GenderPAC & NOW Meet on Inclusion

In Your Face News Service
San Francisco, CA - January 25, 1997

Pursuing ratification of a 2 year-old trans- inclusion resolution which has languished at NOW's National Board, representatives of GenderPAC and other groups made an impassioned presentation to NOW's prestigious President Conference this afternoon.

The Conference is an annual roundtable event, attended by the heads of NOW state chapters from around the country. The hour-long effort was attended by 25-30 of state presidents as well as Ms. Patricia Ireland, NOW's National President. The event was coordinated by NOW-NJ's Bear Atwood, and Terri McCorcal, GenderPAC's NOW Coordinator.

The trans-inclusion resolution was originally passed by NOW-NJ at their State Conference in 1995. It was submitted to NOW National only months later, after Menace activists succeeded in rounded up hundreds of signatures at NOW's '95 National Conference in Columbus, OH. Included among them was Ellie Smeal, NOW's first president and current head of the Feminist Majority. but the resolution bogged down and has never come to a vote.

The presentation, which opened with an overview by GenderPAC Executive Director Riki Anne Wilchins, continued with a discussion of the theory and politics of transinclusion. Strong presentations were made by Cheryl Chase, Executive Director of the Intersexed Society of North America, author/activist Susan Stryker, trans-academic and activist Jacob Hale, and local activists Katie Collins and Nicole Sharkey, among others. Hale and Stryker are also co-chairs of the National Coalition for GID Reform (NCGIDR).

Said Wilchins, "It's interesting that my own NYC chapter -- the oldest and founding chapter -- told me that I was a man, transexual men were *also men, and as for herms, well, I don't even want to *guess what they would have made of Cheryl and ISNA. I wanted to underscore that policing who is a 'woman,' feminism actually hardens the barriers between the sexes instead of breaking them down. It limits what women can be or become. Transpeople are a doorway *out, not just barbarians at the gender gates."

Individual presentations were followed by a spirited Q & A on the politics of inclusion. At the sessions' end, Ms. Ireland and several State Presidents encouraged activists to submit workshop proposals on transinclusion to NOW's 1997 National Conference (July 4th weekend, Memphis TN). GenderPAC's Terri McCorcal has already begun working with NOW staffers on developing appropriate topics and presenters.

Trans-inclusion continues to draw local support, as activists in Seattle NOW report the city has just become the newest chapter to (unanimously) endorse trans-inclusion.


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