Subject: [Postop] Chicago Tribune 3/22 Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 18:42:13 -0600  GENDER CONFLICTS GIVEN CLEAR PLACE OF STUDY By Julie Deardorff Tribune staff reporter March 22, 2001 When it opens Thursday, the Rikki Swin Institute will house information not typically found in a public library. Here, a troubled wife might learn how to handle her husband's cross-dressing. Or a paramedic could find a video explaining how to deal with transsexuals in emergency situations. The unusual $3.5 million education and research facility is an ambitious atttempt by one woman--who was formerly a man--to introduce the "transgender" community to the public in a positive light. Often misunderstood and ostracized, cross-dressers and transsexuals and others with gender conflicts, are working to reverse misconceptions about what the institute's founder calls "transpeople." "It's time for the more professional side of transpeople to emerge," said founder and president Rikki Swin, the retired owner of a plastics manufacturing company who has entirely funded the institute. "As doctors, lawyers, academics, CEOs and others come forward, we're trying to get the message out that transgender people really are ordinary folk who are working and contributing to society in unique ways," said Swin, a chemical engineer who has held several patents. One of the institute's first contributions is bringing almost a dozen world-renowned gender-correction surgeons, psychiatrists, lawyers and gender experts to Arlington Heights for a national transgender conference this weekend. "What the Rikki Swin Institute indicates is that transgender people, though rare, are becoming acceptable," said Deirdre McCloskey, 58, an economics, history and English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who transitioned from a male to a female from 1994 to 1997 and will speak at the conference. PIONEERS OF IDEA "Women and blacks were the true pioneers of this whole idea that we're all part of a minority group. But America is like a piece of phyllo dough. We have all these layers and some of the layers are far ahead of the others (in terms of human rights progress). It's coming along." The transgender community includes happily married cross-dressers, part-time and full-time transsexuals--those who believe their gender is different than what they were born as--and every gender-bending variation in between. Common misperceptions include that all transsexuals dress flamboyantly, are sexually deviant, are dangerous and that all transsexuals have had reassignment surgery. In fact, few can afford the procedure, which costs more than $15,000. "There's a little bit of fear that transsexual women are just predatory men in dresses, trying to gain access to women's spaces," said Miranda Stevens-Miller, research scientist at Kraft Foods Inc. who transitioned on the job and has since worked to change the laws in Illinois. "Whenever we bring up these issues, it always gets down to the invasion of women's spaces by men. We try to let people know transsexual women are women, trying to be themselves." A small but growing number of cities, including Evanston and DeKalb, include gender identity in legislation that protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Legislation is pending in Springfield to include gender identity in the Illinois Human Rights Act. The Internet has connected a previously isolated community. And over the past few years, though with some resistance, most gay, lesbian and bisexual organizations have broadened the scope of their work to include issues and concerns of transgender people. Still, people with gender dysphoria, a medical disorder described as the persistent feeling that one's true gender does not match one's physical body, are light years behind where they would like to be. Of the 50 states, only Minnesota protects transgender people from job and housing discrimination. Even when legal protections for gays and lesbians exist, they generally do not cover transsexuals. No laws protect them "Transsexuals are still the only group it's politically correct to mock," said Dr. Randi Ettner, a clinical and forensic psychologist in Evanston who has written two books on transpeople and who is a member of the University of Chicago Gender Board. "There are no laws to protect these people. It's really the most misunderstood area of human behavior. Very little is known and what is known is not disseminated. A bill pending in the Illinois General Assembly would make it illegal to discriminate against a person based on sexual orientation or gender identity in areas such as employment, housing, credit transactions and public accommodations in Illinois. But it faces opposition. State Rep. Terry Parke (R-Hoffman Estates) said he and many other legislators believe that special groups don't need legislation because the constitution is supposed to protect all people equally. He also worries about the consequences of passing laws specifically for transgender people. "Say someone wants to be a teacher and he stands in front of the class. Everyone knows by the growth on his face it's a man, and he's dressed like a woman," said Parke. "What kind of message does that send to schoolchildren? "It makes it difficult for us as a society to deal with in the first place, but then you add the hammer this legislation would give, and they have rights other people don't. Many of us just don't feel it's right." It wasn't until the last century that a name--transsexualism--was given to the condition and that surgery enabled patients to make a permanent change. In 1952 George Jorgensen Jr. underwent the first sex change surgery and emerged as Christine Jorgensen. "It's a birth condition, not a lifestyle choice," said Ettner. "They come into the world with this condition and leave with it. There is no known cure."