It took Frances Mary Fischer 53 years to express herself and it cost her job, family and money. And it is still not complete. A transgender woman, Fischer now does odd jobs and lives on public assistance. But she has not lost hope.
“It has always been a struggle. It is a continuing fight,” she said as she opened the letter from New York State Human Rights Commission. And even as she sliced the envelope open, she said she knew it was not in her favor.
Fischer lost her job at Alliance Relocation Services in Oct. 2004. She complained to the HRC against the company for discriminating against her on the basis of her gender identity.
The letter, dated Oct. 26 and signed by Julia Day, Interim Regional Director, state division of human rights, dismissed her complaint and closed the case as they found no evidence against the respondent that it discriminated against her. According to the letter, Fischer has 60 days to appeal against the decision to the New York State Supreme Court, but in case of an adverse decision there, the complainant may lose his right to proceed subsequently in a federal court.
“They have cited Kremer vs. Chemical Construction Co. (1982). I am going to appeal against it,” she said. “It is good that I have not shot myself in the head. May be this is because of my background as a priest. Many transgender people do that. It is so difficult. It just pushes you to the extreme.”
Fischer’s parents prepared her for the church when they suspected he was not like other boys. But she gave up priesthood when she started questioning the Catholic beliefs.
She said he always felt like a woman, even as a child.
“I was scolded for playing with dolls. Once I traded my bicycle for a neighbor’s Barbie doll,” said Fischer, adding that in those days it was difficult to express one’s gender identity because the society was not very receptive.
“Gender identity refers to a person’s internal, deeply felt sense of being either male or female. Because it is internal and personally defined, it is not visible to others,” wrote Jaminson Green in Introduction to Transgender Issues in Gay Pride directory of 2005-2006.
Fischer was born in Iowa Falls, Iowa in 1952. She said she always felt she should express herself as a woman and wanted to wear a dress to her high school prom but ended up wearing a female tuxedo. She said she has been undergoing counseling since 1983 and has been on feminizing hormones since then.
“When I was 3 years old I had an accident and I asked my doctor why I did not have a vagina,” she said.
But coming out has not been easy for her. She has faced discrimination.
“The work environment became hostile when I started my transition. People would call me Fran and FM,” she said. Most people associate transgender people with drag queens, gays, lesbians and cross dressers.
“They think we are prostitutes and have diseases,” she said.
Besides discrimination, it also costs money to look like a woman. Surgeries are not covered by insurance and Fischer has already spent $18,000 on various treatments including augmentation mammaplasty. She said she went to Bangkok to get her surgery because it is cheaper there.
“It costs so much here,” she said. Fischer is transitioning in stages. “It is coming out well. I am excited. I would like to get a tummy tuck and other small things like that. I will keep doing them. It will take years,” she said pointing to her teeth that have just been shaped.
“They are working on the lower set. And when I can afford it, I would like to go for electrolysis. There is stubble,” she said feeling her chin with her hands that appear well-groomed with neutral polish to make her nails shine.
“My gynecologist said I could have boyfriends now,” she said. “It gets so lonely at times. It is depressing. Sometimes, I want to cuddle with someone on the couch and just watch television.”
Fischer’s voice is deep and she still sounds like a male. “It got messed up. But I will get it right,” she said.
Dressed in a powder blue turtle neck sweater and black pants, Fischer said she loves the woman’s body and regrets that she did not transition before. “It was for my children. My wife and I decided to keep it under cover till our children had grown up,” she said.
For Fischer it was like wearing the wrong shoe in the feet all these years. “When you wear the wrong shoe, you get blisters. It pains. It has been like that for me. Every morning I would look in the mirror and it would make me want to cry. You don’t like the skin you are in, you hate the image that you see,” she said. “Nobody understands.”
Fischer who has a son and a daughter, both married, is divorced now. She said she is very fond of her grand children but seldom gets to meet them. A picture showed her holding both her grandchildren in her arms.
“It felt so good. I always wanted to be a mother,” she said. “But it is difficult to explain how they have two grandmothers.”
Fischer was employed at Alliance Relocation Services in 2000. She said she was the MIS director at the company and in charge of billing and drafting job descriptions. Fischer started her official transition from male to female in August, 2001, when she applied for a name change at the Supreme Court for the County of Onondaga, according to the affidavit filed by her in June, 2003. It took her two-and-a-half years to change her name from Frank Mark Fischer to Frances Mary Fischer. When the judge refused, she approached Lambda Legal for help and then sued New York State. She finally won the case but the victory is just a beginning of many battles, legal and otherwise that she has to wage every moment in her life.
The latest in her trials is the loss of her job.
Erin Keenan, an employee in the accounts and the billing section in her company, said Fischer is very capable but the company did not have work for him.
“He was removed because there was lack of job. He never had a formal title and we have also removed the position that he had,” said Keenan.
She said the employees are very friendly and respected Fischer but when she got graphic about her transition, it became uncomfortable for people in the office. She said there were no bathroom issues at all. And everybody is shocked to see that Fischer decided to complain against the company.
“He started explaining the process. We were not very comfortable with it. His removal had nothing to do with his sex-change. People here are very open,” she said.
An article on Fischer in the Post-Standard on March 25, 2004, quoted her employer, Jim Walsh, saying that Fischer is a star employee, that she “carried the company single-handedly”. He also said he would not forget what Fischer has done for the company.
Under Title VII, it is forbidden to discriminate against an employee for failure to conform to gender stereotypes. (www.transgenderlaw.org)
The New York law provides a cause of action for gender identity-motivated discrimination, although there is no explicit mention of gender identity under the New York human rights law. (Maffei v. Kolaeton, 626 N.Y.S.2d 391 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. 1995) and Rentos v. OCE-Office Systems, 1996 U.S. Dist.)
Professor Janice McDonald, College of Law, Syracuse University, said, “She has a better chance in a federal court.” Fischer has already appealed in the state court and can’t go to federal court (Kremer V. Chemical Construction Co.).
Fischer said she told her employer about her transition and though he allowed earrings and rings, he did not allow dresses.
“He said what I was I trying to do. Win a beauty contest? And I said I was trying to be myself,” she said.
Now Fischer is without a job. She said she has sent around 1,100 applications for various jobs but has failed to get one.
The New York State Human Rights Law under Section 291 says right to “obtain employment without discrimination based on age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex or marital status is hereby recognized as and declared to be a civil right.”
“A couple of interviewers said though I was qualified, other employees might have problems like bathroom issues or religious beliefs and so I could not get the job. I can’t get a job because I am transgender and I am open about it,” said Fischer who has two doctorates and has been an adjunct professor at Onondaga Community College.
“Your qualifications go away in snap. They would not even give me a job of greeting people or cleaning tables. It is a hard life,” she said.
Fischer said she was suffering from gender dysphoria, and transition and use of drugs have led to anxiety and insomnia and therefore she is disabled, in her complaint to the HRC. She is blind in her left eye and wears lens in the right eye, she said.
The New York State Human Rights law says any diagnosable condition or impairment demonstrable by medically accepted techniques, is a disability. But Fischer’s claim to medical coverage has been denied by Social Security Administration.
She gets $170 every two weeks toward her expenses and food stamps in lieu of community service for 18 hours a week in addition to six hours that she has to devote to job-hunting. But that’s far from enough, she said.
Her rent is $400 for a small two-bedroom apartment on North Street.
“I have to look for a job everyday to pay my rent. I clean other people’s homes, and jobs like those,” she said.
“It has not got to the stage where I have to sell my body for money,” she said.
Green in his article on transgender issues said that often transgender people are driven to do things that are not socially acceptable.
“Antitrans discrimination forces many trans people into a deadly cycle of poverty and unemployment. It…often forces them into illegal activities in order to survive,” he said.
Fischer has around $4,000 in hospital bills from St’ Joseph’s Hospital Health Care Centre for food poisoning this August which her Medicaid has refused to cover. It is many battles on many fronts for Fischer, but she said she would continue.
“I may have to go to a shelter next year when I can’t pay my rent anymore or government may throw me in prison for unpaid bills and taxes. I have no money. But I will continue to fight”
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