Testimony
Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #99, Fall 2002.

I ?d like to take a few minutes today to speak to the New York City Council as an advocate for our communities through my role as a counselor at the Gender Identity Project at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center. I am also speaking in my role as a founding director for the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy and a director for the International Foundation for Gender Education. But, most importantly, today I am speaking as a woman of transsexual experience.
Many people feel it is their privilege to judge me on my appearance. Like most transpeople, my body seems to be a political act. This not because of my sexual orientation. This is because of the way I look and because of who I am seen as.

In this process, I have struggled to maintain my identity. Because of that process, I have been denied jobs. I have been denied housing. I have been denied services. I have been harassed and abused. I have been beaten and raped, and I have had my children taken from me.

Every day, I work with organizations that process statistics. These indicate that nearly two-thirds of all transpeople are victims of discrimination and that transpeople are 15 times more likely to be murdered than nontranspeople. Yet the random hardship, terror and violence that many transpeople experience on a daily basis, is also used against our communities. It is used to routinely deny transgender- identified individuals jobs, services, benefits, schooling and housing.

Still, I consider myself fortunate to be able to be here today. Through my work, I am required to be a spokes-trans of some sort. It has become my job to be an out woman of transsexual experience. But when I am beaten and raped by someone who cannot accept the fact that he is attracted to me; or when I am hosed down with water on the street by youths washing their car; or when I am confronted, pushed and shoved by men wandering the streets on a Saturday night; or surrounded and shouted at by 20 people on the A train; at those moments, my status as a counselor and spokesperson offers no protection. At those moments I am not being attacked and abused because of my sexual orientation. At those moments, I am subjected to that terror because of the way I look and because of who I am seen as.

When, for nearly two years, I was denied countless job interviews and or housing by real estate agents, it was not because of my sexual orientation. Instead I was refused these basic and necessary accommodations because of the way I look and because of who I am seen as.

And when I am denied physical access to my two children, I am not being denied this simple and basic parental right because it is in my children?s best interest. I don?t endure this loss because of my sexual orientation. I have had my children taken from me because of the way I look and because of who I am seen as.

That part of me that contributes and nurtures is continually erased and obstructed. Still, I cannot see how it is in anyone?s best interest that the complex components that make me who I am are suppressed and obscured by a society that prefers more simple oppressions and expressions. And I cannot see how it is in anyone?s best interest to deny that transgender employees, lovers, spouses, and parents exist. And none of this will, in fact, erase the reality that we, as transpeople do exist, that we cannot be erased, and that we can touch and can affect those around us.

Still, the result is plain and obvious to those that look and are willing to listen. The politics of attraction and power will always obscure the situations of those that cannot afford to, or are unable to speak for themselves. And so I, and my brothers and sisters, have lost most of the privilege that our culture claims we are all entitled to. Instead we have learned to be afraid to change jobs, to fall in love, to take the subway, to go into different neighborhoods, to walk to the store and to go to the emergency room. And this fear is not because of our sexual orientation. We are afraid because of the way we look and because of who we are seen as. We are afraid because we are seen, and identified, as transpeople.

It is time to take steps to end this oppression. The legislation being discussed today is a first step in a long journey toward social and economic justice for the trans and gender-different communities. Remember, as Lillian Smith wrote, ?Our right to be different is, in a deep sense, the most precious right we human beings have.?

Thank you.

Carrie Davis is a counselor at the Gender Identity Project of the New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Community Center. She can be reached by e-mail at <carrie@gaycenter.org>.

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MONOPOLY?S NEW ?GO TO JAIL, GET A VAGINA FOR FREE? CARD

Robert Kosilek, a.k.a. Michelle, sits in a Boston prison, serving a life sentence for strangling his wife. Michelle has identified as being transsexual since being sent to prison. While in prison, she filed a lawsuit claiming the Corrections Department is violating his civil rights and subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment by refusing to provide treatment for his gender identity disorder. He said he suffers continuous depression, anxiety, and a high level of stress as a result of being denied treatment.

In the lawsuit, Kosilek says, ?The universal prescribed treatment involves psychotherapy, hormone therapy, and surgical correction of the offending genitalia.? Few would feel transsexual inmates shouldn?t be given proper psychotherapy and hormone treatment if they had been receiving it since before being arrested. However, our community?s feelings tend to split on providing the same services for someone after they have been sent to prison, especially when it involves having the state to pay for sex reassignment surgery.

In an eloquent commentary on this subject, found in the March 10, 2002 issue of Anne Vitale?s newsletter, Juli Goins of Minnesota writes, ?To be frank, I don?t have a problem with referring to Kosilek as Michelle, his preferred?and now legal?name. However, my tolerance for him as a first-degree murderer goes no further. In this severe an offense, deferring to feminine pronouns with Kosilek is pretty insulting to both natal and transsexual women, and by extension, any law-abiding crossdresser who prefers to be recognized in the feminine voice.? She goes on to say, ?But simply put, his plea for free surgery is bad public relations for an embattled and heavily marginalized gender community.?

I have to agree with Juli on this matter. There are many pre-op transsexuals, living near or below the poverty level, who are far more deserving of free SRS than a convicted murderer in a Boston prison. If any state decided to give into this kind of lawsuit, what message would it send to those desperate individuals who would see that the only way they could ever get surgery is to commit a violent crime? Maybe it?s time for the top SRS surgeons to begin to consider the concept of pro-bono surgeries. The problem would lie in how to choose among the thousands of pre-op transsexuals wanting the procedure? There is no perfect answer in this imperfect world.


?SISTERS? TAKE TO THE AIR

In March of this year, working on a non-existent budget, Becky Juro and Marti Abernathy premiered their talkshow brainchild, ?Trans-Sister Radio,? on the airwaves of cyberspace at <http://www.trans-sisterradio.com>. They first started with the not-soreliable Paltalk audio chat. However, they quickly found it didn?t provide them with the quality they had envisioned. After several weeks, they installed a phone system to provide them the necessary quality, all with their own funding.

As of May, they still haven?t been able to figure out how to offset the phone costs for their weekly show. In time, all of these hurdles will be overcome. I have to commend these two women for taking on this enormous project and succeeding where others would have given up.

Add to the fact that Becky lives in New Jersey and Marti lives in Indiana, and you can see the extra burden this adds to their daunting undertaking.

There are only a few other shows like Trans-Sister Radio across the country, the best-known being GenderTalk, with Gordene MacKenzie and Nancy Nangeroni. In May, Becky and Marti had the pleasure of actually turn the tables on Nancy and Gordene, by having them as quests on their show. ?The student now becomes the master, Obi-Wan.?

Okay, okay! I admit it! They had me as a guest one time! There! I said it! This is my ?pay-back? piece for them. Okay? Besides, I was their guest because I have an ego that needs constant stroking. Why do you think I write this column? Actually, I?m an indentured servant Dallas bought on E-Bay for an autographed copy of Read My Lips, and a pair of worn and soiled tennis shoes once owned by Ren?e Richards. To this day, Dallas reminds me of her having to give up those tennis shoes?yet she fails to mention how ripe they had become over the years.

Nevertheless, I would like to thank Marti and Becky for providing this great service for our community. Until next time, my trans-sisters.