Ten Signs of Transphobia in Our Culture by Christopher Shelley

This list comes from a review/interview of Christopher Shelley and his book, Transpeople; Repudiation, Trauma, Healing. Shelley is a Vancouver, British Columbia Adlerian psychologist. His interviews include a friend of mine. I think this is one of the most important books on transpeople.

1. Denial that the problem exists in the first place.

2. Inability to distinguish between categories such as queer, lesbian, and trans.

3. Lack of meaningful discussion in educational and workplace settings.

4. Anxiety over not being able to tell if a person is male or female.

5. Crude jokes directed at trans people or with trans-related content.

6. Refusal to accept trans people as one’s own teacher, doctor, politician, dentist, etc.

7. Thinking that being trans is OK but also dismissing the idea of ever dating a transperson.

8. Reducing trans to being merely and solely a psychiatric category.

9. Trivialization and media spectacles centred on trans-ness as an object of ‘fascination.’

10. Refusing the fundamental claims of transpeople as being genuinely mis-sexed.

Source:

http://thetyee.ca/Books/2008/09/23/TransPeople/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=290908

Perspective of the Oppressor

The conference of the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH) at the end of June, 2008, is an opportunity to raise the profile of transgender people—CPATH’s umbrella term includes transgender and transsexual people—the efforts of true allies and providers of essential services and to point to the many ways Canadian society has yet to measure up to what is needed.

Helen Kennedy, the current Executive Director of Egale Canada, has been invited to give a keystone speech on “Transgender Issues Across Canada.”

Although some—most notably Vivianne Namaste—have criticized the quite stellar career of a previous Executive Director, John Fisher (1994 until 2002), it certainly gives a glimpse of how “Canada’s gay and lesbian lobby”–as the Xtra media prefers to call it—could reach out to and work with those The Ottawa Citizen has recently described:

Transgendered people are even more marginalized than drug addicts.

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/editorials/story.html?id=f68e086c-6a0e-48b2-b67b-d20d70ab04a7

The British Columbia legislature adopted human rights for transgender people in 1998, though it was never proclaimed by the then NDP government, and North West Territories, since 2002, actually recognizes, formally, our human rights. These achievements are widely credited to Mr. Fisher’s leadership and perseverance at Egale Canada.

Under his leadership a significant body of policy regarding the plight of transgender people was created. When I discovered it, Fisher’s successor, a previous board member, confessed he did not know it existed. It may still be available online to show what Egale Canada has committed itself to.

The most recent elaboration of advocacy policy, added to Egale’s ‘policy book’ by the board of directors in 2005, I have never found online.

I have a personal connection to this recent policy—I am a woman of transsexual experience and was a facilitator of its adoption; its lack of availability is my first disappointment. For any organization of Egale’s longevity, more than 20 years and counting, the challenge remains how to keep faith with those whom established policy is meant to better; one recent director told me its not something she supports, so its unimportant.

In 2002, when John Fisher stepped down and Gilles Marchildon took over, the decision was made to put virtually all the resources of Egale Canada into “equal marriage for same-sex couples.” This lead to the creation of Canadians for Equal Marriage and a complicated series of interlocking relationships of personnel, finances, banking, marketing/PR and fundraising between the two organizations.

A substantial and anonymous financial donation from the United States—to be dedicated to same-sex marriage—facilitated this arrangement. Another substantial donation was received in 2006 from Toronto for the same express purpose when the Harper government reconsidered same-sex marriage.

If the situation in the United States, both now and prior to the 2004 presidential election, is any indication—and there is much that is interlocking between the situation south of the border and ours—there may well have been significantly more support for anti-discrimination measures explicitly inclusive of transgender people than for same-sex marriage in Canada, too.

But this option was no longer on the agenda of Egale Canada after the decision taken by a small group of gay and lesbian people in 2002. What the public would support was never explored.

I have detailed elsewhere how, from 2004 to 2007, it was simply “inconvenient, divisive and ultimately unnecessary” for Egale Canada to honestly work with transgender and transsexual people to craft either a single message and advocacy agenda for sexual orientation and gender identity/expression or two co-equal messages and agendas.

Here:

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/inconvenient-divisive-and-ultimately-unnecessary/

Here:

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/marginal-among-the-marginal/

And here:

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/the-backlash-has-begun-ariel/

Under the leadership of its current Executive Director, Helen Kennedy, Egale Canada has continued its now overt policy of marginalizing transgender people; the perennial rumours of a major “trans” campaign remain just that, rumours.

A quick review of its website shows, first, silence on the idiocy of Pierre Poilievre and his public musings on the federal government not funding Ontario in its commitment to relist transsex surgery. I have written about this here:

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/who-is-pierre-poilievre/

And here:

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/26/more-on-pierre-poilievre/

Immediately clear is Egale’s current obsession with Jamaican “murder music” contradicting its Mandate to advance

equality and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified people, and their families, across Canada.

http://www.egale.ca/

Not only for gay and lesbian people in Canada, but also trans-identified people “across Canada.”

From its actions, and a statement by Kennedy, one might believe that we

have human rights for LGBTQ people in Canada

http://www.egale.ca/index.asp?lang=E&menu=1&item=1393

This statement is a prime example of how ‘inconvenient’ it is to craft a message that includes not only gay and lesbian people but also transgender and transsexual people.

Two trends follow directly from these positions of Egale Canada.

The first is worse than silence because, echoed by other LGB(T) organizations, it gives the impression transgender people do have formal human rights across Canada—not just North West Territories—steals hope from those who need it most and dissuades those who might otherwise be allies.

The second trend of LGB(T) organizations, following directly from the previous one and also lead by Egale Canada, is to abandon explicit commitments to transgender people and direct attention to gay and lesbian people in other countries. Ottawa Pride, in 2007, focused its publications and all but one “themed” event offshore. . . .

This is not to say the lives of gay and lesbian people in other countries are easy, they aren’t. Neither are the lives of transgender and transsexual people—whose struggles are arguably more difficult since they are not mentioned.

