Many of you know that Ms. Moore, a transgender woman, was arrested and thrown in jail for using the bathroom at a Downtown Houston library branch. Many of you don’t know the back-story. Since I’ve now listened to a number or reporters share their misconceptions with me, I thought it was time to set the record straight.

THE LAW & LAWSUITS

The spin on the news is that the law is somehow unclear and or undecided. That’s simply false. Ms. Moore was arrested and imprisoned for “knowingly entering a restroom of the opposite sex.”

Texas law states that “It is unlawful for any person to use a restroom of the opposite sex unless given permission…” City of Houston Executive Order 1 – 8 and 1 – 20 provides explicit permission:

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If you recall, back in May I stated that the Executive Order was simply a move on the part of the City to limit liability. Even the Mayor said that the City was simply clarifying the City’s then-current ordinance that one commits a class C misdemeanor if they enter the restroom of the opposite sex with the intent of creating a disturbance.

In case you don’t remember, here’s what I said in a press release back in May:

“Fringe groups will probably try to scare their donor base into believing that the gay mayor has made it legal for pedophiles to turn the restroom into their hunting grounds instead of being truthful and saying that the City acted to limit City liability. Liability issues are bland and don’t bring in the bucks for these groups. These groups know it’s more profitable to lie to their donor base and claim that without them, nobody will ‘save the children.’ I find it remarkable that people fall for it. I mean really… Who would believe that the Mayor of Houston has made it legal for nefarious men to hang out in the girl’s bathroom?” In fact, Dave Welch, Executive Director of Houston Area Pastor Council said, “Her reprehensible actions to open women’s restrooms to men.” He went on to say, “Forcing women in particular using city facilities to be subjected to cross-dressing men invading their privacy is beyond the pale and offensive to every standard of decency.”

After hearing what Mr. Welch had to say, Lou Weaver, President of TFA said, “His framing of the issue borders on an out and out lie. I’m really shocked. He’s basically claiming that the Executive Order was actually a rogue plot to make the women’s restroom accessible to voyeurs. Who buys this stuff? We’re talking about an Order that has stopped the previous practice of forcing females, like Cristan, into rooms where men are in a state of undress. Pretending that it’s anything other than that is simply disingenuous.”

The reason the Mayor of Houston acted to clarify the existing ordinance was because transgender people had been falsely arrested and had been previously barred from using the restroom – discriminatory actions which were all unlawful. The existing ordinance allowed transgender people to use the restroom since they weren’t using it for the purposes of creating a disturbance. The fact that transgender people were being arrested and jailed for NOT breaking the law left the City of Houston at risk of having to pay out millions for false arrest and imprisonment. The Executive Order made it clear to all City staff (HPD included) what the policy was and should have – had it been followed – protected the taxpayers from costly lawsuits.

However, a security guard and HPD officer chose to disregard years worth of City policy as well as the Executive Order and put the City and the taxpayer at risk of a civil rights lawsuit.  Back in May when I had stated that the Mayor acted to limit City liability, I remember that a number of right-wing blogs said that I was being absurd, ridiculous and trying to muddy the waters with talk of law suit prevention.

Well, when a civil rights attorney is about to take up the cause of Ms. Moore, I hate to tell you that I told you so… BUT, I TOLD YOU SO!

<sarcasm>So, I hope it was worth wasting what may become millions of bucks in taxpayer money on the personal schadenfreude the guard and cop got from harassing a transgender person.</sarcasm>

It’s worth noting that even if the Executive Order was not in place, it would have been unlawful for the officer to arrest Ms. Moore. As a class C misdemeanor, it is a citable offence – not an arrestable offence. Even without the Executive Order in place, it would have been only lawful for the officer to write her a ticket – not arrest her and throw her in jail!

PROBLEMS AT JAIL

As I just said, if you ignored the Executive Order, it STILL would have been unlawful for the officer to arrest Ms. Moore. The fact that the booking sergeant at the jail ignored this is also problematic.

Now imagine that you’re a transgender woman in a men’s prison and a guard comes up to you and offers you some ‘free’ legal advice. He says to you, “If you’ll just plead guilty to the charge, you can get out of here with time served. You can go home. But if you try to fight this, you’ll be staying here for some time.”

It is unlawful for jailors to offer this type of legal “advice.” That’s problematic as well.

