Trampling On Your Rights

Sometimes when I am reading the morning news just one or two paragraphs catch my attention, this morning it was in the Sacramento Bee…

“There are people in the entertainment and journalistic media who think that I and other people like me are bigots because we still believe in biological reality,” Snider said. “There is a view out there that gender has been artificially constructed, and it’s not a biological reality,” he added. Our position is that it in fact is a biological reality.”

Is it bigotry because they are still using outmoded science?  Or is it bigotry because they don’t want to learn? Science has progressed so much farther than the 1950s beliefs that sex and gender are the same and that sex is nothing more than our chromosomes, we know now that some of the factors are our in our DNA and hormones, chromosomes only play one part in determining our gender.

There are those who have simplest view of sex, they see a binary male/female world, they want two little boxes to check off but nature is never simple it is very complex; is that bigotry? I don’t think so but it becomes bigotry when that do not treat everyone the same.

I don’t really care what they think, they can think the world is flat for all I care, what is important is behavior. When someone uses a bathroom it is still against the law to look where you shouldn’t.

A Class Act

I have seen many trans people come out and face the press and really don’t handle it very well. Some were in politics, some were in the military, some were in the media, and not many have handled it very well but Caitlyn Jenner has been doing it right.

Caitlyn Jenner honoured at ESPY Awards, urges transgender acceptance
Reuters
July 16, 2015

  Former Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner, who came out as transgender this year, called for respect and acceptance of other transgender people after being honoured at this year's ESPY Award ceremony.

  The 65-year-old, who as Bruce Jenner took gold at the 1976 Olympics in the decathlon, received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award named after the late United States tennis star and presented to "individuals whose contributions transcend sports".

  Jenner received a standing ovation and gave an emotional acceptance speech at the Los Angeles event, officially known as the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly (ESPY) Award.

  "I trained hard, I competed hard and for that people respected me but this transition has been harder on me than anything I could have imagined and that's the case for so many others besides me," Jenner said.

She has good coaches but more importantly she listened to what they had to say. Many didn’t.

Take Me To Your Leader.

I came across this excellent article in the Advocate about the “Trans Movement” and it makes some good points,

What Trans Movement?
Caitlyn Jenner’s story is an important one. But stories like hers alone cannot sustain a movement of racially and culturally diverse trans men and women seeking community and visibility.
By Jen Richards
July 14, 2015

The open secret of trans activists and organizers is that we spend as much time navigating horizontal harassment and internal politics as we do on our proper outward-facing efforts. What is a steady state of affairs for those of us on the inside occasionally rises to public awareness, such as with the “tranny wars,” a fight over the use of a word that some claimed with affection and others saw as a vicious slur. Or the “no platforming” of feminists who are critical of trans people. Or the exclusion of trans women from the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.

Anything done by or for trans people, or any issue that intersects with gender, is inevitably attacked. The battlefields are social media and op-ed sections, and the stakes are control of discourse and who gets to represent trans people.

Internal tensions are not unique to any group of people, but the feeling is more pitched among trans people than elsewhere, a feeling echoed privately by people in all corners of the social justice movement.

But you know what… this is not just a trans problem, all marginalized groups do this just look at the civil rights movement of the sixties. There wasn’t just Dr. Martin Luther King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) there were also the Black Panthers, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). All civil rights movements are fractured and we are no different.

Ms. Richards goes on to write,

The vitriol is just as bad, if not worse, when aimed at fellow trans people. When 12 trans women were featured on the cover of C★ndy magazine, other trans women published essays on the cisnormative beauty standards it perpetuated. When Our Lady J became the first trans woman hired as a writer on a high-profile show, Amazon’s Transparent, another trans woman wrote that she was the worst possible choice because she’s not a “real, everyday trans woman.” When I started a website solely for sharing positive experiences, WeHappyTrans.com, one of the first comments I received was “Where is the site for those of us who aren’t happy?” And when the first Trans 100 was published, a list of 100 out trans activists, most of the emails I got from trans people were about how terrible I was for not including them.

I admit that I am sometimes guilty and I am also the target of the hate which is why I went to comment moderation.

There isn’t a trans movement, or a trans community, but rather multiple movements and communities, divided not only by race and class but also distinct histories, leaders, resources, and needs. There are of course some goals, challenges, and victories shared by all. And though there are many exceptions, the lived experiences of most trans people fall into broad camps.
[…]
While they vary widely in their particular stories and interests, all of these women share in the unique privilege of having occupied the intersection of identities most valued by contemporary Western society.

