EMILY METCALF: So my name
is Emily Metcalf.
I'm a member of the Google
privacy team, as well as a
member of the Gayglers,
Google's gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgender
employee resource group.
And it is my honor today to
invite three speakers from the
Transgender Law Center who are
here today, Masen Davis, Ilona
Turner, and Nathan Harris.
They're all going to be talking
about the state of the
transgender movement.
And without any further ado, I
will turn it over to Masen.
Thanks so much for coming.
MASEN DAVIS: Thank you
so much, Emily.
I really appreciate it.
[APPLAUSE]
MASEN DAVIS: And we are thrilled
to be here today.
I have been traveling around
the country a lot recently
talking with community members,
activists, and
policymakers.
And I have been struck by how
excited people are at this
moment of history, especially
as we wait for a pretty
important Supreme Court
decision or two
in the next 10 days.
As early as tomorrow morning, we
could hear what happens to
the freedom to marry for gay and
lesbian and bisexual and
transgender people.
We should know what the fate is
for the Defense of Marriage
Act and for Proposition 8 in
California definitely within
the next 10 days.
It's been really exciting to see
that we're at this point
in history now where
we hopefully
will have this freedom.
And as I travel around the
country, I'm struck by the
number of people who feel that
it is just a matter of time
until people can marry who they
love, which is awesome.
But I'm also getting this
question, are we done?
And that's one question I
want to pose to you all
today, are we done?
Because I'm also hearing from
activists and community
members in organizations that
are saying, once we have
achieved the freedom
to marry, we are
done as an LGBT movement.
We have achieved equality.
Now I'll tell you, that's hard
for me to reconcile sometimes.
At Transgender Law Center, we
hear from over 2,500 people a
year at this point who are
contacting us because they are
experiencing some level of
discrimination and bias and
violence in school, at the
doctor's office, at work, and
on the street.
We know that transgender people
are twice as likely to
be unemployed and living
underneath the poverty level.
That's four times as high
when it comes to
transgender people of color.
We know that transgender people
are much more likely to
be homeless and experience
family rejection.
In fact, one out of five of us
have had to go and live on the
streets at some point
in our lives.
And we know that health care
continues to be a real
challenge for us.
Many of us can't get a doctor
when we need it the most and
have been turned away from
health care facilities.
So when I hear this question,
are we done yet, I'm really
clear that we are not.
But that we are at a time when
we have to redefine what
equality means, what freedom
means, what justice means, and
to determine whether we're into
just us as people, or if
we're going to continue
to fight for
justice for all of us.
So I'm thrilled to be joined by
our legal director, Ilona
Turner, from Transgender
Law Center.
Ilona leads our very small but
robust legal team, helping
people fight for their rights in
California, nationwide, and
even occasionally
internationally, as we figure
out how to make sure that all of
us have the basic freedoms
and supports that we need
to survive and thrive.
So we're going to be talking to
you today about some of the
critical issues facing
transgender communities across
the country, especially issues
impacting our youth, issues at
work, and issues accessing
health care.
I'm Masen Davis.
I'm the executive director of
Transgender Law Center and
thrilled to be joining
Ilona today.
And before I turn it over to
her, I want to make sure, too,
that we understand what
we're talking about.
Because I assume some of you are
experts and should be up
here, and other people may be
newer to transgender issues.
The term "transgender"
is used in a lot
of different contexts.
It means a lot of different
things to different people.
So I want to let you know kind
of what we mean when we use
the term "transgender."
And at Transgender Law Center,
we define "transgender," or a
transgender person, as anybody
whose gender identity, the way
they feel about themselves,
their deep-seated sense of
their own gender, or their
gender expression, the way
they look to the world, doesn't
fit the stereotypes
associated with their
sex at birth.
All of us have a gender marker
put on our birth certificates
when we're first born.
Many of us don't have to think
about it after that's done.
But the truth is, the
expectations about who we will
be as adults are largely based
on that first question, is it
a boy or a girl?
We put so much expectation
about a person
based on that answer.
And for transgender people and
the people who are contacting
us, that gender marker on
their birth certificate
doesn't really reflect who they
are, how they are, or
what they want to be
in their lives.
So we do a lot of work with
people who experience any kind
of challenge because they don't
fit the narrow gender
stereotypes that we typically
associate with men and women
in this world.
And with that, I want to turn
it over to Ilona, because I
know together we're really
hoping by the end of today,
we'll be able to highlight some
of the critical issues
facing transgender people and
also some real opportunities
right now to kind of change
the game when it comes to
transgender equality in
the United States.
Ilona.
ILONA TURNER: Thanks, Masen.
I'm going to talk about some
of the issues that we hear
about a lot relating to
transgender youth, especially
in schools.
As Masen mentioned, there are
just unacceptably high rates
of family rejection, kids being
pushed out of their
homes when they are transgender
or gender
non-conforming, LGBT
generally.
But the numbers in every case
tend to be worse for
transgender youth.
So homelessness as a result.
In schools, kids facing
harassment, violence, and then
when kids are dropping out,
and that often leads to
dropping out of school.
And so that leads to the other
problems that Masen was
highlighting of unemployment,
underemployment, poverty,
homelessness as an adult,
involvement with the criminal
justice system, you name it.
And these problems all
build on each other.
So to really address that sort
of systematic problem, the
most effective way to do so is
really to start changing
things with these kids at an
early age, make sure that
they're actually getting the
support that they need and
deserve so that we can hopefully
end those cycles.
And we actually have been seeing
some really heartening
changes in recent years.
I think partly as a result of
increased visibility of
transgender people and
transgender youth, we're
seeing more and more kids coming
out as transgender and
asserting their identity and
their right to be who they are
at earlier ages.
