Tag: Kayla Gore

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Federal Lawsuit Dismissed Regarding Change to Gender Markers on Tennessee Birth Certificates

(Credit: Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash)

A federal lawsuit that sought to allow transgender individuals in the state of Tennessee to change the gender markers on their birth certificates has been dismissed. 

The lawsuit, Gore v. Lee, was filed by Lambda Legal, a national organization “committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and everyone living with HIV,” in 2019 on “behalf of four transgender people born in the state of Tennessee – Kayla Gore, Jaime Combs, and ‘two plaintiffs identified by their initials, L.G. and K.N.,’” said the organization. 

At the time of the filing, Tennessee was one of three states that banned transgender people from changing their gender markers.

In the lawsuit, Lambda Legal argued that denying transgender people the ability to “obtain accurate birth certificates violates the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution.” They also argued that this is a violation of the First Amendment, as they are being forced to “identify with a sex that is not who they are.”

The plaintiffs also argued that by disclosing that they are transgender, this opens them up to discrimination and harassment.

U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson wrote that the plaintiff argued Tennessee’s current Birth Certificate policy prevents them from “correctly and accurately identifying [their] gender to the world.” However, Richardson considered that argument not “credible.”

“Nothing stops Plaintiffs from announcing their gender to the world, irrespective of their birth certificates’ designation of sex (based on birth appearance),” he wrote. “This is true for various reasons indicated above, not least that it seems undisputable that in this country gender identity is widely viewed (contrary to Plaintiffs’ belief, apparently) to be something separate from ‘sex’ (however sex is to be determined, whether based on external genitalia and otherwise). And nothing herein is intended to suggest that Plaintiffs should refrain from announcing their gender identity to the world as they see fit—including by derogating the sex designation of their birth certificates.”

Kayla Gore, co-founder and executive director of My Sistah’s House, said Tennessee’s current birth certificate policy has “gravely impacted” her life.

“We deserve recognition and dignity from the government just as much as every other Tennessean,” said Gore in a statement.

The state of Tennessee has been at the center of controversy in past months as Governor Bill Lee has signed what Lambda Legal referred to as, “a raft of anti-transgender bills.”

In March, the Flyer reported that Lambda Legal and other organizations had promised legal action against the Tennessee law prohibiting healthcare professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors. The law also makes gender-affirming hormone therapy and puberty blockers inaccessible. The law is set to go into effect on July 1, 2023.

Lee also signed SB1237 into law in April, which authorizes Tennessee private schools to “regulate a student’s participation in the school’s athletic activities or events based upon a student’s biological sex.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

Black and Proud

CREDIT: Photographs by Maya Smith

Beyond police brutality and systemic racism, Black people, because of their hairstyles, music of choice, sexual orientation, and culture, often face discrimination, microaggressions, and prejudice in everyday life. Still, a tenacious pride abounds in the Black community. This is the story of five Memphians’ experiences as Black people in America. — Maya Smith

Black and Trans

Five years ago, Kayla Gore was robbed and stabbed in the shoulder with a butcher knife outside of her home in Memphis. With two bloody bath towels wrapped around her hands, which had been ripped open from attempting to grab the knife from her attacker, Gore waited for the police to show up. When they did, the first question the officers asked Gore is if the incident had been related to sex work.

Photographs by Maya Smith

Kayla Gore

“They acted as if I was a suspect instead of the victim,” she says. A week later, Gore found out that the District Attorney would not be pressing charges on the individual who attacked her.

“That was the end of that,” Gore says. “And I know that decision was solely based on me being Black and trans. If I were white and trans, or even just white, they would have prosecuted the case to the fullest extent of the law.”

Gore says this is not an isolated incident for Black trans women in America. “Even when we call the police for protection, the tables can easily turn from us being a victim to a suspect.”

That is just one example of the ways in which trans women of color are treated differently, especially in the South, Gore says. “Being a trans Black woman in the South feels like living in a desert where I don’t have access to a lot of things. It’s a resource desert, a safety desert, a housing desert. This is all because of how I show up with my transness and my Blackness.”

This is the “lived reality” for trans women in the South, Gore says. “I could literally walk out of my house and be killed because I’m Black and because I’m trans. People have their own personal biases about trans folks in the South, so it makes it even more dangerous for us.”

To make matters worse, Gore says there is no trans representation in elected or appointed officials on the local or state level, which makes her community “feel like we don’t have a space or a voice. When we elevate our voices, they’re erased.”

Feeling left out of spaces isn’t new for Gore, who recalls her first adverse experience because of her Blackness and queerness occuring when she was 8 years old. “I went to a very diverse church, but it was predominantly white. That’s when I noticed there was a difference in the way I was treated versus my white counterparts. I would get excluded from summer camps or sleepovers. It could have been because I’m Black or because I was queer, as I was definitely a very queer child.”

After that experience, Gore says her mother had “the talk” with her and she realized “I’m Black, therefore things will be different for me.” But different didn’t have a negative connotation for Gore: “I’ve always been proud of my Blackness because of how I was raised by my mother. I’ve always been super proud of how I show up in the world.” Much of that, she says, is the ability to connect to other people’s Blackness. “I’m fascinated with Black history. It fortified my love for my Blackness.”

It took a little longer for Gore to embrace her queerness though. She says for years she tried to be “stealthy, identifying as a Black gay man.”

But when she transitioned 10 years ago, Gore says she felt “like a whole new person. Pride became more than a day or a month, but a 365-day thing. I’m out and proud every day now. When I show up, people can’t help but see my transness, and I don’t think there’s a better way to show my pride than that.”

That pride led Gore to activism. For 10 years, she’s been advocating for better access and equality for trans women of color. Fully committed to the cause, she’s now the executive director of My Sister’s House, which provides emergency shelter and other resources for trans women of color in Memphis.

Gore’s hope is to make life better for “people like myself,” continuing the work of Black trans women who have come before her. “We have to pick up the baton and keep the marathon going until we reach liberation.”

Black and Preaching

Rev. Earle Fisher has always been going against the grain. When his first grade teacher in Michigan threatened to paddle all of the Black students, Fisher recalls protesting and walking out of the classroom. “I wasn’t going for it then, and I’m not going for it now. I’ve always been critical of racial injustice,” says Fisher, now the senior pastor at Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church in Whitehaven.

Rev. Earle Fisher

As a Black pastor, Fisher says he’s in a “beautiful and complicated position. It’s beautiful because the Black faith has always been something that sustains Black people throughout history, even in Africa. In the United States, it was the impetus for resistance work that led to abolition, the Black Power movement, and the civil rights movement.”

Fisher says his role is also “complicated,” explaining that religion has historically “been co-opted and used as a tool of manipulation, especially in the white Evangelical strand of Christianity. It’s not always easy to embrace a Black pastor in America and especially in the South.”

This concern was at the forefront of Fisher’s mind one Sunday in 2015 when a white couple showed up to attend his predominantly Black church. Nervously reading over his notes, he questioned whether his prepared message would offend the couple and if he needed to change it for their sake.

“I immediately began to skim over my preaching manuscript in my mind, asking myself, ‘Am I going to say anything offensive to them?’ I know I can be a little edgy and unorthodox in my attempts to articulate the gospel on a grassroots and socially conscious level. I had to think about if I needed to dial it back. Do I need to assimilate to a more moderate conservative theology in my own church?”

Ultimately, Fisher says he stuck with his original manuscript and delivered a message with “unadulterated and unapologetic commitment to Black liberation theology, and they actually loved it. But the point is, how many times do you think a white pastor would question his sermon because of Black visitors?”

Fisher says when you grow up Black in America, “the air you breathe informs you of these social constructs that are a part of our reality. But it’s not a reality I was ever ashamed of.”

Fisher says he’s always been proud to be Black. He shows that on the pulpit, as well as on the streets through activism and grassroots involvement.

“I don’t have to apologize for my heritage or my ethnicity,” he says. “I don’t see it as a negative attribute. I thank God I’m Black. I don’t need to be ashamed about it. There are so many times where my Blackness is affirmed. How can you watch Serena Williams and not be Black and proud? How can you listen to Malcolm or Martin speak? Or how can I be in my house with my family playing spades, listening to the newest album, and not be proud? Just thinking about these moments gets me excited. It’s a beautiful thing.”

Black and in Business

As a college student in the Chicago area, Bartholomew Jones frequented many coffee shops. One thing he noticed about the shops was the lack of people who looked like him in the room.

Bartholomew Jones

“I never had a negative encounter,” he says, “but the whole experience was just white, from the people to the music playing over the speakers. So I just assumed coffee was a white people’s thing.”

That began Jones’ multi-year journey to learn about the history of coffee, which culminated last year when he started CxffeeBlack, a coffee company that seeks to “make coffee Black again.”

In his research, he learned that coffee originated in Ethiopia and was later brought to Europe.

“Black people in America don’t understand our cultural ties to coffee,” he says. “So the question was ‘What’s a way for us to provide more education on the history of coffee and also try to provide a way for more Black people to experience coffee?’ That was the inspiration for starting the company. I wanted Black people to feel like coffee was for them.”

Jones’ years in college opened his eyes to more than the lack of diversity in coffee shops. He also saw firsthand “the reality of how unequal society is.”

At Wheaton College, Jones says there were few other Black students on campus — so much so that he knew most by name. Growing up in Whitehaven, a majority-Black neighborhood, for most of his childhood, he says that was a culture shock.

“I noticed how much the white guys would drink and do drugs and there were never any police around. Meanwhile, I grew up in an overpoliced neighborhood. I got to see how the other side was living and what they could get away with.”

That wasn’t the first time Jones says he was made aware of the difference in the way he and his Black peers were treated. He remembers taking a ride with his mentor, who was white, during his senior year in high school. Jones asked if he could play one of his favorite CDs, a Christian hip-hop album by Lecrae.

“I put the CD in and he was immediately like ‘I have to show you something.’ He took me to the school basement where they keep old tracts and handed me a red pamphlet about types of demonic music, which of course included rap and hip-hop. But the reasoning was because they come from the ‘dark continent of Africa.’ I was speechless.”

Jones says he was aware of racism in a historical context, but not in the form of present-day prejudices. “It didn’t matter how many people were kind to me, they still hated my culture,” he says. “It didn’t matter how smart or nice I was, I was still Black in their eyes. Only if I conform and assimilate to their culture and listen to their type of music, am I then okay.”

Today, Jones fully embraces his Blackness, in part by “providing quality coffee for the ‘hood” and also by protecting and uplifting other Black people.

Jones says the most important part of that role is being the father of two young boys. He and his wife want to ensure their sons are prepared for what they might face as Black men in America, he says.

“We want to give them a new narrative, though. We don’t want our boys to think they are destined to be killed by police officers. We have to give them the tools to protect themselves and overcome obstacles they will encounter as Black men. Most importantly, we teach our kids that they are Black and they should be proud of it.”

Black and Non-Binary

When Mia Saine was in preschool, they were bullied because their skin was darker than their classmates’ and their hair was a different texture.

Mia Saine

“This was the first time I remember any form of discrimination,” they say. “I mean, imagine being a 4-year-old and someone pointing out your features that make you different or implying those features make you not desirable to befriend. It was hard.”

Later, Saine remembers seeing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on TV for the first time and recalls that being the earliest moment they were proud of their Blackness.

“I got to see Michael Jackson playing this role as a zombie. He was on TV. It was just so magical. My parents introduced me to a lot of Black music, and I started to feel a sense of pride for our culture.”

Saine, born and raised in Arlington, is an illustrator and graphic designer in Memphis. They are also Black and non-binary, which they say “is a protest itself. Every day I’m going against the so-called normal lifestyle and American Dream. But that just doesn’t represent who I am as a person.”

As a high school student in Arlington and then a college student at Memphis College of Arts, Saine says they had to learn how to navigate predominantly white spaces, but there were times “when I was uncomfortable and just couldn’t relate because I didn’t have certain privileges and opportunities.”

Now, a full-time professional artist, Saine says that discomfort continues. Often in meetings, “I’m the token Black person. There have been times where I’ve been like ‘Oh yeah, this conversation is happening because I’m Black.’ It’s infuriating. However, having been on both sides of the coin, I know how to adapt and code switch.”

As an artist of color, Saine says “every time I present something, it’s over 100 percent, to surpass the expectations for that of a Black person. I feel responsible to represent a whole group of people. Being a non-binary Black artist is an empowering thing for me.”

