Tag: organizations

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Ruby Molina

The body of the transgender woman who was found in the American River in Sacramento last week has been identified by police as Ruby (nee Fernando) Molina. The police are citing it as a “suspicious” death and need more information:

Anyone who knew the victim, the victim’s recent whereabouts, or who has other information about this case is asked to contact the Sacramento Police Department at (916) 443-HELP. A $1,000 reward is currently being offered.

Please, if you know something, let the police know. She deserves to have her murderers caught, as does her family.

(thanks to Angus/Andrea Grieve-Smith for the info.)

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Trans for Obama: NSD + Trans

Kate Bornstein has her wrap-up post up (thanks, Kate!) and so does our Canadian friend Veronique, and I also wanted to get in a few words from Melissa Sklarz, who is currently the vice chair of National Stonewall Democrats, about NSD and its trans representation:

NSD has had trans representation on its board for almost 10 years.  I have been on the Board for 6 years and have been a vice chair of the Board for the last 4.  We have had trans representation from the East and the West and now our friends in Colorado are starting an NSD trans group for all of us.  The three of us comprise 8% of the Board total and all do service at the Exec level.

Most gay poltical groups have either few or no trans folks on board.

Which is one of the reasons it’s so damn cool that they decided to host the donations for Obama for the trans community. Thank you, Stonewall Democrats, especially Jon Hoadley and John Marble, who spearheaded this project, and thank you Babrbara Casbar (NJ), Melissa Sklarz (NY), and Laura Calvo (OR), for your work within NSD’s state organizations.

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Trans for Obama: Midnight

In case you didn’t read along all day, here’s what happened: We started the day at 105 donors and $5400. We ended the day (midnight, EST) at 196 donors and $10,746. That’s a net of 91 donors and $5346 for Obama’s campaign. We did good! Bloggers that posted:

I suspect we will make our goal of 200 if we use midnight time (PDT) I’m sure, but I’ve got to go to bed. Our cat Aeneas had an echocardiogram and 6 teeth pulled today, so I’m emotionally exhausted on more than one front.

This being the trans community, I’m sure that there will be criticism of this event, so I’ll tell you why I got so fired up about this idea & spent the day blogging it: because for me, it’s meaningful not just for an historically gay & lesbian organization like Nat’l Stonewall Democrats to set up a page for trans community donations, but that it’s important for the trans community to respond with enthusiasm when we get an org that is willing to work with us. I think that’s at least as important as criticizing orgs that take us for granted.

More than that, I believe in visibility. There was no minimum donation required, so that your “vote” (or your existence) could count very easily, even for $1. Political visibility is important – and this event made us visible not just to LGBT people, but on a national political landscape where we are, sadly, almost completely invisible. Or, as Angie at Dakota Women put it:

This is a great way to increase trans visibility, so when the election is over, we can point to exact dollars that the trans community and its allies brought in. That. Is. Huge. Whether you identify as trans or a trans ally, this is a win-win. You get to help make sure that we’re not all crying in our beers the day after election day, and help demonstrate the power of the trans community and its supporters–all at the same time!

Right on. For me, personally – well, I live in NY which always goes for the Democratic nominee for President, so it was nice to get to do something that had a little more reach.

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Trans for Obama: Caprice’s Post

Caprice, who is one of the people who set up the campaign with the National Stonewall Democrats, has posted about Trans for Obama Day as well, adding her arguments about why McCain / Palin would be a disaster for LGBT people and why Obama needs all the small donors he can get.

So I’d like to take this moment to thank Caprice, who does more for the LGBT community than just about anyone I know, by being on boards and contacting politicians, taking regular trips to Albany for NYS concerns, and by working with the Name Change Project at the Center.

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Congrats, Diane Schroer

& Thank you, ACLU.

WASHINGTON, DC September 19, 2008 — Today the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of Diane Schroer, supporting her claim that she was wrongfully denied employment by the Library of Congress after she notified them that she intended to transition.