When Egale Canada abandoned Ottawa in 2007 it abandoned its national advocacy for the human rights of transgender and transsexual people—a commitment that was reconfirmed in the 2005 policy; another disappointment.

This is presented as a necessary cost-saving measure, yet, myself and others begged the Executive Director in 2004 and 2005 to make preparations for the inevitable drop in fundraising after the passage and proclamation of the Civil Marriage Act—widely described as the ‘gay marriage’ bill. These preparations could have been as simple as including trans people—the umbrella term at Egale at the time—in public messaging around ‘equal marriage’ to raise the profile of what is still the silent future, at Egale Canada, at least: the struggles of transgender people.

When the Civil Marriage Act was proclaimed in July, 2005, a precipitous slide in fundraising began that may not have ended. Donor fatigue is evident among those who might have contributed to a major “trans” campaign for those who remain the most marginal of LGBT people–if a foundation had been prepared when their attention was focussed.

Those who begged have now left; some simply discouraged and disappointed; some purged from committee memberships; some expelled from organization membership.

Egale Canada remains in the past.

Now even MP’s are ahead of Egale: Bill Siksay, NDP MP, has in the past year introduced legislation to amend the Criminal Code sections on Incitement to Hatred and Incitement to Genocide and Sentencing to include transgender and transsexual people. The NDP at its national policy convention in 2007 adopted significant policy on transgender and transsexual people that remains absent from Egale Canada’s ‘policy book.’

These sections of the Criminal Code were amended to include gay and lesbian people in 2003.

Incrementalist promises declare gay and lesbian people will come back to help us get where they are now after we helped them—but if they’ve gone offshore. . . . .

Where is the moral authority to pontificate on the struggles of anyone elsewhere when long-standing and re-affirmed commitments to the struggles of those more marginal here at home have been lies?

Helen Kennedy has been invited to speak at the CPATH conference on “Transgender Issues Across Canada” as a keynote speaker. It is unlikely she will comment on the aggressive way her organization has worked against the interests of transgender people since 2002 while, at the same time, pretending otherwise, or her own ongoing active support of the marginalization of transgender people.

Those who took Egale Canada at its “word” and worked to find common cause with the gay and lesbian people who continue to run it in their own exclusive interests will not be silenced. Kennedy’s invitation to this conference is profoundly inappropriate to the goals of CPATH and grossly offensive to all transgender people.

On behalf of those who have been relegated to the margins, I ask CPATH to revoke Kennedy’s invitation, leave Egale Canada where it is and program someone more appropriate—is there not a transgender person with adequate credentials?–who can speak to “Transgender Issues Across Canada” from a perspective other than that of oppressor.

Open Letter to Cyndi Lauper

(Please Distribute Widely)

Cyndi Lauper

True Colors Tour

North America

I am taking this public way of contacting you because I deeply believe your good will and generosity have been diverted to ends you would neither approve of nor permit if you knew.

You have on many occasions declared your concern for LGBT people, such as recently to the Xtra.ca website in Canada

You could still be fired from your job in 31 states if you’re suspected of being gay, bisexual or transgendered. So I mean, things are hard right now. I don’t know what our story is [in America], but I think… lack of information…?

http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=3&STORY_ID=4792&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=5

Your song, True Colors, has become an anthem for those among the most marginal who live in Canada and the United States.

Yet your support for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in the United States and Egale Canada in Canada will not reach the most marginal of LGBT people. Neither the HRC nor Egale Canada will provide either you or the public certain information regarding their history and current focus. The public, despite this silence, is beginning to understand the dire situation of transgendered people.

“Transgendered people,” The Ottawa Citizen declared last week, “are even more marginalized than drug addicts” http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/editorials/story.html?id=f68e086c-6a0e-48b2-b67b-d20d70ab04a7

There is no focus on this most marginal part of the LGBT population by either of these two organizations, even as the article in Xtra.ca suggests when it refers to “Canada’s gay and lesbian lobby group Egale.” Egale Canada, and other LGB(T) organizations in Canada, are beginning to focus on gay and lesbian people in other countries rather than transgendered people in Canada. It is difficult to understand these two organizations are anything other than part of the problem for transgendered people across North America.

HRC through its president, Joe Solmonese, declared its support only for a trans-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the Congress at Southern Comfort 2007 and then proceeded to abandon transgendered Americans when they supported Rep. Barney Frank’s non-inclusive ENDA. This after many years of a troubled relationship with transgendered Americans.

HRC was the only LGB, LGBT or T organization in the United States not to stand by transgendered Americans.

These are Joe Solmonese and HRC’s true colors.

In Canada, other than North West Territories, there are no formal human rights protections for transgendered people, unlike the universal formal protection for gay and lesbian people.

This despite the recent all too common misinformation sent out by the Executive Director of Egale Canada, Helen Kennedy:

“We may have human rights for LGBTQ people in Canada, but you’d never know it based on these results,” said Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale.

Two-Thirds Of Canadian LGBT Students Feel Unsafe At School http://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/05/051208bul.htm

This routine misinformation, spread by Canada’s LGB(T) organizations following Egale Canada’s lead, is an ongoing serious barrier to the hopes of transgendered Canadians for formal human rights protections taken for granted by gay and lesbian Canadians for a decade.

It is worse than silence.

The prospects for passage of such rights became dim when Egale Canada abandoned the national capital in 2007, thereby abandoning its long declared commitment to advocate for our human rights in the national Parliament and across the country.

I chaired Egale’s Trans Issues Committee in 2005, drafted and facilitated the passage of a detailed policy on advocacy for transgendered Canadians at the national level. I have watched in utter dismay as even lukewarm support for this formal policy was systematically removed—culminating in the 2007 purge of almost a generation of transactivists.

These are Egale Canada’s and Helen Kennedy’s true colors.

Transgendered people have never been hired as staff, nor been given ongoing significant roles on the boards of directors of either organization. The board of Egale Canada has always worked in complete secrecy and repeated rumours of a major “Trans Campaign” have never been fulfilled. There is simply no foundation of good faith to believe it ever will.

I ask you to reconsider your support for these organizations.

