TransGriot Note: Essay from GIEC President Teresa Ellen Reeves. My assessment of it in a later post
***
Trans Revolution Against Lies & Deception at GIEC December 5. 2010***New President Takes Helm Declares No More Lies
The Last Captain of The Titanic
Hello, everyone!
My
name is Teresa Reeves. Just one month ago today, November 12, 2010 , I
received a really big surprise message. I was told by our outgoing
president at Gender Identity Empowerment Coalition (GIEC) that I had
been named Acting President! This was occurring 15 days after she had
announced her resignation to to major health problems October 28. I was
the Vice President and "Co-Executive". There is an expected line of
succession in a job like this that says the Vice President fills in if
the President is ill or incapacitated. But 15 days late?
I
had been suddenly named Vice President back on October 9, but before I
could even ratify the honor in a GIEC Board telephone conference, the
New President was hospitalized suffering from seizures, migraine
headaches and hearing voices. So our second Board phone conference was
canceled for the first time and would eventually be canceled five more
times because of her illness and PTSD flashbacks suffered by our GIEC
co-founder and Executive Director who was an Afghanistan war veteran,.
In the 34 days of my holding that office I was never told what my role
as VP was or just what my "co-executive" authority was..
When
I took office as Acting President, I found it to be underwhelming.
There had been an attrition of Board members with each canceled phone
conference, so as I achieved this great honor there seemed to be no one
left to congratulate me. They had all abandoned ship. The once mighty
GIEC had no Board members left, so there could never be a second board
meeting. Board meetings are conducted to do company business and to
enable a cohesive bond to be formed between Board members and Board
executives that allows for the division and exercise of authority. I
was now the President of any empty ship, all that was left of a big
dream that was sinking fast. And I was handcuffed and chained to the
ship's wheel. We had struck an iceberg and I was now The Last Captain
of the Titanic.
What were they thinking when they let me carry their banner in the Seattle Dyke March on June 27, 2009?
What were they thinking when they began to shun & exclude me 17 days later on July 14, 2009?
Beyond the Broken Dream!
All
things were bright and beautiful on the morning of May 1, 2010. I had
gotten my life back, three years after I had been able to be home after
being homeless and living in a shelter for almost 7 years in Seattle
from March 14, 2000 until February 10, 2007, a total of 2,524 nights.
That story is to be found in my Real Change News essay, "Beyond
Invisibility & Silence" (see my wall) that was published on June 23,
2010. I had survived twenty years of despair and depression and the
death of my mother from Alzheimer's disease.
i had found
frustration and disappointment in coming back to life.. I was searching
for the long lost community of trans, feminists, lesbian and LGBT people
where I once had been accepted and respected. But the LGBT Center in
Seattle was closed. There was no Lesbian center, no Women's center. And
although I spent 47 weeks with them I found myself unwanted at the
leading transgender organization in Seattle where my offers to
facilitate were ignored despite my abilities, skills, training and
experience as a counselor. I found myself humiliated at another trans
organization in town. (see "The Last T in Seattle") I took a chance
with the newer and better lesbian community that I was told was more
accepting of trans women, only to find myself lovingly accepted at
first, but later to be shunned and excluded for not being a "real" woman
or lesbian.(see "Tear Down This Wall!")
Was I the first ever transwoman ever to be captured in a photo leading a lesbian group?
I
had the opportunity to tell my story to Gloria Steinem in front of an
audience of 800 at Town Hall Seattle on July 10, 2009. It was said I
was inspirational and people were crying! The women of WHEEL got to
meet Gloria and she even signed my songbook of songs I've written and
sung!..
... but four days later before I could even tell the lesbian
group of this great moment in my life, I found myself beginning to be
shunned & excluded!
But I had made what must be the greatest most miraculous transwoman comeback of all time!
I
had found acceptance and respect as a woman among women as a writer,
advocate, facilitator and speaker with WHEEL (Women's Housing Equality
& Enhancement League) and its partners in the homeless community of
Seattle. I had the honor of being able to tell my story to Gloria
Steinem in front of an audience of 800 at Town Hall.on July 10,
2009.(see "Sic Transit Gloria".. I was honored to be asked to emcee
the 15th Annual Homeless Women's Forum luncheon on November 18, 2009
and I led the singing of the 150+ women in the audience! And I was
invited to join the Editorial Committee and I have been a contributing
writer to Real Change News.
Teresa Reeves, emcee, 15th Annual Homeless Women's Forum luncheon November 18, 2009
I
found my way on the internet in February 2010 and in just three months I
had built a news and information network of friends on Facebook to
1,700 people. I had finally found the long lost Sisterhood and
Brotherhood of trans people! And because I found so many new friends in
the Seattle area, momentum was building toward that wonderful day when I
would be reconciled with the Seattle trans community and I would be
invited to come back as a guest speaker!
The message I
received that morning of May 1 from was from Dr. Arianna Davis of the
Gender Identity Coalition (GIDC- on Facebook as Gen Id). She said that
she had read my story and that it had in so many ways paralleled her own
story and she liked the way I was doing things in my management of
news and information in behalf of trans people and homeless people. She
was inviting me to join GIDC as a California state representative and
member of their Board of Directors.I had to point out to Arianna that I
lived in Washington State -- to which she replied, "You can be their
representative as well!".
So here I was this lost child in
The Promised Land - a trans woman lost in the Emerald City of Seattle
looking for my lost community locally and here I was being offered this
whole new world like the Emerald City of Oz. Oz (or GIDC) rather was
the huge community of over 2,000 friends growing at the rate of a 1,000 a
month, a huge organization with dozens of staff members and a huge
Board of Directors, andI was going to be one of two dozen important
people-- expert professionals in all fields and Gen Id's photo albums
were so impressive with dozens of pictures of that incredible Board and
my picture was included! I had been welcome as a leader in a national
and international trans advocacy organization andIi was becoming
nationally famous. but almost all of my new friends were a thousand
miles away. but not even this good news had any effect on the local
trans community, a community that continued to ignore me no matter what I
was doing. I was nationally famous and locally unknown.
It
seemed like GIDC was involved in everything everywhere. They announced a
series of coordinated marches across the country called Trans Uprising
2010, scheduled May 29 & 30.
There was a upcoming
Trans March on Washington D.C in an effort to secure passage of a
trans-inclusive ENDA (Employment Non Discrimination Act) law on May 24.
But
then I was asked to do something impossible. Start a Washington chapter
of GIDC which would change its name to Gender Identity Empowerment
Coalition (GIEC) in a few days. I was anguished about even trying to
start something in a town where i was invisible. I sent a plaintive plea
to GIEC: "You are asking me to open a coffee shop across the street
from a Starbucks, and it is the only coffee shiop in town!" It took
five days for a reply to come back: "We're behind you 120%!". But they
were all in California. But I did get strong backing from Misha Balch
from Gender Alliance of the South Sound in Tacoma.
So on
June 1, 2010 I proudly announced through a pictorial essay, "Trans
Empowerment in Washington State: Welcome to Gender Identity Empowerment
Coalition." (see Note). It was well received nationally, even
internationally, but virtually ignored by everyone locally again. I
found out that I was the only one to even try to establish a state
chapter and certainly the only one ever to announce one.
There
had been a GIEC plan to attend and participate in protests of a violent
transmisogynistic movie which exploits the blood, suffering and even
murder of transwomen for laughs called "Ticked off Tra**ies With
Knives". This hateful movie was first confronted by Educational Protests
initiated by Ashley Love in New York at the Tribeca festival, and there
were plans to pursue the movie in protests when it opened in Ft. Worth
in June and New Orleans.later on.
But a disturbing pattern
of behavior was beginning to emerge at GIEC. They were announcing a
wide range of upcoming events that they were initiating or participating
in, but the events either don't happen, or they happen without GIEC
involvement. But they were such a big organization and they were doing
so many things at once and perhaps they were spreading themselves too
thin. At least that was the way it appeared behind the Gen Id logo, the
Emerald curtain. You could hide a whole lot of people and stuff behind
that curtain-- or you could hide absolutely nothing at all.
The
only successful GIEC event ever accomplished was this protest of the
hateful violent transmisogynistic movie "Ticked off Tra**ies With Knives
on June 12 & 13, 2010 in Seattle. Pictured with me are Elayne
Wylie-Weichers & Misha Balch (left & center)
I
received a urgent message from Kelli Anne Busey of Dallas Transgender
Advocates. She had mounted a protest of "Ticked Off"'s second premiere
on June 5 in Fort Worth. asking me if I and GIEC could demonstrate and
educate against this film's upcoming premiere in Seattle in what she
thought would be less than 30 hours. Fortunately Kelli's information
was wrong and I had 7 days. But support and backing offered to me from
GIEC never materialized and i was fortunate to receive help from Misha
Balch, on behalf of GASS, Elayne Wiley-Weichers acting on her own and
Comrade Alita , my friend in GIEC who provided a sign during her
graveyard shift lunch hour but could not stay for the protest. So the
protest did come off on Saturday June 12, but not at all on Sunday the
13th. (see note "Trans Empowerment in Seattle").
The
leading local trans organization did nothing to help our protest. Two
of their transwomen bloggers made fun of our protest. one referring to
it as "Look Out Mr. Luna (the director), the Tra**ies Are Out to Get
You" and the other calling the movie "Ticked Off Tra**ies Gonna Get You
Sucker". and when I returned home that Sunday night, I found I had
been deleted by tjhe first woman's transman husband for criticizing her.
Although
the effort in Seattle was not met with the greatest of success, the
efforts did convince film festivals in other cities not to select to
show the film, but instead to select films with more positive
portrayals of trans people.
But I had been able to accomplish the first and only completed GIEC sponsored event ever!
A few days later, I had two new assistants join me on the Washington team. But there was something going on at the home office that wasn't making any sense. It
was the official policy that GIEC condemned the use of the word
"Tra**y" as a perjorative word felt by Ashley Love, dozens of trans
activists nationally and perhaps 75% of all trans-identified people to
be as bad as the "n*****" word.
But the very kind transman
who was brought on as my assistant had been the emcee for an
entertainment program of talented trans people called the "Tra**y Road
Show" and he had won a scholarship for doing it. And he had not wanted
to protest the movie because having been a victim of transphobic
violence, he found it empowering to see the trans women victims rise up
against their attackers.
But he announced that he was
brought on by GIEC because he was sponsoring a national demonstration
called "TransDenny Day" which protested the mistreatment of a trans
woman denied use of a public restroom in Maine Denny's 3 years ago. But
the court in Maine had ruled in favor of a state law that supports
non-discrimination of trans people. There seemed to be no urgency or
real need for this protest andI I ended up doing more promotion of it
that he did.
GIEC & Trans Empowerment in Tacoma July 10, 2010
I
was fortunate that I was finally able to meet him and an attorney who
was also my assistant and a GIEC Board member on July 10. But although
they were dedicated to providing service and support in their own way in
their communities, at no time ever did they ever act as my assistants
on anything.
.
What Lies Beneath, What Lies Behind the Emerald Curtain
As time moved on and the pace picked things started to get more bizarre, just plain wacky.
GIEC
announced it had brought on a transman as editor of the new GIEC
magazine, Gender Voices and I was asked to write an article about
homelessness.
There was supposedly talk of GIEC trying to
established shelters for homeless trans people and sex workers, where
and how much money was going to be spent was never clear.
I
had received a message relayed to me from "Hillary Swank" The problem
was that the message was sent to a GIEC staff member, had no reply or
return address and had misspelled her name with two Ls. A private
investigator responded to my query that this "Hillary" was authentic--
but I still had nothing I could do with the message.
By
mid July GIEC was offering itself up as a charity although it did not
have proper documents or 501c3 status as a nonprofit. They were offering
grants for various kinds of surgery and treatments on Facebook and they
found themselves inundated by thousands of messages asking for these
grants.
but a financial crisis was looming by mid-July
because our founder's mother had been in a car accident and she had an a
bill of $11,000 bill to pay. With thousands of people clamoring for
money and a shortfall in available funds, lots of people were not
receiving grants that were promised to them and they were getting angry.
Somebody suggested a brilliant fundraising, idea everybody donate $1 a month!
My assistant tells about his Tra**y Road Show and suggests we put on a show to raise money!
Shortly
thereafter a transwoman and her partner are insulted, misgendered
humiliated and mistreated at a hospital in Muncie, Indiana GIEC wants to
hold a press conference in West Hollywood on July 30 and in Muncie in
August, and we're all going.. aren't we?
Of course no
magazine is produced, there is no road show and no press conference in
Muncie or West Hollywood and two more press conferences that could have
been held over mistreatment of trans women in California hospitals are
not held.. And GIEC can't t keep its promises.to those waiting for
grants.
Then on July 30 GIEC was announced a really big event. It's a
Trans Strategy Conference to be held at Soka University in Aliso
Viejo, California, and there will be scholarships and grants for those
who wish to attend. Like me. It will be held in late August, or September or October or November
It
was to be postponed and rescheduled definitely 7 times. I finally
canceled it in my first official act as President .Even though our
founder vowed it would go on Thanksgiving weekend over her dead body if
necessary! And no one, including me, ever received those scholarship
grants.
On August 7, a friend, Sara Beth came to me with a
blog post from a former housemate of our founder's alleging fraud and
misrepresentation and criminal misconduct in her past.. There is nothing
in the charges that can be substantiated and the accuser had enough of
his own persona llegal and criminal problems and he did not want to name
names.
But an emerging pattern of exaggeration,
procrastination , grandiosity was beginning to become palpable. On
conversational threads at GIEC There were plans announced for mutiple
regional trans "empowerment centers" "trans-only shelters" and a huge
high speed mega communications network-- all projects that could cost
millions while GIEC funds continued dwindling
Teresa at new Real Change office with departing editor Adam Hyla August 2010
The Dark Side of the Moon
But anything and everything began to unravel on August 12, 2010 at 11:27 am. Our
founder announced in a message "Making Use of Time" that she was
suffering from brain bleeding that would shorten her life unless there
was emergency brain surgery.
From this moment on GIEC its
reputation, its credibility and integrity went into free fall continuing
on for the next four months until today.
Critics found
the timing of the illness, to be terribly convenient , just as some had
found her mother's car accident to be convenient and suggested that her
medical condition was a fraud.
Suddenly what appeared to be the
crowded organization behind the Emerald curtain had suddenly become
deserted.. Long time staff members Monica Seaton and Kali Sucherup had
vanished without saying goodbye. Drop in visitors no longer dropped in.
There seemed to be only 2 people left in the GIEC office, the founder
and the secretary. But suddenly there was a new Vice President brought
on and there never was any Board meeting to confirm her because there
was never any real Board,. it was all just window dressing. Including
me. We were all just "advisers".
There was a plan in
place. The founder would step aside for her surgery and recovery and
the Vice president would take over as President. As the day of the
surgery approached, all those who were asking unanswerable questions and
challenged the credibility and integrity of GIEC found that they wee
confronted by a regime hunkered down in a bunker mentality.
Monica
Roberts and Sara Beth
led the demand for the truth and some of the
regime defenders were trash talking hurling back insults and personally
attacking Sara Beth over petty stuff like her name. I personally found
the regime defenders to be far more vicious that the detractors, when I
got trashed for asking the unanswerable questions even though I was a
member of GIEC.
As the day approached for the surgery our
founder was despondent and talked of hara-kiri to save face on Facebook.
A remark that drew no response for hours. Later a former GIEC associate
who had supposedly received a grant sent a message-- "You're a fraud.
Take your life!"
But the new President had shutdown GIEC's
official pages and all official GIEC communication had gone to the
"Dark Side of the Moon". An orbiting spacecraft signal to Earth is
blocked by the moon when orbiting the Dark Side, so there are lengthy
periods of radio silence. And GIEC's official radio silence would stay
on the Dark Side for more than two months.
Fearful of
losing our founder and of the entire collapse of GIEC, I started a 17
person thread of GIEC people who were now silent after having been
hyperactive in the days before. I suggest that somebody after i had
already get over to her profile and cheer her up. If i was facing such
scary surgery, i would need it badly.
