Women only spaces
Oct 10, 2002 Feminism/Politics, Shelter
An interesting discussion on exclusionary politics can be found at Uppity-Negro, heads up courtesy of Drublood.
We had two known transgendered clients who came and stayed at shelter. We may have had more (I’ll assume we had more) but these two people were out. One was a hermaphrodite (I will call her D.) and the other was a transexual born as a man and living as a woman (I will call her K.). She had come to us from a halfway house program for people leaving prison.
D. had lived both as a man (I believe at some point she was legally a man since she said she was married at that time) and as a woman. I have no idea what her “official” identity was but when she came to shelter, she was living as a lesbian woman. I’m not sure if that was so she would be able to stay at shelter or not since she told one of the case workers that she did not identify as either gender. I am using the term “she” here since that’s what she used but my understanding is that she did this for convenience and not because her “womanhood” was more important than her “manhood.”
K. was also living as a lesbian woman and because she came out to us before entering shelter (D. came out after she was already in) and because she was most definitely legally a man, we had to have a staff meeting around it. We ultimately decided that her identity as a battered woman was more important than what she had between her legs. But it was a tough decision because we had concerns about the other client’s feelings around it.
Except for clients who entered shelter with children (who were given a room alone with their kids), all of our clients had a roommate. This included K. Because she was out as transgendered, we wrried about how other clients would feel sharing a room (or the living area or the kitchen or the bathroom) with a legal male. Also, we knew from past experience that some of our clients had issues with sharing living space with lesbians and we wondered how K’s roommate was going to feel about sharing her room with a lesbian who also had a penis. K’s room was a special federally funded room for clients leaving prison and so that was the only place these two women could be.
Anyway, K’s roommate ended up bonding with K. and K. did a lot to bring the entire shelter together. She was very inspiring to the women and was one of the most motivated clients that we ever had. Go K.!
Because of K., we decided that we needed a written policy about how we would handle transgendered people seeking shelter. We had a training with the Northwest Gender Alliance that was excellent and helped us commit to allowing those people who came to us for help to define their own gender. In other words, no panty checks in shelter.
This was a tougher decision than it might look at first because not only did we have to consider the concerns of other clients’ but there was also the possibilty that an abuser could enter shelter by saying that he was living as a woman. However, we had had lesbian abusers come to us pretending to need shelter when they were really looking for their partners and this did not dissuade us from offering lesbians shelter. Using that same thinking to turn down transgendered people was discriminatory. And yes we did allow transgendered people who were born women living as men to come to shelter, too. Complicated, eh?
As an interesting aside, our trainings were always open to all YWCA staff — not just those of us who worked in the shelter. We never had anyone come and check them out. Not the traumatic brain injury training (which was excellent), not the domestic violence and the law training (infuriating but ultimately hopeful), not the various child abuse trainings (which everyone should have). But we sold out for the transgendered training. It was standing room only. I think they were all looking for a freak show but I tell you, it was one of the most thought-provoking, eye-opening trainings and I’m really grateful for it. No Jerry Springer shit here, nope.
October 10th, 2002 at 7:38 pm
Wow. Thanks for adding that to the discussion.
October 10th, 2002 at 7:55 pm
I just wanted to pop back in to clarify that I’m talking about woman-only spaces as it relates to events and gatherings. Which, in and of itself is a sticky subject. It’s obviously much much stickier as relates to services such as the one you speak of.
I think this post is awesome, though…I just read it again, and I’m probably going to link it up later when I have more thoughts around it.