thomascwaters.com

I have posted things and written about transgender  issues and perspectives quite a bit on my blog, and I’m grateful for the amount, and quality of dialogue that has grown from these posts. so, I was happy to see today, on Twitter, a link to the blog post linked here.  The author, Noah, adds a new voice (new as it is a voice that hasn’t been heard on my blog before) and has a refreshing and meaningful way to express his ideas. I hope you take some time to read his whole blog entry lined below, but here is an excerpt:

I’m happy to say that I am completely male… I just happen to be female bodied. I never plan on having bottom surgery as a penis does not make me a man. My feeling male makes me a man.

I do everything a man is ’supposed’ to do. I play video games, I love movies, i’m not that interested in fashion, I enjoy looking at beautiful women (and alot of beautiful men too), I pee standing up, I even shave although I’m not yet on Testosterone. So surely I’m a man? My friends know me as a man, the actually don’t know any different. My parents are beginning to accept me as their son and my girlfriend, although a lesbian, accepts me as male. But would my status within my friends change if they were to find out that I don’t have a penis and testicles like they do?

The T Word: The ‘Male’ view of Transsexualism and Transgender?.

I’ve been listening to all the discussion about Harry Reid’s comment about Obama, and those who are calling it racist and those who are not. And somewhere within all that noise, there is a growing (hopefully) discourse about structural racism. The ways in which our very systems of thought and organization perpetuate racial inequality. Someone interviewed put it this way- when will we be able to turn the discussion to what is racism, instead of talking about if some set of words is racist?

In the area of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer rights, the same type of thing happens. Without difficulty, we can name actions as hate or homophobic, but we so often fail to see the underlying pervasive structural systems that generate these inequities. We are left throwing criticisms at people, who may be guilty of saying or doing things, but fail to convict the system within which they are operating. Foucault had it all right. It is a shame that he has fallen out of favor (and was a real bitch to try and understand anyway).

The linked story is one that demonstrates this underlying system of thought:

Japanese Trans Man Is Told His Child Is Illegitimate.

It will be easy for most to simply cry out that the officials have acted wrongly in denying this father and mother the right to name this as their child. This child is not illegitimate, but has two loving parents. If every other element of the story were exactly the same, except that the father had been born with male genitalia, the outcome would have been different.

But the more important story here, especially for GLBTQ activists, is to see the underlying structural issue. Look at the way heterosexism is “built in” to the system. Look at how much the notion of “Family” is a heterosexist construction?

This way in which the very systems of our are systemically biased towards traditional gender roles, and patriarchal power systems is why the fight for GLBTQ rights is so difficult. Worth fighting? Yes, to be sure! But in that struggle, it is critical to not allow the frustration of it to cause you to give up and stop fighting for what is right.

Read the attached story, it is a good read, and let me know what you think- are we struggling against bad people, or a systemic system which is biased towards heterosexism?

Gay Community News : Japanese Trans Man Is Told His Child Is Illegitimate..

#6 “T” is for Trans

I have written much about Trans issues over the past year, often, finding myself in hot water, especially with a group of Transexuals from New Zealand, I believe. And I’m not the only one. Over at the Bilerico Project, things really turned into a mess after the editorial board allowed a post that was very offensive to Trans people to be published. While the original post was really bad, the chaos caused and the vitriol that ensued was unwarranted. People are entitled to their own opinions and entitled to share those opinions. But these situations and many more over the year demonstrate the gulf of misunderstanding that exists between most of the LGB and the T communities.

Unlike yesterday’s post on Religious Freedom, I want to keep this one short, and direct you to a post by Jessica on another blog. Specifically, she is responding to comments made by Tim Pawlenty, and they go a long ways to illustrating some of the issues faced by Trans people, especially MTF. A link to her blog is below, and it is great reading.

I haven’t yet written about Marriage Equality in this year end review (it is coming up in the next few days) but one of the reasons I have been opposed to a hyper focus on marriage equality, is because it doesn’t serve the whole of the GLBTQ communities. States like New Hampshire allow same-sex marriage but also allow a trans person to be refused housing or denied a job. Equality sounds good, but does it make everyone equal?

