The Rabbi Says We're Not Ill

A British rabbinical student is on a crusade.

All right.  You might think I'm getting my medieval history mixed up here.  But I assure you that, in fact, a young Londoner studying for the rabbiniate is indeed a man on a mission.

I'm not talking about his efforts toward ordination.  He is asking the contributors to, and editors of, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual to change something they've done since the third edition of said manual came out in 1980.

In DSM-III, transsexualism was included for the first time.  It was classified as "Gender Identity Disorder," the first known use of that phrase.  In DSM-IV TR, a revision of the fourth edition, GID was placed in a category of sexual disorders.  

DSM V is in the works.  Maxwell Zachs, the rabbinical student in question, wants to see the de-classification of transsexualism as a mental disorder in the new edition of the manual.  "Gender is not an illness," he explains.  "It's just a part of who I am, like being Jewish or a vegetarian or sometimes talking too much!"

While re-classifying people like me and him might remove some of the stigma and alleviate some of the prejudice we can experience, it is not as simple a choice as one might expect.

You see, medical practitioners and administrators, public health officials and even pharmaceutical companies rely on the DSM to help them set priorities and policies.  So do insurance companies.  

So, if we are re-classified as "normal," that might actually make it difficult for many of us to get treatments and therapy.  While very few trans people have insurance policies that pay for surgery, many (myself included) were able to get our hormones and visits with doctors paid for, and psychotherapy partially covered.  And I have been able to get mammograms and, since my surgery, gynecological care.

If transgenderism is no longer considered an illness or disorder, insurance providers might decide not to pay for those things.  And some practitioners might not provide their services.  

Plus, I have to wonder whether it would make it more difficult for someone to file a complaint of discrimination, much less a lawsuit.  Could some judge or lawmaker decide that because a transgender is not ill, he or she doesn't need legal protections and is simply pursuing a "lifestyle choice"?

This is very interesting and controversial, to say the least!

What Was Lost In The Lost Generation of Transgenders

Yesterday, I wrote about the African-American and Latino gay and transgender world of the 1980's that was depicted in Paris Is Burning.  As I mentioned, some of the young people shown in the film are dead; if you watch the film now, you can't help but to wonder which ones, if any, are still living.

In that very literal sense, they are a lost generation of transgender people.  But even the ones who have survived are part of the lost generation I've described, for they were not able to pass on what they learned, whether from a previous generation of trans people or from their own lives.  They taught each other how to shoplift, find places to "crash" (Most of them had little or no money; if they had any, they were saving it for surgery.) and deal with cops and tranny-chasers as well as tranny-bashers.  

In other words, they were only learning how to survive for the moment.  Now, of course, that is important, for if we don't live through this moment, we won't have others in which we can live.  But, as we have seen in history, people who expend--whether through choice or necessity--all of their energy in immediate survival tend not to make advancements in their consciousness, let alone in the ways they do things.  And they tend not to live very long.  In those senses, young trans people in the 1980's were not so different from almost anyone who lived in Europe during the millennium or so that followed the disintegration of the Roman Empire.

But the young people who were living in the ball culture shown in Paris Is Burning were marooned in a moment of history.  Most of them did not know about pioneering transgender activists like Sylvia Rivera, who were shunted aside when LGBT organizations and movements were taken over by, and therefore focused on, gay white men.  (Lesbians found themselves stuck in their own kind of limbo in the feminist movement.)  Although they were less than a generation removed from the Stonewall Rebellion, they were as unaware of it as most American college freshmen are of John Brown and the slave rebellions.

What was even worse was that they were stuck without the knowledge of how to deal with the struggles they faced in a society and nation (at least in its political leadership) that had grown more hostile to them. Sylvia Rivera herself was all but forgotten, homeless and battling addiction, as transgenders and drag queens were shunted aside to make the gay-rights movement (which was dealing with the stigma of AIDS) more attractive to straight people and others in the mainstream.   

In brief, the young people who were competing in those balls had already lost what little history they had.  We all know that one of the easiest ways to destroy a people--or to make it an underclass--is to separate it from its history.  I'm not talking about History in the academic sense (although that matters, too); I mean a person's own history and that of the family and community from which he or she came.  

The older trans and drag queens could teach them how to "boost" designer purses and eyeliner.  But they couldn't teach them the things a previous generation would have been able to teach them.  That is what was lost with the lost generation of trans people.

Paris Is Burning: A Document Of The Lost Generation Of Trans People

I saw Paris Is Burning not long after it was released in 1990.  I was very deeply in the closet then.  So, perhaps, it wouldn't surprise you to know that I went to see it with a woman with whom I was trying to initiate a more-than-friends relationship.  (It didn't happen.)  The funny thing is that she suggested the film.

But I digress.  One thing that's very interesting about the film, even for someone who's not interested in drag balls or "voguing", is that it shows a city and culture that were disappearing at the very moment Jennie Livingston (a white lesbian) was directing it.  In that sense, it reminds me of Leslie Feinberg's novel Stone Butch Blues, which portrays an upstate New York of smokestack industries and blue-collar jobs, and the "butches" who worked some of them.  That way of life was dying just as the novel's protagonist was coming of age, and was long gone by the time the novel was published.  As Jay Toole (who is not given to hyperbole)  remarked in a recent conversation with me, "There aren't any stone butches anymore!"

Likewise, the kinds of young African-American and Latino gay males and transgenders Livingston presents are all but gone, literally as well as figuratively.  Several of the subjects of the film are known to be dead, from AIDS and other forms of violence, and it wouldn't surprise me that others have passed.  Many ran away from, or were thrown out of, their homes before reaching the age of majority, which means that some were probably "off the grid" in that era just before the Internet.

The ones who have survived, as Melissa Anderson points out, probably would not recognize New York as it is now (assuming, of course, they still live here).  Then, the Christopher Street pier, where many of them hung out, was as weathered, splintered and rotted--and, in daylight, as forlorn--as a piece of driftwood on a beach. So were most of the other Hudson River piers of Greenwich Village, Chelsea and other downtown and West Side neighborhoods in Manhattan.  Now the Christopher Street Pier and others around it are, in essence, little parks that stand between the Hudson Greenway and the river.  Instead of young people who are essentially homeless and outcast in other ways, the Greenway and piers are filled, at least on fair-weather days, with cyclists, runners and parents with their kids in strollers, and  people walking their dogs.  The Chelsea Piers, which occupy the piers that formed planks from the ends of the streets in the West 20's, is full of restaurants, shops and other attractions that bring in families and tourists.  The subjects of Paris Is Burning almost certainly could not have afforded to go to any of those establishments--not that they would have--even if they were doing sex work, which was the most remunerative employment available to most of them.

Which brings me to my next point...The young gay and trans people who were "voguing" in the '80's and early '90's almost certainly wouldn't recognize me, my trans, gay and lesbian friends or, in fact, nearly any member of today's LGBT communities.  Although things are far from perfect for us today, we have no need for those balls to which the young gays and trans people expended much of the energy, and what little money, they had.  The fact that they tried to portray, as accurately as possible, supermodels, actresses, singers and other female performers, in competitions in which they represented "houses" named after fashion designers like Chanel, is an expression of their yearning to belong to the rest of the world and the knowledge that they don't, and perhaps never will.  (Note the use of the word "houses" by young people who were disowned by their families.)  Some would never have the means to belong--Many of them shoplifted the clothing and makeup they wore for those competitions!-- while others simply won't live long enough.  

Most of them could not finish high school, and could not imagine going to college or into any sort of program that will train them for a job that would provide them with the trappings of a middle-class life.  They never met gay or trans people who were writers, scientists, professors, economists, musicians, engineers, doctors or historians; if their teachers were in the LGBT spectrum, those young people would not have known, at least with any certainty.  And they almost certainly could not have imagined a world in which Dick Cheyney would express his support for same-sex marriage, or in which straight entertainers or other celebrities would advocate for trans people.

They would not have seen trans people my age, and might not have known that any existed.  That is because--as they could not have known--most trans people around my age would begin their transitions at an age, and in an age,  to which most of them would not live.  

In other words, whatever Jennie Livingston's intentions were, Paris Is Burning has become a document of the lost generation of transgenders and the history and culture that disappeared with them.

IFI Wins (For Now)

The Illinois Family Institute are savoring their victory.

Yesterday, I mentioned that the IFI was trying to get the East Aurora School District to rescind its new transgender-friendly policy, which was adopted only four days ago.

The rules allowed students to use bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities intended for the gender of their minds and spirits.  Of course, that's not the language that was written into the short-lived regulation.  But, for a brief period of time, at least one member of that school board showed an understanding of the fact that our genders are not simply a mater of sexual apparatus or chromosomes. 

Today, the Board is expected to capitulate to the pressure of the IFI--which helped to spur a campaign of negative letters, e-mails and phone calls--and reverse the policy.  

 According to School Board President Annette Johnson, passing the new regulation was a "mistake."  She claimed that board members had been misinformed that the district had to implement the guidelines in order to conform with a constantly-changing Illinois school code.  


The National Center for Transgender Equality says that allowing students to live in the gender in which they see themselves is critical in preventing bullying as well as host of other problems that follow.  When students can express who they actually are, and there are policies to protect that expression, most would-be bullies realize that they can't get away with the violence and harassment they can commit when young people are forced to repress their  expression of gender identity and sexuality.

Maybe the IFI will fall apart, or Board members will see the ight they saw this past Monday, when they voted for the transgender policy. Or so I hope.

Infographic On LGBT Legal Protections

Yesterday, the Center for American Progress posted a very informative infographic about the state of legal protections for LGBT people in the United States:

The information about which states have or don't have protections for transgnders, lesians and gays isn't shocking to most of us in the community.  But it is disturbing to note that 71 percent of the land area of the United States has no laws protecting LGBT people against discrimination in employment, housing and other areas.

What might be even more shocking, though, is that 42,044,205 children live in states without laws that would prohibit employers from firing those kids' parents, guardians or other caretakers for being transgendered, lesbian or gay.

What would Romney, who claims to care so much about the future of our kids, make of this?  

IFI: Their Hate Is All About The Family

Why do so many hate groups have the word "family" in their names?

One example is the Illinois Family Institute.  In response to the East Aurora School District's new transgender-affirmative policy, the self-appointed guardians of the "traditional" family issued an ignorant and offensive condemnation in its call for a repeal.

Their missive included gems like the following:

Apparently, all that’s needed for school personnel to be compelled to participate in a fiction is for a student to pretend “consistently” at school that he or she is the opposite sex.

The school board is now imposing non-objective, “progressive” moral, philosophical, and political beliefs—not facts—about gender confusion on the entire school. This feckless school board has made a decision to accommodate, not the needs of gender-confused teens, but their disordered desires and the desires of gender/sexuality anarchists who exploit public education for their perverse ends.

I wonder how many of these board members have thought or read deeply on the issue of gender confusion or Gender Identity Disorder. And I wonder how many of them have read deeply the writing of not just “progressive” scholars but conservative scholars as well.

That gender dysphoria is referred to as "gender confusion" tells you most of what you need to know about this group and the bliss they take in their ignorant hate.  Also, they wonder whether Board members have read "deeply" the writing of "not just progressive" scholars, but conservative scholars as well.

Excuse me IFI, but have you heard of the DSM?  Its editors are hardly known as "progressive" scholars.  But the next edition of the DSM, due to be released in May, takes gender identity disorder off its list of mental illnesses.  And many other scientists with no discernible political agendae affirm that, indeed, some people are born with characteristics that are incongruent with what is considered "normal" for their genital or chromosomal sex.

If anything, the East Aurora school board is simply acknowledging reality.  If the IFI would do the same, perhaps they wouldn't need to be so hateful.

A Double-Bind For Transgenders In Malaysia

In some predominantly-Muslim countries, such as Malaysia, there are, in essence, two sets of laws.  Sharia is Islamic law, which applies to people who are Muslims.  Then there are secular laws, which apply to all citizens and, in some cases, even to visitors who aren't Muslim.

As it happens, Sharia law includes a ban on transvestism.  In Malaysia, men who wear women's clothing can face prison sentences and/or hefty fines, depending on the Malaysian state in which they are convicted.

On the other hand, Malaysia's ban on homosexual acts applies to everyone in the countries.  Those who are charged with violating this law can be punished by caning and prison sentences of up to 20 years.

So, in Malaysia, cross-dressers--four of whom recently lost a court challenge to the country's ban--are in a real quandry.

Not only do they dress in women's clothing, they also take hormones and go by female names.  However, their identity cards and other documents identify them by the male names and gender assigned to them at birth.

The four trans women argued that the ban on cross-dressing voilates the protections for freedom of expression and against discrimination based on gender identity codified in the Malaysian constitution.  They also pleaded, unsuccessfully, for identity cards that identified them by their female names and gender--which, in essence, would allow them to live more or less fully as women--because of the discrimination transgender people face in their country.

Said discrimination may turn out to be the lesser of their problems.  Now that their identities are known, they are subject to the risk of harassment and violence.  And, because the Malaysian courts still categorize them as men, they run the risk of being prosecuted under the country's laws against homosexual acts should they have sex with men.

Transgender Bird?

Bellbirds live in New Zealand.  They're about the size of a sparrow, dark olive-green with red eyes.  (They're kinda cute, if you ask me!) The female has a white cheek stripe, but the male doesn't.

Staff at the Zealandia Eco-Sanctury have found a bellbird that has the stripe on one side, but the darker male plumage on the other.  Also, this bird makes both male- and female- patterened calls, but makes the female calls at a higher volume and greater frequency than is normal for females.

