whyinthehell

The Bilerico Project / Filed by David Badash

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“Thursday’s historic passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is cause for celebration. The first federal legislation to provide inclusive protections for the GLBTQ community, this hate crimes bill will extend significant protections to many Americans.

“Yes, we absolutely must celebrate this victory. It tells all our citizens, and the world, who we are, what we stand for - and what we won’t stand for.

“But we cannot think we’re done. This is, in fact, just the beginning.

“Gays in this country are increasingly becoming victims of violent, and deadly hate crimes. New York City, certainly more “gay-friendly” than many towns and cities across America, has been host to several brutal beatings this year. Among other incidents, New Yorkers have suffered beatings on a tony Upper East Side street, outside a Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood restaurant, and the latest, the vicious beating of forty-nine year-old Jack Price - caught on tape - in blue-collar Queens. Kicked and beaten by two young men less than half his age, Price had to be put into a medically-induced coma. One of the men arrested in the attack claimed not to be homophobic, yet proudly displayed for the media’s cameras his (misquoted) Leviticus 18:22 tattoo: “You shall not lie with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination.”

“We can’t assume the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act will put an end to hate crimes. They’re already on the rise. What we need to do is work to ensure more victims of hate crimes report them, work to support those who become victims, and work to find and extinguish the source of what motivates those to commit these crimes in the first place.

“Let’s use this hard-fought success to rally our troops and ensure the momentum we’ve built this year doesn’t end with the hate crimes bill. Let’s redouble our efforts to see repeal of DADT and DOMA, and enactment of ENDA.”

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(via @davidbadash)

(I first posted this comment directly from the blog and it didn’t include a link. This post includes the link.)

I think there is a very straightforward answer to all of this. If one athlete is subjected to the highly invasive investigation of this sort of ‘gender testing’, then ALL athletes must be subjected to the same testing and investigation.

If the presence or absence of a penis and/or descended testicles is not enough to satisfy those seeking gender determination in sports, any further testing and investigation could reveal anomalies in a surprising number of people who might otherwise seem clearly one gender or another - who knows what testing of a larger population would reveal? How do you know where to draw the line? Who has the authority or right to make gender decisions at the level of, say, an XO? Shouldn’t that authority also be required to undergo testing? After all, you’d want to be certain of the authority’s own ‘true gender’ (if there is such a thing) in order to determine any potential bias on the part of the authority, one way or the other.

In other words, everyone needs to be subjected to the same determining factors. And it should be mandatory, and conducted prior to competition at any level where this sort of envy and scrutiny would become a serious impediment to any and all participating athletes’ success or failure.

Sound ridiculous? Yes, it does. And it’s the only fair way of dealing with this issue if this (or any other) athlete is to be subjected to this type of testing.

“American. Infantry Officer. West Point Grad. Arabic Degree. Iraq War Veteran. Gay… Fired!”  (www.twitter.com/ltdanchoi)

Lt. Dan Choi appeared on The Rachel Maddow show and talked about Knights Out, an organization of West Point grads who are gay.  He said the words, “I am gay” on the Maddow show, and soon afterwards was notified he was being discharged from the military because of his public admission.

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of the U.S. military has resulted in over 12,000 soldiers being fired, simply for admitting that they are gay.

This policy is outrageous and it needs to be abolished NOW!