As some of you know, I presented to the Montgomery County, Maryland Human Rights Commission on Monday night. The topic of my talk was cultural competence as a way to promote outreach and effective working relationships with the trans* community.
The result was better than I could have expected. The Human Rights Commission has asked us to develop a plan that reaches beyond basic competence. In addition, the police captain in charge of the county police training was there and he said he has began to understand that the police need to be trained about their interactions with trans* people. And one of the other attendees turned out to be a television producer who is developing a proposal for a new television program and wants it to deal with trans* people.
This is pretty big. One never knows what, if anything, will come from something like this. There are many false starts in advocacy. But it takes us beyond anything that I can or should be doing on my own. It's time to get the larger community involved in this so that it can chart it's own course instead of having a course charted for it by me or anyone else. And the community needs to discover its own strength as well.
Toward that end, I am convening a working group at my home. The first meeting will be Saturday, December 6 at 4 pm. I'm looking for people with an interest and understanding of the social and policy issues who are willing to do some work and speak up. No experience required. So before signing up, please think carefully about whether you really are serious about doing the work. If you are, please send me a PM so you can join us. You don't have to live in the county. If you work here or visit from time to time, that's good enough.
Note: Both the County and the State have anti-discrimination laws in place. This is not about passing one or enhancing penalties. It's about implementation by teaching how to not discriminate and how to work with the community effectively.
