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.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Vanessa Edwards Foster”
Five Questions With… Gina Lance
Gina Lance is the former publisher of Girl Talk
Magazine, current producer of TGLife.com, and too fabulous for words.
< Helen with much shorter hair, and Gina in all her nearly 5’11” glory.
1) As a public person, does “being Gina Lance” ever get in the way of your life?
First of all Helen, thank you for asking me to participate in your ‘infamous’ Five Questions! As far as being recognized as Gina Lance, it’s very flattering to be noticed for the work you have done. When I had a local crossdressing television talk show in Los Angeles back in 1997, I realized how many people were watching because they approached me wherever I was. After I launched GIRL TALK Magazine, it just exploded. I’ve had people too numerous to mention tell me everything from I saved their lives, to I was the one responsible for getting them out of the closet. It’s very heartwarming and I do appreciate it.
As far as the downside of being Gina Lance it’s mostly comical. I’ve been cornered by people who wanted to talk to me (very flattering!) for almost an hour on my way into a nightclub in Los Angeles. I love meeting people but one girl had to even pull her blouse up and show me her new breasts. She said I had inspired her and given her the confidence to get them. Somehow, I don’t remember writing/suggesting that. I’ve had people tell me everything from they’re on hormones to they’re getting their sex change because of me. So I’m usually very careful what I write about now; I see myself as a transgendered ambassador of good will, not a physician!
One of the former GIRL TALK covergirls, Jillian Diamond, looks like my younger, shorter daughter, but she is occasionally mistaken for me by people who don’t know us. I think the funniest thing was when some girl called her a ‘bitch’ for not using her as a covergirl, thinking she was me.
All in all though, I love being Gina Lance. But I also love being my male self and I think that’s very important in keeping me balanced. My wife, KC, loves both of me which is fantastic. Although we steal each other’s makeup occasionally. In male mode I just don’t tell everyone who I am and love being anonymous sometimes – it gives me a break to clear my mind. I recently chatted with Cassandra Peterson who people know as Elvira and we both agreed it is great to go unrecognized when you want to. It gives you some time to relax.
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Five Questions With… Dallas Denny
Dallas Denny, M.A., is founder and was for ten years Executive Director of the American Educational Gender Information Service, Inc. (AEGIS), a national clearinghouse on transsexual and transgender issues. She is currently on the board of Gender Education & Advocacy, Inc., AEGIS’ successor organization, which lives at www.gender.org. She is Director of Fantasia Fair and editor of Transgender Tapestry magazine and was editor and publisher of the late Chrysalis: The Journal of Transgressive Gender Identities. Dallas is a prolific writer with hundreds of articles and three books to her credit. She recently decided to retire her license to practice psychology in Tennessee, since she seems to have found a permanent home in Pine Lake, Georgia, pop. 650, the world’s smallest municipality with a transgender nondiscrimination ordinance.
1) You’ve been a trans educator/activist for a long time now: what do you see as the biggest development in terms of trans politics since you’ve been doing this?
When I began my activism in 1989, the community was almost entirely about education– outreach to the general public and information to other transpeople. There wasn’t much information available, and much of that wasn’t very good or was outdated– and even the bad information could be almost impossible to find. The rapid growth of the community in the 1990s and especially the explosion of the internet made information much easier to find.
Somewhere around 1993, the community had reached a point at which political activism had become possible. Of course, some of us had always been doing that, but it hadn’t been a prime focus of the community, and what had been done had been sporadic and short-lived, often was done by a single individual or a small group, and tended to happen in places like San Francisco and New York City. This activism did give us some political gains– most notably in Minnesota, which adopted state-wide protections as early as, I believe, the early 1970s, but around 1993 there was a growing political consciousness in the community, and things just began to take off.
