Vanessa Edwards Foster is the board chair of
NTAC (National Transgender Advocacy Coalition). A Houston-based activist, Foster is one of the people who lobbies the US Government every year on behalf of transgender people everywhere.
1. Why did you become an activist on trans issues?
Circumstances. Hormones took to me far too quickly, and I lost my job before I was ready to transition. This was back when I thought (having good natural features) that I’d have a seamless transition. It was the late 90s (greatest economy ever), and I was unemployed for nearly 21 months, so it was obvious what was happening. At the time, I led two other local groups and started thinking about what they were experiencing, and how bad it must’ve been for them. And I couldn’t interest anyone else in doing it for us, or for me. So I decided to bite the bullet and do what came unnaturally for me — political activism.
My heritage is heavily native, and my ancestors on all sides were part of the Trail of Tears, as it’s called. So I grew up like all of us were taught: we hate government, we hate politics and politicians (plastic people), we hate the manipulation, the deceit and the devotion to self-interest. Politics was the seamiest of trades, promises from them were made to be broken and any attempt to get involved politically was an exercise in futility and ultimate frustration. The only ones attracted to the political life were lusting for power and money. My parents initially thought me crazy to involve myself in this, then later seemed hopeful and proud of this actually making a difference. But as time went on, these last couple years have reaffirmed their warnings rather than disproved them. Politics, as it is today, is no savior. Quite the opposite.
2. How did you start NTAC, and why?
It was totally spontaneous. And there were seven of us that came to the agreement that night to start what became NTAC: Dawn Wilson, Anne Casebeer, Sarah Fox, Cathy Platine, Jessica Redman, Monica Roberts and myself. Danielle Clarke was there, but dissented. Most of us had been to Capitol Hill in either 1997 or 1998, and had discovered something in 1997 that concerned us: an ad-hoc partnering of HRC and GPAC (at that time, the only group doing what was considered trans activism, later becoming gender activism). The upshot of this pairing was to concur with legislative push for sexual orientation rights, and to gain transgender rights vis a vis gender (further describing it as real or perceived). Even in 1999, we were skeptics — well before the further conservative watershed and their conservative worldview of law read as narrowly as possible. Seeing no way of having our concerns addressed by the organizations then, we decided to simply go our own way and seek trans specific legislation on our own.
3. You have been involved in the trans community and its politics for a long time. What do you think is the best thing the trans community has to offer?
A distinct approach to politics that’s missing in most other current movements — even the gay and lesbian movement. Many of the movement currently working for rights are seeking affirmation by establishing policy to ensure that discrimination won’t happen. Other than marriage rights for the gay and lesbian community, there are not widespread issues of large-scale discrimination within society where official policy change will result in a noticeable proportionate sea change. Other communities view activism as one would doing charity work — beyond those who make a living at it, volunteers think it’s a nice thing to do but only if they can work it into their busy schedules. Meanwhile trans people are active even when virtually none of us are paid for this as it’s a matter of survival.
For the transgender community as a whole, we still have not even attained widespread employment; much less advancement within jobs that have been enjoyed by even the gay and lesbian community. Hate crimes are also still disproportionately impacting the trans community. As a community, we have historically suffered economically as a community, have historically not had access to political power and have also faced systematic policies that have kept us disenfranchised. Those are examples that are still easily demonstrated today (something that most all other groups seeking political change cannot say).
Coming from this perspective, it’s easy to see why transgenders take attainment of rights very seriously. We’ve been bereft of them for so long, adversely impacted to the point of utter financial and personal ruin that our urgency drives us and creates innovation not chanced by those who feel they have more to lose.
4. What do you think is the biggest internal problem of the trans community? How about the biggest external foe?
The biggest internal foe we face is lack of faith and trust in ourselves (due to no sense of history or pride). We’ve never had much awareness of our own trans history. The result is that most of the folks coming onto the scene feel no incumbent sense of community pride (in addition to facing the constant barrage of dehumanization from any of a combination of media, society, peers or family) and a need to rectify this personally. It also means there is little to no awareness, much less consideration for works accomplished or lessons already learned by those who came before them. Thus all new activists feel the need to reinvent the wheel. Some of this is aided by those working to keep us philosophically divided in order to keep us off their back and their political agenda untroubled by our cries of exclusion.
The external foe that is greatest is classism. Just as sexism or racism may subside to a degree in some areas, class issues still keep large swaths of society — disproportionately minority segments — disgruntled and disempowered. It’s a uniform societal ill, but affects the LGBT dynamic as well. There are many who decry some of the things HRC or ESPA or any number of LG led organizations may have done that have worked contrary to transgender equality. Blame is usually applied with broad strokes to the gay and lesbian community; however, the culprit is those whom clutch the purse strings and pull those strings to keep those undesired elements out — not the entire community. These same power brokers keep elements of their own community outside their class at the same disadvantage. As they appeal to similarly-minded designees in our community and others, the divide-and-conquer environment will remain. To get those whose decisions keep others excluded educate requires bringing them to the underclass’ level, educating by first-hand experience and humanizing them. Unfortunately, it’s also a frontal assault on the status quo that they cleave to (by fear or by greed). For true change to take place, there must be a genuine way to lift all boats and level the playing field.
5. You recently won a Trinity award at the IFGE Conference – how did that feel, to be recognized for your contributions?
Odd. Typically when I’m called upon to speak (beyond the education forays in colleges and churches), it’s usually an impromptu situation and also typically either a protest or a tragedy or a situation where we’re addressing ills — all of which are driven by an underlying sense of controlled outrage. This was the second award I had to receive and speak on and, like the first, it was hard to think of anything to say beyond “I don’t know why I’m up here. It’s an honor, but there are more deserving people,” etc. Awards don’t motivate me other than creating awards for others to win to get them active in community work. (Even now, I’m working on selling IFGE on the newest: a posthumous award to help provide that connection to our history that is all too easily overlooked and forgotten.)
On the Trinity, it was an honor to be considered and be awarded. But when Mara got up to speak right before my turn, she coincidentally spoke on what I was going to say (which rendered my loosely planned talking points redundant). On the fly, I switched to talking about our community’s need for standing on its own two feet for a change, developing our own identity and our own business / power-base, and creating our own sense of pride. And I also told the crowd that when its come to supporting our own, our community sucks. It scared me that I was going to piss the community off, but it ended up doing the opposite. The theme (whether pre-ordained or only after my speech) was a “call to arms” for the transgender community. It’s something I feel strongly that we need to refocus our energies towards. We’ve always been invisible to society, and if we become a faceless cog in the amalgam we will never be able to establish our identity with the outside world.
As for awards themselves, though … they’re nice, but they aren’t the same as being recognized by the community. There are people who can win awards, but never have community or leadership recognize them on their merits or offer them credibility on a personal basis. The opposite is true as well. More than winning awards, it would be better to be considered on an equal basis and have one’s unvarnished concerns taken seriously, esp. in the LGB aspect of the community. That’s a long, drawn-out process though in a situation where there’s this much inherent hierarchial baggage. For the time, the only voices are the ones singing the same song as the lead … but slowly we’re able to insert a bit here and there. More than anything, we need to continue forcing our voice out there, and stop leaving so much of the trans spectrum disgruntled. Eventually, we will be singing our own lead.