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Transgender candidates win election, while accusations of others’ sexual misconduct run rampant


By Johnny Trlica

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Just as Houston sports fans were enjoying the euphoria of the Astros World Series Championship came word that Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson was lost for the season.
The sports gods finally tossed the Bayou City a long anticipated baseball title only to crap all over our excitement by ending one of the most remarkable starts to an NFL career when the Texans QB tore his right anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in practice. That’s right—practice. He wasn’t even playing a game. Curse you, sports gods!
Here is a bit of what’s been shared on the Houston Rainbow Herald Facebook page the past couple of weeks.

Karma is transgender ally
Everyone loves karma, but did anyone suspect that she is an ally of the transgender community? At least eight transgender people won their races in elections held on November 7, reports ThinkProgress.org.
Danica Roem is the first openly transgender candidate to win a state race. Her election to the Virginia House of Delegates was a big win, especially since her opponent had a long history of anti-LGBTQ views including transphobic smears against Roem during the race. Beyond reveling in his “chief homophobe†title, Marshall also was instrumental in trying to pass a North Carolina-style bathroom bill.
“Andrea Jenkin won her race to serve on the Minneapolis City Council, making her one of the first trans women to serve in a major city’s governing body and one of the first trans people of color to serve in any elected office in the country,†wrote Zach Ford for Think Progress.org.
Also in Minneapolis, Phillipe Cunningham, a black transgender man, won his race for City Council.
Lisa Middleton became the first transgender person elected to a non-judicial office in California, winning a seat on the Palm Springs City Council.
Stephe Koontz won her race for Doraville, Georgia City Council. She is now the only openly transgender elected official in the entire state of Georgia.
Raven Matherne was elected the first openly transgender lawmaker in Stamford, Connecticut, as well as in the entire state.
Tyler Titus won a seat on the Erie School Board, making him the first openly transgender person elected to office in the commonwealth. “Becoming the first openly trans elected official means my community believes in my ability to be a voice and advocate for our children and teachers,†Titus said in an interview before the election.
Gerri Cannon won election to the school board in Somersworth, New Hampshire.
The resistance is alive and well.

Sexual predators in abundance
All of a sudden it seems as though sexual predators are all around us. In Hollywood, we have Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and George Takai accused of inappropriate acts. In sports, Peyton Manning is purported to have put his anus and testicles on a trainer’s face. And in politics (no, we are not talking about the orange man inhabiting the White House), there is Roy Moore.
Moore, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, has been accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl and pursuing three other teenage girls, when he was in his 30s and serving as an assistant district attorney, reports Slate.com. The allegations, first reported in the WashingtonPost.com, are especially poignant considering Moore has positioned himself as a righteous crusader for evangelical justice with a profound concern for the emotional and spiritual well-being of children. In his life, Moore has allegedly engaged in the precise abuse he has accused gay people of perpetrating.
Moore has long been an anti-gay activist. “As a circuit judge, he ruled in a 1996 custody case that a lesbian parent could not see her children unsupervised, or with her same-sex partner. He wrote that, because she was gay, the mother posed a heightened danger to her children. An appeals court ultimately removed him from the case on account of blatant bias,†writes Mark Joseph Stern for Slate.com
Moore fought vehemently against gay adoption rights or even to maintain custody of their own kids. He insisted that “homosexual conduct by a parent is inherently detrimental to children,†and that “practicing homosexuals†should be subject to imprisonment or “physical penalties, such as confinement and even execution.†He strongly implied that gay people, and gay parents in particular, are eager to recruit children to their “lifestyle.†He warned that the effect of “the homosexual lifestyle†on children “must not be ignored, and the lifestyle should never be tolerated.â€
In January 2016, Moore issued an administrative order barring Alabama probate judges from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in direct conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June of 2015 that same-sex marriage was the law of the land.
Alabama voters go to the polls to choose their representative for the Senate on December 12.

For the latest LGBTQ news and current events in 2017, click on HoustonRainbowHerald.com. Johnny Trlica is the editor of the HoustonRainbowHerald.com, the Bayou City’s LGBT internet newspaper. Contact him at [email protected].

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