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LEXIE CANNES STATE OF TRANS — The community of Saginaw, Michigan and it’s city council have been working together to hammer out a trans rights ordinance recently but last week things took an ugly turn when city councilman Dan Fitzpatrick invoked the Nazi youth movement as the rationale behind his opposition to the ordinance.

Fitzpatrick according to the Saginaw News:

“What I’m totally amazed at is a number of people I’ve talked to or heard from say, ‘Come on, just pass this thing.’ Find out what it means later. Well how does that sound? Doesn’t matter; if it’s bad, fix it. Fix it later. It’s going to happen eventually; just get with it. Be progressive. In about 1933 there was a real big youth movement in Germany called the party of national socialists. A lot of people said, ‘You know, I don’t like them. I don’t know; I don’t understand. But man they’re good for business.'”

Although Fitzpatrick later backtracked just a bit, but it didn’t make matters better: “I’m not saying they’re Nazis. “I will say that sometimes these tactics smack of it. The similar kinds of things that the German youth movement did. That everything old is bad and everything new is good.”

News reports say the ordinance isn’t entirely dead. All parties involved want to spend more time on it up before bringing it up to the full council again, but have conceded it may take a while.

Trans woman Charin Davenport says they’ve made progress: “We are in City Hall talking about this, for many of them it’s the first time they’ve been in the same room with this many gay and transgender people. Any time learning is going on, progress is being made. That’s why we won.”

Councilman Fitzpatrick however, finds himself in violation of Godwin’s Law — ‘he who first brings up the Nazis automatically loses the argument’ — and should excuse himself from further votes on the matter.

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Fitzpatrick’s reliance on the Nazi’s youth movement to bolster his position on council matters is a good reason to toss him out of office.

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2014/05/saginaws_gay_transgender_anti-.html

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2014/05/saginaw_councilman_compares_lg.html

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You, too, can have your heart tugged by Lexie Cannes — an award-winning feature film about a transgender woman. Get it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0963781332

LEXIE CANNES STATE OF TRANS is associated with Wipe Out Transphobia: http://www.wipeouttransphobia.com/ Read Lexie Cannes in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/courtney-odonnell/

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Categories: Legislative, Transgender, Transsexual, Trans