A terrifying New York Times article today announced that the Trump administration is considering “narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth,” a measure that would essentially eliminate any and all recognition of transgender and nonbinary people and, therefore, their civil rights.
The memo from the Department of Health and Human Services claims officials need a clearer definition of gender. Their proposed definition “would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by The Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.”
“Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth,” the department proposed in the memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring. “The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.
“This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients — what people understand about themselves — is irrelevant because the government disagrees,” said Catherine E. Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in the Obama administration and helped write transgender guidance that is being undone.
Let me be perfectly clear: Being transgender is not something you can believe or not believe in, support or not support. It’s a reality. Trans people exist. Always have, always will. What this will do is make it infinitely *more* difficult than it already is to be trans in America. Violence, poverty, inaccessible healthcare, and a slew of other already-persistent problems will worsen. New generations of trans kids will be silenced in ways that date back decades, if not longer.
We cannot under any circumstances allow this to happen. Vote. Protest. Cis folks, donate to trans-led organizations and trans individuals’ GoFundMe pages for medical care. Talk to your transphobic (or trans-ignorant) friends and family about what a policy like this would mean. And if you’re trans and need support today, call the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860.
Trans friends: I see you and I love you. We will not let them erase you. We will fight this with you.
The Supreme Court just issues a ruling allowing Ohio and other states to purge voters from their election registration rolls due to their failure to cast a ballot in previous elections.
This is a major victory for the Trump administration and the GOP, and a direct consequence of the Supreme Court being stacked with more conservative judges (the votes were 5-4). This is also a huge part of what Trump/the GOP were counting on to save them in the 2018 midterm elections, which is where Democrats have been hoping to take back a majority in the House, giving them more power to combat Trump’s abuses of power and Republican legislation.
What this means is YOU CAN NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE REGISTERED for the 2018 elections, just because you SHOULD be. Thanks to this decision, red states can purge voters’ registration based on their not having cast a ballot in even just previous federal elections, NOT just the national Presidential elections. Effectively, if you haven’t voted in previous senate races or for congressional representatives in the past few years, that’s all they need now to say you’re no longer registered and need to register again.
They’re deliberately counting on people assuming they’re still registered and so not checking until after registration deadlines have passed, or showing up to vote this November and only then finding out they’re no longer registered, when its too late to do a damn thing about it.
And this is absolutely targeted at marginalized communities, low income voters, disabled voters, and basically anyone who simply can’t always AFFORD to keep on top of every federal election and show up to vote in every senate race, etc. Which not so coincidentally happen to be all the communities and voters who have the most to gain from Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms and are the least likely to cast votes for GOP candidates at this point.
This was absolutely a calculated effort aimed specifically at keeping the GOP in power with a majority control of the government come November, and unfortunately, it has a DAMN good chance of accomplishing just that if it goes by unacknowledged. I’m not looking to alarm or panic anyone, simply to say:
If you are a registered voter in a red state at this point, please please please do not take your registered status as assumed. Check on your registration status, look up all relevant voter registration deadlines for your state and district, CIRCLE THAT SHIT ON YOUR CALENDAR, and check your registration status AGAIN right before those deadlines pass, so you can be sure of it before its too late to do anything about it til the next voting cycle.
beto being elected would be huge for texas. as someone from there, lemme tell you, he’s someone the state sorely needs. texas is in desperate need of a democrat and Beto is our best bet. in recent polls, cruz was shown to be ahead, but not by much. cruz. cannot. win.
there are ways you can help! if you live in Texas, you can sign up to volunteer. you can volunteer to do things such as send texts, emails, knock on doors. typical campaign stuff.
if you don’t live in Texas, you can donate. you don’t have to live in the state to donate. donating is one of the best ways you can support him because it funds his campaign! as mentioned above, he doesn’t take PAC money. he is 100% grassroots campaign, funded by people, for people.
i’m going to reiterate this. any us citizen* can donate. any. doesn’t matter where you live in the united states. so, I urge. if you don’t live in texas, donate. the average donation amount is $35, but any amount will help.
*if you don’t live in the united states/aren’t a citizen, legally you cannot donate. i don’t make the rules guys.
if you can’t donate, please reblog this so others can see it. people can’t vote in midterms if they don’t know who their nominees are.
this midterm election is crucial. getting Beto into the senate is crucial. reblog or donate!
beto being elected would be huge for texas. as someone from there, lemme tell you, he’s someone the state sorely needs. texas is in desperate need of a democrat and Beto is our best bet. in recent polls, cruz was shown to be ahead, but not by much. cruz. cannot. win.
there are ways you can help! if you live in Texas, you can sign up to volunteer. you can volunteer to do things such as send texts, emails, knock on doors. typical campaign stuff.
if you don’t live in Texas, you can donate. you don’t have to live in the state to donate. donating is one of the best ways you can support him because it funds his campaign! as mentioned above, he doesn’t take PAC money. he is 100% grassroots campaign, funded by people, for people.
i’m going to reiterate this. any us citizen* can donate. any. doesn’t matter where you live in the united states. so, I urge. if you don’t live in texas, donate. the average donation amount is $35, but any amount will help.
*if you don’t live in the united states/aren’t a citizen, legally you cannot donate. i don’t make the rules guys.
if you can’t donate, please reblog this so others can see it. people can’t vote in midterms if they don’t know who their nominees are.
this midterm election is crucial. getting Beto into the senate is crucial. reblog or donate!
this effectively means you have to find a lawyer willing to represent you over a couple hundred or thousand in missing wages against a multi million or billion dollar company and you must go to court as an individual (read: out of pocket). casual reminder lawyers tend to set higher fees for cases they see as less winnable and that this will be out of your personal free time
so one of your rights is gone. not going, but gone!
HOW…IN…THE….FUCK…
……WHAT IN THE FUCK MADE THESE IDIOTS THINK THAT THIS RULING IS A BENEFIT FOR THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS!!!!
Trump assumes every transaction in the world — between people, businesses, nation-states, even between two different agencies of the same government — has a winner and a loser, a scammer and a sucker. He believes if you’re not ripping someone off, you’re getting ripped off.
For those of you who don’t know (aka me until 30 minutes ago) there’s a couple websites that will help you out with your ballot for this year’s upcoming mid term elections but I wanna talk about one specifically. It helps out by telling you who is running for what and all the verified information that they have for that candidate. It also let’s you save them to your OWN makeshift ballot that you can use as a reference when voting time comes!! The website itself is run by people who identify as Liberals and they really try their best to educate you on all the matters. It’s called ballotready.org. Here’s a link!
“I’m a gun owner. I have two pistols, a rifle, a shotgun…and a (now-expired) concealed carry permit. I’ve been shooting since I was a kid. I also support every single gun control measure out there. Why? Well, because of a number of logical reasons:
1. I go to gun shows, and I’ve witnessed more illegal cash sales than I can count. People bring guns to sell to dealers at the show and end up selling them to buyers in the parking lot who are willing to pay cash. No background check, no bill of sale, no formal transfer of ownership. Yes, this is happening, people! It is a regular occurrence and illegal in many states.
2. Every time I go to the gun range, I witness someone doing something extremely dangerous with a gun. I’ve been swept more than 20 times — this means someone has unintentionally pointed a gun at me. I’ve seen the wrong ammo used (ask my husband about the time he almost lost an eye). I’ve watched people shooting guns that they lack experience with or ones that they can’t handle (take, for example, a child or a smaller adult shooting a Desert Eagle semiautomatic handgun), causing kickback that can injure them and cause them to flail their loaded gun in all directions. I’ve seen guns jam, and people continue to fire them to “clear the jam.” I’ve seen people continue to fire when the range is “cold.” All of these people consider themselves “responsible” gun owners. Nope. And these aren’t exceptions to the rule — every single time I go to the range, I see someone doing something reckless and potentially deadly.
3. I’ve seen people handle guns when they are drunk, tired, hungover, or angry. I would never think of doing these things. It is irresponsible, and again, potentially deadly.
4. A friend of my college boyfriend pointed a loaded gun in my face because he wanted to show me how cool his new toy was. I dropped to the ground. He forgot it was loaded. He’s a high-ranking officer in the U.S. Navy.
5. The class you take to get a concealed carry permit in North Carolina is easy to pass. You sit through a two-day class, take a simple written test, get a background check and fingerprints through the sheriff’s office, and basically just have to prove that you can hit the broad side of a barn. That’s it.
6. The “hero mentality” is misguided and dangerous. Unless you have combat training, the “good guy/gal with a gun” is more likely to kill another civilian or get mistaken by cops as the shooter. I’m a decent shot with a pistol. I’m a great shot with my rifle. But in a life or death situation, where people are literally being murdered in front of me, it’s completely unrealistic to think that, even with all my training, I could do anything but add to the chaos.
7. The NRA is a terrorist organization. Yup, I said it. I used to be a member because they gave discounts on shooting-range time. I quit after one year because I couldn’t stomach the thought that my money was funding them. Their magazine and mailers are filled with propaganda about people coming to take my guns when there is absolutely zero evidence at all to suggest that is ever going to happen. Their recent ads make me sick and ashamed that I ever supported them. 8. The home protection argument makes sense to me on some level. I had a friend who was killed during a home invasion, so I get it. But an AK-47 (and other assault weapons) is not an ideal weapon for personal defense, and it serves no purpose for “home protection.” It was designed for military use. A a 12-gauge shotgun is a better, more realistic choice for home defense. I’ve never seen any peer-reviewed study/expert/article anywhere that can refute this. Bottom line: Assault-style weapons should never be in the hands of civilians. Period. And going back to point No. 7, in a home-protection or self-defense situation, you’re still more likely to injure yourself or have your own gun used against you. These are my thoughts on the subject as an experienced, licensed, and trained gun owner. I’m already a member of the Brady Campaign, Everytown for Gun Safety, and will be joining Moms Demand Action. I find it impossible to understand why other gun owners like myself don’t support these groups. They aren’t trying to take away my guns; they are trying to inject some freaking common sense into the equation — something we desperately need and that every gun owner should support.“
and for the fucking record, conservatives, stop touting places like israel and switzerland as “gun utopias.” israel and switzerland both have harsh gun control laws, much harsher than the united states, and you can literally go to jail for simply misplacing your weapon (which could then be used by someone untrained).
Coming from a country where owning a gun is illegal, the concept of untrained civilians holding guns is really distopic
Like if anyone found out you were holding a gun, even an unloaded one, people would literally start running and panicking. They would think that youre a psycho
Coming from a deep red state where you see someone carrying in public every day, it is pretty distopic.
I see a guy with a pistol on his hip at the grocery store and I wonder what kind of worldview makes him think he needs to be strapped to buy cereal and frozen pizza. I think he’s a psycho, too.
rip tumblr 