Gender

The Human Rights Campaign has released it’s second edition booklet, “Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace“. Authored by Samir Luther, the volume’s objectives are:

“Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace” provides human resource and other employment professionals with best practices for transgender workplace inclusion—from discrimination and benefits policies to internal practices that reflect how gender is expressed and integrated in the workplace—as well as the state of legal issues encompassing gender identity in employment situations. The guide also covers topics such as appropriate terminology with which to discuss gender identity and expression, the creation of policies that protect transgender workers from discrimination, and the expansion of diversity programs to include gender identity and expression.”

Now remember, this is the same HRC that supported a transgender inclusive ENDA but then chose to remove that support at the last minute - you can read the history and see lins from our coverage at Beck’s Cafe at these links here: ENDA Fallout restricts Title VII Claims; Baldwin Amendment & ENDA; Representative Tammy Baldwin speaks out on ENDA; ENDA: Barney Frank backs down, HRC commits, time bought; ENDA time to make some phone calls; Continued Coverage of ENDA: Sean Hannity, ADA and James Bird; Continued Coverage on ENDA: Robyn’s Story; Petition Drive to support complete ENDA; Transgender Rights Hailstorm

And this is also the same HRC who has become a big supporter of the The Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalitions (MTPC) work in helping us all to get Massachusetts HB1722, MA Transgender Civil Rights Legislation, approved. You can read about MTPC gaining HRC support at Bay Windows here.

You can download the booklet from the HRC site at our link here.

For some excellent analysis of the HRC “Transgender Inclusion in the Workplace” booklet, we’d suggest strolling over to Dr. Jilliam Todd Weiss’s blog, “Transgender Workplace Diversity” for her review of the HRC booklet. You can reach her review at her blog at this link here.

I met Dr. Spack at a party held by my friend Laura when she lived in Boston. I remember the night well as it was a typical Laura mash-up of transgender people, kids, college students, genetic people, authors, Drs. and the odd stray who happened to smell free food. In short, fun and always interesting.

Dr. Spack was about the coolest guy at the party. He listened, spoke with passion about the transgender community, and, was from Harvard University. From my brief meeting with him I started to understand that people alot smarter than me were seeing this whole GID thing, weighing the facts and taking it seriously. He helped me to see I wasn’t necessarily crazy. We’ve actually done an article here at Beck’s Cafe on Dr. Spack. You can read that article about a paper he presented at Lahey Clinic at Beck’s Cafe by clicking HERE.

So it was nice to see at Boston.com a Q&A interview with Dr. Spack. It’s a terrific piece and one I thought all our happy coffee swillers would enjoy reading. Some highlights:

• Dr. Norman Spack, 64, argues that transgender kids tend to be much happier - and less likely to harm themselves - when they’re able to live in their preferred gender role.
• Dr. Spack on trans-kids and suicide, “Transgendered kids have a high level of suicide attempts. Of the patients who have fled England to see me, three out of the four have made very serious suicide attempts. And I’ve never seen any patient make [an attempt] after they’ve started hormonal treatment.”
• Dr. Spack on being transgender and religion: “My own rabbi said it best: The transgendered are also created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God.”

You can trott over to Boston.com to read the full article by clicking to boston.com at this link here.

We’ve updated the article here at Beck’s Cafe, “Gender Therapists: How do you choose” with a wonderful article on helping teens choose a therapist. It’s a link at the end of the article.

Happy Re-Reading

The Nashua Telegraph did an excellent series on transgender neighbors. It’s very well done, and is about four or so articles. The commentary and letters to the editors are equally as good reading, providing an interesting look into what others think of the transgender community. It’s well worth a nice cup of mocha-java and a read. Here are the links:

• Taking a Look at the Transgender Community in NH
• The people you’ll meet
• Woman finding acceptance with herself
• Series Sheds Light on Hidden Population

This is the fourth and final installment in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club.   To easily reach part 3, please click here.  Please enjoy!

