As many of you know, Monica Canfield-Lenfest is the daughter of a trans woman and created a new resource, with COLAGE, for kids with trans parents. I highly recommend it.

1) First, tell me about COLAGE & how the book for Kids of Trans happened, what your goals were.

COLAGE (www.colage.org) is a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parents. We build community and work toward social justice through youth empowerment, leadership development, education, and advocacy. I first contacted COLAGE five and a half years ago, when I was working on my undergraduate thesis: “She’s My Father: The Social Experience of People with Transgender Parents”. Looking for references for my project, I discovered a diverse community of queerspawn who gave me the space to better articulate my experience and encouraged me to continue my work, since there are hardly any resources for transgender parented families. I started presenting at transgender conferences and gained a renewed sense of responsibility to build community and develop resources for people with transgender parents.

During a COLAGE conference in Dallas two years ago, I suggested to Meredith Fenton, COLAGE Program Director, that perhaps I could fill a fall internship position at the national office. We came up with a Fellowship model for my position, which has become a new program for the organization. I worked full-time for eight months focused specifically on the Kids of Trans Program. The major goal of the fellowship was to develop resources for people with transgender parents. Since there was no book detailing our experiences and offering advice to people with trans parents, the Kids of Trans Resource Guide became the obvious main project.

My goals in writing the guide were: first, to tell other people with trans parents that they are not alone; second, to recognize that the entire family transitions when a parent transitions; and third, to provide compassionate advice from people who have similar families. In short, I hoped to create the book I wanted my father to give me when she came out to me over ten years ago. More…

On July 26th, while HRC throws yet another swanky affair, transgender folks & their allies will party outside the HRC venue to protest gender exclusion from the national ENDA.

Details here.

More opinions here (Edge SF), here (NLGSF), here (Left in SF), and here (Bay Area Reporter).

I wish I could be there.

A nice video about a 24 year old trans person who was hoping for a gender-inclusive ENDA. It does a nice job of humanizing the people who are being left out.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Mara Keisling’s appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal last week is worth viewing, and apparently isn’t going to be online forever, so do go watch it within the next week or so.

(You want the 11/10/2007 show.)

My favorite bit is when the woman calls to talk about how the founding fathers were Christian, & how Mara shouldn’t be allowed to talk at all, & Mara drinks her coffee stone-faced like Buster Keaton, the smile only showing at the very corners of her mouth, after which she explains, again, that the Bill in fact exempts religious institutions. (It’s at about 1:17 or so.)

& As one caller put it, I agree with him: Mara is a brilliant woman, and I’m happy to see her doing advocacy. That anyone said, “you can’t be a full person if you have to hide all the love in your life,” on Washington Journalis amazing, but I’m pleased as punch it was someone talking about LGBT rights.

Interestingly, Ted Kennedy is sponsoring ENDA in the Senate, and even more interestingly, the Senate version will also exclude gender identity.

Of course Bush has already said he intends to veto whatever version comes his way. Still, this may be another opportunity for more education.

In the meantime, Mara Keisling of NCTE will be on C-SPAN tomorrow morning at 7:45 AM, & if you miss it, you can catch it on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal site.

The version of ENDA without gender identity protections passed the House today, just minutes ago.

ENDA will be voted on tomorrow, without the Baldwin Amendment.

& Apparently the decision to go ahead was based on HRC surveying 500 LGBT people across the country as to whether or not they should go ahead even though transgender people were included.

As if the 500 organizations that already said NOT to go ahead don’t count at all.

What really pisses me off is that this is how the question was worded:

“This proposal would make it illegal to fire gay, lesbian and bisexual workers because of their sexual orientation. This proposal does not include people who are transgender. Would you favor or oppose this proposal moving forward?”

No mention that the Tammy Baldwin variation isn’t just inclusive of transgender identities, but of GENDER IDENTITY. No mention that the inclusive ENDA would also protect gays and lesbians whose genders aren’t normative. That is, no mention of the butches and queens, sissies and bulldaggers. Apparently there to be hung out to dry along with the trans population. So now we can hear that a woman wasn’t fired for being a lesbian, oh no. She was fired because she’s just too masculine, of course.

Feh. Or, as a friend of mine comments when HRC comes up, “You expect anything from an organization that can’t even put GAY in its name?”

(Sources: PageOneQ, Gay.com, The Advocate, The Associated Press)

This is the text of the talk I gave in Denver on Tuesday. It probably won’t surprise anyone that I’ve been busting at the seams wanting to have a say in all of the dialogue going on about ENDA. At least I don’t think it should surprise anyone, not by now.

