Something That Hasn't Changed (Unfortunately)

Last night, I stopped by the LGBT Community Center.  I hadn't been there in a while, but early in my transition, I sometimes felt as if I were living there.

Anyway, I bumped into a few people I haven't seen in some time. One of them is someone I'll call Lorna.  She participated in two of the support groups I attended early in my transition.  Back then, she was still living as male but was exploring her gender identity and sexuality.  After a few other life-changing events which I won't reveal, so as not to run the risk of outing her, she recently began her transition.

I was reminded that more than a decade has passed since we attended those support groups.   A lot has changed since then, but something--disturbingly--hasn't:  Apparently, desperate trans women are still buying "German hormones" on the streets.  Someone offered them to Lorna; she refused.

 When I started my transition, it was undoubtedly easier to get hormones through legitimate means--and get the other care I needed--than it was for people who made the transition a decade before me, or the ones who transitioned a decade before them.  Still, then--as now--some trans people, especially the young, cannot access mainstream healthcare for all sorts of reasons, the most common being a lack of documentation.  Very often, young trans people are kicked out of, or run away from , their families or are bullied out of their schools and communities.  Or they are fleeing countries where they are likely to be incarcerated or murdered, sometimes by the very people who have the power to imprison them.

As long as such conditions prevail, we're still going to have lots of trans teenagers who won't make it to the third decade of their lives.  I don't think any society would stand for such a mortality rate in any other group of people.  But, as long as there are barriers to access of the improved health care, young (and sometimes not-so-young) people will continue to buy (or trade sex for) "German" hormones or other black- and gray- market substances and treatments.

Myths About Women And Cycling

Given my life experiences, it would surprise few people to know that I think about some of the differences between female and male cyclists, and the experiences each of us has.

I have also become more aware of just how male-centered the cycling world--in everything from the social contexts of rides to equipment design to the attitudes of some bike shop employees.  Also, I am shocked at how much of that male-centeredness--as well as some out-and-out misogyny--I helped to perpetrate.

So I guess it's not surprising that some old myths about women and cycling still persist.  I was aware of some, and learned of a few others from this infographic that recently came my way:

From Biking Toronto

An Open Letter To A Young Victim Of Homophobia

For two years, I co-facilitated a weekly group for LGBT teenagers and young adults.  I was a volunteer and had to stop because of changes in the scheduling of my paid work.  However, I wonder how much longer I would have continued as a co-facilitator.  Few things I've done were more rewarding. However, few things are more  heartbreaking than to see a fourteen-year-olds who were cast out of their families or bullied out of their schools and communities because they were--or people perceived them to be--members of the LGBT communities.

I can only imagine how I would have felt had I known Zachary Dutro Boggess. He is the four-year-old boy whose mother thought he would become gay. "He walks and talks like it.  Ugh," Jessica Dutro wrote to her boyfriend, Brian Canady, whom she instructed to "work on him".  

Work on him they did.  Someone should have seen this tragedy unfolding, as Ms. Dutro had a history of abusive behavior toward other kids and her message to her boyfriend was not her only or most virulent expression of homophobia.

Now Rob Watson--himself a gay father--has written this open letter to Zachary, whose life ended so terribly:

Dear Zachary,
Goodbye. We, the world, have failed you little one. You came to us, bright and full of promise, and we left you in the hands of one who did not appreciate your brightness, and in fact, she sought to make you suffer for who she thought you might be.

I am sorry. I did not cause the force that killed you, and in fact, I fight it daily. You are dead, however, and for me, that means that I did not fight hard enough, not nearly hard enough.

You were killed by homophobia, my child. It came through the hands of parents, through the very hands and arms that should have been there to grab you, and hold you and love you. It was the force of homophobia that killed you however, not just those physical blows that delivered it. While your parents embodied that hatred, it was not created by them, it had been given to them in many ways from the world around them.

I am sorry you were born in a world where too many voices tell you not to be you. No one should have to fight for the right to be themselves, least of all, a 4-year-old child.

I am sorry you were born into a world where so many feel that the ability to physically make a child is more important that the ability to love and nurture one. Where people are writing court papers vilifying parents who do not physically procreate, they should be writing briefs condemning parents who do not love. Birthing a child is merely bringing it to life. Loving a child is truly giving it a reason to live.

I am sorry you were born into a world where people believe in misinterpreted Bible passages and tired dogmas. They hold onto them only so they can rationalize hating something they don’t understand. Something they see in you, even in your innocence.

I am sorry for all the beauty, magnificence, talent and life that you represented that is now gone. I miss the adult you were to become: the father, the artist, or the hero. I mourn the children you did not get to raise and the better world you did not get to help build.

A man named Fred Phelps died a few weeks ago, two years after you did. He lived his life being hateful, trying to get people to be more homophobic. He failed and his efforts made people not want to be like him. Homophobia lost. You lived your life being loving, and your efforts made two people hate you. Homophobia still lost however, because I will never ever forget you.

I pray that your short life is held up as the horrible cost of the homophobic mindset. That mindset is not an opinion. It is not a right to religious beliefs. It is a deep and ever-present danger that kills the innocent. I pray that your life robs homophobia of its glory and helps shame it into non-existence.

Nothing will replace the life we lost in you. You were our child and we allowed our world to inspire your fate. You deserved so much better.

With you in our hearts, little man, I promise you, we will do so much better. We will shut this intolerance, this indecency down even harder. We can’t give you back your life, but through your memory, we can take back our own lives and this world.

We have the power to make this world one of love, fairness and peace. You have reminded us why we need to do that for all the future little boys and little girls just like you. We owe it to them. We owed it to you. We will not fail again.

Why The Fact That An Adjunct Teaches Your Class Is A Feminist Issue

Someone passed this very interesting article from the Feminist Daily News  to me:

April-02-14

Adjunct Faculty Demand Fair Pay and Benefits

Prompted by a homeless adjunct professor's one-woman protest outside the New York State Department of Education in Albany, adjunct professors across the nation took to Twitter over the weekend to call attention to the low-wages and exploitation of adjuncts working in higher education.

Mary-Faith Cerasoli went to Albany during Spring Break to protest working conditions for adjunct college professors. Cerasoli is an adjunct at Mercy College in New York where she teaches a full courseload, but makes only $22,000 per year before taxes. Ineligible for public assistance, Cerasoli relies on friends for shelter but is sometimes forced to live out of her car - a gift from a used-car dealer in Westchester, NY. Cerasoli has no office, no health benefits, and a sizeable debt-load thanks to unpaid student loans and medical bills. "They call us professors, but they're paying us at poverty levels," she said. "I just want to make a living from a skill I've spent 30 years developing."

Cerasoli is not alone. Adjunct professors - the majority of whom are women - are contract employees usually paid per course taught, and the pay is low. The average adjunct is paid less than $3,000 for a typical three-credit course, but one study found that adjuncts at several colleges reported earning less than $1,000. The vast majority of adjuncts do not receive health insurance, retirement benefits, or sick leave, and many must cobble together a living, often by traveling miles to teach at multiple campuses. In terms of annual compensation, then, adjuncts earn between $18,000 and $30,000, without any benefits, for the equivalent of full-time work, compared to "tenure-track" professors who earn between $68,000 to $116,000 plus benefits.

Some adjuncts have joined labor unions at their institutions in order to organize for better pay and working conditions, but the average adjunct professor is still a source of cheap labor for many colleges. And the use of adjuncts is more widespread than ever. Adjunct professors now make up approximately half of all college faculty.

"I had this idea that I could get a job so that I could have a good income to support my son, and it didn't work out that way," explained Nicole Beth Wallenbrock, an adjunct professor featured on PBS NewsHour. "I'm a precarious worker. I have no job security."

Media Resources: Minneapolis Star Tribune 3/31/14; PBS NewsHour 3/31/14, 2/6/14; New York Times, 3/27/14; The Nation 7/11/13; The Chronicle of Higher Education 1/4/13

The issue of adjunct (i.e., paid as part-time) instructors in colleges and universities has been getting some attention in the media lately.  But this article is the first I've seen that framed the adjunctification of higher education as a feminist (i.e., women's; a.k.a., gender) issue.

And it is exactly such an issue--unless, of course, you believe that the fact that faculties have gone from having almost no adjuncts thirty years ago to having adjunct majorities today and the fact that women constitute the majorities of many departments is purely coincidental.  Or that the fact that every trade and profession that has ever gone from being mainly male to mainly female has lost respect, let alone prestige, not to mention pay relative to the consumer price index.  Or that the least-respected professions--and the ones avaricious managers try to bully--are the ones that employ mainly women.

Too Unconventional

Maspeth is a Queens neigborhood only two miles from my apartment.  I pass through it frequently and even stop once in a while, as one of my favorite Italian-American bakeries--the Russo Bakery--is there.

For a long time, it was a conservative blue-collar enclave inhabited mainly by immigrant and second- and third-generation Italian and German families.  More recently, Poles and Albanians have moved there, fleeing the poverty of their native lands.  It is a quiet neighborhood, long regarded as safe. 

However, it has not been terribly welcoming of diversity.  Along with the Poles and Albanians, Mexicans and other Latin Americans have been moving there, to the displeasure of some longtime residents.

It's also been a religious--mainly Roman Catholic--enclave.  On Sundays, the churches are full and, during services, streets are deserted.  Once the masses and services end, families throng down the streets or flock into their cars for long Sunday brunches or dinners at the homes of family members and friends, or in the local restaurants.

In such a milieu (Such a word would never be uttered there!), it's not surprising that not many gay people, let alone couples, move in.  Or that a young woman is told she can't bring her boyfriend to the prom because he's too "unconventional".



Actually, Anais Celin was informed that Nathaniel Baez's gender transition was "too unconventional" for the pastor at Martin Luther High School.  The school is affiliated with the Missouri Synod, as are most Lutheran churches in the eastern United States. While the Evangelical Lutheran Church has allowed the ordination of non-celebite gay clergy members and has consummated same-sex unions for the past five years, the Missouri Synod does not permit either.

Even though Maspeth has remained a largely conservative community, it's still part of the most diverse county--Queens, as in the borough of New York City--in the nation.  I cannot understand how a school in such a setting, even if it is affiliated with a church that takes the stance it does on homosexuality, can deny a young woman the right to bring her boyfriend to the prom because his gender identity and expression are "too unconventional".

Then again, Maspeth is next door to Ridgewood, where trans woman Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar was brutally murdered four years ago. And the school is named for Martin Luther, a notorious homophobe, even for his time and place.

Yearning For A New Journey

I am itching to go to France, to Europe, again.  Actually, I really want to do what I did as recently as 2001, just before 9/11:  Buy the cheapest round-trip ticket to Paris I can find, bring my bike with me and decide where I’m going to ride once I get there.

The first time I did that, I didn’t come back for a long, long time.  (Actually, I bought an open-ended round-trip ticket to London.  Are such things still available?) I rode through the English countryside to Dover and took the ferry to Calais, from which I rode through Belgium, the Netherlands and back into France, where I stayed for as long as I could.  Other times, I pedaled to Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland or the Netherlands and back. 

When I took such trips—even the first, my first outside North America—I never felt like a tourist.  Even though my French—or, for that matter, English-- wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it was after the classes I took, I felt (with much justification, I believe) I was experiencing the countries, the cultures and all of the architecture and art I’d seen in books and classrooms in ways that those who followed trails emblazoned with American Express signs never could.

On the other hand, when I went to Prague three years ago, I knew I was a tourist.  It didn’t have anything to do with the way people treated me; for that matter, it didn’t even have to do with the fact that I knew nothing of the Czech language.  Many residents of Prague speak German—of which I know a little-- nearly as well as they speak their own language, which is not a surprise when you consider that the area’s history.  And I found it surprisingly easy to find people who spoke English, or even French.  But I stayed in a hotel and rented a bike which while, enjoyable enough to ride, was nothing like the ones I brought with me on previous trips.  In contrast, in all of my other trips, I usually stayed in hostels.  Sometimes I’d camp, and once in a while I’d stay in a pension or inexpensive hotel if the other options weren’t available or I was too tired or lost to find them—or I simply wanted to treat myself.

During the first years of my gender transition, I wasn’t thinking about taking a trip like the ones I took every other year or so.  Then, for a few years, I told myself I didn’t want to take such trips—or so I told myself—because I saw them as part of my life as a male being, which I was leaving in my past.  I also figured that I couldn’t take such trips, which I usually did alone, because I believed that travelling solo as a woman would not be safe.

But I realize that other women have taken bike or other trips by themselves.  More important, I think I still have the same ability to function on my own that I had when I was younger, and male. If anything, I can function better on my own, in part because I have a better sense of when I need to ask for help, or when I want to do things with other people.

Now I see two barriers to doing a trip like the ones I did in my youth.  One is cost.  The past few years have been more difficult for me, financially, than those years of my 20’s, 30’s and early 40’s.   Even if my income were keeping pace with the kind of money I made in those days—or if I came upon the serendipities that sometimes came my way—it would be harder to take such a trip because it’s much more expensive.  Back in the day, my biggest expense was the plane fare:  Once I got to Europe, I could live cheaply and relatively well, even when exchange rates weren’t so favorable to the dollar.  But, since the introduction of the Euro, everything has gotten much more expensive.  Europeans I know say as much.

The other is that I wasn’t in the kind of physical condition I was in those days.  Some people have told me it’s to be expected, simply because my age.  Also, more than a decade of taking hormones and my surgery left me with less physical strength and endurance than I had in those days.  Plus, as much as I love cycling, I don’t do as much of it as I did in those days. That, of course, may have something to do with my physical changes.

Still, I would love to take the sort of trip I used to take, and to experience it as the person I am now.  Some might say that’s an unrealistic hope.  But, until someone can show me that it’s empirically impossible, I’ll continue to hold out such a hope—and to do what I can to prepare for such a trip.

Where We're Covered

Right now, laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on gender identity or presentation are in effect for jurisdictions in which 47 percent of the US population lives.

Of course, that means if a couple more states or some more cities pass such laws, the majority trans people will be protected.  Still, there will be large "deserts" in this country.  

What is most troubling, though, is only pockets of New York and other states are covered.  Granted, cities with such laws are home to vast majority of the Empire State's people. Still, it's troubling that such a supposedly progressive state is not fully on board with transgender equality.

Of course, laws by themselves don't protect us against discrimination.  Too often, we are fired or hounded out of our jobs on spurious, trumped-up charges.  I'm not using the "imperial 'we'" here:  I know from whence I speak.

Bad For Our Health

A recent report shows a dramatic increase in the  number of suicides among City Public School pupils this year.

Nearly all researchers--as well as teachers and school administrators--say that the vast majority of kids who commit suicide have been bullied.  And a large portion of them are LGBT, or seem to be.

Those who don't kill themselves carry the scars, physical as well as emotional, for years to come.

This infographic from the folks at Fenway Health illustrates the point:

 

A Year In Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life

I know it's Spring.  And it's time to ride and be joyful. But I think there's something else that bears mentioning.

On this date in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assasinated in Memphis.  I was a child at the time and, until that day, knew nothing about him. However, I think I understood, for the first time, what the word "tragedy" means and that it isn't the same as mere sadness or grief.

He was cut down one year to the day after making what might have been the most important speech of his life--and one of the most important in American history.

Before an audience of 3000 in New York's Riverside Memorial Church, the greatest leader this country has ever had declared, "My conscience leaves me no other choice."  Then he described the terrible effects of the Vietnam War on this country's poor as well as Vietnamese peasants.  Thus, he concluded, he could not continue to fight for civil rights and address the myriad injustices--all of which had to do with race, class and gender--that existed (and still exist) in the United States without opposing the war his country was waging in the former French Indochina.

Here is a video of that speech:

One Way To Explain The Difference

Here's an answer to a question just about all trans (and more than a few cisgender) people are asked:

When An Enemy Of Trans People Is A Friend of Labor (Or So He Thinks)

A colleague is petitioning the college to build or designate transgender bathrooms.  "A male-to-female is taking her life into her hands when she goes into a men's bathroom!," she exclaimed.

"Tell me about it!"  I didn't go into detail, but I told her about an incident early in my transition in which a security guard harassed and outed me for using a women's bathroom.

The problems of shared public space are not, of course, limited to bathrooms.  In many other venues, the risk to transgenders of incurring violence or worse is great when they are forced to use facilities intended for the gender in which they are not living.  Though the dangers are more pronounced for male-to-female transgenders, female-to-males are not immune.

For trans people, perhaps no place is more dangerous than a jail or prison.  Almost everyone, except for the most physically intimidating, is potentially a victim of rape or other kinds of violent assault.  If a male-to-female is incarcerated with men, the warden may as well attach a target to her back.

That is why Texas Governor Rick Perry's refusal to comply with the Federal Rape Prevention Act is unconscionable.  

One of his rationales is that a provision of the act prohibits cross-gender searches.  About 40 percent of all guards in male prisons are female.  So, according to Perry, turning the Act into a law "may mean the loss of job and promotion opportunities".  

Ah, yes.  Rick Perry is a friend of labor.  So much that he has to compromise the lives of trans people.

And to think that he ran for President!

Dignity In Death

Too many trans people face the dilemma of being defined by a document issued when they were born while they are living their lives their true selves.

I was in such a dilemma for several years:  I was living as Justine, a woman, but my birth certificate still said I was a boy named Nicholas.  That could have been problematic had I had a medical emergency or worse.  After all, I could have been buried as a man. (On top of that, I don't think I want to be buried.  But that's another story altogether.)

For too many trans people, the obstacles involved in changing their birth certificates are prohibitive.  In some states and countries, the procedure is endless and expensive.  And, in many jurisdictions, changing birth certificates for any reason is simply not allowed.

That is why I was gratified to read about this latest development from California:

Sacramento, CA – The Respect After Death Act (AB 1577), authored by Assembly Speaker-elect Toni Atkins and sponsored by Transgender Law Center and Equality California, passed the Assembly Health Committee today by a bipartisan provisional vote of 17-1. The bill is designed to help ensure transgender people have their authentic gender identity reflected on their death certificates.




The Respect After Death Act will mean that death certificates reflect the authentic lived gender of the deceased, with various forms of proof accepted under the law, including written confirmation of the deceased’s wishes, updated birth certificates and driver’s licenses, or medical records of gender transition.



“Transgender people deserve the same dignity and respect in death as everyone else,” said John O’Connor, executive director of EQCA. “This bill provides much needed legal guidance that



“Every person deserves to be treated with dignity after their death, including having their death certificate accurately reflect who they are,” said Speaker-elect Atkins. “AB 1577 will provide direction to officials for determining the wishes of the deceased with respect to their gender identification. I am grateful for the strong bipartisan support of my colleagues on the Assembly Health Committee.” will make it easier for authorities to do their jobs. It also ensures that when California remembers transgender people who have passed, it remembers their authentic selves.”



Current law requires death certificates to list personal data such as name, sex, and race, and there is no legal guidance about how the official filling out the death certificate should determine a transgender person’s sex. The lack of guidance sometimes results in cases where the information on the death certificate is not consistent with the deceased’s lived gender. This can put funeral directors and coroners at risk of liability if the friends and family of the deceased believe that they listed the incorrect sex.



“Too often, the identities of transgender people are disrespected, especially when we are unable to speak for ourselves. Gender identity represents a core part of who we are as people and this identity should be recognized even upon our deaths,” said Masen Davis, executive director of Transgender Law Center. “When a loved one is not honored as their authentic self upon their passing it is extremely painful for the family, friends, and community.”

Why We Are The Future Of Faith

Lately I've found myself thinking more and more about an issue that I ignored and had assumed I would always ignore:  that of the relationship between transgender people and religious communities.

You see, for a long time I told myself I wanted nothing to do with any religion.  Most of the time, when people asked about my faith, I'd say I didn't have any (unless, of course, I grunted "It's none of your fucking business!").  It's a lot easier to say you don't believe in a supreme being or power, or anything beyond this physical world, than to get into arguments about what it is, isn't or might be, or why I don't subscribe to someone else's belief.

Even so, I couldn't help to notice that more than a few trans people are involved with religious communities.  Some, like Eva-Genevieve Scarborough and Joanne Priznivalli, write about their experiences on their blogs.  Outwardly, I expressed astonishment that any trans person would want to be a participating member of a church, synagogue or other organization, let alone study or train to be a cleric.  I told myself such people were misguided, at best.  Sometimes I wondered whether they suffered from advanced cases of Stockholm Syndrome.  What else could explain their desire to identify with institutions and members that, very often, told them they were vile sinners or that they simply didn't exist?

One thing I could not fail to notice was that they--and some trans people who weren't overtly religious--often described themselves as male or female "in spirit" and their processes of "coming out" and transitioning from living in the gender they were assigned at birth to life in their true selves as "spiritual" experiences.

Yes, those words came up a lot:  "spirit" and "spiritual".  I even used them to to describe my own journey.  And on the night after my surgery, I had a very long, detailed and intense dream that, for me, could not have been evidence of anything else.

Perhaps my perceptions were colored by the fact that most of the support groups I attended, and most of the trans-related activities in which I participated, involved people who were beginning their transitions--or simply exploring the possibility of doing so--in the middle of their lives, or even later.  Not a single one of them spoke of their wishes merely in terms of changing their body parts; they all spoke of making their corporeal forms more reflective of their "true selves" or "spirits."  I have come to believe that if you have reached a certain age before embarking upon the requisite counseling and medical treatments, you really can't see your change in any other way.

(To those of you who are young--say, under 40--I hope I don't seem condescending.  If you really understand your identity and why you want to change your body to reflect it, you are more mature than most other people.  On the other hand, I have seen very young people who see the transition only in terms of hormones and surgeries.  They will say or do whatever they think they must--including sex work--to get them.  The consequences are often tragic.)

Anyway, I realize now that the revulsion I expressed at religious institutions was, in part, a response to my own earlier experiences with them.  I grew up as a Roman Catholic and spent several years in a school affiliated with the church.  I was even an altar boy!   Although the Church was, and is, repressive and I had some rather unpleasant (to say the least) experiences with priests and nuns, I have to admit that I received a better education than I might've otherwise had.  And, truth be told, for all of the bigotry that's part of its doctrine, I was safer there as a sensitive and possibly effeminate boy than I was on, say, sports teams or ROTC (both of which I would later participate in).  And, as Richard Rodriguez points out in A Hunger of Memory, there is less socio-economic class prejudice in the Church than in other parts of society.  Growing up in blue-collar Brooklyn, I was aware of that fact, even if I couldn't articulate it.  

And now, it seems, there are some religious leaders--and their followers--who actually understand that following the precepts of their faith means treating as they would other people.  Love thy neighbor--whether trans or cis--as thyself. Thou shalt not kill--whatever the identity of the person.  

Perhaps even more to the point, some are starting to realize that if their faith communities are to have any future at all--let alone carry out their missions--they must include people of all identities.  Actually, it goes deeper than that, as Joy Ladin points out:  Judiasm, of which she is an adherent, as well as Christians, Muslims and others cannot continue to confine themselves to the gender binary. It's not just a matter of the survival of religious institutions; it's a matter of allowing all people to participate in life as fully realized beings.  That, as I learned during my own transition, means understanding the spiritual dimension--forget that, the spiritual reality--of a person's identity.

When Transgenders Self-Medicate

For about nine months before I began to live and work full-time as a woman, I was taking estrogen and Spironolactone.  For about a year and a half before that, I was attending support groups and participating in various activities related to the community, some of them at the LGBT Community Center in New York City.

At a Center event, I met a trans woman who was probably a few years older than I am now.  I don't know whether or not she ever had the surgery, but it was easy to see that she'd been living for a long time as a woman--and, most likely, taking hormones.  I also suspected that she had--or might still have--been involved in sex work.

I haven't seen her in a long time, but early in my transition, I was bumping into her everywhere--or so it seemed.  She always had advice--some of it good--on some aspect or another of the life on which I was embarking.  Thankfully, I ignored what was probably the worst advice she gave me.

"Forget about the doctors, clinics, even--what's that place you go to?"

"Callen-Lorde", I said.  

"Yeah, forget about them.  Forget about all of that.  You have to go through so much to get your hormones."

"I've got them."

"But those horomones will take forever to work on you."

"Well, I am on a low dose now.  So far, so good.  As long as my next tests are good, my doctor'll up my dosage."

"Still, it's going to take years and years for them to work."

"Well, I've had to wait years to get to this point..."

"Don't you want to have a woman's body soon?"

"Yeah. But..."

"Well, I can get you some German hormones."

"German?  What's the difference?"

"Well, you know, German girls are bigger.  So they get stronger hormones."

I squinted at her.   She pulled a package from her bag.  I know a few dozen words of German, but somewhow I knew, just from looking at that label, that ingesting those hormones wouldn't be a good idea.

Later, I learned---from where or whom, I can't recall--that a lot of trans women--especially young ones engaged in sex work--buy those German hormones, which are meant for livestock.

I mention this incident because I came across this article advising trans people not to self-medicate with hormones.  Turns out, there are a lot of discussion groups about that very subject, including some on how to go about getting hormones from outside the medical establishment.

The temptation to do so is great, especially for young trans women, many of whom have run away from abuse at home or bullying at school and have no medical insurance or other resources and are scarred by prejudice and hostility they experienced from health-care professionals.

Self-medication is generally a bad idea for anybody.  But the risks are even greater for trans people because the precarious situations in which too many of us live leave us even more vulnerable to exploitation by "professionals" with questionable--or no--credentials.

That might be the biggest hazard trans people face, after the discrimination and violence to which too many of us fall victim.

 

Israel Protects LGBT Students

Last week, the Israeli Knesset passed a law prohibiting discrimination against students based on gender identity or sexual orientation.  The law is actually an amendment to laws pertaining to the rights of the student.  Still, it is significant because it actually identifies gender identity as one of the ways in which one can be discriminated against.

What's especially gratifying, apart from the fact that it passed in a country that has laws based on religion, is that such a wide majority voted for it.  Only two of the twenty-seven members of the Knesset opposed it; the other twenty-five said "yes".

And Dov Henin, who introduced the bill, said that its purpose is "to protect not only the students in the LGBT community--it is there to protect us all".

I know Israel is only the size of New Jersey and has half the population. Still, I have to ask:  If Israel can do it, why can't this country?

Department of Justice To Train Police To Work With Transgender People

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I had to go to my local precinct--the 114th in Astoria, Queens, New York--three times before they would even take a complaint from me regarding the harassment and bullying I experienced from Dominick.

Simply being brushed off, as I was the first time, was bad enough. But the second time nearly pushed me over the edge: two out-of-uniform officers harassed me on their way out of the gym, after a workout.  They made air-smooches, asked me (in a mocking yet menacing way) whether I wanted to "take a ride" with them and, finally, threatened me if I didn't respond to them.  The desk sergeant sat only a few feet away and watched it unfold but claimed to see nothing.  Then, as I was unlocking my bike from a parking meter on the next block from the station, two officers barged in front of me.

"You're not supposed to park there!," one of them bellowed. "This spot's only for officers."

"I'm sorry, I didn't see a sign..."

"Just shut up and go, " the other one yelled. "And if you know what's good for you, you won't come back."

As it was dark and everything happened so quickly, I didn't see the officers badges--or, indeed, whether they were not wearing them or had covered the numbers on them.  The cops who harassed me on their way out of the precinct gym didn't have their badges.

That came about seven years after I'd been stopped and frisked by two men who might or might not have been cops (They were in an unmarked van.) as I was riding my bike home from work on a hot day.

I don't know whether the stop-and-frisk incident had to do with my being trans:  They claimed I was in the projects (which I wasn't, but "so what" if I were) and demanded to know what I was doing there. But I have little doubt that what happened during my second visit to the 114th had to do with my identity if for no other  reason that I mentioned that fact about myself in all of my visits, as Dominick was using it to impute all of the old sterotypes to, in order to spread false rumors about, me.

As you can imagine, I've had no love (not that I had much before), and lost whatever respect I had for, the police until recently.  The only reason why I am now willing to even entertain the idea of revising my opinion of them is that I've met a detective in my church who is nothing like I expected any officer to be.  I think she really means it when she expresses her sorrow over my experience.

We need more like her.  Even for those who, like her, became cops because they wanted "to help people" or "be a positive force in the community", understanding of people whose gender or sexual identities might be different from their own are developed.  (The same is true of most people, I believe.)  

That is why I am glad to see that the Department of Justice has just launched a program to train local police departments to better respond to transgender people.  It is, if nothing else, a good first step:  a recognition of a need. 

Deputy Attorney General James Cole understands that one result of mistreatment is that too many of us simply don't report harassments, assaults or other violations against us.  As a matter of fact, even after that third visit to the 114th, when an officer finally took a statement from me, I vowed to never again report any crime, against myself or anyone else, to the police.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll reconsider.

Dreaming Of Going Dutch

I try to keep myself in the moment and to appreciate where I am.

Still, it's not hard to want to be on a bike in Leiden, Netherlands when I see this:

From Bicycle Dutch

On A Hater's Death, From His Son

As I mentioned a few days ago, Rev. Fred Phelps senior--he of Westboro Baptist Church fame--has died.

