Damien Willis

Las Cruces Sun-News

LAS CRUCES – Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” recently characterized it as the “Trans Panic Epidemic.” States around the nation have introduced and passed “religious freedom” laws — which proponents claim protect those who protect those who, due to religious beliefs, decline to employ or serve certain people. Critics say the laws are designed to single out and discriminate against the LGBT community.

According to a recent report by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, 44 anti-transgender bills had been filed in 16 states as of Feb. 19. By the same date, more than 175 bills had been introduced in 32 states that the organization said targeted the LGBT community.

While high-profile laws have been signed recently in North Carolina and Mississippi, many transgender residents of Las Cruces say New Mexico’s Human Rights Act of 2006 shields them from discrimination, and that progress is being made to make Las Cruces more inclusive and accepting of transgender residents.

Restrictive state laws

North Carolina last month became the first state to enact a measure requiring transgender people to use restrooms and locker rooms in schools and other public facilities that correspond with their birth gender instead of the gender with which they identify. At the same time, the law also prohibits local governments from enacting anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Unlike the North Carolina bill, the Mississippi law does not explicitly restrict transgender people’s use of public accommodations but it does grant business, employers, and schools immunity from state action if they wish to establish “sex-specific standards” for their “intimate facilities.” This would mean that transgender people’s right to use the bathroom in the state could legally vary by employer, by school, and even by building.

The bill bars any state punishment for physicians and therapists who decline to provide transgender health care. Critics of the law say this provision could make transgender health care even less accessible than it is at present.

Thursday night, Ted Cruz reiterated his support for North Carolina-style “bathroom bills” and said that “men should not be going to the bathroom with little girls.” Massachusetts’ GOP governor Charlie Baker was booed off stage Wednesday for his refusal to sign a nondiscrimination measure protecting transgender residents. Georgia’s governor Nathan Deal vetoed an anti-LGBT measure after The Walking Dead threatened to pull its production from the state, and Tennessee risks losing the ABC series "Nashville" if its governor and legislature proceed with an anti-transgender bathroom bill and a measure that allows counselors and therapists to discriminate against LGBT patients.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico

New Mexico’s Equal Rights Amendment and the state’s Human Rights Act of 2006 extend protection against discrimination to LGBT citizens — in theory. However, Zane Stephens, co-director of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico said the laws are rarely used in court, and discrimination is still very difficult to prove.

“New Mexico’s Human Rights Act does offer some protection in some cases, but it’s still difficult to prove that you’ve been discriminated against for being transgender — when an employer or business owner can fire you or deny you service for any number of other reasons,” Stephens said. “Even though we’re a protected to class, it’s still very difficult to prove.”

Stephens said, while state law ostensibly allows transgender people to use public facilities that correspond with their gender identity, that doesn’t always translate to the everyday experience of some transgender New Mexicans.

“We want that to be true. We do,” Stephens said. “But because of societal expectations, that’s not always the case. When we’re talking about people who are transgender, gender non-conforming or non-binary, we’re usually talking about stopping people who don’t meet society’s expectations from using public bathrooms.”

He said it really comes down to how well you “pass,” as it’s commonly called in the transgender community.

“We’ve been getting chased out of bathroom, victimized in bathrooms, or denied access for years,” Stephens said. “And denying people who don’t ‘pass’ access to a public bathroom is not about acceptance at all — it’s about forcing people to conform to someone else’s expectations. I don’t want to be forced to conform.”

Stephens, a transgender male, passes. And for that, he feels fortunate.

“My experience is very different,” he said. “I’m white, educated, and have some resources. Nobody ever questions me. But that’s probably not the same experience you’d have if you were homeless, poor or a trans woman of color.”

Discovering himself

J.T. Perez is a Las Cruces resident transitioning from female to male. At age 5, he knew he was different. All his life, he has found male clothes more comfortable and was attracted to females. But it wasn’t until he moved to Las Cruces from Dallas that he really began to discover his true identity. Perez said Las Cruces has been very accepting.

“It wasn’t until I came to Las Cruces that I found there was a community that was so open-minded, it really let me discover more of myself,” he said. “And then the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico came down from Albuquerque and did a Transgender 101 class. Here were two guys, in the flesh, who were saying what I had been thinking — but I didn’t have the words to express it.”

For the first time, Perez — who, until that point, had always identified as a lesbian — began to understand the enormous difference between sexuality and gender identity. After discussing it with his partner, Perez began the transition, beginning with hormone therapy.

Perez said the transition has at times been difficult, but it has been easier than dealing with a lifetime of gender identity issues and the complexities involved — which ultimately led to years of severe depression.

With the help of local support groups and his therapist, Andrea Dresser, he said the “positive has far outweighed the negative.”

Something was different

Vib Gonzales was born and raised in Las Cruces. Like Perez, Gonzales has never identified as a female.

“I lived as a female for most of my life, until I was about 22,” said Gonzalez, now 25. “I started passing as a guy when I cut my hair off in high school. For my entire life, everyone could tell that something was different. I could always tell that something was different, but I never really had the vocabulary to be able to say anything other than, ‘I just want to be a boy.’”

Growing up in a relatively small community, and in a Mexican-American home, Gonzalez said he didn’t really have access to resources to help him understand gender identity. However, his home was always “very loving, supportive and nurturing,” he said “Still is. Always will be,” Gonzalez added.

After cutting his hair, Gonzalez said he began “pushing gender boundaries,” and coming to understand the difference between gender and sexuality.

“I started to learn what that meant for me, for MY identity,” he said. “Today, I identify as a straight trans man, or a straight man — because I’m a straight guy. Not everyone would see it that way, but that doesn’t matter.”

Gonzalez suffered a tremendous amount of bullying during his school years — bullying which was, at times, unimaginably cruel. He makes no secret of having attempted suicide three times, and says that “being trans had everything to do with at least one or two of them.” In high school, he began cutting himself.

“At a certain point, I acknowledged that I was feeling that way, that I had a right to feel that way, but I knew that I had to take control and do something about it,” he said.

Despite those difficulties, he acknowledges that his transition has been “incredibly privileged and blessed,” because of the support systems that too few transgender people enjoy.

Another perspective

For Zooey Sophia Pook, the only openly transgender female at New Mexico State University, the male-to-female transition has been a very different experience.

“Trans females and trans males have a completely different experience,” Pook said. “And it mirrors the experience of males and females in this country in general. I’m from Michigan, which is tied with Mississippi for the worst civil rights record in the country. It was very hard to be transgender — I faced job discrimination, sexual abuse, physical abuse.”

Pook said she has always been feminine in her expression and never identified as a boy. “I just didn’t identify as anything, until I saw transgender females in my twenties,” she said. “It was like looking in the mirror, and seeing the expression of myself.”

Pook moved to New Mexico two years ago to work on her PhD — because it’s among a handful of states with the Human Rights Act. As she pursues her doctorate degree in rhetoric and professional communications, she also serves as the coordinator of LGBT+ Programs at NMSU.

“It’s been a different experience here, in terms of being able to express my gender identity, and to be myself in that way,” she said. “Still, some of the experiences that trans women have, in terms of passing and being vulnerable, are going to be different (than trans men). You’re going to be more likely to experience violence — and I have here, and I have in Albuquerque. But we can’t necessarily draw the line and say that’s because I was trans. It could have been because I was a female, just walking down the street.”

In addition to being transgender, Pook is Lebanese — which she said has not made the transition easier.

“I don’t expect the Arabic community to ever…” — she pauses — “But so many cisgender Arabic women have so much in common with me. And, again, this is more like a male/female issue, in terms of how we’re treated. Michigan just has some super-racialized parts. And they just were not going to allow me to be trans there.”

Progress at NMSU

Pook, in her capacity with LGBT+ Programs, has championed equality initiatives for transgender students on campus.

“I started the transgender student group here, and I’ve worked to pass a lot of policies as the president of that group,” Pook said. “The first one was to work with the health center to redo their intake forms to include transgender and gender-nonconforming, and to include a preferred name. That’s led to a 300 percent increase in the health center’s use by transgender people.”

Pook also established a preferred-name policy that is now in place on class rosters at NMSU. Pooks anticipates it will soon be extended to ID cards and housing.

“And this semester, I housed the first trans students according to their experienced gender,” Pook said. “I think that the experience for trans people is rapidly changing here. We’ve started. We’re doing things, and that’s different from a lot of campuses across the country.”

Additionally, Pook said nearly all of the university’s main buildings have private bathrooms, and all new buildings are including them — which not only meet the needs of transgender students, but also parents of opposite-sex children, and diabetics who might need to administer insulin injections.

“We never wanted to make that a transgender thing,” Pook said. “It’s really about providing privacy for any number of reasons. And the administration has embraced it without any resistance at all.”

Transgender students at LCPS

Las Cruces Public Schools also has policies in place to accommodate transgender students, according to school officials.

