We've walked through a doorway we'll never go back through. And we're going to have to address some concerns that are now facing us. If you were born a man, then you are obliged to use the males' restroom.

--Republican state Senator Jim Tomes

Tomes, of course, does not understand the extent of what his bill demands.

Tomes' bill would send someone to jail for up to a year and fine them as much as $5,000 if they were convicted of entering a bathroom that does not match up with their birth gender. Exceptions are made for janitors, first aid providers and parents accompanying children under the age of 8. The measure would also require public schools, including charters, to ensure students do the same, though students would not face criminal penalties.

Please note that this is not segregation by genitalia, as some have pushed...for the safety of the women and children, you understand. This demand of segregation is by chromosomal arrangement. Transgender people who have undergone gender reassignment will be prohibited from using the restrooms of their reassigned gender.

A group called Privacy for All announced yesterday that it had failed in its attempt to qualify the so-called Personal Privacy Protection Act for the November 2016 ballot.

The PPPA would have forced transgender and gender nonconforming people to use public facilities reserved for our birth sex.

Anti-trans activists needed to get 365800 signatures to place the initiative on the ballot but fell short. They are not saying by how much.

Esquire magazine has an article about a time long ago: 5 Transgender Americans on the Hardships of Transitioning, Then and Now.

Transgender men and women have lived openly for decades in America. Most of them transitioned before it was remotely acceptable to the wider culture—and so made possible the social transformation in gender identity that we are seeing today. The three women and two men on these pages lived much of their lives as one sex and then, along with thousands of others, have lived long, accomplished (and dangerous) lives as another. They are a comment on the abiding nature of the human impulse to change sexual identity (at a moment when it's almost regarded as a fad) and also emblematic of those who did so when it was so much harder.

Full disclosure: The author of this diary began transition 23 years ago.

I always used to cringe when I heard someone try to explain being transgender in terms of "male brains" or "female brains."

It has been my belief that gender is more complicated than that. But then, it has also long been my belief that it shouldn't really matter why we ar transgender...we're all human beings and should all be according the respect and dignity due all human beings.

Be that as it may...science marches on.

Judith Butler, well known feminist philosopher and the author of Gender Trouble participated in an email discussion with the feminist collective Broadly on the topic Why do Men Kill Trans Women?. It is intertwined with Broadly's own offering by Diana Tourjee, He's Not Done Killing Her

There were 23 known killings of transgender women in the United States in 2015. That number nearly doubled from the 12 reported in 2014. Broadly published an in-depth feature on these crimes in which we investigate their underlying cause. In addition to contacting police departments, victims' friends, and family, we interviewed the renowned queer theorist, Gender Trouble author Judith Butler.

One of the most disturbing, yet often easily overlooked, aspects of these crimes is the gender of the killers. Butler maps anti-trans violence back to the source, ultimately suggesting that trans deaths were caused by men because of men's need to meet culturally held standards of male power and masculinity.

She also insists that gender cannot be parsed from the other realities of the victims' lives. Ninety-one percent of the trans murders we investigated were people of color. They were primarily poor; many engaged in sex work. Law enforcement agencies have widely failed to classify these murders as hate crimes, maintaining a myopic perspective. By insisting that these facts be considered together, Butler does what the police have failed to do: recognize that the context in which these women lived and died is inseparable from their lives as transgender women of color.

--Broadly

The Southern Arizona VA Health Care System transgender clinic opens its doors today. That VA hospital will become the fourth in the nation to offer special clinic hours for transgender patients.

The Tucson treatment team will be headed by Dr. Sonia Perez-Padilla, who says the Tucson hospital is now recognized by the VA as a "national center of excellence for transgender care."

Local VA officials say the population of transgender veterans in Tucson has grown from 50 to 130 in the past five years.

The Department of Veterans Affairs ordered all its medical facility to take better care of transgender veterans beginning in 2011.

Before that, discrimination was not uncommon.

--Dr. Perez-Padilla

In a federal district court in Pennsylvania there is an ongoing challenge to the transgender exclusion in the Americans with Disabilities Act. Passed in 1990 the ADA prohibits discrimination on the basis of a medical or mental condition but includes the Helms Amendment, along with a portion of the original act included in hopes of enticing support from the extreme right, which some call the "moral code": the act excludes from protection "transvestism, transsexualism, pedophilia, exhibitionism, voyeurism, gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments, and other sexual behavior disorders

Kate Lynn Blatt was hired as a seasonal stocker at Cabela’s Retail in the fall of 2006, according to allegations in the complaint. Before starting her job, she attended a two-day orientation dressed in female attire, and used the women’s employee restroom without issue. Once she started working, however, Blatt was prohibited from using the women’s restroom and was forced to wear a name tag depicting her name as “James,” even after she presented the director of human resources with documentation of her legal name change.

Blatt claims her colleagues called her “ladyboy,” “freak,” and “sinner.” Cabela’s made Blatt use the single-sex “family” restroom at the front of the store, rather than the female employee restroom closer to her work area, according to the complaint. Blatt claims she endured harassment from management and coworkers, and was abruptly terminated in March 2007.

Kim Watson is a 52-year-old trans woman living in the Bronx with her husband and adopted daughter. She is cofounder of an organization called Community Kinship Life (CKLife), which provides space for transgender individuals to gather and offers scholarships. Her work has been honored by Bronx elected officials and citywide LGBT groups.

She arrived in the United States on a tourist visa in 1988. When the pass expired, she remained.

The city offered her refuge from persecution she faced over her identity in her homeland, but she continued to struggle with mental illness and substance abuse.

While homeless, she was twice arrested for selling controlled substances in 1997 and 1998. Nazrali said that at the time she was going through a wrenching identity dysphoria that led to the run-ins with the law.

However, more than a decade ago, Watson said she went to rehab and started receiving counseling for PTSD and her other identity issues.

Watson earned a bachelor's degree from Pace University and began grassroots organizing over LGBT issues and HIV status.

Yesterday Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) and 19 House co-sponsors introduced House Resolution 561: Expressing Support for Support for Transgender Acceptance

The co-sponsors include all members of the recently formed Transgender Equality Task Force.

This is another much-needed step in our fight to ensure that the transgender community’s voice is represented in Congress. The transgender community faces widespread bullying, harassment, and violence, and these individuals do not yet have sufficient legal means of protection from such discrimination in many states. We cannot achieve equality without acceptance. This resolution is a step toward greater acceptance of the transgender community. We must work to address the challenges and risks that transgender individuals face on a daily basis in their places of work, education, and housing, and ensure that their individual rights are understood and respected.

--Rep. Honda

The full text of the resolution is on The Other Side: