Life, Law, Gender

Daughter's Wedding

I know I said no more posts for this weekend -- but I just saw this and I thought it was worth posting.  This is an issue that has weighed on me a lot.  Miss Manners addresses the questions of how to invite a former husband (and child's father) to the wedding of their daughter after the former husband has transitioned. An excerpt from the mother's letter:

My husband, the stepfather, has been much more distressed with this sex change than I. Though it's been almost five years and our paths with the former father occasionally overlap socially, out of respect for my husband's feelings, not all of our friends know what has happened. We have still referred to the former father as a male.

Of course, you might expect that I'm annoyed by several things in this paragraph, especially calling the child's father "the former father", but also the kowtowing to people who can't deal with it and continuing to refer to her as "a male."  I thought Miss Manners dealt with it the question (how do we address wedding invitations) very well. For example:

The rest of it is not difficult, Miss Manners promises you. You should treat your daughter's father — and that this person did father her does not change retroactively — with dignity, but you needn't offer explanations. A formal invitation would come from "Mr. and Mrs. Clive Carvington and Ms. Catherine Tyson," and an informal one would be as a letter from you saying that you, your husband and Annabel's father, Catherine Tyson, would be pleased ... etc.

Of course the fact that the formal invitation would still come from "Mr. and Mrs. 'I'M MALE, SO YOU LOSE YOUR IDENTITY AND NAME' annoys me at another level, but that's the subject of a different post and a different day.

Happy Memorial Day

I hope you all enjoy your long weekend.  I'm home in MI for the holiday and will spend every minute of it with my Sweetheart.  Expect no posts. :)

Pause for a moment today, in the middle of yet another senseless war where our young people are being killed every day, and remember why we have this holiday.

Difficult choices

As a follow-up to my previous post (and, indeed, as an extension of this post) I would like to recount a couple of meetings that I had with the Legislative Directors (LDs) of two of the congress-critters on the hill.

In one case, I met with the LD of my representative (Thaddeus McCotter), a Republican from the very conservative district in which we live.  He was surprisingly knowledgeable about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and came out directly to say that he thought the law was not working and that it failed to be the compromise as it was sold to the American people.  He stopped short of saying that his boss would actually support the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, but I left feeling like there was some hope for that possibility.  Still, I've been on Capitol Hill enough times to know that these guys are politicians and I recognized that he could merely be paying lip service to the idea in front of a constituent.

On another occasion, I had the opportunity to meet with the LD of a Democratic representative in a purely social situation (just happenstance, no agenda except to drink and relax).  As it was a conversation completely off the record, I won't even identify the representative except to say he was from a populous state with lots of Republicans in his district.  This LD said to me there was no way his boss would support the repeal of DADT.  He would never get re-elected if he did.

Aside from the fact that polls (both Gallup and Boston Globe in 1995) show 79% of Americans support the repeal (up from 57% in 1992 when DADT was introduced) let's grant him that assertion. He says it's better to have his boss -- who might only agree with us on 50-65% of the issues -- than a Republican who disagrees on 70-90% of the issues. 

I guess I have to agree, in the end.  It is the reality of politics.  But, it continues to bother me that a person can look at the facts, decide what is right (you know, like NOT hurting actual people) and then choose to do the other thing because his constituents might have their feelings hurt and not vote for him.  Thus, the only way we'll ever have justice for all in this society is if we actually convince a majority of the people that it is 1) justice (we seem to have convinced them, at least on this narrow issue) and 2) to act on it by contacting their representatives. 

Either that, or we need a more activist judiciary who can see the failure of justice -- under both equal protection and due process grounds -- and overturn this hateful law.

Repeal Don't Ask; Don't Tell!

I’ve been meaning to blog about my recent “Lobby Day” experience for the Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network (SLDN) since I completed it, but things have just been a bit hectic.  [Update: added photo taken in Senator Stabenow's office (strong supporter!) during Lobby Day]

I’m guessing that most of my readers know that “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” (DADT) is a federal law (Public Law 103-160 – Nov. 30, 1993 – § 546, 107 Stat. 1670 (1993) (codified at 10 U.S.C. A. § 654)).  It was passed by Congress in 1993 and signed into law by President Clinton.  As such, it cannot simply be quietly changed – it takes an act of Congress to change it (or the Supreme Court finding that it is unconstitutional).  But, did you also know that it is the ONLY federal law that mandates the discriminatory firing of servicemembers based solely upon coming out as gay, lesbian or bisexual?  In fact the actual language of the law is “A member of the armed forces shall be separated [] if [] the member has stated that he or she is a homosexual or bisexual, or words to that effect…” (emphasis mine).

This is a bad law.  Since its inception, over 10,000 service members have been separated from active duty at a conservatively estimated cost to us taxpayers of over $350 million (according to a 2006 Blue Ribbon Commission report).  This, at a time when the government is having a difficult time meeting its recruitment goals.  Moreover, many of these discharges are from critical specialties – including over 55 Arabic linguists and 9 Farsi linguists.

Obviously, people are hurt by this law on several levels.  In a most fundamental way, we insist that, in order to serve your country in the armed forces, you must betray the very values and integrity that the services tries to instill in you.  You must lie, every day.  Once you are discovered (by, for example, confiding to a chaplain, or writing in your private diary, or having a vengeful ex out you, etc.) you are discharged from the service with a notation on your permanent service record and discharge paperwork (DD214) that you are homosexual, and are given a negative reenlistment code.  But, also, the very fact that we have such a law fosters discrimination and harassment toward the approximately 64,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual service members currently serving.  And, what can a gay service member do about such harassment?

The Pentagon supported the passage of this law under the theory that “unit cohesion” would suffer if we allowed gays to serve openly.  However, study after study, including the DOD commissioned Rand Report, continues to debunk that myth. Moreover, many of our allies, including the British and the vaunted Israeli army, allow gays to openly serve, with minimal or no adverse consequences. 

Final Semester

When I started blogging over two years ago, I joined one of the early classes of law student bloggers; there were several before us, but lots of us got started then (and, I met two of them last night for dinner - Ambib (formerly the Ambivalent Imbroglio) and She says from Unblague; what great people to know. We've been reading each other's blogs for years now. They are as nice in person as they are on their blogs.  I feel very privileged to get to meet them). So, as I mentioned before, it seems like so many are now graduating.

But, I still have one semester to go -- and it looks like I will be busier than I would have liked.  I am teaching (this requires a minimum of 20 hours per week of prep, in class, grading, and office hours time), I am taking a clinic and two lecture classes (totaling 13 credit hours).  Plus, I'm going to be doing a business plan to put together a legal aid clinic for a local LGBT organization.  It will be very busy.  Therefore, I decided to take one "thought" class that will require some heavy reading and concentration and one easier class -- that I should have no problem with (I am, however, reminded of Enterprise Organization which I thought was horribly mundane, boring and basic and in which I did NOT get my first A).  My final semester, then, looks like this:

Class	Credits	Instructor	Days/Times
Sex Equality	3	McKinnon, Catherine	T,W,Th  7:15P-9:15P
Accounting for Lawyers	3	Desimpelare,James Mark	M, W     3:40P-5:10P
Clinical Law I	7	Thomas,Kimberly A	M, W     1:30P-3:30P

The class I will be teaching meets 4p-5p on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus 3-7 on Wednesdays.  And, Sex Equality only meets for 6 weeks, ending on Oct. 12.  So, it will be a very intense first 6 weeks, but I will have my Fridays off again and with one not-so-new-to-me class (and I'm considering taking Sex Equality pass/fail) it shouldn't be horrible.

Another birthday/anniversary

Today marks the one year anniversary of my surgery.  Wow.  What a great year it's been!  I had some health problems immediately after arriving home from surgery and I had some dilating problems (which magically went away when I just gave up on dilating!), but otherwise I could not be happier with my, um, "innie".   I know this sounds like an odd thing to publicly celebrate/announce, but well, it has been a pretty freakin' awesome year!

And we walked

The Girl and I walked around downtown DC yesterday.  It was a joy for me to share this city with her.  I've been here many, many times and know it fairly well; she'd been here a couple of times but had never seen any of the monuments.  I am a patriot, and I love this city (even while I abhor the politics of the current occupying force); sharing it with the woman I love was fantastic.

We started by taking the Metro from my apartment in Virginia (just across the Potomac; I can actually look out my window and see the river as well as the Washington Monument) to the stop near the office of my summer internship.  Afterward we walked past the White House (and booed its occupant the whole time, while lamenting the lack of statesmanship in our government), down to the National Mall. We toured the WWII memorial -- the first time I had seen this monument! -- down to Lincoln's Monument and over to the Korean War Memorial and the WWI memorial and then across the way to the George Mason memorial (a patriot's patriot!) and then to the FDR memorial. The Girl calls his presidency the high water mark of liberalism in this country; as I wander the rooms of the monument dedicated to him it is so easy to recollect why I and so many others see him as our greatest president (the image on the left was from yesterday; the one on the right was from Lobby Days in 1998 - I sure have gained weight in 8 years). We then walked the rest of the way to see the Jefferson Memorial.  Through all of this we had had no lunch or any food, so we stopped and each bought an ice cream sandwich from the vendor there.  It was like a feast.  Finally, we walked up to the Smithsonian and boarded the Metro back to the apartment.

It was a fun day, full of sunshine (we both got minor sunburns on our faces and arms) and patriotism.   On her next trip here, we'll do the Smithsonian.

What next?!

My poor little car has offended no one that I know of, yet it seems that people and other cars want to hurt it.  Today, leaving the eye doctor's office another car rammed into us (The Girl was driving) in the parking lot.  It was totally the other person's fault; he was simply going too fast and not paying enough attention. 

We had to have the car towed as it was not drivable -- the passenger side front wheel was completely bent inward and the fender around it was damaged.  The other car was barely damaged. The driver of the car hopped out of the car and took off, never to be see again.  It turns out he was some guy that the owner of the car had picked up in a bar the previous week and barely knew (though he'd been staying with her since that evening; she didn't even know his phone number (and, of course, she had no insurance).  The police think they know who he is based on the name he gave her, but even that turned up two different dates-of-birth.

