The Charges: She's Black---And Trans

So what is life like for a black trans woman?

The sad tale of Meagan Taylor might tell us more--and worse--than most people could have imagined.

She checked into a Des Moines, Iowa hotel room with a friend who is also transgendered. The staff were "acting really funny" around them, she said.  Then the police showed up at their hotel room.

Now she's sitting in a cell of the Polk County Jail Medical Unit while officials try to figure out what to do with her.  Her bond is set at $2000.  Were she a Polk County resident, she could pay a tenth of that.  But, being from out-of-state, she would need someone local to co-sign, and she doesn't know a soul in Iowa.  She doesn't even have a lawyer.  All of this means that Taylor could be in that cell for months.

So what, exactly, is Meagan charged with?  Well, the hotel clerk who called the cops described "two males dressed as females", with the implication that they were prostitutes.  The cops could find no evidence of that.   They did, however, find a bottle of spironolactone hydrochloride.  in an unmarked bottle in her purse.  I used to take that same drug with estrogen tablets before U had my surgery but, apparently, the cops didn't believe her when she told them it's part of her hormone therapy.   So, she was charged with having a prescription drug without a prescription.

And, to be fair, she did give a false name and Missouri ID.  It’s not clear as to how she got that ID, but it’s hard to understand why that should have led to a charge of “malicious prosecution”, an aggravated misdemeanor.
While arresting her, a police officer ran a check and found she had an outstanding probation violation in her home state of Illinois: When she was 17, she was charged with credit card fraud. She says she did her time for that but admits she still owes $500 in fines.

All right.  You might say that Meagan Taylor is no angel.  But who among us is?  And young trans people often do, out of desperation, the sorts of things (like credit card fraud and using fake IDs) other young people do out of stupidity or arrogance. 

I don’t think most people would want to keep any young person locked up for such offenses.  Incarcerating such people rarely does them any good and costs a lot of money.  So why do Polk County officials see fit to keep Meagan Taylor, a low-level nonviolent offender, behind bars?

Inspired By Caitlyn To Tell Their Stories

Equality will have been achieved when all trans (or gender non-conforming) people can enjoy the same right to live as the people they are, without fear of losing their jobs, housing, families, relationships or lives, as cisgender people have.  In other words, we'll all be equal when we don't have to be rich and famous to, not only transition, but to be seen as a role model for doing so.

Caitlyn Jenner understands this.  Yesterday I applauded her for mentioning Sam Taub, the Detroit-area transgender teenager who committed suicide.  Now, Ms. Jenner's example is encouraging some of us, who transitioned long before Ms. Jenner, to tell our stories.  And the New York Daily News featured a few of them today: 



 
Caitlyn Jenner said she couldn’t wait to hear the stories of her transgender sisters. Well, the Daily News is providing three gripping tales from men who transitioned long before it became a reality TV show.
Like the 65-year-old Olympic gold-medal champ, this trio has struggled with doubts, fears and tears — including ones shed from the joy of finally embracing a life that’s been in limbo, in some cases for decades.

Each personal journey is unique, but share common threads. The road to transitioning reaches back to childhood — as early as first grade. Experimenting with cross-dressing came long before these women’s brave decisions to live authentically.

Discussing their lives wasn’t an invitation for tell-all revelations about surgery, genitals or sexual mores. But in reading each story, you get intimate portraits of the people living them — and the challenges that face all transgender Americans.

James Keivom

Actress Shakina Nayfack

Transgender actress Shakina Nayfack tells of her incredible journey from being a young Jewish boy bullied by high school classmates to an outspoken theater veteran. "I’m a white trans woman playing the Statue of Liberty in a show about illegal immigration," she says. READ THE STORY.

Aaron Showalter

Willa France

Willa France was at the top of her career as a lawyer when she transitioned to being a woman in her 50s. The East Harlem resident talks to the News about her own transformation, keeping her marriage intact and a defense of Jenner's fashion sense. READ THE STORY.

Bryan R. Smith

Patricia Harrington

Patricia Harrington says her transformation into her "authentic person" has been a series of small victories since trying to stand on the girl's line as a six year old boy. "It took another 35 years or so to open up," she says. " I’ve come so far in my life." READ THE STORY

Photo by Emma

Veronica Vera 

Meet Veronica Vera, founder of the Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls, who has helped countless men transition into women from her center in Chelsea. The once-repressed Catholic girl came to New York in the 1970s to explore her own sexuality, which led to her becoming her adopted home town's bbt. READ THE STORY.

