US —
Shannon Minter has come a long way from rural east Texas,
where, as a teenager, fellow students slashed his tires
and his family had trouble accepting him as a transgender
person. On Thursday, the Ford Foundation
<http://www.leadershipforchange.org/>
named Minter as a winner of its 2005 Leadership for a
Changing World Award, for his extensive work on
behalf of transgender people.
The Ford Foundation
called Minter "a champion of equal treatment," who has
"helped secure civil rights and recognition for
transgender people." Minter was one of 17 awardees,
chosen by a national selection committee from a pool of
nearly 1,000 nominations, for tackling some of the
nation's most entrenched social, economic and
environmental challenges.
"I'm incredibly honored,"
Minter told the PlanetOut Network
<http://www.planetout.com/>.
"It's a wonderful opportunity for the transgender
community to get this kind of visibility, and I'm hoping
it will open the door for other transgender
people."
Minter's accomplishments
are numerous. As the legal director of the National
Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) <http://www.nclrights.org/>,
he works with transgender people throughout the United
States on issues such as child custody, employment
discrimination, immigration and access to health care.
Minter has helped to draft and lobby for innovative new
federal, state and local laws prohibiting discrimination
against transgender people. He has been an adviser,
mentor and lawyer to transgender people across the
country.
In 2003, Minter
represented transgender father Michael Kantaras in a
highly publicized custody case that was televised on
Court TV and that exposed millions of viewers, many for
the first time, to accurate information about transgender
people and the process of sex reassignment.
Minter is also a pioneer
in the arena of same-sex marriage. On behalf of NCLR,
Minter served as lead counsel in Woo v. Lockyer, a
lawsuit that led San Francisco Superior Court Judge
Richard Kramer to rule last April that California law
barring same-sex couples from marriage violates the equal
protection clause of the state Constitution. That case is
currently being appealed, with the California Supreme
Court expected to have the final say.
"The LGBT community and
we at NCLR have long understood the transformative
contribution Shannon Minter has made to our community and
the law," said NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell. "It
is enormously gratifying, and we are very proud to see
those contributions acknowledged on a wider
stage."
In 1993, Minter founded
NCLR's Youth Project, the first national legal advocacy
group to address the needs of LGBT youth. He now
supervises the Safe Homes Project at NCLR, which helps
LGBT youth who face discrimination and problems in foster
care, group homes or the juvenile-justice
system.
Each of the Ford
Foundation's awardees will receive over $100,000 to
advance their work. Minter said his award money would go
toward expanding NCLR's work on behalf of LGBT youth in
foster care and juvenile-justice centers, and also toward
family law for transgender people.
"These leaders are a
welcome reminder that people can make a difference," said
Susan V. Berresford, president of the Ford Foundation.
"They have brought not only concrete gains to their
communities but a determination to stand for justice that
builds hope and inspires others. It's never been more
important to listen to them."
Minter said while he felt
honored at receiving the award, he wanted to also
acknowledge those who came before him. "I've been very
cognizant of building on the work that prior transgender
activists did, starting in the 1970s," he
said.
