CrossFit Bans a Trans Woman From Competing With Other Women, Is Stuck In The Medical Past

Chloie Jonsson was a personal trainer and CrossFit athlete hoping to compete in the upcoming CrossFit Games. Now, she’s suing the company for $2.5 million on grounds of “discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress and unfair competition” because they have refused to allow her to compete against other women due to the fact that she is transgender. CrossFit has said that it will allow her to compete in the Games, a competition of varying workouts used to determine the “Fittest on Earth,” as long as she competes in the Men’s division. This is despite the fact that Jonsson is legally designated female, has been living as a woman since she was a teenager, is undergoing hormone replacement therapy and had gender confirmation surgery eight years ago. CrossFit has taken a firm stance and says that their transmisogynistic and ignorant behavior is out of an “obligation to protect the ‘rights’ of all competitors and the competition itself.”

The 2012 CrossFit Games via cherylbrost.com

Crossfit’s statement to Jonsson was full of the typical outdated, simplified and factually incorrect rhetoric that you would expect to hear from TERFs, not from an organization this size.

We have simply ruled that based upon [Jönsson] being born as a male, she will need to compete in the Men’s Division. The fundamental, ineluctable fact is that a male competitor who has a sex reassignment procedure still has a genetic makeup that confers a physical and physiological advantage over women. Our decision has nothing to do with ‘ignorance’ or being bigots — it has to do with a very real understanding of the human genome, of fundamental biology, that you are either intentionally ignoring or missed in high school.

I’m not sure who their high school teacher was, but that’s not quite how biology works. Every baby assigned male at birth doesn’t also come with a set of genes that will make them a great athlete. Every baby assigned male at birth doesn’t even come close to having the same genetic makeup. Some grow up to be tall, some end up short; some have asthma, others have bone marrow that produces extra red blood cells; some have extra long achilles tendons, some have hands so small they can’t palm a football. I also don’t know what genetic advantage they’re referring to here. Are they afraid of Jonsson being taller or larger than the average woman? Are they afraid she would have higher testosterone levels? Jonsson appears to be average size for a athletic woman, and I highly doubt they would ban a cis woman who was over six feet tall. What’s more, thanks to her medication and surgical history, Jonsson would actually have lower testosterone levels than many cis women, since the ovaries do produce some testosterone.

Chloie Jonsson training

What this all comes down to is that CrossFit doesn’t know what they’re talking about when they talk about trans people and biology. In Brynn Tannehill‘s excellent article on this issue, she discusses how the medical community is pretty much universally on the side of trans athletes. She quotes several doctors on the issue, all of whom agree that if you were to test a trans woman athlete, any muscle mass, bone density or testosterone levels would be “remarkably similar to her counterparts.” Once a trans woman has been transitioning for as long as Jonsson has and has undergone all the steps that she has, it is just scientifically inaccurate to say that she has a physical advantage over other women just because she is trans. That is the fundamental, ineluctable fact of biology and medicine that CrossFit needs to learn.

CrossFit is also shockingly behind on trans issues compared to other sports bodies. The International Olympic Committee, which many see as the highest authority on athletic competition ruled all the way back in 2004 that trans athletes can compete as long as they undergo gender confirmation surgery and have been on hormone therapy for two years. The NCAA has an even more inclusive policy which doesn’t require surgery and only demands one year of hormone replacement therapy. Even in a sport with some very vocal opposition to trans athletes, the MMA allows Fallon Fox, a trans woman, to compete against other women. If all of these athletic organizations are with the times and up to date on trans issues, shouldn’t we expect CrossFit to match them?

via Cosmopolitan

Jonsson’s lawsuit also goes on to discuss how this policy would force trans athletes to disclose their trans status and effectively out themselves. Forcing trans people to out themselves like this can, and often does, put people in very dangerous situations and can lead to discrimination or violence against them. Furthermore, saying “over women” and calling her a “male competitor” in their statement is straight up ignorance and bigotry, no matter how much they say that it isn’t. They are purposefully misgendering her, they are purposefully othering her. Both of these things are aggressive acts of violence against trans women.

CrossFit is claiming to be protecting their competition, but really they’re just discriminating against trans women based on outdated and incorrect science. Plus, they need to follow the anti-discrimination laws that exist. Waukeen McCoy, Jonsson’s lawyer, said “She’s female. She’s legally female. A corporation like CrossFit, they’re doing business in California. The law precludes from discrimination on gender identity.” With the medical community, several other (and larger) athletic organizations and anti-discrimation laws on her side, hopefully Jonsson will get the justice she deserves and CrossFit, as well as all other athletic organizations, will allow trans athletes to compete against other members of their gender.

This Is Because I’m A Woman: How Sexual Harassment Invaded My Life (And Some Ways to Respond To It)

feature image via stopstreetharassment.org, poster made by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

There is no way to prepare a person for how much women get hit on. Cisgender men don’t typically experience aggressive flirtation, and cisgender women seem to experience it from birth. I once had a life where I could go blocks, miles, months without a stranger standing in my way, saying,”Hey girl, where you goin’ in such a hurry?” I want to take my personal space bubble to the shop and have it re-inflated to its original size, but that chapter of my life seems to be done.

About a year and a half ago, men started flirting with me a lot. A lot a lot. And then there was the harassment. It hadn’t always been like this, though. For awhile before and after I came out and went full-time lady, I was fairly obviously in transition. The main tip-off was my voice. I didn’t work on it very hard, it was difficult to get myself up to a point that I felt comfortable changing it. I loved my old voice even when I hated most parts of me; it had gotten me acting gigs, I had given presentations to Walt Disney executives with it, I’d helped talk trauma survivors through their pain with it. We were a team. Even when our team-up got me called “he-she” or scowled at in interviews, or just at the grocery store.

To make my life a little easier, I decided to work harder towards changing my voice. Afterwards I blended in more, and then I began to understand, rather than simply “know,” what women had been telling me my whole life. It’s very frightening when, after 20+ years of being left alone when you’re walking down the street, a man comes up to you in a public place in the middle of a Thursday afternoon and says, “I just want you to know I’ve been following you for the last 30 minutes. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and I just want you to give me a chance,” and then tries to grab you.

There is a silent, insidious social contract at work here. Because it is so commonplace for men to do many things to women openly without repercussions of any kind. There’s no pretense, no hesitation. It just happens.

Nothing anyone could tell me in advance (though they tried) would have adequately prepared me for the cab driver who picked me up from the rape crisis center where I worked at 1AM. It was raining and as he drove me home he asked if I was gay, because I “look gay” and then asked if I “like to party? Would you like to party with me? Hey, what’s your name?” He was driving 35 mph, so I wasn’t getting out of the car. “I don’t have to tell you my name,” I said. “Oh,” he said, “it’s right here on the request form. Your name’s Morgan. Hi Morgan.” He stopped the car suddenly, turned in his seat and reached his hand out towards my chest. I pressed myself into my seat. I wasn’t thinking, just trying to melt through the back of the car. His fingertips outstretched for my right nipple, and then stopped suddenly. His seat belt had locked and he couldn’t move any farther. He smiled wide, turned his hand over palm up and said,”I just wanted to give you a high five.” My brain jumped out of its coma and I jumped out the door and ran home.

I think that, in another time in history, I would feel comfortable exploring the thin slice of my sexuality pie that is bi. It’s there, I can feel it. It has thoughts about Karl Urban and Charles Dance. It’s just that I don’t feel safe. I originally tried to write this article a year ago, and as I was about halfway through the piece, I stopped to be a good little hippie child and take the house’s compost three blocks to the community dump. It was raining again and no one was around. As I walked away from the dump a man appeared from behind a building fifty feet away, looked me up and down, lowered his head and began walking toward me very fast, saying, “Hey lady. Lady. Hey lady, hey. Hey!” He was chasing me, and again I ran.

Four weeks before that I was walking to work one morning, and I passed in between a group of guys on the sidewalk. They closed ranks around me and started chanting, “Pale white bitch!”

I was at work, and everyone but me was out of the office. A man walked in through the front doors, shirtless, carrying an eight-foot wooden pole. He backs me up against a wall and says, “The red man has come to reclaim this land, but don’t worry, I’m going to protect you.”

I was driving a co-worker to the bus stop one night, and he turned to me and said, “Women like you are thirsty for n***ers like me.”

I was walking out the door from work one night, when a man came out from behind some bushes and stood in my way. I zigged, he zigged. I zagged, he zagged. “Where are you going so fast?” He was faster than me but eventually let me go, and laughed and laughed.

I called to order a pizza and the guy on the other line says, “Your voice sure sounds pretty. Can I give you my number? I get off work at five.”

I was at a drive-thru last week and the guy leaned out the window and said,”Hey, you’re beautiful. What’s your name, girl?”

Every week it’s “hey sweetie,” “hey baby girl,” “hey red.”

Why “red” is my most common cat-call.

It didn’t take long before I wasn’t leaving my home much anymore. Friends I’d opened up to about it often just say, “Welcome to womanhood” or sometimes, “Wow, really? I wish guys would pay that much attention to me.” I can see what they’re saying, because some guys are just trying to tell me I look nice and they’re not going to follow me home or hurt me. (One just bicycled around me a couple times and said, “Little girl, you are the most beautiful,” and pedaled away.)

People have asked me, “Before you came out, how did you interact with women you were attracted to?” I didn’t. I hated my body way, way too much to experience anything libidinous. I was never attracted to anyone sexually until after I came out. Before then I understood my attraction to women (or anybody) like this: “That person seems interesting, I would like to spend more time with them and talk to them more.” Maybe that has made it harder for me to empathize with how the other half lives, because those first 22 years I wasn’t really living.

A few times friends have said, “I guess it’s hard being a trans woman,” to which I say “I don’t think I’m being harassed because I’m trans, I think this is because I’m a woman.” “Oh. Well, are you sure they didn’t know you were trans?”

All of this still happens, but about a year ago I received some advice that has made this part of my life easier. It’s not our responsibility to respond to street harassment a certain way or to do things to avoid it; it’s harassers’ responsibility to leave us alone. Still, sometimes it feels empowering to have specific responses at your disposal. I was teaching volunteers how to be crisis counselors, and had Marty Langelan, author of Back Off: How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassment and Harassers, as a guest speaker. She gave the class some very simple pieces of advice.

First off, the more things happened to me, the more my posture worsened and the more I stared at the ground. Not making eye contact says to a potential assailant, “This person is not aware of their surroundings and won’t see me coming.” Stand up straight, look confident, walk with a purpose, make eye contact with people. Imagine a sphere going out ten feet in every direction around you. Know everything in that sphere at all times: how people look and how they’re dressed, places your view is obstructed, escape routes. Change up the way you walk home so people can’t learn your routines. Know your streets. Look over your shoulder to see behind you, calmly and confidently and not like a frightened animal. Acknowledge people you make eye contact with with a nod.

Get to know the homeless people in your area, because when every neighbor is staying inside their home, the person who hangs out near your street might be your only witness or your only source of rescue. Have pepper spray already in your hand. Don’t be afraid to cross to the other side of the street if someone gives you a bad feeling; trust your instincts. And to really throw people off their game, tell them what they are doing to you — name their behavior in a public way. “Stop harassing women. I don’t like it, no one likes it, show some respect.” “When you stare at women’s breasts it’s obvious to everyone in the room. Look us in the eyes.” Or one of my own, “My name is not sweetie. It is Ma’am or Miss.” If you’re receiving this behavior from someone you run into a lot, document it (name, date, time, description, place). You may need this later for your supervisor or the authorities.

It took awhile to put these lessons into practice and make them routine, and it will take more than that to get over the fact that the way I move in public places has so changed. I’ve mostly shaken my fear of boyfolk, but the way I’ve always heard it told, a little fear is required. A friend asked me several years back: “Okay, you walk past an alley. A guy is lying there, he asks for help. What do you do?” I ask “Is the answer don’t help him?” “You absolutely help him. You stand away from him, in the street in public view, pull out your phone and say, ‘Would you like me to call 911?'”

Special Note: Autostraddle’s “First Person” column exists for individual queer ladies to tell their own personal stories and share compelling experiences. These personal essays do not necessarily reflect the ideals of Autostraddle or its editors, nor do any First Person writers intend to speak on behalf of anyone other than themselves. First Person writers are simply speaking honestly from their own hearts.

My Own Personal Top Five Trans Roots

We’re celebrating Autostraddle’s Fifth Birthday all month long by publishing a bunch of Top Fives. This is one of them!

I came out as trans much later in life than I wish I had, and finally getting here was a long and winding journey. I remember wanting to be a girl when I was just a little kid, not even in school yet, but that was before I really had any ideas about gender and what being a boy or girl really meant to me. When I started getting older and seeing that society had strict rules for who and what boys and girls were, I started to really latch on to things that let me challenge or escape those rules. Here are just five of the most important cultural milestones that helped me recognize the queer woman that I was and break free of the gender restrictions that I was living under in order from earliest to most recent.

Annie via The DCAU Wiki

1. 1998 Batman the Animated Series episode “Growing Pains”

I was just eleven years old when I saw this episode and it’s been stuck in my mind ever since. In this episode, the Batman villain Clayface loses some of his strength and so he creates a scout out of some of his own shapeshifting clay body to go exploring. This scout is in the form of a young girl. Robin befriends this girl, she starts going by the name Annie, and eventually Clayface reabsorbs her back into himself. It blew my mind that this girl was a part of Clayface. I thought to myself, whoa, Clayface must have a part of him that wants to be a girl, otherwise she wouldn’t have had such a strong personality and independent will and wouldn’t have wanted to run away from him. She actively wanted to stay a girl as opposed to being reabsorbed into his masculine self. I felt like she was representative of all the trans girls trying to run away from what we feel to be our “monstrous side,” our masculine side (obvs I’m not saying all trans people feel this way) and escape into a place where we can be the girls that we really are. I mean, come on, she even wore a choker, which is a classic accessory for many trans girls trying to hide their adam’s apples.

