Opinions
Celebrating historic week for trans Americans
EEOC says gender identity bias equals sex discrimination

Successful advocates learn to keep their eyes on the prize. We must adapt to survive long, fallow periods when progress is non-existent, or even when we have our backs up against the wall in a battle for survival. But as has been true for African Americans, women, and gay folks over the last 50 years, remarkable progress has now come to fruition for the trans community. While the LGBT community still has major challenges ahead, including comprehensive civil rights for the entire LGBT community, marriage equality, LGBT access to humane, quality health care, confronting the scourge of same-sex intimate partner abuse, and bisexual empowerment, this is an historic day for the entire LGBT community, and particularly so for the trans community.
On April 20, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in a ruling that is binding on all federal offices and agencies, and was unanimously approved in a bipartisan manner, stated that gender-identity discrimination, by definition,Ā constitutes sex discrimination, whether based on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act or the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws. This historic ruling, Macy v Holder, consistent with the current state of Title VII case law, follows on the heels of the equally historic 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Glenn v Brumby. That decision, building on a growing number of federal trial court and appellate decisions, expanded the definition of āsex discriminationā to include gender expression, thereby constitutionally including transgender and gender non-conforming persons under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Basically, this EEOC decision expands protections beyond the governmental realm in an all-encompassing manner, including private employers of 15 or more employees. The ultimate arbiter about Title VII’s protections against gender identity discrimination may be the Supreme Court, but there is no guarantee that it will ever take any such case in the future, and, in the meantime, the legal meaning of āsex discriminationā will be expanded and used in a diverse number of arenas, including public accommodations and housing.
The Commission noted that the term āsexā encompasses both sex (i.e., the biological characteristics men and women) and gender. Additionally, the Commission explained that federal courts have increasingly been using the Price Waterhouse v Hopkins āsex stereotypingā theory to determine the presence of sex discrimination.
Many of us have spent the past decade working to pass gender identity and expression laws in states and municipalities. We now have done so in 16 states, D.C., and more than 150 localities, encompassing 45 percent of the U.S. population. That work has laid the cultural as well as legal groundwork for the evolution to todayās world, where the understanding of the word āsexā includes not only the biology of transgender as well as cisgender men and women, but the manner in which that biology is uniquely expressed by all human beings. It is a part of the human heritage of us all, regardless of our skin color, ethnicity, religious beliefs or sexual orientation. It is also a long way from the lay understanding of āsexā to mean āI did not have sex with that woman,ā and just as the gay community has made major advances by forcing the recognition that gay people have lives like straight people, and care as much about motherhood, the military and apple pie as the next person, so now gender non-conformity is about far more than the plumbing of a human being or a public restroom.
Finally, Iām curious to see how the Michigan Womynās Music Festival and similar venues will treat trans women in the future. This decision knocks out the foundation from under those separatists who have claimed that genitals rule, that trans women should be excluded from āfemaleā spaces, and that trans-cis lesbian relationships are inherently a form of rape. Maybe now we can consensually put all that silliness behind us, and make this world more welcoming for all.
As Gandhi is reputed to have said, āFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you. Then you win.ā We just won.
Opinions
Is anyone else sick of Cassidy Hutchinson?
Trump loyalist feted by mainstream media after belated change of heart

Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump loyalist who belatedly turned on her boss, the man she āadored,ā is this weekās mainstream media obsession, turning up multiple times on CNN, MSNBC, NBC, āThe View,ā and seemingly everywhere else. The only person getting more airtime this week is Taylor Swift, after urgent news broke that sheās dating an NFL player. (The āTodayā show led twice with that very important story this week.)
For sure, Hutchinsonās testimony before the Jan. 6 committee in front of 13 million viewers took courage, given how many Trump supporters are inclined to violence against his critics.
But Hutchinson remained loyal to Trump even after the Jan. 6 insurrection and planned to move to Florida for a job with him after he left the White House on Jan. 20. She initially took the advice of Trumpās attorneys to claim she didnāt recall the events leading up to the attack on the Capitol.
Some of us saw Trump for what he is back in 2015: a racist criminal and pathological liar, an ā80s has-been and washed-up reality show host in orange makeup and a bad wig.
Whereās our party?
Easily duped people like Hutchinson helped elect Trump and then supported him throughout all the too-numerous-to-mention scandals ā mocking the disabled, insulting a Gold Star family, ridiculing war heroes, siding with Neo Nazis in Charlottesville, and on and on. Not to mention a botched response to a pandemic that killed more than one million Americans. Trump refused to wear a mask (we recently learned because it smeared his extensive makeup) and poked fun at Joe Biden for wearing one.
Most of Trumpās die hard supporters jumped ship after Jan. 6, but not Cassidy Hutchinson. She even told Mark Meadows that she would ātake a bulletā for Trump. She told āThe Viewā that it was a ādifficult momentā to watch former White House staffers denounce Trump after Jan. 6, due to her blind loyalty to him. She resisted her own motherās pleas to abandon Trump and not move to Florida with him. She blamed Trumpās advisers for his bad decisions.
It all smacks of brainwashing. Anyone who is so weak willed that they are easily manipulated by the ācharmsā of Donald Trump has no business anywhere near the White House. Hutchinson has demonstrated not just bad judgement, but disastrous judgement.
And now that she has a book to peddle, the mainstream media predictably line up to sing her praises and she spills all sorts of tea, from Rudy Giuliani allegedly sexually assaulting her to Mark Meadows burning White House documents in his office fireplace. She didnāt follow the parade of staffers who quit after Jan. 6 and she didnāt report Meadows for allegedly destroying government property. And now weāre supposed to shell out $30 for her vapid book about finally seeing the light, long after the rest of the world had figured out Trump for the incorrigible threat to democracy that he represents.
Hutchinson deserves our gratitude for her Jan. 6 committee testimony. But nothing more. And the mainstream media have got to stop their practice of reckless revisionist history and praising the undeserving.
Opinions
Speaker Kevin McUseless calls for Biden impeachment inquiry
Stunt will backfire on Republicans in 2024

Congress has joined the world of the insane with Republicans calling to impeach any Democrat they disagree with. It is happening in Wisconsin to the new Supreme Court justice, and now lily-livered Kevin McUseless, facing threats from his MAGA members, announced an impeachment inquiry of President Biden.
He could name no reason, and in fact during the nine months of Republicans investigating Biden, they have found none. Two weeks ago, he said he wouldnāt do this without a vote of the House, but moderate Republicans rightly figure this will all backfire on them, so wouldnāt agree to vote for it. Meanwhile the country is waiting for House Republicans to do their job and pass a budget, which they are unable to do. The result could close the government again. That will also backfire on them, as it will hurt so many people.
So, what better time for Democrats, thinking independents, and any sane Republican left, those willing to put the country above their own party, and in the case of Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), even their own reelections, to just vote all these Republican clowns out of office?
Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), who will lead the inquiry on Biden, has for the nine previous months come up with zilch ā nothing meriting impeachment or even further investigation. The IRS whistleblowersā testimony he touted was contradicted by the FBI in sworn testimony. But then it isnāt Comer asking for this impeachment inquiry, it is Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, and the MAGAs holding McUseless hostage. Those two should be arrested for criminal behavior, charged with being an embarrassment to the country. They are joined by the likes of Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), recently thrown out of a Denver theater for groping her boyfriend, vaping, taking pictures, and recording a show, Beetlejuice. This is todayās Republican Party.
Clearly, most elected Republicans are not willing to stand up to these jokers; all afraid of the Trump cult, aka the Republican Party. They are being threatened with a primary by Trump if they do. They would lose the primary, part of the reason Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) just announced he would not run again. The Trump cult controls roughly 35% of the party and you canāt win without them. But Trump-supported primary winners have shown they lose general elections.
I am more confident than some in a Trump/Biden replay, Biden will win by 10 million votes this time, but not get one more electoral vote. It will again be about seven or eight states. If Republicans go ahead with this impeachment Democrats will win in 2024.
