 So we have, first of all, Tommy Calvert Jr., who is the co-founder and general manager of KROV Community Radio, and they lined up in alphabetical order. Lauren Ferris, who is a member of Kaosa, a fantastic photographer videographer, and a transgender activist who's been in the community for a long time. Next to Lauren, in a wonderful bow tie, is Maria Salazar, Chicana Lesbiana activist, child advocate, family law attorney, and friend to many, many of us, another who's been in for a long time. And finally, Alicia Torres, an amazing activist who's been working with a group called Latuya, doing immigrant rights as well with the Dreamers, and the great work being done by undocumented young people in San Antonio, but also nationally and international work. And they had an amazing event today as well. So now I would like to ask all of you to just share a little bit more about who you are, about how, you know, the work that you do in the community from your perspective, because I just gave a little piece, and also if you could kind of answer the question of why are we here. We're here partially because San Antonio is considering revisions to its non-discrimination ordinance to add in sexual orientation, gender identity, and veteran status, but really that's just a little, little piece in a very long struggle to protect people from all kinds of discrimination in our community. So we want to talk about the big picture at the same time as we talk about what's happening right now. So, Sheriff, for us, this is 2013. What is the current status of discrimination and human rights in general in San Antonio? Thanks. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. It's great to see a lot of friends here, and I want to thank Graciela and Esperanza Cinder and Amanda and all the panelists for joining and all of you for joining with us tonight for, I think, a historic conversation for our city and for Texas and for the nation. I am Tommy Calver Jr. I am, as I said before, the general manager and the janitor at KROP. They would all. And I have a morning show at the radio station. We're at San Antonio Community Radio from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and I'm very proud that some of you in the audience have been on that show where we talk about community issues. That's the powerful thing of urban radio, is that it is connected to the realities of what people are going through, not just Britney Spears' latest South Burse. And so, we will talk about the mandabytes in Britney Spears. That's okay, but we try to be of more substance and have more help to build bridges in our community. And as you can see, I happen to be African-American, and so the issue of homophobia within the African-American community is a big one. It is one that we deal with on a very regular basis on our show and we try to build bridges in understanding through mass media. We were founded after Clear Channel cut off the only urban radio station in San Antonio when the number one urban radio show host, Tom Joyner, said he was going to support the president, Barack Obama, back in the 08 primary. They cut him off the next day, so go figure. So we formed as a community to say that we need to have a voice and so our call letters, KROV, stand for restore our voice. And that voice is not just the voice of the African-American community, but it is the voice of the gay community, the voice of the Hispanic community, and the voice of people to be able to have a presence on broadcast FM airway. So my background is actually in international relations and economics with a specialty in global conflict and negotiation. And part of the reason that I'm here is because I believe that man's greatest challenge on this earth is to be able to live side by side with his fellow man to be perfectly honest. That's part of the reason why I did a concentration in global conflict. Whether it's the biggest issue that I'm working on right now deals with discrimination is the economic apartheid that is within our governmental entities with the same families keep getting the money in this town and entrepreneurs are left out of the robustness of our municipal and other quasi-government entities. That has to change. So we've been fighting very hard through a new coalition, a fair contracting coalition to make that happen. So you asked a ton of questions, so I'm not going to answer all of those. I'm going to move the mic down just to say that I am here as someone who can be a Bill Bridger to communities that have natural alliances but are sometimes driven into division by misinformation by what I believe are sometimes big business interests that don't want to see the acceptance of rights to gay Americans, transgender Americans because that acceptance of rights would lead to monetary sacrifices in their mind. And so I hope we get into that a little bit tonight about the hidden agenda of who funds some of the conservative movement and why. Again, my name is Lauren Ferris and for this ordinance and with CAUSA I excellent represent transgender education network of Texas and I'm also president of the San Antonio Gender Association which is a local organization that serves as support and advocacy group for the transgender community in San Antonio. Last weekend as an advocate and I travel around the state sometimes last weekend was the Texas Transgender Non-Discrimination Summit in Houston, Texas and we went and sometimes it's very it's a very big conference and a lot of people present and we learn a lot but sometimes to hear about what's going on in other places around the state is very disconcerting because you think that San Antonio is being progressive and they were moving forward and I met this woman and we were talking and she said she was from Brownsville and I said oh things in the valley have really been difficult. She goes yes but you know that for the city of Brownsville we are our city employment is now fully inclusive including gender identity and it took my breath away and when the city council voted on it, it was unanimous. Really? So that's where we are and that was one of your questions. Where are we in San Antonio? We're way behind almost 180 municipalities nationwide include sexual orientation and gender identity 17 states in the District of Columbia and San Antonio is way behind, lagging behind as Tommy put it earlier, we're at the back of this train and we really are and it's time for us to move forward sexual orientation is currently covered by the city of San Antonio in employment non-discrimination but not gender identity