2/3/10

Tax Court: SRS Deductions now allowed! Glad hosting Conference call to explain ruling

Source NTCE: In a closely-watched case, the United States Tax Court overwhelmingly ruled on Tuesday in O'Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue that a transgender woman's medical expenses for hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery were medically necessary and therefore tax-deductible under Federal law. After considering extensive medical evidence and testimony from leading medical experts, the court rejected an interpretation of the law that would consider transgender people's medical treatment different than all other medically necessary treatment recommended by major medical and psychological organizations.

"Finally, we have recognition from the courts of what transgender people and our medical providers have known all along-that transition related care is absolutely necessary health care for the wellbeing of many transgender people," said Mara Keisling, the Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. "Being able to deduct a portion of costly medical treatments will make it more affordable for transgender people to follow through with the care their doctors prescribe. For the IRS to treat transgender people and non-transgender people differently was discrimination, plain and simple, and now that has ended."

The court's decision does not mean that all medical treatments and procedures associated with gender transition will be tax-deductible. Like all other medical treatments, deductibility will be based on the medical necessity of the treatment as determined by qualified medical providers in accordance with recognized clinical standards of care. The court recognized, as have the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association and many others, based on overwhelming medical evidence, that transition-related health care is non-cosmetic, medically necessary healthcare.

The case stems from a decision by the IRS to reject Rhiannon O'Donnabhain's deduction of her expenses for sex reassignment surgery in 2001 from her federal income tax. The case went to trial in 2007. Ms. O'Donnabhain was represented by the Transgender Rights Project of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD).

NCTE applauds GLAD's groundbreaking and powerful work and perseverance to win this important victory, and thanks Rhiannon O'Donnabhain for her willingness to stand up and challenge the inequity of the IRS's policies. Her courage and determination will have an impact on the health of transgender people around our country for many years to come.
CONFERENCE CALL TONIGHT
Hear more about the case NCTE is joining GLAD in a community conference call GLAD is hosting tonight (Wednesday) February 3 at 6PM EST / 3PM PST. Attorneys who worked on the case will be on the call explain the case and its ramifications for transgender people. Call in information:

Toll Free Dial-In Number: 1-800-704-9804
Participant Code(s): 61898641#

Wednesday February 3

6:00 PM Eastern Time Zone
5:00 PM Central Time Zone
4:00 PM Mountain Time Zone
3:00 PM Pacific Time Zone


For more information visit transequality.org

2/2/10

Julie Bindel: The transmisogynist that Kills

Julie Bindel, a British feminist is the most heinous of transmisogynistic, transphobic woman to ever darken the pages of LGBT European culture. Bindel now wants to play the victim card having been uninvited from many of her former platforms because the protests of the truly victimized have finally begun to reach he ears of compassionate allies in the British LGBT community.

I have extremly liberal Gay and straight friends in Britain who make me recoil with their paternalistic comments when I post a feminist view defending the right of transgender woman to a fair and just life.

British men, it seems, feel I need their approval to be a outspoken and being a feminist transgender woman? Not acceptable. It's as if!

The differences in our cultures expectations of the treatment of transgender people is a cavernous divide, the Americans having crossed that bridge with UNITED ENDA and the British languishing with internal hemorrhaging, thanks to Julie Bindel's knife.

Julie Bindel has done the worst damage that anyone could have possibly done to transgender people and feminism as a whole. She has polarized gays and lesbians into different camps, having been nominated for a award by stonewall, the British Gay and lesbian advocacy organization.

Julie Bindel is the transmisogynist that kills.

Protest her? YES! Silence her like she has done for decades to countless helpless transgender victims? YES! Do I care if she feels like a victim for it? NO.

Silence Bindel.

2/1/10

Gay Liberation Network to Picket Holy Name Cathedral on Freedom-to-Marry Day!

In opposition to the desires of millions of lay Catholics for simple justice for all, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has long aligned itself with, and often led, the forces of hate and bigotry opposing equal rights for gays and women.

At 10:30 AM on Freedom-to-Marry Day 2010 – Sunday, February 14, Valentine’s Day – the Gay Liberation Network will host an informational picket of Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N. State Street, to highlight the role the Church’s leadership has played in promoting inequality.

For many years the Catholic leadership has attempted to fly under the radar screen with its opposition to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. A key secret to their success has been their stealthiness, ironically often assisted by gay rights “leaders.” These “leaders,” not trusting rank-and-file Catholics to be fair and too worried about hurting their fundraising base with well-connected and wealthy Catholics, are too cowardly to call out Catholic leaders for promoting hate and discrimination.

As a local example, Chicago's Catholic leader Cardinal Francis George has worked tirelessly -- albeit from behind the scenes -- to block our path to full legal equality. George attempted to kill LGBT inclusion as a protected class in the Illinois Human Rights Act, which now protects us from housing and employment discrimination. He and other Catholic bishops circulated petitions in a failed effort to force an advisory referendum on "gay marriage," and George is the head of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops which spent big bucks backing Prop 8 hate in California. Back in Illinois, George is working hard today to block same sex-marriage and/or civil unions.

On Sunday, February 14th, with our picket of Holy Name Cathedral, we will make a start in dragging Francis George's bigotry out of the closet.


But Cardinal George is no lone voice in the wilderness. He is joined by almost the entire hierarchy of the Catholic Church whose record of activism against gay equality is long and sordid:

** Speaking of the current pope, the Associated Press reported that “Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, spearheaded a Vatican campaign against same-sex unions in 2003, issuing guidelines for Catholic politicians to oppose laws granting legal rights to gay couples when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” Associated Press, 6/6/05

** The Portland, Maine Archdiocese gathered more than a quarter of the funds recently used to defeat marriage equality in Maine. In addition, Marc Mutty, the chair of the principal statewide organization in Maine that fueled anti-gay discrimination there, was the Portland Archdiocese’s head spokesperson until taking a leave of absence from his job to spearhead the successful effort to rob gays and lesbians of their equal marriage rights.

** The Catholic fraternal organization Knights of Columbus bankrolled California’s anti-gay Proposition 8 to the tune of over $1 million.

** As California’s East Bay Express noted about newly-minted Oakland Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, “What almost no one knows is that without Bishop Sal, gay men and lesbians would almost surely still be able to get married today. As an auxiliary bishop in San Diego, Cordileone played an indispensable role in conceiving, funding, organizing, and ultimately winning the campaign to pass Proposition 8. It was Bishop Sal and a small group of Catholic leaders who decided that they had to amend the state constitution. It was Bishop Sal who found the first major donor and flushed the fledgling campaign with cash. It was Bishop Sal who personally brought in the organization that took the lead on the petition drive. And it was Bishop Sal who coordinated the Catholic effort with evangelical churches around the state. Bishop Sal even helped craft the campaign's rhetorical strategy, sitting in on focus groups to hone the message of Proposition 8.“
While Catholic leaders decry any attempts to label them as haters and bigots, their own scapegoating statements tell a very different story about their true feelings:

** Former pope Karol Wotija, aka John Paul II, condemned gay foster parents for doing "violence" to children. He called us "disordered," and "against the natural law." He railed against civil marriage equality for all same-sex couples whether Catholic or not, condemning our civil marriage contract as an act "against God," and proclaimed defeating marriage equality his "primary task" for 2005.

** In a 2005 pastoral letter read in every church in the diocese of Calgary, Alberta, Bishop Frederick Henry called on his flock to stamp out same-sex marriage. “Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the State must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good." (365Gay.com)

** In an end-of year address in 2008, the current pope, George Ratzinger (aka Benedict XVI), said that the existence of gay people threatens humanity as much as the destruction of rainforests and that "blurring" genders through acceptance of transgender people would kill off the human race.

** Beginning in 1986, Ratzinger wrote a series of church documents that branded sexually active gays as "evil," told church officials to kick Dignity chapters off church property and even warned Catholic lawmakers that voting in favor of gay-rights legislation is "gravely immoral" because "the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil." (Deb Price, Detroit News)

** Ratzinger has disparaged lesbian and gay couples as engaging in “pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex.”

** Bishop Cordileone has called same-sex marriage a Satanic plot: "The ultimate attack of the Evil One is the attack on marriage.”

** In 2007 Chicago’s Cardinal George wrote that same-sex behavior "brings people's salvation into jeopardy" in a column for the Archdiocese of Chicago newspaper.
When haters garb themselves in clerical robes, their statements and activities must be exposed.

