On Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2015, Raffi Freedman-Gurspan became the first openly transgender person to be hired by the White House. She is the new outreach and recruitment director in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.
Freedman-Gurspan is from Honduras and was adopted by a Jewish single mother in Massachusetts, making her the first transgender woman of color to work in the White House as well. Although transgender men and women have worked in Washington before, she is the first to work within the White House itself.
Following Caitlyn Jenner's attention-capturing Vanity Fair cover, the transgender community is receiving more attention from the general public than ever before. Although Freedman-Gurspan is breaking down many barriers, she is not the first person from the transgender community to be in politics.- Althea Garrison: the first transgender person to be elected to a state legislature in the United States
- Kim Coco Iwamoto: the first openly transgender official to win statewide office and (at the time) the highest ranking openly transgender official in the United States
- Stu Rasmussen: the first openly transgender mayor in the United States
- Phyllis Frye: the first transgender judge in Texas
- Georgina Beyer: the world's first openly transsexual mayor and the world's first openly transsexual Member of Parliament (New Zealand)
- Jenny Bailey: the first transgender mayor in the United Kingdom
Although President Obama's senior adviser has said Freedman-Gurspan "reflects the values of [the Obama] administration" and the National Center for Transgender Equality Executive Director stated in a news release that "President Obama has long said he wants his administration to look like the American people...[including] transgender Americans," many Americans are expressing their distaste with the recent appointment.
Some conservative bloggers and journalists disapprove of the White House hiring someone qualified for the job who just happens to be transgender such as Tim Brown on freedomoutpost.com. He claims Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is "mentally ill" and says she is ugly but admits his comments are unprofessional (but defends himself by claiming Freedman-Gurspan is unprofessional as well).
Even though enough of our society is accepting and informed enough to allow anyone to work in the White House, there is still enough ignorance that individuals like Tim Brown resort to immature, unprofessional comments when expressing his opinion about a national issue.
“People changed lots of other personal things all the time. They dyed their hair and dieted themselves to near death. They took steroids to build muscles and got breast implants and nose jobs so they'd resemble their favorite movie stars. They changed names and majors and jobs and husbands and wives. They changed religions and political parties. They moved across the country or the world — even changed nationalities. Why was gender the one sacred thing we weren't supposed to change? Who made that rule?” -Ellen Wittlinger
