Tag: transgender

On Tuesday Maryland state Senator Rich Madaleno (D-Montgomery County) introduced  another bill that would outlaw discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodation against individuals on the basis of their gender identity.

A similar bill last year died in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee by a vote of 6-5 in March.  Proponents of the bill feel optimistic this year, citing cultural progress and the endorsement of some key political figures.

I am very hopeful.  Given the way our culture has changed in a progressive direction in Maryland and given the support we now have from the Senate and House leadership we will get the votes in the Judicial Proceedings Committee to move the bill.

–Dana Beyers, executive director of Gender Rights Maryland

On December 9, 2013 the Center for Disease Control released a report entitled HIV Among Transgender People.

Two days ago Leela Ginelle, communications and development intern for TransActive Education and Advocacy wrote an Op-Ed at the Advocate:  Why the CDC’s Latest HIV Report Is So Alarming.

The CDC report says an estimated 27% of transgender women are HIV positive, which is nearly 50 times as high as the rate for other adults.  A New York City study found that more than 90% of newly diagnosed transwomen are African-American or Latina, and more than half are in their 20s.

Ginelle asks the question, “Why?”

There has been plenty of fascination with the new pope’s statement, “Who am I to judge?” when asked about his views of gay and lesbian people.  

But there has been no change in church doctrine.  As Parker Marie Molloy pointed out in a recent Op-ed, the pope has touted a change in tone while the content underneath the tone remains virtually unchanged.

Molloy points to the fact that the tone correction has not extended to the church’s views on transgender people, as enunciated in his 2012 Christmas homily by Pope Benny:

[Bernheim] quotes the famous saying of Simone de Beauvoir: ‘one is not born a woman, one becomes so’ (on ne naît pas femme, on le devient).  These words lay the foundation for what is put forward today under the term ‘gender’ as a new philosophy of sexuality.  According to this philosophy, sex is no longer a given element of nature, that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society.  The profound falsehood of this theory and of the anthropological revolution contained within it is obvious.  People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being.  They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.  According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature.  This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God.  This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed.  The words of the creation account: ‘male and female he created them’ (Gen 1:27) no longer apply.  No, what applies now is this: it was not God who created them male and female – hitherto society did this, now we decide for ourselves.  Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist.  Man calls his nature into question.  From now on he is merely spirit and will.  The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.  From now on there is only the abstract human being, who chooses for himself what his nature is to be.  Man and woman in their created state as complementary versions of what it means to be human are disputed.  But if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation.  Likewise, the child has lost the place he had occupied hitherto and the dignity pertaining to him. Bernheim shows that now, perforce, from being a subject of rights, the child has become an object to which people have a right and which they have a right to obtain.  When the freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God, as the image of God at the core of his being.  The defense of the family is about man himself.  And it becomes clear that when God is denied, human dignity also disappears.  Whoever defends God is defending man.

Molloy admits that it is not fair to hold Francis accountable to the statements of Benedict but he says we should not forget that those words stand as the most recent papal remarks about transgender people and they are the most mean-spirited remarks ever tossed our way as a subset of society.

Can anyone who reads Benny’s statement not understand how much a transperson reading it would feel less then human and deserving of all the hate directed towards us?

I am sure you have seen the stories about the recent legal rulings about same-sex marriage in New Mexico, Utah and Ohio.

But there has been one case that has so far snuck beneath the radar.  I was planning on covering it last Tuesday, but came down sick with the flu.  I’m still sick, but a bit better.

This case comes out of southern Indiana.  David Paul Summers and Angela Summers married in Brown County, IN on October 30, 1999.  During the marriage Mr. Summers was diagnosed with gender dysphoria.  Mr. Summers then decided to transition and legally changed his name to Melanie Davis in 2005.  A Marion County judge ordered the gender on Davis’ birth certificate changed from “male” to “female” in 2008 to conform with her gender identity, legal name and appearance.

This time of year is often a sad one for transgender people.  Family time hits people hard if they have been rejected by their families.  And the reminders that it should be family time are unceasing.

But it can be hard even for those who have supportive families and friends.  It was apparently too hard for a Wisconsin 14 year-old.

