Adventures In Genderland: Part Four

The Transflakes and birth of NTAC

by Cathryn Platine

The Transflake list started life as a simple CC list. The problem with lists like this is that everyone has to have the same list on their own mailer or some folks get cut out of part of the conversation. From the beginning the main thrust of the communication was aimed at forming an independent lobbying effort from GenderPac and making sure HRC was unaware of the effort to stop them from pre-lobbying as they had done to every effort after the first Lobby Days organized by ICTLEP. (the transgender legal and employment project) I proposed a strategy of a small, tight knit group doing the first lobby effort followed by a phony organization whose dummy communications kept Riki and other suspects in the loop. That organization would never show up after provoking a pre-lobby effort by HRC. This would be followed by another shell organization doing the same thing. Then we would do the real thing. I called this "transflakeing" playing off the image transies have of being flash in the pan flakes.

After two weeks of a flurry of emails, Sarah Fox set up an email list on Onelist named Transflakes after my tactic and the membership in our conspiracy was finally set. Sarah Fox, Sue Davis, Cathy Platine, Dawn Wilson, Anne Casebeer, Katrina Rose, Vanessa Foster, Jessica Redman, Sarah DePalma, Jessy Xavier, Yosenio Lewis, Marsha Jackson, and Courtney Sharp were the original list members. Miranda Stevens dropped out at this stage of the game, a few days later Monica Roberts, Angela Bridgeman and later Deni Scott were added. We gathered and shared information, discussed how to organize, shared independent efforts and gave advice to each other on local efforts. There was never a leader, we worked on a strict consensus basis.

It was at this time that Congressman Barney Frank did an interview with the gay press giving, among others, the trans-activist agenda of allowing males in women's workplace showers as the reason for trans exclusion from ENDA.

“I've talked with transgender activists and what they want—and what we will
be forced to defend—is for people with penises who identify as women to be
able to shower with other women,” said Frank, citing the activists’ handbook
which states that a person's declared gender is the one by which he or she
should be recognized. “There are no votes for that. And if that is the price
for this bill, it is wrong.” ---Barney Frank as quoted in the "Bay Windows" article.

Most of the transflakes were organizers of various It's Time chapters, the reason Jessica Xavier, the head of It's Time America, had been added to the list. A check of the It's Time America website revealed that the Horton employment page was not only still there, it was now clearly marked as official policy and if anything, even more controversial! Yet another discussion on the It's Time America list led to yet another nearly unanimous vote for that pages removal. Now it had caused national damage. Horton, now joined by Jessie Xavier, once again, promised to fix it. Once again, it wasn't.

Now it got interesting. To this point we were merely a group of disgruntled transactivists comparing notes, venting our frustration and blue skying possible solutions. In short, an informal consensus oriented discussion group. Jessica Xavier changed all that. In a phone call to Sarah Fox she leveled a group of charges against all of us and few specifically. Among other things, she basically called us idiots for not accepting that HRC and GenderPac betrayed us. She told us that transies had no place in national politics and we should go back and concentrate only on local actions. That we were acting like a bunch of men expecting to be able to work "top down" from a federal legislative perspective. That we should meekly accept that we'd never be able to play the game in the national arena and should leave it to Riki and HRC. That our attempts to hammer out a possible gender inclusive piece of legislation was the work of rank amateurs. Bear in mind, Jessie was the head of It's Time America, the other national organization made up of independent It's Time state chapters! She then announced to Sarah that she had it on good authority (she was in close contact with Horton) that the stress of my transition with the loss of my family, business and career had driven me insane. Davidson and Horton had succeeded in smearing me nationally as crazy, something that then followed almost all my involvement in trans-politics to this day.

Now several of the transflakes had been involved in writing both local and federal legislation, one of us was an attorney, another worked for one. Sarah reported the conversation as per Jessica's request to our list. This was followed up a week later with a list posting from her that confirmed the accuracy of everything Sarah reported with all the nastiness put back in that Sarah worked hard to edit out in an effort to soften it. During the discussions on the proposed legislative language I had argued passionately against excluding crossdressers, as did Sarah and Sue Davis, ironically aimed at Anne Casebeer, the only crossdresser identified member of the transflakes! The issue of the employment policy page of ITA was yet again raised on the ITA discussion list, this time Davidson promptly accused me of being anti-CD which was ignored by almost everyone. Within days that page was waved in the face of the Kentucky people who were pushing for a trans-inclusive law in Louisville ironically forcing them to change the language to exclude the very wish list Horton called for. Jessica and Horton shut down the ITA discussion list more than a week after Davidson's rants were ignored citing a non-existent CD vs TS "war", but the ITA employment page was still there.

We learned within days that Jessica had told Riki of everything we had discussed, that she'd been pressured by the HRC to bring us under control or lose her job. That elements of the HRC board were appalled at the trans-exclusive policies and that one of the main architects of that exclusionary policy, Donna Redwing, was to speak in Columbus. Jessica and Sarah DePalma both left the list just before all this was discovered. It's Time Kentucky pulled out of ITA and changed its name to TransFair Kentucky. Dawn Wilson pulled herself off the Transflake list on July 10'th around noon without explanation. She occasionally posted an opinion after that via Anne Casebeer. Just before the Redwing confrontation we learned that lesbian activist Alicia Abando, who works for Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley, asked Birch during a Chicago gay event a few days before about trans inclusion in ENDA. She said Birch responded: "That's never gonna happen.".

The list decided to pull all the information we'd gathered together in one report and a battleplan for confronting Donna Redwing in Columbus was hatched and ironed out. I was appointed the "attack transie" by Anne Casebeer, Sue Davis and Sarah Fox and a script for me to follow was written. Dawn Wilson, Anne Casebeer, and Monica Roberts joined Sarah Fox and myself for the confrontation. We conferred ahead of time to refine our plan. Ironically, several people who were privy as members of transflakes to that discussion later used the fact that I performed the script as written as "proof" of my loose cannon, insane liability to the movement. Their voices were mostly silent at the time of the discussion, as was mine. I was picked because I am a good public speaker with the ability to express passion and outrage without going overboard and that I'm not easily rattled in debate. My "script" as designated "attack transie" was written before I even agreed to deliver it.

We continued to share our opinions and edited each others proposed press releases, took two weeks dedicated to getting that flipflop employment page down, but now the main focus of the Transflakes was the "Big Payback" report. We hoped that by exposing what we had learned we could then use the resulting outrage as a stepping stone to a new, first ever, grassroots national trans-advocacy group. We almost succeeded.

Time for the Southern Comfort came around and Dawn, Anne and Monica apparently took our preliminary "Big Payback" report and presented it to several of the "names" including JoAnn Roberts and Dallas Denny. Suddenly the rest of us were out of the loop, told we should be patient and there would be roles for us in what was happening........right. Big plans and events afoot, everything was on a "need to know basis" and those of us who'd put our butts in a sling didn't need to know. Dawn had cut a deal with Roberts and Sarah, who was told much, but not all, of what was going on, was sworn to not tell me, specifically, anything. A week later, Joann Roberts announced that SHE was forming a new national transadvocacy organization and if you wanted to be part of it, you had to contact her. What followed took several of us by surprise.

Most of the Transflakes decided to join JoAnn's group, suddenly a communication was forwarded to the Transflakes from Dawn, in part:

"JoAnn asked me to organize the board of this. I will call the march. I want the board to be no less than 15 people and at the Congress, we will sit down produce specific bylaws, and will hire an exdir. We will also elect a board chair."

Dawn Wilson, who was too busy to be on our list and merely occasionally made pronouncements via Anne's computer was now running the show we sweated blood over. Worse yet, gone was any consideration of a grassroots, consensus organization, our vision from the beginning. To say several of us felt betrayed would be putting it mildly. JoAnn announced a steering committee with Dawn as its head. Someone had forwarded my posting of my concerns about this new group, made on the Transflakes list, to JoAnn anonymously (again with the anonymous backstabbing), this I got directly from JoAnn when she quoted liberally on "her" list from my Transflake post. Sarah Fox and I were called "wounded elephants" and deemed unworthy of being included on the new steering committee. Almost none of the transflakes were consisted worthy. Worse of all, Dawn and JoAnn were both calling for the "Big Payback" report to be buried, the very reason they were able to pull this off! Sarah and I both complained loudly about the new steering committee being appointed, our report and findings buried, and to our surprise, JoAnn relented, then claimed to be pulling out of the process altogether telling us to do it ourselves.

I seized the opportunity and immediately set up a new list, NTRC, the name of the group up to now. My first posting on the new group called for volunteers to be on the steering committee and a consensus model be adopted. I found myself facilitator as the idea of the new group becoming consensus, rather than board driven, was quickly embraced by almost everyone. NTRC, later renamed NTAC was born with all the messiness that accompanies most births.

So what happened? How did a group that started off as a grassroots, consensus organization become yet another top down, board driven organization so afraid of grassroots opinion that it regularly censored its own communication lists? All this in the next chapter. (Oh no! a cliffhanger)

note on the above essay: I consulted my archives of the original Transflakes postings prior to writing each section of this essay. Some folks may not like it, but this is a totally accurate, if abbreviated, account.

Search This Blog

For the Record