Calls for ICE to #FreeMarichuy After Failing to Respond to Report of Sexual Assault

Marichuy Leal Gamino grew up undocumented in Phoenix, Arizona and dreams of attending cosmetology school. For over a year, she has been detained at the Eloy Detention Center, a men’s detention facility run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), in Eloy, Arizona. Gamino is transgender, and she has reported being raped by her cellmate. CCA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have responded to her report completely inappropriately, and a coalition of groups are demanding her release using the hashtag #FreeMarichuy.

For the length of Gamino’s detention, she has been housed with men. While being detained in the men’s facility, she has experienced sexual harassment and threats, and since her assault two weeks ago, she has not been offered any recourse or treatment. Instead, she has been agitated and subjected to further abuse by detention center officials.

via Not One More Deportation

After her initial report, Gamino was reportedly encouraged to sign a statement claiming that she had consented to her rape, which she refused. When she later reported immigration officials she was feeling suicidal, she was put in solitary confinement for two days. Activist groups are calling this transfer to solitary a retaliatory move for reporting the attack.

Gamino’s situation is not unusual for transgender women being held in immigrant detention, as a Center for American Progress report outlined last year. It is common for transgender women to be detained in men’s facilities, and also common for them to be subject to sexual assault and harassment. Putting transgender people in solitary confinement “for their protection” is also a widespread practice in detention centers, despite the fact that there is widespread knowledge that solitary confinement has profound long-term consequences for LGBTI detainees. And everyone.

Technically, regulations, from both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (which oversees administration of immigrant detention facilities) and the CCA, are in place that would protect Gamino and other transgender people from harassment and abuse. The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) was implemented in facilities run by the DHS two years ago, and it includes specific guidelines to address the specific issues LGBTI people face in detention. Facility staff are supposed to receive training on LGBTI issues, and appropriate housing for transgender and gender non-conforming people is supposed to be determined on a case-by-case basis. CCA policies have “zero tolerance” for sexual abuse and sexual harassment, and they also specify that they have a “prohibition on any inmate or detainee having authority or control over another.” ICE claims that the detention center where Gamino is being held adheres to PREA standards and that Gamino’s situation will be investigated; however, it is obvious that these policies are not being adhered to in Gamino’s case, or are just simply insufficient to actually prevent these assaults. In an interview on Ronan Farrow Daily, Tiq Milan from GLAAD noted that 59% of transgender people in immigration detention facilities report being sexually harassed. Gamino herself noted in an interview with Fox 10 Phoenix, that detention center staff did nothing to prioritize her safety. “They don’t do nothing until something happens,” she said.

While many regulations are in place to outline how detention center staff and officials should respond to instances of sexual assault or harassment, very little oversight exists to ensure that these regulations are actually enforced or carried out, leaving detainees like Gamino with little protection or power to advocate for themselves within the system.

Karolina Lopez, another transgender woman who was once detained in Eloy, told the Transgender Law Center, “What’s happening to Marichuy is not so different from what I went through, or what I saw other trans women in Eloy experience. I was harassed by two men, then placed in solitary confinement. …I still have fear of small spaces, and of officials. If ICE actually cares about Marichuy’s security, they should let her go.”

Protesters call for Gamino’s release in Los Angeles via Fusion

A coalition of organizations have created a petition demanding Gamino’s immediate release from ICE custody. Francisco Luna, of the Arcoiris Liberation Team, said in the statement put out by the coalition, “ICE has shown that they are incapable of ensuring Marichuy’s protection from future assaults or retaliation for reporting the awful sexual abuse she has survived. We see no other solution than for ICE to immediately release her, where her community can help her heal.” Olga Tomchin, of the Transgender Law Center, added, “As a result, they should not be detaining transgender women, period.”

On top of this complete failure of ICE to respond appropriately to (or prevent) her assault, Gamino also faces possible deportation, which would separate her from her family and community support networks. “I’m asking to stay right here because I got all my family right here.” Gamino also noted that she fears transphobic violence if she goes back to Mexico, telling Fox, “If I go back, most likely I’m going to get killed.” Fox 10 Phoenix also reported that Gamino has a forthcoming immigration hearing on August 19th.

As Lopez and Tomchin pointed out, is important to note that while Gamino’s case has reached national attention, and is certainly horrific, hers is one example in a system that subjects millions to sexual violence, as well as other forms of physical and emotional violence and separation from family and community support. Gamino’s case, and the complete disinterest of ICE, DHS and CCA in treating people with any shred of dignity, indicates the extent to which the immigration detention system, and the prison industrial complex at large, are completely inept at “protecting” communities or those held within their walls. Gamino deserves to be free, and this system needs to stop.

You can sign on to the petition to Free Marichuy at Not One More Deportation, and you can see the full clip with Gamino from the Eloy Detention Center here:
FOX 10 News | myfoxphoenix.com

Legendary Boxing Manager and Promoter Kellie Maloney Comes Out as a Trans Woman

Boxing is considered by many to be a great bastion of maleness and masculinity, but that wasn’t enough to stop Kellie Maloney from living the life she knew that she had to. In an exclusive interview with The Mirror, the legendary boxing manager and promoter came out and revealed that she has been undergoing hormone therapy and taking other steps in her transition for the past two years. At the age of 61, she is boldly stepping forward and announcing to the world that she has felt this way since she was a child and is finally ready to make this transition.

Maloney via The Mirror

Born in London, England to Irish parents, Maloney has been a part of the boxing world since she was in school. She started her career as a promoter and manager in the 80s and quickly rose to prominence while managing the boxer Lennox Lewis. Maloney is considered one England’s all-time great boxing managers and promoters, and in 1992, helped Lewis to become the undisputed World Heavyweight Campion and eventually one of Britain’s most legendary boxers. She worked with Lewis until 2001 and also guided four other boxers to world titles. In 2009 she celebrated 25 years as a boxing promoter and was named the 2009 European Promoter of the Year.

Lewis reached out to his former manager on his facebook page to offer his support, saying that although at first he was confused, he stands behind Maloney.

This world we live in isn’t always cut and dried or black and white, and coming from the boxing fraternity, I can only imagine what a difficult decision this must be for Kellie (formerly Frank Maloney).

However, having taken some time to read Kellie’s statements, I understand better what she, and others in similar situations, are going through. I think that ALL people should be allowed to live their lives in a way that brings them harmony and inner peace.

I respect Kellie’s decision and say that if this is what brings about true happiness in her life, than so be it. ‪#‎LiveAndLetLive‬

via The Mirror

Unfortunately, apart from boxing, Maloney was at one point involved in politics, where she made several homophobic remarks. When asked why she didn’t campaign in Camden, she said that there were “too many gays” there. She later backed up her comments by saying that “I don’t want to campaign around gays… I don’t think they do a lot for society… what I have a problem with is them openly flaunting their sexuality.” Hopefully that opinion is a thing of the past.

Maloney retired from boxing in 2013, saying that she had lost her love for the sport, but now admits that the real reason was so that she could pursue her transition. She also said that she had been dealing with depression and alcohol abuse due to hiding her transness for years. She thought that as long as she was involved in the world of boxing, she would never be able to be the person she knew she was inside.

My life was spiraling out of control. I was finding it harder to contain my desire. I was now doing the boxing ­business through instinct and memory. I used to shut myself away in the office. Thankfully, I had some good staff around me.

But I was very unhappy. My temper was getting worse. I was determined it wouldn’t beat me, but I knew it would always be there.

As shown by the support she received from Lewis and others, it seems like the boxing and sporting worlds are a little more progressive than she thought (although many of them need to learn a thing or two about misgendering). Hopefully, Maloney will be able to find even more support in the days and years to come, and other trans people will see her as an inspiration to come out themselves.

Addendum: It has been pointed out to me that her involvement in politics was more insidious than I had written about. When she ran for Mayor of London as a member of the UKIP, some of her major platforms involved fighting for racist, xenophobic and fascist causes. Obviously coming out as trans does not excuse these actions or opinions, especially if she still holds them. Being trans does not make you a hero, and it’s important that we don’t ignore the other parts of her life. While I do hope that her story inspires other trans people to come out, I also hope very much that it doesn’t inspire anyone to hold the same social or political views that she does.

Trans Teen Stabbed on D.C. Metro, Follows String of Violence Against Trans Women

Feature image via Shutterstock

Following a recent string of violence against trans women of color in the D.C. area, a 15 year-old trans girl was stabbed in the back this Wednesday while she was riding a Metro train with some of her teenage friends.

One of her friends related the story  that the man came up to her on the train and began making fun of her appearance and asking questions like, “Are you a man? Are you a man?” He then stabbed her in the back with a 3.5 inch folding knife.

The suspect, reported as a 24 year-old man named Reginald Anthony Klaiber, has been taken into custody and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, with the possibility of being additionally charged with a hate crime. Passengers aboard the Metro train who witnessed the incident identified the man to the police.

The attack on the 15 year-old girl in D.C. is reminiscent of another attack against two black trans women that occurred in May aboard an Atlanta MARTA train, in which one of the women was forcibly stripped naked during the encounter. The confrontation in Atlanta was again initiated when the men in question began asking inappropriate questions about the two women’s bodies and attempted to publicly shame them. However, in that case the witnesses aboard the train did nothing to interfere in the situation and did not report the incident. In fact, one passenger recorded the attack and then posted a video online in an attempt to further publicly humiliate the victims of the attack.

These incidents fit within a wider pattern of verbal and physical violence against trans women, in which the perpetrators of such aggression seem to believe that trans women’s bodies are public domain and that they should have no expectation of privacy.

The New Yorker’s Skewed History of Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism Ignores Actual Trans Women

Media coverage of transgender issues has increased rapidly in the last few years as trans people have made larger and louder pushes for relatively basic rights and recognition. Unfortunately, as ground is gained in the fight for trans acceptance, the opposition to that progress only grows more louder and more aggressive. This is visible in Michelle Goldberg’s latest piece for The New Yorker, which investigates the conflict between trans-exclusionary radical feminists and the transgender population. Sadly, what she presents is a disturbingly one-sided view of the situation that relies on heavily anecdotal evidence, uncited claims and debunked theories, and ignores the extended campaign of harassment and attack that the the trans community has endured at the hands of radical feminists.

Let’s start with the numbers. In the piece, Goldberg mentions the names of 14 radical feminist activists (frequently providing physical descriptions), and provides quotes from nine of them — including two from books penned by radfems. In contrast, she mentions and quotes a total of four trans women (zero from books), and two of them are quoted to supporting the radical feminist position. The problem isn’t necessarily that Goldberg appears to side with the radical feminist viewpoint; that’s perfectly within her rights, and perfectly within The New Yorker’s right to print it. The real issue is that Ms Goldberg gives the impression that she’s covering the conflict between the trans rights movement and radical feminism — after all, the piece is subtitled “The dispute between radical feminism and transgenderism” — but gives only passing lip service to the transgender community’s side of this situation. In failing to provide a semblance of balance to the voices in the piece, this account becomes hopelessly skewed, and becomes little more than a radical feminist propaganda piece.

Early on in her essay, Goldberg presents an extremely simplified and stereotyped view of trans women’s identities. She writes: “Trans women say that they are women because they feel female — that, as some put it, they have women’s brains in men’s bodies.” First, considering that the length of the article discusses trans people (and focuses heavily on trans women), to reduce the explanation of their complex experiences to three words — “they feel female” — is offensively reductionist. While such a passing nod to trans experiences might be not be out of place in a more LGBTQ-geared publication, in a more general consumption magazine, like The New Yorker, a few more lines could have been devoted to fleshing out this explanation for the benefit of readers not familiar with trans issues. In contrast, Ms Goldberg spends the rest of that paragraph and half of the next explaining the radical feminist view on being transgender. She explains “They believe that if women think and act differently from men it’s because society forces them to, requiring them to be sexually attractive, nurturing, and deferential. In the words of Lierre Keith, a speaker at Radfems Respond, femininity is ‘ritualized submission.’ In this view, gender is less an identity than a caste position.” She also borrows heavily from the radical feminist playbook and conflates the sociological concept of gender with the concept of gender identity, quoting and reinforcing the tired trope that identifying as a trans woman is about embracing stereotypical femininity. Of course, the radical feminist position that masculinity is natural and healthy, and femininity artificial and harmful, is also inherently sexist, a topic to which trans writer Julia Serano devotes an entire book. We’ll get back to Julia in a minute.

Ms. Goldberg spends the bulk of the piece describing how trans activists and trans allies have interfered with the ability of radical feminists to meet. The tone of Goldberg’s writing gives the impression that the trans activists are simply bullies, trying their best to interfere with people who want nothing more than to discuss their views. She cements this view by giving anecdotal examples of unnamed individuals on the internet making violent threats. She writes: “Abusive posts proliferated on Twitter and, especially, Tumblr. One read, ‘/kill/terfs 2K14.’ Another suggested, ‘how about ‘slowly and horrendously murder terfs in saw-like torture machines and contraptions’ 2K14.’ A young blogger holding a knife posted a selfie with the caption ‘Fetch me a terf.’ Such threats have become so common that radical-feminist Web sites have taken to cataloguing them.” While trying to explain this outpouring of aggression, she quotes radfem Lierre Keith: “It’s aggrieved entitlement,” Lierre Keith told me. “They are so angry that we will not see them as women.” What’s entirely missing from Ms Goldberg’s analysis is any mention of the great lengths that radical feminists have gone to in order to deny the rights of trans people and harass trans activists.

As Cristan Williams explains in this 2013 piece, the uproar from radical feminists was instrumental in the major setbacks for trans healthcare in the 1980s. Cristan explains:

“[Janice] Raymond asserted that trans medical care was a new and unethical phenomenon, and that legislation should block trans medical care and instead institute a national program of reparative therapy. It was only after the NCHCT pushed Raymond’s bigotry in 1980 that the government reversed course in 1981 and took up Raymond’s views and rhetoric. Raymond’s bigotry became the government’s stance. This official anti-trans policy soon spread to private insurers, and the American trans population soon found itself without access to medically necessary health care.”

More recently, radical feminists Cathy Brennan and Elizabeth Hungerford penned a letter to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in 2011, addressing what they held were new US laws that endangered women’s safety — laws protecting trans people from discrimination. The letter goes on at great length about how adopting policies protecting trans women “present the potential for a human rights violation against all females.” The submission was made at the last moment of the comment period, denying trans advocates any opportunity to respond.

via http://planetransgender.blogspot.com

Beyond their work to influence policy in a manner that harms the trans community, trans-exclusionary radical feminists have engaged (and still do) in numerous campaigns of personal harassment against trans women, particularly vocal trans activists. The previously mentioned Cathy Brennan is thought to be connected to some of the ugliest of the harassment. They also engage in systematic harassment of trans women and trans allies on twitter, most by repeating their same tired rhetoric: “trans women are men” and “penis is male”. They also engaged in an extended harassment campaign targeting Against Me! singer and trans woman Laura Jane Grace. Earlier this year, Tina Vasquez penned a lengthy piece on for Bitch Magazine running down dozens of examples of harassment perpetrated by radical feminists against both trans activists and trans allies, including herself.

In a moment reminiscent of conservatives parading around of “ex-gays,” Goldberg then presents a single “de-transitioned” person, Heath Atom Russell — a woman who had previously lived as a trans man, and had returned to living as woman. Ms Russell says that she was swayed by the writings of radical feminist Sheila Jeffreys to return to living as a woman: “At first, the book infuriated Russell, but she couldn’t let go of the questions that it raised about her own identity. She had been having heart palpitations, which made her uneasy about the hormones she was taking. Nor did she ever fully believe herself to be male.” This single individual, along with an example of transition “regret,” are supposed to undermine the entire concept of being trans. Goldberg quotes Jeffreys: “The phenomenon of regret undermines the idea that there exists a particular kind of person who is genuinely and essentially transgender and can be identified accurately by psychiatrists. It is radically destabilising to the transgender project.” What’s missing here is the actual medical literature that categorically rejects this assertions. Well-designed, peer-reviewed medical studies have demonstrated significant increases in wellbeing for trans people undergoing transition, and very low levels of regret. I discussed this some length in a recent response to transphobic psychiatrist Dr Paul McHugh. Trotting out anecdotal transitioners, particularly without as much as nod to the high number of transitioned trans people living happy, healthy lives, points to a very serious agenda in Goldberg’s writing.

Continuing the theme of bad science, Goldberg presents the misogynist “autogynephilia” theory of Drs Ray Blanchard and J. Michael Bailey as an explanation for why trans women choose to transition. The theory primarily holds that trans women (particularly queer trans women), desire to transition because they sexually fetishize the image of themselves as women. What Ms Goldberg fails to mention is that this theory has largely been debunked. In fact, a 2009 study demonstrated that, when cisgender women were examined for autogynephilia using similar questionnaires, the responses were remarkably similar to trans women. The autogynephilia theory unnecessarily and damagingly pathologizes the sex lives of queer trans woman by deeming them “fetishists” for simply having sexual interests after transition that do not conform to heterosexual preferences. The only recognition Goldberg appears to give to this fact is that she refers to the theory as “highly controversial.” However, a two-word nod against two paragraphs of description of theory skews the discussion in favor of this bunk science, and further damages the reputation of trans women.

Perhaps the most unsettling portion of the piece comes when Goldberg shares a portion of a discussion she had with Julia Serano. Goldberg seeks Serano’s comment on a quote from Lisa Vogel, organizer of trans-woman-excluding music festival Michfest, claiming that Michfest excludes trans women so festival-goers can feel “safe.” Though Julia is quoted accurately, and her impressive science, writing, and speaking credentials are listed, Ms Goldberg adds an upsetting and unnecessary parenthetical comment after: “Sheila Jeffreys attacks her in “Gender Hurts,” using autobiographical details from Serano’s first book, ‘Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity’ (2007), to paint her as an autogynephile who seeks to ‘reinvent ‘feminism’ to fit his erotic interests.” This additional comment adds absolutely nothing to the conversation regarding the Michfest situation; it’s absolutely irrelevant. It serves only to undermine Julia’s credibility by connecting her to discussion of trans-women-as-fetishists earlier in the piece. Serano responded briefly to the article earlier today via her blog, and shared emails she had sent to Goldberg while the piece was in the works. When it became apparent that the autogynephilia reference would be included, Serano wrote: “You initially asked to interview me about the ‘tensions between trans activists and some radical feminists’ (which I provided my thoughts on over the course of the interview process). I honestly don’t understand how sexual thoughts that I had over twenty years ago (as a young trans person trying to sort out my identity) has any bearing on these tensions, other than the fact that Jeffreys stoops to the transgender equivalent of slut-shaming in her book.” Considering how little of the essay Ms Goldberg devoted to the words of trans activists, undermining the credibility of one of the few she does quote with unnecessary references to her sexual history is disgusting and unprofessional.

Serano’s emails also reveal that Goldberg’s omissions of any discussion of the the harassment and abuse endured by the trans community at the hands of Cathy Brennan and her ilk was not an oversight or due to lack of awareness. Julia explains that she discussed those issues at length during her interview with Goldberg:

When Goldberg interviewed me for the piece, I talked extensively about TERF attacks on trans people: About the hatefull speech I (and other trans women) regularly receive from TERFs on my Twitter feed, blog comments, etc., and how much of it is of a sexualizing nature. I talked at great length about Cathy Brennan who is notorious for her personal attacks and outing of trans people, her various websites where she engages in smear campaigns against trans women (once again, usually of a sexualizing nature). I mentioned how, after my appearance at a SF Dyke March forum on AGE DIVERSITY AND GENDER FLUIDITY – which was designed to build bridges between trans-positive queer women and those (often of older generations) who are trans unaware, and which resulted in respectful and constructive dialogue on all sides – several TERFs crashed the Facebook page and spewed so much hateful speech that they had to shut the whole thread down. None of this made it into the story, which will likely lead uninformed readers to presume that trans people are simply mean and out of control, rather than reacting to the transphobia/trans-misogyny/sexualizing comments we constantly face from TERFs.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that trans activists are so fervent and vocal in their fight for their rights and recognition when we see mainstream publications like The New Yorker giving page space to arguing about whether we even exist. While our situation is improving slowly, every single bit of progress is fought bitterly for; with few protections in place for us, trans people are still engaged in a fight for survival. By virtue of the First Amendment, radical feminists are able to continue to spew their vile hate speech, to harass us when we’re bold enough to speak up, to dead-name us when we criticize them, and to petition Congress to ignore our rights and concerns. However, the fact that they struggle to find places to meet, and are met with resistance with every time they speak should not be taken as bullying, but rather a firm, clear rejection of their abusive tactics and backwards, oppressive agenda — not just by trans people, but by cis feminists, and increasingly, society at large.

As for Michelle Goldberg’s essay, if what she pitched to the staff of the The New Yorker was an investigation of both sides of the trans activists and radical feminist conflict, I think it’s fair to say that she failed miserably. In any case, the editorial staff of The New Yorker should be ashamed for allowing it print.

Please Step Over Here: The Perils Of Traveling As A Trans Woman

I’m a girl on the move. Between a long-distance relationship, science conferences, science-fiction conventions and a general love of random adventures, I’ve managed to log well more than 15,000 miles of travel in the last year alone. I think I’ve travelled by just about every mode of transport available in that period: car, bus, airplane, train, boat, TARDIS, submarine, etc. Wanderlust is my nature, and I’ve long hoped to set foot on all seven continents. Unfortunately, because I’m a trans woman, globe-trekking (and even North-America-trekking) comes with a considerable amount of risk and hassle. Queer folks of all stripes have extra complications when the travel; after all, the world is full of places where LGBTQ people are not welcome. But, a number of specific factors put trans people in a category all their own when it comes to incurring an onslaught of hassle, harassment, and danger for even the most mundane of trips.

Perhaps one of the largest and most common difficulties we face have to do with those little cards with unflattering pictures on them. Before our legal name change, we’re often stuck with a name on our legal IDs that conflicts with our presentation, and that tends to catch the notice of government types. It can lead to everything from extra touchy-feely time and other “enhanced” screening from the TSA to lengthy questioning and/or entry-refusal from Customs and Immigration. Unfortunately, even after changing our names, we’re often stuck with an improper gender marker on our IDs due to draconian laws that require bottom surgery before they’re willing to change an M to an F, or vice-versa. That adds a huge complication to traveling by air, as you are required to declare your “legal gender” to the TSA when buying your ticket, and presenting in “conflict” with the gender that appears on your ID is likely to earn you some additional TSA attention. As Autostraddle Contributing Editor Mey Rude, a trans woman, wrote in our recent Travel Rituals roundtable, “I’ve been repeatedly misgendered and had TSA agents read my birth name off my ID, look at me, and shout my birth name at me, asking why that’s my name.”

This is made even more complicated by the current body-scanning systems (which have dubious results to begin with) that are based on sex. Trans bodies may not fit the computerized model of either sex, meaning trans people are far more likely to have to endure pat-downs or other additional screening measures anyway. Unfortunately, the TSA also appears to have some institutional problems when it comes to how it treats transgender travelers. An Al-Jazeera report earlier this year revealed that the TSA has violated its own protocols with regards to trans people. Obviously, no one is excited to spend more time with the TSA, particularly a group as at risk for harassment and abuse as trans folks, so many simply won’t fly.

photo by arina p habich / via shutterstock

Before my name change, I avoided airplanes and crossing international borders altogether. The dissonance between my clearly-boy name and obviously-girl presentation caused enough awkward situations with bartenders and bouncers; the mere thought of dealing with the TSA or Customs was enough to make my stomach do backflips. National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling has noted that “transgender people end up as collateral damage in TSA’s security theater. Any security system that relies on gender and ‘anatomical anomalies’ will always disparately affect transgender and gender non-confirming people.”

When I flew for the first time in many years last January, I spent hours going over the current TSA procedures for transgender people so that I was prepared for every eventuality. I carried my letter from my therapist, a copy of my name change order, and a letter from doctor explaining my gender, hoping to cover any objection the TSA may have. I even went as far as to carry the number for the local ACLU office, just in case things got ugly. These days I fly pretty regularly, but my anxiety levels still skyrocket every time I step into the security lines. I seem to run about a 50/50 risk that the agent who looks at my ID will misgender me, and the full-body scanner always seems to find something “suspicious” between my legs that requires an entirely-too-intimate check— and often disgusted look— from the nearest lady screener.

A transgender woman (who chose to remain anonymous) told me she had a similar experience with the TSA. After passing through the scanner, she was stopped by a TSA officer who called her “sir.” “I corrected him by loudly saying ma’am,” she told me. “The machine probably picked up on my rather obvious boobs. So he switched it over to the correct gender and had me step back inside. Now, I was tucking that day, but the machine picked up on my genitals anyway, and decided to flag me.” She had no choice but to consent to the subsequent pat-down — she needed to get home, somehow. “At least a woman was the one who did the pat down,” she explained, “but I definitely considered that non-consensual touch under coercion. And when I’m talking about touch, I mean my inner thigh and a light brushing of my genitals. That ended up triggering me really badly.”

Even before we book that plane ticket and endure the prodding of the TSA, we’re forced to deal with just how inherently limited our travel options are. One of the most heartbreaking moments of loss I felt during transition was realizing just how many places in the world that were now completely closed to me. Aside from Western Europe and a few places in Asia, much of the world has a big “off limits” sign on it for the transgender community. Much of the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and South America are extremely dangerous for trans people. This means I’ll probably never get to see Petra, which my girlfriend refers to as the most beautiful place she’s ever seen. I’ll never see Valley of the Kings like I’ve dreamed about since I was a child. I’ll never see New Delhi, Jakarta, Istanbul, Tangier, Rio de Janeiro, or dozens of the other places that have been on my list since I was a teenager.

“Ok”, you might say, “so a lot of international travel is out, but you can still travel domestically pretty freely, right?” Well, no, I can’t really do that either. In many parts of the US, I could still be arrested for using the women’s restroom, and would probably get tossed in the men’s jail to boot. In fact, Arizona was moving in that direction last year, so I actually skipped an important scientific conference in Phoenix where I had research to present because I wasn’t sure that I’d be safe. When in South Carolina for Christmas this year with my family, I endured stares, rude comments, and misgendering just about every day. A short trip to rural North Carolina for a funeral didn’t go much better. Mississippi recently legalized discrimination if it happens for religious reasons, so I could be refused anything from a hotel room to emergency room assistance for being trans, and a number of other states are considering similar legislation.

“Hmmm,” you might say, “just avoid the South, then.” Sadly, something as benign as a bathroom stop on a road trip can turn into an ordeal trans people even in ostensibly accepting areas. I’m still often nervous to make even relatively short car trips around the midwest by myself. My home state of Michigan has never felt particularly friendly to trans people in the wide expanses between our urban centers. I remember once driving straight from Detroit to Chicago without stops for gas, food, or bathrooms because I was too nervous about what I might encounter in the more rural stretches in between. A quick stop for gas on a trip up north earned me the stares of nearly everyone in the store; an emergency bathroom break at a fast-food restaurant in Ohio had a woman threatening to call the cops as I ran out the door.

Mey, who lives in southeastern Idaho and does most of her traveling through or to Utah, has similar fears about traveling through a “frighteningly religious and conservative area that’s notorious for being anti-LGBT.”  She told me, “because of that, I’m often afraid to stop at smaller looking rest stops or gas stations that I find in Idaho and Utah, and I try to make sure I only stop at ones that are in bigger towns or places that seem more safe.”

In talking to a number of other trans people about their travel difficulties, I heard many of the same themes I have encountered: hassle, harassment, and complications. Most people I spoke to had had some manner of difficulty with the TSA, many had unfortunate encounters with other law enforcement, and everyone talked about how scary and dangerous finding a bathroom can be.

Leina, a trans woman from São Paulo, Brazil, told me that she’s thankfully not subjected to problems relating to her trans status at home, but as soon as she leaves home, like when she visits her parents in a neighboring town, problems began. “People point and laugh to their heart’s content,” she recalls. She gets harassed consistently, like people shouting “that’s a girl, that’s a tr*nny” or praying loudly as she passes, which she knows that they think “(verbally) harassing a trans girl is backlash-free.” Leina said that when she travels further into the countryside, “things get really ugly. I am constantly solicited for paid sex, even while walking with my family and people get aggressive when I refuse. Aside from that, violence and death threats are common in the countryside.”

Obviously, I’m not allowing all of these complications to prevent me for traveling all together. I still hop on a place every few weeks to see my girlfriend, my convention and conference schedules haven’t slowed at all, and I’m definitely planning some kind of adventure for next summer. It’s more doing my research, knowing my rights, being prepared, and keeping my head up. I still plan to travel to the world— it’s just disappointing that my world is a little bit smaller.

Supermodel Andreja Pejic Comes Out as a Trans Woman!

Model Andreja Pejic has been in the public spotlight for a few years, making big waves for her androgynous look and ability to model both menswear and womenswear flawlessly. She’s now in the news again after coming out publicly as a trans woman and announcing that she will start to exclusively model women’s fashion from now on. She says that she is supported by friends and her family in Australia.

Photo credit: Emir Eralp

The news was shared exclusively with Entertainment Tonight, People.com (who still managed to send out an insensitive tweet despite working directly with Pejic) and Style.com. GLAAD also worked with Pejic in the week leading up to the announcement.

Pejic is young, but already has a number of impressive accomplishments on her resumé. She’s been working as a model since 2007 and has been on the cover of magazines like Elle and French Vogue, was named to the Out 100 list, won a NewNowNext award and co-starred in a David Bowie music video. She’s also slated to appear in Sophia Coppola’s upcoming live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid (warning: misgendering at link). Here’s hoping that she continues to have an even bigger and bigger career as time goes on.

Pejic on the cover of Out Magazine in 2011.

GLAAD reported that Pejic gave them a message to share with her fellow trans people, saying, “To all trans youth out there, I would like to say respect yourself and be proud of who you are. All human beings deserve equal treatment no matter their gender identity or sexuality. To be perceived as what you say you are is a basic human right.” She also took to her Facebook page to say, “As a transgender woman I hope to show that after transition (a life-saving process) one can be happy and successful in their new chapter without having to alienate their past.” On that page, Pejic thanks everyone who has supported her throughout her life and career.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for the love and support throughout the years. You’ve all helped me through this journey and I have learned a lot and really come into my own and the response to today’s announcement truly overwhelmed me and reminds me of why I chose to do this publicly.

I think we all evolve as we get older and that’s normal but I like to think that my recent transition hasn’t made me into a different individual. Same person, no difference at all just a different sex :) I hope you can all understand that.

Pejic joins other trans models like Isis King, Ines Rau, Arisce Wanzer, Geena Rocero, Carmen Carrera and Lea T who have all been having some success in the past few years. Even though some people like Project Runway’s Tim Gunn aren’t exactly onboard with the “new” influx of trans models, this isn’t the first time trans women have walked the runway or been in front of the camera. There’s actually a long history that includes people like Roberta Close, Caroline Cossey, April Ashley and Amanda Lear who have had success modeling while being trans. Although the truth definitely stands that it’s much easier to be openly trans and a model now than it was during the time of their careers.

Other figures in the trans world have been pouring out their support for Pejic online. People like Laverne Cox, Janet Mock and Jen Richards have sent her love via twitter. Congratulations Andreja, and welcome to the trans sisterhood.

Fenway Report: Trans People Continue to Experience More Discrimination, Poorer Health

It’s news because it’s not news.

Last week most of the online attention to LGB health was focused on the Center for Disease Control’s report on Sexual Orientation and Health Among U.S. Adults that was released on July 15. The report summarized data from The 2013 National Health Interview Survey, which was the first time in the CDC’s 57-year history they included questions about sexual orientation on the survey.

A bonus to the coverage of the CDC report was that it generated some precious conservative headlines like “The Gay Minority is Smaller than You Think and That’s How They Want It” (ConservativeInfidel) and “Efforts to Normalize Unhealthy Behavior Is Pushed by Extremely Small Population” (American Family Association).

However, amidst all this largely nonsensical conversation a report issued by the The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) and The Fenway Institute at Fenway Health revealed that nearly two-thirds of transgender Massachusetts residents have experienced discrimination in a public accommodation setting in the last year and those experiencing this discrimination were nearly twice as likely to report adverse physical and mental health outcomes. This report was much less circulated, eliciting a virtual yawn from much of the mainstream and LGB blogosphere.

Morgan M. Page, a Montreal-based writer and trans woman who has worked extensively providing services for lower-income trans people, responded to the report with a wry “Duh. Who doesn’t understand that trans people are widely discriminated against and that this has a direct negative impact on our emotional and physical health?”

You can’t exactly compare the data from the two reports; they used different size samples and different methods. But If you generally juxtapose the CDC report — for which respondents only were only asked about sexual orientation, not gender identity or even gender presentation — with the Fenway report, you get a very different picture of the health of our communities.

For example, in the CDC survey 5% of gay and lesbian identified people reported that they “experienced serious psychological distress in past 30 days” while in the Fenway report, almost all (99%) of the 65% percent of trans and gender nonconforming people who experienced discrimination in public accommodations in the past 12 months also reported an increase in emotional symptoms of stress. The trans and gender nonconforming people who reported discrimination also had an 84% increased risk of stress-related physical symptoms as well.

Despite having more physical problems, the trans respondents reported less access to health care; 28% said that they had not seen a doctor in the past year. Page said: “Nearly every trans person I know, both personally and through my work, has told me that they’ve avoided hospitals and doctors’ offices specifically due to instances of past discrimination against themselves or their friends.”

Via Morguefile

She then puts a face to the statistic: “My mentor, a genderqueer person in Michigan, actually died a few years ago because he had been discriminated against so many times in emergency rooms that when he had an epileptic seizure, he refused to go to the hospital and died from a second seizure later that night. It’s a story that’s unfortunately not uncommon in our communities.”

Additionally, 29% of the trans and gender nonconforming people who responded reported having to teach their healthcare provider about transgender health issues in the past year. Page explains how this process adds insult to literal injury:

“You can go in with a broken limb and then end up having to explain your hormones dosage and genital configuration. One of the biggest negative impacts with this is that many of us aren’t actually experts on healthcare, particularly at first, and may have to give doctors information we’ve gleaned from the internet or word of mouth, and some of that information may be wrong. For example, there’s a common myth within trans women’s communities that you can’t take hormones and HIV meds at the same time. Trans women then encounter doctors who don’t know about our bodies and tell them this information, which leads the doctors to using that information for other trans patients in the future. It’s a mess.”

Finally, the report also revealed that more trans people (36%) reported discrimination while using public transportation than any other category of public accommodations. Emma Caterine, a Brooklyn trans activist, explains how this has a direct impact on access to health care:

“Transportation seems to be a kettle of rage and violence always on the verge of boiling over, so it’s hardly surprising. I see and hear about public transportation discrimination against trans women all the time, especially Black trans women. Everything from cruel teens pointing and laughing to physical brutality. Some trans women I know won’t take the bus alone because of it. Some only leave their neighborhood when absolutely necessary because of it. Which in a place like New York City prevents you from accessing so many things like healthcare. Callen-Lorde [LGBT Health Clinic] is an awfully long walk from [the outer borough neighborhoods] of Bed-Stuy, Jackson Heights, or Flatbush.”

Via Morguefile

The report recommended that the MA state law that prohibits discrimination in many areas, including housing and employment, also be extended to include discrimination in all public accommodations, a policy adjustment Caterine believes is barely a nod in the direction of progress:

“What we need on a policy level is for the government and big corporations to stop promoting transphobia and cissexism themselves. Talk about a public accommodation, look at advertisements. Every month or so some corporation uses trans women as a comedic prop to sell fast food or a new TV show. [And then] Violence begets violence, and when people see a cop hurt a trans woman or a cop ignoring a trans woman getting attacked, they know that sort of violence is allowed… Until we stop those things from happening, the government enforcing a public accommodations law on people while corporations remain above the fray is the definition of hypocrisy.”

The mostly straight Slate.com’s postscript to their coverage of the CDC report identified the situation within the LGBT community perhaps more than the writer knew: “The survey did not ask about gender identity, which is a more complicated topic than sexual orientation.” Complicated, of course, being an almost universal euphemism for “we really don’t want to deal with it.”

Caterine said, “I stopped talking to people about [my own experience in discrimination in public accommodations]. A lot of trans women do, at least around people who aren’t trans women. We get sick of people hearing us but not really listening to what we are actually saying.”

“Science” Magazine Runs Transmisogynistic Cover, Editor Tweets ‘Deception’ Tropes When Challenged

One of the best known and most respected publications in science and technology chose to run a sexualized, transmisogynistic photo for its cover this week, and when the editor was challenged on twitter for pandering to the male gaze, he responded that he thought it would be interesting what would happen when those males “find out.”

While the focus of Science magazine’s July 11 issue on combating HIV and AIDS worldwide is laudable, the editors unfortunately chose the route of crude sensationalism to present that story to the public. The magazine cover features a dehumanizing image of trans women sex workers in Jakarta that focuses on their bodies, crops out their faces and primarily centers on their exposed thighs. The text accompanying that picture says, “Staying a step ahead of HIV/AIDS,” as if trans sex workers are somehow an image that is naturally synonymous with this disease.

And while, yes, trans women globally, on average, do face significantly elevated risks, could you imagine the outraged response if the same cover text accompanied an image of two men in a sexual embrace, and further only showed them from the neck down?

It has also been pointed out that apparently Science has never run any similar cover image that focuses on sexualizing parts of human bodies before. What’s more, the online text that appears below the cover image states:

This “key affected population” has high HIV prevalence but is largely ignored by government efforts.

Yet, when you click on the linked cover story, it doesn’t actually mention trans people at all.

However, when one of the Science editors was challenged on twitter over this image, the situation worsened quickly. When several people challenged Jim Austin, Science Careers Editor, about the blatant sexism on the cover, Austin responded by saying, “You realize they are transgender? Does it matter? That at least colors things, no?” as if crudely sexualizing women suddenly becomes okay as long as they’re trans.

https://twitter.com/LSU_FISH/status/489505604218933248

https://twitter.com/JacquelynGill/status/489519288626077697

@JacquelynGill @LSU_FISH @AAASmember You realize they are transgender? Does it matter? That at least colors things, no?

— Jim Austin (@_JimAustin) July 16, 2014

When @JacquelynGill challenged the idea that sexually dehumanizing trans women is okay by saying the image was just another “male gazey image,” Austin responded, “Interesting to consider how those gazey males will feel when they find out.”

https://twitter.com/JacquelynGill/status/489520079126548481

@JacquelynGill @LSU_FISH @AAASmember To me it defies the obvious stereotypes, problemetizes responses in interesting ways.

— Jim Austin (@_JimAustin) July 16, 2014

https://twitter.com/JacquelynGill/status/489522077632708612

https://twitter.com/SciCareerEditor/status/489522658455715842

Here Austin has gone far beyond the line and is starting to play into violently anti-trans woman ‘deception’ tropes. The fact is that this type of rhetoric has been used for years to promote victim-blaming myths against trans women, and has even been used in court cases to reduce sentences or free cis men from culpability for murdering trans women (even in cases where the men in question actually knew the woman was trans all along). These statements, particularly when taken in conjunction with an image catering to the male gaze, also buy into the idea that trans women’s bodies are somehow public domain. And above all, they buy into the utterly stupid, unscientific idea that cis males somehow have some kind of “right” to not be attracted to trans women.

If a man is uncomfortable with his own sexual attractions, that is not a public issue; that is his own problem that he needs to sort out for himself. And the recent spate of often brutal murders against trans women of color across the U.S. emphasize that the priority in this conversation must be the safety of women, not the hand-wringing of men who lack the personal integrity to make sense of their own sexual desires in a healthy, reasonable way.

Science Will Not Save Us: Medicine, Research Ethics, and My Transgender Body

Earlier this year, Dr. Keith Ablow — a member of Fox News’ “Medical A-Team,” whatever that is — argued that, in his estimation, there is no scientific evidence supporting the existence of gender dysphoria. “I don’t believe,” he wrote, “we have definitive data… that any male or female soul has ever in the history of the world been born into the wrong anatomic gender.” Days later, writer and activist Brynn Tannehill took to The Huffington Post to refute Dr. Abbow’s claims, pointing to more than a dozen studies that suggest there may, in fact, be a biological basis for feelings of discomfort with one’s anatomical or assigned sex. As Tannehill argues, “the body of evidence showing biological origins of gender dysphoria, of having a mis-matched brain and body, is overwhelming.”

Indeed, the proliferation of research confirming a biological foundation for gender dysphoria (the diagnosis of which is often a necessary prerequisite for hormone therapy and other supervised medical interventions for trans folks) has become a staple of trans advocacy, both formally and informally. Agreement in the scientific community on a biological foundation for gender dysphoria stands to give trans folks its own “born this way” argument; it offers, at least superficially, vindication of the familiar trope of trans folks feeling “trapped in the wrong body.” The science is on our side, I’ve been told. The growing “body of evidence” emerging from biological and medical research, according to some commentators, speaks loudly and clearly: transgender people exist, science says.

Of course, we already knew that. On a deeply personal level, I’ve never needed a “body of evidence” to confirm the existence of my own transgender body.

In saying this, I do not mean to seem anti-science — I’m actually a big science fangirl! I marvel at my friends who are neuroscientists, awed by their ability to navigate the complexities of the human brain. I devoured recent stories covering the successful implantation of lab-grown vaginas, fascinated by regenerative medicine and its benefits. With regard to my trans sisters and brothers, I certainly do not deny the value of a robust scientific understanding of our particular medical needs. Research that points towards more effective interventions (hormonal or otherwise) is vital to improving the trajectory and quality of our lives. Moreover, I actively welcome any defensible “body of evidence” that can help persuade gatekeepers of all sorts that access to appropriate mental and physical care is necessary to alleviate the pain and anguish that marks many of our lives, as was the case with the recent overturning of Medicare’s ban on transition-related healthcare.

But, like any good fangirl, I am also critical of the enterprise. I’m especially critical of any overreliance on scientific evidence to validate the existence of trans identities — not because science is bogus, but because science (like any professionalized endeavor) is defined, in part, by what it excludes. It relies on certain practices, discourses, and “ways of knowing” in order to distinguish itself from, say, religion or the humanities. Or, you know, alchemy. But these “ways of knowing” do not appear out of nowhere — they are the result of centuries of social, political, and historical development. Simply declaring “science is on our side” flattens an otherwise diverse terrain of politics and history that inform different branches of science and its sub-fields. Any responsible approach to folding science into advocacy efforts should not only understand what scientific research says, but how and why it came to say what it does. For those interested in trumpeting a biological basis for gender dysphoria, this means understanding the history and limits of medical research in particular.

“Ontological” Limits of Medical Research

One of the limits of medical research for understanding trans people is ontological. If you went to college, you might remember being terrified by the term “ontology” and its metaphysical connotations (The Study of The Nature of Being and All Existence or Whatever). In less intimidating terms, an ontology is a particular way of identifying things and describing how those things relate to one another. Different domains employ different ontologies to make sense of the world — they name and arrange things in different ways, they allow for certain relationships and not others, and they render invisible those concepts or objects that do not fit into its scheme. In short, ontologies represent conditions of possibility: they set rules for what can and cannot possibly be within a given domain.

But ontologies are not born out of nothing. Instead, they emerge from (and are shaped by!) the active, open-ended, and everyday practices of the world they purport to describe. Annemarie Mol has referred to this process as one of “ontological politics” that influence how “problems are framed, bodies are shaped, and lives are pushed and pulled into one shape or another.” In the context of medical research, trans bodies are shaped by a variety of practices and tools — they are enacted through data gathered by researchers, as well as the instruments, languages, paperwork, statistical methods, and work structures that allow medical researchers to make sense of their data. In the clinic, trans people are shaped through a different set of practices and tools. In this setting, my transgender body is still shaped by instruments and paperwork, but they’re different instruments and paperwork. Rather than dealing in more or less comprehensive datasets, there’s just the one data point (me, waving “hello!”).

Of course, these different ways of shaping trans bodies are not mutually exclusive — they frequently come into contact with one another, like when my hormone levels are evaluated according to “standard” (or “desirable” or :: shudder :: “normal”) levels as determined by medical research. If my hormone levels fall into a desirable range, then the clinic and the research lab coincide. But if my hormone levels fall outside this desirable range, the two different contexts come into conflict — and it is in this conflict that different possibilities do or do not present themselves. If I don’t match some standard set by the research lab, I might want to make adjustments to my medication in order to move closer to a desired range. Or, if I report feeling great and being happy with my progress in spite of my hormone levels — and if my doctor confirms that there is no other immediate threat to my health — we might decide not to change anything, in which case I will continue on with my life despite falling — hormonally, at least — outside of a “standard” or “normal” range.

These same continuities and conflicts play out when it comes to research into the origins of gender dysphoria. If I were to report feeling like “I have a girl’s brain trapped in a boy’s body,” then my account is roughly continuous with medical research suggesting that, indeed, a brain can follow a developmental pattern similar to that of females while the rest of the body develops along a path typical of males. If, however, I were to reject that familiar trope and instead say that “I didn’t hate being a boy but I like being a girl better,” the connection between my own account of my identity and scientific descriptions becomes less clear — in fact, it might even be seen as conflicting with the understandings that emerge from medical research. Put another way, the former description is easily reconciled with the ontology of medical research while the latter comes into conflict. But a problem arises when we seek to reconcile this conflict: which account “counts?” Which account is considered valid? Which one is dismissed?

Dominance of Scientific Explanations

Most often, the account offered by medical research wins out. Science — of which medical research is only a part — carries a lot of currency in our post-Enlightenment world. It is built on proven methods, employs transparent procedures of evidence, and is confirmed through rigorous testing and peer-review (ideally, at least). And this certainly isn’t a bad thing! Our lives and understandings of the universe have been greatly improved in some ways (she says, estrogen pill dissolving under her tongue as she types on her laptop computer). Of course, “bad science” gets through, but we’ve got people looking out for that (as Julia Serano so excellently does). But, as feminist discussions of science, technology, and knowledge have long pointed out, being critical of science goes beyond simply challenging “bad science.” It also also means attending to the ways in which established methods, procedures, and peer-review structures might be otherwise biased. As Sandra Harding has put it, we need to pay close attention to “the problematics, agendas, ethics, consequences, and status” of science as it is commonly understood. As a student of both moral philosophy and science and technology studies, I’ve watched and cringed as scientific explanations for my transgender identity have been picked up and wielded without complication, without regard to consequences or ethics.

One consequence of adopting scientific explanations is that other, non-scientific accounts either need to be reconciled with science or they get pushed out entirely. Perhaps no recent example better illustrates this than when the otherwise awesome Neil deGrasse Tyson dismissed philosophical inquiry and “deep questions” as “distracting” for the contemporary scientist. If humanistic speculation or questions of ethics get in the way of scientific progress, Tyson seemed to be saying, they should be left behind.

But, while scientific discourse is often totalizing, its understandings of the world aren’t total. Nonetheless (and as evidenced by Tyson’s comments), science tends to obscure or reject those things or explanations that don’t fit its ontology. To demonstrate just how forceful scientific explanations can be — and what they are capable of obscuring — consider Greg Grandin’s recounting of the aftermath of the voyage of the Joaquín, a Portuguese slave ship that saw the death of 270 kidnapped East Africans while sailing between Mozambique and Uruguay in 1803:

“City officials convened a commission of inquiry to explain the deaths…, calling on the expertise of five surgeons — two British doctors, a Spaniard, a Swiss Italian, and one from the United States. The doctors testified that before boarding the Joaquín, the captives would have felt extreme anguish, having already been forced to survive on roots and bugs until arriving on the African coast emaciated and with their stomachs distended. Then, once on the ocean, crowded into a dark hold with no ventilation, they would have had nothing to do other than listen to the cries of their companions and the clanking of their chains. Many would have gone mad trying to make sense of their situation, trying to ponder ‘the imponderable.’ The surgeons decided that the East Africans had died from dehydration and chronic diarrhea, aggravated by the physical and psychological hardships of slavery — from, that is, what they called ‘nostalgia,’ ‘melancholia,’ and ‘cisma,’ a Spanish word that loosely means brooding or mourning.”

Note that the scientific explanation for the deaths was dehydration and chronic diarrhea — not, you know, being forced into slavery and made to cross the ocean under inhumane conditions. While the explanation given by the surgeons is clearly rooted in prevailing racist attitudes, it also demonstrates a consequence of adopting scientific explanations for things: medical descriptions move to the fore and social or political explanations are pushed out. Later, Grandin also shows how “slavery helped in what might be called the disenchanting of medicine, that is, how concepts like melancholia cited by the surgeons were taken “out of the hands of priests, poets, and philosophers” and given meaning in a medical context (Ann Cvetkovich has offered a similarly enlightening discussion of melancholy being medicalized as depression). And this is the risk of an overreliance on scientific explanations: in order to preserve its ontology, science forestalls, co-opts, or transforms understandings that do not square with the ways in which science makes sense of the world.

Uneven Distribution of Science’s Benefits and Burdens

It must be pointed out that my choice of illustration above is a challenging one. As a white transgender woman, it would be disingenuous of me to summon or co-opt an example of racialized violence in order to support an argument that isn’t specifically about communities of color. Recognizing this challenge, however, reveals a further problem posed by the appeal to scientific explanations for justifying trans identities: it is a bad foundation upon which to build solidarity within the trans community, which includes people of color and the history of violence enacted upon them in the name of scientific inquiry.

Trans folks exist at the intersections of many different identities — racial, ethnic, sexual, socioeconomic, and beyond. Further, our trans identities relate to these other identities in complicated ways that are overlooked by any blanket appeal to scientific explanations. Not only does science have a tendency to muscle out other ways of knowing, but the benefits and burdens of scientific research (and medical research, in particular) have not been fairly distributed. Most often, marginalized racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups have shouldered a larger share of its burdens and reaped fewer benefits. Simply claiming that science is on trans folks’ side sweeps aside the ways in which the pursuit of scientific knowledge has been harmful to marginalized communities.

As the voyage of the Joaquín starts to suggest, modern medicine was built, in part, on the exploitation of enslaved populations. But you don’t have to reach back as far as the 18th and 19th centuries to find other examples; medical research has a rich tradition of exploiting certain populations well into the 20th and 21st centuries. Released in 1978, The Belmont Report — which sets out some basic ethical principles for research involving human subjects — was issued, in part, as a response to the horrors of the 40-year Tuskegee syphilis experiment. In the experiment, which exploited vulnerable populations of African-American men from 1932 to 1972, researchers sought to better understand the natural progression of syphilis in the human body — and it continued even after penicillin had been identified as an effective cure for the disease. Afflicted participants were denied access to the drug and, instead, researchers watched and took notes as many men suffered and died. Perhaps even more egregiously, the study continued even after the Nuremberg Code (an international code protecting the rights of research subjects formulated in light of the horrors of Nazi medical experiments) had been articulated at the end of the 1940s. Many of those complicit in the study’s continuance participated, in the words of John Heller, Director of the Public Health Service’s Division of Venereal Diseases, for “the glory of science.”

Even more recently, researchers at Arizona State University were reprimanded and fined for exploiting genetic material obtained from blood samples of the Havasupai Indians in the early 1990s. The samples had originally been gathered in an effort to better understand the devastation diabetes was causing the tribe. Later, however, samples gathered for the original study were reused for various other purposes, including “theories of the tribe’s geographical origins that contradict their traditional stories.” Again, scientific explanations risk squeezing out other ways of knowing. For the Havasupai, unsanctioned research into their DNA threatened to override and supplant native understandings of the tribe’s origins and history.

In deferring to the work of science and medical researchers, trans people and advocates run the same risk: we make our own forms of evidence vulnerable to the totalizing effects of scientific discourse. Uncritical appeals to medical research ignore the relevance of trans folks’ diverse and complicated racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic identities. Turning to scientific explanations in a quick or thoughtless manner alienates us from our own stories. Most importantly, the claim that “science is on our side” fails to account for the uneven ways the benefits and burdens of medical research have historically been distributed. If you’re affluent and white, then, sure, science has (usually) been on your side — if you’re not (if you’re black or indigenous or poor, for example), not so much.

Preserving Diverse Understandings of Ourselves

As Laverne Cox has consistently and forcefully reminded us: “There’s not just one trans story. There’s not just one trans experience.” Practically speaking, however, when we defer to science to validate the identities of trans people, we bulldoze diverse understandings of our bodies and our experience in favor of medicalized explanations of our existence. We risk supplanting our community’s own explanations for scientific ones. Ultimately, while medical research holds out the promise of new understandings and new therapies to improve the quality and trajectory of our lives, too heavy or too dogmatic of an appeal to science to validate our existence runs the dual risk of pushing out alternative ways of explaining ourselves while simultaneously hindering the development of solidarity throughout the trans community.

Fool’s Journey: Moving Beyond a Difficult Coming Out Experience

This month, a reader asks the tarot how to move forwards from a devastating coming out experience.

The dilemma:

It’s about my family. It’s not about ‘when will they, won’t they?’ It’s about when will I. I came out as trans quite a while ago, and it blew up in my face, so that I went back in the closet for awhile until I just couldn’t anymore. I came back out, and lurked around with that giant ‘T’ on my chest, so to speak, and was devastated that they weren’t there with me 100%. It’s gotten better over time, a bit, but I’m still being careful, and making it about them, and their comfort level. That’s one thing I’m doing. The other thing is that that bridge has been burned, the trans thing was just the last straw. I love them, but I’m not attached to them, because every time I try to be, I get hurt. So, how do I move forward, or fix that, or both?

Thank you so much for trusting Autostraddle and me with this dilemma.

Whilst so much of your question is focused on your family and their reactions to your coming out, I’ve focused back in on you here, with a spread that looks at your journey so far, and where you’re headed next. Inspired by your ‘bridge-burning’ comment, this spread imagines you are at the high-point of a bridge over a turbulent river of emotions. Turning one way, you look back to your recent past — the shore you left behind and the journey so far. Turning forwards, you look ahead — the next steps in your journey and a destination now in sight, where you can arrive on a new shore and start afresh. If you want to know more about that, you can view the spread here.

I’ve used the Wild Unknown Tarot for this reading — its simple, stark imagery, free from human characters or complex symbols, felt like the right choice for you.

All cards shown in this article are copyright Kim Krans of The Wild Unknown.

The Reading

1. The shore you left behind

Nine of Wands

It has been a struggle. I don’t need to read tarot cards to understand that. The Nine of Wands shows that you have spent a long, long time fighting for what you believe in, fighting the good fight, battling on and growing more and more tired as your inner fire is slowly used up. This card often appears to tell us to give something one more try — a final push to win the war. Here, however, you are leaving this behind. No matter where your relationship with your family stands, the fighting is done. That part of your life belongs in the past.

2. Something that helped you

Ace of Swords

A new perspective; a new way of thinking about your life. When the Ace of Swords appears, it’s like a bolt from the blue — a flash of understanding. Facts fall into place, you understand the black and white of your situation. Here, after so much struggling and fighting, is the moment you realised that, as you put it, the bridge was burned. Swords are not ‘happy’ cards, and the realisations they bring are often truly difficult, but this card reminds you that this understanding provides you with a new starting point. The Ace is the first card in the Swords sequence — it is a starting point for developing a whole new outlook on life.

3. The hardest lesson you learned

Seven of Swords

Not everyone has your best interests at heart. That is a tough thing to understand — especially when the people concerned are your family, supposedly your nearest and dearest. It’s appropriate that you should be represented in this card as a butterfly in crysalis form — a beautiful creature on the verge of transformation, so ready to spread its wings… and yet afraid to for the sharp blades surrounding it.

When I see the Seven of Swords, I feel for the butterfly, but honestly? That butterfly will emerge and fly away, but the people waving knives around? They are the people with the real journey here. This card speaks of misunderstanding, defensiveness, inability (or unwillingness) to meet someone half way. But this is not irreparable. Despite the bleakness in this image, there is a possibility here that your family will use their swords for more honest purposes. As Anne Lamott says in Bird by Bird — ‘You don’t always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.’

Whilst your family undergoes its own journey with understanding your gender identity and their feelings about that, you don’t need to wait around. You’re the butterfly, remember? This stuff has hurt you, for sure, but it can’t keep you down.

4. The view from the top, where you are right now

Daughter of Pentacles

So here’s where we find you now — at the high point of the bridge. Looking back we’ve just seen all those swords and struggles. And in a moment we’ll look at where you’re headed next. But right here, right now, there’s a really beautiful, new-feeling energy around you. The Daughter (called the ‘Page’ in some tarot decks) is the ‘child’ of the tarot – a character who takes her suit (Pentacles, in this case) and imbues it with a new hope, energy and enthusiasm.

Pentacles correspond to the element of earth — that is, they represent our physicality, our bodies, sex, homes, work — the material reality of our existence. There is an innocence and excitement here in relation to your relationship with your body, with your physicality, with the way you move through the world around you, and the feeling coming through strongly is that that is what you’re focusing on now.

I mention your body specifically because your question is about coming out as trans, but this could also mean taking a fresh approach to your home or your community. The energy right now is about hope and excitement, whether that’s the sudden urge to redecorate your bedroom, take up gardening, get fit, begin a physical transition, change your job… whatever! It’s about blowing out cobwebs, celebrating who you are and finding magic in your material world.

5. Next step forwards

Five of Cups

This does not mean that you are magically going to start feeling awesome about everything. You’ve been through so much — in your second email you mentioned the sensation of feeling there is a ‘hole’ where your family might be. The Five of Cups reminds you that it’s okay to feel this way.

Take the time you need to feel those sad feelings and process what’s happened. Not returning to the fight, not dragging up old hurts, but accept that there is still sadness here. That is 100% okay. Over time, this will dissipate and you’ll be able to focus more on what you have, but don’t feel that you have to be all ‘super-positive new start woo!’ right now.

6. Something to help you

The Devil

On the other hand, you’ve got ‘permission’ here to go a little wild! Indulge yourself, be bad, have fun, be materialistic. You’ve been through a lot. The Devil can be a heavy card, often pointing out that a person has lost touch with their spirituality or morals through overindulgence. In your case, it’s saying ‘sod it – just go for it.’ Time to have fun without over thinking, time to enjoy life where you can without going too deep.

I’m not necessarily advocating that you go on some three-month bender here — but it’s time to go and have some unfettered fun and not worry too much about what other people think of you. Let your devilish bad side out for some fun!

7. Arriving at the other side

Daughter of Swords

Another daughter, another child. As you go through this process of a) allowing the sad feeling to happen and pass naturally and b) letting yourself have a bunch of fun, something deeper is happening. You start to get a grip on the purpose of that Ace of Swords we saw in position two. You gain the confidence to pick it up and use it — in your own unique way. Remember how the Daughter of Pentacles takes a fresh approach to physicality? The Daughter of Swords is bringing the same excited, fresh energy to your intellectual side — to your appreciation of justice, of cause and effect, of what you believe about life and how it should be lived.

It’s such a beautiful destination — I felt really moved for you when I laid this card down. It’s here, once you’ve been through this whole big tumultuous and emotional journey, that you cross the bridge over your troubled waters and finally land on a new shore where you are able to confidently, through fully, define your own truth.

Good luck! Have fun! Go very easy on yourself, appreciate how hard the journey has been and that the time for fighting is done. The strongest message, conveyed most strongly by those two ‘Daughters’, is to find joy and excitement in being totally yourself.

Are you a tarot reader or learner? What do you think of the cards in this reading? If you have a different take on these cards or your own interpretation of this reading, please add your ideas in the comments!

Got a question? Ask my cards! Email beth [at] autostraddle [dot] com

Rules and disclaimer-type thing for readings:

• In sending in your question, you’re allowing Autostraddle to publish your dilemma for like a million pairs of curious eyes to see.
• But don’t worry – we’ll keep you completely anonymous (and we’ll let you know in advance if your dilemma has been picked.)
• No third party stuff. This is all about you. That means no “does she love me?” and no “why is she doing this to me?” Sorry guys, but that shit ain’t cool.
• This is entertainment. I am so not responsible for anything you do as a result of your reading and neither is Autostraddle. Dear reader, you are a full-grown person with a brain and you (not I) are 100% in charge of your own destiny. You wouldn’t want it any other way.

Incarcerated Trans Girl Jane Doe Transferred to Boys’ Facility; #JusticeforJane Calls for Action

feature image via Justice for Jane Facebook Page

Over the weekend, the sixteen-year-old girl known as Jane Doe was secretly transferred from a psychiatric center to the Juvenile Training School, the only secure facility for delinquent boys in Connecticut.

The Juvenile Training School via the New Haven Register

Jane is transgender, and has faced constant abuse and discrimination by the Department of Children and Families (DCF). In April she was transferred into the custody of the Department of Corrections (DoC) and detained in an adult women’s prison, despite being a kid never charged with a crime. DCF justified her placement there saying she was “too violent for them to handle,” and got a judge to approve her transfer under an obscure Connecticut law, CT statute 17a-12. After she spent over 65 days in prison, Jane and her advocates successfully pushed for her to be transferred into the psychiatric center. The agency then transferred her to the boys’ facility with little explanation and no advance notice to her legal team. Instead, DCF Commissioner Joette Katz issued a news release, stating, “State police have been notified and we are confident they will take whatever action they deem is appropriate.”

Advocacy group Justice for Jane are organizing a response to Jane’s recent transfer, and have put out Call to Action, to call and tweet at Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and the Department of Children and Families with the hashtag #justice4jane.

A representation of Jane Doe by Molly Crabapple

Jane is not the first, nor is it likely she will be the last kid in Connecticut to be affected by this law, and she’s definitely not the only transgender kid of color to face abuse and incarceration by the DCF and foster system. The fight for Jane is incredibly important, and it’s not isolated. Jane’s abuse and incarceration are a piece of a massive system that is constantly targeting people of color and transgender people, including the kids. To fight for justice for Jane is to fight against all of these systems.

Seriously Though Laverne Cox is Having the Best Week of All Time

When you’ve starred in an amazing Netflix series, you win an award from GLAAD, you just made the cover of Time, you’re producing and hosting a TV show coming to MTV soon, you’ve been on talk shows ranging from Melissa Harris Perry to Katie, President Obama mentions you by name during his Pride Month speech and you’re one of the faces of the modern trans movement in America, it’s really quite something to say that you’re having an above average week. Yet that’s exactly what Laverne Cox is doing.

The other day, it was announced that Cox would be breaking out from Orange is the New Black and appearing in a guest role on Bravo’s upcoming original scripted series, the first in the network’s history. She’ll be playing “Adele Northrop,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning war journalist and LGBT activist who presents an award at a marriage equality gala in the show Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce. The show will star Lisa Edelstein and is premiering this fall. Hopefully Cox’s character will have a growing role and will appear more than in just the one episode.

Then, all in one day, Cox’s week really picked up. On July 10, The Advocate released its latest cover story, featuring none other than Laverne Cox. This cover story, titled “Laverne Cox: The Making of an Icon” gives a detailed look into her life, from her childhood in Mobile, Alabama, to her beginnings in theatre and film, to her coming out as trans and then to her current rise up the ranks as not only a celebrity, but also a true modern-day icon. This article at once both shows how fascinating and unique her story is, while at the same time showing just how classically “hero’s journey” it is. Reading her story is like reading a classic novel (and in fact, it will be a memoir next year).

Seeing Cox come from being a youth who didn’t fit in, was picked on and even attempted suicide in the South, to be at this place where she’s nominated for and winning awards, on the covers of magazines, speaking at national events, on talk shows and starring in a smash-hit TV show truly is miraculous. Seeing how hard she worked and all the different places she’s been makes it even more amazing. Cox recognizes the impact she and her story are having, and in the article says, “If I’m going to have a public platform, I want to use it not just to elevate myself but to elevate issues that are important to me… there are so many more trans folks coming forward and saying, ‘This is who I am, this is my story, I will not be silent anymore, I will not be in hiding anymore,’ and that’s when a movement really happens, right?”

That same day, John Legend premiered his latest music video, one for the song “You & I (Nobody in the World),” which features dozens of women and girls of different ages, sizes, ethnicities and styles. A few of them are famous, including the model and Legend’s wife Chrissy Teigen, actress and singer Tatyana Ali, out comedian Tig Notaro and of course, Laverne Cox. The video features the wide variety of women all looking directly into the camera as Legend sings a love song about how beautiful the woman he is singing to is. It’s meant to convey a message of beauty and strength for all women and girls, no matter how well they fit into society’s normal standards for female beauty.

All of this isn’t even to mention her Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy for her role on Orange is the New Black. This would be a phenomenal achievement for any actress, but when you add the fact that it makes her the first openly trans performer nominated for an Emmy, it becomes not just a personal accomplishment for her, but a historical one as well. Once again, Cox is cementing her role as a true icon.

via The Advocate

I would say that Cox is making the rest of us look bad, but she’s so positive, affirming and uplifting — especially to other trans women — that that’s simply not the case. She makes sure that her success spreads a positive message to the rest of us. She’s not only having a great week, but also a great year, and she absolutely 100% deserves it. I, for one, hope that she has more weeks as amazing as this one and more weeks even better.

New Law Makes it Easier for Trans Californians to Change Their IDs; Trans West Virginians Not So Lucky

Toni Atkins via Times of San Diego

Katzmiller and Skinner, via Examiner

via ONTD Political

The Language of Comedy: On Defensiveness and Being Wrong

I know people say that words don’t mean anything and that we ’empower’ them by being hurt by them. Especially comedians. I hear “no topic is off limits” all the time. Everything/everyone is game. And while I believe that’s true for many performers and obviously a part of what stand-up has been and still is for some, I don’t agree with this philosophy. Words can be powerful, especially hateful ones. Transphobic, homophobic, racist, misogynist, sexist words can and do hurt people. The painful origin of these words does not come from the fault of the one hurt by them, but from the history surrounding them. Each of us carry different experiences with these words, some painful, some not, or maybe no experiences at all and these things affect how we receive them.

Once I performed comedy at a liberal arts college and stayed after the show to participate in a Q&A with the students in attendance. A student asked me what it was like to be a female comedian. This lead into a long discussion, but in particular I brought up some comments I often heard from audience members and other comedians that really pissed me off. One was when I have been told by people they like my style because I’m “not a girly girl.” This terminology really bothers me, which I explained by sarcastically commenting, “I’m a girl, how much girlier do I need to be for you to recognize I’m a girl. I have a vagina, how much more feminine does my vagina need to be for you to consider me a woman?” I considered this an off-hand comment at the time that came out of a sarcastic rant. The students laughed and I was sort of proud of myself. I really felt as though I had made a poignant statement that made people think about misogyny and the language of gender.

Afterward some students approached me to give me praise and accolades about my stand-up performance, which was obviously awesome for me. Then, after uncomfortably waiting in my line of appraisal for some time, one student approached me, shook my hand and said, “I thought you were funny, but what you said about women and vaginas was really FUCKED UP.” I was taken aback by this at the time. They continued, “As a trans person, that really hurt me because that is not how gender is defined for me. Some women have penises and some men have vaginas. You should think about the language you use before you hurt people.” This was extremely awkward for me at the time. Inside I was REELING. I felt my defenses going up as angry retorts filled my brain, but I thanked them for their feedback and apologized if what I said was misinformed and hurtful. They seemed to appreciate my response and thanked me for otherwise making them laugh and left. Other students apologized and seemed embarrassed for this student’s behavior. They continued to praise my performance and my comments in the Q&A. It didn’t make me feel better.

On the drive back home, I was angry. Why did this person have to yell at me?! I didn’t mean any harm!! I thought I was making a good point about sexist language! Why can’t I make that point?! And why does some white teenager get to yell at ME about sensitivity?! I thought all these things aloud to my friends. Then when I got home, I REALLY thought about it. What was I SO mad about? Why did I think they were rude for sticking up for themselves? Then I realized, I wasn’t mad at them, I was mad at myself. I was embarrassed for being called out for not knowing something. I was being so egotistical about the breaking up of a series of compliments with a moment of criticism that I was projecting all my insecurities on this person at once. They were younger than me, so I was angry about being schooled by a younger person. It’s a huge fear of mine as I age that I am slowly becoming inconsequential and out of the cultural loop, so to have a much younger person tell me I didn’t understand something, it made me feel old. Also, I like to pride myself on being totally open and educated on transgender issues. It was embarrassing to know not only was I wrong, but I unknowingly contradicted everything I want to stand for in a public space and with ZERO awareness. That’s really embarrassing. Most terrible, I hurt someone. Someone who came to a comedy show to laugh and forget their troubles, and instead I made them feel bullied and marginalized. I don’t want to think I’m a bad person and those are the kind of things I do with my comedy, but that’s exactly what I did. Thus, the defenses.

As a QPOC, I’ve experienced a lot of terrible shit in my life. In this moment, I compared those struggles to that person. And why? What does that accomplish? Most importantly in my defensive tirade of personal excuses I failed to recognize the most important issue… I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE TRANSGENDER. Yet, here I was, thinking I knew more than a transgender person about what language is appropriate for them and what they should or should not be offended by. Why did I think I would know more than they did??? The answer is I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this… and that scared me. I don’t want to be ignorant of something. Being confronted about my ignorance was humiliating, but worse off, I made the whole thing about me. How they made ME feel by confronting ME like that. How shitty I felt in that moment when it should have been about them and how I made a whole room of their peers laugh at their struggles and then feel obligated to apologize for their choice to bring it up. This is fucking terrible. This is not what I want my comedy to be and this is not the kind of person I want people to think I am.

LANGUAGE MATTERS. In the same way a racial slur brings back a SLEW of painful memories for me and a reminder of the entire history of those words and what they have meant to people and how they have been used to hurt people. I was wrong and it’s important to accept when you’re wrong. No matter how stupid, old, embarrassed, and ignorant it makes you feel. Why do people fight so hard against progression and change? Whatever pronoun a person prefers other people to use to address them, why not do it? After all, we are talking about WHO THEY ARE. Why should we not respect who people are? It’s like someone REFUSING to pronounce my name correctly after being corrected. “I know I said ALISHA and your name is really pronounced A-LEE-SEA-AH, but your actual name is hard to pronounce and hard to remember. I want to call you Alisha because it’s easier for me.” It’s ELICIA. AH – LEE – SEA – AH. And when you call me by any other name, you’re not really talking to me. So why not just respect people for who they are, respect that they know what is best for them, they know what they have experienced in their own lives and that they deserve to feel happy and safe just as much as you do? The suffering of others is not worth your brief moment of convincing yourself you’re right, especially since you are only lying to yourself in the long run.

As a comedian it’s upsetting to be told you aren’t funny. More so, it’s upsetting to know that someone came to your show and not only didn’t laugh, but felt attacked. Some comics would say you shouldn’t kowtow to those that are overly “sensitive” and want everything to be “PC.” We need freedom to explore our craft. There is no way we can please everyone. All of this, I understand, but at the same time, I can’t expect I don’t have to take responsibility for the things I say. I made that comment and it made half of the room laugh, but one person felt gutted. Not just offended. GUTTED. Harassed. Laughed at. Mocked. How could that possibly be worth it? And how do I know how many more people were hurt by that comment and maybe didn’t say anything? I know I can’t please everyone and I know FOR SURE I am not funny to everyone that sees me perform, but what I can say for sure is my goal is to TRY to be. I want you in the best case scenario to leave my show feeling happy. I want to help you forget your troubles and laugh at mine. The last thing I want is to create them for you. If I do that, I have FAILED at my job and that is ANYTHING but funny.

Originally published on http://eliciasanchez.com. Republished WITH PERMISSION MOTHERF*CKERS.

Obama Closes Out Pride Month By Extending Workplace Protections to Transgender Federal Employees

As a part of the White House’s Pride Month Celebration on Monday, President Barack Obama announced that he would be signing an executive order that would grant workplace protections to federal employees based on their gender identity. This comes a few weeks after he announced another executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Together, these two executive orders bring some much-needed protections to one of the most discriminated against groups when it comes to hiring practices and workplace behavior.

The Obamas speaking during the White House’s Pride Celebration. via Metro Weekly

President Obama’s previously announced executive order covers all employees of federal contractors, which accounts for more than 20% of the American workforce. According to the Williams Institute, this means that 11 million workers received new sexual orientation protections and 16.5 million workers received new gender identity protections. Many companies that had previously resisted granting gender and sexuality protections risk losing government contracts if they don’t now offer those protections. One major example, according to Freedom to Work president Tico Almeida, is ExxonMobil, “who have fought against LGBT protections for years [and] will finally have to reconsider their retrograde position if they want to continue profiting from hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded contracts.”

Information as of November, 2013 via Huffington Post

Now, President Obama is extending a 2009 memorandum he issued that gave protections and benefits to gay, lesbian and bisexual federal employees to transgender and gender non-conforming employees. He said that since the Employee Non-Discrimination Act has stalled in Congress, he feels like he needs to step forward and take some action.

I’ve repeatedly called on Congress to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Right now, there are more states that let same-sex couples get married than there are states who prohibit discrimination against their LGBT workers. We have laws that say Americans can’t be fired on the basis of the color of their skin or their religion, or because they have a disability. But every day, millions of Americans go to work worried that they could lose their job – not because of anything they’ve done… but because of who they are. It’s upsetting. It is wrong.

The majority of Fortune 500 companies already have nondiscrimination policies to protect their employees because it’s the right thing to do and because many say it helps to retain and attract the best talent. And I agree. So if Congress won’t act, I will. I have directed my staff to prepare an executive order for my signature that prohibits discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

And I’ve asked my staff to prepare a second executive order so that federal employees – who are already protected on the basis of sexual orientation – will now formally be protected from discrimination based on gender identity as well.

via Injustice at Every Turn

Transgender people, and especially trans women and trans women of color, face alarming rates of workplace discrimination in the US. According to a 2011 report, transgender people face double the unemployment rate of the general population. That number jumps to four times the national unemployment rate for trans people of color. When it comes to the living in poverty, transgender people are almost four times as likely as the general population to make less than $10,000 a year. Finally, a whopping 90% of trans people surveyed said that they were harassed or mistreated at work and 47% reported that they had been fired, not hired or denied a promotion because of their gender. With numbers like these, trans people need all the protections they can get, and since there is no federal law protecting trans people from workplace discrimination, this announcement has many transgender workers breathing a sigh of relief.

On a day where we got some seriously awful news out of Washington, DC, it’s nice to see that there’s at least some good that can come out of national politics. Both of these executive orders are definitely positive steps forward. Not only do they put serious pressure on both the government and companies who have federal contracts to treat their employees fairly, but it also puts pressure on Congress to finally pass a federal law to put these protections on the books.

