Counselors should target discrimination and be advocates for transgender clients

University of Oregon doctoral students address workplace and psychological issues for overlooked population

Alison Cerezo, left, and Maya O'Neil, University of Oregon doctoral students, studied transgender issues, with ramifications for counselors and for dealing with issues in the workplace. Click here for more information.

Two University of Oregon doctoral students dove into issues of transgender identities -- in the workplace and professional counseling -- and surfaced with a call for psychologists and vocational counselors to not only treat but to act as advocates for their clients -- and to help end discrimination in the workplace.

"One of the main points of our paper is that not only do we need to be, as vocational psychologists or career counselors, working with transgender people at an individual level to help them get hired, but we also need to be doing a lot of social advocacy work -- working with employers and workplaces -- improving antidiscrimination policies and doing legal advocacy," said lead author Maya Elin O'Neil.

The study, co-authored by their doctoral adviser Ellen Hawley McWhirter, a professor of counseling psychology, provides transgender-issue terminology related to gender identity, suggestions for addressing problems of both clients and on-the-job difficulties and lists available resources -- filling a void in both the academic literature and support possibilities. The study appeared online in February and in print in the March issue of the Journal of Career Development.

"We've had lots of requests for reprints of the article from people who have heard about it, and they've repeatedly said that there is nothing out there about the workplace angle," O'Neil said. Request for copies have come from psychologists, vocational counselors, university administrators, especially those dealing with diversity issues and planning, and even workforce managers, said co-author Alison Cerezo.

O'Neil and Cerezo both are pursing doctorates in counseling psychology. O'Neil also is a statistician and works as a therapist with at-risk youth. Cerezo also studies issues related to college retention and career self-efficacy among Latino/Latina college students. . . .Read More

I'm Awesome!

"The first part in a series of blogs dedicated to my ego getting completely out of control! "
grishno

Barack Obama's Open Letter to the LGBT Community

by Barack Obama

Never in the history of American presidential elections has the LGBT Community’s vote been so aggressively sought as during the 2008 race for the Oval Office. The following is an open letter from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to the LGBT community. For comparison of both Democratic candidates in regards to gay issues, please refer to Senator Clinton’s Open Letter to the LGBT Community, also found on this website. The following is Obama’s letter in its entirety.

An Open Letter to the LGBT Community:

I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans.

Equality is a moral imperative. That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBT Americans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system.

The next president must also address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When it comes to prevention, we do not have to choose between values and science. While abstinence education should be part of any strategy, we also need to use common sense. We should have age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception. We should pass the JUSTICE Act to combat infection within our prison population. And we should lift the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. In addition, local governments can protect public health by distributing contraceptives. We also need a president who’s willing to confront the stigma – too often tied to homophobia– that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. I confronted this stigma directly in a speech to evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, and will continue to speak out as president.

That is where I stand on the major issues of the day. But having the right positions on the issues is only half the battle. The other half is to win broad support for those positions. And winning broad support will require stepping outside our comfort zone. If we want to repeal DOMA, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones – and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career. I brought this message of inclusiveness to all of America in my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention. I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign – from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached.

Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary.

Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country. To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.

Barack Obama

Transgender History: Toward the Future (1996-2007)

by Guest Blogger

March 18, 2008


[The Bilerico Project EDITOR'S NOTE:] Frequent guest blogger Mercedes Allen has written a six part history of transgender people for the Project that is running weekly on Tuesdays. A listing of the other sections is at the bottom of the post.

It is interesting that it really wasn't until after Stonewall, when the GLB and T communities started to define themselves, that marked divisions occurred among them. From the earliest ages, gender variance and same-sex love were seen as connected and congruous, even if one aspect manifested entirely without the other. Before the oppression of the Middle Ages, both were also seen as equally innate and equally respectable. The rifts that began in the early 1970s (albeit with some earlier genesis in The Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis), deepening with third-wave feminism and other movements, would start to come closer together again as Western culture approached the new millennium, and as the various communities learned that they could distinguish themselves, and still learn to understand and respect each other. The trans community would remain outside the longest, not seeing any protective civil rights legislation pass until 1993. But as inclusion would spread, so would protections. . . .Read More

Response to "Gender: The Final Frontier"

by Bruce Parker

March 17, 2008


My response to "Gender: The Final Frontier" by Josh Kilmber-Purcell is a part of my weeklong obsessive dissection of Out magazine's transgender issue. When, from time to time, I do pick up Out, I always enjoy Kilmer-Purcell's column. He is engaging, witty and often I agree with his analysis. This month really isn't all that different.

