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LAMBDA LETTERS ALERT LAMBDA LETTERS ALERT

An Astounding Ten Minutes!

Just a few minutes ago the California Senate made history. First it passed AB 196, a bill to ban employment and housing discrimination against transgender people. Barely 10 minutes later it approved AB 458, a bill to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) foster kids and LGBT foster parents and care givers from discrimination and harassment. Both bills were passed without debate and without rancor. It was, Ho Hum, just a couple more bills.

But don't you believe it! These are historic bills. Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals were protected from discrimination in California by AB 1001 passed in 1999. Transgender people were not. Congress has had a bill to ban discriminations against lesbians, gays, and bisexuals before it since the mid 1970s. The most recent author of this bill, Congress Member Barney Frank, has explicitly refused all requests to include transgender people. I spoke to Frank's staff person working on the bill just a few days ago, and he made it very clear that Mr. Frank absolutely opposed adding transgender people to the bill.

The passage of a bill to protect transgender people has been a personal quest for me ever since the winter of 1998. That was the year in which I stood up at a membership meeting of the California Alliance For Pride and Equality and called for the passage of such a bill.

Since then, three bills have been introduced in the state legislature to accomplish this purpose. In 2000 AB 2142 was the first version of the bill. Another version, AB 1649, was introduced in 2001. Both bills were approved by the Assembly but died in the Senate.

Why do I take this issue so personally? I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s. Since then considerable, although not complete, progress has been made in ending discrimination and harassment of almost every minority group in this country. I am a gay man and I must say that, even for people like me, life is much better than it was in the years of my childhood.

However, there is one glaring exception to this picture of progress. Transgender people still suffer horrendous discrimination, intimidation, and harassment. Life is very difficult for them and the strife and stress they face drives many of them even to suicide. Many, unable to find more acceptable work because of employment discrimination, are forced to become sex workers to support themselves.

One of my Lambda Letters volunteers took her own life, just a few years ago. I have known others who have tried to do that. I decided I cannot sit idly by and let this continue. I decided we must pass legislation to protect transgender people from employment and housing discrimination. That has been my chief legislative goal since 1998. I am very close to seeing that goal accomplished.

AB 458 is a very important bill as well. It deals with another seriously at risk group, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender foster children and their LGBTI care givers. Children in our foster care system are inherently at risk. Usually they come from broken homes, or they are orphans, or their parents had substance abuse problems, or emotional illness, etc.

Foster children who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender experience an additional set of challenges in life. Often they are bullied by their age mates, or mistreated or abused by their care givers who don't understand or accept the child's sexual orientation or gender identity. Often they are labeled "hard to place" because of their sexual orientation or gender identity issues. These youth are far more likely than their heterosexual age mates to attempt suicide. That suicide rate is a direct result of all the abuse and lack of understanding and support experienced by these young people.

Under these circumstances we need to make it absolutely clear that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender foster children deserve all the respect and support given to any other children. That is what AB 458 would do and it deserves all the support we can give it.

AB 196 is now ready to go to the Governor. That will happen in just a few days. Once it is officially delivered to the Governor, he will have ten days to sign or veto it. If he has done neither of those things by the twelfth day, it becomes law without his signature.

AB 458 was passed first by the Assembly. However it was amended in the Senate before the Senators approved it. That means it must go back to the Assembly for their concurrence with the changes made to the bill by the Senate. If they concur that bill will go to the Governor as well. You can rest assured that we at Lambda Letters will continue to work hard to make sure these bills do get passed and signed this year.

Boyce Hinman
Lambda Letters

HMO sues state over sex change surgery

Matt Johns, 365Gay.com
Thursday, April 24, 2003 / 05:43 PM

SUMMARY: One of the largest health care providers in California is suing the state to prevent paying for a transgender woman's sex reassignment surgery.

One of the largest health care providers in California is suing the state to prevent paying for a transgender woman's sex reassignment surgery.

Health Net Inc. was ordered by the California Department of Health to provide the woman, identified in court documents only as P.M., with the surgery after the company turned her down. P.M had appealed to the Department of Health, and an administrative law judge agreed with her doctor that the surgery was necessary. Health Net was ordered to proceed with the surgery.

The company is under contract with California to provide health care under the state's Medicaid plan.

Health Net is suing the state to have the order reversed. The company says sex reassignment operations are not medically necessary.

Brad Kieffer, a spokesman for Health Net, said private health insurers routinely exclude coverage for gender reassignment operations. "Under these circumstances, we think it right and appropriate for us to seek a reconsideration," he said.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge will decide if the case can go ahead. Until then P.M.'s surgery is on hold.

Chief LobbyistNew Mexico Adopts Laws which are trans-inclusive

New Mexico recently adopted legal language for both non-discrimination and hate crimes laws which cover sexual orientation AND gender identity. These laws go into effect July 1, 2003

NM becomes the 14th state to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, the 3rd to outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender identity, the 28th to include sexual orientation in hate crimes legislation, and the 6th to include gender identity in hate crimes legislation.

For more info/comprehensive lists of other states which include this protection (which is worth printing and putting in your binders to take to panels), check out the following websites:

http://www.hrc.org/issues/workplace/quickfacts.asp#gender
http://www.hrc.org/issues/hate_crimes/background/statelaws.asp

VICTORY FOR TRANSGENDER TEEN AGAINST FOSTER CARE SYSTEM:

Judge Rules City Must Accommodate Teen's Gender Identity

Tuesday, January 7, 2003. The Honorable Louise Gruner Gans decided in favor of Jean Doe, a 17 year old transgender girl. Doe was identified as male at birth, but has lived as a woman for several years. 

Jean Doe sued the Administration of Children's Services of the City of New York (ACS) when her group home confiscated all of her feminine clothing and accessories. ACS also forbid her from wearing skirts and dresses. Doe, represented by attorneys from The Urban Justice Center and Debevoise & Plimpton, alleged the group home's policy discriminated against her on the basis of her transgender identity in violation of New York State's Human Rights Law.

Judge Gans' decision stated that ACS violated the law by failing to reasonably accommodate Doe's gender identity, and that Doe was "entitled to relief in the form of an exemption from the respondents' dress policy, to the extent it bars her from wearing skirts and dresses." 

Dean Spade, a transgender attorney with the Urban Justice Center, stated: "This case is a great step towards eliminating the serious discrimination and abuse transgender youth face in New York's foster care system." Hopefully, Spade said, this case will lead to policy improvements for transgender youth in the City's care, who currently face physical abuse, inadequate medical care, harassment, and rampant discrimination.

This year, the City Council passed Int. 24, which made discrimination on the basis of gender identity illegal in New York City. This ordinance is part of a nationwide trend toward protecting transgender people in anti-discrimination law. Fifty-three jurisdictions currently have human rights laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity, including Rhode Island and Minnesota. Doe and her attorneys are thrilled to see the national trend toward recognition of transgender rights reaching the New York courts, and hope to continue to prevail in future cases establishing protection against gender identity discrimination.

Doe stated: ""To finally receive official acknowledgement of my experience is truly satisfying. Hopefully, no youth in ACS's care will ever have to be subject to this kind of humiliation and discrimination again."

Dean Spade
Sylvia Rivera Legal Resource Program
Urban Justice Center
666 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10012
(646) 602-5638

Press Contact:  Dean Spade
Sylvia Rivera Legal Resource Program
Urban Justice Center
Phone # 646 602 5638, email dspade@urbanjustice.org

Florida Transsexual Man Granted Custody

The Associated Press
February 21. 2003 12:11PM

A judge granted child custody to a transsexual man engaged in a bitter divorce case and ruled Friday that that the man is legally a male under Florida law, even though he was born female.

The ruling was the first of its kind in Florida courts.

Circuit Judge Gerard O'Brien ruled that Michael Kantaras can legally adopt his wife's teenage son and be listed as the father of a child she conceived during their marriage with donated sperm.

Legal experts have said the ruling could provide a legal definition of gender in the state and also give non-biological or stepparents a legal foundation to seek visitation or custody.

In his ruling, O'Brien said, "the marriage law of Florida clearly provides that marriage shall take place between one man and one woman. It does not provide when such status of being a man or woman shall be determined."

Florida law bans same-sex marriages and bars homosexuals from adopting children.

O'Brien also said that under Florida law, "there is no statutory requirement that the (marriage license) applicants shall prove their gender by producing a birth certificate."

For the full opinion see http://www.courttv.com/trials/kantaras/docs/opinion.pdf

Transsexual's marriage valid, court rules

Friday, February 21, 2003 / 05:37 PM

Today's Headlines

A court in Australia has rejected a move by the government to declare invalid a marriage between a female-to-male transsexual and a woman.

The Full Court of the Family Court ruled that the federal attorney general could not overturn the validity of the marriage on the grounds that the transsexual was registered as a woman at birth. He has since undergone surgery and hormone treatment and is recognized as a man.

The court ruled that because the person, known as Kevin, was a man at the time of the marriage in 1999, the marriage is valid.

A statement from the office of federal Attorney General Daryl Williams confirmed that he is considering whether to ask the High Court for leave to appeal against the decision.

Following the decision, the couple's lawyer, Rachel Wallbanks, said her client's victory had a David and Goliath-style symbolism.

"They're average people from Western Sydney, you know, who were told by the government of their country that they couldn't marry and they took on that government, in legal proceedings?and have been successful," Ms Wallbanks said.

"They are a symbol for all of us."

Beyond He and She: A Transgender News Profile

Santa Cruz Good Times, Jan 9 2003
by Patrick Letellier

"Never have pronouns been so provocative." So begins a column in the San Francisco Chronicle about the difficulties journalists had writing about Gwen Araujo, the transgender teenager killed in Newark, Calif., in October. In their quest for accuracy, reporters stumbled over pronouns, some calling Gwen he, some she, while others dodged the issue entirely by referring to her as simply "Araujo."

As the Chronicle columnist put it, "Our problems with pronoun use are just one manifestation of lives not written about." She's right. Unless they are killed, transgender people almost never make the news. Even then their identities can be blotted out by family members or reporters who erase "her" and revert to "him," or vice versa. But the rich details of their lives are rarely depicted in the media with any depth, and we all lose as a result.

Transgender is a broad term for people whose gender identity and gender expression are different from their biological sex. This term can encompass transsexuals, cross-dressers, drag queens and kings, intersex people, and other gender variant people. Many transgender people know what it means to move through the world as men and women, while others transcend the male-female binary altogether and live their own, yet-to-be defined genders.

Dating, family relations, marriage, sex, parenting-they've lived it all from multiple perspectives. Think of the wisdom. If women are from Venus and men from Mars, transgender people travel the cosmos in ways most of us never dream about. But when skilled reporters are bedeviled by simple pronouns, the compelling stories of transgender lives get lost in the shuffle.

"The fact that there continues to be so much invisibility and silence around this issue keeps it pathologized," says Lee Maranto, a transgender man living in Santa Cruz. "Because there isn't enough information in the mainstream media to substantiate that I'm normal. I'm still out in the margins." Gwen Araujo's killing may change that. Since her murder, at least eight U.S. papers published lengthy, sympathetic portraits of transgender people. From Buffalo to Berkeley, the Chicago Tribune to Teen People, transgender stories have been making news lately like never before.

Police and Brutality

The news, however, is not all good. Take the story of Justen Hall, for instance. He's a 21-year old Texan charged with killing Arlene Diaz, an El Paso, Texas transgender woman. A witness saw Hall and Diaz arguing early one morning. Shortly afterward, outside a convenience store, police say Hall shot Diaz twice in the back. Because police believe the killing was motivated by prejudice against transgender people,

Hall was charged with a hate crime. Unfortunately, a judge set bail low enough ($75,000) for Hall to be released. While awaiting trial, police say, Hall killed a second time, allegedly strangling Melanie Billhartz. Police nabbed him again, but rather than holding him without bail, as is appropriate with multiple homicides, the judge just raised the bail. If Hall can post $125,000, he'll be out on the street again.

"I told them, 'You're going to let him loose, and he's going to kill again,'" said Rosa Diaz, mother of the first victim. "Why did they give him bail?" It's a fair question. Why was Hall given bail at all, and why was it set so low? What does this say about the value placed on transgender lives?

Violence against transgender people is rampant nationwide, and the criminal justice system does not necessarily offer relief to victims. In fact, countless assaults against transgender people are committed by police officers themselves. According to reports by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects, for the last four years, almost half the assaults against transgender people in San Francisco-including verbal, physical and sexual assaults- were committed by the police.

Their post 9-11 heroism notwithstanding, police officers in San Francisco have been terrorizing transgender women for years. Yet in the clamor of reporting about Gwen Araujo's death, no newspaper mentioned this widespread police brutality. Transgender women, however, are not the only targets.

In August, 2002, 37-year-old Jeremy Burke, a transgender man, filed a $25 million suit against three San Francisco police officers for their brutality. According to his suit, Burke was severely beaten by police, stripped at a police station and made to wear a dress, laughed at by nurses who made derogatory remarks about his genitals, and was left untreated in his cell for eight days. Vomiting and urinating blood, he was finally taken to San Francisco General Hospital and treated for a kidney injury and internal bleeding.

"I think that anybody that suffers like this should stand up," Burke said, at the press conference announcing his lawsuit. "The more people that stand up, the more chance we have of stopping this kind of behavior."

Who Needs Protection?

Ironically, though trans people are much more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators, many people feel the need to be "protected" from them. In St. Louis, Mo., Vickie McMichael complained to the school board when she learned one of the chaperones on her daughter's school trip was a transgender woman. The trans woman, also a parent in the district, accompanied 180 fourth-graders on a day-long trip without incident.

"The sad part," McMichael complained, "is people are accepting this as normal behavior, that he [the trans woman] has a right to do this. The school is supposed to be protecting our children." Protecting them from what? From the reality that transgender people exist?

"It seems to me," a gay activist told the press, "you could start, at that age level, saying that not all men grow up to be cowboys and construction workers, and not all women grow up to be ballerinas-there are all different ways to be a boy, and all different ways to be a girl, and they're all right."

San Jose transgender activist Dana Rivers says "The whole notion of protection is a metaphor for this base fear people have because they can't fit us in a box." Because transgender people defy the strict categories of male and female, Rivers says, they demonstrate a fluidity of gender that is frightening to a lot of people.

"We represent an openness and a spirit of free thought and free expression to such a degree that we challenge cultural and social paradigms. Our society is afraid of that," she says. "Protecting" the public often entails harassing transgender people, as happened at a Six Flags amusement park in Dallas. Last month a transgender woman was taken to a park security area and interrogated after someone complained about seeing a "man dressed as a woman." The trans woman, who, fearing more harassment wished to remain anonymous, was accused of violating a park policy that stipulates "if clothing is deemed inappropriate for our family atmosphere" a guest can be shown the door.

Security guards allowed the woman to return to the park only after she produced identification validating her female identity. "There are still those who would just as soon see us in a grave as be alive," she said, adding, "I try to live a normal life as much as I can, and Six Flags is part of that." This is no small task when you can be hauled in for questioning because someone complains that your clothes and gender don't match to theirl iking.

The Right Gender on Paper

Having medical or legal documentation-"proof," that is, of actually being the gender they are presenting themselves as-may save some trans people undue harassment, but the right paperwork is often still insufficient.

Case in point: Sean Brookings, a 56-year-old transsexual man living in Ohio. Since 1988, Brookings has been granted three marriage licenses by Judge R.R. Clunk. Last year Clunk learned Brookings was transsexual and had him arrested for allegedly falsifying his gender.

But after his 1991 sex change surgery, Brookings had changed his drivers license and obtained a new social security number to reflect his new name and gender. None of that mattered to Clunk. "This is a terrible sham on the court," he said. "The marriage licenses were issued by fraud. He said he's a male, and he's not a male under Ohio law," Clunk said.

Brookings' ordeal, however, was just beginning. He was segregated from other prisoners in jail, allegedly for his own protection, and forced to drop his trousers so two sheriffs could check out his genitals. All charges against Brookings were eventually dropped.

In October, he filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the judge and sheriffs for, among other things, wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution and invasion of privacy. Brookings' case is not unusual. Marriage licenses vex transgender lives nationwide and cause legal wranglings that have wound their way to the Supreme Court. Well, almost. In October, the SupremeCourt refused to hear the case of a J'Noel Gardiner, a transsexual woman whose husband died without a will, opening a legal dispute over her late husband's estate between Gardiner and her husband's son, Joe. Joe claimed that since Gardiner is transsexual, her marriage to his father was invalid.

In 1994, Gardiner had sex-reassignment surgery and transitioned from male to female while living in Wisconsin. Under Wisconsin law, she was able to have her birth certificate changed to reflect her female identity. But in 1998 she married her husband in Kansas, where changes in birth certificates are not legally recognized. In other words, J'Noel Gardner was still considered male in Kansas, and same-sex marriages had been banned in that state in 1996.

As her attorney, Sanford Krigel, astutely argued, "Once Wisconsin declared Mrs. Gardiner a woman, she should be considered a woman in the other 49 states." But the Kansas Supreme Court disagreed, ignoring laws in almost 20 states that recognize amended birth certificates. Instead, the Court based its analysis of male and female on definitions found in a 1970 Webster's Dictionary emphasizing reproduction. In a complete disavowal of transsexual lives, the court declared the gender you're born is the gender you remain for all time. And since same-sex marriage is illegal in Kansas, the court ruled the Gardiner's marriage was indeed invalid.

In refusing to hear the case last October, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand this Kansas ruling, ending J'Noel Gardiner's four-year battle to have her gender, and therefore her marriage, legally recognized. Gardiner also lost all claim on her husband's $2.5 million estate.

Cross-dressing Off the Job

Marriage is not the only arena rife with legal landmines for transgender people. Getting and keeping jobs can also be monumental tasks, particularly for those who do not "pass" as male or female or who choose to reveal their personal histories. According to a report by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, nearly 70 percent of transgender people are unemployed or under-employed. As this next case illustrates, so prevalent is transgender employment discrimination that even cross-dressing off duty can cost people their jobs.

Peter Oiler, of New Orleans, had worked for 21 years as a truck driver for Winn-Dixie, the nation's sixth largest supermarket chain, when he confided in a supervisor that he occasionally wore women's clothes when not at work. Shortly after this revelation, Oiler was fired, and Winn-Dixie officials were explicit about the reason: they fired him solely because he cross-dressed, which they believed could "harm the company image." Never mind that he cross-dressed on his own time, or that he had an unblemished work record.

"To be told that after 21 years with the company felt like a knife in my chest," Oiler said. He and his wife of 25 years lost their health insurance, Oiler's retirement pension, and almost lost their home. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) then sued on his behalf, claiming the firing,violated federal sex discrimination law since Oiler "did not conform to the company's stereotyped notions of how a man ought to look and act."

As with J'Noel Gardiner, however, the law was not on Peter Oiler's side. In September, a federal judge ruled that, since transgender people are not protected under federal anti-discrimination law, it was perfectly legal for Winn-Dixie to fire Oiler for cross-dressing off the job.

"Sooner or later courts will recognize that people who do their jobs well should not lose their jobs simply because they are transgendered," said Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Joe Cook. "But people like Peter Oiler will suffer until that day comes." Transgender Rights and Wrongs In light of widespread harassment and discrimination, the cities of Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Key West and San Jose have all recently passed laws prohibiting discrimination against transgender people, joining 51 other municipalities (including the city of Santa Cruz) and two states (Minnesota and Rhode Island) with similar laws.

According to the Transgender Law and Policy Institute, 2002 was "a banner year for transgender equality," with more laws passed last year protecting trans people from discrimination than ever before.

These victories come after years of ardent activism by transgender people who understand they will not be protected by a gay rights bill unless the bill specifically includes them (by saying, for instance, that discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression is to be outlawed.) But despite well-publicized discrimination cases, resistance to trans inclusion in such laws is considerable. Last November in Eugene, Ore., for example, Mayor Jim Torrey threatened to veto a gay rights bill unless the City Council removed provisions that would allow transgender people to use the public bathrooms of their choice (an ongoing battle for trans people everywhere). The provisions were removed and the bill became law.

Even more distressing is when resistance to include transgender people comes from within the gay movement-as it often does.

The largest gay lobbying group in New York, the Empire State Pride Agenda, drafted and, in December, helped pass a landmark bill that protects lesbians, gay men and bisexuals from discrimination, but does not include transgender people. Despite intense lobbying by the trans community and its allies, the Pride Agenda refused to make the bill more inclusive. "The bill we are voting on today excludes those who surely could use its protections most," said openly-gay Senator Thomas Duane during the bill's debate on the Senate floor. "There are those small, but powerful groups in the gay community who are willing to turn their backs on the transgendered community," Duane said.

When the bill was signed into law, Matt Foreman, the Executive Director of the Pride Agenda, called it "simply extraordinary for our community."

But who's included in "our community"?

Perhaps what's extraordinary is that a gay organization could draft and support a bill that excludes transgender people in the very state where the modern gay movement was started-by transgender people. Drag queens, butch lesbians, and transsexuals were the among the first patrons who stood up to police brutality in 1969 at a Manhattan bar called the Stonewall Inn, igniting a riot and a nationwide outrage that is cited as the birth of modern gay activism. Thirty-four years later, the conservative wing of the gay movement displays a profound cultural amnesia, forgetting transgender leadership in the struggle for gay civil rights and relegating trans people to second class citizenship within the larger gay community.

"We think the gay and lesbian community has screwed us for too long," said Rusty Mae Moore, co-chair of New York's Metropolitan Gender Network. "If you're going to go around talking about GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender], then you better put the T in your legislation."

San Jose activist Dana Rivers agrees. "There's a persistent reticence to include transgender people in lesbian, gay and bisexual politics. We create an observable difference-it's harder to hide us. And so much of the gay movement is drawing great strength from a middle of the road, 'I'm-just-like-you, straight-person' approach."

The passage of New York's bill may portend a similar battle on a national scale. The Human Rights Campaign, the most powerful gay lobby in the country, has for years been at the fore of the struggle to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, a federal bill that provides protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation but not gender identity or expression. Such bills force transgender people and their allies into an impossible choice: support a bill that excludes them, or oppose a bill that will advance the civil rights of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals. It's a choice they should not have to make.

Leave it to Europeans, however, to put to shame this slow, piecemeal approach to transgender rights and the strife that goes along with it. Last month Great Britain passed a law granting a panoply of rights to transsexuals, allowing them to marry, change their birth certificates, and be legally recognized as their chosen gender. The law on transgender rights in Britain was shown to fall "far short of the standards for human dignity and human freedom in the 21st century."

"If democracies are measured by how they treat their minorities," said Minister Rosie Winterton, "then I believe it is absolutely right that the 5,000-strong transsexual community be afforded the same rights enjoyed by the other millions of us in the UK." America, are you listening?

The Elephant Behind the Pronouns

Though pronouns continue to be hotly debated in the press, what merits greater attention is the rigid gender binary system they represent, and its complicated impact on transgender lives. As author Leslie Feinberg explains in the book, "Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue," "That pink-blue dogma assumes that biology steers our social destiny.

We have been taught that being born female or male will determine how we will dress and walk, whether we will prefer our hair shortly cropped or long and flowing, whether we will be emotionally nurturing or repressed. According to this way of thinking, masculine females are trying to look "like men," and feminine males are trying to act "like women." But those of us who transgress those gender assumptions also shatter their inflexibility."

All the stories reported in this essay can be distilled down to that male-female dichotomy and the people who shatter it: violence against people who transgress conventional male or female behavior; harassment of people who don't conform to male or female dress codes; denial of marriage or employment rights to people who transcend the gender binary by moving from one end of the spectrum to the other-or somewhere in between; and the willingness of non-trans people to acknowledge that people who live outside traditional gender categories need and deserve legal protection.

The gender binary is "the elephant in the room," says Santa Cruz's Lee Maranto. "You try to avoid it, you don't talk about it, and everyone tries to ignore it. But the elephant is screaming," he says.

"Until we start to break that system down," says Dana Rivers, "and to see that it's OK to be one, the other, in between, or none, and that God made us, too, we won't see change."

Patrick Letellier teaches Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Politics and Culture at UC Santa Cruz. He can be reached at PatrickGL@aol.com.

Judge's Rulings Favor Latino AIDS Agency inTransgender Discrimination Suit

Important Victories for Transgender Rights and HIV Privacy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, January 16, 2002

CONTACT: Paul Cates, ACLU
(212) 549-2568; (917) 876-8879

NEW YORK-Saying that the physical anatomy of transgendered people is not relevant to gender identity, a New York Supreme Court Judge today ruled in favor of a leading Latino HIV/AIDS agency that was being threaten with eviction from their offices by a commercial landlord who sought disclosure of the anatomical sex of the agency's clients.

In a motion by the landlord asking the judge to force the Hispanic AIDS Forum to disclose the anatomical sex at birth of its clients, the judge ruled that the physical anatomy of transgendered people is not relevant to gender identity.

The landlord also sought to make Hispanic AIDS Forum reveal its clients' names. The judge sided with Hispanic AIDS Forum that such a requirement would violate the HIV confidentiality rights of the clients since Hispanic AIDS Forum largely treats people with HIV and AIDS.

"By evicting us and forcing us to relocate, this landlord has already cost us too many precious resources -- resources that could have helped keep people alive," said Heriberto Sanchez Soto, Executive Director of the Hispanic AIDS Forum. "These rulings send the message that discrimination and prejudice are wrong, especially when so many lives are at stake."

Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union's AIDS Project, Hispanic AIDS Forum brought suit against the landlord in June of 2001 after it refused to renew the lease on their Jackson Heights office because of complaints from other tenants that transgendered clients were using the "wrong" restrooms. (For example, people who identified as women, but were not born anatomically female, used the women's restroom.) The landlord refused to negotiate ways to accommodate the transgendered clients, forcing Hispanic AIDS Forum to relocate, incurring higher rent and substantial moving expenses.

"The landlord's tactics of trying to degrade our clients by forcing them to disclose what their genitals look like and their HIV status demonstrates the contempt they have for transgendered people suffering from HIV and AIDS," said James Esseks, Litigation Director of the ACLU's AIDS Project. "These rulings are a positive step in helping us correct the wrongs done to a community that has already gone through enough."

The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, says the Estate of Joseph Bruno (which owns the Bruson Building in Jackson Heights) violated state and local laws that prohibit Judge's Rulings Favor Latino AIDS Agency in Transgender Discrimination Suit January 16, 2003 discrimination based on sex, gender, and disability. The lawsuit asks for unspecified damages, citing the financial and practical impact the move had on the Hispanic AIDS Forum's ability to reach people badly in need of services.

According to the suit, the landlord told Sanchez Soto that the Hispanic AIDS Forum's lease would not be renewed because of complaints from other tenants over "men who think they're women using the women's bathrooms." When asked whether he was referring to the agency's transgendered clients, the lawsuit charges that the landlord replied, "I don't care what they are. They can't use the wrong restrooms."

The landlord insisted that the Hispanic AIDS Forum sign a written agreement that none of its clients would use restrooms in the building. When the agency refused, the landlord began eviction proceedings and the agency eventually moved to Woodside, Queens, which is less central to Latino gay and transgender communities.

Hispanic AIDS Forum v. Estate of Joseph Bruno is still in the information gathering stage. Depositions are expected to continue in February.

The ACLU is aided in this lawsuit by Kesari Ruza and Ed Hernstadt of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, PC.

NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE PRAISES BOSTON CITY COUNCIL FORPASSING TRANSGENDER ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW

Mayor Expected to Sign Measure

October 23, 2002, Boston, Massachusetts - The Boston City Council today voted nine to one with one abstention to pass a measure adding gender identity and expression to the city's anti-discrimination law. In August, Mayor Thomas M. Menino indicated that he would support the measure if passed.

According to National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) Executive Director Lorri L. Jean, "Boston is the eleventh city this year to demonstrate that when we educate legislators about the discrimination that transgender people face, they will support laws that prohibit discrimination. Boston reaffirms its commitment to diversity and forward-thinking with the passage of this law."

The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) led the effort to pass the bill, working closely with lead sponsor Chuck Turner (D-7th District). The bill adds "gender identity or expression" to Boston's anti-discrimination law, which covers employment, housing, public accommodations, and education. No one spoke in opposition to the bill at the committee hearing on September 30. Sexual orientation was added to the law in 1984.

With the Mayor's signature, Boston will become the eleventh jurisdiction in 2002 to pass a law to explicitly add gender identity protections to an existing law, either simultaneously with the addition of sexual orientation or standing alone.

NGLTF lent support to MTPC throughout the effort, providing strategic assistance as well as being co-leaders of an activist training in Boston with MTPC, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition. NGLTF also mailed an action alert to its members in Boston urging them to contact the mayor and their city councilperson to support the measure. Including the Boston law expected to be signed by the mayor, NGLTF has assisted activists involved in efforts of six of the eleven jurisdictions passing ordinances this year.

Cole Thaler of the MTPC noted, "The City Council has unmistakably shown that it is dedicated to protecting the rights of all who don't conform to rigid sex stereotypes. With the help of NGLTF, along with the dozens of community members who testified for the ordinance at the public hearing, we've helped Boston become safer for all varieties of gender identity and expression."

The ten other jurisdictions that have passed anti-discrimination laws that include transgender people this year are: Allentown, PA; Buffalo, NY; Erie County, PA; Dallas, TX; Decatur, IL; New Hope, PA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Salem, OR; and Tacoma, WA. With the addition of Boston, there will be a total of 50 jurisdictions in the United States that explicitly include transgender people in their anti-discrimination laws, including 41 cities, seven counties and the two states of Rhode Island and Minnesota.

"2002 has been a landmark year for passing transgender anti- discrimination laws," said Jean. "In terms of the number of laws passed per year, what was an upward trend over the last few years has become a near vertical climb in 2002."

NGLTF's Transgender Civil Rights Project provides legislative and strategy assistance, including evaluation of legislative language, to activists and organizations working to pass trans-inclusive anti- discrimination ordinances or add transgender people to existing laws.

**********************************************************************

NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE
PRESS RELEASE
 
MEDIA CONTACT:
Sheri Lunn
slunn@ngltf.org; 323-857-8751 (office); 800-757-6476 (pager)
 
http://www.ngltf.org
1325 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20005

Transgendered Have No Federal Protections Judge Rules 

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: September 18, 2002
8:47 a.m. EDT/+5GMT/-3PDT

(New Orleans, Louisiana) A United States District Judge has ruled that the federal ban on sex discrimination does not apply to people who are transgendered.

The judge then dismissed a discrimination suit filed by Peter Oiler against grocery store chain Winn-Dixie.

Oiler had worked for Winn-Dixie for 21 years. His suit said that during his tenure with the company he showed up for work on time, did a good job, and followed all the rules, but in January of 2000 he was fired because he cross-dresses off-duty. Oiler and his wife Shirley lost their health insurance, and nearly lost their home. 

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit on Peter's behalf, charging that Winn-Dixie violated state and federal sex discrimination laws.

In papers filed with the court in the case, Winn-Dixie never claimed that Oilerís off-the-job cross-dressing interfered with his work.

Almost 15 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court said that laws against sex discrimination prevent employers from firing a person who doesn't act "like a man" or "like a woman." But that, the ACLU said, is just what Winn-Dixie did. 

"We believe that courts will reject the idea that only some people are protected from discrimination based on stereotypes about sex," said Ken Choe, staff attorney with the ACLUís Lesbian and Gay Rights Project.

"Discrimination based on gender identity is just as foolish and wrongheaded as all the other practices that deny people jobs and homes on account of something that has no bearing on ability or work ethic," said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana ACLU. 

"Sooner or later," he added, "courts will recognize that people who do their jobs well should not lose their jobs simply because they are transgendered. But people like Peter Oiler will suffer until that day comes. We should speed the process by passing federal and state laws now that specifically forbid gender identity discrimination."

Some courts already have moved past " this cramped reading of civil rights law," Choe said. Two states and about 40 cities have passed laws that specifically forbid discrimination based on gender identity. In addition, more than 100 private employers have included gender identity in their employment nondiscrimination policies.

©365Gay.com LtdÆ 2002

Drag King Arrested

In late 2002, Antonio Caputo, one of the drag kings who performs with Club Casanova, was arrested on the US/Canada border and held in North Dakota for misrepresenting his gender/identity. He's not a US citizen, so he faces involunary deportation, among other things. It sounds like he has legal aid, but please pass the word to anyone who may be able to further assist, or who you think should know about this case:

http://pub82.ezboard.com/fbutchdykeboy5326frm1.showMessage?topicID=530.topic

About a Boy Who Isn't

By BENOIT DENIZET-LEWIS (May 26, 2002)

Standing in a circle under the shade of a tall, skinny palm tree, five boys smile in unison as they recount a particularly absurd scene in the teenage comedy ''Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.'' The boys -- who have watched it countless times on video -- agree that it's a comedy classic, but they can't seem to settle on its funniest scene. ''Man, the whole movie is dope,'' says the tallest of the five, who wears a heavy Starter jacket even though it's 70 degrees outside.

It is a bright and sunny morning in California, and this middle-school recess is humming along lazily. Packs of 12-year-olds in dark pants and white-collar shirts (the school uniform) meander about, looking for something to do. Next to the palm tree, three haughty girls with pocket mirrors gossip as they reapply their makeup. A hundred yards away, groups of loud, cocky boys play basketball on outdoor courts. And surveying it all are smiling faculty members with walkie-talkies who easily negotiate this sea of 2,000 mostly Hispanic students.

A male teacher leans against a table in the outdoor lunch area, the quietest spot in this expansive courtyard. He is a well-liked teacher who also facilitates the school's discreet weekly support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.

In the courtyard, there are two kids who are regulars at the group's meeting. One is a strikingly beautiful 13-year-old girl with piercing brown eyes and long black hair; she says she is bisexual. On this morning -- as on most mornings -- she is trailed by a group of fawning boys, who can't seem to get enough of the charming eighth grader in the tight white shirt, black pants and rainbow-colored belt.

If she is the darling of the school's boys, her male counterpart stands under the palm tree with his friends, who are still talking about movies. He is a well-liked and attractive 13-year-old with short-cropped black hair, brown eyes and a clear, soft complexion. His backpack is tied loosely around his thin frame, and his stylish, oversize gray sweater falls nearly to his knees.

He is also a regular at the school's weekly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender student group, although none of his friends know that. They have no reason to suspect it, either. He likes girls. He has a girlfriend (a high school-girlfriend, no less), and countless other girls are willing, should he ever want another.

So while his friends assume he is one of them, the support-group members presume -- though they don't know for sure, because he doesn't say much during meetings -- that he is probably secretly gay or bisexual or maybe just confused. The truth is, they all have it wrong. He isn't gay. He isn't confused. He isn't even a boy.

For the last four years, M., who was born a girl, has secretly lived as a boy -- meaning he (as I will refer to M.) has lived as the opposite sex. M. agreed to let me write about him because, as he put it: ''I want to help other people. And I hope people will read the story and understand more about people like me.'' To protect his identity, I will refer to him only by the first initial of the name that he has used since he started at his current school. I will not name his town, school or any person in his life. (He was not photographed for this article.)

While most transgender teenagers are unwilling or unable to cross-live, M. finds himself in a nearly unheard-of position: with the support of his family and a few teachers at his middle school, he lives as a boy.

The seventh child in a close-knit family of seven girls and two boys, M. showed early signs of Gender Identity Disorder (G.I.D.), the American Psychiatric Association diagnosis for people who repeatedly show, or feel, a strong desire to be the opposite sex and are uncomfortable with their birth sex. By age 5, M. refused to wear girls' clothing. And while many children with G.I.D. don't continue their cross-gender identification into their teens, M. only became more boy-identified with age.

''We always thought she would grow out of it,'' M.'s 20-year-old sister says. She is sitting on the couch in her sparsely furnished one-story home, where she lives with her husband and infant son near a busy freeway in a working-class Hispanic neighborhood. ''We would try to get her to wear dresses, but she would cry and cry and cry.''

M. lounges deep into the couch across from his sister, holding a small pillow in his lap and his pager in his right hand. He wears baggy black jeans and a hooded black sweatshirt, making him look like some sort of combination of a skater and a gangster. M. is neither. ''This is just the style I like,'' he says, his legs spread wide and his small head resting against the back of the couch. I ask him why he likes the style. ''I don't know,'' he says after a few seconds of thought, during which he scratches his head. ''It's just cool.''

Except for his exceeding civility (particularly toward adults), everything about M. screams 13-year-old boy: His clothes are too big. His voice is boyish and disinterested. He bosses his younger sisters around. He answers multipart questions with one-word answers. He spends hours each night on the phone with his girlfriend. And he has only one real hobby to speak of: watching action and comedy movies with his friends.

''When I look at her now, I see a boy,'' says M.'s 23-year-old sister, who sits next to M.'s 20-year-old sister on the couch. ''I used to think she was just going to be a lesbian. But she doesn't want to be a girl with another girl. She wants to be a boy with another girl. I know she is a girl, but I see a boy.''

''We used to ask her all the time: 'How come you want to be a boy? You're a girl,''' recalls the 20-year-old sister. ''People would stop my mother on the street and say, 'Oh, your son is so beautiful.' And she would correct them and say, 'No, this is my daughter.'''

M.'s mother, like his sisters, still can't bring herself to refer to M. as ''he.'' A thin, delicate woman with a beautiful smile, she works as a housecleaner and speaks little English. ''I accept my daughter because she is my daughter and I love her,'' she says in Spanish, sitting next to her eldest daughters, as M. and his sisters translate. ''But I don't understand it. Sometimes it makes me cry.''

Several family members cried after seeing ''Boys Don't Cry'' on video, which tells the true story of Brandon Teena, a female-to-male transgender 21-year-old from Nebraska, who was raped and murdered when her biological sex was discovered. ''We all say, 'Look, what happened in that movie can happen to you, too,''' the 20-year-old sister says. ''We always try to together to tell the truth to people, because what would students at her school do if they found out she was lying to them?''

There is a long pause, during which M. glances down at his vibrating pager. A popular kid with a group of close eighth-grade friends, he gets paged about every 15 minutes, often by his girlfriend, who tells M. she loves him in pager code. I ask M. if many girls at school like him. ''Girls flirt with me at school,'' he says matter-of-factly, ''but I tell them I have a girlfriend.''

M. hasn't told his girlfriend about his secret. All they have done is kissed. ''When she wants to do more, I just say, 'No, I'm not ready,''' M. says. ''I want to touch her, but then she would want to touch me back. So we just kiss. I want to tell her the truth so bad, but every time I try, I can't.''

Few transgender teenagers face M.'s unusual predicament. While M. is part of his school's elite social group, most self-identified transgender teenagers can't hide their biological gender and face daily harassment and ridicule at school. Ninety percent feel physically unsafe on campus, according to a 2001 study of transgender, gay and bisexual high-schoolers by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

M. says he feels safe everywhere; he has the confidence of a 13-year-old who rarely thinks beyond tomorrow. But as his female body develops, it will become increasingly difficult to live secretly as a boy. And if he continues romantic relationships with girls without disclosing the truth, the moment will inevitably come when a girlfriend initiates more sexual contact.

On his first day of fifth grade at a new school, M. stood sheepishly in the classroom doorway. His hair was cut short, and he wore baggy boys' clothes, but he was still living as a girl. To the teacher, though, M. looked like any other boy. ''Show the gentleman to his seat,'' the teacher instructed another student.

The gentleman? Too embarrassed to correct him, M. -- who at the time went by his birth name, which though primarily a girl's name is occasionally a boy's -- shuffled to his seat and sat down. Minutes later, he grasped the significance of that moment. ''That's when I realized I could live as a boy, without anyone knowing,'' he says. ''People just assumed I was a boy.''

M. didn't tell his family what happened at school, and that year he lived a secret double life: at home he was a girl; at school he was a boy. Because of his gender-neutral first name, teachers and students didn't suspect anything.

Although he can be painfully shy around new people, M. soon made friends with both boys and girls. M. had to change schools again the next year for middle school, but he continued living secretly as a boy and started dating girls, who were drawn to his good looks and sweet, calm demeanor. M. even took gym class with boys, because the school didn't require students to shower, and he never had to get fully naked in the locker room. The more M. lived as a boy, the less he worried about being discovered. ''I would go weeks without thinking about it,'' he says.

That changed last year, when a counselor at the school discovered his secret during a routine call to his mother. The counselor referred to M. as ''your son,'' but his mother -- unaware that M. was passing as a boy -- corrected the counselor. ''She's not my son,'' his mother said. ''She's my daughter.'' The counselor was shocked. ''She's your what?''

M. says the school told him that he would have to take gym class with the other girls the following year when he went into eighth grade. If he didn't want to do that, M. says, administrators suggested he transfer to another school and start fresh as a girl. At this point, M. wasn't about to go back to living as a girl, so in the fall of this school year he transferred to his current school. Finally aware that M. was passing as a boy, his mother worried about his safety but told M. that she would support his wish to cross-live. She insisted, however, that M. tell administrators at his new school.

On his first day at the school, M., his mother and the school dean walked to the classroom of the openly gay teacher who runs the support group. He was in the middle of a lecture about Kabuki theater when the dean knocked on the classroom door and took the teacher aside. ''You need to talk to this young . . . this young. . . .'' the nervous-looking dean leaned in and whispered in the teacher's ear. ''This is a girl, and this is her mother.''

And so began the highly unusual transgender experiment at this California middle school. As far as the teacher knew, the school had not dealt with a transgender student before, let alone one who wanted to cross-live. Under the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, which makes California one of eight states (plus the District of Columbia) to outlaw discrimination of public-school students based on sexual orientation (and one of two states to protect students on the basis of gender identity), state public schools are required to provide all students ''equal rights and opportunities in the educational institutions of the state.''

But nothing in the law spells out, or even hints at, what to do with a student like M. Is the school legally required to take special steps to allow M. to secretly live as a boy? ''No, there isn't anything in the law that requires a school to provide a special bathroom or really do anything specific,'' says Virginia Uribe, founder of the Los Angeles-based Project 10, the nation's first public-school program dedicated to providing on-site educational support services to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. ''But to keep a student like [M.] safe, there are obviously specific things that need to happen.''

The teacher created a safety plan for M., but he realized that he couldn't do it alone. According to the teacher, he consulted with the principal, a counselor, a nurse and a representative from the school district. ''I needed to tell the nurse, because I wanted [M.] to be able to use the private bathroom in her office,'' says the teacher, a powerful personality who is renowned at the school for getting what he wants. ''People were smart enough to get out of my way and let me handle it. [M.] has the right to be safe in school, no matter what his gender identification.''

Most concerned with the prospect of M. in the locker room for phys ed, the teacher first approached the school's dance instructor about instead enrolling M. in dance class. The class doesn't require students to wear tight outfits, and M. could change in the teachers' private bathroom, which is near the dance rehearsal space. (Because the school is so big, no one seems to notice that M. doesn't change with the rest of the class.) The teacher approached the instructor. ''I briefly explained the situation and told him that he needed to trust me and do me this favor. I don't think he had ever met an openly gay person before me, so this was a lot for him to digest. Finally he said, 'O.K., but if there is any problem with this, I'm coming to you.'''

The teacher then hand-selected M.'s other teachers, choosing those he thought would be sensitive to M.'s situation. He reminded them not to call M. by his given name, which legally has to be in the roll book, but to use the name that M. and the teacher had come up with. ''Even though his given name can be a boy's name, many people in the Latino community know it as a girl's name,'' the teacher says. ''We didn't want to take any chances.''

''When he told me about [M.], all I could do was picture 'Boys Don't Cry,''' says another of M.'s teachers. ''Was this child going to be safe? I went home and had a long talk with myself. I wanted to make sure I didn't do anything stupid to jeopardize this.''

Helping M. live as a boy may seem compassionate, but there are some people -- even some sympathetic to M.'s predicament -- who think the school should be handling M.'s situation differently. Ken Zucker, head of the Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic in Toronto, says that M.'s well-meaning teachers are bordering on unethical conduct. ''They're perpetuating a deception,'' Zucker says after I explain M.'s situation to him. ''What if [M.] starts dating a girl at school, and she finds out and is traumatized?

The school is potentially liable, because they have actively perpetuated a deception. I would advocate that this youngster be encouraged to 'come out' as a transgender youth, so that everyone knows the score. But whatever decision is made, this kid needs to be evaluated by a local expert in gender identity -- not by a well-meaning teacher.''

The teacher insists he is only doing what is necessary to keep M. safe, and other transgender youth experts say that having M. ''come out'' as transgender could be dangerous. ''The consequences of being an 'out' transgender youth are too great,'' says Gerald Mallon, an associate professor at the Hunter College School of Social Work and editor of the book ''Social Services With Transgendered Youth.'' ''If [M.] gets found out at school as having a vagina, he will probably be beaten or raped.''

The teacher agrees: ''In a more understanding and accepting world, my preference would be for this child to be able to be honest. But [M.] wishes to live as a boy, and it is my responsibility to protect him. According to the laws in this state, I am in compliance. If we didn't take the basic steps, it would be impossible to protect his safety, short of hiring an armed guard to escort him from class to class.''

M. says he doesn't worry about being discovered at school, where he walks around confidently with his friends. But he acknowledges that he is less sure about next year, when he will attend one of two area high schools. ''I don't know if the teachers there would want to lie for me,'' he says.

The teacher doesn't know either, but he has already spoken with a counselor at one of the schools who runs a similar support group and plans to meet with someone at the other. ''I have to find someone who will look after him,'' the teacher says. ''That person won't necessarily take over all my responsibilities, because I don't think my job with him will end when he graduates from here.''

M. pulls at his apartment's courtyard gate and is surprised to find it locked. ''They never lock this,'' he says, tugging at it a second time. ''Hey, kid!'' he shouts toward a boy dribbling a basketball inside the courtyard. ''Open the door!'' The boy -- who looks younger but is bigger than M. -- bows his head slightly, apparently hurt to have been labeled a kid by another kid. He eventually dribbles the ball over to the gate and opens it, for which M. mumbles a quick ''Thanks.''

M. lives in this subsidized-housing community, in a small, two-bedroom apartment he shares with his mother, stepfather and two younger sisters. (According to M., his father, a mechanic who lives nearby, is a regular and supportive presence in M.'s life.) M.'s family has moved several times in the last few years, so his neighbors know him only as a boy. ''There are always kids everywhere around here,'' M says near the steps to his apartment, stopping to avoid a speeding shopping cart with a crazed boy at the controls.

The door to M.'s apartment is open. His mother is in the kitchen, and his 6-year-old sister is running around the carpeted living room in overalls. M.'s 10-year-old sister -- with whom he shares a small nondescript room with a bunk bed, television and no posters on the walls -- is at a friend's house. ''Normally she's cool,'' M. says of his sister and bunkmate. ''But when she gets mad at me, she calls me names, like 'lesbian' or 'boy-girl.' I tell my mom, and my mom gets mad at her.''

M. plops himself down on the living-room couch and takes off his black hooded sweatshirt, under which he wears three layers of shirts. His small breasts, which began developing last year, are not noticeable.

''I don't want anyone to see them,'' he says. ''When they first started growing last year, I just hoped that they wouldn't grow that big.'' In addition to wearing layers, M. often stands with his shoulders slightly hunched, making it nearly impossible to see his chest from a profile position.

As M.'s mother brings him a glass of juice, I ask him if he has thought about someday taking hormones and having gender-reassignment surgery, which for female-to-male transgenders can include breast reduction, the construction of male genitalia and the ablation of the uterus and the ovaries. ''If I could do surgery right now, I would,'' M says without hesitation. ''But I don't think they can do it at this age.''

''Why would you want to take away what God gave you?'' his mother says in Spanish, her voice soft and loving. ''Why would you want to do that?'' It becomes clear that this is the first time that the subject of surgery has come up, and M. doesn't have an answer prepared. There is a long pause, during which M. -- who often pauses before answering a complicated question, visibly collecting his thoughts -- takes a sip of juice, leans forward and scratches the side of his head. ''I want to live as a boy,'' he says finally. ''I want to do it because I want to be a guy.''

I ask M. if he wants a penis as an adult, and he nods his head. I ask his mother if she would be supportive of that. ''They can attach a penis?'' she says in Spanish, unbelieving. She looks at M. ''I don't know. Why would you want to do that?''

To M., the answer is obvious: he is a boy, and he wants a boy's body. In that pursuit, hormonal therapy could drastically change M.'s body, stopping menstruation and bringing about the onset of male puberty. (M. started getting his period two years ago.) But according to the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association's Standards of Care, the widely recognized blueprint for management of gender-identity disorders, hormonal treatment should not begin before age 16. In the United States, transgender teenagers under 18 need parental consent and psychological and physical evaluations before receiving hormones from a doctor.

''Hormones before puberty would be very hard to defend,'' says Kenneth Demsky, a psychologist and gender specialist in Boston, when I tell him abut M. ''When working with someone who is young, you want to delay irreversible physical intervention as long as clinically appropriate.'' But it is a dilemma, because, as Demsky says, ''the earlier people get hormones, the better the effects.''

One of the best arguments for delaying hormone treatment is that gender identity, like sexual preference, can be changing and fluid -- particularly during childhood and adolescence. Does M., at age 13, truly know what he will want in 5 or 10 years? ''Most likely, yes,'' says Zucker from the Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic in Toronto. ''The chance that [M.] could change his mind at this point is close to zero. If he has been so consistently boy-identified from an early age and is reasonably psychologically stable, he seems like a possible candidate for puberty-blocking medication. But to find that out, he needs to be evaluated by an expert. And he needs to be seeing a therapist who can help him in talking about all this, planning ahead and in learning how to negotiate disclosure to his romantic partners.''

M. has never seen a therapist (he has never asked to see one, although he says he would like to), and it is very unlikely his family could afford regular visits to a gender-identity specialist. Still, Zucker says that it is only through therapy that M., and his family, can better understand how and why M. chose to cross-live and how he should best navigate the next four years of high school. ''I would be interested in understanding more about how he came to this very early and conscious choice,'' Zucker says. ''Did he ever think about the possibility of being a lesbian, and was that abhorrent to him? And was that abhorrent to his family? Do they see him as more normal living as a boy and liking girls, as opposed to being a girl and liking other girls?''

When I pose the questions to M., he is initially confused. He eventually says that he never felt like a lesbian because he always felt like a boy. But he suspects that his family prefers him as a boy rather than as a lesbian. ''I don't know for sure, but they might think it was nasty if I was a girl into other girls,'' he says.

Hey, faggot!''

M. and I look to our left, where a male voice comes from a passing car. We are walking down a busy boulevard toward M.'s apartment, and the loud taunt -- which was more mocking than threatening and probably aimed at the effeminate young man behind us -- lingers in the muggy air.

M. seems unfazed -- he doesn't consider himself gay, after all -- and continues talking about his girlfriend, who just paged him for the fifth time in the last 30 minutes. When I ask him if there is any chance she might know his secret, M. recounts a recent phone call between them that did manage to faze him.

''Out of the blue, my girlfriend said, 'What would you do if I was a guy?''' M. says. ''I didn't know what to say. I just said, 'I don't know.' Then a minute later I asked her, 'What would you do if I was a girl?' She said, 'I would be mad at you, but I would still love you.' Sometimes I think she might know about me, because why would she have asked me that? Does she know I'm a girl?''

That's just one of the many questions M. is pondering today. He says his mind is a muddled sea of thoughts -- about his girlfriend, high school and his developing female body. I ask him what he would do if his friends discovered his secret this year or in high school. Would he transfer? ''No, I don't think I would,'' he says. ''I would just deal with it.''

While M. seems aware, on some level, that his life would change drastically if people discovered his secret, he plays down the consequences. Does he worry about being beaten up? ''No, not really,'' he says. Would people make fun of him? ''Maybe, yeah,'' he says. Does he think his friends would understand? ''I don't know,'' he says. ''I would try to explain to them that I feel like a guy and that I always have.''

Finally, as we approach his apartment complex, I ask him if he is happy. He takes a few steps and tightens his face in thought. He scratches his head. He starts to open his mouth and then closes it, mulling over the question for some 10 seconds. Just when I suspect he has given up on the question, M. answers it.

''Yeah, I'm happy, but I always think, Why did God make me like this?'' he says, looking off into the distance. ''Why couldn't he have just made me one way, either a guy or girl? Because I don't feel like a girl at all, but I have a girl's body. I don't understand why God would do that.''

Benoit Denizet-Lewis is a writer living in Boston.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Compan

First TG case under 1964 Civil Rights Act is settled

From The Cleveland Gay Peoples Chronicle

http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories02/02jul12.htm#story4

by Eric Resnick

Cleveland - A transgender woman called "Mrs. Doubtfire" by co-workers has settled an employment discrimination case against United Consumer Financial Services of Westlake to her satisfaction and strengthened TG worker rights in the process.

The case was the first to hold that the 1964 Civil Rights Act covers sexual stereotype non-conformity. After mediation, it was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties on June 28, said attorney Randi Barnabee of Macedonia, who represented the 60-year-old Cleveland woman.

UCFS finances consumer purchases of Kirby sweepers and World Book encyclopedias.

Because the initial complaint alleged that UCFS violated the woman's right to privacy, her identity has not been made public and the amount of the settlement is also confidential.

Prior to filing the federal civil rights suit, the woman turned down UCFS's offer to settle for $1,500. Barnabee told the Gay People's Chronicle in May 2001 that she felt the case had merit and would not allow her client to settle for less than a substantial amount.

UCFS fired the woman July 11, 2000 after she had worked ten days as a temporary worker through Reserves Network. The case was filed in the United States District Court of Northern Ohio in January 2001.

Notes kept by the temporary agency were used to document the woman's satisfactory job performance and the unusually thorough background check conducted by UCFS. The notes also record UCFS personnel officer Debbie Woodworth asking a Reserves Network representative if she "noticed anything peculiar about [the employee]."

Woodworth then told the representative, "Employees here have named her Mrs. Doubtfire . . . but they don't say it to her face."

Woodworth was also present at a July 10, 2000 meeting with collections manager Brian Davis and UCFS vice president William Ciszozon.

At that meeting, Ciszozon asked the woman if she was a man dressed as a woman, and what her gender was because, "by looking at [her], [Ciszozon] can't tell." Ciszozon also wanted to know if she had anoperation.

When the woman protested the line of questioning, she was told thatanother employee had complained that "a man dressed as a woman was using the ladies restroom."

UCFS notified Reserves of the woman's termination thefollowing day.

UCFS was represented by attorney Lee Hutton of Duvin, Cahn, and Hutton of Cleveland, who asserted during initial mediation that the woman was unable to perform the essential functions of the job.

Hutton filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming that Title VII ofthe 1964 Civil Rights Act cannot protect transsexuals. He said a court ruled in a 1984 case, Ulane v. Eastern Airlines, that Congress had a narrow definition of "sex" in mind, excluding transsexuals, when the act was passed.

However, Judge Kathleen McDonald O'Malley rejected Hutton's motion, finding that the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins says a person cannot be discriminated against for not conforming to the gender stereotype behavior expected by another person or social norms.

This was the first time a court allowed a transgender person to sue an employer for discrimination on the basis of sexual stereotypenon-conformity, according to Barnabee, who is transgender herself.

According to Barnabee, this case, "opens the door a little bit" toprotect transgender workers, who otherwise have no discriminationprotection.

Barnabee has submitted O'Malley's opinion to be published in the Federal Supplement, a collection of opinions used as guidance by federal courts.

Barnabee believes facts of the case had merit, too, but said that had a jury found in UCFS's favor, it could have weakened the persuasive value of O'Malley's opinion on future cases.

Barnabee stressed that the major success of this case was O'Malley's opinion replacing the old Ulane decision and allowing Title VII to protect transgender people.

"It's helpful, too," said Barnabee, "that [O'Malley's court] is part of the Sixth Circuit, which is notoriously conservative."

Allentown, PA, expands HR ordinance

The Allentown City Council voted 5-2 tonight to expand the city's Human Relations Commission ordinance to include gender identity and sexual orientation. Mayor Roy Afflerbach has pledged to sign the legislation.

The city anti-discrimination ordinance now includes gender identity and sexual orientation as distinct protected classes. A definition was included for gender identity that is the same definition used in the Philadelphia bill currently under consideration. That definition is "Self perception, or perception by others, as male or female, including a person's appearance, behavior, or physical characteristics, that may be in accord with, or opposed to, one's physical anatomy, chromosomal sex, or sex assigned at birth."

This new law of course has clear and direct significance for transgender people who live and work in the city of Allentown, but for the rest of us as well. As we work to expand anti-discrimination protections in other municipalities in PA and nationwide, it helps to have precedent-setting city ordinances like Allentown's to point to. Further, it helps tremendously when we advocate for statewide protections here and across the country.

Congratulations to all of the activists in Allentown who successfully shepherded through the strongest anti-discrimination protections existing for transgender people and all LGBT folks in Pennsylvania. Special congratulations and deep thanks go to Liz Bradbury, Steve Black and Patricia Sullivan of PAGALA (Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance for Political Action) who worked tirelessly for years and years to get Bill #16 passed and who persisted in demanding the inclusion of gender identity protections for transgender people. Regardless of where you live in Pennsylvania, please consider writing to Liz, Trish and Steve and thanking them for their strong and principled support of transgender people. Transgender people simply would not have been included if not for these wonderful folks. Their email addresses are listed below.

PAGALA is also playing a key role in our trans-inclusive statewide Hate Crimes law initiative. It is definitely worth joining and supporting PAGALA. Membership is $20 and they are doing excellent work as evidenced by this important victory tonight.

Also special thanks to Councilperson Gail Hoover who introduced and worked very hard for this legislation and to Mayor Afflerbach whose leadership was pivotal. Allentown residents should consider thanking them as well as the other council members who supported the legislation. The council members who voted in favor of the ordinance are David Howells (Council President), Martin Velazquez III, Julio Guridy, Tom Burke, and certainly not least, Gail Hoover.

Pennsylvania now has five municipalities that have trans-inclusive anti-discrimination ordinances. This is more than any other state in the country except California which also has five (an asterisk belongs here but it's too late tonight). The other municipalities in Pennsylvania are Harrisburg, York, Pittsburgh and Erie County. Other Pennsylvania municipalities are expected to join this list in the coming months. Anyone interested in working on or even leading local legislation in your own area should contact Mara Keisling at the PA Gender Rights Coalition.

Allentown Bill #16 also changed the existing word "handicapped" to "disabled." Other amendments to the Act were included but of little apparent significance to transgender people and are thus not described here.

WANTED:TRANSGENDER/TRANSSEXUAL/GENDERQUEER/INTERSEX/QUESTIONING (TGIQ) YOUTH AGED 12-25 FOR PAID INTERN POSITION

@ YOUTH GENDER PROJECT!
10 HOURS/WEEK, $12/hour, work in our San Francisco LGBT Community Center office or in our downtown Berkeley office!

Responsibilities include: Youth Outreach, especially to young trans women of color and intersex youth, Training (all kinds of folks about TGIQ youth issues), Genderblast! Conference organizing, Office Work, Materials

Development, and more, depending on your interests. Youth of color, MTF youth, intersex youth, disabled youth, low-income youth and youth under 18 especially encouraged to apply.

Apply to:

More about Youth Gender ProjectÉ.

Youth Gender Project is a youth/adult partnership using a peer-based model to empower and support transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, intersex and gender-questioning (TGIQ) youth and young adults of all cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds. YGP is dedicated to fostering gender and cultural diversity and equity, and to creating social and institutional change through the education of all those who work with, or make decisions about the lives of, these youth and young adults.

Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture, and Society

We hereby present the new 2002 program of the Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture, and Society organised by the Universiteit of Amsterdam, from June 30th - July 26, 2002.

The Summer Institute is an intensive four-week summer program which focuses on the study of sexuality across cultures and is taught by an international faculty team. This highly specialised programme is for advanced students, primarily Ph.D and MA students in the socio-cultural sciences and professionals working for NGO's.

The scientific directors are Dr. Carole Vance (Columbia University) and Dr. Han ten Brummelhuis (Universiteit van Amsterdam). This year's guest lecturers are: John Gagnon (Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Stony Brook), Douglas Crimp (University of Rochester, NY) and Theo van der Meer (Free University Amsterdam).

The other faculty members are:

Stefan Dudink, Saskia Wieringa, Michael Tan, Oliver Phillips and Mirjam Schieveld

The institute was founded in 1995 since then students from thirty different countries have participated in our courses. Nearly a quarter of the participants have been professionals working for NGO's. The other participants came from such diverse educational backgrounds as the social sciences (anthropology, sociology), psychology, women's studies, history, public health and human sexuality studies.

We expect a 2002 class of approximately 30-35 students. The Institute's classes are intensive small group seminars, with discussions, lecturers and guest lecturers by prominent people in the field. The details and latest information are announced on the website.

Applications must be addressed to the Universiteit van Amsterdam at the below address. You can visit our web-site for an application form.

Please feel free to share this information.

Sincerely yours,

Mirjam Schieveld
Programme manager
Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture, and Society
International School for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Oude Turfmarkt 129
1012 GC Amsterdam
The Netherlands
phone: +31 20 525.3776
fax: +31 20 525.3778
E-mail: summerinstitute@ishss.uva.nl
http://www.ishss.uva.nl/SummerInstitute/

Orange County has formed a TG task force.

Focus is on advocacy, education, resources and referrals. Meetings are monthly at 6pm, on the first Tuesday of each month. If interested, contact Patman420@juno.com for more details.

***********************

The OC TG task force is seeking referrals and resources in or near the OC area. If you know of any gender specialists (endocrinologists, gynecologists, other "ologists", surgeons, therapists, groups, other professional service providers, specialty stores, or anything of interest to the "gender community", please forward information to the above address link.

Don't assume its already known or obvious, if it could help someone, let us know! Thanks!!!!!!

***********************

OCFTM is meeting this Thursday, the Jan. 17th, 2001, at 7 PM at The Center in Garden Grove.

It is a loose, "rap" style gathering that offers transmen and others a chance to network, socialize, access resources, and get updates on current female-to-male transsexual/transgender community activities and information.

It will focus primarily on transmen/post transitional issues as there is a pretransitional group in LA. It is a fully inclusive atmosphere and invites anyone of female-bodied, masculine-identification to attend and encourages diversity.

Family and significant others are welcome, although some sessions may be restricted based on the needs of the group and the subject matter of the evening. Adults only unless FTM.

Meetings are held on the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 PM.

Location is:

There is no charge or membership but donations to The Center are appreciated for use of the facilities.

Call the center for directions and other info or contact Patman420@juno.com

How does the Military Selective Service Act apply to individuals who have had a sex change?

Individuals who are born female and have a sex change are not required to register. U.S. citizens or immigrants who are born male and have a sex change are still required to register. In the event of a resumption of the draft, [individuals who were born] males who have had a sex change can file a claim for an exemption from military service if they receive an order to report for examination or induction.

http://www.sss.gov/qa.htm#quest35 [The Selective Service FAQ site.]

Canada launches television channel for homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals

TORONTO, Aug 22 , 2001 (AFP) -

The world's first television channel geared to homosexual, bisexual and transsexual viewers will begin broadcasting from September 7, the network, PrideVision TV, announced Wednesday.

The channel is to broadcast 24 hours a day, dedicating its airwaves primarily to gay and lesbian viewers, but also with plans to target the transvestite community, with a series of news, travel, sports, finance, music and cookery programs, as well as soaps and films relating to homosexuality.

Court Orders Medi-Cal Coverage for Treatment of Gender Identity Disorder, Transsexual

The Lambda Letters Project Press Release

Serving the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, HIV/AIDS, Women's and People of Color Communities

Boyce Hinman, Administrator For Immediate Release
The Lambda Letters Project July 29, 2001
6529 Cowboy Way
Citrus Heights, CA 95621
(916) 728-1261
LambdaLP@aol.com

The Lambda Letters Project is releasing the following information with the permission of the person who obtained an important court victory. We at Lambda Letters feel it is important for transsexuals throughout California to know of this court decision. However, we respect the desire for privacy of the person involved in the case. So this press release does not include that person's name or gender.

On January 29th, 2001 in Superior Court of Sacramento, an order was issued requiring Medi-Cal to pay for sex reassignment surgery for a person diagnosed with the condition known as Gender Identity Disorder, type transsexual. The court also ordered that the California Department of Health Services, which administers the Medi-Cal program, to consider each request for sex reassignment surgery on an individual basis and to cease its practice of routinely denying all such requests. The ruling requires that; if a person on Medi-Cal has been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder, and sex reassignment surgery is determined to be medically necessary by the patient's physician, in keeping with the established Standards of Care, Medi-Cal must by law authorize payment for the surgery. This decision resulted from a Writ of Mandate, brought by a public interest law firm on behalf of a transsexual.

The Judge noted that the prevailing medical opinion is that Gender Identity Disorder, or Gender Dysphoria, is a medical condition listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV).

(Note: We find that the condition is also listed in the International Classification of Diseases as item F60, Transsexualism. This document is issued by the World Health Organization, an agency of the United Nations.)The judge also noted that the prevailing opinion among doctors is that the surgery is an appropriate treatment for transsexuals.

Gender Identity Disorder is a condition in which a person's sex is different than his or her gender. Sex is external and physical. Gender is internal and psychological. Sex has to do with physical sexual attributes. Gender has to do with whether a person perceives his or her core identity as either male or female. When a person's primary sexual characteristics don't match his or her gender, and the person pursues sex reassignment as outlined by the Standards of Care, the diagnosis is the condition called Gender Identity Disorder, transsexual. Sex reassignment surgery, or gender confirmation surgery, is reconstruction surgery to make the primary sex characteristics of the patient's body match his or her gender.

Medi-Cal is a program that pays for health care for people with limited income and the disabled. It is a federally funded program that is called Medicaid in other states. Some transsexuals have significant disabilities unrelated to this condition. Transsexuals frequently have great difficulty in finding good well paying employment as a result of discrimination that they face in the job market. This is compounded by the psychological trauma created by the conflict between their core gender identity and their physical sex characteristics. As a result, many of them have limited income and must depend on Medi-Cal for their medical care.

Evidently, Medi-Cal has been routinely refusing treatment authorization requests for sex reassignment surgery. The judge ruled that all treatments determined medically necessary by a patient's physician (psychological evaluation, hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery) are, by established law, included in Medi-Cal coverage. Hopefully this unlawful policy will now end and qualified transsexuals receiving Medi-Cal will be able to get this vital surgery.

We at Lambda Letters applaud the court decision and we hope this will be helpful to those transsexuals who are recipients of Medi-Cal.

The Lambda Letters Project is California's oldest statewide organization lobbying on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual community. It helps people write letters to elected officials on these issues and also on HIV/AIDS, issues of concern to people of color and women's issues. It delivers well over 100,000 such letters each year.

People wishing further information on the project may visit the Project's web page at www.lambdaletters.org, send a request to LambdaLP@aol.com or call (916) 728-1261.

UN Rep Meets with Transgender Activists,Receives Documentation on Persecution and Encourages Them To Keep Up Their Work

For Immediate Release: June 29, 2001

Contact Information: Sydney Levy, Communications Director, +1-415-255-8680, sydney@iglhrc.org

BUENOS AIRES - In a historic first, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Dr. Abid Hussain, met June 26 with transgender activists in Argentina, to hear their stories of persecution.

The Buenos Aires gathering follows a series of meetings with UN officials in Geneva sponsored by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) this past April. As a result of these meetings, six United Nations Experts issued a joint statement, urging lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists worldwide to contact them about human rights violations (for background see http://www.iglhrc.org/world/us_canada/UnitedStates2001June.html). The UN Experts are high-level officials appointed by the UN to investigate patterns of human rights abuse. They report annually to the UN on their findings, and have wide power to address governments about suspected abuses.

The gathering in Argentina was attended by representatives of three national transgender-rights organizations, as well as by IGLHRC representatives. A full list of participants is attached below.

"This is a historical event for us. Let us see how our own government reacts when they learn that we were received by Dr. Hussain - because on most occasions our government will not even talk to us.," said transgender activist Belén Correa.

Dr. Hussain was presented with extensive documentation about cases of persecution against transgender people in Argentina. Participants at the meeting highlighted the difficulties faced by transgender minors, who are locked up in institutions and forced to dress and live according to society's prejudice and not in the gender with which they identify.

"Persecution against transgender people should be considered by the Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression," stated Alejandra Sardá, "since at its root cause this persecution aims at penalizing and silencing, even by means of cold-blooded murder, the transgender person's right to self-expression." Sardá presented the Rapporteur a brief about the Argentinean laws that criminalize "wearing clothes of the opposite sex." These laws, with penalties of 15 to 40 days in prison, exist in every province in Argentina, with the exception of the Federal Capital.

Dr. Hussain was given additional documentation and was asked to intervene in a number of urgent cases, including that of Diana Sacayan, a transgender activist who was arrested February 14 in the City of Don Bosco, Buenos Aires Province, and who remains to date in indefinite detention, without benefit of even a preliminary hearing on her case. While in prison, Sacayan has been denied food for days in a row; has been forced to share the space with male inmates; and subjected to verbal and psychological abuse by guards, mostly centered around her gender identity (see http://www.iglhrc.org/world/southamerica/Argentina2001Jun.html).

"These documentation would have been impossible to gather without the exceptional and courageous work of Argentinean transgender activists who day after day put their bodies on the line, facing police abuse and a judicial system set on ignoring the abusers while criminalizing its targets," added Sardá.

Dr. Hussain concurred and committed himself to include some of these cases in his next UN report. Dr. Hussain told the participants: "I have listened to many painful stories during my visit [to Argentina], but your situation is the hardest. You all have my sympathy and also my admiration because you are courageous, you are strong, you are united among yourselves and you are fighting back." Dr. Hussain encouraged the activists to keep up their human rights activism. He added: "It is a pity that there are so many cultural and societal prejudices against you. Eradicating cultural prejudices is the hardest task there is. You will have to pass through fire to survive, but I have no doubt that you will."

Transgender activist Lohana Berkins stated that "we are very ahead of the time when we lived in hiding, thinking ourselves half-human, incapable to interact with society. Now we go everywhere, we talk to everybody, and we have no doubt that we are humans and entitled to all human rights. And we do this without losing what makes us unique: our sense of humor, our flamboyancy, our trans perspective."

Present at the June 26 meeting in Buenos Aires were: Dr. Abid Hussain (UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression), Lohana Berkins (Fight for Transvestite and Transsexual Identity Association, ALITT), Valeria Bravo (Transvestite and Transsexual Organization of the Argentine Republic, OTTRA), Belén Correa (Association of Argentinean Transvestites, ATA), Silvia Delfino (Queer Studies Area at Buenos Aires University), and Alejandra Sardá and Luciana Kerner (both representing IGLHRC).

For additional background information, see "The Rights of Transvestites in Argentina" at http://www.iglhrc.org/news/factsheets/Argentina_trans.html.

IGLHRC is a US-based non-profit, non-governmental organization that works to protect and advance the human rights of all people and communities subject to discrimination or abuse on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status.

###

International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
1360 Mission Street, Suite 200 o San Francisco, CA 94103 USA
T: 1.415.255.8680
F: 1.415.255.8662
E: iglhrc@iglhrc.org
http://www.iglhrc.org

===================================================================

Sydney Levy -- Director of Communications International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)

1360 Mission St, Ste 200 * San Francisco, CA 94103 * USA
Phone: +1-415-255-8680 * Fax: +1-415-255-8662
sydney@iglhrc.org * http://www.iglhrc.org

IGLHRC is a US-based non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mission is to protect and advance the human rights of all people and communities subject to discrimination or abuse on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status. Our overarching commitment is to defend the rights of people worldwide to define their own sexualities and gender identities. We support the efforts of individuals and groups to organize to create societies free from heterosexism and homophobia.

FTMI has moved into a new office

Thanks to everyone who helped in searching and negotiating for and moving into our new office space. Volunteers Chris, Marty, Chav, Tamhas, Tony, and Drago made the physical move a snap with their muscle, vehicles, and hand trucks. Thank you! Please make a note of our new address: FTM Int'l., 160 -14th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. Our phone number remains the same: (415) 553-5987.

We are renting this space from Community United Against Violence (CUAV) and sharing with some other organizations that you will hear more about in the near future. Very exciting news on all sides! CUAV has worked to eradicate violence against and within the LGBT communities since 1979.

For more information about CUAV call (415)777-5500; email: CUAV@aol.com; Fax: (415) 777-5565. Their address is the same as ours, 160 - 14th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103.

We would also like to thank Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida and its director, Prado Gomez, for providing us with much needed meeting space. Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida is a sex positive, neighborhood based, multigender Latina/o bisexual, lesbian, transgender & gay community organization. For more information on programs, activities or events contact www.pcpv.org or call (415)864-7278; Fax: (415)575-1645. 2973 - 16th Street, SF, CA 94103.

Tranny Talk TV

Hello,

My name is Kitty Kastro and I'm the hostess of the first transsexual television show in the country. We cover many subjects including children of transsexuals, parents of transsexuals and the transsexual who has a story to tell. I co-founded transgender nation in San Francisco and have been a member of ACT-UP. I was one of ladies of the evening for more than 20 years. I'm 35 years old so it tells you how young I started. I have a motto about life "I was born a male but embrace everything about being a woman."

Dina Boyer who is the producer and director of Tranny Talk TV. Has been around the transsexual community for all but 5 years but happens to be very intelligent about the issues concerning the transgender community. She has just become a teacher in film at City College. Some may say big deal but when she couldn't hide her feelings anymore she stepped away from being a redneck male and has really embraced her genderism with all her heart.

Tranny Talk itself is one of the best shows I have ever seen about being and living as a transsexual. I'm not being biased. It really is entertaining to watch it touches your heart in places I never thought existed. It is aired every first Thursday of the month at 9pm on channel 29

How do you fit in to the show all depends on you it could be from:

1) Being a sponsor: what this means is getting in touch of your public access channel in your area and asking them to show our show so people in your area can see this show.

2) Sending love gifts of any amount to Tranny Talk in care of Dina Boyer at 308 Turk Street # 7 San Francisco, CA 94102 .

3) By calling us and telling us your story and sign up to be a guest or send footage so that we can put it on the air. Our phone number is 415-441-2140

Thanks for reading this
Kitty Kastro
Hostess of Tranny Talk

Bellingham Gender Group announces new website

The Bellingham Gender Group announces the launch of our new website on July 31, 2001 at www.BellinghamGenderGroup.org. This is the official location of our website superceding any other site that uses our name.

If you have the Bellingham Gender Group bookmarked in your computer or linked on you website, you need to update you files to change the web address. Also, if you have e-mail lists, you should send this information to your members. If you are not currently linked to our website, please consider doing so.

The site will be continually updated and improved, and is a work in progress. It currently includes an extensive links page of resources, and information about the Bellingham Gender Group and our meetings. Please pass on the news of this site to anyone who may be currently using our previous site, or anyone you think might benefit from this information. Thanks.

For further information, contact Rory Gould at rsgould@msn.com.

I want to make myself available to other ftm that are serious about getting their surgery completed. Living somewhere, anywhere centrally where everyone can get a job and splitting the cost between 4 to 6 other ftm willing to leave their current situation so we can get this done and over with. I am very serious about having the lower surgery but it's almost impossible doing it alone on my income. So, I'm wanting the ftm out there that are also alone and can afford to give up their current living status to join me and others to live together as one to get to that place in life with all the proper equipment.

If you think this is something you might concider, then contact me.

Kenny Bruno
Fort Worth, TX

I am up for options in the cities best suited for our living quarters, or possibly someone with a home big enough for 4-6 others.

Announcing the Newly Revived GENDERQUEER BOYZZZ

Calling all butches, transbutches, drag kings, tomboys, girlfags, boychiks, FTMs, transmen, female-to-male transsexuals, men of transsexual experience, trannyboys, boys, queer boys, transguys, trannyfags, transfagdrags, two-spirits, metamorphs, shape-shifters, third gendered people, butch daddies, leatherdyke daddies, leatherdyke boys, leatherdyke masters, hermaphrodykes, significant others, spouses, family members, friends, and allies.

After a "sabbatical" of two years, Genderqueer Boyzzz is being revitalized!!!

Genderqueer Boyzzz is a Southern California social and cultural group primarily for and about our community, including people assigned female at birth or in childhood who have masculine self-identifications some or all of the time and significant others, family members, friends, and allies (SOFFAs). This is a place where difference is treasured.

The main goals of Genderqueer Boyzzz are to promote community building through (1) cultural development in the arts, entertainment, and gender theory, and (2) the establishment of stronger intra-community connections by educating ourselves about one another, sharing ideas and information, and socializing. Genderqueer Boyzzz is not primarily focussed on support, advocacy, politics, or spirituality. But support, advocacy, politics, and spirituality will come up in some events, because they overlap with Genderqueer Boyzzz's goals.

Genderqueer Boyzzz is committed to providing an environment characterized by mutual respect and inclusion regardless of gender identity, gender expression, race, ethnicity, nation of origin, immigration status, class, sexuality, disability, religion, age, political affiliation, or economic status.

Upcoming Events:

In July: SOFFA* Discussion. Date, Time, Location, and Other Details TBA *(significant others, family members, friends, and allies)

In August: Co-sponsored with the Center for Gender Sanity: New York Times Bestselling Author Patricia Nell Warren. Date, Time, Location, and Other Details TBA

Events after August will be shaped by community interests. Suggestions for future events are encouraged, as are offers to help organize or publicize future events. Please pass this information on to anyone who might be interested. Contact: Jacob Hale or 323-665-1130.

NEW HBIGDA STANDARDS OF CARE PUBLISHED 02/20/01

Info on the The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Inc. website

Jewish Family and Children's Services is looking for volunteer speakers forthe LGBT Jewish Speakers Bureau.

We are especially looking for Jewish-identified transgender and bisexual speakers of all ages to join us. Speakers will have opportunities to make an impact in the Jewish community by being visible and heard. If you are interested, please contact Margaret Rothman by phone at (415) 449-1228 or by e-mail at margaretr@jfcs.org

San Francisco May Provide Sex-Change Benefit for City Workers

San Francisco is considering providing health care benefits to cover city workers undergoing sex-change procedures, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The Chronicle reports that the city's Health Service System Board "quietly" approved the benefit earlier this month, with final approval by the mayor and Board of Supervisors "expected."

Under the benefit, sex-change operations would be capped at $50,000 per person for life. Patients would pay 15% of the expense if the surgery is performed by a physician in the city's health plan, but that percentage would increase to 50% for physicians not in the plan. The benefit would take effect July 1 and would cost an estimated $1.75 million in the first year. According to the Chronicle, no other city, county or state in the country provides such a benefit (Gordon, San Francisco Chronicle, 2/16/01).

Alternative Sorority Working Toward Approval

CSUN's first transgender sorority underway
By Melanie Scheffer, Sundial Staff

Lambda Delta Lambda is working to become CSUN's first Lesbian, Bisexual, Straight, Transgender, Progressive sorority and plans to have member initiation by March.

Currently, Lambda Delta Lambda has 16 members - one more than the minimum of 15 needed to be recognized as a club or organization at CSUN - and has several more people interested in the organization.

"The sorority is in the forming process but is not chartered yet," said Vicki Allen, activities director for Student Development and International Programs.

Rhyanna Britney, 42, a deaf studies major and president and founder of CSUN's chapter, said she believes there will be no problem getting Lambda Delta Lambda approved by Associated Students.

"We are in the process of waiting for an approval and for CAB to review the constitution... then any changes are made and it goes to Associated Students for approval," Britney said.

The Constitutional Affairs Board has not yet reviewed the submitted constitution because it has not met this semester, but a tentative meeting is scheduled for this week.

"We have gotten a lot of support from different board members and faculty and staff members," Britney said.

The tentative plan is for ritual and initiation to take place sometime in March, but it depends on how soon the sorority is approved.

Britney chose to form Lambda Delta Lambda because CSUN only had a club for lesbians and not a sorority.

It was also because "nobody was willing to accept me," she said. Britney added, "Many people are either young or naive, or homophobic and didn't want me to join their sororities," she said. "There are many myths, phobias or misinformed people which make it hard to join different organizations. There is just a lack of people not wanting to know."

Lambda Delta Lambda's philanthropy will be something about Women's Health, either Woman's Breast Cancer or Ovarian Cancer organizations.

"We are going to let the members decide," Britney said.

The first meeting of Lambda Delta Lambda will be held in the Women's Center and they are currently looking for an advisor who must be a faculty or staff member.

Many people are labeling Lambda Delta Lambda the anti-sorority sorority, but Britney said she does not like that term.

"Why shouldn't we want to be in a sorority that deals with women's issues and focuses on women empowerment, but that is for lesbians," Britney said.

Lambda Delta Lambda is approved and supported by Delta Lambda Phi, which is the National Gay Fraternity, and the Lambda 10 Project, which is the online community for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Fraternity Issues. The symbol Lambda means "change" and has been a symbol adopted by the gay community.

Britney said the first chapter of Lambda Delta Lambda was formed at UCLA but has since folded. She was unable to contact its members.

Currently, the only active chapter is at Pennsylvania State University, which is in the process of trying to become nationally recognized as a sorority, Britney said. Penn State was the fourth chapter formed and CSUN's chapter will be the sixth.

She said national recognition comes only when two separare chapters exist in different states. "The question now is that we want to know if we need two active chapters or just two formed chapters," Britney said. Britney said that once the sorority is approved, they can focus their attention on initiation, recruitment and maybe even getting a chapter house. She said she has not been able to find a set motto for the sorority but has made one up, "Receive the light and communicate it."

"We are not trying to give the sorority system a black eye," Britney said. "But change and broaden it, while working within the system."

Queer Youth Need Your Help

Whether you're gay or straight, the world's largest gay and lesbian organization may have a unique opportunity for you in its Youth Services Department. With more than 250 highly-skilled and dedicated staff members and a budget of more than $33 million, the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center is home to a wide array of programs and services. We welcome an average of 18,000 visits from ethnically diverse youth and adults each month.

Our award-winning Youth Services Department is the largest and oldest LGBT youth program in existence. We have provided shelter and meals, material support, and supportive services for more than 19 years. We believe that youth are full participants and equal partners in the creation, development, and implementation of services. All youth have the right to a safe, secure, nurturing environment to develop to the fullest potential-physically, socially, emotionally, spiritually, educationally, and culturally.

We are looking for people to join our Youth Services Department...

Case Manager-to work one-on-one with clients and provide support, direction and advice to clients and develop client case plans.

Youth Advocates-to provide peer-based support to clients in the achievement of their goals and case plans.

Mental Health Clinician (Family Reunification)-to counsel youth in crisis and develop and implement plans to reunite clients with their families.

Residential Supervisor-to provide overall program supervision for the youth residential shelter and its staff.

Outreach Specialist-to conduct street outreach aimed at providing information and connecting youth with available services.

The Gay & Lesbian Center offers a competitive salary and excellent benefits including: medical, dental, life, employer-paid retirement and disability.

We are extremely proud of our culturally and ethnically diverse staff, which includes, among many others: doctors, lesbians, theatrical directors, heterosexuals, communications specialists, gay men, attorneys, youth counselors, accountants, etc.

Please submit resume to:

L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center
Human Resources Department
1625 N. Schrader Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Fax: 323/993-7699
jobs@laglc.org

www.laglc.org EOE/ADA

DR. RONNI SANLO
DIRECTOR
UCLA LESBIAN GAY BISEXUAL TRANSGENDER
CAMPUS RESOURCE CENTER
220 KINSEY
LOS ANGELES, CA 90095-1579
(310) 206-3628

Hello friends! Knitbone Productions is searching for a rehearsal space in Seattle in order for us to continue our work on a regular basis. We need a space that is wheelchair accessible, private and has enough room to do theater work with 10 people. We are also looking for a space that can be donated to us for free or near free. As a new organization we are "So Non-Profit It Hurts." It would be great if folks could pass this message on to people/organizations that might be able to help. Or, if folks have any leads/suggestions, please feel free to email me at Knitbone@hotmail.com

Wa'do/Thanks!

Qwo-Li Driskill

AP 2000 Guidelines

Apparently the 2000 guidelines read,"sex changes: "sex changes: Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics (by hormone therapy, body modification, or surgery) of the opposite sex and present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly."