Looks like a pump, feels like a wingtip.
California restaurant kicks out trans women, eats humble pie
By Matt Wood
Transgender Law Center assisted two transgender women in Los Angeles who were wrongfully asked to leave a restaurant in Burbank in October. While eating dinner, the two women, Jennifer Reid and Victoria Rose were approached by the restaurant’s manager and asked to leave, allegedly because their clothing was not appropriate for a “family restaurant.” The women rightly believed that they were being targeted because of their gender identity and contacted TLC for information about the law and their rights.
Transgender Law Center explained to Jenny and Victoria that the Unruh Civil Rights Act, California’s public accommodations law, prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity in business establishments – including transgender and gender nonconforming folks alike.
(Any place that provides goods and services to the general public is considered a public accommodation – this includes restaurants, grocery stores, health clinics, hospitals, health clubs, homeless shelters and most social services).
Armed with this information, Jenny called the restaurant’s Regional Manager and demanded a public apology from the restaurant manager, a refund for the meal she and Victoria were unable to finish, and a promise that the restaurant would do remedial training with all of their managers and staff so that no transgender person would face this kind of discrimination.
Less than 24 hours after that conversation, Jenny was contacted by the Regional Manager who made a personal apology and arranged for the Burbank manager to apologize to Jenny and Victoria in the restaurant in front of the Burbank restaurant staff. Jenny and Victoria were also given a refund and extra gift coupons. Even more impressively, Jenny was then contacted by the restaurant’s Regional Human Resources Manager who was impressed with how informed Jenny was, and had decided to use some of the information from Jenny’s conversation with the Regional Manager to institute sensitivity training for all management and staff at the restaurant chain, effective immediately. As a result of Jenny and Victoria’s courageous self-advocacy, this restaurant chain is now on notice that transgender customers must be treated with the same dignity and respect afforded to all other customers.
Jenny and Victoria’s experience is an example of how transgender and gender nonconforming people often experience discrimination in their communities when accessing public accommodations, including being refused service, being treated differently than their non-transgender peers, or being victims to harmful verbal and physical violence when simply trying to carry out their daily activities.
If you need legal assistance, please call the TLC legal hotline at
(415) 865-0176 x306, or via the online intake form at: http://transgenderlawcenter.org/help
Matt Wood is a staff attorney at Transgender Law Center
FIERCE's Call to Action Against the New York Times Depiction of Trans Women
Thank you, Fierce, for publishing these letters. I, too, am upset that the Times has not issued an apology for this lacking-in-context piece and/or published any of these letters from others who are angered by the piece.
On July 25, 2012, FIERCE organized a Call to Action asking supporters to submit letters to the New York Times demanding Dignity for Transwomen of Color and LGBTQ Youth in their reporting. The Call to Action was organized in response to a July 24th article: “For Money or Just to Strut, LIving Out Loud on a Transgender Stage.
The article, which relied on and fed into harmful, negative stereotypes of young transwomen of color, neglected to highlight or consider the root causes of why LGBTQ youth are disproportionately on the streets and finding it harder to maintain access and ownership over this historical safe space.
Over the weeks following the action, we received dozens of letters that were not only powerful, but also the acts of solidarity were incredibly moving for all of us here at FIERCE! Seeing your words and feeling the support of so many allies, we saw the depth and strength of our struggle against transphobia, homophobia, gentrification, and criminalization of LGBTQ youth of color, especially transwomen of color.
As far as we know, theTimesdid not publish the letters. In an effort to empower LGBTQ youth and the communities that support LGBTQ youth-led organizing in NYC and elsewhere, we wanted to share a small collection of these letters with you.
In love and struggle,
FIERCE
youre cisgender? yeah right. youre a friggin cistrender. youre just pretending to be cis to be cool. why dont you prove how cis you are and fill out this extensive cis quiz. by the way its timed. you have 10 minutes
(Source: babylizard)
Trans People and Allies Demand Change from the New York Times [Wild Gender]
The original story is on some sensationalist Margaret Mead type ish, but I don’t expect different from NYT. Glad for the info; I’m scripting an email to the Metro Desk.
Article courtesy of the Trans/Gender Identity Media Advocacy project
NEW YORK, N.Y. — In response to a New York Times article called “For Money or Just to Strut, Living Out Loud on a Transgender Stage,” published online on the evening of July 24 and in the print edition on July 25, the Trans/Gender Identity Media Advocacy project (TIMA) is calling on all trans/gender-variant individuals and allies who are angered by insensitive, sensational reportage to action.
