gofilipa/aclu_transgender · Datasets at Hugging Face

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Learn more about transgender rights and other civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
We shouldn't have to keep defending our right to exist.
From inside the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she is serving a 35-year prison sentence, that is precisely what convicted Wikileaker Chelsea Manning has been doing – fighting for her existence.
Since first being diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2010, Chelsea has struggled to be recognized and affirmed by the government, the public, and even some of her supporters, as Chelsea.
In a December op-ed published in the Guardian, she reflected: We should all have the absolute and inalienable right to define ourselves, in our own terms and in our own languages, and to be able to express our identity and perspectives without fear of consequences and retribution.
We should all be able to live as human beings – and to be recognized as such by the societies we live in.
This month, after a year and a half of fighting, including filing over two-dozen complaints, numerous formal grievances, a demand letter, and a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU, Chelsea Manning finally received some affirmation of her humanity.
On February 11, she began hormone treatment for her diagnosed gender dysphoria.
But even with this victory, Chelsea's fight continues.
The government is refusing to let Chelsea grow her hair as other female prisoners are permitted to do.
Instead it is forcing her to keep an almost shaved head in accordance with male hair standards.
Meanwhile, in her criminal appeal, the government has refused to honor Chelsea's female identity and is fighting to use male pronouns and her former name in the legal papers for that case – a clear signal that they seek to further dehumanize her as she fights for her freedom.
Around the country, countless other transgender women and men in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers are struggling to be heard, to receive treatment, and to survive unbearable conditions.
In other words: to simply exist.
This last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Georgia Department of Corrections on behalf of Ashley Diamond, a transgender woman who has been denied the medically necessary hormone treatment that she relied on for 17 years prior to her incarceration.
In response to her pleas for treatment, Georgia prison officials mocked Ashley calling her a "he-she-thing" and ridiculing her health and safety needs.
From prison, Ashely writes: "It is amazing how a minor brush with the law has turned into a death sentence.
This is about more than just hormone treatment.
This is about gross human rights violations.
Three years of torture is enough."
Indeed.
Three days would be enough, three years is nightmare.
Across the political spectrum, people denounce the worth of trans people to receive the basic medical care we need.
Television shows mock our existence and even in the wake of tragedy, media outlets think it permissible to erase our core humanity by refusing to honor our lives and genders in death.
As Ohio-based trans activist Cherno Biko explained: Our fight is not for equality, it's for liberation and survival.
Our bodies are being criminalized and policed to the point of extinction.
It is crucial that we channel our energy and resources to our communities' most vulnerable.
While we mourn the many trans women we have lost this year, we must also stand with those trans people living under unbearably violent conditions.
Exposed to unthinkable deprivations and degradation, our incarcerated trans brothers and sisters are everyday defending their right to exist.
What an incredibly modest, yet truly brave and resilient demand.
Until no more trans people are subjected to the fear of death for being who they are, fighting for trans survival in and out of prisons is our duty and privilege.
From Chelsea to Ashley to the countless whose names we do not know, we see you, we defend you, and we support you.
Learn more about transgender rights and other civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
Getting arrested for using the bathroom could become the law in Florida.
Using a public restroom is something most people have done.
For many non-transgender people, the experience might be gross or inconvenient, but most people don't have serious concerns about whether they will be harassed, attacked, or arrested when walking into a bathroom.
But for most trans people, this is precisely what we think about every time we walk into the bathroom.
In a 2012 survey, 53 percent of transgender respondents reported harassment when trying to access a public place like a hospital, restroom, or retail establishment.
Among black transgender respondents, 22 percent reported experiencing physical attacks while accessing public establishments.
These verbal and physical attacks are part of the larger pattern of violence that transgender people experience – violence that has already resulted in the murder of at least seven transgender women since the start of this year.
So, how are state legislatures responding to this crisis in the trans community?
With ill-conceived proposals that would make transgender people targets of further harassment and arrest for using the bathroom.
