Pauline Park: Standing Up for Transgender Rights

Pauline Park was the first openly transgendered person to be grand marshal of the New York City Pride March in June 2005. Currently, she is an active chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA). Its mission: “to advocate for freedom of gender identity and expression for all.�
Pauline also blogs regularly at www.bigqueer.com.
I caught up with Pauline on the phone and over email. Here’s Pauline…

What is the short story of your personal process?
[Laughs] Not the 15-page version. I knew at the age of four that I was transgendered. But knowing and doing something about it are two very different things. It took me a very long time to come to terms with what that would mean and it was only in 1997 that I decided that I would transition. I had tried expressing my gender identity before 1997.

Did you go through all the surgeries?
No, I haven’t had any surgery. I’m a little bit unusual in that I had an entirely non-medical transition. Most people transition through hormones and some have sex reassignment surgery; but in my case, for a whole variety of reasons, I didn’t do either.

Would they be personal reasons?
Well, there are several reasons. Some relate to health, and others relate to—I guess—politics, political philosophy. I should state that I have many friends who are on hormones, some who have had sex reassignment surgery. I fully support those who decide to go through such forms of medical intervention. But I long ago decided that they were not right for me.
There are several reasons. With hormones there are many side effects. Many of which are particularly unhealthy side effects. They almost certainly increase one’s risk of cancer. They can also induce mood swings and there are other side effects as well.
But I think fundamentally, I don’t feel the need for hormones or surgery to define myself as a woman. I identify as a male-bodied woman, which is a fairly radical concept even within the transgender community; I don’t see the presence or absence of a penis as defining what constitutes a man or a woman. I bring feminist consciousness
to my activism and my perception of who I am.
Sex and gender are two very different concepts. I see the sex/gender binary as the source of the oppression of transgendered people. There’s the old expression that the personal is political. I have my own approach to my own identity as well as transgender advocacy.
Have you heard of the term, GID: Gender Identity Disorder?
Yes, isn’t that what doctors have to diagnose someone with before they are able to perform the sexreassignment surgeries?
Yes, in theory. Gender identity disorder was introduced into the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1974. At the same time the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the DSM , removed homosexuality. This is not a coincidence.
Gender identity disorder, sometimes called gender dysphoria, is a psychiatric diagnosis which suggests that all transgendered people are mentally ill. As I like to say, I don’t have a gender identity disorder; I think society has a gender identity disorder.
So, my work is informed by a different conception of sex and gender than the one that currently governs society. I think we need to see that transgender is simply a natural variance in gender identity and expression.
I see my work not as being about helping a small number of post-op transsexuals fit more comfortably in existing boxes, but rather, helping all of us break out of these boxes so we can all live lives free of discrimination and violence related to gender identity and expression.
What particular challenges do you think you face as a transgendered woman?
Well, many. [Laughs] There are challenges that all transgendered women and men face: discrimination, harassment, abuse and violence. Transgendered people of color face multiple oppressions obviously, based on race, possibly immigration status, as well as well as gender identity and expression.
I have faced some discrimination, harassment and violence related to my gender identity and expression.
There’s also the challenge of having to explain myself to everyone on a regular basis. Sometimes it feels like I’m a walking gender identity information center. Many of the questions are well meaning; a few may be hostile. The well-meaning ones usually coming from other women, other LGBT people, other transgendered people.

Do you face any particular challenges within the Korean community?
Yes, I face a number. First, I’m an adoptee. I was born in Korea and raised in the U.S. by European-American parents. Because I don’t speak Korean, that will provoke a whole number of questions and puzzle Korean speakers. When you add to that the issue of gender identity, it becomes extremely complex.
Most of my contacts in the Korean community are in the LGBT/queer community or in the Korean adoptee community. I probably spend less time with the (mainstream) Korean-American community. Of course these communities are heavily influenced by churches, which play a particularly oppressive role [Laughs] needless to say, unfortunately. Not to say that all Korean Americans are part of the Religious Right. But you have to recognize that the Korean churches here in the U.S. aren’t just houses of worship, they’re social centers and places for networking.

Do you have contact with your adopted parents?
They’re dead. My father died when I was only 12 going on 13. And my mother died when I was 24.

