League@NCR sponsored a delegation to attend the 2006 Out & Equal Workplace Advocates Conference in Chicago. The NCR representatives included Jacqueline Phillips (Global Co-Chair), Rusty Warner (Global Co-Chair), John Wojtal (Treasurer), and myself (Jenny Caden, Dayton Chapter Representative). We not only attended the conference, but Jackie and I co-presented a workshop as well. We were hoping this would be quite exciting and we were not disappointed!
We arrived on Wednesday (once the weather allowed us to fly). Once everyone was settled in, we met that evening as a team (Jackie, John and I meeting Rusty for the first time) and had a nice evening together, chatting over ideas and getting to know each other a bit better.
The first full day of the conference was Thursday and we spent most of the morning networking, which proved to be very valuable! John and I were walking the exhibit hall when we met Joe Solmonese, the President of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRC). Joe proved to be a very cordial host and it was a pleasure to speak with him. When I requested reprint and reuse permissions for the HRC Workplace Gender Transition Guidelines template, Joe immediately introduced John and I to Donna Rose and Samir Luther, the primary architects of the HRC template. Upon returning to Dayton and contacting Samir, I was immediately supplied with all information and permissions necessary to begin modifying the template for new NCR policy usage.
Meeting Donna Rose was a personal highlight for me as Donna is someone who is very well known, respected, and deeply involved in the transgender community. She proved to be a supportive, wonderful, and delightful person. I am glad I got to know her. Donna and I ran into each other several more times during the conference and it was always a great pleasure.
John and I also spoke with several other exhibitors there, including a delightful conversation we had with Vicki Lynn Cartwright, Diversity and Work-Life Manager from JCPenney. It certainly changed my mind about how I’ll view them the next time I go shopping there! Vicki regaled us with a wonderful account of JCPenney’s efforts to ease the transitioning of an employee in the New York area. JCPenney brought in Out & Equal advisors to ensure this employee’s co-workers were sufficiently trained to comprehend this transition and behave accordingly.
There was only one workshop session scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Afterward, we rehearsed and reviewed our presentation for Saturday.
Friday was a day of workshops and I met up again with Mary Ann Horton, who presented a seminar on Transgender Health Care costs. Mary Ann has done the most comprehensive study of the real-world costs of adding transgender health benefits to group medical insurance policies. (Most health insurance policies specifically exclude coverage of transgender health issues.) The bottom line is quite surprising – and very low! I also had the pleasure of meeting Joanne Herman, who is a regular TG columnist for The Advocate, the award-winning leading LGBT publication.
The day ended with a featured seminar presented by Calpernia Addams and Andrea James of Deep Stealth Productions. Calpernia and Andrea worked directly with Felicity Huffman to prepare her for her role as Bree in the movie “Transamerica,” for which Felicity won a Golden Globe Award plus an Academy Award nomination for best actress. I had a chance to meet them at a reception afterward and they are both very delightful ladies!
I also had a chance to briefly meet Jameson Green (a FtM who is also very active in the transgender community), Rachael Parker (who I understand was the first TG person at Intel to transition MtF), Amanda Simpson (who did likewise at Raytheon), and several other wonderful folks. This reception was a networking session, too!
Friday night was the awards dinner, hosted by the wonderful and hilarious Kate Clinton. During the presentations, to my surprise, I heard that Kodak, S.C. Johnson, and Microsoft had all changed their health insurance policies to be transgender-inclusive – and they are INCLUDING coverage for genital reassignment surgery! Believe me, this is a MAJOR step forward in transgender health care!
Saturday, Jackie and I co-presented our workshop, Understanding Your Transgender Employee. There were about 20-25 attendees, including two transsexuals. I was also quite surprised and pleased to hear Jackie announce League will be pursuing the inclusion of full transgender health care coverage as well. Go League!!! Go NCR!!!
Based on what I heard afterward, I feel our presentation was very well received. I personally got a lot of positive feedback from the attendees, some even several hours later in the hallways! I was also pleased to hear, when I dropped off a CD with a copy of our presentation for the Out & Equal website that, based on our evaluations, there is a strong possibility we may be invited to present this workshop again next year at the 2007 conference in Washington DC.
I had a wonderful time and am looking forward to Washington, D.C in 2007!
Jennette (Jenny) Lynne Caden
LEAGUE@NCR Dayton Chapter Representative
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