This is surprising news, but it’s good, I guess.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Justice Department’s position going forward in litigation will be that discrimination against transgender people is covered under the sex discrimination prohibition in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The decision is a reversal of the department’s prior position on the matter.
“This important shift will ensure that the protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are extended to those who suffer discrimination based on gender identity, including transgender status,” Holder said in a statement. “This will help to foster fair and consistent treatment for all claimants. And it reaffirms the Justice Department’s commitment to protecting the civil rights of all Americans.”
It took them long enough. It often surprises me how regressive standard policies in this country are.
Yes it is very good for as long as it lasts. Being a change of policy it can be changed back by the next administration if it isn’t backed up by statute. That is why a Trans inclusive ENDA is so important to us.
That’s certainly good news. Now secularists, atheists, etc. must be the last ones that are discriminated against by their own government with hardly a peep from the media. Just this week, the Ohio Department of Education decided (under Republicans, of course) that it will "…require participation of a church or religious group for any school to receive money from Gov. John Kasich’s student mentorship program came from the Ohio Department of Education.” As the spokesman explained, they want mentors to be people who are moral and believe in hard work and therefore they have to be religious — hey, just like the Taliban, ISIS and other theocrats.
The Columbus Dispatch didn’t even bother reporting it (it’s an awful, conservative newspaper but still surprising). Can find nothing in the Cincinnati Enquirer. NPR reported it and the Plain-Dealer covered it and had a tepid editorial sort of not approving. The local ACLU is merely “troubled.” And mostly silence from most Ohio and national secular and liberal organizations, blogs, etc.
Correction: The Columbus Dispatch did cover the ACLU concerns. The ACLU stated that they “…will launch a full inquiry into this matter.” I’m all tingly.
@Kan Enas #2
Seriously?
Yeah, Ibis, since we’re now in a post-racial and post-misogynist world, only atheists are the least bit oppressed anymore.
I’m sure the Garner family will be pleased to hear it.
As to the OP, it’s good, but as noted above, policy is not law.
Ken Enas,
Off you fuck.
I find it endlessly fascinating how mentioning any outrageous act must now come with a caveat that lists all the other outrageous acts in the world that are rather obviously worse.
So, of course we do not live in a post-racial and post-misogynist world; and of course one should not equate cops murdering African American men with impunity to bigotry against atheists or any other group that does not result in death or injury. And so on and son.
The world is full of injustice and death and genocide and racism and sexism and torture and a myriad outrageous acts and policies by many governments, including our own that are objectively worse than the Ohio Department of Education’s decision to label secularists as by definition unethical since those other acts and policies often result in injury and death. This really does and should go without being said.
The fascinating thing about this bit of Ohio government news is the lack of outrage is caused. I didn’t expect people to march in the streets protesting (and they ought to continue doing over cops killing back men and children). But as I clearly stated above, we must be the last ones that are discriminated against by their own government with hardly a peep from the media; if the Ohio Department of Education officially decided that morality is determined by color or gender or any other arbitrary criterion I trust that the media, mainstream and secular, would have been more outraged. When it comes to atheists, the response is tepid.
Of course you understand but youjust decided to bring up the terrible plight of being an atheist in this very thread. There are surely no other blogs and no other threads where you could have brought this up, what with this being the only atheist blog on the internet and the only entry on such a blog.
I guess it doesn’t matter anyways since you just kept on truckin’ with that train of thought.
“Now secularists, atheists, etc. must be the last ones that are discriminated against by their own government with hardly a peep from the media.”
Hahaha! You started a long post with this? And you’re writing more posts defending it?
Oh God. I can’t stop laughing. At you. For being so impossibly ignorant. Hahahaha!
Kan Enas:
Says the guy who barges into a thread about treatment of transexuals to whine about treatment of the non-religious.
I find your utter dishonesty and hypocrisy endlessly fascinating.
Not transexuals, transgendered people. Fuck, it’s too early for this.
I can sort of understand why “it wasn’t already”. Discrimination against women affects more than half the population, and one can hardly argue that it doesn’t deserve attention. By contrast transgender people are a small and (until recently) not very visible minority (I am aware of having known only one transgender person, and that only briefly), and it’s easy to forget about their interests.
Really convenient, changing policy like this as he’s heading out the door. I have little doubt that his replacement will find a reason to change it back before anything actually gets done.
Easy for you, aziraphale. I don’t get to forget, any single day, ever.
As to whether you’ve known any trans* people, I’m interested in how you know you’ve only had one encounter with a trans* person. Are we required to wear scarlet T on our clothes where you are, or is it just possible that in fact we’re everywhere, and many of us, for safety’s sake, do our level best to blend in?
That you think you’ve not known any of us is a mark of your cis privilege, not our lack of existence.
I’m afraid there’s much less here than meets the eye. The Department of Justice doesn’t have any legal authority to alter what is and is not legally considered “sex discrimination.” All that’s changed is the position they will take in lawsuits. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission does have some authority over this, and they ruled in 2012 that discrimination on the basis of transgender status is a form of sex discrimination. Macy v. Holder, EEOC Appeal No. 0120120821 (2012). However, the EEOC’s view has not been accepted in Article III courts, e.g. Etstitty v. Utah Transit Auth., 502 F.3d 121510th Cir. 2007); Eure v. Sage Corp., Cv. No. 5:12-CV-1119-DAE (W.D. Tex. Nov. 19, 2014).
Other Article III courts may disagree with the few that have already ruled, but a change in the Department of Justice’s position has very little practical effect on anything.
aziraphale,
The discrimination isn’t due to lawmakers not noticing a small minority. It is by design.
Kan Enas, all I will say is that get more shit in day to day living for being trans then I do for being an atheist.
Also, I would really fucking love it if the last legally oppressed group, atheists, would stop looking for excuses for being transphobic.
Kan Enas, oppressed atheist, here is but one fucking example I have to face, many times a day, every fucking day.
HOLDER: Crossdressing A Civil Right… http://drudge.tw/1sP8pIl
Here is one fucking hint, I am not a “cross dresser”.
And, oh yes, Kan Enas, fuck you.
@Kan Enas, #7:
No scarecrows, please.
When you say:
You’re talking obvious shit.
People are clearly objecting to not any mention of an outrageous act [in this case Just this week, the Ohio Department of Education decided (under Republicans, of course) that it will “…require participation of a church or religious group for any school to receive money from Gov. John Kasich’s student mentorship program came from the Ohio Department of Education.” ], but instead to your bald-ass assertion:
Why is it that this is so common?
It wouldn’t take even **half** a thought to realize that if there’s a group whose plight isn’t being covered you wouldn’t know about it.
Seriously.
Take the criticism and try to apply a minimum of critical thinking on your own behalf next time. It will do you a lot more good than making up bullshit parodies of deserved criticisms and, not-so-incidentally, might actually help you retrieve some of the (formerly default) respect you so carelessly dropped a la basura.
Awwwww, diddumz!
“Whaddabout us poor, poor doodz what doesn’t live at the very, ultimate, tippy-top Pinnacle of Privilege Mountain? Y nobody consider poor ussssss??!!!”
Jebus fuck, I need a Swearing Thesaurus, I just don’t gots the vocab to express my disgust strongly enough.
Quoth P Zed:
And this under an administration/major party so often and loudly touted as the best we can do and the lesser evil (for some value of “less” that makes some practical difference).
I swear, I keep feeling more and more like The Miller of Dee* when it comes to the US political landscape.
*I care for nobody, no not I! For nobody cares for me.
It doesn’t surprise me in the least; this country was founded on the firm principle that anyone who isn’t a property-owning [cis, straight, ideally protestant] white man needs a good kicking to teach them their place. It’s only through bloody fighting by people who aren’t that that’s changed even a little bit, and every single fucking demographic has pretty much had to fight it on their own, because even other oppressed groups won’t fucking help (see, for instance, racism and transphobia in feminism, homophobia and misogyny in the black civil rights movement, misogyny, transphobia and racism in the gay rights movement, asshole atheists (like the one in this very thread, good fucking job there Kan Enas, etc. ad fucking nauseum).
@kan enas –
I worked out a while back that what the “[group] is the last target of discrimination” formulation conveys to the reader is, “[group] is the last target of unjustified discrimination; the rest of you people deserve what you’re getting.”
If you wish to have a substantive conversation about something, don’t lead with a combination insult/derail like that.
True, although I think federal courts have already been moving in this direction and the EEOC has been using a similar policy since 2012. If the court rulings stick, then a change in administration won’t make a difference.
+1. It’s awful how often the ‘T’ in LGBT gets ignored.
Well HRC and other gay rights organizations had already mortgaged their ethics to become the collective depot for the money of the privileged who rankled at the dirty looks in the country club, as if their dresser’s sachet contained a bit too much clove. The directors, of course, weren’t interested in remaking society into a more just form. They were too enamored with their aspirations that one day one might become a lackey – perhaps even a valet! – to true power. Frankly, they were more inclined to nestle with senators than wrestle them. So even if they were inclined to listen to a movement’s debut on the stage of public consciousness (which they mustn’t be, or we’d know it by now), they were only too happy to embrace their already well-beloved world of silent T*s.
Hey, wow—back in law school, I wrote a lengthy research paper on precisely that issue. I should dig that thing back up.
…but now I see that drransom (perhaps among others here) is far more current with the legal developments than a 13-year-old paper could ever be, so never mind.
Kan Enas @7
Holy disingenuous fuck on a stick.
Your barged in a thread about a discriminated minority and derailed it by making it all about how your minority is being discriminated.
That’s why you’re being treated as the jackass you are acting like. Nobody would have had a problem with it if you had posted in Thunderdome where it would not derail and without playing oppression Olympics*
*, which gives a strong vibe of “my oppression is worse than yours” with enough wiggle room to argue that you did not literally say that.
BTW, how would you know if ? If other minorities are discriminated against by their own government with hardly a peep from the media you wouldn’t know of it from following the media (no peep) and unless you are part of that minority or know somebody from that minority you would be unlikely to know of it at all.
So did you research other minorities and what discriminations they suffer and how much these are reported on by the media (and don’t forget that just because some discriminations are reported on does not mean that others aren’t) to make that statement or did you just pull it out of your ignorass?
I think that’s exactly why aziraphale wrote “I am aware of having known only one transgender person” in comment 12, boldface mine.
I posted this comment elsewhere, and I’m going to just copy it verbatim: