Saturday, August 26, 2006

a Black Transition

I was scanning through one of the resource links which Jami provided in the interview piece and ran across this interview at Clamor.

Since none of my posts covered transitioning from a black person's perspective, I wanted to share this.

A snippet....
What has been the hardest thing for you to deal with as an FTM transitioning?

Funny, the hardest thing for me hasn’t been about being black. It’s been about being a union member. My union refuses to cover my health care needs that include chest surgery and a hysterectomy. That’s been the most painful thing for me, and that is about class. As a working class person I cannot afford these surgeries otherwise. The ironic thing is if I had a non-union job I would have more recourse to fight to get my health care needs as a transsexual covered, especially in Minnesota where the law against discrimination includes transgenered people. But as a privately held plan the union makes the decisions.

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