The Trans Women's Anti-Violence Project

Driven inside by the heavy rain, hundreds of gays, lesbians and transgender people rallied for a transgender civil rights bill at the Convention Center of the Empire State Plaza Tuesday to buttonhole legislators in and around the Capitol.

“We wanted to be outside, but it was really effective to gather all that energy in one room. The mood was dynamic,” said Christopher Argyros, transgender rights organizer of the Empire State Pride Agenda, the sponsor of the LGBT Equality & Justice Day.

The advocates have been holding the lobby day for more than a decade, but this year’s event was bolstered by a string of recent victories for transgender people, including a federal legal precedent prohibiting workplace discrimination.

“We have great momentum,” said Sheilah Sable, director of upstate organizing for the Empire State Pride Agenda. “The message that came through loud and clear today was that we’re going to get this done, but the trans community cannot do it alone.”

Sable said transgender people were encouraged by the speeches of support delivered by representatives of union groups, the League of Women Voters and college students, including a busload from the State University at Plattsburgh. They were among about 650 attendees.

The focal point of the lobbying day was to urge passage of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, known as GENDA, which passed the Assembly last week. It was sent to the Senate, where GENDA has died in committee five times previously.

“We need GENDA to be passed. We face a lot of harassment and discrimination,” said Rafaela Anshel, 60, of Queens, a transgender woman who recently retired after 38 years as a cataloguer at the New York Public Library. She said she was fearful of telling co-workers and did not go to work dressed as a woman.

“It’s a good place to work with open-minded people, but I couldn’t be out at work. It’s just not accepted and there are always the bathroom issues,” Anshel said. She attended the rally with two friends from the Queens Pride House in Jackson Heights.

“I couldn’t begin my transition until I left work or I would have lost my job,” said Michelle Abdus-Shakur, an unemployed 43-year-old transgender woman from Manhattan. She remained closeted with her female gender expression for 11 years while she worked as an accountant for an Internet company owned by Japanese investors.

Now unemployed after being downsized, the financial hit she took was eclipsed by a newfound self-confidence. “I’m much happier now,” she said. “I’m still looking for work, but now it’s on my terms. When I get hired, it will be as a trans woman.”

A 2009 national survey that included 531 transgender people in New York found that 74 percent reported harassment or mistreatment on the job and 20 percent lost a job or were denied a promotion.

The Karnataka State Women’s Development Corporation, which recently introduced schemes for transgender women, is facing glitches in their implementation because most people of the community do not have valid identity and address proof.

Speaking at a convention of women entrepreneurs, corporation chairperson Sarojini Bharadwaj drew attention to the abysmal conditions in which transgender women live and urged the government to build short stay homes for them.

“Many in the community give the same address simply because all of them live together in crammed spaces. Our officers have problem doing address verification,” said Ms. Bharadwaj.

The corporation had earlier this year announced that it would provide vocational training for transgender women and sex workers. Ms. Bharadwaj said that the training had taken off in Raichur.

Responding to this, Minister for Energy and Food and Civil Supplies Shobha Karandlaje regretted that there was not even data on the number of transgenders who live in Karnataka.

She said that she had spoken to people of the community and urged them to apply for ration cards and other such valid identity and address proof documents. “Some of them have done it,” she said.

A majority of them take to sex work for the lack of a choice, she said, and added that some job opportunities were now opening up for them.

GENDA, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, passed in the New York Assembly on Monday and is now headed to the Senate, where it has failed the previous five times the Assembly passed it. A report issued yesterday by the NYCLU highlights just how essential this piece of legislation is:

“A 2009 national survey that included 531 transgender people in New York found that 74 percent reported harassment or mistreatment on the job and 20 percent lost a job or were denied a promotion. In addition, 53 percent were verbally harassed or denied service at hotels and restaurants and 49 percent reported being uncomfortable seeking police assistance. Also, 18 percent had become homeless because of their transgender status and 27 percent were either denied an apartment or were evicted. And 17 percent were refused medical care due to their gender expression, the survey said.”

