Border Crossers - Anti- Immigrant Transgender Asylum Seekers piece in SF Weekly

Hi sisters and brothers, good afternoon.

About two hours ago, Alejandra Byerly, the Health Educator/Program Coordinator of EL-LA Programa para Trans-Latinas, alerted me to an article by Lauren Smiley, published today at the SF Weekly Titled Border Crossers - Long rap sheet? No problem. Transgender Latina hookers in S.F. are successfully fighting deportation by asking for asylum.

By Lauren Smiley

Also published online on November 25, 2008 at 2:57pm

I read it and feel that this is an article with an anti-immigrant tone bent, she cites some of the people who help Transgender and paints them as enablers in law-breaking activities, including Noemi Calonge and Dusty Araujo - But I also find it disturbing that she cites and gives credibility to Dan Stein, who is president of the Washington- based "Federation for American Immigration Reform" (FAIR), a virulent anti-immigrant outfit, the Southern Poverty Law Center issued an Intelligence Report in the Winter of 2007 on FAIR titled "The Teflon Nativists" With the Sub-Title 'FAIR Marked by Ties to White Supremacy' By Heidi Beirich.

This is the Editor's Note on the Report: After issuing this report in December 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center added the Federation for American Immigration Reform to its list of hate groups.

In my preliminary search for articles by Lauren Smiley, I also found an entry where GLAAD Nominates SF Weekly's Lauren Smiley for '2008 Media Award', dated Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 04:37:10 PM, you may 'read' something different to what I 'read', but I found it significant that she predominantly uses the masculine pronoun 'He' when referring to Transgender Women.

I need to go over the article again with a more analytical scrutiny to see if my first impression of it was correct, that it is very light in journalistic research and heavy in inflammatory rhetoric on how the Immigration Asylum Laws for Transgenders if being abused by Transgender Prostitutes and Hookers (Her choice of words), I include here a listing of her articles in the SF Weekly for anyone who would want to peruse through them.

I find it callously harsh, that a woman has written this piece against a group that traditionally has been plagued with discrimination, abuse and violence, specially the day after we observed the United Nation's International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, because no matter what opinion anyone would have whether or not we, Transgender Women, are Women, the fact of the matter is that we are treated as such, specially by the legion of Transphobes found in our society.

Yes indeed, just as Biological Women, we are treated as 'less than' the males in our society and just as Biological Women, we are highly likely to be raped and abused, at risk of it starting in early childhood.

Please feel free to offer comments or critical analysis of Lauren Smiley's article, in addition, suggestions on how to deal with or what to do with slanted articles as the one Ms. Smiley wrote, will be of great help.

Enter your comments here

Aurora

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities."

"Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic."

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.
-- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Any law which violates the indefeasible rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all.
Maximilien Robespierre

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.
Mahatma Gandhi

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority.
Lord Acton