Birthdays and Symbols

Happy birthday to my blog!

I just logged in to find out that today is my one year anniversary of running this blog, it’s tranniversary if you will. Interestingly enough, as my blog has it’s birthday, I was already planning on discussing some stuff from my most recent birthday and applying it to current and larger issues as well, so a beautiful bit of irony. First though, a little bit of discussion about symbols.

You see, symbols are simple ways of expressing complex concepts, much like labels. For example, the transgender symbol is a simple connection of a circle and a few lines, but it represents all forms of gender variance, from feminine females and masculine males, through feminine males and masculine females, all the way to genderqueer, transsexual, and other more traditionally trans* people. It speaks to all forms of gender expression and identity.

Transgender Employment

Hey all. Been a couple weeks because I’ve been super busy. Turns out, about an hour after I made my last post, I got a call for an interview for a job. The very next day, I got a call for another interview at a second place, and interviewed for the first. The next day (Thursday), I did the second interview and got job offers from both jobs. So I’ve been starting work and getting settled into a new routine, an overnight one.

Job Hunting

As the semester has come to an end and I’ve completed my finals (three confirmed A grades and likely two more), I’ve begun job hunting. In this kind of market, job hunting is difficult already. Factor in that I’m trans, and it’s not looking good.

Trans people are twice as likely as cis folks to be unemployed, even more so if the trans person is of color, and there’s a number of reasons for this. First, a number of us are very visibly trans, either androgynous or outright clearly a mixing of both sexes (like the trans woman in the picture to the left). This creates problems as we are judged purely on the basis of our physical appearance. Now, trans folk aren’t the only ones judged on our appearance, of course. Those of us who are larger are viewed as lazy, and attractive people are more likely to get hired than those who are average.

Transgender Round Table Discussion at the VA

This morning, I attended a round table discussion at the Dallas VA hospital about how to improve VA service for trans vets locally. At this discussion were the director and assistant director of the hospital, as well as most of the other leading staff members there (we were just missing the head of nursing). I was one of three transgender vets there speaking of what VA service is like for us. The other two members of the panel are also VA employees, and one of them is the one who put together this meeting as part of her push to create a transgender health center there.

I’ve spoken to you all before of some of my horror stories with the VA, and initially it seemed that the audience was receptive, even shocked at how badly mistreated I’ve been. They promised to review the proposal for the trans health center and to try and improve things. However, there were a number of things that occurred during the meeting that bothered me, and leave me in such a position as to not expect much to come from this.

On Depression and Other Disabilities

I just this past weekend finally came out of a two week long major depressive phase. I’ve made no secret of my suffering from PTSD and depression in the past, and the thing is, a lot of LGBT people suffer from one or both of these as well. We suffer from a lot of discrimination, often from our own families, and this forces us to adapt as best we can. So I thought I would talk about these some today.

One of the contributing factors for my depression was the fact that I was working on a very unpleasant topic all semester for a research project, and we were finishing everything up with it. Dori, I, and two others worked together on researching sexual assault amongst the LGBT community, and one of the articles that both Dori and I found was one titled Victimization Over the Life Span: A Comparison of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Siblings by Kimberly F. Balsam, Esther D. Rothblum, and Theodore P. Beauchaine. In it, they interviewed siblings where one was queer and the other heterosexual, and what was clearly found was that even in cases where both siblings were abused, the queer sibling had the worst of it even before they had come to accept their own identity.

Things Best Left Unsaid

So yesterday, I was reading Matt’s post over at Tranifesto, and he was talking about a workshop a friend of his went to where there was an activity where the participants were to turn to one another and share something they wish they would never again hear in their lives. Matt thought it was a fun idea and played along, asking his readers to contribute as well.

This topic ended up coming up again later in the day as my friend Dori was telling me about the cissexist privilege she had to deal with in her women’s studies class that morning. Their final project was to interview a woman a certain number of years older than themselves, and a few weeks back, one of the girls in her class was bragging that she was going to interview a trans woman. The sheer level of cissexist privilege in that conversation prompted Dori to come out, which left her open to questioning, but she was completely ignored. This infuriated her so much that she blogged about it, and yesterday was the girl’s actual presentation.

Anger at the VA

Today I don’t have much to talk about, as I’m busy dealing with the VA. The problems I have are a mix of ones that transgender people face with all medical providers, such as trying to get our transitional costs covered and trying to be recognized as our true gender, as well as problems that are unique to the VA, such as deciding to charge me for an entire year’s worth of health care coverage all at once after telling me that as a combat vet, I have full coverage for five years after service. I’ve already spoken to the issues of being trans and dealing with the medical community, so I won’t repeat myself here. Instead, have a picture of a baby sleeping curled up with a trio of bulldog puppies. Have a good weekend all, and I’ll be back Tuesday.

D’awwwww!

Marriage Equality is For All

I’ve said it before, marriage equality is a trans issue. Matt Kailey has said it’s a trans issue. Monica Roberts has discussed how it becomes an issue for trans people. Whatever your views on it (and the three of us have different views on the same issue), we can all agree that it does affect trans people.

Unfortunately, as Monica points out, it doesn’t always affect us in a positive way. Sometimes, it affects us negatively. Sometimes, the conflicts between organizations and groups become even more pronounced over this issue. Take for example the Human Rights Campaign’s recent push to have people change their Facebook profile pictures to a red version of the HRC equality symbol. I’ve known a number of trans folk who got up in arms over it (myself included, once awake enough to remember their history) and refused to do so, choosing instead other symbols to share our support of marriage equality without supporting HRC.

Why all the infighting? Well, Monica summed it up pretty well a few years back, but unfortunately, this conflict continues still today. In fact, it’s been blowing up social media feeds since yesterday over an incident that supposedly occurred wherein HRC members told some of the activists to take down the trans pride flag. This is agreed upon by everyone, though there is some disagreements about whether or not the HRC reps told them that “marriage equality is not a transgender issue.”

I don’t know what really happened, I wasn’t there, but I wonder where this rumor came from if it did not in fact happen. People on the scene did say that the trans activists were asked numerous times to remove their flag, and the HRC doesn’t deny this part, only that the phrase was uttered. Did HRC reps say it? I don’t know, only the people there really know. But what I do know is that such incidents continue to throw fuel on the fire of hatred between the two groups. If it happened, then the HRC reps are doing so. If it didn’t happen, then the people responsible for starting this rumor are the ones continuing the hatred.

Is there an easy answer? Unfortunately, yes and no. It’s easy to say but not so easy to do. We need to learn to set aside all the pettiness, from both sides, and work together. That’s hard to do. I can forgive, but I will never forget, and many others hold such a mindset. Unfortunately, that means that we’re always on guard against getting back-stabbed or thrown under the bus again. And that prevents us from working effectively together.

Is marriage equality the be-all-end-all that so many gay-rights activists make it out to be? No, far from it. And I hope that once this is all resolved in a few months, that we can begin working on real issues, like jobs, healthcare, and an end to laws that prevent us doing such things as voting or using the restrooms. Because having a family doesn’t mean anything if you can’t support them or take them out in public as equals.

Special Thursday Edition: Why Arizona? Why?

Well, Arizona did it. They modified their bathroom bill and it passed the House Panel. The modified version now protects business owners who want to discriminate against trans folk in restroom usage, a complaint that came up against a non-discrimination bill that was passed in Phoenix recently. Essentially, this bill, if passed will reset things to before that ordinance passed. Full details can be found here. I’ll see you all tomorrow.

What Is Wrong With This Country?

Today I weep for our country, and for equality. Yes, I’m making two posts today. Why? Because this article just passed through my feed. What is happening here in our country? I understand that we often have conflicts between the more frenzied ends of the political spectrum (both the rabid liberals and the rabid conservatives), but usually reason wins out, or we at least maintain some form of homeostasis where things don’t get worse. This week though, things are just… wow. This one actually passed, and just needs the governor to sign it.