Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual violence, prison violence, anti-trans violence, rape apologism, and transphobia and misgendering.

Recently, a woman was allegedly raped orally by a prison guard at Riverside Correctional Facility. She reported the assault to authorities, and an investigation was begun. During that investigation, officials learned that she was not cis, as they had apparently been assuming, and promptly transferred her to a male prison (trigger warning on the link).

Jovanie Saldana, who has been named by prison authorities and the media despite being the victim of sexual assault, has now had her basic rights violated many times over. She was violated when a prison guard entered her cell and forced her to perform oral sex on him. She was violated when her brave decision to report this assault resulted in an investigation that placed her under scrutiny and revoked her right to privacy. She was violated when she was sent to a male prison, both denying her true gender and placing her at extreme risk of further physical and sexual violence. And she was violated when her name was released and spread without concern for her privacy or safety.

Clearly, trans prison inmates are not seen to be deserving of the same rights as their cis, non-inmate counterparts. That Saldana is a black woman also could not have helped these already abusive and oppressive figures to see her as more human. (Indeed, trans women of color are at much higher risk of violence than white trans women.) Saldana’s cousin strongly believes that the transfer to a men’s prison is retaliation for her rape allegations; the timing, media attention, and reaction of the prison guard’s union certainly make these charges credible.

If true, it means that the Pennsylvania prison system essentially punished an inmate for reporting rape by subjecting her to likely future rapes. (Fifty-nine percent of trans women are sexually assaulted while incarcerated, and the vast majority of trans women inmates are housed in men’s facilities.) Even if retaliation was not the primary motive behind the decision to move Saldana, the facts remain the same; a victim of prison rape has not been protected, but instead placed in a position where future prison rape is more likely than not.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, however, is far more concerned with Saldana’s gender presentation and genitals than with the allegation that she was raped by a prison guard who had control over every aspect of her daily life. They also are far more concerned about the prison’s apparently lax policy on cavity searches than the fact that a woman is now residing very unsafely in a men’s prison so shortly after reporting that assault. Indeed, they seem more concerned about the threat that Saldana allegedly presented to her fellow prisoners merely by existing:

A source close to the prison system, who asked not to be identified, complained that the slip-up “jeopardized a lot of women over there [at Riverside],” adding that Saldana tallied at least two infractions for fighting with other inmates during Saldana’s stint in the female jail. On average, Riverside houses about 730 inmates daily, Hawes said.

Of course, it’s not noted how many “infractions” most inmates at Riverside have or whether Saldana is the one who instigated the fights. It’s also not explained how, exactly, Saldana is more of a threat than any other inmate at the prison. We’re simply supposed to “understand” that trans women are “really men,” and therefore threatening to all cis women. The specter of sexual violence is also present, as trans women are routinely portrayed by everyone from Christian Conservatives to self-identified feminists as sexually predatory men in disguise.

Through this defamatory portrayal of Saldana, we are supposed to forget that the true sexually violent perpetrator was a cis man. In reality, it’s Saldana who was the victim of sexual violence, and the real threat to the safety of all women in the prison, both trans and cis, was the armed cis guard lording over them. Only in a kyriarchal society could the black trans woman who was raped and then placed in a position where she is very likely to be raped again be effectively transformed into the “real” sexual threat against more socially valued womanhood.

Indeed, the corrections officers’ union plans to exploit Saldana’s trans status to brand her as a liar, unrapeable, or some combination of both (warning for misgendering):

Lorenzo North, president of the union representing corrections officers, declined to discuss the officers’ failure to perform the required cavity searches.

“I don’t know how [Saldana] got through,” North said, adding that all inmates should be searched. “If you don’t strip-search somebody thoroughly, then you’re not 100 percent sure of getting whatever [contraband] that inmate has. He may have something up his butt.”

But North claimed the goof proved that the officer whom Saldana accused of sexual abuse is innocent.

The officer was transferred to another prison after Saldana’s recent complaint.

“I’m trying to get him back to RCF [Riverside] as soon as possible, because he didn’t do anything wrong,” North said.

How, exactly, Saldana being trans — and officers failing to do their jobs, for that matter — proves that she lied about being raped is not exactly clear. We are either to assume that trans women are “liars” by mere fact of living their lives as women (and that people who lie sometimes cannot tell the truth about being raped), or that trans women have no right to bodily autonomy to begin with and therefore cannot be sexually violated.

Either way, the purposeful dehumanization of Saldana and all inmates by proxy is terrifying, as is the stark inability to accept responsibility and hold guards to a standard of professionalism. North’s attitude as a prison guard authority inadvertently makes it incredibly easy to see how the original sexual assault occurred in the first place. Clearly it’s because those tasked with protecting prisoner safety do not give a shit, and excuses for violations will always be made.

This woman’s safety has been severely jeopardized. She needs protection and recovery services for the assault she endured, not an incredibly more dangerous set of surroundings and public outing. The prison system has behaved abysmally, showing a blatant disregard for inmate safety. Rape is not supposed to be a part of the punishment for any crime. And this rule isn’t only supposed to apply if you’re cis.

via Transgriot

Arizona legislators are working on a new anti-immigration bill that is essentially the hospital equivalent of their notorious SB 1070. The new bill, SB 1405, would require all hospitals within the state to verify the immigration status of all patients. If a patient cannot prove that sie is in the country legally, hospital staff would be required by law to contact immigration officials.

A new bill making its way through Arizona’s state legislature is drawing a lot of attention. It’s Senate Bill 1405. Some call it the hospital version of SB 1070.

Anyone who has spent a day at Maricopa County Medical Center knows people from all walks of life are wheeled through the halls.

But if a new piece of legislation passes, some of those patients will be wheeled from the emergency room to immigration officials.

If SB 1405 passes, hospitals would be required to check a patient’s citizenship status after administering any emergency medical care.

If the person isn’t in the United States legally, the law would require they be turned over to immigration officials.

Yes, this bill is real. It can be read in full on the Arizona State Legislature’s website, and view the official fact sheet.

Now, the bill itself does not actually require that hospitals refuse treatment to those who are undocumented or cannot prove immigration status. SB 1405 doesn’t go quite that far — at least, in this draft.

But do not be at all mistaken — if passed, an inability to access medical care will be precisely what occurs all the same.

Already, some immigrants, terrified and terrorized by the very real raids and surveillances that are a daily threat to their communities, falsely believe that hospitals are required to check immigration status. As a result, they avoid medical treatment, even when it is dire. People have become very ill, risked their lives, been left with lifelong conditions that would have been treatable earlier, and undoubtedly died. Because there is a war to protect U.S. borders, and undocumented bodies have inevitably been declared its enemy.

If this bill is passed — and with the passage of SB 1070, it is most certainly more than a remote possibility — that situation will be multiplied many times over. People will forced to choose between the dangerousness of refusing medical care and hoping they survive and the dangerousness of interacting with institutions have declared their existence, their very selves to be “illegal.” As now with those who can’t afford care in the U.S. for-profit medical system, serious conditions will be nervously brushed off. Rape victims, victims of intimate partner violence, and women and trans* people who are having pregnancy complications will go without treatment. There will be no such thing as safety. Violence will become even more inescapable than it is now. And people will die.

People will die.

They will die, and this fact — this is not speculation, it is a simple cause and effect analysis, it is a fact — is neither a secret nor a mystery. And clearly, that’s at least part of the point. As KPHO Phoenix reports:

Those in favor of the bill said hospitals shouldn’t be treating people in the country illegally.

They don’t quote a proponent of the bill in support of this statement, but such people are not exactly difficult to find. They are everywhere, asking why should “they” (undocumented immigrants) get to use “our” (U.S.) schools, anyway? Clearly, children whose parents don’t have the right papers do not deserve an education, they do not need to read or add or write. They are seen asking why “they” should be allowed to use “our” police forces. Clearly, some of us deserve access to the institutions generally regarded as the primary means to keep communities safe, some of us deserve to report crimes against us, to not be assaulted and raped, and some of us do not. And they are indeed seen asking why “they” should be allowed to use “our” hospitals — there is a health care crisis already, so how dare they use up resources?

Clearly, some of us deserve to live and some of us deserve to die. Because that is what the ability to access health care comes down to. And those supporting this bill know it.

And then there is this:

Senate President Russell Pearce, a Mesa Republican who was chief sponsor of last year’s immigration law, says the hospitals bill is part of a broader effort to crack down on illegal immigration. The hospitals bill wouldn’t bar people from getting care, but it would put the onus on hospitals to “do due diligence,” Pearce said. “We’re going to enforce our laws without apology.”

Added Pearce: “It’s the law. It’s a felony to (aid and) abet. We’re going to enforce the law without apology.”

This is what happens when we declare people “illegal,” when we start calling them by that slur publicly and officially. If they are illegal, their very lives are illegal. To protect the health and safety of those declared illegal, to afford them the very most basic human rights, to treat them as human beings, becomes a crime.

As ms. radically hott off writes:

How much more savage and vindictive can we be? what other mami will have to choose between the health of her children and a place to live/work? Do you know what that feels like? To see your sick child and know—I’m going to have to take her in? To *dread* getting help for your child? I feel like that all the time because of money—I can’t even imagine the added burden of knowing that you will lose everything because your child has a right to live and be healthy.

Those proposing and supporting this bill don’t even recognize that this right to live and be healthy exists for certain bodies, including those which belong to children. They certainly don’t mind putting it in extraordinary jeopardy.

The bill was originally scheduled to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, but was yanked at the last moment due to a lack of votes. The sponsors, however, have stated that they are considering other committees. We have most certainly not seen the last of SB 1405, and with numerous other states considering legislation similar to SB 1070, we are witnessing the mere beginning of a white supremacist resurgence in the U.S. In the general public consciousness, the bars for what constitutes either “extreme” or “racist” have both been raised. Progressives can only ignore efforts like these and assume they will just go away at the risk of people losing not only their homes and incomes and right to be near their families, but also their lives.

Last week, a woman was sent to jail for ten days, placed on two years probation, and ordered to complete 80 hours of community service for a felony conviction. Her crime was fudging documents so that she could send her two daughters to the “wrong” school district, in the richer Akron, Ohio suburb where her father lived. She was led away in handcuffs.

On Saturday, a jury found Williams-Bolar guilty on two counts of tampering with records. She was also facing one count of grand theft, but the judge declared a mistrial on that charge after the jury couldn’t reach a verdict.

Williams-Bolar could have been sent to a state prison for up to 10 years, but Judge Cosgrove decided on a 10-day sentence in the Summit County Jail after weighing Williams-Bolar’s lack of criminal record with the seriousness of her crimes.

“I felt that some punishment or deterrent was needed for other individuals who might think to defraud the various school systems,” Cosgrove told NewsChannel5 after the sentencing.

Prosecutors said Williams-Bolar lived in Akron, but falsified enrollment papers in the Copley-Fairlawn School District so her two girls could attend schools for two years.

Prosecutors said the lies cost the district about $30,000. Copley-Fairlawn does not have open enrollment and out-of-district tuition is about $800 per month.

The school district spent about $6,000 to bring the case to trial. That included hiring a private investigator who followed Williams-Bolar and her children around while secretly videotaping their movements.

Superintendent Brain Poe said Copley-Fairlawn has lost hundreds of thousand of dollars because of parents illegally enrolling their children into the schools.

Poe said residency disputes are usually resolved after parents prove that they live in the district, pay tuition or remove their kids from the schools.

This marked the first time that one of their residency challenges went before a jury in criminal court. Poe said prosecuting this case was meant to send a message.

“If you’re paying taxes on a home here… those dollars need to stay home with our students,” Poe said.

One cannot honesty discuss this case without discussing the fact that Williams-Bolar is a black woman, raising black children in a city that has a large non-white population, living in a home secured through the local Housing Authority, while Copely is a very comfortably middle-class and overwhelmingly white town. Williams-Bolar is a mother who has been jailed for sending her kids to the “wrong” school district. But she’s also a black mother who has been jailed for sending her kids to a white school district.

Still, some will inevitably argue that this is not an issue of race or even class. It’s an issue of rules, of order. Someone broke the rules, and now they have to pay.

I would like to remind them firstly that who pays and how is always political.  But just as importantly, it is not arbitrary where we place borders, how we enforce borders, and who we punish for crossing them. Borders, especially modern ones, are chosen. They are artificial. We like to tell ourselves that we create borders out of necessity, to more efficiently manage communities and resources. But we also create those borders specifically to keep other people out, to control resources in a way that prevents certain populations from accessing them. There is no accident in how borders are drawn and who is being kept out and removed from resources, not along lines of race, and not along lines of class — especially not in a country were so many borders were explicitly drawn with racist intent, during times of colonization, during times of slavery, during times of Jim Crow and less “official” forms of segregation, or even during modern times of “legals” and “illegals.” It’s a little too easy to write off as coincidence that the “wrong” school district was white in a country that has a very long and modern history, both official and unofficial, of keeping all non-white but especially black students out of white schools.

As Superintendent Poe explicitly states up above, this is about “our” tax dollars, and keeping them where they belong. And anytime we start talking about “us” and “them,” we need to look at what we mean by those words, because it rarely reflects well on our intentions and prejudices. William-Bolar crossed a border that was designed to keep her out. She “stole” resources that were apparently not her or her children’s to have. (Indeed, she was also charged with grand theft, which resulted in a hung jury.)

I think it’s about time we think about what we mean by “racism” if a black mother landing in jail because she sent her kids to a better school that would not have them doesn’t count, if calling it “stealing” when she gives them access to resources these white parents get to take for granted doesn’t qualify. If we don’t understand the racism of the much higher likelihood that a black mother will have to send her child to a sub-par school that will not teach them all they need to know than a white mother, if we don’t understand the racism of punishing her for fighting back against that inherently unequal, oppressive, white supremacist system, we don’t understand the first thing about racism at all.

In fact, (though I object to his metaphorical use of the word “cripple”) I can’t say it any better than Dr. Boyce Watkins did in his blog post:

This case is a textbook example of everything that remains racially wrong with America’s educational, economic and criminal justice systems. Let’s start from the top: Had Ms. Williams-Bolar been white, she likely would never have been prosecuted for this crime in the first place (I’d love for them to show me a white woman in that area who’s gone to jail for the same crime). She also is statistically not as likely to be living in a housing project with the need to break an unjust law in order to create a better life for her daughters. Being black is also correlated with the fact that Williams-Bolar likely didn’t have the resources to hire the kinds of attorneys who could get her out of this mess (since the average black family’s wealth is roughly 1/10 that of white families). Finally, economic inequality is impactful here because that’s the reason that Williams-Bolar’s school district likely has fewer resources than the school she chose for her kids. In other words, black people have been historically robbed of our economic opportunities, leading to a two-tiered reality that we are then imprisoned for attempting to alleviate. That, my friends, is American Racism 101.

This case is a textbook example of how racial-inequality created during slavery and Jim Crow continues to cripple our nation to this day. There is no logical reason on earth why this mother of two should be dehumanized by going to jail and be left permanently marginalized from future economic and educational opportunities. Even if you believe in the laws that keep poor kids trapped in underperforming schools, the idea that this woman should be sent to jail for demanding educational access is simply ridiculous.

You should read everything he has to say on the subject.

In the end, William-Bolar’s real punishment is not the indignity and injustice of her 10 days in jail. It is the felony record that will follow her for many years to come. It will inevitably keep her from obtaining employment, from creating an economically better life for her daughters. Specifically, it will keep her from getting the teaching license she has been studying for at college — money, time, and effort all sent down the drain. A dream and opportunity taken from her because she had dreams for her daughters, wanted opportunities for them, and did the best she could in an oppressive system to see to it that they got them.

Maybe we should talk about that when we want to talk about theft, what was stolen, and from whom.

via sheresists

UPDATE: Information on how to help Kelley Williams-Bolar with her legal fees can be found here.

Berkeley, California has recently been considering beginning to provide some benefits to its trans employees for sex reassignment/affirmation surgery. It’s unclear precisely which procedures would be covered under such a plan, since all news reports merely use the outdated and offensive term “sex change” to describe what is being considered.¹ A vote on the very modest proposal has just been delayed:

The Berkeley City Council has postponed a vote on a proposal to use taxpayer money to pay for sex-change operations for city employees.

Council members on Tuesday decided to delay a final decision on the issue until Feb. 15.

The proposal calls for the city to maintain an annual $20,000 fund for gender-reassignment surgery, which can cost up to $50,000. The money would be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Berkeley health insurance providers Kaiser Permanente and Health Net don’t pay for the procedure under the city’s current health plans.

To be eligible for the fund, employees would have to have lived as the opposite sex for at least one year and undergone hormone therapy. They also would have to have worked for the city at least a year.

The San Francisco Gate notes that several of the city’s 1,500 employees have apparently inquired about such benefits.

So basically, even if this proposal were passed, trans people would have to race each other to claim the woefully incomplete benefits, the inadequacy of which any cis person who is supposed to be receiving health care through their job would rightly throw a temper tantrum over. Trans folks, on the other hand, not only have to fight tooth and nail for these minimal benefits and defend themselves against national furor and smear campaigns that seek to define their health care needs as frivolous, deviant, and unnecessary, but also stand neatly in line so that one person a year might succeed at obtaining them.

Particularly as a cis woman with mountains of privilege in this debate, I’m not arguing that that the benefits would not be very real for those very few who might be lucky enough to access them. My point is simply that more is deserved. And as a general rule, if we were talking about cis folks, more would be expected. But because it’s trans rights up for debate, those same cis people are looking at the proposal as “special rights.”

One also has to wonder precisely how many cis employees must first satisfy their employer’s medical, not occupational, requirements in order to access specific kinds of care. Surely, health insurance carriers have restrictions on what they will and will not cover, and when they will and will not cover it. But one’s employer rarely designs those restrictions themselves, and rarely leaves it up to themselves to decide which medical criteria must be met. The idea that trans employees seeking such benefits must “have lived as the opposite sex for at least one year and undergone hormone therapy” is all kinds of absurd and cissexist. (For a start, how can one’s real gender be “opposite,” and how can a gender be “opposite” when there are more than two genders?) As though trans folks don’t suffer enough cis gate-keeping regarding whether or not they’re “really” trans. As though they are likely to find any cis gate-keepers who would provide such surgery to them without these restrictions being met already.

The possibility of these crumbs being thrown trans people’s way has nevertheless ignited outrage, even in Berkeley, with its reputation of being as liberal as anywhere in the U.S. gets. We’ve got biased fear-mongering headlines like “Berkeley taxpayers may pay for sex-change surgery,” Fox News surprising no one with its sensational coverage, and others filing a story about basic health care access for trans folks under “strange news.”

The general spin is an old one: SRS is “weird,” it’s unnecessary, it’s wasteful, and it’s going to result in countless cases of fraud and abuse. There’s a reason, after all, why transition-related benefits are left out of most insurance, and why the right to these benefits was not guaranteed in the latest U.S. health reform. It’s not about actual cost. It’s about what the public believes is “deserved” and “legitimate,” and who they’ll tolerate being left out in the cold. Sadly, a vast majority of the population is cis, and couldn’t care less about trans health, the very real health reasons why many trans people need medical transition care, or what happens when that need is not met.

So we’re seeing Berkeley delay its vote pending “further research.” Because clearly, research is required to determine whether or not trans people should be afforded rights slightly more equal to their cis peers.

I’m so sick of debating whether all people deserve access to health care, or just the ones who meet some arbitrary standard of social approval. Until we view health care as a fundamental human right, there’s always going to be someone who is undeserving of it — whether it be because they’re poor, or sex workers, or disabled, or trans, or in need of care related to their reproductive organ that offends somebody’s sensibilities. Until health care is a fundamental human right, there will always be someone whose life is not worth as much as “our” tax dollars.

At the same time, it’s important to remember that even framing health care as a fundamental human right still wouldn’t fully solve the problem. “Human rights” rarely end up applying to those who society still sees as less than human, and even “universal health care” rarely works out well for trans people. So health care as right or not, until trans folks are properly understood to be just as human and deserving as cis folks, the equation of “our” (super special cis-only) tax dollars being worth more than trans lives is unlikely to change.

Trigger Warning for transphobic violence and police violence

At the beginning of December, an altercation between a trans woman and an off-duty police officer resulted in the woman being charged with assault (h/t). The problem is that this charge is in spite of the fact that she alleges the officer assaulted her — and that two witnesses corroborate her story. The Washington Blade originally reported:

D.C. police last week arrested a transgender woman for spraying a chemical repellent into the face of a man who she says called her names and assaulted her before identifying himself as an off-duty District police officer.

Chloe [redacted] Moore, 25, was charged with simple assault following a 2 a.m. incident on Dec. 1 along the 1500 block of K St., N.W. According to court records, Officer Raphael Radon alleges that Moore squirted him with pepper spray in an unprovoked action following a brief exchange of words.

But two police sources said a sergeant and detective who responded to the scene determined through interviews with witnesses that Officer Radon initiated the altercation and may have committed a bias-related assault against Moore.

The police sources, who spoke on condition that they were not identified, said a night supervisor apprised of the incident by phone while at her office at the First District D.C. Police station overrode the recommendations of the sergeant and detective and ordered that Moore be charged with simple assault.

Officer Radon was not charged in the incident.

According to the Washington Blade report (full details can be read at the link), Moore claims that she asked off-duty Officer Radon for a light for her cigarette, when he began shouting transphobic insults and slurs. She claims that he pushed her, and fearful for her safety, she pepper sprayed him and ran. Moore alleges that Radon chased her for two blocks before grabbing her by the back of the neck, throwing her to the ground, and only then identifying himself as a police officer.

For his part, Radon claims that Moore and her friend approached him and offered him sexual services for money. He claims that when he turned them down, Moore pepper sprayed him in the face, and then ran after Radon identified himself as a police officer.

Between “cis man randomly assaults trans woman” and “sex worker randomly assaults man for turning her down,” I personally know which story intuitively makes most sense and seems more likely to me. But my personal inclinations don’t count for much. The recommendation of the responding officers, however, probably should. And so should witness statements, which corroborate Moore’s version of events:

But the report says two other witnesses backed up Moore’s version of what happened. One of the two apparently is the transgender woman who was with Moore. The report, which does not identify any of the witnesses by name, suggests that Witness 3 may have been standing nearby and was not with any of the others involved in the incident.

“Witness 3 recounted the same story as D1 [Defendant 1—Moore],” the police report says.

Local attorney Dale Edwin Saunders, who practices criminal law in the District, described as “highly unusual” the decision by police and the United States Attorney’s office to charge Moore in the case.

“This person would have never been arrested or papered if the complaining witness had been a civilian,” Saunders said. “The defendant had two witnesses corroborating her version of the events.”

One also has to wonder whether she would have been arrested if she had been cis.

Officer Radon’s version of events just so happens to follow a convenient popular narrative regarding trans women as both violent (and therefore “manly”) and sex workers. The latter allegation, particularly, is one which a set of dangerous, (trans-)misogynistic cultural biases regularly allow to work against trans women. As both sex workers and trans women are portrayed as deviant and hypersexual as compared to all other people, trans women are regularly represented as sex workers even when they are not. Because sex workers are so devalued and scorned by dominant society, accusing a person of being a sex worker becomes not only an insult (oppressing both the target and sex workers in general), but a process of dehumanization. When sex workers are seen as generally undeserving of basic safety, and trans women are viewed similarly, accusing trans women of being sex workers is an easy way to reinforce the notion that they deserve violence, belong in police custody, and are unworthy of the same basic respect and rights as other citizens.

Ms. Moore’s story, on the other hand, follows a very real pattern of behavior that is generally ignored by dominant society, in which cis men feel their gender identities and sexualities are challenged by the mere presence of a trans woman, and lash out violently against her in rage and abject hatred. Trans women are a particularly “easy” target of violence anyway, since their rights and humanity are so widely disrespected. As a result, everyone ignores the highly tenuous sense of safety that trans women live with every day, and it is officially assumed that she is the one who must have done something wrong — often, by merely existing.

But as Sylvia Renee points out at The New Gay (Trigger Warning for graphic descriptions of rape against a trans woman in a men’s prison), most people are likely to believe Officer Radon’s version of events not only because they generally fail to recognize or simply do not care about the violence that trans* folks face, but also because Officer Radon is a police officer. And police officers? Well, they’re the good guys, right? They don’t behave violently. They must be telling the truth.

A week ago, the D.C. Transgender Coalition released a statement with regards to this case. They state, in part:

“What’s especially disturbing about this case is that it features several flagrant violations of MPD’s general order on dealing with trans people,” said Alison Gill, a DCTC attorney.  “Medical attention was apparently not provided promptly, and the use of degrading, transphobic language is expressly forbidden,” Gill continued.  Since June, DCTC has been working with several LGBT community organizations to train officers affiliated with MPD’s special liaison units in cultural competency and relevant MPD policies.  So far, roughly 70 officers have been trained in this program.  “What this incident shows us is that training self-selected volunteers is only a small step toward ensuring that MPD officers fully comply with DC’s human rights law.  We want to see a swift rejection of this kind of behavior from the highest levels within MPD, along with a real plan for making sure that every law enforcement officer knows and follows the law, including mandatory training for the entire force,” Gill said.

DCTC highlights a particularly disturbing part of this story that might have otherwise gone ignored: even though the responding officers apparently ultimately believed Moore’s version of events, only to be overridden by a supervisor over phone, they allegedly did not see fit to provide Moore with requested medical attention. Of course, whether they believed her version of events or not should be irrelevant to this issue — all people deserve medical care, no matter what they’ve done. But the point is that apparently even when a trans woman is seen as legitimately the victim of a crime, she is still not seen as fully human. Not fully human enough to have the injuries she incurred as a result of her victimization treated.

These allegations are despicable, but they are unsurprising. They are a part of a pattern — not only in D.C., but virtually anywhere that trans* people interact with law enforcement, or are the victims of crimes. They’re part of a pattern in which law enforcement generally treats marginalized victims as criminals. Only certain members of society are seen as entitled to safety. They’re the same members we view as entitled to commit violence against everyone else.

UPDATE: Title changed to add “cis” after critique of ciscentrism by Helen G

UPDATE 2: Change.org is running a petition demanding that D.C. police address anti-trans bias within their department. Click through to sign.

So there’s a fascinating new study out about how women perceive their weight, with the results being that a significant proportion of women who were deemed “overweight” by the BMI did not view themselves as such. Cue the body-shaming, junk reporting, and photographs of fat¹ people with their heads cut off.

In the most neutral reporting of the new research, Web MD states:

Nearly one in four women who is overweight perceives her weight as normal, according to a new study.

The study also shows 16% of the normal-weight women studied had weight misperceptions, considering themselves overweight, says researcher Mahbubur Rahman, PhD, MBBS, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a senior fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston. [...]

“The fact that people misperceive their body weight was already known,” says Rahman, so the new research echoes some previous information. But in his study, he also wanted to see if the body weight misperceptions influenced health behavior.

Rahman obtained height and weight information from the medical charts of 2,224 women, ages 18 to 25.

The women answered questions about healthy weight-related practices in the 30 days prior — including eating less, eating differently, or exercising. They also answered questions about unhealthy behaviors, such as the use of diet pills, use of diuretics, vomiting, laxative use for weight control, cigarette smoking, or skipping meals.

For the study, Rahman used the standard definitions for normal, overweight, and obese, with BMIs below 25 termed normal, those 25-29 overweight, and 30 and higher obese.

The women also answered questions about education, ethnicity, marital status, household income, employment, and Internet use.

The women were divided into four categories:

• Overweight women who thought they were normal or underweight
• Overweight women who knew they were overweight
• Normal-weight women who thought they were overweight
• Normal-weight women who thought they were normal or underweight

Interestingly, they didn’t have a category for “Women who knew their bodies were fine just the way they were and thought we should go fuck ourselves.”

Less sarcastically, I think it’s incredibly damaging to have a universal weight category defined as “normal” when for a whole lot of “overweight” people, being “overweight” is normal. The same goes for those who are described as “underweight” (notably a group that was seemingly not studied here). “Normal” is relative. Trying to define and impose your definition of normal on other people — whether it be in relation to gender, sexuality, physical ability, neurological workings, weight, or some other category entirely, is alienating, damaging, and oppressive. There’s no way that defining people in opposition to “normal” and telling them that they must become normal for their own good is not harmful.

But, of course, this is the very basis of the entire BMI — to build a neat little box, tell everyone that they need to fit into it, and then shame and admonish those who don’t, usually through the even more abusive practice of telling them that it’s in their best interest. And that’s also precisely what this study is about. This research was explicitly done to see how self-perception affects behavior. When the results came in, the question became how to better inform those poor fat people that they’re fat. As if fat people don’t generally get enough of that.

Mistaken notions of one’s weight status can have implications for behavior, and perhaps health, the researchers noted. For example, women who were overweight but thought they were normal size were less likely to try to lose any excess weight by dieting or other means. On the other hand, women who saw themselves as fatter than they were, were more likely to use diet pills or diuretics, to induce vomiting or to smoke cigarettes, often as ways to control or lessen their weight.

“Unfortunately, women can’t do anything to lose weight if they don’t perceive themselves as overweight. It does start there,” said Keri Gans, a registered dietician based in New York City and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “If they don’t perceive themselves as overweight, they’re not going to adopt healthy behaviors to lose weight and prevent disease. Meanwhile, the normal-weight people who don’t recognize they’re at normal weight are engaging in behaviors that put them at risk for illness.”

Here’s the thing: in a society where fat is almost universally vilified, a woman proclaiming that she does not view herself as overweight may indeed be doing nothing more than making a statement of self-confidence. On the one hand, I find this really sad — one should not find fat and bodily pride to be mutually exclusive, and “overweight” should not be synonymous with “bad” or “unattractive.” At the same time, I’m also unwilling to outright reject women’s expressions of satisfaction with their bodies, wherever I can find them. Such expressions are much too rare for us to have the luxury to pick and choose which ones we celebrate, even if we should critique some means of celebration.

Further, the fact is that some of these women who don’t “realize” they’re fat might not be fat at all. Fat is socially a pretty subjective concept to begin with, but it’s not as scientifically concrete as we might think, either. The BMI has all kinds of problems and lots of people are amazed to see how simultaneously rigid and inconsistent its standards are, yet the metric is used in this study. Indeed, the study authors and most of the articles make a big deal out of the fact that Black and Latina women were a lot more likely than white women to say they were not overweight in spite of falling into the BMI’s “overweight” category. These women are treated like they are sadly and pathetically ignorant, without it ever being considered that they might be right. What do women of color know about their own damn bodies in the face of white-biased scientific institutions? Clearly nothing, so it’s best to just forget the fact that there have been critiques of the BMI system as racist for years, and the studies showing that these claims very well might have a lot of merit.

And lastly, as someone who was once blissfully unaware that she was fat and that her body was therefore socially perceived as gross and unacceptable, I say that whether someone already “knows” they’re fat or not, there’s absolutely no good reason besides shaming to tell them. As I once wrote elsewhere about my experience of being lectured on my weight for the first time by my doctor during a yearly physical:

“You’ve put on weight,” she said. “You’re getting kind of big. Here’s a BMI chart. See, you’re here, just hovering on the overweight category. You know that if you keep putting on weight, the other kids are going to start making fun of you.”

I remember sitting up on the table in my hospital gown and looking at the floor, unable to look anywhere else. I remember thinking that if the kids did make fun of me, it couldn’t possible be any worse than this. I remember feeling ashamed. Not just because I’d just been told that I was too fat. But because I hadn’t even noticed. I didn’t even realize. I was fat? And I was just going to keep getting fatter? How could I not have known?

Now, I think the much better question is what would have possessed anyone to look at my 10-year-old self and decide to tell me.

I concluded, “I don’t think I’ve been unaware of my body and its size, my fat and its shape, how big I am and what other people are going to think of it, ever since.”

Now, I don’t claim my experience is universal among those who are fat yet still possess enough thin privilege to not be told about it on a daily basis. It’s just mine. Personally, I’d prefer to live in a world where being told that you’re fat is not an awful thing, because fat is not an awful thing. I’d greatly prefer to live in a world where fat just is. But since we don’t currently live there, I say for the love of god — let those who have gone relatively un-shamed stay that way. Chances are that even most fat women who don’t view themselves as “overweight” still have tons of body issues, anyway.

Of course, lots and lots of people — they’re not difficult to find — would argue that it’s important for fat people to know they’re fat, because fat is so unhealthy. The problem is that, well, not really. And even if fat were universally unhealthy, dieting is, too. Not to mention, it doesn’t work.

Further, while scientists might ostensibly care most about health, most social fat-shamers use “but I’m just concerned for your health!” as a cover up for their moralizing and attempted enforcement of their own aesthetic preferences. And though scientists are supposed to care most about health, the fact that there are a whole lot more quotes from the researchers about the failure of fat people to diet — again, even though diets don’t work — than the fact that many thin people are engaging in really unhealthy activities in order to be thinner is pretty telling.

The findings have serious consequences for obesity prevention, the researchers said, as many women do not recognise they are overweight and so will not join programmes.[...]

Lead author Prof Abbey Berenson, said: “Weight misperception is a threat to the success of obesity prevention programs.

“Overweight individuals who do not recognise that they are overweight are far less likely to eat healthfully and exercise.

“These patients are at risk for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and other serious problems.

“This is especially important for reproductive-age women because they are more likely to be obese than similarly aged men, often because they’ve had at least one child and have not lost pregnancy weight and find that their schedules make it difficult to exercise and eat healthfully.”

Of course, no one is also talking about the fact that lots of fat people are also engaging in dangerous practices like smoking, taking laxatives, or throwing up to try to be thin. Because, I mean, who cares — they’re still fat. And no one is talking about thin people who eat foods high in fat and don’t exercise, because who cares — they’re thin.

The point is, this clearly isn’t about health, or we’d be talking about unhealthy habits across the board. And if we want to talk about the unhealthy habits of those thin people who are trying to be even thinner, the problem isn’t that they don’t know just how thin they are. The problem is that thanks to this fatphobic culture we’re living in, they’re so terrified of being fat that they’d rather put their health at risk than be perceived as “unhealthy” and unattractive.

Which is to say that I’m extremely concerned about women’s health, probably a lot more so than most people. I just think that studies like this, and the kind of rhetoric and behaviors they inspire are making women’s health a whole hell of a lot worse.

Trigger Warning for discussions of suicide, sexual violence, rape apologism, victim-blaming, and bullying.

Near Detroit, rape charges have been dropped against 18-year-old Joseph Tarnopolski, following the suicide of his 14-year-old alleged victim Samantha Kelly.

A 34th District Court judge dismissed a rape case against an 18-year-old man who was charged with having sex with a 14-year-old girl who killed herself Monday.

Judge Brian Oakley dismissed the case following a brief argument after the hearing that the prosecutor’s office did not have sufficient evidence to proceed.

“Under the law we did not have sufficient evidence to prove that a crime had occurred without the testimony of the victim. As a result, we had to move to dismiss the case. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim’s family at this difficult time,” the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

Samantha Kelly killed herself Monday after family members said students at Huron High School harassed her after learning of the charges against Joseph Tarnopolski, also a student at Huron High.

While the decision to drop prosecution efforts adds another layer of tragedy to one that is already of unbearable proportions, my scorn here is not actually directed at the prosecutors. Most rape cases rely heavily on victim testimony. And unfortunately, they no longer have it. If it were to emerge that the prosecution has access to significant other evidence that a rape occurred and are still declining to prosecute, I’d revise my opinion. But with what we know now, it’s unlikely that they are to blame.

My scorn is reserved for rapists, and just as much for those who support rapists with apologism, victim-blaming, and harassment. My scorn is reserved for those who not only fail to protect and support victims of assault, but who actively bully them. My scorn is reserved for those who decided that Samantha Kelly was a liar, chose to shout that belief from the rooftops, and actively opted to make her life a living hell.

The case itself is a particularly complicated one. The charges themselves were for statutory rape, and originally both Kelly and Tarnopolski said that the decision to “have sex” was “mutual.” Later, however, Kelly publicly recanted her earlier statements and claimed that Tarnopolski had coerced her, and that she did not consent. Kelly is dead now, and so it’s impossible to do more than speculate about why she first told one story and then changed it to another, or to know which version of the events was true. What’s relevant is that before she made her second set of allegations, the harassment was “limited” to Tarnopoloski — who fanned the flames on Twitter with statements like “All girls are, are liars and backstabbers! I hate you all. Way to ruin my life. Seriously, now this will be on my record for life!” — and his friends. After she made the second set of allegations — on local television — it was widespread among the entire school.

It seems that for once, school officials actually tried to support the accuser and discipline the bullies. But they were unable to halt the violence and harassment:

Factions soon developed. The day of his arraignment, a number of students at school wore shirts supporting him and others wrote “Joe’s Innocent” on their hands until school officials intervened.

Two kids were suspended for 10 days, Huron School District Superintendent Richard Naughton said.

Another student was disciplined for hitting Samantha with a clump of mud he pulled off his shoe.

Samantha tried to commit suicide Oct. 25 by taking pills, her mother said. She underwent treatment, and did not return to school until Monday.

The principal said he met with Samantha’s mom several times, including Monday morning. Justice talked about changing her daughter’s school, but Samantha said she wanted to stay, Rowe said.

Samantha was given a principal’s pass, which allowed her to get out of class with no questions asked if anything happened, and she was asked to report concerns about behavior to the school, Rowe said. She reported two incidents, which the school investigated, and one student was suspended.

I don’t know whether or not the school could have done more after the violence and verbal bullying started, but I do know that all of us need to a do a lot more before it starts. Few of us, adult and adolescent alike, know how to deal with rape allegation in our communities. Few of us know how to adequately support alleged victims. Few of us know just how few rape allegations are false, and that the narrative that women regularly lie about rape to get themselves out of trouble is a myth. Few of us know the reasons why a rape victim might actually lie to protect hir rapist, why sie might recant an allegation after it has been made, or why sie might originally claim that a rape was a consensual experience. Few of us understand the impact that sexual violence has on one’s mental and emotional health, and just how much rape apologism and victim-blaming tend to exacerbate it.

It is my experience both from my personal life and from talking with countless other rape survivors that the most important thing to a person who has been raped is simply to be believed. But far too rape victims currently get that. Samantha Kelly certainly didn’t get that. She got the exact opposite.

I can’t say if that’s what made Kelly decide to take her own life. None of us can say what did. But I do feel absolutely confident that whatever her reasons, the lack of support and the active bullying did not help. And it is long past time that we start preparing everyone for these kinds of situations before they occur. It is long past time that we publicly educate about how to respond to rape accusers, and the importance of treating them with dignity. It is long past time that we learn to combat bullying, and create strategies for denouncing it on a community, peer-to-peer level. It’s long past time that we make sure our communities don’t let misogyny have this kind of all-encompassing power over women’s lives.

Compounding this tragedy yet again, Samantha Kelly’s family does not have the money to pay for her funeral. Donations to defray costs for her family can be made to Michigan Memorial Funeral Home, 30895 W. Huron River Drive, Flat Rock, MI 48134. Please consider giving if you can.

h/t Sally Mercedes

Last year, a woman named Maria Bolanos called the police during a domestic dispute with her partner, hoping that they would protect her. Now, as a result of that phone call and the subsequent interaction with police, because she is an immigrant who is undocumented, it is probable that she will be deported soon.

Last Christmas Eve, Maria Bolanos made a decision she would later regret: During a fight with her partner, she called the Prince George’s County police and sought their protection.

The call for help had disastrous consequences for Bolanos, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant from El Salvador. Within months, she found herself ensnared in an increasingly controversial immigration enforcement program designed to deport undocumented criminals.

Bolanos now faces deportation and possible separation from her 21-month-old daughter, who was born here and is a U.S. citizen.

Her case illustrates what immigrant-rights advocates and some local officials consider the shortcomings of Secure Communities, the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement efforts and a program that has helped generate a record number of deportations.

Secure Communities, which already operates in the District, Maryland, Virginia and will soon be running nationwide, relies on the fingerprints collected by local authorities when a person is charged with anything from a traffic violation to murder.

In Bolanos’s case, the officer who responded to the domestic dispute at her apartment in Hyattsville later charged her with illegally selling a $10 phone card to a neighbor – an allegation she denies. The charge was eventually dropped, but by then Bolanos had been been fingerprinted and found by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be in the country illegally.

She has been told she probably will be deported after a Wednesday hearing before an immigration judge in Baltimore.

First of all, fuck the police officer who charged Bolanos. A woman being abused calls for help from the authorities, expects them to protect her, and is instead charged with illegally selling a $10 phone card. A $10 phone card. Fuck that. It is the height of irresponsibility, misogyny, racism, pick an -ism. It’s so repulsive it makes the bile rise up in my throat.

Fuck that officer, and fuck the Obama administration with its “Secure Communities” plan. “Secure Communities” apparently means broken communities, separated communities, communities missing parents and other family members, communities living in fear, communities in which women can be beaten with impunity because if they call the cops to help them, no matter how fearful for their lives they just may be, they will be severely penalized. This is what “Secure Communities” means? Fuck that.

No, I’m not sorry for either the language or the sentiments. I’m fucking pissed.

With a record number of immigrants deported in the past year — only half of whom, I should note, have criminal records, with even the overwhelming majority of those being drug convictions — immigrants are worse off under Obama than they were under Bush.

Let me repeat that, today, on election day: Immigrants are worse off under Obama than they were under Bush. On election day, when the Obama administration is touting the improvements they’ve made to the U.S.in effort to get us out there to support their fellow Democrats, “reminding” us how much worse life was under Republicans, how much worse it could be again.

To be clear, I’m not telling anyone not to vote. I’m headed out myself later on this afternoon. And the day I actually vote Republican is the day that hell freezes over. I’m simply pointing out some facts about the lies we’re being told. I think we should all know the truth, and stop taking those lies at face value.

Because immigrants are less safe and more vulnerable to being removed from their homes under Obama than they were under Bush. And the Obama administration has the gall, the audacity, the outright conceit and smugness, to brag about it.

Even for someone who labels himself progressive, people’s very lives have become a political bargaining chip.

And anyone with a single progressive bone in their entire body should be outraged at that truth. At the truth that people’s lives do not matter unless they have a certain slip of paper. That certain people just don’t deserve protection, don’t deserve to live peacefully and unmolested. That certain people just aren’t really people anymore, anyway.

We are talking about people. Real, living, breathing people with hopes and dreams and families and inner lives. I think it’s time to center that. The fact that while the Obama administration and bureaucracy has forgotten, Maria Bolanos is a person.

Maria Bolanos works two jobs to pay her bills. She does janitorial work at an apartment complex Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and pulls a 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift at a restaurant Thursday through Sunday.

“Dora the Explorer” plays endlessly on the TV in her second-floor apartment, in deference to the wishes of her daughter, Melisa Arellano-Bolanos.

Framed pictures of the the Last Supper and of Jesus and Mary hang above the dining table. A photo of Bolanos’s partner, Fernando Arellano, hugging Melisa is tucked into one corner of one of the frames.

Bolanos said she came to the United States in 2004 in search of a better life. She paid $7,000 to coyotes to help her cross the border via the Arizona desert.

The first time her party was caught, she said. She was released in the desert across the Arizona border from Mexico after being fingerprinted and photographed by authorities–and almost immediately crossed the border again.

She found her way to the Washington area and met Arellano at a restaurant where she worked. Arellano, now 34, was also undocumented and from Mexico. They fell in love and moved in together. Melisa was born in January 2008 at Washington Hospital Center.

She’s a person. A person who, because her partner allegedly assaulted her, because she allegedly sold some fucking phone cards, was shackled and detained. Shackled and detained, despite her pleas to be released on account that she was breastfeeding, until a doctor found her breasts engorged with milk.

She’s a person who would have no legal recourse if she was assaulted again. A person who has been let hung out to dry, saying, “You would have to be crazy to call the police. I would never call the police again.” A woman of color who, because of who she is, does not have the same exact right to not be beaten as a U.S.-born white lady like me.

A woman involved in a domestic dispute was so afraid of her partner that she called the police. Now, as a direct result of that phone call, she’s likely going to be deported. And though her story may be particularly outrageous, it’s not isolated. This shit is happening all the fucking time.

via Amanda Hess

Trigger Warning for extreme homophobia, including homophobic language and death wishes, as well as discussions of suicide.

Last Wednesday, as many of you are likely aware, there was a call to wear purple in response to the recent spate of publicized suicides by LGBT youth who had been extensively bullied, and the event was dubbed Spirit Day. Many activists who have been working on these issues for a long time have pointed out that these suicides are nothing new but are only now receiving media attention, and that most of the publicity has surrounded the loss of white gay men to the exclusion of trans* youth, bisexual and lesbian youth, and queer youth of color. There were also criticisms of Spirit Day specifically.

But while it would seem that all people could support not bullying people to the point where they feel there is no way out but to kill themselves, the day also inevitably brought out “criticisms” from homophobic and transphobic bigots who think that LGBT youth killing themselves isn’t really such a bad thing, after all.

One such bigot who spewed his homophobia¹ wherever he could was Clint McCance, who is notable because he is not just a private citizen/bigot, but a board member for Midland school district in Arkansas.

“Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE.”

After being challenged by a commenter, this was Mr. McCance’s reply:

“No because being a fag doesn’t give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself. I dont care how people decide to live their lives. They dont bother me if they keep it to thereselves. It pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them. I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die. If you arent against it, you might as well be for it.”

“I would disown my kids they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs. See it infects everyone.”

In his post, McCance doesn’t just make light of queer youth killing themselves as a result of a homophobic society that supports extensive shaming, shunning, harassment, and violence; he suggests that such youth killing themselves is a natural response to a non-heterosexual orientation, and a deserved one at that. He argues that harassment directed at gay people is deserved and asked for by the very act of being gay. And the context of his statements further suggest that “if they all commit suicide,” this would be a good thing and a benefit to society — a breathtaking display of hatred.

I’m inclined to state here that suicide is no joke, but the fact is that I don’t think McCance ever meant his statements to be taken as one. He seems deadly serious in his convictions — and I place a particular emphasis on the word deadly. Because words have an impact. Words matter. They matter, as we’ve been tragically shown over and over again, when slurs are being screamed in your face and devaluing your very personhood every single day. They matter when they’re threatening you with violence. They matter when they’re telling you that you’re better off just not existing. They can matter very, very much when you’re thinking of killing yourself, and a person in a position of authority over the policies of your own school says that your identity is so repulsive to him, he hopes that you do.

Words matter, too, because they back up real attitudes. Many parents do actually disown their children because of their sexual orientations or gender identities. Kids end up homeless all the time for this very reason. Or they stay closeted and terrified and hate themselves because they fear exactly this happening, usually with very good reason.

And many people do believe that gay people who contract HIV/AIDS deserve to die. We saw the effect of this attitude most prominently in the United States when the AIDS epidemic first hit during the Reagan era, and countless people died painful deaths hated, alone, and afraid. People still die disowned by their families in the U.S. today, and human rights violations against HIV-positive people are a worldwide epidemic. Precisely because of attitudes like the one that Clint McCance expressed above, that people with HIV deserve to die — and, even worse, that HIV is a legitimately serious, deadly disease whose existence is both beneficial and thrilling to those who do not have it.

McCance’s words matter not just because the ideas behind them they have a concrete real world impact, but because he is in a position of authority, in one of the currently least appropriate places I can imagine. He is an elected official, and he works for a school. While the suicides of LGBT students are currently making the news in unprecedented numbers. At a time where it’s possible that homophobia (and transphobia to a lesser extent because of lesser coverage) and the bullying that accompanies it might just be starting to be taken seriously by mainstream U.S. — or at least one can hope — a school board member is telling LGBT students in his district that they are worthless and disgusting, and that he literally hopes they die.

And this is the best he can offer when the public responds with outrage:

I reached McCance on his cell phone this morning about 8:30 a.m.. “I really can’t comment right now,” he said. He said he planned a meeting with a lawyer this morning and didn’t want to say anything further until he’d had that meeting. He did comment that the matter had “been blown out of proportion.”

Blown out of proportion. People are dying because of the kinds of things he said, he not only refuses to mourn but actually celebrates their deaths, and then claims the issue has been blown out of proportion.

The Arkansas Education Department has responded a bit more appropriately:

The Arkansas Department of Education strongly condemns remarks or attitudes of this kind and are dismayed to see that a school board official would post something of this insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook. Because Mr. McCance is an elected official, the department has no means of dealing with him directly. However, the department does have staff who investigate matters of bullying in schools and we will monitor and quickly respond to any bullying of students that may occur because of this, as we have with other civil rights issues in the past.

Of course, condemning the remarks as simply “insensitive” suggests a serious case of Not Getting It.

The Arkansas School Board Association said:

Members of the Arkansas School Boards Association Board of Directors and staff were appalled to read the comments purportedly made by the Midland School Board member in which he denounces gay students. Our organization expects school board members to support the education and promote the welfare of all students in their districts. With 1,500-plus school board members in Arkansas, we are saddened that the comments made by one individual will reflect poorly on other board members who work hard on behalf of the children in their communities.

ASBA has no tolerance for bullying or attacks on children, and we certainly would not tolerate such actions, either physical or verbal, by adults.

When school board members take the oath of office, they swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Arkansas. ASBA expects board members to adhere to state and federal laws, and bullying would certainly fall under those statutes.

A concern for those officials who don’t actively want LGBT students dead over those LGBT students themselves also suggests misplaced anger and sadness.

While an elected official cannot simply be fired, it’s unclear whether there is a process to remove from office those officials who do not uphold the duties of their jobs, and/or flagrantly violate them — as wishing harassment, violence, and death against students within a school board’s district would indeed seem to fit the bill with regards to a school board member. But if not, one would think that at the very least, these governmental bodies and his co-board members could and should make a loud public demand for his resignation.

A protest was apparently held this morning. It should really go without saying that in light of these comments, an apology is frankly and patently not good enough. Nothing less than McCance resigning or somehow otherwise being removed from his position on the school board is an acceptable response to an incident that should have never occurred, and in a world that took the safety of LGBT youth seriously, never would have. And until everyone else holding a position of authority over Midland school district does everything in their power to not only renounce the remarks but ensure that McCance no longer has a job on the board, they too are liable for and implicitly endorse what he had to say, and any effect it has on their students.

UPDATE: Clint McCance has resigned.

In Canada in 2007, a woman who has been identified in the press as N.S. accused her uncle and cousin of molesting her as a child. The case was taken to a preliminary hearing, where N.S., a Muslim woman, was ordered to remove her niqab — a face veil that leaves the eyes visible — as a condition of testifying. Believing this to be a violation of her rights, N.S. took her case to the Ontario Court of Appeal. A few days ago, this court ruled that the order for N.S. to remove her niqab was wrong … sort of:

As long as it doesn’t prejudice a fair trial, the court ruled, Muslim women should have the religious right to wear their niqab when testifying.

But if a judge is convinced by the accused that he can’t properly defend himself if she’s testifying against him behind a veil, the witness must remove her niqab and allow the face-to-face confrontation that is the norm in Canadian courts.

“The criminal justice system as it presently operates, and as it has operated for centuries, places considerable value on the ability of lawyers and the trier of fact to see the full face of the witness as the witness testifies,” wrote Justice David Doherty in the ruling released Wednesday morning on behalf of the three-judge panel.

“There is no getting around the reality that in some cases, particularly those involving trial by jury where a witness’s credibility is central to the outcome, a judge will have a difficult decision to make.”

It was not a clear-cut victory for any side, but one cautiously applauded by all.

“It’s a real step forward,” said David Butt, lawyer for N.S., the Toronto woman who was ordered to remove her niqab at a preliminary hearing.

“This walks a middle ground that balances two very important, competing rights.”

N.S. came forward in 2007 and accused her uncle and cousin of sexually abusing her as a child. When the case went to a preliminary hearing in 2008, she said she wanted to testify while wearing her niqab.

When the judge ruled against her, she took her case to the Ontario Court of Appeal in June.

In their 54-page decision, the three-judge appeal panel ruled that there needs to be a “case by case assessment” and for the first time set out guidelines for judges in these previously “uncharted waters”.

For N.S., the appeal court overturned her niqab ban and said she must be given a proper hearing to show why her religion requires her to cover all but her eyes.

The notion of the woman’s niqab impeding “face to face confrontation” has come up in numerous articles I’ve read, to the point that it kind of amazes me. The woman will be right there, forced to sit in the same courtroom as the men she has accused of raping her. She will have to look at them; they will be able to look at her.

Where exactly do they think these people think that her face will be? The niqab is a piece of fabric — it is not a wall, and it does not magically transport a person’s body parts to another room. It does not cause the accused to be any less “face to face” with their accuser than would a pair of glasses or long loose hair, than a bandage or a prosthetic. In all cases, the person’s face may not be 100% visible, but it is 100% present.

While glad that the court did not rule against N.S., I am angered that they did not rule entirely with her, either, and have instead demanded that she adequately grovel before the judge in order to convince him or her that her reasons for wearing her niqab are good enough. Expecting an almost certainly non-Muslim individual to rule on the sincerity, significance, gravity of a Muslim woman’s personal and religious beliefs is nothing short of oppressive, Islamophobic, and misogynistic.

As a white, Western, non-religious woman who grew up steeped in Christian culture, I am far from an expert on the topic of the niqab and other forms of veiling, myself. So I want to be very careful to not make any inferences about what the niqab means generally to women who wear one, or to the victim N.S. specifically, as these are things I cannot claim to fully understand. (And please correct me on anything I do get wrong.)

But I do know a few basic things for sure, things that we should be able to apply across the board. I know that one should not have to violate a deeply held belief in order to be allowed access to their right and duty to testify in a court of law. I know that one should not face an interrogation about their religious conviction or lack thereof — to get you or me or some random judge to a place where they understand one’s religious conviction — in order to access that right and duty, either. I know that one should not be made deliberately and unnecessarily uncomfortable as a condition of participation in the legal system. I know that one should not be forced to remove the articles of clothing that one generally wears in public to sit in the witness stand — just imagine the uproar if this was expected of non-Muslim women. I know that people communicate differently — as a result of culture, language, disability, personality, and a whole host of other factors — and that whether one meets an arbitrary, dominant, normative expectation regarding communication should not be the marker of their credibility.

And I know that all of these simple truths become even more dire when we are talking about a woman who has reported sexual violence. I know that if all of the above is not taken as common sense, there is a whole class of women who will no longer feel entitled to seek justice for the violence committed against them, who will no longer possess that right. If a woman cannot wear a niqab and testify against her accused rapist at the same time, then women who wear the niqab no longer have the full legal right to not be raped.

I believe that the attempt to force N.S. to remove her niqab was little more than an intimidation tactic by the defense and an exercise in cultural superiority by the judge. And I agree with N.S.’s lawyer that claims about how her right to wear one supposedly impedes a jury’s ability to establish credibility are based on a wholly faulty premise:

N.S.’s lawyer, David Butt, argued that how a person looks when answering questions isn’t useful in determining whether the person is telling the truth, so nothing would be lost if N.S.’s face cannot be seen.

“Poker is an interesting game precisely because demeanour can be so misleading,” Butt said.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association agreed. Courts regularly accept testimony from witnesses whose demeanour can only be partially observed, said its lawyers, Bradley Berg and Rahat Godil.

“The right to make full answer and defence is not infringed when a witness is blind, or when a witness’s mouth occasionally twists into a grimace due to a congenital defect,” they say in their material.

In other words, strict universal standards are not only unrealistic and impossible to meet, they’re also naturally prejudiced, assuming a biased standard of “normal” and construing as difficult, disruptive, and abnormal all who cannot meet them. (And while people with disabilities are used as an example of how the same standards are not applied across the board, people with disabilities have many times been oppressed in legal systems on the basis of not meeting normative standards of communication and behavior.) Further, determining an individual’s guilt or innocence –  making the decision whether a person becomes incarcerated and has a permanent criminal record — based on a series of peoples’ facial expressions, is just a really scary way to do things, period.

I hope that N.S. is finally given her deserved fair day in court, and that a jury will decide her alleged rapists’ guilt based on the merits of the prosecution’s case, rather than either rape myths or the accuser’s religion.

Note: Islamophobic comments will not be published.