Transgender Advocate Jamison Green Speaks About Policy Work and Education
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 6:22pm
by Aaron McQuade, GLAAD's Deputy Director of News and Field Media
http://www.glaad.org/blog/transgender-advocate-jamison-green-about-policy-work-and-educationAs part of our support for the media coverage around Chaz Bono's casting on "Dancing with the Stars" and an increasing amount of transgender-specific coverage in general, GLAAD is continuing to profile prominent transgender advocates and members of the community on a weekly basis. You read last week's profile of Laverne Cox here. This week, we talked to Jamison Green, Ph.D., about his experience as an educator, policy advisor, and advocate for transgender health and non-discrimination.
After beginning a medically-supervised transition program in the late 1980s, Jamison knew he wanted to live openly and acknowledge his transgender status in order to improve the welfare of the transgender community. "When I began my transition and realized that the intersection of law and medicine had control over trans peoples' lives that was exercised indiscriminately and with ignorance and bias borne of uneducated belief, I realized that I could use my management skills and my language skills to help change that, but to do that I would have to stop being ashamed of being trans, of being different," he tells GLAAD. It has absolutely been worth the effort to see the incredible empowerment being honest and open has created for others in this world." He has since become an advocate for transgender issues, particularly around non-discrimination policies in the workplace.
