Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

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Voronwë the Faithful
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Re: Not enough Whisky for this Tango Foxtrot

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

Sherriff note: attacking other people's views, even obliquely, is not acceptable here and needs to stop. Moreover, while everyone is entitled to their opinion, expressing a false view that certain individuals are mentally ill or "deviant" also would not be acceptable here and would not be tolerated. I'm going to move this discussion to the already existing thread in Tol Eressëa entitled "Gender and Threats to "Normality'" but I am also going to closely monitor what is written and I won't hesitate to remove things that are not appropriate for this board.
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by N.E. Brigand »

A new report from the Deseret News:

"After a girl beat their daughters in sports, Utah parents triggered investigation into whether she was transgender".

The parents complained, the state scholastic athletic association asked the school to investigate, and the school went through years of the girl's records and found that she had indeed been identified as female since kindergarten. The girl and her family never knew that this had happened:

"We didn't get to the parents or the student simply because if all of the questions about eligibility were answered by the school or the feeder system schools, there was no reason to make it a personal situation with a family or that athlete."

I think that means they still don't know.
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by elengil »

And it's always, always girls/women and girls/women's sports. :nono:
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Eldy »

God damn. Brutal.
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by RoseMorninStar »

FREEDOM! Except when it's not.
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

To be clear, this is the Attorney General of the state, the state's top lawyer, who is complaining about being asked to provide basic information like who is the organization that is providing the so-called expert opinions that contradict the findings of the major medical organizations such as the American Medical Association, the American Acadamy of Pediatrics, etc. "It's in the briefs." Pathetic.

But another reminder of how great Jon Stewart is.
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by RoseMorninStar »

Yes, Jon Stewart is a sharp interviewer. The Louisiana's AG's 'reasoning' reminds me of the book/library fiasco in our town.
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Impenitent »

So bloody dishonest! It has nothing to do with 'caring for these children' or 'the experts say'.
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by N.E. Brigand »

Do say gay: a "federal grand jury has returned a six-count indictment [for wire fraud and money laundering of Covid relief funds] against Florida lawmaker Joseph B. Harding, who sponsored the state's 'Don't Say Gay' bill."
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

I moved a couple of posts addressing same sex marriage and the Protection of Marriage Act to the same sex marriage thread where that proposed law was being discussed
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by RoseMorninStar »

Curious.
Texas attorney general’s office sought state data on transgender Texans
HOUSTON — Employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety in June received a sweeping request from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office: Compile a list of individuals who had changed their gender on their Texas driver’s license and other department records during the past two years.

“Need total number of changes from male to female and female to male for the last 24 months, broken down by month,” the chief of the DPS’s driver license division emailed colleagues in the department on June 30, according to a copy of a message obtained by The Washington Post through a public records request. “We won’t need DL/ID numbers at first but may need to have them later if we are required to manually look up documents.”

After more than 16,000 such instances were identified, DPS officials determined that a manual search would be needed to determine the reason for the changes, DPS spokesman Travis Considine told The Post in response to questions.

“A verbal request was received,” he wrote in an email. “Ultimately, our team advised the AG’s office the data requested neither exists nor could be accurately produced. Thus, no data of any kind was provided.”

Asked who in Paxton’s office had requested the records, he replied: “I cannot say.”

The behind-the-scenes effort by Paxton’s office to obtain data on how many Texans had changed their gender on their license came as the attorney general, Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican leaders in the state have been publicly marshaling resources against transgender Texans.

In October 2021, Abbott signed a bill banning transgender youths from participating in sports that align with their gender identity at K-12 public schools; this year he ordered the state to investigate the provision of gender-affirming care as potential child abuse. State lawmakers have already proposed more than a dozen anti-LGBTQ measures ahead of the next session in January, including criminalizing gender-affirming care and banning minors at drag shows.

Public records obtained by The Post do not indicate why the attorney general’s office sought the driver’s license information. But advocates for transgender Texans say Paxton could use the data to further restrict their right to transition, calling it a chilling effort to secretly harness personal information to persecute already vulnerable people.

“This is another brick building toward targeting these individuals,” said Ian Pittman, an Austin attorney who represents Texas parents of transgender children investigated by the state. “They’ve already targeted children and parents. The next step would be targeting adults. And what better way than seeing what adults had had their sex changed on their driver’s licenses?”

Alexis Salkeld Garcia, 34, of Austin, a trans woman who changed the gender listed on her driver’s license from male to female a year and a half ago, said the attorney general’s office inquiry made her feel “terrified.”

