Laith Ashley: This Is What Trans Looks Like

Laith Ashley was assigned the female gender at birth, but grew up, as a girl, thinking she was gay. At age seventeen she came out to her parents as a lesbian, but a few years later, she came out again, as a trans male. And now, at 26, Laith, who began transitioning two years, is a New York model who has walked in shows for Adrian Alicea and Gypsy Sport during the recent New York Fashion Week, and has even posed for a Barney's New York campaign with legendary fashion photographer Bruce Weber.

This is trans.

Laith was just five when he noticed what he called a 'misalignment' with his body and his gender identity; he came out as a teenager because he didn’t know what transgender meant:

'At the time I didn't know what transgender was, so I just told them I had a girlfriend. But I never felt right with the idea of being a lesbian woman.'

And when Laith realized he was transgender and could actually live the life he’d always dreamed about, he began the process of transitioning to male; a year before he medically transitioned, he broke the news to his mother:

'My mom is Pentecostal Christian, and although she loves me she felt it conflicted with her faith. My dad was fine. I told him that if he is proud of me, it takes away the power of people who criticize. Who cares what other people think, if he is proud?' 

After two years of being on testosterone, Laith underwent surgery in 2015 and now even his mother has come around, he says, now bragging about her model son to her church friends.

'There was a lot of fear at first. It took me six years from the moment I came out as trans to actually begin my medical transition. Once I got over that fear, there was no stopping me. I am the most comfortable I have ever been.'

And yet he’s a bit thrown off by all of the attention. Since he began modeling, and being open about being trans, he's earned almost 60,000 Instagram followers and support from people like Whoopi Goldberg and transgender actress Laverne Cox. But while the attention was exciting at first, it soon became almost too much:

'I went through a period of being very overwhelmed. I focused on all the negative comments I was receiving and just wanted to disappear. I never thought of myself as a role model. It was a label placed upon me after my photos began circulating through social media.'

Laith, who worked as an insurance navigator at Callen Lorde Community Health Center, is still passionate about being an activist for the LGBT community:

'I know many look up to me, because I may fit the image they wish to achieve, which I find incredibly humbling, but I want them to also know that their life journey is their own. People should be true to themselves - they don't have to fit a box."'

How wonderful when someone, trans, gay, bi, straight, whatever, can find the strength to live their lives as their true selves, loving and accepting themselves, being open about who they are. We need more of that these days, from all sides of gender identity and sexual orientation.

If you speak out as your true self you may just pave the way for someone else to follow, and ain’t that a good thing?

Daily Mail

Jessi Dye Was Fired After Her Boss Asked, "What are you?"

Jessi Dye was pretty thrilled when she got the job at Summerford Nursing Home in Alabama. She filled out all her paperwork, she attended the training workshops required of her, and was vaccinated as per company policy, and most of all, she was excited that Summerford was going to pay for her training to become a certified nurse’s assistant [CNA].

However, when she showed up on the job, Robert Summerford, the manager, called her into his office at lunch to discuss her paperwork, and the minute Jessi walked in, before even having the chance to sit down he asked:

“What are you?”

Jessi was caught off guard, to be sure, but she was used to awkward — though I call them stupid — questions when a new employer noticed the identity on her driver’s license doesn’t match the one she presents in person.

Jessi is a trans woman. And so she answered Summerford’s question by explaining her situation — that she was born male and is transitioning to female — and he asked:

“What am I supposed to do with you?”

Then he fired her on the spot because, well, trans.

So, with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] Jessi filed a workplace discrimination suit and, rather than see the case taken all the way to federal court, Summerford settled with Jessi. Part of the settlement requires Summerford to institute a new  official policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and to conduct sensitivity training seminars regarding LGBTQ people.

This is one of those rare, lucky cases, when a company, and their lawyers, realized that the times are changing and that there need to be new understanding about trans people, or people of any sexual orientation or gender identity, in the workplace.

But what Summerford didn't do, however, was actually break the law. Alabama, and federal law, is still vague on the issue, and with the failure of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA] to be passed, there are no clear-cut workplace protections based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

Jessi was also awarded a cash settlement from Summerford but says:

"It was never about money. It was always about the education, letting other trans people know that they have a right, that they are protected under the law."

And so maybe now she can go to school and become a CNA after all, and we can hope that when she does, and when she finds a job, the times have changed enough so that no one will question Jessi’s identity ever again.

And maybe, one day, and one day soon, when Jessi Dye, and others like her, apply for jobs, are accepted to the position, go through training, and show up for work, they won’t be fired immediately because a driver’s licenses identity doesn’t match the face in front of the boss.

And that means we also need to work for our trans brothers and sisters to make sure that they can have their licenses and identification papers changed to their correct gender as they transition so that they can be seen as who they truly are, and not as anything else.

The march goes on …

LGBTQ Nation

Can I Get An Amen? #CallMeCaitlyn

When all you really get in life is the chance to be your true self, then that needs to be celebrated, no matter when it comes to you, or how it comes to you, or how it changes you.

Brava, Caitlyn Jenner. You are your true self.

photo via Twitter

My Two Cents: Bruce Jenner

So … Bruce Jenner.

I’m of two minds on the topic. The first is, that I wished he hadn’t been playing the ‘is he or isn’t he’ game for the past year or more. I mean, we’ve all seen the pictures of the facial transformation, the longer hair, the rumors that he’d had his Adam’s Apple shaved down, the fingernail polish. And we all talked about it. Is Bruce Jenner transitioning? Is he transgender? Is it any of our business?

I don’t know the actual, factual, answers to those first two questions, but I do know that it’s not really any of our business, except that he’s been doing this change in public, but also privately, because he doesn’t speak about it, which is where I get this feeling: I’m annoyed by him.

I don’t like that he plays his life on a “reality” show; I don’t like that he plays his life in public, but when his appearance changes, and the rumors grew, he said nothing; that bothers me on two levels.

First, it bothers me because, if you’re going to be on a TV show, playing the part of yourself, then you need to talk about yourself. Having the show depict you as a person undergoing changes in appearance and then not addressing them — given the rumors — makes it seem like there is a sense of shame involved; that being transgender — if that’s the case and not just that Bruce loves plastic surgery — is somehow too shameful to speak about, then I think it sends a bad message to the younger T in the LGBT spectrum.

Secondly, to learn that, after this season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Bruce will appear in a reality show, or docu-series, to address these stories is bothersome. Is he selling his transition for a spot on TV? That bugs me, and yet it elates me, too, because then this might be a chance for those people questioning their orientation to see an actual person go through the process. It might give people who are hiding, the hope to step out and say, This is me.

And, like I said, I’m annoyed that for right now he is saying nothing, yet allowing people like Kim Kardashian to hightail her rather large posterior over to Entertainment Tonight to tell the world that Bruce is “on a journey” and has his own story to tell. I hate that people like That Woman are talking about Bruce and his changes as being his story. If it’s his story let him tell it, and you media whores stay out of the picture as his transition doesn’t concern you, except in the realm of your own understanding of what he might be going through.

I’m also annoyed because his mother is speaking about it, as though it’s a given, which feeds into that sense of shame about what it means to be transgender while at the same time, I applaud Esther Jenner’s understanding and support, when she told People magazine:

“I just learned about [his transition]. Bruce filled me in, and we had a very long, long, long talk about it. I have never been more proud of Bruce for who he is, himself as a father, as an Olympian, a wonderful public speaker. He instills enthusiasm in people. He’s gifted. Right now I am more proud of him for what he’s allowing himself to do. I am more proud of him now than when he stood on that podium and put the gold medal around his neck. He deserves all the respect.”

It appears that the secret is no longer a secret, though we have yet to hear from Bruce; we’ll be waiting until May when his interview with Diane Sawyer airs, just as his E! docu-series begins.

So, yeah, I’m annoyed that, by keeping this quiet, and yet not at all very quiet, he’s perpetuating the stereotype that many people have about being transgender, but, as I said before, I am of two minds on this, which leads me to say …

I’m happy for Bruce. I’m happy that, if he is about to transition, that even at age 65, he’ll finally be his, or should I say ‘her,’ one true self. I have a small inkling of what that feels like; every gay person does. It’s called the closet, where you keep your secret; where you hide yourself.

But coming out as gay, while difficult for many, is nothing at all like coming out as transgender. People don’t understand transgender; they don’t understand being assigned male at birth, for example, but feeling as though you are actually female. Many people think there are males and females and if that’s how you were born, that’s how you are, and should be always.

They wonder that, if you were say assigned male at birth, and have always been attracted to women, are you a lesbian after transitioning; or, if you were assigned male at birth, but sexually attracted to men as a male, are you a straight women after.

It gets confusing. So, I prefer not to think about whom Bruce Jenner sleeps with, now, or in the future. I prefer to think that, if this story is true, and we are in a holding pattern essentially until Bruce decides to talk, I prefer to think of the huge weight being lifted, the huge sigh of relief being expelled, that sense of joy …

I am myself. And isn’t that all any of us deserves? So, as annoyed as I can be with the media hype, and the media blackout, as annoyed as I can be with the ‘is he, or isn’t he,’ I will stand behind Bruce Jenner and hold him up as he begins to do whatever it is that makes him say, I am myself.