Theresa Sparks’ mettle was tested when she transitioned, but her voice never faltered in equality battle
Theresa Sparks
Theresa Sparks is executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, but she’s worn plenty of other hats. She was president of the San Francisco Police Commission, ran for San Francisco Board of Supervisors and, in 1997, was named Woman of the Year by the California Assembly.
Yet, just a few years before she received that honor, she emerged as transgender and lost everything from her previous life. She’ll draw from those experiences when she attends the annual GEAR Awards Reception in Dallas on March 29 as the keynote speaker.
The San Francisco Human Rights Commission has been around for 50 years, established seven days before passage of the Civil Rights Act. Sparks credits her agency for creating a number of controversial ideas that have been adopted across the country.
“Things like domestic partnerships, equal benefits and transgender nondiscrimination were founded right here in this agency,” Sparks said. “We had our first transgender nondiscrimination ordinance in 1994.”
After Gwen Smith created a web-based memorial called “Remembering Our Dead” to honor transgender people killed because of their gender identity, Sparks organized the first candlelight vigil that has since evolved into Transgender Day of Remembrance, held on Nov. 20 of each year.
Sparks said the trans community needs to concentrate on three areas, the first being government.
“We need to focus on that our rights are upheld,” she said.
Those rights, Sparks said, include everything from employment nondiscrimination to the right to self identify and use the appropriate public restroom.
The second area is media.
“People are starting to get the message that we just want to be ourselves,” she said. “All we want to do is be authentic. All we want to do is be ourselves.”
She said having strong personalities like Janet Mock appear on Piers Morgan and Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera on Katie Couric recently is important to getting the message about who trans people are.
The third focus, she said, is for trans people to come out to themselves.
“We need to get rid of the guilt and shame,” she said. “We’re a very blessed group of people. Few people get to see life as we see it. We need to be proud of who we are.”
She said trans people shouldn’t let others define who they are or create the terms used to describe them. As an example, she said, a better term for gender reassignment surgery is gender confirmation surgery.
Sparks said she identified herself as a woman in her teens, but she served in Vietnam, married in the early 70s and had three children. She divorced and remarried. Before living as a woman, she endured aversion shock therapy. And then in the 90s, with the Internet, more information became available.
“We knew there were options,” she said.
The options, however, came at a cost. When Sparks began living as a woman, she lost everything.
“I was the epitome of white male privilege,” she said. “I started my life over.”
Her two sons didn’t speak to her for eight years, and her brother and sister still don’t speak to her.
Later, because of her work at the San Francisco Police Commission, she received quite a bit of publicity, and her sons saw it.
“My boys started to grasp it,” she said. “Now we’re best friends. It was not easy getting there.”
GEAR coordinator Blair High said she’s looking forward to meeting Sparks.
“She paved the way for the rest of us,” High said. “She’s a true maverick who showed that anything is possible.”
High said the GEAR event is open to everyone and hoped people throughout the community would attend. Sparks said she’s looking forward to coming to Dallas.
Although she grew up in Kansas, her parents lived in Richardson for a time, and her brother graduated from Richardson High School.
“I’m very impressed with Resource Center, and I’m very impressed with the GEAR program,” she said.
GEAR Awards Reception, Resource Center, 2701 Reagan St. March 29 at 6:30 p.m. Free.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition March 21, 2014.