As to Hunter Biden, he should be punished for anything he did wrong, like any private citizen; whether it is not paying his taxes or lying on a gun permit application. President Biden should stop inviting Hunter to the White House, and curtail his public embrace of his son. It hasnāt helped his son, and is clearly not helping his own campaign, or for that matter any other Democrat. What he does in private is his business. The president has two homes, one in Wilmington, and one in Rehoboth Beach, where he can meet with, and entertain his son. I think the president owes that to the people he is asking to support him. He owes it to the party to not put himself in positions his opponents can take advantage of.Ā
Joe Biden has been a public servant since he was 28 years old, starting on the New Castle County Council, in Delaware, in 1970. He ran and won his Senate seat in 1972. He has never been accused of any impropriety until the Republicans decided they could make unfounded accusations for political gain. He has shown himself a decent and honest man. A man with empathy for those less fortunate; and a president with one of the most successful administrations in modern times.
So McUseless, do your worst. Bend over for the MAGAs and get screwed. Hope it hurts. You have no balls as depicted in a recent funny meme where Barbie is shown on her knees in front of Ken, saying she finally understood; McUseless was the model for Ken.
The country will survive McUseless and the congressional Trump cult and be stronger for it. The decent people of the country will end up winning and McUseless, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and their cronies, will be relegated to the dustbin of history with nary an asterisk to their names. If there is an asterisk it will read that they were useless, venal, and screwed up.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist. He writes regularly for the Blade.
Opinions
Impact lingers 22 years after that bright September morning
Religious zealotry that led to 9/11 can be seen in far right politics

Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a point in time that forever altered the world in a series of events, terrorist attacks, that would linger on politically, spiritually, culturally, and leave an indelible mark on those alive at the time who experienced that day.
A human being born that day celebrates their twenty-second birthday this week, having grown up in a world where security measures ā some draconian ā dominate and where a certain sense of collective innocence has been lost.
Perhaps the ultimate irony is that lessons of peaceful diplomacy that could have possibly been gained from that day were instead lost to the sense of paranoia and nationalistic ideology and messaging as governments reacted, and in the case of the United States, commencement of a war that became the longest in American history.
The number of American service members who died fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had passed 7,000 at the end of 2021. The āWar on Terrorā as it was known spanned 20 years, saw the expenditure of $6 trillion, 900,000 lives lost around the globe and at least 38 million people who have been displaced.
9:37:46 AM, The Pentagon in Arlington, Va., just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C.: American Airlines Flight 77, which had taken off from Dulles International Airport, struck the southwest side of the building killing 184 people.
This reporter was in the Pentagon that fateful morning, having agreed to substitute for a sick colleague. I witnessed the utter disbelief on the faces of every one of my colleagues as we were clustered around a television set watching the events unfolding in New York City at the World Trade Center and then suddenly it was our turn as the entire building shook as Flight 77 crashed into the southwestern face of the Pentagon.
The next 16 hours are still a vignette of sounds, smells, and sights from that day that have never left me. The events of that day would later define my career and set me on a path of being far more cynical than I was previously as I viewed a changed world.
Here, two decades later, I reflect still on what could have been and yet still remain optimistic even in the face of greater turmoil, widespread authoritarianism, a global climate crisis exacerbated by war, and then too of war itself as evidenced by the illegal incursion into the sovereignty of Ukraine.
The rise of nationalism, especially of the white supremacist variety tied to religious fundamentalism, is the primary danger and the direct linear descendent of the terrorism that was seen on that Tuesday morning 22 years ago. It is not just an American issue, it is a global issue, one that needs to be exposed and then dealt with.
The religious zealotry that fed the extremist ideology that led to the acts of terrorism that bright September morning can be seen again manifesting in the extremist actions of the far right beyond politics. Book bans, the war on trans and queer people, stifling of free speech and ideas, promotion of anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and racist ideas all contribute to a society that is rapidly becoming very unsafe and a petri dish for the next 9/11.
This is the lingering impact of that long ago day and must be mitigated, before history repeats itself.
Brody Levesque is editor of the Los Angeles Blade.Ā
-
Real Estate4 days ago
D.C. rentals: DIY or seek professional help?
-
Delaware5 days ago
Flight attendants union endorses Sarah McBride
-
Financial1 day ago
New Workforce Program Aims to Help Expand Economic Opportunity for the Trans Community
-
Federal Government23 hours ago
Attorney details the harms of waiving anti-discrimination rules for religious universities