Featured Editorials

Confusion and Conclusions in Jackson Heights

Transgender activists marched Tuesday to protest the savage beating of Kathy Sal in Jackson Heights last Sunday and the actions of the police and media since that took place.

NYPD identified the victim as a man in their report, even though they were aware that she was known by a female first name. Television station WCBS deadnamed the victim (deadname: verb transitive, "identify a transgender person by their former name instead of their perferred name"). The Daily News and Newsday both misgendered the victim.

Daily News headline: EXCLUSIVE: Crossdressing Queens man brutally attacked, suspect repeatedly smashed his head into a curb

Newsday headline: NYPD: Cross-dressing man attacked in Jackson Heights, Queens

Outside Society

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As we approach a time of year which is holy for most religious for one reason or another, the Pew Research Center has taken a look at where transgender people stand in relation to them.

As we can see from Pew's handy-dandy summary image, the Episcopal church, United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalist Church and Reform Judaism have all issued specific edicts saying that transgender people should be included in the life of the church and that they can be ordained as ministers.

A Settlement in Palatine

The Illinois School District 211 school board in Palatine, Illinois voted in the wee hours of last evening to approve a settlement about a transgender girl's access to girl's locker room facilities, much to the apparent displeasure of many in the community.

With hundreds gathered in the cafeteria at Hoffman Estates Conant High School last evening, the majority speaking against any settlement, but apparently favoring rather punishment of the child who dares to be different.

Signs were carried by opponents to fairness which read:

Settling is losing.

God does not make mistakes. God made man and then God made woman.

As always, I would respond to that, using their own vernacular, with, "And God made transgender people, but your God is too limited to have done anything like that."

The Economics comes down on our side

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has done a new analysis of the current situation with transgender health coverage. As you may know, while the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has started paying for transition-related healthcare for transgender people, many private insurers deny such coverage, judging it to be "experimental," purely cosmetic," "elective," or just plain icky...even though the American College of Physicians, the American Medical Association and the American Psychological association all consider the treatment to be medically necessary to be available for transgender people.

It's the same as saying if you have cancer, you need chemotherapy if you are going to survive.

--William Padula, Johns Hopkins

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