The Gay Liberation Network encourages all people of good will, regardless of faith background, to join us at 10:30 AM, Sunday, February 14 for an informational picket of Holy Name Cathedral, 735 N. State Street, Chicago.
Gay Liberation Network Facebook page
gayliberation.net

Bruce Knotts, Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office to be in Dallas for a Informal Discussion


Bruce Knotts, Executive Director UU - UNO "An Informal Discussion"Wednesday, Feb. 3rd.

Free and Open to the Public

Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff
3839 W. Kiest Blvd.
Dallas, Texas 75233
(214) 337-2429

Bruce Knotts, Director of the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office, was the person responsible for getting BLGT issues added to the UN's civil rights agenda. Come meet him and two of his associates for an informal discussion.

The UU United Nations Office seeks to strengthen efforts to promote peace and to eliminate war, discrimination, poverty and disease, thus affirming our belief in the essential unity of the human family. Inspired by UU principles, the Office is committed to peace, freedom and environmental responsibility, as well as social, civil and economic justice for all.

The UU UNO is an associate member of the UUA with United Nations ECOSOC consultative status and DPI/NGO status. With its own board, budget, and programs, the Office speaks, acts and bears witness on behalf of Unitarian Universalists at the United Nations and within the governments of Canada and the US to educate UUs about the structure, function, and actions of the UN.

1/30/10

Ugandan transgender fugitive Pepe Julian Onziema

Imagine being a law abiding citizen yet living in fear for your life, having been stoned by neighbors and falsely imprisoned by your government, and your only crime?

Being transgender!

KAMPALA, Jan 29, 2010 (IPS) - Every morning Pepe Julian Onziema wakes up not knowing if she will live to see another rising sun. Onziema is transgender and she lives in fear for her life because of a national campaign against gay people.

Although she has done nothing wrong, Onziema lives like a fugitive - always on the lookout to avoid trouble.

Her days are spent in fear and as darkness descends she securely locks the doors to her flat in Ntinda, a Kampala suburb where she lives with her partner.

Onziema is a well-known activist and the national programmes coordinator of Sexual Minorities Uganda, an advocacy network of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organisations. She has appeared on television several times defending the rights of LGBTs. But it has not made her life any easier.

Just like other LGBTs in her country Onziema has been arrested; spat on; attacked; insulted and even stoned by neighbours.Read the rest at IPS RIGHTS-UGANDA: Fugitives in Their Own Country

Equality Utah amazing progress in five legislative days

I was along with many others, so profoundly effected by the Mormons contribution to the passage of prop 8 became intensely interested in Saltlake cities newly formed GLBT groups.

Like a flickering candle of hope in the mountains, Utah's equality birthright was a battlefield where every attempt to find common ground was met by the goverment and the LDS with stifling overpowering opposition, threatening to extinguish the very human spirit of those courageous early campaigners for equality.

Astonishingly, Utah may emerge as a bright star of fairness if progress is maintained. Many of us are now hopefull.

From Equality Utah:

Equality Utah has been working with Representative Christine Johnson and Senator Howard Stephenson on a Fair Workplace and Housing Bill.

Today at a press conference, Leadership of both the House and Senate along with Representative Johnson and Senator Stephenson agreed to engage in an anti-discrimination study related to Housing and Employment during the Interim Session.

It was also announced that there will be NO PREEMPTIVE BILLS.

Both of these announcements represent incredibly positive developments, especially in light of what was potentially underway during this Legislative Session.

This means that we truly have the opportunity to find Common Ground in the state of Utah. Stakeholders and interested parties have agreed to continue the dialogue to gather pertinent information through the study sponsored by Rep. Johnson and Sen. Stephenson.

Most importantly, just 5 days in to the 2010 Session, we managed to defeat 5 negative bills.

• Two were outright preemptions that would have stopped ANY non-discrimination Ordinances from being enacted, including those that were already passed.

• Two were focused on stripping housing protections from the Housing and Workplace bill.

• One would have gutted the Human Rights Ordinances by allowing religious "Adherents" to discriminate.

Equality Utah is committed to providing these critical protections in Housing and Employment, and will continue to work with all stakeholders until full equality is achieved.

Working for a fair and just Utah,

Brandie Balken
Executive Director

Salt Lake Tribune'Dramatic jump' with Utahns for gay rights "More want SLC's rules to go statewide; marriage, adoption don't gain traction."