New York State Sued Because Trans-Exclusionary Medicaid Regulation Has Got To Go

Last week, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Legal Aid Society and the law firm of Willkie, Farr and Gallagher filed a class action lawsuit against the state of New York, which has discriminated against transgender people seeking healthcare since 1998 with a regulation that categorically denies Medicaid coverage for gender affirming healthcare. SRLP has been working to reverse this regulation since they opened in 2002.

via SRLP

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two women, Angie Milan-Cruz and I.H., who have both been denied medically necessary healthcare by New York State Medicaid because of the discriminatory regulation. While Milan-Cruz and I.H.’s names are on the suit, Sylvia Rivera Law Project staff attorney Elana Redfield said, “Class action is the right avenue for this case, because so many people are impacted by the issue. We estimate that as many as 8,000 people could be affected by this regulation — too many to represent on a case-by-case basis.”

In a press release on the SRLP website, SRLP Staff Attorney Pooja Gehi said, “This regulation aggravates discrimination against a community that is already struggling to survive… When our clients cannot access healthcare they need, they have a harder time getting identity documents such as state ID, or getting jobs, housing, and basic social services.” The release also described the legal case they are making against the regulation:

“The lawsuit challenges the regulation on three main legal points:

• New York State’s Medicaid regulation conflicts with the federal Medicaid Act, which prohibits certain forms of discrimination in state Medicaid programs. Medicaid discriminates because it provides most of the healthcare transgender people need to others who are not transgender.
• New York State’s Medicaid regulation conflicts with the Affordable Care Act, section 1557, which prohibits discrimination in health care on the basis of gender identity expression amongst an entity that receives federal funding.
• The New York State Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, which includes sex stereotyping. Denial of necessary medical care solely on the basis of assigned birth sex is discrimination on the basis of sex stereotyping.”

The suit comes shortly after the Obama administration’s recent announcement that gender affirming healthcare will no longer be excluded from federal Medicare coverage. While this announcement still leaves state Medicaid programs like the one in New York free to keep regulations like the trans exclusionary one intact, Redfield is hopeful states to follow the federal government’s lead: “Since the Medicare decision, we have also seen Massachusetts reverse its exclusion, and Washington state declare that transgender discrimination is illegal in private healthcare. I think it’s only a matter of time before other jurisdictions follow suit.”

Last month, SRLP members drew statewide attention to the exclusion by storming the stage during the New York State Health Commissioner’s presentation at the HrX conference, calling attention to the fact that the regulation excluding transgender health coverage is not a law, and could be repealed by the Health Commissioner at any time.

While the lawsuit goes forward, there are other ways that New Yorkers can advocate for the repeal of the regulation. Redfield said,

“This is a regulation that the New York State Department of Health has the power to change. It’s discriminatory and has direct consequences for our community members. Showing public support for repeal is critical. Showing that New Yorkers don’t want this exclusion is critical. Call the governor’s office! Call your elected officials!”

Banner drop at HxR Conference via via @ericachain

This has otherwise been a disappointing month for legislative action that would benefit transgender New Yorkers. Last week, the New York Senate blocked passage of the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act (again) and a bill that would have banned “conversion therapy” practices. But this regulation doesn’t need a bill to be repealed. The Department of Health just needs to say so.

You can visit srlp.org/healthcare for more information and ways to get involved, and check out Gehi and Milan-Cruz discussing the lawsuit on Democracy Now:

“The Switch” Is More Than Just A “Transgender Comedy”

Trans representation has always been a tricky subject. With growing trans visibility, it’s sad so many portrayals rely on tropes that are patronizing, condescending, and downright eww, eww, and eww. But while outside portrayals of the trans community remain outdated and stale, trans artists, musicians, and actors have been stepping forward with fresh takes on trans people and lives.

Enter the Switch, a ‘magical-surrealist transgender comedy’ that promises to be the first show to cast all trans characters with trans people. Last week, they launched a Kickstarter, and creator Amy Fox was recently interviewed by Bustle. The pilot is running for free on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGHmzLeugs8

It centers around Sü, played by Julie Vu. Sü is a Vancouver centered software developer. Or was, because she’s coincidentally laid off the day she comes out. Making matters worse, her landlord decides to sublet her apartment and double her rent. Construction workers come in, and her (and all her stuff) go out.

But just when you think you know where it’s going, the story turns. Sü ends up crashing with her “ex” Chris (Fox), an extreme eco-terrorist, in his condemned studio. Things are further complicated by trans* hacker Zoey, Chris’ boss/landlord Toni, and Sü’s hippie/electrologist friend Sam, who may or may not be a demon. Sam also knows Toni and Chris somehow.

What emerges is a series feels less like a ‘transgender comedy’ and more like a distinctive TV show that just has a bunch of trans casting. And while aspects of transition are covered, they occupy a more background role. For instance, Sam and Sü discussing living plans over black market electrolysis, or a shot of mail-order hormones.

It also means there’s zero exposition on trans issues. The audience is either expected to know it already or be able to brush it aside. But, while something like that might make it seem inaccessible, it also means that the show can focus on the characters themselves. So, sure, I don’t know if Toni is trans, but I’m really more interested in how Toni and Sam know each other. It has something for trans and non trans audiences. The latter can enjoy the Odd Couple relationship between Sü and Chris, and the former can snicker at the blink and you miss it Silence of the Lambs reference.

The most obvious influence is The Guild, with the cast of colorful characters and the ostensible subject working more as a springboard for character development. Sü even uses a web journal as a framing device, and there’s an accompanying music video by Kieran Strange, called “Tear Down the Wall.” “Tear Down the Wall” is also the name of an associated website, which details in part the cast and crew’s LGBTQ activist work, both in Vancouver and elsewhere.

Of course, I’m not entirely without criticism. Sü’s coming out speech raised an eyebrow. Zoey’s character feels more undercooked than mysterious. I’m now regretting my love of the no trans exposition, because I basically have no pronoun reference for anyone but Sü (it’s she, by the way).

And I wonder if there isn’t a Girls-style critique to be made: a show so rooted in gentrification and housing as a plot device not talking about Chinese-Canadian segregation in the city. Especially since some Chinese-Canadian communities have been a noticeable presence in the fight against LGBTQ rights in Vancouver.

But that’s a conversation for another article, with people way more qualified than me. And most of this criticism can be summed up as ‘more’ (more character/issues/stuff). And if I’m asking for more, it means I like what I’ve gotten so far. And I wouldn’t be typing and retyping all this if I didn’t think the Switch had something unique to offer, both as a magical realist transgender comedy, and as a comedy.

Julie Vu is a welcome addition to the trans women of color who’ve been gaining prominence in the past few years. Amy Fox shines as Chris. And altogether, the show does something wholly unique. It shows trans people existing outside of a trans-specific context. These characters feel like living breathing people. I’ve lived with people like Chris, dated people like Zoey. I’ve felt Sü’s dilemma about going back into the closet and living as a man.

I’ll be honest, I thought it would be decades before I saw something like this. The fact that it’s here, and it’s funny, and it’s less than a few thousand dollars from getting fully actualized. It’s good to know that. “Switch up” metaphor here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7DjgdcY1fI

Upon Going Home: Review of “The Messiah Complex”

The Messiah Complex. Here Arts Center, April 5th, 2014. Written by Nia Witherspoon. Directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury.

The Messiah Complex cuts deep into the emotional, spiritual, and literal incarceration of Black people. It’s about the residue from slavery that sticks to our skin and lives in our spirits. This play highlights the ways that systems beget other systems, and how this kind of social control seeps into our relationships and families, until we find ourselves reinforcing violence onto each other, as an attempt to try to protect ourselves from the same kind of violence. This play tugs at the seams of our solidarity. And it explores what happens to us spiritually, when we collectively try to stuff ourselves into boxes that were never meant to fit our beautiful Black bodies. This play begs us to challenge the ways that normative constructions of Blackness, influence the way we live and love as queer Black people.

Born with a veil on her face, Messiah (played by Kymbali Craig) is a caulbearer, destined from birth to transcend and transform in ways she will not understand until later in life. The child of an ex-Panther, coming of age during the crack epidemic, Messiah is also a revolutionary. Nearly bringing herself up since adolescence, she learns various ways to protect herself from the coldness of this world — mostly because she has to. She loves hard, cares deeply about the people she loves and feels very protective over them as well.

Not yet sophisticated enough to understand everything that’s going on, Messiah is also struggling with her own issues and is left to emotionally fend for herself. So she learns early on that passing protects her, while simultaneously erasing part of her. She learns the pain of feeling split apart and split in half; before she is old enough to articulate why this world feels like too much to hold. Still, there is a way in which she knows that her road is bumpy because she was meant to travel a more complicated path.

Frustrated at trying to make sense of the emotional loss of her mother and the physical loss of her father (who disappears, but returns to her life at later times) the one thing she knows for sure, is that both of her parents are suffering in a way that her child heart can relate to, but doesn’t quite understand. And she’s terrified of learning what it feels like. So Messiah vacillates between feeling angry about the things that have happened and pretending they didn’t happen at all. On some level, she knows that closed mouths lead to closed hearts, but she must go through a process before she can open up. So she carries her secrets in her back pocket, like a safety pin poking through to her skin. Her silence is full of stories and her smile is full of sacrifice.

Playwright Nia Witherspoon during a Q&A session

The Messiah Complex is radical because it takes on concepts of beauty, class differences, gender roles, and navigates love and life in a trans or gender-nonconforming body, within a Black context. Never before have I seen so many nuanced themes in an all Black cast. This play explores the ways in which we’ve maintained constructions of Black masculinity that don’t necessarily serve us. It explores how so many of us interpret the masculinity we see in our blood families as the kind we should later embody or seek to have in our relationships. It highlights the ways that Black masculine bodies continue to be appreciated for their sex, their anger, and their ability to protect; while leaving little room for their sadness, their vulnerability, and their need to be seen as whole.

In an accurate portrayal of relationship dynamics within a masculine/feminine dichotomy, we see this play out in Messiah’s relationship with her long-term girlfriend, Basimah. Basimah appreciates Messiah’s love, commitment, protection, and loyalty, but she also longs for Messiah to give her more — more gentle rawness, more range, and a display of emotions that expand beyond anger. Likewise, Messiah wants to give more to Basimah but struggles with the fact that Basimah is fed by many things in her life — not just their relationship. She wants to be Basimah’s all. In a tender moment, we see Messiah soften as Basimah strokes her hair and reassures her, “I gotta take care of my dreams like babies, but you my man.”

The Messiah Complex speaks to multi-level experiences of Black life, focusing specifically on trans and gender-nonconforming bodies, but it collectively encompasses all kinds of Black bodies and relationships — whether romantic, sexual, parental, or platonic. It deeply explores how limited ideas of masculinity and femininity, and constructions of “man” and “woman” hit us doubly hard as Black people and hurt us immeasurably deep as queer Black people. This play spits up and spits out the idea that any of us can escape the oppression that tells us there is only one way to be man or woman, or beautiful or powerful. And it shows us what happens when those of us who are most affected by these rigid constructions, get caught up in reinforcing them, as a means to survive in this world. This play is about negotiating emotional and physical survival, when people around you are barely hanging on. It’s about negotiating solidarity, when we are taught that allying with others has to mean losing some of ourselves. This play is about struggling to be who you are, and letting yourself expand when you realize you’ve outgrown the act of inflicting pain as a way to avoid addressing your own pain. It’s about realizing that people grow in different ways at different times, and knowing that your most valuable growth will come at a time when you’re less focused on what other people think and more focused on your commitment to being who you truly are in this life.

At various times throughout the play we hear Jay Z’s D’evils playing in the background, with the hook, (which borrows from both a Snoop Dogg song and a Prodigy lyric) “Dear God, I wonder can you save me…Illuminati want my mind, soul and my body” repeating over and over. And it is this combination of grittiness and rawness of ’90s hip hop that penetrates the audience’s ears and takes us back and forth between childhood Messiah and adulthood Messiah, now a woman in her late twenties, struggling with the unfinished pieces she has tried to lose along the way. Messiah is guided by spirits, but like many of the people in her community, she feels like she must continually make devilish deals instead of saving her own soul. She is in desperate need of a retrieval. She wants to feel more present in her body, but feels as though some of her is left in the tangled pieces of her childhood hands. With one parent now incarcerated, and the other an alcoholic, she is very much in touch with her childhood self. Her loneliness is familiar. But her power is tight in her adult hands. She just needs to open up.

I guess I gotta go back home to my used to be

The beat from D’evils is sampled from Allen Tousaint’s Go Back Home and The Messiah Complex is very much about coming home. It’s about the painful places we have to go to retrieve ourselves, and the painful existences we suffer until we do that. It’s about the ways in which we collectively suffer, when we fail to understand how we’re all connected. This life can either be circular or linear, depending on our paths. But everything we leave does not disappear.

In a powerful and painful scene, The Messiah Complex shows the same hands that once held their own body during an attack, attack another body as a means to protect themselves. This theme of protection and survival is present throughout the play. Messiah’s younger self and her older self are not that different. She eventually realizes that her childhood hands are also her adulthood hands. They’re just bigger and stronger. And they can hold a lot more. So she eventually makes peace with herself through a spiritual awakening that both apologizes and forgives. Ultimately, this play reminds us that we are bigger than our isms; alcoholism, addiction, as well as the self-deprecation that presents as internal racism, homophobia, and transphobia. We are bigger than the pain we feel ashamed of. We are more than what we do, when we don’t know better. But still, we have to do better — for ourselves and for each other.

Messiah does go away for a bit, but she later comes back. Like the birth veil suggests, she radically transcends. She holds her hands inside the hands of her love, now changed; she looks at Basimah and says, “Can I need you? I need you too.” Messiah was put here to transform and love. And she suffers because she feels cut off from that part of herself. But after a long and windy road, she returns. She has come back home, to her used to be.

Laverne Cox Returns to “Katie”, Shows How to Do a “Teachable Moment” Right

Today Orange is the New Black star and transgender activist Laverne Cox returned to Katie, the daytime talk show hosted by Katie Couric, for the first time since her infamous January appearance where she and transgender model and activist Carmen Carrera had to put up with a barrage of questions about what surgeries they had had and what their genitals were like. Cox and Carrera were able to turn the conversation around and the whole thing turned into a lesson on how to not interview trans women. This time, Couric had already been through a teachable moment about how to talk to trans women, but as we’ve seen before, not everyone learns their lesson.

From Laverne Cox’s last appearance on Katie

I went into today’s episode hoping that Couric had listened to Carrera and Cox and learned her lesson, but my hopes weren’t very high based on how others have done. Both Cox and Carrera brought to light a really great conversation about how to respect trans people and treat them like human beings. It seemed like some good actually did come out if it as we had a real talk about what not to say and many news channels and websites did seem to alter the way they do things (although Wendy Williams didn’t quite get the memo and asked Cox a few uncomfortable questions like, “You’ve got breast implants?”). Plus, Cox got to talk about the violence and absurdly high prison rates that trans women of color face on a daily basis.

It takes a woman of infinite grace and patience to constantly be turning problematic and even offensive appearances into positive things. Cox’s Time cover story definitely has its problems but she is using it to make a difference. Even when people insist on asking her inappropriate questions during interviews, she turns it around and makes something good out of it. Not only is Cox a brilliant actress, able to create some of the funniest, saddest and most touching moments from each season of Orange is the New Black, but she’s also a brilliant speaker and activist, able to be calm and understanding when she’s asked invasive and offensive questions. Now, I’m not saying that she should have to be respectful or put up with these questions — Janet Mock’s tweets after being disrespected by Piers Morgan were some of my favorite things ever. I’m just impressed with the ease that she seems to do it.

The conversation this time started with Couric sending some deserved praise Cox’s way. She celebrated Cox’s work on Orange is the New Black and talked about her recent Time cover. Cox said that being on the cover of Time brought her to tears and that she hopes the cover, like her character on Orange is the New Black will inspire trans people everywhere and help them see new possibilities for their lives.

Then Couric moved on to what a lot of us were waiting for. She told Cox, the “last time you were here, I got a lot of flack because I asked about the physical process” of being trans. She then admitted that the “flack” was appropriate, and she now understands that it’s troubling for trans people to hear those kinds of questions, because too often it’s the focus of all conversations they have with cis people and that for many trans people, the physical aspect isn’t really that big a deal. She wanted to show that you can learn to do better and to allow Cox to highlight the trans issues that are actually important. Cox said that she appreciates Couric’s “willingness to learn out in public,” that “we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and not always right” in public. Couric agreed and said that she wants to use her last show with Cox as a teachable moment only for herself, but also for others. Then Couric really stepped up and instead of asking inappropriate questions, talked almost exclusively about important trans issues.

Cox had a lot more to smile about this time.

After spending some time talking about Cox’s life and her journey towards self-acceptance, they announced that Cox would be coming back after the break to talk about CeCe McDonald. You heard that right. On ABC during a show that often gets millions of viewers, they were dedicating an entire segment to a trans woman of color talking about CeCe McDonald, a black trans woman who defended herself from racist and transmisogynistic attackers, was sent to prison for it, and now is an trans rights and prison abolition activist. They first showed a clip of footage from the upcoming documentary Free CeCe (which Cox said they hope to release at the end of 2015) and then had a real discussion about the harassment and violence that trans women (and especially black trans women and other trans women of color) face all the time. Cox hammered the point home by saying, “Walking down the street is a contested act for trans people” and “I don’t think anyone’s lives should be in danger because of who they are.”

Chase Strangio, Tiq Milan and Laverne Cox

Then, to my very pleasant surprise, Couric announced that they would be back with Cox to talk even more about some important trans issues. When they did, they were joined by Tiq Milan, the GLAAD Senior Media Strategist and Chase Strangio, a lawyer with the ACLU, both trans men. Couric then basically served up a bunch of topics for them to talk about, with her only stepping in to move on to the next one. Literally half of the show was spent talking about trans issues, and I don’t think I heard a single question that I rolled my eyes at. This was the kind of interview I love to see.

Cox was able to talk about the intersectionality that surrounds violence against trans women — she said that the reason trans women are so often the targets of violence isn’t just that people are uncomfortable with the way they challenge ideas about gender and sex, but also because of racism, misogyny and classism. Instead of focusing on surface-level things like last time, this time she dove headfirst into talking about everything from CeCe McDonald, to homelessness, to transgender healthcare to Jane Doe, the trans youth who was thrown in jail even though she committed no crime.

Cox, Milan and Strangio were able to make so many great points about the issues trans people face, where those issues come from and some ways we can try to change things. Towards the end of the episode, Cox talked about her hopes for the future. She said that we need to have gender self-determination for all people, and that we need to make sure that we’re not “stigmatizing, objectifying, sensationalizing or criminalizing” anyone for taking control of their own gender.

A part of me thought about making this article just be a list of Laverne Cox quotes from this interview because she says that many brilliant things. Where Cox was able to turn the conversation around and get in some great talking points last time, this time she was given free rein to talk about important issues for a full half hour. While the last episode of Katie featuring Cox was an example of what not to do, I feel like this one was an example in what to do. Couric let Cox, Milan and Strangio talk about important issues and say as much as they wanted to say, she didn’t ask them invasive or insensitive questions, she admitted that in the past she made mistakes and that she’s trying to learn from them and perhaps most importantly, Katie Couric listened to trans people and didn’t make assumptions. For any other TV host looking to reinvite a trans guest they’ve disrespected in the past: this is how you learn and grow from a teachable moment.

It’s Time For People to Stop Using the Social Construct of “Biological Sex” to Defend Their Transmisogyny

Time and time again, transmisogynists and transphobes go back to that old excuse that they are just standing up for the reality of “biological sex” when they spew their ignorance and hate. They say that no matter what a trans woman does, no matter what she believes, she’s still actually a man. Others cede the fact that trans women are women, but stop there and say “gender is what’s between your ears, sex is what’s between your legs” and therefore trans women are still males. Although this is a popular idea, it is based on a misunderstanding of biology, social constructs and anatomy, and it needs to stop.

via Time

A lot of this misuse of the idea of “biological sex” has, unfortunately, been centered around discussions of activist and Orange is the New Black actress Laverne Cox. Cox recently became the first out trans person (Chelsea Manning was on the cover before she came out) to be on the cover of Time Magazine. However, inside the magazine, Time said that an easy way to gain some understanding of trans people is to realize that gender and sex are two different things. They say that “sex is biological, determined by a baby’s birth anatomy” and then go on to call trans women “biological males” and trans men “biological females.”

They are trying to good allies, explaining what many see as a complicated issue, but what they are really doing is using a simplistic and outdated understanding of biology to perpetuate some very dangerous ideas about trans women. This type of dialogue allows people to think that they are doing trans people a service, when really they are just continuing to see them as something other than “real women.”

Another article about Cox came out at about the same time. This one, however, was very upfront about using what its author thinks is a good understanding of biology to claim that trans women are not even women at all. Written by Kevin D. Williamson for the National Review and later republished by the Chicago Sun-Times (who then removed it and issued an apology), this article is called “Laverne Cox is Not a Woman” and aggressively uses Williamson’s complete misunderstanding of “biological sex” (and yes, I’m using scare quotes on purpose) to misgender not only Cox, but all other trans people. He says that we need to pay attention to the “biological reality” of sex instead of the delusional world that trans people are living in.

In the article, Williamson says that (get ready for some extreme ignorance and hate here) we are experiencing a new transgender phenomenon, one where we have lost grip on reality. He says that we have an “obsession with policing language (that is based) on the theory that language mystically shapes reality…” However, just because we say trans women are women, that, according to him, doesn’t change the fact that they are men.

He instead calls Cox “an effigy of a woman,” based on his belief that sex is a biological reality and “is not subordinate to subjective impressions…” He adds that “No hormone injection or surgical mutilation is sufficient to change that.” He seems to believe that sex as we describe it is a thing that just exists, that a clear, inarguable and binary definition for sex just springs forth from nature. Unfortunately, Williamson isn’t alone in this type of rhetoric. There’s actually a wide group of people, some “allies,” some lawmakers and some just outright bigots who all rally behind the idea of using the social construct of “biological sex” to misgender trans women.

The thing people like Williamson want to cling to the most is the idea that sex is an immutable, universal biological reality that is therefore easy to categorize. Although many are willing to call trans women women (or specifically “trans women” or “transwomen” or even “male women”), they say that that is just their gender. They argue that gender is cultural and that sex is an unchanging biological fact, and that therefore their sex is still male. This is used to support “Womyn born Womyn” spaces, create fear around so-called “bathroom bills,” disallow trans women from competing in women’s sports and even defend violence against trans women.

This is a nice attempt, but it’s really not this simple guys (which is something the creator of the graphic understands). via itspronouncedmetrosexual.com

Since “biological sex” is actually a social construct, those who say that it is not often have to argue about what it entails. Some say it’s based on chromosomes (of which there are many non-XX/XY combinations, as well as diversity among people with XY chromosomes), others say it’s genitals or gonads (either at birth or at the moment you’re talking about), others say it’s hormone levels (which vary widely and can be manipulated), still others say it’s secondary sex characteristics like the appearance of breasts, body hair and muscle mass (which vary even more). Some say that it’s a combination of all of them. Now, this creates a huge problem, as sex organs, secondary sex characteristics and hormone levels aren’t anywhere close to being universal to all men or women, males or females.

Those who claim that sex is determined by chromosomes must not realize that sex is assigned at birth not by chromosomes, not even by gonads, but by genitals. In fact, the vast majority of us never learn what our sex chromosomes are. Sex isn’t something we’re actually born with, it’s something that doctors or our parents assign us at birth. So if sex is determined by genitals, they must be clearly binary and unchangable, right? Wrong. Genitals can be ambiguous at birth and many trans people get gender confirmation surgery to change them. Neither chromosomes nor genitals are binary in the way that “biological sex” defenders claim they are, and the vast majority of measures by which we judge sex are very much changable.

“Hey, sorry about that whole ‘assigning sex at birth thing.'” “No problem! I know that it has no real effect on who I am as a person today!” via intimatehealthhelp.net

It’s pretty bizarre that we place so much importance on an assumption that doctors make when we’re born. A doctor took one look at me the moment I was born and that’s supposed to determine what bathroom I use, what sports I play or really anything else about my current life? We don’t hold adults to those standards in other aspects of their lives, so why do we with this one? 

While it is true that gender and sex are different things, and that gender is indeed a social construct, sex isn’t the Ultimate Biological Reality that transphobes make it out to be. There’s nothing intrinsically male about XY chromosomes, testosterone, body hair, muscle mass or penises. If an alien civilization found earth, they wouldn’t look at a person with a penis and say “Oh, that must be a male, sex based on genitalia is the One Universal Constant.” Sex, like gender, is indeed socially constructed and can be changed.

If sex isn’t the All Mighty Binary Universal Constant that some people think it is, why do they place so much importance on it? The easy answer is that it gives them an excuse to misgender and exclude trans people, and specifically trans women. They can pretend they’re just standing up for science, but they’re really just saying that trans women aren’t fully women and that trans men aren’t fully men. People need to start learning about what sex really is and what social constructs really are. People need to stop misusing biology and spreading ignorance and misunderstanding. People need to stop looking for excuses for their anti-trans bigotry. All of this needs to stop and it needs to stop now.