So, being unaware of her rights and being confronted with the possibility of rape and beatings, Ms. Moore plead guilty on the legal advisement of the jailor.

FALLOUT AT HPD

After the blowback HPD faced with their treatment of the sill unsolved Myra Ical murder case, HPD has been fairly tight-lipped about reporting on anything to do with the transgender community. In fact, they completely failed to report the murder of a transgender woman on the 6^th of September. This is, without a doubt, a huge embarrassment for HPD.

Without going into explicit details, the Police Chief had a come to Jesus sit-down last Tuesday. Tacked on the wall was a copy of the Executive Order. The Chief had a lot to say and long and short of it is that there’s currently an investigation underway.

The community is working with HPD to ensure that they have the breathing-room they need to conduct their investigation.

The findings will be given to City Legal (CL) and official statements will be coming from CL since David Welch, Executive Director of the Houston City Pastor Council sent a sadly comical pleading to the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott seeking to have the Houston Executive Order overturned.

Of course, overturning the Executive Order will only lead to more law suits. This incident is proof-positive that if the Executive Order is followed, the City and taxpayer is protected. Thanks for your 2 cents Welch.

DAVID WELCH

As I noted, Welch submitted a laughably pitiful excuse of a pleading to Attorney General Greg Abbott wherein he cites no legal cases and merely states that the Attorney General should overturn the Houston Executive Order because Welch thinks it would make God happy.

David Welch, the Executive Director of a Houston-based hate group that calls itself the “Houston Area Pastoral Council” is an extreme right-wing fundamentalist. He’s also Founding Executive Director of Christian Coalition of Washington, the National Field Director of Christian Coalition, the Executive Director of Vision America and more importantly, Welch is afraid to debate me again.

Welch was scheduled to debate me for the second time live on FOX News, but backed out at the last moment. We were supposed to debate the merits of the Mayor’s Executive Order. Welch has a long history of making declarations about the civil rights of transgender people but is now seemingly afraid of debating those very ideas.

So, Welch debated Darrell Steadily (lead attorney for Nikki Araguz) and, of course, lost. Again. This is the second time he debated transgender civil rights and this is the second time Welch lost.

After ducking the debate with me, I turned up the heat by calling him out on live radio and then calling his office until I was able to reach him. When I was actually able to speak to him, I challenged him to a debate which he initially accepted before immediately beginning to backpedal. Knowing that Welch is likely to try to worm out of having to publically defend his arguments against GLBT people, I recorded the conversation and posted it on YouTube.

<rant>His type of obtuse bigotry is sickening. I want to debate him again. I want to decimate each logical fallacy he throws my direction. I want to ensure that David Welch is either exposed as being a ridiculously pathetic man trapped by fear and ignorance or as a coward who is unwilling and/or unable to have his hate challenged by a lowly tranny.</rant>

So, I’m happy to note that when Welch injected his venom into this story and refused to debate me, a site popped up to track his downfall: http://dave-welch.com .

PUBLIC OPINION

Fox News put out a public poll asking if people would freak out if a transgender person of the same gender was using the restroom and almost everyone said that it’s a non-issue for them:

As you can see, it’s a non-issue for most folk and if you think that’s a fluke, check out the ‘man on the street’ interview done by FOX news: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiCuLP1xXTk

TRANSGENDER CENTER REACTION

The TG Center put out a press release on Monday, November 22 and set to work gathering information and contacting the victim. Additionally, a pro bono civil rights attorney was secured to represent Ms. Moore. The TG Center coordinated communication between the victim and the community.

RECAP

• • The Executive Order PROTECTS the City against lawsuits.
• • A Right-Wing nut named David Welch (dave-welch.com) wants to strip that protection away and make it ‘legal’ to violate the civil rights of transgender people.
• • The arresting officer was out of line every step of the way and Ms. Moore’s civil rights were violated.
• • The TG Community is taking care of its own and the general public doesn’t have a problem with transgender people using the bathroom.

LAST THOUGHTS

Ms. Moore should have the conviction of this imaginary crime expunged from her record. Additionally, I will encourage Ms. Moore to focus on going after the security guard and the company the guard works for since HPD is addressing their wrongs. This entire fiasco began with a bigoted security guard and as of yet, neither the security guard nor the company the security guard works for has come forward and apologized to Ms. Moore.

Here are a few graphics that have been used lately in connection to this story: