More Attempts At Legislative Violence Against Women

I'm normally not much of a fan of increased government regulation.  However, I am disgusted by  the latest efforts to weaken legislation designed to help women.  What's even worse is that such efforts are being made in tandem with attempts to violate our right to the sanctity of our own bodies.


In a previous post, I discussed the drive in several states--most notably Texas--to require a woman who seeks an abortion to be probed, in her vagina, with an ultrasound stick.  Now many of the same lawmakers who support such legislation are behind efforts to prevent the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.


Those who want to renew the Act also want to broaden its powers to include, among other women, those who live in rural areas and Native American communities, and those who experience violence in same-sex relationships.  They also want to include stalking in the definition of domestic violence.


I can tell you firsthand that being stalked, even electronically, by an ex can have as much an effect as physical battering on your physical health and emotional well-being.  It's a kind of terrorism, when you think about it, because it keeps the stalked person on edge in much the same way that the threat of bombings keeps a society on edge.  The difference is that law enforcement officers and agencies don't take stalking seriously.  (Yes, I know that firsthand, too.) Then again, most of them don't take other kinds of violence against women seriously, either.


As for women in rural areas and Native American communities, they have less access than most other women to the services available to victims of violence, as well as the services to prevent some of them from becoming victims. Such a lack of access has to do with their isolation:  In addition to being far from the centers that offer services, women in those areas also share the isolation women in abusive relationships experience.  One all-too-common side effect of that isolation, which further exacerbates the problems those women face, is poverty.  A woman in such a relationship is likely not to have money or other resources of her own that would allow her to escape such a situation and start life anew someplace else.  Also, if such women have children, they want to take those children with them. That, of course, requires even more money and other resources, including a safe place to which they can go.


Now you might ask, "Why should there be programs for same-sex couples?"  You might not believe this, but even the so-called "helping professions" have their share of deliberately and, more often, unconsciously homophobic practitioners.  There are many other practitioners who simply don't have training for, or experience with, helping LGBT people and don't understand the particular risks-- most of which stem from the stress of living with discrimination in employment, housing and other areas--for domestic violence (and related issues like substance abuse) in the community.  Those problems are further exacerbated by the fact that because same-sex marriage still isn't legal in most states, abused partners often don't have the same venues of recourse and redress that people battered in heterosexual relationships can use.


What really rankles me is that some of the politicians who want to get rid of the Violence Against Women Act, and require doctors to probe the vaginas of women who've been raped and girls who've been incested, frame it as a diversion of money away from "more important" things in the worst economic times since the Great Depression.  If 51 percent of the population can't be as secure within our persons as the other 49 percent, what hope is there of a "recovery" or "improvement" in any other area?

"But No Man Will Want To Marry You!"

Some of my current students had yet to be born when I started teaching.  Just when I thought I'd heard everything, I realized I had. And that was part of the problem.

One of my students told me she wants to study aerospace engineering. That means she will have to transfer to another school.  It may also mean that getting a bachelor's degree won't be enough.

However, those aren't the reasons why her parents are trying to talk her out of her dream.  It's also not the expense her schooling would entail, or even what her job prospects would be.  (As an occupation, it's growing at about an average rate, according to the Bureau for Labor Statistics.)  Rather, it's about what it would do to her social life and marriageability.

What's really disturbing is that her parents aren't religious fundamentalists from some country where women aren't allowed to do much besides have babies.  They were born and raised here, and are both teachers.  She tells me they want her to "be happy."  But, she says, "They don't understand that my happiness might be different from theirs."

Now, if they were concerned about her job prospects, I could understand:  As I understand, most aerospace engineers are white and male.  So, perhaps, she might encounter prejudice, albeit in more subtle ways than she would in other fields.  But I would think that if she were determined enough, she could make her place in such a field.

I thought the "no man will want to marry you" canard died out, at least in this country, by the time Sally Ride came along.  I guess I was wrong. 

I'm not against anyone getting married, if that's what he or she wants.  I'm also not against one spouse or partner staying home with the kids, as long as both spouses or partners agree to the arrangement and will make whatever sacrifices are necessary. However, unless being married is the most important thing in a person's life, I don't think he or she should choose a major or career on whatever marriage prospects it might or might not offer.

Ironically, though, her parents might be right, at least in one way. In some of the states in which one is most likely to find a job as an aerospace engineer, my student could not get married. At least, she wouldn't be able to marry anyone she would want to marry.  I wonder whether her parents know that about her.

After Their Traumas

(I know there are now thousands of women in the US Armed Forces.  However, for the purposes of this post, I'll use male pronouns in referring to soldiers.)

A soldier returns home from combat duty.  He's among family and friends, in places that were familiar to him before he went off to fight the war. 

Yet he is still angry, confused, scared or simply anxious.  Although his brain tells him that the family car isn't booby-trapped with explosives, his nerves are still programmed to expect the car to blow up if he opens the door.  Or some smell that he once associated with pleasant experiences--of breakfast, of a walk through the woods--reminds him of the way he lost one of his buddies. 

Or he simply cannot be close to the people who always knew him; he cannot touch his wife or girlfriend.  And his children can be decoys, or victims of a roadside bomb.

As far-fetched as these scenarios might seem to some people, I have heard or read of ones like them.   Just as a wound is still open, or at least present, even as the person with it is in the best hospital in the world, so are the psychic scars of those expereinces with the soldier even as he's among those who have always loved him.

Most of you will recognise what I have described as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.  It is common, not only to members of the military who have served in combat, but also to others who have suffered physically or emotionally traumatic expereinces.  I am talking, of course, about people who have been in abusive relationships or dysfunctional homes, have been the victims of violent crimes or who have survived some sort of terrible accident or natural disaster.

However, I have come across some literature and websites that have referred to PTSD and transgender people.  It doesn't surprise me that the incidence of PTSD is higher among trans people, as well as L's and G's, or people who are simply perceived as such.  We have, after all, experience violence and discrimination directed against us more than most other people.  And many of us who were perceived as incongruent with the expectations of the gender to which we were assigned at birth, or to people's ideas of heterosexuality, also incurred bullying and, sometimes, physical, sexual or emotional abuse as children.

But there are those of us who cry or simply sulk over those past traumas even after we have successfully transitioned into lives in our spiritual and psychological genders, or found the kind of love we have always wanted and needed.  Someone who had her surgery around the same time as I had mine was talking about that just recently.  Yes, she is happy about the life she has now, and wishes only that she'd begun her transition sooner.   However, no matter how good our new lives are, we never quite forget about our old ones.

In Christine Jorgensen's time--and, until not very long before I began my own transition-- doctors and therapists recommended, not only abandoning one's past, but re-inventing it, making up an entirely fictitious personal history.  Doing so, of course, complicated whatever issues those transsexuals may have had. 

Now I can understand why it's entirely useless to tell someone who's been traumatized to "just get over" their pasts.  I don't care whether that person suffered abuse from his or her family or spouse (current or former), or whether that person carries the residual effects of being called "Nigger!" or seeing her uncle hanging from a tree.  (A student of mine, who returned to school at age 58, related such an expereince to me.)  There are some things you just don't get over.  And maybe you need not to "get over" them if you want to move forward and create the kind of life you envisioned for yourself.

Gay Time

When I was teaching at LaGuardia Community College, I helped to organize an event called "Queer CUNY."  Every year, it's held on a different campus of the City University of New York.  That year, it was held at LaGuardia, marking the first time the event took place in one of CUNY's community colleges.


We were trying to decide when a certain workshop should begin.  After deciding on a time, one of the student organizers quipped, "Will that be Eastern or Gay Daylight Time?


He was making light of a stereotype:  that LGBT events never start on time.  I won't say whether or not that's true.  On the other hand, I want to make some attempt to define "Gay Time."


Here is one definition of Gay Time:  http://24timezones.com/usa_time/ga_meriwether/gay.htm

If you prefer, you can check Gay mountain time:  http://24timezones.com/usa_time/wv_logan/mount_gay.htm

Remember to set your clocks forward!

On LGBT Substance Abuse

I try not to re-hash material I've seen on other blogs or websites, or even in the print media.  I also try not to spend too much time revisiting issues I've already discussed, unless I feel I can add something new.


However, I just came across one of the better articles I've seen on LGBT health issues.  Specifically, it discusses some of the reasons why LGBT people abuse substances at two to three times the rate that the general population does. What it discloses, interestingly (and disturbingly) is that gay men are twelve times as straight men to likely use amphetamines (including "crystal meth") and transgender are twice to five times as likely as everyone else to abuse alcohol.


The article, by Jerome Hunt, does an excellent job of summing up some of the better- as well as the lesser-known reasons for the disproportionate substance abuse among LGBT people.  They can all be traced, in one way or another, to the discrimination we too often face.  However, in reading the article and thinking about some of my own experiences, I came to a very disturbing realization.


Having attended more than a few twelve-step meetings and support groups, I recall many people who became alcoholics and drug abusers either as a result of, or to reinforce, their isolation.  They stayed away from other people for a variety of reasons, almost all of which had to do with some sort of trauma or an inadequacy they felt in themselves.  (The inadequacies, of course, were often the results of traumas.)  Such people often were able to become and remain sober through socialization:  Their sponsors were often the first people with whom they socialized, without alcohol or drugs, in their adult lives; subsequently, they'd make other friends and acquaintances or reach out to the people they'd been keeping away from themselves.


As I read Hunt's fine article, I came to realize that LGBT people very often do not have that option.  The stresses we experience from discrimination in employment, housing and even the medical care we receive (or don't receive)--not to mention the threat or the experience of violence directed at us--cause too many of us to isolate ourselves.  That sort of isolation--a response to the alienation brought on by the experiences of bigotry--is a fertile field in which the pill, the bottle and the needle can sprout into addiction.  


However, leaving that field, and looking for love (or companionship or simply friendship) can lead to other, even more fertile, fields for addiction.  I'm talking about bars and clubs.  LGBT people, especially the young, depend on them to a far greater degree than straight and cisgender people for making friends, let alone finding dates or partners.  The reason for that is that for many LGBT people (again, the young in particular), those bars and clubs are the only "safe" venues.  


Marketers for alcohol and tobacco companies know what I've just described.  So do drug pushers. So, they target their campaigns accordingly.  More than a few scholarly articles have been written about the homoeroticism of the Marlboro Man; a good many ads for booze and smoke are subtly (or not-so-subtly) targeted toward LGBT people, especially young gay men.  And at least one beer brewer has sent a lesbian sales rep into gay and lesbian bars to offer samples.


As long as trying to be an integrated social being is so entwined with intoxicating one's self, and as long as there people and institutions that, through bigotry, thwart those attempts at integration, substance abuse will be one of the biggest problems among LGBT people.

What Do They Want From Us?

It seems that the longer I am post-op and living as a woman, the more I find myself talking about race relations, especially with my students.


In one way, that makes sense, given that so many of my students are Afro-American or Afro-Caribbean.  What surprises me now is that no one ever says, "Well, what do you know about that."  They don't even have hostile or skeptical expressions when I get into the topic.


I won't claim to be any more accepting, or less racist, than anyone else.  However, if I do say so myself, I have come to understand a few things that I never would have otherwise.


The glib explanation is that I have been the object of bigotry.  When I look back, I realize that I experienced prejudice even long before I started my transition, when I still could be readily identified as male.  It had to do with the fact that even though I looked and acted the part in so many ways, more than a few people could see that something was "off", that I was not quite "one of the boys," if you will.


However, what I've learned goes deeper than that.  I have made black female friends in my new life.  It's not that I avoided making such friends before, or have sought them out in my new life.  I just find myself meeting and befriending them in the context of my own life.  And, very often, there is a significant, if not profound, understanding between us.


Much of that has to do with the sexual attitudes of many men.  In at least one previous post, I have mentioned some conversations I've had with those new friends.  One of their complaints is that men don't see any of them--who are intelligent, successful and attractive women--as actual or potential partners.  That is because men don't want to see them as intellectual or spiritual peers; they only want them for sex.  I have had similar experiences.


Sadly, they have experienced what I've just described from men of their race and in their communities, as well as ones they've met in dating services.  Likewise, I cannot say that straight cissexual men are the only ones who project their lurid fantasies onto me. Gay men have done the same thing, and I ended up in relationships with two of them. I've mentioned one on a previous post; the main difference between him and the other guy is the amount and degree of psychological abuse I would endure as a result of each of their inability to see me as a human being.

After Esther

On my way home tonight, three guys stumbled off a curb and nearly tumbled in front of my wheel.  I would have cursed at them, but they were dressed in very gaudy outfits that were somewhere between robes and dresses.  And they wore wigs, or what looked like wigs.


Instead of yelling at them, I thought, "Hmm...They look like they're doing a Chasidic version of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.  Or maybe La Cage Aux Folles. The loud but lilting music that echoed off the houses made it seem even more like a campy drag revue.


Turns out, I wasn't too far off.  At sundown, a couple of hours before I left work, the feast of Purim began.  Some people refer to it as "The Jewish Mardi Gras," which also isn't too far off.  


It commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people from destruction in the ancient Persian Empire.  Hamman, a high-ranking advisor to King Ahaseurus, conceived of the plot, which is revealed to the king by Esther, who became his favorite concubine and, finally, his wife. Until the moment she tipped the king off, she did not reveal her Jewish identity.


It's a complicated but fascinating story, which is related in the Magillat Esther, the only book of the Torah in which G-d* isn't mentioned by name.  However, everything about the story, including Esther's concealment of her identity, shows G-d working in mysterious ways and in various guises.


That is one of the reasons why people wear costumes for the feast and it is the only day on which the prohibition against men wearing women's clothing is not observed.  


Hmm...Could that have been an early manifestation of "don't ask, don't tell"?


* I am using the name of G-d in the way an Orthodox or Chasidic Jew would.

Legal Lone Star Rape

Three weeks ago, the State of Texas made rape legal.

Actually, the Lone Star State went even further than that.  It made rape mandatory in certain situations.

Now, some people would accuse me of exaggerating, being alarmist or making an incendiary statement.  (Folks in the academic world like to use that last phrase when someone says something they don't agree with, or that simply has some passion to it.)  However, with strong support from Governor Rick Perry, some women in Texas must submit to what many of them--and I--would see as rape.

