Local ACLU joins suit against El Cajon Crunch Fitness Center
By Anna Daniels
It is hard, if not impossible, to maintain awareness and then do something about the constant erosion of civil rights of minority populations in our country. The Trump administration never sleeps when it comes to undermining current laws or attempting to supplant them with cruel new ones, the Constitution be damned.
Recent news, both locally and national have underscored the degree to which transgender women and men sustain some of the worst weaponized bigotry and intolerance imaginable. They are paying with their lives, their employment opportunities and their ability to simply exist in society–you know, the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness guaranteed to each one of us.
For too many of us, California exists as some egalitarian dream, with values that recognize and protect all citizens and promote tolerance of differences. The reality is far different and we don’t have to look outside of San Diego County to see it. Consider what is happening at our border, or Duncan Hunter’s successful re-election campaign that has been described as the most baldly racist in the country.
Going to an El Cajon fitness center while trans becomes a flashpoint
Working out at a gym is usually a pretty straightforward activity. Maybe you pay a membership or one time use charge and then you have access to the gym’s equipment and facilities. Christynne Wood, a transgender member of El Cajon Crunch Fitness, has found herself caught in locker room hell at the gym, where she has been denied access to women’s bathrooms and locker room.
She explains her situation in the video below. The San Diego-Imperial County ACLU has joined a State lawsuit against the fitness center for discrimination and harassment.
Transgender participation in the military
The Trump administration now wants the Supreme Court to take up his proposed ban of most transgender individuals from military service. Back in July of 2017 he released a tweet announcing his reversal of an Obama administrative policy that permitted openly transgender individuals to serve and receive funding for sex-reassignment surgery. Four separate courts have already blocked his actions, but the issue has recently re-surfaced.
Trump essentially wants to jump to the head of the line by combining the lower court cases and proceeding directly to the Supreme Court for a decision this current year. Keep an eye on this one.
Death in a privately run immigration detention center
Roxsana Hernández Rodriguez, 33, a transgender woman from Honduras, died on May 25. Her autopsy reports the cause of death as several days of severe untreated dehydration. The Daily Beast article also discloses the details from a second autopsy which “found evidence of physical abuse, with ‘deep bruising’ on her hands and abdomen, evidence of blunt-force trauma ‘indicative of blows, and/or kicks, and possible strikes with blunt object.’ An accompanying diagram illustrated long, thin bruises along Hernández Rodriguez’s back and sides, as well as extensive hemorrhaging on Hernández Rodriguez’s right and left wrists, which Dr. Sperry found were ‘typical of handcuff injuries.’”
Roxsana Hernández Rodgriuez has become yet another name added to the long, wrenching list of human beings murdered for their sexual identification, often with impunity.
Roxsana died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
“She journeyed thousands of miles fleeing persecution and torture at home only to be met with neglect and torture in this country’s for-profit human cages,” Free said.
Roxsana’s death is on us. Do we deserve impunity?