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Santos Co-Chairs Workshop to Help Gender-Diverse Youth

On April 25, Carlos Santos, associate professor of social welfare, co-chaired an event by the National Academies of Sciences regarding oppressive policies that have affected the livelihoods of gender-diverse youth. The workshop, part of the Forum for Children’s Well-Being, focused on steps needed to ensure that queer people of color are supported and valued in all environments. “We hope to spotlight gender-diverse scholars, practitioners and those doing work directly with these populations,” Santos said. “We also want to underscore the need for an intersectional lens in doing this work as gender-diverse youth live at the intersection of various forces that can impact their lives, be it racism, heterosexism, ableism, classism and nativism.” The workshop highlighted research surrounding the health and well-being of gender-diverse youth as well as evidence-based guidance on the most effective ways to support them. Organizers also shared the voices of gender-diverse individuals, their parents and community leaders who are working to create a more inclusive community. They spoke about the challenges that youth deal with and what they need most to improve their health and well-being. Federal and state policies on health care for gender-diverse youth were reviewed at the workshop, which also emphasized the importance of breaking binary classroom structures that place students into male and female categories. Moving past these binary conventions will create a more inclusive environment for gender-diverse youth and will promote trans liberation, participants said. — Aminah Khan


 

$1.4 Million Grant to Bolster ‘Powerful Collective’ Advocating for BIPOC Transgender Sex Workers

UCLA’s Hub for Health Intervention, Policy and Practice (HHIPP) has been awarded a $1.4 million grant to strengthen and support its efforts to unite sex workers and their advocates with academic investigators, health care providers and social services agencies. Over a four-year period, the grant will benefit research and community-based programming for Sex Work LEARN (Lived Experience Affirming Research Network), a multisector alliance that does not presume sex work is a problem to be solved. The project will focus on transgender women with sex work experience who identify as Black, indigenous or other persons of color. Principal investigator Ayako Miyashita Ochoa, an adjunct professor and co-director of HHIPP, said collaborators will include Social Welfare doctoral students Kimberly Fuentes and Vanessa Warri, and the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Miyashita Ochoa said she is “thrilled to be working with” co-principal investigators Sophia Zamudio-Haas of UC San Francisco and Bamby Salcedo, a leader in the transgender rights movement and president of TransLatin@ Coalition. Other community partners are the Unique Woman’s Coalition and Sex Workers Outreach Project Los Angeles (SWOP LA). “I couldn’t be more proud of our research group and am so appreciative that UCLA Luskin will now serve as a home for this powerful collective,” Miyashita Ochoa said. Funding is from the California HIV/AIDS Research Program, which is awarding similar grants this year to four other research projects in California that center the voices of people affected by HIV.


 

Miyashita Ochoa on Decriminalization of Sex Work

Ayako Miyashita Ochoa, adjunct assistant professor of social welfare, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the repeal of a provision of California law that had banned loitering with the intent to sell sex. In signing State Bill 357, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the measure aims to end the disproportionate harassment of women and transgender adults but does not legalize prostitution. The legislation sparked a debate touching on transgender rights, human trafficking and the decriminalization of sex work. Miyashita Ochoa said criminalization pushes sex workers into “isolated and unsafe spaces,” leads to increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases and creates distrust in law enforcement. “What we’re talking about here is moral legislation. And what we should be talking about is labor protections,” Miyashita Ochoa said. “And if we can’t give women and other folks engaged in sex trades that dignity as a worker, then we are just as bad as the people that are taking advantage.”


 

Newton on Jenner’s Race for Governor

Jim Newton, editor of UCLA’s Blueprint magazine, spoke to Vox about Caitlyn Jenner’s decision to run as a Republican candidate in the race to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom. Jenner, a former Olympian and reality TV star, helped increase transgender visibility through her own transition. However, her support for former President Donald Trump and other conservative colleagues who have attacked the trans community have alienated her from the liberal trans community. “If her base is trans-sympathetic Republicans, well, that’s not 51%,” Newton said. “But in this race, if there are enough candidates, and they divide up the vote enough ways, she could win with a lot less than that.” Still, more than half of voters would need to vote to recall Newsom for that to happen. “If California continues to battle COVID successfully in the fall, then I think it’s very hard for me to imagine that [Newsom] gets recalled,” Newton said. “Then it doesn’t matter where Jenner gets her support.”


