identity

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Why This Transgender Teen’s Big Legal Victory Matters

Wayne Maines was in a meeting when he got the call. His daughter, a transgender teenager who had been fighting the state of Maine for years over her right to use the girls’ bathroom at school, had finally won.

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

Five states down, 45 more to go.

 

“Some jurisdictions (e.g., Colorado, Iowa, San Francisco, New York City, and the District of Columbia), however, have indicated that denying transgender people the right to use a gender identity-appropriate restroom violates nondiscrimination laws. In addition, Washington’s Human Rights Commission states that “transgender employees should be permitted to use the restroom that is consistent with the individual’s gender identity.” Some jurisdictions (e.g., Iowa, San Francisco, and D.C.) make clear that transgender people cannot be required to prove their gender to gain access to a public bathroom, unless everyone has to show ID to use that bathroom. Other jurisdictions (e.g., Chicago) continue to allow businesses to determine whether a transgender patron is given access to the male or female bathroom based on the gender on his or her ID.” –source

 

See on jezebel.com

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“Proud to Be”: NCAI’s answer to the R-word mascot debate

I’ve been sent this video a bazillion times in the last few days, and I think it’s a powerful and important PSA to add to the mascot “debate”*. I’ve watched it a few t…

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

Adrienne’s (from Native Appropriations) take on the National Congress of American Indians video against the R-word.

 

See on nativeappropriations.com

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Laverne Cox Producing Powerful New Doc About Trans Prisoner CeCe McDonald

Transgender actress and “Orange Is The New Black” breakout star Laverne Cox is currently co-producing an important and compelling new documentary about the life and incarceration of CeCe McDonald.

See on www.huffingtonpost.com

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Rule No. 1: Notice Difference

My son has taken to calling himself Black as he has learned that Black is a culture/ethnic heritage and not necessarily a skin color. At school someone overheard him say, “Cause I’m Black!

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

This blog is one of the best I’ve run accross in speaking insightful truth about race relations. Even if you are not a parent or a transracial parent, it’s still a good blog – quality insightful writing from a mom who is a great asset to our community of truth tellers and oppression fighters.

 

In this article she explains that it’s not racist to notice physical difference. However, when someone mentions race when it’s not relevant to the story or when they try to spin the story to demonize a certain group, that is racist.

 

@getgln

See on www.transracialparenting.com

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a complex and savage tale

IMAGE YOU WERE RELATED to one of the most notorious Indian killers in American history. Now, imagine you were also related to some of those Indians. You can now begin to understand the traumatic ba…

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

Happy Thanks-Taking.

See on justinpetrone.wordpress.com

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Thanksgiving Conundrum

 

“Justin Petrone, like me, is a mixed race person with Native American ancestry, although unlike me, initially, he never thought of himself in those terms.  I’ve always known and since I was a child, self-identified myself in that way.  Like me, Justin has spent years searching for his elusive ancestors, more often than not, hidden in the mists of time with only suggestions of who their ancestors are by words on tax lists and census records like “free person of color.”

 

Most of the time, Native people were transparent, until they became at least “civilized” enough to be counted on the census, or taxed or they did something else to bring them into the white man’s realm.  More recently, Justin and others like us have been able to confirm, or deny, that heritage via DNA testing.  So even if we don’t know exactly who our ancestor is, we are positive THAT our Native heritage is real.  In some cases, through DNA testing we can learn which of our ancestral lines is Native.”

 

…

 
See on nativeheritageproject.com

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Can We Recognize?

For so many people of European heritage, the process of decolonization begins with the deep recognition of some powerful understandings. You have ancestors. And those ancestors go back for thousand…

See on awakeningthehorse.wordpress.com

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Why Decolonize?

“Do you know the people you come from?” This is the one question most commonly asked by the world’s Indigenous peoples to people of European heritage.

 

…decolonization is a powerful process that allows us to:

  • Re-connnect with the places we come from, and the ways of life that shaped our ancestor’s experience and continue to live hidden within ourselves;
  • Reawaken the identity of who we are in a line of people from ancient ancestors to future generations;
  • Restore a sacred way of life through relationships with the animals, plants, and other living relatives who made our lives possible;
  • Become more effective allies in anti-racist action, solidarity work, and resistance struggles of Indigenous people and other people of color;
  • Make healing of historic traumas possible for ourselves, and for Indigenous people who suffer from colonization and genocide.”

See on awakeningthehorse.wordpress.com

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Claire Jean Kim – Racial Triangulation

From Sevly Snguon’s post: My Asian-American Awakening: Realizing that I am a Person of Color

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

In this diagram do you think the placement of each group is accuratly depicted?

 

Where would Native Americans and Xican@s/Latin@s be depicted?

 

Add the categories – physical superiority, mental superiority, family unity superiority and watch the graph change.

 

Although this diagram is an oversimplification, it’s useful to make useful points about stereotyping and discrimination. Combine this diagram with incarceration stastics and Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow and the dots connect and makes sense. This is a depiction of American’s distorted perception of our cultures.

 

@getgln

See on sevlysnguon.wordpress.com