The Power of Language

There has been a lot in the news this week regarding language. There was President Obama's recent speech in Cairo, the offensive Sacramento radio show that Justin commented on yesterday, and Bill O'Reilly's excoriating treatment of assassinated doctor, George Tiller. All of this has me thinking a lot about the power of language.

While some of the defense of the radio shock jocks have included protestations that "Come on, it's only words," the criticism of President Obama's speech has also included, "Well we'll see what happens, this is only words." So, do words matter or not?

Unfortunately, those of us who have been the target of hateful speech clearly understand the power of language to harm and to sometimes set the stage for physical harm. Many people have drawn the connection between Bill O'Reilly's comments about Dr. Tiller and his recent murder. And I can't help but notice the unfortunate timing between the Sacramento radio host's words and the recent report from the Triangle Foundation of the shooting of two transgender women near Detroit, MI.

But language can be a force for good as well. Like all power, it's just a tool, like a wrench, that can be used to repair or harm depending upon who wields the tool. Politicians, like President Obama, understand the power of language to lay the foundation for future action. The words help to create a space to allow action to be even possible. Nadine Smith in her recent post on Bilerico encouraged us all to imagine what the world would be like without discrimination and then start acting as if it were true. Words do have power.

Furthermore, our laws are made of words, and while those words alone don't make our lives different, they lay the groundwork for meaningful actions. Like the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act that many of you came to DC to lobby for in April. We all know that hate crimes will still happen even if this bill becomes a law. But the words create a path for action that our government can take in response to future hate crimes.

NCTE exists to end discrimination and violence against transgender people at the federal level. That's a heavy task and, in order to be successful, we need real power to get it done. One aspect of our power is our ability to use language to be persuasive and one piece of evidence of our power is our ability to shape the language of America's laws and policies.

Children are freaks?? Absolutely unacceptable.

Controversy has been swirling around KRXQ-FM’s radio program, Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning, in Sacramento, California, after two of the hosts made dehumanizing statements this week about transgender children, calling them, among other things, freaks. While we defend the right of free speech, we also know that journalists and commentators have a responsibility to convey accurate information. In this case, in addition to Rob Williams and Arnie States calling trans children names, they incorrectly advocated that taunting, physical violence and therapy could be employed to change a child’s gender identity. This is both cruel and blatantly untrue.

Host Dawn Rossi, however, both stood up for transgender children and, on the evening following the show, spoke with transgender and allied activists and conveyed compassionate and accurate information on the follow up show.

NCTE recognizes the critical work being done on this case by Kim Pearson, Executive Director of Trans Youth Family Allies, as well as transgender blogger Autumn Sandeen, and by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) through their Director of National News, Cindi Creager, and Senior Media Analyst, Andy Marra (a long time member of NCTE). All of them spoke with Dawn Rossi to provide balanced information. Thank you for holding members of the media accountable for their statements and for taking the time to educate people are the realities of trans children.

GLAAD has issued an Action Alert, which we urge you to read and take action.

You can listen to the show and following up programs on the Rob, Arnie & Dawn website.

Working Together for Transgender Children

In the past few weeks, we’ve fielded some amazing phone calls about transgender children and their families. A school nurse called the other day about a trans child who will be starting 5th grade in the fall. She was looking ahead to ways they could work over the summer to prepare so that the child will have a positive experience. A woman called a couple of weeks ago because her church had refused to allow a 2nd grader to return to their parochial school next year, unless the child was dressed according to her birth gender, not her gender identity. She was outraged that this little girl had been excluded from school activities simply because she had been identified male at birth. She said, “this just isn’t right.” What is right is that she reached out in caring for a child.

We told them both, and the others who have called, is that it matters immensely that these children know they have caring adults in their lives—their parents, educators, fellow church members, cousins, and so on—who will stand up for them. These children are listened to when they say who they are. Their safety and happiness are valued. Things aren’t going to be perfect (but what life is?) but it is going to be better because of caring people around them. What has made the last few weeks interesting to me is that these are people beyond the immediate family—they are getting involved because the lives of children, of transgender children, matters to them. And while it may be cliché to say it takes a village to raise a child, it really is true. We need to care and take action for these kids.

One of the places we refer callers to is the Trans Youth Family Allies (TYFA). If you’d like more information about practical ways to support transgender children, please visit their website. They are doing important work.

Today is Blogging for LGBT Families Day; here are few are just a few blogs that wrote about trans families or gender today:

• How to Bring Your Kids Up Queer, Bilerico, GenderQueer Mommy


• Fly My Pretty, Cross-dressing Toddlers


• No Designation, My Two Moms <3 Their Trans Daughter

Q: Who Would Want to Build a Career With a Trans Job?

A: Some of the best and the brightest, that's who.

As many of you know, NCTE just completed an exhaustive search for a policy analyst to add to our staff. When we began the search I was hopeful that we would get 50-60 applicants to choose from. I assumed we would get plenty of transgender-identified people who wanted to join us, and I expected that we would get many lesbian, gay, and bisexual applicants who are not transgender but who embrace the full LGBT movement.

What I didn’t expect was the sheer volume of applicants, their varied backgrounds, and the large number of people who have no direct connection to transgender rights. We received over 200 applications for this one position. We heard from academics, lawyers, researchers, social workers, and activists of all stripes. There were human rights activists, civil rights activists, and social justice junkies. We heard from longtime workers, career-switchers and newly-minted college grads looking to jump-start their careers.

I’m sure that some of this has to do with the current state of the economy. But that alone can’t account for this unprecedented level of interest. For some of the applicants, they were moved to action after watching family or friends transition and then struggle with inequality. But many people simply consider transgender rights to be the forefront of the civil rights movement. Today, a job working for transgender equality is seen as a career builder and that is a great position for all of us to be in.

TSA in the news....

MSNBC has an article about the Transportation Security Agency’s (TSA) new program called Secure Flight. The article can be found here.

This new program requires all airline passengers to submit their full legal name, date of birth, and (of all things) gender to TSA before they are issued a boarding pass. TSA will then take this information and check it against their federal No-Fly list to make sure that you, the passenger, aren’t a terrorist.

It is just a passing mention, but the author of this MSNBC article writes “(I wonder what transgender travelers will be asked to do.)” This particularly piqued my interest because this issue is exactly the issue that I have been working on for the last week. What does TSA expect transgender travelers to do? If the passenger has an old gender marker on their documentation, are they going to be stopped? If a passenger has different gender markers on various forms of identification, will they face trouble at security checkpoints?

I’ve been talking to some TSA officials about this for the last week or so. Apparently the answer is no; transgender travelers should face no new travel barriers as a result of Secure Flight. Security protocols do not change, and it seems that neither TSA nor airline personnel are even expected to verify that the date of birth and gender you submit when booking flights is consistent with what your identification says. Why, then, do they make us provide this information?

I’m not convinced that this process will move forward without flaws, and I’m not convinced that gender is even necessary to maintaining security on our flights. I’m going to keep working on this and update you when I have better answers. I just thought this was an interesting mention of an issue that we’re working on, so I wanted to share with you all. Keep your eye out on our website for resources on how TSA’s new flight security procedures affect transgender people and how to avoid delays at the airport.

Patrick

Gender matters

On CNN's website coverage of Sonia Sotomayor, under the heading Controversial statements, they quote her saying, "Our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging." I've heard over and over again discussions in the media today about whether gender matters in judicial decisions.

We know, of course, that gender does matter. In fact, it is pretty baffling to me that some people argue that it doesn't. Or that this is a "controversial statement" as opposed to a simple statement of fact. Anyhow, an interesting day of gender in the news.

Being Allies

Last night, a progressive ally was asking me about NCTE's role in working for a transgender-inclusive ENDA this year and why LGBT organizations were so involved in this when this is "our" issue. I think her concern was that allies not speak for transgender people, rather than letting us speak for ourselves.

It is easy to get swept up in the publicity and fervor about why we should have a trans-inclusive bill and all of the politicking about trans people, but it's important to remember that inclusive means that it will address both sexual orientation AND gender identity. The passage of an inclusive hate crimes bill and an inclusive ENDA also mark major victories for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.

ENDA is a major priority in all of the work NCTE is doing this year. We'll continue to do everything we can as we work with folks across the country to educate our lawmakers about why transgender people need protection against job discrimination. And our lesbian, gay and bisexual allies are giving that same message, which is so important. As trans people, we also need to be committed to protections for all the folks whose jobs are at risk because of their sexual orientation. Discrimination is wrong, period.

Okay, off of my soap box and back to work.

Whole Body Imaging at Airports

Today, NCTE signed on to a letter, with other organizations concerned with privacy, to the Department of Homeland Security calling for the suspension of a policy that would utilize Whole Body Imaging as the primary screening technique at airports. Additional time is needed to evaluate privacy and security concerns.

The technology allows TSA personnel to view what is under a person's clothing; in other words, a naked body. This raises major questions about privacy, of course. NCTE is concerned about sensitivity to transgender bodies which appear on the screen as well as the fact that this policy could essentially require travelers to reveal their unclothed bodies to government employees in order to board an airplane.

The machines are currently in use in 19 airports and the primary screening method in 6 of those.

You can read about whole body imaging on the TSA website.

CNN also has a lead story about this today, with a poll (about having way down on the right side) asking, "Would you be willing to be subjected to "whole-body imaging," which critics say performs 'a virtual strip search'?"

A little perspective helps a lot

One of the things I'm working on is updating our website. We've got so many issues in progress that it requires a lot more time to try to keep current on everything, not to mention the fact that it just plain needs maintenance. After all, I learned web design because the NCTE website got handed to me one day a few years ago and I knew nothing at that point. It means that all of my mistakes as I was learning are coded right into it; it is kind of a record of my own learning curve as I got a certificate in web design and learned a whole lot more.

But beyond the personal, our website is also a record of transgender progress. I was working on the news pages, moving things to archives and it gave me a chance to reflect on how monumental some of those early victories really were. I also revisited those days when our news seemed pretty bleak--a series of bad regulations that made things worse for trans people and there didn't seem to be much change on the horizon. What a cool thing to be moving those stories out of the way to make more space for us to report positive events. It's not all smooth sailing now, of course, but we are moving forward.

The website updates are more functional fixes than glamorous changes right now, but that pretty much suits our organization, too.

Transgender Families at the White House

Photo: some of the NCTE participants standing in front of Sasha and Malia Obama's play area.

Today NCTE got to focus on inclusion and acceptance of transgender people and that was a wonderful thing. We do a lot of meaningful work that involves listening to and telling stories about the discrimination and violence our community faces but it’s important to also celebrate what is right in our lives.

Today, I went with a group of children and parents to the White House Easter Egg Roll. Different people that went with NCTE went in in different shifts (there were five total time slots), but the group I was in included a family with a trans child and members of my family who have always accepted me.

It was great to hear about a child picking out a very special outfit for this occasion, one congruent with a child’s sense of self and gender. Talking with the child’s mom, she said you would have thought they had gone shopping in Paradise. We all need those moments when the world seems absolutely perfect.

When I came out to my brother and sister-in-law more than a dozen years ago, long before they had kids, one of their first comments was that I was going to be a great uncle to their kids. I think I helped make good on that today by taking the kids to the White House.

The kids participated in the Egg Roll, wielding their wooden spoons very effectively, including tossing one egg over the fence. We saw Spongebob and Clifford the Big Red Dog and, of course, the Easter Bunny. We found the jungle gym that has recently been installed for the new, young residents of the White House and listened to Bob Marley in the distance.

Of course families aren’t perfect and with the kids today came the usual challenges of standing in lines, being hungry, dealing with siblings stepping on each other’s shoes. But there was also the beauty of families that accept transgender people in their midst exactly as we are. Family is, after all, not about who you can leave out but about who you can come home to with all of the exciting and tear-filled moments of school and life and the world out here.

The Obama Administration extended invitations to all kinds of children, recognizing that the America we live in has families that are very diverse. NCTE was proud to help bring transgender children and trans-affirming families to the White House on this special day.