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CATALYST
INSECT FARMING HILLEL CLUB pg.
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February 25, 2015 VOLUME XXXVII, ISSUE II
A student newspaper of New College of Florida
WHAT’S Urine the wrong room: Proposed law criminalizes trans rights to public INSIDE facilities
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BY COLT DODD
GASPARILLA FESTIVAL
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SS E L E ON M H HORAT MA
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Shockwaves rippled through the transgender community this month when Florida representative Frank Artiles (R) filed a bill that would bar transgender individuals from using public restrooms, locker rooms and dressing rooms that do not correspond to their gender assigned at birth. The law has been dubbed “show your papers to pee” and has been criticized for directly invalidating the newly passed transgender discrimination ordinances throughout the state. Those convicted of violating the law could face misdemeanor, a $1,000 fine and a year in prison. The Miami Herald reported that the proposed law “requires that use of single-sex facilities be restricted to persons of sex for which facility is designated; prohibits knowingly and willfully entering single-sex public facility designated for or restricted to persons of other biological sex.” In April 2014, Andraya Williams, a transgender student at Central Piedmont Community College in North Carolina, was brought up on charges
Photo courtesy of wvfree.org
A drawing depicts a conflict that many transgender individuals deal with on a daily basis.
for using the women’s restroom at the school. Second-year Miranda Day spoke with the Catalyst about her closeness to the case. “In North Carolina, where I grew up…I knew someone who was a trans woman that went to a school that I was enrolled in for two years and was arrested under that law,” Day said. “I think she got out of a lot of the charges, but the initial charge was 30 days in prison, a $1000 fine and sex offender status for life, which is obviously,
ridiculous. Even though she wound up not being hit with all that, it was still presumably big legal fees and I think she wound up having to do another semester because she couldn’t do her classes because of it. And that was a school I was going to, in a bathroom I used.” Artiles remarked that the reasoning behind this bill is to ensure public safety.
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Candidates vie for city commissioner seat BY KAYLIE STOKES Sarasota is governed by five city commissioners, two are elected at-large and the remaining three are elected from single-member districts. On March 10, a local election will be held to appoint a city commissioner for district two – the district that New College falls under. Candidates Liz Alpert and David Morgan will challenge incumbent Eileen Normile. City commissioners are responsible for implementing policy, recommending policy changes and action, and acting as a liaison between the city and the community. During the campaign cycle, candidates have focused on issues such as city finances, local development projects and homelessness in the community. “This is the level of government that people will often see, face-to-face, on a scale that they will understand,” Professor of Political Science Keith Fitzgerald said. “The issues at the city level are concrete, and they are the kind of things that affect how people live.” Despite the fact that city
commissioners play a direct role in shaping the city’s policies on major issues, past elections have always had a dismally low voter turnout. In the 2013 election, less than 20 percent of registered voters cast their ballots, and the last election for district two was decided by only 14 votes. “There’s a very simple way to combat [low voter turnout], and that is to put the city election on the same day as the general election in November,” Fitzgerald said. Along with increasing voter turnout, this move could save the city more than $120,000, yet there remains much resistance. “People who like it the way it is, will make arguments that the low voter turnout is actually a good thing because then you only have high-information voters,” Fitzgerald explained. T h e vote-by-mail program is helping to counter this. “People inform themselves when they know an election is coming up,” Fitzgerald said. When citizens receive ballots in the mail they are both informed of the upcoming election and given the opportunity to research candidates while they go over the ballot
at home. “Vote-by-mail is not only improving the number of people who participate but also the amount of information people have when they vote,” Fitzgerald said. Below are brief profiles on each candidate including background and platforms. Liz Alpert Liz Alpert graduated from the University of South Florida in 1995 with a bachelor’s degree in mass communications. She later earned a law degree from Stetson University. Alpert started her own law firm in Sarasota in 2007, specializing in family law. Alpert has worked on the City of Tampa’s Architectural Review Board and City Ordinance Revision Committee, as well as the City of Sarasota’s Human Relations Board. She currently serves on the Civil Service and General Personal Board of Sarasota. Alpert decided to run for city commissioner after attending a public meeting on bayfront redevelopment.
Up to 75 acres of property are up for a redevelopment project sponsored by the booster group Bayfront 20:20. Alpert wants to be a part of the important decisions related to the project. “It’s going to affect the future of the city for decades to come,” Alpert said to the Sarasota Herald Tribune. Alpert promises to ensure that the needs of the Van Wezel and the Sarasota Orchestra are met throughout the project and hopes to create a park, accessible to all citizens, overlooking the bay. On the issue of homelessness, Alpert has said that she will advocate for increasing the number of Homeless Outreach Teams comprised of one police officer and one mental health counselor. When asked how New College students would benefit from her election Alpert said, “One of the things that I want to work on is bringing the kinds of jobs here that will keep graduates here once they graduate. Rather than service jobs, bring some clean energy jobs and
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