ESPA goes out with a whimper not the bang of having passed GENDA
by Pauline Park

On Dec. 12, the Empire State Pride Agenda abruptly announced it would be shutting down the Pride Agenda — which so many people over the years have called ‘ESPA’ — and its Foundation, though its political action committee will apparently remain active.

The announcement was reported by media outlets from the New York Times (“Empire State Pride Agenda to Disband, Citing Fulfillment of Mission,” 12.12.15) to Gay City News to PlanetTransgender.com. This is big news for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, because ESPA is the only statewide LGBT advocacy organization in New York and widely viewed as its voice, especially by members of the state legislature. In its Dec. 12 press release, ESPA declared,

The Boards’ decision comes on the heels of securing the Pride Agenda’s top remaining policy priority — protecting transgender New Yorkers from discrimination in housing, employment, credit, education and public accommodations — in the form of new regulations announced in partnership with Governor Andrew M. Cuomo at the organization’s Fall Dinner on October 22…

Of course, an executive order and even a state Division of Human Rights regulation can be rescinded by any of Cuomo’s successors as governor, so it does not have the force of an enacted statute law, and many saw this as a George W. Bush ‘mission accomplished’ moment, in particular because the Pride Agenda is closing shop without having gotten the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) through the state Senate and signed into law.

But Norman C. Simon, chair of the Pride Agenda board and co-chair of the Foundation, responded to criticism of the decision and the announcement of it by telling Gay City News,

We did not and are not declaring mission accomplished on LGBT equality. What we are saying is that our top priorities have been completed, and that the remaining work that needs to be done we will transition to other organizations in the coming months in an orderly process (Paul Schindler, “ESPA Leadership Pushes Back on Charge They’ve Declared ‘Mission Accomplished’,” Gay City News, 12.13.15).

In his story for Gay City News, Paul Schindler wrote, “Matt Foreman focused his criticism both on the way the Pride Agenda reached its decision and on the message the announcement of that decision sent,” quoting the former executive director as saying,

There was zero consultation with folks who spent their lives building the Pride Agenda. If they are going to make a decision of that magnitude, there has to be a consultative function. They need to talk to the stakeholders, to the communities around the state… This is an abrogation of a fundamental obligation that an organization has to its constituency… And, it plays into the national narrative that the job is done.

But the same could be said of ESPA’s decision to endorse Cuomo’s executive order without any consultation even with the coalition attempting to advance GENDA in the state Senate. I have been involved with what originally was called the GENDA Coalition from the beginning, far longer than all of the current ESPA staff, and I represented the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) in that coalition from its formation, and at no time was there even a conference call to discuss the executive order, which will have the effect of undermining any remaining efforts to push GENDA through the Senate. Why would the Republican majority in the Senate feel pressured to pass GENDA when ESPA and the governor are both touting the executive order/regulation as providing sweeping protections for transgendered people in the state? And the lack of even the most rudimentary consultation on the decision to endorse the governor’s executive action is why it feels to me like a backroom deal cut between ESPA and the governor rather than a genuinely community-driven policy victory. Hence the decision to settle for an executive order rather than to demand that the governor use his power and influence to push GENDA through the Senate — in which Republicans maintain a majority in large part due to Cuomo’s efforts to keep the Senate in Republican hands — is not only substantively questionable but really represents a betrayal of the transgender community and the process through which the GENDA coalition was working to achieve a legislative remedy to the lack of protection from discrimination based on gender identity or expression in state law.

The most negative reactions to the news of the shutdown of the two most important parts of the Empire State Pride Agenda empire have focused on the organization’s abandonment of its transgender legislative agenda, Kelli Anne Busey writing,

Realizing the trans community’s worst fears, the New York Empire State Pride Agenda announced the shocking news Saturday that they are ceasing operations after 25 years of operations…  [executive director Nathan] Schaefer just said the job isn’t finished without saying transgender and every fucking person in the room knows that’s what he’s eluding to. (it’s their little secret) They’ll just walk. So gay New Yorkers will spend money on making sure the laws protecting them aren’t eroded but will throw the T under the bus. Nice. (Kelli Anne Busey, Empire State Pride Agenda Disbands, Screwing NY Transgender People,” Planet Transgender, 12.13.15)

On Twitter, a number of people ‘tweeted’ critical comments:

This is what superficial justice looks like: “Empire State Pride Agenda to Disband, Citing Fulfillment Mission” (Jen Jack Gieseking @jgieseking, 12.13.15)

“We got marriage equality our work is done.” “What about trans equality, we aren’t done?” “Well we are!” (Mia Marie Macy @Miamariemacy, 12.13.15)

The closure of NYC’s @prideagenda is a sad indictment of legal activism. Marriage equality does not heal all wounds. (Senthorun Raj @senthorun, 12.13.15)

I have worked with every executive director and deputy director of the Pride Agenda from 1998 onwards as well as every transgender community organizer and every coordinator of the New York State LGBT Health & Human Services Network, which Tim Sweeney founded when he was deputy director of the Pride Agenda and in which I represented Queens Pride House (the only LGBT community center in the borough of Queens), so I actually know ESPA’s history better than the current members of the board and staff. And . So my perspective is the long view, informed by my experience leading the campaign for the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002, in partnership with Tim Sweeney and Matt Foreman and other ESPA staff; it is also informed by my participation in the steering committee of the coalition that led the campaign for the New York State Dignity for All Students Act (DASA), enacted in 2011.

And so what I would like to do is offer an assessment of the Pride Agenda’s record from 1998 to 2015 as informed by 17 years of working with the organization. That relationship goes back to the founding of NYAGRA in 1998 and our very first meeting with another organization; several co-founding members went to the Pride Agenda’s old office on Hudson Street. In the cramped office in the West Village, we met with Tim Sweeney, then deputy director, to seek ESPA’s support for inclusion of gender identity and expression in the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) then pending in the Republican-controlled state Senate after having already passed the Democrat-controlled Assembly; we also sought Pride Agenda support for transgender inclusion in the hate crimes bill, which had also passed the Assembly and was also stalled in the Senate. Tim Sweeney told us that NYAGRA should join the state hate crimes bill coalition if we wanted to have gender identity and expression added to the hate crimes bill; he also told us that ESPA was not prepared to add gender identity and expression to SONDA but that the Pride Agenda would be willing to work with us on a local transgender rights bill. As a result of that collaboration, we launched the campaign for the bill that would eventually pass the City Council in April 2002 and be signed into law later that month.

It is important to recognize that the Empire State Pride Agenda was a self-defined ‘lesbian and gay’ organization when we met with ESPA staff in November 1998; transgender simply was not a part of the organization’s mission and there was no indication that they had even considered including transgendered people in their work. NYAGRA was the first transgender advocacy organization in the city or the state, and its formation and our pressing ESPA on transgender inclusion in pending state legislation is what prompted the Pride Agenda to move toward transgender inclusion in its work.

Any assessment of the Empire State Pride Agenda has to focus primarily on legislation, because that is where the organization has made its mark, along with the founding of the Network and the funding that it was able to garner for the over 60 LGBT-specific social service providers in the state. The major legislation that ESPA played a role in getting enacted since 2000 have included the state hate crimes law (2000), SONDA (2002), DASA (2011), and marriage equality. ESPA also helped with the campaign for the New York City Dignity in All Schools Act (NYC DASA), enacted by the City Council in 2004 over Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s veto, though the organization didn’t play the leading role with that legislative campaign as it did with the aforementioned state bills.

The first and best-known charge of transgender exclusion leveled against ESPA is also the most misunderstood; it is often thought that the Pride Agenda stripped gender identity and expression from SONDA so that it could be pushed through the Senate in December 2002; but in fact, transgender-specific terms were never in SONDA; the more mundane truth is that ESPA simply refused to bow to pressure from various parties to add gender and expression to the bill when it became viable in June 2001 when Gov. George Pataki first expressed openness to supporting it. As executive director of the Pride Agenda, Matt Foreman cut the deal that secured passage of SONDA: in exchange for ESPA’s endorsement of Pataki for a third term as governor, Senate majority leader Joe Bruno allowed a floor vote on SONDA in December, with the bill passing with a majority of Democrats and a minority of Republicans before being signed into law by Pataki.

GENDA was introduce the next year and has since passed the Assembly several times but never the Senate, where it was even defeated in a vote in committee in 2011. The bill that did finally pass the Senate in that year was the Dignity for All Students Act, the first and so far only explicitly transgender-inclusive legislation enacted by the state legislature and signed into law. But the history of DASA does not reflect unqualified support for transgender inclusion on ESPA’s part. When Moonhawk River Stone was co-chair of NYAGRA with me, we were twice approached by Alan Van Capelle, then executive director of the Pride Agenda, about a possible compromise that could satisfy the Republican Senate leadership sufficiently to allow the bill to come up for a vote in the Senate. The first was an overture from the Senate leadership that entailed stripping gender identity and expression from the bill altogether; the second a proposal by Kevin Jennings, then executive director of the Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to water down the language of the Dignity bill to remove the definition of gender, which included identity and expression, and instead put ‘identity and expression of’ in front of the list of characteristics in the bill; the dubious language had never been tested in any court or even enacted by any state language. Alan Van Capelle convened a small group of transgender activists, hoping I am quite certain that we would all go along with the dubious proposal; but Hawk Stone and I stood firm and refused to put NYAGRA’s imprimatur on it. After these two overtures were deflected, the coalition continued to work on the bill, even after the lead sponsor in the Senate, openly gay Sen. Thomas K. Duane, completely lost interest in his own bill; Dignity did eventually pass the Senate in June 2010, ironically enough as a kind of consolation prize to the LGBT community for the Senate’s rejection of the marriage equality bill that would eventually pass a year later, in June 2011.

As for the marriage equality legislation itself, on the one hand, it is certainly true that it ultimately redounded to the benefit of transgendered New Yorkers as well as non-transgendered gay and lesbian New Yorkers; but many felt that those who would be the most immediate beneficiaries of same-sex marriage recognition in New York would be the relatively more privileged members of the LGBT community, including wealthy gay white Manhattan professionals who — just as Andrew Cuomo no doubt calculated they would — opened up their checkbooks to make donations not only to ESPA but also to Cuomo for his 2014 re-election campaign. The most deleterious effect of the drive for marriage legislation by ESPA and Cuomo as well as marriage organizations such as Freedom to Marry and Marriage Equality-New York was that marriage came to dominate discussions of LGBT issues in the state legislature and coverage of the LGBT community in the media for most of the decade that preceded passage of the marriage equality bill, to the detriment of discussion of virtually anything else. I can remember one media interview in which I attempted to discuss GENDA and DASA with a reporter who seemed to insist that marriage was the most important issue facing the LGBT community and misquoted me to that effect in her write-up, despite my having said the opposite. Because of the enormous media attention on marriage, even Tom Duane, the lead sponsor of both GENDA and DASA, lost interest in those bills and let them languish. Nor did ESPA do anything effective to pressure the Democrats when they were briefly in control of the Senate from January through mid-June 2011 to bring GENDA to the floor for a vote, when it would almost certainly have passed.

The Empire State Pride Agenda Foundation honored Christine Quinn and Louis Bradbury at its annual fall dinner in October 2012, which was a disgraceful political act intended to ingratiate the organization with the Council Speaker when she was preparing to run for mayor; the press release announcing the honorees declared, as Council Speaker, “she was at the helm of some of our community’s most historic victories, including ensuring dignity and protections against bullying for all students, and New York’s momentous marriage victory in 2011.”  Chris Quinn had little if anything to do with the marriage bill passing — the Speaker of the New York City Council has no authority in the state Senate — and she did nothing but sign her name to the New York City Dignity in All Schools (NYC DASA) bill as a co-sponsor; I was on the NYC DASA Coalition steering committee and Chris Quinn didn’t lift a finger to help us get the bill passed, which actually passed during Gifford Miller’s speakership, not Quinn’s; in fact, after NYC DASA was enacted, she conspired with Mayor Bloomberg to block its implementation by the NYC Department of Education (NYC DoE); so to give her credit for NYC DASA’s enactment is doubly false. The same ESPA release asserted of Bradbury, “As Chair of the Board of the Empire State Pride Agenda, which under his leadership helped to secure passage of The Dignity for All Students Act.” I was on the steering committee of the New York State DASA Coalition and Louis Bradbury had zero involvement with that effort; the bill finally passed the New York State Senate when he was chair of the ESPA board, but enactment had nothing to do with him, and it was clear to me that he was just using his position as chair for yet further self-aggrandizement after he fired Ross Levi — ESPA’s best executive director, in my view — back in March 2012 in a sordid power struggle initiated by Bradbury that significantly undermined the organization’s credibility. Truth does not come from falsity and honoring the dishonorable only dishonors the LGBT community that the Pride Agenda claimed to represent; honoring Chris Quinn and Louis Bradbury by making false claims about their achievements was a disgraceful act.

The manner of one’s passing says a great deal about an individual and I think the same is true of an organization. Organizations die just like individuals, and the rather abrupt, almost hasty manner of ESPA’s passing is telling. Just as the Pride Agenda consulted with no one — not even the coalition working to advance GENDA — when it cut a deal with Gov. Cuomo to endorse his executive order on transgender discrimination and give him a platform at its annual fall dinner in October 2015, so the boards of the Pride Agenda and its Foundation consulted with no one, not even former board and staff members, on the decision to close their doors. Norman Simon’s talk about an ‘orderly process’ of winding down and collaboration with other organizations to try to parcel out its current work seems to mask something quite disorderly. Because of the secretive nature of ESPA deliberations, it would likely be impossible to get confirmation of my suspicions, but I suspect that the board voted to shut down operations for the very mundane reason that ESPA and even its Foundation were no longer financially viable operations. As Gay City News reported,

Pauline Park is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) and served as executive director of Queens Pride House from 2012-15; she led the campaign for the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002 and served on the steering committee of the coalition that led the campaign for the New York State Dignity for All Students Act that was enacted in 2011.

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Queer Korea Festival speech & Seoul Pride Parade 2015 (6.28.15)
(퀴어문화축제 & 퍼레이드)

I’m Pauline Park and I’m honored to have been invited to speak to you today. I would like to thank the march organizers for the invitation and especially Kahye and Candy from the Queer Korea Festival and I would like to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to address you as the LGBT community in Korea marks an important milestone — not merely the celebration of LGBT pride but also the victory over those reactionary forces that tried to prevent this event from taking place at all.

But movements are like that: one step backward, two steps forward. I speak from personal experience, having been involved with LGBT activism for 21 years now. If I had had a child the year I first became involved with LGBT activism, he/she would be old enough to legally drink in New York state. And speaking of which, sadly, our campaign for a transgender rights law in New York state is still stalled in the New York State Senate 13 years after it was first introduced.

But the good news is that we have made tremendous progress in the United States since I first became involved with activism back in 1994, including enactment of the transgender rights law by the New York City Council in 2002 after a successful campaign that I led through the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA).

Our most spectacular victory came earlier this week, when the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality, guaranteeing same-sex marriage rights in all 50 states. It is my sincerest hope that the next time I return to Korea that all of my Korean brothers and sisters will enjoy the same right to marriage.

But of course, both here as well as in the US, there are so many other items on the community’s agenda that deserve just as much attention as marriage. Youth and elders, police and criminal justice system reform, bullying and bias-based harassment in school, health care access, immigration, etc., etc. There is so much more work to be done, but we’re making progress in the US just as here in Korea. And it thrills me to see the LGBT community come of age in the country of my birth. And what a truly great honor it is to address you on the occasion of my first return to Korea since I left here at the age of seven months.

Even if I had had an memories from back then, I would not be able to recognize the city of my birth after half a century of dramatic change. When I left here, it wasn’t long after the popular uprising that overthrew Rhee Syngman and it’s even possible that my birth father participated in that revolution. So perhaps I was born to make revolution.

Less than a month after I left Korea, Park Chung-hee came to power in a coup d’etat. I ronic that I return for the first time in 54 years only to find his daughter living in the Blue House. So maybe there’s another agenda item for change to consider. We need fewer princesses and more queens in power. We also need someone more willing to support the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people and less willing to be complicit in the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. And the LGBT movement — which is becoming more global by the day — needs to embrace a global agenda of social justice for all rather than confining itself to a limited agenda of legal rights for some.

And Koreans need to embrace their LGBT brothers and sisters to make Korea truly a national family and home for all. So my message to the people beating drums out there to protest this event is that they should be beating drums for freedom and not for oppression for acceptance and not prejudice. They worship a God I don’t recognize — a judgmental, homophobic and transgenderphobic God who is the opposite of the Gold of love I know. Their hate may be strong, but our love is stronger, and love will ultimately vanquish hate. I t is my hope that the next time I come to this event, the ajima in hanboks waving their Bibles at us and beating their drums will be joining us to celebrate LGBT pride. And it is my hope that on my next visit to Korea, the  Seould city government and the National Assembly will have enacted LGBT rights legislation protecting everyone from discrimination. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has said, the arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice. Thank you. Kamsamnida.

Pauline Park is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA).

You can watch a video of this speech on YouTube as well as Cory May’s video of the speech and the festival and pride parade.

Korean translation by Joanne Lee:

콜린 박입니다.

이자리에 서게 되어 영광입니다 기획단 여러분께 감사인사를 드리며 특히 캔디와 가혜님께 감사드립니다

제가 여기서 발언하게되어서 기쁘고 이 축제는 한국의 LGBT 여러분에게 중요한 이정표입니다

LGBT 자부심 뿐만 아니라 반대하는 사람들에 대한 승리라고 봅니다

하지만 운동은 그렇습니다 한걸음 뒤로 가면 두발자국 앞으로 가는 것입니다

제 경험을 토대로 말씀드리면 LGBT운동에 21년간 몸담고 있습니다

제가 처음 LGBT 단체에 몸 담았을 때 아이가 있었다면 그 아이는 뉴욕주에서  합법적으로 술을 마실 수 있는 나이가 되었을 것입니다

하지만 슬프게도 뉴욕주의 트렌스젠더 인권법은 여전히 13년 전 트렌스젠더 인권법이 소개됐을 때부터 지금까지 제자리입니다. 하지만 좋은 소식은 제가 처음 활동에 몸담기 시작한 1993에 비해 엄청난 진전이 있다는 겁니다.

