“The Law Is a Weak But A Necessary Tool”
An interview with Pauline Park
Pauline Park is the co-founder of the LGBT community center Queens Pride House (QPH) and co-founder of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA).
Park was played a pivotal role in New York City’s transgender rights bill, which banned discrimination against transgender people in housing and employment.
When did you become an activist?
I’d say January 1997, when I transitioned and came out as a transgender woman. I did not really choose activism so much as activism chose me. When I was growing up, I didn’t even know the word “activism.” When you’re in school, you’re offered the usual cliché career choices, you know: fireman, nurse, doctor. Activist was not one of them. Transgender activist was certainly not one of them. So it really happened through, I’m not quite sure I want to say happenstance, but life unfolds.
When you co-founded NYAGRA, what kinds of resources existed at that point for the trans community, and what lack of resources were you identifying?
NYAGRA was the first transgender advocacy organization in New York City and in the state of New York — which is why we founded it. There was no organization specifically focused on transgender activism and advocacy work, particularly in the legislative theater. No one was doing that kind of work on a sustained basis.
And the first project was the campaign for the New York City Transgender Rights Law, which was enacted in April of 2002.
Tell me about those early organizing days.
This was in 1998; it was at the dawn of the Internet age. This was well before Facebook. It might have even been before MySpace, if you can believe it. So things spread through word of mouth. On a very hot day in June, seven of us activists were sitting in David Valentine’s living room in his apartment in the Village, talking about what we wanted to do. Everyone decided that legislation was really crucial, because at the time there was no city or state law that included gender identity and expression. And, obviously, transgender people faced — and still face — pervasive discrimination, abuse, harassment, and violence.
How did you get people within the legislature to work with you?
We first approached the three openly gay council members and got their support, and then we enlisted three straight council members and ended up putting together a working group that included NYAGRA, ESPA (Empire State Pride Agenda), and the six council members who became lead sponsors of the bill. And we just gradually worked our way through the council. We got support from unions. Getting DC37 — District Council 37 is one of the three biggest unions in the city — was a big deal. Getting the endorsement of The New York Times was a big deal. We got the support of many different organizations throughout the city.
The opposition was silent, which actually made it harder to deal with. The two big opponents were the mayor and the speaker, but that’s all you need to block the bill. Rudy Giuliani and Peter Vallone Sr. both opposed the bill. Neither of them would admit that publicly. It was very difficult to try to smoke them out. Their offices would make excuses; they would refuse to speak on the record. It was all quite infuriating. And what, ultimately, really got the bill passed, ironically enough, had nothing to do with the merits of the bill. Giuliani and Vallone were forced out of office in December 2001. Then, in January 2002, when a new council was seated, we were able to get the General Welfare Committee, chaired by the new council member, Bill de Blasio, to push the bill through expeditiously. We got it passed 45 to 5 with one abstention.
That was a really important victory, and I still feel it in some ways it was the most important — my most important — achievement as an activist.
You said that the objective is to transform society’s understanding of gender. What does that mean to you?
Law is very important. It’s a weak but necessary tool for social change and social justice. But it is only one tool and it is only part of the picture. I think the focus of our community and movement ultimately must be the transformation of society’s understanding of gender, which means not simply getting laws enacted, as important as those are. It means actually challenging this sex-gender binary, which I believe is the root of our oppression. We can’t be satisfied simply with getting legal change and policy changes, as vitally important as that is. We have to change hearts and minds. We have to get people to understand transgender. We have to deconstruct the medicalized discourse through which so many people understand transgender.
Read more personal accounts of the trans activism movement.
Interview by Andy Wright. Parts were omitted for clarity and brevity.
