ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
Phyllis Randolph Frye
VIRGINIA PRINCE LIFETIME CONTRIBUTION AWARD, IFGE
MARCH 20, 1999, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
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ACCEPTANCE SPEECH Phyllis Randolph Frye
VIRGINIA PRINCE LIFETIME CONTRIBUTION AWARD, IFGE
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As I prepared this talk, I felt very much "Academy Award'ish" in the desire
to thank everyone, yes e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e who was a part of this honor. You know --- those folks who had been doing the work along side me, and those folks who
helped me along, and those folks who had an influence on my work and who I
became and who I did not become, and on and on and on. My parents, teachers,
yes, even to thank a real jerk of a teacher who made my life miserable while I
was in high school because he forced me to focus on the details of planning.
Well, the list got longer and longer, just like tomorrow night's Academy
Awards. When I reached 937 I knew that I'd better take another tack. You
really don't want to hear 937-plus thank you's, do you? No, I didn't think
so. But I did bring my best friend and legal same-sex spouse of over twenty-
five years with me. Her name is Trish, she deserves lots of thanks -- I love
ya, sweetie -- and I hope you give her lots of hugs after this is over.
Next I considered a listing of my accomplishments that got me to this point
where you honor me with this terrific award, named after the very Virginia
Prince who was out and open and stirring-up-the-ants back when I was afraid of
coming out in 1971 at the age of twenty-three. Thank you, Virginia, for being
there back then when I was afraid.
How many of you are surprised to learn that I was ever afraid? Well, I was,
and that is a point worth spending at least an hour of discussion. How did I
get from being the scared and closeted person I was to being who I am? The
same way that you are -- learning to quiet your fears and become a proud and
out person -- by going one step at a time. But we don't have an hour to
discuss that, and I really don't think you want to hear that tonight. Do you?
As to my political activism and as to my accomplishments, I suggest that you
pull up my web page: "http://members.aol.com/prfrye." If you want to write
that down, I'll give it to you again after the end of my talk. Or if you want
to be on my TG e-mail news list, give me your cyber-address tonight.
I do want to assert that we transgenders must continue our embrace of our
lesbian, gay and bisexual friends and get over any homophobia. Even though
there remain some small pockets of resistance, I fell that the remerging of
the LGBT community is coming along very well.
And I want to assert that we MTF folks must continue to encourage and support
our FTM brothers as they begin their transitions. They are an integral part
of who we are, and I feel that this is also moving along very well.
But one area that we still need to address and become proactive in stamping
out is the remaining racism in our community. For those of us, who are white,
and who as transgenders face oppression based solely on society's reaction to
our outward appearance, we must end any racist feelings both within and
without. And proactively so! Consider that people of color also face
oppression based solely on society's reaction to their outward appearance.
Those of us who are white and TG should be just as close and warm towards
people of color as we are of the LGB community. And next year, I will pray
that the award winners will not be solely white faces.
Now, I want to talk about us, about our community, and where we were and where we are. Have you ever considered the crazy circumstances that have brought us together? Sure when we get to know each other we discover that we have things in common, like being Eagle Boy Scouts, or being in the military, or playing musical instruments, or maybe living just around the block in a town when you knew you were the only one. Or we find other engineers, CPA's, railroad workers or airplane mechanics.
But what is it that brought us together? Think about it. We had NOTHING in common except that we have some internal feeling that was not culturally acceptable. And we came together with a lot of fear and sometimes feelings of guilt and shame. But that was then. I assure you that if Virginia Prince could do what she did beginning back in the 1950's and 1960's, and I could begin to do what I did in the 1970's, and others have done what we have done during and since then, and we have all survived and are doing for the most part pretty well, then today, yes in March of 1999, I proclaim that there is no more time or room for fear or guilt or shame. It is time for society to get over itself as to who we are.
But what else do we have in common? What else besides some internal feeling that was not culturally acceptable? Well our good humor for one. Think about it, some of us have done some really funny things to learn to cope with this internal feeling that was not culturally acceptable. Yes, it is time to laugh. And as I tell you this story, think about others that are simply just too funny.
About twelve years ago, our local group was having a party at a member's beachhouse. That member also had a hot tub. Great chance for all the MTF's to wear their skimpiest swim suit and for the FTM's to finally show off their new chests and their chest hair. Right. A good friend, Vivian, was in the hot tub for a while and as she stood to get out, we noticed that her breasts were terribly misshaped. You know, after sitting with arms folded, like someone pushed a fist into a ball of mud. We started giggling and she noticed what we saw. Embarrassed, she tried to cover herself only to rearrange them even more. She got red in the face and we thought she would cry, but then she started giggling herself. She explained that for years, her breast prosthetic was a stocking filled with rice. Worked good for years until she sat for a half hour in hot water. Yes, she'd cooked her rice tits. Now what other community is going to have stories like that?
