If there ever is an object lesson about vetting leadership for transgender specific organizations, Allison Woolbert’s elevation to executive director of the Transgender Human Rights Institute (THRI) start-up nonprofit and creation of the Trans* Violence Tracking Portal (TVTP) should be that lesson.
Allison Woolbert recently resigned as executive director of Transgender Human Rights Institute (THRI) after her 1991 conviction for First Degree Aggravated Sexual Assault. The victim was a 15-year-old relative. Woolbert was sentenced to six years for the aggravated assault for which she served four. Woolbert was 28 at the time of the offence.
Freelance journalists Emmagene Cronin and Laurelai Bailey discovered the record while investigating THRI operations.
THRI is the sponsor of a Change.Org petition aiming to pass a ban on reparative therapy of trans youth. The petition has over 300,000 signatures supporting what’s currently referred to as “Leelah’s Law.” The effort is named after Leelah Alcorn, a 17-year-old who recently committed suicide after being treated with “reparative therapy,” a therapy that’s been discredited by professional psychiatric, psychological and medical associations.
THRI also runs a project called the Trans* Violence Tracking Portal that tracks violence against trans people. Woolbert’s resignation from THRI also ends Woolbert’s affiliation with TVTP.
After Woolbert became aware that her public, criminal history had been uncovered, she posted an open letter on the TVTP Web site in which she confirmed there was a crime in her past, but didn’t specifically identify the crime as the aggravated sexual assault of a minor relation. “Twenty three years ago, I committed unconscionable behavior as a human being,” she wrote in the letter. “I confessed and plead guilty to my crime asking only for treatment to insure that it could never happen again. After four years of incarceration and therapy, the treatment was successful.”
“I have offered my resignation to The Board of Trustees of the Transgender Human Rights Institute should they deem my present role as damaging to the organization in light of this revelation,” she stated further in the letter.
Jan. 8, the THRI board published a media release on the TVTP Web site in which they rejected what was the first of two resignation letters. “The Board of Trustees voted unanimously to NOT accept the offer of resignation,” the media release stated. “A second unanimous vote expressed the board’s confidence in Allison Woolbert’s ability to function in the role of executive director of the THRI and all its projects.”
Shortly after the rejection of the first resignation letter, the Ali Foley Center, Trans-Parenting and Everything Transgender in New York City, three organizations which had originally partnered with THRI on the Leelah’s Law effort, severed their relationships with THRI.
After the three LGBT non-profit organizations severed their relationships, Rebecca Heineman, the spouse of one of the THRI board members, stated on her Twitter account that, “The Transgender Human Rights Institute has announced that Allison Woolbert is [no] longer with the group.The remaining THRI board members voted to accept that second resignation.” The board members that resigned haven’t been identified.
The THRI and TVTP Web sites are currently down, and when navigated show an HTTP 404 error.
With the THRI and TVTP Web sites down, the Jan. 12 media release from the THRI board that stated their acceptance of Woolbert’s second resignation letter was posted to the THRI Facebook page. “Our initial decision to retain Allison Woolbert as executive director was based on board members’ personal interaction with her, on her skills, and trust in her good intentions and passion,” the press release stated. “That decision was flawed. We erred as a board in that we put our friendship and trust ahead of the trauma felt by victims of sexual assault, and potentially ahead of the rights, reputation and safety of the very people our organization was intended to serve, the transgender community.”
Cristan Williams, editor-in-chief of TransAdvocate.com, perhaps summed it up best. “[Allison Woolbert] had the delusion that she could insert herself into high profile violence elimination legislative efforts without anyone ever doing an Internet search on her to discover that she’s a child rapist. She selfishly tainted any of the good people/work she associated herself with.”
Even small, start-up transgender community nonprofits need to vet their leadership, and Allison Woolbert’s history with THRI is an object lesson as to why.
Autumn, thanks for being one of the few (kudos to the Transadvocate folks) in the trans community that has displayed the courage to say what needs to be said on this important issue. You were a leader in the military, and you’re leading now. This mistake should never be made again.
One of the most difficult things to do is internal enforcement, that is policing of one’s own. It exposes group X to severe scrutiny and extreme berating and yet failing to do so is a far worse option. I believe in rehabilitation, although it is quite rare and a 2-decades + clean record is indicative of non-recidivism. Still, the standards for leadership are always far higher than mere ancillary support; given the tremendous animus toward our community, we can ill afford trans leaders that harbor a horrid past. Although Radical Feminists of the trans-exclusive type will have a field day, the higher ground will be retained by our community.
Human fallibility is such that no race, sex, creed, culture or color of humanity is worthy of being “pure” by membership alone. Purity and innocence, and conversely deviancy and culpability are traits borne of behavior & thought on an individual basis. Doing the right thing at the right time is never easy, but it always is the honorable thing to do, no matter the mudslinging heaved at us by TERF adversaries. Certainly lesbians can lay no claim to purity either.
i dont see lesbians raping children though…
There are child molesters in EVERY community. As a lesbian and survivor of child molestation, I suggest you shut your ignorant mouth. Stop using survivors as props for your transmisogyny.
http://www.loribgirshick.com/articles-on-lgbt-interpersonal-violence.html
https://mainweb-v.musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml
http://translaw.wpengine.com/archives/8666
Kay, criminal sexual assault by lesbians exist, as the links above document, but I can’t recall a case of an LGBT nonprofit that had a lesbian executive director that resigned after that criminal rape history became known to the public. And therein lies a reason why LGBT news consumers don’t hear much about lesbians raping other women: it’s generally not done by lesbian celebrities or lesbian executive directors of profit or nonprofit organizations.
Yet the rates of criminality for mtf are on par to the average male in contrast to the average female according to a 2011 Sweden study with +1000 participants.
Reality is reality no point trying to cover the sun with your fingers