In Memoriam

On Thursday, October 8, 2009, eleven years after Matthew’s death, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly, 281-146, to give final House passage to the Defense Spending Bill that included the Matthew Shepard Act, which added gender, gender identity, sexual orientation and disability to the federal law prohibiting crimes motivated by hatred or minority bias.

For background, see my posts “Sexual Hate Crimes” and “Hate Crimes Legislation Debate.”

Also: yesterday was the 11th International Transgender Day of Remembrance. Check out Bird of Paradox for this Transgender Europe press release.

Noble Savage points out in “Transforming Our Views of Transgender” that some feminists do not consider male-to-female transexuals to be female simply because they say so (or because they have the operation relieving them of their male “equipment”). This convoluted viewpoint comes from the supposed feminist “belief” that gender is not biologically determined, but rather socialized behavior. This black-or-white way of thinking only serves to marginalize transgender individuals and deprive them of their human rights.

For example, Julie Bindel writes in Standpoint.com that “despite campaigning against gender discrimination, rape, child abuse and domestic violence for 30 years, I have been labelled a bigot because of a column I wrote in 2004 that questioned whether a sex change would make someone a woman or simply a man without a penis.” (Read her recent article, “The Operation That Can Ruin Your Life,” here.)

Go here to read more about this exhibition.

Related posts:

1. Hate Crimes Legislation Debate Jos, on Feministing, is against hate crimes legislation for several reasons, one being: “Hate crimes legislation puts the power to bring and pursue such...
2. Sexual Hate Crimes The FBI shows [see below] that hate crimes based on sexual orientation are the third most prevalent type. That’s why it doesn’t make sense...
3. Gender Differences How far does this equality thing go, anyway? Some feminists insist that there are no intrinsic differences between men and women, or, if there...
4. Women and Political Participation Does it bother anyone else that it has been 16 years since the “Year of the Woman” and women are still vastly underrepresented in...
5. Second Wave Feminism: Is It Out of Date? Instead of being credited for helping to achieve so much of the new egalitarianism, Second Wave feminists are being written off as old out-of-sync...