Reminder: sexual orientation & gender identity are different, Trans Awareness Week

November is Transgender Awareness Week running from the first week in the month, usually the 13th to the 20th culminating in the Transgender Day of Remembrance, TDOR, remembering those who have been taken from us tragically. 

There is a piece of intellectual dishonesty as described by some and downright deception in my eyes of labelling and unqualified diagnosis of transgender persons as ‘mad’ the chief protagonist of it all is none other than Dr Wayne West in his latest round of public advocacy; he has been redirecting the criticism of his outfit Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society, JCHS as ‘Crazy’ and affiliated groups namely Lovemarch, Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship, LCF aided and abetted by radio platforms such as Trinity Broadcasting and other non traditional media. Dr West’s recent references on LOVE 101FM specific to the pending transgender or gender neutral bathroom case slated to head to the US Supreme Court. He claimed in his unabashed support of Donald Trump’s attempts for the Presidency he claimed that transgender persons were ‘crazy’ among other things and went for the gender dysphoria diagnosis although he is not trained in psychology. He then sought to redefine in his mind that ‘normal persons’ in his trademark Trinidadian accent are not ‘confused’ and know who they are, definite male or female and nothing else.

When questioned by the host of the show on supporting a man (Trump) who is accused of some serious infractions and his fitness to run the most powerful government in the world (though slowly losing some credibility) Dr West quickly tried to adjust his position despite Trump is NOT anti LGBT as he has relatives who are so and indeed some of his mid to high end properties do allow same gender couples stay and wedding services, in fact there is word that he made a killing post the gay marriage SCOTUS ruling, notice Trump has not touched gay marriage all that much in his campaign for the Presidency although he has touched the business of the vacancy on the said SCOTUS with the thrust of replacing the deceased judge with another conservative; Dr West claimed to use moral equivalence to say out of the two both of whom as bad choices Trump is the better despite the obnoxiousness that has come to rub persons worldwide the wrong way.

West and others have sought to and continue to lump sexual orientation with gender identity so suggest the LGBTQI global advocacy is to impose new philosophies whilst silencing Christian voices which is not true, all this while having unfettered access to multiple traditional and social media platforms and more misguided public protests on said matters but barely as vocal and strident on other societal ills, they only respond to such when it really looks bad such as the recent Jamaica College student phone murder; one wonders of the one day protest in black was a honest response or was being used to right size the selectivity criticisms by myself and others. It makes for short work to continue to otherize LGBTQI people and they have even gone as far as pushing for intersex children to have surgeries long before they have the ability to give consent as to reassignment surgery where applicable.

West’s designation of sexual orientation as a misnomer in order to legitimize homosexuality has not gone unnoticed he claims that rigidity is the order of the day so one is either heterosexual or homosexual complete with name calling as per usual despite his so called Christian position. He totally ignores the concept of non binary gendering and has expressed fears that the upcoming SCOTUS hearing of the gender neutral bathroom matter may go in the favour of the applicants as the silencing campaign of persons like him continue, the usual victimhood ploy with is so overplayed. People such as West’s allies Betty Ann Blaine has made it her life’s work to label asylum seekers even with legitimate cases of homophobic violence outcomes as liars without any serious evidence shows the level of desperation these folks would go to in the name of God.

Remember these?:

see Gay Jamaica Watch: May 27, 2013

The Gleaner carried: 

'We're Not Crazy' - Local Lobby Defends Anti-Homosexuality Views; Rejects 'Homophobic' Label

More gay marriage paranoia & hijacking of the homosexual debate by fanatics

When did anyone ask for gay marriage rights in Jamaica when we can't get basic tolerance ......... more smokescreen to deny recognition

Continued misconceptions of adult homosexuals being paedophiles and Is this a joke .... Church group denies gay bias and Healthy coalition nonsense! indeed

So let’s right size some of the deception and nonsense here egregiously done in the name of some misguided or misplaced fanatical Christianity, and note the difference between the two:

Sex? Gender? These two words are often used interchangeably, but there are distinct differences.