Under the new law, a woman who wants an abortion in that state must endure having an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina.  Never mind that the woman who wants the abortion may have become pregnant as a result of a rape or incest.  She has to submit to that invasion of her private self all over again if she doesn't want to bear a forced progeny.

Then she has to listen to the audio thumping of the foetal heartbeat and watch the foetus on an ultrasound screen.  After that, she has to listen as a doctor explain the body parts and internal organs of the foetus as they're shown on the monitor.  She has to sign a document, which will be placed in her medical files,  saying that she understands all of this.  

After all of that, she has to wait 24 hours before returning to get the abortion.

If it isn't bad enough that Texas now has such legislation, Alabama, Kentucky,Mississippi and Rhode Island are also considering similar legislation.  
Now, you might be wondering why I or any other  trans person should care about this, as we won't get preganant.

Well, for one thing, I am a woman and am therefore concerned with any state violation of our selves.  If someone disrespects women enough to impose such regulations, I should be as concerned as any other woman.  Plus, if they actually think that women can be treated in such a way, I can only imagine how they'd see trans women. 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how,under Swedish law, if you want to undergo gender reassignment surgery, you have to be sterilized first.  (That is only one of the draconian requirements Sweden has for people who are "changing" sexes.) If such policies can exist in a country like Sweden, it's not a stretch to imagine something like it, or worse, in Texas or any of the states that are considering Texas-style state-sanctioned rape.

Moreover, I wouldn't have a difficult time imagining those states, or others, making it more difficult for even post-op transsexuals to get the care we need without submitting to invasive procedures.  In fact, I wouldn't even be surprised if, in the near future, those who want the surgery are subjected to even more invasions of their privacy and personhood than they now face.

Although I may have become more "liberal" about some issues, I still don't trust any government with my body or mind.  If anything, that distrust has intensified, now that I understand--at least better than I did before--how much more governments can invade our persons.

What If She'd Been His Child?

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I love cats about as much as anyone can.


Still, when I heard the story about a tortoiseshell named "Rosie", all I could think was, "What would have happened if she were human?"


You see, Rosie is a hermaphrodite.  Her owner assumed she was a female cat until he took her to the vet's office, where a veterinary nurse noticed a complete set of male genitals along side her female parts.  However, Rosie doesn't have internal female reproductive organs.


Rosie's owner had always seen her as female.  That's understandable, given her appearance and the fact that tortoiseshell cats are almost always female.  That probably led to the decision to castrate, rather than to spay, her.  


What if she'd been a human child?  How would she have been treated?

Why the SAGE Innovative Center Is Necessary

Today, the SAGE Innovative Center opened in Chelsea.


What is SAGE?  And what's so innovative about the center?


First, the organization:  Straight And LGBT Elders began as  Straight And Gay Elders more than three decades ago.  It was probably the first, and is still one of the few, organizations to cater to the needs of LGBT senior citizens.


So it makes sense (At least, I think it does) that SAGE would open a senior center.   But what, you might wonder, is different about an LGBT senior center?


Well, one of the harshest truths about the LGBT community is that many of us don't have anyone to take care of us--in fact, many of us don't have anybody at all--when we get old.   


There are many reasons for that.  One obvious one is that most of us haven't had children.  Corollary to that is the fact that, until a few years ago, there were no legally-sanctioned same-sex marriages.  This meant that those who lived as committed partners of other members of their own gender didn't have the same legal rights--including those of custody and visitation--that the spouses of heterosexuals enjoyed.  I recall a man I met who was dying of AIDS-related and whose partner of more than two decades couldn't visit him, much less be involved in any decisions about his medical care or estate.  Those rights were held by family members who cut off contact with him after he "came out" during his freshman year in college nearly four decades earlier.


Before and since meeting him, I have talked to other LGBT people who lost contact with their families in a similar fashion.  As an example, Charles King, one of the founders of Housing Works, told me that no relative of his has been in contact with him since he "came out" when he was twenty years old.  He's a few years older than I am.


The fact that they have experienced family life differently from most straight people also affects such things as the ways they deal with the deaths of loved ones.  Although same-sex marriage is now legal in eight US states and the District of Columbia (as well as several nations, including Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain), there is still not the same public support for a gay person grieving the loss of his or her partner as there is for someone who's lost an "opposite"-sex spouse.  Plus, many in the LGBT community have lost their partners--as well as friends and other members of their support networks--to the ravages of HIV/AIDS, as well as to violent crimes.  


