Florida Agenda

MIAMI, FL – A transgender woman, Donna Milo, is now campaigning for the District 2 seat on the City Commission in the city of Miami.

The seat is currently held by Marc Sarnoff, who is seeking reelection. Milo ran for Congress last year.

By TONY PLAKAS

Lake Worth City Manager Susan Stanton is losing another important popularity contest. Terminated from her city manager job in Largo for disclosing that she is transgender and for announcing her intent to undergo gender reassignment in 2007, Stanton failed to organize enough professional support to keep the position as a woman, despite successfully filling the role for 16 years as a man. Her story became national, influencing many governmental agencies across Florida to enact laws prohibiting such discrimination in the hopes that her experience would never be repeated.

Lake Worth City Manager Susan Stanton

In 2009, Stanton semi-nestled into the overwhelmingly challenging but extra-ordinarily accepting community that is Lake Worth, a city that gambled all hopes on her leadership as a great new city manager, regardless of her sexual orientation or gender identity. We all yearned for someone who could bring together divided factions and diminish the frivolity that obscures the economic prosperity and negotiated quality of life we collectively desire in our paradise by the sea.

But where Stanton has not semi-nestled, she has thoroughly vexed. And the most unlikely of allies are making the most frantic of coordinated claims because, in the end, she is simply not well-liked. It’s her style. She marginalizes herself with her own brashness, a trait she continues to defend even though it continues to offend — and her stubbornness is not gaining her any ground. Now, some are questioning her commitment to the diverse community she was hired to serve, while others are concerned the city is headed for the same sound-bite-turned-swan-song sung across the state when she was forced from her previous position.

Stanton’s annual performance review is next week, and it appears everyone is desperate to make sure their grievances are recorded for the public record, and for the public file that will soon contain her evaluation. So the city that last week celebrated pride is in a siege aimed at ousting Stanton, who seems so cemented in her approach she refuses to entertain suggestions that she be more conciliatory and thoughtful in her communications within and outside the city.

Because Stanton has chosen not to moderate her tone to usher people through a time of dramatic change, many residents are looking to embrace any claim that sticks to see her go. Many others are looking for the soundest of arguments to prevent a repeat performance of her gender transition taking  center stage. But as is typical, loud, activated crowds have a tendency to not hear one another speak, and unlikely allies have the most difficult time aligning their strategies and crusades with one another, even when they have common goals.

However, through all the noise, one request is emerging: Evaluate Stanton’s performance based on merit. Enough people believe enough evidence of discontent exists to warrant her dismissal, and residents are turning to the commission as the court of last resort. They are done waiting for Stanton to play nice, and they are more than willing to make sure everyone sees how often she plays nasty, even if her leadership style is what makes her so unpopular. – First published in the Sun-Sentinel.

Over 80 Professionals Attend First-Ever Education Event at the Center

Last month, the Pride Center hosted Broward County’s first Transgender Medical Conference. Over 80 medical and clinical professionals participated actively in the day’s activities.

“For those in our community that identify as transgender, there are significant challenges accessing culturally competent medical and clinical services,” says Linda Jain, Program Operations Manager at the Center. “This conference represented one step towards addressing those challenges.”

The Symposium aimed to educate the medical and clinical communities about the unique care required for this medically underserved community. “Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey” states that 50% of the respondents reported having to teach their medical providers about transgender care and 28% postponed care when sick or injured due to discrimination.

The Pride Center collaborated with the Broward County Health Department, SunServe and the Florida Caribbean AIDS Education and Training Center to plan and execute the successful event.

Speakers included: Marilyn Volker, Ph.D., a Board Certified Sexologist; JoAnne Keatley, MSW, Director for Transgender Health at the University of California; James Lopresti, PH.D., L.M.H.C, founding Director for Mental Health Services for SunServe; and M. Layne Yassesn, PA, specializing in Psychiatry, Neurology and Transgender Medicine.

“The positive feedback we’ve received since hosting the Symposium has been overwhelming,” says Jain. “The collaborative energies of so many groups will enable us to expand this event in the future.”

UTAH – Transgender and gender nonconforming people experience intolerance and discrimination in nearly every aspect of their lives, according to a new survey of more than 6,000 people. The survey was conducted by the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality.

“Their lives are just a crapshoot. They don’t know from one interaction to the next whether they will be treated with respect and dignity. It’s not the way people should be living their day-to-day life,” said a Task Force spokesperson.

Photo: Late Night with Craig Ferguson Courtesy, CBS

NEW YORK – Just days after the NBC transgender incident, CBS’s “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” introduced a transgender character as Ferguson’s “half-sister”. Both the NBC and CBS incidents happened within days of a report by

the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality about the widespread prevalence of anti transgender discrimination.

EXCLUSIVE (Courtesy of dot429.com)

OAKLAND, Calif. – On Jan. 4, moments before making history at a special en banc session of the Superior Court of California by taking an oath of office to be the first openly transgender trial judge in the country, Victoria Kolakowski (who underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1991) spoke exclusively with dot429 in her dressing room at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Kolakowski expressed her excitement and humility.

“It’s been very hard as a transgender person. We’re a community that’s chronically under-and unemployed and I’ve encountered that sort of discrimination in the past, but we’re making so much more progress now.

In terms of my career, I think part of it is hard work and perseverance, and part of it is good luck.”

Kolakowski’s parents and wife Cynthia Laird were her primary guests of honor at the ceremony. California State Sen. Ellen Corbett introduced Victoria as “a friend, a colleague, a trailblazer,” saying, “as we celebrate this new decade we mark our own start and our own first … We all know the tremendous hurdles that [Victoria] and the transgender community have overcome.”

Equality California’s Geoff Kors’ remarks compared Kolakowski’s running and winning to Harvey Milk’s victory when he ran for the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. “It’s that shattering of the glass ceiling … I think about Harvey Milk and the things he really stood for – those are qualities that are so evident in Vicky.”

The historic ceremony was not without extreme recognition as Kolakowski received three standing ovations.

While Kolakowski’s primary purpose is to serve the County of Alameda as a trial judge, she made a point to acknowledge the history she is creating and even expressed that the moment served as her version of “It Get’s Better.” Underneath her newly acquired judge’s robe, Kolakowski wore a butterfly pin that was given to her by Sylvia Guerrero, mother of transgender teen Gwen Araujo, who was murdered in Alameda County eight years ago.

On Nov. 2, Kolakowski beat out prosecutor John Creighton 51 to 48, making her the first openly transgender trial judge in the United States. “I ran a campaign based on my qualifications and experience. The people elected me. It’s an extraordinary moment for the transgender and LGBT community.”

MONA SHORES, MI: A Mona Shores, Michigan transgender teenager is crying foul after administrators in the West Michigan school invalidated the vote of his peers in a race for Homecoming King.

Oakleigh Reed said he wanted to run for the position because he was as qualified as any other person running. School officials defend their decision saying that the ballots gave two choices: vote for a boy for king and a girl for queen. A school official claimed the district did not violate any nondiscrimination rules by refusing to crown Reed as King. But Reed says the school has acknowledged his transition to male by addressing him with male pronouns, allowing him to wear the male uniform for band and the male graduation gown.

The U.S. Department of State is pleased to use the occasion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month to announce its new policy guidelines regarding gender change in passports and Consular Reports of Birth Abroad.

Beginning June 10, when a passport applicant presents a certification from an attending medical physician that the applicant has undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition, the passport will reflect the new gender.

The guidelines include detailed information about what information the certification must include. It is also possible to obtain a limited-validity passport if the physician’s statement shows the applicant is in

the process of gender transition. No additional medical records are required. Sexual reassignment surgery is no longer a prerequisite for passport issuance. A Consular Report of Birth Abroad can also be amended with the new gender.

As with all passport applicants, passport issuing officers at embassies and consulates abroad and domestic passport agencies and centers will only ask appropriate questions to obtain information necessary to determine citizenship and identity.

The new policy and procedures are based on standards and recommendations of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), recognized by the American Medical Association as the authority in this field.