From: Billi Goldberg <bigoldberg@igc.apc.org>
Subject: Transgenderists Form Coalition
Note: Copyright 1992, Dan R. Greening. Non-commercial reproduction allowed.
Archive-Number: 6650
Organization: unspecified
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 08:13:38 PST

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.
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      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.
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids