Dear Reader,
In a recent Google 09/2009 search of the web for Cheryl Ann Costa, I found assorted sites expounding many of the Theatrical accomplishment of Cheryl Ann Costa. I also found a few critical blog slams on Ms. Costa, with dates that followed the April 2008 IFGE convention. At that convention Ms. Costa was awarded a much over due Trinity Award for thirty years of community service to the Transgender Community.
Unfortunately, either due to an over sight or perhaps because of personal vendetta; at the Award ceremony she was simply introduced with no reference to her accomplishments and handed an award trophy.
Needless to say, any remarks or wisdom she tried to share with her acceptance speech in front of several hundred attendees was lost on them for they did not know her nor did they know of her contributions to the greater Transgender community. Neither did they understand where she might have been coming from with her critical remarks.
In the days following the convention she was labeled an “Old Timer and a Train Wreck” by transgender bloggers who I suspect were most likely comfortably in the closet when Cheryl was out and proud and doing many progressive things that many of us can only dream of doing.
What disturbed me is that because of the nature of the internet; anything bad posted about someone can linger for years and appear to be new information. Therefore as the person who wrote the 2007 nomination letter about Cheryl Ann Costa, I thought it only suitable that her accomplishments be posted and be allowed to linger on the internet.
Charmaine Bowes 9/20/2009
November 2nd, 2007
Nominee:
Cheryl Ann Costa
TSPrincess@aol.com
A Nomination of Cheryl Ann Costa for a IFGE Trinity Award
Cheryl Ann Costa, is a lot of things, first off she’s an “out and in your face” transwoman. She’s an internationally produced and published playwright, was a Washington, DC talk radio personality, a cable television producer, an indie filmmaker and of course a long time activist and advocate for the gender community.
SUPPORT GROUPS: Costa secretly started her formal association with the gender community way back in 1976 while a petty officer in the Navy. Her first support group contact was with a group called the XX Club in Hartford, CT. After being honorably discharged from the Navy 1980 and relocating to the Binghamton, NY she used the organizational skills and club format that she learned in the XX Club and founded a fledgling gender support and social organization called The Butterfly Group and was at its helm from 1981 to 1986. In parallel she supported Angela (Britfeather) Sheedy in her efforts to establish The EON Club in Syracuse, NY where Cheryl was actively involved from 1982-1986. She focused her efforts on outreach and press public relations. In 1986, she and her spouse coordinated and hosted the an upstate New York’s 1st Gender conference called Wine Country Weekend (WCW). It was the success of this event that landed her the role of the 1st program director for IFGE International Convention (I) Chicago 1987 as well as a position as a founding board member of the IFGE. Besides her coordination and out reach efforts, Cheryl was an active writer and contributor to Tapestry Magazine 1983-1989.
BEING NATIONALLY OUTED- In 1986 she was photographically OUTED by the national tabloid newspaper World Weekly Report. In the ugly aftermath, her employer mercifully transferred her to the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC it was there that she started Butterfly of Northern Virgina – 1986-1989 This was a Gender public awareness group and couples support group. But after being nationally outed by the tabloid she discovered that there were certain advantages to being out and visible. As she put it; “A certain Freedom.”
COUPLES TELEVISION: In the early 1980’s if a crossdresser appeared on a television talk show, the wife was always shown in the dark shadows and back lit. Cheryl’s spouse of that era decided that the damage had been done and that it was time to turn a negative into a positive. The couple agreed to be a interviewed on Gary Collins Hour magazine (87) with both of them in the light. The message was; “This is my husband and my best girl friend” and that was a very new message indeed. That interview led to a nation wide tour of the television talk show circuit and generated a great deal of good will for the gender culture in general particularly for couples.
SILENCED: Then in 1989, during Cheryl’s transition, Cheryl’s spouse turned on her and convinced a Divorce court judge that Cheryl’s leadership and charisma was a “bad thing” and that Cheryl’s efforts were going to break up a lot of good marriages. The judge concurred and placed Cheryl under a “gag” injunction. In return for a favorable divorce settlement; Cheryl Costa was forbidden from any public speaking, writing, activism or leadership within the gender community. It was at that point that Cheryl Costa fell off the radar screen of the General Gender Community. For the next five years, she focused her talents on her career and producing a cable television program on American Shamanism that received international media attention.
A NEW BEGINNING: Then in 1994, Cheryl managed to get the injunction lifted. She began by being a guest lecturer at the University of Maryland @ College Park. Her ten year lecture series at UMD resulted in her receiving an award for teaching excellence and service to the school 2003.
Also in 1994, she was signed to the Jodi Solomon Speakers Bureau and became a noted speaker on the college lecture circuit with a message of pro-diversity. It was this series of lectures that led a number of corporate enterprises to seek her out for advice on HR policy for trans-employees.
Since 1994, Cheryl has been an out and proud, internationally produced and published playwright.
Broadcasting: In her effort to be an “out and in your face good trans-citizen”, Cheryl became America’s first openly Transsexual “commercial radio” show host 1993. Co-hosting a program called “10% Radio.” In 1994, she co-wrote and performed in another weekly radio comedy show before moving into a solo gig. In 1998, she was offered a solo gig and became the anchor talk host on the coast to coast alternative talk radio program “The X Factor.” She left commercial radio in 2001 after September 11th, stating that she wanted to change her focus.
Cheryl has refocused her activity on corporate GLBT & Allies activism and her vocations; Indie filmmaking, live theater producing, and a being a published mystery writer with an innovative Trans-person Protagonist.
In 2000, she began the process of educating the Diversity office and HR of her employer: Lockheed Martin Corporation. By 2002, she had organized a corporation sanctioned GLBT & Allies affinity group called PRIDE and began spinning off chapters across the enterprise’s many divisions. In 2006, she became the first openly GLBT recruiter in the corporation. She organized and coordinated Lockheed Martin’s splashy appearance at the 2006 & 2007 Out and Equal Workplace Summit were Cheryl lead a team of over a dozen LM employees to actively recruit from the GLBT & Allies community. They gave out hundreds of recruitment packages. As of 2007, over five internal PRIDE chapters had formed within Lockheed Martin under her leadership and mentoring.
In 2007, working behind the scenes, Cheryl supported a fledgling Recruiting present utilizing PRIDE members from Marietta, GA at Southern Comfort. Looking ahead to the 2008 SCCATL, Cheryl has been actively lobbying for major funding to support a first class Recruiting effort for Lockheed Martin.
Cheryl drawing on best practices at Raytheon, GPAC and IBM polices, Cheryl authored a proposed Trans policy and Transition process for her employer which is under corporate review. As well, Cheryl has taken point to lead the fight to change of the EEO policy to include “Gender and Gender Expression” at Lockheed Martin.
In 2007, she was nominated by Lockheed Martin for an Out and Equal: Trail- Blazer award.
Cheryl was nominated for the Trinity Award in 2000 and 2005.
She is a long over looked gem of the Transgendered community and deserving of recognition.
Written by Charmaine Bowes
Nominated by Monica Helms
President, Transgender American Veterans Association
Trinity Award recipient, 2003
A Nomination for an IFGE Trinity Award
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