It Is A Nightmare!

Healthcare for me isn’t that bad, I haven’t faced any discrimination, just normal every day harassment from the insurance company. But for many trans people it can make the difference of life or death.

Health Insurance Companies Are Even More Horrible If You're Trans
Here's how the Obama administration is trying to fix that.
Mother Jones
By Molly Redden
Sep. 8, 2015

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed new rules to crack down on pervasive healthcare discrimination against transgender men and women. The draft rules address forms of discrimination that were banned years ago on paper but remain a constant feature in many transgender individuals' real-life dealings with doctors and insurance companies—from being refused basic services such as blood tests to not being reimbursed for health care screening such as Pap smears or prostate exams.

If approved, the rules would force many health care providers and insurers across the country to provide trans patients with the same medical treatments and level of care they provide to non-transgender people—parity that most insurers never even approach.

I have been getting all my healthcare needs met, healthcare professionals have treated me as any other patient. I have been getting the testing and the prescriptions that I need.

My problem is with the insurance company, because the dosage of my hormones is greater than those allow I have to get a wavier each year. But I also get hassled each time I get a refill, they deny payment and the pharmacy has to do a song and dance to get it covered. Also my annual PSA test gets denied and it takes months to straighten it out.

But for some it is a nightmare,

Thirty-seven-year-old Seth Marlow's medical history reads like a catalog of such abuses. Marlow works in healthcare IT and is well-connected in trans advocacy circles. But even he has struggled to get basic medical care. At one point, Marlow says, he was unable to have routine blood work done because a doctor he visited said his Christian faith prevented him from treating Marlow. His previous insurance company refused to pay for a fertility clinic to extract and freeze his eggs—which was one of the insurer's covered benefits—seemingly because he identified as a man.

The other problem that I see is insurance companies behaving like insurance companies, their favorite answer is “NO!” they reject everything and we have to learn to advocate for ourselves. I was talking to a trans man who was denied insurance coverage for his top surgery, when I asked him if he appealed the decision he said no.

Part of his problems stem from the fact that until this year, the Obama administration did not define what discrimination specifically means. That definition was originally left up to the states, and only a handful have applied the protections in the Affordable Care Act to trans people.

The same thing has happened here, the insurance commissioner issued a bulletin saying that insurance companies cannot discriminate against trans people, that if you offer a treatment for non-trans people you have to offer it to trans people.

The insurance companies say that breast reductions are cosmetic surgery and deny it to trans men. But they actually do cover breast reductions if they are medically necessary. So we have to fight back to make sure the doctor uses the proper insurance codes and we have to advocate for ourselves to make sure that the insurance companies do not try to label it cosmetic surgery. Here are some of the codes that can be used for trans people and for people who have Medicare you can find information here.

Still The Same, “Walking While Trans”

Let’s appoint a commission or let’s study it some more!

It seems like whenever politicians have to do something they don’t like they pass it off to be studied some more or to a commission. Police harassment of trans people followed that path and the commission came up with a policy change.

Activists Say Police Abuse of Transgender People Persists Despite Reforms
By Noah Remmick
September 6, 2015

Although the New York Police Department amended its patrol guide in 2012 to require respectful treatment of transgender people, Ms. Diamond, who is a transgender woman, said she was subjected to a strip search by a male officer. Two other officers watched from a few feet away, gawking as she spread her legs. Officers then placed Ms. Diamond in a cell for men, she said, where she cowered in the corner as other inmates heckled her and used the exposed toilet in her presence. When she expressed her discomfort to an officer, he replied, “You know you like it in there with all the men.”

Officers snickered at Ms. Diamond throughout the process, she said, calling her a “he-she,” “tranny” and “it.”

“I felt totally voiceless,” Ms. Diamond, who is 37 and now divorced, said recently through tears. “Like I wasn’t even human. Like my safety didn’t even matter.”

When the patrol guide reforms were issued, advocates for transgender people lauded the changes as groundbreaking, if overdue. Officers now were required, among other provisions, to refer to people by their preferred names and gender pronouns, to allow people to be searched by an officer of their requested gender, and to refrain from “discourteous or disrespectful remarks” regarding sexual orientation or gender identity.

It is one thing to have policies in place and another thing to enforce those polices. Lots of times there is a wink and a nod from the top brass and when activists called for an audit of the policies they are hemming and hawing to stall any audits,

“It’s one thing to make a reform on paper, but it takes a greater commitment of resources to make the necessary cultural changes,” said Councilman Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat who is formally requesting an audit.

“The N.Y.P.D. is a deeply intransigent, conservative institution,” Mr. Torres added. “It’s going to take extensive retraining for officers to fully live up to the spirit and letter of the 2012 changes.”

Until we see top down accountability we will not see any changes.

I meet with the LGBT community outreach officer for the Hartford police department and she is all gun hoe and says she has the support the top brass… time will tell. I hpe she does have the support she needs.

No Excuses.

There is no excuse for not allowing her to go to nursing school.

Transgender woman fights to get into nursing school
Ellen DeGeneres assists Blossom Brown with $20K
WAPT News
By Allie Ware
Sep 06, 2015

JACKSON, Miss. —A transgender Jackson native is fighting to get into nursing school.

Blossom Brown said she's been unfairly rejected six times.
[…]
"People always say, 'You're going to confuse the patients,' or, 'We don't want your kind here,'" Brown said.
[…]
Six rejections haven't stopped Brown from pursuing her dream to be a nurse and make a difference in her community.

However, since her story has been on Ellen DeGeneres and “I Am Cait” she has received offers from nursing schools around the country.

In The Movies

I have always been critical of movies about trans people that do not use trans actors, well the director of the new trans movie Danish Girl had something to say about it.

Danish Girl director Tom Hooper: film industry has 'problem' with transgender actors
Director of film starring Eddie Redmayne, about Danish transgender pioneer Lili Elbe, says that ‘access to roles’ is key to progress
The Guardian
By Andrew Pulver
Saturday 5 September 2015

The film industry has a “problem” with transgender actors, with many unable to secure roles despite a “huge pool of talent”, according to film director Tom Hooper, whose latest film The Danish Girl – starring Eddie Redmayne as a pioneering recipient of gender-reassignment surgery – receives its world premiere at the Venice film festival.

Hooper said: “Access for trans actors to both trans and cisgender roles is utterly key. In the industry at the moment there is a problem: there is a huge pool of talent of trans actors, and access to parts is limited. I would champion any shift where the industry embraces trans actors. and celebrates trans film-makers.” Without explicitly acknowledging the controversy surrounding the casting of Redmayne, a non-trans actor, in the lead role of Einar Wegener – the real-life Danish painter who underwent a series of operations in the early 1930s to become Lili Elbe – Hooper said: “There’s something in Eddie that is drawn to the feminine; he’s played women before, most notably Viola in Twelfth Night. In our film, Lili is presented as a man for two-thirds of the movie, and her transition happens quite late on, so that played a part in coming to a decision.” Hooper also said that the production had reached out to the trans acting communities in the cities where they shot – London, Brussels and Copenhagen – and ended up casting “40 or 50 trans supporting artists”. He said: “I’m pleased we achieved what we did, but I’m sure there’s more to do.”

It is good that reached out to trans community but did they look for a trans actor for the leading character? Or was it just assumed no one would be able to play the lead? Saying that a trans actress wouldn’t be willing to play the lead because 2/3s of the role was as a male is also wrong because they never asked if a trans actor would be willing to play the role.

Saying he wanted to “clarify the difference between sexuality and gender”, Redmayne explained that he had embarked on a series of meetings with numerous trans people to better understand the nature of the character he was to play. “I met many people from the trans community, both men and women; I particularly wanted to meet people from different generations, as the film was set at a time when there was no precursor.” He cited a couple from Los Angeles, Cadence Valentine and Trista Hidalgo, as being especially helpful. “The way in which they allowed me to ask them anything, galvanised me. There were two things that stayed with me: Cadence said she would give anything and everything to live a life authentic; and the other was that, while she was transitioning, the question was: how deep was her partner’s pool of empathy.”

It is good that he studied for the part by talking to trans people, but we will never know if a trans person could have done just as good as Redmayne because they never asked a trans person.

Why We Need To Pass Law

Even though we have won many victory in the courts all it takes is for one judge to overturn all the victories.

