It Is Bathrooms Again

It seems like everything revolves around bathrooms, no matter how much we say that bathrooms are not a problem that trans people have been using bathroom forever and ever the bigots keep bring it up to instill fear against us.

The Attempt to Keep Transgender People Out of Bathrooms Is Working
More than half of trans people surveyed have avoided public restrooms over the past year.
Mother Jones
By Samantha Michaels
July 12, 2016

This year, states across the country have struggled with the question of whether transgender people should be allowed to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity rather than the sex listed on their birth certificate. In March, North Carolina enacted a law blocking trans people from public bathrooms of their choice, and lawmakers in many other states have considered similar legislation. Proponents of these bathroom bills say they want to protect women and girls from male sexual predators; opponents say the legislation discriminates against a vulnerable minority.

Some new statistics out Monday from the National Center for Transgender Equality show how bathroom access—or lack of access—can affect the health and safety of transgender adults. In the largest-ever survey of transgender people in the United States, the NCTE, an advocacy group, heard from more than 27,000 transgender adults in August and September 2015.

The survey they are talking about is posted here, it is preliminary data from the U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) and some of the findings are…

• 59% have avoided bathrooms in the last year because they feared confrontations in public restrooms at work, at school, or in other places.
• 12% report that they have been harassed, attacked, or sexually assaulted in a bathroom in the last year.
• 31% have avoided drinking or eating so that they did not need to use the restroom in the last year.
• 24% report that someone told them they were using the wrong restroom or questioned their presence in the restroom in the last year.
• 9% report being denied access to the appropriate restroom in the last year.
• 8% report having a kidney or urinary tract infection, or another kidney-related medical issue, from avoiding restrooms in the last year.

And it is becoming a lot worst as the Republicans continue their drive to all things LGBT back into the closet.

I avoid using public bathrooms mainly because they are yucky. One time I was driving home on I-81 in Virginia and UGH! The bathroom was horrible with pee and under toilet paper on the floor, if it wasn’t for the fact that I had another 400 miles to drive I would have kept my legs crossed.

The nicest bathroom that I was in was a tossup between Yale with their heated toilet seats or Smith College with their murals in the bathrooms in the art museum.

Summer Camp

I wish they had a summer camp like this when I was a kid.

Camps for transgender teenagers: 'It was almost magical'
Huge demand for summer trips in Essex that give young people the chance to have fun and build support networks
The Guardian
By Kate Lyons
July 13, 2016

A year ago, Nick was leaving his house only once a week – to go to Sunday lunch at his grandmother’s house. The 20-year-old from Manchester had dropped out of education because of his anxiety about how people would react to him as a trans man.

A friend he’d met online told him about a summer camping trip run by trans support organisation Gendered Intelligence (GI) and, despite his anxieties, Nick signed up.

“I arrived at the GI camp with no friends, I hadn’t left the house in a year and a half aside from visiting family, and I left full of hope, acceptance, confidence and several extremely strong friendships,” said Nick, who re-enrolled in college shortly after returning from the trip last year.
[…]
As well as participating in traditional camp activities such as canoeing, kayaking, archery and climbing, the group books the swimming pool at the campsite for two afternoons, so they can use it exclusively. For some campers, it is the first time they have been swimming in years.

Over on this side of the pond we also have trans camps, one of the first ones was Camp Aranu’tiq that is located at one time in the Berkshire’s of Massachusetts. A 2014 article in the Huffington Post by Mary J. Moss who writes about the camp,

Camp Aranu’tiq: A Safe Haven for Transgender Kids
The smell of campfires in the night air and the sound of Cicadas outside my window reminded me it was summer in Upstate NY. I haven’t ever liked summer. It’s not just because I am always warm. You’ll never see me wear a coat even on the coldest winter day. That wasn’t the real reason I disliked summer, my childhood was the reason. I loved school as a kid and I didn’t want it to end. I knew that ending of the school year meant loneliness. The other kids looked forward to a summer of playing hopscotch and marco polo in the pool. To most it meant a summer of overnight camps with ghost stories and s’mores to look forward to. I longed for an overnight camp but that wasn’t in the cards for me. Most of my childhood was in a wheelchair which wasn’t conducive to me playing hopscotch or marco polo. School days or rainy days meant the other kids were inside and would keep me company. But hot summer days meant all of the kids were outside and I was alone. I wished for a summer full of rainy days but I knew that wasn’t realistic.
[…]
My son attended his first year at Camp Aranu’tiq in 2011. I remember the drive with my parents and my son, Chris, to their New England location. My son was so overjoyed he could barely contain himself. We arrived in the beautiful woodsy location to see many parents and kids with that same anticipation. Nick greeted us as did his mom and dad who both work at Camp Aranu’tiq. He gave Chris a t-shirt and name badge where he put his first name and the pronoun he preferred to be called. He proudly wore his badge with Chris and “he” on it and he ran off to find his bunk mates. My parents and I walked the beautiful trail to find his bunk. It overlooked the water and was quite rustic. Each bunk house had several cots in bunk bed style. A camp counselor was assigned to sleep with the campers in every bunk. It smelled of pine trees and had dirt floors that reminded you of real camping. It was perfect.

Now there are other camps around the country,

Camp Aranu’tiq has grown from one New England camp and about 60 campers in 2010 to the addition of a West Coast camp, a family camp and a leadership camp with 400 campers in 2014. My son attended Camp Aranu’tiq 3 years in a row. He made lifelong friends and wonderful memories. My son spoke of his love of Camp Aranu’tiq when we taped the Katie Couric TV show in 2013. (see video [the video is embed in the Huffington Post article is you want to watch it, it is 34 minutes long]) As he proudly says to Katie, “Camp Aranu’tiq is like any other camp the kids just happen to be transgender.”

This is great for many of the children they are not “out” at home and also many times the schools that these children attend are not conducive to trans students so this gives them time to be themselves in a non-judgmental setting.

Not A Platform To Stand On

The Republican National Committee has just finished their platform and if you are LGBT this is not good news, they want to roll back all the civil rights gains that we have made.

Full GOP Platform Committee Approves Amendment Defining Marriage as 'Union of One Man and One Woman'
Republican National Committee Take Giant Step Backwards on LGBT Civil Rights
The New Civil Rights Movement
By David Badash
July 11, 2016

The full 2016 Republican Platform Committee has just passed an amendment redefining marriage as only the union of a man and a woman. The RNC platform committee is meeting this week in Cleveland, and earlier Monday a subcommittee expected to vote to make marriage a states' rights issue opted instead to keep its longstanding call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Just now, the full platform committee voted to include a platform making marriage the union of one man and one woman, only.

And that wasn’t the only thing that they are against,

Earlier Monday morning subcommittees voted for amendments that call for to the Bible being taught in schools, for transgender people to use the restroom of the gender they were assigned at birth, voted to keep a call for a ban on same-sex marriage in their 2016 national platform, and voted to support anti-LGBT conversion therapy.

Let’s throw out the First Amendment and have a state sponsored religion not just of any old religion but of the extreme conservative Christians. Let’s throw out years court rulings that has established gender identity and expression is cover under Title VII and Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause hey we are just going to ignore that pesky old thing, heck what does the Supreme Court know about the Constitution. And what do 64,000 therapists know? The 200 member American College of Pediatricians says conversion therapy works, a little electroconvulsive therapy goes a long way to make a person straight, one zap and they will agree to anything.

So who is behind this anti-LGBT Republican platform? Why it is none other than Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council an organization that has been classified as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Tony Perkins Wants The GOP To Endorse Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy
Right Wing Watch
Submitted by Brian Tashman
7/11/201

Earlier today, the platform committee of the Republican National Convention considered a number of anti-LGBT resolutions.

Tony Perkins of the far-right Family Research Council, who is serving as an RNC delegate from Louisiana, reportedly proposed an amendment calling for the endorsement of ex-gay “conversion therapy.” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus met with him about the amendment and, according to Time’s Zeke Miller, told him that he missed the deadline but “can bring it up on the floor”…

 I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he had a hand in the other anti-LGBT planks.

---

While we are on Republican politics…

Caitlyn Jenner Takes Half-Step Toward RNC Appearance
The Advocate
By Neal Broverman
July 9, 2016

Caitlyn Jenner isn't wavering in her support for Republicans; she just booked an appearance in Cleveland, the site of the Republican National Convention, two days after the confab begins on July 18.

Jenner will appear at a "Big Tent Brunch" hosted by groups like Equality Ohio and socially-liberal conservatives, including the American Unity Fund and the Log Cabin Republicans, the latter being an LGBT GOP organization. Former talk show host Montell Williams, a Republican LGBT rights supporter, will introduce Jenner at the event, which will call for the party to embrace queer rights in its new platform.

Jenner, once an avid supporter of antigay, anti-trans Texas senator/failed Republican presidential nominee Ted Cruz, recently expressed admiration for presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. Jenner said she believes Trump is "very much for women" — something that Rosie O'Donnell and even Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly may find laughable — and an opponent of North Carolina's House Bill 2, which struck down gay rights laws in the state and mandated which public restrooms transgender people can use; Trump recently defended HB2.

Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?

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And on the other side…

Dem platform hailed as ‘most LGBTQ-inclusive’ in history
The Washington Blade
By Chris Johnson
July 6, 2016


Advocates are hailing the draft 2016 Democratic Party platform as the most LGBT-inclusive in history for its unprecedented support for LGBT rights.

Although the draft document calls for passage of federal comprehensive LGBT rights legislation, it does not explicitly endorse the Equality Act.

An entire section devoted to LGBT rights is included in the proposed platform, which was unveiled late last week and no fewer than 35 times invokes the name of Donald Trump to denounce him as a bigot who’d be disastrous in the White House. At no time is Hillary Clinton named.

The section on LGBT rights applauds last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of same-sex marriage, saying it “recognized LGBT people — like every other American — have the right to marry the person they love.” (In 2012, Democrats for the first-time endorsed marriage equality in the platform largely as a result of a campaign spearheaded by the now-closed LGBT group Freedom to Marry.)

But the plank says more is needed after the marriage decision, including passage of federal comprehensive LGBT rights legislation. In the 2012 platform, reference was made only to a trans-inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination in employment.
[…]
On military service, the platform references “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and the end of the transgender military ban, saying, “Our military is strongest when people of all races, religions, sexual orientations, and gender identities are honored for their service to our country.” On civil rights, the platform says, “Democrats will always fight to end discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.”

Hmm… which platform recognizes the human rights of all people?

A Frat See The Light

While the frat that I was a member of back as an undergrad didn’t even reply when I sent them a copy of my probate order name change and they still send me stuff under my old name.

Transgender men will now be accepted into one of America's oldest fraternities
Mic
By Mathew Rodriguez
July 10, 2016

Transgender men looking to join a fraternity may now join any chapter of Chi Phi, one of America's oldest fraternities. The body declared that anyone who is legally recognized as male is eligible for membership, regardless of gender at birth.

"We felt this amendment to Chi Phi's Constitution would change the conversation surrounding transgender men and their ability to join the Fraternity," Sam Borchart, undergraduate chairman of the Committee of Membership, said in a press release.

He added, "One change is never a stopping point, and we hope this opens the door to further discussion about inclusivity, particularly for transgender men who want to join us in brotherhood."
[…]
Of course, introducing trans youth into fraternity culture may prove difficult, given the realities of racism and rape culture that are inherent to many aspects of Greek life. Hopefully Chi Phi can not only include trans members, but keep them safe, as well.

Amen to that, all those dunking nights could very easily spell disaster for the fraternity and their trans members.

This Is Something That We Knew

And now research is bearing it out, gender is a spectrum and is not binary.

Even through this is an article from last year it is worth repeating,

Nature and sex redefined – we have never been binary
A recent article in Nature suggests that biologists ‘now think’ the idea of two sexes is inaccurate; in fact, says Vanessa Heggie, for decades biologists have been at the forefront of campaigns against this simplistic understanding of sex
The Guardian
By Vanessa Heggie
February 19, 2015

 A recent article in Nature claims that biologists ‘now think’ that sex is not a binary feature for human beings – rather than being simply male or female, there are various kinds of sex, such as chromosomal sex or hormonal sex, and all of us exist across several spectrums of sexual identity.

Two sex; five sex; nine sex models
The claim that we are non-binary is well evidenced, but the claim that this is what biologists ‘now think’ seems to ignore much of the history of sex and gender research. This is made clear by the very first comment on the article, signed ‘Anne Fausto-Sterling’. Fausto-Sterling is a pioneering researcher into sex and gender identities, and published controversial work in the early 1990s suggesting that there were at least five different ways of measuring sex – a publication which is not mentioned at all in the Nature article.

The scientific scepticism of ‘binary’ sex – that is the idea that there are men and women and they can be clearly distinguished – started even earlier. In 1968 the Journal of the American Medical Association carried an article by biologist Keith L Moore, listing nine different components of someone’s sexual identity: external genital appearance, internal reproductive organs, structure of the gonads, endocrinologic sex, genetic sex, nuclear sex, chromosomal sex, psychological sex and social sex.
[…]
(Barr) Bodies of Evidence
Moore wrote his article in 1968 specifically to criticise one form of sex testing: the tests that were being used in international sport to decide whether athletes were eligible to compete as women. Sport is often an arena that absolutely insists that human beings come in only two forms, male or female, and has spent around 80 years trying to find an objective scientific test that will prove that this is the case. So far it has failed.

This failure came as no surprise to many of the scientists working in genetics, or endocrinology, or other areas of the study of sex and gender. At least as early as the 1930s it was scientifically understood that some aspects of biological sex and gender identity might not match in individuals, and surgery and hormonal treatments were used to help people create stable identities. There were several high-profile cases of transgendered athletes in the 1930s and ‘40s, so the idea that sexual and gender identity might be fluid rather than fixed was discussed in the popular press as well as in scientific journals. These stories were part of the reason international sports organisations began to introduce stricter eligibility rules for women’s sports in the 1940s.

So when you see those comments about chromosomes determine sex, they are showing their ignorance, gender is much, much more than chromosomes.

In another 2015 article this time in the Huffington Post the author writes about brain sex.

Neuroscience Proves What We’ve Known All Along: Gender Exists on a Spectrum
By Amanda Koehn in Ravishly.com
January 20, 2015

Ever wonder about the brain’s white matter microstructure diffusivity? Don’t know what the hell we’re talking about? Well, start paying attention . . . because it may be important in determining our gender identity.

Earlier this month, the Medical University of Vienna issued a press release announcing that “the very personal gender identity of every human being is reflected and verifiable in the cross-links between brain regions,” with distinctions specifically in what’s known as brain “white matter.”
Translation: We now have some proof of a neurological distinction between gender identity and biological sex. Says the report:

“While the biological gender is usually manifested in the physical appearance, the individual gender identity is not immediately discernible and primarily established in the psyche of a human being.”

Led by Georg S. Kanz of the University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, the study was composed of 23 trans men, 21 trans women, 23 cis women and 22 cis men. Researchers used a type of MRI (“diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging” is the proper term, should you ever want to sound impressive during a dinner party) to measure diffusion of particles across brain matter. Cis women had the highest diffusivity — which means (bear with me here) that particle movement in white matter brain regions was greatest for this group, followed by trans men. Trans women had lower movement than the former, with cis men having the least.

We are different, we didn’t just wake up one morning and decide “Gee, I think I want to be transgender!” but there is something deep within us that points to our gender… this is who I am.

Nature is very complex and mysterious we will never know all the interworking’s of mind and body, this might be only one vector to why we are trans and it might not be one thing that makes us trans but a whole combination of things that make us feel like we do. But one thing is true for all of us, we just want to live our life in peace.

One Morning I Woke Up…

And thought I want to be discriminated against and fired from my job, thrown out of my apartment, and spit upon. It is not a choice, just like you don’t make a choice in your gender I never made a choice in my gender.

Transgender stories: 'People think we wake up and decide to be trans'
From a teenager whose mum joins him at Pride parades, to a 70-year-old who was sacked five times for being trans, five people tell of their experiences
The Guardian
As told to Kate Lyons
Sunday 10 July 2016

Nikki Hayden, 26, psychology student, London
Until I was about four or five I didn’t know I wasn’t a girl, to be honest with you. One of my earliest memories, about five years old, was being yelled at by a teacher for going to the toilet with the girls. About the same age I realised I was different to these other boys. At the age of nine I refused to have my hair cut. I didn’t have it cut until I was 16, because having it cut was such a torment to me.
[…]
Keith Reynolds, 18, student, Surrey

Transgender clinic services under strain as referral rates soar

A lot of people have it in their head that we wake up and decide to be trans. I want people to know that it’s not a choice. Nothing has happened in my life to make me trans. I was born trans.

I told my mum when I was about 13. She was shocked and didn’t really understand. Then six months later she told my dad and he was so angry. I love my dad but he was a very traditional person. There was a lot of tension. I couldn’t wear men’s clothing, or I couldn’t wear men’s deodorant – it would cause an argument.
[…]
Jenny-Anne Bishop OBE, 70, retired sales manager, scientific instrumentation, Rhyl, Wales

I knew I was trans from about three or four years old. From a very early age I thought one day I’ll wake up and my body will be like my sisters’ and my parents would say: “Oh, we had a girl, not a boy as we thought.”

We don’t get to choose, it chooses us. If we deny who we are it causes great pain and emotional distress and when we do live our lives in our true gender all that stress goes away.

Believe me when I say that the society treats use no one would choose to be trans, it is not fun being an outcast.

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This morning’s Ask Amy column had a question by a gay couple on when to “out” a trans friend.

Ask Amy: Couple wonders about outing trans friend
By Amy Dickinson
July 11, 2016

Dear Amy: My boyfriend and I are a gay couple. We live on a very friendly working-class suburban street and get along well with all the neighbors, all of whom know that we are a couple.

We have a good friend whom I’ll call “Susan.” Susan is in her late 60s and is transgender. It’s not immediately obvious that she was not born female. (Most people probably attribute her low voice to the fact that she smokes like a chimney.) She often comes over to our house and sits with us on the terrace or works with us in the garden.

Our next-door neighbor is a 70-something widower, “Harold.”

I’m sure you can see where this is going. Harold has developed quite a crush on Susan. He flirts with her, gives her flowers, etc. We have no idea if he has even the slightest suspicion that she’s transgender.

Harold is a terribly nice guy, and I would hate to see him get more and more interested, only at some point to perhaps feel that he’s been made a fool of when he finds out the truth.

Do you think we should say anything to him before things go any further?

The fact that Susan is transgender may not really matter at all, because she says she’s not remotely interested in having a romantic relationship with anyone. But then she’s said that before about men, only to get involved with them.

Any advice?

Neighborly

Dear Neighborly: I understand your intentions, and I assume they are 100 percent golden, but your friend “Susan’s” gender identity is her business, and your neighbor’s romantic intentions are his business.

If you want to spare him embarrassment, then why would you embarrass him by outing both of them, thus highlighting your own interest and speculation about his romantic choices?

The most you should do is to urge “Susan” to make her status clear to him. If she is not interested in pursuing any kind of romantic relationship with him, then she should let him know.

If she is interested in a romantic relationship, she should disclose her trans status at some point, but she gets to decide when that would be. If she has had relationships with men in the past, then she has dealt with this before.

Her answer is right on, it is none of your business whether she tells him nor when she tells him.

No Heart Or Soul

The Republicans have introduced a bill that can cause havoc not only to LGBT but to every citizen; they want to give special rights to people who will be able to legally disobey laws just by saying some magic words.

'Enough is Enough': House GOP Leaders Set to Piss on Graves of Orlando Victims
Hearing on Anti-Gay Bill Set for 1-Month Anniversary of Pulse Nightclub Attack
The New Civil Rights
by JOHN WRIGHT
July 9, 2016

House GOP leaders are set to debate a horrific anti-gay bill on the one-month anniversary of the Orlando terror attack, despite a plea from more than 70 groups to cancel the hearing.

Last month, we told you how Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, had scheduled a hearing on the so-called First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) for July 12.

As of Saturday afternoon, the hearing remained on the committee's schedule for 10 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday, and Chaffetz had not responded to the letter from the ACLU, the Human Rights Campaign and dozens of otters local, state and national groups.

“It’s outrageous that Congress would hold a hearing on legislation that would make it legal to discriminate against LGBT people with taxpayer dollars one month after the mass shooting that killed 49 people and injured 53 others at a gay club in Orlando,” said James Esseks, director of the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project. “Congress should instead focus its efforts on protecting people against violence or discrimination, regardless of who they are or whom they love.”
[…]
"The misleadingly named First Amendment Defense Act has nothing to do with the First Amendment and everything to do with sanctioning taxpayer-funded discrimination against LGBTQ people," said David Stacy, HRC's government affairs director. "Enough is enough. It’s far past time to stop the legislative attacks on LGBTQ people and their families.”

The Republican bill will…

First Amendment Defense Act

Prohibits the federal government from taking discriminatory action against a person on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that: (1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.

Defines "discriminatory action" as any federal government action to discriminate against a person with such beliefs or convictions, including a federal government action to:

• alter the federal tax treatment of, cause any tax, penalty, or payment to be assessed against, or deny, delay, or revoke certain tax exemptions of any such person;

• disallow a deduction of any charitable contribution made to or by such person;

• withhold, reduce, exclude, terminate, or otherwise deny any federal grant, contract, subcontract, cooperative agreement, loan, license, certification, accreditation, employment, or similar position or status from or to such person; or

• withhold, reduce, exclude, terminate, or otherwise deny any benefit under a federal benefit program.

Requires the federal government to consider to be accredited, licensed, or certified for purposes of federal law any person who would be accredited, licensed, or certified for such purposes but for a determination that the person believes or acts in accordance with such a religious belief or moral conviction.

Permits a person to assert an actual or threatened violation of this Act as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding and to obtain compensatory damages or other appropriate relief against the federal government.

Authorizes the Attorney General to bring an action to enforce this Act against the Government Accountability Office or an establishment in the executive branch, other than the U.S. Postal Service or the Postal Regulatory Commission, that is not an executive department, military department, or government corporation.

Defines "person" as any person regardless of religious affiliation, including corporations and other entities regardless of for-profit or nonprofit status.

This bill is not a “defense of the First Amendment” but in reality an attack on the First Amendment, it will give special rights to not even all religions but to only a few religious sects to be  able to discriminate against a select group of people which in its self is against the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To discriminate against someone all they would have to say is "It is against my religion." and they can discriminate anyone who they "think" if LGBT, but on the flip side we could discriminate against any straight person just by saying those words (I bet they didn't think of that, it is a two way street.).

The Republicans say they want government out of everyone lives but this bill does the exact opposite, it sanctions discrimination.

Saturday 9: Hotel California

Crazy Sam’s Saturday 9: Hotel California (1977)

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun...

... Because Country Dew suggested it. Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) Composer Don Henley says this song is about the "journey from innocence to experience." Where do find yourself on that journey? Are you more innocent, or experienced? 
It all depends on what you are talking about. There are somethings in life that I am very experienced and somethings that I am innocent.
Just last week I visited a homeless shelter to train their staff and in a couple of weeks I am training the prison staff. I am a little nervous about that, I watch too much “Orange Is The New Black”

2) The lyrics refers to the "warm smell of colitas." Do you know what it is that the Eagles noticed in the air?
I assume that it is some type of flower.

3) The girl in the song had her head turned by luxury, including jewelry from Tiffany's and Mercedes Benz autos. Do you consider yourself materialistic?
I like my toys but I shop for price.

4) This recording has been lauded by music publications for for its long guitar solo. Are you good on the guitar?
Never even strummed one.

5) There's an error in the lyrics and Don Henley can get a bit testy when interviewers bring it to his attention. Here's the lyric: "So I called up the captain and said, 'Please bring me your wine.' He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.'" Do you know what's wrong with it?
Now that you pointed it out, yes. Wine is not spirit; spirits is hard alcohol like vodka and whiskey. 

6) Known as the Eagles' drummer, Henley now spends less time at his drum kit. Sitting at that angle for an extended period of time hurts his back. Sam believes this proves all those warnings she heard from her parents about good posture are true. Do you pay attention to your posture? 
No, and I am paying for it now.

7) Joe Walsh is considered the wild man of the Eagles. Think of your circle of friends. Who is the most unpredictable?
Yes, there is a person like that; however my friends read my blog and you are not going to get me into trouble.

8) In 1977, Star Wars premiered. How many Star Wars movies have you seen?
Only the first three.

9) Random question: "Nosocomephobia" is the fear of hospitals. Are you  nosocomephobic?
No, I don’t mind hospitals as long I am not the one there.

I am going to an picnic in Vermont this weekend so I would be able to reply to your comments and the same thing happened last weekend we were working around the cottage all the long weekend.

Stories To Give You Nightmares

As the executive director of a transgender non-profit and a social worker I hear stories of discrimination that we as a community face every day. I hear stories from trans people and from therapists, some of the stories, some of the stories will just make you want to sit down and cry.

There was a trans woman who was put in a men’s shelter even though it is against the law where she was verbally and physically attacked and thrown out of the shelter. The story of a trans woman who had to go a rehab center where they questioned her about her surgical status, she showed them her birth certificate, passport, and driver license all which listed her as female. But they refused to admit her until she told them her status and when she did they then said that didn’t have a room for her. Or the case of a trans woman who was in the hospital and the staff harassed her and when her therapist complained their answer was “whatever.”

In Ami B. Kaplan blog she writes about the mental health issues that we face.

The Psychology of Stigma against Transgender Women by Men.
By Ami B. Kaplan, LCSW
July 7, 2016

There’s a particular and profound type of stigma and derision in society aimed at femininity in men (or those who are perceived to be men).  This stigma (it could also be called hate, aversion, distaste, repugnance) is very deep and very old in our consciousness, particularly among men.  A man in a dress has historically been fodder for humor and entertainment in movies and in male-bonding rituals.  There’s both an uncomfortable feeling and a forbidden fascination among men with seeing men outwardly showing their feminine side.  Why is this so?

Let’s delve into the male psyche a little to find some answers.  At some point in early development (around ages 2 to 4), the young (cis-gendered) boy must make a developmental leap in order to identify with his Father or as ‘male’. Psychologically (and unconsciously) the thinking goes like this: “I’m like you (the father), I am not like you (the mother)”.  Hence there is a sort of rejection of the mother and specifically with her femininity in the nascent psyche of the young male. (Jessica Benjamin writes about this – see ‘The Bonds of Love’, 1998).  And because this rejection happens in so young a psyche, it is correspondingly harsh and rigid and with little grey area.  Femininity must be rejected in all its forms and additionally is seen as less than and dangerous.  This is a perplexing and scary phenomenon for one so young.  And as Yoda once said: “…fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate…”  One could extrapolate from this that in some cases – this kind of dilemma in one with a weak ego or mental illness could lead to violence such as gay bashing or violence against transgender women. This, I believe is the root of pervasive stigma against men showing femininity and it could be argued that it is the root of homophobia, transphobia, internalized homophobia and internalized transphobia.

I also think that it has to do with the fear of being labeled “gay,” that if he doesn’t make fun of a trans woman he fears that his other male friend will think he might be gay so he over reacts towards the trans woman.

In another article that looks at the suicide rate of trans people and draws conclusions that shows the author’s lack of any knowledge about trans people was published in the Federalist,

The Transgender Suicide Rate Isn’t Due To Discrimination
July 7, 2016
By Daniel Payne

Chelsea Manning—who became a male-to-female transgender after going to prison as Bradley Manning for giving reams of classified information to WikiLeaks—allegedly attempted suicide earlier this week. Manning was taken to a prison hospital after an apparent attempted hanging.

This is not a surprise: “transgender” individuals have an alarmingly high suicide rate, somewhere north of 40 percent by some reliable estimates. A variety of explanations are often given for this astronomical figure, chief among them that transgender people are driven to kill themselves in such large numbers because they suffer from discrimination, bigotry and hatred.

And then the author goes on to equate the trans suicide rate to that of people of color,

There are two problems with this theory. The first is that it utterly ignores the most salient feature of transgender individuals: that they are mentally ill and need serious treatment. This is not a moral or ethical judgment. It is, rather, a fact. Individuals who believe they are a different sex than that of their biology are psychologically ill—self-evidently so—and one would quite reasonably expect a higher suicide rate from a portion of the population that suffers from so significant a mental illness (particularly a mental illness it is fashionable to indulge rather than treat).

The second problem is that the discrimination theory of suicide does not hold up when compared to other minority groups who suffer disproportionate real and perceived amounts of bigotry and negative discrimination. The Centers for Disease Control’s numbers on suicide indicate that the highest rates of suicide over the past 15 years or so belong to…white people. In contrast, in most of the years surveyed black people had the lowest suicide rate among all ethnicities. White suicide actually rose in the period 2000-2014.

He is comparing apple to oranges, discrimination comes in all forms being discriminated because of race is a lot different than being discriminated because gender identity. We do share some forms of discrimination together but there are other more virulent that the trans community faces such as being disowned by our families and having no support network. Research has shown that just by having the support of our families the rate of suicidal thoughts drops down to the level of the general population.

The author goes on to lay the blame on…

Why? Because discrimination is almost certainly a nondeterminate factor in general suicide rates. Mental illness, on the other hand, is very clearly a motivating factor in a great many suicides: the rate of successful suicide is extremely correlative with conditions of mental illness. Since transgenderism is a deleterious psychological affliction, it is wholly unsurprising to find higher rates of suicide among that class of people.

Is the author a therapist? Is he a doctor or a healthcare provider? He is a writer and writes on his blog that he is,

His spare time is spent building compost piles and reading Midatlantic colonial history.

It Is On His Desk

Yesterday the Massachusetts legislature passed the trans public accommodation bill and it is now heading to the governor’s deck and he has indicated that he will sign it.

The Gay-Rights State That Took Years to Protect Transgender Citizens
A new Massachusetts law makes gender-identity discrimination fully illegal. Even in a liberal state, the effort took a long time.
The Atlantic
By Emma Green
July 7, 2016


Massachusetts was the first state in America to issue wedding licenses to same-sex couples. Gay marriage has been legal there for more than 12 years—much longer than in most other places. In 1989, it became the second state, after Wisconsin, to pass discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, and bisexual citizens.

And yet, until this week, Massachusetts law did not fully prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. The state’s House and Senate approved a new law on Thursday, which Governor Charlie Baker has said he’ll sign, that creates public-accommodations protections for transgender people. Although legislation passed in 2011 protected transgender people against discrimination in housing, education, and employment, the new law extends those protections to cover everything from making a purchase at a store to using a bathroom at a public park. When they go about their daily lives, transgender people are now shielded from discrimination and allowed to use facilities in a way that’s consistent with their identity.

In some ways, Massachusetts’s new law is not remarkable. Twenty-eight states don’t have any kind of discrimination protections for LGBT people, and four others exclude transgender people from some or all of their protection measures. But it’s also surprising that a liberal state with strong Democratic majorities in both houses of its legislature has taken this long to pass these kinds of protections for transgender people, particularly because of its history on gay rights.  

What I don’t understand is why they didn’t do this back in 2011 when the non-discrimination bill was passed. Why did they accept a bill that was less than the protection that they had though the courts? They just showed that they could pass the public accommodation coverage even with a Republican governor.

Back before the passage of the 2011 law the courts had ruled that trans people were covered under sex discrimination and because the legislature hadn’t said otherwise gender identity was covered under sex discrimination. But all that changed when the legislature did act and pass a bill that didn’t include public accommodation.

Back then I talked to a number of lawyers who are active in LGBT human rights and they all agree that with the passage of the 2011 law coverage for public accommodation was now up in the air. They said that since the court cases were based on the fact the legislature never saying otherwise we were covered under sex discrimination but now the legislature said that they didn’t want us to be covered in public accommodations all the court precedent was no longer valid.

Well in the end it all worked out in our favor.

---

Update 4:15 PM

Massachusetts Gov. Signs Transgender Public Accommodations Bill
Gov. Charlie Baker signed the bill into law today, assuring that residents can use the public facilities aligned with their gender identity.
The Advocate
By Mari Brighe
July 8, 2016

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker today signed landmark legislation allowing transgender people to use bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity and banning discrimination in public accommodations based on gender identity.

The House and Senate worked out differences between each chamber's versions of the legislation this week, with both approving a final version Thursday, and sent it to Baker for his signature. Over the past several months, Baker, a moderate Republican, had been cagey about whether he would sign such a bill, but he eventually indicated he would approve it.
[…]
Praise also came from Jennifer Levi, transgender rights project director at Boston-based legal group GLBTQ Advocates and Defenders. “So many people have worked hard and acted courageously to bring us to this moment,” Levi said in a prepared statement. “We owe a debt of gratitude to the legislators who have stood up for equality, and to the transgender people and their families who have told their stories.”

