It’s been 13 years since Thomas Beatie sat down for his first TV interview and told Oprah — and the world — how he could possibly be pregnant, as a man.
Today, the concept of a transgender man giving birth is hardly novel, although research, education and awareness are still severely lacking. But society has come a long way, and so has Beatie. The father of four, now a stockbroker in Phoenix, spoke to TODAY Healthabout how he thinks the trans community benefited from the media attention his pregnancy garnered, and how he and his family are doing today.
“When my story came out, there wasn’t a single person in the public eye as a transgender man — most people had never heard of it,” Beatie, 47, said. “It was a first exposure for a lot of people. And then on top of that, they can give birth! I think exposing the importance of fertility for trans people was a huge eye-opener.”
Thomas Beatie and Nancy Beatie at home May 29, 2008 in Bend, Ore.Kristian Dowling / Getty Images file
In 2008, after he wrote an essay for The Advocate about his pregnancy — a piece he wrote, he said, because he was desperately seeking advice from anyone who had been in his shoes, and fearful that his daughter would be taken away by authorities — Beatie’s story spread around the world. Photos of Beatie cradling his stomach — a bare, enlarged, pregnant stomach — went viral. Requests for TV and magazine interviews rushed in. He wrote a book about his experience titled “Labor of Love,” became the subject of multiple TV specials and even went on to star in a French reality show.
“Everything was a whirlwind,” he said. “But I still don’t regret it.”
After having his first child, Susan, in 2008, Beatie went on to give birth to two more children with his then-wife, Nancy Beatie. The couple separated in 2012, and in 2016 Beatie married his second wife, Amber, who worked at the daycare his children attended. They had a baby together in 2018, to whom Amber gave birth.
Today, Beatie and his family live a relatively quiet life in Phoenix, although Beatie occasionally takes on public-speaking jobs or small acting roles (maybe you saw him as an extra in a U-Haul commercial). His older children — now 11, 12 and 13 — split their time between his house and their mom’s house, about 10 miles away. When they’re all home, they swim together in their pool, play checkers and test out new recipes.
“We’re on this keto kick right now, so we’re trying to make cool dishes together,” Beatie said. “We’re going to make some healthy ice cream.”
Beatie and his ex-wife with their three children at an amusement park in Sweden in 2011. Today the children are 11, 12 and 13.Christopher Hunt / Getty Images file
Yet, more than a decade after his first pregnancy made national headlines, Beatie said he still hasn’t been able to fully shake the “pregnant man” moniker.
“I thought I melted back into society, that I could just walk down the hall and be anonymous,” he said, referring to the halls of his financial office building. But soon enough, word got out about his public past, he said. Not that he minds, exactly.
“I don’t see anything wrong with being a pregnant man,” Beatie said. “I was so proud to be a dad, and I’m still proud to be a dad. I’m so proud that I was the one to bring my kids into the world. It’s kind of like a badge.”
Mostly, he marvels at how much the world, while still very much flawed, has changed since his story was in the spotlight. This was a time before most people understood the concept of gender identity and what it means to be transgender, let alone etiquette for speaking to or about someone who’s part of the trans community. Beatie recalled being misgendered and “deadnamed” by the media and being the butt of talk show jokes. When Beatie sat down for an interview with Barbara Walters, the news icon referred to one of his maternity photos as a “disturbing image.”
“It was really hard when my story came out,” Beatie said. “People were saying things on TV and in the media that if they came close to saying today, they would be immediately fired. I’m just in shock about how wild, Wild West it was back then.”
Despite the challenges of sharing his story and the fame it spawned, Beatie does not regret talking about his pregnancy experience publicly and said he hopes by doing so that he made things a bit easier for the trans men who came after him.
“I wanted to make sure that for my family, and for other people, that this was going to be something that’s doable, that our laws would respect it,” Beatie said. “So I did feel an obligation to continue to fight. I wasn’t about to lay down and say, ‘All right, fine, call me a woman.’”
Yet he acknowledges that even if public perception of his personal experience has shifted, there is still plenty more work to be done to support trans people hoping to start families — more training among health care providers, equitable access to fertility treatments and parental leave, for starters.
“I think a lot of people are still pigeonholed, thinking that if you want to be transgender, you have to completely get rid of all your (reproductive) organs,” Beatie said. “There needs to be discussions about fertility, preservation. Being transgender, you shouldn’t have to lose your right of having a family. You’re entitled to be happy and have a family and be respected.”
Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth will welcome an artwork featuring casts of the faces of 850 trans people.
For the artwork, 850 Improntas (850 Imprints), Mexican artist Teresa Margolles will cast the faces of 850 trans people in London and beyond.
The proposed sculpture would highlight people whose “lives are often overlooked”, many of them sex workers, forming one of the world’s highest-profile public art commissions.
The casts will be arranged around the fourth plinth to create a Tzompantli, a skull rack from Mesoamerican civilisations used to display the remains of war captives or sacrifice victims.
Due to London’s weather, Margolles expects the casts to wear away and eventually disintegrate, leaving behind “a kind of anti-monument”, she told the Guardian.
The current artwork featured at Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth is Heather Phillipson’s The End – a giant replica of whipped cream topped with a cherry, a fly and a drone – which will be on display until September 2022.
Following that will be a sculpture by Samson Kambalu, which is inspired by a 1914 photo of African independence hero and preacher John Chilembwe with English coloniser John Chorley. The sculpture will highlight Chilembwe, making him larger-than-life while Chorley remains life-size, who is wearing a hat in an act of defiance of a colonial rule that forbade Africans from wearing hats in front of white people.
Kambalu and Margolles’ artworks were chosen by the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group after a public vote of nearly 17,500 people.
Ekow Eshun, the chair of the group, said it received more public votes than ever.
An already married couple are planning a beautiful “re-wedding” after one spouse came out as a trans woman.
Jae and Rayna Harvey, of Somerset, England, first got married in 2018 in Texas, where Jae is from, but shortly after the wedding Rayna came out as a trans woman.
Rayna told The Mirror that she had been suppressing her true self since she was 11 years old, and that she felt hugely “liberated” after coming out while on their honeymoon in Wiltshire.
The couple are now planning a “re-wedding” to celebrate their love now that Rayna is out, and Jae said: “There’s a bit of a disconnect when we think back to our first wedding as I feel, ‘Well, Ray wasn’t there?’ and I want her in my wedding.
“What I want more than anything is for her family to see her walk down the aisle and for her to have her day – I got to have mine with all my bells and whistles, so now it’s her turn.”
Rayna said that since coming out as trans, she has received “absolutely incredible support” from everyone in her life, including her 93-year-old nan, who buys her “granddaughter” cards on special occasions.
Jae added that at the “re-wedding”, set to take place in Somerset’s Quantock Hills next September, both brides will be “wearing beautiful black dresses” as part of “an all-black and white theme with white, pink and red roses” symbolising rebirth.
In a message to Jae recently shared on Instagram, Rayna said: “Wife, words will never be able to explain how much of a difference you’ve made to my life, I owe most of who I am to you and the time you invested to teach me and to help me get where I want to be.
“From doing my photoshoots, helping me with what goes together clothes wise, holding my hand and reassuring me, to just loving me and being my wife, you’ve got it all, and I’m so so lucky to be loved by you.
“Here’s to another lifetime of love, laughs and happiness.”
Dr Michelle Telfer, who represented Australia in gymnastics at the 1992 Olympic Games, has described how she “made herself a big target” by becoming a global leader in caring for trans kids.
In a short documentary for ABC News In-depth, Telfer explained that after the end of her gymnastics career at the age of 18, she was inspired to become a doctor by those who had treated her various sports injuries.
She said: “I was trying to decide between doing paediatrics or doing psychiatry. And then in paediatrics, I found adolescent medicine, which is that perfect combination of paediatrics and mental health… I’d found the place I wanted to be.”
In 2012, after returning from maternity leave, Telfer took a job as the head of adolescent medicine at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.
She oversaw various services for young people, but her life changed forever when she was asked to lead the hospital’s gender clinic for children.
“I was asked to take over this group of trans children in their care, and I jumped at it,” she said. “I’d never met a trans child before I started this job.”
One of the first children she met with, she was, was named Oliver.
She continued: “I said to Oliver, ‘How do you know that you’re a boy? When did you start thinking about yourself as a boy?
“He was 10 at the time, and he told me his story… It was such a beautiful story.
“And I thought, ‘I can help this child have a boy’s body. How many people can do that?”
Oliver went on to receive hormone treatment when he was 15, with the consent of both of his parents. Now 18, he told ABC News: “I’m in my final year of high school. I’m hoping one day to study medicine, cardiothoracic surgery or something similar.
“I’m really optimistic about my future. I’ve huge ambitions I want to do a lot of good in this world. And I think that, you know, I wouldn’t be in that place, I wouldn’t be able to have those dreams, if I didn’t receive support from Michelle.”
Another of the kids in Telfer’s care, a trans teenager named Isabelle, also appeared in the film. She said: “I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have Michelle and the Royal Children’s Hospital with me. I think I’d equate a large part of my being alive at the moment to them.”
Right-wing newspaper The Australian has written “nearly 50” articles about Michelle Telfer.
But, despite the huge satisfaction she gets from helping kids to be their true selves, as the “debate” over trans people’s right to exist gets louder, Michelle Telfer has has become a “target”.
“There have always been critics,” she said.
“You don’t go into this area of medicine without being warned about becoming a target. And I’ve certainly made myself a very big target.”
“From August, 2019, to the current time, The Australian newspaper has written nearly 50 articles about me and my work,” said Telfer
“The newspaper is inferring that clinicians like me are harming children, that it’s experimental, that the care is novel, and that they’re potentially mentally ill and they’re not really trans.”
In 2020, following fierce lobbying by right-wing media and anti-trans campaigners for a “national inquiry” into health care for trans kids, Australia’s health minister Greg Hunt referred the issue to the Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
The college shot down the idea of an “inquiry”, instead calling for greater access to gender-affirming services for trans kids.
However, even after the statement in support of her work, Telfer said the articles in The Australian continued and she began to struggle with anxiety.
Finally at the end of her tether, last year Telfer submitted a 42-page complaint to the Press Council over The Australian‘s coverage.
Despite everything, Telfer remains “absolutely optimistic about the future”.
“I know that what we’re doing is the right thing,” she said.
“Society has for hundreds and hundreds of years tried to ignore and dismiss trans people. But now that we’re affirming them, look at what they can do.”
Before the coronavirus pandemic tore through the U.S., resulting in nearly 600,000deaths and a slew of collateral damage, transgender people across the Southeast were participating in self-defense classes catered specifically to them. The courses, organized by LGBTQ advocacy group Campaign for Southern Equality, had one goal: to teach trans people to protect themselves should they be the target of an attack.
The campaign saw the classes as a necessity, with trans Americans facing disproportionate levels of violence — including record levels of reported fatal violence against the community.
“When folks are being attacked and murdered, helping with a name change doesn’t really do much good if we can’t keep our people alive,” Ivy Hill, the community health program director for the Campaign for Southern Equality, told NBC News.
Now, as it seems the worst of the pandemic may be in the rearview mirror for the U.S., Hill hopes these classes will resume — either through their own organization or local grassroots groups. While the damage spawned by Covid-19 is slowing down, the violence faced by transgender Americans — particularly trans women of color in the South — appears to be accelerating.
This year is on track to be the deadliest on record for transgender Americans, with at least 28 trans and gender-nonconforming people fatally shot or violently killed so far, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which has been tracking trans deaths since 2013.
2021 is outpacing 2020, when the group recorded a record 44 trans people killed due to violence. By this time last year, the group had tracked 13 trans deaths. Of this year’s 28 known transgender victims, 20 were trans women of color (16 of them Black trans women), and 14 were killed in the South. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/UdlwyyS?app=1
The disproportionate violence trans Americans face in the South, and more specifically the Southeast, is due to a combination of issues, according to advocates. These factors, they say, include a lack of discrimination protections, a flurry of recently introduced anti-LGBTQ state bills, high rates of poverty and a host of cultural factors. To combat this dangerous brew, local and regional advocacy groups, like the Campaign for Southern Equality, say they are working to fill the void left by their states to ensure trans people have some form of protection where they live.
‘Institutional violence’
The Southeast in general is a hostile region for the transgender community due, in part, to “institutional violence,” according to Austin Johnson, an assistant professor of sociology at Ohio’s Kenyon College, who studies the trans community. Trans people face high barriers to health care and housing in the region, and state legislatures in recent years have put forward “persistent attacks” against the community with bills that seek to limit the everyday rights of trans people, he explained.
Add in the high rates of poverty in the region, along with religiosity that promotes a very conservative view of gender roles and sexuality, he said, and there is a combination of factors that contribute to the violence. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/YGXPfXs?app=1
“I think those kinds of norms, all of those intersect with the kind of economic deprivation, educational deprivation, we have in the South, and so when you have all of this deprivation, in terms of the different institutions, it’s going to affect every group,” Johnson said. “When there are some groups that are more disadvantaged, it’s going to affect them. So I think that’s why we’re seeing these really drastic rates of negative outcomes for LGBTQ people and trans people in particular in the South.”
Although there is a disproportionate number of reported killings of transgender people in the South, it does not mean the region is inherently more deadly, according to Eric A. Stanley, an assistant professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
The true number of trans people lost to violence each year is unknown, due in part to the lack of a national database to track anti-trans violence, police misgendering victims in official reports and some victims’ closeted status. Absent that, Stanley said, it is impossible to truly judge the regionality of anti-trans violence in proportion to other areas of the country.
“I don’t think anywhere is necessarily safer, as the kinds of anti-trans antagonism that propels so much of the harm is any and everywhere,” Stanley said.
Stanley did note, however, that the Southeast is “less resourced” when it comes to combating violence against the transgender community — and the LGBTQ community more broadly — due to the relatively high poverty in the region and the lack of a social safety net.
Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi — three Southeastern states — are also home to the highest homicide rates in the country, further adding to the climate of violence that trans people face in everyday life.
‘Dehumanized’ by state legislatures
Outside of housing and basic needs, transgender Americans only recently received federal protection from being fired for their gender identity, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. Besides that, there are no federal discrimination protections in other areas of life for trans people, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank.
Hill said trans people’s inability to safely access public spaces without fear of discrimination — and the issues being debated in state legislatures aimed at rolling back the rights of trans people — have created a climate that has “dehumanized” the trans community. That combined with a lack of legal protections such as nondiscrimination ordinances leaves trans people vulnerable and easy targets of violence.
Twenty-two states do not have public accommodation nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people from being discriminated against in public places due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, and 20 do not have such protections when it comes to housing, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Many of these states are clustered around the Southeast.
In addition, only 15 states — none in the Southeast — have laws that make it illegal for a defendant to claim the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity contributed to their violent actions, known as the “gay/trans panic” defense.
“I think for a lot of us, what people kind of miss is just how dangerous or scary it can be just to move through public space, which is something that other folks who are cisgender generally don’t even have to think about,” Hill, who lives in South Carolina, said of being trans in the South.
A number of Southeastern states have recently passed bills that restrict the rights of transgender Americans. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee all passed bills that bar trans student athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity.
Tennessee enacted an additional law that compels businesses to display signs that read, “This facility maintains a policy of allowing the use of restrooms by either biological sex, regardless of the designation on the restroom,” if transgender people are allowed to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. The state also enacted a law that restricts access to gender-affirming care for trans minors.
State bills targeting transgender people that did not pass in 2021 will likely be introduced next year, advocates warn. Advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, say serious political change must happen on the federal level to help stem the tide of rising anti-trans violence.
HRC President Alphonso David said one of the most important things that can be done to help protect trans Americans is for Congress to pass the Equality Act. The federal legislation would explicitly create LGBTQ nondiscrimination protections in housing, credit, education, public spaces and services, federally funded programs and jury service.
“It is heartbreaking to see violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people across our country,” David said in a statement. “The Equality Act that will provide legal recourse to incidents of discrimination, discourage discrimination, and work to reduce stigma against transgender and nonbinary people nationwide.”
In addition, HRC cited actions the Biden administration took — such as reinstating the Equal Access Rule that allows people to access Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded housing without discrimination based on their gender identity and encouraging the Education Department to enforce Title IX with protections based on gender identity — as tangible solutions to help the trans community.
Some advocates, however, are not optimistic about additional national actions, especially given the slim majority Democrats hold in Congress. That’s why groups like the Campaign for Southern Equality continue to focus on lobbying state legislatures and supporting more local, grassroots efforts.
‘Robust community of grassroots work’
A number of queer advocacy groups in the Southeast say they are filling in the gaps left by the federal, state and local governments.
Organizations like Atlanta-based Southerners on New Ground are dedicated to keeping reports of anti-transgender violence in the news to ensure the public is aware of this ongoing issue.
“Those folks are amplifying their voices and amplifying their stories,” Johnson said of advocates sharing the stories of trans people lost to violence. “I wonder if we didn’t have this robust community of grassroots work, that we wouldn’t even know many of their names.”
In Charlotte, North Carolina, the trans community has been racked by violence. Two Black women, Jaida Peterson and Remy Fennell, were killed in the span of two weeks in April. Ash Williams, an organizer with Charlotte Uprising and the House of Kanautica, which both support the local Black trans community, said the groups’ main goal has been to get money in the hands of struggling trans people so they can find stable housing. After Peterson’s death, the groups raised over $20,000 for trans people of color. Williams said if they had this kind of funding year-round, it may have saved Peterson’s life.
“We believe that how we are organizing is certainly in the spirit of what we understand to be happening across the country, which is, we hope, some kind of cultural awakening that says trans people matter and Black lives matter,” Williams said.
Thousands march during a Transgender Resistance Vigil + March in Boston on June 13, 2020. Barry Chin / Boston Globe via Getty Images file
However, he added, distributing funds so the community members can take care of each other only goes so far when there is limited access to health care and other necessary services.
“Because of the way that power structures are, regular people have to show up,” Williams said. “And one of the things that we hope to be able to do is to get people mobilized and to show up for the trans folks where they live.”
Several groups in the Southeast are organizing to provide vulnerable trans communities with essential needs, such as housing, where they say state institutions have failed to provide a path to safety.
“A big portion of the folks that we serve participate in survival sex or sex work. Therefore, they don’t have verifiable income,” Kayla Gore, co-founder of My Sistah’s House, told NBC News last year. “So that’s the reason that they can’t get housing or they’re underemployed, in a sense that they don’t necessarily have access to equitable jobs that will provide them an income that is enough to obtain stable housing.”
My Sistah’s House also provides emergency housing in an effort to keep the local trans population safe in the immediate term.
House of Tulip in New Orleansis renovating a multifamily home in hopes of creating a pilot program to house 10 transgender people facing housing insecurity. The group, according to its website, also plans to establish a “separate space that can serve as a community center” where transgender people have a safe space to visit, access resources and get a hot meal or shower. H
House of Tulip said 1 of every 3 trans people in Louisiana faces homelessness, emphasizing the need for immediate housing as well as investment to help trans people find long-term housing arrangements.
Trans United Leading Intersectional Progress, or TULIP, is a nonprofit collective creating housing solutions for trans and gender-nonconforming people in Louisiana.House of Tulip
Johnson said local grassroots groups in the Southeast have come to realize in the absence of institutional help, they have to rely on each other for survival.
“When you have that kind of community building, it’s empowering, and people are not going to just roll over and expect this treatment that they’re getting,” Johnson said. “Also, they’re going to honor those who they’ve lost in their community, because they have people to rely on.”
Every year it gets better and worse for the transgender community. March 31 is International Transgender Day of Visibility and the first in four years we’re celebrating under political leadership championing queer and transgender rights.
Politics plays a critical role when it comes to including and empowering transgender people. At the highest level, inclusive laws and protections must be enforced to create equal access to basic human needs like healthcare, housing, and employment.
However, the cis-heteronormative powers that sit in the decision-making chairs have deliberately chosen to exclude and dehumanize transgender and nonbinary folks. This creates inequality that waterfalls into their involvement in society. Just recently, the Arkansas legislature passed HB 1570, which, if signed by the governor, would prevent doctors from providing gender-affirming care to minors.
The challenge of visibility for transgender people is that once seen, they can be targeted. That’s exactly what’s happening to this community, especially people of color. Since the Human Rights Campaign started keeping records in 2013, at least 200 transgender and gender-expansive people have been killed in the United States. This is at minimum considering that many of these violent attacks and homicides go unreported.
Then what does visibility mean if it comes at the cost of potentially losing one’s life? And what does it mean to move beyond visibility?
Last Friday, five transgender activists came together to answer these questions in an event called “Beyond Visibility” hosted by FOLX Health, Trans Guy Supply, and HER app.
The event took place on Zoom, naturally. Chris Mosier, the first transgender athlete to represent the U.S. at the Olympics, moderated the event along with four panelists, all people of color.
Over 60 attendees were in the digital room at one point. Despite my acquired Zoom fatigue over the past year, this event felt different. Unlike a corporate-sponsored justice and equity workshop or an all-access Instagram live, this semi-private Zoom room was the closest to a safe and large queer space we could have in these times.
Mosier, wearing a red and blue flannel, bikes hanging on the wall behind him, opened the discussion with what each panelist thought of visibility.
Rej Joo, an activist, self-defense teacher, and 1.5 generation Korean-American started. His challenge with the question was that it touched on his Asian American identity. “Culturally, a lot of information is encouraged to be private,” he said. Intersecting his ethnic background is his trans experience of being a man, he continued.
Ultimately, he hopes to see a future where we’re not even talking about visibility because “being trans and non-binary is boring.”
This is a loaded question for these panelists. Race and ethnic background add multiple layers of complexity to the simple act of being seen.
Dr. Kameryn Lee, vice president of medical affairs and equity at FOLX Health, added that visibility works both ways. It’s not about just being seen, but also how well others can see you, she said in her yellow tee with “Protect Black Trans Women” written across the front. A transgender flag hung on the wall behind her.
“For most people, their visibility will improve if they are willing to turn on a light, and open their eyes a little wider,” she said.
Marquise Vilsón Balenciaga, activist and actor, nods his heads in agreement.
“I love that response,” Vilsón said. An activist, actor, and member of the House of Balenciaga, he knows a thing or two about being seen. He famously said, “To be both Black and Trans is to be hunted in this country”.
