Recently the Human Rights Campaign had a conference call with certain leaders within the transgender community. The following information is from an email concerning the results of that conference call. I am going to dissect this email, but you can read it there in its entirety.
Up first was a needs assessment.
A professional survey to teach us just what the American people understand about trans and what they don’t. By region, by demographics, by religion, etc. Let’s do the state of the art survey so we know what we’re starting with. Questions like “what does transgender conjure up in your mind”? “What is the difference between gay and trans”? “Do you know that just as many females transition to male as vice versa”? Let’s get down to the core issues.
I’m really confused by this. Why do we need an in depth study on what Joe Six Pack people think of transgender people? HRC put out a study in 2002 and updated it in 2004, that said 60-78 percent of Americans support workplace protections for transgender people. If anyone is needs to be polled, it’s the Congress. They aren’t supporting what the majority of their constituents want.
Then we research the 110+ jurisdictions with protections and characterize what was done right and what was done wrong. We need to work with other groups that have been doing this. I also don’t think it would hurt for Joe to sit down with them, apologize and begin the rebuilding. Trust is essential but will be hard to come by, and it would be a terrible waste of energy to try and go this alone. UnitedENDA should be a resource.
In my not so humble opinion, the problem with the HRC is that we have been, are, and will continue to be expendable. Apologies without action to change mean nothing. Will the introduction of ENDA in the Senate bring a change in HRC’s policy of supporting a noninclusive bill? I’ve been told by multiple sources that David Smith has said that HRC will NEVER oppose a gay rights bill (even if it’s not transinclusive). This seems to be the place where the rubber meets the road. If HRC wants to make inroads into the transgender community they should not only apologize, but commit to only supporting fully inclusive legislation.
Work with the National Center for Trangender Equality (NCTE) to find trans persons to target those 50 or so Congresspersons, and give them the data to help them lobby. But remember that nothing beats face-to-face contacts, and that means the rep and not the chief-of-staff or LA.
Work with NCTE? Wow, that was a short lived breakup! For the record, IFGE, NCTE and NGLTF already did that kind of lobbying effort in October. At the same time, HRC and Barney Frank were lobbying for the noninclusive bill. Representative Frank also used his power in Congress to strong arming other House members to vote for the noninclusive bill. The face to face meetings with the Representatives should have happened in May, when NCTE, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC), and GenderPAC had their lobby week. Removal from ENDA was known to be a very strong possibility even then.
Work with GLAAD to develop video and PSAs for the targeted states and Congresspersons. We need to show them that we have materials that will help them withstand any hypothetical attacks.
Redouble the corporate work — they’ve been doing a great job.”
Unfortunately, the work that HRC in this area was done by former transgender board members, Donna Rose and Jamison Green.
Then they end the drafts with some talking points.
We recognize that HRC’s decision to follow a different strategy to secure a fully-inclusive bill was hurtful to some members of our community and we regret that. Because we share the same goal of a fully-inclusive ENDA, HRC is immediately launching a new public education campaign designed to continue the mainstreaming of transgender issues, with three initial priorities
Passing a noninclusive bill is not a strategy for success if you want inclusion.
Other thoughts (not sure where these fit above): Repositioning all of HRC’s messaging to be more inclusive of transgender people, and more humble/apologetic about HRC’s past exclusion of the transgender community.
Again, actions speak louder than words. We don’t want to be a bargaining chip. We don’t want to be seen as expendable. We don’t want to be left out of ENDA. I can’t say this any clearer.
Requiring each HRC Regional Steering Committee to undergo transgender awareness training, and to actively work to increase transgender participation on the Committee Holding “lunch and learn” sessions at HRC headquarters, where staffers can hear from transgender people directly on topics such as trans law, history, insurance, healthcare issues etc. Urging HRC staffers to consider transgender people for job openings
Are we so far apart that your folks need transgender awareness training?
The first step in rebuilding our trust in HRC must be for HRC to own up to the fact that we were promised one thing and the promise, for whatever reason, was broken. Members of the transgender community I’ve spoken to want an apology and an explanation, and the explanation must be sincere and convincing. They want to see a stop to public announcements that contradict private activity which many believe is still going on. Until that is done, it will be near impossible to get increased participation from the transgender community.
You’ve spoken to the wrong people…we want inclusion.
And this is a sad state of affairs. Sure there are 200-300 organizations in United ENDA (depending on how you count them), but so many of them are small. None of them has the resources to mount a nationwide educational campaign about transgender. HRC does. Mainstream media has been wonderful to us this year. Barbara Walters 20/20, Larry King Live, Opera, the Discovery Channel, Ugly Betty, All My Children, and others have done a largely commendable job of bringing a positive view of transgender issues before the public. Yet we still have to overcome the image that Jerry Springer shows them on TV and the image we ourselves give the public with our Gay Pride and Halloween parades. We can tell our stories all we want on HRC’s web site and on Donna Rose’s proposed website. The only people we will reach there are those who are specifically looking for this kind of information.
Do you guys have David Copperfield working for you? That was pretty amazing! You made United ENDA seem infinitesimally small… but how many people do the organizations of United ENDA represent? The Equality Federation… it isn’t small, and neither is NGLTF.
At this time, I believe that only HRC has the resources to help us get the message out to mainstream America.
It seems like United ENDA did a pretty effective job at getting the message out before the vote. HRC does have resources, but can they be trusted? No. The folks of United ENDA have been there for us. There is a subtle admission in this email that HRC has lost the GLBT community’s trust. An apology from a good actor, will not suffice.
The second step would be to truly understand the transgender community . As you well know, many in the transgender community are unemployed or underemployed. They cannot afford the time or the money to visit their political leaders and speak for themselves. Many have been denied the opportunity for higher education and thus cannot express themselves as they would need to when speaking to politicians and business leaders.
A study done by Erich, S., Tittsworth, J., Dykes, J., & Cabusas, C. (in press). Family relationships and their correlations with transsexual well being. Journal of GLBT Family Studies shows that:
47% had incomes below $30,000 annually.
6.7 % unemployed
9.0% part time (under-employed) employed
total unemployed and part time (under-employed) = 15.7
30.7% bachelor degree
16.5% master degree
8.8% doctorial degree
38.5% some college
5.5% high school
56% have a college degree
44% have a high school or some college courses
On the other hand, there have been more fortunate transgender individuals, particularly transsexuals, who have survived the attacks, found the strength to go on, found the opportunity for education, and found the conviction to live their lives as they should. They are accepted in their proper gender. These transsexuals are educated, with good paying, respectable careers. These people can speak for the community. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of them, the fight to get where they now are has been too long and too hard. They don’t want to fight anymore. They have changed their gender, their birth certificates, their college records and work histories. They have moved hundreds, indeed thousands, of miles away from home to start new lives. They want to live the years they have left in relative peace, in their proper gender. I cannot fault them for that. Just as no one should be compelled to live in shame or fear, no one should be compelled to ‘come out’ and expose themselves to renewed expressions of discrimination and bigotry.
Our biggest source of burnout is that we’re left to fight our own community, instead of our real enemies. Many transactivists walk away from activism because they’re tired of fighting HRC for inclusion.
The third step would be to build trust through actions; communicate with our employers, develop new talent, and help us tell our stories to our lawmakers. Those employers who have signed on to equality will most likely listen to HRC. Convince those employers that allowing an employee a few days away from work to fly to Washington or their State Capital would be a good thing for business. There may be employees at those companies who don’t even belong to HRC. Seek out those who would like to speak up if given the chance. Give us some training on how to present ourselves. Help the employees with airfare and lodging when needed. Help us get the lawmakers to receive us and to talk to us. Arrange the sit down time that many cannot get with our lawmakers.
Give us the opportunity to put a face on transgender; to demonstrate to our State and National legislators that we are worthy human beings, worthy of protection from harm, and of freedom from discrimination.
I believe HRC needs these first three steps of rebuilding trust and demonstrating commitment before the fourth step, The fourth step is what you really have asked how to do. By this time transgender who have responded to your call will have acquired the self-confidence of knowing they can speak up for the community. You will have developed new talent in the transgender community. At this point you can ask them to serve actively in HRC and expect them to serve well.
HRC has the political and financial clout to do all this. We have two years to prepare for the next volley in Congress. I think this would be a good start.
The truth of the matter is that HRC included transgender people in their mission statement in 2001. Much of what has been discussed above should have been done in the 6 years following our inclusion into HRC’s mission statement. The tone of much of this email is of a parent to a child (step-child, even). HRC’s lack of commitment to the transgender community has been so bad at times that the community felt it had to protest HRC. To have them condescend to us in the above manner is just down right insulting. HRC should be supporting us in our actions, not dictating what the transgender community should do. It’s like a parent of an abandoned child coming back and giving the child advice after they’ve grown up.
Daddy Warbucks, ya ain’t.
48 Comments, Comment or Ping
Kathy
“Then we research the 110+ jurisdictions with protections and characterize what was done right and what was done wrong. We need to work with other groups that have been doing this.”
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Speaking as one of thoe folks who was instrumental in passing a transgender civil rights bill in one of the 5 largest cities in the US - we don’t need your characterizing our work. It would be much more helpful if you characterized your own work and admited your own failings and what you did to harm this to this community during the ENDA debacle.
I will give you a hint - the one thing we did right when we passed this bill in 2002 was not having any involvment from HRC.
Dec 4th, 2007
Val
> I’ve been told by multiple sources that David Smith has said that HRC will NEVER oppose a gay rights bill (even if it’s not transinclusive). This seems to be the place where the rubber meets the road. If HRC wants to make inroads into the transgender community they should not only apologize, but commit to only supporting fully inclusive legislation.
Why insist on such a commitment when you know it will be false, as it has been in the past? It’s right there, plain as day: HRC will not oppose a gay rights bill. Forcing them to give lip service to any other position is just asking to be lied to.
Earlier, the stated strategy was to work “around” HRC… and specifically to lend more support to organizations such as NGLTF, as I recall. If HRC is understood not to be trusted, and if NCTE is understood to have no credibility because of their position with respect to HRC, then what is gained here?
Or is it the case that HRC really is the force to be reckoned with, that “working around” is not viable, and that NCTE, for all their faults, remains the insider track?
These are real questions, not provocations. I’m seriously confused here.
Dec 4th, 2007
Kara Harkins
I still think the correct strategy is to “work around” them.
Yes, by all means, picket them and such, but recognize the beast for what it is. Any effort spent into trying to get the leopard to change it’s spots is less that we can put into direct actions, like lobbying congress. Our community has limited resources, so why squander them? Invest them in something that will get us to what we want … don’t put everything into a high-risk gamble of hoping HRC will deign to help us.
Dec 4th, 2007
Polar Bear
They won’t like what they hear, when they start asking about the Louisville Fairness law. In short, we told them to stay the hell out of Kentucky.
Which is exactly what we will tell them all over
again. And again. And again.
HRC is not welcome here.
Dec 4th, 2007
Marti Abernathey
What? He’s asking a question and the answer is simple! My point is that action needs to speak louder than words.
If HRC did this again (said they support us, then support a bill without us), they wouldn’t be screwing just transgender people. Gays and lesbians (the good ole 35 dollar people), their base, would hold them accountable as well as transgender people.
Dec 4th, 2007
Polar Bear
The big question is this: if evil people have the right plan, is it still evil? I say it is, because evil people, despite what their plan is, will do evil acts. HRC can do everything they say in this report they want to do, but I will still never trust a word that erupts from the oral cavity of anyone who has an HRC business
card with their name on it. And nobody else T should, either.
Just how is Solmonese going to apologize, and for what, pray tell? I doubt he even knows why we all call him a liar. Some generic mea culpa press release? Hell-no. If he had the guts to walk uninvited into SCC in 2008, ask for podium time at the Saturday luncheon, and prostrate himself for lying to 1000 T people the year before (without asking for any contributions), I might consider that……no, it’ll never happen.
Kara, you bet we will lobby. The day I depend on Mara Keisling or Joe Solmonese to represent ME to my Congressman, or any other Congressman, will be the day you can pick the black roses off my grave. I also support protestation with a purpose, both to raise consciousness and to hurt HRC’s ability to make its mortgage.
We are the Mujaheddin. Guerrilla warriors. The Religious Reich wants us dead. So does
HRC. So, we have to fight a guerrilla war with these clowns. They picked the fight, not us.
As usual, I apologize to all clowns insulted by my comments. I prefer clowns to HRC employees.
PB
Dec 4th, 2007
leanleft
I don’t understand the NCTE-bashing. They are doing the best they can with a limited budget like all the UNITED ENDA groups. Let’s face it- HRC represents the business gays- with their fat checkbooks. We have to rely on our brains, collective power, and the power to disrupt to make change.
Dec 4th, 2007
libhomo
The HRC considers all lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people expendable, unless they can write really big checks.
Dec 4th, 2007
Zoe Brain
After 10 years of continued good behaviour, I will trust them again.
Not before.
They went too far this time.
The best thing we can do from here is to arrange not to get in each other’s way.
Dec 4th, 2007
Brad Luna
More details from Chris Crain at Gay News Watch:
The U.S. Senate aide arrested for arranging a three-way with an undercover informant and who he thought was a 13-year-old male was previously an employee with the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest GLBT rights group. Mike McHaney, 28, was fired from his job as a scheduler for Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state within hours his arrest for attempting to sexually exploit a minor.
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But hiring transgender people - that they find objectionable.
