Tag: discrimination

For many transgender people the hardest thing is maintaining or finding employment.

Today I focus on three cases.

Personally i transitioned as a tenured college mathematics professor at the University of Central Arkansas.  So while I feared the university might seek to fire me, I definitely had more leverage than most people.

In fact, when I was approached the Chair of my Department, who sought to bait me into violating my contract, I told him,

The University cannot hire me based on my gender, nor can it fire me based on my gender, so my gender is no business of yours.

So on to the case studies, in New York City, Oregon, and Florida.

Among the of current links of interest are Suggested Links between discrimination and suicide attempts by transgender people, which delves into a Williams Institute study from much earlier in the year and the Movement Advancement Project’s A Broken Bargain for Transgender Workers, which was published about a year ago.

These were woven together in the story of the recent suicide of Kate Von Roeder

One of the most commonly voiced perceptions about transgender people is that because we are transgender we are of necessity also mentally deficient.

This is not a new belief.

When an individual fails to mature according to his (or her) proper biological and sexological status, such an individual is psychologically (mentall deficient).  The psychological condition is in reality the disease.

When an individual who is unfavorably affected psychologically determines to live and appear as a member of the sex to which he or she does not belong, such an individual is what may be called a psychopathic transexual.

–David O. Caldwell, Psychopathis Transexualis, Sexology: Sex Science Magazine vol. 16 (1949)

Petticoat Fair is a well-known Austin lingerie shop specializing in “custom filling of women’s intimate apparel since 1964.”

Kylie Jack is a transwoman who went to that store for a bra fitting recently.  Last weekend she posted to her Facebook account:

Hello Austinites:  today I went for a bra fitting at Petticoat Fair, where an employee humiliated me by asking for ID stating I was female and saying I needed bottom surgery in order to get a fitting.  If you are in solidarity with trans women, please boycott Petticoat Fair until they remove their transphobic and cissexist policies.  Please feel free to share this post.

A store employee first asked Jack to see her ID in order to prove that she was legally female.  That was followed up by a statement that she would have to have had bottom surgery in order to be served by a fitter.

None of that seems to make much sense. Trans women may or may not choose to undergo surgery for any number of reasons, which are their own, and genital surgery is irrelevant to bra-fitting anyway. I’ve been wearing bras since I was 12, and I’m fairly certain that bras and vaginas have nothing to do with each other.

—Elizabeth Licata, The Gloss

On my last day of actual teaching (only Finals Week to go before my retirement), I am proud to announce a major breakthrough in the rights of transgender and other gender-variant people on the federal level.

On Tuesday the Department of Educations Office of Civil Rights issued a letter barring all schools which receive Title IX funds from the Federal government from discriminating against gender-nonconforming students, entitled Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence.

Title IX’s sex discrimination prohibition extends to claims of discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity and OCR accepts such complaints for investigation.  Similarly, the actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity of the parties does not change a school’s obligations.  Indeed, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth report high rates of sexual harassment and sexual violence.  A school should investigate and resolve allegations of sexual violence regarding LGBT students using the same procedures and standards that it uses in all complaints involving sexual violence.  The fact that incidents of sexual violence may be accompanied by anti-gay comments or be partly based on a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation does not relieve a school of its obligation under Title IX to investigate and remedy those instances of sexual violence.

If a school’s policies related to sexual violence include examples of particular types of conduct that violate the school’s prohibition on sexual violence, the school should consider including examples of same-sex conduct.  In addition, a school should ensure that staff are capable of providing culturally competent counseling to all complainants.

Naya Taylor found out that her primary care physician, Aja Lystila, considered her to be less than human.  When Taylor requested the start of hormone therapy in order to treat her gender dysphoria, Lystilla first claimed that she was not experienced enough to supervise the hormone therapy of  transgender person.  But the clinic in which Lystilla works provides hormone therapy to non-transgender patients every day.

Later the truth of the matter came out, when clinic staff told Taylor,

We don’t have to treat people like you.

When they said, ‘we don’t have to treat people like you,’ I felt like the smallest, most insignificant person in the world.  The doctor and office provide hormone replacement therapy for others at the same clinic, they just refused to do that for me.

-Naya Taylor

The Affordable Care Act is partially a civil rights law in that it prohibits health care providers that receive federal funds from discriminating against any individual on the basis of sex for the purpose of health care.

Taylor is being represented by Lambda Legal in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday charging Dr. Lystila and the Carle health care services group which operates the clinic with denying medical care.  Lambda Legal claims that discrimination based on sex extends to discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity, as per Title IX.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire is perhaps going to be the ignition point for transgender rights in New Hampshire.  The state is the only New England state which has not passed protections for transgender people.  

New Hampshire is one of four states which has protections for people on the basis of sexual orientation, but not on the basis of gender identity or expression.  The others are New York, Wisconsin and Maryland.  I reported on efforts to change that status in Maryland in January.

I want to make sure the ‘City of the Open Door’ has a welcome mat for all residents and visitors.  There’s nothing more important than the way we treat one another.

Portsmouth Assistant Mayor Jim Splaine

Splaine and transgender advocates spoke Wednesday to the editorial board of the Seacoast Media Group.

Robina Asti is 92 years old and has been recognized by the government as a woman for over 30 years.  She transitioned in 1976.  She is a commercial pilot and the FAA has recognized her as a woman ever since they awarded her a license.  She has made a living teaching people how to fly airplanes.  The government issued her a passport designating her to be a woman.  Her Social Security account labels her a woman.

Robina is a WWII veteran, having served as a Navy pilot.  She is currently locked in a battle with the Social Security Administration…which she is losing.

In 2004 Robina married Norwood Patton in Hanger A of Orange County Airport in New York.  Norwood new she was a transsexual woman, but he didn’t care.  Oh, he was upset at first, but he got over it in a week.  He asked her to get married every month for a lot of years.

Norwood died in 2012 at the age of 97.  So Robina asked the Social Security Administration for survivors benefits.  After almost a year of review, she was denied.  

The reason?

[H]er marriage does not meet the requirements under Federal law for payment of Social Security widow’s benefits.  

At the time of your marriage, you were not legally a woman.