In view of equality
by Kris Vagner
Transgender Visibility Day is coming up. Here’s what trans people want you to know.
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n 2009, after 10 years of observing Transgender Day of Remembrance each November—a day set aside to remember trans people who have been murdered—an additional holiday was added to the calendar, this time to celebrate trans people, not just memorialize them. March 31 is International Transgender Day of Visibility. A big part of celebrating “visibility” is that it’s a step toward reducing discrimination and violence. On that note, here are a few things local trans people and their family members would like you to know.
being trans is not a choice
“It’s a biological fact,” said Valerie Lovett, the mother of a 22-year-old transgender woman. “I watched my daughter go through severe drug addiction. She was so out of her brain. Her brain was female, but her body was male. The torture that I watched her go through mentally was something that no one would choose.” “For us, it was kind of a rough road,” Lovett said. “I thought, ‘If I could get a group together for other parents who want to talk, for caregivers of gendervariant youth.’” She now hosts two support groups at Our Center, 1745 S. Wells Ave. The TransParent group is for parents and allies of gender-variant youth, and the TransFusion group is for people aged 16-24 who are gender-variant. (Lovett doesn’t check birthdates at the door. “A year or two on either side is fine,” she said.”) Both groups meet monthly. For details, visit Our Center’s Facebook page.
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Changing corporate cultures is not easy
The website of Caesars Entertainment, the corporation that owns Harrah’s Casino, contains this wording: “We proudly support the LGBTQ community. At Caesars Entertainment, we create an environment where both employees and guests can have fun being themselves.” According to one employee, though, the attitude of acceptance hasn’t pervaded everyday work culture. “I’m not out [at work] because I don’t feel safe,” said Matt, a trans man who works at Harrah’s and looks unambiguously male. (Matt is not his real name. He asked us to withhold it, for the reason he just explained.) “My co-workers have said transphobic things to me,” he said. When a trans woman checked into the hotel, Matt advised his colleagues to call her “she.” “They went with ‘he,’” Matt said. “I feel like a lot of people in the casino industry are kind of uneducated when it comes to anything queer
or trans related. There’s people who have quit because they’re transgender.” With such a supportive-sounding corporate policy, why not just bring his complaints to management? Matt said that at his previous job, when transphobic hostility started to simmer, “It was very uncomfortable.” He looked into the incident reporting process, and it seemed likely that he’d end up being the public face of a long battle. He’d rather just do his job.
Pronouns matter
“I would say their number-one issue by far is just pronouns in general and people respecting pronouns,” said Ashley Ross, whose husband is a trans man. “People say, ‘Oh, pronouns are really hard for me,’” Ross said. She added that people tend to remember their friends’ dogs’ pronouns no problem. “It’s so painful for people to be misgendered,” Ross said. “I think that people don’t understand how much it hurts when someone gets misgendered, just one time. It can really be a setback in somebody’s self-esteem.”
