What Do You Think Of When You Hear Bullying?

No not Trump… even though he is a bully

Don’t you think of children on the playground or in schools?

What about senior centers? Do you think about bullying there?

Bullying a problem at senior centers nationwide
The Press Democrat
By Matt Sedensky AP
May 12, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO — The unwanted were turned away from cafeteria tables. Fistfights broke out at karaoke. Dances became breeding grounds for gossip and cruelty.

It became clear this place had a bullying problem on its hands. What many found surprising was that the perpetrators and victims alike were all senior citizens.

Nursing homes, senior centers and housing complexes for the elderly have introduced programs, training and policies aimed at curbing spates of bullying, an issue once thought the exclusive domain of the young.

“There’s the clique system just like everywhere else,” said Betsy Gran, who until recently was assistant director at San Francisco’s 30th Street Senior Center. “It’s like ‘Mean Girls,’ but everyone is 80.”
[…]
There is far less recognition of bullying as a problem among seniors compared with young people. Even among those who have been called bullies, many are unaware how problematic their behavior is until it’s labeled. Campaigns around the country have sought to spread the word, including a booklet circulated last year by the National Center for Assisted Living.
[…]
Most senior bullying isn’t physical but rather involves name-calling, rumors and exclusion, said Pamela Countouris, a longtime schoolteacher who now runs a Pittsburgh-based consultancy that offers training on bullying. Women constitute the bulk of the bullies Countouris encounters among seniors, a reflection of lifespan disparities and the gender makeup of those who live at or participate in programs at senior facilities.

So what does this have to with us, LGBT seniors?

In the worst cases, bullying goes far beyond bingo squabbles. Marsha Wetzel moved into a senior apartment complex in Niles, Illinois, after her partner of 30 years died and her partner’s family evicted her from the home the couple shared. At Glen St. Andrew Living Community, she said she was met with relentless bullying by residents mostly focused on her being a lesbian.

One man hit Wetzel’s scooter with his walker and unleashed a barrage of homophobic slurs. A woman rammed her wheelchair into Wetzel’s table in the dining room and knocked it over, warning “homosexuals will burn in hell.” In the mailroom, someone knocked her in the head, and in an elevator, she was spit on.

Our generation hid most of their lives and they are the generation that fought for our rights, unfortunately it was against the same generation that they are now housed with that they fought.

Most people don’t even think about harassment in senior centers, long term care facilities or senior housing but it is a growing problem in those facilities that has to be addressed now.

I can just imagine what prosecutors will think if they had a case of an eighty year old straight person attacking a 80 year old trans person? Will they prosecute the person for a hate crime or would they just try to make the case go away?

Where I Have Been

I have been missing posts the last couple of weeks; well life throws roadblocks in your life every now and then.

The last couple of weeks I have had appointments for a root canal… oh so much fun on Mondays! And to tell the truth I wasn’t really interested in writing a blog post those days.

The weekends were up at the cottage cleaning; the weekend before last a friend Sue and my brother came up to help clean and this past weekend and friend came up to help me put together a wall hutch and a charcoal grill along with some more cleaning. For dinner on Saturday night we went to the Lobster Pot and I had Lobster Newberg.

I wanted to cook a steak on the new grill but the weather didn't cooperate, this weekend was cold damp and rainy so we went out to Tin Pan Alley in Provincetown and I had lobster ravioli in a cream sauce... Mmm!

I also found a good pizza place and one not nice pizza place in Wellfleet that harassed me when I picked up the order.

I am going up this coming weekend to do more cleaning and put up window curtains and shades.

Once thing settle down I will be able to write my blog regularly again.

Mother and Child Reunion

Crazy Sam’s Mother and Child Reunion (1972)



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

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

1) The title of this song, "Mother and Child Reunion," came from a dish Paul Simon had at a Chinese restaurant. "Mother and Child Reunion" was chicken and egg drop soup. When did you last eat chicken?
I had chicken salad with cranberries the other day.

2) Paul Simon's mother, Belle, was an English teacher Monday through Friday and then gave piano lessons on the weekends. Have you ever worked more than one job?
No, but I have worked the clock around, a 24 hour shift in Xenia Ohio. We were installing emergency radio equipment in a hospital ER. We started just before 1^st shift and when 1^st shift came in one of the nurses said we were there early and I said we never went back to the motel. Why did I do that? Well we were getting double time, plus travel bonus.
This was just after 7 tornados hit the town and we were restoring their radio equipment.

3) Mother Winters taught Sam to always dispose of the dry cleaning bag, as storing clothes in the bag may discolor the fabric. Do you have any useful household hints to pass along?
Nope.

4) Have you put away your winter clothes yet?
Ha… the way the weather is going I will be putting them away just in time to take them out again.

5) Flowers and plants are popular on Mother's Day. How is your yard or garden? Is it green and/or blooming?
Well on the Cape where I am now, the leaves are not even out on the trees, while back home all the trees have leaves.

6) In the 1600's, the British began celebrating "Mothering Sunday." Children presented flowers to their mothers after Sunday service. When did you last place flowers in a vase? Where they store-bought, or picked from someone's garden?
Last week, I was given flowers when I was at our conference.

7) The German word for "mother" is "mutter." What other German words do you know?
 Danke

8) When Sam was a teen, her mother used to scold her for monopolizing the family landline. With the advent of cell phones, do you think parents and children still clash over telephone etiquette?
I think that they should. You know I am not really interesting hearing about your hot date while standing in line at the grocery store.

9) To celebrate Mother's Day, Sam is giving away her mother's favorite, Hershey Bars! Would you prefer classic milk chocolate, dark chocolate or milk chocolate with almonds?
Milk chocolate with almonds, dark chocolate is deadly to me. Too much caffeine.

Title IX

Title IX bans sex discrimination in schools and the courts are ruling it covers trans people also but in today’s climate schools are trying to wiggle out of protecting us.

College dumps transgender protections after GOP, community pressure
WyoFile
By Andrew Graham
May 10, 2018

Eastern Wyoming College’s board of trustees abandoned proposed policies protecting transgender employees and student athletes from discrimination Tuesday after an estimated 120-190 people showed up to oppose them.

Wyoming GOP chairman Frank Eathorne and state representative Cheri Steinmetz (R-Lingle) were among the crowd opposing the policies at the trustees meeting in Torrington. Eathorne was speaking for the Wyoming Republican Party when he opposed the policies, he told WyoFile.
[…]
Tuesday’s meeting came two weeks after a former Republican county party chairman was suspended from his job as a talk-radio host for making homophobic remarks on air during an interview with a Fremont County school superintendent. During the interview, host John Birbari took an initially anonymous phone call from Rep. Tim Salazar (R-Dubois), who joined in the questioning of the superintendent.

LGBTQ advocates in the state have begun to wonder if an anti-LGBTQ position has become mainstream for the Wyoming GOP.

I really don’t think that they have to wonder… it is.

The hate and bigotry of the Republican party is there to see and it is not just against us but also it is against anyone not a WASP.

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There is an anti-conversion therapy rally that is scheduled at the Capitol in the near future and there is talk of a counter rally.

I am against the counter protest because…

• The conversion therapy bill passed in the Senate 36 - 0 and in the House it was also nearly unanimous so there is strong bipartisan support for the law.
• I think that a counter protest will lend credibility to the anti-conversion therapy people.
• It looks like there isn't any support for the anti-conversion therapy protest (the last that I heard only 16 people signed up).
• I don't think those who want a counter protest will have many people there either and it may look like that we don't have strong support for the law.

So I think we should just ignore the anti-conversion therapy protest and let them fall flat on their face when no one shows up, but we should have a statement ready to hand out.

It Is All About Jobs

The number one question that I hear from trans people is where can I get a job.

For those who are about to transition and are looking for a job, my advice to them is don’t. Don’t, if at all possible transition until after you find a job and you have at least one performance review under your belt. It becomes so much hard to fire you then because before the review all they have to say is that you couldn’t do the job you were hired to do. However, once you have that performance review stating that you do go work it will make it harder for cause.

Transgender community struggles with unemployment, MetroHealth hopes job fair will help
News 5 Cleveland
By Homa Bash
May 10, 2018

CLEVELAND - For the fourth year, MetroHealth will host a transgender job fair this Saturday, making Cleveland one of the few cities in the country to take on such an initiative.

