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eternal-echoes · 10 months

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Hey!! I’m a catholic too, I never skip a sunday mass and I pray daily. I had a question about your views on abortion, gender and sexuality.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged:

and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

Matthew 7:2

I do view abortion as homicide and I personally would never do it but I do not feel in any way in the position to judge a woman for wanting to do an abortion just like I wouldn’t judge somebody killing in case of self defense. I am not God and the most valuable thing He gave us was choice and free will and as a catholic I feel obliged to respect that in my neighbor. Same goes for LGBTQ+ people. Jesus never even mentioned the theme of sexuality or gender identity and always put love in front of the abrahamic law during the entirety of the gospel. What right do I have to judge others? What right do I have to think I’m right and they are wrong? I am cis and heterosexual, I would never abort in any scenario but in no way I can afford to be judged with the same measure I would judge others by telling them I was right and they were wrong for coming out as transgender or gay. I am sinful and ignorant, I’m not God, thus I have no right to judge.

In this very same way I’m not judging you, God has laid a path for us all and I’m sure you are doing a great job walking on yours, carrying your own cross. I’m sure you had a kind of upbringing that brought you here and made you who you are but you remind me a lot of who I used to be and I just felt the need to tell you I changed on the very moment I realized being religious wasn’t enough to be saved.

May God bless you! I will pray for you and I’m sorry if I crossed some boundaries writing this to you (also because as I said I’m ignorant and I might totally be wrong… if you think I am please pray for me so that God might lead me closer and closer to the Truth).

I wish you’ll spend a Merry Christmas!

Hello, Anon, thank you for your polite question. I will answer as best as I can.

As Jesus said,

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." - John 14: 15.

We can't just say we love God but break His laws He has explicitly stated in the Bible. Loving God is in His terms, not ours.

The thing about morality is that objective. It's not just an opinion, what will be wrong for me will also be wrong for another. It's not a matter of preferring vanilla ice cream over chocolate, if me and another person do it with full knowledge that it's wrong, then we've both committed a mortal sin.

Since you already believe that abortion is homicide, then you must believe it's also homicide when other people do it. Yes, we're called to love and respect our neighbor, but that does not mean we're called to approve of their sinful actions. All of us are still children of God when we commit sin, our actions doesn't negate our dignity. But being children of God doesn't negate the intrinsic evil of the sinful actions that people may decide to take. While there are different circumstances that may have driven a woman to abortion (i.e. poverty or desire to indulge in promiscuous lifestyle without consequences), and we as Christians can never assume that she's beyond forgiveness, we can never just declare that abortion isn't morally wrong or intrinsically sinful. It would not be loving to support someone commit something that would lead them to Hell. For a Christian to truly love someone is to will the other person's good. And that means saying no to what will lead them to Hell and guiding them to what will lead them to Heaven. In other words, we Christians have a duty to forbid promiscuity and promote chastity.

As for homosexuality and transgenderism,

it's important to remember what constitutes as sinful acts and what does not. Neither homosexuality or transgenderism are considered sins because those are not actions, especially since those do not fall under one's agency. What the Catholic Church teaches about people with same-sex attractions is written in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Bible has been clear is condemning homosexual acts.

“‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable." - Leviticus 18: 22

"Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." - 1 Corinthians 9-10

"for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine." - 1 Timothy 1: 10

As a Catholic, we use the Bible as our guide along with the traditions of the Church in leading holy lives.

If you know any one who has same-sex attractions, I encourage you to share with them couragerc.net. It's a Catholic ministry that helps Christians with same-sex attractions lead chaste and holy lives.

In the case of transgenderism, the Catholic Church does not consider it sinful. The Catholic Church simply affirm the truth,

"God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them" - Genesis 1: 27

No one is born in the wrong body because God doesn't make mistakes. People are fine just the way they are even though they do not adhere to the world's standards of beauty or socially constructed gender stereotypes. The body and soul are not separates; together they make up one substance.

We humans are integrated beings. That means our souls don’t reside in a round glowing ball in the middle of our chest. Our bodies aren’t something to detest, something that holds our soul for now but isn’t important. We are one being. So just as much as your soul is you, so is your body you. What we do with our bodies matters. You don’t just hurt my nose if you punch my face, you hurt me. If someone uses my body sexually for their own gratification, it’s not just my body that is affected, I am affected – my whole personhood has been hurt by being objectified.

Emphasis are mine. Read the full article here.

Transgenderism, or gender dysmorphia, is a mental health issue. It's in DSM-5. The correct treatment for mental health issues is therapy. We don't give liposuctions to anorexic girls who think they're fat because they're not in fact fat, so we shouldn't cut off perfectly healthy breasts on girls who think they're boys trapped in the wrong body, because they're not in fact boys. Being a girl means having XX chromosomes and being a boy means having XY-chromosomes.

It's true that Jesus has never specifically mentioned homosexuality and transgenderism but Jesus has never explicitly said not beating your spouse either but that doesn't mean He approves of it. When Jesus said, "But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5: 28), He was already speaking out against all sins against marriage here.

All of us fall short in following God's standard of morality, but that doesn't negate our intrinsic worth of being made in the image of likeness of God. We're judged by the same measure but we're also loved by the same God who wants us to keep striving to live a holy life even if the road is lonely and full of hardships. We can never judge someone as being unworthy of repentance and Heaven because only God knows that. But God did give us a moral code found in the Bible and expounded by the Catholic Church to tell us how to live a holy life according to His plan.

Anon, if you have anymore questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

#Catholic #Christianity #homosexuality #gay marriage #transgenderism #transgender ideology #asks

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nadiasindi · 10 months

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female-malice · 3 years

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Letters from Incarcerated Women

My name is [redacted] and I am writing to you from Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla, CA where I am currently incarcerated. I felt compelled to write to you to express the fear and frustration women on the inside are feeling about this decision pertaining to SB 132, and to give you some background from my perspective on how this has been evolving.

California has 34 prisons, two of which are for housing women; CCWF located in the Central Valley with approximately 2,500 inmates and CIW (California Institute for Women) which is located in Southern California with approximately 1,200 inmates. When I first arrived, CCWF had nearly 4,000 women but after a three Federal Judge panel ruled a reduction due to overcrowding, the capacity is supposed to be ~2,570 and this continues to be difficult for CDCR (CA Department of Corrections) to abide with. CCWF is the largest women’s prison in the nation and world, and includes ~20 women house on condemned row.

As for myself, I am 61 years old and have begun my 19th year of an LWOP (life without parole) sentence. I am college educated, having earned a B.S. in Biochemistry prior to prison. I had a successful business and wasted it all away by making a hasty and horrible decision that changed my life forever, as well as countless others. I grew up in the Bible belt of the Midwest and moved to California for career purposes in the late 1980’s.

With all that said, Governor Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 132 on Septemeber 6, 2020 written by CA State Senator Wiener entitled, “The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act.” This is an Act that added to sections 2605 and 2606 of the CA Penal Code. In Section 2606, item 3, it states that a transgender individual “shall be housed at a correctional facility designated for men or women based on the individual’s preference…” and item 4 concerning how they are to be housed states they can be housed as “single-cell status, housing the (transgender) individual with another incarcerated person of their choice, or removing individuals who pose a threat” to the transgender person.

In other words, these men or transgender persons get to decide where they want to live; prison and/or room. If women object to them getting moved into a room, the women will be moved to accommodate the transgender person. Essentially, the men or transgender has more rights than a woman in a women’s prison.

Let me take this opportunity to explain housing differences between a men’s and women’s prison. Men are housed in 2-man cells and segregated by race and custody level (I through IV, with IV being the most violent). The different levels are separated by yard and these yards are not allowed to mix with one another. Women are housed in 8-man cells/rooms. We are not segregated and can program with women from other yards. For example, women from all yards can attend church, special events, self-help groups, vocational and education classes, and work a job together.

Here's some history based on my perspective. In 2011-2012, CCWF received a male inmate (the first one that I know of) who had been trying to get transferred to a female prison. He ended up cutting off his penis while in a men's prison using the CDCR's definition that a person who doesn't have a penis is considered a female. I am perplexed that CDCR doesn't use the biological definition of a female that has two X chromosomes and a male that has one X and one Y chromosome. This definition should be undisputable. However, this man found a way by filing multiple law suits that he eventually won to manipulate the system to get a transfer to a women's institution.

When he arrived, it was no secret that he was here and that his criminal history included sexual assault and rape with foreign objects against multiple women. What could be more ideal for a rapist than to serve a life sentence in a women's prison housed with 7 other women so he can further traumatize, assault and rape more women? The institution claimed he was not a "threat," yet a single room was emptied so he could be housed alone in an 8-person room/cell.

Regardless of the fact that he had chopped off his penis, this man had nothing female about him nor was pursuing reassignment surgery. Keep in mind, many women in prison have been traumatized by men, are untrusting and fearful of men, triggered by them and are in prison behind a man's actions. Soon after this man was cleared and moved from the prison reception center to general population, a group of women rushed up on him in his room and beat him very badly. He was eventually packed up and transferred to CIW where he remains incarcerated today.

Approximately 4-5 years ago, CCWF was once again faced with another man; this time one who had undergone reassignment surgery to a female (aka trans-female) and being transferred to CCWF. This was about the time, after multiple law suits had been filed by men, that the State of California approved that CDCR would perform sex reassignment surgery for inmates at the taxpayer's expense. This was a pivotal time and I remember thinking this decision/ruling was "opening a can of worms" and providing an avenue for criminally thinking men to manipulate their way to a female prison to continue harming women, as well as having an easier incarceration term. This, as it turned out, is exactly what I feel is happening.

