Author, transgender activist and newcomer to Asheville Tina Madison White reflects on the state of the Pride movement in 2016. White is the director of operations for Blue Ridge Pride Center, which will host its eighth annual Pride Festival Saturday, Oct. 1 in Pack Square Park in Asheville.
While some of the conversations that began with the General Assembly’s passage of House Bill 2 on March 23 have focused on which bathrooms transgender people should use, others have explored new ideas about gender and identity which could reshape the way we think and talk about ourselves and others.
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week features Terpsicorps Theatre of Dance’s artistic response to House Bill 2 and Local Cloth’s plans to furnish their new studio space with equipment for community dyeing classes.
About a dozen authors will respond to a single writing prompt that’s loosely connected to House Bill 2 to raise money to undo the legislation. This first iteration of Malaprop’s Bookstore and Cafe’s new Authors for Action series takes place at Asheville Community Theatre on Wednesday, May 18.
By day, Grayson Morris is a preschool teacher, by night, a standup comedian. For the last five years she’s honed her craft. Most of her material comes from her everyday life: being single and poor and working with young children. This past Wednesday night, her hard work paid off. Morris found herself the opening act […]
“A state that sanctions discrimination and hate is not a place that I wish to call home.”
“Who wants to move to a state to live downstream from a coal-ash pond in an area where schools are underfunded and employees have no rights? “
At its regular meeting on April 12, Asheville City Council passed a strongly-worded resolution calling for the repeal of House Bill 2. Citizens and Council members reflected on the impact of the law on many aspects of life in North Carolina, striking a chord of near-unanimity in wholehearted dissent.
A proposed Asheville resolution affirming the constitutional rights and equitable treatment of all in public accommodations — such as bathrooms — appears likely to spark extensive discussion on how Asheville will respond to House Bill 2 at Council’s meeting on April 12. Other agenda items include subdivision ordinances, the Beaucatcher Greenway and the city’s legislative agenda for the upcoming short session in Raleigh.
“While it is absolutely cruel and evil that this law is targeted primarily at the transgender community, what virtually nobody seems to know is that it impacts all of us, by stripping away our rights. “
On Saturday, April 2, supporters and opponents of the recently-passed North Carolina legislation House Bill 2 demonstrated in Asheville’s Pack Square. The new law overturns a Charlotte ordinance that would have allowed people to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity rather than the sex that matches their birth certificate. It also prevents other municipalities from passing similar ordinances to Charlotte’s, and it limits legal recourse for those who believe they have experienced discrimination based on race, religion, color, national origin, age, sex or disability.
Addressing North Carolina House Bill 2 and consideration of property tax revaluation are among topics the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners will discuss during its meeting on Tuesday, April 5.