And thankfully, now in 1999, without fear, guilt or shame, we can laugh at ourselves as well.
Our community has changed in other ways. Back when, there was the notion amongst the folks doing the Harry Benjamin work, that we all had to be heterosexual. So, if you were going through with genital surgery, you had to, yes H-A-D-T-O divorce your loving spouse even if your spouse wanted to stay with you. They were destroying those marriages that we had been successful in saving. Early in this decade, myself and others began the movement to let these doctors know that if they persisted in that notion, that we would find other doctors.
Now, today, in 1999, we have many legally married, same-sex, transgender couples, in every state. Yes, these folks are now gay or lesbian and the response from them is, "so what if we are?"
What does this mean for the spouse of a non-transsexual, heterosexual crossdresser? It means that as more of our legal marriages become same-sexed, and as the lesbian and gay community get the right to begin a legal same-sex marriage, that the spouse of a non-transsexual, heterosexual crossdresser will feel less pressure from the parents and siblings, less pressure from their churches and synagogues and mosques, less pressure from the neighbors, less pressure from their peers, friends and co-workers, and less pressure from other social and cultural venues to divorce their husbands if their husband's crossdressing goes public. Sounds pro-family to me and deserving of a pause to reflect on the freedom these spouses of non-transsexual, heterosexual crossdressers will feel.
Our community has also changed in that genital surgery is no longer the end-all for the legal goal of correction of sex. For many years I have been about the business mostly of freeing our community from the legal NEED of the scalpel. Notice that I did not say freedom from the scalpel, I said from the legal NEED of the scalpel.
For decades, the medical community, mostly white, mostly heterosexual male, has defined our people on the basis of genital surgery. Do you need it? -- then TS or transsexual. Not? -- then TV or transvestite, and later CD or crossdresser. If TS, are you pre-operative or post-operative, and only if post-operative were you a "REAL" person, man or woman depending on if MTF or FTM.
Such total nonsense!
Being transgendered myself, back in 1971, I thought I was a TV and then it became obvious to me in 1974 and 1975 that I was TS, but I had this wonderful spouse-person named Trish who did not want to lose me. And I did not want to lose her. So, she said something to the effect of, "if you can stop short of surgery, I will try to learn to accommodate the rest, even the name change, the hormonal side-effects, and everything else." Loving her and wanting to keep her, that is what I did. And that is the way we were from 1976 until 1994 -- two women, best friends, lovers, one being an original woman and the other being a postponed, pre-operative transsexual, perceived by society as a lesbian couple and having no problem with that perception.
That year, 1994, the details of why are long and drawn out, she concluded that when I turned fifty ( which was just last year folks despite all of my gray hair) if I still wanted genital surgery, then she would consider that I had fulfilled my side of the bargain and she would remain with me. So, I was free to have genital surgery in 1998 when I turned fifty, and keep her also!.
At the same time, I was taking ICTLEP, the Transgender Law Conference, on- the-road to lots of events such as this one in Louisville for legal workshops and fundraising. I met lots of post-operative transsexuals, both MTF and FTM, who told group sessions how happy they were with their surgery. Interestingly, when alone, over a drink, many -- no, I do not have a statistic or a percentage and my sampling was not scientific -- but many told me that their surgery was not what they had expected and they were not pleased.
Something was going on, and a lot of people, either because of peer pressure, expectations of family or friends or expectations of the medical community, or the Harry Benjamin Standards that I will continue to say were based on the need to protect doctors from malpractice, or the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual, the DSM, that still labeled us with a "disorder", or the judges who expected people to have surgery as a condition to getting a birth certificate correction -- whatever -- a lot was going on, and many post-ops who talked a good talk in groups were candidly, to me anyway, candidly unhappy in the one-on-one conversations of the reality of genital surgery that they were not pleased with.
Being a lawyer -- and a damned good one, I might humbly add -- you can laugh here if you wish -- I put a lot of blame on the legal community. Think this through. If a doctor's letter was all a surgeon needed to do expensive, life- threatening, irreversible genital surgery, then why couldn't that same doctor's letter be all that a judge needed to effect a legal correction of sex on a birth certificate? And if a judge would do so without a condition that the client follow through with genital surgery, then guess what happens?
What happens?
Genital surgery finally becomes a true choice. Let me say that again, genital surgery finally becomes a true choice. So if genital surgery happens, it is because the person really wants it, and not because genital surgery is necessary to get all the legal affairs in order. And with a full and complete legal correction of sex without the precondition of ever completing genital surgery, then the hormonally altered transsexual is on equal footing, yes is just as legally complete as is the post-operative transsexual. So not only from a legal standpoint, but also from a peer pressure and others' expectations standpoint, they are equally complete.
So, my friends, I have freed you from the legal NEED of the scalpel, while still maintaining the availability of the scalpel if truly desired. I support genital surgery. But I have made it so that with the legal equality of the hormonally altered transsexual with the post-operative transsexual, the genital surgery is finally a true choice to be made by the individual without coercion, legal, social or otherwise.
Now to you spouses of heterosexual crossdressers who sit here tonight, I am certain that you secretly fear that your husband will be lured into becoming full-time and then TS and eventually have genital surgery. I say to you, that by removing the legal NEED for the scalpel to make transsexualism legally completed before and without a condition of ever having genital surgery, you need not necessarily fear that your husband going from Crossdresser to transsexual, because now transsexual does not automatically equate to genital surgery. Even though my spouse gave me the okay, because I could become a legally complete transsexual without the condition of completing genital surgery, I had a true choice. And with that true choice for me, privately, my true choice became to have a simple orchiectomy.
And so I end this, I invite you to either get my web address or give to me your e-mail address, and again I say thank you.
I think that the best thing for me to talk to you about now is the work that is at hand and still needs to be done. Each of you has in your program book, a letter addressed to United States Representative, Barney Frank. Let us talk about that.
How many of you have a fear for losing your jobs because you have some form or variety of transgender or are the spouse or loved one of some variety of transgender? Come on, raise your hands. Should be almost everyone in this room. Did you know that when I formed ICTLEP back in 1991, that fear that you are expressing is why I intentionally put "employment policy" into its name? Yes, that is correct -- the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy. It is the fear of loss of a job or career and all that goes with such a loss that paralyses our community. This fear completely cripples the heterosexual crossdressers and their spouses. And for those who are full-time transsexual, they can survive almost any obstacle and indignity and cruelty and ostracism if they can keep or get a job and not become homeless.
Jobs. Keeping them and getting them. They are key to our peoples' survival. Tell me if I am wrong, if you had a law that would guarantee you redress if you were fired or not hired simply because someone discovered that you cross dressed, would you come out? Would you? No fear of job and income loss, would you come out? I believe you would.
There has been in the past United States Congressional Sessions, at least since Karen Kerin and I got involved in 1994, a bill called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA. If you know what I am talking about raise your hands. ENDA, if enacted by both Congressional Houses and signed by the President, would provide job protection, unfortunately in a very limited form, to some lesbians and some gay men and some bisexuals. If passed as it is, ENDA would not protect you and me. Nor would it protect any of our transgender sister and brothers. Nor would it protect those lesbians, gay men or bisexuals who present in their dress or appearance or personality any variant of mainline, conservative bi-polar gender presentation.
Every since my forming ICTLEP for effecting transgender protective employment policy, along with my original Board of Sharon Stuart, Martine Rothblatt, Laura Skaer and Jackie Thorne, and those who came after as Directors, Moderators, speakers and publishers of the annual Proceedings; and on through the recognition that we transgenders were intentionally excluded from the ENDA Bills as I worked with Karen Kerin, and then with Jane Fee and Riki Wilchins and all of the others that made up our first organized lobby event in DC in March of 1995, the large one in October of 1995, and the two smaller ones in February and May of 1997; and with all of the work that folks like Jessica Xavier and Nancy Sharp and Mary Boenke and others have done to bring PFLAG -- the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays -- to change its mission statement to become transgender inclusive; plus the work done by folks within the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force to change its mission statement to become transgender inclusive, plus the work done by still others to bring the National Association for Women -- NOW -- to adopt a transgender inclusive resolution, plus the work of Shannon Minter and the late Dee McKellar and also Melinda Whiteway and others to bring the National Lesbian and Gay Law Association to change its mission statement to become transgender inclusive; plus all of the many national and state and local organizations that are currently active in persuading their government leaders to adopt or consider the adoption of transgender protections in ordinances or state laws. Yes, with all of this, thousands and tens of thousands of us transgender folks -- even around the world, we know they are active because the internet has come alive with successes and strategies and stories of courage -- yes, with all of this we are still not in the ENDA Bill that will be offered any day now to this current, two-year session of Congress that began two months ago.
And we are still not in the ENDA Bill because of two people: US Representative Barney Frank (D-MA), and US Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA).
I have learned over these years of fighting with the so-called Human Rights Campaign, or HRC, and with visits to "the Hill" in Washington DC, and with listening to them speak. These two men are the keys and the ENDA Bills will be introduced to each House by these two men and a string of co-sponsors.
The word that I get is that if Frank and Kennedy introduce an ENDA without us, the co-sponsors will sign on. And if Frank and Kennedy introduce an ENDA with us, the co-sponsors will still sign on. So it is Frank and Kennedy.
Take the handout that is in your program and read it. It is the recent letter that PFLAG wrote to both of these men urging them to include transgenders in the next ENDA. Paraphrase it, use a portion of it, whatever, the arguments are sound, the straw obstacles are debunked and sample wording is provided.
WRITE. WRITE. WRITE. WRITE TO FRANK AND KENNEDY before the end of this month.
As promised, my web page is members.aol.com/prfrye
Good night, and may God bless each of you.