Alexis “Lexi” Lopez-Brandies recently asked to be called Landon.  That makes this a tough article to write because all of the reports refer to the Horlick High School freshman as a girl and use female pronouns…so much so that when I heard that Lopez was transgender, I was unsure what direction of change Landon was pursuing.

William Horlick High School is in the city of Racine, Wisconsin, has about 2100 students and 200 faculty.  And apparently none of them knew how the bullying Lopez was enduring was affecting him.  

Landon took his own life last Sunday morning.  Landon’s parents don’t lay all the blame at the feet of the bullying, saying that Landon also suffered from severe depression.

The LATimes recently ran an article by Robin Abcarian in its L.A. Now section entitled Right wing frenzied over transgender students choosing bathroom.

Of course the target of all the hate is specifically the School Success and Opportunity Act, better known as AB 1266…and incidentally the state’s transgender students.

The School Success and Opportunity Act, the first of its kind in the nation, did not sit well with California’s waning conservative Christian base, which has lately been in danger of becoming the political equivalent of the polar bear stranded on the ice floe.

–Abcarian

Now there’s an interesting image.  

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.  The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999.  Rita Hester’s murder – like most anti-transgender murder cases – has yet to be solved.

–Gwendolyn Ann Smith, founder

Normally TDoR is observed on November 20, but I am a worker.

The list is lengthy, as it seems to be every year.  And this list is incomplete.  I’d estimate that it represents about a quarter of those gender-variant people who were killed for being differently gendered since last November.  Transgender Europe will release a more complete number, for the calendar year of 2013, in the future.

We shall strive not to forget.

La Feria, TX high school senior Jeydon Loredo just wants to have his picture in his high school yearbook.  But La Feria Independent School District Superintendent Rey Villareal has a big problem with that.  You see, Jeydon was born and raised to be female.  But, like transgender people everywhere, that didn’t take.

Villareal has told Jeydon’s mother that Jeydon can have his picture in the yearbook only if he wears stereotypically feminine attire, like a blouse or a drape.  The superintendent does not take responsibility for this decision, however.  Having only been in the job for four months, he says he is deferring to Jeydon’s principal.  Villareal says the student handbook is clear:  the suitability of each photo which appears in the yearbook is subject to the judgement of the principal.  Jeydon’s family says that in fact Villareal made the decision, not the principal.

I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve grown up with the kids here.  I’ve seen those in my community go through troubles, and denying my tuxedo photo would be a way for the district to forget me and everything I’ve brought to this community.  The yearbook is for the students, not the faculty or the administration.  It is a way for us to remember each other.

Leahnora Isaak identifies as a transsexual woman.  She is also a Mormon.  She is attempting to gain recognition from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints so that she can live her life…inlcuding worship…as a woman.  She says she will be filing a formal request in the next couple of weeks.

Leahnora says she was born without external genitals, but she was given testosterone treatments as a child and was raised as a boy.  She later married and raised a family in Ohio.

Her local stake (an assembly of local churches) has been supportive.  Church leaders have met with fellow members to help them cope with Leahnora’s transition.

I want happiness.  I want companionship.  And I want to live the gospel.  That’s what I want.  And I want this equal for everybody.  I want people to celebrate who I am.  Because I’m not ashamed of who I am.

–Leahnora Isaak

The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack couldn’t resist.  In the face of the Senate’s immanent passage of the Employment NonDiscrimination Act, McCormack stated the real concern:  ENDA Would Grant Transgender Rights to Elementary School Teachers…by which I believe he is concerned with the fact that transgender people might…just might…become elementary school teachers.

John, John, John, oh, John.  That boat left the dock decades ago.  Teaching is one of the foremost occupations that transgender people gravitate to in their lives before transitioning.

McCormack bemoans the numbers calimed by the HUman Rights Campaign…that 88% of Fortune 500 companies have formal employment policies prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.  McCormack even brings up the fact that Rick Santorum has a gay friend and confidante.

It’s hard to imagine that in the year 2013 that any business in the country could fire someone simply because he is gay without facing a major backlash and boycotts.

Transgender, on the other hand, is a different matter.

ENDA contains no exceptions for schools at any age level (though the law does contain a modest religious liberty provision).

Horrors!  Transgender teachers!  Run!