In fact, we even saw many women identifying as 'men' opting to take testosterone shots, start dressing like guys in men's clothing issued by CDCR, being issued transgender ID cards, making demands they use proper male pronouns when referring to them, having breast removal surgery, and much more. I know of no female who has undergone surgery to construct a penis yet. This type of surgery is much more costly than surgery for constructing a vagina. The really sad thing is that when a woman has to have a mastectomy, she can't get a breast reconstruction but a man can get breasts and a vagina! Also, our medical care is substandard, however if you want a sex change -not a problem!

I had a friend who recently parole, needed a breast reduction because she was experiencing excruciating back and shoulder pain. She was denied surgery multiple times by Sacramento. Additionally, another friend had breast implants prior to coming to prison and when they began leaking into the surrounding tissues, she was denied medical assistance because it was considered "cosmetic."

So this trans-female I mentioned in the previous paragraph arrived and was placed in a room with several females. Because he now had a vagina, he had to use a medical device (resembling a dildo) to keep it dilated to maintain its shape and prevent collapse of the vaginal walls. I was told he was selling the medical devices to the girls, teasing them with it, and flaunting it around. He also showed his genital area to the girls, both in the room and in the common dayroom. He wasted no time in finding a girlfriend who he later beat up a few times and landed in Ad-Seg (prison jail). At some point, he decided he wanted to be a man again and stopped taking his female hormones. This person walks like a man, talks like a man and looks like a man except for the eye makeup her wears and his tattooed eyebrows.

Another man who wanted to go through reassignment surgery filed all his paperwork but was paroled before it was approved. He had been raped multiple times in a men's prison and brought attention to prison rape advocacy. When his surgery was approved by CDCR, he was living in the free world and the State of California still paid for it. He ended up violating his parole and was re-incarcerated at CCWF, where the State continued to pay for additional vaginal reconstruction. I have personally worked with this individual, presenting inmates' rights and responsibilities regarding Prison Rape and Elimination Act (PREA), women' health education and communicable diseases/infections awareness.

A few other trans-females have arrived post sexual reassignment surgery. The procedure that was being followed by CDCR was that any man who identified as "female" and wanted to have sexual reassignment surgery had to apply and got through a thorough psychiatric interview. Once chosen or approved, they would undergo the surgery and transfer to Mule Creek men's prison for recovery, then on to CCWF.

However, as of January 1, 2021, any man, regardless if he has or will have surgery, who says or identifies as "female" are eligible to go to a women's prison. They don't even have to have their penises removed. Currently, we have ~14 men on site at CCWF with penises 'intact', still processed by "male" names, and this prison is expecting 300-400 more. Thanks to Senator Weiner and Governor Newsom, women in this prison are being put at risk for sexual assault, rape, abuse, being violated and trauma. This decision was not well thought out and typical of Sacramento policy makers. How could they think this could be a positive and safe thing? This cannot have a good ending, and our hands are seemingly tied.

A young girl who I just spoke with told me of her interaction with a "man" on the reception yard. He spoke of "getting it on" with the women and he had no intentions of getting rid of his penis. These guys have been overheard saying to one another, "Stick to the plan." What exactly is the "plan?" We are not certain. I will not be surprised [when] the first female gets pregnant.

Due to this horrible decision in allowing men to come here, both custody staff (correctional officers) and women inmates are upset. The officers don't want to deal with the men, even to the point of not coming in to work and therefore we are locked down more often. Men are physically stronger than women which poses a threat not only to the women but also the officers. In California, officers are paid more when they work in a men's prison and if we get a significant number of men in here, they will demand to be paid more to work in this prison.

Many of the women are scared, angry and worried about their safety. We do not want to be forced to live with any "man", locked in a room we can't get out of without officers keying the locks and no cameras to record abusive activity. Showering, using the toilet, changing clothes, and sleeping at night pose an unsafe environment for us. This is a prime example of the "higher ups" in Sacramento making decisions about the day to day operations of a prison in which they are so far removed they have no due. I believe they have failed to consider these men are criminals and don't have the best of intentions, and are manipulating the system to get what they want. Women are being put at risk and someone is going to get hurt badly. Unfortunately, nothing can be done until it actually happens.

A friend of mine, whose co-defendant and father of her child, has arrived at CCWF because he now identifies as "female" and has undergone sexual reassignment surgery. This trans-female is sentenced to death row. She is fearful if he is released into general population that he is coming after her to seek revenge, as he has made it clear that is his intention. Yet this trans-female was approved to come to CCWF, ignoring any enemy concerns and documented domestic violence. Additionally, several trans-females who have had their reassignment surgeries prior to prison and were living as "female" in the free world have been incarcerated at CCWF and processed as women. These individuals have not posed the same sort of threat that the actual men coming in here today will. Most of the women I believe would agree with me on this.

Regardless of the fact that we are inmates, we should not be subjected to potentially harmful situations such as placing men and women in the same prison facility. Is it not the responsibility of CDCR to maintain the safety and security of those in the institution? How are the officers able to ensure the safety and security of everyone when they were not even considered in the decision to bring men into a women's prison? This is simply an irresponsible decision on the State of California's part.

There are now multiple instances where women's co-defendants are arriving at CCWF under S8132 without administrative staff notification. I know of only one woman who was notified prior to her co-defendant's panel hearing under 58132. For years, she has spoken out about her fears because she is well aware that her co-defendant has been diligently trying to get approved for sexual reassignment surgery. He is sentenced to death row and has made multiple failed attempts to castrate himself over the past 16 years. He has also made multiple outcries through media to gain sympathy. To date, his 5B132 hearing has been post-phoned while the woman is experiencing severe stress, anxiety and nightmares. She has been told that the institution will notify her of the outcome of his hearing, but like others, there is no guarantee that will happen in a timely fashion, if at all.

Finally, I have attached a copy of the classes the men are required to attend as a prerequisite to transfer to a women's prison; Notice that only 16 hours are mandated for screening. What happened to 2+ years of intense therapy people used to have to go through when deciding to go through sexual reassignment?

I hope this information has shed some light from an 'inside' perspective. You are free to share this information as you like, however at this time I prefer you keep my name anonymous for personal safety purposes. I have other women that would be happy to provide their own perspectives and if you are interested I can provide their names and contact information. […]

It is very seldom that our voice can be heard and I felt you needed to hear from someone in a prison setting faced with this specific challenge of which we had no control over. Thank you in advance for allowing me to express myself.

Sincerely,

Anonymous @ CCWF

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transgamerthoughts · 4 years

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Idle Thoughts On Games During Pandemic Times

I’m in an interesting position as I write this. Since I’ve written here I have moved out of journalism and towards the dev side of games. Good news! I’m happier! Bad news! It can feel weird to have public opinions. That said, I miss writing and I’ve had some thoughts about games I’ve played (mostly major titles) that I want to share. I’m keeping them loose and I hope folks will allow me the indulgence. Here we are!

Ghost of Tsushima

I’ve been surprised by how playable Ghost of Tsushima is. Which is to say that the world is very enjoyable to explore. There’s something about ambling between marker to marker, or stumbling upon a few hidden items, that fundamentally works. I’ve seen some folks imply that this is simply the result of overproduced open-world design philosophies. A sort of focus-tested gaming drug-world that it’s easy to slide into. There’s probably some truth to that, and there’s a discussion to be had about the dangers of pastoralism, but I think that the open-world itself is designed well. Sure, there’s collectables and outposts to conquer and all the things you would expect but those are not the appeal. In fact, in many cases, engaging with those things feels worse than wandering. In the early game particularly, combat is not enjoyable. But there’s a sensibility to the world, a sort of stubborn antiquatedness that calls back to an open-world structure—one where space existed for its own sake—that we don’t see in as many games now. That’s curious to me because Tsushima has been criticized for feeling old-fashioned but I think this approach to world design isn’t so far removed from Breath of the Wild. It is certain littered with more *stuff* that you can stumble on but despite the fact that I can set markers or unlock bonuses that make these things easier to find, I don’t feel an overwhelming push to engage with them.

That good because combat is a decidedly mixed affair. I’m not eager to slide into difficulty discussions but if Tsushima’s closest cousin is Assassin’s Creed, it’s no surprise that I’ve instantly found the game more playable at a lower difficulty setting. If the goal is to emulate film—and there can be discussion about how well that’s actually done; black and white filters don’t suffice to make something comparable to Kurosawa—then Tsushima’s normally cluttered and gamey combat rubs against that impulse. It’s a game with sub-weapons, ninja-like tools, multiple stances for breaking the guards of certain enemies, and a wealth of skill trees. The beauty of the action (which you can frame at the push of a button thanks to a respectable photo mode) can get lost in the shuffle. Lowering the difficulty has led to speedier and more dramatic encounters where a few sword strokes can slay a handful of men. It’s a curious thing, as I tend to play games on higher difficulties, but this is one of the few times where I felt it might have served a game better to streamline combat down to the most basic of interactions. Tsushima’s combat can get very busy and I did not enjoy tackling challenges or outpost conquest until I progressed to unlock more abilities while also lowering the difficulty. Even then, those are the moments I care for the least.

I feel unable to comment on critical discussions about Tsushima’s story and politics but as an observer to the input of Japanese-American writers and Japanese devs/players, one thing that’s struck me is how the broader gamer culture has reacted to the dialogue. There have been moments where gamers have minimized the voices of some critics with the exultations of certain Japanese writers, which eliminates valid concerns from people who have every right to look close at a game connected to their heritage. The lens through which Tsushima was made was at the end of the day a Western one and that’s worth discussing. I am grateful for the writing of critics like Kazuma Hashimoto at Polygon that dig into these tensions. I will say that I feel like Tsushima sometimes wants to do the proper thematic thing where it will say that entrenched nobility and cultural notions of honor can be inherently damaging but because that’s mostly expressed, at least in the main plot, as “the outside invaders are besting us because of our traditions” it falls flat. Tsushima works best in side quests where the stakes are smaller. It’s thematic aspirations are best when things are personal and on a more humble scale. I like the version of Tsushima I get to play in those moments more than I like the grand gestures towards honor or combat challenges. Which is to say I mostly want Way of the Samurai with multiple zones and a more connective tissue. Tsushima teases that possibility without ever really getting there. In those teasing moment, the game makes a lot more sense to me.

I’ve enjoyed myself and intend to finish soon. That enjoyment comes with a lingering question: what other game could this have been? It’s inspired an image in my mind of a different sort of open-world ronin game where there is a smatter of villages with sub-stories and perhaps the smallest A-plot. A game with Mongol invaders, dramatic family conflict, or shogunate decrees. Tsushima has capture my attention but I do wonder more about what might have been that what is right in front of my eyes.

The Last of Us: Part II

I have struggled with this game in ways I did not know were possible. When I play it, I find myself taken in by the raw skill of the actors. There’s a mood and tone I enjoy, a somber twinge to the infected escapades that lingers from the first game. I like The Last of Us. I think there’s small moments of character interaction that express core things about the cast’s shifting relationships. James Howell embarked on a video essay series about this very thing and while it will remain unfinished perhaps forever, I suggest engaging with it. Suffice it to say, the changing language of Joel and Ellie’s mechanical interactions does a lot to underscore the narrative. I think players often think of the The Last of Us in terms of pure narrative but these smaller considerations reveal a game with a very natural approach to story telling. The Last of Us 2 has these moments and often hides them within combat. When multiple factions of humans and infected interact, their clash and the behavior of the AI tells something fundamental about the game world.

The Last of Us: Part II is a cynical game with an unflattering view of humanity, a view that (in spite of Joel’s selfishness in the first game’s climax) feels somewhat at odds with what came before. It is, in fact, possibly the most cynical game I’ve ever played. That’s hard to talk about but it’s best expressed in the various dying barks of enemies or moments where the player is forced into violent, dehumanizing slaughter. In the former case, it feels like a magic trick. The first time you hear someone cry out their dog’s name, it can be tragic. The next five times you hear it, it feels forced. Like any trick, it’s never as powerful as the first time. You might argue that’s the point: that as you follow Ellie’s journey, the player also stripes enemies of their humanity and agency but the player’s culpability is secondary to the writer’s in some ways.

Players did not contrive to have Ellie rob Nora, one of the game’s major black characters, of her fundamental dignity before murdering her. Nor are players the ones who shove a knife into Mel’s pregnant stomach. Those are scenarios crafted by designers and writers, and much like how retroactively guilting the player for killing a doctor in the first game (An unavoidable action, mind you! Joel will do this regardless of what the player wants.) feels manipulative, calling a player’s culpability into question as Ellie fails to act like any sort of reasonable human being also rings hollow. There is a perpetual push and pull between players and controllable actors, best expressed in the verbs that we are allowed to perform. It is telling the more often than not, Ellie’s most egregious acts of violence happen outside of the player’s control.

And yet there are moments where I buy deeply into the story. Notably, it happens when Abby is on screen more than Ellie. (Tangent: Abby has more interesting gameplay scenarios that lean closer to horror game vibes like what you’d find in The Evil Within. TLOU is way more interesting working in that mode than HUMAN vs. HUMAN drama.) Abby is also allowed more growth and agency than the script ever gives Ellie. At the core of this is Abby’s relationship with Lev. It is here that I’ve had my largest struggle with the game.

Discussion about Lev has often bowled over transgender commentators. For many people, Lev resonates regardless of anything the plot says about his gender. Lev captures people’s attention because Lev is eminently likable. That’s a testament to Naughty Dog’s writing. Still, there is a sense that Lev’s wider resonance has left some folks (particularly queer folks) without as much space to talk among themselves and hash out sentiments without the discussion getting overpowered. This is complicated by an environment where creators seem more empowered to directly speak to criticisms.

Which is to say that as a trans critic (perhaps ex-critic) watching from the sidelines, I was very hurt and dismayed to watch people who do not share in the transgender experience comment quickly about Lev. And while the discussions about Lev are varied—the trans community, like any community, is not a monolith—it’s sometimes felt like trans voices were made the quietest when talking about this character.

Many things are true about art at the same time. Lev can act, as is the case for some players, as a token figure whose struggles are appropriated and turned into spice adding flavor to the apocalypse. Spice that allows us to be seen as we are usually seen: in pain and defined by that pain, and which displays that pain voyueristically for cis players. Lev can also be a kind-hearted and respectable hero, and ray of light within a dark story. Neither feeling is in competition. Some will find strength and inspiration in the character, others will see the machinations of corporate powers and award-chasing writers. Both can be true.

Enthusiastic fans and players are quick—not in a malicious sense; merely in their excitement—to defend the things they enjoy. If they found a thing good it stands to reason the thing must be good. They empathized and that is taken as proof that a thing is good irrespective of other concerns. This is a kind impulse but one that robs people of their concerns, or at the very least close off conversations quickly. I cannot properly diagnose this except to suggest that there’s a growing force of cultural positivism that’s encircled games of a certain scale. One which shuts down a lot of valuable engagement. The bigness of the moment, of the object, demands the moment be the Best Possible Moment For Games regardless of the qualities of the object itself. That’s worrisome to me.

The Last of Us: Part II has become nearly impossible to talk about even now because we are dealing with an object so large as to have a gravity that weighs everything down. A game with sublime moments that intoxicate deeply but one where voices of critique or caution are buried away largely because of the potency of that intoxication. I deeply wish that wasn’t the case because the breadth of discussions that might’ve happened would have been really valuable.

Aim Lab

I’ve gotten really into Valorant. It’s scratched an itch for a type of multiplayer shooter that I haven’t had scratched in a long time. My experience with the game itself has been good but the surrounding experience has been decidedly mixed. Suffice it to say I’m mostly living the solo-queue life and it’s a miserable existence even with the occasional highs. Yet, there’s a mechanical crunchiness to Valorant that deeply compels me and I’ve enough competitive drive that (in spite of the fact that the most of beloved social aspects of the game seem generally out of reach for me) I’ve really devoted myself to improving as player. Enter Aim Lab. It’s a totally free aim trainer that anyone can download off Steam. It has a variety of drills and exercises that can be used to improve a variety of first-person shooter skills. In one case, you might be flicking from target to target with the express goal of training your aiming speed. In another you might need to look at a group of colored balls, which will then disappear with one of them changed. You’ll then need to shoot at the different one as quickly as possible. You earn a score for each drill, which is tracked and compared to global records and folded into a ranking system. I’ve placed in the “Ruby” range for my rank, which is mostly in the middle of the road. (It’s a weird rank above gold but I think before Plat?) Mechanically sound with sloppy spots. I’m able to identify these thanks to Aim Labs. For instance, I know that I am fast and relatively accurate but that tracking moving targets is a difficulty for me. I know that I am quicker at things on the right side of my screen but also that I’m thankfully able to read changes in the environment quickly. This might sounds like a dry and rote way to approach video games but Aim Labs’ suite of repeatable and trackable challenges means that it is very easy to trace gradual improvements.

As a result, what might have been dull work becomes something akin to going to the gym. I can feel the ways in which my control over a mouse have changed. I understand which muscles need more flexing. Importantly, for all my weakness I also know strengths. Playing Aim Labs—and yes, this is play—becomes a semi-automatic and meditative experience like swinging at a batting cage.

As a player (again, I hesitate to use the word critic anymore) who tends to engage with games on thematic levels even when it comes to mechanics, it’s been surprisingly gratifying. Part personal ritual, part labor. Bubblegum for the brain. Chew chew chew. Shoot shoot shoot. Take some notes and chew some more. Not much more to say except Aim Labs has surprised me with how enjoyable and relaxing it can be.

Necrobarista

Necrobarista was not what I expected. That’s because I started playing it with what felt like a safe-assumption: it would be comparable to some of my favorite indie “drink” games like Va-11 Hall-A or Coffee Talk. It’s hard for me to break down those games and how their structure—insightful conversations punctuated by drink-mixing and the occasional memory puzzle or story choice—works for me. I know folks who have played those games and bounced off for entirely understandable reasons but I love them. They call to mind some of the personal experience I had as both someone who worked at a bar and coffee shop. In spite of their fantasy settings, they evoke a highly specific and idiosyncratic part of my brain. Necrobarista doesn’t quite do that because it is strictly a visual novel. Repetitive work such as drink making is entirely absence. As a result, I initially found Necrobarista harder to engage with. It lacked the percussive but comfortable rhythm I was craving in quarantine.

That highly specific preferential quirk/personal need might place the game lower on my list then the other two (the game’s certainly in conversation with them to a degree; it’s got plenty of shout-outs and references that make it clear the designers know the ballpark they’re playing in) but it doesn’t mean it is a “lesser” game in terms of the world it is presenting or the character you’re watching. Necrobarista has, if nothing else, some of the most naturally flowing dialog I’ve experienced in a while. That is partly because I’ve been sampling so much AAA stuff, where the writing tends to eschew the evocative for clean, crisp (and corporate!) staccato, but even in comparison to other VNs or drink games, it finds some more integrated and interesting ways to handle lore dumps. That’s helped by the core conceit. The lead character Maddy Xiāo runs a coffee shop alongside her wise former boss Chay that just so happens to serve drinks to the recent deceased. That makes it really easy to introduce a character, as the plot soon does, fresh off the mortal coil and eager to learn about life after death. It’s a common writer’s trick to place a clueless character in a plot so world-building can happen but because the stakes are high—the freshly-deceased have only 24 hours before they pass into the afterlife—there’s an urgency in the explanations that feels warranted. I could probably spend a lot of time breaking down the ways in which Necrobarista successful builds the world around the player. From a well-framed scenario and properly placed characters (an inquisitive child-genius, for instance) to the ability to click highlighted words for snarky but never crass footnotes, you never want for necessary knowledge but also never feel like your hand is being held. You’re not digging for meaning or piecing together arcane lore concepts. You know what you need to know, it feels fun to learn it, and the characters all make sense. They’re also incredibly likable. Necrobarista’s largest strength isn’t that the details are handled well; it’s that the core cast is deeply relatable. That’s important because the story moves from coffee to magic and death within a clipped 4 hour playtime. Relationships are clear, motivations clearer, and while some of the standout story-telling pieces are in optionally readable side-chapters, the main story lifted up by how eminently fun it is to eavesdrop of these character’s lives. The only glaring exception is a Greek chorus of robots that seem out of place and overly-chatty. Necrobarista sometimes feels eager to impress structurally, and that’s no more clearer than when these fellas are on screen. The difficult thing about Necrobarista’s literary approach is that the pandemic’s completely shot my attention span. It took my two weeks of on and off play to finish what is a very short game. That said, given the enormity of some world events I found it edifying and cathartic to engage with a piece of media explicitly concerned with death and dying. It wasn’t what I thought and I kinda wish it had a bit more happening mechanically but I’m really happy for the time I spent with this one.

Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Shadowbringers and Final Fantasy XIV in general is a difficult thing talk about. Not because of the accumulated history of a long-running game and storyline but because my feelings are ultimately swayed by a host of personal and specific emotions. I am a social player on a social server. I’ve spent just as much time coming up with roleplaying plotline and casually taking in taverns as I have tackling difficult bosses. I have made dear friends through FFXIV and even more than that. Those relationships, their energy and gravity, mixed into everything like an errand paint drop. You can hardly see it in the mixture but it’s unavoidably there. For many, this is a game of heroes and anime plots. For me, it has been a doorway to some of the most fruitful, edifying, and occasional painful experiences of my life. I say this because I want it understood that in spite of this sentiment, Final Fantasy XIV is a good game and Shadowbringers is easily one of the most confident pieces of video-game storytelling that I’ve ever experienced. Which isn’t to say it’s not sometimes trite or predictable. It’s not to suggest there is something groundbreaking here. For all of the craftsmanship, Shadowbringers often succeeds by embracing the conventional. It sticks to more well-worn plot structures, it simplified job gameplay and streamlined a variety of features whose strange and un-sanded bumps brought charm to the game. Yet, in the streamlining comes something more refined. Like running a soup through a fine mesh sieve to create something creamier and more rich. When you look at Shadowbringers high level plot: travel to the corners of the world to fight monsters, all while unraveling cosmic secrets.. it’s familiar. Even as the patches following the launch experience did, as all FFXIV patches do, focus on the fallout of the main story’s event, it kept to a strict content release pattern. If you’re digging for a revolutionary experience, Shadowbringers cannot offer it by virtue of structure. But what has been releases is foundational. The writing is of such quality and battle scenarios increasingly playful that everyone should be taking notes. A core component of Shadowbringers success is how deeply the story is concerned with genuinely exploring the richness of the scenario. It would be easy to craft a story about evil mages destroying the world. FFXIV’s done the more straightforward version of that at launch and it proved stiff. Instead, Shadowbringers’ has a deep concern with motivations and takes unprecedented time to explore the interior of the cast. This allows old characters to grow into bright new versions of themselves, and it has (two for two now!) turned villains into more than just monsters. The writing exhibits a delicious empathy for the world, and it takes time to give everyone a perspective. In MMOs, this is not always afforded. Characters act as quest-barkers and clumsy plot chess pieces. Shadowbringers strength rests in avoiding this in favor of clear stakes both personal and cosmic. There’s plenty to be said for other aspects. Masayoshi Soken’s music remains an incredibly powerful trump card, and the latest patch (which concludes the Shadowbringers story and sets up for next expansion) shows an increased willingness to employ fight mechanics that trick and test players in new ways. The content is challenging and full of tiny subversive moments that actually rob players of power they’ve taken for granted over the course of hundreds of hours. In finding its stride, Final Fantasy XIV doesn’t just craft sweeping narrative moments, it better integrates those stakes into individual boss encounters. There’s a cohesiveness, an interlocking of parts where each piece (music, narrative, gameplay, et all) are in clear conversation with the other and often in conversation with not only other expansions but other games within the franchise.

Recently, a piece dropped on Polygon with the title “Games need to return to black-and-white morality.” It was, if I can be honest, a poor title for the article and one which left a freelancer unduly exposed to harsh feedback. But there is a core kernel to the article. To quote the writer: “Watching our heroes stick to their convictions, even against insurmountable odds, ratchets up drama, rather than destroying it. The concept that good can ultimately triumph over evil is a timeless one, and stories that rally around this trope — around unadulterated hope — can help guide us through the year’s ceaseless onslaught of calamities.“ Shadowbringers’s conclusion brought this piece of writing to mind. I’m ironing pretty much all of that piece’s argumentation but the notion that games about heroes have great efficacy in times of uncertainty shouldn’t be a controversial one. The crux of my favorite game, Skies of Arcadia, is that heroism is hardly a choice at all. It is a compulsion, it is a duty that we all must accept when the moment comes. Shadowbringers is not quite as simple but it is ultimately a story about hero defeating the baddies, and I would be lying deeply to say that there wasn’t something incredibly, nearly word-defyingly beautiful about the feeling of hope I felt in its concluding moments. The sweeping power of epic fantasy and heroism holds true and, like a genuine panacea, held a curative power for my soul that was not just enjoyable once consumed but frankly necessary for my well-being. I’ve no clean conclusion here (and I don’t have to! ha!) other than to say that Shadowbringers has consistently proven a delight in a sea of rocky games media. It is affirming, exciting, and empathetic in ways that I was not expecting. That, along with the friendships I’ve made while playing, have secured its place as one of my favorite video game experiences ever. From start to finish, it really was a delight.

------------------ And that’s that! I was gonna write about Blaseball but I need to let my Blaseball feelings settle before even trying that. Anyway, if you read this.. uh thanks!

#FFXIV #Final Fantasy XIV #Shadowbringers #The Last of Us Part II #Necrobarista #Ghost of Tsushima #aim lab

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trans-advice · 4 years

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the article is in italian. google translate has been used to post it in english. if there are any errors google made, then please let us know & we will update this information. rest in power.

Taffo and Vladimir Luxuria for Gianna, a trans person who died in Andria, remembered by the family with a man's name.

15 hours ago 1,440 2 minutes read

#GIANNAPERSEMPRE (and not Giovanni, only for her funeral) Wrong funeral posters? Taffo and Vladimir Luxuria correct the Family - Luxuria's complaint on Twitter, collected by Riccardo Pirrone, SMM of Taffo Funeral Services

The words of Vladimir Luxuria: "Close to a person" discriminated by the square ", for his sexual orientation and for how he lived, without light or heating"

The Mayor of Andria, Giovanna Bruno, against the case of transphobia: "With the death of Gianna the wall of prejudice and the throwaway culture falls"

TWEET OF VLADIMIR LUXURIA: https://twitter.com/vladiluxuria/status/1351618695840329731

TAFFO'S ANSWER: https://www.facebook.com/onoranzefunebritaffo/posts/3390777377694616

While in America Joe Biden chooses Rachel Levine as Assistant Secretary of Health, who could become the first transgender federal executive confirmed by the Senate, a new act of transphobia is taking place in Italy. It happens in the city of Andria, where Gianna (49 years old) dies, known by her fellow citizens as a woman and remembered instead in the funeral posters with her man's name, requested and imposed by her family, who have never accepted her transition path towards the conquest of a sexual identity that has cost her dearly.

Gianna's story deeply affected public opinion and the media who, on Wednesday 20 January, learn about the story thanks to the tweet of Vladimir Luxuria, who denounces what happened on his social networks, writing: "A transgender person dies in Andria, Gianna, destitute and rejected by society. The family decides to put up funeral posters with her name in the masculine (which I prefer not to repeat). An offense to the name and identity with which everyone knew her ". Riccardo Pirrone responds to Luxuria's tweet with the proposal to replace and correct the poster online, to publish it in its correct form. The SMM of the funeral agency Taffo Funeral Services, which has always been attentive to cases of gender discrimination and LGBTQI + issues, publishes the manifesto on its page and it soon goes viral. https://www.facebook.com/onoranzefunebritaffo/posts/3390777377694616.

The post is shared by Senator Monica Cirinnà, with the words of the Constitutional Court in 2017: "The aspiration of the individual to the correspondence of the sex attributed to him at the moment of birth, with that subjectively perceived and lived, constitutes an expression of the right to recognition of the identity of gender ”, writes Cirinnà who concludes:“ Gianna is no longer there, and her dignity must be respected even now. Nobody - not even the family of origin, after death - has the right to violate it ». Harsh words that do not admit justification, such as those released by Vladimir who, adds: "I wanted to be close to a person who is" discriminated against ", because of her sexual orientation and how she lived, without light or heating».

