Homework.

I had to do some homework for this afternoon’s committee meeting on aging. We are trying to develop guidelines for nursing homes and senior centers and we were asked to review “Inclusive Services for LGBT Older Adults A Practical Guide To Creating Welcoming Agencies.”

The major deficiency that I noticed is that they seem only to focus on transsexuals and not cover anything on crossdressers. They talk about hormones and documentation but they never mention anything about someone who maybe only dresses occasionally and under Connecticut law they are also protected. Also their definition for transgender wrong,

The term “transgender” is used to describe the experience and feeling of a persistent disconnect between one’s “sex at birth” (sometimes called “sex assigned at birth”) and one’s gender identity and expression. [My emphasis] For example, people born with male anatomy who have female gender identities may choose to express themselves as female through personal style (clothes and accessories), by changing their name (from Jack to Jane, for example), and by asking people to refer to them by their preferred gender pronouns (i.e., “she/her” rather than “he/him”).

Not all people who identify as transgender feel that they are the wrong gender. I can’t help but wonder if they even had a trans-person read the publication.