"Transgender Rights" Bill to Be Rammed thru by Illegitimate Means?

In Washington, they just rammed through ObamaCare illegitimately using “reconciliation”, ignoring the Senate’s 41 opposition votes. In Massachusetts, they attach controversial bills as budget amendments so they can sneak them through when legislators and voters aren’t watching carefully. That way, they can’t be repealed. (That is how they sneaked through the Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Youth in 2007, making it repeal-proof.)

We suspected this tactic might be the fall-back for the radical Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill, H1728. Sure enough, that fear is confirmed at MassPoliticsBlog:

Rep. Joseph R. Driscoll of Braintree and Rep. Jason M. Lewis of Winchester have submitted an amendment to the budget to add the controversial ‘Transgender Rights‘ (H1728/S1687) Bill to the House Budget.

The amendment is written in an abbreviated form to make it less conspicuous, and the amendment proposes that the language be added as section 20, in a large budget bill, with 51 sections. One troubling aspect is that Rep. Driscoll is on the House Ways and Means Committee and in a good position to sneak the language in, and hopefully have it not be noticed by the majority of legislators when they vote on the full budget bill.

The Transgender Rights bill would change many sections of Massachusetts law designed to protect people from sexual or racial discrimination, adding the transgendered as a protected class. Among its critics the bill is called the “Bathroom Bill” because it would allow men who self identify as women to use women’s bathrooms.

Whatever your position on the bill, this is a clear attempt to circumvent the legislative process, and to avoid public debate of a controversial issue. [emphasis added]

"Trans rights" supporters parade in Northampton, 2008:

For a glimpse of the bizarre public behaviors this bill would legitimize, see our reports on the cross-dresser invasion of a Peabody restaurant, the Trans Pride parade in Northampton, and our video of huge men using the women’s restroom at the Peabody Marriott.

Body mutilation on parade in Northampton, 2008:

"Gender Identity" Discrimination at Peabody Restaurant?

The GLBT newspaper Bay Windows is reporting a claim of “gender identity” discrimination that supposedly occurred at Capone’s Restaurant in Peabody in late January. What’s missing from the story, “Transgender discrimination alleged at Peabody eatery”? PHOTOS of the people! So, we thought we’d help out. Some of the major players are pictured below.

The only photo in the front-page Bay Windows story was of the empty restaurant:

There, on the night of January 29, a group of men dressed as women entered the restaurant -- and were asked by staff to leave. The photo of the so-called “transgender women's” (i.e. men's) group involved helps us understand why. Here’s the “Sisters Family” group, which was behind the restaurant invasion: 

Above: "Ashley Amber Bottoms," head of the group that invaded Capone’s, is on front right (pink top, miniskirt).

Below: Tall man on right is a member of the “Boston Sisters” – seen at the recent Transgender Lobby Day at the State House. (He's on far right in Sisters photo above.)

Bay Windows reports:

The women, members of the Sisters Family social organization for transgender women, held their normal Friday night ritual: a quick social at the bar of a local hotel, then out to another restaurant or bar to continue their evening. On Jan. 29, they chose Capone’s. It was their fourth or fifth visit to the restaurant and while they report having had experienced gender-based discrimination in the past, the women say they had decided to try and get along with the restaurant’s owner and staff. "They don’t want us using the ladies’ room," Ashley Bottoms, a member of the Sisters Family, said. "Some of the girls in our group, even though they’re legally female...I said, ’look, let’s just try to get along with these people.’"
Despite the group’s resolution, they say the evening’s events held only discord and disappointment. "I guess the doorman noticed us and he came to meet us at the door so we couldn’t get in," Bottoms said. "He pointed to a sign that said you need proper ID to get into the establishment and I went, ’Not a problem, because we have our drivers’ licenses! They’ve worked in the past.’ He says, ’Well, your license needs to match what you look like exactly.’"

 Ashley Bottoms with a “sister” 

Gunner Scott, “female-to-male” transgender activist pushing the Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill in the Mass. legislature, called this an incident of discrimination based on "gender identity or expression."



 

Gunner Scott - head of Mass. Transgender Political Coalition.

Since there’s a lot of talk of driver’s licenses making the trannies’ demands all OK – because they’re really “women” -- we include a photo of hack Rachel Kaprielian, director of the Mass. Registry of Motor Vehicles. Kaprielian has made a farce of official ID’s in Massachusetts, allowing unbalanced people to claim the identity of the opposite sex on their driver’s licenses. (See our report on transgender IDs here.)

 Rachel Kaprielian 

Here’s what Rachel had to say on WBZ Radio last year:

DAN REA (WBZ): “. . . to get a state certified ID drivers license that allows a person to pick a gender based on the gender the individual considers himself or herself to be.”  What’s that all about?

 KAPRIELIAN:  Well, I’m not sure exactly how he posed the question. What we’re doing, or what I should be doing. One of the things that we do with the RMV is we change with new information, and currently we have revised that policy of what’s called a transgender license, it’s very obviously a limited number of individuals who are looking to change their gender designation. We used to require the reassignment surgery.  And now it’s the proof from a medical provider that the person has lived as that gender for a year, because that is concurrent with current medical practices and current laws of the Commonwealth.

Bay Windows again:

According to Bottoms, despite the women’s protests, the bouncer [at Capone’s] wouldn’t relent. "One girl offered to take off her wig to show what she looked like and I told her, ’No. You shouldn’t have to do that to prove yourself to anybody,’" Bottoms said. Another transgender woman offered her license to the doorman, explaining that her DMV picture reflected the way she looks now; her long hair is natural. "The guy looked at us and said, ’but you’re wearing makeup. I can’t tell,’" Bottoms said. "And I went, ’you know that’s BS, because girls wear makeup!’"
A third member of the social group is legally female, and produced a license to that effect. "And he looked at her and said, ’Nope, because you’re really a guy.’"
According to Scott, those women who matched their ID’s were told "that their skirts were too short."

Hooray for the bouncer! But what’s really odd about this story is that Peabody is where the Marriott Hotel is located that gladly hosts the transgender conference, “First Event” – which just took place in January. So is Peabody a “welcoming” town or not?

Coakley’s Support of “Transgender Rights” Would Force Taxpayers to Fund Murderer’s Trans Procedures

The ultra-leftist Huffington Post thinks Scott Brown is a bad guy … for opposing taxpayer-funded sex-change procedures demanded by a convicted murderer.

According to the Huffington Post, it’s bad enough Brown opposes homosexual “marriage” -- but then they go on to list this as another of his bad deeds:

“The two-time incumbent [Brown] took a firm stance on opposing the request of a convicted murderer for a sex-change operation.”

Huff Post brands this "engaging in the culture wars," and that's a no-no. (They want conservatives to just shut up.) But Brown was courageous enough to stand up against the leftist trans madness fad and debated this issue on New England Cable News (7/16/07) with a trans activist from the International Foundation for Gender Education. (Unfortunately, the video has been taken down.)

The convicted murderer’s demands have been supported by a prominent transgender activist (and Massachusetts voter) “Nancy” Nangeroni, who testified alongside Martha Coakley for the “Transgender Rights” bill in Massachusetts last July. The transgender rights bill would mandate coverage for exactly such insane procedures.

 

Attorney General Martha Coakley testifying in favor of “Transgender Rights” Bill H1728.  Nancy Nangeroni (right), trans activist, looks on. [MassResistance photos]

The murderer in question is Robert Kosilek, who has demanded his transgender treatments in court -- dressed as a woman.

Convicted wife murderer, Robert Kosilek [AP photo]

Scott Brown was simply displaying common sense. It’s Martha Coakley who’s out of the mainstream. And if she gets her hands on health care legislation, you can be certain she’ll ensure transgender procedures are covered under all government-approved insurance plans.

“No discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression!”

USA Today, “Transgendered inmates push for state-funded sex-change surgery” (8/19/2006):

In Massachusetts, four of the 12 inmates diagnosed with gender identity disorder are receiving hormone shots.

Kosilek has been receiving hormone therapy since a federal judge ruled in 2002 that he was entitled to some treatment for gender identity disorder. Although Judge Mark Wolf did not order a specific treatment plan, he ruled that Kosilek had proven he has a serious medical condition that had not been adequately treated.

After Wolf's ruling, the corrections department allowed Kosilek to receive female hormones and laser hair removal. He was also given access to female undergarments and some makeup.

During testimony this spring in his second lawsuit, Kosilek said the female hormones and other treatments have not been enough to relieve his suffering and said he would likely commit suicide if he does not get the surgery.

Such talk infuriates state Sen. Scott Brown, who filed legislation seeking to ban sex-change operations for inmates in 1998. The legislation died in committee.

Brown points out that most private health insurers do not cover sex-change operations, and says taxpayers should not have to pay for such "elective" surgery for inmates.

"I just think it would be deemed a luxury for him to have that operation. He is in there because he murdered his wife," Brown said. "There are no luxuries that are supposed to be available."

But advocates for transgendered inmates say that in some cases, sex reassignment surgery is a medical necessity, not a luxury.

See also CBS/AP, “Cross-Dressing Killer Robert Kosilek Wants You To Pay For Hair-Removal Treatments Behind Bars” (11/23/09).

Martha Coakley Dedicated to "Transgender Rights"

Attorney General Martha Coakley was the first to testify last July 14, 2009 at a packed State House hearing on the "Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes" bill, H1728. (She made time for it on her birthday, it was that important to her!) She seemed to feel right at home with the crossdressers and transsexuals she wants to force the rest of us to accept as normal. (And if you dare to object, you could be charged with a "hate crime" or unlawful discrimination!) Here are just a few photos from our report on that event. See if you can find Martha:

               

     







   

Soon, if Attorney General Coakley gets her way and H1728 is passed in Massachusetts, you will have no grounds for complaint if you have to share a public restroom or locker room with any of the big guys, or would-be guys, above. (And they get to choose whichever gender facility they feel like at any given moment...)

Martha Coakley Has Moved to Left on "Transgender Rights"

Is it possible that anyone as radical as Martha Coakley could have moved to the left recently? We have found one example of this...

Men dressed as women lobby for their "rights" at the Mass. State House. 

Martha Coakley is now with them!  [Photo: MassResistance.]

A few years back, Coakley didn’t see the need for the “Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill” (H1728, formerly H1722) now pending in the Massachusetts legislature.  (See our detailed study of the bill here.) By 2008, she decided to testify in its favor. Since the national GLBT lobby was then starting a huge push on the transgender issue, she apparently decided she had to join them publicly to continue to get their financial support. 

Coakley is a very tough lady, and not easily intimidated by 6’3” guys in skirts sharing the women’s restroom, or “phallic women” sharing their locker room.

Men dressed as women at "transgender rights" lobby day at State House, April 2009. [Photo: MassResistance.]

From the homosexual news source, Edge Boston (3-7-08):

Marc Solomon, the campaign director for MassEquality, one of the organizations leading the effort to pass H.B. 1722 [now H1728], praised Coakley’s leadership on the issue. "When Martha Coakley stands up for something, she fights for it and we are so proud and gratified to have her fighting for equality for transgender people in Massachusetts. It’s a sea change from where we’ve been in the past. It’s so great to have the attorney general - the lead civil rights spokesperson in Massachusetts - fighting on behalf of our community." …

Coakley’s stance continues her record of commitment to equal treatment for LGBT people under the law. She regularly expressed support for marriage equality on the stump during her 2006 campaign for attorney general, in addition to identifying same-sex domestic violence as an issue to which she as attorney general would be more responsive.

In May 2007, a month before the legislature was to take a decisive vote on an anti-gay marriage amendment, Coakley came out swinging against the measure during a speech to the Mass. Lesbian and Gay Bar Association. … [See Coakley’s entire speech here.]

Despite those strong stances, however, Coakley’s position on adding explicit protections for transgender people to the state’s civil rights laws was less comprehensive until now. Asked about including protections based on gender identity and expression in state law during a 2006 interview with Bay Windows, Coakley supported including such protections in the state’s hate crimes law but stopped short of endorsing the same changes to its anti-discrimination statute, stating that her own understanding of the law’s intent is that gender identity and expression were protected already. (A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has used statutory bans on discrimination based on gender and disability to rule in favor of a transgender woman who had been fired from her job when she began transitioning.)

"If we either had incidents that were unaddressed or a court decision that said it didn’t I would certainly be supportive of strengthening the statute if we needed to," Coakley said at the time. "I do know it’s hard to get statutory changes; it would take a while to do it. So I’m a big believer in unless it’s broken let’s work with it. And maybe we develop case law, we develop whatever it is we need to." [Emphasis added.]

Mass. House of Representatives Did NOT Issue Transgender Proclamation

The Bay Windows headline reads:
"House of Reps. offers proclamation in support of Transgender Day of Remembrance"
 (Hannah Clay Wareham, Bay Windows (11-17-09).

Problem is, the House of Representatives does not issue proclamations (though the Governor does). We just called the House Clerk who said there was no official House action along these lines on the 17th, and the House was only in "informal session" that day.  So, was the House Clerk wrong?

The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition has posted a congratulatory document signed by Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo and two radical Reps. (Sciortino and Rushing), along with a state senator, and says the "entire membership [of the House] extends its very best wishes and expresses the hope for future good fortune and continued success in all endeavors."

Sounds like every Representative supports the transgender rights bill? and they've already essentially voted on it? Why don't they just issue a document saying Bill H1728 is hereby passed with a few signatures thrown on?

If you read the Bay Windows story closely, it sounds like a few radical Reps posed for a photograph somewhere in the State House with Gunner Scott, the female-to-male head of the Massachusetts Transgender Coalition. She loves to get her face out there.

"Rep. Carl Sciortino (right), along with other Representatives and State Senators 

gathered at the State House on Tuesday, 

acknowledged the work of Gunner Scott (left) and the MTPC.  

(Source: Hannah Clay Wareham)"  - Bay Windows

"Members of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) and family members of those who have been murdered for being transgender gathered at the Massachusetts State House on Nov. 17 to witness a proclamation given in support of this week’s upcoming Transgender Day of Remembrance by the House of Representatives.

"Rep. Carl Sciortino (D) offered introductions at the meeting that aimed to 'honor the celebrations and awareness happening this week' and showcase the 'very real stories of struggle and pain and mourning.' ..."

Questions That Must Be Asked at "Transgender Rights" Hearing

More on the Body Mutilation Bill, H1728/S1687:

Why does the state want to promote mental illness in its populace? (See DSM-IV, "gender identity disorder.") "Sex-change surgery is a collaboration with a mental disorder, not a treatment."

What are the long-term health effects of years or decades of opposite-sex hormone injections? (If the medical profession so concerned about female hormone replacement therapies for women, why should we not be even more concerned about transgender hormone treatments?)

What about the children? Experimenting on young children’s bodies is reminiscent of the Nazi era. Yet a doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital is doing just that. It was this blog that first broke the story on Dr. Norman Spack -- the endocrinologist who is injecting supposedly “transgender” children (who are not physically "intersex") with puberty-blocking chemicals so their "gender reassignment" will be easier later. Should the state condone such horrific medical experimentation? (Dr. Spack’s treatments will most likely make the young person infertile, so too bad if they should change their mind later and remain their actual sex.)

What will happen when confused teens are pushed into this world by their schools (through the “Gay Straight Alliances” and GLBT events)? The transsexual world is especially dangerous for male youth who want to behave as women. Do we want our public schools suggesting to young girls that they might have their breasts removed to become "bois"?

What are the long-term physical effects of the various bodily mutilations of sex-change surgeries? An unnecessary hysterectomy? Removal of healthy breasts? Penis amputation? -- especially when done early in one’s life?

What are other risks of sex "reassignment" surgeries -- especially an artificially constructed vagina or penis (with techniques constantly evolving)?

What are typical psychological outcomes of sex-change surgeries? Reports suggest that patients continue to suffer psychological distress, are not satisfied with their “new” bodies, and continue to demand more surgeries and treatments.

What happens when an individual changes his or her mind after sex-reassignment? They can’t go back. Will the state continue to pay for this person's coninuing demand for therapy and physical change?

Why should we let mentally disturbed individuals be in charge of their sexual identification? What does that mean for people they interact with? Dr. Paul McHugh described a situation which will surely arise:
Dr McHugh warned the [NYC Health] board that such changes would make sexual identification impossible. "I’ve already heard of a ‘transgendered’ man who claimed at work to be ‘a woman in a man’s body but a lesbian’ and who had to be expelled from the ladies’ restroom because he was propositioning women there," he said. "He saw this as a great injustice in that his behavior was justified in his mind by the idea that the categories he claimed for himself were all ‘official’ and had legal rights attached to them."