Visibility’s proximity to violence is why this is still an issue for the transgender community. Living life as their authentic selves costs them their lives. While mainstream representation through television shows like Pose and the movie Disclosure added new transgender narratives to the screen, the problem isn’t solved.
The United States has seen a skyrocketing of anti-trans bills in 2021. Already, there have been 65 anti-trans bills targeted at youth. In 2020 there were 41. The main focus of the bills this year has been on regulating school sports, a topic close to Mosier’s heart.
“In sports, 30 states have laws that prevent trans folks from competing from elementary to college,” said Mosier. “That’s a huge loss to young people.”
Transgender people have been invited to the table for media, entertainment, and glossy magazine covers, but they’re still discriminated against politically. This ripples into bigger society and creates more dangerous waves as it travels out.
“I myself am a survivor of multiple ways of violence both on the streets and in person. Violence specifically towards trans women has always been present,” said Bamby Salcedo through tears. She is the president and CEO of TransLatin@ Coalition, an organization that specifically helps immigrant transgender women.
On March 17, Rayanna Pardo, a 26-year old transgender woman, was hit and killed by a car in Los Angeles. TransLatin@ Coalition along with Pardo’s friends and family held a candlelight vigil on March 20. This marks at least 12 transgender or non-binary people killed in 2021.
“There’s a seductive narrative to visibility,” added Joo. “But it depends on the various intersectional identities.”
Visibility isn’t as dangerous for someone of privilege like Caitlin Jenner as it is to an immigrant transgender sex worker, said Joo. This is proven by the cold, lifeless numbers of who’s getting killed.
Even then, people like Dr. Lee are willing to be visible.
“I’m not going to be invisible because of fear,” she said. It’s the same thing with her Blackness. By being more visible, others can be inspired to do the same, she added. For her, multiplying visibility is more important than moving beyond it.
Salcedo disagreed and argued that the community needed to move beyond visibility.
“Many people think our social issues have been addressed. That is a lie,” she said in regards to increased media representation.
After visibility comes education, and after that comes acceptance. Eventually, the utopia is a place where these things don’t matter at all.
“We’re so visible that we’re invisible,” added Joo. “I hope all the colors existing in society is not a big deal.”
At the end of the event, audience members submitted their questions. One person was experiencing difficulty in explaining their transition to others. Salcedo swiftly responded that, “You don’t need to explain anything to anybody,” and the rest of the panelists nodded in agreement.
Another was looking for mental health help and Dr. Lee recommended Violet and Euphoria as apps she had tried with success. Joo recommended community Facebook groups.
It’s clear that the community is great at taking care of each other, and now the work must come from outside. It’s up to the rest of the LGBTQ+ community and allies to keep fighting for transgender people until they’re treated fairly. Donating to BIPOC organizations, calling senators, and redistributing wealth all go a long way in protecting these trailblazers of history and culture. Although Transgender Day of Visibility is one day, every day is Transgender Day of Pride.
Britton Hamilton said, as a trans man, he wanted to become a police officer to help promote change from the inside.
He applied to the New Orleans Police Department in June 2020, and after several exams and a panel interview, he received a conditional job offer in December.
“It was like a dream job,” Hamilton said. “I want to be able to help the community and help people to view police officers differently than how they are feeling now.”
The offer was conditional on him passing a routine medical and psychological evaluation, during which he said the psychologist asked him questions about his transition.
On Jan. 26, he received an email from the police department rescinding the conditional offer “based on a psychological assessment” of his “emotional and behavioral” characteristics.
“It was super, super disappointing, because I prepared myself physically, emotionally for this job,” Hamilton said. “This is the foundation for me and my family.”
Britton Hamilton.Britton Hamilton
In May, Hamilton filed a federal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging hiring discrimination. His attorney, Chelsea Cusimano, said the EEOC has since opened an investigation.
The New Orleans Police Department issued a statement in May.
“The decision not to move forward with the applicant in question did not involve any discrimination against the individual as a member of a protected group,” the statement read in full.
The department declined additional comment.
Hamilton’s experience isn’t unique, said Julie Callahan, a former law enforcement officer in San Jose, California, and the founder of the Transgender Community of Police and Sheriffs, a peer support group for trans law enforcement officers. Trans people face disproportionate employment discrimination generally, and she said law enforcement, which she described as a relatively conservative field, is no exception.
TCOPS is trying to do its part by providing training and policy templates to departments in the hopes that this educational material can help address the biases and misinformation that lead to discrimination. But outside of that, it’s incredibly difficult for trans people to prove they’ve faced hiring discrimination. Even if they can, many can’t afford to take legal action.
Complicating matters is the historically fraught relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community. This has caused some transgender officers — many of whom are trying to address inequities from within — to face pressure from both sides.
“It’s an ongoing issue that we have to address as a society,” Callahan said of the hiring discrimination trans law enforcement officers face. “We’re starting to see agencies that are developing transgender interaction policies with the public, but they’re not developing policies like this for their employees, and we find that ridiculous. You should be doing both, because you’re going to have people from the community working or at least trying to get jobs at your agency.”
‘That’s not equal protection of the law’
Hamilton alleged that the psychologist who did his evaluation asked him questions like, “What were the names of your doctors that performed your surgery? How does your family feel about you being transgender? How does your wife feel about you being transgender?”
“I felt like it was kind of weird because … it doesn’t pertain to the duties of being a police officer at all,” Hamilton said. The psychologist, who is named in Hamilton’s complaint, has not returned a request for comment.
As part of standard procedure, the department asked Hamilton for information about his employment over the last 10 years.
After the psychological evaluation, Hamilton said the department asked for documentation outside of the standard 10-year window related to his honorable discharge from the Army 12 years ago due to medical issues, according to his EEOC complaint. Hamilton provided part of the medical discharge records signed by himself, his commanding officer and a physician stating why he was discharged. The department asked for his complete Army medical record, which Hamilton requested from the National Personnel Records Center for military personnel, according to his complaint. The documents were delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so Hamilton also provided the department with the tracking number for his request.
The department rescinded the conditional offer the day after it requested additional documentation related to his honorable discharge, according to Hamilton’s complaint.
After the department rescinded the offer, Hamilton said he contacted his uncle, who has been a police officer for more than 30 years in Chicago.
“The first thing he said was, ‘That doesn’t even sound right; something definitely is up,’” Hamilton recalled.
After hearing Hamilton’s story, Cusimano said the questions that the psychologist allegedly asked him were red flags.
“I just don’t see, at the end of the day, under any reasonable standard, how you get to ask these questions of protected class members when you’re not asking them of members of the straight community applying for the same positions,” Cusimano said. “That’s not equal protection of the law.”
She also noted that Hamilton applied for the job just a few days after the Supreme Court ruled in June 2020 that LGBTQ people are protected from employment discrimination under federal law. Hamilton’s case, she said, is an evolution of that Supreme Court decision.
“Now that the LGBTQ community is a protected class, what are those protections?” she said. “Acting reasonably, should an employer have understood — and I say, certainly — that those protections extend to the equal hiring process, as well as all processes related to employment?”
‘The phone call never came’
Patrick Callahan, Julie Callahan’s husband, a member of TCOPS and a criminology consultant for the federal government and political groups in Washington, D.C., said he had a similar experience to Hamilton’s.
In 2006, he had a promising interview with an agency outside of Boston. The person he interviewed with “was thrilled” and said he’d call him back that Monday, Patrick Callahan recalled.
“Well, the phone call never came,” he said. “So Tuesday I gave him a call. He wouldn’t take my call. In fact, I was never able to get in contact with him again.”
He said he found out through a friend who knew officers who worked for the department that he wasn’t hired because he’s trans.
“As soon as they got my background check back and saw those female names,” they changed their minds, he said. His friend told him it was “a joke around the department, that some ‘it thing’ wanted to work there.”
Officer Kathryn Winters, the LGBTQ liaison at the San Francisco Police Department, suspects she was the victim of a similar instance of anti-trans employment discrimination, though she was never able to confirm this.
In 2014, she applied to the Denton Police Department in Texas and took its written exam.
“I think I scored in like the top five on the written exam,” she said, noting that the scores are posted publicly. “And then a couple weeks later, [I] received a letter from the Denton Police Department stating that my military discharge form, my DD 214, wasn’t in my background packet. And for that reason, I was being completely disqualified for further consideration.”
She said she and her wife both double- and triple-checked to make sure everything was included in the application packet, including the DD Form 214, prior to its submission. She said “there’s nothing specific to indicate” that she was rejected because she’s trans, but she believes someone may have removed the form from her packet “and that was the reason they gave for not continuing with my consideration.”
A request for comment from the Denton Police Department has not been returned.
There have also been other high-profile cases of alleged anti-trans discrimination by law enforcement agencies. In 2012, Mia Macy, represented by the Transgender Law Center, successfully sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after the agency offered her a job as a ballistics technician and then rescinded the job offer after she told them she was trans.
Clinicians ‘may lack the competency’
As lawsuits slowly accumulate and more people transition on the job, the culture within agencies is slowly changing, Julie Callahan said. Throughout its existence, TCOPS has seen more than 500 officers transition, she added. Trans officers have also made headlines over the last few years for being among the first in their agencies.
But supportive policies for current officers and applicants aren’t growing equally across the country. Agencies in bigger cities are more likely to have better policies, Julie Callahan said, meaning more conservative or rural areas might lack basic information about trans people, which can affect whether they’ll hire them at all.
There also aren’t clear, consistent standards across the country for how clinicians conduct psychological evaluations for law enforcement. Michael Roberts and Ryan Roberts, co-owners of Law Enforcement Psychological Services Inc., have evaluated many LGBTQ law enforcement applicants in San Francisco. They said the guidance, regulations and required continuing education for clinicians who conduct evaluations differs by state. California is among the most well-regulated states, they said.
“Police and public safety psychological assessment is a component of a specialty practice as recognized by the APA,” Michael Roberts said, referring to the American Psychological Association, “so this isn’t something that any clinician should be doing without training specific to this.”
There are laws interwoven into the process of doing psychological assessments for law enforcement candidates, such as the Americans With Disabilities Act, which someone could “run afoul of” while evaluating a trans candidate’s medical records, for example, he said.
“It is the case that people are out there — they’re probably not doing it correctly. They may be doing it without specialized training, which they shouldn’t be doing. They might lack the competency to perform the specialty function,” Ryan Roberts said.
A transgender applicant shouldn’t be disqualified simply for having been diagnosed in the past with gender dysphoria — a diagnosis that is often necessary to receive certain medical treatment, according to Michael Roberts.
“You cannot use just the fact that they had gender dysphoria or they attempted suicide five years ago or something like that. That wouldn’t cut it; they have to dig down deeper,” he said.
Given the allegations in Hamilton’s case, he said, it sounds like that’s what the psychologist did.
Julie Callahan said she knows of trans law enforcement candidates who were disqualified for past suicidal ideation, which 81 percent of trans adults have reported experiencing, according to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey.
Many therapists who are evaluating law enforcement candidates “don’t understand that once you’ve dealt with your gender issues, any kind of suicidal ideation has gone away, because you’ve removed the impetus for it,” she said.
‘We’re in an untenable position as transgender cops’
Another barrier to better policy for trans officers and prospective officers is the broader conversation about criminal justice reform, which is happening alongside recent efforts to ban law enforcement at Pride parades, Patrick Callahan said.
Trans people disproportionately face violence and mistreatment from law enforcement, leading advocates to push for reform or, in some cases, for replacing law enforcement agencies with social support services and other community-led, violence-prevention efforts.
According to a 2011 report from the National Center for Transgender Equality, nearly half of trans people reported they are uncomfortable seeking police assistance. More than one-fifth (22 percent) of trans people who had interacted with police reported police harassment, and 6 percent of trans individuals reported they experienced bias-motivated assault by officers. Those rates were higher for Black transgender people: 38 percent reported that they faced biased harassment, and 15 percent reported assault motivated by bias.
Patrick Callahan said most LGBTQ rights groups see trans officers as the “enemy,” and they “don’t speak to us at all,” even though trans officers face the same discrimination and harassment as trans people in other fields.
“They shut us out automatically, because we’ve crossed a line somewhere,” he said. “We are not trans enough anymore. We are not LGBTQ enough anymore … and we get the same from people within the law enforcement community. Right now, we’re in an untenable position as transgender cops. Actually, anybody in the LGBTQ community who is law enforcement, we’re just in a position where we can’t affect change, because we aren’t being allowed to even by the very people that we would most like to help.”
Gay and Lesbian Police Officers march during the Gay Pride Parade in New York, on June 30, 2019.Bill Tompkins / Getty Images file
For Hamilton, things are also moving slowly. Cusimano said it could take up to a year for the Louisiana EEOC to complete its investigation. But Hamilton said the experience hasn’t affected his goals.
“I still want to work in law enforcement,” he said. “At the beginning, I’m not going to lie, I was super, super disappointed, especially disappointed with NOPD. But this is still a dream of mine.”
An investigation has unearthed worrying evidence in the case of Mhelody Bruno, a trans Filipino woman who was strangled to death by a former Royal Australian Air Force corporal.
Bruno died on 21 September, 2019, in Wagga Wagga, Australia after being choked during sex
Her killer, Rian Ross Toyer, 33, initially walked free despite pleading guilty to her death due to a sentencing error.
In March 2021, after outrage from activists that Toyer was allowed to escape a prison term, the judge was forced to reopen the case and ultimately sentenced him to 22 months.
Details about the days before her death, which were not before the judge who sentenced her, reveal that Bruno, 25, was fully clothed when paramedics arrived, had made several out-of-character video calls with an unnamed man the night before she died, and that nurses saw bruises and marks on her body before she died in hospital that were not accounted for or mentioned in the coroners report.
One friend, interviewed by police after Bruno’s death, said that he received a video call from Bruno’s phone the night before she was strangled. A man was “extremely angry and yelling” and saying he would “rape Mhelody and give her AIDS”, the friend told police – but this call, and other messages sent from her phone that night, never made it to the courtroom.
The new information comes from an investigation by ABC News, an Australian media outlet, which also asked a former Supreme Court judge to review the journalists’ findings. He said that in light of the new information, “There is certainly an argument to say that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred here”.
“Unfortunately, we don’t know enough about all the detail, we’re commenting on bits and pieces as it were, but they are all pretty important bits and pieces,” said former Supreme Court Judge Anthony Whealy, who oversaw some of NSW’s most high-profile criminal trials, after reviewing the information gather by ABC.
Whealey continued: “And putting them all together I think at the very least you could say they reveal this was a much more serious manslaughter than the judge envisaged it to be.”
He added: “Has justice been done? Well there must be a question mark over that.”
The court heard during Toyer’s trial that Bruno had not requested to be choked but also that she had not asked for the choking to stop.
oyer lost his job in the air force after Bruno’s death, which Lerve took into account when sentencing him. Toyer also received a 25 per cent discount on his sentence for pleading guilty. In the end, he was sentenced to 22 months’ imprisonment for the manslaughter of Mhelody Bruno, 25, whom he killed while engaging in an act of erotic asphyxia.
Superintendent Noble, who runs the Wagga Wagga police station, says police were interested to learn Bruno was found fully dressed but “ultimately a narrative was presented to the court that they had engaged in sex that morning”.
“Ultimately you can only prove what you can prove and you can’t prove what the evidence doesn’t substantiate,” he said.
“That is OK to do as a lay person but ultimately prosecutors and, in this case, [the judge], had to make a finding and a sentence, and inconvenient pieces of information that may be difficult to reconcile in one’s mind don’t necessarily constitute grounds for a different finding.”
Miami and Baltimore– Urban Health Media Project reporter Vanessa Falcon, a high school student in Miami, interviewed Arin Jayes, 30, of Baltimore, about his gender identity journey and experience transitioning to a non-binary trans man. Jayes, a behavioral health therapist, is also an urban farmer and embroidery artist.
Q: How was your transitioning process? Was it overall very difficult? Why? How long did it last?
A: As a non binary person, I have a flexible view of how individuals develop their gender identity. It’s something that may evolve throughout a person’s lifetime, based on experiences; changes in personal values and relationships; bodily changes; and other factors. Gender identity also intersects and interacts with many other identities, such as race, ethnicity, physical ability or disability, sexual orientation and class.
For many trans folks, the gender transition process is lifelong and never-ending! Pronouns can change multiple times (hence the “pronoun check” posts we see on Facebook). Similarly, physical changes or adjustments may happen over years, instead of all at once. I mention this before bringing up my own story because it is important to normalize the idea of flexible, changing genders. After all, gender is a social construct designed to categorize people. When we view gender on a continuum, we can recognize a galaxy of gender journeys that a person can take.
My own transition is a prime example. I came out as genderqueer in 2012, and used “they/them” pronouns exclusively. In 2015, after further introspection, I realized that I wanted to live in a more masculine body. I came out to my family and friends as a non-binary trans man, using “he” pronouns and physically transitioning. I made this decision with the understanding that I wasn’t transitioning because I identified as a “man” per se, but that I felt more comfortable in a body that had more masculine characteristics. Since physically transitioning seven years ago, I’ve passed as male about 90% of the time. (Masks can sometimes make passing complicated for trans folks!) When people ask me nowadays what my gender is, I just say “non-binary,” and that my pronouns are “he or they — either as fine.” I am leaning into presenting as femme or as masc as I want on any given day, and being as gay as I want. It can be tempting to present in a way that is more conventionally masculine or feminine, because sometimes it is just easier (fewer questions, comments, or worse). But if COVID-19 has taught me anything, it is that time is not guaranteed, and we must consider what makes life worth living, and embrace it. Every time Pride Month rolls around, I recommit to my true self. But this year it feels all the more important.
Q: Throughout the transitioning journey, many clients are informed of possible negative side effects. Despite hearing about them, you still decided to transition. Why?
A: Deciding to transition was one of the most important and difficult decisions I have ever made. Like many trans people, I didn’t initially know what being transgender meant. I had to do a lot of research, introspection and support group work before I realized that being transgender described how I felt. When deciding whether to physically transition, a person can do research about the changes that they may experience, talk to other people that have gone through similar changes, and seek individual or group therapy for support. I decided to physically transition after weighing my options based on the information that I gathered, the changes that I wanted, and my financial budget.
Luckily, there is a lot of information and help available. Trans folks are resourceful, and do a lot to support and inform our communities. For example, there are numerous databases developed by trans people for trans people that allow you to review different surgeons or healthcare providers; compare photos or results of surgeries; and share resources and educational information about physically transitioning. Many community mental health centers have legal clinics that help people navigate the name and gender marker change process.
One side effect that I didn’t entirely understand until after I transitioned was the significant impact that being transgender has on how we navigate the world. It affects where we go to school and receive healthcare, even which streets we choose to walk down late at night. On a job interview, we often feel the need to consider, “Will people here be accepting of me? Will there be a restroom that I can safely use?” As a white and masculine-adjacent person, my navigation of the world is privileged based on systems of white supremacy. I will not for a second forget the trans women of color who paved the way for us to demand justice; their leadership — and that of their successors in our movements — must be recognized.
Q: Did you have, or do you currently have, any regrets about transitioning?
A: What I think this question is getting at is, “How do you know you’re sure?” This was a question that I asked myself many times as I considered making irreversible (or at least, not easily reversible) changes to my body. My answer to that is: I didn’t truly know it was right until after I did it. That may seem radical or scary. One may ask, “Why on earth would you do something so permanent if you weren’t sure?” But It took a leap of faith. And, as someone who has been there, I can say that if it doesn’t feel right, you know. It is important to trust yourself and your bodily autonomy. Also, if you decide to stop your physical transition, you don’t need to think of it as “de-transitioning.” The path of your gender journey is unique to you. You call the shots.
Q: How has transitioning helped you and your image of yourself? How has it affected your self-esteem and mental health?
A: Much of what is written about trans people focuses on the challenges of being trans. While I said that deciding to transition was one of the most important and difficult decisions I ever made, it was also one of the best ones I ever made. I love being trans! Trans people are unique, creative, and resilient. Trans culture is rooted in grassroots community organizing. It is humbling to think of all the amazing thinkers, writers, and artists who walked this journey. I have had the privilege to meet a lot of amazing trans people who remind me of the power of our community.
Q: What advice would you give to other people who want to follow the path you did?
A: Despite what society tells you about bodies and gender, there are no rules! You don’t have to justify or explain to anyone your decision to transition. You’re in the driver’s seat. Your body belongs to you and no one else. You will live in your body for the rest of your life. Therefore, you get to decide on what terms you will occupy it.
This article is part of our 2021 Youth Pride Issue in partnership with Urban Health Media.
The Women’s Institute (WI) has featured a trans woman on the cover of its magazine for the first time ever: 74-year-old activist Petra Wenham.
Petra, a member of the Cake and Revolution WI in Suffolk, said she was “honoured” to be the first trans person to grace the cover of WI Life.
In the magazine, she explained that she came out as trans to her wife, Loraine, in 2015 and came out publicly in 2018.
Around the same time, she began delivering a talk to other WI groups titled: “Have you ever met a trans woman?”
In it, she explains to members the difference between sex and gender, what it’s like to grow up trans, what it means to be intersex and the cost of transitioning, among other topics.
Petra wants to show WI members that “the human condition is complex and gloriously so”.
Throughout Petra’s coming out journey her wife, with whom she has two children and two grandchildren, has been her “rock”.
“I’m very fortunate that I still have my wife Loraine and we’ve been happily married for 48 years,” she said.
“She’s my rock and that gives me a much better base to talk from than some trans people who have been kicked out by their partner or are suffering from depression.”
Just as her wife has fully embraced her, so has the WI.
She said: “WI members are not just accepting, but actively supportive and are welcoming me to the sisterhood… The WI gives me access to build friendships with other women, which is what I need, to build a friendship base besides Loraine.”
t released a public statement in the 2000s to clarify its position, and has since worked with trans education charity Gendered Intelligence to draft it Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy.
Melissa Green, general secretary for the National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI), told the East Anglian Daily Times: “The WI is proudly a trans-inclusive organisation… Trans women are welcome to join the WI and participate in meetings and activities in the same way as any other woman.
“We were delighted to feature Petra on the cover of the latest WI Life magazine and share her inspiring work as a speaker and activist.
“It is wonderful that Petra has been welcomed into her WI with such kindness and that reflects the ethos of the WI – it’s about women coming together in a friendly and inclusive environment, learning new things and making a difference in their communities.”
