Email highlights another one of Hillary's accomplishments @ State, still helping the trans community

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The Briefing ?@TheBriefing2016 12h12 hours ago
Another one of @HillaryClinton's accomplishments at State is still helping the trans community. http://bit.ly/1LJW6GF

In 2011, a transgender woman working in the Illinois construction industry wrote an email to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (PDF).

“I have applied at well over 300 job openings since 2007,” she wrote. “I was able to get about a dozen interviews and as soon as they found out I was a transgender person, all bets were off.”

Even though Illinois is one of 19 states that prohibits discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity, she explained, “the truth of the matter is you cannot work for someone that does not want you there.”

The woman goes on to describe how a subtle but significant change in U.S. passport policy helped her gain employment.

In June 2010, as the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) notes, Secretary Clinton’s State Department began allowing transgender people to change passport gender markers with a physician’s certification that they had received “appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition.” For the first time, sex reassignment surgery (SRS) was not required to make the correction.

The state of Illinois, on the other hand, still does not allow transgender people to change the gender listed on their birth certificate unless they have had “an operation(s) having the effect of reflecting, enhancing, changing, reassigning or otherwise affecting gender.”

But the new passport policy reportedly helped the Illinois woman—whose name was redacted by the State Department in the Clinton email dump—start a new company and get it certified as a female-owned business (FBE).

“The passport change made a major impact,” she wrote. “When I went to my state to begin the process [of FBE certification], I stated, ‘My country accepts me as a woman and this state should as well.’”

At the time she wrote the email to Secretary Clinton, she said that she was back to work and had hired two previously unemployed people as well.

...for transgender people like the anonymous Illinois construction worker, the effects have been palpable. Over the last six years, the State Department’s change in passport policy has quietly influenced laws around government identification for transgender people—laws that directly affect employment, housing, and public accommodations.

And six years later, the State Department’s policy change is still paying dividends for transgender people.

Earlier this month, for example, the Michigan Secretary of State announced that the state would accept passports as proof of gender for updated driver’s licenses and state IDs. That change came after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against the state on behalf of six transgender plaintiffs who had been refused updated state identification.

The ACLU was able to use the fact that Michigan’s former policy “stands in contrast with the decisions of the federal government” as leverage in its legal complaint (PDF). The first such federal decision the legal nonprofit listed was the State Department’s 2010 passport policy. Two plaintiffs in the case had passports with the correct gender markers but were still denied updated driver’s licenses.

The ACLU will be pushing for an even simpler policy, but now, those plaintiffs—and many other transgender people in the state—will be able to update their ID thanks, in part, to Clinton’s State Department.


2012 email to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from transgender woman working in the Illinois construction (PDF)

Dear Madam Secretary,

I am writing you today in great gratitude for the impact you have made in our community and my family.We have struggled for the past five years living almost day to day and some days it felt by the hour. I am a transsexual woman in the construction trades, married with children. As you are aware this nation is struggling as well ,and to make matters worse the construction industry has been hardest hit. With this in mind, I have applied at well over 300 job openings since 2007. I was able to get about a dozen interviews and as soon as they found out I was a transgender person all bets were off. In Illinois we are blessed to have a civil rights bill protecting GLBT people and have the Illinois Department of human rights to enforce these laws. The truth of the matter is you can not work for some one that does not want you there. For the past year we have been aggressive at building a new, diverse business to employ people based on skills and goals, not gender nor color, or sexuality. We achieved a milestone in accomplishment, today we are certified as a FBE ( Female Business Enterprise) as a trans woman. With all the documentation involved in transition and the many raised eyebrows we face in our quest for acceptance, The passport change made a major impact. When I went to my state, to begin the process, I stated "My country accepts me as a woman and this State should do as well," My passport reads female for Department of State, I have been checked by homeland security, I am whom I am. Last month we were certified by our State , some federal and several large corporations as a woman owned business, disadvantaged women's business, and many other well needed classes.

This business is built on my lifetime of contracting experience and it is now certified as such. It would have been very easy to do this in my supportive spouses name, but that would have been living another lie . With this new pathway of progress forged in our state, it opens the doors for others to follow. We got our first real job last week, we hired two unemployed people. That job put three people back to work and yes it has trickle down economy out here in Rockford where we hold the highest unemployment in the state . As we grow we will continue to hire people and make a positive impact in an economic disaster area. There are many skilled people who hold the same goals, and dreams just like me . You helped make my dream come true and I am forever grateful for your understanding and compassion towards not just the transgender community but the entire LGBT community of this nation and world. We are Gods creations , yes we have been given challenges, but also blessed with many gifts and talents to make up for the hardships we would face. Thank you for your acceptance and taking action where others before have turned their backs.

Hillary Clinton ?@HillaryClinton 14h14 hours ago
LGBT people should be protected from discrimination under the law—period. http://hrc.io/1VJABIp -H

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1. kick

[Jitter65]

2. Thanks for posting. But HC will get no credit for this or any attention. It would have had to be

a Goldman employee or some big bank executive to get any attention here...and then it would have been criticized.