Arkansas University Opens Gender-Specific Bathrooms To Trans Students |
The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith recently told student Jennifer Braly that she was prohibited from giving lectures about being transgender to classes on campus, despite the fact that faculty were eager to feature her presentations. Braly suspected it was because she had sued the school for other forms of discrimination she faced. This week, the university reversed its policy restricting Braly to gender-neutral bathrooms after the Department of Justice sent a letter on her behalf. Trans students will now be able to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender with which they identify. Braly’s complaints about housing and other discrimination remain unaddressed.
(Note: The original sources for this story, Fox News and Campus Reform, inappropriately and disrespectfully refer to Braly as “anatomically male,” using male pronouns — or no pronouns at all, in the case of Fox News — to reject the authenticity of her identity. Inside Higher Ed has published a story that better articulates her background and experiences.)
NEWS FLASH
Nepal Invites LGBTI Community To Identify As ‘Others’ |
In Nepal, individuals who do not conform to gender norms because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or intersex identity have often faced harassment and discrimination because they would constantly be challenged as to whether they are men or women. The nation’s Home Ministry announced yesterday that it will now offer citizenship under the gender category of “others” to accommodate members of the LGBTI community. By opting into this “third gender” designation, individuals will no longer have to fear unfair treatment because their appearance does not match their identification.
Jenna Talackova made a little bit of history this weekend. After successfully challenging the Miss Universe Canada pageant to welcome transgender contestants such as herself, she placed in the top 12 finalists and tied for Miss Congeniality. Some were concerned her story was stealing the spotlight, but the controversy also brought more attention to the pageant in general. Talackova was unfazed by the loss, telling CNN she was unconcerned about whether or not her gender identity affected the judges’ decision:
TALACKOVA: Who’s to say? I think I worked very hard. All of us ladies worked so hard and we gave it our best shot. The judges see something in those top five, and that’s fine. I wouldn’t have changed anything. [...] I’m a little tired, but I’m not down. For a couple of seconds, I was a little bummed out, but after, like, a couple of minutes I was just extremely happy. I was so proud of myself. I made sure I did my best performance.
If the photos of her competition are any indication, she truly shined, proving there was never a good reason to keep her out of the pageant to begin with:
After many years of deliberation, the Department of Justice has finally released final guidelines for implementing the Prison Rape Elimination Act. According to the White House’s executive summary, the new rules include important specific protections for those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming:
The standards account in various ways for the particular vulnerabilities of inmates who are LGBTI or whose appearance or manner does not conform to traditional gender expectations. The standards require training in effective and professional communication with LGBTI and gender nonconforming inmates and require the screening process to consider whether the inmate is, or is perceived to be, LGBTI or gender nonconforming. The standards also require that post-incident reviews consider whether the incident was motivated by LGBTI identification, status, or perceived status.
This is a huge win for the health and safety of LGBT people, particularly people who are trans or gender non-conforming. In many prisons, standard practice has been to simply organize inmates by their anatomy, which often put trans inmates in very unsafe situations — in particular: trans women placed in men’s prisons. Trans women are thirteen times more likely than others to be sexually assaulted while incarcerated. In addition, those unsafe situations were often rectified by placing the inmate in isolated lock-up, also an unfair circumstance targeting their identity. Under the new rules, individuals will have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to provide the safest placements, and they’ll also have to be offered accommodations like separate showers for situations when they might be most vulnerable to assault.
It’s important to also note that the effect of these guidelines is to require training about working with LGBT people for all employees in the corrections system, from federal prisons to halfway houses to police lock-up. There will be mandatory audits and reporting to ensure the guidelines are being followed, with the potential for federal funding cuts if they are violated.
Unfortunately, the guidelines will not currently extend to other agencies, like the Department of Homeland Security, so immigration detention facilities will not immediately be covered. Those agencies will have 120 days to work with the Attorney General to propose their own rules. While there is little reason for them not to include the same protections, there is nothing that guarantees or requires that they do.
Transgender Youth Face Unique Risk For Eating Disorders |
A new study at Washington State University examined the body satisfaction of transgender youth and young adults and found that 17 percent of participants reported having experienced an eating disorder. As research Cindy Ola explains, “Transgender individuals may attempt to make clear their internal and external self by forming an identity that matches their gender identity. Therefore, these individuals find themselves dealing with body dissatisfaction, experience negative relationships with their reflection in the mirror, and may alter their appearance in numerous ways to achieve a suitable gender identity.” Forty of the 65 respondents expressed dissatisfaction with their bodies, and 21 of them attributed that feeling to gender-related issues. Those who felt better about their bodies credited hormone therapy and sexual reassignment surgery to their improved self-image and well-being.
NEWS FLASH
University Of Arkansas At Fort Smith Bans Trans Student From Giving Class Lectures |
Jennifer Braly, 36, is regularly invited to classes at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith to discuss gender identity issues. A psychology student herself, Braly identifies as trans and delivers meticulously researched presentations informed by her own personal experiences. But toward the end of the semester, administrators inexplicably banned Braly from speaking in front of classes, canceling her class lectures without even consulting the faculty who had invited her to speak. It seems that one offensively anti-trans student — who had interrupted Braly with slurs and jeers — had complained about the lectures, but the administration might also be retaliating because Braly sued earlier this year regarding the lack of trans protections at the university. For example, until last Monday, she was only permitted to use the few gender-neutral restrooms, not women’s rooms in accordance with her gender. As it stands, Braly’s understanding is that she can no longer present in UAFS classrooms.
With all the talk over Mitt Romney’s bullying of a presumed gay classmate, some have questioned whether it’s fair to judge someone on their actions in high school. But everyone agrees that anything from a recent political career is fair game.
So it’s telling that one doesn’t have to reach that far back to find other incidents of LGBT bullying from Romney’s close staff. Romney campaign senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom (of Etch-a-Sketch fame) outed a transgender woman in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, effectively ending her political career, when he was a reporter for the Boston Herald.
America Blog reminds us of the incident, relayed in a GQ profile, which tells of Fernhstrom’s apparent “glee” when he found the representative’s birth certificate:
Fehrnstrom saved his cheap shots for smaller-time Massachusetts pols. When a political activist and gadfly named Althea Garrison was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, the fact that she was transgender was an open secret in Boston political circles. But Fehrnstrom was the first one to put that information into print—”I can remember his glee when he found the birth certificate,” says former Herald reporter Robert Connolly—thus bringing a swift end to Garrison’s future on Beacon Hill.
Romney himself also abolished a commission working against LGBT bullying in Massachusetts as governor.
Argentina Passes Sweeping Gender Identity Protections |
A new law in Argentina will make life much easier for people who are transgender. Under new gender rights legislation approved yesterday, people who are trans will be guaranteed access to hormone therapy, sexual reassignment surgery, and any other related treatment without being charged extra under their public or private health care plans. In addition, they will not have to seek a judge’s approval to legally change their gender documentation. These sweeping protections won’t necessarily end discrimination against the trans community, but will certainly help alleviate the consequences they face when they can’t access the care necessary to authentically realize their identities.
In college, a good friend introduced me to Against Me! through their very funny song “Baby, I’m an Anarchist“—he meant it as a poke in the ribs about my liberal, rather unradical politics, but I mostly took it as an introduction to a great new band. So I read with interest the news in Rolling Stone that Against Me! singer Tom Gabel is going to begin the process of transitioning from male to female, and will take the name Laura Jane Grace.
It doesn’t feel quite right for me to say I’m excited about this—Grace’s life is her own, and I don’t want to reduce it to an instrument by which the rock and punk communities can prove themselves enlightened or regressive. But I am glad to see someone whose music has been important to me move closer to her share of happiness. I hope this announcement both is greeted with support and starts new conversations about gender and rock. And I am unambiguously excited by the prospect that Grace’s announcement could bring Against Me!’s music to new fans who might not have seen a home for themselves in punk before.
What initially drew me to Against Me! was the way the band explored both the identities we chose, and the ones we feel are imposed upon us, and not in a cookie-cutter “I hate my Mom and Dad” way. “Baby I’m an Anarchist” was one of the first love songs I heard about why a couple shouldn’t be together, that argued that political differences were enough to convince the main character “No, I won’t take your hand / And marry the State.” That was an exciting proposition, even if, like my friend Spencer Ackerman, I was more sympathetic to the put-upon liberal than the singer. In “I Was a Teenage Anarchist,” Grace looked wryly back to a time when “I had the style, I had the ambition. / I read all the authors, I knew the right slogans. / There was no war but the class war. / I was ready to set the world on fire.” And “Walking Is Still Honest” is one of the clearest explanations I know of what it’s like to feel radically out of place, with its chorus that begs “Can anybody tell me why God won’t speak to me? / Why Jesus never called on me to part the fucking seas? / Why death is easier than living / You can be almost anything / When you’re on your fucking knees.”