The combined action of Luxuria and Pirrone is echoed by the words of the Mayor of Andria, Giovanna Bruno: "Our city has fragile people. Fragility of various kinds, with stories that also come from afar, different from each other but with a common denominator: suffering, loneliness, sadness, social or physical precariousness. The city is sometimes indignant, sometimes it rejects. In some cases it is supportive, in others it acts as a judge. Stories of life on which so many claim the right to intervene to sentence. I sadly learn that one of these urban frailties no longer exists: Gianna. I learn from her neighbors, who have helped her many times in silence, that a bad fall has destroyed her existence. With her departure the wall of prejudice against her falls, the throwaway culture falls. But what do we do now that she's gone? How many other Gianna's does our Community know, which you must take care of starting from the institutions? Gianna stopped me a few days after I took office. She was looking for accommodation but she told me that no one wanted to sign her. She had financial support from social services but her worry was her home. This I learned about her, from her story. She would come to see me, she wanted to talk, to be heard. Today, the news of her disappearance. "

The funeral took place in the Parish of San Riccardo, in an area far from the center, where the loneliness of that wrong name made a noise crossing the regional borders. Once again, it is hatred that wins, even in the family.

CARLA FABI AND ROBERTA SAVONA PRESS OFFICE

#italy centric #tw transphobia #rest in power #gianna e non giovanni #tw deadnaming #vladimir luxuria #activism

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concordeducations · 2 years

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Inclusion of LGBT Employees in Healthcare: Navigating Policies Procedures and Practices

How does your business go about recruiting to the LGBT community? Do any of your advertising and marketing practices target LGBT consumers? Do you know how to assist a transgendered employee in their gender transition process at work? And what about those bathrooms—how are you addressing this issue? Workplaces have made progress towards LGBT equality yet LGBT workers still go to work every day with fear that they might lose their jobs because of whom they love and who they are. There is no federal law protecting the LGB community from workplace discrimination and harassment. There is confusion among organizations as to whether the federal civil rights law Title VII protects gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) employees.

The EEOC and several courts clearly have stated that LGB employees are protected by Title VII however other courts have disagreed. Recently, the EEOC has filed its first two sexual orientation lawsuits. These two cases demonstrate the EEOC’s commitment to moving forward to protect LGB employees from discrimination under Title VII. Transgender employees are protected under the Civil Rights Act Title VII because their discrimination is "because of sex" yet discrimination lawsuits continue to arise as to what bathroom and locker room transgender employees can use while at work. Roughly 90% of transgender and 40% of GLB employees experience workplace discrimination according to some surveys.

Heterosexism - the cultural expectation that everyone is, should be, or would prefer to be heterosexual - is the established norm of the workplace; a commonplace bias in American institutions. This bias gets played out in both overt and covert behaviors which in turn negatively impact the organizational culture. However, there have been organizational successes in diminishing the biases. There is an opportunity for your organization to create strategies to ensure LGBT inclusion in your workforce.

Why Should You Attend

As with any other organization, healthcare employs LGBT individuals who deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and feel included in their work culture and environment. When members of the LGBT community do not feel as though they are accepted by others it decreases morale, productivity, increases turnover, and may interfere with their ability to provide the best quality patient care. Treating LGBT employees with respect and dignity is not only required by the EEOC, but also by several states and some federal courts. You run the risk of liability if the LGBT population is not included in the culture of your workplace.

Objectives of the Presentation

» To examine LGBT perceptions and stereotypes » To discover the business case for LGBT inclusion in the workforce » To describe the impact on LGBT employees and the workplace when they fear being who they are at work » To discuss transgenderTo establish gender transition guidelines » To identify organization practices to minimize discrimination » To discuss the outcome of LGBT supportive policies and practices » To develop organization and individual strategies for LGBT inclusion into the workforce

Areas Covered in the Session

» The Implicit Association Test (online) » Recruitment and Retention » Heterosexism assumptions » International LGBT considerations » Marketing and Advertising » Restroom access for transgender employees » Responding to negative reactions to LGBT inclusion » Workplace dress codes, transgender employees, and gender non-conforming employees

Who Will Benefit

» CEO » COO » CFO » VP of HR » All HR directors, managers, and generalists » Supervisors » Managers » Physicians » Hospitals » Clinics » Pharmacies » Home health agencies » Public health agencies » Nursing homes » Health insurance companies » Physician assistants » Dentists » Dental hygienists » Nurse practitioners » Medical technicians » Medical assistants » Administrative assistants » Compliance managers » All Management including team leaders, supervisors, middle managers, directors, and senior leaders, administrators, human resources professionals including generalists and HR managers, Risk Managers and Attorneys. Chief Medical officer, Chief Nursing Officer / VP of Nursing, Admissions department, MDs, RNs, Therapists such as PT, OT, Quality Improvement Director, Risk Management To Register (or) for more details please click on this below link: https://bit.ly/3B6EZMJ/a> Email: [email protected] Tel: (989)341-8773

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feministstruggle · 3 years

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FIST Joins Protests to Keep Prisons Single Sex

On February 26th feminists in the UK kicked off a week of global events to bring attention to the threat to women and girls from male criminals placed in female prisons around the world. Photos from these events will be uploaded to the Internet and sent to the media worldwide. Women and girls in prison, jails, and juvenile detention centers are among the most vulnerable in the world. Allowing male criminals who identity as women into female prisons puts women and girls at risk of serious assault, rape, and even death. The policies allowing men in women’s prisons are based on unscientific ideas that humans can change their biological sex. The goal of this global effort is to raise awareness of the harmful policies that place incarcerated women and girls in living conditions with dangerous male criminals. In the UK, 49% of the male criminals who identify as women are rapists, sex abusers, and pedophiles. Why are such men allowed access to this most vulnerable population of women and girls who often have a history of having been sexually victimized? In January 2021 SB 132, the so-called "Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act", took effect in California, which allows male prisoners who self-identify as "trans" to be housed in women's prisons, putting women prisoners at serious risk of harm without regard to their safety. The San Francisco BayView National Black Newspaper published a letter by Ayanna Green to Scott Weiner, the author of the bill, and cc'd to Governor Newsom, among other officials, pointing out the blatant unfairness to women prisoners. If you agree with Ayanna Green, please let them know. On February 27, women gathered in Redwood City, CA to initiate the US effort to shed light on the reckless policies that place incarcerated women and girls at risk from male criminals who identify as women. Rallies are planned by Keep Prisons Single Sex USA throughout the country. FIST members participated in the protest at the San Mateo County building in Redwood City, and also participated in a similar protest in Chicago on March 6th. We must stand together and stop these abusive policies worldwide. Read the full article

#AyannaGreen #CA #CaliforniaSB132 #Chicago #GovernorNewsom #KeepPrisonsSingleSexUSA #malepredators #RedwoodCity #SanFranciscoBayViewNationalBlackNewspaper #ScottWiener #women'sprisons

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coochiequeens · 8 months

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The California Department of Corrections is housing this freak in a "mixed sex" facility

By Genevieve Gluck January 26, 2024

A trans-identified male was one of two men found guilty this week in a San Francisco court of the brutal torture and murder of a young man. David Anderson, 41, who identifies as transgender and uses the name “Angel,” hung 23-year old George Randall-Saldivar from the ceiling by a noose before raping him and injecting the victim with a lethal dose of fentanyl, the court heard.

Prosecutors told the jury that the young man was still alive when Anderson and his accomplice, 52-year-old Gerald Rowe, stuffed Saldivar into a suitcase, which they rolled down the street before dumping into the San Francisco Bay. Assistant District Attorney Charly Weissenbach said the killers treated the man “like garbage.”

Booking photos of “Angel” David Anderson (left) and Gerald Rowe (right).

Weissenbach told the court that the crime involved “some of the most egregious charges and horrific facts anyone should ever have to hear, let alone experience.”

She added: “While this conviction cannot undo the hours of torture and painful poisoning experienced by the victim, it does condemn the depravity of the defendant’s acts along with the inhumane way he handled the victim’s remains when he threw him into the Bay like garbage.”

According to testimony heard at the trial, Saldivar was an “acquaintance” of the killers, and had visited Rowe and Anderson at Rowe’s apartment on Market Street on February 3, 2019. The three men were said to have engaged in intercourse together before the murder took place.

Following the sexual activity, Anderson threatened Saldivar with a machete, then tied him up and hung him from the ceiling before mercilessly torturing the victim over a period of four hours.

“A noose was placed around the victim’s neck with the attached rope tethered through a pulley device near the ceiling. The victim’s hands were bound behind his back with zip ties, a strap, and duct tape. The victim was tortured for more than four hours in this position as he was screamed at, hit, punched, sodomized, assaulted with pliers, and a bag placed over his head,” the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office wrote.

After hours of brutally abusing the victim, Rowe left the residence to purchase fentanyl. Rowe and Anderson injected the victim via syringe with a lethal dose of fentanyl mixed with water.

“Within about 90-seconds, the victim began to convulse and struggle to breathe. Next, while still alive, Mr. Rowe and Ms. Anderson folded the victim into a large rolling suitcase, before zipping it up and waiting for him to die,” the DA’s Office wrote, referring to Anderson with a feminine honorific.

Approximately 20 hours later, the men put on disguises and rolled the suitcase containing Saldivar, who was reportedly still alive, to the waterfront at Rincon Park, before throwing the suitcase into the water.

On February 18, 2019, a local resident found Saldivar’s body floating in the water. San Francisco Police investigators and the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) determined the victim’s identity, and two days later, Anderson confessed to Sacramento Police to having committed the murder. Within the week, homicide investigators took Anderson and Rowe into custody.

Anderson is currently in custody at San Francisco County Jail and faces a sentence of to 25–years-to-life in state prison, set to be determined on March 18.

Disturbingly, Reduxx has learned that Anderson is currently imprisoned at County Jail #2, a mixed-sex facility that is the only San Francisco County Jail unit that houses women. According to the Jail’s description, it offers “gender-responsive rehabilitation programs.” Among them, SISTER – or, sisters in sober treatment empowered by recovery – and GLIDE, which supports women who struggle with violence and poverty.