The situation of transgendered people in the United States and Canada is more dire than either of these organizations, their boards, executives and staff have ever acknowledged or ever accepted. Their deliberate actions have further marginalized transgendered people across North America.

In the United States there are many T and truly LGBT national organizations that deserve your support, that truly work NOW for the rights and lives of transgendered people—the most marginal of all LGBT people–not in some undefined time in the future.

In Canada, there is yet no national T organization, due in large part to Egale Canada’s siphoning off the energy and imagination of transgendered Canadians. There are, however, many organizations at the provincial and municipal level that deserve your support to carry forward the struggles Egale Canada has never committed to and has now made itself a barrier to.

Your support could very well lead to the formation of a national organization truly dedicated to the struggles of transgendered Canadians.

There are many across North America, transgendered people and true allies alike, who would be happy to provide you with any details you require.

Thank you for your consideration.

Jessica Freedman

Ottawa, Canada

(Please Distribute Widely)

———————————————————————————-

Related commentary on Egale Canada:

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/marginal-among-the-marginal/

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/inconvenient-divisive-and-ultimately-unnecessary/

Maybe Cyndi Lauper Doesn’t Know

Though I’m not sure how she couldn’t know about the Human Rights Campaign in the United States, but it is very likely she doesn’t know about Egale Canada in Canada.

Let me back up a moment.

Cyndi Lauper is headlining the True Colors Tour of an astounding number of bands in Canada and the United States, including The B-52’s, Indigo Girls, Rosie O’Donnell and The Cliks, among many others. I believe The Cliks front man is a transsexual man–though you wouldn’t know it from an article on the Xtra.ca website.

In this article by Shane Percy, Lauper, when asked why “queer rights” are a so much harder struggle in the United States says:

I don’t know, hon. You could still be fired from your job in 31 states if you’re suspected of being gay, bisexual or transgendered. So I mean, things are hard right now. I don’t know what our story is [in America], but I think… lack of information…? I really don’t know http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=3&STORY_ID=4792&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=5

Her True Colors tour, says the article,

raises awareness and funds for the gay rights struggle in both the United States and Canada through its partnerships with the US-based Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and, new this year, Canada’s gay and lesbian lobby group Egale.

This observation about Egale Canada not only reflects the Xtra chain’s bias, but also is correctly describing the organization that still includes “trans-identified” and bisexual people in its mandate–lip-service at best. See: http://www.egale.ca/

I believe she is lacking information about HRC and Egale Canada.

Now, the history of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in the United States and its refusal to support a trans inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is rather well know. HRC was the only LGB, LGBT and T organization in the United States that supported Representative Barney Frank’s deceptively promoted non-inclusive ENDA. The history of HRC’s difficult–my American friends would use a far harsher term–relationship with transgender and transsexual people is somewhat less known.

See: http://www.unitedenda.org/

As is HRC’s president, Joe Solmonese, mispeaking himself at Southern Comfort 2007–the largest annual gathering of transgender and transsexual people in America–when he said the HRC would only support a trans-inclusive ENDA.

I am among those who believe he was being too easy on himself; he was lying.

When HRC and Joe Solmonese did this, they were showing their true colors.

As for Canada, I believe Shane Percy is quite accurate when he describe Egale as “Canada’s gay and lesbian lobby group Egale–he should have used the old acronym EGALE, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, used before ‘trans-identified’ people were added to its mandate.

When Egale abandoned Ottawa, it abandoned the advocacy for transgender and transsexual people’s human rights–long a policy goal, going back to the time when John Fisher was its Executive Director. When it purged what could be called a generation of transactivists from from their committees and membership. When it abandoned its policy commitment to bring over the supporters of what it called “equal marriage” to the struggle for transgender and transsexual people–what was really “gay marriage.”

When its current Executive Director, Helen Kennedy spreads the common misinformation that transgender and transsexual people have formal human rights, because it is inconvenient not to say

“We may have human rights for LGBTQ people in Canada, but you’d never know it based on these results,” said Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale. Two-Thirds Of Canadian LGBT Students Feel Unsafe At Schoolhttp://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/05/051208bul.htm

And in the St. John’s Telegram

When Egale Canada and Helen Kennedy do this they show their true colors.

I have argued before that Egale Canada from its previous Executive Director to Kennedy has had a deceptive relationship with transgender and transsexual people, best summed up by the phrase used by the previous Executive Director when he said “It is inconvenient, divisive and ultimately unnecessary” to speak of transgender and transsexual people because they will eventually come out as gay or lesbian and then they will be covered by gay rights–or they won’t and they won’t be our concern.

I admit the last is a bit of a gloss, but this is the cynicism inherent in “inconvenient, divisive and ultimately unnecessary.”

See my blog at: https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/inconvenient-divisive-and-ultimately-unnecessary/

So, maybe Cyndi Lauper doesn’t know that neither HRC nor Egale Canada really do not support “transgendered” people (there’s that word, again) nor, as far as Egale Canada is concerned, bisexual people–I have no idea whether bisexual people are part of the advocacy of HRC.

This saddens me because it forever colours what I hear when she sings True Colors.

Why is the Term Transgendered?

Ever since Kinsey created the spectrum/continuum between Heterosexual and Homosexual we’ve been cursed with lines. The only thing that commends itself about lines is that they are easy to read–for most us, at least, most of the time.

And we have, over the years, created/discovered a number of other lines that have become the way we in the GLBTT2IQQA (I think that is all of us) and straight allies, and others, have used to explain that we do not live in either/or but in gradations, spectrums and continuums.

I think I’ve captured most of them below:

Man———————————————————Woman

Masculine————————————————-Feminine

Male———————————————————Female

Heterosexual——————————————-Homosexual

Transgendered—————————————-Transsexual

Look closely, the usage of four of them is the same–the fifth, however, is quite exceptional–and I say marginalizing.

Forgetting the use of the past participle (that is, adding “ed” to transgender) it is the only spectrum/continuum in which the term on the left is used as the category and umbrella term for the whole line.

For the first two, the umbrella term is “gender.”

For the third, the umbrella term is “sex.”

For the fourth, the umbrella term is “sexual orientation”–or “orientation” for short.