This is literally life or death for people, and Governor Cuomo hasn’t voiced his support for the bill yet. A version of GENDA has been passed in several cities (including NYC) but that won’t cut it—this is about the very most basic civil rights for trans and non-gender-conforming people. It is awesome that gay people can get married, and I appreciate the Governor’s outspoken support for that bill, but if he’s truly an advocate for LGBTQI rights, this right here is the bill to push through.

Without the guarantee of housing and jobs, trans people—trans women especially, and trans women of color especially especially—are at even higher risk for violence and abuse. The statistics are chilling. Trans women are more likely to be targets of violence, less likely to receive proper medical care, more like to be abused by cops, more likely to be raped. In the last month, Paige Clay and Brandy Martell were murdered, and CeCe McDonald is facing jail time for defending herself against a group of attackers screaming epithets and smashing glass in her face. The violence against trans and non-gender-conforming people is so endemic that the community has an annual Day of Remembrance to commemorate people killed because of their gender presentation JUST THAT YEAR.

GENDA is no joke, yet where are the celebrities leaning on legislators to pass it? Where is the news coverage? Where is Governor Cuomo? What’s Occupy Wall Street doing? This is the very most basic civil right stuff: the right to equal employment consideration, the right to housing, the right to medical care, the right to protection from police and (optimistically) by police. NYCLU’s Melissa Goodman:

“‘New York is really falling behind on transgender rights,’ Goodman said. ‘We were a leader in the marriage fairness fight. It’s really time for New York to be the same kind of leader in the transgender equality fight.’”

C’mon everybody. Let’s pass this thing.

Mayor Vincent Gray has nominated transgender activists Earline Budd and Alexandra Beninda for seats on the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.

If the two are confirmed by the City Council, as expected, they would become the first transgender persons to serve on the 15-member commission, which rules on discrimination complaints brought under the comprehensive D.C. Human Rights Act.

The act bans discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and other areas based on an individual’s sexual orientation and gender identity and expression as well as other categories such as race, religion, national origin, and ethnicity.

“To be getting one transgender person on the commission would be great, but to be getting two is fantastic,” said Beninda, a systems analyst for a software company and member and former treasurer of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group.

“I’m really excited and looking forward to serving,” said Budd while attending Saturday’s LGBT Youth Pride festival in Dupont Circle. “This is important for the entire community.”

Budd released to the Blade an email she received last week informing her of the appointment.

“I am pleased to inform you that Mayor Vincent C. Gray has transmitted your nomination to the Council of the District of Columbia, where it is pending Council consideration,” said Davida L. Crockett, an official with the city’s Office of Boards and Commissions, in the April 26 email to Budd.

“The Office of Boards and Commissions appreciated your willingness to serve the District, and is confident that you will bring a strong and dedicated commitment and leadership to this public service,” Crockett told Budd in the email.

Beninda said she received a similar email informing her of her nomination to serve on the commission.

Pedro Ribeiro, director of the Mayor’ Office of Communications, released to the Blade on Monday a letter from Gray to City Council Chair Kwame Brown (D-At-Large) dated April 26 that places Budd’s and Beninda’s names in nomination for the Human Rights Commission appointments. Gray’s letter also places in nomination eleven other people he has designated as appointees to the commission.

Budd currently serves as a treatment and healing specialist for Transgender Health Empowerment (THE), a D.C. based transgender advocacy and services organization that she helped found in 1996.

Budd has been credited with playing a key role in transgender advocacy efforts and HIV prevention efforts targeting the transgender and LGBT youth communities in D.C. for over 20 years. Among her duties at THE is to provide training for D.C. government and private sector employees, including employees at the city’s Department of Corrections, on transgender related issues.

In addition to her association with the Stein Club, Beninda is a member of the board of the D.C. LGBT Community Center and serves as treasurer of the D.C. based All Souls Unitarian Church. She says she’s also an active volunteer with D.C. Democracy, a group that advocates for D.C. voting representation in Congress and greater home rule autonomy for the city.

The Commission on Human Rights is an independent agency within the D.C. Office of Human Rights. The OHR investigates discrimination complaints and sends them to the commission for a ruling if the office finds probable cause that discrimination might have taken place. Commissioners are appointed to three-year terms and don’t receive compensation.

Budd’s and Beninda’s appointments come at a time when the Commission on Human Rights has been operating with just three members, with 12 of its 15 seats vacant since January, according to Garrett King, director of the City Council’s Committee on Aging and Community Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the commission.

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Despite warnings, transphobic violent crime in Turkey is showing no sign of abating

A transgender woman who was attacked in Istanbul earlier this week has told Gay Star News that she thinks the incident was designed to scare her off an upcoming court trial with the police.

On the 7 May last year Michelle Demishevich was cornered by five men with a gun on the street when she was on her way to a friend’s birthday party. She says one of the men put the gun in her mouth and shouted violent transphobic abuse at her, threatening to kill her.

Demishevich says that two of the men who attacked her last May were undercover police. She is pressing charges with the police and the trial is coming up. She thinks that she was attacked earlier this week by seven men because of her attempts to seek justice against the five men who attacked her last year.

Demishevich says that since she was attacked last year she’s fallen into a depression. ‘I lost my job, I lost my self-confidence,’ she told Gay Star News. ‘I’ve been out of work for one year. I lost my partner because every single day I was crying and finally he left me.’

Despite warnings from Human Rights Watch, who published the report Turkey: Stop Violence Against Transgender People in February 2010, the bloodshed against transgenders in Turkey is showing no sign of abating. The body transgender woman was found shot in the head this March in Izmir, taking the total of transgender women murdered this year in Turkey to four. Last year, 28 transgender women in Turkey were victims of violent hate crime.

In May 2010 uniformed police officers attacked five transgender activists on the International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO). Michael Cashman, MEP and co-president of the Intergroup on LGBT rights said at the time: ‘How can Turkey claim to be a true democracy if police forces disregard the rule of law, and attack those it must protect? We call on Turkish authorities to reprimand these police officers, and clearly affirm that LGBT people, and in particular transgender people, must be protected from violence.’

Demishevich however has given up hope of protection from Turkey. ‘If I die one day please tell the public I believe in equality and love for all,’ she told Gay Star News. ‘The Turkish media don’t care about me now, but if I die I will make the news: “transgender Michelle has been murdered”.’

EEOC ruling that gender-identity discrimination is covered by Title VII is a ”sea change” that opens the doors to employment protection for transgender Americans

An employer who discriminates against an employee or applicant on the basis of the person’s gender identity is violating the prohibition on sex discrimination contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to an opinion issued on April 20 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The opinion, experts say, could dramatically alter the legal landscape for transgender workers across the nation.

The opinion came in a decision delivered on Monday, April 23, to lawyers for Mia Macy, a transgender woman who claims she was denied employment with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after the agency learned of her transition. It also comes on the heels of a growing number of federal appellate and trial courts deciding that gender-identity discrimination constitutes sex discrimination, whether based on Title VII or the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

The EEOC decision, issued without objection by the five-member, bipartisan commission, will apply to all EEOC enforcement and litigation activities at the commission and in its 53 field offices throughout the country. It also will be binding on all federal agencies and departments.

In the decision, the EEOC states, ”[T]he Commission hereby clarifies that claims of discrimination based on transgender status, also referred to as claims of discrimination based on gender identity, are cognizable under Title VII’s sex discrimination prohibition ….”

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In an unprecedented move for the organization, Chicago House has unveiled a new nine-bedroom facility to house transgender people on Chicago’s North Side.

The organization opened up the building for tours at a special meeting of Chicago’s Transgender Coalition April 18.

“We plan for this to be a safe haven and residential facility for transgender persons,” said Rev. Stan Sloan, CEO of Chicago House.

Nine transgender people will live in the four-story house before year’s end.

Chicago House formerly used the building for hospice services, but as HIV-related deaths have slowed, the need for the site diminished. What has not diminished, said Sloan, is the need for affirming housing and support for transgender people. The location of the building is not being made public, due to concerns that doing so might make it a target for anti-trans violence.

The building will house transgender people regardless of their HIV status and connect them to case management, job training, healthcare, workshops and other services. Dr. Robert Garofalo, an HIV expert at Children’s Memorial Hospital, and others from his department will administer health services at the site weekly.

The announcement represents an expansion of services and cultural competency for Chicago House, an organization that has served HIV-positive for more than 25 years. According to Sloan, all Chicago House staff members have received a day-long transgender training.

The idea for the project was inspired by Trisha Holloway, a young transgender woman who was kicked out her house at age 18 when she came out as trans. At age 21, Holloway got connected with Chicago House and began working at Sweet Miss Giving’s, the organization’s transitional job bakery.

Sloan said that Holloway said she felt unsupported as a trans person at the bakery.

“She educated us more than we educated her,” said Sloan.

Chicago House staff also reported that many transgender people arrive for Chicago House services dressed as their birth-assigned gender because they are afraid to be out. The organization is hoping to curb some of that fear in directly taking up transgender issues.

In addition to launching the housing project, Chicago House will begin a job placement and training program for transgender people similar to its iFour program for people with HIV (iFour stands for Increase Individual Income and Independence).

Sloan said that program as a 40 percent success rate of placing people with HIV into jobs. That number jumps to 70 percent for Chicago House clients in supportive housing, he added.

Job workshops will deal specifically with issues facing transgender people, such as when to come out as trans to an employer and what rights trans employees have. Clients will also be paired with mentors in the community who will help train them in specific careers.

Finally, Chicago House will do outreach and education to employers about transgender people in an effort combat the job discrimination that faces trans people at alarming rates.

Chicago House will also be hiring transgender people to staff the new house and programs, Sloan said.

Sloan emphasized the role of other organizations in making the project happen. Chicago House will be teaming up with agencies like Center on Halsted to make the project a reality. Pete Subkoviak of AIDS Foundation of Chicago has also been instrumental in the process, Sloan said.

All told, the new housing will cost an estimated $250,000 a year. Sloan hopes to get that money through a grant. The building is ready for occupancy, he said, and the program can launch almost immediately after the funds are secured.

Since joining the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh in 2003, Emilia Lombardi has never had to worry much about which bathroom facilities she should use on the Oakland campus. The choice was simple: As a transgender person who identifies as a woman, it’s always made sense for her to use the ladies’ room.

“I have never had any issue using any [women-only] bathroom or changing facility,” Lombardi says. “I can’t see myself using the men’s room.”

Now she might have to.

On March 20, a university official informed Pitt’s Anti-Discriminatory Policies Committee that transgender students and faculty must use bathroom facilities that match the gender on their birth certificate rather than the gender with which they identify. Since news of the controversial policy broke in the Pitt News student newspaper, critics have condemned it as a potentially harmful move that violates the university’s anti-discrimination policy, which prohibits discrimination “on the basis of … gender identity and expression.”

“A lot of people were really shocked that they had taken such a harsh position,” says Jane Feuer, who chairs the ADPC, which advises the University Senate on issues regarding discrimination. “It was just dropped on us like a bomb.”

Before the announcement, Feuer says, the university never had a formal bathroom policy. Instead, she says, Pitt officials dealt with concerns about the use of restrooms on a case-by-case basis.

That’s what happened late last year at the Pitt-Johnstown branch campus, where a transgender student who identifies as male was expelled for using the men’s locker room.

The ADPC unanimously passed a resolution in February charging that the expulsion violated Pitt’s anti-discrimination policy. The committee also stated that students should be allowed to use bathrooms that match the gender with which they identify, and asked for a specific policy regarding bathroom usage for transgender people.

