Blessings

Free downloads of Chrome Cady: A Quote Woman on the Run:

As Kindle (22MB):

As ePub (10MB):

Enjoy.

If you see Cady, let her know about all this.

I think some people conflate the spheres of religion and civil law. They are two separate realms, just as religion and science are— and we have many religious scientists of faith.

Jesus’ declaration that marriage is between a man and a woman lives in the realm of religion.
The laws giving gays the right to civil marriage live in the separate realm of civil law and are based on the concept of not excluding one class of citizens from the rights and benefits of civil law.

A president who supports gay marriage is not turning his back on his Christian faith. He is acting in accordance with the First Amendment separation of religion and civil law.

Let me add that we still have prayer in school—we just don’t have someone telling us what to pray, because we don’t all pray with the same words.

I prayed in school many times and was never arrested for it.

And while I’m on this soapbox:

You can still say Merry Christmas!

Those of us who wish people Happy Holidays are honoring the different beliefs that don’t all celebrate Christmas. We’re being inclusive, not exclusive.

In Nashville, Tennessee, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood recently declared that God created men and women and that’s that.

XX = female
XY = male
Period.

Well…

As fetuses, God, in His Infinite Wisdom, has us all start out as girls. Sorry to you who believe Men Are Supreme: you started as girls.
And even if you’re solidly XX or XY, it takes some good fortune for you to come out matching your sex chromosomes.

In congenital adrenal hyperplasia, overproduction of hormones in the adrenal gland causes XX beings to look like boys.

The SRY gene on the Y chromosome that triggers testes development could be missing or dysfunctional, leading to an XY being who looks like a girl.
Or the SRY gene could find itself on an X chromosome (chromosomes swap material all the time), leading to an XX being who looks like a boy.

I’m solidly XY but if you did a line-up of genitals, you’d probably call me a girl, ’cause I’m intersex with ambiguous genitals.

Another condition is androgen insensitivity, in which an XY being doesn’t respond to the male hormones in his body. He will be be born looking like a girl, like our beloved Trace.

A number of those beautiful girl runway models guys ogle are actually androgen insensitive XY beings.

And unlike our beloved Trace, the vast majority of androgen insensitive XY beings are happy living as women, which brings up the slippery aspect of psychology.

Cady was fully XX, but said she never felt feminine, yet sure didn’t feel masculine. She always said she was somewhere in that gray zone in the middle, and could totally understand those whose feelings don’t match their sex chromosomes.

And every one of these beings I listed is created and loved by God.

Helpful links:

The American Psychological Association explaining intersex (with access to other transgender pages)

A page from the National Geographic site explaining gender identity

From the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences on the science of transgender identity

From Men’s Health: Three Signs You Started as a Girl

Faith is seeing light with your heart when all your eyes see is darkness.

And the dark comes through these windows on the wind
Makes those votives glow more brilliantly
Well if passion can lead to prayer
Maybe prayer can give us faith
And if faith is all we’ve got then maybe faith is all we need
— Rich Mullins, “Wounds of Love”

I got no faith.

Faith ⇶ Gone

Where are you?

Here’s how I provide free downloads of an epub; of course, mobi files will work the same way.

I use two plugins, offering downloads in two contexts.

Easy Media Download puts a button onto a post or page. You can customize the text on the button and its color, plus other parameters. It works with google analytics, but I haven’t gotten that far; stay tuned.

 

The Easy Media Download shortcode requires the file url, of course, allowing you to manage your own downloads folder.

Allow epub and mobi formats upload does just what it says: The WordPress media library doesn’t allow epub and mobi uploads, until you install this plugin. It works!

So why would you need this, if Easy Media Download lets you put your epub and mobi files anywhere you like, while the WordPress media library builds its own chronological upload directory structure?

’Cause I have a side widget of text where I wanted to put my epub download link, and I couldn’t figure out how to get WordPress to handle it as a basic click link unless I processed the file through the media library.

So maybe this is voodoo for something that could be accomplished in another way, but this is how I got it to work.

Using Allow epub and mobi formats upload, I uploaded the epub file to my media library, then went to the library and selected the file. This brings up an “attachment page,” which I guess is a page to which this file is attached, ’cause you have two directions you can go here: You can let WordPress create this attachment page and go with that. Or the other path is to use the url given on this attachment page in a link, as I did in my side text widget.

I don’t know why this url works when my download directory url did not work. But when I use this url in the widget html code for my side text, WordPress properly handles it as a basic download.

FREE Chrome Cady ePub (10 MB)

I mean, that’s proper handling for my needs right now. Maybe I’ll change my tune after I’ve played with it a bit. Meanwhile, I’m glad to no longer be getting a page not found error when I click on my widget link.

Free download of Chrome Cady: A Quote Woman on the Run as epub (10MB):

Enjoy.

Kindle version coming eventually.

If you see Cady, let her know about all this.

Hey Cady!

You’re gonna listen to me someday. So hear this:
I finished proofreading the epub version of your book.

I’m going through the mobi version now.

Gotta work on linking that epub here. Gotta find the time.
Gonna be free.

Your book, print version: Chrome Cady: A Quote Woman on the Run
Not free.

Be safe.

Not Jed Clampett shoes.

But the feeling is the same.

 

My beloved Jed Clampett shoes (RIP):

 

[Edit: Added “New” to title ’cause so many people said they look new. They are.]

From PBS NewsHour
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/new-york-city-issues-nations-first-birth-certificate-marked-intersex/#.WVTq1kLaWnI.facebook

BY CORINNE SEGAL  January 5, 2017

New York City has issued what legal advocates believe to be the first birth certificate marked “intersex” to Sara Kelly Keenan, a resident of Santa Cruz, California.

In September, Keenan, 55, became the second person nationwide to receive a court order declaring her legal gender to be non-binary, a gender that is neither male nor female. Her new birth certificate marks the latest step for intersex and non-binary people who have recently gained legal recognition in several states, and could have nationwide implications for those communities, several attorneys say.

When Keenan was a teenager, her doctors discovered she had Swyer syndrome, which is often marked by XY sex chromosomes and female external genitalia, in addition to undeveloped gonads.

She underwent surgery at the time to remove gonadal tissue, a procedure she said she did not fully understand until decades afterward. The experience left her with the desire to increase public education on what it means to be intersex, she told the PBS NewsHour.

Non-binary and intersex activists push for recognition

Jamie Shupe of Portland, Oregon, became the first legally non-binary person in the U.S. through a court order in June. That decision galvanized Keenan, along with others whose gender does not fit into “male” or “female,” to file similar petitions for a legal gender change. A judge granted Keenan’s legal gender change to non-binary in September, making her the second person in the country to receive such a designation.

Since then, at least one other person, Rain Emery Chamberlain, has received a legal gender change to non-binary in California. And a group of three people filed similar petitions in San Francisco in December, with others planning to do so this year in at least five other California counties, said Toby Adams, an attorney and co-founder of the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project. Adams represented Keenan along with the group in San Francisco.

Their cases are rippling across agencies in the U.S. that issue identification documents, including the Department of Motor Vehicles in Oregon and California.

Several months after Shupe’s court order, the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles said it would be able to print a driver’s license with a third gender marker.

In California, Adams said she and Keenan met with representatives from the DMV last month who laid out ways to move forward on issuing Keenan an accurate license. Those changes may involve passing state legislation to change California regulations and change the DMV’s computer programming to accommodate a third option. The DMV sent a statement about this meeting to the NewsHour:

The department reviewed items that will require modifications, such as legislation, regulations, forms, programming, vendor contracts and working with stakeholders currently utilizing DMV data. The California DMV solidified its commitment to work towards adding an alternate gender designation choice for our customers.

Meanwhile, Keenan reached out to the New York City Health Department, who issues birth certificates, to request a change to the sex listed on her birth certificate. After deliberating for several months, the department in mid-December issued her a new birth certificate with “intersex” listed in the field for sex, which legal advocates believe to be the first time a birth certificate has received this marker. Attorney Adams said she was aware of several people, including Shupe, whose birth certificate lists them as “unknown,” along with one person who successfully petitioned for a birth certificate change to “hermaphrodite.”

“It’s really empowering and exciting,” Keenan said. “The young child in me who had all of these decisions made for them feels really lifted up by this.”

Assistant Commissioner Gretchen Van Wye of the Bureau of Vital Statistics said that New York City’s health code allows the department to change the sex listed on birth certificates with medical documentation from a U.S.-licensed doctor. In this case, “It wouldn’t be correct to say just male or just female on the certificate,” she told the NewsHour.

Keenan may be the first to make this change in New York City, but the department plans to propose a way to make the designation available to others. This March, the bureau plans to present a proposal to the Board of Health detailing how to make the intersex designation available to newborns, Van Wye said.

“We would like to make sure we’re capturing this data appropriately from the time of birth,” she said.

‘This is not just an intersex issue’

Keenan’s case reaches beyond the intersex community, Adams said. In particular, New York City’s decision “shows a change in the nation’s understanding of gender as not being constrained by the myth of the binary,” she told the NewsHour by email.

On a national level, the State Department is grappling with a similar issue. Dana Zzyym, who is intersex and uses the pronoun “they,” sued the federal government in October 2015 after their application for a passport was denied, seeking a third gender option for U.S.-issued passports. A federal judge ruled in Zzyym’s favor in November, leaving the State Department with the choice to appeal the decision or reconsider its policy.

“We are monitoring the situation closely and call on the State Department to act promptly to eliminate its binary-only gender marker policy for U.S. passports,” Lambda Legal attorney Paul Castillo, who is representing Zzyym, said in an email. He added that several countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have approved “X” as a third gender marker for passports.

During a hearing in that case last July, attorney Ryan Parker, who is representing the federal government, underscored the importance of identifying documents like driver’s licenses and birth certificates in the process of granting passports.

“If states were to change their policy and were to issue driver’s licenses that identified the driver’s sex as ‘X,’ maybe that would be something that the State Department would need to take into account as it’s reexamining its policy,” he said, according to a court transcript.

If the California DMV were to grant Keenan an updated license, she would have both a license and birth certificate listing a third option for sex, both materials required by the State Department to obtain a passport.

Keenan said she has received a flood of messages from others who want to change their legal gender as well — but she fears there could be fallout for people living in parts of the country with fewer legal protections for intersex or non-binary people. “I think it’s important for people to pursue this in places where it’s safe to do so,” she said.

New York City’s decision provides an important next step, she said.

“New York City has opened the door to acknowledging that the binary classification system is erroneous,” she said. “I think through further education, the non-binary community can open that door further and create a place for themselves at the table.”

 

From PBS News
June 15, 2017
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/oregon-nonbinary-gender-neutral-option-licenses/

Oregon officials voted Thursday to add a gender-neutral option on state IDs, making it the first state in the country to recognize non-binary people on their driver’s licenses.

The unanimous decision by the Oregon Transportation Commission is the final step in a year-long process that began in June 2016, when Portland resident Jamie Shupe became the first legally non-binary person — identifying as neither male nor female — in the country.

The option, which will be available starting July 3, will make a difference for non-binary and transgender people for whom using an ID marked “M” or “F” is inaccurate or even dangerous, advocates say.

“I think this will make a real difference in people’s lives, and I think it is a great step for removing even more barriers,” said Amy Herzfeld-Copple, co-director of LGBTQ advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon.

While transgender and non-binary issues have gained greater prominence around the country, only several states have addressed the issue of identification. In May, California state senators approved SB 179, which would add a non-binary option on state driver’s licenses, with a 26-12 vote. It is currently under consideration in the state’s House of Representatives.