In 2004, while still living as David, retired US Army Colonel Diane Schroer was offered and accepted a job with the Library of Congress. When she notified her new employers of her intention to transition, the offer was rescinded. After a highly distinguished military career, Col. Schroer decided to fight once more to uphold American values of fairness and justice.

“True to form, Diane Schroer has once again demonstrated her bravery and her commitment to American democracy,” noted Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “By fighting for her rights, she has defended the honor and rights of all transgender people who have been discriminated against on the job. NCTE congratulates her on this historic win and applauds the tremendous work of the ACLU in securing this victory for us all.”

In his ruling United States District Judge James Robertson stated, “After hearing the evidence presented at trial, I conclude that Schroer was discriminated against because of sex in violation of Title VII.” He went on to note, “None of the five assertedly legitimate reasons that the Library has given for refusing to hire Schroer withstands scrutiny.”

Judge Robertson concluded, “In refusing to hire Diane Schroer because her appearance and background did not comport with the decision maker’s sex stereotypes about how men and women should act and appear, and in response to Schroer’s decision to transition, legally, culturally, and physically, from male to female, the Library of Congress violated Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination.”

You can read the whole of the decision at the ACLU’s website (pdf).

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Vital National Trans Survey

Respond to the survey online at
https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim

WASHINGTON, DC September 11, 2008 — In the wake of one of the most violent years on record of assaults on transgender people, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (The Task Force) have teamed up on a comprehensive national survey to collect data on discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, public accommodation, health care, education, family life and criminal justice.

To date, in 2008, several young gender non-conforming people of color have been murdered, including California junior high school student Lawrence King, who was shot in public during the school day. King’s murder, and the murders of Simmie Williams in South Carolina and Angie Zappata in Greeley, Colorado come in a year in which we are still working to include transgender provisions in a federal bill to protect lesbian, gay and bisexual workers from discrimination in employment.

Hate crimes against transgender people suggest multiple points of vulnerability, which can compound each other: discrimination in employment may lead to unstable housing situations which in turn can leave transgender people at the mercy of public programs and public officials who may not respond respectfully or appropriately to them. These stressors add burdens in a health care system that is often unprepared for transgender people’s needs. The list goes on. “We know that transgender people face discrimination on multiple fronts,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of NCTE. “This data will help us sort out the combination of forces that leave transgender people vulnerable to unemployment, homelessness, and violence.”

Jaime Grant, director of the Task Force Policy Institute noted, “There is so little concrete data on the needs and risks associated with the widespread discrimination we see in the lives of the transgender people we know. This data will help point the way to an appropriate policy agenda to ensure that transgender people have a fair chance to contribute their talents in the workplace, in our educational systems and in our communities.”

NCTE and the Task Force have partnered with Pennsylvania State University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education to collect and analyze the data. Applying rigorous academic standards to the investigation will strengthen any case made to legislators, policy makers, health care providers, and others whose decisions impact the lives of transgender people. A national team of experts in survey research and transgender issues developed the questionnaire, which can be completed on-line at https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim. Paper copies can also be downloaded from the NCTE and The Task Force websites soon.

Keisling notes: “This is an absolutely critical national effort. We urge all transgender and gender non-conforming people to take the survey to help guide us in making better laws and policies that will improve the quality of life for all transgender people. We need everyone’s voice in this, everyone’s participation.”

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Obama PIRG

Well this explains everything about why I like the guy: I worked at NYPIRG, and I went to City College, too. I showed up at both about five years after he was there.

After about a year, he was hired by the New York Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit organization that promotes consumer, environmental and government reform. He became a full-time organizer at City College in Harlem, paid slightly less than $10,000 a year to mobilize student volunteers.

Mr. Obama says he spent three months “trying to convince minority students at City College about the importance of recycling” — a description that surprised some former colleagues. They said that more “bread-and-butter issues” like mass transit, higher education, tuition and financial aid were more likely the emphasis at City College.

“You needed somebody — and here was where Barack was a star — who could make the case to students across the political spectrum,” said Eileen Hershenov, who oversaw Mr. Obama’s work for Nypirg. The job required winning over students on the political left, who would normally disdain a group inspired by Ralph Nader as insufficiently radical, as well as students on the right and those who were not active at all.

