From Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/28/1212205/-I-do-not-demand-tolerance-I-demand-equal-rights-Anna-Grodzka#
By rserven
Tue May 28, 2013
Recently Poland’s Anna Grodzka was in the UK to give the annual Kaleidoscope Trust IDAHOT lecture. Grodzka is currently the only transgender member of parliament in the world.
[M]y high visibility illustrates a strange paradox that we as transgender people experience daily. We are highly visible and yet almost invisible at the same time.Individually you often can’t miss us. On a bus or in the street many trans people stand out, even if we would like to pass as a woman or a man. And because we are easy to spot, we are easy to bully. I have lost count of the number of times I have been shouted at in the street or felt threatened by unwanted attention from drunk men who think it’s funny to ridicule someone who looks different from the norm. Most of my trans friends report similar treatment.
–Grodzka
There were a total of 1123 reported killings of transpeople in 57 countries from 2008 to 2012.
Despite estimates that 2-5% of the population is transgender (ie experience some kind of gender dysphoria) the violence against, and even murder of, transgender people is rarely discussed.Where the human rights of ethnic minorities, gay and disabled people are now taken very seriously, and in the case of the former, rising fast up the international agenda, the rights of transgender people remain an afterthought.
I put this down to the unsettling challenge transgender people can represent to norms of masculinity and femininity, which many hold dear. The fear and discomfort we can engender sometimes results in mockery and contempt from those with power, including from some well-known media commentators.
–Grodzka
Georgina Beyer of New Zealand was the world’s first known transgender Member of Parliament, serving from November 1999 until February 2007. She is currently suffering from extreme kidney failure as she awaits a transplant. She has been on welfare since 2010.
Vladimir Luxuria was a transgender member of parliament in Italy from 2006 until 2008. She lives exclusively as a female but does not perceive herself as either male or female…so I apologize for the pronouns.
Continue reading at: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/28/1212205/-I-do-not-demand-tolerance-I-demand-equal-rights-Anna-Grodzka#
