DallasVoice.com – By Beth Freed
Judges, litigators hear information on challenges facing trans people
Changing your gender requires cutting through a lot of red tape, and in Texas, that means defending your decision to a judge.
Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and Gender, Education, Advocacy & Resources (GEAR) partnered to present the Transgender Legal Forum at the Resource Center of Dallas last week. Eight judges and several litigators joined more than 30 community folks to learn about the legal hardships that transgender people face.
According to organizers, the judges were attentive and inquisitive, and often chimed in on the legal debate.
Jessica Davis, a founding member of GEAR, gave a general overview of gender identity and expression. Gender identity is how someone feels on the inside about their gender, she said, while gender expression is the person one presents to the world. Those two don?t always line up and they can change over time, she said.