Trans activist Gunner Scott says, despite increased visibility, it's still dangerous to be transgender in America
State of the Union
By GUNNER SCOTT | May 23, 2012
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/life/139051-trans-activist-gunner-scott-says-despite-increase/I don't know why I'm transgender. I just am.
I do know that I'm not alone. According to the Williams Institute, there are an estimated 33,000 transgender people in Massachusetts, which is almost equivalent to the seats filled at Fenway Park when the Red Sox are on a winning streak. Throughout history, and in every culture, there have been people who have lived as the gender they understood themselves to be and not the sex they were assigned at birth.
Being transgender is not immoral or wrong, but the discrimination transgender people face is fierce. Which is why, on the evening of November 19, 2011, I sat in the gallery of the Massachusetts State House, watching the debate over the Transgender Equal Rights bill. My organization, the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, and a coalition of community groups and activists had worked for six years on its behalf, and that week the law was finally passed. On July 1, it will go into effect, extending non-discrimination protections in employment, housing, credit, and public education to transgender people. This will bring a measure of equality to my life as a transgender man, and especially to the lives of thousands of transgender youth, adults, and families.
It is frustrating to think that, before I transitioned from female to male, I had these rights and protections, but once I came to terms with who I was and began to let the rest of the world in on my reality, these rights and protections I'd grown accustomed to — like being treated fairly when trying to rent an apartment — evaporated.
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Female-to-male alongside pop culture
Year in transition
By THOMAS PAGE MCBEE | May 23, 2012
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/life/139050-female-to-male-alongside-pop-culture/About this time a year ago, I watched Chaz Bono on Late Night with David Letterman try to explain to America what it meant to be transgender. Letterman's hammy reaction made me clammy with fear. Oh god, I thought, terrified.
I'd had chest-reconstruction surgery at 27, and written about living "between genders" publicly. But now, at 30 years old, I was about to begin injecting testosterone.
Going on hormones was scary. I was afraid of being alone, misunderstood, alien. And Bono complicated things for me. I didn't see myself in his story, but he was suddenly my mascot. I watched him tell Letterman, "When puberty hit, it was a difficult time for me. I really felt like my body was betraying me," and thought: ->-bleeped-<-. This was the party line, the story trans folks often told to answer a questioning public. Maybe it was true for Bono, but I've never felt betrayed or trapped by my body. I've just always looked like a guy in my mind, and at some point I realized the world didn't see me like I saw myself, and I got sick of it.
