Posted on

Happy 100th Anniversary, Die Transvestiten

It’s been a hundred years since Magnus Hirschfeld published The Transvestites. The earliest bibliographic entries Ray Blanchard tracked down are these:

Die Transvestiten – Eine Untersuchung über den erotischen Verkleidungstrieb [Transvestites – A Study of the Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress], Pulvermacher, Berlin, 1910.

Co-authored with Max Tilke: Die Transvestiten – Der erotische Verkleidungstrieb [Transvestites – The Erotic Drive to Cross-Dress], Illustrierter Teil, Pulvermacher, Berlin, 1912.

How cool is that? I couldn’t help but think that Virginia Prince died only last year, at the age of 96. Imagine, she was born only a few years after that book was published, when the idea of anyone being “out” about crossdressing was – to borrow from Hirschfeld’s language – verboten.

It’s hard to imagine what might have been, if the Nazis had not destroyed Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sex.

Posted on

Move ENDA Now

Take Action: Demand LGBT Employment Rights Today

Note from Helen: (en)gender is participating in a blogswarm today with Bilerico Project, Daily Kos, Open Left, Towleroad, Pam’s House Blend, Joe My God, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Daily Gotham, Culture Kitchen, Taylor Marsh, Page One Q, and Dan Savage, among others. Contact Speaker Nancy Pelosi and ask that she move the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (HR 3017) to a floor vote.

ENDA is the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and would prohibit job discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Hearings were held in the House and in the Senate to demonstrate the need for the bill, and testimony was heard on the severe unemployment, underemployment and harassment experienced by LGBT workers. Witnesses testified to the scientific studies demonstrating this.

A clue to the inaction: Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly told Democrats that she would not move controversial bills. Meanwhile, the House Committee has stated its readiness to move, but is waiting for a signal from Speaker Pelosi. She doesn’t move it, & we can’t wait any more: there is a majority in both Houses of Congress in favor of ENDA. Now is the time to move it.

Please call Speaker Nancy Pelosi at 202-225-4965. Ask that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, HR 3017, move to a vote. Please be polite, but firm.

More at Bilerico, and especial thanks to Jillian Weiss.

Posted on

Drinking Game Redux: Stanton Biopic on CNN

The day has finally arrived when the trans community groans collectively: Susan Stanton’s CNN myopic is on tonight. Get out the fifth (or your drug of choice) because this one is going to be worse than the usual; previews are clear about that. We’ll get to see Stanton insult crossdressers and other trans people.

Sigh.

Mostly I would like for non-trans community to know that most trans people are nothing like Stanton: they don’t reek of privilege, for starters. White, wealthy trans women who transition later in life have always gotten more than their share of the media spotlight, and that’s unfortunate if only because it skews the picture of who trans people are, what they need, and what kinds of discrimination they deal with. Most cannot afford GRS, much less FFS (facial feminization surgery) or, alternately, phalloplasty & the like. People like Stanton (Chloe Prince, etc.) also make it seem as if every trans person comes from a heterosexual history and not only gets GRS but needs it; in fact, most MTF spectrum people don’t get genital surgery, for various reasons.

So if you’re not trans, please don’t bother someone you know who is tomorrow. If you really want to know more, try a book.

Posted on

NYS GENDA Call-In Day!

From TLDEF:

Last week, the New York State Assembly passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). The only remaining obstacle to the bill becoming law is the New York State Senate. The time is NOW to take action and make our final push to get the Senate to vote to end discrimination against transgender New Yorkers.

GENDA would amend the state’s human rights law to ban discrimination in housing, employment, credit and public accommodations. It also expands the state’s hate crimes law to explicitly include crimes against transgender people.

We need you to call your Senator and the lead Senate sponsor Tom Duane at their Albany offices to tell them that you want them to bring GENDA to the Senate floor and pass it. We’re at a crucial moment and it is vital that they hear from you.

Continue reading “NYS GENDA Call-In Day!”

Posted on

CO: 4th Annual Transforming Gender Symposium

Fourth Annual Transforming Gender: Transgender Symposium to be Held at CU March 5 and 6, 2010

The Transgender Symposium will offer an array of talks, performances, art, film, and a workshop to increase visibility and education about transgender identities and experiences, and to bring together the local transgender and ally community.

Boulder, CO February 16, 2010 — The University of Colorado at Boulder’s GLBT Resource Center will be presenting its fourth annual Transforming Gender: Transgender Symposium March 5 and 6 at the CU Boulder campus. Offering an array of formats – including talks, performances, art, film screening, and a workshop – the Transgender Symposium seeks to increase visibility and education about transgender identities and experiences as well as to bring together the local transgender and ally community.

Presenters at this year’s Symposium include local transgender Reverend Malcolm Himschoot, local transgender award-winning artist and author Dylan Scholinski, and Tristan Taormino, an award-winning author and sex educator. Among the various topics that will be addressed at the Symposium are the intersections of gender identity and race, transgender sexuality, and the ways people respond to different expressions of gender. There will also be an art show featuring local transgender and ally artists.

Continue reading “CO: 4th Annual Transforming Gender Symposium”

Posted on

NYS Assembly passes GENDA

From the Empire State Pride Agenda:

The New York State Assembly has passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) for the third time. The Pride Agenda thanks the Assembly for once again taking a stand in support of transgender rights. We will post the final vote tally on “The Agenda” blog tomorrow.

Now, it’s time for the Senate to act! The Pride Agenda will be launching a GENDA Call-In Day to Senators statewide next week. Click here to tell your friends to sign up for our Action Alerts today so that they will hear from us next week when it’s time to take action!
The Pride Agenda just released the following statement regarding the Assembly’s passage of GENDA:

Today the New York State Assembly voted by an overwhelming bipartisan margin to amend the state’s human rights law to include anti-discrimination protections based upon gender identity and expression. The bill (A.5710), known as the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), bans discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, credit and public accommodations. It also expands the state’s hate crimes law to explicitly include crimes against transgender people. The Assembly has now passed the bill by large bipartisan margins the past three years; Governor Paterson has also said he will sign GENDA into law should the Legislature send it to him.

“Transgender New Yorkers shouldn’t have to live in fear that they lack basic protections and could lose their job or be denied a lease on an apartment or service in a restaurant just because of who they are,” said Interim Executive Director Joe Tarver. “In passing this bill, the Assembly continues to demonstrate its leadership on civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) New Yorkers. We thank Assemblymember Richard Gottfried for his sponsorship and support of this bill, as well as the Assemblymembers who voted to pass it.”

“The State Senate remains the only obstacle to passing GENDA. It is now time for the Senate to follow the Assembly’s lead and end discrimination against transgender New Yorkers once and for all by passing GENDA,” said Tarver. “Transgender New Yorkers can’t—and shouldn’t have to—wait any longer.”

Transgender people face severe discrimination in New York. A 2009 needs assessment of New York State’s LGBT community conducted for the Pride Agenda found that 20.7% of transgender New Yorkers have incomes of under $10,000 a year, and one-third are or have been homeless at one time; 28.4% have experienced a physical or sexual assault motivated by transphobic or homophobic violence that was serious enough to require medical care.

Twelve states and the District of Columbia have comprehensive laws banning discrimination based upon gender identity and expression, covering public and private sector employment as well as other areas of everyday life. Eight additional states including New York have executive orders covering public employees only.

According to a March 2008 Global Strategy poll, 78 percent of registered New York voters support passing a bill to protect transgender people. This support is strong across the state, including upstate (74%), New York City (79%) and the downstate suburbs (82%); and among Democrats (86%), Republicans (67%) and Independent voters (78%) alike.

Posted on

Gender Normative

I had a student tell me of a new terminology that seems to be making the rounds: gender normative privilege, which would be, of course, the privilege of normative gender over non-normative ones.

It may be the excellent response I have been looking for to contend with the way cisgender often seems to mean transphobic to some. What I’ve noticed is that this cissexual has “dyke” yelled at her out of car windows and my lovely partner does not. It’s nice to have a word for her being normal, despite being trans, and me being odd, despite being cis.

Of course the idea of gender normativity isn’t new, nor is the idea of normative genders being privileged over non-normative ones. What is new is the idea that it further complicates that whole cis/trans binary I dislike so much.