Cooper Sees Wisdom in Children on the Margins

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Khush Cooper spoke about insights she has gained from working with children on the margins during an episode of the podcast Welcome to Humanity. “Children on the margins live at the edge of chaos,” Cooper said. “They understand where families, groups, societies have failed, yet their brains are plastic enough to be able to point to what could be.” Foster youth, for example, “can tell you exactly what family is and what family isn’t,” she said. And the very youngest transgender children, up to age 5, are unburdened by labels but recognize something within themselves that doesn’t match how others perceive them. A willingness to learn from these young voices could help societies find solutions for families in crisis and for persisting inequities such as the gender pay gap, she said. “When children on the margins thrive, they lead us to what’s next for the planet,” Cooper said.


 

Ritterbusch Speaks to Marginalization of Trans Community

Assistant Professor of Social Welfare Amy Ritterbusch spoke to Buzzfeed News about the death of Alejandra Monocuco, a Black trans sex worker living with HIV in Bogotá. Monocuco’s roommate called an ambulance when she found her struggling to breathe. When the paramedics arrived, they said she did not seem to have COVID-19 symptoms and decided not to take her to the hospital. When a second ambulance arrived a few hours later, Monocuco was dead. “Alejandra was killed by a negligent state that never cared for her throughout her life … for being trans, for being Black, for being poor, for being a sex worker,” said the Trans Community Network, which advocates for sex workers and other marginalized trans communities in Colombia. Ritterbusch, who interviewed Monocuco in 2014, told Buzzfeed, “It was already a death sentence from even this moment many years ago when Alejandra was crying out against police brutality in her life.”


Research on Acceptance of Transgender Troops Cited

A UCLA Luskin Social Welfare study finding widespread support of transgender troops within the U.S. military was featured in a report on National Public Radio. The study, funded by the U.S. Defense Department and co-authored by doctoral candidate Shannon Dunlap, Associate Professor Ian Holloway and others, showed strong acceptance across the four branches of the military and across racial lines and sexual orientation. “This broad support from cisgender, heterosexual and LGB service members really just speaks to the valuable contributions that diversity does bring to the United States military,” Dunlap said. The study found the highest rates of acceptance among service members who identified as gay, as women or as people of color. Dunlap attributed this support to the ongoing fight for equality for many marginalized groups. “They really have historically gone through great lengths to serve honorably in the U.S. military, and they experience the same stressors,” she said.

 

Holloway on Lingering Effects of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy

An article in the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies’ Trauma Blog featured research by Associate Professor of Social Welfare Ian Holloway on sexual harassment among LGBT service members. The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy formerly in place in the U.S. military was intended to protect these service members by allowing them to serve and keep their sexual identity confidential, but it likely encouraged discrimination instead. Although the policy was repealed in 2011, new research by Holloway shows the lingering effects of the environment it created. A survey of over 500 active duty service members in the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps found that experiences of sexual assault during military service were roughly twice as common among LGB and transgender service members compared to non-LGBT service members. Holloway and his team concluded that “LGBT members remain at elevated risk of sexual and stalking victimization experiences in the post-DADT military environment.”


Holloway Study Reveals Support for Transgender Troops

Associate Professor of Social Welfare Ian Holloway spoke to Gay City News about the findings of a survey he co-authored that gauged support of transgender troops within the military. Two-thirds of the survey respondents indicated their support for transgender people serving in the U.S. military, a statistic that challenges the Trump administration’s ban on transgender people serving in the military. “In terms of our hypothesis about acceptance, we did expect to find high levels of acceptance — but I don’t think we expected it to be this high,” Holloway said. The report, also covered by LGBTQ Nation, found that support of transgender service members was higher among women, racial minorities, and gay, lesbian and bisexual people than heterosexual white respondents. According to Holloway, the survey “speaks to the importance of diversity in the armed forces, and there have been some concerted efforts to increase representation in the military.”