Oh - and the next time Aravosis says he finds us icky - ask him how he thinks straight people feel about this.
Dec 4th, 2007
Leigh
“On the other hand, there have been more fortunate transgender individuals, particularly transsexuals, who have survived the attacks, found the strength to go on, found the opportunity for education, and found the conviction to live their lives as they should. They are accepted in their proper gender. These transsexuals are educated, with good paying, respectable careers. These people can speak for the community. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of them, the fight to get where they now are has been too long and too hard. They don’t want to fight anymore. They have changed their gender, their birth certificates, their college records and work histories. They have moved hundreds, indeed thousands, of miles away from home to start new lives. They want to live the years they have left in relative peace, in their proper gender. I cannot fault them for that. Just as no one should be compelled to live in shame or fear, no one should be compelled to ‘come out’ and expose themselves to renewed expressions of discrimination and bigotry.”
Hello ?? Hello out there ? Is anyone listening ? Ok, I said I wasn’t going to post again but this one just left me screaming at the wall … I mean are you listening to yourselves ?
“Unfortunately, for the vast majority of them, the fight to get where they now are has been too long and too hard. They don’t want to fight anymore.”
NO … NO NO NO NO and NO!!!! You don’t get it do you ? The fact is we don’t feel oppressed, and we never did! We are NOT! The long time posties, including myself simply don’t want to have laws passed for us. We don’t want to speak for the “community” because we don’t understand why you NEED a “community” ! We don’t feel that we need to be protected in the workplace, we have and will do just fine without forcing it down our employers throats. All that does is to make us all more visible and that my friends will not make you women (or men for the f2m) in the eyes of the public, it makes you a MAN, fighting to be treated as a woman but a MAN none the less!
Unless you are gay, which I suspect many in your so called “community” are, why on earth would you even want to associate being trans-anything with a movement that is entirely about sexual preference? Do you expect the general public are going to overlook that fact when they see any of you out there marching in the streets ? The reason “WE” the transsexuals have made it over the years is more to do with the fact that we have NOT been out there in peoples faces yelling for our rights. We have done our time yes, and we have been smitten and we have lost families and jobs and endured all the other crap you folks are “not gonna take anymore”, but we stayed the course, expected nothing from anyone and were thankful for what we got. We didn’t EXPECT everyone in the world to change and make us welcome in their homes and their places of business, and we didn’t feel that our employers should be forced to employ us or that GG’s should be forced to accept us in the bathrooms. In fact, the very idea of “forcing” anyone to do anything through legislation is entirely alien to most of us. Whether one is accepted amongst and as a part of the other gender has more to do with social constructs than anything else. If the members of the gender you “think” you are don’t happen to share your point of view you will be rejected from that club as a matter of social necessity, and all the laws in the world will never change that. By loudly proclaiming your gender, you in fact have the opposite effect, making yourselves to be something other than.
Yes “WE” the long term transsexuals could stand up and fight for your rights but the fact is that the only thing we are tired of is the loud mouth trannys, drag queens and crossdressers who excert their “Male privledge” to dress in public in whatever they feel “comfortable” in and tell the public to go screw themself if they don’t like it.
QUIET QUIET QUIET - are you listening? BE QUIET! There are more ways to skin a cat than to chase it screaming under the couch to quiver and shake like a pit bull just ate their kittens!
Dec 4th, 2007
Felix
“The fact is we don’t feel oppressed and we never did!” Blimey, you should have lived in England,then,where it took THIRTY-SEVEN YEARS OF ACTIVISM to get the transsexual person’s right to marry someone of the OPPOSITE gender back on the Statute books. Did we feel oppressed by this? Too bloody right we did.
Dec 4th, 2007
Zoe Brain
Leigh, don’t you understand? We’re not volunteers, we’re draftees in the great GLBITQ conglomerate. You don’t have any say in it, and neither do I.
There are many “loud mouth trannys, drag queens and crossdressers”, far more than women and men with HBS. They outnumber us by maybe 10:1. To our enemies, it doesn’t matter, they make no fine distinctions between exhibitionists prancing around in “Madam lash” gear, GLBs who prefer an ambiguous gender presentation, and women with an Intersex problem.
Our “friends” don’t make the distinction either. They don’t see the difference.
What was the death rate when you transitioned? 90%? How many were able to obtain treatment? How many were dead by age 30? Now thanks to you, and people like you, those figures dropped dramatically, but there’s been a price too.
Today it’s almost impossible for someone young to go “deep stealth”. The increased electronic record keeping has seen to that. Just look at the “no match” Social Security debacle. The resurgence of Christian Fundamentalism has made life more difficult now too. We used to fly “under the radar”. No longer.