Nearly 20 years later, Mr. Obama seemed to remember the experience differently. Gene Karpinski, then executive director of U.S. PIRG, a federation of state watchdog groups, met Mr. Obama in Boston. It was at the time of the 2004 Democratic convention, when Mr. Obama delivered the speech that made him a party luminary. Mr. Karpinski introduced himself. And, he recalled, Mr. Obama told him: “I used to be a PIRG guy. You guys trained me well.”

(From The NY Times)

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Media Trans

The next round of America’s Next Top Model will have a transgender candidate named Isis. I’m sure it will be a big mess, the way ANTM tends to be, with too many dramas & too much revelation about the candidates’ personal issues (issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with their ability to model).

BUT – compared to the recent footage of the recently cancelled Pretty Handsome (which was previously known as 4 oz.) – I’m sure it’ll be better, at least for the reason that the woman’s goal is not to transition on the show or anything like that. The focus will not be on her being trans, per se, but on her desire to be a model.

When transness becomes an aspect of someone’s identity – even an aspect that’s given way too much attention in light of the whole human being – they have a chance to come across as people, first.

edited to add: & I’m not going to dignify the comments made by a dickwad on Fox News about Isis by commenting or linking since it’s just the usual bullshit hateful transphobia you’d expect. GLAAD did demand an apology, but none was received.

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Five Questions With… Monica Canfield-Lenfest

As many of you know, Monica Canfield-Lenfest is the daughter of a trans woman and created a new resource, with COLAGE, for kids with trans parents. I highly recommend it.

1) First, tell me about COLAGE & how the book for Kids of Trans happened, what your goals were.

COLAGE (www.colage.org) is a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parents. We build community and work toward social justice through youth empowerment, leadership development, education, and advocacy. I first contacted COLAGE five and a half years ago, when I was working on my undergraduate thesis: “She’s My Father: The Social Experience of People with Transgender Parents”. Looking for references for my project, I discovered a diverse community of queerspawn who gave me the space to better articulate my experience and encouraged me to continue my work, since there are hardly any resources for transgender parented families. I started presenting at transgender conferences and gained a renewed sense of responsibility to build community and develop resources for people with transgender parents.

During a COLAGE conference in Dallas two years ago, I suggested to Meredith Fenton, COLAGE Program Director, that perhaps I could fill a fall internship position at the national office. We came up with a Fellowship model for my position, which has become a new program for the organization. I worked full-time for eight months focused specifically on the Kids of Trans Program. The major goal of the fellowship was to develop resources for people with transgender parents. Since there was no book detailing our experiences and offering advice to people with trans parents, the Kids of Trans Resource Guide became the obvious main project.

My goals in writing the guide were: first, to tell other people with trans parents that they are not alone; second, to recognize that the entire family transitions when a parent transitions; and third, to provide compassionate advice from people who have similar families. In short, I hoped to create the book I wanted my father to give me when she came out to me over ten years ago. Continue reading “Five Questions With… Monica Canfield-Lenfest”

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Me, Victorian Prude

I was reading over at feministing.com about casual sex, & read a recent bulletin from GenderPAC about the increase in Purity Balls, & then was mourning over the loss of another trans woman who got beaten to death by a guy who she’d previously given a blowjob to, & it got me thinking.

See, I wasn’t comfortable being a nubile when I was younger. I wasn’t comfortable ever being a nubile, & am still only wont to dress in sexier ways in very safe spaces – like DO, or certain queer/drag/fetish events, or the like. As much as I know it’s never a woman’s fault if she is hurt because of the way she’s dressed, I also had enough contact with non-sexual street violence to be twice as cautious about leaving myself open to any kind of sexual abuse or harassment, much less violence.

Which probably makes me painfully Second Wave, but there you go. I just don’t get it, & I’m never going to get it. I never had good sex that was casual; a long-standing “booty call” type relationship was a little closer to my experience of having good, non-committed sex, and maybe here we’re just defining “casual” in different ways, and the folks over at feministing are talking about the same kind of relationship. Continue reading “Me, Victorian Prude”