Federal judge rules against transgender Va. student 
Washington Blade
By Michael K. Lavers
September 4, 2015

A federal judge on Friday ruled against a transgender teenager who continues to challenge his Virginia school district’s policy requiring students to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their “biological gender.” U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar rejected Gavin Grimm’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed him to use the boys restroom at Gloucester County High School during the upcoming academic year as his case proceeds.
[…]
Doumar in late July said the policy does not violate Title IX. He has yet to rule on whether he will allow Grimm’s case to proceed based on his claim under the 14th Amendment

Judge Dumar was appointed by President Reagan and is known for his conservative views and it is my guess that the school will appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

It is so important that we get legislation passed that expands the Civil Rights Act to include us because all it takes is a conservative judge to overturn all that we have won and going to the Supreme Court is always a crap shoot.

Saturday 9: Working My Way Back to You (

Crazy Sam’s Saturday 9: Working My Way Back to You (1966)

Every Saturday I take time off from written on serious topics to have some fun…

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) We're celebrating the last holiday of summer with The Four Seasons. Which season is your favorite?
Fall, I like the change in season, the colors, and the smell of the air.

2) Before they settled on The Four Seasons, they called themselves The Four Lovers, The Romans and The Village Voices. If you were/are in a band, please share the name. Or just make up a cool name for your pretend band.
The Inharmonious Singers

3) Lead singer Frankie Valli has occasionally fudged the year of his birth. Have you ever lied about your age?
Yes, on Facebook I say that I was born in 1910.

4) Frankie Valli, Frank Sinatra, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen ... New Jersey has given us many music superstars. What is your state known for?
Fake nutmeg: from Mental Floss,

Over time, Yankee peddlers developed a reputation for selling fake nutmegs made of carved wood.

But the reputation might have been unjustly earned,

Later, it was suggested that it was the confused Southerners to blame for these mix-ups. In a 1980 issue of Connecticut Magazine, Elizabeth Abbe suggested that Southern customers were unaware that nutmeg had to be grated, and instead wrongly thought that the Yankee merchants were trying to scam them.

She writes, "unknowing buyers may have failed to grate nutmegs, thinking they had to be cracked like a walnut. Nutmegs are wood, and bounce when struck. If southern customers did not grate them, they may very well have accused the Yankees of selling useless ‘wooden’ nutmegs, unaware that they wear down to a pungent powder to season pies and breads.”  

5) In 1965, Frankie was arrested in Columbus, Ohio. But it wasn't his fault! The bandmate he trusted to pay the group's hotel bill neglected to do so. Tell us about a time when your trusting nature got you in trouble. 
We went on a fishing trip up to Vermont and one of the guys we were with said we can camp by the river and in the morning we had a visit by the police.

6) Clint Eastwood directed the movie version of the Four Seasons biography, Jersey Boys. What's your favorite Clint Eastwood movie? 
I would pick the television show Rawhide and for the movie “The Bridges of Madison County”

Since Labor Day is the holiday established to celebrate the American worker …

7) According to the U.S. Census, more and more Americans are working from home. Are you one of them?
Nope, I’m retired.

8) Of those of us who work outside the home, 75% travel to work alone. 15% take public transportation and the remaining 10% carpool. How do you get to your job?
When I worked my job was only four miles away and I drove to work.

9) Do you have any big plans for this holiday weekend?
I am up at my brother’s and sister-in-law’s condo in southern Maine this weekend and today we are going on the mail boat to the islands in Casco Bay.

We Are Everywhere!

Is that good or bad? Are we generating backlash like what happened down in Hillsboro High School in Jefferson County Missouri?

We can't let increased transgender visibility lead to more vulnerabilityTrans women are now more likely to be positively represented in the media. This visibility should help push for greater respect and freedom from violenceThe Guardian
By Harmony Rodriguez
21 August 2015

It’s an unprecedented time in society. Trans women are appearing in the media as Hollywood actresses, writers, innovators and advocates. Increased positive representation of trans people is one of the greatest things that could have happened to trans women as a group. But, in this moment of celebration, we need to ensure that more visibility doesn’t lead to more vulnerability.
[…]
This hypervisibility puts marginalized groups at risk. In terms of transgender people, this often means transgender women of color. With the conversation around equality for trans people reaching its fever pitch, those who do not want us to become equal and have equal rights are becoming increasingly more violent towards us. This year alone, 18 trans women - many of them of color - have been killed, including Mya Hall who was shot near Baltimore after she took a wrong turn. This breaks last year’s record. It should be noted that a large majority of anti-LGBT hate crimes are directed at people of color.

She goes on to talk about trans people “passing” and how being able to integrate into society does mean that there will be no violence. I think that there is a danger of violence if they are found out to be trans because the perpetrator feels “deceived.”

The author goes on to end the article with,

There is no panacea for transphobia. Having famous trans women in the media is great, but it isn’t enough. We need to start reconsidering the value we place on gender in our lives, and in others’ lives. We need to start considering, as a society, that all people are worthy of respect and of life regardless of how we feel about gender, gender identity and gender expression.

And we as a trans community have to think about our safety, something that a lot of trans women never had to worry about before they transitioned.

Goody, Goody Two Shoes

I remember reading a comment about a trans woman about a trans woman using a bathroom and the person said that trans woman couldn’t be transgender because she wore jeans, a tee shirt, sneakers, and didn’t wear makeup. That if she really was transgender then she would be wearing a dress and heels and have makeup on.

I’m a Trans Woman – And I’m Not Interested in Being One of the ‘Good Ones’
Everyday Feminism
By Vivian Taylor
May 29, 2015

A month or two after I started living full time out as woman, one of my friends suggested I talk to an acquaintance of his, an older trans woman who had been out for years.
[…]
What actually happened was that she showed up and asked why I wasn’t dressed like a woman. I was wearing skinny jeans, a studded belt, and an ironic t-shirt. I liked how I looked. I looked, in my opinion, like a queer woman in her mid-twenties on her day off, which, shockingly, I was.
[…]
There was a woman I met soon after moving back up to Boston in 2011. She had transitioned in her teens, and most folks wouldn’t know she was trans unless she wanted to tell them. She had a real heart for women who were just starting transition, but she had expectations for those people.

She couldn’t stand “bricks.” She explained that bricks were women who looked “like a man in a dress.” A cinderblock was even worse. A trans guy who was too femme was feathery.

Sometimes the trans community is most critical of how we look, some of us have a dated imagine of how we should present ourselves. The trans police want to enforce their view of how a trans person should look.

But the thing is women come in all shapes and sizes, some are very feminine while others look quite masculine and trans people come in all difference shapes and sizes and some of us are very feminine while others look quite masculine.

But you know what’s worse than being somebody’s idea of a bad tr*nny? Being somebody’s idea of a good tr*nny, an acceptable tr*nny.
[…]
“All the other trans people I’ve known are always so stressed out and unhappy, and are just so difficult. You do an amazing job of making people comfortable.”

And by then I was ready to leap on him to get him to be quiet. The only other trans person he knew, as far as I was aware, was standing a few yards away. I don’t know if she heard that or not, but I really hope not.

And then there is the left handed compliment,

Here’s the thing: People fucking despise trans women. Often the nicest thing they can thing of to say to trans woman is “Gosh, you are so little like a trans woman!” Being trans is something to avoid, to exclude, to escape, at worst to nobly bare up under.

I once was on a panel for the movie Gen Silent and part of the discussion was about trans etiquette and after the discussion I was making my rounds talking to the attendees, then one woman came up and told me that she never knew I was a man.

Agh! I wanted to head slap her and ask her weren’t you listening for the last half hour.

Breaking News…

Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis is going to jail!

Kentucky clerk gets jail time for failing to issue same-sex marriage licensesCNN
By Eliott C. McLaughlin, Sonia Moghe and Catherine E. Shoiche
September 3, 2015

Ashland, Kentucky (CNN)A federal judge Thursday ordered Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis to jail for refusing heed a U.S. Supreme Court order legalizing same-sex marriage, and she will stay there until she complies with the ruling.

During the hearing, one witness told the court that Davis had denied her a marriage license three times, and when Davis took the stand, the clerk explained that she could not issue the licenses because of her religious beliefs.
[…]
U.S. District Judge David Bunning, however, apparently felt she deserved jail time, but he also told Davis she could end her incarceration by complying with the Supreme Court order and telling her deputy clerks to do the same.

