9th June: Anthony Romero, Civil Rights Activist

b. July 9, 1965

“When you’ve seen prejudice, you understand that we aren’t finished, that we’re still perfecting this American experiment.”

Anthony Romero is the first openly gay person and the first Latino to become executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the nation’s largest public-interest law firm.

Romero was raised in New York City by parents who emigrated from Puerto Rico. When he was young, his father faced discrimination for a job promotion. A lawyer hired through his father’s union won him the promotion, and the extra earnings helped the family purchase a new home and their first car.

Romero was the first member of his family to finish high school. He graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and Stanford Law School. In 2003, he was named Stanford’s first Public Interest Lawyer of the Year.

Four days before the 9/11 attacks, Romero took over as executive director of the ACLU. In response to post-9/11 government policies, he helped create the ACLU’s “Keep America Safe and Free” campaign, which aims to protect basic freedoms during times of crises. The campaign was successful in its opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act and litigation regarding the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.

Under Romero’s direction, the ACLU has achieved its highest level of membership and tripled its budget. This growth allowed the organization to expand its efforts to champion causes such as lesbian and gay rights, racial justice and reproductive freedom.

Romero was named one of TIME magazine’s 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America in 2005. He received an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York School of Law and coauthored “In Defense of Our America” (2007), about America’s fight for post-9/11 civil liberties.

Bibliography
“Anthony D. Romero.” American Civil Liberties Union. May 2007
http://www.aclu.org/about/staff/13279res20030205.html
Coates, Ta-Nehisi Paul. “Anthony Romero.” Time. August 13, 2005
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1093634,00.html
Rosenblatt, Joel. “Publicly Interested: Anthony Romero, the Openly Gay ACLU Leader, Realizes His Lifelong Devotion to Standing up for People.” San Francisco Daily Journal. December 5, 2003
http://www.law.stanford.edu/news/details/667/Publicly%20Interested:%20Anthony%20Romero,%20the%20Openly%20Gay%20ACLU%20Leader,%20Realizes%20His%20Lifelong%20Devotion%20to%20Standing%20up%20for%20People/
Articles
Gutierrez, Mariana. “Fighting for What is Right.” Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino. May 2007
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PCH/is_3_8/ai_n27258304?tag=content;col1
Books
In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror (2007)
http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Our-America-Liberties-Terror/dp/0061142565/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214840272&sr=8-1
Other Resources
American Civil Liberties Union
http://www.aclu.org/

In Africa, A Step Backward On Human Rights

TransGriot Note: From a March 12 op-ed in the Washington Post

by Desmond Tutu

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity -- or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.

It is time to stand up against another wrong.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God's family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.

Uganda's parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.

These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.

Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.

And they are living in hiding -- away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God.

"But they are sinners," I can hear the preachers and politicians say. "They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished." My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?

The wave of hate must stop. Politicians who profit from exploiting this hate, from fanning it, must not be tempted by this easy way to profit from fear and misunderstanding. And my fellow clerics, of all faiths, must stand up for the principles of universal dignity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice


The writer is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

You Don't Have The Right To Deny Me My Rights

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

Even though Thomas Jefferson didn't practice what he preached in his own life as a slaveholder, he was right on target as usual concerning this subject.

The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution contains many basic human rights we hold dear as American citizens. But nowhere in it does it say or even imply that the majority has the right to take away the civil rights of a minority group it despises.

But then again most of the peeps with that attitude never read the Constitution.

I fail to understand why some people arrogantly think that they should have a say in who does or doesn't get civil rights coverage, much less think they should vote on it.

Methinks they would have a very different opinion about the subject if it were their civil rights on the electoral chopping block.

One of the things I am really sick of is the use of referenda by conservatives to take away the civil rights of people they hate on. It's also more odious when they do so to drive their turnout to the polls in national election cycles.

This practice causes resentments to build up in the minority group targeted by that nefarious action, is counterproductive to building a unified and strong nation and should be banned.

No, you don't have the right to deny me my rights. Mine nor anyone's civil rights should be decided by the tyranny of the majority.

Loudoun County VA Latest To Add GLBT Employmemt Protections

After a heated discussion full of the usual Republican lies and scare tactics, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted on January 5 in favor of adding language to the county’s equal employment opportunity policy not permitting the government to base its hiring or firing practices on someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“It’s the right thing to do,” said Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), the maker of the motion, explaining he heard from several members of the community on the matter and thought it was time to include the language in county policy.

After learning his proposal would not be welcomed by all of his fellow board members, he added: “It’s a shame anyone would put energy into resisting this.”

Before the vote, Loudoun’s EEO policy made no mention of sexual preference, but only said the county did not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, political affiliation, age or disability. Also, it was learned during the meeting that the county has never received a complaint on the language not being part of the policy, and that sexual orientation was already not considered in employment matters, though it was not spelled out.



The 6-2-1 vote split along political lines, with the most outspoken conservative on the board, Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling), voicing his opposition the loudest, accusing Miller of “sneaking” in the proposal without public input.

“Cross-dressing rights: that’s what we're talking about at this meeting,” Delgaudio said, his voice rising as he gestured toward Miller. “This would put men who wear dresses in county bathrooms without public notice!”

He went out to accuse Miller of having a liberal agenda, while saying that his proposal was a “kick in the teeth” to "moral people."

“This is freaky. This is bizarre. This is fruity!” he concluded.

A proposal by Delgaudio to schedule a public hearing on the matter was rejected.

Supervisor Lori Waters (R-Broad Run), who called the matter politically driven, also voted against Miller’s proposal, citing a ruling in 2007 by former Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore that the Fairfax County school board needed permission from state lawmakers to enact a similar policy.

“This issue needs some additional review and exploration,” she said. “You are inviting lawsuits unless you have firm, legal footing.”

In 2006, Gov. Tim Kaine (D) made an executive order barring state agencies from discriminating against people based on sexual orientation.

Waters said she wanted the county to first consult with Virginia’s incoming conservative attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli (R) before proceeding. That request was also rejected by a majority of the board.

Chairman Scott York (I-At large) was the only board member to abstain from the vote, explaining that the matter was never an issue until Miller brought it up. “It was a waste of 20 minutes,” he said of the discussion.

As for the proposal’s backers, many said the change is evidence that Loudoun is open to everyone.

“We are sending a message today that discrimination will not be tolerated in the Loudoun County government,” said Supervisor Andrea McGimsey (D-Potomac).

Board Vice Chairman Susan Klimeck Buckley (D-Sugarland Run) said the change puts on paper what is already happening—that no one is being turned away for the company they keep.

“This codifies existing practice,” she said. “We already don’t discriminate. We are just putting words to it.”

And thank you Loudoun County, VA for doing so.

Statewide Fairness Coalition Awarded $30,000 From State Equality Fund

The Tides Foundation’s State Equality Fund, a philanthropic partnership that includes the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, the Gill Foundation, and anonymous donors, has awarded the Kentucky Statewide Fairness Coalition $30,000 to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality. The Fund is programmatically staffed on behalf of the donors by the Gill Foundation’s Movement Building Center.

During the summer of 2009, the Kentucky Statewide Fairness Coalition submitted a letter of intent seeking to submit a complete grant proposal for support. Shortly after submission, the Coalition was invited to apply.

“The State Equality Fund promotes equality through the work of state and local organizations,” said Toni Broaddus, Executive Director of the Equality Federation, national alliance working to further equality in a state-based movement. “Support from the State Equality Fund will assist the Coalition in advancing their work around nondiscrimination and parenting rights of LGBT Kentuckians.”

The Coalition releases the following joint statement: “We are fortunate to receive this grant through the State Equality Fund to support our work advancing the rights and dignity of LGBT Kentuckians. We will continue to bring fair-minded people together for real and substantive change that betters our Commonwealth.”

The Coalition began its 2010 work this past weekend with the 2nd Statewide Fairness Summit held in Frankfort Saturday, January 16. Over 100 Fairness supporters from across the state convened in the Commonwealth's Capitol to develop strategy towards passage of the statewide anti-discrimination Fairness law, pre-filed in the House this session by Louisville Representative Mary Lou Marzian.

The Coalition has scheduled its 2010 Statewide Fairness Lobby Day and Rally in Frankfort for Wednesday, February 24.

Members of the Kentucky Statewide Fairness Coalition are: Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, Fairness Campaign, Lexington Fairness, Kentucky Fairness Alliance Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky Foundation.

Gone To Frankfort

I'm in Kentucky's state capital and three hours into an all day summit meeting that commenced at 9 AM EST.



We're discussing legislative strategies for the 2010 Kentucky General Assembly session which has already started, defensive strategies against anti-GLBT laws the right wing yahoos will be trying to pass and other issues of interest to the progressive coalition in the state.


Should be an interesting day before it ends at 5 PM, and yeah, I made sure I got my beauty sleep.

Being Transgender In Prison Should Not Equal Torture

TransGriot Note: This a guest post from the remarkable Renee of Womanist Musings.

Maria Benita Santamaria was sentenced to prison after she was arrested with ten pounds of meth. Clearly, this is against the law, however; she did not deserve to be tortured, sentenced to a men's prison and denied medical care. Her story is not unique, in fact the prison industrial complex is not equipped properly to house transgender criminals.

Maria had been on hormones for two years at the time of the arrest and therefore placing her in a male prison qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. The state has a responsibility to protect inmates from violence and a trans woman in a male prison faces an increased risk of violence and therefore they are often placed in solitary confinement.

Maria was placed in solitary confinement where she was denied hormone treatments and thus began to grow facial hair. According to the Washington Examiner she was even referred to as “it”. She was treated no differently than any other person in solitary confinement, despite doing nothing to earn this treatment other than being a trans woman. She was placed on lockdown 23 hours a day and allowed a shower once every three days.

The following is an excerpt from an interview with CSC's Craig Haney, a psychologist who's an expert on long-term solitary confinement.

First let me note that solitary confinement has historically been a part of torture protocols. It was well-documented in South Africa. It's been used to torture prisoners of war.

There are a couple reasons why solitary confinement is typically used. One is that it's a very painful experience. People experience isolation panic. They have a difficult time psychologically coping with the experience of being completely alone.

In addition, solitary confinement imposes conditions of social and perceptual stimulus deprivation. Often it's the deprivation of activity, the deprivation of cognitive stimulation, that some people find to be painful and frightening.

Some of them lose their grasp of their identity. Who we are, and how we function in the world around us, is very much nested in our relation to other people. Over a long period of time, solitary confinement undermines one's sense of self. It undermines your ability to register and regulate emotion. The appropriateness of what you're thinking and feeling is difficult to index, because we're so dependent on contact with others for that feedback. And for some people, it becomes a struggle to maintain sanity.

That leads to the other reason why solitary is so often a part of torture protocols. When people's sense of themselves is placed in jeopardy, they are more malleable and easily manipulated. In a certain sense, solitary confinement is thought to enhance the effectiveness of other torture techniques.

The prison industrial complex is overburdened and the US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Once someone is imprisoned, often the larger society fails to recognize their humanity and they are subject to treatment that is abominable. If the person in question is part of an already socially marginalized group, the negligence and cruelty often escalates. After six months in solitary, daily being misgendered, and denied medical treatment, is it any wonder that Maria Benita Santamaria contemplated suicide?

H/T The Bilerico Project.

Either Stand Up For Yourself Or Keep Getting Discriminated Against

Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Frederick Douglass was dead on target when he uttered these words over a century ago.

What triggered this post was me recalling this Douglass quote while reading Leona Lo's blog.

In the post I was reading she discussed an incident which happened a few months ago in which a Singaporean transwoman was denied entry to a popular local club.

That transwoman asked Leona for help and she obliged. The Singaporean media was contacted, and was ready and willing to publicize the story by interviewing the transperson in question. But because she feared public exposure more than she wanted justice for what had been done to her, she backed out of the interview.

And as Leona pointed out, that's exactly what the oppressor was counting on.

Activists don't mind helping a trans brother or trans sister out when they ask for it. But when you do, bear in mind you can't just drop the problem in our laps, walk away and think you're gonna sit on the sidelines as we pick up the sword and shield and begin to do the fighting on your behalf. We expect you when we do so to be an active and engaged participant in your own liberation.

As Frederick Douglass stated in the last sentence of the quote that graces the beginning of this post, the limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

Translation: you are a participant in your own oppression. How long and how far it goes is determined by how much injustice and discriminatory treatment you are willing to stomach.

If you're tired of being disrespected and denigrated, you have the choice of loving yourself enough to stand up and fight for your rights, or meekly submit and continue to get dissed and discriminated against.

We know from world history which strategy has worked best for marginalized people.

NY Governor David Paterson To Sign Executive Order Extending Anti Discrimination Protection To Trans State Employees

New York Governor David Paterson is at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City today to announce and sign an executive order extending anti discrimination protections to transgender state employees.

The order applies only to state employees who work under the authority of the executive branch and it does not apply to anyone in the private sector.

A number of cities in New York State, including Buffalo, Albany, Rochester and New York City, already prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression.

There have been several attempts to pass comprehensive legislation to outlaw discrimination based on gender identity called the Gender Expression Non Discrimination Act or GENDA, but so far they have been unsuccessful.

GENDA has already passed the New York State Assembly but awaits action in the New York State Senate.

It's a nice first step, but the New York State Senate needs to do the right thing and pass GENDA. Thank you Governor Paterson for doing so.

Cleveland Rocks! Unanimously Passes Transgender Civil Rights Protections

I know Zoe and the rest of my transpeeps in Cleveland are on Cloud Nine today after their city council passed a transgender civil rights law by a unanimous 21-0 vote.

The law bans discrimination in the areas of housing, employment and public accommodations on the basis of gender identity. Cleveland's anti-discrimination law already includes sexual orientation, age, race and religion.

What might prove problematic is a last-minute amendment that excludes shared showers, locker rooms and restrooms.

The legislation was sponsored by openly gay and outgoing Council member Joe Santiago, who introduced the bill in August. Unfortunately Santiago lost his bid for a second term in September.

Cleveland now joins other Ohio cities such as Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, Dayton, and the Cleveland suburbs of Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights in protecting its transgender residents against discrimination.

Time To End Putting People's Civil Rights Up For A Majority Vote

On the surface, allowing petition drives to force referendums and recall votes on unpopular decisions sounds like a great idea. When used wisely, it allows citizens to force votes on questionable governmental deals, horrible policies, overturn specious laws and sweetheart deals.

But unfortunately, far too often over the last twenty years the right wing has been using the referendum process to do preemptive strikes to curtail GLBT civil rights or overturn passed civil rights laws for marginalized groups it doesn't like.

If the abuse of referenda were as prevalent back in the day as it is now, Jim Crow segregation would still be around and women wouldn't be voting.

So what do we do about the situation? As I've said before, the best defense is a good offense. The right wingers aren't the only people who can propose referendum and ballot initiatives.

So I propose we get them to spend money fighting a progressive ballot initiative. It would contain language that would ban the practice of putting people's civil rights up for a majority vote.

You know something, why stop at a ballot initiative or state constitutional amendment? How about having it ensconced in the United States Constitution as well?

What it would do would kill any future attempts at putting amendments on the ballot that have the effect of the majority voting to take away civil rights granted to protect a minority group.

And conservafools, y'all can hate on the idea all you want, but 2050 is coming sooner than you think, and you know what they say about karma.

It's past time for a constitutional amendment that would ban the practice of putting people's civil rights up for a majority vote

Tampa Expands Civil Rights For Transpeople

Add another Florida metropolis to the list of cities protecting the civil rights of their transgender residents.

The Tampa City Council this morning voted unanimously to expand its human rights ordinance to protect transgender people from discrimination.

The vote extends laws prohibiting discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on sexual orientation, sex, race and religion to include 'gender identity or expression' as a protected class.

Tampa's Human Rights Board has been discussing the issue for the past year and has requested the changes. Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio and several council members supported it.

Tampa joins 16 Florida municipalities, at least 13 states across the country and several Fortune 500 companies who have extended such protections to transsexuals and others with a gender identity that differs from their birth gender.

It remains to be seen if the haters try to come after this law in the wake of back to back lopsided losses in Gainesville, FL and Kalamazoo, MI.

It's 'Un-African' For Nigeria To Treat GLBT People This Way

photo-Nigerian president General Osegun Obasanjo and his good friend president George W. Bush

I gripe with my friends sometimes about the way that GLBT/SGL peeps are treated in the United States and how backward we are legislatively compared to enlightened countries like South Africa, Canada, Great Britain and Spain.

But to some of our African cousins, we are the enlightened ones in terms of the hell they are catching all over the African continent, with South Africa, Mali and Burkina Faso being the glaring exceptions.

Nigeria is about to pass a draconian new law in advance of their upcoming national elections next month that is the wet dream of our homophobic Religious Right.

Nigeria already punishes people with 14 year jail sentences for consensual homosexual contact under the provisions of a law dating back to the British colonial period. If you are a Nigerian who is unfortunate enough to live in the 12 northern Nigerian states with Muslim population majorities, they are under Islamic Sharia law and the punishment is death by stoning.

But the proposed law being billed as a same-sex marriage ban has some alarming provisions that would make ANY public or private expression of homosexuality in the Federal Republic of Nigeria a crime.

Under this proposed Nigerian law you could get five years in jail for:

*Being a member of a gay group

*Attending a gay meeting or protest

*Donating money to a gay organization

*Advocating gay equality in any way, shape, or form.

*Hosting or visiting a gay Web site

*Expressing same-sex love in letters or e-mails

*Attending a same-sex marriage or blessing ceremony

*Screening or watching a gay movie

^Taking or possessing photos of a gay couple

*Publishing, selling, or loaning a gay book or video.

The proposed law goes beyond a simple same-sex marriage ban. It punitively targets GLBT/SGL peeps for simply existing. In addition to criminalizing the activities listed mere everyday socializing by two or more gay people would potentially be interpreted as illegal.

Even heterosexual allies would be affected. Nigerians could find themselves being charged with the crime of 'promoting the lifestyle of homosexuals' with broad parameters on what constitutes the 'crime' of 'promoting homosexuality'. For example, simply selling a house to a gay couple could earn you a trip to prison.

The proposed Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act was introduced last year by Nigerian Minister of Justice Bayo Ojo but a firestorm of international criticism temporarily tabled it.

While the proposed law has 100% support from Archbishop Peter Akinola, the homophobic leader of the Nigerian Anglican Church, its passage is still in doubt. Reportedly one third of the Nigerian National Assembly supports it, one third opposes it and one third is still undecided.

While President Obasanjo is term limited, his hand-picked successor is Umaru Yar'Adua, the governor of Katsina state in the Nigerian Islamic north. If he becomes president of Nigeria he is expected to enforce the new law if enacted.

Realizing that this is a watershed moment for GLBT civil rights in Africa, Nigerian GLBT people and other citizens concerned about its anti-civil rights provisions traveled to Nigeria's capital city of Abuja to testify against the bill. They were initially barred from testifying on the pretext that it was an 'invitation-only hearing' but after intense pressure from the European Union and international embassies they were allowed access to the hearing room to speak out against the bill.

Cary Alan Johnson, senior specialist for Africa of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) said in an interview for the Direland Blog that there is still time for United States GLBT people to help kill this bill.

"While Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin have both weighed in against the bill, Americans still need to put pressure on their representatives to condemn the bill. Your readers should call their members of Congress and the State Department and ask them to speak out against the Same-Sex Marriage Act. Full-scale activism is what is needed at this point."

Nigeria is the largest country on the African continent in terms of population. The OPEC oil-producing nation has been making a serious push over the last few years to raise its stature and become an international leader.

But if you want to be an international leader, respect for human rights is a primary prerequisite for that status. It's something that we've unfortunately forgotten over the last six years in the United States. There's another recurring theme in this situation that has proven to be an uncomfortable reality for GLBT peeps all over the world.

