You've no doubt never heard of Multnomah University. It's in Northeast Portland, on Glisan between 82nd and the 205.

Heck, I grew up in a suburb of Portland and I'd never heard of it until now.

Multnomah University is a non-denominational Christian university in Portland, Oregon. Multnomah consists of a college, graduate school, seminary and Degree Completion Program, and the university offers bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees.

MU's President G. Craig Williford wrote a letter to the US Department of Education in February saying that MU "affirms the dignity of all human beings."

Then he basically asked the Department of Ed to agree with him that transgender people deserve no compassion, because evidently they are not human.

The tiny, 79-year-old nondenominational university is one of a growing number of religious schools around the country asking the federal government for an exemption from anti-discrimination laws where gender identity is concerned.

Basically, the school's arguing its religious beliefs don't allow it to accept or employ transgender people, but that should have no bearing on the federal funding it happily accepts each year.

The Chicago Tribune's Rex Huppke Has attempted to bring some sanity into the case of the Palatine transgender strudent.

At the center of a suburban school board's dispute over allowing a transgender student access to the girls locker room there is, of course, a human being.

A teenage human being. A female teenage human being who I believe would appreciate it if people would stop trying to tell her who she is and who she is not.

That's the point, Rex.

At bottom, they do not accept that we are human beings.

A settlement was reached last week to allow this girl to use th girls locker room, but that didn't end the disagreement between the Department of Education and the school board, so the school board met again last night and reaffirmed the settlement.

We believe this is the best course of action for this student while balancing the needs of all the teenage students in our district. The district will accommodate gender-identified locker room access for this student predicated on agreement to use the privacy measures provided.

We are installing privacy curtains in our locker rooms, with the assurance that this student will use them.

--school board President Mucia Burke

The Dean of St. John's College, Cambridge is the Reverend Duncan Dormor. He has published a new paper, Transgenderism and the Christian Church in the book The Legal Status of Transsexual and Transgender Persons

His paper is discussed by Madeleine Davies at the Church Times.

While a “growing number of Liberal Protestant denominations” are changing their policies, the advocacy of transgender groups and the reassessment of medical evidence may also produce a shift in conservative circles.

--Rev'd Dormor

The Dean concludes that

Over the past 20 years, there has been a very significant increase in the number of liberal and mainstream Protestant denominations which welcome transsexual and transgender Christians as congregational members and affirm their ministry as leaders and teachers.

But...

There is always an important but...

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

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.

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:

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 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

It seems to be a day for skimming the news involving the trans community. What do we discover?

The PP shooter, Robert Lewis Dear, is not transgender, but this won't stop right-wingers from using the claim, or anything else they can grab on to in order to demonize transgender people as threats to public safety.

Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton has been found guilty of choking and then drowning transgender woman Jennifer Laude in Olangapo City, The Philippines.

Mount Horeb Primary Center in Dane County, Wisconsin has a transgender student who has just come out. In an attempt to be inclusive and supportive of the trans girl a letter to parents was written and signed by the principal, the school psychologist and a counselor, informing the parents about the plan to have the students read and discuss I am Jazz, a book co-written by Florida transgender teen Jazz Jennings.

We believe all students deserve respect and support regardless of their gender identity and expression, and the best way to foster that respect and support is through educating students about the issue of being transgender.

It is our primary responsibility to provide a safe and nurturing environment for all of our students. Please let us know if you have concerns about your child participating in this discussion; we respect the beliefs and convictions of all families.

--The letter

For some of the parents withdrawing their children from the discussion was not sufficient. They felt the need to contact the SPLC-identified hate group, The Liberty Council, which threatened legal action if the book was read to students, claiming that such action would violate parental rights.