Year In Review – Part 2

The Huffington Post has a list of the top Trans-events of the year. I agree with some of their picks,

#1 Chelsea Manning Comes Out – Yeah, that was major but I don’t know if I would rate it #1.
#4 Everything About Laverne Cox – Yes, I think this was important because the show was a major hit.
#5 McDonald's Supports Transgender Rights With Bathroom Message – Thumbs down on this one, all the McDonalds store said they would do was obey the law, big deal.
#8 Pritzker Transition Sparks Transgender Military Service Conversation – Yes, this was somewhat important, she gave $1.25 million to study trans-servicemembers.
#9 Navy Seal Comes Out As Transgender – Same thoughts as #8.
#13 California's Rights For Transgender Minors – This was important because it sparked massive anti-transgender campaign. The law itself did nothing more than clarify the existing laws.
#14 Arizona's Rights For Transgender Minors – I wouldn’t call it “Arizona's Rights For Transgender Minors” it was more like giving immunity to bigots

The other eleven that they listed it don’t even think deserve honorable mention, in my opinion there were nothing special about them.

In another article in the Huffington Post Mara Keisling had her 10 top picks for 2013…

1. Trans-Inclusive Anti-Violence Programs
In February, Congress passed the first explicitly LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination law at the national level as part of reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The law protects LGBT people from discrimination in programs such as domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers, and allows federal grants to focus on anti-violence work for LGBT people.

4. Social Security Eases Gender Change Rules
In June, the Social Security Administration finally modernized rules for changing your gender designation in SSA records. The move brings Social Security in line with rules for U.S. passports, immigration documents and many states' driver's license rules, and helps eliminate confusion, embarrassment, and increased exposure to discrimination when transgender people interact with SSA staff or other government offices. Records for veterans and military dependents are the last major federal system where transgender people still have to meet burdensome requirements to update gender

She also had as her picks state insurance commissioners who said it was illegal to discriminate with health insurance coverage (California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, Connecticut and D.C.) and she also had Delaware becoming the 17th state to include gender identity protection and Puerto Rico.

Her eighth pick was another important event that I hope Connecticut follows with,

8. Name, Birth Certificate Changes Get Easier (CA, OR, D.C.)
While half of states now make it relatively easy to update the gender on your driver's license, efforts are also underway to ease the basic step of legally changing names, and the often even tougher step of updating one's birth certificate. This year Oregon and the District of Columbia joined at least three other states in guaranteeing that individuals won't be required to show proof of surgery to update their birth certificates. D.C. also joined the nearly half of states that have eliminated requirements that name changes be published in the newspaper, an expensive and intimidating step for many transgender people. Similar legislation has been proposed in California and Hawaii.

Her ninth pick was,

American Psychiatric Association (APA) published the fifth version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, officially renaming "gender identity disorder" as "gender dysphoria" and formally recognizing that it is not a transgender person's innate identity, but the distress some feel about an identity, body, and social role that don't line up, that may call for treatment.

And her last pick was transgender inmate prison reform.

My top pick for 2013 came at the very end of the year were the CT Insurance Commissioner bulletin about us being covered by insurance. That will have the biggest impact on the quality of life for the Connecticut trans-community. Runner up was the Medicare Appeals Board findings that they made an error back in 1981 to exclude trans-healthcare from Medicare coverage. This could have far reaching changes because many private insurance carriers base their exclusion on the face that Medicare does not cover trans-healthcare issues. So we may see the exclusions dropped from ERISA (Employment Retirement Investment Securities Act) covered companies policies like the company where I use to work.