To kick off the event, I’ve got some data for you.  The Transgender Violence Tracking Portal is a new project, started in March of this year…so their data is a bit limited by the fact that only 14 countries have submitted data to them so far.

the TVTP project was created to allow public access and grassroots reporting of incidents of violence, and any registered user to easily query the TVTP database at any time to see the anti-transgender violence that has been reported.  Researchers will be drawing from standard sources (news media, law enforcement, GLBT groups and many other sources) for additional and corroborative data.

I’ve got a couple of stories I am cobbling together to support the title thesis…which should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody.  I mean, it’s nearly a tautology.

Big surprise.  Maryland recently became the 17th state to offer anti-discrimination protections for gender non-conforming people…so immediately the people who voted against it and lost started howling…and lying and fear-mongering…hoping to cajole the Maryland public into dispensing with the new law.

Incredibly, the conservatives’ main line of attack is that the law will turn women’s restrooms into fertile ground for peeping toms disguised in dresses and wigs, even for similarly attired rapists.  This is middle school trash talk disguised as policy analysis.  There is no evidence that this is a statistically detectable problem in other states that have banned discrimination against transgender people, nor in Maryland localities, such as Montgomery County, that have had similar statutes on the books for years.

…

More broadly, opponents of the legislation tend to miss its central point, which is to ban the blatant discrimination that transgender people report is pervasive.  In a 2011 survey conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality, 71 percent of transgender people in Maryland said they had experienced harassment or mistreatment at work and 18 percent said they had lost a job or been denied a promotion as a result of their gender identification.  Seventeen percent reported having been denied housing.  Shocking numbers of students in public schools report harassment (81 percent) and assaults (38 percent).

—Washington Post Editorial Board

The Post rightly points out that although recall leader Del. Neil C. Parrott (R-Asshole) has concentrated on raising fears about behavior in bathrooms, he opposed transgender protections at every turn when they didn’t include public accommodations.