I mean no disrespect to anyone who's lost a spouse or other loved one to cancer or any other illness, or to tragedies like the events of 9/11, when I say that LGBT people who've lost partners to HIV/AIDS or hate-fueled violence have, in some ways, a more difficult passage because of the lack of societal support I mentioned as well as the relative scarcity of counselors and other professionals who are trained to help them deal with their circumstances.  As someone who's lost people to HIV/AIDS-related illness, hate-fueled violence (and suicide) as well as pure and simple old age, I can tell you that the last one, while not simple or easy, is somewhat easier  because the deaths of older people are expected, and there are  more bereavement counseling and other kinds of support available for those who have lost parents or other elders, or heterosexual partners, than for those who might be assumed to be straight.

Another Pronoun Problem?

It seems I just can't get away from that issue of pronouns.


Actually, it's been a while since anyone's addressed me with male pronouns in face-to-face situations.  Sometimes I'm still referred to as "sir" or "mister" when I talk on the telephone, particularly in stressful situations or when I have to be assertive.  Otherwise, though, I never hear them, and whenever I walk into a store or other public place, people say, "Can I help you ma'am?"  On occasion, they'll call me "miss."  That gets them good-sized tips. ;-)


Anyway, someone else in my life has a "pronoun problem."  Perhaps I'll be accused of "transferring" mine!


It seems that everyone with whom I've talked about Marley has referred to him at least once as "she" or "her."  Even Stephanie, who rescued him, and Millie, who has seen him, have referred to him that way.  


I guess people associate cats with femininity and often assume a cat is female until they find out otherwise.  In Marley's case, he's still a kitten (though rather large for his estimated seven months) and is very, very cuddly.  And, even when he runs or has his little tussles with Max, his body language, if you will, seems almost feminine at times.


His "identity crisis" may also have to do with his looks--he's what many people would call "pretty" or "beautiful".  I see him that way, too, but I think of him as being rather boyish.  


Still, I find people confusing his gender to be ironic, and just plain funny.  Maybe one day he'll come up to me and say, "There's something I have to tell you.  I'm not Marley; I'm Marlene..."  Even if he does, I'll still love him.

New Growth?

I've gained some weight over the past few months.  Hopefully, as I ride my bike more and stick to some semblance of a diet, I'll lose it.


However, I found another reason why some of my tops are tighter than they had been.  I own only a couple of clingy tops; the rest are either tailored but not form-fitting, or relaxed.  At least, that is what they were when I bought them.


Even though some of those blouses, T-shirts and shells aren't tight around the tummy, they're tight around my chest.  I also notice that the oldest bras I have are tight on me.


My tape measure confirmed something I'd suspected when I saw myself in the mirror:  My breasts have grown--by about an inch and a half--since my surgery.  I'm going to have a measurement taken, just to be sure.  But it's actually visible when I'm dressing or undressing.  


That might be the reason why a couple of people asked me--without sarcasm--whether I'd lost some weight. If my breasts are bigger, I guess that would make my tummy look smaller--though not small!


If my breasts have indeed grown, I would guess that a reason might be that the estrogen I take now more effective on me.  Before the surgery, I had to take an anti-androgen in addition to estrogen.  If you've ever taken a medication for one condition while your body was dealing with another, you may have noticed that the medication wasn't as effective (at least in the ways you and your doctor wanted it to be) as it could have been had your body not been dealing with that second condition.  I think that something similar happened when I was taking estrogen while I was also taking an anti-androgen:  My body was working to suppress the testosterone I had been producing, and that probably made the estrogen (which is a weaker hormone than testosterone) less effective than it would have been otherwise.  But now my body is not producing testosterone; hence, I don't have to take anything to suppress it.  


I wonder whether other post-op women have experienced similar or parallel changes after their surgeries.  

A Pyrrhic Victory In Baltimore

When I wrote yesterday's post, all of the information I had about the passage of Baltimore County's new law came from "instant" reports, which weren't very detailed, and I couldn't find a copy of the actual law.  So, naturally, I was happy that it had passed.


However, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.  As it turns out, there is "fine print" added to Baltimore County Bill 3-12  that essentially caused it to pass.  The irony is that the people who were upset over the bill's passage most likely hadn't read it.

On page 5, lines 8-10 we find this little gem: This subtitle does not apply to the provision of facilities that are distinctly private or personal.


Now, you may have already figured out what "distinctly private or personal" means.  In case you haven't, I'll translate:  bathrooms.  Well, all right, that's just part of the translation, but it's enough to demonstrate how that clause can, in essence, negate much of the protection the bill is supposed to provide.


Most people take access to bathrooms in their workplaces, and in public spaces for granted.  However, if your appearance, mannerisms or other physical or personal qualities don't conform to societal expectations of the gender for whom the bathroom you enter is designated, you can face harassment, arrest and even physical violence.  I'm not being alarmist here: I am speaking from personal experience.


You see, eight years ago, I was harassed by a security guard at a center where I'd gone to take the GRE.  It was early in my transition, and I had just recently changed my name and acquired identification indicating that I am female.  I showed that identification to a security guard when I entered the building and to the test administrators.  