I, of course, was a little skeptical when he opened by declaring himself "post-gender" and still think it was a regrettable way to start out his otherwise astute column. After declaring himself post-gender he says,

"From this day forward I'm not going to use the words masculine, feminine, or any of their derivations. They're meaningless, useless, and far too often meant as weapons rather than compliments."

To hear more about Kilmer-Purcell being post-gender and some of the really cool things he says in his column, follow me after the jump. Please?. . .Read More plus readers' Comments

Film Days 5-7: Amazing Truths and Beautiful Losers

by Kevin John and Justin Follin

18 March 2008


The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela
Directed by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson

The last thing filmdom needs is an exposé on a transsexual, especially since we’re still waiting for that feature-length investigation into heterosexuality. So it’s just as well that we never learn any amazing truth about Raquela in Olaf de Fleur Johannesson’s fantastic The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela: the “truth” would only cheapen a subject that usually devolves into movie-of-the-week topicality. Instead, Johannesson immerses us in the texture of an everyday existence.

Essentially playing herself, Raquela (Raquela Rios) pines for a life beyond her native Philippines, where transsexuals face a bleak future. She’s fed up with the prostitute life and has moved successfully into the world of internet porn. With some money saved, she gets a temporary visa to Iceland, bringing her closer to the city of her dreams, Paris. . . .Read More

Review - "Undoing Gender"

by Judith Butler
Routledge, 2004

Review by Kathy Butterworth
Mar 18th 2008 (Volume 12, Issue 12)

Undoing Gender is a collection of recent essays from the feminist thinker Judith Butler. There are 12 articles in the book , including the introduction, ranging from the brief 'Quandaries of the Incest Taboo' (9 pages) to the more weighty 'The End of Sexual Difference? (30 pages). There is no obvious guiding principle at work in the organization of the articles which have a far reaching thematic range extending from transgender and intersex issues through psychoanalysis and arguments for recognition to the foolishly, according to Butler, isolationist stance of academic philosophy as a discipline in contemporary (American) universities. . . .Read More

OUT Magazine

This issue of Out magazine has a variety of trans stories. They include:

. . ."Under Cover"

. . ."But There's No Dick?"

. . ."Transexy Time"

. . ."The Trans Fags"

. . ."The Dream Life of Tilda Swinton," and More

Ladyboy - "Making of" a film about Ladyboys (Queen Raquela)

Making of the film "THE AMAZING TRUTH ABOUT QUEEN RAQUELA" by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson - more info on: www.queenraquelathemovie.com

Be a Trans Ally

by Bruce Parker

March 18, 2008

In the Out Magazine April 2008 Transgender Issue, hidden at the bottom of page 25 is a really strong list of five ways to be a trans ally, by Dean Spade. Dean is a Harvard Law teaching fellow and founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Below is his list of ways to be a trans ally.

1. Work with transpeople to push your city's homeless shelter system to place residents according to their gender identity and safety, rather than birth gender.

An important component of this point is that it emphasizes working with transpeople. Oftentimes, as lesbian or gay folks try to work on transgender-related issues, they forget to include transgender people in the conversations and actions. This ends up being damaging, and reflects a paternalistic approach to being an ally that I experienced a lot while working with Indiana's lesbian and gay communities.

The other four ways and my thoughts are. . .Read More

helen boyd’s Transgender Books

by Helen Boyd

Here’s a list of books I recommend on transgender issues and lives.

The starred (*) listings are books that I reviewed in greater depth in the annotated bibliography of My Husband Betty.

You can read more about most of these books, find reviews and discussions of other books, or post your own book for discussion in our Reader’s Chair Forum.

Here is my Top Ten List of Transgender Books, with these and others reviewed below.

1. Butch Is A Noun - S. Bear Bergman
   
2. Gender Outlaw - Kate Bornstein
   
3. Crossdressing, Sex and Gender - Bullough & Bullough
   
4. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism - Patrick Califia
   
5. Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay with Crossdressers and Transsexuals - Virginia Erhardt
   
6. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman - Leslie Feinberg
   
7. Becoming a Visible Man - Jamison Green
   
8. Mom, I Need to Be a Girl - Just Evelyn
9. Whipping Girl - Julia Serano
   
10. Transition & Beyond - Reid Vanderbergh. . .Read More
    

The Tenth Voice Radio magazine

3/22/2008 1:00 pm-2:00 pm

This month the team looks at being Transgender. . . .Read More
90.1 FM KKFI
http://www.kkfi.org

Walters Wins GLAAD Award

March 18, 2008

Barbara Walters was awarded a GLAAD Media Award last night for her April 2007 20/20 special report, "My Secret Self: A Story of Transgender Children."

The report focused on the lives of transgender children who were diagnosed with gender identity disorder. When it aired, it won the A18-49 demo for the night.

According to the Reuters article about the event, Walters said, during her acceptance speech, "You can forget all the Emmys. This means more to me." . . .Read More

Breast Augmentation In Male-to-Female transsexuals

(There's lots of helpful information here, but you may want to turn the music down or off.)

The Difference Gender Makes

By Cedriann J Martin

3.15.2008

Mary and Jane don't know why they feel like women though they were born boys. Jane proffers the obviously wrong explanation that it's because they have an extra chromosome. But even the experts aren't certain about what causes gender identity disorder.

The most current (but still mysterious) explanation is that something happens to the part of the Central Nervous System responsible for gender identity in the womb. Theories that transsexuality is a mental illness or related to upbringing, social interactions and sexual experiences have largely been debunked.

Sex, the biological construct, is straightforward. Penis: boy. Vagina: girl. Gender and sexuality, on the other hand, can be confusing. And for those who fall outside patriarchal expectations of how men and women should behave, the gender journey can be difficult. . . .Read More

Oakland set for historic June primary

by Matthew S. Bajko

3.13.2008

	Victoria Kolakowski

History could be made this June in Alameda County as five LGBT candidates are vying in races for two Oakland City Council seats, a judicial post, a county central committee slot, and a state Assembly seat.

It is believed to be the largest slate of openly gay candidates to appear on a ballot in an East Bay city. And with three of the June 3 primary contests involving open seats, the candidates in those races have a fighting chance of being elected.

"I guess it is, especially in Oakland, it is historic," said longtime Hayward City Councilman Kevin Dowling. "We have three openly gay elected officials in Hayward alone. The Oakland area has a large lesbian population. . .Read More

Victoria Kolakowski

. . .for Superior Court Judge

A Judge for All of Us

Experienced and Fair

It is uncommon for the voters to have a choice for Superior Court Judge in a contested, open election. On June 3, the voters of Alameda County will have that opportunity.

Victoria Kolakowski has the experience as an administrative law judge and attorney, the demonstrated commitment to the community, and the calm demeanor needed to be a fair judge for all of us. . . .Read More

"Unraveling Michelle"

by Amanda Pacitti
Hatchet Reporter
3/13/08


Michelle Anne Farrell is a filmmaker. So was Joe O'Ferrell.

Arguably the most-anticipated feature-length documentary at the D.C. Independent Film Festival Monday evening, "Unraveling Michelle," (A Tough City Bitch Production), recounts the full transgender transformation of filmmaker Joe O'Ferrell into Michelle Anne Farrell - spending a worthy 85 minutes of self-conscious energy grappling with issues of authentic self-representation, personal struggle and gender identity.

And it is still in progress. . . .Read More

REPORT: ILLEGAL BUTT INJECTIONS ON THE RISE IN NYC

March 09, 2008. Hey New York women - watch out. MediaTakeOut.com has learned that there's some chick going around town offering booty injections for dirt cheap. Here's how the NY Post is reporting it:

A shady Atlanta businesswoman armed with a gallon jug of silicone and syringes is offering to inject women seeking "J.Lo butts" in a Manhattan hotel room - an illegal and potentially lethal cosmetic treatment.

"I need to see your butt," Kimberly Smedley told a Post reporter posing as a customer last week in a suite at the Eastgate Tower Hotel on East 39th Street.

Smedley, a heavyset woman wearing camouflage pants and fake Ugg boots, then demanded $1,600 in cash to give nine injections to each cheek. . . .Read More

When Girls Will Be Boys

By ALISSA QUART

March 16, 2008

It was late on a rainy fall day, and a college freshman named Rey was showing me the new tattoo on his arm. It commemorated his 500-mile hike through Europe the previous summer, which happened also to be, he said, the last time he was happy. We sat together for a while in his room talking, his tattoo of a piece with his spiky brown hair, oversize tribal earrings and very baggy jeans. He showed me a photo of himself and his girlfriend kissing, pointed out his small drum kit, a bass guitar that lay next to his rumpled clothes and towels and empty bottles of green tea, one full of dried flowers, and the ink self-portraits and drawings of nudes that he had tacked to the walls. Thick jasmine incense competed with his cigarette smoke. He changed the music on his laptop with the melancholy, slightly startled air of a college boy on his own for the first time. . . .Read More