Lourdes Negron-McDaniel is the director of inclusion and diversity for the MetroHealth system. She said according to research, the unemployment rate for transgender people is twice as high as the general population. For transgender people of color, the unemployment or underemployment rate is four times as high.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Negron-McDaniel said. “It is the right thing to do for us to create a safe space for a very vulnerable population to come professionally and seriously and search for employment.”

So far, MetroHealth has lined up 25 companies to be at the job fair — big names like the Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland Metroparks, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Giant Eagle, Hyland, Keller Williams, KeyBank, MetroHealth, PNC, Starbucks and more.

And they have 80 trans people who want to attend the job fair!

This is really great; this is great for the trans community.

Will it work here in Connecticut? It would be hard to do it here in Connecticut because of the small population base. What would be needed are two things, first thing is to get the word out to the trans community and the second is companies for the job fair.

Trying to find enough trans people to come will be a challenge because we are so spread out around the state and there is no one place to announce the job fair. Most trans people don’t attend support groups, many are not on social media and trying find them would be hard but not impossible. You would need two or three months to spread the word.

I was at a Target store the other day and there was a checkout person who may have been trans and I know of a number of big box stores that hire trans people and at the local super market they had a trans person working for them.

Having a job fair for trans people here in Connecticut is just hard but not impossible.

The Pot Calling The Kettle Black*

The right pushes junk science in their argument against us and our rights, organizations like the American College of Pediatricians that push the works of Dr. Paul Hugh and Dr. Zucker.

I came across this article on a conservative news site…

In the Transgender Debate, Conservatives Can’t Compromise the Truth
National Review
By David French
May 9, 2018

Over on the home page, J.J. McCullough has penned a piece urging a “compromise on transgenderism,” but as I read it, this proposed compromise looks a lot like capitulation. While J.J. rightly notes that the Left has overreached in its “effort to strong-arm sweeping social change as a flex of their power,” he asks conservatives to essentially abandon their central argument and accept the radical left’s premise that a man can be a woman or a woman can be a man. This paragraph stands out:

Though transgenderism is a far rarer phenomenon than homosexuality, I think most adults could admit it does seem like a rather persistent aspect of humanity. Most can probably recall a transgender person making at least some minor appearance in their life. If we concede that transgenderism is not going away, and is not something anyone intends to exert effort toward ending, then Americans, especially conservative ones, should reflect on our culture’s honest and fair attitude toward homosexuality and acknowledge that the most sensible path out of the present acrimony will probably require similar compromise. Some degree of cultural ceasefire and consensus seems the only path for both sides to maintain a degree of pride while avoiding a more radical, disruptive societal transformation. (Emphasis added.)

I can acknowledge that gender dysphoria is a “persistent aspect of humanity,” but I will not concede that gender dysphoria trumps biology, and I don’t think our culture should cease efforts towards “ending” the dangerous notion that men or women should amputate healthy organs in the quest to sculpt their bodies to become something they’re not. Gender dysphoria may not “go away,” but transgenderism is something else entirely. Our culture is in the midst of a live and important dispute over the very nature of biological reality — and over the psychological and spiritual health of hundreds of thousands of precious souls — and now is not the time to abandon the field.

I find this totally ironic when the title says “Can’t Compromise the Truth” and then they write “I will not concede that gender dysphoria trumps biology” and they totally ignore current research and base their thinking on 1950 science. There is so much new research that shows that there are differences in the our brains and there are so many factors that determine "sex" than just chromosomes.

But once you grant the premise that a man is, in fact, a woman, don’t all these consequences flow directly from that concession? After all, existing nondiscrimination statutes are quite clear in their scope. And judicial precedents are increasingly aligning with this new fiction. To “compromise” on identity (including on pronouns) is to end the dispute.

Once again they have their heads in the sand.

Maybe it is because the law is keeping up on science and the precedent of the Supreme Court Price Waterhouse ruling that “sex” discrimination also includes sex “stereotyping” and not ignoring or twisting the facts.

The article ends with,

I understand the desire for social peace. Truly I do. The culture wars are exhausting and divisive. But treating every single human being with dignity and respect means not just defending their constitutional liberties and showing them basic human kindness, it also means telling the truth — even when the truth is hard. Any compromise that requires conservatives to grant the other side’s false and harmful premise is no compromise at all.

Have you looked in a mirror lately?

I would tell you yes “it also means telling the truth — even when the truth is hard” maybe there is a reason that the AMA, APA, NASW, AAP, the Endocrine Society, and a host of other professional associations all disagree with you.

---

* If you are not familiar with this saying, according to Slate it means… “This saying, which personifies kitchenware in order to make a point about hypocrisy, means “to criticize someone for a fault you also possess.” Per WiseGeek, the phrase dates back to the early 1600s, when most pots and kettles were fashioned from cast iron, a material that acquires streaks of black smoke when heated over a flame.”

We Are Under Attack!

Don’t you just find it so ironic when evangelical Christians say they are under attack?

Have you seen any evangelical Christians being beaten and killed by the police?

Have you seen any evangelical Christians being beaten by white supremacist?

Have you seen any evangelical Christians being denied the right to marry?

Have you seen any evangelical Christians being told that they cannot use the bathroom?

Have you seen any evangelical Christians worrying about being erased…

Passport Peril
Why transgender Americans are so worried about Mike Pompeo serving as secretary of state.
Slate
By Evan Urquhart
March 15, 2018

Mike Pompeo, one of the most rabidly anti-LGBTQ politicians in America, is President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, bringing extreme Christian conservatism to the State Department. At the CIA, Pompeo’s views made members of the intelligence community deeply uncomfortable. If confirmed to State, he’ll be able to influence U.S. policy abroad in ways that negatively affects international efforts to address human rights abuses of LGBTQ people. He’ll also have the power to reverse hard-won improvements to the policy on gender changes for transgender individuals.

Before 2010, the government required sex reassignment surgery to change the gender marker on a U.S. passport. SRS procedures are expensive and complex, and many transgender people do not feel they need it. So in 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton modernized the process to let people update the gender marker on a passport by providing either a doctor’s note certifying the applicant is undergoing treatment for gender transition or a birth certificate that has been updated to show the correct gender.

One of my concerns is that I will get a letter from the State Department ordering me to turn in my passport to “correct” a “mistake” in the gender marker. I wouldn’t put it pass the current administration’s purging of any LGBTQ changes that the Obama administration made.

Which brings me back to Pompeo. This is a man who canceled a speech at the CIA by the parents of hate-crime victim Matthew Shepard, co-sponsored acts attempting to slow the spread of marriage equality and protect religious discrimination against LGBTQ people, and opposed gay and lesbian military service in a speech at the 2011 Values Voter Summit—after the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” As secretary of state, Pompeo would have the authority to reverse the Obama-era change, once again requiring surgery to change a passport, or even prohibiting trans people from updating their passports at all.

Why is it that when the oppressed stand up against the oppressor we are being uppity, ungrateful, rebellious, and that we are picking on them?

So I find it laughable when the evangelical Christians say we are attacking them when they are doing everything that they can to deny our existence.

Interesting Paper

I remember when I first went on hormones and I was taking progesterone and I started lactating… surprise!

Case Report: Induced Lactation in a Transgender Woman
Transgender Health
By Reisman Tamar  and Goldstein Zil
Published Online: 1 Jan 2018

Abstract
Objective: Our report describes a case of nonpuerperal induced lactation in a transgender woman.

Methods: We present the relevant clinical and laboratory findings, along with a review of the relevant literature.

Results: A 30-year-old transgender woman who had been receiving feminizing hormone therapy for the past 6 years presented to our clinic with the goal of being able to breastfeed her adopted infant. After implementing a regimen of domperidone, estradiol, progesterone, and breast pumping, she was able to achieve sufficient breast milk volume to be the sole source of nourishment for her child for 6 weeks. This case illustrates that, in some circumstances, modest but functional lactation can be induced in transgender women.

It isn’t that hard to stimulate the milk ducts…

Previous investigators have reported the following basic framework for nonpuerperal induced lactation: (1) increased estradiol and progesterone dosing to mimic high levels seen during pregnancy, (2) use of a galactogogue to increase prolactin levels, (3) use of a breast pump with the speculation that it would increase prolactin and oxytocin levels, and (4) subsequent reduction in estradiol and progesterone levels, with the intention of mimicking delivery.

I find it amazing that we can do this and it shows that male and females are not that different.

There is a little difference in the milk…

One major difference between the induction of lactation in cis and transgender women is the need for androgen blockade in the latter group. Our patient continued to take spironolactone while breastfeeding for androgen blockade. A known metabolite of spironolactone, cancrenone is excreted in human milk. This has been shown to be 0.2% of the maternal daily dose, which is thought to be clinically insignificant. Spironolactone has been reported to have tumorigenic potential in rats, but according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is thought to be compatible with breastfeeding.

I wish that I knew beforehand that I could lactate because it wouldn’t have scared me when I saw a white discharge from my breasts.

In The Spotlight

If you Google me you get something like 34,000 hits!

There is no doubt that I’m trans but I’m retired and not looking for a job; what happens if you are 18 and looking for a job?

Column: Two years later, transgender woman struggles with life's unique challenges away from national spotlight
Chicago Tribune
By Jerry Davich
May 8, 2018


Two years ago this week, Dakota Yorke became a national media darling after announcing her hopes to be crowned prom queen at Portage High School.

The transgender woman unintentionally blazed a trail for other transgender teens amid our country's “gender panic” controversies at that time. She continues to do so, though more under the radar these days.
[…]
Her new life took a detour to Wisconsin Dells, Wis. (population 3,000), where she lives with a relative, works as a server at two restaurants, and struggles with the realities of being a transgender woman in a small community.
[…]
After arriving in Wisconsin Dells, she landed a job at a retail clothing store, where she continues to work part time. She also works as a server at a popular national chain restaurant.

Yorke ended up moving back into her parent’s Portage home for four months while she figured out her next move.

Let’s face it, once you come out in the media your name is forever out there in cyberspace.

I am always torn the need to be seen and the consequences of coming out on young trans people.

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[Rant]

Maybe I am an old grouch.

Yesterday I had to be at a function at 8:30 AM and I got stuck behind a school bus, I was about the tenth car behind the bus and the line of cars behind ended out of sight.

Yes, I realize that the school bus has to stop at houses along a busy street with no sidewalks, but… all the students were inside their houses, it wasn’t raining, the sun was out and the temperature  was in the 50s

Then when the bus stopped in front of their house, they didn’t run to the bus, they dragged their feet getting to the bus. It was like a contest of who could take the longest to get to the bus.

Meanwhile, the line of cars kept getting longer as the bus moved to the next house and then waited for the student to shuffle out of the house.

When I was a high school student you had to be at the bus stop when the bus came. I don’t know how many times I missed the bus because I wasn't at the bus stop when the bus came. I remember running with all my books a hundred feet from the bus when the driver looked at me, closed the door and drove off.

I don’t understand why the Board of Education doesn’t have a policy where you have to be standing next to the road when the bus comes. Also I do not understand why when there are sidewalks why the bus stops in front of the house instead of at one bus stop on a corner.

[/RANT]

I Hate The Word

It has such a bad connotation, it makes up sound like sneaks, that we are doing something underhanded; but the word passing is used by us all the time.

i haven’t failed to ‘pass' as a woman, i want to look transgender
i-D Vice
By Juno Roche
April 25 2018

Fashion and pop culture only embrace transgender people who don’t look trans. The real ‘tipping point’ will come when we embrace queer beauty outside of the binary, says author Juno Roche.
[…]
In 2014, Time magazine put actress and campaigner Laverne Cox on the cover, and declared the moment a ‘transgender tipping point’. A point at which trans people could, and would, come out of the shadows and claim their rightful and authentic place within wider society. It heralded a time of widespread acceptance, surely, if we were now on covers of magazines, on the sofas of breakfast television and beginning to appear in ones and occasionally twos across the media spectrum. But this visibility had a catch: to be accepted, you had to ‘pass’.

For many trans people they will never be able to integrate into society as a cis gender woman, let’s face it being able to “pass” is a privilege.

There were many voices around me, personal and societal, telling me that safety and success lay in ‘passing and blending’ -- that the more I looked like ‘them’, the easier my life would be. To be visibly or audibly trans would mean risking rejection, economic stability and intimacy, so extinguishing my trans fault lines would help me to have an ordinary life. Our (fairly) recent ‘tipping point’ did nothing to challenge that notion, hiding the amazing work done by the people often depicted as utterly hetero- and cis-normative.

I think the young non-binary trans people are on to something by breaking down the gender barriers.

“Visual non-conformity is a risk factor in causing anti-transgender bias and its attendant social and economic burdens.” The 2015 Transgender Survey hit the nail on its head with that statement; if you have the privilege to be able to integrate into society you are going to get the jobs, you will not be harassed on the street or in a store.

People tell me that I should take voice lessons to hide my transness but I feel that for almost 60 years I lived a lie, and by using a “false” voice I will be living another lie… I just want to be myself.

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While we are still on “integrating” I came across this article about beard removal how some trans people are forgoing electrolysis or laser treatments to remove their beards.

I'm a Trans Woman, and My 5 O'Clock Shadow Is a Badge of Visibility
But it also makes me a target for transphobic abuse
Them
By Lucy Diavolo
April 30, 2018

I've been having a lot of feelings about my 5 o'clock shadow. The hair that sprouts from my jaw has always been a physical manifestation of a biology that I never could accustom myself to. I have a bad habit of making everything into a metaphor, and so the faint outline of a goatee and the stubble on my cheeks is more than just hair. It is symbolic of the catch-22 that is visibility for me as a trans person. Being visibly trans, whether through my facial hair or my willingness to be open about my identity, gives me the power to advocate for myself and lift up my trans siblings — but it also makes me a target for transphobic abuse.
[…]
As much as I never want to be clocked as trans again, I'm far too proud of who I am to give up because I can't achieve full stealth. I've seen too many people spend decades in hiding only to lose the families, careers, and lives they built when they decided to finally come out.

While I realize not every trans person can afford to have their beard removed or that they can withstand the pain, I personally cannot understand why they don’t shave. They are going to get so much more harassment and discrimination because they don’t shave.

But it is their life and they get to make their decisions but they also have to live with their decision.

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I didn’t even know that this bill existed; I thought that they had given up.

PRO-TRANSGENDER RIGHTS BILL PASSES ASSEMBLY, MOVES ON TO STATE SENATE  
A proposed pro-transgender rights bill passed the New York State Assembly, and was presented to the New York Senate Monday.
Posted By: WKTV
May. 7, 2018

A proposed pro-transgender rights bill passed the New York State Assembly, and was presented to the New York Senate Monday.

The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA, A3358/S7010) would protect transgender New Yorkers under State Human Rights Law, and the hate crimes law.

ACR Health officials said they’re encouraged that the assembly is taking up the discussion, and possibly voting to pass the legislation. But spokesman Elliott Sharrow said his concern is getting the bill through the Republican-led state Senate, which has never seen the legislation come up for a vote.

“I think over time, there’s been a lot more momentum as far as the need for this. I think there’s been a lot more talk about GENDA and trans people in general, so I think that’s definitely playing to our favor,” Sharrow said.

All the other years the bill made it out of the house and died in the Republican controlled Senate, will this year break the pattern? I hope so.

Battling Articles

How safe is Cross-gender Hormone Therapy?

When I started CHT I was warned about all the dangers of going on hormones by my endo, WPATH Standard of Care advises about the risks of CHT and now there are two articles that are 180 degrees apart.

Transgender Women Are At Greater Risk For Heart Attacks And Strokes, But “There Are Still A Lot Of Question Marks”
We know that men and women have different cardiovascular issues—where do trans women fit in?
NewNowNext
By Dan Avery
May 1, 2018

New research is pointing to a possible link between cardiovascular disease and transgender women undergoing hormone replacement therapy.

Analysis of nearly two dozens studies incorporating 3,231 transfeminine patients found 139 deaths attributed to heart disease, as well as eight strokes, 14 heart attacks, and 56 incidents of deep vein thrombosis—considerably higher rates than in either cisgender women or men. The study also found transgender women taking estrogen had higher blood pressure and increased levels of triglycerides, high concentrations of which are a risk factor for stroke.
[…]
A separate European study comparing outcomes for transgender and cisgender patients in the Kaiser Permanente health care system found that transfeminine patients had an increased risk for stroke, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism.

