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LGBTQ+ Politics
CO Representative Diana DeGette: LGBTQ+ People Are Not Going Back!
Trans voters who survive these attacks will always remember who was silent and complicit and who spoke up when it mattered
Dear Representative Diana DeGette,
A little over two years ago, my wife and I moved to Colorado from North Carolina to feel safer as two transgender people. Though I was overcoming a lot of life challenges, I was full of gratitude for the way that Colorado embraced us as we arrived from a place where legal discrimination could have put our careers and even our lives in danger. Since I left North Carolina, a lot has changed there, and some things have stayed the same. A “Don’t Say Gay” law passed. Since I worked as a secretary in the public school system there, that would have spelled the end of my career. The Gay and Trans Panic Defense remains in place there, so someone could receive a lesser sentence there for assaulting or killing me, if who I am scared them enough.
During some of the time we lived in North Carolina, there was a Bathroom Bill (HB2) in place that could have required us to show our birth certificates to determine which public restroom we belonged in. As someone who looks like a man, my unchangeable Ohio birth…
