Yesterday, Feminist Law Professors drew my attention to the Miami Daily Business Review’s “Rodent” column, a weekly anonymous rant written by various members of the legal community. The latest missive, “Lady Lawyers Should Dress the Part,” warns female attorneys that they may be sabotaging their careers with overly sexy business attire. Actually, I think it’s more likely that the conveniently anonymous Rodent, who spouts off platitudes like “women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls,” is the force that’s keeping women down in the workplace.

Read More “Dressing “Too Sexy”: Career Suicide Or Sexist Excuse?” »

Has Juwanna Mann inspired a whole league of transphobic idiots?

Morning, everyone. So, you know how members of your community—your boss, a police officer, officials from South Africa’s track and field federation—will occasionally pull you aside and suggest, politely, that your entire existence up to this point has been a complete fraud, and everything you’ve ever done has been targeted at destroying the very moral fiber of society, and would you please show your genitals to everyone?

No? That’s never happened to you? Weird, because it seems like whenever a transgender or gender variant person tries to do their thing—go to work, run fast, or steal a really hot, expensive dress—they’re invariably labeled a “fraud” (okay, maybe the last one is a fraud, but not in the way you’d think!). Their gender identity is reduced to some hair-brained scheme to invade The Opposite Sex and oppress it by refusing to flash their possibly variant genitals, stealing all their gold medals, or . . . just confusing people a little bit. This has been happening A LOT lately:

Exhibit A: That star female runner isn’t just quick as a whip. She also might be a liar, a cheat, and a pervert . . . if complicated and ultimately bullshit gender testing reveals that she’s a man!

Exhibit B: That female employee isn’t just trying to get a paycheck. She’s also trying to sneak in the women’s locker room . . . to change, and stuff! And what if she has a penis? Hand over the photos!

Exhibit C: That “cross-dressing” shoplifting suspect isn’t just trying to steal a killer $2,400 Chanel dress. She’s also trying to dupe the cops by wearing dresses while she steals dresses to conceal her true identity . . . a man!

This whole trans panic trend is out of control, you guys. And I think it’s time for a Sexist Beatdown. Join the incomprable Sady of Tiger Beatdown as we talk Juwanna Mann, our own personal gender test, and why we’ve never been asked to include 8-by-10 glossies of our vaginas with a job application.

Read More “Sexist Beatdown: Transphobia And Vagina Headshots Edition” »

Allegations of Discrimination at Tastee Diner, Silver Spring MD from Tastee Diner on Vimeo.

Yesterday, Aiyi’nah Ford and Torian Brown staged a gay rights protest at Silver Spring’s Tastee Diner after being ejected from the restaurant, they say, for girlfriend-on-girlfriend hugging. Now, Tastee Diner has responded to Ford and Brown’s discrimination claim by posting a security video of the couple on the Internet. The video is . . . blurry.

Read More “Grainy Security Video Catches Lesbians Hugging In Tastee Diner” »

Now that out-of-state same-sex marriages are officially recognized in the District of Columbia, we can all finally behold the full testimony of Oxon Hill Minister Leroy Swailes, who attempted to shut down the legislation with an anti-gay tour de force. Arguments include: the positivity of discrimination; the missing link between homosexuality and bestiality; how gays will destroy the world by dismantling the process of photosynthesis [via Pandagon].

The highlights from the transcript after the jump:

Read More “Homosexuals Will Fuck Up Photosynthesis Video Corner” »

It’s been over a month since testimony was heard on Maryland’s Bill 566, a proposition which would prohibit discrimination “based on gender identity with regard to public accommodations, housing, and employment” in the state. The Maryland legislature is slated to adjourn on Monday, and both the House and the Senate have failed to take action on the legislation.

They’re just waiting for it to die.

Read More “Maryland Legislature Delays Transgender Rights Bill” »

Bitch and Hormone: Gender identity gets worked over in bar fight.

When Mitch Graffeo entered Dupont’s Fab Lounge shortly before closing on Feb. 28, he hadn’t been to a lesbian club in more than a decade. Graffeo, 40, was only stopping in to pick up a friend, 29-year-old Jamie, at the conclusion of the gay bar’s weekly lesbian night. Graffeo and Jamie, both transgender men, were two of only a handful of men in a club full of women. As the lights went up, a group of women took a sudden interest in Jamie. Slim and boyish, Jamie had only recently begun to transition from female to male, and they wanted to know what he was.

Read More “GLB Against T: Who’s Man Enough to Escape a Beating?” »

Don’t you hate it when men pretending to be women slip into your shower while you’re publicly bathing your women and children? Yeah, never happened to me, either.

Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government have come up with a pithy little campaign to oppose those pushing to end discrimination against transgender citizens in the state: “Not My Shower.”

Read More “A Woman’s Privacy Vs. Transgender Rights” »

Dude, you’re getting sued! Four former Human Resource execs are claiming that computer co. Dell discriminated against them on the basis of sex and age. The complainants say Dell—and its “All Male 14-Member Leadership Team Headed by Michael Dell” unfairly laid off women over men. Those women who did stay on were subjected to “gross pay and promotion inequities.”

14 men in the top positions? Looks like Dell would be killing it in the Manliest Workplace Competition!