I can identify some important events of the 1990s– when Nancy Burkholder, a post-op transsexual woman, was kicked out of the Michigan Womyn’s conference, when people began to come together in Texas at Phyllis Randolph Frye’s ICTLEP law conference, when the March on Washington turned out to be non-transinclusive, when a bunch of us got together to form GenderPac (an organization which was promptly hijacked by the Executive Director)– but there were two biggies, in my opinion. The first was the first transgender lobbying, which was done by Phyllis Frye and Jane Fee. They couldn’t believe they had actually done it, then wondered why they hadn’t done it before. When HRCF (as it was then called) promptly went behind their backs and removed the transgender inclusions Phyllis and Jane had convinced lawmakers to put into the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, there was a sense of outrage. The news broke when Sarah DePalma got an e-mail.at the law conference. It happened to be the only ICTLEP I attended. We had a coule of strategy sessions and went back home and the next week did actions at at least six Pride events, including Atlanta, which I coordinated. You should have seen the jaws drop when I handed leaflets to the folks at the HRCF booth. The organization has, of course, done a complete turnaround since then, or so we hope.
The other big event was the muder of Brandon Teena; in the aftermath, we began to get media coverage that concentrated on our political issues and not just our individual psychologies or transition histories.
After that, things just exploded. Today many of us– as many as one in three– have some sort of legal protections– anti-discrimination, hate crimes, or both. My little town of Pine Lake, Georgia, population 650, even has trans protections– and I didn’t even have to ask for them. They were already in place when I moved here in the late 1990s.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Dallas Denny”
Sacco and Vanzetti
Turns out I missed the anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti this year, a date which I usually mark. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23rd, 1927, at the end of a notorious trial during which it’s said their own judge referred to them as wops (or dagoes, I forget which right now, but it was one of the two). Fair trial, my ass.
Whether or not they were guilty is still hotly debated by people who care about such things. They were, in a sense, the Rosenbergs long before the Rosenbergs – radicals put to death mostly for being radicals, and without the kind of definitive evidence you’d expect in a death penalty case.
They had the misfortune of not just being anarchists (the political philosophy doesn’t immediately imply violence, by the way) but being Italians in 1920s Boston. Sacco made shoes. Vanzetti sold fish. They were working-class men who some say were Syndicalists, others outright criminals, and still others, idealists and revolutionaries.
It’s still a case I read about, when I find new things to read. For those interested in the death penalty, famous trials, Italian-American culture, anarchism, radical politics, prejudice – or anyone who just wants to read one hell of a story – there are some decent sites on the topic, and plenty of good books (the best of which are, unfortunately) out of print.
U Penn site
Court TV’s site
a Michigan State U site
The Wiki entry
and Court TV’s bibliography. In the out of print books, you’ll see both Frankfurther’s The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti, which is by *that* Frankfurter. Joughin and Morgan’s The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti is, in my opinion, still the seminal work on the case, including cultural references. You can track down either at reasonably old libraries or through rare bookstores. Vanzetti’s letters are stunning and beautiful and highly recommended.
What does this have to do with gender? Not a damn thing.
Sacco and Vanzetti were officially declared innocent of their crimes on the 50th anniversary of their executions by then Governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis.
Five Questions With… Damian McNicholl
Damian McNicholl is the author of the Lambda finalist A Son Called Gabriel, who I met at a Lammy reading here in NYC. He’s from Northern Ireland, and Gabriel is about a young man growing up in a Catholic community in Northern Ireland. McNicholl’s blog can be found at http://damianm.blogspot.com, and A Son Called Gabriel is in bookstores, and available, of course, through amazon.com.
1) Considering all the scandals here in the US considering priests and pedophilia, how have people responded to your novel?
First Helen, thank you for the opportunity to visit your site and answer your questions.
While the scene where Father Cornelius seduces Gabriel amounts to only one scene in A SON CALLED GABRIEL, nevertheless, its inclusion was something I wondered about because the scandal involving the church had broken and was gaining momentum. I wondered if it would cause anger among the American-Irish community, particularly among those who are fervent practitioners of their Catholic faith. But any reservations I had about including the scene did not last long because, within me, deep within, I knew I had to remain true to Gabriel, and his story, and the truth in this regard had to be presented. The truth is that in real life some priests have taken advantage of young girls and boys. It has happened in the United States. It has happened in Ireland. It has happened throughout the world. And, of course, I did have a counterbalance to reflect how things are in life because not all the priests are warped: Gabriel’s headmaster at the grammar school is strict but proper, and the parish curate is a very kindly man who’s very much in touch with the needs of his parishioners.