And I think as a result of the
increased visibility, we're
seeing more and more parents
who, instead of, as they might
have done in previous eras,
saying, no way or that's crazy
or let's get you counseling,
they're saying,
OK, this is a thing.
I've heard of this.
What can I do to help you?
I might not understand it, but
you're my kid, and I love you.
So those are some of the most
touching calls that we get.
It's just really amazing
sometimes to hear from these
parents and the journeys that
they've gone through, people
from all different kinds
of backgrounds and
conservative, whatever.
But when it comes to their kid,
they're not going to let
anybody mess with them.
So we worked with one family
recently, I'm just thinking of
a family, a mother, a single
mother, actually, in rural
Missouri whose child
is transgender.
The mother had never heard
of this before.
But the kid was working with
a counselor who helped
explain it to her.
And she was like, OK, well.
I mean, if you say so.
I love my kid.
The child was assigned female
at birth but identifies as a
boy, goes by the name Trace.
And Trace went to school
earlier this year.
He's nine years old.
And in his fourth grade
classroom, just before
Thanksgiving this year,
told his classmates
that he is a boy.
And the school's response was to
immediately suspend him for
three weeks and, when he got
back to school, to put him
essentially on lock down in a
special education classroom.
He was previously just in a
totally mainstream classroom.
And they wouldn't let him out
even for lunch or recess.
He was the only kid in the whole
elementary school who
was seen as this kind of danger
for whatever reason.
And this mom, again, she's
not an activist.
She probably doesn't
know any other gay
people, queer people.
But she knew that she had to
fight for her kid, that this
was unacceptable.
Because he was getting
incredibly depressed.
He told her that he
wanted to die.
It was just really, really
traumatizing for him and for
their whole family.
And so she got in touch with us
at Transgender Law Center.
And we were able to successfully
advocate with the
school, wrote them a
very nasty letter.
And they agreed to lift those
restrictions on him.
And he was so much happier.
And they were so grateful, just
to be able to reach out
and find that there's somebody
in the country somewhere who
understands what they're going
through and is able
to fight for them.
So that was really one of the
most meaningful things that
I've been able to work on.
MASEN DAVIS: We got this
wonderful letter, too, and
apparently Trace now wants to
move to the Bay Area when he's
older and become a lawyer.
So that's a good sign.
ILONA TURNER: Yeah, they sent us
a little photo of him, his
class photo, and he's
wearing camo.
And then I was talking to him
afterwards, and he said, did
you get the photo?
And I said, yeah.
And he said, don't
I look handsome?
So that was great.
But unfortunately, these calls
keep on coming in.
And a lot of the issues that we
see are around transgender
students who are struggling at
school because the school is
refusing to allow them to live
as who they are, saying that
they can't dress in a way that
matches their gender identity,
saying that they can't--
even if they are living
full-time in accordance with
their gender identity, and their
parents are on board,
and their doctor--
this is who they are, and
everybody's on board, the
school may still say nope.
You can't.
We're not going to call you by
the name that matches that.
We're not going to call
you by the pronouns.
We're not going to update
your records.
And we're not going to let you
use the right facilities that
match that gender.
And we're seeing, unfortunately,
a lot of really
serious consequences of this,
parents who are calling us
about their children getting
bladder infections because
they won't use the
restroom all day.
We got a call recently from
a parent of a high school
student in Ohio who actually
just dropped out of high
school because she got a number
of suspensions for
using the girl's restroom after
the school said, you're
not allowed.
But she would go in with
all her friends.
And again, it just really--
if you have a student who's
living every day in accordance
with their gender identity, and
you're telling them, you
can't use the restroom, or you
can't be in the gym class that
matches who you are, that just
isolates that student in such
a serious way.
It really subjects them to
stigma and invites harassment,
essentially.
Because you're outing
them as different.
The school is basically putting
a neon sign above
their head that says,
I'm different.
Ask me why.
And so we're seeing kids
dropping out of school.
We're seeing kids being
pushed out of school.
And so, in part as a result of
all these calls that we were
getting, we're actually working
on a bill this year
here in California.
We're sponsoring a bill called
AB 1266 that would actually
put it into the state law that
says that schools have to
respect the gender identity of
transgender students and allow
them to participate in school
activities and use school
facilities based on
who they are.
So that's moving its way through
the legislature.
MASEN DAVIS: And it's
a big deal.
This is the first time this kind
of bill has been tried
anywhere in the United States.
It is a new concept
to some people.
And yet we are having
transgender youth coming out
at younger ages who are just a
seamless part of the school
environment, who want to just
be themselves and want to be
able to make sure they have
the credits they need to
graduate and be able to
get out of school
and live their lives.
It's incredibly important to us,
too, because we know from
some data that's been collected
that 50% of
transgender youth
have attempted
suicide by the age 20.
The amount of harassment that
our youth are facing in
schools and the impact
of that harassment is
life-threatening.
So we have every need at this
point to make sure that we're
able to fix these issues, and so
our trans kids are able to
be in schools without harassment
and able to
graduate like everyone else.
ILONA TURNER: Yeah.
One last anecdote about
harassment, just if I may.
We have another client, a trans
boy high school student
from Southern California who
was one of these people who
was just fully integrated,
living as a boy in school.
Nobody knew that he was
transgender until one of his
classmates happened to be in the
office for something else,
the school office, and got a
glimpse of his record that had
an F on it, Female.
She took a picture of that with
her cell phone, blasted
it out to the whole school.
And so all of a sudden,
everybody knows, and he starts
getting harassed persistently
at school.
As a result of that, he gets
in a fight with one of the
harassers, fistfight at school,
and he gets expelled.
So we're pursuing a complaint
with the State Department of
Education on his behalf.
But that just demonstrates how
serious this problem is.
Harassment, it's not just
about bullying.
It's not just, oh, you
should toughen up.
I mean, this is really leading
to a serious problem of our
kids not graduating and all of
the lifelong problems that
that can cause.
I know that you guys-- we've
heard that you guys, some of
you have been thinking about
youth issues, is that right,
in the Gayglers?
This is an issue that
you all have been
focusing on this year.
We'd love to hear some thoughts
from you guys, if you
have any, about this issue of
trans youth in particular,
strategies that you think might
be helpful, questions
about problems that trans youth,
in particular, face.
AUDIENCE: You mentioned that
there's a family that came to
you from, I think it was
Missouri or one of the other
states, and then Ohio.
I'm assuming they do so through
finding your website.
And then you mentioned the
other story of harassment
intensifying after a picture
being taken by a cellphone.
And I think maybe it would be
helpful if you talked about
how the internet is enabling or
strengthening the movement.
And then we could think about
some of the tools that we're
developing and how that
can maybe support and
intensify the work.
ILONA TURNER: Sure.
MASEN DAVIS: Yeah, that's
a great question.
So the internet has been
absolutely pitiful--
pitiful.
[LAUGHTER]
MASEN DAVIS: It's so pitiful.
It has been so pivotal in the
development of the transgender
community and the transgender
movement because for years,
transgender people have been
part of America in small towns
and all over the country,
all over the world.
And many of us have lived
in isolation.
We were scared of sharing
our own secret.
We didn't know anybody
like ourselves.
A lot of us didn't meet
anybody until
perhaps later in life.
And the internet has really
changed that.
There are so many resources out
there now for somebody who
is exploring their identity,
thinks, wait, maybe this is me
when they see a TV
show and wants to
reach out for support.
It's enough of a support area
that it's hard for us, to be
honest, sometimes in our legal
cases, because people are used
to creating a community and
being very open about what
they're going through.
And if we're litigating a case
of discrimination, the
Transgender Law Center finds
that our clients have used the
internet for so much of a
support structure that it is
hard for them to hold back
in what they post on
social media sites.
And for us, it's a concern
because it might be
confidential or relate
to their case.
But this is where so many trans
people are getting support.
It's incredibly critical.
And that's especially true for
our youth, who may be 10 years
old in the bootheel
of Missouri.
And 20 years ago, they
wouldn't know a
soul for many decades.
Now they can go online--
their parents can go online--
find out information, find
connections to support groups,
realize they're not alone, and
feel empowered to come out
much more quickly and readily
than they would and to be
themselves at a much younger
age than we saw
even 10 years ago.
Even five years ago, at
Transgender Law Center, we
were not getting the kind of
calls that we get today from
parents before each school year
or before summer camp.
And a lot of that is because
the internet is
the place of support.
Now that said, it can also be
the place of harassment.
And so to the extent that it
can help, it can also hurt.
As youth may have social media
sites that reflected their
original gender, and as they
change, they find it hard to
get away from that as they go
through their school years.
We get a lot of calls as well
from people asking about their
privacy because somebody
may have a website.
They may have had posts.
They may have had a documentary
they were a part of.
And now with the internet,
there's very
little privacy, actually.
It's very hard for somebody to
get away from their previous
identities.
ILONA TURNER: You may
have heard of this.
MASEN DAVIS: Pardon?
ILONA TURNER: You may have
heard of this concept.
MASEN DAVIS: And as you know,
more and more information is
being added to the internet
all the time.
And so we get calls from
people pretty regularly
saying, oh my gosh.
I realized that there's this
story I wrote when I was 10 on
this website, or this YouTube
video or this comment
somebody's made about me.
How do I take this down?
And so this is really a great
thing and a challenging thing
when it comes to the privacy
and awareness
of transgender people.
Does that help?
AUDIENCE: That was
great, thank you.
MASEN DAVIS: And it was great
to connect with you all.
Like when somebody really has
something, they're like, oh my
gosh, how do I get this down,
or if somebody's being
harassed online, which happens
a lot on the social media
sites, how to address that.
And I feel like that's an area
for us we really have to
grapple with, to figure out
what to do when somebody's
identity's being used
against them online.
ILONA TURNER: Right.
We got a call recently from
a parent in Sacramento,
somewhere in the Central Valley
outside of Sacramento.
And it was a mom of a
fifth-grade transgender girl.
And it was like, oh no, what's
this one going to be?
Oh god, what's the school
doing this time?
And she said, oh no, I just
wanted to find out how to get
a replacement Facebook
password.
Because the kid had an old
Facebook account with the old
gender and wanted
to substitute.
And we were like, OK.
But like, what's going
on at school?
What's the trouble?
And she was like, oh no, they're
super accepting.
The school worked with us and
asked the kid when the kid was
transitioning how she wanted
to make this work.
And she said, I want to have
an assembly, and I want to
write a letter and have the
principal read it, and I'll be
standing there.
And they did this.
And after the principal read the
letter, the whole school,
students and teachers, all came
up and hugged the student
all together.
I know.
So we get nice calls also.
MASEN DAVIS: So one of the
reasons that youth and
education issues are important
to us is that we see the
really negative impacts if
somebody's not able to get a
decent education.
Even if people are able to do
well in school, we find that
transgender people face real
barriers to employment.
In fact, in California, we did
some research a few years ago.
And we found that transgender
people were twice as likely to
have a bachelor's degree
compared to other people in
the state of California.