**

First, let me thank Ed and Jordan and all the students who asked them to bring me here. It’s a pleasure to be here in celebration of National Coming Out Day, a pleasure to see all of you gathered, celebrating who you are. Thanks to all the crossdressers, the gays, the lesbians, the genderqueers, the trans men & women, MTF and FTM, & to their partners. Thanks to all of you who are family, or friends, or allies, for being here.

Betty and I have been on tour a lot this year because I had a book published in March, and we’ve gotten a chance, once again, to meet a lot of people and to talk to a lot of trans people and partners, and this year, we’ve met more gay and lesbian people who aren’t trans than we did before. And it’s been a pleasure all around in hearing people’s stories of their own gender variance, or the stories of how they came out to loved ones, or of their first big crush or the moment when they realized they were trans or gay or lesbian or how they came to understand the first identity they understood themselves to be was not quite accurate in the long run. What I love to hear the most is about how queer people find one identity fits for a while and then not at all; like Oliver Wendell Holmes’ chambered nautilus, queer people build themselves bigger chambers, bigger categories, labels that are not so confining, over time.

That’s how it’s been for us, certainly. By the time people get used to what we’re calling ourselves our identities have shifted a little, changed usually by experiences we never expected and wouldn’t trade for anything.

More…

For more reading about ENDA than you might ever want, I’ve put together a bunch of the articles, essays, & blog posts on the topic since it was introduced in April, below the break:

More…

A Statement from Donna Rose, Community Activist on the Human Rights Campaign’s Position on ENDA:

“An impressive coalition of local and national organizations has lined up to actively oppose the divisive strategy on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that would leave our transgender brothers and sisters without workplace protections.  This effort has galvanized community spirit and commitment in ways few could have imagined, and it has demonstrated to those who would divide us that anything less than full inclusion is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) – a group of which I am the first and only transgender board member – is not part of this group.  Their recently issued statement indicates while it is not preferable, they will not actively oppose a version of ENDA which is not fully inclusive.

Because of this unacceptable position feel compelled to resign my position on HRC’s Board of Directors.”

i’ve had some time to be on the boards this weekend, despite the insanity around what’s going on in Burma & with ENDA - both of which occupied a lot of my time - and it’s nice to get a visit in.

teaching has kept me really busy, as has the commute. it’s really a full day that goes to travel: i leave here 1pm for my 2pm train, & i don’t get to Andover until about 8 PM. it’s a little shorter on the return, on Thursday, mostly because the train schedules work a little better.

& yes, as many people have predicted: i love teaching. love it. i asked on the first day if (1) any of them had ever thought about their gender, and (2) if any of them identified as feminists, and got no hands on either. that, plus the class being at 8am, were tall odds, i thought. but aside from the fact that i have to be prepared to frontload the class for the first half-hour while they’re all waking up, we’ve had interesting conversations about whether feminism is valid & what radfems mean when they say all sex is rape & about why most professional cooks are male.

september has gone by really quickly as a result, what with teaching & DO for a week & getting the details for the upcoming trip to CO & applying for a NYFA grant. i feel like i wake up & work on my to-do list & at some point i get on a train & find myself on a green, catholic college campus for a few days, kind of like it’s a dream, & then i’m home again & hanging out with betty & the kittoi until i get on a train again.

but i do enjoy the train time, even if i sometimes dread it the night before. i read a lot. i write some. i grade papers, even. or i just watch the world go by.

(1) If you’d like to be added to a letter being sent to HRC from the leaders of the transgender community asking them “for an unequivocal statement that HRC will oppose this new strategy and any bill that is not inclusive,” then send an email to Shannon Minter at sminter(at)nclrights(dot)org.

Do add any affiliations you have with trans groups, LGBT organizations and the like.

(2) NCTE & The Transgender Law Center have a petition directed to Nancy Pelosi up at iPetitions.com. You can have your name listed anonymously, so there’s no reason not to sign this one.

House Democrats are taking out transgender inclusion for ENDA:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and Reps. George Miller, D-Martinez, Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., believe that they lack the votes in the Democrat-controlled House to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act if it includes gender identity along with sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for firing an employee.

Frank and Baldwin are the only openly gay members of Congress.

“People now accept the fact that we just don’t have the votes for the transgender,” Frank said.

Nervous Democrats had been hearing about Republican amendments to the employment bill, Frank said, “that would talk about schoolteachers, and what happens when the kid comes back from summer vacation and teachers change gender. We just lost enough Democrats and we couldn’t be sure of the Republicans.