Sex is commonly understood to be based on a person’s genitals and reproductive organs; these anatomical details are thought to define a person as male or female. Gender is often understood to refer to gender identity, meaning your internal sense of yourself as female, male, or other, regardless of biology.

Truth is what is ultimately going to come to some middle ground on this mess frankly, despite the late in coming change of the position on the buggery law from repeal to decriminalization for example as court challenges are pending, said fanatics also use the deception of a push for a full repeal to give strength to their advocacy and then claim to subscribe to God centered principles which speak to forgiveness, true tolerance and such.

Nuff said

Peace & tolerance

H
also see:

JCSC Highlights Danger Of Debate About Buggery may lead to strife

Jamaica CAUSE issues Veiled threat to Govt to keep the buggery law or else

Another St Thomas Pastor Accused of Rape ....... where are these same groups?

Gay Lobby May Have Lost Potential Allies (after the JFJ sex education saga)

Church Cherry Picking on Issues again

Oh really! ............ Penile/anal penetration is NOT Sex Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society?

Anti Gay Religious group launches pro buggery DVD

Dr Wayne West’s continued intellectual dishonesty ...

Jamaican Pastor says the LGBT issue is not about rights but acceptance of lifestyle

The False Dichotomy of the religious right on the LGBT advocacy Godlessness

Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society continues its “HIV is a gay disease” campaign with more deception added

Anti Gay Religious group launches pro buggery law DVD

Transgender Awareness Week 2016 ...............

Transgender Awareness Week, typically observed the first two full weeks of November, is a two-week celebration leading up to Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), which memorializes victims of transphobic violence. TDOR occurs annually on November 20, when transgender advocates raise awareness of the transgender community through education and advocacy activities. The first week begins with third parties hosting events at venues surrounding a main central venue, followed the second week by more venues at the main area showcasing more and more in-depth events. The purpose of Transgender Awareness Week is to educate about transgender and gender non-conforming people and the issues associated with their transition or identity.

Given recent utterances by anti LGBT voices namely Dr Wayne West of the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society, JCHS and others declaring transpersons as 'mad' and getting traction from it I decided for this year to look at what transgenderism is all about to include some links to previous posts.

Dr West specializes in demonizing persons while claiming he is a Christian yet uses terms glibly such as gender dysphoria and claiming that advocates are stiffing 'freedoms of speech' yet he is quite prepared to support Donald Trump's campaign for US President despite his stances that are disturbing to say the least. On Love 101FM today he reiterated his support and claimed his competition Hilary Clinton will continue where Obama left off by pushing abnormality on everyone else.

for example:

WHO set to declassify trans identity as mental disorder…but is it enough?

Aphrodite's P.R.I.D.E Jamaica, APJ Launches website

Transgender Awareness Month .......... Diva Whitney & more

Thoughts on coming out transgender to family

The difficult task of separating drag culture from transgender identity ..... 2013

Coming Out for A Trans Person ..........

Transgender people are people who have a gender identity, or gender expression, that differs from their assigned sex.

Transgender people are sometimes called transsexual if they desire medical assistance to transition from one sex to another. Transgender is also an umbrella term: in addition to including people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex (trans men and trans women), it may include people who are not exclusively masculine or feminine (people who are genderqueer, e.g. bigender, pangender, genderfluid, or agender). Other definitions of transgender also include people who belong to a third gender, or conceptualize transgender people as a third gender. Infrequently, the term transgender is defined very broadly to include cross-dressers, regardless of their gender identity.

Being transgender is independent of sexual orientation: transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, etc., or may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable. The term transgender can also be distinguished from intersex, a term that describes people born with physical sex characteristics "that do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".

The degree to which individuals feel genuine, authentic, and comfortable within their external appearance and accept their genuine identity has been called transgender congruence. Many transgender people experience gender dysphoria, and some seek medical treatments such as hormone replacement therapy, sex reassignment surgery, or psychotherapy. Not all transgender people desire these treatments, and some cannot undergo them for financial or medical reasons or physiologies are not capable of handling the bombardment of hormones needed maintain post transitioning.

Most transgender people face discrimination at and in access to work, public accommodations, and healthcare. They are not legally protected from discrimination in many places.

also see:

Transgender Awareness Week: Taboo Yardies Screening in Kingston

Transgender Awareness Week 2013 ..........

Peace & tolerance

H

WHO set to declassify trans identity as mental disorder…but is it enough?

It has recently been announced that the World Health Organisation is proposing – finally – to remove transgender identity and gender dysphoria from its list of mental health disorders.

The list, known as the ICD-10, describes gender dysphoria as “the urge to belong to the opposite sex that may include surgical procedures to modify the sex organs in order to appear as the opposite sex”.

Calls for the WHO to revisit this have increased in recent years and most recently since new research has confirmed that transgender and non-binary people experience disproportionately high rates of social rejection and are more likely to be victims of violence. One such study, published in the medical periodical The Lancet, argued that “the conceptualisation of transgender identity as a mental disorder has contributed to precarious legal status, human rights violations, and barriers to appropriate health care among transgender people.” The psychiatrists behind the study recommended removing “categories related to transgender identity from the classification of mental disorders, in part based on the idea that these conditions do not satisfy the definitional requirements of mental disorders…[after considering] whether distress and impairment, considered essential characteristics of mental disorders, could be explained by experiences of social rejection and violence rather than being inherent features of transgender identity” they concluded that there was a need to declassify gender dysphoria and transgender identity as mental disorders and to instead seek ways to “increase access to appropriate services and reduce the victimisation of transgender people.”

The human cost of conflating identity with disorder

Professor Geoffrey Reed, the study’s senior author, said: ““The definition of transgender identity as a mental disorder has been misused to justify denial of health care and contributed to the perception that transgender people must be treated by psychiatric specialists, creating barriers to health care services.

“The definition has even been misused by some governments to deny self-determination and decision-making authority to transgender people in matters ranging from changing legal documents to child custody and reproduction.”

Dr Rebeca Robles, the study’s lead investigator, added: “Rates of experiences related to social rejection and violence were extremely high in this study, and the frequency with which this occurred within participants own families is particularly disturbing.”

The WHO is reportedly considering declassification when it next reviews its list of mental and behavioural disorders in two years’ time. Work on this – which will be known as the ICD-11, has taken some time and the list has not been updated since the 1980s. There have so far been no objections from within the WHO to the calls to change the classification of transgender identity. There appears to be recognition that the existing classification reinforces stigma while doing nothing to alleviate the problems of rejection and distress many transgender and non-binary people experience. All this is naturally positive.

“A diagnosis – but not a mental health diagnosis”Does tackling discrimination require a change of language and culture, especially in medical circles?

Perhaps less positive is the suggestion that ICD-11 will declassify transgender identity will as a mental disorder but will list it in a different part of the document, potentially under conditions related to sexual health. New York psychiatrist Dr Jack Drescher, a member of the ICD-11 working group, explains: “So they’ll be diagnoses, but they won’t be mental disorder diagnoses.” Glad that’s been cleared up.

It is proposed that the new ICD-11 will refer to “gender incongruence” as “characterized by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual´s experienced gender and the assigned sex, which often leads to a desire to ‘transition’, in order to live and be accepted as a person of the experienced gender, through hormonal treatment, surgery or other health care services to make the individual´s body align, as much as desired and to the extent possible, with the experienced gender. The diagnosis cannot be assigned prior the onset of puberty.” So while it’s been declassified as a mental health condition, it is still likely to remain a clinical diagnosis.

While declassification will be welcome, not to mention overdue, it will represent the beginning of a process rather than signify an end in itself. There can be little doubting that being rendered mentally disordered will always be stigmatising and dehumanising; however, it’s not only the ICD-11 categorisations that need to be challenged but also the culture of medicalisation behind it. It’s not enough to declassify the “mental disorder” element in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to strip away stigma that speaks volumes about the way mental health continues to be treated, when the same identity issue is continued to be perceived as something that is in some way “wrong”. We need to move away from the language of “disorder” altogether.

