Transgender struggles for respect
By RICK MALWITZ, Home News Tribune from the Web, November 14, 2004
At first blush there is no reason not to believe Barbra Casbar of Edison is who she says she is -- a 61-year-old politically savvy businesswoman with two sons, a daughter and two grandchildren.
However, Casbar, recently at a Metuchen diner drinking late-afternoon tea with lemon, was something else earlier in the day.
Then she was, she explained, "My male self."
Casbar had been a businessman in the morning, working for a national franchise that knows Casbar only as a man, using a name other than Barbra.
In midday Casbar changed -- getting dressed in a pants suit, putting on a wig, lipstick and earrings for a evening dinner engagement.
As a woman, Casbar was one of five members of the transgender caucus at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, whose presence there illustrated their quest for political power.
"Politically, we're where gays and lesbians were about 10 years ago," said Casbar.
Last month Casbar was one of six persons to receive an Honor Award at New Jersey's Annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered and Intersexed Awards Banquet in Somerset.
Transgender, according to the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, is "an umbrella term that refers to people whose biological and gender identity or expression may not be the same.
This can include preoperative, postoperative or nonoperative transsexuals, female and male cross-dressers, drag queens or kings, female or male impersonators and intersex individuals."
The journalists association also recommends using the gender pronoun fit for the person's present appearance.
The American Psychiatric Association considers transgenders to be abnormal, labeling them as persons with Gender Identity Disorder.
"Nobody is doing these poor confused people any favors by encouraging them to cultivate their disorder.
We're talking serious dysfunction here," said Robert Knight, the director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.
"These people should be directed toward solid counseling instead of being patronized," said Knight, author of "The Age of Consent:
The Rise of Relativism and the Corruption of Popular Culture."
Casbar dismisses thinking such as Knight's as being "A product of Jerry Falwell and the radical right.
The kind of thinking that had us in the dark ages."
To even seek comment from someone such as Knight "is like doing a profile of an African-American and then calling a spokesman for the KKK for comment," said Tom Limoncelli of Scotch Plains, past president of the New Jersey Lesbian and Gay Coalition and a member of the committee that nominated Casbar for her recent award.
While transgenders are sometimes shunned by gays and lesbians, Limoncelli said they are accepted in the gay and lesbian community in New Jersey:
"While we are separate communities we have common goals, against discrimination and for freedom."
Casbar was raised in Jersey City, graduated from Rutgers University in Newark and received a master's degree in business administration from Pace University in New York.
She spent six years with the Army Reserves, was master of a Masonic Lodge and an owner and breeder of Standardbred racehorses:
"I drove a sports car, had all the fancy toys."
Casbar lived as a man and fathered three children. Though she did not make them available for interviews, her daughter introduced her when she received her recent award.
As an adult, Casbar said, she came to realize something was amiss.
"Your mind says one thing that is not compatible with what your body is," Casbar explained.
Carol, to whom she was married, would eventually accept the fact that Casbar believed herself to be a female in a male body.
"We talked quite at length. We were honest with each other," said Casbar.
Carol was comfortable enough with Casbar assuming a "female self," that she and Casbar went together on weekends and cruises that Carol had helped arrange for transgendered couples.
Then in 2001 Carol was diagnosed with cancer and died within two months of the diagnosis.
The following summer Casbar went to England on a vacation she was to have taken with Carol.
Casbar spent the time there dressed as a woman, giving her "the confidence I could be accepted in the real world as a woman."
To make the appearance more convincing Casbar had lengthly and costly electrolysis, to remove facial hair, and a "nose job" to give her a more feminine appearance.
She declined to discuss the nature of any additional medical procedures she may have had.
Casbar recalled when she told a neighbor, who knew her as a man, that she had something important to say, and she explained that she was a transgender.
She recalled how the neighbor was relieved, telling her, "I thought you were going to tell me you were moving."
A 60-year-old Toms River native, who uses the name Jennifer Barnes when dressing as a woman, recalled growing up and "being forced to be a boy.
I was around 10, and had to put it under wraps. I had a therapist who said I had an inferiority complex."
In 1980 Barnes began going out in public dressed as a woman. "It was exhilarating "
Today she heads a support group for transgenders that uses Mercer County's Washington Crossing State Park as a meeting place.
When dressed as a woman, Barnes uses female public restrooms "to avoid assaults."
Barnes carries a New Jersey driver's license, pictured as a man, using a male name.
In case police would question the identity, Barnes has photos that illustrate the transition from male to female -- something Barnes has not yet had to do.
When dressed as a woman Barnes uses a falsetto voice and shaves twice a day.
Some of the greatest hostility Barnes faces, she said, comes from the gay community, some of whom she labels "transhostile."
Barnes bristles when gays and lesbians urge dating men: "I don't want to fall in love with a guy.
I am heterosexual."
Limoncelli said animosity against transgenders is common in the gay and lesbian community in New York.
"It's not like that in New Jersey. Political leaders (among gays and lesbians) are very united with the transgenders."
"The gay community in New York felt they had enough on their plate," said Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a gay-rights organization.
"It was hard enough to argue for rights for gays and lesbians, and fight for equal rights for transgenders, too."
In the days after the presidential election much of the analysis focused on the Democrats losing on issues involving "moral values."
The notion of the Republicans ever having a transgender caucus at their convention is unthinkable.
"That's a cop out," said Casbar, who blamed the loss on "John Kerry letting the opposition define him."
Samuel Rosenberg, a licensed clinical social worker in Elizabeth, said that children often mimic an adult of the opposite sex.
"They say, 'I want to be a mommy,' or, 'I want to be a daddy.' They see the roles and rewards attached to gender," said Rosenberg.
"In adolescence (behaving as the opposite gender) raises our eyebrows, and we wonder what else is going on."
Transgender behavior is considered negative behavior, said Rosenberg, "When it's contrary to prevalent behavior."
He noted that in 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed the "disorder" label from homosexual behavior.
"It was removed as a disorder when it entered the political arena," said Rosenberg.
Casbar, and other advocates, are bringing the transgender issue into the political arena, seeking to have it included in New Jersey's anti-discrimination law.
In 1997 a trial court in New Jersey rejected the discrimination claim of a person who was fired after undergoing a male-to-female transformation.
The decision (Enriquez v. West Jersey Health Systems) was reversed, based in part on the defendant's claim that she suffered a disability, specifically the gender identity disorder, as defined by the APA.
Casbar does not accept the notion that her behavior is a disorder. Instead, she considers being a transgender the equivalent of someone being a member of a racial or ethic group, who should be protected by anti-discrimination law.
To Knight, such a move would continue to undermine a traditional value system.
"The problem occurs when (transgenders) take on political force. When you bring the law into it, this false understanding of sex is imposed on everyone."
The law, said Knight, "becomes a way to punish people who feel men are men and women are women."
Rick Malwitz: (732) 565-7327; rmalwitz@thnt.com
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