Category: trans

Posted on

Trans-centric

One of the things I’ve always liked about Vanessa Edwards Foster is that she doesn’t lose sight of the goal: actual equality. I agree with her that our standards are low when it comes to justice for the trans people, and their families and friends, who are murdered. I agree that “manslaughter” is not murder, and that shooting at someone who is basically a sitting duck in a car can’t possibly have been an accidental killing.

But what I don’t agree with is the vitriol directed at the LGB leadership of the organizations that called the ruling on Teisha Green’s murder a victory.

Our standards are low because we are too used to seeing no justice at all when it comes to people who intentionally hurt and kill trans people for being trans. There are too many cases that break your heart. There are too many families who have had to hear the most hateful bullshit about their trans loved one. There are too many cases that are simply not solved, nor investigated.

But that the jury came back to rule her death a hate crime is a good thing.

What bothers me about the politics between the LGB & T is that there are plenty of other gay bashings and hate crimes experienced by the LGB that the trans community pays little attention to, such as Sean Kennedy’s. If you want an example of an absolute failure when it came to our legal system, that’s it. It’s horrific. Every time I see that young man’s beautiful face, and think about his parents’ loss, I wonder where exactly the trans community has been in raising awareness of that horrible injustice. No, he wasn’t gender variant. He was a young adult who was out and proud about being gay. But he’s dead just the same as Teisha Green is, & for the same reason: someone hated him for what he was.

Do we know Michael Scott Goucher? Richard Hernandez? Satendar Singh? Ryan Keith Skipper? Jeremy Waggoner? Daniel Yakovleff? These are the names of gay men who have been murdered for being gay in the last couple of years. I didn’t know most of their names.

Community goes both ways. We all have more than enough mourning to do.

Posted on

It’s the nycTa, After All

Good news for the T in NYC: Court rules unanimously NYCTA not exempt from transgender protections

The Appellate Division, Second Department (“Appellate Division”) upheld the lower court’s ruling in Bumpus v. New York City Transit Authority, refusing to dismiss the case against a Transit worker who, Plaintiff Tracy Bumpus avers, launched a sustained and vicious transphobic assault on her at a Brooklyn subway station. In that February 2008 ruling, Justice Robert J. Miller explained, “The Human Rights Law affords protection to transgender people in New York City. By riding the subway, a transgender person doesn’t become less of a person and lose the protection of the Human Rights Law.”

In this case, the law actually makes sense.

Posted on

Teisha Green Trial Starts Today

From the Empire State Pride Agenda:

Today, the trial begins for the murder of Lateisha Green, a 22-year-old transgender woman who was tragically shot and killed in Syracuse on November 14, 2008 just for being transgender. The Pride Agenda expresses its deepest sympathies to Lateisha’s family and outrage that transgender New Yorkers continue to be targeted for violence and discrimination based solely on who they are.

This morning, the Pride Agenda’s Director of Public Policy & Education, Ross Levi, will speak at a press conference in Syracuse, along with other local LGBT leaders, about the trial and the need for the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act. And throughout the trial, our friends at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) will be in Syracuse, working with Lateisha’s family to ensure that the public learns as much as possible about Lateisha’s life, the tragic circumstances of her death and the tremendous violence that transgender people continue to face. You can learn more about Lateisha Green and stay updated on the trial through these organizations’ great resources, including an online resource kit, Twitter, Facebook, and the GLAAD Blog.

No family should ever have to suffer such a devastating loss, and no one should ever have to fear that their life is in danger simply because they are transgender. That’s why we’re calling on the State Senate to pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which would include gender identity and expression in the State human rights and hate crimes laws. We’ll keep you updated as developments on GENDA happen.

To follow what’s going on via Twitter, check out @Andy_Marra or TLDEF, or hashtag #justisceforteish

Posted on

From NCTE: Final Hate Crimes Push

From NCTE:

Contact Your Senators About Hate Crimes Bill

Dear Friends,

We have good news: The Senate is likely to vote on the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, S.909, as early as next Wednesday, July 15. As you may remember, the companion bill, H.R.1913, already passed the House of Representatives this past April after NCTE’s successful lobby day. With a final push, you can help to make this important bill become a law.

This bill expands the coverage of existing hate crime laws to include crimes not only based on race, color, religion, and national origin, but also bias-motivated crimes based on the victim’s actual pr perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability.

TAKE ACTION
On Wednesday, July 15, call your senators toll free at 866-659-9641 between 9am and 5pm ET. Continue reading “From NCTE: Final Hate Crimes Push”

Posted on

DC Bathroom Campaign

DC Trans Coalition and Office of Human Rights Launch Bathroom Access and Safety Campaign

Groups Mobilizing Community to Ensure Enforcement of the Human Rights Act

Washington, DC –   On Friday, July 3rd, the DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) along with the DC Office of Human Rights (OHR) launched the Bathroom Access and Safety Campaign, otherwise known as the Pee in Peace Campaign – a community mobilization project designed to ensure bathroom access and safety for all residents, including transgender, transsexual and gender non-conforming individuals, in the District.

Even with the District’s comprehensive Human Rights Act, which includes protections for gender identity or expression, trans and gender non-conforming people continue to experience verbal and physical harassment ranging from being attacked and thrown out to even being arrested for simply trying to use the bathroom in the District.  In fact, according to a recent citywide survey for transgender and gender non-conforming people, 70 percent of respondents indicated that they had experienced problems accessing or using gender segregated bathrooms. Continue reading “DC Bathroom Campaign”

Posted on

CDM Leaves Tri-Ess

As of today, Chi Delta Mu, the Tri-Ess chapter of the tri-state area, voted to leave Tri-Ess and become an inclusive & independent trans group.

At issue were the chapter’s non-compliance on three major required items: (1) that the local members be due-paying members of national; (2) that the group keep its focus on providing “support and education on behalf of heterosexual crossdressers, their spouses, partners and families”; and (3) that the local chapter file a financial statement with national.

From what I know, CDM hadn’t done (3) in a long while, hadn’t been (2) in a long while, and (1) that most of its members were not members of national.

From what I understand, there was nothing contentious going on – just National asking the local to respect its rules of the charter, and the local realizing that their group had evolved in such a way that becoming compliant again wasn’t going to work for them as a group.

Posted on

Inconvenient

In response to this last post, I received this short email:

“My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser”

This is where you loose me Helen. You say you don’t use words like “Husband or Wife”….but then you write books using that exact terminology.

Very confusing.

I responded:

I wrote that book 6 years ago. My thinking is surely allowed to change, no?

He responded:

Convenient. No?

& I responded:

Is that how you’d talk to Betty about her decision to transition? That it was “convenient”?

My partner was a self-identified straight drag queen when we met, with a male identity.

She is living as a woman & doing what paperwork she can to reflect that.

One of the reasons I can’t & don’t use “husband” anymore is because people then start using “he” pronouns about my partner. She is not a he. To avoid that, I avoid the gendered terminology that leads to it.

When she had a genderqueer/androgynous presentation, she didn’t mind mixing up the pronouns – as I did in the 2nd book. Now, “he” chafes her, doesn’t fit.

So sue me for having had to make adjustments – especially ones that are entirely out of consideration of my partner’s gender.

Please don’t write back. Your response was rude beyond belief. I shouldn’t be justifying it with a response at all, but I like to give people a fair shake.

If I stop using “husband” then it’s somehow just “convenient” that I’m doing so. Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with my partner’s change in gender! *sigh* I’m having one of those days.

Posted on

More on the Cis

The thing is, I love the anger in the trans community. I’m an old school punk rocker; anger is in my blood. So stay angry. Just don’t, as my mother would say, let it cut off your nose to spite your face.

Starting a conversation on the understanding that accusing someone of privilege of whatever kind – straight, male, white, cis – is usually met with a “fuck you i’ve suffered” rejoinder is a good place to begin. Most people’s lives are hard, so it’s unlikely anyone wants to hear how much less hard his/her life is because s/he is male / white / rich / educated / physically abled / cis.

Posted on

Trans Salon

In today’s Salon, a nice piece about the failure of Thomas Beattie, and another about the romantic failure of Jennifer Finny Boylan.

Mara Keisling, quoted in the first piece:

Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, resents the way that the Thomas Beatie flap has overshadowed more important developments. “The media hasn’t gotten a message yet that they ought to get a life,” she snaps. Last week, Congress held its first-ever hearing on discrimination against transgender employees, and on June 17, the American Medical Association passed a resolution stating that it “supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder,” but these items have received nowhere near Beatie’s media attention.

& Boylan, quoted in the second:

The women I knew, for their part, liked the fact that I had a feminine streak, that I seemed to be sensitive and caring, that I didn’t know the names of any NFL teams, that I could make a nice risotto. A lot of straight women love a female sensibility in a man, an enthusiasm that goes right up to, but unfortunately does not quite include, his being an actual woman.

The romances didn’t last, of course. Because, let’s face it: I was keeping the basic fact of myself camouflaged. How are you supposed to fall in love when you’re so frequently lying?