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From All Over:
GenderNews
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Posted December 17 1998 |
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From Victoria S. Kolakowski, vickykol@ix.netcom.com. Via Gender Advocacy Internet News(GAIN), gain@gender.org
(Walnut Creek, California - October 30, 1998) Metropolitan Community Church (M.C.C.) of the New Vision in Walnut Creek, California will celebrate the installation of Reverend Vicky Kolakowski as the new pastor during a special Sunday service on November 15. The outgoing pastor, Reverend Jack Isbell, will preside over the ceremony. The church, formerly named Diablo Valley M.C.C., is a congregation of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. The denomination was founded in 1968 by the Reverend Troy Perry as a ministry welcoming all people, but with a special outreach to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. The U.F.M.C.C. has over 300 churches in sixteen countries, including several in the Bay area. Kolakowski is the first lesbian to pastor the central Contra Costa County church, and will become one of only two openly transgender senior pastors in the denomination. "I am very excited by the opportunities we have at M.C.C. of the New Vision." Kolakowski said. "There are so many people who haven't heard that God loves them unconditionally, and of the power of that love to transform lives." Kolakowski received her Master of Divinity from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley in 1997. She holds also graduate degrees in law, public administration and engineering. She practices law and is a frequent contributing writer for the Bay Area Reporter, a weekly gay newspaper in San Francisco. Named an Outstanding Woman of Berkeley in 1995, Kolakowski co-authored Berkeley's domestic partner public registry and chaired Berkeley's city commission that both oversees civil rights efforts and recommends outside social services contracts to benefit the poor. The author of several scholarly essays on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender religious issues, Kolakowski has a passion for developing positive images and stories for these communities, especially from biblical sources. "The Bible has been used for too long to long as a weapon to inflict pain, rather than a balm to support wholeness and healing," Kolakowski noted. "The Gospel, the good news, is that God loves us, and not the lie that God finds us unworthy and unacceptable." . . .M.C.C. of the New Vision meets in the chapel of Walnut Creek United Methodist Church, 1543 Sunnyvale Avenue in Walnut Creek. Sunday services weekly at noon. The church phone number is (925) 283-2238. |
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Via Gender Advocacy Internet News(GAIN), gain@gender.org
According to a November 16, 1998 Associated Press story by Laurie Asseo, Raul Velentin lost a Supreme Court appeal [Valentin vs. Gates, 98-526]. Valentin, a transsexual, says a Pennsylvania judge banished him for life from his hometown after he tested HIV-positive. Velentin argued that he should be allowed to pursue a federal civil rights suit against the Pennsylvania judge; the justices turned the argument down, without comment. Valentin, who was arrested in Lebanon, PA, in 1997, following an altercation. Valentin had been taking injections to achieve breast enhancement. While serving a 30-day jail sentence, Valentin was tested and found to be HIV-positive. According to Asseo, Judge G. Thomas Gates then ordered Valentin "to leave town and never come back." The judge allegedly told Valentin that, should he ever return, other charges would be found to bring against Valentin and a sentence in state prison would be assured. |
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Copyright © 1995-1998 PlanetOut Corporation. The November 19 story is at http://www.planetout.com:80/pno/news/article.html?1998/11/19/3
Summary: Britain's Crown Prosecution Service had to admit that if a barrister was right for the job as a man, becoming a woman didn't make her any less qualified. Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on November 18 reached a confidential settlement with transsexual barrister Susan Marshall, who had been offered a job with the service as a man only to have it withdrawn when she began her transition to living as a woman. A spokesperson said that, "The CPS recognizes the distress caused to Ms. Marshall by the withdrawal of employment at the time she had expressed an intention to undergo gender reassignment." In 1992, while still presenting in her male birth gender and using her birth name of Simon Stone, the CPS was ready to hire Marshall, and according to Marshall was "very keen" to have him. Soon after, Marshall determined to live as a woman and to begin treatment, and wrote a letter so advising then-Director of Public Prosecutions Barbara Mills. Mills responded with a letter withdrawing the CPS' job offer and describing Marshall's plan as "inimical" to the service. This left Marshall "livid," not least because she expected that Mills, as a woman who had fought her way to the top, would be more understanding. "If I was suitable to do the job as a man I could hardly be less suitable as a woman," said Marshall. Although there was no legal recourse for Marshall at the time of the CPS' reversal, in 1996 the European Court of Justice decided in the landmark case of P v S versus Cornwall County that discrimination against transsexuals constituted illegal gender discrimination. Marshall filed a discrimination complaint against the CPS three months later. CPS argued that it was too late for the filing, and when a lower court refused to dismiss Marshall's case, CPS went to the Court of Appeal. It was shortly before those justices were to hear oral arguments that the settlement was reached. The terms are confidential, but the negotiations were described as "amicable." Mills was a quite conservative Director of Public Prosecutions, but the effort to have Marshall's case dismissed seems to be out of step with current politics. Equal Opportunities Minister Alan Howarth understood the value of having the transgender lobby group Press for Change actively involved in revising a draft consultation paper on Legislation Regarding Discrimination on Grounds of Transsexualism after a number of groups protested its contents when it was released earlier this year. A newly released proposal by the Equal Opportunities Commission for a general overhaul of anti-discrimination laws included protection for the rights of transsexuals, even though sexual orientation was apparently left out of the final version to be covered by separate legislation. Marshall, who underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1994, is currently employed as a bursar at Oxford University. |
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Via Gender Advocacy Internet News(GAIN), gain@gender.org
In a report titled "HIV Prevention and Health Service Needs of the Transgender Community in San Francisco," by Kristen Clements, MPH, Kerrily Kitano, PhkD, Willy Wilkinson, and Rani Marx, PhD MPH, transgender individuals are found to be at a high risk for acquiring HIV. The report includes a study conducted from June 24 to August 8, 1996, in San Francisco. According to the report, a small study of transgender sex workers in Atlanta found that 68% tested positive for HIV, 81% had contracted syphilis, and 80% had contracted hepatit8is B. The prevalence of HIV infection infection was much higher than among non-transgender sex workers in the same neighborhoods. Another study found that 15% of all transgender individuals seeking hormone therpy at a San Francisco public health clinic tested HIV positive. According to the report, earlier qualitative studies cited in the report "identify psychosocial factors, such as low socioeconomic status, social isolation, and low self esteem, that are probably associated with risk traking behaviors." The 1996 study found that "economic necessity, as a result of severe employment and housing discrimination, results in a reliance on sex work to secure food, shelter, and money for many MTF individuals." The study findings also supported previous research that identified a cyclic pattern to sex work and drug use, and that this pattern is difficult to break. Oncxe in this pattern, the high rates of drug use and unsfe sexual practices with muiltiple sexual partners puts this population at increased risk for HIV infection. In addition, the report found that trransmen and transwomen who do not engage in sex work also are at increased risk for acquiring HIV. According to the report, injection and non-injection drug use is "very common," and many transpeople "engage in unprotected sex because it makes them feel sexually validated [sic] and increases their self-esteem." . . .Correspondence and requests for materials relative to the study and the report should be sent to: Kristen Clements, MPH Department of Public Health, AIDS Office 25 Van Ness Avenue, Suite #500 San Francisco CA 94102 email: kristen_clements@dph.sf.ca.us Ms. Clements notes that the paper described here "will be published in a special issue on HIV in an electronic journal called The Internation Journal on Transgenderism (http://www.symposion.com/ijt) in the next few months, or people can contact" her at the email address given above. In addition, the researchers of the above study recently have completed a "quantitative study of HIV infection and risk behaviors with 523 transgendered persons in San Francisco (both MTF and FTM)." While a paper has not yet been published, GAIN readers may obtain copies of the results that have been released by contacting Ms. Clements at the address above. |
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Via Gender Advocacy Internet News(GAIN), gain@gender.org
According to a story by Lou Chibbaro, Jr., in the November 20, 1998 Washington Blade, the United States Justice Department has announced that it will use "existing federal civil rights laws to take legal actiion against businesses and stata dn local governments that engage in employment discrimination against Gay and transgender persons." Lesbian activist Chai Feldblum said that "this reflects a significant response on the part of the Justice Department generally to seriously apply existing laws in ways that can remedy current injustices against Gay people and gender-non-conforming people." Feldblum heads a legislative clinic at Georgetown University Law School. According to Feldblum, the DoJ's decision was prompted by recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including one case involvinging same-sex sexual harassment. "The actual impact of this change," Feldblum added, "will depend on the results we get in court." Deputy Assistant General Helen Norton [notes that] this move would not protect people who are being discriminated against based solely on their sexual orientation. But, she added, if a person is discriminated against because of their gender non-conformity, it could be considered a form of sex discrimination, and the DoJ would be able to become involved. According to Aaron Schuham, a DoJ official, the new policy announced on November 14 reflects "a very serious commitment that has been directed by everyone from Janet Reno all the way down. We can really bring our resources to bear on this." The DoJ intends "to work on cases ... [where] an employer fails to hire you, promote you, or fires you or retaliates against you because" of "sex stereotyping." According to the report, several groups, including GenderPAC, the ACLU and the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, have been working with the DoJ on the effort "over the past year." According to the report, the DoJ will be attempting to expand on decisions passed down by the Supreme Court in the 1997 Oncale v. Sundowner case and, more significantly, the 1989 decision in Price Waterhouse vs. Hopins. In the latter, the court ruled that a woman had been discriminated against because she did not conform to prescribed sexual stereotypes. . . .Persons with information about possible gay or transgender-related discrimination in the workplace may reach Schuham at (202) 514-3878. The entire article may be found on the Washington Blade's website, and is expected to be archived at http://www.washblade.com/national/981120a.htm.
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Page prepared by Beth Lewis.
