Seeking further opportunities to demonize Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, conservatives are now attacking her as “radical” because she has advocated for transgender people to have sexual reassignment procedures covered by their insurance:

However, as I discovered today, birth control is not all that Ms. Fluke believes private health insurance must cover. She also, apparently, believes that it is discrimination deserving of legal action if “gender reassignment” surgeries are not covered by employer provided health insurance.

What seems to be lost in these conversations about health benefits is the notion of equity. Criticism that men are trying to make decisions about women’s health is warranted, because a man’s standard for quality of life is different than a woman’s. Consider that men can have as much sex as they want without getting pregnant. It’s a reality of biology, but it also represents a specific advantage men have over women in society. Ensuring women have access to birth control — setting aside the legitimate point that they may take it for health reasons other than avoiding pregnancy — levels the playing field for how they can function in society. It’s no coincidence that women can be condemned as “sluts,” but there’s no comparable word that disparages men for having sex if they want to.

Similarly, sexual reassignment surgery is a procedure that can benefit the quality of life for transgender people. All of us who are not trans (the term for us is “cisgender”) have the privilege of occupying bodies that match the gender with which we identify. Fluke was speaking out against insurers and employers who would label the surgery “cosmetic” or “medically unnecessary,” because such perspectives ignore the hardships transgender people often face when circumstances prevent them from transitioning. Just because we personally don’t need certain medical benefits doesn’t mean others don’t.

This is why there is some legitimacy to the claim that conservatives are fighting a “war on women.” Dictating that “what’s good enough for a man should be good enough for a woman” is selfish and naive, and such a philosophy treats women as second-class citizens by design. That many conservatives are now trying to smear Fluke for being an ally to the transgender community just shows how uninterested they are in respecting difference.

The social justice educator Vernon Wall is often quoted as saying, “Equality is when everyone has a pair of shoes. Equity is when everyone has a pair of shoes that fits.” There’s nothing “radical” about ensuring that all people have equitable access to the same quality of living in our society.

Tammy Aaberg remembers her son, Justin, who committed suicide after experiencing relentless bullying in the district.

As ThinkProgress reported earlier, the Department of Justice found through its investigation that Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District did not properly intervene when its students were harassed for their gender non-conforming identities. In the report, the DOJ profiled 10 current and former students, all of whom experienced verbal and often physical threats because of their perceived gender or sexual orientation and faced mental health and/or educational consequences when the district failed to mitigate the bullying. In most of the cases, the district placed burdens on the bullied student rather than take steps to interrupt the harassment, and in every case, the district had evidence that the harassment continued but did not take further action.

Though the school’s former “neutrality” policy exemplified how LGBT students have been made to feel invisible, these profiles reveal the many ways school administrators inappropriately responded to reports of bullying, allowing it to persist. Here are some examples:

• BLAME THE VICTIM: In many cases, the district discouraged the students from engaging in the gender non-conforming behavior for which they were targeted, compounding the stigma by giving the students the impression they were inviting their own bullying. For example, an assistant principal told Student A’s parents to prohibit him from wearing feminine clothing to school and some staff members even took away some of his feminine clothing, enforcing gender norms.
• TREAT THE SYMPTOMS: Student A was also assigned an escort to walk him to his classes and forced him to change for physical education in the assistant principal’s office, actions which made him feel like he was being punished.
• MAKE BUDGETARY EXCUSES: One school administrator told Student B’s parents the school simply didn’t have the resources to train teachers teachers and students about harassment.
• COMPROMISE VICTIM’S EDUCATION: Student B had to leave class early to avoid his bullies, and often missed homework assignments.
• SHRUG IT OFF: After Student C was tripped on the stairs and called “guy,” “fag,” and “transvestite,” her middle school principal told her to just not let the comments bother her. An assistant principal told Student G, “Boys will be boys and you just have to deal with it” after students accused his father of being a pedophile.
• PUNISH THE VICTIM: When the district’s measures failed to prevent Student D’s harassment, she stopped attending physical education for her own safety and received lunch and after-school detention and a failing grade.
• BURDEN THE VICTIM: Rather than remove his bully from the classroom, the school transferred Student E to a different math class. Similarly, Student F transferred to an entirely different high school just to avoid harassment, but it persisted there as well.
• PLEAD IGNORANCE: The school told Student E there was nothing it could do after he was pushed into a locker because he couldn’t identify the bully and it wasn’t captured on camera.
• ABANDON THE VICTIM: After Student E provided a two page list of harassers, administrators told him and his parents they did not want him in school because the environment was not safe for him. He missed five days, and the harassment continued when he returned. He is now homeschooled.

