Texas A&M GLBT Center Fighting for Its Life Again

LGBT students attending Texas A&M which the 2011-12 Princeton Law review rated number 7 as one of the country's least LGBT friendly University's have had a rough go of it since day one coming out and apparently the hate continues.

The GLBT student center is at risk of losing $100,000 yearly in student fees if a proposed student senate rule is enacted.

The student newspaper "The Battalion" reports:

The GLBT Funding Opt-Out Bill, introduced at the Wednesday Student Senate meeting, would recommend students who do not approve of the GLBT Resource Center on religious or moral grounds be able to opt out of a portion of student fees that goes toward the resource center.

Miguel, senior women’s and gender studies major, said the bill is no more than an ongoing and poorly veiled form of discrimination.

“It’s a good way of masking prejudice and discrimination against the [GLBT] community,” Miguel said. “It’s making the people who are very against the [GLBT] community sound really nice by using religion as a cover-up.”

Northside senator Chris Woolsey, author of the bill, said the bill does not oppress the GLBT community.

(This is where Woolsy's argument disintegrates)

“The belief that this bill is oppressing the GLBT community or is a way to legalize discrimination is a ploy to distract from the real meaning of the bill, which is to protect the religious liberties of students,” Woolsey said

A quick perusal of the Battalion would indicate everything that is happening at that school is an exercise of religious freedom.

Please connect with the GBLT Center EVENT PAGE for details.

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We Loaded The Gun That AZ Rep. John Kavanagh is Killing Our Agenda With

A while back I posted a highly controversial opinion about Levi Pine, a pre op trans man occupying sauna's where same sex public nudity is normal. Since then there has been one more instance and I reiterate, it is in my opinion, in this country with our current social mores, immoral for a pre or non genital op trans person to be naked in spaces where children are allowed.

Some argued more or less they felt they should not have to conform to public standards and morals at all. Some felt our movement is all or nothing.

I said this was an agenda killer and as we have just seen, it is. We loaded Kavanagh's gun by not coming out as a community and condemning that sort of behaviour.

Zoe E Whitten made a very good argument against my opinion asking among other things 'Is Levi Pine’s case an “agenda killer”? Only if your agenda was playing nice to prejudiced people in the hopes of them one day hating you less.'

I'm not saying I want Rep. John Kavanagh to hate us any less, frankly I couldn't care less if he did. I'm not saying this man wouldn't have attempted to amend Arizona law following Phoenix's passage of its far ranging non discrimination ordinance. What I am saying he might have just been another generic hater popping off with a cap gun, instead he's got a fully loaded 45 and its on auto. And we loaded it.

HB 1045 is not "softened" as the spin doctors at ABC have painted it. It is a statewide bill specifically targeting all gender variant people regardless if they are trans or not, making them subject to Jim Crow style discrimination.

So we have managed to paint ourselves into a human rights quandary corner but there is one option. There have been ordinances passed since those spa incidents that specifically exclude public accommodations protections in places where 'full public nudity is expected'.

Since we seem to have failed to set our communities standards we will have to rely on the goverment to do that.

Kavanagh's amendment is not an equality law. He is intent on enacting this law to discriminate against us. We must stop it and regroup, hopefully to enact trans inclusive laws that protect everyone including children from an immoral few.

Not an Arizona resident? Make your voice be heard and sign the petition Arizona Legislative Bodies: Repeal/Strike Down The Transphobic (Bathroom Bill) SB1045!!!

Sign the petition Pantilione of "Raise The Bar Arizona" has just filed with the state to force Kavanagh’s recall election.

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