Meanwhile this article says the opposite,

Hormone Therapy for Transgender Patients Potentially Safer Than Previously Thought
MD Mag
By Jenna Payesko
May 2, 2018

A new study conducted by researchers at Mount Sinai Health System found that in a retrospective chart review of nearly 100 transgender (male to female) patients receiving feminizing hormone therapy, levels of prolactin did not rise—alleviating concern about the possibility of developing autonomous prolactinomas later in life.

This is the first study to measure prolactin levels in transgender patients receiving the standard feminizing hormone therapy regimen that’s used in the US. The study demonstrates that gender-affirming treatment for transgender individuals may be safer than initially thought.
[…]
“Our data suggests that there may be no significant rise in prolactin when transgender women are treated with estrogen and that it may be unnecessary to monitor prolactin in patients receiving this treatment,” lead author, Joshua Safer, MD, executive director, center for transgender medicine and surgery, Mount Sinai, said in a statement.

So take your choice… yes it is bad for us… no it is not bad for us…

I believe that it is bad for us… kind of. I believe that the is an increase in negative health effects but the good mental health effects outweighs the bad effects.

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Meanwhile we still have healthcare access problems,

Healthcare Difficulties Persist for Transgender Americans, Despite Increased Insurance Access
WVTF NPR
By Brad Kuntner
May 7, 2018

As state lawmakers consider broadening healthcare access for lower-income people through expansion of the federal Medicaid program, transgender Virginians are sure to be among those who benefit.

But barriers, either from insurance providers or from the federal government, are still in place.

Katrina Cunningham is participating in a panel of transgender men and women at Diversity Richmond’s National Transgender HIV Awareness Day. Part fashion show, part learning opportunity, Cunningham recalls the earliest days of her transition, without healthcare and seeking treatment anywhere she could.
[…]
Lewis said there’s a myriad of reasons trans people can be denied coverage, and its often the result of not understanding the medical needs they deal with daily.  “Insurance companies say that these are cosmetic procedures even though they are recognized to treat gender dysphoria.”

I advise trans people if they get denied coverage to try calling back again to get a different customer assistant operator, sometimes that’s all it takes but most of the time it is a long drawn out process to get what we are due.

A New Law!

Last week the Senate and House passed a bill that the governor said he will sign that will require the Department of Corrections to house us in the prison of our gender identity.

Sometimes amendments are added to bills that can change the meaning of the bill, sometimes it is a poison pill to defeat the bill, sometimes it enhances the bill or clarifies some questions that came up in committee. I found last weekend that there is a bill being heard in the legislature that affects us. I was at a GLAD fundraiser when I found out about the bill about incarceration of women in prison. A friend, former classmate, and the community organizer for a non-profit told me about the amendment to SB13 which reads…

Sec. 8. (NEW) (Effective July 1, 2018) Any inmate of a correctional institution, as defined in Sec. 18-78, who has a gender identity that differs from the inmate’s sex assigned at birth and has a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, as set forth in the most current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, shall: (a) be addressed in a manner consistent with the inmate’s gender identity; (b) be provided with access to commissary items, clothing, programming, educational materials and personal property that are consistent with the inmate’s gender identity; and (c) have the right to be searched by a staff member of the same gender identity, unless the inmate requests otherwise or under exigent circumstances. An inmate who has a birth certificate, passport, or driver’s license that reflects their gender identity or who can meet the standard for obtaining such a document to confirm the inmate’s gender identity shall be presumptively placed in a correctional institution with inmates of the gender consistent with the inmate’s gender identity. That presumption can be overcome by the institution’s demonstration that the placement would present significant safety, management, or security problems.  In making determinations pursuant to this section, the inmate’s own views with respect to his or her own safety shall be given serious consideration.

The bill itself is about providing proper feminine healthcare products and pregnancy healthcare for the inmates. Our section was added by the ACLU and GLAD to codifying the DOC administrative directive regarding gender non-conforming folks in the system (I didn’t even know this existed!). Notice the part that says “or who can meet the standard for obtaining such a document to confirm the inmate’s gender identity shall be presumptively placed in a correctional institution with inmates of the gender consistent with the inmate’s gender identity.” that means that trans inmates who cannot afford to have therapy or to change their documents can still be housed in a facility of their gender identity. Thanks to GLAD and the ACLU we will have one of the strongest statutes in the country to protect transgender people who are incarcerated!

The fundraiser honored Nancy Wyman the Lieutenant Governor before she was the Lt. Gov. she was the State Comptroller, and she has a strong history of supporting LGBT rights.

I do think that it is a little bit ironic that it is section 8... Al la M.A.S.H., Kliger, and Section 8

---

Having laws is one thing, knowing about them and enforcing them are other problems that need to be overcome. If you are arrested and or detained for using the bathroom because they don’t know the law is no comfort as you are sitting there behind bars.

Transgender woman sues SF, alleging discrimination in denial of restroom
San Francisco Chronicle
By Bob Egelko
May 4, 2018

A transgender woman is suing San Francisco, saying her rights were violated when a city employee refused to let her use a women’s restroom on city property during an organized event and later called her a “freak” and a “f—ing man.”
[…]
Tanesh Nutall was attending a city-sponsored training session in February 2016 when she encountered the employee, who worked for the Department of Police Accountability, an oversight agency formerly known as the Office of Citizen Complaints. She said she was so traumatized by how she was treated that she suffered a nervous breakdown and left her job with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, where she had worked as an AIDS educator and transgender program manager.
[…]
In a court filing seeking dismissal of the state agency’s lawsuit, City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office argued that the laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation apply only to businesses and state-funded programs, and not to the San Francisco Department of Police Accountability or its staff.

The Transgender Law Center which is based in San Francisco said…

“They’re claiming that the city of San Francisco ... has the right to discriminate against trans community members who walk into government buildings,” said Jill Marcellus, spokeswoman for the law center. “This is an alarming departure from the public face that San Francisco presents as a leader on trans rights.”

It is of no help to us as we are harassed for doing what is legal.

Truth Comes Out

We now know the makeup of the “expert” panel that came up with the new trans military policy and it was just what we expected… all religious bigots.

New documents suggest Trump administration rigged military panel on transgender ban
It just doesn't add up.
Think Progress
By Zack Ford
May 2, 2018

The process that led to the implementation of President Trump’s transgender military ban in March is becoming clearer, thanks to a trove of new documents that shed some light on the otherwise murky closed-door dealings.

Four different lawsuits are currently challenging the ban, which was first announced in a tweet last summer and then re-issued on March 23. A ThinkProgress review of several documents included in discovery finds a massive disconnect between what was discussed in the meetings and what was ultimately recommended, reinforcing concerns that the process was rigged from the beginning — in favor of a ban.
[…]
Many of the details from the documents are redacted to block anything that might convey the panel’s “deliberative process,” i.e. the ways in which the panel used the information provided to make their determinations. The names of every guest who spoke at the meetings, as well as the “other attendees” present, were also blacked out.

What was left unredacted, however, is still revealing. Discussion at the first meeting (October 13, 2017) suggests that the military panel was divided on whether to allow trans service. Some offered positive comments about trans service members, but others expressed concerns about how “individual desires” might dictate what treatment they might receive. They seemed to believe that there should be a clear line as to what transition steps are “medically necessary” and which aren’t that could be objectively applied.

We knew intuitively that the panel was made up non-scientific panelists and that they didn’t look for anything that disproved their belief of trans servicemembers should not be in the military.

Trans servicemembers called before the panel reported…

Still, some of the panel members wrestled with understanding transgender identity, with one of the military leaders asking, “When are you not transgender anymore?” According to King, he was trying to figure out whether a person no longer needs that label if they completed all necessary medical interventions. As documented in the minutes, one of the trans service members replied, “I am no longer transgender when it is no longer relevant.”
[…]
“We were as surprised by what was said in the [final] recommendations, as a lot of other people were, because that was not our experience talking to the panel members,” Dremann said. “They seemed to realize that we had not caused any problems with the units or with our medical care.”

Medical personnel reported that…

Both groups of medical experts conveyed that allowing transgender service was the right call. Implementing a ban would hurt trans people who continue to serve in silence as well as civilians stigmatized by the ban. One medical expert also confirmed that allowing transgender transitions would “increase the lethality and readiness of the force” by “providing health care to an unserved population.”

So with all these positive testimonies you would think that they one find that there was no  problem with trans military servicemembers… Wrong!

Contrary to previous assumptions, this memo is the only final work product from the committee. Wilkie’s recommendations include:

• Transgender people can only join the military if they serve “in their biological sex.” In other words, if they took any steps to transition (or plan to), they are forbidden from joining.
• Transgender people who are already serving may serve openly, “but only in their biological sex and without receiving cross-sex hormone therapy or surgical transition support.” In other words, for trans people to continue serving, they have to forego transitioning and any related medical treatment.
• A diagnosis of gender dysphoria (past or present) is disqualifying, except for those service members who came out as transgender when the ban was originally lifted.

But the real panel was run by the Vice President,

As both ThinkProgress and Slate previously reported, Vice President Pence created his own separate “working group,” which included anti-LGBTQ activists like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation. Despite rumors that the military panel and Mattis himself favored allowing transgender people to serve, it was Pence’s recommendation to ban service, sources claim, that “effectively overruled” the panel’s work. Indeed, the final recommendations directly mirror the anti-transgender talking points those conservative groups regularly use.

The court record suggests, then, that Pence’s influence was already at work when Wilkie submitted his action memo. While questions remain, that continues to be the only explanation for how a panel that only heard information affirming transgender military service arrived at the opposite conclusion.

Let’s face it the current administration hates us and will do anything to force not just us but also lesbians and gays back in to the closet and set the clock back to the 1950s.

I See Life From Both Sides Now…

Exampling both sides are important but you need to examine both factual sides, you need to filter out the “fake news.”

An let’s face it reporters are dumb.

When it comes to trans issues they usually don’t have a clue about the facts, I will not say they are lazy but rather they do not have the luxury to research the topic they have just been order to report on. They have a deadline and doing through research on the topic is not an option.

How ‘Both Sides’ Journalism Is Failing Transgender People
In the spirit of ‘balance,’ journalists are giving credence to the junk science and misinformation of anti-trans activists. Readers are better served with clear facts.
The Daily Beast
By Samantha Allen
May 4, 2018

Yet something similar has been happening with too much reporting about transgender people in the Trump era: Journalists omit facts in ways that make public debates over supposedly “controversial” issues—like transgender restroom use, or transgender military service, or transgender health care—seem less settled than they really are.

They present quotes from anti-transgender voices without providing the necessary information to assess the claims being made therein. They give equal weight to the opinions of anti-LGBT groups and to the positions of major medical associations, or the conclusions of independent studies.
[…]
This lazy “both sides”-style reporting is ill-fitted to the task of capturing the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to drive an already-endangered population out of public life. And it’s only becoming a more glaring problem as those attacks continue.

I wouldn’t characterize them as lazy but rather there is no incentive or time to weed out the “fake news” when they do a Google search for transgender pediatrics what pops up in the top search results? The top result is the American College of Pediatricians which is a fake doctors organization that has only a couple of hundred of doctors while American Academy of Pediatrics has tens of thousands of members.

The New York Times correctly noted in its coverage that the move would fly in the face of “many medical experts,” and reported the extremely relevant fact that the American Medical Association “opposes” altering the rule.

This is absolutely vital contextualizing information for a health care debate: The largest body of physicians in the country, with a membership of almost a quarter-million, wants the regulation left alone.

But the Associated Press story that followed eight days later made no mention of the American Medical Association’s opposition to the rewriting of the rule.

Rather, the rhythm of the AP story is like a game of ping pong, bouncing back and forth between opposing viewpoints: First a Trump official gets a quote, then a Lambda Legal lawyer, then a “religious liberty” lawyer, and then a pro-transgender Republican.
[…]
Instead of firmly situating the debate in that context, the dueling claims in the AP story seem to exist in a vacuum, where everything everyone says carries equal weight: In one section, for example, the “religious liberty” lawyer claims that the Obama-era rule “would have forced doctors to perform gender transition procedures on children.” That quote is directly followed by a paragraph contradicting that claim which begins: “The American Academy of Pediatrics says…”
[…]
The problem lies not with the AP, chosen here as a recent representative example, or with any specific story, but with the limitations of “both sides” journalism as a genre.

I remember an interview that I gave to a local television station before the interview began we were trying to direct the report to the AP and GLAAD sites on the use of pronouns and he wanted nothing to do with our suggestions… but later on the evening news he got it. He used the correct pronouns.

I remember way back in the Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, and Peter Jennings era new was not a profit center to television but then the bean counters took over and the nightly news had to make a profit and the news went downhill from there.

I’m Not A Big Fan Of Telemedcine

Somehow I am more comfortable sitting in the doctor’s office than sitting in front of a computer screen.

Telemedicine Takes Transgender Care Beyond The City
NPR
By Keren Landman
May 5, 2018

At an outpatient lab in Tifton, Ga., where Karen Williams gets her blood drawn, a clerk looked from her computer screen to Williams' printed lab order, then back again.
"This is not right," the clerk said, squinting at the lab order. There, the birthdate and address matched the ones on the screen, but the name displayed was a male one.
A transgender woman, Williams lived as a man for nearly 50 years before beginning to make physical changes several years ago. She's grown out her hair and has gotten most of an old goatee lasered off. One of the things that hasn't changed, however, is her legal name – so in most health care situations, she usually uses her old name and driver's license.
[…]
For many transgender people, moments like this, when a health care worker first becomes aware of their gender identity, are often fraught with fear and anxiety.

This is always hard for us, coming out to healthcare* providers; many of us avoid going to healthcare providers because of our tangled identity documents. Our driver license might show a different name or gender than our medical records and even when the documents are in agreement we have to out ourselves to make sure we get proper medical coverage.

But then we still need to find doctors who will treat a trans patient.

Williams has a primary care doctor at a family practice in town, where framed Bible verses hang on the wall and Christian music plays in the waiting area. When she felt ready to begin taking hormones for gender transition, she didn't bother asking her local doctor. Instead, she made an appointment with Dr. Izzy Lowell, a family practitioner who specializes in caring for transgender and gender non-conforming people. But Lowell is based in Atlanta, a three-hour drive away.

And now thanks to the current administration healthcare providers can legally refuse to treat us, and it may even override state non-discrimination laws.

It's those patients Lowell had in mind when she opened QMed in the late summer of 2017. The practice offers care exclusively to transgender and gender nonconforming patients in the southeastern United States. Lowell's intent was to lower the barrier to access for adults and adolescents living in rural parts of the region. In less than a year, she's been able to do that, with only occasional hiccups.
[...]
In a study of rural sexual and gender minorities, 14 percent of transgender people reported traveling more than an hour to see their primary care provider – not necessarily the doctor who provided gender-related care. And in a 2017 survey by the Center for American Progress, 30 percent of transgender people living outside metro areas said it would be very difficult or impossible to find an alternative to their existing provider.

Okay as I said I am not a big fan of telemedicine, I feel there’s a great advantage to being there in person rather than a remote location. Body language tells a doctor a lot about how you are feeling, you might say everything is great but your body language says otherwise.

One other concern that I have is licensing…  I know there has been talk on WPATH elist and also in NASW about licensing of providers who are telehealth providers with patients not in their state where they are licensed. Questions arise about the need to be licensed in the state where the patient resides, telehealth are raising some questions that need answers. If you are in a state with minimal licensing requirements and your patient is in a state with stricter standards which state takes precedent?

But I have to admit that for patients who do not have access to a trans friendly healthcare provider this can be a blessing.

*I use the term “healthcare providers” because more and more of us are seeing not just MDs but also APRNs and Pas, RNs, therapist, and we also see a large number of lab techs and other specialists who are not doctors.

Saturday 9: Standing on the Corner

Crazy Sam’s Saturday 9: Standing on the Corner (1956)



On Saturdays I take a break from the heavy stuff and have some fun…
I’m back!
Between opening up the new cottage and helping at the conference last Saturday it has been a busy spring.

