The Chicago Trip

Hey TransGriot readers,
Finally woke up after getting into Louisville at 2 AM EDT from our trip to Chicago for the Remenyck Open fencing tournament. To be precise, we were in Evanston, IL on the picturesque Northwestern University campus.

AC, Dawn amd I were in a familiar position. We're climbing into some kind of vehicle and about to roll on an interstate highway. With the tune of the Blues Brothers version of Sweet Home Chicago dancing in my head, we shoved off at 8:15 AM EDT and headed north on I-65 for the 5 hour trip to Chicago.

The picturesque section of I-65 between Louisville and Indy I've done numerous times since I've moved up here and I love the scenery. For you shoppers, there are outlet malls on this stretch as well. I've even been to the IU-Bloomington campus, but this was the first time I was going to be travelling the section between Indianapolis and Chicago and I was excited about it. I have relatives in Gary and Chicago as well, but since the purpose of this day trip was to be part of Dawn's cheering section, I wasn't going to have enough time to visit them.

I also contacted blogger Jackie to let her know I was going to be in town, but her mom's been ill and she's been spending long hours visiting her at the hospital. Give your mom a hug for me and let her know I'll be saying a prayer or two for her to get well soon. ;)

We were originally planning on driving through Circle City, but after getting within range of the Indy metro area and discovering there was going to be construction on the Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds Highway, (yes peeps, in 1999 the 25 miles of I-65 through Indy was named for the Indianapolis native) we decided to hit the I-465 loop around the west side of Indy past the airport and pick up I-65 on the northwest side of town.

By the way, Vivica A. Fox is from Indy as well. What freeway are y'all gonna name for her? There's also a push by David Letterman fans to get the entire 60 mile I-465 loop officially named for him as well. The freeway is unofficially called by people in Indy the DLX or the David Letterman Bypass.

After a stop in West Lafayette, IN for breakfast, we resumed rolling toward Chicagoland through the flat plains of northwest Indiana and the farms dotting the landscape for miles. We jetted through the Merrillville suburbs and past the industrial blue-collar grit of Gary and Hammond to eventually cross over into Illinois via the Chicago Skyway.

We were within a few minutes of our final destination when we ran into (what else) bumper-to-bumper downtown area traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway. I call it from my numerous visits to Chicago the 'Damned Ryan'. We shifted gears and decided to get off the Dan Ryan and use Lake Shore Drive to get to the NU campus. This was also my first visit in the Chicago area since 1989, and as I stared out the window on a cloud-free and sunny 72 degree fall day I marveled at all the changes in Chicago since my last visit.

Eventually we arrived at the SPAC, as NU students refer to the Henry Crown Sports Pavilion around 1:15 PM Chicago time. AC and I had another solemn duty to perform before we could sit back and watch Dawn fence, so as she grabbed her equipment out of the hatch and hustled inside to check in for the tournament, we took off to perform that task.

Before AC's parents died, they expressed their wishes to be cremated and have their ashes scattered over Lake Michigan in Chicago, the city where his parents met. After saying a prayer and fulfilling that last request we headed back to the SPAC to take in some fencing action.

Dawn was warming up with her old LFC fencing partner Victoria Harris, AKA 'The Shark' when we returned. Tori's called 'The Shark' by her former LFC teammates because of her sly, toothy smile and her aggressive attacking fencing style that belies her diminutive size and shy personality. Tori and her parents moved to Chicago a few months ago and she was thrilled to see Dawn and a few of her old LFC teammates at this tournament.

Dawn went 2-3 in her pool matches and advanced into the Direct Eliminations, but lost a close 15-13 decision to eliminate her from the tournament. After hanging around to watch the finals, we rolled into a Giordano's in Morton Grove to grab some deep dish pizza and buy one to take back to Da Ville.

On our way to the Tri-State Tollway, we rolled through a section of Hillary Clinton's hometown of Park Ridge. That triggered a lengthy political discussion amongst us as we entered the Tri-State and began the journey home.

Hey, that's what happens when two of your best friends have political science degrees. ;)

While AC and I were disappointed for her that she didn't advance further into this tournament, she told us on the way back that she had fun and was actually pleased with her performance. She pointed out this was an 'A' rated tournament, that she won two matches in pools and lost the other three by 5-4 scores. Her ultimate goal was being ready for her first veterans division fencing tournament coming up in Richmond, VA on December 7.

She's recovering nicely from the ankle injury she sustained at last year's Nationals in Memphis and is counting the days until she steps on the fencing strip again. I'm just looking forward to the next time I can ride the interstates with my road dawgs.

Goin' To Chicago

Hey TransGriot readers,
Goin' to Chicago for the day to watch Dawn fence in a major tournament up there. Will tell y'all about it when I return.

I'll save some deep dish pizza for ya. ;)

The 1965 Dewey's Lunch Counter Sit-In

photo's Raleigh, NC sit in, Dr. Susan Stryker

The faith-based homophobes in our community continue to utter as they oppose our inevitable inclusion at the African-American family table the lie that we African-American GLBT people didn't take part in the 60's Civil Rights Movement.

Au contraire, my misguided friends.

The logistics of the 1963 March on Washington were planned by a gay man you may have heard of named Bayard Rustin. According to the late Coretta Scott King, gays and lesbians took part in many civil rights campaigns across the Deep South.

Thanks to Dr. Susan Stryker and Marc Stein's 2000 book City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves: Lesbian and Gay Philadelphia 1945-1972 ,we now have knowledge of another instance in which GLBT African-Americans stood up for their rights.

In April-May 1965 sit-ins took place at a Philadelphia diner called Dewey's Lunch Counter. The interesting twist about this protest is that it involved African-American gay and transgender people. It's probably the first documented instance of people protesting over anti-transgender discrimination.

Dewey's Lunch Counter was a popular downtown hangout spot for GLBT peeps. Citing the claim that gay customers were driving away other business, they began refusing to serve young patrons dressed in what they called 'non-conformist clothing.'

On April 25 more than 150 kids in 'non-conformist clothing' showed up at Dewey's in protest and were turned away by Dewey's management. Three teenagers (two male, one female) refused to leave after being denied service. They were arrested along with a gay activist who advised them of their legal rights, were charged and later found guilty of misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

Over the next week members of the Philadelphia GLBT community and Dewey's patrons set up an informational picket line outside the establishment decrying the treatment of the transgender youth.

On May 2 another sit in was staged. Police were called, but this time there were no arrests. Dewey's management then backed down and promised 'an immediate cessation of all indiscriminate denials of service.'

The Janus Society, the main gay and lesbian advocacy organization at the time, said this in celebration of the Dewey's events in its newsletter.

'All too often there is a tendency to be concerned with the rights of homosexuals as long as they somehow appear to be heterosexual, whatever that is. The masculine woman and the feminine man are looked down upon...but the Janus Society is concerned with the worth of the individual and the manner in which she or he comports himself. What is offensive today we have seen become the style of tomorrow, and even if what is offensive today remains offensive to some persons tomorrow, there is no reason to penalize non-conformist behaviour unless their is direct anti-social behaviour connected with it.'

As a person who has been involved for a decade in the struggle for transgender rights, it is deeply gratifying to know that African-American transgender activism isn't a new phenomenon. I'm estatic to discover another nugget of my African-American transgender history. I'm gratified to know that I'm a link in a chain that will eventually expand the 'We The People' in the constitution to include transgender ones as well.

Trans-less ENDA Moves To House Vote

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: October 18, 2007 - 12:40 pm ET

(Washington) The revised Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would protect gays and lesbians from discrimination in the workplace, but with references to gender identity removed, is headed to a vote on the House floor following approval Thursday in committee.

The House Education and Labor Committee voted 27 - 21 to mark up the legislation, sending it to a full vote in the House.

A number of Democrats on the committee attempted to reinsert gender identity without success. Several of them refused to vote in favor of marking up the bill as it stands - among them presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

GOP attempts to weaken the bill also failed.

Protections for transsexuals were removed by the bill's author, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), after it became apparent there were enough votes to pass ENDA only with gender identity.

The decision, however, has divided the LGBT community.

When the revised bill reaches the floor of the House, Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) will introduce an amendment that would add trans protections.

Baldwin said Wednesday that she has secured an agreement from the Democratic leadership to introduce the amendment.

Frank's decision to strip ENDA of gender identity was seen by some as a "necessary evil" in order to get any LGBT measure passed. But more than 300 community groups - including National Stonewall Democrats - opposed it.

As opposition mounted a number of organizations met last Friday with Speaker Nancy Pelosi who gave assurances that once ENDA becomes law and as soon as there is enough support for amendments adding back in the protections for transsexuals that version would also be presented.

HRC called the the process less than ideal but acceptable. It was rejected outright by the other major LGBT rights groups.

Baldwin's proposal appears to be acceptable, however, to those groups who formed an umbrella organization called United ENDA. Observers say the amendment is unlikely to pass.

Republicans and some Democrats say they will attempt to kill all of ENDA using a manuever to send it back to committee where it would most likely languish and die in the current session.

NBJC Response to ENDA Controversy

From the desk of H. Alexander Robinson, NBJC CEO
October 5, 2007

As an African American organization we are acutely aware of the compromises and incremental steps that were necessary to realize civil rights for African Americans and that the endeavor to assure racial justice for all Americans continues.

As defenders of the proposed two-bill strategy have noted, advocates for the rights of women, people of color and people with disabilities have had to accept incremental progress towards equality.

African Americans were forced to wait for voting rights, we waited for housing rights. But the rights that were extended were extended to everyone, not just African Americans, but all Americans.

At every step in their march toward civil rights African Americans, women and people with disabilities were called upon to examine their goals and decide the risk and benefits of decisions to compromise or take the stand "this far and no further." The LGBT movement is facing that moment today.

A transgender-inclusive ENDA is already a compromise. It extends employment protections, but does not cover housing, or public accommodations, or credit. In 1996 this compromise was suppose to move us quickly to passage of employment protections for gay Americans. Instead a decade later the promise is unfulfilled and the compromise is the high water mark.

As an LGBT organization it is unconscionable to think that we would support cutting transgender protections out of ENDA. Our fate and the fate of transgendered Americans are inextricably entwined. The risk we take if we abandon our friends and families for the illusory promise of incremental progress is too great, the price too high.

Discrimination is wrong and if we hope to garner the respect and support of our allies and our opponents we must act to keep our family whole. United we can see victory—divided we lose our moral authority and take a step back from our principled stand against injustice and discrimination.

Now is not the time to retreat, compromise or capitulate. Now is the time to educate, advocate and make it known justice must be for everyone for without it there can be lasting justice for anyone.


-----------------------------



About the Coalition

The National Black Justice Coalition is a civil rights organization dedicated to empowering Black same-gender-loving, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people. The Coalition works with our communities and our allies for social justice, equality, and an end to racism and homophobia.

The National Black Justice Coalition envisions a world where all people are fully empowered to participate safely, openly, and honestly in family, faith and community, regardless of race, gender-identity or sexual orientation.

Ebony Lane

crossposted from Jasmyne Cannick's blog
by Jasmyne Cannick

“Pride means being myself. I am proud and happy of who I am,” ----Ebony Lane.

For over 20 years, Ebony Lane has been a staple in Los Angeles’ Crenshaw District. Known for her impeccable fashion, Ebony has been sharing her sense style with women at the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza in the heart of the African-American community for over a decade.

Ebony Lane is one of the principals behind “Color Me Beautiful,” a kiosk in the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza located in front of Radio Shack on the first floor that features the Patti Labelle make-up and perfume line. On just about any day of the week, it’s here that you can find Ebony with a line of customers waiting to get their eyebrows arched or face made up. Ebony’s customers are faithful. They don’t want any of the other employees to work on them, they come specifically to see Ebony.

But Ebony wasn’t always the woman she is today. Ebony was born José Brown.

Originally from Panama, José came America with his family when he was just 8 years old and in his late 30s José decided that it was time that his inside feelings should match his exterior and became Ebony Lane.

Fluent in both English and Spanish, Ebony says that when she was José, she would always get teased for being gay but that when she made the switch to Ebony that all stopped.

“A lot of my friends had to leave the community they grew up in when they decided to live their life as a women, but I was a part of this community as José and I still am a part of the community, just as Ebony.”

Known in the community for doing flawless make-up, Ebony Lane is one of the most sought after drag performers in the country. In addition to working at the mall, Ebony takes the time to host balls, events where several times a month, predominantly Black and Latino gay social groups (called houses) get together and compete in a variety of categories. Today’s balls have been traced to the Harlem Renaissance in the 20's where in the midst of the flourishing Black nightlife and culture, the underground lesbian and gay experience was usually celebrated at lavish and grand costume balls, where men were often dressed as women, and vice-versa.

“I throw balls because at 55 years old, I have seen and been through a lot, some good, some bad,” commented Ebony. “If I can do anything to develop a sense of pride in young Black gay men so that they can lead healthy lives and realize that they can be and do anything they want, then I am going to do it.”

Besides working and performing, Ebony is married and is currently raising two adopted children with her husband. In addition, she attends Unity Fellowship Church, a Black church known for being accepting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

“I found a church where I am accepted for me and am not being watched and ridiculed and for me, that is priceless.”

Ebony will be celebrating her 56th birthday on October 12, 2007.

The 2002 NTAC CBC Initiative Meeting Notes

TransGriot Notes: Just in case anyone wants to question whether the meeting happened, as the 'okey-doke' crowd in the transgender community tends to do, here's Exhibit A

------------------------------------------------------

These are the notes from a July 2002 meeting which took place in Atlanta with Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

Pay very close attention to the end of these meeting notes
Dawn
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Present at meeting: Congressman Cynthia McKinney, Sue and Bruce Nelson (PFLAG), Monica Helms, Dana Owings, Dawn Wilson, Monica Roberts, AC.

Meeting began 3PM 7-13-02

MH. Made intros. We are here to discuss T-inclusion in ENDA, or as part of a stand-alone bill

S&BN: We are members of PFLAG's Atlanta Chapter Board, and are representing PFLAG in support of this effort. PFLAG believes that T people deserve employment rights. We are not sure if ENDA is the mechanism that is needed, but we support the concept.

They questioned whether enough education on T matters had been done.

DO: I work for IBM, with a diversity program including GLB but not T as of yet. Protection for T people goes beyond TG people; it includes people who may not present in a traditionally feminine or masculine way. (HIT!)

DJW: People of color make the same stereotypes from pulpits with the
same prejudices

DO: We have a body of well-trained skilled people who have been let go from jobs for transitioning; people have also been let go for simply not presenting as "masculine enough" as men, and women for having short hair, mannish clothing, choosing to not wear makeup, etc. (the case of the New York hairdresser)

McKinney: Of late, the Capitol Hill police have been accused of discriminating against African-American employees for wearing their hair in a natural Afro style? This seems to be similar discrimination.

DO: We are asking for broad protections, mostly aimed at gender presentation, but yes, this should also be protected.

DJW: Discrimination is practiced disproportionately against African-Americans to begin with, and gender identity adds to and feeds the problem. I have faced prejudice since birth, but Caucasians who transition are suddenly slapped in the face with it, and don't know how to deal with it. (reference to www.rememberingourdead.com). On this website, people who are killed because of their gender identity are listed. A disproportionately large number on this list are
people of color and Hispanic.

MH: 235 names on this list, with 11 added in 2002.

McKinney: Were the assailants charged under hate crimes statutes, either state or Federal?

MR: In Texas, where I am from, T people were excluded from hate crimes legislation, and it creates a major loophole that the defense counsel for someone charged with a hate crime could use to win acquittal or a lighter sentence. In particular, that attorney could state that his client assaulted the victim not because of their
sexual orientation, but because of their gender presentation, and the hate crimes law would not apply, even if the victim were simply an effeminate male or mannish female.

DJW: You may be familiar with the case of Tyra Hunter, who died in DC because, following an auto accident, EMTs made fun of her gender status instead of rendering the emergency care they were paid to deliver. This is an example of the prejudice we transpeople of color face.

MH: On the ROD list, only 20% of those killed have had assailants convicted, and only 3 have received life imprisonment or capital punishment.

DJW: Many of the people on the ROD list were street workers; many of them ended up working the streets for money because of employment discrimination. We want to get to the cause of the problem first, not place band-aids on it. HRC does not wish to help us.

DJW: That is why we are asking if you could draft and distribute a `dear Colleague' letter, requesting a chance to educate the members of the CBC on the issues of trans people, particularly transgender people of color. We would also like a chance to do an educational session with the leaders of the NAACP and Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC). I am a professional lobbyist, former Senatorial aide for Senator McConnell, and an account executive by trade. Despite the fact that I hold responsible employment, I am deeply concerned about our young transpeople of color,and unwilling to wait longer for our inclusion.

MH: I also work with street youth, in the Atlanta area, and most of them are on the streets because of discrimination.

DJW: HIV and other STDs are rampant among the street workers. The streets are the only alternative, if someone cannot find work due to discrimination.

McKinney: Homophobia is rampant in the POC community. I am presently supporting Rev. Ken Samuels of the Victory Baptist Church in Atlanta, as he has been openly protested by members of fundamentalist white congregations and vilified by other fundamentalist clergy for his affirming stance on GLBT issues. They did not show up when I attended services at Victory, but I still support him.

DJW: I also belong to, and have been ordained by, an open and affirming denomination, the Disciples of Christ. Rev. Alvin Davis, in Atlanta, should know of Rev. Samuels, and I will contact him and obtain his support.

McKinney: I discovered Rev. Samuels' problem on the Queer Atlanta listserv, which I belong to. Lamont Evans posted to it….

DJW: Oh, he knows my friend Duncan Teague (everyone knew Duncan,including the Congressman). We will arrange some community support for Rev. Samuels.

DO: Some individual churches are open and affirming, and some are not.

McKinney: Has a dialogue been attempted with clergy?

MR: That is why we would like to become involved with SCLC

DJW: Religion is still vital to the African-American community, it is the center of it. Everyone needs something to believe in, and the racist and homophobic statements of Falwell and his friends have given Christianity a bad name in the T community.

DO: We know that our struggle for civil rights parallels that of African-Americans, and to a lesser extent Hispanics and Asians. It is our outward appearance that causes the discrimination.

MH: State Bill HB941 is pending in Georgia's legislature. It covers employment and housing rights, and includes gender in its language. It would not be a surprise if it passes before the Federal ENDA.

DO: 46 cities have protections in place for employment rights, and it is now 10% of the US population. Cities include New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, New Orleans, Louisville, Houston, Lexington, and San Francisco.

MR: One clarification: Houston's protection only covers city employees.

DJW: Barney Frank's problem with T inclusion remains the bathroom issue, yet these cities have solved that, proving that it can be done.

McKinney: So, why is gaining GLB support for T rights so difficult?

DO: They need more education on T issues, they have some common ground, but sexual orientation is not an appearance issue, like T is.

MH: Dana and I recently attended an HRC town hall here in Atlanta, and much of the discussion focused on T inclusion in ENDA. I was asked to join the panel. We have worked to educate HRC's members at dinners and town halls across the country.

DJW: We work to educate college faculty and students, and have been involved with conferences for young people, who in turn change the minds of the older folks in the movement.

McKinney: Did HRC's nonsupport of T inclusion in ENDA predate Elizabeth Birch?

DJW. No, it did not, it dated to 1995. Birch clearly is hired help,hired to deliver a message from HRC's board, although one she probably agrees with.

DO: There is talk that some HRC board members do support us, but we have no way to know which ones do not, and they are not willing to tell us who.