Before starting the test, I'd asked to use a restroom.  The test administrator handed me the key to the women's room, which the test center shared with other offices on the same floor of that building.  I had that restroom all to myself until another woman entered while I was washing my hands.  We said "hello" to each other, and I left.


When I re-entered the test site, the same security guard who checked me into the building waited for me.  "What were you doing in the women's room?," he bellowed.


"What women usually do in a restroom."

"What were you doing in the women's room?"


"Do you want me to go into detail?"


"You're not supposed to be in there!"


"Why not?"  I pulled out my state ID.  


"What's this?"


"I showed it to you when you checked me in."


"Yeah, and..."


"Look under 'sex'."


"What do you mean?"


I pointed to the box.  "What letter is there?"


"What's this?"


"An F."


"Oh, so you had the operation..."


I pulled the ID out of his hand.  "Have a good day."


The test administrator, and other people who were waiting to take the test, complimented me on the way I handled him.  Of course, they didn't know the rage and fear I felt. Addled by those emotions, I took the test.


That night, I called Pauline Park and mentioned the incident.  She had a very similar incident the day before in Manhattan Mall.  As it turned out, the Mall used the same security company that the testing center used.  Together, we filed a complaint that turned into a lawsuit against the company.  


In answer to the question you're probably asking, neither Pauline nor I made any money, nor was it our intention to do so.  Instead, our complaint to the city's Commission on Human Rights resulted in the security company making donations to advocacy organizations Pauline and I chose.  The ruling also mandated that the company had to institute a training program for its employees.  The CHR and the security company consulted Pauline and me on designing the program, and Pauline trained the company's HR people who, in turn, trained the rest of the employees.


I was satisfied with the outcome.  However, I haven't forgotten how I felt that day, when I was about to take the GRE.  More important, I realized how being harassed over fulfilling a basic need--using a bathroom--can render you a second-class citizen, not to mention shake your confidence in yourself and the society in which you live.  


Plus, some organizations and employers may decide that they don't want the "hassle" of providing access to the appropriate bathrooms and may, as a result, not hire transgenders or trump up charges to dismiss the ones in their employ.  In this economy and society, not having fair and equitable access to employment is tantamount to being a non-person.  That is what, in spite of the "victory" of 3-12, is still allowed in Baltimore County.

Victory And Backlash In Baltimore County And Maryland

The good news:  Baltimore County, in Maryland, has approved a bill that would ban discrimination against transgenders.  It thus becomes the fourth jurisdiction in Maryland to take such action.

Also:  The Maryland Legislature has just passed a law to allow same-sex marriage, thus becoming the eighth state (last week, Washington State became the seventh) to allow same-sex marriage.

The bad news:  The unfounded but predictable objections. There are the ones who think that a "lifestyle" is being "pushed" on their children or grandchildren.  

Hmm...When other previously-disenfranchised people, such as women and blacks, were given the right to vote, own property and such, and when laws to fight discrimination against them were passed, was someone "pushing" a "lifestyle", or anything else, on people who had always enjoyed those same rights?  Did anyone accuse them of putting dangerous ideas in kids' heads?  Imagine...a girl in 1920 thinking, "Wow!  I can vote for the President!" Or a young black man thinking, "Dang!  Now I can run for Congress when I grow up!"  

I know a pretty fair number of transgender people.  Not a single one of them has ever tried to "push" his or her "lifestyle" on anyone or "recruit" anyone's kids.  Even though most of us (I include myself) are happy that we decided to live as the people we really are, none of us try to convince anyone else that he or she is transgendered.  That is a realization one can only make for one's self.  

A few parents try to raise their kids as the "opposite" gender from the one they were assigned at birth.  Most of those kids rebel against it; many run away from home.  The kids who want to live as the "opposite" gender will, in one way or another, manifest that wish without any help or prodding from anyone else.  Or they simply carry their true selves within them until the moment they feel they can live as the people they are.  If anything, the truly transgendered survive in spite of attempts to make them conform to the gender they were assigned at birth.  

I know that the last two sentences of the previous paragraph describe the childhood and adolescent experience of me and many other transgendered people of my generation.  Most people had little or no idea of what it meant to have a conflict over one's gender identity, much less to be a child with such a conflict.  So, even parents with the best of intentions tried to make their kids conform because they didn't know what else to do.

Those of us who've grown up that way want to help anyone who realizes he or she is really transgendered.  But none of us would try to convince anyone that he or she is like us.  And I doubt that any non-transgendered person would try to do such a thing, either.

So tell me...Who is trying to "push" what on whom?

Say Hello To Marley

Did a little bit more riding than I did the other day, without pain.  I think I'll be ready to resume regular riding soon.


Yesterday, though, I didn't ride.  I was welcoming the newest "addition" to my family.

