Health Foundation Makes Record Commitment to Transgender Health Care Equality

Media Contact:
Christopher Daley, Transgender Law Center (415) 771-7304

Health Foundation Makes Record Commitment to
Transgender Health Care Equality
Grant of almost $140,000 supports Transgender Law Center’s Health Care Access Project

San Francisco, CA June 29, 2006 – The Transgender Law Center (TLC) is proud to announce that The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation, has made a historic $138,000 commitment over two years to continue their partnership with TLC’s Health Care Access Project. The grant, one of the largest ever made to a transgender civil rights organization, will be used to increase the cultural competency of health care services available to transgender people in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County.

“We are committed to removing barriers to appropriate and equitable health for all underserved communties, including transgender individuals and their families,” said Ignatius Bau, Program Director at The California Endowment. “This grant provides TLC with resources to educate community members about their rights to culturally competent care and to help health care providers better serve the health care needs of transgender people.”

In addition to supporting accessible and broad-based education, the grant will make possible the launching of the state’s first coordinated community organizing effort targeting health care access. “Our communities have been organizing informally for civil rights for decades,” said Masen Davis, President of TLC partner FTM Alliance of Los Angeles. “The community’s deep rooted desire for culturally competent health care provides us with a historic opportunity to transform these informal efforts into sustainable initiatives to win equality in health care and, eventually, all aspects of our lives.”

At the top of the organizing agenda is an increase in the number of clinics that offer transgender specific clinic hours. “The experience of transgender-specific health care clinics in San Francisco and San Diego is that community members are more likely to be seek out care when they know they’ll be treated well and get sound medical advice,” said Cecilia Chung, TLC’s Deputy Director. “We’ve also seen how having a transgender health care clinic in San Francisco has advanced knowledge about transgender specific health care needs and increased the pool of health care professionals trained to competently serve transgender patients.”

The grant period runs from July 1, 2006 – June 30, 2008. The Liberty Hill Foundation of Los Angeles also recently approved a $25,000 grant to FTM Alliance of LA and TLC for similar health care access work in Los Angeles County.

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More info:      The California Endowment (www.calendow.org)
          FTM Alliance of LA (www.ftmalliance.org)
          Liberty Hill Foundation (www.libertyhill.org)
Transgender Law Center (www.transgenderlawcenter.org)

Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act Advances in CA Senate

Press Contact:
Christopher Daley, (415) 865-0176

Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act Advances in CA Senate
Araujo’s mother, Sylvia Guerrero, testifies at hearing

June 28, 2006 – San Francisco – California took another step towards becoming the first state to meaningfully respond to strategies that blame transgender people for their own murders. The Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act (AB 1160), authored by Assemblymember Sally Lieber and sponsored by Equality California, passed through the Senate Public Safety Committee on a 4-2 vote yesterday afternoon. Sylvia Guerrero, testifying about the bill named after her murdered transgender daughter, spoke about the need for educating juries about bias in order to prevent defendants from successfully blaming their victims for their own murders through use of the so-called “panic strategies.”

“Since my daughter was killed, my family and I have spent literally thousands of hours working hard to make sure that California is a state where everyone is respected and treated fairly. The Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act will really help us in our work,” said Guerrero. “[The bill] will give jurors the information they need to better understand their obligation to make decisions free of bias against the victim.”

AB 1160 now moves to the Senate Appropriations committee for consideration of a new provision earmarking $125,000 for the creation of educational materials about panic strategies to be distributed to District Attorneys’ office throughout the state. This provision responds to a 2005 decision by the Fresno County District Attorney to agree to a plea bargain resulting in a 4 year sentence for a person believed to have stabbed a transgender person 20 times with a pair of scissors. When asked about this light sentence for a homicide, an attorney from the DA’s office is reported to have attributed it, in part, to use of panic strategies.

“Outcomes like these turn our state’s hate crimes and anti-discrimination laws on their heads,” said Christopher Daley, Director of the Transgender Law Center. “The Gwen Araujo Justice for Victim’s Act is a logical step forward in ensuring that such outcomes, based on the bias we’ve already outlawed in employment, housing, education, insurance, and public accommodations, don’t put transgender people and others at risk for violent crimes.”

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Transgender Law Center (www.transgenderlawcenter.org) TLC is a civil rights organization advocating for transgender communities through direct legal services, education, community organizing, and policy and media advocacy.

Compton's Cafeteria Riot Commemoration

Capturing the moment - video by Dina Boyer

National Activists Highlight Transgender Civil Rights Commemoration

For Immediate Release

Media Contact: David Perry, 415-693-0583, news@davidperry.com

National Activists Highlight Transgender Civil Rights Commemoration

(San Francisco, CA) – June 19, 2006 – A memorial plaque commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot will be installed at Noon this Thursday, June 22nd, at the corner of San Francisco’s Turk and Taylor Streets.  The 1966 riot was the first known instance of transgender resistance to police harassment in the U.S.

National and local community leaders present will include The Reverend Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church, author/activists Leslie Feinberg and Jamison Green, National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director Mara Keisling, and representatives of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office, SF Human Rights Commission, and SF Police Commission.

Among those honored will be several transgender individuals who were active in the community 40 years ago, and retired SFPD Officer Elliott Blackstone, the first SFPD liaison to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities.

Sparked by the riot, San Francisco activists and allies began their own civil rights movement in 1966, three years prior to the famous rioting at New York’s Stonewall Inn, popularly credited as the start of the Gay Freedom Movement.

“In many ways, we can attribute our success in the transgender civil rights movement and the larger LGBT movement to our courageous predecessors at Compton’s Cafeteria,” said SF Human Rights Commissioner Cecilia Chung.  “Unexpected allies, like Sgt. Blackstone, fought by our side against prejudice and stigma at a time when our cries seemed to be ignored, and helped to create a ripple of positive change.  Today not only do we see transgender, gay, lesbian and bisexual people serving on the police force, but we also witness the wave of positive transformation in laws and policies in governments and institutions across the country and around the world.”

Filmmakers Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman, co-producer/directors of the film “Screaming Queens,” which documents the social conditions that led to the riot, will also speak.  Their film recently won a Northern California Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement, Historical/Cultural Program Special, and will be screened on KQED at 9:30pm on June 29th, and several times on June 30th.

The commemoration event, to be held at Oshun Center, 101 Taylor Street, is sponsored in part by Good Vibrations, San Francisco’s legendary destination for accurate information about sex.

For more information about this event and the history behind it, please visit www.comptonscafeteriariot.org.

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An Unsung Hero

An Unsung Hero by Susan Stryker

Sgt. Elliott Blackstone was an SFPD for 26 years, from the 1950s-70s. He was a pioneer of what's now called community-based policing, but was then called the Police Community Relations Unit. He was the first SFPD liaison to what was then called the "homophile community," starting in 1962. His first job was to make nice with the gay community after the so-called "Gayola Scandal" in the early 1960s, when several SFPD officers were arrested for taking bribes and kickbacks from gay bar owners. This is the scandal that resulted in the formation of the SF Tavern Guild.

As a result of these efforts for the homophile community, Blackstone became very active in trying to change police procedures related to bathroom entrapment and other issues of concern to the gay community. He worked closely with Mattachine, Daughters of Bilitis, and Glide's Council on Religion and the Homosexual, and was deeply involved with homophile community activism to establish the Central City Anti-Poverty Program in the Tenderloin in 1966, a pioneer multiservice agency funded through the Johnson-era War on Poverty, which was largely staffed by gay and lesbian activists like Mattachine leader Don Lucas and African-American lesbian community elder Jeannie Bowie.

Blackstone considered himself a "social worker with a badge" and thought it made more sense to try to change bad laws than to punish people for doing things (like gay sex) that were criminalized but not wrong.

Blackstone was assigned by the police department to mediate the grievances that led to the Compton's Cafeteria Riot in 1966, in which drag queens and gay hustlers banded together for the first time in US history to fight back against police oppression. Prior to this time he had no experience working with transgender people, or queer street youth, but he quickly rose to the task, mentoring leaders of the Vanguard gay youth group, and becoming the most important advocate for transgender people in the city.

At a time when the city would not prescribe hormones to transsexuals through city-funded public health clinics, Blackstone took up a collection at his church to buy hormones and distribute them to transgender women free of charge. This was only one instance of his remarkable leadership on this issue. He was the linchpin of a network of early transgender activists and advocates that took shape in 1966, after the Compton’s riot.

He helped facilitate the first peer-support group for transgender people, Conversion Our Goal, which began meeting at Glide in 1967. He was given a grant by the wealthy FTM philanthropist Reed Erickson, whose generosity built much of the early transgender medical services’ infrastructure beginning in 1964, to oversee the first peer-staffed transgender services agency in the world, The National Transsexual Counseling Unit(NTCU), beginning in 1968. He did all this work while remaining on the payroll at SFPD, and considered these activities to be part of his job to promote good relations between the LGBT community and the police.

