We start with some Good News coming out of the Blahden administration. Most of what has come out so far has ranged from encouraging to disappointing to ugly, but I wanted to mention something that has gotten somewhat less attention that qualifies as encouraging and with one change could become genuine Good News.So: On January 26 Prez Blahden signed an Executive Order instructing the Justice Department not to renew any contracts with private prisons, with domestic policy adviser Susan Rice saying, quite accurately, that they “profiteer off of federal prisoners.” They've also been found to be less safe for prisoners and prison cops alike.
The downside is that the order only applies to the DOJ, not to the Department of Homeland Security, which uses such prisons to jail undocumented immigrants. Expand the order to include DHS, and you go from encouraging news to truly Good News.
=
Speaking of small changes, one could make 2021 a breakthrough year for women's rights.
Some of you may recall the Equal Rights Amendment, the ERA, which would amend the Constitution to ban discrimination on account of sex.
If you remember the amendment, you may also recall it failed, failed because unlike any previous amendment sent to the states, a time limit was set on ratification. In 1982 it ran out of time with 35 of the needed 38 states having approved it, having failed to overcome a rightwing campaign of lies and misinformation. If you don't remember that, just think back on the business a few years ago about the horrors would ensure if transgender people were able to use the restroom of their choice. It was the same kinda thing; in fact the claims actually included one that the amendment would require unisex bathrooms and locker rooms.
Around 2015, a new push started to get those three more states and a year ago, in January 2020, Virginia became state number 38.
In response, the House of Representatives passed an extension of the deadline that would mean the approval of the ERA. But Fishface McConnell refused to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote.
But whether you say "what a difference a year makes" or "elections have consequences," he no longer has that power and bipartisan bills to extend the deadline and thereby make the ERA part of the Constitution are being introduced in both the House and Senate.
Which means that 2021 looks like the best chance the ERA has had in 39 years. And if that works out, oh yeah, that would be Good News.
=
Next up, a case out of Alabama brings some encouraging news for transgender people.
Alabama driver's licenses, like that of all states, includes a statement of the license holder's sex. However, transgender people in Alabama cannot get a license reflecting their gender identity unless they can present proof of having had what the state calls "complete surgery," meaning both genital and top reconstruction surgery. Such surgeries not only carry risks, as does all surgery, but can be unavailable or unaffordable and may not even be necessary or desired - there is, after all, no reason that a, for example, biological male must have surgery in order to preof themselves as, be perceived as, present as, and live life as female.
In fact, in a 2015 survey on the topic, only 25 percent of transgender and gender-nonconforming people reported having undergone some form of transition-related surgery.
The case at hand began in 2018 when three transgender people in Alabama sued the state after they were denied driver's licenses that reflected their genders.
It reached an important milestone on January 15 when Senior Judge Myron Thompson of the federal District Court for Middle Alabama declared that the policy was an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
"By making the content of people's driver licenses depend on the nature of their genitalia, the policy classifies by sex," Thompson wrote. "Under Equal Protection Clause doctrine, it is subject to an intermediate form of heightened scrutiny," meaning that to treat people differently based on sex, in the words of the three folks' lawyer, "they have to have a very good reason for what they're doing, and they really did not."
With this decision, there are still eight states and two US territories that require proof of surgery to change a driver's license sex marker and a number more that place burdens short of surgery on those who don't fit a purely physical definition of male and female. On the other hand, there are 20 states that allow people to decide what marker is appropriate for them, nineteen of which include the option of X, for non-binary. Progress is being made.
I called this decision a milestone, a marker about markers if you will, rather than a conclusion. I used that term because the case isn't over; Alabama says it intends to appeal and being in the reactionary 11th Circuit, the outcome is by no means assured. But it is still a victory. And it is still a step forward.
And that is still Good News.
=
Finally for this time out, we go to Georgia, where the state legislature set a series of COVID-19 safety protocols for its 2021 session, including a requirement that members and staff get tested twice a week at a site established for that very purpose.
On January 26, GOPper David Clark was escorted out of the state Capitol chambers for refusing to take the test. He also lost his office space across the street from the Capitol until he agreed to "participate in safety protocols and not put other members and staff in harm's way."
Which means one of the flock of self-important "I don't wanna and you can't make me" jackasses has actually faced some consequences for being a self-important "I don't wanna and you can't make me" jackass.
Which yeah, is overdue Good News.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment