Since a lot of people in the current trans community don’t know me and since I’m under fire for my apparently critical remarks at the IFGE during my acceptance speech; I’ve been encouraged to post my nomination for public view. Charmaine Bowes has graciously sent me the text. Tomarrow I’ll post my acceptance speech with some foot noted explaination.

Cheryl Costa’s – Trinity Award Nomination
written by Charmaine Bowes and nominated by Monica Helms.

Cheryl Ann Costa, is a lot of things, first off she’s an “out and in your face.” She’s an internationally produced and published playwright, was a Washington, DC talk radio personality, a cable television producer, an indie filmmaker and of course a long time activist for the gender community.

It’s a very interesting read about a woman who has done a lot throughout the course of her transgender journey, both to benefit herself and the rest of the community. Check it out!

I’ve just returned from the International Foundation for Gender Education’s annual conference that was held at the Doubletree Hotel in Tucson, Arizona. A speaker on the very first day said “If you let it, this conference will change you.” Even though this was my first conference, the skeptic in me heard a sales pitch being thrown. “Maybe some other people buy that stuff, but not me”, I told myself.

[...]

Many new friendships were forged at the luncheon tables, but it wasn’t just a time for socializing. The Diversity luncheon speakers included Amanda Simpson, Donna Rose, and Denise Leclair. Overall, the luncheons were an inspiring and unifying. The noted exception to this rule was Cheryl Ann Costa’s acceptance speech at the Trinity Awards luncheon. Costa left more than one mouth agape, with her suggestions that F2M’s go forth and “join the Rotary” or that transwomen should break from crossdressers and have their own conference. I started my transgender journey in November of 2000, but my time on the national advocacy scene has been limited. Going into the luncheon I had no idea who Costa was. I’ve learned since how much Costa has given to the community. I was told that this was her “retirement speech” from the community, and she saw the Trinity Award as her “gold watch.” It’s unfortunate for her that many people who attended (150 people at the conference were first time attendees) who might not know what Costa has done, will be left with the lasting impression of her as a negative train wreck.

While there were many distinctions in the population of the conference, I found that those distinctions were individual in nature. I had one crossdresser tell me that even though I was “a bit overweight” that she’d still “do” me. She also told me that women have more power than men. If I took her words as representative of the entire crossdressing community, even I would want some separation between the crossdressing and transsexual communities. Fortunately, I also came into contact with wonderful crossdressers like Lena Dahlstrom. Lena was in many of my workshops. She was one of the few people (besides myself) in Sam Allen’s workshop that wasn’t F2M identified. The chasm between these two people really delineated the weakness in Costa’s call for spitting off the community. You’ve probably heard it said that our strength is in our diversity, but I’d contend that our weaknesses of binary thinking, bigotry, and misogyny, are spread out among the different sections of the transgender community too.

[...]

I made personal connections at the conference that have and will continue to change my life. I’ve always enjoyed reading Joelle Ruby Ryan, but meeting her in person really heightened that appreciation. She’s not only someone that I respect, but someone that I’d like to get to know more as a friend. The names that I’ve seen and heard for years became much more meaningful and dynamic. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about finally meeting Monica Helms and my stunning come from behind arm wrestling victory.

As much as I loathe to admit it, I was wrong. I let the conference in, and I was changed. I’ve I’ve returned to Indiana with a renewed spirit, with new friendships, and a renewed outlook on my activism and my life. Next year, look for me at the 2009 IFGE conference. I’ll be the one saying “this conference will change your life, if you let it.”

Be sure to read Marti’s whole post, to find out what she learned from three stand-out workshops, given by Pauline Park, Mariette Pathy Allen, and Sam Allen.

Her final IFGE-related video blog is no exception:

This is probably the most difficult video I’ve released, just because it reveals so much about a soul that remains to a degree caged from the attention and focus not on intimate details but external physical characteristics being all too often given too much attention and focus.

All the while the aching heart yearns for the day she can simply spread her feathered eagle wings without fears and doubts and soar upon the the warm thermals rising into the sky up from the desert floor.

The eagle hasn’t landed. Why she hasn’t even really taken off.

Yet.

Or at least not until something, something deeply spiritual that happened last week, an awakening of sorts.

Some might call it… an epiphany, that revelatory moment that provided insight into a lifelong of questioning.

Read the whole post, and watch the video. This is life, transgender.

Well I went to IFGE where I took tons of pictures, some of which are now up on my Gender DiverCity blog. I will be calling a few people from the conference like Donna Rose, Jamison Green, etc. to interview them along with their picture.

That said… what a bozo, I didn’t get my picture taken with ANYONE at the conference. DUH! That sucks too cuz I met some really fun people transmen, cisgender men, a really cool daughter of a trans woman, transwomen, allies, and more. So I now feel like a dufus, because the only time I remembered to turn the camera on myself was…

In the freaking bathroom at the Dezert Boyz coffee.

Be sure to check out Gender DiverCity, a really impressive photography project by Sean-Michael. Sean-Michael is also a co-founder of GenderPhotography at Yahoo!Groups.

LiveJournalist retrodragonlady (apparently a Trinity Award winner) didn’t have a good time:

Dearest Journal,
MadamWu and I traveled to Tucson last Wednesday until yesterdayt, to attend the International Foundation for Gender Education annual convention. The purpose of the trip was for me to receive the IFGE Trinity Award for community service. We both had an experience that qualified as among one of the worst times of our lives.

The IFGE convention as a whole and most assuredly Delta Airlines can both roast in hell.

We’ll pass on burning on Hell, but we’re sorry to hear she had airline problems. Looking forward to reading more reactions from bloggers, and we hope they had a better experience in tucson than Ms. Dragonlady!

I met some wonderful people at the conference. Some I’ve spoken with online. Others I was just fortunate enough to bump into, or came up to me to introduce themselves. It makes me think back to how many of the people I consider dear friends at this stage of my life I first met at conferences like these. In addition to making new friends it’s gratifying to see how far people I’ve met in previous years have come in their own journeys. We often talk about community. In a very real sense, in a way it’s about family.

[...]

All in all, my conference experience was an enjoyable one. The weather was as close to perfect as you can get. The hotel was very nice – quiet, comfortable beds, beautiful grounds, friendly staff. The presenters and topics were diverse. A number of people who came for the conference extended their stays to visit the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon, Prescott, and any number of the places and sights we enjoy here. I had more than one person comment that they hope IFGE returns here sometime soon. Apparently, it’s scheduled to be in Washington DC (or, more accurately – Alexandria, VA) over the next couple of years but I’d love to see an opportunity for a late winter/early spring event here in Arizona. Perhaps that’s something worth seriously thinking about.

One new friend posted something on her blog about the event. More specifically, it was about me at the conference (read it here). Her kind words are certainly appreciated and I can’t help but smile about all the events of the past few days. I’ve been on the Atkins Diet for the past couple of weeks so I’m proud at avoiding the cheese cake, the chocolate cake, and the various other temptations over the past few days (including alcohol, although I generally find these things more fun with a drink or two). From doing balancing work and conference on Thursday and Friday to the event at Old Tucson Studio to hanging out with friends to going for a run around the park across the street from the hotel – no wonder I needed a nap this afternoon.

Others are already sharing their thoughts of events and experiences here, as well. For those of us who consider ourselves “veterans” of these kinds of things it’s easy to overlook the profound impact that they can and do have on people attending for the first time, and there were lots of first-timers there. One such glimpse is provided by Jason, an FTM who maintains a blog of his experiences and who attended IFGE on Thursday and Friday (read his thoughts here). Kudos to Jason for his honesty and his willingness to share.

I’ll close by sharing a couple of the photos I was taking when Lori caught up with me by the gardens (as she explained in her blog). There’s always time to slow down to appreciate the beauty of nature – I couldn’t let it pass without capturing it. Welcome to Springtime in the Desert…..

In the rest of her post, she talks about a Trinity Award winner’s speech that seemed to call for falling in line with societal stereotypes. Donna responds with:

A message of conforming to stereotypes is something that, perhaps, at one time made sense. Transgender people faded into society out of necessity. However, we’ve matured and our perceptions of ourselves and the broader ideals at play have changed. The message of today has evolved from simply being about gender to a broader one of freedom and about self. It is about breaking free from binaries and stereotypes to simply be whoever you are. To judge anyone as not being, looking, or acting appropriately “manly” or “womanly” enough based on someone’s arbitrary standard of gender would be to stoop to the same stale stereotypes so many of us work so hard to break.

Read the whole thing here — scroll down to April 6, 2008.

Lori Anne (on the left) describes how she got what she calls “the obligatory Donna Rose photo:”

Fact of the matter is that this week I’ve watched how busy Donna is, even having been glued to her laptop keys tending to whatever other matters keeping her busy during the very little down time around here. And although she seems to be a popular character around these neck of the woods during these last few days, I’ve watched how Donna has retained a loving spirit about her, taking the time to reach out to people, to hug people…and take…the obligatory Donna Photo.

And so I waited patiently…for a break during the madness and chaos of the conference.

I was actually outside of the hotel taking photos of people who I wanted to capture the beauty of when Donna was standing around taking her own photos of the landscape and the flowers that lined the Doubletree Hotel here in Tucson. As friendly as can be, we began talking about cameras and photography, and she warmly agreed to take a picture with me. Hence the photo above. It was cool.

But Donna keeps that spirit going while she’s around here. I didn’t want to bug, but after seeing her in action walking around the area, I realized she’s not “bugged.” Instead, she truly enjoys giving hugs, seeing old friends, and making new connections and friends.

Not bad. Cool gal, that Donna Rose is.

Normal, real, caring.

Thanks, hon. You inspire me.

First, a rough address of the timeline: My mother and I, having signed up for only Thursday and Friday of the conference, left Sunday morning for a sort of pre-vacation vacation, as it were; and we arrived in Tucson on the eve of Wednesday. After some discussion, it was decided that registering would be more important than dinner at the particular moment the decision was made. There were as it turned out various slight complications regarding a number of things having to do with our registration; fortunately, no damage was done and the incidents were waved away with little consequence.

And so came Thursday morning with much excitement, anticipation and certainly some level of reserve. For me, having only been in the company of other trans people merely once or twice in my lifetime, I found it simultaneously comforting yet strange: I of course had known of the existence of other transfolk experiencing exactly the same as myself, but somehow the reality that a great many of them were in fact residing directly in my physical vicinity was slightly shocking: They really do exist!

On a particularly noteworthy note, Jamison Green gave an opening speech prior to the onset of the sessions. Having attended presentations of his twice before yet, having been unfunctionably shy prior to T, been unable to actually meet him personally, my mother dragged me determinedly to his side and introduced us. And so it came that I was finally able to shake his hand after having known of his existence for many years.

My mother, incidentally, I do believe will hold a lifelong reputation among the population gathered there as the holder of the honorary Amazing Mother award. “Jason,” I was to hear several times over the weekend as people’s eyes traveled to my nametag, “Oh, with the amazing mother from the other session!”

And that she is.

In the rest of the very well-written post, Jason shares some of the emotions that came up in a late-night, long-distance car ride — emotions that will be familiar to many of the transgender people reading this. Jason’s blog is very compelling and personal look into one young transman’s ongoing journey, and we thank him for opening his life to his blog’s readers.

What’s a ‘ze’ to do?
A transgender approach

By Stephanie Innes
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

For some people, “he” and “she” are limiting terms.

While many of the transgender people at last week’s “Transgender 2008″ conference in Tucson were transsexuals who strongly believe that at one time they were a woman trapped in a man’s body or vice versa, others said the distinction is less clear.

Some say “man” or “woman” doesn’t describe who they are. A few prefer gender-neutral pronouns, like “ze” for he and she, and “hir” (pronounced “here”) for his and her. Others refer to themselves in written form as s/he to denote both their male and female sides.

Post-genderism or moving beyond the gender binary was a common theme during the conference, particularly among many younger transgender people who are more at ease than some of their older counterparts with calling themselves gender blenders, gender queer or nonconforming.

Evan Brown has given up trying to figure out his gender category.

“I’ve decided to be whoever I want to be. I’m trying to do whatever I need to do to be happy with myself,” he said.

The 18-year-old California native is now studying psychology and women’s studies at the University of Arizona. Brown was born female and was raised as a female but never felt right about it.

“I felt like a drag queen in a dress,” he said.

He now identifies as male but says that doesn’t quite fit, either. He strongly identifies with women on many women’s issues and believes he has much more fear of sexual violence than most men. He doesn’t take hormones and hasn’t had any surgery. He still uses the women’s bathroom.

He likes gender-neutral pronouns but doesn’t enforce them.

“Ze and hir are really cool, but I’m going to pick my battles,” he said. “I do intend to medically transition to male to be comfortable in my own body, but it’s not because I want to conform to gender norms. I’m not going to be a normal man.”

On surveys that give two categories for sex, male and female, Brown usually adds his own. On the last one he filled out he wrote “gender queer F to M.” Ideally, Brown and many other gender-variant people say they’d like forms to say “gender” with a blank line beside it.

“I don’t do boxes,” Brown said. “There are a lot of things people think are dichotomies that aren’t. Personally I like to use ‘queer’ as my identity. It doesn’t specify anything. For me, queer is a rejection of labels and normalcy.”

Similarly, dividing the world into two groups —male and female — does not reflect reality for Tucson musician and business owner Bruce Blackstone.

Blackstone, 48, is biologically male and usually appears in his professional life as a man.

But outside of work he most often dresses like a woman. He is partial to skirts, heels and sparkling brooches, belts and earrings. He shaves his legs and arms, and he paints his toenails. He doesn’t try to soften his voice or wear his hair in a feminine style. He’s never taken female hormones and has no desire to have sexual-reassignment surgery.

“I don’t feel I’m trapped in the wrong body,” Blackstone said in an interview during “Transgender 2008,” an international conference in Tucson that wrapped up Saturday night.

“I like the term bi-gendered. Some days I feel more male. Other days I’m drawn to the woman side of me and I want to be more feminine. It shifts. I am gender-fluid. I am very much an anomaly in my age group.”

One thing that Blackstone and other gender-variant people make clear is that gender identity and sexual orientation are distinctly different. Many transsexuals, for example, identify as heterosexual and don’t affiliate with the gay and lesbian community.

Though he is primarily attracted to women, Blackstone identifies as bisexual. He emphasizes that being bisexual is separate from his identification as bi-gendered. He does see both gender and sexuality being on a continuum, where some people are strongly at one end or the other and others fall at various spots in between.

“I think over a period of time there has been more openness to express where you are at, separate from only being male-identified or female-identified,” said Lori B. Girshick, a professor of sociology at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler and author of the 2008 book, “Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men.”

“The term transgender does not just refer to people who are transsexual. The rest of them fit into other kinds of categories — gender queer, androgynous, cross-dressers, intersex, some of them have multiple labels. There are many labels used within subcommunities, like tranny boi or sissy guy.”

Gender blending isn’t new. Blackstone said he was inspired by androgynous 1980s rockers like David Bowie and Robert Plant, and he notes the musical “Cabaret,” set in 1929-30 Berlin, is full of people pushing the gender envelope. The difference is that now gender-variant people are seeking more acceptance and visibility in an everyday life context.

But being gender-variant is not without difficulties. Youths who spoke about being gender-queer talked about rejection from families and peers. One attempted suicide. A few had been kicked out of their homes.

“Sometimes I get tired of the whole gender thing,” said 23-year-old Tucsonan Ben Griffith, who spoke on a youth panel with Brown. “All it is, is a label, for paperwork. Our souls are not determined by what our outer shells are.”

Like Brown, Griffith was born female but now identifies as a man and has given himself a male name. But he plays in a women’s football league, and, like Brown, has not taken any hormones or had any surgery.

Girshick would like to see a world where people could self-identify their gender. She sees dangerous consequences in having a simple, binary system. Those who don’t fit into the two choices feel omitted, she said. That can spur harassment, trauma and all kinds of negatives.

“People are very comfortable with easy choices because it’s easier. But people are complex, the world is complex,” Girshick said. “Most people in the present system identify as a man or a woman. But in another system, who knows?”

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“I like the term bi-gendered. Some days I feel more male. Other days I’m drawn to the woman side of me and I want to be more feminine. It shifts. I am gender-fluid. I am very much an anomaly in my age group.”
Bruce Blackstone
Tucson musician and business owner

Vocabulary and definitions

Transgender — People whose appearance and behavior don’t conform to the cultural “norm” for the gender into which they were born.
There are generally five categories of transgender:
• Transsexuals — People born into one gender but who identify psychologically and emotionally as the other. Those born physically male but who present as female are called male to female, or MTFs. Those born female but who present as male are called female to male, or FTMs.
• Cross-dressers — Identify as and are completely comfortable with their physical gender at birth but will occasionally dress and take on the mannerisms of the opposite gender. Most cross-dressers are heterosexual men.
• Drag performers — Dress and act like the “opposite” sex for the entertainment of an audience. For them, drag is a job, not an identity. Some are gay, some are not. Some identify as transgender — most do not.
• Gender blenders, bi-gendered, and others — Some trans people find characterizations of gender more limiting than liberating. Many times they assume a mixture of male and female dress and characteristics, combining elements of both.
• Intersex — People born exhibiting some form of “indeterminate” genitalia, a combination of both male and female genitalia, or ambiguous chromosomes. There are more than 70 types of intersex conditions, and may be present as often as one in every 2,000 births. Some argue that transgender is another type of intersex, and it is the brain that is the indeterminate organ.

Source: The Southern Arizona Gender Alliance

● Contact reporter Stephanie Innes at 573-4134 or at sinnes@azstarnet.com.