I applaud you on your continued support of the GLBT community. I fear that you
have done what many seem to do when dealing with the GLBT community however. It
appears from your response that you may not fully understand the issues facing
the GLBT community. I am referring to the statement "ENDA forbids discrimination
based on sexual orientation". While this is true and much needed, this statement
only applies to the GLB portion of the community. I am hoping that this was just
an oversight in the wording of your reply. If not, I would like to take a few
minutes of your time and set the record straight. ENDA needs to be about
"discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or expression".
The portion of the community that is most often misunderstood is the "T" for
Transgendered. Transgendered has nothing to do with sexual orientation. In fact,
the majority of the Transgendered community is heterosexual and many are married
with children. Transgendered is about Gender Identity. For the Transgendered,
the gender as assigned at birth based on physical sexual characteristics does
not necessarily match the gender of the brain. For many, they suffer from Gender
Identity Disorder, where the brain is one gender and the body is the other. The
Transgendered are not as readily accepted by the community as a whole as the GLB
are, and as such are discriminated against even more. The biggest reason is that
they are so misunderstood by virtually everyone.
Within the Transgendered community there are several smaller groups which are in
themselves very different. The 2 largest portions are the Transsexuals and the
Cross-dressers (or Transvestites). These 2 groups are very distinctly different,
as are the issues that they face. For the Transsexual, the physical body
developed as one gender while the brain developed as the other. Male to Female
(MTF) Transsexuals seem to be the largest portion of this subset. These are
individuals who were classified as Male at birth while the brain is very much
Female. For the MTF Transsexual they live most of their life in a state of
discomfort because of this. At some point many of these individuals make the
decision to transition to living full time as a woman. For some this involves
Gender Reassignment Surgery (GRS) while for others it involves everything short
of GRS. To these individuals this is what it takes to make them feel whole. The
Transsexual faces a long and hard struggle to gain the acceptance of those
around themselves as a woman (or a man in the case of a Female to Male). In the
workplace the men don't want them and many women feel threatened by them.
The other portion of the community, the Cross-dressers, are distinctly different
from the Transsexuals. I happen to be one of them so I can speak from personal
experience. For the Cross-dresser, we tend to identify as our birth sex for the
most part. Personally I was born Male and identify as Male much of the time. At
other times I identify as Female, and present myself as such. At times my
mannerisms, dress, and presentation are very Male, at other times I am very much
Female, and the rest of the time I am somewhere between the two. I have been
fortunate to find employers who were accepting of this fact to a degree thus
far. I know of Cross-dressers who have lost jobs because they choose to
Cross-dress on their own time, not even on company time. At times we are
outcasts even among the Transgendered community because many don't feel that we
are Transgendered.
The biggest opposition that the Transgendered face is from the religious and
moral side. To many the Transgendered are considered an "abomination" or a "sin
against God". The GLB community does not face this opposition as much any
longer, as they are starting to be accepted even by the religious and moral
sides. The Transgendered are even hated by many in the GLB community because
they believe we are not part of their community. So as you can see, the
Transgendered need ENDA even more than the rest of the GLBT community. It is
extremely important to stress this fact whenever discussing ENDA.
I hope that none of this has come as news to you, but if it has I would be more
than willing to explain it in more detail to you (in person if necessary).
Please feel free to ask me questions if you would like more information. I would
like to thank you for your continued support in this matter. I would like to
also encourage you to introduce this to the Senate on our behalf.
Thank you for your time.
Joe (Heather) Irvine
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