Trans* Success

knowhomo:

LGBTQ* People You Should Know

Reed Erickson (1917-1992)

* Born as Rita Alma Erickson and was the first female assigned at birth to graduate from Louisiana State University with a degree in mechanical engineering

* Erickson was introduced to equal rights/political reformation while dating a woman from NYC after graduating from LSU 

* Erickson was fired from first job as an engineer after refusing to fire a woman suspected of Communism

* Started a company making bleachers for stadiums and inherited family business and money after father’s passing

* In 1963 - became a patient of Dr. Harry Benjamin (the “father of transgender medicine” in the United States) and started to live openly as a man

* Erickson underwent a hysterectomy and double mastectomy in 1963 (which was required by the state of Louisiana to be legally recognized/change documentation of birth sex)

* Erickson also legally married his first wife in 1963 (divorcing two years later). — He went on to marry Aileen Ashton of New Zealand with whom he had two children. (He proposed to her on their second date.)

* 1964 — founded the Erickson Educational Foundation (EEF), financed entirely by himself. The organization (which Erickson contributed millions to) went on to assist in the early development and organizations for LGBTQ* movements from 1964-1984

Their Mission Statement:

“to provide assistance and support in areas where human potential was limited by adverse physical, mental or social conditions, or where the scope of research was too new, controversial or imaginative to receive traditionally oriented support.”

* Longest-running recipient was ONE Inc - the newspaper and homophile organization founded in 1952. -Erickson contributed over 75-80% of their budget for a number of years.
(Above and Below: Pictures of Erickson - dates unknown)

For More on Reed Erickson:

Aaron Devor writing as Holly Devor. “Reed Erickson (1912-1992): How One Transsexed Man Supported ONE.” In Vern Bullough (ed). Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. New York: Haworth. 2002.

Online at: http://web.uvic.ca/~ahdevor/ReedErickson.pdf

Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the the United States.Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press.

Adobe is strongly committed to fostering a diverse workplace. Treating employees, customers, and partners with respect is not only the right thing to do, but it also makes good business sense. As a successful global company, Adobe values and benefits from a wide variety of ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds.

Equal Opportunity Employment:

Adobe administers its personnel policies and conducts its employment practices in a manner that treats each employee and applicant for employment on the basis of merit and experience, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, marital status, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, national origin, or other classification protected by applicable law. In addition, consistent with Adobe’s culture and values, all employees are expected to treat one another in a manner that reflects dignity and respect.

Véronique Françoise Caroline Renard (born 26 May 1965 in Jutphaas, the Netherlands) is a Dutch author. She is also known as Pantau, a name that was adopted after meeting the Dalai Lama at an audience at his home in McLeodganj, Dharamsala, India in 2000. Renard was raised and educated in the Netherlands. She is the daughter of Annie Garda Van Unen, a former senior accountant of the Breda Candy Company FAAM, and Wilhelmus (Wim) Gerardus Renard, a businessman who founded the REACS Company in 1956. Renard is a descendant of the renowned German composer/conductor Paul Albin Stenz who was awarded the Gold Medal of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. One year prior to his death in 1918 he was naturalized as a Dutch citizen. Renard’s grandfather, Johannes (Paul) Renard was a cityscape painter in Rotterdam. Renard speaks (in order of fluency) Dutch, English, German, French, Thai and Tibetan. In 1982, at the age of 17, Renard transitioned with the full support of her family, friends and the people in her hometown. Renard’s mother renamed her Véronique. In 1983, Renard was granted permission by a court in Utrecht to change her legal male given names into female given names. Renard added her second name Françoise (after her best friend), and third name Caroline (after Caroline Cossey).

Initially unaware of the phenomenon of transsexualism and Gender Reassignment Surgery, Renard conveys in her 2007 memoir that the international media attention around Cossey in 1982 helped her to self-diagnose her own gender identity disorder. The day after reading about Cossey in a Dutch tabloid, Renard consulted her GP and shortly after the Amsterdam Gender Team. Renard was diagnosed with Klinefelter’s syndrome, having 47 chromosones (XXY). Renard started Hormone Replacement Therapy shortly after. Her physical transition which was completed 18 months later in 1984. Renard was one of the first 150 persons to receive contemporary Gender Reassignment Surgery in the Netherlands. In 1984, at age 18, Renard learned from the Amsterdam Gender Team that she was most likely the youngest person in the world to receive complete contemporary Gender Reassignment Surgery. In October that year, the Dutch Government granted Renard permission to have her legal gender corrected on her birth certificate. Renard is most likely the first post-operative MtF transsexual in the world to be legally recognized as a female. Fearing rejection and discrimination, Renard never volunteered to mention her gender reassignment to friends, colleagues and lovers. Renard started her career in 1982 working for a local travel agency. Thereafter she was employed as a management assistant with Philips Electronics and Mercedes Benz. As from 1984 she held various functions with the University of Utrecht.

In 1987 she moved on by working as the personal assistant of the Vice President of Amdahl Netherlands. In 1989 Renard was hired by Amdahl’s main competitor IBM. As she felt dissatisfied with IBM’s corporate atmosphere, she found new employment with TNT-XP. Renard left the company after 6 months. In 1990, while working as a temp for ExpoConsult, she was contacted by a business partner of ExpoConsult, the US-based publisher Conway Data Inc. The president asked her to set up a European branch office, launch a European edition of their business magazine Site Selection and represent the organization at international events. She also functioned as the administrator of IDRC Europe (Industrial Development Research Council). In 1994 Renard left the company in order to concentrate on her academic studies. She attained a Ph.D. in Dutch Literature in 1997 and started working as an office manager for Lucent Technologies. Five months later, Renard was informed by one of her colleagues that there were rumors within the organization regarding Renard’s alleged transsexualism and upcoming lay-off. Renard threatened Lucent to take them to court, accusing them of discrimination. The dispute was settled out of court. Renard’s last employment started in January 1999 as an office and relocation manager with Davilex, a fast growing computer game company which was in the process of building a new head office. Days after Renard successfully completed the company’s relocation project, the president asked her to leave the company. Renard received word that the board of directors found out about her transsexualism. Renard threatened Davilex to take them to court and make a major media hype out of her dismissal. Davilex and Renard’s lawyers eventually settled the case out of court.

In the spring of 2000, Renard moved to the hometown of the exiled Dalai Lama in the Indian Himalayas. There she focused on her activities as a writer and pro-Tibet activist. Concerned with the well-being of the Tibetan people and preservation of Tibetan culture, Renard hopes to create more awareness regarding the Tibetan plight by means of the written word. In May 2000, Renard established the Pantau Foundation to raise funds and help destitute Tibetan refugee children living in exile in India. Together with her Dharamsala-based spokesperson, Jonathan Blair, and New York-based friends Bobby John Parker Jr. and Sebastian Bond, the foundation supports a growing number of Tibetan children. In 2000 and 2001 she published three books in English in India and Nepal regarding the Tibetan Freedom Struggle (Pantau in Dharamsala, The Fire of Hell, Pantau in India). A Dutch version of her autobiography Pantau in India has also been published in the Netherlands and Belgium in 2003. In 2006, Pantau in India has also been published in English in the United States. In June 2007, Renard published her follow-up memoir, Pholomolo - No Man No Woman. This book focuses on her experiences with Gender Identity Disorder. After living in the Himalayas for nearly seven years, Renard permanently moved to Thailand in October 2006. In November 2009, Renard signed a book deal with the American publisher PD Publishing. Currently, Renard is carrying out research in China and Thailand for a new fiction novel.

In 2009, The Pride Committee of NC, the organizers of the annual statewide NC Pride festival and parade, decided to create a GLBT  ”Yellow pages” based on the advertiser’s directory in the NC Pride Resource Guide that is published yearly. It is a our online directory by business category.

If you need to find a restaurant to go to, a hotel, a nightclub, a home and more in NC, then shop in the NC Pride “Pink” Pages for Gay Lesbian Bisexual & Transgender-Friendly Businesses and Services across North Carolina.

Andrea James (dark dress) co-founded Deep Stealth Productions with her business partner Calpernia Addams (white dress), to create educational materials for transsexual women, to raise awareness about the epidemic of violence perpetrated against transpeople and to combat the poor image of transpeople in the media.  she is a film consultant, actress, activist, and trans woman.  James is the host of the Deep Stealth Productions instructional film Finding Your Female Voice.  She was a member of the first all-transgender cast, as well as a producer, of The Vagina Monologues and script consultant in the film Transamerica.  Andrea appeared in the HBO production Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She, directed the 7 minute film “Casting Pearls”, and was a consultant to Calpernia on the reality dating series Transamerican Love Story.  A guide to others, Andrea created and operates the free TS Roadmap website, a source of information for transsexuals, concerning physical, social, and legal aspects of transition.  The section of TS Roadmap on hair removal proved so popular that James spun it off into its own site, Hair Facts, with a companion discussion forum called Hair Tell.

Kylar Broadus is a professor, attorney, activist and public speaker from Missouri.  An associate professor of business law at Lincoln University of Missouri, a historically black college where he serves as chair of the business department. Kylar has maintained a general practice of law in Columbia, Missouri since 1997. Formerly, State Legislative Manager and Counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy group.  He’s has so many achievements its impossible for me to name them all, he’s a very busy trans man and a good looking one at that.  Currently, he is board chair for the National Black Justice Coalition.