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The Obama Administration told the Washington Blade — in their Wednesday, April 27, 2011 article White House To Host First Ever Trans Meeting — that there is going to be a “White House meeting” where “transgender activists intend to discuss federal policy issues” on Friday, April 29, 2011. The meeting is being described as “the first [meeting] ever held by the Office of Public Engagement to focus solely on trans issues.” From Chris Johnson’s Washington Blade article (emphasis added):
Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson, said the meeting, which is set to take place Friday at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, will include transgender leaders who work on federal policy.“OPE routinely holds meetings with various stakeholders to discuss various policy issues,” Inouye said. “Friday’s meeting, like most OPE meetings, will be closed press and off the record.“
This meeting, which Pam’s House Blend reported on in the piece The Secret White House Trans Meeting That Should Come Out Of The Closet, is now somewhat out of the closet. The meeting been publicly acknowledged by the White House and a presumed major participant — Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE).
“This is the first president who has allowed trans people — really allowed LGBT people — to bring forward problems and then advocate for them,” Keisling said. “In the Bush administration, we couldn’t even do that. They wouldn’t even listen to us. They didn’t care what our problems were. In fact, they were making most of our problems.”
I found this comment by Michael Silverman, the executive director for the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF), within the Washington Blade piece interesting:
There was concern at the start that this was a quote-unquote secret meeting and [the fact] that the White House is speaking about it publicly demonstrates there is a commitment to meeting with transgender people and to addressing their needs.
Well, yes and no.
It is significant that the White House is having a meeting on trans issues at this point — it’s significant if they have that kind of meeting at any point.
However, 1.) we’re about two-and-a-half years into the Obama Presidency, and a first meeting on transgender equality issues at this point seems late in the term from the administration of the President who in his campaign stated he was going to be a “fierce advocate” for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. 2.) Any attempt to keep the gist of the progress addressed in the meeting secret at this point is going to be poor political practice. Again, to quote President Obama from the President’s Welcoming Senior Staff And Cabinet Secretaries address of January 9, 2009:
[More below the fold.]
The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable. And the way to make government accountable is make it transparent so that the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made, how they’re being made, and whether their interests are being well served.…Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.
3.) A meeting for a meeting’s sake shows trans community it now has access to the White House halls of power, but access alone can never be a goal in and of itself. We in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and especially transgender community need to see that access results in the causes of freedom, equality, and justice being forwarded for our community members.
Let me be clear about something: Every item discussed in the scheduled trans meeting does not have to be divulged — negotiation can and should happen behind closed doors.
And, I know that at least for Mara Keisling and NCTE, their public agenda is known — I know in broad terms what NCTE is going to bring as an agenda to the table. I’m on the same page as NCTE when it comes to the trans equality agenda, so I’m not very worried about what issues NCTE, though its executive director, are going to bring to the table behind closed doors and out of public earshot.
But that said, after seeing the White House not exactly be the “fierce advocate” White House pushing DADT repeal during the last congress, and see the White House not push the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the last Congress at all, access to the White House halls of power by LGBT civil rights non-profits doesn’t necessarily result in the White House being the “fierce advocate” White House many of us hoped for when President Obama took office.
We don’t need the White House staffers to hold a listening meeting instead of an action meeting at this point; I also don’t accept White House spokesperson Shin Inouye’s comment that this meeting needs to be completely off the record.
The LGBT community now definitively knows that a meeting on transgender issues between LGBT non-profits and the Obama Administration is occurring on Friday, April 28, 2011. I know I’m not alone in wanting to hear what the Obama Administration plans to do to forward the freedom, equality, and justice of transgender community members in the LGBT community.
Mara Keisling has a lever now that she didn’t have before the existence of this Obama Administration transgender issues meeting was made public. She can say words to this effect to the White House staffers at the meeting:
I didn’t publicize this meeting, but the transgender community found out about this meeting, and now the community has real expectations. What are you in the Obama Administration going to do between now and Pride Month with regards to public policy based on gender identity and expression? What about between now and the end of President Obama’s first term?The whole LGBT community is watching what comes out of this meeting, and your administration is going to be held to public account if nothing but ‘listening’ is what comes out of this meeting — I won’t publicly do it after this meeting, but others who are aware of this meeting no doubt will.
I don’t know if Mara Keisling will use that lever, but I’m quite sure she knows she has that lever — she didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. I’m putting my trust and faith in Mara to use what power she has in this meeting to forward ordinary equality for the members of our subcommunity of the LGBT community.
Y’all know what my agenda would be if I were in attendance at that meeting.
I wasn’t invited to this White House meeting, and if I had been invited I would have declined attending. I have no desire to be recognized by the White House or others as a member of some sort of organized and/or recognized “transgender power structure.” I also have no desire to be an LGBT community DC insider. And even minus those things, I would have no desire to attend an off-the-record meeting with the Obama Administration on transgender issues — I wouldn’t be able to personally abide with the off-the-record nature of these kinds of meetings.
But that said, I do have opinions about the meeting — especially about the how transparent this meeting is going to be, and what are actions that will come out of the meeting. I believe the White House actually needs to be transparent about what it’s going to do for transgender community members during the remainder of the first term of President Obama.
And, a media release after this meeting seems to me to be an appropriate tool for messaging to the transgender subcommunity of LGBT community, as well as to the LGBT community as a whole.
The stakeholders in LGBT community are LGBT community members like you and me and the rest of us in LGBT community; the stakeholders in the transgender subcommunity of the LGBT community are Mara Keisling, me, and the rest of us transgender community members. I say that because the Obama Administration needs to talk not just to non-profit leaders in LGBT community, but it needs to start directly messaging the stakeholders in LGBT community about its plans regarding the rest of President Obama’s first term — in accordance with the President’s own words regarding “fierce advocacy” and transparency.
And as for what most of us in transgender community want with regards to ordinary equality, there is that Martin Luther King take on the three little words “all,” “here,” and “now.”
We want all of our rights, we want them here, and we want them now.
~~~~~
Related:
* The Secret White House Trans Meeting That Should Come Out Of The Closet
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24 Comments
The big story about this not-so-super-secret meeting?Is that it has become commonplace. Routine. We have a federal agenda, it’s being worked on a daily basis, and today’s announcement from the Department of Labor is another example of the work being done by staffers.
And, it should be noted, that we are successful because of our allies in this fight for civil rights. Special thanks go to Jeremy Bishop, my Harvard classmate who happens to be gay, and Donna Cartwright, my Maryland friend and ally who happens to be trans.
Really?
OK, so, you have an agenda if you were in attendance at the meeting, but your agenda if you were invited to the meeting would be to decline the meeting. Since it’s not generally considered polite (or legal) to barge in on a meeting at the White House, one would assume that your invitation agenda would render your attendance agenda moot. Given that, your attendance agenda is obviously far less important to you than your invitation agenda, or you would be willing to make some concession on the latter for the sake of the former.
This is going to shock you, but there was a meeting earlier today between representatives of a major corporation and a member of the trans community (myself). I did not announce this meeting in advance, and this is in fact the first time I have made the public aware that this meeting occured. Representatives of the corporation made no attempt to notify the media of the meeting in advance, and probably would have been puzzled and given some resistance to suggestions of doing so. True, the corporation was my employer and the meeting ultimately turned out to pertain exclusively to the project I am working on, and true these sort of meetings go on pretty much daily, but the fact remains: you were not notified of it in advance and no one even suggested inviting you. I’m sorry to give you this upsetting news.
That to me is what this pretty much sounds like. From the White House staff’s perspective, they’re having a meeting with representatives of a community who would like to talk to them. They do these things every day. They don’t see it as a major event. They don’t think the media would be especially interested in something like this, so it never occurs to them that they need to issue a public notice about it. That’s not being secret. That’s just doing your job.
I think you’re really making a mountain out of a molehill here, and managing to find a dark cloud in this silver lining, all because you weren’t invited. I highly doubt it ever crossed the minds of anyone involved in this meeting to invite you to it. What on earth makes you think they would have?
really?Quisling, Cartwright and you? Why bother, just send in the actual HRC staffers and cut out the middlemen.
