Levi Alter is the fourth of five generations of intersex people in his family and part of about two percent of the population who is born with both female and male anatomy. As in many of the cases of intersex births, Alter, an ordained Rabbi and President of FTM International, was assigned female at birth. “[Doctors] just take a quick glance,” says Alter about doctors assigning gender to infants. “In institutions you only have the Male or the Female box.”

Alter, 50, has served on an ethics committee of a Bay Area hospital and said that there were cases where the committee had to try to come up with an assignment because the gender of a baby was not apparent at birth. Alter says the general rule is that if the penis is under one inch in length, it is reshaped into a clitoris. This can result in individuals having problems their entire lives because they don’t identify with the gender to which they were assigned. “In the deep structures of the brain, they have an identity that’s not based on their outer appearance,” says Alter.

“I was unmistakably male when I began growing up.” Alter says he remembers telling his family his gender identity when he was four. “I was a boy who had to go to school wearing a dress,” says Alter. “Legally I had to conform because of the F on my birth certificate.” In school he complied with his birth certificate, but at home he was able to be his true gender. “The legal paper bothered me a great deal, not so much the double life,” says Alter.

In Idaho, Ohio and Tennessee, no matter what you do, even if you move out of the state, an individual cannot change the sex on his or her birth certificate. At Alter’s full-time human resources job, he reviews I-9 forms to determine the applicant’s employment eligibility. There’s not a gender box on I-9 forms, but as a result of 9/11 and stricter security measures, an applicant’s social security number, driver’s license and birth certificate all have to match. If a transitioned person applies and the name and sex on their driver’s license doesn’t match his or her birth certificate, the applicant can be denied employment for lying on their application.

Christopher Carrington, Ph.D., an associate professor of sociology and a graduate faculty for human sexuality studies at SF State says, “In the case of transgenders and transsexuals, security [background and credit checks in employment] has made their passing very difficult…If you’re passing as a transgender or transsexual person, the government is forcing you out of the closet…those are the people who need protection.”

Alter attributes discrimination as creating a high rate of unemployment in the transgender community. He knows a large number of transgender people who are unemployed or extremely qualified and experienced people who are underemployed and placed in jobs below their skills level. “One of the things that concerns me is that you see these young boys, they are male,” he says. “But they were assigned female at birth. What are they going to do when they go for employment?”

“There’s a continuum of gender,” says Alter. “We have these really strict models in our binary system of gender roles.” People have a sense of whether they’re female or male, some people feel like they’re a little of both, he explians. “Intersexed people want to be in a category that best fits.”

According to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, gender, origin, religion and skin color shouldn’t be a factor in gaining employment. Rightfully so, such factors of personal identity have nothing to do with job performance or qualification. But why should employment rights be based on traditional heterosocietal gender standards? Sexual orientation and gender identity, like religion and skin tone, have nothing to do with job performance.

Policies protecting individuals from employment discrimination based on gender identity exist in only 18 states, and protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation exists in only 19 states, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community is pushing for an all-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) to bring policies that make employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity against federal law.

There are two versions of the bill. The first is inclusive and protects sexual orientation and gender identity (H.R. 2015). Democrat Representatives have curbed this version due to fear that it won’t get enough votes to pass through the house. The updated bill, H.R. 3685, with gender identity scratched off, passed through the Education and Labor Committee on Oct. 18. Its progression to the House of Representatives was postponed in an October 24 decision.

Carrington believes that what’s going on politically is that Democrats are trying to accomplish something to help them get into office in 2008, so they can say “look, this is what we did, but Bush struck it out.” Pushing the ENDA through, he thinks, is being done for political purposes, because it will be helpful in fundraising.

Amy Sueyoshi, Ph.D., a professor in human sexuality and ethnic studies at SF State and a postdoctoral fellow in Asian American studies at UCLA, has the impression that the logic behind pushing through the non-inclusive bill “is based on the assumption that transphobia is more prevalent than homophobia and that gays and lesbians are more accepted in American society. She says, “San Francisco is the transcapital of America, but it’s still very difficult for transgenders to find gainful employment…If you can pass as a gender normative person, you’re more likely to find employment.”

Staff Attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Melanie Rowen, 30, explains that the LGBT community is reacting so strongly to the non-inclusive bill because once it’s passed, it will be difficult to get approval for another bill on the same issue that’s all-inclusive.

“This is fundamentally about gender roles in society,” says Rowen. Everyone has a gender identity, she says, but some people have what society deems an appropriate gender identity to which they were born while others do not. For example, some lesbians are really butch and some gay men are really effeminate—they’re non-gender conforming.

A lot of people see the new draft of the ENDA as a problem just because transgendered people won’t be included, but Rowen says it’s a bigger than that. “It’s an issue of shutting people out primarily based on the way they look.”

“It’s sad to see people being punished just for trying to be safe and comfortable in the world,” Rowen says, when talking about the lack of acceptance and low employment rate for transgender and intersex people.

Brian Basinger, president of the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club and director of the Aids Housing Alliance sits on a metal bench in the patio of the backyard garden of the Aids Housing Alliance building. “I don’t think that you cave into peoples fears based on expediency,” he says. “You know we’re going to have a new president really, really soon and if we have to wait until we have a Democratic congress and Democratic president, then we can wait,” says Basinger.

Basinger thinks that with the incrementalism of pushing the exclusive bill through and tossing out community members only to try and add them later will create a divide and conquer strategy. “That strategy,” he says, “is questionable in that there are no guarantees that the momentum will be there and have enough support to include transgenders later…It boggles my mind that it [excluding transgenders] is even a question…It’s equally as ridiculous as not including short girls in the women’s suffrage movement.”

Roughly 300 organizations have banded together to form United ENDA in support of an all-inclusive bill. When ENDA passed through the Education and Labor Committee, a handful of representatives against an exclusive bill did not support it. Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin has proposed to amend ENDA and reinstate gender orientation.

“To see over 300 organizations building such a big coalition in such a short period of time,” says Cecilia Chung, deputy director of the Transgender Law Center, “is a hopeful sign that democracy still works, and hopefully this also will serve as a reminder to our electorate that their constitution depends on them to fight hard without making unnecessary compromises.”

Have something to say? Contact your local representatives through the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121.
More information can be found at UnitedENDA.org.