Category: Opinion

by Monica Roberts
from the TransGriot Blog
http://transgriot.blogspot.com

"The Human Rights Campaign salutes the enduring legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His courageous leadership continues to inspire us in our work to fully realize his vision of fairness and justice for all people.

This weekend, the GLBT community joins the rest of the world in remembering the great work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose life helped move our country closer to realizing the true meaning of "equality for all".

As we remember Dr. King, let's reflect upon our solidarity with the continued fight for civil rights and equal opportunity for all Americans."

That was a statement from HRC's Joe Solmonese about King Day.

The last organization that needs to part their lips and try to lay claim to the MLK legacy is the Human Rights Campaign. When it comes to transgender Americans, their actions are more akin to segregationists such as George Wallace and Strom Thurmond than Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An African-American transwoman shares her thoughts about being Black and transgender
By Monica Roberts

There are a lot of words you can use to describe me. Daughter, aunt, friend, woman, sister, native Texan, Houstonian, African-American, deejay, Christian, transplanted Louisvillian, transplanted Kentuckian, activist, writer, sports fan, columnist, Kentucky Colonel, American.

Another one that would be accurate to use in my case is transgender.

By Damon Romine
Entertainment Media Director
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)

For 20 years, GLAAD has closely monitored LGBT media images. The entertainment industry, by and large, has churned out images of gays and lesbians, and GLAAD has made great strides to ensure these groups are represented fairly and accurately. Transgender images are not as common and represent a community that's still misunderstood and ridiculed on screen and off.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.

In 1979, Boston?s Beacon Press published Janice J. Raymond?s pseudoscientific polemic The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Based on her Ph.D. thesis at Boston College, Raymond argued that male-to-female transsexuals (or, in her terminology, ?male-to-constructed females?), are tools of a patriarchal medical system, designed to make women obsolete.

Raymond?s book appeared in the same year as a methodologically flawed and almost certainly fraudulent study by Jon Meyer and Donna Reter of Johns Hopkins University, published in the professional journal Archives of General Psychiatry. Together, these two publications?one a 200-page political manifesto masquerading as science, and one a six-page politically-motivated article which also masqueraded as science, dealt American transsexuals a blow from which they are only now recovering.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #105, Spring 2004.

In June 2003, Andrea James published on her website, www.tsroadmap.com, a disturbing article about Anne Lawrence?s behavior. Although James? article is in part an ad hominem (i.e., personal) attack, her allegations about Lawrence?s conduct are nonetheless of concern; in fact, they mirror our own long-held apprehensions and provide corroborating evidence to previous allegations we have received about Lawrence?s behavior.

The Swedish Hospital Incident

In her on-line article, James describes and links to images of supportive documentation for an incident that occurred in 1997, in which Lawrence, who was employed as an anesthesiologist at Seattle?s Swedish Hospital, allegedly performed an inappropriate and unauthorized vaginal inspection of an unconscious patient. This action resulted in an investigation by Washington officials and was followed by Lawrence?s resignation from the hospital staff. Lawrence no longer practices as an anesthesiologist. Lawrence told Transgender Tapestry, ?The circumstances of my departure from Swedish Hospital were investigated in detail by the Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission. The commission found no evidence of unprofessional conduct. I was not reprimanded or disciplined in any way and there was no action taken against my license. I maintain and have always maintained an unrestricted Washington state medical license.?

I'm a Christian who happens to be transgendered. It's taken a long time to get the description in the right order.

It isn't a divinity degree or special schooling that makes me write to you about issues of faith. By training, I'm a scientist, by profession an engineer, by upbringing a lukewarm Protestant, hardly the makings of an evangelist.

What, then, have I have to say? First, let me relate what my pastor tells me in counseling, a man who does hold a Ph.D. in divinity, taught theology, leads an 800 member church, a forthright type many would consider a fundamentalist Christian.

YOU AREN'T GOING TO HELL FOR WHAT YOU WEAR, OR HOW YOU APPEAR.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #102, Summer 2003.

by loocefer

As the transgender community struggles even today to gain recognition and actual inclusion within mainstream lesbian, gay, bisexual politics, pre-operative and non-operative transgenderists and gender-variant individuals also strive to overcome the oppressive hierarchy within the transgender community. Such hierarchy is based on a tranny?s process of transitioning, and it assumes that all transgenderists and gender-variant people ultimately wish to undergo sexual reassignment surgery. Indeed, the assumption goes that most if not all transgenderists break the norms of their assigned gender in order to become the opposite sex. While that assumption may accurately apply to transsexuals and many transgenderists, it doesn?t by any means hold for the entire transgender community.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #102, Summer 2003.

by Catherine Lynn Andrews

The difference between those born in the mid-1940s and those born in the mid-1960s is an important one. Until recently, the existence of the older group was relatively unknown (to me anyway), as they were not vocal and just blended into the larger transgender community. The realization that this was a significant group came to me during a late evening discussion on Wednesday at the 2002 IFGE conference in Nashville. As I sat at a table in the bar enjoying the music of Donna Frost, a new acquaintance approached me. We had met earlier in the day and had spoken briefly at the social. "Can we chat for a moment?" she began, as she slipped into a chair across from me. "I have a feeling we have something more in common than crossdressing." She was elegant and well-mannered, with an easy feminine presence that seemed to come toher naturally. "Of course," I replied, mustering all the casual response I could as I concealed my concern that she was implying I appeared to be a deviant of some kind. "Let me tell you about myself," she began.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #098, Summer 2002

The University-Affiliated Gender Clinics, and How They Failed To Meet the Needs of Transsexual People

by Dallas Denny
? 1991 by Dallas Denny

When the Christine Jorgensen story made headlines in 1952, she and her physicians were immediately deluged by frantic requests from hundreds of men and women, pleading for a sex change (the term sex reassignment had not yet been invented). There was little Jorgensen or her doctors could do, however, for her surgery had been one of a kind. It was considered highly experimental, and its morality and legality were being hotly debated in the pages of medical journals. Her physicians were not prepared to do further surgeries (or at least not more than one or two), and no one else was in the sex-change business.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #98, Summer 2002.

by Janice Josephine Carney
? 2001 by Janice Josephine Carney. All Rights Reserved.


For V-day, and all the transgendered who have been violently abused.
For my own childhood that never was, due to incest and painful penetration.
If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?
My vagina would wear a sun hat. Yes, a sun hat, I want my vagina to be out in the sun, basking in all its glory.