Ikra and Jack

2. 2001 Samurai Jack episode “Samurai Jack and the Warrior Woman”

In this episode, the shapeshifting villain Aku (jeez, I really had a thing about shapeshifters) disguises himself as a female warrior named Ikra and battles alongside Jack until finally betraying him at the end of the episode. I was in the ninth grade and this episode solidified in my mind the idea that the only good answer to the question “if you could have one superpower what would it be?” was shapeshifting. Aku had no qualms looking or acting like a woman and I thought being a woman made Aku much cooler. I thought to myself, jeez, if I had Aku’s powers, I would just be Ikra all the time.

via Showbiz Geek

3. 2008 Laverne Cox on I Want to Work for Diddy

There’s a long break in between these because for a while there I genuinely thought that the only people who could be trans and happy were people who had “always looked like girls” or were “feminine” and “petite” before transitioning. I thought that the only way to be happy as a trans woman was to be “stealth” and I knew that I would never be able to do that. I mean, come on, if I only had shapeshifters to look up to, how could I possibly live up to that ideal? Then I saw Laverne Cox on this VH1 reality show and I was blown away. She was beautiful and talented and hardworking and stunning and not in the least bit ashamed to be trans. This was when I started thinking that being trans was something that was actually realistically possible for me.

4. 2009 Jaila Simms on Making His Band

Strangely enough, I have Diddy to thank for a lot of my realizing I was trans and could successfully transition. Another reality show the next year featured Jaila Simms, a singer trying out to be in Diddy’s backing band. She was also openly trans, and not only that, she had a similar body type to mine. I was so excited to see a trans woman who had my same body type being happy and successful. I realized that there were people who would accept me if I did decide to transition.

5. 2011 Annika’s posts here on Autostraddle

This series of posts was a revelation to me. This is when I started not just questioning my gender, but actually transitioning and telling friends that I was trans. Annika was a queer woman who didn’t start transitioning until after college. As a lesbian who had just graduated, I saw her story and I saw my own story (or rather, what I wanted my story to be). Previously, the queer women’s spaces I had seen hadn’t exactly been trans woman friendly, so when I saw Autostraddle and Annika teaming up like this, I knew I had found who and where I was supposed to be.

I’ve come a long way from daydreaming about being able to shapeshift. I’m definitely thankful for all of the things that helped bring me here, and although sometimes I do find myself wishing I had come out when I was younger, I know that I wouldn’t be the person I am today or have the relationships I have if my roots had planted earlier.

Header by Rory Midhani

Here’s The Real Story of How Oscar Nominee Jared Leto Got Called Out for Transmisogyny At The Virtuosos Awards

Jared Leto made news and incited discussion in queer circles for his portrayal of Rayon, a trans woman, in Dallas Buyers Club when it came out months ago. Many found the fact of a cis man portraying a trans woman fundamentally offensive, even before Rayon’s less than empowered storyline was taken into account. Leto made the situation worse when his speech at the Golden Globes centered on anatomy and waxing, trivializing actual trans women and their physical realities. Most recently, Leto has been in the news for being “heckled” at the Virtuosos Awards in Santa Barbara; news reports claim that an “unidentified woman” “heckled” Leto during the awards ceremony when she said “Transmisogyny doesn’t deserve an award.” The truth behind those reports, however, is more complicated; there wasn’t just one person speaking out, and they weren’t a woman. And while mainstream news reports have figured Leto as something of a victor in the exchange, with People championing him for “spinning heckling into a serious discussion of transgender roles,” that version of events fails once again to take into account the experiences of actual trans and gendernonconforming people, who were there at the event and have spoken to Autostraddle about what transpired.

Jared Leto playing Rayon in Dallas Buyer’s Club

Taylor is a 19-year-old trans woman who attended the Virtuosos Awards with genderfluid friends Oliver and Jacqueline. The three friends had decided to attend the awards after seeing Dallas Buyers Club and feeling deep frustration with the character of Rayon, who is saddled with a tragic storyline that involves being saved by a straight cis man, and seems to have no agency or character development. Taylor notes that “the character [of Rayon] was originally meant to be a drag queen,” something that seems backed up by an interview Leto gave in December where he said “[director] Jean-Marc may have seen Rayon more as a drag queen or someone who enjoys pushing a gender envelope or dressing up in women’s clothing,” which may have been a factor in Rayon’s refusal to correct anyone in the film when they referred to her as a man, and the lack of any narrative features that would clearly identify her as a trans woman. Rayon’s portrayal and Leto’s subsequent accolades for performing her motivated Taylor, Oliver and Jacqueline to attend the Virtuosos Awards to engage with Leto in person.

This was the context in which Oliver said “transmisogyny doesn’t deserve an award.” When asked “What do you mean by that?” by Leto, Oliver responded with “You don’t deserve an award for portraying a trans woman, because you’re a man.” Jacqueline added that “Historically cisgender people always play trans people, and when they do they win awards for it.” In subsequent media coverage of the event, “cisgender people” was reported as “straight people.”

Despite news reports, neither Oliver nor Jacqueline are women — both are genderfluid, and both were misgendered in subsequent news reports (which also seem to have conflated them into one person, and/or confused them with Taylor, who is a woman). Oliver says this is a reminder that their “sense of safety is not a priority, [their] needs for respect are ‘too difficult.'” Jacqueline says that “to have [misgendering] happen on this level is a reminder of the importance of trans activism, and the action that we took at the awards ceremony.”

Various reports have quoted Leto as responding with:

“Because I’m a man, I don’t deserve to play that part?… So you would hold a role against someone who happened to be gay or lesbian — they can’t play a straight part? Then you’ve made sure people that are gay, people that aren’t straight, people like the Rayons of the world, would never have the opportunity to turn the tables and explore parts of that art.”

Leto in Santa Barbara

This question and its implications are flawed on a few levels. Oliver tells Autostraddle:

“We can’t keep comparing being gay and being trans, even though many people are both. It erases the trans struggle, keeps it invisible by lumping it in with LGBT. So his statement is flawed for the comparison to straightness (when we specifically said cisgender, a word most cisgender people have never heard – because of the normalizing of their identities), AND the comparison to being gay. It is not easy to be gay/queer, it is NOT EASY TO BE TRANS, but we cannot compare both of those two… The point is, HIS gender is important to the perception of the role. He is perpetuating the “man in a dress” trope. He’s performing the role of a drag queen, but “slapping on the fallacious label of ‘trans woman’” (as Taylor said). And his comparison is a false equivalency – it assumes that we live in a utopian world where cissexism or other forms of oppression don’t exist.”

After the awards ceremony, Taylor, Jacqueline and Oliver were allowed to speak to Leto privately — as long as they were able to promise that they would “calm down” and didn’t have an “agenda.” Although the friends report that their personal exchange with Leto was amicable and ended positively, it still didn’t result in Leto’s becoming more receptive to or engaged in trans women’s own experiences or feedback on his work. Taylor says, “After my interactions with him, I have to say that I don’t think he’s particularly educated on trans issues, or even that he really follows them.” And after the evening was over, the public conversation was stuck right back where it’s been for ages: media coverage was about the “angry trans people” who overreacted to a well-intentioned star. It’s both patronizing and incorrect, allowing the public to dismiss these activists while avoiding their actual message. As Jacqueline says, “It’s a form of silencing to call people from a non-dominant group “angry”. It’s a way of dismissing them as irrational… Yes, we are angry, and that anger should be empathized with, not dismissed.”

Given that Leto has expressed thanks for “the Rayons of the world,” it’s frustrating that when real-life trans women and genderfluid people have spoken up, their feelings have been dismissed and misquoted. Much like Rayon’s storyline, edited and packaged into something serviceable to mainstream cis media, the nuanced and culturally relevant concerns of these activists have been labeled as complaints of “angry trans people” and tossed aside. Taylor says, “Well, we are angry about the way in which trans women were misrepresented in the film. And we are angry about the way in which we’ve been misrepresented in the press. And we are angry at Jared’s ignorance regarding trans issues, considering his role and position. But I don’t think that any of us really despise Jared, or went there expecting or intending to “heckle him”… I mean, we had a conversation with him, I hugged him. I think it’s a trope that trans people are needlessly “angry” and unreasonable, or that they can’t get along with cis people, and the coverage so far has really exacerbated that notion.”

Jared Leto is just one person, and obviously the reasons behind the deeply problematic portrayal of Rayon (and the fact that Leto was offered the role, and has received such accolades for playing a relatively minor supporting part) are large and systemic. The problems with the way this incident developed are systemic as well — the fact that a cis man is granted more of a platform to speak on trans issues and representation than trans people, for instance. But these institutionalized cultural tendencies can be checked to some degree when deconstructed in public conversation, and when we choose to take seriously those who do the deconstructing — when we choose to grant legitimacy to the “angry” people doing the “heckling,” and not just the people wearing suits on a stage.

In their meeting, Jacqueline asked Leto to “actually mention trans people and our struggles in subsequent awards acceptance speeches” — with the Oscars coming this Sunday, we may have a chance to see if Leto has taken this criticism to heart. Regardless of his individual actions, however, the larger systems of news and entertainment media still clearly have a lot to learn.

Hungry, Poor Queer People to Become Hungrier, Poorer after Food Stamp Cuts

A new analysis by the Williams Institute indicates that in the U.S., LGBT people experience disproportionately high levels of food insecurity and participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka SNAP or food stamps). This data complements other recent studies showing that the queer community experiences disproportionate amounts of poverty, homelessness and discrimination, and rarely do those combine without it also being difficult for people to access adequate nutrition.

The fact that LGBT people face higher levels of food insecurity is far from surprising, but this information comes at a critical moment. In early February, President Obama signed into law a new farm bill that will cut $8.7 billion from the SNAP program over the next ten years. These cuts will likely drive up food insecurity across the population, and since food insecurity especially affects queer people, impact queer people at a higher rate. This cut, combined with the cuts to unemployment insurance in January, mean that poor queer Americans risk  losing benefits that are critical for survival across the board.

via Floyd Farmers’ Market

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) classifies food insecurity by whether it satisfies several conditions, including households worrying whether their food would run out before they got money to buy more, not being able to afford to eat balanced meals, and people eating less than they feel they should. According to the analysis,

“An estimated 29% of LGBT individuals indicated that there was a time in the last year when they did not have enough money to feed themselves or their family, compared to 18% of non-LGBT individuals. This implies that more than 2.4 million LGBT adults in the US have experienced at least some aspect of food insecurity.”

Drawing from several studies, the Williams Institute traced distinctions along demographic lines within the LGBT population.

Food insecurity and SNAP participation, by survey and sexual orientation/couple type. via The Williams Insitute

Overall, LGBT adults and couples are 1.7 times as likely as non-LGBT identifying adults to experience food insecurity and receive food stamps. Along gender lines, 34% of LGBT-identified women reported not having enough money for food in the last year, compared to 24% of LGBT-identified men. Along racial lines, 37% of African-American LGBT adults, 55% of Native American LGBT adults, and 78% of Native Hawaiian LGBT adults reported experiencing food insecurity, compared to only 23% of white LGBT adults. This is consistent with other recent studies that have shown people living at the intersections of marginalized identities experience compounded barriers to survival.

The Williams Institute did not make a distinction between the prevalence of food insecurity in trans* population and the LGB population. It did, however, separate out people who self-identified as bisexual from the rest of the gay and lesbian community when looking at SNAP participation. The institute found that 25% of bisexual people reported receiving SNAP benefits, in contrast to 14% of the gay and lesbian population. It’s unclear why bi people consistently experience higher levels of food insecurity and poverty, but it may indicate the fact that a high percentage of the trans* population identifies as bi, so higher levels of poverty and discrimination faced by trans* people may be reflected in statistics about bi people. It’s also possible that increased reliance upon SNAP benefits has to do with the bisexual population’s greater incidence of mental illness and unhealth, which is correlated with and can perpetuate poverty.

Okay, Shutterstock. via Shutterstock

When we hear about legislation like the farm bill, we don’t and we won’t hear the mainstream media talking about queer people. But studies like this one show the implications of these bills and benefit cuts on specific communities, and illustrate why we need to be constantly working to make sure the magnified impact of poverty on queer people isn’t erased or silenced.

Queers for Economic Justice Closes Its Doors Thanks to Lack of Economic Justice

For the past twelve years, the New York based organization Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ) has built a platform for voices of poor and homeless queer people, whose experiences have been ignored by the mainstream movements organizing around LGBT and class issues. But now, facing new financial challenges, largely as a result of their unapologetic and uncompromising analysis of poverty and capitalism, QEJ has announced it is closing its doors.

“What we have always had was a loyal and committed group of donors who believe in what QEJ does, and who gave—not huge sums—but all they could. Yet that wasn’t enough to keep us afloat. We needed to find another way to stay alive and, though we had a strategy, we did not have the time to implement it. Realizing this, we looked at each other and said what we had never said before: We have to close.

This has broken our hearts.”

QEJ carved a space for and by poor and homeless queers that aren’t represented in the mainstream fight for gay rights. They’ve created contingents in corporate-sponsored pride parades for low-income queers and queer people in labor unions. They’ve created space for discussion in homeless shelters for queer and trans* people. They maintained HIV and AIDS as a relevant queer issue. And they made sure that there was a place in their movement for every kind of queer family — especially those that build themselves through the struggle for queer liberation.

via Morgan Goode and QEJ Facebook

“You would never know that poverty or class is a queer issue,” said Amber Hollibaugh, QEJ Executive Director and founding member. She continued:

“Founding QEJ was, for many of us that were part of it, a statement of …wanting to try to build something that assumed a different set of priorities [than the mainstream gay equality movement]: that talked about homelessness, that talked about poverty, that talked about race and sexuality and didn’t divide those things as if they were separate identities. And most of us that were founding members couldn’t find that anywhere else.”

QEJ’s Mission

Since 2002, QEJ had been one of the guidepost organizations for anti-capitalist organizing that was “committed to promoting justice in a context of sexual and gender liberation.” At the heart of their organizing was a critique of capitalism that centered the experience of poor queers, whose experiences have largely been erased and ignored by the mainstream gay rights and economic justice movements. QEJ was a place where people wouldn’t be given up on. Carlos Blanco a former QEJ organizer and board member started working as an intern for QEJ when he was a student at Columbia University, feeling isolated by Ivy League culture and mainstream organizing tactics.

“When I started I was kind of a naive 20-year-old and I had no idea what was going on in the world, and I was so pro-gay-marriage… and QEJ taught me to take a seat and really think about what it means to be a poor person of color and what it means to be really struggling… I feel like I’d really grown up at QEJ.”

