Recently in Transgender Issues Category

The focus of Transgender Day of Remembrance is on those killed by others because of anti-trans fear and hatred. However, it is worth noting that too many trans folks lose their lives to suicide as well. The number of trans folks who have attempted suicide ranges from about 30 percent to over 50 percent in studies. One study found that 83 percent of trans folks have considered suicide. According to another study:

the risk factors associated with attempted suicide among transgender people were younger age (under 25), depression or a history of substance abuse, forced sex, and gender-based victimization and discrimination (Clements-Nolle, Marx, & Katz, 2006).

I turned 25 this week, a day I thought I would never see for much of my life. For me birthdays have become a time to reflect on how grateful I am to myself and everyone who has supported me in staying alive. I understand this may sound like a pretty depressing way to spend a birthday for someone who has not struggled with suicidal ideation, but for me it is honestly the most positive and affirming way I know how to celebrate.

I've had a lot of conversations with other trans and gender non-conforming folks about our histories with suicide. It's proved a surprisingly easy conversation to enter into with trans folks I hardly know. We have our own unique experiences, but what we share makes having a history with suicide easily understandable.

Trans youth face high rates of exceptionally cruel harassment in school, even higher than lesbian, gay, and bi youth. That's in addition to all too common rejection by families and broader communities. And that's for the youth who are able to come out in some way. I could not have been counted in a study about trans youth in high school because I lacked any words or concepts to understand my gender identity. Now I look back on my childhood and teen years through a gender lens and gain a much greater understanding of my life experience. Back then I didn't know how to process my reality. I knew I didn't fit into the world around me as everyone around me seemed to understand it. I felt the psychic pain of knowing people didn't see me as myself at the same time I didn't know how to express who or even what I was. I didn't know I shared these feelings and experiences with anyone else, so I felt isolated, alone, and wrong. Verbal bullying was the more common experience, but getting beaten up were the only moments I felt recognized and seen. I hated my body (and again, didn't understand why) and bruises felt like the only accurate physical representation of who I actually was. I remember the hurt when friends said, for example, that they saw me as "asexual." Their intent was not malicious - they were trying to process their experience of my gender without needed concepts just like I was. And like me they processed the fact I didn't fit into an unquestionable gender system by effectively erasing my identity.

It's very hard to live when you and those around you are convinced you don't exist.

Lowering the suicide rate among trans folks requires the same sort of work that will best combat violent crimes committed by other people against trans folks. We need to do a lot of consciousness raising work to spread awareness of the very existence of trans folks. Sadly knowing we exist is not enough - we must also convince people that trans folks are human, that our lives have value. And this requires convincing people that their limited conceptions of gender are not all there is, a massive undertaking given the widespread unquestioning acceptance of the compulsory gender binary. In other words, we need to change our cultural understanding of and approach to gender in order to bring about social change. Because no trans person should die at their own hands or anyone else's because of their gender.

For more information, resources, and help staying alive:
Kate Bornstein's Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws
The Trevor Project

Today is the 11th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. This day was created as a time to grieve trans and gender non-conforming people killed over the past year because of fear and hatred. It also serves as a time to raise awareness about violence against trans folks. The event was started by Gwendolyn Ann Smith following the murder of Rita Hester on November 28, 1998. Every year since the day's founding vigils and memorial events have been held in the US and increasingly all over the world.

This year the TGEU Trans Murder Monitoring project TDOR 2009 update has collected information about over 160 people killed because of other people's violent reaction to their trans presentation or identity. These numbers represent only those people we know about. We don't know how many trans folks were actually murdered this year - our identities are so rarely recognized and there is still so little awareness about trans issues and the violence trans folks face that it is safe to say many murders of trans folks went unreported.

Finding accurate information to identify murder victims as trans or killed because of their gender presentation is a consistent challenge. Just this week the brutal murder of Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado was reported as that of a "gay teen" with male pronouns used when referring to Lopez Mercado. There has been very little coverage of the fact that Lopez Mercado was a sex worker with a female presentation. Murder suspect Juan antonio Martinez Matos said he thought Lopez Mercado was female but then "realized that the teenager was actually male."

I don't know how Lopez Mercado identified, but Martinez Matos' statement tells us that they didn't conform to his strict understanding of gender: Martinez Matoz thought Lopez Mercado was female and then changed his opinion, the reason given for the murder. So Lopez Mercado's name has been added to the list of those we remember.

Many of those we have mourned over the years originally had their murders reported as the killing of a gay male. For most we still don't know how they identified. But Lopez Mercado's murder reflects those of too many others killed when presenting a gender other than that assigned to them at birth. Some may not have identified as trans but all were killed because of hatred directed towards those who break the strict rules of the compulsory gender binary. They were killed because they did not conform to what someone else thought their gender should be.

The media's consistent failure to accurately identify trans folks reflects the erasure of and refusal to recognize our identities, lived experiences, and even our very existence. Information that identifies a murder victim as the target of anti-trans violence is often presented in the same way Martinez Matos' story has been reported: the murderer thought the victim was a woman and killed them when they realized they were actually male and panicked. This narrative erases trans identities, legitimizes perceived physical sex over gender presentation, and paints trans folks as desceptive and the murderer as tricked, suggesting possible justification for murder. Media narratives end up contributing to the culture of violence and hatred targeted towards trans folks by legitimizing this "trans panic" narrative that gives the responsibility for explaining the murder victim's identity to the very person who killed them.

Miss Indian TG Arizona 2007-2009, Ricki Quintero, White Mountain Apache

Who thought a pageant could actually serve the better good? The 2009 Miss Indian Transgender Arizona Pageant is being held in Phoenix on December 13th this year. The pageant is a collaboration of a LGBT individuals, groups and programs within the Native community working to raise awareness around trans people in their community and the issues they're challenged with.

Love. Check out an interview with Pageant Director Trudie Jackson, and more info about this year's pageant here.

Via RaceWire.

Word of two new projects focusing on the stories of transgender individuals hit the Hollywood trades last week. Both have me concerned we will once again see most of the focus on the process of transition, and that once again trans lives might be reduced to transition status.

First comes word of a new HBO series called "T":

HBO is in development on a half-hour drama series that explores the gender transformation of a woman into a man.

Following that story came news that the lead roles have been cast in "The Danish Girl." The film is based on the novel of the same name by David Ebershoff, a fictionalized account of the life of Lili Elbe. Elbe is sometimes called the first transsexual and there are many who believe she was intersex. Her story is certainly one of the earliest accounts of someone going through surgical procedures as part of a gender transition.

I have not read Ebershoff's book, which apparently focuses on the relationship between Elbe and her wife Gerda. but the fact that people are interested in Elbe's story because of the historical nature of her transition process has me worried about a film that will focus on transitioning.

The process of transitioning can certainly be an important part of a transgender person's life experience. But physical and social transitions, those moments in our lives where our bodies and presentations go through the biggest changes, are not our whole experiences. You might not know this from mainstream representations of transgender folks, though, which too often focus on the act of transition and often the status of our genitals to the exclusion of the rest of our life stories. This obsession turns trans folks into objects of fascination whose crotches are more interesting than any other aspect of our lives. It makes the process of transitioning more relevant than the gender we actually identify with. And by always bringing up the gender we were assigned at birth these narratives often delegitimize our gender identities and presentations by showing our "real" or "natural" gender in opposition to a chosen, artificial, and created gender.

Of course I'm curious about both these projects, and I want to give them some benefit of the doubt. But the fact that both "T" and "The Danish Girl" are already being framed as focusing on transitioning instead of other, under-represented aspects of trans life experiences has me worried.

Seeing women's and feminist issues relegated to the "Styles" section of The New York Times is nothing new. And while I was glad to see students' rights and gender taken up in the NYT, presenting the continued harassment of trans students (by peers and educators) as a mere dress code problem is incredibly problematic.

Last week, a cross-dressing Houston senior was sent home because his wig violated the school's dress code rule that a boy's hair may not be "longer than the bottom of a regular shirt collar." In October, officials at a high school in Cobb County, Ga., sent home a boy who favored wigs, makeup and skinny jeans. In August, a Mississippi student's senior portrait was barred from her yearbook because she had posed in a tuxedo.

Other schools are more accepting of unconventional gender expression. In September, a freshman girl at Rincon High School in Tucson who identifies as male was nominated for homecoming prince. Last May, a gay male student at a Los Angeles high school was crowned prom queen.

Dress code conflicts often reflect a generational divide, with students coming of age in a culture that is more accepting of ambiguity and difference than that of the adults who make the rules.

I've already ranted against the Stupak amendment, but now I'm going to take a deep breath and look at some of the positive things included in the House health reform bill. The bill:

• Expands Medicaid "to reach a wider range of poor households up to 150% of the federal poverty level. 36M additional Americans will now be eligible for Medicaid."
• Bars discrimination in health care on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.
• Acknowledges LGBTQ Americans are a population likely to "experience significant gaps in disease, health outcomes, or access to health care." This will hopefully ensure that LGBTQ people are included in future data collection, and that grant programs will focus on their specific health needs.
• Ends the "unfair practice of taxing employer-provided domestic partner health benefits, allowing thousands upon thousands of LGBT people to obtain domestic partner health benefits for their partners and families without having to pay a tax penalty through the nose."
• Allows states to cover early HIV treatment under their Medicaid programs. (Currently, states are only allowed to use Medicaid money for patients with full-blown AIDS.)
• Funds comprehensive sex-ed programs.

Regular readers will have noticed that in recent months, Feministing has brought in a number of new contributors: Ariel, Jos, Lori, Rose and myself. No doubt you're getting to know them by reading their posts and engaging with their ideas in the comments section, but I also suspect that you might want to know a little more about these wonderful women (I know I do!). Over the next few weeks, I'll be interviewing my fellow new contributors so that you and I can get to know them a little better. This week I interviewed Jos Truitt.

Jos joined Feministing as a contributor this July, and in the past few months has been blogging up a storm (those of you who love Mad Men Mondays, you can thank Jos for that!). Jos grew up in Boston and graduated from Hampshire College, where she studied philosophy of race, feminist organizing and sequential art, which, she informed me, is the academic term for comics.

Jos now lives in DC, where she is pursuing her passion for reproductive justice. She recently started working part-time at the National Abortion Federation hotline and she serves as a clinic escort with the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force. She has also worked and blogged for Choice USA. In her spare time, she likes to bake and spend time in the printmaking studio, and when I asked her which feminist she'd take with her to a desert island, she gave by far the sweetest answer I've heard yet.

And now, without further ado, The Feministing Five, with Jos Truitt.

A little bit of good voting news from yesterday: Kalamazoo, MI has added sexual orientation and gender identity to its laws banning discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations.

While a growing number of anti-discrimination laws include gender identity this still amounts to far less than those that include sexual orientation (there are too few jurisdictions [pdf] covered by these laws, too). 12 states and DC prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while 21 others prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Unsurprisingly, the campaign against Ordinance 1856 focused on the inclusion of gender identity and those scary scary bathrooms while simultaneously erasing transgender identity. Given these transphobic tactics I see it as an especially positive sign that the ordinance passed with 62% of the vote.

The UN recently released a report on "Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism" by Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin that focuses on gender. The report (which can be accessed in pdf form here) is mostly about human rights abuses experienced by "women," by which it seems the author means cis women. However, it takes a broad approach to gender, looking at intersections of race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity:

Gender is not synonymous with women but rather encompasses the social constructions that underlie how women's and men's roles, functions and responsibilities, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, are defined and understood. This report will therefore identify the gendered impact of counter-terrorism measures both on women and men, as well as the rights of persons of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. As a social construct, gender is also informed by, and intersects with, various other means by which roles, functions and responsibilities are perceived and practiced, such as race, ethnicity, culture, religion and class. Consequently, gender is not static; it is changeable over time and across contexts.Understanding gender as a social and shifting construct rather than as a biological and fixed category is important because it helps to identify the complex and inter-related gender-based human rights violations caused by counterterrorism measures; to understand the underlying causes of these violations; and to design strategies for countering terrorism that are truly non-discriminatory and inclusive of all actors.

The report includes some discussion of how security measures negatively impact transgender folks:

Counter-terrorism measures disproportionately affect women and transgender asylum-seekers, refugees and immigrants in specific ways. For example, enhanced immigration controls that focus attention on male bombers who may be dressing as females to avoid scrutiny make transgender persons susceptible to increased harassment and suspicion. Similarly, counter-terrorism measures that involve increased travel document security, such as stricter procedures for issuing, changing and verifying identity documents, risk unduly penalizing transgender persons whose personal appearance and data are subject to change.

I have written previously about the dangers of travel document security measures for trans folks. I am very happy to see the UN acknowledging this reality.

I've written previously about the news media failing miserably at following their own rules when it comes to writing about transgender individuals. The Sexist's Amanda Hess, who has done a great job of calling the press (including The Washington Post) out on these types of stories, has a write up of the latest gender identification screw up from The Washington Post.

WaPo first published a story that included an account of an off duty police officer in Prince George's County, MD shooting two women after they dragged him with their car from the scene of a robbery. I am always disappointed when the press does not follow up on police violence - the power imbalance is such that I think these stories usually require more reporting than they receive. And there has been a lot of police violence in the DC area recently. But in terms of reporting individual's genders there were no red flags in this piece.

But then WaPo published a follow up titled "Two Men Shot by Pr. George's Officer Were Dressed as Women" which is all kinds of wrong. The two people identified as women in the original article were brought to the hospital, and then this happened:

It was believed at first that the two who were shot were women. But they "turned out to be males dressed in female clothing," Officer Henry Tippett, a county police spokesman, said early Sunday.

That finding was apparently made when medical personnel began treating the two for gunshot wounds, Tippett said.

So. Incredibly. Moving.

This weekend, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill which designates a day, May 22, to recognize and memorialize Harvey Milk. (Schwarzenegger vetoed the same bill last year.)

That's the good news. The bad news is Schwarzenegger also vetoed two bills affecting trans people in California. From TransGriot:

AB 1185 would have allowed qualified transgender people born in California to return to the county of their birth to obtain a new birth certificate reflecting the correct gender, as well as any accompanying name change.

...Schwarzenegger also vetoed AB 382 which would have established protections for LGBT prisoners, which he said was "unnecessary."

67 percent of LGBT inmates in California report being sexually assaulted; the rate for sexual assault of LGBT prisoners is 15 times higher than the overall population. So yeah...real "unnecessary."

This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.

Dear Professor Foxy,

I go to a very socially liberal, small private school where I am heavily involved in queer and feminist activism. Over the summer, I waited tables in a popular tourist area where I also met, and fell in love with, a woman that I am now in a long distance relationship with. Because I was working in a more conservative area, I did not broadcast the fact that I consider myself politically radical as well as queer, though my haircut generally means I'm read as a butch lesbian.

Now that I am back at school, I am working through the emotional and social effects of accepting my identity as trans and genderqueer. Because I am in such a liberal and accepting environment, I have the privilege of having a community of people that are familiar with the types of language used to describe my identity, and are comfortable with the concept of non-binary gender. My partner, though she publicly interacts with the world as a woman (albeit butch), has also told me that she has some trans and gender identity issues. She also is originally from a more conservative area than I am, and her family is much more conservative, so she has never really been able to act upon those impulses.

I have hit a point where I feel that being out as trans, and hopefully initiating some of the steps of physical transition, are critical to my current and future happiness. However, I am completely unsure of how to initiate this conversation with my partner. Because I don't feel that I totally fit the label FTM (a concept that my partner is familiar with), I feel like I may need to launch into some sort of explanation of queer theory, etc. I am afraid of coming off as condescending and overly academic, and possibly offending or hurting my partner. I also think that the idea of being genderqueer, or at least being far more flexible about gender, might be a freeing concept for her. Still, I am afraid that she might judge me or be unhappy about my desire to physically transition. I am also very much in love with her, and feel that I should be able to go to her for support on this issue.

These problems are augmented by the fact that we are in a long distance relationship and will not see each other again for a little more than a month. I would be devastated if she broke up with me because I spoke with her about this, but I also do not want to be dishonest with her and pursue transitioning without telling her. Would it be inappropriate to pursue transitioning without telling my partner? How do I respond if my partner is ok with my intellectually knowing that I'm trans, but isn't ok with taking physical steps toward transition?

A confused transperson

Dear Confused Trans Person -

Thanks for your letter. As I was reading it, I kept thinking this is about you, not about queer theory. By this I mean while queer theory may have helped you along your journey and I am not trying to negate that, but the heart of this issue is you and your happiness. I think you need to speak to your partner from your heart and from the personal. Talk about what you want for yourself and your body and how you think you will go about achieving it. Tell her what this means to you and why it is important to you.

You should be able to go to your partner for support, it is key to having a healthy relationship and you will need support as you transition. Make sure you have other places to turn to as well, especially places where you can work out your feelings about her reaction.

I think you should tell her as you are going through the process of thinking things out for yourself. How do you usually have serious conversations with her? Over the phone, email, gchat? So tell her soon and take time to rehearse it and think it out first. What do you think her hardest questions will be? What is the worst thing she could say? The best? Be ready for all of them. Also be ready to give her some space to think things through for herself. We all have our own ways of dealing with major change and she may need time to deal.

She will also deal based on her own issues, especially since she has some gender identity issues of her own. She may feel happy that she has someone who gets gender issues, she may be jealous, she may be incredibly happy, and she will likely need to figure out who she is in relation to you. Her reactions are hers, not yours and you will need space and other places of reflection to work out who you are for yourself.

You deserve support and she deserves honesty. She may not be able to support you through your transition and that will be incredibly painful. She may also be excited for you and excited about possibilities for herself. She will likely be some place in between. You both need to know if you can count on and be honest with each other; regardless of the issue this is the only way for relationships to stay healthy and strong.

Best,
Professor Foxy

If you have a question for Professor Foxy, send it to ProfessorFoxyATfeministingDOTcom.

Jonathan Escobar, a former student at North Cobb High School, was told by the assistant principal to dress more "manly," or consider being home schooled. This was on Jonathan's third day of school.

Escobar said the assistant principal told him his style of dress had caused a fight...

"You can't wear clothing that causes a disruption," said Jay Dillon, spokesman for Cobb County schools.

...Jonathan Escobar says he wasn't a disruption in the classroom, but he attracted attention in the lunchroom. "Everybody was surrounding me," he said.

On his second day of school, Escobar says he was pulled out of class to speak with a police officer who told him he was concerned about the student's safety.

"They should've told the students to back off," Escobar said. "They should have never given me the option of homeschooling or changing who I am."

Sounds like actual disruption were, you know, the students who were harassing Jonathan.

Escobar says, "If I can't express myself, I won't go to school...I want to get the message out there that because this is who I am, I can't get an education."

Also frustrating: Escobar says explicitly, "I don't consider myself a cross-dresser...this is just who I am," yet most news videos and articles covering this story refer to Jonathan as a cross-dresser.

To join the Facebook group supporting Jonathan, please click here.

Jan Buterman has filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission after he was fired by the Greater St. Albert Catholic school district in Edmonton, Canada. Buterman was fired after disclosing his gender identity and informing the district he was in the process of transitioning from female to male.

In the letter of dismissal he received Buterman was told his transition would confuse students and parents. As Cara points out at The Curvature, this is bullshit. Young people and their parents should be learning about trans issues, learning to interact with trans folks in a respectful way, learning about our humanity. Having a trans teacher would be a great opportunity to humanize trans folks to Buterman's students and show them we're not all that scary and weird after all.

Religion was used in an attempt to legitimize Buterman's firing:

"The reason for removing you from the substitute teacher list follows a conversation we shared in which you indicated that you had been diagnosed with a gender identity medical condition and that you were undergoing physical gender changes from the female gender to the male gender," wrote Steve Bayus, deputy superintendent of schools.

"In discussions with the Archbishop of the Edmonton Diocese, the teaching of the Catholic church is that persons cannot change their gender. One's gender is considered what God created it to be."

A representative of Alberta's Human Rights Commission had this bit of absurdity to add:

Marie Riddle, the commission's director, said Alberta's human rights law does cover transgender and disability issues.

But she said the law also can allow discrimination in some cases involving religious beliefs, depending on the circumstances.

"There might be discrimination, but the discrimination might be reasonable and justifiable," she said. "What we would do is look at prior case law. "

"The discrimination might be reasonable and justifiable." Seriously. At least someone is stating it outright: religion may be used to justify discrimination. Now the next step: not letting folks hide behind religious beliefs in an attempt to excuse their bigotry.

This visual survey of how businesses signal their designated "male" and "female" restrooms is pretty revealing in terms of dominant narratives about gender. 

As much as I find these bathroom-door distinctions to be wholly unnecessary, downright offensive, and a serious safety threat for trans men and women, the examples below (and many more on other blogs) function as a fascinating sort of Rorschach test for how a culture depicts the gender binary.

So, what are these signs telling us?

Gender is about how you have sex! Hetero, P-in-va-G sex! (Or, tops on the right, bottoms on the left?)

It's about your genitalia! (Umm, unless the one on the right is a hairy anus. In which case, yay for gender-neutral restrooms!)

It's about how you pee! (In fairness, the left side could theoretically be for people going No. 2 and the right side for people using P-Mates.)

It's about what you wear! (This could be a good way to go, actually: Choose the door that matches your gender presentation. Though I don't think that's quite how they meant it...)

In some cities (including D.C.), human rights law forbids discrimination against transgender men and women in public accommodations -- which means this sort of restroom segregation should be banned. Really, how hard is it for businesses to just have two restrooms with functional locks, each labeled "restroom"?

