Mara Keisling

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Mara Keisling (born September 29, 1959 in Pennsylvania) is a former pollster and transgender rights activist and founder and executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, based in Washington, DC. She is a graduate of Penn State University and did graduate work at Harvard University.

[edit] Employment Non-Discrimination Act

Mara and NCTE led the coalition of over four hundred LGBT organizations, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force opposing the move led by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBT-rights organization in the United States, and openly gay Senator Barney Frank to move the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to a draft that excluded protections for gender identity and gender expression, effectively leaving out transgendered individuals and, potentially, other gender non-normative people regardless of their gender or sexual identities.

[edit] Present Politics

Mara works towards the goal of transgender equality through speaking engagements, lobbying, media outreach, and building coalitions with other progressive organizations and causes. In particular, she champions the deemphasizing of surgical transition for transgender people because of the classist affect it has on low-income trans people who may not be able to afford expensive surgical procedures, and the exclusivity the norm establishes vis-a-vis self-described non-operative transsexuals or those simply not wishing to undergo surgery.