Jezebel’s annual list of Best Women is always invigorating for us to put together. But 2018 had a special tenor to it, not because it was the Year of the Woman as some rather emptily declared, but because it was a year when so many of them showed true resilience, in both triumph and (relative) defeat. Here’s to our list of heroines, who stood tall and kept us motivated.
Category: Gender Equality
Jessica Sunderland Denied Hormones in Jail, Won Landmark Decision
During the 16 months Jessica Sunderland was incarcerated at the Riverside Correctional Facility in Suffolk County, New York, jail officials refused to give her the hormones she had been taking for two years. In response, in August 2013, Sunderland filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Suffolk County, arguing that the jail’s failure to provide her hormones violated her constitutional rights.
In October of this year, Sunderland won her case. As reported by Melissa Gira Grant at the Appeal, a jury agreed that Sunderland’s constitutional rights had been violated, and awarded her $280,000 in damages, plus an additional $75,000 in punitive damages against Vincent Geraci, the jail’s medical director. It’s a groundbreaking decision, according to Sunderland’s attorney Joel Wertheimer.
via Jessica Sunderland Denied Hormones in Jail, Won Landmark Decision
Office of Personnel Management Manager Explains Removal of Transgender Guidance
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, ThinkProgress reported that guidance protecting transgender people in the federal workforce were quietly removed from the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) website. As ThinkProgress noted, the guidelines offered definitional and practical information on how to better ensure that trans employees have essential workplace protections and are free from harassment. The decision to remove that language is just the latest in a series of actions the Trump administration has taken to strip federal protections from trans people in the workplace and at school, but according to audio obtained by Government Executive, Natalie Veeney, the OPM’s diversity program manager, reportedly explained the change to an LGBTQ employee group as a way to “afford agencies more discretion in responding to the needs of their workforce” and give agencies more “autonomy.”
In other words, OPM believes that federal agencies should have more freedom to discriminate how they best see fit. (This mirrors language the administration used when rescinding guidance on protection for trans students: framing an erasure of basic protections as an expansion of freedom for local schools.) Previously, the trans guidances on OPM’s site directed managers to use their trans employees’ preferred names and pronouns and ensure access to bathrooms consistent with their gender. The guidance also noted that even if employees had not yet changed their name legally, agencies should “adopt procedures that allow employees to use the name of daily usage or first initial in or on email accounts, employee directories, business cards, name tags, and similar items.” Basic, but essential, stuff.
via Office of Personnel Management Manager Explains Removal of Transgender Guidance
Judge Rules Federal Female Genital Mutilation Ban Unconstitutional
A U.S. district judge in Michigan has ruled against a federal ban on female genital mutilation, arguing that Congress overstepped its constitutional authority in passing the 1996 law.
According to the New York Times, Judge Bernard Friedman ruled on Tuesday that Congress had violated the commerce clause of the Constitution by enacting the ban, and that only individual states have the constitutional power to outlaw female genital mutilation. He wrote in his ruling that “[a]s despicable as this practice may be, it is essentially a criminal assault,” and “’local criminal activity’” and therefore outside of federal regulation.
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00:00Friedman’s ruling came about in a case against Jumana Nagarwala, a doctor from outside of Detroit who is accused of cutting the genitals of nine girls ages 7 to 13. Another doctor, internist Fakhruddin Attar, was also implicated in the case, as were four parents who allegedly brought their daughters to Nagarwala to be cut. Friedman’s ruling dismissed the main charges against Nagarwala.
via Judge Rules Federal Female Genital Mutilation Ban Unconstitutional
LGBT Asylum Seekers from the Migrant Caravan Have Made To The Border
The first asylum-seekers from the migrant caravan have arrived in Tijuana after several weeks of traveling from Central America; they are part of a small group of LGBTQ migrants who split off from the larger caravan while in Mexico City. Their decision to travel separately stemmed in large part from discrimination they experienced en route to the United States, according to several asylum-seekers interviewed by the Washington Post and NPR.
via LGBT Asylum Seekers from the Migrant Caravan Have Made To The Border
Opinion | The Abortion Wars Have Become a Fight Over Science – The New York Times
It was perhaps, at first glance, an unusual feature of the 2019 March for Life that it downplayed what many have come to think of as the central claim of the anti-abortion movement: that the unborn have a constitutional right to life.
Instead, march organizers focused on proclaiming that science was on their side. They circulated material on “when human life begins,” whether abortions are ever medically necessary and when fetal life becomes viable. They praised legal restrictions based on what science supposedly says about fetal pain.
via Opinion | The Abortion Wars Have Become a Fight Over Science – The New York Times
Denial of abortion leads to economic hardship for low-income women | Reuters
Women who want an abortion but are denied one are more likely to spend years living in poverty than women who have abortions, a new study suggests.
Carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term quadrupled the odds that a new mother and her child would live below the federal poverty line, researchers reported in the American Journal of Public Health on Thursday, a few days before the 45th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion.
“It’s very powerful to see that women’s decision-making is exactly right on,” said lead author Diana Greene Foster, a professor at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research group at the University of California, San Francisco.
via Denial of abortion leads to economic hardship for low-income women | Reuters
New Law Makes Upskirting Illegal in Wales and England
After fighting to make upskirting a crime after having her crotch photographed randomly at a music festival, a woman has successfully campaigned to make the act illegal in England and Wales.
The BBC reports that the new legislation, which was approved in the House of Lords and needs to be approved by the Royal Assent, could sentence creeps who upskirt women up to two years in jail.
Virginia School Excludes Trans Girl From Active-Shooter Drill
In addition to being subjected to the trauma of preparing for a mass shooting at school, one trans student in Virginia was further humiliated when teachers failed to guide her to safety, instead making her wait alone in the hallway during the scenario on account of her identity.
Media outlets reported on the incident after LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Stafford wrote about it in a Facebook post, alleging that at the beginning of the drill, teachers in one Stafford County Public School directed children to bathrooms or locker rooms closest to them, but couldn’t decide where to send the girl, who is trans. “The student was forced to watch the adults charged with her care, debate the safest place (for the other students) to have her shelter,” the post stated.
via Virginia School Excludes Trans Girl From Active-Shooter Drill
What is it like for a woman who is harassed? – BBC News
What to do if you are harassed
Hollaback! – an international movement tackling harassment – says there is no right or wrong way to respond.
It says the most important thing is to get yourself out of the situation if you feel unsafe.
But if you choose to speak directly to the assailant, it offers the following advice:
Be firm: Look them in the eye and denounce their behaviour with a strong, clear voice
Say what feels natural: The important thing is that you are not apologetic in your response
Don’t engage: Harassers may try to argue with you or dismiss you through further conversation or by making fun of you. As tempting as it may be get into a verbal war with them, it is not recommended. The attention may feed their abusive behaviour
Keep moving: Once you’ve said your piece, keep moving. Harassers do not deserve the pleasure of your company