By Monica F. Helms

Today is a special day, a day that transgender bloggers across the country put fingers to keyboard to urge their friends and readers that we need to support Senator Barack Obama for President. This has been a historical week, but one we should have never seen. We have had eight years of a failed administration, led by a man who has failed in every company he has run, and failed as the Governor of Texas. Seems easy to see that if he can’t handle a company, should he have been handling a country?

On a Monday when the Dow had its highest numerical drop in history, transgender people are rallying to show that our community cares about the future of this country. We don’t want four more years of this failed policy. We want four years of an administration that actually supports the needs of the transgender community. We want four years of a chance to recover and to prosper once again. We want four years where other countries in the world trusts us once again. We want Obama!

This is why we have set this day aside to break some goals in the number of those who donate to Obama’s campaign from the transgender community, our friends and family members. We are looking for 200 donations and as I type this, we have 172. We also set out to break $10,000, which we have. I think we can bring both numbers well past the goals we set for ourselves.

To donate in the name of the transgender community, go to the Obama’s Transgender ActBlue page set up specifically for the transgender community. You don’t have to be trans to donate on that page. Our friends and allies who believe in equal rights for all people need to visit this page and help Obama’s campaign and show how much you support your transgender friends and family members. Let’s move this country in the right direction. Let’s help Obama win the White House.

   On Wednesday, October 1, I will be on a plane heading west to Southern California.  A Beach Boys song keeps ringing in my ears, “I wish they all could be California Girls!”  Ah, yes.  California girls.  My mind does wonder at times.  I will be in the San Diego area, the place I lived when stationed on the USS Flasher (SSN 613.)  I have several trans friends who live there and I plan on seeing them.

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The reason I will be going west while many of my transgender friends arriving in Atlanta for Southern Comfort is that my oldest son, Robert, gets married that weekend.  While the Saturday Night Gala at SCC goes on just a dozen miles from my home, I will be 3000 miles away at the wedding reception for my straight son and his new bride, surrounded by most of my family.  What a thrill.

I am actually very proud to be at my son’s wedding, because it says a lot about his acceptance of me.  I will be in amongst his bride Olivia’s family, some of which have never met me and probably don’t wish to.  It might be a bit too much for them to handle Robert’s transsexual Dad, especially when I will be wearing a long, black, backless evening gown.  They’ll just have to live with it.

I have to laugh about the wedding sometimes.  I am going to California to attend a straight wedding.   Straight people actually do get married in California.  Who would have thunk it?  But, I will be a bit sad missing my first SCC since moving to the Atlanta area.  And, the good thing that comes out of all of this?  I’ll get to avoid running into some trans people I don’t want to see, while getting to meet up with trans friends I do want to see.

 One of the most interesting things to happen to me lately is that I joined the American Poolplayers Association (APA,) on a women’s league.  In the last few years, I have been playing pool on such a regular basis that I have actually become a decent player.  When I visited Phoenix this past April, my nephew Aaron took me to a place where I could buy my first pool queue.  Aaron is nearly a pro and he also gave me some very important tips that have helped me improve my game.

This past Wednesday, I went to a place called Fat Cats to join the APA and play with other women members.  I have to thank my best friend Angela for giving me the idea to join a league and my co-worker, Eiko for introducing me to the group at Fat Cats.  I had a fantastic time.

The highlight of the evening was when I played my first official round to help me establish my Skill Level.  Every new APA player starts off at a Skill Level 3, and based on how they do, they can go up or down.  Being a new player, I had to play an established person and in order for me to win the round, I had to win three games and she had to win only two.

This woman was not a bad player and I could see that we had about the same Skill Level.  I ended up winning three games in a row, two of them with the eight ball being the only one on the table.  On one of my wins, I made a shot where I banked the eight off the far bumper to angle it into the corner pocket on my right.   It was a shot I had practiced many times in the past and can make every so often.  It felt good when it went in.

The women meet every Wednesday night at Fat Cats, so it looks like I will have my Wednesdays all planned out.  I’m even taking my queue to California with me so I can stay in practice.  I guess this will be a fun trip after all.

I’m sure blog readers have heard the phrase “Friends with Benefits” quite often, since they consist of some rather sophisticated people out there.  Whenever people hear “FWB,” it conjures up all kinds of lustful images in their minds, mostly about noncommittal sex with a good friend.  This phrase came in existence in about the late 80’s, early 90’s by the younger crowd, but it has worked its way to all generations.

This subject has come up on occasions with some of my friends and ex-girlfriends, discussing it at lengths, which made me feel the need to write about my feeling on this.  The Internet has plenty of pages on FWB, so I’m not breaking into new territory.  Of course, most of what you find on the Internet has been geared toward straight people, but the idea has become common in the LGBT community as well.

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Casual sex should not be entered into casually, especially with a friend.  The implications can end a friendship if the possibility of casual sex has not been discussed in detail beforehand.  Rules and boundaries need to be set in the beginning before the sheets are pulled back.  Yes, rules for FWB do exist.  Here’s what I have found on one web site.

1.)    Be clear about what you want. To make your friends with benefits experience a good one, know what you expect from the relationship. Take the time to really think about it. There is no one-size-fits-all formula. Having a basic understanding of your needs and being able to articulate those needs could help you save lot of drama in the end.

2.)    Choose your partner wisely. This is by far the trickiest and most important step. Being friends with benefits requires a delicate balance. Your partner should be someone who you enjoy spending time with and someone looking for the same things as you in a friends with benefits relationship.

3.)    Set the rules. Every friends with benefits relationship needs a clear set of boundaries. Sit down with your partner and decide what those rules will be. Make sure you are both satisfied with the choices.

4.)    Stick to the rules. It is easy to get sidetracked. Maybe you spend the night once or twice. Maybe you start to spend more time together than you should. Just remember that the rules should only be broken if you decide to change the nature of your relationship.

5.)    Get out before it gets too heavy. Friends with benefits relationships have a short shelf life. They tend to morph into something deeper for one or both partners. If your casual relationship starts to change, end it unless you are happy with the changes.

Interesting enough, it appears that the “Friends with Benefits” term seems to be associated with sex only.  I’m sure that the people who first started using it intended that to be the case, but why go that far?  Since two people set the rules and the boundaries of intimate encounters, then could FWB be something as simple as just holding hands?  Could you cuddle and kiss, but nothing beyond that?  I’m sure I’m not the only person who sees FWB as having very flexible boundaries.

One of my ex-girlfriends introduced me to a wonderful book called “The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities,” by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt.  Not only do they talk about friends with benefits in detail, but many other aspects of love, sex and relationships, casual or otherwise.  They even go into polyamory, bisexuality and transsexuality with some detail.  The book opened my eyes to the possibilities that FWB was not such a difficult concept to embrace, though the book had many other areas that didn’t appeal to me personally.

In some ways, FWB seems to be far more difficult and far more structured then a relationship can be.  Rules get laid out, boundaries need to be set, times to get together are discussed, and who to tell and who not to tell needs to be explored.  Maybe new relationships could benefit the same way by utilizing a bit more structure and a lot less haphazardness.  In my opinion, in a FWB situation, both people have to be far more in line with each other’s thoughts then a regular relationship has to be.  I see that relationships are flexible, but FWB is not.

Not everyone will be comfortable with FWB, even if they have no one currently in their lives.  People’s upbringing has a great deal of affect on whether they can embrace FWB or not.  Bad past experiences, family situations and physical embarrassment can be a factor.  Some trans people experience body dysphoria about having incorrect parts, so they shun many relationship possibilities.  An FWB situation could work for them, because a friend would be more understanding then someone new.  But, broaching the subject with their friend will be very tricky.

Past relationships can also be very tricky if one brings up the idea of FWB.  If the two of you had been intimate in the past, had a relationship and have broken up, but remained friends, one or both of you may not be inclined to even attempt intimacy with that other person once again.  The fear of falling in love and all the baggage that came with it in the first place weighs heavily on their minds.

This is where the different levels of FWB can be explored.  The fact that two people remained friends after a breakup shows that there had to have been some part of their relationship that neither one wanted to lose.  Why be afraid to explore how far that can go without tipping the scale to a full-blown relationship?  They may find that they liked everything about the relationship, except for the C-word, “commitment.”  Remove the burden of commitment and you may have a good time with each other once again.

But, human emotions are not always that simple.  Our minds get flooded with all of the “what-ifs,” and that can be very frightening.  I suggest they explore the little things, such as cuddling and kissing, and leave sex out of it, at least at first.  Easier said than done, which makes it more imperative to set ground rules ahead of time.

Friends with Benefits will forever remain in the American language for years to come.  It will be something for some people to try and something many others will not.  For those brave souls who wish to venture into this volatile territory, they need to be well prepared for the trip, like going to the Moon, but much more dangerous.  Make sure you pack all of your protective gear, and have fun.

I received a phone call from a good friend, Zan Thorton, telling me that Congressman Barney Frank had fifteen disabled people arrested in his office, Tuesday, September 16, 2008, at around 3 PM.  Zan informed me that around fifty LGBT and straight disabled people entered the Congressman’s office around 1:30 PM and asked to speak to him about the housing crisis for disabled people.  They were there representing the Center for Disability Rights.

According to the Congressman’s Chief of Staff, Peter Kovar, the group, several in wheelchairs, came into the office, went right into Congressman Frank’s office and “moved things around” to have a place to sit.  He informed them that they couldn’t be in there and that Frank was about to go to the House floor for a vote.

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Kovar stated they needed an appointment to speak with the Congressman.  The Spokesperson for the group, Bruce Darling, Executive Director of the Center For Disability Rights, stated they have tried and tried to get an appointment but had been turned down each time.  Kovar asked them to leave their literature and come back later, and asked them to leave “five times.”  Congressman Frank even asked them to leave three times.

The group started chanting, disrupting the office activities, so someone called the police.  Out of the fifty, fifteen people, all of them disabled, refused to leave and were arrested.  In that fifteen, one was trans, three were lesbians and three were gay men, including Bruce Darling, and all were in wheelchairs.  According to Zan, the other eight were either straight or she didn’t know.  Zan called me while the Metro Police Department processed her in.

I got a chance to speak with Peter Kovar and he was “mystified” why the group took a belligerent stance when this was an issue that Frank highly supported.  The group actually has a legislative aid in the Congressman’s office who had been working with them on this legislation.  One of the things Zan told me was that they also wanted to talk with the Congressman about transgender rights.  Seems to me that they may have ruined their good relationship with Frank’s office.

This is just another incident in the increasing evidence that some LGBT people are willing to ratchet up the level of confrontation with other LGBT people, causing more to be harassed, injured and arrested by the very LGBT people they protest.  We have seen a person physically ejected from an HRC dinner, mounted police at the Houston HRC dinner and I was almost arrested handing out flyers at an HRC sponsored event.  HRC has hired a goon squad to protect their people and now Barney Frank is willing to have disabled LGBT people arrested.

I am not defending the actions of the protestors any more then I am defending the actions of HRC and Barney Frank’s people.  There is a fine line between protesting to get your point across to the largest audience and crossing the line, making yourself look foolish.  Even though some of our LGBT people grew up in the 60s and participated in the Civil Rights and war protests, the technology of the 21^st Century has created a whole new set of “Rules of Engagement.”

The biggest change in the 21^st Century is the advent of the digital recording media.  Practically every cell phone can take photos and many can do video as well, after which they can be sent to other phones and E-mail addresses.  Instead of relying on a lone news camera person with a black and white 16mm camera to cover the events that get viewed days later, we can send out video from over a hundred different angles, and from both sides of the conflict, instantaneously.

Digital still cameras can capture hundreds of photos in a matter of minutes, then downloaded on a laptop and sent to thousands of people instantly through a Wi-Fi connection.  Text messages and phone calls are also instant, so many people are aware of the event as it happens.  As evident of this, my friend Zan called me from the DC MPD as she was being processed in.  That wouldn’t have been possible in the 60s.

So, how does this world of instant everything changed the face of protesting?  It can lay bare the atrocities of some people and governments, breaking the barriers of silence and repression.  We saw Buddhist monks protesting in Tibet, yet the Chinese government tried to suppress the information and pictures.  We could see protesters in China during the Olympics, getting past the strongest surveillance China has ever initiated.  Children misbehaving on a bus, train wrecks and natural disasters are recorded and sent out for all to see.  Not only is Big Brother watching us, but so is all of his next of kin.

But, there is another side to this age of instant recordings.  We, the protesters, are also scrutinized in great detail by those whom we protest.  Make one mistake, say one wrong thing, act just a little stupid and our actions will also find their way on YouTube.  A picture is worth a 1000 words and moving pictures can invalidate a 1000 words we may try to use to defend our actions.  How many elections have been derailed because of a stupid comment splashed on YouTube?  Movements can experience setbacks because of the actions of just a few.  Just ask yourself this, “Do I want to be the person who makes my organization look foolish?”  It’s a question Joe Solmonese should have asked before taking the podium at Southern Comfort last year.

I have heard many activists who say we should take to the streets and cause civil disobedience to make our issues more visible.  I don’t see this as a viable way to approach things in the 21^st Century.  Digital technology makes our issue visible in ways we could have never dreamt of, or hoped for in the past.  We can use that instead.

Also, we should take a queue from what happened to protesters at this year’s Republican Convention.  The police no longer care if you are just passing through or not.  If you are in the area, you’re a target.  Due process isn’t due anyone any longer.  There’s also no gray area and the police don’t care about harming people.  This hasn’t changed much since the 1960s, but they have more weapons to use.  I hope the people who protested Frank’s office don’t come away with too big of a fine to pay.  We will chalk this up as another learning experience.

I heard a recently discussion that some transgender people feel far less patriotic toward the Good ‘Ol US of A since beginning their journey down this new adventure in life.  I have heard it coming from transsexuals and others who live full-time in a cross-gender life, but not so much from crossdressers and others who cross the gender lines temporarily.  Why would transsexuals feel this way?

Dictionary.com’s definition of Patriotism is:

“noun: devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty.”

“Devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country?”  I have noticed that transsexuals who have served their country in the military don’t seem to have as much of an issue with their patriotism, and in many cases, are more patriotic than the average American.  I served eight years in the Navy and I am very proud of the service to my country, as I am with all the family members who also served.  I even have a memorial to my father with models of four jets he worked on when he was in the Air Force.  In a year, my mother will give me the flag that was on his coffin, and I will display it proudly.

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Why would some trans people feel a loss of patriotism after starting their lives down the correct path?  Could it be all of the things this country has done and continues to do to show us how little they care about us?  “Can I get a Hallelujah and a big Duh here?”  Ya think?  Here are some of the things I have seen over the years that have made me even question my patriotism.

Violence:

Year by year, violence toward trans people continues to get worse and worse.  The Remember Our Dead list doesn’t stop growing, with more than half coming from the US each year.  Other forms of physical violence and rape are also disproportionately higher in our community then in other minorities.  Only young African American men seem to have as much or more violence then transgender people.  In the trans community, People of Color have faced a higher percentage of violence and the ROD list reflects this.  This feeling of constant danger can cause people to wish they lived someplace else, so it affects their patriotism.

Federal Hate Crimes Legislation:

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE,) eleven states have their own form of hate crimes legislation that covers gender expression and gender identity.  On the federal level, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA,) HR 1592, passed the House, but in the Senate, their version, bill S 1105, was attached to an arm forces appropriation bill to get it to the President’s desk.  However, this changed the appropriation bill, which meant it had to go back to the House for approval.  LLEHCPA was then removed from the appropriations bill, thus ending its journey.

The difference between the federal hate crimes bill and a state hate crimes law is that the federal law will NOT increase sentences.  LLEHCPA will add “gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability” to the existing protected class list, which already includes race, color, religion, and national origin.  This would allow federal money to go to local law enforcement agencies to help investigate a hate crime.  It would also mean that separate stats would be collected on crimes against LGBT people and would show the numbers of those crimes committed in the US.

The most important reason to pass a federal hate crimes law is to tell the American people that if you hate this group of people and commit crimes against them, it will no longer be tolerated.  Since Congress had been so cavalier in trying to pass LLEHCPA and then letting it die so easily, it sent a message that LGBT people are not important enough to add to the existing federal hate crimes legislation.  The United States of American is okay with its citizens hating LGBT people and harming them.  They could easily be saying, “We don’t think they are worthy enough to care what happens to them.”  One begins to question why they should be patriotic toward a county who feels that way about them.

Federal Employment Non-Discrimination:

Here is another area where transgender people have questioned their patriotism.  According to NCTE, thirteen states and the District of Columbia have passed nondiscrimination laws that protect people based on their gender identity and gender expression.  This leaves 63% of the American population not covered.  Many of those remaining states will never pass their own nondiscrimination law, so their citizens are depending on the federal government for this.  As we saw in 2007, Congress was more than willing to throw transgender and gender variant people under the bus when it came to this law.

I was well on my way to working toward becoming a delegate to the Democratic National Committee’s 2008 Convention in Denver when the vote for ENDA took place in October, 2007.  As soon as I got word that a majority of supposedly supportive Democrats voted for the non-inclusive law, I stopped supporting the Democratic Party.  I was not very happy that the party I gave money to and worked for to elect their candidates told me in no uncertain terms that I was not worthy to be considered equal to other Americans.  To a veteran, that is a huge slap in the face.  Veterans Day came up shortly after that and I refused to march in the Atlanta Veterans Day Parade or participate in any activities.  My patriotism suffered its biggest blow in my life.

I wasn’t the only one.  There was a rumor that if the non-inclusive ENDA passed, some transgender people planned on seeking asylum at the Dutch Embassy in DC because of the discriminatory actions of this country.  They wanted to embarrass the US, but nothing every came of it, or at least not yet.  Besides, the current administration would have cared less if a bunch of “tranny freaks” left the country.

Transgender Veterans Discrimination in the VA:

This is a subject I have written about several times recently, since the White Paper Report on the Transgender Veterans Survey was published.  I don’t need to go into detail once again on the amount and kinds of discrimination transgender veterans have faced in VA medical facilities.  When a person gives four, ten, twenty, or thirty years of their life to serve this country in the military, one would think that they have earned the right to be treated with respect and equally with other veterans.  It’s no wonder some transgender veterans question their patriotism when they held up their end of the contract, but the country doesn’t hold up theirs.

