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Ikibijiki -- the newest addition to our office!

As all of us return to a new academic year, we gather at a significant precipice of time:

Last week marked the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I have a dream speech;

Lesbian pioneers Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons have been married for two months, after spending the last 55 years together;

Lesbian activist Del Martin died last week at age 87;

Colorado State University works toward being the greenest university in the country;

Matthew Shepard has been gone for 10 years, after dying in the Poudre Valley Hospital in 1998 because of an anti-gay beating, and it has been a few short weeks since Angie Zapata was murdered because of anti-transgender bias.

A voting season with two major presidential candidates emerges: one candidate a former prisoner of war, another candidate the first African-American person to be a presidential contender;

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Student Services celebrates our 10th anniversary;

And the list could go on.

Upcoming News/Events

Comprehensive national survey on transgender discrimination launched by National Center for Transgender Equality and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Respond to the survey online at
https://online.survey.psu.edu/endtransdiscrim

“This is an absolutely critical national effort. We urge all transgender and gender non-conforming people to take the survey to help guide us in making better laws and policies that will improve the quality of life for all transgender people. We need everyone’s voice in this, everyone’s participation.”
— Mara Keisling, Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Equality

In the wake of one of the most violent years on record of assaults on transgender people, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force have teamed up on a comprehensive national survey to collect data on discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, public accommodations, healthcare, education, family life and criminal justice.

To date, in 2008, several young gender non-conforming people of color have been murdered, including California junior high school student Lawrence King, who was shot in public during the school day. King’s murder, and the murders of Simmie Williams in South Carolina and Angie Zapata in Greeley, Colorado come in a year in which we are still working to include transgender provisions in a federal bill to protect lesbian, gay and bisexual workers from discrimination in employment.

Hate crimes against transgender people suggest multiple points of vulnerability, which can compound each other: discrimination in employment may lead to unstable housing situations that in turn can leave transgender people at the mercy of public programs and public officials who may not respond respectfully or appropriately to them. These stressors add burdens in a healthcare system that is often unprepared for transgender people’s needs. The list goes on. “We know that transgender people face discrimination on multiple fronts,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of NCTE. “This data will help us sort out the combination of forces that leave transgender people vulnerable to unemployment, homelessness and violence.”

Jaime Grant, director of the Task Force Policy Institute, noted, “There is so little concrete data on the needs and risks associated with the widespread discrimination we see in the lives of the transgender people we know. This data will help point the way to an appropriate policy agenda to ensure that transgender people have a fair chance to contribute their talents in the workplace, in our educational systems and in our communities.”

NCTE and the Task Force have partnered with Pennsylvania State University’s Center for the Study of Higher Education to collect and analyze the data. Applying rigorous academic standards to the investigation will strengthen any case made to legislators, policy makers, healthcare providers and others whose decisions impact the lives of transgender people. A national team of experts in survey research and transgender issues developed the questionnaire.

Keisling notes: “This is an absolutely critical national effort. We urge all transgender and gender non-conforming people to take the survey to help guide us in making better laws and policies that will improve the quality of life for all transgender people. We need everyone’s voice in this, everyone’s participation.”
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