I want to start with an apology.

I apologize for the way in which the lesbian and gay community in particular has hurt transpeople. I am sorry. I’m sorry for my own failure to be the best ally possible. I’m sorry that your allies have not always fought for your rights, have not been by your side in all your battles and made you feel disrespected, isolated and questioning your own worthiness.

Society has tried to erase the presence and suppress the contributions of transgender and gender variant people and, to our shame, many of lesbians and gays have colluded with this silencing and ignored the needs of our trans brothers and sisters.

Words and attitudes can have very real consequences. It is horrific that this year saw over 250 people killed due to their gender identity or presentation. Such acts of violence against the transgender community are linked to the failure of our entire community to work to end transgender discrimination and oppressive conditions for gender non-conforming people.

All of us deserve to thrive and to bring our fullest, most vibrant versions of our selves into the open. The world is made more whole by the full participation of transpeople.

Tonight we mourn the dead. Tomorrow and every other day, we must fight for the living.

Please remember that you add value to this world that no-one else could ever replace. You are an important part of this community. Most importantly, we are in this together. Because of that I re-commit the Forum For Equality to supporting the needs and rights of transgender people and their families here in Louisiana and everywhere.

I’ll end with a quote from Paul Monette. While these words were written about the death toll from AIDS, they have special meaning on this Transgender Day of Remembrance.

He wrote: “Tell yourself: None of this ever had to happen. And then go make it stop, with whatever breath you have left. Grief is a sword, or it is nothing.”

This book presents powerfully documented vignettes to the key end times questions of "Who is the Anti-Christ? What does the 666 mean? What about America" No other book provides the scriptural proof texting direct from the Greek and Hebrew to confirm that Obama is the Anti-Christ, the 666 represents the mindset of Socialism, and America is doomed to a nuclear holocaust. Luke 10:18 records Jesus stating "I beheld Satan as lightning" which translates to "Satan as Barack" in Hebrew. Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ, did so in a socialist rage against the inequalities of life and Jesus's acceptance of poverty. Finally, Isaiah chapter 18 describes the massive destruction of a nation matching the unique characteristics of the USA on 16 different points all ending with the bringing of "THE SHE" gift, the Bride of Christ, the Church to heaven.

• making sure all your friends and family are properly registered and know what they need to take with them to the polls;
• educating yourself and others about the issues and candidates to be decided in November;
• pledging to vote on Election Day.

We’ve all heard about the war against women. What hasn’t gotten the same amount of press is that the war goes beyond reproductive health to an attack on women’s most basic civil rights.

Ninety-two years ago, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution granted American women the right to vote in national and local elections. The amendment is beautiful in its brevity and clarity: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Women’s suffrage was by no means global when the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. Article 21 of that document declared that everyone has the right to take part in the government and that the will of the people (which shall be by universal and equal suffrage), expressed in periodic and genuine elections, shall be the basis of the authority of government.

You would have thought the issue of our constructive participation in the political process would be fait accompli, the done-est of done deals.

You would have thought wrong.

For example, Janis Lane, president of the Central Mississippi Tea Party gave an interview to the Jackson Free Pressrecently. As part of her discussion on where things went wrong, she said: “I'm really going to set you back here. Probably the biggest turn we ever made was when the women got the right to vote. Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting.”

Perpetual blowhard Rush Limbaugh is not known for his feminist sensibilities. However, even long time detractors were a little taken aback by his blatant disrespect for women after he said on his July 3rd show, “When women got the right to vote is when it all went downhill.”

They are just the latest wave in an all out assault on women voters.

Across the nation, there has been a concerted effort by Republicans to disenfranchise voters. These laws will have a detrimental impact on women. Since the beginning of 2011, at least 180 bills restricting voting rights were introduced in 41 states. While identification requirements for voting are certainly not new, many states have prohibited once-acceptable identification such as student IDs, Social Security cards, utility bills and bank statements in favor of the “strict” or government-issued photo IDs.

Luckily, Louisiana was not one of those states that adopted the new ALEC inspired (and drafted) laws. The Louisiana Secretary of State lists out acceptable Election Day proof of identity: “a driver's license, a Louisiana Special ID, or some other generally recognized picture ID that contains your name and signature. Voters who have no picture ID may bring a utility bill, payroll check or government document that includes their name and address but they will have to sign an affidavit furnished by the Elections Division in order to vote.”

There are several factors that contribute to a person not having a current and valid photo ID. Such documents expire. Some voters do not drive, therefore a state-issued drivers license is not necessary. Voters move and are unable to obtain new ID prior to registration or Election Day.

Strict photo-ID requirements and proof-of-citizenship laws particularly affect women who change their name after getting married or divorced. Because updating documentation takes time and money, these laws create an additional barrier for low-income women. According to the Brennan Center, only 48 percent of voting-age women with ready access to their U.S. birth certificates have a birth certificate with their current legal name. The same survey showed that only 66 percent of voting-age women had ready access to proof-of-citizenship documentation with their current legal name.

The transgender community is also greatly affected, since many of those who have transitioned to another gender are unable to update their IDs to their current gender because of difficulty satisfying state requirements on changing gender markers. According to a recent national survey, only 59 percent of trans people have updated photo IDs.

So why do some folks wish that women didn’t have the right to vote? Why, in the face of virtually non-existent voter fraud, do the Republican continue to push to keep women away from the polls?

Simply put, the numbers don’t lie. Women have been a majority of the total vote in every election since 1984. According to poll data from the Pew Research Center, women comprised 53 percent of the overall electorate in 2008, 54 percent in 2004 and 52 percent in 2000.

And Republicans haven’t fared well with women voters. The same poll data shows that if you lose the women’s vote by any more than 11 points, it’s difficult for a Republican to get elected to the White House. Not since 1988 has a Republican presidential candidate won the women’s vote.

It is not just the White House that is at stake. Most of the biggest challenges to women’s reproductive health choices are being made at the state level. Expansion of anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation and gender identity are being passed at the city level. Challenges to the teaching of scientifically proven evolution as being made at the local school board level. Further, changes to state constitutions (like to advance marriage equality) are decided by individual voters.

Electing tomorrow’s decision makers begins with us today. Because if you don’t vote, you don’t count. Don’t just get mad, get registered and vote!

In Louisiana, go to the Secretary of State website for information on how to register to vote, as well as links to important information about ballots, voting and elections. Remember, Geaux Vote.com!

And we can all experience such moments. For the short time of the Pride, we are no longer in the margins or hiding in the shadows or living in our closets. We are out in the streets and claiming the public space as our own. It can be incredibly liberating.

Suddenly, surrounded by the people of our tribe, no one can deny we exist. We don’t have to look to the few out celebrities for our role models. Our neighbors, our coworkers, the other parents at our kids school, our classmates are all out there with us. Seeing so many of my LGBTQH* brothers and sisters, walking around and being happy fills my heart with gladness and recharges my will to fight for those other 364 days when I don’t.

We are twelve years into the new millennium and the battle for women’s lives is still being fought across the nation. During the last election cycle a number of social conservatives won their races for political office. At the time, they claimed their focus would be on the economy. Almost universally, however, they've focused on trying to turn back the clock on advances of women's rights.

Here are some examples of the recent legislation:

On February 16, 2012, there was a hearing by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee regarding the Affordable Care Act, which concerned the availability for contraception through insurance. Not a single woman was called to testify and Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), refused to permit several women to be heard, even when asked to do so by other representatives on the committee. Of those permitted to testify, only two of the first nine people had any background in health services.

Anti-abortion activists in Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Wisconsin and Mississippi have advanced “Personhood” acts/bills declaring that a fetus has the full legal rights of a person, beginning at fertilization. Such laws would make in-vitro fertilization, stem-cell research, the morning-after-pill and all abortions (medically necessary or not) illegal. It could also be interpreted to make standard birth control options such as the Nuva ring, the pill, IUDs, and birth control patches illegal. Democrat Vivian Watts in VA attempted to amend the bill in Virginia to specify that contraception would not be banned under the Personhood bill, but Republicans voted 64-34 against adding this amendment. Any abortion or even cases of miscarriage due to negligence could be charged as manslaughter or homicide.

Utah passed a bill, sponsored by Sen. Margaret Dayton (R), into law in February of 2010 that allows women to be criminally charged if they cannot prove a miscarriage was accidental. Women could be legally held responsible for miscarriages caused by “reckless behavior.” According to March of Dimes, as many as 40-50% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage – most often before a woman misses a menstrual period or even knows she is pregnant. About 15% of recognized pregnancies will end in a miscarriage.

A similar bill was advanced in Georgia by Republican Bobby Franklin in 2010 and 2011, and is still under consideration in 2012. The bill would make miscarriage a crime unless the woman could prove that there was no human involvement in the miscarriage. All miscarriages would require a criminal investigation to determine culpability.

The Virginia legislature passed a bill on February 14, 2012, requiring all women seeking an abortion to undergo a medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound. Women are not allowed to opt out of this invasive procedure. Texas and Iowa have similar laws. Opponents to these laws have called it state-sanctioned rape because the women are vaginally penetrated without consent or the ability to refuse. Doctors also protest the bill, on the grounds that performing medically-unnecessary, invasive procedures constitutes a breach of ethics.

In October of 2011, the House passed a bill called the “Protect Life Act,” sponsored by Republican Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania. Known by its opponents as the “Let Women Die Act,” this bill allows hospitals to refuse abortions to women, even for women with life-threatening complications in need of an emergency abortion. 

Are you getting angry yet?

Our feminist foremothers fought so that women could make their own choices about healthcare and contraception. This is not a new concept. Contraception is legal, ordinary, and accepted. Close to 97% of American women have used it at some point in their lives. Contraception is hardly a religious matter. Nowhere in Scripture is it forbidden. Furthermore, birth control is prescribed for many conditions other than preventing pregnancy such as fibroids, endometriosis and menorrhagia (heavy menstrual bleeding). Some forms of birth control can even lower a woman's risk of uterine and ovarian cancers.