This is vitally important, especially as many transgender and non-binary people receive deficient treatment in the NHS. If we’re serious about tackling discrimination, we need a change of language – and a corresponding change in culture.

Medicalisation – part of the problem?
Are overly medical approaches doing trans people a disservice?

There is also a tendency in our scientific world to over-medicalise everything, and consequently there will be those who feel that transgender people are actually best served through a system that provides them with psychological care and institutional support. One such voice, American psychiatrist Paul McHugh, goes so far as to suggest transgender people’s real difficulty is “underlying psycho-social troubles”, which constitute “a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention”. He is not alone.

These voices may be arguing against a growing consensus, but they underline the reality that the arguments must move away from medical. After all, it wasn’t long ago that homosexual people were seen as being mentally disordered and it wasn’t the intellectual medical arguments that brought about greater social acceptance for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. Yes, declassifying transgender people as mentally disordered will, at a stroke, cease to mark them in the way they have for decades. It will also mean governments who have used the WHO’s inadvertent support for their denial of rights and protections to transgender and non-binary people may have to reconsider their actions.

The medical arguments label, analyse, consider data and seek to offer scientific explanations. All that can be helpful. But what they’re less good at is recognising that transgender experiences are incredibly varied, as are the “treatments” transgender people want. They don’t generally treat individuals as individuals, but as some kind of homogenous group with a shared identity. Ultimately, why should it be up to the medical profession to decide who has a valid gender identity and who doesn’t?

And that’s the real issue – who has the right to determine who is and who isn’t a particular gender? Who has the right to deny people the right to identify with any gender or none? While declassifying gender dysphoria as a mental health condition represents a powerful statement and an overdue step forward, the real solution lies in improving social awareness, with education rooted in the experiences of transgender and non-binary people.

Transgender experience
Lesley Stafford: “I had to put my hand up to a ‘mental health disorder’ to be allowed certain treatment, but I was never convinced of the correctness of this.”

Lesley has often been asked when she knew she first felt like a girl, a woman, and she can’t answer the question. She explains: “I have never felt like a girl or a woman; I simply was a girl, and, later, a woman. Nor can I explain how a child, albeit a very bright child, can get their head around the way I was and live comfortably with the dichotomy of being a girl while living as a boy.

“I had problems enough as a child and this wasn’t one of them. My father had a problem with my problem, and he had a drink problem, and the toxic mixture would bubble into regular physical violence, intimidation, and humiliation for me. I was clever too, I knew it, I wasn’t shy about it and that was a problem; I liked “snob music” and that was a problem. I was a problem. I would “end up a bloody pervert, like that one on the telly”, and I have no idea which pervert I was destined to be like. I never worried myself about that. My mother exploited my strange malady in another more sinister and sickening way, and that remains a problem for me.

“For a long time, my biggest issue was that I lived contentedly in a boys’ world while something in my manner seemed “girlish” to my parents, but I WAS a tomboy. I lived my boys’ life fully in character. I climbed trees better than any other child my age; I was up for every mad, crazy adventure going. I hung about the fringes of my older brother’s delinquent gang. I stole. I lied. I cheated. The police dragged me home from time to time, and I was charged with petty offences.

“The discovery that my conduct and my dilemma might be explained by my being a tomboy was a great relief. So I am a girl! That’s great!”

When Lesley first heard this expression, and discovered its meaning, a great weight was lifted from her shoulders. Puberty was hell, but she did all she could to survive, and be a girl in a boys’ life – not a boys’ body, or mans’ body. It annoys her still to hear to hear the phrase “a woman trapped in a man’s body”. She says: “I was a girl, a woman, and my body was my own. Don’t get me wrong; my body was pretty well screwed up, but it was mine, and my body and my psyche lived in joyous confusion together for most of my life. We still do. I don’t have a female body. Nor can I ever have one. My breast and genital surgeries were deeply moving experiences for me, but I don’t have a new body. I have my body, the same body I always had – altered but still me, still a woman, still the same woman I always was. I had to put my hand up to a ‘mental health disorder’ to be allowed certain treatment, but I was never convinced of the correctness of this.”Andrew: “I was concerned that anything I said would be connected to my mental health problem.”

