I. Sexual Assault in the Military
Thousands of sexual abuse victims have been pushed out of the service with less-than-honorable discharges, which can leave them with no or reduced benefits, poor job prospects and a lifetime of stigma. "Reversing the rulings is difficult because the Pentagon's process for reversing discharges is stacked against the soldier or sailor." "About 125,000 veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq have such 'bad papers,' which denies them VA benefits." [1]
In a new study, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) concludes that one in ten veterans petitioning the boards after incidents of sexual abuse result in upgraded discharges.
There were more than 20,000 cases of sexual assault, rape and unwanted sexual contact in the military in 2015. Of the 2015 incidents, around 6,000 were reported and 543 proceeded to trial. According to the Pentagon, somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of those who report being sexually assaulted experience retaliation. (Statistics cited are from DoD sources).
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA) would remove sexual assault cases from the military chain of command, freeing victims to speak out without fear of retribution or punishment, and putting trained and unbiased military prosecutors in charge of deciding which sexual assault crimes to try.
II. Pollution and Taxation Problems of Tampon Applicators
According to Susan Shaw, the founder and executive director of the Marine and Environmental Research Institute, and a leading expert on the plastics in the oceans, says that sea animals often mistake application-sized pieces (plastic tampons) for food. A research team found an average of 177 pieces of micro-plastics in each system they tested. [2]
Kate Commor, a spokesperson for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is not aware of scientific evidence suggesting that plastic applicators are better for women's bodies than cardboard applicators or applicator-free tampons.
Of course, plastic applicators shouldn't end up in the ocean in the first place, since they are not supposed to be flushed. But lots of them do and they also gum up treatment facilities.
"More than 88 percent of the estimated $1.1 billion worth of tampons sold in 2015 had plastic applicators." [3]
On May 25, 2016, New York State citizens voted to eliminate a "luxury" tax on menstrual products, to which the goods had been subject to as "non-necessities..." According to Jennifer Weiss-Wolf of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, who has been at the forefront of the push to eliminate the tax on tampons, fourteen states and three major cities have introduced legislation, amendments or budget lines this year to nix the tampon tax. In July 2015, Canada ended its sales tax on these items. [4]
III. Good and Bad News on L.G.B.T. Rights
As of late April this year, legislation in at least 25 states have proposed more than a hundred bills limiting L.G.B.T. rights, often under the guise of protecting religious freedom. Although there is no federal law protecting L.G.B.T. people from discrimination, three-quarters of Fortune 500 firms have policies forbidding such discrimination. "To many business leaders, today's social-conservative agenda looks anachronistic and is harmful to the bottom line; it makes it hard to hire and keep talented employees who won't tolerate discrimination." [5]
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) appeared in a PSA for SAVE, a south Florida gay rights organization, saying: "Every transgender person is part of someone's family and should be treated with compassion and protected from discrimination." Ileana and her husband, Dexter Lehtinen, have a son, Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, who is transgender. Ileana supports President Obama's directive to schools to let students use he school facilities that match the sex they identify with.
A CNN/ORC national poll found 38 percent approving and 59 percent opposing "bathroom bills" that require transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond with their birth gender. 39 percent were strongly opposed and 25 percent strongly approved. Three-fourths favored laws that guarantee equal protection for transgender individuals.
Footnotes
[1] Mark Thompson, "In the military, victims of sexual abuse sometimes suffer twice," Time, May 30, 2016.
[2] Kiera Butler, "Killer App," Mother Jones, March/April 2016.
[3] Ibid. [4] Ibid.
[5] Maya Rhodan, "States and the tampon tax, after the 'Year of the Period,' Time, June 13, 2016.
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