H.R. 1981: “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011”

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is back with a new anti-privacy bill that’s been on the radar of civil liberties organizations for several months now, though it hasn’t yet received much attention in the mainstream media. He introduced H.R. 1981, euphemistically the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011” back in May 2011 and on July 28, 2011 it was passed onto the floor by the House Judiciary Committee where it is currently awaiting action.

The ACLU explains the ostensible purpose behind the proposed bill as well as the current privacy-related problems with the amended version:

The bill, HR 1981, the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,” – if only it were that narrow! – is a direct assault on the privacy of Internet users and overlooks some key fixes that could actually help to address the very real problem of child exploitation.

We blogged about the bill’s serious privacy implications back in May. Despite some recent amendments, the legislation still has fundamental problems.

The bill requires Internet companies to log all temporarily assigned network addresses, also known as IP addresses, for a minimum of one year. IP addresses directly link individuals to their online activity and can reveal very private information about everything from health concerns to political interests. And once all of this personal information about innocent Americans is collected, it would be available to law enforcement for any purpose.

Broad immunity provisions for companies in the bill also threaten to undermine state data breach laws and data security protections as well as potentially immunize companies against tort and other claims. At a time when high profile data breaches are daily news stories and identity theft is widespread, this provision seems ill-considered at best.

The bill also ignore steps recommended by the Government Accountability Office to make child exploitation investigations more effective, including devoting more resources to forensic analysis of computers and better coordination between law enforcement agencies.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation had this to say back when the bill was voted out of Committee:

Despite serious privacy concerns being voiced by both Democratic and Republican leaders and by thousands of digital rights activists using EFF’s Action Center, this afternoon the House Judiciary Committee voted 19 to 10 to recommend passage of H.R. 1981. That bill contains a mandatory data retention provision that would require your Internet service providers to retain 12 months’ worth of personal information that could be used to identify what web sites you visit and what content you post online. EFF had previously joined with 29 other civil liberties and consumer privacy groups in signing a letter to the Committee members that condemned the bill as a “direct assault on the privacy of Internet users.”

They note that the bill would “treat every internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American[.]” The bill goes far beyond SOPA/PIPA. It is being called “Orwellian” both for its name – which has absolutely nothing to do with keeping children away from porn and everything to do with intruding into Americans’ privacy rights – and for the fact that it would allow the government to view a lot more of your daily activities than they’ve ever been legally allowed access to. It actually mandates that internet service providers keep a database of everything you do online and hand it over to the government when they want to see it.

It’s a very broad and sweeping proposal:

This is serious threat to our privacy. The ACLU has long been concerned about companies that follow us around the web and track our viewing habits for the purposes of advertising. They use this tracking to build personal profiles about us that can be widely shared. Forcing companies to retain data for long periods would bolster this practice. It would also make it much easier for the government to track everything we do online. No company would be able to promise not to record your visit — that would be barred by law. Respect for your anonymity online would be a thing of the past.

The legislation applies to a broad swath of internet sites and services. It would include all email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail), all cloud computing services (Google-web based services like Picasa and Google Docs), all social networking sites and a whole lot more. In layman’s terms, the bill applies to every site that allows you to communicate with others or stores or processes your data — almost everybody.

Aside from the problems with civil liberties and privacy, there is the issue of cost to private businesses. In pushing strongly for this bill’s enactment, Rep. Smith and his 39 cosponsors are asking the government to impose a de facto tax on businesses in order for the provisions to be enforced (to the extent that the provisions of a bill of this magnitude could be enforced):

More recently, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has fast-tracked H.R. 1981, commonly known as “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,″ a title rich with pathos and seemingly morally impregnable, though it will actually mandate tech companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) create massive user data bases to be made available to the U.S. government.

As noted by The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) in its report “Compliance with a Data Retention Mandate – Costs Will Skyrocket with Trends in Internet Addressing,” the data retention policy contained in the bill is troubling, not only because of privacy and civil liberty concerns, but because of the immense costs that will be levied upon tech companies and ISPs to create the Orwellian databases.

It’s rather odd that a Republican such as Rep. Smith would place such a financial burden on the tech business sector, which would create a de facto internet tax on their operations. Indeed, the operating costs have long been a barrier to this legislation, which was originally introduced six years ago by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), a porcine slime ball if there ever was one.

