Transgender

Forum













%expand(%include(D:\http/ads/ads0.html))

Jessica Xavier
"TransPositive"

Taking Action:
The It's Time, Maryland! Experience

By Jessica Xavier

Part One | Part Two


The Incredibly True Story of how a small group of determined transgendered citizens put two bills before their state legislature in just sixteen months, including the first gender-identity specific anti-discrimination bill to be introduced at the state level in the United States of America

Part 1: the Early Days & the Inclusion Struggle

It was an ordinary MAGIC (Metro Area Gender Identity Connection) meeting in December, 1994, but perhaps there was something different in the air that night. MAGIC is one of the largest transsexual-specific support groups in the country, and many of us had had a rough year. Some had lost our jobs in transition, and others couldn't find a job. A few of us had been assaulted, but many more had been harassed over the years. Several of us were facing major health or financial crises. More than a few of us were depressed, experiencing the emotionally wrenching loss of our non-accepting families during the holidays.

So we gathered together that third Friday night of the month, sharing our holiday sorrows and joys. Perhaps it was listening to the endless litany, at meeting after meeting, of personal affronts to our human dignity that brought us to that threshold. Perhaps too many of us had reached our saturation points suffering the intolerance of the nons. Perhaps enough of us felt enough is enough. Or maybe, as we stared at each other across the room that night, we realized that all we had was each other. So when the first hour came to an end, most of us from across the river (Potomac, that is) went into one of the smaller rooms and formed It's Time, Maryland!

It's Time, Maryland! is a state chapter of It's Time, America! the first nationally organized grassroots lobbying group. The idea for ITA came about from a series of discussions involving Karen Kerin of Vermont, Jane Fee, Phyllis Frye, myself and others. At the 1994 Transgender Law Conference, Karen and I made some powerful points during our lunchtime addresses on Friday, and later that night we all stormed into an empty banquet room and started up ITA. But most organizations experience start-up and growth pains, and ITA proved to be no exception. Rather than continue to focus on things that weren't happening at the national level, I decided to turn my attention to organizing my home state.

It's Time, Maryland! began with a mailing list of twelve brave souls, and grew to over thirty in six months that followed. We established two chapters, one in Baltimore and one in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, and we rotated our meeting sites between the two cities. We were quite fortunate to have some very committed people join ITMD, like Mary Konchar, Gary Bowen, Lisa Babcock, Kitt Kling, and Donna and Dee Kirkpatrick. We also received some very significant, timely assistance from Phyllis Frye and from transgendered attorney, author and Maryland resident Martine Rothblatt.

We followed ITA's mission statement, to educate and influence the Congress, State and Local Governments, and other transgender and non-transgender political organizations, using direct action where necessary to safeguard and to advance the rights of transgendered people. ITA's goals included the monitoring of and lobbying for national, state and local legislation, administrative and executive actions, and regulatory actions that impact on transgender issues and concerns. Whew! If it sounds like a lot, it was and still is.

But we had to start somewhere, on that journey of a million miles. Politics may be the "art of the possible" but our involvement, as openly transgendered citizens, in a political process that is hostile to any type of civil rights legislation, seemed quite impossible when we first started. Even the statewide gay and lesbian lobbying organization, the Free State Justice Campaign, was unfriendly toward us. At the time, FSJC was in its fourth year of existence. They had a mailing list of over a thousand people, an annual budget of $24,000 and help from the Human Rights Campaign, who thought their anti-discrimination bill had a good chance to pass that year. They were the savvy political pro's - we were the know-nothing newbies. But somehow we pressed on, undaunted by our own doubts and unfazed by the harsh reality of it all. Our own desperation became our chief motivation.

It's Time, Maryland! decided early on to use the feminist method of group decision-making called consensus. ITMD's work brought together a diverse group of transgendered and non-transgendered men and women, and all of us have a say at our meetings. Some of us are radical and some are conservative, but all of us respect each other's opinions, and as a group we try to reach important decisions that take all of those opinions into account. We've had as many as twelve people at a single meeting, and none of the meetings have been longer than two hours.

We focused our earliest efforts in two areas. We began to lobby the Free State Justice Campaign (FSJC) for inclusion in their sexual-orientation only anti-discrimination bill, and we began documenting cases of discrimination, harassment and violence committed against members of our community in Maryland. Faced with FSJC's strong resistance to our inclusion in their bill, it became clear to us that we had to build a case for it. As strange as it sounds, we had to prove to them that transgendered people were victims of discrimination and thus needed to be covered under their legislation. Some of FSJC's leaders even thought we were already covered under existing state or federal laws, and we had to prove them wrong.

ITMD's first discrimination report was ready in March. It contained simple narrative stories of transgendered people who were victims of violence, employment and housing discrimination; worked in hostile environments, received hate mail, had their property vandalized and been harassed in public places. We sanitized it by removing the names of the transgendered victims and their employers, but made it specific to the county or city where it occurred. It was presented to FSJC's four co-chairs at a meeting in March, and it had an impact. Most of their leadership became sympathetic to our plight, but nevertheless they continued to resist the idea that we could be protected in their legislation. Even after we had proven that we were not covered under any civil rights law in Maryland, we still had to convince them that our inclusion wouldn't weaken their own protection under a single bill, nor poison their chances for passing it.

FSJC's leadership was strongly resistant to using language contained in Minnesota's statewide anti-discrimination law. This bill was passed in 1993 by a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered coalition named It's Time, Minnesota! (thank you, Jane Fee, for the hope you've given us all). Prior to the formation of It's Time, Maryland! this language had been presented to FSJC by Martine Rothblatt and her partner, Bina Aspen. The Minnesota law defines sexual orientation to include transgendered persons while not specifically mentioning gender identity.

FSJC felt this inclusive definition of sexual orientation would actually weakened their bill's protection for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals. Furthermore, they concluded that the language would not work in Maryland's existing civil rights law, which their bill sought to modify. A key compromise was reached when we decided to drop our insistence on using the Minnesota language. Instead, we proposed adding gender identity to their bill and defining it separately from sexual orientation. Inclusion now became theoretically possible.

ITMD also began to network throughout the state. Following the trail blazed by Phyllis Frye in 1994 at the annual conference of the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association, we sought and received the endorsement of NLGLA state chapter for inclusion. We lobbied the Interfaith Justice Coalition, a statewide LGBT religious group, and obtained their support. We testified at the Human Relations Commissions of the state of Maryland and two counties. And we continued to speak to like minded groups and to anyone who would listen to us about our need for civil rights protection.

There was also some terrible bitterness in the fight over our inclusion in FSJC's bill. We continued to go to FSJC's meetings, and the hostility levels continued to rise on both sides. We confronted them at their Open Forum in May, making it pointedly clear that we were not going away. Being a veteran of the inclusion wars over the titles of the 1993 March On Washington and 1994's Stonewall 25, I became more and more frustrated with FSJC's intransigence. In an interview with The Washington Blade in June, I accused some unnamed FSJC members of transphobia. The FSJC co-chairs strongly resented the accusation and denied it. Some were even confused by what I meant by transphobia, so I read aloud the following working definition of transphobia to them at an FSJC meeting in July:

1. When you narrowly define queer to mean only gay or lesbian

2. When you only mention gay and lesbian when representing queer groups

3. When you base civil rights on a pass-for-straight appearance

4. When you refuse to discuss transgender inclusion with transgendered people

5. When you state in your newsletter that "it is the common belief that an anti-discrimination bill including transgenders will not pass the Maryland Assembly"

6. When you do not question the actions of elected officials who leave 'transgender' out of their public proclamations for pride days, even after your group has requested they include it

7. When you use surrogates to defend your indefensible position regarding the exclusion of transgendered people, rather than discuss the issue with transgendered people yourself

8. When you're queer, know that discrimination against transgendered people in Maryland happens, you're in a position to do something about it, and choose not to, because you hate transgendered people just as much as straight people do...

This was received in a strained, somewhat stunned silence, but this confrontation finally convinced them to come to agreement with us. Shortly thereafter, both sides met with mediators present and in early August, we signed an agreement to work jointly toward a single anti-discrimination bill including both sexual orientation and gender identity. An anonymous donor stepped forward and donated money in support of our mutual lobbyist. After nine months of difficult negotiations, we had finally ended our animosity.

Personally, I felt more exhausted than victorious. In many ways, this was the most difficult struggle I had experienced as a transactivist. I did not enjoy having to fight people I admired, the gay and lesbian activists of FSJC, who were dedicated, smart and tough. After all, they too were fighting for their community. Quite rightly, they are my role models, and now, my good friends. Jan Nyquist, FSJC's Legislative Co-chair, and I co-facilitated a workshop at 1996's Creating Change, entitled "Transgender Inclusion in Statewide Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights Agendas". In doing the workshop together, it was our hope that by relating our difficult experiences, we would spare other states a similar but needless agony.

As a community seeking redress of our grievances through political endeavor, we transgendered are in our infancy. We still have much to learn from our lesbian sisters and gay brothers. A valid and often heard criticism is that we transgendered do not seek to form coalitions, nor do we work well within them. However, that method is likely the key to our future political success. Condemning gay and lesbian organizations for their desire to stay gay and lesbian is presumptuous and counter-productive. How would the average cross-dresser feel if a small bondage and domination group tried to take over her Tri-ESS chapter? Any group should possess the unquestionable right to decide its own charter and membership. This is freedom of choice and freedom of assembly, something we take for granted so quickly in Western countries that we forget how important a right it is. Having been a Freedom Writer for Amnesty International, I've written many letters on behalf of those who've lost their freedom and even their lives for daring to exercise those rights elsewhere.

If we transgendered are seeking to be accepted, we must accept others as well. We must honor their differences if we wish to have our own valued by them. Fighting over the ownership of the word "queer" is very much like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic - it just takes our attention away from the iceberg looming dead ahead. The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community must discipline itself to focus on the other, much more important tasks at hand, as we endeavor to work together to wrestle our rights from a hostile majority.

(Note: Part 2, "Welcome to Annapolis", will follow next month)



Back to
TGF's
Home Page