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TWENTY-THIRD AVENUE
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The transsexual community takes RTP to task
for perceived exclusionism
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by Inga Sorensen
ranssexual rights advocates say they
want Right to Privacy PAC, Oregon’s
largest sexual-minority-rights orga
nization, to change the name of its
flagship fund-raiser and push for state
wide legislation that protects not only
lesbians and bisexuals from discrimination, but
transsexuals as well.
“We are really tired of being ignored and mis
treated. The TS [transsexual] community was pur
posely excluded from the ADA [the Americans
with Disabilities Act, a federal law barring dis
crimination against people with disabilities] and
HIV/AIDS activists didn’t do anything. We had to
fight like hell to be allowed to participate in the
Gay Games. We are a part of this community, too,
and we want to be treated as such,” proclaims 38-
year-old Candice Hellen Brown, a local trans
sexual-rights advocate.
Brown says she is concerned about Right to
Privacy’s decision last legislative session to push
a bill that excluded language she believes could
have covered members of the transsexual and
transgendered communities, in addition to gay
men and lesbians.
Right to Privacy PAC has been lobbying state
lawmakers for more than a decade to pass legisla
tion that could protect gay men
and lesbians from discrimina
tion. During the 1995 session,
Right to Privacy put forth a bill
p ro h ib itin g d iscrim in atio n
based on sexual orientation in
housing, employment and pub
lic accommodations.
According to Brown, more
inclusive options were pre
sented during an earlier brain
storming session among mem
bers of the sexual minorities
community. She specifically
points to a draft offered by state
Rep. George Eighmey (D-Port-
land).
It read, in part: “Sexual ori
entation means having or being perceived as hav
ing an emotional [or] physical attraction to another
person without regard to the sex of that person, or
having or being perceived as having an orientation
for such an attraction or having or being perceived
as having a self-image or identity not commonly
associated with one’s biological sex....”
“That draft proposal incorporated inclusive lan
guage which could have covered transsexuals, but
Right to Privacy went with something else,” says
Brown. “What that says to me is that Right to
Privacy views the TS community as some fringe
group that is expendable. They want us to disap
pear. Well that’s not going to happen.”
According to Eighmey, several proposals were
discussed during that strategizing session. (On
hand were representatives from Right to Privacy
and several community organizations, as well as
gay, lesbian and bisexual legislators.)
"We got together to discuss what we thought
could pass, and how to do that,” he says. “The
majority decided the best thing to do was to go with
a sexual orientation omnibus bill with a couple
options in the wings, including an employment
bill.
“1 presented my draft," continues Eighmey,
“but I think there may have been some people who
thought if you included tran ssex u al o r
transgendered people, it would frighten too many
legislators. But this just wasn’t Right to Privacy.
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There were other people there.”
“We were exploring different possibilities,”
says Right to Privacy chair Lisa Maxfield. “We
had considered defining sexual orientation by list
ing various groups, but when you do that you’re
actually
gay
men, limiting yourself.
“On the flip side, you can get into trouble by
using language that is too vague and ambiguous. If
you do that, a lot of lawmakers will simply drop-
kick the bill by claiming it is technically un
sound. ... We decided to go with a very clean bill.”
According to Maxfield, specifiers of sexual
orientation— such as homosexuality, heterosexu
ality or bisexuality— were not included in the bill
that Right to Privacy ultimately went with. “Which
we believe actually made the legislation more
inclusive,” says Maxfield, adding that perhaps it is
best there be a separate bill covering the trans
sexual and transgendered communities.
“All I’m saying is that maybe that’s the best
way to handle it,” she stresses.
That is an option that doesn’t sit well with
Brown. ‘T o the OCA there is no difference be
tween being gay and being part of the TS commu
nity. To them we are all the same.”
Brown and other transsexual rights advocates
also want Right to Privacy to change the name of
the Lucille Hart Dinner, its
w ell-know n annual fund
raiser. The event is more than
a decade old and attracts pow
erful political figures, includ
ing the governor and members
of Congress.
The dinner was named for
Alberta Lucille Hart, an ac
complished physician and au
thor who lived in Oregon from
1890 to 1962. Bom female,
Hart lived an adult life as
male—dressing as a man,
claiming a male pronoun, and
marrying a woman. Some be
lieve that Hart was actually a
lesbian who lived outwardly
as a man as a way to better deal with society’s
homophobia.
Brown and others, however, maintain that Hart
was actually transsexual—someone whose essence
was male, both internally and externally.
“This is a part of our transsexual history that
has been stolen from us,” says Brown. ‘T o put
Alan Hart out as a lesbian dressed as a man is
inaccurate. We want the name of the dinner changed
to the Alan Hart Dinner because that’s who this
person really was.”
Says Maxfield: “How do you or I know the
truth about whether Lucy was a lesbian or a
preoperative transsexual? I’m not yet convinced
that was the case.”
And then there is the whole issue of tradition
and name recognition. “People know this event as
the Lucille Hart Dinner. For that reason alone there
is some reluctance to change it,” she says.
Maxfield encourages those who want to see a
name change to present the Right to Privacy board
with written information that they believe bolsters
their case. “Right to Privacy wants to be more
inclusive. We will be discussing all of this during
our board retreat [in January],” she says. "I would
also be surprised if anyone on this board wasn’t
fully supportive of backing legislation that pro
tects transsexuals and transgendered people from
discrimination. We are in total agreement with that
goal.”