You Can’t Do That At Work

Because of Title VII an employer is required by law to maintain a workplace free from discrimination.

Bojangles sued over alleged harassment of transgender worker in Fayetteville
Fayetteville Observer
By Greg Barnes
July 6, 2016

The federal government filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Bojangles Restaurants Inc. alleging that a transgender person working at a Bojangles in Fayetteville was sexually harassed and retaliated against.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the lawsuit on behalf of Jonathan Wolfe, the EEOC said in a news release.

According to the release, Wolfe "was repeatedly subjected to offensive comments about her gender identity and appearance. The belittling statements often demanded that Wolfe, who identifies and presents as a woman, engage in behavior and grooming practices that are stereotypically male, because that is the sex Wolfe was assigned at birth."
[…]
According to the release, the comments were made by the restaurant's manager and assistant managers. The release did not identify the managers or provide Wolfe's age or address.

The release said derogatory comments about Wolfe continued, even after she had reported them on at least two occasions.

Anyone want to guess what the company had to say?

Brian Little, spokesman for Bojangles Inc. in Charlotte, said the fast-food chain has a policy prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex.

"In this case, Bojangles' decision to terminate this employee's employment was based upon misconduct including insubordination, and had nothing to do with the employee's sex or gender identity," Little wrote in an email.

Let me guess what happened; Ms. Wolfe complained to the manger about the mistreatment and the manager told her to stop complaining and Ms. Wolfe didn’t, the manger then fired her for insubordination. This is what usually happens in these case when the employee complains about discrimination …the boys didn’t mean anything by calling you names  …you’re just not a good sport, can’t you take a little kidding? …they are just having a little fun these are what we usually hear when we complain about harassment on the job and we are the ones to get fired for complaining about the mistreatment.

---

This afternoon I am going to a Democratic fundraiser for state candidates. I am asked many times why? Why donate? Well mainly because the Republicans in the state have done everything in their power to derail LGBT rights in the state. They had proposed an amendment to have us register as trans people with the state DMV long before Texas proposed registering trans people, in 2011 a Republican senator proposed an amendment to the non-discrimination bill requiring all transgender people to register with the Department of Motor Vehicles just like rapist do with the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. They said it was for our own protection.

Last year a Republican introduced a bill to strip our insurance coverage from us which was defeated in committee, the committee chairs let it die without even having a vote. That was because of strong Democratic opposition and a governor who was against the bill. The Republicans have nearly voted unanimously against LGBT legislation and the Democrats have nearly voted unanimously for LGBT legislation.

Instead of sending in a donation I attend the LGBT fundraiser for a very important purpose, to be a visible trans person. I get to shake hands with the Speaker of the House, talk to the state Comptroller, and other legislators and elected officials and show the trans flag still waves strongly.

Hopefully I Will Not Have To Keep My Legs Crossed…

…While I drive through Massachusetts and not have to go the bathroom. The Massachusetts state legislature is one step closer to passing a non-discrimination law to cover public accommodation.

Lawmakers reach deal on transgender bill
Boston Globe
By Joshua Miller
July 6, 2016

After a decade of emotional and divisive debate, Massachusetts House and Senate leaders came to final agreement on a transgender rights bill Wednesday and are likely to send it to Governor Charlie Baker by the end of the week.

The bill would allow people to use the restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms that match their gender identity, and would protect transgender people from discrimination in museums, malls, libraries, restaurants, and other public accommodations.

Baker has said he believes no one should be discriminated against based on their gender identity and backed an earlier iteration of the bill. But on Wednesday, a spokeswoman stopped short of saying if he would sign the compromise bill into law.

The governor is being very coy in whether he will sign the bill, at one time he said that he would sign the bill but now it seems like he might be backing off from signing it.

Communications director Lizzy Guyton said Baker “looks forward to carefully reviewing the final bill.”

Um… why doesn’t he read it now? The amended bill will be posted on the state legislature website when it is voted upon.

An article in the Recorder has a good history of the bill.

The panel worked to resolve several differences between versions of the bill that passed the Senate on a 33-4 vote and later the House by a 116-36 margin after debates that were at times emotional.
[…]
The compromise includes a provision requiring the state’s attorney general to develop guidelines for law enforcement on how to deal with people who make “improper” claims of gender identity. Such language had been included by the House, but not the Senate.

Critics, including the Massachusetts Family Institute, argued that male sexual predators could claim gender identity as a way to gain access to women’s bathrooms or locker rooms.

Baker, after being noncommittal for months, announced before the House vote that he would sign the bill if it reached his desk with the language pertaining to improper gender identity.

Another disagreement between the chambers was over the timing of the proposed law. The Senate wanted it to become effective immediately upon the governor’s signature, while the House bill had an effective date of Jan. 1.

Rep. John Fernandes, a Milford Democrat, said the compromise bill would require the attorney general and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination to draft guidelines for implementing the law by Sept. 1, with all provisions taking effect by Oct. 1.

The committee met the governor’s demand for him to sign the bill so hopefully the governor will not go back on his word.

It Is Not Us.

We have always been going the bathroom and now the Republicans and the news media want to sensationalize it, so don’t blame us. If you want someone to blame look in the mirror.

The standoff over the transgender 'bathroom bill' is costing millions
CNBC
By Scott Cohn
July 6, 2016

The economic power of the LGBT rights movement is about to be put to the test in the standoff over a so-called "bathroom bill" in North Carolina.

LGBT advocates are renewing their calls for boycotts after North Carolina legislators adjourned late Friday without making substantial changes to the law, which requires transgender people to use public bathrooms and changing facilities based on the sex "which is stated on a person's birth certificate." The law, signed by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in March, also bars localities from enacting ordinances to the contrary.

The Justice Department said the measure violates civil rights laws and is seeking a court order to block it.
[…]
"Businesses who care about being bullied by the Human Rights Campaign more than they care about the citizens they serve or the profits their company makes are doing so to their own detriment," said Executive Director Tami Fitzgerald [of the North Carolina Values Coalition ].

The Republicans have made us the punching bag so that they can get votes, they realize that trans people using the bathroom can bring in donations and energize their base at the sake of the trans community. While the media has realized that by sensationalize us they can sell more ads.

I Think That The Jury Is Still Out

I don’t think that there is any definitive evidence that DES causes gender dysphoria.

Women say DES made them transgender
WTSP Ch 10
By Dion Lim
July 05, 2016

Back in May, 10News WTSP did an investigation into a drug called Diethylstilbesterol, also known as DES.  More than 5 million women from the 1930s through early '70s took the hormone to prevent miscarriages and a whole host of female health problems.

Instead, it was discovered to cause vaginal cancer and other serious side effects.  Some in the medical community believe it also manipulates gender identity.

After the initial story aired, hundreds came forward from around the country and around the globe; women who believed DES was what caused them to become transgender.

I do not know if my mother took DES, what I do know is that my mother had a number of miscarriages between when my brother was born and when I was born. Two it was around that time that DES was given to prevent miscarriages, three everyone who would know is now dead including the doctor who treated my mother and four when I asked my mother if she took any medicines while she was pregnant with me she replied that she didn’t  remember which I found to be a strange answer.

The article goes on to write about the stories of a couple of trans women and it has another link to another article on DES,

DES is a complicated drug. Given to 5 million women during the 1940s through early '70s, it was meant to prevent miscarriages.

“Many of these women were being told they were given super vitamins.”

[Dr. Dana]Beyer explains there was often no specific dosage, and women were told to take the drug “as needed."  For some, the dosage resulted in more than 50,000 times the estrogen of today’s birth control pills.
[…]
But according to Beyer, who herself was assigned a male at birth, there is something much bigger.

"It was one of those moments … a faceplate moment where you go, 'Oh my God, it really is so obvious.  But nobody wanted to deal with it."

She believes the drug also makes the sons of DES mothers transgender.

Beyer's DES research happened more than a decade ago.  So why didn’t it get more attention then?   Why was it dismissed by so many doctors, and not recognized by the mainstream medical community today?

The answer is twofold.

“It’s unfortunate. [At that time in America] we couldn't talk about it.  It was too scary.”

But this is America now. The age of Caitlyn Jenner and other high-profile transgender men and women. Then there is the HB2 trans bathroom debate raging in North Carolina.

The second reason, Beyer admits is because the study was flawed.

“We didn't have medical records of those of us in the '50s and '60s. We need money to get research to undersign and come up with good data.”

Without that "good data" researchers today can't call Beyer's study credible.

And there in lays the rub, most of the medical information has been lost and without that information you can’t do research. My mother’s doctor was just a town doctor like you see on a Norman Rockwell painting who practice was just another room in his house. Records, what’s that? They kept their records in their head…”I treated Mrs. Miller’s boy for mumps.” That was how records were kept back then.

I don’t think we will never know, but one thing that I think points against it is that there are still trans children coming out and their mother’s didn’t take DES.

---

A little known fact, back in 2007 I was interviewed by a reporter from WTSP when I lobbied for ENDA and the James Bird/Mathew Shepard Hate Crime bill

Changes Are Coming

Changes for the better are coming for trans healthcare, maybe one day we will be taken out of the DSM like gays and lesbians almost fifty years ago.

The World's Biggest Health Organization May Do Something Big to Help the Trans Community
Here's the catch.
Mother Jones
By Will Greenberg
June 20, 2016

Despite the strides made towards transgender equality in the United States, discrimination against transgender people remains a huge problem worldwide. In many countries and communities, violence, stigma, and a lack of legal recognition push transgender people to the margins of society. And the many hurdles transgender people face on a daily basis also contribute to significant health risks, according to a new study by the Lancet medical journal.

According to the study, published this week as part of a research series on gaps in transgender health, most doctors have no training on trans-specific care like hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery. That leaves them lacking the ability to treat patients interested in transitioning. But perhaps the biggest barrier to care transgender people currently face is social stigma and judgment, which prevents doctors from accepting trans patients in the first place.

There are changes coming to the ICD-10 which is kind of like an international DSM but medical diseases and there are recommendations that…

The authors might soon get their wish. The WHO manual is being updated in 2018, and a WHO working group, of which Winter [Sam Winter, a professor of sexology at Curtin University in Australia] was a part, has recommended that the next version replace transsexualism, dual-role transvestism, and gender identity disorder of childhood with "gender incongruence," and define it as a condition "related to sexual health” as opposed to a mental health disorder. A WHO representative confirmed plans to make these changes to the manual.

Sexual orientation was removed from the DSM back in the early seventies, but we are different from gays and lesbians in that we need medical assistance for us to transition, we need hormones and for those who want it, surgery and therein lays the quandary, how to get medical assistance without the stigma attached with being a “mental disorder.”

Even though the DSM changed the label of Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria you only have to listen to politicians to understand that most people do not understand the difference. To them if it is in the DSM means that you are crazy and that is why we need it taken out of the DSM and into the ICD.

In Denial

When the world leaves you behind and you can’t adjust to the changing world what are you supposed to do? What are you to do if  you are a military chaplain?

Baptist leaders decry transgender troop ban repeal
By David Roach
July 5, 2016

The Obama administration's decision to allow openly transgender people to serve in the U.S. military has been classified by Southern Baptist leaders with military ties as "deluded," "disastrous" and a step toward self-inflicted "national weakness."

Military chaplains endorsed by the North American Mission Board, along with other Christian chaplains, appear to be "in the crosshairs of this new policy," NAMB executive director of chaplaincy Douglas Carver told Baptist Press, noting religious liberty concerns.
[…]
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Daniel Heimbach, former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for manpower, told BP the Pentagon's decision is "disastrous but comes as no surprise."

"It is just the most recent step taken in our nation's rapid descent into a state of social deconstruction and national weakness," Heimbach, senior professor of Christian ethics, said in written comments. "This decision to affirm gender confusion will destroy unit cohesion and render the good order and discipline essential to U.S. military success that much harder to achieve.

"Our political leaders have lost their moral bearings and now military leaders are forgetting their national security mission," Heimbach said. "And most sadly of all, we are as a nation doing this to ourselves. This is a time to speak the truth in love and to remember that security, whether military or spiritual, ultimately comes from the hand of God."

Well first off, the U.S. military is not the first country to allow trans people in the military but is only the last to change. The first country to allow trans people in the military was the Netherlands in 1974! Now there are eighteen other countries to allow trans people to serve in the military bring the total to twenty-one countries including the U.S.

As for the moral decay, it is the exact opposite the military is now not discriminating against people because of the way they were born. It is those people who are living in the past, people who cannot or do not to realize what they are doing is wrong, they pick and choose and interpret passages written two thousand years ago, if they what is written we will still be throwing out lepers instead of treating them with medicine.

Military chaplains will now have a choice to make should they stay or should they go?

Among Carver's unanswered questions regarding the new policy: "What role will our military chaplains play in the education and implementation of this new policy? What protections are in place for our chaplains who freely express their religious convictions in opposition to gender transition and sex reassignment therapy/surgery? Can our chaplains co-pastor a military congregation with a transgender chaplain? What are the implications of a military chaplain whose biblical counseling approach advises a service member away from making a decision regarding becoming transgender?"

It seems to me that military chaplains will end up being from religious dominations that are open and affirming.

WPATH Conference

There are article coming out about the WPATH conference that was held in the Netherlands last month, two articles appeared in the Huffington Post. The first article  is about the DSM, SOC, and children while other article is about our favorite punching bag, Dr. Zucker.

The War Against Trans Children is Over - Part 1 on the WPATH Conference
By Dana Beyer
June 23, 2016

The war is over. There will be, as is usually the case, post-truce skirmishes, guerrilla warfare, even major battles as occurred at New Orleans in 1815 because word of the Treaty of Ghent hadn’t yet made it to the combatants. The losers may shift residence and find new employment, even continue to publish papers in a journal they founded and still completely control (so much for peer review), but the consensus on the treatment of gender-variant children has shifted to the gender-affirming crowd.

I will provide my personal take on this issue later, and I’ve covered the debate in the past few years. Nothing much has changed, except that more children are being supported and allowed to transition when appropriate. There is still no high quality clinical evidence to guide the treatment of these children on hand, though projects such as TransNet, co-led by medical doctors Joshua Safer and Jamie Feldman, and the Transyouth Project led by psychologist Dr. Kristina Olson of Seattle, the first large-scale, national, longitudinal study of devel­op­ment in gender nonconforming, transgender, and gen­der vari­ant youth, are developing. What does exist, in the absence of medical studies, however, is the experience of treating children supportively, vs. the decades-long experience of rejecting them.

This conclusion was evident to me over the course of the recently completed 2016 World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) conference in Amsterdam. It was not only evident in the wealth of presentations by those who practice such care, such as Drs. Jo Olson, Maddie Deutsch and Carys Masarella, who run major trans health clinics, and psychiatrists such as Dr. George Brown, who keeps churning out research data, but in two presentations which highlighted the denouement of the conflict. The first was during the initial plenary session, opened by the Queen of the Netherlands (it’s nice having a queen around who is available for such duty), when there was a “debate” over the inclusion of the diagnosis “Gender Incongruence of Childhood (GIC)” in the upcoming World Health Organization’s ICD-11 manual of diseases due in 2018. The second was evident in what may very well be the last pitched battle of the war, a presentation on “Gender Laws” by the proponents of the traditional form of care, which many consider a form of reparative therapy. The audience in that much smaller room did not sit on their hands or remain quiet.

The article goes on to discuss some of the workshops that were presented during the conference and her second article covers Dr. Zucker.

Amen to That - The War Against Trans Children is Over, Part 2

Finally, the event for which we had all been waiting, the presentation by Dr. Zucker. Having lost his job and clinic in December, and having filed three lawsuits since, he came in with his boots on, opening with:

This feels like a Bernie Sanders rally.

He went on to say that he doesn’t like politics, having stayed away from it since 1968 when he held a Vietcong flag at a rally, and preferring to focus on the lack of the “evidence base” I’ve discussed above. He couldn’t understand, even with the help of a $500/hour attorney, the operational meaning of “identity exploration” in the Ontario conversion therapy law and how it differed from his therapeutic treatments, but concluded by saying that these conversion therapy laws (and the repudiation of his therapeutic approach which they represent) were:

a political hegemonic maneuver [by activists] leading to complete control over what constitutes best practice clinical care [of trans and gender non-conforming children].

He came closest to the fundamental issue when he mentioned that people had “divergent ideas of optimal outcomes.” Dr. Zucker’s suggestion that the law was vague was challenged by Nicole Nussbaum, Past-President of the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH), who had presented in favor of the Bill to the legislative committee. Nicole read more of the law to the crowd which showed there really isn’t the ambiguity he fears. The Ontario law, sponsored by LGBTQ opposition critic, Cheri DiNovo, is seen by many as the primary factor leading to the closure of his practice by the Province of Ontario.

He came closest to the fundamental issue when he mentioned that people had “divergent ideas of optimal outcomes.” Dr. Zucker’s suggestion that the law was vague was challenged by Nicole Nussbaum, Past-President of the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH), who had presented in favor of the Bill to the legislative committee. Nicole read more of the law to the crowd which showed there really isn’t the ambiguity he fears. The Ontario law, sponsored by LGBTQ opposition critic, Cheri DiNovo, is seen by many as the primary factor leading to the closure of his practice by the Province of Ontario.

I find that Dr. Beyer summed it up nicely when she wrote…

Going one step deeper, however, we discover over years of experience that the problem is the definition of harm. The Zucker side believes gay is good and trans is bad. One could go so far as to say Dr. Zucker believes that “not one more trans person” is the preferable outcome, and he has practiced what can be considered reparative therapy to prevent that. The Ontario commission that closed down his practice stated, in a very convoluted manner, that it could not be determined that he did not practice conversion therapy. This aversion to the trans experience is evident in his deep resistance to possibly transitioning gay boys, believing that such a transition would do irreparable harm to those boys, while feeling nothing of the same about trans girls who we know are deeply harmed when refused transition. I have a very dear friend who believes the same, and I have tried to understand her fear, but I can’t. I believe it’s grounded in a profound misogyny, and ignores the fact that a gay boy who is very feminine in his behavior is very unlikely to suffer from “going all the way” for a few years before he reverts to living as a gay boy. Will he be teased by his peers? Maybe. These boys often call one another “girls” anyway, so how bad could it be? But closeted and denigrated trans girls become depressed and suicidal. We know this, and we have statistics to prove it, but some people simply don’t care, or care enough.

One of these days I have to attend one of the conferences just to see what it is like; I am an associate member of WPATH.

Do You Know The Law?

Evidently the Attorney General of Texas doesn’t.

Texas AG Doesn't Understand It's Illegal to Out Trans Students
Ken Paxton argues that parents have a right to know if their child may be transgender.
The Advocate
By Sunnivie Brydum
June 29 2016

The Republican attorney general in Texas says a local school's transgender-inclusive policy violates state law, and he proposes an idea that may itself run afloul of federal protections for trans students.

Responding to a query from noted transphobe Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Tuesday issued a nonbinding opinion that declares a modest trans-inclusive policy at the Fort Worth Independent School District a violation of the law. So Paxton proposes his own solution: for faculty to out trans students to their parents. 

This is where the Attorney General runs afoul of federal law which as the chief lawyer for Texas he should know.

Instead, Paxton’s criticism of the policy focuses on a provision that instructs teachers and faculty to confer with a transgender student before discussing that student’s trans status with their parents or legal guardian. Paxton writes:

“Far from creating a partnership between parents, educators, and administrators regarding their children's education, the Guidelines relegate parents to a subordinate status, receiving information only on a 'need-to-know basis.’ …

“Furthermore, the provision requiring school personnel to ‘work closely with the student’ to determine to what extent, if any, a parent will be involved in the student's transitioning suggests that employees could, pursuant to these restrictions, encourage some children to withhold information from a parent. … Such action is both against state law and grounds for discipline under the Education Code.”

That whack you heard is the Attorney General running smack face first into a brick wall. AG have you ever heard of FERPA and HIPAA? Maybe you should dust off your old law books.

What is FERPA?
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal privacy law that gives parents certain protections with regard to their children's education records, such as report cards, transcripts, disciplinary records, contact and family information, and class schedules. As a parent, you have the right to review your child's education records and to request changes under limited circumstances. To protect your child's privacy, the law generally requires schools to ask for written consent before disclosing your child's personally identifiable information to individuals other than you.
[…]
When a student turns 18 years old or enters a postsecondary institution at any age, all rights afforded to you as a parent under FERPA transfer to the student ("eligible student"). However, FERPA provides ways in which a school may—but is not required to-share information from an eligible student's education records with parents, without the student's consent.

And then there is a thing called HIPPA…

Do school health programs and their staff have to comply with the Transaction Rule?
The answer depends on whether health care providers, including school health programs and staff, transmit any health information in electronic form in connection with a HIPAA standard transaction, making them a covered entity under HIPAA. Covered entities must comply with the requirements of the Transaction Rule, including the use of specified data elements and transaction codes, when engaging in a standard transaction.

So it is a little murky is FERPA and HIPAA prevent schools from informing the parents about their child being trans, the article goes on to say…

In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union reports that it’s illegal for school staff to discuss a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity with other faculty. It's a violation of privacy, and a dangerous one.

Numerous trans and LGBT youth advocates have pointed out that such considerations can be critical for young people who come from hostile home environments. The Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network’s Safe Space Kit advises ally educators to “exercise the utmost discretion and professionalism and be respectful of student privacy in discussion of these matters.”

The National Association for School Psychologists likewise advises that educators should be cautious about publicizing a student’s trans identity or even a student’s exploration of their gender identity. The association’s professional ethical guidelines instruct school psychologists to “not share information about the sexual orientation, gender identity, or transgender status of a student (including minors), parent, or school employee with anyone without that individual’s permission.”

So the Mr. Paxton is stepping out on dangerously thin ice when he calls for the “Outing” of trans students. The parents can be notified that their child is trans but it is very, very murky area of the law when healthcare providers are to notify parents about health care issues without violating patient healthcare providers confidentiality because there is also the age of emancipation in Texas is seventeen. In addition, it is also a grey area about when school officials can notify parents because of FERPA.

Gender Dysphoria And The DSM

The trans community has lobby hard to get gender identity disorder removed from the DSM but instead they renamed it but we still carry the stigma of it being in the DSM, case in point…

Opinion Being transgender isn’t a mental illness. What’s sick is a society that treats it that way
L.A. Times Opinion
By Nico Lang
June 28, 2016

Forget science – a Kansas lawmaker thinks he knows what makes people transgender: mental illness.

In a speech attacking the Obama administration’s support of trans students, state Sen. Steve Fitzgerald dismissed the entire idea of a trans identity. “You’re either male or you’re female, and it’s not changeable,” he said. “It’s reality. Inability to deal with that reality, or to recognize that reality, is disoriented, and can be disoriented to the point of insanity.”

Fitzgerald isn’t alone in his diagnosis. In February, Tennessee House Rep. Susan Lynn put forward an anti-trans bathroom bill based in the idea that transgender people are dangerously mentally unstable. Lynn wrote on her Facebook page, “[N]o one should be forced to entertain another's mental disorder, and it is not healthy for the individual with the disorder.”

In a May letter to Tennessee Atty. Gen. Herbert Slatery, state Sen. Janice Bowling agreed with Lynn, accusing the federal government of “[accommodating] students with gender identity disorder at the expense of the mentally healthy enrollment.” Bowling’s letter was cosigned by 13 senators and 20 House representatives — all of whom, thus, endorsed the idea that being transgender is a disease.
[…]
But the APA amended that classification four years ago. It’s now known as “gender dysphoria.” As Mother Jones put it, this change to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was intended to show that “being transgender is not a disease but a human variation—more like being left-handed than schizophrenic.”

The APA’s Jack Drescher further stated that the goal of the switch was to end the medical practice of pathologizing transgender people, simply because their existence made others “uncomfortable.”

But to the lay person and legislators they see no difference; the DSM is the DSM which they see as a list of mental disorders. Then we also have to put up with the likes of Dr. Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins University who is one of the founders of the American College of Pediatricians.

That hasn’t stopped right-wing advocacy groups like the American College of Pediatricians ACP from comparing gender reassignment to genital mutilation. The ACP has further advised that school administrators “reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex.”

Bear in mind, the ACP is a political lobbying organization, and not a legitimate medical group. As ThinkProgress’ Zach Ford explains, “Its name is designed to be mistaken for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a national organization with some 60,000 members.”

The ACP membership is somewhere between 200 and 400 members, but they have a loud voice with the Republicans like to quote.

Mental Illness & Guns

I know that this is a very controversial topic so let me state what I believe in first.

• I believe everyone in the U.S. has a right to own guns in their own home.
• I believe that everyone that buys a gun should have a criminal back ground check and that if they fail a background check that they have a right to appeal. I do not believe that the check has to be done within 72 hours that is unrealistic. Somewhere around two weeks is more reasonable and if they are denied the permit they they have a two week window to file an appeal before a review board.
• I believe military type weapons should be banned
• I believe large capacity magazines should be banned. There is a video out there that shows a person changing magazine clips as fast as a person with a large capacity clip can fire, but the clips are all neatly lined up on a barrel in front of them. I would like to see the test redone with taking them from a belt or pouch.
• I do not believe in “open carry,” it is a form of intimidation and immaturity.
• I do not believe in allowing guns to be on college campuses.
• I do not believe in “stand your ground” laws, you should have a responsibility to retreat first and the only exception should be in your own home or residence.

Okay, now that is out of the way I would like to talk about mental illness and guns. The big thing from the gun lobby now is about keeping the guns out of the mentally ill, this sounds great and I agree but the problem is most of the killers were never diagnosed with a mental illness and second how are you going to find out that they are mentally ill? Are you going to require all therapists to provide a list of their patients in violation of the patient therapist privacy rights? Or are you going to require everyone who wants a gun permit to get a mental health evaluation?

This post came about from reading comments on a post on CT News Junkie website, a number of comments said things like,

Susan, how about just once someone write a jouralistic [sic] piece about the mental health resources in this country/state. Why not write about how these people who kill have histories of some type of mental issue or at least showed signs…

In researching this blog post I found an excellent research paper on mental illness and guns.

Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms
Am J Public Health. 2015 February; 105(2): 240–249.
By Jonathan M. Metzl, MD, PhD corresponding author and Kenneth T. MacLeish, PhD

Abstract
Four assumptions frequently arise in the aftermath of mass shootings in the United States: (1) that mental illness causes gun violence, (2) that psychiatric diagnosis can predict gun crime, (3) that shootings represent the deranged acts of mentally ill loners, and (4) that gun control “won’t prevent” another Newtown (Connecticut school mass shooting). Each of these statements is certainly true in particular instances. Yet, as we show, notions of mental illness that emerge in relation to mass shootings frequently reflect larger cultural stereotypes and anxieties about matters such as race/ethnicity, social class, and politics. These issues become obscured when mass shootings come to stand in for all gun crime, and when “mentally ill” ceases to be a medical designation and becomes a sign of violent threat.

And the paper ends with this conclusion,

CONCLUSIONS
Our brief review suggests that connections between mental illness and gun violence are less causal and more complex than current US public opinion and legislative action allow. US gun rights advocates are fond of the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people do.” The findings cited earlier in this article suggest that neither guns nor people exist in isolation from social or historical influences. A growing body of data reveals that US gun crime happens when guns and people come together in particular, destructive ways. That is to say, gun violence in all its forms has a social context, and that context is not something that “mental illness” can describe nor that mental health practitioners can be expected to address in isolation.
[…]
Mass shootings represent national awakenings and moments when seeming political or social adversaries might come together to find common ground, whether guns are allowed, regulated, or banned. Doing so, however, means recognizing that gun crimes, mental illnesses, social networks, and gun access issues are complexly interrelated, and not reducible to simple cause and effect. Ultimately, the ways our society frames these connections reveal as much about our particular cultural politics, biases, and blind spots as it does about the acts of lone, and obviously troubled, individuals.

The mental health issues about gun controls is a red herring.

Last week a Texas mother who shot her two daughters to death was a strong pro-gun advocate who had no history of mental illness but for some reason she snapped.

Please kept your comments respectable and they will get published.

Saturday 9: Battle Hymn of the Republic

Crazy Sam’s Saturday 9: Battle Hymn of the Republic (1968)
... because it's 4th of July 

On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun...

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

This performance of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is from Robert Kennedy's funeral. So this week, we focus on him.


1) During WWII, when he was just 17, Robert Kennedy enlisted in the Navy. He was disappointed he was never involved in combat. Tell us about a time when you felt fate/circumstances kept you from something you wanted.  
Ooo… these are hard questions this week.
Not so much fate kept me from what I wanted but rather more like got me a good job. I was in the right spot when the supervisor of the test department gave his 2 weeks’ notice. I was the supervisor there for 25 years.

2) Bobby was trained as an altar boy and throughout his life regularly attended early morning mass. When is the last time you attended a worship service?
I think when my father passed away.

3) He may have been an altar boy, but he was no angel. During junior high he was suspended for punching a classmate. Who is the last person who made you very, very mad?
It was a couple of days ago when someone didn’t tell me the meeting was cancelled. But I didn’t stay mad long.

4) He had his first date when he was a senior in high school. Looking back, Mary Bailey Gimble told Kennedy biographers that she knew he had a crush on her and wondered why it took him so long to ask her out. Tell us about one of your early crushes.
No I won’t tell you because she reads my blog.

5) Bobby's wife Ethel is as bubbly and talkative as he was introspective and shy. He was organized, she's messy. While opposites may attract, do you believe the happiest marriages are between partners who are more similar than different?
More similar than opposites but then again maybe they are similar because they been together for so long.

6) By November 1960, when he was 35 years old, Bobby already had served as legal counsel to two Senate committees and run his brother's successful Presidential campaign. He was looking forward to a quieter life teaching law but gave in to family pressure to become President Kennedy's Attorney General. Tell us about a time when you were at a crossroads. Who influenced your decision?
When I decided to transition and I did it not because of one person but a number of other successful people who transitioned.

7) In 1777, Colonists celebrated July 4 with the firing of cannons and muskets, followed by a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. What is your neighborhood doing to observe the day?
Shooting off fireworks. In New Hampshire fireworks are legal and all around the lake fireworks will be going off.

8) The Revolutionary War still raged during that summer of 1777. General George Washington allowed his soldiers to celebrate with a double ration of run on July 4. Do you know anyone who is serving in the military this 4th of July?
Not right now but I know of a number people who have served.

9) Celebrity chef Rachael Ray says she considers mini-hamburgers, or "sliders," the All-American food. What will you be eating this 4th of July?
I believe we are having hamburgers

Intersections

It you are a white trans woman you may have a rocky road when you transition. If you are a person of color or a Latino you will have a much hard transition.

Transgender Latinas faced a 'legion of stigmas'
Transgender Hispanic women face 'legion of stigmas'; studies show risk for suicide, harassment
The Houston Chronicle
By Olivia P. Tallet
June 25, 2016

She crossed the Rio Grande as an undocumented, transgender woman, fleeing after a serial sexual assault left her in shame and fearing for her life.

Now, 15 years later, Andrea Molina is director of the Organización Latina de Trans de Texas (Latin Organization of Texas Trans), which she founded after being expelled from the bathroom of a Latino organization in Houston. She and her co-founders, all trans women, decided that if they didn't take control of their destiny, no one was going to do it for them, she said.

The organization is the only one in Texas dedicated to empower, educate and develop leadership for transgender Hispanics, among the most stigmatized individuals in the LGBT community.
[…]
"The interception of being a Latina, a trans and an undocumented person is a combination that could be triple times more grave in terms of stigmatization," said Janet Quezada, spokesperson for a national gay and lesbian advocacy group that goes by the acronym GLAAD.

When you look at the factors that create positive outcomes for transitioning you will see things like having family support, a support network of friends, and being able to integrate into society. If you come from a culture where Machismo is dominate the culture, transitioning to a woman is looked down upon as a disgrace to the family and friends.

Several cases of slaying and dismembering of transgender women have been reported in Mexico, and the murder rate has increased since 2008. High-profile cases include the murder of a trans woman who headed the Special Unit for Attention to Members of the LGBT Community of the Attorney General Office in Mexico City.

That's what drove Jessica Trolinger to Houston. She described the terror she felt after four of her transgender friends, who were roommates, suddenly disappeared without a trace after being threatened by men in their neighborhood in Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

"Nobody knows still today what happened to them, not even their families," Trolinger said. "And families in Mexico are afraid to report cases because we are also abused by officers; I was once beaten down to the floor and mocked by an officer while others watched and laughed."

Just look at the list of names that is read on The Transgender Day of Remembrance and see how many of them come from Latin American countries and the Caribbean.

"Do you really think that being a transgender person is something that we chose? No, nobody chose to be the most discriminated and misunderstood people that exist."