HB 1722 – Mycroft Holmes testimony

Hello!

This is my first post.

I testified as an individual (that is, as opposed to a panelist) at HB 1722’s hearing before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary on Tuesday, March 4th (2008). Afterwards, I submitted my testimony in writing (as letters to the legislators who co-chair the Committee). I wanted to share it with you, so it’s below my signature. We’re inviting the other ICTE members who testified to share here too, so hopefully you’ll see that soon. Thank you so much to the ICTE and Keshet people and everyone else who testified and attended!

Happy Spring and Pesach (Passover),
Mycroft Masada Holmes

Chair, Keshet Transgender Working Group (TWiG)
Facilitator, Keshet Shalem Education Project
http://www.keshetonline.org/
Founding Member, Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE)
http://www.interfaithcoalition.org
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March 4, 2008

Senator Robert S. Creedon, Jr.
Joint Committee on the Judiciary
Room 413C
State House
Boston, MA 02133

Representative Eugene L. O’Flaherty
Joint Committee on the Judiciary
Room 138
State House
Boston, MA 02133

Dear Senator Creedon and Representative O'Flaherty,

My name is Mycroft Holmes, and I am a transgendered person who lives in Jamaica Plain and works in Boston. I was born and have always lived in metropolitan Boston. I love Boston and the rest of Massachusetts; they’ve always been my home and I hope they always will be. I’ve been a transgender activist since the early 1990s—I’m based at Keshet, the non-profit organization that works for the inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews in Jewish life; I’m the Chair of Keshet’s Transgender Working Group. I’m a founding member of the Interfaith Coalition for Transgender Equality (ICTE), which submitted the signed declaration of support of House Bill 1722 (An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes). I’m also employed at an optometry practice.

I was born female and transgendered, and am so happy about and proud of those things. I wouldn’t change them if I could. To me, they are gifts from God. Yet as much as I’ve been blessed with and by my identities, they have also brought me many challenges. I want to share one of those challenges with you here.

Ever since I was a small child, I wanted to work in criminal justice. So, after twelve years of Brookline and Newton public schools, I attended Northeastern University as a Criminal Justice major. I was the first openly transgendered student at the university. The administration and residential life were supportive, but it was still a very difficult time for me. Especially during my freshman year, when I lived in on-campus housing and was harassed by some of the other residents and their guests.

After my sophomore year, it was time for me to participate in Northeastern’s cooperative education program, or “co-op”, in which students are placed in jobs in their majors during their next three years of classes, and through which they find jobs when they graduate. However, despite the efforts of the co-op department, none of the employers would even communicate with me, never mind interview me. Of the 200 criminal justice students, 198 were hired by co-op employers, and one decided she wanted to do co-op later. Because I was transgendered, I was the only student who wasn’t placed in a job. And without the experience and financial support of co-op, I had to leave Northeastern.

It was devastating to learn I couldn’t pursue my dream because I was transgendered, and that I had no legal recourse. Yet the experience also made me realize that my calling was to be a transgender activist. The day my co-op advisor called to tell me I couldn’t be placed, and the details of the discrimination, was the day I understood what it meant to be a member of a group of citizens that are unprotected by the law. And I knew then that helping to make my city, state, country and world a better place for everyone to experience and express their gender was my life’s work.

I have been discriminated against because of my gender identity and expression many times since that day, especially in employment. So have my loved ones, and the other trans people I know. Every time we leave our homes—sometimes even within them--we must fear for ourselves and for each other. A law such as House Bill 1722 is intended to become would have helped us in the past. It can still help us in the present and future.

It is 2008, and I am 31 years old. I should have full civil rights everywhere in my state, not only in Boston, Cambridge, and Northampton. So should all transgender people and all other citizens. I urge you to do everything you can to help make House Bill 1722 law.

Thank you,
Mycroft Holmes
[home address]