[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 16, 2017)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E633-E635]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            TRANS TOWN HALL

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. KEITH ELLISON

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 16, 2017

  Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, recently, I sat down with a number of 
activists in Minnesota to talk about how LGBTQ folks, and especially 
trans people, are fighting for basic economic rights in a world that 
belittles, excludes, and dehumanizes them.
  The transgender community is more visible than ever. Leaders like 
Laverne Cox, Caitlyn Jenner, and Janet Mock have become icons for the 
future of the LGBTQ movement. And in my hometown of Minneapolis, my 
dear friend Andrea Jenkins just received the democratic endorsement for 
City Council. She will be the first out trans person to hold office in 
Minnesota.
  But this increased visibility hasn't improved the lives of all 
transgender people.
  Compared to other states, Minnesota's transgender community is a lot 
safer and healthier. But that's not saying much. Nationwide, violence 
against trans people--and trans women in particular--is at an all-time 
high. Even in deeply progressive Minneapolis, my constituent CeCe 
McDonald was attacked outside a bar and imprisoned in a men's prison 
for 19 months for defending herself.
  This sort of violence has far-reaching repercussions--high 
unemployment, difficulty accessing lifesaving healthcare, housing 
instability, and educational barriers. And we need to stop thinking of 
these injustices as separate from our economic lives.
  To get a better understanding about how trans folks are living in the 
21st century, I attended Minnesota's LGBTQ Lobby Day in April and 
hosted a town hall forum. I'll tell you--it's not easy. It takes a lot 
of courage to hold space for your truth. My friend Kye kicked off the 
testimony with a story about how important simply accepting people's 
identities are:
  For many young trans people, growing up and going through elementary 
school, junior high, high school, and even college can be extremely 
difficult. And these folks don't always have the support system they 
need. Many talked about the deep opposition they faced from their 
families.
  But it doesn't end there. There's difficulty finding work too. And 
even when trans people do find work, they can be subjected to cruel 
behavior from customers and even their own colleagues.
  Now most American get their health insurance through their employers. 
But there are no protections to ensure that trans people can have the 
medically necessary care covered. This extends to our service members 
too. But there are also issues of racism and people being excluded 
because of their disabilities.
  Listening to these very real struggles, I get upset thinking about 
how much time we have to spend convincing others to treat trans people 
as equals. It's clear we still have a lot of work to do, including in 
places that are seen as more tolerant to the LGBTQ community. I don't 
always know the right words, and I don't always get everything right 
when talking about this issue. And that's okay--I'm not trans. I do not 
have that experience. What's important is that I listen, that I hear 
and accept what my trans friends and colleagues are telling me. And 
that I do the work they ask me to do. That is how you build a movement 
of generosity and inclusion.
  Thanks to OutFront Minnesota and the Minnesota Transgender Health 
Coalition for their help coordinating this town hall. But more 
importantly, thank you to those who shared their stories.
  The following are excerpts from various LGBTQ activists I recently 
invited to a town hall forum:

       Kye Allums: I was a sophomore in High School. I was unaware 
     of all things transgender and had no words to describe who I 
     was. Constantly fighting with my mom to prove I liked who I 
     liked, and that I would rather wear basketball shorts instead 
     of a dress. I was invisible; never validated or affirmed. My 
     mom let it be known that she was the one who defined me. I 
     was her daughter; I was her girl. Until one day I went with 
     her to meet a friend. We walked up to his office and he asked 
     my mom, ``Is this your son? He's a lot taller than I 
     remember.'' In my mind I was like, ``Yes!'' Before my mom 
     could say anything, I quickly replied, ``Yup that's me. I'm 
     her son.'' That moment, I was seen; I was seen by somebody, 
     and that somebody was Congressman Keith Ellison.
       Aaron Dotta: I am a co-president of the GSA at St. Paul 
     Academy, which is a private school in St Paul. Something I 
     want to point out is, because our parents have resources to 
     send us to a private school, we are able to be educated in a 
     community that supports us, and we are able to be GSA 
     presidents and we are able to push for things such as gender 
     neutral bathrooms, which we now have in our school. What we 
     wanted to say is, this privilege of being able to push for 
     equality and have our identities be recognized, should not be 
     limited to private schools. Students at all schools, 
     including public schools, should be able have their own GSAs 
     and their identities recognized by their administration, 
     teachers and peers. Also as gender queer youth, we do face a 
     lot of hardship when it comes to choosing colleges, when it 
     comes to trying to finding summer jobs. We have to think 
     about what names we put on our applications, and resumes. 
     Looking at schools where we will hopefully be able to spend 
     four years and get a college degree, we have to carefully 
     think about what places in the country and what schools will 
     be friendly to our identities, so that we can focus on 
     getting an education without having to worry about our indent 
     threatening our safety and our mental health.
       Leo Bukovsan: Most of my college decision making was based 
     on where I wouldn't get kicked out of school. As a female to 
     male transgender person, figuring out where I could be 
     housed, where I could be safe, basically, and that really was 
     tough, making those decisions. Because I'm in a privileged 
     situation where I can choose where I go to college pretty 
     well, based on all those kinds of things, I still have to 
     make sure that I'm going to be safe.
       Zaylore Stout: I live in St Louis Park. I'm a board member 
     for RECLAIM!, which provides mental health services to 
     transgender and gender non-conforming youth. Locally, I'm a 
     member of the Allies of St Louis Park, which is an advocacy 
     group that started right after the election, in regards to 
     working towards progressive issues. Today I'm

[[Page E634]]

     here representing as well the St Louis Park GSA group. The 
     focus here is a student-led initiative to try to get the St 
     Louis Park school board to pass a gender inclusion policy. 
     Now the school board has been working on this. They came up 
     with a draft policy that's been enhanced since October of 
     last year, but they stalled. They stalled because of the 
     Gavin Grimm case in front of the Supreme Court. They also 
     stalled because of the Virginia-Minnesota case, as well. Part 
     of the issue was that they're currently in the midst of 
     looking for a new super intendant, but students need 
     protection. There's current no policy on the books in regards 
     to whether the transgender and gender non-conforming students 
     can use whatever restroom facilities it is they need. There 
     is no protection for them in regards to faculty members or 
     staff outing them to other students, to staff members or to 
     the parents. There are great model policies that are out 
     there, but the schools locally need to be able to pass these 
     policies on their own. It's my understanding that the 
     Minnesota Department of Education, as well the district 
     attorney has advised the school boards to hold off, in 
     regards to passing these policies because of the Virginia-
     Minnesota case. But the plaintiffs have pulled back in 
     regards to that action, so there's not holding the local 
     school boards in regards to passing these types of 
     initiatives.
       Jannifer Halpaus: My child is transgender. He's a 
     sophomore. He came out 2 years ago, so it's been a learning 
     experience. And in this experience, I have encountered 
     multiple phone calls from the school district because my 
     child is trans. Because he wants to use a certain bathroom, 
     because he wants to use a certain locker room and he won't 
     use the one they tell him to. On a state level, leadership 
     should pass gender inclusion policies or gender affirming 
     policies for all the schools in Minnesota, so we can end the 
     problems we are having. My child is being pulled out of 
     classes. He's is being sat down with principals, and district 
     employees, such as Title IX coordinators, upper level 
     employees, the superintendent. As a child, I did not know my 
     principals; I did not know my superintendents, personally. I 
     think my child should have that experience if he chooses. He 
     should be able to attend schools as a boy, and be one of the 
     guys. My child has recently been hospitalized three separate 
     times in a psych ward. Since things were brought to the 
     school board's attention, he successfully joined the boy's 
     swim team. The staff supported him. With three swim meets 
     left in the season, the school board contacted the principal, 
     who contacted me to say, ``Your son cannot change in that 
     locker room anymore.'' Three hours later they rescinded that, 
     but then instead of being allowed to take phy-ed like his 
     peers, he was told, ``We will give you a phy-ed credit for 
     having participated in the swim team, in lieu of you not 
     being in these locker rooms.'' My child is female to male 
     transgender, and many times when groups speak, they are not 
     speaking about my child. They are speaking about male to 
     female transgender. My child has problems with self-harm, 
     suicide ideation, high level of anxiety, and addiction. And I 
     can't believe that none of these has been part of why.
       Dave Edwards: I am a board member at Transforming Families 
     Minnesota it's a peer group and community organization that 
     supports families with gender diverse youth. I appreciate you 
     being here today and focusing on future outcomes for trans 
     people, because that's where my daughter will be not that 
     long from now. I love the focus on the future; I think that 
     always has to include our youth's experiences in public 
     schools. We can't expect our landlords to rent to a trans 
     person when they watch their high school principal tell a 
     trans student where they can and can't use the restroom. We 
     can't expect managers make hiring decisions equitable if they 
     have watched their teachers minimize or diminish the 
     discrimination that their trans classmates faced. I'm glad we 
     brought up the gender inclusion policy; I worked with 
     Minnesota Department of Education create the Model Policy. It 
     has been completed and sitting since October and needs to 
     come out and be available to schools before the 2017-2018 
     school year.
       Danny Roman: A lot of the times people don't realize it but 
     home life isn't very good either, along with school. It's 
     kind of hard for me, I suppose, because I don't get all the 
     support, but I get the support from friends and stuff and the 
     school does supports me.
       Dasia Timmerman: Growing up is really hard in this state. I 
     came from the Montevideo, Fairmount, and Morris area, finally 
     the Twin Cities, Bloomington, and Eden Prairie. I didn't get 
     to come out. I tried in 1996; I couldn't find services and I 
     was with a really belittling family, and I eventually 
     disowned my dad because of all his hate. He would get red in 
     the face, and looked like he was going to get violent.
       Kaylee Jakubowski: It took me three years to come out to 
     myself because it was terrifying. Once I finally did, soon 
     after coming out to my parents, they told me (their exact 
     words): not in this house. So, I was not allowed to come 
     home. I got abandoned from all the financial stability that 
     they offered. And I was kind of set out to figure it out 
     myself there on out. I was going to university at Winona 
     State at that time, and being very financial responsible, as 
     I thought I was, I took out just enough money so that I can 
     survive from beginning of fall semester to end of spring 
     semester. What I didn't foresee was losing the financial 
     stability for the summer. I had no other option but to take 
     out a credit card in order to feed myself. I maxed out the 
     credit card, fifteen hundred dollars throughout the summer, 
     to survive. I took out even more loans to go back to school. 
     Funny thing about signing up for student loans with your 
     parents as co-signers is that once you have to pay them back, 
     they assume that you're still under your parents' budget. So 
     when they're making $80,000 a year, I have to pay my loans as 
     if I'm making $80,000 a year. When in reality, after taxes, 
     I'm making 18 to 19 thousand dollars a year. That is very 
     difficult. Turns out to be six to eight hundred dollars a 
     month, depending on whether or not I want to skip one. 
     Getting through the day, day to day, is an incredible 
     challenge.
       Hayes McRoy: One of my groups I go to, a LGBTQ group, is 
     losing some of its funding. It is a free group, but they 
     supply snacks and activities. One time, there's a trans girl 
     there who doesn't have any clothes because her family doesn't 
     support her. And we went out, we got her some clothes so she 
     can feel more comfortable. And a great resource like that is 
     currently losing funding, and along with that there also 
     homeless shelter for LGBT youth, which will take up 20-40 
     percent of homeless population, is also losing some funding. 
     And that just seems very wrong to me.
       Dasia: At first I got some part time jobs. I wasn't paid 
     for three weeks because they had a problem with my preferred 
     name versus my legal name. I've since changed my legal name, 
     all my documents, but I'm starting my own business to escape 
     transphobia. I am house cleaner and I am good at it. It's 
     awesome.
       Kaylee: I tried to get a job [after my parents cut me off], 
     but that posed to be another difficult challenge. There's 
     nothing I can do legally about the hiring discrimination that 
     I faced. Because the evidence is seeing the hiring 
     professional come out with all this little books, looking 
     over the papers as he was going to ask me questions about [my 
     application]. Looking up and seeing who I am, and then losing 
     all that energy and giving me half of an interview because he 
     didn't want to. There's nothing I can prove there, but it's 
     everything that I feel to know that I was not allowed to get 
     a job in that establishment. I went back to school at this 
     time. Tried to get a job on top of school and ended up 
     working at McDonalds because they're very easy to get a job 
     with. I worked there for seven months until it culminated on 
     me that all the bullying I was getting from co-workers and 
     customers was too taxing on my mental health. The entire last 
     week that I worked at McDonalds, I remember just crying in 
     the washroom because there nothing else to do. This is not a 
     way that anyone deserves to make money. To make $7.25 an hour 
     to try to feed themselves.
       Zaylore: As a labor and employment law attorney, I still 
     see discrimination cases and handle discrimination cases from 
     individuals within the LGBTQ community. Whether it's 
     employers not providing reasonable accommodations to 
     individuals who are HIV positive, or terminating employees 
     once they find they are HIV positive, or outing transgender 
     employees at their facilities. And when they report to HR, 
     they end up getting retaliated against in regards to that. So 
     this is still an issue, even though we have laws on book 
     protecting individual. We still need the support from our 
     local officials regards to making this type of things get 
     addressed and taken care of.
       Emily Ott: My specific concern is the First Amendment 
     Defense Act and the similar bills that are popping up around 
     the United States, one of which is here in Minnesota. I feel 
     that these bills set a dangerous precedent. These bills will 
     allow blatant and open discrimination against members of our 
     community based solely on individuals saying, ``I have a 
     religious objection to who you are,'' or to how you live your 
     life, or who you love. I cannot think of anything more 
     potentially damaging to the concept of American liberty and 
     freedom and justice for all people than these bills. It sets 
     a dangerous precedent for future minority groups that might 
     also run afoul. For example, what about Wiccan people? Do I 
     throw them out of my business because I don't agree with 
     their philosophies and their religious beliefs, and they're 
     objectionable to me? Do I refuse service as a medical 
     provider to somebody because, ``I'm sorry but I can't treat 
     your child you're a lesbian couple and I don't agree with 
     your lifestyle''? These things are happening already, and I 
     fear what this does and what it can do to the United States 
     of America and to its people if these bills are allowed to 
     become law.
       Dasia: We're facing insurance things in this state that 
     would prevent me from my HRT, which I have been on for seven 
     months. It's good insurance, Minnesota state insurance. She 
     works for MNSCU, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities. 
     It's awesome insurance. Apparently it's not going to be soon.
       Dave: I am an employee of the University of Minnesota. I 
     work in the Educational Psychology department. I have great 
     health insurance. Last year my daughter was lucky enough, 
     after being on the waiting list for over a year at the Center 
     for Sexual Health, to finally get in. The second they ran my 
     insurance, they wanted to let me know that there was a 
     categorical exclusion for any kind of medical intervention. 
     While that is many years down the road, that's something

[[Page E635]]

     we need to fix. If the University of Minnesota can't provide 
     coverage for the services they offer as an institution to 
     their employees, something's wrong. The Center for Sexual 
     Health is leading in the Midwest as the expert location for 
     affirming Trans care; all the service that they either 
     provide or refer to should be covered by our insurance.
       Kaylee: I fought very hard to get HRT programs in Winona 
     because, before I petitioned Semcac, which is essentially our 
     Planned Parenthood, about getting hormone procedures in their 
     office, we would either have to go up to Rochester, an hour 
     away, or down to Lacrosse, out of state and forty minutes 
     away. So I tried to get those local and I succeeded. And now, 
     I get to pay about $80 a month for hormones, which is not 
     doable for me. Right now, I take about half the recommended 
     dosage. I skip days; I skip weeks at a time because I don't 
     have the money to take care of myself because all the things 
     I've had to sacrifice financially have culminated on top of 
     another and stacked. Now, it's difficult. Even getting here 
     was challenging. I've counted every penny that every bus has 
     required of me. $50 for round trip train ticket to here. 
     $2.25 for the bus here, but I had to pay $3 because I didn't 
     have any quarters. Bottled of water cost $1.25. I'm counting 
     all this in my head; keeping it on track so I don't go 
     negative before my next paycheck. HRT is described as very 
     big challenge I can't do.
       Nicole Vanderheiden: I am a queer trans woman. As a direct 
     result of my trans status, I have experienced family 
     rejection, homelessness, hunger, and sexual assault, 
     discrimination in education, employment, and health care. I 
     am going to talk about my experience as a veteran in the U.S. 
     Forces. Like many other trans folk who serve in the military 
     at a proportion twice that of the general population, I 
     served honorably in the U.S. Air force. I get my treatment 
     solely from the Department of Veteran Affairs, which 
     currently operates under blanket exclusion for transgender 
     surgical care. It is unconscionable that in 2017 we have a 
     federal agency that is not only failing to prohibit 
     discrimination, but also operating under policies that 
     prescribe discrimination. I really want to ask you to take 
     action to end those polices, and to prevent our federal 
     agencies from discriminating against trans folks.
       Luci Peterson: I am transgender, male-to-female, I am 
     autistic, Jewish, and just recently was hired as a para-
     educator with a great company. The real reason I want to 
     share and testify, whenever it comes to the LGBT community in 
     conversation, wherever I go, I experience what I consider a 
     gap in the conversation. That gap is around disabilities. The 
     one I can specifically speak about is autism. I volunteer a 
     lot with Autism Society of Minnesota, Awesome.org, and AUSM. 
     I just think that it is very dangerous for those people out 
     there, because there is a lot of nonverbal autistic people 
     and then people of all types of disabilities that, depending 
     on where they are living or what their current situation is, 
     they may not have the freedom that able-bodied people do to 
     speak for themselves. We're trying to get a mentorship 
     program going for autistic adults like me to mentor younger 
     autistic people, and I'd like to see more programs like that 
     in the LGBT community, where no matter what your other 
     identities are that LGBT adults could come along LGBT youth. 
     Showing them how they have coped and managed to live a 
     healthy and successful life.
       Roxanne Anderson: I want to talk a little bit about where I 
     work and spend time at 3405 Chicago, The Minnesota 
     Transgender Health Organization and Coalition. We're formed 
     by and for transgender folks. We're the only transgender led 
     by-and-for 501(c)3 nonprofit in Minnesota. We do a lot of 
     work, and we've been doing that work since 2007. We offer 
     services that are inclusive, and serve about 165 Trans and 
     gender non-conforming folk throughout the week. We do six 
     support groups. Our shot clinic serves over 40 people in the 
     six hours that we are open during the week. We spend a lot of 
     time working with Dave [Edwards], and others with the 
     Minnesota Department of Education to be gender-inclusive in 
     schools, and to insure that trans and gender non-conforming 
     can mark their identities on the student survey, something we 
     need to make sure we keep in place in Minnesota. We do harm 
     reduction through syringe exchange; we have food selves, 
     clothe shelves, gender gear. We do shot assistance, and we do 
     that all through the support of volunteers. We do that all 
     under a budget under $30,000 a year. That sounds awesome, and 
     it is not sustainable. It means that everybody that gives 
     their time, and energy, and effort to MTHC does so without 
     pay. We are located at 3405 Chicago which also houses Cafe 
     Southside, which employs at about 80-85 percent trans and 
     non-gender conforming folk. I don't know if there is any 
     other place in the whole state that can say that the majority 
     of the people that they employ are trans. It also houses Rare 
     Productions, which is an art and entertainment for LGBT folk 
     of color. The reason I am mentioning this is because like 
     lots of folks have said, we're in jeopardy. We don't have a 
     lot of funding, and we don't get a lot of support from 
     foundations or big business. I think to the point of 
     economics it's really important to know that those 
     organizations that are specially supporting trans folk, and 
     figuring out how to support them.

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