However, Saine says they “feel obligated to go above and beyond to prove myself worthy in a way I shouldn’t have to. I have to overcompensate so often. But at the same time, I’m the type of person who won’t stand for any kind of discrimination. I don’t want to be seen as the angry Black woman, so I have to figure out how to be diplomatic but still stern.”

Despite the challenges over the years, Saine says they’ve come to love their queerness and Blackness, realizing “I should just love myself for me and advocate for all of my qualities instead of trying to seek approval and forgiveness. I can’t wait around for people to understand me. I have to live my life.”

Saine says they’ve felt more hopeful about the future for Black Americans in the past few weeks, seeing more people “accept the reality of people who are like me, my friends, family, and loved ones. Because we matter so much. We just want to be valued. That’s all.”

Black and Elected

Antonio Parkinson’s dreadlocks were below his ears when he had to cut them in order to keep his job at the Shelby County Fire Department.

Antonio Parkinson

“I started to grow dreadlocks,” he says. “There was no policy in place at the time, but they wrote me up, and when I wouldn’t sign the write-up, they were ready to suspend me. They told me I had to cut them or I’d be fired. So I did, and it made me feel terrible. I felt singled out. They didn’t understand my culture and weren’t trying to at the time.”

Parkinson says hair discrimination is just a drop in the bucket of what he experienced during his 25 years working for the fire department. From racial slurs to attempts to thwart the promotion of him and other Black firefighters, Parkinson says the culture was one of “suppression for people that look like me.”

He thought about walking away several times “when it got ugly, but I’m a fighter so I stayed. I simply looked at it as ‘Why not me?’ Why should your child and family have opportunities and not mine? Why can’t I do something that will create generational wealth for my family?”

Now, in his ninth year as a Tennessee state representative, Parkinson says his experiences over the years have only added fuel to the fire, motivating him to create legislation, such as healthy workplace laws to prevent discrimination on jobs and the Tennessee CROWN Act, which would make it illegal to discriminate against natural hair in the workplace.

“I just wanted to get some stuff done,” he says of his decision to run for office in 2011. “I wanted to level the playing field for everyone.” But discrimination and racism is still a reality for Parkinson.

“The Tennessee legislature is rampant with racism,” he says. “There’s overt racism. There’s covert racism. It’s in the racist jokes and slurs to the policies. And if you say something about their racism or racist statues, then they want to kill all of your bills.”

For example, Parkinson says no people of color had any input that made it into the state’s budget this year. “Not one single person of color had something in the budget. What does that say? The budget is a moral document that determined the priorities for the state.”

“Sometimes it gets discouraging,” he says of his role as a legislator in the majority-white General Assembly. “Sometimes they’re practicing discrimination and don’t even realize what they’re doing is racism. They say things that are not necessarily from a place of malice, but a place of ignorance. So part of my job is educating them.”

Despite the discrimination over the years, Parkinson says he has always been proud of being Black.

“I knew I was Black early on. My mother wouldn’t not let me know. She taught me who I was and how proud I should be. I loved and still love being Black. There’s nothing like the culture and everything that comes with it.”

Because of that, Parkinson says he is an “unapologetic, uncut version of myself. We shouldn’t have to compromise who we are, at all. I don’t care if you have gold teeth or weave down your back. We don’t have to compromise our culture. This culture is dynamic with everything from natural hair to 26-inch rims to bass in the music. We should not be ashamed or dumb down who we are for someone else’s comfort.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

Memphis Pride: A New Historical Marker, and Four Who Are Making a Difference

“Memphis’ Stonewall”

Halloween was once the only time a man could get away with dressing in drag in Memphis. That’s because a 1967 city ordinance prohibited “any person … to appear in public in the dress of the other sex.”

Vincent Astor Collection

Bill Kendall

And that’s why Bill Kendall, manager of the Guild Theater, cleverly planned the city’s first drag show for October 31, 1969. He still had to walk a fine line, so for an added layer of protection against a possible police raid, he made sure to pack the Guild (now the Evergreen Theatre) with plenty of real women — gussied-up females.

John Parrott remembers heading to the Guild that Halloween, but he stopped off at a bar first. People inside were dressed like they too might be heading to the theater, but they weren’t.

“I talked to some folks who said, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go there tonight,'” Parrott remembers. “There’s a chance of it being raided.”

Parrott wasn’t intimidated — it was going to be his first-ever drag show — but he understood why others might be.

“Go back and look at the press coverage in the early 1960s,” Parrott says. “If a place was raided — and that was what they feared — the papers didn’t hide anything. If you were caught in a place like that, they would print your name, your place of employment, your age — everything. If you got caught in a raid, you got fired. That was almost a certainty. That’s what they were afraid of.”

But the Guild wasn’t raided by police that night. In fact, Parrott says the evening was “euphoric.”

That show — which happened 50 years ago, this Halloween — was a touchstone for the Memphis gay community. The event, which was called the Miss Memphis Review, cracked open the city’s closet door and set a path to greater acceptance for those who would follow. It was the city’s first public pride celebration. Historian Vincent Astor calls the event “Memphis’ Stonewall.”

To honor its impact, a marker will be erected on the site on October 31st — the city’s first acknowledgement of its gay history.

The Mid-South LGBTQ+ Archive, Special Collections Department, University of Memphis, University Libraries

The Miss Memphis Review, held in the Guild Theater (now the Evergreen), was the city’s first public gay pride event. The event, held on Halloween night in 1969, was more pageant than drag show — and it was a huge first step for the LGBTQ community.

The Mid-South LGBTQ+ Archive, Special Collections Department, University of Memphis, University Libraries

The Mid-South LGBTQ+ Archive, Special Collections Department, University of Memphis, University Libraries

“Absolutely Unbelievable”

Parrott remembers the show got started late, maybe 10 p.m., or even midnight. Edd Smith, the emcee, got up on the stage, made the proper announcements, and the pageant began. Parrott says it was just that, a pageant, not really a drag show.

“There was a piano, a Hammond organ, and a palm tree, painted in Day-Glo colors with a black light,” Sharon Wray (an owner or partner in many gay and lesbian bars in Memphis) told Astor.

“Drag was done live with piano accompaniment,” Astor wrote in a 2017 post on the Friends of George’s website, “and much of it was camp and comedy.”

Parrott says a “good many were dressed up in tuxedos,” adding that “it was pretty packed. The euphoria was absolutely unbelievable. There were some who got scared and didn’t go, but the ones who did go realized exactly what they were doing.”

One by one, the 18 contestants (Pearl, Sandy, Dee Dee, and Brig Ella among them) came out dressed in evening gowns or whatever the pageant category demanded. There were waves of applause, hooting and hollering, and torrents of laughter.

While those at the Guild may not have known they were making history that night, they were certainly aware they could get in trouble. In addition to the city’s cross-dressing ordinance, another city law prohibited acts “of a gross, violent, or vulgar character.” This was aimed at same-sex dancing.

No doubt, such specific laws targeting gays still worried pageant-goers, no matter how euphoric the revelry. That’s where Kendall’s precautions — and timing — paid off.

“It was Halloween night, and [the police] would have to arrest people at bars all over town for cross-dressing,” Astor says. “That was one thing that saved them. There were also a lot of RGs (Real Girls) in costume. We know the differences between a DQ, a drag queen, and an RG.”

The hope was that the cops might not.

A Quick Evolution

The pageant was a giant step out of the shadows for the Memphis gay community. A similar pageant had been held the year before, but it was at a private party in Victorian Village’s Lowenstein-Long house, Astor says.

The fact that no one was arrested at the Guild the following year emboldened the community. Drag bars began to pop up around town, including Frank’s Show Bar and George’s Infamous Door. All of this happened even though the word “gay” wasn’t used, Astor says, “because that would just have been more fuel for the fire.”

In 1971, four men were arrested for “female impersonation,” according to a timeline of Memphis gay history compiled by OUTMemphis. They were arrested at George’s Infamous Door (as was owner George Wilson), but the charges were dismissed as the court failed to prosecute.

In 1974, Tennessee’s obscenity law was deemed unconstitutional, thanks to the perseverance of Kendall, who’d been repeatedly indicted for showing a variety of “obscene” foreign films and art films at the Guild.

By 1975, Memphis had five gays bars — Tango, Psych-Out, B.J.’s, Entree Nuit, and George’s. Five people leaving one of the bars that year were arrested for solicitation, three of them charged with “female impersonation.” The charges were dropped, but instead of taking a plea deal, they fought the case in court, won, and had their records expunged.

That same year, the group The Queen’s Men took over what they were now proudly calling the Miss Gay Memphis pageant. The first issue of Gaiety, the city’s first LGBTQ newspaper, was also published in 1975.

In 1976, the Metropolitan Community Church organized and welcomed “gays and straights of all faiths.” The city’s first public pride event — “Gay Day at the Park” — was held in Audubon Park. And the first Gay Student Association was founded that year at what was then Memphis State University.

Within seven years of that first Miss Memphis Review pageant at Midtown’s Guild Theater, several big steps had been taken.

Justin Fox Burks

Mark Jones and Vincent Astor

The Legacy of Stonewall

Rallies, parades, and other commemorative events marked this year’s 50th anniversary of the police raid on New York City’s Stonewall Inn — and the several days of violent conflict and protests that followed. It was a tumultuous chapter in gay history but one that’s now seen as a pivotal moment for LGBTQ rights.

Astor was in New York for the celebration and says, “I haven’t seen so many rainbow flags in all my life.” Astor says the Miss Memphis Review, staged just a few months after the Stonewall unrest, was “our Stonewall. That’s what we’re celebrating.”

The driving force behind the new marker has been veteran Memphis filmmaker Mark Jones. Jones says Kendall was a “flamboyantly gay man” and “a hero.”

“He did a lot for Memphis and was a very early LGBTQ pioneer,” Jones says. “The Miss Memphis Review was an important LGBTQ event in those early, pioneer days.”

When the marker is put up next month, it will be the first physical commemoration of Memphis’ LGBTQ history, and the second such marker in Tennessee. Nashville erected a marker to commemorate its historic gay bars last December.

The Memphis marker was unanimously approved by the Shelby County Historical Commission. Jones says he was “happy and surprised” there was no dissent. The only discussion was over grammar. And one member insisted the sign have the word “gay” on it, to ensure people would know its true significance.

“Let’s be honest, there’s been gay folks getting together since 1819 in Memphis, but it’s all been hush-hush and in secret,” Jones says. “[The Miss Memphis Review] was the first time it happened in public. It’s the 50th anniversary. So, we need to honor that.”

Astor and Jones will do so with an unveiling ceremony for the marker at the Evergreen Theatre on Thursday, October 31st at 6 p.m. Inside the Evergreen, there will be artifacts from the Miss Memphis Review that Astor has collected.

What follows will be a “moveable feast,” he says. It will start at the soon-to-be-open Dog Houzz, a gourmet hot dog restaurant on the former site of the Metro gay bar. The party will then move to Dru’s Place for a special drag show at around 8:30 p.m.

Astor says all events are open to everyone, but he especially welcomes anyone who was present for the 1969 Miss Memphis Review.

Jones hopes the marker and the event are the first of many celebrations of Memphis gay history. “We need our history told,” he says. “We need our history honored, and we need it spread out across our city.”

Justin Fox Burks

Jeremy and Matthew Thacker-Rhodes

Jeremy and Matthew Thacker-Rhodes

Taking Care of Business

When I was assigned to write a profile of Jeremy and Matthew Thacker-Rhodes, my colleague Toby Sells told me, “These guys have a lot of irons in the fire.” 

He wasn’t kidding. They founded Pride Staffing Agency. They are part of the team behind the Downtown jazz lounge Pontotoc. They own their own barbershop, Baron’s Man Cave. And they’re preparing to start yet another business that provides merchant services such as credit-card processing, point of sale technology, and consulting.  

“One thing leads to another when you open up a business and you have success. You start networking, meeting people, and then opportunity comes to you,” says Jeremy. “We both have the type of mindset that just thrives off the stress.” 

Jeremy is from Arkansas; Matthew is from Alabama. The couple had a six-month, long-distance relationship before coming together for good at the 2013 Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. They were married in San Francisco in April 2014 and are currently parenting three children, the youngest of whom just turned two.