McKinney: Have you considered having a rich T person buy their way onto HRC's board?

DJW. Unemployment is the problem in our community, and few have the funds to do this. Why should we have to buy our civil rights?

MH: One weapon we have against HRC is a survey they funded in NC, that shows that a majority of the GLB community there sees a greater need for rights for T people than for rights for GLB people.

DO: Many Fortune 500 companies support rights for GLB people, and a growing number also add T to that.

McKinney: How much money would it take to get on HRC's board?

DJW: It takes about $50K in donations raised. Most T people are using their funds for the costs of transition, and don't have access to this type of money. That is why we wish to bypass HRC.

McKinney: Who are the main 501c3 orgs who are doing T advocacy in Georgia, Atlanta, and DeKalb County?

MH: There isn't one yet. Georgia Equality is T-inclusive. Trans-Action isn't incorporated.

McKinney: I want to find a 501c3 that we can help obtain funding to work with T youth.

DJW: It would be nice to be able to set up a training so that people in the T community could learn how to obtain grants. In particular, I would see a grant program set up for T students.

DO: Many T activists regularly do presentations before college groups.

McKinney: Gender Inc. doesn't have 501c3 status, do they?

MH: Would a national 501c3 be adequate for the purpose?

McKinney: Yes.

MH. NTAC has 501c4, rather than c3, status.

McKinney: We regularly help 501c3 organizations get started with grants by sponsoring workshops. Rhonda, in my office (intro's Rhonda), is my staff expert on nonprofit organizations, and she regularly helps groups apply for and obtain grants.

Here's what I will do for you: I will try to get a meeting set up for you with Marty King (Martin Luther King III) at the SCLC – I don't think that will be difficult. I will also try to set up a meeting with NAACP's staff – it is difficult to meet with Kweisi Mfume. I also am formally inviting you to Washington for CBC weekend September 11, and I will see that you get to address the CBC at once.

The NTAC 2002 CBC Initiative

You'll notice if you peruse my TransGriot blog that I don't post ANYTHING from NCTE. Contrary to what some people might think, it's not because I was a founding member of NTAC.

Let me take you back in time to July 2002. One of the keys in the political strategy I worked out with the rest of the NTACers during my term as Lobbying Chair is about to happen.

AC gets a call from Monica Helms informing him that she's secured a meeting with then Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and wants me and Dawn Wilson to be a part of it. She told us she needs the assist and wanted me and Dawn in that room to ask the questions that needed to be asked on behalf of our community.

Rep. McKinney at the time was fighting a major primary battle with Denise Majette to keep her seat. She'd been targeted by the GOP right wingers after she questioned in a televised committee hearing the faulty intelligence that would later be used as the pretext for jumping off the war in Iraq. Despite being in a tough campaign that she eventually lost due to massive Republican crossover voting in the district for Majette, she took time out of her busy schedule to meet with us.

So on July 13, the three of us, after driving six hours from Louisville, met with Monica Helms and Dana Owings outside of McKinney's office in Decatur, GA on a hot summer Georgia afternoon.

During a meeting that lasted several hours, we presented the transgender community's case. Rep. McKinney was very familiar with our struggles with HRC and the GLB community. As the meeting came to a close Dawn and I ended up with invitations to the approaching Congressional Black Caucus ALC (Annual Legislative Conference) in Washington DC. The major purpose of me and Dawn's trip was going to be teaching Transgender 101 to CBC congressmembers.

Being that we were only a few months from the 2002 midterm elections, and the ALC was happening in late September, one of the provisos for our invite was that we keep it secret until after the event concluded.

The meeting concludes on a high note, we go back to Marietta to do the post mortem debriefing, cross check our notes, and we go back to Louisville to begin working on the most important Transgender 101 presentation in U.S. history.

But that Power Point presentation Dawn and I created for that Transgender 101 session is still on my computer because a Caucasian transgender leader leaked the details to her paymasters at HRC.

Once those details got leaked, HRC lobbyists barged into CBC offices demanding to know why the trannies got an opportunity to make that type of presentation and the CBC had shied away from allowing them to do the same thing. The CBC offices were pissed at the HRC lobbyist's arrogance, and told them in no uncertain terms that THEY would decide who they talked to as the elected representatives for African-Americans.

Dawn and I got a shocking phone call a few hours later that our CBC presentation had been cancelled. I spent the next hour after hanging up the phone crying about it because I knew what the cancellation meant.

More of my people would die and our push for transgender civil rights would be delayed once again.

Once my tears dried, I began to get angry as I began to piece together the details of what happened and who leaked the info that killed the transgender community's best chance to wean itself from dependence on the gay community and HRC's control.

A few weeks later I got my answer. The Caucasian transleader who leaked the details of that meeting to HRC announces the formation of NCTE.

She also bragged at a transgender community event about being responsible for torpedoing the NTAC CBC Initiative. She's quoted as saying to another person at that transgender community event, "I'm glad we stopped those uppity n-----s".

At that point that's when I decided to concentrate on building up the African-American transgender community and get out of the backstabbing, amoral, double-dealing, selfish infighting that permeates the white-dominated culture of transgender politics.

It's a self-imposed exile that I didn't end until I picked up my Trinity award in April 2006.

So why am I pissed at this person? It's not the fact that a lot of work went into putting together the presentation that would never be seen. It's the fact that the ALC is a must-attend event for any African-American activist. Everyone from African-American politicians at the state, federal and local level attend this event and its seminars are led by CBC members. African-American activists, athletes, African-American Hollywood stars and recording artists are also in attendance at the ALC.

And Dawn and I would have been in position to interface with all of these people.

We also had meetings set up to talk to other power brokers within the African-American community during that ALC event that not only would have opened the door to the transgender community having more powerful friends to keep HRC in check, but would have possibly opened the door to funding sources outside the control of the gay community.

This would have made the Hi Impact Leadership Coalition's job driving a wedge in the CBC much harder because we would have already done the educating THREE years before the founding of this organization and possibly had working relationships set up and in place to ward off the strong-arm twisting that Barney's been doing.

But that died because of a certain transperson's racism, jealousy, ambition and greed. She sold out my people to get her organization up and running.

So if you wonder why I can't stand being in the same room with this person, now you know.

And I'm left wondering as I stare from time to time at the Power Point presentation that Dawn and I compiled a few years ago what would have happened if we'd actually had a chance to deliver it.

2007 Miss Amazing Philippine Beauty Pageant

Competition is now underway at a hotel just outside Manila for the fifth annual Miss Amazing Philippine Beauty pageant.





The transwomen-only pageant kicked off with a press conference on October 2. The weeklong competition commenced October 12 at a hotel in Pasay City with 24 contestants vying to be selected as the most beautiful transwoman in the Philippines. The 2007 Miss Amazing Philippines pageant winner will be crowned on October 19.

The Phillipines, like most of Asia has always been wild about beauty pageants and this all-transgender one has steadily been growing in popularity. Last year's pageant drew 28 contestants and the winner, Patricia Montecarlo, went on to compete in the Miss International Queen pageant in Pattaya, Thailand. She finished first runner up to my fellow Texan Erica Andrews, who was representing Mexico.







This year's Miss International Queen Pageant will take place November 9-10 once again at the Tiffany's Show Lounge in Pattaya, Thailand. If you happen to be travelling in that part of the world at that time you may want to check it out. If you can't get to Pattaya, the pageant will be televised live on Thai television.





Which one of the 24 ladies competing will be this year's winner? We'll know for sure on the 19th.

TAVA Press Release on ENDA

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act
From: Monica F. Helms, President and Co-Founder
president@tavausa.org
Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA)
www.tavausa.org
October 13, 2007

There has never been a moment in the five-year history of this organization where we had to step forward and put our very existence on the line. The events of the last three weeks have changed all of that.

As a 501 (c)3 organization that specifically focuses on veterans’ issues, we are not allowed to be “political.” Some people may say that supporting a fully-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act and opposing any bill that excludes transgender people maybe consider “political.” The Board of TAVA disagrees. We see this as a matter of survival for the transgender community and TAVA will do what we can to fight for that survival.

History has shown us that since this country has begun, transgender people have fought in every war this country had. Some crossed gender lines so they could fight for this country, and others cross gender lines after they fought in various wars. No matter what, they were proud of their service our nation.

“Honor, duty and country.” Everyone who has served America proudly understands these words all too well. However, we are now witnessing people who have no honor, show only the duty to serve themselves and envision a country where their needs are met over everyone else’s. As veterans, this saddens us greatly.

There are estimated to be three million Americans who happen to be transgender people, with 300,000 of them being veterans. Many of them are without jobs and are living on welfare. Some, who retired from the military are surviving on their retirement check that comes once a month, but that hardly pays for much in this day and age.

The Transgender American Veterans Association implores all who read this that on Monday, October 15 to start calling the Democratic Party members of the House Education and Labor Committee. You can find them at: http://edlabor.house.gov/about/members.shtml. Ask them to send only a fully-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (HR-2015) to the House floor for a vote in Thursday instead of the flawed version, HR-3685 (Frank's Folly). That version will not only leave out Transgender Americans, but many others who do not confirm to society’s gender norms, regardless of their sexual orientation.

We especially would like to see all veterans, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, contact the House Education and Labor Committee to help save those veterans who may have saved your life in the heat of combat. We put our lives on the line to give time to this country. Now, we ask you to put time on the line to save our lives. TAVA thanks you.


***

Founded in 2003, the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) is a 501 (c) 3 organization that acts proactively with other concerned civil rights and human rights organizations to ensure that transgender veterans will receive appropriate care for their medical conditions in accordance with the Veterans Health Administration’s Customer Service Standards promise to “treat you with courtesy and dignity . . . as the first class citizen that you are.”

Further, TAVA will help in educating the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) on issues regarding fair and equal treatment of transgender individuals. Also, TAVA will help the general transgender community when deemed appropriate and within the IRS guidelines.

Your GLB Movement Is NOT Like Mine

As much as I despise Bishop Harry Jackson and his like minded band of homobigots in the Hi Impact Leadership Coalition, it pains me to say it, but I now agree with them on one argument that they've been making over the last few years.

Your GLB movement is NOT like mine.



I know the late Coretta Scott King said otherwise a few years before her death, but the reprehensible actions of Rep. Barney Frank and HRC have stripped whatever tenuous claims to the moral high ground the GLB movement once had.

So from now on I don't wanna hear or see ANY GLB leader try to claim that 'they' are the heirs of the 60's Civil Rights movement.

The GLB movement has taken off its cloak and revealed its true nature. It is a movement for straight-acting white gay men and women only and screw 'errbody' else.

Yeah, they want rights. They want rights for themselves only. And just like some of their misguided straight white male and female brethren some GLB people want the 'special right' to discriminate against someone to make themselves feel superior.

If you really were an inclusive, morally upright movement, you would have never thrown transgender people out of it or treated us like unwanted stepchildren.

The 60's civil rights movement wasn't an 'incremental movement', so you can drop that spin line right now. Even if they had to take 'half a loaf' as they did with the 1957 Civil Rights Act (which by the way was just as controversial back in the day as the current furor over Frank's Folly), they made sure that no one was left out and that whatever compromises were made put them in a better position to get what we African-Americans needed the next time.

This is the first civil rights movement in history that has not only cut people out, but doesn't even want to pass legislation that will help all of the people in their OWN group.

So a memo to you GLB peeps who agree with Barney. Until you've waited 246 years to get your rights, start working to craft and pass legislation that considers other people worse off than you and make them an equal partner in writing that legislation, please refrain from comparing your selfish civil rights push to mine.

Dear Oprah

Dear Oprah,
While many of us in the transgender community are estatic that you have finally turned your formidable media spotlight on the transgender community and given some of our issues some attention, there's one thing that bothers me and many of your African-American transgender fans and our supporters.

Many African-American transpeople over the years have e-mailed and written letters humbly asking for a chance to tell our stories on your stage. We've been told by your staffers in reply that your show wasn't interested in doing transgender topics.

So now that you are doing these shows, the folks that need the airtime most desperately, your African-American transgender brothers and sisters feel hurt and left out.

White transpeople have had the attention of the United States media ever since Christine Jorgenson stepped off the plane from Denmark in 1953. The media face of transgender people over the last fifty years has overwhelmingly been a white one.

Even African-American publications such as Jet, Ebony, or ESSENCE rarely cover our issues. That has led to a knowledge vacuum that combined with negative preaching from the pulpits has opened many of us up to anti-transgender violence, discrimination and hatred in our own community. About 70 percent of the people on the Remembering our Dead list that memorializes victims of anti-transgender violence are disproportionately African-American and other people of color.

There are too many times that African-American transpeople's images have been tied to the adult entertainment industry, female illusionists and shows like Jerry Springer. There are far more African-American transpeople that like myself have college educations, good jobs, are proud of our heritage, have families who love them, and want to do our part to uplift our society.

But you'd never know that based on the media coverage that African-American transpeople get.

I was approached by Jerry Springer's people back in 1998 to appear on their show and turned them down. As someone who is considered an award winning leader in this community, as you can tell I'm greatly concerned about our image. I personally will not be a party to appearing on a show who's only interest in transgender topics is reinforcing stereotypes and exploiting them for sweeps month ratings points.

