On Wednesday evening, October 3, to an audience of more than 200 people at Temple Beth David in Westwood, Kelly Jenkins told the story of her life as a transgender person in Tennessee where she was born.
“In the delivery room the doctor told my mother that she had given birth to a healthy baby boy,” Kelly said. “Well, that doctor was right about two things: I was healthy and I was a baby. But he was wrong in one respect: I was not a boy.”
From an early age, Kelly knew, despite having a male body, that she was female. But her community did not accept her as a female, so after many years of struggling against intolerance and harassment – and the self-loathing that resulted from ridicule, Jenkins made the journey from Tennessee to Massachusetts where, for the first time in her life, she has felt free to be herself.
“I had to travel 900 miles to find a life where I was accepted and where it was safe to be who I am,” she said.
Kelly’s freedom, however, is being challenged. Right now, it is illegal in Massachusetts to discriminate against any person simply because they are transgender. But on November 6, via ballot question 3, Massachusetts voters will decide whether or not to uphold the existing law.
Jenkins, along with Brandon Adams, a transgender student at Norfolk County Agricultural High School and Tracy McKay, a kindergarten teacher and mother of two transgender children, participated on the panel in order to educate the community on transgender rights in Massachusetts, the challenge to those rights posed by ballot question 3, and the importance of voting yes on 3, to keep the existing law in place and preserve the climate of tolerance that current Massachusetts law enshrines.
“When we travel out of state, I am always terrified that my daughters will be called out simply because they use the women’s restroom,” said McKay. “In Massachusetts, as of right now, I don’t have to worry about that. But if this law is repealed, I will worry about how they will be treated everywhere, every day - in restaurants, doctor’s offices and even the hospital.”
In addition to the panel presentation, the event featured a question-and-answer period, during which the panelists answered audience questions about their backgrounds and resources.
Organizers of the forum encouraged all those interested in supporting yes on 3 to defend transgender equality in Massachusetts to visit www.freedomMA.org.
