➤ TRANS MAN’S PASSPORT, from p.8
he traveled internationally.
On the equal protection question,
Navarro noted that the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals, under
whose jurisdiction her court sits,
in a 2019 ruling in Karnoski v.
Trump — a lawsuit opposing the
ban on transgender military service
— held that the federal government
faces heightened scrutiny
when challenged for applying a
policy in a way that discriminates
against a trans person.
The facts Morris presented, Navarro
found, were suffi cient to sustain
a claim of unequal treatment.
Under the heightened scrutiny
➤ DAVID DINKINS, RIP, from p.8
Marine uniform, that there was
no place for me: ‘Two more white
seats,’ he said. It was the same
anger that I am sure Montgomery
marchers and Birmingham demonstrators
experienced when they
fought for racial tolerance. It is the
fury of people who want the right
to deny another’s identity.”
When parade organizers outright
banned Irish LGBTQ groups
entirely, Dinkins honored ILGO’s
boycott of the parade — a boycott
broken by Giuliani, his successor
Michael Bloomberg, and Senators
Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer
but renewed by Mayor Bill de
Blasio, a former Dinkins staffer,
who got the organizers to accept
an Irish LGBT group, Lavender &
Green, in 2016. (The complete, nuanced
history of that controversy
was written by ILGO’s Anne Maguire
in her book “Rock the Sham:
The Irish Lesbian & Gay Organization’s
Battle to March in NYC’s St.
Patrick’s Day Parade.”)
When Dinkins lost his re-election
bid in 1993, he conceded the
close race on election night, saying,
“Mayors come and go but the
life of the city must endure. Never
forget that the city is about dignity,
it’s about decency, it’s about the
hope and determination of working
people struggling to make a better
life for their children and their
children’s children. My friends, the
gorgeous mosaic is alive.”
Most of Dinkins’ obits center on
the racial strife that brought him
to the mayoralty in 1989 and the
racial discord that led to his narrow
standard, the government has the
burden of providing an “exceedingly
persuasive justifi cation” for
its requirement that a physician’s
statement verify Morris’ gender
and certify clinical transitional
treatment as a prerequisite for him
getting a passport.
The State Department, she concluded,
“frames its purported interest
too broadly and fails to provide
evidence that the interest is
exceedingly persuasive… There is
little doubt that the State Department
has an interest in accurately
representing the identities of US
citizens to foreign nations. However,
the only facet of identity at issue
here is a passport applicant’s
loss four years later. Giuliani
exploited fear of crime for eight
years as mayor — and gained a
reputation for making the city safer
while never acknowledging that
it was the huge infusion of funding
secured from Albany by Dinkins
and Council Speaker Peter Vallone
for the “Safe Streets, Safe City” program
that vastly increased — for
better or worse — the police force,
starting to bring crime down.
Dinkins would recall of election
night in 1993, “Some in my group
wanted me to demand a recount
and so on. I said, no — in this
country we don’t have coups and
revolutions, we have elections.”
That lesson was obviously lost on
his successor at City Hall.
Dinkins’ beloved “bride” (as he
said) of 67 years, Joyce B. Dinkins,
died just this October. He is survived
by survived by his children,
David N Dinkins, Jr., and Donna
Dinkins Hoggard, two grandchildren,
and a sister, Joyce Belton.
I’ll always remember David Dinkins
for his achievements on behalf
of our community and as an
exceedingly decent man and approachable
leader who always sided
with the oppressed, who spoke
of our community’s rights not just
at LGBTQ events but at presentations
in Catholic churches as well,
and who gave Nelson Mandela the
biggest mass welcome in the world
in 1990 shortly after the great
man was released after 27 years in
South African prisons for fi ghting
apartheid.
Dinkins, a tennis enthusiast
who got the USTA National Tennis
Center (now named for Billie
sex or gender. Defendant has provided
no explanation, let alone any
evidence, of why the State Department
has an important interest in
verifying a transgender passport
applicant’s gender identity, nor
a cogent explanation of why the
Policy requiring a physician’s certifi
cation increases the accuracy of
issued passports.”
Navarro noted that “not all
transgender persons receive or require
physician treatment.”
The court, then, implicitly accepts
Morris’ argument that one’s
gender identity and appropriate
sex designation on a passport are
not related to one’s genital confi guration.
Recognition as a transgender
Jean King) for the US Open built
in Flushing, spoke movingly at the
memorial service for tennis great
and AIDS and race activist Arthur
Ashe (for whom the Center’s stadium
is named) in 1993 in Richmond,
Virginia. At the conclusion
of his remarks (the 19:56 mark
in c-span.org/video/?37876-1/arthur
ashe-funeral-speeches), Dinkins
person is not based on undergoing
gender confi rmation surgery.
The requirement for a physician
to certify “clinical” treatment for
transition, in Navarro’s view, is not
supported by an “exceedingly persuasive”
explanation here.
Navarro ordered the State Department
to process Morris’ passport
application without requiring
any physician’s certifi cation and
approve it if it met all the other requirements.
Navarro’s ruling was made on
the issue as presented in Morris’
case and did not reach a conclusion
more broadly on the constitutionality
of the State Department
policy as such.
said what he always said in
eulogies, “It is said that service for
others is the rent we pay for space
on earth.” In this case, he added,
“Arthur Ashe left us paid in full.
Let him not look down and fi nd
any of us in arrears.”
David Dinkins is paid in full. As
he always signed off, “Keep hope
alive!”
· CELEBRATE WITH A P LATE · CE LEBRATE WITH A P LAT E
No one should go hungry when they
are living with severe illness.
Especially when it’s the holidays.
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GayCityNews.com | December 3- December 16, 2020 9
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