Hating on GLBT peeps not only helps lousy leaders hang on to political power, it distracts the population from tackling the serious issues impacting your country.

Viola Desmond-Canada's Rosa Parks

Almost ten years before that fateful December 1, 1955 day that Rosa Parks sat down on a Montgomery, AL bus that was headed home and jump started a movement, Viola Desmond did the same for African-Canadians.

Viola Desmond (1914-1965) was a young Halifax businesswoman and beautician who owned and operated a beauty school there. On November 8th, 1946, she was on her way to Sydney, NS for a meeting when she got caught in a blizzard in New Glasgow, NS and her car broke down.

When a mechanic told her he couldn't fix the problem until the next day she found a place to stay for the night. Desmond decided to pass the time with a movie at the local Roseland Theatre. She asked for a ticket for house seats, but the teller sold her a ticket for the balcony, which was where Black people had to sit in that town.

When she sat in the lower "Whites Only" house seats, the manager ordered her to sit in the balcony, which was designated for Black patrons. When she refused, he called the police and she was arrested. Desmond was dragged from the theater and thrown in jail overnight. Bruised and angry, she sat upright all night and for the next 12 hours on the hard jail bench while wearing her white gloves.

In the morning she was charged by the magistrate with "attempting to defraud the Federal Government" based on her refusal to pay the one cent amusement tax difference between the 3 cents charged to those sitting in the balcony and the 2 cents charged to those sitting downstairs. Even though she had offered to pay the difference in ticket price, she was convicted of failing to pay the tax on the downstairs ticket. After a short trial, Viola was sentenced to a fine of $20 plus court costs and 30 days in prison.

Viola Desmond's arrest galvanized the Afro-Canadian community into action. The new Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP), founded only a year earlier by William and Pearleen Oliver, raised the money to pay her fine and fight her conviction. Carrie Best, the founder of Nova Scotia's first Black owned and operated newspaper publicized her story. Best was familiar with Desmond's situation. She'd been thrown out of the Roseland Theater herself four years earlier for refusing to sit in the balcony and unsuccessfully filed a damage suit against the theater's management.

Desmond's lawyer took the case to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, but her appeal lost on a technicality. She reappealed the case and won on a technicality. The case helped topple segregation laws in Nova Scotia and the provincial government repealed them in 1954.

On Transgender Human Rights Issues in Africa

From Fahamu (Oxford)
Visit their site: http://www.fahamu.org/

December 7, 2006
Posted to the web December 7, 2006

by Juliet Victor Mukasa


In most African states, homosexuality is illegal. Juliet Victor Mukasa writes that in Africa, transgender people are punished and ostracised for being who they are. "While still with my parents, I was always beaten by my father for "behaving" like a boy. In school, the same story. While peeing one day my neighbour's daughter found me peeing while squatting and she screamed like she had seen a monster."

As a transgender person who is attracted physically and emotionally to other women, issues that African women and trangenders face are of particular concern to me. The one thing that all transgender people have in common is that we do not fit into traditional gender categories.


We're taught that that a human being must behave, present themselves, dress and so on in only two ways...male or female. There are rules that govern genders, unfortunately. Such gender rules include:

-How a man should dress in order to appear masculine;

-What types of jobs are fitting for a woman

-That a woman must only be in a relationship with another man, not with a woman

These rules to govern our behaviour are socially constructed, meaning that they are not "natural". They are rules made up by people, sometimes with horrible punishments for not following them.

In Africa, transgender people are seriously punished for being who they are. While still with my parents, I was always beaten by my father for "behaving" like a boy. In school, the same story. While peeing one day my neighbour's daughter found me peeing while squatting and she screamed like she had seen a monster. I became the laughing stock of the village and I expelled myself because of the humiliation. I could speak the whole day about the discomforts I have suffered in life more because I am a transgender person.

All trans-people that I have interacted with mention such, or even worse, moments in their lives. It can be a very deep violation of our being to be forced to perform our gender differently to who we feel it for ourselves.