Another completely different set of experiences is shared by those who did not benefit from occupying such a privileged space. Black, Latina, and Asian Pacific Islander trans women, along with some white artists and performers who came from gay male communities, found one another on city streets, in nightclubs, and at underground balls. The clear lines between what we now distinguish as transsexuals and queens didn’t exist. Total exclusion from mainstream society, reliance on sex work and underground economies, and the necessity of sharing limited resources put a greater emphasis on groups than on individuals.

It is the same way “Gay Inc.” is really a separate LGB movement compared to most other LGB people, they are struggling to have their basic needs meet while “Gay Inc.” was pushing for marriage equality. The trans community is the same way, many trans people are forced into survival sex in order to have their basic needs meet, food and a roof to sleep under while many trans people are worrying about where to have their hair done or where will the next party be.

A Roof Over Our Heads

Have you ever thought about where you are going to live when you cannot live on your own anymore?

How will they treat you at senior housing centers?

HUD moves to protect older LGBT people, Obama pushes auto IRA plans
The Washington Post
By Fredrick Kunkle
July 13, 2015

The Department of Housing and Urban Development on Monday issued new guidance on rules to ensure that gay people are protected from discrimination in federally subsidized housing, particularly in programs designed for older Americans.

The announcement coincided with the White House Conference on Aging in which a more visible and vocal group of advocates have called for greater protections for older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“HUD’s announcement is a strong step toward ending discrimination against LGBT people in federally supported senior housing,” Michael Adams, executive director of Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders (SAGE), said in a written statement. “With a recent report showing that housing discrimination against LGBT elders is rampant, this is just the kind of leadership we need from the federal government. Now we need to make sure that these anti discrimination protections are effectively implemented.”

As we grow older this is becoming the new frontier of activism for the pioneers that fought for equality, we are now demanding senior housing complexes, long term care facilities and senior centers be free from discriminations  and treat us with respect.

Tomorrow afternoon there will be a meeting of a number of senior center administrators about starting a LGBT day at their centers each month. The idea is to have a LGBT day on a rotating basis for each of the towns, it is a good start but I hope that this will grow to having a LGBT day each month for each town and not make us having to travel from town to town.

It’s A Coming, The Hand Writing Is On The Wall.

Unlike the boy scouts, the military is moving towards full inclusion.

REPORTS: Pentagon Poised to Lift Transgender Military Ban
The Pentagon will announce a working group this week that will investigate how to let transgender Americans serve openly in the military for the first time in U.S. history.
The Advocate
By Sunnivie Brydum
July 13 2015

The U.S. military's longstanding ban on open service by transgender Americans could be banished to the history books in as little as six months, according to a report from the Associated Press.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has requested the creation of a "working group of senior military and civilian leaders to take an objective look at the issue, identify any problems, and develop uniform guidelines," according to the AP.
[…]
"Pentagon leaders are finalizing plans aimed at lifting the ban on transgender individuals in the military, with the goal of formally ending one of the last gender- or sexuality-based barriers to military service."

The rumored change, which the AP expects the Pentagon to formally announce this week, would take six months to be implemented — giving commanders of each service branch time to bring medical, legal, and administrative issues involved in overturning the longstanding regulation that has, since the 1970s, declared transgender Americans categorically unfit to serve.

It took a little while but it is coming!

Thump, Thump

Did you see that the Boy Scouts of America has lifted the ban on gay scout masters?

There is all kinds of celebrations and high fives, but do you see anything about our trans brothers?

Boy Scouts of America’s Executive Committee Unanimously Approves End to Ban on Gay Adults

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the Boy Scouts of America announced that the National  Executive Committee unanimously approved a resolution allowing gay adults to serve as employees and volunteers.  A vote by the National Executive Board, the Boy Scouts’ governing body, is set for July 27th.

Based on the BSA’s documents, the change would:

1. Eliminate the BSA’s across the board ban on openly gay or bisexual adults in scouting.
2. Allow each individual troop or unit to determine its own policy regarding the eligibility of openly gay or bisexual scoutmasters or other adult leaders.
3. Prohibit regional governing councils or non-Troop entities such as boy scouts camps from discriminating against employees and volunteers based on their sexual orientation.
4. Allow previously removed leaders to reapply for their positions.

That thumping that you hear are all tires running over us as the gays go out and celebrate the repeal.

As you read articles about this let’s see how many of them will say, “What about our trans brothers?”

