After the outright scandalous revelations about Alison Woolbert, founder and director of the Trans Violence Tracking Portal and the non-profit Trasgender Human Rights Institute (it transpired that some 23 years ago, Dennis W Woolbert had been convicted of sexually assaulting a minor, a minor who was related to him and no, out of respect for women I am not going to respect his pronouns) you’d have thought that the trans movement would have got its shit together.
Which they have, haven’t they?
Oh no.
The Translifeline is an initiative set up by Greta Martela dedicated to providing vulnerable trans people with much needed telephone support. It is an example of a really good idea, the fulfilment of a need of the trans community by members of the trans community, that’s put ito action without any of the nasty business of trans people forcing themselves into women’s spaces and organisations.
The problem is that for volunteers there’s no applicant screening or criminal checks made, only monitoring of calls and responses. There has been some criticism of this, and so I offered to help.
Write you an essay it’s attached! @GretaGustava @evilfelicity @destroyed4com4t @Viviphilia @jsandrews1 @Translifeline pic.twitter.com/0k6orMH1OJ
— The Miranda Yardley (@TerrorizerMir) January 16, 2015
The response was this:
@TerrorizerMir @evilfelicity @destroyed4com4t @Viviphilia @jsandrews1 @Translifeline Because we are already swamped by need. Not a good idea
— Greta Martela (@GretaGustava) January 16, 2015
Then:
@TerrorizerMir @evilfelicity @destroyed4com4t @Viviphilia @jsandrews1 @Translifeline Feel free to email me if you want to actually discus it
— Greta Martela (@GretaGustava) January 16, 2015
So I sent Greta my email address and this is what I got in return:
From our attorney:
“We don’t subject our volunteers to background checks for two reasons. First and foremost, all of our work is done over the telephone rather than in person and our operators are monitored. Second, as repeatedly demonstrated in the NGLTF’s “Injustice at Every Turn” study and subsequent research, trans people are at much higher risk to be ensnared by the prison-industrial complex in the United States than non-trans Americans. (While we lack a formal study, we understand similar trends are in play in Canada as well). It would violate the founding principle of TL —i.e. that of trans self empowerment and assistance-for us to reject otherwise good and capable volunteers who have incurred and paid a debt to society.”
From me:
Furthermore we have to do some level of monitoring to make sure that the training is effective so that isn’t actually extra work. In addition the people calling for this don’t give a shit about trans people. If you want to have a voice in this debate feel free to volunteer at:
http://apply.translifeline.org
Thanks,
Greta
So I thought, “yeah, I can help with that!”. I have a background in accounting, and am familiar with setting up and managing systems and processes, so I went through the application process and tried to offer some constructive help. I emailed Greta back:
Thanks!
I completed the form on the site with the following:
I’d be happy to help you by setting up a process of self-certification of individuals to ensure steps are taken to ensure your volunteers are ‘fit and proper’ people to do what is necessary. I would also request and collate reference requests and research how we can do background checks and raise funding for these.
I think what you have is a great idea and I’d be thrilled to be able to help you make this service even better.
I’m a very busy individual (I work on several businesses) but I’d be happy to agree deadlines for everything so nobody is left hanging. I’m in the UK.
I thought as a minimum I could get volunteers to confirm they were free of criminal records or other indicators they’d be inappropriate for contact with vulnerable people, and make sure everyone who was giving advice had a couple of references to demonstrate this. I’d have thought this would be a minimum for insurance purposes anyway.
I also offered to devise and manage this process in my own time, and help raise money to meet the cost of an external agency carrying out any criminal checks, and most importantly addressed one of several concerns raised within the community. Alas the response was as follows:
We aren’t going to be doing that unless the board of directors decides we should. We have a licensed therapist on the board and I think this would be a huge waste of resources.
So there you have it.