In 1973, reactionary elements in the SFPD raided the NTCU offices, arrested the two peer counselors, and planted narcotics in Blackstone's desk in an effort to frame him and end his progressive activism within the Department. Elliott was able to avoid criminal charges, but his career was irreparably damaged. He was reassigned from his job as community relations unit liaison to the gay community, and worked his last two years on the force as a beat cop, walking a foot patrol. Coincidentally, his beat covered the Castro, which was just them becoming a gay neighborhood, and he became friends with a local businessman who had a camera store on Castro Street, a man by the name of Harvey Milk.

Blackstone's retirement dinner in 1975 drew all the leaders of gay community, who deeply appreciated his work on their behalf. In retirement in Pacifica, Blackstone continues to do advocacy work on behalf of LGBT concerns, and other diversity issues, within the Presbyterian Church at the national level.

Blackstone is a featured interviewee in Victor Silverman and Susan Stryker's recent public television documentary SCREAMING QUEENS: THE RIOT AT COMPTON'S CAFETERIA. At the 2005 world premiere at the Castro Theater, Blackstone received a standing ovation from a sold-out crowd of more than 1000 people, when he answered an audience member's question; asked why, as a straight man, he had worked so hard on behalf of LGBT rights, he said, "Because my religion teaches me to love everybody."

In this 40th Anniversary year of the Compton's Cafeteria Riot, Elliott Blackstone richly deserves recognition for his vital yet poorly remembered contributions to our community.

Note: On Thursday, June 22, 2006, from Noon to 1pm, a short program will be held at 101 Taylor to honor Elliott Blackstone. It will be followed by the unveiling of the historical marker to memorialize the heroic resistance of the transgender women and gay men at Compton’s Cafeteria.

Transgender Petition to UN

Transgender Petition to the United Nations


As citizens of the world, we petition the United Nations to revise the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from "all women and men" to "all people". The United Nations stands for human equality and freedom from discrimination for any reason, including gender. Yet the term "women and men" is exclusionary of all people whose gender cannot be described by either category.


We also urge that you include the term "gender", within Article 2, "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." This addition is suggested to protect transgender people, whose human rights are being violated because of their exhibited gender, not their biologic sex.

The transgender population of the world is emerging, and in doing so, faces grave misunderstanding, prejudice and injustice on a daily basis. In the absence of recognition as a distinct and equal subset of humanity, transgender people do not receive equal protection under common law or human rights. Many instances can be referenced where transgender people were not afforded equal rights nor freedoms, and have been subjected to atrocious and inhumane treatment at the hands of law makers and society at large. (See links at right)

We urge the United Nations to take a leading role in including the transgender population through use of the phrase "all people", rather than excluding them by using the term "all women and men". This simple step would go a long way in setting precedents for the equal recognition and protection of all human beings of the world.

EXISTING TERMINOLOGY

Preamble: "Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women."

Article 2: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."

Article 16(1): "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.

PROPOSED TERMINOLOGY:

Preamble: "Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of all people."

Article 2: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."

Article 16(1): "People of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.

SIGN THE PETITION



    

Hero

What would you do? You make the choice! Don't look for a punch line; there isn't one! Read it anyway. My question to all of you is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning disabled children, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

"When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. "I believe that when a child like Shay, physically and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes, in the way other people treat that child. Then he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, Do you think they'll let me play?" Shay's father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field and asked if Shay could play, not expecting much. The boy looked around for guidance and said, "We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."

Shay struggled over to the team's bench put on a team shirt with a broad smile and his Father had a small tear in his eye and warmth in his heart. The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted. In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay's team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible 'cause Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing the other team putting winning aside for this moment in Shay's life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least be able to make contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over, but the pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the head of the first baseman, out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!" Never in his life had Shay ever ran that far but made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!"
Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to second base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball, the smallest guy on their team, who had a chance to be the hero for his team for the first time. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher's intentions and he too intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman's head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay"

Shay reached third base, the opposing shortstop ran to help him and turned him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third" As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams and those watching were on their feet were screaming, "Shay, run home! Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the "grand slam" and won the game for his team.

That day, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world.

Shay didn't make it to another summer and died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making his Father so happy and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND, NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people think twice about sharing. The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.

If you're thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you're probably sorting out the people on your address list that aren't the "appropriate" ones to receive this type of message. Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the "natural order of things." So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up that opportunity to brighten the day of those with us the least able, and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them.

You now have two choices:
1. Delete
2. Forward
May your day, be a Shay Day, sunny today tomorrow & always!