Near the start of his first term, President Obama named Amanda Simpson, a transgender woman, a Special Assistant to the Army Acquisition Executive, U.S. Dept. of Defense. She thus became the first transgender woman ever appointed to serve at the leisure of the POTUS and thus the highest profile TG person in the land. However, TG issues are only just beginning to reach the national consciousness, thanks to other high-profile transgender people. Celebrities such as Chas Bono and Lana Wachowski and TV characters such as Unique on "Glee" make it more and more difficult to pretend that we don't exist, or that we cannot be sympathetic people. Still, the vast majority of Americans do not "get it" when it comes to TG people: they think that there is something "wrong" with us, that we are a "crime against nature," that we are "freaks" or "perverts," or that we are simply going against the will of God. Several days before the 2012 election, Vice President Joe Biden called transgender rights "the civil rights issue of our time." It is every bit of that, and it is time for President Obama to publicly engage in the battle.
In the aftermath of the inauguration, an 11-year-old TG girl named Sadie called Mr. Obama out for his omission in an essay that has gone viral. Given his nature, I am sure that he will respond to her with warm reassurances. But it will take more than reassurances from the Oval Office or an invitation for an 11-year-old girl to visit the White House to make a difference in this fight. The President needs to recognize that there is a huge problem that he needs to address with serious action. While 29 states have laws protecting gays, lesbians and transgender people from discrimination, the other 21 do not. It is time for a full-blown push from the White House to pass a trans-inclusive ENDA once and for all. It's the only way that the entire GLBT community can be protected from discrimination.
Of course, official discrimination is only one part of this battle. I am quite aware of that. When I transitioned in 1998, at the age of forty, I became the first public school teacher in America to transition on the job. I was a curiosity, a news story, a source of amusement for the radio talk shows here in Chicago. Jerry Springer and the other TV shows wanted me to come on, but I refused. I even refused Oprah, as I refused the Chicago Tribune's request to do a several page photo spread interview with me in its Sunday magazine (an interview it did a few years later with University of Illinois economics professor Deirdre McCloskey when she transitioned). My reason for refusing all of this was very simple: I had three young children, and I was terrified of reprisals affecting them. No one had any current photos of me; no one knew what I looked like. If I allowed myself to be filmed or photographed, not only could my own safety be compromised, but my children's could as well. It was the nature of the beast. I knew too many TG women who had been attacked, too many who had been beaten or raped. The horrifying possibility hung over all of my decisions. It led me also to hide who I was. Of course those at school knew, and although I was mostly accepted I faced open ridicule by some students and even a few teachers until the initial period died down. But elsewhere, I simply denied my past; fortunately I looked good enough that this was a possibility. Still, a few years later, on a vacation in Europe, the fear of being discovered to be transgender by a man I was with led me into a situation in which I ended up sexually compromised, frightened, and degraded.
The fear of being hurt by others, emotionally or physically, is very real for TG people today. The fear of losing or not being able to find jobs is greater than for the population as a whole. Yet today more and more people are coming out as TG. That should tell people something: this is not a joke, not a phase, not a trend, not a copycat thing. This is something that we *are*. Most of us have known this from the earliest days of our lives. When Sadie writes to the President at age 11, some people may wonder how anyone could allow a child with a penis to "act like a girl." The answer is simple: Sadie is a girl. This is not about anatomy; it's about identity. When you awaken in the morning, you don't need to check a mirror to know which gender you are. Sadie doesn't either; neither did I. No matter what the evidence was that we might have found there, we've known from the start what we are. And it would be a crime against nature to force a child to suffer the emotional pain of living a gender role that is not her own when something can so easily be done about it.
ENDA would be a start, an essential start, and President Obama must see to it that the bill becomes one of his highest priorities. But if transgender rights are really the "civil rights issue of our time," it will take a lot more to stop the discrimination, the merciless taunting, the beatings, the threats, and the murders that are sadly so much a part of TG life in America today. It will take a leader who is willing to help to educate the masses. Sadie and I--and a whole lot of other transgender people in America--are hoping that Barack Obama is that leader.
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