The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office took note of the private sector costs:

CBO estimates that the total costs to private entities of the mandates in the bill would exceed the annual threshold established in UMRA for private-sector mandates ($142 million in 2011, adjusted annually for inflation). According to data from the Census Bureau, there are approximately 3,000 providers of electronic communications services. Based on information from industry experts and data technology professionals about current practices and the cost to design and install the data systems that would be required by the bill, CBO estimates that the aggregate cost of this mandate to the private sector would be more than $200 million.

The one thing it doesn’t do is protect children from internet pornography. [It’s very difficult for me to avoid making a “That would be socialism!” joke here.]

It really seems like extreme overreach from our ‘small-government conservatives’ in Congress. They are mandating yearlong recording of our computer records, taxing our businesses, ignoring responsible and effective ways to investigate the exploitation and abuse of children and imposing their own will on the populace under the guise of “protecting children.”

Seriously.

But there is some hope – while this may be a bad bill, it’s not the only option:

There is an alternative: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been a leader in ensuring an open Internet. Last March, Wyden introduced a bill that would protect children from sex trafficking and support victims of sex crimes. The bill does not, however, require the tracking of individuals’ online activity or financial transactions, essentially making it a safer alternative to the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act.

Known as the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act, it has 12 sponsors but has been tied up for months in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If we need potentially ineffective laws for absolutely everything we may be afraid of, we should at least make sure it’s the less intrusive bill that becomes law.

OutServe Magazine on “The New DADT: Transgender Service”

Crossposted at Daily Kos

OutServe is an organization for LGBT military servicemembers that was created in response to anti-gay harassment that servicemembers were receiving under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. They became a major player in the campaign to repeal DADT, working on the Pentagon’s repeal survey and actively approaching the media to tell their stories. In March 2011, OutServe began publishing a magazine online and in print at military bases worldwide.

Metro Weekly is reporting in an exclusive that their January/February 2012 issue confronts the next step in the long-term battle for equality:

Jonathan Mills, a staff sergeant in the Air Force, serves as the executive editor of OutServe Magazine. He tells Metro Weekly that ”after the smoke cleared” from the repeal of ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which took place on Sept. 20, 2011, the ”common sentiment echoed by our staff and members was, ‘When are we gonna start pushing the T of LGBT?'”

OutServe Magazine interviewed six servicemembers who are transgender and want to serve without fear of being rejected or kicked out of the military for their gender identity.

One of the servicemembers who uses the pseudonym “Bryan” says:

”I want to speak out about it because I know a lot of people are not going to, and I feel like for anything to change … a group of people are going to have to step up to the plate and talk about it … like people did during the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal.

”I want to be part of that so maybe one day I can … serve openly, and so other people can.”

The regulations related to transgender military service are separate from the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell because they’re not codified in law the way 10 USC § 654 was. They are simply DOD regulations. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network explains:

[After a physical examination] the military may reject the potential service member if he or she has had any type of genital surgery. Furthermore, even if the potential service member has not had surgery but identifies as transgender, the military considers this to be a mental health condition which disqualifies them from entering military service[.]

Activists are involved in serious discussions about how to lift this ban. When we talk about equality, it means equality for everyone. Scott Wooledge reports from the Creating Change conference that:

[Sue] Fulton [OutServe member and West Point Advisory Board member] and Katie Miller presented a panel at the Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s national Conference Creating Change this weekend, titled: “The Death of DADT and the Path Forward.”

Under the path forward portion Outserve identified four tasks still to be accomplished by advocates for the LGBT community:

• Acquire full equivalent spousal benefits for same-sex couples
• Lift the DOD ban on Trans servicemembers
• End the ban on HIV-positive servicemembers in non-combat roles
• Create an mechanism for accountability for instances of LGBT discrimination.

Metro Weekly notes that Miller herself wrote the OutServe article:

Katie Miller, the former West Point cadet who resigned over the discrimination she faced under DADT, wrote the OutServe Magazine article. ”I knew Katie was a great writer,” says Mills, “but once I got the piece, I was blown away. She did such a great job, and I’m so proud of everyone who was involved in this specific article.”

Miller had attended West Point Academy and was ranked in the top 10 of her class until she resigned after repeatedly being harassed and becoming increasingly unwilling to compromise her identity:

I have created a heterosexual dating history to recite to fellow cadets when they inquire. I have endured unwanted approaches by male cadets for fear of being accused as a lesbian by rejecting or reporting these events. I have been coerced into ignoring derogatory comments towards homosexuals for fear of being alienated for my viewpoint. In short, I have lied to my classmates and compromised my integrity and my identity by adhering to existing military policy.

But this policy needs to be eliminated just as much as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell needed to be repealed. The same problems are occurring over and over. The same urgency is necessary. If people want to serve in the military no one should prevent them from doing so based on outdated and misguided ideas of gender and sex that somehow ended up as military regulations.

The toll this is taking on human beings who only want to serve their country is horrifying. As Bryan says, people just want to serve and they want to be considered a respected part of their communities:

”I love being able to say I’m in the Army, being able to say I’m an M.P., love the training I do, the camaraderie I’ve built. I just want people to know we’re out there serving our country, just like any other soldier – straight, gender normative, gay or lesbian, whatever. It’s tearing soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines apart. It’s tearing us apart as a family and as a community, and it’s really detrimental to our lives.”

OutServe is taking a historic step in this and since their magazine reaches military bases, it might help to open the minds of people who may not have thought about gender identity and military service and the repercussions of persecuting fellow servicemembers. If everyone can come together and fight this ban relentlessly, we can get it done.

MoveOn.org Petition demanding TN Rep. Floyd resign for violent transphobic comments

MoveOn.org is circulating a petition demanding that Tennessee state representative Richard Floyd should resign. Floyd, along with state senator Bo Watson, introduced a transphobic “bathroom bill” in Tennessee’s General Assembly recently. Shortly thereafter, Watson withdrew his version of the bill after pressure from state and national organizations and blogs, and after Rep. Floyd made a comment that he would “stomp a mudhole” in women who are transgender and who choose to use the same dressing room/restroom as his wife or daughter at the same time they’re using it

Violent transphobic rhetoric is one thing but he appears to want to back up his words with state-sponsored action against people who are transgender in a state that’s already hostile to that community.

You know what to do.

Help sign and spread this around!

“No One Spoke Up For Us”: Amplifying the voices of survivors of sexual abuse

My friend SwedishJewfish at Daily Kos is telling the stories of survivors of sexual abuse. She had recently discussed her own experience and since she received a lot of mail from other survivors, she chose to make today a day to focus on their stories. I’ll let the post speak for itself:

This will be a safe space for victims and survivors alike. Any trolls will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. I have a whole army of soldiers with their donut powder dry. If you make a trollish comment, you will get hidden (I request no pile ons) and ignored. Nobody will respond to you. It will be a complete waste of your time.

This also means that we need to be respectful of triggers, especially since so many of us here are dealing with freshly opened wounds. I have made every effort to mitigate triggers in this diary. After much back and forth, ultimately, I decided that those who sent me their stories deserved to have them told-even the ugly parts. What I have done is used a code to block out the parts that might be triggers in black-if you scroll over it, you can see the words.

Many of these stories are gut wrenching. I have cried more in the past 2 days just going through them all than I can even remember. But they need to be told. And I think you will find that even within the heartbreak, there are many points of light. This tribute is full of tragedies and triumphs. It ends on what I hope is a positive note.

Please help us tell their stories.

Please donate to RAINN

Please reblog it on Tumblr

Please retweet what I said about it, as well

Actually, these “trans[gender] political” voices are just fine

Over at Americablog Gay, John Aravosis links to an article discussing a protest against columnist and “It Gets Better” campaign founder Dan Savage. The title of the post at Americablog Gay reads:

Trans activists glitterbomb Dan Savage again, this time because he supports marriage equality

What’s with all the pity?: On liberal niceness

Crossposted from my Tumblr

So it seems that people feel sorry for me. I’ve been trying to understand why – my whole life – and I can never come up with any sort of rational answer. But I reached a point of exhaustion so long ago. I can’t even discuss the ongoing issues of my life because all people want to do is feel bad about it.

I’m not trying to make you feel bad.

Why The Voting Rights Act Is Still Necessary Today

Originally published by Criminal Injustice at Critical Mass Progress

After the end of the Civil War, Congress ratified the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The 13th Amendment ended slavery “except as punishment for crime” which left state governments with the ability to enforce enslavement through other means:

Although the creation of African-American free communities and institutions during Reconstruction were almost immediately threatened by new configurations of white power and supremacy, freed slaves continued to exercise their right to vote and hold office in order to enact their own plans for education, land ownership, and self-determination. This incomplete transformation was cut short by vigilante justice and racialized violence, as well as by the state-sponsored criminalization of African Americans.

In the past decade, several influential studies of this period have revealed the relationship between emancipation, the 13th Amendment, and the convict lease program (Lichtenstein, 1996a; Mancini, 1996; Davis, 1999). Built into the 13th Amendment was state authorization to use prison labor as a bridge between slavery and paid work. Slavery was abolished “except as a punishment for crime.” This stipulation provided the intellectual and legal mechanisms to enable the state to use “unfree” labor by leasing prisoners to local businesses and corporations desperate to rebuild the South’s infrastructure.

The prison industrial complex is still in full force today. Through enforcement of stringent drug laws and through police violence and harassment, a disproportionate number of black Americans and especially black men are residing in our nation’s prisons. This is no accident; it’s a byproduct of the fact that our nation never fully took seriously the task of ending slavery and allowing incorporation of black people into society as full citizens of the United States through appropriate legal and constitutional means. Simply eradicating pieces of an institutionalized system of oppression that had its roots in the early 1600s is not good enough. The number of prisoners who are racial minorities is staggering:

GLSEN Study: Playgrounds and Prejudice: Elementary School Climate in the United States

Thanks to GLSEN for this story

Crossposted at Daily Kos

In 2005, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network released a study conducted by Harris Interactive – “From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America – A National Report on School Bullying” – that looked at “students’ and teachers’ experiences with bullying and harassment.” They interviewed 3,450 students aged 13 to 18 and 1,011 secondary school teachers. It was the first national study that took on the topic of bullying in America’s schools.

Not surprisingly, 65% of students reported that they had been bullied within the year in which the study was conducted “because of their perceived or actual appearance, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, race/ethnicity, disability or religion.” The purpose of the study was to gain information in order to help raise awareness in schools across the country about the prevalence of bullying and the need for outreach, education and policies that would lead to a safer environment for students.

Today, GLSEN has released a follow-up study on bullying, biased remarks and family diversity conducted by Harris Interactive, called “Playgrounds and Prejudice: Elementary School Climate in the United States” – this time based on interviews with “1,065 elementary school students in 3rd to 6th grade and 1,099 elementary school teachers of K-6th grade.” It examines homophobia and gender nonconformity in elementary schools. The study found that:

Some thoughts from an invisible monster

A slightly tweaked version of this piece appeared on Daily Kos

The funniest thing I do is watch people and how they react to me. It’s not just the chair – it’s the hand-controlled truck, it’s the handicap accessible apartment. Just seeing someone eye all this medical and accessibility equipment and gape all curiously makes me laugh inwardly. Has no one seen a shower bench before? A truck’s wheelchair lift? I can’t even tell you how many times I’ll be out in public, at a grocery store or movie theater, and someone just stands and stares while I use the lift to swing my chair out of the truck.

I attract crowds.

It’s like I always have a captive audience wherever I go. Everyone wants to stare at the poor little handicapped kid. And it’s strange – people have a way of looking right at me, of standing and watching my life play out; people are invasive, but even with the focus on me, people always look past me. They always look past what I’m actually doing. When I get out of my small apartment with its mostly bare, white walls and go drive somewhere, I manage to get myself across the city on my own, in my own truck with my own wheelchair lift. Then I can even get out of my truck and go inside these places, talk to people, get groceries, do everything I need to do… but somehow, people only see the poor crippled kid.

I would like to know why anyone would feel sorry for me, and it seems to be quite a bit of the people down here in the backwards abyss that is south Alabama, blanketed with humidity in the atmosphere that leaves anyone feeling choked. Honestly, I feel like it’s a huge waste of time to feel bad for someone in my situation, as seated as I may be. Do you know how many people have a worse life than I do? It’s a lot of people. Please don’t waste time feeling sorry for some guy who’s sitting down and still managing to do what he wants to do.

Feel bad, if you must, for the people who won’t try. The people who think it’s not worth it. The people who have just given up. And it’s so many people. You don’t have to go out to make a difference. I’m always surprised to hear from nurses and doctors who have worked with paraplegics for so long that it shocks them that I’m so active. I mean, what else is there to be? Do they expect me to lie around in bed all day feeling terrible and wishing I could walk? I’m not gonna walk, not ever again, and that’s the way things are. But who cares? What are the important differences between people who can walk to whatever places they want to go in life and people who wheel to those places? Can anyone think of any? I can’t. What matters is what you do. not whether you’re sitting down or standing up when you do it. It’s not even where you go. If you even leave your place to do what you want. It’s just not.

And I’ll always do things. Sitting down has done literally nothing to keep me from experiencing life the way I want, with the exception of the frustration I often feel from my lack of having local friends. Even there, though, I unquestionably have the best friends you could ever dream of having. They don’t live nearby but they treat me better than most of my family and all of the strangers here. They treat me like a real person with thoughts and feelings beyond just “how is your handicap doing today, Scottie? Just was curious since you haven’t mentioned the whole wheelchair thing in awhile. You’re in one, you know. Just to remind you.” I’ve never felt “disabled” with my friends. Never. My friends have done more for me than you will ever know – they mean more than I could ever just type out in a single piece of writing.

However, I was discussing my crowds of swarming fans I have here. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

People love to look. Watching me, I guess, is entertaining, or fun, or tragic. All of the above. If you’re just watching, it’s like a short movie. A sitcom. A few minutes of emotional involvement and sympathy, and then you can go about your day and forget the experience. Maybe you tell someone about it. Maybe they feel bad, too. You can keep it going if you try hard enough. With all the caring you’re soon to see a river of everyone’s sympathy tears. A flash flood. And then it’s over. It’s easy to care when you know ahead of time it will only last a minute. It’s easy to share someone else’s story, to make other people care too; it’s easy when it’s not your friend and you know you don’t have to reach out to anyone. You never have to understand, to feel empathy, to ask any questions. You never have to know my name. And still, your friends love you, because you care. And you get a good cry and attract attention of your own.

I’m glad that people have a keen interest in how my wheelchair lift works and how I can get in and out of said sitting accessory, but no one thinks to ask me any questions. No one wants to know what my life is like. No one ever wants to get too close to the poor, poor cripple. But everyone wants to stare.

I’ve seen the best sympathetic looks. Worthy of a photo-op, really. That alone is worth being paralyzed. When everyone knows they’re being watched in a crowd of sympathetic onlookers – because it’s never just one person staring, why stare with a look like that if no one can witness the performance? – they try so hard to look so pained. Because that’s the human response. But everyone is driven by curiosity. No one can help but stare at a car crash.

But nobody ever wants to know what happened. If I were ever asked, I don’t even know how I’d react. I would feel such immense happiness I wouldn’t know how to handle it. I know it’s on people’s minds. I know everyone wants to ask me. I know they’re holding back. But But satisfying their curiosity once and for all is just something that never happens.

I would be so happy if someone asked me what happened, I would probably cry.

I feel invisible when people pretend like I’m not sitting down unless they need to look at something pitiful. My favorite fiction book anyone ever wrote talks about this feeling. It’s about a supermodel who gets her face shot off and then road-trips with her friends, taking drugs and dosing them with hormones along the way. From Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk:

Until I met Brandy, all I wanted was for somebody to ask me what happened to my face.

“Birds ate it,” I wanted to tell them.

Birds ate my face.

But nobody wanted to know. Then nobody doesn’t include Brandy Alexander.

Just don’t think this was a big coincidence. We had to meet, Brandy and me. We had so many things in common. We had close to everything in common. Besides, it happens fast for some people and slow for some, accidents or gravity, but we all end up mutilated.