The move put a damper Thursday on what Democrats otherwise were hailing as a landmark day for gay rights.

from NCTE’s website:

Senate Passes Historic Hate Crimes Bill

The Hate Crimes Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act (S. 1105) was passed on a voice vote of the Senate today, September 27th.  Immediately prior to the voice vote, a cloture vote to end debate of the Amendment was passed 60-39 with bipartisan support.This amendment was already passed on May 3rd in the House by a vote of 237-180.   NCTE is calling on President Bush to sign the bill with this historic provision included.

Mara Keisling, NCTE Executive Director, says, “While transgender people still have many obstacles to overcome, we are overjoyed that the hard work of so many people is coming to fruition.”

The Hate Crimes Amendment extends the federal hate crimes law to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.

Some disturbing news about the currently pending hate crimes bill, which passed the House and is waiting to pass the Senate (& then, likely as not, will face veto from the president), is now possibly being stripped of it its gender identity clause, and once again, only a few groups (The Task Force, NOW, & PFLAG) are saying outloud that they will only support a bill that includes gender identity. Notice who’s missing? HRC. Again.

& I just got a call from them yesterday wanting me to donate, when I told them years ago I wouldn’t until they backed trans inclusion without caveat.

Thanks to Marti Abernathy for posting about this on the transadvocate.com blog, as I’d heard unofficial word from several trans activists that this was once again the fact but was awaiting confirmation.

ENDA has been introduced to Congress, which is a fantastic thing - to protect LGBT people from employment discrimination.

For more info/overview, check HRC’s site.

For a specific explanation of the gender issues & language, check Transgender Workplace Diversity.

Come out in support of ENDA by contacting your senators and representatives, or by donating to an org that’s working for ENDA’s passage: The Task Force, NCTE.

Mara Keisling is the founding Executive Director of NCTE (National Center for Transgender Equality). A Pennsylvania native, Mara came to Washington after co-chairing the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition. Mara is a transgender-identified woman who also identifies as a parent and a Pennsylvanian. She is a graduate of Penn State University and did her graduate work at Harvard University in American Government. She has served on the board of Directors of Common Roads, an LGBTQ Youth Group, and on the steering committee of the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition. Mara has almost twenty-five years of professional experience in social marketing and opinion research.

1) How much do you think your personality and sense of humor have to do with your success as a lobbyist? What personality? What humor?

I’m not yet ready to claim personal lobbying success, though I know we definitely are having an impact and NCTE was integral to getting the first ever piece of positive trans legislation introduced in Congress this year. I do know though that my sense of humor is a vital part of my personality and helps keep me strong. “They” say that keeping one’s sense of humor is important to weathering bad situations and I certainly believe that. And I have always been lucky enough to be able to amuse myself. Hopefully sometimes others are amused as well.

The work we do educating policymakers, though, is deadly serious and I do treat it that way. That doesn’t mean I do not inject humor as appropriate though. I think it humanizes us and me and makes our stories somewhat more accessible to those who may be trepidatious at first.

By the way, kind of as a hobby, I have begun to do a little bit of standup comedy again and may be coming to a town near you, or at least a trans conference near you.

More…

Subject: Please Support The Rights Of Transgender And Intersex People
Date: 7/6/2004
From: Lambdalp@aol.com

Lambda Letters Alert

Please Support The Rights Of Transgender And Intersex People

Dear Friends,

Today we ask that you write to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) urging
them to assure that transgender and intersex people are added to the
federal Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) now pending in
Congress. We ask you to take the additional step of telling the HRC
that you will not support ENDA until transgender and intersex people
are added to the bill.

The HRC may make a decision on this at their August meeting. So
please write to the HRC as soon as possible and please forward this
message to all your friends so as to maximize the flow of mail to the
HRC.

BACKGROUND

I know that what we are asking of you seems controversial. However, I
hope you will read the following information and that it will
persuade you of the importance of what we ask.

The Human Rights Campaign is the most powerful lobby group for the
LGBTI community in Washington DC. For years it has been the sponsor
of ENDA. If anyone can persuade the authors of ENDA to include
transgender and intersex people it is the HRC. We believe they can do
it if they are motivated enough.

The Board of Directors of the Lambda Letters Project feels strongly
enough on the subject that it voted without dissent to tell the HRC
that Lambda Letters will not support ENDA until transgender and
intersex people are added to it.

ENDA is a bill currently before Congress that would ban sexual
orientation based employment discrimination. The bill has been
introduced as HR 3285 in the House of Representatives and as S 1705
in the US Senate.

