Leather community debates trans exclusion at upcoming contest

Bay Area Reporter, CA, USA


Vol. 36 / No. 3 / 19 January 2006

NEWS

Leather community debates trans exclusion at upcoming contest
by Zak Szymanski
z.szymanski [at] ebar.com



"These are really good guys, and they are people of good standing in
this community," is the first thing that longtime leather community
member and activist Peter Fiske said of the local producers of the
International LeatherSIR/Leatherboy competition. "I honestly do not
believe that they think they are discriminating."

Resurrected where the San Francisco-born International Drummer
contest left off, the LeatherSIR/Leatherboy will hold a regional
feeder contest in San Francisco in July. The contest has a worldwide
policy requiring its competitors to be "born male," thus excluding
transgender men from competing.

Local leathermen Jay Hemphill and Michael Holeman are producing the
city's LeatherSIR/Leatherboy, and both men also happen to be the
leaders of the leather contingent for the San Francisco LGBT Pride
Parade, which takes place at the end of June. Fiske, who served as
male leather marshal of last year's parade, said he may have to
march in a different contingent this year, because the leather
leadership is now associated with LeatherSIR/Leatherboy, "and I
don't want it to appear that the leather community in San Francisco
supports discriminationɠthe community should not have to be put in
that position."

Recognizing that local contest producers don't have sole influence
over the competition's policy, Fiske is asking that Hemphill and
Holeman voluntarily step down as leaders of the leather Pride
contingent. Otherwise, he is calling for the matter to be brought up
at the Pride leather contingent meeting on January 28.

"The reason I am going public is not to shame anyone, but to draw
attention to this policy. Not everybody knows that we are now
welcoming a new discrimination to San Francisco," said Fiske, adding
that all the male clubs he knows in the city simply require male
identification and do not ask people to otherwise discuss or prove
their birth gender. "Certainly, everyone is entitled to their
privacy."

On Monday, January 16, Hemphill told the Bay Area Reporter that his
comments would have to be limited to local concerns, as the
transgender policy is an international rule and not something on
which he could express his personal views.

"As far as the parade goes, it went so smoothly last year and I
think everybody was happy," Hemphill said of his contingent
leadership. The local controversy, he said, "is causing division in
the leather community, which is not good. I'm surprised it's coming
up now since it has always been the policy, even when it was Drummer
before."

Although the same born male policy was adopted by the International
Drummer contest upon its founding 29 years ago, community members
say that such an exclusion is the exception, not the rule in San
Francisco leather circles.

With the contest's reincarnation in San Francisco this year after a
five-year absence, Fiske and others said it's time to take a stand,
and a variety of community leaders are speaking out or refusing to
be a part of any event that supports transgender discrimination. A
letter drafted by Fiske and signed by local LGBT community members
appears in this week's B.A.R. Additionally, some leather community
members said they will refuse invitations to judge or help organize
any competition that discriminates against transgenders.

"My official position is that I will not be involved in a contest
that discriminates against my transgender brothers and sisters,"
said Jorge Vieto, a member of the S.F. Boys of Leather who said he
was approached by local organizers of LeatherSIR and he respectfully
declined to be involved. His own club welcomes transmen, he said,
and "I just don't really see it as a problem. Discrimination based
on sexual and gender identity is against our beliefs."

Some community members with a variety of viewpoints said they were
not ready to make public statements on the record. One gay man who
identified himself as the lover of a transman emphasized that it
wasn't just transgenders who were affected by the policy. Others
pointed out that such a policy is a rarity for the usually inclusive
San Francisco leather community.

"The exclusionary policy of the LeatherSIR and boy contest is the
exception. Nationwide, most of the men's leather clubs and events
are inclusive at a policy level. Most of the rest have no specific
policy, but are inclusive in practice. Only a very few have a
written policy that excludes transmen, and in San Francisco, there
are no men's leather clubs that discriminate," said Jordy Jones, a
leather community member and scholar with a long history of
involvement in human rights issues. "The men's community in general
has been welcoming. This has mainly been accomplished quietly, man-
to-man, without the painful struggles that unfortunately too often
continue to mark the exclusion of transwomen from women's events and
businesses. If people haven't heard about exclusionary policies in
the men's leather community, that is because they are so rare as to
be practically a non-issue. And that, of course, is how it should
be; most clubs welcome all men."


Gender divide

Two themes consistently emerge during debates about trans inclusion
in gender-segregated spaces. One is physicality, or the idea that a
trans person will present with anatomy that is uncomfortably
different from the majority of the crowd. The other is
socialization, or the idea that a trans person has not been
adequately indoctrinated into their gender's culture. Oftentimes,
each of those themes influences or is confused with the other.

Socially, some familiar with male-space debates say that the highly
visible and vocal emerging female-to-male and genderqueer
populations in women's communities have made it difficult for well-
blended FTMs to be out and taken seriously as men. It's a conflict
that can be fueled by some events that claim to be women's events
but which "welcome FTMs," furthering the false notion that
transgender males are another version of women.

"FTM-inclusive women's space" is increasingly being challenged by
its own community members – by women who want their women's space
back, as well as by some female-partnered FTMs who say that their
invitation to women's events invalidates their male identities.
Others have advocated that the terminology of such events at least
be changed to accurately reflect the genders of who is welcomed. In
the meantime the new prevalence of FTM-identified folks in women's
circles has actually led some FTM men to redefine themselves,
choosing the label of "transman" instead, or forgoing trans
identities altogether to recognize that they live first as men.

But despite what seems confusing from the outside, many people from
within all of these communities agree that it is a very different
transgender male who lives in gay men's leather circles than one who
primarily socializes with women. Thus, the idea of some kind of
lesbian-tinged contest in gay male space is not actually very
likely, they say.

"Gay transmen – who sleep with and are accepted as men – would be
entirely out of place in my own gender-specific communities," Andy
Julian, a self-described boi and a member of many online BDSM
communities, told the B.A.R. "These are men first, and not usually
trans-identified or visibly trans in the same way that plays out in
women's spaces. Same goes for transmen who date women who are not
lesbians. It's important for everyone's identity – including mine –
that these distinctions be made."

Marcus Arana, a discrimination investigator with San Francisco's
Human Rights Commission, said he finds many assumptions about
transgenders to be based in sexism, regardless of whether those
assumptions are coming from men or women.

"There is this funny idea that an FTM is somehow a frog to a butch
lesbian pollywog. But we hardly ever hear that an MTF is on 'the gay
male spectrum.' Once she cuts off her penis she is considered a
woman," said Arana, who agreed that transmale exclusion is "an
anomaly in the inclusive San Francisco leather community."

Like some national women's events that prohibit MTF transwomen from
attending, the exclusion of transmen contestants in
LeatherSIR/Leatherboy seems to revolve around the presence – or
absence – of a penis.

"It is a sexual competition," explained Mike Zuhl, president of DCI
Productions, which is based in Pittsburgh, which runs International
LeatherSIR/Leatherboy. "The contest is about male sexuality. There's
a jock strap competition, and a lot of skin showing along that line,
and the people who compete should all be on the same fair footing."

Yet assumptions that transmen do not have penises are not
necessarily based in fact, said Arana. While recent improvements in
bottom surgeries have made the procedures more sought after and
perhaps more common, even testosterone alone causes transmen to grow
an organ referred to in medical texts as a "micropenis."

"I know lots of gay male FTMs who were never lesbians. Their queer
identity is tied up in being men. So to suddenly tell this gay man
he can't participate because his penis is two-inches long is a bit
ironic," said Arana.

Creating an exclusion based upon penis size, he said, "may mean that
a higher standard of masculinity is expected of FTMs than from other
guys, which could be an area where the courts and case law could be
explored."

Gray area

Legally, the LeatherSIR/boy policy falls into a gray area, said
Arana. On one hand, he said, the group is an international
organization and a private club that can set its own rules, but on
the other hand San Francisco's local nondiscrimination ordinance may
mean that the Human Rights Commission may have jurisdiction to look
into the group's contests when they are held in the city's public
spaces.

A statement on the group's Web site says, "Contestants are judged in
four categories: Interview; Formal Speech; Physique; and, a Leather
Sex Fantasy based on the region's assigned theme for the year. The
interview is a private meeting in the afternoon with the judges; the
other categories take place on stage during the contest. The fantasy
portions of the contest are a fun celebration of leather-sex and one
of the key elements that sets LeatherSIR/Leatherboy contests apart
for those styled after the International Mr. Leather and Mid-
Atlantic Leather formats."

Winners of smaller competitions like those held in San Francisco go
on to compete in regionals, and the international competition is
held in Atlanta in October, though Zuhl said he would like to bring
the big event back to San Francisco for its 30th anniversary.

Zuhl said that he brought up community concerns about the born male
policy with his board at the last international competition in
Atlanta, and the vote was unanimous – 25-0 – that the policy remain
the same.

"I don't see it ever being brought up again," he said. "As far as
we're concerned, it's a dead issue."

Zuhl – emphasizing that his organization represents many regional
communities which all have different standards – said he doesn't
quite understand what is behind the San Francisco controversy. He
noted that some leather clubs across the country have also made
rules specifying they are "for males only, not transgenders." But
Zuhl added that he is very familiar with transgenders, well versed
in the issues, and has even helped pay for some of his friends'
surgeries.

"We all have rules and regulations, and that's what makes each one
of our contests different. If we all catered to the same needs there
would be no reason to have different contests. The reason we stay
with male sexuality is because that's what we're about. I'm just the
keeper of that tradition. I can't enter a woman's contest. I can't,
as a foreigner, go enter a Canadian contest," said Zuhl. "If
transgender men want to compete in a leather contest there are
vehicles in which they can do that. I totally empower the trans
people. I support them and do not have any issue with it. We're
there to support, help, and empower them and give them anything they
need to support their cause. But we're not going to change our
rules. And it's not discrimination."

In fact the same contest rule that keeps transgender men out of
LeatherSIR/Leatherboy is also the same one that recently allowed
someone female identified to hold the title, said Zuhl.

"He was male identified when he entered the contest," Zuhl
explained. "Then he came out as a transgender woman, with six weeks
of his title left. He was very nervous, but I said, 'This man
deserves to be who he needs to be, and we need to empower him.'
Nobody was going to take his title away, because they'd also be
stripping down his dignity. As a human being with compassion there
was no way I could strip that from him."

Zuhl added that if the MTF titleholder had known her identity prior
to the contest, and disclosed that on the application, "it would
have been a whole different story."

Fiske said that while he believes in a group's right to set their
own rules, "it was the connection that did it for me," he said of
the leather Pride contingent. "I'm asking the contingent to separate
itself from the leadership and take a stance in the men's and
leather community."

Zuhl said that his competition should not affect Hemphill and
Holeman's local role as leather contingent leaders.

"These are stellar pillars of the community. They are also
leathermen. They are heading a committee because people think they
can do the job," said Zuhl. "Their affiliation with me should have
no bearing on what they do in the San Francisco community."

"We are staying true to our roots that the old guard established 29
years ago right here in San Francisco," Zuhl summarized about the
competition's position. "There are enough contest systems out there,
and there's nothing wrong with having one that is for men who were
biologically male at birth."

How such policies would be enforced is another question. Transmen
are already leaders in many men's leather communities; while some
are visible or have chosen to be out, others say that disclosing
their status would simply mean inappropriately disclosing a piece of
their medical history, and would only result in detracting energy
and respect from leather traditions and competitions.

One leather community member, who asked that his name not be used,
said he doesn't always disclose his transsexual experience before he
plays in leather space "because it is far from the most important
thing about me – but they might feel otherwise. That is not fair to
either me or them – I am not seen for who I am, and they don't get
to meet me, but only their stereotypes. If I wanted to be seen as
not-me, I could have stayed a woman."

He added, "There is still so much advertising that FTMs are another
type of woman, that I cannot both overcome that and make a real
connection in the short time allowed at a run or eventɉ play, pretty
bravely, I think, getting naked in the dungeon to bottom, and
wearing what I need to, to top. Anything else isn't why I am in
leather."



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