This And That In The News

This morning post covers trans marriages, what a mother learned about trans from her trans son, and another stupid politician and bathrooms.

A Trans Woman Can Now Be Recognised as a ‘Bride’ Under the Hindu Marriage Act
In a major move for the Indian transgender community, the Madras High Court ordered authorities to register a marriage between a man and a trans woman.
Vice
By Shamani Joshi
24 April 2019

The Madras High Court on Monday held that the term ‘bride’ in the Hindu Marriage Act, which codifies the laws related to marriage in the Hindu community in India, can also refer to a trans woman and does not need to be restricted to someone born a woman.

This move comes after marriage registration authorities in Tamil Nadu in south India refused to register the marriage of Arun Kumar and Sreeja, a man and a trans woman who approached the authorities for formal recognition after tying the knot in a temple ceremony. Justice G R Swaminathan, one of the judges on the bench, stated that authorities—which had refused to recognise the marriage on the grounds that a trans woman can’t be treated as a bride as per Section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1956—were wrong in doing so.
[…]
While this isn’t the first time a transgender marriage has been registered in India, this judgement basically means that the Madras HC has set a precedent that will now make it easier for transgender persons to get married without being discriminated against, or at least enable them to build a strong case against anyone who refuses to let them register for marriage. “This Court is not breaking any new ground. It is merely stating the obvious. Sometimes to see the obvious, one needs not only physical vision in the eye but also love in the heart,” the court said rather eloquently and melting our heart in the process. The transgender community has been fighting for their basic human rights for a while and this kind of backing may also help make such marriages more socially acceptable in the long run.

Around the world we are starting to get more rights but at the same time pushback is also increasing from the conservative governments.

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Out of sight out of mind that is how we are seen, most people don’t have a clue what gender identity means. I sometimes use the analogy of looking down a row of telephone poles, when you stand in-line with the telephone poles use only see the first pole bit if you step aside you see the other telephone poles and that is how gender and gender identity is. When you are cisgender you see both gender and gender identity the same, but with gender dysphoria we see that they are different.

Breaking Down Walls
How my trans child showed me the freedom to be who you are, not what you have been told that you are
Medium
Dr. Misty M. Ginicola
April 24, 2019

Growing up, being different in many ways, I learned how to build walls. Walls around my heart, walls between people who did not understand me, walls between people who had different political beliefs, walls between those who could hurt my heart, walls, walls, walls. It’s only recently with a wellness journey, with daily yoga practice and study, daily meditation and breathing practice, that I have started to see my role in building those walls. But I still pushed people, including family, away past the boundaries of those walls.

And then, very recently, my world turned upside down. Those walls came crashing down, and my heart is open and raw, because of my daughter.

I did not know I had a daughter — you see, when I had my second child, I named her Waylon Joseph Ginicola and we thought she was a boy. In order to tell my story, I am going to speak from my perspective then (in both name and pronouns)— something that has been approved of by my daughter — even though as she tells me, “Mama, I always a girl, you just didn’t know.”
[…]
We noticed something different about Waylon at around 18 months; he wasn’t interested in toys we had, and he had a significant speech delay. There was no pretend play, and very few words. We called in Birth to Three and they began services. There still was no interest in most toys, however. Then one day, after he turned two, I brought him to the gym childcare while I worked out. I came back and Waylon was holding a baby, feeding the baby swaddled in a blanket and playing with a little stroller. Pretend play!!

It hit me. The problem wasn’t with Waylon; the problem was that we did not have the right toys!
[…]
That year for Christmas, we stocked up on the toys that Waylon showed interest in at the gym: doll babies, a stroller, crib, jewelry, and all sorts of fun stuff. As I wrapped the presents that year, it struck me — it looked like we had a girl and a boy. All Waylon’s toys were stereotypically female. All Wilson’s stereotypically male.

For so many trans children this story has been repeated over and over; parents start picking up clues and I think parents are more attuned to trans children because of all the news coverage of trans children.

As I wrote about yesterday more states are recognizing that to deny a child gender identity is a form of child abuse.

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And now a Republican and his hate for us…

Charles Key Needs to Go to the Bathroom. Tennessee Won’t Let Him Because He’s Trans.
The Daily Beast By Samantha Allen
April 17, 2019

When Charles Key needs to use the restroom, he can’t go where the other boys go.

Instead, the high school junior has to use a teacher’s restroom on the other side of school from his classes.

The reason? He is transgender, and his Hendersonville, Tennessee, high school is one of many in the state—and in the country—that don’t allow transgender students to use restrooms corresponding with their gender identity.
[…]
Now, the Tennessee state legislature is weighing a bill to protect policies like the one that keeps Key out of the boy’s bathroom. HB 1274–as the bill is called in the Tennessee House—would require the state attorney general’s office to defend local school districts that do not have transgender-inclusive restroom policies.

The bill itself, however, fastidiously avoids using the word “transgender,” stating instead that the attorney general should defend—or pay for the defense of—any “policy or practice designed to protect the privacy of students from exposure to others of the opposite biological sex” [PDF].

The Republicans are nothing but bigots… look at the laws they have tried to pass in various state legislatures around the country; laws attacking Muslims, laws attacking migrants, laws attacking minorities, laws attacking women rights, laws attacking health insurance for us, laws attacking LGBTQ+.

They use minorities as wedges between “them and us” the Republican party has become a party of white supremacists, fascists, and nationalists.