Category: trans

Posted on

Weiss Woman

More and more we’re starting to see some very serious venues take on some aspect of trans issues, whether it’s 20/20 last year with GID and trans youth or The Atlantic Monthly’s current article on the same topic.

But I didn’t really expect Harvard Business Review to publish an article about workplace issues, or rather, I wouldn’t have if I didn’t know how fantastic Jillian Todd Weiss is.

I had transitioned from male to female in 1998, and my new employer neither knew nor suspected that I was transgender. Now I was receiving the condescending treatment that some of my female colleagues had complained about all along. After several such incidents, I quietly left the practice of law, never to return. As a male attorney, my competence had never been questioned so harshly by my employers, so I assumed that reports of gender discrimination were bogus complaints brought by females who didn’t measure up. As a male, I had been privileged, though I didn’t know it at the time, to avoid much of the harsh treatment reserved for females in a male bastion.

I didn’t know Ms. Weiss before her transition so I can’t say “I told you so” but I’m going to anyway! No, women aren’t blowing smoke up anyone’s ass about this stuff. I appreciate her honesty in admitting she thought they were “bogus complaints” and am pleased to know that transitioners, as I expected, are turning out to be the last tool in the feminist toolbox.

It’s one of the reasons I find the slogan “equal pay for equal work” problematic, because so much of the struggle is getting people to see your work as equal to your male peers’ — even when it’s superior.

(via Bilerico)

Posted on

Back to Mike

It looks like the person we’ve all come to know as Christine Daniels is de-transitioning, and has returned to work as Mike Penner.

Kevin Roderick of highly-respected LAObserved.com reports late Monday that “Eighteen month after writing a column about becoming Christine Daniels, veteran sportswriter Mike Penner has quietly returned to work at the Los Angeles Times, according to multiple sources close to the LAT’s Sports staff.”

Anyone know any more than this? All of the articles/blog posts written by Christine Daniels are gone – sports ones, as well as the ones about the transition.

If anyone has more information, let me know. As far as I know, this is the most famous person to de-transition I’ve ever heard of, and it’s surely going to cause additional confusion to people who are just starting to get why people transition in the first place.

So – why do people de-transition? I’ve met people who did because they couldn’t find a job as a female, especially if/when there were dependents in the picture. Others realize they weren’t transsexual – and that is the point of RLT, after all, & that means it’s working. Any other reasons people have come across?

Posted on

Trans for Obama: / blushing

A week later, the Trans for Obama campaign is still going: we’ve gotten over 300 donors and have raised nearly $14,000 for the campaign. That’s exciting! A blogger at GLAAD, Mik Kinkead, who is their Transgender Advocacy Fellow, wrote a nice piece about the campaign (and about me).

So keep spreading the word, because there are still weeks left until Election Day, & the more visible we are, the more pols care about our issues.

(h/t to Andrea James)

Posted on

LGBT People in Wasilla

Those books Palin was asking about having removed? Books about gays for children. Why am I not surprised?

Interviews with LGBT Alaskans in Wasilla, who talk about how Palin was very much involved with churches who made anti-gay sentiment a political stand, and who condone ex-gay therapies. Very, very important viewing, especially after Palin let it slide in the debate that she is for same-sex marriage rights (even if she doesn’t call it marriage).

Posted on

SCC Failure

A recent blog post written by someone who attended SCC reminds me, again, that whoever is in charge of partners’ events at SCC isn’t doing their job.

The only thing that I attended that did not live up to my expectations was the Comfort Zone, a group for SOFFA (significant others, friends, family and allies) of MTF trangender women. I qualified for the group as a wife of a MTF. The group was predominately made up of wives of cross dressers with about 4 of us being partners or wives of transgender people. It appears we all left before the meeting was over. The next morning Sarah and met two young women who had not been eligible for the group since their partners were FTM. They were in happy relationships. We exchanged email address and may try to put something on the internet for happy partners and wives of trans people.

This really thrills me. Two years ago a partner of an FTM was told she wasn’t welcome because she identified as lesbian, & this year they just don’t allow partners of FTMs into the partner support group.

It’s not hard to run an inclusive partner group. I’ve done it tons of times. I offer every year. I don’t need to get paid, just to have my costs covered. I would be willing to go down there to train some locals as to how to be inclusive of all partners.

Whoever is doing this workshop needs to be asked not to do it. The isolation most partners experience is quite enough, but isolating them further – at a trans conference! – is entirely unacceptable.

Please, SCC organizers, please. You have no idea what a knife in the heart it is, as a partner, to get to a conference and feel like no one bothered to care that you have a sense of community, too.

Posted on

Ruby Molina

The body of the transgender woman who was found in the American River in Sacramento last week has been identified by police as Ruby (nee Fernando) Molina. The police are citing it as a “suspicious” death and need more information:

Anyone who knew the victim, the victim’s recent whereabouts, or who has other information about this case is asked to contact the Sacramento Police Department at (916) 443-HELP. A $1,000 reward is currently being offered.

Please, if you know something, let the police know. She deserves to have her murderers caught, as does her family.

(thanks to Angus/Andrea Grieve-Smith for the info.)

Posted on

Trans for Obama: Ongoing Issues

Goal Thermometer

Kate Bornstein is fired up, and wants our various transgender communities to start working together more, all because she’s dizzily happy about being acknowledged by the Obama campaign. Jillian Weiss is asking similar questions, but more along the “how in hell did this happen?” about the Trans for Obama campaign. I love that she calls me a Transgender Media Empire – that kills me, since I’m really just an underemployed author with a tech-savvy partner. Even on Monday, when I put a lot of energy into Trans for Obama, half the reason was that I had to take the GRE two days later and my best-loved furball was having surgery.

Still, this issue of “community” is one that always frustrates me. Community is about being willing; if you want in, come on in, and if you don’t, please go away. It’s as simple as that, imho: the HBS type are free to do whatever it is they do (and some are active in feminist issues, actually, instead of trans ones), and the homophobic crossdressers, of which there are some, can hang out together by themselves, and – well, you get the idea. I don’t really care, honestly: since my existence as a member of the trans community is always liminal to some people, because I’m a partner & not trans myself, I’m all for defining community by those who want to be there.

But Monica Roberts (in the comments section of Jillian Weiss’ Bilerico post) has brought up the issue of trans POC not being encouraged, or recognized, and I think she’s right that we need to do more. So I’m looking for a trans POC volunteer to take over my blog for a day, to at least raise some awareness.

Posted on

Trans for Obama: Obama Pride Says Thanks

Trans folks and partners and allies: you did good with the Trans for Obama campaign, so good, in fact, that the Obama campaign has blogged about our efforts:

Obama Pride is honored by the enthusiastic support of so many in the transgender community and we congratulate all the participants in Trans Blog for Obama day for their huge success!

We’re very proud of us, too, and of Obama Pride for keeping LGBT issues visible for us all.

What’s even more important is that one of my favorite bloggers has written a remarkable piece about Obama from the perspective of someone who is female, African-American, and trans. Monica Roberts is a shining star in this community, and wow is that apparent from this current post of hers. My apologies that she did not hear about Trans for Obama Day until noon on Monday; the event’s organization happened very quickly, and while I tried to get to everyone – and tell them to let everyone else they knew to get on board – Ms. Roberts should have gotten her own invitation.

Sara also has a new post up about why she’ll vote for Obama now instead of voting for Kucinich in protest. & That’s exactly what Monday – and indeed this whole Trans for Obama week – was all about.

Posted on

Genderqueer Vid

Has anyone watched this genderqueer video called Gender Rebel that was on Logo? You can watch the whole thing online (which is good, since we don’t get Logo).

The middle part, where Lauren and her partner try to explain genderqueer to Lauren’s aunt, and how they don’t think of themselves as a lesbian couple, is really interesting. The aunt is a lesbian in Howard Beach – notoriously macho, Italian, racist Howard Beach – who doesn’t get it, but I love that she says “I’ll fight to the death for you.” Which to me is mostly what counts.

There are more episodes planned, but I suspect every person who identifies as genderqueer will define it – and present it – differently than the next.

At 19, had this term existed then, I probably would have identified as genderqueer, though I’m still waiting to find a natal female who is genderqueer that dates boys. That is, it still seems a term used by those in the lesbian community, which is why I understand Lauren’s aunt’s confusion. To an “old school lesbian” genderqueer just looks like butch by another name. Even if it isn’t.