https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/republicans-hold-smithsonian-american
"On Wednesday, the House Administration Committee met to mark up HR 1329, a
bipartisan bill with more than 200 cosponsors intended to authorize the site of
the new Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum on the National Mall—a
project Congress first authorized in 2020 that has stalled for years waiting on
lawmakers to clear the way for construction. Previous related legislation had
moved through Congress with broad bipartisan support. This time, something was
different. Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican from Illinois, introduced a
substitute amendment that gutted the original text, adding a provision banning
transgender women, many of whom played significant roles in American history,
from any museum exhibit. The amendment also handed Trump unilateral authority
to override the Smithsonian’s recommended site and pick his own location for
the museum. Democrats, who had cosponsored the original bill, pulled their
support, and the amended bill passed on a party-line vote.
“The museum shall be dedicated to preserving, researching, and presenting the
history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women,” says the
amendment. “The Museum may not identify, present, describe, or otherwise depict
any biological male as female.” The bill also states that the president “may
designate an alternative site for the Museum within 180 days of the date of the
enactment of this subsection.”
The bill would instantaneously erase dozens of transgender women who played
influential roles in American history from finding a place in the museum.
Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, two women heavily responsible for igniting
the modern Pride movement at Stonewall, would not be allowed in the museum.
Lynn Conway, a computer science pioneer who revolutionized microchip design at
Xerox through her groundbreaking work on very-large-scale
integration—technology that made modern smartphones possible—and who was fired
from IBM in 1968 simply for being transgender, would likewise be banned. The
same would be true for contemporary history that the Smithsonian institutions
include in their mission: modern transgender figures making history, such as
Congresswoman Sarah McBride, would be barred from depiction."
Via Janet Logan.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
