 2008, Blake was arrested again on the charges of first degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of his two year old daughter, Dre-Ona Blake, over “potty training.”

In an even more highly publicized case in June 2008, Gibbons’ office refused to file criminal charges against two Memphis Police Department officers who insulted and brutally beat Duanna Johnson, an African American transgender woman on February 12, 2008. The U.S. Department of Justice eventually filed criminal charges in Federal District Court of West Tennessee against Officer Bridges McRae, but Gibbons’ Office has still refused to take any criminal action in the case on behalf of the state.

Mr. Gibbons’ indifference to the safety of transgender people in Memphis has contributed to the perception that Memphis may be the most dangerous city in the country for transgender people.

Now, he will be responsible for the safety of all transgender people across the entire state.

Unfortunately, there is no legislative confirmation process in Tennessee for Cabinet officers, so this means that Mr. Gibbons will automatically assume his new position on January 15, but we do feel that Mr. Gibbons is totally inapprorpriate for this positon given his anti-transgender record. The continued refusal of his current office to stand against anti-transgender police brutality, and the lack of action in bringing D’Andre Blake to trial for the murder of Tiffany Berry nearly five years after the initial arrest and confession, is all the more appalling as anti-trans violence continues to plague the state, as the recent beating of Akasha Adonis in Jackson illustrates so vividly.

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC) will have its bill back next year before the Tennessee General Assembly to add “gender identity or expression” to the state’s own hate crimes law. It is time for the State of Tennessee to go on record and state that violence against trans people has no place in the Volunteer State.

The 107th Tennessee General Assembly convenes on Tuesday, January 11. We urge all Tennesseans to contact your state legislators immediately and tell them it is time to take a stand against anti-trans violence in Tennessee, especially now that one of the key officials responsible is indifferent to the safety of transgender people.

Marisa Richmond
President

Inspired by the TERF’s posting and commenting at The Magazine Project.

You insult us.
You claim we are ruining everything.
You sourly say “Well I’m glad YOU are happy but everyone else is mistaken.”
You describe us as the scum of the Earth…

Then cry foul when we dare argue back against your cissplaining.

Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.

I’m not oppressing you, I’ve got no power to do so. As much as it may hurt you to hear this, what you are doing is classic oppression. You are ganging up with the forces of social conservatism to deny us medical care, to attempt to legislate us out of existence, and to attempt to shame and frighten us back into the closet.

You load us up with all these false circular arguments, you shift goalposts, you consistently work to waste our time and energy, our love, and our caring.

We reach out time after time to show you we are not the monsters you assume, we try to respond to your concerns, only to find time and again you ignore what we have to say and just respond with the same script.

You say that my existence reinforces the gender binary, is anti-feminist, and that I’m just a pervert who’s wearing a woman suit.

You say that my life helps kill women by reinforcing a culture of a oppression against them, and yet you fail to see how your words and actions kill trans women by helping to support a culture that oppresses trans people.

You assert that you really trying to make life better for everyone, that you really care, and yet the words you use are full of hate and fear.

So you know what? It’s your turn.

Prove to me that I’m wrong. Prove to me that I’m hurting feminism, lesbian culture, or women in general by my continued existence on this planet. Because I say it’s YOU who is doing that. I’ve done my proving, thread after thread, interaction after interaction, and simply by living my life.

Your hate.
Your fear.
Your unreasoned flailing and logical fallacies.
Your telling my wife that she’s a waste of a perfectly good lesbian.
Your telling me that my happiness and rights mean nothing.
Your willingness to put aside your own theory in order to better hate me.

Your Turn.

http://themagazineproject.com/2010/11/are-trans-trenders-the-new-goth/

I’m watching a cop walk free after yelled racial slurs and then MURDERING a black father who he was kneeling on. 73 day sentence for murder.

A seventy three day sentance for murder.
A 73 day sentence for murder.
73 days. 73 days for ripping Oscar Grant from his family.

I’m watching the tea party take over with hate and fear.

I’m listening to a woman I trust and respect tell me that her grandmother says the things that are happening in broad daylight are the things that are the things that happened under the cover of night 40 years ago. That it is worse now then it was then.

I’m listening to the same woman tell me how conference organizers told her that they didn’t want to pull in racial or ethnic minority sponsors for their conference because they didn’t want to piss off the local media powerhouse who is sponsoring them.

Then say it again in writing.

I’m watching the media cover it up. Worse, I’m watching them uniformly paint people who are hurt, afraid, and speaking up as dangerous and needing the full force of the state to put down.

I see the media play up the fear of anyone who isn’t white, straight, cis, christian, conservative, able bodied, or any number of vectors of oppression. I watch them generate a cloud of hate and let it murder people over, and over, and OVER.

I watch the Conservative elite ally itself with a hateful, violent mass, who the media portrays simply as citizens fighting for their rights.

I am watching America take the steps from a racist nation that murders it’s citizens, into a full-on fascist state.

I watch, I scream at the top of my lungs, I talk to people, but I am just one voice. Others scream, plead, talk, argue, and are arrested, silenced, and killed.

I wonder where we will be in 5 years, and I tremble in fear. Please prove me wrong. Please, Please, Please, Please prove me wrong.

But even you do, Oscar Grant (and so many others I have never heard) of will still be dead, and their killers will have gotten off with a slap on the wrist, AT MOST. Other times they’ll have been promoted for their murderous actions.

Johannes Mehserle, you are a murderer and should rot in jail.