Why is the umbrella term for the fifth “transgendered?” Why the special treatment?

Women have never accepted the idea they should be called “men” for, say, convenience sake. They would never accept the argument that the term “man” or “men” is used to include them has derived from history and is why they should accept their erasure from discussions that would otherwise include them.

In fact, feminists have long argued for the power of language and the necessity for specific inclusion for the term “woman” or “women” in discussions that include them or are about them.

Logically, in the second and the third line, it would be absurd to call feminine and female masculine and male, respectively; and it would be just as absurd to do the reverse.

Why, it would be like calling apples oranges.

Now, what would be the point in erasing the existence of one or the other?

In the fourth line, it would more than absurd to call homosexual people heterosexual–we would see that for what it is, heterosexist or heteronormative privilege, erasing the minority with the majority term. Gay and lesbian people do not have to endure that indignity.

But in the fifth line it is considered convenient to call transsexual people–a minority among a minority–by the term denoting the majority of the continuum.

This in violation of the rules of absurdity, logic and what we can now say cissexism and cisnormative privilege that can be gleaned from our scrutiny of the first four lines.

A personal experience.

In organizing for the last Transgender Day of Remembrance–called in many parts of Canada Trans Day of Remembrance–there were some early concerns regarding the way it would be called. Most of the people I was working with represented an organization that describes itself as a transgender support organization. At least half of those present were transgender, that is, were not concerned with surgery.

Numerically, the number of transsexual people in its membership has increased more than a little in the four and half years I’ve been aware of its existence–and since I was, for a short time, a member. Today, I believe all of its executive are transsexual people.

That is, those who have had and those who are intending to have surgery.

In our first discussions, the majority of those present desired to revert to “Transgender Day of Remembrance” from the three previous years’ usage. I argued for the use of the term “trans” as inclusive of all transgender and transsexual people. It was, at one point, suggested that since I had used this term, why not call the event “The Trans-Transgender Day of Remembrance?”

For some reason, possibly because I had used a term I believed inclusive, the use of the term transsexual in, say, “The Transgender-Transsexual Day of Remembrance” or maybe “The Transsexual-Transgender Day of Remembrance” was not on. Both of these usages were dismissed out of hand with clearly no understanding of what I was pointing at.

For quite a while now, I say “transgender and transsexual people” or “transsexual and transgender people” because I realize what we have, and must have if our campaigns are to work, is a coalition.

This logic has been a difficult one to sell–and especially at meetings of this group–because it is seen as inconvenient and probably divisive. The line often used is that there are too many divisions among GLBT people, with the implicit consideration that gay and lesbian people have used a forced singular identity, or oneness, based upon sexual orientation, to great success.

Among the most prominent casualties of this forced adherence to a singular identity have been Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, Beth Elliot, Sandy Stone, Reed Erickson. The many transsexual women who were the Compton Cafeteria Riot. All transsexual people and most, if not all, quite unknown to those I was working with and the current generation as a whole.

Exclusion, and of course marginalization, an inherent result if not goal of the strategy of forced singular identity.

I have argued against this in previous blogs.

This terminology becomes all the more absurd in the current discussion in Ontario when one hears the things like ‘sex-change surgery for transgenders.’ Now, I don’t know any transgender person who wants surgery, because the definition of the term ‘transgender’ does NOT include a permanent movement from male to female or female to male. Permanent movement is the definition of the term ‘transsexual.’

Yeah, I know this is inconvenient, especially for those who reside in the territory of the majority.

I am reminded of gay men of a certain age who speak nostalgically of the time when everyone who wasn’t straight was gay–lesbians, bisexual people, transgender people, transsexual people. Sure it was convenient and not divisive for them but it obscured increasingly marginal populations while retaining their hold on power. And it is the most marginal people who most need to be recognized.

Silence for marginal people means our death.

So why the special treatment for transsexual people?

Ottawa Trans Services Initiative

The next two posts, Ottawa Trans Community Consultation Document and Services for Trans People in Ottawa were part of a several year initiative I began in late 2006 to at least explore the kinds of services needed and desired by the Trans Community in Ottawa.

Trans people, variously called transgender, transgendered, trans-identified and transsexual, have recently been described by the Ottawa Citizen in an editorial as “more marginalized than drug addicts.” The editorial is called “The Courage of Poilievre” and can be read here:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/editorials/story.html?id=f68e086c-6a0e-48b2-b67b-d20d70ab04a7

There is no question that services for drug addicts are completely inadequate. But there are services and there are ongoing discussions among service providers, agencies, government and various formal and funded public education initiatives to address this lack.

Today, the President and CEO of the Centre For Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Dr. Paul Garfinkel, came out in support of the relisting of surgery in Ontario:

On behalf of CAMH, I wish to commend the province on its decision to relist sexual reassignment surgery as an OHIP-covered service. This puts Ontario back in line with other provinces.

As a hospital that sees people who require sexual reassignment surgery, we can verify the critical nature of it being accessible – it is no exaggeration to call it “life-saving surgery” to those who need it.

http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/429474

When I began this initiative it was unclear what services, in the sense of those being provided in the public sector, or even discussion of such services, such as those at the Gay Men’s Wellness Initiative, were ongoing to address the void where trans people live, work and sometimes die–usually enduring great despair which, we know with absolute certainty from much work with gay men, leads to self-destructive behaviours such as addictions, self-mutilation and suicide.

There is also no question that trans people are the object of violence and discrimination.

This is compounded by the void where human rights legislation should be.

When we look at federal, provincial and territorial human rights legislation (except North West Territories) gender identity or gender identity and gender expression do not stand beside sexual orientation. There is much confusion and routine misinformation on this point, which is, on the one hand, evidence of the greater marginalization of trans people and, on the other, worse than the silence from so many quarters that claim to support–but do so only in private.

Though there are changes, see my blog TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

http://www.jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/trans-rights-are-human-rights/

and the world does change every time someone actually says the words in public, there is yet not enough momentum to begin to address this need.

Speaking truth to power, however, remains as dangerous as it ever was.

The controversy over the Ontario Minister of Health’s recent announcement about relisting transsexual surgery under Ontario Medicare, a limited action at best, is more evidence of the greater marginalization of trans people.

The Ottawa Trans Community Consultation Document was the result of a community consultation in association with a number of community organizations, in particular Pink Triangle Services, to create a document to be later used to secure funding to at least begin the exploration of what is and what isn’t available in Ottawa and to move forward to address what is not.

In May and November, 2007, the Board of Pink Triangle Services (PTS) , as the premier GLBTTQ organization in Ottawa, was approached to sponsor such a project. At the May meeting the president suggested working with the Executive Director to investigate the possibility of funding such an initiative.

I co-drafted an application to the Trillium Foundation with the Executive Director of PTS which was submitted for the June 1, 2007 deadline. Unfortunately, difficulties with the agency’s relationship with the funder lead to the application being returned.

Regardless of this setback, community support and the support of service providers was identified and remains a basis for future action.

In the course of working with the AIDS Committee of Ottawa’s (ACO) Gender Identity/Expression Inclusion Policy Working Group I drafted the document Services for Trans People in Ottawa as a foundation for organizations to work together and as a basis for a “table”–that is, a body such as the Gay Men’s Wellness Initiative or the Around the Rainbow/Social Inclusion Project, where the needs of trans people can be discussed among community organizations, service providers and strategies for approaching government and funders can be devised.

Services for Trans People in Ottawa was adopted by the board of ACO at the end of 2007.

Further action at the end of 2007 was shoved off-track by infighting typical of marginal communities and often referred to as lateral violence.

I post these documents in the hope that in the not too distant future this agenda can be moved forward. I can only hope that in the interim trans people in Ottawa will not have to endure too much more suffering.

I am eager for input from trans people, service providers, community agencies and allies to further this agenda.

References

Pink Triangle Services

http://www.pinktriangle.org/pts_site/Eng/welcome.html

AIDS Committee of Ottawa

http://www.aco-cso.ca/home.htm

Around the Rainbow Project

http://www.around-therainbow.com/

Gay Men’s Wellness Initiatives

http://www.centretownchc.org/?id=21

Ottawa Trans Community Consultation Document

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/ottawa-trans-community-consultation-document/

Services for Trans People in Ottawa; A Public Commitment

https://jessicalive.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/services-for-trans-people-in-ottawa/

Ottawa Trans Community Consultation Document

April 5, 2007

Introduction

In Ottawa, there is no document describing the needs of trans people other than a Trans Legislative Needs Assessment document prepared by Chris Boodram and Corie Langdon in 2004. This document does not articulate the wellness needs of trans people.

In 2000 a Community Wellness Survey was co-sponsored by Pink Triangle Services and the City of Ottawa to inquire into the state of LGBT people in Ottawa. The results were over-represented of gay men and under-represented of all other members of the community–especially trans people.

In recent months there has been a convergence of thinking and action in the Ottawa Trans Community.

It is in the light of this development that on November 21, 2006–as part of Trans Day of Remembrance events–a meeting of trans people was held to generate a needs document for trans people in Ottawa.

It was held on the premises of Pink Triangle Services, which supported this initiative, as did Gender Mosaic, Trans Youth Ottawa, the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Trans Two Spirit and Queer Community Centre of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Service LGBT Liaison Committee.

Participants responded to invitations on email lists and word of mouth.

At the meeting it was decided that participants would be offered the opportunity to contribute to the drafting of the final document. It was circulated by email to participants on February 19, 2007

Trans People

“Trans” is an umbrella term for transgender and transsexual people.

These, and all other terms describing those who in their lives challenge the gender stereotypes of society–as all trans people do–are fluid; not all people who use these terms–or even all those who might be identified/described by these terms–accept them.

They are evolving.

Only a minimum of terminology has been used in this document.

Self-identification is considered paramount; people are accepted as they describe/present themselves. This also conforms to the Safe Space Policy of Pink Triangle Services where the consultation took place.

Transgender generally includes those who dress in the clothes and present in the gender they were not assigned at birth for lesser or greater periods of time but who retain their birth-assigned gender.

Transsexual people are those who who, out of great dysphoria with their birth-assigned

gender, seek through hormone replacement therapy, gender transition and surgery to the fill the gender role in society they were not assigned at birth.

There are also those whose gender presentation is neither masculine nor feminine according to society’s expectation and those who present as both masculine and feminine in alternation.

Those who participated in the Consultation were primarily transsexual people–both Male to Female and Female to Male.

Because of the challenge to society’s expectations of gender and gender presentation trans people of all descriptions are marginal in society and all the communities in which we seek to be members. Trans people face challenges in accommodation, services and employment.

Arguably trans people are the last in society whose human rights have yet to be formally recognized; this contributes to our universal marginalization and its many consequences in wellbeing—physical and mental—that naturally and inevitably arise from marginalization..

Rarely are trans people ourselves asked what our needs are–others routinely usurp this role.

The Ottawa Trans Community Consultation was undertaken in order to break the silence regarding our needs.

This document is the result.

Recreation

In the area of Recreation one of the greatest single barriers to participation of trans people is

the availability of changing facilities. In some situations Male to Female trans people are required to use Men’s Changing Facilities and Female to Male people are required to use Women’s Changing Facilities.

At the very least this can be embarrassing.

It can also be very dangerous and/or lead to legal complications.

The use of Family Changing Facilities–with the privacy provided–can help, but places like the YMCA may not be willing for trans people to use them because they are not ‘families.’.

In Ontario, the Ontario Human Rights Commission mandates that those trans people who are full time use the gender segregated facilities that conform to their full time presentation. However, the exercise of this right, as the exercise of the rights of all marginal people, can sometimes be so complicated that it discourages all but the most determined.

This is further complicated by the lack of statutory and well-known rights–such as those for gay and lesbian people.

The determination necessary to claim rights may not always be available to those who are marginalized.

Public Rest Rooms

Possibly the single most inflammatory situation for all trans people is the use of public rest rooms. Especially for early transitioners–and for those who do not easily pass–this can, as the use of Change Rooms, be at least embarrassing and often dangerous. And unlike the use of Changing Rooms the use of rest rooms is not optional–without great discomfort and medical consequences.

To be challenged on the use of a public rest room–and the use of one is always when in need–is an affront to the fundamental dignity we hold to be due all Canadians.

It has often been suggested that certain institutions–such as universities/colleges, shopping malls–provide more single stall washrooms. Also, that these institutions be made aware, and make their clientele aware, that in Ontario full time trans people have the right to use the gender segregated facility that conforms to their gender presentation.

Public Education Campaigns also with respect to the actual danger trans people present to cisgendered (non-trans people) in public facilities–none at all–should also be considered.

Trans people, marginal in all these situations, are the ones at risk.

Women’s Shelters

Although many women’s shelters have adopted policies permitting trans women to use their facilities, the recent refusal of the Supreme Court of Canada to hear the appeal of Kimberly Nixon regarding her exclusion from the Vancouver Rape Relief Society’s shelter training program continues to place in jeopardy the acceptance of trans women from the facilities dedicated to sheltering women from assault.

This would have been the first case concerning the rights of trans people heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. This refusal is a blow felt by all trans people.

Sports

The role of athletes as role models, particularly for trans youth, was identified, as was the need for networking with those trans athletes who are out.

Youth

Trans people are marginal and trans youth even more marginal within society.

As with any marginal youth the need for employment services was voiced, including employment data banks of trans-friendly and trans-unfriendly employers, information for employers on trans people in general and trans youth in particular.

Scholarships in the community for trans youth were proposed, possibly sponsored by Pink Triangle Services and/or other organizations in the community.

Above all, the concern of reaching out and contacting trans youth, much along the lines Trans Youth Ottawa has pioneered was expressed.

Health

While there is some information on the health concerns of trans people out there it is not readily available–and in some cases it is not available at all; there is some information about transsexual people but little about transgender people.

This is a list of specific health information participants provided:

1) HIV/AIDS
2) STD’s
3) Reproductive Options
4) Post Transition health concerns
5) Breast/prostate health
6) Health Risks of Transition
7) Long Term Effects of cross-hormone replacement

Female to Male Concerns:

Cholesterol
Stress Responses
Polycythemiavera
Muscle growth without tendons growing
Anger management

There was the unanimous expression of the need to sensitize medical professionals and other providers of services to the specific need of trans people and of what constitutes treatment with compassion and dignity.

The Ottawa trans community is deeply concerned by the lack of doctors knowledgeable in trans health issues and willing to prescribe hormones in the Ottawa area and by the fact that the Ontario Government currently does not list surgery or any other transition service as a necessary medical service under medicare.

The frequent dismissal of the necessity of these services as cosmetic and trivial is one indication of the marginalization of transsexual people—and materially contributes to depression, alienation, other mental concerns and physical sonsequences of dysphoria.

The community expressed its desire to give the medical community feedback on its concerns.

Only those transsexual people with either their own independent resources or those whose employers have generous insurance can now access surgery.

Surgery for transsexual people is no different than surgery for others to treat physical disorders. Necessary medical treatment should not be be matter of money.

Mental Health

Excluded from the mainstream of society by our nature, trans people face serious depression and other problems of mental health. The alienation that is commonplace leads to the highest suicide rates–though not documented because of our marginalization; it is this very marginalization and exclusion that is the breeding ground for suicide.

It is noted that while the suicide rates of gay and lesbian youth is far higher than for straight youth it is nevertheless clear there are supports in place for them: adult gay role models, explicit human rights and the profile that goes with it, gay-straight alliances in high schools, PFLAG chapters.

It is true gay-straight alliances and PFLAG–Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays–chapters welcome trans youth, the fact that they do not includes trans people in their names is part of the absence of recognition of trans youth

Although every trans person knows the effects of not treating gender dysphoria it is not clear how much if any of this information is available to those organizations and individuals who have the authority to address it.

Employer Health Insurance

Given that medicare, at least in Ontario, has long given up any semblance of serving the needs of trans people concern was expressed about the possibility of employer’s health insurance covering the needed services.

The only catch is that one must must be employed in more than a part time or casual position in a company that does have health insurance.

Recommendations

In addition to the needs detailed above, the community makes a number of specific recommendations it believes can be accomplished in Ottawa to begin to address its needs:

1) Workshops to help those beginning their transition to develop the confidence and self-esteem necessary to live in the world. They would include the following topics:

Washroom issues as discussed above, including the right of those full time presenting to use the gender segregated facilities that conform to their presentation.

Women’s shelters, also as discussed above.

Transitioning rights, including those discussed above and the obligations of employers, in particular, as mandated by the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

A bathroom map, as has been created in other jurisdictions, showing where single stall washrooms are available and/or institutions where the issues of trans people using public washrooms have been settled.

2) A Community Health Centre to, in one location, bring together the necessary health care providers to address all the medical, psychological and social needs of trans people in Ottawa.

3) A Legal Clinic where specifically legal concerns, including, but not limited to marriage, divorce, adoption and legal name changes, including changing names on diplomas and degrees, can be addressed and supported by qualified legal counsel.

4) A Community Support/Advocacy Worker, to be housed in a community organization such as Pink Triangle Services, to support trans people in their struggles with accommodation, services (including health services), employment, advocating for them in these situations and working to bring about the goals/addressing the needs articulated in this document.

Acknowledgements

The support of Pink Triangle Services and its Interim Executive Director, Wayne Adams, and its Office Administrator, Claudia Van den Heuvel, is acknowledged.

The Ottawa Trans Community Consultation was organized and facilitated by Jessica Freedman. This document was prepared by Jessica Freedman.

References

The Ottawa-Carleton GLBT Wellness Project

http://www.pinktriangle.org/wellness/main.html

Trans Legislative Needs Assessment

http://www.egale.ca/index.asp?lang=E&menu=34&item=998

Further information about trans issues can be found here:

http://www.egale.ca/index.asp?lang=E&menu=34

Some information on trans, queer and two spirit youth can be found here:

Bent and Unbroken, Egale Canada, 2005. A report of a Symposium held in Toronto in October, 2004.

Ontario Human Rights Commission:

Policy on Discrimination and Harassment because of Gender Identity (approved by the Commission March 30, 2000)

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/resources/Policies/PolicyGenderIdent?page=PolicyGenderIdent-Contents.html

Toward a Commission Policy on Gender Identity: Discussion Paper (dated October 1999)

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/resources/discussion_consultation/DissGenIdentFtnts?page=DissGenIdentFtnts-Contents.html

Services for Trans People in Ottawa

A Public Commitment

We, the undersigned organizations in, of and/or serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans (transgender and transsexual), two spirit and queer community in Ottawa, recognize the historically under-served status of transgender and transsexual people in Ottawa.

(For ease of use, this document will use the term “trans” throughout.)

We publicly commit ourselves to actively and expeditiously addressing this historical oversight by formally establishing explicitly trans inclusive policies for our organizations that will contain:

1. Statements outlining our organizations’ philosophy of anti-discrimination, definitions, eligibility for services and participation, and confidentiality;

2. Commitment to the creation of trans-positive environments;

3. An identification of educational needs, service opportunities and outreach strategies that will lead our organizations to be trans-inclusive internally and, with each other, work towards creating a city and society that explicitly recognizes, accepts and serves trans people as full and equal participants.

We further commit ourselves publicly to fulfilling these policies with all deliberate haste.

Inconvenient, Divisive and Ultimately Unnecessary

In this blog, I am what Autumn Sandeen has recently described as being a bad tranny.

I will criticize the way some lesbian and gay people, particularly those in positions of power in Egale Canada (and Canadians for Equal Marriage), have responded to the demands of transgender and transsexual people for equal voice and equal resources to fight for those goals long accepted by this very organization.

Egale Canada advances equality and justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified people, and their families, across Canada. (http://www.egale.ca/)

This is the mandate of Egale Canada as taken from its website.

If Egale Canada, its staff and board had ever been truly committed to its avowed goal, as declared in their mandate, this blog might well have been an act self-destructive to the goals I espoused while a volunteer there–and probably would have never been written.

They never were.

And because of this Egale Canada is now irrelevant not only to transgender and transsexual people but also to gay, lesbian and bisexual people because it never heeded the future.

Sadly, it never had to be this way.

The title of this blog was the phrase the former Executive Director of Egale Canada gave when asked why Egale Canada and Canadians For Equal Marriage would not refer to transgender and transsexual people (trans people for short) with equal profile nor afforded comparable resources as gay and lesbian people.

Later he denied using this phrase–though I suspect his earlier candor gave way to something else. But even if this was a case of cryptonesia on my part (remembering something that never happened), it is still the most apt description of the attitude of Egale Canada–and many gay and lesbian people to this day–even when it has proven self-destructive to Egale Canada.

I was not the only one who predicted this. None of us were heard.

His rationale, and I remain grateful for it, is quite simple.

For an organization based upon the struggles of gay and lesbian people and sexual orientation, which is the defining characteristic of gay and lesbian people, the development of another message based not on orientation would clearly be inconvenient–even if it is the right thing to do.

How can they change direction after all this time? How can we ask them to give up a winning formula–even/especially when it has won what it set out to win?

There is also an assumption that media will never be able to understand those other than gay and lesbian people who are marginal and are struggling for the same recognition. That this assumption has never been tested seems not to have impinged upon this attitude.

Such a different message would clearly be divisive because the unity of the/their movement is based upon their self-defined oneness as those who love people of the same sex–the definition of themselves through whom they are attracted to.

Certainly, there is an internal/spiritual component to this, but the decision was made long ago that the most convenient way to achieve oneness was to concentrate on the notion of relationships and upon those who are the least offensive to straight people–regardless of need.

So, this became a movement that has historically thrown overboard all those who do not conform with this notion of oneness–and inoffensiveness–that has expelled not only transgender and transsexual people in its quest for acceptance as just another, slight, variant of straight.

Such a different message is clearly divisive.

Why has it proven impossible even to conceive of a movement inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity and gender expression? Why has the power of imagination of these long time warriors now failed? What is the possible future for an organization whose leaders no longer have the ability to see the future?

There were many internal criticisms of the images long associated with equal marriage–which in its origins, as once posted to the equal marriage website, was clearly limited to gay and lesbian people–which never included people of colour nor those not of middle-class or middle age.

All of us excluded from the equal marriage campaign are clearly far more marginal than white, middle-class, middle age gay and lesbian people.

This is an attitude only possible for those who have achieved more than a little comfort and more than a little affluence.

Ultimately, it is quite unnecessary to include transgender and transsexual people because, ultimately we will come out as gay or lesbian and once we so identify all these gay and lesbian only policies will apply to us and we will naturally accept their professional leadership.

Over the years gay and lesbian people have developed professional skills and personalities that once upon a time they did not have and might have been criticized by straight people for not having them yet wanting to do what ‘only professionals can do’–and gay and lesbian people responded that they were homophobic.

This is precisely where transgender and transsexual people now are–though we dare not respond that they are transphobic.

There is a certain arrogance to this position because it conveniently erases the concerns transgender and transsexual people have before they ever get to the point of being able to come out as gay or lesbian. How the hell can we have a sexual orientation when we don’t have a sex/gender from which to have orientation?

(I remain unconvinced that, even post-op, my understanding of sex/gender and orientation will ever be the same as any cissexual person.)

And where do our health needs come in that are not those of gay and lesbian people?

And where do our human rights come in? Despite routine misinformation transgender and transsexual people do not have formal, explicit human rights anywhere in Canada–except North West Territories.

And what about those transgender and transsexual people who are not gay or lesbian? Where do they fit in? Do they fit in with sexual orientation?

And for that matter where do gender-variant gay and lesbian people fit in? Is their gender expression covered by sexual orientation?

All of this places transgender and transsexual people much further to the margins than gay and lesbian people.

At the moment the Civil Marriage Act–the law that recognizes the marriage of any two people, regardless of sex/gender, though this was never used as a basis for public messaging–was passed into law in mid-2005, Egale Canada noticed a precipitous drop in fundraising–because, obviously, many people had achieved their goal and were no longer interested in what some felt was exorbitant demands for money from both Canadians for Equal Marriage and Egale Canada. They tag teamed the same fundraising lists every month.

And they were simply not interested in the needs of those more marginal than themselves.

I, among others, pointed this out to the then ED but he was, at the time, unconcerned.

Egale Canada entered a funding crisis it has never escaped. This was the beginning of the downsizing of staff and office space, of its profile and of its relevance to anyone.

During my involvement, I was not the only person who advocated for Egale Canada to take up the cause of transgender and transsexual people. This would have been a good thing not only because it is right and that Egale Canada had long committed itself to this–though the then ED admitted he had been unaware of this long policy history until I pointed it out–but because it is the future.

It would have positioned Egale Canada to benefit from the inevitable rise in the profile of transgender and transsexual people as the awareness that it is our human rights that are the last frontier among marginal people–and it is/was the best way for Egale Canada to continue its institutional existence.

Sadly, this never happened.

I have read on the xtra.ca website that Egale Canada is gearing up for a big campaign on trans issues this fall. However, true to its politburo style, no one seems to have heard anything about this–or been invited to help.

Yet there is at this moment not even a press release on the recent declaration of the Ontario Minister of Health that transsexual surgery will be relisted under Ontario medicare. True to long standing form, not even this is possible. Anyway, such a release would itself be inconvenient, divisive and ultimately, of course, unnecessary.

What can be said of the commitment of an organization which would rather remain true to its past glories than advocate for the ‘equality and justice’ of those most marginal in society–and in its mandate–or even take the necessary steps to maintain its institutional existence?

The best that can be said of those gay and lesbian people facing the past is that they were long-time warriors for their cause with a warrior’s focus on their own struggles.

I would have been proud to continue my work with Egale Canada–my application for the board of directors was sat on for 3 years–to continue its best traditions.

I no longer regret I won’t have that opportunity.

Trans Rights Are Human Rights

Riding up Bank St here in Ottawa this afternoon, past the Canadian Union of Postal Employees (CUPW) storefront, I saw two huge banners–in their even bigger street facing window–in English and in French shouting out for all to see:

TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS

It is the slogan of the Trans Human Rights Campaign here in Ontario to amend the Ontario Human Rights Code to include gender identity. To effect this change the current vehicle is Toby’s Law–though only yet a private member’s bill in the Ontario Legislature.

I let out a yelp of joy–I’m sure no one on the bus realized why I was so excited.

And yes, I am SO excited.

The world has changed.

Over the few years I’ve been an advocate for trans people, I’ve known so many who will, in private, express their support but manage not to give public voice to it.

One candidate for the New Democratic Party (NDP) nomination to run for Parliament in my riding in the last federal election spoke movingly about the power of coming out as a gay man in his speech. And yet he responded to my email asking if he supported amending the Canadian Human Rights Act to include gender identity and gender expression (GI/E) by saying he would never say this in public. None of the other candidates were that blunt.

Fortunately, he never did win the nomination.

The outgoing Member of Parliament–Ed Broadbent, a former leader of the NDP–in his speech to the meeting mentioned “all sexual orientations” but said nothing about GI/E, as if sexual orientation said it all–clearly a common misconception and sometimes intention.

One non-candidate for the nomination who gave a speech actually said “all sexual orientations and gender identities.” I went up to her after the speeches and thanked her–I always do this when people declare themselves because it is so rare and so wonderful; she didn’t think it was anything special.

And it shouldn’t be.

I have always why wondered those who present themselves as champions of the marginal and excluded are so unaware and/or unwilling to break the silence about those who remain excluded from the formal articulation of their human rights, probably the last marginal people who are–and as a consequence of this silence remain among the most marginal in society.

In my own case, I know precisely why I was silent–for 40 years.

I was ashamed.

Growing up in the 50’s and 60’s it was part of the very fabric of my being that I could not speak this. People coming along now do not understand how effectively this shame was transmitted, especially to male-bodied children. There was no time when I did not know this shame and the reason why.

No words were needed.

As an adult it took 12 years of therapy–for depression, of course–before I could say the words. And although my psychiatrist had never worked with a transsexual person before, he knew me more than well enough by this time that he gave me my first diagnosis on the spot. Within the year I went to the only doctor in Ottawa who prescribes hormones and the rest is history.

For myself, I realized that to get the words out was quite simply to change the world.

Reflecting, I realized this is the flipside of cissexual privilege and why the world remains silent about people like me and I learned a truth about privilege and its flipside, oppression.

I had expected all gay and lesbian people and their organizations–and especially when they adopt the T–to understand this in a way those who share in the privilege of white, middle-class, heterosexuality just don’t. That they would have examined privilege and understand that, as I now do, it is not so much a stagnant body of water it is, like oppression, a series of cascades.

And that we are all quite capable of it.

I know I am.

But how can they be silent? Or worse, speak what is clearly not true? Is it shame, that maybe if they acknowledge that GI/E is different from sexual orientation they will lose their status in society? And be reviled as so many trans people are?

Or that as individuals they will lose their positions, income and personal privilege? This is not, of course, shame. It is inconvenience.

The struggle for human rights is not convenient and it is certainly divisive.

But on whose side will you be counted?

On the posters on the windows of the CUPW storefront are big, beautiful butterflies.

This has become more and more a symbol used by those few who serve our communities. When recently in Montreal for surgery, I noticed that Dr. Pierre Brassard–pretty much one of the very best, if not the best in the world–uses it. As does Helma Seidl the gender specialist, actually better described as a transition assistant here in Ottawa who has helped me through so much.

Through transition and even more so now post-op and through all the truly metamorphic changes in my life I know that even while their convenient silence continues to offend my sense of right, it can no longer shame or harm me in any way.

I don’t need them. And more importantly, we don’t need them.

The world is dividing into those who are right and those who are wrong. The die is cast.

The divisions will be clear for all to see and the excuse “It was inconvenient” will take its place in history with “I was only following orders.”

TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS