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16 <br /> Page 3 of 3 Ellis Driver <br /> I am committed to perpetually learning how to be a better advocate for marginalized folks, <br /> especially people of color, disabled people, and the transgender population (of which I am a <br /> member). I believe in redistributing resources and lifting up and amplifying marginalized voices. I <br /> am always looking to meet more people across my community and believe that intergenerational <br /> and generally diverse and genuine relationships are the only thing that can save us from being <br /> divided and inequitable. <br /> I do think being transgender and entrenched in the local transgender community has given me a <br /> unique perspective, and the long struggle of advocating for myself at jobs or in life has given me <br /> a lot of empathy for how advocating against onea€TMS own oppressions is almost impossibly <br /> taxing and difficult. I am determined to carry what weight of this burden I can responsibly take <br /> from other marginalized folks. <br /> A couple examples of this would be that <br /> a) my job of 100k+ employees in the US does not employ any trans women (which is an issue in <br /> and of itself) and thus I was the only person to point out that their health insurance coverage for <br /> trans women only covers sterilization and none of the most-sought medical treatments. Public <br /> acknowledgement led to action on this. <br /> b) earlier this year I had a great conversation with the OC Partnership toA End Homelessness to <br /> submit a complaint to HUD about how they were erasing transgender homeless folks by making <br /> them choose between M, F, or transgender. This complaint was at least new to the folks to <br /> which I spoke, but HUD has for years been making binary trans people choose between their <br /> real gender and the label a€cetransgendera€which has erased unknown numbers of trans <br /> folks from our national data on homelessness. <br /> c) after attempting filling out the census on census day, the day after Trans Day of Visibility, I <br /> found that you could avoid answering the gender question and still submit the census. I shared <br /> this with my non-binary community, many of whom (like me)were having trouble choosing to <br /> contribute to their own erasure by choosing a gender. <br /> Conflict of Interest: <br /> Boards/Commissions appointments: <br /> Other Comments: <br /> This application was current on: 8/17/2020 5:14:52 PM Date Printed: 8/18/2020 <br />