The article is part of a “summer nights” column series wherein New Yorkers and their nighttime hangouts are profiled by the paper. This particular piece follows the “T-girls” of Christopher Street from the perspective of author Sarah Maslin Nir, who paints a picture of “beauty,” and “buttocks-revealing shorts.” The article exoticizes the gender and sexual identities of its trans-women subjects, while alluding to a stratification between the presence of these women (who the column touts, are “mostly prostitutes”) and the neighbors who rent nearby studios for “$3,700 a month.”
“That Carolyn Ryan, Metro desk editor for (The New York Times) green-lighted a fluff piece on trans women, without even scratching the root causes for why these women find themselves susceptible on Christopher Street (in masculinized night space), does nothing to escalate the urgency of protecting New York’s most vulnerable citizens from material harm, from systemic discrimination, and from institutionally-sanctioned ridicule,” said Patience Newbury, community activist and editor of the Cisnormativity Blog.
“From this, The New York Times willfully fails to produce a humanizing climate for trans people, which in turn, vets a template for other local American papers to perpetuate against trans people and, egregiously so, trans women of color,” Newbury continues. “We are not amused.”
This is the second time in several months that the New York Times Metro Section has published a dehumanizing, patronizing account of the life of transgender women. In May, the paper published an article on the life and death of trans performer, Lorena Escalera, profiling her as a “curvaceous” curiosity rather than beloved daughter, friend and human being.
In response to outrage by the trans community, Ryan released a statement on behalf of the paper, saying that the NYT did not “mean any disrespect to the victim or those who knew her. But in retrospect…should have shown more care in our choice of words.”
The paper issued no redaction or correction and has yet to issue a response regarding “For Money or Just to Strut.” Clearly, there is a pervasive lack of understanding by the Times regarding the problematic nature of this type of reporting. As such, TIMA is calling on all trans/gender-non-conforming people and allies to contact the paper, write emails and call, inundate their inboxes with our voices. Let’s help encourage sensitive, accurate reportage of gender variant identities as expressed more regularly by the New York Times and all publications.
Call a representative at the Metro Desk through the NYT’s office of journalistic integrity at 212-556-7652 (press 3 for the Metro Desk)
Email the Arthur Brisbane, in charge of journalistic integrity at the NYT: public@nytimes.com
Email the Metro Desk directly: metro@nytimes.com
Email Carolyn Ryan directly: cryan@nytimes.com
Email the managing editor: dbaquet@nytimes.com
Email the Executive Editor: jabramson@nytimes.com
![girljanitor:
theeisforevelyn:
stuckonyouandinsectpins:
girljanitor:
A photograph of the Crow two-spirit Osh-Tisch (on the left), also named Finds-Them-And-Kills-Them, also called Woman Jim, with a woman who is probably the one named in the story, The-Other-Magpie.
Excerpt from an interview with Pretty Shield, who tells the story of the battle of the Rosebud, 1876.
“Did the men ever tell you anything about a woman who fought with Three-Stars on the Rosebud?”
“No”, I replied, wondering.
“Ahh, they do not like to tell of it, “she chuckled. “But I will tell you about it. We Crows all know about it. I shall not be stealing anything from the men by telling the truth.
“Yes, a Crow woman fought with Three-Stars on the Rosebud, two of them did for that matter; but one of them was neither a man or a woman. She looked like a man, and yet she wore women’s clothing; and she had the heart of a woman. Besides, she did a woman’s work. Her name was Finds-Them-And-Kills-Them. She was not a man, and yet not a woman,” Pretty Shield repeated. “She was not as strong as a man, and yet she was wiser than a woman,” she said musingly, her voice scarcely audible.
“The other woman,” she went on, “was a wild one who had no man of her own. She was both brave and bad, this one. Her name was The-Other-Magpie, and she was pretty.
“Both these women expected death that day. Finds-Them-And-Kills-Them, afraid to have the Lacota [sic] find her dead with woman-clothing on her, changed them to a man’s before fighting commenced, so that if killed the Lacota would not laugh at her, lying there with a woman’s clothing on her. She did not want the Lacota to believe that she was a Crow man hiding in a woman’s dress, you see.
“The return of the Crow wolves [warriors] and these two women to our village was one of the finest sights I have ever seen…I felt proud of the two women, even of the wild one (The-Other-Magpie), because she was brave. And I saw that they were the ones taking care of Bull-Snake, the wounded one, when they rode in.”
Ahhh, there was great rejoicing.”
-Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America (Will Roscoe)
oh wow
…History rules.
Especially when you dig out the voices of the truth from the people who were actually there.
For posterity: Osh-Tisch died at age 75, wealthy and surrounded by loved ones and a respected member of the community.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7h418u1m21rvmzslo1_500.jpg)
A photograph of the Crow two-spirit Osh-Tisch (on the left), also named Finds-Them-And-Kills-Them, also called Woman Jim, with a woman who is probably the one named in the story, The-Other-Magpie.
Excerpt from an interview with Pretty Shield, who tells the story of the battle of the Rosebud, 1876.
“Did the men ever tell you anything about a woman who fought with Three-Stars on the Rosebud?”
“No”, I replied, wondering.
“Ahh, they do not like to tell of it, “she chuckled. “But I will tell you about it. We Crows all know about it. I shall not be stealing anything from the men by telling the truth.
“Yes, a Crow woman fought with Three-Stars on the Rosebud, two of them did for that matter; but one of them was neither a man or a woman. She looked like a man, and yet she wore women’s clothing; and she had the heart of a woman. Besides, she did a woman’s work. Her name was Finds-Them-And-Kills-Them. She was not a man, and yet not a woman,” Pretty Shield repeated. “She was not as strong as a man, and yet she was wiser than a woman,” she said musingly, her voice scarcely audible.
“The other woman,” she went on, “was a wild one who had no man of her own. She was both brave and bad, this one. Her name was The-Other-Magpie, and she was pretty.
“Both these women expected death that day. Finds-Them-And-Kills-Them, afraid to have the Lacota [sic] find her dead with woman-clothing on her, changed them to a man’s before fighting commenced, so that if killed the Lacota would not laugh at her, lying there with a woman’s clothing on her. She did not want the Lacota to believe that she was a Crow man hiding in a woman’s dress, you see.
“The return of the Crow wolves [warriors] and these two women to our village was one of the finest sights I have ever seen…I felt proud of the two women, even of the wild one (The-Other-Magpie), because she was brave. And I saw that they were the ones taking care of Bull-Snake, the wounded one, when they rode in.”
Ahhh, there was great rejoicing.”
-Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America (Will Roscoe)
oh wow
…History rules.
Especially when you dig out the voices of the truth from the people who were actually there.
For posterity: Osh-Tisch died at age 75, wealthy and surrounded by loved ones and a respected member of the community.
Name/Gender change information for Undocumented and Trans* individuals in New York
Topics covered:
- Name Changes for Immigrants in New York
- Name Change at Point of Naturalization
- Gender and Name Change on Immigration Documents
- Trans Marriage Recognition
- Real ID Act
- Asylum for Trans People
***Note: Spanish version is available on the site as well.***
IM GOING TO CARRY SINCE I’M TRYNA GET MY FRENCH BACK AND POST WHAT I WROTE ABOUT THIS FILM A 1.5 YEARS AGO:
Wild Side est un film franco-belge réalisé par Sebastien Lifshitz. Il a été fait en 2004.C’est le deuxième film de Lifshitz que j’ai vu. Comme un réalisateur, Lifshitz est un des rares qui fait avec le désir homosexuel en France.
Dans les fragments, ce film raconte l’histoire d’une transsexuelle, Stéphanie, qui a besoin d’aider sa mère mourante. Elle était un garçon quand elle était jeune, mais maintenant elle est une belle femme. Stéphanie, qui est aussi une prostituée, habite avec ses amants, qui s’appellent Djamel, un buer et aussi un prostitué, et Mikhail, un déserteur russe. Ils ont une relation bizarre. Djamel et Mikhail viennent à rester avec Stéphanie et sa mère mourante dans une petite pauvre ville à la compagne. Le film utilise les fragments à raconter l’histoire du Stéphanie et ses amants. On apprend que Stéphanie était pauvre quand elle était plus jeune. Les trois amants avaient des passés difficiles.
Mikhail essaie de trouver sa famille sans succès après il a déserté l’armée russe. Il parle seulement un peu de français.
Le film montre les images où on peut voir la vie de Stéphanie. Elle a une vie ou elle passe beaucoup de temps être utilisé par des autres, spécialement par des hommes blanc qui a d’argent. C’est ceux-là au haut de la société que Stéphanie est littéralement baisé par.
Djamel prostitue lui-même à l’aéroporté. Plusieurs des gens qu’il baise veut l’interaction à être sans l’argent. Pendant un instant, ses clients lui voilent de réellement leur désir. Ils ont besoin de se convainquent que leurs désirs n’est pas contraints par des structures d’oppression. Mais, pour Djamel, leurs désirs sexuels sont la même chose comme leur argent.
Pour Stéphanie, Mikhail, et Djamel, ils voient la société à une frontière. Ici, la société est révélée comme une façade, arbitré a la frontière, ou Stéphanie, Mikhail, et Djamel trouvent l’amour entre eux-mêmes. Après sa mère meurt, Stéphanie pleure avec des larmes de la liberté et de la perte. Elle a perdu sa mère, qui signifie son passé comme un garçon est aussi la force qu’elle trouvé à sa mère.
Encore déchirée, elle doit continuer à vivre à la frontière avec l’amour de Mikhail et Djamel, qui aussi connaissent les deux sa difficulté.
Le génie de ce film est dans la combinaison du racisme, l’homophobie, l’oppression de la catégorie sociale, et la difficulté de comprendre ses oppressions par rapport au corps. Le corps de Stéphanie sert d’une incarnation du l’existence à la frontière de l’intérieur et l’extérieur de la société française. Transsexualité devient une métaphore. Comme une transsexuelle, Stéphanie est une femme, mais elle est une femme qui n’est pas donnée la liberté à exprimer vraiment elle-même. Sa capacité à changer sa vie comme une femme est synonyme de sa capacité à trouver de légitimité par la prostitution. Elle n’est pas un citoyenne légitimée en public, donc Elle est forcé de se supporter dans le privât. La relation qui développe entre Stéphanie, Mikhail, et Djamel n’est pas juste être différent. C’est un commentaire sur l’existence fragmenté de les citoyennes oppressé. Si les homosexuels représentent un défi à la notion du sexe comme il se rapporte à la citoyenneté, il y a une relation entre ‘queerness’, comme un défi de la structure, et les arabes ou les immigrants. Lifshitz élargir queerness à inclure plusieurs formes de l’oppression du la structure poétiquement et avec la suversivité.
Gonna be a hunt to find this, but I want to see this. (Here’s the film’s Wiki if you can’t read the above.)
Resisting the Cis-tem Tumblr
This is a space for non-op and/or non-passing identifed Trans* people. Please submit your photos, experiences & stories, art, and resources you’d like to share.
Each post is an individual’s experience or point of view and is not meant to speak for everyone in the community.
Signal boost!
A story on some trans experiences in China
Youths are leading the shift toward tolerance of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community. Xu Jingxi in Guangzhou and Cheng Anqi in Beijing report.
Xu Hui’s parents locked him in a mill, hired an exorcist and psychologists, and forced him to undergo acupuncture that accidentally pierced his lung, in order to “cure” his feminine behavior. The boy enjoyed playing with his sister’s Barbie dolls and wore bras stuffed with tissue. “I increasingly felt like a girl but didn’t think too much about it,” says the 22-year-old, who now considers herself a woman.
This sort of thing gives me so much life.
(not because Xu Hui had this terrible experience or the misgendering but because it is good to read non-white trans experiences.)
Join The Untitled Mag (opening July 9th) in creating The Queer POC Youth Project!
- What if there was a considerable effort to focus on queer people of color in a non-tokenizing, appropriative light in media, especially queer POC youth?
- What if qpoc youths had people that they could look to and converse with on the struggles and successes in their lives?
- What could the conversation look like if we actually listened to their stories and watch them grow as brilliant, brave, creative, outspoken adults?
- And what if you could be one of the people we focus on?
The Untitled Mag wants you! We want to celebrate, appreciate and give priority to your identity and personality by showcasing it in a regular series online and in print. We want to hear about your lives, how you deal with deal with the intersections of being young, queer and a person of color, create links with other older queer poc, and we want to show you to the world so others, like you, will know that they aren’t alone!
If you’d like to get involved with the Queer POC Youth Project, please reblog this post (so others can find out more) and send us an e-mail on: who you are, what you’re up to, your experience with the intersection of being queer and a poc, and why you’d like to participate in the project. E-mail us at untitledteenmag@gmail.com and we will run this call out until July 31st!
The Management
chelsea • Pam • Shivana • Chris • Cara • Kaki • Cassie • Helen
30.05.2012The Untitled Mag strives to empower a community of diverse youth by providing a space to celebrate their existence within a world that otherwise denies universal pride in their rich, personal identities. We acknowledge, celebrate, cherish and give priority to those marginalized by their sexual identity, race, gender identity, class status, ability status (physical and mental), body size, and health.
“How to Kill a Transperson” by Ceridwen Troy
On Saturday, Sanesha Stewart, a transwoman of color living in the Bronx, was murdered in her own apartment. She was 25 years old. Her accused killer, Steve McMillan, had known her for months, yet when he was arrested, he claimed to have been enraged to find out that she was what the media coverage called not really a woman. He stabbed her over and over again in the chest and throat. She tried to fight him off; there were defensive wounds found on her hands.
On Tuesday, eighth-grader Lawrence King was in a classroom in Oxnard, Calif. He was openly gay, and often came to school in gender-bending clothing, makeup, jewelry and shoes. According to another student, it was “freaking the guys out”. One of them shot Lawrence in the head. He was declared brain-dead on Wednesday.
It is easy to look at cases like this and think, how tragic. How random. How senseless.
But then, you forget how easy it is to kill a transgender person.
You forget that all across this nation, faith leaders of all stripes, men and women who claim to speak for God Himself, call us sinners, call us abominations, call us evil.
You forget that at best the media depicts us as something to be pitied, something that our families must be strong and overcome. At worst, they depict us as abnormal, exploiting our bodies for ratings, exploiting the public’s fear of us for shock value.
You forget that on a good day, law enforcement agents are neglectful of us, and that far more frequently they join in our harassment. You forget the transwomen of color who are rounded up on suspicions of prostitution. You forget the beatings that go uninvestigated. You forget the molestation and rape we face when we are arrested.
You forget the medical establishment that drains our wallets for the therapy and hormones and surgeries they tell us we need. You forget the way we are then refused treatment when we are dying, dying of treatable diseases, dying of easily patched wounds.
You forget that, by the law of the land, it is legal in the majority of states to deny us employment, to deny us service, to deny us housing.
You forget the shelters and the rape crisis centers that will not allow us through their doors.
You forget that many of us do not even have family to turn to when we are at our most desperate.
You forget that the leaders of our own community have told us that it is not time for us to have rights, that it is not pragmatic for us to be considered worthy of the same respect as other human beings.
You forget that in our own circles, it is considered a negative thing to be too flamboyant. You forget the way our pride parades have been derided by our own community. You forget the scorn heaped upon drag queens by other gay men. You forget the fear to be seen in public with a friend who is considered too open, too queer.
You forget the way it seeps into the minds of transgender people, too. You forget the way a transsexual will shout that she is not a crossdresser, as if there were something wrong with that. You forget the catty names we call each other if we don’t “pass”.
You forget how many of us take our own lives every year.
You forget because the noise is always there, a constant drone in the background. Every newspaper piece that calls a transwoman “he” instead of “she”. Every talk show host who spends an hour talking about our genitals. Every childish taunt about “looking like a tranny”. Every transperson who talks about themselves as “true” transsexuals. Every activist and politician who tells us “now is not the time”.
You forget too, how easy it is to kill a person of color, with myths about “gangstas” and lies about immigrants. You forget how easy it is to kill a person living in poverty, cutting off her welfare because she is supposedly being paid to breed. You forget how easy it is to kill a sex worker, with sex-shaming language, slinging about slurs like “hooker” and “whore”.
You forget the message hidden inside every single one of those statements.
“You are less than I am. You are not worthy of the rights and respect that I am worthy of.
“You are not human.”
It is very easy to kill something that you do not see as human.
It is very easy to kill a transperson.
(Source: rufflebutts)
K. pauses on 34th Street while on her way to the Village. August 2006.
Transgender people comprise the highest proportion of homeless LGBT youth. In particular, they are often denied access to shelter services, particularly in shelters that segregate clients based on birth sex. Discrimination and lack of identification that reflects their chosen name and gender makes it hard for many young transwomen to find a legal job, leaving sex work as one of the few options available to them.
Photographer Samantha Box spent six years documenting Sylvia’s Place, NYC’s only emergency shelter for LGBT youth. See the photos here.
I hope Photographer Samantha Box didn’t just exploit these women for their photos and stories without compensation.
Ditto. Does anyone know?
