Conservative media has been spreading a story that apparently first appeared on the badly named Christian Broadcasting Network about a transgender student in Florence, CO who has been accused of harassing girls in the locker room and rest rooms.

My old friend Cristan Williams debunked that story by speaking directly with Superintendent Rhonda Vendetti, who explained that there was indeed no harassment taking place. Indeed there were rather a few parents who were opposed to the fact that a transgender student was being allowed to use the locker room of the gender with which she identifies.

Pacific Justice Institute, which is taking the lead to repeal California's AB 1266, which protects the freedom of transgender students to pursue an equal education with that of their peers, has now basically admitted that they invented the story.

Assumptions can be dangerous to people who are habitually marginalized. One of the big assumptions that people make about the concept of "transgender" is that transgender is a subset of homosexual. It is not. I do not have data to turn to, but I have heard, as I shared in a diary last week, that about 1/4 of transgender people are gay or lesbian, 1/4 are heterosexual, 1/4 are bisexual and 1/4 are asexual.

What exactly that says about the influence of the normalized control of gender and sexuality by our culture is something I'll let other people discuss.

But the assumption has a large impact on the everyday lives of gender-variant people. Even scientists studying sexually-transmitted diseases jump to the conclusion that transgender women are "men who have sex with men." And even direct evidence to the contrary often does not dissuade people from adopting the assumption.

Tonight I have two cases in point.

Manteca High School junior Ashton Lee hand-delivered petitions. with nearly 6000 names to Governor Brown, urging him to sign AB 1266, which would give transgender students equal access to school programs and facilities.

Lee is a young transman. He testified in Sacramento during the legisiative hearings on the bill. Manteca High School has 5 openly transgender students.

California law already prohibits discrimination in education, but transgender students are still unfairly excluded from physical education, athletic teams, and other school activities and facilities.  This exclusion negatively impacts students' ability to succeed in school and graduate with their class.

--Melissa Goodman, an attorney with the ACLU of California

When stuff happens on July 3, it often goes unnoticed because of the approaching holiday. That appears to have been the case this past Wednesday as well.

The California state Senate approved AB-1266 Pupil rights: sex-segregated school programs and activities, which amends Section 221.5 of the Education Code to mandate that programs, activities and use of facilities be available consistent with a student's gender identity.

If signed by Governor Jerry Brown, California will become the first state to require schools to let students choose their bathrooms and sports teams based on their gender identity.

You..ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

Friday April 10, 1903
Eugene V Debs and the Conflict within the Socialist Party
Part I
Problems started when the Western Federation of Miners established a new labor federation: the American Labor Union. The American Labor Union then declared itself in favor of Socialism and began a nation-wide campaign to organize unions on an industrial basis rather than on the craft basis favored by the American Federation of Labor. Debs was strongly rebuked for his support of the ALU by Socialist Party leaders such as Victor Berger and J. Mahlon Barnes who have achieved some influence within the AF of L. Barnes is a member of Samuel Gompers' own cigarmakers union.

Debs fired back with an article in last November's issue of the International Socialist Review. He stated that he would be willing to support Samuel Gompers:

..when the American Federation of Labor sheds its outworn pure and simple policy, when it declares against the capitalist system and for union, class-conscious action at the ballot box; when it relegates leaders to the rear who secure fat offices for themselves in reward for keeping the rank and file in political ignorance and industrial slavery, and when it shall cease to rely upon cringing lobbying committees.