Yay! I was helpful!
I was reminded of an early Venus Envy strip. Erin gets an erection and knows if she stands up, people will see it. So
I want to thank you again for fighting my ignorance. I have to admit that I had a lot of misconceptions about people from your community because I didn’t know anything.
I teach English here in Taiwan, and recently there was an article about Chelsea Manning, and the article used “she” the whole time, even from when she was still being identified as Bradley.
Someone made a comment, I was able to handle the discussion very in a matter-of-fact manner, and that seemed to go over really well.
Thanks Una and Emiliana! I’ll check the link right away, and Una, anything from the “tigermom” would be great. (And the green heels sound lovely!)
Swimming is always completely optional for everyone. It’s likely she won’t want to, of course, but I want my replacement to be overly prepared just in case.
We have rather a lot of clout of there, so in terms of her general safety we’ll be ok. If we can’t guarantee her safety in a particular place, then nobody goes to that place. That’s how we work. So maybe we can’t go swimming this year, or maybe we’ll have the pool to ourselves or something.
She started transition a year ago, at 16, I believe. Here’s the thing: I’ve been with all of the group, haven’t quite learned their names, and I don’t know who she is! It might sound strange, but it’s sort of part of our approach with the teenagers we take on board: we don’t care who you were or what you did prior to coming with us, you can show us who you are. So usually I know there is a a kid with an eating disorder, a kid in trouble with the law, a kid with a drinking problem and then I only find out who they are in a briefing right before we go. Before that time I don’t need to know, as we’re only fundraising at school together and just getting to know each other. So right now I don’t know how well she passes. None in the group struck me as being a trans girl, but I barely know them and I wasn’t looking.
As for her peers and my group, there is no misgendering-on-purpose or bullying and her peers are, I am told, completely supportive. The adults are as well, though one of the old guys probably for the life of him doesn’t understand and I’m guessing will need reminders of personal pronouns and the like. He is firmly outnumbered and is used to being put in his place by all of us about this stuff. The Romanians, well, as I said we have a lot of clout. They look up to us, which is mostly awkward but in this to our advantage.
All of this just to give some context. 
ETA: Pflag looks like it’s great Emiliana!!
Amazing thread, thanks for doing this. I’ve learned quite a bit in it. I don’t have anything else to add, as the questions have already been pretty comprehensive. Just wanted to share my appreciation. Oh, and also in that second photo (the full-length one) you look like a dead ringer for my sister-in-law, Una, and she’s universally and objectively considered to be totally hot. Just so’s ya know.
My friend sent me this collection of PDF files which she says could be useful to you.
http://65.69.77.33/files/transyouth.zip
That’s really cool!
By second picture, did you mean this one? http://www.coalgoddess.net/files/Pictures/1403/BlueTop.jpg
Una, thank you for your unending answers to all forms of questions in this thread. One of the more interesting things I learned during my studies in developmental biology was the timing in development for different characteristics in organisms. I use the term organism because, while this has been studied in people, science has a greater understanding in some other animal models. Anyway, what really hit home for me was the idea that exogenous hormones can fluctuate wildly during development and the time frame for development for the genitals is widely spread from the brain development. So if there was an evated androgen present when the embryo was dividing, the genitals of a male would develop regardless of the chromosome configuration. If the exogenous androgen is removed, and it can be easily if the mother is no longer exposed to the source, the embryo and its brain development will continue development as female. I do know that this bit of understanding development gave me a bit of an aha moment. Any thoughts on this? Have I gotten it all wrong, or do you think this approach to understanding things is valuable?
Can they really fire her for transitioning? What’s the rationale? I know that most places can fire you for whatever, but I thought sexual identity was protected and lots of medical/psych issues are also protected.
Ah great! It actually includes the same leaflet that Pflag has. It’s a good leaflet, aimed at parents. If this is her personal collection of info resources for people she comes into contact with, she could perhaps consider adding the teachers leaflet linked to on Pflag: “Working with transgender youth” (pdf). It’s actually too short to really be very helpful, but I found it a start at least.
I’ll add that one to the file anyway, and offer my replacement the whole thing. Thank you so much Una, please thank your friend from me. And Emiliana, again. And again, a thank you for this thread. I was fairly read up, but you make the different issues so clear that I learned so much more and gained understanding, I think.
One thing though: I am so much looking forward to a time when these leaflets won’t need to start with the “transgender people are people too, be nice to them”-language. When that can just be a given and the focus is on how to be supportive. Into the future we go! We’ll get there. 
Aye, that’s the one. Rrow.
Yes, I have some - I wrote an article on this very subject in fact, which can be found here: Transas City - The Transgender Brain
No, although 89% of Americans when polled believe that it is covered (http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/06/pdf/state_nondiscrimination.pdf) , in fact it is not in most parts of the United States. There is no Federal-level protection, although thanks to the decision in Macy v. Holder and many other decisions which have followed, transgender persons can take their employers to the EEOC (where the EEOC applies) and probably win. At the State level, 26 of 24 states have no protections for transgender workers. At the corporate level, however, companies are stepping up to the bat, and each year a substantial number of US corporations significantly increase or totalize protections for transgender workers. Sometimes it only takes one dedicated individual, such as what I did to transform my employer.
More can be found here: http://www.hrc.org/resources/entry/resources-for-transgender-employees
I know - can you imagine in this day and age needing brochures like “How to Deal With Hebrews in the Workplace” or “Protecting Black Children in Public Bathrooms?” Hopefully within a decade having such brochures for my people will seem as antiquated.
{blushes}
Even without legal protection, I would have guessed that a company could be made to fear bad publicity for firing a transgender/transsexual person. Trans folks are beginning to become mainstream enough (I saw a news piece about a trans-girl homecoming queen at a high school somewhere in the US) that I would think publicizing the fact that a company fired someone for being transsexual could stir significant outrage. That might be a tough road to take for someone who is already reeling from large negative consequences (however unjust), but if they’re already threatening to fire her, I’d say she’s got little to lose by preemptively letting them know that if they do, she’ll make as much noise as she can on the evening news, local newspaper, and social media.
**Please **don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s highly unfortunate that you have that impression. Meaning that many other people have similar impressions. In TV/movie land it’s very easy to find lawyers ready to sue companies into the Stone Age who jump at cases like this. In reality it’s actually quite difficult. Both Kansas and Missouri are states where you can be fired for the color of your shoes, for not saying “shrubbery” every hour, etc. - any reason except that prohibited by Federal or State law. A fired transperson has no recourse really. Even if there is the possibility of any other things which might be actionable - such as sex discrimination, or just overall making an "uncomfortable work environment - well, I work with many attorneys in the metro area and they say to the last one of them - even my best friend in the world, who is a transwoman herself and an attorney - that they really fear getting in front of a jury with a transgender client. It’s a real crapshoot which will cost the now unemployed transgender client a lot of money which they don’t have.
Some big companies may not like the publicity, and those tend to already have protections in place. But take Wal-Mart (please!) I would have to sit and count the number of transgender persons I know of who have been fired from Wal-Mart for transitioning or for gender presentation. The case histories read like textbook “OMG how can they do this.” The biggest problem are the small mom-and-pop stores - you know, the ones which Republicans get weepy-eyed over and say we MUST allow them to discriminate against all LGBT persons to protect their “religious freedom?” Folks fired from there can’t even make an EEOC case out of it really.
As to taking it to the media - I read those reports on websites daily. Many times a day. Scroll down to the “Comments” sections on them. You’ll quickly see that 80% or more of the comments in some cities are along the lines of “that’s what IT gets”, “OMG so ‘Tim Curry’ is upset HE got fired from a gas station,” “this is what happens when you let freaks and child molesters run around in public,” “you can’t chop off your dick and be a woman. GENETICS DON’T LIE!!!,*” “GOOD FOR THEM! The Bible says we shouldn’t allow these people to live!” etc. As hard-nosed as I am sometimes, I have been brought to tears by some of the comments against a transwoman just trying to get some legal relief for being thrown into unemployment for doing nothing more than dealing with a medical condition which she by no stretch of the imagination chose to be afflicted with.
Barring the passage of ENDA, my people are going to be on the short end of the stick for much of the nation. And with Republicans refusing to allow ENDA to pass in the House…
- I’ve actually fought with “intelligent” adults, voters, who claim that intersex people like myself DO NOT EXIST, they are all a LIE created by secular humanist scientists to try to trick people into thinking the Bible is WRONG and to let child molesters run free.
That’s actually kind of awesome.
Happened across this videotoday and found it inspiring: a transwoman fashion model and beauty queen discussing her experiences in a TED talk.