Yesterday a bill moved forward in a Florida House committee that would make it a crime to use a restroom that does not match the sex listed on a person's birth certificate or other government-issued identification.
Introduced in direct response to Miami-Dade County's efforts to prohibit discrimination against transgender people, the bill's purpose, according to its sponsor Rep. Frank Artiles, is to protect "public safety" and prevent "criminals — males" from going into a "women's locker room … say[ing] …'I feel like a woman today.'"
But the bill actually undermines "public safety" if you consider trans and gender non-conforming people part of the public.
It allows the businesses and patrons to police and punish women and men who do not conform to expectations of how women and men "should" look.
It further forces transgender women, and all transgender people, to defend our right to exist in the world when doing something as basic as going to the bathroom.
It invites business owners and the public to question trans people's core identity.
And it encourages violence against us.
Imagine going through the world having fought to be yourself and then having your state representatives try to pass a law that equates your very identity with danger and criminality.
That is what this law does.
Bill opponents responded to the legislation by explaining that not only would the proposed law increase violence against transgender people, but it also might prevent a parent from accompanying their child to the restroom or make it more difficult for a person with disabilities who is accompanied by an aide to use the restroom.
Rather than simply pull the discriminatory bill, Florida lawmakers amended it to make clear that it was and is designed for one purpose: to target transgender people.
Going to great lengths to ensure that no one else is negatively impacted, lawmakers have even carved out an exception for "[a] person who enters an unoccupied single-sex facility that is designated for the opposite sex while another person waits outside the entrance to the facility notifying others that a person of the opposite sex is using the facility."
Apparently the bill sponsors wanted to make sure there's no criminal penalty for the "buddy system" women use to cope with long lines for the ladies' room.
Meanwhile, as trans people are being killed across the country, other similar bills are also being considered in Kentucky and Texas.
These bills send a clear message to trans people: You are not worthy of legal protections, and your humanity is not respected here.
Join our efforts to defeat this cruel bill and send a message that trans lives matter.
Learn more about transgender rights and other civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.
Today is the Transgender Day of Visibility, which is a moment to take stock of what “visibility” actually means in the day-to-day lives of transgender people around the world.
As we become more visible in society, what is also visible is how much work remains to be done to create positive change for all transgender people.
While the visibility of high-profile trans people like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock has helped to shift the narrative about our community, we must acknowledge that visibility for many of our trans brothers and sisters is still not possible because it subjects them to discrimination and violence.
Thus far in 2015, the epidemic of violence against young transgender women of color has been more visible in our country than ever before.
In addition to this violence, we have also seen and heard about the suicides of several transgender youth, including most recently Blake Brockington, a young trans man of color.
How can we celebrate visibility when it still leads to arrest, violence, and, too often, death?
We must continue to work to address the disparate outcomes experienced by transgender youth of color in their homes, schools, and social service programs.
We must ensure that school is a refuge for trans youth, not a battle ground, as it has been for our client Gavin Grimm at his school in Glouster County, Virginia.
We must ensure that when trans youth need to access social services, they can do so without fear that they their identities will be mocked, dismissed, or met with violence.
After being pushed out of their communities and into the streets, many of transgender youth engage in criminalized economies to address basic needs like housing and food.
Inevitably, under these conditions just surviving makes these young people especially “visible” and vulnerable to profiling by police, street violence, and other victimization.
Many of these youth who were kicked out of their homes preferred to brave the streets rather than attempt to navigate homeless shelters and other temporary housing that they knew to be transphobic and dangerous.
Today, as we acknowledge that some of us are able to be visible and safe in our homes, workplaces, and communities, let’s take the opportunity to work for those of us who cannot be visible without experiencing harm.
Today, let’s work for schools that embrace and protect trans student’s right to use school facilities consistent with their gender identities.
Today, let’s demand trans-affirming foster homes and homeless shelters for trans youth who are pushed out of their homes and schools.
Our community needs more than visibility; we need safety and life affirming services for the most vulnerable among us.

Learn more about transgender rights and other civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

We shouldn't have to keep defending our right to exist.

From inside the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she is serving a 35-year prison sentence, that is precisely what convicted Wikileaker Chelsea Manning has been doing – fighting for her existence.

Since first being diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2010, Chelsea has struggled to be recognized and affirmed by the government, the public, and even some of her supporters, as Chelsea.

In a December op-ed published in the Guardian, she reflected: We should all have the absolute and inalienable right to define ourselves, in our own terms and in our own languages, and to be able to express our identity and perspectives without fear of consequences and retribution.

We should all be able to live as human beings – and to be recognized as such by the societies we live in.

This month, after a year and a half of fighting, including filing over two-dozen complaints, numerous formal grievances, a demand letter, and a federal lawsuit filed by the ACLU, Chelsea Manning finally received some affirmation of her humanity.

On February 11, she began hormone treatment for her diagnosed gender dysphoria.

But even with this victory, Chelsea's fight continues.

The government is refusing to let Chelsea grow her hair as other female prisoners are permitted to do.

Instead it is forcing her to keep an almost shaved head in accordance with male hair standards.

Meanwhile, in her criminal appeal, the government has refused to honor Chelsea's female identity and is fighting to use male pronouns and her former name in the legal papers for that case – a clear signal that they seek to further dehumanize her as she fights for her freedom.

Around the country, countless other transgender women and men in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers are struggling to be heard, to receive treatment, and to survive unbearable conditions.

In other words: to simply exist.

This last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Georgia Department of Corrections on behalf of Ashley Diamond, a transgender woman who has been denied the medically necessary hormone treatment that she relied on for 17 years prior to her incarceration.

In response to her pleas for treatment, Georgia prison officials mocked Ashley calling her a "he-she-thing" and ridiculing her health and safety needs.

From prison, Ashely writes: "It is amazing how a minor brush with the law has turned into a death sentence.

This is about more than just hormone treatment.

This is about gross human rights violations.

Three years of torture is enough."

Indeed.

Three days would be enough, three years is nightmare.

Across the political spectrum, people denounce the worth of trans people to receive the basic medical care we need.

Television shows mock our existence and even in the wake of tragedy, media outlets think it permissible to erase our core humanity by refusing to honor our lives and genders in death.

As Ohio-based trans activist Cherno Biko explained: Our fight is not for equality, it's for liberation and survival.

Our bodies are being criminalized and policed to the point of extinction.

It is crucial that we channel our energy and resources to our communities' most vulnerable.

While we mourn the many trans women we have lost this year, we must also stand with those trans people living under unbearably violent conditions.

Exposed to unthinkable deprivations and degradation, our incarcerated trans brothers and sisters are everyday defending their right to exist.

What an incredibly modest, yet truly brave and resilient demand.

Until no more trans people are subjected to the fear of death for being who they are, fighting for trans survival in and out of prisons is our duty and privilege.

From Chelsea to Ashley to the countless whose names we do not know, we see you, we defend you, and we support you.

Learn more about transgender rights and other civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

Getting arrested for using the bathroom could become the law in Florida.

Using a public restroom is something most people have done.

For many non-transgender people, the experience might be gross or inconvenient, but most people don't have serious concerns about whether they will be harassed, attacked, or arrested when walking into a bathroom.

But for most trans people, this is precisely what we think about every time we walk into the bathroom.

In a 2012 survey, 53 percent of transgender respondents reported harassment when trying to access a public place like a hospital, restroom, or retail establishment.

Among black transgender respondents, 22 percent reported experiencing physical attacks while accessing public establishments.

These verbal and physical attacks are part of the larger pattern of violence that transgender people experience – violence that has already resulted in the murder of at least seven transgender women since the start of this year.

So, how are state legislatures responding to this crisis in the trans community?

With ill-conceived proposals that would make transgender people targets of further harassment and arrest for using the bathroom.

Yesterday a bill moved forward in a Florida House committee that would make it a crime to use a restroom that does not match the sex listed on a person's birth certificate or other government-issued identification.

Introduced in direct response to Miami-Dade County's efforts to prohibit discrimination against transgender people, the bill's purpose, according to its sponsor Rep. Frank Artiles, is to protect "public safety" and prevent "criminals — males" from going into a "women's locker room … say[ing] …'I feel like a woman today.'"

But the bill actually undermines "public safety" if you consider trans and gender non-conforming people part of the public.

It allows the businesses and patrons to police and punish women and men who do not conform to expectations of how women and men "should" look.

It further forces transgender women, and all transgender people, to defend our right to exist in the world when doing something as basic as going to the bathroom.

It invites business owners and the public to question trans people's core identity.

And it encourages violence against us.

Imagine going through the world having fought to be yourself and then having your state representatives try to pass a law that equates your very identity with danger and criminality.

That is what this law does.

Bill opponents responded to the legislation by explaining that not only would the proposed law increase violence against transgender people, but it also might prevent a parent from accompanying their child to the restroom or make it more difficult for a person with disabilities who is accompanied by an aide to use the restroom.

Rather than simply pull the discriminatory bill, Florida lawmakers amended it to make clear that it was and is designed for one purpose: to target transgender people.

Going to great lengths to ensure that no one else is negatively impacted, lawmakers have even carved out an exception for "[a] person who enters an unoccupied single-sex facility that is designated for the opposite sex while another person waits outside the entrance to the facility notifying others that a person of the opposite sex is using the facility."

Apparently the bill sponsors wanted to make sure there's no criminal penalty for the "buddy system" women use to cope with long lines for the ladies' room.

Meanwhile, as trans people are being killed across the country, other similar bills are also being considered in Kentucky and Texas.

These bills send a clear message to trans people: You are not worthy of legal protections, and your humanity is not respected here.

Join our efforts to defeat this cruel bill and send a message that trans lives matter.

Learn more about transgender rights and other civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

Today is the Transgender Day of Visibility, which is a moment to take stock of what “visibility” actually means in the day-to-day lives of transgender people around the world.

As we become more visible in society, what is also visible is how much work remains to be done to create positive change for all transgender people.

While the visibility of high-profile trans people like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock has helped to shift the narrative about our community, we must acknowledge that visibility for many of our trans brothers and sisters is still not possible because it subjects them to discrimination and violence.

Thus far in 2015, the epidemic of violence against young transgender women of color has been more visible in our country than ever before.

In addition to this violence, we have also seen and heard about the suicides of several transgender youth, including most recently Blake Brockington, a young trans man of color.

How can we celebrate visibility when it still leads to arrest, violence, and, too often, death?

We must continue to work to address the disparate outcomes experienced by transgender youth of color in their homes, schools, and social service programs.

We must ensure that school is a refuge for trans youth, not a battle ground, as it has been for our client Gavin Grimm at his school in Glouster County, Virginia.

We must ensure that when trans youth need to access social services, they can do so without fear that they their identities will be mocked, dismissed, or met with violence.

After being pushed out of their communities and into the streets, many of transgender youth engage in criminalized economies to address basic needs like housing and food.

Inevitably, under these conditions just surviving makes these young people especially “visible” and vulnerable to profiling by police, street violence, and other victimization.

Many of these youth who were kicked out of their homes preferred to brave the streets rather than attempt to navigate homeless shelters and other temporary housing that they knew to be transphobic and dangerous.

Today, as we acknowledge that some of us are able to be visible and safe in our homes, workplaces, and communities, let’s take the opportunity to work for those of us who cannot be visible without experiencing harm.

Today, let’s work for schools that embrace and protect trans student’s right to use school facilities consistent with their gender identities.

Today, let’s demand trans-affirming foster homes and homeless shelters for trans youth who are pushed out of their homes and schools.

Our community needs more than visibility; we need safety and life affirming services for the most vulnerable among us.