QEJ fought to expand queer liberation from the discussion about marriage, creating Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships, which declares,

“The current debate over marriage, same-sex and otherwise, ignores the needs and desires of so many in a nation where household diversity is the demographic norm. We seek to reframe this debate. … We seek to build on these historic accomplishments by continuing to diversify and democratize partnership and household recognition. We advocate the expansion of existing legal statuses, social services and benefits to support the needs of all our households.”

via Morgan Goode and QEJ Facebook

Over their twelve years of operation, QEJ created projects that have radically challenged mainstream approaches to poverty, the shelter system, HIV/AIDS, and families.

“We were going to provide tools to live in a very capitalist and racist world.”

QEJ founding member Jay Toole, got involved when she was living in a shelter after seeking help for crack addiction, and attended an event being held by QEJ’s precursor, the Queer Economic Justice Network, which sparked from the welfare reforms from the Clinton administration. “It was like, oh my God – they’re talking about me!” Toole joined the team and started their shelter program. “They put me to work and you know, it wasn’t just bullshit.” Through the shelter project, QEJ achieved historic strides for queer residents of the New York City shelter system. They helped implement policies that allow people to choose whether to reside in men’s or women’s shelters, and that grant same-sex partners the right to be placed in shelters together. They also ran queer discussion groups in shelters around the City, starting at the New Providence Women’s Shelter in Manhattan, and expanding to over 35 shelters around the city, where queer shelter residents could come together and talk about being queer – no set curriculum or discussion topic necessary. “We never wanted to make it seem like we could solve anyone’s problems,” Blanco said, “We were going to provide tools to live in a very capitalist and racist world.”

The distinctive focus of QEJ on queer and trans* adult homelessness and poverty points to a glaring hole in the mainstream queer movement, and illustrates lack of attention paid to the intersections of queer justice and economic justice. Both Blanco and Hollibaugh pointed out to me that while queer youth homelessness gets a ton of airtime, the minute that queer person turns eighteen, the movement turns its back, suddenly interrogating, “What did you do to be homeless? Why can’t you find work?”

QEJ love with Toole and Blanco. via Syd London and QEJ Facebook

QEJ pushed back and said, we know why so many queer people are homeless, and we know why so many queers can’t find work – the system is stacked against us. The LGBT MAP has shown that queer people, and queer people of color in particular, face barriers to employment and housing, and often those barriers take the form of discrimination that is legally protected. And when state and federal benefits are cut, queer and trans* people get hit harder. QEJ has problematized federal statistics themselves, compiling their own statistics on LGBT poverty and economic injustice.

QEJ initiative, Queer Survival Economies, rethinks economic systems to put the most marginalized bodies at their center – reflecting what Dean Spade refers to as “trickle-up” social justice. Trickle-up social justice centers the experiences of the most vulnerable populations, with the understanding that by addressing the issues of the most marginalized, inevitably everyone’s problems will be addressed. Spade explained in a lecture at Barnard:

“If you address the issues of professional white lesbians and parental rights, you won’t solve the problems of low-income mothers of color or imprisoned mothers who the child-welfare system targets for separation from their families… but if you do the reverse… and made it about retaining reunification of families… then inevitably, that would have beneficial effects on rich white gay people… It does trickle up, it doesn’t trickle down.”

While it may seem that queer issues have become more prominent during the time QEJ was open, in reality, funding has grown tighter for organizations that refuse to cater to the mainstream LGBT movement. “We were flying on top for a while,” Blanco said,

“…and then we lost several major grants very quickly and it was very bad. I think because QEJ was so anti-capitalist in our theories and our practice and our statements, I think a lot of major foundations shied away from funding us… we were trying very hard this last year to gain some more money through people to people, from reaching out to our community, but it’s difficult and it didn’t work out and unfortunately we had to make the decision to close.”

The Struggle to Sustain Radical Queer Organizing

Terry Boggis was involved from the start with the Queer Economic Justice Network in the late 90’s. She lauded the work QEJ did to shift the movement for queer justice:

“QEJ changed the conversation in queer organizing and activism, bringing mindfulness about real LGBTQ lives lived on the margins into policymaking and advocacy considerations.”

The landscape of queer politics has changed dramatically since the 90’s, and queer organizations with radical politics are currently facing a crisis in funding. The way the non-profit system works means that grassroots organizing depend on huge amounts of money to survive. Non-profit organizations formalize under a 501(c)(3) status and hire people to put the mission of the organization into action. 501(c)(3)s rely on funding from individual donors and from grants from governments and private foundations. 501(c)(3)s must satisfy their funders, because the funders are well within their rights to stop funding at any point. This is where things get tricky. If the organization has politics which challenge the power of the funders, or counter the politics of their funders, the organization risks losing that support. This dynamic is discussed at-length in The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.

“No movement ultimately does the transformative work of its vision assuming that it’s going to be underwritten by exactly what it’s criticizing.”

This was a particularly perilous position for QEJ, because their platform was explicitly anti-capitalist, and therefore directly questioned the systems which maintained the wealth of the foundations they relied upon. And they lost grants because of it. So QEJ turned to alternatives to grants – individual contributions. This works for some non-profits, but QEJ’s main base was poor queers – people whose lack of access to financial resources was the reason for QEJ’s existence in the first place. “No movement,” Hollibaugh said, “ultimately does the transformative work of its vision assuming that it’s going to be underwritten by exactly what it’s criticizing.”

Hollibaugh speaks at a QEJ gathering. via Syd London and QEJ Facebook

Hollibaugh elaborated on how the current moment in the mainstream queer movement allows organizations like QEJ to be pushed out of the funding stream.

“It used to be that foundations that were queer-friendly, even if they weren’t queer-driven… knew they were confronting a real problem around race …and they knew they weren’t funding POC and class-driven queer groups and that they needed to do more. And so they began to prioritize that, but… in a funny way the success of having a vision around race and class and queerness, [means] there are now many more mainstream LGBT organizations that are POC or that serve poor people.”

As the queer movement has become more intersectional, it has also allowed issues of intersectionality to tilt more towards the mainstream. Organizations that bolster institutions that uphold systems like the criminal justice system ultimately still allow those systems to continue to perpetuate violence against queer and trans* people, just in a more organized and inclusive way. The non-profit system creates space for more voices at the proverbial table of the movement for queer rights, which Hollibaugh pointed out, is not the goal for queer liberation that QEJ envisioned:

“We don’t want to just be invited to the table – the table is wrong. Forget the table, we’re changing the table and we’re changing who’s invited to the table. Forget this! We’re not trying to be one more included constituency that gets named in this fight… it doesn’t solve the deeper question of gender conformity and inequality because of capitalism.”

Though the current movement helps some queers overcome barriers that might have once held them back, we can’t lose sight of the majority of queer people who are still struggling to get by. We need queer organizing and analyses that look at the whole political and economic framework.

So QEJ Has Closed. Where Do We Go From Here?

QEJ is folding as an organization and closing its office in the Miss Major – Jay Toole Building for Social Justice, but its work has not vanished, and certainly neither has its legacy. Two major projects are branching out of work that started at QEJ: Queer Survival Economies, which will continue under Hollibaugh’s leadership at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, and Jay’s House, an initiative by Toole to create the first LGBTQ homeless shelter for adults in New York City.

Toole, who came to QEJ as a shelter resident, directed QEJ’s shelter program from the start. Her own experience while homeless and living in the shelter system drove her work with QEJ and shapes her approach to Jay’s House.

“The [shelter system] is bad for everybody, but when you’re queer, it’s even worse. …Queers don’t come into the shelter system because they hear the stories. And I never went in until I was dying, because I would hear stories of how we were treated. And you know, it’s all true! I was beat up in shelters, I was thrown down stairs in shelters. …Being out and queer in the shelter system was not the safest thing to do. I always knew that at some point along the way I would try to build an organization that could house people, house queers, and it would be queers helping queers.”

via Syd London and Miss Major – Jay Toole Website

Other organizations, like the groups that share the Miss Major – Jay Toole Building — the Audre Lorde Project, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, FIERCE and Streetwise and Safe — are constantly working to find sustainable modes of funding for radical organizing, and acknowledged this in a statement in December:

“We are committed to upholding QEJ’s vision and work through our respective organizations and communities until all our collective work is done. We send our deepest love and gratitude to QEJ for their righteous legacy and all that they have invested and built towards our collective liberation. Our work moving forward as MMJT is not to dwell on why this happened.  Our role moving forward is to work towards transforming our movements, our resources, our funders and our strategies in order to interrupt this cycle of devaluation of our political work, our movements and our comrades.”

The queer community in New York is coming together to generate alternate income for Toole’s living expenses while she ends her work at QEJ and works to start up Jay’s House at the We Love Jay Campaign.

QEJ’s website will continue on for six more months, where their resources on economic justice, immigration, the prison industrial complex and welfare continue to be available.

via Morgan Goode and QEJ Facebook

While QEJ will cease to exist as a 501(c)(3) with an office and paid staff, their impact lives on in the thousands of queer people affected by their analysis and activism, and in the organizations they worked alongside. As Blanco said to me,

“I just want people to know that QEJ is not an organization, but …will always be a philosophy. If you are a queer, you can be for economic justice. …You don’t have to have a 501(c)(3). If you’re queer and you’re dedicated to economic justice, then live that life and have those beliefs and carry them in your heart and put them into practice. I think as long as we stay dedicated to our community, nothing can stop us.”

Portrait of a Community: Inside Barneys’ Groundbreaking Campaign Featuring 17 Trans* Models

It was the shoot heard ’round the world: 17 trans* models coming together for the Spring 2014 Barneys New York campaign called “Brothers, Sisters, Sons, and Daughters.” And, for once, talking for themselves.

http://vimeo.com/85408525

The campaign, shot in New York by Bruce Weber, included models from not only various gender presentations and identities but also a diverse array of hometowns, racial and ethnic makeup, and ages. Dennis Freedman, the former creative director of W magazine who dreamt up the shoot, also made room for guests: each model was invited to bring someone who had supported them on their journey, be they parents, friends, or pets. Afterward, each was interviewed by Vanity Fair contributing editor Patricia Bosworth for Barneys’ The Window online to better tell their story and explain the relationships that come through in the shoot. “Every single person was interviewed, sometimes more than once, because their stories are as important as the photographs,” Freedman told Vogue.

From the start, the vision was visibility. The multimedia campaign, which encompassed interviews, photography, and film, was intended to give these trans* folks a tangible platform to tell their stories – a powerful challenge to the preconceived notions and stereotypes which have left them one of the most underserved and underrepresented communities in America. “It seemed that the ‘T’ in LGBT was getting a little bit left behind,” Barneys CEO Mark Lee told Vanity Fair. Freedman echoed him in an interview with The Advocate: “It’s striking how the transgender community has been left behind,” he told the magazine. “It’s disturbing and upsetting to see that.”

Eve Lindley, a trans woman who modeled in the campaign, was ultimately driven to participate because of its potential impact. “I wanted to be part of it because I realized it had the ability to help other young trans boys and girls who were going through what I had gone through,” she told me. “I hoped a photo shoot like this would give them some hope and maybe even a few people to look up to.”

“I was adopted, my parents got divorced when I was a kid, mom died when I was 14, my dad’s wife could give any Disney villain a run for their money – though she is not nearly as fabulous. I was kicked out when I was 16 and spent the years between then and 22 figuring out who the fuck I was,” said Ryley Pogensky, a model from the campaign who identifies as transgender and genderqueer. “I’ve been through some shit, but so have all of us. My life experience is what brings me closer to strangers. It makes me a better writer; hopefully a better person. My story is a long one, but I have gotten to the point in my life where I can condense it all to a sentence. I am more interested in your stories. I have spent my life until about 2 years ago figuring myself out. It’s time that I use my life experience to reach out to others.”

For the shoot, Lindley brought her father. “Bottom line,” he told Bosworth, “I have tried to empower her to become what she wanted to be. This entire experience has been a big challenge, but nothing can’t be handled with a heart full of love.”

Pogensky brought his grandparents. “They have never stopped with their endless encouragement,” he shared in his interview. “They love me so much; love is something that you can never, ever take for granted. Love can make you and it can break you; their love means everything to me.”

In line with the values of the shoot, the models arrived to find the entire crew intent on making it a supportive, authentic, and safe space. It was an adventure for all of them, a groundbreaking foray. Weber told Vanity Fair that the shoot “changed the course of my life.” He added, “I want to learn more. I want to get better.”

Despite the project’s intentions, many of the models still approached the project with apprehension. Pogensky explained that although he was intrigued by a major retailer wanting an assemblace of all-transgender models, it also shot up red flags. “I had this image in my head,” he told me, “of a bunch of designers and a creative team looking for the next big thing. How can we shock the world, they were saying. Who can we use? Ah ha! Tr*nnys!”

What Pogensky was afraid of is the frequent exploitation of trans* bodies by popular images. “Trans people are not treated like people in the media,” he said. “I was scared that whoever this retailer was, was going to do the same thing.” In order to better stand his theoretical ground, Ryley went into the casting with intention and grilled the creative director and the team: “Big shoot or not,” he said, “I was not going to be used, was not going to have my gender or presentation used to buy clothes or pique interest on not an educational level, but on a spectacle level.”

His fears weren’t actualized during the shoot. “I realized that this team of people had not only done their research, but also really cared about transgender people,” he told me. “All of them, and I do mean all of them were fucking amazing. There was no misgendering, there were no awkward questions, everyone was amazing.”

The campaign, done in conjunction with the LGBT Community Center in New York City and the National Center for Transgender Equality, also ultimately profited the two advising organizations.

For trans* models, fashion and style represent important markers of their identities, of their own insistence at living authentically. “I never really saw modeling as a dream,” Pogensky pointed out to me. “I was always looking in the mirror seeing someone who was not quite right. I was too tall. My feet were too big. I hated having to dress like my other femme friends. I loathed the attention from men. It took me years to understand my body, and how I wanted to present. It took me years to figure out what I wanted to wear. Once I shaved my head, once I started wearing mens clothes, something clicked. I was looking in the mirror at the masculine person I had always seen myself as inside, but couldn’t present as.”

“I sort of came of age and ‘found myself’ in the Brooklyn art scene,” Lindley said. “Most of the friends I made there are responsible for helping me discover my passions and have helped me deal with the craziness that I bring with me everywhere. Before before moving here, my life primarily consisted of trying to get here.”

