Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Your Papers Please Or Passing Privilege

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Your Papers Please Or Passing Privilege

If you can integrate into society you are going to have a lot less harassment than someone who is readily identified as trans.

Transgender Texan Trolls Governor to Protest ‘Bathroom Bill’
NBC Out
By Associated Press
July 17, 2017

AUSTIN, Texas — A transgender Texan has posted an all-smiles photo with Gov. Greg Abbott to protest a "bathroom bill" that state lawmakers will again consider during a special legislative session beginning Tuesday.

Ashley Smith posed with Abbott after he announced his re-election campaign Friday in San Antonio.

She later identified herself in the photo as "trans-woman" and posted it on Facebook with the hashtag #BATHROOMBUDDY.

Smith, who has been active with groups opposing the bathroom bill, also posted: "How will the Potty Police know I'm transgender if the Governor doesn't?" and received thousands of likes.

Photo from Ms. Smith via NBC Out

She has “Passing Privilege” a trans woman who doesn’t probably wouldn’t even gotten close to the governor.

Then down in Las Vegas...

Transwoman denied access to women's restroom at Las Vegas resort
Las Vegas Now 8
By: Karen Castro
Posted: July 14, 2017

LAS VEGAS - A transgender woman is speaking out after claiming she was not allowed to use a women’s restroom at a casino on the Strip.

Kaite Charm, who is from San Francisco, was attending a Cirque du Soleil show inside New York, New York a few days ago when the incident happened.

She says someone complained when she tried using the bathroom. When she tried going to the bathroom a second time, she was confronted by security.
[…]
“The last thing he said to me is 'why would we give you a refund because you have a problem with our establishment?’” Charm said.

So what is the difference between these two incidents?

In one case you couldn’t tell that she was trans and in the other case you can tell she is trans.

Our rights should not be based on how well you can blend into society.

1 comment:

Anonymous7/19/17, 1:26 PM
I had thoughts very much along this line when I saw Ms. Smith's photo and the media attention it's gotten. Thanks for articulating what was bothering me.
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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers