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chicagotribune.com
>> Nation/World
Transgender movement emerging from shadows
By Bonnie Miller Rubin
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 3, 2006
Shawn Coleman bristles when an
application poses the question "male or female?"--as if there
are only two choices.
When it comes to sexual identity,
the 23-year-old Shawn--born Patricia--sees a broad spectrum, a
man-to-woman or a woman-to-man continuum with many stops along
the way. Think gender without borders. He (the preferred
pronoun) looks male but not completely. He is not a lesbian, a
cross-dresser or contemplating a sex-change operation any time
soon.
"I always knew I was different than other girls,"
explained Coleman. "I was never a fan of Barbie but liked
playing sports with my two older brothers. People were always
telling me to act more feminine--that I should sit with my
legs crossed--but I found that stuff incredibly difficult. It
wasn't the way I felt inside."
A graduate student at
Iowa State University, Coleman is a transgender young adult
and at the forefront of a movement that some say represents a
new edge of grass-roots activism. Frequently lumped together
with gays and lesbians, who have not always been welcoming,
transgender people are carving a separate profile and flexing
new political clout from campuses to
corporations.
Transgender is an umbrella term that
refers to people whose sexual identity differs from
conventional expectations of what it means to be a man or a
woman. It includes transsexuals, who have surgically moved
from one sex to another. It includes those who have had
electrolysis and take hormones. It also encompasses people
like Coleman who identify and express themselves differently
from the sex indicated on their birth
certificates.
Because of the range of definitions and
the stigma, reliable statistics are difficult to find. Pop
culture has helped "trans" issues gain more visibility.
Felicity Huffman's performance in "TransAmerica" grabbed the
headlines--and a "best actress" Oscar nomination--but "Rent"
and "Breakfast on Pluto" included such characters last year as
well. On the Sundance Channel, a documentary series called
"Transgeneration" followed four college students who morphed
from one sex to the other. VH1's "Surreal Life" also features
a "tranny."
The sports world, too, is seeing more
fluidity. There's Terri O'Connell, a male-to-female
transsexual and the only NASCAR driver to compete as both a
man (T.J. Hayes) and as a woman. Canadian cyclist Kristen
Worley, who also changed from male to female, currently is
vying for a spot in the 2008 Olympics. The International
Olympic Committee allows transsexual athletes to compete if
two years has elapsed since surgery. The NCAA is studying a
similar proposal.
More visibility has fostered more
understanding.
"It used to be that when journalists
called, the first question was about surgery," said Mara
Keisling, 46, executive director of the National Center for
Transgender Equality, who was born Mark and "transitioned" six
years ago. "Now reporters are acknowledging the
humanity."
Illinois bars discrimination
Seven
states, including Illinois, have transgender-inclusive
anti-discrimination laws. Even the business world, while not
exactly rolling out the welcome mat, is becoming more
receptive. More than 100 major corporations--40 in the last
year alone--now include gender identity as part of their
non-discrimination policies. That's up from eight firms just
five years ago.
Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, a
human-rights group, held a benefit in Chicago on Saturday,
sponsored by such buttoned-down firms as IBM Corp., JP Morgan
Chase and Citigroup.
"It's the next big social
movement," said Riki Wilchins, GenderPAC's executive director.
Wilchins compares these efforts to those waged by blacks in
the 1960s, women in the '70s and gays and lesbians in the
'80s.
Nowhere is the activity more evident than on the
nation's campuses. In 2003, students organized GenderPAC's
first youth chapters to help combat bullying and
discrimination. Today, there are 40 campus chapters in 25
states.
"More than 200 schools have reached out to us,"
Wilchins said. "It just shows the breadth of interest right
now."
Veterans of the movement such as Wilchins, 53,
who transitioned to female in 1978 but answers to either
pronoun, are heartened by the growing acceptance. Attending a
gay youth conference in Des Moines two years ago, Wilchins was
greeted by more than 1,000 cheering, stomping "genderqueers,"
an increasingly popular term used to refer to anything off the
binary gender map.
"All these kids were just so gender
non-conforming and testing the limits," Wilchins said. "I
asked them, `How do you do this in Iowa?' But kids always get
there about 10 years before everyone else."
One of
those kids was Shawn Coleman, who says he had problems with
only one roommate during college and that his mom considers
this "a phase."
He currently favors close-cropped hair,
baggy jeans and polo shirts purchased in men's departments.
Sometimes, he binds his chest with an ACE bandage to conceal
the silhouette of breasts, but usually comfort wins out. No
artifice can quite disguise the high-pitched
giggle.
For Coleman, it's as much about power as
gender.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago
Tribune
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