I’ve decided to share how I see the world. I am a bit of a news junky, with a heavy focus on LGBT focused news, and since this blog is about my husband being accidentally gay because of my transition, I thought it would be topical.
I’m just going to give a Friday round up of the this background radiation in my life. I’m going to list whole links so everyone can see were the links go, with a little description. This list is never going to be a comprehensive listing of everything I see on a weekly basis, but it might show what it’s like to be queer in the world. My focus is centered on the United States because that’s where I’m from, but I also follow world news.
So with further ado, here we go.
Headline: Washington State HB1011
https://secure.wawont.org/page/contribute/2017-hb1011?default_amt=10
This is Washington States very own version of North Carolina’s HB2. If I recall, and I’m too lazy to find sources, there are some heavy religious/alt-right groups that hand out legislature like so much copy pasta. I don’t know much on this one other than it exists, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it came from the same source all those other anti-trans bathroom bills came from. It’s like a never ending copy pasta mill with discrimination as the goal.
Headline: Dem Bill Requires TSA to develop transgender screening plan
It’s about time for this. Going through TSA was the biggest push for getting top surgery for me. I got pulled for extra screening every time. I’d get some shaking TSA guy freaking out as he patted me down. I started to joke with them, “Hey kid, it’s okay. We’ll get through this together.” or “I keep my beer fat there.” I got off way lighter than a lot of transgender women did, though.
Headline: Jeff Landry asks court to throw out transgender protections in John Bel Edwards’ order
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/12/louisiana_lgbt_court_case.html
But but but, he’s willing to leave the protections for gay people, if they would just remove protections from transgender people. They are worried about transgender people using the bathroom. . . This kind of thing is what had me driving to Subway to use their bathroom in my first job after transitioning.
Headline: Study: Anti-gay, transgender laws could cost Texas $8.5 billion
Maybe the possible loss of 8.5 billion dollars will sway them, but I’m not holding out hope. Texas has been doing some crazy crap lately.
Headline: Ben Shapiro Tells Yeshiva U. Students Being Transgender Is ‘Mental Illness’
I’m just going to leave his quote here:
“Transgender people are unfortunately suffering from a significant mental illness that is deeply harmful, and it’s not a solution to pretend that transgender people are the sex that they think they are in their head,” Shapiro said in the Monday speech. “Biology is biology; men can’t magically become women, and women can’t magically become men.”
Headline: Trans students sue school district which bans them from using certain bathrooms
The school allowed transgender children to use the bathroom that aligned with their gender identity for years, then decided to stop the three trans students this year while they “decided on a formal policy.”
Headline: U.S. transgender people harassed in public restrooms: landmark survey
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt-survey-idUSKBN13X0BK
This is good news, sort of. It’s not good that 60% of us have been harassed in the bathroom, but getting studies done, is the first step to in trying to get this issue taken seriously. This harassment is being reported, and documented. That’s good. This looks like a good study, with 27,715 participants. I’m not sure I remember a study that really rounded up the state of being transgender in this country.
As always, thanks for reading our blog. We appreciate the support immensely.
Accidently Gay 
Ah, TSA. I’ve learned that my screening pass-rate goes up markedly when I haul my pants all the way up into my business. My theory is that the fork of my pants pressing on my bits creates a womanly divot where there should be one.
Of course, this means any time I wear a skirt through screening I get dick-checked.
My big fear with that TBD ‘protocol’ is that passengers will be required to select their screening baseline as part of their ticket-buying process. They’ll have to add a boarding-pass scan before the scanner to get the profile selected. While that would benefit people like me who haven’t done anything to my body to vary me from one of the two baselines, it would still cause increase hit-rates for people who are, say, boobs-and-dick. A technical solution that would get everyone a round a back-pats, and open the door to individualized scanner-profiles. Which would be the long-term storage of scan images they were swearing up, down, left, right and sideways would never be done ever, OMG Porn.
I guess that’s one way to get thought TSA.
I hadn’t thought about the self selection problem. For folks with different parts, that means outing yourself as trans as well, and putting yourself at the mercy of some TSA jerk, possibly. That would be worrisome.
It drives me nuts that some security experts say these scans are pointless anyways.
Sounds like you’re thinking of https://www.alec.org/
It’s possible.