Divorcing equality

Let's say a newspaper writes a beat up story about a flat advert about a household asking for heterosexual people not to apply.  The article subtly ridicules all the ways the flatmates self-described themselves through the liberal use of quote marks:

It was for a four-bedroom house in the suburb of Newtown, which the existing flatmates described as a "queer, transgender, vegetarian household".
They described themselves as two "feminist/politically switched on adults"......

The Human Rights Commission gets the chance to respond.  It's not unreasonable to expect they might raise the persistent discrimination sexuality and gender diverse people experience in housing.  Like the facts around how vulnerable our young people are, when families reject our sexual or gender identity, and we have to find housing before we're actually ready to be independent.  Or the complete lack of safety for anyone who isn't a cis man in our homeless shelters - we have too few options for homeless women, queer or not, and no options for people who don't fit gender norms/are non-binary. 

Or what happens to us when we rock up to apply for a flat, and the person renting it realises we are not straight, or we are trans, and suddenly the room or house isn't available anymore.  Add being Maori or from any visible ethnic minority to that and you've got an even smaller pool to choose from.

Or what about when we find a flat, and it's ok, they even know we're queer - but then we get a similar gender lover, and suddenly people don't actually talk to us properly anymore? 

These are all overtish - rarely will we be told any of this is about being queer or trans or brown - but we know.  There's also all the covert stuff when you live with homophobic, biphobic or transphobic people.  The inability to have ordinary conversations about your experiences, because those people don't want to hear or don't understand or when you try talking, they are glazed over, bored, because it's not their experience and they don't really care.  The failure to acknowledge significant pain points, like the way your family treat you at Christmas or the hoops you have to jump through to get the hormones or medication you need to be recognised as who you are.

See, I EXPECT our Human Rights Commission to have heard those stories, because they monitor discrimination in this country.  They held a Transgender Inquiry in 2008 which said about housing:

"The Inquiry heard that finding a home was not always easy for trans people.  Those who transitioned as young adults were usually dependent on shared rental accomodation, particularly in flatting situations.  Social marginalisation and negative attitudes towards transpeople affects access to shared accomodation.  A trans woman told of being offered a room in a flat but was later turned away when the other tenants realised she was trans.  One trans man described the stress of boarding in a large house where flatmates continually harassed him by referring to him as "she"."

But instead the Human Rights Commission gave a weak waffling response about how we didn't want to live in a country with prejudice, whether that was saying "No straight people" or "No gay people".

The fact the HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION doesn't understand structural discrimination is terrifying.  Because guess what - straight people can live everywhere else in the whole world almost - the fact that a couple of queer trans peeps in the lovely suburb of Newtown want to feel safe at home doesn't restrict straight people's housing options.

It kind of gets worse, with once again, our more mainstream Rainbow community organisations not knowing how to deal with talking about marginalisation, safety and discrimination.  There is no story here apart from the fact that queer and trans people must have the right, in an incredibly discriminatory housing context in Aotearoa New Zealand, to develop homes which feel safe for us.  And the Human Rights Commission and every single Rainbow organisation commenting on this should be saying that.

Because home is where we go to recover from the world.  It's where we most need to feel safe, to feel seen, to know how we are is just fine.  It's where, if we're talking psychologically, we need to be able to sleep without fear and rest from how we are treated on the streets, at work, in study, whenever we try to access anything we need.  All of those experiences can be more difficult for trans and queer people.

Marriage equality has dulled our senses, drugged our supposed protections, shifted the focus from most queer and trans people's experiences - particularly those of us who are poor, not white, disabled and/or less able or have less desire to fit in.  Expect no less than rage from those of us who never wanted to get married in the first place - it's time for the Rainbow community to divorce this unhealthy relationship with "equality" and start dating around.

Call me feminist, but not the Burkett kind

My Facebook stream is full of feminism, queer activism, commentary on racism and funny stories about what my friends are eating/watching/doing with their children.  Just like everyone else's, I expect.  Yesterday Elinor Burkett's exploration of what makes a woman, written in response to Caitlyn Jenner saying her brain is female, got a few mentions - from people both for and against her description of trans activism and feminism on a collision course.  Her essential (pun intended) argument is this - that when trans people call on essential ideas of gender, they set back women's liberation fights of decades. 

Jaclyn Friedman has responded, and covered many points I'd otherwise be making.

I’m not privy to the Trans agenda, but I’m willing to bet that we also hear the “gendered brain” argument for reasons both legal and cultural, because like it or not (and I don’t), it’s a lot easier to demand freedom from discrimination and violence with the “I can’t help it” argument than it is with the “it’s none of your damn business” argument. The “born this way” talking point has been extremely effective for the modern gay and lesbian establishment.

This argument is problematic in terms of sexuality too.  Arguing "we can't help it" is not a recipe for honouring the complexity of gender or sexuality.  Of course there are genetic, biological things going on - complex things, like the fact there are a hell of a lot more intersex people out there than we recognize.  And of course the social world, our environment, determines how we express and understand our gender.  Do we really not get this by now?  I'm with Jaclyn Friedman - go read Julie Serano if you're strugging.

I'd have more respect for Elinor Burkett's critique if she'd engaged with Ms Serano's ideas about gender than dismantled those of Ms Jenner.  Ms Jenner is not representative of the vast majority of trans women; does not come from a place of having supported or worked with or researched transfeminine lives.  She has access to mainstream media - which includes being exploited and sexualised in ways other women should be quite familiar with - because she is rich and famous.  That's all.

And the response of trans and gender diverse peeps to that sexualisation was immediate, on point and fabulous.  Fake Vanity Fair covers with all kinds of people asking the world to call them by their name.  About as feminist as you can get.

I'm also struggling with Elinor Burkett's essentialising of female experience, to well, her own.  She says about trans women:

They haven’t suffered through business meetings with men talking to their breasts or woken up after sex terrified they’d forgotten to take their birth control pills the day before. They haven’t had to cope with the onset of their periods in the middle of a crowded subway, the humiliation of discovering that their male work partners’ checks were far larger than theirs, or the fear of being too weak to ward off rapists.

Of course trans women with sizeable breasts will have suffered through sexist men ogling them.  Why wouldn't they?  Not worrying about birth control pills?  You might be any kind of woman who cannot get pregnant, or any kind of woman who doesn't have the kind of sex that can get you pregnant.  You know who don't deal with periods on subways?  Women who don't get periods (anymore), or women who never ride the subway because they are rich.  I'm not sure where Ms Burkett gets the idea that trans women are raking in the dosh - and suspect, as with other women, that this will be heavily raced - but our research here in Aotearoa tells a very different story, of cissexism and transmisogny leaving trans peeps in poverty.

The last point is particularly tricky, and perhaps most illustrates Ms Burkett's problematic approach.  Feminists need to expand our understandings of gendered violence to include the increasingly obvious fact that trans people, particularly trans women, are experiencing horrific rates of sexual and domestic violence.  If feminists working in these areas cannot do that, our analysis is flawed.  It's not really so hard - because it's still about gender and power - we just need to stop the simplistic essentialising that Ms Burkett's piece, despite her protestations, is guilty of repeating. 

There are issues for feminism to consider in terms of trans activists smashing gender and sex binaries.  While it is important not to lose sight of this as a liberatory process for all genders, for those of us who do not sit at the top of the gender tree we are facing complex, entrenched sites of sexist and cissexist power over in every area of our lives.  Liberal "men are oppressed too" approaches are not the answer here, much as men need to find ways to dismantle the impacts of toxic masculinity on themselves as well as on others around them.

But if our feminism is about dismantling power over, then the questions being posed should be positive, should help us have a more nuanced and complex understanding of gender and power.  Just as paying attention, in Ms Burkett's quote above, to her essentialising about fertility status, age, sexuality, race and class helps us have a more nuanced and complex understanding of gender and power.  Ms Burkett's version of who counts as a woman is little more than old school transmisogyny, with the smattering of race, class and sexuality privilege that feminism has always wrestled with.

Wanted: Health Minister who reads their own research

Content note: discussions of transphobia and it's impacts, focussed on the recent political discussions about trans* healthcare.

There's so much to find troubling about National calling life-saving healthcare for trans* people "nutty" and Labour leadership failing to stand behind regional conferences voting to have funded gender reassignment surgery on the table.

For our health minister to be so poorly educated about trans* healthcare needs is horrifying.  It's increasingly obvious that transphobia, transmisogyny, gender policing and the institutionalised discrimination and stigma that people from marginalised genders experience kills.  It kills by making employment and housing less accessible.  It kills through people seeking solace in drugs and alcohol.  It kills through increasing vulnerability to being targeted for intimate partner and sexual violence.  It kills through creating a climate where violence towards trans people is invisible, enabled and lethal.  It kills through people being unable to contemplate going on living.

The Ministry of Health fund our best research into trans* needs so far, the Youth 2000 research where thousands of secondary school students are asked questions about their experiences.  Seems our Health Minister didn't bother to read the trans* section - 20% of our beautiful trans* secondary school students attempted suicide in the previous 12 months.  That compares with 4% of other kids.  40% of trans* young people had "significant depressive symptoms" and half had self-harmed in the previous 12 months.

But the Labour leadership rush from the possibility of championing trans* rights to life-saving healthcare is equally disgraceful.  Andrew Little's happy with his gender.  David Shearer didn't know what gender reassignment surgery was.  Stuart Nash says the issue isn't important to the people in New Zealand.  I'll save special disdain for every(gay)man Grant Robertson though - he doesn't feel strongly about life-saving surgery apparently.  Must be nice to be that kind of Rainbow champion.

(In the queer press Grant Robertson is "absolutely committed" to the best possible trans* healthcare services.  I guess he thinks queer people are stupid.)

As usual, public debate about a socially contested issue - where there is real ignorance, I suspect, amongst the majority of the general cis public - is an opportunity for social change.  If at an incredibly hurtful cost for trans* and gender diverse peeps, as well as pain for those of us who love them.  And Jan Logie has stepped up to the gender diverse plate, not for the first time, to show us what a real Rainbow champion looks like.

She's pulled together an LGBTI rights MP group to educate, provide leadership and push for changes in legislation.  Beyond Marriage Equality.

So, improving access to life-saving trans* healthcare, including hormones, counselling and surgery.  Stopping once and for all state sanctioned (and funded) genital mutilation of babies and children in the name of gender policing.  Creating increasing space for queer people of colour to create and determine spaces which are culturally appropriate for them.  Providing inclusive and positive information about sexuality, sex, gender, relationships and all kinds of bodies to every young person in Aotearoa.  Naming biphobia as a real thing, leaving bi people with the highest rates of mental health difficulties, sexual violence and intimate partner violence of all sexualities.  Dealing with the homelessness risks for queer young people.  For starters.

First though: Writing the job description for the next Health Minister - whether they come from National or Labour - and making sure "understanding the health needs of the most vulnerable" is bullet point number one.

Michfest cuts right through to your heart

The Michigan Womyn's Festival is calling it a day after 40 years.  For many, Michfest is the epitome of Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism.  The eviction of Nancy Burkholder in 1991 sparked protests which have continued to this day.

"She said that MWMF policy was that the festival was open to “natural, women-born-women” only. I replied that nowhere, in any festival literature or the program guide was that policy stated. I asked Chris to please verify that policy and she went to the office to contact the festival producers, Lisa Vogel and Boo Price.

Del stated that the reason the policy was not in any literature was because the issue of transsexuals had never come up as a problem before. Del added that the policy was for the benefit of the transsexuals’ safety and the safety of the women attending the festival. When I pointed out that there were other transsexuals on the land she acknowledged that this was true. Then she added, ‘We haven’t caught them yet, but we did catch you.”

I went to Michfest in the early 1990s in my early 20s, and it was beautiful.  Camping on forested wild land.  Music, workshops, arts, crafts.  Ten thousand women dancing under the stars.

I heard Melissa Ferrick and Phranc and Sweet Honey in the Rock.  Learnt salsa dancing with naked women.  Enjoyed workshops on racism, non-monogamy, writing and s/m.  Talked to women from all over the world about sexism and gender politics and queer life and violence.  Kissed some cute queer girls.  Asked Alison Bechdel to sign one of her books.  Watched sex toy demonstrations.  Realised for the first time that I "did" being queer like a bogan while listening to Dorothy Allison reading stories of working-class women-loving-women.  Went back to the tent and changed my flannel shirt.

There were separate spaces for women who experienced oppressions related to class, race, sexuality, disability, age.  Camping areas for disabled women and Women of Colour, caucus groups and workshops that were open only to specific groups.

I went to a Bisexual Caucus with about 150 women.  We spent an afternoon doing two things - hearing from every bi woman present what it was like being bi where she lived, and drafting a statement to Michfest opposing their exclusion of trans women. 

It's fair to say at that point I knew nothing about gender diversity.  I didn't know any trans people to my knowledge, I'd read one book talking about trans issues - the hateful Janice Raymond's "Transsexual Empire" - and I'd yet to consider that growing up comfortable in the gender I'd been assigned at birth was a privilege not available to many.  I'm grateful to the staunch bi women I met at Michfest for opening my eyes for the first time to what I'd call now cissexism.

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The internet probably doesn't need another ode to the wonders of Michfest.  It's clear that for many cis women, particularly cis lesbians, Michfest has been an important safe space from sexism, misogyny and violence against women:

"Vogel was determined to have MichFest be as welcoming as possible for as many women as possible. Which demanded both that it be women-only and that it be accessible to women of all classes. Vogel also wanted to establish space for women of color to have the option of being in a space solely for them. One African-American lesbian told me that the WOC space was the only space her partner, a rape survivor, had ever felt safe. She said, “She knows no one will come for her in the night.” She said no one could imagine her own relief at being able to see her partner sleep soundly, free from nightmares. “That week–”she said."

Those women are angry Michfest has ended.  They say "only one" trans woman has been excluded in 40 years.  They quote key festival organiser Lisa Vogel saying she just wants respect for womyn-born womyn's experiences.  They describe as "McCarthy-like" the tactics of Michfest critics who call for boycotts of the festival.  They feel like their desire for safe space is not being respected.

But the truth is excluding trans women has made Michfest increasingly unpopular.  Even back in 1992, three quarters of women attending Michfest were happy for trans women to come.  These days just 3000 women attend, and artists are dropping like flies.

It’s in that spirit that in 2013, comedian/activist/writer Red Durkin called for a boycott of Michfest and its performers until the policy was changed.
Andrea Gibson dropped out in March. In April, The Indigo Girls announced that this would be their last year at the festival until the policy changes. The Indigo Girls are festival mainstays, and Amy Ray‘s partner is a longtime Michfest volunteer. By taking a stand, The Indigo Girls weren’t just standing up against political adversaries, they were severing decades-long friendships. I anticipated their withdrawal would be the ultimate catalyst for change, yet the festival’s intention lives on.
Nona Hendryx dropped out in June. JD Samson, who’d been attending the festival for half her life and was pulled from a number of queer events for playing it, announced in June that she remained confident “that the MWMF will one day become a place of safety, solidarity, and unconditional love for ALL Womyn,” but that “this will be my last year attending the festival until that day comes.”

Despite being a woman who loved Michfest myself, I'm not in that camp.  The consistency of founder Lisa Vogel's transmisogyny has been tracked by The Transadvocate, which is just as well, since it's been in serious danger of rewriting.  It's worth reading closely.

In 1971, Ms Vogel signed a letter outing a trans woman in an attempt to get her sacked.  "Men without penises" are compared to white women dying their skin to look like Black women. In 1991, Ms Vogel describes the eviction of Nancy Burkholder as necessary to ensure only "womyn born womyn" attend.  She describes Ms Burkholder as a "known transsexual man."  Again in 1999 Ms Vogel describes trans women as men.

By 2000, Michfest issues a pamphlet saying only womyn born womyn who live as womyn are welcome, and asks for this to be respected because it will not be policed.  The pacifist version of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  Throughout the 2000s, on a number of occasions, Ms Vogel compares Michfest policy of cis only (though never calls it that) with Women of Colour asking for and needing separate space.  To call Michfest policy transphobic is equated with calling Women of Colour space racist.  She also begins to refer to trans women as women.

In 2014 in an open letter, Ms Vogel acknowledges "trans womyn and transmen have always attended this gathering" but again asks for cis only space to be respected because "being born female in this culture has meaning, it is an authentic experience, one that has actual lived consequences."

It's clear Lisa Vogel's commitment to Michfest being for cis women only has not wavered, even if over time she has recognized trans women are women.  

What's curious to me is her justification - that an event open to cis women but not trans women is analogous to Women of Colour wanting separate space, and therefore, it's not transphobic.

This device only works if you believe trans women oppress cis women.  Only then is it possible to conceive of cis only space as necessary.  Because an oppressed group needing space to regroup from experiences of oppression, that's self-determination, that's resistance.  A group which experiences oppression, but not from the group they are trying to exclude, that's privilege.  

This is at the root of the Michfest controversy - and many other places where feminists who have established women-only havens have struggled to welcome trans women.  Instead of seeing trans women as other women needing safe space, trans women have been constructed as part of the oppressive forces, the oppressive patriarchal forces, which do not understand why women need a break from patriarchy.

Diverse experiences of women's lives should be part of any conversation about gender.  The fact is, working class girls get different messages about how to be female than middle class girls.  Race and ethnicity shape our understanding of ourselves as women.  Disabled women have experiences of female embodiment that bear little resemblance to non-disabled women.  And trans women and cis women have some things in common, and some experiences of femaleness that are profoundly different.