Sam Taub

One of the best things Caitlyn Jenner did in her acceptance speech for the Arthur Ashe Award is to mention Sam Taub.

Until Caitlyn mentioned him, I'd never heard of him.  I would be that almost no one else had, either.

You see, she is one of those people who could have been another statistic--another transgender teenager who committed suicide--had Jenner not mentioned her.

The Detroit-area teen came from a troubled background:  His parents split up and his father got sole custody of him.  His father at least tried to support him when he said he was living in the wrong body. As an example, they went on shopping trips that resulted in a complete turnover of his wardrobe.  His mother, on the other hand, while saying that she had nothing against trans people, wants him to be remembered in death as a "happy little girl" named Samantha who "loved ice-skating and music and having her hair done and shopping".

Since I know neither Sam nor his mother, I will not blame her for his taking his own life.  Nor will I say that what the father did was "too little, too late".  More important than assigning blame to anyone--if indeed there is any to assign--is to understand how overwhelming it is for anyone, let alone a teenager--even with the most loving family and friends--to come to terms with, and negotiate a way of living in, the gender of her or his mind and spirit.

It's hard enough for any teenager to learn who she or is, even under the best of conditions. Even the most confident and resilient of young people don't have the emotional resources to deal with being what most of society still considers to be a freak--or the perspective to realize that it can get better, never mind that it does get better, as Dan Savage assures us.

Frankly, I don't know how I made it through that part of my life. Or my twenties.  Or my thirties.  Or the first few years of my forties.  There were good times, to be sure.  But sometimes it seems that the scars of rejection and alienation will never heal, especially to a teenager.

So, Caitlyn Jenner, thank you for another valuable service you've performed.  You couldn't save Sam Taub's life--or Leelah Alcorn's, or that of any other trans person who's committed suicide.  But at least there's less chance that their deaths will be in vain.  

Caitlyn Jenner Wins Arthur Ashe Award

Here is Caitlyn Jenner accepting the Arthur Ashe award:

ABC US News | World News

It's All Good, But We Need More!

Over the past few days, I’ve written about the most transgender-inclusive companies and the events that seem to be leading toward ending the ban on transgenders serving in the US Armed Forces.

While those are welcome developments, they also indicate how much more needs to be done to approach equality.

For one thing, not everyone—trans or cis, straight or gay, male or female—is suited (pardon the pun) to work in a large corporation or to be in the military.  Even those who have the skills, education, talents and temperament to work in such environments may not want to do so.  I think that anyone who has something to contribute should find the best avenue for it.  And I think that many of understand that not all necessary change comes from working within established institutions or power structures.

Perhaps more to the point, though, it seems to me that the changes corporations are making, and the ones the Armed Forces seem to be in the process of making, will benefit those who are already in those organizations and are embarking upon a gender transition.  I’m not sure that much will change for those who have lost jobs, or never had jobs in the first place, because of gender identity or expression.  How does the new protocol at Company X or in the Army help young trans women or men who are homeless or doing sex work because their family disowned them or bullies drove them out of school?

Also, I can’t help but to think that most trans people who will benefit from the latest developments are white and come from at least middle-class backgrounds.  To be fair, this is probably more true for the corporate world than for the military.  But even in the uniformed services, most who would be in a position—that is, those who have attained enough seniority and rank—to serve openly without reprisal are white college graduates.     

So, while I am glad that corporations and the Armed Forces are trying to be more open to diversity, I don’t think those who are making the decisions realize how their efforts are skewed—and how much more needs to be done.  For that matter, I don’t think most of the public does, either.

The Sequel To Caitlyn?

Seeing that portrait of Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair was great.

I think I've just found what--or, more precisely, who--I want to see next on the mag:

 


I know:  It looks like a promo for a Baywatch sequel.  I dare someone to make such a program--and make Shane Ortega the star of it.

He's one of the few transgender soldiers currently serving in the Army.  He's served two combat tours in Iraq and another in Afghanistan, and is now a Chinook helicopter crew chief for the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii.  

But he's hanging on for dear life in the Army in spite of the rave reviews he's received.  You see, his records identify him as female.  Like nearly all other transgender soldiers, he's served in secret--until recently.  With his record and the respect he's garnered, he felt he "had to be the one" to call attention to the situation of transgendered service members.

So, even though Ash Carter is assembling a working group that will, more than likely, establish guidelines to allow transgenders to serve in the Armed Forces, there is still the possiblity Ortega could be kicked out.

Being in the spotlight, he's following the Army's rules to a "T".  That means, among other things, wearing the skirt and blouse--which barely fit him now--of the women's dress uniform on those occasions that call for it.  It's "uncomfortable and humiliating", he says.  But, he explains, "I have to prove a point. I'm doing everything they ask me to do."

Really...After three combat tours, what else can they ask of him?  But whatever they ask, he'll do.  And, hopefully, he won't have to do those things anymore.  

Defense Secretary Announces Plan Aimed At Lifting Transgender Ban

Ever since "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed, the US Armed Forces has had only one ban based on gender or sexuality: the one that keeps transgenders from serving.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter says this ban is "outdated".  He is assembling a working group that will determine whether lifting the ban will have any impact on the Forces' combat-readiness.  Carter says that the group is beginning with the assumption that trans people should be able to serve openly "without adverse effects on military readiness and effectiveness, unless and except where practical, objective impediments are identified."


His plan give branches of the Armed Forces time to work through legal, medical and administrative issues and develop training to ease transition.  Senior leaders believe six months will be sufficient time for this process.

During that time, trans people still won't be allowed to join the military.  However, any decisions to force out those already enlisted will be referred to Brad Carson, Carter's personnel undersecretary and the leader of the working group.

A Trangender Power Couple In The Making?

Rumors are swirling that Caitlyn Jenner and Candis Cayne are dating:

 

Candis Cayne: Rumored Girlfriend Of Caitlyn Jenner Is Also A Transgender Trailblazer

 

 

 

 

 Candis Cayne is making headlines this week as the rumored girlfriend of Caitlyn Jenner, but the 43-year-old actress is a transgender trailblazer in her own right.

Reports this week have connected Caitlyn and Candis, who were spotted at a Broadway show after having a romantic dinner and a trip to a spa.

ADVERTISING

While it’s not clear if they are actually dating yet, they would seem to be a good fit. Caitlyn Jenner has become the face of transgender America, while Candis Cayne has made some of the biggest strides for transgender people in America.

After making a name for herself in New York City as a choreographer and club performer in the 1990s, Cayne made her move to Hollywood and scored a major role on the ABC show Dirty Sexy Money in 2007, playing a transgender mistress. With the role, Cayne was the first transgender actress to play a transgender character on primetime television.

She later went on to score another major role, playing transgender actress Alexis Stone on Nip/Tuck.
But Candis Cayne said she never saw herself as a transgender role model.

“I’m not trying to be a spokeswoman for the transgender community; I just want to be looked at as a living, breathing, happy human being,” she told the Advocate in 2009.

While Caitlyn Jenner hasn’t said when she is ready to date yet, she said in an interview with Vanity Fair that she’s looking forward to finally living life.

“I’m just going to go live life, I’m going to go enjoy life. I have nothing left to hide. I am kind of a free person, a free soul. [Up] to this point I would wear, you know, Bruce would wear, you know, sweatshirts with hoods on them so paparazzi can’t get pictures and all that kind of crap, and I didn’t want them to see if my fingernails were polished or, you know, on and on and on. It was just hell.”

Jenner added that she finally feels like herself after years of hiding.

“To be able to wake up in the morning, be yourself, get dressed, get ready to go out, and just be like a normal person. That’s a wonderful feeling to go through life. I’ve never been able to do that; it’s always been confusion, it’s always been, you know, I’ve got one side [with] boy clothes, the other side’s women’s clothes. It’s like I cleaned the whole closet out—the boys stuff is gone, O.K.?”

So far, neither Bruce Jenner nor Candis Cayne have commented on their alleged relationship.
[Picture by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]

The Most Transgender-Inclusive Companies

According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey Report, 90 percent of trans people have reported experiencing harassment, mistreatment or discrimination on the job--or hid who they are in order to avoid those things.  That same survey found that 47 percent of trans people experienced an adverse outcome--such as being fired or not hired, or denied a promotion--because they are gender non-conforming.

They're the lucky ones:  They actually had jobs.  We are more than twice as likely to be unemployed--or, worse, never to have had a job--than other people are.

