Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Malcolm Campbell
UWRIT 1104
3/24/17
Research Studio 2
Currah, Paisley, Juang, Richard M., and Minter, Shannon. Transgender Rights. Minneapolis,
This book gives a great understanding of what being transgender really means. It
introduces all political, social, and legal issues transgender men and women and their
families face. The authors also go into great detail about the rights that transgender have
and the laws that affect their families as well as themselves. The primary reason this book
was written was to help give those in doubt a new perspective on what being transgender
really is. The authors collected their information from number of sources and have had
Paisley Currah is the executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the
CUNY Graduate Center and one of the founding board members of the Transgender Law
and Policy Institute and is devoted to transgender issues. He is also a coeditor of TSQ:
Juang is cochair of the advisory board of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
the Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and has led many cases
affecting the LGBT community. All of the authors have had a major impact on the LGBT
community and built a better understanding for others affected through transgenderism.
Zales, Erika. Personal interview. March 2017.
Throughout several interviews, I was able to find out many details on an individuals
personal experience of being transgender. Erika was born a male but never felt like she
was in the right body. She grew up in a conservative catholic family. As a child she
explained to me how she would dress up in her sisters clothes and feel like thats what
she was meant to be in. Growing up, her parents shunned the thought of having a
transgender child and she began to try and hide her feelings. In these interviews, I get to
hear first-hand experiences on coming out to her family, her journey through
transitioning, and the bullying she received growing up. She was also living in Orlando
during the time the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting happened. The event was a horrific
hate crime against the LGBT community where 49 people had lost their lives. I got to
hear about how she felt during that time and how unsafe she felt during the time after.
Interviews are a great source of information while researching and I believe the
experience with their transgender journey from coming out to transitioning, but it was
very interesting to me to hear an individual story and ask any questions I wanted to know