Update (8/20/2009): You can now download "Transgender Health Care Provider Directory" in PDF (8MB).

On July 21, the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) will distribute copies of the first public directory of transgender-sensitive providers in the New York City metropolitan area ever published. The Gender Identity Project (GIP) of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (208 W. 13th St. in Manhattan) will host a special event from 7-9 p.m. at which hundreds of copies of the provider directory will be distributed to members of the transgender community. The directory – which includes of physicians, mental health professionals, acupuncturists, and AIDS agencies as well as other health care providers – is a project of the Transgender Health Initiative of New York (THINY), a community organizing project whose goal is to ensure that transgendered and gender non-conforming people can access health care in a safe, respectful and non-discriminatory manner. THINY was established by the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF), NYAGRA, and the Center GIP in 2004 and has been coordinated by TLDEF staff since then.

I listen to the Brian Lehrer Show almost every morning on WNYC (the New York City affiliate of National Public Radio) and I'm a huge fan of Brian's, so I was excited to get a call from one of his producers inviting me to the Greene Space on June 23 to participate in a panel discussion with a live audience on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and the future of the LGBT movement (From Stonewall to Gay Marriage, 6/23/09).

Because there were so many people on the panel, I only managed to get in three sentences during the whole segment. But Brian had me back on the show for a solo appearance on June 26 to talk about transgender rights (Follow-Up Friday: Transgender Rights and Cell Phones and Planes, 6/26/09). In the course of the 20-minute interview, I took the opportunity to talk about the need for enactment of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) as well as the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) -- both of which are pending in the exceptionally dysfunctional New York State Senate. In addition to pending state legislation, Brian and I discussed local issues, including the failure of the openly lesbian New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to support a progressive and LGBT-inclusive legislative agenda in the City Council.


Chris Quinn represents the 3rd Council district, which includes Greenwich Village and Chelsea. Quinn is facing a strong challenge by another 'out' lesbian, community activist Yetta Kurland. More about that race later.

The issue of transgender inclusion in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has been debated within the community for over a decade now. Up until last week, the battle lines drawn seemed to be between transgender activists on the one hand and U.S. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) -- the lead sponsor of ENDA in the House -- on the other.

The Human Rights Campaign is the largest, wealthiest, and by all accounts, the most influential LGBT rights organization in the country, and for years, HRC supported the transgenderphobic Barney Frank in his insistence on limiting ENDA to protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation. But in 2004, HRC changed its tune and came out openly in support of adding gender identity and expression in order to protect transgendered and gender-variant people from discrimination in employment as well.

By Dennis DeLeon and Pauline Park, originally published on the September 07, 2007 issue of New York Blade

Transgendered people who live in a gender different from the sex assigned to them at birth face pervasive discrimination in employment, housing, social services, health care, and public accommodations as well as travel when their personal identification documents appear inconsistent with their gender presentation.

In 2002, New York City became the 43rd jurisdiction in the United States to enact a statute explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or gender expression; today, there are 95 such jurisdictions, including 86 localities and nine states.

However, non-discrimination legislation does not address one important aspect of public policy: issuing new birth certificates to those who are living in a gender other than that assigned to them at birth. The birth certificate is the governing identity document in our legal system, and those who cannot get the legal sex designation on that document changed still face the possibility of discrimination even if they have been able to get that “gender marker” changed on other documents.

Consider this item from the GLAAD Media Reference Guide:

PROBLEMATIC: "transgendered"
PREFERRED: "transgender"

The word transgender never needs the extraneous "ed" at the end of the word. In fact, such a construction is grammatically incorrect. Only verbs can be transformed into participles by adding "-ed" to the end of the word, and transgender is an adjective, not a verb.

I hesitate to criticize what is in general a very useful guide, but on this issue, the guide is simply incorrect: 'transgendered' is clearly grammatically correct and 'transgender' is the term whose grammatical status is in question. It is certainly true that some transgendered people use 'transgender' as an adjective to describe themselves or others, but a review of the above will show that this is, strictly speaking, grammatically incorrect.

There are adjectives that we use to describe people that do not end in 'ed,' including 'Norwegian' or 'Chinese,' 'masculine' or 'feminine,' and 'gay' or 'lesbian,' not to mention 'bisexual.' But to point this out is simply to point out the diversity of adjectival constructions in the English language; in itself, it does not constitute an objection to the use of 'transgendered' as an adjective.