They wanted a martyr, now they have one to rally around the flag. The Christian far right wanted someone to rally around and now they have.

Many are claiming that her religious rights are being violated; she is being force to issue same-sex marriage licenses against her religious beliefs. There are a number of politicians who are saying that the rights of one group should not diminish the rights of another. I have a question for those politicians who are saying that, would it be alright then for a clerk to refuse a marriage license for an interracial couple? Would it be alright for a clerk to refuse to file divorce papers?

The U.S. District Attorney said “Government officials are free to disagree with the law, but not disobey it.” Another point, she swore on a Bible to uphold the U.S. Constitution, not to uphold Bible.

I also wonder how much she if being driving into her position.

Is Kentucky’s Infamous Anti-Gay Clerk Getting Taken for a Ride by Her Lawyers? Slate
By Mark Joseph Stern
August 31, 2015

Davis’ application to the Supreme Court is less an application for a preliminary injunction than a sententious protest against Obergefell. It accuses the Obergefell majority of “redefining” marriage—a staple of right-wing argot—three times. It sneers that the ruling was decided by a bare “5-4 majority.” It quotes, extensively and approvingly, the Obergefell dissenters’ ominous warnings about the apocalyptic clash between marriage equality and religious freedom. And, in case you didn’t get the point, it actually refers to “same-sex ‘marriage’ ”—complete with contemptuous scare quotes around “marriage.”

It would be easy to write a story mocking the application’s histrionics and thinly veiled animus. But quite frankly, I’m growing a bit concerned about Davis’ lawyers. Davis is being represented by the Liberty Counsel, a far-right fringe group that specializes in anti-gay litigation. (Naturally, it is also a Christian ministry and a tax-exempt nonprofit.) Founder and Chairman Mathew D. Staver has used Davis’ case to raise money and boost publicity for his group, going so far as to hold a rally for Davis. In his spare time, Staver has continued to participate in the Faith and Freedom radio show; in recent weeks, he has described the newly gay-tolerant Boy Scouts as “a playground for pedophiles” and compared acceptance of Obergefell to turning over a Jew to the Nazis.

Law firms regularly use sexy cases to increase their own profiles, and it’s perfectly fine to bandy about your client to further a constitutional cause. (Gay rights litigators do it all the time.) But Staver is taking things too far. The first sign of trouble arose early in the case: When a federal judge ordered Davis to issue licenses or be held in contempt of court, the Liberty Counsel advised her to disobey the ruling. Good lawyers don’t usually tell their clients to defy lawful court orders, especially when jail time is a real possibility. Yet the Liberty Counsel didn’t mind putting their client at risk—perhaps because the idea of a middle-aged woman being hauled off to jail for purportedly following her conscience would send thousands of anti-gay Americans reaching for their pitchforks (and checkbooks).

I also wonder if this could be the reason behind her stand, did they find a willing person to make a stand as a rallying focal point? And now she is in jail.

Update 9:00PM

Candidates repossess to the jailing of Kim Davis the New York Times reports that,

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said on Thursday that Ms. Davis jailing was an act of “judicial tyranny,” and in a statement he called on “every Believer, every Constitutionalist, every lover of liberty to stand with Kim Davis.”

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky told CNN, “I think it’s absurd to put someone in jail for exercising their religious liberty.”

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas said on Twitter that he would go to Kentucky on Tuesday to support Ms. Davis. “We must end the criminalization of Christianity!” he wrote.

But not all the candidates thought that way,

At least three candidates, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Carly Fiorina, the former Silicon Valley executive, said that as a government employee Ms. Davis was obligated to carry out the law, despite personal religious objections.

In a radio interview on Tuesday, Ms. Fiorina, who has been forceful about the rule of law, said, “Is she prepared to continue to work for the government, be paid for by the government, in which case she needs to execute the government’s will, or does she feel so strongly about this that she wants to sever her employment with the government and go seek employment elsewhere where her religious liberties would be paramount over her duties as a government employee?”

Learn About The New Law Going Into Effect…

On October 1^st we will be able to change our birth certificates without surgery with a letter from our doctors. CTAC is proud to co-sponsor a webinar with GLAD and other trans organizations around New England.

The Judge Did The Right Thing.

In telling the parents that they had no right to tell their adult daughter could not have Gender Confirming Surgery.

Judge tells transgender woman she CAN have reassignment surgery despite parents' last-ditch attempt to stop it

• Christine Kitzler, 48, identifies as a woman but is still biologically male

• Was due to have surgery yesterday before her parents blocked it

• Klaus and Ingird Kitzler argued Christine was unfit to make the decision

• However tonight a judge has ruled that she understands the risks

• Kitzler previously said she would rather die than go on living as a man

Daily Mail
By Associate Press and Chris Pleasance
PUBLISHED: 2 September 2015

A transgender woman has been told she can have gender reassignment surgery after her parents' made a last-gasp legal challenge in an attempt to stop it.

Christine Kitzler, 48, who identifies as a woman but is still biologically a man, was scheduled to have the operation yesterday, but it was halted after parents Klaus and Ingrid Kitzler protested that she is mentally unfit to make the decision.

They said a childhood learning disability and bouts of depression indicated Kitzer was mentally unsound and asked for a temporary guardian to be assigned.

However, a judge has now ruled that the operation may go ahead, saying despite Kitzler's past mental issues, she had shown an ability to understand the decision she faces. The surgery may now take place as soon as tonight.

Not only that but during the hearing the judge stepped up to…

During his testimony, Klaus repeatedly referred to Kitzler as 'he' or 'my son', using the male pronoun 38 times in 45 minutes of testimony.

He was eventually asked by the judge to swap to a female, or gender neutral pronoun, after which he began using 'that person' instead.

Bravo!

What were the parents’ wishes? “I would love to have a son back who goes to church with us on Sunday mornings.” You know what, I doubt that she would want to attend the church that they go to.

Blood Wars

Someone once told that they went to donate blood and they filled out all the forms and the tech was getting ready to put in her IV when the blood bank supervisor came out on the collection floor and in a loud voice said “We don’t allow transsexuals to give blood!”

Puget Sound blood bank sued by transgender womanKOMO News
By Donna Gordon Blankinship, Associated Press
Published: Sep 1, 2015

SEATTLE (AP) - A transgender woman has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against a Seattle-based blood bank, saying she was fired after changing her donor profile to female to match her reissued birth certificate.
[…]
A long-time donor to the organization formerly known as the Puget Sound Blood Center before her transition and before becoming an employee, Binschus was accused of falsifying her donor record after the organization changed its policy on gender identification, according to her attorney, Jillian T. Weiss.
"I think It's important for employers to understand that a transgender woman is a woman. Whatever they may have been thinking about who she is, according to the state of Washington, she is a female," Weiss said. "To be fired because she says so is a violation."

After she was fired,

She was told to remove books and pamphlets related to gender identity from the office because a co-worker considered them controversial. She was accused of letting her advocacy interfere with her work. And she was referred to as "his/her" in an email from a superior, according to the lawsuit.

I can’t help but wonder if her treatment was related to the FDA discriminating policy of banning trans people, and gay men from giving blood. Did the policy embolden the workers there to harass and discriminate against her?

To The FDA, Everyone Transgender Is a Gay Man
There's a secret in the federal blood donation policy: it treats all transgender people — male or female — like they're gay or bisexual men.
The Advocate
By Dawn Ennis
February  02, 2015


The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in December that it would soon reevaluate policies to allow more gay and bisexual men to donate blood, but health and civil rights advocates say the administration still enforces a “heterosexist bias” against transgender donors.

The policy in place since 1983 indefinitely banned men who have had sex with men from donating blood, but after years of lobbying from medical organizations, activists, and politicians, the FDA said the policy would be reevaluated. Later this year, the FDA is expected to officially lift the lifetime ban, and instead enforce a one-year ban following the last time a man had sex with another man, and remained HIV-negative.
[…]
But what has not been reported is that in addition to turning away all MSM, the FDA has a policy on the books that disregards the authentic gender expressions of transgender men and women which also prevents them from giving blood.

Are they going to argue that being trans also prevents trans people from working in blood banks?

Jobs!

Anyone who is trans and looking for a job knows how hard it is to find one when you’re trans. There are thousands of excuses why they didn’t hire you and none of them are because you are trans even though they gun hoe to hire you until they find out you are trans then you can just hear the ice forming, but that might be changing.

TransTech Helps Transgender People Get Jobs In Tech And, Soon, The White HouseTech Crunch News
By Megan Rose Dickey
September 1, 2015

Transgender and gender non-conforming people are at risk of facing injustice and discrimination wherever they are: in their childhood homes, schools, the workplace and even in line at the grocery store.


This discrimination can lead to missed education and professional development opportunities, which is where TransTech comes in. TransTech’s goal is to develop pipelines to employment and ultimately, independence, for trans people throughout the world.

TransTech Founder and CEO Angelica Ross (pictured above) knows first-hand how difficult it can be to get a job as a transgender person. When Ross began her transition to living as a woman, her employer fired her, her family alienated her and she was introduced to sex work and the adult industry. Ross eventually decided to teach herself how to build websites, and later worked with nonprofit organizations that were looking to serve transgender communities around employment. She soon realized that those types of services could be a lot more effective.
[…]
“I always have believed in the value of the diversity and resilience, and just really the different skill sets that our community has,” Ross said. “But we’ve never been able to find the right platform and find the right environment for us as a community —  for us as a professional community. So that’s what I am doing with TransTech — creating that professional environment.”

That is what I believe, that diversity is good for business.

I remember IBM when you could spot an IBM employee a mile away, they looked like they were made from a cookie cutter. A blue suit with a thin blue tie and a white shirt with a 1960 flat top haircut. So when two hippies came with an idea with an idea for computers it was rejected… big is beautiful, small is bad. Personal computers no way! That idea is just a passing fad; mainframes are the way to go.

We all have different thought patterns that was formed by our race, ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, our sexual orientation, and gender identity and that diversity is what can make a business succeed.

Bigots?

I thought about the title, was it too harsh? Was it the right word to describe them? Were they just misguided or was what they did bigotry?

Hillsboro High students walk out over transgender dispute
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Doug Moore
September 1, 2015

Her decision [to be treated like other female students] spread quickly through the small Jefferson County school district and, on Monday morning, students at Hillsboro High School walked out in protest. During the walkout, Lila was locked in the principal’s office. She said she and administrators worried about her safety.

The student walkout came on the heels of a School Board meeting Thursday that drew a large crowd — parents concerned that Lila is getting special rights at the expense of other students. Most of the students at Monday’s protest were opposed to accommodations for her. A smaller group gathered in support.

“The girls have rights, and they shouldn’t have to share a bathroom with a boy,” said Tammy Sorden, who has a son at Hillsboro High. It is fine to be different, she said, but it is not right to give Lila special treatment “while the girls just have to suck it up.”

Students and parents interviewed after the walkout were overwhelmingly in support of keeping Lila, 17, out of the school facilities for girls.

So it is not just a vocal minority that is against her, they fear those who are different.

FoxNews 2 wrote,

"It wasn`t too long ago white people were saying I don`t feel comfortable sharing a bathroom with a black person and history repeats itself." said Lila Perry.

This is what I said this morning, we have seen this argument made before as Ms. Perry said “It wasn`t too long ago white people were saying I don`t feel comfortable sharing a bathroom with a black person and history repeats itself." and they said the same thing about gays and lesbians sharing bathrooms.

It always goes back to bathroom whether it is Governor Wallace, or Anita Bryant’s "Save Our Children" campaign, or Ted Cruz, they all used bathrooms to justify their bigotry.

In the Post-Dispatch article this sums it up perfectly,

…I’m not comfortable with it,” said Britney Heimos, a 2008 Hillsboro graduate who was at the school to pick up her brother. “There is nothing wrong with being different. But when you are different, there are sacrifices.

I think that should be the mantra of bigots everywhere.

The Supreme Court Says Do It!

The Supreme Court has refused to hear the case of the court clerk religious discrimination case.

BREAKING: Supreme Court: Kentucky Clerk Must Issue Marriage Licenses
The court today turned down Kim Davis's appeal, meaning she must issue licenses to all eligible couples beginning Tuesday or face penalties.
The Advocate
By Trudy Ring
August 31 2015

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied Rowan County, Ky., Clerk Kim Davis’s request for a stay of a federal judge’s order for her to issue marriage licenses to all eligible couples, meaning she and her staff must comply beginning Tuesday or face fines and possible jail time, the Associated Press reports.
[…]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit last week turned down her request for a stay of his order, meaning that she would be required to start granting licenses today. Her lawyers, with the right-wing group Liberty Counsel, filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court Friday. Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees appeals from the Sixth Circuit, referred the appeal to the full court, which turned it down without comment, according to the AP.

I remember another case where religion was used to justify discrimination; Governor Wallace stood in front of the school door and used the a Bible to justify segregation.

George Wallace Stood in a Doorway at the University of Alabama 50 Years Ago Today
The Alabama governor famously protested the integration of the state university by two black students.
US News
By Debra Bell
June 11, 2013

In January of 1963, following his election as Governor of Alabama, George Wallace famously stated in his inaugural address: "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

The staunch conservative demonstrated his loyalty to the cause on June 11, 1963, when black students Vivian Malone and James A. Hood showed up at the University of Alabama campus in Tuscaloosa to attend class. In what historians often refer to as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door," the governor literally stood in the doorway as federal authorities tried to allow the students to enter.

It was wrong then and it is wrong now.

The latest news is that she is ignoring the court order's and refusing to issue any marriage licenses. According to the Washington Post this morning,

MOREHEAD, Ky. — The office of Kim Davis, the elected clerk of Kentucky’s Rowan County, rejected requests for marriage licences from the first two same-sex couples to enter the courthouse Tuesday — just hours after the Supreme Court ruled against a request from Davis to be excused from issuing such licenses.

Davis did not make an appearance at the counter as the courthouse opened, leaving employees to deny couples on her behalf. A woman at counter said Davis was “doing reports.”

When Davis emerged, she declared that she was not issuing any licences.

“Under whose authority?” she was asked.

“Under God’s authority,” she said.

I Turned In My Homework

I just sent in my homework. Hun? I thought you graduated.

It is homework for a guest lecture I am giving at UConn in a couple of weeks, I had to send my Bio, a synopsis of my lecture and some reference material for the students to read.

My lecture is for a class called “Out to Lunch.” It is at the Rainbow Center and they have a series of lectures on current LGBT issues over lunch. My talk is

“Transgender Activist History: From World War II to the Present”
The lecture will look at transgender activist from World War II until the present. It will cover the history of the movement and notable transgender activists such as Sylvia Rivera, Dallas Denny, Virginia Prince and Christine Jorgensen. In addition, the lecture will look at the Stonewall Uprising from a trans-perspective and will cover legislative victories, defeats and betrayals, both locally and nationally.

And the reference list was,

Fienberg, L. (1998). 'I'm glad I was in the Stonewall riot'. Worker’s World. Retrieved August 1, 2009. From http://www.workers.org/ww/1998/sylvia0702.php

King, D., Ekins, R., (2000), Pioneers of Transgendering: The Life and Work of Virginia Prince, GENDYS 2k, The Sixth International Gender Dysphoria Conference, Manchester England. http://www.gender.org.uk/conf/2000/king20.htm

Sontag, D. (2015, August 29). Once a Pariah, Now a Judge: The Early Transgender Journey of Phyllis Frye. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/us/transgender-judge-phyllis-fryes-early-transformative-journey.html

I have at the end of the PowerPoint three pages of references; I had to cut it back to three references for the students to read.

I actually gave this presentation for the first time back in 2009 at another OTL lecture. The idea for this talk came about because of two events. The first was at the True Colors conference that year, I went to a workshop about LGBT history but it was really just LG history and afterward I talked to the woman giving the workshop about the lack of the “T” and she said that she was that familiar with our history… um why did you call it LGBT History? And she also had a PhD after her name.

The other thing was at a Pride, since it was 2009 and the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising they had all these posters of people who took part in the uprising and they had no trans people (Hmm… does that sound familiar?). When I questioned them about it what do you think they said?

When I was asked to give the lecture back in 2009 on a trans topic the first thing that I thought of was to do one on our history.

So anyway, for the last couple of weeks I have been working to bring it up to date and it was nice that the New York Times had that article the other day about Phyllis Frye, it kind of filled in some gaps that I had about her and I also added the Cooper Donuts uprising in 1959.

Lightning Does Strike

That is the way I look at it.

Transgender Dating From a Lesbian’s Point of View
The Transgender Guide
By Tina Foster

My first experience with a transgender MtF was online. I had used a dating site to put up a profile because, well, I was looking for companionship and wanted to reach outside my small town to find a female lover. One of my responses was from a transgender woman. She was very up front about it, didn’t try to trick me or anything like that – and I was intrigued, because I’d never dated one before, and I pride myself on my open-mindedness. So I figured “Why not?”

As soon as I spent time with her, I never thought of her as anything but a woman. She looked like a woman, acted like a woman, spoke like a woman, moved like a woman. She was (IS) a woman. It wasn’t her fault that she was born with the wrong outer shell. Who am I to question how one genetic code didn’t line up correctly while she was in the womb?
[…]
Bottom line is this: A person that has the unfortunate instance to be born with the wrong parts, doesn’t make that person automatically male or female. This identity is inside the person. No matter what society wants to try to brainwash into our heads, genetic mistakes are made – and the people born with gender identity issues should be able to rectify those issues.

I know if I had been born in a male body – with my obvious female self inside – I would want to set her free.

I think for them the hard part is to get over their initial hesitancy and I think the way to overcome that is to get out with other lesbians and let them know you as a person. The problem that I find is that at my age most are married or dating.

There are a lot of senior lesbian events going on around the area, there are dances, game nights, walking and bicycling groups, and now senior centers are holding LGBT events.

The way I look at it is that people get hit by lightning every day and so there is always a chance of meeting someone.

# # # # #

I wrote this Sunday afternoon and then Sunday night on “I Am Cait” what did they talk about during the show? Dating. They talked about how hard it is to date when you’re trans. If you tell them right away they run away and if you tell them once the relationship develops they feel betrayed. Or they want to have sex right away because they think being trans is all about “SEX.”

Our Champions

Our history of activism goes way back and for those who are just coming out might not know our pioneers who blazed the way for us.

Once a Pariah, Now a Judge: The Early Transgender Journey of Phyllis Frye
New York Times
By Deborah Sontga
August 29, 2015

HOUSTON — Nearly four decades before Caitlyn Jenner introduced herself to the world, Phyllis Randolph Frye came out as a transgender woman in a far less glamorous way. No Diane Sawyer, no Vanity Fair.

It was the summer of 1976. As Bruce Jenner, 26, was celebrating his decathlon victory at the Montreal Olympics, Phillip Frye, 28, was admitting defeat in suppressing his gender identity. He, becoming she, had already lost a lot: He had been forced to resign from the military for “sexual deviation.” He had been disowned by his parents, divorced by his first wife and separated from his son. He had been dismissed from several engineering jobs.

One of her first activism was repealing the crossdressing laws in Houston in 1980 and she would go on to accomplish,

Having felt the sting of gay groups’ rejection long ago, Ms. Frye led some of the earliest sorties in what became a pitched battle for transgender inclusion. She repeatedly argued that homophobia and transphobia were entwined, and made the case that many transgender people are themselves gay.

At the same time, Ms. Frye was one of the first to act on the need for transgender advocates to develop their own legal theories and agenda. In the 1990s, she convened annual transgender law conferences, where grass-roots activists from around the country first met and developed an aspirational transgender bill of rights. Between events, she helped tether the growing network through group emails she called her “Phyllabusters.”

She would then tackle “Gay Inc.”

Like others, Ms. Frye was frustrated that gay groups had distanced themselves from the transgender cause. Although transgender activists like Sylvia Rivera had played a prominent role at Stonewall, a rift developed afterward. In the early 1970s, mainstream gay groups came to emphasize “a gender normative model of gay identity,” as Mr. Minter, the White House appointee, put it.

“The Gucci-shoes crowd, the gays and lesbians on Wall Street, they saw us as a politically embarrassing subgroup,” Ms. Frye said. “In Houston, the gay and lesbian political caucus thought we were going to slow down their progress. So it became, ‘If they’re going to shut us out, then we’re going to do our own thing.’”

She goes on to fight the HRC and to lobby Congress for gender inclusive legislation long before it became commonplace for trans people to lobby.

I meet her at Fantasia Fair in Provincetown MA in 2003 when she was given the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award and she gave a keynote address.

Doctors, Doctors…

It seems like that the question that I get asked the most by trans people is where can they find a surgeon. There are more surgeons who do top surgery for the guys but it is still not enough and it is even worst for us women.

Transgender Americans face dearth of sexual reassignment surgeons
Americans seeking sexual reassignment surgery have found that specialists are few and far between
Al Jazeera America
By Lisa Fletcher
August 28, 2015

But little did he [Jayden Thai] know that his journey would mean confronting a medical system ill prepared and often unwilling to embrace transgender patients.

In fact, a Web search reveals just how few American doctors specialize in performing complicated surgeries to change physical and sexual characteristics as part of some people’s gender transitions. TSSurgeryGuide.com lists fewer than 30 physicians who offer sexual reassignment surgery, mostly located on the coasts.

While a few more surgeons might not have been listed, that number is probably in the ballpark, according to medical professionals who told America Tonight that people who are transgender are dangerously underserved by the medical system, especially when it comes to surgical specialties.

They do not list the GCS surgeon here in Connecticut that is doing MtF surgery, nor do they list the surgeon in Boston who I hear is also doing surgery for MtF. And there are a number of surgeons who are doing top surgery for FtM here in Connecticut and western Massachusetts.

Dr. John Taylor is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon based in New Jersey – and one of the few doctors in the US who specializes in sexual reassignment surgery.

“I remember getting a phone call in my office on day from the chief of surgery, who was screaming at me on the other end of the line, saying – and I’ll never forget this – he said, ‘Don’t you even think about bringing those freaks into my hospital!’” Taylor recalled. “So, that’s what I was dealing with when I started this.” 

And that is how many hospitals think about our surgery. That is why Dr. Bowers is no long doing surgery in Trinidad Colorado, the Catholic hospital there decided that after some 40 - 50 years that they did want to do trans surgeries any more. I think with now having insurance coverage for trans healthcare you will see more doctors doing surgery for us.

Talking to trans people it seems like they are still having to fight for insurance coverage, when they call their insurance companies the first answer they get is no. For many trans people they don’t appeal the refusal, we have to learn to advocate for ourselves. In addition, the doctors and healthcare providers have to learn how to properly code the treatment.

Saturday 9: Viva la Vida

Crazy Sam’s Saturday 9: Viva la Vida (2008)

Every Saturday I take time off from written on serious topics to have some fun…

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) The song refers to the singing of choirs. Have you ever been in a choir or a vocal group? 
Nope, I would probably be banned from singing

2) Chris Martin sings of when he "ruled the world." If you were in charge and had infinite power, what would you change right away?
Ban guns except for muzzle loaders.

3) Chris used to be married to actress Gwyneth Paltrow. USA Today, The Washington Post and The Daily Telegraph have all run articles about how Gwyneth seems to annoy so very many people. What celebrity gets on your nerves?
None of them because I don’t care what celebrities do or say.

4) Coldplay's first big hit was, "Yellow." What color are you wearing right now?
Aqua. I am wearing and aqua robe.

5) Sam remembers when she used to hear this song everywhere and can't believe that was 7 years ago! When is the last time you had a similar "my, how time flies!" moment?
On a warm summer night, a couple of weeks ago when I was coming back from a meeting, As I was driving down the main drag in town the “House of the Rising Sun” came on the radio, I was transported back to the 60s coming home from hanging out at the McDonald’s on the Turnpike.



6) In 2008, when "Viva la Vida" was popular, John Grisham's latest legal thriller, The Appeal, was jumping off bookshelves. What have you read this summer?
The Symphony of Ages trilogy by Elizabeth Haydon and Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade: A Novel (Lord John Grey Book 2) by Diana Gabaldon.

7) Thinking of books: Let's say a biographer has taken the task of writing your biography. What would you title your life story? 
Phoenix, the reborn.