If these songs were more general, others took on gender identity in more pointed ways. As others have pointed out, Grace’s announcement might not be a surprise to close listeners to Against Me!’s lyrics. In the 2007 track “The Ocean,” Grace sang “If I could have chosen, I would have been born a woman / My mother once told me she would have named me Laura / I would grow up to be strong and beautiful like her,” but that’s hardly the only Against Me! song to allude to gender identity and the desire for transformation. In 2009′s “White Crosses,” the song’s protagonist is “Eye-balled with suspicion by a pencil skirt in high heels, you realize that you’re talking to yourself.” “Spanish Moss,” released the same year, promised “You can always change who you are. / You just need to find some place to get away. / You can forget your name. / And there’s no need to apologize. / I caught a glimpse of this life, it could be such a very good life.” I hope Grace finds that the real thing is as good as the glimpse of it:
And maybe Rolling Stone’s handling of the story, which so far seems relatively sensitive in its positive portrayal of Laura Jane Grace and uses the appropriate pronouns to refer to her, is proof that the rock community’s made progress. In 2006, when Rolling Stone published a long look at Lana Wachowski’s decision to identify as female, the magazine portrayed her grappling with her gender identity less as a sensitive process to be treated with respect than as an extension of a sexual relationship between Lana and a dominatrix. Because the Wachowkis don’t speak to the press, Rolling Stone didn’t have the same access to Lana Wachowski as they appear to have had to Grace. But the story was still rooted in basic misunderstanding, obsessively and misguidedly focused on what gossip columnist Liz Smith put it in her discussion of the piece, “the world of transgender sex and kink to the max.” It’s nice to know that Rolling Stone’s become, in the intervening years, a place where Laura Jane Grace would feel comfortable coming out. Hopefully the rock and punk worlds follow suit.
General Electric is one of the top government contractors that does not currently offer gender identity protections.
While President Obama has decided to not issue an LGBT nondiscrimination executive order for federal contractors at this time, legal scholars agree that a recent EEOC ruling will have a significant impact on existing nondiscrimination rules and regulations for federal contractors.
Last week, the EEOC issued a watershed ruling giving transgender individuals sorely needed federal protections against workplace discrimination. According to the ruling, employers who discriminate against employees or job applicants on the basis of gender identity can now be found in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—specifically its prohibition of sex discrimination in employment.
A report released today by the Williams Institute – a public policy think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles – demonstrates that this ruling has significant implications for federal contractors. Executive Order 11246 (EO 11246) already prohibits government contractors from prohibiting on the basis of sex (in addition to race, color, religion, and national origin). According to Williams, the Department of Labor’s Office of Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), which monitors contractor compliance with EO 11246, will similarly prohibit discrimination against transgender employees working for federal contractors following the EEOC’s decision:
It is the OFCCP’s policy and practice to interpret EO 11246’s non-discrimination requirements to be the same as Title VII’s requirements. This policy and practice indicates that the OFCCP will likely treat complaints of gender identity discrimination filed under EO 11246 as actionable complaints of sex discrimination, consistent with the EEOC’s recent Title VII decision.
Williams’ report goes on to say that going forward OFCCP will need to address how it will implement EEOC’s ruling in its forthcoming rulemaking as it pertains to sex discrimination. Doing so will significantly help combat discrimination against transgender workers, who continue to face astonishingly high rates of discrimination on the job.
Jenna Talackova made a little bit of history this weekend. After successfully challenging the Miss Universe Canada pageant to welcome transgender contestants such as herself, she placed in the top 12 finalists and tied for Miss Congeniality. Some were concerned her story was stealing the spotlight, but the controversy also brought more attention to the pageant in general. Talackova was unfazed by the loss, telling CNN she was unconcerned about whether or not her gender identity affected the judges’ decision:
After many years of deliberation, the Department of Justice has finally 
With all the talk over Mitt Romney’s 
In college, a good friend introduced me to Against Me! through their very funny song “
