Category: trans

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A Situation Like This

Here’s a cool piece by Finn Enke of University of Wisconsin, Madison, inspired by Chelsea Manning’s coming out as trans.

I Am a ‘Situation Like This:’ Names, Pronouns, and Learning from Chelsea Manning

As a trans person and educator, I am grateful to Chelsea Manning. She is not the only famous person to come out as trans, nor is she the first military person to do so. But because her coming out coincided with her internationally high-profile trial and her impending incarceration, she has provided an opportunity for institutions and communities to recognize transgender existence. As Socrates observed long ago, learning is often painful because learning requires us to change. Manning is making most of us have to work a little harder, finally.

Here’s what’s close to home for me, as an educator:

Julie is a 23 year-old trans woman trying hard to stay in college; she has dropped out of many classes and can’t use most restrooms on campus. Family, health, and economic factors have thus far made substantive steps toward legal or medical transition inaccessible. Julie’s university lacks a preferred name and pronoun policy, so class rosters list her as Robert. Most days, Julie has to decide whether to ask people to call her Julie and use female pronouns, or to try to quietly pass as the man many assume her to be. Many days, Julie stays home instead.

Tomas is a 35 year-old trans male who medically and legally transitioned ten years ago; his identity documents read male, and his appearance conforms to common expectations about that. However, most students enrolled in his classes at University X assume they will be meeting a female instructor by the name of Tessa. Tomas chose not to legally alter the name (Tessa) that his parents gave him at birth, and most workplaces have honored Tomas’s preferred name. University X is an exception, insisting that only people’s legal names may be used. Tomas will have to come out to his students on the first day of classes, to explain that he is Tomas and is as he appears: a man.

Continue reading “A Situation Like This”

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Me, on Manning

Here’s a short piece I wrote for the Wisconsin Gazette, Wiconsin’s LGBT paper, about Chelsea Manning. I didn’t actually title it, for the record, and I was a little surprised to see the big photo of me, but I’m happy to see it out there.

 

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Goldfrapp’s “Annabel”

The scoop from Nowness:

A young, androgynous boy explores his femininity through a hoard of trinkets hidden in the undergrowth in the accompanying video to “Annabel,” a brand new track from Goldfrapp. For their sixth album Tales Of Us, Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory have stepped back from the electronic synth pop with which they made their name. “I like electronic sounds because of the iciness, but I find them quite awkward,” says Goldfrapp. “Acoustic instruments have a warmth and sensuality about them.” Each song on Tales Of Us is named after a different person and the album sees Goldfrapp’s voice—at one moment rich, the next fragile—paired with understated guitar and strings. The intended effect is to allow the characters and narratives to breathe, which is most eloquently achieved in “Annabel,” inspired by Kathleen Winter’s 2010 novel of the same name which follows a hermaphrodite child who is forced into taking on a male identity in 1960s Canada.

Goldfrapp: Annabel on Nowness.com

There’s an interview about the song and the new music, too. It’s not my kind of song, to be honest, but I do love the clip and otherwise love Goldfrapp.

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Janet Mock on Misgendering of Islan Nettles

If you haven’t read this piece by Janet Mock about how it felt to hear Islan Nettles misgendered at her own memorial yet, do.

My heart dropped each time I watched your face cringe with each misgendering. This is more than semantics, more than a family issue, this is our lives. We all know Islan was beaten to death because she fought hard to be Islan, to be she, to be her. Many of us come from black families, complicated families, families that take their own time with pronouns and names – so we were quiet, giving a grieving mother space to mourn her baby – yet we could not ignore that the misgendering that happened in that space was triggering and it was not merely a private matter. It was public and it was made public by the cis gay and lesbian organizers who distributed the flyers that called it a “community vigil,” who sat the grieving black family center stage for the media to photograph, who invited the local camera crews to capture the footage, who gave the mayoral candidates a “gay community-friendly” photo op.

It’s a beautiful, if heartbreaking piece, and I wonder how long it will take, & how many women like Janet Mock, before we get our act together.

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Seattle Times, Too

As I previously mentioned, an article in The Seattle Times has also called for Chelsea Manning to receive medical care for her transition if she desires it, but emphasizes the issues of violence and assault faced by trans women in prison:

Chelsea is entitled to constitutional protection from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Otherwise, the horrifying reality is that Chelsea may face torture, abuse and rape while incarcerated. The unconscionable prison conditions for many transgender people were captured in the 1994 U.S. Supreme Court case Farmer v. Brennan. The court ruled in favor of a transgender woman named Dee Farmer, who sued the federal government for failing to protect her from assaults and repeated rape, resulting in her contracting HIV while incarcerated in an all-male federal prison.

Since that case, the Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed at the federal level, but it has only just begun to address this ongoing nightmare. A recent California study found that transgender women are 13 times more likely to be raped while incarcerated and more than 200,000 people are sexually assaulted while incarcerated each year. We must demand an end to these dehumanizing conditions.