or gender expression. In fact, there's never been a policy or an ordinance in the city of San Antonio that covered gender identity, that covered the transgender community so as far as we are concerned and I'll own that as far as I am concerned, this is a discrimination city there are still second class citizens who have never been recognized as anything else so that's why I'm here and I'm going to go ahead and pass the microphone on and we will get more into this I'm sure as we move along Hi everybody, my name is Maria Salisa and I'm happy to have a full audience here so my hope for this evening is that we can have a conversation about our personal experiences and about what we can do to make our city and our community a better community. Some of you know that I came to San Antonio in 1997 I moved here with my co-pagnetta of now 18 years and this was one of the first places that I had visited in fact, one of the reasons I thought San Antonio was a good city to move to from San Francisco was because this city had three things that I needed one was a decent coffee shop which is no longer here the other is that there was an arts community and there was a thriving arts community and the third is that there was an activist community that had a vision for progress for a progressive vision where everyone is included and so I moved here we moved here because my partner's father had gotten very ill and we moved here to help take care of Lafamea like Mexican daughters that we are that's what you did, you came back home to take care of your family and I ended up staying here and I worked for the astronauts for many years I consider myself an activist first an advocate second and an attorney third I do work here in San Antonio as an attorney I practice as a family law and I have found myself practicing child advocacy I represent children who are in a foster care system or represent parents who are trying to get their families back together and I see everything I see everything we see integration issues we see substance abuse issues we see domestic violence issues and I can tell you that there is discrimination that happens with families because a child may not be expressing themselves the way we've been socially constructed to express ourselves or because a mother is a lesbian and she's afraid to leave a relationship because she's realized who she is and she's afraid to leave a marriage and afraid to leave her children and so find yourself in a pendant what is a court system going to say if they fight for custody so I see a lot of issues coming up I'll show a personal experience hoping that we get into dialogue and conversation about some of the confusion and misunderstanding that's out there I have a sister who's two years younger than I am and we look a lot alike and when I was five when we were going to school my mom had these two of these ribbons and it always struck me that at such a young age my mom did two different things with that ribbon she took the ribbon and she hide little bow ties on my sister little pink tail with little bow ties and when she came to dress me to get us ready for kindergarten she made a bow tie and there's a picture floating around there and the family are ties and I think you know and I love that bow tie and I think as a parent my mother was able to nurture who I was and recognize who I was and I think that's what really this ordinance is all about to each other and recognizing who we are and that we need to come from a power place to be the very best that we can I'll tell you that my work with children is that with an old teacher the people who tell the truth son los locos y los niños las personas que dicen la verdad son los locos y los niños will tell you the truth and children can look right through you and the way I live my life is that this is what I'm comfortable I'm comfortable in a suit I'm comfortable in loafers you know put me high heels and I'm going to trip all over the place put me in a dress and I'm going to look like I just came from the crazy house you know because I look like I'm not comfortable you might as well put me in a dress whereas you know other people have but I'm a woman and I identify the best and the best that I can do is to look at life in a dress when I go to court and this is how we need to be out I shared earlier in a meeting with Shirley Gonzalez that San Antonio has come a long ways I was licensed to practice law in 2007 when I started practicing law here in their county there's just local rules and the local dress code for attorneys it's much more so the dress code for attorneys is just along with respect to business attire but you look to 1990 1985 the dress code for women was very gender biased women had the worst curves so you know when you look at that it's like a lot of progress has been made and so I think I'm able to walk into the courthouse and live my life honestly and challenge those notions of what gender is what sexual orientation is and who we are and I think that's what this ordinance is about is recognizing that we have different ways of expressing ourselves we love our communities and however that comes out that's how it comes out and for some that's not okay and we need to have those protections in place so we need guidance and we'll talk a little bit more about this particular ordinance but when I say we need guidance we need to be very clear and have a dialogue of what does it mean to be gender what does it mean to have sexual orientation what does it mean to be how you express yourself in that way and I'm hoping that we can recognize the cross sections of that in terms of how race plays into that how class plays into that how language how our status when I mean status I mean veteran status or your mental health status those are all things that cross one another and we need to be aware of that racism, classism racism in particular looks very different than it is than what it looked like in 1965 what it looks like today and I'm looking across the room here and I see a lot of activists here so this ordinance it didn't happen overnight this particular ordinance people have been working on for the last two years the issue of civil rights the issue of discrimination people have been struggling and dealing with this for decades and Antonio has great history when it comes to activism and civil rights the ordinance is a big part of that history and you know I just want to see different faces here you know Ravelos, Mike Rodriguez Guadiz and Gilbert Garcia you know just all of us have a role in this and the struggle continues and we need to keep pushing forward so I'm hoping that we can have that dialogue and understand why we need to have this ordinance go through and when we talk about where we are you know we have a very we are in the worst district when it comes to law we have the most conservative laws we have terrible rulings and when I was in law school we would hear things like oh this case is from Texas I'm glad to go I'm going to be back but when I say checkered I see family law and what I see is we need children we need to be nurturing homes and if the relationship is the same sex couple who cares this is going to be if Taz is going to grow up love but it's not in the legislature all of us who are social work with our teachers or parents and so we need to codify this we need to put this in law this is what we see the local rules are changing we're talking about the city ordinance what's the next level I want to see the commissioners adopt such a policy I want to see family law change so that there's no discrimination or identity or sexual orientation very well this is just a start when I say checkered we got some good policies we got some bad policies but this is where we need to focus to make a very clear message San Antonio is not a city that's going to discriminate and that we are embracing and accepting of the rich communities that we have here my name is Elisa Torres and I am part of La Tuya for the Texas Undocumented Youth Alliance the work that I do definitely is we did start around the work that I'm a part of started around 2001 with the big push for the DREAM Act and why not however we've definitely evolved since then and definitely I am part of a group on the national level we belong to the National American Youth Alliance and definitely part of a group that wants to expand the conversation of past the DREAM or past the perfect when we think DREAMer we definitely associate with cap and gown cap and gown from both high school 4.0 GPA Val Victorian out to college and whatnot we think of it that way because here in Texas since 2001 however the reality is that over 64% of undocumented youth actually aren't able to go to college this is across the nation aren't able to go to college because either they live in a state that doesn't provide the situation or they even some youth here in Texas even within situation they're just not able to go to college because they have to help provide for the family and hard economic times and whatnot so part of my job in one that I'm very proud of and say very seriously is expanding the conversation expanding the image of a DREAMer you know we hear that we're all DREAMers our parents came here they were our continued to be we'll always be the original DREAMers they so we definitely part of the work of Latuya is expanding the conversation and handing over a space in the table for our parents for domestic workers, for the day labor for those folks that don't speak English for those folks that are normally spoken for but never asked how they view how they feel if they even support any type of legislation that would directly affect them so that is the work that I do to focus a lot on fighting those we, I should say we, we are a team on fighting those deportation cases that are not cookie-cutters, the deportation cases of a youth who might have had you know an issue with the law because we're not all perfect sometimes it's difficult it's difficult to be undocumented and you know we like to advocate for the parents who doesn't have who hasn't been here for 20 years who might not have might speak English who's not caring around the American flag we believe that everybody deserves to be fought for and so we're there for that and definitely to educate our community as far as what the rights are because it's only after you learn that you can fight back that you become empowered and so we just want to be a tool we're not there to tell them to be empowered hello, okay so it's really about about that we just want to be a tool in acknowledging the privilege that we have in that we were brought here as youth that we know English that we have learned the few basic rights that we do have you know and basically making a right for our parents it might take a long time but we're here to, at least I should speak for myself and for I know I can speak for I can speak for them but our group is based around so definitely expanding the conversation and giving a space on the table for our parents and for the rest of the undocumented community that does tend to be looked over and definitely spoken for now as far as where we are here in San Antonio I think it's very reflective when we have a mayor and a representative that both come from a very proud of and those that are coming from an immigrant family an immigrant community, an undocumented grandmother but yet here in Texas, here where we currently live, we have the highest number of deportations you know we had a representative that took him over 10 days to get him to sign a letter of support for nine undocumented youths who have been sitting at Ilois detention center in Arizona and so it's taking us I think that's very reflective of where we're at this is someone who in the public eye is the same day that the deadline for the sign on support letter was going on, he was in Houston in a forum in support of CIR but yet he couldn't somehow put a signature or make a call to Ilois and so definitely it's not hard and yet the struggle continues I mean it's hard and the struggle does continue and it's been long and you know there's always going to be something new but I definitely think that something very important that we mentioned here is that we're here and I'm here to today hopefully to engage in this conversation and to see through this to learn about those interactions because something that I've come to learn along the way is that really we're never getting passed until we learn to work together and the only way that we do that is when I made your cause my cause, how does your cause affect my cause and that's in the sense of like I believe that what you're doing is right and I want to stand in solidarity what does solidarity mean learn to recognize that what's happening to Lauren that discrimination happens to me too that it's going to affect me that if I want a better world for me and for my nieces, nephews, whomever then I need to make it happen I need to be an active part of that change The struggles internally begin for that struggle by that I mean we've been doing this for a long time I've been involved for