One in an occassional series Interview: Alison LaingBy Angela Gardner Alison Laing is the current Executive Director of IFGE and has been credited for turning around what was a very troubled organization. She is also a member at large of the Philadelphia-based Renaissance Education Association, Inc.'s National Board. She has been very active in the transgender community. In this interview with Ms. Laing we learn a little of her history and motivation as a community leader.
1. You've been active in the transgender community for a long time. When did you first meet other TG folks? I had superficial contact with some clients at the Philadelphia Gender Identity Clinic in 1986. However, my first real meeting of TG folks occurred in October 1986 when I met Sheila Kirk at the Fantasia Fair "registration" office in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The next nine days were the happiest days in my life. For the first time I was able to be me in a real life situation with others like me. 2. What prompted you to move into leadership with Renaissance? Actually, I first tried to align with The Outreach Institute and the then newly formed IFGE but to no avail. I heard about and then attended several meetings of the now defunct Chi Chapter support group in New Jersey. I decided that there ought to be something better and closer to where I lived. So I decided I to try to do something on my own. I met JoAnn Roberts a few months later, in January or February 1987, and the rest is history. 3. What other groups have had the benefit of your help? After helping to get Renaissance off the ground, I did find ways of working with Fantasia Fair and IFGE. Eventually I was asked to be on the Board of the Outreach Institute in 1991, and was later the Chair and then Director of Fantasia Fair. (1994 & 1995.) I left the OIGS board this year. In 1988, I helped create the Congress of Representatives (to IFGE) which later became the Congress of Transgender Organizations, and was Chair of that from 1992 to 1993. In 1993 I had the pleasure of being coordinator of Renaissances' hosting of the 1993 IFGE convention in Philadelphia. I became a member of the board of AEGIS in 1994 and have been asked to stay on for two more years. Of course my biggest undertaking in this community began when I accepted the role of Executive Director of IFGE in March 1995. This has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life. It has been an almost traumatic experience with major upheavals in my personal life and an almost overwhelming amount of work to be done with IFGE. The task has required major restructuring of IFGE from the ground up and the launching of a major public relations effort. I also have the dubious honor of being one of the instigators in getting GenderPAC going. I am still spending more effort on this than perhaps I should, trying to keep it viable. Fortunately my Board of Directors at IFGE support me in this endeavor, up to a point. 4. What are your personal goals for the transgender community? First, I would like to see all the various factions put aside their differences, recognizing that while we may all have different agendas, we have more in common than we do differences. We must accept that all people, whatever their personal gender presentation, sex role, or affectional preference, whatever their societal, racial, ethnic, religious or political affiliation, are all God's Children. I want to see the development of a real TG community where, in the words of Starhawk, "a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Some place we can be free." I also want to see the continuation of the education of the general public as well as educators, professional health care givers, the law makers, law enforcers, members of the transgendered community, their families and friends so that we can walk down the streets, go into our work places, and attend to our business and pleasure without fear of abuse. And when someone says, "Look at that transgendered person," the answer from another person will be, "So what?" 5. How do you think we're doing in meeting those goals? Recently I have had a nagging fear that we, the transgender people of North American, were not, and could not, ever be a true "community." Perhaps the best we could hope for was to have coalitions among and between the many organizations. Finally I came to realize that there is a real TG community and it is happening at the grass roots level. While I would hope our own efforts in education are helping, I believe we are receiving help elsewhere. We are getting more and better exposure in the press, on television and radio, and in published literature. All this increases public awareness and ultimately leads to more acceptance in most all metropolitan areas. Whether this will buy us "respect" is another thing all together. Respect is something we have to earn. Fortunately, because many of those who transition, or "out" themselves, are people who are extremely self confident and often over achievers, they will win respect, making it "OK" for others to respect a transgendered person. 6. What is your personal philosophy about why we do what we do? Wow! That's a big question with many answers and my answers would probably be different depending on when you ask me. I personally feel that it may be different for different people, which would account for the many variations we exhibit in our interest and how each of us manifest it. I guess I feel that the propensity to be transgendered is either genetic or at least biological, but that the ultimate catalyst which brings it out must somehow be social and cultural. I use to spend a great deal of time and effort asking myself, "Why?" Now I just know that "I am" and I have decided to make the very best of it that I can. Or, my version of "When you get stuck with lemons, why not make a really great lemon meringue pie!" 7. What are your plans for the future? There is still much work to be done at IFGE, and I am still working to get things in order. As my tour of duty there phases down, I plan to work closely with the IFGE Board to find a suitable person to replace me as Executive Director. I would like to continue participating as part of the leadership of the annual IFGE convention. I also hope I can continue the work I have begun in community building and developing of meaningful alliances and coalitions working through IFGE, Renaissance, GenderPAC and AEGIS. I want to continue to build bridges wherever I can; be it with the educational institutions, the political arena or the churches. I really believe that if we really want "community," it has to start by each of us working at it "one on one, one by one." Finally, I hope to be able to work in this community at the grass roots level, helping young people so they will not have to struggle with this for half a lifetime before realizing that it OK to be transgendered. I want to be able to help people find ways to keep a partnership together and respect each others needs. I want to find time to write down much of what I have learned, and continue to learn, in hopes of sharing it with others. I know I can not help every one but I know I can help some. |