Stand For Fairness

TransMarylanders celebrated a big victory when the Fairnessfor All Marylanders Act passed the General Assembly, there's no denying our opponents made it ugly at times. Now they're considering an attempt to roll back the progress we've made.


Weknow the majority of Marylanders support fairness for transgender people, but misinformation is confusing even some our friends. As coalition partners we are working with the MarylandCoalition for Transgender Equality to launch a public education campaign called "Stand for Fairness."


Showthat YOU Stand for Fairness: Pledge to stand with transgender Marylanders andsupport the Fairness for All Marylanders Act.
Stand for Fairness is a multi-media campaign aimed at demonstrating the broad support for fairness for transgender Marylanders and clearing up misconceptions about the bill. With FAQs, videos highlighting transgender Marylanders and their allies, and YOUR support, we'll spread the word that Maryland stands for fairness for our entire community.


Showthat YOU Stand for Fairness: Pledge to stand with transgender Marylanders and support the Fairness for All Marylanders Act.

This is just the first step. We have work to do to uphold fairness for ALL Marylanders. 
Thousands of calls, emails, meetings with legislators and postcards from constituents made the difference during this year's legislative session. Together we can keep up the drumbeat and ensure that everyone is able to work for a living, have a roof over their head, and eat lunch at a restaurant without being denied basic rights just for being transgender.




Keep an eye out for more Stand for Fairness actions, and let us know you stand for fairness by signingthe pledge today. Then help spreadthe word on social media to engage your friends and community.

What Fills Our Hearts

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex, but it takes a touch of genius to move in the opposite direction” – Albert Einstein

Here we are again. Our community has endured enough heartache and disappointment, however we are mobilized and unified for success.

In 2002, Then Mayor, Martin O’Malley, introduced and successfully shepherded through the City Council the Baltimore City ordinance which granted protections to all of its citizens and visitors based on their gender identity, and did so unanimously.

 Yes, every human being has a gender identity, and for many people it is in lock step with their physicality, and for some it is not. It’s just that simple.

 Baltimore’s push for such protections was based partly on the later regretted decision of Governor Parris Glendenning to exclude gender identity from the prior year’s anti-discrimination bill.  Governor Glendenning wasn’t the only one expressing regret. Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-43) expressed a similar regret about the 2001 bill after last year’s contested bill failed to convince Senate Leadership to allow its floor vote.

Yet 2002 was different. Mayor O’Malley knew an injustice took place and a remedy was in order. While most attorneys like to craft flowery pieces of legislation, the Mayor knew simplicity should rule the day.

"Gender identity or expression " means an individual 's having or being perceived as having a gender -related self - identity, self-image, appearance, expression, or behavior, whether or not those gender -related characteristics differ from those associated with the individual 's assigned sex at birth.”

In fact, this language is fairly consistent throughout the county where 43% of all Americans live in a jurisdiction which provides protections based on gender identity.  If almost half of the country has these laws on the books, then why not Maryland?

Leadership.

One week before the video of the beating at a Rosedale McDonald’s restaurant went viral, Senate President Mike Miller (D-27) stated HB235 (2011’s Gender Identity Anti-Discrimination bill) was “anti-family” and he was going to vote against it.  Some even suggest the Senate President killed the bill in retaliation for allowing the Senator to go on record with a vote on the Same Sex Marriage bill, only to have that bill fail embarrassingly in the House. It seemed like retribution for political ineptitude.

Governor O’Malley pledged support and stated he would sign a fully inclusive bill like 2010’s HB 1022, if such a bill which crossed his desk. The problem was no bill made it that far, or was so fashioned. So, the Governor in direct response the brutal assault on a member of the transgender community provided this vision and commitment:

“Even with Maryland's 'hate crimes' law, it is clear that more must be done to protect the rights and dignity of transgendered people. In the struggle for justice and equality for all, I'm committed to working with the Maryland General Assembly during the next legislative session to increase awareness and provide even greater protections for transgendered people.
“As some have noted, out of this awful beating has come a moment to foster a deeper understanding and respect for the dignity of all persons. We should not allow the moment to pass without greater action.”

Leadership.

The mouth speaks of what fills the heart.” – Matthew 12:34

WWTGSKWaHD? (What Would Tolstoy, Gandhi, Sakharov, King, Walesa, and Havel Do?)

I dread writing this post. Not because it is laborious, or texting on my personal resources, but because my sensibilities are afflicted by the subject matter.

It is neither my desire nor intent to further inflame an already hot topic. There are plenty willing and so capable of stoking that fire. It is my only desire to offer a consideration, a course of action which may or may not resolve the matter, but it will define us as a community and how others outside the community view us.

On July 1, 2011 the novice Managing Editor of a small Baltimore based LGBT biweekly newsletter granted a public forum to two radical feminist wishing to make the argument that “gender identity” is a concept, and that protections based upon gender identity will promote harm to “women born women”. The Baltimore based broadside followed this up with an additional elevation of hatred on July 29, 2011 in which one of the previous writers expanded her viewpoints on why gender identity protection through hate crime laws is unacceptable. This in direct response to the pending trial of Teonna Brown, the 18 year old woman accused of assaulting a transgender woman at a local McDonalds in April.  It is not the purpose of this commentary to debate these issues. They are receiving enough of that already. Nor is it to challenge the blatant transphobia proffered by the authors’ assertions. Yet this topic has now been advance to the United Nations and has set the debate ablaze.

It is my firm belief that it matters not what befalls our community, however what is of significance is how we, as a community, respond which, in turn will define us.

Above all the transgender community is without question the most misunderstood and maligned minority group in our society. Much of this manifests itself in a state of ignorance, short of enlighten reasoning and latent hatred in respect both gender identity and gender expression. Every human being possesses a gender identity and expresses gender. For most their gender is consistent with the physicality and for some it is not. It is that simple and we are that some.

Tolstoy, Gandhi, Sakharov, King, Walesa, and Havel are mortals which have offered us pathways to non violent actions that have liberated millions. Our deliverance may well follow in these models.

When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him. – Bayard Rustin



 Many members of the transgender community have suffered long and enduring abuses to our persons, our dignity and to our loved ones. These hate filled essays are no different than the hate fill spats to the faces, the hate physical assaults with the genitalia of others thrust unto our faces, the hate filled degradation and humiliation of being told we were less than human. One might be considered justified to retaliate in like kind. But it is my firm belief that we lose if we do so. That in my eyes, our only solution is as the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington suggested, protest for dignity confers the very same dignity.

Non violent civil disobedience and direct action have proven to be the most successful tools to authoritarianism whether its from our government or members of the broader coalition communities. including TransTories. How that protest presents itself is for or community to decide. I pray the spirit of nonviolence prevails