Map 1: Correlation between poverty and homicide rates in Chicago.

Map 2: Racial / ethnic self-identification based on US Census data.

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Hello!

I need to find a new roommate! My place is a 2 bedroom with 1 restroom, kitchen, living room, plus pantry. Smoke free. There is a big outside lawn for the whole apt. to use - great for dogs to run around in and to lounge during warmer weather. Dollar laundry and some storage room downstairs. I have several pieces of furniture - but I’m not particularly attached to them either.

About me: I’m a 25 yr. old transgender woman, seeking out an LGBT friendly roommate. I’m a social worker. Always on time with rent and try to keep the living space as tidy as possible. I’m really into open communication and am flexible around a lot of issues.

Location: Two blocks away from Jewel and Walgreens, three blocks away from Clark St., near Joie de Vine, Pauline’s, Hamburger Mary’s, etc. A nice stroll down to anywhere on Clark. 12 min. walk to the Red Line. Close to Clark and Damen bus stops.

I do not have any pets. Dogs are great! I’m allergic to cats - but if they’re hairless, I’d love them :)

Serious inquiries only. No drama, please. Thank you!!!

So here it goes - given anonymously.

Fuck this white trans guy for being a misogynist. He fucks with girls and dumps them. He claims the struggles of trans women of color (during pride) and has BBQ’s with all his white friends in a neighborhood that’s being gentrified. 

Fuck this white queer cis woman for using the word tranny (to call other trans men!) like we won’t fucking know. Fuck her for stealing others work and weaseling her way into everyone liking her.

Fuck this “feminist” institution for providing testosterone, pap smears, and artificial insemination options to transmasculine folks and not a damn thing except counseling to transfeminine folks.

Fuck the white queers who appropriate black queer culture, in predominantly white queer spaces. 

Fuck that cis girl who was whining that “a man” (me) went into the girls bathroom during a queer dance party.

Fuck this transfeminine spectrum person who has hella hella fucking cis male privilege for painting scars underneath their chest, for a performance piece, acting like a trans man who had top surgery.

Fuck all the trans guys and transmasculine folks who think tranny is their word.

Fuck the cis gay boys who “don’t understand why the trannies are so angry all the time.”

Fuck the “queer” and lesbian cis girls who aren’t attracted to trans women because of their deep inner hatred of transfemininity. 

Fuck the queers who fetishize our transfemininty at night but openly mock it during the day.

Fuck cis people dispensing our hormones to us and psychologically evaluating us.

Fuck the elder trans women who police young trans women’s gender expressions.

Fuck “queer” cis women hegemony over the “queer” community.

Fuck transmasculine folks who think they’re entitled to women’s spaces. (Reality check: a lot of y’all have dude privilege.)

Fuck institutional and internal transmisogyny for making young trans women hate one another.

Fuck everyone who makes me feel unsafe and afraid, especially men.

Strike Headquarters.

Get ready!

Chicago, IL – In the largest labor rally here in at least 30 years, tens of thousands of teachers, parents and community and trade union supporters rallied on Labor Day in preparation for a strike by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), if Chicago Public School (CPS) doesn’t meet their demands.

CTU has been in contract negotiations with the school board since November 2011. Teachers have been without a contract since June of this year after the five-year agreement with the district expired without a new one in place. Issues included the lengthening of the school day, testing and class sizes. Then the school board rescinded the 4% raise scheduled for June 30 in the CTU contract.

“CPS seems determined to have a toxic relationship with its employees,” Karen Lewis, CTU president, said. “They denied us our 4% raises when there was money in the budget to honor our agreement; they attempted to ram a poorly thought out longer school day down our throats; and, on top of that they want us to teach a new curriculum and be ready to be evaluated based on how well our students do on a standardized test. It has been insult after insult after insult. Enough is enough.”

At the Labor Day rally, Lewis also called Mayor Rahm Emanuel “a liar and a bully” in her remarks, and said, “The only way to beat a bully is to stand up to a bully.” CTU is going forward with their plans to strike on Monday, Sept. 10. This will be the first teachers strike since 1987.

The entire trade union movement is behind the Chicago teachers in their struggle for better schools, smaller classes and better pay. Also, many parents are joining Parents For Teachers, because they know that it is the teachers who have the interest of the children at heart, not Rahm Emanuel and the class of bankers he represents.

According to Sarah Chambers, a member of the union bargaining committee, “Parents are frustrated by the mayor and his decisions, like the increase in class sizes.” Chambers said further, “The children of the school board and the mayor attend private schools. Parents realize that the teachers, not the school board, are for the students.”

freedominwickedness:

lucypaw:

transartorialism:

I wrote them a few days ago. Here’s the response I just got.

First of all, I would like to personally thank you for your suggestions and thoughts on the Trans Health Initiative Program here at the Feminist Health Center. As…

^Transmisogyny strikes again at your local “women’s” health center!!!

More on Chicago Women’s Health here:  http://thelstop.org/2012/05/womens-health-should-mean-all-women/

Sign the petition here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/comprehensive-transgender-health-at-cwhc/

There have been NO updates at CWHC after their “focus groups” in mid-May. We await a clear and definitive move toward owning their transmisogyny and giving us hormone, prostate examination, fertility options, and educational services. We need this yesterday.

I stand in solidarity with my sisters everywhere to oppose gender essentialism, discrimination, and transmisogynistic healthcare.

June 11, 2012

Agenda

- Inclusivity and intersectionality
- Time and date of event
- Fundraising from organizations and parties
- Ideas for a conference agenda

We talked about how the label “queer” can be problematic for some trans women, particularly those who feel that’s a derogatory word. We still are keeping “queer,” but also including lesbian and bisexual to the list of orientations we want to include.

We discussed how we didn’t want to replicate other trans or LGBT conferences where white people will tell everyone how everyone should feel, frame things, etc. There is a need for diverse and intentional leadership and facilitation during the conference.

We talked about a rough sketch of the conference agenda. We want to put equal emphasis on racism and exclusion of trans female folk in lesbian, bisexual and queer spaces. We talked about the challenges of that.

We talked about holding fundraising events throughout the city – not just on the northside or northwest. We bounced around ideas of what kind of events would be empowering for trans female folk and trans women to come out to.

Mentioned the problems of “trans women” and trans feminine / trans female genderqueer people. We want a space that is inclusive of all different non-conforming identities within the coercively male-assigned at birth spectrum.

We talked about issues of intellectualism, class, and framing things. We want to talk about themes in an accessible way that is not looking down on anyone, and is also respectful.

We put making a time and space for the event as priority number one. We want to make it locationally accessible and to hopefully not pay for any reservation costs. We are looking at mid-October.

We talked about a first round of organizations to reach out to for sponsorship, solidarity, and to listen to!

We will have our next meeting in about two weeks (after Pride) and send out a Doodle to make sure the most people possible can meet in person. We hope to have a kick-off event during the first two weeks of July.

Things I want to see…

Principle subjects of the event:

1. the exclusion of lesbian, bisexual and queer trans women / transfeminine folks from LBQ cisgender spaces. the desirability of some trans folks over others. addressing misogyny and transmisogyny in our desires and community.

2. the intersection of racism and transmisogyny. the exclusion of trans women of color within white LBQ spaces. the need for social justice, allyship and solidarity.

3. developing new spaces, networks, and envisioning integrated and autonomous communities to address these and come out with something other than “oh we met and it was good but now it’s over.”

Leading up to the event:

- a wide variety of fundraising events that put trans women / transfeminine folk at the center. spoken word and art. i personally have this wonderful fantasy of a bunch of trans ladies / transfem folks doing drag king performances.

- locationally diverse - southside, pilsen, northside, logan, westside?

The agenda

travel stipends / carpool within the city

a) keynote speaker

b) trans-centric sex ed

free lunch

c) trans and cis women caucus separately

d) trans women of color, white trans women, cis women of color, white cis women caucus separately

d) ppl come back and address issues

…just getting my ideas out in the open. stay tuned to http://nomoreapologieschicago.wordpress.com

My access to healthcare has become somewhat of a mixed bag. I’ve been fortunate enough to receive insurance under my family for twenty-four years. Dental, check-ups, and even braces. But ever since I came out as queer and then as a trans woman, services have been hard to come by, and added to that, even more difficult now that I’m uninsured.