Herzfeld-Copple said she hopes Oregon’s decision can serve as an example for other states. “Often, really important policy changes don’t happen as the result of legislation, but as a result of working directly with agencies to remove barriers,” she said. “This will be helpful in writing a playbook for other states.”

Shupe, who uses the pronoun “they,” was born in Maryland in 1963 and grew up there before joining the military at age 19. Having struggled with gender dysphoria for years during their military service, Shupe found community in a genderqueer support group after moving to Oregon in November 2014.

In April 2016, Shupe petitioned the Multnomah County court for a sex change, a routine step in states that require a court order in order to change a license. But unlike other requests, Shupe asked to identify as “non-binary,” a gender that is neither male nor female.

Shupe’s request was granted through a court order by Judge Amy Holmes Hehn. Walking out of the courtroom that day, Shupe was elated but terrified that “that this whole thing might die with me.”

It was “a really lonely and scary feeling to be the only person … that was in possession of the court order that just broke the gender binary in this nation,” they said in an email.

After the Oregon DMV received the court order, it began researching how to add a new option on driver’s licenses for people like Shupe. This process included creating an advisory committee with representatives from the Oregon state police, advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon, the Oregon Department of Justice and non-binary or genderqueer individuals, among others. The department decided to offer “X” as an alternative choice to “M” or “F.”

From April 1 to May 12, the DMV held a public comment period and two hearings in Eugene and Portland. During that process, the DMV collected 83 written and oral comments, 71 of which favored making the change. DMV spokesman David House told the NewsHour in May that public feedback was “overwhelmingly positive.”

People who supported the change told the DMV in public comments that adding the “X” option is an important step for people whose appearance does not match the marker on their ID, which can leave them vulnerable to harassment, discrimination or violence.

“This small, significant change is about affording me and others like me the same basic dignity as those who see an “M” or an “F” on their driver’s license and feel accurately represented; to be who we are without being subjected to suspicion or ridicule,” read one comment.

At least one comment against the change raised the concern that an ID reading “X” would make it harder for police or others to identify people. But, LGBTQ law organization Lambda Legal noted in a public comment that “there is no evidence to support arguments that making nonbinary gender markers available will negatively affect public safety.”

Non-binary advocates have also raised the concern that IDs marked “X” could be incompatible with health care systems, housing programs and other institutions.

Internationally, the “X” option is acceptable under United Nations aviation standards, and at least eight countries allow a third gender option on either passports or national ID cards, including Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Bangladesh and Pakistan, according to Lambda Legal. Ontario, Canada, began issuing licenses marked “X” in March. And the change will be consistent with the REAL ID Act, which requires that driver’s licenses list a sex designation but leave definitions up to states.

Meanwhile, a small group of people in California have followed Shupe’s lead by obtaining court orders that legally identify them as non-binary. Sara Kelly Keenan became the first person in California — and the second person in the country — to do so in September. Today, about 20 people in the U.S. are legally non-binary, said Douglas Lorenz, communications director for the Intersex and Genderqueer Recognition Project, which has advised about 20 people making this change.

LGBTQ advocates say this decision supports the case of Dana Zzyym, an intersex veteran who sued the State Department after they were denied a passport. Instead of selecting “male” or “female,” Zzyym wrote “intersex” on the passport application.

A federal judge ruled in Zzyym’s favor in November, directing the State Department to reconsider its policy on passport options. The State Department has not announced any changes since then.

“This decision should provide even more support for the arguments we are making in federal court … that allowing accurate gender markers is necessary and required constitutionally, and just by common sense,” said Hayley Gorenberg, the deputy legal director and general counsel for Lambda Legal. “I certainly hope that this decision by the state of Oregon to do the right thing and give people accurate ID documents will influence the case for Dana and other people in their position.”

Shupe said via email that they were thankful for the people “who not only believed in me, but also in what I wanted to accomplish on behalf of all of the various communities that are stakeholders in this historic human rights victory for sex and gender.”