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

1) In this song, four friends congregate on Main Street to look longingly at pretty girls. In your town, where is the best place for people watching?
Probably at the local Dairy Queen. We are a bedroom town people commute to work with a number of strip malls so there is no real “center of town.”

2) This song was written for the Broadway musical, The Most Happy Fella. Who is the happiest person you know?
It is a tossup between two friends both wear a broad smile.

3) The members of The Four Lads met at Toronto's St. Michael's Choir School. Growing up, did you attend parochial or public school?
Yes.
I attended both parochial and public schools. One year at the parochial school and I managed to talk my parents into transferring from there to public high school.

4) The Four Lads always wore jackets and ties when they performed. Do you enjoying dressing up? Or would you rather keep it casual?
I enjoy causal dress.

5) While this song was a hit for The Four Lads, they were completely overshadowed in 1956 by Elvis Presley and "Heartbreak Hotel." Who do you think dominates today's music scene?
I have no idea, I don’t listen to any of the stations that play contemporary music. It is all “oldies but goldies” stations.

6) The Wizard of Oz aired on TV for the first time in 1956. Sam was never crazy about those flying monkeys. Tell us about something that frightened you when you were a kid.
I was never a big fan of horror movies and I definitely not a fan of today’s blood and guts horror movies.

7) What scares you now?
Trump.

8) Since this week's song is about pretty girls: 1956's Miss America was Sharon Ritchie of Colorado. Today Colorado has the distinction of being the home of more microbreweries than any other state in the union. Which are you most particular about -- your beer, your wine, or your coffee?
I don’t think I am partial to any one beverage, I like them all but I would also include water and tea in to that mix.

9) Random question: We all have small, irritating habits, like soup slurping or not replacing the cap on the toothpaste. What's your nasty little habit?
Hmm… that is a hard questions to answer, I think we don’t think we have any irritating habits but I imagine that other people would say that I do.

I Didn’t Know He Was Trans, So I Killed Him*

In many murder cases the defendant use the face that we are trans or lesbian or gay against us and since we are dead we can’t speak up against the defendant. This type of defense is called “Gay Panic” or “Trans Panic” defense.

Texas man gets probation after using ‘gay panic’ defense to explain killing his neighbor
LGBT Nation
By Bil Browning
Friday, April 27, 2018

James Miller of Austin, Texas was found not guilty of manslaughter and murder by a jury after killing his neighbor, Daniel Spencer. After Miller used the “gay panic” defense, claiming Spencer made a pass at him, the jury found him guilty of criminally negligent homicide and sentenced him to 10 years of probation.

While a handful of states have outlawed the defense tactic and the American Bar Association has called on states to ban it, in Texas it is still legal to get away with murder by saying a gay man’s advances can justify killing him.

The judge was required under state law to honor the jury’s recommendation but also added on six months of jail time, 100 hours of community service, and restitution of $11,000 to the victim’s family. Miller will also have use a portable alcohol monitoring device for at least a year.
[…]
The jury apparently didn’t care about the hole in her heart as much as they did the idea of a gay man supposedly making a pass at a straight man. To them, that’s deserving of death.

They also use the same defense against us… “I had sex with him and I found out afterward that he* was a trannie*!”

I make this promise; I will do everything that I can to pass a law banning gay/trans panic defenses here in Connecticut. I also promise that I will do everything that I can to add religion, and race to the law. Because murders have also used… “I found out that she was Jewish, so I killed her.” I found out that she was black and I killed her!”

* I used this language because that is how the defense talks about us, they misgender us and use derogatory language.

This Is What We Have To Put Up With From Republicans

They demonize us, they marginalize us, they lie about us, and they don’t even have a clue about us.

GOP House candidate: Transgender people have 'an issue with mental illness'
The Hill
By Morgan Gstalter
May 2, 2018

A Republican running for a House seat in South Carolina suggested at a candidate forum on Monday that transgender people are mentally ill.

“You're either a man or a woman — and if you’re confused, you’ve got an issue with mental illness," former state Sen. Lee Bright said.

The Greenville News reported Tuesday that Bright made the remark at a forum for a dozen GOP candidates hoping to replace Rep. Trey Gowdy (R), who announced his retirement in January.

“If we don’t get right, God is going to judge us, and let me tell you it is going to be painful," Bright said.

During his time as a state senator, Bright sponsored a 2016 bill to ban transgender people from using public bathrooms, changing rooms and locker rooms that did not match their birth gender.
[…]
The results of a straw poll released after the event showed Bright coming in fourth, with 21 votes.

This is the type of bigots that we have to put up with from the Republicans not only the candidate but also those who voted for him.

---

Today I am at the National Association of Social Workers conference for the Connecticut chapter and I will  be giving a workshop on cultural competency along with attending other workshops 

Gender Queer In Court

How will a court deal with someone who identifies as non-binary?

Will they force them into the binary boxes?

Pronouns matter: SDNY judge opts for plurals in case with genderqueer plaintiff
Reuters
Alison Frankel
May 1, 2018

(Reuters) - I write often about whether judges should permit plaintiffs to litigate anonymously, so I knew I’d be interested in an April 27 decision by U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken of Manhattan in Doe v. Fedcap Rehabilitation. What I didn’t realize is that the judge’s use of pronouns would turn out to be as interesting – perhaps more interesting – than his analysis of Doe’s privacy rights.

The plaintiff suing Fedcap under the pseudonym Jaime Doe identifies as genderqueer. Doe claims to have experienced discrimination and retaliation based on sexual orientation and gender nonconformity after returning to work at FedCap following breast cancer and a double mastectomy. Doe’s lawyers at Phillips & Associates argued that their client’s already fragile emotional health would be further battered if Doe were required to litigate the case without a pseudonym.

Doe was allowed to file the complaint under a pseudonym, but Fedcap’s lawyers at Epstein Becker & Green subsequently contended that Doe had already revealed confidential information about gender nonconformity in public posts on Facebook and Twitter. Doe, who is no longer employed at Fedcap, was also featured, by name, in two New York Times articles disclosing some of the same sensitive information Doe’s lawyers sought to keep private. “Plaintiff was a ‘surprisingly eager’ participant in the New York Times articles that revealed to the general public the very alleged personal facts that Plaintiff now claims are highly sensitive and confidential,” the Fedcap brief said.

Judge Oetken agreed. The judge said he was sensitive to Doe’s concerns about public filings exposing intimate personal information that could lead to discrimination at Doe’s new job and even bullying of Doe’s school-aged children. But Doe was already identified in one of the Times stories as genderqueer, Judge Oetken said. A photo accompanying the story “specifically illustrated plaintiff’s non-conformance with gender norms,” he wrote. Balancing Doe’s “difficult and uncomfortable” exposure as a publicly-known plaintiff against Fedcap’s diminished leverage if Doe is allowed to litigate pseudonymously, the judge concluded that Doe must use their real name.

So a take-away from this is beware what you post online if you are planning on suing, it can and will be used against you!

Judge Oetken paid Doe the same respect and fairness in his opinion. The judge noted Doe’s preferred pronouns in the second paragraph of his opinion and used “they,” “them” and “their” in place of masculine or feminine pronouns throughout the body of the decision. I will admit, as a self-appointed member of the grammar police, that it was a bit jarring to read a judicial opinion employing plural pronouns to describe a singular plaintiff. (For example: “Plaintiff argues that defendants’ alleged discrimination left plaintiff emotionally scarred, and that outing them on the public record would compound that trauma,” or, “Plaintiff argues that genderqueer individuals suffer disproportionately from discrimination, and that, if outed, plaintiff would be at further risk of discrimination by employees at their new job.”) I bet it was jarring for Judge Oetken, a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk, to write an opinion that breaks old-school grammar rules. On the other hand, Judge Oetken is a convention-buster: When the U.S. Senate confirmed his appointment in 2011, he was the first openly gay man to become a federal judge.

So legal precedent has been set!

Let’s hope other judges follow through.

Evil!

He has a right to run for governor but the people who signed his petition are nothing but homophobes and transphobes.

Anti-Gay Pastor Scott Lively Has Qualified For Mass. Governor Race
"The natural family of a man and woman...is the self-evident foundation of all civilization," says the pastor who lobbied for Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill.
NewNowNext
By Lamar Dawson
May 2, 2018

Lively has actively promoted anti-LGBT laws in Uganda and Russia and hopes to bring them to the United States as well.

