It's a grey day, full of grey people leading their grey lives. The defeat of HERO in Houston was not unexpected. The recent rhetoric from the sidelines is of concern...especially when it comes to the membership at DK.

It's really quite easy:

Transgender men are men. Transgender women are women. A penis on a transgender woman is a woman's penis. A vagina on a transgender man is a man's vagina.

Averring or Insinuating otherwise is the very definition of transphobia.

Suggesting the abandonment of transgender people in order to increase rights for LGB people is not cool. We are of the body, Landru. All of us.

Please tell me you don't want to be grouped with those people who have recently spoken out against transgender people having equal rights: Phyllis Schlafly, Germaine Greer, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, et. al.

Yesterday federal education authorities found that Township High School District in Palatine, IL violated anti-discrimination laws when it denied a transgender girl who participates on a girl's sports team free access to change and shower in the girl's locker room.

Juliet Owen is a veteran. She served in the Marine Corps 1993-94, working in aviation electronics, until being honorably discharged after being diagnosed with chondromalacia (runner's knee). She is currently unemployed and homeless. Being a veteran she has managed to score housing in Long Beach's Villages at Cabrillo.

The reason for her jobless state is a sore point, however. Juliet has filed a wrongful termination complaint October 1 claiming gender identity discrimination against Australian Swim Schools, an Orange County swimming school with students aged three months to adult.

Owen said she had never experienced discrimination because of her transgender status until she moved from Virginia Beach, VA to southern California and began work as a swim instructor in May at Australian Swim Schools Anaheim location. After informing her boss that she is transgender, she was laid off a month later. She was told that not enough students had signed up for summer water safety classes, but when she visited the facility two weeks after her termination, she discovered three new employees.

Tina Healy is an Australian trans woman. Her mother is suffering from dementia. As a result Tina has to come out to her mother every time she sees her. Fortunately Tina's mother reacts positively every time.

From all outward appearances, Tara Hudson has a drinking problem.

It is not unusual to discover that transgender people self-medicate as we attempt to survive our dysphoria. Sometimes that continues to be a problem after we transition.

On a personal level, I will admit that I spent my entire transition stoned on marijuana 24/7.

Self-medicating can, of course, lead to encounters with the legal system. That appears to have generated a bunch of Tara's past history...which ended up biting her in the ass.

Tara is a make-up artist by trade. Last Boxing Day she imbibed too much, to the point that she was cut off by a bar manager. An argument ensued, during which Tara headbutted bar manager Christopher Dyer and was arrested. She admitted to the crime in Bristol Crown Court.

Despite the fact that she has lived her entire adult life as a woman and has had six years of sex-reassignment surgery, she was sentenced to serve twelve weeks in a prison for men because her passport still lists her as male.

I'm sure that very few of you have ever heard of Denair, CA. It's a "census designated place" in Stanislaus County, CA. Not enough of a hint? It's near Turlock. Doesn't help? That's between Modesto and Merced. Central Valley.

Population was 4404 in 2010. The town encloses a grand total of 2 square miles.

It really epitomizes the phrase "small town." Except the part about the government not thinking it is large enough to be called a town.

Denair calls itself "The Oasis of the San Joaquin Valley."

In 2010 Denair had 10 same-sex married couples/domestic partnerships. 22% of the residences were rentals. 32% of the residents identify as Hispanic or Latino. In 2000 16% of the population lived below the poverty line.

As the Wikipedia entry for Stanislaus County says,

Stanislaus County is not a great place, it's just a place in the Central Valley.

Anry Fuentes lives in Denair. She is a transgender teen. When she she told her mother last year that she was going to come out, her mother kicked her out of their home.

Well my mom kicked me out. I’m not mad at her or hate her. I understand where she’s coming from. She was raised differently, and I can’t judge her for that. If I did regret [coming out] then I wouldn’t be this happy. It's much harder to hide than to come out as yourself.

--Anry

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.

GLAAD has released its yearly report analyzing the quantity and quality of LGBT character portrayals on television. Where We Are on TV 2015 found that of the 881 regular characters on broadcast primetime programming in the coming year, 35 are identified as LGB. That's 4%. Not one of the regular or recurring characters is transgender.

I guess that means we are not to expect Mrs. Hudson to pop up on Elementary this season.

The number of regular LGBT characters counted on cable increased from 64 to 84, while recurring characters increased from 41 to 58.

Diamond Williams was murdered in 2013, then dismembered and dumped in a field in North Philly.

Charles Sargent used a hatchet and screw driver to cut her up before throwing her away. He goes on trial next year for the murder.

Helen Ubiñas writes at philly.com that Diamond's journey at long last is nearing an end.

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.