Andrew, who is non-binary, admits they’ve “never felt particularly male…from as young as I can remember I always wanted to do ‘girly’ things and struggled to adapt to societal gender roles. In my teens, things happened to my body physically that don’t really happen to boys. So while I didn’t have a woman’s body I certainly didn’t have a typically male one either. For all the arguments about gender being a psycho-social expression of identity or a social construct, in my case there was an undoubtedly a biological basis.

“The picture was complicated further by my sexual orientation (Andrew is bisexual) and the fact that in the Hebrides during the 1990s there were few opportunities to openly and positively discuss my gender identity. Seeing a doctor about this was difficult to say the least – I was also concerned about anything I said being connected to my mental health problem (Andrew experienced depression at this time). So I hid it, tried to make sense of it alone, sometimes even ashamed of who I was. Later, working in mental health, I became more aware of non-binary and transgender identities but also discovered the stigma behind them…there’s no doubt that revisiting the ICD and reclassifying gender dysphoria can help tackle this. But it isn’t enough by itself.”

The new ICD-11 is expected to change the status of transwomen like Lesley. She says: “I will no longer be seen to suffer from ‘gender dysphoria’ – a very vague mental health condition. It would seem that I have had it exchanged for a ‘condition related to sexual health’ – namely ‘gender incongruence’ . . . Hm! At least I’m not crazy! I still have ‘a condition’ and I am still suitable for treatment.

“When I first engaged in gender politics and activism, I met women like me who hated the term transsexual. It was the use of “sexual” that was a problem. We didn’t have a “sexual problem”; we had a “gender issue” and I remain conflicted about that. Transgender is a dreary term, and I have never liked it. Is it an umbrella term? Am I trangender(ed)? My feeling is that I am transsexual. My body, my own woman’s body, clearly bore the evidence of male sexual characteristics. I lived my life as a man. I have children to whom I am a father. My gender, my certainty that I am a woman, has never changed.

“I emerged from hiding. I nailed my colours to the mast. I am the woman I always was. I have neverchanged gender. My body is my own, it is a woman’s body; it always was.

“When my original GP read a few sections of the letter she had received from Dr David Gerber at theSandyford Clinic in Glasgow, I felt the need to quip – ‘You have a letter that says I’m not mad?’

“Not in this respect.”

source

Causes of Gender Dysphoria .........

Gender dysphoria usually means a difficulty in identifying with the biological sex in an individual.

The causes of gender dysphoria are not fully clear.
Psychiatric and biological causes

It was traditionally thought to be a psychiatric condition meaning a mental ailment. Now there is evidence that the disease may not have origins in the brain alone.

Studies suggest that gender dysphoria may have biological causes associated with the development of gender identity before birth.

More research is needed before the causes of gender dysphoria can be fully understood.
Genetic causes of biological sex

Research suggests that development that determines biological sex happens in the mother’s womb.

Anatomical sex is determined by chromosomes that contain the genes and DNA.

Each individual has two sex chromosomes. One of the chromosomes is from the father and the other from the mother.

A normal man has an X and a Y sex chromosome and a normal woman has two X chromosomes.

It is seen that during early pregnancy, all unborn babies are female because only the female sex chromosome (or the X chromosome) that is inherited from the mother being the active one.

After the eighth week of pregnancy, the chromosome from the father (an X for a female and a Y for the male), gains in activity.

If the father’s contribution is the X chromosome the baby continues to develop as female with a surge of female hormones.

This helps develop her female sex organs, reproductive organs and features. This makes her sex and gender female.

