Chairman Velasco, board members and General Council Simmons,
I stood before you a few months ago and praised you for your selfless dedication to DART, encouraged by your stated desire to transform DART into a corporation that would no longer persecute it's transgender employees.
I stand before you today angry, disillusioned but focused and empowered.
We ave worked these months in good faith petitioning your corporation to simply allow the human rights that are allowed by common decency to be extended to your employees.
In return for our efforts we initially saw a spark of hope in that DRT would amend it's nondiscrimination policy to protect it's most vulnerable, transgender people.
But as time went on DART began to assemble a nondiscrimination policy with proposed language that was vague and ambiguous strangely inviting an interpretation which would allow open discrimination against the people that DART purportedly desired to protect.
My worst fears were confirmed after Council Member Raymond Noah announced the nondiscrimination policy was crafted so DART could in fact openly discriminate against transgender people as it has done selectively against all other protected classes!
Mr. Raymond Noah t has been reveled in the past week that you in your capacity of Judge you misgendered and humiliated a transgender OFFICER of the law, Diana J. Powe repeatedly during a seven year post transitional period. Your intentionally misgendered her while she was n the witness stand and making a production of correcting your self, insueing her humiliation.
As a young transgender woman I made some mistakes which cost me a night in jail. I was repeatably embarrassed by jail employees and guards who striped me to the bare essentials of clothing and continually paraded visitors and staff past my cell to embarrass and humiliate me. And you did the same thing to a officer of the law who's served a seven year sentence imprisonment by her belief your indiscretions were of less importance than her commitment to her job.
Mr Noah I beleive this example of transmisoyony and homophobia is just the tip of the iceberg since you were the one who inserted the changes that would have allowed DART to discriminate at will.
General counsel Hyattye Simmons, you earn a six figure income yet you took it yourself to direct your legal team to influence a family court judge so she would vacate a ruling finding a transgender woman legaly female. I know you deny any involvement in that and I am calling you a lie. The judge would never have done that with out your interference.
I suggest you should be fired and your six figure income be used to support the minor increase to your insurance plan that would allow for the funding of sexual reassignment surgeries for your transgender employees and benefits for your partnered gay and lesbian employees.
This goes out to all the transgender girls who like myself were rejected by friends and family. If you make the same mistakes I did and end up in a cell, demand respect and common decency and nothing less from your jailers.
This goes out to all te transgender police officers who unselfishly endure harassment and disbasement from judges while performing your duties, You do not have to accept this mistreatment anymore! Demand respect and dignity and nothing less.
This goes out to Robin a fellow driver. God bless you girl. You have endured this inhumanity silently and anonymously trusting in our LGBT community to rescue you because you were held incarcerated by a system so institutionalized with bigotry to do otherwise would have cost you your job.
I beleive DART will amend it's nondiscrimination policy as we have asked, maybe not from a feeling of obligation but protectionism.
And if they do Robin from this day forward your suffering from this oppression is over and you will be free to live your life with arms wide open.
6/20/10
LGBT Response to manipulations by DART allowing Discrimination
”Time: 6:30 p.m.Location: Board Room
DART Headquarters
1401 Pacific Ave. (Akard Station)
Dallas, TX 75202
MAP
The Dart Committee meeting of the whole proposed changes to be voted on June 22 have according to Ken Upton at Lambda Legal commented that,
“They just screwed you guys over royally,” Upton said. “By adding that word in there, they’ve said we can discriminate all we want. It’s exactly the opposite of what they promised they were doing."DART board member transphobic Raymond Noah changed the wording of the proposed changes to it's nondiscrimination policy "hoodwinking" the good members of the DART board and is ruining the LGBT's faith in DART's promise it will become a entity that does not openly persecute it's transgender employees.~Kelli Busey
The North Texas LGBTQ community is encouraged to attend this meeting. You will be given three minutes to voice your opinions.
Changes proposed for the DART Nondiscrimination policy to be voted on June 22 2010,
• DART Board Supplemental Information PDF
Background informantion:
Word Switched by DART's Raymond Noah encourages discrimination| Judge Raymond Noah's Decade of Transphobic Courtroom Behavior EXPOSED!
6/19/10
Word Switched by DART's Raymond Noah encourages discrimination| Judge Raymond Noah's Decade of Transphobic Courtroom Behavior EXPOSED!
The closed door 'Executive' meeting DART conducted to discuss it's nondiscrimination policy was indicative of the systemic bigotry and duplicitous abuse of authority that pervades DART's management.
There was 'passionate' discussion about amending the nondiscrimination policy according to DART chairman William Velasco in a possibly illegal closed door meeting after receiving general counsel Hyattye Simmons explaination of 'gender'.
Was it decided by Simmons and forced on some members in this closed door meeting that sneaking a word in that expressly allows discrimination was in the best interests of DART?
The motion by Raymond Noah (pictured left) to change the wording to allow discrimination against gay and transgender people was passed without debate. Was part of that 'passionate' discussion about what defence the Board members should offer in case this sham was exposed? A woman's life is at stake. Being simply ignorant about language changes to a human rights amendment to protect her reeks of collusion.
What was the DART Board's main concern? Protecting one of there employees from discrimination or protecting themselves from Council Simmons?
Who is DART's General Counsel Simmons to have influenced a FAMILY judge so that she reversed her findings that DART employee, Ms T Dart (Robin) was female?
Why was General Counsel Simmons given the responsibility of presenting a impartial and subjective definition of gender to the DART board?
We need more than DART's Human resource director Ben Gomez's word that they will rewrite there employees handbook to prohibit discrimination against gay and transgender people regardless if the amendment to there nondiscrimination policy clearly not only allows but encourages this discrimination to take place!
WE need full accountability and open management of DART if the re written employees handbook is to have ANY value.
We need to seriously consider if General Council Simmons is performing his duties in the best interest of DART or are the Board members simply pawns of the General Council's bigotry.
We need to attend Tuesdays meeting in support of board member William Tsao and other well intentioned board members in there effort to remove the extraneous and ambiguous wording DART has inserted in there Nondiscrimination policy proposed changes.
We need the addition of Gender Identity/Expression without ANY provisions to discriminate.
Kelli Anne Busey
June 19, 2010
6/17/10
DENNY'S Gender Grand Slam Ban's Transwoman from Ladies Room
As transfolk we understand our moral obligations to society and none more so than respecting others right to privacy. Accordingly, we often are perplexed when Cisgender people make a big deal about us using the restroom.
Brianna Freeman of Lewiston Maine was banned because of a alleged complaint from a anonymous source complaining about Brianna. No official complaints were lodged and police have none on file.
Denny's feels it is doing the right thing even though the state has legislation protecting the rights of transgender people to use the proper public accommodations. "The problem is that another individual with inappropriate motives could abuse the policy that permitted a male to use the woman's restroom." according to Denny's attorney, Patrick Mellor.
DART Board Member Raymond Noah Gut's Gender Amendment Screws Gays: TAKE ACTION!
Dallas Area Rapid Transit's final draft gender inclusive nondiscrimination proposal had a word added in the last moments while the Committee had there Mic's turned down, effectively making it a regulation PERMITTING discrimination against GLBT people in the workplace not expressly forbade by state and national laws. Another words? Sans ENDA, Texas being a "AT WILL" state this amendment allows DART to discriminate, officially and legally.
At the 35 second mark board member Raymond Noah, who has opposed this amendment asked that the word "and" be changed to "except" which was rubber stamped by committee. Ken Upton at Lambda Legal commented that,
“They just screwed you guys over royally,” Upton said. “By adding that word in there, they’ve said we can discriminate all we want. It’s exactly the opposite of what they promised they were doing.”
The DART nondiscrimination policy only needed the inclusion of the words "Gender Identity/Expression to make DART a organization that protects equally transgender people in the work place. Instead DART has manipulated the amendments language in a way that it ultimately denies transgender and gay people protection!
Please contact these Dallas City Council Members BEFORE the June 22 board meeting and ask they relay your concerns about the amendment to the DART Board.
Sample email
Dear Councilmember ,
Please pass my concerns to the DART board that the work that the GLBT community has done in good faith has been for naught.
The DART nondiscrimination policy only needed the inclusion of the words "Gender Identity/Expression to make DART a organization that protects equally transgender people in the work place. Instead DART has manipulated the amendments language in a way that it ultimately denies transgender and gay people protection.
Thank you
[your name]
Councilmember Pauline Medrano
Deputy Mayor Pro Tem
Phone: 214-670-4048
Fax: 214-670-3409
David A. Neumann
Phone: 214-670-0776
Fax: 214-670-5117
Delia Jasso
Phone: 214-670-4052
Fax: 214-670-5117
Linda Koop
Phone: 214-670-7817
Fax: 214-670-5117
6/15/10
Demand Accountability for Neda Agha-Soltan and Respect for Angie Zapata
Neda Agha-Soltan, aged 27, was shot to death on 20 June 2009 during a peaceful demonstration in Tehran, protesting the results of the 12 June 2009 presidential elections. She was apparently shot by a Basij (paramilitary) sniper. The video of her last minutes, as Dr. Arash Hejazi and other bystanders tried to save her while blood poured over her face, galvanized people around the world. Although the one-year anniversary of her death is approaching, the Iranian government has as yet not carried out an investigation into her death, or the dozens of other killings of peaceful post-election protesters. The following link takes you to Amnesty Internationals campaign demanding accountability for Neda.
No Iranian exploitation comedies have been made using Neda's legacy in a cheap advertising ploy.
Angie Zapata was a young transgender woman who was brutally murdered in 2008 for her
gender expression and a American gay man used her legacy and the thousands of murdered transgender woman in a cheap advertising ploy.
Both murderers thought that by killing woman they could snuff out the same candle of hope and faith that we share. Both murderers had this in common, they were so very wrong!
The world united to condemn both these horrendous crimes, so why should Angie Zapata or any other of the thousands of murdered transwoman be of such less value that a American gay man felt entitled to use her name to advertise a comedy about murdering transgender woman, much to the much to the horror of her mother?
Because film director Israel Luna is a misogynist who would use his ability to kill the will of all transgender woman if able. Being a gay misogynist, Luna would not pick on Iranian cisgender woman to use in this fashion. But like the two murdering cowards the preceded him, Luna is finding universal condemnation.
Israel Luna picked on transgender womankind, often made fun of in drag by gay men because of all of woman we remain the least protected and most vulnerable.
Demand that Philly Q Fest artistic director Raymond Murray removes TO#WK for the same reason you demand accountability for Neda,every woman counts.
Philadelphia Cinema AllianceCineFest / QFest
234 Market St 4th floor Philadelphia, PA 19106
267-765-9800
Artistic Director: Raymond Murrayemail:
Raymond Murray
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