If we are scared of our diverse experiences, unable to name differences in women's experiences, we are never going to be able to change the social and material conditions that structure women's lives in ways which constrain us.  Our feminism will not be useful. 

I'm sorry Michfest is shutting it's gates, but not because I think I had an authentic experience of being a woman there.  Rather I'd like to think, after so many messages from other feminists and the surrounding queer community, that Lisa Vogel and Michfest could have acknowledged they were getting it wrong, and thrown the gates open to trans women.  Explicitly open.  They have been going for years anyway, and it's not made one cis woman any less safe.

There's perhaps a lesson here, for other feminist women's spaces that have been hard fought.  Trans women are not our oppressors.  Trans women as a group do not have power cis women as a group cannot access.  We have much in common, and many gendered experiences of lack of safety which may not be exactly the same, but nevertheless require mutual support and solidarity. 

I'm going to finish in the words of one trans woman attendee:

When people all around you are telling you directly that you have no claim to your womanhood, that there is no way you are welcome, and that by merely existing you are furthering the patriarchy, it cuts right through to your heart.

My whole life I've been dressing up

I'm going to try something a little different, and review a TV series. 
Disclaimer: Transparent is about a white upper-class Jewish trans woman, Maura, coming out when her children are adults.  Since I'm atheist and cis, I'm sure my understanding of some things will miss the mark so please jump in for discussion/correction in comments.  Second disclaimer:  I don't watch a whole heap of tv or movies. Sometimes when my very clever friends talk about tv I don't understand them.  So this will be unsophisticated.

Transparent came out last year, winning awards and critical admiration, including from trans activists.  Early on in the show Maura comes out to her eldest daughter Sarah, who asks "Does this mean you're going to be dressing up like a woman?"

There's some reaching out to other trans* folks from Maura that speaks clearly to why we need support groups and retreats and safe places for all trans and gender diverse people.  One of the scenes I found most painful was a summer camp Maura attended years earlier for transfeminine people.  Camp members are describing someone being kicked out of the camp for using hormones.  "This is a camp for men," they heartily agree, "men who like to dress as women!"  Maura is visibly uncomfortable, and it feels like she's finding out that even that space - which she has been experiencing, until then, as joyful and full of wonder - may not be safe.

There are other painful slices of transphobia. Maura enters a women's bathroom with her daughters, who assure her it will be fine, despite her obvious discomfort.  They call her "Dad", which leads to other women in the toilet misgendering Maura and telling her she must leave.  Sarah's rage - which no doubt you'd feel - explodes and worsens the situation and Maura slinks away, finding an empty construction site portaloo she can safely use.  A good reminder to cis allies that the most important way to support someone is to make sure you respect what they want whether you understand why or not, because getting it wrong might well be dangerous.

The show is ostensibly about Maura, but actually we spend just as much time, if not more, watching her painfully self-involved children.  I'm assuming this is supposed to show the whole gamut of reactions to Maura transitioning, but it's hard to read her family's behaviour as having anything to do with her.  They are all complete train-wrecks, and while their indifference to Maura's feelings is horrific at times, it's how they treat everyone.  Sarah and Josh don't care when their mother's partner of many years, who seems to have dementia, disappears.  Josh scares his first girlfriend in the show so much she asks his boss to keep him away from her, though he thinks he's showing her love.  Ali's best friend tells her at one point that Ali's been making her feel awful for years.  I'm not sure the nuances of transphobia are well-served by this, though it's frequently good drama.

There's an argument over whether we should be interested or emotionally moved by what's going on in Maura's family anyway.  For many, shifting the focus from the person most vulnerable to structural oppression - Maura - might not be ok.  And it's a story we're more familiar with, right?  How cis people feel about trans* folks.

When I came out as bisexual I sent my mother books by and about queer women for every birthday and Christmas for a decade.  Good books, by Alice Walker and Lisa Alther and Jackie Kay and Sarah Schulman and Joan Barfoot and Marge Piercy....She read them, swapped them with friends.  I thought I was helping my mum see my life.  Years later, she thanked me for sending her books "about how other parents coped with having queer children."  I said I didn't think that's what they'd been about.  She was surprised.  I think, in a way, we were both right.

So while I'm much more interested in seeing Maura and her story being told than I am in another story about cis people, I feel disappointed that so far Transparent, in my opinion, has dodged telling the stories of her children's engagement with a transitioning parent with any depth, simply because they're all such self-involved jerks.

