Jamison Green: Intended words at MMOW [Editor's note: Jamison asked me to please embargo this until his speech, which would have been at 5:00 PM. Apparently things got bogged down, and Jamison finally was allowed to make some few remarks at about 6:30. It seems that all of the marginalized queers were left to the end, without time to make their speech. As Jamison put it in wrapping up his remarks: "I'm tired of being marginalized." What appears here is what he had intended to say.] Jamison Green: Intended words at MMOW Transgender? Who is that guy? Why isn't he wearing a dress? Isn't that what transgender is all about? Transgender, that's not my issue. Go on, girlfriend, let's get another beer. All of you who think transgender is not your issue - you need to think again about what it is we are all fighting for, about why it is that people have made you or anyone you know feel shame or fear to express who you are. The transgender movement may not make gender go away-indeed, some of us like our gender very much and want to keep it. But the transgender movement is NOT about perpetuating stereotypes. Transgender opens up the space between the binaries and allows us to see what our ideas about gender and sex really are. The transgender movement calls for respect for all people based on our humanity, independent of gender expression, economic worth, sexual orientation, race, class, age, religion, national origin, or taste in wardrobe. The transgender movement calls for a paradigm shift in the way we perceive the value of a human being. The transgender movement asks all of us to learn not to judge people based on artificial, or superficial, arbitrary criteria. I am a man who was born with a female body. I lived in a female body for 40 years. I thought I was a lesbian for 22 years. I know what it is like to live in an androgynous zone where people can't tell what sex you are, and sometimes that's fun, sometimes it's great to be provocative like that. And sometimes it's dangerous, sometimes people punish you for it. And sometimes you want people to see who you are, to accept you as the way you feel. People whose gender matches their body--and that is the majority of people--are privileged with respect to how they view gender. They get to see it as arbitrary, something that is imposed on them from the outside like role-playing. They think they know the difference between themselves and the roles society asks them to play. Transgendered people do not have the same options. Transgendered people are told over and over again that they are not who they know themselves to be. The transgender movement asks that you give up your fear of other people's identities and beliefs. The transgender movement asks that you be willing to allow other people to be different from you and still be worthy of respect. What we want in common -- you and I -- is a world free from homophobia, a world free from regulations on gender expression that keep us from getting out of line. The paradigm shift I am looking for is one that moves toward a world without shame or fear of difference. A world in which people like Brandon Teena and Tyra Hunter and Robert Eades and Matthew Shepard don't have to die because other people are uncomfortable in the face of their difference. That's the world we are trying to create. That's what the transgender movement is all about. So when we say Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer, and Questioning what we're talking about is a world where we can all be free to be ourselves. Thank you for coming out today and every day to show the world how beautiful you are.
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