Subject: [Peninsula_Interweave] FW Stephanie Loveless helps Green Party embrace trans community

From: Frey <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 20:38:27 -0700 (GMT-07:00)

I didnt realize this was going on in the Green Party.  
I am registered Green, any other Greens out there?
Frey

>Stephanie Loveless helps Green Party embrace trans community
>National Women's Caucus now open to trans women
>
>By Jason Michael
>Between The Lines News
>9/14/2006 - Issue 1437
>
>http://www.pridesource.com/article.shtml?article=20215
>
>FERNDALE - After a fierce and sometimes fiery battle that raged for
>more than two years, local publisher, performer and trans activist
>Stephanie Loveless has succeeded in securing a place for herself and
>other trans women in the National Women's Caucus of the Green Party
>of the United States.
>
>"I am the first transsexual member of the caucus, and I hope many
>more will follow," said Loveless in an e-mail to her supporters.
>"The caucus's new membership policy is far from perfect, and I am
>working to improve it further. But a critical change has been
>accomplished - the caucus no longer defines gender merely on the
>basis of one's birth genitalia."
>
>Loveless, who was born Tom Ness, has been a member of the Green
>Party for decades, and even ran for Congress on the party's ticket
>in 2000. But following her transformation, she was disappointed to
>learn that certain sects of the party weren't as progressive as she
>had believed. Still, it was only with the support of the party's
>more liberal leaders that she was able to eventually see her
>application for membership to the NWC accepted.
>
>"The Accreditations Committee formally recommended disaffiliating
>the NWC as a result of inaction over my application," Loveless said.
>"This battle has become one of the primary controversies in the
>Green Party, and I am glad that it looks to be finally resolved.
>
>"The NWC officers have consistently demonstrated an inability to
>tolerate dissent, demand far too much secrecy, and often behave as
>if the Caucus belongs to them as individuals rather than the Party
>itself," Loveless continued. "I hope so very much that this will
>change now. I have no hard feelings towards the NWC officers in the
>least, and to the extent I can recognize their weaknesses it is only
>because I share those very weaknesses." 
>
>Loveless said she hopes to eventually see a stronger and more open
>membership policy embraced by the NWC in the years to come. For now,
>it reads in part, "The NWC is a caucus for individuals identifying
>as and living as women full-time. There is no access to:
>transvestites (men dressing as women but identifying as men);
>individuals identifying as third gender or other differently
>gendered people; female-to-male transgender individuals who identify
>as men and live full-time as men (transmen, transsexual men);
>individuals living part of the time as women; [and] men."
>
>"Frankly, I am in agreement with most of the criteria, and agree
>that transvestites, crossdressers, etc. should not be allowed
>membership," Loveless said. "[But] when it comes to trans people, it
>must be based on nothing more than self-identification. Nothing else
>works. It is distressing when people define gender by way of
>genitalia, for example, as I am much more than just a penis."
>
>What Loveless takes issue with is the phrase "living as women
>full-time."
>
>"So many of my sisters are forced by hunger and the threat of
>homelessness to put on boy clothes for employment," she said. "And
>the younger sisters always face the risk of being kicked out of
>their homes, etc. ... It's a hard, physically dangerous and
>emotionally battering life to be trans. The world must learn to
>forget some deeply imbedded traditional perceptions about gender."
>
>For now, though, Loveless is satisfied with the results her scrappy
>determination produced.
>
>"The real winner is trans dignity" she said. "There is an old
>saying, 'Well-behaved women rarely make history.'"
>
> 
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