Rowe is currently in custody awaiting his sentencing hearing. Along with Rowe, he will be sentenced on March 18, and faces life in state prison without the possibility of parole.

Once Anderson is sentenced, there is a high likelihood that he will request transfer to a women’s correctional facility if he is not housed there automatically.

Since January 1, 2021, the California Department of Corrections (CDCR) has been required to place male inmates who claim to be transgender in women’s prisons. The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, also known as SB 132, mandates that the CDCR cannot deny an inmate a search preference or housing placement “based solely on an incarcerated person’s external genitalia,” which it classifies as “discrimination” related to “gender identity.”

Since the Act went into effect, 358 male inmates have requested transfer to a women’s prison. According to Keep Prisons Single Sex USA, they had previously learned that 33.8% of the men seeking transfer to the female estate are known to be registered sex offenders.

Within the past three years, several violent men have been transferred to the female prison estate, including a sadistic man who beat two of his own infant children to death. Jessica Marie Hann, born Jason Michael Hann, is now reportedly awaiting breast implants at taxpayer’s expense while incarcerated at a women’s prison, the Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF).

Last June, a once-prominent trans activist found guilty of a grisly triple homicide was sent to a women’s prison following his conviction. Dana Rivers, born David Chester Warfield, violently murdered lesbian couple Patricia Wright and Charlotte Reed, along with their son, Benny Diambu-Wright, before setting their home ablaze.

In 2022, just one year after the gender identity policy went into effect, incarcerated woman Mimi Le at the Central California Facility for Women came forward with a sworn declaration of having been eyewitness to the aftermath of an alleged sexual assault committed by a trans-identified male against a female inmate.

#usa #california #san francisco #Angel is David Anderson #Rest In Peace George Randall-Saldivar #The Transgender Respect Agency and Dignity Act #also known as SB 132 #and Dignity Act

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pastorhogg · 3 years

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Men Transfer to Female Prisons

Last fall, California governor Gavin Newsom signed The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, a bill which, among other things, would “allow incarcerated transgender, non-binary and intersex people to be housed and searched in a manner consistent with their gender identity.” Since this law went into effect back in January, in a new case of “rapid onset gender dysphoria,” over 200 prisoners…

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#prison

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patriotnewsdaily · 4 years

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New Post has been published on PatriotNewsDaily.com

New Post has been published on http://patriotnewsdaily.com/in-california-convicts-can-now-choose-their-own-prisons-according-to-gender/

In California, Convicts Can Now Choose Their Own Prisons According to “Gender”

Seeing as how men’s prisons are violent, rough places to make a go of it, we’d have to imagine there are plenty of male convicts who would choose in a heartbeat to go to a women’s prison if that option were available to them. We’re not saying that women’s prisons are Club Med vacations or anything, but come on. If YOU had to spend the next five years of your life behind bars, wouldn’t you choose to go to a women’s prison if the option were available to you? Pretty sure it’s a no-brainer.

Well, in California, prisoners will now have their exact option! Thanks to a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday, the California Department of Corrections will be required to house transgender inmates according to the gender they identify with rather than their actual biological sex. In a move that makes absolutely no sense unless you’re completely indoctrinated by LGBT propaganda, Newsom’s law essentially gives prisoners the right to choose whether they will be housed with the women or the men.

What could go wrong?

Under the new Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, law enforcement officers must now take inmates aside and ask them if they identify as a man or a woman. At that point, inmates who declare themselves transgender may request to be imprisoned with others of their chosen gender. The law forbids officers from denying any such requests based on the genitalia of the inmate, their sexual orientation, or their birth certificate sex assignment. There is a clause in the law that allows officials to deny a request based on “management or security concerns.”

Um…we have some of those concerns!

But according to California State Sen. Scott Wiener, the Democrat who wrote the bill, our concerns are completely unfounded.

“It’s just a false narrative about transgender people and about transgender women in particular that they’re somehow not really women and are just trying to scam their way into women’s bathrooms or facilities in order to do bad things,” Wiener said. “Overwhelmingly the people who are being victimized are trans people.”

Welp, you said it, so it must be true. We’ve been around long enough to know that if an “oppressed person” claims to be oppressed, there is no amount of data, science, or logic that can overturn that claim. Indeed, you’re a bigot if you even try.

We are headed for some bizarre times…

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sinrau · 4 years

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Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, has long argued that “sex discrimination” protections in the Affordable Care Act aren’t meant to encompass protections for transgender people.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

The Trump administration Friday finalized a rule that would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance.

“HHS respects the dignity of every human being, and as we have shown in our response to the pandemic, we vigorously protect and enforce the civil rights of all to the fullest extent permitted by our laws as passed by Congress,” said Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, in written statement announcing that the HHS rule had become final. The rule is set to go into effect by mid-August.

This is one of many rules and regulations put forward by the Trump administration that defines “sex discrimination” as only applying when someone faces discrimination for being male or female, and does not protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Supporters of the rule say this is a necessary reversal of Obama-era executive overreach, and will reduce confusion about the legal meaning of “sex discrimination.” Critics argue the rule could further harm an already vulnerable group — transgender people — in the midst of a pandemic and historic unrest spurred by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

“I can’t help but wonder if the timing [of this rule] is by design so that this is something that people won’t pay attention to,” says Tia Sherèe Gaynor, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati.

What the final rule does

The rule focuses on nondiscrimination protections laid out in Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. That federal law established that it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of “race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability in certain health programs and activities.” In 2016, an Obama-era rule explained that protections regarding “sex” encompass those based on gender identity, which it defined as “male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”

In June 2019, under Trump, the HHS Office for Civil Rights proposed a rule (the one finalized this week) that reverses the one from the Obama administration. Severino explained at the time, “We’re going back to the plain meaning of those terms, which is based on biological sex.” He also said the rule could save hospitals and insurers and others $2.9 billion over five years, since they will be relieved of the requirement to print notices of non-discrimination in several languages and include them with any “significant” mailings.

Under the new rule, a transgender person could, for example, be refused care for a checkup at a doctor’s office, explains Lindsey Dawson associate director of HIV Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Other possible scenarios include a transgender man being denied treatment for ovarian cancer, or a hysterectomy not being covered by an insurer — or costing more when the procedure is related to someone’s gender transition.

The Trump rule makes changes to gender-based discrimination protections beyond Section 1557 of the ACA; it affects regulations pertaining to access to health insurance, for example, including cost-sharing, health plan marketing, and benefits. Under the new rule, an insurance company could “charge higher premiums or other fees for those who are LGBTQ [or] cancel or deny coverage,” Dawson says. The rule could also mean that those seeking an abortion could be denied care if performing the procedure violates the provider’s moral or religious beliefs.

Even with the rule now finalized, an LGBTQ person who is discriminated against or denied health care can still sue, and courts may rule that their civil rights were violated in such a case. But that’s not an easy avenue, says Dawson.

“Because of limited access to litigation, I think that it’s fair to state that the ramifications [of this rule] could be pretty significant,” she says. Protections will also vary based on where someone lives, she adds, so the rule “creates a patchwork of civil rights, compared to standardized protections.”

For Severino, this move has been a long time coming. He joined the Trump administration from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, where he wrote a paper on gender protections in Section 1557. He’s also a devout Catholic and, as director of the Office for Civil Rights, has made protections of religious freedom a key focus, including the right of doctors to refuse to provide care that contradicts their religious or moral beliefs.

The rule the HHS proposed on gender and discrimination in health care garnered 155,966 public comments.

Ryan Anderson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former colleague of Severino’s, submitted a comment in support of the rule. Anderson says it simply reverses what he sees as the Obama administration’s executive overreach. “Just for the lawmaking process, it’s important that the Trump administration clarify that that’s not what Congress had in mind when they used the word ‘sex,’ ” he says.

Critics worry about access to health care, especially in a pandemic

Mari Brighe, a freelance writer and transgender woman who lives outside Detroit, calls the rule “terrifying.”

“I can relate a decade of stories about getting terrible health care because I’m trans,” Brighe says. “We walk into any given health care situation not knowing whether doctors are going to treat us well, whether we’re going to get high quality care, whether any given, random health care person is going to be terrible to us.”

Once, when seriously ill with the flu and having trouble breathing, Brighe recalls, she was sent home from a hospital in rural New York, and ended up driving 90 minutes and crossing a lake by ferry to get treatment at a hospital in Vermont.

She worries now that the rule could make transgender people — who are already reluctant to seek medical care — all the more likely to avoid coronavirus treatment and testing.

“The way that [rule] reads to me is that people could refuse to collect your COVID specimen because they don’t want to touch a trans person,” she says. “That’s a recipe for spreading a really terrible pandemic among a really, really vulnerable population.”

“I can’t help but think about how this impacts black trans people,” says Gaynor, the political science professor, who notes that African American transgender people are “arguably the most marginalized group in our country.”

African Americans who get COVID-19 are much more likely to die from that infection than are white Americans, statistics show. A recent report from the Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that hundreds of thousands of transgender adults may be especially vulnerable to COVID-19 because they have an underlying condition, are over 65, lack health insurance or live in poverty.

For black transgender people, Gaynor says, “it’s layers of oppression — it’s transphobia on top of racism on top of economic oppression.” All of that could impact their ability to get health care during the pandemic, she says, which in turn, could have public health implications for all.

Katie Keith, a health law professor at Georgetown University, notes that the new rule could have another chilling effect. “Even if no one actually does discriminate more because of the rule, you’ve created a fear,” Keith says.