Did they know about you wanting to transition?
The short answer is no. [Laughs] I came out first as gay when I was 17 turning 18 during my first semester in college. My mother eventually found out [Laughs], and she ultimately came to accept it. But she did not know about my transgender identity at that point.
My fourth year in college I participated in a study abroad program in London. It was in London when I first started to go out ‘dressed,’ and it really was the most liberating experience to publicly present as a woman. Then I came back to the U.S., started a career in public relations in Chicago, and I sort of went back in the tranny closet. It was a very strange period in my life. I went into denial about it.
I had come out as gay, but coming out as transgendered was much more complicated. So, I went through several stages of dealing with my gender identity before I realized that this was a core part of me. And so it took quite a long while before I actually transitioned.
There are a lot of transgendered people who believe that they need to alter their genitalia to be who they are, but I don’t. I’ve never felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body. I do feel like a woman inhabiting a male body. Although that may sound like a subtle distinction, it reflects a fundamental difference in thinking.
Even in terms of the anatomy of the body, I think one has the right to alter one’s body. It should be up to the individual. However I also have strong concerns about the uncritical and indifferent way that medical technologies are discussed in some parts of the transgender community. And the notion that transgender is only about hormones and sex reassignment surgery.

What are some more examples of gender rights you feel non-transgendered people take for granted?
Oh, where to begin? [Laughs] For non-transgendered people it is very difficult to imagine the 1,001 different ways in which the public and the private sphere are highly gendered and how transgendered people can be caught in the middle. Just to give you an example, what’s the very first thing you do when you go into a doctor’s office or a hospital? You fill out a form. And every single such form will have “Name� and “Sex.� There’s almost never a third option for sex. And there’s almost never an option for a preferred name you use that is different from the name on your ID.
Another example… we both live in New York. When you enter large office buildings you have to present your ID. So, what do you do when you don’t look like your ID? Or your gender presentation differs quite radically from the photo or name on the ID?
Another example is health care. Most people think access to hormones and sex reassignment surgery are the biggest challenges facing transgendered people. They certainly are challenges. However, one of the biggest challenges is getting access to healthcare for everything else. That could be very difficult when there is a discrepancy between one’s ID and one’s gender presentation.
Education. There is pervasive bullying and violence against gender-variant children and youth in schools. That’s another thing that NYAGRA is working on. There is little being done on that.
Family is a huge issue: both birth family and family of choice. Transgendered youth are often kicked out of the house and are much likely to be homeless. Some people believe that half of the homeless youth in New York City are LGBT and half of those may be transgendered.
There are issues on all levels, at every stage of the life cycle. Even before infancy, when transgendered children come into the world there are either blue or pink jumpers. Picking out names: most names are highly gendered—either obviously masculine or obviously feminine.
There are also parents’ expectations and peers’ expectations of gender norms growing up. As an adult, many transgendered people get married, heterosexually married. And some do so thinking, believing, hoping that marriage will change them or somehow their gender identity issues will go away. But they don’t. Then there are huge issues around parenting, child custody, divorce, separation.
Some people transition later in life. I met one transgendered woman recently who is transitioning now at the age of 69. I know children as young as the age of 7 who ask their parents about hormones and surgery. I knew I was transgendered at the age of 4, but I didn’t transition until well into adulthood.
Having said this, I don’t want to paint a picture of total gloom and doom because I think part of my work as a transgender activist is to encourage people and to instill hope as well. I think despite the fact that discrimination, harassment and violence are still pervasive in this society, we have made enormous progress in the last 10 to 15 years.
When NYAGRA was founded back in 1998 there was no advocacy organization such as ours fighting for transgender rights in [New York]. Now it is expected that when a LGBT political club endorses candidates, that they discuss transgender issues. Now it is mainstream thinking, if you will, within the LGBT community. That is a huge change. It is a fundamental shift at least here in New York City and it is happening across the country.

Can you talk more about your work at NYAGRA and your work as a chair?
We’re a small organization. We do three kinds of things, broadly speaking. We’re best known for our work on legislation, particularly for running the campaign for Int. No. 24, the transgender rights bill signed into law as Local Law 3 of 2002. That was certainly our most significant contribution to transgender rights.
Much of our work is done within coalitions, which I think is good in many ways. I think it’s especially the way to go for small organizations. Some include: the GENDA Coalition, the campaigns for the Dignity for All Students Act (the State DASA bill), the Dignity in All Schools Act (City DASA), and the New York City Human Rights Initiative (NYC HRI).
We do transgender sensitivity training sessions. We do workshops for a whole range of different kinds of organizations—social service providers, HIV/AIDS agencies, hospitals & healthcare providers, community-based organizations, government agencies.
We co-founded THINY, the Transgender Health Initiative of New York, with the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund and the Gender Identity Project.
We’re working on the birth certificate issue. The Department of Health changed the policy on issuing birth certificates in a way which was a huge disappointment for the transgender community.
The third area we work on is public education. That includes work with the media, public forums on transgender rights.
Right now, our top priority would be to continue working on transgender rights legislation, litigation, regulation, public policy (broadly speaking), and access to healthcare. I do a lot of speaking and writing, much of which relates to my work with NYAGRA.