“It’s very specifically targeted, and the one person I don’t want knowing about my gender status is Ken Paxton,” said Salkeld Garcia, a software engineer who worries state officials might try to switch the gender listed on her driver’s license back to male.

“I don’t want a cop pulling me over and knowing I’m trans. That is why I changed my gender marker extremely quickly” after transitioning, she said.

Paxton’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

The records obtained by The Post, which document communications between DPS employees, are entitled: “AG Request Sex Change Data” and “AG data request.” They indicate that Paxton’s office sought the records a month after the state Supreme Court ruled that Paxton and Abbott had overreached in their efforts to investigate families with transgender children for child abuse.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seen last year in Dallas, in June sought a list of individuals who had changed their gender on their Texas driver’s license and other department records during the past two years. (Emil Lippe for The Washington Post)

Paxton’s office bypassed the normal channels — DPS’s government relations and general counsel’s offices — and went straight to the driver license division staff in making the request, according to a state employee familiar with it, who said the staff was told that Paxton’s office wanted “numbers” and later would want “a list” of names, as well as “the number of people who had had a legal sex change.”

During the following two months, the employee said, the DPS staff searched its records for changes in the “sex” category of not only driver’s licenses but also state ID cards available from birth, learner’s permits issued to those age 15 and up, commercial licenses, state election certificates, and occupational licenses. The employee spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation for describing internal state discussions.

DPS staff members compiled a list of 16,466 gender changes between June 1, 2020, and June 30, 2022, public records show. In the emails, DPS staff members repeatedly referred to the request as coming from the attorney general’s office as they discussed attempting to narrow the data to include only licenses that had been altered to reflect a court-ordered change in someone’s gender.
Demonstrators gather at the Texas Capitol in Austin on May 20, 2021, to protest legislation targeting transgender people being considered by the state legislature. (Eric Gay/AP)

DPS staff members did spot checks on the data, examining records that included names of specific individuals, according to records and the state employee familiar with the inquiry. But it was hard to weed out driver’s licenses that had been changed in error, or multiple times, or for reasons other than gender changes.

“It will be very difficult to determine which records had a valid update without a manual review of all supporting documents,” an assistant manager in DPS’s driver license division wrote in an email to colleagues on July 22.

On Aug. 4, the division chief emailed staff members, “We have expended enough effort on this attempt to provide data. After this run, have them package the data that they have with the high level explanations and close it out.” On Aug. 18, a senior manager emailed to say a data engineer had “provided the data request by the AG’s office (attached).”

Last month, The Post made a request to Paxton’s office for all records the attorney general’s office had directed other state offices to compile related to driver’s licenses in which the sex of the driver was changed, as well as related emails between Paxton’s office and other state agencies.

Officials indicated that no such records existed.

“Why would the Office of the Attorney General have gathered this information?” Assistant Attorney General June Harden wrote in an email to The Post, later adding, “Why do you believe this is the case?”

If they did, Harden said, any records were probably exempt from release because of either attorney-client privilege or confidentiality.

Marisol Bernal-Leon, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, later emailed that the office “has reviewed its files and has no information responsive to your request” for either records it had requested from DPS or emails between the attorney general’s office and DPS.

Separately, DPS provided The Post with a half-dozen documents spanning three months that referenced the request by Paxton’s office.

When The Post shared copies of the records that had been provided by DPS, Assistant Attorney General Lauren Downey noted that “none of the records provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety are communications with the Office of the Attorney General. Our response to your request was accurate.”

Downey did not reply to questions about why the DPS emails refer to the request as originating from the attorney general. Paxton’s office has yet to respond to another public records request for any records of its contact with DPS concerning driver’s license changes via means other than email, including phone calls, video meetings and in-person exchanges.

The earlier attempt by Paxton and his allies to direct state agencies to identify parents of transgender youths and investigate them for child abuse has mostly been blocked by the courts.

Last year, lawmakers in the Republican-dominated legislature failed to pass a measure that would have criminalized gender confirmation care, which major medical associations have deemed science-based medical care. Afterward, state Rep. Matt Krause (R) — chair of the state House committee on general investigating — contacted Paxton, who issued a legal opinion that gender-affirming care for minors could be considered child abuse. Days later, Abbott directed the state child welfare agency to investigate parents facilitating such care for their children, sparking several investigations within days, according to public records.

