*sighs* I wish I could say this was surprising, but as someone who nearly lost an eye to a transphobic hang-beating 9 years ago, I’m disappointed, but never surprised when garbage like this happens to one of us,

Hey, Equality Maryland!Why do you think protections on public accommodations are now? Why did it take having a transwoman nearly beaten to death for you to even care?
Thankfully, the Board of Trustees of EqMD recently fired the executive director, but as was mentioned in the earlier thread about this group, unless the Board itself changes, then their anti-trans attitude will continue.

Ownership?Don’t bet on it.
The meme from Citizens For Responsible Government (actually, I think this one’s from MassResistance) is this: that allowing Transgendered people into Restaurants or Restrooms causes trouble, and may endanger other patrons.

As we have seen from this shocking video, whether the Transgendered person is the assailant or not, the facts are that wherever these people go, there is violence, and innocent people can get hurt – in this case, a senior citizen. No-one is safe.
Thanks to the wisdom of the Maryland Senate, it is still legal to forbid service to Transgendered people. McDonalds Corporation in Maryland has thus no choice but to ban all Transgendered people from their premises, in order to ensure the safety of other patrons.
If they do not, then they will be liable for civil action by anyone who gets hurt by their negligence and irresponsible catering to this violence-prone gender-confused and mentally-ill minority.

They might actually be correct there, I’m afraid. They have got expert legal advice from Liberty Council.

Two children, teenage girls, objected to a man dressed in female clothing using womens restroom  facilities. Showing great courage, they physically confronted him, and in a travesty of justice, they were arrested after the fight while he was not. We must protect our children, not arrest them for standing up for their rights not to be molested or raped by these perverts. Shamefully, the staff at McDonalds did not come to their aid.

Plus the usual appeal for money to help these “children’s” defence.

UrghHave you no decency, sir? At long last, have you no decency?

Citation please?Please clarify if these are actual or hypothetical memes you quoted.
Links, please?

Let’s move on, please.The debate during session was over legislative strategy and tactics, dependent on very local conditions in Annapolis. We do not disagree on goals.
Equality Maryland does not have a Board of Trustees, but a Board of Directors. The Board, rather than the ED, is responsible for policy. Don’t take out your ire on the ED who did a great job on HB 235.
The progress in nearly getting HB 235 passed changed the ground in Maryland, so now all the legislators know who we are and what we need. That is no small thing.
And the Board of EqMD is not “anti-trans.” It is not sufficiently supportive and engaged, but it has never been “anti.”

You claim to be a “new media reporter”Then be a reporter instead of a cut-and-paster. Don’t regurgitate what everyone else is saying. Stop trying to mold a (so far) second degree assault case to fit your specific political agenda.
1. How did you determine this is a “transgender hate crime” or any other kind of hate crime?
2. How do you reconcile your claims with the beating victims words in the video clip you pasted?
Some relevant portions from the three minute video interview with the beating victim:

Well, I wanted to go use the bathroom and the guy told me that I needed to order something before I had to use the bathroom. Well by the time I got there I was really needing to use the bathroom.
So a guy approached me, asked me how I was doing. So I said, “not now.” I wanted to go use the bathroom. Come back out, the girl spit in my face and she approached me, she says, “are you trying to talk to my man?” And I said, “no I didn’t even know that was your man at all.” So the other girl came up, spit in my face. And they started ripping my hair, throwing me on the floor, kicking me in my face.
Then I got up and I tried to hit the other girl, like I had her in the corner to try to get her off of me and the other girl came up and started kicking me in my face, punching me in my nose, ripped my ear rings out of my ear lobes.
[Snip]
And I’m really appalled about how all my charges have been brought on the internet. That has nothing to do with what the fight was caused…And you know they’re just putting my information out there to completely…they put my whole government out there and I felt like it was wrong. It was really wrong. But really, to tell you the truth, though, they just seemed like they wanted to pick a fight that night. They really did.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne…

The rush of the blogosphere to form instant analysis without having even the most basic information was everywhere evident with this case. Now that there is a bit more information trickling out, I would hope that someone a little late to the game as you are with your article, Autumn, would make an effort to explore this violent incident in more depth and with a nod to the often complex nature of these neighborhood crimes.

