Local Transgender Community Strives For Understanding And Acceptance

Aug. 26, 2016

Even within the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community, one subgroup is arguably the least understood and most marginalized: transgender folks.

There have been clear steps forward for many members of the non-straight world in many ways – same sex marriage, health benefits, and other protections. But understanding, accepting – let alone embracing – trans-specific issues seems to lag behind.

TRANS: PLAYING CATCH UP

"When it comes to the trans community, we still have a ways to go" said Ruth Spalding, therapist at Live Well Counseling, and a member of Polestar LGBT Center of Traverse City, which serves Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Benzie, Kalkaska, and Antrim counties.

As it often does, the younger demographic seems to show more empathy. A recent GenForward survey of Americans ages 18–30 found strong support for LGBT rights in the areas of employment, health care and adoption. And locally, there are some encouraging signs – among them, a visit to the National Writers Series by David Ebershoff, author of the bestselling book about a pioneer in the trans movement, "Danish Girl"; the re-establishment of the Traverse City Human Rights Commission; and passage – first by the city commission, then by a vote of city residents – of a measure to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

In another step forward, Polestar recently held public meetings at Grand Traverse Commons and, along with Traverse City’s (openly gay) mayor Jim Carruthers and other officials and activists, discussed the idea of forming a gathering place for the local LGBT community. Since then, Polestar has begun pursuing tax exempt status. Achieving such status is the first step toward raising private funding to build a community center – something that might benefit all parts of the region’s LGBT community but especially its transgender subset, the members of which are often forced to live in the shadows.

THAT SEEMS LIKE PROGRESS.

But it’s worth noting that the meeting to discuss a community center also was protected by local police because it took place just days after the massacre of 49 people at a LGBT-friendly club in Orlando. Clearly, hate still thrives in some quarters – northern Michigan among them.

"The resources in northern Michigan are terrible," said Polestar activist John Young. "We even have reports of doctors who have refused give medical treatment [to transgender individuals]."

Many feel that breaking down that level of fear begins simply by helping people to understand the trans perspective.

EMILY FRANK: WHY FEAR US?

"Transgender just means anyone who doesn’t identify with the sex description given at birth," said Emily Frank, a local barista who is beginning to transition to what she has always seen as her true nature: a woman. Her path, like that of transgender people elsewhere, challenges some people’s conception of a tidy "binary" male/female world. "That’s because we’re straying away from gender as defined in the past," she said.

The thing to remember, Emily said, is this: "Sex is what you have on the outside. Gender identity is what you have on the inside."

Long-held prejudices, she said, are mostly spawned from religion and centuries of bigotry. "It’s like thinking, because someone’s more effeminate, they’re gay," she said. "I can’t follow it. I guess people just fear what they don’t understand."

And then there are politicians who engender fear, who, she said "just align themselves with ways to get elected."

Yet she seems at peace as she gradually begins to live out her own gender identity as a female.

"I work in a liberal place, and I see [rainbow] flags up in Traverse City, even past LGBT month," she said. "That’s been good emotionally for a lot of queer people."

But she also is careful. "I always remember that this is a tourist area. I tend to dress more in a masculine way during those times, just to blend in and escape bigotry. I’ve had scowls on the street, which sounds like a small thing. But it gets to trans people. It can even be a tipping point for them, especially if they are transitioning."

"But when I go into Sparky’s Diner dressed femininely, I’m just Emily."

SEREN AURORA: IT WAS NEVER A "CHOICE"

Seren Aurora, a name she has chosen to reflect the public emergence of her gender identity as a woman, said to keep that momentum going, it helps to discuss some misconceptions – starting with the notion that trans folks "choose" that life just be different or cool.

"I’ve never experienced that, not with myself or anyone else," she said. "There’s so much stigma attached and so much transphobia in our culture."

"Being transgendered, for me, never seemed like a choice," Seren said. "It always felt like part of me. I just finally reached a point in my life when I couldn’t suppress it any longer."

Coming out, she said, was made easier by her background. "I was raised a Unitarian Universalist, and they’re very supportive."

She is in the process of transitioning from the societally-assigned role of male to what she knows as her true self – that of a female. When that process is complete, though, her attraction, as some might expect, will not be for men but, instead for women.

She laughs at the irony. "I guess, technically speaking," she said, "that would make me a lesbian at that point."

Still other trans folks defy traditional straight/gay pigeon-holing: They move from one to the other. And there is a subset of the trans world (and straight society, for that matter) that is asexual, experiencing little or no sexual attraction.

Based on personal experience, where would Seren place the Grand Traverse region on a spectrum that starts with "bigoted" then moves toward "just tolerating," then "fully accepting" before reaching the other side, "allies," those who take steps to proactively help trans people?

"At least in town, I feel we land somewhere between the "Just Tolerating" and "Fully Accepting," she said. "Some community spaces are welcoming. But I haven’t found many businesses that are supportive in terms of going out of their way to hire any LGBT people. On the other hand, I have experienced businesses that treat trans customers with respect."

RACHEL SNYDER: I KNEW EARLY

ON While Emily Frank and Seren Aurora are at the beginning of transition, Rachel Snyder, a 63-year-old local activist, has undergone hormone replacement and surgery.

She tried to live as a male for nearly six decades. She didn’t transition until age 58.

During those earlier years, she married and has a now-grown daughter. The marriage lasted 14 years, but ultimately it was impossible. Like Emily Frank and Seren Aurora, she emphasized that being transgender is a matter of how you are born – it is not a choice.

"I knew very early on – maybe at four or five years old," she said. "Everything I did growing up, I identified as a girl."

Still, the long struggle of trying to live as a male led her to several suicide attempts.

"The one choice I did make was whether to live or not. And I chose to live," she said. It took decades, she said, but she finally learned she wasn’t alone. "It got to the point that I knew it was real, I’m not a freak, that this is who I am. I can be that woman."

She uses gentle humor to promote understanding of transgender issues with the straight community – and, for that matter, the rest of the non-straight world.

"I’ve been called all the names," she said. "When I first came out, I was scared to death. But as I got more comfortable, I found it helps to joke a bit and not take myself too seriously. And that has helped other people see me as a person. During hormone therapy I’d joke about a second puberty. A little levity makes people more comfortable."

With the exception of some of the rhetoric she’s heard during the current presidential campaign, Rachel is generally upbeat about the future.

"The wonderful thing is that things are getting better," she said. "There’s so much information. Parents are starting to take a look at things differently. And science proves [that being transgender] is not a phase or a fetish, that it’s real."

THE NEW TERMINOLOGY

- Gender Identity: self-knowledge that one’s true nature does or does not match the sex assigned by a doctor at birth

- Gender Expression – the manner in which you present yourself socially

- Sexual Orientation – attraction

- Queer – formerly a slur, but repurposed as a collective term by many (though not all) in the LGBT community and media

- Trans – transgender