Chelsea Manning Discusses Values, Secrets and Whistleblowers at Luskin Lecture The former military analyst who was jailed for sharing classified documents with Wikileaks speaks in front of a crowd of 1,000 at Royce Hall

By Zev Hurwitz

Chelsea Manning, a transgender activist and former U.S. Department of Defense intelligence analyst who was convicted of espionage, spoke at Royce Hall on March 5, 2018. Her Luskin Lecture, “A Conversation with Chelsea Manning,” focused on topics including ethics in public service, transgender rights activism and resistance in light of advancing technologies.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for handing over to WikiLeaks sensitive documents that demonstrated human rights abuses related to American military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. While serving her sentence, Manning began her medical transition from male to female after having publicly announced her gender identity.

Her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017, after she had served seven years of her sentence. Since her release, Manning has been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ rights, as well as government transparency. In 2018, she announced her run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland.

Manning spoke with reporters at a press conference prior to the Luskin Lecture. Asked if she had any advice for UCLA students, Manning said: “Think on your own. Don’t read a book and think you know everything. Question yourself and debate other people.”

Manning noted the significance of speaking to a crowd largely made up of students. “I like to speak to students who are going to be in positions of making decisions, or being in media or working with technology,” she said.

Manning said that when she works with students she focuses on topics beyond technology — like civic engagement.

“Not just showing up to a ballot box and casting a vote, but being actually engaged,” she said. “Sometimes that means protesting; sometimes that means resisting, fighting institutional power and authority.”

Manning continued her student outreach the day after the lecture at a workshop sponsored by the Luskin Pride student group. She led about 60 Luskin School students in a wide-ranging dialogue about military tactics in law enforcement, communities abandoned by the left and whether universities are complicit in government surveillance.

“A system is legitimate because you give it legitimacy,” she cautioned the students.

UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura introduced Manning at the Royce Hall lecture and acknowledged the controversial nature of her appearance.

“There are some in this room who think Ms. Manning is a traitor,” Segura said. “A number of UCLA students asked me to rescind her invitation and reminded me that her actions may well have cost the lives of American servicemen and women. For the record, the Luskin School is opposed to treason.

“Others,” he added, “will argue that her actions, laying bare war crimes, acts of torture and the extent of civilian casualties, might well have saved the lives of some of those non-combatants. For the record, the Luskin School is opposed to war crimes.”

Moderator Jim Newton, UCLA Luskin Public Policy lecturer and Blueprint magazine editor, began with a conversation about Manning’s conviction. Manning said she feels her actions reflect her true self.

“I have the same values I’ve always had,” she said. “I acted on those values with the information I had.”

As an intelligence analyst deployed in Iraq, Manning took a data-based approach to the American presence in the country. Over time, she came to understand the humanity behind the data. “It was a slow realization that what I was working with is real,” she told the audience.

At one point, Newton asked Manning if she thought the government had a right to keep secrets.

“Ten years ago I would have said, ‘of course,’ ” Manning said. “But who even makes these classifications?”

Manning went on to discuss what she sees as the political nature of classified information. She spoke at length about the process for data classification and her skepticism about its role in protecting national security.

Newton asked Manning if she sees herself as a role model. Manning said no, and then described the role model she would like to have had, adding she has aspired to be that person, though it has been challenging.

“I went from being homeless to being in college to being in the military to being at war to being in prison,” she said. “I haven’t had the time to do the things people are expected to do.”

Following the lecture, Manning held a question and answer session with Ian Holloway, professor and assistant chair of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare. The fireside chat, which focused largely on Manning’s identity as a gay man and later a transgender woman in the military, was held in front of a small group of UCLA Luskin board members and friends of the School.

Holloway asked Manning about her being a whistleblower. Manning said she didn’t agree with the term.

“I’ve never used the word whistleblower to describe myself,” she said. “I’ve never really related to it because it’s hard to reconcile.”

She added that she felt her actions, regardless of their classification, were just.

“Institutions do fail, and when they do, you can’t rely on them, you have to go around them,” she said.

View a video recorded during Manning’s lecture:

View a video recorded during the fireside chat that followed Manning’s lecture:

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