Statement Regarding Proposed Guidance on Title IX protections for Trans people

Statement Regarding Proposed Guidance on Title IX protections for Trans people

We at the Trans 100 have a stringent policy regarding political commentary and commentary which does not uplift or affirm Trans people.

We are, however, moved to make a statement condemning, strongly, stridently, and ferociously, the proposed guidance from the current Administration regarding the status of Title IX guidance relating to transgender students in US schools.

This change in policy, while it does not change the legal landscape itself nor strip rights from Trans people, places Transgender and gender non-conforming children at risk of harm, at risk of poor health, at risk of decreased well being, and sends a strong message that they are neither welcome at nor in public life and public spaces.

This is in direct opposition to the mission, goals, and ideals of The Trans 100, and we do not condone, support, nor forgive this vile action on the part of the current Administration, perceiving it as a direct attack by the United States on the lives, livelihoods, and living of Trans people in the US and abroad, veteran and civilian alike.

We encourage the participation, involvement, and effort to be elected by any and all Trans people in the United States and abroad, with the goal of improving the well being, health, and education of all American children, not just a few who meet the particular and arbitrary standards of those in power.

In Solidarity,

A. E. D’orsay
Executive Director, The Trans 100


The 2017 Trans 100 Event: March 31st, 2017 Little Rock, AR

The Trans 100 is proud to announce The 2017 Trans 100 Event will be held in Little Rock, AR, at the Triniti Nightclub from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm CST on March 31st, 2017 (The International Trans Day of Visibility), and will be live streamed on The Trans 100 Facebook Page.

Tickets are available here: https://trans100.typeform.com/to/E2HkI4

Although we are asking for 20 bucks, no one will be turned away except for reasons of space available.

Triniti Nightclub is located at 1021 Jessie Rd, Little Rock, Arkansas 72202

 


Monika MHz’s Keynote Essay: Forging the Future

When we were putting together the inaugural Trans 100 publication, we wanted a keynote essay, one that would set the tone for the entire effort. For me, there was one clear choice, a woman whose voice I trust wholly and deeply, not because she says what I want or expect to hear, but because she always both meets me where I’m at and then takes me further. She surprises me by laying bare both my own assumptions and a capacity for love, forgiveness, and hope that I didn’t realize was there.

The essay is below, and the video above is a talk based on a modified version of it.

Jen Richards

 

Forging the Future by Monika MHz

 

15 years ago being trans in America felt so different to me. While I can hardly fathom that its been that long, it has still been a relatively short time in the context of social justice and civil rights. It’s not at the threats to our economic, social, and living freedom are absent or mitigated now — especially against trans women of color or with disabilities. No, those experiences are lived daily. It’s not that historical oppression and marginalization is a thing of the past, or that police brutality, rape, gendered violence, and hate crimes are gone — even from my own life. Those experiences are the reason why men and women just like myself have begun inviting the world into our lives and hoping to create change in our lives and in the most marginalized lives among us.

What is different, in 2013, is that we are on the precipice of great changes in our movement, great changes that finally are beginning to uplift our voices more than ever before. This change that we’ve seen in the last three years is no accident, this change is created by each and every one of us who have found the bravery to call out and be counted as part of the trans caucus. To call out and say, “yes I am trans” has begun as a rallying cry and has made it harder and harder to ignore us categorically as a class.

But with these moments comes a choice, because our voice is being heard not just as a squeak in the dark, but as a whisper. And that whisper — justifiably so — is angry over years, decades, and centuries of marginalization through institutional, economic, and social means. We’re unhappy about having our voices, our faces, our bodies, our movement, our votes, and our truth co-opted, colonized, and bargained with for the sake of incremental “justice.” And we are tired of decades of lip service, for the sake of political self-aggrandizement.

We’re tired of the past, and it can be so so easy for us to drown in our own oppression, and marginalization. It can be so easy to ache in pain over our present. And it can be so hard to ask for a future.

I ask that we make the hard choice in this moment. I ask that we never forget the past — because in the past we find the context for which our present is and upon which our future will be built. The past, where trans women of color like Silvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson fought tooth and nail for gay and trans rights and liberation screaming “Gay Power” from the rooftops. I ask that we work in the present — because now is the time and there are lives to be saved today. The present, where a woman like CeCe McDonald is incarcerated for defending her life against a white supremacist and anti-trans hate crime. The present where countless men and women fight for their lives literally and metaphorically, even here on our American streets. But I also ask that we live and dream for the future.

