NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/transgen/461

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-29 | 6.5 KB

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From: [e-mail] (D. Glenn Arthur Jr.)
Newsgroups: alt.transgendered
Subject: From sci.med.aids:
Date: 29 Dec 1992 16:11:05 -0600
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A friend just forwarded this to me under the heading "Just something I
yanked off the net and thought transgen folks would be interested in..."
I think she's right, so I'm forwarding it to the mailing lists and newsgroup.

(Maybe someone should tell the sci.med.aids folks to crosspost things
like this here next time?)


| Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
| From: Billi Goldberg <[e-mail]>
| Subject: Transgenderists Form Coalition
| Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
| Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed.
| Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 08:13:38 PST
| Lines: 91
|
| The following article was printed in the San Francisco Sentinel on
| Thursday, December 17, 1992. It is being posted with the permission of
| the author, Charles R. Caulfield.
| ************************************************************************
|       New Coalition Addresses AIDS in the Transgender Community.
|                          by Charles Caulfield
|
| In what may be the first collaborative effort of its kind in the country,
| representatives of 10 AIDS Service agencies met on Wednesday, December 9, as
| an ad hoc task force of concerned professionals and activists. The new group
| having named itself The Transgender HIV Services Coalition, is composed of
| individuals from a variety of agencies and concerned activists held its first
| meeting, entitled "AIDS in the Transgender Community."
|
| The purpose of the forum was to begin the process of identifying and
| eliminating the barriers to access to testing, education, treatment and
| services to members of the transgender community. These barriers exist in the
| form of what are perceived by this community as discrimination and demeaning
| treatment by service providers due to their lifestyles. Falling into no
| clearly defined demographic group toward which culturally sensitive services
| would be targeted, they have been the quintessential underserved minority,
| feeling excluded from both the mainstream and the lesbian/gay communities.
|
| The new task force, entitled the Transgender HIV Services Coalition is at this
| point composed of individuals from a variety of providers, clinicians in
| private practice and activists who intend to collectively address this glaring
| gap in services.
|
| The Organizations represented included U.C. AIDS Health Project, the
| Tenderloin AIDS Resources Center (TARC), Shanti, 18th Street Services, the
| Tenderloin Self-Help Program, the San Francisco PWA Coalition, and the Asian
| AIDS Project. Others included in the dialogue were consumers of services,
| treatment activists, and health care professionals.
|
| One problem which was identified and addressed was that of semantics, which in
| the past has been an impediment to unity in the transgender community. The
| transgender community, which as defined by the Coalition's newly adopted
| language, shall include everyone who identifies with the terms,  "she-males",
| "cross-dresser", "transsexual", "drag-queen", or "transvestite" or
| "androgyne." In this sense, the Community identifying itself as "Transgender"
| represents a number of heterogenous and diverse subgroups with some very
| homogenous needs.
|
| The meeting, was facilitated by Dominique Leslie, a substance abuse counselor
| at the Tenderloin AIDS Resources Center. The stated mission of the newly
| formed Coalition, which will operate by consensus, is to eliminate  the
| results of society's biases against a clearly large and distinct segment of
| society, which results in a lack of risk reduction education, testing and
| treatment. This is compounded by what is perceived as a lack of access by
| transgenders to the full scope of treatment, services and the entitlements
| theoretically available to all individuals with HIV in San Francisco without
| fear of discrimination or demeaning treatment.
|
| Among some proposed methods achieving this would be the demand for all AIDS
| Service agencies and testing sites to require training for their staff and
| volunteers as to the special needs of their transgender clients. Another would
| be to press for increased emphasis on targeting this community for increased
| specific risk reduction education programs. Many of the involved agencies
| already have culturally sensitive education outreach programs to ethnic
| minorities.
|
| Outreach with consideration of the special needs of this population would slow
| the spread of AIDS. Yet another would be to petition the California Substance
| Abuse Services Council (CSAS) to mandate the need for cultural sensitivity
| training of all clinicians engaged in providing substance abuse services in
| facilities receiving public money. A similar resolution has already been
| passes by CSAS regarding required sensitivity to the special needs of.lesbians
| and gay men who are in substance abuse programs.
|
| Other needs identified were for the availability to psychosocial support
| services specifically targeting problems which are unique to the transgender
| community, community education on medical and alternative treatment resources
| for those with HIV, and a concrete number of publicly funded beds for
| substance abuse treatment for members of this community.
|
| The Coalition is in the process of devising an appropriate HIV risk reduction
| educational brochure to be distributed to members of the community. The
| ultimate goal of their efforts is to raise public awareness of the needs of a
| group who have been underserved and have fallen through the cracks, yet this
| goes unreported since they generally do not fall into the traditional
| demographic categories.
|
| The Coalition will hold its next meeting on January 6, at which time they will
| adopt a mission statement and begin plans for a coordinated response to the
| needs identified at their first meeting.
|
| It is believed that this is the first time nationally that a multidisciplinary
| and interagency response to AIDS in the Transgender Community has been
| undertaken. For further information or input, one may contact Dominique
| Leslie, of the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center, 187 Golden Gate Avenue, (415)
| 431-7476.
|
|