Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says that she supports extending civil rights to all LGBT Americans, and we have to make sure that Sen. Gillibrand makes good on her support by filing legislation, which would add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Call : 1 (212) 688-6262.
Showing posts with label de facto discrimination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label de facto discrimination. Show all posts
QUEENS (WABC) -- Meet Marla Krolikowski. She no longer has any reason to hide. For 32 years, Krolikowski lived a dual life, teaching at St. Francis Prep School in Queens as a man, Mark, who professionally dressed in a suit and tie.
"I valued the job so much that I was willing to internalize everything, because the job met so much to me," said Krolikowski.
Krolikowski says she did start to add more feminine touches over the years, but claims no one seemed to mind. There are plenty of yearbook photos of her like that.
"I noticed it was a bit more feminine, but I mean, I didn't think it was anything to write home about," said former student Christina Guarino, "so it didn't matter, no."
Apparently, a parent did care. Krolikowski says in October of 2011 that school officials brought her in and confronted her.
"They said, 'are you a drag performer, are you a female impersonator?'" Krolikowski said, "they gave me all these different things, so finally I said 'I'm transgendered and I identify as a woman. Then everybody's jaw dropped, and then, I said, 'Oh God, what did I do?'"
Krolikowski said that someone told her "it sounds like you're worse than gay", and it took all her strength not to cry.
Krolikowski claims she was told to tone down her appearance, and did, but was fired anyway.
When September came, she was not going back to school for the first time in 32 years.
In a statement denying the allegations, St. Francis said: "Mr. Krolikowski's employment was terminated for entirely appropriate and professional reasons, and in no way discriminatory."
"All he wanted to do was to be judged by who he is and not what he is, and it's a horror that in this day an age, the school has chosen to judge him by what he is and not who he is," said Krolikowski's attorney, Andrew Kimler.
"My time is running out. I'm 59 years old and I want to live the way I was intended to be," adds Krowlikowski, "which is as a woman."
Krowlikowski has had breast implants, has started hormone treatments, and plans to have more surgery. She says she doesn't want people to look at her as a freak, because she didn't get to do all the things that girls got to do.
Krowikowski says she has been overwhelmed by support from thousands of current and former students who have signed an on-line petition on change.org. She doesn't have long-term plans but does have an immediate goal - to attend Lady Gaga's Born Brave bus tour that is coming to New York later this month.
Confronting the President of Magical Thinking : A Vocation of Agony
Barack Obama and his family, the vice president and his family, other government officials, and their supporters celebrated the president's second inauguration today, which coïncided with the federal holiday commemorating the life and accomplishments of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
LGBT Americans were jubilant, because the president said some aspirational words in the second half of his inaugural address.
"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well."
Immediately, the president's supporters acted in lock-step to express support for this expression of a longing for equality.
Corey Johnson is an up-and-coming LGBT politician, who is patterning himself after New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's doctrine of putting politically-expedient identity politics before having to deliver any government reforms. Note how the president failed to say the words lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered in "LGBT," but already the president's supporters were having to say the words that the president found unspeakable.
It appears that Mr. Johnson's excitement could be being based not so much on the president's promise of legal reforms that would result in LGBT equality, but, rather, on political party discipline that calls for a self-motivated unity in messaging to sway Progressive voters into believing that the Democratic Party was on their side.
But for the incomplete messaging that the president's words offer, there is no plan attached to how the president plans to "complete" our "journey."
On Facebook, some LGBT activists picked up on the incomplete messaging in the president's rhetoric, because they had noticed a pattern in his prior speeches.
Some LGBT activists were already picking up how President Obama was unable to utter the words lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.
To the president's army of speech writers, did those words lack any dignity and respect, and, therefore, did not need to be mentioned ?
In his speech during his second inaugural ceremonies, President Obama seemed to be channeling the "great communicator," who, we may all remember, was notable for his failure to uttered the word "AIDS" until after thousands of people had died.
Many of the president's supporters have made a choice to be excited for the president's re-election. But ...
"By the time President Reagan had delivered his first speech on the epidemic, of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with the disease; 20,849 had died," Randy Shilts once wrote. Along a similar vein, when will President Obama say all the words in LGBT ?
So many people want to believe in the hope, change, and love that the president so skillfully articulates in his scripted speeches. We are supposed to want to believe in the magical thinking that the president really is on our side, because doesn't he, after all, say so many nice things that he knows that we want to hear ?
While President Obama's lack of clear communication during this inaugural address may not lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of our "gay brothers and sisters," he nonetheless sets the tone for that which the American people become familiar : either feelings of shame and embarrassment that prevent a president from mentioning lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered Americans, or feelings of equality and respect by dignifying and acknowledging the journeys still being made by lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered Americans.
Some activists on Facebook took a more diplomatic, but forward-looking approach to the editing of the president's words : by using the occasion of the president's rhetoric to build forward momentum on the social movement for LGBT equality in the United States.
The hopes and actions of LGBT Americans and their allies are to fulfill on our shared dream for equality.
But LGBT activists and allies already exchange amongst ourselves the vision and prayers for equality.
For all the president's rhetoric, we already seem to have, at first blush, the president's love and affinity for our community, at least that which could be expressed in his own way. What we need now is action.
