
Inalienable Rights
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” MLK
Oregon should strive for what is true equality, and what I view as true is described by MLK as treating people by the character they possess as human beings. So it is in our best interest if we were to guarantee all rights to all people. That includes across any and all fields whether that’s your gender, age, race, or sexual orientation. We need to actively push for equality since people have been treated so poorly throughout our history of this nation when people do not conform to our expectations. This movement for equality doesn't end with a Supreme Court Ruling. It must be clear that everyone must have the same rights as everyone else for one very important reason, they are human too.
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Other rights that are needed to be implemented or protected are:
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Oregon needs to create universal public childcare, with a thriving wage for childcare workers, via a new Child Development Act.
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Create stringent state-wide penalties for revenge pornography blackmail or distribution.
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Pass the Paycheck Fairness Act; We must achieve pay equity for women and people who are assigned female at birth as well as non-binary people.
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Provide at least 12 weeks of paid family leave, two weeks of paid vacation, and one week of paid sick days to all American workers.
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Expand the WIC program and increase benefits for pregnant women and those who are assigned female at birth individuals, and their infants, so that every low-income family receives the nutrition they need to live healthy lives.
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Mandate that hygiene products such as tampons and pads should be available for free in every bathroom that has received state or local funding.
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Address exploitative and predatory offenders in the sex work industry. Protecting our rights for self defence.
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Mandate and fund testing the entire backlog of sexual assault kits possessed by every law enforcement agency in Oregon.
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Fight to end harassment in workplaces, the military, political organizations, and various other institutions.
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Protect women from harassment, discrimination, and violence in educational institutions by protecting and enforcing Title IX.
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Protect a woman’s right to choose, as it is currently viewed as a constitutional right that is protected under the 14th Amendment, and instead focus on socio-economic factors that would decrease the need for a woman to make the choice in the first place.
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Develop and implement fully inclusive public education, PreK-16. Bullying in school can quadruple the likelihood of suicide. LGBTQ students are up to three times more likely than their peers to be physically threatened or assaulted at school and 91% more likely to be bullied or harassed.
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Provide community spaces for students. Oregon schools should be prepared to support students by maintaining clubs fighting for equality such as GSAs and offering more specific school counseling.
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Well rounded history should be included in the public school curriculum to counter the deliberate historical erasure of discriminated people community’s history.
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Students and administrators alike will as Teaching Tolerance advises guarantee that “all school community members have a thorough understanding of the part they play in making their school an environment that welcomes all students.”
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Encourage the federal government to eliminate all anti-discrimination law exceptions that the US military currently receives. This includes but is not limited to a ban on trans service members. Expand all workplace protections to apply to LGBTQ persons.
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Create a homelessness relief program specifically targeting LGBTQ+ youth, who are disproportionately represented in unsheltered populations across the board.
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Ban "conversion therapy" and pressure the federal government to do the same.
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End the “gay panic” murder defense. Homophobia is not an excuse for violence and it is outrageous that the “gay panic” defense is accepted in our criminal justice system and pressure the federal government to end this homophobic justification of murder.
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De-gender (or add nonbinary gender options, where applicable) all public documents.
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De-gender all school dress codes. Guarantee protection from gender-normative discrimination as a result of dress in all workplaces.
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Remove punitive/prohibitive requirements for legal name changes and create fee waivers for ID replacement as the result of a legal name change.
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Mandate that state-funded bathrooms should have non-binary options available to anyone.
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Declare trans murder and suicide rates a state emergency. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than half of transgender male teens surveyed reported attempting suicide in their lifetime, while 29.9 percent of transgender female teens said they attempted suicide. Among non-binary youth, 41.8 percent reported a suicide attempt. Combined with a historically-unprecedented uptick in violence against trans Americans, immediate corrective action on the state level is required.
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Remove “transmedicalist” language from all education materials relating to trans individuals; the “transmedicalist” viewpoint is deliberately antagonistic to nonbinary individuals and is not rooted in any scientific understanding of gender.
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Prohibit firing trans employees for enforcing their gender/pronouns with customers, clients, or other individuals in the workplace.
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Legislate to end “trans panic” murder defense. Transphobia is not an excuse for violence and it is outrageous that the "trans panic” defense is accepted in our criminal justice system.
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Ban intersex mutilation.
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Currently, it is legal in Oregon and in all 49 other states to force trans persons into facilities based on the gender they were assigned at birth when they are incarcerated. This is cruel and unusual punishment and must end immediately.