Letters: ENDA

2010 May 11 at 2:07 PM (2010, civil rights, i write letters, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, trans)

Via acrimonyastraea, gudbuytjane: “Barney Frank, get out of my pants.”

In response, I wrote an email to my representative; I urge you to write to yours (find them here), as well as to Pelosi in her capacity as Speaker of the House (contact link).

Dear Rep. Pelosi,

I am emailing you to urge you to support a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that will fully protect the rights of transgendered individuals. Transgendered people are vulnerable to discrimination, harassment, and outright violence in our society for no reason other than their gender identity, and it is up to our government to take a stand in defense of their civil rights by passing an ENDA that includes their rights as well as the rights of GLBQI people. I was appalled by Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) transphobic comments about trans people, which were reported in RollCall on Monday:

“He said concessions were made in the drafting of the language to address moderates’ concerns. For instance, Frank said, transgender people with “one set of genitals” would not be able to go to a bathroom for people with another set of genitals.

And, Frank said, they also would have to have a “consistent gender presentation” in order to be able to sue for discrimination.

“They can’t sit there with a full beard and a dress,” Frank said.”

Those remarks call upon damaging and fearmongering stereotypes of transgendered people. Instead, I urge you to support a fully inclusive ENDA.

Sincerely,
[PD]

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I Write Letters: on DADT

2009 November 12 at 3:47 PM (2009, DNC, GLBTQI rights, i write letters, Pres. Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi)

Boosting the signal from Keori. Feel free to copy or alter and send to your elected officials. Find your senators here, your representatives here, and the White House here.

Dear Senator Feinstein / Senator Boxer / Speaker Pelosi* / President Obama,

I am writing to urge you to introduce a companion bill to HR 1283 in the Senate. HR 1283 would repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and replace it with a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, queer and intersex people currently serve in the military, making the same sacrifices for the country that heterosexual service members, do–but they serve a country that refuses to accept or recognize their open service. Numerous military leaders and troops have stated that there is no rational basis for discriminating against queer service members. A non-discrimination policy would not disrupt troop cohesion, it would not affect morale, it would not negatively affect the military. What it would do is allow queer people to serve their country without fear of persecution and expulsion; uphold equal rights for all people; and end a discriminatory policy that has been a stain on the honor of our country and our military.

It has been one year since millions of Californians voted to take away the civil rights of their GLBTQI Californian friends and family. Please take a leadership stance on civil rights for GLBTQI people and set an example for our state, and inspire people to stand up for equality.

Sincerely,
PD

*Looking at the page on HR 1283, I am disappointed to see that Speaker Pelosi has not yet co-sponsored the bill. Please call or email her and urge her to take a leadership position on equality and co-sponsor the bill. How is CA supposed to uphold equal rights for queers when our representatives won’t do the same?

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I Write Letters: on Stupak and Health Insurance Reform

2009 November 12 at 3:02 PM (2009, birth control & IUD, DNC, i write letters, Pres. Barack Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, reproductive rights)

Feel free to copy or alter and send to Speaker Pelosi and your elected officials. Find your senators here, your representatives here, and the White House here.

Dear Speaker Pelosi [Senator Boxer / Senator Feinstein / Senator Reid / President Obama],

Thank you for your leadership on health insurance reform. I appreciate the hard work you’ve put into this issue; however, I am concerned that the recent Democratic compromises over women’s medical rights will jeopardize the health and lives of millions of women, with the impact falling the hardest, as ever, on women who are poor, who are disabled, who are of color–in short, women who are part of the most vulnerable groups that health insurance reform was supposed to help, not hurt. I request that in conference, you amend the bill to (1) remove the Stupak Amendment; (2) put gynecological wellness exams and birth control on the list of services that health insurers must cover.

The Stupak Amendment would drastically limit a woman’s ability to access a legitimate medical procedure, one that one in three American women[1] will have in her life. By expanding the Hyde Amendment and banning any plan purchased with any federal subsidy from covering abortion services, the Stupak Amendment dramatically raises the financial cost of having an abortion. The amendment does not include exceptions for the mental or physical health of the women or severe fetal abnormalities (e.g. anencephaly, a cephalic disorder that makes it impossible for a fetus to survive after birth). The amendment will force many women carry pregnancies to term, even if they can’t afford to raise the child; even if the pregnancy will destroy their mental or physical health; even if the fetus suffers from disorders that will make it impossible for it to live past birth; even if they miscarry and the dead fetus remains inside the womb.[2] In short, the Stupak Amendment will deny women the right to make decisions about what they do with their own bodies, a right that is granted to children, to men, and even to corpses.

As for gynecological wellness exams and birth control, these are vital parts of womens’ health care. The current health insurance reform bill cover pap smears and mammograms, but that is insufficient. Access to STI counseling, pelvic exams, domestic violence screening, and birth control are necessary if women are to be healthy, informed, and protected.

The founders of our country declared that among the unalienable rights of men are “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” If the principles of the Declaration of Independence are to hold true for all people and not for men alone, then you must ensure that health insurance reform does not come at the sacrifice of womens’ rights to their bodies, their freedom, and their health.

Sincerely,
PD

[1] Guttmacher Institute, Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States, July 2008
[2] For an example of the far-reaching ways in which limiting abortion access will affect women, see Robin Marty’s post at RH Reality Check, Will the Stupak Amendment Affect Insurance Coverage for Miscarriages? I Think So.

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Dear Speaker Pelosi

2008 November 5 at 11:21 AM (2008, activism, Cindy Sheehan, feminism, me, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, SF)

What are you declaring off the table now? Progressivism? Liberalism? Reform? (SFChron)

“the new president must take the country down the middle”

In other words, women, GLBTQI, non-millionaires, vets, members of the military, and the environment: don’t bother trying to crawl out from underneath the bus. Pelosi intends to keep steering it right over our bodies.

A Democratic candidate just won the popular and electoral votes and the Democrats picked up seats in the House and the Senate, and you use your bully pulpit as a leading Democratic politician and Speaker of the House to essentially concede the strength and PR capital of those victories? Shame on you. Shame.

Sincerely,
PD

The results of CA Congressional District 8:

Candidate Votes Percentage
Nancy Pelosi (D, Incumbent) 126,073 71.6%
Dana Walsh (R) 16,149 9.2%
Philip Z. Berg (Libertarian) 4,024 2.2%
Cindy Sheehan (Green) 29,951 17.0%

Looking at those results, it appears that Cindy Sheehan got crushed in a landslide. Well, she did. However, Sheehan ran a grassroots campaign without the backing, guidance, and infrastructure of an established political party. She was a stranger to the political landscape of San Francisco, with its many political clubs, groups, and unions. She was almost completely ignored by the mainstream press, except when they wanted to paint her as unhinged, paranoid, and dare I say it, hysterical candidate on a vanity run, completely overlooking and hiding her policy goals and criticisms of mainstream Dems, Pelosi, and the media. And yet, despite all those obstacles, Sheehan received nearly twice as many votes as the Republican candidate and far more than the Republican and Libertarian candidates combined.

Cindy Sheehan received a mere 17.0% of the vote, but here’s the kicker: until yesterday, Nancy Pelosi had never received less than 76% of the vote in any general election race for Congress. Cindy Sheehan received 29,951 votes, which is more than any of the non-Dem/Repub candidates have ever garnered against Pelosi. It’s more than seven out of Pelosi’s 11 Republican challengers have ever received, including Dana Walsh. Jennifer DePalma received 31,074 votes, which was 12%, back in 2004, and in 1994, Elsa Cheung received 18%, with 30,528 votes.

It’s hard to say what will happen next and what this election means. Most likely, it means nothing as far as making Pelosi realize that a large number of her constituents are liberal and pissed as hell with her performance. As far as Sheehan is concerned, according to an email the CindyForCongress campaign sent out a few weeks ago, she’s renewed the lease on her office and is planning on continuing her antiwar advocacy work and running again in 2010. As far as I’m concerned, Sheehan’s candidacy is terribly inspirational. It’s a reminder that although this country was not founded on the ideal of participatory, equal democracy, where any citizen theoretically has the right to mount a campaign and take an active part in the governing of her society, it has evolved so far as to think that it was founded on that ideal. Sheehan reminds me of Senator Murray and former Governor Madeline Kunin, women who were just ordinary women–”just a mom in tennis shoes,” and a professor and mom that entered her first political race by accident–until they believed that they could do a better job of running their states than the people in power at the time, and went on to be great public servants and politicians.

To me, Cindy Sheehan’s campaign represents faith in the people, in the democratic process, and in participatory democracy, and a burning desire to make the world a better place. Although she lost, she put her ideals into action through her campaign and that’s fully something I can understand and get behind.

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