In the Life: What is Transgender?

[music] I think it's two genders: man and woman. No, there's male and there's female. Oh yeah, I think there's more than two genders. Um, male, female and... other. [Tanya Barfield] Imagine always getting funny looks when you walk down the street. Getting fired from your job just because you're making a change that makes other people uncomfortable. Or worse, being the target of violence, harassment, even death, just because you don't fit into the easy categories of he or she. That's the reality for people who call themselves transgendered. Transsexuals, cross dressers, anyone  who doesn't fit into the easy categories of male and female. Now, just as gay people, people of color, and feminists have been fighting for their liberation, transgender activists are coming out to fight for theirs by telling the world who they are. [music] [Dana Turner] What transgendered means to me is that you're  a person that feels in your spirit, your mind, and your soul, different than your physical anatomy, your biological anatomy. Whether that be transsexual women and men, or masculine women and feminine men or bearded women who allow their beards to grow or women weightlifters who can't use the women's  bathroom because they've been pumping iron, it can mean everyone who doesn't fit that Ozzie and  Harriet paradigm of sex and gender. Transgender is just a big ole umbrella term that includes just about everyone I know. [Barfield] Kate Bornstein and Leslie Feinberg have been explaining the term transgender for years, both as public speakers and as authors. [Leslie Feinberg] I would say that "Transgender Warriors" is the book  that I've had to write my entire life. Because every time someone said to me, "I just don't get  what you are, "you know, well maybe people don't have a right to beat you up or fire you or not hire you in the first place, but it's just not natural." Every time I sputtered, this was what I wanted to be saying, is that every single culture on this planet, every society, every continent, including the North Pole, has always had a range of gender expressions but we haven't always been reviled and hunted and hated. This, this just happens. It's part of the culture. It's always been part of the culture. We've been the part that's been swept under the carpet, and now we're coming out and we're saying, "Unh unh, no more." Don't push me Mary, I am not in the mood. [Barfield] It was at the Stonewall Rebellion, gay-liberation-shot heard 'round the world, where people who would today be considered transgender fought on the front lines. [face strike] [cheering] [Feinberg] These are occurrents of our community who have been visible, who had no closets to be in before there was a movement. [Barfield] But while Stonewall is remembered as the turning point for gay liberation, the shot heard 'round the world for the transgender  community was the murder of Brandon Teena. [Kate Bornstein] Brandon Teena chose to - was, was born Teena Brandon and chose to live as a man in a small town in Nebraska. [Barfield] After a minor infraction with the police they  printed Brandon's birth sex in the town paper. Soon after he was kidnapped, raped, and later murdered. [Feinberg] People don't know the violence is going on and they don't know the toll that it takes in shaping our lives every time someone shouts a slur at us, throws a beer can out the window, glares in anger and nudges their friends, that you live with the tension of knowing how quickly it can escalate into a life-threatening situation. What people are beat up for is for being gender-queer. They notice a boy who's acting too nelly, who could be straight, transgendered, or gay. They notice a woman who's acting too butch. They notice a trans person, they can't figure out what the hell they are. That's where the assault comes. [Barfield] Riki Anne Wilchins has been protesting transgender violence for years. Along with the group she founded, The Transsexual Menace, she's traveled far and wide demanding an end to gender oppression. [Riki Anne Wilchins] We took a hundred trans and gender friendly people up to Capitol Hill and we  spent two days lobbying. One of my favorite stories - I forget which senator it was, was meeting with a constituent from, from our group. He had never seen a constituent who came to him and said, "I'm transgender. I vote. "I pay taxes. There's no reason why I should be subject to the kinds of hate crimes and discrimination that I have to suffer through." Riki is now the executive director of GenderPAC, a national progressive group committed to gender, affectional and racial equality. A civil rights movement at its heart is a selfish movement that says, "You've got yours, I'm coming to get mine." A movement has a moral focus and a center when it says, "It's not just about me, but I connect to everyone." [Barfield] No one could agree with that statement more than Martine Rothblatt. [Martine Rothblatt] To me, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the gay and lesbian and transgender movements, all really are one and the same. These are all movements to respect people as individuals rather than as a body type that their genes determined for them. [Barfield] Martine Rothblatt has in her life crossed many borders. Martine was formerly Martin, a Jewish man married to an African-American woman with four kids. The only thing that has changed in this picture is Martin's gender. [Rothblatt] Bina, my, my spouse - when I talked to  her about transitioning, I said sometimes that, you know, "Would you still love me if I did transition and, and live as a woman?" And, and she always said, "Martine, I love your soul. It doesn't matter to me," you know, "what gender identity you wrap that soul in." [Barfield] Before transitioning Martine did a lot  of research on how changing genders might affect their children, compiling it later into this book, "The Apartheid of Sex". [Rothblatt] I couldn't find a shred of evidence that transitioning one's gender was bad for their kids in any way. And in fact what happened is I found myself harkening back to research I had done in college about the effect on children of interracial marriages. And people found that those kids grew up like great, brilliant, creative, beautiful, no problem. At my house really, we do a lot of things that normal families do but we do like a couple other things just to keep us closer. And every Friday as well, as well as celebrating the Sabbath, we have a tradition that we sing a song and, and share what love means to us and we just call the ceremony "love night". I think when people say you can't change your gender, that's like somebody saying you can't change your religion, you can't change your country. I've talked to people who say "Wow, I've grown up  in this small town," that, "I would just never move out of a small town." Well that's cool for them, and - but there are other people who are just from birth or they develop a spark in themselves that they have to travel the journey in their life. And changing your gender is no more different, I think, than changing your religion or changing your country. It's like you're an immigrant.  Okay, you're a convert. You're a social explorer.