I remember during my earliest involvement in activism (1976 Columbus Ohio) the struggle over naming our organization. What started at the OGRC (Ohio Gay Rights Coalition) became the OGLRC, as we discussed and came to understand how vital it was to name those who are disenfranchized, until today, when we are left with a pink alphabet soup of letters to describe the who of our collective communities. The “T” has been included for a while, but I wonder if it has been included without any real understanding of what “T” means or includes, or what the issues are that matter most to those who identify as Trans.

I also wonder if there isn’t disagreement within the broadest  understanding of what Trans includes. In what became the longest comment thread on my blog, a number of trans women tried to educate me about Trans issues. The post and comment thread is also linked below. One of the main elements of it however, was the desire by some of the commenters to differentiate between transexual and transgender, and in their view, transgenders were people for whom it was a lifestyle thing, like cross dressing. Another commenter went so far as to say that the gay movement (in the generic sense) should not include Trans, because for those who are intersex, it is simply a medical condition, and they have a better chance of receiving the treatment and acceptance needed without the gay community. I don’t personally know a lot of Trans people, but of those I know, not a single one would agree with that position. My take on it all, is that we (in the most general sense) have a lot of work ahead of us to better understand Trans, and the women and men who identify this way. Without this understanding we can not really move towards full equality.

Here is Jessica’s post on Light Up My… blog

Some of my posts about Trans over the year:

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/12/15/gender/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/10/26/ftm-transgender/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/10/15/transgender/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/09/30/reading-yes-how-about-kalamazoo/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/09/17/violation-and-caster-semenya/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/09/02/dci-to-unravel-transgender-and-intersex-issues-in-new-media/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/08/28/transohio-symposium-shatters-new-ground-for-midwest-transpeople/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/08/02/theology-and-transgender/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/07/27/a-native-american-perspective-on-the-theory-of-gender-continuum-by-drk/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/07/16/why-pa-hb-300-must-remain-transgender-inclusive/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/06/19/trans-blogging/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/06/05/you-can-marry-but-you-cant-work/

http://thomascwaters.com/2009/05/21/reply-to-tina/

The linked article doesn’t contain a ton of information, and frankly, I’d like to know more, but it is interesting, none the less. The issue of Gender, what is is, and isn’t, and the relationship of Gender, Gender Identity and Expression to the gay and lesbian rights movement is an important subject that we don’t talk about enough. The “T” is there in LGBT (or GLBTQ, or whatever combination you are most fond of using) . yet there are those in the Transexual, Intersex, and Transgender communities who feel it doesn’t belong, or who feel as if, they are still ignored and invisible even though it is listed.

I think that while the LGBT community has included T, few have really taken the time to understand what that is, who is included, and what that means for those who self-identify as Trans, as well as for the rest of the GLBTQ communities. Trans folk “belonged” (and continue to do so, in my opinion) because no sexual minority deserves less than full equality. Trans folk don’t choose to change genders. They choose to accept that their insides don’t match their outsides, and decide to align these to be more whole. Gays and lesbians don’t chose to be gay or lesbian, but they do chose to accept themselves as they are rather than deny their identity.

But what do we really know about Gender? What is it and why is it the way it is? For me, my identity as a man is so tied to my anatomy, that I have no basis for understanding how someone can know that their true gender doesn’t match their identity. I have bought into the status quo idea that gender is anatomy. But this status quo may fall away, just as other concepts and ideas have been replaced over time as we have come to understand the science behind what we see and think we know.

Gender and anatomy are as intertwined as anything with Religion,given that the primary basis of the Jude-Christian creation story is all about Adam and Eve. But just as Religion had to come to terms with the limitations of it’s own lore surrounding astronomy, it will eventually have to come to terms with the shortcomings of it’s creation myth too. Time will tell, if Religion can do that, or if it feels so tightly bound to Adam and Eve that it (Religion) would rather become irrelevant than keep the overall cosmology while reorienting itself with updated ideas about the origin of human life.

No matter how hard Religion fights, we must continue to look towards Science to help understand biology and what we call life generally, as well as gender specifically.

Wow, that got a bit heavier than I was expecting- enjoy the linked article.

Ameriqueer: Mice Prove Gender Isn’t Fixed at Birth – Battle of the sexes rages inside each individual.

The other day, someone I follow on Twitter, sent me a message- would I read her blog. I’m always interested in checking out new blogs, and was very happy to dig into this one. The author is a woman in a relationship with a FTM transexual, and the blog is about her journey through that process. So far, I have to say, I’m really touched by the blog. The honesty and sincerity is wonderful. I’m grateful to be welcomed in to learn about her and her relationship. Check it out:

Introducing…ME: The Transition Starts….

The link below is to Laura Calvo’s blog, TransEnough.com, and a blog entry about her work helping the with the No on 1 campaign in Maine. I wanted to draw your attention to it, because of how she talks about the “Pink Alphabet” issue of LGBT, and how various parts of this diverse mix of communities may see themselves as well as others. While I get crap from someone no matter what I write about Trans issues, I am keenly aware that this notion of what it means to be a diverse community or group of communities or whatever is the appropriate language is critically important.

I remember the days discussing if it should be the “Gay Rights” movement or the “Gay and Lesbian Rights”  movement or the “Lesbian and Gay Rights” movement or the … Do you remember those days? Why we are this diverse mixture of folks- what we do and do not have in common and what it means to demand full equality for everyone covered under the LGBT or GLBTQ or [however you list the pink alphabet] umbrella is extremely important, and I for one want to open as many lines to communication to understand different viewpoints and thought s about this as possible.

I want to make no comment on any of the actual content of the blog post, although there are some ideas I’d like to discuss. But for now, I am glad to just put it out there.  These are issues that we, as a LGBT/GLBTQ/[whatever your letters] communities must examine, discuss and come to a great level of understanding  of how to adequate include, and value everyone.

Maine, Marriage, and Motivation | TransEnough.com.

Yesterday, I posted the press release from the Equality Advocates PA, about the vote to add protections for sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to their existing human rights protections. This is similar to what happened here in Pittsburgh earlier in the year, but their council approved the legislation with 6 votes in favor and 1 opposed. Quite a majority as opposed to the just basely made it vote here in Allegheny County. While this is exciting, I’d like to use it to draw attention to the appalling tactics being used in Kalamazoo MI to kill similar protections that were adopted earlier this year.

This picture posted to Twitter is an example of the type of abusive and deceptive publicity being used to kill the bill there.

I don’t know too much about any of the individuals pictured. However, Kate Lynn Blatt, in the lower right corner isn’t a man, not based on the sex as listed on her driver’s license. I tried to learn some facts about this specific situation when the American Family Association of PA (AFAPA) ran that picture and some hateful stuff about her in their newsletter as part of their campaign against Allegheny County’s ordinance. She had been at a conference and spilled coffee and so, had gone to a local store to buy something to wear. The store employee and manager refused to allow her to use the women’s changing room, even though she had identification of her gender. The police were called, and the police forced the store to allow her to use the changing room.

I didn’t find out too much about the picture, except I was told that it was quite old, and not the way she looks at all.

What is second most appalling to me is the conflation of cross-dressing and being transexual or transgender. Cross-dressing, or transvestitism is generally done by men, who have no interest in being women, but do want to dress like them. Often they are straight men. Gay men, who dress up as women, generally do it from a performance angle and are called drag queens. But the women above, are individuals who were born with their gender identity not matching their physical gender, and who have taken steps (all of them perhaps) to be reassigned as the opposite sex. Thus, Kate Lynn’s sex is listed as female, and not male.

What is most appalling to me is thew way they are portraying this as if a “No on 1856″ is a vote against discrimination. This is really an outrage!

The linked blog post is actually entitled “Interesting Times” and covers a few news items, but I’m linking it mostly due to the section dealing with Caster Semenya. Sometimes, I have or think others have the assumption that a blogger such as myself can always just sit and write and churn out good stuff day after day, but my experience isn’t like that. Sure, I’m a guy with an  opinion and I generally know what it is and am free to share it, but often, blogging is also a process by which I come to realize what I don’t know and seek out more information about it.And such is the case when it comes to writing about Caster Semenya. A Facebook friend first alerted me to her story, and since then, I’ve been following it, wanting to write something, but unclear what I wanted or had to say about it.

Bigger than just what is happening for Caster, I’m been immersed in learning more about the Transgender, Transexual, and Intersex communities and what these things are all about. We, in the most general sense, use the shorthand LGBT to mean Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender, or a different version of the abbreviation that I prefer is GLBTQ for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer. And some go a step further and add an “I” to the end, to include Intersex. But what do these mean, how are they viewed by the real individuals who self-identity by these terms, and why are these groups of people linked together (or why shouldn’t they be)?

If you don’t know about Caster, she is a South African athlete who won the 800 meters at the World Athletics Championships, but then was pushed into controversy, when she was ordered to undergo gender verification testing. The claim was that she wasn’t really female, and had an unfair advantage. I especially like this quote from the Reuter’s Blog:

Many in South Africa feel a victory by their talented young athlete is being tarnished by bad losers and a world all too  ready to mock. Sensitivities to prejudice are never far from the surface in the country where apartheid white minority rule ended just 15 years ago.

My motivations for digging into a better understanding of issues surrounding gender and identity, began to percolate a while ago, as my interest in writing about Marriage Equality grew. It seemed to me then (and still) that one of the reasons not to make Marriage Equality the primary and only gay rights agenda, was because, while important, it does not speak to the needs and lives of everyone in these LGBT/GLBTQ communities. My primary interest was PA HB 300, a nondiscrimination protection for Pennsylvania that would add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to the existing state protections. As we worked on this, I received questions about if we might get further if we dropped gender identity and expression, but the plan has been clear from the start, that no one group should be excluded simply to make things easier for another group. In states where sexual orientation was added with out protections for trans persons, they are now finding it difficult to add this like, in New Hampshire.

Then, I posted a blog post about a person speaking at a conference, and it prompted the longest thread of discussion my blog has ever seen- mostly with commentary by some who self identify as Transexual, expressing, among other things why Transexual and Transgender are not the same, nor even connected. Actually, for good or bad, I’ve written often about transgender on my blog. A quick search of my blog- I didn’t realize how many posts include content about transgender!  The comments by all who posted provided much information and display a few different viewpoints. But this blog post about Caster strikes a chord with me because of two other events that were recent for me, that were at one point, unconnected, but now I see differently.

First, I recently had a falling out with a fellow Pittsburgh blogger, over comments I made on Facebook. The blogger had made a comment about how big corporations rape us, and have bloated profits, and I objected heavily to the use of the word rape, feeling that such a use belittles the horrific and devastating physical, spiritual, and emotional experience of women and men who are physically violated in this way. Rape is never consensual, and always an act of power over the  one who is victimized, and the fact that such an act touches a person on so many levels- physical, emotional, and spiritual, seems quite different from the way our capitalist system and commodity lifestyle has set the stage for a few to get so rich off of so many.

Then, I had coffee with LaTasha Mayes of New Voices Pittsburgh, to learn more about her work with that group. I listened intently as she talked, not so about reproductive rights, but rather, reproductive justice- or maybe more accurately, how reproductive rights is a Justice issue.

And so, that brings me back to Caster Semenya. From the blog post:

In the local press, Caster Semenya’s gender test results were most insensitively leaked to the media and splashed all over the world’s papers. How very decent of them, rubbing the poor girl’s nose in the news that she failed and giving intimate personal details about the inside of her body so that no member of the public could be left in any doubt that there are doubts about her being female. Who cares that she is only 18 years old, faces the end of a hitherto fantastic future in athletics, has no other prospects as she hasn’t even finished high school yet, and may even retreat into depression or turn suicidal because of this? No, getting that headline first is far more important. And isn’t it a “moral duty” to report the news – whether it is true or accurate, or not – to a public hungry for something to gossip about for a few days?

At one time, I would have said that there could be no greater violation of anothers’ person/their body except physical rape, but now I’m rethinking that. To have these specific tests results, or any tests, plastered across the worlds news- truly unbelievable, definitely unacceptable. This was also a physical violation of Caster’s body. We have so much actual physical evidence in our world, that human beings as well as all living creatures, do not fit perfectly into two rigid categories of male and female, and yet in general, we seem to work so hard to pretend that it does, get rid of anything that would prompt us to rethink that dichotomy.

And yet there are many who still maintain she had an “unfair advantage” by “not being female”. Such statements are clearly fueled by both Patriarchy and ignorance.

Ariablue commented on my blog:

To buy into that “gender” paradigm pushed by theorists, certain feminists, and the T of the GLBT in this case is to do a great disservice to people born in such desperate straits.

How individuals do and do not fit into this rigid dichotomy, is not a social construct created by “theorists, certain feminists, and the T of the GLBT,” nor are they guilty of simply buying into it.

Interesting Times | sexgenderbody.

The linked article is not the kind of thing I generally post or write about, but today, struck me as very important. During a phone call this weekend with an activist I have the highest regard for, we were talking about the upcoming Equality March on Washington, and the issue of organizing at the state level for legislative change vs a different approach to prioritize for national legislative change instead. I want to write more about my decision to attend the Equality March, and so will touch more on that aspect of it then, but I want to say a bit about why I am opposed to an isolated insistance on national legislative change for GLBTQ issues.

If we learned nothing from the Black Civil Rights movement, I hope we have learned that simply changing a few laws does not make prejudice go away. The path to full equality is made up of smaller steps, with each step gaining some ground. And even with full equality on the books as laws governing our society, the effects of years of inequality still abound. Or look to the fight for reproductive freedom and the battle over abortion. This may be a fight closer in many ways to the gay civil rights movement, or the opposition uses the same religious weaponry to battle a woman’s right to choice  as they do against homosexuality. When an abortion doctor, who operated completely within the law,  can be gunned down, in his church- one has to ask, if achieving some form of legislative win will solve much in terms of how homophobia leads to violence, abuse, and mistreatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. We need laws, and we need cultural change. These two must go hand in hand and each support the other.

But what about underneath the easy-to-talk-about political layer? It is easy to write about how GLBTQ’s deserve equal rights, and having full equality will make a difference in many ways for many people, especially when viewed from a general or almost theoretical perspective. But what are the issues affecting real, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, day to day, in their real lives? What does it mean to talk about a GLBTQ community or culture, especially in relation to the greater society as a whole?

Much of my focus, if you have been reading my blog, has been on PA HB 300, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to the states nondiscrimination legislation. And I’m 100% committed to that as an important legislative agenda here in Pennsylvania. But recently, two other issues have been rising to the top of my priority list: Hate Crimes legislation and Anti-bullying legislation, which really seem connected in my line of reasoning. When we allow the use of homophobic slurs and bullying in our schools, we are setting the stage for people to act out violently against anyone seen as different from the norm, and especially gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgenders. A hate crime is bullying gone way to far. That is over simplified, but I hope you get my point.

As usual, I have strayed away from the linked article trying to set the stage for it. If we are focused only on legislative advances we fail to see and address the ongoing effects within our communities, that are a result to some extent of the level of homophobia and anti-gay sentiment that we live in 24/7/365. Changing laws alone won’t either fix the problems this has caused nor alter the elements of our culture that are the result of it. So, at the same time as we work for full equality, we must also look at how it has impacted us. The linked article is a very good read toward that end.

Reeuq.com – Gay Social Media Done Right!.

This link looked interesting, although I’m not sure if the blog itself is new. The author is also editor of a blog called Behind the Mask which is a really good site for news and information about GLBTI issues in Africa.

I will be a speaker in a panel about Gender, Civil Society and Digital Media and am delighted to share experiences of Behind the Mask on how the media reports on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex issues (LGBTI), whether digital media is opening up space for marginalised groups such as transgender and intersex people’s voices to be heard and whether the right to sexual orientation is recognised in new media.

via DCI To Unravel Transgender And Intersex Issues In New Media | sexgenderbody.