Blog of Rights
John
Knight
11/19/2012
LGBT News

Highlighting Our Heroes in the Fight for Transgender Rights

By Shawn Jain, ACLU & John Knight, LGBT Project at 5:11pm

As Transgender Awareness Week 2012 (November 12-19) concludes, today we feature three of our heroic clients who’ve made our work to end discrimination against transgender people possible. Not only have our clients been willing to stand up against discrimination, but they’ve also taken on the challenge of teaching others – legislators, judges and the general public – what it means to be transgender and the challenges transgender people face. The following people have helped make our transgender rights work possible in the areas of employment discrimination and identification documents. The LGBT community has seen astounding progress, but a great deal of work still needs to be done to secure greater understanding and acceptance along with basic legal protections for transgender Americans for whom discrimination is still commonplace.

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04/12/2012
Transgender ID

A Quiet Success in Alaska: Important Ruling in Transgender ID Case

By John Knight, LGBT Project at 4:49pm

It's hard to find the silver lining in the confused and unsettled results over last week's Anchorage Proposition 5 vote — that city's effort to pass by popular vote a law that would protect LGBT people from discrimination in employment, housing, and access to business serving the public. Perhaps when the votes are all counted, we'll discover that the announced loss was premature and inaccurate.

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03/30/2012
Transgender Rights

Victory at the End of a Six-Year Transgender Rights Struggle

By John Knight, LGBT Project at 3:28pm

Earlier this week, we got the good news — the six-year battle was over. Wisconsin's anti-transgender Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act was a thing of the past. The act was a one-of-a kind law banning prison medical care for a medical condition that is unique to transgender persons. The law prevented prison doctors from ever prescribing transition-related medical treatment, including hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery, to transgender prisoners. In May 2010, a federal district court struck the law down as unconstitutional and in August 2011, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. The third and final act of this legal drama was the U.S. Supreme Court's denial of certiorari on Monday.

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08/02/2010
Transgender Rights

Making Jails Safer for Transgender Mainers

By John Knight, LGBT Project at 12:49pm

Most Americans can say that they’ve never had the pleasure of spending time in jail or prison. And we don’t really expect jails or prisons to be posh places, but we do expect them to keep those who end up there safe. Transgender Americans, on the other hand, face a different reality. Even a short jail experience, if you’re transgender, can be fraught with indignities, hostility, even violence or sexual assault.

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06/16/2010

Gender and Passports: A Matter of Respect

By John Knight, LGBT Project at 4:06pm

A passport is more than a permit that allows you to go globe-hopping. It's an official, government-authorized certification of your identity. While traveling abroad, it can be a lifeline if you run into trouble. So it would seem imperative that your passport truly reflect who you are.

For transgender Americans, this simple assurance has been difficult to come by. While the State Department has allowed for gender markers to be changed on passports with documentation from a doctor or hospital that an individual has had surgery (or plans to), not all transgender people undergo surgery. In fact, many transgender persons forgo surgery because they cannot afford it, do not need it, or do not want it. Government identification policies should not interfere with this very personal decision.

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