Unfortunately, trans* folks who find it possible to express themselves through media don’t always find their narratives reflected in their own work. “When I started taking photos for my portfolio and meeting with agencies I realized how far behind the fashion world was with gender,” Pogensky said.

Lindley, who primarily works in acting and writing, has found it hard to audition for a role that reflects the real, lived experiences of trans* people. “I feel like we’re in a place where any role can just be played by a trans woman, without ever really referring to it specifically,” she told me. “I think it’s time for romantic comedies, musicals, sci-fi, and thrillers to expand their casting choices and introduce new and dynamic character archetypes. Trans people are everywhere, and media and cinema should start to reflect that more.”

“It’s easy for the media to act like things are changing when they’re only focusing on white people. If there’s no focus on minorities, it is then extremely easy for people to say, oh, well trans* people are treated great!,” Pogensky tells me. “I want the voices of those who are silenced to be heard. Not all of us have the platforms to be heard. I want younger trans* kids to know that they have support systems.”

The campaign shoot, then, presented models like Pogensky and Lindley with an opportunity to finally work within proximity of their ideal industries without sacrificing their identities. The week-long shoot was an experience the models found both emotional and awe-inspiring. “I called it queer camp,” Pogensky told me. “All the tears, all the emotions. It was overwhelming, but in a very good way. Everyone wanted to tell their story. It was so open.”

“My favorite part of the shoot was the friends I made,” Lindley told me. “We all developed our little groups and cliques, and I truly and deeply care for all the people who were a part of mine. At one point, Bruce even shot all of us together in what I believe was the most beautiful photo I have ever been a part of.”

“This was not something they were doing to shock the world,” Pogensky said. “This was something they were doing to wake up the fashion world, and the media.” And so they opened their eyes.

The reception to Barneys’ campaign was magnificent. Fashion magazines fawned over 17 trans* models, praised Weber and Freedman and Lee for their daring challenge to the fashion industry. Many of the models never expected to be cast in a leading department store campaign. Lindley found out about the shoot while she was picking up hormones; Pogensky began his skeptical journey to fame over the phone with a friend. Afterwards, they found themselves swarmed with media attention. Pogensky appeared on HuffPo Live, where he and other models from the shoot were welcomed into a conversation about diversity, the fashion industry, gender and the issues facing their communities. A national dialogue on transgender people happened – one that wasn’t focused around genitalia, or mourning, but instead around their lives and desires. People around the world were weighing in on the campaign, praising the final film (Pogensky warns that “there will be tears”), and feeling emotions triggered by the humanity of people who had previously been denied it in media representation.

“The reception I have received has been overwhelming – lots of emails, tweets, comments,” Lindley told me. “I think the impact has been very positive. For me, its been a crazy roller coaster ride. I’m honored to be a part of it.”

“In the film, there is a clip from a movie about a boy with green hair,” Pogensky said. “Bruce explained that when he was growing up he always felt like that boy: out of place at school, he was always in the art room, drawing or taking photos. He felt like he didn’t belong, but after moving to New York he had found his home amongst people that accepted him. The shoot felt like that. It felt like a lot of us wandered life with green hair. Feeling like we were targets for our differences. On set we were accepted. All of the press that I’ve seen and done has felt like that.”

He added, “It feels like, in at least some respect, all of us with green hair are finally being accepted amongst the brunettes and blondes.”

When  “Brothers, Sisters, Sons, and Daughters” was first envisioned, the underlying message was support – hence, the on-set guests. “Whether it’s a father, a sister, a grandmother, it was always part of this project that they would be photographed,” Freedman told Vanity Fair, “that we would interview them, in order to really get across the importance of having someone in your life who is there.” What Freedman could not have possibly predicted is that he would give all 17 models a new community: a small circle of friends and a wide circle of supporters.

“Some people have no visibility,” Pogensky said to me. “They don’t live in places like Brooklyn where everyone is queer or queer-friendly. I’ve realized that modeling and speaking out is something that I have support from this huge community in doing. I am helping people. If I can turn 21 years of being awkward and feeling like everything was wrong into helping other people or just being someone who people can turn to and share their stories with, then that is what I want. It is really all I want.”

You can follow Eve Lindley and Ryley Pogensky on Twitter.

Piers Morgan Still, Like, Totally Obsessed with Janet Mock (and His Own False Victimhood)

Janet Mock once again brightened our TV screens when she appeared on The Colbert Report to promote her book, Redefining Realness, and discuss how the media should talk to trans people, as well as the importance of respecting people’s self identities. Stephen Colbert, who does have a somewhat rough past when it comes to making transmysogynistic jokes (in what he claims is satire), was making jokes at the expense of transphobes themselves. While things were copacetic over in Colbert Nation, they weren’t quite so great over on Piers Morgan‘s twitter feed.

This interview wasn’t perfect — Colbert still used terms like “transgendered” and “transgenders” — but he seemed to actually want to learn how to be a better ally. When Mock explained that people are born babies and are then assigned gender at birth, Colbert didn’t become angry or insist that she “was a boy until age 18.” Colbert used his fake indignation to highlight how ridiculous Morgan’s real indignation actually was.

At the beginning of the interview, Colbert brought out a button that Mock could press that played a recording of her saying her now infamous tweet directed at Morgan, “Get it the f*k together” whenever Colbert messed up. Colbert then asked Mock why she didn’t want her story sensationalized, since that’s what sells books. Mock brilliantly replied that she’d rather talk about issues that effect trans women of color, like being able to safely walk down the street, receive medical care and basically live their lives not in constant fear. Mock was also able to explain the importance of letting people determine how they want to identify themselves, and the importance of letting people know how you identify when you introduce yourself. Even through Colbert’s feigned confusion, this interview was obviously much more pleasant for Mock than some previous ones. Towards the end of the interview, Colbert actually asked what we should call babies, instead of gendering them before they even have a chance to understand what gender is.

This is a breath of fresh air after Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera‘s awkward conversation on Katie Couric’s show and the Piers Morgan’s double dip of misgendering Janet Mock and then attacking her with straight up transmisogyny and vitriol. However, Mock still couldn’t escape from the horrifyingly immature grip of Morgan’s twitter account.

Morgan is so self-absorbed that he couldn’t stop himself from commenting on Mock’s interview. Sure, Colbert made a couple of jokes at Morgan’s expense, but this is far from the first time he’s done that. Plus, Morgan aimed all of his hatred and crocodile tears at Mock, not at Colbert. Morgan seemed especially repulsed at the idea of letting children determine their own gender instead of gendering them from day one.

It’s getting hard to believe just how immature Morgan is being about the whole situation. He made a mistake, Janet Mock called him out on it — even went back on his show to explain in detail how he was offensive — and he’s still acting like he’s the victim here. What’s even more bizarre is how he keeps saying that Mock is “whining” and “playing the victim card,” when that’s exactly what he’s been doing this whole time. He really does seem like a spoiled child who got his hand caught in the cookie jar and doesn’t want to face the consequences. I’m almost loath to bring attention to his temper tantrum, however, he insists on throwing it in public for everyone to see. He’s even still bafflingly claiming to be the victim of “cisphobia.”

If I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe that a grown man with his own TV show on a major cable news network would be able to act this way without any real consequences. This man, who claims to be progressive and an ally, is openly and boldly bullying not just Janet Mock, but the entire transgender community.

Here’s a tip for anyone who wants to be able to claim allyship with trans people: when the very trans people who you claim to be supporting repeatedly tell you that you’re messing up and being offensive, listen to them. Piers Morgan is apparently having a very hard time learning this lesson. This is not how you support trans people. This is not how you be an ally. This is not how you act like a mature adult.

It’s a real shame that Morgan threw this tantrum and was able to take away some of the spotlight from Mock. Let’s remember what’s really important here. Janet Mock, a trans woman of color, was a guest on The Colbert Report talking about her New York Times best selling book, and no matter what a certain transphobic and infantile TV host thinks, that is something to be celebrated.

“Transparent” TV Pilot Features Trans Mom, Queer Women, Additional Delightful Things

*This posts contains super minimal, like really tiny, baby quarter-spoilers.*

Last week Amazon released a second wave of streaming TV pilots to compete for a spot as the next Amazon original series. Amidst the offerings was Transparent, a family comedy Amazon describes as “An LA family with serious boundary issues have their past and future unravel when a dramatic admission causes everyone’s secrets to spill out.” I think you’re going to like the secret: it’s LBT women. The show opens by introducing you to three adult siblings: Josh (Jay Duplass), a sad-eyed hippie manchild; Ali (Gaby Hoffman), a wry, failure-to-launch depressive; and Sarah (Amy Landecker), a pampered, type A housewife, clearly bored by the monotony of her marriage. The human they know as their father “Mort” — now Maura — invites them over for dinner at their childhood home in order to come out to them as transgender. Unfortunately, the children are so busy selfishly bickering over who should get the house if their parent dies of cancer that Maura’s news never makes it out.

Josh picks his teeth. Ali tries to find meaning in a Jim Croce album. Sarah and her husband primp.

If you think Maura’s children sound self-absorbed and not very likeable, you’re exactly right! The characters in Transparent aren’t aspirational archetypes — they’re quirky, naval gazing weirdos — but they’re well written! After just thirty minutes you already know intrinsically who these people are and what they’re about: in real life, they’d be the annoying acquaintances just beyond your inner circle whose antics you love to hate. Like Lena Dunham meets Wes Anderson — simultaneously off-putting and enthralling. Plus, ten minutes in, we learn that another lead character, Sarah, had a serious relationship in college with a lesbian who resurfaces in the pilot wearing very cute glasses. Against the backdrop of her family, Maura is the most down-to-earth and sympathetic character. Given the overwhelmingly negative portrayal of trans people on TV, any positive representation is a welcome addition. However, the casting choice for Maura (Jeffrey Tambor, best known for his comedic role in Arrested Development) did send up a red flag.

Jeffrey Tambor as Maura.

This pilot comes at an interesting time. Last year’s highest profile trans-inclusive film, Dallas Buyer’s Club, has been winning mainstream awards left and right while simultaneously drawing sharp criticism from queer community members. For one thing, many feel that the casting of a cis man in a trans woman role reinforces dangerous stereotypes of trans people being drag queens. For another, Jared Leto continually fails to be an advocate for trans women and is actually using the platform to be a total ass. I can’t imagine we’d be hearing such tone-deaf remarks from someone with lived experience as a trans person. That a cis man was again cast in a trans woman’s role gives me serious pause, especially when that actor is best known to me as George Bluth, walking punchline. That being said, the decision seems to have been made thoughtfully, with trans actors in supporting roles on screen and numerous trans people involved in production.

Maura’s trans support group. Aside from Tambor, all the actors in the scene were trans.

Director Rhys Ernst, a trans man, explained:

As a trans director, I ask myself, how would I cast a non-medically transitioning trans person, or someone pre-transition? I look at all options, and that may include some cisgender actors. I also see filmmaking as a holistic practice and don’t see casting as the only area to focus on regarding the politics of trans representation. Filmmaking is a team effort and when it comes to trans related subject matter, trans sensitivity needs to be integrated throughout the entire production chain.

He went on,

As a filmmaker I have gone to great lengths to cast transgender actors. It sometimes takes more work to locate trans actors but because of my commitment to trans representation, I feel it’s a step well worth taking…there are certain instances in which casting a cisgender actor in a trans role can be appropriate. I don’t think it’s nearly as often as Hollywood’s track record might suggest, and 9 out of 10 trans characters in Hollywood productions are typically a disappointment, both in their writing and in their casting.

Whatever the verdict on the casting, writer Jill Soloway‘s work shines here. Soloway has written and produced for Six Feet Under, United States of Tara and Grey’s Anatomy in the past, as well as a few episodes of Dirty Sexy Money, the first primetime show to feature a trans character played by a trans actor (Candis Cayne). Soloway described Transparent as her “dream project” post-Six Feet Under, “this idea about a family who inherited a secret about sexuality as opposed to a funeral home.” So far, it seems that Maura is also a lady-loving lady, and aforementioned daughter Sarah might be lined up for her own coming out narrative. (Or something. It’s complicated. But she’s definitely queer.)

Tammy is described as a lesbian. Sarah isn’t labeled but her relationships suggest she may be bisexual.

The pilot for Transparent is available streaming free on Amazon. To provide feedback and help this show be picked for further production, complete the survey at AmazonOriginals.com.

Jewlyes Gutierrez Enters Conflict Resolution Program, But Systemic Violence Against Trans Women of Color Remains

Most people would hope that when extreme bullying occurs and is brought to the attention of authorities, the bullies in question will be punished. The opposite happened to Jewlyes Gutierrez; when she was “tormented and harassed” by other students because of her trans status, she was charged with misdemeanor battery for defending herself.

Given that the incident arose in response to intense, ongoing bullying, observers had already widely questioned the decision by Contra Costa County District Attorney Dan Cabral to charge a 16-year old transgender high school student with a misdemeanor count of battery following a schoolyard altercation between her and three other students. However, it now appears that trans teen Jewlyes Gutierrez may be able to avoid charges after all, as she enters restorative justice, a court-ordered conflict resolution program.

Jewlyes, a Hercules High School student and a young trans woman of color, had been facing ongoing harassment and bullying at school from a group of cisgender girls; when she went to the school administration to report the situation was becoming intolerable, nothing happened. Finally, one day one of these girls assaulted Jewlyes by throwing used chewing gum in her face; Jewlyes had had it, she fought back, although she ended up being ganged up on by three other girls in the fight.

“I was just sticking up for myself,” she told NBC Bay Area News, “Because you’re different, you’ll get picked on, you’ll get name calling, bullied, taunted, harassed — all those.”

In the end, no one was seriously injured, but bizarrely, the District Attorney’s office chose to press misdemeanor battery charges against Jewlyes. This seems to be quite unusual, and I can’t help but doubt whether a white, cisgender child would have been charged under similar circumstances; it seems quite unlikely. Further, why would the D.A. charge Jewlyes for battery but not, at the least, charge the two other girls who jumped in on the fight and ganged up against her?

Indeed, West Contra Costa School Board President Charles Ramsey said of the incident that it should have been a teachable moment, rather than something that went to D.A.’s office. Jewlyes’s public defender Kaylie Simon expressed a similar sentiment, stating, “When I initially received this case, I was shocked that the district attorney’s office decided to charge [her].” She elaborated by saying, “I think by charging her, it sends a message to bullies that you can bully individuals, and that adults will then further victimize the person that you’ve been tormenting,”

A petition started by Jewlyes’s sister calling for the charges to be dropped eventually reached over 200,000 signatures. However, as a result of a plea agreement between her public defender and the juvenile court judge overseeing her case, Jewlyes will now enter the restorative justice program with the aim of resolving the issue outside of the court system itself.