Some people, like myself, are born with a sense of ourselves as male in some ways, even though we are biologically female.

As a transgender person, it is constantly demanded of me to explain and justify why I do not fit into other people's ideas of what a woman or a man should be.

As a Human Rights defender, I am working to protect a space for people to exist freely without facing harassment, threats, or violence for not fitting into traditional gender categories.

I can give specific examples of human rights abuses and violations of transgender people in Africa:

- Raped to prove that you are really a woman

- At school and public assembly - humiliation and beatings

- Thrown out of the family home

- Thrown out of subsequent homes by landlords

- Losing jobs because of feeling violated wearing a skirt

- Psychological Effects of Abuse: Depression, Anger, Drinking, Suicide

- Holding a full bladder for 12-18 hours daily

- Being undressed and humiliated

- Being abused by government when trying to get a passport

- In church - I was once stripped naked before a multitude of people. The pastor 'saw' the spirit of a young man inside me and they burnt my clothes and shoes in order to kill the male spirit.

- By Police: humiliation, mocking, mistreatment

However, transgender people have also been successful in overcoming these abuses.

In Uganda there is tremendous energy and anger on the part of activists. Many LGBTs are ready to rise up. For example, some transgender men are dressing up in drag and declaring that they have had enough.

Another victory is the establishment of the first specifically Transgender organization on the continent: Gender DynamiX, located in Cape Town, South Africa.

We are now claiming language and claiming spaces. Sometimes it is even difficult for us to understand ourselves because the world has been constructed to make us completely invisible. But now we are finding words to use for ourselves such as He She Che.

As an illustration of why we need your support, I would like to highlight the work of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). SMUG is an organization made up of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Human Rights Defenders. Many of us in leadership in this organization are women and several of us are transgender. We face many challenges such as in Uganda, on a weekly basis, gay men are arrested and face detention if they do not pay a bribe to be released. This has become a business from which the police benefit. The basic Human Rights of LGBT people are completely disregarded in this process as the police abuse our rights.

Many of us do not receive protection from the police when we face violations of our rights by the surrounding community. One of SMUG's primary emphases in our workplan for this year is sensitising the police and creating a better working relationship with them.


By having the support, awareness, and protection of international Human Rights bodies, we will be much more effective in this endeavour. Through our work, we aim to help people realise the ways in which we are all connected, whether straight or LGBT, the societal rules governing what a woman has to be like and what a man has to be like hurt us all.

However, we still have many needs. We are an invisible population when it comes to protection. There is almost NO research to understand transgender people's lives in Africa.We have an undocumented history and are still invisible.

The secrecy and covert nature of our work in Africa also makes us invisible to the larger gender and human rights sector, and to each other. There is almost NO action in this area to protect people who do not fit into traditional gender categories. At the same time we are highly visible and therefore highly vulnerable to discrimination.

Transgender people have the potential to radically challenge discriminatory practices in a way that helps to free all people from sexism. People who cross gender boundaries make transformation of society more possible, and make gender transgressions more acceptable and enable societal gender transformation. We - the transgender community - have the right to tell our stories and have them heard, and to have our lives protected.

Mainstream Human Rights organizations, for the most part, are not accepting or protecting us on any level. As people from all over the world who are concerned about human rights and gender injustice, we need to work together to protect our most vulnerable Human Rights Defenders.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

1. Research and understand the complex self-identification of transgender people in Africa.

2. More effectively monitor human rights situations abuses and violations against Transgender People (such as systematic rape, intimidation, forced undressing, and economic exclusion).

3. Educate the UN bodies and its partners about transgender concerns.

4. Provide training, support, and protection to transgender Human Rights Defenders and allies.

5. Put pressure on local governments, donors, economic powers and human rights institutions toprovide protection for those who do not fit into traditional gender categories and to recognize the way in which transgender people add to the freedom of expression and quality of life of all people.

• This paper was presented at the World International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) PANEL AT 2ND UNCHR SESSION. Juliet Victor Mukasa is the Chairperson of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). Mukasa is also in the ILGA Board of Representatives