Cartwright was tasked by the HRC back in 99 to infiltrate and destroy any viable looking grassroots trans civil rights efforts. Quisling was set up by the HRC so they would have a trained, tame trans in case they couldn’t stamp out the national grassroots one completely
And I personally witnessed Cartwright destroy two different grassroots organizations, one national, one statewide with the same techniques. Nasty backstabbing ones. I’ve been told she also did the same in Maryland in 02 and Mass in 03
Nice company you keep there Dr. Dana
Stop making sense.
Wet Keyboard EventOm I need to learn to avoid sipping wine when I read your comments.
Sorry, Cathryn, but I wasn’t invited.
One more thing, Cathryn.I’ve been told by a friend from Colorado that you’ve done good work, and since I don’t know you personally, I choose not to get upset by your ad hominem attacks. My point was about the progress made at the Department of Labor today, of which I assume you approve, and yet all you could do was take the time to attack Mara, Donna, and me. Why is that?
It’s unfortunate that progress can’t simply be celebrated…I think it’s terrific what happened at Labor today… and given the size of the federal bureaucracy, I can only imagine the extra effort required by folks at all levels to make it happen — just like it’s taken constant work to make these type of OPE meetings a regular occurance.
Alas, some people just can’t get out of the lower loop.
http://www.pamshouseblend.com/…
Because that’s all she EVER does.It’s all she ever HAS done on Pam’s. She’s a troll, pure and simple, and every bit as much as HRC is a detriment to trans equality as she’d rather attack people like you or like Autumn than say anything positive or constructive. Most of us just ignore her now, we know she never offers anything but bile to any discussion.
Well…Look, Dana, here’s the thing.
C has indeed done a lot of stuff. She worked hard, did some incredible stuff. And then, following what can be described in the kindest tones possible, a really shitty experience at the hands of other trans people, she sorta changed.
Does she bait people? Oh hell yeah. Its something she’s very good at. But then, both you and I are also very good at it. It kinda comes with the territory.
That said, the stuff she’s done since then has more or less undermined all the stuff she did in the past, and, to a great extent, what she’s done of late has been to actively undermine a lot of what she did back then.
Does that make her a bad person? No. She still mentors a few people, still does what she’s willing to do. She goes to great lengths to say that she’s not part of the transgender community (or trans community, if you fall into the segment of advocacy that I do), and she’s very much into the more trans thou sentiment that’s ultimately transphobic in its nature.
And so the reason that she does the ad hominems is because she knows that history, and has a view that is directly counter to the view that you and I share regarding inclusiveness, etc etc blah blah blah.
So she uses the ad hominems and related attacks in order to discredit those who have that opposing viewpoint to hers. Nothing new — its politics.
I’ve defended her in the past when it comes to questions of what she’s done — and I will always do so.
But I will also note that she now works against those very things. And that’s why the attacks — part of the kit that she uses to advance her cause. In the end, you — or I, or Autumn — don’t enter into the equation except as targets of opportunity.
On the other hand, the work that you were talking about — the actual being in places and making lives better — isn’t something she does anymore.
why Danabecause the agenda you promote is ultimately anti-woman, gynophobic and mysogynistic and the people you associate with are, to put it bluntly, scum.
Where is the “Like” button when you need it?
Maryland in ’02?Doesn’t ring a bell, and makes me doubt what you say.
That pretty much explains it, I guess.
this is mind bogglingi wonder how we keep our allies our allies when we fight so much amongst ourselves. i gotta say… i don’t know Dana well, but I know her well enough to know she is far from anti-woman and gynophobic. as far as misogyny is concerned… most folks have issues with that… it’s terribly internalized in our society. i’ve witnessed my fair share of misogyny from transwomen in the community and well…i haven’t ever seen it come from this woman.
Applauds
Re: Department of LaborThere is one woman who is greatly responsible for this. She transitioned in place, and gave a set of presentations to DOL management, along with her medical team.