But do go read the whole thing. It was written by Danielle Askini of Gender Justice League.

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Trans Archiving: March 21-23, 2014

SAVE THE DATE!
Don’t miss the first-ever conference on Trans* archiving!
Moving Trans* History Forward
University of Victoria Transgender Archives Symposium
March 21—23, 2014
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
A 3-day symposium on Trans* archival collections focusing on acquisition, preservation, and access.

The University of Victoria Libraries is proudly committed to the preservation of the history of transgender people. We are inviting scholars, activists, archivists, and all interested people to share and participate in discussions about moving Trans* history forward through the creation and preservation of Trans* archival collections.

Hosted by:

  • Dr. Aaron Devor ( http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/ ), Founder and Academic Director, University of Victoria Transgender Archives
  • Lara Wilson, Director, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Victoria Libraries

Keynote speakers:

  • * Susan Stryker (http://gws.arizona.edu/user/161 ), Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, University of Arizona. “Trans* Activism and Archiving in the US: History, Objects, Methods.”
  • * Viviane Namaste (http://wsdb.concordia.ca/people/full-timefaculty/namaste.php ), Associate Professor and Concordia University Research Chair, Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montréal. “Oral history, archives, and invisible labour of trans* women in Montréal.”
  • * Dallas Denny (http://dallasdenny.com/), writer, researcher, and veteran Trans* community activist, Atlanta, Georgia. “Preserving Trans* History: A Short History and Suggestions for the Future.”

Request for Proposals coming soon
Web: www.transgenderarchives.uvic.caEmail: Transarc@uvic.caSupport the Transgender Archives (https://extrweb.uvic.ca/page.aspx?pid=459)

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NYC Editorial Board Calls for Manning’s Humane Treatment

This is what I call a Big Fucking Deal: The NYT Editorial Board wrote a piece calling for medical transition care for Private Manning and for other trans prisoners like her, making the important point too that her housing should be safe but not isolated due to the heightened risk of sexual assault in prison for trans people.It begins:

When Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, declared that she wanted to live as a woman, the Army’s response was callous and out of step with medical protocol, stated policies for transgender people in civilian federal prisons and existing court rulings.

and then ends:

Private Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, said last week that he hoped military prison officials would voluntarily provide hormone treatment, without a lawsuit. It should not take a court order to get officials — including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel — to do the right thing. They should give Private Manning appropriate medical care and safe but not unduly isolated housing, which should be available for all transgender prisoners.

What is most remarkable to me is that I read and edited a draft by trans activist Danielle Askini of Seattle’s Gender Justice League which will run in tomorrow’s Seattle Times – and its ask and major points are essentially the same as the Times’ letter.

Very, very exciting stuff.

 

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Islan, & Harlem, & Me

I went to college in Harlem, slept with men in Harlem, lived a little north of Harlem and a little south of Harlem for most of my 20s. I cut my teeth on womanism, which was the first form of feminism that ever felt like it invited me in.

& I used to ride the subway to and through Harlem and I saw young women like Islan on their way downtown to the Piers or from a date and it was one of the only times in my life I used to pray, the way an agnostic might, to my grandma, to keep that young woman safe. I was a white woman from the suburbs who moved through black and brown communities safely because of my skin privilege & straight privilege & cis privilege. That is not to say I always was safe, & ultimately, I wasn’t, but that’s another story for another day.

& I wasn’t going to say too much about Islan because I am still recovering from the shock and horror and sadness of the deaths of Cemia and Evon, but then I read this short, raw piece by Grace Annam at Alas & thought better of my silence.

& The non-trans people of this planet need to step the fuck up. We can’t keep letting this happen.

There’s a lot more to say. There’s a lot more anger & heartache & sorrow & fury where this post came from, & sometimes I want an emotional callous to keep from feeling all of it every time I see a beautiful face like Islan’s & hear it was blotted out of existence by someone’s fists, except I don’t want that callous either, because what kind of asshole would I be then?

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Hello, #NPR?

National Public Radio will continue for now to refer to Private Manning as “he,” according to a spokeswoman, Anna Bross. “Until Bradley Manning’s desire to have his gender changed actually physically happens, we will be using male-related pronouns to identify him,” she said.

What complete & utter bullshit.

Rich Ferraro, a spokesman for GLAAD, a gay-rights group, said he had been reaching out to news organizations to change their usage. He noted that nearly every major style guide says the media should use the pronoun preferred by the subject. “All of the media coverage today shows how far behind the media is covering transgender people,” said Mr. Ferraro.

Uh, no kidding. GLAAD has a specific resource for reporting on Chelsea Manning, as well as special tips for journalists reporting on crime/violence against trans victims.

The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists (NLGJA) have a stylebook on LGBT terminology, too.

But really, NPR?