Category: trans

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Trans Employment

CNN ran this article on trans people and employment and economics a few days ago and it occurred to me that perhaps this is new news to some people. It’s a known problem within the trans universe, although of course I know plenty of well-employed, well paid trans people as well – at universities, of course, but also at Google and Twitter, and there are quite a few like Babs Siperstein (in the video) who decided to go their own way and so not worry about discrimination from a manager or boss.

But as with all things the intersectional issues are huge: education, previous employment, the visibility of a job; ethnicity, race, language skills; support from family, faith community, and work — all of these aspects of a trans person’s existence are highly variable. So much can be the luck of the draw; I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many trans people are in tech because there is so much more of an emphasis on being excruciatingly smart and capable in very demanding and specific ways; someone, for instance, who has had a life in sales is not going to be as likely to keep a job — although of course a good salesperson shouldn’t have to rely on gender normativity to be able to sell a product.

(I do, as ever, feel the need to point out that it’s pretty cool that CNN is covering issues like this, and not in the “shocking expose” bullshit kind of way.)

Thoughts? If you’ve got a story to tell, feel free. Also, if you need a job or have a job, post those here too.

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Me @ Esprit & on the West Coast

For the very first time since the publication of My Husband Betty I’m going to be doing a conference & keynote talk on the West Coast – specifically, at Esprit, up in Port Angeles, WA. I’ll be there on May 17th & 18th, with one workshop on the 17th (on Trans Relationships) and one on the 18th (on sex), in addition to the keynote on the 18th. It’s supposed to be beautiful there, so I’m looking forward to that, but also, I’ve heard a lot about how fun this conference is over the years.

I would love to do something in/around Seattle while I’m there as well as in Portland, OR, if that’s possible, so if you’re at a school or bookstore or with an organization that brings in speakers, let me know! It’s a good time to book me to do something out there as I can discount any “piggybacked” events.

I am still also thinking about trying to be in San Francisco for my birthday which is earlier that week, so if you’re in the Bay Area, get in touch.

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TED x Allyson Robinson

I suppose I can say “we knew her when” as Allyson was a member of our community forums for a long while.

To me, these are the standout pieces, but do go listen to the whole thing:

” In our society, and in all the groups and subgroups and sub-subgroups that comprise it, we treat inclusion as a good, a commodity. The work we do to secure this good for ourselves is conformity. It’s true, isn’t it? We perform a labor – we wear a particular kind of clothes, we speak in a particular way, we show interest in a particular set of things, we adhere to the norms of a particular group – and we’re rewarded by that group with included status. When we do the work of conforming, it’s like we’re buying inclusion; when we require others to conform in order to be included, we sell it. Are you with me? This takes place in a particularly transparent way among children and youth in traditional educational settings — think cliques — but we all do it. Our methods just become more sophisticated and more subtle as we mature.

And so we create a market, where buyers and sellers of inclusion come together to trade and the forces of supply and demand affect costs. In the social inclusion marketplace, a person’s ability to gain entry into a group is limited by the price she’s able and willing to pay, the norms she can and will adhere to. For some, those whose natural inclinations and disposition line up with the group’s norms, it’s literally a small price to pay. They receive the good of inclusion, and their need for belongingness is met, simply by virtue of who they are, like a privilege. But what of everyone else?”

and this:

” … we teach the natural conformers that norming others into submission and sameness is an ethical practice that brings about a common good. In fact, we teach that homogeneity is a common good, contrary to our message of respect for diversity and difference. We instruct non-conformers in the internalization of oppression, and everyone else to become oppressors themselves … “

And I’m so pleased to see her doing this kind of work, and doing it so well.

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13 for ’13

NCTE has a list of 13 achievable goals for 2013. They are:

  • The President should issue an Executive Order prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation by federal contractors.
  • The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should issue enforcement guidelines for gender identity discrimination in the workplace.
  • The Department of Labor should issue guidelines for equal treatment of transgender people in all federal jobs programs, such as Job Corps and One-Stop Career Centers.
  • The Social Security Administration should update its gender change and other policies affecting transgender people, and remove gender data from all remaining data matching programs.
  • The Department of Health and Human Services should adopt regulations prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation in all federally-funded health care facilities and programs.
  • The Department of Education should issue Title IX guidelines to ensure that transgender students can fully be themselves at school.
  • The Department of Housing and Urban Development should issue guidelines clarifying that homeless shelters must provide all persons with access to shelter consistent with their gender identity.
  • The National Center for Health Statistics shall release Model State Vital Statistics legislation that includes modernized standards for gender change on birth certificates.
  • The U.S. Senate should pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).
  • The U.S. Congress should pass immigration reform that protects LGBT families and asylum-seekers.
  • The U.S. Congress should pass an LGBT-inclusive Violence Against Women Act.
  • The President should appoint highly qualified transgender people to key positions throughout the Administration.
  • NCTE will support advancement of equality through new laws and policies at the state level.

Go donate $13 (or better yet, $1300) to help them do it.

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Chicago: Lurie Children’s Hospital Adds Gender Identity Clinic

Here’s some great news for the Midwest: a gender identity clinic that will treat children:

The clinic, which is up and running but has yet to officially launch, is the first of its kind in the city and one of few resources for gender-variant kids younger than 13. Through the clinic, children dealing with gender identity issues will have access to everything from endocrinology to psychology.

“As a unit, the family is not always ready to embrace terms like ‘LGBT’ or ‘transgender,'” said Dr. Rob Garofalo, director of the Center. “I think coming to Lurie allows people to come to a place where services are hopefully increasingly culturally competent, without threatening the developmental trajectory that these families have to go through.”

Garofalo created the clinic out of a patchwork of specialists already working within Lurie, a move that both has both staffed the clinic and furthered understanding about transgender lives within Lurie, he said. The Center will also employ a psychologist and a social worker.

In past years, Chicago families with transgender kids often found medical and mental health services piecemeal. While many of the city’s LGBT organizations offer youth services, most of those services are designed for kids ages 13 and older.

Some families flew to Boston Children’s Hospital or Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, which both have gender clinics for children. But for families without the time or means to travel, finding specialists that understood gender issues and kids presented a serious challenge.

So very, very cool. The world IS changing.

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CFP: TSQ

CALL FOR PAPERS: TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 1.4, “Trans* Cultural Production”, deadline: April 15, 2013

The arts have served as a cultural arena for imagining, creating, and proliferating transgender experiences and communities around the world. As part of its inaugural year TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly will feature a special issue examining trans* cultural production in art, film, dance, design, architecture, literature, and music. We seek papers that critically analyze the current state, history, and significance of these expressive forms as they address, depict, and are mobilized by trans* subjects broadly defined, including people whose gender/sex expression is not informed primarily by contemporary Western constructions and conventions. The issue will feature trans* makers and communities alongside essays exploring cultural production by non-trans* makers as such production impacts trans* lives, trans* politics, and/or trans* theory. We invite submissions exploring the repercussions and resonances of trans* representation in non-trans* contexts as well as work developing trans* interpretations of creative work not originally intended to engage specifically trans* people or concerns.

Rather than a survey of best practices or major figures, the issue aims to offer a forum to examine the wider issues attending to the representation of trans* in the arts and to demonstrate the value of trans* as a heuristic lens for interpreting creative work more generally. While the focus of the issue is scholarly research, we also hope to include a small selection of shorter, less formal essays that engage with critical issues in trans* cultural production from curatorial, marketing, and practitioner perspectives. Continue reading “CFP: TSQ”

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A Message from Leslie Feinberg

(Please take action & repost)
Message from Leslie Feinberg:

I am ordered to begin trial in Minneapolis today, Feb. 4 at 9 am (Central U.S. time zone).

The jury trial is expected to last about 2 days.

I am charged with 3rd-Degree Gross Misdemeanor for my June 4 solidarity action demanding the release of  CeCe McDonald. The charge threatens a maximum 1 year sentence.

Help deliver the peoples’ verdict:
‘FREE CECE!’

Send messages to Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and the city prosecutor — a mayoral political appointee:

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak — twitter: @MayorRTRybak; email: rt@minneapolis.org; fax: (612) 673-2305;
phone: (612) 673-2100.

Minneapolis City Attorney Susan Segal —
email: Minneapolis311@ci.minneapolis.mn.us;
fax: (612) 673-2189;
phone: (612) 673-2010.

(via Original Plumbing.)

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Transition Later in Life: Ethical Questions

Wow, the NYT’s Ethicist column is not the place I’d expect to see this question raised, but I’m glad it has been, and his answer isn’t horrible for a newbie to trans lives. I say that because the letter writer did not mention being suicidal, and in fact does seem to have a lot of other, recognized causes for happiness in his life.