After Abbott issued the directive, agency staff members were told not to communicate in writing about it, including emails and texts, according to public records.

Some of the families sued, winning a temporary statewide injunction in Doe v. Abbott, blocking the investigations until the lawsuit reached the state Supreme Court in May. The court overturned the injunction on procedural grounds but found that Paxton’s legal opinion was not binding and that Abbott did not have the authority to direct state child welfare staff members to initiate child abuse investigations of families with transgender children.

“[N]either the Governor nor the Attorney General has statutory authority to directly control DFPS’s investigatory decisions,” the court ruled.

But Pittman, the attorney who has represented Texas parents of transgender children, noted that lawyers for the attorney general’s office later argued against what the Supreme Court had determined: that Republican leaders “had political tools but they could not direct the department in that way.” He said they appeared to be “ignoring direct Supreme Court statements.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal also sued to stop the investigations on behalf of PFLAG, an LGBTQ advocacy group with more than 600 members in Texas. A county judge in Austin ruled in their favor in September, blocking the state from investigating PFLAG members. That covered most of the dozen families the state admitted to investigating but not necessarily all, said Shelly Skeen, a Dallas-based senior attorney at Lambda Legal working on the PFLAG and Doe v. Abbott cases.

Skeen called the attorney general’s inquiry into driver’s license records “a gross violation of privacy” intended to “target one group of people to fire up their base while transgender people are just trying to live their lives.”

“The constitutional issues that this raises are equal protection and due process under the 14th Amendment as well as discrimination based on sex,” Skeen said.

Some Texas judges seal or restrict access to court records of gender changes for privacy reasons, but also because transgender individuals have been harassed online and faced threats of violence, Skeen said.
Smith Puerto and their wife, Kristina, pose for a photo at their home in Austin on Monday. (Sergio Flores for The Washington Post)

“If you do not have access to identity documents that match who you are, you are outed every time you show an ID,” Skeen said, “and this is what leads to the discrimination, harassment and violence that transgender people face.”

Smith Puerto of Austin, who identifies as transgender and nonbinary, changed their Texas driver’s license from female to male about a year ago. Puerto, 34, who works in client services at a tech company, has been training with their wife of five years to foster an LGBTQ teen and figured they had a better chance applying as a male, although there were risks.

“You definitely out yourself,” by changing the documents, said Puerto, who has had surgery, takes hormones and said they often pass as male.

“In a state like Texas, you don’t always want people to know you’re different,” Puerto said, calling the attorney general’s inquiry “horrifying.”

“It’s scary to know what he would want to do with that data,” they said.

Puerto, who moved to Texas from Ohio nine years ago, said they worry Paxton and other Republican leaders who have attacked the rights of transgender children are preparing to target transgender adults like them when the legislature reconvenes.

“It’s a constant conversation between my wife and I,” Puerto said. “Every session we hold our breath, kind of watching what horrendous bills get filed, and wonder how much longer can we stay here.”

Salkeld Garcia, who also takes hormones and had gender confirmation surgery, demonstrated against anti-trans legislation at the Capitol last year and called the prospect of what lawmakers could do next year “very nerve-racking.”

“In Austin we have a vibrant trans community, a beautiful queer community,” she said. “But it’s also scary, because it feels like you have a big fire burning all around you and you don’t know where it will spread or if it will burn you.”
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Eldy »

“This is another brick building toward targeting these individuals,” said Ian Pittman, an Austin attorney who represents Texas parents of transgender children investigated by the state. “They’ve already targeted children and parents. The next step would be targeting adults. And what better way than seeing what adults had had their sex changed on their driver’s licenses?”
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Frelga »

When governments start making lists of people they don't like, it's a very scary time for those people.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by RoseMorninStar »

Alarming, indeed.
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by RoseMorninStar »

About two summers ago I was at our farmer's market when I ran into an old friend. As we were chatting he started tipping his head (so I would turn around and look at something/someone). As I turned I saw someone I'd seen earlier that morning, a very tall (what I presumed to be) a very feminine transgender woman. I turned back to my friend and ignored his bigoted implication/look. Looking back on the incident I wish I'd been quicker thinking and had said, 'America is the land of the free & home of the brave, is it not? I can't think of anything freer or braver.'
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Frelga »

I rarely agree with anything as wholeheartedly as I agree with this.

If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Jude »

Très succinct :D
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Re: Gender and threats to "Normality" (spilit from "The challenges ahead")

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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