Difference between revisions of "Pauline Park: "Campaign for a Transgender Rights Law," NYC, June 2000-April 2002"
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| − | Pauline Park, Ph.D. "The Making of a Movement: The Story of the Successful Campaign for a Transgender Rights Law in New York City." The 8th Annual Mark E. Ouderkirk Lecture, The Museum of the City of New York, June 27, 2002. Copyright (c) 2008 by Pauline Park. All rights reserved.<ref>Introduction to Lecture: "It is indeed a high honor as well as a great pleasure to speak to you today. I would like to thank the hard-working staff of the Museum of the City of New York, including Lavinia Mancuso and David Spiher, who made this happen, and Steve Turtell, who first suggested my name for this event and who has since moved onto the South Street Seaport Museum." | + | Pauline Park, Ph.D. "The Making of a Movement: The Story of the Successful Campaign for a Transgender Rights Law in New York City." The 8th Annual Mark E. Ouderkirk Lecture, The Museum of the City of New York, June 27, 2002. Copyright (c) 2008 by Pauline Park. All rights reserved.<ref>Introduction to Lecture: "It is indeed a high honor as well as a great pleasure to speak to you today. I would like to thank the hard-working staff of the Museum of the City of New York, including Lavinia Mancuso and David Spiher, who made this happen, and Steve Turtell, who first suggested my name for this event and who has since moved onto the South Street Seaport Museum." [New paragraph] "I am particularly honored to be the first openly transgendered person to deliver the Ouderkirk lecture, and I am delighted that the Ouderkirk family and the Museum have chosen this occasion to change the name of the event permanently to the Mark E. Ouderkirk Memorial Lecture for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Programming. It is appropriate and fitting that the occasion of my speech should serve as the catalyst for the change in the name of the event to make it transgender-inclusive in name as it has become in fact, and this small but significant alteration is ironically enough an illustration of the very point of my talk, which is about how social change is made in small steps that yield big advances."</ref> |
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| + | ==The Transformation of the Political Context== | ||
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| + | To begin with, I would like to take you back to a hot summer afternoon four years ago. It was on June 30, 1998 that seven people gathered in David Valentine’s living room in his apartment in Greenwich Village to found an organization that was to be called the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy. In three days, this organization will be four years old, still a toddler in the developmental life cycle of an organization. When we founded NYAGRA four years ago, it was only seven people sitting in David’s apartment, thinking big and dreaming of a day when transgendered and gender-variant people would enjoy full legal equality in this city and this state. | ||
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| + | It is important to realize, as we celebrate the passage of Int. No. 24, that four years ago, the idea of a transgender rights bill passing the New York City Council in April 2002 would have seemed far-fetched; and anyone who would have suggested that that bill would pass the Council 45-5 would have been accused of delusions of grandeur. | ||
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| − | + | I would encourage you to go to the offices of Gay City News – the successor to Lesbian & Gay New York – and to go through back issues of LGNY; you won’t see any stories about transgender rights. Look at old issues of the New York | |
| − | + | Blade News, too, and you’ll find nothing about transgender rights. There might be the occasional article about transgender-inclusive social services or a transgendered victim of a hate crime; and of course, you’ll find the usual photos of drag queens and other performers sprinkled in amongst the ‘serious’ news. But you’ll see little about a visible transgender community and nothing about anything that even remotely resembles an organized transgender political movement. If the virtual absence of any transgender political organizing is apparent in the gay press from 1998, in the mainstream media in New York, you’ll notice a complete absence of anything about transgender rights. | |
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| + | Four years ago, no mainstream politician in New York had even heard the word ‘transgender.’ A few openly gay or lesbian elected officials were quietly talking about these issues, but only within small circles and even then, only sporadically. Social services for the transgender community were extremely limited, and the only transgender-specific program of any prominence was the Gender Identity Project of what was then known as the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center; today, of course, it bears the inclusive organizational name, ‘LGBT Community Center,’ and I’m delighted to recognize the Center as a co-sponsor of this event. Four years ago, the New York City Gay & Lesbian Pride March featured the usual gaggle of drag queens, but there was no ‘transgender’ in its name. This Sunday, marchers will stride down Fifth Avenue in the first LGBT Pride March sponsored by Heritage of Pride, which last fall changed the name of all of its events to be bisexual- and transgender-inclusive. | ||
| − | <text of lecture> | + | <text of lecture continues> |
Revision as of 20:57, 22 October 2008
subhead
<Entry in progress. Two spaces between paragraphs please.>
Pauline Park, Ph.D. "The Making of a Movement: The Story of the Successful Campaign for a Transgender Rights Law in New York City." The 8th Annual Mark E. Ouderkirk Lecture, The Museum of the City of New York, June 27, 2002. Copyright (c) 2008 by Pauline Park. All rights reserved.[1]
<Protected template goes here after Pauline transfers whole text>
The Transformation of the Political Context
To begin with, I would like to take you back to a hot summer afternoon four years ago. It was on June 30, 1998 that seven people gathered in David Valentine’s living room in his apartment in Greenwich Village to found an organization that was to be called the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy. In three days, this organization will be four years old, still a toddler in the developmental life cycle of an organization. When we founded NYAGRA four years ago, it was only seven people sitting in David’s apartment, thinking big and dreaming of a day when transgendered and gender-variant people would enjoy full legal equality in this city and this state.
It is important to realize, as we celebrate the passage of Int. No. 24, that four years ago, the idea of a transgender rights bill passing the New York City Council in April 2002 would have seemed far-fetched; and anyone who would have suggested that that bill would pass the Council 45-5 would have been accused of delusions of grandeur.
I would encourage you to go to the offices of Gay City News – the successor to Lesbian & Gay New York – and to go through back issues of LGNY; you won’t see any stories about transgender rights. Look at old issues of the New York
Blade News, too, and you’ll find nothing about transgender rights. There might be the occasional article about transgender-inclusive social services or a transgendered victim of a hate crime; and of course, you’ll find the usual photos of drag queens and other performers sprinkled in amongst the ‘serious’ news. But you’ll see little about a visible transgender community and nothing about anything that even remotely resembles an organized transgender political movement. If the virtual absence of any transgender political organizing is apparent in the gay press from 1998, in the mainstream media in New York, you’ll notice a complete absence of anything about transgender rights.
Four years ago, no mainstream politician in New York had even heard the word ‘transgender.’ A few openly gay or lesbian elected officials were quietly talking about these issues, but only within small circles and even then, only sporadically. Social services for the transgender community were extremely limited, and the only transgender-specific program of any prominence was the Gender Identity Project of what was then known as the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center; today, of course, it bears the inclusive organizational name, ‘LGBT Community Center,’ and I’m delighted to recognize the Center as a co-sponsor of this event. Four years ago, the New York City Gay & Lesbian Pride March featured the usual gaggle of drag queens, but there was no ‘transgender’ in its name. This Sunday, marchers will stride down Fifth Avenue in the first LGBT Pride March sponsored by Heritage of Pride, which last fall changed the name of all of its events to be bisexual- and transgender-inclusive.
<text of lecture continues>
References
- ↑ Introduction to Lecture: "It is indeed a high honor as well as a great pleasure to speak to you today. I would like to thank the hard-working staff of the Museum of the City of New York, including Lavinia Mancuso and David Spiher, who made this happen, and Steve Turtell, who first suggested my name for this event and who has since moved onto the South Street Seaport Museum." [New paragraph] "I am particularly honored to be the first openly transgendered person to deliver the Ouderkirk lecture, and I am delighted that the Ouderkirk family and the Museum have chosen this occasion to change the name of the event permanently to the Mark E. Ouderkirk Memorial Lecture for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Programming. It is appropriate and fitting that the occasion of my speech should serve as the catalyst for the change in the name of the event to make it transgender-inclusive in name as it has become in fact, and this small but significant alteration is ironically enough an illustration of the very point of my talk, which is about how social change is made in small steps that yield big advances."
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