From a transgender perspective, 2007 was a roller coaster year with many accomplishments and some significant blows.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Trans folk recognized for their notable achievements this year include Just Add Hormones author Matt Kailey promoted to became the first trans managing editor of a GLBT publication (Colorado’s Out Front). Performer Scott Turner Schofield received a special award from the Princess Grace Foundation, while trans actor and screenwriter M.C. Brennan won an Outfest Screenwriting Lab award for her transgender teen comedy script, Dramatis Personae. Filmmaking scholar Joelle Ruby Ryan became the first MTF-spectrum trans person to receive a prestigious Point Foundation Scholarship, and TransNation passed the 100th column mark. After 20-years as a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times, Mike Penner came out and transitioned in the predominately male field to become Christine Daniels.

BOOKS

The genre of transgender books continued to expand beyond simple memoirs. A few of this year’s best include: Julia Serano’s Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity and Transparent, in which lesbian author Cris Beam offers unique insight into the lives of trans teenagers living on the streets of Los Angeles. In She’s Not the Man I Married, Helen Boyd further examines gender and relationships with a trans partner. Disability activist Eli Clare’s collection of poetry and prose The Marrow’s Telling: Words In Motion explored how bodies carry history and identity over time. The unusual memoir, What Becomes You, included trans man Aaron Raz Link’s perspective and that of his mother and co-author, feminist scholar Hilda Raz.

FILMS

While Catherine Crouch’s short The Gendercator was pulled from the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival after activists accused Crouch of transphobia, festivals were privy to a number of great trans films, including Martin Rawlings-Fein’s documentary Clocked: An Oral History which provided an intimate portrait of transgender communities through personal reflections and Godspeed the film based on Lynn Breedlove’s novel about a bike messenger fighting for love.

MUSIC

Trans front-man Lucas Silveira and his band The Cliks had quite a year, releasing a major label debut Snakehouse, joining Cyndi Lauper on the True Colors Tour, hitting Europe and then opening for The Cult. The duo Actor Slash Model released Cheap Date and launched a documentary about trans musicians, while Katz – the one-trans-band known as Athens Boys Choir – released his latest, Jockstraps and Unicorns. Trans rapper Foxxjazell appeared on The Tyra Banks Show and joined the HomoRevolution Tour; while another Tyra alum, hip hop stud Joshua Klipp experienced the Margaret Cho effect when the trans-loving comedian directed and appeared in a music video for his single, “Rescue Me.”

TELEVISON

Increased portrayals of transgender characters marked an improvement from the past, with Rebecca Romijn playing trans character Alexis Meade on Ugly Betty and transgender actress Candis Cayne in a recurring role on Dirty Sexy Money. And The L Word’s once reprehensible characterization of FTMs, Max, improved significantly

LOSSES

Despite the year’s gains, there were painful losses as well, including at Trans Youth Family Advocates, which lost a trans son to suicide. Sometimes one’s strength is determined not by the wins but one’s response to losses, and TYFA has shown its true colors by channelling its collective anguish into a new suicide prevention initiative. The loss of gender protections in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) engendered similar results, when 350 local and national organizations united to protest the exclusion. If the firing of Largo, Florida’s City Manager Susan Stanton had a silver lining, it was the national attention it brought to the employment discrimination of trans workers.