The original version of the bill was introduced by Bella Abzug, D-New
York in the 1970s. Some version of the bill has been introduced in
almost every session of Congress since then. At first the bills
prohibited discrimination in employment and housing. In the early
1990s it was decided to limit the bill to employment discrimination
in hopes that would improve its chance of passage. However, right
from the start, the only form of discrimination prohibited by the
bill was sexual orientation based discrimination. That would protect
lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. It might even protect straight men who
are perceived as too effeminate and straight women who are perceived
as too masculine. However, it would provide no protection to
transgender or intersex people who are discriminated against because
of their status as transgender or intersex people. The rationale for
excluding these groups from the bill has apparently been that it
would be more likely to pass without them. Clearly, that strategy has
failed.

The time has come when our community must push for the inclusion of
these two groups. Things have improved a lot for lesbians, gays, and
bisexuals over the last few years. But progress has been much slower
for transgender and intersex people.

Currently 14 states, and the District of Columbia, have laws that ban
sexual orientation based employment discrimination. Only four states,
and the District of Columbia, have laws prohibiting discrimination
against transgender people. We are not aware of any states with laws
banning employment discrimination against intersex people.

Eleven additional states have executive orders or personnel
regulations that protect their lesbian and gay state government
employees from employment discrimination. Only two states have such
executive orders or regulations to protect transgender state
employees and we are unaware of any that protect intersex state
employees.

However, in seven states the courts or government commissions or
agencies have interpreted laws as protecting transgender people from
employment discrimination.

By the way, all these statistics come from the HRC web site. So they
know full well that much more progress has been made in protecting
the rights of lesbians and gays than has occurred for transgender and
intersex people.

The public’s attitude towards lesbians and gays varies, but in
general, people are much more accepting of them than they are of
transgender or intersex people.

We at Lambda Letters feel it is now time to go to bat for the least
protected part of our community. So we ask you to write to the Human
Rights Campaign. Please tell them that you will not support ENDA
until transgender and intersex people are added to the bill.

You may use the following sample message or compose your own. The
addresses of the legislators who need to hear from you follow the
sample message.

SAMPLE MESSAGE

Ms. Cheryl Jacques, E.D.
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20036-3278

Dear Ms. Jacques:

It is with regret that I inform you that I will be unable to support
the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) in its present form. I
will not support the bill until it is amended to provide protection
against discrimination for transgender and intersex people.

It has often been said that adding transgender people to the bill
would kill its chances of being approved by Congress. However, ENDA,
in its current form, has been pending in Congress for at least 10
years without being approved. In fact the original version of ENDA
was introduced by Bella Abzug, D-New York, during the 1970s. Clearly,
the tactic of leaving transgender people out of the bill, to ensure
its passage, has failed.

According to your own web page four states,. And the District of
Columbia, have enacted laws banning discrimination against
transgender people. Your site also lists seven other states in which
discrimination against transgender people is banned as the result of
a decision by a court or commission. As I understand it, roughly 25%
of the population of the United States is covered by these laws and
decisions. And yet there has been no great outcry against them. I
believe you will find that not one single legislator, judge, or
commissioner has been ousted from his or her position as the result
of supporting a ban on discrimination against transgender people.

I believe that, if HRC pushed hard enough, it could get a bill
introduced in Congress that bans discrimination against all segments
of the LGBTI community. Passing such a bill would still be hard, but
its comprehensive nature would widen support for it to all portions
of our community. Clearly, for such a bill to pass, it needs as wide
a base of support as possible.

Therefore, I respectfully request that you see that such a
comprehensive bill is introduced. I would gladly support such a bill.
However, I will be unable to support any version of ENDA that does
not prohibit discrimination against transgender and intersex people
along with lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons.

Sincerely,

(YOUR NAME)
(YOUR ADDRESS)

ADDRESS

To send your message to THE HRC, use the address link found below.
Cut and paste the sample message, found above, into the body of the
message. Or you can compose your own message. Finally, click on go
and your message will be sent to the HRC. I will also get a copy of
yourmessage.

Here is the address to use:

Please Add Transgender and Intersex People To ENDA

human.rights.campaign@lambdaletters.org

Love,

Boyce Hinman
Chief Lobbyist
LambdaLP@aol.com

Do you like our services? Would you like to make an on-line
contribution to support the work that we do? If so, please visit our
contribution site at: Lambda Letters Project - Donations and
Membership
http://lambdaletters.org/donate.html

Lambda Letters Project, a statewide organization, uniquely offers
Californians direct access to the legislative process in order to
affect public policy in four areas of concern: LGBTI issues; HIV/AIDS
issues; people of color issues, and women’s issues. We provide you
sample letters and e-mails each month. You can sign and return these
letters as is, or use them to create your own message. Lambda Letters
Project has a Legislative Advocate who works full-time on behalf of
the community. Last year Lambda Letters Project delivered over a
quarter-million letters and e-mails on your behalf. For more
information, please visit http://www.lambdaletters.org/