Jeremy says their relationship works because their personalities complement each other so well. “[Matthew] is my balance, if that makes sense. We have almost two totally different types of personalities, but he has strength I don’t have, and that makes me stronger. And I feel like I do the same with him.” 

Jeremy says they have found acceptance in Memphis they could not find in their rural hometowns. “One of the reasons I came to Memphis was to come to a Southern city and to start fresh being who I was. I still struggled with whether people would accept that, even in the business community. I’ve had clients that I’ve lost for being part of the LGBT community. But you reach a point in life where, I’m tired of trying to pretend to be someone I’m not, and it’s time to be myself. Life is short. I am who I am, and I’ve been this way since birth, and I can’t change who I am. You get to a point where you own who you are when you’re gay. And that’s something to accept when you grow up very religious in the South and in a small town.

“Moving to Memphis gave both of us the opportunity to come out of the box and be who we are and realize that we can be accepted for who we are and not be judged and still own our own businesses. Do we still catch stuff from people? Absolutely. Some people are going to be close-minded till the day they die, and you can’t do anything about it. Now does it affect some volume of business? Yes, but I think it balances out because you have others who love to deal with you because you are who you are. … It doesn’t matter if you’re gay or straight or whatever. Being successful owning a business is all about doing things ethically, doing things right, delivering on what you say, and just keeping your nose to the grind and staying focused. That’s what makes you a success. It’s not about being gay or straight or whatever that makes you successful, it’s about who you are as a person, and being gay is just a small part of who I am.” — Chris McCoy

Justin Fox Burks

Kayla Gore

Kayla Gore

Human Rights Warrior

Kayla Gore wrote last year that the average life span of a transgender woman of color is 35. She just celebrated a birthday — her 34th.

“It kind of makes you live your life in your own lifestyle, and for a person like me it’s almost impossible to not be visible,” Gore says. “A lot of advocates are saying our visibility will get us killed because the number of trans murders is rising every year.”

Twenty-six transgender people were murdered [in the U.S.] in 2018, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Eighteen transgender people have been murdered so far this year, Gore says. The majority of these were black transgender women murdered by acquaintances, partners, and strangers, with some cases showing a clear anti-transgender bias.

If advocates ever suggested that Gore should keep a low profile because of the murders (or anything else), she didn’t listen. Earlier this year, she stood before a podium in Nashville, telling the press, state lawmakers, lobbyists, advocates, and anybody else who would listen that they didn’t get to define her.

“I have been a woman my entire life,” Gore said. “However, the state of Tennessee refuses to recognize my identity and forces me to carry incorrect identity documents.”

Gore is the lead plaintiff in a case challenging a state law prohibiting transgender people from changing the gender marker on their birth certificates. The suit is still pending.

While the birth-certificate lawsuit is a high-profile moment for Gore, it’s hardly the beginning of her activism work. She arrived in Memphis — homeless — nine years ago. She found other homeless, transgender people, and they invited her to a meeting for Homeless Organized for Power and Equality (HOPE). At the time, the group was fighting against housing organizations that preyed upon the homeless and those with mental health issues.

“That made me so passionate,” Gore says. “There are actually people out here doing things about the things we need to do things about. It lit a fire in me.”

That fire was fueled with some wins. She helped to secure federal funds for the chronically homeless through the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center and helped shut down some of those organizations preying upon the homeless.

For the last six months, Gore has been working as the Southern Regional Organizer for the Transgender Law Center through Southerners on New Ground (SONG), a social justice advocacy organization supporting queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people primarily in the South.

About two years ago, Gore started her own group, My Sistah’s House. It provides a place for transgender, gender non-comforming adults who have been released from incarceration and are experiencing homelessness or anti-transgender violence.

When asked about the climate for transgender people in Memphis right now, Gore says, “It’s bad, nearing a storm.”

“On July 1st, [the state began] criminalizing trans folks for using restrooms,” Gore says of the “indecent exposure” bill passed by state lawmakers this year and signed by Governor Bill Lee in May. “If someone complains and calls the police, [transgender people] can be jailed, tried, and put on the sex offender registry just for using the restroom. It’s something that trans folks have never had a problem with.”

But Gore says she is hopeful, noting a “few good candidates” will be on the ballot this year in Memphis. “I’m always optimistic about the future because I see the headway we’re making.” — TS

Justin Fox Burks

Diane Duke

Diane Duke

A Friend for Life

Diane Duke moved to Memphis three and a half years ago to take the reins of Friends For Life. “When I was in Los Angeles, I’d been working around HIV issues,” she says. “I was looking at some job openings, and, from my time working at Planned Parenthood, sexual health is something that’s important to me. Looking at Memphis, the numbers I saw about the high rates of HIV and the ways that it was broken down made me wonder what was going on here, as far as why this area has such a high rate of new infections.”  

Duke, who has three decades of nonprofit work under her belt, was born in Virginia to a father who was in the Coast Guard. Growing up, she traveled around the South before settling in Oregon. “I knew what the South is, as far as the Bible Belt and the conservatism and how that impacts what’s going on with HIV. Coming from Los Angeles, where people are HIV-positive and there’s no stigma, I had an understanding that there was a lot of work to be done in Memphis. With all the medical advances that we have saying that people are still dying of AIDS and that new transmissions of HIV were so high, I knew this would be a place where my work would be very fulfilling. And that has been the case. I I love it here. I love the work that I do. I love the people I work with. And I love the community.”

Friends For Life, which was originally organized in 1985 as the Aid To End A.I.D.S. Committee, is one of the oldest HIV-centric organizations in the South. Duke leads a team of 50, which serves more than 2,700 people annually. Their goals are to prevent new HIV infections, help people with HIV stay on their treatment plans, reduce and prevent homelessness among those who are living with HIV, and educate the Mid-South about HIV prevention and the treatment and spread of the disease. 

“It’s difficult because sometimes you want to bang your head against the wall,” Duke says. “You just wanna say, ‘Hey folks, all you have to do is take a pill. Just get tested. Find out about this.’ But because of the stigma, where people get thrown out of their house, thrown out of their faith communities, thrown out of their friend community, it’s not safe if people find out that they are HIV-positive. There’s just so much work to be done to really change the stigma and the community’s view around HIV and LGBTQ issues.” 

But with recent medical advances and a robust organization that is expanding its outreach to the hard-hit African-American LGBTQ community, Duke says she is optimistic about the future. “I’m a dreamer. People call me Pollyanna.” — CM

Categories
News News Blog

Lawsuit Challenges Tennessee Transgender Restrictions

CREDIT: Lambda Legal

Lambda Legal

Kayla Gore, of Memphis, speaks during a news conference Tuesday outside the federal courthouse in Nashville.

Four transgender Tennesseans sued the state Tuesday to challenge a law prohibiting them from changing the gender marker on their birth certificates.

The case was filed by Lambda Legal, a national advocacy group working for the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and those with HIV. The lead plaintiff in the case is Kayla Gore, 33, of Memphis.

“I have been a woman my entire life,” Gore said in a statement. “However, the state of Tennessee refuses to recognize my identity and forces me to carry incorrect identity documents.
[pullquote-1] “In times where anti-trans violence is escalating, especially against transgender women of color, I deserve to have identity documents that reflect who I am and don’t put me in harm’s way – the same as anyone would want for themself and their loved ones.”

Tennessee is one of only three states, including Kansas and Ohio, that bars citizens from changing their gender on their birth certificate. Lambda Legal filed lawsuits challenging policies in those states, too.

“Forty-seven states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico acknowledge the importance of allowing people to have access to essential government identity documents that accurately reflect their sex, consistent with their gender identity,” said Lambda Legal senior attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan. “It is time for Tennessee to join them. We won’t rest until we remove every governmental barrier to recognizing and respecting every transgender person’s identity in this country.”

The suit was here filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville on behalf of four transgender people born in Tennessee – Gore, Jason Scott, and two plaintiffs identified by their initials, L.G. and K.N.

In the suit, Lambda Legal argues Tennessee’s policies violate the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution. Also, policies here violate citizens’ free speech rights, according to Lambda Legal.
[pullquote-2] “I have had to put up with a lot since I decided to live as the man that I am over twenty-five (25) years ago,” said Scott, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. “The state of Tennessee does not get to define who I am by incorrectly identifying me as female on my birth certificate. Getting a correct birth certificate in alignment with who I am would be life-changing.”

For more on the case, go here.