Birds ate her face, and I wear t-shirts saying “Keep Staring I Might Do a Trick.” We do what we have to do to deal with people. It’s the way you cope that matters. It’s the ability to adapt.

And then, of course, when people I’ve stumbled upon do talk, it’s always “can I help you out with something?” It’s “here, this is how you open this door, it swings the other way” because sitting down means you don’t know how to open a door. It’s tragic, really. You sit down and suddenly all cognitive function ceases.

Someone should work on a cure for this.

And, people always want to offer suggestions. “You can be a Wal Mart door greeter!” And, “you know they have wheelchair basketball!” And “you know there are people who can win marathons even in chairs!” No, I can’t even imagine! Someone can win a race using a chair that is propelled by wheels? Oh my.

That’s why this is so relatable:

“You know,” Evie tells me across a stack of Vogues, and Glamour magazines in her lap she brings me, “I talked to the agency and they said that if we re-do your portfolio they’ll consider taking you back for hand work.”

Evie means a hand model, modeling cocktail rings and diamond tennis bracelets and shit.

Like I want to hear this.

I can’t talk.

All I can eat is liquids.

Nobody will look at me. I’m invisible.

All I want is somebody to ask me what happened. Then, I’ll get on with my life.

And then, there are the guys.

You know what I mean: the guys who need to be seen helping the poor, defenseless crippled kid. They need all women everywhere to pay attention. Because they’re so good-hearted and helpful, even to unfortunate souls who can’t do anything but sit down. And we all know how women can’t resist seeing guys assisting a crippled person get into a vehicle. Or open a door.

Or, you know, something.

My friend Michael recently suggested I deal with this awkwardness in the only rational way anyone can approach it without clawing their eyes out: a snarky Craigslist ad announcing my goodhearted effort to assist desperate single guys in this endeavor – for a price, of course. It would read:

Are you having relationship problems? Are your straightforward attempts to woo women not working out so well? I am a paraplegic and I have something to offer you. It could change your life. I have found the true secret to gaining attention and respect from the opposite sex: I will drive to the location of your choosing and allow you to help me across the street in front of a gaggle of ladyfolk… for twenty dollars.

For fifty I will thank you profusely.

For a hundred I will pretend to cry.

Because really who doesn’t love screwing with people?

So this is an illustration of what life is like. This is the complicated mess of conflicting thoughts and inner processes that go on. This is the strange cognitive dissonance. I’m invisible – my disability is invisible – when someone’s up close. But when they can stand far away, it’s the only thing they notice about me. No one sees me but everyone looks at me.

This is how it is. Just thought you should know.

Odious new anti-transgender bill introduced in Tennessee General Assembly

Crossposted at The Huffington Post and Daily Kos

[UPDATE: Senate version of bill WITHDRAWN!]

A new anti-transgender “bathroom bill” was filed in Tennessee’s General Assembly today by a Republican state Senator. The bill “restricts access to public restrooms and public dressing rooms designated by sex to members of that particular sex.” There is a monetary fine for people who violate the law. And since in Tennessee it’s legally impossible to get your sex changed on your birth certificate (and only a little less impossible to get it changed on your drivers’ license), this affects all transgender and gender non-conforming people.

Tennessee has been proposing and passing some of the most homophobic and transphobic bills in the country – it is, after all, the state that passed HB600 stripping local jurisdictions of LGBT antidiscrimination provisions. There are ongoing court challenges to that law I’ll be discussing soon. There’s also the “license to bully” bill. And the “Don’t Say Gay” bill was introduced there as well.

The response to many of those bills came too late – HB600 is now law, and it went almost entirely unremarked upon until its passage. But this one was introduced January 10th in the House and will be introduced today in the Senate, so hopefully we can mobilize to rally against its passage fairly quickly.

The purpose of the bill is entirely unclear unless they are just trying to erase people who are transgender and stigmatize them permanently as sexual predators who want to prey on unsuspecting victims in public accommodations. The bill seems to be trying to criminalize gender variance – not something that’s unheard of. And it’s obvious that there is no way to enforce this if it becomes law. They can’t possibly employ bathroom police all across the state of Tennessee to make sure that someone going into a female bathroom possesses a birth certificate proving they have the requisite body parts for that bathroom and that they have had those same parts since birth.