Should you be arrested in Wisconsin, they’d confiscate the hormones that keep you looking normal, and refuse to issue more. This in a “gay friendly” state.
In the US, the situation is getting worse, not better, even for those who have been stealth for decades. Decades-old Marriages have been invalidated.
I agree that much could have been done - (and is being done for and by Intersexed people) - via quiet work behind the scenes. But with the “Screaming Queens” screaming anyway, we can’t fade into the background, they won’t let us. we have to deal with that unpleasant reality now. They won’t “BE QUIET” as you impore them to.
Finally, there’s the matter of GLB rights being Human Rights. Just because I really, really resent being dragooned into some GLIBTQXYZ mess that I don’t identify with at all, I can’t not support GLB rights. Yes, and even the rights of the “loud mouth trannys, drag queens and crossdressers” who really, really set my teeth on edge. They’re human too. But whether I do or don’t, the in-your-face “Gender Outlaws” won’t let us hide. For our own protection, we have to gain legislative change. Just to stop the situation from worsening faster than it is.
Dec 4th, 2007
Leigh
Felix,
Actually…. I AM British. I Live in the states now, since 1978, I attended Charing back in the day. Sorry, I never felt oppressed. I was helped at every turn by straight family types that gave me a home when my family couldn’t understand, by their teenage children that became my first true friends, by the ladies I worked with as a silver service waitress during those first early months of full time when I must have looked dreadfull they taught me the ropes, and yes, they even admitted me to their changing rooms. By understanding landladies with nothing to gain but the price of a one room flat and a bathroom down the hall, by the employers at the hotel I worked at who knew of my torment yet still advanced me to head waitress, by customers at the hotel that came to my flat looking for me after I failed to turn up for work for a few days following an unsavory incident at work, by a straight couple I met at my local pub that introduced me to the merchant seaman’s club where I was welcomed warmly. In fact, the only folks that never lifted one finger to help where the gays, the ones that at that time I though must have been those with the most in common to me, but nay. They were the detractors, and they still are. The only sense of hopelessness I felt was waiting for the NHS and the wheels that turned so slowly. After 6 months of full time I decided to leave and took a one way freddy laker to Los Angeles with one weeks paycheck in my purse and a handfull of hope. It was tough I dont mind telling you! Finally made SRS in 1985 after several more years of struggling. Point is you do what you have to do and if you wont then you shouldn’t. I don’t believe in can’t.
Dec 4th, 2007
Leigh
Oh yes Zoe .. we ARE one big happy federation indeed … NOT! Nobody asked me if I wanted to join the GL.. and I am still wondering who press ganged the (B) bi-sexuals since I don’t ever remember meeting a bi-sexual of either gender that would have classified themselves as either G or L !
I dont agree on the stealth is impossible scenario. I do agree its a lot harder for the reasons you mention but I would have to say that activism itself is the main reason that stealth is almost impossible. Its like when you have been read, and perhaps disrespected at the same time. We all know that it happens out of the blue, just side swipes you when your least expecting it. Those folks don’t know for sure, they are pretty positive, and thats perhaps enough, but if you handle it properly you can leave them wondering if they made the right call. Now activism is putting up this bloody great big flag that says <b?“Here I am, and here are all my sisters and guess what… there are 200,000 more of us and some of them are your neighbors and co-workers!” Now people start to take notice, and they start to talk and pretty soon even the GG’s are suspect! The internet is tranny central, and heck you cant even have a conversation with a guy in a chat room without them wondering if they are being duped by Bill(Sabrina)! So what I am trying to say is that we are all in a mess now and I dont think it matters how.
Yes I know they will not be quiet, they cannot because many of them dont pass so well and the only way they are going to be able to live their fantasies in real time is if they make the world safe for themselves and their friends. In the mean time, those of us that thought we had made it out of the crab hold, are being dragged back down by all the other crabs and in the end none of us will get out.
I dont support GL rights but thats another issue for I don’t believe the two are the same issue and I dont believe that supporting them will gain the transsexuals anything. Fact is we already lost everything since there was a time even going back to the 50’s in this country, in louisianne, the first state to recognise the right of post surgical transsexuals to be considered female and have all the rights to marry a male. Those laws are being rescinded everywhere and that leaves you and I in a very precarious situation, one that was not of our making and one that will ultimatly decide the rest of our lives.
Dec 5th, 2007
Zoe Brain
BTW I was born in the UK, but live in Australia. There is no chance at all I can ever get my BC corrected, I fall in a crack in the otherwise excellent Gender Recognition Act. My BC says “boy”, but I was medically female before I started treatment. IS not standard TS. Genital Reconstruction not Sex Reassignment. But close enough, except legally.
I hope to be issued an Australian passport next year, it’s been 18 months and a protracted legal battle so far. I have a correct UK passport but it appears when that expires it won’t be replaced.
In order to get access to the hormones required, I was put on a list of paedophiles, rapists, and some transsexual and intersexed people, who “volunteered for chemical castration”. No distinction is made between the groups on that list.
All of the above restrictions have been introduced in the last 20 years, some within the last 3 years. Many of them by extra-judicial administrative ruling, with no legal basis.
We’ve had some big court wins - The Re Kevin decisions, and the recent AAT ruling in Abrams vs Minister for Foreign Affairs. GLB groups here haven’t helped, but neither have they hindered as the HRC did. We’ve not exactly done a lot for them either, except as part of the general “straights for gay rights” lobby.
Dec 5th, 2007
Val
Given what she clearly feels is a thoroughly tainted modern environment, I wonder how Leigh discerns her proper fellows among “short term posties”?
I strongly suspect that it would be by adherence to an approved narrative, and self-consciously normative social performance. Which is to say, by strictly political criteria.
Dec 5th, 2007
Kat
“Sorry, I never felt oppressed.”
And I’m sure Joe Solmonese doesn’t feel as though he is oppressing trans people.
That don’t mean it ain’t so.
Dec 5th, 2007
Kat
“Nobody asked me if I wanted to join the GL.”
It was done for you - by the esteemed counsel for Arthur Corbett (and, of course, the judge who bought the argument.) And its a genie whose bottle has been broken; ergo, nothing for it to go back into.
“I dont agree on the stealth is impossible scenario.”
Visually? It certainly is possible.
Administratively? I have three words for you:
Real.
I.
D.
Dec 5th, 2007
Kat
“I dont support GL rights”
Any particular reason?
“Fact is we already lost everything since there was a time even going back to the 50’s in this country, in louisianne, the first state to recognise the right of post surgical transsexuals to be considered female and have all the rights to marry a male.”
Actually, it was Illinois (1955). Louisiana was one of the first, though (1968). Still, all of these transition-recognition statutes are actually silent on marriage. New Jersey was the first to specifically recognize transition in the context of marriage (1976).
“Those laws are being rescinded everywhere and that leaves you and I in a very precarious situation, one that was not of our making and one that will ultimatly decide the rest of our lives.”
I share your fear regarding being in a “precarious situation,” but where has a TS birth certificate statute actually been rescinded? No state has passed one since 1995 and I am afraid that anti-gay-marriage laws/amendments will be interpreted as superceding those already on the books, but that hasn’t happened yet. The ugly decisions such as Ladrach, Littleton, Gardiner, Nash & Barr, and Kantaras (and, hell, lets toss in Corbett as well) all happened in places that never had a trans-specific b.c. statute to begin with.
Dec 5th, 2007
Matt
I don’t see what the problem is here. It is obvious even from what you have posted here that there are people inside of HRC that are trying to do the right thing. What’s the harm in that???
Dec 5th, 2007
Alex
Yet we still have to overcome the image that Jerry Springer shows them on TV and the image we ourselves give the public with our Gay Pride and Halloween parades
I had to stop reading at this point to go blow off steam before reading the rest of this post.
Nothing outrages me more than members of our own community deciding who is ‘worthy’ of representing our community to the public. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say, “Oh, we’re not ALL like that.”
9 times out of ten this boils down to pure and simple classism: It’s the ‘I’m an upper-middle class gay man who wears suits and ties every day. You are a working-class drag queen and you wear cocktail dresses in public. Our presentations mean that I am asking for respect and you are not.’ syndrome.
If the HRC truly want to “win back” the trans community (or anyone else, for that matter), they are going to have to do more than a few poorly worded surveys (really- who asks leading questions like ‘Do you know that just as many females transition to male as vice versa?’) and Trans101 trainings.
I could go on and on but I’ll stop… for now.
Dec 5th, 2007
Polar Bear
Matt, you are right in saying that there are people in HRC that are doing the right thing. But I judge people based on their history, and HRC has a history of undermining, subverting, and lying to and about the T community. Trust
is nonexistant for good reason. Given that, I believe they will do only what looks good, but achieves far less than what we demand.
Dec 5th, 2007
Kat
“I don’t see what the problem is here. It is obvious even from what you have posted here that there are people inside of HRC that are trying to do the right thing. What’s the harm in that???”
So?
Tony Soprano had a soft spot for horses and cute lil’ duckees.
Ultimately that didn’t change him - and it certainly didn’t change the organization he was a part of.
Dec 5th, 2007
Zoe Brain
Kat, I mentioned the Re Kevin decisions. In those cases, the (Australian) Federal Government attempted repeatedly to destroy TS-specific Birth Certificate registration as a valid qualification for marriage. They were partly successful; the Full Bench of the Family Court ruled that BC registration was neither necessary nor sufficient for establishing someone’s sex for the purpose of marriage. What they did do though was state that someone who has transitioned is of their target gender, regardless of documentation, something that the Federal Government fought tooth and nail to prevent. The whole thing blew up in their faces, big time.
The Abrams case extended that recognition beyond marriage, to the area of Federal Identity documents, to wit, passports. Here, the respondent had been unable to get her BC changed after transition, despite TS-specific legislation. The Court ruled that medical reality (as determined by Re Kevin) over-rode bits of paper that were acknowledged by the issuer to be inaccurate.
The same cases with the same facts would quite possibly have the opposite results in the US. Such successful attempts have been made in the past in some US state jurisdictions.
Even now, in both the UK and Australia, anyone who is married is unable to have their BC corrected, no matter what their operative status. In Australia, being post-op is necessary, but not sufficient. We are walking a tightrope, with people sawing at it at both ends. Until clear Federal legislation is enacted in this area, no marriage involving a TS person is safe.
Dec 5th, 2007
Marti Abernathey
NCTE bashing? NCTE has a 300k budget. It’s not HRC’s… but it’s not like they’re poor. I’m not sure where you think I bashed them.
Dec 5th, 2007
Marti Abernathey
So you’re saying they’re size queens?
Dec 5th, 2007
Marti Abernathey
Brad, I’m not sure where you’re going with this.
Are you trans?
Dec 5th, 2007
Marti Abernathey
Trying to do the right thing? The “right thing” would be inclusion in ENDA.
Dec 5th, 2007
Felix
Very succinctly put, Zoe. As i said, I live in the UK and my former partner in Queensland, Australia. We are both FTM. In order for him to have his passport changed to “male” it is compulsory for him to have chest surgery (regardless of cost, pain, risk, etc). Now, he is poor as he is unable to work through multiple disabilities - grand mal epilepsy, restricted growth, weak heart to name but a few. However, he has recently managed to set up a modest insurance fund with a company that is transfriendly and will cover surgery. He has to wait a year, thought, before being allowed to spend his own insurance this way, as this is the government’s ruling, presumably in case people chnage their minds and decide it was all a whim. He is 42 and has lived as male for 20 years. Last time he visited me he had to shave very closely and wear a shirt that showed a bit of boobage so no-one at Customs would be awkward and question the “F” on his passport(his name is fairly androgynous). All his other documents state he is male. This is exactly the sort of nonsense we HAVE to keep on battling against; stealth is not an option for many, many transpeople and what about personal choice? Not everyone who passes sufficiently for their own comfort level wants to undergo major surgery to make strangers feel happier around them.
Dec 5th, 2007
Zoe Brain
Kat mentioned Illinois as being the first post-surgical TS recognition state, and so it was. Past Tense.
Because a recent (last 3 years) administrative ruling now requires the surgery to be performed by a surgeon registered to practice in Illinois.
Yes, that’s right, if the surgery was performed by anyone overseas - unless they register to practice in the US - it doesn’t count any more.
Rights are being eroded everywhere. And where was the HRC for example in this? This kind of thing is so far below their Radar screens, they have no idea that such things can be, let alone a campaign plan or set of guidelines to help. They are clueless, and that is half a decade after adding “transgender” to their mission statement.
We have to help ourselves, as we have been doing. I just wish the HRC would get out of the way. Fighting on two fronts - our enemies and our “friends” is too hard.
Example:
Diane Schroer had a really good case against the Library of Congress, prior to the ENDA debacle. But the Judge, while not immediately dismissing the case, has stated that his previous view that Title VII extends to both Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity must be re-evaluated in the light of Congress having been presented an inclusive bill, but passing an explicitly TG-exclusive one.
Whether ENDA ever gets signed into law or not, the fiasco is already detrimentally impacting existing rights for TS people, as we forecast. HRC just ignored that, and even they admit that the whole thing was supposed to be symbolic anyway when it came to GLB rights.
Enough: the HRC’s reckless disregard for Transsexual welfare in the quest for symbolic GLB only “victories” is only exceeded by their incompetence, and there is no trustworthy evidence of goodwill. We’ve seen these conciliatory words so many times before, and every other time they were meaningless.
Dec 5th, 2007
Zoe Brain
Felix, I’m so sorry your former partner has to put up with thus crap (pardon my French). I think guys who have to fight for their masculinity have it harder in many ways than transwomen do, there’s too much Macho involved, they have less support yet need it just as much.
I’m actually IS rather than standard TS. My physical transition started without treatment, and that’s caused all sorts of legal problems. How can someone whose BC says “boy”, but who is undoubtedly biologically female, have Sex Reassignment Surgery - except from F to M?
Cases like mine show the need for basic reform of the whole area, rather than the mutually contradictory and sometimes counter-productive band-aids we have today.
Dec 5th, 2007
Kat
“Kat mentioned Illinois as being the first post-surgical TS recognition state, and so it was. Past Tense.
Because a recent (last 3 years) administrative ruling now requires the surgery to be performed by a surgeon registered to practice in Illinois.
Yes, that’s right, if the surgery was performed by anyone overseas - unless they register to practice in the US - it doesn’t count any more.”
Zoe, thanks for mentioning this. I’d been hearing things about the status of the surgeon re: the Illinois law, and I knew that a bill had been introduced to deal with who could make certifications, but I had not heard that the whole thing emanated from an actual administrative ruling. Why am I not surprised?
Dec 5th, 2007
Leigh
Val,
I am just a simple woman so please don’t get me wrong here but I honestly have no idea what it is you just said ! Could you please use plain language ? .. you should run for office BTW
Dec 5th, 2007
Ethan St.Pierre
No one “tries” to do the right thing.
Either you do the right thing or you don’t.
HRC is committed to passing a sexual orientation ONLY enda. That is what they are trying to do.
Dec 5th, 2007
Leigh
Zoe, I dont understand why you cannot get your BC ammended. I too was born in the UK, am still a uk citizen some 25 years later. Two years ago I was able to fast track through the gender recognition act and recieved my new BC in about 6 months. There was some hoops to do with who and where my surgury was performed as my surgeon at that time is no longer practising (just as well by the way) but I got a British doctor in the UK to sign off on me through Dr Meltzer in the USA who did a redo on me in 2002. It was mostly paperwork. I do understand that your IS but I guess I dont see where that makes a whole hell of a lot of difference in the grand scheme of things. One would actually thing that for you it would be easier…??
Dec 5th, 2007
Leigh
Kat,
I would rather not get into a debate on why I don’t support gay rights, suffice to say that I have never felt their support, so why should I support them ?
Thank you for correcting me on the states issue. You are of course correct.
Dec 5th, 2007
Leigh
And who on earth is Joe solomonese when he is at home ?
Dec 5th, 2007
Kat
“I would rather not get into a debate on why I don’t support gay rights, suffice to say that I have never felt their support, so why should I support them ?”
That’s a sufficient clarification.
Dec 5th, 2007
Susan
2005
Dec 5th, 2007
Zoe Brain
I’m married. We can’t divorce under Australian Law (well, not without severe hardship and damage to our young son, not forgetting a huge financial mess). An Interim GRC has no effect, and the Australian Government is dead-set against Civil Unions. It would require true separation, or massive perjury. The UK option of a pro-forma divorce followed by a civil union with no change to financial circumstances is not open to us.
There are other medical issues too that cause legal problems. You’d think it should be easier, but actually it’s harder, and may require a UK High Court ruling on the merits. Tricky to arrange from Australia.
Dec 5th, 2007
Zoe Brain
Why support them? Because it’s right to do so. A matter of Human Rights. Even though they don’t return the favour, and completely misunderstand us, even damage our cause.
Insufferably priggish, aren’t I? But it’s what I believe. You are free to differ, and I don’t blame you one iota if you do!
Dec 5th, 2007
Kat
“And who on earth is Joe solomonese when he is at home ?”
A gay Clark Kent?
The ghost of Liberace?
A quasi-animate glob of candle wax who sports Tom DeLay-esque hair?
Does it matter?
What matters is what he does that affects policy that affects us.
Dec 6th, 2007
Lisa Harney
Er, wow. Internalized transphobia much?
Dec 7th, 2007
Michael C.
Well, let me say, what they would lose in membership, they would gain 2x over if they jettisoned the T out of G&L movement into their own movement, where they belong.
Right now it seems they aren’t pleasing anyone.
Dec 14th, 2007
BettyCrow
Yeesh. Thanks for speaking for everyone…. not. Stick to words like “I” instead of “we” and perhaps I’ll listen.
Jan 8th, 2008