Denver Post Held Hostage by Columnist?

This is a letter I sent to the editor of the Denver Post regarding this article (opens in a new window).

As a transgender American and concerned citizen, I am extremely frightened by David Harsanyi's opinion regarding the case of Danielle Cornwell. It is even more frightening that his ignorance on this subject is shared by many of my fellow Americans. He has no understanding of this case, the transgender condition, or the purpose and result of anti-discrimination laws. He makes three main points in his article: that Danielle Cornwell's case was about a person being fired for being transgender; that the transgender condition is as simple as putting on a dress; and that protecting transgender people would lead to problems. He is wrong on all three points, and here's why.

First, Danielle Cornwall's ruling was not based on her transgender status. It was based solely on the fact that she is a woman. It is clear from the court ruling that the case was decided on the basis of Danielle's gender being female in the eyes of the law. This ruling doesn't add anything to constitutional law, and it doesn't re-interpret the existing law. David wrote, "clearly she wasn't fired for being a woman." This isn't the case and the judge's ruling is clear on that. Additionally, the employer denied firing her for being transgender (which is legal and would have cleared them), but they had no other substantial reason for firing her.

Several times in the article, David implies that Danielle's transgender nature is simply a case of a person wanting to crossdress at work. He states that Danielle was previously a man, and that recently he informed his employer "that he was going to begin wearing women's clothing." In the next sentence he mentions that she is scheduled for sexual reassignment surgery, as if it's almost parenthetical. It's not. This statement is a key point, and David completely missed the value of it. Being transgender is not the same as crossdressing. Crossdressing is clearly not allowed in the workplace, and an employer's right to enforce gender-different dress codes has been defended time and again in the courts. Danielle's case is quite different. She is transsexual, and has no doubt endured a torturous journey because of it. Transitioning can take years and transitioning on the job is usually one of the last steps. The decision to transition is not taken lightly, and I'm insulted by David's suggestion that it is. Standards of care for transgender people require a period of full-time living in the person's chosen gender before they can be approved for surgery (usually one year). Remaining gainfully employed during this period is crucial, unless David would prefer to support us on welfare while we undergo this necessary process.

He goes on to say "If a company hires a transgender person, they know that firing them - for any reason - will probably lead to legal action." History tells us this is not the case. Companies regularly hire people of minority races, the disabled, and women without fear of being "held hostage" if they wish to fire the person. I'm pretty sure David doesn't think we should repeal all laws protecting classes of people from employment discrimination. We as a society have decided that explicit discrimination is legally wrong. The case with tall and short people is not discrimination, as the cited article makes perfectly clear, if you read it. David claims that Danielle was clearly not fired for being a woman. OK, if she was fired for being transgender, then doesn't that make it perfectly clear that transgender people do need protection under the law? Anti-discrimination laws serve the purpose of making sure people aren't fired for unfair reasons. Is David suggesting that firing someone for being transgender is fair? He clearly states that he respects our right to exist this way, so why shouldn't we be protected?

Enforcement of equal rights is not called dependence, David. It's called freedom, and I have a deep respect for that concept. America is the flagship of Freedom in the world, and we don't have any laws protecting the transgendered, which puts us woefully behind the rest of the world, including Canada, most of Europe, Japan, and even IRAN! The UN recently reprimanded the United States for being behind on these laws, and I'm embarrassed to be living in a place that the rest of the world sees as a backward country, but I love America and I think it's the greatest country in the world. As long as I'm here, I'm going to fight for fair and equal treatment for all of us, and so should you.

Jasmine Danielle Adamson
Lakewood, CO

IT Job Market Sucks Rocks!

Recently in the IT job market there has been a major dry spell. Economics tells us that IT workers are in demand, but when we look for work, we see something contradictory. What is going on?

I think what happened is actually that workers are facing a different type of competition than we are used to in the IT field. It used to be based entirely on coding ability, and hiring decision-makers had some handle on how to judge coding ability. Now, our competition is a world of barely-trained hacks, who are capable of listing buzzwords on their resumes, but barely fulfill the job requirements. When I'm requiring 70K and some hack is only requiring 50K, the managers think they are getting a better deal going with the lower-quality applicant. They know they will get lower-quality work, but they don't care.

Thus, we (skilled IT people) are competing with people who normally wouldn't be competetive with us. Hiring managers don't know what to do... they aren't techies and they don't understand how to determine the skill level of a programmer. Furthermore, HR people don't have any ability to look at project requirements and turn those into job requirements. The best they can do is copy and paste all the acronyms from the project requirements to their Monster advert. HR is seriously misunderstanding the process of hiring IT people. When you compound that situation with an enourmous number of hacks out there, an obviously tricky situation arises.

The solution is this: get developers involved in the hiring process! In 5 minutes I can make a determination about coding ability that an HR manager may never be able to make. I can also design tests that focus on the areas which are important to us. That is, rather than asking for a certification for all of the .NET Framework, and hoping that will cover what we need, I create a test to gauge the applicant's ability with, for example, SQL Stored Procedures and hand coding HTML. See... I know that I don't really need an expert on .Net, but rather someone who can do the specific things we need for this specific project. Sharp developers who come into that situation will be able to expand their abilities and help with other projects eventually, but if what we need right now is someone with a specific set of abilities, all to often the HR department is ignoring that and looking for an applicant with skills that can be broken down nicely into acronyms and buzzwords.

So to sum that all up, there's 3 main things messing up the IT job market right now:

1. There are a huge number of hacks and wannabes out there competing for the jobs. This includes hacks and wannabes from India and other far-off places.

2. HR people can't tell the hacks from the hackers. The usual techniques to identify good candidates don't work for IT, and HR can't seem to figure that out.

3. The divide between developers and the rest of the company is almost anti-social, so developers are often not involved in the hiring process. This makes it even more difficult for HR to spot the good candidates.

To solve these issues there's a few things I think you can do to compete better in the job market:

1. Make sure your skills are up to date, and you can prove it. That means, have a web site, an application, a game, something YOU developed or managed that you can put in the interviewers hands and show them. Be ready for coding tests or physical tests of your ability. If an employer doesn't do this, I think they are asking for trouble. Coders and Administrators can easily be tested on their abilities, and a good test result should be 50% or more of the hiring decision. I'm not talkin about certification-style tests here, I'm talking about actually having the person sit down and write some code, or perform some task where their performance can be measured. My HTML test covers only the ability to hand-code HTML. It has one question and a million answers, but the applicant either passes or fails the points we are judging on. Certifications are worthless in this regard, because they tend to measure knowledge, rather than ability. I've worked with more than a few developers who had certifications in things they still didn't know how to do.

2. Improve your image! This is particularly important for women. I know it seems like a trivial thing and that hiring decisions should be based on ability rather than fashion, but the reality is, we live in a world that is very superficial. IT people are already seen as an anti-social bunch, and the common appearance-related choices that IT folks tend to make, are part of the reason for that. I worked with a guy once who was an absolute genius, but was impossible to be around. He smelled funny, had gobs of unruly facial hair, had some wierd religious notions that he wasn't discrete about, and other problems. Genius ability didn't matter too much for this guy when it came to who to cut from the team. You don't have to look like a magazine cover, but shower, shave and keep your religious icons tucked in if you must wear them. For women, you need to be dressed nicely for the interview, but can tone it down after hire. Do something with your hair and makeup which is not excessive but professional. If you don't know how to use makeup (as is the case with many geek chix), learn to wear mascara and lip gloss at the least. I know it sounds trivial, but trust me, it will make a huge difference in how people react to you.

3. Improve your social skills. I have the job I have today because I was the only applicant capable of having a conversation. I was lucky because the CEO and I both have a love of race cars, so that led to a natural conversation topic, but if you're a cold rock, people are not going to want to work with you. In this area, you are overcoming a stereotype. HR people expect IT folks to be anti-social, so the cards are stacked against you. HR people also expect IT applicants to be dishonest about their skills (see #1). It is important that you come across as a friendly and trustworthy person. One trick I use to accomplish this is to talk openly about my shortcomings. I mention skills I would like to learn and things I would like to improve on, and make it clear that I actually do intend to improve in those areas. This makes me seem more human and more honest I think. Avoid seeming arrogant at all costs! I made this mistake once when I told an interviewer I didn't have the skill he was asking for, but I could learn it over the weekend. The statement was probably true, but came across as me being an arrogant bitch. This will hurt a male applicant, but kill a woman. Having good social skills puts you miles ahead of the other applicants. I had a boss actually tell me that was the reason I got the job, instead of a guy with a Ph.D. who also applied. He said he 'enjoyed the interview' with me a lot more than with the guy, who couldn't converse in English with a normal human being.

4. If you are a woman, be aware of the double-standard. I find that female interviewers can be even more judgemental in this respect than the men. That is, female HR people are MORE prejudiced against women, than their male counterparts. I think also that men tend to see an attractive woman as a potential positive addition to the environment, while women are mostly indifferent about that aspect. Men like to have lovely women around. It's just a fact of life. If you're friendly and attractive, without going over the top, you will make headway with the men. I know this seems sexist, and it is, but it's realistic also. Attractive women have an advantage with male recruiters. However, if you cross the line from 'attractive' to 'sexy'... your hosed. Don't go there. Be professional... think Hillary Clinton. Women will face suspicion about their skills to a greater degree than men, so number 1 above is even more important for women.

I hope this helps folks out there. I had a hard time finding a position until I realised and accepted some of these ideas. A little luck is nice too. Of course all the normal job-hunting things apply, but these additional issues are making it harder for IT people to compete in the job market.

Happy Hunting!
Jasmine

America's T-Girl?!

I love America. I think it's the best country in the world. I love the spacious skies, the amber waves of grain, and all that. However, the greatest reason of all to love this country is under attack, and that's why I'm here to defend it as America's T-Girl. This is a little thing I call the American Ideal, embodied in the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. These ideals are being ignored on a daily basis, and not just by the politicians, by average Americans as well. There's a growing number of people in this country who simply don't understand what the most basic law of this land actually means.

I declared myself America's T-Girl simply because I can, but I do have a mission here. I want to show that "American" and "T-Girl" (or whatever word you want), are not incompatible terms. Our community is facing a huge challenge in the political and social arena, and we need to show the world that we are Americans, just like any others. We love our kids, go to church, pay taxes, worry about our careers, and go about our daily business. We deserve, as do all Americans, to be able to carry out our lives in peace. Some people do not think we deserve those rights. Those people have forgotten what country they live in, and I'm here to remind them that they live in the greatest country in the world!

Crossdressing 101 - The MFAQ

If you prefer to read this on my web site, it's also posted there.

I've been struggling with transgender issues all my life and I wasn't able to do anything about it for nearly 32 years, so I'm well aware that it's hard to get out of the closet. I participate in many email lists and groups designed to help various types of crossdressers with various issues. There's everything from fetish groups to hormone and surgery groups. I try to give the best I can to those forums because if it wasn't for the Internet, many of us would still be in the closet. If it wasn't for people communicating with me, I would never have been able to do the things I do now. However, sometimes these groups annoy me a little bit and I get a little touchy. What bugs me, for a whole bunch of reasons, is that people ask the same questions over and over again, and we post the same answers over and over again.

As I said, I do like to help, so I do answer questions the best way I can, but there is one questions that, after a while, I felt had been asked and answered too much... way too much. And so I present to you (drumroll please), the MFAQ - Mother Frequently Asked Question. It goes something like this:

I've been crossdressing for 87 years in private, and I want to go out as [insert femalename here], but I'm just not sure what to do. My wife [does or doesn't] know about myurges, and she [is or isn't] upset about it. Do you know where I can get a makeover? I'm just not sure I'll be passable - I can do some makeup and whatnot, but I just don't know... What do I do?

Now obviously, this is a really good question, and I do feel it deserves a really good answer. I respect the situation here, buit I see this all the time and there's really only one thing to do. This question has been asked so many times it will make your head spin, so I looked up an answer of mine from the archive. Here's how I answered the frightened crossdresser, from a Motel 6 one lonely night in Utah (with slight edits):

If you want to become a more passable crossdresser or learn to have comfortable fun with your fetishes or become a fabulous drag queen, here's what you do:

Take your balls out from between your legs and get your wimpering candy ass out there in the real world and meet some real people already! You've been a man all your life. Act like it.

