Crossing the Gender Frontier: Voices of Pioneers
Published: April 29, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/opinion/l30dowd.html?_r=1To the Editor:
Re "Between Torment and Happiness," by Maureen Dowd (column, April 27):
Crossing the gender frontier still isn't easy. Transgender people remain at high risk of violence and discrimination, as the terrible beating of Chrissy Lee Polis last week graphically demonstrated. Two recent reports on transgender people showed that we experience assault at rates between 40 and 60 percent; discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and health care is also severe and pervasive. Ms. Polis is to be commended for speaking out in the face of these dangers.
DONNA M. CARTWRIGHT
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To the Editor:
I was impressed with Maureen Dowd's understanding of some of the problems of the transgender community, as it is now called. In my day it was "transsexual."
But I have to say that she has made my life difficult with my gay and lesbian friends and with the lesbian, gay and bisexual community in general, who have supported me for years in my struggle for rights and the safekeeping of all less than perfectly enfranchised minorities.
RENÉE RICHARDS