She points to research documenting how the “public charge” rule — which penalizes people who are seeking to become citizens if they use public safety net programs like nutrition and housing assistance — affected people and programs outside the scope of the rule itself.

“When they target these vulnerable populations, you see less enrollment in health insurance,” she says. “You see folks scared to go to the doctor.”

Although Anderson, at the Heritage Foundation, supports the rule, he says the prospect that it could have a chilling effect is “a very reasonable concern.”

“I don’t think any reasonable person wants to see transgender people not enrolling in health care plans and not having access to health care,” Anderson says. What’s needed, he says, is a “finer grain” approach to this issue — such as, perhaps, a new law in Congress that protects LGTBQ people from health care discrimination generally, but carves out protection for providers to refuse to provide care related to sex reassignment.

What’s Next: A word from the high court and, perhaps, Congress

Now that it’s marked “final,” this rule — which was issued by an agency of the Executive Branch — may now encounter hurdles via the two other branches of the federal government.

This month, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to weigh in on two major cases on the meaning of the word “sex” in employment discrimination. The two cases involve issues closely related to the legal questions at play in Severino’s HHS rule, and the high court’s decision might have major implications for the rule’s legal footing.

“It’s wild that they’re finalizing this rule before we have the Supreme Court decision,” Keith says.

Meanwhile, in Congress, House Democrats have already asserted that they strongly disagree with the HHS rule. In early May, Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that read, in part: “The Administration must immediately abandon this outrageous, un-American plan and give LGBTQ individuals the reassurance that they will never be denied the health care they or their families need.”

Now that the final rule is out, Congress does have a way of invalidating it, using the Congressional Review Act. That would only happen in this case if — within 60 days that Congress is in session — Trump were no longer president, and simple majorities in both chambers of Congress voted to block the rule. Even if Democrats win big in November, it’s not clear if that’s a possibility given the tricky timeline — Congress is typically in recess in August, and the COVID-19 pandemic may complicate matters further

The date at which the final rule would be able to avoid this congressional threat is a moving target, Keith says. “Folks are watching the calendar now [wondering], ‘When is that 60-day legislative deadline?’ “

What’s much more certain, she says, is that there will be lawsuits to try to overturn the rule or block it from going into effect. LGBTQ rights organizations, Democratic attorneys general, and individuals who claim they’ve been harmed by the rule are all likely to sue the Trump administration and try to get the courts to strike the rule down.

Unless someone does sue and a judge puts the rule on hold, it is set to go into effect in 60 days from the date the rule is published in the federal register.

Transgender Health Protections Reversed By Trump Administration #web #website #copied #to read# #highlight #link #news #read

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lodelss · 4 years

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SCOTUS Must Now Ensure LGBTQ People Are Not Turned Away From Taxpayer-Funded Programs

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal ban on sex discrimination in employment, protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination. The decision was based on a straightforward reading of the law: Discriminating against someone because they are LGBTQ is inherently sex discrimination. In his dissent, Justice Alito raised concerns about implications for employers with religious objections to hiring LGBTQ people, but the questions before the court in Monday’s monumental victory for LGBTQ workers did not involve whether the employers had a religious right to fire LGBTQ people. The court made clear that the scope of any religion-based defenses offered by Title VII, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the constitutional protections for religious exercise would be addressed in future cases.

The court will have a chance to weigh in on these questions sooner than you might think, since the next big LGBTQ rights case is already on the docket for the fall.

In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Catholic Social Services (CSS) is challenging a Philadelphia requirement that agencies contracting with the city to provide government services must not discriminate. The ACLU represents the Support Center for Child Advocates and Philadelphia Family Pride, and we are supporting the city’s right to require all of its contracted foster care agencies to accept all qualified families and put the best interests of children first.

CSS receives public money to provide foster care services, a core government service, and argues that because of its religious beliefs, it has the right to discriminate against same-sex couples interested in becoming foster families. CSS says both that the city’s policy singles it out for unfair treatment — even though CSS requires all foster care agencies to follow the same policy — and that the Supreme Court should make it easier for anyone with any kind of religious objection to refuse to follow any law, including our laws against discrimination. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against CSS, and the Supreme Court granted review in February.

Fulton isn’t the only case where these arguments are coming up, it just happens to be the one the court has already agreed to hear. In another case, Minton v. Dignity Health, a Catholic hospital system is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that rejected the health care chain’s claim that religious objections give it a right to deny gender-affirming healthcare to transgender people, in violation of California law. And in the long-pending case of Ingersoll and Freed v. Arlene’s Flowers, a business is once again asking the Supreme Court to rule that because the owner of the business has religious objections to marriages of same-sex couples, Washington State’s nondiscrimination law is unenforceable against the business with respect to its refusal to sell a same-sex couple flowers for their wedding.

If the question in the workplace discrimination cases brought by Aimee Stephens, Donald Zarda, and Gerald Bostock was what the law means, the question in these next cases is when and whether the law matters. Don’t get me wrong: It is a tremendous victory for the court to say that the plain words of the law protect LGBTQ people, just like everyone else. But that victory is fragile and will be eroded if the court furthers the agenda of the Trump administration by giving anyone who objects on religious grounds a free pass to violate the law.

Decades ago, the fight for our civil rights laws was led by Black people who demanded legal protections from rampant discrimination. Those bedrock civil rights laws have been under attack since their passage, including by demands for religious exceptions. The latest attacks on civil rights protections in the Fulton case and the others that follow it won’t just compromise the Bostock decision and LGBTQ rights. Members of minority faiths, women, and people of color are all at risk, and those who live at the intersection of multiple identities are even more vulnerable. These next cases are about whether laws intended to allow full participation in public life will continue to apply to us all, or if those who object can use their religious beliefs to humiliate, exclude, reject, and deny access and care. While we know well that legal protections don’t automatically translate into full equality, they are an important step, and a rule saying that anyone who wishes to discriminate can do so would gut those hard-fought laws.

Since it already has the Fulton case before it, we hope the court will take this opportunity to declare that there is no constitutional license to discriminate.

Published June 18, 2020 at 12:50AM via ACLU https://ift.tt/3fLbuD1

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nancydhooper · 4 years

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SCOTUS Must Now Ensure LGBTQ People Are Not Turned Away From Taxpayer-Funded Programs

The court will have a chance to weigh in on these questions sooner than you might think, since the next big LGBTQ rights case is already on the docket for the fall.

Since it already has the Fulton case before it, we hope the court will take this opportunity to declare that there is no constitutional license to discriminate.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247012 https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbt-rights/scotus-must-now-ensure-lgbtq-people-are-not-turned-away-from-taxpayer-funded-programs via http://www.rssmix.com/

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trans-advice · 5 years

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WINDY CITY TIMES

SOUND THE ALARMS Supreme Court pick could dismantle LGBTQ rights

by Camilla B. Taylor, Special Guest Essay

2018-07-18

The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court should alarm every member of the LGBT community. His record demonstrates that if he is confirmed to the seat recently vacated by Justice Kennedy, who often played the role of swing justice and authored the most significant landmark rulings over the past 20 years vindicating the rights and equal dignity of lesbian, bisexual and gay people, Judge Kavanaugh will threaten every advance this community has made, and set back our progress by decades.

Lambda Legal’s Fair Courts Project ( www.lambdalegal.org/blog/20180709_brett-kavanaugh-record ) has comprehensively reviewed his record and identified many ways in which Judge Kavanaugh’s extremist views endanger LGBT people. First, he believes presidents should enjoy almost unfettered authority, which is particularly worrying at a time when the Trump administration ( www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/karnoski-v-trump ) has targeted LGBT people in its cross-hairs. Our community relies upon courts to provide a check on presidential power. To name just one example, President Trump last summer tweeted out a ban on transgender military service members. In multiple lawsuits challenging this ban, the Trump administration now argues that courts must defer broadly to the president and his discretion on military matters. The administration further claims that the service members challenging the policy have no right even to seek access to documents likely to show that the ban was tweeted out on impulse, reflecting little to no deliberation or rational decision-making whatsoever. Judge Kavanaugh’s views on presidential power suggest that he may agree that courts may not meaningfully review such executive actions, regardless of how animus-driven and discriminatory they may be.

Second, Judge Kavanaugh sided ( caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1714435.html ) with religious employers objecting to the federal government providing their employees with contraceptive coverage pursuant to the Affordable Care Act ( “ACA” ). Judge Kavanaugh’s view that the ACA burdened these employers’ religious beliefs simply by requiring them to notify the government of their objection to contraception suggests that Judge Kavanaugh also may: 1 ) side with religious health care providers that take federal taxpayer funds but refuse to treat LGBT people; 2 ) rule in favor of discriminatory child welfare providers that take taxpayer funds but refuse to respect the sexual orientation and gender identity of foster youth in their care, or that refuse ( www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/marouf-v-azar ) to license LGBT people as foster parents, citing religious objections; and 3 ) favor discriminatory businesses ( www.lambdalegal.org/blog/20180625_arlenes-flowers-decision ) that justify withholding service to serve LGBT people in the marketplace on religious grounds. Cases concerning these questions are likely to reach the Court in the not-too-distant future.

But what should be most worrying for members of the LGBT community is Judge Kavanaugh’s views on abortion. He dissented ( www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/C81A5EDEADAE82F2852581C30068AF6E/$file/17-5236-1701167.pdf ) from a decision of the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals allowing an undocumented 17-year-old girl in detention to obtain an abortion, and in various writings has expressed hostility to Roe v. Wade, the foundational abortion-rights decision. If courts retreat from protecting women’s equality and autonomy in making reproductive choices free of governmental interference, including with respect to abortion, then the rights of all LGBT people, which are deeply intertwined and share a common body of law, are necessarily diminished.

Indeed, the landmark victories that guard the LGBT community’s right to marry and that decriminalized LGBT peoples’ very existence, depend explicitly on precedents shielding reproductive autonomy. Thus, Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down laws criminalizing intimacy between people of the same sex, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which upheld the fundamental right to marry for same-sex couples, expressly relied upon prior due process cases protecting women’s access to contraception, such as Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird. The Supreme Court recognized that, just like procreative decision-making, the right to choose whom to love and to marry and how to structure one’s family can be self-defining, and central to a person’s dignity and identity. Recently, lower courts have recognized that the due process guarantee, built as it is upon a body of law protecting reproductive autonomy and bodily integrity, similarly protects a transgender person’s right to live consistently with their gender identity ( www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/legal-docs/pr_arroyo_20180420_opinion-and-order ), requiring issuance of accurate identity documents to transgender applicants, and respect for transgender service members’ right to serve ( www.lambdalegal.org/sites/default/files/legal-docs/downloads/karnoski_pi_order.pdf ) in the military as the men and women they are. To chip away at the body of law protecting women’s reproductive autonomy would be to chip away at the precedents protecting LGBT peoples’ equal dignity, moral agency, and ability to participate in public life.

Additionally, reproductive autonomy matters to LGBT people for more practical reasons. Many members of the community need access to such health care for themselves. Women often take contraceptives for medical reasons unrelated to preventing pregnancy, such as to treat endometriosis or reduce the risk for ovarian and uterine cancers. Indeed, at least one study suggests that more than 50 percent of lesbian women have used oral contraceptives at some point in their lives. Of course, lesbians and bisexual women may seek contraceptives or abortion care after having consensual sex with men as well. Transgender men need abortion care and contraceptives, too. Abortion and contraceptives are simply vital health care needs regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender men already face unique barriers ( www.lambdalegal.org/publications/when-health-care-isnt-caring ) to care that would be compounded by the imposition of additional restrictions on reproductive healthcare.

These aspects of Judge Kavanaugh’s record have direct relevance to LGBT people, but it bears noting www.democracyinitiative.org/latest-news/di-statement-re-kavanaugh-nomination that a vast range of civil liberties organizations have voiced opposition ( civilrights.org/trump-supreme-court-pick-unfit-to-serve/ ) to his nomination for additional reasons—because his record also betrays hostility to voting rights ( www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/opinion/sunday/voting-rights-voter-id-kavanaugh.html ), affirmative action ( www.politico.com/story/2018/07/09/brett-kavanaugh-track-record-675294 ), workers’ rightsm (cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/cadc/15-1312/15-1312-2017-08-18.pdf ), immigrants’ rights, consumer protections ( www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/B7623651686D60D585258226005405AC/$file/15-1177.pdf ) , and other protections for vulnerable communities. The LGBT community in all of its proud diversity has a stake in all of these issues, too.

In short, Judge Kavanaugh’s record suggests disdain for anyone who requires court intervention for protection against governmental discrimination and excess, and that should worry all of us. Now is the time to speak up against Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination. Decades of progress for the LGBT community are in danger of being rolled back. Please call your senators and ask them to vote against this nomination ( www.lambdalegal.org/call-your-senator ).

Camilla B. Taylor is the Director of Constitutional Litigation for Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of all lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV. She spearheads Lambda Legal’s litigation challenging the Trump/Pence administration’s assault on LGBT rights.

Most recently, Taylor has worked on Karnoski v. Trump ( www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/karnoski-v-trump ), challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s ban on military service by transgender people; and Marouf v. Azar ( www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/marouf-v-azar ), a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS ) on behalf of a lesbian couple denied an opportunity to apply to foster a refugee child in a federal program exclusively funded by HHS and administered by a faith-based agency on the ground that the couple does “not mirror the Holy Family.”

Windy City Media Group does not approve or necessarily agree with the views posted below.

Please do not post letters to the editor here. Please also be civil in your dialogue.

If you need to be mean, just know that the longer you stay on this page, the more you help us.

#usa centric #article vii #scotus #legal #not trans specific #medical transitioning #roe v wade #same sex marriage

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thewebofslime · 6 years

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NEWS R. KELLY INTERVIEW SHOWS LIVE Watch CBSN Live Ex-CIA chief Michael Morell resigns Harvard post over Chelsea Manning BY STEFAN BECKET UPDATED ON: SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 / 8:57 PM / CBS NEWS Michael Morell, former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, is stepping down as a senior fellow at Harvard University after the school extended a fellowship to Chelsea Manning, the soldier convicted of leaking classified information to Wikileaks. Morell, a CBS News senior national security contributor, wrote in a letter to Doug Elmendorf, dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, that he can't remain at an organization "that honors a convicted felon and leaker of classified information, Ms. Chelsea Manning." The Harvard Institute of Politics, part of the Kennedy School, named Manning a visiting fellow for the academic year on Wednesday. Manning is the first transgender individual to be awarded the prestigious post, joining a class of fellows that includes Sean Spicer, Robby Mook, Mika Brzezinski and others. Manning was arrested in 2010 for leaking classified information to Wikileaks, and sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2013. She served seven years until her sentence was commuted by President Obama at the end of his term. Morell served 33 years in the CIA, including as deputy director for three years in the Obama administration. He served as acting director of the agency for several months in 2011, then again between November 2012 and March 2013. Morell retired in 2013 and was named a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School. In his resignation letter, Morell criticized the school for its decision to bring Manning on campus for the fall semester. Former CIA Deputy Director @MichaelJMorell resigns as Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy school over their hiring of Chelsea Manning pic.twitter.com/JORdp4ysHR — Mosheh Oinounou (@Mosheh) September 14, 2017 "The Kennedy School's decision will assist Ms. Manning in her long-standing effort to legitimize the criminal path that she took to prominence, an attempt that may encourage others to leak classified information as well," Morell wrote. "I have an obligation to my conscience -- and I believe to the country -- to stand up against any efforts to justify leaks of sensitive national security information." Morell said he had a duty to resign in protest "to make the fundamental point that leaking classified information is disgraceful and damaging to our nation." He added that "it is important to note that I fully support Ms. Manning's rights as a transgender American, including the right to serve our country in the U.S. military." Morell also recognized Manning's right "to publicly discuss the circumstances that surrounded her crimes as well as the IOP's right to invite whomever they believe will further the education of Harvard's student body." On Thursday night, CIA director Mike Pompeo, who has a law degree from Harvard, announced he would not speak at that night's forum, stating that "after much deliberation in the wake of Harvard's announcement of American traitor Chelsea Manning as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Politics, my conscience and duty to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency will not permit me to betray their trust by appearing to support Harvard's decision with my appearance at tonight's event." His statement went on to say that his decision "has nothing to do with Ms. Manning's identity as a transgender person. It has everything to do with her identity as a traitor to the United States of America and my loyalty to the officers of the CIA." Pompeo's letter concluded saying, "I applaud the decision of Michael Morell, a past and dedicated servant of the same agency that I now lead, to resign as a result of Harvard's decision. I am saddened, however, at Harvard's loss. You have traded a respected individual who served his country with dignity for one who served it with disgrace and who violated the warrior ethos she promised to uphold when she voluntarily chose to join the United States Army." Manning was released from a military prison in Kansas in May. She has since written columns for The New York Times, advocated for transgender rights, and become an avid Twitter user. She reacted to Morell's resignation Thursday afternoon: good 😉🌈💕 #WeGotThis https://t.co/UGBAPmnaHM — Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) September 14, 2017 First published on September 14, 2017 / 4:31 PM © 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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Two new avalanches hit Colorado roadways Inside the world of child sex trafficking Dozens injured after heavy turbulence on flight landing in NYC Politics More Politics Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren talk tech proposals at SXSW Howard Schultz says a far-left Democrat could re-elect Trump Trendy SXSW festival is a battleground for 2020 Democrats Michael Cohen faces accusations of lying during his congressional testimony Roy Moore says he is "seriously considering" Senate run World More World 2017 Miss Teen Universe dies at 20 after suffering heart attack 116-year-old woman honored as world's oldest person likes studying math Man jailed for life for poisoning co-workers’ sandwiches Women lead push to topple Sudan's dictator, and suffer for it Model Halima Aden on the stats that should "piss every woman" off Entertainment More Entertainment Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez are engaged 2017 Miss Teen Universe dies at 20 after suffering heart attack R. 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Kelly Clive Davis reflects on his decades of friendship with Aretha Franklin SciTech More SciTech Doctor told California man he was dying via robot video-call How 10-year bull market transformed U.S. stocks SpaceX crew ship returns to Earth after historic flight SpaceX capsule undocks from space station to head back to Earth YouTube adds feature to fact-check conspiracy videos Health More Health Doctor told California man he was dying via robot video-call Unvaccinated boy almost dies of tetanus Health tips for coping with daylight saving time Texas company recalls contaminated water, then shuts down Daylight saving time can heighten car crash risk MoneyWatch More MoneyWatch How 10-year bull market transformed U.S. stocks Cup holders and memory foam: This airline is making comfort a focus Notorious BIG's daughter reopening clothing store in Brooklyn McKinsey leader admits consulting firm has made mistakes Feds investigate alleged prison cellphone use by "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli Crime More Crime Is justice out of reach for US teacher murdered in South Korea? How “48 Hours” discovered the case of a U.S. teacher murdered abroad Inside the world of child sex trafficking R. Kelly released from jail after child support was paid on his behalf "Blood everywhere": 911 calls from Austin package bombings released Copyright © 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy Ad Choice Terms of Use Mobile User Agreement About Advertise Closed Captioning CBS News Store Site Map Contact Us Help

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