Transgender equality: A handbook for activists and policy makers

Full text

Policy
Institute
National
Gay and
Lesbian
Task
Force
National
Center for
Lesbian
Rights
Transgender
Equality
A HANDBOOK FOR ACTIVISTS
AND POLICYMAKERS
by Paisley Currah
and Shannon Minter
Introduction by Jamison Green
the
of the

Contents
Preface by Sean Cahill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .iii
Introduction to transgender issues by Jamison Green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Defining some common terms: “gender,”
"gender identity” and “gender expression” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
What does transgender mean? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
What about intersexed people? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
What’s the GLBT connection? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Sexism and gender stereotyping: The roots of anti-gay
and anti-transgender bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
What are transgender issues? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Transgender rights are human rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12
TRANSGENDER EQUALITY: A Handbook for Activists and Policymakers
by Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
A growing grassroots movement for trans equality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
A note on language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Historical memory: The Minnesota story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Lessons from Minnesota: What does it take to pass a statewide
trans-inclusive anti-discrimination law? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
Post-Minnesota: Increased visibility brings new challenges . . . . . . . . .24

ii Equality
Transgender
Nuts and bolts: How to win civil rights protections for
transgendered people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Documenting the problem: The power of personal stories . . . . . . . . . . .28
Working with your local human rights commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
Approaching legislators and building a coalition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
Drafting clear and effective statutory language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
Building on legislative victories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
Safe schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45
Trans-inclusive definitions in non-discrimination
and hate crimes laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45
Debunking common myths and misconceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
Talking points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61
Hate crime laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65
Alternative routes: Executive orders, employers,
colleges and universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74
Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77
Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88
General reference material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88
Legal and political advocacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89
Resolutions and statements of support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91
Organizations and media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95

Preface
BY SEAN CAHILL
Research and Policy Director, NGLTF Policy Institute
Every person has a gender. When the expression of those genders is caught in rigid
social scripts, people get hurt. Gender expression is historically and culturally contin-
gent. It shifts across borders and decades: witness the sensation evoked by Marlene
Dietrich’s wearing of pants in several 1930s films, and the nonchalance with which het-
erosexual police officers don kilts to play the bagpipes in St. Patrick’s Day Parades
across the US. But for children growing up in a conformist society, gender roles can be
oppressive. Gender orthodoxy hurts the teenaged heterosexual boy who is afraid to
show emotion for fear of being “unmanly.” It hurts the girl who is called a “tomboy” or
“dyke” for simply being herself. It hurts both boys and girls who are told that certain
extracurricular activities (e.g. ballet, karate and other contact sports, learning a musi-
cal instrument) and professional career choices are off limits because they are not gen-
der appropriate, or are for “faggots” and “dykes.” It hurts lesbians, gay men, bisexuals
and heterosexuals who do not conform to stereotypes of macho men and “feminine”
women. And most of all, it hurts transgender people—who are regularly denied
employment, fired from their jobs, denied housing and public accommodations at
hotels and restaurants, even harassed, beaten or murdered because of hatred of their
gender nonconformity. On average one transgender person is murdered in the United
States each month; 60% of all transgender people have been victimized by hate vio-
lence. This is outrageous, and unacceptable in a civil society.
The Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is honored to publish this
handbook to provide activists and policymakers with the tools they need to pass transgen-
der-inclusive non-discrimination and anti-violence legislation. Written by three of the gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgender movement’s brightest transgender scholar-activists,
Transgender Equality is an invaluable resource guide, providing an introduction to trans-
gender issues, model language for legislation, talking points, responses to frequently asked
questions, and a comprehensive resource listing and bibliography. We trust it will strength-
en efforts to legislate equality for transgender people at the local, state and national level.
iii

Across the country transgender activists—and gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight
allies—are fighting back against violence and discrimination. Since 1975, when
Minneapolis adopted the first transgender non-discrimination language, an inspiring
movement for equality and liberation has won non-discrimination provisions in 26
municipalities and one state. Grassroots activists have taken the case for equal protec-
tion under the law to America’s heartland, and they have won. Nine and a half million
Americans, or 3.8% of the population, now live in a jurisdiction with a non-discrimi-
nation law inclusive of transgender people, and the sky has not fallen. Instead, because
of such laws the country has moved a little bit closer to its promise of equal treatment
and equal opportunity for all.
This flurry of activity has been driven by many brave and visionary activists, several of
whom are profiled in this publication. The success of their efforts in cities and towns
across the US proves that even moderate and conservative legislators unfamiliar with
transgender issues will respond to reasoned arguments and education about the realities
transgender people face. This is especially true when gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-
gender advocates present a united front and work together in a coordinated strategy.
Unfortunately, however, this is often not the case. Some gay, lesbian, and bisexual
(GLB) activists fear that including gender identity will defeat a sexual orientation non-
discrimination bill. As Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter demonstrate herein, this
need not be the case. If advocacy groups commit to education, and to creating an
awareness of the importance of gender to ending homophobia, we can see these issues
as interwoven with gay, lesbian, and bisexual equality. But we should take a lesson from
the recent history of the GLB movement and the support we received from our allies
in the civil rights community on the issue of hate violence. In New York and other
states, leaders of African American, Jewish, and other civil rights organizations have
refused to accept hate crimes bills which don’t include sexual orientation, even as they
have been assured that the bills would pass were sexual orientation language excised
from the bill. Despite years of frustration, heterosexual civil rights leaders stood on
principle, saying “we insist that laws include gay people because that’s the right thing
to do.” GLB activists should emulate such solidarity with the transgender members of
our community, and insist that non-discrimination bills and hate crimes laws include
gender identity.
In 1997 the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force became the first national gay and les-
bian organization to amend its mission statement to include bisexual and transgendered
people; a year later it became the first national GLBT organization to bring a trans-
gendered person onto its board of directors. In 1999 NGLTF called for the inclusion of
gender identity along with sexual orientation in a federal non-discrimination bill. This
year, we deepen our commitment to transgender equality and liberation by publishing
this handbook for grassroots activists and policymakers. Discrimination and violence
against transgender people must end. Read on to find out how you can help make that
happen.
Sean Cahill
iv Equality
Transgender

TO TRANSGENDER ISSUES
by Jamison Green
Transgendered people are individuals of any age or sex whose appearance, personal
characteristics, or behaviors differ from stereotypes about how men and women are
“supposed” to be. Transgendered people have existed in every culture, race, and class
since the story of human life has been recorded. Only the term “trans-
gender” and the medical technology available to transsexual people
are new.
Over the past few years, many gay, lesbian and bisexual organizations
have broadened the scope of their work to include the issues and con-
cerns of transgendered people (hence the acronym GLBT for gay, les-
bian, bisexual, and transgendered people).1This change reflects an
acknowledgment that sexism and gender stereotyping have a power-
ful effect on the social and legal treatment of gay as well as transgen-
dered people. It also reflects the growing strength and maturity of the
GLBT civil rights movement, which has expanded its self-understanding to include
heterosexual family members and friends, allies who have endured similar oppressions,
and others who share a broader vision of human rights and social justice than a nar-
rowly defined “gay identity politics” could hope to achieve.
In addition to providing up-to-date information on the current status of efforts to
achieve basic legislative protections for transgendered people, the purpose of this pub-
lication is to promote greater understanding of transgender issues. To build an effective
political movement and to win civil rights legislation with the broadest possible effect,
we must all learn to be advocates for our entire community, including educating our-
selves and being prepared to talk about experiences and issues that are not always our
own. With that goal in mind, the following discussion is designed to provide a basic
overview of transgender issues and of how they are connected to those of gay, lesbian
and bisexual people.
1
Introduction
Transgendered people are
individuals of any age or
sex whose appearance, per-
sonal characteristics, or
behaviors differ from
stereotypes about how men
and women are “supposed”
to be.

2Equality
Transgender
DEFINING SOME COMMON TERMS: “GENDER,” “GENDER
IDENTITY” AND “GENDER EXPRESSION”
Gender v. Sex
In everyday language as well as in the law, the terms “gender” and “sex” are used inter-
changeably. However, it is often important to distinguish the two terms. Social scien-
tists, for example, use the term “sex” to refer to a person’s biological or anatomical iden-
tity as male or female, while reserving the term “gender” for the collection of charac-
teristics that are culturally associated with maleness or femaleness.
The specific characteristics that are socially defined as “masculine” or “feminine” vary
across cultures and over time within any given culture. For example, for centuries,
standard Greek military attire was a type of skirt. As another example, in many
American cities, just a few decades ago, women were forbidden (often by statutory law)
to wear trousers or pants. Often women who violated this gender
norm were perceived as men, or were assumed to have a desire to be
men, whereas those assumptions are seen as outdated now. Even
today, social norms about gender vary significantly within different
geographic regions, classes, and ethnic or racial groups. For example,
social expectations concerning what counts as “appropriately” mascu-
line or feminine attire in a small farming community in the Midwest
may differ considerably from those in Los Angeles, New York City or
other large cities.
While these differences may sometimes simply reflect different cultural norms, they are
also frequently used to perpetuate invidious racist stereotypes and practices. For exam-
ple, the racist stereotype that black men are “hypermasculine” and therefore supposed-
ly prone to violent and criminal behavior has contributed to pervasive discrimination
against black men in the criminal justice system, from the use of “racial profiling” by
law enforcement personnel to the disproportionate targeting of black men in prosecu-
tion and sentencing. In practice, stereotypes about gender are rarely independent of
stereotypical assumptions about race and class.2
In addition, it is much more common than one might think for people to have gender
characteristics that are stereotypically ascribed to the opposite sex. If one looks close-
ly at a wide variety of people, it is easy to see varying degrees of “transgender” charac-
teristics displayed by a large percentage of any given population. In fact, even if one
looks closely at any given individual, it is always possible to find traits that might be
characterized as “gender atypical.” What singles out many transgendered people is sim-
ply a preponderance of these characteristics, causing observers to doubt their percep-
tion of an individual’s gender or sex, which often leads them to question the person’s
sexual orientation as well.
In short, both the variable definitions of “masculinity” and “femininity” within differ-
ent cultures and the fact that all people have a mix of gendered traits indicate that the
qualities we define as “masculine” or “feminine” are ultimately simply human. From
this perspective, naming “transgender” people as a discrete group may be arbitrary and
even misleading, insofar as it reinforces the mistaken view that transgender individuals
are somehow fundamentally different than other people. From a political perspective,
The specific characteristics
that are socially defined as
“masculine” or “feminine”
vary across cultures and
over time within any given
culture.

however, it has been necessary to embrace the label “transgender” to foster a sense of
solidarity among those who bear the brunt of discrimination against gender atypical
people. Only by naming that discrimination can we hope to end it, and only by build-
ing a movement for transgender civil rights can we create a world in which the label
“transgender” will no longer be needed.
Gender Identity and Gender Expression
“Gender identity” refers to a person’s internal, deeply felt sense of being either male or
female, or something other or in between. Because gender identity is internal and per-
sonally defined, it is not visible to others. In contrast, a person’s “gender expression” is
external and socially perceived. Gender expression refers to all of the external charac-
teristics and behaviors that are socially defined as either masculine or feminine, such as
dress, mannerisms, speech patterns and social interactions.
Transsexual People
Most people experience their gender identity as correlating to, or in line with, their
physical sex. That is, most people who are born with female bodies also have a female
gender identity (i.e., an internal sense that “I am a woman”), and most people who are
born with male bodies have a male gender identity (i.e., an internal sense that “I am a
man.”). For a transsexual person, however, there is a conflict between one’s physical
sex and one’s gender identity as a man or a woman. Female-to-male transsexual (FTM)
people are born with female bodies, but have a predominantly male gender identity.
Male-to-female transsexual (MTF) people are born with male bodies, but have a female
gender identity. Many, but not all, transsexual people undergo medical treatment to
change their physical sex through hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgeries.
Female-to-male transsexual people are rarely mentioned in contemporary discussions of
transsexual lives, with the recent exception of Brandon Teena, whose brutal murder in
Nebraska in 1993 garnered widespread media attention and was depicted in the 1999
movie Boys Don’t Cry. The contemporary culture is more familiar with male-to-female
narratives like those of Jan Morris or Renee Richards, or with challenges to gender
norms represented most publicly by author/performance artist Kate Bornstein. Despite
the relative invisibility of FTMs, there are equal numbers of FTM and MTF transsexu-
al people throughout the world.3
WHAT DOES TRANSGENDER MEAN?
The contemporary term “transgender” arose in the mid-1990s from the grassroots com-
munity of gender-different people. Unlike the term “transsexual,” it is not a medical or
psychiatric diagnosis. In contemporary usage, transgender has become an “umbrella”
term that is used to describe a wide range of identities and experiences, including but
not limited to: pre-operative, post-operative, and non-operative transsexual people;
male and female cross-dressers (sometimes referred to as “transvestites,” “drag queens”
or “drag kings”); intersexed individuals; and men and women, regardless of sexual ori-
entation, whose appearance or characteristics are perceived to be gender atypical. In
its broadest sense, transgender encompasses anyone whose identity or behavior falls
Introduction 3

outside of stereotypical gender norms. That includes people who do not self-identify
as transgender, but who are perceived as such by others and thus are subject to the same
social oppressions and physical violence as those who actually identify with any of these
categories. Other current synonyms for transgender include “gender variant,” “gender
different,” and “gender non-conforming.”4
Before the mid-1990s, the term “transgender” had a narrower and more specific mean-
ing. As coined several decades ago by Dr. Virginia Prince, who has published numer-
ous books and articles on the subject,5the term originally referred to biological men
who are satisfied with their male genitalia, but who wish to be seen
and to live in the world as women. In contrast to transsexual people,
“transgender” persons (in the older, more narrow sense of the term)
have come to terms with the contradiction between their bodies and
their gender identities and are not troubled by that contradiction, so
they have not shown up in doctors’ offices to be diagnosed and docu-
mented. Instead, they are more likely to show up in sociological or
anthropological studies, or to be writing their own stories in the form
of autobiographies, essays or books. As a group, their sexual orientation is predomi-
nantly heterosexual (based on genitalia), but there are also bisexual, asexual, and
homosexual individuals. Sexual orientation or behavior is not the primary issue or pri-
mary motivation for transgendered people; rather, the issue is wishing to live and to be
perceived as a gender that is different than one’s biological sex. This is, of course, an
oversimplification because the relationship between gender identity and sexual desire
is highly complex and individual.
Historically, people who have female bodies but who live their lives as men have
received less attention than their male-bodied counterparts. The world is much more
familiar with stories of male-to-female gender crossing. Nonetheless, there are many
women throughout history who have conformed to this definition of transgender, as
well as many who do so today. These individuals are often referred to as “passing
women,” of whom there are numerous historical examples such as Catalina de Erauso,
a soldier in the Spanish army stationed in Chile and Peru in the early 1600s, and Dr.
James Barry, a surgeon in the British army in the early 1800s.6In the US, the best-
known contemporary example is Billy Tipton, the jazz musician who, to the surprise of
his adopted children (then adults) and his ex-wife, was discovered on his death in 1989
to have a female body.7As in the case of male-bodied transgender persons, female-bod-
ied transgender persons may be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or asexual.
Sometimes, as in Tipton’s case, those who have female partners or wives consider them-
selves to be heterosexual, based on their gender identification rather than their female
genitalia. In other cases, such as that of contemporary trans activist and author Leslie
Feinberg, some who have female partners may identify as lesbian. And then there are
those like Jack Bee Garland, who died in 1936, who preferred to live as a man in the
company of men.8His biographer theorized that Garland was a gay-identified FTM
(female-to-male) transsexual who would have availed himself of medical treatment had
it been available.
Today, as the 21st century begins to unfold, the term “transgender” encompasses a
much broader spectrum of experience. Many transsexual people have been willing to
take on the label of transgender because it describes their experience before their
change of sex, or in some way helps to describe their ongoing consciousness once they
4Equality
Transgender
In its broadest sense, trans-
gender encompasses any-
one whose identity or
behavior falls outside of
stereotypical gender norms.

have changed their sex, implying the broader social awareness they may have as a result
of experiencing life from within two kinds of (perceived) bodies, though their gender
identity may always have remained the same. Many gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB)
people are taking on the transgender label because their gender presentation crosses
arbitrary boundaries that they want to render less constraining, or because they recog-
nize that loving a person of the same sex is in itself a challenge to dominant gender
norms.
The expansiveness of the contemporary transgender movement is evident in other ways
as well. There is a growing awareness of the ubiquity and diversity of transgender iden-
tities across the globe and within different communities in the US. As a wealth of his-
torical research has shown, transgendered people have long been a part of many non-
western cultures, from the Hijra of India to the “two spirited” peoples who, to varying
degrees, were accepted within many Native American cultures prior to their contact
with European colonists.9Within the US, GLBT scholars and activists have docu-
mented the experiences and contributions of transgendered people within African-
American, Asian-American, Latino/a, Native American and other communities, both
historically and in the present.10
Variety and diversity are the hallmarks of the contemporary transgender movement.
There is no one way to be, and there is room for everyone to be who they are.
WHAT ABOUT INTERSEXED PEOPLE?11
Though many people believe that all infants are born clearly male or female, in fact
Mother Nature is not so binary-minded. At least one in every 2,000 children is born
with a sexual anatomy that mixes male and female characteristics in ways that make it
difficult, even for an expert, to label them male or female. Although no one is ever
born with two full sets of genitals, male and female, some intersexed infants may have
ambiguous genitalia, such as a penis that is judged “too small” or a clitoris that is judged
“too large.”
Parents concerned about their infant’s health and well-being are often frightened by
this variation. Although genital ambiguity does not in itself represent a health prob-
lem, parents often fear that their children will be adversely affected by being different,
or that somehow the child will grow up to be lesbian or gay.
Some intersexed people are born with genitals that look like most girls’ or boys’ geni-
tals, but may have internal reproductive organs usually associated with the other sex.
Others have bodies that do not spontaneously go through puberty, or that exhibit
pubertal changes many years ahead of the usual schedule, or go through pubertal
changes usually associated with the opposite sex, or experience some of the pubertal
changes of both sexes. Conditions such as congenital absence of the vagina (1 in every
5000 female births) and hypospadias, in which the urethral opening does not occur at
the tip of the penis (1 in every 200 male births) are also considered by many physicians
to be intersexed conditions.12
Around the late 1950s, it became widespread practice to subject intersexed children to
surgeries and hormone treatments intended to ensure that the child is viewed as clear-
Introduction 5

ly female or clearly male. These procedures are not medically necessary; instead, they
are designed to make the child’s genitals look more “normal.”13 In recent years a grow-
ing number of people who were subjected to genital surgeries as infants and children
have spoken out against these medical interventions as harmful, unethical, and based
upon nothing more than social prejudice. Their voices have now begun to create dis-
sent among the doctors who recommend and perform these surgical interventions.14
Medical practice has been based upon the idea that sexual ambiguity is shameful and
must be surgically “disappeared.” For that reason, doctors have been
taught that they must not give intersexed children or adults accurate
information about procedures, or about their medical history. Often
intersexed people are able to adapt somewhat to their assigned gen-
der, but sometimes this does not work out the way the doctors believe
it will. Sometimes the person’s gender turns out to be the opposite of
their surgically assigned sex; in other cases, the person always feels “in
between.” Some intersexed people have a problematic relationship
with their own genitalia, and struggle with doubts about their ability
to relate intimately with other people because of surgically created sexual dysfunction.
A sense of inadequacy created by years of disapproving medical attention to their bod-
ies,15 and a medical posture that sexual ambiguity is shameful and freakish can create
severe problems with self-esteem. In some cases, intersexed people must undergo the
same medical treatments as transsexual people and face the same social obstacles and
prejudices.
The view that there is a continuum of sexual development along which all individuals
fall is parallel to the contemporary understanding that gender identity and sexual ori-
entation also reside on a continuum. Contemporary theorists hold that every point on
this continuum is a manifestation of human diversity—not a matter of “correct or
incorrect” or “right or wrong,” but just what happens in life. These views have been
quickly gaining favor in the medical/psychological profession since the advent of an
organized self-advocacy movement by intersexed people, led by the Intersex Society of
North America.
Most intersexed conditions are not visible in the course of ordinary social interactions.
Nonetheless, in addition to being stigmatized and in some cases physically damaged by
inappropriate medical treatments, intersexed people are often discriminated against in
employment and other areas if their intersexed identity becomes known. Like other
transgendered people, intersexed people have mostly been excluded from any legal pro-
tection under existing anti-discrimination laws.
WHAT'S THE GLBT CONNECTION?
The struggle to establish civil rights protections for transgendered people cannot be
separated from the struggle to win freedom and equality for gay, lesbian, and bisexual
people.
• Many transgendered people are gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
• Many gay, lesbian, and bisexual people are also transgender.
6Equality
Transgender
Though many people
believe that all infants are
born clearly male or
female, in fact Mother
Nature is not so binary-
minded.

• Trans people have always been present in the GLB community. Drag and
butch/femme culture, as well as androgyny and gender-bending are hallmarks of
transgender influence.
• Lesbian, gay and bisexual people frequently challenge gender boundaries in their
social (in addition to sexual) behavior, and are often victims of hate crimes because
of their gender presentation.
Despite these strong connections, there are also historically based reasons for misun-
derstanding and mistrust between gay and transgendered people. When homosexuali-
ty was first being defined and studied by Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld,
and Havelock Ellis in the late 19th and early 20th century, many of the first identified
homosexual people (then called “inverts”) were what we would now term transgen-
dered individuals. These were visibly gender-variant people, many of whom expressed
a strong identification with the “opposite sex” to the point of wishing (in some cases)
that they could change their bodies to become members of the opposite sex. This led
some physicians and researchers to believe that transgendered (and particularly trans-
sexual) people were simply homophobic homosexuals. It also led some people to
believe that doctors invented transsexualism as a cure for homosexuality.
It is important for GLBT activists to understand that a hundred years ago the only peo-
ple labeled as homosexual or lesbian were those who exhibited transgender character-
istics. There was no label for masculine men who had sex with other men or for femi-
nine women who had sex with other women. The effort to move away from the term
“invert” and to define homosexuality as same-sex love or sexual behavior, and the drive
to accept gay and lesbian people as “normal,” contributed to the marginalization of
trans people.
Beginning in the 1950s, the availability of hormone therapy and sex reassignment surg-
eries for transsexual people drove another wedge between gay and trans people. The
doctors and other medical professionals who controlled access to treatment were deeply
homophobic and often projected their homophobia onto their patients. To gain access
to medical treatment, transsexual people had to censor their own experiences and
beliefs and, in particular, had to renounce any similarity to or affiliation with lesbians
and gay men. This coercive dynamic perpetuated many inaccurate stereotypes about
trans people, including the widespread misconception (which is unfortunately shared
by many GLB people) that transsexual people are homophobic and reactionary and
have no political goals other than being accepted as “normal” heterosexuals. It has also
perpetuated confusion about the relationship between sex, gender and sexual orienta-
tion.
In reality, whether a person is transsexual has no direct or predictable connection to his
or her sexual orientation, as evidenced by the fact that transsexual people have the
same diverse range of erotic experiences, desires and identifications as non-transsexual
people. Although erotic desire and self-image are components of every person’s psyche
and certainly constitute powerful drives motivating our behavior, there is no evidence
that sexuality plays a direct or uniformly causative role in the development of all trans-
gendered or transsexual people. Similarly, while some trans people would undoubted-
ly prefer to disappear into mainstream society without ever disclosing their transgender
status, many are unable to do so because of prejudice and discrimination. Many others
believe we should not have to hide who we are in order to lead safe and productive
Introduction 7

lives. Ultimately, the fact that transgendered people have made a collective effort to
find a political voice and to be reintegrated into GLB communities in the 1990s is the
best evidence that they have larger social needs that must be met than those which can
effectively be addressed by “passing for normal.”
One basic truth about trans people should be apparent by now. There is no one way to
be “trans.” It is impossible to encompass an entire human being with any label. The
only thing you can count on knowing about a person who is trans is that there’s a lot
you don’t know. One of the great lessons of trans experience is the ability to let go of
one’s preconceptions about other people. For me, the prefix trans is a signal to be ready
for anything, to allow others to define themselves regardless of my own preferences in
defining another’s appearance or characteristics.
SEXISM AND GENDER STEREOTYPING: THE ROOTS OF
ANTI-GLB AND ANTI-TRANSGENDER BIAS
Like discrimination against transgendered people, discrimination against GLB people
is rooted in sexism and gender stereotyping.
• There is a strong and consistent relationship between anti-GLB prejudice and a
desire to maintain traditional concepts about appropriate gender roles.
• Anti-GLB bias is based on and perpetuates the same stereotypes and oppressive
practices that have long been used to deny equal opportunities to women and to
keep men and women in their “proper” roles.
• Men and women who are perceived to deviate from traditional gender expectations
are routinely stigmatized as gay or lesbian regardless of their actual sexual orienta-
tion.
As described above, gender identity is a person’s internal sense of being male or female.
Gender expression includes all of the external personal characteristics that are visible
to others: appearance, clothing, mannerisms, and behaviors. Sexual orientation refers
to whether a person is attracted to men, women or to both.
Everyone, of course, has a sex, a gender identity, a gender expression, and a sexual ori-
entation. Just how all those factors are related, or what causes any given individual to
have the particular mix of characteristics that defines his or her identity, is not yet
known and may never be known. What is known, however, is that there is no necessary
connection between a person’s gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. For
example, a woman who would rather wear blue jeans than skirts is not necessarily a les-
bian (or transsexual), just as a man who would rather wear feminine clothing than a
suit and tie is not necessarily gay (or transsexual). In addition, the fact that a person is
transsexual does not reveal or predict anything about his or her sexual orientation;
some transsexual persons are lesbian, gay or bisexual, and others are heterosexual.16
In American society, however, a person’s gender expression is often mistakenly assumed
to reveal that person’s sexual orientation. For example, men with feminine character-
istics are often assumed to be gay, and women with masculine characteristics are often
assumed to be lesbian. Transsexual people are often assumed to be lesbians or gay men
8Equality
Transgender

who cannot accept their sexual orientation and who therefore undergo sex reassign-
ment in order to “hide” or “deny” their true natures. These stereotypes are not only
unreliable and untrue, they are dangerous. By creating an atmosphere in which any-
one whose gender identity or gender expression varies from the norm
is at risk of being stigmatized, shunned, or even physically assaulted,
they perpetuate discrimination and intolerance.
Educating legislators and policymakers about the damage inflicted by
sexism and gender stereotyping is a critical component of winning
basic civil rights protections for GLBT people. Almost every family
includes some family members who have been hurt or suffered dis-
crimination because their gender identity or gender expression is “dif-
ferent” from the norm in some way—for example, a brother or son who has been
ridiculed as a “sissy,” a sister or mother who was discouraged from pursuing a tradi-
tionally “masculine” career, a daughter or grandchild who has been harassed because of
gender stereotypes on the job. When legislators and policymakers have an opportuni-
ty to hear the facts about gender-based discrimination and to understand these facts on
a human level, most will eventually be sympathetic to the need for enhanced legal pro-
tections.
WHAT ARE TRANSGENDER ISSUES?
Transgender issues have many areas of overlap with gay, lesbian and bisexual issues, but
there are also certain issues that are unique to transgendered people. Legal and med-
ical issues are especially critical for transsexual people.
Personal Issues
Much like coming to terms with one’s identity as lesbian, gay or bisexual, coming to
terms with one’s identity as a transgendered person often involves a tremendous inner
struggle for self-acceptance. Personal issues include:
• Shame, fear, and internalized transphobia and homophobia
• Disclosure and coming out
• Adjusting, adapting, or not adapting to social pressure to conform
• Fear of relationships or loss of relationships
• Self-imposed limitations on expression or aspirations
Policy Issues
Like many other minority groups, transgendered people are often unable to engage in
everyday activities, such as renting an apartment or buying groceries, without con-
fronting bias and discrimination or being targeted by violence or threats of violence. In
contrast to most other minorities, however, trans people rarely have recourse to any
legal protection against discrimination in employment, public accommodations or
other areas. Social issues include:
Introduction 9
There is no necessary con-
nection between a person’s
gender identity, gender
expression and sexual ori-
entation.

• Access to social services such as homeless shelters, rape crisis centers, medical clinics
• Access to education
• Hate violence
• Fear of repercussion or reprisal in retaliation for exerting one’s ordinary rights, such
as speaking out in public
• Chronic unemployment or underemployment
• Abusive treatment by law enforcement personnel
• Public humiliation, derision, ridicule, marginalization and exclusion
• Denial of employment
• Denial of housing
• Denial of access to public accommodations such as shops, restaurants, and public
transportation
Because it affects so many trans people, hate violence deserves special mention. Based
on data from 1995 to 1999, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs Annual
Report on Anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Violence
reported that although anti-transgender violence accounted for only
about 2-4% of all reported incidents, those incidents accounted for
approximately 20% of all reported anti-GLBT murders, and approxi-
mately 40% of the total incidents of police-initiated violence.
Ninety-eight percent of the reported incidents involved male-to-
female (MTF) transgendered people.17 As these figures indicate, hate
violence against transgendered people tends to be particularly violent
and brutal, and is disproportionately (though by no means exclusive-
ly) directed at MTFs.18 Despite the seriousness of this problem, trans-
gendered people are excluded from any protection under the vast
majority of state hate crimes statutes, and violent crimes against
transgendered people are often neither investigated nor prosecuted.
Legal Issues
Legal issues can be complex for people who change sex, as well as for those who are
gender variant. Legal issues include:
• Legal status as a man or a woman
• Marriage
• Divorce
• Adoption and child custody
• Inheritance, wills and trusts
• Immigration status
• Employment discrimination
• Access to public and private health benefits
10 Equality
Transgender
Although anti-transgender
violence accounted for
only about 2-4% of all
reported hate violence
incidents, those incidents
accounted for approxi-
mately 20% of all reported
anti-GLBT murders, and
approximately 40% of the
total incidents of police-
initiated violence.

• Protection from hate violence
• Identity papers and records (name change, driver’s license, birth certificate, pass-
port, school transcripts, work history)
Because the ability to obtain or retain a job is generally a prerequisite for obtaining
housing and health care and for being able to support oneself and one’s family, employ-
ment-related discrimination is a particularly critical issue for transsexual people, who
are currently unprotected against such discrimination in almost every state. When an
employee discovers that he or she is transsexual and transitions
(changes sex) on the job, employers often become very nervous and
assume the worst, falling back upon a whole host of negative stereo-
types and assumptions. There is a great deal of ignorance about the
motivation and mental state of transsexual people. In the over-
whelming majority of cases, transsexual people are competent and
successful, providing they receive ordinary social support. Ostracism,
ridicule, and other social barriers create situations in which anyone
would fail. Not wanting to endure such treatment is why most trans-
sexual people do not want their status known to others in the work-
place. Increasingly, however, greater numbers of transsexual people
are refusing to give up their careers and are transitioning openly on
the job. As more transsexual employees are open about their identities and as more
employers have an opportunity to see that being transsexual has no relevance to a per-
son’s job performance, there is more hope for securing basic civil rights protections for
transgender employees than ever before. In the meantime, however, disclosing one’s
transgender identity or transitioning on the job still results in automatic and often per-
manent unemployment for far too many transsexual people.
Medical Issues
Along with being able to find or keep a job, access to health care is undoubtedly one
of the most critical issues for transgendered people, due to the extreme degree of dis-
crimination against trans people in our health care system. Although some individual
medical professionals have been advocates for trans people, the heroic efforts of indi-
vidual providers are unfortunately outweighed by the pervasiveness of mistreatment
and denial of treatment within the health care system as a whole. Medical issues
include:
• Denial of medical treatment
• Ridicule and mistreatment by providers
• Inability to obtain ongoing, routine medical care
• Inability to obtain or pay for hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgeries
• Exclusion of transition-related services under Medicaid, Medicare, and private
health insurance plans
Transgendered people routinely experience discrimination and barriers to obtaining
medical services from hospitals, clinics, and private practitioners. Many providers treat
trans people only with great reluctance, sometimes pointedly harassing them and
embarrassing them, or condoning harassing behavior on the part of other patients or
Introduction 11
As more employers have
an opportunity to see that
being transsexual has no
relevance to a person’s job
performance, there is more
hope for securing basic
civil rights protections for
transgender employees
than ever before.

clients. Transgender writer and activist Leslie Feinberg has described many incidents
of health care transphobia: being turned out of an emergency room after the doctor in
charge determined that hir anatomy was female, being called a “freak” by a resident,
being told by a doctor that “the devil had driven her down the wrong path in life.”19
(Feinberg prefers to use the gender-neutral pronoun “hir,” rather than his or her.) Many
transgendered people avoid seeking medical assistance, even in dire circumstances, for
fear of humiliation or rejection.
Transsexual people in particular can have difficult relationships with the medical sys-
tem because once they are diagnosed as transsexual, insurance companies discriminate
against them by excluding them from coverage for necessary treatments and procedures
related to their transsexualism, as well as for any complications or conditions that may
arise from these treatments and procedures. In addition, these exclusionary policy
statements are often so broad in scope that they may effectively condone the denial of
any medical treatment to a transsexual person. Stories abound of trans people being
denied emergency (or non-emergency) care for conditions not even remotely related to
transsexualism. Ignorant or prejudiced providers often assume that any adverse med-
ical condition is a direct result of transsexualism. Even more stories of sub-standard
care and neglect are easy to find at almost any transsexual support group meeting.
Moreover, professionals who serve the transgender community may also become stig-
matized by their peers because of their association with transgendered people, and this
stigmatization, or fear of it, prevents many providers from serving transgendered
patients.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS
Basic civil rights protections for trans people ensure their ability to live and work as
productive members of society. Even from a purely pragmatic perspective, the social
cost of discrimination is much greater in the long run than the cost of inclusion. Anti-
trans discrimination forces many trans people into a deadly cycle of poverty and unem-
ployment. It prevents them from putting their abilities and skills to constructive uses,
and often forces them into illegal activities in order to survive.
Ultimately, however, the most compelling arguments in favor of providing transgen-
dered people with basic legal protections are those rooted in our common humanity.
Transgender rights are simply human rights, based on the recognition that transgen-
dered people are human beings deserving of common respect and dignity, regardless of
their appearance or their choices about how to manage the transgender aspect of their
lives. Just as gay, lesbian and bisexual people wish to be treated fairly and respectfully,
and not discriminated against based upon whom they love or their consensual expres-
sion of sexuality, transgendered people seek the same levels of social safety and securi-
ty and the same affirmation of our inherent equality.
12 Equality
Transgender

Transgender
Equality
A HANDBOOK FOR ACTIVISTS
AND POLICYMAKERS
by Paisley Currah
and Shannon Minter

15
A Growing
Grassroots
Movement
FOR TRANS EQUALITY
In the past ten years, transgendered and gender variant people have made unprece-
dented efforts to lobby for civil rights protections. The greatest initial impact of those
efforts has been at the local level. In 1975, for example, the first known statute pro-
hibiting discrimination against transgendered people was passed in Minneapolis,
Minnesota. Fifteen years later, in 1990, only three additional cities had been added to
that list—Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Seattle, Washington; and St. Paul, Minnesota. By
the end of 1999, however, the number of local ordinances had more
than quintupled. In February 2000, Atlanta, Georgia became the
twenty-sixth locality to enact a trans-protective law.
Encouragingly, progress in this area has not been limited to large met-
ropolitan centers, college towns or any single geographic area.
Jurisdictions that have passed local anti-discrimination laws include
cities as culturally diverse as Ann Arbor, Louisville, New Orleans, and Tucson. They
also include a healthy mix of small and mid-sized cities, such as York, Pennsylvania and
Ypsilanti, Michigan (with populations of approximately 42,000 and 25,000 respective-
ly) and Toledo, Ohio (with a population of approximately 333,000), as well as larger
cities such as San Francisco and Pittsburgh.
Although securing statewide protections for transgendered people has been more diffi-
cult to achieve, recent developments suggest that it is by no means an unreachable
goal. In 1993, Minnesota became the first state to enact an anti-discrimination law
that includes express protections for transgendered and gender variant people in
employment, housing, education, and public accommodations, as well as enhanced
penalties for hate crimes committed against transgendered and gender variant people.
Since that groundbreaking victory, efforts to achieve similar protections have been
launched in other states. In 2000, for example, bills that would create statewide non-
discrimination laws for trans people were introduced in the legislatures of California,
Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, and Vermont, among others.
In 1998, California became the second state (following Minnesota in 1993) to amend
In February 2000, Atlanta,
Georgia became the twenty-
sixth locality to enact a
trans-protective law.

its state hate crimes statute to include transgendered and gender variant people.
Vermont and Missouri adopted similar measures in 1999, with the result that there are
now four states in which hate crimes against trans people are specifically subjected to
enhanced penalties. Also in 1999, the governor of Iowa became the first to issue an
executive order prohibiting discrimination against state employees on the basis of gen-
der identity. By March 2000, over nine and a half million people, or approximately
3.8% of the US population, lived in jurisdictions with some kind of trans-inclusive
non-discrimination law.
As legislators in these jurisdictions have realized, the need for specific legal protections
for transgendered and gender variant people is compelling. Transgendered people
experience severe discrimination—in employment, in health care, in housing, in pub-
lic accommodations, in law enforcement, in education, and in many other areas. In
principle, discrimination against transgendered people should be covered under laws
that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex and/or sexual orientation, and discrim-
ination against transsexual people in particular should often be protected under laws
that protect persons with disabilities. In practice, however, most courts have inter-
preted laws that prohibit discrimination on those bases to exclude transgendered peo-
ple. Many legal scholars believe those judicial decisions are wrong, and many legal
advocates are working to persuade courts to interpret existing anti-discrimination laws
to protect transgendered people. Nonetheless, achieving civil rights protections in the
courts will be a long and arduous undertaking. In the meantime, transgendered
activists and allies must turn to the legislative branches of government—local city
councils, state legislatures, and Congress—to secure basic civil rights protections.
There is also an added advantage to securing civil rights protections through the leg-
islative process, rather than through the courts. Through the very act of fighting for
our rights in a public forum, we educate our communities about the discrimination that
transgendered people face. If the campaign is successful, politicians at other levels of
government and in other parts of the country will know that your community took a
stand against this kind of discrimination. Even if the effort fails the first time around,
other transgendered people, including isolated transgendered youth, may realize they
are not alone. Employers and other potential “discriminators” may learn that discrim-
inating against individuals because of their gender identity or gender expression is
wrong. And legislators may learn that transgendered and gender variant people are a
part of their constituency and may be more receptive to the needs of that constituency
the next time around.
Thanks to the hard work of trans activists and allies across the country, we now have
several examples of successful campaigns to enact trans-protective legislation. With
those victories in place, now is a good time to take stock of what has been accomplished
so far and to collect some of the hard-won wisdom earned in the trenches to share with
other activists. This report examines some of the successful strategies trans activists
have used to lobby for trans-protective laws and some of the specific questions that
activists, allies, legislative counsel, and legislators have faced in drafting this type of leg-
islation.
16 Equality
Transgender

A NOTE ON LANGUAGE
As Jamison Green pointed out in the introduction to this report, it was not until the
1990s that the word “transgendered” acquired its current meaning as an umbrella term
including both transsexual and gender variant people. So, for example, when we use it
to discuss organizing in Minnesota in the 1970s and 80s, it is, in a strict sense, anachro-
nistic. Similarly, the word “trans” (as in “trans people” and “trans inclusion”), also
reflects an effort to use language that includes the entire gender continuum, whether
or not activists at the time used those terms. In this report, use of the words “trans-
gendered” or “trans” is meant to include the widest possible range of people who do not
fit into traditional social norms about gender.
There are advantages and disadvantages to using these terms. On the plus side, “trans-
gendered” and “trans” are convenient shorthand labels for the concepts expressed in
the phrase “any person whose anatomy, appearance, identity, beliefs, personality char-
acteristics, demeanor or behavior diverges from or is perceived to diverge from prevail-
ing social norms about gender.” On the downside, the use of historically- and cultur-
ally-specific labels can make some people and communities feel marginalized or even
A Growing Grassroots Movement for Trans Equality 17
Figure 1: Human Rights Laws in the US that explicitly include transgendered people*
* Years indicate the date the law was passed, not the date the law was put into effect. This chart does not include jurisdictions such as
Washington, D.C, that have case law interpreting the “personal appearance” category as covering transgendered people. See District of
Columbia, Human Rights Act of 1977, Title I, Chapter 25, Sec. 1-2502, (22).

excluded. For example, although the terms “gay,” “lesbian,” and “bisexual” have been
powerful identity categories in creating and mobilizing the modern gay rights move-
ment in the US and many other western countries, they also have sometimes proven
ineffective and culturally biased in encompassing all those who are attracted to people
of the same sex. Similarly, many of the people who can be described by the labels
“trans” and “transgendered” may not use those terms to describe themselves. Thus, we
also use the broad phrase “gender variant” at times to remind our readers of this fact.
Finally, in what follows we use phrases such as “transgender inclusive” or “trans-pro-
tective” to refer generally to laws that prohibit discrimination against transgendered
and gender variant people. But, when looking at particular laws in particular jurisdic-
tions, it is important to read the small print: not all of these laws protect everyone
whose gender identity and expression is at odds with prevailing social norms. The
scope of any particular law depends on the particular definition that is used, and may
be limited by exclusions written into the law.
18 Equality
Transgender

19
Historical
Memory
THE MINNESOTA STORY
Before turning to legislative drafting and other strategy issues, it is instructive to review
some of the history behind one of the earliest—and most successful—efforts to secure
civil rights protections for transgendered people. In 1975, the city of Minneapolis,
Minnesota amended the definition of “affectional preference” in its local non-discrim-
ination law to include the phrase “having or projecting a self-image not associated with
one’s biological maleness or one’s biological femaleness.” In 1990, the city of St. Paul,
Minnesota adopted similar trans-inclusive language in its local non-discrimination law.
In 1993, the Minnesota state legislature enacted the first statewide law banning dis-
crimination against transgendered people, adopting language based on the definitions
in the St. Paul and Minneapolis codes. The history of those groundbreaking accom-
plishments in Minnesota provides important lessons for those following in their foot-
steps in other states and municipalities.20
1975: THE MINNEAPOLIS ORDINANCE IS REVISED TO
INCLUDE TRANS PEOPLE
How did it happen? Minneapolis passed a non-discrimination ordinance covering sex-
ual orientation in 1974.21 The next year, that law was revised by the City Council to
include a more expansive, trans-inclusive definition of “affectional preference,” as part
of a general overhaul of the local human rights ordinance. Although the inclusion of
trans people in the 1975 revision was a historic moment for the trans community, it
drew little notice from legislators.22 According to Diana Slyter, a long-time
Minneapolis transsexual activist, the transgender-inclusive definition of sexual orien-
tation “sailed through” in a general flurry of progressive legislation enacted just before
a newly-elected, more conservative mayor started his term.23
The passage of that legislation in 1975 has turned out to be a tremendous benefit for
trans people elsewhere. Because Minneapolis has had civil rights protections for trans

people in place for so long, trans activists now working to pass similar legislation in
their communities can point to that city’s experience with transgender inclusion to
reassure their own legislators that the sky will not fall if trans people are protected from
discrimination and allowed to participate as equal citizens.
1975 – 1977: INTRA-COMMUNITY CONFLICT OVER TRANS
INCLUSION
The story behind the transgender-inclusive language in St. Paul and eventually, in the
entire state of Minnesota, is more complex. To a remarkable degree, the struggles
around securing statewide protection for transgendered people in Minnesota foreshad-
owed more recent national political debates over trans-inclusion within the gay move-
ment. According to activists who were involved at the time, the inclusion of language
covering trans people in the St. Paul and Minnesota statutes was the result of a long
battle—often as much within the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community as
between that community and those opposing any kind of equal rights for sexual minori-
ties.
Minnesota Senator Allan Spear, who in 1974 became the first out gay male politician
in the United States, was the chief sponsor of the Minnesota sexual orientation rights
bill. Spear worked for its passage from 1975, when the bill was first introduced in the
Minnesota legislature, until 1993, when it was finally passed. According to Spear, there
was a strong “internal clash within the community” when the issue of transgender
inclusion first arose in 1975. “Pragmatists, like me, took the position that transgender-
inclusive language would make the bill fail,” Spear recalled. “There was an open clash
within the community, including demonstrations [on the part of those who supported
trans inclusion] at the [legislature].”24
Tim Campbell, who has since been described as “one of the Twin Cities’ most outspo-
ken gay activists”25 and who later became editor of the oldest gay newspaper there, was
one of many activists who wanted the statewide bill to include gender variant people.
“[The bill] was meant to be broad enough to include a sissy boy, a butch girl, a cross
dresser, a transsexual,”26 Campbell told the authors of Out for Good. Another promi-
nent advocate for gay rights, Jack Baker, shared Campbell’s view. When challenged to
defend the inclusion of transgendered people in the proposed legislation, Baker said, “I
agree that you should take what you can get in chunks. But we are not willing to take
a step backward from what we already have in the Twin Cities.”27
Interestingly, the two sides of the transgender debate did not line up with the usual
party politics. When Spear, a Democrat, initially refused Campbell’s request to intro-
duce a transgender-inclusive bill in the Minnesota Senate, Republican state represen-
tative Arne Carlson agreed to introduce a trans-inclusive amendment in the Minnesota
House of Representatives and argued eloquently for the rights of transsexuals and trans-
vestites.28 This amendment was voted down; soon after, even the more limited bill
(without the trans-inclusive definition of sexual orientation) was also voted down in
the House. Eighteen years later, it would be Republican Governor Arne Carlson who
would sign the trans-inclusive Minnesota human rights bill.
20 Equality
Transgender

1978 – 1991: REPEAL OF THE ST. PAUL GAY RIGHTS
ORDINANCE HALTS PROGRESS AT THE STATE LEVEL
Minnesota activists agree that it was the tumultuous history of the local ordinance
in the city of St. Paul that ultimately determined the fate of the statewide bill. In
1977, Anita Bryant’s Save Our Children campaign organized a successful voter ini-
tiative to repeal the gay rights law in Dade County, Florida. A year later, a similar
right wing campaign in St. Paul resulted in the repeal, by a margin of nearly 2-1, of
a local gay rights ordinance that had been passed earlier in the
decade by the St. Paul City Council.29 (This ordinance had not
been trans-inclusive.) According to Spear, the St. Paul repeal was
“a monkey on our back” from 1978 until 1990. “It made it very
difficult to get a state law passed,” he said.30
Over ten years later, in 1990, local activists quietly convinced the
St. Paul City Council to re-enact a law banning discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation. “It wasn’t a visible political move-
ment,” according to activist Susan Kimberly, one of the chief lob-
byists behind the bill. “We solicited promises from them that they
would do it,” she recalled.31 This time, the law had an expansive
definition of sexual orientation that clearly included transgendered people.
Kimberly was well-acquainted with city hall. In the 1970s, she had served as pres-
ident of the St. Paul City Council, before her transition, in her former identity as
Bob Sylvester. (See sidebar below.)
Just one year later, however, the new St. Paul ordinance was once again under
attack. A local group called “Citizen Alert” had collected enough signatures to get
another repeal initiative on the ballot, and campaigned against the law with the
misleading arguments that gay rights threaten parental rights, freedom of religion,
and homeowners’ rights.32 Kimberly also recalled opponents of the ordinance
attempting to exploit fears about trans people and bathrooms. In response to those
questions, she explained, “I just said that there’s been protection for [trans people]
in Minneapolis since 1975, and there haven’t been any complaints about bathroom
usage there.”33
Unlike the unsuccessful effort to defeat the repeal campaign in 1978, in which
trans people were sidelined, the 1991 battle was a real coalition effort. Barbara
Metzger, a lesbian and also a long-time organizer in St. Paul, was one of the key
strategists behind that effort. Metzger was determined to run an inclusive cam-
paign. “In 1978, the people running the anti-repeal campaign sent out letters
advising volunteers to dress straight. They were very caught up in trying to look
normal,” Metzger said, “And that campaign lost.” Metzger believes that a lot of
people who were, in her words, “really out,” didn’t want to participate in a cam-
paign that closeted gender variant people. In the 1991 campaign, many different
elements of the community, including transgendered people, were actively
involved.34 After a hard fought battle—this time by a very open coalition of gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and trans people and their allies—St. Paul voters voted to keep
the law in place.
Historical Memory 21
The inclusion of trans
people in the St. Paul and
Minnesota anti-discrimi-
nation statutes was the
result of a long battle—
often within the gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender community

1991 - 1993: THE PASSAGE OF AN INCLUSIVE STATEWIDE LAW
The victory in the St. Paul referendum rejuvenated the GLBT community and created
momentum to press forward on a statewide bill. “When we won in St. Paul, we moved
directly from that victory into the battle to pass the statewide legislation,” Spear
recalled.35 “That event transformed the debate at the state level,” Kimberly agreed.
“At that point, organizing for passage of a state bill began again.”
At the state level, however, the issue of whether to press for trans-inclusive language in
the bill was still up in the air. While Kimberly and other prominent members of the
transgender and gay communities wanted inclusive language, Spear remained skeptical.
Lobbyists for the bill soon got into a debate over whether to include trans-protective
language and how to respond if legislators attempted to remove that language. Key
local activists were insistent that trans people could not be cut from the bill. Metzger,
one of the grand marshals in the 1992 Twin Cities GLBT pride parade, told Spear and
assembled parade goers that she “would move to Minneapolis and run against him if he
dealt away the transgender language.” And Kimberly, who had considerable political
experience and clout as the former president of the St. Paul City Council, told the
coalition lobbying for the bill in 1993 that “if the issue came up again, the bill had to
be inclusive or I would do something foolish and handcuff myself to a urinal in the state
capital. I was concerned that trans people were ballast on the bill.”36
“Fortunately, it never came to that,” Spear recalled, adding, “I admit I was surprised. I
was one of those people who thought it would kill the whole bill.” According to Spear,
the inclusion of transgendered people in the bill did not come up as a significant issue
during the legislative debates: “We made no effort to hide it but we weren’t going to
discuss it unless people brought it up.”37 At the public hearings on the bill, witnesses
were lined up from unions, religious organizations, business groups, and the lesbian and
gay community. While out trans people did not testify at any of the bill’s the hearings,
many trans people did lobby their state representatives. “You had to stand in line for a
legislator, then, there were so many people lobbying,” Slyter recalled.38 The trans issue
was also indirectly raised by a Republican senator who suggested amending the bill to
simplify the definition of sexual orientation to “homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual,”
to match the definition used by the other states. Spear countered that proposal by argu-
ing that it was better for legislators to follow the language used in the Minnesota cities
of Minneapolis and St. Paul. “We defeated that particular amendment without the
transgender issue ever coming up in the Senate,” Spear said.39
Although the issue of trans-inclusion was not front and center in the legislature when
the bill was first passed in 1993, it has since garnered more attention. In 1998, two
widely-publicized cases involving transgender employees, the first involving a high
school teacher and the second a high school librarian, generated significant public con-
troversy and debate. “In both cases,” Spear noted, “the school board stood behind them
because of the state law.” As a result of the publicity surrounding those cases, Spear
and other members of the GLBT community in Minnesota geared up to fend off an
assault on the state law, or at a minimum on the transgender-inclusive language in that
law, in the 1999 session. “It didn’t happen this year, but it still might next year,”
Senator Spear warned in late 1999.40
Equality
Transgender
22

LESSONS FROM MINNESOTA: WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PASS A
STATEWIDE TRANS-INCLUSIVE ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW?
What do the experiences of GLBT activists in Minneapolis, St. Paul and the state of
Minnesota tell us about how to achieve similar successes in other states and munici-
palities? From a national perspective, history is repeating itself in the heated and
intense disagreements within the GLBT community about trans inclusion in the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and in other statewide and local ini-
tiatives. (The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Center for Lesbian
Rights, and other groups support trans inclusion in ENDA; some other national groups
do not.) “People in other parts of the country are fighting the fights we had in the ‘70s,”
Slyter said in an interview.41
How did Minnesotans move beyond those divisions? What accounts for Minnesota’s
success in becoming the first state to include trans people in its human rights laws? As
is true in most coalition work, the activists involved emphasized different lessons from
the years of struggle, depending on their individual perspectives. In general, however,
the factors most frequently cited by those activists include:
1. Strong support from the GLB community, including those who recognize the
importance of trans-inclusive language for gender variant lesbian, gay and
bisexual people.
• According to Kimberly, one reason the inclusive bill ultimately succeeded was that
“a group of butch dykes really picked up the crusade. The language stayed in
because they just wouldn’t give up.”
• “It was important to make room for all the different elements in our community,”
Metzger noted, “including butch women and effeminate men as well as cross-
dressers and transsexuals.”
2. A proven track record of securing trans-inclusive ordinances at the local level.
• “No doubt if we hadn’t already had this language in the Minneapolis and St. Paul
laws, it would have been harder,” Spear said.
• Metzger recalled that state legislators would tell her that amending the human
rights bill to include GLBT people was the right thing to do. “But, the legislators
would also say, ‘I can’t vote for it because my district will turn me out of office.
Until you prove to us that the voters in St. Paul have changed their mind we’re not
going to go out on a limb for you by backing this bill.’” When the St. Paul City
Council re-enacted the local ordinance in 1990, and even more importantly, when
the voters of St. Paul decisively rejected the rightwing effort to appeal the ordi-
nance in 1991, state legislators saw that Minnesotans supported non-discrimina-
tion bills for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people. “As soon as we won
in St. Paul, we knew we could do it in the state legislature,” Metzger added.
3. An ability to move beyond intra-community conflict.
• “By 1993 the gay community was on board with trans inclusion. Everyone had seen what
had happened in 1975 and people did not want to get into that fight again,” Slyter said.
Historical Memory 23

• According to Kimberly, by 1993 leaders in the GLB community had recognized
that transgendered people were part of the larger community: “The world changed.
In 1978, no one was out. In 1991, everybody knew somebody who was transgen-
der,” she said.
• Metzger says that 15 years of being under attack led to a strong sense of solidarity
in the GLBT community in St. Paul. “We had to have a coalition to make it work,
and that made us more able to recognize all the parts of our community.”
4. Public education and political visibility.
• Karen Clark, a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was a chief
sponsor of the bill. “Truly, I think it’s what the logo of this campaign says, which
is, ‘It’s Time.’ The gay and lesbian community, the bisexual and transgender com-
munity has done a lot more visible work in recent years in terms of education about
who we are and what we are about. There’s been a lot more people coming out,
some of it for very positive reasons, some of it for very negative reasons in the sense
that Minnesota has a high rate of violence…It’s required, I think, when there’s
been hostility and bigotry acted out in that way for people to come forward and
defend themselves.42
5. Key legislators and politicians willing to champion the bill and strategize for
its passage.
• “You can’t move a bill without legislators on your side,” Slyter said. “That’s what
made the difference between 1975 and 1993.”43
• In addition to the crucial support of Spear and Clark, Governor Carlson’s support
also played an important role in convincing legislators to vote in favor of the bill.
According to Clark, “We had 11 Republicans who voted for the bill, plus several of
them spoke so eloquently [on the floor]…The governor’s role has been, I think, not
only to shore them up but also to make it clear to all Minnesotans that this is not
a partisan issue.”44
POST-MINNESOTA: INCREASED VISIBILITY BRINGS NEW
CHALLENGES AND NEW STRENGTHS
Since Minnesota became the first state to enact an inclusive statewide law prohibiting
discrimination against GLBT people in 1993, those opposing civil rights protections for
trans people have become more sophisticated in their tactics and more adept at exploit-
ing various stereotypes and fears about trans people. In the past few years, transgendered
people have made tremendous strides in gaining political visibility, including formal
recognition as a constituency by many GLB organizations and the creation of many new
transgender advocacy groups and initiatives. As we have become more visible, howev-
er, we have also become more of a target for the same reactionary groups that have long
opposed equal rights for women, racial minorities and GLB people. Thus, in addition to
educating legislators about who we are and the discrimination we confront, transgen-
dered people must also increasingly respond to deliberate lies and misinformation.45
Equality
Transgender
24

Historical Memory 25
SUSAN KIMBERLY
in St. Paul. For years, St. Paul mayors
had been signing the proclamation as a
matter of routine.
Kimberly, who had been Coleman’s
neighbor, was deeply hurt. “I thought he
was my friend,” Kimberly said at the
time.
All of this culminated with a small but
remarkable event last week. Coleman,
who still campaigns against civil rights
protections for gays, lesbians, bisexuals
and those who have changed their gen-
der, named Kimberly his deputy mayor.
“Liberals believe in handouts and
proclamations,” Coleman was quoted as
saying when he appointed Kimberly. “I
believe in recognizing people for their
talent and competency.”
It was a noble answer. But the big ques-
tion is, what motivated Kimberly to
take a job working directly for
Coleman? Was this an act of forgive-
ness, ambition or desperation?
Desperation can be ruled out. Times are
good for Kimberly. After losing a race
for the Ramsey County Board a few
years ago, she said she finally learned
“I’m just not a great candidate.” For the
past few years, she’s been doing work she
loves, first for the St. Paul Coalition for
Community Development, and in the
last two years in the city’s Planning and
Economic Development Department.
No longer is she constantly fretting
about the bills.
As her spirits have risen, she’s followed
Coleman across the political spectrum,
moving from left to right. Sylvester/
Kimberly once was a big-government
liberal. Like Coleman, she has become a
believer that those old, liberal, big-gov-
ernment ideas no longer are effective.
One of the chief lobbyists behind the 1990
St. Paul bill and 1991 repeal battle was
Susan Kimberly. This story about her
appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune,
December 20, 1998.
A change of heart for deputy
mayor; Transgendered appointee
has found happiness, new politics
By Doug Grow, Staff Writer
I knew Susan Kimberly when she was
hurting badly. This was in the early
1990s. Kimberly, who had undergone a
sex change in 1984, saw
crisis wherever she
looked. She had feuded
publicly with Jim
Scheibel, mayor of St.
Paul at the time. The
feud left her cut off from
her lifeblood, City Hall.
She was rapidly running
out of money. Her sexu-
ality made it harder to
find work. Things got so
desperate that in 1993
she was forced to sell her
beloved classic Mustang.
She was trying to write a
play about her extraordi-
nary life. (“Superman
Meets Lois Lane,” was the working title.
“I’ve decided I was a lousy playwright,”
she said.) She was trying to come to
grips with her former self, Bob Sylvester,
who had been a successful politician and
businessman.
Just as she was making a personal come-
back, Norm Coleman, whom she con-
sidered a friend, threw her for a loop. In
1994, Coleman became St. Paul’s mayor
and in one of his first public acts refused
to sign a proclamation celebrating gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgender week

26 Equality
Transgender
stage for people to step out of the closet.
Over time, civil rights laws did help
reshape attitudes in this country. With
some brutal exceptions, acceptance has
become the rule.
“I think that if my tribe were dealing
with the political realities of the 1960s
and 1970s, we would be marching to
Washington just as African-Americans
and Indians did,” Kimberly said. “We
wouldn’t have any choice but to do that.
But that era is over. We’ve moved away
from the idea that government solves
problems for people. For my people, it is
a matter of coming out and being out
and conducting ourselves in a way that
earns us the respect we deserve.”
–Reprinted with permission from the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
“We agree on most things,” Kimberly
said of her alignment with Coleman. “I
respect that he and I have different
views on this [sexuality] issue.”
What a profound issue to disagree on.
Sexual identity is as fundamental as it
gets. Obviously, few understand that so
clearly as Kimberly. When, in 1994,
Coleman refused to sign that simple gay
pride proclamation, she felt personally
rebuked. Given the chance, Coleman
would take away basic civil rights pro-
tection that people like Susan Kimberly
worked hard to get in both city ordi-
nances and the Minnesota Constitution.
Comfortable as she is with the idea that
she’s now almost a Coleman-like con-
servative, Kimberly does agree the big
government she now abhors did set the
For example, less than 24 hours after the City Council in Boulder, Colorado amended
that city’s non-discrimination law to include transgendered and gender variant people,
Jerry Falwell, a spokesperson for the religious right, distributed a press release describ-
ing Boulder’s action as “mind-boggling” and decrying “the continued political accep-
tance and recognition of people simply because they have made deviant sexual choic-
es.”46 In Iowa, a right wing activist attacked the Governor’s executive order banning
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, arguing that it
would lead to “affirmative action programs that require the state to recruit cross-
dressers, transgenders, and she-males” for state jobs.47 The American Center for Law
and Justice (ACLJ), a right-wing group that uses legal challenges to further its agenda,
has begun a campaign to challenge laws protecting GLBT people in the courts.48 In
Louisiana, a spokesperson for the ACLJ criticized the Louisville ordinance on the
ground that it would force “employers who object to homosexuality and transgenderism
to hire people who practice those lifestyles.”
On a far more positive note, transgender issues have been incorporated into the main-
stream of the gay movement to a greater extent than ever before. In 1998, the
Federation of Statewide Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organizations, which
is coordinated by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, began admitting transgen-
der groups. In addition, many statewide GLBT organizations have not only added trans
issues to their mission statements, but have brought transgendered people and allies
into their decision-making structures and demonstrated their commitment to trans
issues through education efforts and the introduction of trans-inclusive legislation.

Historical Memory 27
Miranda Stevens-Miller is Chair of It’s
Time, Illinois, and Vice-Chair of Equality
Illinois, the statewide GLBT advocacy
group in Illinois.
“Both Beth Plotner
(vice-Chair, ITIL) and I
have been involved with
NGLTF’s Federation of
Statewide Lesbian,
Bisexual, and Transgender
Organizations since the
1998 Creating Change
conference in Pittsburgh.
The Federation has been
enthusiastic in its accep-
tance of transgender
rights organizations.
The real issues, of course,
are not transgender
rights, but the rights of
all sexual minorities and
gender minorities. We
are all working for the same goal, and it
has been wonderful to interact with
GLBT activists from all over the US.”
“Ever since It’s Time Illinois was found-
ed, we have sought to build coalition
with the other human rights organiza-
tions in the state. Our strongest ally has
been the Illinois Federation for Human
Rights. Together we have crafted an
inclusive human rights bill which has
been introduced in Springfield, have
lobbied for that bill, and organized
Equality Begins at Home in Illinois with
almost 40 events statewide. Equality
Begins at Home has given us the credi-
bility to easily form coalitions with
other groups. Just this summer, over 30
state and local organizations came
together to endorse the expansion of
ENDA to include gender variance.
Coalition has been and will be the key
to our success.”49
MIRANDA STEVENS-MILLER
Creating a Coalition in Illinois

Equality
Transgender
28
HOW TO WIN CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS FOR
TRANSGENDERED PEOPLE
While there are many excellent resources on how to lobby for gay rights laws, infor-
mation on trans-specific legislation is scattered, sparse and often all but impossible to
find. In the sections that follow, we have attempted to fill that gap by summarizing
some of the key insights and experiences of trans activists who have succeeded in pass-
ing trans-protective civil rights laws. Rather than attempting to provide a compre-
hensive guide to every aspect of the lobbying process, we have focused on the specific
issues that have arisen in just about every campaign to pass a trans-inclusive law. As
described in more detail below, those common issues include the critical and often con-
troversial questions of how to demonstrate the need for a trans-protective law, how to
draft effective statutory language, and how to respond to common myths and miscon-
ceptions about equal rights for trans people.
DOCUMENTING THE PROBLEM: THE POWER OF PERSONAL
STORIES
Before meeting with lawmakers, be they city councilors, state representatives, or mem-
bers of Congress and their staffers, it is important to show why your proposed bill is
needed. For example, if your group is working on a hate crimes law, it is essential to pro-
vide examples of hate crimes committed against transgendered and gender variant peo-
ple in your jurisdiction. Similarly, if your group is working on a bill that would prohib-
it discrimination against trans people in employment, housing, and public accommo-
dations, documenting particular instances of those kinds of discrimination is an invalu-
able tool. Personal stories and other forms of documentation can be presented in lob-
bying visits with legislators or through testimony at public hearings. If you are work-
ing in a large political jurisdiction, such as a state, be sure to collect evidence from as
many parts of the state as possible. It is also important to show the full range of trans-
Nuts
and
Bolts

gender identities and experiences—for example, to include non-transsexual as well as
transsexual people, as well as people from different walks of life and different racial and
ethnic backgrounds. Best advice: it’s never too early to start collecting evidence and
identifying individuals who are willing to share their compelling personal stories of dis-
crimination.
In the past few years, trans activists have produced some extremely effective and com-
pelling reports documenting the need for non-discrimination and hate crimes legisla-
tion. To date, the most comprehensive and frequently cited report is San Francisco’s
“Investigation Into Discrimination Against Transgendered People,” which Jamison
Green authored for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission in 1994. The report
summarizes over nine months of investigation into allegations of discriminatory treat-
ment of transgender persons in employment, housing, public accommodations, health
care, child custody, hate violence, and other areas. The report includes testimony from
transgendered people from a wide range of racial and ethnic backgrounds, including
African-American, Asian-American, Native American and Latino/a persons. The
report also includes testimony from transgender elders and youth, as well as from ser-
vice providers, partners, family members and friends. Based on the evidence docu-
mented in the report, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission recommended
that the City enact legislation to add “gender identity” to the city’s local human rights
ordinance. The San Francisco report has been distributed to many legislators and city
attorneys in other cities and remains one of the main sources of information about dis-
crimination against transgendered people.
Even without support from local or statewide human rights commissions, transgendered
activists in some states have undertaken their own investigations and produced their
own reports. In 1997, for example, transgendered activists in Illinois distributed a com-
prehensive, statewide report titled, “Discrimination and Hate Crimes Against
Transgendered People In Illinois.” The report, produced by It’s Time, Illinois!, is sup-
plemented every year with new examples of discrimination and hate crimes. The report
contains individual stories, case narratives, and a chart, titled “Cases of Discrimination
Based on Gender Expression,” that graphically communicate the frequency and types
of discrimination and hate crimes described in the report. The report also interprets the
data in very compelling summaries—easy to read and useful for legislators and other
advocates. For example, on employment discrimination, the report states:
More than 40% of the cases we recorded during the past three years dealt with
employment situations (16 out of 38 incidents). In half of those cases (8), the per-
son was fired. In general, the firing occurred within a few months after the person’s
gender identity became known. In three of these cases, the company had employed
the individual for over 15 years...The timing of the firing left no doubt as to the
motive behind it.50
Not every group has the resources to undertake an extensive investigation or to pro-
duce a comprehensive report about discrimination against transgendered people in
their area. What successful trans activists have learned, however, is that you must find
some means of conveying personal stories of discrimination to show legislators why
legal protections are needed. That can be as simple as identifying a few individuals who
are willing to testify before your local city council, or as ambitious as undertaking a sur-
vey of discrimination in your jurisdiction.
Nuts and Bolts 29

30 Equality
Transgender
F.M. Chester gave this speech at the
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council
Meeting, July 1, 1999 in support of a fair-
ness ordinance. The ordinance, which
included gender identity, passed a week later.
Hello, my name is Chester and I am
here to talk about Gender Identity. I am
a Nurse Practitioner and Co-Coordina-
tor of the Fairness Campaign Louisville.
I am also a transgendered lesbian.
Gender Identity is an umbrella term and
is not linked to a person’s sexual orien-
tation. Gender Identity refers to people
who manifest characteristics not tradi-
tionally associated with one’s biological
maleness or femaleness. Gender
Identity is the “protected class.”
“Transgendered” is the term used by
people who identify as alternatively
gendered. Transgendered people
include transexuals,51 cross-dressers,
effeminate men and masculine women.
Transexuals are people who go through
sex reassignment. They are people who
are born one sex and go through a med-
ical process, including hormones and
surgery, to change their body to the
desired sex. Part of the process of sex
reassignment is called the “Real Life
Test.” Prior to sex reassignment surgery,
transexuals must live for one year suc-
cessfully as the desired sex. They must
be identified or “read” as the desired sex
by society. They must pass.
Some transexuals choose not to have
surgery. There is no way to tell a pre-
operative or non-operative transexual
from a post-operative transexual unless
you look at their genitals or ask them.
Some transexuals are heterosexual,
some are homosexual.
Cross-dressers are primarily heterosexu-
al men who sometimes wear female
clothing. Most cross-dressers hide their
cross-dressing from their spouses, family
and friends for fear of reprisal. Most of
these people are identified by others as a
gender that is not their biological sex.
Most times there is no way to tell a full
time cross-dresser from a transexual or
someone biologically male or female
except to look at their genitals or to ask
them.
Effeminate men and masculine or
“butch” women are people who don’t
conform to traditional gender norms.
Not all effeminate men or masculine
women are homosexual.
Transgendered people are people who
do not present characteristics tradition-
ally associated with one’s biological sex.
Many of the people in this room proba-
bly thought I was male when they first
saw me. I am not. I am biologically
female. However, my gender presenta-
tion is very masculine. I am a “man-
nish” woman. I also wear men’s clothes.
I cannot wear women’s clothes comfort-
ably. They feel wrong. When I wear
women’s clothes I feel anguish. I feel
like I am in “drag” and that I am “pass-
ing” as a woman. I have always been
like this. When I was a child, I was a
“tomboy.” I remember telling everyone
“I’m not a boy, I’m a girl” because every-
one thought I was a boy. In sixth grade
I moved and changed schools. In that
school the boys sat on one side of the
room and the girls on the other. I
walked into class for the first time and
heard “Yea! another boy for our side!”
In High School I was tormented with
F. M. CHESTER
A transgender lesbian speaks on gender identity

Nuts and Bolts 31
the nickname “Birl.” B-I-R-L. Which
was short for Boy-Girl.
I am not transexual. At this point in my
life, I do not want to become a man. I
have considered changing my sex and
have rejected it for me right now.
It is difficult to go
through life as ambigu-
ously gendered. I am fre-
quently mistaken for
male in women’s
restrooms. I have been
chased into women’s
restrooms by male securi-
ty guards [questioning my
gender]. I have been told
by women in women’s
restrooms that I do not
belong there.
I am also the victim of
discrimination on the
basis of gender identity. I
was told my gender pre-
sentation was not appropriate in gradu-
ate school. While I was in my second-
to- last semester at Vanderbilt
University School of Nursing I was told
that a few patients and my preceptor
had complained, and that if I did not
dress and present myself as recognizably
female, I would not be allowed to
progress in my program and to graduate.
This was incredibly damaging to me. I
was, like any victim of discrimination,
deeply shamed. I was outraged, hurt and
embarrassed. I almost left my chosen
profession over this.
I am currently employed as a nurse prac-
titioner at a clinic in Louisville. I pro-
vide primary health care for primarily
indigent patients. I have been there for
5 years. I wear tennis shoes, khaki
pants, a polo shirt and a lab coat.
Sometimes children ask me if I am a boy
or a girl. I always tell them that I am a
girl. If I were not able to wear clothes
that were comfortable to me at work, I
would have to find another profession.
If I did there would be approximately
1500 people a year in Louisville who
would have no health care.
I am angry at society that tells women
like me I should work construction or be
an auto mechanic. I am an educated
professional and deserve to work in my
chosen profession.
Much of the discrimination that occurs
against gay, lesbian and bisexual people
is not because of their sexual orientation
but is because that person has presented
themselves as gender deviant.
Effeminate men and mannish women
are primary targets of discrimination.
One last thought. I live in Louisville,
what I am doing here in Lexington? I
am standing up and speaking out as
transgendered for all of the transgen-
dered people who are afraid to speak up.
Many transgendered people, especially
ones who pass, are fearful for their liveli-
hood and their lives. There is no protec-
tion against discrimination on the basis
of gender identity.
Please continue to include gender iden-
tity in the Fairness ordinance. Everyone
deserves to live free from discrimina-
tion. And people like me deserve to be
protected.
photo: Tamara Fitzpatrick

Equality
Transgender
32
WORKING WITH YOUR LOCAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
If your jurisdiction already has a human rights or non-discrimination law in
place, most likely it will also have a human rights department or commission to
enforce the law. Where possible, obtaining support from your local human
rights commission can be a critical element in a successful legislative campaign.
That support may take a variety of forms. In San Francisco, for example, the
Human Rights Commission held a public hearing investigating discrimination
against the transgender community and produced a report outlining the need
for legal protection. When activists from It’s Time, Illinois! began their cam-
paign to amend Evanston’s human rights law, one of their first
steps was to meet with the Human Relations Commission to
talk about discrimination. At the City Council hearing when
the trans-inclusive ordinance was discussed, the chair of the
Human Relations Commission spoke first and framed the ordi-
nance for the legislators.
The staff at human rights departments are usually very
approachable. It’s part of their job to meet with representatives
of community groups, and to learn about the kinds of discrimi-
nation people in their community face, even when the discrimination is not yet
prohibited by the law.52 When you or your group meet with a representative of
your human rights commission or department, you should come prepared. You
may need to do a “Transgender 101” session to answer basic questions, such as
who transgendered people are and what types of discrimination we face. Be
sure to use concrete examples. For example, after an incident in which a hotel
had threatened to have transgendered people arrested for using, in the words of
the hotel management, the “wrong” bathroom, representatives from NYAGRA,
the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, met with officials at
the New York City Department of Human Rights for an information session.
That initial meeting led to more NYAGRA-run education workshops on trans-
gender issues for human rights officials.
If the human rights commission in your jurisdiction has already heard from
transgendered people, these officials may be more supportive of the need for
legislative protection. For this reason, it’s a good idea to encourage transgen-
dered people who have recently experienced discrimination in your jurisdiction
to file a complaint, or at least tell their story—even in the absence of legal pro-
tection. For example, human rights officials in Boulder, Evanston, Iowa City,
New Orleans, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco had met with transgendered peo-
ple prior to the passage of ordinances in these cities. As a result, they knew
there was a problem in those communities and were quicker to recommend to
their city councils that the law be amended. According to activists from It’s
Time, Illinois!, because the human rights commission in Evanston “had heard
from transgendered people that they had been discriminated against, the direc-
tor of the human rights commission was immediately receptive to the idea of
including transgendered people in the city's Human Rights Ordinance.”53
It’s a good idea to encour-
age transgendered people
who have recently experi-
enced discrimination in
your jurisdiction to file a
complaint, or at least tell
their story.

APPROACHING LEGISLATORS AND BUILDING A COALITION
Before meeting with potential supporters of your bill, it is helpful to lay the foundation
for a successful legislative campaign by showing (1) that you are knowledgeable about
your local or state law and (2) that you have or will be able to create a coalition of local
or statewide supporters.
1) Have you researched the human rights or non-discrimination bill in your
jurisdiction?
To advocate for a change in existing law, you need to know what the current law says
and which groups it already protects. For example, when your group is meeting with
local legislators to find a sponsor for a trans-protective bill, it is less effective to talk
about the need for legal protection for transgendered people in the abstract than it is
to show them a copy of the current law and to explain why it does not provide adequate
protection for transgendered people.54 In some cases, legislators may be under the
impression that transgendered people are already covered under laws that prohibit dis-
crimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation. If so, it may be necessary to
show that most courts have not interpreted existing laws to cover transgendered peo-
ple. If you are fortunate enough to live in one of the few jurisdictions in which courts
have protected transgendered people under existing anti-discrimination laws, then you
must be prepared to show why it is necessary to codify and secure those protections
through legislation.
2) Are you prepared to educate your legislators about transgender discrimination?
In addition, because most legislators have either never heard of transgendered people
or have only the vaguest and most stereotypical notions of who we are, it is often essen-
tial to give legislators a basic introduction to transgendered people and the kinds of dis-
crimination we face. Many trans lobbying groups have prepared short handouts that
explain the range of transgender identities in a clear and concise way,
without going into unnecessary detail.55 It is important to stick to
simple definitions and concepts and to be sure that everyone in your
lobbying group is on the same page. Needless to say, a meeting with
your local or state legislator is not the place to hash out philosophical
differences within your group about trans identity!
Successful educational efforts may cause legislators to take important
incremental steps toward passing a trans-inclusive law. For example,
after being lobbied and educated by trans activists in Portland, legislators voted unan-
imously to direct city agencies to explore including non-discrimination on the basis of
gender identity in the city’s Equal Employment Opportunity program. It’s Time,
Oregon! is building on this very positive initial step to advocate for changes to
Portland’s human rights law. According to Lori Buckwalter, Director of It's Time,
Oregon!, “there is still much to be done, to develop constructive trust relationships
between those who have experienced gender identity discrimination, and public and
private officials. Issues of employment and healthcare are primary, and this resolution
creates [an opportunity to] cooperate to dispel decades of misunderstanding, and make
a real difference in people’s lives.”56
Nuts and Bolts 33
It is often essential to give
legislators a basic introduc-
tion to transgendered peo-
ple and the kinds of
discrimination we face.

3) Do you have support from GLB activists in your city or state?
Enacting trans-protective legislation depends on a strong alliance between gay and
trans people—for principled as well as for practical reasons. In principle, homophobia
and transphobia are closely connected and inter-related. Transgendered people have
played an active role in fighting for gay rights. Now that gay people have begun to
make some headway in securing basic civil rights, it would be unfair to leave transgen-
dered people behind. In addition, discrimination on the basis of gender expression
affects many GLB people, regardless of whether they identify as transgender.
In practice, support from the GLB community has been critical in most jurisdictions
that have succeeded in passing transgender-protective laws. The gay rights movement
has spent decades fighting for political legitimacy and establishing
connections with local, state and federal legislators. Building on that
foundation to educate legislators about the need for trans-inclusive
laws is a far more realistic approach than attempting to create those
relationships, which take years to develop, from scratch.
In fact, every successful effort to win civil rights protections for trans
people has taken place in a jurisdiction that either already has a gay
rights law in place, or in which gay and trans activists have worked together to pass a
comprehensive non-discrimination law that includes both sexual orientation and gen-
der identity. To date, there are no jurisdictions in which trans people have succeeded
in obtaining civil rights protections for transgendered and gender variant people before
GLB people have done so.
In jurisdictions where protection on the basis of sexual orientation has already been
secured, support from GLB people played a vital role in persuading legislators to expand
that protection to include transgendered and gender variant people. That was the case,
for example, in San Francisco, Seattle, Ann Arbor, Iowa City and many other locali-
ties. Similarly, it was only by working closely together as a unified GLBT front that
activists in Lexington, Louisville and Jefferson County, Kentucky were able to secure
new local laws protecting both sexual orientation and gender identity.
In contrast, trans people have had little success in passing trans-inclusive laws in juris-
dictions in which the GLB community has been divided over whether to support trans-
inclusion or to push for sexual orientation protections alone. In 1998, for example, gay
and transgendered activists in Onondaga County, New York, attempted to amend the
fair practices law there to include sexual orientation and gender diversity. While sever-
al legislators and many in the GLBT community supported the addition of language to
protect transgendered people, at least one local GLB organization and one local allied
organization, the Stonewall Committee and the Central New York Chapter of the
ACLU, did not. Despite heated debate over whether or not the omission of gender
variant people was “exclusionary,” the lack of a unified position from the GLBT com-
munity resulted in the bill passing without protections for transgendered people.57
4) Are there other groups and/or individuals who will lend advice and support?
In addition to working closely with GLB activists and groups, it is also important to
reach out to other potential allies and supporters. For example, endorsers of trans-pro-
tective bills have included: local clergy; local teacher associations; local unions and
Equality
Transgender
34
Enacting trans-protective
legislation depends on a
strong alliance between
gay and trans people.

labor organizations; local physicians, nurses and other health care workers; local social
workers and other mental health professionals; local disability rights groups; local chap-
ters of the National Organization for Women, the League of Women Voters and other
feminist groups; and local chapters of the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People, the Urban League, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-
Defamation League, and other advocacy groups for racial and religious minorities. The
more your own transgender and/or GLBT group reflects the diversity of the communi-
ty in which you live, the easier it will be to reach out to a diverse range of allied groups
and to build a broad base of support for trans-protective laws.
Nuts and Bolts 35
As coordinator of a legislative work
group that includes city council mem-
bers, transgender-supportive allies, and
other members of the New York
Association for Gender Rights
Advocacy, Pauline Park
is one of the key players
in the initiative to amend
New York City's Human
Rights Law to include
transgendered and gender
variant people. (In
February 2000, city coun-
cil members announced
their co-sponsorship of a
trans-protective bill; it
has not yet passed.)
Park's participation in
transgender activism
began with GenderPAC's
annual national gender
lobby days in Washing-
ton, D.C., in May 1997
and 1998. She and other New York-
based trans activists decided to focus
their efforts at the state and local levels,
and in June, 1998, they founded the
New York Association for Gender
Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), the first
statewide transgender political organiza-
tion in New York.
Park, who has a Ph.D. in political sci-
ence from the University of Illinois,
found working on this project in the
highly-charged political environment of
New York City to be a real education in
lobbying. Her first piece of advice:
“While the support of legislative staff is
important, it's crucial to get at least a
few of the members themselves actively
engaged in the process. We've been very
fortunate to have the direct and active
participation of two legislators of color-
Margarita Lopez, an openly lesbian
Latina city council member; and Bill
Perkins, a GLBT-supportive African
American city council member.” The
legislative work group meets in person
or via a conference call every two or
three weeks.
“It's also vital to have the support of the
lesbian, gay, and bisexual community.
We've formed a working partnership
with Tim Sweeney and Ralph Wilson at
the Empire State Pride Agenda, and
we've been able to build on the credibil-
ity with legislators that they already
enjoy,” Park said.
Park also emphasizes the importance of
forming a broad coalition of allies in
support of the bill. “In a city as diverse
as New York, it's important to counter
the perception that transgender-based
discrimination is only a white queer
PAULINE PARK

DRAFTING CLEAR AND EFFECTIVE STATUTORY LANGUAGE
Drafting legislation is a highly skilled art. To be useful, civil rights statutes must be
worded carefully. Sloppy or ambiguous language can create unintended loopholes or
exclusions that may defeat the purpose of passing a law in the first place. Once a non-
discrimination statute is passed, courts will scrutinize the language very closely.
Lawyers representing employers (landlords, businesses, etc.) will do their best to find
loopholes and to persuade courts to interpret the law as narrowly as possible. In the
context of federal laws that prohibit sex discrimination, for example, literally hundreds
of pages of court decisions have been devoted to interpreting the three little words
“because of sex.” Individual litigants have won or lost cases depending on how nar-
rowly or broadly a particular court has interpreted this single phrase.
To avoid these problems as much as possible, it is a good idea to enlist the help of sup-
portive attorneys and/or legislators who are skilled at drafting legislation, and who can
help you anticipate criticisms, misunderstandings, and unintended consequences of
language that is confusing, weak, or just poorly drafted. This doesn’t mean that you
have to relinquish all control to legal “experts.” But it does suggest that once you know
what you want your statute to accomplish, it makes sense to consult or collaborate with
folks who have the knowledge and the skills to draft a strong, carefully worded law that
will afford as much protection as possible.58
Equality
Transgender
36
lower Manhattan issue.” Park said.
“With Pride Agenda staff and the six
council members in our legislative work
group, we've produced what looks to be
a winning strategy, forging a broad-
based coalition that includes communi-
ties of color and people in the outer bor-
oughs.” Members of the legislative work
group have reached out to a range orga-
nizations for their support, including the
Audre Lorde Project, the National
Organization for Women-New York
City Chapter, the Asian American
Legal Defense and Education Fund,
Puerto Rican Legal Defense &
Education Fund, District Council 37
(the largest union in the city), the GLB
political clubs, and people of faith.
Park has been involved with organizing
in GLBT communities since 1994,
when she launched Gay Asians &
Pacific Islanders of Chicago, an organi-
zation for gay, bisexual, and transgen-
dered Asian and Pacific Islanders.
Since then, she has continued to be
involved in Asian and Pacific Islander
communities, working with the Gay
Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New
York and co-founding Iban/Queer
Koreans of New York in February 1997.
The initial spark for Iban/QKNY was
the Korean LGBT Forum organized by
the Korean Gay Organization/
Chingusai and hosted by the Korean
American Association of Greater New
York on November 2, 1996. Park was
one of the four speakers in that panel
discussion, the first forum on GLBT
issues ever sponsored by a non-queer
Korean American organization.
For Park, ensuring that people of color
have an equal voice in the transgender
political movement is critical. “As a
transgendered woman of color, I do not
have the luxury of completely separat-
ing what are ostensibly ‘transgender’
issues from issues of race, ethnicity,
nationality, and citizenship status.”

Of course there is another very good reason to enlist support from a legislator or legis-
lators in drafting the language of your proposed law—at the end of the day, you must
have a legislator who is willing to introduce the bill in your local or state legislature.
The more invested that legislator is in your proposed bill, the harder she will fight to
secure its passage. And the more she understands why the bill is necessary and what it
is intended to accomplish, the less likely she is to agree to legislative amendments or
modifications that may weaken the bill or undermine its purpose. As with any other
proposed legislation, it is always important to remember that once a trans-related or
trans-inclusive bill is introduced, the ultimate decision about the wording of the law is
in the hands of the legislature. As constituents and activists, we can encourage a leg-
islator to introduce the language that we want; we can monitor legislative discussions
of the language once it is introduced; and we can lobby against proposed changes that
we don’t like. But once a proposed bill is in the hands of a legislative committee or on
the floor, we do not have any direct power or control over the language that is ulti-
mately enacted into law.
Unfortunately, even after intensive lobbying and education efforts on the part of trans
activists and allies, and assurances from those sponsoring the bill that trans-inclusive
language would be incorporated, legislators have been known to cut the language
before the bill is formally introduced, or even just before it is voted upon. For exam-
ple, after eight years of lobbying and petitioning for a sexual orientation bill that would
include gender diverse people, trans activists in Onondaga County, New York “were
shocked and surprised to find at public meetings designed to introduce the legislation,
that inclusive language was not in the new version of the legislation.”59 Similarly, in
DeKalb, Illinois, GLBT activists had been assured by city officials that a transgender-
inclusive bill would be passed. But after the first reading of the bill, the city attorney’s
office and the director of the DeKalb Human Relations Commission decided—without
informing any representatives of the GLBT groups—to omit the expansive, trans-inclu-
sive definition of sexual orientation, which had been based on the Minnesota statute.
Rick Garcia, the Political Director of the Illinois Federation for Human Rights (now
Equality Illinois), and a staunch supporter of the expansive language, was present at the
first reading of the bill. According to Garcia, although there was a question from the
floor about “men in dresses,” six out of seven legislators were firmly in support of the
transgender-inclusive language. Garcia stated later, “Words cannot adequately express
my disappointment and utter disgust that [the Human Relations Commission] would
consciously eliminate the gender variant from civil rights protections. It is one thing
to overlook a group of people and quite another to consciously eliminate them.”60
According to activists from It’s Time, Illinois!, they learned a difficult lesson from this
experience. Because the working draft of the bill included the trans-inclusive language
that Garcia had given the city councilors, It's Time, Illinois! activists decided not to
attend the hearings. “[We] stayed out, figuring why rock the boat. We're included; we
don't need to be present at the hearings. The lesson we learned is that the ‘stealth’
approach is a bomb...it can blow up in your face. By not being visible, by not showing
that we are part of the DeKalb queer community, the DeKalb Human Relations
Commission felt it was acceptable to exclude gender variance.”61
Nuts and Bolts 37

The two key issues in drafting statutory language: How to define
transgendered people and where to place the definition
To ensure that civil rights statutes are as precise as possible, they almost always contain
explicit definitions of the statute’s key terms, even words that might seem obvious, such
as “landlord,” “discrimination,” “educational facility,” or “sexual orientation.” In draft-
ing bills, most questions about trans-inclusive language revolve around two critical def-
initional issues: first, which words should be used to indicate that discrimination
against transgender people is prohibited, and second, where should those words appear
in the statute. (We have included the definitions from existing statutes in the charts
on page 37.)
Issue one: How to define transgendered people
As you can see from the charts below, different jurisdictions have adopted slightly dif-
ferent language. In Minnesota, for example, the state law defines trans people in very
broad and general terms, prohibiting discrimination against persons “having or being
perceived as having an identity or self-image that is not traditionally associated with
one’s biological maleness or femaleness.” In contrast, the original ordinance in Seattle,
which was first amended to include trans-people in 1986, was far more specific, pro-
hibiting discrimination on the basis of “transsexuality and trans-
vestism.” Benton County, Oregon and the city of Olympia,
Washington, among others, also define the protected class in very spe-
cific terms. In those localities, gender identity is defined to include
the status of being transsexual or transgender (in Benton County) and
the status of being transsexual, transvestite or transgender (in
Olympia).
Unfortunately, there are few if any published court decisions inter-
preting these statutes, so we don’t yet have much guidance from the
courts as to problems or limitations that may be associated with par-
ticular kinds of language. In 1999, however, the City of Seattle
Commission on Sexual Minorities recommended that the words used
to include trans people in their 1986 ordinance (transsexuality and
transvestism) be changed. In an extensive report, the Commission concluded that “the
terminology used by the City of Seattle on this matter could be changed to be made
more accurate, inclusive, and more easily administered in its attempts to protect gen-
der non-conforming persons.” They found that:
The words transsexuality, transvestism, but not the word transgendered appear in
current housing, employment, public accommodation and provision of City ser-
vices protective ordinances for gender non-conforming people in Seattle. This
leaves transgendered people at risk of being left unprotected. The term transgen-
dered could simply be added, but doing so could allow the term transgendered to be
read in its narrowest definition, and thus leave unprotected some other members of
the gender identity community.62
In September of 1999, the Seattle City Council accepted the Commission’s recom-
mendation and voted to add a definition of gender identity that combined the general
and the specific approaches: “ ‘gender identity’ means having an identity, expression,
or physical characteristics not traditionally associated with one’s biological sex or one’s
sex at birth, including transsexual, transvestite and transgendered, and including a per-
38 Equality
Transgender
“Every few years, there’s a
new word. When we
passed the law in the ‘80s,
‘transgender’ wasn’t some-
thing anyone used. With
all these words of the week,
the real objective is to find
the most inclusive set of
words.” —Marsha Botzer

son’s attitudes, preferences, beliefs and practices pertaining thereto.” Commission
member Marsha Botzer, who is also the founder of the Ingersoll Gender Center,
explained the reasoning behind the recommendation. “Every few years, there’s a new
word. When we passed the law the first time in the ‘80s, ‘transgender’ wasn’t some-
thing anyone used. With all these words of the week, the real objective is to find the
most inclusive set of words.”63 The City of Tucson has also opted for this combination
approach. The Tucson ordinance includes both a general clause defining gender iden-
tity to mean “an individual’s various attributes as they are understood to be masculine
and/or feminine,” and a more a specific clause stating that the ordinance “shall be
broadly interpreted to include pre- and post-operative transsexuals, as well as other per-
sons who are, or are perceived to be, transgendered.”
Similarly, when activists in Minnesota fought to include trans-people in the Minnesota
law, they were advised to avoid using specific terms that might lose or change their
meaning over time (e.g. transvestism), and instead to use less potentially time-bound
words that reflect more general concepts.64 “We had considered doing a laundry list,
but the house legislative counsel recommended that we go instead with a list of behav-
iors,”65 activist Diana Slyter said. As Brett Beemyn explained at an Iowa City public
hearing on the Iowa City ordinance, “I can foresee a future where somebody who is not
transsexual or does not define himself as a transvestite faces discrimination and doesn’t
have protection because they’re not officially included in the ordinance wording.”66
Based on the wording of statutes in jurisdictions that have opted either for the more
Nuts and Bolts 39
• different from that
traditionally associat-
ed with one’s sex at
birth
• incongruent with the
person’s biological sex
• not traditionally
associated with one’s
biological maleness
or one’s biological
femaleness
• appropriate to the
biological or legal sex
other than one’s bio-
logical sex at birth, as
when a male is per-
ceived as feminine or
a female is perceived
as masculine
• understood to be
• perceived
• presumed
• assumed by others
• gender identity
• status
• self-image
• attitudes
• preferences
• beliefs
• gender expression
• appearance
• projecting a self-
image
• behavior
• practices
• presenting or holding
oneself out to the
public
• displaying
• manifesting
Figure 2: Common components of trans-inclusive legislative definitions of gender,
gender identity, or orientation
Gender
Expression: Incongruence:
Gender
Identity:
Others’
Perceptions:

general or for the combination approach, it is possible to identify some common com-
ponents of these definitions. In general, these types of definitions include some refer-
ence to:
1) One’s own internal identification as male or female (often referred to as “gender
identity”);
2) The external manifestation or expression of one’s gender identity, through cloth-
ing, appearance, demeanor, personality characteristics, etc. (often referred to as
“gender expression”);
3) How others perceive one’s gender identity and/or gender expression;
4) The fact that one’s biological sex, gender identity, and/or expression may not be
associated with one’s birth sex.
Why is it important to draft statutory language that addresses all of these components?
Simply put, it is important because the more clarity there is in the text of the statute
itself—the plain meaning of the law—the less trouble there will be when the law gets
interpreted later, by employers, by the local human rights commission, and, eventual-
ly, by the courts. Even transsexuals who have undergone complete sex reassignment
and who meet traditional expectations for people of their (new) biological sex need the
fourth component to be sure that employers and others who discover that their birth
sex differs from their current biological sex are prevented from discriminating.
Language should be drafted to apply to as wide an array of transgendered and gender
variant people as possible, recognizing, for example:
• that female-to-male transsexuals (FTMs) often have different routes to transition
than male-to-female transsexuals (MTFs), and that many FTMs may never have
genital (“bottom”) surgery;
• that many transsexuals are non-operative, either because they cannot afford or
choose not to undergo sex reassignment or are prevented from doing so for health
reasons;
• that some transsexual people may transition with hormone therapy only;
• that some transgendered people may choose to take hormones but not to transition
from their birth sex, or may choose to take low doses of hormones to bring about
some physical changes;
• that some transsexual people who are transitioning or have transitioned may not
be under a doctor’s care;
• that many transsexual people are not readily identifiable as such and do not chal-
lenge prevailing gender norms in any visible way;
• that other transsexual people are more visible, either because they cannot or do not
wish to conceal their transsexual status.
• that some transgendered people do not fit easily into one of two gender categories.
In sum, the legislation has to accomplish two things at once. It has to be clear and spe-
cific enough to make it obvious that that the purpose of the law is to prohibit discrim-
ination against transgendered people. At the same time, the language used to define
transgendered people has to be flexible and general enough to ensure that the full range
40 Equality
Transgender

of transgendered identities are protected. Experience has shown that it is impossible to
list all of the different types of transgender identities that exist now or that may exist
in the future. Experience with other types of civil rights statutes has also shown that
courts typically interpret such lists to be exhaustive and will likely refuse to extend pro-
tection to particular types of transgendered experience not specified. In light of that
experience, the safest course is to include at least some general language that describes
the prohibited discrimination in broad terms.
Issue two: where to place the definition
Another issue is where to place the definition of transgendered people. As reflected in
the accompanying chart, there are three options: (1) adding trans people as a new, free-
standing category of protected persons; (2) including transgendered people in the def-
inition of sexual orientation; and (3) including transgendered people in the definition
of sex or gender. In San Francisco, for example, local legislators opted for the strategy
of including trans people as a new protected group. The local ordinance, which already
prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, and var-
ious other attributes, was amended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of “gender
identity” as well. In the state of Minnesota, as well as in Toledo, Ypsilanti and several
other cities, trans people are included in the definition of “sexual orientation.” Finally,
in the state of California, as well as in Santa Cruz, Cambridge, and some other local
jurisdictions, trans people are included in the definition of “sex” or “gender.” There are
arguments in favor of all three strategies.
(1) Arguments in favor of adding trans people as a new protected category: Some activists
have argued that it is important to make “gender identity” or “gender variance” a
separate category in order to underscore the point that trans people are being treat-
ed equally with other protected groups. These activists have also pointed out that
including transgendered people in the definition of sexual orientation or gender or
sex may make it more difficult to educate the public and human rights department
investigators about transgendered and gender different people, and the specific
kinds of discrimination they face. For example, while most people will never read
the complete ordinance, they may see gender identity in widely-distributed gener-
al policy statements listing all the bases on which it is illegal to discriminate.67 As
trans activist Dawn Atkins pointed out at the Iowa City hearing on a trans non-
discrimination bill, “most people in this community will never read the complete
ordinance…What they will see…is the list that you give…If gender identity is sub-
sumed under sexual orientation most of them will never know that…Some people
will violate the law not knowing that it is illegal.”68
(2) Arguments in favor of including trans people in the definition of sexual orientation:
Others, such as activists from It’s Time, Illinois!, point out that there may be “pit-
falls in setting yourself up as a separate category [because it] may result in a very
cumbersome, narrowly defined category.” “For example,” those activists have
noted, “in the New Orleans ordinance there is a four-part definition of gender iden-
tification as well as an exclusion of cross-dressing at the workplace unless the
employee can certify with a letter from a doctor that the employee has been diag-
nosed with gender identity disorder.”69 Instead, they and other groups are in favor
of using the Minnesota definition of sexual orientation, both because it highlights
the connections between homophobia and transphobia, and because it is inclusive
Nuts and Bolts 41

of all GLBT people. “The [Minnesota]definition is very broad. It covers the entire
GLBT community and then some. Not only are transgenders included, but also all
other gender variant peoples who may or may not identify as ‘trans’ anything. It
also defines sexual orientation without using the words ‘homosexuality, heterosex-
uality or bisexuality.’ It includes affection and choice of partner and self-expression.
It protects as many people as possible.”70
(3) Arguments in favor of including trans people in the definition of gender or sex: Still oth-
ers believe that including transgendered people under the definition of “gender” or
“sex” is the best option, because it helps to establish the general principle that
existing sex discrimination laws should be interpreted to include trans people. In
Santa Cruz County, for example, the ordinance includes trans people under the cat-
egory of gender, which is defined as follows: “‘Gender’ has the same meaning as
‘sex’ as that term is used in state or federal anti-discrimination legislation and shall
be broadly interpreted to include sexual stereotyping and persons who are known
or assumed to be transgendered.”71 In addition, statutory language that also explic-
itly equates “gender” with “sex,” such as that used in Santa Cruz County, conveys
the principle that gender stereotyping is a kind of sex discrimination. In keeping
42 Equality
Transgender
Trans language
included in the
definition of sex
or gender
Trans
protections
adopted at
the same time
as a sexual
orientation
provision
Trans
protections
adopted after
a sexual
orientation
provision
Trans language
included in the
definition of sexual
orientation
Trans language
included in a
separate category
(gender identity, gender
variance, or transsexualism)
Harrisburg, PA, 1983 Minneapolis, MN, 1975
St. Paul, MN, 1990
Minnesota, 1993
Toledo, OH, 1998
Ypsilanti, MI, 1997
Benton County, OR, 1998
Jefferson County, KY, 1999
Lexington-Fayette, KY,
1999
Louisville, KY, 1999
Cambridge, MA, 1997
City of Santa Cruz, CA,
1992
County of Santa Cruz, CA,
1998
Pittsburgh, PA, 1997
Evanston, IL, 1997
Seattle, WA, 198672
York, PA, 1998
Ann Arbor, MI, 1999
Atlanta, GA, 2000
Boulder, CO, 2000
Iowa City, IA, 1995
New Orleans, LA, 1998
Olympia, WA, 1997
San Francisco, CA, 1994
Tucson, AZ, 1999
West Hollywood, CA, 1998
Figure 3: Different categories used to include trans people*
* This chart is based on an examination of 26 jurisdictions with trans-inclusive human rights laws. It omits Grand Rapids, MI,
because “gender orientation” is an atypical category and is not defined in their ordinance.

with this strategy, five of the six jurisdictions that have amended their definitions
of sex or gender to include trans people explicitly state that sex has the same mean-
ing as gender or vice versa.73
While some people may have very strong opinions about which of these three strate-
gies is the best, the bottom line in most cases may be that the “best” strategy is the one
that has the most chance of success in a given city or state. From a purely philosophi-
cal perspective, there is no universal agreement and probably no “right” answer to the
question of whether trans people should be (1) identified as a separate and distinct
group; (2) included in the definition of “sexual orientation”; or (3)
included in the definition of “sex” or of “gender.”
From a practical perspective, there may be very good reasons to opt
for one of these strategies over the other, depending on the circum-
stances in your particular city or state. For example, it may be easier
to persuade your local legislators to amend the definition of “sexual
orientation” or of “sex” or “gender” than to add a whole new catego-
ry of persons to the law. If you live in a city or state that does not already have a law
prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, it may make a lot more
sense to band together with lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and include trans people
under the definition of sexual orientation.
Empirically, an analysis of existing laws shows that ordinances that added trans people
to laws that already covered sexual orientation have been slightly more likely to place
trans people in a separate category than to amend the definition of gender or sexual ori-
entation. In contrast, laws that were passed to protect gay and trans people at the same
time have been almost evenly split between including trans people under the rubric of
sexual orientation and adding trans people as a new category. Similarly, most of the
state-wide non-discrimination bills with trans language that have been introduced
though not yet passed in 1999/2000 legislative sessions have followed Minnesota’s lead,
placing the trans-inclusive language under the category of “sexual orientation.”74 The
two state bills that do not, California and Vermont, already have sexual orientation
non-discrimination laws.
In sum, there is no one right way to amend a civil rights law to include gender variant
and transgendered people. Moreover, the final decision on how to include trans-pro-
tective language will ultimately be up to the legislators. Their decision will take into
account the opinions of different participants in the process: the transgendered activists
pushing hardest for the bill, legislative counsel, and human rights commission officials.
Boulder trans activists at the cutting edge
On January 20, 2000, after more than a year’s discussion among activists, social workers,
city councilors, attorneys, and human rights officials, Boulder officials supported an ordi-
nance amending the city’s law to protect transgendered people. Transgender Boulder
activist Kathryn Haley described this language “as the most thorough” trans-inclusive lan-
guage in the nation.75 The Boulder legislation is the first to use the term “gender vari-
ance” as its overall category; the ordinance also defined several other commonly used
transgender terms, and referred to those terms in different sections of the bill.76 In a sub-
stantial policy memo to members of the city council, the Boulder City Attorney explained
why “gender variance” should be the term used for the protected class definition:
Nuts and Bolts 43
The “best” strategy is the
one that has the most
chance of success in a
given city or state.

“gender variance” comes the closest to defining the class of persons covered by the
testimony before the Human Rights Commission. This class is somewhat broader
than that of the “transitioning transsexuals,” who originally approached the com-
mission and requested an ordinance. However, “gender variance” is less broad than
“gender identity” or the class of persons sometimes referred to as “transgendered.”77
The policy memo recommends specific approaches to dealing with locker rooms, show-
ers, and cross-dressing in the work place. To address the fear of some employers that
gender variant people will radically vary their gender presentation from day to day, the
bill states that “a workplace supervisor may require that a worker not change gender
presentation in the workplace more than three times in any eighteen-month period.”
Transitioned transsexuals may use the locker room and showers appropriate to their
new sex; transitioning transsexuals will be granted “reasonable accommodation” in
accessing locker rooms and showers. Even this extremely thoughtful piece of legisla-
tion, however, does not pay close enough attention to the differences between male-to-
female and female-to-male transsexuals. Because Boulder defines “transitioned trans-
sexual” as “a person who has completed genital reassignment surgery,” female-to-male
transsexuals—many of whom never have genital reassignment surgery—may be left in
a legal limbo with regard to the use of locker and shower facilities. Also, the Boulder
law exempts people under age of twenty-five from its housing provisions: in sex-segre-
gated housing situations, such as college dorms, homeless shelters, jails, and juvenile
facilities, trans youth and young adults may be housed with those of the opposite gen-
der identity.
BUILDING ON LEGISLATIVE VICTORIES
Passing a trans-inclusive statute in one area, such as hate crimes, may pave the way for
using the same legislative language to amend other non-discrimination statutes in the
same jurisdiction. For example, in 1998, trans-inclusive language was added to the
California hate crimes statute, under the definition of gender. The next year, in 1999,
the California Legislature enacted the Dignity for All Students Act, which amended
the California Education Code to prohibit discrimination on the basis
of sexual orientation and gender in California schools. Rather than
drafting new definitions of sexual orientation and gender, the legisla-
tors simply incorporated the categories and definitions in the state
hate crimes law, which of course had already been amended to include
transgendered people the prior year. As a result, transgendered stu-
dents and teachers are now protected from discrimination under
California law. In 2000, legislators introduced a bill that would add gender to the
California Fair Employment and Housing Act. This bill also relied upon the expansive,
trans-inclusive definition of gender already set forth in the Hate Crimes Act and the
Education Code.
44 Equality
Transgender
Transgendered students
and teachers are now pro-
tected from discrimination
under California law.

Figure 4: Statutory definitions of “gender identity” and “gender variance”
Nuts and Bolts 45
“‘Gender Identity.’ A person’s actual or perceived gender, including a per-
son’s gender identity, self-image, appearance, expression, or behavior,
whether or not that gender identity, self-image, appearance, expression, or
behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person’s sex
at birth as being either female or male.”
(Ordinance No. 10-99, effective March 17, 1999.)
“Whereas, gender identity, meaning self-perception as male or female…”
(Ordinance No. 00-0074, adopted by City Council February 21, 2000,
approved by Mayor, March 14, 2000.)
SAFE SCHOOLS
Since the passage of the California Dignity for All Students Act (which protects both
gay and transgendered students) in 1999, at least one other local jurisdiction has
amended its nondiscrimination policy to make schools safer for trans and gender dif-
ferent children and teenagers. In February of 2000, at the urging of a concerned par-
ent and his son, the Decatur, Georgia School Board changed its policy to read: “City
Schools of Decatur shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin,
sex, age, religion, handicap, sexual orientation, or gender identity in its programs and
activities.”78 Advocates for gay, lesbian and bisexual youth have had some success in
changing school policies to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
In addition, Title IX of the federal Civil Rights Act, which prohibits peer sexual harass-
ment, also applies to some situations in which students are harassed by other students
or teachers because they are, or are perceived to be, gay, lesbian, or bisexual. But these
successes have not often been applied to gender different students. As the Gay Lesbian
& Straight Education Network points out, “[s]tudents who identify themselves as
‘transgender’ typically are harassed because they don’t look and act the way other peo-
ple expect a ‘boy’ or a ‘girl’ to look and act. That isn’t covered by policies on sexual
orientation discrimination.”79 In 2000, legislators in Colorado followed California’s
lead and introduced a safe schools bill that included gender identity.80
TRANS-INCLUSIVE DEFINITIONS IN NON-DISCRIMINATION
AND HATE CRIMES LAWS
Ann Arbor, MI,
1999
Atlanta, GA
2000
“‘Gender identity’” includes the status of being transsexual or transgender.
(Benton County Ordinance No. 98-0139, passed July 1998, effective August
14, 1998.)
Benton County,
OR, 1997

46 Equality
Transgender
“‘Gender identification’ is the actual or perceived condition, status or acts of:
Identifying emotionally or psychologically with the sex other than one’s bio-
logical or legal sex at birth, whether or not there has been a physical change
of the organs of sex.
Presenting and /or holding oneself out to the public as a member of the bio-
logical sex that was not one’s biological or legal sex at birth,
Lawfully displaying physical characteristics and/or behavioral characteristics
and /or expressions which are widely perceived as being appropriate to the
biological or legal sex other than one’s biological sex at birth, as when a male
is perceived as feminine or a female is perceived as masculine, and /or being
physically and /or behaviorally androgynous.”
(Adopted By The Council Of The City Of New Orleans July 1, 1998.)
“‘Gender Identity’ includes the status of being transsexual, transvestite, or
transgender.”
(Olympia, WA, Ordinance passed February 1997, Ordinance No. 5670.)
“‘GENDER IDENTITY.’
(1) Having a gender identity as a result of a sex change surgery; or
(2) Manifesting, for reasons other than dress, an identity not traditionally
associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness.”
(Ordinance, No. 9, Series 1999, 1-26, 1999.)
“‘gender identity’ shall mean: (a) “having a gender identity as a result of a sex
change surgery; or (b) manifesting, for reasons other than dress, an identity
not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness.”
(Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Ordinance, approved July 8, 1999.)
“GENDER IDENTITY. Manifesting an identity not traditionally associated
with one’s biological maleness or femaleness.”
(Ordinance No. 36, Series 1999. Adopted October, 12, 1999.)
“GENDER IDENTITY: A person’s various individual attributes, actual or
perceived, in behavior, practice or appearance, as they are understood to be
masculine and/or feminine.”
(Iowa City, Oct. 95, Ordinance No. 95-3697.)
Iowa City, IA,
1995
Jefferson
County, KY,
1999
Lexington-
Fayette Urban
County
Government,
KY,1999
Louisville, KY,
1999
New Orleans,
LA, 1998
Olympia, WA,
1997
“‘Gender variance’ means a persistent sense that a person’s gender identity
is incongruent with the person’s biological sex, excluding the element of per-
sistence for person’s under age twenty-one and including, without limita-
tion, transitioned transsexuals.”
(Ordinance No. 7040, passed January 20, 2000.)
Boulder, CO,
2000

Nuts and Bolts 47
“‘Gender Identity’ shall mean a person’s various individual attributes as they
are understood to be masculine and/or feminine.”
(Passed December 1994. San Francisco Ordinance No. 433-94.)
“‘Gender Identity’ means a person’s identity, expression, or physical charac-
teristics, whether or not traditionally associated with one’s biological sex or
one’s sex at birth, including transsexual, transvestite, and transgendered, and
including a person’s attitudes, beliefs, preferences, and practices pertaining
thereto.”
(Seattle Ordinance no. 119628, passed August 1999.)
“Gender identity means an individual’s various attributes as they are under-
stood to be masculine and/or feminine and shall be broadly interpreted to
include pre- and post-operative transsexuals, as well as other persons who are,
or are perceived to be, transgendered.”
(Ordinance number 9199, Adopted by the Mayor and City Council February
01, 1999.)
“Gender Identity refers to a person’s actual or perceived sex, and includes a
person’s identity, appearance, or behavior, whether or not that identity,
appearance, or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with
the person’s sex at birth.”
(Ordinance No. 98-520, passed, approved, and adopted July 20, 1998.)
Vermont’s law includes gender identity without defining it: “‘Protected cat-
egory’ includes race, color, religion, national origin, sex, ancestry, age, ser-
vice in the armed forces of the United States, handicap, sexual orientation
and gender identity, and perceived membership in any such group.”
(Chapter 33, Section 1458, amended to include sexual orientation and gen-
der identity, 1999)
“Sexual orientation is defined as: Having or perceived as having emotional,
physical, or sexual attachment to another without regard to the sex of that
person or having or being perceived as having an orientation for such an
attachment, or having or being perceived as having a self image or identity
not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness.”
(Ordinance No. 61-0-97.)
“Affectional Preference: Having or manifesting an emotional or physical
attachment to another consenting person or persons, or having or manifest-
ing a preference for such attachment, or having or projecting a self-image
not associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness.”
(Code of Ordinances, City of Minneapolis, Title VII, Chapter 139.20.)
Figure 5: Statutory definitions of sexual orientation or affectional preference
that include transgendered people
San Francisco,
CA, 1994
Seattle, WA,
1999
definition changed
from 1986
Tucson, AZ,
1999
West
Hollywood, CA,
1998
Vermont, Hate
Crimes Law,
1999
Evanston, IL,
1997
Minneapolis,
MN 1975

48 Equality
Transgender
“Sexual or affectional orientation means having or being perceived as having
an emotional or physical attachment to another consenting adult person or
persons, or having or being perceived as having an orientation for such
attachment, or having or being perceived as having a self-image or identity
not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or one’s biologi-
cal femaleness.”
[Note also that how the St. Paul code defines sex: “Sex means being identi-
fied as having or being perceived as having male or female characteristics
and encompasses, but is not limited to, pregnancy, childbirth, disabilities
related to pregnancy or childbirth, and sexual harassment.”]
(St. Paul Code of Ordinances, Sec. 183.02, passed 1991.)
“‘Sexual Orientation’ means a person’s actual or perceived heterosexuality,
bisexuality, homosexuality, or gender identity, by orientation or practice.”
(Toledo Ordinance No. 1183-98.)
“‘Sexual Orientation’ means male or female heterosexuality, homosexuality,
bisexuality, or any other gender identity by practice as perceived by others.”
(Ord. 9-98. Passed 9-15-98.)
“‘Sexual Orientation.’ Heterosexuality, male or female homosexuality, bisex-
uality, or gender identity.”
“‘Sexual Orientation’, male or female heterosexuality, homosexuality or
bisexuality by inclination, practice, identity or expression, or having a self-
image or identity not traditionally associated with one’s gender.”
(Senate Bill No. 328, Signed by Governor, July 1, 1999.)
“‘Sexual orientation’ means having or being perceived as having an emo-
tional, physical, or sexual attachment to another person without regard to
the sex of that person or having or being perceived as having an orientation
for such attachment, or having or being perceived as having a self-image or
identity not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or
femaleness. ‘Sexual orientation’ does not include a physical or sexual attach-
ment to children by an adult.”
(Minnesota Statutes, section 363.01, subdivision 45.)
Minnesota,
1993
(This definition is
used in
Minnesota's
Human Rights
Law and Bias
Offense Law)
Missouri Hate
Crimes Law,
1999
St Paul, MN,
1990
Toledo, OH,
1998
York, PA, 1998
Ypsilanti, MI,
1997

Nuts and Bolts 49
“‘gender’ means the victim’s actual sex or the defendant’s perception of the
victim’s sex, and includes the defendant’s perception of the victim’s identi-
ty, appearance, or behavior, whether or not that identity, appearance, or
behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the victim’s sex
at birth.”
(Bill Number: AB 1999 Chaptered 09/28/98.)
“‘Gender’ means the actual or perceived appearance, expression or identity
of a person with respect to masculinity and femininity.”
“‘Same sex’ means occupying the same social and identity roles as another
with respect to being male female.”
(Ord. 1182, Amended, 02/24/1997.)
Figure 6: Statutory definitions of gender or sex that include transgendered people
“‘Gender’ shall have the same meaning as ‘sex’ as that term is used herein
and shall be broadly interpreted to include persons who are known or
assumed to be transgendered.”
(City of Santa Cruz prohibition against Discrimination Chapter. Chapter
9.83.)
“‘Gender’ has the same meaning as ‘sex’ as that term is used in state or fed-
eral anti-discrimination legislation and shall be broadly interpreted to
include sexual stereotyping and persons who are known or assumed to be
transgendered.”
(County of Santa Cruz, Ordinance no. 4501, passed April 1998.)
“‘Sex’ means the gender, male or female, of a person, including those persons
who are changing or have changed their sex.”
(Harrisburg City Code, Title 4.)
California Hate
Crimes Law,
1998
Cambridge,
MA, 1997
City of Santa
Cruz, CA, 1992
County of
Santa Cruz, CA,
1998
Harrisburg, PA,
1983
“‘Sex’ means the gender of a person, as perceived, presumed or assumed by
others, including those who are changing or have changed their gender
identification.”
(Pittsburgh City Code, Chapter 651.04 (ii)) (Amendment. Ord. 1-1997.
Effective 2/7/97.)
Pittsburgh, PA,
1997

50 Equality
Transgender
Another approach: The District of Columbia protects trans people on the basis
of “personal appearance.”
According to D.C. attorneys Dana Priesing and Bob Summersgill, there have been sev-
eral cases in which courts in the District of Columbia have interpreted the D.C. law
prohibiting discrimination on the basis of “personal appearance” to protect transgen-
dered people.81 One of the most well known is the wrongful death suit brought by
Margie Hunter after Tyra Hunter, her pre-operative transsexual daughter, was denied
emergency medical care following a car accident when city fire fighters and paramedics
discovered that Tyra had male genitals. Margie Hunter sued the city and won $500,000
for human rights violations and $2,900,000 for malpractice.82
The Washington, D.C. statute
“PERSONAL APPEARANCE—The outward appearance of any person, irrespec-
tive of sex, with regard to bodily condition of characteristics, manner or style of
dress, and manner or style of personal grooming, including, but not limited to, hair
style and beards. It shall not relate, however, to the requirement of cleanliness, uni-
forms, or prescribed standards, when uniformly applied for admittance to a public
accommodation, or when uniformly applied to a class of employees, for a reason-
able business purpose, or when such bodily conditions or characteristics, or style or
manner of dress or personal grooming presents a danger to the health, welfare or
safety of an individual.” (District of Columbia, Human Rights Act of 1977, Title I,
Chapter 25, Sec. 1-2502, (22).)

The purpose of trans-inclusive civil rights legislation is to ensure that transgendered
people are able to live and work with dignity and to participate in society on equal
terms. In practice, however, those who are working to secure the passage of such laws
are often forced to spend more time and energy debunking irrational stereotypes and
fears about transgendered people than engaging in a rational discussion of why legisla-
tion is needed. What follows is a list of some of the most common myths and miscon-
ceptions, along with suggestions on how to address them.
Misconception #1: “Including trans people will kill the bill”
This objection usually arises in localities and states that do not yet have non-discrimi-
nation laws relating to sexual orientation. It is often voiced by GLB people who fear
that lobbying for a trans-inclusive bill will undermine efforts to secure civil rights for
gay people. Perhaps because of this fear, trans people were excluded from almost 80%
of the local laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in
employment that were enacted from1996 through 1999.
In fact, the fear that including trans people “will kill the bill” is
almost always exaggerated and based far more on unfounded specula-
tion than on a realistic assessment of what is possible. Civil rights
protections for trans people have been won in a broad range of local
jurisdictions, including some that are widely perceived to be quite
conservative. In those and many other jurisdictions, experience has
shown that even conservative legislators will respond to reasoned
arguments and education about trans people—particularly when
GLBT advocates present a united front and work together to plan and implement a
coordinated strategy. Conversely, experience has also shown that nothing is more
destructive of efforts to win civil rights protections for our communities than internal
conflicts and divisions. Those conflicts drain our collective energies and engender bit-
terness and mistrust that may poison working relationships for years. They also play
51
Debunking
Common
Myths and
Misconceptions
The fear that including
trans people “will kill the
bill” is almost always exag-
gerated and based far more
on unfounded speculation
than on a realistic assessment
of what is possible.

directly into the “divide and conquer” strategy of our opponents, who are only too
happy to see us focusing our limited resources on battling one another. In the long run,
making a good faith effort to work for and include trans people is by far the most prag-
matic strategy.
In addition, there is little evidence that omitting transgendered people actually increas-
es a bill’s chances of passing. For example, Dan Farrell is a gay activist who has been
involved with the Kentucky Fairness Campaign for many years and who participated in
the successful effort to pass a local law prohibiting discrimination against gay and trans-
gendered people in Louisville, Kentucky in 1999. In Farrell’s view, attempting to gain
more votes by compromising on trans-protective language does not
work. “Over the years, sponsors had made other compromises at the
suggestion of opponents without ever gaining a yes vote. I think this
shows that this is just a ploy that legislators use,” he said.
Although the Fairness Campaign itself never offered to drop gender
identity, the bill’s sponsors had dropped trans-inclusive language from
the proposed ordinance in previous years in an attempt to get more
votes. According to Farrell, dropping gender identity from ordinances never resulted
in getting even one more vote in favor of a bill. “In 1999, we made the decision early
on that we wouldn’t let our sponsors compromise on the categories. We decided that
we would keep gender identity in, and that we would eventually get the bill passed. We
felt that if we had to sacrifice transgendered people to get a sexual orientation bill
passed, it would have set us back 15 years.” Instead of causing any delay, the decision
to present a united front helped to secure the passage of a comprehensive non-discrim-
ination ordinance, including both gay and transgendered people, in 1999.
Including trans-protective language is also extremely important for the many gay, les-
bian and bisexual people who are affected by gender-based discrimination, even if they
do not identify as transgender. For example, one study of workplace discrimination in
the legal profession found that “[l]esbian and gay lawyers are sometimes advised to con-
ceal their sexual orientation or to alter their appearance to look less stereotypically
gay.” One lesbian survey respondent said that her employers “told me that I was not
‘feminine’ enough and that I should let my hair grow long, wear make-up, and wear
more jewelry.”83 In short, discrimination on the basis of gender variance is not an
exclusively “transgender” issue. Including language that prohibits discrimination on
the basis of gender variance and gender stereotypes also protects the rights of many les-
bian, gay and bisexual people, as well as some heterosexual people.
Finally, it would be unprincipled and unethical for GLB people to exclude transgen-
dered people from legislative advocacy for fear of being associated with a group that has
suffered even more discrimination and stigmatization. For example, just as it would
have been unthinkable and unacceptable to support the exclusion of people with HIV
and AIDS from the Americans with Disabilities Act, in the interest of dissociating that
civil rights law from the “stigma” of HIV, it is equally wrong to support the exclusion of
trans people from proposed civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination against gay,
lesbian and bisexual people, in the interest of dissociating those laws from the “stigma”
of gender variance.
Equality
Transgender
52
Discrimination on the
basis of gender variance is
not an exclusively “trans-
gender” issue.

Debunking Myths and Misconceptions 53
DAWN JOSEPHINE WILSON
In 1999, three separate Kentucky juris-
dictions—the City of Louisville,
Lexington-Fayette Urban County, and
Jefferson County—passed human rights
laws that prohibited discrimination on
the basis of gender identity. In 2000,
the Kentucky Fairness Alliance and
other GLBT organizations mounted a
serious campaign to pass a
statewide bill that would
prohibit discrimination
on the basis of sexual ori-
entation and gender iden-
tity. Dawn Wilson is one
of the many dedicated
activists in Kentucky
working on these efforts.
Wilson has been an
active member of several
transgender political
groups and initiatives
since 1995. As a board
member of the Louisville
Gender Society, she
served as that group’s rep-
resentative to the Congress of
Transgender Organizations in Atlanta.
Wilson also participated in the first
“Coming Together Kentucky,” a gather-
ing of GLBT youth attending state col-
leges in Kentucky, where she served as
the only transgender instructor. She is
also a co-founder of the Bluegrass Belles.
As a participant at Transgender Lobby
Days in Washington in October 1995,
Wilson was able to draw on her experi-
ence as a former legislative assistant to
Senator Mitch McConnell to lobby and
educate congressional representatives
and staff. “For the first time,” Wilson
notes, “we in the transgendered com-
munity were willing to take a stand, one
that has gained momentum over the
years.”
Wilson received the Wasson Volunteer
of the Year Award from the Lexington
Pride Committee in 1999 in recognition
of her advocacy on behalf of GLBT peo-
ple and her leadership role in securing
passage of the Lexington ordinance.
Because the three Kentucky ordinances
simultaneously added sexual orientation
and gender identity to their non-dis-
crimination codes, transgendered
activists worked closely with the GLB
activists in those communities. (The
City of Henderson passed a non-dis-
crimination ordinance that included
sexual orientation, but not gender iden-
tity.)
Wilson played a key role in educating
GLB activists about the importance of
including gender identity in these non-
discrimination laws. In 1997, she and
Angela Bridgeman organized a group of
transgendered people who protested the
removal of gender identity from a pend-
ing ordinance in Lexington. According
to Wilson, “that version of the ordi-
nance didn’t go forward, partly due to
protests against it from transgendered
people. Without those protests, gender
identity would not have had such strong
support from the Fairness Alliance in
1999.”
Once trans-inclusive bills were on the
legislative agenda, Wilson, a former res-
ident of Lexington and now a resident
of Louisville, participated in a number
of lobbying meetings and attended the
public hearings on the Louisville trans-
gender-inclusive ordinance. Wilson
also took part in public hearings on the
Jefferson County Fairness Ordinance
and on the Lexington Ordinance, both
of which passed. (The Louisville
Fairness Campaign was responsible for
the victories in Louisville and Jefferson

Misconception #2: “Civil rights protections for trans people will force employ-
ers to hire a man in a dress”
One of the most irrational fears that has been used to oppose civil rights protections for
transgendered people is the misguided notion that such laws will result in an outbreak
of cross-dressing in the workplace. In the words of Brett Beemyn, a trans-identified
activist and scholar who worked on passing the Iowa City ordinance:
The argument took us by surprise at first because it seemed so silly. . . . But when
we realized how much of an issue this was for some legislators, we explained . . . that
employers would still be able to have reasonable, equitable dress codes at their
places of employment.84
After reasoned discussion between city councilors, human rights officials, and activists
at the city council hearing, the Iowa City council members passed the Iowa City ordi-
nance intact, without so-called “cross-dressing exclusions.” In other places, however,
irrational fears about cross-dressing have led to some defeats. For example, officials in
DeKalb, Illinois, pulled the trans-inclusive language from the local ordinance at the last
minute after it occurred to them that the expansive definition of sexual orientation
would include people whose gender expression differs from that traditionally associat-
ed with their physical sex. (Unfortunately, trans activists had not been present at the
hearing where these fears were raised and could not address their concerns.)
54 Equality
Transgender
and ignorance. The best way to defeat
them is through education and one-on-
one contact. Because laws can only change
the actions, not the heart or the mind.”
Wilson is now the interim chair of
NTAC, the National Transgender
Advocacy Coalition. She is also a mem-
ber of the Board of Directors of the
Robert H. Williams Cultural Center in
Lexington, and has taught over 600
inner-city young people to use modern
computers in a laboratory that she
designed and built. She is also a dea-
coness at Woodland Christian Church
in Lexington.
Considering the successes in Kentucky
in 1999, Wilson muses. “How did we get
this successful? Simple. We all worked
together—churches, gay, bisexual, les-
bian, and trans people. We in the
Kentucky transgendered community are
very proud of our GLB brothers and sis-
ters in their efforts.”
County. The Kentucky Fairness Alliance
chapter in Lexington was responsible for
the Lexington win.)
“Those hearings were the worst thing
I’ve ever been through. My own family
was assaulted. I received death threats,”
Wilson says.
Wilson has also taken a leadership role
in addressing racism within GLBT com-
munities and in creating resources for
transgendered people of color. In 1998,
after hearing a racist joke at an interna-
tional transgender conference, Wilson
not only protested the joke, but decided
to start an online organization for trans-
gendered people of color. Although yet
to be named, the group has attracted
participants from across the country and
is developing a number of projects to
increase the visibility of people of color
in transgender communities. As Wilson
recently told a reporter, “Prejudice, big-
otry, and racism are the children of fear

Invariably, concerns about “cross-dressing” in the workplace are focused almost exclu-
sively on fears that transgender employment protection will result in “men in dresses”
showing up to work. One doesn't hear the reverse alarm—that these laws will cause
“women in suits” to overwhelm the workplace—sounded nearly as often. Why not?
Because women have already begun to wear clothing that was once reserved only for
men. The tremendous social changes of the last decades have resulted in much more
flexibility in dress and far less rigid lines and distinctions between exclusively “male”
and exclusively “female” clothing—particularly for women. Lyone Feine, testifying at
a public hearing in favor of a trans civil rights bill, put it this way:
I just want to say some words about cross dressing because I noticed some discom-
fort amongst the members of the council when that issue was being discussed. I just
want to point out that at this moment, I am cross dressing. I’m wearing a pair of
boys’ jeans. I also see that there are a number of female members of the council
who at the moment are cross dressing. They’re wearing these kinds of blazers that
are really designed for men to wear or an adaptation of male clothing. The reason
I’m saying this is because the issue that made some people squirm really comes down
to an issue of fashion. And fashion changes. Louis IV wore clothing which we
would see these days as more appropriate for women, or maybe not appropriate for
anybody but a five year old getting dressed up on Easter Sunday…In 50 years that
fashion will change and what constitutes cross dressing will probably change also.85
As social norms continue to evolve, discrimination against those who wear clothing
traditionally associated with the other gender will continue to dissipate and to be rec-
ognized as a type of gender discrimination, as both the United States Supreme Court
and many other courts have already done. As a result, jurisdictions that have incorpo-
rated these kinds of gender-based dress exclusions in their human rights laws are not
only out-of-step with social reality, but may well find that those exclusions are imper-
missible even under existing sex discrimination laws.
Opposition to cross-dressing in the workplace is perhaps the most commonly voiced
objection to transgender rights. In practice, however, there is not a shred of evidence
that protecting trans people against discrimination leads to any increase in the number
of employees who cross-dress on the job. Employers in jurisdictions that have passed
trans-inclusive ordinances have not reported or complained of any such increase, and
human rights departments in those jurisdictions have not been inundated with com-
plaints from cross-dressing employees.86
Passing civil rights protections for gender variant and transgendered people does not
mean that employers may not impose dress codes requiring employees to present a neat,
well-groomed and professional appearance. Rather, it simply means that employees
may dress in the type of clothing that conforms with their gender identity.
Nonetheless, the issue of “men in dresses” has led some jurisdictions to exclude many,
though not all, trans people from their human rights laws.87 For example, the ordi-
nances in both Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky define “gender identity,” in part, as
“manifesting, for reasons other than dress, an identity not traditionally associated with
one’s biological maleness or femaleness” [emphasis added].”88 One’s choice of clothing
is a vital part of the expression of one’s gender identity; omitting dress from the defin-
ition excludes many people, especially non-transsexual transgendered people whose
gender variance is expressed primarily through dress. In addition to the limited defini-
tion of gender identity, the Louisville and Lexington ordinances also contain an exclu-
Debunking Myths and Misconceptions 55

sion designed to prohibit cross-dressing in the workplace: “Nothing herein shall be con-
strued to prevent an employer from...enforcing an employee dress policy which policy
may include restricting employees from dress associated with the other gender” [empha-
sis added].89 Many employers have gender-based dress codes. One problem with these
particular exclusions, however, is the phrase “the other gender.” How one proves that
one is not dressing in the other gender’s clothes but rather that one is “the other gen-
der” is ambiguous. Another problem is that it appears to contradict existing trends in
jurisprudence on gender-based stereotyping.90
As other jurisdictions have recognized, exemptions of this kind are unnecessary and
lead to unintended ambiguities in the interpretation of the law and perhaps even to
unintended exclusions. For example, in July and August of 1999, the city council of
Boulder, Colorado debated whether or not to limit those who would be protected on
the basis of gender identity to those “under the care of a licensed physician to change
his or her gender identity, or who has successfully made such a change, as certified by a
licensed physician.”91 Christa Kriesel is the coordinator for a Boulder County Health
Department program for GLBT youth. She is also the partner of a female-to-male
transsexual. Kriesel argued that this limitation would be “tragic because the licensed
physician requirement brings up issues of classism and ageism, since everyone does not
have equal access to medical care.”92 Boulder Human Relations Commissioner Liz
Padilla agreed, stating that “I don’t want to be responsible for somebody’s pain just
because they don’t have the money for a doctor or they haven’t gone that route.”93
And asking people to “prove” their identity is a radical departure from the usual prac-
tice of human rights laws. “The idea of singling out people and making them carry a
bit of documentation to have access to the most basic human rights — that is most
offensive to me,” said Kathy Wilson of the Gender Identity Center of Colorado.94
After a robust public debate on this issue, the Boulder City Council decided to omit
this restriction when it extended civil rights protections to gender variant people.
Similarly, in Kentucky, just three months after the Louisville ordinance passed,
Jefferson County, which encompasses the city of Louisville, passed a law defining gen-
der identity as “manifesting an identity not traditionally associated with one’s biologi-
cal maleness or biological femaleness,” which would include dress. While this ordi-
nance explicitly allows employers to enforce a written employee dress policy, it does not
require transgendered people to prove their gender identity by providing documenta-
tion from someone in the medical profession.95 This wording extends employment and
other protections to gender variant people who are not transsexual.96
In general, then, it is highly advisable that supporters and legislators resist these kinds
of exclusions, as legislators in Jefferson County and many other jurisdictions with trans-
inclusive human rights laws have done. But, if the legislators demand them, these
unrealistic and unsupported fears can be addressed in other venues, or in less confusing
and exclusionary ways in the language itself. One strategy is to omit this issue from the
legislation itself, and leave the interpretation of the law to the agency responsible for
overseeing it, the human rights commission in your jurisdiction. For example, the com-
pliance guidelines drawn up by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission to aid in
the interpretation of San Francisco’s transgender non-discrimination law address this
issue: “Employers have the right to implement employee dress codes including those
according to gender. Transsexual employees have the right to comply with sex-specific
dress codes according to their gender identity.” Because the definition of “transsexual”
56 Equality
Transgender

in these guidelines include non-operative transsexuals, “who may or may not be under-
going any medical treatment in relation to their gender identity,” the determination of
one’s gender identity is left to the individual.97
But if legislators demand that the legislation itself address the cross-dressing question,
there are much better solutions than the ones employed in the New Orleans, Louisville,
and Lexington laws. It is not difficult to craft language that reasonably addresses this
fear about dress but that does not put the many different kinds of gender variant peo-
ple who need employment protection outside the statute’s reach. A statute might allow
the employer to set standards for a gender-specific dress policy, but leave the determi-
nation of gender identity up to the individual. Gender identity is, after all, one’s own
sense of being male or female. In contrast, exclusions that rely on psychiatric diagnoses
put many transgendered people at a real disadvantage. Phyllis Frye, the founder of the
International Conference of Transgender Law and Employment Policy, suggests that
employers be allowed to require a consistent gender presentation in the workplace98.
The City of Boulder, Colorado, adopted a version of this rule, requiring that all persons
claiming protection maintain a reasonably consistent gender role in the workplace.
Finally, it is very important that dress code rules not apply when the employee is not on
the job.
Debunking Myths and Misconceptions 57
JAMISON GREEN
A discussion with a human resources director about bathrooms and
transsexual employeees
The HR director of a San Francisco sub-
sidiary of a major New York-based cor-
poration received advice from his New
York legal department to instruct a local
newly-transitioning FTM employee that
he couldn't use the men's bathroom
until he had had genital reconstruction
(which many transmen never have) and
until he was listed with the health insur-
ance carrier as male.
The HR Director had called me at the
request of the very agitated and frustrat-
ed FTM employee. I told him that it
would soon be very inappropriate for the
transman to be using the women's room,
and that he would be using a stall in the
men's room, so there would be no forced
or required nudity (as in a shower situa-
tion), and no violation of privacy. He
seemed to understand me, and he was
relieved that I had a sense of humor
about the matter while I explained to
him about the puberty-like nature of
hormonal transition and its biochemical
processes, surgery issues, and the fact
that social maleness is really more
important on a day-to-day basis than
the shape of one's genitals. But some-
how I had to bring the point home,
because I wasn't sure he was getting it in
a way that would resolve the transman's
problem and solidify the HR Director's
position with respect to his corporate
legal department.
“How many men do you meet every day,
feel comfortable with, do business with,
etc., etc.?” I asked him. “And how
many of those men do you know for a
fact has a penis?”
He was stunned. “So how important is
a man's penis in your employer/employ-

Misconception #3: “What about bathrooms?”
It’s no secret—everyone has to go to the bathroom. But some employers, legislators,
and co-workers seem to forget that simple fact of life when it comes to transgendered
people. Like everyone else, transgendered people need to use bathroom facilities with
safety and dignity. (See the story boxed below.) As in the “cross-dressing” objection,
the bathroom objection tends to be voiced in gender-specific terms—the fear that
transgender inclusive laws or policies will lead to “men in dresses” invading women’s
bathrooms and posing a threat to the security of the women using them. However,
without reasonable bathroom policies allowing trans people to use the bathroom appro-
priate to their gender identity, transsexual employees may be forced to use the bath-
room of their birth sex. For example, in the absence of such a policy, a female-to-male
transsexual man who has been taking male hormones and whose external appearance
is completely male may have no choice but to use the women’s bathrooms, despite the
obvious disruptions and problems that would cause.
In fact, the bathroom objection is very similar to the homophobic myths that were
raised during the debate over the ban on gays in the military. Both objections are based
58 Equality
Transgender
transition he is making, and he is not
masquerading or playing games. He is
required by established medical stan-
dards to live completely as a man before
he can have surgery. Your corporate
refusal to cooperate feels like a game to
him and is highly frustrating and demor-
alizing. He gets along with his co-work-
ers and they accept him as a man, so
your refusal to accept him becomes a
productivity obstacle for your entire
staff. It unnecessarily calls attention to
a personal situation that should be none
of your business beyond your privileged
awareness that it exists and is a condi-
tion of his life.”
The transman was permitted to use the
men's restroom; his employment records
were changed to reflect his new sex.
Further, the company built a single-
occupant unisex restroom for all employ-
ees' use to alleviate any future instances
of similar difficulty, and the transman
was NOT required to use that facility.
This result is also in compliance with the
San Francisco Public Ordinance.
ee relationship?” I inquired. He was
contrite.
“You assume all the men you meet have
penises and started their lives in male
bodies. This may not be true; and if that
is so, what difference does it make to
you?”
“I see,” he said, thoughtfully.
“So the difference in the case of this
employee,” I went on, “is that you actu-
ally know an intimate detail of his life
that you are not privileged to know in
other cases. Transsexualism is a medical
condition, treated by doctors to improve
the quality of life for their patients. It is
difficult, at best, to go through this
process at all, and virtually impossible
without some social support, unless one
does it in secret, obliterating their past
and cutting all ties with people who had
any knowledge of their previous embod-
iment. Many people have lived that
way and made their transitions a secret.
What your employee is doing now is a
courageous act, worthy of your respect.
He has thought long and hard about this

EVERY CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT HAS A BATHROOM MOVEMENT
on the false notions that GLBT people are predatory creatures whose elimination and
hygiene needs come second to their supposedly voyeuristic desires. The bathroom
objection puts transgendered people in other good company, historically speaking:
more than one debate over civil rights has revolved significantly on the bathroom issue:
white segregationists objected to sharing bathrooms with blacks; one of Phyllis
Schafley’s many arguments against passage of the Equal Rights Amendments was that
it would lead to unisex bathrooms.99
While it is important never to discount an individual’s fear—emotions are real, after
all—the truth of the matter is that the “bathroom issue” gets sorted out best through
face-to-face communication, as transgendered people educate their peers and supervi-
sors, rather than through legislation. For example, Boulder's City attorney recom-
mended to city council members that, “With regard to bathrooms, the proposal is that
the ordinance remain silent, allowing social norms to sort themselves out.”100 The city
councilors agreed with this recommendation, deciding not to legislate who, and in
what stage of transition, should use which bathroom.
Legislators who wish to design a policy designating bathroom access on the basis of gen-
itals may raise other, unintended problems for employers, governments, and providers
of public accommodations. The San Francisco Human Rights Commission compliance
guidelines recognizes the troubles raised by the idea of “genital” gender checks:
“Challenging someone’s gender may be considered as harassment, and an invasion of
privacy.”101 Kentucky gay activist Dan Farrell addressed this issue when lobbying for
trans-inclusive laws. “Sure,” he said, “lawmakers worried about the bathroom question.
But we told them, listen, ‘Everyone has to go to the bathroom. But if you know what’s
between someone’s legs—you’re the one who is being inappropriate.”102
There are practical solutions to this objection that do not discriminate against or dehu-
manize transgendered people. For example, some employers have simply installed a
Debunking Myths and Misconceptions 59
rooms were built for them, lest they
have to excuse themselves from an
important hearing to go to Bethesda to
find a women's room.
The Gay Rights Movement was specifi-
cally about towel-snapping gay men in
showers. At first I was disheartened that
the whole issue of gays in the military
was reduced to porcelain, but then I
thought it was good, because it meant
we had arrived as a genuine civil rights
movement.
—Kate Clinton, Don't Get Me Started
(NY: Ballantine Books 1999) p.126
It all seems to boil down to bathrooms.
Every civil rights movement has a bath-
room movement. The Disabilities
Rights Movement? Bathroom accessi-
bility. The Black Civil Rights
Movement? Bathroom sharing. The
Equal Rights Movement? Anti-ERA
forces said that if the amendment were
passed there would be unisex bath-
rooms. This panicked people who had
apparently been raised in households
very different from mine. “Don't go in
there! That's the men's bathroom in
this household!” No women could even
be elected to the Senate until bath-

60 Equality
Transgender
In order to accommodate these new stu-
dents, some of the MEN’s restrooms
underwent sex-changes and became
WOMEN’s restrooms.
Despite the success of these sex-
changes, there were still other student
bodies that did not fit into these lavato-
ries; so the restrooms underwent further
reconfiguration and were made wheel-
chair accessible.
Since then, transgender bodies have
arrived at the law school; these bodies
do not always fit in to the MEN’s room
or the WOMEN’s room. Because of our
law school’s commitment to diversity,
yet another change must be made to
accommodate the vast array of gendered
and non-gendered bodies.
After being harassed for using the women’s
bathroom, then law student Kim Coco
Iwamoto distributed a
statement to her University
of New Mexico Law
School community. What
follows is an excerpt from
that statement.
Once upon a time…the
entire UNM Law School
community was just one
gender: “MALE.” The
lavatories reflected the
needs of the population
at that time; they were
all MEN’S rooms.
One day, a differently
gendered student body
arrived at the law school.
KIM COCO IWAMOTO
A historical perspective on bathrooms
lock on the inside of the bathroom door or provided a sign that can be placed on the
outside of the door when the bathroom is in use. Others have provided a single-occu-
pant bathroom facility. As New Orleans transgender activist Courtney Sharp says,
“Employers who want to find solutions have found solutions. Those who do not want
to find solutions tend to use the issue as an excuse to terminate the employee.”103 In
the end, transgendered and gender variant people must have access to safe and digni-
fied bathroom facilities.
In this section, we discussed common misconceptions that legislators and allies might
have about transgender-inclusive legislation. In the next section, we list some “talking
points” that you might use to frame your message proactively, as you educate legislators,
the media, and the public about the need for civil rights legislation covering transgen-
dered and gender variant people. In addition to preparing talking points about your
proposed legislation and discrimination against transgendered people in your commu-
nity, it is also a good idea to prepare a sheet of simple and clear terms and definitions.
Examples of the kinds of education materials that trans groups have used are listed in
the resource section.

61
Question: Why is this legislation needed?
Answer: Transgendered people face serious discrimination, not only in the workplace,
but also in housing, and in public accommodations.
• Many pre-operative transsexuals are fired the moment their employers find out
about their plan to undergo sex reassignment surgery.
• Transgendered people who cross-dress only outside the workplace live in fear that
their employer will discover that fact and fire them.
• Transgendered people often face severe discrimination when we
try to find a place to live.
• Many transgendered and gender variant people are denied equal
treatment in public accommodations. We are asked to leave
restaurants, hotels, stores, medical facilities, and educational
institutions. We are denied credit. We are refused access to
restroom facilities.
• Our community should take a stand against this invidious gender-
based discrimination. Everyone deserves to live and work with equality and digni-
ty. No one should lose their job, or be denied a place to live, because of their gen-
der identity or expression.
Question: Isn’t this kind of discrimination already illegal? Isn’t it covered by
sexual orientation or gender discrimination laws?
Answer: So far, most courts have not found that laws prohibiting sexual orientation or
gender discrimination apply to transgendered people. We would be happy to provide
you with a brief overview of the case law on this question.
Talking
Points
Over nine and a half mil-
lion people, or 3.8 % of the
US population, live in
jurisdictions with non-dis-
crimination laws that
apply to transgendered
people.

Question: Does this mean women will have to share bathrooms with men?
Answer: This law will prevent people from being forced to use bathrooms that do not
correspond to their gender identity. Like everyone else, transgendered people need
access to safe and dignified restroom facilities.
• Right now, in our community, there already are cases in which people are required
to use bathrooms inappropriate to their gender identity—when trans women are
forced to share bathrooms with men, or trans men are forced to share bathrooms
with women because employers and providers of public accommodations do not
have a sensible bathroom policy in place. This legislation will help resolve those
awkward situations, not create them.
• Many employers have successfully dealt with the issue of restroom usage on a case-
by-case basis. Human rights departments in cities that have transgender non-dis-
crimination laws, such as San Francisco, have produced compliance guidelines that
take the needs of transgender employees and their employers into account.
Question: Will this law encourage cross-dressing in the workplace?
Answer: There has been no “outbreak” of cross-dressing in workplaces in the jurisdic-
tions that have adopted such anti-discrimination provisions. The City of Minneapolis
has had a transgender-inclusive non-discrimination law since 1975, and there has been
no influx of cross-dressers into the workplaces in that jurisdiction.
•Like non-transgendered people, transgendered people simply want to go to work in
clothes that conform to their gender identity, clothes that they feel the most com-
fortable wearing.
• Nothing in this bill would prevent an employer from enforcing a written dress pol-
icy. This legislation simply means that employees may dress in the type of clothing
that conforms to their gender identity.
• Many women already “cross-dress” in the workplace by wearing what used to be
considered traditionally male clothing, such as pant suits. The case law is beginning
to catch up with changing ideas about gender-based clothing; so should our human
rights bill.
Question: Are we going out on a limb here? Is our jurisdiction going to be the
first to adopt this kind of law?
Answer: As of March 2000, 27 jurisdictions in the US had passed non-discrimination
laws that protect transgendered people.
• Transgender civil rights legislation has passed in jurisdictions as varied as Ann
Arbor, Boulder, Pittsburgh, Toledo, Tucson, San Francisco, and Seattle. The state
of Minnesota added trans-inclusive language to its human rights law in 1993.
• Lucent Technologies and Apple Computers have adopted non-discrimination policies
that protect transgendered people. Other high tech corporations are also currently con-
sidering adding gender identity and expression to their equal opportunity policies.
• By March 2000, over nine and a half million people, or 3.8 % of the US population,
lived in jurisdictions with non-discrimination laws that apply to transgendered people.
Equality
Transgender
62

Talking Points 63
The circumstances leading up to the
Tucson City Council’s vote to add “gen-
der identity” to its non-discrimination
law in 1999 actually began with an
oversight. The previous fall, after the
murder of Matthew Sheppard, Tucson’s
mayor at the time,
George Miller, called a
meeting with represen-
tatives from the GLB
community to find out
what the city could do to
prevent hate crimes in
Tucson. Transgendered
activists Alexander
Goodrum and Jerry
Armsby were left off the
invitation list for the
meeting. “Both of us
just went anyway, after
we heard about the
meeting,” Goodrum
recalled. “It was an acci-
dental oversight.”
Goodrum and Armsby, both female-to-
male transsexuals, took advantage of
that community gathering to educate
participants about transgender issues
and people. They began by calling out
“and transgender” whenever speakers
referred to gay, lesbian, and bisexual
people. “The response was uniformly
positive. The gay and lesbian activists
there realized they didn't have a clue
about transgender issues, and they want-
ed to learn,” Goodrum said.
At this forum, when the discussion
turned to amending the archaic lan-
guage of “sexual preference” to the more
usual “sexual orientation” in the city's
non-discrimination law, Goodrum asked
that gender identity also be added to the
law. “Here were lots of nods, no serious
disagreement,” he recalled. “And later,
there was no problem with the Tucson
city council. It was predominantly
Democratic and progressive.”
In addition to the decision to amend
Tucson's law, the meeting led to the cre-
ation of the Mayoral Task Force on
GLBT Issues, divided into legal, educa-
tion, and social services subcommittees.
Goodrum was appointed to the Task
Force and became the co-chair of the
social services committee. “Working on
the mayor's task force, I began to realize
how little the gay and lesbian communi-
ty knows about transgendered people.
My primary goal on that task force was
to educate the gay and lesbian commu-
nity. Many of the gay and lesbian folks
in that meeting were using the word
‘transgender,’ but they were appropriat-
ing it without knowing what it meant,
and what transgender issues are.”
Goodrum made it his mission to trans-
form the gay, lesbian, and bisexual com-
munity's willingness to add the “T” to
GLB into more concrete policy initia-
tives.
It wasn't the first time that Goodrum
had been involved in lobbying for
GLBT rights legislation. Goodrum's
activism began in Chicago in 1979
when he testified at a hearing in favor of
a gay and lesbian civil rights ordinance.
At the time, he was 19 and had just
come out as a lesbian. “A friend got me
involved in working for the bill and that
was my introduction to activism.”
Goodrum had mixed feelings about his
role in lobbying for the Chicago bill.
“Supporters of the bill had asked me to
testify because I'm black and many of
the bill's opponents were religious black
people. In many ways, it was a positive
experience. But it was also a bad expe-
rience in other ways. My first experi-
ALEXANDER JOHN GOODRUM

64 Equality
Transgender
ence in activism was as a figurehead in
the gay community—I was the only
black person to testify. Other blacks just
weren't able to testify.”
Still, that experience led to Goodrum
on to more activism. “It made me want
to work for gay rights and let people
know there were lots of black gay and
lesbian people who for one reason or
another just could not speak out.” Soon
after testifying, Goodrum joined the
Illinois Gay and Lesbian Task Force and
worked on youth issues.
When Goodrum transitioned—by then
he lived in San Francisco—he stopped
his advocacy work for a time. “When I
first began my transition, I didn't have
the energy to do activism,” he said.
Eventually, though, Goodrum got
involved, helping organize the first
FTM conference in San Francisco in
1995. Goodrum moved to Tucson later
that year, and by the time of the mayor's
GLBT community meeting in 1998, he
was eager to start working again on
GLBT advocacy work in Tucson.
In Tucson, Goodrum again took on the
job of providing a voice for a disenfran-
chised community. Reverend Joyce L.
Cook, the pastor of the Water of Life
Metropolitan Community Church in
Tucson, worked closely with Goodrum
on the social services committee. “He is
such an important spokesman for the
transgender community,” she said.
“Alexander, along with two of my trans-
gendered parishioners, have taught me
so much about the transgender commu-
nity and the issues they face,” she said.
“The transgender community can be a
very silent community, but by speaking
out and sharing their stories, Alexander
made me aware how huge it is.”
Goodrum now serves on the City of
Tucson Commission on Gay, Lesbian,
Bisexual and Transgender Issues, the
official successor to the mayoral task
force, focusing his work there on access
to social services and proactive outreach
to the business community. That work,
Goodrum said, provides an “an opportu-
nity to do a preemptive strike. The first
time a business hears from the GLBT
community, it's not a punitive thing,
but as a resource for the business com-
munity so they can start talking about it
so when they deal with GLBT issues,
they're not caught off guard. It's more
like, ‘What can we do to help your busi-
ness running smoothly and help GLBT
people in the workplace?'”
Goodrum does not believe the struggle
for transgender rights should be separat-
ed from the struggle for GLB rights.
“When transgendered people are denied
rights, it's often the because of the per-
ception that they're homosexual. With
gay people, it's often as not because
they're perceived to be violating gender
norms. It's the same fight against the
same enemies. GLBT people have to
realize that in order to move ahead.”
Alexander lives in Tucson with his part-
ner of seven years, Daniel Goodrum, an
artist. Alexander is a writer, speaker
and activist. His “Gender 101” primer is
available on the web at http://www.users.
uswest.net/~ajgoodrum/ gender101.htm.

WHAT ARE HATE CRIMES?
Both as a legal term and in everyday language, “hate crimes” are acts of physical violence
motivated by the victim’s race, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, disability, or sex-
ual orientation. Hate crimes are also often referred to as “bias-motivated violence” or
“bias crimes.” Hate crimes are not random or isolated acts of violence. The perpetrator
of a hate crime is not only targeting an individual victim because he thinks the person is
a member of a particular social group. He is also creating an environment of fear and
intimidation that affects everyone in that group. In the words of Luin Wang, hate crimes
have “an especially strong impact on observers who identify with the victim,” because
those individuals will internalize the assumption that “their very identities render them
especially vulnerable to criminal victimization of a particularly devastating kind.”104
AN EPIDEMIC OF HATE: VIOLENCE AGAINST TRANS PEOPLE
In recent years, reported violence against GLBT people and people perceived to be GLBT
has reached epidemic proportions, and GLBT activists and allies have begun working to
insure that hate crimes committed against people because their attackers perceive their
victims to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or gender variant are also included in hate crimes
statutes. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Program annual report,
in 1998 there were 2252 anti-GLBT incidents, including 33 murders, 88 sexual assaults,
and 907 assaults or attempted assaults; of these incidents, 161 victims self-identified as
transgender. While transgendered people have always been victims of hate crimes, it is
only recently that any agencies have begun to acknowledge or to document those crimes.
As a result of those efforts, more transgendered people are beginning to report these inci-
dents. For example, between 1997 and 1998 there was a 49% increase in the number of
transgender hate crime victims coming forward to report incidents to anti-violence pro-
grams.105 Trans activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith maintains a web site, “Remembering Our
Dead,” that lists the names, places, and where possible, faces of the transgendered people
who have been murdered because of their gender identity or expression.106
65
Hate
Crimes
Laws

RECOGNIZING THE CONNECTIONS: MISOGYNY,
HOMOPHOBIA, TRANSPHOBIA AND RACISM
Hate crimes against GLBT individuals or against individuals who are perceived to be
GLBT are often described by the press and by some GLB advocates as “anti-gay.” In
practice, however, it is often difficult to establish whether the perpetrators of a partic-
ular hate crime targeted their victim because of the person’s gender or sexual orienta-
tion, or because they perceived the victim to be gender variant. As two researchers
who have studied violence against transgendered people have pointed out, “distin-
guishing the motivation behind a violent attack against a transgender person is often
impossible because of the intersection between misogyny and hatred of other persons
whose existence undermines perceived male sexual supremacy and the gender dichoto-
66 Equality
Transgender
CARRIE DAVIS
The following an excerpt from a speech that
Carrie Davis gave to over 100 people,
including transgender identified people,
partners, lovers, boyfriends, girlfriends,
friends, politicians, reporters, social work-
ers and other allies, at a town meeting on
Trans-Safety and Violence at the Lesbian
and Gay Community Services Center in
New York City in March 1999.107
I stand before all of you this evening:
As a woman of transgender experience.
As an activist and as an advocate for our
community through my role as a social
worker, counselor and HIV outreach
Coordinator for the Gender Identity
Project and my other work at
GenderPAC and NYAGRA.
Everyday I work with organizations that
process statistics. These statistics indi-
cate that almost 60% of all transpeople
are victims of violence. Recently we
have begun to realize that one transper-
son is murdered each month, nation-
wide. This is information that is rou-
tinely underreported and, in many
instances, erased by the both the
straight and queer media.
The identity of transfolk are continually
erased from mention by the media. As a
result, our dead are usually mis-identi-
fied as gay men or lesbian women. And
we are labeled as just a transvestite, just
a crossdresser, just a drag queen or JUST
a prostitute. But transpeople are not
being killed because of our sexual orien-
tation. Transfolk are being killed:
Because of the way we look ...
And because of who we are seen as ...
When I am beaten and raped by some-
one 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 con-
fronted, pushed and shoved by men wan-
dering the streets on a Saturday night, or
surrounded and shouted at for 20 min-
utes by 20 people on the A train, at
those moments, I am not being attacked
and abused because of my sexual orienta-
tion, I am being subjected to that terror:
Because of the way I look ...
And because of who I am seen as...

my which is its necessary underpinning.”108 For example, one national survey of vio-
lence against gender variant people found that “faggot” is the most common epithet
used when transgendered people are victims of hate crimes. As Riki Wilchins, the exec-
utive director of GenderPAC (the organization that conducted the survey), has point-
ed out, “Transpeople are targeted because of the perception that we are gay. And gays
are often picked out because they are ‘visibly queer,’ that is, because
they are gender-different. But the fine-line distinctions we draw to
populate and protect the divisions among us—between orientation
and gender or between gay and queer or between you and me—are
lost upon those who stalk and prey upon us.”109
Similarly, many hate crimes against GLBT people are also insepara-
bly connected to the victim’s race, although the impact of racism is
rarely acknowledged by the media or in official reports. In one wide-
ly reported case, a gang of eight white teenagers confronted Loc Minh
Truong, a 55-year-old Vietnamese American man, while he was walk-
ing in a “gay section” of Laguna Beach, California. Two of those teenagers beat Troung
until he was unconscious, inflicting serious injuries to his face and head and permanent
damage to his left eye. The attack was reported and prosecuted only as an “anti-gay”
crime, despite the great likelihood that race played an equally critical role. As Darren
Lenard Hutchinson has pointed out, “several aspects of the crime strongly suggest the
relevance of [race] in the assault. Because Asian Americans have endured a long his-
tory of white supremacist subordination through…violence, any ‘hate’ crime involving
a large group of white men physically and brutally dominating an Asian American like-
ly involves an element of white supremacist motivation.”110
WHAT DO HATE CRIMES STATUTES DO?
Hate crime laws impose additional or “enhanced” penalties when someone is convict-
ed of committing an act of violence against an individual because of bias against the
victim’s race, religion, gender, national origin, or other personal characteristic.
Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have hate crime laws that include sex-
ual orientation.111 As of 1999, only four of those states contain language that explic-
itly includes crimes committed against people because of their gender identity or gen-
der expression: Minnesota, California, Vermont, and Missouri.112 In addition, the
District of Columbia also has a “Bias-Related Crime” statute that could be interpreted
to protect transgendered and gender variant people.113
At the federal level, the proposed hate crimes bill, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA),
would allow federal prosecution of bias-related crimes. Some GLBT activists fear that a hate
crimes bill with explicit trans-inclusive language will be doomed to fail because of the trans-
phobia of members of Congress. As a result, activists working for the HCPA have suggested
that the inclusion of the phrase “actual or perceived gender” in a hate crimes bill should be inter-
preted by prosecutors to cover trans people—especially if the bill’s legislative record is salted with
explicit references to trans people. Because of the growing jurisprudence extending the mean-
ing of “gender” and “sex” to gender stereotyping,114 this strategy may ultimately prove effective
in forcing prosecutors to apply this law to violence and harassment against trans people.
Hate Crimes Laws 67
Many hate crimes against
GLBT people are also
inseparably connected to
the victim’s race, although
the impact of racism is
rarely acknowledged by the
media or in official reports.

Unfortunately, however, while such a strategy may ultimately result in a legal victory,
a powerful educational message may be lost. One important function of hate crimes
statutes is to send a clear signal to the police, prosecutors, the courts, the general pub-
lic, and transgendered people that violence and harassment committed against trans-
gendered people should be taken seriously. As the National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force’s state legislative lawyer Hector Vargas has explained, although courts should
interpret the language ‘actual or perceived gender’ to include transgendered people,
“we have enough experience to know that courts do not always rule consistently with
legislative intent. Thus, NGLTF supports the inclusion of specific language evincing a
clear and unequivocal legislative intent to cover crimes against transgendered people,
as has been enacted in California, Minnesota and Missouri.”115
When transgendered people are the victims of violence and harassment, many do not
turn to the police because they fear, often quite rightly, that they will be victimized
again at the hands of the criminal justice system. Regardless of whether or not your
jurisdiction passes an explicitly trans-inclusive hate crime bill, people working within
the criminal justice system need to learn to take violence against transgendered people
seriously. Raising the issue of explicit transgender inclusion in your state’s hate crime
bill can help get that message across to the people who need to hear it.116
INCLUDING TRANS PEOPLE IN THE CALIFORNIA HATE
CRIMES LAW: A RECENT EXAMPLE OF SUCCESS THROUGH
CAREFUL PLANNING AND COLLABORATION
A great deal of behind-the-scenes work lay behind the passage of a trans-inclusive hate
crimes statute in California in 1998. Prior to drafting the proposed bill, Assembly-
woman Sheila Kuehl directed her staff to meet with trans people and trans organiza-
tions in all parts of the state to make sure that she understood the full range of trans
identities and the types of hate violence that trans people confront. She also analyzed
the way that the existing hate crimes law was being interpreted, in order to see why
trans people were not being protected under the existing language. Once
Assemblywoman Kuehl understood what trans people in California needed and want-
ed the law to do, she worked with GLBT attorneys to draft language that would include
everyone in the trans community (transsexual, transgender, and gender variant), and
that would withstand the scrutiny of other California legislators. Assemblywoman
Kuehl sponsored legislation that added gender to the Hate Crimes Statute, and, impor-
tantly, defined gender to include transgendered people. When other legislators had
questions or concerns about the necessity of the bill or the meaning of the proposed
language, she explained its importance and defended the proposed language. She also
did a tremendous job of working with the transgender community to identify com-
pelling personal stories from many different parts of the state.
68 Equality
Transgender

Hate Crimes Laws 69
BILLIJO WOLF
BilliJo Wolf’s passion for activism grew
out of the discrimination she has faced
over the years as an intersexed person, a
transsexual woman, and a lesbian. A
native of St. Louis, Missouri and cur-
rently a resident of Rochester, she first
got involved in activism in the 1960s
with the civil rights and anti-war move-
ments. Wolf now uses
her skills as a writer and
a photographer to pro-
mote a broad-based
human rights agenda.
Wolf first publicly came
out as an intersexed per-
son at a 1999 National
Organization for
Women summit on les-
bian rights. “I asked,
‘Where do intersexuals
fit within this transgen-
der movement within
NOW? Another women
there also outed herself
as intersexual’.” Her
participation at that meeting helped to
bring intersexual and transgender issues
to the forefront.
When she was 41, Wolf discovered that
she was born intersexed when her attor-
ney found all of her birth records: she
had been born with XXY chromosomes,
a penis, and ovaries. (Female-bodied
people usually have XX chromosomes,
male-bodied people usually have XY
chromosomes.) Her ovaries were
removed soon after she was born—she
was left with a penis and raised as a boy.
Unbeknownst to her, in addition to the
surgery, she was put on hormone thera-
py. “I thought I was getting allergy
shots.”
“I presented as male until I was 17.
Then I tried to present as female, and
my parents committed me to a mental
institution for nine months.” After
being released from the institution,
Wolf again tried to live as a man, got
married, “did everything I was supposed
to.” Eventually, however, Wolf realized
she was a woman and underwent sexual
reassignment surgery and therapy. “One
of the reasons I’m so passionate about
intersexed issues is that I don’t want
other people to live the life I’ve led,”
Wolf said.
“I started facing real discrimination after
I ‘transitioned.’ I’m transsexual in the
sense that I did make a change.” Besides
facing discrimination in academia,
housing, and employment, her motiva-
tion stems from prejudice she encoun-
tered following an attempted rape in
Monroe County, New York in January
1998. When Wolf attempted to have
the man charged, the local district attor-
ney decided not to prosecute her
assailant despite direct evidence—
including the perpetrator’s own state-
ment—that provided a solid case. The
official failed to bring charges because of
“a lack of credibility due to her
lifestyle.” According to Wolf, “though I
received the same treatment most
women receive when reporting a rape or
sexual assault crime, it was more severe
because most of the response was based
on my gender identity and sexual orien-
tation. I take serious exception to my
life as a human being demeaned by ref-
erences to my ‘lifestyle’. I have a life,
not a lifestyle.”
Her views of social change and activism
make it impossible for her to work on
only one cause at a time. “We need to
put an end to single identity politics.
Single identity politics has failed. We
need to move beyond inclusion by find-

70 Equality
Transgender
legislation with trans inclusion in
Rochester, New York. And she chairs
the Lesbian Rights Task Force for the
Rochester Chapter of N.O.W.
She describes her identity as “transgen-
der by birth, out, loud and queer by
nature and choice.”
ing the thread of human commonality
amongst our many issues. Coalition
building is what is needed. We all live
in the same world.”
Wolf is a co-founder of the Rochester
Lesbian Avengers. She is also now
working with Empire State Pride
Agenda to pass gay anti-discrimination

71
EXECUTIVE ORDERS, EMPLOYERS,
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
Executive orders
In 1999, the Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa issued an executive order proclaiming “that
an individual shall not be denied access to state employment opportunities because of
race, creed, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation,
age, marital status, or physical or mental disability.”117 This order applies to all state
employees. While other states have executive orders prohibiting discrimination on the
basis of sexual orientation in public employment, Iowa is the first state to include trans-
gendered people.
Employers
Large employers, both private and non-profit institutions, such as colleges and univer-
sities, are likely to have written equal opportunity policies that affirmatively state their
commitment as employers to not discriminate on the basis of race, sex or gender, citi-
zenship, religion, national origin, physical and mental disability, age, and marital sta-
tus. (These categories are already covered by federal and many state laws). Since the
1970s, GLB employees and employee groups have worked to add sexual orientation to
many companies’ and institutions’ non-discrimination policies. At the time of writing,
one GLB employment project listed 1,558 employers with non-discrimination state-
ments that include sexual orientation, including Fortune 500 companies, many small-
er companies, non-profit institutions, unions, and colleges and universities.118 Because
there are no laws prohibiting discrimination in employment based on sexual orienta-
tion in most states or at the federal level, GLB activists have recognized the importance
of pursuing equality in the workplace with individual employers.
Since transgendered people are even less likely to live in jurisdictions with laws that
prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression, GLBT employ-
ee groups have begun to follow the same approach to ensure workplace equality for
Alternative
Routes

trans people. The results so far are encouraging. In 1997, Lucent Technologies became
the first private employer in the US to include “gender identity, characteristics and
expression” in their equal opportunity policy statement. A year later, Apple Computer
followed suit, adding the same phrase to their non-discrimination policy. In June of
1999, Congresswoman Janet Schakowsky of Illinois became the first member of
Congress to extend her office’s personal policy to include “gender self-image or identi-
ty.”119 In addition to this list, there are many more employers who do not discriminate
against transgender employees and who have worked to accommodate
employees who transition on the job. It’s Time! Massachusetts (ITM)
has an extensive list of trans-friendly corporations.120
Kathleen Dermody, co-president of EQUAL!, the GLBT employee
group at Lucent Technologies, described the process of changing the
equal opportunity policy at Lucent. First, at the request of Nancy
Nangeroni, an out transgender Lucent Employee, the GLB employee
group at Lucent amended its mission statement to include transgen-
dered people. Soon after, another transgender EQUAL! member,
Mary Ann Horton, started pushing to have the company’s equal
opportunity policy amended. According to Dermody, the actual
process of changing the Lucent equal opportunity policy was “rela-
tively painless. We presented it to Human Resources and the legal department and they
said, ‘This is the right way to go.’” Horton adds, “We had a really key EQUAL! mem-
ber in Human Resources Department who knew all the right people to talk to, and a
really supportive director of diversity in HR who was the real decision maker. Our
EQUAL! leader in HR pushed it with legal and HR and got it through in a few months.”
The experience of others who have succeeded in changing their employer’s non-dis-
crimination policy suggests that working from within an officially-sanctioned GLB, or,
even better, GLBT employee group is the most practical strategy. One activist, who
could only speak anonymously, said that transgender-identified employees first promot-
ed awareness within the GLB employee group, and requested that it expand its mission
to include transgendered people. The group then drafted a proposal for the company
that: 1) requested that gender identity and expression be included in the equal oppor-
tunity statement; 2) laid out the background to the issue; and 3) explained the possi-
ble results for the company of such a policy change. One other essential part of the
strategy, this activist said, was to meet with representatives from the company’s human
resources and legal departments at the same time, to facilitate communication between
those departments, and to prevent either from attempting to blame the other for
stalling on this issue.
The employer approach has several advantages for transgendered people. Whether or
not the request for inclusion is immediately successful, mobilizing for equality in the
workplace can work to educate people in the human resources department about the
kinds of workplace discrimination faced by transgender employees and to explain the
needs of employees who transition on the job. Working with your employee GLB or
GLBT group also provides an opportunity to talk with your employer about the specif-
ic work situations faced by gender non-conforming people. Finally, the existence of
transgender inclusive employer non-discrimination policies, especially in the private
sector, indicates to legislators not only that more and more employers are committed to
workplace fairness, but that such policies are workable.
72 Equality
Transgender
Mobilizing for equality in
the workplace can work to
educate people in the
human resources depart-
ment about the kinds of
workplace discrimination
faced by transgender
employees and to explain
the needs of employees
who transition on the job.

There are also good reasons for employers to agree voluntarily not to discriminate on the
basis of gender identity and expression: such policies mean employers are more likely to
attract and retain the best workers and reduce the turnover that occurs when employees are
fired for reasons unrelated to job performance. Many of the resources listed in our resources
section have much more detailed information on strategies for including transgendered and
gender variant people in non-discrimination policies.121
Colleges and universities
Colleges and universities are generally committed to ensuring that the teaching and
research endeavors of its faculty and students are unfettered by restrictions on academ-
ic freedom. As a result, institutions of higher learning can be ideal places to mobilize
for workplace equality for transgendered people. Because the 1993 Minnesota trans-
inclusive law applies to educational institutions, the University of Minnesota system
has trans protections. In 1996, the University of Iowa added “gender identity” to its
equal opportunity policy prohibiting discrimination in employment and education pro-
grams. Soon after that policy was enacted, Deirdre McCloskey, the John F. Murray
Professor of Economics at the University of Iowa, came out to the Dean of the Business
school there as a transsexual women. She recounts that incident: “After he got his jaw
off the floor, he went into a comedy act, saying, “Oh, thank God, I thought you were
going to confess to becoming a socialist.” After that, McCloskey recalled, “He said,
‘That’s a strange thing to do. How can I help you?’ And he did. He explained things
to the faculty and to the other administrators and it was no problem at all.” McCloskey
recounts this story and many others in her book, Crossing: A Memoir.122
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, also has an employment non-discrimina-
tion policy. In 1997, the Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution requesting the
Board of Governors to “provide full protection for transgendered and transsexual stu-
dents, faculty, and staff.” The university officials charged with reviewing university pol-
icy in light of this resolution, however, decided that Rutgers would include only trans-
sexuals—defined as “individuals who have changed sex or are in the process of chang-
ing sex”—within the university’s prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex.
Because Rutgers officials claimed they could not determine the precise legal meaning
of “transgendered,” they left it out of the new policy, believing it overlapped to some
degree with sexual orientation. Despite the hard work and lobbying efforts of trans
activist Ben Singer and allies, this policy fails to explicitly include transgendered and
gender variant people who are not undergoing sexual reassignment surgery.
Nonetheless, it certainly is an important step in the right direction.123
Student-led initiatives are another approach to employment equality in higher education.
For example, in 1998 the University of Kansas’s student senate unanimously agreed to
include “gender identity or expression” in its code of student rights and responsibilities.
This code protects transgender and gender variant undergraduate and graduate students
(but not faculty and staff) from discrimination in admissions and all university-sponsored
activities. Christine Robinson, a doctoral student in sociology who worked to pass the res-
olution, noted, “It protects anyone who may be perceived as inappropriately masculine,
feminine or androgynous.”124 And at Harvard, the undergraduate student government
created a Gender Identity Task Force to research and raise awareness of the issue of
including “gender identity” in the university’s non-discrimination statement.125
Alternative Routes 73

74 Equality
Transgender
In the past ten years, the transgender movement has reached a critical mass. As recent-
ly as 1990, there were only four cities with laws that protected trans people from dis-
crimination. By February 2000, that number had multiplied exponentially. Today,
transgendered and gender variant people have won explicit civil rights and/or hate
crime protections in four states, three counties, and at least 20 addi-
tional cities. Several major corporations have adopted non-discrimi-
nation policies for transgender employees. Colleges and universities
have begun to follow suit, adopting equal opportunity policies that
prohibit discriminatory treatment of transgender students, faculty and
staff. In the courts, transgender plaintiffs are challenging outdated
rulings in a new wave of civil rights litigation. Outside of the legisla-
tive and legal arenas, media interest in transgender issues has grown
by leaps and bounds, increasing from a mere trickle of stories in the
early 1990s to a veritable flood at the present day. Perhaps most
importantly, transgendered people have become a visible constituen-
cy within GLB communities, emerging from decades of stigma and marginalization to
reclaim a place alongside our lesbian, gay and bisexual brothers and sisters and a voice
in our collective political movement.
Yet despite these advances, much work remains to be done before transgendered peo-
ple are included in GLBT advocacy in a truly comprehensive and meaningful way.
That is particularly true when it comes to civil rights legislation. Although our focus
in this publication has been on examples of success in passing trans-inclusive laws, the
majority of new sexual orientation non-discrimination laws still do not include trans-
gendered people. From the beginning of 1996 through the end of 1999, 31 jurisdictions
passed laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Of those 31 new statutes, only six—about 20%—included protections for transgen-
dered people as well.126
Conclusion
Today, transgendered and
gender variant people have
won explicit civil rights
and/or hate crime protec-
tions in four states, three
counties, and at least 20
additional cities.

Conclusion 75
Why have most of the jurisdictions that enacted sexual orientation protections in the
past few years failed to include transgendered people? Perhaps these communities
lacked organized and visible transgendered people to push for inclusion. Perhaps GLB
activists in these communities did not understand that transgender and gender variant
individuals are also victims of discrimination and harassment and need protection.
Perhaps trans-inclusive language was dropped at the last minute because community
members or legislators were afraid it would “kill the bill.” Or perhaps legislators and
activists in those communities had never heard of transgender-specific language and
did not know that other jurisdictions have adopted inclusive language. We hope the
information and arguments presented in this publication will help to convince activists
and policy makers that, like gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, transgendered people
experience severe discrimination and harassment, and that there are successful models
for enacting policies and laws to alleviate that discrimination.
As Cambridge-based activist Nancy Nangeroni has pointed out, “Everyone has a stake
in gender freedom, not just trans people.” Stereotypes about gender are harmful to all
people. When the law excludes transgendered people from protection, it sends the
message that sexism and gender stereotyping are acceptable. The goal of the transgen-
der movement is to eliminate the gender-based discrimination that resulted in:
• F.M. Chester being threatened with expulsion from nursing school because her gen-
der presentation was deemed too “mannish.”
1999
Jefferson County, KY
Lexington-Fayette, KY
Louisville, KY
Carson City, NV
Cedar Rapids, IA
Daly City, CA
Falmouth, KY
Henderson, KY
Long Island, ME
Spokane, WA
Westchester, NY
1998
Benton Co., OR
Toledo, OH
Bar Harbor, ME
Costa Mesa, CA
Dekalb, IL
Fort Collins, CO
Gainesville, FL
Miami-Dade County, FL
Onondaga County, NY
Orono, ME
Sorrento, ME
South Portland, ME
1997
Ypsilanti, MI
Athens, OH
Brookline, MA
Lacey, WA
Riverside, CA
1996
Albany County, NY
Cleveland, OH
Oberlin, OH
Tybee Island, GA
Worchester, MA
Non-
Trans
inclusive
Trans-
inclusive
Figure 7: How many recently-passed sexual orientation non-discrimination laws include
transgendered and gender variant people?
* This chart does not include jurisdictions where previously existing sexual orientation non-discrimination laws were amended to include
transgendered and gender variant people. Also, this chart refers only to jurisdictions passing civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination in
public employment and/or private employment.

• BilliJo Wolf being denied any recourse to the criminal justice system when she was
sexually assaulted.
• Kim Coco Iwamoto being harassed by her law school peers for using the women’s
bathroom.
• Tyra Hunter being denied emergency medical treatment.
• Brandon Teena being murdered because law enforcement personnel did not con-
sider the life of a young FTM worth protecting.
• Countless other transgendered people being forced into homelessness and unem-
ployment, denied access to basic medical care, and targeted by violence and threats
of violence.
No one should be denied the opportunity to live and work in safety. By fighting for
basic civil rights, trans people are affirming our inherent value and dignity as human
beings and our right to equality in the public sphere.
76 Equality
Transgender

77
Introduction
1. For example, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; the Gay & Lesbian Alliance
Against Defamation; the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network; Parents, Families
and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
2. Philip Brian Harper, Are we not men? Masculine anxiety and the problem of African-American
identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
3. T. Govorun, B. Vornyk, (1997), “The self-concept development of transsexual persons,” a
paper presented at the XVth Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association
Symposium, Vancouver, Canada (noting that there are roughly equal numbers of MTFs and
FTMs); M. Landen, J. Walinder and B. Lundstrum, (1996), “Prevalence, incidence and sex
ratio of transsexualism in Sweden,” Acta Psychiatry Scandanavia, 93, 221-223; M. Landen, J.
Walinder, and B. Lundstrum, (1996) (reviewing data on the sex ratio of transsexualism in
Sweden from the 1960s through 1992 and finding that the incidence of primary transsexu-
alism was equally common in MTFs and FTMs); Gretchen Finke & Roger Northway,
“Patterns in and treatments for gender dysphoria,” in Bonnie Bullough, Vern L. Bullough,
and James Elias, eds., Gender Blending (Prometheus Books, 1997), p. 237. (Transsexualism
“occurs in about equal numbers in men and women; however, more men present for formal
treatment.”)
4. What causes a person to be transgendered is unknown. With regard to transsexual people
in particular, recent scientific theories focus on events in fetal development. Such events
include incomplete sexual differentiation of the brain, hormonal imbalances occurring dur-
ing critical fetal development stages, and a mixture of biological predispositions that are
subsequently triggered in early childhood or adulthood. In other words, no one knows for
sure, but science is beginning to recognize the reality of transgender existence. See Dr. R
Reid, et al, “Transsexualism : The Current Medical Viewpoint,” (1996)
[http://www.pfc.org.uk/medical/mediview.htm].
Endnotes

5. Virginia Prince, How to be a Woman though Male and numerous other titles available
through the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), P.O. Box 229,
Waltham, MA 02254-0229.
6. C.J.S. Thompson, The Mysteries of Sex: Women Who Posed as Men and Men who Impersonated
Women (New York: Causeway Books, 1974). This text is archaic in many ways, but full of
historical reference points. A more transpositive slant on these lives is presented in Jason
Cromwell’s essay “Passing Women and Female Bodied Men: (Re)claiming FTM History,”
published in Kate More and Stephen Whittle, Reclaiming Genders (London: Cassell, 1999).
See also Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999).
7. Diane Wood Middlebrook, Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton (New York: Houghton
Mifflin, 1998).
8. Louis Sullivan, From Female to Male: The Life of Jack Bee Garland (Boston: Alyson
Publications, 1990).
9. See, for example, Nicholas J. Bradford, “Transgenderism and the Cult of Yellamma [in
Japan],” Journal of Anthropological Research 39.3 (1983); Serena Nanda, “Hijras: An
Alternative Sex and Gender Role in India,” in Third Sex, Third Gender, ed. Gilbert Herdt
(New York: Zone Books, 1996), pp. 373-417; Gilbert Herdt, Same Sex, Different Cultures
(Westview Press, 1998); Wyatt MacGaffey, “Husbands and Wives [Africa],” in Transition,
Vol. 6, No. 3 (1996), pp. 122-130; J. Lorand Matory, Sex and the Empire That Is No More
[Africa], (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Heike Bödeker and Kiira
Triea, “Native vs. White Sex Cosmologies: Sex and Gender Variability vs. Variance in
Inter- vs. Intracultural Perspective,” Yumtzilob Spring 1998, [http://www.sonic.net/~cisae/
yumtzilob.html].
10. See, for example, One of the Children: Gay Black Men in Harlem, William G. Hawkeswood
and Alex W. Costley, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); A Lotus of
Another Color, Rakesh Ratti, ed. (Los Angeles: Alyson Publications, 1993); Q&A: Queer in
Asian America, eds. Alice Hom and David Eng (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1998); Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996); George
Chauncey, Gay New York (New York: Basic Books, 1994).
11. Much of the information in this section was contributed by Cheryl Chase of the Intersex
Society of North America. See her article, “Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the
Emergence of Intersex Activism,” GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 4 (2): 189-
211.
12. Source: “Abnormalities of Sex Differentiation,” Chapter 41 of Smith’s General Urology, 13th
Edition, Felix A. Conte, M.D. & Melvin M. Grumbach, M.D., (Appleton and Lange
Medical Books, 1992).
13. Doctors claim that it is technically easiest to create female genitalia, so often infants with
ambiguous genitals are assigned the sex of female by surgery. Intersex activists counter that
this judgment rests upon social prejudices that discount the importance of sexual pleasure
and function in women as compared to men. See Suzanne Kessler, Lessons from the
Intersexed (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998), pp. 12-32.
14. For further information on intersex issues, contact the Intersex Society of North America
(ISNA) at http://www.isna.org. See also Suzanne J Kessler, Lessons from the Intersexed (New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Intersex in the Age of Ethics, Alice Comurat
78 Equality
Transgender

Dreger, ed. (Hagerstown: University Publishing Group, 1999).
15. Some intersexed people forced to have surgery as infants are required to undergo addition-
al surgeries as teenagers, and may also require hormones to induce puberty and maintain
secondary sex characteristics throughout their adult lives.
16. Estimates of gay, lesbian, and bisexual-identified transsexual people range from 30 to 50%
for male-to-female (MTF) and from 15 to 40% for female-to-male (FTM) individuals. The
sexual orientation of transsexual people can change as they go through the hormonal and
surgical transition.
17. Anti-transgender violence statistics were not recorded prior to 1995, but with increased
awareness of transgender issues, many GLBT anti-violence programs began to actively col-
lect data at that point. There is widespread agreement that these figures represent a serious
under-reporting of actual incidents.
18. Susan Stryker, “Anti-Transgender Violence and Discrimination: Historical and Theoretical
Observations Drawn from San Francisco Experience,” presented at “Beyond Homophobia,”
an international conference held April 6-9, 1999, San Francisco State University, San
Francisco, CA. Manuscript notes courtesy the author.
19. Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998).
II. Historical Memory
20. The story behind the activism in Minnesota that led to the nation’s first transgender inclu-
sive human rights laws was not easy to unearth. As Donna Cartwright has pointed out in
“Distorting Mirror: Trivializing and Silencing Transgendered people in Queer Media,”
(Transgender Tapestry Magazine, forthcoming), even one of the most extensive accounts of
that history, Adam Nagourney and Dudley Clendinen’s Out for Good, “treats [trans people]
largely as a disempowered, voiceless ‘other.’” In their account of the Minnesota struggles
about trans inclusion, for example, Cartwright notes that Nagourney and Clendinen “pri-
marily quote opponents of trans-inclusion, and to a lesser extent, gay advocates for trans-
gender rights,” while failing to let the voices of transgendered activists appear in their nar-
rative. Cartwright also points out that “their description of us ‘gender queers’ virtually drips
with condescension.” Unfortunately, the omission of trans people from gay history is also
apparent in another very important recent book on local GLBT rights ordinances, James
W. Button, Barbara A. Rienzo and Kenneth D. Wald’s Private Lives, Public Conflicts: Battles
over Gay Rights in American Communities (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press,
1997), which does not mention trans-inclusive ordinances at all.
21. Ordinance 99-68 amending chapter 945 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances was passed
March 29, 1974, defined “affectional or sexual preference” as “having or manifesting an
emotional or physical attachment to another consenting person or persons, or having or
manifesting a preference for such attachment.”
22. Diana Slyter interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, June 26, 1999.
23. Diana Slyter interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, June 26, 1999.
24. Minnesota State Senator Allan Spear interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter,
June 23, 1999.
25. Doug Grow, “After 13 years of remonstrating, Tim Campbell's voice gives out,” Minneapolis
Endnotes 79

Star Tribune, May 17, 1992, p. 3B
26. Dudley Clendinen & Adam Nagourney, Out for Good (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1999), p. 237.
27. Clendinen & Nagourney, Out for Good, p. 237.
28. Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, p. 237.
29. Anthony Lonetree, “Voters refuse to repeal gay rights,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, November
6, 1991, p. 1A
30. Minnesota State Senator Allan Spear interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter,
June 23, 1999.
31. Susan Kimberly interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, June 25, 1999.
32. Susan Kimberly, “Lies, gay rights and Citizen Alert,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 28,
1991, p. 17A.
33. Susan Kimberly interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, June 25, 1999.
34. Barbara (BJ) Metzger interview with Paisley Currah, July 6, 1999.
35. Minnesota State Senator Allan Spear interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter,
June 23, 1999.
36. Susan Kimberly interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, June 25, 1999.
37. Minnesota State Senator Allan Spear interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter,
June 23, 1999.
38. Diana Slyter interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, June 26, 1999.
39. Minnesota State Senator Allan Spear interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter,
June 23, 1999.
40. Minnesota State Senator Allan Spear interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter,
June 23, 1999.
41. Diana Slyter interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, June 26, 1999.
42. Donna Halvorsen, “They know whereof they legislate,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 2,
1993, p. 1B.
43. Diana Slyter interview with Paisley Currah, March 7, 2000.
44. Donna Halvorsen, “They know whereof they legislate,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 2,
1993, p. 1B.
45. For example, just one year after the 1993 statewide victory in Minnesota, St. Paul Mayor
Norm Coleman refused to sign a proclamation declaring June gay pride month—because
the proclamation included bisexual and transgendered people. “I see [being bisexual or hav-
ing a sex change] as lifestyle issues,” Mayor Coleman explained, but, in his view, being les-
bian or gay is “the way nature intended things.” Anthony Lonetree, “Coleman won't sign
gay month proclamation; Objects to 'lifestyle issues' language,” Minneapolis Star Tribune,
May 4, 1994, p. 1B.
46. Falwell, Jerry [webmaster@libertyalliance.org]. “Protecting Transsexuals.” E-mail message to
Falwell Confidential list [fclist@lists.sparklist.com]. 03 February 2000.
80 Equality
Transgender

47. David Yepsen, “Secrecy alleged on gay rights,” The Des Moines Register, October 15, 1999, p. 1.
48. ACLJ Press Release, 14 Sep 1999, “ACLJ Files Federal Lawsuit Challenging Sexual
Orientation Ordinance In Louisville, Kentucky.”
49. Miranda Stevens-Miller, “Federation,” private e-mail message to Paisley Currah, 24 August 1999.
III. Nuts and Bolts
50. “Discrimination and Hate Crimes Against Transgendered People in Illinois,”1998
Supplement, Prepared by It's Time, Illinois! Documentation Project, February 1998,
[http://itstimeil.org/].
51. Many people use “transexual” rather than “transsexual.” See Riki Anne Wilchins, Read My
Lips (Ithaca: Firebrand, 1997), p. 15.
52. Of course, as trans activist Jessica Xavier, has pointed out, “some human rights commissions
have even refused to meet with local transactivists, probably due to the lack of statutory
jurisdiction or possibly transphobia.”
53. Miranda Stevens-Miller, “ITA Press Release: Evanston, Illinois Passes Transgender
Inclusion Ordinance,” [http://www.itstimeil.org/pressrls/evanston797.html].
54. For a summary of court cases dealing with transgendered people, see Shannon Minter,
“Discrimination Against Transgendered People: A Summary of Existing Case Law,”
[http://www.genderlaw.org].
55. For examples of educational materials that have been prepared for local and state legisla-
tors, see the It’s Time, Illinois! reports listed in the resources section.
56. It’s Time, Oregon! Press Release, “Portland Oregon City Council Passes Gender Identity
Protections,” [http://www.geocities.com/~itstimeoregon/news/pdxGidRes.htm], December 1998.
57. See Sue Weibezahl, “Gay Rights Bill Splits County Legislators,” Syracuse Online
[http://www.syracuse.com/news/sttuesday/19980804_gays.html]. See also Expressing Our
Nature (EON) Press Release, “Fair Practice Law Passes Onondaga County Legislature, But
Not Without Protest from the Entire GLBT Community,” August 3, 1998, [http://www.nya-
gra.org/policy/eonaug98.htm].
58. For assistance in drafting trans-inclusive legislation, contact the National Center for
Lesbian Rights at 415-392-6257 or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Legislative
Lawyering Program at 202-332-6483.
59. See also Expressing Our Nature (EON) Press Release, “Fair Practice Law Passes Onondaga
County Legislature, But Not Without Protest from the Entire GLBT Community,” August
3, 1998 [http://www.nyagra.org/policy/eonaug98.htm].
60. Miranda Stevens-Miller, It’s Time, Illinois! “DeKalb Excludes Transgender Protection at
the Last Minute,” January 6, 1999, and “DeKalb Follow-Up,” January 20, 1999 on Gender
Advocacy Internet News (GAIN), January 20, 1999, [http://gender.org/gain/g99/
index.html].
61. It's Time, Illinois!, “4th Annual Report on Discrimination and Hate Crimes Against
Transgendered People in Illinois,” May 1999 [http://www.itstimeil.org/reports/report99a.html].
62. See “Policy and Legislative Recommendations Concerning Transgendered Citizens in
Seattle,” a report of the Seattle Commission for Sexual Minorities. May 1999,
Endnotes 81

[http://www.ci.seattle.wa.us/scsm/transgender.html].
63. Marsha Botzer interview with Paisley Currah, July 19, 1999.
64. Diana Slyter interview with Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, June 26, 1999.
65. Diana Slyter interview with Paisley Currah, March 7, 2000.
66. Brett Beemyn, testimony at a Iowa City Council meeting of September 26, 1995.
67. From a litigation perspective, however, opting for the strategy of adding “gender identity”
as a distinct classification may have the unintended effect of providing ammunition for the
view that courts should not afford any protection to transgendered people under any statute
that has not been amended to include that very language.
68. Testimony of Dawn Atkins at a public hearing on an ordinance amending the Iowa City
Code Title 2, Human Rights Ordinance, Chapter 2, Section 2-2-2, and 2-1-1, September
26, 1995.
69. It's Time, Illinois!, “4th Annual Report on Discrimination and Hate Crimes Against
Transgendered People in Illinois,” May 1999, [http://www.itstimeil.org/reports/report99a.html#a3].
70. It's Time, Illinois!, “4th Annual Report on Discrimination and Hate Crimes Against
Transgendered People in Illinois,” May 1999, [http://www.itstimeil.org/reports/report99a.html#a3].
71. County of Santa Cruz, Ordinance no. 4501, passed April 1998.
72. Seattle first amended its non-discrimination law in 1986 to include “transsexuality” and
“transvestism” in its definition of sexual orientation. In 1999, the Seattle city council voted to
put trans-inclusive language in the new category of “gender identity.” (See discussion below.)
73. The vast majority of existing local, state, and federal non-discrimination statutes use the
term “sex” rather than the term “gender,” and very few of those statutes include any defin-
ition of the term “sex.” For the most part, recent court decisions interpreting sex discrimi-
nation statutes have interpreted those statutes to include discrimination on the basis of gen-
der stereotyping, as well as discrimination on the basis of a person’s biological sex. In Price
Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), for example, the U.S. Supreme Court found
that a woman who did not conform to prevailing gender norms—she had been described by
a partner in her firm as “macho,” by another as “tough talking” and “masculine”—had been
the victim of sex discrimination. In contrast, those who oppose equal rights for women are
against applying sex discrimination laws to gender-based stereotyping. For example, a con-
servative activist in Westchester succeeded in changing the definition of gender in a pro-
posed sexual orientation non-discrimination bill from “‘gender’ means both the biological
and social characteristics of being female or male” to “‘gender’ means the biological char-
acteristics of being male or female.” This strategy of limiting the definition of gender is an
attempt to prevent human rights officials and judges from interpreting the statute to pro-
hibit discrimination based on gender stereotypes, including discrimination against gender
variant and non-transitioning transgendered people. See Joann Prinzivalli, “So, who's enti-
tled to human rights around here, anyway?,” The Loft (the newsletter of the Westchester
Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center), Volume 11, Issue 2 (March 2000), at page 12.
74. See, for example: Illinois, House Bill 474, “ ‘Sexual orientation’ means having or being per-
ceived as having an emotional, physical, or sexual attraction to another person without
regard to the sex of that person, or having or being perceived as having a self-image or iden-
tity not traditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness”; Michigan
82 Equality
Transgender

House Bill 5107, which is almost identical to Illinois House Bill 474; Missouri House Bill
1438, “ ‘Sexual orientation’, male or female heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality
by inclination, practice, identity, or expression, or having a self-image or identity not tra-
ditionally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness”; Georgia House Bill
1727, “ ‘Sexual orientation’ means being, or perceived as being, heterosexual, homosexual,
or bisexual, or having, or being perceived as having, a self-image or identity not tradition-
ally associated with one’s biological maleness or femaleness”; Iowa House Bill 2451,
“‘Sexual orientation’ means actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality,
or a person’s attributes in behavior, practice, or appearance as they are understood to be
masculine or feminine.” California and Vermont, which already have state-wide sexual ori-
entation non-discrimination laws, use sex and “gender identity,” respectively, to include
trans people. The California employment discrimination bill, Assembly Bill 2142 defines
“sex” as including, but “not limited to, pregnancy, childbirth, medical conditions related to
pregnancy or childbirth, and a person’s gender, as defined in section 422.76 of the penal
code.” That section of the California code defines gender as “the victim’s actual sex or the
defendant’s perception of the victim’s sex, and includes the defendant’s perception of the
victim’s identity, appearance, or behavior, whether or not that identity, appearance, or
behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the victim’s sex at birth.”
Vermont Senate Bill 255 does not define gender identity.
75. Sheba R. Wheeler, “Transgendered Law On Agenda, Boulder Ordinance Would Be A
First,” The Denver Post, January 18, 2000, p. B2.
76. The definitions: “‘Gender variance’ means a persistent sense that a person’s gender identi-
ty is incongruent with the person’s biological sex, excluding the element of persistence for
person’s under age twenty-one and including, without limitation, transitioned transsexu-
als”; “‘Gender identity’ means a person’s various individual attributes, actual or perceived,
that may be in accord with, or sometimes opposed to, one’s physical anatomy, chromosomal
sex, genitalia, or assigned sex”; “‘Gender reassignment surgery’ means surgery to alter a per-
son’s genitals, in order to complete a program of sex reassignment surgery”; “‘Sex’ means
biological sex, the sum of a person’s physical characteristics”; “‘Sex reassignment treatment’
means treatment to change a person’s sex, based on medically recognized treatment proto-
cols such as that published by the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria
Association”; “‘Transitioning transsexual’ means a person who has completed genital reas-
signment surgery”; “‘Transitioned transsexual’ means a person who has completed genital
reassignment surgery.” (Ordinance No. 7040).
77. The legislation itself and the city attorney memorandum on the legislation are available on
the internet at http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/clerk/previous/list/000201/10.htm.
78. City Schools of Decatur, Code GAAA, Adopted 10/75, Amended 2/00. See also Karen
Hill, “Decatur Schools state’s first first to ban ‘gender identity’ bias,” The Atlanta
Constitution, February 17, 2000, p. 5JA.
79. The Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network and the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights
Project, “Adding Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity To Discrimination & Harassment
policies In School,” [http://www.glsen.org/pages/sections/news/alerts/glac.html].
80. 2000 Colorado S.B. 105.
81. According to Dana Priesing of GenderPAC, two unreported administrative decisions from
the District of Columbia's Office of Human Rights have found that transgender individuals
Endnotes 83

who suffered public accommodations discrimination are covered under the D.C. Human
Rights Law's provision against discrimination on the basis of personal appearance (and pos-
sibly also on the basis of sex and/or sexual orientation). See Letter of Determination, Budd
v. D.C. Dept. of Corrections, Docket No. 97-280-PA (Dept. of Human Rights and Local
Business Development, March 12, 1999) (finding probable cause that respondent's policy
barring cross dressed males from admission to corrections facility visiting areas constituted
unlawful discriminatory practice based on complainant's appearance, sex, and sexual orien-
tation); and Letter of Determination, Hammond v. D.C. Dept. of Corrections, Docket No. 97-
281-PA (Dept. of Human Rights and Local Business Development, March 12, 1999) (same).
82. For more information on this case, see the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of
Washington, D.C. web site at http://www.glaa.org.
83. Report of the District of Columbia Task Force on Sexual Orientation and the Legal
Workplace, March 1999, Vol. I, pp. 21-22.
84. Brett Beemyn, “Gender identity in Iowa City,” private email communication to Paisley
Currah, 28 August 1999.
85. Testimony of Lyone Fein at the Iowa City public hearing on amending the Iowa City
human rights ordinance to include gender identity. September 26, 1995.
86. Interviews conducted by Paisley Currah by telephone, during the summer of 1999.
87. In New Orleans, some local legislators were so fearful that the local law might be misinter-
preted to protect a “man in a dress” that they insisted on adding broad exclusionary lan-
guage. The New Orleans exemption states, “Nothing in this Chapter shall prohibit an
employer from prohibiting cross-dressing in the workplace or while an employee is acting
in the course and scope of his or her employment.” Then it adds an exemption to the cross-
dressing exemption:
“Cross-dressing” shall not be deemed to include the regular wearing of clothing, cos-
metics, footwear and or other accouterments which is appropriate to the gender other
than his or her biological or legal gender at birth with which an employee or applicant
identifies if the employee or applicant provides the employer with the written state-
ment of a licensed doctor or other health care professional certifying that the employ-
ee or applicant presents the characteristics of gender identification disorder or another
similar status or condition and that the employee or applicant intends prospectively to
attire and conduct himself or herself for the foreseeable future in the employee’s
employment and workplace or workplaces in the manner appropriate for persons of the
gender with which he or she identifies. (New Orleans Ordinance No. 18794, passed
July, 1998.)
This cross-dressing exclusion appears to limit employment protection to those under a doc-
tor’s care, because it requires the employee to provide a written statement certifying that he
or she “presents the characteristics of gender identification disorder.” As New Orleans’
transgendered activist Courtney Sharp, noted, “Better language could have been used to
accomplish this goal.”
88. Louisville Ordinance No. 9, series 1999, passed February 1, 1999. Lexington Ordinance No.
201-99, passed July 1999.
89. Louisville Ordinance No. 9, series 1999, passed February 1, 1999. Lexington Ordinance No.
201-99, passed July 1999.
84 Equality
Transgender

90. Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989). For a discussion of why existing non-dis-
crimination law should apply to transgendered people, see Jennifer Levi, “Protection
Against Discrimination for Transgendered People.” (See Resources.)
91. Kristin Dizon, “City Council Faces Human Rights Vote,” Boulder Daily Camera, July 20,
1999.
92. Mike Mills, “City of Boulder Ponders Transgendered Rights,” from CU Out & About, a
quarterly GLBT newsletter put out by the University of Colorado GLBT Resource Center,
Fall 1999.
93. Kristin Dizon, “City Council Faces Human Rights Vote,” Boulder Daily Camera, July 20,
1999.
94. Halle Shilling, “Gender Identity Discussed,” Boulder Daily Camera, August 17, 1999.
95. Jefferson County Ordinance No. 36, Series 1999, adopted October 12, 1999.
96. Unfortunately, on March 10, 2000, a trial court judge in Louisville, Kentucky ruled that
Jefferson County's ordinance does not apply to Louisville or any of the other 90 munici-
palities in the county, but only to unincorporated areas of Jefferson County. The American
Center for Law and Justice has filed a federal lawsuit against both the city and the county
ordinance.
97. Compliance Guidelines to Prohibit Gender Identity Discrimination, City and County of
San Francisco Human Rights Commission [http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/sfhumanrights/tg_guide.htm].
98. Memorandum on “Gender Variance Anti-Discrimination Ordinance Considerations” from
Joseph N. de Raismes, III, City Attorney to William R Toor, Mayor, Members of the City
Council, Ronald A. Secrist, City Manager, December 20, 1999, [http://www.ci.boulder.
co.us/clerk/previous/list/000201/10.htm].
99. See Jane Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
100.Memorandum on “Gender Variance Anti-Discrimination Ordinance Considerations” from
Joseph N. de Raismes, III, City Attorney to William R Toor, Mayor, Members of the City
Council, Ronald A. Secrist, City Manager, December 20, 1999, [http://www.ci.boulder.
co.us/clerk/previous/list/000201/10.htm].
101.Compliance Guidelines to Prohibit Gender Identity Discrimination, City and County of
San Francisco Human Rights Commission, December 10, 1998, [http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/
sfhumanrights/tg_guide.htm].
102.Interview with Paisley Currah, November 1999.
103.Courtney Sharp, email communication to Paisley Currah, July 1999.
104.Luin Wang, “The Transforming Power of ‘Hate’: Social Cognition Theory and the Harms
of Bias-Related Crime,” 71 S. Cal. L. Rev. 47 n.53 at 119-120 (1997).
VI. Hate Crimes Laws
105.For an overview of anti GLBT violence, see “Anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
Violence in 1998,” A Report of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, 1999,
[http://www.avp.org]. For more information on hate violence committed against transgen-
dered and gender variant people, see Noelle Howey, “Boys Do Cry,” Mother Jones Magazine,
March 22, 2000; Lisa Meyer, “The Hidden Hate Epidemic,” The Advocate, May 25, 1999;
Endnotes 85

and Dallas Denny and Margaux Ayn Schaffer, “Violence Against Transgendered Persons:
An Unrecognized Problem,” The Advocate, April 1992, [http://www.gender.org/aegis/other/
editorials/violence.html]; Tarynn M. Witten and A. Evan Eyler, “Anti-transgender
Violence: The 'Invisible Human Rights Violation,'” Peace Review: An International
Quarterly, (1999).
106.Gwendolyn Ann Smith, “Remembering Our Dead,” [http://gender.org/remember/about/core.html].
107.Carrie Davis, “Trans Safety and Violence,” [http://www.gpac.org/speeches/safety_speech.html].
108.Tarynn M. Witten and A. Evan Eyler, “Anti-transgender Violence: The 'Invisible Human
Rights Violation,” Peace Review: An International Quarterly, (1999).
109.Riki Anne Wilchins, “IYF - Editorial From Genderpac's Executive Director,”
[http://www.gpac.org/iyf/html/iyf144.html].
110.Darren Lenard Hutchinson, “Ignoring the Sexualization of Race: Heteronormativity,
Critical Race Theory and Anti-Racist Politics,” 47 Buffalo Law Review 1, 23 (Winter,
1999).
111.Two federal hate crime-related statutes include sexual orientation. The Hate Crime
Statistics Act, which became law in 1990, requires the Justice Department to collect infor-
mation from state and local law enforcement officials about crimes which “manifest preju-
dice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.” (Disability was included in a
1994 amendment.) Sexual orientation is defined in this statute as “consensual homosexu-
ality or heterosexuality.” (28 U.S.C. 534.) The Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act,
which became law in 1994, directed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to mandate
increased sentences for hate crimes, including crimes committed because of the actual or
perceived gender or sexual orientation of the victim. These increased sentences, however,
apply only to hate crimes committed in national parks or on federal property. (Section
280003 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.) Neither of these
statutes explicitly include trans people, though it is possible in the future that courts will
interpret “actual or perceived gender or sexual orientation” to cover hate crimes against
transgendered people.
112.Minnesota Statutes, Section 611A.79 (Civil damages for bias offenses). California:
Assembly Bill No. 1999. Vermont: “An Act Relating to Injunctions Against Hate-
Motivated Crimes,” S. 45, signed into law June 1, 1999, effective July 1, 1999. Missouri:
Senate Bill 328, signed by into law by Governor, July 1, 1999.
113.District of Columbia Code, Title 22, Chapter 40 (including personal appearance, sexual ori-
entation, and sex).
114.See endnote 53.
115.Hector Vargas, email communication to Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, March 8,
2000.
116.Recently the GLBT community has engaged in more nuanced discussions of hate crimes
legislation in light of the racial and class biases of the criminal justice system and the poten-
tially problematic nature of the focus on punishment over prevention embodied in hate
crimes legislation. Some are arguing for the prioritization of anti-homophobia and anti-
transphobia education to make people less likely to engage in anti-GLBT hate violence.
Others are speaking out against hate crimes legislation as a remedy for anti-GLBT violence.
86 Equality
Transgender

VII. Alternative Routes
117.Executive Order Number Seven, September 14, 1999.
118.Kim Mills, "The Stateof the Workplace for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered
Americans," Human Rights Campaign, 1999, [http://www.hrc.org/worknet/].119. I t ’ s
Time, Illinois! Press Release, “Congresswoman Schakowsky Extends Personnel Policy to
Include Gender Variance,” [http://www.itstimeil.org/newsltrs/itil9907.html#101].
119.It's Time, Illinois! Press Release, “Confgesswoman Schakowsky Extends Personnel Policy to
Include Gender Variance,” [http://www.itstimeil.org/newsltrs/itil9907.html#101].
120.It’s Time, Massachusetts!, “Trans at Work,” http://www.tgender.net/itma/at_work.htm].
121.Unions could also play an important role in promoting equality for transgendered people in
the workplace, as employers themselves, and as advocates for employees through the col-
lective bargaining process. For example, in 1999, Donna Cartwright, a member of the
Newspaper Guild, asked that union's human rights committee to extend its commitment to
non-discrimination to include transgendered people. As a result, the Newspaper Guild
amended its human rights policy statement to state: “In all aspects of union activity it is our
commitment to create a culture of respect and tolerance and a workplace free of discrimi-
nation because of irrelevant factors such as race, religion, ethnicity, language, sex, age, sex-
ual orientation, gender expression, disability, family, parental, marital, immigration or citi-
zenship status.”
122.Deirdre McCloskey's description of coming out as a transsexual women are taken from a
video, “Transgender: The Law and Employers,” produced by the City of Iowa City Human
Rights Commission. It is also described in her memoir, Crossing (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1999).
123.Rutgers policy is stated in a letter from Joseph Seneca, Rutgers Vice President for Academic
Affairs, to Executive Committee of the University Senate, January 6, 1998.
124.Pitchweekly, Dec.10-16, 1998, [http://www.gender.org/news/kansas.txt].
125.Seth Persily, “Transgender Students Seek Change in Harvard Policy,” Harvard Law Record,
March 7, 1997, [http://www.law.harvard.edu/studorgs/lambda/l_transg.html].
126.Interview with Paisley Currah, 27 June 1999.
Endnotes 87

88 Equality
Transgender
GENERAL REFERENCE MATERIAL
Boenke, Mary, ed. Trans Forming Families: Real Stories About Transgendered Loved Ones.
Imperial Beach, CA: Walter Trook Publishing, 1999.
Bornstein, Kate. Gender Outlaw—On Men, Women and the Rest of Us. New York:
Routledge, 1994.
Brown, Mildred L. and Rounsley, Chloe Ann. True Selves: Understanding
Transsexualism. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996.
Califia, Pat. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism. San Francisco: Cleis Press,
1997.
Cameron, Loren. Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits. San Francisco: Cleis Press, 1996.
Chase, Cheryl. “Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex
Activism.” GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1998), pp. 189-211.
Cromwell, Jason. Transmen and Ftms : Identities, Bodies, Genders, and Sexualities.
Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Dreger, Alice Comurat. Intersex in the Age of Ethics. Hagerstown: University Publishing
Group, 1999.
Feinberg, Leslie. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul.
Boston: Boston, 1996.
Israel, Gianna E. and Tarvel, Donald E. Transgender Care: Recommended Guidelines,
Practical Information and Personal Accounts. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1997.
Kessler, Suzanne J. Lessons from the Intersexed. New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1998.
McCloskey, Deirdre N. Crossing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Resources

More, Kate and Whittle, Stephen. Reclaiming Genders: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin
de Siècle. London and New York: Cassell, 1999.
Smith, Gwendolyn. Remembering Our Dead website at http://www.gender.org/remember/.
Wilchins, Riki Anne. Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender. Ithaca,
NY: Firebrand Books, 1997.
LEGAL AND POLITICAL ADVOCACY
Bergstedt, Spencer. Translegalities: A Legal Guide for MTFs; and Translegalities: A Legal
Guide for FTMs. These publications may be ordered for $25 by emailing Spencer
Bergstedt at MstrSpence@aol.com.
City and County of San Francisco Human Rights Commission. Compliance Guidelines
to Prohibit Gender Identity Discrimination. [http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/sfhumanrights/
tg_guide.htm].
Cole, Dana. The Employer's Guide to Gender Transition. Wayland, MA: International
Foundation for Gender Identification, 1992.
Coles, Matthew. Try This At Home: A Do-It-Yourself Guide to Winning Lesbian and Gay
Civil Rights. New York: New Press, 1996. (Note: No discussion of transgender issues,
but a good general resource for lobbying for ordinances at the local level.)
Cope, Allison and Darke, Julie. “Trans Accessibility Project: Making Women’s Shelters
Accessible to Transgendered Women.” To get a copy, email Juliet Darke at
jdarke@kos.net.
Currah, Paisley. Gender Law and Policy Page. (Updates of the legislative material in this
handbook and selected articles.) [http://www.genderlaw.org].
Currah, Paisley and Minter, Shannon. “Unprincipled Exclusions: The Struggle for
Legislative and Judicial Protections for Transgendered People.” College of William and
Mary Journal of Women and the Law (forthcoming in 2000).
Denny, Dallas. “Transgendered Youth at Risk for Exploitation, HIV, Hate Crimes.”
[http://www.gender.org/aegis/index.html].
The Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network and the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights
Project. “Adding Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity To Discrimination &
Harassment Policies In School.” [http://www.glsen.org/pages/sections/news/alerts/glac.html].
GenderPAC Position Paper. “Including Gender Protection in ENDA.”
[http://www.gpac.org/empdis/enda_position.html].
Green, Jamison. Investigation into Discrimination Against Transgendered People, A Report
by the Human Rights Commission, City and County of San Francisco, September,
1994. [www.ci.sf.ca.us/sfhumanrights/lg_info.htm].
Horton, Mary Ann. Transgender at Work. (Substantial internet resources.)
[http://www.tgender.net/taw/].
Iowa City Human Rights Commission. “Transgender: The Law and Employers” (edu-
Resources 89

cational video). The check for $50 should be made out to the City of Iowa City and
sent to City of Iowa City, Attn: Heather Shank, 410 East Washington Street, Iowa
City, Iowa 52240. Or call 319-356-5022.
International Bill of Gender Rights. Adopted June 17, 1995 in Houston Texas.
[http://www.altsex.org/transgender/ibgr.html].
Intersex Society of North America. “Recommendations for Treatment Intersex infants
and children.” [http://www.isna.org/recommendations.html].
Intersex Society of North America. “Hypospadias Surgery: a parent's guide.”
[http://www.isna.org/hypospadias.html].
The International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy,
Proceedings I-V. (Transcribed presentations and appended papers dealing with the mul-
titude of legal challenges faced by transgendered people, along with strategies for pro-
gressive change in the law.) Order forms at http://www.abmall.com/ictlep/procord.html.
Investigative Reports: Transgender Revolution. (Video on transgender civil rights issues
that aired on Arts & Entertainment Channel.) Available from the A&E store, at
http://www.aetv.com, for $19.95.
It’s Time, Illinois. “Discrimination and Hate Crimes Against Transgendered People in
Illinois.” [http://itstimeil.org/reports.html].
It’s Time, Illinois. “Guide to TG Rights.” [http://itstimeil.org/publications.html].
It’s Time, Massachusetts. “Equality Principles on Gender Variance.” [http://www.tgen-
der.net/itma/files/principles.htm].
Kirk, Sheila and Rothblatt, Martine. Medical, Legal & Workplace Issues for the
Transsexual. Blawnox, PA: Together Lifeworks, 1995.
Levi, Jennifer. “Protection Against Discrimination for Transgendered People.”
Available from Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, 294 Washington Street, Suite
740, Boston, MA 02108. Tel: 617-426-1350. Email: gladlaw@glad.org.
Minter, Shannon. “Discrimination Against Transgendered People: A Summary of
Existing Case Law.” Available from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, 870
Market Street, Suite 570, San Francisco, CA 94102, 415-392-6257, or at
http://www.genderlaw.org.
Minter, Shannon. “Issues for Transgendered Parents.” Available from the National
Center for Lesbian Rights ($20), 870 Market Street, Suite 570, San Francisco, CA
94102, 415-392-6257.
New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy. “Terms and Definitions.”
[http://www.nyagra.org/policy/].
Priesing, Dana. “Transgenderism and Transition In The Workplace.” Human Rights
Campaign Worknet [http://www.hrc.org/issues/workplac/data.html].
de Raismes, Joseph N., Boulder City Attorney. Memorandum “Gender Variance Anti-
Discrimination Ordinance Considerations.” December 20, 1999. [http://www.ci.boul-
der.co.us/clerk/previous/list/000201/10.htm].
90 Equality
Transgender

Seattle Commission for Sexual Minorities. “Policy and Legislative Recommendations
Concerning Transgendered Citizens in Seattle.” May 1999 [http://www.ci.seattle.
wa.us/scsm/transgender.html].
van der Meide, Wayne. Legislating Equality: A Review of Laws Affecting Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered People in the United States, New York: Policy
Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, January 2000. [http://www.ngltf.
org/library/index.cfm].
Xavier, Jessica. “TS Feminism and TG Politicization.” [http://www.tgender.net/ita/].
Xavier, Jessica. “A Transgender Primer” and “Media Guide: Some Basic Guidelines
When Covering Transgendered Individuals in Stories.” Transgendered Nation and
Washington D.C. PFLAG [http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/tgprimer.htm].
Walworth, Janis. Transsexual Workers: An Employer's Guide. Los Angeles: Center for
Gender Sanity, 1998.
Walworth, Janis. Working with a Transsexual: A Guide for Coworkers. Los Angeles:
Center for Gender Sanity, 1998.
Witten, Tarynn M and Eyler, A. Evan. “Anti-transgender Violence: The ‘Invisible’
Human Rights Violation.” Peace Review: An International Quarterly (1999).
Whittle, Stephen. The Transgender Debate: The Crisis Surrounding Gender Identities.
Garnet Publishing Ltd, 2000.
RESOLUTIONS AND STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT
The American Public Health Association (APHA) passed a resolution in support of
transgendered and intersexed people at its 1999 national meeting the Governing
Council of Governing Council. The full text of the resolution 9933 can be found in
the March 2000 American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 90(3), pages 482-484 or at
http://www.apha.org/legislative/policy/99policy.pdf, pages 34-36.
The National Association of Social Workers passed a resolution on “Transgender and
Gender Identity Issues” at its annual meeting in 1999. This statement has been pub-
lished in the fifth edition of Social Work Speaks.
ORGANIZATIONS & MEDIA
This is a partial list of transgender and transgender-friendly advocacy organizations.
American Boyz is “a support and social group for people who were born female but
who feel that is not a complete or accurate assessment of who they are (FTMs) and our
significant others, friends, families and allies (SOFFAs).” Also organizer of the annual
True Spirit FTM conference 212A South Bridge Street, PMB 131, Elkton, MD, 21921.
(410) 392-3640. At http://www.amboyz.org/.
COLLEAGUES “is an umbrella organization of workplace GLBT groups, which puts
Resources 91

92 Equality
Transgender
on the Out 'n Equal conference each year,” the Out & Equal Leadership Summit. This
summit brings “together HR professionals, LGBT workplace leaders, network group
members and individuals to address the compelling workplace challenges and opportu-
nities facing people in the workplace today.” At http://www.outnequal.org/.
The Federation of Statewide Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organizations,
coordinated by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, “is an association of state
groups focused on legislative reform and grassroots organizing.” At
http://www.ngltf.org/statelocal/federation.cfm.
FTM International is “the largest, longest-running educational organization serving
FTM transgendered people and transsexual men.” Publishes a quarterly newsletter.
1360 Mission St., Ste. 200, San Francisco CA 94103. (415) 553-5987.
TSTGMen@aol.com. At http://www.ftm-intl.org
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) is a non-profit legal organization
that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people through education
and impact litigation in the New England area. 294 Washington Street, Suite 740,
Boston, MA 02108. Tel: 617-426-1350. Email: gladlaw@glad.org. At
http://www.glad.org.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) “is dedicated to pro-
moting and ensuring fair, accurate, and inclusive representation of individuals and
events in all media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on
gender identity and sexual orientation.” Email: glaad@glaad.org. Tel:
800.GAY.MEDIA. At http://www.glaad.org.
The Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) “strives to assure that
each member of every school community is valued and respected, regardless of sexual
orientation.” GLSEN National Office, 121 West 27th St., Ste. 804, New York, NY,
10001. Tel 212-727-0135. Fax 212-727-0254. E-mail: glsen@glsen.org. At
http://www.glsen.org.
Gender Education and Advocacy (GEA) is “a national organization focused on the
needs, issues, and concerns of gender variant people in human society,” advocating and
educating on behalf of “all human beings who suffer from gender-based oppression.”
GEA is working to provide an array of information services, educational materials,
advocacy training and technical assistance of the highest quality. The American
Educational Gender Information Service (AEGIS), a nonprofit clearinghouse for infor-
mation about transgender and transsexual issues that published the journal Chrysalis:
The Journal of Transgressive Gender Identities, and The Transgender Treatment
Bulletin, and various other materials, is now part of GEA. At http://www.gender.org.
GenderPAC is a national organization working on the federal level “to guarantee every
American's civil right to express their gender orientation free of stereotypes, discrimi-
nation and violence.” At http://www.gpac.org.
GenderTalk Radio “is the only worldwide weekly radio program that talks about trans-
genderism in the first person. Each week we present news, information, and exciting
new voices that challenge our traditional view of gender.” Hosted by Nancy Nangeroni.
More information about GenderTalk Radio can be found on the internet at
http://www.gendertalk.com/.

The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Inc. (HBIGDA)
“is a professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender
identity disorders. HBIGDA provides opportunities for scientific interchange among
professionals through its biennial conferences and publications. HBIGDA develops and
publishes Standards of Care for the treatment of gender identity disorders. These stan-
dards are internationally accepted guidelines, designed to promote the health and wel-
fare of persons with gender identity disorders. “ For further information, contact Bean
Robinson, PhD, Executive Director, 1300 South Second Street, Suite 180,
Minneapolis, MN 55454 USA. Tel: 612-625-1500. Fax: 612-626-8311. E-mail: hbig-
da@famprac.umn.edu. At http://www.hbigda.org/.
The International Conference On Transgender Law And Employment Policy
addresses legal aspects of gender identity, generally on the national level. P.O. Drawer
1010, Cooperstown, NY 13326. (607) 547-4118. At http://www.abmall.com/ictlep.
The International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) founded in 1987, is an
“advocate and educational organization for promoting the self-definition and free
expression of individual gender identity. IFGE is not a support group, it is an informa-
tion provider and clearinghouse for referrals about all things which are transgressive of
established social gender norms.” IFGE maintains a bookstore on the subject of trans-
genderism available and publishes Transgender Tapestry, “the leading magazine provid-
ing reasoned discussion of issues of gender expression and identity, including cross-
dressing, transsexualism, FTM and MTF issues spanning health, family, medical, legal,
workplace issues and more.” Email: info@ifge.org. Tel: (781) 899-2212. Fax: (781) 899-
5703. IFGE, P.O.Box 540229, Waltham, Ma 02454-0229. At http://www.ifge.org/.
The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is an education, advocacy, and peer
support organization which works to create a world free of shame, secrecy, and unwant-
ed surgery for intersex people (individuals born with anatomy or physiology which dif-
fers from cultural ideals of male and female). PO Box 3070, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-
3070, Fax (734) 994-7379. Email: info@isna.org. At http://www.isna.org.
It's Time, America! (ITA!) is a grassroots civil rights group seeking to secure and safe-
guard the rights of all transgendered persons. At http://www.tgender.net/ita. Links to all
the ITA state chapters and affiliates may be found on this site. See especially, It’s Time,
Illinois’ website at http://itstimeil.org/, and It’s Time, Massachusetts’ site at
http://www.tgender.net/itma/. Both have excellent advocacy resources.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) is a national non-profit legal orga-
nization that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people through
impact litigation and public policy advocacy. You may contact NCLR at 870 Market
Street, Suite 570, San Francisco, CA 94102; at http://www.nclrights.org. Phone: 415-
392-6257. E-mail: info@nclrights.org
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) is “the national progressive
organization working for the civil rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered peo-
ple. NGLTF's vision and commitment to social change is building a powerful political
movement in the fifty states and the District of Columbia.” 1700 Kalorama Road NW,
Washington, DC 20009-2624. (202) 332-6483. At http://www.ngltf.org.
The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) is a federal-level lobbying
organization, founded 1999, that focuses at present on the inclusion of transgendered
Resources 93

people in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. At http://www.ntac.org/.
The New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) “is a member-
ship organization that advocates at the state and local level for self-determination in
gender expression and identity” in New York State. P.O. Box 524, Ithaca, NY 14851-
0524. Email: nyagra@nyagra.org. At http://www.nyagra.org.
Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) is “a national non-profit organi-
zation with a membership of over 77,000 households and more than 425 affili-
atesworldwide. PFLAG promotes the health and well-being of gay, lesbian, bisexual
andtransgendered persons, their families and friends through: support, to cope with an
adverse society; education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and advocacy, to end
discrimination and to secure equal civil rights.” 1726 M Street, NW, Suite 400,
Washington, DC 20036. (202) 467-8180. At http://www.pflag.org.
Press for Change (PFC) “is a political, lobbying and educational [group] which cam-
paigns to achieve equal civil rights and liberties for all transgendered people in the
United Kingdom, through legislation and social change.” PFC’s website, at
http://www.pfc.org.uk/, has very comprehensive resources and is a model of advocacy.
The Renaissance Transgender Association, Inc provides “comprehensive education
and caring support to transgendered individuals and those close to them. This is accom-
plished through offering a variety of carefully selected programs and resources focused
on the factors affecting their lives. “ This organization “publishes a monthly magazine,
Transgender Community News, that provides an open forum for discussion of gender-
related social, political and legal issues, as well as basic information about events with-
in the transgender community.” At http://www.ren.org/.
The Survivor Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the needs of
trans and intersex survivors of sexual assault, rape, or domestic violence through caring
action, education, and expanding access both to resources for those in need and to
opportunities for action. At http://www.survivorproject.org/.
Transexual Menace International is “a growing group of transgendered (and non-
transgendered) people who see problems and want to find solutions.” At
http://www.helenavelena.com/tsmenace/index.htm.
Transgender Aging Network is a resource network and written materials about trans
elders, including papers relating to abuse. 49 Canterbury Circle, Vallejo, CA 94591.
Email: LoreeCD@aol.com.
94 Equality
Transgender

95
Contributors
Thanks to our current Policy Institute Funders:
Ford Foundation
Gameworks
David Geffen Foundation
The Gilmour Fund
Joyce Mertz Gilmore Foundation
Gill Foundation
Brook Glaefke
Polly Howells
Billie Jean King Foundation
Lesbian Equity Foundation of Silicon Valley
Albert A. List Foundation
Amy Mandel & Katina Rodis
The Mandel Family Foundation
Stanley Newman
The NewPol Foundation
New York Community Trust
Acknowledgements
This publication would not have been possible without the contributions of many people: the
trans activists and allies whose efforts animate the entire paper, the reviewers and editors who
so kindly lent their time and advice, and the staff at the National Center for Lesbian Rights
and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force who supported this project. The authors
especially want to thank:
Penni Ashe, Monica Barrett, Brett Beemyn, Spencer Bergstedt, Marsha Botzer, Lori
Buckwalter, Sean Cahill, Donna Cartwright, Cheryl Chase, F.M. Chester, Dan Farrell,
Phyllis Frye, Robin Gilbrecht, Alexander Goodrum, Imani Henry, Mary Ann Horton,
Open Society Institute
Skip Paul
James Pepper
Tina Podlodowski
Nancy Polikoff
Steve Rabin
Paul Rapoport Foundation
Anita May Rosenstein
Allen Schuh
Ronald Schwartz
Jeffrey Z. Slavin
Small Change Foundation
Jeff Soref
Paula Sparti
Ric Weiland
Kevin Wendle
Richard Winger

Kim Coco Iwamoto, Kate Kendall, Susan Kimberly, Christa Kriesel, Kerry Lobel,
Jennifer Levi, Gordene MacKenzie, Deirdre McCloskey, Barbara Metzger, Michael
Mills, Nancy Nangeroni, Pauline Park, Joann Prinzivalli, Dana Priesing, Jason Riggs,
Liz Seaton, Heather Shank, Courtney Sharp, Diana Slyter, Sen. Allan Spear, Miranda
Stevens-Miller, Bob Summersgill, Urvashi Vaid, Wayne van der Meide, Hector Vargas,
Riki Wilchins, Dawn Wilson, Kathy Wilson, Tarynn Witten, Billijo Wolf, Jessica
Xavier.
Written by:
Paisley Currah, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the political science department at
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. Email:
pcurrah@brooklyn.cuny.edu.
Jamison Green, MFA is the past president of FTM International and an author, pub-
lic speaker and advocate for transgender civil rights. Email: jamisong@aol.com.
Shannon Minter, Esq. is the senior staff attorney at the National Center for Lesbian
Rights. Email: minter@nclrights.org.
Edited by:
Sean Cahill, Ph.D.
Donna Cartwright
Steven Cordova
Urvashi Vaid
Designed by:
Samuel Buggeln
Jamison Green, “Introduction to Transgender Issues,” © 2000 by Jamison Green, National Center for
Lesbian Rights, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute.
Paisley Currah and Shannon Minter, “Winning Civil Rights for Transgendered People,” © 2000 by
Paisley Currah, Shannon Minter, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the National Gay and Lesbian
Task Force Policy Institute.
This report may not be reproduced in any format without written permission from the National Center
for Lesbian Rights or the NGLTF Policy Institute.
96 Equality
Transgender

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This manual, written by Policy
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Calculated Compassion
HOW THE EX-GAY MOVEMENT SERVES THE RIGHT’S ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY
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Capital Gains and Losses 1999
A STATE BY STATE REVIEW OF GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, AND HIV/AIDS-RELATED LEGISLATION
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