NCTE and allies urge TSA to treat trans travelers fairly

Just before Thanksgiving we provided a travel advisory for transgender people in light of invasive new TSA screening procedures. Unfortunately, in recent weeks we have been hearing disturbing reports from some trans people about how they have been treated at the airport. While most transgender people have traveled without incident over the last month,  these stories confirm that TSA’s current policies not only violate the privacy of all travelers but create serious risks that trans people will be detained, humiliated and harassed. Today NCTE joined with the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Transgender Law Center in sending a letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole urging immediate action to ensure transgender people do not encounter abuse at the airport.

NCTE and our allied organizations will continue to oppose intrusive and ineffective TSA practices and to work for appropriate policies and staff training to prevent harassment and abuse of transgender travelers. If you have encountered mistreatment by airport security staff, we need to hear your story. NCTE, NCLR and TLC have created a simple web form where you can share your airport experience. Please note: This is not a legal intake form – these stories will be used to advocate for changes in TSA policies and procedures.

In addition to completing our incident report form, we strongly encourage you to file a complaint directly with the Department of Homeland Security, Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on their website.

Communication at the airport

While many Americans have general privacy concerns about new airport security procedures, there are many groups of travelers whose concerns about privacy or insensitive treatment by TSA personnel are especially acute, including religious minorities, transgender people, and people with a variety of medical conditions, disabilities, or assistive devices.

One specific concern shared by many of these groups involves communicating with TSA officers about sensitive personal or medical matters in the often noisy, crowded, and rushed environment of security checkpoints. To give travelers an additional option for addressing these issues, TSA has developed a standardized notification card that anyone can use to discreetly inform officers about any disability, medical condition or medical device that could affect security screening.

Front and back of the Notification Cards

Travelers simply write their personal information on the wallet-sized card and hand it to the security officer. These cards are purely optional, and they do not exempt anyone from security screening. However using the card should make it clear that officers should handle your condition or item in a sensitive and discreet manner. It also allows you to inform the officer without having to make verbal statements that could be overheard by other travelers.

No one is required to use this card, but you may choose to carry it and present it at any time. For example, you may wish to present it if an officer asks about an item on your person that may require additional screening. If this seems useful to you, simply print out the card and complete it, writing clearly a brief word or phrase to describe your condition or item in the blank. You may use any term you feel is appropriate to communicate with the officers.

NCTE has issued information and resources to help transgender people understand the new procedures and prepare for holiday travels. For more information, including how to file a complaint or take action, please follow this link.

We Salute Kye Allums and Trans Student Athletes

George Washington University junior Kye Allums is one courageous basketball player. Though he debuted as a GW player in November 2008 (by scoring 12 points against Coppin State University), this month he’s making another and even bigger debut – as the first openly transgender athlete on an NCAA Division I team. Transitioning from female to male on a women’s basketball team may seem like a daunting challenge, but the university, the NCAA and Kye’s teammates are behind him, according to reports that were all over the media this week. Under current NCAA policies Kye isn’t eligible to compete on a men’s team, and he still has has a scholarship to play on the women’s team. Though this will probably take a little getting used to for some, the GW Colonials are setting an example for other teams but respecting Kye (and referring to him) as the talented young man he is. Soon enough, the press attention will pass, the season will get going, and Kye and his teammates will keep focusing on their game and their studies – which is the way it should be.

Pursuing athletic competition and being part of a team are a dream for many young people. Yet transgender athletes face numerous obstacles, including lack of understanding and acceptance from teammates, coaches or opposing players, to organizational rules that frequently exclude them altogether. Fortunately, a growing number of school athletic organizations – such as the high school athletic associations in Washington and Colorado –  have begun to develop new policies to include and support trans students, and the NCAA has announced it is revising its own policies. A new report issued by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Women’s Sports Foundation last month outlines best practices for providing equal athletic opportunity at all levels of student competition. The report explains that schools must act affirmatively to ensure that trans students are included and treated equally, and to protect their personal privacy. It also explains how concerns about trans students having an unfair competitive advantage are either unfounded or exaggerated, and urges the development of comprehensive national standards that would give every student the opportunity to compete.

We hope that the NCAA will incorporate the principles in the report, and that being part of the team will soon be easier for all transgender students. We salute Kye and the GW Colonials, and all those who have supported Kye in approaching this very public transition — and wish them a very good season.

A Historic Federal Grant to Help LGBT Foster Youth

The Department of Health and Human Services has awarded a $13.3 million competitive federal grant to a coalition of groups, led by the LA Gay & Lesbian Center, to develop a model program for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth in foster care. NCTE applauds this historic grant award and the LA Gay & Lesbian Center, PFLAG and the nearly 20 other organizations who will be undertaking this important project.

This is big news, not only because it is the largest ever federal grant for an LGBT-focused project, but because LGBT foster youth are in such dire need of caring and supportive homes and services. It is by now well documented that LGBT youth are disproportionately in out of home care, and that these youth face high levels hostility, discrimination and abuse in care. In addition, transgender foster youth struggle daily with their very identities being disregarded. While the Child Welfare League of America has worked hard together with LGBT advocates to educate providers and promote best practices, the difficulties faced by LGBT foster youth remain pervasive. With the support of the federal government, this model project  could lead the way for agencies and providers around the country who are responsible for the safety and well-being of LGBT youth.

Claim your right to equal education

When it comes to schools, as in many other areas, federal law does not yet fully protect LGBT people – yet there are some legal protections in place that many people are not aware of. The US Department of Education has authority to investigate and address bullying, harassment and discrimination against LGBT students in some circumstances. If you or someone close to you has experience bullying, harassment or discrimination in school, you can file a complaint with Department of Education. PFLAG and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) have launched a campaign to encourage students to do just that. You can find information about filing a school civil rights complaint on PFLAG’s website.

This campaign to engage students and the federal government comes on the heels of GLSEN’s tenth annual National School Climate Survey, which finds continuing threats to the safety, well being and education of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender non-conforming students. NCTE urges students who have faced bullying or discrimination, and those close to them, to heed the call and file a complaint with the Department of Education today.

88,500 Sexually Abused in US Prisons and Jails

At the end of August the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) release the latest in a string of damning reports showing the prevalence of sexual abuse in U.S. prisons,  jails and detention facilities. The new government report finds that at least 88,500 adults were sexually abused in U.S. prisons in jails last year, a number that included 4.4% of all prison inmates and 3.1% percent of all jail inmates. This follows a BJS report from January finding that more than 12% of youth in juvenile detention in the United States had been sexually abused in the previous year.

Although previous research led the National Prison Rape Elimination  Commission to conclude last year that transgender people are at especially high risk for sexual abuse in confinement, BJS does not collect data on gender identity, so we do not know how many transgender people were sexually abused in confinement in the United States. While a major California study recently found that as many as two thirds of transgender inmates in California had been sexually abused, we have no such data at the national level. However, BJS does track inmate sexual orientation, and we also know that most transgender inmates are identified in surveys (accurately in some cases, and not in others) as having “a sexual orientation other than heterosexual.” The BJS found that these “non-heterosexual” inmates were more than twice as likely to be sexually abused by prison staff and more than eight times as likely to be abused by other inmates; numbers for jails were similar. This data confirms that all LGBT people are at extreme risk for sexual abuse behind bars, and underscores both the need for federal data collection on transgender people and for prevention strategies that address the specific vulnerabilities of these inmates and detainees.

In May, NCTE joined hundreds of other organizations in filing formal comments urging the Department of Justice to adopt strong national standards to prevent sexual abuse in prisons that would specifically address the extreme vulnerability of transgender people in institutional settings. In June, the Justice Department missed the legal deadline for it to promulgate these much-needed standards. Meanwhile, incremental reforms being undertaken by some state and federal agencies, such as U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), fail to address the far-reaching scope of the problem. NCTE continues to work with allied organizations to urge the Department of Justice and ICE to take strong and decisive steps to prevent the abuse of transgender people and to address the extraordinary harms caused by sexual abuse.

NCTE @ National LGBT Bar Association

NCTE's Intern Elliot Kenney and Health Policy Counsel Mul Kim

NCTE’s policy attorneys returned this week from a stimulating experience at the National LGBT Bar Association Annual Conference in Miami Beach, FL. The conference, also known as Lavender Law, is an opportunity for LGBT attorneys, students and advocates to connect and explore important practice and policy issues.

NCTE Health Policy Counsel Mul Kim and I were pleased to participate in this year’s expanded Transgender Law Institute, where we co-facilitated discussions of trans health care (with attorneys from Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center and private attorney Ed Reeves) and identity documentation issues (together with attorneys Spencer Bergstedt  and Zack Paakonen).

I was privileged to sit for the second year running on a panel on mentoring and professional development for transgender attorneys, along with leading attorneys and advocates Phyllis Frye, Kylar Broadus, Spencer Bergstedt, Jamison Green and Dru Levasseur. As the youngest person on the panel, I was greatly impressed by what my colleagues had to say about their professional experiences and it was immensely interesting.

In the center, NCTE's Policy Counsel, Harper Jean Tobin and Lisa Mottet, director of the Task Force's Transgender Civil Rights Project; with them are Task Force law fellow Ashlan and her partner

Moving Forward on Accurate Identification

The new passport policy announced by the State Department in June will make a difference in the lives of many transgender people around the country. The new policy should allow many transgender people who previously were unable to do so to obtain identification that accurately reflects who they are, and makes it less likely that they will encounter discrimination, harassment or other difficulties when traveling or conducting other business. Over the summer, we have received a large number of messages from people who are relieved that at long last they can obtain a US passport and will not be afraid to travel abroad. NCTE will be monitoring the implementation of this policy and working with State Department and our partners in the Council for Global Equality to ensure it is working effectively for everyone.

This step forward builds on tremendous progress at the state level in recent years. To pick just two examples, in recent months Ohio and Nevada have taken important steps to improve and simplify their policies for changing gender on driver’s licenses. This month, New Mexico and Pennsylvania did the same. Half of all states now have driver’s license rules at least as strong as the new passport policy. This progress happened because of the efforts of state and local advocates, along with medical experts, to educate state officials and develop workable policies. The new passport policy should go a long way in demonstrating to other state and federal agencies the practicality and advisability of providing identification documents that reflect the reality of transgender people’s lives.

But while we have just seen a major breakthrough, it will not cure transgender people’s documentation problems overnight. There are still many federal and state policies – most of which were written many years ago without the benefit of any knowledge about transgender people – that create serious difficulties for our community, and which we will have to continue working to correct. At the federal level, our goals will include, over the course of 2010-2011:

• Monitoring the implementation of the State Department’s new policy and seeking improvements if needed
• Working with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Agencies to develop a model driver’s license gender change policy
• Working with the Social Security Administration to develop appropriate policies regarding gender data in SSA account records
• Working with US Citizenship and Immigration Services to ensure that immigration documents appropriately reflect and individual’s gender
• Working with the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration to address several issues related to veterans’ records
• Continuing to monitor the implementation of the REAL ID Act (which, fortunately, is currently stalled) and any proposed legislation to amend or repeal REAL ID
• Working with the National Center for Health Statistics to improve the Model Vital Statistics Act

NCTE will also continue to support and assist the diligent work of state and local advocates on state ID policies.

Nearly half of all states now have a driver’s license policy at least as strong as the new passport policy.