In 2016, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) filed a lawsuit against Lively accusing him of crimes against humanity, claiming he convinced lawmakers in Uganda to pass draconian anti-gay laws. In multiple trips over a course of a decade, SMUG maintains Lively fostered hatred and violence against LGBT Ugandans, who he labeled “brutal savages” and pedophiles.
[…]
Lively has positioned himself as the pro-Trump answer to the state’s current LGBT-friendly governor, Charlie Baker, who is critical of the president. On Lively’s campaign website, the pastor states he advocates for the traditional definition of marriage writing: “The natural family of a man and woman united in life-long marriage for mutual love and support and the bearing and nurturing of children, through birth or adoption, is the self-evident foundation of all civilization.”

On the campaign trail, Lively has also promised to go after Baker’s Transgender Anti-Discrimination Law which allows people to choose public facilities like restrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity, and protects transgender people from discrimination in public spaces like libraries.

You may remember that I wrote about him being sued about what he did in Uganda, he won the case but is appealing the case,

In Scathing Ruling, Court Affirms SMUG’s Charges Against U.S. Anti-Gay Extremist Scott Lively While Dismissing on Jurisdictional Ground
Historic Case Has Broken New Legal Ground, Documented Lively’s Campaign of Persecution in Uganda
Center for Constitutional Rights

June 6, 2017, New York – Yesterday, a federal court minced no words in affirming that U.S.-based anti-gay extremist Scott Lively aided and abetted the crime against humanity of persecution in a ruling dismissing the lawsuit brought by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) on a narrow jurisdictional ground.

“Anyone reading this memorandum should make no mistake,” wrote Judge Michael Ponsor of the U.S. District Court in Springfield Massachusetts. “The question before the court is not whether Defendant’s actions in aiding and abetting efforts to demonize, intimidate, and injure LGBTI people in Uganda constitute violations of international law. They do.”

The judge ruled that even though the evidence supports SMUG’s claims that Lively worked to deprive them of fundamental rights, the court did not have jurisdiction as a result of a 2013 Supreme Court ruling issued after SMUG’s case was filed. The ruling in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell limited the extraterritorial reach of the Alien Tort Statute, under which SMUG brought its claim. “The much narrower and more technical question posed by Defendant’s motion is whether the limited actions taken by Defendant on American soil in pursuit of his odious campaign are sufficient to give this court jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims,” Judge Ponsor continued. “Since they are not sufficient, summary judgment is appropriate for this, and only this, reason.”

So now he is appealing his victory…

Savaged by Judge, Anti-Gay Minister Appeals Court Win
Court House News
By Zack Huffman
June 16, 2017

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (CN) – Just days after a federal judge tossed the crimes-against-humanity suit against him, an anti-gay evangelist has brought an appeal to remove criticism of his hateful bigotry from the court record.
[…]
Lively now claims in the footnote of a June 8 notice of appeal that Ponsor went too far.

“Although this order granted summary judgment in [his] favor,” Lively said the First Circuit should intervene to clean up “certain extraneous but prejudicial language immaterial to the disposition of the case.”

Lively’s attorneys, Horatio Mihet with the Orlando firm Liberty Counsel, also contend that “the district court had no jurisdiction to entertain or enter” such language.

So this is the guy running for the highest office in the state of Massachusetts.

Breaking News! New Hampshire

New Hampshire legislature overnight passed a gender identity/expression non-discrimination bill.

Transgender Anti-Discrimination Bill Sent to Governor
The New Hampshire Senate is voting this week on whether to expand the state's anti-discrimination law to include transgender people.
U.S. News and World Report
By Holly Ramer, Associated Press
May 2, 2018, at 7:15 p.m.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The state Senate on Wednesday sent a bill protecting transgender people from discrimination to Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, who said he will sign it.

The bill, which passed the House in March, would ban discrimination based on gender identity in housing, employment and public accommodations, in addition to the protections that already exist based on race, sex, religion and sexual orientation. It passed the Senate 14-10, with four Republicans joining all 10 Democrats in voting yes.

Among the supporters was Sen. Dan Innis, R-New Castle, said everyone in the "Live Free or Die" state should have the same protection, including the estimated 4,500 transgender residents.

"I don't understand, I admit that, just as many of you don't understand me. That's not what we're asking for in this bill," said Innis, who is gay. "These laws are necessary because of the pervasive discrimination that transgender people face at work, at home and in public. I'm not transgender, but 10, 20 years ago, I experienced these discriminations. They're painful."

New Hampshire was the last New England state to pass a non-discrimination bill to protect us.

Now we need to concentrate on New York and Pennsylvania to pass a gender inclusive non-discrimination laws. New York only has an executive order protecting us and you know how easy it is for the next governor to reply executive orders.

Congratulation New Hampshire!

Understand Gender

Everyone in a while I come a really good article explaining gender dysphoria and this one comes from Harvard.

Between the (Gender) Lines: the Science of Transgender Identity
By Katherine J. Wu
October 25, 2016

Think of your most noticeable feature. Maybe it’s your radiant smile, or your long, piano-playing fingers. Maybe it’s your stellar jump shot, or the way you recite Shakespearean sonnets at the drop of a hat. Or maybe it’s your penchant for scientific knowledge. But whatever it is, for better or worse, it is probably not your most salient feature to the world around you. To others, our most salient feature is one that doesn’t make any of us very salient at all – a feature in which none of us had any say in, which was assigned at, or prior to, birth: are you male or female?

Gender identity haunts every aspect of our lives, dictating the outcomes of our conversations, our workplaces, our relationships – even our bath products. Before most infants are named, they are assigned a sex based on the appearance of their external genitalia by a third party. These decisions are dolled out in a typically binary fashion, with no expectations for ambiguity. This is the norm – but has this simplicity led us astray?
[…]
The transgender identity has long been associated with poor mental health, particularly the diagnoses of “gender identity disorder” and “gender dysphoria.” However, the World Health Organization is actively working towards declassifying transgender identity as a mental disorder, a change partially prompted by a recent study uncoupling the mental and physical health problems experienced by transgender people from their gender identity. Rather, those who had suffered ailments could vastly attribute their afflictions to societal stigma, discrimination, and violence.

The article then goes into the science of gender identity…

First and foremost, is gender identity genetic? It seems the answer is yes – though, as with most traits involving identity, there is some environmental influence. One classic way for scientists to test whether a trait (which can be any characteristic from red hair to cancer susceptibility to love of horror movies) is influenced by genetics is twin studies. Identical twins have the exact same genetic background, and are usually raised in the same environment. Fraternal (nonidentical) twins, however, share only half their genes, but tend to also be raised in the same environment. Thus, if identical twins tend to share a trait more than fraternal twins, that trait is probably influenced by genetics. Several studies have shown that identical twins are more often both transgender than fraternal twins, indicating that there is indeed a genetic influence for this identity. So, what genes might be responsible?

Transgender women tend to have brain structures that resemble cisgender women, rather than cisgender men. Two sexually dimorphic (differing between men and women) areas of the brain are often compared between men and women. The bed nucleus of the stria terminalus (BSTc) and sexually dimorphic nucleus of transgender women are more similar to those of cisgender woman than to those of cisgender men, suggesting that the general brain structure of these women is in keeping with their gender identity.

The article goes on to discuss the natal environment, genetics, and the brain, it also has a number of good references used in the article.

Well worth reading!

Would You Go To A Trans Senior Housing?

Would you go to a senior housing that is just for trans people?

Many would but also many would say it ghettoizes us, I would have to think long and hard about it. Many of my friends are trans but I also have a lot of cis gender friends.

A Retirement Home For Transgender People Is Opening In Pakistan
"These people, rejected by their loved ones, can live in this old home like a big family."
NewNowNext
By Jeff Taylor
May 1, 2018

An activist in Pakistan is opening the country’s first retirement home for transgender people.

Aashi Butt, herself transgender, is opening the home to care for a community that is often forced to become sex workers, beg on the streets, or perform as song and dance entertainers in order to survive, until they age out of the profession, reports The Express Tribune.
[…]
So far, 60 people have signed up to live in the home, where they will not only be provided with food and shelter, but will also have access to free medical treatment. The facility will additionally include a lounge area, where residents can play games and watch TV, a small library, and a prayer corner.

In a country such as Pakistan it makes sense because of the hostility directed against us.

“These people, rejected by their loved ones, can live in this old home like a big family,” Butt said. She added that those living in the home “will be together in each other’s sorrow and happiness.”
[…]
Still, anti-transgender violence reamins an issue in Pakistan. Earlier this year, eight transgender women were shot on the street after fending off unwanted sexual advances. A spokesperson for the group Trans Action Pakistan (TAP) reported local officials further harassed the victims.

How about you?

Would you live in a LGBT senior housing?

survey services

Basic Human Needs

Healthcare is a basic human right.

Back in the colonial times healthcare was not an issue because there was no such thing as doctors as we know them today. When I was growing up you visited the doctor’s office in their house or the doctor came to your house and if you couldn’t pay it didn’t matter. Then healthcare became big business.

Transgender patients sue Wisconsin for not covering their surgeries
The Hill
By Avery Anapol
April 30, 2018

Two transgender Wisconsin residents are suing the state’s health department, alleging discrimination because their desired gender reassignment surgery is not covered by Wisconsin Medicaid.

In the complaint, plaintiffs Cody Flack and Sara Ann Makenzie challenge a 1997 Wisconsin regulation that prohibits the state’s Medicaid program from covering what it refers to as “transsexual surgery.”

The regulation, which is similar to provisions in nine other states, says such surgery is medically unnecessary. The plaintiffs say the regulation “flies in the face” of the medical consensus on gender dysphoria, the “clinically significant distress associated with having a gender identity ... that conflicts with the sex one was assigned at birth.”
[…]
Flack, a transgender man, and Makenzie, a transgender woman, are asking a federal judge to declare the provision unconstitutional under the Affordable Care Act and to block the state from denying them coverage. They are also seeking damages for related “economic and non-economic injuries” and legal fees.

It will all boil down to the judge. Hopefully it will not be a Trump appointee.

The state is going to have a hard uphill fight on their hands.

Trump’s War on Trans Americans Is About to Face a Counterattack
The administration is preparing to gut health care protections for transgender people, but civil rights advocates are ready.
Slate
By Mark Joseph Stern
April 30, 2018

To an extent rarely discussed by the media, Donald Trump’s presidency has been defined by an overwhelming, unrelenting hostility toward the rights of transgender Americans. In just 15 months, the Trump administration has withdrawn federal guidance protecting transgender schoolchildren, employees, and homeless people. It has attempted to outlaw transgender military service and painted trans individuals as disordered deviants who are too mentally unstable to serve. One-third of Trump’s judicial nominees have anti-LGBTQ records, including one who described transgender children as part of “Satan’s plan.”

In the coming weeks, the administration will launch its next attack on trans rights by announcing the revocation of a landmark regulation that protects transgender people from discrimination in health care. The Department of Health and Human Services will argue that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors and hospitals from turning away transgender patients, or insurance companies from refusing to cover gender-related treatment. This time around, however, civil rights advocates are prepared to fight back. In fact, they’ve already laid the groundwork for a two-pronged legal attack to maintain the ban on anti-trans health care discrimination.

The ACA’s protections for LGBTQ people lie in Section 1557 of the law, which forbids medical providers and insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. Like many federal courts, the Obama administration interpreted sex discrimination to encompass discrimination against transgender people on account of their transition from one gender to another. If a medical provider refuses to provide hormone therapy to a transgender man, for instance, it has declined treatment based on his sex, concluding that an individual assigned female at birth should not receive the recommended care. Thus, in May 2016, HHS issued a regulation interpreting Section 1557 to bar discrimination in health care on the basis of transgender status.
[…]
But it’s also not at all clear that HHS can actually get away with gutting Section 1557. The lower courts have developed a sizable body of case law establishing that sex discrimination encompasses anti-trans discrimination. And the Supreme Court itself has ruled that “sex stereotyping”—punishing an individual for not complying with gender norms—constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex. When a medical provider declines to treat a transgender patient because it feels he should comport with the sex assigned to him at birth, it’s denying treatment on the basis of a stereotype. The ACA was designed to strike at the entire spectrum of medical discrimination; it would be rather odd to exclude this clear-cut form of gender-based discrimination from the law’s ambit.

The roots of the court rulings go back to the Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins 1989 ruling by the Supreme Court where the court said as the article points out sex discrimination also includes “sex stereotyping” and in Schroer v. Billington the federal district of the District of Columbia said,

There, the court noted that an employer who fires an employee because the employee converted from Christianity to Judaism has discriminated against the employee “because of religion,” ... because “[d]iscrimination ‘because of religion’ easily encompasses discrimination because of change of religion.  By the same token, discrimination “because of sex” inherently includes discrimination against employees because of a change in their sex.

Another court has ruled that religious freedom does not apply when it comes to discrimination.

However, based on the funeral home’s defense that the application of Title VII would force it to violate its sincerely-held religious beliefs, the district court found the funeral home was exempt from Title VII pursuant to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA).  In so finding, the district court relied on RFRA’s provision that “[a] person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation in this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding.”

It is going to be very hard for the administration to justify any attempts to cut us out of the ACA (Obamacare). But it is going to be a long drawn out fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

While We Are Talking Healthcare

This is something that we all know in the trans community but it is something not many other people know or understand.

Health care is new front for transgender rights under Trump
Chicago Tribune
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar  Associated Press
April 29, 2018

Military service. Bathroom use. Job bias. And now, health care.

The Trump administration is coming under fire for rewriting a federal rule that bars discrimination in health care based on "gender identity." Critics say it's another attempt to undercut acceptance for transgender people.


The Health and Human Services Department rule dates to the Obama administration, a time when LGBT people gained political and social recognition. But a federal judge in Texas said the rule went too far by concluding that discrimination on the basis of gender identity is a form of sex discrimination, which is forbidden by civil rights laws.

Instead of appealing the judge's injunction, the Trump administration has opted to rewrite the rule, which applies to health care providers and insurers receiving federal funds.

Roger Severino, head of the department's Office for Civil Rights, said the rewrite will address the "reasonableness, necessity and efficacy" of the Obama-era requirement. He refused to discuss specifics, as the revision is under White House review before its official release.

In other words they are going to dump us… they are going to find that healthcare for us is not "reasonableness, necessity and efficacy" and they are probably also have some type of “religious freedom” exemption. But I see a long drawn out court battle, which is why I hope Supreme Court Justice Kennedy stays on until 2020 election.

They are also going to find it hard to prove "reasonableness, necessity and efficacy" when…

Gender-affirming surgery 'significantly improves quality of life,' study says
Approximately 75 percent of transgender women showed an improved quality of life after surgery, a study out of Germany found.
NBC News
By Vanessa Guillen Matheus
April 11, 2018

Before her surgery, Sydney Walther, 21, said she had been terrified of going out in public and being stared at by unknown faces. But today, she said those fears have dissipated, and it’s “as if a weight has been lifted” off her shoulders.

The Virginia resident traveled to New York City last year for what she described as a “life-changing,” gender-affirmation surgery at NYU Langone Health.
[…]
A team at University Hospital in Essen, Germany, followed 158 transgender women patients for a median of more than six years after their surgery. They found approximately 75 percent of patients showed improved quality of life after their procedure. The results were unveiled last month at the annual European Association of Urology Conference in Copenhagen.

“It’s very important that we have good data on quality of life (QOL) in transgender people,” Dr. Jochen Hess, the study’s lead author, told NBC News. “They generally suffer from a worse QOL than non-transgender population, with higher rates of stress and mental illness, so it’s good that surgery can change this, but also that we can now show that it has a positive effect.”
[…]
Dr. Hess hopes his team’s study and the new Essen Transgender Quality of Life Inventory will help transgender individuals and health professionals make better and more informed decisions regarding transgender care.

It will also make it harder to take away our healthcare when the studies show that our the quality of our lives improve immensely by transitioning and not hiding in the close.

It will make the religious bias of the current administration has against us.

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I am having minor dental surgery so my posts will be sporadic, yesterday after the Novocain wears off I feel like I got hit by a truck. My next appointment is in two weeks and I just hope it doesn’t hurt like it does now for two weeks.