In the case of my local community, I am lucky. Here in Chicago we have a variety of transgender-friendly and women’s health providers: Howard Brown, Chicago Women’s Health Center (CWHC), and Northwestern come to mind as institutions that serve the LGBTQ community with respect, compassion, and care. One institution, though, the CWHC, I’ve found myself in a bit of a struggle with due to their oversight of trans women care.

The CWHC does great work for women, or at least those who were assigned female at birth. Yes, I get it—services fluctuate and non-profit health centers are constantly in need of money. It’s difficult to serve everyone with limited resources.

I mean, on a practical level it make sense, right? There’s an estimated 50.8% of the U.S. population that are cis women,¹ while only 2% (by “liberal” estimates) are transgender—and that includes trans men, of course. When comparing reproductive health between trans and cis women, it’s apples to oranges to kiwis, or something. The point is, all bodies are different, but the essential functions of cis women are the same, while, for trans women, it depends on surgery status, hormone levels, and generally how your transition has effected health risks and benefits.

However, we do not live in a practical society. And particularly feminist institutions don’t function on “provide the greatest good for the most people.” Feminists operate with a keen eye toward institutionalized oppression. That’s how feminist health centers got started in the first place, right? They saw the systemic exclusion and non-prioritization of women in a male-dominated field, medicine, and decided to change it—to make it more accessible to women, to give them agency, and to be treated (mainly) by other women.

So it may be a no-brainer that these services should be served to transgender people too. Not so much.

About a year ago, Chicago Women’s decided to provide hormone replacement therapy (HRT), testosterone, to trans men and transmasculine individuals—not to trans women and transfeminine ones. A year or longer ago than that, they began a trans gynecology program for this same gender group.

This makes sense on a couple levels. First, they provided expertise on gynecological service to cis women, so all you really need is some transgender 101 information to make sure transmasculine folks are comfortable doing this check-up. Secondly, and more interesting, is the historical tie between cisgender women, particularly queer cis women, and transgender men. There’s a whole other explanation why these communities are closer together than cisgender and transgender women.

First, there are community-based reasons. While no one knows exactly the “origins” of the queer-as-orientation-and-identity community, it mainly came from transgender folks (both trans women and men) and cis women. But mainly it grew out of and was claimed the cisgender lesbian community as more trans men / transmasculine folks came out.

Sylvia Rivera

Simply put, trans women have been so historically marginalized by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transmasculine communities (albeit in different ways and capacities) that we were never included with “queer” in mind. Hell, Silvia Rivera, a radical trans woman and one of the leaders of Stonewall, was banished from the “LGBT” community because people yelled at her “we don’t need any more drag queens in our movement.”

Second, there’s a more specific gender and sexual orientation explanation. Frankly, I believe a vast majority of lesbian and “queer” cisgender women, even those who will stand in solidarity with trans women’s rights, stray away from us sexually, romantically, and physically because of phallocentrism and something called “gender essentialism.”² This is very much a hang up from 1970’s second wave feminism.

But honestly, what does this all have to do with a small feminist health non-profit in Chicago? I think the larger issues of exclusion—historically, communally, intimately, sexually—have everything to do with receiving basic, comprehensive healthcare. Until cisgender women truly welcome trans women as sisters, partners, lovers, and feminists, this issue will remain a sore spot in the historical wedge between us.

So, the bottom line is that CWHC decided to provide services for trans men, including hormones, over that of other women: transgender women. Our shared history in women’s and LGBT communities informs why many “feminist” communities still favor those with a biologically-assigned vulvas over women who don’t. Hence how “women’s health” still does not mean all women. Women’s reproductive health means cisgender women’s health.

I don’t expect this to change overnight. I don’t expect everyone to think of trans women when they hear “women’s health.” I don’t expect CWHC to change overnight either.

But change does not happen by itself. I’ve organized a petition to push for comprehensive trans women’s health. “Equal access and equal care” must be the slogan. That is, if trans men can get gynecology exams, then we should have prostate exams. If you’re opening up testosterone hormone services, make sure you include estrogen as well.

We’ve all made progress so far. I’m pleased to see CWHC give an apology and start focus groups for transfeminine folksthat are finally happening. I encourage anyone who is transfeminine or trans female to give input on what your needs and our needs are.

Challenge women’s health institutions. Do it for all women, not matter what their “parts” are. Who knows, maybe in a few years we’ll have Planned Parenthood providing comprehensive care for all women everywhere.

____________________