It’s unclear whether the State of Illinois has defined – through statute or the courts – what specifically “gender transformation operation” means. But it seems pretty safe to assume that the surgery I’m currently considering would fall under its purview. Surgery in which the “spongiform erectile tissue of the penis is removed, and the skin, with its nerves and vascular system (blood supply) still attached, is used to create a vestibule area and labia minora, which then are inverted into the neovaginal cavity created in the pelvic tissue.” That seems pretty gender transformative to me.
What’s interesting about the Illinois Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan Act (or the ICHIP Act) is what other injuries, procedures, and categories of coverage are excluded. Gender transformation operations (item 14.iv on the list of exclusions) is lumped in with cosmetic surgery (item 1), anything which exceeds “reasonable or customary” cost (item 4), injury due to war (item 9) , services that are “not provided in accord with generally accepted standards of current medical practice” (item 14), contraceptives (item 19), weight loss programs (item 21), acupuncture (22). Interestingly enough, the act itself does not, as best as I could find, mention abortion or early termination of a pregnancy, but the ICHIP website stil says such services are excluded.
Fun fact: President Obama lives at the top of the dome
Lobbying. One week ago tomorrow, I was traipsing around Capitol Hill, speaking with the staff of Senators and Representatives. As the Degrees of Separation go, I’m now a mere one or two links to President Obama. Lobbying was an incredibly empowering experience, and also somewhat anticlimactic.
All the folks who were going to go lobbying met in the cafeteria of one of the House of Representatives office buildings. These buildings (two or three for House members, on one side of the Capitol, and two or three more on the other side) were basically unnavigable. (Though they had good signs, for the most part.) Capitol Hill, much to my surprise, isn’t so much a metaphor as an actual, physical, hill. So it’s possible to enter a building on the ground floor, go to the opposite end of a hallway, and find yourself underground (or above ground level.) “Helpful” signs, indicating which exit was at which corner of the building, were less helpful if you had no idea which street you wanted to end up near. And you’re surrounded by people in fancy suits, all of whom clearly know where they’re going. But I was with other folks for most of the morning, so felt pretty good and was able to get to appointments on time.
At the heart of all of these arguments is an attempt to interpret what the Founding Fathers meant. What the Constitution “really” means today. Except that discussion – while academically interesting - is side-stepping the actual issue which should be under discussion: What do we want the Constitution to mean?
Don’t take that question to mean I’m in favor of so-called judicial activism. Rather, I think if certain things are so clearly ambiguous in the Constitution, we should change the friggin’ document!
Each year, transgender people, our families, friends and allies join us in Washington, DC, as we go to our members of Congress to share vital information with them about transgender people and our families. We will also have great opportunities to talk with policy makers in the Administration whose work directly impacts our lives. Please join us as we make strides to bring transgender equality to our nation’s capital.
Three things:
If you can, GO!
Anyone in the DC area willing to put me up if I’m able to go?
Anyone have some money or frequent flyer miles to help me get there?
I looked into Amtrak which is (shockingly!) the cheapest option – about $170 round trip versus $240 for plane tickets, and $270(!!) for a bus.
The Washington Post has responses from Obama and others about the vote, but the long and short of it is that the Senate passed a DADT repeal, 63 to 33. I’m very pleased to say both Senators from Illinois – Dick Durbin (who I like a lot) and Mark Kirk (who I don’t particularly like) voted in favor of the repeal. I just called both of ‘em to leave them “Thank you!” messages, and hope you’ll all do the same – call your Senators, whether or not you agreed with their vote, especially if you disagreed – and tell them so!
I don’t believe these pictures were posted with a desire to just embarrass me; they wanted me to feel like a whore. They wanted me to collapse in a ball of embarrassment and to hang my head in shame. After all, when you are a woman named Krystal Ball, 28 years old, running for Congress, well, you get the picture. Stripper. Porn star. I’ve heard them all.
The full statement is here, and details Ball’s rise to politics, jokes about her name, talks about her desire to see more women in the political arena, and her refusal to let these pictures get the best of her.
I just donated $10, and hope she kicks her opponent’s ass.
Gays of course have the right to marry. The opposite sex.
