transgender

(Co-authored with Elizabeth Wood.)

Emily of Sexual Ambiguities has rightly called for the recognition and addressing of the real issues of transgendered people that so often get ignored or dismissed even within the broader framework of the equality movements of feminism and gay rights.

We have not blogged about any of the recent heartbreaking and horrifying stories in recent months, not because we don't think they are important - we think they are incredibly important - but because we have been at a loss for words, unable to think of anything new to say. After reading her call, we believe that we don't need to have anything new to say. It is enough to add another voice to those calling for attention to stories like these:

Angie Zapata, 18, of Greeley Colorado, was killed on July 16, 2008. She was killed because she was transgendered. The New York Times reported yesterday morning that Allen Ray Andrade, the 31-year old charged with killing her, is being charged with murder as a hate crime.

Andrade reportedly confessed to police that he bludgeoned Zapata to death the day after they had met. When they met, he said, Zapata performed a sex act on him. The next day some pictures in Zapata's apartment made him wonder about her gender. Reportedly he asked her. She answered "I'm all woman," he grabbed her crotch, found a penis there, and started beating her up with a fire extinguisher.

He told police that at one point during the assault he thought he had "killed it." Then he realized he hadn't. And then he did.

"You run like a girl." It was an insult aimed at boys. Being "like a girl" was clearly a bad thing for a boy to be if he wanted to be an athlete. Not being enough "like a girl" on the other hand, is devastating for women.

It was not so long ago that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) used to require all women athletes to be tested to discover whether they were 'truly women' or not. [Bracket, please, for a moment the question of what a 'true woman' might be. We'll come back to it. I promise.] Now such tests are only performed, according to the story in today's New York Times, when a woman athlete's sex is questioned. [Bracket for a moment why this never, apparently, comes up in men's sports.] What would cause her sex to be questioned? The Times does not present a list of specific suspicious indicators, but does say that it has come up in the context of doping tests. What is so striking about this is that it represents an insistence that women be held to a biological standard of womanhood. Consider the variations among women. What does it mean to set aside some group of women and say they are too powerful to be 'real women'? Consider how this makes even less sense when we are talking about women who represent the strongest, fastest, most agile, most physically powerful women in the world.

People like Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps will never succeed in silencing the voices of queers. They're too recognizably vile, and create an instant, impassioned response against them, to ever act as anything other than very good rallying points for people who believe in social justice and sexual equality. The worst enemies of sexual minorities come from within the LGBT communities themselves. They're the people whose vision of LGBT activism involves making the homos just like the heteros, and want that so badly that they strive not to broaden our culture's vision of sexuality, but instead work to narrow the community's vision of itself. Look, for example, at this quote from Joseph Sabrow's editorial in Metroline, a New England gay and lesbian publication, that Autumn Sandeen spotted:

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Sanesha Stewart, a young black transwoman in the Bronx was murdered in her apartment on Saturday, February 9th. You can read about her story at Feministe and New York Blade. Meanwhile, I just received this message from Queers For Economic Justice organizer Reggie Gossett, announcing a vigil to be held in Stewart's memory:

~~~Join Family, Friends and Community Members Saturday, April 5 for a Community Vigil to Honor the Memory and Celebrate the Life of Sanesha Stewart~~~

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Healthy TransTeens 2008: Ethical and Practical Recommendations for Working with Transgender Adolescents

Richard Pleak Director of Education in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Long Island Jewish Medical Center Thursday

Trans NYC is an interdisciplinary collective sharing and collaborating on research related to transgender and transsexual experience. Comprised of both trans-identified and non-trans-identified members, from a wide range of local organizations and institutions, we meet regularly to present and discuss research and activist related concerns. We provide a supportive mentoring forum to advance research on trans issues. For more information, write us at transnyc@verizon.net.

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Gender Outlawed: Transsexuality and the Invention of Legal Men and Women

Tey Meadow

Doctoral Candidate

Department of Sociology

New York University

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Fordham Law School

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Developmental Experiences of Transgender Youth

Arnold H. Grossman and Anthony R. D'Augelli

Friday, Dec. 7th, 7-9pm

So you might have been following the ENDA stories and known that it was scheduled to come up for a vote in the House last week or the week before. And you might have noticed that that didn't happen. And you might have been waiting for news about that. I even tried to put a legislation tracker on the site so we could more easily keep up with bills like ENDA. (Aside: you'll probably have noticed that so far it is only working in Safari browser.) Even with all that, I'd noticed that, well, nothing seemed to be happening. So, I've been poking around trying to figure out what's going on, and I just came across this, from October 31, by EJ Graff at TFM Cafe:

The latest news on this front: ENDA, which had been scheduled for a House floor vote this week, has been taken off the table.

The official reason that ENDA won’t come up for vote: it’s been pushed aside by other business. The generally accepted reason is the split between the Barney Frank faction and the Tammy Baldwin faction.