“WE’RE QUEER, TOO, AND WE ARE HERE”

Long in the vanguard of the fight for transgender rights, Phyllis Randolph Frye sees positive direction for the movement

by Tim Brookover

“Phyllis Frye is the Quentin Crisp, the Bella Abzug, the Sidney Poitier of the transgender movement in Houston, and perhaps the country,” Ann Walton Sieber wrote a year ago in this magazine. “Forthright and smart, Phyllis was out there when nobody in Houston was out there as a transgender.” [“O Pioneers!” April 2002]

We still look to the redoubtable Ms. Frye, activist and attorney, for her expertise and sense of history and humor. In April, she spoke to the Stonewall Law Association of Greater Houston on recent developments in transgender civil rights. That appearance inspired this recent conversation with Frye.

OutSmart: Phyllis, what are some of the recent developments in transgender civil rights?

Phyllis Frye: More transgenders [TG] are coming out. A larger number of them are FTM [female to male]. Three major court rulings were announced in February plus action in Britain’s House of Lords. There continues to be lots of grassroots legal work to get inclusive LGBT bills or to add gender identification in places where it was left out years ago. And more lawyers who are TG are taking a part.

What do you think is the most important of these developments?

Coming out and staying out is the most important. When you come out, you educate people about who we are. It is more difficult for bigots to remain so when they have to compare their stereotypes and myths against someone they know. Coming out will always remain the single most important thing to do.

What factors have led the movement to this point?

In 1992, I convened the first international TG law conference. At that time, there were no LGB legal groups that did anything for TG legal rights. Each year over the next six years we had another conference. Almost all attendees were non-lawyers. I trained them all in “Billie Carr” grassroots political action. From what I have observed, most of the grassroots TG activists today are second-, third-, fourth-, or fifth-generation folks who trained others from those folks who attended my conferences. You can read about this in the Chapter 22 section of my website at www.transgenderlegal.com.

My perception is that progress has often been slow, sometimes steady, but then followed by a recent rush of positive developments. Is this perception accurate? If so, to what do you attribute this “rush”?

It’s kind of like boiling water. All you see is the water taking in energy until it finally erupts. In this movement we began the fight for TG inclusion in the early 1990s. Let me restate that: We began the fight for re-inclusion. We were a part of the beginning at the Stonewall Riot, but were forced to the sidelines because LGs worried about the way we looked. Too bad. We’re queer, too, and we are here!

Can you identify a particular event or moment that made a difference in the movement?

Yes, it is in the Chapter 22 that I referred to above. In the fall of 1994 and spring of 1995, we were working with U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords—then the chair of the Senate Health and Human Services committee. He was going to introduce a TG-inclusive ENDA [Employment Non-Discrimination Act] that I had drafted. But HRC [the Human Rights Campaign] got to him, and the old bill was introduced. On the day the old bill was introduced, all but two of the national TG leaders were in Houston for the fourth TG law conference. We met, discussed the HRC betrayal, and began the big, coordinated push.

Without question, you have played and continue to play a major role in advancing rights for transgender individuals. Who are some of the other individuals and groups that have also been integral to the movement?

I have to salute both PFLAG [Parents, Family & Friends of Lesbians & Gays] and NGLTF [National Gay & Lesbian Task Force]. Both groups have decided that they will not endorse a bill that is not inclusive of the entire community.

Locally, the early work was lead by Sarah DePalma. It has been picked up by Vanessa Edwards Foster, Beth Richard, Brenda Thomas, Sara Rook, and many others. Anyone who went to the recent TG Unity Banquet in April saw their energy.

But the most significant thing, in my opinion, is the emergence of both the FTM community and those TGs who are people of color. Both of these groups make up a large part of what we will be when we are all out. And both groups wreak havoc to the stereotype of high heels and sequins on white MTF folks.

Where do we go from here?

Unfortunately, the fight nationally still is for us to see an ENDA Bill that reflects the entire LGBT community. While the Houston LGBT groups are finally inclusive as are the groups in our state, there are still some holdouts. To these folks, I suggest they go to www.transgenderlaw.org and see all the different localities and states that are now with TG protective laws.

I have predicted since my podium speech at the 1993 March on Washington that the TG folks will be instrumental in the granting of legal, same-sex marriage. Read my law review article on the subject on my www.transgenderlegal.com website.

Someday, the conflicting laws about the legal sex of TG people will lead to more same-genital marriages (on my website, click on Littleton). Hopefully, some LG lawyers will ask the courts why, in equal protection, TG same-genital folks can get married, but same-genital LGB folks cannot.

What can transgender individuals do to help secure rights for themselves and their community?

Come out. Study my website. Join the local TG groups, especially TGAIN [Texas Gender Advocacy Information Network] and participate. Study the www.transgenderlaw.org website. Quit voting conservative. Join the local GLBT political caucus and get the name changed. Come out and stay out.

What about gay, lesbian, and bisexual allies of the transgender community? How can we be most helpful and effective?

Bless them. I love them. What they can do is do not let folks get away with leaving gender identity and expression out of sexual-orientation language. When folks don’t include bisexual, allies must speak up. When folks don’t include transgender, allies must speak up.

Look at what we have done with the state bar of Texas. It was the first state bar to use “sexual orientation and gender identification” in the name of one of its sections. This was the same group that brought Anita Bryant to its Houston convention in 1978. If we can do that with this group, it can be done with any group in any conservative locality.

Sometimes divisions remain in our community between gay men and/or lesbians and transgender individuals—and bisexuals as well. How can we all break down those divisions?

I think the allies can do most of this. The allies must speak up when it is not popular or convenient.

How does the movement for transgender rights fit into the broader movement for GLBT rights?

Well, as I said before, we started it in the 1969 Stonewall Riots. When the LGB community leaders or politicians needed money, they always went to the TG/drag folks to raise it. And besides, most discrimination against gays and lesbians is actually about their gender presentation—either too feminine for men or too masculine for women. It is all part and parcel of the same fight.

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