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Hello everyone, my name is Gwen. I am transgressive, I am transgender, and I am new here. I am also excited to have this opportunity to share with everyone my opinions and experiences. I don't usually speak about myself but since this is my first post I will indulge in introductions. As I write this, I am still at the beginning of what will probably be a very long transition. One that is hopefully filled with rich and exciting discoveries as I define and redefine myself in search of personal candidness and honesty. Although I have not yet begun HRT and I do identify as female, I still occasionally operate under my male identity, especially at my job. I do this not out of an irrational fear of socially awkward situations, but the same rational fear of job security in the face of potential ignorance or bigotry. I understand getting a job here in the northwest is definitely not as hard as it is elsewhere for the trans community, but for anyone at the beginning of their transition this risk is relatively intimidating.

Why not use your experience of gender and identity as a spur to your creative life?

The work you have done - may still be doing - on understanding your gendered identity allows you to look with intensity into how our personal and private worlds develop.

Take that same set of experiences as a force to drive other work! To drive your education, your art, your writing, even the business of work itself.

And this method can be a gift to others as well; we will live life as an example of complexity, reporting to the world through our creations.

For the Future,
Marsha Botzer

What will you do to be free?

Will you grant a voice to your worries about gender and identity? Where can you do this safely? How is it done?

Visit us! Come to Ingersoll and do not be afraid. Come here and talk about what is going on when you think about gender and gender expression.

Do this, and no absolute will compel you an inch further. The steps ahead are all yours.

We do not guide lives, we open doors. This is the good work we do, work shaped by decades of learning and thousands of visitors to Ingersoll.

For the future,
Marsha Botzer

I think activism is in my genes. I know that being an activist is part of my identity. I've been an activist since I came out as a babydyke back in the mid-80's. As you were handed your dyke credentials and taught the secret dyke handshake, you were also instructed to get to work. One of my first political acts outside of voting was to write to my senator urging him to vote against Robert Bork's confirmation. I can remember being so excited to march to the state capitol about 1,000-strong to demand our rights. We decried the Bowers v Hardwick decision. We stated how we would never give up until gays and lesbians were treated equally (bisexuals and transgender people were still invisible at that point). I understand Columbus' pride parade has grown up.

My first March on Washington was back in 1987. I remember feeling absolutely giddy that for one moment in history, we were in the majority. I really cut my activism teeth with ACT-UP. I had friends who were diagnosed with HIV. I've lost some of them. So I was angry. I was angry that our government turned a blind eye to the suffering of its citizens. We took our anger to the streets in the form of civil disobedience. We cried as we walked through the AIDS Quilt memorial project. We engaged others and explained how the AIDS crisis affects them as well. And we organized to March on Washington in 1993.

I've worked with other organizations over the years but I think my proudest work is right here with Ingersoll Gender Center. No, no one paid me to say that. It is an honor to see people walk through our doors for the first time, taking those first courageous steps towards living a more authentic life. I see people rebuilding their lives after losing everything when they come out. I see people thrive.

In addition to being an activist, I have a reputation for being a hothead. I honestly have no idea why <insert tongue-in-cheek smiley here>. Sometimes I can channel my anger into constructive endeavours. But usually, my anger is unbridled and gets in the way of my activism by damaging important relationships. I can also be accused of acting before thinking and this is the point of this blog post.

Creating Change empowers grassroots organizers by providing them with skills and opportunities to further their work at home. I had a good friend in Dallas and had wanted to attend Creating Change for years. Thanks to being unemployed, having a free airline ticket and a friend who was willing to let me crash in her room, I was finally able to attend. On February 4, I attended the day-long institute for Trans Rights NOW! I heard time and again that one should "expect good intentions" when working with other people and organizations. Expect Good Intentions. What a simple concept yet one that I seem to have missed in all my years as an activist. This was never made more clear to me when I confronted my own actions in the debacle otherwise known as Ron Gold-gate.

I’m something of a history buff and something of a buff for buff, kick-ass women so it’s not surprising that Boudica has a special place in my heart. Boudica (or The Boudica, meaning “She who brings Victory” ) was an iron-age British tribes-woman and queen who, in CE 60, rallied the tribes of ancient Britain to rise and throw off the oppressive yoke of Roman colonization.

While looking for research material about the time period, I did a search for “Boudica” on my Amazon Kindle®digital reader and found Manda Scott’s 4-book “Boudica” series, : Dreaming the Eagle, Dreaming the Bull, Dreaming the Hound and finally Dreaming the Serpent Spear.

I downloaded a free sample onto my kindle and began reading it on the bus to work. By the time I got off the bus , I was hooked.

Manda set s her hook immediately like a good action/mystery writer. By the end of the second paragraph of the first book, we have met our heroine, Braeca and she has at once killed a man in self defense, avenged her slain queen/mother and been promoted into the ranks of the warriors of her early British tribe by virtue of her act of valor in open battle, all the age of 12. Not a bad start.

In a community that gets only a wee bit more respect than child molesting axe murderers, this year’s vote on Referendum 71 seems like a reminder that equality is more than a generation or two away. While we live in a time when gender identity is a protected class here in Washington, visions of same-sex marriage that danced happily in our heads before the 2006 state Supreme Court decision are now so many New Year’s resolutions away.
Instead of marriage, the state has given gays and lesbians in love an artificial sweetener dubbed the “everything but marriage” bill. While “everything but marriage” may not fit well on a Hallmark card, it does provide certain unalienable rights that most heterosexual couples take for granted. Still, even this artificial sweetener is too much of a carcinogen for those that live in the tradition that love means the missionary position or at the very least that a woman should always walk 50 feet behind her husband.

Barney Frank is Wrong.

I didn't think Cleve Jones and his merry band of marchers could pull it off in such a short amount of time. I'd become jaded after being at a few marches and turned my concentration to my work for Ingersoll. I am very happy to be proven wrong. I got a call from Marsha sharing the excitement of seeing 200,000 people marching down the streets of Washington DC determined to demand our rights for equality and I replied that I would dust off the teleporter and be right there. People of all sexual orientations and all gender identities marched. My eyes were glued to C-Span as I watched speaker after speaker press the point that we are in this struggle together, no matter our identities or our affiliations. I also saw speakers pointing out that the work doesn't end with marching to the mall. That was only the beginning.

Unlike Barney Frank, I didn't spend the months leading up to the march wringing my hands over people wasting their time. I've been to marches in DC for LGBT rights in 1987 and 1993 and to protest the war in 2005. To call these things "a waste of time at best" shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the history of the civil rights struggle. Either he doesn't know or he doesn't care. The Civil Rights Movement of 1955-1968 used a number of strategies, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to sit-ins to, yes, marches and lobbying. It was at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August of 1963 that Martin Luther King gave his famous speech, "I Have a Dream." The March is widely hailed as the turning point that quickened the pace of reaching the goal for full civil rights. I think that march did more than simply "put pressure on the grass."

If only 10% of the people who participated decide to heed that call to action, that is still 20,000 new, energetic faces signing up for the cause of equality. Imagine that power put to use to further our movement. Organizations have a responsibility to take these people in and "show them the ropes," so to speak, and teach them what activism really is (a tireless, often thankless hard slog but one that is worth every step).

Barney Frank is Right

He is right that we need to contact our legislators and lobby them to address our concerns. When one looks at the brass tacks, the power lies in the hands of those who hold elected office and sometimes, those sitting in the Supreme Court. Laws are not passed in a vacuum. Ask any of the lobbyists on K street and they will tell you that direct contact with the legislators and executive branch further their goals. So yes, we SHOULD take a look at the playbooks of AARP, NRA, the oil, pharmaceutical, and insurance lobbies. But the thing is, people did that while they were in DC. Many met with the staff of their legislators. The message was delivered. And it will be delivered again and again until we gain our full civil rights.

So pat yourselves on the back, marchers... you did it. And be ready to put your shoulder to the grindstone. And Mr. Frank, get out of the way and stop your bellyaching. We have work to do and will run over the people who try to throw roadblocks in our way, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity. For we are an inclusive movement and we will settle for nothing less than equality for all. You can either help us and stop treating us like the unwashed masses who, for some reason, re-elect you year after year or just stop shooting off your mouth and let us do the work without you.

Sometimes its hard to justify why I prefer people to use male pronouns for me, because personally I dont really want to take T or have surgery. I am going to the Gender Odyssey conference this weekend and kind of scared or anxious. Because some friends of mine went last year and just attending helped them realize they wanted to make some of those physical changes, I wonder what will change about me or what will suddenly fall into place after experiencing three days of the conference and meeting and being around all those people.