Feisty Aphrodite Archives
Roller Coaster Ride: 2007 Trans Year In Review
The following was written by TransNation's Jacob Anderson-Minshall and featured on PrideParenting:
From a transgender perspective, 2007 was a year with a lot of peaks and valleys. The entertainment field, in particular, witnessed many accomplishments but the community as a whole was tested with some significant blows.
ACHIEVEMENTS
A number of trans folk received recognition for their notable achievements including Just Add Hormones author Matt Kailey, who became the first trans managing editor of a LGBT publication (Colorado’s Out Front). Performer Scott Turner Schofield received a special award from the Princess Grace Foundation. Trans actor and screenwriter M.C. Brennan won an Outfest Screenwriting Lab award for her transgender teen comedy script, Dramatis Personae. Filmmaker scholar Joelle Ruby Ryan became the first MTF-spectrum trans person to receive a prestigious Point Foundation Scholarship. Transgender consultant Debra Davis clocked her 1,000th presentation while your friendly TransNation columnist passed the 100th column mark. After 20-years as a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times, Mike Penner came out and transitioned in the predominately male field to become Christine Daniels.
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POLITICAL GAINS
As with the world of entertainment there were advances in political, business and educational realms. The Department of Homeland Security dropped its “No Match” rules that would’ve required employers to fire employees if their name, Social Security number, or gender didn’t match info in the Social Security Administration database.
According to GenderPAC’s GENIUS Index, an increasing number of colleges, universities, and K-12 school districts now prohibit discrimination and promote awareness of gender identity and expression in their policies. Similarly, the number of Fortune 500 companies including gender identity in their nondiscrimination policies rose from 78 to 125 in the past year; and the American Medical Association also amended its nondiscrimination policies to include trans people. Outreach to trans youth and their parents increased a great deal in 2007 with numerous conferences addressing the specific needs of trans youth and their advocates, such as Gender Odyssey Family and the first Midwest Trans Youth Conference.
LOSSES
As the Transgender Day of Remembrance reminded us, despite the year’s gains, there are always painful losses as well. This year those losses struck close to home for the youth advocacy organization Trans Youth Family Advocates, who lost a founding member’s trans son to suicide. Proving that sometimes the strength of a community is determined not by the wins but their response to losses, TYFA has channelled their collective anguish into a new suicide prevention initiative. The loss of gender protections in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) engendered similar results, when 350 local and national organizations united to protest the exclusion.
If the firing of Largo, Florida’s City Manager Susan Stanton had a silver lining, it was the national attention it brought to the employment discrimination of trans workers. And when trans filmmaker Raymond Rea’s The Sweet New was rejected from San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival after panelists reportedly declared it “not queer enough,” Rae set up an event to showcase the work of other LGBT artists who’d been excluded from queer venues because of non-gay material.
To read the entire article that includes a look back at trans literature, film, music, television and other performances in 2007, click here.