Maura's youngest daughter, Ali, changes her gender presentation quite dramatically during the show.  By the end, she's been wearing masculine clothes for a couple of episodes and has a much more androgenous haircut.  Some reviewers suggests this happens without commentary to juxtaposition how easy it is for women to play with presenting in a masculine way compared with the frequent and difficult reactions Maura gets to her transition.

I find this troubling.  While it's not helpful to play oppression olympics, the idea that there is no cost for women expressing masculinity is very different to my experience.  I've presented in a range of ways across my life, and spent lots of my early twenties looking pretty much like any stereotype of a sporty butch queer women you've ever seen.  During that period I was frequently asked to leave women's toilets, verbally and physically threatened by men, called "it" by men, asked if I was confused by men, told all I needed was a "good fuck" by men.  At one family gathering, the partner of one of my cousins drunkenly asked me "what are you?"  I think he was confused by my shaved head and breasts, they make bogans a little basic in Christchurch.  One of my friends, a beautiful butch, was recently so frightened about a road trip to the States and the violence she might experience there that we spent lots of time pre-planning safe stops, based on their LGBTIQ friendliness.

You get the point.  Maybe Ali's demographic cope much better with androgenous presentations.  But simply pretending there's no issue feels dishonest to me.
  
I'd be remiss, dear reader, if I didn't comment on The Biphobia.  Again.  Sarah's married life is turned upside down when she meets an ex-lover who's a woman.  So she does what every Bisexual should, and Cheats on her partner.  With the Other Gender.  Oh, and she tries to do it again later, after she's left her husband for the sexy ex, when she's hiding in the laundry with her husband.  Us Bisexuals, can't help with the Cheating.  We're just always wanting all of the genders, all of the time.  In case you're not sure this storyline is actually a thing, just cast your mind back to Orange is the New Black's central bi character, Piper, who um, does exactly the Same Cheating Bisexual Thing.

Actually maybe Sarah's not Bisexual.  It's not like that word is ever mentioned, for goodness sake. Towards Sarah or the other character who has relationships with more than one gender.  Because Biphobia.  Again.

There's been much commentary about the fact that a cis man, Jeffrey Tambor, is playing Maura.  He's wonderful in the role, and clearly an ally, plus I suspect an actor of his calibre may have significantly increased the chances of Transparent being made in the first place.  Some people have suggested it's marginally more acceptable to have a cis man playing a trans woman because Maura is beginning her transition.

This seems like slightly ridiculous transphobia to me.  Are we really saying a trans actress, assigned male at birth, wouldn't be able to pull off playing a trans woman pre-transition?  Whereas a cis man can pull off playing a woman?

We've seen similar arguments recently to justify non-disabled actors playing disabled characters.  As with white actors playing Black characters, all of these casting decisions reveal discrimination - an assumption that people (which people?) will identify more readily with able-bodied people, with white people, with cis people.

If cripping up and blacking up are unacceptable, so is transing up.  Cis people playing trans characters speaks to centring of cis experience even when a trans story is being told, and it needs to stop.  It's great to see a variety of other roles in Transparent are played by trans actors, and a trans woman is joining the writing staff for season two.  On the subject, it's no surprise to me that the central character here is white and middle-class.  I wonder if we'll see any intersectionality in season two, an exploration perhaps of the rates at which trans women, especially trans women of colour, are targetted for lethal violence?

These reservations aside, Transparent is a good watch.  The writing is tight, the acting superb.  Much as I might dislike Maura's children, watching them behave badly is a bit like watching an election result you're not happy about - it's hard to look away.  Gender and sexuality themes are everywhere.  Seeing a multiplicity of transfeminine and one transmasculine (to date) characters is a treat.  Maura may not be able to tell every transfeminine story - who could? - but she normalises a particular kind of trans experience for a mainstream audience.  We need more stories which do that, if we want to end transphobia.

It's raining racism and transphobia on my Pride parade

Content warning: this is about racist, transphobic violence and has been put together from a number of sources online available at time of writing.

Last night during the Pride parade in Auckland a Māori trans woman had her arm broken as she protested against New Zealand Police and Corrections staff taking part.  Other protestors say the security staff targetted her for violence, while cis Pākehā protestors were treated more gently.

You should not have your arm broken when you are protesting.  It's unclear yet whether her arm was broken by the Police or by security staff.  It's also unclear why there was a long delay in seeking medical attention despite numerous reports she was screaming.

We can thank social media for alerting us to how serious this is, because mainstream media coverage to date has been woefully incomplete.  In fact, it almost looks like the Police comms team went straight (pun intended) to work.  The NZ Herald tells us "Proud Police march Pride parade":

The Police press release/NZ Herald article explains that many Police participating were not "gay" (hint: NZ Police, neither are most LGBTIQ folks), they just wanted to show they "value diversity."  Then right at the end:

The only disruption to the parade was a vocal group of three who protested the police contingent.

Protester Tim Lamusse said police had a history of targeting queer communities, "particularly in the 60s, 70s and 80s, they would turn up to gay clubs, make everyone come outside and shame them in front of everybody".

The protest was poorly received by the crowd, which responded with calls of "you're ruining the parade!".

Lamusse said police never apologised for their past prejudices and "they continue to beat up queer kids".

One of the protesters was arrested and later treated by St John staff for injuries she suffered during the arrest.

Both RadioNZ and Stuff at least lead their Pride coverage with the assault, but details at this point are scarce.  Stuff have also apologised for an earlier version of the article describing the woman injured as a "transvestite".

Let's just imagine, for one moment, the quantity and depth of coverage there would be if the Pride parade had involved property damage to a known homophobic bar. Investigative reporting might not be missing in action for that kind of assault.

But that's not the most disappointing part, for me at least.  Because the response from the queer* community has included event organisers saying how "well-handled" the incident was.  Unless, I guess, you're the Māori trans woman in hospital this morning, having your bones reset.

GayNZ has a small story, including a request for more information from those there.  But they also have a much more detailed editorial lauding Pride for being bigger, better and more mainstream than ever before.  Police are praised for the "massive symbolism" of taking part.

How about the "massive symbolism" of racist, transphobic state-sanctioned violence?  How about the "massive symbolism" of people filming the assault also being arrested, or having their phones destroyed?  How about the "massive symbolism" of a uniformed mob allowing an assault in front of them and not intervening to keep a member of the public safe?  

If you're not sure why NZ Police and Corrections staff have a difficult relationship with the queer* community, do some reading.  The Trans Inquiry in 2008 led by the Human Rights Commission detailed transpeople being subjected to violence, harassment, misgendering and exposure to unsafe environments by NZ Police and prison staff, abuse which continues to be an issue.

I have personal knowledge of queer* people trying to report same-sex sexual assault to the Police and being told there was no crime, or worse.  NZ Police do not always take the harassment and violence queer* people experience on the street seriously, even when that violence is lethal.  And the much vaunted Diversity Liasion Officers are certainly a step in the right direction - except when I tried to report some homophobic and biphobic violent threats I'd received a couple of years ago, Wellington Police Station didn't know what DLOs were, and couldn't tell me who I should be talking to.  

Marginalised people do not trust the Police, for good reasons.  In the Trans Inquiry, trans people reported regular Police harassment; Pacific peoples are twice as likely to be tasered as

Pākehā, Māori between the two.

So if you're a trans person of colour, it probably doesn't make you feel proud to see NZ Police "valuing diversity", it probably makes you feel scared.  "Massive symbolism" is empty if it's a lie.

You can support the woman lying in hospital today here.   

Killing us softly, so softly

Suicide.  Frightening, complex, social phenomena which merits sound, evidence based, community responses.

So when this Government announces they have a new plan, it should be great news.  The Plan aims to:

• address the impact of suicide on families, whānau and communities by strengthening support for family, whānau and communities
• build the evidence base, specifically around what works for Māori and Pasifika
• extend existing services, specifically addressing geographical gaps in the coverage of services
• strengthen suicide prevention targeted to high risk populations who are in contact with agencies.

The problem is, every single one of those aims is applicable to the queer* community, and we are not mentioned once.

We are not mentioned once, even though just last year as part of the last suicide prevention plan, the Ministry of Health released a needs assessment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people, to provide the Ministry with "information to develop an appropriate policy and funding framework" for mental health promotion. 


Queer* people are much more prone to mental health struggles, much more likely to self-harm, and much more likely to try to or actually kill ourselves.  The reasons are simple - homophobia, biphobia and transphobia teach us to hate ourselves, and the world around us tells us how we live and love is not ok.  Or, as the policy wonks put it:

"It is readily acknowledged in the literature that the mental health of GLBT people is impacted by repeated exposure to a wide range of psychosocial stressors associated with anti-GLBT attitudes and behaviours, which include stigmatisation, discrimination and violence."

Yet we are not mentioned once in the brand spanking new Suicide Prevention Plan.

Young people are mentioned - but not same or both-sex attracted young people, half of whom self-harm, and a fifth of whom will try to kill themselves. 

Māori and Pasifika are mentioned - but not takataapui or fa'afafine.

Addressing gaps is mentioned - but not the lack of queer* support groups, queer* specific mental health services, or training for generic mental health services in the needs of queer* people.  Not the lack of research into the needs of trans* folk, even though international research points to terrifyingly high rates of suicidality which surely merit trans* specific responses.

This silencing, this invisibilisation will literally kill us.  This tangible example of heterosexism and cisgender normativity will literally kill us.  I'm not sure what more there is to say. 

Going to the chapel to educate the congregation

So now we’re beyond Marriage Equality, what next?  The indicators of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia are still all around us.  Who gets bullied at school?  Who disproportionately wrestles with mental health issues, depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide?  Who has hate graffiti on their walls?  Who is targeted for violence on the streets, in their workplaces, from their families?  Who is not able to look at any media, anytime, and see someone who looks a bit like them, wrestling with some of the things they think about?

One of the very difficult issues for queer and trans* people to navigate is connection with others.  What happens when you transition?  Can you keep relationships with people who have known you as one gender?  Will those people treat you with respect?  Will you be safe?  Or do you have to build a completely different social and support network from scratch?

For same and both-sex attracted people, the disconnect from our families can be just as severe.  I’ve supported young people whose families have kicked them out when they learned who their sons or daughters loved.  I’ve talked one parent down from trying to have their daughter institutionalized as mentally unwell – simply because she was lesbian.

But it’s not just young people.  I’ve been out for 24 years.  When I first came out, the homophobia and biphobia of my parents was so vicious I refused to see them for a year.  They told me they could never respect me again, that my sexuality was unnatural and a symptom of being parented poorly.  They tried, at length, to work out if it was my depressed mother’s lack of interest or my father’s fondness for playing cricket with me that was the problem.  They wanted me to be lesbian, because that would be easier for them.

No one in my family would even think of saying such things now.  Yet several years ago, when an aunt was visiting London, my sister could tell me not to make such a big deal about whether or not to come out to her.

“I’m not going to talk about my sexuality,” she said, straightly.  My sister was single.  I’d been with my lover for ten years.  We owned a house together, parented her children together.  To not come out meant not being able to talk about my life with any honesty.  To come out meant the risk of my aunt’s reaction framing the entire night.  We were faced with quite different dilemmas. 

 

Now, when I have a female partner there is no hostility, but no one in my family can bring themselves to ask me anything about her.  When a relationship ends, there is literally nothing to say, because my family have no idea how much she has meant to me, what we may have shared.  These things had shifted markedly with my mother before she died; in her absence, there is a gaping hole where some of the sustaining relationships in my life are ignored and minimised by my family.

I share stories of how my family treats me with other queer people.  Telling them in public, or to straight friends, feels shaming in a way it’s difficult to name.  I’m an out and proud bisexual woman.  How can there still be such bruising homophobia and biphobia in my life?  

That’s the beyond marriage equality I’m interested in talking about.  Moving now into educating our communities.  Gathering information – like say, by using the census – about the kinds of experiences queer and trans* people have based on our sexuality and gender identity.  Gathering information about victimisation – like say, by recording sexuality and gender diversity – in crime stats about street violence.  Expanding the Human Rights Act to protect trans* folk from cis-gender based discrimination.

A good starting point would be a national queer and trans* resource centre, funded to identify exactly what beyond marriage equality might mean.  Able to develop queer and trans* specific materials for schools and our national curriculum.  Able to work with the Human Rights Commission to ensure experiences of queer and trans* discrimination are named, understood, responded to appropriately.  Able to intervene in social institutions which are responding to queer and trans* people – New Zealand Police, mental health systems, healthcare more broadly – and ensure processes are transparent and well-equipped.  Able to develop completely new resources – emergency housing for young queer and trans* people who need somewhere safe to stay; social work and prevention resources around suicide and self-harm, intimate partner and sexual violence which are specific to the queer community.

The kinds of difference Marriage Equality will make to queer and trans* peoples lives are important.  This was a social change moment – and make no mistake, we won it.  The people arguing against equality looked like bigoted hate-mongers.  But we still had to listen to their vitriol, had to protect ourselves from its impact on our sense of self in a world where those things sadly do not just sound ridiculous - which is how they should sound.

It’s time to celebrate – and to work out what else we need to dismantle homophobia, biphobia and transphobia for good.