And I am very happy to report that my readers are sophisticated enough to realize these terrible crimes have been perpetrated by renegade, if not evil, priests, and those who have commented or asked about it have done so positively. Indeed, I’ve had more questions from readers about the issue of bullying that’s also covered in the novel, as well as the isolation a young person endures growing up gay in a very conservative community.
And, to be absolutely honest, I really didn’t care about what anyone conservative would say or think about my work after they’d read it. I didn’t, because I was pretty sure no conservative person would read the novel. I mean, let’s face it; conservative people are not interested in reading or learning about or dealing with truths like this because it simply does not conform to their views of the real world.
Continue reading “Five Questions With… Damian McNicholl”
The Amancio Project Vigil
I received this message in the comments section, but I thought it deserved greater notice. This is a follow-up to my original blog entry from June 12th, 2005.
June 27,2005
The Amancio Project Vigil surpassed expectations. The tone and mood was one of joy, sadness and resolve.
Because of the dreadful murders Yuma yesterday of six people (four children), the news media came early and left before many vigil attendees arrived and left before the speakers delivered their messages. A head count went over 100.
Amancio’s family was there in force, all wearing t-shirts with Amancio’s picture on them. That was a beautiful sight by itself. Many people drew and wrote their thoughts onto “The Memory Wall.†A video was shown depicting Amancio’s life from early child hood to a few days before his death. It was obvious he was a happy child, spunky adolescent, spirited teenager and talented and giving adult. A poem by Don Gilbert, “One of Liberty’s Children†dealing with hate crime was read by Don and a framed copy handed to Amancio’s mom.
Speakers included myself as the Organizer of The Yuma County Gay Meetup and The Amancio Project, Representative Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona House of Representatives (first speaking for herself then delivering a message from Arizona Representative Amanda Aguirre), Luis Heredia representing Congressman Grijalva, Brenda Galvan Aguirre from the Arizona Leadership Institute, Donna Rose with the Human Rights Campaign, Lori Girshick the Anti-Violence Project Coordinator for Wingspan in Tucson, a hate crime victim’s mother whose son was murdered three years ago and the culprits have not been caught, a member of the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance, Vigil coordinator Hanna, with the Yuma County Gay Rights Meetup.
No Yuma city or county representative was in the audience, an observation which did not go unnoticed by Rep. Sinema and Mr. Heredia.
A wreath was presented to the family. The mother and the grandmother then handed out “Angel†pins and small crosses to everyone while the candles were being prepared (unfortunately, it became too breezy to light them).
It is now incumbent upon all of us to keep this spirit alive and the momentum going.
Michael H. Baughman
The Amancio Project
www.gayrights.meetup.com/177
www.TheAmancioProject.org (still under construction)
Ladies' Room?
There are many meaningful things said about the gender divide vis a vis bathrooms, but I didn’t expect to be blogging about it. Still, a couple of recent articles – one in The New York Times, and the other in The NY Post – have brought up all the usual issues and complaints.
If we allow crossdressed men to go into a ladies room, the end of civilization is upon us. Pedophilia will occur at mind-boggling rates. Women will no longer feel safe.
- A few things have occurred to me.
1) The reason women already go to the bathroom in pairs (other than a chance to gossip) is safety. So it’s apparent they already don’t feel safe going alone to the ladies’ room, trannies or not.
2) One of our loyal bloggers actually did some research on the incidence of men crossdressing in order to assault children in bathrooms, and after an evening of making himself heartsick with horrible stories, found only one incidence – which turned out, after all, to be a mistake.
3) It strikes me that the easy answer to this problem is to legislate that new buildings need to include one single-occupancy bathroom. Period. So that the transperson, or woman-raised-female, or child-and-parent (fathers take their kids to the bathroom, too) can use a room that is lockable and private. Other buildings could be required over a period of time to retrofit their own bathrooms for similar use.
4) I wonder often at the people who spew such fear and hatred of strangers, or the unknown. I wonder how they ever feel safe in their worlds.
5) The first time I shared a ladies’ room with a drag queen the only thing that upset me was that she’d remembered to stop at a mirror to freshen her lipstick and I hadn’t.
Not to make light of the situation: women are vulnerable to unprotected spaces, and getting stuck behind a locked door. But I don’t think crossdressers are the men who are going to be assaulting them, and I don’t think the average sex assailant would be willing to emasculate himself to that degree in order to assault women. Transpeople are usually just as scared as women are of assault from men.
Since stalls create the privacy, why aren’t ladies’ room doors transparent? I don’t have a problem with someone watching me put on lipstick or make sure there’s no toilet paper stuck on my shoe (and maybe the clear doors would shame more people into washing their hands – like they’re supposed to). Extra eyes help cut down on violence.
So the real issue is: why don’t women feel safe in restrooms?
My guess is that it’s because we don’t take crimes against women seriously enough – no matter who perpetrates them. They say you can judge a society by how well it treats its women and children, and by those standards, we’re not getting a passing grade. ABC reports an increase in child abuse that’s ‘epidemic’ and the stats on violence against women stay the same year after year. If women don’t feel safe in their own homes, why on earth would they feel safe in a public bathroom? And while you might say these are two different issues, the late Andrea Dworkin said:
By the time we are women, fear is as familiar to us as air; it is our element. We live in it, we inhale it, we exhale it, and most of the time we do not even notice it. Instead of “I am afraid,” we say, “I don’t want to,” or “I don’t know how,” or “I can’t.”
So why are women afraid of transfolks in restrooms? Because women are afraid. While they may not understand that transpeople are not the ones who will assault them, they don’t expect their boyfriends and husbands to assault them, either. And they do. They do. And as usual, what can be feared (because it is unknown, sometimes unknowable, and new) will be feared instead. Their fear is legitimate. Transpeople’s need for accomodation is legitimate. But once again, we’ve got this tiny sliver of pie, and no one’s getting enough to eat. The issue again is male violence – male violence against gay men, transpeople, and women. When we all realize that we’re in this together, maybe, maybe, we’ll take back the night.
Resources: The NY Post and NY Times articles can be found on the MHB Boards, and there’s some sensible legal consideration given to the issue by Michael C. Dore of FindLaw.com.
Tecate, Mexico makes crossdressing illegal
from the BBC
(I personally love the detail about how the transvestite prostitutes threatened to out the politicians who have used their services, in Tijuana.)
Mexico’s transvestite ban draws gay protest
Gay rights activists are set to converge on a quiet Mexican border town in the wake of moves to criminalise cross-dressing.
Tecate’s new town ordinance, scheduled to go into effect in mid-November, bars men from wearing women’s clothes.
Men who flout the rule could be arrested and fined.
Transgressors would not face a jail term, although officials said that in practice it may mean imprisoning people at least overnight.
“The majority of votes for this was to avoid Aids, and prostitution if possible,” Tecate councilman Cosme Cazares said.
“That’s why we’re focusing on men who dress like women. This is for health reasons. It’s not to bother these boys.”
The new law has sparked outrage on both sides of the border, and gay rights protestors plan to hold Tecate’s first ever Gay Pride march on Tuesday.
Conduct code
The law is one in a series of measures in a “good conduct” code being taken up by the five municipalities in the Pacific coast state of Baja California, which borders California. Tecate was the first to enact it.
The ban on cross-dressing is one item in a 130-article ordinance that also bans everything from public urination to graffiti.
Tecate has already come under fire for imposing a 22:30 curfew on everyone under 18.
In Tijuana, council members pledged this week not to enact the ordinance – after transvestites threatened to publicise the names of officials who have solicited gay prostitutes.
The state’s other three municipalities have not taken up the ordinance yet.
Targeted crackdown
Town hall spokesman Jose Luis Rojo said the crackdown on transvestites targets those “who cause – how can I say this – who whistle and yell things at you while you’re walking. A lot go out in the night looking for customers and they take advantage of children.”
The town of 100,000 is said to be concerned over a rise in the number of transvestites who have moved to Tecate in recent years to escape Tijuana’s violence.
“We are not classifying this as a crime,” Mr Cazares said.
“It’s an infraction just like you get for driving the wrong way down the street.”
Gwen Araujo trial declared mistrial
from the San Jose Mercury News:
Posted on Tue, Jun. 22, 2004
Judge declares mistrial in Araujo case
JURORS SAID THEY WERE HOPELESSLY DEADLOCKED
By Yomi S. Wronge
Mercury News
An Alameda County judge this morning declared a mistrial in the Gwen Araujo case after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked on whether three men killed the transgender Newark teenager.
Superior Court Judge Harry Sheppard announced the decision in a Hayward courtroom shortly before 10 a.m. after hearing from the 8-man, 4-woman panel, and individually asking them if further deliberations would help them reach verdicts. Only two said that was a possibility, the others said it would do no good.
The had been deliberating the fate of Jose Merel, Jason Cazares and Michael Magidson, all 24, since June 3.
The three were facing first degree murder charges, with a hate crime enhancement, for allegedly killing Gwen.
Gwen, who was 17, was born Eddie Araujo Jr., but identified and lived as a girl. According to trial testimony, Gwen was beaten and strangled after her biological identity was revealed during a confrontation in the early hours of Oct. 4, 2002, at Merel’s house in Newark.
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/174/nation/California_jurors_unable_to_re:.shtml
California jurors unable to reach verdict in slaying of transgender teen
By Michelle Locke, Associated Press, 6/22/2004 14:32
HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) A judge declared a mistrial Tuesday in the case of three men accused of killing a transgender teen after jurors declared they were deadlocked.
The case has been closely watched by transgender advocates, who said the verdicts would send a message about how much their lives are valued. Michael Magidson, Jose Merel and Jason Cazares, all 24, were charged with killing a 17-year-old who was known as Gwen but was born Edward Araujo.
According to trial testimony, Araujo was beaten and strangled after her biological identity was revealed during a confrontation on Oct. 4, 2002, at Merel’s house in Newark, a San Francisco suburb. Merel and Magidson had had sexual encounters with Araujo and had become suspicious about Araujo’s gender after comparing notes, according to testimony. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Harry Sheppard declared the mistrial after the jury foreman announced that the eight men and four women were deadlocked after nine days of deliberations. If they had decided to convict, the jury would have had the option of returning verdicts of first-degree murder, punishable by 25 years to life in prison; second-degree murder, 15-to-life; or manslaughter, which carries a maximum term of 11 years.
The case was charged as a hate crime, which could add four years to sentences. Cazares had sought acquittal, saying he wasn’t involved in the killing and only helped bury the body. Magidson’s attorney argued the case was not murder but manslaughter, a crime of passion triggered by sexual fraud.
Continue reading “Gwen Araujo trial declared mistrial”
TG Day of Remembrance announced
Transgender Day of Remembrance announced.
MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Gwen Smith
Ethan St. Pierre
TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE ANNOUNCED
6th annual event will be held November 20, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO, June 16, 2004 – The 6th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance has been set for November 20th, 2004, with over 100 separate
observances expected world-wide.
“Since last year’s event, nine more people have died due to anti-transgender violence,” said Ethan St. Pierre of the Remembering Our Dead project. “So yet again, we will be making it known that such killings are unacceptable.
The most recent reported case of anti-transgender violence leading to death is that of Cedric Thomas of Baton Rogue, Louisiana, who was shot multiple times on May 18th. Thomas died from those wounds on June 5th.
The Day of Remembrance began in 1999 as a way to draw attention to the
issue of anti-transgender violence in the wake of unsolved murders such
as that of Rita Hester. Hester was killed November 28th, 1995. Her death remains unsolved.
Unlike the murder of Rita Hester, many recent cases — including the rash
of Washington, D.C. attacks that left two dead last August — show an increased vigilance on the part of law enforcement and the media to treat these crimes equally.
“That we’re seeing more stories about these cases, more arrests, and more
convictions says that our actions are being taken seriously,” said Transgender Day of Remembrance founder Gwen Smith. “yet there is still so much more to do.”
Last year’s event was honored in over one-hundred locations in eight countries.
The Remembering Our Dead project exists to honor individuals murdered as a result of anti-transgender hatred and Prejudice, and draw attention to the issue of anti-transgendered violence. Remembering Our Dead is a project of Gender Education and Advocacy, Inc.