Jewlyes described the program herself saying, “It’s like conflict resolution to talk it out… Then, after it is over, [the charge] will hopefully be dismissed.”

In a prepared statement, Kimberly Aceves of the Contra Costa County-based RYSE Center said, “Jewlyes’ honesty, courage, and commitment to reconnecting and healing with her peers is a compelling and inspiring call for RYSE and our partners to continue to shed light on and shift the current conditions of unwelcoming and unsafe school environments that cause harm for all students, including transgender youth and youth of color.”

While the charges against Jewlyes have not yet been formally dropped, this development unquestionably represents a big step in the right direction. Meanwhile, the fact that this situation even occurred in the first place speaks to a much larger issue about the bullying that LGBT youth face in school and elsewhere, which falls particularly hard on trans youth, especially trans women of color. Indeed, according to an extensive 2011 survey from GLSEN, a full 80% of transgender youth reported feeling unsafe in their school environment.

And while it happened outside of a school context, Jewlyes’s situation is also reminiscent of the ordeal faced by trans woman of color CeCe McDonald (and many other trans women of color), which again illustrates the racist and transphobic biases that are apparent in our legal system. CeCe spent 19 months in prison for defending herself from a violently racist and transmisogynistic attack before finally being released in January.

As most of us are familiar, in June 2011 CeCe and her friends, all people of color, were walking past a bar in Minnesota when Dean Schmitz, a white man, and two white women friends of his began shouting bigoted comments. When CeCe and her friends verbally resisted this bigotry, one of the white women responded by smashing a bar glass against CeCe’s face and a fight broke out. When CeCe exited the fight, Dean Schmitz aggressively pursued her and she pulled out a pair of scissors from her purse and later stabbed him in self-defense. Schmitz later died, and CeCe was eventually charged with second-degree murder, although this was later reduced to manslaughter as part of a plea deal.

CeCe and her legal team decided to accept this deal in the aftermath of the judge’s ruling that neither Dean Schmitz’s violent criminal history nor the fact that the he had a swastika tattooed on his body could be admitted as evidence in court; however, the fact that CeCe had once written a bad check could be used to impeach her own testimony during the trial. (The prosecutor had argued that the swastika was not visible when Schmitz was chasing CeCe down; but of course a swastika clearly speaks to the motivations for the racist abuse Schmitz and his friends had used to initiate the confrontation, and it speaks to what was likely in his mind as he chased CeCe down).

During her imprisonment, CeCe was held in a men’s prison and further spent long-term periods in solitary confinement, a practice that is commonly imposed on trans women and in my view should be classified as torture.

Taken as a whole, we see from these events how trans youth, particularly trans women of color, are vulnerable to bullying and how the legal system often acts to reinforce and support this type of social poison rather than to eliminate it. For this reason, we see the need to continue supporting anti-bullying policies and legislation for schools all across the nation, as well as legislation that codifies trans-inclusion such as California’s AB-1266, and the need to stand up for vulnerable trans children who may be targeted by reactionary forces. And further we should continue supporting institutions such as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project that support vulnerable trans people who may be dismissed or even targeted by the legal system that should be structured to support them.

REFUGE Restrooms: New Website Helps You Find Gender-Safe Public Restrooms

When you’re trans*, or even when you just favor a look that doesn’t fit inside the strict gender binary, it can be a real struggle finding places in public where you can do your business in peace. Reactions can range from people asking if you’re in the right bathroom, to angry or confused glances, all the way to trans women being beaten just for trying to use the proper restroom. One option is just to schedule your entire day around running home every time you need to use a bathroom. However, this can cause just as many problems as it solves. The much better solution is to know where trans* and intersex friendly and gender neutral bathrooms are, and that’s exactly what the new website REFUGE Restrooms sets out to do.

When another site that served the same function, recently announced that they were disbanding, Teagan Widmer stepped in to fill the void. According to REFUGE Restroom’s site, they want to make sure that this important service continues to be met. This is a valuable resource and one that can literally save lives. Widmer described the site to me as a simple way to help people who otherwise might be afraid to use public restrooms.

REFUGE is a web application that indexes and maps unisex and other safe bathrooms for transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming individuals. Users can search an address to find the nearest bathrooms to use. Bathroom listings can be filtered by accessibility and unisex (vs just a safe gendered bathroom). Users can also add to the ever growing database with more safe bathrooms.

If this is an issue that you personally have to deal with, than you already know how important it is to know where safe restrooms are. However, for many, this is an issue they may not even be aware of. Widmer is transgender herself and knows all too well how scary it can be trying to find a safe place to do something as simple as go to the bathroom. With the other resources for this falling out of functionality, she saw something that needed to be done and did it.

I made REFUGE because I saw a gap that needed to be filled. As many are aware there used to be a website called Safe2Pee that roughly did the same thing. I had often made use of the site, as well as an iOS application called TranSquat that used the Safe2Pee databased. When I updated my phone to iOS 7, I noticed that TranSquat was no longer available on the app store. I went to the Safe2Pee database and realized that it didn’t really work anymore either. I was pretty devastated. The site had saved my life multiple times when I was early in transition and too scared to use the women’s room and too afraid of assault in the men’s bathroom. I knew that the resource needed to be kept alive. I took the data dump from the Safe2Pee site and used it as the core that I built around for my new application.

Bathroom usage is an important topic for transgender individuals because we often have fear surrounding entereing such gendered facilities. We have good reason to be afraid, too. I was reading an article this past week about a student from California State University, Long Beach who was attacked in a bathroom and had the word “it” carved onto their chest. Because of stories like this many trans people “hold it” until they can find a safe restroom, instead of using the bathroom immediately. This can do all kind of physical damage to the body and cause UTIs. Trans people need safe access to bathrooms, and my dream is that REFUGE can be a place that positively impacts the lives of transgender individuals.

The site is open source and we are are actively looking for help to finish developing it. I’ve only been programming for about six months and I taught myself how to do everything I needed to develop the application this far, so I am by no means an expert. I’m still learning every day how to write better, more effecient, cleaner code. This is a project that has a lot of room for growth and I want to make it clear: This is not my project — this is our project. This is a project the community needs. So if you know anything about front end, or Ruby on Rails, please get involved. You can find our project on GitHub. This is a project for which the sky is the limit. Help us get there!

Janet Mock Returned to Piers Morgan Live Tonight: Here’s What Went Down

Even though Piers Morgan seemed to threaten her on twitter last night, when he tweeted out that he wanted Janet Mock back on his show to debate his “supposed ‘offensiveness’ live on air,” Mock agreed to come back, saying she is “Looking fwd to a fruitful discussion.” While Mock was able to make some good points and share more of her perspective on why it was offensive to say she “was a man until 18,” the discussion wasn’t quite as fruitful as I’m sure Mock was hoping it would be.

The segment started out with Morgan being completely incredulous, saying that he was “shocked when (he) became targeted by a lot of very, very angry people.” After introducing Mock, he then demanded that she explain to him “why I had to go through this.” This was the first time that he defended himself by reading off a resume of all the gay rights he supports. Mock, being the gracious one, actually apologized (something Morgan never did), saying “I’m sorry you feel annoyed and I think people in the trans community feel equally peeved.” Morgan seemed especially annoyed that Mock didn’t call him out during the interview if she found his statements so objectionable. Mock responded to this by saying that since this was her first appearance on a mainstream show, she was scared and “wanted to be a cordial guest.” She later added that, “if I called out people every time they misnamed or misidentified me, i wouldn’t have time for real issues.” Morgan wouldn’t hear it and insisted that since he was nice and complimented her, she should have been grateful, to which Mock replied with a quote that I think perfectly sums up the message that “allies” like Morgan need to hear – “being offensive and being kind are not mutually exclusive things.”

Janet’s face sums up my feelings about this interview

When he wasn’t busy saying that he’s a great ally and how supportive he is of “gay rights,” Morgan kept on pointing to a 2011 Marie Claire article written by Kierna Mayo about Mock titled “I Was Born a Boy.” Whenever Mock would say that she was “born a baby” or that she never identified as a boy, Morgan seemed very annoyed and waved around this article, saying that since she said she was born a boy three years ago, he had every right to do so now. It didn’t seem to matter to him that Mock repeatedly told him that she didn’t write the article, she didn’t come up with the headline, she’s written blogs criticizing the article and even talks about how problematic it is in the introduction to her book. In a blog entry on her website also written back in 2011, she says basically the same things she’s been saying to Morgan this whole time, that this kind of misgendering is offensive and harmful.

But I do wish I could change one thing in the piece: the term “boy” which is used a few times. Overall I’m fine with it because I was born in what doctor’s proclaim is a boy’s body. I had no choice in the assignment of my sex at birth. I take issue with the two instances in the piece: The first instance proclaims, “Until she was 18, Janet was a boy,” and then it goes on to say, “I even found other boys like me there…” My genital reconstructive surgery did not make me a girl. I was always a girl.

Morgan finally stopped talking about the Marie Claire article (which apparently was the only research he did on Mock for an interview that was supposed to be about her book, Redefining Realness) when she told him that “that piece should not have been the basis of our interview” and “my life is in Redefining Realness,” which I’m sure she thought the interview was going to be about. However, he still insisted that he did nothing wrong.

The main problem he seemed to be having was that he was still considered her a boy until she had surgery. Despite her saying “I was a baby, I was assigned male gender because of my genitals” earlier in the interview when asked if she was “a boy until 18,” he asked her again and again, “do you dispute that you were born a boy?” He told her “I don’t think that terminology is wrong,” and asked her to explain to him why it’s offensive to say that she was a boy, when the phrase “gender reassignment” means that she went from male to female. Mock told him that “it’s not about what surgeries I may or may not have had” and she didn’t start identifying as a girl when she “went to Thailand,” she started identifying that way “as soon as I had enough agency” to actually know what identifying as a certain gender meant.

Again, Morgan revealed exactly what kind of trans ally he is throughout the interview. When he was asking why Mock got so upset, he explained to Mock, “I’ve always been supportive of gay rights and gay marriage.” Mock shut that down immediately and told him “gay rights are not transgender rights” and that supporting gay marriage does not make him an ally to trans people.  Still, spoke down to her, offering her unsolicited advice and saying “it doesn’t do you or your community any service to make me look bad.” It’s bizarre how good he is at making this issue revolve around him and his feelings.

Things got really strange after Mock left and when Morgan brought on a panel to discuss the interview just moments after it ended. Two of the panelists, Amy Holmes and Ben Ferguson were just as bad as Morgan, and the only redeeming quality of this segment was Marc Lamont Hill’s contributions. Holmes started off by saying that Mock shouldn’t be upset that she was misgendered because the only reason she is on TV is that she was born with male genitalia and that that’s a “pretty sensational story.” So apparently her activism, speaking, advocacy and writing don’t matter at all. Hill responded by saying that trans identity does not hinge on surgery. He then pointed out that perhaps Morgan isn’t quite the trans ally he thinks he is and that he sounded like “when white people point to the number of black friends they have” every time he tried to say how supportive he is of the LGBT community. It all went downhill when Ferguson had a chance to speak, which he somehow decided to use to shout things like “this is fake outrage,” “she was born a man,” and “doctors and science agree with me on this one!”

Morgan showing a fundamental misunderstanding of oppression dynamics.

Overall, it didn’t really seem like Morgan learned much or really realized what he did wrong. He ended this part of the show by saying that he has learned that “there’s a difference between sex and gender” which kind of totally misses the point. It still would have been offensive if he had spent half the initial interview saying “she was a male until she had surgery at the age of 18.” Morgan really seems to have some really fundamental misunderstandings about how oppression works. He seemed to think that trans people calling him transphobic is just as bad as the oppression that trans women of color face every day. He tried to make himself into the victim, and even though he invited Mock back on his show, he clearly didn’t want to listen to her or learn from this experience. It would have been nice to see a wealthy, white cis man with all the privilege in the world be quiet for a little while, listen to a trans woman of color and actually learn from his mistakes, but unfortunately, that’s not what happened tonight.

Also.Also.Also: Laverne Cox Needs Our Help and Other Stories We Missed This Week

Hello, Seahawks! I’m calling you that because you’re winners or something. I don’t really get how football works, but let’s take a peek at the stories we missed this week while I was trying to figure it out. (I didn’t.)

Pee Wherever The Fuck You Want, Y’all

Maine: The Bathroom Equality State.

The Maine Supreme Court has delivered a significant victory for transgender students. In its interpretation of the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA), the Court ruled that trans students have the right to use the bathroom with which they identify and cannot be forced to use a separate restroom.

The case involved a fifth grade student who had already been fully identifying as a girl for several years and was using the girls’ restroom at Regional School Unit 26. Another student’s guardian objected, and a media firestorm prompted the school to begin forcing her to use a solitary staff unisex restroom. Eventually, the student’s family had to remove her from the school and move to another part of the state so that she could go to school safely.

Though the decision was not unanimous because of one justice’s concerns about how the law was written, the court did unanimously agree that the student deserved equal access to the girls’ restroom.

Don’t F*ck With Panti

Don’t ever tell a drag queen that you know homophobia better than they do.

A video by Rory O’Neill – also known as drag queen Panti – on homophobia in Irish society has gone viral, with more than 100,000 views in less than two days… In the video, Panti fights back over the use of the word ‘homophobia’ which he says has been appropriated by other groups since The Saturday Night Show interview.

“For the last three weeks, I have been lectured to by heterosexual people about what homophobia is and who is allowed to identify it,” he told the audience. “People who have never experienced homophobia in their lives… have told me that unless I am being thrown into prison or herded onto a cattle truck then it is not homophobia – and that feels oppressive.”

Vanity Fair’s Best Cover Yet

Vanity Fair’s 20th annual Hollywood Issue has a three-panel gatefold cover, and unlike every other year in their history, a black person is on the actual cover of the issue this year rather than folded inside the magazine for second glimpses. OUT OF THE FOLD AND INTO THE STREETS, Y’ALL.