Which is awesome, right?
There's a real asset and
resilience in this community.
And yet, as I mentioned
earlier, we also found
unemployment and poverty
rates that were
twice the general average.
And salaries between transgender
people who have a
bachelor's degree and
non-transgender people with a
bachelor's degree in the state,
there was about a
$30,000 pay differential.
So we find almost universal
rates of employment
discrimination and harassment
when it comes
to transgender people.
Thankfully, we're not harassed
every day walking down the
street and at work, or that
would just be absolutely
exhausting.
Most of us find ways
to deal with that.
But nationally, 90% have said
they've experienced
discrimination at work.
California, those rates are a
little bit better, given that
we've got some good
nondiscrimination laws.
But still, 70% of Californians
who are transgender say they
have problems at work.
So given that very few of us are
independently wealthy, we
still need to be able
to take care of
ourselves and our families.
So work is really critical.
And we want to figure out how do
we transition the workplace
so that it can be more accepting
of people who are
different, whether that
is making sure that
sex-segregated jobs are
accessible to transgender
people or looking at what are
traditional modes of female
and male employment and making
that more open to everybody,
not just transgender people.
So there's a lot of work
to be done there.
Now it's rare to get really
blatant discrimination.
Oftentimes, the discrimination
and harassment people face is
much more subtle.
Because I think we are more
sophisticated these days.
And to be honest, most people
want to do the right thing.
They just don't know
what that is.
But there are times when
we get very blatant
discrimination that we have to
act on, and where you can't
just fix it by education
alone.
You want to talk a little bit
about one big case that we had
last year that made
a big precedent?
And then we can talk about
its implications.
ILONA TURNER: Sure, sure.
So over the last couple years,
we were representing a
transgender woman named Mia Macy
who was applying for a
job with the federal
government.
She had been working as a police
detective in Arizona
for 13 years.
She was highly trained in
ballistics tracking.
And she applied for a civilian
job with a lab of the Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms
Bureau, ATF.
And when she was applying
for this job, she was
still living as male.
She was assigned male at birth,
but coming to realize
that she was, in fact, a woman
and starting to make that
transition.
And so she applied for the job,
and they told her, oh
yes, you're a shoo-in.
You've already been trained
on our equipment.
You're by far the most qualified
person we could
imagine for this job.
So she's going through the--
they said, we just have to go
through this paperwork and
background check, but
it's a formality.
The job is yours.
So she packed up her family,
moved from Arizona to Walnut
Creek, where the job was.
And shortly before the job was
supposed to start, just a
couple weeks, she called up the
lab and said, by the way,
I need to tell you I've just
been getting my documents
updated, driver's license and
so forth, because I'm
transgender, and so I'll
be coming to work
as a woman, as Mia.
And they said, oh, OK, and got
back to her just a few days
later and said, oh, so sorry.
Funding for this position
has been cut.
There's no more job.
Although she later found out
that, actually, somebody else
had been hired with far
less experience.
So we filed a complaint
on her behalf.
And that went all the way
up to the Federal Equal
Employment Opportunity
Commission,
the EEOC, last year.
And we got an amazing,
groundbreaking decision from
the EEOC saying that transgender
people are
protected from discrimination
under federal law, under the
existing sex discrimination
law, Title VII.
So there's currently no
federal law that--
like we have in California a law
that says that employers
can't discriminate based on
gender identity or gender
expression.
It uses those words right
there in the law.
But on the federal level, we
don't have that yet, although
there's a bill that's been
proposed, the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act, ENDA,
to try to do that for both
sexual orientation and
gender identity.
But the really exciting thing
about this case was that this
agency that exists to interpret
the federal
employment discrimination laws
said, no, transgender people
are protected now, already,
under the existing sex
discrimination laws.
To discriminate against someone
because they're
transgender is a form of sex
discrimination, flat out.
MASEN DAVIS: And if I can
piggyback on that,
that's a big deal.
It means now that transgender
people and gender
non-conforming people throughout
the United States
have legal recourse if they
experience discrimination, as
long as they work for
a company that
has 15 or more employees.
So in the majority of states
that don't have LGBT workplace
protections, folks can go to
their local EEOC office, file
a complaint, and have
it investigated.
It's a really important
opportunity for us, a moment
for us to educate employers,
too, that they're on the hook.
And that even if you're in the
deep South or in Missouri,
where I am from, now you have
a legal obligation to make
sure that transgender people
are able to be
treated fairly at work.
The other thing that's neat
about this is that this
interpretation, now, is also
being used in other parts of
the federal government.
So while it was intended to
determine what sex means
around employment protections
for Title VII, it's also being
used by groups like the Social
Security Administration as
they are looking at their
nondiscrimination ordinance
and interpreting sex to include
transgender people.
It's being used by Health and
Human Services as they look at
the nondiscrimination provisions
for the Affordable
Care Act, where they're
interpreting sex to include
transgender people.
It's also true for schools
in the federal context.
So we now went from, because
of this decision, very few
federal protections to actually
having a lot more
legal recourse for transgender
people when it comes to
discrimination impacting
the federal government.
That's a real game-changer
for us.
ILONA TURNER: Yeah,
absolutely.
Thinking about what you said,
that a lot of people--
so there's a lot of subtle
discrimination against
transgender people, right?
But there also is a shockingly
high amount still of calls
that we're getting where
employers really just don't
seem to realize that they have
any legal obligations and are
still, especially in certain
parts of the country, saying
things like, if an employee
comes out as transgender,
saying, oh, I just don't think
that the other employees would
be comfortable having
you here.
Or we have a client in South
Carolina who was fired after
she came out as transgender.
She hadn't started transitioning
yet, but her
supervisor let her go just a
couple weeks after she came
out and said, I'm sorry.
We're a religious company,
and I just think what
you're doing is wrong.
And then she was actually denied
unemployment when she
went to claim that after she
was fired because they put
that she was fired for cause,
and the cause was "intent to
violate the company
dress code."
So yeah, they're really
willing to be pretty
blatant about it.
And that makes our job
easier for sure.
Because that just--
yeah, we just say,
look at that.
That's definitely
discrimination.
Sometimes it's more
subtle, though.
We get a lot of calls about
harassment that transgender
people are facing on the job.
And sometimes it's subtle, and
sometimes it's more blatant.
A lot of it has to
do with pronouns.
Sometimes employers or
co-workers have a hard time
remembering what
pronoun to use.
And that's normal within
a certain range.
Like people might
make a mistake.
But if it happens over and over
again, especially after
the person is corrected
or instructed by their
supervisor, hey, that's not
cool, that's actually really
offensive and hurtful to that
person, then it crosses the
line into kind of legally
actionable harassment.
We just recently settled a case
on behalf of a police
officer here in the Bay Area
who went through this.
He transitioned to male
a few years back.
And his fellow police officers
just could not accept this.
And a group of them would just
repeatedly call him by female
pronouns, ask him to come out
and pat down female suspects,
even though he's a guy.
And they would also out
him to new staff.
So even people who had never
worked with him when he was
presenting as female would start
calling him by female
pronouns and doing the
same harassment.
So really problematic, and we
got a nice settlement for him
from the department.
MASEN DAVIS: Yeah, and making
mistakes occasionally is fine.
We all understand that.
But what Ilona was talking about
is oftentimes people
will say, I just have a block.
I can't accept who you are.
I just can't get this.
And that's when you really
have a problem.
But there's a lot of
unintentional stuff that does
happen in the office.
So I'm a transgender
man myself.
I was born female.
I went through a lot of steps
and work and years
to be who I am today.
And my last job before I was at
the Transgender Law Center
was a much larger
organization.
And I would come out to my
friends as transgender.
I've done activism in
the transgender
community for 15 years.
So it's not something I hide.
But it also wasn't my work.
So it wasn't the first
thing I told people.
It wasn't on my forehead yet.
Now it is.
But I had a really well-meaning
friend who I met,
one of my coworkers, who I still
remember very vividly.
We were in our break room where
all of our mailboxes
were and our coffee.
And we had just met, a
really nice gay guy.
And he's like, so when did
you have the surgery?
So do you have a genital part?
And I'm like, I am in my office,
where everybody comes
to get their mail,
with the coffee.
My genitals should not be a
topic of conversation here.
He was really well-meaning.
He's become a real-- he was
clueless at the time.
And he was trying to connect
with me and show that he was
supportive.
And he really put a
foot in his mouth.
That's what not to do.
He didn't mean to discriminate
against anybody.
He wasn't trying to
be harassing.
But it was definitely
anxiety-provoking as I looked
around to see who all was there
and tried to figure out
how to respond to that in
our break room at work.
So some of this is to be really
thoughtful about, is
this a question you would want
somebody to ask you at work?
Are you asking about somebody's
private medical
information?
Are you asking because you
have a reason to know, or
you're just curious?
And generally, try to stay away
from the just curious
questions, at least until
you have a more intimate
relationship with
that co-worker.
Does that makes sense?
Now, that's different than the
time in the same job when I
got a call from one of my staff
who had quit a couple
weeks beforehand.
And she had worked with me
for a couple of years.
And she said, Masen, I felt
like I needed to call you
because nobody wanted
to tell you.
But for the last four years,
you have a staff person, a
colleague, who's taking all of
your new staff and interns out
to lunch and telling them that
they're really working for a
woman and making fun of you
every time you turn your back.
And I'm sorry nobody told
you that for four years.
Nobody wanted to hurt
your feelings.
But I thought maybe
you should know.
I needed to know.
I'm so glad that they called me,
and that they trusted me.
But this is somebody I worked
with every day in a relatively
small department who was very
actively trying to undermine
me with staff.
They were not doing that out
of an area of mistake.
Maybe he had some curiosity.
But this was pretty clearly
somebody who was not happy
that they were working with a
transgender person and wanted
to make sure all of my
colleagues knew that.
Now, that was the one time in
my life I have called up HR
and said, we've got a problem.
I'm going to hope and assume
that folks know better than to
do that these days.
But if somebody does share that
they're transgender with
you, ask them, is that
information you'd like to have
widely shared?
Is that private information
about their background that
they're sharing with you, and
to really respect that.
It's oftentimes a little
nerve-wracking for a
transgender person to out
themselves for the first time,
especially if they tend to just
blend into the woodwork
which, to be honest, most
folks don't think I'm
transgender when I first
walk into the room.
So to really be aware of that
and go to the, not do unto
others as you want them to do to
you, but do unto others as
they want to be done to them.
So I'm wondering in Google, and
Emily, if you could do an
Oprah again just for a second,
where do you see some of the
unintentional harassment
happening?
Or are there opportunities
for that to happen
unintentionally, where a
transgender person can have
their toes stepped on without
folks realizing it?
Whether that's through the
systems that you have or
interpersonal relationships.
And I know I'm asking for folks
to take a little bit of
a risk here.
But I come from the assumption
that unintentional bias
happens all the time for people
who don't experience
the same kind of prejudice or
oppression that some other
folks around them do.
Anybody willing to
take a risk?
Where might it happen?
AUDIENCE: I'm actually
an intern.