8) 2008 is also the year Paul Newman died of cancer. Name a Newman movie. 
I bet also everyone will name “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

9) Random question: Do you like garlic?
Yes, but not too much to overpower the other ingredients.

Good!

Maybe schools are starting to get the message.

Alaska school district policies embrace transgender students & employees
Christian Examiner
By Kelly Ledbetter
27 August, 2015

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Christian Examiner) – A controversial new "don't-ask" policy towards which paves the way for transgender and gender nonconforming students and employees to choose facilities based on preference and not on gender has been published by the Anchorage School District (ASD).

The administrative guidelines provide that students may use sex-specific locations like restrooms or locker rooms according to their preference and that they may be addressed by the name or pronoun of their choice.

The guidelines are so broad that transgender students do not have to provide a reason for their request to use a different sex-specific facility.
[…]
ASD executive director Margo Bellamy, who ensures Title IX and EEO compliance, told Alaska Dispatch News, "It's the same as what we do to make sure kids are not discriminated against because of race or nationality or ability."

Bellamy said all students are protected from sharing share a locker room with someone who makes them uncomfortable. In the 2014-2015 academic year, Bellamy assisted with 102 cases regarding transgender issues for students or employees, almost 100 more than the district handled in 2008.

They got it right! If any student feels uncomfortable they can request to change or go the bathroom in a single stall bathroom.

Many school policies for the trans student to either use the staff facilities or a single stall bathroom or as in one case a janitor’s closet and that is wrong and violates the law. But the Anchorage school district school policy allow trans students to choose the facility that they are most comfortable using, some trans people are comfortable using private facilities. The policy also allows cisgender students to use single person facilities.

I Wonder…

…If this will make any difference. It sounds great but will it make any difference, will the hospitals and insurance companies look for a way to get around it?

Landmark settlement sets new standard for treating transgender patients
Lancaster Online
By Heather Stauffer Staff Writer
August 27, 2015

A recent federal crackdown is being hailed as a landmark in establishing standards for nondiscriminatory care of transgender patients, and industry experts say every health-care provider should take it as a warning and ensure compliance.

The recent settlement reached between The Brooklyn Hospital Center and Department of Health & Human Services' Office of Civil Rights marked the first time the federal agency actively enforced a part of the Affordable Care Act that prohibits discrimination.

The Brooklyn Hospital Center was accused of putting a transgender patient who identified as female in a double room with a male. As part of the settlement, the center agreed to update its transgender nondiscrimination policy and provide appropriate training to staff.

"Through the Affordable Care Act, for the first time, individuals are protected from discrimination on the basis of sex, which includes gender identity, in health programs," said Jocelyn Samuels, Office of Civil Rights director.
[…]
The Brooklyn Hospital Center was accused of putting a transgender patient who identified as female in a double room with a male. As part of the settlement, the center agreed to update its transgender nondiscrimination policy and provide appropriate training to staff.

"Through the Affordable Care Act, for the first time, individuals are protected from discrimination on the basis of sex, which includes gender identity, in health programs," said Jocelyn Samuels, Office of Civil Rights director.

Some important facts for us to know. First, we are covered by HIPAA. That means that the hospital staff cannot talk about the fact that we are trans, it is on a medical need to know basis. Second, they cannot put you in a private room because that is segregation. They have to put you in a ward of you gender identity without your consent (for me I would love that). In other words if they say they are putting you in a private room at no extra cost that is a violation of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the Connecticut non-discrimination ward. Lastly if someone complains in the ward that they don’t want to be in the room with you, they cannot move you out of the ward.

Genderless

Not genderqueer but genderless, possible intersex.

This Is What It’s Like Growing Up With No Gender
“I don’t know what it feels like to feel like a girl or feel like a boy.” Lola Phoenix has a rare condition that stops male and female sex hormones being produced, but the NHS refuses to help. Phoenix tells BuzzFeed News what life is like when you’re agender.
BuzzFeed LGBT Editor, UK
By Patrick Strudwick
Aug. 24, 2015

Some people who do not identify as female or male – or whose identity is a mixture, somewhere in between, not akin to any gender, or simply unfixed – call themselves genderqueer, or gender-fluid. But Phoenix, like many others, prefers “agender” – a total absence, internally, psychologically, of gender.

The West London Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) – one of the NHS’s main clinical hubs for people needing gender-based healthcare – has refused to reduce Phoenix’s breasts. Phoenix produces the letter the consultant psychiatrist Dr Andrew Davies wrote earlier this year to Phoenix’s GP explaining why he would not recommend breast reduction and would, instead, discharge Phoenix. In it, Davies concludes:

“Whilst we acknowledge her strong wish for a smaller breast size and acknowledge her reported internal sense of being agendered we would not countenance endorsement of an irreversible surgical procedure unless the individual had been able to demonstrably consolidate a social transition including name change to the preferred gender role.”
[…]
“I have septo-optic dysplasia [SOD],” says Phoenix, before explaining that this rare disorder comprises malformations, present from birth, that include an underdeveloped optic nerve, a dysfunctional pituitary gland, and the total absence of a small part of the brain called the septum pellucidum.

“So I’m blind in my left eye and I don’t make a lot of hormones – cortisol [the stress hormone], thyroid hormones, oestrogen, testosterone, or growth hormone.”
[…]
It took doctors three months to diagnose the condition after Phoenix, then named Amanda, was born. The baby spent the first six months of their life in hospital, jaundiced, premature, and with a body temperature that frequently plummeted to inexplicably low levels. Some babies die before doctors diagnose SOD; before Phoenix was diagnosed, the medical staff were so baffled they resorted to extreme measures to try to keep baby Amanda safe.

Nature is amazing with all its variety but humans don’t like people they can’t fit in to the binary gender boxes. We like to fit thing in to a nice list diagnosis; she is not trans, so she doesn’t fall under any treatments for trans people. You would think that somewhere in the 68,000 ICD-10 codes they could find one to help her,

It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times

That is how the state of the trans can be defined for those with privileged it is the best of times for those without it is the worst of times.

A Tale of Two Trans Americas
A trans woman of color becomes the first in the White House, while another becomes the 16th [Since the article was written the count is sadly up to 19] to be murdered this year.The Daily Beast
By Jay Michaelson
August 19, 2015

For transgender Americans, it is the best of times and the worst of times.

The best: Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, a young trans woman of color, has just been hired by the White House, the first openly transgender person to join its staff.

The worst: Tamara Dominguez, another young trans women of color, was murdered in Kansas City at 3 a.m. Saturday, in what police are investigating as a possible hate crime. By various counts, she is the 16th transgender woman to be murdered in 2015.
[…]
Are these two stories connected, save by commonalities of race, gender, and time? Has the increased visibility of transgender people—Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox, Janet Mock—led to a backlash focusing on the most vulnerable members of the LGBT and POC communities?
[…]
At the same time as this horrific race- and gender-based violence escalates, it is undeniable that trans* people are thriving like never before in America and around the world (consider the remarkable milestones in Thailand and Nepal, for example).

Governmental milestones like Freedman-Gurspan’s appointment, and changes in the military’s policy toward trans soldiers, are examples of that. Although Freedman-Gurspan will not be working directly with trans issues in her new role, Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, made a point of highlighting her advocacy work in a statement accompanying her hiring.

Many people do not have any idea that there is such a divide between the two worlds, if you are white and have a job it is a different world you live in than a person of color or another racial minority and who don’t have a job. Additionally, if you are trans and cannot assimilate into society you are living from day to day be what every means you can survive.

Drop Them!

Drop you draws for an inspection!

If a Republican South Dakota legislator has his way that is what we all will be doing before going in the bathroom.

'Visual inspection' could be part of state law to determine gender identity
Rapid City Journal
By Bart Pfankuch
August 23, 2015

PIERRE | A proposal by a state lawmaker could require that visual inspection be used as part of a process to officially determine a person's gender in South Dakota, including for high school athletes.

The battle over how to officially determine someone's gender arises from a controversy over whether transgender high school students can declare their own gender when participating in sports.

A high school athletic group enacted a policy last year that allows students to decide for themselves which gender group they will compete with. But some lawmakers are unhappy with that concept.
[…]
The proposal from Rep. Roger Hunt, R-Brandon, would rely on official birth certificates and visual inspections for determining gender rather than allowing people to decide and declare their gender on their own.

You got that, a “visual inspections for determining gender!” Talk about intrusive government, you can’t get much more intrusive then looking between your legs. The committee voted 6-5 to advance the bill.

Sense Of Community

They are dropping like flies, the number of LGBT bars are shrinking fast. Here in Connecticut there are rumors that in Hartford the Polo Club is closing, Triangles in the Danbury area has closed. The bars proved a sense of community, a place where you didn’t have to worry about what people think, a place to let your hair down. There is an interesting video about “The Last Lesbian Bar” that looks at this trend,



The video has a number of reasons why this trend is happening. It is possibly the online dating sites; no one has to go to bars to meet people. It could also be economical, the bars were usually located in low rent districts and as the price of rent has increased it maybe forcing the bars out of business or it could be that with discrimination decreasing there is no longer a need for a safe space. And it could also be because of marriage equality, LGBT people are settling down to married life and are staying home with their spouse and children watching TV with their dog sitting at their feet.

I know that a lot trans people went to Triangle when they had trans night. Many of the LG bars did have a trans night one night a month usually on their slow nights.

How important are LGBT bars to you? Do you visit them? What do you think is replacing them?

Common Sense

Ever since the Reagan era we have been fighting the war on drugs, now a police chief is using some common sense.

A town in Massachusetts decided to stop arresting drug users. 2 months later, here's how it's going.
Upworthy
By Eric March
August 18, 2015

Back in June 2015, Gloucester, Massachusetts, police chief Leonard Campanello announced that his officers would no longer arrest drug users who approached them seeking help.

Instead, the department announced they would refer the drug users to treatment, and front the cost.

Gloucester has been struggling to combat a big heroin problem.

Between January and March 2015, the community experienced four overdose deaths — more than in all of 2014.
"It's a provocative idea to put out there," Chief Campanello told Upworthy, "But we knew we had to do something different."

Needless to say, there were many questions about whether Campanello's experiment would actually work.

How much money would it cost? Would it actually reduce the number of overdose deaths? Would drug users actually trust the police, knowing that admitting to possession could technically get them arrested at any time?

After two months, the early results are in, and they look promising. Very promising.
[…]
With nonviolent drug users popping up in prison at alarming rates, it's great to see evidence that when you treat addicted persons like people instead of criminals, good things can happen.

The program is still very young and way too early to say results are positive, but I feel that it brings sanity to the war on drugs. Treat it as a medical problem and not as a criminal problem.

Nature v. Nurture

That question will never get answered; however we are getting closer to understanding the nature of our gender identity and the New York Times article on gender dysphoria takes a look...

How Changeable Is Gender?
New York Times – Opinion
By Richard A. Friedman
August 22, 2015

In fact, recent neuroscience research suggests that gender identity may exist on a spectrum and that gender dysphoria fits well within the range of human biological variation. For example, Georg S. Kranz at the Medical University of Vienna and colleagues elsewhere reported in a 2014 study in The Journal of Neuroscience that individuals who identified as transsexuals — those who wanted sex reassignment — had structural differences in their brains that were between their desired gender and their genetic sex.

Dr. Kranz studied four different groups: female-to-male transsexuals; male-to-female transsexuals; and controls who were born female or male and identify as such. Since hormones can have a direct effect on the brain, both transsexual groups were studied before they took any sex hormones, so observed differences in brain function and structure would not be affected by the treatment. He used a high-resolution technique called diffusion tensor imaging, a special type of M.R.I., to examine the white matter microstructure of subjects’ brains.

What Dr. Kranz found was intriguing: In several brain regions, people born female with a female gender identity had the highest level of something called mean diffusivity, followed by female-to-male transsexuals. Next came male-to-female transsexuals, and then the males with a male gender identity, who had the lowest levels.

In other words, it seems that Dr. Kranz may have found a neural signature of the transgender experience: a mismatch between one’s gender identity and physical sex. Transgender people have a brain that is structurally different than the brain of a nontransgender male or female — someplace in between men and women.

This study is widely known in the trans and it has been accepted with mixed feelings. What makes the trans community leery is that there might be more than one vector that cause gender dysphoria and just because a trans person doesn’t show and difference on the MRI does mean that they are not trans. The article goes on to say,

Is it really so surprising that gender identity might, like sexual orientation, be on a spectrum? After all, one can be exclusively straight or exclusively gay — or anything in between. But variability in a behavior shouldn’t be confused with its malleability. There is little evidence, for example, that you really can change your sexual orientation. Sure, you can change your sexual behavior, but your inner sexual fantasies endure.

No surprise here, trans people knew for a long time that there is a gender spectrum and I wouldn’t have used “inner sexual fantasies” but more like “inner sexual desires.”

Then the article becomes questionable,

Dr. Cecilia Dhejne and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have done one of the largest follow-up studies of transsexuals, published in PLOS One in 2011. They compared a group of 324 Swedish transsexuals for an average of more than 10 years after gender reassignment with controls and found that transsexuals had 19 times the rate of suicide and about three times the mortality rate compared with controls. When the researchers controlled for baseline rates of depression and suicide, which are known to be higher in transsexuals, they still found elevated rates of depression and suicide after sex reassignment.

THIS strongly suggests that gender dysphoria in young children is highly unstable and likely to change. Whether the loss of gender dysphoria is spontaneous or the result of parental or social influence is anyone’s guess. Moreover, we can’t predict reliably which gender dysphoric children will be “persisters” and which will be “desisters.”

I would like to know is the details of the study, those who had regrets did they follow the Standard of Care (SOC)? Also how did society affect them? Did they have any resistance from their family, or their religion, or from their friends? How well did they integrate into society?

Several studies have tracked the persistence of gender dysphoria in children as they grow. For example, Dr. Richard Green’s study of young boys with gender dysphoria in the 1980s found that only one of the 44 boys was gender dysphoric by adolescence or adulthood. And a 2008 study by Madeleine S. C. Wallein, at the VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands, reported that in a group of 77 young people, ages 5 to 12, who all had gender dysphoria at the start of the study, 70 percent of the boys and 36 percent of the girls were no longer gender dysphoric after an average of 10 years’ follow-up.

In ThinkProgress today there was a rebuttal by Zack Ford,

On Sunday, the New York Times published an op-ed from Richard A. Friedman, Weill Cornell Medical College professor of clinical psychiatry, who asks, “How changeable is gender?” Though Friedman sets up his piece by discussing the biological underpinnings of gender identity and the experience of being transgender, he ultimately explains his “skepticism” about assisting transgender people to change their bodies to match their identities. “After all,” he concludes, “medical and psychological treatments should be driven by the best available scientific evidence — not political pressure or cherished beliefs.”

To justify his skepticism, Friedman distorts some studies and ignores others to arrive at conclusions that support his apparent biases against transition. Under the guise of medical opinion, he mimics the flawed talking points used by some of the biggest opponents of transgender equality

Mr. Ford goes on to explain the flaws in Mr. Friedman article,

The study, he boasts, assessed suicide rates of transsexuals who had undergone transgender surgery “against controls.” What he doesn’t mention is that the controls were not transgender people who had not undergone surgery as one would expect, but in fact, the cisgender general population. “When the researchers controlled for baseline rates of depression and suicide, which are known to be higher in transsexuals, they still found elevated rates of depression and suicide after sex reassignment.” All that the research actually shows is that surgery did not alleviate all mental health issues; it does not actually provide any information about the impact of that surgery.

Friedman also fails to mention that the mortality rate in the study was only statistically significant for people who underwent surgery before 1989. For all those who had their surgery after that (1989–2003), the increased mortality was not statistically significant. Though he briefly acknowledges the impact that stigma, discrimination, and violence might instead be playing, he brushes this possibility aside to assert, “The outcome studies suggest that gender reassignment doesn’t necessarily give everyone what they really want or make them happier.” The Swedish study, the only example he cites, suggests no such thing. In fact, the researchers say as much in a disclaimer: “No inferences can be drawn as to the effectiveness of sex reassignment as a treatment for transsexualism” because “things might have been even worse without sex reassignment.”

About Mr. Friedman assertion that only a small fraction of children actually go on to transition,

There is nothing in these studies to warrant this dangerous encouragement for parents to reject their kids’ identities. In fact, the studies suffer from major flaws that suggest otherwise. Kelley Winters, who studies and writes about transgender medical policy, explains that the criteria for diagnosing Gender Identity Disorder in Children (GIDC) are not particularly consistent. Many recent studies rely on diagnosing children “on the basis of gender nonconforming behavior, with no evidence that they identified as other than their birth-assigned gender.” Thus, children who are actually distressed about their gender identity — the “persisters” — are grouped along with larger numbers of effeminate male-identified boys and masculine female-identified girls — the “desisters.”

Thus, these studies might actually be proving the opposite of what Friedman wants them to. The fact that, in these overbroad samples of gender non-conforming kids, researchers do find persisters suggests that the benefit of the doubt ought to favor these kids who might actually be trans. After all, as this population has been studied more, researchers have learned that they actually identify as consistently and innately with their gender identity as their cisgender peers. Parents risk nothing by letting kids express themselves however they might, but could cause great harm by rejecting the identities of kids who actually feel distress over their gender. The “it’s just a phase” stereotype, as Winters calls it, “has underpinned policies that keep gender dysphoric children in the closets of their birth-assigned gender.”

And finally Mr. Ford sums up the article with,

Friedman has no research to demonstrate any benefit to attempting to suppress a child’s gender expression. Still, he bases his skepticism for affirming transgender kids on the “best available scientific evidence.” If he had actually cited that evidence in his op-ed, instead of disregarding it to support his own biases, he may have drawn a different conclusion.

It seems to me that the New York Times wants to show they are balanced in their coverage of trans issues and it that is the case they should do better research before they publish an article.

Your Certs Please.

A discussion is going on with healthcare providers about training therapists, endocrinologists, and other health providers. Some are asking for a certification program while others are balking over the idea.

We as a community have been complaining that we don’t want to have to training our doctors when we go in for healthcare and have been saying we need more healthcare providers for our hormones and other medical needs. Well the healthcare providers have been listening and have started to offer certification for medical professionals. I know of two seminars this year that are offering certifications, one is in Chicago and other is in Boston. The Boston conference…

Transgender Health Conference
Join us at Fenway Health’s Transgender Health Conference, October 2-3, 2015, for an educational program for health care providers and members of health care teams in community health centers, safety-net organizations and student health clinics. Local and nationally-recognized experts in the field will lead participants through the fundamentals of providing high-quality, compassionate care for transgender people. The conference is co-sponsored with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers.

Hosted at Fenway Health’s beautiful ten-story health center overlooking Fenway Park, this conference is produced by our team of medical, mental health, and health research experts. The conference program includes foundational material for all members of health care teams as well as specialized content for both medical and behavioral health care providers.

Conference topics will include:

• Gender Affirmative Health Care: Terminology, Demographics, and Epidemiology
• Gender Identity Development
• Cross Sex Hormone Treatment & Therapy
• Gender Affirming Psychotherapy
• Models of Care
• Working with Children and Families

This is what we have been looking for! Hopefully we will have more healthcare providers that will help us.

But…

You know there always is a “but.”

The worry is that insurance providers will only accept letters for hormones, surgery, and other medical treatments from certified healthcare providers. We do not want this to happen!

I think you all can see the drawbacks to requiring certified therapists to get our hormones, what if there are no certified therapist in your area? Will you be expected to travel 30, 40, or even 50 miles to a certified doctor? How long of a wait will you have to get an appointment? There are a little more than a handful of endo her in Connecticut that provide hormones to us and the wait to get an appointment is almost six months.

Will our next battle be fighting insurance companies over certs for healthcare providers?

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens

PA 15-132 An Act Concerning Birth Certificates (Part 6 of 6 – Thoughts)

I have been lucky to be involved in the legislative process for almost ten years now; I have come from a wide-eyed newbie sitting around the table to holding my own at the table. I know legislators, I know the governor, the mayor of Hartford, a CT Supreme Court Justice, and other state officials. Once I was at a fundraiser for the governor and a state legislator introduced me by name to another legislator as a political activist, it wasn’t so much that he called me a political activist but the fact that he knew my name.

I have learned that you cannot pass legislation on your own, that you must work with other organizations. The trans community is too small, we lacks the political muscle and deep pockets to do it on our own, we need coalitions. We need to make connections and network with other organization and not just with the LGB community. In 2011 when we passed the non-discrimination law we had labor unions, religious organizations, non-profits, and state agencies backing the legislation.

It is our personal stories that make a difference, I was at a “town hall meeting” for the marriage equality bill and I was speaking about our anti-discrimination bill and talked about the discrimination that I faced being trans. Afterward a lesbian couple came up to me and asked how can they help with our bill.

This bill was different from the non-discrimination bill in that we didn’t really need to go out and talk about the legislation because there wasn’t any opposition to the bill and also we didn’t need as much grassroots support as we did for the other bill. As a result we could keep it low key and under the radar most of the way until the media picked the story up. So that was the second lesson tailor your tactics to bill, not all legislation needs a full frontal attack. And the third lesson is be flexible, adjust your strategy as changes arise.

What was the same between the two bills was going down to the wire and not voting on the bill until the last minute; both the anti-D bill and the Birth Certificate bill were nail biters. They were not for anyone with weak stomachs.

But what gets me even more is the fact that I am a Social Worker, all the tables that I have sat around at least half of those at the table were other social workers, and many of them are classmates. If you look at the photo from the night the gender inclusive non-discrimination law was passed, three of the people in the photograph are classmates from the UConn School of Social Work. The other two are our lobbyist and a lawyer from GLAD.

Not only are social workers found in the political arena, but we are there where change happens or where people care for others. On the committee for LGBT Aging Advocacy there are other social workers, when we took a trip to New York City to visit SAGE senior center three of the ten who went were UConn SSW graduates. People think of social workers as school counselor or therapists but in reality we are much more, we are politicians (the mayor of Hartford is an UConn SSW graduate), we are non-profit administrators, we are managers of homeless shelters, we are in all professions.

PA 15-132 An Act Concerning Birth Certificates (Part 6 of 6 – Thoughts)
PA 15-132 An Act Concerning Birth Certificates (Part 5 of 6 – The Senate)
PA 15-132 An Act Concerning Birth Certificates (Part 4 of 6 – The House)
PA 15-132 An Act Concerning Birth Certificates (Part 3 of 6 – Public Health Committee)
PA 15-132 An Act Concerning Birth Certificates (Part 2 of 6 – Side Tracked)
PA 15-132 An Act Concerning Birth Certificates (Part 1 of 6 – The Beginning)

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Update Dec. 27, 2022

The signing of the Birth Certificate law by the governor.

The governor gave me the copy that he signed for us and I donated it to the Central Connecticut State University's Elihu Burritt Library.

So It Is Alright That They Refused To Serve Her

A trans woman was ordered out of the bar and refused service, she claimed discrimination.

Tempe bar cleared of transgender discrimination allegations
KTAR News
By Cooper Rumell
August 21, 2015

TEMPE, Ariz. — A bar in Tempe has been cleared of any wrongdoing in a discrimination investigation.

The case stems from a claim made by Briana Sandy, a Phoenix-area transgender woman, who claimed a bartender at Tempe Tavern told her to leave because, “we don’t serve your kind.”

A 10-week investigation by Tempe’s Diversity Office found no evidence to support Sandy’s claim.

Why did they find no evidence to support her claim?

A report filed by investigators said witnesses consistently report the bartender told Sandy, “I am sorry, we cannot serve you,” and her gender identity did not play a role in that request.

So it was a case of “she said, he said” and the reason he refused to serve her?

Tasso explained the bar is located adjacent to an adult bookstore. He has an established practice of advising bartenders not to serve customers from that store which does not violate Tempe’s discrimination code.

I wonder how the bartender knew she came from the book store?

It is very hard to prove discrimination, first you have to prove you are a member of a protected class and that it was the bases of the discrimination. It is especially hard to prove discrimination when you are applying for a job or you are in a store and they don't wait on you. If a salesperson doesn't help you was it because they discriminated against you or was it because they thought you were with someone else?

I have a feeling that her being trans had something to do with it but the bartender never said the magic words “we don’t serve your kind.” he just said “we cannot serve you”