The administration’s mindset in all of these incidents was a resignation that harassment is par for the course and there is nothing they can do about it. Hopefully, the five-year rehabilitation mandated by the consent decree the district has agreed to will shine light on how to create a learning environment that is safe and welcoming for all students.

Massachusetts Democrats urged Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) to endorse marriage equality as he prepared to host a fundraiser with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) on Monday. “We ask you to use your appearance with Gov. Christie tonight to come out in support of marriage equality and call on Gov. Christie to take a firm stance for equality in his home state,” the lawmakers wrote in an open letter. “Coming out in support of marriage equality tonight would be much more than a symbolic gesture. With the U.S. Senate considering a repeal of Defense of Marriage Act, your support would go a long way toward allowing marriage equality to spread throughout our nation.”

But a Brown spokesperson responded by dismissing the “social issue” and insisting that the Senator is focused on the economy and job creation. “Elizabeth Warren and her supporters are mistaken if they think this election is about social issues. It’s about jobs, and reducing debt and controlling spending,” Brown Spokesman Colin Reed said in an email to the Medford Patch.

As a Massachusetts state senator, Brown voted twice in 2007 to ban same-sex marriage, he opposes the right of gays and lesbians to adopt children, federal protections for LGBT people in the workplace, and has even refused to participate in an “It Gets Better” video with the rest of the Massachusetts congressional delegation.

A group of some 50 people also showed up at the fundraiser to protest Christie, who recently vetoed a bill extending marriage rights to gays and lesbians in New Jersey. Watch their efforts:

A GOP candidate vying for the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Debbie Stabanow (D-MI) in the fall is urging a local town to abandon a legislative effort to protect gays, lesbians and transgender people from discrimination. Gary Glenn, the American Family Association of Michigan president, has written a letter to the city of Mount Pleasant, warning city commissioners that the measure could threaten children’s privacy in “public facilities”:

We’re hopeful that in a time when local governments face many real and pressing challenges, you do not wish to embroil your community in a debate that typically includes homosexual activists’ characterization of Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army and the Boy Scouts as bigots comparable to the Ku Klux Klan, or whether a man who claims to be a woman should have a ‘right’ enforced by city law to share the women’s shower at a local health club with you or your mother or daughter or sister.

“We respectfully urge you not to even consider adopting such a discriminatory and volatile proposal which is clearly a solution in search of a non-existent problem, intended only to advance homosexual activists’ drive to have homosexual behavior and cross-dressing defined by law and endorsed by city government as the moral, social, and legal equivalents of immutable characteristics such as race, ethnic background, and sex.” [...]

“On behalf of our supporters in Mt. Pleasant, we urge you not to adopt such a discriminatory ordinance, which has proven in other jurisdictions to be used to violate the civil and religious free speech rights…and which also poses a threat to the privacy rights of women and children in public restrooms and other public facilities.”

Glenn “led a similar effort in Holland, where the city council eventually rejected the ordinance,” MLive reports.

Anoka-Hennepin, the largest school district in Minnesota, has come under criticism for its history of anti-LGBT policies that likely contributed to the suicides of  eight students over just two years, and now a Department of Justice investigation has concluded that the district was indeed negligent in its handling of student harassment. With the release of its findings, the DOJ filed a complaint against the district, joining two private student harassment lawsuits so it could help facilitate the consent decree settlement agreed to last night.  After interviews with over 60 individuals, the DOJ found that the district failed to properly intervene to protect students and prevent further harassment:

In  sum,  students in the District experienced and reported verbal and physical sex-based harassment because of their gender nonconformity.  Male students in the District report that they are called pejorative words such as “girl,” “he-she,” “fag,” or “gay” on a daily basis because of their failure to conform to male stereotypes.  Likewise, female students report being called pejorative words such as “manly,” “guy,” or “he-she” regularly because of their failure to conform to female stereotypes.  In addition, District students have faced death threats and other threats to their physical safety because of their gender nonconformity.  Furthermore, students have also regularly experienced physical, verbal, and non-verbal conduct that constitutes sexual harassment.  The District knew or should have known about the sex-based harassment and either failed to respond at all or failed to respond appropriately  and adequately  to the harassment and  prevent its recurrence.

Last month, the district took its first step in the right direction, by replacing its gay-censoring “neutrality” curriculum policy with language geared toward respecting students’ identities. Per the consent decree, the district has agreed to a five-year rehabilitation plan with the DOJ and Department of Education to truly create a safer environment for students. The requirements of that agreement include:

• Retain the Great Lakes Equity Center, an equity assistance center based at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis to provide a comprehensive, systemic review and recommend revisions to district policies and practices related to sex and sexual-orientation related harassment.
• Fully investigate reports of harassment; escalate remedial efforts through additional measures when students are harassed on a repeated basis; and mitigate the effects of harassment that occurs.
• Take proactive measures to address the hostile environment.
• Develop procedures for parental notification while maintaining sensitivity to a student’s right of privacy relating to their real or perceived orientation or gender identity.
• Hire a district-level, harassment-prevention official who will help lead the district’s efforts to “eliminate and prevent future instances of harassment in its education programs and activities.”
• Work with the Equity Center, Title IX /Equity Coordinator to develop improved and effective trainings, consistent with best practices, on harassment for all students and employees who interact with students.
• Ensure that a counselor or other qualified mental health professional to be available during school hours for students in need.
• Hire a mental health consultant to review and assess current practices in the district relating to assisting students who are subject to harassment.
• Strengthen its annual anti-bullying survey.
• Enhance a recently formed harassment-prevention task force to advise the district regarding how to best foster a positive educational climate.
• Work with the Equity Center to identify hot spots in district schools where harassment is most problematic, including outdoor locations and on school buses, and work with the equity consultant to develop corrective actions.

The district plans to tap $500,000 to implement this agreement. In addition, the district’s insurance will pay out a total of $270,000 to the six current and former students named in the lawsuits. One school board member, Kathy Tingelstad, voted against the decree and resigned in protest, arguing it cost too much and that the district had been “drug through the mud” by the “out-of-state bullies” who brought forth the complaints.

Rep. Michele Bachmann — the woman who in 2004 described the gay “lifestyle” as “sad” and “part of Satan” — feigned ignorance at the harshness of her own anti-gay rhetoric and told CNN’s Piers Morgan last night that “the rhetoric is far worse against people who stand for traditional marriage. If anyone gets attacked in this country, it’s people who stand for traditional marriage”:

MORGAN: Yes. But you see, I was also taught to respect and be tolerant towards people who didn’t agree with those beliefs. And I think that America, with this movement on gay marriage and so on, just has to come a time when people who have strong religious beliefs, like you, like Kirk Cameron, actually show people like the gay community tolerance and a bit of slack, and say, I don’t agree with it, but nor am I going to demonize you. That’s all I’m getting at.

BACHMANN: I would like to see the lack of demonization for those of us who stand on sincerely held religious beliefs. It’s overtime. That’s where you see the demonization of people who stand on their beliefs.

MORGAN: So respect on both sides is what we need to get to?

BACHMANN: Of course.

Watch the segment:

Bachmann also stuck up for actor Kirk Cameron, who has come under fire for telling Morgan that gay people are “unnatural.” “You just brought up Kirk Cameron right now and his comments. He’s the one who is getting trashed right now,” she said. Asked to respond directly to Cameron’s comments, Bachmann dodged the question and tried to end the discussion: “Honestly, I think I have had enough of the conversation. I think it’s time to move on. I think we have beaten this horse to death.”