She’s still recovering from the brain-damage she received in a transphobic attack she (barely) survived in Colorado a few years back. Literally snatched off the streets in broad daylight, kidnapped and tortured almost to death. She’s my age too, no youngster.
You probably haven’t heard of her. But she moved people in the DOL in a way that no amount of money donated to lobbyists could. They were crying as they gave her a standing ovation. This is the result.
Part of her story is at http://aebrain.blogspot.com/20…
There are quiet heroes and heroines, all doing their part, behind the scenes. The political animals, those attempting to do the same kind of thing in the traditional “smoke-filled rooms” also work hard, but have been less successful.
Let’s do something positive and productiveHow about we move on from the controversy and use this an an occasion to contact those present and let them know what out concerns are?
Far better than doing an unceasing and unproductive post mortem on how the meeting was set up
Actually, it’s not.What Cathryn does is she speaks her opinion regarding another self-aggrandizing attempt by Autumn, and she helps to fight against the kool-aid drinking mindset that’s become commonplace in these comment threads.
As has been pointed out later on in these comments, Autumn has an attendance agenda but if invited she would decline the invitation? Uh. What?
I guess if there’s no cameras there to memorialize the event, it doesn’t deserve her attention since it wouldn’t fit in with her tranny messiah complex. =)
(I’m not sure if that last should be in quotes or not. My intention is sarcasm rather than scare quotes.)
What is mind boggling is the ultimate disrespect shown to those post-correctedOn a thread at Bilerico curruntly, Dr. Dana chastises a woman of history for being “real” I replied there (will have to edit it here to avoid giving Autumn cover to ban me) and it demonstrates the inherent neo-gynophobia in Dr. Dana’s stated positions.
Beyer said:
I replied:
To be clear, this is casting women into the third gender category of transgender permanently. it is misgendering the supposed ultimate “sin” in transland but is excused because it fits the agenda. Make no mistake, if I called a transgender a man but referred to them as “she”, I would be banned for misgendering, it’s not the pronouns, it’s the gender identifying. but here, it is not only permissible to label a woman with a medical history not an actual “real” woman but a transgender; it is actually the policy enforced by Autumn to do so.
Elsewhere Beyer has said that a crossdresser, who in the pink fog of whatever wistfully says “I wish I could be a woman” is essentially the same as someone born transsexed with the innate, not to be denied, drive to put mind and body in congruence and corrects that incongruence. In other words, Beyer actually redefines transsexual to include crossdressers!
Be careful MauraYou’re stepping dangerously close to making sense =)
*yawn*The only one sounding like they’re drinking anyone’s Kool-Aid here is you hon. Cathryn’s commenting history proves what I said repeatedly and in spades, and the only ones who ever badmouth Autumn in that particular fashion as Cathryn does are those just like her in the narrow elitist cookie-cutter mold. Nice try but you failed miserably.
Actually I didn’tI’m actually cut from a completely different cloth. I belong to the group known as the Open Minded.
Just as you pointed out, actions speak louder than words. Those actions include Autumn’s actions, as well as your own and no amount of keyboarding will change those actions. I stand by my statement.
After having spent considerable amount of time reading your blog, I can certainly bear witness to your own lack of Open Mindedness. Come talk to me when you’re willing to have an actual discussion.
In case you’re unsure how that happens, here is a link to a flowchart you can use: http://twentytwowords.com/2011…
*laughs*You looked at my blog but if you can say with a straight face I’m NOT open-minded and you ARE when the comment I was replying to clearly proved you very much are not, you’re not worth the energy of having a discussion WITH. Especially given how condescending and smug your reply is, talking down to me as if a small child who doesn’t grasp the facts. Complete with link to condescending how-to guide.
Sorry hon but I don’t need a how-to guide on how to talk to pompous narrow-minded twats who assume intellectual superiority despite proving the contrary with every trite self-loathing comment. Autumn’s action have spoken VERY loudly. I’ve never seen Cathryn chain herself to a fence and risk prison for basic equality. But she sure does chain gerself to her own personal tree of woe an awful lot. Your reply to me only proves you’re one of the chains.