Stephanie, who rescued Marley, brought him to my place yesterday.  So, naturally, I spent the day home so I could welcome him and ease the "transition."  Actually, Max is taking it pretty well.

Right now, my new family member seems to have two speeds:  sleep and "charge!"  As soon as we released him from his carrier, Max tried to play with him.  And, all through the day, Max tried to make friends with him.  It's been a bit more than a month since Charlie died, and Max seems to have been starved for feline attention ever since.


As my new friend is a "rescue" kitten, I can understand the nervousness and skittishness he felt yesterday.  I can also understand his need for sleep.

When Stephanie kept him in her apartment, she called him "Charlie."  Not only is that the name of my recently departed; it is also the name of a cat--also gray and white!--I had before him. So, I think I'm going to rename him.  For now, I'm calling him Marley.  I've read and seen "Marley and Me," but more important, I have recordings of just about everything Bob ever did.  My new friend doesn't particularly remind me of him, but I figure neither of us can go wrong with that name. Plus, I like the sound of it.


Speaking of sound:  I thought I heard a mouse squeak.  Turns out, it was Marley crying.  I've raised only one other cat from kittenhood--my first Charlie--and remember him crying that way, too.  What do they say? Big boys cry because they are always, at heart, little boys.

I don't know whether I'll ever try to carry Marley in a basket.  I never tried that with Max or my second Charlie  because they were big when I adopted them.  However, I took my first Charlie on a couple of rides when he was still small.  When he got bigger, he wasn't too keen on riding in a basket.  But, his being home was one more thing for me to look forward to at the end of every ride!  That's how I see Max's presence now, and how I will most likely see Marley's.

New Member of The Family?

Tomorrow I'm going to have a guest who may turn into a member of my family.  The cat my friend rescued is coming to my place.  His rescuer, Stephanie, is bringing him to me.  

On one hand, I hope Max, my orange cat, gets along with him.  I'm told he's a cuddler par excellence. Max is one, too, so that might help them get along.  Then again, Max might think he has exclusive rights to my lap or something.


On the other hand, I hope it doesn't work.  As adorable as the new guy is, I still miss Charlie. Most likely, I always will.  But, as Millie--who knew Charlie well--says, "Charlie would want you to adopt another cat, especially a rescue cat. Charlie made you happy; that's what he'd want for you.


Really...I hope Max sees it that way!

Before Martina, There Was Nancy

Every once in a while, an athlete comes along who completely dominates his or her sport, at least during his or her career.  I'd say that in my lifetime, there were four such athletes:  Eddy Mercx, Martina Navratilova, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan. 


(With all due respect to Lance, I think Eddy was the most dominant cyclist because he won every type of race that existed while he was competing.  Like Mercx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain also won the Tour de France and a variety of other races.  However, they never seemed to have the same aura of invincibility Mercx had in his prime.)


Of the four, perhaps Navratilova's timing was the most fortuitous.  She came along during the 1970's, when women's sports first started to achieve anything like a wide audience, and was at her peak during the early and mid 1980's.  


Recently, I learned of another great athlete who may have been on the other side of the mirror from Navratilova.

Nancy Burghart accepting the trophy for her 1964 National Championship from USI President Otto Eisele Jr.

Nancy Burghart (now Nancy Burghart-Haviland) won eight US National Championships during the 1960's.  She was one of the most versatile riders of her time, as she also won pursuit and sprint championships.  Nearly any time she mounted a bicycle, people expected her to win, much as they did when Navratilova entered a tennis court.


Some would say that Burghart had the misfortune of racing at a time when relatively little attention was paid to cycling, and to women's sports, in the US.  However, she garnered great respect from both the men and women in her sport, and even got some overseas press, which was no small feat in the conditions I've described, and in the absence of the Internet and 24-hour news cycles. 


During Burghart's career, the traditional cycling powers of Europe and Japan did not take American racing very seriously.  However, one could argue that, even then, American female cyclists were among the world's best.  In countries like France, Italy and Japan, bicycle racing, and the media that covered it, were focused almost entirely on male racers.  This could only have stunted the development in women's racing in those countries.  On the other hand, bicycle racing in the US during the three decades after World War II was entirely an amateur affair.   Some have argued that this is a reason why male and female racers were on more or less equal footing, and may have been what allowed women's cycling to gain more prominence in the years before Greg LeMond won the Tour de France.


In my research, I found another interesting detail about Ms. Burghart:  She was born and raised in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, barely a couple hundred pedal spins from the Kissena track--or my apartment.  That track is where any number of American racers have trained as well as raced.  And it's also where the trials were held for the 1964 Olympic team.


In 1957, when she was 12 years old, she won the Girls' Midget title.  Her twin sister Melissa also competed in the race, and others Nancy rode and won.  It would have taken plenty of determination for an American boy to pursue a bicycle-racing dream at that time:  Imagine what it must have taken for two girls!


