Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
transgender
New Federal Rule Makes LGBT Housing Discrimination Illegal
05 days ago
On Saturday the Obama Administration announced historic new federal rules that will strengthen housing discrimination protections for transgender and other LGBT people.
The new regulations were announced by Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan at the 24th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change, and will be officially published this coming week.
The new rule prohibits owners and operators of federally-funded or federally-insured housing, as well as lenders offering federally-insured mortgages from discriminating based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The update also clarifies the definition of “family” to ensure that LGBT families are not excluded from HUD programs.
“If you are denying HUD housing to people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, actual or perceived, you’re discriminating, you’re breaking the law, and you will be held accountable. That’s what equal access means, and that’s what this rule is going to do,” said HUD Secretary Donovan in a statement.
HUD cited The National Transgender Discrimination Survey showing that 19% of transgender and gender non-conforming people had been refused a home or apartment and 11% had been evicted because of their gender identity or expression. The study also showed that 19% of transgender people have been homeless at some point in their lives, and 29% of those had been turned away from homeless shelters and a majority were harassed when they could get in to a shelter.
Why Black Gay and Transgender Americans Need More than Marriage Equality [Report]
02 weeks ago
On Thursday, the Center for American Progress (CAP) launched the Fighting Injustice to Reach Equality (FIRE) Initiative in conjunction with the release of the report, “Jumping Beyond the Broom: Why Black Gay and Transgender Americans Need More than Marriage Equality,” which makes policy recommendations that could eliminate the social, health, and economic disparities faced by gay and transgender people of color.
“Despite significant gains in securing basic rights for LGBT Americans
over the past decade, the quality of life for black gay and transgender
Americans has remained virtually unchanged,” Aisha Moodie-Mills,
CAP Advisor on LGBT Policy and Racial Justice said in a statement.
“Marriage equality is vital
to overall progress, but marriage alone is not a silver bullet to reduce
the disparities black gay and transgender populations face.”
According to the report families headed by black
same-sex couples are more likely to raise their children in poverty,
black lesbians are more likely to suffer from chronic diseases, and
black gay and transgender youth are more likely to end up homeless and
living on the streets.
The report lays out policy recommendations for addressing economic insecurity, low education attainment and wellness disparities that could improve the lives of gay and transgender people of color.
On Thursday evening Colorlines.com’s very own news editor Jamilah King moderated a panel at the launch of CAP’s FIRE Initiative to discuss the new report. Watch the video of the panel below and visit the Center for American Progress to download the full report.
Massachusetts Gov. Patrick Signs Transgender Equality Bill Into Law
02 weeks ago
On Thursday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick held a ceremonial signing for H.3810, “An Act Relative To Gender Identity,” which now legally protects transgender individuals from discrimination in housing, education, employment and credit. The new law also provides additional civil rights and protections from hate crimes.
“No individual should face discrimination because of who they are,” Governor Patrick said in a press release. “This legislation gives Massachusetts the necessary tools to stop hate crimes against transgender people and to treat others fairly. I am proud to sign it.”
The transgender equal rights law will make Massachusetts the 16th state to treat transgender citizens as a protected class. The law modifies language in Massachusetts statute to protect all individuals from discrimination, regardless of gender identities. This change will create equal protections for transgender individuals seeking employment, housing, credit and education. There are approximately 33,000 transgender residents living in Massachusetts.
“The passage of this bill is going to make an immediate difference in the lives of the state’s transgender residents, who desperately need anti-discrimination protections in housing and employment. I have been so moved by the courage of constituents who’ve shared their stories with lawmakers and shown the critical need for these civil rights protections,” Massachusetts Representative Carl Sciortino said in a statement.
The bill was signed in to law late last year but Governor Patrick held the ceremonial signing at the state house this morning.
In 2004, Massachusetts became the sixth jurisdiction in the world (after the Netherlands, Belgium, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec) to legalize same-sex marriage. It was the first U.S. state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Pass the Mic: Transgender Women in Chocolate City Tell Their Stories
02 months ago
This year was a bloody one for transgender women of color in Washington, D.C. In late July, Lashai McLean was shot to death 10 blocks away from the office of Transgender Health Empowerment in Northeast D.C. Just 11 days later–and one block away from the scene of McLean’s slaying–Tonya Harrell was shot at but escaped. And in April, Chloe Alexander Moore was physically assaulted by an off-duty police officer.
McLean, Harrell and Moore were just the most recent victims in a sustained pattern of anti-trans violence in the nation’s capitol. Coupled with the acute racial disparities detailed in the landmark national survey “Injustice at Every Turn,”, D.C.’s transgender women of color are carrying the heaviest of loads.
Because violence and terror and discrimination isn’t the sum total of people’s lives, I’ve asked a range of transgender women of color living in D.C. to tell their own stories. I wanted to know everything–the experiences they’ve had with employment, their families, men, housing, girlfriends, spirituality and dance floors. I wanted to hear about how they survive–and thrive. Below is the first in a series of as-told-tos. The first brave soul to answer my nosy questions and let me edit her responses into a narrative is Danielle King.
A longtime activist, King is the development manager of the Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Transgender Equality and the founder of the National Aurora Campaign (more on that below). Ms. King also serves as vice president of D.C. Black Pride, which was one of the first black LGBT pride festival and remains one of the nation’s best-known. She lives in the Chocolate City with her shih tzu’s, Mimi and Puccini.
Here is Danielle King’s story in her words:
Before I began to transition in 2003, no one was really talking about gender. Being transgender was still associated with drag queens on the “Jerry Springer” show or with prostitutes. That was it.
We certainly didn’t discuss it in my Catholic household in Camden, N.J. It took me until after I graduated from college at 22 to learn about and express my gender identity.
During the first five years of my transition, I had to educate my family. I would wage these personal wars with them, constantly telling them, “It is unacceptable to use inappropriate gender pronouns with me, to not refer to me as Danielle.” After all, my middle name has always been Danielle! (My father contended that it was misspelled, but my mother told the real truth–how she’d carried me with the hopes of having a girl. But upon learning that I was born male, she made it my middle name.)
Lost and Found
Eventually, I found a support system on the street, in gay clubs and in the ballroom scene. Folks I met there would say, “Yes, you can be who you are, but maybe you want to consider prosthetics or silicone injections to complete the look.” It was common knowledge that many of them would resort to stealing in order to finance the beauty they’d obtained.
I would also meet these very attractive black transgender women who were prostituting themselves. I didn’t engage in it myself, but I would hang out with them on the street corner to learn from them and to develop closer relationships with my peers.
I’m not trying to create a grim picture; this is just the way that they knew how to survive. Only out of fear did I not choose these options. It wasn’t because I had more self-worth than them.
Since then, I have seen many of my peers die because they lacked healthy, legal support systems that allowed them to grow into their womanhood. That’s the greatest motivator for me. It’s why I started the National Aurora Campaign, a nonprofit that links transgender people of color with one another so that we live longer, healthier lives. It’s been a slow process–definitely a labor of love. But one day it will create a network and sisterhood for black transgender women the way the Deltas or the Alpha Kappa Alphas do.
Modern Day Lynchings
To me, mentorship is a matter of life and death for us. I know only one or two transgender women of color who have reached old age. HIV/AIDS is still very prevalent in our community. Many of us are living in lower-income communities. We’re trying to put food on the table and pay to transition. We’re not pursuing higher education. It’s almost a setup for poverty.
Violence is also a huge issue. African American youth in Compton, in the Bronx, in Camden are just catching it. I had a cousin, a Crip, who got shot, retaliated and ended up being killed and dumped in a cemetery. Amidst this kind of violence, we’re seeing young black transwomen being targeted.
When a funny, beautiful woman like Lashay McLean is getting shot in the damn back, and when someone as wonderful and promising as NaNa Boo Mack is being stabbed to death in broad daylight only blocks from a drop-in center for transgender youth, these aren’t murders. They’re lynchings.
The difference is we’re not acknowledging these lynchings within the black community. Black clergy are not standing up in the pulpit and speaking out, and trans activists are not working together effectively. We’re not holding people accountable.
And there’s a lack of mentorship, of older black trans people saying to young black trans people, “No! It’s not acceptable for you to be in the streets and put yourself at risk. It’s not OK for you to skip school in the daytime and prostitute at night.”
We’re engaging in sex work, as a form of economic survival, but also as a form of validation. We have got to address this. We have got to talk about what it’s like getting up in the morning, catching the train or bus to school or work and that ride is tense because you’re the subject of giggles and whispers. (My friend Tiana calls this the “judgment hour.”)
Or if you are passable, how you’re still not well received in your community. But then you have a sexual experience with Rahim from next door. He’s telling you you’re good enough and he’ll also pay. Suddenly you’re a commodity. You’re wanted. We sometimes glorify that, but I compare that pseudo-validation to the high that comes with crack cocaine. It puts us in situations where there is greater violence.
What’s Race Got to Do With It?
I’m not saying that transgender people of other races don’t go through these things. But I think inequalities that come with being a person of color are only amplified when you add the transgender experience. So it’s not only that we don’t have enough support systems in place, it’s that there are systems in place that perpetuate inequality.
Also, it seems like communities of color are just more vocal about putting you in a box. People almost demand an answer. They’ll say things like, ‘If you’re gay, you’re gay!” I think that’s one of the reasons that many of us transition early–to comply with those internal and external pressures. Economics is also a factor. There’s such an urgency to transition with success and assimilate into society so you can get a normal job and you don’t have to live this underground life. Time is literally working against you.
Meanwhile, it seems that our white counterparts transition later in life. They tend to be more established, have their education and the money to transition. Also, if you’re, say, a white transgender woman, white, male privilege hasn’t automatically left you.
This makes me think about how Tyra Hunter was hit by a car and died because the paramedics paused to laugh at her when they realized she was transgender. I think about how the hospital refused her care. Had she been white, I truly believe they would have been too fearful of a lawsuit to behave this way.
Support, Self-Love and How to Be Beautiful
Despite all of the grim reports, I am encouraged. Today my church, Covenant Baptist UCC, is my support system. It is full of phenomenal, well-educated people who have gone to bat for LGBT issues and believe everyone has the right to be who they are.
We’re seeing more and more influential transgender people of color like writer Janet Mock, Isis King from “America’s Top Model” or my friend Dr. A. Elliot, an African American transgender woman who practices medicine here in Washington, D.C. We have social justice organizations like the National Center for Transgender Equality and health groups Transgender Health Empowerment and blogs like TransGriot. We’re more visible and we’re talking about how our peers are dying because they’re transgender.
And for the first time in my life, I feel like the African American trans community is beginning to work together; technology has helped us with that. I also think we’re much kinder to ourselves. We got our start in ballroom culture, which is all about being passable, pretty and fierce. But I think our collective understanding of beauty has become wider and more inclusive.
Personally speaking, I feel a sense of freedom. I’ve undergone this journey and I feel more comfortable in my skin than I ever have. I no longer concern myself with being the most passable woman. I used to worry about that a lot. Now I just try to be the best woman I can be. I can say that I’ve undergone a shift in my mentality. I now realize that basing womanhood on being passable devalues other women. I assume that most people know that I’m transgender and I’m OK with people knowing. I’m proud of my experiences. Most importantly, I love myself.
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Editor’s note: For more on the intersection of race and LGBT politics, check out “Better Together,” a report from the Applied Research Center, which publishes Colorlines.com.
Score! A Transgender People’s Victory in the State of California
03 months ago
In California, where one in four transgender people earn wages below the poverty level and trans folk of color are up to a third poorer than their white counterparts, two important anti-discrimination bills have become law.
Signed on Monday, the new Gender Nondiscrimination Act (AB 887) carves out a specific category for “gender identity and expression” in the existing law against discrimination at work, school, the doctor’s office, housing, and public spaces. Transgender people were already protected from, say, being fired or evicted for coming out, but according to the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, many didn’t know their rights.
The Vital Statistics Modernization Act (AB 433), also passed on Monday, eliminates demeaning hoops that transgender people have to jump through to update their birth certificates and get a court-ordered gender change. The Transgender Law Center is one of three organizations that led the push for these changes. Program manager Maceo Persson explains how Cali’s trans folk will benefit.
Let’s start with the AB 433, the ID law. Explain what the obstacles were.
Before the Vital Statistics Modernization Act, people could do a legal gender change but it was a very intimidating, outmoded process instituted in the 1970s. It was almost like getting a legal name change: You’d fill out a form, get a court date and stand before a judge to state why you wanted to do a gender change. But then the judge–not your doctor–would get to decide whether you’d undergone ‘clinically appropriate treatment’ to be your authentic self. AB 433 helps ensure that that decision stays between you and your doctor. Transitioning is a personal and medical process. AB 433 puts judges out of the business of making medical decisions; now they just verify that you’re undergoing treatment so you can get the ID you need.
How will this impact immigrants, particularly those seeking asylum because they’re transgender?
Well, [many] transgender people immigrate to California so they can be their true self. When people come here and apply for asylum, they [usually] have a one-year [review] period. This law allows them to apply for a legal gender change simultaneously. It also streamlines the process overall because it conforms to the same standards that apply to changing your gender on your passport. You’re less likely to end up having a bunch of different standards for establishing your gender, and you’re less likely to deal with the discrimination and harassment you get when you don’t have consistent ID.
Talk about the basic non-discrimination law, AB 887. If transgender people had rights, why did you need to spell it out?
Because gender identification and expression weren’t listed on, say, the worker protection posters you see in the kitchen at your job, or in the equal opportunity clause of your lease agreement, people didn’t understand that they’re weren’t allowed to discriminate. We kept getting calls from trans and gender nonconforming people who had looked at their workplace posters or the nondiscrimination notices at their school and were confused about whether they were protected. They literally didn’t know that they had rights. This law makes it clear that the discrimination they might experience in the workplace, the community health clinic, at school is illegal.
And how does race factor in?
In our research we’ve found that a lot of trans people face some kind of discrimination in their everyday lives. The rates of discrimination almost correlate directly to income level and education attainment. Because of systemic racial oppression, trans folks of color are likely to have fewer employment opportunities, lower education levels and have less income. It’s almost like they’re caught in a cycle of discrimination. This law will [interrupt] that cycle.
For information about the connection between race and gender discrimination on a national level, click here.
Baltimore Woman Caught Beating a Transwoman at McDonald’s Learns Fate
04 months ago
Five years.
That’s how long Teonna Brown, the 19-year-old who beat transwoman Chrissy Polis in a Baltimore-area McDonald’s while an employee videotaped and giggled, is going to spend in prison. Brown’s 14-year-old accomplice–who is also Internet-famous thanks to the YouTube posting of the brutal video–remains in juvenile detention.
According to Baltimore’s WJZ, Brown tearfully told the court she was sorry: “My mother did not raise me like this. I would really like to apologize to the victim, Miss Chrissy Polis.”
Miss Chrissy Polis, who had a seizure during the beating and continues to have them along with flashbacks and a deep sense of terror and anxiety, doesn’t forgive Brown. In a letter to the court, she said just that.
Given that Brown’s mother didn’t raise her like this and she did “this” anyway, I’m not so confident that prison will teach her anything but more transphobia. But maybe, just maybe her sentence for a hate crime and first-degree assault will tell other B-girls how ridiculous, how pitiful, how wasteful, how dangerous, how dehumanizing it is to beat another being because of who they are. And maybe Chrissy Polis, who is now fighting for restitution from McDonald’s, will get some measure of peace.
Court Strikes Down Wisconsin Law Prohibiting Medical Treatment for Transgender Prisoners
06 months ago
Last Friday, we got a fabulous ruling from a federal appeals court striking down a Wisconsin law that prohibited prison doctors from prescribing medically necessary treatments for transgender prisoners. It’s a great step forward in the ACLU’s continuing effort to explain to courts and to the country that transgender people have health needs that should be taken seriously by our health care system.
For many transgender people, access to transition-related health care is crucial to their ability to live consistently with their gender identity. This health care takes many forms — psychological counseling, hormone therapy, presenting in the new gender, and, for some people, a range of surgical procedures. But since our society often doesn’t consider this health care to be necessarybelieve that transgender people have a legitimate medical condition, most insurance plans don’t cover it.
As advocates for transgender people, the ACLU’s challenge is to find ways to change the popular notion that transition-related health care is cosmetic optional, rather than medically necessary to address a person’s serious distress. In the private health care world, we can and do advocate with employers and insurance companies for better coverage, but there are few legal claims we can bring.
But we can sue over the care provided to people in government custody — prisons, immigration detention facilities,foster care group homes — because the Constitution requires that the government address people’s medical needs in those contexts. Bringing lawsuits over the care received in government custody not only helps people who are being mistreated, but also helps build a broader consensus that this care should be accessible to all transgender people. Wins like this can lead to coverage for transition-related health care in government programs like Medicaid and Medicare, and eventually to coverage under private insurance plans as well.
The 2005 Wisconsin law at the heart of this case was called the "Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act," and barred prison doctors from prescribing hormone therapysurgery to transgender prisoners. The ACLU, in partnership with Lambda Legal, sued and got a preliminary ruling that any prisoners already on hormone therapy could continue their treatments. Last spring, the federal trial court struck down the law in its entirety, and last Friday, the federal appeals court agreed. Wisconsin argued that the law was constitutional because the state still provided some treatment — psychological counseling and antidepressants — for transgender people.
The appeals court was having none of it:
"Surely, had the Wisconsin legislature passed a law that…inmates with cancer must be treated only with therapy and pain killers, this court would have no trouble concluding that the law was unconstitutional. Refusing to provide effective treatment for a serious medical condition serves no valid penological purpose and amounts to torture."
Strong words indeed, but that’s just what we need if we’re going to change the way the country understands the medical needs of transgender people.
(Cross-posted to Pam’s Hosue Blend.)
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Race and Gender Meet on Rashaad Ernesto Green’s "Gun Hill Road"
06 months ago
Rarely do independent films that tackle transgender issues receive mainstream attention. Even more rare are films of any sort that interweave Latino identity in the context of a transgender story. “Gun Hill Road,” the debut film by Bronx, N.Y.-native Rashaad Ernesto Green has defied expectations on both counts, becoming not only a run-a-way success on the film festival circuit but also securing a rarity for independent LGBT cinema: a theatrical release.
“Gun Hill Road” is set, as the title suggests, on Gun Hill Road, one of the major thoroughfares that cuts through the Bronx. It tells the story of Vanessa, a young person transitioning from male gender identity, as Michael, to female gender identity. Vanessa is played by transgender actor Harmony Santana. After three years in prison, Vanessa’s father Enrique, played by Esai Morales, comes home and is unable to understand how and why his son would want to live as a woman.
Enrique, raised in a traditional Puerto Rican cultural background, displays his machismo as he makes increasingly dramatic efforts to try and hold on to the Michael he knew before prison. Vanessa’s mother Angela, played by Judy Reyes, balances out Enrique’s rage by supporting Vanessa’s transition despite her own struggles with it.
The film is most resonant as a coming-of-age drama, buoyed by Santana’s vulnerable and emotionally complex performance. But it is also a deeply felt family story that connects Latino identity to transgender identity in a groundbreaking way. While the political and social commentary is sometimes subtle and nuanced, the overall theme of love and acceptance for all people, especially LGBT individuals within communities of color, pervades the story.
I sat down with Green and Reyes to talk about the overlap between race, sexuality and gender that their film explores.
One of the most noticeable things about the film is the setting. Was the film always going to be set in the Bronx?
Green: Yes. It was always the Bronx. Gun Hill Road is an actual street in the Bronx. I was born in the Bronx and my parents grew up there. The family [the film] was inspired by was a Bronx family.
And Judy, you were also born and raised in the Bronx?
On a street perpendicular to Gun Hill Road. My relationship to the Bronx contributed to what you see on screen. I was like “I’m going home.” I felt I was born to play this part because I was extremely familiar with the surroundings. I had three different addresses in the Bronx until I was 26.
How did you decide to pick a transgender character?
Green: It was based on a family I knew who went through a very similar situation. The child was transitioning and, as in the film, the family deteriorates over the course of a few years due to the father’s inability to accept the child. As an outsider and an artist, I wanted to make a film that spoke to their experiences and represent how two individuals struggled to come together because of their differences.
Judy, how did you deal with the transgender storyline of the film? Did you have to do extra work to understand transgender issues?
I came a month early to visit transgender and LGBT organizations. I interviewed moms with transgender kids. I actually developed a relationship with Harmony’s mom and spoke to her at length. I established a relationship with some of Rashaad’s people to grasp an understanding of trans issues.
When making the film, did you feel stories of transgender characters weren’t found enough in film?
Green: It’s definitely infrequent. But especially a teenage transgender youth in the Latino community. We have never ever seen them before [in theaters]. We’ve never seen their struggle. Here in New York, we do see gay and transgender youth of color all of the time, but we never see the struggles they have to face in their families. It is the responsibility of artists in our community to address these issues.
Related to this, who do you think is the audience of the film? Who do you think should see the film?
Green: Honestly I feel like most people will get something out of this. Of course the LGBT community has been extremely supportive, but the audience has been mainstream. Even with these audiences, it hits an emotional core about family. I definitely want to address the Latino community, of course, but I feel like a lot of people can identify. The people who I want to open their minds and hearts are not necessarily progressive.
Reyes: I think the message of the film is one everyone can relate to it. It’s familiar to me because I know the setting is where I came from. I’m a born-and-raised Dominican from the Bronx, but I think it’s more a coming-of-age tale from Harmony’s character. From Esai’s character, the film is about trying to find love and acceptance and having to understand. It’s about letting go.
I think my biggest concern is getting Latinos and African-Americans to see it. But I know that my community tends to be escapist. They want romantic comedies and action movies. But I want to start conversations. I’d rather they see it and be pissed off.
While the father’s character in the film displays typical masculine or maschismo values, the mother is much more accepting of Vanessa. Why is this the case? And do you think this reflects a divide in the Latino community between men and women?
Green: I guess I wanted to play with the idea of a mother’s love for their child. Despite hang ups over sexuality, there is a different relationship that exists between a mother and child. But that’s not to say that the love from the father isn’t to be commended. It’s just a different relationship. The father might look at his child as representing him. What the child’s choices are, are a reflection of the father’s.
Do you think this is unique to Latino culture?
Green: Of course I can speak to the Latino culture because I’m Latino. But I feel these circumstances, and that character, can be found in every single culture. In every single culture there is a version of masculinity that is macho.
Reyes: One of the experiences I used most in preparing for the film was the fact I recently had a baby and could connect to the feeling of, “oh, that’s my baby!” Nobody was going to get between me and my kid, which is what you notice immediately in the film. There is a special bond between mother and child I wanted to convey.
Rashaad, you said in your artist statement that youth are more accepting of LGBT individuals. But how do you explain the increasing visibility of anti-gay violence in New York City and the fact that violence, especially against trans-youth of color, isn’t going away?
Green: I do think a younger generation is more open-minded than the generation before it, especially, for example, in New York with marriage equality passing. There’s going to be a whole generation of children who have never known a time where people couldn’t get married. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t still have a violent opposition toward difference.
I think the film will help people see and understand people that they didn’t necessarily know about before. So much of violence is done from a place of fear and not knowing the victim, thinking they are crazy or weird or strange. But when we’re able to express [violence] in art and show it in cinema, we can see into the lives, for example, of a trans person and show they’re a human being just like you and I. From this, you’ll begin to identity, relate, and empathize with these human beings.
So you think storytelling is an effective way of educating anybody about trans or LGBT issues?
Green: Art is a necessary component in our society and our world to address any issue of oppression or injustice.
But what happens when voices oppose these stories? The first person that comes to mind is Ruben Diaz, the State Senator from the Bronx, who is very anti-LGBT. Do you anticipate a clash between the story you’re telling and the more traditional culture that has been in place for a long time?
Green: Sure, there’s the old guard. But I don’t necessarily fault the old generation. We were taught a certain belief system, a lot of it coming from the islands and religion. Because we’re becoming more and more aware of other people–we’re not the only people in the world anymore–you might see a clash. Of course I hope to open some minds and hearts in that older generation.
If I am unsuccessful with this film, we do progress as a society. It’s just a matter of time. Eventually people will become much more understanding because they’re going to become aware of LGBT individuals.
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“Gun Hill Road” will have its debut theatrical release in New York City from Aug. 5 to 11. It will then go to Los Angeles from Aug. 12 to 18 and San Francisco from Aug. 19 to 25. A complete listing of theaters is available on the film’s website.
Kyle Bella is a regular Colorlines.com contributor based in Philadelphia, PA. He also covers LGBTQ political issues for TruthOut.org and Philadelphia Weekly.
Excuse Me, Ma’am, This Isn’t Your ID
06 months ago
Last fall, K.L., an Alaskan who transitioned to living as a woman two years ago, got her local Department of Motor Vehicles office to change the gender marker on her driver’s license from M to F. She was thrilled to have her identity documents reflect her true gender. Then she got the letter from the state – prove you’ve had sex reassignment surgerywe’ll take the new license back.
The importance of the issue is apparent – if you look like a woman, but your ID documents say you’re a guy (or vice versa), you can face daily harassment in encounters with the police, the TSA,just the guys at the car repair shop who want to see ID when you use a credit card to pay for your tune-up. Even aside from the risk of harassment violence, being forced to show an inaccurate driver’s license is an utterly unnecessary invasion of privacy and undermines the medical standard of care for transgender people who transition, which is to live full-time consistently with their gender identity. That’s harder to do when your driver’s license has the wrong gender on it. And the inaccurate license is a constant reminder of a gender you’ve struggled to put behind you and of the state’s refusal to accept your true identity. Since many transgender people do not have transition-related surgery at all, and very small numbers have genital surgery (less than 20% of transgender women, and less than 5% of transgender men, according to an NCTE/Task Force survey), requiring surgery creates significant barriers to accurate ID documents for many transgender people.
Movement-wide, we’ve seen phenomenal progress on identity documents in some places, the prime example being the State Department’s new passport policy, which allows transgender people to change the gender marker on their passports based on a doctor’s letter attesting to clinical treatment for gender transition (no surgeryhormone therapy required). In some states, the new passport policy is proving very persuasive with officials in motor vehicle departments, who are no longer requiring surgery.
But in other states, policy advocacy has hit a wall, so the ACLU has headed to court, hoping both to change the policies and to establish legal precedents that we can use in other states as well.
In Alaska, we’ve sued the state on behalf of K.L., whose pilot’s license and passport have her correct gender, raising privacy and equal protection claims under the state constitution in an effort to get rid of the surgery requirement altogether.
In Illinois, we’ve also gone to court about gender markers, in a follow-up to a case we brought two years ago. In 2009, we sued the state Department of Public Health over its requirement that people have genital surgery before they can change the gender marker on their birth certificates. We represented a transgender man who had decided, in consultation with his doctor, that genital reconstruction was not something he neededwanted. We argued that Illinois’s constitutional guarantee of personal autonomy, especially around medical decision-making, meant that Illinois couldn’t force people to undergo medical procedures that they didn’t want and their doctors didn’t recommend, just in order to change their gender marker.
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Rather than answer our lawsuit in court, Illinois issued revised birth certificates to our clients in an effort to make the case go away. The state promised to fix the genital surgery requirement through new regulations, but our patience wore out after two years of promises but no real solution. So this spring we went back to the Illinois courts with a new case, this time a class action (so any changes will have to fix the problem for everyone, not just for the plaintiffs), and a determination to get rid of the genital surgery requirement once and for all.
In response to this new lawsuit, the state has proposed a revised regulation that does not explicitly require genital surgery. And once again they’ve issued corrected birth certificates to our clients. This is progress, but we’re still pushing in court for a resolution that provides better assurance that the state will not interpret the new regulation to require genital surgery.
Other states have gender marker change rules that are similarly restrictive, and we’re hoping that Alaska and Illinois, with their strong privacy and personal autonomy law, will lead the way in striking down these regressive rules.
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70 Percent of Anti-LGBT Murder Victims Are People of Color
06 months ago
It’s an all too common, if shocking story: A transgender Latina woman with HIV is attacked on a street close to her home in a low-income neighborhood in the Bay Area. Making a bad situation worse, police officers literally drag her from her bed at 6 a.m. because they think she committed the crime herself.
“They kept telling her she wasn’t who she was, and that she was a man,” explained María Carolina Morales of the San Francisco-based Communities United Against Violence as she recounted the incident to Colorlines. “She was arrested. She was taken to the station. She wasn’t listened to. She spent the weekend in jail.”
The woman went to court a month after her arrest, but disappeared shortly after her court date.
“She was somebody who was unemployed, who didn’t have a safety net,” noted Morales. “We don’t know if she ran away, if she ended up in jail or [was] transferred to another place, another city. Her phone was disconnected the day after court. We just don’t know–don’t know what happened.”
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs released its annual report on hate violence motivated by sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and HIV status last week. The report documents 27 anti-LGBT murders in 2010, which is the second highest annual total recorded since 1996. A whopping 70 percent of these 27 victims were people of color; 44 percent of them were transgender women.
The study also found that transgender people and people of color are each twice as likely to experience violence or discrimination as non-transgender white people. Transgender people of color are also almost 2.5 times as likely to experience discrimination as their white peers.
“It wasn’t a shock,” said Morales, whose organization is among the 17 anti-violence programs from across the country that contributed data to the NCAVP report. “For the last four years we’ve seen that trend–of transgender women and people of color in our communities experiencing higher levels of violence. Sadly that continues.”
Recent headlines certainly bear witness to this disturbing trend.
A Milwaukee judge sentenced Andrew Olaciregui to an 11-year prison sentence in December after he pleaded guilty to shooting Chanel Larkin three times in the head on a street corner in May 2010. Prosecutors maintain Olaciregui shot Larkin after he offered to pay her $20 to perform a sex act and found out she was transgender. Larkin was 26 at the time of her death.
In another high-profile case, Hakim Scott and Keith Phoenix both received decades-long prison sentences last summer for their role in the death of Ecuadorian immigrant José Sucuzhañay on a Brooklyn street in December 2008. Prosecutors contend Scott and Phoenix shouted anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs at Sucuzhañay as they attacked him with a baseball bat and bottles.
Juan José Matos Martínez received a 99-year prison sentence in May 2010 after he pleaded guilty to stabbing gay Puerto Rican teenager Jorge Steven López Mercado to death before decapitating, dismembering and partially burning his body and dumping it along a remote roadside in November 2009.
So what causes disproportionate rates of violence against transgender people and queer people of color?
“What the 2010 report allows us to do is document something we’ve seen and experienced for a long time,” said Ejeris Dixon of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, which wrote the bulk of the NCAVP report. “It’s really about an intersection of oppression.”
Dixon, who was a long-time staffer at Brooklyn-based Audre Lorde Project until she joined AVP earlier this year, said a lack of employment, housing and health care for transgender people all contribute to disproportionate rates of violence. Morales said that ongoing police harassment against these communities is an additional factor, making those most at-risk for hate violence also least likely to seek help.
“All of those things sanction violence,” said Dixon.
The NCAVP report found that half of those who experienced hate violence did not contact the police after their attack. The report further found that 25.4 percent of transgender women did not file a report. So what can be done to reduce these rates of violence against LGBT people and communities of color?
The Audre Lorde Project is among the groups that organize LGBT people in communities of color that are increasingly looking beyond law enforcement and the criminal justice system for a solution. The Safe OUTside the System Collective works with bodegas, businesses and organizations within Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and surrounding areas to create safe spaces for LGBT people of color to curb violence.
“What’s true and important is our communities have been and continue to organize around issues of harassment–whether it’s neighborhood or community harassment or [harassment] by the police,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Audre Lorde Project.
Morales stressed that empowering transgender people and people of color to participate in decision making processes around employment, health care, improved access to food and affordable housing is another key component to addressing the problem. “For that, our organizations and institutions need to prioritize opening spaces for people to develop their leadership, to be able to engage, to learn and make decisions and so that they can see themselves not only reflected, but see themselves in the process.”
Another potential solution is for anti-violence programs to tackle some of the underlying disparities that contribute to increased violence against LGBT people and people of color.
“That can mean a lot of things: We can talk about low-cost programs, intersections with immigration rights groups,” said Dixon. “It’s about crafting programming that focuses on these populations and also developing leadership of LGBT people of color and trans people.”
While Morales conceded these most recent statistics are grim, she said she remains hopeful that they will allow her organization and others around the country to develop more effective strategies to tackle hate violence. She stressed, however, this hasn’t happened as much as she would like to see.
“It hasn’t been significantly stepped up enough,” said Morales, referring to strategies to further engage community members in the solution. “However, I have seen a lot more conversations and dialogue opening up around the community–the prison population continues to significantly increase every year, and violence continues to increase. I don’t believe its working. COAV doesn’t believe its working. I am hopeful [the report] will open up more opportunities to question the strategy to violence response.”
Michael K. Lavers is a Brooklyn-based writer whose work has appeared in the Village Voice, WNYC, BBC, the Advocate and other LGBT and mainstream publications.