Tag: Trans Rights

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Toledo Humanists Condemn Override of HB 68 Veto

***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Toledo Humanists Condemn Override of HB 68 Veto

TOLEDO — The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie con­demn the over­ride of the veto of House Bill 68 that will now allow the ban on gender-affirming care and ban on Trans women in school sports to become law.

The major­i­ty ignored med­ical sci­ence and the pleas of the Trans com­mu­ni­ty and dis­missed their very exis­tence. Several Senators dur­ing the vote claimed Trans kids don’t exist and that their God assigned the child’s gen­der at con­cep­tion. Rep. Gary Click, in a state­ment on X called for resources for indi­vid­u­als who regret their tran­si­tion “as they realign with their authen­tic selves.” We reject Rep. Click’s call as mis­guid­ed and tinged with reli­gious big­otry.

We don’t believe that laws and pub­lic pol­i­cy should ignore sci­en­tif­ic con­sen­sus or be irra­tional­ly sup­port­ed by moral pan­ic. It is clear to us that some leg­is­la­tors believe their reli­gion is above basic human decen­cy and com­pas­sion. Bullying chil­dren is not a good look.

It was also iron­ic in the same ses­sion the same peo­ple who vot­ed to harm Trans kids over­rode a veto on a bud­get item that pro­hibits local gov­ern­ments from enact­ing their own reg­u­la­tions on tobac­co, par­tic­u­lar­ly bans on the sale of fla­vored nico­tine prod­ucts, which are typ­i­cal­ly mar­ket­ed toward minors.

The action by the Ohio Legislature to force HB 68 into law also denies the right of par­ents to sup­port their child’s health care needs what­ev­er that maybe.

We hope that the ban is chal­lenged in court and ends up like oth­er sim­i­lar bans by being ruled uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.

We will do what we can to sup­port the LGBTQI com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing these unwar­rant­ed and inde­fen­si­ble attacks from the gov­ern­ment.

Media con­tact: Douglas Berger, President

More infor­ma­tion:

‘Cowardly, self-serving vote’: Ohio Senate over­rides DeWine’s veto; bans health­care for trans youth

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We Oppose HB 183: The Bathroom Ban For Trans People

President Douglas Berger sub­mit­ted writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny to the Ohio House Higher Education Committee that is con­sid­er­ing House Bill 183 that would pro­hib­it trans­gen­der kids and adults from using the pub­lic bath­rooms that align with their gen­der iden­ti­ty.

Two peo­ple on the com­mit­tee are from the NW Ohio area. Rep. Derek Merrin (R‑42) and Rep. Josh Williams (R‑41).

The hear­ing for oppo­si­tion tes­ti­mo­ny is Wednesday October 11th. Here is the text of his tes­ti­mo­ny as sub­mit­ted:

Chair Rep. Young, Vice Chair Rep. Manning, and Ranking Member Rep. Miller, my name is Douglas Berger and I am President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, based in Toledo.

I am writ­ing today to express our group’s oppo­si­tion to House Bill 183 that would pro­hib­it trans­gen­der kids and adults from using the pub­lic bath­rooms that align with their gen­der iden­ti­ty.

We oppose this dis­crim­i­na­to­ry bill since it reminds us of the dark days of Jim Crow when bath­rooms and even drink­ing foun­tains were seg­re­gat­ed by race and this bill is based on the same kind of false nar­ra­tive and flim­sy evi­dence that those Jim Crow laws were based on.

We are also tired of mem­bers of this leg­is­la­ture pass­ing off irra­tional reli­gious big­otry as pub­lic pol­i­cy and law. When will your need to impose your reli­gion on oth­ers stop?

HB 183 has no fac­tu­al basis and no data to jus­ti­fy a ban is need­ed. Most anec­do­tal sto­ries are made up. The num­bers of teach­ers and peo­ple of faith who have been arrest­ed and charged for abus­ing chil­dren far out dis­tance any report­ed crime due to Trans peo­ple using the bath­room that aligns with their gen­der iden­ti­ty. I am more fear­ful of a child being alone with a priest or min­is­ter than using a bath­room with a Trans per­son.

Representative Lear and Bird also failed to note which reli­gious con­ser­v­a­tive lob­by group they copied and past­ed this ridicu­lous pro­pos­al from. There is a rea­son these pro­pos­als all look alike.

We can also promise that the peo­ple who intro­duced this bill and at least three mem­bers of this com­mit­tee have nev­er met a Trans kid and has nev­er talked to the Trans com­mu­ni­ty but they seem to want to dis­crim­i­nate against Trans peo­ple any­way. I’m sure it is eas­i­er to dis­crim­i­nate when you nev­er talk to them.

Our mem­bers would also like to know who will enforce this ban and how will it be enforced. Will birth cer­tifi­cates be required to be shown or will a school offi­cial be des­ig­nat­ed as a gen­i­tal check­er? Will you have a par­ent sign a form so their child can have a gen­i­tal check? If there is no enforce­ment mech­a­nism then this pro­pos­al is just for show. In fact it would be used to out Trans kids and bul­ly them.

Adding on an unfund­ed man­date on pub­lic schools and col­leges that you bare­ly help fund is also some­thing to con­sid­er.

In a recent TV inter­view, a mem­ber of this com­mit­tee said that edu­ca­tion­al pol­i­cy should only go toward the aca­d­e­m­ic progress of stu­dents and we should­n’t be intro­duc­ing social issues into the class­room. How does HB 183 advance aca­d­e­m­ic progress? It does­n’t but it sure intro­duces social issues into the class­room. How will this bill improve the dis­mal school rank­ing the state has received recent­ly.

Why don’t Trans kids deserve to be pro­tect­ed too?

We ask you to vote no on HB 183.

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Toledo Blade Underplayed Bigotry Toward The Trans Community

SHoWLE President Douglas Berger had a let­ter to the edi­tor pub­lished in the Toledo Blade on April 20, 2023, respond­ing to a pre­vi­ous edi­to­r­i­al that seemed sym­pa­thet­ic to a woman who gave a speech against Trans women at the University of Toledo. The edi­to­r­i­al down­played the big­ot­ed fram­ing and rehash of anti-Trans tropes relat­ing to Trans women par­tic­i­pat­ing in women’s sports. The edi­to­r­i­al com­plained about Trans rights sup­port­ers protest­ing Riley Gaines’ speech but didn’t point out the false nar­ra­tive that Gaines used in her speech and the fact that it was spon­sored by the right-wing Christian Nationalist group Turning Point USA.

Douglas was also dis­ap­point­ed that even though his let­ter was pub­lished, the heart of it was cut out by the Blade and made it seem, again, that the issue was one of dif­fer­ence of opin­ion and not one of a bat­tle to pro­tect the rights of a mar­gin­al­ized group. SHoWLE doesn’t believe that human rights should be put up for a pop­u­lar vote or be debat­ed like what ice cream fla­vor you like.

Below is the full text of the let­ter Douglas sub­mit­ted fol­lowed by images of the Blade edi­to­r­i­al in ques­tion and the print­ed let­ter.

I sat down to read the Blade and saw yet anoth­er edi­to­r­i­al (“Editorial: Let Riley tell her sto­ry” pub­lished 4/22) claim­ing that some­one with big­ot­ed ideas is being hurt because oth­er peo­ple have called them out on their big­otry. Make no mis­take, Riley Gaines told her sto­ry framed in big­otry against Trans women all because a Trans woman won ONE event at the NCAA tour­na­ment.

Gaines should know that more goes into per­form­ing sports than just body parts and what sex one is but we live in a soci­ety that seems to accept the sta­tus quo for longer than we need. Take bas­ket­ball. When women were first allowed to play bas­ket­ball, they were only allowed to play half court because men assumed that women did­n’t have the sta­mi­na to run up and down a full court. They also had to play in skirts because it was un-ladylike to wear shorts in pub­lic.

Does Gaines feel the four oth­er women that beat her in the 200 freestyle were actu­al­ly “intact males” and why did­n’t Lia Thomas win that race if she won the 500 freestyle? I thought Trans women had an unfair advan­tage?

The sci­ence on the issue isn’t clear yet but unlike Gaines’ anec­do­tal “evi­dence”, the NCAA has had spe­cif­ic rules to include Trans ath­letes for at least 10 years now. One would think the flood gates would be open and there would be only Trans women win­ning every­thing — obvi­ous­ly that did­n’t hap­pen. A per­son­’s genet­ic make-up and inter­nal and exter­nal repro­duc­tive anato­my are not use­ful indi­ca­tors of ath­let­ic per­for­mance.

It is also telling that Gaines’ talk was spon­sored by the Christian Nationalist group Turning Point USA, whose founder and President Charlie Kirk, on a pod­cast in 2022, said that the Transgender com­mu­ni­ty was a “social con­ta­gion” and that this “pub­lic mania” would, in 20 years, be likened to “the modern-day equiv­a­lent of lobot­o­mies in the 1920s and 1930s”.

Riley Gaines (like Charlie Kirk) used big­otry to tell her sto­ry, the con­tent of which was under­played in the edi­to­r­i­al. As we move for­ward and the peo­ple who sup­port all humans as hav­ing basic dig­ni­ty and worth become the major­i­ty only then will we be actu­al­ly unit­ed as peo­ple.