BY Dor BRAUER AND EUAN BEAR he first page inside the conference packet says it so simply, and yet the issue can profoundly shake up our - understanding of the world and our places in it: Translating Identity is a free confer- ence focusing on gender and gender identi- ties. February 28, 2004 marked the sec- ond year that a group of dedicated UVM students associated with the undergraduate organization Free to Be plannediand organized a substantive, successful confer- ence. More than 350 people attended this year, traveling from as far away as Montana and Puerto Rico. . Clearly, issues of gender — what gender is, how it defines our lives, what happens when we dont conform to a pre- scribed gender role or identity, understand- ing gender options, making bodies match an internal gender —— are of great impor- tance to student activists on campus. It becomes of interest to the wider communi- ty as we await the outcome of a Vermont case where transman and former Hardwick police officer Tony Barreto—Neto charges he was harassed into resigning when his trans identity became known. The Attorney General s office conducted an investiga- tion, and, according to a report in the Caledonia Record, settlement talks may be underway. Further, a bill, H.366, is in the House Judiciary Committee that would explicitly add gender identity to the nondiscrimination law. The bill is not expected to move out of committee, but testimony on its merits could be taken toward the end of the session. At the UVM conference, the two consecutive 90-minute morning sessions included Trans-what? for beginners, per- sonal stories by female to male (FTM) and male to female (MTF) folks, and a session entitled SOFFA s: Agents of Change or Casual Leisure Furniture? SOFFA stands for Significant Others, Friends, Family, and Allies. Other choices included presen- tations or panels on trans youth, under- standing gender and sexuality across cul- tures, trans sex, being gender queer, Sex at Work on nondiscrimination policies, and The Art of Bioterrorism, a reference to forced gender selection, not to agents of mass destruction. Local author (and LGBTQA Services staff member) Eli Clare, present- ed Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies: Telling Our Scars in the first of two after- noon sessions. Clare offered a moving analysis of the ways that oppression can alter and damage our relationships with our bodies, and used slide images to show how it is possible to reclaim the beauty‘ and sexiness of marked bodies. The other session was Finding Common Ground Through Trans Inclusion. In Trans Inclusion, Sadie Crabtree suggested there is common ground between advocates for trans libera- ’ tion and those for reproductive freedom: the right to control our own bodies. In the I same session, Elizabeth Green questioned the validity of separatist policies that have excluded transwomen from women-only space to maintain emotional safety for womyn—bom-womyn. She suggested that community should be addressing: poverty and prison reform. He began with a star- tling and compelling critique of the liberal, middle-class, white agenda of LGBT organizations, effectively securing the rights of well-ofi' couples to leave their wealth to their partners, while ignoring the abuses suffered by impoverished, gender- variant people of all ages. For example, he said that progressive Democrats were ‘wasting time and energy on partisan bick- ering, instead of developing alternative strategies for fixing welfare, because, as he pointed out, welfare needs fixing. Spade wove a complex analysis of the intersections between class, race, sexual orientation and gender-identity oppressions as he laid out the conditions facing transgender people. Trans people Understandin the T in LGBT UVM’s Translating Identity Conference Grows in its 2nd Year lesbian feminism denies its own underly- ing premise questioning the gender dichotomy of male and female that defined and restricted roles based on genitalia. Green argued that separatists have retreat- ed to a position that accepts the assump- tion they fought so hard against — that there are essential biological differences between men and women that separate them and are based’ in anatomy, unchange- able by any means. i A large and enthusiastic audience greeted the talk presented by keynote speaker Dean Spade, a young FTM attor- ney who started the NYC-based Sylvia Rivera Law Project on mostly his own sweat and inspiration. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine our gen- der identity and expression, regardless of income, and without facing harassment, C discrimination or violence. Spade made a clear and passion- ate case for the issues he feels the LGBT face enormous, and mostly unaddressed, discrimination in education, employment, health care, and public benefits. Many trans people start out their lives with the obstacle of abuse or harassment at home, or being kicked out of their homes by their parents on the basis of their gender identi- ty or expression. A disproportionate num- ber end up in foster care and corrections, or homeless after experiencing harassment and violence at the hands of staff and other residents in public facilities. His theme echoed statements he made in a recent paper: The adult home- less shelter system, similarly, is inaccessi- ble to them due to the fact that most facili- ties are gender—segregated and will either turn down a trans person outright-or refuse to house them according to their lived gen- der identity. Similarly, harassment and vio- lence against trans and gender different students is rampant in schools, and many drop out before finishing or are kicked out. Many trans people also do not pursue higher education because of fears about fl having to apply to schools and having their paperwork reveal their old name and birth sex because they have not been able to change these on their documents. Furthermore, trans people face severe dis- crimination in the job market, and are rou- tinely fired for transitioning on the job or when their gender identity or expression comes to their supervisor s attention. In most of the US, this kind of discrimination is still not explicitly illegal. The goal of Translating Identity is to help community members understand what has become a defining struggle in the lives of these scholars: what it s like to live beyond the binary of he and she 2 ' This conference seeks to translate gender identity to both the queer community and its allies. The student organizers of the con- ference think many LGB folks have as much to learn about being trans as hetero- sexual folks do, and they may be right. Different generations take on differe\n’tg_Wl E m ' struggles. While gay men andilesbians_are,. .,t + afier decades of difficult, painful, often tedious political and personal work — find- I. ing more and more acceptance by main- I stream society, the new frontier appears to be in helping toerase barriers to the explo- ration of gender and its effect on our jobs, our healthcare, our families and our lives. As Riki Wilchins, last year s TIC keynote speaker, said, Gender affects everything. i And, paraphrasing, homophobia is based V on gender non-conforrnity. f The Translating Identity . ; Conference has become a signature event « for the UVM Free to Be GLBTQA. I Members promise they will be hosting the third annual conference next year, despite losing the club s current president and vice president this May. President Caitlin Daniel-McCarter is graduating and head- ing for law school, where she plans to become an even more effective advocate. for LGBT issues. Danny Robb, the club s VP, is heading home to finish out his degree in political science at SUNY Albany. He is already setting up intem- ships at the Statehouse to help prepare him to run for public office so he can help make laws that protect the rights of LGBT people.V Dot Brauer is the director of LGB TQ Services at the University of Vermont and a long—time activist. Euan Bear is the edi- tor of Out in the Mountains.