At one Las Cruces middle school, a principal reports having about five transgender students. Rather than using the gendered restrooms, most prefer to use a private restroom in the nurse’s office — a practice which seems to be common among transgender students at several LCPS schools.

Two parents have come to the middle school, according to the principal, to talk to an administrator or counselor about their children. One parent asked that the child be referred to by their preferred name. The other parent said she feels the child had been going through a phase, and the family was accommodating that as the child went through it.

The principal had no sense the students were being bullied — adding that the transgender students are popular and well-accepted at school.

Another middle school principal reports the school has three eighth graders, two seventh graders and one sixth grader who have disclosed they are transgender to school personnel. Some of these students, the principal said, have not disclosed this to their parents and are worried that their families will find out.

Again, those who have expressed a concern about restroom use are using the nurse's restroom at this school. Students are allowed to change for PE in an alternate location, before class starts, before going to the gym.

Over the last three years, two parents have spoken to the principal about their transgender children and their concern is how their children will be treated or received by others, according to LCPS spokeswoman Jo Galván.

Another middle school nurse said she is aware of one transgender student at her school. Three years ago, when she was at an elementary, she also knew of a fourth-grade student who was transgender. The nurse said she has referred students to the Trevor Project, a website which offers resources and support for students and parents. Most of the students she has referred to the site, however, are “gay, lesbian or questioning youth,” she said. The nurse also has a Safe Zone sticker on her office door, “so that students know it is a safe place should any student need me for information.”

Coming Soon: Safe Zones

Safe Zones, an initiative of the Safe Zone Project, is a term used in schools and workplaces to let LGBT+ students and employees know that an institution is committed to inclusion and support. The Safe Zone Project offers curriculum and consulting to organizations interested in those topics.

“It’s just about educating people in institutions, like schools,” Perez said. “If a teacher has a Safe Zone sticker up, it’s really just saying, no matter what you’re going through, it’s safe to come talk to us. For instance, one teacher had a Safe Zone sign up, and a student felt comfortable enough to come ask him questions about homework. It doesn’t have to be questions about sexuality or gender identity. It means this person is safe to approach, and has been educated on sensitivity issues for LGBTQ students.”

Safe Zone staff receive sensitivity training and resources to help LGBT+ students.

“In all schools, Safe Zones will be a huge asset to kids who already feel left out,” Perez said. “It clearly signals that there are teachers and counselors that they can go to and talk about being bullied, or being harassed by a teacher or a gym coach. And it doesn’t just protect LGBTQ students, it protects all students.”

Earlier this year, the LCPS school board heard a presentation from Equality New Mexico on launching a Safe Zones initiative. At Tuesday’s board meeting the board is expected to pass a resolution to establish Safe Zones in all of the district’s schools. If passed, the program will be overseen by a district staff member and guided by a planning team comprised of various community agencies. Each school will have at least two staff members identified as Safe Zone representatives.

Janet Mock at NMSU

Also on Tuesday, NMSU will host a public discussion with The New York Times best-selling author and MSNBC web series host Janet Mock at 7 p.m. at the Corbett Center Student Union Auditorium.

In her 2014 book “Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More,” Mock serves as a voice for the transgender community and all people attempting to define themselves. She is also the host of MSNBC’s So POPular! weekly web series about culture.

Pook, who helped arrange Mock’s visit, will moderate the discussion. Mock will speak about her book, her experiences and the issues of identity and inclusion.

“I think Janet Mock is the most important trans woman in the world,” Pook said. “As a young, intellectual female, Janet is the one setting and declaring the kind of politics and ethics of what it means to be a trans woman, and what we need—socially, economically and politically. And to have her here is a great proclamation that NMSU has started these policies for trans people and is committed to inclusion.”

In addition to being a best-selling author, Mock is also a contributing editor for Marie Claire magazine, and is the former staff editor of People magazine's website. Barnes & Noble will have copies of Mock’s book available for purchase beginning at 6 p.m. The event, which is free and open to the public, will conclude with a book signing from 8 to 8:30 p.m.

“People should come because Janet is the beacon of our movement,” said Pook. “Her experience as a woman, as a trans woman, as a woman of color, is an important story that we all need to hear. Sometimes it’s not enough to have these policy things. We need to know what it’s like to be trans. We need to hear their stories, beyond what the media have been giving us.”

Damien Willis may be reached at 575-541-5468, dawillis@lcsun-news.com or @damienwillis on Twitter.