Jerry Seinfeld is The Least Funny or Aware Person on Earth

Jerry Seinfeld, the man who thinks his own life is funnier than anyone else’s, just doesn’t get why comedy needs to be diverse. I mean, don’t we all relate to him and his weird-ass life? ISN’T IT ENOUGH THAT HE GAVE US A SHITTY SITCOM LIKE TWENTY YEARS AGO?

In a recent sit-down with  BuzzFeed Brews with CBS This Morning, Seinfeld said it is “anti-comedy” to approach the genre like it’s “the census.” Seinfeld was asked why he featured so many white men in his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee and seemed to become irritated at the question.

“It really pisses me off,” he said. “People think [comedy] is the census or something, it’s gotta represent the actual pie chart of America. Who cares?”

 ”Funny is the world that I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested,” he said. “I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that.”

It Ain’t Easy Being Queer Anywhere

+ But it might be a little better in Latin America:

Latin America’s gay rights revolution has highlighted the ingenuity of gay activists and the leadership of politicians like Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In July 2010, she became a gay rights heroine when she signed Latin America’s first same-sex marriage law, over vigorous opposition from the archbishop of Buenos Aires (today Pope Francis). But the celebration of activists and politicians has overlooked another hero in this campaign: the region’s high courts. Their embrace of gay rights has been nothing short of audacious, especially in contrast to recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.

+ In Russia, 77% of LGBTQ people don’t trust the police – and the queer community is being overwhelmed by violence that no cop seems to care about. But Happy Olympics!

+ For queer folks coming to seek asylum from South Africa in America, safety isn’t always that easy to come by.

For The Marriage Crowd

+ Next up in the #MarriageEqualityWars: Wisconsin.

+ Gigi Chao doesn’t wanna marry a man – and since her dad doesn’t get it, she appealed to him in public. (He has since rescinded his dowry offer.)

A week after Hong Kong tycoon Cecil Chao doubled his 2012 offer of $64 million to any man who could marry his gay daughter, Gigi Chao has publicly rebuked him and urged her dad to accept her partner of nine years.

“There are plenty of good men, they are just not for me,” she wrote in an open letter published by two Hong Kong newspapers on Wednesday. “It would mean the world to me if you could just not be so terrified of [girlfriend Sean Eav], and treat her like a normal, dignified human being.”

+ DOMA being struck down didn’t just change one moment in history; it continues to change our history.

+ Blue Cross Blue Shield is really sorry to all the North Carolina homos who waited too long for family coverage health insurance.

+ In Oregon, gay marriage is one thing. But helping make gay weddings awesome? That’s another.

Free CeCe: The Documentary You Could Make Into A Thing

Just f*cking do it.

I began researching this story with Laverne Cox when I was the Series Producer of the public television show, In The Life. When In The Life ended, in December 2012, this project stayed with me. It seems each month there is a new headline of a bias crime against a transgender woman of color. I became committed to producing and directing this powerful, feature-length film that confronts transgender bias crime with both rigor and humanity. I wanted to hear the voices of victims who were all too often silenced by brutality; I wanted to produce a useful film that sensitizes the audience and amplifies the authentic voices and lives of trans people.

Acabeymia

Rutgers is offering a class on Beyonce. I have no words for this situation as it leaves me blindingly optimistic for our world.

Piers Morgan Misgenders Janet Mock on CNN, Insults Her on Twitter

Last night on CNN’s Piers Morgan Live, trans woman, author and advocate Janet Mock showed up to talk about her new memoir Redefining Realness. What should have been a great and informative appearance by one of the country’s leading trans activists instead turned into a long series of misgendering by the show’s host, followed by a twitter temper tantrum when Mock called out Piers Morgan for the way he dehumanized and sensationalized her on his show.

Janet Mock was not a boy until age 18

The show very quickly took an uncomfortable turn. Every time Piers Morgan prefaced the story, he talked about how Mock “was a boy until age 18” when she became a woman. When he actually started talking to her it was even worse. He introduced her by saying “Janet was born a boy and at the age of 18 she took an extraordinary step to become the woman she is today.” Okay, so right off the bat he’s misgendering her. Then, the first thing he says to her is, “this is the amazing thing about you- had I not known anything about your story, I would have had absolutely not a clue that you had ever been a boy, a male, which makes me absolutely believe you should always have been a woman.” This is not how you compliment trans women. He’s essentially saying, “you don’t look like all of those ugly, manly trans women, so I’m going to be nice to you.” If he had been talking to a trans woman who doesn’t pass as well as Ms. Mock, he seems to be implying that he wouldn’t believe that she was meant to be trans.

Morgan’s interview didn’t really get any better from there, as he used Mock’s birth name several times, said that she used to be a man multiple more times and even said that she “became a woman” only when she had “a transgender operation.” Again, had Morgan’s guest been a different trans woman, one who perhaps didn’t pass as well as Janet Mock, one who hadn’t yet had (or perhaps even never planned on having) “the surgery,” would he consider her to still be a man?

Piers, that’s not how being transgender works.

When she was growing up as a young trans woman, Janet Mock wasn’t a man, no matter how much or how little transitioning she had done. Having a surgery that’s just one step in some trans people’s journeys didn’t magically change her from being a man to being a woman. She already was one. Even the show’s graphics misgendered her, saying “Janet Mock: Was a boy until age 18.”

Mock started tweeting her reactions to the interview (which was filmed several days ago) from an event celebrating the release of her new book Redefining Realness. In her tweets, she called out Morgan for saying that she used to be a boy and reminded him that she was never a man and he needs to learn how to better talk about trans people. At the event were several other trans women, and Mock tweeted out a flawless picture of herself standing with actress and fellow trans advocate Laverne Cox, giving the perfect reaction faces to Morgan’s misgendering.

Morgan soon caught wind of Mock’s tweets and apparently reverted into an eight year old child who was just told that he has to eat his vegetables. Morgan’s childish, entitled and overly aggressive response started when several twitter users started calling him out on his lack of tact and understanding when it comes to treating trans women like human beings. Morgan immediately got defensive and again misgendered Mock. He then tweeted out, “A lot of very irate people accusing me of ‘transphobia’ because I devoted a third of my show to @JanetMock ‘s inspiring story. Weird.” Morgan continued by tweeting “…wish I’d never booked her.” Now that he knows that Janet Mock will call  him out when she is misgendered and dehumanized, he regrets giving a voice to her cause (the transgender one) that he claims to support so much.

Showing just how great of an ally he is, Morgan tweeted out, “As for all the enraged transgender supporters, look at how STUPID you’re being. I’m on your side, you dimwits.” Because there really is no better way to show how supportive you are of an oppressed community than to dismiss, belittle and insult them in public. Morgan seems to think that he did the transgender community the ultimate favor. He allowed one of us on his show and he expects us to be eternally grateful. Morgan put the cherry on top of his twitter tirade by actually threatening Janet Mock, saying “I’ll deal with you tomorrow night on air @janetmock – never been treated in such a disgraceful manner. Be proud.” This is what happens when rich, white, male “allies” get called out on their messed up behavior.

Did he learn nothing from Laverne Cox’s and Carmen Carrera’s recent appearance on Katie Couric’s show and the backlash that ensued when she failed to learn the proper guidelines for interviewing (or really just talking to) trans women? The guidelines aren’t even that difficult to follow, they pretty much boil down to a few things: don’t ask about a stranger’s genitals, don’t call a woman a man and don’t treat trans women as if we’re oddities in a sideshow. When he broke those rules, he was rightfully called out on it. However, instead of apologizing and admitting that he should have treated Mock better, he called Mock and her supporters “disgusting,” “shameful,” “pitiful” and “pathetic,” among a litany of other insults. Is it really that ridiculous and shameful to request to not be consistently misgendered and dehumanized? There’s a gifset going around tumblr right now showing a quote from Laverne Cox’s speech at the recent Creating Change conference. In it she says, “When a trans woman is called a man, that is an act of violence.” Trans activists like Cox and Toni D’Orsay have been saying this for years, but apparently people like Morgan haven’t been listening.

Morgan is perpetuating the idea that Janet Mock, and by extension other trans women, are men. He is insisting on othering her and focusing on his notions of what bodies should look like. These ideas are why trans women get beaten when they use women’s restrooms; why, when trans students are forced to go out of their way to use a separate bathroom ,we think it’s progress; and why trans women of color are murdered after the person flirting with them finds out they “used to be a man.” What might be worse is his reaction to the backlash. He seems to think that since Janet Mock didn’t immediately interrupt and correct him while she was on set, she has no right to stand up and demand to be treated with respect, and that she’s being completely disrespectful by doing so. Morgan added several more tweets this morning, saying again that Mock is “pretending” and “lying” and even challenging her to come back on his show to debate whether or not he was offensive. That’ s not how being offensive works. Mock clearly pointed out which direct quotes from Morgan’s show were offensive and transphobic, and still he is trying to make her seem like the irrational one. I’m not sure how Morgan thinks he can debate the objective fact that he repeatedly said that Mock was a man.

Trans women are already seen as aggressive and irrational, or even crazy, and when Morgan dismisses Mock in this way and claims that he’s never been treated so horribly by a guest, he is saying that those stereotypes are correct. He’s acting like he’s the victim here, and that a “mad black trans woman” is attacking him for no reason. He’s trying to completely discredit her, claiming that she was perfectly happy with the interview and only now “pretends she was mortally offended” and that she set out to “distort” the facts to “create a fake furore and sell books.” The only claims Mock has made were that Morgan said she “was a boy until 18” and “formerly a man,” and that she didn’t appreciate or agree with those statements. Morgan is participating in a very insidious form of transmisogyny, where trans women are first mistreated, then attempt to point out the oppression only to have their oppressors turn the tables on them. We’re told that we’re too sensitive and that a lot of the transphobia we point out is made up. I’m honestly getting tired of having to write about trans women being disrespected by “journalists” like this. I’m tired of trans women being treated as though we’re oddities who don’t even deserve basic human decency. I’m tired of trans women being told that we should be happy with the crumbs that we’re offered. Piers Morgan thinks that he did trans women a huge favor on Tuesday night, when in reality he slapped us in the face. Far too often trans women are told that we have no right to complain when those claiming to support us are actually harming us, and I’m extremely happy to see Janet Mock refuse to stand for it any more.

Be prepared to watch Janet Mock LIVE tonight at 9 EST when she shuts Piers Morgan down on his own show.

Looking fwd to a fruitful discussion. MT @piersmorgan: So @janetmock has agreed to come back on my show LIVE tonight. CNN 9pmET.

— Janet Mock (@janetmock) February 5, 2014

VIDEO: Laverne Cox Speaks On The Revolutionary Act Of Loving Trans Women At Creating Change 2014

Please excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor because I am just plowed over by the brilliance that was Laverne Cox giving the keynote address at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s 26th National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change.

Creating Change is happening right at this very moment! Maybe you’re there yourself. It is a big, queer, corporate conference sponsored by everything, from lube to oats to airplanes and the AARP. (The cool part about its bigness is that a bunch of radical queer people can come together and use all that super corporate money for radical things!) This year, 4,000 people from across the United States are gathered in Houston, Texas for the five-day festival of queer networking and “networking.” The themes of the 2014 conference are HIV/AIDS in communities of color, trans* rights, and the intersections of the gay rights movements with healthcare and immigration.

Cox’s presence at Creating Change is clearly setting the tone for the conference and for the direction of the movement. Samantha, a grad student at Emory University attending Creating Change, spoke to that: “I am at CC because Laverne Cox is here! It’s a banner year for transgender activism and …I’m thrilled that trans women of color are at the center of this conference instead of the periphery.”

via National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce

There’s a lot on the docket for Creating Change. Each day is packed with shorter workshops and daylong “institutes” to go more in-depth on issues ranging from economic justice to bi/pan/fluid organizing. Flipping through their 160-page catalogue, these would be my highlights:

• Crisis of Success: LGBTQ Momentum, Racial Regression and Our Collective Challenge by Rebecca Suldan, Rinku Sen, Tarson Luis Ramos and Caitlin Breedlove
• How Arizona “Flushed” Anti-Trans Legislation by C. Michael Woodward and Abigail (Abby) Jensen
• From Stonewall to Stop and Frisk: Police Violence, Government Misconduct, and the Criminalization of LGBTQ Communities by National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, Lambda Legal, Streetwise and Safe and BreakOUT!
• 69 Ways to Use Saran Wrap: Queering Your Campus Safe Sex Education by Zaneta Rago
• The Secret to Your Story is Vulnerability by Gabriel Garcia-Vera and Nicolas Rolda

If you’re there at Creating Change, I’m jealous. But thanks to technology, I tuned into the livestream of the opening plenary that kicked off the conference. After an hour of PSAs and introductions, Houston Mayor Annise Parker spoke, Kate Clinton told some bad jokes, and then finally, finally, Laverne Cox came on stage to give her keynote address.

The crowd exploded when Cox took the stage. She opened by speaking directly to what that felt like: “I have to say that a black transgender woman from a working class background raised by a single mother — that’s me — getting all this love tonight, this feels like the change I need to see more of in this country.” She used the stage to highlight the work of trans women activists across the United States, naming the power of love and resilience in resisting the violence that is constantly perpetrated against trans women, specifically trans women of color.

Laverne Cox with activists Janet Mock, Reina Gossett, Miss Major and Kokumo via SRLP

Cox pointed to trans activists Silvia Rivera, Miss Major, Monica Roberts, Kylar Broadus and Candis Cayne for the work they’ve done that paved the way for her. Cox named organizations serving trans* people like the Chicago House’s TransLife Project and Casa Ruby in Washington, DC, specifically noting their need for more money to do the work that they do.

“Trans women supporting and loving each other is a revolutionary act.”

She looked to CeCe McDonald. CeCe’s story shows the violence perpetrated against trans women of color by the criminal justice system. “That shit is fucked up,” Cox said, pulling no punches as she detailed the violent reality of the world that trans women of color have to live in.

Cox named the necessity of love in the struggle for justice for trans women of color, pointing again to CeCe, the Transgender Youth Support Network in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the work of grassroots activists there that did amazing work with few resources to make sure CeCe did not get lost in the criminal justice system.

“The way in which CeCe advocated for herself and the way in which her support committee advocated for her is a template for the way we do activism all over this country. It started with CeCe and it started with her having this profound sense of love for herself, that everyone around her felt. Everybody I talked to who has come in contact with CeCe talks about this woman who inspired them and who had so much hope and propelled them to have hope to and to fight on her behalf. Love for a black trans woman freed her and kept her safe on the inside. …I believe when we love someone, we respect them and we listen to them, and we feel like their voice matters… We let them dictate the terms of who they are and what their story is.”