I’ve been unable to find it onlineIt was in an e-mail action alert, apparently via MassResistance. The call number for the appeal was 781-890-6001. But.. source was not MassResistance’s e-mail.
I’ve not found it on their site, and they always put such news/action alerts there.

Personal attacks are not welcome at Pam’s House BlendYou’re welcome to analyze, criticize and augment the information presented, but attacking the messenger is not conducive to a constructive conversation and is a violation of the Terms of Service.

sounds like mass resistancethat sounds like a Mass Resistance piece all the way. Citizens for Responsible Government wouldn’t dare put out such deliberately nasty tripe.

You make some valid points, which I hope that Autumn addressesHowever, what about the tweets and other posts circulating from the now-ex-McDonald’s employee – who shot the video – which points to the incident being trans-related?

Its certainly possible that this isn’t incompatible with Ms. Polis’s thoughts on the incident that you’ve quoted, but it would suggest that the incident, at least in part, was trans-related.

I don’t care what his personal feelings wereAs an employee and a human being, he was duty bound to keep that poor woman from being attacked. He did nothing but videotape the incident. He claims to have no hate for anyone, but obviously doesn’t have a problem with watching someone get gang jumped and doing nothing about it.

Whole lotta assuming going on.Can you clarify some things about “the tweets and other posts circulating from the now-ex-McDonald’s employee – who shot the video….”?
1. How do you know which employee(s) recorded the incident?
2. Was the person who uploaded the video to the internet site the same as the person who recorded it?
3. How do you know that “Charm Hackett” is the fired McDonald’s employee?
4. Why do you assume that what “Charm Hackett” says on the tweet was the motivation of the two female attackers? The assertion by “Charm Hackett” that the victim was a man, not a woman was not voiced (that I could hear) during the recorded assault. In fact, one male voice repeatedly refers to Polis as “she.”

Unbelievably ugly hate-mongering!Pretty convincing that these perverts (Mass Reisitance and Liberty Counsel)are the vilest form of human scum. No Christ in them.

Specifically, as a minimum wage McDonald’s employee, what would you have done, Alvin?Specifically, in those three-plus minutes.

Uhhhh….

1. How do you know which employee(s) recorded the incident?
2. Was the person who uploaded the video to the internet site the same as the person who recorded it?
3. How do you know that “Charm Hackett” is the fired McDonald’s employee?

I’m just passing along info from another blog – and a post there that you’ve commented on.

4. Why do you assume that what “Charm Hackett” says on the tweet was the motivation of the two female attackers? The assertion by “Charm Hackett” that the victim was a man, not a woman was not voiced (that I could hear) during the recorded assault. In fact, one male voice repeatedly refers to Polis as “she.”

All are questions which the police/prosecutors/jury will have to sort out.
At this point, Charm Hackett’s assertions amount to, in legalese, “some evidence.”
In short, what we know at the moment – even taking Ms. Polis’s statement into account – does not lead to either your analysis or Autumn’s being eligible for the status of the final word on the matter.

Almost anything to stop what was going onThe employee’s salary is irrelevant. Someone was getting gang attacked and he did nothing. And he wasn’t the only one. The entire thing is a travesty.

When was the last time you got involved in a physical fight with strangers?After you call the police about an incident, do you rush to intervene? The last time I heard gunfire directly outside my front door, I didn’t even call the police. And it wasn’t no pop, pop, pop, neither. And no, I didn’t rush outside to check out the scene afterwards. YMMV.
All I’m saying is that online folks are pretty brave and always do the right thing. In real life, sometimes it ain’t always so, no matter how highly we regard ourselves.

“Almost anything to stop what was going on”Can I presume then that you’ve never known anyone who did just that and then wound up getting arrested when cops showed up and, unable to sort things out at the scene, decided to arrest any and all who were involved and then sort it all out downtown?

Source appears to be someone on Free Republic.It’s pretty bad there. Lots of confusion, as to whether to blame the attackers or the victim. So far it’s running at about 5:1. The minority that support the attackers think that the victim should have been killed though.

Do you assume because they are femalethey aren’t carrying weapons? Or that they won’t go home and have their male friends or relations take care of you later after closing time?
How many altercations do you think occur at this particular McDonald’s, either inside the restaurant or in the parking lot on a monthly basis, even if not this violent?
The police had been called. Most employers (most definitely McDonald’s and also most fast food and late-night joints like convenience stores) specifically forbid any intervention on the part of employees.
The beating victim was drunk. No. no. I’m not saying that she deserved a beating. But, sadly, do you think that might have influenced the employees’ reactions?
 