(For the record, there are trans women who choose not to transition because of previous commitments who manage to live and even thrive. )

That said, not every decision should or can be made based on the ethics of a situation, in my opinion – although they should always strongly inform major life choices.

This bit in particular rang out to me:

“Now, I realize what you’re referring to is a deeper, existential version of happiness that all people crave (and which goes far beyond having a good relationship or a good job). There are, however, many people who never experience that level of happiness, regardless of how they view their sexual identities. Even if you become someone else, you may never find it. So what we’re really weighing are the ethics of taking an irreversible gamble that will potentially improve your own interior life while significantly reinventing the lives of those around you.”

“Reinventing” seems a light way to put what can happen to a family as a result of transition.

And for some trans people, not transitioning is taking an irreversible gamble as well exactly because not transitioning can lead to suicidal depression.

That said, I do think any trans person who is married with children has an ethical responsibility to make sure they care for the people whose lives will be hurt the most in a myriad of ways: financial, emotional, etc.

(There are already 57 comments, but I haven’t made my way through them yet. I’m still a little post traumatic about reading comments section in response to any articles published anywhere about trans lives, and even though many people tell me the general tone of them has gotten a lot less hateful in the past few years, I’m really always a little worried that I will have to wade through 8 tons of transphobic bullshit.)

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Fair Wisconsin Gala! February 9th!

Next Saturday, Fair Wisconsin’s Education Fund will be holding a Gala to celebrate the year’s victories and leadership, and yes, Tammy Baldwin will be in attendance!

Tickets are $125 a person, and the keynote speaker will be none other than Zach Wahls. I will be there, of course.

I will also be doing a workshop at Fair Wisconsin’s Leadership Conference as well, which is a very cool event – a great place to learn about a vast array of issues facing LGBTQ people. There are scholarships available for students – and it’s only $35 for students.

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A Clarification or Eight

I’m aware that publishing a brief interview with Christine Benvenuto has caused some chagrin, and my explanation for why I did so even more.

So I’d like to point out a few things:

  1. I was unaware, when I read Ms. Benvenuto’s book, that her ex was Joy Ladin, who has also written a book about her transition.
  2. I will be reading Ms. Ladin’s book and doing a brief interview with her, in future.
  3. I do not claim to know what “really” happened between them. No one does but them, and they don’t agree, so really: no one does.
  4. I would like to point out the phrase “despite transphobic tendencies” – which I used to describe Ms. Benvenuto’s book. Her transphobia is not lost on me, by any stretch. Some of the most vitriolic transphobia comes from ex spouses, specifically of trans women.
  5. That does provide an interesting problem, doesn’t it? Why is it that the ex partners of trans men don’t similarly explode with transphobia? Some do, no doubt. But not anywhere near the same, at least not from my perspective, and I know plenty of trans men and plenty of people who have been partnered to trans men who aren’t anymore.
  6. Suggesting that people who are going to need to transition, do so YOUNGER than they have historically, is not essentialism. I do not now and have never believed that all trans people need to, want to, or will transition, and many are very happy being something like crossdressers and not transitioned women, either. I respect any choice a person makes when dealing with transness, even the awful ones, to be honest. Transness in a deeply transphobic culture is a really difficult thing to manage.
  7. Do non transitioners need more support? Fuck yes. We all do. Therapists are still pathetically under-educated when it comes to dealing with holistic treatment for trans identities, much less support for partners and families and loved ones. Most gender therapists are only, if ever, prepared to deal with transitioners, and the rest of us are still left out in the cold. Good therapists – Ari Lev and Reid Vanderbergh come to mind – are aware of this sad state of affairs. Most are not.
  8. Finally, at long last, I’m going to reiterate that I found a lot of what Ms. Benventuo had to say about her ex offensive and difficult. It is not my story. Whether or not it is accurate, or The Truth (which is a thing I don’t believe exists, for those of you who are wondering) has nothing to do with it. The experience, as she told it, is very typical, whether or not it was true in her case. A lot of partners and former partners will find some kind of resonance, and so healing, in this book. And that’s again why I’m standing by having blurbed it and having interviewed her.

I’ll leave it there for now. There’s plenty more coming, I’m sure, as these pieces make their way through transland.