Of course, that does not match their personal preference, but then again having your preferences catered to by the state isn’t something you can count on when you are a distinct minority.
I’d imagine you’re aware of the usual response to that, but I think it’s important enough that it bears repeating.
Whether or not being gay is a preference/choice or biologically determined is is irrelevant to the arguments in favor of gay marriage. Regardless of the cause of homosexuality, the government should not be in the business of regulating the behavior of consenting adults or discriminating based on said behavior.
In general, the argument for marriage only being valid for a man and a woman revolves around child-rearing. If that’s the case, it’s odd that so many of the legal and financial rights/privileges granted by marriage do not directly relate to child reading and, indeed, apply regardless of whether or not the married couple has children, ever plans to have children, or even can have children. For example, my mom is now past child-bearing age. Does that mean she shouldn’t be allowed to get (re)married?
So please don’t act like qualifying homosexuality as a preference and talking about the rights of gay men and women to marry people of the opposite sex as if it takes the wind out of the sails of gay marriage proponents. It doesn’t.
-R
PS – As a side note, part of a well-functioning government’s role is to protect minorities from tyranny of the majority [wikipedia.org]. So while you’re right, a minority population can’t count on the state’s protection, it’s not unreasonable to expect such protection in the (theoretical) ‘ideal’ state.
I’m a ‘bad Jew,’ in that I’m not a Zionist. (Also, I don’t believe in that ‘God’ fellow.) So seeing a prominent Jew not leaping to defend Israel is pretty great:
Just got back from the rally at Grant Park to watch President-Elect Obama delivery his victory speech.
Wow. It was just unreal. I don’t have any pictures, because I made the conscious choice not to bring my camera, but I’ll find some from elsewhere at some point and post or link to ‘em to give you an idea of what it was like.
I got there about 7PM with G and we probably got into the main staging area at about 8PM, after going through two ticket-and-ID check points and one metal detector security check point. The rally was held on the baseball diamonds directly south of Buckingham Fountain, for those of you who want to Google Maps it…the stage was on the east side, probably around a third of the way up all of the fields, facing north-west-ish. We were by the north-west entrance to the fields, on a slight hill.
When we got there the rally area was probably a third full, which meant we could have waded into the thick of things, but chose not to. First, being on a little hill meant we got to see better – from the middle of the crowd we never would have realistically seen Obama on stage well anyway. So, even though it was very far, we could see the stage clearly. It also meant we got to see the crowd, and boy what a crowd it was. I’m eager to hear how many people the police and papers are saying showed up, but I can’t even begin to try and figure it out. I just don’t have a frame of reference. But it was an amazing sight to see. (Note: As of writing this, Chicago Sun Times is saying “more than 100,000,” Chicago Tribune is saying 240,000, and NY Times is also saying 240,000, noting it’s a number from “city officials.”)
Earlier this week, I saw an ad from Obama encouraging people to take off work on November 4 to campaign. Now, I’d love to do that, but know I can’t. And, likewise, I’ve been saying for a while that I know I don’t have the time to go to a swing state or volunteer all day at a phone bank. But I discovered that the Obama site has a page which lists ways you can get involved, including making phone calls from home. They’ll provide you with names, numbers, and a calling script, and you report back how the call went (who they support, were they even home, etc).
Well, I’ve been doing that for the last hour and I’m beginning to wonder where all these so-called ‘voters’ are. Of the probably 40 phone calls I made (just checked my phone – 44 calls total) I had
About 25 wrong/disconnected/out-of-service numbers
About 10 answering machines where I left messages (hopefully at the right number…)
About 5 parents of students off at college
2 of whom said, “Don’t worry, we’ll be voting for Obama.”
1 of whom hung up when he heard “Obama”
1 (not “About 1,” just “1″) call where I reached the voter I was supposed to be calling, and she said “Oh, I appreciate what you’re doing, but we don’t vote that way.”
I’m still glad I took an hour to do that, and hope to find a few more hours before Tuesday (maybe I’ll call tomorrow on my lunch break) but it was a little frustrating! Phonebankers have my sympathy for having to do that all day, although at least they get paid for it…
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