at least 18 months December 2011 or January 2012 I think was the first meeting that I went to and the proposal at that time was to amend some ordinances and I'm going to talk about what those are in a moment but wish to amend the ordinances and then as that group began meeting domestic partner benefits were a surprise to the group but the group agreed that the organizations were represented and brought together there should all support the ordinances and use our effort to support the ordinance to support domestic partner benefits and then use that effort to springboard into changing the ordinances and that sort of thing and so we moved through that we moved through conversations of what does fully inclusive mean what does what is negotiable and what is not negotiable mean we very early on a group of people met with a city official and there was some question about whether or not gender identity or expression were negotiable whether or not those could be taken out and the group worked through that that's not even a conversation anymore with Incauza everyone realizes and everyone represents the fact that it's fully inclusive or it's none and every and every city council meaning we've had with every city council person one of the questions we ask of them is are you supportive of ensuring that there's one vote for sexual orientation in gender identity not two and we try to extract that commitment from them that those two absolutely will not be separated so before I talk about the next steps of Incauza I'd like to recognize Dede Belmatis and Dan Graney I know they're in the audience somewhere I don't know where they are but I can't see anyone but they are the current co-chairs and they became co-chairs in January of 2013 and at that time the proposal was made that instead of just changing the ordinances we should have an omnibus type bill but that I mean should be a full HRO human rights ordinance it should supersede all of the existing ordinances and it should include a human rights commission it should include a citywide INDA Employment Non-Discrimination Act as well as all of the other ordinances that are currently being proposed and we began to propose that and then the city and one of the city council people or multiple but the mayor and others said no we need to do this as a three-step process we need to do this as the ordinances we're going to change the ordinances and we're going to codify them and there are five ordinances somebody's going to have to help me with as I name these they are boards and commissions city contracts city employment is included housing public accommodations and I don't know if any of you know but there is no city ordinance in the city of San Antonio that protects you and your employment if you had an issue with many many cities municipalities around the country have city ordinances that protect employment city of San Antonio does not so those five ordinances the current proposal currently city employment is by administrative directive from the city manager the city manager has directed that sexual orientation be a part of the equal opportunity statement of city employment that would be put into the city code as with the other ordinances all put into the city code instead of being individual standalone ordinances then once those are passed then we would move into getting a human rights commission and eventually a citywide an employment non-discrimination which if you don't know is one of the biggest not the biggest issue for the trans community very typically and things are getting better but better doesn't mean they're anywhere near good in the trans community as people come out in their 20s or 30s generally they're married men or women who are intending to transition into a target gender other than their birth gender and part of that sequence often is they lose their spouse their family their job not necessarily in that order their housing and so on we have trans people in this community in San Antonio who when they came out lost their job and may very soon be homeless here in the city of San Antonio it happens every day and the only place in the city that openly accepts transgender people where they can live as who they are and again some things are getting a little better but the only place that currently accepts them openly is the Carson House Carson House is intermediate housing run by the San Antonio AIDS Foundation oh did I mention there's a little catch to get in there you have to be HIV positive and there are I have had I had a trans woman tell me about oh 9 10 months ago that it was really easy to get in there because that is a really good place to live all she had to do was quit using condoms for a short time so those are the kind of things that happen in the trans community in San Antonio and that's why do changing these ordinances make it better absolutely because many places in this city that provide shelters etc receive city money and because city contracts is in there some of that begins to get fixed and gives us leverage to move at least a little bit forward with beginning to get it for it to get fixed would I rather have an HRO right now right away absolutely I as so partner of 31 years along with my 26 year old son who was spoken before city council and I'm sure they would love for me to quit spending so much time in advocacy I know my son travels with me often to speak and is often moved but I'm sure they too will be glad when mom can be home again it's been a long road we've never been recognized never been recognized in this city and it's long, long, long overdue that's a very brief overview of Causa I may have missed some important points here and there but I think for the most part what's to be loaded on in August is rolling that the five ordinances into city code updating them to include sexual orientation gender identity veteran status changing handicap to disabled and some other wording and changes and we've recently learned that boards and commissions which is one of the ordinances to be changed there are some wording in there and we basically always supported being changed or removed and that is that no past spoken or deed of discrimination if that occurred then basically you couldn't hold a board of commission I mean I believe that is going to be removed so I'm sure there will be further questions that I can answer but I think that gives us at least a brief overview Before the meeting we were a little early and I don't know if you saw the fire set in the mail that I was on the panel she googled something but this council