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Tuesday, 04 March 2008 11:49
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 Activist Creates Clear and Compelling PR
By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
“What shocked me working at the National Center for Transgender Equality…was the sheer level of discrimination out there,” maintains the group’s former Deputy Director Simon Aronoff. “Not letting [transgender] employees use the restrooms…or just blatantly firing them; extreme harassment, police brutality…The calls we would get everyday from people who were suffering egregiously and not able to even find a circumstance where their lives could be functional and sustainable. The discrimination and oppression out there…is just really intense.”
 Having left NCTE to do public interest communication, Aronoff has the opportunity to craft memorable stories in his new role as Vice President of Renna Communications, a small, award winning, lesbian-owned media relations and communications firm that works primarily with non-profits and foundations serving LGBT and women’s communities.
“I joined the staff there because the mission of the firm really fits with my own personal values around using communications as an advocacy tool,” Aronoff explains. “We’re not working for a corporate interest to sell a particular product. We take clients selectively, ones that…move the issues of the LGBT community forward or the issues of feminism forward. It’s the idea that we can use a communications model to do advocacy.”
An early board member of San Francisco’s Transgender Law Center, who helped shepherd it from a National Center for Lesbian Rights sponsored project to its own non-profit organization, Aronoff encourages other activists, “not to overlook the communication component of whatever advocacy that you’re doing. [Be] mindful that you can use the media to advance whatever campaign you’re working on.”
Aronoff recognizes that, sometimes, parts of the LGBT community utilize the media to campaign against other community members. He says this was particularly apparent during the ENDA debate.
“We saw a lot of…primarily gay voices missing the boat…around the need for an inclusive ENDA. You could really see a lot of internalized oppression or just ignorance around gender and issues of gender phobia. Certain voices in the [gay] media didn’t want to have a shared history with the trans community. They took a really ahistorical stance on where trans people have been in LGBT communities. They really wanted to divorce the gender from the sexual orientation issue. But the fact of the mater is that being gay or lesbian is transgressing gender norms.”
“The further you are from experiencing some kind of oppression or discrimination, the harder it is for you to recognize a kind of shared prejudice,” Aronoff declares. “Some of the more conservative voices in our community don’t want to accept their own past. They’ve held on to an assimilationist politic that is…harming to the larger community. The discrimination…non conforming gays and lesbians face [is] gender identity discrimination, it’s not sexual identification discrimination.”
Those kinds of internal attacks are difficult to address. “It’s hard to respond in a constructive way, because it’s really hurtful when it comes from within your own broader community. But I think it comes back to the need for public education, even within our own communities.”
Aronoff also recognizes “Through the ENDA debacle we saw the vast majority of our community supported inclusive legislation and vowed to continue the fight to get that legislation back on the right track. Now, especially with the strong coalition that we have in the United ENDA…trans voices and the voices of our allies can take candidates to task on issues of inclusive legislation, including gender identity and expression.”
Being a graduate of the all women’s school, Smith College, serves to frequently out Aronoff as trans, but he has no regrets. “I live and breathe LGBT advocacy. I’m out in every which way you can be. If that had not been my nature and if I had wanted to do other types of work where being out was problematic then yeah, I think having a degree from Smith would have been a challenge. People hear that you went to Smith College and they immediately have questions if you present as male. ‘What’s the deal? Has it gone coed?’ And then you have to tell them your story.”
“I really value having women’s institutions [and support] the right of trans women to attend sex segregated schools,” Aronoff asserts. He worked with Smith to develop their policies around trans students, eventually settling on the idea of a single sex institution with a diversity of gender expressions.
When it comes to trans masculine students, Aronoff concedes, “Each individual student needs to make his own decision. When you have a female upbringing and female history, then you have shared experience at a school like Smith College. But I think you have to be your own kind of judge, in terms of ‘Is my gender identity such that I’m comfortable in this space and I don’t feel that I’m being disrespectful of the space that is women or female-identified?’”
After transitioning from female to male and receiving testosterone shots for seven years, Aronoff made the controversial decision to stop his hormone treatments, because the “cumulative effects of testosterone were pushing my gender expression—my physical manifestation of masculinity—past the point where I was comfortable with it. Stopping testosterone has reversed that to a degree where I’m more comfortable in my body.”
Since he’s gone off hormones and been public about it, Aronoff says, “Other trans guys have come up to me and asked me what that process was like—because they were considering…the same thing. When I was making that decision, it was really hard to find people that had done that and would talk about it. Getting solid advice from physicians around this stuff is challenging because they just don’t have the information or the cultural competency.”
Although he hasn’t experienced any health problems due to his hormone cessation, Aronoff acknowledges the potential dangers: “If you don’t have any hormones in your body it can be a problem.”
“It's important to have one or the other hormone,” concurs Dr. Robin Dea, head of Northern California’s Kaiser transgender program. “Because sex hormones affect many systems in the body.” Without estrogen or testosterone, there’s an increased chance of developing osteoporosis, and “recent research indicates that other systems including cardiovascular systems and neurological systems can also be influenced.”
A National Stonewall Democrats board member, Aronoff has faith in his party’s chances come November. “[Obama and Clinton] are both extremely strong potentials for president. I think once the Democratic Party comes together behind whoever the nominee may be—we’ll have the White House.”
Trans author Jacob Anderson-Minshall co-writes the Blind Eye mystery series with his wife.
© 2008 Jacob Anderson-Minshall
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