"There's something we can't pin down," says Erin Jeneway, a conservation officer at the sanctuary.  "We haven't seen anything like this before."

Although it is the first bellbird to be found with characteristics of both genders, it's not the first such bird or animal to be noted.  And there are some species, such as the clownfish, in which members change their sexes. If a female clownfish dies, the largest male in the school will become female.

What do such animals do about their birth certificates?

Surgery Not Required In Ontario

In the Canadian province of Ontario, it is now possible for a person to change the gender as well as the name on his or her birth certificate, even if he or she hasn't had gender reassignment surgery.

This change in policy stems from an April ruling from the province's Human Rights Tribunal in the case of a born-male woman known as "XY" .  The Tribunal declared the surgery requirement to be discriminatory. Furthermore, the Tribunal's ruling said that the requirement added to the stigma felt by members of the transgender community, and reinforced stereotypes about how they experience gender.

I am of two minds about this ruling.  On one hand, I am glad that the requirement for surgery has been eliminated, and would like to see American states similarly change their policies.  The surgical requirement discriminates against those who can't afford surgery or can't have it for medical reasons. It also, as the Ontario tribunal's ruling notes, reinforces the gender binary.  We are now learning that gender identity is not merely "performative," genital or chromosomal; it is far more complex, and complicated than almost anyone realizes.  That means, of course, that there are far more than two ways to experience, much less express, gender.

Dropping the surgical requirement will also make it easier for many people, especially young trans folk, to gain admissions to schools, jobs, housing and many other actual and de facto necessities of life.  Someone who does not have those things, and can find no other option but a homeless shelter and other public assistance, will be assigned to a shelter and given benefits according to whether the "male" or "female" is indicated on the birth certificate.

On the other hand, as a friend of mine says, a birth certificate is part of an accurate record of a person's history. This friend, who is transitioning, does not want to change the gender, or even the name, on the birth certificate. The birth certificate records the gender of the body into which a person is born and the name given at the time of birth.  My friend believes that these are a vital part of a life history.

I can sympathise with this friend's feelings, and feel that if anyone who doesn't want to change his or her birth certificate, even after surgery, should have that right.   At the same time, I realize this friend is unlikely to change jobs and probably won't move until retirement from said job.  My friend will not therefore have to face the dilemma of having to start life with documents that don't match gender identity or presentation.

So, as I said, I am glad for the Ontario ruling and hope other Canadian provinces and American states--as well as other nations--follow suit.  But I also hope that no one is forced to alter his or her records after a transition and surgery.

A Lifespan Of 30 To 32 Years, And A Lost Generation

Two decades ago, a widely-circulated report caused a lot of shock and disbelief.

Among its findings was this:  Black males aged 15 to 29 had a higher rate of mortality than anyone except people over 85.

But what caused perhaps the most consternation was the fact that black men in Harlem had a shorter life expectancy (51)  than men in Bangladesh (55).  At that time, as now, the average life expectancy for males in the US was 73 years.

(Aside:  At the time of the report, Bangladesh differed from any Western country in that males had a longer life expectancy--by one year--than women.)

I was in graduate school at the time the report came out.  Fellow students and faculty members talked about it for weeks afterward.  More than a few faculty members, I'm sure, were stunned to realize that they were near, or had exceeded, the numbers for men in Harlem and Bangladesh. And those--including my fellow students--who hadn't reached that age bracket knew that, barring some unforeseen tragedy, they were likely to live well beyond 51 or 55.

As terrible as those findings were ( I concur with those who said a "genocide" of black youth was, and is, taking place.), they paint a positively rosy picture compared to something I stumbled over a couple of days ago.

According to Argentinian psychologist Graciela Balestra, "Transgender people have an average life expectancy of 30 to 32 years."

That is less than the average life expectancy during the time of Christ, and about how long people could expect to live during the Dark Ages.  Even during the time of the Black Death, a person--assuming, of course, that he or she wasn't among the one in three who succumbed to the epidemic--could expect to live a couple of years longer than that.

And Dr. Balestra works closely with the transgender community in a country where, arguably, trans people have more rights and protections than in any other in the world!

When I think about it, I have difficulty rebutting her claim.  I know, personally, about two dozen people on the transgender spectrum, and have probably talked with about two hundred others, perhaps more.    Of the transgender people I know personally, about four or five are 30 or younger; the rest are 40 or older.  Of course, that last fact may simply be a result of being over 40 myself!  However, I can't help but to realize that all of the 30-or-older trans people I know--and, most likely, most of the ones I've met--began their transitions after that age.  In my experience, it's really unusual to meet a trans person around my age who started his or her transition thirty or even twenty years ago.  We are, as I said in yesterday's post, survivors of the Lost Generation of transgender people.  

So, while I know that today we have a more hospitable (though far from entirely hospitable) environment, I still worry sometimes about those young people who are making their transitions, and even having surgery, before their mid-20's.  While I am happy that they will be able to enjoy a youth in their true gender--an option too many friends and acquaintances, as well as I, didn't have--I still have to wonder just how long they'll live, and what their quality of life will be like. 

For all of the advances that have been made--at least in some parts of the US--to protect our rights and safety, a transgender person is still 16 times as likely as anyone else to be murdered.  One of us is also 20 times as likely to be assaulted.  Moreover, we have unemployment and poverty rates that are multiples of the ones suffered by any other group of people.  Even if you talk about the real, as opposed to the official, unemployment rates, we are three to four times as likely not to have paid work.  

And those of us who have employment, health insurance and safe housing are likely to have garnered those things before our transitions.  

Perhaps the clearest sign of progress we might see will be when we see gainfully employed, insured and well-housed trans people in their 30's and 40's who have attained those hallmarks of a stable life after, or not long before, beginning their transitions in their early-to-mid 20's, or even earlier. Until then, we will have a gap created by a lost generation of trans people. Having such a gap has devastated the African-American community for a long time, and could do something similar, if it hasn't already, to the trans community.

National Coming Out Day

Today is the 25th National Coming Out Day.

When the first such day was held, "coming out", even for white lesbians and gay men and lesbians who were secure in their jobs and lives, was a risky proposition.  The so-called "Gay Liberation" of the 1970's boomeranged into a conservative backlash during the 1980s.  (I apologize for the mixed metaphors.)  

One reason was the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Of course, the election didn't happen in a vacuum:  There was a counter-revolution to the Gay Rights movement, just as there was for the Women's and Civil Rights movements.  That counter-revolution was not always visible or audible:  Most of the time, it was more like a series of tremors that one only felt when one happened to be in its path.  Those tremors culminated in the earthquake of Reagan's election.

Perhaps even more important, though, was the outbreak of HIV/AIDs.  In the early years of the epidemic, all of its known (or, at any rate, recorded) victims were believed to be gay men, intravenous drug users, Haitians or West Africans.  The last three groups I've mentioned were near the bottom of the American socio-economic ladder; the early path of the epidemic caused many Americans to lump gay men with them.  Naturally, that only helped to inflame existing prejudices against gay men.

Another reason, I believe, why "coming out" was difficult during the 1980's was that many people associated lesbians with the most shrill and hateful kinds of feminists (or pseudo-scholars who called themselves feminists, anyway).  The conservatives and religious hatemongers who were spouting anti-gay rhetoric tended to look none too kindly on feminists anyway; the association those conservatives made between feminists and lesbians surely made things worse for both.

If it was difficult for gays and lesbians to come out in 1988, you can only imagine how much worse things were for trans people.  Of the trans people I've met (which include everything from those who haven't yet begun-- or who have chosen not to-- to transition, to post-ops), it seems that there are, chronologically, two groups: the ones who transitioned during or before the early 1980's, and the ones who transitioned during or after the early 1990's.  

If my observations in any way reflect what has happened throughout the trans community, there is a "lost generation" of trans people--the ones who didn't transition during the decade or so between the two groups I've mentioned.  That period almost perfectly coincides with the conservative backlash I've mentioned against gays and lesbians, and that "lost generation" includes many who took their own lives or who died slower deaths from drug and alcohol abuse, as well as those who simply didn't transition and those--including yours truly--who transitioned later in their lives than they might have otherwise.

So, even though we have a long way to go, things are certainly better for us, in many ways, than they were in 1988.  National Coming Out Day is one reason for that.

Turned Away By An LGBT Organization

Every time I think the world has become  a more hospitable, or at least a  less hostile, place for trans people, something happens to shake my faith.   

It's bad enough when hateful, ignorant or simply rude words or treatment comes from the sorts of people from whom we expect it.  At least then we can see it coming.  However, it's more distrubing, and more distressing, when we are treated badly by those whom we thought to be allies--or at least who previously seemed to be working on our behalf.

A friend of mine is having such an experience.  She went to an organization that is ostensibly dedicated to helping transgender people with various legal issues, including civil rights violations and access to health care.  In fact, that organization's founder litigated a case in which I had been involved, and was settled when the judge ordered the defendant to make contributions to LGBT organizations on behalf of me and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit.  After that, I would volunteer for that organization, join their board of directors and write a guidebook, which they distributed in print and online, to help transgenders gain access to the health care we need.

That organization--the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund--took over Lambda Legal's name-change project.  I used its free services and, even as a complete novice to the court system, I had no difficulty.  When TLDEF took it over, I thought it might be a good thing, as TLDEF is (or, at any rate, was) an organization centered on transgendered.  Plus, TLDEF's director, Michael Silverman is a first-rate lawyer. No less than the lawyers who opposed him, and a prosecutor, said as much.

In any event, my friend went to a TLDEF name-change clinic and was treated rudely, and with hostility.  Then the person who was supposed to help my friend instead invented a reason, called it TLDEF policy, and used it to keep my friend from using their services.

My friend, at least, is canny and persistent, although obviously upset with the treatment she received.  Now that this friend has found out that the rule that would have disqualfied her, had it existed, she is all the more upset, though still fighting.

Post #1000. Thanks For Reading

Four years and three months, almost to the day, after my first post on this blog, here we are, at post #1000.

The day I started this blog, I had absolutely no idea of how long it would last, or how many posts I would write on it.  I started one year before the scheduled date for my surgery and had planned to record whatever came along during those twelve months.  I didn't know whether I would continue or, in fact, whether I would want to.

But I learned a few things during that year, and more since.  I also had a motive for continuing this blog that some may find self-indulgent or narcissistic:  FOr the most part, what I wrote in this blog during the months after my surgery were the first I wrote in my new life.  

Also, I found myself thinking, if not differently, then in different directions.  In my transition, I experienced sexism, transphobia and other kinds of bigotry in more immediate and intimate ways than I ever did as a male who, as far as most people could tell, was straight, or at least bi-leaning-to-hetero-sexual.  And who is white.  One interesting facet of my experiences is that I also learned how my race matters and that, for whatever prejudice I was experiencing, there were other kinds of ignorance and hate to which I wasn't subject and, I hope, never will be.

Anyway...I want to thank all of you who have been reading, whether regularly or episodically.  And I want to thank my mother, father and other people--including my friend Millie and Bruce  (I don't know that better friends exist!)--who've been with me on this journey.  And my new friends, too:  you know who you are!


I may write Post #1001 tomorrow.  Or next week.  And how much time will pass between Post #1001 and 1002, I don't know.  But, for now, this blog will continue.  And, I suspect, it will go on as long as I learn anything new or interesting, or am shocked by something, related not only to my own life as a woman, but to issues related to gender and sexuality.  A friend has suggested I start a political blog.  I may do that.  If I do, i will almost certainly take time and energy from this, so my posts will become less frequent.  (Unless, of course, I no longer have to work for a living!)  But, for now, and for the foreseeable future, I'll be here.  And here I am.

Trans People Of Color: An Endangered Species?

The other day I commemorated the tenth anniversary of Gwen Araujo's brutal murder.

During the four years I've kept this blog, I've also written about the murders of Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, Rita Hester, Coko Williams and Thapelo Makutle.

Apart from the fact that they were transgender women and the sheer brutality of their killings, what else did they have in common?

You might have guessed:  They are all women of color, nonwhite, or whichever term you want to use.

Reports from Interpol and other investigative agencies show that no one runs a higher risk of being a homicide victim than a transgender person.  And, in the United States at any rate, people account for a disproportionate number of the corpses in the county morgue.

I was reminded of these facts by an excellent article someone passed on to me.  In it, Kimberly McLeod reports that, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence programs, violence against LGBT people rose 23 percent from 2009 to 2010, with people of color and transgender women being the most common victims.  Of the LGBT people who were murdered in 2010, 70 percent were people of color and 44 percent were transgender women.

As it happens, the murders of people of color and transgenders are also the least likely to culminate with the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible.  In many instances, no more than a perfunctory investigation is done, if any is done at all.

What further exacerbates the dangers and inequities faced by trans people of color is that many trans people are, essentially, alone in this world:  Their friends, families, communities and employers have cut ties with them, or they had to leave those people and places to escape harassment and in the hope of escaping violence.  And, of course, killings of people of color are simply not a high priority in many police forces and communities.

Potty Mouth In Calgary

It's always about the bathrooms.

At least, it is whenever someone wants to oppose equal rights for transgender people.

That's exactly what's happening now in Canada, the country that beat its southern neighbor in legalizing same-sex marriage.

MP (Member of Parliament) Rob Anders of Calgary is calling on his fellow Canadiens and Canadiennes to oppose Bill C-279, which would recognize gender identity and expression in the hate crimes section of Canada's Criminal Code. It also would offer protection to gender-variant individuals protection under the Canada Human Rights Act.

Anders and other opponents of C-279 have dubbed it the "Bathroom Bill."  (Original, isn't he?)  In a petition on his website, Anders claims that the bill's aim "is to give transgendered men access to women's public washroom facilities."

Anders' colleague in the Canadian Parliament, Randall Garrison, said that Anders' petition shows a basic misunderstanding of the bill's concepts.  "He obviously missed the fact that similar provisions have been adopted in [the Northwest Territories], Manitoba and Ontario, with none of the absurd consequences he fears," Garrison wrote in a statement.  "At best, Mr. Anders failed to do his homework."

Let's hope that Anders is merely a poor researcher or simply read the bill in a rush.  Otherwise, he is, as Garrison says, "deliberately promoting prejudice against transsexual and transgender Canadians by equating them with sex offenders and paedophiles."

Given Anders' history, he may well be exploiting stereotypes.  Or, he may simply be a "shoot from the lip" type of person.  Recently, he claimed that current New Democratic Party leader Thomas Mulcair deliberately hastened the death of his predecessor, Jack Layton. 

Perhaps he's so obseesed with what happens (or, more precisely, doesn't happen) in bathrooms because he spends so much time in them. What comes out of his mouth may be evidence of that.

A Sad Anniversary: My Grandmother and Gwen Araujo

This date, 3 October, has been a sad one for many years, at least for me.

On this date in 1981, my maternal grandmother died.  As weakened as she was from her illnesses, she fought death until the end.  With her dying breaths, she called out the name of my grandfather, who predeceased her by fifteen years.

I was twenty-three at the time she died.  She was my last living grandparent. But that is not the only reason why her death affected me as much as it did. Probably the only person in this world who knew me better was, and is, my mother.  She died at a time in my life when I was angry, confused and scared.  I simply felt that I could not bear the prospect of any life that seemed available to me at the time:  I didn't want the careers, family structures or lifestyles that, it seemed, other people wanted me to want.  That strained some of the relationships in my life, including those with some of my relations.

My grandmother offered me a lot of emotional support, and sometimes advice.  The latter, I didn't follow most of the time, mainly because I almost never followed anybody's advice. (Some might say I'm still guilty of that.)  But she did listen, and sometimes helped me to see situations with my family and other people that, really, I otherwise couldn't at that time in my life.

Twenty-one years later, on this date, there was a death that has affected me ever since.  It was very different from my grandmother's, which came in a hospital room with my mother and other family members around her.  This other death was brutal, violent and spurred by anger and hate.  

Yes, it was the murder of a transgender girl:  Gwen Araujo.  Ten years have passed since she was beaten and strangled at a party in the working-class San Francisco Bay-area community of Newark.  Her killers then dumped her body in a shallow grave about three hours' drive away, in the Sierras.

While not as widely publicized as the killings of Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena, it did start some discussion of the frequency and intensity of assaults on, and killings of, trans people.  Now it's fairly common knowledge that such crimes against trans people tend to be particularly brutal and even grisly:  Those who investigate them say as much.  Also, you could see the "learning curve" about transgender people reflected in media coverage. Most initial reports identified her as a boy who liked to wear girl's clothes; as more became known about her, some changed their portrayals of her.  (What that meant, of course, is that many of those reporters, editors and commentators were starting to learn that transgenders and cross-dressers are not necessarily the same people.)  

But one reason why her death affected me is that it came just when I was about to embark on my transition.  Tammy and I had split up, and I moved to a neighborhood where I knew no-one, only a few weeks earlier.  I was attending support groups as well as going for therapy sessions and medical evaluations.  On Christmas Eve of that year, I would begin taking hormones.

What happened to Gwen Araujo did scare me, at least somewhat.  I was going to work as Nick, and the friends and acquaintances I knew from my previous life still knew me as him. I was not "out" to any of my family. But I was going to various events, and roaming about during some of the free time I had, "as" Justine.  Sometimes I worried about people who knew me as Justine finding out about Nick, and vice-versa.  And, truthfully, I wasn't yet sure--even a little--about how anyone would react.

But I knew I had to do what I was doing.  Gwen knew she had to live as the girl she really was, or not at all.  Knowing about her life and death thus gave me a kind of hope, or at least the knowledge that I couldn't be anybody but who I am, and do anything but what I needed to do.  


My grandmother told me something like that.  I never discussed my gender identity issues with her. (Then again, I hadn't discussed them with anyone else.)   But the encouragement she gave me about other things, and her advice that, in essence, bad situations don't have to last but good people can, and do, has been about as good a legacy as anyone could have left for me.

Rape Victim Charged With Indecency

What do you do if you are assaulted and your attacker files charges against you?

Apparently, that is just what happened to a woman in Tunisia.  According to reports, three police officers approached her and her fiance when they were in their car in Tunis, the capital city.

Two of the officers raped her in the car.  The third took her fiance to a nearby ATM to extort money from him.

The woman filed a complaint against the officers.  After they were charged with rape and extortion, they claimed they found her and her beau in an "immoral position" in the car.  Neither the police nor any other authority would say what was meant by "immoral position."  However, the country's interior ministry repeated the claim, according to Amnesty International.

As a result, the couple was charged with "intentional indecent behavior," which could land them in prison for up to six years. 

Some might say, "Well, that's the Middle East."  What they don't realize is that women--and, especially transgender women--sometimes meet with harassment and worse from law enforcement officers and other authorities. Now, because the US is a secular country, its representatives of power can't invoke Sharia or Mosaic or any other kind of religious law against us. On the other hand, they can--and, in some cases, do-- claim that we somehow provoked their behavior.   Or they claim that we pose some sort of danger we couldn't pose even if we'd wanted to.

Or they simply dismiss us or find other ways of discouraging or intimidating
 us from speaking up about inappropriate behavior.  (Think of implicit and explicit threats of losing one's job.) 

After all, who is a better target for violence, and a better object of the abuse of power, than someone who is frightened and silenced?

 

Fundraising Party For Trans-Inclusive Women's Cycling Group

If you're here in New York next Wednesday, you'll want to trek over to The Grand Victory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

There, at 7:00 pm on the 10th of October, the doors will open on WE Bike's end-of-season party.

Don't worry:  I won't do karaoke.  And I definitely won't take off my WE Bike T-shirt!

But I do promise a good time.  There will be live music, bike videos and hourly raffles, among other things.

And you'll get to meet all of the interesting women who are WE Bike.  

I've mentioned WE Bike in a previous post on my other blog.  Briefly, it's a New York City-based bicycle group open to all women and transgender people who enjoy biking, or believe they might.   WE Bike seeks to break down barriers by offering social and training rides, and mechanics' workshops.  It also plans to offer scholarships.

You can learn more about it at     www.facebook.com/WEBikeNYC.

Oh, and by the way, the cover charge is $8.00.  Not bad for a night out in Williamsburg, eh?

A "Fraudulent" Request

According to Bill Graves, I made a fraudulent request on 18 June 2003.  

Thankfully (for me, anyway), he is a District Judge in Oklahoma. I filed my request in the Civil Court in Manhattan.

But the fact that Judge Graves presides over the court in Oklahoma County is not so felicitious for James Dean Ingram.  My petition for my name change was granted within a month.  A couple of weeks later, as per the law, I'd published it in the Legal Notices section of the Village Voice (the newspaper chosen by the judge), had the change notarized, and I have been Justine ever since.

On the other hand, Ingram, who has been living as a woman, was not allowed to change "James Dean" to "Angela Renee."  The esteemed judge's decision was based on his extensive research:  "If you're born male, you stay male, according to the study I've done on  DNA.  If you're born female, you stay female."  

However, the honorable jurist revealed another motive for his denial of Ingram's petition:  "You'll give me publicity I don't want."

And I thought the standards for scholarship in gender studies were low!  According to Judge Graves, one can reach valid scientific conclusions based upon one's desire, or lack thereof, for attention.

I suppose Ms. Ingram is not aware of that.  Had she known, perhaps she wouldn't have been so crushed that she "just wanted to die."  

Last year, in a similar case, Graves cited the Bible and "expert testimony" in concluding that "the DNA code shows that God meant for them to stay male and female."

So let's see...His credentials in jurisprudence qualify him as an expert on the Bible and genetics. Hmm...Maybe I should have gone to law school. But, if I had, I somehow think I might have ruled differently.  After all, two erudite and reasonable people can come to different conclusions on the same subject, right?

By any chance is this Graves fellow related to someone named Lysenko?  Or Shockley?

Homophobia, "If It Really Existed"

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Conservapedia exists.  After all, there are people who will accuse you of being brainwashed by the "liberal" media if you merely contradict their claim that Obama is a Muslim.  And, believe it or not, there are others who cite Wikipedia's policy of allowing British spellings as evidence of its anti-American bias.

So, I suppose it should cause me no consternation to learn that there is a Conservapedia "article" that denies the existence of homophobia. "Homophobia would be an irrational fear or hatred of homosexuals, if it really existed."  So reads the very first sentence of that entry.

If it really existed:  Try telling that to Matthew Shepard. Or Rebecca Wight.  Or Julio Rivera.  Or Gwen Araujo.  Or John Lauber.  Or...