The credibility
issue over the need for emergency could have been resolved simply but
was muddied over an assertion of right to privacy laws (HIPAA). If I
were undergoing such surgery i might not want any visitors and certainly
no photos. But releasing the name of the surgeon and the name of the
hospital afterward even days later would demonstrate innocence. But if
no such surgery occurred I would want to assert my privacy rights!
The
17 person thread evolved into the necessary reorganization plan
including the creation of a real sitting Board with authority. But it
deteriorated into infighting. The new President had no public relations
skills or abilities and a had managed to avoid public contact as much as
possible by making it difficult to communicate with GIEC. She had
demanded that the prior Board step forward and take responsibility for
this mess knowing well that she only rose to power because there was no
Board to certify her or not.
When I complained that I had
been the only one to carry forth the philosophy and mission of GIEC in
last four months, I was told by the president that anything i had done
before she arrived in July did not count in her eyes. Since i had to"
friend" her on September 2, it was indeed likely that she knew nothing
of what I had been doing for GIEC prior to September 2. So she ended up
saying that I hadn't earned and didn't deserve appreciation or thanks
from GIEC. When I was ready to quit from being insulted and
disrespected a transman and close personal friend proceeded to mock me
and suggest that i was some kind of crybaby and that in his eyes i
didn't deserve4 thanks. "What do you want? The keys to the President's
office?" , he mocked. But he was damn prophetic.
After
taking the verbal beating on the 17 person thread for trying to save the
founder and GIEC I was so disgusted from being disrespected i was ready
to explode and ready to b;ow the whistle on all the lies and deception
through September 19. Of he 17 people I had chosen for that thread,
people who I thought were my friends had not given me any back up at
all. But the "recovering" founder saved me and ordered apologies be made
to me. I got an apology from the man who mocked me, but never one from
our rogue President.
The View from the Bottom of Credibility Canyon
Peace
had been made and the founder was doing the right thing and a real
Board meting took place as a telephone conference on Monday September
20. The founder had wanted to make it up to me for all that had
happened so she said was going to send me a plane ticket and an event
ticket to attend a ACLU-hosted "Garden Party" that was being held an O J
Simpson's former home in Brentwood on Sunday September 26.. I was
having to purchase an evening gown. But I never did receive an
invitation or a plane ticket and I messaged on Friday morning, September
24 wanting to know about the trip and it took half a day to hear from
the GIEC secretary that the event had been canceled for lack of funds.
But it is cruel for the founder not to tell me.
This was
supposed to make up for all that I had been through and it was all a
lie. But why lie to me? Again and again and again? I had stayed with
the organization because I thought the i founder had respected me. But
business had gone back to the way it had always been done. and GIEC was
in hibernation and I had stayed too long at the unfair.and all that lies
beneath and all that lies behind are the curtian are lies.
I
was aggravated even more .when that evening the founder published a
photo on Facebook of "Further facial surgery". She had talked of having
some cosmetic surgery around the time of the bleeding crisis. Now it was
beginning to look like there could be another explanation for what
actually happened on the day that the "emergency" surgery was to have
been performed and I was really pissed off.
On Sunday,
September 26, instead of being in L A with the temperature soaring to a
record 113 degrees, I posted on my wall a parody I had written of Rick
Nelson's famous "Garden Party" song where I took my best shot in anger.
If you want to shmooze with the bourgoisie.
Make sure you can ante up with the dough-re-me!
I
took the song down after I received a message from the secretary
chastising me for ridiculing and embarrassing GIEC. Now I know I
should have left it up there,
Just four days later on
September 30,
Monica Roberts would write in Trans Griot that GIEC is not
suffering from a credibility gap, but instead from a "Credibility
Chasm"!
By the first week of October I felt trapped and
abandoned while GIEC was in hibernation. When I was included in a group
message to leading trans writers by Ashley Love about her idea for a
MAGNET project supporting trans victims of bullying that she called
"Make it Better for..., I began to realize that there were people out
there who respected me and my abilities as a writer and advocate and I
was looking for hope for the future of my stepping away or breaking
away.
i was shocked and dismayed when i received a message
from the President. The beginning of it said...." Please step down as a
Board member... you are ill served as a member... and thank you for
your service." I was thoroughly disgusted. Then when I read more I
learned that I was asked to step to be Vice President! . What a lousy
way to write a good news message !It looks like they didn't have anyone
else in mind but me for the job.
And as I ascend to the
rank of Vice President I find myself descending deeper into Credibility
Canyon and I feared I would never see daylight again.
The Last Captain of The Titanic
I
was looking forward to our second telephone conference Board meeting.
where I would have a chance to form a cohesive bond the new Board andI
I would learn what my duties and responsibilities and what real
"Co-Executive" authority I had. But just a few days after I was named,
the new president was suffering a major health crisis with seizure,
migraine headaches, hearing voices and needing to be hospitalized. Six
times this second phone conference was canceled for the health problems
of the president or for PTSD flashbacks suffered by the founder, an
Afghanistan veteran.
But I was shocked when I saw on her
profile that our new president of less than 2 months had announced her
resignation. I fully expected that as Vice President I would be named
immediately as her successor at least temporarily, but instead it took
15 days for that message to be conveyed to me
So in all
the 34 days I had served as Vice President i was never to learn what my
duties or executive authority was and there would never be another board
meeting because with each cancellation we were losing more people who
left in disgust.
I complained out loud in a message after
the 6th cancellation. on November 10 ."You don't need a Board, a Vice
president or even a President at all if you want to continue doing
business the way it has always been done.'
When
I took office as Acting President I found it to be underwhelming. There
was no one left to congratulate me or even serve under my command.. The
once mighty GIEC had no Board members left, so there couldn't be a
second Board meeting to convey my authority. I was told by the outgoing
president that I have total authority but that I have to get board
permission for everything. But she never had board consent when she was
in charge and she had made a number of executive decisions.
I
was now the Captain of an abandoned ship, all that was left of a really
big, wonderful drea, sinking fast.. and I was handcuffed and chained to
the ship's wheel.
We had struck an iceberg and I was now The Last Captain of The Titanic.
Mutiny on the Titanic
There was only one way out of the impending typhoon.
"I have a plan, This is the only chance that GIEC can survive
And I am the only one who can pull this off.
We have to reverse course. We must tell the truth.
We must reveal all the lies. We need to have done it yesterday and long ago.
We have to unabandon our 4,700 friends and restore our public presence on Facebook.
Total honesty, full disclosure , absolute transparency!
It is the only way to win back their trust.
I will reveal all the lies that were told to me.
I will strive not to name names, but we all know who told the most lies.
I refuse to be the Last Captain of the Titanic I
demand administrative control over all GIEC pages and I demand
information and support for me in my role as your President. I want a
formal announcement in the form of a press release announcing my
ascension to President. You do not name people as executives to office
without public notice.
Because of
Facebook Security it took two weeks to gain administrative
authority.over GIEC pages. And my first official act was to cancel that 7
times postponed Trans Strategy Conference. The founder resisted saying
it she would over her own dead body see to it that it happened on
Thanksgiving weekend. When I told her I canceled in in twelve posts and
that she would be reversing the only executive order I'd given, she
backed down.
But nothing else was forthcoming Press
Release to organizational support , no necessary reports and documents. I
was told that two days before Thanksgiving , the "professionally
written" Press Release was almost done. Five days later, the Sunday
after Thanksgiving I was told that she got yelled out for trying to get
the guy to finish it.
I was so fed up I gave a warning. I am prepared to write two essays
1) Welcome to the New GIEC- an organization that has learned from its mistakes
2) Say goodbye to GIEC as it sinks under the weight of all the lies and deception
and which essay shall I write?
By
Sunday December 5 I was so thoroughly disgusted by the foot dragging
and lack of support from GIEC that I was ready to issue the last
ultimatum.
The finally came about over one last slap in the face by the resigned ex-President.
In
a fit of arrogance she had deleted me from her friends list while
maintaining contact everyone else at GIEC.. I confronted her over it and
she defended her wright to delete me.
But since she is
the ex=President and I am her successor I need administrative
information and she cannot be allowed to have free access to the
organization while disrespecting me as its leader.
I
thought I was going to end up in a siege situation and i intended to end
this endless misery once and for all. Either I get all my demands met
and all the promises made are fulfilled or I was prepared to open fire
and blow the ship out of the water at sunrise on December 7, Pearl
Harbor Day.
But until that day it was just me, just one voice crying out in vain..But then Tracy Bumpus spoke out and said,
"Why all the lies... why don't you just let Teresa take over?
apparently
sheihas a plan and is willing to do what you can't do and with all your
illness, seizures, PTSDs, mental and physical health problems, you are
just not fit to lead.
I said, "This lie is over! No more lies!"
and by mid afternoon the mutiny was over.and the founder said, "Teresa is in charge."
So
the completed "professionally written" press release was done and
posted and some information was coming to me. Bu that press release
wasn't written by a professional at all.
it was dated September 2010 and mislabeled my organizations of WHEEL and SHARE.
And the headline "Highly Capable New President" ? It sounded to Monica Roberts
like Fox's "Fair and Balanced" News. In other words, more lies!!
I
choose to believe that my being selected as Vice President and then
President of GIEC was the best choice our beleaguered and failing
organization could do. Even if at the beginning they handed me the job
because they thought that they could handle me, decieve me. In the end I
am the only one who can stop this organization from doing iself in. but
to chose me and expect me to remain silent would have been the worst
choice of all.
Epilogue
Gender
identity Empowerment Coalition is a wonderful dream of idea that three
people including Arianna Davis founded. An organization dedicated to
advocate for the Human Rights Civil Rights and and Equal rights of all
Trans-Identified, Intersex and Gender Diverse People. An organization
that is willing to take action and willing to take lead throughout the
world to stand up for our rights and our place as full and equal
partners in the LGBTIQQ community To seek the depathologization of
differences in gender identity and gender expression and allowing a
perjorative free diagnosis of us as a medical condition. A change in
laws to allow for trans-inclusion in ENDA and other nondiscrimination
laws.including our marriage rights, gender marker assignations, and
right to serve in the military without DADT.
We want to be
a clearing house providing news, information & resources for our
people and someday soon we will become a charity that can offer help in
limited ways.
But is this dream worth saving? Yes I think so!
Is this organization worth saving? Yes,
with the right person in charge it could be, and if there was a full
sitting board with real authority and we had a responsible treasurer or
financial officer
Am I the right person in charge? Perhaps,
but it's really up to you and to all the 4,600 friends who have stayed
with this organization despite our crises. We would like your feedback.
Would you like to join us in our dreams and to help to make our dreams
real and the lives of all trans-identified people better throughout the
world. This a call out to you. This is your chance. Come join us and do
something that matters and makes a difference.
Thank you for your consideration and for taking the time to read this very long message!
Teresa Ellen Reeves
December 12, 2010
Human Rights, Civil Rights, Equal Rights Are For Everyone!
Not just for Straight White Men, Not just for Lesbians, Gays & Bisexual!
Say Yes to Transsexual, Transgender, Intersex & Gender Diverse People!
Say Yes to Trans-Inclusion in Non-Discrimination Laws and Hate Crime Laws!
Say Yes to the Depathologization of Gender Identity and Gender Expression!
Teresa at Older Women's League, 2010
We had an educated, multicultural group of transpeople as our founders. One had a doctorate in biology and was handling our Science Committee.. We had two people with political science degrees. Our initial chair was an IFGE Trinity Award winner with a masters' degree in political science and had worked on Capitol Hill. We even had transmen involved who sat on major community boards. We had a well thought out, realistic multiyear multipronged plan to get us where we transpeople needed to go civil rights wise.. 
And you see the result ten years later. The assimilationist wing founded the white dominated NCTE in 2003 and we're no closer to trans civil rights equality and freedom than we were in 1999 or dealing with the issues that led to GIEC's founding..
Revisiting what happened with NTAC a decade ago makes me highly skeptical and pessimistic that Teresa can raise the USS GIEC to the ocean surface, tow it to dry dock, repair it, and send it back into battle refitted with new weapons and a new way of doing things when the same unresolved problems and negative taint is still attached to its name.
