My Two Moms <3 Their Trans Daughter

I consider myself really blessed to have such a strong queer family.  Recently, I got a chance to interview one of my moms about being a lesbian mom of a trans daughter for the public radio program Story Corps.  A 4 minute version aired locally, but you can listen to it or the entire 50 minute interview from my mom’s website.  If you’ve got the time, it’s quite interesting.

PFLAGers have long known that protective parents can be a powerful force advocating for their LGBT children.  My parents weren’t 100% on board from day one, and were initially concerned that my being trans would be seen as a failure of lesbian parenting.  But once they played through the usually negative reactions their experience fighting for LGB rights translated perfectly into their new work as trans advocates.  My mom who works at the local hospital has found herself in charge of crafting a new policy for the treatment of trans patients after she complained about the current treatment trans patients face.  My other mom, who is a writer wrote an article for the local paper giving her take on the backlash to the mixed race photo exhibit I took part in.

This is my vision of a what a queer family can look like.

Body Talk

A year ago, I was joining the cast of a personal theater show, Body Talk, which was designed to provide a similar opportunity for empowering women as the Vagina Monologues, but with the freedom to write our own pieces. Despite only knowing about a dozen trans women in my town, at our first cast meeting 4 out of the 12 women present were trans. Apparently I wasn’t the only one needing this outlet. We spent a couple months working together on individual and group pieces, and I recorded mine. For a while, I was afraid to share it online, because I discuss my work in the sex industry. Watching it now, I’m self conscious about my slip ups, or when I accidentally said “exploitation” instead of “exotification.” But as my activism around sex work has become more important, so has sharing this performance.

The ending and the script after the cut.

Open Letter Regarding ENDA

Michael Long has been pretty much the only direct personal contact with the HRC I’ve had.  He also happens to be on the HRC Board of Governors.  I wrote this to him to describe the frustrations and concerns I have with how the HRC is handling the issue and I tried to highlight the many pieces of the puzzle that appear as if they are being ignored.  I realized this was an effective outline of what those concerns are and decided to make it an open letter.

Dear Michael Long,

First, I want to tell you that I appreciate your work as an activist.  Over the past six years since I canceled my HRC membership, I built up a skepticism of the HRC because of their hesitancy to support the more marginal members of our community.  Talking with you in the past few years, though, you’ve helped me see the HRC as an ally—an organization that might screw up now or then (such as the mishandling of trans issues on the Corporate Equality Index), but it is trying to help my community.

Unfortunately, my slowly returning trust just made it hurt all that much worse when the HRC went rogue last fall and fought against the collective effort of hundreds of LGBT organizations.  When I heard you talking about what happened at the Basic Rights Oregon leadership summit that we both attended, I couldn’t help but feel like you were just repeating the same talking points I’ve heard a dozen times already from HRC press communications and all the while completely ignoring the concerns and frustrations of the trans community.  Hearing those talking points it feels like the HRC and the trans community are talking about two completely different things.  If it was just about differences in strategy, I could sit down and talk with you about it, but it’s also about the way in which those decisions were made and acted upon.  Before we can have that conversation, that is what needs to be addressed.

I was in Washington DC in August of 2004 when the HRC pledged not to support ENDA if it didn’t include gender identity.  I saw the video when the current executive director reiterated that pledge to the trans community in September 2007.  And I was glued to my computer for news when I heard the HRC broke that pledge that October.  This brings up a huge issue of trust.  How can I trust an organization that goes back on its word like that?  This was a motion voted on by the board.  This was a part of HRC rhetoric for years.  How can I trust anything the HRC says now?

The decision to do exactly what the HRC had pledged not to do was made in a way that appears quite secretive.  I can’t even tell when the decision was made.  Was it made before or after the HRC said that they would neither support nor oppose the bill?  Was that half-way stance all just posturing in those important few weeks to mislead the LGBT community?  I still can’t figure out who was involved in making the decision either.  Donna Rose explained to me that the board gave Solmonese the authority to do what he felt was necessary.  Does that mean that he made the decision later?  Without discussion? Without recorded minutes? Without community input?  As far as I can tell there were no trans people involved in the decision.  I asked a communications person from the HRC and they told me they weren’t sure, and I never heard any more.  The LGBT and activist communities never had a chance to weigh in on the issue.  We were never even informed that such an option was being considered—in fact, we were being told that such an option was never going to be considered.

While the community’s discontent with the HRC is about the strategy being taken, it’s not just about that.  It’s about having been lied to.  It’s about not being able to trust if the 2004 pledge was ever made in good faith.  It’s the sense that the HRC doesn’t listen to input from the trans community.  It’s about being spoken down to as if we don’t really understand the issues.  It’s about how the one trans member of the HRC board was kept out of the loop in this decision making process, and there is little reason to assume it was not deliberate.  It’s about the history of the HRC putting LGB rights as a higher priority than trans rights: LGB issues take up more points than trans issues on the Corporate Equality Index, LGB legislative issues get more resources than trans legislative issues, and LGB issues got more questions than trans issues in the presidential debate.  It’s this context of the consistent devaluing of trans rights that makes these actions on ENDA look very different.  And this is about the fact that I’ve never seen an HRC representative address any of these issues.

The one thing that I keep hearing from the HRC that this is just a difference of opinion on strategy.  However, the representatives who voted with United ENDA on this issue are being scored down on the HRC Congressional Scorecard.  It feels like I’m being told that it’s unfair to hold the HRC accountable for “making a different strategic decision” but at the same time the HRC is punishing those who made a different strategic decision from them.

Also, I have to question the HRC’s communications around ENDA.  When the new first came out the HRC diplomatically announced it would neither support nor oppose the broken ENDA.  When that turned out to be untrue, we were told that the pledge only counted for passing the bill and did not apply when the bill did not appear capable of making it passed a Bush veto.  The strategic value, so it was explained, was precisely because it wouldn’t become law it became possible to “gain momentum” without actually leaving trans and gender variant people behind.  However, there’s movement on the broken ENDA in the Senate, and Rep Frank is talking about bringing forward the broken ENDA in 2009.  At this point, it looks seriously possible that a broken ENDA might pass in 2009.  Somehow I have my doubts think the HRC is going to turn around and proclaim no-ENDA-but-full-ENDA now that passage looks possible.  While I hope that there will be follow through here, personally, I expect this to be one more assurance to the trans community that the HRC will stick to only when convenient.

It’s important to me that you hear the fear, distrust, and hurt that underlines this conversation, but as the strategic level is also quite important, I do want to address it.  We sat in the same presentation and saw one by one the outcome from each state that had moved forward with a sexual orientation only non-discrimination policy. To those of us who have been working on non-discrimination policies at the local and state level, it is pretty apparent that getting gender identity in the bill when it passes only takes a little bit extra of an effort, but getting gender identity added after an exclusive bill is passed is incredibly difficult.  We’re talking, on average, more than a decade added to the timeline.  Considering that the federal level lags behind the states we might expect this to be even longer.  This is the conventional wisdom, backed up with empirical evidence and experience.  Suddenly, the HRC decides that the opposite is true and passing sexual orientation only is a faster way to get gender identity included.  The only reason we’re given is to “build momentum” but we’ve been told that before and seen the exact opposite every time – without exception.

I’ve never heard any justification of the HRC’s strategy beyond “to build momentum,” and such simplistic reasoning that fails to engage the evidence to the contrary is no basis to make policy decisions upon.  I’ve never heard the HRC address this contrary evidence except to discount the people who bring it up for their lack of federal lobbying experience. While we are assured that the HRC is just taking a different path to obtaining an inclusive ENDA, given the HRC track record, I’ve got no reason to believe that anything more than a token gesture will be made toward a gender identity ENDA after a broken ENDA is passed.

Strategically, the vast majority of trans activists and most LGBTQ organizations see things coming down to three possible paths.

1. We come together and make a push for an inclusive ENDA which would likely pass between 2009 and 2011.  (Given what happened last fall, perhaps a year or two later).
2. The HRC pushes for a broken ENDA, which will likely pass in 2009 or 2011.  Gender identity and expression aren’t added until between 2020 and 2040.
3. The HRC pushes for a broken ENDA, the activist community and other LGBTQ organizations fight to kill it.  Infighting prevents anything from being passed until between 2015 and 2020.

Looking at these options, a broken ENDA and the decade(s) long delay of gender identity protections that it would bring is the biggest threat to trans rights on the political docket.  Nothing that the religious right has on their agenda could knock back trans rights like this.  I hope that this prediction is wrong.  But in all the time since last fall, all the HRC press releases, community forums, and the coordinated attempt to persuade the trans community dubbed “project win back,” I’ve never even heard an attempt to refute this prediction, I’ve only heard the assertion, without any supportive reasoning, that it is wrong.

We have to go with what our experience shows us to be true – what we have evidence supporting.  The effect that a broken ENDA will have on trans rights is equivalent to the effect that a constitutional amendment defining marriage between a man and a woman would have on same-sex relationship rights.  I have no choice but to respond to a broken ENDA, and the organizations supporting it, the same way I would respond to the anti-marriage amendment and its supporters.  I’ll encourage others to do the same.  Obviously, this creates a conflict between the HRC and the LGBTQ community that isn’t in anyone’s interests.  If you know of any alternatives we have to this coming conflict, if you have any evidence or reasoning that casts doubt on this interpretation of events, or if you want to simply discuss this matter beyond the standard talking points that never address these concerns, then I would love to hear from you.

–Tobi Hill-Meyer

DC Madam is Dead

News came out yesterday that Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the “DC Madam” committed suicide after her trial ended in conviction.  The news is saying that she was determined to never see jail time and had this as the only option left to her.

I can’t help but to firmly blame the the powers that be for this one.  They killed her, for sure.  The misogyny that creates a class of sexual objects, the capitalism that creates a need for sex work, the politicians who exploit sex workers for family values votes, and the prison system that’s designed to punish and terrorize instead of rehabilitate.

I still can’t wrap my head around how all those politician Johns can give a press conference, a manufactured apology, keep their job, and never face and charges.  Meanwhile, everyone goes after the women involved as if they are out for blood.  And they got it.

Survivors of Domestic Violence Workers

A friend of mine jokingly suggested I start a group with that name, after she found out that I was the second person she knew who’s abuser had worked for a domestic violence agency. Talking about this issue with her, as well as learning about her other friend’s experience, led me to seriously question the way in which domestic violence agencies respond upon hearing from a survivor that their abuser is among that agencies staff or volunteers.

I hadn’t much thought of this as anything beyond an individual issue, but now that I am thinking about it, I find it unconscionable that any domestic violence agency wouldn’t have a plan for this circumstance. Especially because it only furthers the “it couldn’t happen here” mentality that is common in many abusive situations.

When I realized that my relationship was abusive, my partner was interning at the Bradley Angle House in Portland. It was something he had been working toward for a while. When I confronted him, his first thoughts were about them finding out, and he made it very, very clear to me that he didn’t want me to talk with them about it.

I eventually did, but I was terrified that he’d find out. I called a few times, making absolutely certain to be anonymous, not identify him or myself, and just find out how they would want to repsond. I got tossed from person to person until I was given a phone number of who I should talk to. But unfortunately, that person was never at their desk. I called 2-3 times a day for a week before I got through. We talked for ten minutes before I had to go. But when I called back again I couldn’t get through. That time I left my phone number, but I never recieved a call back.

The friend of a friend I mentioned had an abuser who was on the board of a major national domestic violence agency. They wrote a letter to the board explaining the circumstances and why they might not want that person on their board, but they never recieved a response.

In both cases, these agencies dropped the ball. It makes me wonder how often does this happens? How do other agencies respond to this issue? Does anyone have a plan or a guide for how to deal with it? I don’t think that someone should immediately be excommunicated when it appears that they have been abusive, but the ignore-it-untill-it-goes-away approach that I’ve encountered is shameful.

The Hottest Transwoman, and other interesting search terms

I’ve been keeping an eye on what search terms people find my blog under, and some are pretty interesting. I thought I’d share a few. I think the one that takes the cake is “Hottest Transwoman.” I googled it myself, and apparently I come up as the number one hit. Can I say that I’m the hottest transwoman now? Google made it official.

But seriously, the part that’s so wonderful about that is that “Hottest Transwoman” takes you to my post on exotification and tranny chasers. It’s just so perfect that someone searching for hot transwomen will end up reading an article on exotification and tranny chasers.

Apparently, though, the term that’s getting me the most attention is “Ciswoman.” In addition to being the number one most frequently used search term to find this blog, “cispeople” is number four, “ciswoman defintion” and “ciswomen definition” are five and seven. In fact, “definition” is an often used term, whether paired with “ciswoman,” or “queerspawn,” or “transmasculine.”

“Tranny chaser” and its plural variant take number two and three. Other varients, including “ftm tranny chaser,” have gotten a few hits as well.

I also got a some hits for “Stephen Colbert” plus a term like “bisexual,” “transphobia” or “shemale.” In fact, I got a lot of hits for “shemale” because of when I reported on Stephen using the term.

And some fun random search terms that came up.
“Tatooed dyke”
“Why trans with LGB”
“What would happen if there were no laws”
“Femme phobia”
“What is trickle down in politics”
“Attracted to transwomen”
“Women attracted to transwomen”
“All the butches are going trans”
“Oregon straight domestic partnership”

Day of Remembrance Speech

I did this speech at the Day of Remembrance last year.  I had the speech recorded and planned to put it up on youtube.  But it’s proving to be quite difficult to get it off the tape and onto a computer when the only camera you’ve got acccess to are the ones on campus but you’re not a student anymore.

Anyway, I haven’t given up on that, but I thought I’d post the text of my speech.

From the University of Oregon Transgender Day of Remembrance, November 19th, 2007:

When I sat down to prepare my speech for this event, I found myself conflicted.  In asking what I wanted to accomplish I found myself wondering at the exact purpose of this day.  Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day that virtually everyone can support.  Only the most transphobic people out there are unwilling to say that, at the very least, killing us is going too far.  This day is set aside for a moment of mourning and introspection.  Yet there are so few opportunities when trans people are given attention by the general public.  It can be tempting to capitalize on the gruesome manner in which our killers so often prefer to end the lives of trans people.  When our voices are so often lost in the deafening noise of those who simply do not care, how utterly unnecessary and hateful this violence is can shock people into sitting down and listening. 

But in that process we need to remember that our unknown victim in Jamaica was more than an unidentified male clad in female attire with gunshot wounds to the chest and lower back.  Ruby Rodriguez is more than a strangled body found naked in between Cesar Chavez and Marin streets in San Francisco.  There’s more to Thalia Mosqueda’s story than that she was shot to death.  It is difficult, however, to memorialize people who you do not know, and in some cases, can find out little about.

Yet it is important to learn what we can about each of these individuals.  And where we cannot, we must learn about that circumstances that often leads to the dangerous situations in which they died.  Ruby was well known in the San Francisco trans community.  She was involved in support groups and language classes.  Thalia’s killer initially said that he killed her after she hit on him, but a friend of hers, another trans woman, tells us that Thalia died defending her from the killer’s harassment.

Victoria Arellano was an immigrant detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and denied needed medication and medical care.  Erica Keel was involved in sex work and witnesses say that she got into a car with a man who one block later ejected her from the car and backed over her four times.  Ruby was also an immigrant and a sex worker, in fact, a disproportionate number of the people on this list are immigrants or sex workers, and almost the entire list is trans women of color.  It is this intersection of identity that leaves many so vulnerable.  There is so much societal anger abound that after Ruby’s death an anonymous caller attacked the San Francisco Chronical’s coverage because of Ruby’s trans and immigration statuses.  National radio host Michael Savage called her a “freak” and a “psychopath,” saying that “The freak[s] ought to be glad that they’re allowed to walk around.”

There doesn’t seem to be as much anger directed at transpeople who are white, male-identified, not engaged in sex work, have citizenship and/or steady, well-paying jobs.  Too many times identity politics take a “trickle-down” approach to social justice.  With this approach, only one identity is dealt with at a time, and the agenda is set by those who are privileged in every other category.  By empowering rich white gay men as well as rich straight men of color, the benefits supposedly trickle down to everyone else as well.  It’s not hard to see how social justice, like economics, doesn’t work this way.

An alternative is a “flood up” approach to social justice.  Where we focus on those who are at the intersections of the most forms of oppression and have the least privilege.  Working to improve the lives of gender variant and trans people of color whose source of income or immigration status may be in question will leave resounding echoes in the institutions of racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, classism, and xenophobia and impact a wider range of people.  Looking at this list year after year it is clear that any other approach will not even touch the surface of how these people lived and died.

To address this, I want to talk about four topics that are very interconnected and shape the lives of many trans people: employment discrimination, health care, sex work, and law enforcement.

Getting a job can be difficult for anyone these days.  But when you are visibly trans, a significant number of opportunities become completely closed to you.  Accurate identification often carries surgery requirements and sometimes just can’t be obtained.  That leaves trans people without accurate identification the choice to be outed in their job application or to work as undocumented workers.  Being turned down from one job based on discrimination is one thing, but many trans people find themselves unemployable, when job after job after job refuses to consider them for employment.  A 2006 study by the Transgender Law Center found that 35%, roughly a third, of transpeople were unemployed.  Additionally, 57% had experienced employment discrimination in some form.  This is the kind of thing that can radically change people’s lives

I remember when I went to school on this campus and I was just beginning to come out.  I made a friend who was also just coming out and beginning her transition.  She worked in the Clark Honor’s College departmental office at the time.  She decided to come out to her boss and the next day she was fired.  Being in mid-transition is the worst time to find yourself without a job.  Especially for transwomen, it means an extra level of visibility and many employers would rather just not deal with the impact that has on customers. 

For six months she tried to get a job and failed.  After volunteering for the local feminist bookstore for a while she applied for an opening.  Now Mother Kali’s has been a good resource for many transpeople, but it wasn’t always that way.  Word got back to her that the reason she wasn’t given that job was because she had “male energy.”  And during this whole time she was dealing with the aftermath of an abusive relationship that left her isolated.  Her lease was expiring and without an income she couldn’t renew it.  So she had to move back to her home town where there were more friends she could couch surf with.  She was a promising Political Science student but had no other choice but drop out because she couldn’t survive in Eugene.  For a while she lost access to phone or internet and we lost touch.  Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from her in almost three years and I don’t have any idea how she is doing.

Not only are trans people more often un- or under-employed, but we often have higher living expenses as well.  Transition costs money.  There often are expenses for a new wardrobe, breast forms, binders, laser hair removal or electrolysis, hormones, doctor’s visits, blood work, and surgeries.  Quite often you just don’t have the money to do everything on schedule.  Not even thinking about surgery for a moment, I’ve seen many friends skip a needed laser session or even stop their hormones in order to meet their rent.  Unfortunately, doing so can send someone right back into the space of being a highly visible trans person which can lead to more harassment on the job and a more difficult time finding work – not to mention the impacts it can have on self esteem to feel like you’re going backwards.

This brings us to the topic of health care.  This year there are two people on this list who died from being denied medical care.  There are certainly plenty of bigoted doctors who simply refuse to provide medical care for freaks like us.  However, there are plenty of well meaning doctors who are simply hesitant to provide care for someone whose biology they weren’t taught about it medical school.  In most cases, treating trans people is just like treating non-trans people.  Cancer is cancer, AIDS is AIDS.  Nonetheless, it can sometimes become very difficult to find doctors willing to treat trans people.

Additionally, trans people often need to seek medical assistance for our transitions.  This trans-specific medical care is something that many capable doctors may flat out refuse to do or might do only after you have satisfied their own personal set of requirements to prove that, yes, you are really trans.  There are some trans people who opt to go with black or gray market hormones and self-medicate as opposed to working with doctors who require they act and behave in restrictive views of the proper manner for someone of their gender.  This can be dangerous too, as you never know what you’re getting when you obtain unregulated medications, and without proper dosing and bloodwork there are a myriad of risks you are put at.

When I was seeking a doctor to help me through this process, I found only two that regularly do it in Eugene.  And while I applaud them both for being willing to help a community in need, they both needed a lot more education.  The doctor I went to had less medical knowledge on the subject than most of my friends.  She proscribed a full dose of a new medication – something you’re not supposed to do – and then confusing it with a different type of medication she told me to do the exact opposite of what was needed for my diet, and had I followed her advice it would have caused a state of hyperkalemia which induces heart attacks and comas.  It was only idle chat with a self-medicating friend who took the time to educate herself about hormone replacement therapy that saved me from a potentially fatal mistake.

Even when trans people do have access to adequate medical care, both private insurance and state health coverage like OHP have trans exclusion clauses.  These make certain that all transition and related care is paid for out of pocket, but overzealous claims administrators have used them to deny trans people virtually every kind of medical care.  In one extreme instance a trans woman who broke her arm while playing in a lesbian softball league could not get her treatment covered because her insurance claimed that she wouldn’t have been playing in the league in the first place if she hadn’t transitioned.

All of these costs come together and many people just can’t foot the bill.  In this circumstance, it can be easy to get into sex work, and sometimes that’s the only option.  When everyone else might as well be hanging signs that say “Trans people need not apply” the sex industry is posting wanted ads for trans women.  Because it’s mostly under the table, it’s an accessible job for immigrants without documentation.  Even when it’s not the only option, it can be tempting.  At minimum wage, it can take upwards of 3,000 hours to earn enough for surgery – and that’s between the hours you work for your living expenses.  Working as a prostitute you can raise that same amount in just over 100 hours.  At least one friend of mine has seen this as her only real option for financing surgery.  When I got into the sex industry I was working a quarter-time tutoring job that I found quite fulfilling.  But an offer to make more than a month’s wages in an hour and a half photoshoot was compelling.

Additionally, in a twisted way trans women are valued in the sex industry.  Despite the objectification and exotification, it can feel good to finally be desired for who you are instead of hated for it – even if it’s under non-ideal circumstances.  I’m not the only one who noticed that while my coworkers, classmates, and queer allies struggled to get my pronouns right, those I encountered in the sex industry never got them wrong for a second.

One of the things about the sex industry, though, is that the working conditions change drastically depending on your individual resources and need.  I have another job so I don’t have a problem just doing the occasional photoshoot, but if sex work is your primary income, it’s almost impossible to get enough work to support yourself that way.  And working as a prostitute, if you have enough money than you can hire security, if you don’t then you’re on your own.  If you’ve got a computer, internet and money for a pre-paid cell phone then you can pick up clients virtually, otherwise you might have to work the street.  If you’ve got a house and rent money already, then you can trust your instincts and turn down a client that creeps you out.  If you’re homeless or need that rent money by the end of the week, you might be willing to compromise your safety to get a place to stay for the night.

Because of the economic factors, a lot of trans women do become involved in sex work.  Yet media representations of trans women put even more of an emphasis on the connection.  It gets to the point where some people seemingly forget that trans women ever do anything else.  There are countless stories of trans women just minding their everyday business get propositioned by random strangers who read them as trans and assumed that they’re a prostitute.  Unfortunately, the police often buy into this same assumption and profile trans women as sex workers.  That means that trans women are often harassed by police about sex work, and that is worse if they are homeless, a person of color, or don’t speak English well and are already being harassed for that.  And trans women who are involved in sex work are disproportionately likely to be caught because of this targeting by law enforcement.

Being caught by police can mean a wide variety of things.  Sometimes we’re talking about legal consequences.  And even a small conviction can be devastating because it makes it that much harder to get a job outside of the sex industry and also many insurance companies will refuse to cover people with prostitution convictions.  And then we’re talking about employment and health care again. 

But not all consequences are legal.  There are many times where law enforcement officers see sex workers as easy sources of sex.  They might justify their actions in terms of sexual favors in exchange for leniency, but sex by coercion is rape.  Police hold real power over sex workers and “have sex with me or I’ll ruin your life” is little better than “have sex with me or I’ll kill you.”  Whether by coercion or physical force, police rape sex workers pretty regularly.  A 2002 Chicago-based study of women in the sex trade found that 30% of exotic dancers and 24% of street based sex workers who had been raped identified a police officer as the rapist.

Consequences like these can instill a community fear of law enforcement.  I have not been raped or assaulted by police, but I know people who have been.  And I’ll admit that I’ll hesitate to call police even when I’m the victim of a crime.

Christina Sforza is a perfect example of why so many of us are afraid to call the police.  She was at a McDonalds in New York where the men’s room was out of order.  Because she was just beginning to transition she asked the staff if it would be okay if she used the women’s room and they said everyone was using the women’s room that day.  But when she went in, the manager came after her with a led pipe, knocked out several teeth and beat her while the McDonalds customers crowded around chanting “Kill the faggot, kill the faggot.”  Her friend called the police.  When they arrived they refused to talk to her, only talking to the manager.  Then they arrested her without telling her why and forced her to leave her insulin behind.  They put handcuffs on her so tight that they had to take her to the hospital to have them removed.  After her arrest she went back to the police station to file a complaint against the officers who arrested her.  She was told that if she filed it they would arrest her for filing a false complaint.

Part of being trans means that if you ever find yourself being attacked, you need to calculate whether calling the police will help or hurt you.  That hesitation can mean the difference between life and death.  And so can having the wrong officer respond to your call.  In many of the unsolved murders of trans people, the community and friends of the victim suspect that a police officer was involved in the killing.

This suspicion is furthered when law enforcement frequently dismisses cases of violence against trans people.  When Erica Keel was killed, both witnesses and the responding officer’s handwritten log indicate that it was a hit and run.  However, police officials insist that there was no criminal intent and refuse to press charges or even conduct an investigation.  When friends of Erica, who are also trans, questioned police officials about the classification of Erica’s death as an “accident,” they were asked to disclose their birth names and were told they were “trying to make something out of nothing.”

Many of the systems built into law enforcement harm trans people.  In trying to place trans people into gender segregated facilities officials rely on the notion that external perspectives hold more legitimacy than trans people’s own self-determiniation.  This approach ensures that law enforcement learns to think of trans people as deceptive and not worth listening to.  In Portland a trans woman was arrested while participating in protests of the beginning of the Iraq war.  She was separated from other protesters because of her trans status and strip searched to “verify” her gender.  She had undergone the same treatment in previous arrests and pleaded with officers to check the records instead of stripping her naked again.   They chose to proceed anyway.

The placement of trans prisoners is often based on ID and documentation of their gender.  However, the people most likely to come in contact with the law enforcement are less likely to have the privileges and resources to obtain accurate ID.  Governor Kulongoski signed an executive order last Friday which denies undocumented immigrants the opportunity to get a driver’s license.  Policies that rely on documentation won’t be applicable in those cases. 

For any women, being placed in a male prison is extremely dangerous and there’s no exception for trans women.  It’s not just prisoners that perpetrate violence against trans women, but guards often participate or purposefully allow violence to happen.  The horrors of this treatment was recently brought to the public eye last August when a non-trans woman in Washington D.C. was thought to be trans and put in a men’s facility.  They had strip searched her, but based on her androgynous appearance they assumed that she was a trans woman who had had genital surgery, and just like with trans people, her pleas for mercy were ignored.  The police later apologized profusely for the mistake but both the police and the media focused on how horrible it was to treat a non-trans woman like a trans women.  Such treatment was seen as nothing but cruel and unusual for a non-trans woman, but police saw nothing wrong with perpetuating the same violence against trans women regularly.

In addition to other violence, trans prisoners are regularly denied access to hormones and medication.  Despite a consensus among the medical community that such treatments are medically necessary, the prevailing attitude among prison officials is that they ought to be denied.  This creates an attitude where the medical needs of trans people are not considered important.  This is part of why the police left Christina’s insulin behind when they arrester her, and it is very much this attitude that was enacted when Victoria Arellano was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  She was in the middle of taking anti-biotics for pneumonia.   The San Pedro detention facility denied her medication even though it’s widely known the result of stopping anti-biotics before they have finished results in developing a drug resistant strain.  Her pleas for treatment went ignored.  She was eventually given AIDS medication, but nothing was done for her pneumonia and meningitis.  She died shackled to her bed.

She had effectively been sentenced to death for the crime of existing in places that others didn’t want her to be in.  Yet when it comes to both national and gender borders, we didn’t cross the borders, the borders crossed us.  Her placement in a men’s facility named San Pedro underscores that.

Sometimes all of this can be too much.  At this time of year I read story after story of violence, hatred, and people who were for a variety of reasons, considered disposable.  Sometimes it’s important to take a break and just feel.  Feel pain.  Feel anger.  Feel frustration.  And when I’m ready to immerge from the world of despair, I can always find a glimmer of hope.  Inside each story alongside the violence I also find community, support, and love.  Thalia died trying to defend her friend from anti-trans violence.  Erica’s friends are not giving up and are fighting the police to open an investigation.  And when Victoria was housed in a male detention center, the other detainees cared for her when the officials turned their back on her.  They stayed by her side, administering cold compresses to help bring down her fever.  When she was too weak to move herself they took turns helping her to the bathroom.  And despite the uncertainty of their own future, 70 of them signed a petition asking for her to receive medical care.  After her death, dozens of organizations, queer organizations, immigration organizations, race organizations, AIDS organizations, health care organizations, and human rights organizations, all came together to protest.  And in an open letter to those in charge of the facility and up the chain of command they listed several demands to ensure that abuses like this do not continue.

Tonight we focus on the stories that don’t end well.  I like to remind myself that there are many more stories that are close calls, where someone stood up, where law enforcement protected us instead of preyed on us, stories that might be dark but end well.  And there are stories that are victories.  This past year Oregon passed a gender identity non-discrimination policy.  Despite opposition from the Human Rights Campaign, 360 queer organizations stood up and demanded a similar policy federally.  Activists are pushing for decriminalization of sex work that reduces the penalties placed on this survival crime.  Coalitions are forming to push back on anti-immigrant policies like Kulongoski’s recent executive order and the Shuler-Tancredo bill.  And throughout everything, the stories that don’t end well and those that do, there is community.  People coming together, supporting each other, speaking up, and making change.  Through everything the message is clear, we may die, but we will never be silent, and we will never stop helping each other.

Letter to Just Out Editor

I posted a bit ago about trying to get an article into Just Out.  Well, they finally printed my letter to the editor.  It’s a fun little satire about ENDA that underscores the end result of an incrementalist approach.  You can check it out at http://www.justout.com/archives/issues/01_04_08/

Just click on page 5, I’m at the top.

Now that the dust has settled.

In the midst of things, it was almost impossible to keep track of everything going on with ENDA. There was a pervasive sense from day one that the Human Rights Campaign was not just absent, but actually working against us. Evidence of that didn’t come out until much later.

I wrote this as a way to try to keep track of everything that happened during the ENDA debacle. It was written for a queer paper in Portland, but they didn’t want to print it. Apparently they didn’t like it as an article from a freelancer and they don’t do guest commentaries. I’ve been asked to write them a letter to the editor instead, but it’ll be small enough that I won’t be able to include information about the timeline, so I’m posting this article here.

What is up with the HRC?

Now that ENDA-light has passed the house, it’s confusing to know what’s going on. The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) sent out a celebratory press release leading one friend of mine to assume that the full ENDA had passed, yet as the other press releases trickle in from LGBTQ organizations across the country, the tone is one of mourning.

While some may be confused, the passage of ENDA-light really is a step backward, not forward. Considering the way congress works, passing two versions of ENDA is not possible. It’s quite conceivable that the full ENDA, the version protecting the entire LGBT community, could be passed in 2009. However, this vote makes it more likely that it will be ENDA-light, the version that excludes protections based on gender, that will pass in 2009. If that happens, estimated timelines for adding gender in after the fact are being measured in decades, not years. It’s unconscionable to ask trans and gender variant people to wait half a lifetime for protections so that sexual orientation protections can happen a year or two earlier, especially when an full ENDA is within grasp.

The now infamous vote count at the end of September showed there were the votes to pass the full ENDA in the house, but that there risk it might not survive an amendment to remove gender. Rep Barney Frank got scared and wanted a sure thing and he introduced ENDA-light. Years of work building coalitions and uniting organizations were brushed aside, all for a symbolic vote, while no one has claimed it has a chance of making it through the Senate or the White House to become law this year.

When Rep Frank got cold feet on passing the full ENDA, over 360 LGBTQ organizations formed the United ENDA campaign and stepped forward to show loud and clear support for trans-inclusion, and opposition to anything less. Tens of thousands of individuals got involved in a swell of grassroots power not often seen. This should have been enough support to carry the day, but Rep Frank with the HRC secretly by his side focused all their political energy against this swelling tide in order to ensure that gender identity was removed from ENDA. And in their haste to cut transpeople out of the bill’s protections, they also removed gender non-conforming queer folks. Under ENDA-light you can’t be fired for being gay or lesbian, but you can be fired for being butch or “acting gay.”

Their argument was one of incrementalism: if you win some rights for some people, no matter what the cost, that will build momentum for everyone else’s rights down the road. The problem is that every real world example shows that the opposite happens. If the HRC had been involved in local campaigns for non-discrimination policies they would see that it takes very little effort to include gender identity in a policy but that is very difficult and often impossible to add it in after the policy has been passed.

Additionally, if incrementalism was really the value to be followed, cutting out gender isn’t enough. The bill hasn’t been introduced in the Senate and Bush has said he will veto it. As lesbians are often seen as less threatening than gay men, why isn’t the HRC supported a lesbian-only-ENDA? And if we only got to keep our jobs if we gave a girl-on-girl make out show to our employers, well, that’s the kind of thing middle America could support, right? That might even survive a Bush veto.

Yet, the most disturbing thing about the HRC’s actions is their inability to keep their word. In 2004, after being protested for fighting against trans inclusion, the HRC pledged to only support a trans inclusive ENDA. Two months ago, while speaking at a trans conference, HRC Executive Director, Joe Solmonese, emphasized that pledge saying that they support a full ENDA and “actively oppose anything less.” It’s now clear that the HRC never intended to follow through and those statements were only appeasements meant to shut down criticism.

When the time to pony up came just two weeks after Solmonese’s statements, they did not want to reveal the depth of their deception and instead sent out a press release stating that they would neither support nor oppose ENDA-light, supposedly for the sake of their working relationship with Rep Frank. Soon after that the HRC announced that they had brokered a “deal” where ENDA-light would come to a vote and the full ENDA would be shelved until Rep Frank was sure there were the votes for it. They still denied supporting ENDA-light, despite insider sources claiming that they were. In fact, it has now been revealed that the same day they claimed to neither oppose nor support ENDA-light, the HRC was secretly conducting a push poll to build ammunition against the full ENDA.

All of this might have gone under the radar, but the voices of grassroots activists were being heard. Several democrat representatives were listening to their LGBTQ constituents and were prepared to vote no on any ENDA until the full ENDA could be voted on. The vote was scheduled for Tuesday November 6^th, but supporters of ENDA-light were not sure that they had enough votes. And that’s when the HRC decided to go public.

Speaker Pelosi delayed the vote 24 hours so that HRC could put the pressure on any LGBTQ supporters who had been moved by their constituents. They announced their support for ENDA-light and let representatives know that if they took a principled stand and voted against the bill it would be scored against them on the HRC report card. Being the only LG(BT) organization to rate federal representatives, this held a lot of sway.

They also released their poll, supposedly conducted a week earlier, claiming that 70% of LGBTQ people wanted ENDA-light. LGBT journalists Rex Wockner and Cynthia Laird publicly questioned the details and timeline of the poll being released. Only after the House voted on ENDA-light did the HRC release further information indicated the poll really happened on Oct 2-5 and that the language of their question inserted the assumption that ENDA-light would help the eventually addition of gender instead of hinder it.

Nonetheless, the push worked. The following day ENDA-light passed. The United ENDA campaign might have been successful if it weren’t for the last minute actions of the HRC. It’s easy to imagine that if they had spent as much energy pushing for an inclusive ENDA as they did in fighting for a non-inclusive ENDA, the full version would likely have passed the House by now.

In their last push for ENDA-light, the HRC was finally forced to reveal themselves. They had secretly broken their pledge a while back, but now they publicly reversed their pledge and acted against their own board policy. It’s clear to anyone who can use google that they’ve been lying to their membership for some time. They’ve had prominent activists resign their positions in protest, including their first and only transgender board member. They’ve lost funders and HRC members are canceling their memberships. Protests have resumed and are steadily growing in numbers. Calls for Solmonese’s resignation are being made. It’s time we as a community are clear about whether or not this is the kind of behavior we will tolerate and how we will deal with it.

The ENDA Game

I wrote an article for my local Weekly paper about the recent everything going on with ENDA.  I didn’t get to title it, but I rather like what they came up with.  Especially if you don’t already know what’s going on, check out The ENDA Game: The Rush to Exclude Transpeople — And the Heartening Response.

It was hard for me to write anything about ENDA for a while, as I was stuck in shock and could hardly see past my furious anger.  Anything that I would have written then would probably amount to “Fuck You!” written several dozen times on the page.  But after a little more than a week had passed, I was calm enough to write this.
The fun thing about writting this is that I used a reporting style but didn’t have to be objective or pretend to be objective at all.  Here are my two favorite examples of that:

“In a move last week that shocked many LGBT activists, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Barney Frank decided that they know what the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) community needs better than the LGBT community does.”

“Pelosi and Frank have pledged, however, that if there does not seem to be the support for the full version, they will move forward with the ineffective and divisive version of ENDA.“