Thursday, October 31, 2013

Who's Missing?

The headline reads “'Top 50 OUTstanding in Business List' Looks At LGBT Corporate Industry Leaders” but when you read down the list of names there is a glaring omission. There is no transgender business executives listed.

Well you might reply that there are none.

Do you think the person who was CEO GeoStar a satellite navigation company and started-up Sirius Satellite Radio and then founded United Therapeutics, a bio-tech company might be a good candidate for the list? Martine Rothblatt did all that, she graduated from UCLA, graduating summa cum laude in communication studies and her MBA and J.D. is also from UCLA. When her daughter came down with a rare and fatal disease she went and got her PhD in medical ethics and started United Therapeutics to help find a cure for her daughter.

My next candidate for the list is Col. Jennifer Natalya Pritzker the billionaire heirs to the Hyatt Hotels fortune. She is founded Pritzker Group Venture Capital with her brother and it is estimated that her net worth is $1.5 billion.

My third candidate has a Bachelor of Science in Physics, a Master of Science in Engineering and a MBA, she is Amanda Simpson. She is currently the Special Assistant to the United States Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, but before she was appointed to her current job by President Obama she was the Deputy Director and Senior Program Manager for Raytheon.

So why is there no trans-people on the top 50 LGBT corporate leaders?

I think that because trans-people make up such a small percentage of the LGBT population it is hard for us to have our voices heard. We get drowned out by the gays and lesbians.

We are also oppressed more than gays or lesbians. It is easier to be closeted when you are gay or lesbian, they do not have a paper trial like we have when we change our name, driver license or our credit cards. They can easier assimilate into society unless their gender presentation does not conform societal norms for their gender and if you look at all the lesbians and gays that are on the list and the ones that I nominated you will see that they all conforms to the visual norms of their gender presentation.

So we get hit with a double whammy when we try to climb the latter to success, first we have a paper trial and second it is harder for use to blend into society.

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