(via Alice)

Comments on this post will be moderator-approved. Be aware that your comment could take a bit longer than normal to appear below.

I wrote recently about Vogue Evolution and gave America's Best Dance Crew props for including them on the show, so I feel like I have to call out Lil Mama and the show's producers for something problematic and hurtful that occurred in this week's episode.

The video package before Vogue Evolution's performance focused on conflict within the group related to Leiomy Maldonado's personal struggles and difficulty participating in rehearsals. During judge's critique Lil Mama chided Leiomy for her behavior saying, "You were born a man and you are becoming a woman. If you're going to become a woman, act like a lady." Check out this video of the whole segment:

I don't know why Leiomy is struggling or if it has anything to do with the pressure of representation that's on her shoulders right now. But difficulty working in a group is not a specifically gendered behavior and is certainly not a behavior exclusive to trans women. By bringing up Leiomy's transition status Lil Mama perpetuated the notion that anything transgender folks do is about our gender process. Seeing a trans person as only that, someone who is actively and consciously in a state of gender transition, is dehumanizing as it makes all our actions about that thing that makes us other, not about being a person going through human challenges. Lil Mama is creating a barrier for Leiomy's entry into the group "woman," saying there are requirements of behavior she must meet in order to qualify. This essentializes certain actions as female and then suggests trans women must perfectly conform in order to be accepted.

And can we please get over this whole "lady" thing... ladies?

I agree with JC Chasez: everyone struggles working in a group, especially under the kind of pressure that exists when you are in a televised competition. And I agree with Shane Sparks: "I think at the end of the day it only matters what you all do on the stage." The show's producers deserve a lot of the blame for this segment. I understand that it's their job to exploit drama for entertainment, but that clip package felt unnecessary and downright cruel. I thought the routine was great, I thought Leiomy killed it, and on a dance competition show that's what matters.

Update: Lil Mama issued a (weak - no one "misunderstood" the comment. The comment itself was completely not OK, period.) apology and GLAAD responded.

Transcript of Lil Mama's comments taken from the GLAAD Blog after the jump.

It has been a frightening week to be trans in Washington, D.C.

Miriam linked previously to RMJ's excellent critique of Metro Weekly's coverage of an attack on a transgender woman by a gay man. I was particularly struck by Ray Young's approach to solidarity between gay and trans folks. His statement that, "I let her know that I was one of the family, that I was homosexual" assumes that gay and trans individuals are automatically allies. Of course, this is following his violent attack on Janey Kay, a trans woman. Young seems to think he should be perceived as a friend to trans folks just because he's gay and regardless of his actual actions.

I see this largely as the product of the often tokenizing tacking on of "T" after "LGB." As RMJ points out, Metro Weekly claims to be "Washington DC's GLBT Newsmagazine," but their coverage of this story shows a woeful lack of understanding of and respect for transgender individuals. The fact is, solidarity between gay and trans folks is not an automatic reality. Cisgender gay folks can still be transphobic, as Young demonstrates. The attack on two trans men at Fab Lounge, a D.C. gay bar, in March is more proof that gay spaces can be sites of violence against trans folks. I certainly hope for solidarity and community under the queer and trans umbrella. But there is a great deal of difference among LGBT folks and support for each other's causes and needs is something that takes real work.

The anti-trans violence continued in D.C. on Wednesday when two transgender women were stabbed on a public street in the middle of the day. Both of them were taken to the hospital where Tyli'a "NaNa Boo" Mack died. The location of the attack is particularly frightening:

The stabbings occurred about two blocks from the North Capitol Street offices of Transgender Health Empowerment, a private social services group that provides drop-in services to transgender people, including transgender youth.

If gay media is screwing up on trans issues it is sadly no surprise mainstream news sources are getting it so wrong. The prevalence of violent attacks against trans folks is horrible enough. The situation is compounded when the press does not respect the transgender community enough to write about us in ways that are accurate and recognize our humanity.

The othering of trans individuals and confusion about our identities in the press makes us seem strange and unknowable and bolsters fear. Poor reporting can further the dehumanization and lack of understanding that support a culture of transphobic violence.

For those of you in the D.C. area: there will be a candlelight vigil tonight at 6:30pm at 209 Q St. NW.

I'm really excited about Vogue Evolution, a group competing in the current season of America's Best Dance Crew. The crew members are black and Latino. Four are out gay men and one is an out trans woman. From the beginning they've been very upfront about their identities (a relief after seeing so many euphemistic referrals to queer people on TV including the insulting "Choice Fab-u-lous" category at this year's Teen Choice Awards). Check out this video from the first episode of the season where they introduce themselves and talk a little bit about being gay and trans:

Voguing has been around since the Harlem Renaissance and has been dominated by queer people of color. Pony Webster, one of the crew's directors, described the style in an interview with After Elton:

Voguing came from poses in Vogue Magazine, that turned into movement that then became self-expression. Voguing is like flamboyant movement with abstract art with self-expression. There are some elements to keep you in the box. There's hands, which is moving your hands. There's catwalk, which is a stance with your knees, then there's duckwalk, so there's a skeleton, but it's really self-expression.

Voguing has received public recognition as a result of the film Paris is Burning and Madonna's appropriation of the style. However, Vogue Evolution's participation in ABDC is the first time members of the house and ballroom community are representing their own style to such a wide pop culture audience.

Via Advocate.com and Philadelphia Gay News comes some really disgusting employment discrimination news. Kate Lynn Blatt, a trans woman, was let go from her temp position at Sapa Industrial Extrusions under dubious circumstances: allegedly because she was not healthy enough to complete the job, but it sounds like the real reason was her use of the womens locker room. Manpower Inc., the staffing services agency that placed her at Sapa, told Blatt she would have to supply a picture of her genitalia as a condition of continued employment.

Irene Kudziela, branch manager of Manpower's Pottsville office, allegedly told Blatt that a letter from her surgeon documenting her gender-reassignment surgery -- along with a photograph of her genital area -- would be necessary before she could return to Sapa. ...

Blatt filed bias complaints against Sapa and Manpower with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, alleging wrongful discharge based on sex and disability. She said her disability is gender dysphoria.

Blatt deserves mad props for filing suit. It's exhausting work having to defend your very humanity and right to basic dignity. Yet more evidence that we need to pass a trans-inclusive ENDA.

On August 15 the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) rolled out the latest phase of their Secure Flight program which requires passengers to provide their full name, birth date, and gender when booking tickets. Members of the transgender community are justifiably concerned about the problems this will create.

Many trans individuals do not have identification that matches their presentation or the name they regularly use. Others have IDs with conflicting information. The Advocate asked the TSA how trans folks should handle these situations and got some very un-helpful advice:

TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird told Advocate.com on Thursday that transgender travelers who are purchasing tickets should declare "the gender that they were at the time that they booked their flight."

Kristina Wertz of the Transgender Law Center offered a much more realistic view of what trans folks will have to deal with:

"A lot of transgender people don't have documents" that match up with how they currently identify, she said. "There are always troubles that arise when dealing with documents. People are sometimes forced to disclose their transgender status in a situation where they may not want to."

I was inspired by Miriam's great Personal Is Political post, Is that a boy or a girl?, to share some of my experiences of getting to watch others deal with gender through my body. I've talked before about my experience of street harassment as a trans person. This happens so often I barely notice anymore - friends I'm walking with will point out something I totally tuned out. But some street gender moments stand out as giving me a revealing glimpse of other people's gender process. In this post I want to talk about two recent experiences that have stuck in my mind.

I'm a clinic escort at the local Planned Parenthood. Sharing a sidewalk with antis who pray at and harass anyone trying to enter or leave the clinic is easily the most surreal experience of my life. My second week escorting was particularly odd for me personally. Dick, our main anti, had tried without success to engage me and another new escort in conversation the week before (a standard tactic to try to find escort's weak points so antis can get us riled up). I was a bit more femme presenting my second time escorting, and I guess Dick didn't recognize me. I was a little bit late and other escorts were already out on the sidewalk wearing big orange A shirts that say "Pro-Choice Clinic Escort." as I walked toward the path to the clinic I could see Dick eyeing me, confused (usually he jumps at the chance to preach at someone as soon as he sees them walking toward the clinic). I could see the internal debate raging as I turned the corner and started heading for the door. Finally, a few steps down the path, Dick jumps into action, running after me and shouting about how I don't have to let them take my baby, how I have other options. I responded with a simple, "I'm an escort Dick," and went inside.

It's a few weeks later and I'm still reeling from what I got to witness there. I got to watch a Catholic fundamentalist ant-choicer (and the most overtly racist person I have ever encountered in real life, but that's another post) have a gender moment! Dick's decision to pursue me as a potential womb-haver was particularly interesting. Male is usually the default assumption when we are confused about someone's gender. Dick's reaction shows a shift of assumptions in a situation where he is targeting women and trying to antagonize as many as possible. Better to be wrong and assume I'm with child than be wrong and assume I'm not.

Story number two:

I was walking toward the Metro (D.C. public transportation) escalators on my way to work, past a guy standing there eating a bag of chips. As I passed him the guy said, "Hey, how you doing." Apparently too tired to recognize an obvious cat call I responded, "Good, how are you?" I guess my morning voice threw him off. "Wait, I thought you were a girl, ma'am." I thought for a second that maybe he'd said "man," but no, definitely "ma'am." As I headed down the escalator he shouted after me: "What are you ma'am? Hey, I'm talking to you ma'am!"

I suppose I could take the guy's words literally. Maybe he was confused and couldn't tell if I was a girl or too much woman for him to handle (<3 Britney). Somehow, though, I don't think that's what was going on.

I was momentarily scared he would follow me. Straight cis men's sexuality is a major source of their self-perceived power. Heterosexuality puts them at the top of the gender hierarchy not just in terms of who they are but also who and how they fuck. Being betrayed by their own desire can throw them off, and those with power know they need to maintain it however possible. In this case I was lucky enough to just be shouted at, to have the blame put on me verbally. Allen Ray Andrade admitted to this same line of thinking and even tried to use it as a defense for the murder of Angie Zapata (trigger warning). For me this one incident can be a funny story. Angie wasn't so lucky.

There are a bunch of presumptuous questions that transgender people get asked all the time by folks with no business asking about our personal lives. Many of them are based on acceptance of the compulsory gender binary and the belief that the gender we were assigned at birth is our "real" gender. Asking such questions without permission packs the dehumanizing and othering assumption that transgender folk have a responsibility to educate cisgender folk. Being in the position to be educated about someone else's identity is a form of privilege, as those with the most power are not asked to explain their life experience since it has been posited as the norm.

Getting asked inappropriate questions framed in a way that completely erases one's identity over and over again can get incredibly exhausting and frustrating. That's why I absolutely love the below video, "2 Hot Transsexuals Finally Give Some Answers!" Charles and Red respond to a number of these questions in a hilarious way that reveals the problematic assumptions that go into asking them in the first place. My personal favorite answers are to the question "Are you a man or a woman?" but it's all fantastic.

This isn't meant to imply that cis folks shouldn't try to learn more about trans issues, but there's a difference between learning about a group's experience and concerns and asking about an individual's personal life. There are limits to what's appropriate - being trans doesn't mean we don't have boundaries.There's a better way to go about educating yourself without making members of the community you're trying to understand feel like crap in the process.

"Who's your pronoun!"

h/t to love-and-organizing at Amplify.

I wanted to highlight that a new documentary is now out and available on DVD, Still Black. Below is a clip from the documentary, which I would love to see.

About the film:

STILL BLACK: a portrait of black transmen, is an alternative feature-length documentary that explores the lives of six black transgender men living in the United States. Through the intimate stories of their lives as artists, students, husbands, fathers, lawyers, and teachers, the film offers viewers a complex and multi-faceted image of race, sexuality and trans identity.

Check out the website to purchase the documentary, or see here for festival viewing.

GLAAD has released their third annual Network Responsibility Index, a review of LGBT representation on television. I found this report particularly interesting as I'm a pop culture addict who constantly finds myself consuming deeply problematic media that seldom represents my community.

Some key findings:

• HBO led all networks with 58.5 (42%) of the network's 140 total programming hours featuring LGBT representation. This is an increase of 16% over the previous season. Of HBO's 14 original series, 10 included LGBT content and of the four that did not, three were sports news programming.

• For the third year in a row, ABC led the broadcast networks in LGBT-inclusive content. Of its 1,146.5 total hours of primetime programming, 269.5 hours (24%) included LGBT impressions and 9% were transgender-inclusive, making ABC the most fair, accurate and inclusive of the five broadcast networks.

• For the first time since GLAAD began this analysis, the network rankings changed and Fox rose to third place with 82.5 (11%) LGBT-inclusive hours, out of 782.5 total primetime programming hours. This is an increase from last year's analysis, in which Fox's LGBT content was tallied at 4% and received a "failing" grade. However, Fox also aired some problematic LGBT programming.

• CBS saw the greatest decline among the broadcast networks this year, dropping to last place with 60 hours (5%) of LGBT-inclusive content, out of 1,148 total hours of primetime programming.

• Of the 10 cable networks evaluated, Showtime was the only network to receive a Good rating, airing 20.5 (26%) LGBT-inclusive hours, out of 77.5 total hours of primetime programming.

• TNT had the biggest increase among all networks. In last year's NRI, TNT received a Failing grade for airing a single hour (1%) of content. This year, TNT rose 18%, airing 13 LGBT inclusive hours (19%) out of its 69 total hours of original programming.

• TBS only offered a half hour (1%) and A&E aired two hours (1%) of LGBT-inclusive programming out of 39.5 and 166.5 total hours of original primetime programming, respectively. This resulted in the networks tying for the lowest ranking and score among the 10 cable networks evaluated.

Some of my thoughts, with a few minor spoilers from this past year of TV:

In a celebration of the first anniversary of Houston's Transgender Center, Mayor Bill White proclaimed July 25 "Transgender Day" in the city.

Thanks to Becky for the link!

Stu Rasmussen, the first openly transgender mayor in the U.S., attended a youth leadership training put on by Silverton Together on a particularly hot day. According to the Statesman Journal, Brenda Sturdevant, Silverton Together's director, filed a formal complaint about Rasmussen's outfit with the city council president.

Sturdevant said Rasmussen's attire, "high heels, a very short skirt and some sort of halter top revealing much of his bosom, shoulders and back," was inappropriate.

"This puts Silverton Together in a position that will be difficult to defend when we have sent our youth home on various occasions to change into something more appropriate," she said. "I expect our public leaders to follow the same guidelines that we have for our youth."

Any caring and compassionate person who recognizes Rasmussen's humanity should give him extra understanding when it comes to clothing choices - the process of changing the gender of one's wardrobe is challenging when you have been trained to put together outfits that fit a different presentation. Most if not all trans folk can probably point to a fashion faux pas or two during their transition process. I say this not at all to suggest that Rasmussen's attire was inappropriate (or a fashion mistake - Rasmussen said he got compliments on the outfit) but to offer further evidence that Sturdevant's complaint is transphobic. If she really had a problem with the outfit she could have approached Rasmussen personally rather than making this a public issue. Or better yet, just let it go - there must have been something more important for the director of a youth program to worry about.

Note: Rasmussen has said he is comfortable with the terms genderqueer and transgender, and has also self-identified himself as a cross-dresser and trans.

The topic of hate crimes has been in the news a lot lately with the movement of the Matthew Shepard Act through Congress and the trial and conviction of Lateisha Green's killer. Many may take it as a given that all members of the queer and trans communities support hate crime legislation and convictions. This is not the case, though. Myself and many other queer and trans organizers and activists oppose this approach to violence against our communities.

It is important to recognize violence motivated by bigotry, and difficult to see alternatives to hate crime convictions as a means to this end. A sense of justice for the family and friends of people who have been killed because of their sexuality or gender identity is also valuable. But the ultimate goal should be to end such violence. Harsher sentencing does not decrease the amount of hate crimes being committed. A focus on sentence enhancement for these crimes does nothing for prevention. Putting our energy toward promoting harsher sentencing takes it away from the more difficult and more important work of changing our culture so that no one wants to kill another person because of their perceived membership in a marginalized identity group.

Hate crimes legislation puts the power to bring and pursue such charges in the hands of a law enforcement and criminal justice system that disproportionately targets marginalized communities. As a result, hate crime charges are brought against black folks for allegedly targeting white folks and against queer folks for allegedly targeting straight folks. In fact, as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) points out in their non-endorsement of GENDA, so called anti-white hate crimes constitute the second highest amount reported by the FBI. Self defense in the face of a racist, homophobic or transphobic attack can equal a harsher sentence for the person being attacked in the first place.

Incarceration is supposed to deter crime, and harsher sentencing for hate crimes is supposed to deter crime even more. However, this is not the reality. In fact, longer time spent in prison actually increases recidivism. Our current system of imprisonment is producing more violence, not less. Hate crime verdicts will only add to this sad reality.

View full size

And this is just what's being reported, according to new research just released on violence against trans people worldwide. Transgender Europe (TGEU) is working with the multilingual online magazine Liminalis on a collaborative project titled, /Trans Murder Monitoring Project/. According to their results:

The very preliminary results of the first step of this project have revealed a total of 204 cases of reported murders of trans people world wide in the last 1 1/2 years. 121 cases of murdered trans people have been reported in 2008. From January to June 2009 already 83 cases of murdered trans people have been reported.

Furthermore, the preliminary results show an increase in the number of reports of murdered trans people over the last years. Since the beginning of 2008 the murder of a trans person is reported every third day, on average.

Via Questioning Transphobia.

On June 19 -- that's right, during Pride Month -- Leslie Moya (pictured above), a transgender woman from Queens, was walking home from a nightclub when two men assaulted her and brutally beat her with a belt buckle.

They stopped only when a passing motorist threatened to call the police. Throughout the attack, Leslie's assailants called her a "faggot" in Spanish. The attack left Leslie with multiple injuries, including bruises all over her body, and stitches in her scalp. Police called to the scene found Leslie nearly naked and bleeding on the sidewalk. They also recovered a belt buckle from the assailants that was covered in blood.

Despite the fact that Mora was clearly targeted for her (perceived) sexual orientation, the Queens District Attorney is refusing to investigate (PDF) the attack as a hate crime.

If you're a New York State resident, now's a good time to pressure the state Senate to pass the pending transgender hate-crimes legislation, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). (It has passed the Assembly and is awaiting Senate action.)

Click here for a list of states with trans-inclusive hate crimes laws. And also check out an alternate view on hate-crimes laws, from the Sylvia Rivera Law Project.

Tranny-alert.com--an site aimed at alienating and attacking trans people--was taken down after a flurry of online activism this weekend. A highly effective Call to Action against Tranny Alert was started by a Livejournal user named gudbuytjane and circulated widely by GLAAD and a chorus of other blogs.

Thanks to our own community blogger basketcasey who mobilized the feministing community to do their part. We're so grateful that we have voices in our community that can lead folks into this kind of rapid response when we're not on the ball.

A new, trans-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was introduced in the House today by Barney Frank. The bill would protect against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

According to Mara Keisling, head of the National Center for Transgender Equality, this bill has TWICE as many co-sponsors as last year. Awesome. More info (and live updates about the bill) available on Mara's Twitter feed here.

His publicist told TMZ:

Chaz, after many years of consideration, has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity ... He is proud of his decision and grateful for the support and respect that has already been shown by his loved ones. It is Chaz's hope that his choice to transition will open the hearts and minds of the public regarding this issue, just as his 'coming out' did nearly 20 years ago.

According to Broadsheet, mainstream media outlets are handling it fairly well thus far, with the exception of (suprrise, surprise) the NY Daily News, which used the pronoun "she" when announcing the news.

via Bird of Paradox comes the depressing news that a Memphis resident named Kelvin Denton was recently shot for "misrepresenting gender." (FIVE trans women have been shot in Memphis since 2006.) Cara notes that it's not yet clear whether the victim is transgender or not. But the alleged assailant has apparently made clear that confusion about Denton's gender prompted him to pull the trigger -- the all-too-common "trans panic" defense. Writes Helen at Bird of Paradox,

Mr Taylor told police he carried out the attack because he felt he had been "misled" about Ms Denton's gender - surely a clear indication that that Mr Taylor will be trying to use the trans panic defense to avoid taking responsibility for his actions. However, the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition have urged Shelby County authorities to "prosecute Taylor aggressively and not permit the use of the trans-panic defense".

Denton is in critical condition.

Right now, California is the only state that has a law that specifically addresses "panic" defenses -- the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act.

Take action: If you live in Tennessee, please contact your state legislators and ask them to add gender identity/expression to "make it easier for state and local authorities to track and prosecute hate crimes against all LGBT Tennesseans."

This is also an appropriate moment for all of us to contact our senators about the importance of including gender identity and expression in the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). It's looking like ENDA will be introduced in the next several weeks, so now is the time to express your support for gender-identity protections. (Some basic sample language is here.) Helen at en|Gender has more.

UPDATE: Thanks to mfemme in comments for pointing out that Memphis recently passed an anti-discrimination resolution, and noting:

I was *hoping* that passing this legislation a couple days ago would be a step forward for Memphis... passing the anti-discrimination act: which is a big win for LGBT people in Memphis who are forced to stay in the closet for fear of being fired.

But obviously, when LGBT (particularly transgender and genderqueer) folks who are living in a city where they are fearful for THEIR LIVES, what good does it do to say at least we can't get fired for being LGBT? srsly wtf Memphis. the atmosphere there is really hostile towards LGBT people...legislation can only do so much. it's a step, but just not enough to change the mindset citywide.

More information:
Julia Serano: There's Something About "Deception"
States with trans-inclusive hate crimes laws
Banning the "Trans Panic Defense"
What Does "Justice For Angie" Mean?

This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.

Hia Professor Foxy.

-Frustrated

Hi Frustrated
Congratulations on the new boobs! I want to echo your thoughts on new desires emerging during your transition. It wasn't until friends of mine started transitioning that I really understood the power of hormones. I think you are right that hormones that you take are impacting your sexuality. Our desires and sexual needs are complicated, complicated things and they are certainly impacted by what hormones to what levels. I also think that starting to have an outside appearance that mirrors your insides is likely also having an impact.

Part of this process is also going to have to be exploring your new body and your new desires and not judging yourself during this process. You can even think of it as a burden or as an extra gift during transition. Unlike cisgendered women, who typically have to get used to things on their body, you are going to be able to explore things on your body that you very much want: the breasts, the hips you will likely develop. Enjoy it!

I did a bunch of web and asking my people research and my experience in trying to find some good, respectful, positive resources was also not great. Everything I found tended to be about the transitioning or coming out process, but I have a few suggestions, which I hope help.

The first is www.strap-on.org, which bills itself as a "queer positive, trans positive, sex positive, girl positive community." It is a message board, not a resource site, but I found the conversations and mission to be smart and engaging. It is easy to start your own thread. My other suggestion is live journal, which can become an online community. You might start by checking out the communities of mtf_undressed and mtfinbed. I also like following Kate Bornstein, an amazing trans woman activist who is also sex positive, on twitter.

There will unfortunately, be transphobic asses everywhere, but these sites seemed to be overwhelmingly positive.

Enjoy your journey - you deserve it.
Professor Foxy

If you have a question for Professor Foxy, send it to ProfessorFoxyATfeministingDOTcom.

Update: Miriam just sent me this update and it articulates another perspective on GENDA. What do others think?

Via the Curvature, today is the state-wide call in day to get GENDA passed. GENDA is the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act and provides anti-discrimination protection under the law in the area of housing, job discrimination and other sites of potential discrimination. From the wording of the act itself, the Transgender Law and Policy Institute tell us why GENDA was written,

To ensure that transgender people are included in the New York State human rights law, Senator Thomas Duane and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried have introduced legislation that adds the category of "gender identity or expression" to the state's Human Rights law, and defined that category in the law's definition section. If passed, this statutory language will make it clear to all New Yorkers that no one should be subject to discrimination because of their gender identity or gender expression. The definition as written is very similar to the definitions used in New Mexico, Rhode Island, Boston, Baltimore, New York City and many other jurisdictions.

The passage of the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in 2002 was not enough and doesn't apply to the rights of the trans community. Read more about it here and if in NY call your Senator today and demand that they vote for GENDA. Call in TODAY, this bill has passed the Assembly and needs to get to the Senate floor NOW.

Information on how to call-in reposted from Cara's spot via Empire State Pride Agenda after the jump.

As the New Hampshire Senate passed a bill this week to legalize same-sex marriage, we find trans people's rights were completely fucked on the same day.

While the House rejected a bill in late March that would protect transgender people's rights under the state's anti-discrimination and hate crime law, the Senate is apparently in the same boat:

The New Hampshire Senate today unanimously rejected a bill that would have extended anti-discrimination laws to transgendered people.

House Bill 415 would have protected those with sexual identity issues in areas of housing and employment, much the way the state's laws protects others from discrimination on the basis of color, race, religion or sexual orientation.

I find it interesting that Democrats apparently "blasted opponents of the bill for dubbing the measure the 'bathroom bill,' a move they said created misunderstanding and fear among the general population" but the Senate (with a Democratic majority) unanimously rejected the bill with a 24-0 vote. Am I missing something, or is there a huge WTF here?

Read more at Questioning Transphobia and Pam's House Blend, and then contact the Senate and tell them how appalled you are at this bullshit.

I'm happy to be able to share the video from my session at WAM 2009: In/Out of Focus: Gender, Non-conformity and the Media.

I unfortunately don't have a transcript and the live twitter feed from the session (the tag was #wam09gnc) seems to have expired. My apologies to folks who are not able to listen to the video. Here are a few links to a few liveblogs from the session:

Susan Mernit
Kerri Kanelos
Jill at Feministe
Anna J. Cooke
Chicks Rock Blog
Mikhaela Reid drew this cartoon in response to the panel

I was really excited to be part of this conversation with Jack Aponte (of Angry Brown Butch and Feministe), Julia Serano and Kate Bovitch. Our hope was to focus on the issues of gender non-conformity within feminist spaces like WAM, feminist blogs and feminist media. I think we got a really interesting conversation going.

I've been reflecting a lot on this panel lately, since there has been conversation (and criticism) about how discussions about trans issues go down on feminist blogs, in particular ours. I think what it reiterates for me is how important these conversations about gender and gender non-conformity are to feminism and how difficult they are to have, particularly online.

At the WAM panel we never had issues with people asking questions that were offensive, or off-topic, or derailing in the way people talk about our comment threads. Maybe that's because the panel was a self-selecting group of people, or because people with those kinds of comments/questions didn't feel comfortable asking them in such a public way.

I've made some mistakes in how I've begun these conversations at Feministing, particularly on the Focus on the Family post. I appreciate those who called out these mistakes in a constructive way. I'm definitely learning from those moments and I'm committed to continuing this dialogue, both on and offline.

The criticisms about comments at Feministing are well heard, and, as I've said before, we're hoping to revisit and revise our comment policy at our upcoming retreat at the end of May.

For those of you who have time to watch some of the video (the session was an hour and a half) or check out the liveblogging, I recommend it. Again, sorry about the lack of transcript!

UPDATE: Some other videos from the WAM conference are available here as well.

Angie Zapata's family has made a statement on the trial of Allen Andrade. Below is Angie's brother, Gonzalo, speaking.

Potentially triggering

Read the transcript at Feministe.

Via TransGriot

You've all heard the great news - Angie Zapata's murderer, Allen Andrade, has been found guilty and last night received a mandatory life sentence. I don't know that there can ever be real justice - because Angie isn't here - but this is certainly something.

More from Pam's House Blend, Race Wire, Queerty, GLAADBlog, PageOneQ, the Human Rights Campaign, Womanist Musings, EDNAblog, TransGriot, and the Justice for Angie Twitter Feed.

Allen Ray Andrade found guilty of the murder of Angie Zapata!

Plan B now available to 17-year-olds!

Ann wrote about Angie Zapata, who was brutally murdered in Greeley, Colorado last July, as part of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, so I wanted to make sure the community knew that her alleged murderer, 32-year-old, Allen Andrade is finally facing trial (started Tuesday). Adrade is facing charges including first-degree murder and a bias-motivated crime, which could add three years to his prison sentence if convicted. Read more here.

We have many, many, many reason to tell Focus on the Family to go fuck themselves, but this week's email blast was one we had to bring attention to in particular.

In short, the email told folks that anti-discrimination bills protecting transgender people's rights would create "a whirlwind of social problems", and "would even allow men to use women's restrooms--right alongside women and even young girls."

This video also made me realize that my New York accent comes out only when using the word "bathroom."

Related:
"Men in Women's Bathrooms: Is Your State Next?"
Good and Bad News in New Hampshire

RH Reality Check - ...With Sexual Liberty and Justice for All
Sylvia Rivera Law Project - Toilet Training

Transcript after the jump.

Yesterday, the New Hampshire House voted to allow same-sex couples to marry.

It won just by a seven-vote margin and now lies in the hands of the Senate, although folks are unsure if Governor John Lynch will veto the measure if it passes the house. (He has stated he's against marriage but signed a law allowing civil unions last year.)

Just don't start praising the House yet - it also rejected a bill that would extend protections to transgender folks under the state's anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws. There was a ton of pushback and even mockery by opponents of the measure, coining it, "the bathroom bill" (you know, the whole "horror" of the idea that trans men and women would be walking into bathrooms and saunas as they please) as well as sending emails to constituents claiming the bill would be protecting "sexual predators."

Let's place the horror here where it truly belongs - contact the Senate and let them know your thoughts.

There were thousands of demonstrators this past Thursday outside of California's Supreme Court as justices weighed in on whether voters' decision to re-ban same-sex marriage in the state last November was a denial of fundamental rights or whether it's in the people's power to amend the state constitution.

But Prop 8 isn't the only issue facing LGBT communities. Ongoing battles across the nation continue for LGBT rights -- hate crime recognition, adoption rights, immigration and asylum rights, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," to name a few. Kim Ford has been an LGBT rights activist for more than 15 years, has worked extensively with community groups of color in New York City, and knows first-hand the myriad of everyday issues LGBT communities face. Here's Kim...

From the age of a wee toddler, my grandmother would watch Jessica and I every day while our parents worked. And how she loved "her shows," her favorite being All My Children.

Perhaps I watch it partly as a silly way to still feel connected to her (she passed away some years ago), although I'll willingly admit that I'm also just simply addicted to the absurdity of it all. Either way, following a daytime soap comes with its feminist guilt; many soaps perpetuate sexist stereotypes to the extremes - AMC has the glamorous yet highly dramatic Erica Kane as well as the aggressive and money-greedy Adam Chandler. (And let's not even get into the race and class dynamics.)

But I will say that out of all daytime soaps, AMC is actually not all bad. It's the first daytime show to have a contracted gay character, Erica Kane's daughter Bianca, who came out on the show in 2000. And last year, they introduced daytime's first transgendered character, in which the producers brought in GLAAD and other trans folk to consult them on shaping the role.

And today, they're featuring daytime TV's first lesbian wedding between Bianca and her partner. GLAAD released a statement applauding the show for the wedding - although this doesn't come without its soap drama, which is included in AMC's video on today's episode after the jump.

Well, this is fucked. Two transsexual women are suing the state of Illinois for refusing to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender identities.

When Kari Rothkopf went to her hometown in Springfield to change her birth certificate, the supervisor at the vital records office told her that it couldn't be changed because she intended to have her gender reassignment surgery outside the U.S. (Both Rothkpf and Victoria "Tori" Kirk had their surgery in Thailand.) So the two teamed up with the ACLU to take action. Kirk said at a recent news conference:

"It could create significant problems for me in the future . . . A document that says I am male puts me at risk of embarrassment, harassment and possibly even physical violence."

As all three are too well known to the trans community. Let's hope these women get some justice for this bullshit.

via Feministe.

Organized by the Two Spirit Society of Denver.

Some thoughts from the panelists of the Two Spirit Society about what it means to be Two Spirit:

Two-spirit is a universal term we have adopted. In the early 80s, there was a group of Native Americans who wanted to change the perspective of what two-spirit meant. It used to be known as "berdache" in academic communities, and Two Spirit was a new word that could be accepted. That's where the two-spirit term came from. Two spirit people did exist within our cultures and we want to go back to that. It's about going back and relearning traditions.

Some of the native communities didn't support two-spirit people within the communities. Many of the two-spirit people would leave the reservations and flee to the cities. Two Spirit is different than gay or lesbian.

Two Spirit is life. Before I had a word for it, it's me. Even as a kid I was a mediator between the sexes, between genders. I was raised--I can lay cement and shingle a roof with the best of them. I can also wear a suit and high heels with the best of them. Tradition says that we have been touched by the grandfather, the great spirit, to be who we are. This is not something we chose. It is a deep responsibility. It's not something that is taken lightly. It doesn't mean that some of us don't identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender.

Two Spirit people exist everywhere. We were the people who held the community together. We were more concentrated on the community--carrying on the songs, the stories, the cultural ways.

Film: Two Spirits about Fred Martinez, a young two-spirit person who was murdered. He identified as gay at the time of his passing.

It is amazing the parts of our cultures that have been robbed from us by colonialism. There are many examples from history of this type of gender variance in other cultures--primarily indigenous communities. What is so difficult is that these oppressions, gender oppression, heteronormativity, have been forced on us by our colonial history. And now, gender non-conformity, queerness, is seen as a "white" thing. It's seen as a "white" movement, and there is resistance among some communities of color to these supposedly new movements of gender liberation and sexual openness. We've so internalized the oppression of colonialism and now we are using it on each other.

Okay, I admit it. I was watching the Real World again.

My excuse this time was that I worked hard all day, then came home and had to clean up the apartment for a guest, and I really needed some mind-numbing chill time with my pasta dinner. Just nod your head and humor me, okay?

In any case, the Real World is in Brooklyn (Red Hook) this time around and exploiting every stereotype therein (stick ball! hip hop! pizza!). But what really caught my attention was that there is a transgender roommate (M to F). Kat is post-op, having just returned from Thailand, where she got her surgery, and in the episode I saw, she slowly comes out with each roommate that she grows to trust in the house. Meanwhile, of course, there are lots of offensive comments in the confessional and panning in on her in her underwear. Lots of speculation, like this:

The show this iteration is chockfull of sexual identity "scenes." One of the most bizarre happens when one roommate, Ryan, an Iraq veteran who wants to publish a book, is dared to kiss a performer at a gay bar in Chelsea for $100 and he ends up being kissed on the mouth and freaks out to the point of vomiting (or was that his copious drinking?). When he tells his girlfriend she screams, "Grossssss!" into the phone.

I am so torn about all of this. On the one hand, I know that the Real World is a whole lot more widely distributed than Anne Fausto-Sterling or Susan Stryker. I know that watching this kid have his little transformation from self-proclaimed ignorant to having some empathy and understanding of LGBTQ issues could really make a difference in a lot of Americans lives. Seeing Kat deal with the transition into her post-op body, telling people about her own story and the larger struggle for transgender rights etc. could enlighten so many young people across America who might otherwise have no exposure (or at least, exposure that they knew about) to transgender folks or an entre into LGBTQ issues.

On the other hand it's reductive, given very little analysis or context, and how do we know some kid doesn't tune in to watch Ryan vomit because he's been tricked into kissing a, yuck, gross, transvestite and then doesn't learn a damn thing? In fact, that viewer's discomfort with anything outside old paradigm heterosexual gender binary is reinforced.

Your thoughts?

It wasn't so long ago that Duanna Johnson was murdered in Memphis. Now, in the same city, Leeneshia Edwards was shot - she is the third transwoman to be shot in Memphis in the last six months.

Renee notes that in the small number of articles that have covered the shooting, all mention Edwards' involvement with prostitution, "as though this somehow justifies the violence that has occurred."

We are given no relevant facts about her life other than that she is a trans woman of colour and that she has been associated with prostitution. Can anyone's life be so minimized in this way. It is as though these aspects alone made up her entire identity. We are meant to think of her as soiled, and beyond redemption. By reporting her attack in this way without explicitly victim blaming the media has reduced her to a two dimensional being; and therefore less likely to illicit any form of empathy or emotion.

Edwards - who was shot in the jaw, side, and back - is in critical condition.

For more information and ways to take action, check out the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.

God, I love Julia Serano.

Via Womanist Musings. Transcript after the jump.

This is just awesome. And although there are multiple cultures throughout the world that have always had a third category for gender, it always makes me happy to see some mainstream coverage of the ongoing negotiation of gender in non-Western communities. This NYTimes article focuses on the "muxe" or a accepted third gender in Oaxaca, Mexico. I went to Oaxaca a few years ago and I loved loved loved it, but now I love it even more.

But nowhere are attitudes toward sex and gender quite as elastic as in the far reaches of the southern state of Oaxaca. There, in the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into gay and straight. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call "muxes" (pronounced MOO-shays) -- men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned netherworld between the two genders.

"Muxe" is a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish "mujer," or woman; it is reserved for males who, from boyhood, have felt themselves drawn to living as a woman, anticipating roles set out for them by the community.

Similarly, my mother used to always tell me of the hijra in India, similarly considered a third gender, yet often they don't stay with their families but roam together. I am sure they still face discrimination, fear and hatred but it is good to remind mainstream trans/queer rights movements in the United States that binary gender systems have been shown to not be inherent or natural in many other contexts.

Via NYTimes.

Thanks to Karlos for the link.

A survey commissioned by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) shows that most Americans favor partner rights for same sex couples, allowing gay Americans to openly serve in the military, and oppose laws that ban adoption by gay and lesbian couples. Word.

Some more stats from the survey:

* Three-quarters of U.S. adults (75%) favor either marriage or domestic partnerships/civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. Only about two in 10 (22%) say gay and lesbian couples should have no legal recognition. (Gay and lesbian couples are able to marry in two states, and comprehensive civil union or domestic partnership laws exist in only five others and the District of Columbia.)

* U.S. adults are now about evenly divided on whether they support allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry (47% favor to 49% oppose).

* Almost two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults favor allowing openly gay military personnel to serve in the armed forces. (The current "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law bans military service by openly gay personnel.)

* About six in 10 (63%) U.S. adults favor expanding hate crime laws to cover gay and transgender people. (Hate crimes laws cover gay and transgender people in 11 states and the District of Columbia, and an additional - 20 states' laws cover sexual orientation but not gender identity.)

* A slight majority of U.S. adults (51%) favor protecting gay and transgender people under existing laws that prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. (Existing non-discrimination laws cover gay and transgender people in only 12 states and the District of Columbia, and eight other states' laws cover sexual orientation but not gender identity.)

* Nearly seven out of 10 U.S. adults (69%) oppose laws that would ban qualified gay and lesbian couples from adopting children. (In several states, gay and lesbian couples are banned from adopting.)

Via Pam's House Blend.

There's a really in depth piece in this month's Atlantic about the growing movement to honor the wishes of transgender children and all the complexities therein. Though I don't claim to be anything near an expert on this issue, I thought that writer Hanna Rosin did a commendable job of bringing in plenty of diverse opinions and exploring so many different angles (and truth be told, I was shocked that the usually stodgy Atlantic devoted so much precious real estate to the issue).

She looked at the sociological, biological, and psychological implications of transgender children's rights through the story of one fascinating family living in a very conservative, small town. Tina, the mother of 8-year-old Brandon (who wants to be Bridget), had never even heard the terms "transgender" until Barbara Walter's special on the topic aired.

(I have my own beef with Barbara. While I admire her long and groundbreaking career, I sort of feel like she can't help but simplify most complex feminist issues into shock-and-awe nonsense. See her recent special on "the pregnant man.")

In any case, the article shows the ways in which this 8-year-old's mother and father come to grips with their child's gender nonconformity. They find community at the Trans-Health Conference, consider the pros and cons of hormone blockers, and experiment with letting Brandon be Bridget when they get back to their tiny town. It's not easy, as you might imagine, but I thought it was beautiful portrait of a family's honest struggle.

I leave you with my favorite moment in the story:

Nothing can do more to normalize the face of transgender America than the sight of a 7-year-old (boy or girl?) with pink cheeks and a red balloon puppy in hand saying to Brandon, as one did at the conference:

"Are you transgender?"

"What's that?" Brandon asked.

"A boy who wants to be a girl."

"Yeah. Can I see your balloon?"

Today is the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, when we stop and take note of the fact that transgender people are murdered at 10 times the rate of everyone else. And, as queenemily says, "Many of the dead lost their lives because they were trans women of colour, doubly disposable."

Please take a moment to read about the people we memorialize today.

At least thirty people, most of them women, were killed this year because of who they are, because of their gender. Cara points out that four of the people on this list were killed in the past 20 days alone. Writes Mercedes Allen at Bilerico:

What's more chilling is what those numbers don't include. That number doesn't include the unknown numbers of transfolk killed alongside gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in the ethnic cleansing that has been taking place in Iraq (Activist Peter Tatchell estimates the total number of GLBT casualties at around 300 people targeted by religious extremists since the war began). Bordering Iran, where a GRS-or-die policy has become a horrific distortion of the medical model and has caused many gay and lesbian persons to forcibly transition, Iraq may have a higher-than-usual trans (by birth or legally mandated) population.

But remembering these people and reflecting on their lives should not be a quiet process, as queenemily writes:

Few will respect our lives as they were, and few will mourn them, and they must be mourned. Their lives were meaningful, their names and genders were real and important, and they lost their lives from hate.

Today we hold on to some memory, even if it only be a name and a photo, so that they are not as erased as completely as their killers would have.

Because the medical people treating them will have tried to erase them. The media. The police. The juries. Will try to excuse, to render less than real, the lives that have been lost. Because who would mourn? Who would bother?

We would. And we do. Today, when we say their names and remember them -- as individuals and as people, not "its" -- we reject that erasure.

Kellie Telesford. Brian McGlothin. Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz. Patrick Murphy. Stacy Brown. Adolphus Simmons. Fedra. Sanesha Stewart. Lawrence King. Simmie Williams Jr. Luna. Lloyd Nixon. Felicia Melton-Smyth. Silvana Berisha. Ebony Whitaker. Rosa Pazos. Juan Carlos Aucalle Coronel. Angie Zapata. Jaylynn L. Namauu. Samantha Rangel Brandau. Nikki Williams. Ruby Molina. Aimee Wilcoxson. Duanna Johnson. Dilek Ince. Ali. And two other Iraqi transgender women.

Again, I have to quote queenemily:

And yes, today we remember those of us still living-our fear, the fear that lives at the heart of every trans person, that someone will know that we are trans, and will kill us for it. Today we remember all the other times we murmured "oh fuck" as we read the news. Today we discover the deaths we missed, because we couldn't bear hearing about them anymore for awhile, even though we must. We must.

Last June, Duanna Johnson was brutally beaten by Memphis police - and it was caught on video.

Johnson was in the booking area at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center when she was hit repeatedly in the face and head by a police officer while another held her down.

"Actually he was trying to get me to come over to where he was, and I responded by telling him that wasn't my name - that my mother didn't name me a 'faggot' or a 'he-she,' so he got upset and approached me. And that's when it started," Johnson said.

This week, Johnson was murdered. Helen at My Husband Betty brings us the tragic story:

She was shot execution style while on her "usual corner."

I'm tired of this.

I want there to be no reason for the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I want there to be no new names on that goddamn list.

I hope her mother, and her family, and her friends, find peace, and that she has too.

Johnson was suing the city for $1.3 million over the June assault, so something tells me they're not exactly going to give Johnson's case top priority.

Pam has more, including a statement from the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.

In the November issue of The American Prospect, Jeremy Bearer-Friend and Daniel Redman report on the trans-rights movement in between the coasts:

Many would view the politically red heart of the country as a harsh, unwelcoming, and vaguely dangerous place for the transgender community. When we think of states like Nebraska and Wyoming, we don't think of M.J. -- we think of people like Brandon Teena and Matthew Shepard, both killed in vicious, nationally publicized hate crimes. But the truth of the matter is far more interesting, inspiring, and instructive. Away from the coasts and the urban havens, a vibrant transgender-rights movement is slowly emerging across the mountain and plains states. Through increased visibility, community building, legislative outreach, and face-to-face public education in churches, schools, and neighborhoods, trans people are building a foundation for equality in some of the nation's most conservative regions.

And Emily Douglas has a sidebar on the mainstream gay-rights movement's slow evolution on transgender issues.

Read 'em both.

There has definitely been an influx of media around trans people over the last year or so. Thomas Beatie (the pregnant man) now has a memoir out, and WE TV has a new show called Sex Change Hospital.

Based in Trinidad, Colorado, this six-part series follows patients as they arrive in this Old West mining town--dubbed the 'Sex Change Capital of the World'--to see Dr. Marci Bowers, formerly Mark Bowers, who'll provide them with the ultimate life-changing operation. From retired grandfathers to construction workers, businessman to office managers, each shares their unique story of how they came to terms with their sexuality.

I recognized the name of the doctor from the Sundance Channel's series from a few years back, Transgeneration. One of the young women on that series goes to Dr. Bowers for her own gender reassignment surgery.

This series chronicles a number of trans people (both male to female and female to male) along their journey of transition and particularly surgery.

I haven't seen the show--have any of you? On first glance I am glad to see realistic depictions of transgender people and their experience on television. On further inspection, things like the before and after style photo gallery on the website bother me, as I think they focus too much on our fascination with the physical aspects of the trans experience.

This type of media has the potential to really expose a wider audience to transgender issues, but also runs the risk of exploiting their experience as part of the "wow" factor of television. Also, focusing entirely on transition surgeries leaves out a large sector of the trans community that either can't afford surgery or chooses not to seek it.

Awesome:

In Silverton, the sleepy Salem, Oregon suburb 40 minutes outside of Portland best known for its lush Oregon Garden and quaint antique shops, the small town's new mayor-elect is poised to get some major attention in the days and weeks ahead as people come around to realize we've got another Oregon first on our hands: the recently elected [Stu] Rasmussen is the first openly gender fluid, transgender-identified mayor of any American city.

Check out the whole article, which includes a short Q&A with Stu. Maybe I'm the only one, but it felt pretty good to read this nugget of post-election good news on the LGBTQ front.

via Bust.

Queers Without Borders reports that on the transition team's job page, the nondiscrimination page includes gender identity:

"The Obama-Biden Transition Project does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by law."

The Connecticut Employment Law Blog notes,

It's one thing to raise the issue in a platform. It's quite another to start implementing a change like this almost overnight. And this has significant ramifications for the entire Executive Branch once the new administration starts.

Nice.

The Atlantic has a huge piece on transgender children out - what do you think of it?

Via Ophelia at Feminocracy, parents in Vacaville, Calif. are pulling their kids out of class because their teacher is transgendered.

A teacher's gender reassignment surgery has caught the attention of some parents who want to know why the school district didn't notify them ahead of time about the change.

A music teacher at Foxboro Elementary School, who was formerly a woman, returned to school as a man at the beginning of the school year.

Some parents told Travis Unified School District that they feel like their rights to know were violated.

[...] Parent Angela Weinzinger, who has three children at the school, said she has since transferred her children out of the class.

"I wasn't given the opportunity to make a choice on what I wanted to do with the situation," Weinzinger said.So far, 23 students from 15 different families have transferred their children out of the music class and into a physical education class.

Ophelia writes,

"The situation" you mean someone's gender? They feel that their rights have been violated because the school refused to violate the rights of the teacher and disclose their surgical history? Fuck that noise.

Go read the rest of Ophelia's response here, because it's spot on.

And related to the destructive "transpeople-are-scary" meme, Renee has a good post on the portrayal of transpeople on prime-time TV.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force just launched a new national survey on Transgender Discrimination.

I just went to a briefing a few days ago on Capitol Hill hosted by the National LGBT Health Coalition about how little data we have nationally about LGBT people. Why? Because federal surveys refuse to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity. Without data, we have no way of knowing what the disparities are and no way of asking for funding to address them. Huge problem.

One way organizations get around this data issue is by creating their own surveys like this one.

"This is an absolutely critical national effort. We urge all transgender and gender non-conforming people to take the survey to help guide us in making better laws and policies that will improve the quality of life for all transgender people. We need everyone's voice in this, everyone's participation." -- Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality

In the wake of one of the most violent years on record of assaults on transgender people, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force have teamed up on a comprehensive national survey to collect data on discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, public accommodations, healthcare, education, family life and criminal justice.

To date, in 2008, several young gender non-conforming people of color have been murdered, including California junior high school student Lawrence King, who was shot in public during the school day. King's murder, and the murders of Simmie Williams in South Carolina and Angie Zapata in Greeley, Colorado come in a year in which we are still working to include transgender provisions in a federal bill to protect lesbian, gay and bisexual workers from discrimination in employment.

So if you identify as trans or gender non-conforming please take the survey today!

Thanks to Jill for the link

Great news! As of yesterday, Montgomery County, Maryland considers it unacceptable to discriminate on the basis of gender identity. Although the county council passed the anti-discrimination law almost a year ago, the measure was blocked from taking effect by conservative groups who launched a petition effort against it. The groups wanted to put the anti-discrimination law to a ballot vote in November, but a court ruled yesterday they could not.

Now those groups are whining that they've been "disenfranchised" -- which is rich, coming from people who sought to protect discriminatory policies.

A quick note about the coverage this law has received. While most headlines couch it in terms of preventing discrimination against transpeople (which, of course, the law does), the actual language bars discrimination on the basis of gender identity. This is a broader term that covers people who may not identify as trans, but run the spectrum of gender-nonconforming presentation. As E.J. Graff wrote, back when the debate was raging over the inclusion of gender identity in the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act,

Here's the idea. When there is discrimination against, or recoil from, lesbians and gay men, it's not just because we fall in love with others of the same sex. It's because we don't neatly fit our gender identities; we're often "genderqueer" as well. Our girls tend to be boyish; our boys tend to be girly. Not always, and not all of us. But gay men and lesbians who "pass"-- who are "straight-acting," in the terminology, who more closely fit sex stereotypes (like me, despite my short hair)--run into the least trouble on the job. It's the fey men (and, depending on the situation, the butch women) who run into trouble. And that's the ground on which they need the most protection: gender identity.

She goes on to say that even the woman who was fired for refusing to wear makeup could have claimed protection under a gender-identity clause. This is important stuff to keep in mind as we consider how all of these issues are connected.

More on the Montgomery County victory at Pam's House Blend, Broadsheet, TransGriot, Questioning Transphobia, and ACSblog.

A belated update about the Michigan Womyn's Musical Festival (aka Michfest), which Jessica and I blogged about in August. It seems that despite a policy of excluding trans women from the festival, progress is being made from within Michfest as well as outside it, particularly at Camp Trans (the simultaneous protest festival that happens across the road).

Via Radical Masculinity:

The exciting news that we found out later in the week was that a Festie had donated enough money on Monday, earmarked for the purpose of sending two trans women onto the land [michfest]. Between that, another earmarked donation, and several trans women purchasing their own wristbands, quite a few trans women went on the land this year, enough to run a workshop on Sunday, the last day of Fest, on the land.

All of them reported getting incredibly positive receptions, so the culture of MWMF has changed a lot.

Any readers attend Michfest or Camp Trans? What were your thoughts about this year's festival and trans inclusion?

Maybe I should give up on complaining about this, but it still irks me every time I see an article that is about women's issues (and now we can add trans women's issues) in the NYTimes in the Fashion and Style section. Articles about health, doulas, women, etc. It seems like every article that interests me is in this section and it pisses me off. Ok, rant over.

Despite the placement of this article, it's actually a quite positive piece about trans women's experience transitioning in the workplace.

Breanna L. Speed waited four years before announcing to her co-workers that she would not be Wendell anymore. She was concerned that the revelation that she felt more comfortable living life as a woman than in the male body she was born with would jeopardize her job at Hewitt Associates, an outsourcing company in Lincolnshire, Ill., where she had worked as a database administrator for seven years.

But since Feb. 26, 2007, when she walked into the office as Breanna (with a company ID and a workplace paper trail that carried her new name), Ms. Speed said she has received nothing but support.

What's really great about the article is it puts the onus of guaranteeing a smooth transition on the employers and managers of the companies, rather than the employee themselves.

The next cycle of America's Next Top Model will feature a transgender contestant, 22-year-old Isis. Now, I'm inherently skeptical of all things that fall under the category of "reality TV" -- and we've certainly critiqued Top Model before -- but I have to admit, this sounds pretty exciting.

"My cards were dealt differently," Isis, a 22-year-old former receptionist, tells Us Weekly exclusively in its new issue, on newsstands now.

Hailing from Prince George's County, Maryland, Isis identifies herself as "a woman born physically male."

Will she be a role model?

"I like to help people, but I'm here to follow my dreams," she tells Us.

Monica Roberts has some clips of Isis's runway skills, and is hopeful that ANTM won't bungle this opportunity. She's noted before that Tyra Banks has been consistently respectful about trans issues on her own show, Tyra. Here's hoping that attitude extends to ANTM.

From her recent piece at Alternet:

Over the last five years, trans feminine feminists have begun to articulate a new perspective on feminism and trans activism that better captures our own experiences dealing with sexism. This approach is not so much rooted in queer theory as it is in intersectionality -- a theory that grew out of the work of feminists of color, most thoroughly chronicled by Patricia Hill Collins, and perhaps first discussed in relation to the MWMF trans woman-exclusion issue by Emi Koyama. Intersectionality states that different forms of oppression do not act independently of one another, but rather they interact synergistically. Unlike queer theory and lesbian-feminism, intersectionality focuses primarily on the ways in which people are institutionally marginalized, rather than fixating on whether any given individual's identity or behaviors "reinforce" or "subvert" the gender system.

It's long and delves deep, but as with most of her writing it's pretty fantastic. Check it out.

Since the theme of this afternoon's posting seems to be gender (soon to come, a post about the olympic's and gender verification) I thought I'd post this music video from Athens Boys Choir. He's pretty fantastic and I think the video speaks for itself. I promise it will be stuck in your head.

Warning: Not appropriate for work, unless sexual words are okay...

The BBC reports that a school in Thailand is providing three bathrooms for students, one for boys, one for girls and one for "boys who want to be girls" (phrasing from the BBC).

You can see a short video clip about it here. While I think it's awesome that they are providing a space for trans girls (or boys who are questioning their gender identity), it only leaves space for one other type of gender expression. What about girls who are experimenting with their gender identities as well?

Bathrooms have historically been a point of contention for trans people, and it's really crucial for them to have facilities they can feel safe using. But further segregating people does not in my opinion address the underlying problems with the gender binary which can be confining for people in many different places on the gender identity spectrum.

Cultural context is obviously really important here as well, and I don't mean to criticize the obvious progress this school is making in ensuring the safety of their students. Instead the clip brings up a lot of issues around bathroom safety and gender identity that I wanted to bring up.

See feministing community blogger pow3rful's post about this news item.

Also, a note about language. When referring to a transgender person, always use their preferred gender identity (and pronouns). So, for example, a boy who now identifies as a girl could be referred to as a trans girl. Or a girl who now identifies as a boy would be a trans boy.

Thomas Beattie, the pregnant trans man who made headlines recently after an appearance on Oprah and an article for the advocate, just gave birth last month.

You can see the video from the Good Morning America segment here.

Quench Zine is liveblogging the first-ever congressional hearing on trans issues, "An Examination of Discrimination Against Trangender Americans in the Workplace."

The American Pyschological Psychiatric Association (APA) appointed members at the beginning of May to the Committee on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders for the revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V).

This committee will be reexamining the DSM-V, which is the manual of mental disorders that controls the diagnosis and treatment of gender and sexual difference. It was a big deal when homosexuality was declassified as a disorder, and some queer and trans activists are calling for gender identity dysphoria to be similarly declassified.

Since then, lots of people have been expressing their concern about two particular appointments: Ray Blanchard and Kenneth Zucker (who has been appointed as chair).

From Rea Carey, Acting Executive Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

We are very concerned about these appointments. Kenneth Zucker and Ray Blanchard are clearly out of step with the occurring shift in how doctors and other health professionals think about transgender people and gender variance. It is extremely disappointing and disturbing that the APA appears to be failing in keeping up with the times when it comes to serving the needs of transgender adults and gender-variant children.

I've gotten quite a few emails about this, as well as a link to a petition against these appointments.

Why does this matter? Some people have been alleging that these two members are proponents of "reparative therapy"--tools used to make homosexual or gender non-conforming children straight through therapeutic methods and gender normative behaviors (don't let your son play with dolls, etc). You can listen to a recent NPR story comparing two different therapy philosophies about gender variant kids.

The way the APA classifies these gender and sexual identities is important for the standards of care for queer and gender non-conforming people. It impacts what kind of medical care they can receive as well as how they are treated by the psychological community. If homosexuality (or gender variance) are considered "disorders" that implies that a) there is something wrong with these behaviors and b)that there is a cure.

I also received an email with a response from Dr. Blanchard, which pretty much denies all these allegations against him. You can see his statement after the jump.

Contributed by Julia Serano

I had about seven different conflicting thoughts/emotions upon viewing this video:

1) Oh my god, I *cannot* believe that companies are actually using personal endorsements from transgender-spectrum people to help sell their products to non-trans women. How groundbreaking!

2) And at the same time, how disturbing! I think I am experiencing the same queasy feeling right now that old-school gay/queer rights activists most certainly felt when beer companies first began offering to sponsor pride parades and queer events.

3) Great, just what we need: more fodder for feminists who insist that those of us on the trans feminine spectrum are all merely “parodies� and “caricatures� of women and that we propagate sexist stereotypes.

4) Haven’t I written about depictions like this one before?

5) As a transsexual woman, I can’t help but notice how dependent this ad is on the concept of “drag�—that is, the fact that the subject in the video identifies as a boy and that their feminine gender expression is depicted as a “performance� or an “impersonation.� The commercial would have an entirely different meaning (and would evoke a very different emotional reaction) if it featured a trans woman who fully and unapologetically identified as female. For this reason, this video will likely annoy a lot of transsexuals because it forwards the “trans = fake� trope that is too often used to marginalize us.

6) Memo to Phillips: The “Like all men he’s not great with pain� line isn’t funny. Making fun of men is just as sexist as making fun of women. And besides, when your commercial consists of nothing but stereotypically hyper-feminine imagery, you can’t make up for it all at the end with one, apparently ironic, pseudo-feminist dis on men.

7) And one more thing: I hope the makers of Secret deodorant sue you for essentially stealing their “Strong enough for a man, but made for a woman� campaign.

Thanks to Jessica for the link.

Julia Serano is an Oakland, California-based writer, spoken word performer, trans activist, and biologist.

Bambi Weavil is founder and CEO of Out Impact, Inc and publisher of its online magazine Out Impact. Based in Wilmington, North Carolina, Bambi spends her days and her nights working to raise money for LGBTQ issues...while also squeezing time to write about pro wrestling and her guilty pleasure, "American Idol."

Here's Bambi...

The always-amazing Daisy Hernández has a great piece up at ColorLines about the intersection of transgender issues and race - it's really compelling stuff, so don't miss it.

Before coming to the Center for Genetics and Society, Emily Galpern worked for 10 years promoting community health and well-being through coalition-building, advocacy, and health education. She holds a BA in women's studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz and obtained her Master's in public health in community health education from San Francisco State University in 2004. She completed a graduate research project on women's sexual and reproductive health in southern Ecuador using a human rights framework, and conducted other research on health disparities and inequities and the impact of racial discrimination on health.

Here's Emily...

Pam has a interesting post up tying together the ongoing racist reaction to Jena and the inclusion of trans people in Employment Non-Discrimination Act. She poses some thought-provoking questions about how fear of being labeled a racist or bigot keeps people from addressing their actual racist or bigoted actions.

Check it out.

This piece couldn't be more ridiculous. While its seeming purpose of being a "calling out" of the large number of New York politicians who have been accused and convicted of rape and sexual harassment, it does anything but:

Dennis Gallagher, the Queens councilman recently indicted on charges of raping a 52-year-old grandmother he met at a Middle Village bar, is just the latest in a long line of New York City pols to have been accused of behaving badly.

At the turn of the last century, a cigar-smoking, hard-drinking, womanizing Tammany insider named Murray Hall was discovered upon death to actually be a woman. When Hall died in 1901, a friend who knew him, er, her, through her work in the State Senate remarked, "A woman? Why, he'd line up to the bar and take his whisky like any veteran, and didn't make faces over it, either."

Ninety-one years later, Sol Wachlter, chief judge of the state's highest court and a presumed front-runner for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, was busted by the FBI for harassing his ex-mistress after he mailed her threatening letters and sent a condom to her teenage daughter.

So what exactly does the second paragraph have to do with this story? Oh right, those rapists and trans folks are all the same! A deviant is a deviant, right?? Blech. And it only get better with its "expert's" quote:

'In Albany everybody is sleeping with everybody,' said Dr. Bernie Katz, a noted relationship expert. 'Plus, men have this stupid idea that they picked up in middle school that no really means yes. Let's face it we men never grow up.'

Wow. I mean, wow. Not only does rape mean "sleeping around" and boys learn about rape in middle school, but all men never really get rid of that ole rapist/school boy mentality!

What a waste of a decent story. Thanks to MAC for the link.

Courtesy of Cara, check out this appalling Will Saletan column in Slate:

Um, what? In the column he conflates female genital mutilation with sex reassignment surgery. (Several countries are subsidizing surgeries for victims of FGM, while Brazil now offers health care coverage for the sex-change procedures.) His little brain explodes: Aren't these the same thing? He poses the breathtakingly stupid question,

Is genital mutilation a crime if you don’t want it but a right if you do?

Just... wow. Setting aside Saletan's totally inapt comparison, astute commenter Tracey over at Cara's place notes that, "COUNTLESS things are crimes if you don’t want them but rights if you do. Like sex, for example. Or sterilization. Or abortions." But "It’s completely ludicrous to make a comparison between FGM and reassignment surgery." Exactly.

Two incredibly awful stories recently about young Latina transwomen and their run-ins with the U.S. criminal "justice" system:

Via Jessica Hoffmann:

Victoria Arellano/Arrelano (the spelling of her name varies from story to story), a trans woman with AIDS who died in a California immigration facility for men in July after being denied medication and otherwise improperly treated, was one of three immigrants to die in federal custody in a month, according to the Washington Post.

And from Amnesty International (via AngryBrownButch):

My name is Mariah Lopez. I am a young, transgender person of color. I also am an activist who does street-based outreach in the West Village, where I also socialize.

Let me tell you how the police often respond to this.

With verbal abuse.

Sexual harassment.

Unwarranted arrests.

Withholding food, water and medication in detention.

Humiliating and inappropriate strip searches.

Physical assaults.

This is what I have endured at the hands of police and corrections officers - and not just once. What occurs is a systemic abuse of power, one that is seemingly inflicted on whim. For my friends and me, it seems that something as inconsequential as an officer's mood can dictate whether we spend time in jail.

Read her whole statement. It's gut-wrenching.

I don't mean to diminish the injustices suffered by these two women by lumping their stories together. Rather, I think it's important to recognize that what's going on here is systemic. For each story like Mariah Lopez's or Victoria Arellano's that bubbles up through the alternative media or queer/feminist blogosphere, there are countless more that don't even make the radar. Jessica Hoffmann (who has been tirelessly pushing for more coverage of Arellano's story) summed it up nicely: "Immigrants' rights struggles and trans struggles and health-care struggles and feminist struggles and HIV/AIDS struggles--and all other struggles for justice--are interconnected. If we believe in justice, these struggles are ours." (Which is also why I apologize for not posting on either of these stories sooner.)

AI has an online action alert calling for an NYPD investigation into the abuses suffered by Mariah Lopez while in custody. I'll post updates on Victoria Arellano's case as I get them.

Photograph by Mathew Schwartz

Pagan Kennedy has published seven books and is a pioneer of the '90s zine movement; her autobiographical zine Pagan's Head is noted for describing her life in extraordinary detail. Some of her books include Black Livingstone which was named a New York Times Notable Book and her novel Spinsters which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. She has also written for The New York Times Magazine, Boston Globe Magazine, Village Voice, Utne Reader, The Nation and Ms. magazine.

Pagan's new book, The First Man-Made Man: The Story of Two Sex Changes, One Love Affair, and a Twentieth Century Medical Revolution, is a biography that documents the life of Michael Dillon who, in the 1940s, survived the world's first known female-to-male sex change treatment.

I interviewed Pagan over email. Here's Pagan...