femme feminist

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) specifically allows anyone over the age of 17 to purchase emergency contraception regardless of gender, but Walgreens stores in Texas and Mississippi seem to be having trouble enacting that policy. On at least two separate occasions earlier this year, the company denied access to the “morning-after pill” to men who were not accompanied by their female partners...

i really do not understand the logic of electing someone who wants to secede from the US…

A former head of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans post in Hot Springs, Mauch calls the Confederate flag “a symbol of Jesus Christ,” and is a current member of The League of the South, a group which works toward the formation of an independent Southern nation.

Founded in 1994 in Killen, Ala., The League of the South advocates for “the secession and subsequent independence of the southern states from this forced union and the formation of a southern republic,” according to the “Introduction” page on its website. The site also encourages members to “personally secede from the corrupt and corrupting influence of post-Christian culture in America” by home-schooling children and creating “parallel institutions to which people can attach their loyalties.”

i generally enjoy gawker, but i have to say that when i saw the headline: “Barak Obama’s Indonesian Tranny Nanny” i was highly offended. yes, yes you’re witty, you can rhyme while using a demeaning slur! what’s even more disheartening is that gawker has not responded to comments pointing out that “tranny” is offensive, inappropriate, and a slur. of course the responses of other gawker commenters is all in the attitude of “oh shut up you stupid politically correct liberals. why do you have to ruin it for everyone? it’s FUNNY.”

i’m sure that gawker would never use the “N word” in a story, and i’d venture a guess that they’re probably not going to use the word “fag”, yet they throw around “tranny” as though it is not a derogatory term. an attitude of nonchalance regarding verbal harassment of trans people is simply not acceptable although it is common-place even within the lgbtq community. labels like “tranny” allow us to designate someone different as “other” and if we do not see them as a person it is very easy to not only verbally attack them but to physically attack them as well.

interestingly enough, gawker’s “sister site” jezebel has an article from june of this year that includes a discussion on the word “tranny”:

Kaveney writes… prejudice “starts with name-calling, but it doesn’t always end there.” Violence begins with words, starting with hate-speech and slurs. Furthermore, the words we use are always important, even within a community.

Please take a moment to let gawker know that using the word “tranny” is not funny, it is insensitive to a marginalized group of individuals who experience discrimination and violence on a daily basis. 90% of transgender youth reported feeling unsafe at school because of their gender expression; and 55% have experienced physical violence according to GLSEN. acceptance of hate speech and slurs does nothing but make it even that much harder for trans individuals and youth.

You can email gawker’s editor in chief Remy Stern <remy@gawker.com> and contact him via twitter @remystern please take a moment to speak out and let gawker know that using words like “tranny” is not ok!

this is disgusting.

Three St. Charles North High School students who wore T-shirts with the words “Straight Pride” and a Bible quote that references putting gay people to death will not face disciplinary action, school district officials said Tuesday.

The students told school administrators that the T-shirts were not meant to indicate a desire to cause harm, but to convey pride in being straight, according to students.

The three male students wore the T-shirts on Monday. They reportedly included a quote from Leviticus 20:13 which states, “If a man lay with a male as those who lay with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and shall surely be put to death.”

[…]

The Defense of Marriage Act is due for a two-pronged attack on Tuesday, as two separate organizations and sets of lawyers, representing different plaintiffs, plan to file lawsuits in federal court challenging the federal definition of marriage…

i had not heard about this before but it’s really disgusting that it made it through the really difficult process of becoming an iphone app! great commentary on this blog:

Gender in this case was used as a weapon and this app specifically implied that trans people are falsifying who they are thus making it appropriate to mock them for the sake of entertainment. The genesis of this idea is cissupremacy.  Lisa Harney, defines cissexism as “the assumption that your sex, your gender are superior and more valid than trans people’s sex and gender.” Inserting a cisgender woman into the average picture would not give rise to amusement or give cause for derision because cis bodies are not only normalized, they are expected and respected. Gender is only considered comical when it involves trans people because their identities are not considered real rather trans identities are seen as an artificial and self constructed.

sadly, i have seen this first-hand. when it comes to activism the solution to a problem is never to “make the website look better” unless the problem is the website looks crappy.

Digital activists hide behind gloried stories of viral campaigns and inflated figures of how many millions signed their petition in 24 hours. Masters of branding, their beautiful websites paint a dazzling self-portrait. But, it is largely a marketing deception. While these organisations are staffed by well-meaning individuals who sincerely believe they are doing good, a bit of self-criticism is sorely needed from their leaders.

The truth is that as the novelty of online activism wears off, millions of formerly socially engaged individuals who trusted digital organisations are coming away believing in the impotence of all forms of activism. Even leading Bay Area clicktivist organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to motivate their members to any action whatsoever. The insider truth is that the vast majority, between 80% to 90%, of so-called members rarely even open campaign emails. Clicktivists are to blame for alienating a generation of would-be activists with their ineffectual campaigns that resemble marketing.

Via Deirdra Harris Glover   

this is a great piece, and very difficult to read. here in mississippi we are one step closer to voting on fetal personhood. even the most widely-read newspaper in central MS, the Clarion Ledger, called personhood simply an “anti-abortion” issue. the truth is fetal personhood goes far beyond abortion and infringes on the right of a woman to control her own body, even when wanting to carry a pregnancy to term.

i urge you to read this whole article, but here are some excerpts:

The argument that eggs and fetuses may be treated as if they are legally independent of the women who carry them has been used to deprive pregnant women of their status as full constitutional persons. Angela Carder was forced to have cesarean surgery to advance the rights of the fetus inside of her. Shortly after the surgery both the baby and Ms. Carder died. Ms. Carder was deprived of her right to life. Recently, a pregnant woman was kept prisoner in a Florida hospital because doctors believed that doing so would advance the rights and health of her fetus. She nevertheless suffered a stillbirth. Ms. Burton was deprived of her right to liberty. Although courts in both cases eventually held that these deprivations of life and liberty were wrong, adopting fetal separatist measures would allow outsiders to take similar actions whenever they disagreed with the pregnant woman.

this scares the CRAP out of me. it’s like something out of a sci-fi film:

When doctors at a hospital learned that Laura Pemeberton was attempting to have a home birth, fetal separatist arguments became the basis for sending a sheriff to her home. She was taken into custody, forcibly restrained while in active labor, judged without representation and forced to undergo cesarean surgery, depriving her of her right to liberty, privacy, bodily integrity, medical decision-making, and due process of law.

(Via Deirdra Harris-Glover)

Very disappointing, to say the least. It’s also disappointing that the CL calls “personhood” simply “anti-abortion” because it goes so far beyond that one issue.

A Hinds County judge has ruled in favor of allowing an anti-abortion initiative on Mississippi’s 2011 ballot.

“(The initiative) has received more than the required amount of signatures to be placed on the ballot and the Constitution recognizes the right of citizens to amend their Constitution,” Judge Malcolm Harrison ruled in an order signed today.

The ballot initiative would allow voters to decide whether Mississippi’s Constitution should be amended to define life as beginning at conception.

Supporters of the “personhood” amendment gathered more than 106,000 signatures to get it on the ballot in 2011.

The lawsuit, filed by two Oxford women, had argued that the initiative process cannot be used to rewrite the state Bill of Rights — which they said the personhood amendment would do.

The case is expected to be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Via the Clarion Ledger

Via: moreapologies: femblr:

British women who want to terminate a pregnancy are being confronted by Christian protesters picketing abortion clinics, in a copy of tactics used by hardcore anti-abortionists in the US.

A Texas-based religious group, which has support and funding from hundreds of American churches, has been holding protests outside Marie Stopes House in central London, one of Britain’s first modern abortion clinics.

It is the first time that the group – called 40 Days for Life – has targeted an abortion clinic in mainland Britain.

This really, really upsets me. CHOICE!

this is just horrific. what are we coming to in this country?

As you can see from the below video, shot at a different angle from the original footage, the victim’s head gets pressed against the pavement as the boot comes down on her head, neck and shoulder. Photos at this website show that one of the men holding Lauren Valle down was wearing a “Don’t Tread On Me” button.

follow the link for the full story/video. (Via Pam Spaulding)

I have not had a chance to watch this yet but i’ve been hearing about it on twitter all night so i wanted to go ahead and post the link for anyone who wants to watch it online. more after i watch it.

Follow the link for video/full story.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips refused to stay her decision to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the longtime ban on openly gay men and women serving in the armed forces. By the end of the day, military recruiters were accepting gay and lesbian candidates. And Lt. Dan Choi, the Iraq veteran, West Point grad, and gay rights activist, went down to Times Square to reenlist. His request is being processed. (Choi first attempted to enlist in the Marines, he said on Twitter, but he was told he is too old.)

Great blog over at Ms.

Via moreapologies:Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Sign the petition at Planned Parenthood’s website:

I support making prescription birth control available at no cost. The new health care reform law should make prescription birth control available to every woman without co-pays or other out-of-pocket costs to ensure that every woman has access to the birth control that works best for her. This will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and help keep women and children healthy.

this is a very powerful and very correct.

“America’s children are under attack. But what difference is there between the schoolyard tormentor who literally bullies to death a gay or questioning youth, and their adult counterparts — like the National Organization for Marriage, or Focus on the Family — shrouded in Orwellian nomenclature, who provide them with the ammunition?
…

what organizations like FOF don’t come right out and say (like westboro baptist church does) is that they don’t care if gay teens commit suicide. to them, the tragedy is not the death of a human being, a young person in pain, but that the young person was gay. at least the “god hates fags” people have the decency to tell the truth - they’d rather see their children dead than gay.

great piece!

When I ask Matson how we can start to fix this, she suggests what she calls a radical act. And that might be…? “Decide,” she says (and this is genius), “to love yourself as you are.”

apparently you get what you pay for with “God”:

Last month, firefighters in Obion County, Tennessee watched a home burn to the ground because the homeowner had failed to pay a $75 fee to receive fire protection from the city of South Fulton.

And, of course, Bryan Fischer says letting the house burn down was not only the right thing to do, it was the Christian thing to do:

The fire department did the right and Christian thing. The right thing, by the way, is also the Christian thing, because there can be no difference between the two. The right thing to do will always be the Christian thing to do, and the Christian thing to do will always be the right thing to do…

sadly, sometimes freedom of speech means that people will conduct themselves without dignity or even sanity. God hates idiots…

“It is a case that pits the right to Free Speech against the right to privacy. The Supreme Court of the United States has begun hearing arguments in the case that has pitted Albert Snyder of York, PA against the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. The members of Westboro Baptist have protested at the funerals of slain service members claiming that their deaths were punishment for America’s immorality…”

“It stems from a lawsuit that Snyder undertook after members of Westboro Baptist picketed the funeral of Snyder’s son Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder in March 2006…”

The gay-rights movement literally began to split at a March 18 rally… Choi then left the rally for Pennsylvania Avenue, where he chained himself to the fence in front of the White House in his camouflage uniform.

But the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign—the nation’s largest gay-rights group—did not follow Choi that day.

Battered gay voter syndrome? In the wake of the failure to advance “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal in the U.S. Senate this week, the Libertarian Party pleaded with gay voters to stop running back to Democrats “like abused spouses who keep returning to their aggressors.”

once again, i’m going wtf? is this not a BUSINESS? gay money still spends but not there after this, hopefully not even after they (inevitably) apologize!

“I explained we’re a family-run business, we have two young, impressionable daughters and we thought maybe it was best not to do that,” said co-owner David Stockton to a local Fox television station. He then added that it’s his bakery’s decision to decide what is obscene. Apparently rainbow colors fall under that label. “We have our values, and you know, some things … for instance, if someone wants a cookie with an obscenity, well, we’re not going to do that.”

All of a sudden making cookies and cupcakes for a gay student group is against family values? So much for customer service, and so much for making a good impression on those daughters, who were just shown by their parents that discrimination can come in the form of baked goods. Meanwhile, the Indianapolis City Market has a mission to enrich “the city’s economy, expands its educational options, enhances its culture.” Having vendors that refuse to serve LGBT customers doesn’t do any of that.

About one-quarter of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students and university employees have been harassed on college campuses across the country because of their sexual orientations, according to a new survey.

The report, issued on Sept. 13 by LGBT advocacy group Campus Pride, found bigotry toward LGBT students in primary and secondary schools often continues at the college level. The study, titled “The 2010 State of Higher Education for LGBT People,” surveyed 5,150 individuals from more than 100 universities across the country.

A Miami appeals court has upheld a ruling overturning Florida’s law banning adoption by gays.

The 3rd District Court of Appeal issued its decision Wednesday affirming a lower court’s decision that the ban is unconstitutional.

“In 2006, however, she told Bill O’Reilly that it is “anti-human” to promote condom usage. O’Donnell has tried to distance herself from the comments she made early in her career condemning abortion, claiming she was just very “excited” about her faith…”

WTF?!

this is an awesome piece!

Ever since 9/11, according to opinion polls, Republicans have worried more about terrorism than have Democrats. Initially, this fear translated into overwhelming support for military action abroad. But as Republicans (like everyone else) have grown tired and embittered by America’s wars, they have turned their anxiety inward, lured by the same idea that attracted Palmer and the McCarthyites: that America could guarantee its safety on the cheap by ferreting out the real threat, which resides within…