CeCe

There is an article in Saturday’s Star Tribune by Jon Tevlin about CeCe McDonald,

Transgender life is a long haul for Minneapolis woman
Upcoming episodes of "Orange Is the New Black" will portray some of what "CeCe" McDonald faced being a transgender woman living in a man’s prison. 
[...]
“We have to realize that Caitlyn Jenner also leads a life of white privilege,” said Chrishaun “CeCe” McDonald, who served time in prison for killing a man who had attacked her because she was a transgender black woman.

Jenner was a very famous, wealthy white male long before he decided to become a woman, so he has an enormous edge on most transgender people. “I’m still an African-American woman and have to deal with all the things I grew up with,” said McDonald.

The episodes will be about,

She has become an inspiration for Laverne Cox, who plays the character Sophia Burset in the hit television show “Orange is the New Black,” currently in its third season. We won’t spoil the show, but upcoming episodes will portray some of what McDonald faced being a transgender woman living in a man’s prison.

Meanwhile, Cox is co-producer with Jacqueline Gares on a documentary, “Free CeCe,” that is nearing postproduction. They hope to have a rough cut of the documentary by early 2016, and plan to have openings in New York and Minneapolis some time after that.

Not only money and white privilege can make a difference on whether a trans person has to work the streets in order to survive but also how well you can assimilate in to society as a woman or a man makes a tremendous difference in how you live.

Best Companies To Work For

Business Insider has a list of best companies to work for if you are trans,

The most transgender-friendly companies in America
By Rachel Gillett & Skye Gould
July 10, 2015

America still has a long way to go when it comes to transgender inclusion in the workplace, but some companies are championing the way by instituting policies and practices that embrace diversity.

"There are literally hundreds of major businesses that have adopted gender identity protections, gender transition guidelines, and, increasingly, transgender-inclusive healthcare benefits," Deena Fidas, head of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation's Workplace Equality Program, and co-author of the Corporate Equality Index (CEI), tells Business Insider.
[…]
Of the more than 300 companies that earned a top CEI score of 100% in 2015, 72 stood out as the best companies for promoting workplace equality for transgender employees.

The problem is that having a policy and following it are two different things as was saw a couple of months ago with Saks of Fifth Avenue. DiversityInc called out Saks on two-facedness…

Saks Fifth Avenue’s Hypocrisy: The most amazing part of this whole story is that Saks has a corporate employee handbook, which includes protection for gender identity. But in its lawsuit, Saks claims this doesn’t matter because “employee handbooks are not contracts as a matter of law.”

On its corporate website, Saks says: “Understanding and valuing diversity is core to our commitment, but we recognize that diversity isn’t just about different backgrounds. It’s about fresh and original ideas, experiences and perspectives—all of which have led us to the innovative, creative and unexpected solutions we might never have found otherwise.”

I also know some trans women who were harassed on the job while the company maintained a blind eye toward the discrimination going on in their company while ignoring their company policy.

Many people who have been discriminated against do not want to press discrimination complaints because those complaints are public record and they rightly fear it would prevent them from further employment opportunities.

Slap In The Face

While we are the parade season and floats in bad taste, at a Pride Parade in Portland Oregon we were put in the back of the bus again…

Where in the parade do you usually put the person who was awarded the “Spirit of the Pride” maybe up in front with the other honorees? What about at the very end of the parade with no sign or anything to identify the honoree?

Well that is what they did in the Portland parade.

In a series of tweets listed on Storify, Ms. Macy start out all happy and enthused at being one of the honorees but then slowly that enthusiasm to disgust about her treatment. Ms. Macy was the person who filed a discrimination case against her employer with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2012 that lead to the ruling that we are protected under Title VII’s sex discrimination.

Planet Transgender had this to say about her treatment,

As Pride marches forward every weekend, things, however, did not go that well in Portland’s PDX Pride, where the Grand Marshal of the Trans-March Pride Parade was a cisgender person while transgender activist and public figure Mia Marie Macy was relegated to the end of the parade with no signage, car or representation.
[…]
Planet Transgender reached out to Mia Macy about her experience at PDX and she had this to say, “From the moment my wife and I (they knew she was coming) arrived we were treated like an afterthought. From bringing a smart car with one seat, an option to ride in a car full of drag queens, taxi or walk I was humiliated. As a trans woman that has fought against the negative stigma of society, for our rights and educate others that trans is not drag, sitting in a car surrounded by drag performers is one of the most insulting request.”

She continued, “I had to resort to showing staff my phone with their website and my face on the homepage to try unsuccessfully convince them I was to be allowed to stand in shaded backstage area awaiting an award they asked me to come and receive. Multiple times throughout the day the president of Portland Pride had opportunities to make a difference and didn’t. After years of fighting for our equality, this was the first time someone recognized my efforts and it was supposed to be special. Instead, I was an afterthought, humiliated and embarrassed.”