Your show is one of the three that should I be blessed to get that call, along with Tyra and Montel that I would drop whatever I'm doing to talk to this nation about transgender issues from an African-American perspective.

I know that your show, along with the other two I mentioned are not only high quality productions, but will take what I have to say seriously, it will be received in the spirit of imparting information to a vast audience and I (or any other transperson who appears on the show) will be treated with the utmost respect and dignity by you and your audience.

While any positive coverage of transgender issues is greatly appreciated, it does make your African-American transgender brothers and sisters wonder when we are finally going to get some face time?


Respectfully yours,
Monica Roberts
The TransGriot
2006 IFGE Trinity Award Winner

Stealth Transpeople, C'mon Out!

C'mon Out! C'mon Out!

Let your words do the talkin'
Let your actions do the walkin'

C'mon out! C'mon Out!

Break down the door; you can't hide no more
If your friends disrespect, you need to reject

...kids committing suicide
Parents kick 'em out-- ain't no place to hode

In this fucked up society
Gotta be real with your sexuality
Don't let their shitty asses call you a fag
You're the greatest asset God ever had

C'mon out! C'mon Out!
lyrics by Foxxjazell
courtesy of the book Transparent by Cris Beam

-----------------------------------

Over the next few years, we are going to need the silent transgender majority to step up to the plate and become more active in this fight to gain our rughts.

I'm talking about the what we call in the community the stealth transpeople. These are the folks who for various reasons transition and never let anyone know that they are transgender.

Well, folks, if you want your rights, you are gonna have to do something you may not want to do but may become necessary in the near future.

Out yourselves.

How and when you do that is up to you, but the time has come in which we activists who have put our necks and careers on the line and suffered the slings and arrows of the Religious Right, Mattachine gay people, bigoted black preachers and idiot savants who regurgitate their hate speech, have to ask you to make a sacrifice as well for the greater good.

We need you to sacrifice your anonimity in the name of not only showing the world that the transgender community is far larger than people have been told that it is, but forever blow up the fiction that peeps say when they oppose transgeder rights, "I don't know anyone who's transgender."

Sure you do. We're all around you. We may be the accountant who did your taxes. The sales clerk who waited on you at the department store. Your supervisor at your job. The pilot who flew you to your vacation destination or on your recent business trip. The nice lady that lives next door to you in the 'burbs. The model that's featured in your catalog. Your college professor.

The problem is that because many of those people are stealth, it has hampered transpeople who are growing up now from not only knowing their transgender history, but deprived them of role models as well.


Did you know for example, that the personal computer that you are reading this blog posting on got a major evolutionary design boost in chip design courtesy of a transwoman? Well, until Dr. Lynn Conway came out, I didn't know that either.

Dis you know that the first transwoman to win an Olympic medal won't be at next summer's Olympic Games in Beijing but was Stella Walsh in 1932? After she was tragically killed by a stray bullet in 1980, the autopsy revealed she had male genitalia. So it's probable that she's more intersex than transgender.

It's a win-win situation for both parties. In addition to the out transpeople getting to know, love and embrace another member of the transfamily, the stealth peeps get to interact with people who have been interfacing on a regular basis with other transgender people and the community's history. We can get you up to speed on getting better connected with it and you now have a firend who not only understands your drama, but has walked in your pumps as well.

The point is that this battle to gain our rights isn't about us. It's fighting for inclusion NOW so that transkids that are growing up now don't have to go through this crap 10, 25 or 50 years from now.

As for the Mattachine gay folks who are quick to holler 'wait your turn', when you've waited 246 years for your rights, talk to me then, okay?

Barney Come Clean

Today is National Coming Out Day. In the spirit of that and in the midst of this ongoing family feud over ENDA, we've had some folks in the GLB community have a coming out of sorts as well.

The transbigots.

Their poster child just happens to be the guy who is quarterbacking ENDA throughout the House, Rep. Barney Frank.

The transbigots, like their kissin' cousins in hate groups and the Religious Reich use their power, White Male Privilege and media bully pulpits to thwart the progress of a minority group for their own selfish gain.

It should be clear at this point who the leading transbigots are in this community. John Aravosis and Chris Crain along with Barney head the list. There are other transbigots that operate on a national, state and local level who see it as their mission to make the GLB community rainbow pure and transgender free.


But as I know from my African-American history, nothing is more dangerous to civil rights than having bigots in charge of writing and enacting civil rights law.

So Barney, come clean and stop prevaricating. You hate transgender people and have since your days in the Massachusetts Legislature. You're not a friend to our community.

Can you handle that truth?

A friend of our community would fight just as hard or harder to include us in legislation that we need, instead of engaging in Orwellian doublespeak and blaming the transgender community for the failure of your 'with all deliberate speed' approach to including transgender peeps inro federal law.

If you were the transgender community's best friend, you'd be honest with the GLB community and tell them, like Lambda Legal did that transgender inclusion in ENDA is necessary for this bill to cover 'errbody' in this community.


Khadijah Farmer's suit is Exhibit A to the fact that discrimination based on 'gender identity' happens not only to transgender peeps, but gay, lesbian and straight people as well.

If you were the champion for transgender people you claim you are, then you need to stop telling the lie that we haven't done the education on the Hill. We been educating folks on the Hill since 1994. I've personally taken part in lobbying efforts in 1998, 1999 and 2007 and helped plan NTAC's 2001 lobbying effort.

Maybe that education isn't getting through because of the HRCites that inhabit many of the congressional staff positions on the Hill in liberal-progressive offices. It wouldn't shock me if these aides are conveniently failing to pass on the information from transgender people that visit their offices or shield you congressmembers from it.

There are reams of information on the Internet and elsewhere about the violence, the unemployment/underemployment we face, and the general lack of respect for our civil rights that transpeople face. If you claim there are legislators who need 'more educating', who are they?

You're not going to tell us that because you know that 24 hours after you utter their names, they'll be flooded with calls from the transgender community and our allies.

Barney, you don't want that education to happen because you and the Mattachine clones in the GLB community DON'T want a transgender inclusive ENDA to pass. You have been duplicitous and underhanded not just during this entire sorry affair, but the entire time you've led the effort to pass ENDA.

So why should we transgender people trust you, much less believe anything you say now? You have let your personal hatred of transgender people get in the way of doing what's morally right and just. Having you as the lead legislator for the efforts to pass ENDA is the equivalent of asking the KKK Grand Wizard to pass federal legislation that would benefit African-Americans.

He'd do to African-Americans exactly what you're doing, Rep. Frank. Cut us out of the bill, then come up with some tortured logic and spin to try to justify it.

Oh snap, that was the modus operandi for the Dixiecrats.

It's past time for somebody that doesn't have a personal hatred for transpeople to become the lead legislator for getting ENDA passed.

Help A Sistah Out

TransGriot readers,
I have some of my peeps that need some 'ejumacation' and some calls as well. Help some the members of the 'Conscience of the Congress' get a clear idea that this is a civil rights issue, not a religious one as the Hi Impact Leadership 'ministers' are falsely trying to paint this.

This is a list of Congressional Black Caucus offices that voted for the hate crimes bill, but are not cosponsors of HR 2015, the inclusive ENDA.

Thankfully there are NO CBC cosponsors of Frank's Folly, HR 3685. We need to call
these peeps now. Word is that both ENDAs are rolling late this week and will probably be voted on October 15.


Tell them to vote YES on HR 2015, and NO on Frank's Folly, HR 3685

Congressional Black Caucus
2264 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
Telephone: 202-226-9776
Fax: 202-225-5730
congressionalblackcaucus@mail.house.gov

They claim that normal mail takes 4 weeks to process, due to security.
So that means call 'em early and often. Faxes will work as well.

Rep. Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (GA)
2429 Rayburn
(202) 225-3631

Rep. Corrine Brown (FL)
2336 Rayburn
(202) 225-0123

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (NC)
413 Cannon
(202) 225-3101

Rep. James E. Clyburn (SC) The House Majority Whip
2135 Rayburn
(202) 225-3315

Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (MI)
2426 Rayburn
(202) 225-5126

Rep. Artur Davis (AL)
208 Cannon
(202) 225-2665

Rep. Al Green (TX)
425 Cannon
(202) 225-7508

Rep. David Scott (GA)
417 Cannon
(202) 225-2939

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (MS)
2432 Rayburn
(202) 225-5876

Rep. Bobby L. Rush (IL)
2416 Rayburn
(202) 225-4372

Why The Transgender Community Hates HRC

Why does the transgender community hate HRC? It’s a question I get frequently asked in GLBT settings. Considering the recent GLBT family feud erupting over ENDA, it's an appropriate one to ask as well.

Before I get started trying to shed light on it, I need to point out in the name of journalistic integrity that I was the Lobby Chair for the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) from 1999-2002.

The roots of the animosity start after Stonewall. In an effort to appear more 'mainstream' to the straight community, Jim Fouratt and friends bounced Sylvia Rivera and other transpeople out of New York’s GLF (Gay Liberation Front). Jim Fouratt’s anti-transgender comments culminating in a 2000 one at a Stonewall observance in which he called transpeople 'misguided gay men who'd undergone surgical mutilations' also added insult to the injury.

In a pattern that persists to the present day, The GLF had protections for transpeople removed from a proposed 1971 New York GLBT rights anti-discrimination bill under the pretext that it wouldn’t pass with such 'extreme' language.

Ironically the bill failed anyway and the New York City GLB-only rights bill wouldn't pass until 1986. Transgender inclusion was fought at that time by Tom Stoddard, who would later head Lambda Legal. Transgender people didn't get added in the New York City bill until after Sylvia Rivera's death in 2002.

In 1979 Janice Raymond poured more gasoline on the fire with her virulently anti-transgender book The Transsexual Empire. Raymond also took it a step further in 1981 and penned a quasi-scientific looking report that was responsible for not only ending federal and state aid for indigent transpeople, but led to the insurance company prohibitions on gender reassignment related claims. Germaine Greer’s anti-transgender writing combined with Raymond’s led to involuntary outing and harassment of transwomen in lesbian community settings. It also sowed the seeds for the anti-transgender attitudes in the lesbian community that persisted through the late 90’s.

So what does this have to do with HRC since it didn’t get founded until 1980?

The problem is that the senior gay leadership is still influenced by the Fouratt-Raymond-Greer negative attitudes towards transpeople. That sentiment is concentrated disproportionately in California and the Northeast Corridor. The early gay and lesbian leadership also sprang up from those areas as well.

The transgender community around the late 80’s renewed its organizing efforts to fight for its rights. The early leadership was also concentrated in the Northeast Corridor and California as well and regarded the gay community as natural allies.

One thing they didn’t take into account was how deeply entrenched the anti-transgender attitudes and doctrines were amongst gay and lesbian leaders. Barney Frank (D-MA) is a prominent example of it. They still persisted in holding the view that transgender people were ‘crazy queens’ who would cost them their rights. Gay leaders were still trying to use the 70’s assimilationist strategy to counter the Religious Right campaign against gay civil rights fueled by fear of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

In the 90’s the transgender leadership became more national in scope and more diverse by the end of the decade. In addition to the founding core leadership from California and the Northeast corridor, transleaders emerged in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, and Illinois. The emergence of leaders from what was derisively called ‘flyover country’ by the peeps from Cali and the Northeast Corridor changed the dynamics of the transgender rights movement.

The addition of leaders from these states brought people into the movement who not only believed in the principles of Kingian inclusion and non-violence, they practiced those values. The rise of the Internet gave them efficient communications links to exchange information and tactics, coordinate strategy and inexpensively talk to each other.

They were also people of faith who had ringside seats to the Religious Right takeovers of the Republican parties in these regions. The Texans watched their state be used as a laboratory for the tactics that would be used in the South and later the rest of the country.

As people of faith who were mostly Southerners, the new transleaders correctly perceived that the Religious Right was the same coalition of 60’s racist anti-progressive forces masquerading in ‘family values’ drag and urged coordinated efforts to defeat them.

Unfortunately, while the Religious Right was using the 80’s and 90’s to organize for culture war and develop their Machiavellian playbook to power, transpeople were fighting a pitched battle with the gay and lesbian community just to be included. This civil war against the GLB transphobes sucked time, energy and money from the transgender community that could have been better spent combating the Religious Right.

The predominately white and bicoastal-based gay and lesbian leadership didn't see the Religious Right as a threat because they not only didn't have fundies in their backyards, they let their anti-transgender biases color their perceptions. They dismissed the threat because it was transpeople who were sounding the warning bells about it. At the same time they were cavalierly dismissing their concerns about GLBT unity and the Religious Right threat, they arrogantly demanded that transpeople work to pass gay-only rights bills.

According to legal scholar Kat Rose, such laws have the effect of creating a regime in which the same gays and lesbians who fought to prevent trans-inclusion have the de facto right under the resultant non-inclusive law to discriminate against trans people. It also allowed them to keep their leadership ranks and employee populations in these organizations transgender-free without fear of facing discrimination lawsuits.

When transgender leaders would balk at those demands or point out the hypocrisy of leaving us behind, they would state they would ‘come back for us’.

So far the only states in which the gay and lesbian community has ‘come back’ for transgender people are Rhode Island (2001), California (2003), New Jersey (2006) and Vermont (2007). In New York they are still having a difficult time passing GENDA after transgender people were cut out of SONDA by gay rights advocating the same 'we'll come back for you' incremental rights spin.

The first gay only rights bill, passed in Wisconsin in 1982 has been that way for 25 years now. There's no indication by the GLB leadership in that state if they'll move to rectify the omission of their transgender brothers and sisters or if they'll assign it a priority as high as the one they place on marriage equality.

We also heard the excuses during the 90’s to justify the gay and lesbian strategy that ranged from ‘the country needs more education on transgender issues’, we need 'incremental progress' to the mean-spirited ‘it’s not your turn to get rights yet’. Ironically there are now more transgender inclusive laws on the books than gay-only ones, and those numbers are increasing.

And where does HRC fit into this equation?

One of the people most responsible for excluding transpeople from an attempt to pass a gay rights law in Minnesota in 1975 was a gentleman by the name of Steve Endean, who in 1980 would leave Minnesota to help found the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the proto organization that later became HRC. Some Minnesotans assert that it's not a coincidence that the same year HRCF was born in DC, Minnesota's gay rights proposals became T-inclusive and eventually lead to the first T-inclusive law in 1993.

In 1995 Elizabeth Birch took over as Executive Director of HRC at a time when there was an epidemic of gays and lesbians cutting transpeople out of civil rights legislation.

In many cases gay people who sat on various HRC boards either nationally or regionally led the efforts. In 1999 Dianne Hardy-Garcia, who was the executive director of the Lesbian Gay Rights Lobby (now Equality Texas) at the time and an HRC board member, led the successful effort to cut transpeople out of the James Byrd Hate Crime Bill (to mine and TGAIN"s vehement opposition). That bill was eventually killed in the GOP-controlled Texas Senate but passed in 2001 as a GLB only bill and was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry.

Elizabeth Birch for a while eclipsed Janice Raymond as Transgender Public Enemy Number One when she was quoted at a Chicago GLBT event as stating that transinclusion in ENDA (the Employment and Non Discrimination Act) a top legislative priority of transgender leaders would happen ‘over her dead body’.

That sowed the seeds to the growing perception amongst transpeople that HRC was ‘The Enemy’. It got worse when transgender lobbyists were told by sitting senators, congressmembers and various staffers that HRC Capitol Hill lobbyists Nancy Buermeyer and Winnie Stachelberg showed up on the Hill accompanied by GenderPac’s Riki Wilchins before transgender lobby events in 1997, 1998, and 1999. They asked those members and staffers to tell the transpeople coming to Washington that inclusion in ENDA wasn’t possible, but hate crimes was. That revelation so enraged the transgender community that a group of activists that included yours truly founded NTAC in 1999.

After doing an investigative report during the summer of 1999 that determined the extent of HRC co-option of GenderPac leaders, NTAC decided to pursue a multi-pronged strategy to deal with it. They decided to explore partnerships with other GLBT organizations, made it clear that transinclusion in federal ENDA and Hate Crimes was non-negotiable and during my time there I helped author a legislative strategy designed to go around the congressional barriers set up to block transgender inclusion in ENDA

In 2000 NTAC also began the ‘Embarrass HRC’ campaign to call attention to the hypocritical nature of the relationship between HRC and the transgender community. Activists across the country began protesting HRC dinners and calling them out at GLBT community events about their resistance to adding transpeople to ENDA. The campaign got the attention of people to the point where they started asking HRC leadership tough questions and their contributions started taking hits.

Despite this success, the transgender community didn’t embrace NTAC. It was a multicultural organization whose early leadership was predominately Southern. NTAC was relentlessly savaged by people for fostering what they called ‘horizontal hostility’. A group of white northeastern activists that wanted to push accommodation with HRC formed the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2003 and named Mara Keisling as its executive director.

But NCTE to some transpeople had uncomfortably close HRC links that caused people to question not only NCTE's effectiveness in lobbying for transpeople but its independence. Transgender historian and legal scholar Kat Rose bluntly said that "I simply do not trust NCTE or Mara Keisling".

The interesting thing was the timing. NCTE came into existence after HRC loudly proclaimed that they didn't want to talk to NTAC. There were unconfirmed rumors that some of NCTE's startup money was provided by HRC supporters.

Not long after NCTE’s startup, the shift of the gay and lesbian rights priority from successfully passing inclusive rights laws on a state by state basis to marriage equality started. Transgender leaders such as NTAC’s Vanessa Edwards Foster warned that this was a mistake to push the issue a year before the 2004 elections, but once again transgender concerns were brushed aside.

When the Religious Right backlash resulted in gay marriage constitutional bans overwhelmingly passed in 18 states during that election year, the transgender community was proven correct once again.

This irritated the transgender community on multiple levels. The marriage-as-a-priority gays refused to acknowledge that not only did their actions cause the backlash to gay marriage and possibly generated enough conservative voters at the polls to help propel George W. Bush to a second term, despite the evidence of dozens of state DOMAs and anti-marriage constitutional amendments, they are in severe denial about it.

Transpeople are also miffed at the lack of HRC concern as to how this backlash specifically affects our lives. Transpeople were never consulted and had no input whatsoever regarding the push for gay marriage, but the Religious Right anti-gay marriage laws get interpreted by the courts in such a way that they had the negative affect in some cases of wiping out existing pro-trans marriage and even identity rights.

We're also pissed that the same people who demanded (and still demand) that we accept 'incremental progress' when it comes to trans rights hypocritically have no intention of accepting 'incremental progress' when it comes to legal recognition of same-sex relationships.

In conclusion, the drama between the transgender community and HRC (which sadly flared up last week after Rep. Frank introduced a non-inclusive ENDA) is a forty-year-old stew flavored with historical hatred, arrogance, political miscalculations, communication failures, misunderstandings, mistrust, and Machiavellian duplicity.

HRC also has a pathetic history of refusing to deal with trans people as equals not only in terms of civil rights legislation but even in hiring talented transgender people for their organization. This historical negativity keeps transpeople from working with HRC in any capacity. (Don't even get me started about the African-American community beefs with HRC, that's another post.)

The sad part is that this animosity is preventing HRC and the transgender community from effectively working together to defeat their common enemy despite the desires of people on both sides to do precisely that.

The flare up this time may have not only burned the bridge that people like recently resigned HRC board member Donna Rose and others were trying to build towards a working partnership with HRC, but made any talk of doing that in the transgender community moot for years to come.