Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
This article about a recent upsurge in attacks against queer/trans people in Venezuela isn’t easy reading, but it is important to get through. We’re reading Stone Butch Blues in my Transgender Lives class just now, and it’s never easy to read or re-read, even.
I tell myself sometimes that I teach this stuff so that some day I won’t have to, or I can teach it only as history, not the present.
Jamison Green, Jason Cromwell & Dallas Denny did a survey on trans terminology 10 years ago to try to educate people who were writing about trans issues. It’s a whole decade later, & they thought it needed an update, so they’ve created a survey for those of us in the community to weigh in what terminology doesn’t suck and what does. Here’s their letter:
Greetings!
Ten years ago, we conducted a short survey of our community’s reactions to the use of descriptive terminology in the professional literature of gender identity issues. Basically, we were interested in reforming the literature so it could speak respectfully about transsexual and transgender persons. To do that, we wanted to find out which terms transsexual and transgender people liked, and which they didn’t like. The results of our study were reported at the 2001 scientific symposium of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA), and had an immediate impact on the hundreds of medical and social scientists who were present.
A lot has changed since 2001, and we thought it would be interesting to re-open the survey, collect new data, compare the results 10 years later with the original results, and present our analysis at the 2011 scientific symposium of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (formerly HBIGDA) this September.
We are asking community members to rate and give us their opinions of certain terms which have been used in the literature, and some of the terms put forth by the community itself, so we can communicate the community’s opinions to the members of WPATH and (we hope) more widely in a subsequent academic publication.
There are no physical or psychological risks associated with responding to this survey, and there are no age restrictions for respondents, though we caution participants that some terms offered for your evaluation may be offensive to you or other individuals. The survey has only 8 questions (though most questions have many options to choose from) and should take less than 20 minutes to complete. Please complete it all in one sitting – if you exit the survey before you complete it, your answers will not be saved. The survey is scheduled to close June 28, 2011, so please respond soon!
If you are interested in receiving a copy of the paper which will eventually come from this, you will be given an email address at the end of the survey so you can contact the researchers separate from your responses to this survey. Any communication you initiate with us will not be associated with your survey answers, and no identifying information will be retained. We will treat your email address as confidential and will use it only for distribution of the paper to you. Your answers to the survey also will be treated confidentially, and no data reported in our analysis will be traceable to you.
Here’s the link to the survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8RGBH25
Thank you VERY MUCH for participating in this survey and helping us with our research!!
With Gratitude,
Jamison Green, Jason Cromwell, & Dallas Denny
Let them know what you think. The paper will be published this fall.
Good to see.
TLDEF applauds the United States Department of Labor’s announcement yesterday that it has taken steps to protect its transgender workers from employment discrimination. The Department of Labor added gender identity as a protected category in its equal employment opportunity statement. The policy applies to all hiring, promotion and disciplinary practices for the approximately 17,000 employees of the Department of Labor.
“Whether in private or public employment, what matters is not who you are, but how you do your job,” said TLDEF executive director Michael Silverman. “The Department of Labor now joins the many public and private employers that have recognized that discrimination is bad business. We applaud Labor Secretary Hilda Solis for her leadership on this issue.”
Transgender people face tremendous discrimination in the workplace. In a recent survey, 47% of transgender people reported being fired, or denied a job or promotion, just because of who they are. In a recent case, TLDEF filed a lawsuit on behalf of a transgender man who was fired from a male-only job solely because he is transgender.
“Employers like the Department of Labor set an example for other employers to follow. It is a great day when diversity is embraced and discrimination is rejected in the workplace,” added Silverman.
Pakistan has recently adopted a new law that allows people who don’t identify as male or female to choose another gender on identity documents.
Allows is the key word. They don’t require it. It seems like a good thing – not just for those who are third gender, but for those during transition, and for those who don’t have passing privilege.
If only we could manage something similar here.
Just discovered the blog American Trans Man, which, according to its description, is:
written by a FTM trans scientist who supplies information about different biological and genetic aspects of being transgender with a focus on the transmasculine.
I’m especially pleased there’s a focus on trans science.
There’s a new cool survey out for – and more importantly, by – trans people. Non trans people can take it too: it examines attitudes about self, gender, & relationships. The researcher explains:
My advisor and I are painfully aware that most surveys in psychology are not inclusive of—or even recognizing of—trans spectrum identities because we ourselves have trans spectrum identities. Specifically, I am genderqueer and Professor Tate is a transgender woman (who is also genderqueer as butch-presenting). Thus, we do not see ourselves and our experiences represented very well in the status quo of psychology research. We are therefore personally as well as professionally motivated to change the way psychology studies transgender and genderqueer identities. Yet, we need your help to do this well. We need our voices to be heard.
More below the break.
Monica Roberts has been covering a proposed bill call SB 723; her most recent update is here. It’s in the Senate, & what it will do is make it illegal to use a court order about name/gender change to apply for a marriage license. The only reason it’s been proposed is to mess with the legal marriages of trans women to men, such as in the Nikki Araguz.
If you live in TX, call your senators now and tell them to kill this bill. List below the break.
There is a petition at change.org which is calling for the McDonald’s employees who stood by, laughed, and videotaped the violent attack on a trans woman be held responsible.
I have no idea what kind of precedent that might be, but a law like this is long overdue.
Not at all ironically, it is in Maryland that a recent non-discrimination law recently went down in flames because gender identity was added to the bill and legislators, as per usual, were presented with the bullshit argument that somehow “men in dresses” would be hiding out in ladies’ room inflicting violence. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A CASE OF THIS HAPPENING, and as we can all see here, it is transpeople who require protection and safety from transphobic bigots. The Democratic Senators who backed out of supporting the bill – even after confirming their support – should be ashamed of themselves.
It turns out that the lovely porn star Drew Deveaux – who just won Heartthrob of the Year at the Feminist Porn Awards – is out & trans.
How fucking cool.
There are plans afoot for an educational/outreach conference for West Michigan. Here is their call for organizers:
Call For Organizers: Transgender Education Collaboration of West Michigan (2011-2012)
A collaborative plan for educating West Michigan about transgender, gender variant, and intersex issues
Why?There is a need for education about Transgendered, gender variant, and intersex issues in West Michigan.
How? LGBT and educational related groups will be able to educate & advocate on transgender, gender variant, and intersex issues by creating a conference/awareness week with speakers, workshops, and other activities.
What Can You Do? Email M Kelley at mattkelley39@gmail.com if you would like to get involved, would be interested in speaking, know organizations willing to join the collaboration, or want to contribute somehow to this happening. It is my hope that together we can begin to change West Michigan.
Please copy + re-post widely.