Questioning Transphobia

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, was passed by the U.S. Congress on October 22, 2009 and signed into law by President Barack Obama yesterday (October 28, 2009). It aims to expand the existing (1969) federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

Via The Equal Rights Trust

The Act makes three key provisions:

Section 4707 amends United States Code Title 18, section 249, to include actual or perceived gender, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity in the list of hate crimes punishable under federal law.

Section 4704 (a) provides for the Attorney General – at the request of a state or local law enforcement agency – to provide ‘technical, forensic, prosecutorial or any other form of assistance’ in the investigation or prosecution of a hate crime. Section 4704 (b) provides for the Attorney General to make grants for extraordinary expenses associated with the investigation or prosecution of a hate crime.

Section 4706 provides for the appropriation of additional personnel to assist state authorities or local law enforcement agencies to prevent and respond to violations of section 249.

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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox

The Equality and Human Rights Commmission (EHRC) has published its Research Report 27: Trans Research Review, a review of evidence on the inequalities and high levels of discrimination faced by trans people in Britain. This includes such things as: attitudes towards trans people; housing; education; crime; economic status and employment; health and social care; media, leisure and sport; family life and relationships; community and citizenship.

From the introduction to the Review (link here):

Transphobic harassment

Existing evidence suggests that trans people experience, and are badly affected by, transphobia, in a wide range of forms. This includes bullying and discriminatory treatment in schools, harassment and physical/sexual assault and rejection from families, work colleagues and friends. For example, Morton (2008), found that 62 per cent of respondents had experienced transphobic harassment from strangers in public places who perceived them to be trans. Whittle et al (2007) also found that a majority of respondents had faced harassment in public spaces. They noted that ‘73 per cent of respondents experienced comments, threatening behaviour, physical abuse, verbal abuse or sexual abuse while in public spaces.’ Tackling transphobia must be a priority.

Data on trans population

No major Government or administrative surveys have collected data by including a question where trans people can choose to identify themselves. Publicly collected data on trans people is virtually non-existent, though there is some evidence on attitudes towards trans people, for example in the 2006 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 50 per cent of people said they would be unhappy if a close relative formed a relationship with a transsexual person (Bromley et al, 2007) and in the Commission’s Who Do You See? attitudinal survey in Wales, the figure was 47 per cent (EHRC, 2008).

At present, there is no official estimate of the trans population. The England/Wales Census and Scottish Census have not asked if people identify as trans and do not plan to include such a question in 2010. GIRES, in their Home Office funded study estimate the number of trans people in the UK to be between 300,000 – 500,000, defined as ‘..a large reservoir of transgender people who experience some degree of gender variance’ (Reed et al 2009) (2)

The absence of public data raises significant concerns for populating the Equalities Measurement Framework, in order to map the changing face of inequality for trans people.

The download page for the report can be found by clicking here; despite my reservations about the EHRC (particularly with regard to their seemingly uncritical support for the distinctly trans unfriendly Equalities Bill) this is nevertheless a significant document which anyone with an interest in the inequalities faced by trans people would do well to study.

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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox

A new calendar released in Spain recently by a LGBT organisation has attracted a bit of controversy.  Why?  Because the calendar features trans women models, posed as the Virgin Mary.  Click here for the full set, which are quite beautiful (warning, some NSFW).

The shock of these images is, I think, that transsexual bodies are associated implicitly with the profane.  Christian theology is, as queer liberation theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid puts it, a “vanilla theology,” an imaginative specatacular economy that depicts already-privileged bodies as holy (the historically inaccurate depiction of Jesus as a white man), and excludes those of marginalised groups.   She says that “belief systems are organised around people’s bodies, and people’s bodies in relationships, and in sexual relationships” (2003: 43).

Indeed, Spanish trans rights activist Carla Antonelli puts it right rather poignantly:

“I posed myself the following scenario: Why is it that a transsexual woman can’t represent a religious icon given life by so many other actors and actresses throughout history? To not do it would be akin to internalizing the same discriminatory principles that people want to throw against us”

Icons, especially in the Catholic and Greek Orthodox traditions, are devotional images, supposed to make us reflect anew upon the person depicted.  A transsexual Virgin Mary, then, does profoundly theological work, allowing us to re-imagine the Virgin Mary and transsexual women at the same time.  Why don’t we venerate transsexual women? Why is that idea so foreign to us?

If the Virgin Mary as an image draws together contradictory ideas about sexuality and motherhood, then perhaps a trans Virgin suggests the impossibility of such a figure of reproductivity.  Perhaps a trans Virgin also suggests that our culture profoundly erases the possibility of trans motherhood, something as culturally implausible as a virgin birth.  Do people even know that trans women can breastfeed?

In other words, perhaps a trans Virgin could act as a point of identification for Catholic trans women, something of itself practically non-existent.  In doing so, it would problematise the implicit and pervasive cissexism of Christianity as it is usually practiced.  For if God is incarnated in hir creation (if God exists at all, of course), then God is in us.  God is as transgendered and queer as God is cis and heterosexual, and it is this truth which a profane calendar of all things makes very clear.

Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) has available for free download the following two brochures addressing the issue of trans suicide:

• Saving Our Lives: Transgender Suicide Myths, Reality, and Help

  Information for transgender people, family, friends, and allies. Includes warning signs, do’s and don’ts, helpful tips, contact information, and myths and realities.

  Click here to download PDF

• Preventing Transgender Suicide: An Introduction for Providers

  Includes definitions, warning signs, victimization and PTSD, systemic stressors, protective factors, where to learn more, and references.

  Click here to download PDF

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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox

ETA, Monday, October 12: Those people who are still subscribed to Mr Hambridge’s STP Facebook group have received the following message:

After due reconsideration and-> most valued advice from Transpersons, Intersexual persons or those who work in conjuntion with them, in majority<-it as been agreed and/or decided to cancel the above rally for this years STP 2012 campaign.

I understand that, as a consequence, the proposed counter-protest has also been cancelled.

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We are a group of trans activists who wish to make known our concerns about a demo, claiming to support the depathologisation of trans people, in London on 17th of October. The facebook group for the demo can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147494409183

The description of the event reads:

“Being transgendered is not a mental illness. We are simply part of the diversity of humanity. Gender Identity Disorder is therefore not a valid diagnosis. Homosexuality we removed as a mental health diagnosis in 1987. For us to achieve true liberation and recognition we need to throw off this unjust stigma. We are not ill, just different”

A large number of people were invited by the demo organiser, a non-trans man by the name of Dennis Hambridge, and some of us were initially concerned by the rationale for the demo. In particular, we were worried that campaigning for the removal of Gender Identity Disorder as a medical diagnosis without proposing an alternative mechanism by which transsexual people would be able to access medical transition resources was premature and dangerous, especially in a climate where NHS primary care trusts need only a minimal excuse to deny funding for our hormonal and surgical procedures. We do not support the labelling of our gender identities as disordered, and realise that our relationship with the medical community is far from ideal, but do not wish to support a movement which may give the impression that we seek complete divorce from the medical community.

These concerns were put to the Facebook group by a number of trans activists. Rather than address them, Mr Hambridge entrenched his position, making claims that gender dysphoria was an artefact of society and the medical community, and that removal of any form of classification of gender dysphoria by the WHO was “non-negotiable”.

In moves more reminiscent of the actions of transphobic radical feminists than supposed allies of trans people, Mr Hambridge started deleting some of the comments from those trans people who were concerned about our future access to hormones and surgery. Subsequently he banned a number of those trans people from the group, silencing them in that space.

To reiterate – Mr Hambridge, who is organising a demo which is allegedly supporting the rights of transsexual people is using his position as a group organiser to silence and shut out the voices of the very people he claims to support.

In light of Mr Hambridge’s intransigence and refusal to listen to the voices of actual transsexual people, we are calling on all activists who support the concept of transsexual people having a say in our own medical care to boycott this demo. We further call on Mr Hambridge, who is not trans himself, to stop claiming to speak on our behalf when he is ignoring our protestations and silencing our voices, and to call off his demo.

Please spread this open letter widely.

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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox

Just wanted to give you the heads up about a post by Chally at Zero at the Bone about the ongoing scandal that is “protective child custody” in Australia.  Some of you might remember that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd apologised to the country’s indigenous peoples last year for “past mistreatment,” most especially the generations of children taken from their parents.

And yet, as Chally points out, the statistics on child removal now continue to be appalling:

In Queensland, the number of Indigenous children in care more than doubled from June 2005 to August of this year. Not only that, but less and less kids are being placed with Indigenous carers/families. In fact, 30 per cent of children in care in NSW are Aboriginal. It’s 24 per cent nationally. And you want to know what percentage of Australian children are Aboriginal? 4.4 per cent. (Sorry, I don’t have the stats for Torres Strait Islanders. Here’s my source.) That’s totally disproportionate removal on the part of the responsible government agencies. That’s not good enough.

Concurrent with this is the Northern Territory “intervention,” in which a Federal government decides the best way to fix child abuse is a serious of dubiously legal measures and to send the army in.  Rudd apologised for past mistreatment, but it’s clear the policies of the past live on in the present.  Now go read the whole post…

The 11th International TDoR takes place this year on Friday, November 20th.

Ethan St. Pierre, who maintains the TDoR website (link here) is currently compiling a list of events scheduled for the day, and asks that anyone organising a vigil, or who knows of one that is being planned, please email him at Radicalguy@gmail.com with the details for inclusion.

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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox