Dear friends,
He was given another mic, but was left only with the approved draft of his speech. Dershem, who planned to speak about being queer and struggling with his mental health, recited from memory the speech he wanted to give.
Watch Bryce’s speech, a proud and frank discussion of the challenges of being human.
Seven years ago, Gavin Grimm sued his Virginia school district. The district had reversed his school’s decision, which allowed him to use the boys’ bathroom, because he is trans.
Yesterday, the Supreme Court elected not to intervene in the great American bathroom controversy:
The court left in place a lower court decision declaring that local school boards may not require transgender high school students to use bathrooms that correspond to their gender assigned at birth.
Grimm is now 22 and tweeted that he is "Honored to have been part of this victory."
Three federal appeals courts have ruled in favor of transgender students in similar cases.
Only Justices Thomas and Alito were interested in dunking their heads back into the toilet.
We still need the Equality Act. Yesterday, I forgot to include my source for the interview with Schumer. The following action is his idea, and since he’s waiting on us to act, I thought we better get to it.
Speak to five people in states with Republican senators, and get them to contact their senators and demand the passage of the Equality Act. Here’s a script for your friends!
Last night I got an email from friend in North Carolina:
I will call the bastards tomorrow about the Equality Act, thanks for the push.
Although we are still waiting for election results, women could dominate the new city council. There are 51 seats on the council and 28 women are leading their races in the primary. Only 14 women serve in the city council today.
In 2017, Melissa Mark-Viverito (former Speaker) and Elizabeth Crowley (contender in the Queens Borough President race) launched the 21 in ’21 initiative to redress the gender imbalance in the council. The deliberate program — “to send the elevator down to lift other womxn up” — appears to be working.
Oakland’s city council voted 7-2 last week to reallocate $17.4 million in funding from its police department and direct the money to the Department of Violence Prevention with the intention of improving public safety. The move is a response to a spike in violent crime.
It is probably too much to hope that our city council will follow Oakland’s example.
Mayor de Blasio conceded that the police response was a bit heavy-handed.
“A couple of things in Washington Square Park could have been handled better, should have been handled better,” de Blasio said.
For sure. The wall of officers in riot gear in the photos looks alarming. In this context, it’s good news that two lawmakers, Zellnor Myrie and Diana Richardson, have filed a lawsuit against the NYPD because they were assaulted by cops wielding their bicycles in the first major protest in Brooklyn following the murder of George Floyd.
There’s more good legal trouble for bad actors:
In Texas, there is new legal action against the Trump Train that tried to run the Biden-Harris campaign bus off the road in October 2020. The lawsuits cite violations of the Ku Klux Klan Act. According to filings in one case,
Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act in the aftermath of the civil war and during Reconstruction “to prevent groups from joining together to obstruct free and fair federal elections by intimidating and injuring voters, or denying them the ability to engage in political speech”.
The members of the Trump Train “openly and willfully violated that statutory command”, court papers say.
One lawsuit targets the drivers of the ‘Trump Train’ convoy and another targets law enforcement officers who failed to intervene “despite repeated calls for help.”
There won’t be free and fair elections if we don’t get the For the People Act (S1) through the Senate. We need to turn up the volume. On the way to last night’s rally, I talked with MC Ross and her daughter Valerie. Valerie was furious that her mother, who campaigned for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, was standing on a hot sidewalk fighting for voting rights in 2021.
MC, who is 87, told me that she grew up in Alabama and that her father was provost at Tuskegee University. MC, below, is keeping her eye on the prize. Let’s follow her lead.
Call Schumer’s offices (any or all of them!) every day to remind him that S1 must pass.
Have a good day!
with love,
L