FTM International Leaders Honored

San Francisco, CA, September 4, 2007: Three San Francisco FTM International community leaders have been honored with awards at the 8th annual Gender Odyssey national conference August 31-September 3, 2007 in Seattle, Washington.

“FTM men across America, Canada and the world are proud of the accomplishments of our dedicated members Mr. Marcus de Maria Arana, Sergeant Stephan Thorne and Shannon Price Minter, Esq.,” stated Rabbi Levi Alter, President of FTM International, spanning 21 years and 18 countries.

Marcus de Maria Arana is a Discrimination Investigator for the SF Human Rights Commission. Marcus has been an activist for gender identity rights since 1995. Marcus designed and conducted transgender cultural competency trainings for the SFPD, UCSF, the Red Cross, etc. Marcus is a Board Member of the Native American AIDS Project (NAAP) and the Native American Cultural Center (NACC), and authored the Commission report Discrimination By Omission, which documents discrimination against Native Americans in SF.

Sergeant Stephan Thorne 45, came out thirty years ago in Lincoln, Nebraska and promptly was forced out of high school. Stephan joined the SF Police Department in 1984 and transitioned on the job in 1994. Stephan has provided ongoing transgender cultural competency trainings for the SFPD.

Shannon Price Minter, Esq. and other community members succeeded in a campaign to secure equal health-care benefits for transgender SF city employees. Minter founded NCLR’s Youth Project, the first legal-advocacy group to address the needs of LGBT youth and supervises the Safe Homes Project at NCLR, which helps LGBT youth who face discrimination in foster care, group homes, or the juvenile-justice system. Shannon writes publications such as Transgender Equality: A Handbook for Activists and Policymakers, and speaks in forums, hearings, and gatherings around the country. Shannon is the Legal Director of NCLR and was lead attorney on Sharon Smith's groundbreaking wrongful death suit and has litigated many other impact cases in California and across the country. He received the Ford Foundation's "Leadership for a Changing World" award, the Anderson Prize Foundation Creating Change Award by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the distinguished national service award from GAYLAW.