Baby break

Last week my partner gave birth to our daughter.  As you can see, this has lead to a switch in priorities.  I’ll undoubtedly be posting again soon, but in the meantime, I’ve got a bunch of other things to take care of.

Susan Stryker on trans history

Historian Susan Stryker recently wrote a timely and thoughtful piece on the history of trans people’s fight for civil rights, including their connection to the broader GLBT-rights movement. You can read the original, along with the comment thread, here.

Stryker addresses the following points:

1. Transgender is not a recent fad; Anti-transgender discrimination is not new.
2. Why were so many nineteenth-century cities making it illegal to cross-dress?
3. Why didn’t trans people organize to resist this social oppression back then?
4. What was going on in Europe at this time?
5. Did gay activism start before trans activism in the United States?
6. When did organized gay activism start in the United States?
7. Are transgender people usually homophobic?
8. Why didn’t trans people take part in the civil rights activism of the 1960s?
9. Gay people started winning their rights when they took to the streets in the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969. Where were the transgender people?
10. Did trans or gender-variant people participate in the Stonewall Rebellion?
11. Why didn’t transgender people build their own movement, instead of piggybacking on the gay and lesbian movement?
12. If trans people were so successful in building a movement back in the day, how come they haven’t made more progress until recently?
13. So what happened to change that bleak picture?
14. So you mean the transgender activism of the past decade is not a new thing?

Even though other people have already linked to the original (I first found it through a link from Autumn Sandeen’s site), I don’t want to chance losing this, so I’m going to paste the text of the original below.

I know me

I’m not the first person to notice that others tend to do a lot of speaking for transsexual people, or members of any minority group, for that matter. It really hit home, though, when multiple people told my partner that watching a recent Oprah episode about transsexual people (I’ll use the word transsexual, even if Oprah won’t) really helped them understand me. This was strange for a couple of reasons. First, I wasn’t on Oprah. Second, I’ve actually explained myself before, often multiple times. What is it about hearing something come out of Oprah’s mouth (or a trans person on the set of her show) that suddenly makes it clear? It’s as if she’s believable, but I’m not.

Conventional thinking about why trans people won’t be in ENDA, courtesy Rep. Rob Andrews

From Blue Jersey, Congressman Rob Andrews (D-NJ), chairman of the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) subcommittee of the House committee on Education and Labor, talks about the future of ENDA.

What’s striking about this conversation are the same four things that have been coming up seemingly everywhere:

1) Politicians don’t think very highly of trans people (certainly, not highly enough of them to take a chance by publicly supporting transsexual Americans’ right to not be fired for being trans).

2) It seems clear that ENDA won’t become law this year, but politicians still feel the need to remove trans people from the legislation, to gain some sort of “moral victory” in the form of getting legislation to the floor of the Senate. (Indeed, given that the Democratic leadership says that it’ll come back for trans people shortly, such a “victory” hardly seems to be paving the way).

3) Civil rights laws never protect everyone, so why start now? (Zuh?)

4) Trans people really need to educate people, and show that they’ve got a coalition behind them, if we’re going to included them. (Which strikes me as odd, given that’s pretty much what’s unfolded the past week).

HRC refuses to join coalition, only trans HRC board member resigns

Again, I’ll be brief, because this story is everywhere.

Refuses to join coalition is really a diplomatic way of say that the Human Rights Campaign lied. It’s been HRC’s policy since 2004 to not support employment non-discrimination legislation that does not include trans people. Last month, HRC Joe Solmonese reiterated this position, telling the nation’s largest annual gathering of trans people:

We try to walk a thin line in terms of keeping everything in play, and making sure that we move forward but always being clear that we absolutely do not support and in fact oppose any legislation that is not absolutely inclusive, and we have sent that message loud and clear to the Hill.

Here’s the video.

And on October 2nd, the HRC board of directors released this statement:

Therefore, we are not able to support, nor will we encourage Members of Congress to vote against, the newly introduced sexual orientation only bill.

This led Donna Rose, the only trans person on HRC’s 40-member board of directors, to resign, writing a heartfelt and eloquent letter, which she has made public. If you click on any links today, please read Donna’s letter.

Monday evening links

The good links
Matt Foreman, Head of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force on Pam’s House Blend:
All of us, every one of us

HRC Backstory:
Human Rights Campaign signs ENDA letter to Capitol Hill

And a depressing link
Women of Color Blog:
Institutional violence against youths of color: arrested for dropping cake, documenting abuse

—–

I had intended to make a few comments RE: ENDA and HRC, but given the latest HRC/LCCR press release (above) I’ll put my energy to better use. It’ll be interesting to see how things play out between Pelosi, Frank and HRC in the next week. Note Left in SF’s coverage of the protest today outside Pelosi’s office, not to mention Susan Stryker’s thoughts on Frank and ENDA, which include an unpleasant anecdote.

Quick Link: ENDA trans-inclusion podcast

Odds are you’ve seen this elsewhere, but if you haven’t here’s a podcast from Marti Abernathey and Ethan St.Pierre discussing ENDA. It’s long, but it’s full of information and insightful commentary.

I’ll likely add a few thoughts later today/tomorrow.

What I want for Christmas

The University of Oregon’s student newspaper reported last week on the construction of single-occupancy changing rooms on the Eugene campus’ student rec center.

I have to admit a bit of jealousy towards students, faculty and staff at the U of O and Ohio State; both institutions offer these valuable resources. At most colleges and universities, including mine, the only changing and shower facilities available are large single-sex locker rooms– my institution has three large student athletic centers, including one with three women’s locker rooms, two locker rooms, but no single-occupant changing facilities.

Frank thoughts

It seems that everyone in the LGBT blogosphere has been posting about trans inclusion and H.R. 2015, the employment non-discrimination act (ENDA), and with good reason. About a week after the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not apply to trans people, Barney Frank decided to remove trans people from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. In the time since people with printing presses broke the story (there are people without printing presses who said the same thing this May, but apparently they don’t count), the story has been pretty well chewed over.

I’m upset enough about this that I could rant about this for days. Instead, I’ll suggest a few people you should contact, and make a few brief comments.

A new kind of blackface

In the absence of the recent meltdown over ENDA, a few things that would normally garner a lot of outrage have understandably been absent from the internet.

When word got out that actress Candis Cayne was going to be playing Billy Baldwin’s love interest in the new ABC series Dirty Sexy Money, a lot of people were excited. A big reason is that Cayne is transsexual; sadly, any time a transsexual person gets a job, its still cause for celebration. As Cayne discusses in an interview for Television Without Pity, roles have been few-and-far between since her transition. Not only was Dirty Sexy Money a big break for an up-and-coming actress, but Cayne’s performance would represent, as far as most people can remember, the first time a recurring transsexual television character would be portrayed by, curiously enough, an actual transsexual performer.
How could ABC possibly squander this opportunity?