CeCe McDonald and Laverne Cox via GLAAD

What was truly incredible about watching Cox speak is that she didn’t just talk about the revolution — she made her speech a revolutionary act in itself. Even a year ago, it seemed unlikely that a black trans woman could have that kind of platform, speaking to the public of the LGBTQ community as an actor who already has recognition in the mainstream community at-large. Cox named how much has changed, how much trans women have been at the center of that change, and also how much still needs to be done. “Trans women supporting and loving each other is a revolutionary act,” she said. Referring to the responses to her and Carmen Carrera’s interview with Katie Couric, she said, “We are changing the conversation right now.” And you know she was including Mey’s response.

Throughout her speech, Cox was interrupted by applause over thirty times. “It really is a big deal to have this kind of support,” she said. She talked about having lived most of her life being chased by people who were trying to beat her up, and struggling with self-hatred.

“I’ve always been like, ‘Love myself? How the heck am I supposed to do that?’ …I believe, now, I’m starting to understand a little bit of what it means. I don’t internalize all the negative things and negative stereotypes that people have of trans women of color. I don’t do that number on myself anymore… I am starting to believe that in the deepest core of myself that I am beautiful, I am smart, I am amazing.”

Cox brought a clear call to action for the audience at Creating Change: support trans women, and make their voices the ones which define the struggle. She used her platform to breathe life into the room and the movement, speaking to the realities of the lives trans women of color live today, reminding all queer people that we cannot be complacent, that there is always more work to be done in the struggle for justice for trans* people, and that that work must be done from a place of love.

Take some time to listen to Cox’s speech for yourself. You can tune into other Creating Change plenaries online at the Gay and Lesbian Task Force Livestream.

feature image via National Conference on LGBT Equality: Creating Change facebook

State of the Struggle: First Come LGBT Legal Protections, Then Comes Marriage

MAP (or the Movement Advancement Project) released its biannual Moment Report today, documenting and analyzing the American LGBT movement’s success across political, legal, and social realms for the past two years. And though there is no denying that 2012 and 2013 were two years of relative elation for queer folks — be it from increased national attention to hate crimes and anti-LGBT bullying, ENDA breaking through the Senate for the first time in decades, marriage equality’s expansion from six to 17 states, or a historic level of LGBT visibility in media and the public sphere — they did not, in a broader sense, deliver us from evil.

MAP rates only 20 states and the District of Columbia as having high levels of equality for LGBT people as of right now, leaving two with a rating of medium and 28 wearing dunce caps. According to the report, the last two years have driven “a media narrative and public perception that LGBT advocates have succeeded…but for an LGBT person living in Alabama, nothing could be further from the truth.”

“This report highlights a reality that LGBT Americans in Idaho know only too well,” says Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU of Idaho. “While we have had some success in passing municipal nondiscrimination protections, we need to continue to build critical local-level support. We receive weekly calls from LGBT residents who have been unfairly fired, denied housing, or who want to adopt the children they are raising with their partner – and there is usually very little we can do.”

From the Executive Summary:

Unprecedented progress on marriage has led to a widespread impression that nationwide equality for LGBT people is imminent. A closer look at the full range of LGBT rights at all levels of American society, however, reveals a different picture. While the past two years have shown incredible gains toward securing the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, the LGBT movement still has a long way to go to achieve full equality and broad acceptance for LGBT people across the nation.

Let’s take a peek at the state of the struggle, issue-by-issue.

Marriage Equality & Queer Family Units

Houston, we have a winner! It’s been a record two years for marriage equality, and it’s outpaced pretty much every other movement for LGBT rights. For queer folks in binational relationships, DOMA being struck down led to a widespread improvement in the opportunities for reuniting with their loved ones from afar through direct sponsorship; for same-sex couples in recognized marriages based in the US, it meant a whole lot of tax law improvements and a bunch of other legal mumbo-jumbo that doesn’t actually sway people to support common sense legislation on the matter.

But although most people associate widespread growth in the gay marriage department for a soon-to-come tide of LGBT rights, it’s actually more true that that concept works in reverse. “If you look at the 17 states that extend the freedom to marry,” said Ineke Mushovic, executive director of MAP, “marriage was the culmination of a years-long journey that first included passing employment nondiscrimination protections, hate crime laws, safe schools legislation, and more. Yet over half of states either haven’t begun or are just in the beginning phases of this journey.”

In other words: first come legal protections, then comes marriage, then come babies in various carriages. But in states where gay marriage is nought, neither are other commonly-sought legislative steps toward LGBT equality. That means a lot for the LGBT rights movement, which has invested tons of money, time, and effort into marriage equality and a lot less into protection and nondiscrimination efforts or a broader queer movement.

For same-sex couples who are shacked up with children, progress has come at a much slower rate. Although a majority of Americans support LGBT adoption, under 30 states allow same-sex couples to adopt or allow same-sex parents to become legally bound to their partner’s children.

The Every Child Deserves A Family Act, introduced last year in both chambers of Congress, prohibits public child welfare agencies from discriminating against potential parents based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status, but nobody cares enough to put it up to a vote or talk about it, apparently. That means the only gains same-sex couples and queer individuals made in the realm of adoption and familial structuring were four marriage victories in California, Minnesota, Maryland, and Colorado which also extended the ability for a joint petition for adoption for married couples.

Employment Discrimination

Being gay at work has remained a hot-button issue over the past two years, but not much progress was made in the end. A decades-old effort to get ENDA through the Senate panned out, but the odds of getting anything done in John Boehner’s house are about as high as the odds of John Boehner understanding American government. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled in favor of broader standards to report workplace discrimination on the basis of sex in 2012, but to date no courts have applied their decision in court.

Most gains were made on the state or local level: Delaware took huge strides toward protecting trans* folks with an updated nondiscrimination law, and so did many cities and counties across the country. A majority of Fortune 500 companies, top federal contractors, and small businesses also took independent steps to protect workers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity at work. The problem with smaller gains, however, is a smaller impact: until every LGBT person is able to be out and honest at work, we are all living in a fundamentally unequal society – and LGBT people will continue to struggle to support themselves and their families and experience poverty.

“This is about basic human dignity,” said Elyzabeth Holford, executive director of Equality Ohio. “Many of our volunteers tell us they live in constant fear of being fired. They just want the opportunity to do their jobs and provide for their families. Mentioning or being seen with their families means they risk being fired. We know most Ohioan businesses and managers believe in treating people fairly, but when that good judgment breaks down, LGBT workers need basic protections under the law.”

Safe Schools and Hate Crimes

The past two years brought about unprecedented national dialogue about the safety of LGBT folks: a slew of suicides in 2010 and research in 2011 shifted discourse on queer youth toward bullying and its consequences, and a VAWA debate in 2013 led to LGBT inclusion in the landmark legislation which will live forever. (Do you hear me, Congress? Forever. Don’t fuck with me like that ever again.) Unfortunately, beyond speculation and sensationalism, not much occurred on the protecting queers front for the last two years.

MAP described state-level advances toward safe schools “slow” in 2012/13, with only Massachussetts and California taking steps to eliminate bullying, intolerance, and violence in schools. There remains no federal law aimed at reducing bullying, despite lip service from President Obama and stalled legislation in Congress. (I hope you’re noticing a pattern here with the legislation. John Boehner.) Some efforts at ending bullying have even ended up hurting vulnerable populations in their implementation, including “zero tolerance” policies which feed the school-to-prison pipeline and disproportionately impact queer people of color.

Hate crime legislation has been growing steadily since 2009, when the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act expanded the Justice Department’s role in investigating bias crimes. As of the close of 2013, Delaware and Nevada had come to join 28 states and the District of Columbia in protecting LGB people from hate crimes; only 15 states and DC offer the same legislative protection for victims of hate crimes who are targeted for their gender expression.

Despite a lack of formal or legislative efforts to curb bullying, GLSEN’s 2012 National School Climate Survey found that all of the talking did result in decreased levels of biased language and victimization, with an increase in LGBT services. Hate crimes, however, remain a serious problem: 20% reported to the FBI in 2012 had to do with sexual orientation, and their hate crime statistics don’t even include gender identity or expression -related crimes.

LGBT Health

Although LGBT people continue to face disparities in care, we’re feelin’ a lot better these days. Expanded access to spousal benefits in a post-DOMA world, the launch of the Affordable Care Act, and increased access to leave benefits by same-sex couples in a country more abundant in marriage equality have left queers better able to care for themselves and their families. In 2013, Connecticut became one of five states that now require health insurance companies to cover transition-related care; in 2012 and 2013 California and New Jersey released all minors from the terrors of anti-gay therapy.

Identity Documents

When the Social Security Administration changed its policy in 2013 to allow trans* folks to request gender-marker changes on their card with more ease, they were causing a huge ripple effect. Gender confirmation surgery had previously been required by the Obama administration, which obviously limited access to accurate identity documents for transgender folks lacking in the resources or desire to pursue it. Only two states explicitly advanced progress in this arena over the last two years, but they’re now part of a majority: 28 states and DC offer new birth certificates after sex reassignment, leaving 19 who amend in the dust and three who refuse to do either in right field.

Being Visible

We’re out, damn it. WE’RE OUT AND WE’RE PROUD! Record numbers of LGBT people are now out in public life, on television screens, in movies, in the military, in sports, and even in space. We’re even out in the Boy Scouts (sometimes), out in the morning, and out in Gallup polls at higher rates than our foremothers, forefathers, and forefriends. And if you ask me, that’s something to mothafuckin’ celebrate. After all, increased visibility ultimately means that we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re most definitely never getting tired of it. 

No matter how hard it still is.

WATCH: Fallon Fox, Kye Allums & More Discuss Trans Equality In Sports, Media and Eduction

Uprising of Love and It Gets Better just held a live Google hangout on transgender equality in sports, the media and schools. The chat included transgender advocates including Kye Allums, the first openly transgender athlete in NCAA division 1 sports, trans woman MMA fighter Fallon Fox, and Kylar Broadus, founder of the Trans People of Color Coalition.

All these smart people took questions from the public about trans activism, transmisogyny, racism against trans people of color, and more.

Uprising of Love is an organization designed to strengthen ties between LGBTI people in Russia and LGBTI people and allies around the world. This video is part of the Uprising of Love Hangout Series, which leads up to the Winter Olympics in February.

#ProTransProChoice: Launching A New Reproductive Rights Movement

Three young activists have come together to usher in a new reproductive rights movement – one that reflects the experiences of trans* folks.

Beck Martens, Alice Wilder, and Calliope Wong launched a petition on Change.org today asking that NARAL and Planned Parenthood produce more trans*-inclusive campaigns, using the eons-old mantra of “Trust Women” and 2013’s #StandWithTexasWomen showdown to highlight how the reproductive rights movement has previously excluded the trans* community. Their letter encourages the two organizations to take the lead on making a real commitment to trans* inclusivity in their work, thus influencing a huge arm of the reproductive rights movement:

By becoming trans* inclusive – and by demonstrating this through campaigns, educational literature, and in services provided – NARAL and Planned Parenthood will prove their commitment to trans* folks’ health and wellness. By using inclusive language they will make the trans* community more visible and therefore creating a safer environment for trans* and GNC [gender non-conforming] people. NARAL and Planned Parenthood have raised awareness and taken part in activism on behalf of trans* and GNC folks in the past, but it’s time for them to fully commit to being allies to the trans* community.

We know that NARAL and Planned Parenthood are #ProTransProChoice; we just want them to show it.

Wilder came away with the petition idea after a Trans* Day of Remembrance event in Durham, North Carolina, which she attended with some friends who work at NARAL. “My whole day I was marinating on all of the violence,” Wilder explained to me in an interview. She later reflected with her friends about how their own work needed to do better by trans* folks, and she approached Martens and Wong to make it happen. “I came to Beck with this idea, because they’re one of my oldest feminist friends – we went to high school together and got into feminism around the same time and they felt like a natural partner. Then I asked Calliope, who is in SPARK with me, if she would be interested, because Calliope is a fuckin’ rockstar and I love her.” 

Martens, who identifies as genderqueer, and Wong, a trans woman, have a lot at stake in this ask – their own stories. “I’ve been behind this movement with my cisgender sisters since I was sixteen,” Martens told me, “and it’s time for these organizations to recognize that the trans* community is affected by reproductive and sexual health injustices just as cisgender individuals are.” Wong echoed the sentiment: “The modern notion of sexual and reproductive rights has evolved far beyond the limited notion of pregnancy in cisgender women,” she said. “Trans women… have unique health needs – from STI and anatomically-specific cancer screenings to contraceptive education that is gender-affirming – and their health concerns must be addressed in culturally competent ways. Similarly, trans men and gender-nonconforming individuals who have the capability to reproduce must have access to modern reproductive health care services that respect their gender identity.”

“Also,” Wilder added, “I think that this will piss off Cathy Brennan and in my honest opinion making her mad means you’re doing the right things.”

All three activists behind the petition have been working within the reproductive rights movement for years, and know from their experiences that NARAL and Planned Parenthood could play a huge role in creating a more trans*-inclusive future for it. “2013 was such a difficult year for reproductive rights,” Wilder said, “but it was also very energizing. We had so many incredible inspiring moments. Wendy Davis, obviously, but then my favorite moment was Planned Parenthood and NARAL organizing, like, 600 people overnight in North Carolina. If we can bring 600 people to Raleigh in the space of six or seven hours, we can do this! There’s been a lot of innovation in the pro-choice movement, and this seems like the natural next step.”

“Reproductive rights have evolved far beyond the limited notion of ‘women’s health,'” Wong said. “My understanding has always been that modern pro-choice organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL pride themselves on a culture of fair service and equitable representation amongst the diverse population of people they serve. My work with Alice and Beck is asking for these organizations to show their commitment to trans* individuals’ sexual and reproductive health.”

Wilder added that “Planned Parenthood and NARAL are popular with a lot of folks who might be feminist and/or pro-choice but aren’t in contact with trans* folks or don’t know much about trans* folks… [they] can reach those people and help send the message that being pro-trans* is a core part of the movement, not a second priority.”

“I’ve seen first-hand the great work that Planned Parenthood and NARAL do,” Martens told me. “By using more trans*-inclusive language, not only are NARAL and Planned Parenthood giving representation to the trans* folks that acquire these services, but they are creating visibility for a community that has been in the shadows for far too long.”

UPDATE, 10:47AM EST: Planned Parenthood responded to the #ProTransProChoice hashtag on Twitter this morning.

https://twitter.com/PPact/status/427824462269255680

@ShelbyKnox And we are 100% #protransprochoice. We hear you, Beck, & all activists for trans* inclusion in the repro justice movement. (9)

— Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) January 27, 2014

https://twitter.com/PPact/status/427828583894368256

@rbraceysherman We hear these concerns and are very conscious of the fact that attacks we're seeing do not only impact cis-women.

— Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) January 27, 2014

@rbraceysherman We believe the fight for every person's rights & access to health care must be inclusive. We hear you. #protransprochoice

— Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) January 27, 2014

@rbraceysherman We'll have more, but in the mean time here's some more info on care PP provides. http://t.co/L7oDgioWAE #protransprochoice

— Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) January 27, 2014

UPDATE, 11:56AM EST: NARAL also responded to Twitter users this morning.

https://twitter.com/NARAL/status/427845109594730496

@SocialWorkersRJ Agreed. We stand by everyone, trans* & cis, in the fight for #reprorights for all people. #protransprochoice

— Reproductive Freedom for All (@reproforall) January 27, 2014

This Media Campaign Is As Awesome As Trans-Exclusionary Medicaid Regulations Are Terrible

The mainstream media does a piss poor job reporting about trans issues and people. Grantland proved that last week with the Dr. V tragedy. Katie Couric proved it last month when she asked Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera about their genitals. Newspapers and TV stations around the country proved it thoroughly last year in their coverage of Chelsea Manning coming out as transgender.

With the advent of the internet and all its related whatnots, it’s gotten easier for queer and trans people to make our own media that represents our values, goals and selves. We prove that every day here on Autostraddle. If you’re in the Northeast, you might have seen this awesome video:

It’s part of a media and activism campaign by the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, GLAAD, and TransJustice, a program of the Audre Lorde Project. The groups are demanding that New York repeal a law prohibiting state Medicaid recipients from receiving coverage for care related to transition, including hormones, supplies and surgery.

I hope in a couple generations, kids look at us like we are insane when we tell them about the current state of health care in this country (“But gramma, what do you mean there were children who couldn’t go to the doctor when they got sick?” is a question I want to have to answer). For trans people, especially trans women of color, the picture is particularly dire, since so often their care is deliberately excluded from insurance plans. In 2010, 19 percent of trans people reported having no health insurance at all, compared to 15 percent of the general population. According to the Injustice at Every Turn report, almost half of trans people report delaying needed health care because they can’t pay. Trans people have higher rates of HIV infection, smoking, drug and alcohol use, and suicide attempts than the general population. Of respondents, 19 percent reported being refused medical care because they were trans; the rate was higher among trans people of color.

Only five states, most recently Connecticut, require health insurance providers to cover transition care even though the American Medical Association recommends “public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder as recommended by the patient’s physician.” (Sidenote: GLAAD advises that the term “gender identity disorder” is “a controversial DSM-IV diagnosis” and “because it labels people as ‘disordered’… is considered offensive.”)

TransJustice is a community organization with a membership of primarily middle-aged and older trans women of color, most of whom are receiving some kind of public benefits, Elliott Fukui, the coordinator of TransJustice said. When the state passed the regulation banning state Medicaid from covering transition related services in 1998 after pressure from the public, it was a huge blow to the community. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project has been working to expand access to health care for trans people since it began in 2002. TransJustice and GLAAD teamed up with the organization for the campaign that launched in November.

Public opinion and public policy are currently shifting to be more inclusive of trans people, said Elana Redfield, a staff attorney at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. So the time is ripe for this kind of action.

“The [Governor Andrew] Cuomo administration has put out a lot of messaging that it wants to improve Medicaid even as it streamlines it and makes it more efficient,” Redfield said. “Even though they have more or less recoiled from the hot potato of trans health care, we think its possible to hold them to their word.”

Failure to cover trans care has no economic basis — cities and states that cover transition-related medicine, surgery and supplies report no or marginal increases to state costs. According to the Human Rights Campaign, “When the City and County of San Francisco made its employee insurance plans transgender-inclusive in 2001, it set up an additional per-employee per-month surcharge to offset the expected additional expenditures. By 2006, it had only spent $386,417 of the $5.6 million it had collected from this surcharge. It ended the surcharge completely.”

In fact, lack of care can be more expensive because patients who can’t receive care for their treatment through safe channels may turn to buying hormones off the street or get surgeries from unlicensed practitioners and then develop serious medical problems, according to Fukui. It’s politics, not economics or medical concerns, that drive the refusal to cover health care for trans and gender nonconforming people, he said.

“New York draws a lot of LGBT people, and people think that if they get here they’ll have access to the things they need,” Fukui said. “We have a very large trans population here, and folks are coming here and realizing that the things that happen everywhere are happening here and it’s not quite a liberal gay utopia they were hoping for.”

That’s why media campaigns like the one by this coalition are so critical. Many people have no idea of how broad and devastating the effects of policies like the one in New York can be, nor do they know what “trans health care” entails.

“We want people to know that trans-inclusive healthcare isn’t “special” healthcare,” said Dani Heffernan, GLAAD’s media strategist. “It’s the same healthcare that people who aren’t trans have access to when they need it, but it’s specifically denied to trans people under many health insurance policies, including New York State Medicaid.”

For example, menopausal women can receive coverage for estrogen treatment through Medicaid, but trans women are not eligible for coverage for the exact same treatment.

The media campaign focuses on simple data and ideas, incorporates the stories of people with a stake in the issue, and is visually compelling. The talking points are easy to share and make sense as audio, video and print materials.

Via Sylvia Rivera Law Project

The campaign has also included direct activism, like a banner drop at a December rally where New York State Health Commissioner Nirav Shah spoke and a change.org petition. The New York Department of State Health Services did not return multiple requests for comment on the campaign or the rule.

Visibility for trans issues has boomed in the last three years, Fukui said, and media campaigns like this one are an important part of that change. But direct community action is still at the core of organizations like TransJustice, he added. The community drives the goals, and face to face interaction is necessary to stay grounded in the diverse and complex realities trans people experience.

“We recognize that as much as this is a gender thing, it’s also a racialized thing and a class thing. We also need to be mindful of how this will impact folks who are undocumented, folks who are in prisons and jails, folks who are in psych wards, and that those folks who are most marginalized are often the ones we don’t get to see,” Fukui said. Although this campaign is centered on New York, “We’re pushing for policy change, and we know these are issues across the board – there should be healthcare for everyone and we don’t have that in this country.”

Campaigns like this one make an impact on multiple levels. It elevates the voices of marginalized people, which empowers communities. It educates viewers on the topic at hand. And, it gives mainstream reporters tools to use when they report on the topic. Hopefully one day we won’t need YouTube videos that explain that trans people are human beings who need healthcare just like everyone else.

New York Can Pass Same-Sex Marriage But Not Trans* Protections: How GENDA Died

A few months ago, a bill supporting the rights of transgender and other gender nonconforming people failed to come up for a vote in the New York State Senate. It died quietly years after Republicans and Democrats came together to vote in support of same sex marriage. Like most failed legislative efforts, there usually isn’t one clear-cut reason for its downfall. A myriad of forces were working against the bill: a coterie of Democrats aligned with Republicans, a lack of unity in the advocacy community and a wider political problem in how elected leaders perceive Americans’ opinions of transgender people.

image via Paul Buckowski, Times Union

Let’s start with the obvious: The bill wasn’t prioritized as same sex marriage efforts were, which is not a story only familiar to New York, but the whole country. Same sex marriage has been the central focus of major LGBT rights organizations for years, to the consternation of many LGBT rights activists, who believe issues that impact impoverished people, and/or people of color, have been neglected. After DOMA, one would think this would be the best time for activists to shine a light on other issues, such as hate crimes against LGBT people.

But that hasn’t proven to be the case, at least in New York.

Activists have differed in their approach to pushing the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act. The Empire State Pride Agenda released a radio ad that never used the word “transgender.” The segment started with a voice informing a transgender or gender nonconforming person that they would be evicted from their home. Then it begins:

“In a tough economy, New Yorkers hear bad news every day, but in New York State, you can be evicted from your home or even fired from your job just for being yourself. That’s right, even in 2013, it’s still legal to discriminate against New Yorkers because of their gender identity or expression. Sixteen other states already outlaw discrimination against Americans because of their gender expression or identity. And local governments, including Buffalo and Suffolk County, have fixed this injustice, but New York State has yet to act. To protect the rights of all New Yorkers, Albany must pass the (GENDA). New York has always been a beacon of civil rights and equality. It’s time to protect the civil rights of all New Yorkers. Tell Albany to pass the (GENDA).”

The radio ad was part of a $250,000 campaign by ESPA according to Jimmy Vielkind’s reporting in The Times Union, compared to the $1 million organizers said they would spend on lobbying for same sex marriage, according to Gannett’s Albany Bureau Chief, Joseph Spector. When I asked ESPA how much had been spent on the campaign overall, ESPA would not divulge the money spent in lobbying and advertising for either the GENDA campaign or lobbying for same sex marriage legislation, saying that the GENDA campaign is ongoing.

A video that is basically the same as the radio advertisement showed on local television stations as well, showing a map of the United States, and captions, but never mentioned the word “transgender” or showed any photos of actual transgender people or gender nonconforming people. Contrast that advertisement with an ESPA advertisement run in 2009 campaigning for same sex marriage rights, named “Barb & Don,” in which an older couple talks about their daughter’s wife and children. It is a heartbreaking ad because you see the people ESPA is fighting for. Photo after photo is shown of Amy and her wife and daughter. Both television ads lasted 30 seconds.

ESPA also chose to create a video portraying a trans woman and World War II veteran, Joanne. The video has been shown on ESPA’s social channels and at festivals. But it may have been easier for people to identify with Joanne than with than the clinical, less personal approach taken in the television ad: All of these other states are doing this. New York should too.

Ryan Sallans, a trans man who speaks as an activist on transgender issues, said there is hesitancy from leaders in major LGBT advocacy organizations to use the word “transgender,” pointing out that, historically, trans issues are pushed out of LGBT groups’ legislative agendas.

“The protections aren’t just protecting transgender people… It’s broader than that. It protects other gender non-traditional people, but looking at the statistics it’s mostly transgender people affected,” Sallans said.

“A lot of the time, people think, ‘Bring too much attention to the word and people will look away. Sometimes they drop gender ID from it [nondiscrimination bills] entirely.’ There are multiple factors—It has to do with money, education and transphobia within the LGBT community,” Sallans said.

Although 90% of Fortune 500 companies have policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, only 57% have policies prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity. That is a majority but the difference between the number of companies with policies on sexual identity and sexual orientation is striking, and gives more weight to the importance of GENDA and the national ENDA legislation.

There has also been disagreement between ESPA and Human Rights Campaign as to how divided Democrats were on the bill, with ESPA stating Democrats were mostly unified.

“Democrats were actually overwhelmingly in agreement with passing GENDA, as are 78 percent of voters in New York State on both sides of the aisle…We believe strongly that GENDA is not a question of why, but rather when,” Nathan M. Schaefer, Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director, said in a statement.

Fred Sainz, spokesman for HRC, released this statement, however:

“Despite passing the State Assembly easily, GENDA was not brought up for a vote by the State Senate due to political division between Democrats and the Independent Democratic Caucus (IDC), a small group of Democrats who have allied themselves with the Republicans in order to maintain control over the Senate. The Governor supports the bill but did not make GENDA part of his official legislative agenda.”

Melissa Sklarz, a longtime transgender activist and president of the Stonewall Democrats of New York City, who lobbied on behalf of the Human Rights Campaign, said the effort wasn’t as unified as it could be and lacked some of the necessary manpower. She also argues this kind of legislation had to take place in a nonelection year.

“I wish that the transgender community was more engaged in this. But we go to war with the people and the weapons we have… In nonelection years it’s easier. We will keep doing what we’ve been doing in an election year, but it’s difficult for a bill covering 300,000 New Yorkers in a state of 12 million people,” Sklarz said.

Skarlz said she, along with other lobbyists, would come to Albany every Tuesday to meet with legislators, especially those legislators who live in districts where fights against gender discrimination have already succeeded in those districts’ cities. Many of the Senators from those districts are Republicans, however, and only one of them, Mike Grisanti from Buffalo, voted for same sex marriage. Thomas F. O’Mara and Joseph Robach voted against and Thomas Libous co-sponsored legislation to render same sex marriage void.

I contacted members of the Independent Democratic Caucus, David Valesky, Diane Savino and Jeffrey Klein, for comment, but none of them responded within my deadline.

Sallans said that one of the most significant issues preventing the kind of engagement that is necessary for legislative victories from happening is the lack of transgender people in those organizations’ leadership.

“We need to focus on bringing our community together. When you have two different oppressed groups, often one oppressed group pushes down another so at least they’re further up the totem pole,” Sallans said. “[On finding transgender leaders] It would require the organization to show they’re trying to attract trans supporters and it would take recruiting within that community, to find qualified transgender people, because there are certainly enough qualified people.”

Lisa Mottet, the Transgender Civil Rights Project Director at National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said it is a national embarrassment for New Yorkers, and especially for the governor, that he did not put his full weight behind the legislation.

“New Yorkers should be embarrassed. The governor should be embarrassed. The Independent Democratic Caucus should be embarrassed,” Mottet said. “Iowa, Colorado, and other states have taken this issue on and New York has ceded leadership,” adding that other governors, such as Maryland Governor, Martin O’Malley, have loudly championed the cause.

Mottet pointed to polls showing that Americans largely support legislation offering transgender people protection against discrimination in housing and at work.

“If people are worried about this legislation, they don’t understand the political dynamics in this country,” Mottet said.

Taking a national look, a poll commissioned by the admittedly left-leaning Center for American Progress found that 73 percent of voters supported protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination.

A poll of 600 New York voters by Global Strategy Group found that 78 percent supported its passage. Seventy-nine percent of New York City residents, 82 percent of downstate suburban voters and 74 percent of Upstate New York voters supported it. Even 67 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Independents polled supported the bill.