person asked me so what do you think of the non-discrimination ordinance so we had a conversation and support of course of the changes that you're working toward and I want to give you some insight into what their thought process is because some of the arguments I hadn't seen in some of my research prior to coming here that you all are addressing to the council so the main crux of this council person's concern was about business this council person said well if a business owner has a personal belief that they don't believe in serving let's say they're a flower shop and there's a transgender couple that's having a wedding and they don't want to serve that couple and they have business in the city and it's out there that this is a company that doesn't do that then these businesses are worried about the stigma and the loss of money and all of the fallout that might come and that was kind of the central argument in terms of that council person's concern wasn't so much on the the morality issues that you hear sometimes and all those other kinds of religious right arguments it was on money and the ability for businesses to continue to make money off of the city while still being able to win against people that they didn't like so this community has to do its part to educate and raise the understanding to raise those issues and make sure that council people I don't know if you'll be able to persuade some council people some folks you just can't win over but as long as you get your six votes you got your order that's what's important to remember but I think that the most important thing are conversations like this this past week I called the general manager of PBS the new general manager because this town this sometimes it is like a little cthulhu around here but this city this city really lacks a strong robust urban issue dialogue and TV on radio in our mass media when I lived in Boston for seven years I lived in Los Angeles, Washington DC and there are it just is very surprising to me that our television stations, our broadcasts entities don't have a more robust conversation other than mine other than K.R.V right I'm not included absolutely yes yes so I was approaching PBS about putting together on TV and it partly was driven by the Trayvon Martin conversation because of the image that black youth had in the minds of George Zimmerman they got me thinking we need to have more people who are the community in our broadcasts and our mass media represented showing positive images and that too is also a challenge in this debate for the LGBT community to get involved in the media to show yourselves there to have a regular conversation not just when we have a rally not just when there is a something to cry out about but a continued presence so that in essence the broad community that has been so discriminatory understands we are all people and that's the bottom line and we want to be treated like everybody else so I think that where San Antonio is in terms of issues of discrimination I really feel we are 30-40 years behind whether it's the issue of the fact that as I said earlier the same families keep getting the money or we just keep finding ourselves I actually think yes San Antonio is diverse but I think there is a veneer of diversity that is almost I guess you call it a chamber of commerce veneer everybody is happy and everything is okay and it's not it's not we have a lot of economic disparities we have social disparities that this city tries to take a whitewash and forget about and that's why these conversations are so important and so just in terms of encouraging this ongoing dialogue it's important to do what you've done so give yourselves a big round of applause for being a part of the change you being here is a big difference and I forgot your other question was there another question okay let me pass the mic and I had as we have this conversation I really want to talk about visibility you know I live on the south side of District 5 and there isn't a day that doesn't go by especially in the last couple years where I see such a variety of families and the other night I was driving home from HEV on military and I was on probat and I saw this these two young women about 17 holding hands and a couple nights later I met military and I saw I was watching these two young boys they were about 15 there's something a little bit different about them my partner and I were waiting for the light to turn and they turned around and they kissed each other and I had the same thought in both those instances when I saw these two young couples my thought was I hope they don't get the crap be that and I hope they grow up you know to pursue whatever it is they want to do I was happy first I was happy I was like oh my god these guys are so brave and they were out and they were you know they're on the south side they're working class and you know they're in the neighborhood that I know that has you know we have long time workers there we have working class individuals we have you know from the work that I do and the neighbors that I talk to you know undocumented and everyone gets along but I just you know I have this here it's like I hope they're okay and I want them to be you know get the education they want and that's why I'm here is to give them hope and recognize them that they can be proud of their background so so I think what you were talking about it's like if we're here we also need to be part of the dream act you know this is a movement not just about civil rights but it's about cultural rights it's being able to speak the language you know comfortable and it's about being able to listen to the music we want without any you know repercussions from your cranky old neighbor down the street who doesn't like the way the neighborhood has changed because I see that so so that's where I think we you know we need to keep that in mind when I think about those two young they're working at the manufacturing you know Miller Curtin or you know just down on and you know that's why we need to be here and advocate because because they're visible and it's about community and being good to one another and honoring one another so I'll just pull this at that I just want to add one important point you know I talked a bit about the need to address whatever those business policy issues are the council person was concerned about the details of who would be documenting the discrimination all kinds of questions that this council person had about how the as they put it the devil of the details I don't think that and I know this community won't that we can see the moral high ground on this communication debate either I am was at a place for life church on Sunday talking about the Trayvon Martin issue and I told the congregation there that when I was the head of the American anti-slavery group in Boston working to create awareness about the genocide in Sudan I had a great left-right coalition I had Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton that I worked with I didn't put them in the same room together but I learned from both of them and what I learned is that we liberals and progressives we tend to be very policy oriented very policy heavy and conservatives tend to look at a culture and they tend to look at the framing of that culture and I think the answer of moving a policy of moving things forward is synthesis of both I think you need both and a couple of years ago we bought Reverend Dr. Michael Eric Dyson to Martin Luther King Academy and I'll never forget that there had MLK Academy Dr. Dyson who we all see on TV commentating on different issues of our day he as a minister that we have to be accepting of our gay brothers and sisters from a theological perspective because who are we as human beings to put a limit on God's love we as human beings cannot dictate to God that he loves one over the other that God loves us all that God we are all creating in God's image and so I think that that moral speaking is important as you go forward to persuade minds persuade legislators change hearts keeping the conversation going and that you can even meet people where they are in their faith perspective or what they they think is their faith perspective so I know we want to get to questions really quickly but I have to make a comment since you brought him up I wouldn't have mentioned it Pat Robertson this week Pat Robertson made a comment about trans people that he was asked the question about should a minister discriminate basically against a transgender person in their congregation and he said no he said no he should accept them as they are and love them for the man or woman that they are becoming they are becoming but that's a fact because coming from Pat Robertson you have to really understand that what he's doing is supporting the gender binary the only reason that he would say that's okay is because it supports his vision of the world and his vision of binary men or men and women or women if they look like they're supposed to look then it's okay and I think we have to get below that veneer and see what even when people say something that sounds like they support us they don't necessarily Alisa would you like to say a few more words before we open it up yeah definitely sure just very fast because I definitely think this is our space you know to learn how we can move forward and all of us support in this effort to be led by them but something I don't even know how to put it but you know something one of the reasons why I decided to okay yes I'll join I'll come and I'll speak because I really don't like public speaking is the fact that we're bringing it back to the immigration discussion that a lot of a lot of the people that have been at the forefront I dare say the people that actually started the conversation and continued to move the conversation forward and push envelopes within the immigrant movement aren't like the cookie cut politicians on the cookie cut dreamers they have been all, all of them have been members of the LGBTQ community they're not given looking after you know they don't care about being in the media and whatnot but something that does bother me a lot is the fact that they are not given their respect in the sense that whenever something is brought up in legislation and it came to me when you mentioned legislation is they you know that's always the community that seems to be considered the oh let's they're gonna bring us down like they we have to get rid of them you know like they were only good enough to get it to this point and why not you know and it happens in not just immigration conversation it happens in a lot of you know we'll call them social issues that we're trying to move forward and it's not surprise it's not surprising to me and also the things that I always that I've learned you know from my friends that are part of the LGBTQ community and their members is the fact that that oppression has been there for so long that they become so resilient and I can only you know I admire them so so much and going back to you know the legislation is something that we've learned along the ways also is that before we even talk legislation you know before we even consider putting anything in paper we have to be able to have a conversation and say you know a lot of people say well you want it all or nothing and you can have it no I can have whatever I want when we have the conversations and I know that you're not going to sell me out and I'm not going to sell you out and that only happens we're worried to sit down and go over our differences and you know in a lot of those conversations are really hard to have because they go into like you know the whole moral issue and how do I really feel about it and it's always important to challenge ourselves to be able to make to be okay with making somebody feel uncomfortable but we have to address them and we need to know where we stand you know and so it's with any legislation it's always like that and it's always going to fail if you're not we're not going to be able to 100% stand behind it and so I have something that I really like you know about this ordinance that it was there's no space for compromise compromise is good but it only takes you so much there's the far and it limits you a lot and so I really really like and respect that I just wanted to say that real quick we are we are going to go ahead and start accepting people to come up to the mic Melissa if you can put the house lights on it would be nice yes great I do want to offer up a few house rules which include that we want to ask that nobody use any type of hate speech this is an event where we want we want the questions to be asked the hard questions to be asked the embarrassing questions to be asked we want people to express disagreement if they have disagreement but we won't tolerate any anybody coming out to speak hate against any community and we also that's that's something that I'm saying because there have been a lot of people coming out to city council and saying incredibly awful things and this is as better as not a space where we are going to subject