—————

BECK’S CAFE: So then Randolph Country Club came into the picture?

JUNE: Well that took work. Randolph Country Club, RCC, a premiere GLBT country club and dance club, had a bad relationship with the transgender community up until that point.

YVON: I visited them a couple of times to outline what we were trying to do and what the benefits were to them. They told me that their relationship with the transgender community had soured primarily due to lack of follow through on the transgender community’s part. It was common for transgender women in our community to plan an event with them and then not to actually hold the event or communicate about it. I had to convince them that the community was honorable and could be trusted.

JUNE: And we’ve done just that. We plan events with them for about every six weeks, we communicate with the RCC team, and we have our event. This has resulted in a benefit to RCC, to FoRCC and to the transgender community overall. We had to insure that we would be good patrons and good contributors to the benefit of RCC. The reception that the management and patrons now give the trans community has been overwhelmingly supportive and nice. Even the bathroom is a non-issue.

BECK’S CAFE: So, every six weeks FoRCC has a transgender party at RCC and you’ve been doing this all told for 10 years. What keeps you doing this?

JUNE: I remember what it was like to not have a place to go and in feeling isolated and alone. To the extent that I can provide an opportunity for others to come out and be themselves and really, to lead much healthier lives, that’s what motivates me.

YVON: My personal satisfaction is to produce something and watch it grow and see the results. The fruit is in the smiling faces; they are smiling not because they are drunk but because they are getting a chance to be who they are. It’s my chance to get out and I’m having a great time and I want others to as well. I don’t want it to stop I’m having fun!

—————

Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.

This is the third part in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club. To easily reach part 2, please click here. Please enjoy!

—————

BECK’S CAFE: With that “walk out” certainly there must have been some sense of displacement or abandonment?

JUNE: Well, with the end of the relationship between Friends Landing and the transgender community something had to fill that void. So, a sort of entrpereneurial spirit was unleashed from the split and some new groups started forming. One of those was The Girl’s Night Out group, or GNO for short, which began in Manchester, New Hampshire. GNO’s approach was to provide a safe space for gender expression and have, as the founder, Maxine, was fond of saying, “The Courage to be Free”. Many girls did end up gravitating to GNO and GNO had a big, positive impact on the New England Transgender scene allowing many transgender women to come out and be free to be themselves.

YVON: FoRCC, or FoF at the time, needed a new place and we approached the Crowne Plaza in Woburn, and they suggested Friday Night. At the time, GNO wanted to merge with FoRCC (or FoF) group. We felt our group’s unique character and identity was still alive due to the real life relationships of people that grew out of this one little place.

JUNE: That’s right, many of us with FoRCC (FoF at the time) wanted to continue our group and keep it alive. The Yahoo Group kept us communicating and loosly together, as it had always been, we just needed to find a physical place. We weren’t against GNO, we just felt we had a unique group.

BECK’S CAFE: So did FoRCC every find a new place to meet?

YVON: We were alive, still looking for a home, and in March of 2006 the group was having a lot of hang wringing about going back to Friends Landing after the year long walk out.

JUNE: Friends Landing was part of my journey and I felt I had a right to be there. Some felt the same way, but not in general. I really felt that I deserved to be there but the good part about it was that the management had changed over the year and Friends was very welcoming to us.

YVON: This was a BIG surprise to all of us.

JUNE: I agree, I was expecting an attitude and had a hard time going in. But I was bound and determined to go there and even to use the ladies room. I didn’t feel like I had my begging bowl out. We were transgender and this was a GLBT club and that was that. I had a right to be there and so I went.

YVON: In a way the Friends Landing incident did us a favor. They got us out into the world MORE.

JUNE: Yes that’s right. That was the year we started going to other GLBT and Straight clubs that welcomed us. We learned we could come way out of the closet and just be ourselves.

YVON: When we came back to Friends Landing they were so happy to have us there they put our name and a big picture of us on the front of their web page, “Welcome back T-Girls” We returned in March of 2006, we had some big parties there and things were really cranking along fine until the 2006 Halloween party. It was a packed house and then on the Monday after the Halloween, with no notice, Friends Landing closed it’s doors and was sold.

—————

In Part four of this four part series, we’ll wrap up about how Yvon and June worked to heal a rift between the transgender community and the GLB part of the community so that FoRCC could find it’s new location.  To easily reach part 4, please click here.  Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.

This is the second part in a special four part series from an interview with Yvon Steel and June Casad on the Massachusetts transgender social and support group FoRCC, Friends of Randolph Country Club. To easily reach part 1, please click here. Please enjoy!

—————

BECK’S CAFE: How would you say that FoRCC has evolved over it’s 10 year life?

YVON: Well, FoRCC started as FoF, Friends of Friends Landing and was out at Friends Landing, in Haverhill, MA like we mentioned. We used a Yahoo Group for all of us to build connections outside of those meetings and stay in touch. In many ways, the Yahoo Group became the The Unofficial Friends Landing Message board. And it was a way to get people to know what was happening in each of our lives and who was going to go to be together at Friends Landing. Once in a while we’d do a roll call to create a more structured kind of meeting. But the evolution was more of one of closeted strangers who all came out to become friends.

JUNE: I’d agree. Over time what was just transgender people meeting in person and communicating online grew as friendships grew. It’s really a story of people isolated in their experience who became people connected in a shared experience of being transgender. They made friends at Friends Landing, grew into using the Yahoo Group to communicate and spilled out into real life. The Events weren’t all done at Friends Landing but sometimes happened at Jacques Cabaret or MANRAY. And that’s the interesting point. The group became interelated, invited others in, accepted them for what and who they are, and ended up having fun in the process.

YVON: Really the group grew and grew and became the focal point for THE Transgender SCENE in New England then one day it was gone. And it was really the result of one unfortunate incident.

BECK’S CAFE: You know, this “incident” is the stuff of folklore. What was the incident and how did it not only effect FoRCC but what were it’s effects, in your opinion, on the transgender scene in New England in general?

YVON: Well, at one point, Friends Landing became very trans-unfriendly and they instituted what amounted to a “vagina check’ for the ladies room and people just stopped going. You know, as transgender women, we present as women and using the right bathroom is a big deal. One key part of it is safety for us. Using a men’s bathroom presenting as a woman could put us in physical harm.

JUNE: I remember times at Friends Landing when bouncers would swarm t-girls if they felt what they wore for clothing was inappropriate even. They would harass someone like that out of the club. I had to intervene in one case. And then on St. Patrick’s Day 2005 the transgender community walked away from Friends Landing; tired of a GLBT club that had rejected us.

—————

In Part three of this four part series, we’ll talk about how the transgender community reacted to the Friends Landing incident.  To easily reach part 3, please click here.  Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.

FoRCC, or Friends of Randolph Country Club, a Massachusetts transgender social and support group, was a lengthy interview Beck’s Cafe had with two Massachusett’s transgender-women who are leaders in the community; Yvon Steel and June Casad. There are many personal and group stories and courageous trans-women and trans-men, dating back to Stonewall, who have made being transgender just a little easier for many of us today. Jennifer Boylan, in her speech at Southern Comfort Conference 2006 last year, said that, “there are so many other stories out there, and they all desperately need to be told, so that all of our stories can become familiar”. This is just one of those many stories. This is a special four part series from this interview. Please enjoy!

—————

“One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are” - Gail Goodwin

Gail Goodwin’s quote may well be the story in one line of the transgender social and support group, the Friends of Randolph Country Club (FoRCC). This group, in existence for ten years, has typified that quote: appreciating others for who they are, as they are; not for who society believes they should be. Yvon Steel and June Casad are two of the founders of this long standing group. We caught up with them in the midst of their most recent event at The Randolph Country Club in Randolph, Massachusetts to learn more about this group and how their unique history is a part of the history of the transgender community in New England.

BECK’S CAFE: I’m glad we could finally get a chance to talk in the midst of this busy Fall season for you both.

YVON: Busy is right, with our event and so many others taking place in the Fall, life can seem like whirlwind

JUNE: We try to float through it. It’s busy but fun no question about that.

BECK’S CAFE: Can you tell our readers how the Friends of Randolph Country Club started?

YVON: FoRCC, as we like to call it, or the Friends of Randolph Country Club. We’ve been around continuously for ten years at least, since about 1997. It was originally started by a woman named Holly then when she left ownership was handed over to Diane, June, Brenda, and I came in later. We originally started meeting at Friends Landing in Haverhill and kept our connections alive through the use of a Yahoo group. The Yahoo group was a great tool for all of us to collaborate together and keep the group as a group. Actually the groups original name was FoF or Friends of Friends Landing.

BECK’S CAFE: Ten years is a long time, it may be that only Tiffany Club of New England has had a longer existence. What do you think is the reason the FoRCC Community has been able to last this long?

JUNE: FoRCC is really organic and changes over time. With a lot of other groups that have come and gone, usually they get a big splash right away and are really driven by one person with a vision and energy to make it happen. FoRCC on the other hand, while it began with Holly’s vision, it never really had to rely on her singular person to make it happen. It was a sort of infectious need the transgender community felt and got behind. We never had a lot of rules or moderating either in our group meetings or in our online Yahoo group. It’s just been a place where people have felt safe to come out. And we’ve always supported people who have done that.

YVON: That’s true June. We found that our group culture just thrived on being more relationally in touch. It became clear to us that we were less “leaders” in the group as much as we were “facilitators” of this group. We saw that too many rules and one person in charge would stifle what was blossoming. We never wanted to have that. As long as people were respectful of each other anything was okay.

JUNE: We have never tried to moderate the content of our Yahoo Group or our in person meetings but when things have been deemed offensive and disrespectful we just simply squash what is happening and move on.

——————–

In Part two of this four part series, we’ll talk about the historic incident that changed much of the transgender landscape in Massachusetts today. To easily reach part 2 please click here. Copyright© 2005 - 2007 Beck’s Cafe, All rights reserved.

It started innocently enough. Three guys, some with beards, hanging around a table, talking about the days events. If it was five-PM they’d have had beers in their hands. Then five trans-women walked up and asked if the three ladies had a good time at the conference. Ladies?

That story angered a couple named Mike and Natasha West. How could one group of transgender-women show a group of transgender-men such disrespect at a major national transgender conference they wondered? The answer, they determined, lay in lack of respect within the transgender community for each others changes. Surprisingly, for the “T” part of the LGBT community, this is harder than it looks. Mike and Natasha decided to take some action to influence the transgender community to change their own attitudes about respecting each other; male-to-females and female-to-males.

Mike and Natasha have both seen their own share of disrespect within the transgender community. In some sense, they form a small sample size for how disrespect is practiced within the community. For Mike that has taken the form of transgender women asking him, after he discloses to them his transgender status, why ’she’ would want to be a guy, why would ’she’ want to have such beautiful breasts removed and moving from the pronoun ‘he’ to ’she’. Natasha has been a victim of similar disrespect and witnessed similar events as well.

Mike’s three computers are humming in his office with various programs for his web and graphics design consulting firm as we talk. As he puts it, “The transgender community has the constant issue of dealing with respect, or mostly disrespect, from friends, family, loved ones and other members of the non-transgender community…All transgender people can relate to one another in at least some way, regardless of background. Each and everyone of us has had to deal with the looks, the gender slurs, the wrong pronouns and the rude remarks. The entire transgender community needs to respect one another. If that respect does not start with each and everyone one of us; how will we ever expect the non-transgender community to respect us?” But why does this happen at all when it appears that both transgender-women and transgender-men have similar paths?

Natasha’s sense for the cause is that both sides know the right thing to do in their hearts, but, “they have to break old ways. I think it takes a conscious effort to start and gradually it gets to become automatic”. She continued saying, “I believe low self-esteem and a lack of self-respect have alot to do with an overall lack of respect within our community. Kind of like, you can’t love others until you love yourself. The teenager in high school who picks on everyone to make himself or herself seem more popular, usually is hiding their own insecurities and flaws”. Both Mike and Natasha also highlighted that the seeds of disrespect are often sown in how people were raised as children. This baseline sense of disrespect for other people and their differences isn’t connected to being transgender or not but is rooted in deep learning at an early age. The unlearning of these lessons takes conscious effort. As they grew to understand this problem within the transgender community they realized they could be a part of the solution to improving it.

First, they co-authored a booklet, targeted at the transgender community, entitled, “Respect Starts with the Community”. This booklet encourages the transgender community to consider how to respect each other; male-to-females and females-to-males. Mike used inspiring quotes, clear guidelines and common sense examples to communicate the message of respect within the transgender community. The examples are particularly important as they provide a sense of modeling of what respectful behavior is. As Mike put it, “I felt it was necessary to spell the examples out. In my travels within the transgender and even non-transgender community, some people unfortunately do not have common sense. I think providing the examples is one of the best ways for people to get an insight on how others feel when they get disrespect. Sometimes, the examples, or stories are enough to wake some people up to different forms of disrespect”.

The booklet was the first practical step and the next was a natural outgrowth; live seminars on the topic. Mike and Natasha held one of their first seminars on disrespect within the transgender community in January 2007 at First Event 2007. First Event is one of the largest transgender and diversity conferences in the United States and is held each year in New England, usually in the Boston area. The seminar was very well attended among the 600 event goers at First Event, proving the topic of respecting others within the transgender community was more important than both Mike and Natasha had oringally believed. Mike noted the feedback they had gotten, “I have had many people come to me and say they had no clue that some of these things were going on. I have also had people tell me that they were unaware that some of the things listed in the book would be taken as disrespectful and often hurtful. And lastly in the process of talking about this topic, I have had some transwomen tell me that they are beginning to understand transmen a little more”.

The topic of disrespect within the transgender community is not one that anyone would generally think of as a hot button. And yet, respect is a fundamental need for every person and group. And, it’s fundamental to the transgender community actually supporting itself. As Natasha noted about the transgender community, “We can’t be united enough to stand up for ourselves as a whole as long as there is this rift that’s been caused due to disrespect within the community”.

© 2006 Beck’s Cafe, http://www.beckscafe.com

Okay so I haven’t yet started getting my official mailings from the AARP BUT I do get mailings from the LGBT aging project. The LGBT Aging Project is, in their own words:

The LGBT Aging Project works to ensure that LGBT elders and their caregivers have equal access to the benefits, protections, and aging programs, services, and institutions that their heterosexual neighbors rely on.

Typically, LGBT elder activists replicate existing, mainstream services and provide them directly to elders. This is very important work. But the LGBT Aging Project works from a different perspective: we focus on the significant aging services infrastructure and expertise that already exists. We believe that LGBT citizens and taxpayers should have full access, and a real choice about whether or not to use it. And we teach the system how and why to create an LGBT-friendly atmosphere and culturally appropriate programs and services.

One little thing they are doing, which sounds totally cool, is to sponsor an OUT to Brunch, a gathering of Lesbian, Bi and Trans-women over 50. It sounds neat…here are the details and how to get more info:

• When is the event? Saturday September 29, 2007
• What are the times? 11 am to 1 pm
• Where is the event? Christopher’s, 1920 Mass Ave (Porter Square), Cambridge, MA
• What is the Cost? $5 (Includes coffee/tea, juice and brunch entrée)

Reservations required:

Give Lisa Krinsky a call at the LGBT Aging Project at (617) 522-6700 x307 or email: LKrinsky@ethocare.or