Trans* Success

This is a study being run by a trans man getting his Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He is doing this study to contribute to developing an awareness in therapists and doctors about how to work competently with trans* clients. He is also committed to helping others in the healthcare profession understand the diversity in trans* identity development, ensuring that people of all identities and transition (or not) statuses are heard and validated.

He also plans to, once he gets his degree, gear his therapy practice toward working with gender and sexual minority clients!

Participate!

Jacob Nash recently received his Masters in Psychology, Diversity Management Specialization program from Cleveland State University in Cleveland Ohio. He is currently an independent trainer and consultant specializing in transgender and diversity issues. He has been working to educate others about the struggles of transgender individuals throughout the nation. He has worked with Children’s Social Service agencies as well as foster parents who care for them, to help them understand transsexuality and how they can help transgender youth. He has trained social workers, medical professionals, politicians and many others on the importance of treating transgender individuals with respect and care. Most recently he was the Executive Director for Transfamily of Cleveland. Prior to being the ED of TransFamily, he worked for the Law Office of SmithBernabei & Co., L.P.A. as their legal assistant.

Jacob has traveled extensively throughout Ohio and neighboring States to speak with legislators about the importance of inclusive language in bills where Civil Rights are concerned. He has been working directly with Cleveland City Council to include gender identity into the cities non-discrimination policy as well as incorporating the domestic partner registry in Cleveland in 2009. Jacob is a board member for the GLSEN-NEO Chapter as well as actively involved with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center of Greater Cleveland and People of All Colors Together. He has worked with other LGBT organizations to help them become more transgender inclusive. He remains active with many other organizations including Equality Ohio, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, The National Center for Transgender Equality, PFLAG T-Net and the Human Rights Campaign to name a few.

Masen Davis is a native Midwesterner who has lived the California Dream since 1995. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center, a civil rights organization advocating for transgender communities. Prior to coming to TLC in 2007, Masen spent six years at United Way of Greater Los Angeles where he managed allocations for 194 agencies, oversaw education/youth grant making; and raised more than $5.8 million through foundation and corporate giving.

Masen has been an activist in the movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality since 1990. His experience includes advocating for LGBT survivors of hate crimes, domestic violence and police misconduct; consulting with education and social service providers to help develop and implement best practice standards for transgender youth; and presenting diversity trainings for police departments in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

In 2002, Masen co-founded FTM Alliance of Los Angeles, the first Southern California nonprofit dedicated to advocacy within the female-to-male transgender community. He has served in leadership roles for many organizations, including FTM Alliance (Board President, 2002-07); City of West Hollywood’s Transgender Task Force (Vice Chair, 2001-03); National Center for Transgender Equality (Vice Chair, 2005-2007), and Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues (Board Member, 2007-Present). His work on behalf of transgender equality has earned him awards from the National Association of Social Workers, International Foundation for Gender Education, and UCLA. Masen received his Masters of Social Welfare with a concentration in Nonprofit Management from UCLA, and Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University.

David Harrison is an actor, playwright, and performer.  He trained at the Drama Studio of London at Berkeley, five years with director Richard Seyd (in San Francisco), movement & mask with Leonard Pitt (Berkeley), and “Viewpoints” with the SITI Company in New York.  His first play, Permission (written in 1991 before his transition), was based on his experiences in the sex industry working as a professional dominatrix.  The show toured the East Coast of the US and Canada in 1992.  Harrison invites people to see his play “FTM”.  David’s show is a wise and witty excursion through the middle ground of gender, being one person’s journey to discover the nature of masculinity and manhood.  In “FTM”, David’s transformation is juxtaposed with that of his mother who is experiencing changes in her own body as a result of breast cancer.  Their stories, sometimes funny, frequently poignant, are told through dreams, anecdotes, and remembrances.

David’s underlining theme of alienation is a universal one.  His quest to feel comfortable in his own skin and to be accepted by others makes “FTM” a must see.  FTM, was first produced at 848 Community Space, San Francisco in May of 1994, and has been touring internationally since then.  Other recent productions David has been seen in are Dennis Potter’s Blue Remembered Hills, as the 7-year-old Willie, Helmut in Taking Sides, and with No Pants Theatre Company’s Fitting Room Series, as Robert in Mommy & Daddy are Doing Dirty Things at Manhattan Theater Source.  He is currently working on a new play.  Many of you might also know him from the movie “TransAmerica”, this is a more recent photo below:

C. Jacob Hale is a Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Philosophy at California State University, Northridge, where he also directs the Center for Sex and Gender Research and is am ember of the Queer Studies Program’s Advisory Committee.  Jacob earned his B.A. in Philosophy from Pitzer College (1981) and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1985, 1988).  In 1995, Jacob transitioned and sought tenure on California State University’s Northridge campus.  The timing was risky, but Dr. Hale didn’t want to wait.  “I could not imagine going through my tenure review and then telling my colleagues, ‘Guess what?  There’s something I forgot to tell you,’” says Dr. Hale.  Early in his career, his scholarship was in analytic metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science, but for the past dozen years he has worked in interdisciplinary transgender studies.  Even picking up activism in transgender communities.  His current research interests include Los Angeles area trans history, 1950-1990, and transgender self-constitution through text and photography.

The topics on which Hale is currently doing research include biomedical ethics and medical regulation of gender variance in the United States from 1979 to the present, transsexual autobiography, and Los Angeles/Southern California transgender history.  In addition to teaching transgender studies, at California State University, Northridge, Dr. Hale teaches courses in critical reasoning, introduction to philosophy, philosophy and feminism, sexual ethics, and topics in contemporary philosophy.   Hale’s trans studies essays have appeared in journals such as Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Social Text, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, and in the anthology Men Doing Feminism (edited by Tom Digby). He also recently published an extensive introduction to Richard F. Docter’s Becoming a Woman: A Biography of Christine Jorgensen.  Some of Hale’s trans studies essays have been reprinted in The Transgender Studies Reader (edited by Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle), You’ve Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity (edited by Laurie Shrage), Race, Gender, and Sexuality: Philosophical Issues of Identity and Justice (edited by Jami L. Anderson), Queer Studies: An Interdisciplinary Reader (edited by Robert J. Corber and Stephen Valocchi), Sexualities in History (edited by Kim M. Phillips and Barry Reay), and in German in Outside: Die Politick Queerer Raume (edited by Matthias Haase, Marc Siegel, and Michaela Wunsch).

Mark Rees is a quintessentially charming man whose greatest misfortune was to have been born in 1942 apparently female. The story of Mark’s dawning realization of his masculine identity, and the struggle to express that, is told through his autobiography, “Dear Sir or Madam”.  After gender transition in 1971 Mark sought to pursue his calling – to offer himself for ordination into the Church of England.  His ambition was cruelly thwarted because legally he continued to be regarded as female.  This rejection prompted Mark to begin his determined fight for legal recognition in 1972.  The fight took him through layers of legal process all the way to the European Court of Human Rights – requiring immense courage in his day. The court hearings spelled the end for any vestige of privacy.  In the end Mark lost his single-handed battle for legal recognition at the European Court in Strasbourg in 1986.  Yet his apparently fruitless fight had not gone unnoticed and sowed the seeds for other important cases to come. He was contacted by the well-known Barrister and Liberal Democrat MP, Alex (now Lord) Carlile QC – a man more recently famous for his defense of Royal Butler Paul Burrell. With the experienced Parliamentarian’s encouragement and support Mark organized a meeting for other concerned trans people at the House of Commons in 1992. The afternoon ended across the road in “Grandma Lees Tea Shoppe”, with the foundation of the trans rights campaign, “Press for Change”. From 1989 until 2001 Mark traveled the length of the UK speaking at local, regional and national Samaritan conferences.  During this period and in spite of being publicly known as a trans man, Mark was elected by the people of his village to serve as a Member of Tunbridge Wells Borough Council from 1994-98.  Although it had initially been a shock to be “outed” by Strasbourg, Mark says he realized that ultimately it had been a blessing, because it enabled him to undertake such tasks without fear of being exposed.  It was no longer news.

Considering the immense energy and bravery required to take on such impossible-seeming odds in his day, Mark Rees has always remained a quiet and unassuming character, whose enduring ambition has been to build bridges and pursue reconciliation with the very people who prevented him from achieving his vocation. Following the passage of the Gender Recognition Act, Mark organized a Christian service of thanksgiving and reconciliation in 2005 – at a time when many trans people still feel only anger and pain at the way they have been maligned and mistreated by others claiming to be Christian. He says, “I knew that all the work the service had involved was rewarded when one of the members of the congregation wrote that she had never believed that she could have felt so accepted”. Another attendee said that, “ the church was full of love.” Although no longer actively involved with Press for Change, Mark continues (in his words) to “politely batter the church,”. In July 2004, in a letter published by the CHURCH TIMES, Mark roundly chastised some of the bishops who had opposed the Gender Recognition Bill in the House of Lords – prompting important debate within the Church and further invitations to write for reputable Christian publications.   Mark epitomizes that most important virtue for all people living on the wrong side of society’s mindless prejudice — an ability to be calm and to retain one’s dignity.  People are assured of recognition when they shout a lot and make a fuss. Mark Rees shows that there is another way too. In that way he deserves a leading place in trans campaigning history.

Jack Bee Garland was a transgender author, nurse and adventurer. Garland was also known as Elvira Virginia Mugarrieta, Babe Bean, Jack Beam, Jack Maines and Beebe Beam.  Born in San Francisco, California to a father who was a military officer serving as Mexican consul to San Francisco, in 1897, he took residence in Stockton, California. Using the male name Babe Bean and pretending to be mute, he got a job with The Stockton Evening Mail writing stories that focused on social problems such as gambling and vagrancy.  On October 5, 1899, he adopted the male identity of Beebe Beam and accompanied United States Army forces to the Philippines to participate in the Philippine War for a year, writing, “I saw war and I lived it.”  Beam was a cabin boy on the troop transport City of Para to pay his way to the Philippines.  Beam became sick on the journey and was set ashore after the captain found out about Beam’s history.  The enlisted soldiers took up a collection to buy his ticket. When the captain would not allow Beam back on the ship, the soldiers gave Beam a uniform and hid him until they were safely away from Hawaii. Beam was discovered again and confined, but, dressed as a soldier, Beam escaped and followed the regiments to their Philippine garrisons. Beam served as a Spanish language interpreter and nurse, living in military camps with the Sixteenth, Twenty-Ninth, Forty-Second, and Forty-Fifth United States Volunteer Infantry regiments. During that time in the Philippines, Beam did not participate in combat, but witnessed the Battle of San Mateo and joined several marches throughout Luzon.

Beam accompanied United States military forces to Santa Cruz, Laguna de Bey, Camarines, and Caloccan, as well as Manila and smaller garrisons.  He spent almost a year in the Philippines before returning to the United States. On October 21, 1900, Beam published “My Life as a Soldier,” in the San Francisco Examiner Magazine. Although Beam never enlisted and did not participate in combat, Beam marketed the story as a woman soldier in the Philippines.  Shortly after publishing the Philippine adventure, Beam abandoned newspaper writing and assumed the identity Jack Bee Garland, living as a man for the remainder of his life. As Jack Garland, he devoted himself to social work with the American Red Cross and other charitable organizations.  Garland died of peritonitis in San Francisco on September 19, 1936. The hospital discovered Garland had been living as male, provoking a series of newspaper articles. Garland had a tattoo that showed an American flag under the word Manila alongside an infantry insignia. Newspapers suggested that Garland should be buried with military honors as a veteran, and Garland’s sister, Victoria Shadbourne, perpetuated the idea by suggesting that Beebe Beam had been a lieutenant in the United States Army. No record of that service existed, and Garland was denied a military burial.  Transman Lou Sullivan has written a detailed biography of Garland.

Hey everyone. My name is Jack and I am a senior at Montserrat College of Art. I’d like to invite everyone in the Boston area to come to my gallery group show, Some Things Take Time.

I am a photographer, videographer and sound artist whose work is consistently presented in a provocative manner and engages the viewer to participate. My thesis work is a multimedia instillation that explores gender issues through a series of personal artworks, conveying the life of someone who is transgender.

Some Things Take Time is the senior thesis exhibition of seven Montserrat College of Art graduating students. It features the work of artists Jon Bolles, Brittany Carr, Hannah Imbesi, Jack Moffitt, Elizabeth O’Toole, Tamara Trudeau and Amanda Woronecki.

Where:
301 Gallery
301 Cabot Street
Beverly, MA 01915

Exhibit Dates:
March 26, 2012 – March 30, 2012

Artist Reception: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 5-8pm (Refreshments will be served)

Gallery hours: Monday through Friday 10am-2pm

The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Facebook event page.

Hope to see you there!