Two gay candidates look strong but a flap dogs one

By Paul Schindler
Gay City News, 6.28.02

Even as two longtime gay leaders in Queens look to become the borough’s first out elected officials, a divisive flap over one of the candidates threatens to undermine the unity that might otherwise be expected to emerge among the LGBT community.

Danny Dromm, the founder, a decade ago, of the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee, which sponsors the annual June pride events, and more recently a founder of the Queens LGBT Pride Community Center, is running for a Democratic district leader slot.

Jimmy Van Bramer, who ran a strong second-place run last year for a City Council seat and is a former board member of the Empire State Pride Agenda, is running for Democratic State Committee

Both men are running in the newly drawn 39th Assembly district that encompasses most of Corona and portions of Jackson Heights, Woodside, and Elmhurst. Dromm and Van Bramer have also both been endorsed by the County Democratic organization, a group which has only slowly opened itself up to gay and lesbian interests and whose stamp of approval carries significant weight.

Despite the obvious gay political gains these endorsements signify in Queens, Dromm’s campaign has run into a controversy in his own backyard. A number of LGBT leaders in Queens and citywide are questioning the propriety of a mailing Dromm did for a campaign fundraiser he held on June 2 hosted by Manhattan Democrats Tom Duane, the out gay State Senator, and Christine Quinn, the lesbian City Councilmember. Invitations for the $75 event held at Cavalier Restaurant in Jackson Heights were bundled in mailings sent out by the Queens Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee, a nonprofit 501c3 organization for which Dromm remains the co-chair.

Dromm’s critics are questioning whether the mailing is an improper or even illegal contribution by a nonprofit group to a political campaign.

“I was really surprised and frankly perplexed to a receive an invitation to a political fundraiser mailed by a 501c3 organization,” said Matt Foreman, former executive director of both the Empire State Pride Agenda and the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. “Having worked in the nonprofit world for as long as I have, I think that’s crossing a very dangerous line. I’ve actually never seen it before.”

Foreman said that in recent years a number of directors of major nonprofits in the gay and lesbian community have commented on the increased scrutiny that they face from the IRS.

“People have to be extremely careful about this,” Foreman said. “People looking for a reason to attack and denigrate gay and lesbian organizations.”

“As a founding board member of the Queens Pride Committee, I am very concerned about the apparent inappropriate use of the Pride Committee’s 501c3 status to solicit funds for a political candidate, which is clearly contrary to federal and state tax law,” said Charles Ober, president of the Queens Pride House, a group that is in some ways a rival of the LGBT Pride Community Center that Dromm founded. “[The Pride Committee] has done a lot of good work over the last ten years. Unfortunately, this apparent ethical lapse could cast a shadow over the entire LGBT community in Queens and have negative consequences far beyond the Pride Committee.”

In response to his critics, Dromm said that his campaign paid for the insert as though he were purchasing an ad in the newsletter that the Pride Committee mails from time to time. He said a full page ad in the newsletter would cost him $200 and he paid $250. An ad in the Pride Committee’s June Pride booklet and its Winter Pride dinner booklet runs $350. Dromm said the newsletter and event booklets typically sell ads to politicians as do those of many other nonprofit groups.

“The ad was paid for and the check was cashed long before the mailing went out,” Dromm told Gay City News. “I am intending to file with the city campaign finance board. This is not a violation of campaign finance board.”

Dromm specifically mentioned that other out gay candidates, including Van Bramer, in his City Council race last year, and Ed Sedarbaum, in his unsuccessful State Senate run in 1998, similarly purchased ads in Pride Committee publications.

Both Van Bramer and Sedarbaum disputed the analogy between the situations.

Sedarbaum, saying he was “very surprised when I opened the envelope and saw it,” said that unlike a printed booklet distributed at an event, a mailing takes advantage of the lower mailing costs offered to charity bulk mailers. He added, “It did not say it was a paid advertisement,” suggesting that it could leave the impression that Dromm’s campaign had the support of the Pride Committee.

Similarly, Van Bramer, while confirming that he took out an ad in the June Pride guide for $350, said, “We never mailed in not for profit envelopes.”

“I don’t think that they are equivalent and I personally feel that my campaigns would never choose to do a mailing in that manner,” Van Bramer said.

Pauline Park, who is a board member at Queens Pride House, said that whether or not the ad was paid for was not the point. The issue, she said, was the appearance of impropriety and the implication that the Pride Committee, the oldest and largest LGBT group in the borough, was endorsing a political candidate.

“If it was a political ad, it should have been labeled as such,” Park said.

In talking about the controversy, Dromm indicated that he felt that most of the controversy had developed as the result of questions originally raised by Park. Dromm and Park have a history of conflict dating back at least as far as the split between the Queens Pride House, housed in Woodside, and the LGBT Pride Community Center, headquartered in Corona. Dromm was a board member of Queens Pride House at the time he began initiating the Corona center, and as the two began to grow they naturally competed for scarce community and governmental financial resources.

Park, Ober, and Foreman all questioned the propriety of a board leader of a major community group holding on to the post when launching a career.

“When Mr. Dromm was on the board of directors of Queens Pride House, he demanded that Ed Sedarbaum resign when Ed declared that he would be candidate for political office,” Ober said. “Danny Dromm then called that a conflict of interest. I believe that Mr. Dromm and the board of the Pride Committee should ask themselves why they have not applied a similar standard to Mr. Dromm’s political candidacy.”

Dromm responded that many elected officials also maintain position on nonprofit boards.

“Every elected official that I know runs on their record and most sit on boards of 501c3 organizations,” Dromm said. Then, alluding to criticisms from Foreman, he added, “If Matt is concerned, he should have called me, rather than go to the media.”

Foreman’s comments came after he was contacted by Gay City News.

Questions of propriety aside, the legal questions involved are anything but clear. At least one complaint has been lodged against the Dromm campaign at both the New York State Charities Bureau within the Attorney General’s office and with the U.S. Postal inspection service.

Brad Maione at the Charities Bureau confirmed that his office was in receipt of a complaint. He offered the following general reaction, without specific reference to this case: “If the organization were compensated by the candidate and there was equal access given to other campaign organizations, then it sounds as though it would be above board.”

However, Maione went on to say that it would depend on how closely the mailing resembled a newsletter or other publication with fixed rates and general access. He also said that if the political candidate were on the board of the nonprofit group, “that’s a different story altogether.”

Maione said his office is “going to take a look at it” and declined further comment.

Yolanda Ramos, an official in the metro law office of the U.S. Postal Service inspection division, was unable as of press time to offer a definitive answer about the regulations on political mailings being included in nonprofit bulk mailings.

This article originally appeared in the 28 June 2002 issue of Gay City News.

]]> http://www.paulinepark.com/index.php/2010/08/pride-division-in-queens-gcn-6-28-02/feed/ 0 http://www.paulinepark.com/index.php/2010/07/nyagra-on-tg-inclusion-in-sonda-2002/ http://www.paulinepark.com/index.php/2010/07/nyagra-on-tg-inclusion-in-sonda-2002/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:37:33 +0000 Pauline http://www.paulinepark.com/?p=1806

SONDA and Transgender Inclusion in Pending State Legislation
by Pauline Park
Member, NYAGRA Board of Directors
January 2002

Recently, there has been much discussion within the transgender community in New York City about the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA), the ‘gay rights bill’ currently pending in the New York state legislature. I would like to take this opportunity to inform NYAGRA members about NYAGRA’s position on this important piece of legislation.

As most of you know, SONDA does not include any transgender-specific language, and without such definitional language – for example, defining
sexual orientation to include ‘gender identity or expression,’ it is extremely unlikely that any court in this state would interpret such legislation (once enacted) as including transsexual or transgendered people, per se. SONDA defines ‘sexual orientation’ as “heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality, and so a transgendered person could only use the law (once enacted) to sue for discrimination if s/he also identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) and if the s/he could provide clear evidence that the discrimination involved related to his/her identification as LGB, regardless of any discriminatory intent based on gender identity or expression. In practical terms, then, SONDA cannot plausibly be regarded as even remotely transgender-inclusive.

There has been some confusion and misinformation concerning NYAGRA’s position on SONDA. When NYAGRA was formed in June 1998, getting transgender-specific and transgender-inclusive legislation enacted was among our primary goals. The full inclusion of all transsexual, transgendered, and gender-variant people in state human rights law was and remains a fundamental commitment of this organization. The question has been how to achieve that objective. At no time did the NYAGRA board of directors ever accept the proposition that SONDA was acceptable as written. Rather, the question at hand was one of strategy and tactics – how to move the ‘gay establishment’ and the state legislature to support transgender inclusion in state discrimination legislation.

The first decision that the NYAGRA board (then known as ‘the working group’) made was to meet with the the leading lesbian and gay political organization in the state. Tim Sweeney (then deputy director) and Paula Ettelbrick (then legislative counsel) recommended that NYAGRA and ESPA work together first on local legislation and then tackle the state legislature, and we accepted that recommendation.

Those who may be critical of the decision we made back in the fall of 1998 must understand the context in which it was made. NYAGRA was an entirely new organization, with no membership to speak of and no resources. The seven of us who met in David Valentine’s apartment on that hot afternoon on June 28 dreamt of creating an organization that would advocate for all transsexual, transgendered, and gender-variant people in this state; but we were also realistic enough to know that we were not in a position to dictate terms to a well-funded statewide organization that had a dozen full-time paid staff members, a membership of 14,000 or more, and an annual budget of over $1 million and that was – significantly – in a position to serve as gatekeeper on any LGBT-related legislation in the state legislature.

The transgender community (however defined) is a marginalized one with few resources and little political clout, and lags far behind the organized lesbian and gay community in terms of political organization. We in NYAGRA recognized that we could gain far more by working with ESPA than by demanding full transgender inclusion in a state discrimination bill that we were in no position politically to demand. By forming a strategic partnership with the Pride Agenda, we have been able to advance the legislative and political agenda of the transgender community far more effectively than if we had chosen to ‘tilt at windmills.’ ESPA’s support for the New York City transgender rights bill (Int. No. 754) was crucial for us to gain entree to Councilmembers and to give us credibility in the legislative arena.

At the time of NYAGRA’s formation in June 1998, there was not a single transgender political organization in New York City or state working directly and consistently on legislation. It is through NYAGRA’s campaign for Intro 754 that the transgender community has gained credibility in the legislative arena. At the time of the founding of NYAGRA, transgender inclusion in pending city or state legislation was not even seriously discussed in political circles. No lesbian/gay political organization in this city actively supported such inclusion, and no member of the City Council or the state legislature (to our knowledge) had even been approached about inclusion in discrimination or hate crimes legislation.

As we enter 2002, the political landscape has been transformed. Every major political club in New York City – including Gay & Lesbian Independent Democrats (GLID), Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn, the Stonewall Democratic Club, and the Out People of Color Political Action Club (OutPOCPAC), as well as ESPA – has endorsed Intro 754 as well as including a question on Intro 754 on their candidate questionnaires (in most cases, the very first question on those questionnaires) in the 2001 election cycle. As a consequence of the support of these political clubs and crucially of the Pride Agenda, Intro 754 became widely viewed as a barometer of a candidate’s support not only of the transgender community but of the LGBT community as a whole. Remarkably, three of the four leading candidates for the Democratic mayoral nomination (Fernando Ferrer, Mark Green, and Alan Hevesi) endorsed Intro 754 a year before the November 2001 election, and even the one candidate who did not endorse the bill (Peter Vallone) did
not publicly oppose it. The Republican mayoral nominee (Michael Bloomberg) also committed himself to signing the bill, an important endorsement, given his election in November 2001. Both candidates for City comptroller and all five of the leading candidates for public advocate endorsed the bill. And some of the more progressive and LGBT-supportive candidates for City Council even approached NYAGRA proactively to ask that their names be put on the Intro 754 endorsement list.

The transgender community has made progress outside of New York City as well. Gender identity language was been included in the amendment to the Suffolk County anti-discrimination bill signed into law in 2001 as well as in the City of Rochester’s human rights law also enacted last year. And the City of Ithaca passed a hate crimes law that included ‘gender identity or presentation,’ making it the first jurisdiction in the state to explicitly recognize transgender in a hate crimes statute. And when the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) was reintroduced in the state legislature in January 2001, it became the first piece of legislation ever introduced in that body to include transgender-specific language.

None of this was even conceivable back in June 1998. And so when we consider the issue of SONDA, we must realize how much NYAGRA’s work on Intro 754, DASA, and other pending legislation has raised expectations within the transgender community to a level far above that in 1998, when we (rightly) expected little or nothing of legislators or candidates for public office.

NYAGRA’s position on SONDA is this: state human rights law should and must include all transsexual, transgendered, and gender-variant people, whether through an amendment to pending legislation (such as SONDA), existing statute law (such as an enacted SONDA), or some other mechanism. SONDA is in many ways the ideal vehicle, as it is still pending and given that many legislators simply assume that ‘sexual orientation’ includes transgendered people. However, while we are committed to full transgender inclusion in state anti-discrimination law, we are also committed to working with ESPA where possible while challenging them when necessary. We recognize (as some in the community do not) that there is a two-step process to amending SONDA. First, we (and that ‘we’ includes not only NYAGRA but other transgender organizations and allies) must persuade the Pride Agenda that transgendered people deserve the same protections from discrimination as LGB people; and second, we must persuade the co-sponsors of SONDA in the state legislature to amend the bill.

What some may not recognize is that working at the state level presents greater challenges than working at the local level. While the Assembly is controlled by (generally progressive) LGBT-supportive Democrats, the state Senate is controlled by conservative Republicans who blocked the state hate crimes bill for 12 years because of its inclusion of sexual orientation. (That bill passed the Senate only in June 2000 and was signed into law in July 2001, without transgender-inclusive language.)

It is certainly not NYAGRA that has been blocking transgender inclusion in SONDA. And it is not solely the responsibility of NYAGRA board and staff members to secure full transgender inclusion in state law. Rather, it is the responsibility of all transgendered people and transgender-supportive LGBs and other allies to secure full transgender inclusion in state law. NYAGRA has grown tremendously over the last few years, but it remains a relatively small organization relative to well-established lesbian/gay statewide political organizations; and NYAGRA is a relatively under-funded organization as well, in relation to its mission and its needs (especially when one considers that there is little funding for lobbying or legislative work, which we do entirely on an unpaid volunteer basis). In the last few years since our founding, we in NYAGRA have focused on legislative objectives that we believe are realistically attainable (especially the passage of Intro 754) in order to build a foundation for pursuit of legislative goals whose realization are probably more distant – such as an amendment to SONDA (either pre- or post-enactment).

Members of the transgender community must begin to take responsibility for themselves and realize that they can play a role in the passage of legislation. If they are concerned about inclusion in state law, they can write their representatives in the Assembly and the Senate or visit them in Albany or in their district offices. There is nothing preventing any individual (whether transgender-identified or not) from raising the issue of transgender inclusion in SONDA or any other bill currently pending in the state legislature. Those who have expressed frustration with SONDA’s lack of transgender-specific language need to ask themselves if they have done what they could to secure full transgender inclusion in that bill or other pending legislation.

There is no one organization (let alone any one individual) who can claim to speak for the entire transgender community, and NYAGRA has never claimed to be such an organization. Instead, we in NYAGRA have advocated on behalf of the transgender community (a subtle but important distinction). We have been especially active in those areas where we believed there was a realistic opportunity for legislative action – most particularly with Intro 754, where there is a very good chance of getting the bill passed in the incoming City Council.

The strategic partnership that NYAGRA formed with the Pride Agenda back in the fall of 1998 has paid rich rewards in terms of our ability to advance a transgender legislative agenda. While we have not always succeeded in persuading ESPA to support full transgender inclusion in pending legislation (such as with the state hate crimes bill or SONDA), we have garnered their support for important bills (such as Intro 754)without which it would not have been possible to move that legislation forward.

Politics is ultimately about human relationships, and the relationships that we forged with senior staff – Tim Sweeney (the former deputy director who left ESPA in October 2000) and Matt Foreman (the outgoing executive director who left ESPA in December 2001), in particular – may change as new leadership takes over at ESPA. But we remain committed to working with ESPA staff to the extent possible while also remaining willing to challenge them – even publicly – when necessary. And we remain committed to full transgender inclusion in state law.

Invisible No More
By John Caldwell
The Advocate
15 March 2005

It’s been a year since an offensive feature in Details inspired unprecedented activism and visibility among gay and lesbian Asians. So how much has really changed?

While Andy Wong has gotten over what he calls “the biggest mistake of my life”—joining the Mormon Church in high school—he still struggles with being gay in his traditional Chinese immigrant family. Now living in San Francisco, the 24-year-old activist grew up in a conservative neighborhood in San Diego. When he came out at 18, he says, his mother at first accepted his homosexuality, then backed away. “She desperately wants me to have children and has mentioned more than a few times that she wished I would turn temporarily straight so that I could conceive a grandchild for her,” he says.
Filmmaker Quentin Lee, who grew up in Hong Kong before immigrating to Montreal, has faced his own demons. “Long Duk Dong traumatized my entire generation of Asian males,” says the 34-year-old, referring to Gedde Watanabe’s extreme Asian stereotype in the 1984 John Hughes comedy Sixteen Candles. Twenty years later, young gay Asians looking for people like themselves still have few choices, Lee notes: “Asian men are often left out of popular culture, and gay Asian men are nonexistent.”

That invisibility is one reason both gay and straight Asians were outraged by Details magazine’s “Gay or Asian?” stab at humor. When Wong first saw that April 2004 feature he was offended but not surprised by the sarcastically captioned photograph of a young, spiky-haired Asian man dressed in metallic shoes and a V-neck T-shirt. Portrayals of Asian men as sexually ambiguous or purely feminine are still quite common, he says: “This is an issue that the gay Asian community has faced time and time again. There’s so much ignorance.”

Nearing the one-year anniversary of the Details article, Wong says little has changed for gay Asian people. Yes, studies have been done and pro-Asian programs implemented, “but there’s still a lot of work to be done. We need to really speak out on our own invisibility.”

Glenn Magpantay, cochair of Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Men of New York and a staff attorney with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, agrees. He helped organize a high-profile protest outside the Details office in Manhattan that resulted in a full-page apology from the magazine. “[But] we are still finding homophobic articles in the Asian-language press and anti-Asian caricatures in the gay media,” he says.

The Details controversy did shed light on the pervasive stereotypes and general lack of positive representation that Asian men continue to face. Despite the success of gay Asian stars like Alec Mapa and B.D. Wong, “gay Asian men are still not perceived to be popular,” says Lee, who has featured young gay Asian characters in his independent films Drift and Ethan Mao.

Gay Asians are still perceived as passive or exotic, says Alain Dang, 28, a gay Asian activist in Manhattan and a member of the New York API group. “The Details article really perpetuated the ‘rice queen’ phenomenon,” he says, referring to gay men who pursue Asian lovers on the assumption they’ll be passive or submissive. “It’s a real part of my existence and my friends’ existence. It’s been hard.”

That particular assumption crosses gender lines, says Pauline Park, a transgender Asian activist in New York. “I actually have had men say, ‘I really like Asian women because white women can be too independent,’” Park says. “One of the big challenges for transgender Asian women, just like gay Asian men, is dealing with our exotification by men of all races. The assumption is that you’re going to be submissive. I’m not. It’s annoying and dispiriting to have to constantly correct assumptions.”

This battle against expectations is also something many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Asian people face within their ethnic groups. “There’s racism in the gay community,” Park says. “But there’s a bigger problem of homophobia in the Asian–Pacific Islander community.” Cultural traditions of marriage and child rearing often make it difficult for gay Asian men to come out, says Dang, who was born and raised in Cupertino, Calif., amid a large and traditional Asian family. “All my parents want are grandchildren,” he says. “At every family event I’m accosted by relatives asking me if I have a girlfriend.”

Dang, who works as a policy analyst for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, isn’t out to any of them. “It’s something I struggle with because I’m completely out socially and professionally,” he says. “Deep down I know that they love me regardless and nothing could break that bond; I’m just dreading the actual conversation.”

Hoping to help people like his family members understand, Wong, who is director of development at Community United Against Violence, a gay advocacy group in San Francisco, started a first-of-its-kind national organization dedicated to raising awareness about gay issues in the larger Asian population. When over 7,000 Asian-Americans rallied against same-sex marriage in San Francisco last April, Wong was inspired to form the gay rights group Asian Equality, which he now heads. He organized his own San Francisco rally in August and in February helped put together the first marriage equality float for the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade. “Over 3 million Chinese-Americans saw it,” Wong says. “This was a unique opportunity to present a powerful message and to have loving same-sex Asian couples standing side by side.”

Patrick Mangto, who was executive director of Asian Pacific Islanders for Human Rights in Los Angeles until March 1, says in the past year his group has been making inroads through efforts to publish pro-gay ads in Asian community newspapers. Many initially resisted, fearing readers’ reactions, but the ads are now reaching more and more Asian-Americans. “Most of our ads are run in native languages so that it’s not an outside thing,” Mangto says.

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has also been working with the media to ensure that there are positive depictions of gay Asians, notes Andy Marra, Asian–Pacific Islander media fellow for the group [see page 10], while the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in February released an unprecedented study coauthored by Dang that looks at the challenges gay Asian families face.

But support from such mainstream gay rights groups is still limited, Wong says. A recent unity statement from 22 gay rights groups didn’t include a single signature from a gay Asian organization. “Asian-Americans are chief plaintiffs in lawsuits to win same-sex marriage, yet we weren’t even asked to sign on to this statement,” Wong notes. “This was an opportunity for them to reach out to us.”

It’s true that gay Asian groups and activists have been left out in the past, Marra says, but she’s optimistic. “It’s amazing that our issues are even being discussed and being brought to the table,” she says. “We are seeing an emerging movement.”

This article originally appeared in the 15 March 2005 of The Advocate magazine, which is now defunct.

Pride House Faces Uncertain Future

By Domenick Rafter
Queens Tribune
15 July 2010

The Queens Pride House, the only LGBT community center in the borough, is facing an uncertain future in the wake of Gov. David Paterson’s veto of state spending bills in his ongoing dispute with the state legislature.

Gov. Paterson vetoed half a billion dollars in discretionary funding that includes $80,000 for Queens Pride House in the form of two grants, one from the Assembly and one from the Senate.

“We will have to make severe cutbacks,” said Pauline Park, Vice President of the Board of Directors at Queens Pride House. “We even suffer the distant prospect that we will have to close our doors.”

With funding uncertain, Queens Pride House has already be forced to lay off two employees, and fears it may have to lay off more and even left open the possibility that they may have to close its community center on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights.

Park said the Queens Pride House and the Queens LGBT community would pressure the Assembly and Senate to restore the $80,000 in funding that she said has already been spent. The state requires that when a non-profit like Queens Pride House applies for a state grant, it must first spend the money it is asking for and the grant would be a reimbursement. Park said the $80,000 it was asking for has already been spent and the agency is waiting to be reimbursed.

“Basically, the state is reneging on its contract,” she said.

The governor’s veto came in the middle of a battle between himself and the state legislature over the budget, already three and a half months late. Park said she understands the governor’s situation and that Queens Pride Center has been in constant contact with his office over the funding. She does not question his support for LGBT causes, but warns that his veto could hurt people and organizations he supports.

“There’s no question that the governor supports the LGBT community. We understand the dire situation the state of New York finds itself,” Park said. “But by vetoing that funding, the Queens Pride House is now in a dire situation”.

Park is not sure how or when the stalemate in Albany will end and when the Queens Pride House will get its funding back, if at all.

Reach Reporter Domenick Rafter at drafter@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 125.

This article originally appeared in the 15 July 2010 issue of the Queens Tribune.

As coordinator of a legislative work group that includes city council members, transgender-supportive allies, and other members of  the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, Pauline Park is one of the key players in the initiative to amend New York City’s Human Rights Law to include transgendered and gender variant people. (In February 2000, city council members announced their co-sponsorship of a trans-protective bill; it has not yet passed.) Park’s participation in transgender activism began with GenderPAC’s annual national gender lobby days in Washington, D.C., in May 1997 and 1998.  She and other New York-based trans activists decided to focus their efforts at the state and local levels, and in June, 1998, they  founded the  New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), the first statewide transgender political organization in New York.

Park, who has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois, found working on this project in the highly-charged political environment of New York City to be a real education in lobbying.  Her first piece of advice: “While the support of legislative staff is important, it’s crucial to get at least a few of the members themselves actively engaged in the process. We’ve been very fortunate to have the direct and active participation of two legislators of color — Margarita Lopez, an openly lesbian Latina city council member; and Bill Perkins, a GLBT-supportive African American city council member.” The legislative work group meets in person or via a conference call every two or three weeks.

“It’s also vital to have the support of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community. We’ve formed a working partnership with Tim Sweeney and Ralph Wilson at the Empire State Pride Agenda, and we’ve been able to build on the credibility with legislators that they already enjoy,” Park said.

Park also emphasizes the importance of forming a broad coalition of allies in support of the bill. “In a city as diverse as New York, it’s important to counter the perception that transgender-based discrimination is only a white queer lower Manhattan issue.”  Park said. “With Pride Agenda staff and the six council members in our legislative work group, we’ve produced what looks to be a winning strategy, forging a broad-based coalition that includes communities of color and people in the outer boroughs.”  Members of the legislative work group have reached out to a range organizations for their support, including the Audre Lorde Project, the National Organization for Women-New York City Chapter, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Puerto Rican Legal Defense & Education Fund, District Council 37 (the largest union in the city),  the GLB political clubs, and people of faith.

Park has been involved with organizing in GLBT communities since 1994, when she launched Gay Asians & Pacific Islanders of Chicago, an organization for gay, bisexual, and transgendered Asian and Pacific Islanders. Since then, she has continued to be involved in Asian and Pacific Islander communities, working with the Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York and co-founding Iban/Queer Koreans of New York in February 1997. The initial spark for Iban/QKNY was the Korean LGBT Forum organized by the Korean Gay Organization/ Chingusai and hosted by the Korean American Association of Greater New York on November 2, 1996.  Park was one of the four speakers in that panel discussion, the first forum on GLBT issues ever sponsored by a non-queer Korean American organization. For Park, ensuring that people of color have an equal voice in the transgender political movement is critical. “As a transgendered woman of color, I do not have the luxury of completely separating what are ostensibly ‘transgender’ issues from issues of race, ethnicity, nationality, and citizenship status.”

Transgender Equality: A Handbook for Activists & Policymakers, by Paisley Currah & Shannon Minter, was published on 19 June 2000 by the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

]]> http://www.paulinepark.com/index.php/2010/07/transgender-equality-a-profile-of-pauline-park-6-19-00/feed/ 0 http://www.paulinepark.com/index.php/2010/07/transgendered-people-of-color-take-center-stage-alp-missive-winter-1998/ http://www.paulinepark.com/index.php/2010/07/transgendered-people-of-color-take-center-stage-alp-missive-winter-1998/#comments Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:47:24 +0000 Pauline http://www.paulinepark.com/?p=1723

Transgendered People of Color Take Center Stage
by Pauline Park
The Missive of the Audre Lorde Project (ALP)
winter 1998
(the following are excerpts from a longer article that appeared in LGNY’s November 19th issue)

The first conference specifically by and for transgendered people of color ever held in New York City, and to my knowledged, anywhere, was a historic moment in the life of the TG POC community. Sponsored by The Audre Lorde Project and the Gender Identity Project (GIP) of the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center, Transworld — the Fourth Annual Transgender/Transsexual Health Empowerment Conference — took place at ALP in Brooklyn on October 24. Only a week before, ALP’s Arms Akimbo, the first confeence for lesiban, bisexual, two-spirit and transgendered women of color, featured the first workshop specifically devoted to transgendered women of color, facilitated by Carmen Vazquez and me.

Transworld was the fourth in a series of conferences that are the biggest annual event of their kind on the transgender calendar in New York City. As in past years, the conference was well attended, with over 200 people from throughout the metropolitan area and beyond in attendance. Some came from upstate locales such as Ithaca, others from as far away as Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

In addition to a focus on TG POCs, what made TransWorld distinct was the decentering of service provider as all-knowing authority figure — for the first time in the history of the annual TG/TS health empowerment conference, health professionals did not dominate the proceedings.

The all-day conference began with an opening plenary on transgender history and culture moderated by Javid Syed. I spoke on the role of the transgendered Korean shaman — the paksu mudang; Arlene Hoffman reviewed African American history; Christian O’Neill offered insights from the perspective of a transsexual black man; and Carmen Vazquez talked about her identity as a buth Puerto Rican lesbian of transgender identity. The early afternoon featured a series of workshops on transgenderphobic violence, facilitated by Victoria Cruz and Alex Gilliam; substance abuse, by Leona Williams and Caprice Carthans; transgendered youth, by Pagen and Reyana Quinones; government entitlements and immigration, by Isiris Isaac; and medical issues.

Perhaps the most innovative feature of the conference was the speak-out sensitively and expertly facilitated by Maura Bairley of Project Reach, who elicited personal experiences of discrimination and violence as well as suggestions for addressing the multiple oppressions that transgendered people of color face in this society…

Also noteworthy was the fact that medical issues of transsexual transition (especially access to hormones and SRS), the focus of one workshop, were not central to the conference, as is often the case at transgender conferences. It may be a mark of the growing maturity of the transgender community that these issues, while important, did not dominate the proceedings. Instead, the question of how to organizaed TG POC’s politically closed the conference’s formal discussion.

One would think that a conference whose aim — the health and empowerment of TG POCs — would win the embrace of all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people. Remarkably, some white queers stayed away based on the misconception that the conference ‘excluded’ white people. (In fact, the conference was open to all and about a quarter of the attendees were white.) The conference even prompted one nationally prominent transgender activist to denounce it as ‘racist’ for having limited the roster of presenters to people of color, despite the fact that POC-only spaces have become increasingly commonplace in LGB communities. Perhaps it is a measure of the need of the transgender community to address issues of race, ethnicity, nationality, and citizenship status more forthrightly that a conference featuring only people of color as presenters would create any controversy at all.

Pauline Park is coordinator of Iban/Queer Koreans of New York, policy coordinator of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy; she also served on the Transworld organizing committee.  The views expressed here are not necessarily those of these organizations.

This article originally appeared in the winter 1998 issue of The Missive (Vol. 2, Issue 4) of the Audre Lorde Project (ALP), and before that, in the 19 November 1998 issue of Lesbian & Gay New York (LGNY).

Gays’ Forum on Police Amid claims of mistreatment, group eyes fixes
By Alan Krawitz
Newsday
9 July 2002

When Jeffrey Montgomery’s boyfriend was killed in 1985 in Detroit, a police source told Montgomery the department didn’t want to waste resources by investigating “just another gay killing,” he said.

That surprising revelation served to underscore the generally bleak tenor of a recent forum on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, and the law enforcement community here and abroad. Sponsored by Outfront, Amnesty International’s program on sexual orientation and human rights, the forum featured a panel of three speakers discussing relations between the police and the gay community.

About 35 people from Queens gathered at the Queens Pride House in Woodside recently to hear: Jeffrey Montgomery, co-chair of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs; Adrian Sanchez, a researcher with the Outfront program; and Andres Duque, director of Mano a Mano, a coalition of Latino organizations and activists based in New York City. Pauline Park of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy was the moderator.

“Attacks on gays haven’t changed much in the last 50 years,” Montgomery said. In 2001, Montgomery’s Michigan-based group documented 1,900 incidents of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people in the United States. Of those, 547 were reported in New York City. Montgomery reported on a national pattern of “continual harassment and targeting of gays” by law enforcement personnel. He related stories of police in Detroit carrying out “gay for a day” sting operations that allegedly targeted gay men seeking consensual sexual liaisons. He said during one such operation, Detroit police arrested 700 men and seized automobiles of gay men under vehicle-forfeiture laws, raising nearly $1 million for the city. Several men are suing the city in the matter.

He also reported that gays were issued summonses from Detroit police charging them with being “annoying persons.” The city’s 1964 annoying persons ordinance was designed to deter obnoxious or lewd behavior, but many gay men were arrested for flirting or blowing kisses. The coalition helped six gay men sue Detroit to get the “annoying person” ordinance repealed.

Sgt. Ricardo Moore of the Detroit Police Department said last week that the arrests were part of a city-wide prostitution sweep and were not intended to target gay men. “Most [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Network] people are reluctant to report incidents to police for fear of not being taken seriously,” Park said.

Montgomery also cited coalition statistics that reveal 50 percent of gays who reported bias attacks often feel mistreated or re-victimized when reporting to police. Other coalition statistics go further, reporting that of last year’s 1,900 documented anti-gay incidents, the offender was a member of law enforcement in 285 cases.

While Montgomery focused more on police-gay interaction nationally, Amnesty International researcher Adrian Sanchez discussed the findings of a report he authored on the poor treatment of LGBT people in Ecuador. Sanchez’ report “Ecuador: Pride and Prejudice,” detailed arbitrary detentions, torture, police inaction and homophobic harassment.

Duque brought a more sanguine perspective as he spoke of gay pride and police relations in Queens and Latin America. “Jackson Heights has the largest Latino gay population in the U.S., and it has existed since the ’60s,” he said. He noted that the last five to 10 years have seen a “tremendous rise” in gay rights activism over the Internet as networks of activists communicate globally. He said while resources for gay people are generally scarce in Latin America, Brazil and Argentina, both have strong gay rights movements.

Duque noted that an anti-gay killing in Jackson Heights last year may have improved relations between police and the LGBT community. Edgar Garzon, a gay Latino man, was beaten by an unidentified suspect in August. Garzon, 35, remained in a coma for more than two weeks before dying. “The relationship between the gay community and the 115th precinct is pretty good; [police] made a good effort at trying to reach out to the gay community – especially after Eddie was attacked,” Duque said.

Dion Small, 33, a gay man from the Bronx, said gays can at times be unwilling to involve themselves in issues that don’t affect them. “There’s a need to increase gay activism in the city and not just in Queens,” he said.” The panelists said improved police relations start with early education of children to address issues such as gender identity, sexual orientation and gay tolerance. Montgomery offered this assessment of the gay pride movement: “The U.S. is no further ahead or behind the rest of the world when it comes to gay rights.”

Alan Krawitz is a freelance writer.

This article originally appeared in the 9 July 2002 issue of Newsday.

Jackson Heights This Week
New Law Stands Up For LGBT Youth
Queens Tribune
1-7 July 2010

The New York State Senate passed sweeping anti-bullying legislation on June 22 that will be the first in the nation to include protection for transgender individuals.

The Dignity for All Students Act passed the Senate by an overwhelming 58-3 margin, winning support from Democrats and Republicans. Gov. David Paterson has vowed to sign the bill, which has already passed the Assembly.

“I’m thrilled that the Senate finally took action after 10 years,” said Pauline Park, chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy and Vice President of the Board of Directors of Queens Pride House. “Both Democrats and Republicans saw there was a need to protect students in public schools from harassment.” Park had been involved in pushing for passage of the bill for over adecade.

The bill requires school staff to report bullying and bias-based discrimination and harassment based on a comprehensive list of characteristics, including disability, ethnicity, race, religion and sexual orientation, as well as gender, and it requires training to deal with instances of bullying and bias-based discrimination and harassment. Park noted the definition of gender is a crucial component of the legislation, as surveys show that bullying and harassment based on gender identity and expression have become a major problem in schools.

The New York City Council passed a similar law in June 2004 called the Dignity in All Schools Act. Mayor Mike Bloomberg vetoed it shortly after, but the mayor’s veto was overridden. The Bloomberg administration and DOE refused to implement the law, claiming the City Council didn’t have authority to pass legislation dealing with schools since the state legislature authorized Mayoral Control of schools. Park disagreed.

“We didn’t see anything in the law [allowing Mayoral Control] that would preclude City Council from legislating in these matters,” she said. She noted that the state law now supersedes the city law and requires the DOE to enforce it. Park said she and other LGBT activists would be fully involved in seeing that the law is implemented in city schools.

The two laws are similar. The local law applies only to harassment and not discrimination, which state law includes, but the state law only applies to public schools while the city law also includes private schools.

Park, who lives in Jackson Heights, said the new law was especially important for Queens because of the borough’s diverse demographics.

“Biased-based harassment and discrimination is a huge issue in the diverse student population of Queens,” she said. “This law will certainly be relevant here.”

Reach Reporter Domenic Rafter at drafter@queenstribune.com or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 125.

– Domenick Rafter

This article originally appeared in the print edition of the 1-7 July 2010 issue of the Queens Tribune.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more info., contact:

Daniel Castellanos
Executive Director
(718) 429-5309
(646) 285-6931
dcastellanos@queenspridehouse.org

Pauline Park
Vice-President, Board of Directors
(718) 424-4003
paulinepark@earthlink.net

Queens Pride House
76-11 37th Avenue, Suite 206
Jackson Heights, NY 11372
(718) 429-5309
http://www.queenspridehouse.org/

New York, 6 July 2010 — Queens Pride House is appealing to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community for support in the face of possibly devastating state funding cuts. The only LGBT community center in Queens, Pride House has not yet received a definitive response from Gov. David Paterson as to the disposition of approximately $80,000 in grants from the State of New York that are hanging in the balance as the governor threatens to veto funding appropriated by the state legislature for scores of community-based organizations throughout the state.

“As you may already know, many non-profit organizations are struggling with funding, and Queens Pride House has been as vulnerable as any to the negative impact of the downturn of the economy in general and the State of New York’s budget crisis in particular,” executive director Daniel Castellanos wrote to members of the Queens Pride House mailing list in a message posted to the list on June 30.

“In addition to the uncertainty over our current funding from the State of New York, we have received some very disappointing news regarding funding from the New York City Council and New York State Assembly,” Castellanos continued. “Due to these funding constrains, we have been forced to make some very painful decisions in order to keep our doors open. Most painful of all was the difficult decision to lay off two valued members of our QPH staff,” said Castellanos. “We have had to reduce our drop-in hours, eliminate some program activities, and postpone some upcoming events. Our services to Spanish-speaking immigrants have been also impacted by the loss of bilingual staff.”

“The consequences of a veto by the governor will be the most dire for the most vulnerable people we serve, including those with health and social service issues, especially for clients who are homeless or unemployed,” said Pauline Park, vice-president of the board of directors.

“Of the three state contracts totalling approximately $80,000, we have expended about $50,000 on the contracts, including payroll and other expenses,” noted Castellanos. “Loss of these contracts could force us to cut back on as much as one-third of our client services and dismiss one full-time and three part-time employees,” he added.  Queens Pride House has been awarded an Assembly grant through the LGBT Health & Human Services Network consecutively for eight years, with the current amount of that grant standing at $25,000.  QPH has also received a Senate grant in the amount of $40,000 and an grant of $15,000 from outgoing Senator George Onorato of Queens, who is retiring this year. “Our proposed workplans, contract period, and budget were approved by the New York State Department of Health and those contracts were issued,” Castellanos pointed out.

Queens Pride House was founded in 1997 and is based in Jackson Heights, which is part of Council District 25. In previous years, Queens Pride House had received funding from former Council Member Helen Sears, who was defeated in September 2009 by openly gay Council Member Daniel Dromm. The election of the first openly gay elected officials in the borough of Queens in November 2009 seemed to some members of the LGBT community to herald a new era in the history of the community, but both Council Member Daniel Dromm (D-25) and Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer (D-26) declined funding requests from Queens Pride House for fiscal year 2010-2011. In previous years, Queens Pride House had received funding from former Council Member Helen Sears (who was defeated in September 2009 by Dromm) as well as from her predecessor, John Sabini.

“The loss of any of our state or city grants would seriously compromise our ability to support partnerships with some groups serving underserved individuals and their families,” added Rosa Bramble Weed, a member of the Queens Pride House board who also runs the Positive Life program, a program for Latino HIV positive individuals supported by Queens Pride House. In fact, the community center also provides subsidized space to two substance use groups, two arts organizations, and several non-profit organizations serving immigrants.

However, Queens Pride House has received a small grant from Council Member Julissa Ferreras (D-21) to continue Charla!, a support group for Latina lesbians offered in partnership with Las Buenas Amigas (a group for Latina lesbians in New York City). “Charla is a monthly discussion group that meets every 3rd Tuesday of the month at Queens Pride House and focuses on health and emotional issues of interest to Latina lesbians in New York,” noted Bramble Weed.

“We hope that our funding stabilizes,” Castellanos added. “However, these steps we have taken might not be enough to cover potential cuts to our funding.” Castellanos concluded the June 30 appeal with the recognition that “We know that this is a difficult time for many members of the community as well as for our community center, and we ask for your patience, understanding, and support during this difficult time of adjustment. We are more than ever in need of donations and the active participation of volunteers, who will play an important role in keeping our community center open so that we can continue to serve the LGBT community of Queens.”

# # # #

Berkeley (1685-1753) was born in the same year as Bach & Handel.

One of my all-time favorite quotes is from George Berkeley, an Irish bishop who was (along with John Locke and David Hume) one of the leading philosophers of the school of British empiricism:

“Few men think, yet all will have opinions.”

No one ever put it better.

To the Editor:

In your article, “Absorbing Gay Pain & Praise, Clinton Says She’s Evolved” (Paul Schindler, Oct. 26-Nov. 1), you report on Senator Hillary Clinton’s response to a question from a member of the Greater Voices Coalition about whether she would support inclusion of gender identity and expression in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). You write, “Clinton noted that the federal hate crimes measure also lacks such language, but said
only, ‘We are very aware of that and we are raising that.’” In fact, while the Senate version (sponsored by Ted Kennedy) of the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act (LLEEA) does not include gender identity and expression, the most recent House version (sponsored by Barney Frank) does. But would she press Senator Kennedy to add gender identity and expression to the Senate version of the federal hate crimes bill-as well as to ENDA-when they are reintroduced in the next Congress? That is the follow-up question that Senator Clinton should have been asked, but was not.

Pauline Park
Chair
New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)
Manhattan

This letter to the editor was published in the 9 November 2006 issue of Gay City News.

Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer came to the forum at NYU and spoke briefly about transgender rights.

Turning Law Into Action
Panel at NYU discusses obstacles, opportunities of gender rights law
By Winnie McCroy
Gay City News
April 21-27, 2005
Vol. IV, Issue 16

A crowd of about 50 transgendered people, advocates and political leaders gathered at New York University’s Kimmel Center on April 19 for a panel discussion on the new city guidelines established to implement the 2002 law that protects trans people and other New York City residents from discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations based on their gender identity and expression.

Panelists included Pauline Park, co-chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA); Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; Avery Mehlman, deputy director of the New York City Commission on Human Rights; Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) and City Councilman Bill Perkins.

Organizers had invited all mayoral candidates to attend, but only Democratic hopeful Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, turned out.

The gender rights measure was enacted in April 2002, passing with a City Council vote of 45 to 5. In December 2004, the city’s human rights commission completed worked done in collaboration with advocates from NYAGRA and other organizations and issued guidelines for its implementation. Now, the mission is to educate the public about these guidelines.

“We’re here to educate both the transgender community and the general public about the scope and reach of the law and what protections it offers so that people like landlords, employers and providers of public accommodations know how they’re supposed to interact with the transgender community in a way that is within the bounds of the law,” TLDEF’s Silverman told Gay City News. “It’s also for the transgender community to learn what its rights and responsibilities are with respect to the law.”

The law’s protections include the right to access to restrooms of the individual’s choice, to homeless services, and to protections in prisons, as well as against general harassment such as stalking, anti-trans slurs, and retaliation for reporting these complaints.

Park told Gay City News, “We at NYAGRA feel it’s sufficient not just to simply pass a law or to adopt guidelines for its implementation, it’s equally important to continually educate the public-policy makers, employers, landlords, and providers of public accommodations – about the law and about discrimination that transgendered and gender variant people face on a daily basis.”

Perkins, lead sponsor of the legislation on the Council, noted that the issue was first introduced under the leadership of former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone. It did not move forward, however, until Gifford Miller assumed the speakership, and Perkins, joined by colleagues including the three gay and lesbian members — Christine Quinn, Margarita Lopez and Phil Reed — began to push for its advancement. Although clearly pleased that
the legislation passed so handily, Perkins warned the crowd that the fight was long from finished.

“One of the most important things we’ve learned about this legislation is this: laws don’t change attitudes. They may punish behaviors, but you know, I still can’t get a cab at all times in this city, even though that’s against the law,” said Perkins, an African American who represents Harlem.

Several speakers and audience members argued that in the past, complaints made to the human rights commission were lost in the shuffle. Mehlman admitted that the commission had been plagued by years of backlogged cases before Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office and appointed a team of attorneys to handle the 75,000 open cases. Now, Mehlman said, complaints are investigated quickly.

He pointed as an example Park’s success in winning a settlement in a case against Advantage Security who asked her for identification after she used the women’s restroom in the Manhattan Mall in Herald Square last April. The company paid both her and another transgendered woman who faced similar harassment $2,500 each. Several speakers, however, noted the anti-trans tenor of the New York Post coverage on March 31 of another bathroom access case in an article titled, “Judges Uphold Bathroom Ban on Girlie-Men.”

The Task Force’s Foreman noted the importance of making the gender rights guarantees work in New York City. “When you do something like this in New York, you’re affecting eight million people — 16 times more people than live in the entire state of Wyoming, for example,” he said. “Other cities across the country look to New York, saying if New York can do this, with its complex legal system, other places can do it.

“That said, we have a very long way to go to translate the law and the guidelines into livability for trans people in New York City. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that discrimination against trans people is rampant, everywhere, and pervasive. And it’s incumbent upon those of us who don’t identify as trans to really understand that and take a stand about it.”

This point was stressed toward the end of the panel discussion in galvanizing comments from Melissa Sklarz, a transgender activist who is co-chair of LGBT issues for Community Board 2, which covers Greenwich Village, SoHo and Little Italy.

“Now that we have legal protection, what are we going to do to make a difference?” Sklarz asked. “Wouldn’t it be great if those of us who are empowered actually stayed to fight? So that the next generation that comes along won’t have to worry about the hateful, disgusting press coverage that we get in the New York Post.”

For additional information about this legislation and the guidelines under which violations can be reported, visit ci.nyc.ny.us/html/cchr/html/trans_guide.html. If you feel you are the victim of discrimination based on your gender identity or expression,
contact the NYC Commission on Human Rights at 212-306-7450.

photo caption: (L. to r.) Pauline Park, Matt Foreman, Avery Mehlman, Michael Silverman and City Councilman Bill Perkins participated Tuesday night for a discussion on how New York is implementing its municipal gender rights law.

This article originally appeared in the 21-27 April 2005 issue (Vol. IV, Issue 16) of Gay City News.