Questioning Transphobia

Restore Fairness has a post up about Esmerelda, a trans woman who was detained in dehumanizing, discriminatory conditions while trying to seek asylum in the United States:

Courage comes in many different forms. For Esmeralda a transgender asylum seeker from Mexico who faced horrific circumstances in immigration detention, it came in the form of seeking justice. Kept in a segregated cell with other transgender detainees, Esmeralda never realized that her experience in detention would match the trauma of discrimination she had faced back home. But her story is also one of hope for change.

While the Obama administration has pledged to reform the detention system, its promises do not go far enough. Spread over a patchwork of more than 500 county jails, privately run prisons and federal facilities, immigration detention is a $1.8 billion business estimated to hold 442,941 detainees in custody in 2009 alone.

Transferred far away from their homes and families, stories are rife of how detainees are denied visitation, access to lawyers, medical care, and are subject to physical and verbal abuse. Many vulnerable people, including asylum seekers, pregnant women, children, lawful permanent residents and even U.S. citizens are among those detained.

Listen to Esmeralda’s voice of courage and take action now to fix a broken detention system.

Esmeralda: A Transgender Detainee Speaks Out from Breakthrough on Vimeo.

For some reason, WordPress won’t actually embed the video in the post, but the link above takes you to it, as does the link to Restore Fairness’ blog.

ETA, 21 November: Caitlyn has issued the following update:

First of all, I would like to thank you very much for allowing us to get the ball rolling on the Sexism survey. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen errors within our questionnaire, we are canceling the study for now. At some point, we may look at the issue of sexism as seen by transgender people again, but for now we’re tabling it

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I’ve received the following request via email and hope that some of you will be able to assist Caitlyn by taking part in this survey:

Hello, my name is Caitlyn Benoit, and I’m a member of a research team out of the Psychology Department at Southwestern Illinois College, an accredited school in the St. Louis Metro East area. Our research group is conducting a study about sexism as experienced and viewed by transgender individuals.

The best way to address what we hope to learn from this study is by starting with what we’re not trying to accomplish. We are not trying to document the transgender experience; we are specifically studying sexism. We believe that transsexual individuals – having experienced life as both genders – can offer valuable insight as to how members of each sex are perceived and treated in the workplace, relationships, schools, and other areas.

This study is being headed by Dr. Barbara Hunter, a psychology professor and active ally to the LGBT community. All student members of the research team are psychology students and either allies to or members of the LGBT community.

As responsible researchers, the privacy of our subjects is absolutely paramount. We understand the extremely personal nature of some of the information that may be disclosed in the course of this study. When considering how to maintain anonymity, we ask ourselves, “How would I want my privacy handled?” The only source of identifying information we have included is an optional contact information page at the end of the survey. Should you choose to provide us with this information, it will be reviewed only by members of the research team and kept separate from the actual survey packet; responses will in no way be attributable to the individuals from which they were received.

We acknowledge that this study does not lend itself to the inclusion of those outside the gender binary. This is not a willful exclusion of those individuals, but in an attempt to understand sexism as it applies to and affects us all, we must first understand gender roles in the context of society at large, which unfortunately necessitates that we limit the scope of this study at this time. We hope to investigate the issues facing genderqueer and genderneutral individuals in the future.

Thank you very much for your time and participation, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact me personally at kbenoit242@att.net and thank you in advance for any data you are able to give us.

Thank you,
Caitlyn Benoit

The study may be found here.

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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox

In the Australian news tonight:

WA police will withdraw charges against the 12-year-old boy who appeared in court yesterday for receiving a 70c Freddo Frog, allegedly shoplifted by his friend from a Coles supermarket.

Police initially stood by its decision to press on with the case after a hearing in Northam Children’s Court yesterday, about 100 kilometres from Perth.

That’s right, a 12 year “received stolen goods” – a chocolate bar shaped like a frog.  It’s nice to know that police in Northam have been bravely fighting this chocolate trafficking ring, working patiently to flush out these master criminals.  Word on the street was there may been a secret cache of stolen KitKats and funsize Mars Bars, maybe even a Snickers, in the possession of the notorious candy fence.  An epidemic of children hopped up on sugar may have occured.

etc etc

Seriously, though, here’s what you need to know.  Northam’s a country town in Western Australia.  The kid’s Aboriginal.  You do the maths as to why a child would be arrested, charged and sent to court because their friend gave them a stolen chocolate bar.