가장 놀라운 성과는 이번 주에 일어났죠. 바로 미국연방대법원이 동성결혼에 합헌이라는 역사적 결정을 내린 것입니다.

제가 다시 한국에 돌아오게 되면 꼭 한국의 모든 분들도 같은 권리를 누릴 수 있었으면 좋겠습니다.

하지만 동성결혼만큼 주목 받아야 할 사회적 이슈가 아직 많이 있습니다.

우리의 청소년들과 형사정의체제개혁, 학원폭력, 편견과 차별, 의료법 이민자 문제 등이 그 예입니다.

한국과 같이 미국도 앞으로 나아가고 있고 제가 태어난 이곳에서의 LGBT커뮤니티 진전을 보게 되어 기쁩니다.

제가 이곳을 떠났을 때는 이승만 정권이 끝났을 때였고, 아마 저의 친구도 이승만 정권에 저항하기 위해서 싸웠을 겁니다.

그래서 제게도 그런 저항의 피가 흐르고 있는지도 모릅니다.

그 후에 박정희 전 대통령이 쿠데타를 일으켜 정권을 장악하였고, 아이러니하게도 54년이 흐른 후 한국에 돌아왔더니 그의 딸 박근혜가 정권을 이끌고 있었습니다.

지금 이 사회는 공주님들보다 리더십 있는 여왕들이 더 필요합니다.

또한 팔레스타인 이슈에서 많은 관심이 필요합니다. 팔레스타인 땅에 이스라엘이 점령하고 있는 것에 더 많은 사람들의 비판의 목소리를 해야한다고 생각합니다

LGBT운동 또한 단순히 어떤 하나의  아젠데에 묶여있는 것이 아닌 동성혼 합법화와 같은 다양한 이슈에 집중할 필요가 있다고 생각합니다.

여기 계신 모든 분들도 다같이 앞장섰으면 좋겠습니다.

지금 저 멀리서 북을 두드리며 이 행사에 반대의 목소리를 내고 있는 사람들을 보십시오.

그들은 내가 알지 못하는 신을 추앙하며 포비아적이고 혐오로 가득 찬 메세지가 하나님의 메세지라고 외치고 있습니다.

저들의 메세지는 강렬하지만 저희의 사랑이 훨씬 위대하고 강력합니다

그리고 결국 저들의 혐오는 우리의 사랑으로 정복되고 말 것입니다.

제가 다음에 이 행사를 다시 찾게 되면 지금 한복을 입고 북을 두드리는 저분들이 LGBT를 응원하고 있으면 좋겠습니다.

한국 정부가 LGBT 인권을 보장한 법안을 발의했으면 좋겠습니다.

예전 마틴 루터 킹이 연설했듯이 역사는 길지 모르지만 그 혼은 정의의 방향으로 굽어있다고 했습니다.

감사합니다.

The post Queer Korea Festival speech & Seoul Pride 2015 (6.28.15) appeared first on Pauline Park.

Trans-Form the Occupation

Pauline Park

at

Occupy Wall Street

13 November 2011

Thank you for the opportunity to speak here. I’m Pauline Park, chair of NYAGRA, the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, and president of the board of directors of Queens Pride House, an LGBT community center in the borough of Queens.

I’m honored by the invitation to speak here at Occupy Wall Street, which I think is one of the most exciting recent developments in American politics. People are finally standing up to corporate greed and the powers that be. And that includes transgendered people. I’m a transgendered woman who was born in Korea. I’ve lived in New York since 1995 and I’d like to talk about the people who make up my community.

1) The diversity of the transgender community.

We need to recognize the full diversity of the transgender community. There are as many different ways of being transgendered as there are transgendered people. Do not assume that sex reassignment is the end point for every transgender transition; most transgendered people do not want sex reassignment surgery, and most people who do never get it.

2) ‘Transgender’ as an umbrella term.

There are literally hundreds of descriptors and self-descriptors that people use to identify or self-identify. But don’t confuse the label with the person. ‘Transgender’ is an ‘umbrella’ term that is widely used to bring together a wide variety of different subgroups within the community, including transsexuals, crossdressers and genderqueers. The term ‘transgender’ can be used in three different ways: as a term of self-identification, as an analytic term, or as a political term. There are many people who don’t identify with the term ‘transgender,’ including a lot of immigrants and transgendered people of color.

3) Sexual orientation vs. gender identity.

It’s important to understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. Sexual orientation refers to who you’re attracted to; gender identity refers to how you identify and express your gender. Sexual orientation has nothing to do with gender identity per se. There are transgendered people who identify as heterosexual as well as those who identify as lesbian, gay and bisexual. Don’t assume someone’s sexual orientation from their gender identity or presentation. What do you know about someone’s sexual orientation if you know that they’re transgendered? Nothing~!

4) Discrimination.

In this society, transgendered and gender-variant people face pervasive discrimination, harassment, abuse & violence. Even with a transgender rights law in place since 2002, transgendered people regularly report discrimination in this city. Fortunately, the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002 prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and expression in employment, housing, public accommodations, education and credit. If you experience discrimination, contact NYAGRA through nyagra.com or the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund through the TLDEF website at transgenderlegal.org.

5) Bullying, harassment & violence.

Transgendered and gender-variant youth face pervasive bullying and bias-based harassment in our public schools; and the rate of teen suicide among trans and genderqueer youth is astronomically high. Many trans and genderqueer youth drop out of school because of such bullying; and without even a high school diploma, the chances of finding a well-paying job are very slim. Last year, the New York state legislature enacted the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA), which prohibits bullying and bias-based harassment in public schools throughout the state.

6) Housing & homelessness; health care.

Many transgendered people find themselves homeless because of discrimination and abuse, including domestic and intimate partner violence. Many are forced into sex work, with heightened risk of HIV infection, police brutality, and street violence. Many transgendered people lack health insurance and even access to basic health care.

7) GID.

Many transgendered people access hormones and surgery through the diagnosis of gender identity disorder (GID). But the GID diagnosis pathologizes everyone who is gender-variant as a gender deviant. As I like to say, I do not have a gender identity disorder; it is society that has a gender identity disorder. We need to eliminate the pathologizing of transgender and gender variance.

We need to create a society in which no one is denied employment or housing or health care because of their gender identity or expression. We need to recognize the multiple oppressions that face transgendered people of color, including immigrants of color. We need to recognize that the root of our oppression as transgendered and gender-variant people is the sex/gender binary — the policing of rigid gender norms by the police and public authorities, corporations and other employers, and conventionally gendered people in our society. We need to bring feminist consciousness to the project of challenging, deconstructing and dismantling the sex/gender binary.

We need to create a society characterized by social and economic justice, not governed by rigid gender norms and corporate profits. And as a step towards that goal, we need to make sure that this space is safe for everyone, including our transgendered brothers and sisters. As the Mahatma Gandhi said, we need to be the change that we want to see in the world.

Thank you.

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Parking Rights
Pauline Park is fighting for transgender rights
By Kevin Allison
New York Blade
Friday, July 18, 2003

Late one night, years ago, Pauline Park squeezed onto an E train to Queens in a burgundy gown. A man shoved past, selling batteries. When he saw Park, he was disgusted. “If you’re a man, dress like a man!” he yelled. He went on insulting her.

“People were laughing at me. Middle-aged white people, laughing right at me,” Park recalls. “But it bothered me for about 10 seconds and I just moved on.” She pauses in reflection and says, “It’s about maintaining my dignity.”

Since the Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws, dignity for the gay community is here. But it’s still easier for some than for others.

This month, Park celebrates the anniversary of her two greatest achievements as an activist: the founding of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA); and the passage of the city’s transgender rights bill. But there are still too many incidents like the one on the subway for Park to remember.

Even with a PhD in political science, training as a classical pianist and being a self-taught expert on J.R.R. Tolkien, she feels happy just to walk down the street in peace. Park is transgendered.

In her case, that means no surgery and no hormones. But it means more to her than cross-dressing. Park sees no incongruity between the male body she inhabits and the female identity she embraces.

Relaxing in her Jackson Heights apartment, surrounded by books from all over the world, Park sips on spring water, reminiscing on how she got to this anniversary. She’s a petite Korean American, utterly comfortable with herself barefoot in a floral summer one-piece. Park has shoulder-length black hair and stunning eyes.

Her big, expressive face may not always “pass” as a woman’s; but the most striking thing about Park is her voice. Soft and soothing, it’s a voice made for lullabies.

“When I was a young child, I use to have constant dreams, always with the same premise,” she says laughing. “I was alone at night in a big department store in the women’s section. And I got to try on all the clothing that I wanted to.”

Park is particularly proud of her work in helping to pass New York City’s transgender rights bill. “That really took countless hours of work to pass. I started on it in January of ’99,” she says. On April 24, 2002, the City Council did approve a landmark bill to protect the rights of the transgendered. The Mayor signed it on April 30, when it became Local Law 3 of 2002.

This month also marks the fifth anniversary of her founding NYAGRA. “When I first started dressing, I remember this one taxi driver I met and he felt he had to remain a closeted cross-dresser.” The memory brings sorrow to Park’s voice. “He was older, late ‘50s, very masculine features and he was very, very sad about it. It really brought home to me that the mass of transgendered people live lives of quiet desperation. So I started having ideas about what eventually became NYAGRA, a group to be a voice for the voiceless.”

Park herself was voiceless for years. An adopted son of Christian fundamentalists in Milwaukee, she hid from the world behind stacks of books in libraries.

Things got less lonely in college with gay groups and coming out. Cross-dressing was the long-dreamt-of leap taken when Park was living in London in the early ‘80s at the age of 22. She lost friends over it and found the switch just as nerve-racking as exhilarating.

Expressing her ‘masculine’ side“I think that ironically there are more of what you might call ‘masculine’ traits that I’ve finally been able to express having come out as a transgendered woman,” she says. “There’s room now for this side of me who is the firebrand, the fiery activist who goes out to get things done.”

That’s not to say the little dreamer she once was, the contemplative kid playing Bach on the piano, is lost. “There’s still a side of me that’s philosophical. I sometimes find myself having two reactions at the same time, and I don’t feel they’re in conflict. It’s more of a conversation.”

It’s clear that conversation is Park’s forte. She speaks lovingly and often of “intellectual companionship,” and finds inspiration in “The Lord of the Rings.”

“There are two kinds of power,” she explains. “One is the power of dominion over others, symbolized by the ring. But there’s also spiritual power, which is enhanced when it’s shared. That’s the true spirit of community. People think, ‘Well my voice doesn’t count.’ But I think we showed with the transgender rights bill that a small number of people acting on a just cause can accomplish great things.”

A statewide transgender rights bill is her next conquest, as well as the Dignity for All Students bill to protect kids from harassment at school. Is it getting easier being herself in public these days? Park is optimistic as ever.

“Just a week ago I was walking down the street past a construction site and one of the men just standing around goes, ‘That’s a man! That’s a Chinese man!’ And I just smiled to myself. I thought, ‘Well mister, you’re wrong on both counts!’”

This article originally appeared in the New York Blade on 18 July 2003.

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On Nov. 4, nearly a hundred people crowded into the William Bennett Gallery to help me celebrate my 50th birthday and to support the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy(NYAGRA) and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF).

Michael Silverman, the executive director of Transgender Legal, and Therese Rodriguez, executive director of the Asian/Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA) gave speeches, as did I. Folks from APICHA brought sushi, water, soda and juice for the occasion, and we were surrounded by works of art by the great Salvador Dali.

Michael Silverman talks about the work of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF)

Among those present were Council Member Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side in the New York City Council and who was a co-sponsor of the transgender rights law enacted by the Council in 2002; Paul Kobrak from the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene; Jarron Magallanes, Robert Murayama, Ding Parajon & Charlie Solidum of APICHA; Jarad Ringer of the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP); Audie Edwards, Charles Ober & John Petrozino of Queens Pride House; Yanira Arias, Juan David Gastolomendo, Daniel Ravelo & Jose Tineo of the Latino Commission on AIDS (LCOA); Weiben Wang of the Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY); Aries Liao, Kira Tzong & Un Jung Lim of Q-Wave; Vic Bach, Carlos Valldereuten &Warren Wyss of the Philosophy Forum; Terry Boggis of the LGBT Community Center; Justus Eisfeld of Global Advocates for Trans Equality (GATE); Alta Avoir, Nancy La Mar & Lucille Spencer of CrossDressers International (CDI); Rita Petite, TLDEF’s bookkeeper & organizer of the NYC Transgender Meet-Up Group; drag entertainer Lady Clover Honey; Veronica Vera of Miss Vera’s Finishing School for Boys Who Want to Be Girls; photographer Mariette Pathy Allen; journalist Andy Humm of Gay USA; and Michael Stafford, the newest member of the TLDEF board of directors.

Charlie Solidum, Jarron Magallanes, Therese Rodriguez & Robert Murayama represented APICHA at the event.
(photo by Dae Kim)

And we sold copies of my new compact disc of piano music, “Barricades Mysterieuses.” In fact, the event became the occasion for the release of the new CD. (For copies of the CD, use the contact page of this website.)

Yanira Arias & Juan David Gastolomendo from the Latino Commission on AIDS (LCOA) as well as Amanda Rosenblum & Stephanie Hsu helped me bring the CDs to the gallery, and Charlie Ober of Queens Pride House helped me bring the unsold CDs back to Queens afterwards.

Thanks to all who attended and to all who made this event possible~!

Therese gave a wonderful speech about APICHA and about my work with the organization over the years.
(photo by Dae Kim)

Cesar Faigal & photographer Dae Kim

Stephanie Hsu and Amanda Rosenblum handled all the CD sales and donations to NYAGRA and TLDEF.

Nancy, Cleopatra (in leopard skin fur), Alta, Lucille & several other members of Cross Dressers International (CDI) joined me for this special event.
(photo by Dae Kim)

Ed Kennelly & Arturo Reyes Rodriguez

guestbook greetings & birthday wishes

Lucille Spencer of CDI

Paul Kobrak, Juan David Gastolomendo & Jarad Ringer

Audie Edwards, secretary of the board of directors of Queens Pride House

Phil Velez, Richard Lozada & Andy Humm

The William Bennett Gallery was full of friends and supporters of NYAGRA & TLDEF.

A panoramic view of the gallery.

Another panoramic view of the gallery.

Therese Rodriguez talking about the work of APICHA & Pauline’s involvement with it.

Pauline standing with Therese Rodriguez as she talks about APICHA’s work.

_____________________

How often do you turn 50…? Only once (at least in my case). Back when I was born, Ike & Mamie were still in the White House; now Barack & Michelle live there. The times they are a-changing~!

So I’m throwing the birthday party of the century — well, at least the birthday party celebrating my first half century. The party will be at the beautiful William Bennett Gallery in Soho on Thursday, November 4 from 7-9 p.m.

Of that 50 years, at least 14 have been devoted to LGBT activism, including advocacy work through the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF). In lieu of birthday gifts, a contribution to help support the work of these two organizations that have been so much a part of my life for the last decade would be most appreciated. Donations can be made through the New York Charities Bureau of the New York State Attorney General’s Office to either Transgender Legal or NYAGRA.

I hope you’ll make my birthday celebration complete by joining me on November 4~!

William Bennett Gallery
65 Greene Street
New York, NY 10012-4336

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SONDA and Transgender Inclusion in Pending State Legislation
by Pauline Park
Member, NYAGRA Board of Directors
January 2002

Recently, there has been much discussion within the transgender community in New York City about the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA), the ‘gay rights bill’ currently pending in the New York state legislature. I would like to take this opportunity to inform NYAGRA members about NYAGRA’s position on this important piece of legislation.

As most of you know, SONDA does not include any transgender-specific language, and without such definitional language – for example, defining
sexual orientation to include ‘gender identity or expression,’ it is extremely unlikely that any court in this state would interpret such legislation (once enacted) as including transsexual or transgendered people, per se. SONDA defines ‘sexual orientation’ as “heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality, and so a transgendered person could only use the law (once enacted) to sue for discrimination if s/he also identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) and if the s/he could provide clear evidence that the discrimination involved related to his/her identification as LGB, regardless of any discriminatory intent based on gender identity or expression. In practical terms, then, SONDA cannot plausibly be regarded as even remotely transgender-inclusive.

There has been some confusion and misinformation concerning NYAGRA’s position on SONDA. When NYAGRA was formed in June 1998, getting transgender-specific and transgender-inclusive legislation enacted was among our primary goals. The full inclusion of all transsexual, transgendered, and gender-variant people in state human rights law was and remains a fundamental commitment of this organization. The question has been how to achieve that objective. At no time did the NYAGRA board of directors ever accept the proposition that SONDA was acceptable as written. Rather, the question at hand was one of strategy and tactics – how to move the ‘gay establishment’ and the state legislature to support transgender inclusion in state discrimination legislation.

The first decision that the NYAGRA board (then known as ‘the working group’) made was to meet with the the leading lesbian and gay political organization in the state. Tim Sweeney (then deputy director) and Paula Ettelbrick (then legislative counsel) recommended that NYAGRA and ESPA work together first on local legislation and then tackle the state legislature, and we accepted that recommendation.

Those who may be critical of the decision we made back in the fall of 1998 must understand the context in which it was made. NYAGRA was an entirely new organization, with no membership to speak of and no resources. The seven of us who met in David Valentine’s apartment on that hot afternoon on June 28 dreamt of creating an organization that would advocate for all transsexual, transgendered, and gender-variant people in this state; but we were also realistic enough to know that we were not in a position to dictate terms to a well-funded statewide organization that had a dozen full-time paid staff members, a membership of 14,000 or more, and an annual budget of over $1 million and that was – significantly – in a position to serve as gatekeeper on any LGBT-related legislation in the state legislature.

The transgender community (however defined) is a marginalized one with few resources and little political clout, and lags far behind the organized lesbian and gay community in terms of political organization. We in NYAGRA recognized that we could gain far more by working with ESPA than by demanding full transgender inclusion in a state discrimination bill that we were in no position politically to demand. By forming a strategic partnership with the Pride Agenda, we have been able to advance the legislative and political agenda of the transgender community far more effectively than if we had chosen to ‘tilt at windmills.’ ESPA’s support for the New York City transgender rights bill (Int. No. 754) was crucial for us to gain entree to Councilmembers and to give us credibility in the legislative arena.

At the time of NYAGRA’s formation in June 1998, there was not a single transgender political organization in New York City or state working directly and consistently on legislation. It is through NYAGRA’s campaign for Intro 754 that the transgender community has gained credibility in the legislative arena. At the time of the founding of NYAGRA, transgender inclusion in pending city or state legislation was not even seriously discussed in political circles. No lesbian/gay political organization in this city actively supported such inclusion, and no member of the City Council or the state legislature (to our knowledge) had even been approached about inclusion in discrimination or hate crimes legislation.

As we enter 2002, the political landscape has been transformed. Every major political club in New York City – including Gay & Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID), Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn, the Stonewall Democratic Club, and the Out People of Color Political Action Club (OutPOCPAC), as well as ESPA – has endorsed Intro 754 as well as including a question on Intro 754 on their candidate questionnaires (in most cases, the very first question on those questionnaires) in the 2001 election cycle. As a consequence of the support of these political clubs and crucially of the Pride Agenda, Intro 754 became widely viewed as a barometer of a candidate’s support not only of the transgender community but of the LGBT community as a whole. Remarkably, three of the four leading candidates for the Democratic mayoral nomination (Fernando Ferrer, Mark Green, and Alan Hevesi) endorsed Intro 754 a year before the November 2001 election, and even the one candidate who did not endorse the bill (Peter Vallone) did
not publicly oppose it. The Republican mayoral nominee (Michael Bloomberg) also committed himself to signing the bill, an important endorsement, given his election in November 2001. Both candidates for City comptroller and all five of the leading candidates for public advocate endorsed the bill. And some of the more progressive and LGBT-supportive candidates for City Council even approached NYAGRA proactively to ask that their names be put on the Intro 754 endorsement list.

The transgender community has made progress outside of New York City as well. Gender identity language was been included in the amendment to the Suffolk County anti-discrimination bill signed into law in 2001 as well as in the City of Rochester’s human rights law also enacted last year. And the City of Ithaca passed a hate crimes law that included ‘gender identity or presentation,’ making it the first jurisdiction in the state to explicitly recognize transgender in a hate crimes statute. And when the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) was reintroduced in the state legislature in January 2001, it became the first piece of legislation ever introduced in that body to include transgender-specific language.

None of this was even conceivable back in June 1998. And so when we consider the issue of SONDA, we must realize how much NYAGRA’s work on Intro 754, DASA, and other pending legislation has raised expectations within the transgender community to a level far above that in 1998, when we (rightly) expected little or nothing of legislators or candidates for public office.

NYAGRA’s position on SONDA is this: state human rights law should and must include all transsexual, transgendered, and gender-variant people, whether through an amendment to pending legislation (such as SONDA), existing statute law (such as an enacted SONDA), or some other mechanism. SONDA is in many ways the ideal vehicle, as it is still pending and given that many legislators simply assume that ‘sexual orientation’ includes transgendered people. However, while we are committed to full transgender inclusion in state anti-discrimination law, we are also committed to working with ESPA where possible while challenging them when necessary. We recognize (as some in the community do not) that there is a two-step process to amending SONDA. First, we (and that ‘we’ includes not only NYAGRA but other transgender organizations and allies) must persuade the Pride Agenda that transgendered people deserve the same protections from discrimination as LGB people; and second, we must persuade the co-sponsors of SONDA in the state legislature to amend the bill.

What some may not recognize is that working at the state level presents greater challenges than working at the local level. While the Assembly is controlled by (generally progressive) LGBT-supportive Democrats, the state Senate is controlled by conservative Republicans who blocked the state hate crimes bill for 12 years because of its inclusion of sexual orientation. (That bill passed the Senate only in June 2000 and was signed into law in July 2001, without transgender-inclusive language.)

It is certainly not NYAGRA that has been blocking transgender inclusion in SONDA. And it is not solely the responsibility of NYAGRA board and staff members to secure full transgender inclusion in state law. Rather, it is the responsibility of all transgendered people and transgender-supportive LGBs and other allies to secure full transgender inclusion in state law. NYAGRA has grown tremendously over the last few years, but it remains a relatively small organization relative to well-established lesbian/gay statewide political organizations; and NYAGRA is a relatively under-funded organization as well, in relation to its mission and its needs (especially when one considers that there is little funding for lobbying or legislative work, which we do entirely on an unpaid volunteer basis). In the last few years since our founding, we in NYAGRA have focused on legislative objectives that we believe are realistically attainable (especially the passage of Intro 754) in order to build a foundation for pursuit of legislative goals whose realization are probably more distant – such as an amendment to SONDA (either pre- or post-enactment).

Members of the transgender community must begin to take responsibility for themselves and realize that they can play a role in the passage of legislation. If they are concerned about inclusion in state law, they can write their representatives in the Assembly and the Senate or visit them in Albany or in their district offices. There is nothing preventing any individual (whether transgender-identified or not) from raising the issue of transgender inclusion in SONDA or any other bill currently pending in the state legislature. Those who have expressed frustration with SONDA’s lack of transgender-specific language need to ask themselves if they have done what they could to secure full transgender inclusion in that bill or other pending legislation.

There is no one organization (let alone any one individual) who can claim to speak for the entire transgender community, and NYAGRA has never claimed to be such an organization. Instead, we in NYAGRA have advocated on behalf of the transgender community (a subtle but important distinction). We have been especially active in those areas where we believed there was a realistic opportunity for legislative action – most particularly with Intro 754, where there is a very good chance of getting the bill passed in the incoming City Council.

The strategic partnership that NYAGRA formed with the Pride Agenda back in the fall of 1998 has paid rich rewards in terms of our ability to advance a transgender legislative agenda. While we have not always succeeded in persuading ESPA to support full transgender inclusion in pending legislation (such as with the state hate crimes bill or SONDA), we have garnered their support for important bills (such as Intro 754)without which it would not have been possible to move that legislation forward.

Politics is ultimately about human relationships, and the relationships that we forged with senior staff – Tim Sweeney (the former deputy director who left ESPA in October 2000) and Matt Foreman (the outgoing executive director who left ESPA in December 2001), in particular – may change as new leadership takes over at ESPA. But we remain committed to working with ESPA staff to the extent possible while also remaining willing to challenge them – even publicly – when necessary. And we remain committed to full transgender inclusion in state law.

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An Interview with Pauline Park
Chapter 8 in Embodying Asian/American Sexualities, edited by Gina Masequesmay & Sean Metzger

Based on interviews conducted August 22, 2004 and January 3, 2005

1.      What does transgender mean? Can you distinguish between transgender and gay/lesbian/bisexual for the reader?

‘Transgender’ is an umbrella term that refers to a diverse population.  The transgender community includes a number of different subgroups, such as transsexuals, crossdressers, and genderqueers (gender-variant individuals who may not identify with either gender).  Some (including many but not all transsexuals) will seek sex reassignment surgery while others will not; some will present fully in the gender opposite their birth sex at least part of the time (transgendered people) while others will not; but in its most general sense, ‘transgender’ refers to those individuals who ‘transgress’ gender boundaries in some sense and to some degree.  The most important point is that gender identity and sexual orientation are two entirely different phenomena; the common misconception that all transgendered people are gay is belied by the fact that many (perhaps most) transgendered people are heterosexual, though many are lesbian, gay, or bisexual as well.  Gender identity has to do with how one feels about one’s gender (whether one feels oneself to be a boy or girl, man or woman), while sexual orientation has to do with whom one is attracted to.

1a.     Given that this anthology addresses issues of “embodiments,” could you comment on what “embodiments” means for you as a transgender person?

Like every other human being, I am ’embodied’ in that I occupy a physical body.  Many transgendered people are uncomfortable in their bodies or even alienated from them.  Some who identify as transsexual seek to alter their body through hormones and surgery.  Unlike some other transgendered women, I am comfortable occupying a male body, and I see no contradiction between being male-bodied and identifying as a woman.  For me, sex and gender are two very different things.

2.      Please narrate your “coming out” as a transgender person? Did religion impact your coming out process? If so, how?

I was born in Korean and adopted by American parents of European descent who were Christian fundamentalists and who had homophobic attitudes and very conservative views on gender roles.  Transgender issues were never discussed.  To that extent, my coming out as gay (at the age of 17) coincided with my rebellion against my mother’s religious and political views (my father died when I was 12 going on 13).  I had my second coming out at the age of 36 and have been living as an openly transgendered woman since then.  But while my public coming out as a gay boy preceded that as a transgendered woman by nearly 20 years, in fact, I realized I was transgendered at the age of four, long before I began to identify as gay, and I always knew that the gay male identity that I adopted was a tentative and incomplete one that did not fully address my gender identity.  I first began to ‘cross-dress’ regularly in public at the age of 21, but I went back in the ‘tranny closet’ two years later and so my gender transition was far less linear and far more complicated than my gay ‘coming out’ narrative.

2a.     Could you elaborate on what a “tranny closet” is? How is it different from the “gay closet”?  Were there differences being in the “tranny closet” within gay versus straight communities? For example, what were the reasons for staying in the closet among those different groups?

The ‘tranny closet’ is somewhat different from the ‘gay closet’ insofar as transgender identity generally has more implications for one’s public presentation.  After all, a gay man is probably going to still present as a man, and a lesbian as a woman, even though they may be somewhat gender-variant.  But a transgendered man or woman may significantly or even profoundly alter his/her gender presentation.  So to that extent, ‘tranny closet’ may literally involve what is in one’s clothes closet.  But in a less literal and a deeper sense, the alteration of identity may be more profound and life-altering for many transgendered people than for non-transgendered LGB people.  Because of this, the process of ‘coming out’ of that ‘closet’ may be more complex for the transgendered.  In my case, for example, my coming out as a gay male was much simpler and more linear than my coming out as a transgendered woman.  There are some differences between coming out in the LGB community vs. coming out in straight society; while there is still some prejudice within the LGB people, the transgenderphobia in straight society is much more pervasive and much more intense.  It was partly for those reasons that I remained in the ‘tranny closet’ as long as I did.  I was particularly concerned about the potentially deleterious impact on my professional career.

2b. Could you elaborate on the different issues of “coming out” versus “passing”? How are such issues different for a transsexual person versus a gay/lesbian person versus a queergender person versus a crossdresser?

The term ‘passing’ originates in the experience of light-skinned African Americans who could ‘pass’ for white and would live as if they were born white, concealing their black racial and cultural origins.  ‘Passing’ for a transgendered person refers to the experience of being perceived as gender-normative.  In other words, a transgendered woman ‘passes’ when everyone around her regards her as a female-born woman without realizing that she is transgendered (i.e., was born male).

‘Coming out’ and ‘passing’ are very different experiences, and in some circumstances, may even be opposed to each other.  For example, there is a certain proportion of post-op transsexuals who live ‘stealth,’ concealing their transgender identity and living in their chosen gender as if they were born into that sex.  In other words, a post-op MTF may pretend that she was born female and conceal from neighbors, co-workers, and others the fact that she was really born male; or an FTM transsexual may live as a man without revealing to others that he was actually born female.

For me, ‘coming out’ means living as an openly transgendered woman, not in any way attempting to conceal my male birth and anatomy.  That does not mean, of course, that I always alert strangers to my transgender identity; on the street, I do not wear a button saying, “I’m really male,” or anything of that sort.  Safety is important to me, as it is to everyone; but as long as my personal security is not at risk, I am very open about my being transgendered.

For part-time crossdressers, by definition, it is not a question of living as transgendered women.  But there is still an issue of disclosure, as spouses, family members, friends and colleagues usually would not know unless told.  Many if not most crossdressers are closeted, and some are completely closeted (i.e., they only crossdress alone, in the privacy of their own homes).

‘Passing’ for lesbians and gay men would mean passing as ‘straight.’  Some lesbians are sufficiently feminine, and some gay men sufficiently masculine, so that they can pass relatively easily; others may be sufficiently gender-variant that it would be difficult for them to pass, and others may assume that they are gay based on their gender variance.

3.      What led you to create the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy and what is its function?

NYAGRA is the first statewide transgender advocacy organization in New York.  We founded NYAGRA in June 1998, because at the time, there was no such organization and none that was involved in the legislative arena at the state or local level.  NYAGRA’s mission is to advocate for freedom of gender identity and expression for all; we do so through public education and public policy advocacy.  Our public education efforts include public forums on transgender and intersex issues and transgender sensitivity training for social service providers, AIDS agencies, government agencies, and community-based organizations.  But we are best known for our legislative work, in particular, for having led the successful campaign for Int. No. 24 (Local Law 3 of 2002), the transgender rights bill that passed the New York City Council in April 2002. NYAGRA was also instrumental in negotiating inclusion of gender identity and expression in the text of the Dignity for All Students Act, a safe schools bill currently pending in the New York state legislature that would prohibit discrimination and harassment in public schools throughout the state.  In 2004, NYAGRA partnered with other LGBT organizations in mounting a series of public forums on discrimination and harassment in schools based on gender identity and expression, held in cities throughout the state (Nyack, Albany, Syracuse, Ithaca, Poughkeepsie).  NYAGRA was a founding member of the New York State DASA Coalition as well as the coalition supporting the Dignity in All Schools Act, a safe schools bill passed by the New York City Council in June 2004 and enacted when the Council overrode Mayor Bloomberg’s veto of the bill in September 2004.  The NYC law prohibits harassment in public and (non-religious) private schools in the five boroughs, and features a definition of gender that includes gender identity and expression.

3a.     California passed Assembly Bill (AB) 537, the California Student Safety and Violence Act, in 2000. One of the continuing struggles for the coalition that worked to pass and now to enforce this legislation is the inclusion of transgender issues. Please elaborate on NYAGRA’s work with the DASA coalition. What, if anything, did you learn from other local LGBT activist organizations around the country such as Seattle’s Safe Schools Coalition (which started in the late-80s) and the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Project 10, which started in the mid-80s, who have dealt with similar struggles? How did national efforts such as the Human Rights Watch “Hatred in the Hallways” study or the work of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) inform activist activities in New York?

We in NYAGRA try to keep abreast of developments in other states, including California, but the only thing that I can recall influencing our thinking working on the New York state DASA bill was our recognition that the California state legislature was able to include gender identity and expression in their safe schools legislation without mentioning that language explicitly simply by referencing protected categories already included in California state law through its state hate crimes statute; we were not able to consider that possibility in New York because the New York State Hate Crimes Bill Coalition was not willing to hold up that hate crimes bill to include gender identity and expression in that legislation.  GLSEN is one of the member organizations in the NYS DASA Coalition, and NYAGRA has worked in partnership with GLSEN on our series of public forums on the issue of gender identity and expression in the NYS DASA Bill.  But GLSEN’s support for the safe schools bill introduced in Congress in late 2004 by U.S. Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois (R-19th) has raised questions within the LGBT community about GLSEN’s commitment to full transgender inclusion in safe schools legislation at the state and federal levels.

Regarding the NYS DASA bill, it was NYAGRA that negotiated inclusion of gender identity and expression in that legislation so that it became the first fully transgender-inclusive bill ever introduced into the New York state legislature when it was reintroduced in 2000.  Persuading the NYS DASA Coalition to support a transgender-inclusive bill was not easy.  Both the Empire State Pride Agenda and GLSEN (which co-coordinated the coalition through 2004) initially resisted inclusion of the definition of gender in the bill.  But we were eventually able to persuade the Pride Agenda and then GLSEN and through the Pride Agenda, we were able to persuade the prime sponsor of the bill in the Assembly, Assembly Member Steve Sanders, chair of the Assembly education committee.  Ever since then, the coalition has stood by full transgender inclusion, though in the spring of 2004, there was some interest on the part of ESPA and
GLSEN in exploring compromise language similar to that in the Florida DASA bill, which we in NYAGRA do not regard as being sufficiently transgender inclusive.  That bill puts the phrase ‘identity or expression of’ before the list of protected categories (including gender) but does not include a definition of gender or any other transgender-explicit language.

3b. Do you foresee joining forces with other transgender groups to form a national organization for transgender people?

There already is a national organization: the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE).  While we don’t have a formal coalitional relationship with NCTE (NCTE is not a coalition or a national organization with state chapters), NYAGRA has co-sponsored events with NCTE, including a forum in New York City in December 2002 (co-sponsored by NGLTF).

3c. Do you work with gay/lesbian organizations in NY? What about national gay/lesbian organizations like HRC (Human Rights Campaign) or NGLTF (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force)? In other words, where do you see your organization fit into other queer movements and efforts?  Is the trend toward a merging of queer movements to fight for freedom on gender and sexual expressions? Or, do trans and gay/lesbian have such different issues that they will remain separate organizations?

We work with a wide range of lesbian/gay and LGBT organizations in New York City and state.  Our primary partner to date has been the Empire State Pride Agenda and (on education issues, including safe schools legislation) GLSEN.  We have also had some limited opportunities to work with both HRC and NGLTF, both of which supported our campaign for Int. No. 24 (the transgender rights bill passed by the NYC Council in April
2002, enacted as Local Law 3 of 2002).  But we also signed onto a letter from the Task Force in December 2004 that was highly critical of HRC for suggesting that it might support Social Security privatization in exchange for support from the Bush administration and Republican majorities in Congress for movement on LGBT rights legislation.

We in NYAGRA see ourselves as part of a larger LGBT community, and we have played a significant role in the shift toward greater transgender inclusion here in New York.  For example, NYAGRA is a key part of the Coalition for Unity & Inclusion, which successfully lobbied the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center to change its name to LGBT Community Center (aided significantly by the internal work on transgender inclusion by Center staff).  NYAGRA & CUI also successfully persuaded Heritage of
Pride to change the name of the NYC Lesbian & Gay Pride March to ‘LGBT Pride March.’  And we were successful in persuading the NewFest to change the name of the New York Gay & Lesbian Film Festival to ‘LGBT Film Festival.’  Beyond nomenclature, since its founding in 1998, NYAGRA has contributed significantly to the shift in consciousness in New York City and state toward transgender inclusion.  When we were founded in June 1998, few lesbian & gay organizations in New York City included the ‘T’ in their names, much less included transgender in their mission statements, their programming, or their thinking more generally; now, most do in name as well as in practice.

But we in NYAGRA also see ourselves as part of a larger progressive movement for social justice and social change; not all LGBT organizations share that philosophy.

4.      What are the particular challenges facing transgender Asian/ Americans and Pacific Islander/ Americans?

Transgendered Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs), like many other transgendered people of color, face multiple oppressions based on race, ethnicity, citizenship status, and language.  Many transgendered APIs are recent immigrants and have limited English-language proficiency and cultural competence.  Some are undocumented and face problems related to their immigration status.  Others would like to marry U.S. citizens of the same sex as their birth sex but cannot because of laws and state constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage.  Others face problems changing their legal sex designation on documents issued either by U.S. government agencies or by government agencies in their country of birth (such as birth certificates issued by their municipalities of origin).  Some transgendered API women — especially those who are undocumented — are forced into sex work and face heightened risk of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases.  Many transgendered  APIs lack health insurance and/or full access to quality health care.  Many transgendered APIs are reluctant to approach social service providers in their ethnic communities for fear of discrimination or being ‘outed,’ but those with limited English-language proficiency and cultural competence may find it difficult to access services through LGBT community centers and other LGBT social service providers.  Given the centrality of the family in API communities, one of the biggest challenges for transgender APIs is gaining acceptance from their families of origin.  Religious institutions also figure prominently in many API communities, but few are transgender-affirming.  Christian churches in the Korean American community tend to be socially conservative and are often homophobic and transgenderphobic.  The Roman Catholic Church is also a central institution in the Filipino community, with implications for transgendered Filipinos.  For transgendered immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia), the increasing influence of Islamic fundamentalism has further complicated their lives, already difficult because of the sex segregation and gender oppression of their immigrant communities and cultures of origin.

4a.     The API transgender issues are diverse.  Is there a common issue that the majority of API transgenders share that distinguishes them from non-API transgenders?  We see, in Los Angeles for example, gay/lesbian groups splintering into smaller racial , gender and ethnic groups.  Is the trend similar in the transgender communities (between FTMs and MTFs; TS who identify as straight versus gay/lesbian or bi; etc.)?

I think this question raises the larger issue of what is often referred to as ‘identity politics.’  There is certainly a trend throughout the LGBT community toward narrower and narrower focus in organization-building based on identity formations.  The right wing is enamored of the term ‘Balkanization.’  I think the use of this term shows an ignorance of the need of marginalized groups to address the specificity of their oppression.  Clearly, transgendered APIs have in common both being transgendered and being API; but transgendered API women in particular also have the commonality of being ‘fetishized’ as ‘exotic’ objects of sexual interest by straight ‘tranny chasers’; they also share the other multiple oppressions of queer APIs that relate to race, ethnicity, and citizenship status; and they share heightened risk for HIV/AIDS and other STDs.  And yet, of course, transgendered APIs are individuals who are very different in other respects as well.

4b. How do you feel about the disidentification that many Pacific Islanders feel with the term API? Such divisions are reflected, in fact, in our own final decision to use Asian/ American and Pacific Islander/ American in this book. In what ways are such divisions either useful or not?

‘API’ and ‘APA’ are obviously social constructs, but then again, so are ‘Asian American’ and all identity formations, to a greater or lesser extent.  Clearly, the attempt to include Pacific Islanders within the API/APA construct reflects a concern over inclusion, but it can be disingenuous or even tokenizing if not accompanied by a real effort to include Pacific Islanders in organizations that are ostensibly ‘API.’  But the parallel here with ‘LGBT’ is striking: if it is simply a question of adding the ‘T’ for purposes of inclusive nomenclature, then adding the ‘PI’ is insufficient; it is important to make the ‘P’ or ‘PI’ in ‘APA’ or ‘API’ meaningful through meaningful inclusion of Pacific Islanders in whichever organizations and initiatives use one of those designations.

5.      What resources are available for transgender Asian/ Americans and Pacific Islander/ Americans?

The resources available for transgendered APIs (as distinct from resources available to the transgender community as a whole) are virtually all housed in AIDS agencies serving API communities, including:

Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center (San Francisco)
http://www.apiwellness.org/

Asian Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS (APICHA, New York)
http://www.apicha.org/

Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team (APAIT, Los Angeles)
http://www.apaitonline.org/

AIDS Services in Asian Communities (ASIAC, Philadelphia)
http://www.asiac.org/

Asian Pacific Islanders for Human Rights (APIHR, Los Angeles)
http://www.apihr.org/

APIHR is the first non-AIDS organization for LGBT/queer APIs to receive significant funding and also has a TG program.

5a. Which texts (books, films, etc.) do you find particularly useful for educational purposes?

There are all too few resources on transgender and queer API issues currently available.  Among the few that I find useful are:

David L. Eng and Alice Hom, eds., Q&A: Queer in Asian America
(Philadelphia, 1998: Temple University Press).
Kevin K. Kumashiro, ed., Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer
Asian/Pacific American Activists (New York, London, Oxford, 2003:
Harrington Park Press).
Franklin Odo, ed., The Columbia Documentary History of the Asian
American Experience (New York, 2002: Columbia University Press).

Ann Thomson Cook, Made in God’s Image: A Resource for Dialogue about
the Church and Gender Differences (Washington, D.C., 2003: Dumbarton
United Methodist Church).
“Georgie Girl” (P.O.V. documentary about the life of Georgina Beyer)
“Boys Don’t Cry” (feature film)

Embodying Asian/American Sexualities, edited by Gina Masequesmay & Sean Metzger, was published by Lexington Books (a division of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.) in 2009. “An Interview with Pauline Park” (pp. 105-114) is chapter 8 out of 13 chapters, and was based on interviews conducted by Sean Metzger on August 22, 2004 and January 3, 2005.

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As coordinator of a legislative work group that includes city council members, transgender-supportive allies, and other members of  the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, Pauline Park is one of the key players in the initiative to amend New York City’s Human Rights Law to include transgendered and gender variant people. (In February 2000, city council members announced their co-sponsorship of a trans-protective bill; it has not yet passed.) Park’s participation in transgender activism began with GenderPAC’s annual national gender lobby days in Washington, D.C., in May 1997 and 1998.  She and other New York-based trans activists decided to focus their efforts at the state and local levels, and in June, 1998, they  founded the  New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), the first statewide transgender political organization in New York.

Park, who has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois, found working on this project in the highly-charged political environment of New York City to be a real education in lobbying.  Her first piece of advice: “While the support of legislative staff is important, it’s crucial to get at least a few of the members themselves actively engaged in the process. We’ve been very fortunate to have the direct and active participation of two legislators of color — Margarita Lopez, an openly lesbian Latina city council member; and Bill Perkins, a GLBT-supportive African American city council member.” The legislative work group meets in person or via a conference call every two or three weeks.

“It’s also vital to have the support of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community. We’ve formed a working partnership with Tim Sweeney and Ralph Wilson at the Empire State Pride Agenda, and we’ve been able to build on the credibility with legislators that they already enjoy,” Park said.

Park also emphasizes the importance of forming a broad coalition of allies in support of the bill. “In a city as diverse as New York, it’s important to counter the perception that transgender-based discrimination is only a white queer lower Manhattan issue.”  Park said. “With Pride Agenda staff and the six council members in our legislative work group, we’ve produced what looks to be a winning strategy, forging a broad-based coalition that includes communities of color and people in the outer boroughs.”  Members of the legislative work group have reached out to a range organizations for their support, including the Audre Lorde Project, the National Organization for Women-New York City Chapter, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund, District Council 37 (the largest union in the city),  the GLB political clubs, and people of faith.

Park has been involved with organizing in GLBT communities since 1994, when she launched Gay Asians & Pacific Islanders of Chicago, an organization for gay, bisexual, and transgendered Asian and Pacific Islanders. Since then, she has continued to be involved in Asian and Pacific Islander communities, working with the Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York and co-founding Iban/Queer Koreans of New York in February 1997. The initial spark for Iban/QKNY was the Korean LGBT Forum organized by the Korean Gay Organization/ Chingusai and hosted by the Korean American Association of Greater New York on November 2, 1996.  Park was one of the four speakers in that panel discussion, the first forum on GLBT issues ever sponsored by a non-queer Korean American organization. For Park, ensuring that people of color have an equal voice in the transgender political movement is critical. “As a transgendered woman of color, I do not have the luxury of completely separating what are ostensibly ‘transgender’ issues from issues of race, ethnicity, nationality, and citizenship status.”

Transgender Equality: A Handbook for Activists & Policymakers, by Paisley Currah & Shannon Minter, was published on 19 June 2000 by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

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Transgendered People of Color Take Center Stage
by Pauline Park
The Missive of the Audre Lorde Project (ALP)
winter 1998
(the following are excerpts from a longer article that appeared in LGNY’s November 19th issue)

The first conference specifically by and for transgendered people of color ever held in New York City, and to my knowledged, anywhere, was a historic moment in the life of the TG POC community. Sponsored by The Audre Lorde Project and the Gender Identity Project (GIP) of the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center, Transworld — the Fourth Annual Transgender/Transsexual Health Empowerment Conference — took place at ALP in Brooklyn on October 24. Only a week before, ALP’s Arms Akimbo, the first confeence for lesiban, bisexual, two-spirit and transgendered women of color, featured the first workshop specifically devoted to transgendered women of color, facilitated by Carmen Vazquez and me.

Transworld was the fourth in a series of conferences that are the biggest annual event of their kind on the transgender calendar in New York City. As in past years, the conference was well attended, with over 200 people from throughout the metropolitan area and beyond in attendance. Some came from upstate locales such as Ithaca, others from as far away as Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

In addition to a focus on TG POCs, what made TransWorld distinct was the decentering of service provider as all-knowing authority figure — for the first time in the history of the annual TG/TS health empowerment conference, health professionals did not dominate the proceedings.

The all-day conference began with an opening plenary on transgender history and culture moderated by Javid Syed. I spoke on the role of the transgendered Korean shaman — the paksu mudang; Arlene Hoffman reviewed African American history; Christian O’Neill offered insights from the perspective of a transsexual black man; and Carmen Vazquez talked about her identity as a buth Puerto Rican lesbian of transgender identity. The early afternoon featured a series of workshops on transgenderphobic violence, facilitated by Victoria Cruz and Alex Gilliam; substance abuse, by Leona Williams and Caprice Carthans; transgendered youth, by Pagen and Reyana Quinones; government entitlements and immigration, by Isiris Isaac; and medical issues.

Perhaps the most innovative feature of the conference was the speak-out sensitively and expertly facilitated by Maura Bairley of Project Reach, who elicited personal experiences of discrimination and violence as well as suggestions for addressing the multiple oppressions that transgendered people of color face in this society…

Also noteworthy was the fact that medical issues of transsexual transition (especially access to hormones and SRS), the focus of one workshop, were not central to the conference, as is often the case at transgender conferences. It may be a mark of the growing maturity of the transgender community that these issues, while important, did not dominate the proceedings. Instead, the question of how to organizaed TG POC’s politically closed the conference’s formal discussion.

One would think that a conference whose aim — the health and empowerment of TG POCs — would win the embrace of all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people. Remarkably, some white queers stayed away based on the misconception that the conference ‘excluded’ white people. (In fact, the conference was open to all and about a quarter of the attendees were white.) The conference even prompted one nationally prominent transgender activist to denounce it as ‘racist’ for having limited the roster of presenters to people of color, despite the fact that POC-only spaces have become increasingly commonplace in LGB communities. Perhaps it is a measure of the need of the transgender community to address issues of race, ethnicity, nationality, and citizenship status more forthrightly that a conference featuring only people of color as presenters would create any controversy at all.

Pauline Park is coordinator of Iban/Queer Koreans of New York, policy coordinator of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy; she also served on the Transworld organizing committee.  The views expressed here are not necessarily those of these organizations.

This article originally appeared in the winter 1998 issue of The Missive (Vol. 2, Issue 4) of the Audre Lorde Project (ALP), and before that, in the 19 November 1998 issue of Lesbian & Gay New York (LGNY).

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GMHC Expands Legal Reach to Queens

Pride House in Woodside home to effort focused on new Americans

By Matthew Coleman

Gay City News
1-7 November 2002

Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GHMC) opened a new legal services program this week in Queens in cooperation with Queens Pride House and the City University of New York School of Law. The clinic, named GMHC@Queens Pride House, is positioned to help the borough’s under-served communities. The Woodside-based clinic, which offers a variety of services, specializes in providing free legal assistance for people living with “a triple whammy,” according to Ana Oliveira, executive director of GMHC.

“The triple whammy refers to people who are LGBT, HIV positive, and undocumented immigrants,” Oliveira said. “These are all obstacles to becoming a legal immigrant. Unfortunately, immigrants who are HIV-positive are at greater risk of deportation. This program will help advise people of their rights and assist with legal issues, such as deportation and naturalization.”

The legal clinic, which has been operating for the past two months, officially opened October 29 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Pride House. City Councilmember Helen Sears cut the ribbon and spoke of the need for these services in Queens. “It’s important to have such a program here at Pride House,” Sears said. “The storefront location lends itself to the sense of community these services will attract.”

The clinic is staffed with a paralegal, an intern from the CUNY Law School, and an attorney from GMHC’s Legal Services and Client Advocacy. The program provides legal assistance for a wide variety of services, including immigrant cases, discrimination cases, landlord/tenant issues, estate planning, and family law. The location at 67-03 Woodside Avenue will serve the large, immigrant LGBT population in Woodside, Corona, and Jackson Heights. Translators of Spanish, Chinese, and other foreign languages are provided for clients.

“Many of the clients we serve live right here in Queens,” Evelyn Tossas-Tucker, director of GMHC Legal Services and Client Advocacy, said. “Many of them are not comfortable going into Manhattan for GMHC’s legal services. This location is really an extension of our services already offered by GMHC.”

Pauline Park, a secretary at Queens Pride House and a representative of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, agreed that the program is important to the area. “We’re delighted to expand much-needed legal services for a marginalized population,” she said. “These services are desperately needed here. In addition to legal assistance, the clinic will help promote greater awareness and acceptance of people living with HIV/AIDS in the area.”

Like Oliveira’s “triple whammy,” Park also spoke of the added stigma of LGBT immigrants living with HIV/AIDS feel in accessing services from mainstream providers. “Often, people are so fearful of this stigma that it prevents them from venturing beyond their local communities for much help,” Park said. “The free clinic will address those concerns by offering an alternative right where the people

reside.”

Queens Pride House was formed in 1996 to provide a safe space for LGBT individuals and to meet the special needs of populations, such as youth, women, and immigrants, who are often insufficiently supplied with services. Pride House and GMHC officials agreed that the clinic was a logical and important step toward reaching that goal. “As GMHC widened its scope over the years, we have gotten more involved with immigrant rights,” Marty Algaze, director of communications for GMHC, said. “Queens has a large ethnically diverse immigrant community. There is a real need in this neighborhood for these services.”

Funding for these free services comes from GMHC, the nation’s first AIDS services association, and the Stonewall Community Foundation, an LGBT advocacy organization.

In addition to on-site legal assistance, the program anticipates working with other local organizations, such as AIDS Center Queens County and Safe Haven, in providing services in Queens through cooperation and referrals.

The legal clinic at Queens Pride House is open Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 718.651.4945 or 212.367.1040 or visit www.queenspridehouse.org or www.gmhc.org.

This article originally appeared in the 1-7 November 2002 issue of Gay City News.

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Jackson Heights This Week
New Law Stands Up For LGBT Youth
Queens Tribune
1-7 July 2010

The New York State Senate passed sweeping anti-bullying legislation on June 22 that will be the first in the nation to include protection for transgender individuals.

The Dignity for All Students Act passed the Senate by an overwhelming 58-3 margin, winning support from Democrats and Republicans. Gov. David Paterson has vowed to sign the bill, which has already passed the Assembly.

“I’m thrilled that the Senate finally took action after 10 years,” said Pauline Park, chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy and Vice President of the Board of Directors of Queens Pride House. “Both Democrats and Republicans saw there was a need to protect students in public schools from harassment.” Park had been involved in pushing for passage of the bill for over adecade.

The bill requires school staff to report bullying and bias-based discrimination and harassment based on a comprehensive list of characteristics, including disability, ethnicity, race, religion and sexual orientation, as well as gender, and it requires training to deal with instances of bullying and bias-based discrimination and harassment. Park noted the definition of gender is a crucial component of the legislation, as surveys show that bullying and harassment based on gender identity and expression have become a major problem in schools.

The New York City Council passed a similar law in June 2004 called the Dignity in All Schools Act. Mayor Mike Bloomberg vetoed it shortly after, but the mayor’s veto was overridden. The Bloomberg administration and DOE refused to implement the law, claiming the City Council didn’t have authority to pass legislation dealing with schools since the state legislature authorized Mayoral Control of schools. Park disagreed.

“We didn’t see anything in the law [allowing Mayoral Control] that would preclude City Council from legislating in these matters,” she said. She noted that the state law now supersedes the city law and requires the DOE to enforce it. Park said she and other LGBT activists would be fully involved in seeing that the law is implemented in city schools.

The two laws are similar. The local law applies only to harassment and not discrimination, which state law includes, but the state law only applies to public schools while the city law also includes private schools.

Park, who lives in Jackson Heights, said the new law was especially important for Queens because of the borough’s diverse demographics.

“Biased-based harassment and discrimination is a huge issue in the diverse student population of Queens,” she said. “This law will certainly be relevant here.”

Reach Reporter Domenic Rafter at drafter@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 125.

— Domenick Rafter

This article originally appeared in the print edition of the 1-7 July 2010 issue of the Queens Tribune.

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To the Editor:

In your article, “Absorbing Gay Pain & Praise, Clinton Says She’s Evolved” (Paul Schindler, Oct. 26-Nov. 1), you report on Senator Hillary Clinton’s response to a question from a member of the Greater Voices Coalition about whether she would support inclusion of gender identity and expression in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). You write, “Clinton noted that the federal hate crimes measure also lacks such language, but said
only, ‘We are very aware of that and we are raising that.'” In fact, while the Senate version (sponsored by Ted Kennedy) of the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (LLEEA) does not include gender identity and expression, the most recent House version (sponsored by Barney Frank) does. But would she press Senator Kennedy to add gender identity and expression to the Senate version of the federal hate crimes bill-as well as to ENDA-when they are reintroduced in the next Congress? That is the follow-up question that Senator Clinton should have been asked, but was not.

Pauline Park
Chair
New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)
Manhattan

This letter to the editor was published in the 9 November 2006 issue of Gay City News.

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