Connecticut Protects Transgender Students

Connecticut Protects Transgender Students

The day after President Donald Trump rescinded federal protections for transgender students in public schools, Governor Dannel P. Malloy strengthened Connecticut’s protection for these students.

Governor Malloy signed an executive order to protect Connecticut transgender students in public schools to use a public bathroom associated with their gender identity. “Discrimination of this kind is outrageous and has no place in our society,” Malloy said in a statement. “This shouldn’t be a partisan issue, the President’s regressive action must be rejected by all compassionate people, regardless of party affiliation.”

But several transgender students and advocates in Connecticut feel that even with state protections, they are worried and angry about Trump’s action.

Owen Schwartz, a Hebron, Connecticut teenager who is transgender, arrived home after Trump’s action and told his mother “Donald Trump hates me.” Schwartz said the president’s decision makes him feel less accepted, less respected and more fearful. “If the president doesn’t support who I am,” Owen said, “it’s kind of hard to go on with my daily life because it’s like the White House is against me. It’s a big deal.”

Robin McHaelen, Executive Director of True Colors, Inc., which provides support and services to LGBT students, said that transgender youth are among “the most vulnerable of the children that we serve” with the highest rates of suicide and the highest rates of “self-medication through substance abuse. For the federal government to send a message that they don’t matter is, in my opinion, absolutely unconscionable,” she said.

http://www.courant.com/education/hc-trump-transgender-bathrooms-20170223-story.html

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You Live In “Trump Country” Now

Kevin Seymour and Kevin Paul Taylor were biking home from dinner in Key West when they were followed and harassed by a Donald Trump supporter.

Seymour and Taylor reported that a drunken moped driver started “calling us faggots and a slew of other anti-gay remarks.” Taylor posted on his Facebook page that “he kept stopping in front of us and swerving into us. Finally Kevin (Seymour) got ahead of him and the guy charges him with his scooter and runs into him and knocks him off his bike. Kevin is okay.”

The driver of the moped also taunted the couple by saying, “You live in Trump country now.”

The moped driver is described as a white man in his mid-to-late thirties with a southern accent.  The model of his moped was a black Eclipse.

A witness gave a statement to police backing the couple’s story and officers said there may be security video available from nearby businesses.

“I think the cops will be able to track him down,” Taylor said.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/florida-keys/article134965699.html

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Free Speech vs The Consequences of What We Say

Over President’s Day weekend, it was revealed that Milo Yiannopoulos,  editor of Breitbart News, was invited to give a speech at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the biggest mainstream conservative conference in America.  The online site, highly criticised for reporting “alternative facts” is said to be one of President Trump’s main sources of information.

Yiannopoulos, has a reputation as an internet troll. His method is to say something inflammatory to anger a whole lot of people and get widespread media attention. This time, his words are affecting him where it hurts; his wallet.

Conservative website Reagan Battalion released video footage of Yiannopoulos defending the idea of “thirteen year olds,” having sex with “older men,” referencing his own story that he benefited from a priest molesting him when he was a teenager.  CPAC’s organizers cancelled their invitation for Yiannopoulos to speak and his Simon & Schuster canceled their book deal with him.

Author Roxane Gay who parted ways with publisher Simon & Schuster, when they signed Yiannopoulos, had a strong opinion on her former publisher.

“In canceling Milo’s book contract, Simon & Schuster made a business decision the same way they made a business decision when they decided to publish that man in the first place,” she wrote. “When his comments about pedophilia/pederasty came to light, Simon & Schuster realized it would cost them more money to do business with Milo than he could earn for them. They did not finally ‘do the right thing’ and now we know where their threshold, pun intended, lies. They were fine with his racist and xenophobic and sexist ideologies. They were fine with his transphobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. They were fine with how he encourages his followers to harass women and people of color and transgender people online.”

Gay concluded, “There are some who will spin the cancellation of this book contract as a failure of the freedom of speech but such is not the case. This is yet another example of how we are afforded the freedom of speech but there is no freedom from the consequences of what we say.”

