For Immediate Release: Dated September 21, 2003
From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
Contacts: Robyn Walters, Seattle, Washington
Chair, Vanessa Edwards Foster; Houston, Texas
Contact Email: ntacmedia@aol.com
media@ntac.org
Contact Phone: 832-483-9901
360-437-4091
Website: http://www.ntac.org

NTAC Announces Transgender Needs Assessment Initiative

In an effort to better understand the needs of transgender communities nationwide, NTAC is beginning a series of needs assessment studies around the country. These studies will be initiated and run in small and large cities with the direct help and organization of NTAC members. The goal of the effort is to obtain accurate, unbiased information about the community's needs and character, in part to counter the damaging, unscientific rhetoric of detractors.

"The aim is really to get clean, direct data from our communities independent of political goals," said Julie Maverick, NTAC Vice Chair. "We have too little information on who our communities are and what are their most pressing needs.

"This can help localities of all sizes nationwide focus on their core needs.  Moreover" added Maverick, who also chairs the Research Committee in NTAC, " we have long wanted to generate new, accurate data to support our lobbying effort and provide information for national level studies."

Individual groups and agencies in a community will conduct the study after approval of their board. At that time, researchers will survey and interview the transgender community directly. Each study will begin with a standardized survey, but can amend or change the survey to address specific problems in their region (e.g., language, drug use).

Within this framework, NTAC members will work on the ground to help initiate, organize, and conduct the surveys. Professional researchers will then take the results and reduce the data to understand its significance. The goal is unbiased, publishable, scholarly research that can be used by local and national organizations for their lobbying.

"This initiative begins in the shadow of such atrocious pronouncements about our community as Senator Rick Santorum's (R, PA) outbursts and the questionable results of Dr. Ray Blanchard's research portrayed in Professor J. Michael Bailey's book, "The Man Who Would be Queen."" Maverick commented. "We need accurate scientific and statistical information to properly refute political nonsense and incomplete scientific results as well as to draw attention to the deep, troubling needs that exist throughout the nation."

Three surveys are set to begin soon: one in Connecticut and the other two in Olympia and Seattle areas of Washington State. Other studies are planned, including one possible study in Houston as well as other locations.

For more information, please contact the NTAC Research Committee at research@ntac.org

Founded in 1999, NTAC - the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition - is a §501(c)(4) civil rights organization working to establish and maintain the right of all transgendered, intersexed, and gender-variant people to live and work without fear of violence or discrimination.