Featured Editorials

What is We The People's answer to the Powell memo?

Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 10/28/2015 - 5:35am

The Powell memorandum told the Republicans to go forth and use ownership of media and industry by the super-rich to change American popular culture from top to bottom — in order to put a stop to the social and political ferment of the Sixties and Seventies, crush the so-called counterculture, and try to make any revival of such developments impossible once and for all.

Open season on bashing trans people?

Submitted by Robyn on Mon, 10/26/2015 - 2:32pm

I guess Fox News' resident transphobic Dr. Keith Ablow must have been busy elsewhere. In the wake of FRC's Tony Perkins suggestion that trans people in California will commit crimes in order to be sent to prison so that they can get the health care they deserve (and isn't that a shocking condemnation of our society all by itself?), Fox trotted out 'psychology expert' Gina Loudon to dish its special brand of transphobia.

Loudon, a tea party activist who became a reality star after she and her husband joined ABC’s Wife Swap (that's what I would want in a psychotherapist), insisted that it was “absolutely not” cruel and unusual punishment to withhold surgery from transgender inmates.

And the science is on my side of this. I’m not sure why the other side is deciding to be science deniers now. Johns Hopkins University ended their program because they realized that people who go through with the sex change surgery have a 20 fold increase in suicide rates as opposed to those who don’t.

Not true. Well, the fact that Dr, Paul McHugh closed down the Johns Hopkins University program is true...but the fact that he did so because of science is not. McHugh is an 'orthodox Catholic' who has spent his career peddling myths about gay and transgender people.

Tony Perkins goes full-on bonkers. Nobody notices the difference

Submitted by Robyn on Sun, 10/25/2015 - 2:20pm

Last Tuesday court-appointed receiver who has managed health care for California prisons under federal court order since the Scwarzenegger administration announced new guidelines which authorize surgical procedures for transgender inmates suffering from severe gender dysphoria who desire surgery.

The guidelines call for panels of state health professionals to review appeals for sex-reassignment surgery from inmates whose doctors say their patients are under significant distress because of a mental condition known as gender dysphoria. The inmate must have been taking hormones for at least a year and have consistently expressed a desire to change his or her biological gender before an operation can be approved.

Prison officials have estimated the cost of the state-funded operations as high as $100,000. But the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, which has represented two inmates in suits against the state, says each operation would cost $15,000 to $30,000.

California's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says it has about 385 transgender inmates, most of them male-to-female, who are currently undergoing hormone therapy.

Franken presses Feds to take action on anti-trans violence

Submitted by Robyn on Fri, 10/23/2015 - 1:11pm

On Wednesday, Minnesota Senator Al Franken sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey seeking answers on the reporting of this year's record level of anti-transgender violence. Franken wrote the two-page letter from his position as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I write to express serious concern about the alarming number of homicides and violent crimes targeting transgender and gender nonconforming people. I strongly urge the U.S. Department of Justice to work with state and local authorities in the investigation and prosecution of these incidents, and to redouble its efforts to ensure the accurate reporting of all bias-motivated crimes.

--Franken

Pages