anybody to that violence also though I just want to say that it's great we have lots and lots of people in this room for Wednesday afternoon it also means that we ask you to kind of keep your comments as concise as possible and also if you come up to speak once and then you get kind of that feeling like you really have to speak again if you could just wait until all of the people who are waiting to speak have spoken and then when it kind of gets that quiet feeling like there's nobody willing to jump up that's your turn to go again um please Graciela is going to help out with the mic so you know if you get over the three minute mark you're going to hear it five minutes not city council great I'm Luis I'm a teacher at MLK academy on the south side I have a question regarding the votes and the council you said it takes six votes where do we stand who do we have to talk to whose door do we have to knock on to make sure that this legislation does pass I'll start so so I hope tonight you have the information so you can do it I hope everyone in this room when you go home you will send an email or call call would be even better the mayor and everyone else on that list all ten of them however um there are currently there are a lot of questions obviously Diego Bernal in district one is sponsoring it Ivy Taylor is on the fence so please call her district two and really especially if you're in this room and you're African-American you should be calling Ivy Taylor every day if you support this ordinance sending her emails verbally now this doesn't mean don't call you should still be calling them as said that he supports us district five surely Gonzalez today said that I mean not officially but she's still doing her research but she believes in equality for everyone um six who is six um has basically said that of course they're all still doing their research but he is likely to support us seven Chris Medina we met with him today he was very adamant about the fact that he's working with me and he's still thinking and he's still doing research lobbing lots of calls lots of emails district eight, Ron Nirenberg Ron Nirenberg is still doing a lot of research he's still one of the people that met with him today and I wasn't at that meeting said to me that they feel like he's on the fence so lobbing the calls do the emails make sure district nine um my former councilwoman Alyssa Chan has already said that she will not go for it as has Carlton souls and what we've heard very very recently is that Carlton souls has moved even a little further away um he was at a point of I don't know how to describe it just not saying anything but going against it and just not meeting with us to perhaps opposing it and that's pure scuttlebutt but and the mayor of course supports it no one in the city as he has said is a second class citizen to him so there's the votes is that six votes maybe but maybe not and I'm sure there are people in this audience who can do a better job than that I just did but that's a rough idea of where it stands I just want to make as someone who helps whip votes from time to time I'll just say that on the other side of the aisle they are mobilizing in the churches against this ordinance they've asked my father of course he said no to join with them and so you've got to understand that the mayor just said is a rallying cry you are the troops that need to go forward and you're a great you're a great group of troops there's a lot of great people in this audience and it's time to do the phone banking it's time to wake people up it's time to hit the strip and let folks know it's time to stop just singing and dancing and shaking your rear it's time to get to work there's something that's taking so specific charge with dates on the end so the point I'm trying to make is these folks in the city council positions often are counting the folks that are calling and mailing and emailing so if you don't feel comfortable talking through it you can't email through it you can't write through it but they are taking a whip count I think most of them are supportive in their hearts but you've got to give them the political cover to do the right thing and to know that there is a constituency a very big constituency here in this city because the church coalitions which they tend to go to at election time are more organized seemingly than this community so the community of caring that wants to and it's a coalition the coalition has to begin to show its political power and use all of the things that can transform you've got to do education like you're doing today you've got to do political coalition building you've got to do some direct social action you've got to employ all of the tools to make sure that the city council people know where this community stands and we're going to be a progressive community that moves forward and isn't held behind by the old things that have divided us Lauren, you've made reference to that part of the ordinance that has to do with the appointment of officials and members of boards and commissions and for me that was the one sticking point that needed to be taken out of the ordinance so are you fairly certain that when the final draft goes before the city council that that's going to be taken out there are probably a couple of people in the room who can speak to that better than me but yes I am and you know I just went through all 10 districts and I would have gotten Ray Lopez in a second Randy Bear I didn't even know there were 10 districts in the city till I met you so thanks for teaching me to be able to do that Um, Mariel, did you have a comment to make before the last question? No, we'll just stress that it really is important to call your city council members especially if you live in those districts where you know we're not getting a whole lot of support okay they really do you know meet with them locally leave messages at the local satellite office call the city and all the offices when we met with councilman Gonzalez this morning it was a very good conversation and and I think that contact really makes a difference you know district 5 change we went from having a city council representative who you know said no lesbian and gay people lived in his district to someone who made time to meet with a group of folks in support of this ordinance so it makes a difference so if you live in district 4, if you live in district 2 if you do business in those areas you know call them and let them know that you want them to support this ordinance or does anyone that it has a copy of the ordinance tv could somebody read it it's only a sentence or two can you read it so everyone that's what we're talking about yeah this is under appointment appointed official boards and commissions and it's paragraph b and it says priority discriminatory acts no person shall be appointed to a position if the city council find that such a person has proposed appointment engaged in discrimination or demonstrated a bias by word or deed against any person, group or organization on the basis of race color, religion, national origin sex, sexual orientation gender identity veteran's status age or disability and I have a personal interest in that because I'd be disqualified through all the stuff that I've been saying about the religious right for the last few years and that's the intent is that that portion of the statement would be removed but the boards and commissions wouldn't be removed just a portion of that to reword it because you know you can't it's a first amendment thing and it would borrow a lot of us I have a copy of the latest draft and it has been stricken Gilbert has a copy of the latest draft on his phone and it has been stricken so the answer is absolutely yes Hi my name is Kyle and you don't just need a San Antonio I moved from Southern California and I Tommy talked about where you're all people born you talked about recognition Maria talked about visibility and honoring when we see you talk about respect in the area I live in I guess the first question I actually want to say is why is recognition so important and why is recognition so important and I know probably here a lot of people support the issues that you're talking about and discussing I guess in the back of my head I'm thinking about some people in my family and people that I live with wouldn't be so supportive and I guess if they were here right now what would you say what would you tell them about why is recognition so important and I bring this up in college resolution in the iceberg we'll see the tip of it and at the bottom they're connected when it comes to respect honoring recognition so if you could maybe like what would you say why is that so important if you are not recognized you can't fulfill your purpose and if we have in America we have a world where people are unable to fulfill their purpose we have a less perfect union we have a world that's hampered and diminished and not as great as it can be so for me when you ask that question the recognition is really critical to providing a foundation upon which people can achieve their dreams and not be blocked by their government in doing that and from a well I want to answer that two ways first statistically municipalities where it's been biased businesses actually grow that's why 85% of the 1400 are inclusive and have these policies because you create an environment where people know they can live in prosper and when people know they can live and prosper in an environment they do much better and the second thing I wanted to say about that is I can give you some very specific examples of blatant discrimination and there's nowhere for us to go there's nowhere to complain there's just nowhere to go I mean my partner and I wanted to open a business and we were told point blank after a week or so of excuses well we don't want that kind of business well I didn't mean that kind of business but you can't do this really he just said I don't read to people like you and you know I'm used to white privilege and white male privilege for a lot of my life and I really recognize that and and you really have to understand that I'm in a place where I can no longer live in prosper I'm in a place where I can no longer move forward I'm in a place where I'm in a and as I told Chris Medina today I'm in a discrimination city because that's really what this is recognition of visibility is important because it's the truth and if we don't recognize and have that visibility then we don't see the injustice that's happening if we don't tell each other our stories then we don't see how we're saying to those posts is that we have to be visible and share our stories so we understand each other's humanity and we understand our connection you're right it's a tip of the iceberg with you one of our best friends is a cornerstone attends cornerstone and I don't know how we get along but we do I'm looking at my friend over there but because we recognize each other we recognize our families that we have the same struggles we're trying to pay bills we're trying to take care of our parents we're worried about our neighbor next door we have to talk to one another I'm looking at a friend of mine over there who told me about a woman being threatened with deportation because she was involved in this school activity and if I don't know that's going on then how can we work to strive to be a better community visibility is important recognition is important because if I don't see you then we erase one another and we can't erase one another you said specifically for your family how do you communicate that the easiest way that I can put it is that by approaching them it's just saying if I can't fully love myself how can I give the best of myself and that holds very true if you can't just fully accept everything that you are if you're going to restrict yourself in front of your family, your friends you're never going to give the best of yourself in that you're never going to be happy and that's why it's important to accept yourself and to be visible so that other people can respect you and to know everything that you are and appreciate everything that you are it sounds very cliche but it's the hardest thing that I've found that I'm here and I found to do but I kind of go in the different directions right now but that's why it's important recognition and respect I don't want to give you the best of me but if you want that then you need to learn to love me and respect everything that I am so that I can give you that back and that's the only way that we're able to move forward in the right direction and we're able to have a creative atmosphere, a space when we can grow and our kids can grow happy and healthy thank you I spent my whole life thinking that I was a feminist and then I then I transitioned and I realized that I wasn't able to really grasp the white male privilege I had and spoke with for so long and I think we have to exactly like you said from both sides and I'm sorry from both sides we have to be able to release the privilege that we have and it's a struggle but I think we really have to do that