Ok.There were 3 grown men and two women.
I suspect it would not have been difficult to separate the women from the victim and spirit the victim to the safety of a backroom.
Whether it was their duty as employees is certainly not clear.
As decent human beings? Absolutely.  

All participants should be chargedThe vicious young women who inflicted the beating on their victim, the staff and other bystanders who encouraged this beating and did not even take the two seconds of time to call 911 should all be charged for her assault. Shame on them all.

No, there were THREE women involved in this fight, not two.That’s what I mean about assumptions. I’d ask you the same questions that I asked Alvin immediately above your post.

I reject your statement that I have an “analysis” about this event. I haven’t been able to come to a conclusion based on what I’ve read and heard so far.  

The video itselfin unedited form, makes it quite clear that the issue is one of perception of the victim of the assault as a trans person.
It also makes it clear that the motivation for all of this was her using the restroom.
But let’s take away the actual fact that the victim is trans.  Let’s work off what we can determine from the available information thus far.
A woman walked into the McDonald’s. She was slightly inebriated.  She wanted to use the restroom. She was perceived to be trans, due to some aspect of manner, sound, or appearance.
She was then attacked for either using or merely wanting to use the restroom, in a display of violence that continues for at least ten minutes, which is the maximum length for a video upload to YouTube in general, where the file was initially uploaded by someone under the aforementioned name (charm).
It was, subsequently, uploaded to other places, and in all cases, including the original one, the victim is identified as a “man”, and it is clearly stated, again, that the reason for the assault is that they used the restroom.
That’s what due diligence from someone outside of PHB can discern, and you are, of course, free to do the same, rather than simply dismissing a massive amount of stuff that’s already managed to be gone over by other departments and organizations long before it gets put into various national outlets (orhad you missed the fact that the reason this was suddenly everywhere was that it had gone viral?).
In the end, this is, in fact, about the bathroom issue. And, even were it not about such, and even were the victim not actual trans, the issue would still be the bathroom meme, since it is the support of such a concept (that trans people using the restroom are predatory and dangerous) even and perhaps most especially indirectly that enables people to feel that such actions as shown in the video are permissible.
THerefore, even excluding the victim themselves, this video becaomes a very effective tool in vividly demonstrating that the problem with the restroom meme is more related to the safety of trans people than the safety of cis people, unless you want to magically create an example of a trans person doing something similar to a cis person.
Now, iirc, you don’t give any weight to “cis”, which means that you fundamentally posit trans as other, and cis as normative in your general thinking.
Which may explain, in part, why you are so negative here, along with your slow development of a dislike for Autumn.
Flat out: one doesn’t need to twist this to fit some political agenda.  The nature of the agenda is what this video is all about, and the best part is that it comes from a person who is very much into the trans people should not use the restroom mindset.
This video is a powerful tool in the effort to show why things like the Public Accommodations language is critical in anti-discrimination bills, and I’ll take a moment to note that you attacking Autumn regarding it is rather humorous given her active and vocal support of a measure that would have ultimately had no effect on this sort of situation and even potentially been available for use as a defense.
In the end, this video, and this event, which you describe earlier as a ‘second degree assault’ case instead of as a first degree assault with hate crime enhancements, actually serves the purpose, fundamentally, of demonstrating that Autumn was on the wrong side of a debate regarding PA provisions, and had you really wanted to go after her, you would have been wiser to use that angle, as it wouldn’t have put you in the position of seeming to support the actions of the attackers to a sensitive trans population.
Just saying…

I would’ve gone human dhield modeAnd have. But this complete lack of any real concern isn’t terribly surprising. You ask hypotheticals and attack people all you like, the rest of us will be here feeling outraged it happened. And yes I know I could have interfered because I’ve done so before.

Autumn was not on the wrong side of the debate.Passage of HB 235 would have had no impact on this event. We need, and deserve, full civil rights, and we will get them. What is possible in any given time or place is another matter.
Most important is education, because teenagers do not pay attention to legislation. They learn from their parents, church, schools and the street. At the end of the day, that is where change must be had. Legislation can accelerate that, or be responsive to it. Generally both.

How aboutHow about running out and yelling for the manager rather than standing there filming it?  

All participants should be charged Not merely charged but charged with the gravest offense supported by the available evidence including evidence unearthed by some witness sleuthing.
It sure looks like attempted murder on the part of the primary two assailants to me. If only criminal battery is supported by the evidence then the maximum sentence should be imposed – with hate crime enhancement – to deter to others who might consider behaving likewise.
Those employees who egged on the batterers should be liable for money damages in a civil case. To the victim and to the old woman who tried to intercede also. And possibly criminally charged as accomplices.
- by Henry Hall

This.Damn near everyone wants to think that they’d have been the ones who intervene in a hate crime/protect children from abusive parents/hide Jews from the nazis, yet very few people actually do any of that when presented with the opportunity. Of course we can and should criticize the asshole who taped it and posted it for his own amusement. But for not physically intervening? Face it, most people reading this would have done the same.

???  So Dana are you saying that it was the Board who agreed to table the SSM bill and to support stripping PA because that’s not the message I’ve heard. Plus I find that extremely unusual because most boards I have worked with are not that hands on in the day to day decisions of an organization. Are you saying it is different from EQMD? Can you cite proof of that because that is highly unusual.

Those poor victimsIt was horrific how that trans woman beat the hell out of those girls with her body and face like that. The poor girl’s knuckles and feet will probably take a week to heal.

What can be taken from thisReading comments here and on Bilerico, I have a few things that became much clearer.  Let’s start with the facts as I have seen them.
1.) The woman was a post-op transsexual who lives a very private life.
2.) Her brother calls her his sister.
3.) She went into the McDonalds to use the restroom and had no intention to buying anything, at first.
4.) She was confronted by an man before going into the restroom wanting to know if she will be buying anything.
5.) She goes into the restroom, followed by two teenage African-American girls.
6.) One of the girls was supposedly the girlfriend of the man who approached Crissy outside of the restroom.
7.) The girls confronted Crissy for talking to the man, spitting in her face.
8.) Crissy was not silent and did backtalk to the girls.
9.) A fight broke out.
10.) A male McDonalds employee went into the women’s restroom to video record the fight.  Anyone see the hyprocracy in this?
11.) The video made it to YouTube.
12.) The employee was fired and then ranted on Twitter that Crissy was really a man and shouldn’t have been in the women’s restroom . . . which is where he was to record the fight.  This is the point where it changed from an assault from jealous girls to being a trans-related hate crime.
13.) The two girls were arrested.  Crissy sustained injuries.
So, now we see articles about this in PHB and Bilerico and out comes the classic transsexuals/true transsexuals/WBT/HBS/whatever flavor of the week transsexuals bitching and moaning about labels.  I haven’t heard one of them say they reached out to Crissy to comfort her for the trauma she went through.  They only care about their label war where they can once again cry foul on a community they say they don’t want to be part of and who doesn’t count them in the community in the first place.  Crissy has become a non-living, non-breathing symbol for their constant hatred toward other people.  Her welfare is of no concern of theirs.
Well, the people who have reached out to her are the very  people the haters want to put down, the trans community in Maryland.  So, it appears we now see clearly who are the ones who really have true compassion for other and who only think of themselves.

What?Where is the personal attack? Om is questioning the REPORTING of this incident on PHB.  Om is not attacking Autumn.
Also, Om is right. This is a more complicated situation.  One thing I think we can all agree on is that violence like this is wrong.

I love you

False conflationNo antidiscrimination law protects anyone from the determination of a fool to commit a violent act.

Brava!>Stands and applauds Monica<

??What comments here spawned this? I went back and re-read them and didn’t see anyone talking about transgender vs. transsexual.

So, now we see articles about this in PHB and Bilerico and out comes the classic transsexuals/true transsexuals/WBT/HBS/whatever flavor of the week transsexuals bitching and moaning about labels.

Violence At A Baltimore McDonalds Shows A “Bathroom Bill” Meme Can Have More Than One MeaningWhat should be made clear, is that this is how many of the young people today see it as “Solving a problem” I would bet that this is the behavior they see in the schools and in their homes today! Thanks, Tea Baggers you hate is spilling over! Clean it up!

The “Restroom” in question…Is a single stall, only accessible via a key from the staff. Just a single toilet and basin.
So all the things “inside the restroom” actually happened immediately outside.

Confused on the chronology here…Why exactly did those girls follow Chrissy into the bathroom? Was it because they perceived her as trans? Or was it for some other reason?
I’m just trying to figure out when her trans history came into play here… it’s hard to tell from the video.

Blocked ContactIt appears the “contact” function for that McDonald’s has been deactivated?
Anyone else try to send a comment?

ClarificationDanaLane,
I would have to say that most of the comments that have sparked this were on Bilerico, where they don’t really care much when there are trans vs. trans argument.

Confusing at firstThere was no mention of her being trans on the video and Crissy herself in an interview said it was because she talked with the other girls boyfriend.  The trans part of this came out when the employee who videoed this tweeted that “She was a man!”  He turned it into a trans hate crime in his eyes, but it appears from Crissy, that wasn’t the case.

Thanks for the clarification

?Where was that stated?

We will be holding a vigil tonight at that McDonald’s,with the support of the franchisee and the attendance of Chrissy, her family and friends.

palm in facesigh

??I’m ashamed to say that I’ve been in enough chain fast food joints to make this observation, but…
I’m not familiar with any McDonald’s location that has restrooms like that.  The women’s (and, though my knowledge of them ends in the mid-90s, men’s) rooms there are small but always multi-stall (2, maybe 3 stalls.)  Usually, they are either at the back or off to the side (depending on the exact design of the location), with a tiny bifurcated ‘foyer’ that leads to the men’s room on one side and the women’s on the other. I can’t say I’ve ever even seen one with an additional single-stall handicap restroom.
I’ve seen a number of older Wendy’s and Burger King locations that have single-stall facilities (though one each designated male and female); and it seems as though most Dairy Queen locations have them.  
McDonald’s though? That would be news to me.  That’s not saying this location didn’t have one like that, of course.  I just think it would be out of the ordinary at the very least.

That particular layout for a McDonaldscan have either single or two seat capacity, with it most likely being a single seater, given the age of the building.  It is a small frame, urban core shop.
I’ve actually used such ones several times.  And the only reason I know was long ago and far away I was working with an individual who was trying to set up a franchise in Northern Arizona (it eventually went to someone else who then had to do the whole teal arches thing).  Went over multiple layouts and costs for the franchise.

correct.My apologies for the poor phrasing.
Such laws do, however, allow for court usage, and can influence the process of justice.
As you well know
Such laws, however, do have an impact on most reasonable persons, acting as a reason not to do something.  Do murder laws stop people from being murdered?  No.  TO do they give people pause and help them to reconsider, yes.
Consequences can be startlingly convincing.  Which is why I note the value of this video in combating the bathroom meme and the idea of not including PA in such laws.
Now if we can just stop citing sexual orientation and race in situations where the issue is cis and trans, we’ll be doing ok.

Thanks For The Update  This is first that I had read that Chrissy and her family would be there and it has the support of the franchisee. I know there were a lot on many of these sites calling for the heads of the franchisee and all the employees. I hope cooler heads prevail tonight. It’s good to see the franchisee being supportive. I have a previous engagement at 7:30 over on Route 40 not far from the McDonalds so I hope to stop for the first few minutes of the vigil.

Come over and say hello.

Hello

The Video evidence may be excludedMaryland has a controversial “wiretapping” law, that prohibits interception of oral communications via electronic devices such as cellphone cameras, unless both parties consent.
The person who recorded this video may be up on felony wiretapping charges, and the evidence “tainted” so inadmissible. Certainly any half-competent defence lawyer would move for the video to be excluded, and insist on a jury trial by people who have not seen it.
The “alleged” perpetrator along with two others did something very similar to a mother with two children at the same store before, attacking the children as well.
She has many friends in the hood, and the “alleged” victim in that case withdrew all the charges.
If the video is excluded, and with appropriate witness testimony against the two assault victims from the McDonald’s staff… and the lack of severe injury to either victim – the prosecution may be lucky to get misdemeanour assault.

By the victimWho had to obtain a key from the staff, and was told the restroom was only for customers – she had to make a purchase first. That was in the first reports.

Hello  Sorry would have but was only was there few minutes. I would have loved to have met both of the Danas. Dr. Dana I know we haven’t agreed much over the last few months on here or the EQMD page but you have always been very respectful unlike some. Hopefully we will eventually have a bill that won’t cause so much dissension within the community and a strengthened EQMD.

I do interveneI’ve passed that particular test.
I don’t recommend it if you care too much about your own physical safety, as opposed to your own opinion of yourself. Unless you are literally prepared to die in the attempt to save someone else, don’t do it, because although it’s really unlikely, that is a possibility.
It helps if, like me, you’re built sturdily. Not strong, just able to take strong physical blows without too much physical damage (that’s been proven more than once). So I’m not nearly as brave as someone more gracile, who would be in far more danger.
Bravery is not really the right word either. I’m not brave enough to look in the mirror the next day and see someone who didn’t help. No-one else might know, but I would. I couldn’t hide that shame from myself. I would literally rather die (but really, really, really don’t want that to happen either!)
As I said, this has been proven. So far, I’ve been lucky.

Thanks for coming and your words of support.It was a very impressive turnout tonight. Very.

Oh, I SO wish you were joking.But I just know that the perpetrators will have apologists saying exactly that.

YeahI’ve passed that test too but there are also times when I have chosen not to do so. There is a difference between being courageous and being foolhardy. Outnumbered on the subway would be foolhardy.
I’m more brittle as I’ve grown older. That’s why I have so much respect for the woman (about my age) who did intervene.
I can’t judge what others did not do. I wasn’t there.

It Was A Great Turnout  And it was nice to see the Guardian Angels there to act as support. I didn’t realize they were still active. I remember back in the late 80s early 90s they used to come in to The Buttery after the bars closed (I’m dating myself). I remember one of them being hit on by one or two of the guys and had respectful he was just telling them sorry guys I’m straight.  

Personal AttackBy saying this:
“Then be a reporter instead of a cut-and-paster. Don’t regurgitate what everyone else is saying. Stop trying to mold a (so far) second degree assault case to fit your specific political agenda.”
Now, that’s really stretching the TOS.  Seems way more like fairly polite criticism to me.  Then again, actually, it’s more like “looking for a reason” to prohibit someone from commenting from your side.

YesI saw that video of her being interviewed and according to the victim this entire thing happened because one of the girls thought the victim was hitting on her boyfriend.

Murder laws and murder is a wrong analogyEven if you presume that this fight was over bathroom usage, HB235, even with PA and passed this session, would not make illegal what those 2 girls did to Chrissy.  They are individual citizens.  Criminal laws apply to them but not anti-discrimination laws.  Those laws do not tell them anything.  Rather, it tells the business (McDonald’s or any other “public accommodation”) that it cannot discriminate against trans people.  The same is true if the person was gay or disabled.  Anti-discrimination laws do not apply to these 2 girls or any random citizens.
That’s just a clarification.  
By the way, I do agree that enactment of a full trans bill would, over lots and lots of time, impact society for the positive.  But education is where the impact is, if you are trying to change people’s hearts and minds and behaviors.  So, nothing that happened or did not happen this session would have impacted this situation one iota.

It sure wasgreat to see the Guardian Angels. The County cops were great too but I couldn’t get them to trade their silly badges for our “accommodate me” buttons.
Despite all the high profile people that showed up my greatest joy was in seeing the people who live in the neighborhood coming out to support us.
Couples brought their children. That told me someting about the community of Rosedale that the press forgot to mention.

raw power in action

perpetrator along with two others did something very similar to a mother with two children at the same store before, attacking the children as well.
She has many friends in the hood, and the “alleged” victim in that case withdrew all the charges.

Behold, this is what power is. Might makes right.

Fair enoughFYI – The Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office cited a possible hate crimes enhancement under sexual orientation because gender identity is included in the definition of sexual orientation. In my opinion (I did not work on the Maryland hate crimes bill, and I do not support hate crimes law), that is poor legislative drafting but probably the best the Maryland General Assembly was going to do at the time.  The Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office is very much aware of the nuances with regard to gender identity.
Also, I would be happy if the word “cis” fell off a cliff and died. I think it is one of the most useless words in current political language.

Curious howGI is “included under sexual orientation”? I’d have to agree it is poor drafting of the law (I’m also not fond of hate crimes laws, except the par where they provide the means to officially track crimes targeted against a specific group). But, I don’t get how GI and SO are so closely related that “sexual orientation” would cover both.
I’m also curious what term you would use to replace “cis”.. and it isn’t just a “political term” any more than “straight” is…

Replace Trans/Cis with NOTHING.A generation or two ago, we switched to using Ms. instead of Miss/Mrs., precisely to avoid forced revelation of marital status/sexual availability.  Now these people want to create a cis/trans dichotomy to force revelation of medical history/sexual desirability?  
Oh.  Hell.  No.
There’s no Miss/Mrs., just Ms.
There’s no Cis/Trans, just men and women.

Indeed. Beautiful.

Regarding that word we don’t use:I agree with you, but even bringing it up usually prompts responses of the same old same old variety. I find it better to never use it, never explain, never get sucked into the endless arguments over it. It’ll never die completely, probably, but will basically remain in obscurity in academic writings.

Interesting these commentsare on this story…
Let’s say the attack happened because the perpetrator’s perceived the victim to belong to a group that shares a specific trait that is not shared. She is, different. How then, do we voice that trait? How do we talk about specific aspects of having that trait? How do you educate about a thing that must not be named?
Om – I date men. I want my sexual and romantic desires to be unlabeled because I find the use of hetero and homo far to academic and obscure to be useful in any way. I mean they are Greek in origin and polysyllabic.
And you have never used “trans” before Om Kalthoum?

If you really, truly love meyou’ll drop this c*s business right now.

InterceptionHere is an interesting write-up on Maryland’s communication intercept law, although it was specifically written with regard the Linda Tripp episode in the Clinton/Lewinsky sex scandal.  However, much related to this situation can be gleaned from it.  Could the person recording the incident on video be convicted of “wiretapping”?  I don’t think so.  This article points out that the law at no point makes reference to any kind of electronic recording of communication.  It relates to the interception of communication, which would be just as illegal to eves drop on the conversation at the table next to you in a restaurant.  The fact that it was recorded on video has nothing to do with it.
What I read into the law as described in this article are two salient points: 1) interception of communication, and 2) lack of consent from both parties in the communication.  How does that relate to this situation?  Well, in terms of the video, I personally can’t make out much of what is said by the people in the video.  A word here or there is audible, but for the most part, it’s the events and actions that tell the story.  If you can’t hear what people are saying, have you intercepted their communication?  Communication isn’t the sound of a person’s voice but rather the concepts they are conveying.  If you can’t understand the concept, then you haven’t intercepted the communication (unless you want to say that the violence was the message, but I think that’s a stretch.)
The next issue is consent.  If two people are carrying on a private conversation, trying to remove themselves from being heard by others, it is reasonably clear that they want their communication kept private.  If someone is screaming something in a public space, have they not given consent for their communication to be heard by others?  I would say that for someone to not want their communication to be heard, they should take reasonable steps to limit its broadcast to the person they intend to receive it.  If they loudly scream it out in a crowded public space, they clearly have not tried to limit it to their intended party, and have either a) implicitly given consent for it to be intercepted by all who hear it in that space, and/or b) included by their actions everyone in that space as parties in that communication.  Were that not the case, anyone in the state of Maryland reading these words could be arrested for intercepting my communication to you, Zoe.  That clearly would be unreasonable, and made unreasonable by the fact that I distributed the words so broadly in a public space.  The fact that they were being extremely loud in a public space I would say gives the right to anyone standing at a reasonable distance away from them to hear and/or record (intercept) the sounds heard at that distance.
I don’t think he can be convicted for having recorded a loud fight in a public space.  Arrested maybe, convicted no.  Also, given that the video was not gathered illegally, I see no reason that it would not be admissible as evidence in a court of law.
On a side note, I don’t think the imagery evoked by the word “hood” is appropriate to this setting.  Look at the satellite view from Googlemaps of the McDonald’s in question.  This isn’t some dense, crumbling, crime ridden, inner city core.  This is a very suburban, green, spacious, pleasant looking area, with small but well kept homes with ample yards, some on cul-de-sacs, some with built-in pools suggesting at least a moderate level of affluence, and many others dotted with above ground pools.  This might be extreme urban density by Australian standards, but this is not the sort of area we in the US would tend to describe with the word “hood”.  This is about as middle-class America as you can get.  This scene should drive home the point that there are no safe areas and unsafe areas.
A setting more like this a few miles away over in Baltimore is more like I would associate with the word “hood”.

I do.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
~Martin Luther King Jr.

We have an obilgation to ourselves, and to humanity and to communintiy, to behave as human beings.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
~Martin Luther King Jr.

Does it matter?We have a responsibility to by human, Om Kalthoum.
Let’s not give excuses to those who failed to behave humanely. We have a responsibility to protect those the victims of violence, for whatever the reason these folk are the victims of violence.

I’ve come to a conclusion.The victime was a victim of violence, and per the Washington Blade‘s Baltimore rally to protest trans beating:

A police report says the incident began when the two female attackers became upset after seeing Polis enter the women’s bathroom at the McDonald’s. The employee who recorded the incident posted a message on his YouTube site saying Polis was a man dressed like a woman who entered the women’s bathroom.
“And When Told To Get Out Tha ladies Bathroom He Got Smart With Everybody So Tha Two Girls Beat Him Up [sic],” said the employee, according to the website The Smoking Gun, which made a copy of the message before the employee deleted it.
“This is precisely the kind of hatred and bigotry that transgender women and men deal with on a daily basis,” said Caroline Temmerand of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore and Central Maryland in a statement announcing the rally.

And beyond that:

Violence is always unsettling, but the coupling of this brutal attack with the callousness of those who stood by and jeered adds a chillingly dehumanizing quality. That such an incident could happen speaks volumes about the place of transgender people in our society — and about who must bear responsibility. In seeking to understand these horrific events, we must face the facts. Even before this attack, Chrissy had already been deprived of her dignity and humanity by living in a state, and a nation, that denies transgender people the most basic legal protections. In facing this reality, we must acknowledge our own complicity in failing to challenge the pervasive violence and discrimination against transgender people.
Maya Rupert., National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)

Crissy was a victim of antitransgender hate, even if the direct violence against her wasn’t the hate. The video taper of the violence described his hate — there was hate involved in this attack.

*Why*?To the bolded portion, and likely something that will be perceived as baiting or some other such claptrap, but to that portion I have to ask “why?”
Specifically — why do you see the term Cis (be it asterisked, hyphenated, or similar such stuff) as a “useless word” in current political language?
The same thing could be said about Lesbian, about Straight, even about bisexual — but the key to that isn’t the individual’s emotive aspect of such, it is the Why they have an issue with the term that is important.
I’ll note that this issue was heretofore discussed at length ad nauseum once here already.
I can say from professional and personal experience that the term is exceedingly useful — and not merely politically.  It is incredibly important in terms of social justice work outside the political sphere, and has enabled myself and others to reach a broader understanding and proven far more effective at communicating a particular point.
Additionally, I’ll note since someone else has already said it creates a binary, it is only one of several terms — it is not a binary, though its common still not fully enabled or widely examined use doesn’t always present it as such.
This is especially important since the trans population is pretty equally split among the sexual orientations — bisexual, heterosexual, asexual, and homosexual, so “straight” isn’t always an apporpriate term to use in the sense of not trans.
Furthermore, using just “not trans” is a negative description, which is fundamentally flawed, logically — to be an accurate statement it would have to be not something other than this particular kind of thing, and becomes unweidly, and still subject to ready and easy misunderstandings.
I won’t argue the point further with you, personally — this isn’t a question meant to drag you into something.  I’m simply curious about the why you feel that way.  I may be curious to dive into a bit more detail, and ask pointed questions of your response, but I won’t argue against your statement myself.
All of which is to lay out that I’m asking in order to learn why you dislike the term.
You, specifically.  I don’t care about how other people regard its use — it is you, specifically, I’m am interested in the answer of.  And not because of any ulterior motive, either — save that it will serve to inform me of an argument against the use of the term that I may or may not have heard before.

This is inspiring.Could you give an example or two of when you have gotten involved in a fist fight with strangers after verbally trying to stop the fighting and after calling the police? As an older woman, I’d be particularly interested in any fights in which you’ve intervened while you were presenting as a (older) woman.
If you can’t recall any fist fights with strangers as a woman, could you tell us about when you’ve put your employment in jeopardy by directly disobeying an order about the proper procedure for handling a violent work-related incident, perhaps in the Navy?
I am most interested in your experience in these matters, not those of Martin Luther King or Cesar Chavez. Thank you.