01/19 Open Thread- Artist as Outlaw Day

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~~ Monkey_Wrench_2

came to me in an e-mail:

As you come out to protest, here's what our video notes to keep in mind:

1) The right to protest is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment.

2) If you get stopped, ask if you are free to go. If the police say yes, calmly walk away.

3) You have the right to record. The right to protest includes the right to record, including recording police doing their jobs.

Two transgender women, Carol Ann Beal of northwest Iowa and EerieAnna Good of the Quad Cities along with the ACLU of Iowa have challenged the Iowa Medicaid ban on coverage for transition-related medical services as being a violation of equal protection under the law "as promised by the Iowa state constitution and the Iowa Civil Rights Act."

Boyertown, PA. It's not too far from Philadelphia, located between Amityville and Congo on Ironstone Creek in Berks County.

It is the site of the most recent attack by the so-called Alliance Defending Freedom on equal treatment of transgender students in our schools.

ADF is claiming that

To tell the truth, the legal stuff is not in my wheelhouse, but that seems to be where I've had to hang out the last few days. Tuesday it was DOJ to appeal injunction and yesterday it was Federal judges issue conflicting rulings. Today we travel to Virginia for the challenge of North Carolina's HB2.

At the end of last week a US District Judge Thomas Schroeder issued a preliminary injunction that says two students and an employee at University of North Carolina campuses must be allowed to use restrooms matching their gender identity.

When last we encountered Gavin Grimm, Gloucester County Schools were still preventing the trans teen from using the boys room and the district had received the blessing of District Court Judge Robert Doumar in Norfolk.

Gavin's ACLU attorneys have asked an appeals court to replace Doumar, who denied his request for a preliminary injunction, because Doumar has made statements that he is "suspicious of modern medical science regarding gender identity." The lawyers say that Doumar has repeatedly referenced Gavin's "mental disorder" and accused him and them of just seeking publicity.

Yesterday the Department of Educations Office of the General Council and the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division filed a 40-page friend-of-the-court brief with the 4th US Circuit Court on behalf of Grimm.