I received a letter from a friend in New York City at the beginning of May: "Today the New York City Council held hearings on the transgender civil-rights bill. We made a real community-wide maximum effort, and turned out about 200-300 people for the press conference and the hearings."
I thought that she must have made a mistake. Misplaced a decimal point or something. We've been hard pressed in Chicago to turn out 20-30 activists for transgender rights, let alone hundreds. She went on to state that the crowd was 80-90% transgender. Again another surprise because most of the time when we rally for transgender rights here in Chicago, typically the majority of folks are not from the transgender community. But we always get great support from the broader LGBT community!
The account of the hearing and rally was confirmed by the story in the New York Blade: "At the General Welfare Committee hearing, which lasted for more than four hours and drew an audience of more than 200, many transgendered people testified they have encountered discrimination just going about their daily lives, be it on the job, trying to secure an apartment, or having their reports of harassment taken seriously by law enforcement."
Another friend from New York wrote about the four hours of testimony before the Council committee: "Yesterday I was privileged to see democracy functioning at its best ... . The coalition of people speaking, which ranged from executives to homeless women and youth, professionals to prostitutes, was extraordinary, the testimonies moving and for the most part, appropriate and to-the-point. The hearts and minds of council members were changed: they said so."
There were a hundred transgendered people who testified at the hearing about gender discrimination, and hundreds more submitted written statements.
Sylvia Rivera testified at the hearing. Maybe you don't know the name, but you should. Sylvia was one of the transgender activists who took part in the Stonewall Rebellion, and thus played a pivotal role in the entire gay-rights movement. "For 30 years we've ridden in the back of the bus," she said. Sylvia went on to explain that transgender people were originally included in the New York City human-rights bill shortly after Stonewall, but were cut out at the last minute for political expediency.
Cutting out the trannies for expediency is a recurring theme in our community. Heck, it happened just recently in Maryland. The Maryland bill was originally planned to include both sexual orientation and gender identity. All the celebration that has been going on in Maryland, and all the praise that was heaped on the Maryland gay-rights organization, is just another slap in the face because we know the real reason why gender identity was not included in that bill ... political expediency.
So where are all the transgender activists in Chicago? When it is our turn to testify before City Council or before a committee assigned to our bill, where will the activists come from? When our fate is in the hands of a few wise and powerful Alders, where will we find the hundreds to stand up and testify that their rights have been violated?
We know that you're out there. But how can we assemble the hundreds of trans youth that have been kicked out of their homes by parents who suddenly find they can't love them because their gender isn't what they expected it to be? How can we mobilize the hundreds of cross-dressers and transsexuals who live in fear every day of being outed and then fired from their jobs? How can we empower the hundreds who have been fired for their gender expression, refused medical care, or denied housing?
We've documented about a hundred cases of discrimination by now, but it's not enough. We need you to tell your stories. We need you to tell your alderperson. We need you to get mad enough so that you are willing to say, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more."
Sylvia Rivera waited for three decades after Stonewall to have the opportunity to once again stand up for her rights. Don't you wait three decades to stand up for yours.
Here's what you can do:
1. Write or call your alderperson. Tell him or her that you want the Chicago Human Rights Ordinance to be amended to include a broader definition of gender.
2. Thoroughly document any discrimination that you personally have experienced because of your gender identity or expression.
3. Give some serious thought to standing up for your rights, and whether you would be willing to testify or submit written statements to City Council.
4. Contact me at my e-mail address below and I will make sure that your story gets documented, and that your testimony gets heard.
I know that there are just as many transgender activists in Chicago as there are in New York City. We just need to know where you are. When our time comes to fight City Hall, and it is coming very soon, we can't go around scratching our heads asking, "Where are all the transgender activists?"
MirandaSt1@aol.com