Trans Universe

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

by

Monica F. Helms

            “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” announced the minister.  “You may kiss the bride.”

            Mathew Greenly lifted the veil from Heidi’s face and kissed his beautiful young wife.

            During the first few months of marriage, everything on the surface appeared all right.  But, Mathew harbored a well-hidden secret that gnawed at him from the day they started dating.  He knew, by the nature of his secret, he would have to tell Heidi eventually, or risk her finding out by accident.

            Mathew decided one evening to fix Heidi a romantic dinner to put her in a receptive mood.  To make everything perfect, he took a day off from work so he could clean the house and prepare the meal.  His efforts paid off when she walked through the door.

            “You’re such a thoughtful husband!” she cried.  Then, she hugged and kissed him.  “Why did you do all of this?”

            “To show you how much I love you.”

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As I start typing this piece, the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” is on Sci-Fi, in preparation for the upcoming new, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”  I bring this up because the search for love, that one true love, is as much of a crusade as searching for the Holy Grail, and in some cases, more rare.  I may have found the “Holy Grail” of my life.  I may have found my one true love.

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An Open Letter to HRC

Dear HRC,

Many things have happened since Southern Comfort, 2007. Transgender people have been taken to extreme heights of hope and depths of despair, all in a very short time. Words flowed back and forth between both sides of the issue, many that were not very pleasant to hear. We said them and they filled pages and pages of blogs and web sites across the WWW. History will judge us all harshly when that time comes. Are we prepared for what will be found? We can only speak for ourselves, individually.

That is why I am writing this letter. I have to speak for myself, as an individual, and not as a so-called leader in the transgender community. I have struggled these past months; with images of disadvantaged trans people I have known flooding my mind. I need to start following the teaching of Jesus, because in His words I find comfort. I need to settle with you, HRC.

I discovered that in order for me to better serve Jesus and do what He has set before me, whatever that may be, I have to forgive those who have hurt me. I have resisted for a long time the need to forgive you, because the hurt is so very deep. I keep seeing Alice Johnston in my mind. Because HRC was not willing to fight for total equality, Alice felt she had no alternative but to take her own life. However, my Pastor reminded me that Alice is with God and she is now without worry. Yes, she is, and I forgive you.

I have carried my anger toward you for a long time and I have acted foolishly because of it. I cannot be expected to do something out of love for the transgender community if I carry around anger toward those who have hurt me. Anger and love cannot occupy the same space at the same time. It is against the laws of physics. It is also hypocritical to my faith.

I know that it will be difficult for some of my friends in the transgender community to understand why I am forgiving you. It is the risk I have to take if I am to be about justice, act mercifully and walk humbly with God. Each person has to settle this with their God in their own way, including any of you on the Board of HRC who saw fit to support removing us from equality. It is not my place to judge.

There will be times in the future where you will once again anger the transgender community. I cannot let those moments detract me from what I am doing and what I can do to help my community. The relevance of your organization has been minimized by the greater good of my community. My God will always guide my heart and my soul on the path of inclusion, no matter what the cost.

I only hope that all of us, the HRC Board included, can be shown a way to do justice that includes all the letters of our community. When you fall short, I will be there to remind you. When you step ahead, I will be there to honor you. I hope you will forgive me for my harsh words and judgment as I have forgiven you for excluding the people of my community from your process. I pray that one day, you too will see that equality is for all and not just for those who pass as “gender normal.”

So, I forgive you and I hope you have a peaceful life.

Monica F. Helms

Marietta, GA

At the last minute, I didn’t know if I could attend the Atlanta HRC Dinner protest in front of the Hyatt Regency, May 3, 2008. Work had me signed up to do 2 hours of overtime right in the middle of when the protest was scheduled. Luckily, I was able to trade the hours to a co-worker.

On Saturday, I had to formulate a plan to talk with the most people I could at the dinner. But in order to do that, I needed to go inside the “Belly of the Beast.” Being a former submariner, I was familiar with submarine war tactics, which have helped me as an activist in the past. You sneak into an enemy’s port, lay a few torpedoes in the sides of their ships, then slip silently away. They never know what hit them.

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By Mercedes Allen

(crossposted in several places, and people are welcome to forward this on freely to others in the transgender and GLBT communities, as I see this as being very serious — Mercedes)

A short time ago, I’d discussed the movement to have “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID, a.k.a. “Gender Dysphoria”) removed from the DSM-IV or reclassified, and how we needed to work to ensure that any such change was an improvement on the existing model, rather than a scrapping or savaging of it.

Lynn Conway reports that on May 1st, 2008, the American Psychiatric Association named its work group members appointed to revise the Manual for Diagnosis of Mental Disorders in preparation for the DSM-V. Such a revision would include the entry for GID.

On the Task Force, named as Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Chair, we find Dr. Kenneth Zucker, from Toronto’s infamous Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH, formerly the Clarke Institute). Dr. Zucker is infamous for utilizing reparative (i.e. “ex-gay”) therapy to “cure” gender-variant children. Named to his work group, we find Zucker’s mentor, Dr. Ray Blanchard, Head of Clinical Sexology Services at CAMH and creator of the theory of autogynephilia, categorized as a paraphilia and defined as “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.”

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