Now that I got that out of my system... I will admit, I was terrified the first time I went out as a girl. I very nearly had a heart attack I'm sure. I adjusted very quickly, and some people will not have that experience, and I understand that it can be frightening, but it absolutely has to be done. You need to make a decision about whether you are going to be a closet crossdresser forever (which is ok, by the way), or whether you want to go out in public. Once you've decided that, you should let nothing stand in your way, including your own fears, finances, other people, and so on...

Now, I'm not saying a person has to get their girl on and become fully entrenched in the community on some random Friday night, but go out in boy mode or something and meet people. I did that a lot. People were always surprised to see me at BJ's [a Denver Drag Bar] as a boy, but until I really got the hang of things, I just had too many problems being a girl all the time. However, when I got to the point where I was ready for that, I already knew a good number of people in the community and was good friends with a few crossdressers and drag queens, so I had a support system in place when Jasmine finally showed up on the scene. There is nothing wrong with going and hanging out at gay bars and trying to get to know people. There should be no fear involved with that, and it will ease your fears about crossdressing as well. Once you get to know a few people, see how comfortable we are, how others react to us, and you realize the full breadth of the rainbow of various CD expressions, it will help alleviate most of those fears.

Also, you need to realize that when you decide to publicly crossdress, your existing community will get smaller. You will need the support system of the crossdressers, admirers, barkeepers, and so on, to replace the people you will lose. 50% of transsexuals kill themselves. Current data tells us that a common element in suicides is lack of a support system of close friends. I am telling you this from personal experience. You don't want to be sitting at home at 3am alone and drunk off your ass after having a bad crossdressing-related experience, and have no one to call and talk to about it. Trust me on that one.

The other major reason to get involved in the community in real life, is because people can help you. Yes, people will help you! I can't stress that enough. I have photos from my early days that I simply will never show people. I started out as a total mess! There were several people in the community that saw a lot of potential in me, and I made those relationships work to our mutual advantage. I did a lot of charity work as a drag queen, and I helped organize shows and so on. In turn, I gained a lot of respect and people were eager and happy to answer my questions and help me out with makeup advice, hair, clothes, and so on. Heck, one night Kelly Micheals took me in the dressing room at BJ's and completely re-did my face! I've been doing it pretty much that same way, with a few improvements, ever since. But in 20 minutes, she showed me things I could never have learned from a makeover shop, or on the internet, or anywhere else, and it CHANGED MY LIFE! The time that people have spent with me has changed my whole life, not just made me a better crossdresser, but gave me a new outlook and allowed me to face the world as Jasmine without having a heart attack. Now, the folks at Studio Lites and Phyllis's Fantasies have helped me as well, but not as shopkeepers so much as friends and fellow drag queens. Phyllis is a great person, and I have modeled for her shop in a fashion show, and I appreciate her greatly. I count Phyllis among my very good friends, but I still wouldn't advise getting a makeover from her shop.

Now I'm not sayin you need to go out and become a drag show organiser or something, but you need to be seen and get to know a few people. The community is somewhat segmented, and you will have to figure out where you fit in. At any rate, you will be getting valuable experience and you will be sure to have a good time! Now that I am living in a place without a TG community, I value this experience even more. I feel quite strongly on this subject and I do not mean to offend anyone, rather I hope you will be inspired by my words and motivated to chase your dreams! I think a strong TG community is imperative for the future of crossdressers and the American community in general, and the more activity we have, the better. So go on girls! Get on with your bad self :)

Have a groovy day!
Jasmine

PS: One more thing. Be ladylike. Be ultimately polite and respectful to everyone, even moreso to the people you don't like - this is the classy woman's way. Don't touch people, keep your dick in your skirt, keep other people out of your skirt (seriously), don't be a bitch to anyone no matter how rude they are, don't ever, ever leave BJ's with any men you don't know, especially if you have had more than 2 drinks (take that from personal experience, too).