It got that policy during a March 20 ADPC meeting, when a university official representing Pitt’s HR and legal departments informed the committee of it. Transgender people, the official said, are prohibited from using bathroom facilities of the gender they identify with, unless they furnish a birth certificate matching that sex.

University officials have not been eager to discuss the policy. Even the official who disclosed it to the ADPC, for example, has not been identified; ADPC members say the person requested to remain anonymous. Robert Hill, Pitt’s vice chancellor of public affairs, declined to directly respond to an emailed list of questions about the policy. Instead, he emailed a statement that Pitt’s non-discrimination policy, as applied to restrooms, means that a student or faculty member can use the bathroom of “his or her declared gender identity after he or she has obtained a birth certificate designating the declared gender.”

“This does not represent a change in policy,” the email continues. “Rather, it is an articulation of a longstanding University practice.”

Rayden Sorock, a local advocate for transgender rights, says the policy is problematic for several reasons. For starters, changing the gender on a birth certificate requires sex-reassignment surgery, which is very costly and not always desired by transgendered people.

“[The policy] assumes that people want to change their bodies, and that they can afford to,” says Sorock.

Feuer says the University Senate is forming a committee to look into Pitt’s bathroom policy. In the meantime, she says, the ADPC is still trying to discuss the matter with university officials.

As for Lombardi, she has no plans of using the men’s bathroom.

“For my own safety,” she says, “I have to continue to use the same facilities.”

At the recent Miss Asia NYC; pageant for transgender women, contestant Priscilla To Wong Fu was asked: Why is prostitution prevalent among Asian transgender women?

Flustered, but not totally unprepared, she replied, “We are known to be amiable and hardworking people, thank you!”

It was a cheeky reply which the audience wildly applauded. It was brave of Priscilla to have the humor to confront it. But long after she has left the stage, folded her sash and gown and went back to work as a chef’s assistant, the question lingers. It’s a question she is being forced to confront once again for this report.

“Many reasons,” she began, before reciting to The FilAm her litany of heartaches as a transgender immigrant.

Among many Filipino transgender women in New York – out of an estimated transgender population of 12,500 in the city — prostitution is a way of life. Employment and survival are the usual reasons for being a sex worker, but advocates are finding out there are others.

Transgender sex workers who are undocumented often bear the twin burdens of discrimination and oppression, say advocates. In some cases, even those who are gainfully employed engage in the sex trade, prompting sneer comments directed toward a lifestyle some would consider revolting and immoral.

Not all transgender women are sex workers, cautioned Sienna Baskin, co-director of the Sex Workers Project(SWP) advocacy organization. Neither is she saying that all transgender women doing sex work feel oppressed or discriminated. “But some of those who chose to do it, do so possibly because there are no other options.”

“It is the easiest way to make a living without getting exposed to the harsh reality of the world of straight people or heterosexual environment,” explained former school teacher Maria Kristina Falgui, who lost her job when her gender became a sore issue in a New Jersey school.

Malou Hidalgo, a hair-and-makeup artist, opened up about her legal status. “I have no papers, but I am able to send money to my parents and siblings in the Philippines. What I earn from the salon is nothing compared to what I do on the side.”

Like many undocumented Filipinos, the transgender women would rather stay in the U.S. than go back to the Philippines where homosexuals – especially the openly gay ones — are often viewed as freaks, if not errant Catholics.

“Filipinos in the Philippines have not yet fully embraced the gay lifestyle, how much more transgenders?” asked Maxie Kapulong, a nurse. “Besides, why earn pesos, when I can earn it in dollars?”

The bitter, hard-edged outlook comes from many years of working the bars or finding men online. Kapulong may be earning a respectable sum as a nurse, but there are siblings to send to school, and a family’s middle-class lifestyle to support. When there is a nurse working in the U.S., the family’s living standard in the Philippines is expected to be better than most – it’s like having a family member who is a highly-paid doctor, lawyer or engineer in America.

“We’ve been marginalized in many undeveloped countries so the only chance is to seek greener pastures in countries in Europe or America,” said poet Leticia Garcia. “And why would you go back to the Philippines when T girls in the Philippines have limited resources to better themselves and discrimination is still prevalent? At least here, you are protected by anti-discrimination laws even if you are not supposed to be here legally.”

Many transgender immigrants often find New York a “safe place,” according to Baskin, who was interviewed for this report. SWP advocates for women as well as transgender sex workers.

“One thing I notice is that people come here looking for a safe place. Not only transgender people but people looking for a community where they can freely express themselves, where they are not isolated,” she said. “They can come from places like Iowa or the Philippines, and they are looking for places where they can meet other people and they have that level of safety (with them).”

Less than a week after Maryland lawmakers approved same-sex marriage, a state legislative committee has turned its attention to another contentious issue: whether to forbid discrimination against transgender people.

The Senate Judicial Proceedings committee heard testimony this week on a bill that would prohibit discrimination in public accommodations, housing and employment based on “gender identity,” which would take its place alongside race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation and disability.

Unlike same-sex marriage, the transgender discrimination ban is not part of Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) agenda. But last May, following a nationally publicized beating of a transgender woman in Baltimore County, O’Malley released a statement saying “more must be done to protect the rights and dignity” of transgender people.

At least 13 states, the District and more than 100 counties and cities nationwidehave laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity. Four local governments in Maryland have approved such measures: Baltimore and Montgomery, Howard and Baltimore counties.

“Now we need statewide protections for the kids across Maryland who are not so lucky,” Catherine Hyde of Howard County, who has an 18-year-old transgender daughter, said in her testimony to state senators.

“The degree of discrimination that transgender people suffer is exceptionally severe,” said Eva Hersh, a Baltimore physician who said she treats many transgender patients. “Many people question the right of transgender individuals to exist at all,” she said.

At a lengthy hearing on Tuesday, transgender residents of Maryland told senators of being fired, harassed or denied promotions because of their gender identity. Baltimore resident Jenna Fischetti said she lost her job at a luxury car dealership a few days after a co-worker, who knew Fischetti as a male, saw her dressed as a woman. “There’s no excuse for that. Absolutely none,” Fischetti said.

The Baltimore County Council passed its transgender discrimination ban only last week, on a 5-2 vote, almost a year after Chrissy Lee Polis, a 22-year-old transgender woman, was attacked as she tried to use the bathroom at a Rosedale McDonald’s restaurant. A video of the incident, taken by a McDonald’s employee and circulated on YouTube, sparked national controversy.

The debate surrounding the Baltimore County bill centered largely on bathrooms, with many detractors claiming the protections regarding public accommodations would lead to women being sexually assaulted by men pretending to be women.

Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Montgomery), the bill’s lead sponsor, said he considered playing the McDonald’s beating video during Tuesday’s hearing, but he “didn’t want to play to people’s fears about bathrooms.”

One committee member, Sen. James Brochin (D-Baltimore County), voiced such a concern, saying a statewide anti-discrimination law could be seen by some men as a license to enter a female bathroom. “I’m worried about someone who wakes up one day and says, look what the state of Maryland just did. I feel like a woman today,” he said.

Supporters of the bill said such incidents have not occurred in states and municipalities that have passed transgender protections.

Several Maryland women testified in opposition to the bill, citing bathroom safety concerns. In addition, a handful of religious advocacy groups filed letters opposing the bill. The Maryland Catholic Conference argued giving explicit protection to transgender people would be a “fundamental violation of our society’s basic understanding of the human person.”

Last year, the House of Delegates passed a bill that would have provided greater anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in the areas of housing, employment and lending. That bill died in the Senate, however. In 2010, a similar bill had hearings in both chambers but received no further action.