“Open Up and Let us In”
Trans activist Jamison Green on fighting for legal rights
Jamison Green is a writer and educator in Oakland, CA. He is the president of the World Professional Organization for Transgender Health.
Green was living in the Bay Area in the late 80s when he “stumbled across a support group for trans men.” That group was FTM International, a pioneering peer network assembled by writer and activist Lou Sullivan. Meetings were closely guarded — privacy and safety was crucial; members were screened and meeting locations revealed after they passed muster. When Sullivan died of AIDS-related complications, Green found himself thrust into a leadership role and quickly became devoted to activism. Over the years, he fought for the legal rights of transgender people, for medical access, and the visibility of trans men. He is currently the president of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.
In 1992 Green and others decided to take the fight for transgender rights to City Hall; specifically San Francisco’s Human Rights Commission. At that time, the HRC group devoted to the gay community was called the LGB HIV committee.
As Told To Andy Wright
We basically talked to [the LGB HIV committee] and said “You know, you should really be including trans people in your protections because we’re really suffering and nobody pays attention to us.” And they said, “Well, we’re not interested in trans people because we’re here about our sexual orientation.” And I said, “Well, you know, all trans people have sexual orientation, and all trans people — some trans people are gay or lesbian identified. Some aren’t. Trans people are getting HIV and trans people are discriminated against for the same reasons that gay people are discriminated against. When people look at trans people, and start beating us up, they’re screaming, ‘Faggot!’ all the time. They don’t know the difference. So from a civil rights and human rights perspective, there isn’t any difference — nobody understands us. I think you guys should open up and let us in.”
Green and collaborators showed up at monthly meetings for about two years before they got a public hearing with the Human Rights Commission in 1994. Crowds turned out to testify about the difficulties facing trans people in the San Francisco, and Green was appointed to write a report on how the city could address those issues.
The first recommendation was to pass a non-discrimination protective ordinance for trans people with respect to housing, employment, and public accommodations. That September, the Human Rights Commission accepted my report, and it became the official HRC statement. Then a few folks, including city officials and some trans friends, and I started agitating for the protective ordinance.
A few months later, the San Francisco supervisors passed the ordinance. The new law banned discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, health care and other services.
As Green became more involved in activism, he decided to shrug off any anonymity and began to publish his full name and phone number in the FTM newsletter. People began calling him with their stories — some would even caution him away from visibility, particularly when word got out that he would be participating in a documentary about trans men.
Guys would call me from all over the country saying “Don’t be in a film, don’t do this. People will find out about us and then they’ll take away the things that we have. Surgeons will stop providing surgery, they’ll take away our ability to change our driver’s licenses, everything will go away if people know about us.” And what I heard in all of this was, man, there is so much fear and shame in this community — and that is wrong. These are good people and they don’t deserve to live this way. Nobody should live this way.
Activists from all over the country reached out to Green and he threw himself into policy work. He was networking at conferences throughout the U.S., meeting with legislators, and fighting to get San Francisco to provide equal health care benefits to transgender employees. In 2011 Green earned a doctorate of law from Manchester Metropolitan University in England where he studied under Stephen Whittle, a groundbreaking advocate for the legal rights of transgender people.
I think one of the biggest accomplishments is that trans people are winning lawsuits now. Back when I started this work, trans people couldn’t even get legal representation. For the most part it was impossible to get an attorney to speak for you because [they] would just laugh you out of their office.
[Now] lawyers are listening to trans people. And Lambda Legal and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders in New England and the major groups that moved gay and lesbian rights forward are taking on trans issues and they’re doing it well. This is a major change.
Green got involved with the Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Association — a historic organization devoted to health advocacy for transgender people — in 1997. He was a member of the board in 2006 when they decided to change the group’s name to World Professional Organization for Transgender Health. Now he is the organization’s president. WPATH publishes a Standards of Care document for healthcare professionals and others that outlines best practices for caring for transgender and gender non-conforming people. It is currently in its seventh edition, and Green is working to have the SOC translated into multiple languages.
I think the major problems that trans people have are the same problems that I outlined in the 1994 report: violence, lack of employment, lack of housing, lack of access to medical care, racial discrimination.The issues haven’t changed all that much; now it’s just a matter of how much needs to be done.
We’ve made incredible progress in a few of those areas, and now with more visibility, hopefully we’ll continue to make progress. We have already been included in the Violence Against Women Act. And trans people are starting to be included in policies affecting prisoners.
These are big, big, big issues. And they are still problems. But trans people need to be included in those issues, and not in a joking way, not as an afterthought, but as we need to be included as part of society. And we’re not there yet, but we’re starting to get there.
Read more personal accounts of the trans activism movement.
Interview by Andy Wright. Parts were omitted for clarity and brevity.