Pregnancy, even for seemingly healthy women, poses serious health risks — risks that women should take on their own terms and at a time that is right for them and their family. There are many disorders in which women are recommended not to conceive including heart malformations, clotting or bleeding diseases, and chronic medical conditions, like multiple sclerosis. Despite advances in health care, Amnesty International reported in 2010 that deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled during the past two decades.

The fight is not over. This is an election year. Raise your voice against the erosion of access to reproductive control. Make them hear us at the ballot box and, more importantly, in the halls of power. Reclaim your self respect and refuse to let anyone ignore our sex!

Tom McClusky, Family Research Council’s Vice President of Government Affairs, claimed that President Obama’s efforts on preventing bullying will lead to “bullying by the federal government and by a homosexual agenda that seeks to make children hide their Christianity and their religion in the closet and to silence those who would speak out against what they don’t believe.”

Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family implied that groups like GLSEN want school sports teams to “ban athletes using their freedom of speech to voluntarily share the Gospel with those who disagree with their viewpoint.”

Brian Camenker, the head of the anti-gay group MassResistance, said “For the first time in our history, America is faced with a powerful movement that defines its alleged “rights” in terms of the deprivation of the fundamental rights of others. As a result, the homosexual movement is depriving other Americans of civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.”

After Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed an enumerated law that addressed bullying, the Illinois Family Institute claimed that the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ in anti-bullying programs will allow “homosexualists to use them as cultural battering rams” destroy First Amendment speech and religious protections” in order to “censor the expression of traditional moral beliefs and ultimately eradicate them.”

Tragic news came out of the Lake Charles area with the report that bullying may be a contributing factor to teenager Hannah Pauley's recent suicide. Her father, Len Pauley, stated: "Honestly I don't believe I would want any child to be charged with anything...If those kids can just step up to the plate and admit that they were wrong, make a positive out of this--then absolutely not--because they have to live with this for the rest of their lives now."

Stopping bullying from happening and appropriately responding to it when it happens is critical to the academic success and overall safety of our students. It is up to all of us -- the students, the teachers, the administrators, concerned citizens, the school board and our state legislators -- to do all we can to promote the health, safety and overall well being of our young people. We must create school climates that welcomes, accepts and supports all people for who they are, no matter what.

Many who are bullied are targeted because of their perceived sexual orientation or because they do not conform to someone’s expectations about gender. Too often, when such children are bullied in school, officials fail to protect them. While not every person who has been bullied thinks about or attempts suicide, persistent bullying can lead to or worsen feelings of isolation, rejection, exclusion and despair, as well as to depression and anxiety, which can contribute to suicidal behavior.

Help is available. There are national suicide prevention lines like the Trevor Project (866-488-7386). Families can get support in becoming more accepting through local PFLAG chapters. Currently, there are Louisiana chapters in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lafayette. There are also locally made videos on It Gets Better where young people can see that they are not alone and that supportive adults are out there.

Would you like a good way to teach someone about the devastating impact of bullying? A teacher in the New York area has come up with a good way to teach about the harmful effects of bullying to her class. She had the children take a clean piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stomp on it, mess it up just don't rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how marred and dirty it now was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry.

Even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, there were many marks that were left behind. She told them that is what happens when a child bullies another child. They may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever.

Bullying prevention is our responsibility! We can change people's hearts and minds by sharing our stories of how bullying hurts. More than that, we need to address institutions and laws. While Louisiana’s existing statutes require school districts to enact and implement policies to protect students from bullying, it does not comprehensively address the issue. In study after study, it has been found that students at schools with a comprehensive anti-bullying policies report bullying and harassment at a significantly reduced rate.

Together, we can ensure that no other family or community has to suffer a loss like this. The Forum For Equality and a coalition of educators, disability rights and LGBT equality organizations will be proposing Safe Schools legislation in the upcoming 2012 session. Please contact us for further resources or to partner with us in making Louisiana a safe place to learn.

Forum For Equality 
336 Lafayette Street, Suite 200 
New Orleans, LA 70130 
Phone: 504.569.9156 
Fax: 504.523.8522 
http://www.forumforequality.org

Our feminist foremothers succeeded in getting the vote by working locally. They started in the states and territories and expanded from their work there to lobbying on the national level.  We need to continue to work locally while we work on putting greater numbers of women into Congress and, someday, the White House.
 

In the first place, you must vote. Then, consider serving on city, parish and state Boards and commissions; heck, go ahead and attend meetings of your city council and state legislature to give numbers in support of or to testify on issues that interest and affect you. Your vote and your voice are your strongest weapons against oppression.
 

We must not be seduced by promises of quick fixes or discouraged by early setbacks. While our elected representatives and corporate bosses might not be interested in making long term investments in equality, we must continue to press our progressive agenda. Getting the vote for women took 70 years—that’s three generations of women (and enlightened men) working toward a goal that many wouldn’t see during their lifetimes.
 

My father used to ask us kids, “How do you eat an elephant?” The answer is one bite at a time. Each mouthful is another bite closer to full and equal rights for all people.
 

Ninety-one years ago, our foremothers’ accomplished great things. The work isn’t over yet. There's a fork waiting for you.