From what I've gathered, Burghart-Haviland now lives in Maine.  Given her role in cycling, and American sports generally, I am surprised she isn't better-known.

On Transwomen and Self-Determination

I've come across an excellent article:  Sexual Rights of HIV-Positive Transwomen by Dee Barrego.  She covers many of the dilemmas faced by HIV-positive transwomen, and transwomen generally.  However, the real point of the article--and what makes it something more than a manifesto or a collection of information--is that transwomen have the same rights to self-determination when it comes to their bodies, but that too many health-care and social service providers, not to mention law enforcement officials, act as if this were not true.


I find myself thinking about a conversation I had with two friends of mine.  They are young, attractive African-American professional women who have had their share of adventures, shall we say, in the dating world.    One of their complaints is that too many men--mainly white, but of other races as well--don't want to bring home a black woman to their family, or simply don't want to be in a committed relationship with one.  However, those same men seem to believe that black women should always be sexually available to them.  Also, those same men seem to think that they have the right not to discuss anything they'd prefer not to, while black women's sexuality, as well as their sexual and medical history, should be completely open books.


In many ways, what they say about their experience parallels something I--and, I suspect, other trans women--have experienced.  Other people seem to think that they have the right to decide what and when, or whether, we will disclose, and with whom or whether we can have sex.  They ask us questions about our genitalia and other body parts they would never ask anyone else, and they seem to think they have a right to know about our HIV, relationship and even employment status, even when such information is completely irrelevant to them.  


And then there is the man with whom I was involved--and whom I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog--who told me that if he were HIV-positive, he would not disclose that before having sex with me.  Yet he felt entitled to pry into any and all areas of my life, looking for anything, however innocuous, he could twist and use against me when it suited him.  When he couldn't find such things, he made them up.  Plus, no matter how much I could prove to him that I was who and what I told him I am, it was never good enough.  Even a notarized letter from my doctor stating that I am HIV-negative wasn't enough for him.


(Since ending my relationship with him, I've come to realize that his openly homophobic and transphobic relatives actually have more integrity, at least in relation to the things I've mentioned, than he did.  But that's another story!)


Now, I am willing to talk about my experiences because I hope they will allow some people to understand me, and other trans women, better.  But neither I nor anyone else should be forced to discuss, for example, our sexual practices or our medical histories.  And if someone asks and we answer, what we say shouldn't be used against us.  There's nothing worse than the person who's always asking about "what it's like," then uses the fact that you've talked about it to discredit you, end a friendship or even try to terminate your employment or a professional relationship.  I've heard too many stories of such things from other trans women!


The experience of women--cisgender, trans, straight, lesbian, bisexual or any other--has shown that when we don't have control over our bodies, minds and histories, other people take it upon themselves to make decisions about them for us.  And those decisions are rarely in our best interest, let alone to our benefit.

A New Companion?

I can't believe it's already been a month and a day since Charlie died.  


Since then, I've vacillated between getting another cat--and seeing how well Max gets along with him/her--and letting Max be an "only child" for the rest of his life.  What made the latter option appealing is that Max is about the same age as Charlie was.


However, I've since gotten a glimpse of a cat Millie's friend Stephanie rescued:

How could I not love this one?  I've asked whether I could "borrow" him for a couple of days to see how he and Max get along.  Stephanie s willing.  And, I'm  sure, he wouldn't mind getting a home and three square meals a day!

One Governor Gets It, Another Doesn't

Being Catholic is not an excuse.  

It seems that Christine Gregoire understands that.  But someone in that foreign country, er, state, across the river from where I live doesn't.

Yesterday, Ms. Gregoire signed the legislation that made Washington the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage.  "I'm proud of who and what we are as a state," she said.  

Although she doesn't use her Roman Catholic faith as a rationale for what she does as a lawmaker, she doesn't make her faith a secret, either.  And, apparently, she sees no contradiction between her beliefs and allowing non-heteorosexual people to enjoy a right heterosexual people take for granted.

Would that I could say the same of Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey. Today, his state's Senate passed a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage.  The same body rejected the bill two years ago, when Jon Corzine was still the governor.  During his campaign, and ever since, Christie said he would veto the bill and has called for a referendum on the issue.  

Steven Goldstein, the chairman of Garden State Equality, has denounced Christie's move, saying that "the rights of a minority can't be trusted to the majority."  In principle, he may be right.  However, he may not have as much to fear as he believes:  In a recent poll, the majority of New Jersey residents said they favor legalizing gay marriage.  That is the first time the majority has expressed such a view in the state, and the numbers of people who support same-sex marriage have increased every time a poll has been taken.  

And, if I'm not mistaken, more New Jersey residents are Roman Catholic than of any other religion.  For them, it's not an excuse to perpetuate inequality.  Funny how Chris Christie doesn't see it that way.