Before I begin on that, I would like to dispel some preconceptions that some may have about the transgender community. We DO NOT all live in New York, San Francisco and Seattle. We do NOT all live in urban areas…I myself live in a very rural area you may actually have heard of…called Lizard Lick, North Carolina. So there is a significant population of trans that live in rural areas…I am one.
In fact, the largest percentage, over 38 percent of Americans who identify as trans…live in the American South! This is according to Census Bureau estimates, as reported in the 2015 US Trans Study (full disclosure, I was one of nearly 28,000 Respondents to that Study…and at the time, was also a resident of the South…and still am.) Additionally, over 4 million American LGBT live in rural areas. I, myself, am one of them. I live in a rural area you may have heard of…Lizard Lick, North Carolina.
This is NOT the perception many people have of the American South. And North Carolina is a very unique state. Unlike many states, OUR urban centers stretch across the state, we are NOT concentrated in 2 or 3 areas of our state…there are seven distinct areas of North Carolina that could be considered to be urban population centers.
So our urban population centers are spread, as I said, across the state…islands of population dotted across our state surrounded by rural areas. And urban mean progressive/liberal…right? Usually, yes, but there is a surprising acceptance in some of our more rural areas one would not expect…including my own town. I had lived here for a year and a half, stealth…nobody knowing I was trans. Then HB-2 happened.
I had moved here in 2014 from blue-state Pennsylvania. I came with the intent and purpose of living out my life in peace and quiet…in a place nobody knew my past – look how well THAT plan worked! Just goes to show life is what happens when you are busy making other plans! So, when I came out of “retirement/stealth” to fight HB-2, and my neighbors learned I was trans…I expected to be run out of town with pitchforks. That isn’t what happened. Almost everyone here told me, “You go girl…give the hell for us!” I could not believe it. And then in 2018, they went and elected me the first openly-transgender Precinct Chair in the history of Wake County. So much for quietly living stealth, huh?
So…when HB-2 happened, the slogans “We Are Not This” and “No H8 In Our State” were born. What I have found is that my fellow North Carolinians…are as awesome as our state government is terrible…though, admittedly a little less terrible after the 2018 elections, when we broke the Supermajorities that had existed in both Chambers of our Legislature. We also got a so-called repeal of HB-2 (known as HB-142.) Most of the rest of the nation believes HB-2 was repealed and everything is cool here again in North Carolina. That is sadly not the case. HB-142 came with a “moratorium” against cities and municipalities passing any rights legislation beyond what the State will – until Dec 1, 2020.
So the situation now in North Carolina…is that we have cities and municipalities like Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Wilmington, Asheville, Greensboro and Winston-Salem – to name a few – who want to protect us and grant us equality, but cannot…and a state the refuses to. Efforts have been underway to repeal, or sunset, the moratorium that currently exists in HB-142.
HB-2 brought into very sharp focus, the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity. And it was clear to one and all that the transgender community, specifically, was targeted and attacked by HB-2 and HB-142. Many in my community did not feel that the LGB elements of our LGBT community were adequately standing up for – or representing transgender issues. As a community, we have many issues that intersect…but many others that impact ONLY the transgender…and these are issues which are life and death to us…which we felt were being ignored.
We also felt that our agenda was being determined by the LGB, and mostly this was directed at gay men. We sought to separate sexual orientation fro gender identity…to have a seat at the table long denied us…to determine our own agenda and timetable on issues of concern to us…in short, we wanted to take control of our own destiny. There is NOT a major divorce or split in the LGBT community…we do have many areas of common interest.
However, there ARE transgender separatists, and, on a political level, I am one. Because of decades of history in which our issues were ignored or back burnered. Because we were left behind while LGB got their rights…promising to come back for us – but they never did. They made progress and never bothered to look over their shoulders to see if we were following. This lack of concern can be demonstrated in many ways, but for the purposes of this article, I will bring up two.
One, the transgender military ban. When that happened…we got a day or two of politically correct outrage…and then crickets. We did not perceive that the LGB elements of our community cared much…because, after all…it affected ONLY US. We believe that if Trump had taken it into his head to re-instate DADT (Don’t Ask Don’t Tell) that we would NEVER hear the end of it…but for us…crickets!! The second is New York State…which just this year passed full protections against discrimination based on gender identity. Our LGB brothers and sisters enjoyed the same rights we just were granted this year…since 2003! Sixteen years. In fact, many of us pointed out that it was odd that Gov. Cuomo, in New York…would boycott North Carolina over HB-2…yet still refuse to protect his own transgender citizens.
And so, the work was begun, mainly originally by my friend…and the one transgender person in North Carolina I totally look up to: Janice Covington Allison…and also Wendy Ella May…who I love like a sister (and in a way different than I love all my other transgender sisters.) I then jumped in and started working on and helping what they had laid the groundwork for and were building.
All eyes in the transgender community were on North Carolina today. And it is fitting, in the state that passed the cruel and discriminatory HB-2…that what happened today…happened. An that it happened here. Today.
I am pleased to announce that North Carolina has become the first state in our nation to have a major political Party (the Democratic Party) officially recognize a separate Transgender Caucus! It happened first in the South! We even beat California on this one! I am now officially the Interim 1st Vice Chair of the Transgender Political Caucus of the North Carolina Democratic Party (TPC-NCDP.) Janice, of course, is the Chair…which is fitting, as she began this work. My friend Wendy is 2nd Vice Chair, and we have a transman as our 3rd Vice Chair. He is also a POC.
We now have blazed the trail…and there are groups ready to form in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia. IT IS HAPPENING IN THE SOUTH!! And when we have enough states, we are working on establishing such a Caucus on the national level at the DNC. We are taking control of our agenda and our future. Now…when issues relevant to the transgender community arise, in North Carolina…they will be spoken to…by a transgender person, and not a gay man. We now officially have our voice!
Thank you, Angela. I am so pleased to hear something affirmative about our party. Good on rural North Carolina for LEADING the nation. Let’s hope in four more years or eight – more counties – rural and urban – follow the lead of Americans like yourself, out there in Lizard’s Lick, North Carolina. IT’S YOUR RIGHT TO ADVOCATE FOR AND INFLUENCE THE PROCESS OF ELECTING OUR NEXT PRESIDENT – why isn’t this historic moment front page news? It should be. I am a member of every form of Democratic party group – why haven’t they been publishing what you all did down in North Carolina. I intend to promote your caucuses existence – I intend to advocate for more inclusion of transgender Democrats – why isn’t there ONE out here in my super majority Democratic proud Oregon – beats me.
As you noted, Angela – never before has the caucus table cared about including the voices of our nation’s transgender citizens – urban and rural – and now it is. Take a bow, Angela. I welcome the inclusion of Americans left out of the process and the conversation regarding anything and all things politics. This is a very good day for America.
Thank you for your kind words. More of the credit to Janice on this one, she started building this long before I even came to be in North Carolina, she started pushing for this in 2012.
I was just happy to be able to do my part!
Don’t know if you saw this segment on Full Frontal about Pride month, it’s clever and timely:
This is indeed history, Angela! So happy for you, Janice, Wendy and the rest of the Transgender Caucus, for the transgender community, for us as Americans, for Dems and for North Carolinians.
It’s pretty remarkable that as Trump and the reptilian brained Repubs try to drag the country back to the days before fire was discovered, such historic progress can be made for the transgender community and equality overall.
Congrats!!!
Brava Angela. At least North Carolina has ONE thing going for it.
Who said anything about Alabama?
I would not set foot in Alabama if ya paid me! This is North Carolina we are talking about.
And while I am here, I might point out…all my life, I have known I would have to fight the GOP for my rights. I never imagined I’d have to fight my own Party.
Then I came to North Carolina. And then HB-2 happened. Eleven Democrats voted for it…including one who I have now come to respect and like…Rep. Billy Richardson. One month after HB-2 passed, Richardson wrote a lengthy op-ed in The Charlotte Observer, expressing regret for his vote.
Six months after that, I was in Billy’s office, speaking with his Legislative Assistant, and saying, “Billy Richardson does not get a pass, here. Regrets, publicly expressed aside, he still voted for it.” And Billy overheard this, as he was returning into his office.
He said to me…”I do not blame you for feeling that way.” So that was the ice-breaker, and I introduced myself, and we spoke at length. And he recalled my testimony on the House floor the day HB-2 passed. And he told me…”do you want to know what really got to me…the very night after the vote?” And I said sure. He told me it was the testimony of my friend Maddie..and asked if I could put him in touch with her!
This was when I knew he was sincere. Because otherwise he would have tried to butter me by telling me it was MY testimony that had moved him…and he did not do that. I agreed to pass along to Maddie HIS info, and a request from him to connect.
I have been in a very long battle with the North Carolina Democratic Party…both before I was elected a Precinct Chair, and after. I continued to point out the inconvenient truth that we had been offered a better repeal under McCrory that we turned down..than the one Cooper brokered for us…and that I was sorry…but I was NOT going to stop pointing out this inconvenient truth.
I am now not the only openly-trans Precinct Chair in Wake County, but I was the first. We now have two serving at the same time. And both of us are also members of the State Executive Committee (SEC) of the NC Democratic Party. Kathryn is NOT a transgender separatist, as I am. I believe we have the same desire and goal…but we believe different roads will get us there.
I have also been appointed, by our State Party Chair, to the Platform and Resolution Committee…meaning I am one of thirty people in the State…who receive Resolutions coming from the grass roots…and determine how to apply them, act on them, and incorporate them into our Party platform.
I am on the Subcommittee that deals with Civil Rights, Criminal Justice and Guns. So…I have a voice now, in the Party…at many different levels. And I have consistently used it to tell my Party that being slightly less terrible than the Republicans WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. That just because they were terrible..it did NOT excuse US from trying to be our best. Aspirations alone were not sufficient if we did not also attempt to achieve those aspirations.
As Precinct Officer, member of the SEC, and the P&R Committee…I have consistently done my duty for my Party, and done everything I have been asked to do…and worked very hard to get our nominees elected. I am duty and honor bound to do so. They understand that I am NOT bound to refrain from holding them to a higher standard…and pointing out when and where they fail.
There was many a time, over the past two years…when I really felt disappointment in my Party…never moreso than the day that HB-142 was passed. Because it was a horrible deal that was not a true repeal…and it wrote discrimination into the laws of our state for the next four years. Mockingly, I called it the “Please Let Us Be Bigots For A Little While Longer Bill.”
All that said…the action of the NCDP on Saturday, to grant us this Caucus…is a bright spot…one that gives me some hope and faith again in my Party. It will remain to be seen how responsive they are to us. But for now…I at least have reason to hope, and to begin the healing that may lead, once again, to renewed faith – that will depend on how well my Party makes every effort to reach the aspirations we speak of, and claim to cherish. The values we claim to have.
This was a very important first step.
I can’t find a way to correct the state from AL to No Carolina. – sorry.
Hey Opie, fixed it for you!
Thank you!