Obama-Biden's nondiscrimination policy
Queers Without Borders reports that on the transition team's job page, the nondiscrimination page includes gender identity:
"The Obama-Biden Transition Project does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by law."
The Connecticut Employment Law Blog notes,
It's one thing to raise the issue in a platform. It's quite another to start implementing a change like this almost overnight. And this has significant ramifications for the entire Executive Branch once the new administration starts.
Nice.
Posted by Jessica - November 07, 2008, at 04:49PM
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This is especially good news considering that the Federal government has 2,462,000 employees, making them a major segment of the job market unto themselves.
Wow.
I noticed this, too. Yet another thing that made me cry.
Will this apply to all Fed jobs, or just those in the administration? I'd love to think the former, but imagine that it is the latter.
Already my faith in President Obama (I love saying that) is being rewarded.
change.gov is really neat; they have their whole agenda laid out for perusal. I looked over the "women's agenda" (or however you would put it) page, and it's kind of neat to see where they stand on things. Of course, it's a general, short, overview, but it's nice to see "We support Roe v. Wade and this is how we're dealing with other stuff, including international women's rights issues" right out there on the page. Good stuff!
another great line in the site:
"Obama and Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section."
But was anyone else bothered by the number of times it mentioned his "Christian faith" in the bio part?
That stood out to me, too. I don't think it belongs on a government site, but for what it's worth, there's a reason it's there. I strongly suspect it's there only because so many McCain supporters insinuated that he's not really Christian, and hence that means he's a terrorist, etc., and he wants that shit to stop. Ultimately, he's not going to shove his Christianity down my throat, so I can deal with it for the time being.
I hope they apply this non-discrimination policy to who they choose for their cabinet positions. Obama is seriously considering appointing Larry Summers, a known misogynist, to the post of Treasury Secretary! They blogged about this on Feministe. How does that fit into their non-discrimination policy? They don't discriminate themselves, but will hire people that discriminate like hell?
I just spent 3 hours writing a very fact-intensive post on my blog about Larry Summers and why he is a horrible choice and shouldn't even be considered. After some searching, I also finally found a transcript of what exactly he said about the inferior female intelligence, along with articles from the scientific community about their outrage at his remarks. See:
http://tinyurl.com/6627vf
You can go to www.change.gov and there is a section where you can send in what you think needs to be done for the administration. There is also a petition that is linked on shakesville that you can sign.
We don't know if he's going to pick Larry summers or even how hard he's looking at him. The Obama camp is pretty tight lipped which makes me think that most of the speculation is coming from papers or people in Summers' camp themselves.
But this is supposed to be a positive thread and it should be acknowledged that putting transgender rights in a discrimination policy shows an awareness of the progressive parts of the country that should be applauded
This piece in the WSJ proves that Summers is indeed on Obama's economic team. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122610208024210087.html
Summers was at the economic meeting yesterday with Obama.
I am not sure if you are aware of how journalism works, but frequently the "leaks" are from people inside the campaign and are actually meant for public consumption.
Finally, having a non-discriminatory policy and actually following that policy are two different things.
So far, on the non-discriminatory policy scoreboard. The score is:
Discriminatory - 2 (Biden & Emanuel)
Non-discriminatory - 0
I think though the alternative to Obama's cabinet choices are not something I want to contemplate(do we even want to consider who McCain would be choosing). It has not even been a week since he's won the election;I think he deserves a chance to figure out,and at the end of the day.
I am not going to agree with everyone he choses or everything he does; I don't agree with anyone all of the time period, so I will take the good with the stuff I disagree with.
I love this statement...this is some definite steps towards equality.
The talk is worth nothing if they don't act on their ideals. Why am I hearing nothing but dude names (including Anthony Summers!) for cabinet posts?
If the cabinet is all men (or all men and the education secretary) I will be very disappointed. There is an overabundance of brilliantly qualified women for cabinet posts.
Yay!
I think that this is amazing!! Finally, there is something that is going to finally be some equality!