Simon & Schuster declined to comment on Gay’s assertions.

http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/2/20/14668372/milo-yiannopoulos-gay-pedophilia-myth
Roxane Gay slams Simon & Schuster after publisher drops Milo Yiannopoulos

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The Most Powerful Vice President Ever

Earlier in Donald Trump’s campaign, before Mike Pence was chosen as his running mate, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, explained how Trump would run the country. He said the vice president of the Trump administration would really be the Chief Executive Officer or President of the company, seeing to the day to day operations. While Trump would act more like the Chairman of the Board, more hands off and be available when needed.

Manafort said “He [Trump] needs an experienced person to do the part of the job he doesn’t want to do. He seems himself more as the chairman of the board, than even the CEO, let alone the COO…  There is a long list of who that person could be.”   And now we know: that person is Mike Pence. Manafort’s quote and other commentary has suggested that Pence could be “the most powerful vice president ever.” Pence’s first duty is chairman of Trump’s transition team?  Filling all the major positions in the incoming Trump administration.

The main problem with the power shift to Pence is that he is one of the most anti-LGBTQ, evangelical Christian politicians to serve in Congress and as governor of a state. His history includes supporting conversion therapy, stating that marriage equality would lead to “societal collapse” and calling homosexuality a choice. Pence has said that stopping the LGBTQ community from marrying wasn’t biased, but was rather about compelling “God’s idea.”  After all, he was the one who, last year, signed the anti-LGBTQ Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law.

If Manafort’s predictions are correct, Trump will take a ‘hands-off’ approach on LGBTQ issues and allow Pence to get his way.  In fact, the assault on LGBTQ rights is already underway. That’s why we must pull ourselves out of grief, get fired up, and begin the fight right now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-pence-assault-lgbtq-equality_us_58275a17e4b02d21bbc8ff9b

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More Than a Distraction

Did you hear about VP-Elect Mike Pence’s visit to the Broadway show Hamilton? The cast had a message for Pence and President-Elect Trump about inclusion that they shared after the performance. You can view it here.

Trump did not enjoy the message and fired back on Twitter, stating that the cast of Hamilton harassed Pence.

Evening talk show host, Seth Meyers, is arguing that Trump is using this event as a distraction for what has become a messy transition to the White House.

“President-elect Donald Trump prompted new questions this weekend about his foreign business ties to potential conflicts of interests — questions Trump responded to by picking a fight with the cast of a Broadway musical,” said Meyers on Monday’s Late Night.

Meyers pointed out that New Yorkers never would have bet Hamilton, an award winning show, could get even more publicity, but Trump was able to make it happen.

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Time Will Tell…And It Has

Time Will Tell…And It Has

This picture has been making its way around social media since the presidential election. While we love seeing diversity on Trump’s team, our question is this:

Will President Trump’s policies reveal him to be a woman hating racist homophobe?

Time will tell…And it has.

I originally wrote this the week of the election. Since then Trump has nominated Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, Mike Pompeo for CIA director, and Reince Priebus for Chief of Staff, all older white men. Today Trump finally added some diversity to his team. He announced the nominations of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary, Nikki Haley as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and is looking at Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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We Agree With Trump (kind of)

Yes, you read that right. We agree with President-Elect Trump on ONE issue, the safety of US citizens.

During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in July and one month after a terrorist attack in a gay nightclub that killed 49 people, Trump promised to keep the LGBTQ community safe. “As president, I will do everything in my power to protect LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology,” Trump told the crowd at the Republican Convention.

Here at Hayden’s List, we agree that the President of the United States should do everything in his or her power to keep all Americans safe. But not just from foreign threats of terrorism but also from discrimination and hate crimes. We hope that President-elect Trump uses everything in his power to protect LGBTQ citizens from those threats also.

WATCH: Trump Makes Promise To Protect The LGBT Community

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