Over and over again, transgender people indirectly get the message that this country doesn’t want them as citizens.  Yet, they still take our tax money.  Sometimes the message comes from the very allies we hoped would be there for us no matter what.  Sometimes it comes from Congress in the form of being excluded from legislation.  We hear it from law enforcement agencies, employers, co-workers, family members, the medical profession, insurance companies and even the people on the streets.  We hear this so much that not a day goes by that some transgender person in this country questions why they still live here.  Some actually do leave.

As for me, I was born here, my family has been here since before the Revolutionary War, many family members in our history served in this country’s military and all my family lives here today.  The ENDA disaster was the closest time in my life where I questioned my patriotism.  I decided that my love for this country and the pride I have for what I did in the Navy cannot be dampened any longer by an uncaring Congress, an administration that has promoted hate and a population that refused to be educated.  I will continue working toward fixing the problems of this country, or die trying.

The year was 1993.  Clinton was President.  Gay, lesbian and bisexual people felt they finally had a friend in the White House.  And, even though transgender people officially started the gay movement at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, they only began finding their voices in the equal rights movement in the early 1990’s.  They had very little visibility and vertically no credibility.  We weren’t on anyone’s radar.

In that year, President Clinton wanted to fulfill a promise by making the US military safe for people, regardless of their sexual orientation, but it didn’t turn out the way people wanted.  The now infamous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law came into affect and it did not protect people in the military based on their sexual orientation, if that orientation was something other than straight.  The law gave commanders a chance to hunt down gay, lesbian and bisexual service member in order to weed them out.  Transgender military people didn’t ask to be included, but included they were.

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Shortly after that, a new LGB organization, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN,) formed for the express purpose of legally helping military personnel who have been targeted under DADT.  They did a great job and helped thousands, but, if a transgender person came to them, they could not help because they had no one who had any knowledge about their issue.  Yet, trans people were targeted because the military thought they were gay.

My first experience with dealing with SLDN was back in 1999 when Private Barry Winchell was murdered at Ft. Campbell, KY.  I just happen to catch a news story and when they showed Calpernia Addams, they called her Winchell’s “Drag Queen lover.”  Even before Calpernia had any surgeries, one could easily tell she was a transsexual woman.

I called the club where Calpernia worked, but she had to call me back later.  In our conversation, it came to light that the SLDN leaders at that time wanted to portray her as a “gay man” so they could push the problems with DADT.  She told me that Barry was attracted to her femininity and not anything else about her.  Barry Winchell was killed because he was dating a trans woman, BUT that somehow made him “gay” in the eyes of the other soldiers and in the eyes of SLDN back then.

In January 2003, the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) was formed to address the problems facing transgender veterans in the VA, but to also do what we could to help transgender service members who had problems while serving.  We quickly came out saying that we opposed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to show our support for our gay, lesbian and bisexual brothers and sisters in arms.  We had also heard stories of trans people being targeted under the law, so opposing it made sense as far as our mission was concerned.

After a short time, TAVA started getting requests to provide legal help because some trans services members were being targeted under DADT.  The new people in charge of SLDN were more supportive, but pointed out that they still had no person in their ranks to take on this issue, even though these trans service members were accused of being gay.  Later that changed when SLDN hired a transgender lawyer who not only began helping trans service members, but educated SLDN on the issues.

As time went on, the reasons for DADT lost all of their logic.  Prominent high-ranking military people publicly came out opposing it, while polls showed Americans overwhelmingly supported its repeal.  All of Europe allowed their LGB people to serve openly and even some allowed trans people to serve openly.  The days of DADA were numbered.

SLDN saw that the conversation about DADA had ramped up tremendously and a new law was about to be introduced, the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (MREA) that was designed to repeal DADT.  The law only had the words “sexual orientation” because that was the only words DADT used.  SLDN realized they needed to speak to the transgender community to ensure them that the way the law was written was specifically to repeal DADT and not to exclude transgender people on purpose.  Adding the words “gender expression and gender identity” into MREA made no sense and would confuse Congress people.

In 2006, SLDN, TAVA and National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) had a conversation about this very issue.  SLDN didn’t want to get angry calls and E-mails from transgender people when MREA was introduced and it only had the words “sexual orientation” in it.  They wanted us to assure transgender people that the reason we were not mentioned in MREA was because DADT had nothing to do with “gender identity or gender expression.”

In theory, they were correct about this, but in practice, the military continued targeting transgender people for being gay.  In that meeting, I agreed to go along with SLDN’s strategy, as did NCTE, because their logic was that if passed, MREA would help transgender people as well.  The one person in the meeting who didn’t want us to go along with this was TAVA’s Vice President, Angela Brightfeather.  She felt something was wrong but couldn’t put her finger on it.  She, like the rest of us, knew transgender people had been targeted under DADT, but we had no proof.

All of SLDN’s Action Alerts and press releases stated that “gay, lesbian and bisexual service members are being adversely affected by DADT.”  They knew that transgender service members were being affected.  TAVA knew it, too, but we kept our mouths shut so as not to rock the boat.  Little did we know what the future held for us.

Fast forward to 2008 and TAVA began their Transgender Veterans Survey that lasted until May 1, 2008.  The raw data from the survey made it absolutely clear that transgender people were being targeted just as much as LGB service members, with trans men being questioned about their sexual orientation at twice the rate as trans women.  At that point, TAVA’s stance changed on inclusion in MREA.

When Memorial Day came up, several people wrote articles on how much DADT has hurt our country’s readiness by discharging many critical people needed in a time of war.  The Department of Defense raised the age limit to the middle 40s.  Criminals of all kinds were allowed to serve.  People who could not get along socially and those with low aptitude scores were accepted, as long as they were straight.  All the articles kept saying, DADT affects gay, lesbian and bisexual service members.  I don’t know how many times I responded to these articles using the data from the survey, but no one listened.

That all changed when the most prestigious institution in the country, The Palm Center, published the White Paper Report on the Transgender Veterans Survey.  They lent credibility to our claims that transgender people can no longer be left out of the DADT discussion.

Here’s what The Palm Center wrote in the “Research Implications and Recommendations” section at the end of the White Paper Report:

“Survey responses make clear that transgender service members are negatively affected by the current DADT policy, even though the policy does not directly apply to them.  Transgender and other service members expressing non-traditional gender identities are often perceived as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, thus increasing the likelihood that they will be investigated under DADT.  DADT targets these service members regardless of their actual sexual orientation.”

So, what happens next?  SLDN is faced with a situation on continuing to show its support for transgender service members without damaging the integrity of MREA.  The TAVA survey has been read by Congress people already, so it is no longer a secret.  SLDN may start getting tough questions about transgender service members, which was not TAVA’s intention.

We know there are solutions to help them in answering these questions and TAVA is ready to sit down and talk with them to work out those solutions.  I am sure that conversation will be happening very soon, when the DNC Convention hoopla has calmed down.  What ideas TAVA has is not for this article.  When we have made a coordinated decision with SLDN on how to approach this new issue, everyone else will know.  We want to take a unified direction that will help all service members and not hurt any of them.

I just received an “Action Alert” from the Servicesmembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) asking me and others to send a letter to our local newspapers and the national newspapers on stating the need to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) supports this repeal and has since Day One of our existence.  We knew back then that transgender people were being kicked out under DADT, but did not have the proof until this year with the survey we did.

I included the Action Alert SLDN sent me after my comments.  When you click onto their link, it takes you to a place where you fill out various pieces of information and it then sends you to a pre-written letter to send off to those newspapers.  You can change the words in the letter.  If you read down in the letter, you will see near the end it says, “gay, lesbian and bisexual service members.” When I saw that, I added the word “transgender” in that list and sent it out with that minor change.  Afterwards, I sent a response to Aubrey Sarvis at SLDN telling him what I did.

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I am respectfully requesting transgender people, whether you served in the military or not, to do something similar, then send Aubrey Sarvis an E-mail telling him what you had done.  You can do as simple as I did and just add the word “transgender” to the letter, or you can write a completely new letter.  You can do what Angela Brightfeather, TAVA’s VP is doing and send SLDN an E-mail stating why you will not participate in this effort until they add us in this process.  The survey backs us up and we will no longer be silent about being left out.  We didn’t ask the Department of Defense to investigate us and discharge us under DADT, but they did.  Now, both the DoD and SLDN need to hear our voices.

We are not taking this stance without a plan on how SLDN can include us and what they can say to make this addition seamless.  All they have to do is sit down and talk with us about it.

Here’s what they sent me.  Aubrey Sarvis’s E-mail address is at the bottom.

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Dear Monica,

Something amazing happened at the Democratic National Convention this week.

For the first time since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was implemented, a major political party adopted a platform that calls for the replacement of the law with a non-discrimination policy.

The press has largely ignored this historic accomplishment, instead focusing on the big-name speakers and fancy parties. But this moment is too important for the press to ignore.

Please write a short letter to your local newspaper, telling them about the big news:

http://action.sldn.org/page/speakout/CoverthePlatform

With last month’s compelling Congressional hearing, resounding public support in a Washington Post poll, and now this platform victory, the momentum to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is clearly on our side.

We hope the Republican Party will follow in the Democrats’ footsteps and support a similar position in its platform next week.

This the first year that repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been called for in a major party platform — and with your help to repeal the law, it can be the last time it needs to be.

We can’t let this moment go by unnoticed. Use our simple tool to write a letter to your local newspaper, letting them know why the platform position is so important to you:

http://action.sldn.org/page/speakout/CoverthePlatform

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Aubrey Sarvis

Executive Director

Servicemembers Legal Defense Network

sldn@sldn.org

Angela has been an activist for the transgender community is some form or another for the last 42 years. Some of our community’s activists weren’t even born then. She has been on the board of NTAC, It’s Time, North Carolina and the several other organizations too numberous to mention. Currently, she serves as the Vice President of the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) and is one of its Co-Founders. Also, Angela is one of my closest friends.

And, the big question for Senator Obama is . . . . ?

You know something? I am so tired of arguing with people about HRC and about their loyal transgender members and workers at the bottom of the food chain we call the “GLB community.” I am also getting tired of the absolute position of transgender leaders whom I know, about their insistence that we don’t need HRC and that they compare them to our worst enemies..

I actually agree with both sides of all this argument, which makes me stop and think a minute about why we need to argue in the first place?

Deep in the pit of my stomach, I have always sought the most acute area of pain in our community and focused the things I have done in that direction. As a professed and unashamed healer in our community, I really have no choice but to be drawn to ease the pain and that is how it has been for most of my life.

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So I have just one question about ENDA right now and I think it is something that we can all work on together, inside and outside of HRC. It’s really very simple and it doesn’t require anyone to do anything spectacular, but it seems to me like it is the logical next step.

I have recently mentioned on a number of occasions that Senator Barack Obama, now leading contender for the Presidency of the United States, has openly said that he fully supports an inclusive ENDA to include gender language, just as he championed our cause in his home state of Illinois.

Now to further that thought, the word came from the DNC Platform Committee that the party platform will include gender language in it for the first time. Gee, it would appear that we might have just been educating out there and some of it sunk into a few Democrat craniums after all. You think Congressman Frank took notice?

In the America that I helped defend, that I have grown up and worked in without to many complications over the last 63 years, a President of the United States, not sometimes, but always, trumps a Congressman from Massachusetts, who also just so happens to be a gay man.

Besides all that, aren’t the party leaders supposed to follow the rules of the Democratic Party Platform in making their decisions about legislation? You bet that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, who allowed the shimming and shaking of her party when it came to writing, rewriting, amending and removing amendments before a vote on ENDA in the House, has new grounds for judging the situation. Last year, she easily backed down from Barney Frank’s lack of foresight about the bill. Both Frank and Pelosi need to follow the example of the person who may be the next President.

So doesn’t this argument between transgender people that is causing all this pain seem a bit ridiculous? Isn’t there only one question that we all truly need to know right now and who is going to be brave enough to ask it? Has anyone already asked it? If we get the answer that we need, then everyone can roll up their targets, go home and fight together inside and outside of HRC in a new direction. We can then apply pressure, protest, picket and ask the same question to Frank and Pelosi by asking them to pull the damn exclusive piece of junk that they have passed in the Congress, change it and do what the party and the President wants them to do. Never mind the incremental “crapola.” It should be a mute issue about inclusion.

That simple question is:

“Senator Obama, would you veto an exclusive version of the Employment Non Discrimination Act if it did not include employment protections for transgender people?”

It’s a tough question to ask a man who believes in not impeding any rights bill from passing, but it is an important question to ask. If the answer is anything but “Yes,” I will take my vote on November and either find someone else to vote for, or just sit this one out and encourage everyone to do the same until people come to realize that this makes common sense.

For now, I will pay $500.00 of my money, the money I was going to give to Obama, to the first person or a charity or campaign of their choice, who gets an answer to my exact question as stated. Put it on You Tube for posterity and for the record and send me an email telling me about how you got the statement and you get my money and profound gratitude.

Anyone want to add to that bounty?

The Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara has released the findings of a survey, conducted by Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA), that shows that transgender veterans are being turned away and being mistreated in high numbers by Veterans Administration medical facilities.  The survey, with 827 transgender veteran participants, was conducted from December 13, 2007 to May 1, 2008.  This represents a strong sampling from what is estimated to be approximately 300,000 veterans in the US who identify as being transgender.

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Dr. Jeanne Scheper from The Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara coordinated the report and Dr. Bonnie Moradi, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida did the analyzing. Dr. Gary Gates, Senior Research Fellow at the Williams Institute, University of California acted as a consultant and provided guidance for survey. Professors Karl Bryant, PhD, of the State University of New York, New Paltz, NY and Kristen Schilt, PhD, of the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, wrote the White Paper report. Notice that four universities in various parts of the country contributed to the creation of this report.

The most troubling figure to come out of the survey was that 10% of transgender veterans, who currently use the VA, have at one time been turned away from receiving any service or medical help. I see this figure as being very disturbing. We served our country honorably and proudly and the VA medical benefits we earned should not be denied or diminished simply because of the direction our lives took after discharge from active duty.

Other figures and interesting information came from the report:

Job Discrimination:

“ . . . nearly one third of the survey participants reported having experienced some form of discrimination in the workplace, with approximately the same amount (31%) reporting that they believed they had not been hired for a job specifically because they were transgender. A full 15% reported that they had been fired from a job for being transgender (with 40% of those people having been fired more than once). Nearly 10% reported experiencing open, blatant discrimination from an employer or prospective employer; they were explicitly told that they were being fired (or not hired) because they were transgender.”

Violence:

“In addition to discrimination, this group reported a high percentage of experiences with interpersonal violence. 26% reported having been the victim of physical violence, and 16% reported having been raped.”

Transgender Service Members and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Policy:

“A full 38% reported that when they were in the military, people suspected or directly asked if they were gay. In addition, 14% had been questioned by an officer about their sexual orientation. For younger respondents (aged 18-35), all of whom had served under DADT, this finding was even more pronounced: 61% reported that when they were in the military, people suspected or directly asked if they were gay; 20% had been questioned by an officer about their sexual orientation.”

What the survey also brought up was how disproportionate trans men are being targeted under DADT then their trans sisters.

“Such effects varied significantly by gender. Trans men were almost two times more likely to report they were suspected of being gay than trans women (72% vs. 37%). They were three times more likely than trans women to have been asked by an officer about their sexual orientation (33% vs. 11%).”

VA Medical Facility Experiences:

“. . . there were many reports of interpersonal discrimination, via lack of respect from VA doctors (22%), non-medical staff (21%), and nurses (13%). These cases of interpersonal discrimination ranged from what many veterans describe as “typical” – refusing to change to gender-appropriate pronouns, failure to use a new name consistently – to the extreme – refusing to look at transgender patients, referring to them in dismissive ways, refusing to treat them for general medical care. One FTM respondent noted, ‘I was told by a religious clerk that I should just go away because I was an insult to the brave real men who were there for treatment’. Another MTF respondent noted, ‘I am asked about my genitals and my plans for SRS regardless of whether or not it has relevance to my treatment’.”

And:

“ . . . one MTF respondent recounted the following experience: ‘A nurse pulled my partner out in the hall of the VA Hospital where I was an in-patient’ [and said], ‘You know that is really a man, don’t you’?”

There were several Implications and Recommendations that came out of this survey, involving all of the above areas of discussion. The one thing that appeared in that section was a section from the VA’s mission statement:

“We are dedicated to providing high quality, comprehensive health care to veterans in an environment that fosters trust, respect, commitment, compassion and excellence. We serve as a major resource for health services, education and research that benefit our patients, their families, the community, the network and the nation.”

As far as I’m concerned, the VA has a very long way to go to live up to that mission statement when it comes to this country’s transgender veterans.

Finally, the survey showed how transgender people are treated while they are serving this country. Many felt harassment and abuse by others and were investigated for being gay regardless of what sexual orientation was at the time. It shows that transgender service members can no longer be ignored in the discussion of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We are also a target under that failed policy and people pushing for its repeal need to realize that we have to be included.

In conclusion, I hope that this new document will help in our continuous struggles to become equally treated while serving in the military, equally treated while using the VA and considered equal citizens in the great country of ours. We served this country and we served proudly.

After three and a half months of dribbling out raw data for things such as job discrimination, violence and statistics associated with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Transgender Veterans Survey Report has now been published. You can read the entire report on the Transgender American Veterans Association web site. Some of the information I will present here has been seen before, while other statistics will be revealed for the first time.

The idea for the survey was presented to the TAVA Board in mid November of 2007 and after creating 117 questions, the Board approved the survey and we placed it on SurveyMonkey.com, a web site that has an excellent reputation with those who conduct surveys. The survey started on December 13, 2007 and ended on May 1, 2008. Between May and August, the Palm Center located a person to analyze the data and then located two people who could write the report. Even thought it took three and a half months for the Palm Center to finish the report, this is record time compared to how long this process normally takes.

Again, the full report can be read at Transgender American Veterans Association web site.