Storify has Portland’s Pride response…

Pride Northwest chose to honor Mia Macy for her work in securing legal rights and protections for the Transgender community, nationwide. Her work deserves recognition and honor. And we, at Pride Northwest, failed her this weekend.
Since yesterday, a formal apology has been sent to Mia and we have actively begun addressing the circumstances and factors that led up to that failure. We have been reaching out, and will continue to reach out, to the Transgender community, particularly the Trans women's community, in order to set a course for ensuring that we-as an organization-consistently act in a way that honors, supports, and celebrates the community, and does not harm it.
The board and staff of Pride Northwest is fully committed to doing the work necessary (and more) to ensure that we are a Pride organization worthy of the entire LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming spectrum.
Thank you and if you have any questions, comments, or feedback, please email president @ pridenw.org.
Debra Porta
President
Pride Northwest, Inc.
*Edited to correct the use of "Transwomen" to "Trans woman"...thank you for that call out and correction.

That thump, thumping noise that you hear are the tires from the "Gay Inc." bus as it runs over us.

Comedy At Whose Expense

There are all types of comedy and the only kind that I like is observation comedy where the jokes are not directed at a person or class of people. Many people like insult comedy like Don Rickles does, but I don’t because it involves getting a joke and another person’s expense.

Controversial Float Draws Mixed Reviews at Boyne City Holiday Parade
9&10 News
Posted: Jul 07, 2015
By Samantha Radeck

Mixed feelings in Boyne City over this float at the end of their Fourth of July parade.

The float depicts transgender woman, Caitlyn Jenner in a spoof of the sitcom “Two and A Half Men” in front of a Wheaties box.

It rolled out just behind the parade in Boyne City on Saturday.

Float builder Marty Moody prides himself in his satirical floats every year and says he's just trying to be funny.

But even the Boyne Area Chamber of Commerce believes this one crossed the line.
[…]
But many don't think this depiction of a transgender woman was very funny.

Lynn Gillespie and her family were appalled when they saw it.

“Well the tenor of a July Fourth parade is America, independence, freedom, acceptance -- I would think --and I didn't see that. I saw this totally away from anything that smacks of patriotism or encompassing peoples. That's what struck me is this has no place in this parade,” Gillespie said.

Yes, many people probably found it very funny, and they would probably tell me to lighten up. But those laughs came at the expense of Caitlyn Jenner and the trans community.

In the past people found blackface funny but people realized that it was insulting to blacks, well this transface and it is insulting to many in the trans community.

Northern Michigan's News Leader

Saturday 9: Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Crazy Sam’s Saturday 9: Crazy Little Thing Called Love (1980)

Every Saturday I take time off from written on serious topics to have some fun…

... because Diana suggested Queen

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this video, Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury is wearing a leather jacket. Do you have a leather jacket?
Nope, I don't own any leather clothes.

2) There's a statue of Freddie in Switzerland. There's another statue of him above the Dominion Theater in London. Tell us about a statue or memorial in your town. 
Well I imagine that every town has one, a veteran’s memorial. We also have the nation’s very first civil war memorial.

3) Mercury said this song was inspired by Elvis Presley. What's your favorite Elvis song?
Love Me Tender

4) This song was covered by the animated Alvin and the Chipmunks. Do you still watch cartoons?
I admit it, once in a while I'll watch Rocky & Bullwinkle show on YouTube


5) The members of Queen met while attending Ealing Art College in London. Are you still in touch with the friends you had in your late teens and early 20s?
I was in touch but in the last couple of years we drifted apart. But I just became “Friends” on Facebook with my neighbor from when I was growing up.

6) During Queen's hey day in the 1980s, Mercury stayed in shape with tennis and swimming. Are you more accomplished on the court or in the pool?
The lake, but I don’t swim. Just float.

7) In 1980, when this song was popular, Brooke Shields made a jeans commercial where she said, "Nothing comes between me and Calvins." It actually only aired for a short time because so many viewers called and complained about it. Have you ever called or emailed to protest something you saw on TV?
Yup, and I written letters to the editors that were published.

8) 1980 is also the year the Post-It note was introduced. What's the last Post-It you wrote?
"Cold Cuts!" I posted it on the refrigerator door so I don’t forget to bring them up to the cottage.

9) Random question: Do you blush easily?
Most definitely, which cause me to blush even more.

I am heading to a wake first thing in the morning and then on up to the cottage (that’s where I was last weekend.) so I don’t know when I will get a chance to reply to the comments. I’m packing my laptop when I finish this post.

Headlines Are So Important

They pull in your audience and make them at least look over the article, it also sets the tone of the article; what do you think story is about? “Oregon allowing 15-year-olds to get state-subsidized sex-change operations”

Well the headline isn’t true and the article is even worst…

The list of things 15-year-olds are not legally allowed to do in Oregon is long: Drive, smoke, donate blood, get a tattoo -- even go to a tanning bed.

But, under a first-in-the-nation policy quietly enacted in January that many parents are only now finding out about, 15-year-olds are now allowed to get a sex-change operation. Many residents are stunned to learn they can do it without parental notification -- and the state will even pay for it through its Medicaid program, the Oregon Health Plan.

"It is trespassing on the hearts, the minds, the bodies of our children," said Lori Porter of Parents' Rights in Education. "They're our children. And for a decision, a life-altering decision like that to be done unbeknownst to a parent or guardian, it's mindboggling."

Reading the article you would think that 15-year-olds are having Gender Confirming Surgery (GCS) but it is not true, there are medical guidelines that prevent that. The article goes on to say,

According to a 2008 study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, "most children with gender dysphoria will not remain gender dysphoric after puberty."

Dr. Paul McHugh, who led the Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Department and still practices, said Oregon's policy amounts to child abuse. "We have a very radical and even mutilating treatment being offered to children without any evidence that the long-term outcome of this would be good," McHugh said.

And you think Wow! The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry thinks that! Well that was taken out on context. This is its position...

The position of the WPATH, American Psychiatric Association (APA), and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is that therapy with a gender atypical child should allow their gender identity to unfold without trying to influence the outcome one way or the other.

Media Matters had this to say about the Fox News article,

A segment on Fox News' Special Report attacked a law in Oregon that allows transgender individuals to receive medical treatments according to their gender identification by calling teens who can seek the treatment "fickle" and falsely claiming that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has labeled being transgender, known as gender dysphoria, as a mental disorder. But studies show that medical care for transgender individuals is important for their mental health and the APA stopped classifying gender dysphoria as a mental disorder in 2012.

Here is the hatchet job video…

UConn!

This morning like I usually do I was reading Google News to see what news article that I could write about and there was one about Northwestern University’s vocal therapy group for transgender youths.

Northwestern, Lurie team up to offer transgender teens voice training
By Barbara Brotman
Chicago Tribune
July 6, 2015

The room filled with voices sliding up and down in pitch and an assortment of buzzings and hummings.

It sounded like a cross between opera warmups and chanting. But the young people here were doing vocal exercises with a different purpose: They were learning how to speak in the voice of the opposite gender than the one into which they were born.

In a first-time pilot program, Northwestern University's Center for Audiology, Speech, Language and Learning, and the Lurie Children's Hospital's Gender and Sex Development Program teamed up recently to offer a vocal therapy group for transgendered youths.

It's a skill these teenagers were eager to learn.

And that reminded me of the same program that the University of Connecticut has for trans people,

In A Word: Transgender Transition Through Speech
UConn Today
By: Sheila Foran & Bret Eckhardt
June 29, 2015

Communication happens in a gesture. A laugh. A choice of phrasing. Things that most of us never think about. But for individuals transitioning from one gender to another, speaking and acting in a way that supports their new identity can seem like a daunting challenge.

That’s where the speech-language pathologists at the University of Connecticut’s Speech and Hearing Clinic enter the picture.

“To me, speech is the thing that makes or breaks you in terms of whether you are seen as being feminine or not,” says Sylvia Wojcik, a client at the clinic for the past 18 months. “The voice is the finishing aspect of transition.”
[…]
In addition to providing benefit to the clients in the program, there is a societal benefit, says Roberts. The graduate students from the from the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, who work with the clients will likely leave UConn one day, she says, with a greater knowledge of the transgender population.

But, says Chase, at the clinic, it’s about individuals. Whether it’s starting from the beginning of a person’s transition, or polishing the communication skills of a person who transitioned years ago, there is a place for virtually anyone needing assistance.

It is great work that these universities and colleges are doing and as the article says it is a two-way street, they are learning from us.

But UConn also has something else that is great, they have a transition guideline that helps a UConn student transition on campus.

The University of Connecticut is committed to providing safe and supportive working and learning environments for all members of its community. In particular, all University community members have the right to safely express their gender identity, to be judged based on their merit and ability, and to be free from discrimination and harassment. As part of its commitment to ensuring the professional and academic success of transgender employees and students, the University has adopted these guidelines as a resource for the University community.

These guidelines are intended to assist transgender and gender variant members of the campus community with navigating the policies and practices of the University during a gender transition, as well as to assist University community members in their efforts to support transgender community members. While gender transitions may share certain similarities, no two transitions are exactly alike. Each person’s transition process is unique to the individual and the specific steps and timing of a transition may vary, as well as how public the individual wants to be about the transition. As a result, to respect the transitioning individual, it is important to remain flexible in implementing these guidelines and to provide choices that an individual can make within this framework. This document is intended to provide guidance to all individuals involved with a person’s transition (e.g., the transitioning or transitioned individual, supervisors and managers, advisors, transition teams, colleagues and peers), and includes a list of resources that provides further information.

As a UConn School of Social Work graduate, I found UConn to be open and affirming and never had any problems at the main campus in Storrs and at the West Hartford campus. I took an active part in student government and after I graduated I was a member of the UConn SSW alumni board of directors. In addition I have been a guest lecturer for many classes not only in the SSW but also the Schools of Education and Public Health. This fall I am going to be a guest lecturer for another class on the main campus (which reminds me, I have to fill out the paperwork this coming week – W-9 and vendor forms), my lecture is going to be a 90 minute talk on Trans History.

Privilege

What is male privilege? Do trans woman still have it?

There is a discussion in a group on Facebook about it and it got me thinking (now there’s something dangerous) do we still have male privilege? I know that I had it and I used it to get me where I am today, but are there any remnants left.

My firsts thoughts were, privilege is not something we bestowal upon ourselves but rather society bestowals upon us. We can exert ourselves and demand to be heard but is that male privilege?

When we go to a theater and the men on both sides use “man spread” and take up our space, when we battle for our space are we using male privilege? I think not, male privilege is taking the space without think. I think male privilege is subconscious you do it without thinking you dominate the conversation, you feel the math and science is beyond the capabilities of a woman. It is explaining who to wire up a light switch to a woman because you assume a woman doesn’t know how to do it.

A trans man once to me that it was all of sudden like he got a brain, now he was an expert in everything. And a trans woman once told me about her frustration at work, here she is with a degree in engineering with a MBA and is a project manager and now when she attends meetings no one listens to her ideas. When a man says the same thing everyone agrees with him. She was once asked to get everyone coffee, they thought she was the secretary and not the project manager.

So do we have male privilege?

I think in order to answer the question we have to ask about our trans status because I feel that it varies where we are on the trans spectrum and how well we integrate into society because remember society is what awards male privilege.

If you can “pass” (I hate that word but there but I haven’t found a better word to replace it) in society as a man or woman you will either gain or lose male privilege and if you don’t then there is another mechanism at play… gender discrimination.

Also, if you only crossdress four or five times a month for many they still exhibit male privilege (and many do not), I don’t know how many time a have seen someone plop down in a dress with “man spread” (which is another topic) while someone who transitioned still hasn’t had their “male privilege” beaten out of them yet.

So there are many factors at play when we talk about male privilege and the trans person.

What are your thoughts?

Thou Shall Not…

I first came out of the closet over fifteen years ago and transitioned seven years ago and one of the things that I have picked up over the years is that you should not criticize another trans woman.

Transgender Former Navy SEAL Running for Congress Says Caitlyn Jenner 'in Her Underwear' Is Not Helping the Cause
People
By Sandra Sobieraj Westfall
June 25, 2015

Kristin Beck knows the power of symbols.

Campaigning for Congress in Maryland's 5th district, the Democrat wears the Purple Heart and Navy SEAL Trident from her 20 years in the military so that, she says, "voters can very quickly see some depth."

But as a transgender woman, Beck – who, until just two years ago, walked the halls of the Pentagon in a suit and tie as Christopher Beck – also knows the allure of showing off in a short skirt.
[…]
So when she looks at the groundbreaking Vanity Fair cover of Caitlyn Jenner in a bustier, it's with mixed feelings and a sense of missed opportunity.
[…]
“Being on the cover like that – in her underwear – I just don't really appreciate that image. That's not what a hero should look like."

First off on what cover was Jenner? A men’s magazine? A sports magazine? No, she was on a women’s fashion magazine where other women are on the cover dressed the same way. Her photo was no different that thousands of other women in that type of magazine and that is an important point to remember, we come in all shapes and sizes just like women. Some of us can be on the cover of Vanity Fair and some cannot.

Second, have you ever heard a woman talk about another woman’s clothes? They do it not by saying that she condemns womanhood, that she is makes all women look bad, they are usually just criticizing her.

We each take our own path on our journey, there is no one right path it is unique to the individuals.

Beating The Girl Out Of The Boy

How many times have we seen in the news where a parent beats their child to death because they were trying to make a “boy” out of them? Or we see them commit suicide because their parents force the child to go to therapy to make them “straight?”

Wired News has an opinion article about Conversion/Reparative therapy,

We Must Put an End to Gender Conversion Therapy for Kids
By Dan Karasic and Diane Ehrensaft
July 6, 2015

LEELAH ALCORN, A trans youth who endured conversion therapy, wrote in her suicide note, “The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights.”

Recently, a series of opinion pieces have been published in newspapers and magazines (including in WIRED) decrying President Obama’s statement condemning conversion therapy for LGBT youth, as well as the recently passed ban on conversion therapy for LGBT youth in the province of Ontario, Canada home of some of the practice’s defenders. Since the 1990s, major medical and mental health organizations have condemned conversion therapy for the purpose of changing a person’s sexual orientation. The recent controversy is in response to efforts to also ban conversion therapy attempts to change gender identity and expression in children.

Critics of the ban state that gender identity in gender-nonconforming children is as-yet unformed. They point out that some grow up to be gay or lesbian, rather than transgender, so therefore efforts to change their gender nonconformity may result in happy gay and lesbian adults, rather than transgender adults “doomed” to what critics perceive as a sad life of hormone treatments and surgeries.

Many of the people who are pushing conversion/reparative therapy are using outdated research; all the major medical and psychotherapy association have ban conversion/reparative therapy. The only ones that endorse the therapy are conservative political and religious affiliated.

This article from 2011 on CNN’s Anderson 360 illustrates the long term damage conversion/reparative therapy does.

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Kirk Andrew Murphy seemed to have everything to live for.

He put himself through school. He had a successful 8-year career in the Air Force. After the service, he landed a high profile position with an American finance company in India.
[…]
But in 2003 at age 38, Kirk Murphy took his own life.

"I used to spend so much time thinking, why would he kill himself at the age of 38? It doesn't make any sense to me," said Kirk's sister, Maris Murphy. "What I now think is I don't know how he made it that long."

After Kirk's death, Maris started a search that would uncover a dark family secret. That secret revealed itself during a phone conversation with her older brother Mark, who mentioned his distrust of any kind of therapy.

"Don't you remember all that crap we went through at UCLA?" he asked her. Maris was too young to remember the details, but Mark remembered it vividly as a low point in their lives.

What they did to Krik was use him for a human experiment that was deemed a success, they took a feminine boy and made him “straight” or so they thought.

Kaytee Murphy took Kirk to UCLA, where he was treated largely by George A. Rekers, a doctoral student at the time.

In Rekers' study documenting his experimental therapy (PDF), he writes about a boy he calls "Kraig." Another UCLA gender researcher confirmed that "Kraig" was a pseudonym for Kirk.

The study, later published in an academic journal, concludes that after therapy, "Kraig's" feminine behavior was gone and he became "indistinguishable from any other boy."

"Kraig, I think, certainly was Rekers' poster boy for what Rekers was espousing for young children," said Jim Burroway, a writer and researcher who has studied Rekers' work.

This study is the poster boy of the conversion/reparative therapy and it is still being cited when they try to justify the therapy. But in reality it was a horrible failure just like Dr. Money’s study of David Reimer.

According to Rekers' case study, blue chips were given for masculine behavior and would bring rewards, such as candy. But the red chips, given for effeminate behavior, resulted in "physical punishment by spanking from the father."

This is how they conditioned him to be “straight” and the long term effect was living with all the internalized guilt.

While Dr. Reker went on to become…

…a founding member of the Family Research Council, a faith-based organization that lobbies against gay-rights issues. Rekers was also on the board of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, an organization of scientists that says its mission is to offer treatment to those who struggle with what they call "unwanted homosexuality."

And until he was caught with a male escort,

Just last year, Rekers' days as an anti-gay champion would come to an end. He hired a male escort to accompany him on his trip to Europe.

Rekers denies any sexual contact with the male escort. Rekers says he's not gay. He claims he wasn't aware that his companion offered sexual favors for sale over the Internet until after the trip, and says he hired him only to carry his bags. But the reporters who broke the story about Rekers' trip say they saw Rekers pushing a luggage cart through a Miami airport, where they took his photo.

Times have changed when it comes to conducting experiments on human subjects because of the Tuskegee Experiment. Now all federally funded research must go before an Institute Review Board (IRB) to determine ethics of the experiment and if it will do any harm to the subjects. When I was taking part in a research study of the transgender community in the greater Hartford we had to go before the IRB and they suggested minor changes to our study and I also had to pass a NIH online certificate for working with human subjects and present it to the board. Hopefully this type of research will never happen again.

Here in Connecticut we are monitoring if any therapists are doing conversion/reparative therapy and so far there are no therapists who are doing it.

"Holly came from Miami, F.L.A."

Only if you are around my age or listen to classic rock stations that you recognize those lyrics and you will also know that there really is a Holly. They are from Lou Reed’s classic “Walk on the Wide Side” from 1972.

Transgender Icon Holly Woodlawn Fights for Life at Cedars-Sinai
Hollywood Reporter
By Seth Abramovitch
July 6, 2015

She is a transgender icon five decades ahead of her time. Now Holly Woodlawn, among the most gifted and irrepressible of Andy Warhol's stable of "superstars," is fighting for her life at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Doctors there have found lesions on her liver and brain, but have not yet determined the cause. Woodlawn is too weak to undergo the biopsy that could offer a diagnosis.
[…]
Born Haroldo Danhakl in Puerto Rico in 1946 and raised in Miami Beach, Fla., Woodlawn was bullied relentlessly as a teenager. By 1962, she decided she'd had enough, and hitchhiked to New York City, a journey immortalized in the first lines of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side."
"Holly came from Miami, F.L.A.," the late rocker sings in the 1972 classic. "Hitchhiked her way across the U.S.A. Plucked her eyebrows on the way. Shaved her legs and then he was a she. She says, 'Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side.' "

Woodlawn chose Holly as a first name because she adored Holly Golightly, the mischievous society girl played by Audrey Hepburn in 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Her surname came years later, at the request of Warhol, who was determined to put her in his next film. ''We were watching this episode of I Love Lucy,'' Woodlawn told The New York Times in 2000. "And behind her was this sign on the No. 4 train, 'Woodlawn,' and we said: 'That's it. Holly...Wood. Holly Woodlawn.' ''

There is a “Go Fund Me” page for her; they are trying to raise $50,000 to either cover her medical expenses or her funeral.

Jenner’s Blog

My first thought was, don’t they have a drought in California? It is nice that her swimming pool is full.

OK, enough of the digs.  I think in the interviews that I’ve seen she did a pretty good job and didn’t lay any eggs like other trans celebrities, in her blog on Huffington Post she writes,

Up until now, I have totally isolated myself from the transgender community, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I feel such a responsibility to this courageous group to try to get it right and tell all sides of the story. To me, that's always the biggest question: am I doing it right?

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with some of my new friends -- a group of six trans women -- and I went around the table and asked each of them how long it had been since their transitions. One said 20 years, another said 15 years ago... seven years ago... three years ago... They came around to me and I said, "Two weeks."

Flash-forward a few weeks and I've already learned so much about this community, the issues and the people involved. It's been an eye-opening experience for me -- and it's mainly made me realize how fortunate I am.

How many trans celebrities  have taken the time to learn about the community, I remember one trans who was thrown into the spotlight saying everyone else we nothing but “men in dresses” but her. And there are so many more trans people who dissed other trans people, such what was said about the trans woman and Planet Fitness.

Caitlyn goes on to say on her web page,

Learned so much this week spending time in SF at the Human Rights Campaign. Unbelievably moving. Can’t wait to share more with you.

Well one thing she has to learn is how the HRC treats the trans community.

I Have Been Away

I was up to friends house for Friday and Saturday and then I went up to the cottage for Sunday and Monday so I hadn’t had time to write my blog… mea culpa, mea culpa.

Nikon D3200: f/3.5, 25 sec., ISO 3200,
EV +3.3, 18mm, Apertures preferred

One of the things that I am working on is night photography. There are to problems that I am trying to solve, the first if focusing. Shooting the sky at night you have to manually focus the camera but the problem is you cannot see the stars through the view finder and also the lens focuses beyond infinity. The infinity setting is not at the lens stop because of the auto focus. And the other problem is noise, setting the ISO up to 3200 generates a lot of noise. So this is the best so far. I took this at 10:50 PM, you can still see the sun glow an hour after sunset.

And this morning I am just writing the quick blog post because I have a ten o’clock appointment with a police officer. She is the LGBT Liaison Officer for the city of Hartford and she wanted to meet some of the “leader” of the trans community. I don’t think I qualify but I thought it would be good to meet with her.

Something To Think About

I’m still up in New Hampshire so I wrote this last week to post today, Sunday. It is about a Rabbi’s view on the Supreme Court decision.

No, don’t roll your eyes, take three and a half minutes to watch it you will be very surprised.