Sheesh.  Now, instead of driving my new car with the navigation system to DC tomorrow, we'll have to take The Girl's car, which gets much worse gas mileage.  This is the second time someone has hit my car and then taken off! Some people.

Good grief

Of all the things that could put the little town we live in on the national map, why would it be that Jimmy Hoffa might be buried here?

My first!!!

Please forgive this breach of law school etiquette, but I just got my first ever 'A' in law school!  And, it came in a class I thought was really hard (but loved so very much): 14th Amendment!  I am totally stunned; I thought the paper was a B or B-!

Please understand, I'm not bragging.  I'm just so unexpectedly thrilled.

1:18411

One in 18,411.  Those are the odds of getting hit in the head by a major league foul-tip on May 16, 2006 at the Detroit Tigers - Minnesota Twins baseball game, and then getting an autographed baseball as a souvenier.

I beat those odds.  The paramedics were very nice to me.  The guy two rows behind me that caught the ball as it careened off my left temple took a picture of me with an ice pack on my head and holding his prize.  A few minutes later one of the Tigers employees came up and gave me a ball autographed by Jeremy Bonderman (Pitcher). 

We stuck around for another 3 innings before my headache got the better of me.  The Tigers were winning 7-3 when we left; they won 7-4.  They are now in first place.

I think next time we go (on The Girl's birthday in August) I'll bring a glove. :)

How would you react?

I may have asked this question before, but I obviously still don't have a good answer for myself so I'm going to ask it again.  If you see someone (for example, at a party) that you suspect is transgendered do you approach them, and if so, how?  I'm curious as to repsonses both from people who identify as trans and those who do not.

I have two experiences to relate and then, below the fold, I'll attempt to put up a poll (I tried this earlier and it failed, so I'm not yet sure if it works). [UPDATE: Poll still does not seem to be working; I'll keep trying; in the meantime, please just comment]

A couple of years ago I attended a dinner for the Transgendered American Veterans Association (TAVA).  At that dinner I sat with my friend Jamison Green and his wife, Heidi.  James had introduced me to Heidi a couple of years earlier at another trans convention (Southern Comfort) when they were engaged.  She and I hit it off immediately, we had so much in common.  She is my height and build, we both have accounting/finance backgrounds and worked in big companies before moving to smaller ones, we both went back later in life to get our MBAs, and we were both about the same age. During the dinner, I asked how her family had reacted to her transition.  She asked me if I meant James' transition.  No, I was curious about hers.  She smiled and said "Denise, I'm not trans."  I was mortified.  She thought it was great and actually told me that she took it as a compliment.  (James also published this story so I know I'm not sharing anything I'm not supposed to)

Last night, at the SLDN annual dinner (wow! I got invited to join one of the board members at her table in the front row.  It was most excellent; we sat next to Betty (who performed three songs including their song for the L Word) and right in front of the stage -- which considering there were 650 people there was way cool) I met a couple and I believed that one of them might be FTM.  She had a crew cut and was wearing a man's shirt and either had very small breasts or (I thought possibly) had them bound.  I eventually just asked if she was trans.  I'm sure you can guess by my use of pronouns that the answer was 'no'.  "I'm all girl", she smiled at me. Then she told me a story about how her grandma told her that she couldn't be a little boy all her life and she smiled and said "she was wrong; here I am 25 and am still a little boy". 

So, finally, here is my question.  How do you approach someone who you think may be transgendered?  Or, do you not?  Just let them have their own space?  Perhaps the best answer would be to just strike up a conversation and somehow let it be known that I'm trans and see if that gives them space to come out?  Is the fear of offending someone really just internalized transphobia?  ::sigh::  This hurts my brain.  Comment, please. :)

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! 

• To my sister, Debbie
• To my girls' Mom
• To Transmogriflaw
• To Rayne
• To Leqal Quandary (whose site I still can't read well because of the overlapping sidebars)

And, to newly expectant moms, e.g. Shelley!

But, most especially, of course -- to my own mom.  She is truly unique and a wonderful woman.  You'd have to search high and low to find another like her -- and you'd fail. :)

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  I love you.

Liberal. Me?

This is a silly quiz (well, OK, most of them are!) but it was fun (nothwithstanding some typos and the banality of the questions).  It thinks I'm a liberal! ;)

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 15% Conservative, 85% Liberal

Social Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

Off to DC!

I'm headed off to our nation's capitol today for 4 days, prior to my internship beginning on the 22nd.  Tonight, I'm attending the annual dinner of the ServiceMembers Legal Defense Network and then I'm participating in their annual lobby effort to have Don't Ask, Don't Tell overturned.  We will have two days of training (Sunday and Monday) and then one intense day on the hill on Tuesday.

I will be back Tuesday night when The Girl and I have tickets to a Tigers game (they are playing really well and are only 2 games out of first place, they've been really fun to watch!).

Oh!  And, in other news, I played my first 9 holes of golf ever last week.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and we played in the middle of the week in the middle of the afternoon so we pretty much had the course to ourselves.  I can hardly wait to get back out there; it was SO MUCH FUN!