I live for a future where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is over, and not one where 28% of American trans women are positive (higher than any other population). I live for a future where rape is a horror of the past, and not one where 60% (3 in 5) trans women are victims in their lifetimes#. I live for a future where every single “LGBT” advocacy organization has a trans woman of color in a leadership position, not one where there are zero. I live for a future in which economic, medical, institutional, prison and social justice are a birthright and not just a dream of a future.

We can do better. And I choose to hope for that better future. I choose to work and live for that better future.

I live for a future where we use our fantastic might, spirit, and love of life to create our own change. I live for a future where we don’t suffocate in our own oppression and we rise up above the clouds to claim a spot along with all our brothers and sisters in the land of freedom and plenty. The future is positive, affirmative, and love. And only we can do this ourselves. We cannot wait for the rest of society to hand us the key to our social justice. We must forge the key ourselves with love — forged in our states, and cities, neighborhoods, and homes. We must advocate for ourselves affirmatively — not through making a negative case against those who do it incorrectly — and bring about our positive vision for a nation with liberty and justice for all.

It is in that spirit that I firmly support the efforts of our local trans resource and advocacy organizations organizations all across the country. Because it is in our neighborhoods, it is in our cities, and in our states that we give our community the tools to advocate for our own rights. It is in that spirit I support efforts like these, like the trans 100, that seek to uplift the voices and actions of those who center this at their great works.

Because the most radical thing we can do as a community is to forge the future, together.


Janet Mock’s Keynote Address at the Trans 100 Launch Event

For more from Janet Mock, please visit JanetMock.com.

Nominate a trans person for the 2014 Trans 100 (U.S.) here.

Recorded at Mayne Stage, Chicago, on March 31st, 2013, with the support of Chicago House, GLAAD, Mayne Stage, Orbitz, Progress Printing, Dr Graphx, and individual donors.


In the New York Times

Trans 100 Honoree Laverne Cox recently penned an Op-ed as part of a series on Trans Rights in the New York TImes Opinion Pages.

She mentions the Trans 100 as a group of people that should be seen for their excellence in working towards the improvement in the lives of Trans people.

She notes:

There are some prominent trans voices speaking to the issues that affect us, and they inspire me to do the work of making the world more just for trans people. Jen Richards and Toni D’orsay, founders of The Trans 100, to name some of those trans folks more of us should know.

The Trans 100 is proud of the work of such amazing and incredible people as those in the Trans 100.  You can learn more about them by checking out their entries in the PDF: The Trans100.

Ms. Cox’s pos topens with a clarion call of great import:

At the heart of the fight for trans justice is a level of stigma so intense and pervasive that trans folks are often told we don’t exist – that we’re really just the gender we were assigned at birth. We’re told that if we embrace our authentic selves, we should risk violence and the loss of our jobs, housing, health care and dignity. Trans identity is so stigmatized that even the people we love and date – at least those who are cisgender, meaning they identify as the sex they were assigned at birth – often don’t want to have anything to do with us in public. Trans identity is so stigmatized that many of our gay, lesbian and bisexual brothers and sisters want nothing to do with us either. This stigma is so intense that many trans people don’t want to claim a trans identity publicly. It is a state of emergency for trans and gender-nonconforming people in this country, but the emergency remains almost invisible since the trans population is relatively small and our identities are constantly disavowed, our voices silenced.

We at the Trans 100 agree fully.

Her fellow Trans 100 honoree is also a part of the Op-Ed team: Dr. Susan Stryker, an associate professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Arizona and the director of its Institute for LGBT Studies, is co-editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, forthcoming from Duke University Press in spring 2014.

Her Op-Ed is here.

She notes:

All along, however, many non-trans gays and lesbians considered transgender issues to be more marginal, more deviant, less respectable and less important. Some find us threatening to their own sense of self, express open hostility, and disparage us as weird, sick or misguided. The “T.” has thus had a fraught relationship with “L.G.B.,” never more so than in 2007, when a gay congressman, Barney Frank, stripped protections for transgender people from the proposed federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act. That was a divisive, short-sighted move that put Frank on the wrong side of history. After that slap, I and many others concentrated primarily on trans-specific issues, while welcoming any and all allies.

The trans movement has taken huge strides since then by putting its own particular concerns in the foreground. For example: influencing the removal of “gender identity disorder” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association; overturning laws that require sterilization as the price of government recognition of gender change; and securing passage of protective legislation, like Argentina’s recent law establishing gender self-determination without requiring medical intervention.

Nominations are open for 2014’s Trans 100. You can nominate Trans people for Excellence here, on the Nominations page.