The thing I've noticed in the
past two days is there's very
little gender-neutral
bathrooms.
MASEN DAVIS: Very few
gender-neutral bathrooms.
So as we talked about the
issue of schools,
gender-neutral bathrooms
or bathrooms at work
are a big deal, too.
And not everybody feels
comfortable going into a men's
room or a women's room.
A lot of folks are afraid
they're going
to face more scrutiny.
They may have had experiences
with harassment.
They may not feel
comfortable with
either of them as choices.
And we definitely see a
movement to creating
gender-neutral bathrooms
in a lot of spaces.
In Washington, DC, for example
they passed an ordinance that
every single-stall restroom in
Washington has to now be a
gender-neutral restroom that
can be accessed by anybody.
And that's good for transgender
people.
It's also good, oftentimes, for
people with disabilities
who may need an assistant.
It's good with families
with young kids.
There's a lot of reasons
to embrace
gender-neutral bathrooms.
And we're finding more
workplaces that are using that
as an option.
Now we never say that
transgender people should be
forced to use a gender-neutral
restroom, though.
Anybody should have access to
that, and folks should be
using restrooms that match who
they are and where they're
going to feel most
comfortable.
Thank you for sharing that.
So that's one structure in a
lot of companies that most
folks don't think about but
can create kind of an
unintentional barrier for
some of the employees.
Anything else folks
want to share?
AUDIENCE: In Cambridge, one
thing that I [INAUDIBLE] when
I first joined Google is that
the Women in Engineering group
is very aggressive about trying
to get new engineers
who happen to be
female to join.
And so there was a
very awkward, I
do not want to join.
This is the nth time you asked
me, where I was getting kind
of [INAUDIBLE].
Well, why don't you
want to join?
That's not really any
of your business.
So it's unintentional,
and they're just
trying to be nice.
So that's cool that they're
doing that because in general
that is a positive response.
But it's unintentional
weird things.
MASEN DAVIS: Thanks
for sharing that.
That's a great example.
ILONA TURNER: Right.
And I think that just a raised
awareness about the fact that
transgender people exist, that
maybe everybody doesn't
identify the way that you might
think that they do based
on your scan of them, that can
make a big difference in just
being respectful and not pushing
things like that.
AUDIENCE: But I think one
really good thing that--
I was coming from a university
where people are very aware of
this, and there's a lot
of talk about it.
There's a lot of
introductions.
My name is this person, and this
is where I'm from, and
anything else.
But there's never, this is my
preferred gender pronoun.
And that way people know.
Because it is confusing .
People don't know
how to read me.
Like which one, right?
But if you just have that into
your introduction, people will
know, and then they
won't mess up.
MASEN DAVIS: We had a new staff
person start this week.
And I checked myself
yesterday, and I
said, you know what?
Actually, I realize I've been
referring to you as he, but I
don't know if that's the
pronoun you prefer.
Can you share what your
preferred gender pronoun is?
And he said, wow, thank
you for asking.
It is he.
But what's up with
the Bay Area that
people don't ask that?
Because he comes
from New York.
He's like, in New York, we're
all asking that all the time.
It's part of just respect and
not making assumptions.
So it is a great practice, too,
especially if you aren't
certain of somebody's gender.
It's really OK to ask, right?
And some of us are uncomfortable
with that.
Somehow we're supposed
to know this, right?
But it's not always possible.
ILONA TURNER: Right.
And I think your question also
points out that a way to do
that that's even more inclusive
and respectful is to
start by sharing your own.
If you meet somebody that you're
not sure, or you're in
a group setting, just to sort
of make it a universal
question and information.
My name's Ilona, and my
preferred pronoun is she.
And that opens it up and
doesn't put all of the
scrutiny on that transgender
person.
Like, oh, I'm assuming that
you're different.
MASEN DAVIS: I appreciate people
who have taken the risk
of sharing.
I think it's helpful, and I
would encourage you all to
normalize some of that
conversation, too, because
unintentional bias happens
everywhere,
with so many folks.
And to the extent you can kind
of share, hey, this is how
this impacts me, I think it will
help Google to continue
to be a leader in this area.
And I also think, whether it's
in the Gayglers or other work
groups, to talk through what are
ways that Google and other
companies can address
unintentional bias that can
emerge, whether that's
interpersonal or structural.
So the last thing I want to
talk about in workplace is
some of the strategies that
we're seeing that are really
helpful at this point.
One is looking at corporate
policy.
That's been really important,
especially as large companies
have integrated transgender
issues
into corporate policies.
It's been very helpful
for folks.
As Ilona said, there's a real
push towards Title VII and
making sure we have federal
workplace protections both
through Title VII and
the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act.
And we're seeing more and more
states that are passing
strong, comprehensive
nondiscrimination laws in the
states as well.
That's all great.
And we need to make sure things
are really happening on
the ground.
So there are some really neat
programs that are evolving
across the country right now in
this movement, where we're
seeing homegrown job programs
for transgender people.
Here in San Francisco, there's
the Transgender Economic
Empowerment Initiative and is
also included, they've got a
program related to it.
I think it's Transcode--
is that what it's called--
that's actually teaching
transgender
people how to do coding.
We've got a lot of folks who
come from the tech world.
And to the extent they've been
able to help people get a foot
into the door in the tech field,
that's been really
awesome, especially given that
many of the tech companies
have been the most embracing
of folks who are different,
including transgender people.
So nice job on that,
I really love it.
And I just want to mention
that as we're being more
successful, as we're seeing more
visibility both with our
youth and in the workplace,
and as we're getting more
passage of nondiscrimination
laws, we're
also seeing more backlash.
Anybody pay attention
to Arizona?
Has anybody seen Arizona
in the news recently?
So Arizona had a pretty
interesting bill that they had
introduced this year.
The city of Phoenix passed a
city nondiscrimination law to
protect transgender people from
discrimination, which is awesome.
In a lot of states where they're
not ready to pass a
state law, city laws have
been really important.
Well, a legislator, John
Kavanagh, in Arizona, did not
like the fact that there
had been this
bill passed in Phoenix.
So he introduced his own law for
the state which would make
it a criminal penalty for a
transgender person to use a
restroom that did not match
the gender marker on their
birth certificate.
Now, many of us cannot change
the birth certificate gender
marker, depending on
where we're from.
All of that's managed
on the state level.
As somebody from Missouri, I
could have them add my new
name and gender, but I
can't have them take
away the old one.
In some states, you can't
change it at all.
So your birth gender is your
gender, as far as your birth
certificate.
Well, Kavanagh's bill would have
put somebody in jail for
six months for using a restroom
if it didn't match
their birth certificate
gender marker.
Thankfully, there
was an uproar.
And this actually passed
the first committee.
This was a bill that really
had some legs in Arizona.
It was very similar to the
anti-immigrant bill that they
have there where, again, another
"show your papers"
bill in Arizona.
Thankfully, folks were able to
rally together and to make it
clear that this would
be ridiculous.
The logic of that bill would
say that I have to use the
women's room in Arizona, and
I'll tell you, nobody really
wants that.
And we were able to stop that.
But what happened with Arizona
and Kavanagh is a good symptom
of an issue we're going
to see arise.
And it's true for almost every
civil rights and social
justice movement in this country
that the more you
progress, and the more you
have success, the more
backlash you will see.
And we are starting to see this
as we are seeing more
harassment of people who
are out as transgender.
We're seeing more
anti-transgender bills that
are being proposed.
And many of those have to do
with restrooms because, to be
honest, the United
States folks,
we do not like bathrooms.
We do not like public
restrooms.
We think they smell.
We want to avoid them
as much as we can.
It doesn't matter if you're
a woman or a man.
It's just not a popular place.
And anti-transgender people
realize this and have tried to
pair up nondiscrimination laws
with restroom issues in a way
that's been really damaging
for a lot of folks.
So I do urge you to keep
an eye on this.
And with Arizona, he finally
realized this was not going to
work and pulled the bill back.
But this is really the next
frontier that we're going to
have to continue to fight as the
success that we see also
has an equal and opposite
reaction to it.
Do you want to talk about
health care quickly?
ILONA TURNER: Yeah.
So just in a couple minutes,
the last issue we wanted to
talk about was health care.
This is a major issue for a
lot of transgender people,
just simply being able to access
health care at all, in
some cases, being turned away,
being denied health insurance
because they are transgender,
which is viewed as a
pre-existing condition,
transgender people being
denied sex-specific care that
they need just because they
may have changed their
gender marker with
the insurance company.
So we see transgender men being
denied pap smears that
they need, transgender women
denied prostate exams, and
some people being denied care
for a whole range of bizarre
sounding reasons.
We had a client who was denied
treatment for a broken bone
because the insurance company
said, oh, that must be related
to the hormones that
you're taking.
It must have weakened your
bones, and so we're not going
to cover it.
And this is related to the fact
that a large percentage,
the majority of health insurance
plans in this
country right now, have explicit
exclusions written
into them for health care that
transgender people need.
MASEN DAVIS: Thankfully,
this is changing.
There is a surge of activism
to address this issue,
especially as the Affordable
Care Act is about to be
implemented throughout
the United States.
And there now have been four
states and the District of
Columbia that have now said that
it is no longer legal in
those states to have
transgender-specific
exclusions in health
care policies.
Thankfully, California is
one of those states.
So this is a real sea change
where we now have a good
percentage of states that are
now starting to look at this
issue as they're doing
implementation around the
Affordable Care Act and looking
at opportunities to
make sure that all people are
actually able to have the
coverage they need, including
transgender people.
There have been some real
interesting focus groups
around the country to learn
about what people know about
the Affordable Care Act.
And what we've heard is
transgender people are among
the most vocal because we have
so much to gain or to lose
with what's happening.
So for folks who are interested
in getting involved
in that or learning more,
please come talk to us
afterwards.
We're tight on time, so I'm
going to make sure we give our
last few minutes for any
questions folks may have.
ILONA TURNER: I just want to
add one last thing on the
health care front, which is that
we're also seeing a lot
of action from employers,
including Google was one of
the pioneers in this area.
And it's so helpful when that
sort of thing happens,
especially from such a prominent
company that can set
an example for other companies
to say, this isn't impossible.
You can negotiate with your
health insurance company.
You can make this happen.
And it makes such a difference
in the lives of trans
employees, makes people more
productive, happier.
It just should be a no-brainer,
but it's really
helpful to have this
kind of example.
MASEN DAVIS: So I hope you all
will join me in realizing that
we're not done, even as we get
hopefully a great ruling from
the Supreme Court in
the next 10 days.
We have a lot more work to do
around school and our youth,
around jobs, around health
care, around a myriad of
issues impacting
our community.
And as we get into the last
five minutes of questions,
we'd love to hear any clarifying
questions you all
may have here and also any ideas
you have of how do we
spread the word to make sure
people realize that we're not
done, that we have not ended
at all the long march to
equality, but we have a
lot more work to do.
And if you have thoughts
about that, we would
love to hear it.
We're starting some social media
campaigns at this point.
One is called More Than
Marriage, #morethanmarriage,
really elevating a lot of the
issues that have impacted
especially more marginalized
members of the LGBT community,
making sure people are talking
about the need still for
education and health care and
immigration and so many issues
that have not had the same kind
of media presence but
continue to be really critical
for our communities.
So with that, I'll open up
for questions and ideas.
EMILY METCALF: As you might
know, Google's mission is to
organize the world's information
and make it
universally accessible.
You mentioned at the beginning
of your talk that a lot of
folks are finding out about
transgender issues via the
internet at a younger
and younger age.
What might Google or other tech
companies be able to do
to help the younger generation
find out what they need to
know to transition earlier
in their lives?
MASEN DAVIS: That's
a great question.
I think there are a lot
of little things.
There's probably a bigger one,
too, that I want some more
time to think about.
But some things that we've
talked about in our office.
You all have--
I'm sorry, I apologize, I
don't know what you call
them-- but the images that show
up when you first do the
search engine.
When you first go to Google--
AUDIENCE: Doodles.
MASEN DAVIS: What do
you call them?
Your doodles, yes.
I love the doodles.
I just didn't know what
they were called.
I apologize.
But we've talked about how
powerful it would be to have
an LGBT or especially a T doodle
at some point, maybe on
some sort of day that we
could commemorate.
That would open up this issue
to so many folks.
How do we make sure that the
organizations that are doing
really interesting work, and
especially those working with
youth, that provide more public
education, making sure
that they're able to be high
up on the search engine
results, so people find that?
I think there's been a
lot of improvement.
It used to be if you searched
for "transgender," you would
not get advocacy groups.
I'll just say that.
You got a lot of
adult content.
And that has already changed
significantly over the years--
thank you--
so that people can now get
some basic information.
But we have a lot of different
sites out there that have
pieces of information.
We have yet to really have a
lot of that in one place
that's easily accessible,
especially for the kids.
So it might be interesting to
think through how do we make
sure that that is much easier
to find for folks.
And then the last thing I want
to reiterate earlier, I think
the harassment issue is real.
So what can we do to address
when people are being outed
online, if they're bring
harassed in the social media
sites, how do we address that?
We feel a lot of urgency
around that right now.
AUDIENCE: Thank you, guys.
Before the talk, you were
chatting about issues like
symbology and branding,
for example, for
Transgender Law Center.
Speaking more broadly, how do
we develop iconography or
representatives, heroes
of the trans movement.
What do we have to rally behind,
what people, what
images, what symbology?
We don't have as much as the
broader LGBT movement yet.
Are we moving in
that direction?
Do we have poster children,
heroes?
What do we have?
MASEN DAVIS: Do you have
an answer back there?
AUDIENCE: There's an inherent
tension for
organizations like TLC--
and I think you and I have
had a version of this
conversation--
in terms of how bold its logo is
in terms of they're sending
letters to people.
And having an envelope that
necessarily outs the people on
the other end is problematic.
On the other hand, I personally
feel really
strongly we need something that
is the equivalent of the
HRC equals sign.
We need something that
absolutely says, in
unambiguous terms, "trans,"
that unambiguously says
"proud."
And there are other
organizations.
There are other
non-organizations.
A woman named Jen Richards in
Chicago has a project called
We Happy Trans, which is all
about promoting positive
images of trans people
post-transition.
And for this exact purpose, she
ran an event called Trans
100, which Masen was one
of the people who was
highlighted, and identifying
people who are by action, by
visibility, by impact, heroes,
significant people in the
trans movement.
But yeah, we need something
that's like the HRC equals
sign that isn't just TLC.
MASEN DAVIS: I totally
agree with that.
The Trans 100 I think
was great.
They did an event in Chicago,
did social media and print
media around 100 people who've
been active and made a
difference in the
trans movement.
That was a real watershed, in
part because most of the media
around transgender people has
been-- like the Day of
Remembrance is our best known
day, which commemorates all
the people we've lost to
anti-transgender violence.
We've had a lot of things where
we commemorate people
who have died, but usually
through violence or HIV and
AIDS, which disproportionately
impacts our community.
There have been very few
campaigns to really get out
the good stories.
We have folks who have
contributed so much in so many
different fields.
Many people don't know it.
And there are a lot of reasons
for that, but I do think we're
ready to be much more visible,
much more powerful as a people
and as a movement.
We have yet to find that
equals sign moment.
There is a transgender symbol,
but it's a little clunky, in
my opinion.
We're not quite there yet.
But I think we're
getting there.
And if any of you are great
strategists and graphic
designers, let's work together
to create that.
But it is time.
And in many ways, we're very
much like where the gay and
lesbian movement was 20 or 30
years ago, where the media
representations were as victims
or killers or the joke
of the sitcom.
And we're ready to move.
We're ready to go and
have our moment.
We have a lot of needs.
We've got a lot of momentum.
And I do think that this is a
moment for us to really make
this a reality.
EMILY METCALF: What I want to
make sure to do before we end
the talk is to announce that
for those of you who aren't
aware, Go Transgender has a
lot of information about
resources on transitioning and
transgender issues at Google,
including a list of
gender-neutral bathrooms in
various buildings.
So that's a really
great resource.
MASEN DAVIS: And can I also
just say, thank you all.
Google has been a leader
in policies supporting
transgender people
here, on the job.
And you've had great
health care.
I hope it continues to
be great health care.
I see nods.
That's awesome.
I'm so grateful for you all and
your leadership in this,
and also your support of
Transgender Law Center and of
this movement.
It's made a big difference to
us, and we look forward to
continuing to partner
together.
Thanks.
EMILY METCALF: Thanks so much.
And please, everybody give
a round of applause for--
[APPLAUSE]