I am happy to know that I'm not the only person who has asked that we don't express the same sort of hate toward him that he showed us during his life.   Such a plea has come from no less than his estranged son, Nathan Phelps.

Recovering from Religion has issued this statement from him:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 24 2014 – On behalf of Nathan Phelps, son of former Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps, Recovering From Religion issues the following official statement:

“Fred Phelps is now the past. The present and the future are for the living. Unfortunately, Fred’s ideas have not died with him, but live on, not just among the members of Westboro Baptist Church, but among the many communities and small minds that refuse to recognize the equality and humanity of our brothers and sisters on this small planet we share. I will mourn his passing, not for the man he was, but for the man he could have been. I deeply mourn the grief and pain felt by my family members denied their right to visit him in his final days. They deserved the right to finally have closure to decades of rejection, and that was stolen from them.

Even more, I mourn the ongoing injustices against the LGBT community, the unfortunate target of his 23 year campaign of hate. His life impacted many outside the walls of the WBC compound, uniting us across all spectrums of orientation and belief as we realized our strength lies in our commonalities, and not our differences. How many times have communities risen up together in a united wall against the harassment of my family? Differences have been set aside for that cause, tremendous and loving joint efforts mobilized within hours…and because of that, I ask this of everyone – let his death mean something. Let every mention of his name and of his church be a constant reminder of the tremendous good we are all capable of doing in our communities.

The lessons of my father were not unique to him, nor will this be the last we hear of his words, which are echoed from pulpits as close as other churches in Topeka, Kansas, where WBC headquarters remain, and as far away as Uganda. Let’s end the support of hateful and divisive teachings describing the LGBT community as “less than,” “sinful,” or “abnormal.”  Embrace the LGBT community as our equals, our true brothers and sisters, by promoting equal rights for everyone, without exception. My father was a man of action, and I implore us all to embrace that small portion of his faulty legacy by doing the same.”

I am very moved by the humility and compassion behind Nathan Phelps' statement.  It's especially touching given the pain I'm sure he feels over losing a loved one with whom he'll never have an opportunity for reconciliation.  

Ironically, the young Phelps may provide the only lasting legacy of his father's work.  An organization like Westboro Baptist Church that's built upon hate can only destroy itself over infighting from its members. (Living and dying by the sword, anyone?)  The fact that Nathan has chosen not to follow in his father's "God Hates Fags" campaigns or protests at the funerals of military service members killed in combat shows that, at some point, bigotry and other kinds of ignorance must, inevitably, end.

A Timeline Of Our Visibility

I have not forsaken my promise to write more about the Lost Generation of Transgenders.  Sooner or later, though, I think it will turn into a project that will extend well beyond the boundaries of this blog.

With LGT in mind, I thought I'd post this Transgender Visibility Timeline:

Sleepless As What's Under Them

The other day I got out for a bit of a ride.  On my way home, I passed through the Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill neighborhoods of Brooklyn.  

The Heights abuts the waterfront and the Hill is next door.  Both neighborhoods have been the home of a number of writers, especially poets--including the ones everyone's heard of like Walt Whitman, Hart Crane and Marianne Moore and ones only readers of this blog have heard of, like yours truly.

Anyway, much of the Heights gentrified decades ago--in fact, one of the first landmarked districts in the United States lies within the neighborhood.  Cobble Hill is also turning into an enclave of young professionals and families.  

One result of those demographic changes--and shifts in the city's, nation's and world's economy--is that much of the city's maritime history is disappearing.  I know about those developments firsthand:  Two of my uncles were maritime workers and their union headquarters once occupied an entire square block, and a good part of another, in South Brooklyn.  One of my early birthdays was celebrated in its reception hall; so were milestones in the lives of other family members of longshoremen and other workers.  Now that square-block sized building is occupied by the largest Muslim elementary school in America and the maritime workers are relegated only to a couple of offices in the other building.

One of the last remaining vestiges of the work those men (almost all of them were male) did is seen on this building I passed on Atlantic Avenue, near Clinton Street:

The former headquarters and workshop of John Curtin's sail-making operation is now condominums, with a restaurant and Urban Outfitters store in its street-level studios. 

Riding through the neighborhood made me think of this passage from Hart Crane's masterwork The Bridge:

 Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.