[Vision2020] Equality JUST for Gays and Lesbians??

[Melissa Hendrickson]

Visionaries-

I agree that there are measures that should be passed in our fair city to curb discrimination, yes, curb no law will ever end all discrimination.  But why just gay and lesbian folks?  Why leave bisexual folks out of the mix?  They may or may not have same sex partners, but still face discrimination both in and outside of the gay and lesbian community. 

And let us not forget the transgender folks that live in our community.  As a person who identifies as trans, I can tell you that discrimination happens on a daily basis for myself and other trans identified folks. Trans issues are often ignored by the large gay rights organizations, they all have added trans issues to their list of things to fight for, but those issues often take a back seat to other issues. 

I would love to see a measure passed by the city council to fight discrimination in Moscow, but lets not leave out the 'B' and the 'T' of GLBT "community."  A group over at WSU started a trans ally group on campus a couple semesters ago, this summer there is a group working on starting a similar group on the UI campus. My main focus for this group is to educate the community at UI and Moscow about trans issues, if any of the city council or folks on vision 2020 would like to help with the project or participate in a training session let me know.  (For those of you planning to send me nasty email off the list, be warned I will post it back to the list to share your lovely words with the rest of the list.)  

Instead of pointing fingers and saying that some people aren't doing enough for one group, we all need to realize that everbody has different ideals and passions that they strive to promote.  There are liberals and dare I say some conservatives in this community that do a lot of work for GLBT rights, their voices may not be heard on vision 2020, but that does not mean that the work isn't being done. 

I could go on but I won't, I think I will go back into my lurker mode for a while.

Mo