The longer LGBT Americans have to wait for full federal recognition of their equal rights, the more that members of our community remain fully exposed to legally-permitted forms of discrimination in broad areas of their life, including in the workplace.
The skepticism within the LGBT community about President Obama's commitment to true LGBT equality stems from some major examples of actions that the president refuses to take, which contradicts his rhetoric.
For example, the president refuses to sign the Federal Contractor's Employment Protections Executive Order. National LGBT civil rights groups, such as GetEQUAL, have been mounting a multi-prong campaign to pressure the president to sign the executive order, but the president refuses.
President Obama embarrassed both his administration and the Democratic Party by once having said that while he was nominally committed to the idea that all Americans shared the same civil rights, he still had to "evolve" on marriage equality. It was as if President Obama was admitting that his thoughts on civil rights resembled that of someone a little bit ignorant and a little bit intolerant, like former commissioner Bull Connor, who once, among other depraved acts of discrimination, ordered the opening up of firehoses on African American civil rights activists.
Surely, President Obama was not seriously putting himself into the same league as Bull Connor, but why was the president torturing hisself by proclaiming in speech his support for LGBT equality that could not be matched by his actions ?
And lest we neglect to mention how so many people conveniently seem to forget to remember how it took a national campaign of civil disobedience, among other actions, for national Democratic Party legislators to repeal the military's discriminatory policy known as Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The president's political operatives love to mention how the president "repealed" DADT, but they overlook what it took to get a bill introduced in and voted by Congress.
And if the constant push and pull amongst LGBT activists and civil rights groups to define a winning national strategy to deliver a full federal equality bill through Congress wasn't enough, activists must contend with the political trappings of trying to challenge a president who says all the right things and knows how to manipulate support for his administration. And then there are the other unknown, but nonetheless predictable, obstacles for LGBT activists as they set out to challenge power holders, who fail to act to end de jure and de fact discrimination.
While community organising and activism has evolved since the 1960's with the advent of online tools and other empowering platforms of the Internet like Facebook, YouTube, and blogging, every now and then activists must overcome the occasional opening up of digital firehoses.
The late Frank Mandelbaum's dying wish was that his son marry the mother of his grandchild. Only Robert Mandelbaum, 47, a Manhattan Criminal Court Judge, is already married - to a man. Robert Mandelbaum is now fighting to overturn his father's will, arguing that the only 'mother' his two-year-old son knows is his longtime partner Johnathan O'Donnell, 39.
Evangelist Billy Graham, 93, was admitted to a North Carolina hospital after he developed a fever Saturday night and is now being treated for bronchitis, said his long-time spokesman, A. Larry Ross. ¶ Graham was alert and in good spirits when he was admitted to Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C., Sunday, according to the pulmonologist treating Graham, Dr. David Pucci. He said Graham is resting comfortably in stable condition. (USA Today) * Evangelist Billy Graham defends Chick-fil-A (CNN)
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer bill of rights - resolution submitted On July 2, 2012, by Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens). Assemblyman Lara introduced a measure in the California State Assembly to urge the federal government to include the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community in federal anti-discrimination laws that have evolved to protect discrimination based on race and sex, among other traits. 2012 07 02 Ricardo Lara CA Assembly LGBT Bill of Rights Resolution
Facebook LGBT Reaction To President Barack Obama's Marriage Equality ''Evolution''
Following is the Facebook ''status update'' posted by LGBT civil rights activist Tiffani Equality Bishop, which deftly addresses the commonly-shared disappointment in President Obama's recently announced support for marriage equality :
Am I appreciative of Obama's partial evolution on marriage equality? YES
Am I also incredibly disgusted that he went to NC on April 24 and took millions of LGBT dollars without even mentioning Amendment 1 once? YES
Am I also incredibly disgusted that the DNC and OFA did not send one email, one volunteer, or even one penny to help defeat Amendment 1 in NC all while taking millions of dollars from our community? YES
Am I frustrated that he still thinks it is a states rights issue and not a human rights issue? YES
Am I frustrated that he still believes only section 3 of DOMA and not all of DOMA should be repealed? YES
So has he really evolved like people say? I see this as a partial "evolution"...he still has some "evolving" to do.
So please excuse me for feeling a little slapped in the face when our POTUS chooses to evolve on marriage (partially anyway) the day after the harshest anti-LGBT marriage amendment passed in NC while he and his administration did absolutely NOTHING to help defeat it...not even a pretty speech. Am I glad he came out, yes. But his timing was disrespectful and severely lacked any tact.
What I have a hard time understanding though, is the reaction from our community. He still hasn't completely evolved, and his partial evolution does not make us any more equal. I have a hard time understanding why people were crying and celebrating and throwing money at him over this. Words may make us feel good for a minute, but at the end of the day we're still unequal and his actions aren't backing up his words.
If he means it, he'll put his money where his mouth is. He'll sign the ENDA Executive Order on his desk, and he'll stop the deportations of same-sex binational partners...and he'll do it BEFORE the election.
If his actions don't back it up, then it really doesn't mean anything. It just means he is pandering to our community, throwing us crumbs, and using us as election tokens.
