From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Subject: Re: The MOW Platform (was Re: NOTICE - Details...)
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 01:04:55 GMT
Summary: what's YOUR problem?

In article <1992Dec15.142745.15307@rtsg.mot.com> yorton@rtsg.mot.com writes:

>Each item in the platform must be attainable.

Hmmm...; does that mean that if I march under a banner of "freedom
and justice for all" I *must* assume that goal is attainable?

>I feel the transgender
>clause is already covered under current civil rights.  Transgender
>is defined to be transvestites and transsexuals.  Wouldn't transsexuals
>be protected by laws banning gender bias?

Good grief! aside from the non-existence of "laws banning gender bias"
in most jurisdictions, that is not likely to be any kind of automatic
conclusion (hint: some places still have laws *against* cross-dressing.)

>And cross-dressing is
>a form of expressing oneself and therefore protected under the
>right of freedom of expression.

You are a clueless twit.  Question: what do *you* think the result
would be of your showing up to work, day in and day out, in a dress?
And when you have been fired for doing so, do you *really* think you
would have legal redress?  Hah!  You *might* (given a friendly work
environment) get away with a dress one day a year -- when the annual
Halloween Party transpires.

In case you need some evidence on the problem, let me mention one bit
of data I noticed recently.  There is an  "anonymous posting service"
I have seen evidence of on some groups, recently.  Predictably, one
finds a few people using this on soc.motss, rather more on alt.sex.
bondage: the difference being correlated with the degreee to which the
people involved feel they *have* to be closeted.  Setting aside the
political issue of trying to GET people out of their various closets,
I will note that there is a relatively new group, alt.transgenedered,
in which for a long while the MAJORITY of posts were not only through
the anonymous service, but TESTS using it!  If TV's and TS's are so
utterly *terrified* of being known, you may be SURE that there is no
operative protection under civil rights laws.

And this is also a clue to the MOW platform.  Consider the issues in
the gay community around being closeted, and "outing."  It is the
*disabilities* and denial of rights accorded us which leads to so
much effort at public invisibility.  The first gay MOW and "National 
Coming Out Day" was a REJECTION of that oppressive closet.  It was a
liberation of a number of us (I came out nationally on the net as a
result, in fact.)  If you think that gay closets are confining, let
me assure you that TG closets are clautrophobic.

The moral principle behind the MOW is that NO ONE should feel forced
into a closet because of steam-roller societal prejudice against what
is in *no* way a social threat or evil.  The practical connnection of
same-sex orientation and trans-genderal dressing/identification is 
that the same sleazy "religious" voices speak in one breath against
them (and tend to think of them as the "same" "abomination.")

Grow up.  Get a clue.  March.
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@panix.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
(please note address)			With your crooked heart."
Newsgroups: soc.motss