Springfield, VA, USA. In an earlier column, I discussed the uproar among the District of Columbia’s transgender community over proposed revisions of the rules and regulations governing gender identity and expression.

The stated purpose of the change is to clarify how the gender identity or expression regulations apply to transgender individuals in District Government custody (e.g. trans folks who have been arrested for violating the law).

The rulemaking also repeals the requirement for gender neutral signage (“restroom” vice men or women), clarifies the types of accommodations that may be provided in gender-specific facilities where nudity is customary (e.g., a shower room or locker room), and establishes the name requirements for identification badges of District government employees.

The outrage from the D. C. transgender community is astonishing. You’d have thought that the District Columbia had proposed setting up death camps to store trans folks. The howling protests and public wailing!

Of course most of it sounded like

Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.

I want I want I want I want.

ME!

So when I wrote the last column, I had to figure out best I could what all the commotion was about. The rule changes seemed reasonable. Most of them were just clarifications, something that rule making bodies do all the time.

Luckily, since I wrote that column, a representative of the D. C. transgender community has clarified their concerns and, more specifically, identified the root causes of the transgender problem. What follows is a summary of their protest agenda, the best I understand it.

This is what they protest. This is the

Trangender Gender Spectrum Manifesto

 The trans folks and only trans folk