This April 24 story is from the Southern Voice (southvoice@aol.com). You can reach Laura Brown at lbrown@sovo.com.

Some transgendered leaders won't attend because HRC hasn't included gender identity in its missions statement or ENDA

by Laura Brown

While many gay and lesbian Atlantans are busy renting tuxedos and buying dresses for the Human Rights Campaign's May 9 Atlanta black-tie dinner, some members of the local transgendered community remain divided on whether to attend.

HRC has long received criticism from transgendered activists around the country for not including transgendered issues in the national organization's mission statement or in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which if passed by Congress would ban job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation but not gender identity.

In New Orleans, supporters and members of the transgendered community have organized a boycott of the May 15 HRC dinner in that city to "send a message from the grassroots" that they feel HRC national has "ignored" their requests for inclusion.

But here in Atlanta, the newly-formed It's Time, Georgia! transgendered advocacy group decided to take a different approach.

The new group, which includes many members who are also members of HRC, chose "after prolonged and open discussion" to adopt an official position that "supports individual decisions and recognizes the rights of those people to spend their dollars in whatever way they want."

"We will not, as a group, be sanctioning any action that goes against our mission of liaison and education," ITGA Executive Director Karen Collins said in a statement. "We will however be seeking to use the event as part of the education process and are developing a method to make our position clear to attendees."

New Orleans: No Place at Table

When HRC supporters in New Orleans sit down for their black-tie dinner the week after Atlanta's, members of the Gulf Gender Alliance and their supporters won't be at the table.

They won't support HRC, GGA president Crystal Little said in an interview, because they don't think HRC supports them. Since ENDA is unlikely to pass "anytime soon" with or without transgender inclusion, Little said the New Orleans protesters are focusing on inclusion in HRC's mission statement.

Little said the New Orleans group sent a 1,000-signature petition to HRC's national leadership last year with a letter requesting inclusion, and then decided not to attend this year's local dinner to send a message that they are dissatisfied with the national response.

Although HRC National Field Director Donna Redwing met with transgender supporters in New Orleans in December, "She said they're working on it, but we haven't seen any positive results."

"What this really boils down to is, 'What takes so long to make a mission statement change?' That should be easy enough," Little said. "They claim to be the Human Rights Campaign, but that should mean they are supposed to be working for everyone, and they keep it very exclusive."

Atlanta: Education, Not Confrontation

With the Atlanta HRC dinner just three weeks away, representatives of Atlanta's transgender community have decided to follow Redwing's model and work to provide education within HRC. But individual members are still debating whether to avoid the dinner altogether.

Dallas Denny, founder of the American Educational Gender Information Service and a longtime leader in both the local and national transgender community, said she will not attend the $175 per plate dinner.

"I don't feel I can financially support HRC until they change their mission statement," she explained. "I feel there needs to be grassroots pressure from local organizations so the national leaders can see their local constituencies really want the change."

Despite her concerns, Denny stopped short of discouraging others from attending the dinner.

"I would like to see some way that the issue could be rationally discussed short of a boycott, so we can develop some strategy where the message can be taken from local HRC members to national HRC," she said. "But if the answer is no, it may one day come to black 'Transexual Menace' T-shirts outside the dinner."

Kristin Rivers, a member of both ITGA and HRC, said she and Denny have agreed to work together on a transgender education flyer which local HRC leaders will allow to be distributed at the Atlanta dinner on information tables and by HRC ushers.

In addition to the flyers, Rivers said she has organized an entire table of transgendered people to attend the dinner and has made a personal commitment to work within HRC for trans-inclusion.

Rivers serves as community outreach coordinator for ITGA, and was recently chosen as co-chair of HRC's community outreach committee-- becoming perhaps the first transgendered person in the South to hold a leadership position with HRC.

Along with other members of ITGA, Rivers will attend the dinner with her father, Jean Rich. Both are heterosexual crossdressers and part of the "great diversity" of the transgender community, she said.

"The bottom line is we're there to show unity and solidarity among ourselves.. and we are well aware of what we represent and what HRC represents and where there is a missing gap," she said, while praising the response from HRC leaders in Atlanta.

Atlantan Val Lucas, a member of HRC's national Board of Governors, chose Rivers to co-chair the outreach committee with her, and said she has worked as a member of the HRC National Diversity Task Force to advocate for better education and inclusion.

"As co-chair of the national diversity task force, I gave a major presentation when I was in D.C. for the national dinner, and I alluded to the fact that while we may not include transgender now, if we don't think we can do it in five years, we should think about doing it in ten," she said. "I got a very positive response from the close to 100 members of the Board of Governors, however, we can't make promises about things that require a lot of education. The transgender community needs to educate the gay community like the gay community has to educate the straight community, and the responsibility is reciprocal.

HRC Southern Regional Co-Chair Lawrie Demorest, whose region includes both Atlanta and New Orleans, said she personally is working to educate herself on transgender issues, but she doesn't think HRC is ready to change its mission statement.

"There are a lot of people who are not included in the HRC mission statement, and I think where we are now as an organization is we view [the transgender community] as a very valuable coalition partner," she said.

"There are many coalition partners that are not part of our mission statement," Demorest continued, listing women's pro-choice, and civil rights organizations.

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