In such a climate, it almost seems contradictory for someone to make the list of "the most transgender inclusive companies".  But that is what the Human Rights Campaign has done.

To be fair, there are companies that are making efforts to foster transgender inclusion in their work environments.  Some have gone as far as to create protocols to help workers transition while working for them.  

Some of those companies are the ones we might expect--like Disney, which has made great efforts to be LGBT-friendly before other companies thought of doing so.  Other such companies on the list are Nike and Starbuck's.

However, some are surprising--at least to some people.  Eastman Kodak has long been known for its efforts at inclusivity, which is surprising until you realize it's in Rochester, NY, which was one of the first cities to add language to include and protect transgenders in its human rights laws.  Then there are companies like Apple, Microsoft and other tech firms.  I'm guessing that they're "early adopters", so to speak, of trans-inclusiveness because to be technological innovators, they have to "think outside the box".  


What's truly surprising, though, is how many financial-services and insurance companies are on the list.  i guess they're realizing that it's best to recruit and retain talent, no matter what body it comes in or how it identifies itself.  At least, I'd hope that's true.
 

Age, Hormones Or Fatigue?

Today I stopped in a bike shop in my neighborhood.  It’s a tiny place that’s been there for about as long as its owner has been in the neighborhood—which is to say, most of his life.

There, I saw someone I hadn’t seen in a while.  He’s worked in the shop during the season for as long as I can remember.  Whatever they’re paying him, he can afford to work there:  He retired from a city job when he was 50.

(Old bike-industry joke:  “Wanna know how to end up with a small fortune in this business?  Start with a big one!”)

We chatted.  “Still riding, I see.”  I nodded, but I wondered why he said that.  As long as I don’t have a condition that precludes doing so, I intend to keep on cycling.

“What about you?”

“My cycling days are over,” he said. 

“Oh, I’m fine.  Just old.  Too old to ride.”

“How old is that?, might I ask.”

He told me.

“So you’re retiring from cycling—but not working?”

He sighed.  “The legs can’t do what they used to do.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m not sorry.  I had some really good times on my bike.  Good memories.”

He didn’t mention any injuries or debilitating diseases.  I’m guessing that riding just became more pain than pleasure for him.

I must admit:  It wasn’t comforting to hear what he said, as I’m closer to his age than I’d like to admit.  He was younger than I am now when we first met and did some rides together. 

When I first started to talk about my gender identity issues with my former partner, she predicted that I might give up cycling. “It’ll suck,” she said, “when you’re full of estrogen instead of testosterone.”

“Why should it matter?”

“You don’t realize how accustomed you are to the strength you have.  I don’t know that you’d like riding without it.”

As I mentioned in a post on my other blog, I thought about giving up cycling when I first started living as Justine, about a year after I started taking hormones.  At that point, I hadn’t yet noticed much of a loss in my strength.  I just thought that cycling was part of my life as a guy named Nick and wasn’t sure I could bring it into my new life.

I love cycling now as much as I ever did.  Perhaps more so: I think that in my youth and my life as a male (which overlapped quite a lot!), I prided myself on riding longer, harder and faster than most other cyclists, at least the ones I knew.  Even more, I liked the admiration and respect I got from other male cyclists, some of whom won races.

Since my transition, I’ve become a different sort of cyclist.  I don’t have the strength I once did.  Some of that may be a matter of age or other factors besides my hormonal changes.  Surprisingly, I didn’t have to “accept” that I wasn’t going to be as strong or fast as I once was; rather, I found that cycling heightened the emotional release I have felt in living as the person I am.

I hope that I can continue it—cycling, or more important, what it’s become for me—when I get to be the age of the man I met today.  And beyond. 

 

Another Reason To Love The Amish

One says, "It's up to me to accept people as they are."  Another declares, "Transgender is not part of God's plan." Still others say they want her to be happy.  And then there were some who, verbally, shrugged their shoulders.

As you might have guessed, they were reacting to Caitlyn Jenner.  But they didn't hear about her the way most of us did.  They don't watch television, let alone look at the Internet.  They don't even have most of the basic technology most of us (in the industrialized world, anyway) take for granted.

So how did the good folks in the Pennsylvania Amish country learn about Caitlyn?  Well, the fact that they (most of them, anyway) don't have TV didn't shield them from the news media--or, at least, one member of it.  Too bad he had to be one of the worst.

Although it wasn't their intent, the gentleness of the Amish people--whether they approved or disapproved of what Caitlyn has done--made Jesse Watters seem like even more of an ass than he normally does.

 

Even Bill O'Reilly seemed civilized by comparison!

Another Anniversary!

Yesterday this blog turned seven years old.

And I turned six.  That is to say, six years ago yesterday, I underwent my surgery. 

My, how time flies!

Riding On Race Memory

The other day, I took a ride I hadn’t taken in a long, long time.

I ended up in Long Branch, New Jersey, as I’d planned.  I rode there back in December.  But I made a wrong turn just as I was leaving the industrial and post-industrial necropolis of north-central New Jersey took a very different route from the one I’d planned.  I didn’t mind: It was a very satisfying ride that took me away from the traffic streaming in and out of the shopping malls that day, the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend.

But Sunday I took the route I rode so many times in my youth, through the weathered Jersey Shore communities that line Route 36 from Keyport to the Highlands.  So much was as I remembered it from the last time I rode it, twenty years ago, and the first time I rode it, twenty years before that. Then I crossed over the arched bridge that spans the Shrewsbury River where it empties into Sandy Hook Bay and drops into the spit of land that separates the river and bay from the Atlantic Ocean.  

At the top of the bridge, the ocean stretches as far as you can see. Whether it was bluer than any eye or stone I’ve ever seen, or grayer than steel, nothing made me better than seeing it and descending that bridge.

Here is something I wrote about the experience of doing that ride for the first time as a woman named Justine—after many, many journeys as a boy and man named Nick:

*****************************************************************************************

Yesterday’s ride brought back memories of the race.

I did not make the turn.  I could not.  I did not for many, many years.  But yesterday I did.

Either way meant pedaling uphill.  To the left I went.  Two hills, instead of one.  Between them, a brief flat, where I could regain some of the momentum I’d lost.

But the climbs were neither as long nor as steep as I remembered.  I forgot that I’m not in as good shape as I was the last time I did this ride, this race, more than twenty years ago.  

To get to the ocean and back.  That was all I had to do in those days.  To the ocean and back before dark, before the air grew as cold and night as false as the water, as the reflections on it:  my reflections.

All I had to do was get back for dinner.  At least, that’s all I was told to do.  Sunday; you simply did not miss dinner.  You couldn’t even be late for it.  So there was only so much time to get there, to get to the ocean and back.

I am pedaling on memory now.  My body’s memory:  the only kind.  The first time I did this ride, when I was a teenager.  The last time, twenty years later, twenty years ago.

Before the memory, I knew nothing.  I could only move ahead, I could only pedal.  Gotta make it.  I could not stop. My memory of this ride, this race, could not, could not let me.  You will.  I could not hear; when you’re in this race, you can’t.

On that flat between the climbs, a woman walked toward me.  She says something; I can only see her.  She knows me perfectly well; I don’t.  She does not stop me; I cannot.

She would climb these hills many more times.  You’ll make it!  How does she know?  I have no other choice.

The climb is easier when you have a memory of the race.  It’s inevitable.  You couldn’t go any other way.  There is only the race, the climb, that ends at a bridge that you’ll cross because there is no other way over the bay, to the ocean.  

Because I made the turn. Because I couldn’t have gone any other way.  Not when a teenaged boy’s elbows and knees slung him forward on his saddle and up the hills.  Not when the memory of a woman in late middle age, the electricity in her flesh—his flesh—guides the wheels beneath her, beneath him, over the bridge and to the ocean.

The day is clear.  Reflections of the sun pulse; she moves the weight of his bones down a narrow strip between the bay and the ocean all the way to the end.  His end, where he turned around for the race.  He would have to get there and back while he could; she knew he would but he could not.  He could not have known.  He could only push; he could only pump.

The sunset is even clearer.  Weathered houses stand ready; the abandoned ones lost to the tides.  I am pedaling into the wind but my bike rolls as easily and smoothly over cracked asphalt as boats, sails like wings fluttering between ripples of water and clouds. 

They will reach their shores, whoever is guiding them, whoever guided them years ago.  I came to the end of yesterday’s ride on my memory of a race:  the teenaged boy who first followed these roads, the young man who did not know how to turn; the man who would not—and, finally, twenty years later, the woman who could not.  She crossed the bridge to the ocean. 

Yesterday I rode on the memory of that race, the race that I am.