If the inherited chromosome from the father is a Y there is a surge of testosterone and other male hormones that lead to development of male characteristics, such as testes.

This makes the baby’s sex and gender male. 

Causes of gender differences

There are several different potential causes of gender differences, these include hormonal changes, exposure to estrogenic drugs and so forth. 

Hormonal causes

Hormones that trigger the development of sex and gender in the womb may not function adequately.

For example, anatomical sex from the genitals may be male, while the gender identity that comes from the brain could be female.

This may result from the excess female hormones from the mother’s system or by the foetus’s insensitivity to the hormones.

The latter condition is called androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS).

Exposure to progesterone or other estrogenic drugs

Although there is no research that shows that males or females exposed to progesterone in the womb or other estrogenic drugs, such as diethylstilbestrol (DES) may have a raised risk of gender dysphoria; there may be an association in some atypical aspects of gender role behavior.
Rare conditions that may lead to gender dysphoria

There may be rare conditions like congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), and intersex conditions (also known as hermaphroditism) which may also result in gender dysphoria.

In CAH a female foetus has adrenal glands (small caps of glands over the kidneys) that produce high level of male hormones. This enlarges the female genitals and the female baby may be confused with a male at birth.

Intersex conditions mean babies may be born with the genitalia of both sexes. In these cases the child is allowed to grow and choose his or her own before any surgery is carried out to confirm it.

Other causes of gender dysphoria

There may be chromosomal abnormalities that may lead to gender dysphoria.
Sometimes defects in normal human bonding and child rearing may be contributing factor to gender identity disorders.

Edited by April Cashin-Garbutt, BA Hons (Cantab)

Further Reading

What is Gender Dysphoria?
Gender Dysphoria Symptoms
Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis
Gender Dysphoria Treatments

Intersex Issues in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)

From discussions at the Third International Intersex Forum in Malta, December 2013, a meeting of activists and experts took place in Geneva, in September 2014, on revision and reform of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) by the World Health Organization (WHO). The meeting aimed to develop a collective analysis of intersex issues in the ICD, identify connections between diagnoses and treatments, and to highlight human rights issues related to current biomedical management practices.

The September 2014 meeting was organised by the GATE International Initiative on the ICD Reform Process, in partnership with ILGA. It was planned and coordinated by Mauro Cabral (GATE) and facilitated by Ruth Baldaccino (ILGA). Participants in the meeting were Janik Bastien-Charlebois (Canada); Morgan Carpenter (Australia); Dan Ghattas (Germany); Holly Greenberry (UK); Natasha Jimenez (Costa Rica); Ev Blaine Matthigack (Germany); Nthabiseng Mokoena (South Africa); Daniela Truffer (Switzerland) and Markus Bauer (Switzerland). The meeting was also attended by Doris Chou (WHO); Sara Cotter (WHO); André Du Plessis (ILGA); Robert Jakob (WHO); Rajat Khosla (WHO); Eszter Kismödi (Human Rights lawyer); Renato Sabadini (ILGA); and Michael van Gelderen (OHCHR).

Following the meeting, this report was submitted in November 2014 to the WHO Topic Advisory Group for Genitourinary, Reproductive & Maternal Health (GURM TAG) for the ICD revision. The submission addresses specific concerns related to intersex issues in the ICD reform process. It was edited by Morgan Carpenter and Mauro Cabral, with substantive contributions from the intersex activists, experts and allies convened by GATE.

The report establishes a set of grounding principles, and provides an overview of terminological and historical issues, before an analysis of broad and specific issues with the ICD framework and diagnoses. The submission also details human rights concerns and presents an epistemological analysis. The submission is intended as an invitation for a critical dialogue between intersex activists and the World Health Organization.

Intersex issues and the International Classification of Diseases 

The ICD revision and reform process has a key relevance for the intersex movement. Diagnostic categories play a central role in expressing scientific understandings, establishing medical approaches, informing clinical protocols, defining surgical, hormonal and other treatments. Diagnostic categories defining intersex bodies reify differences between stereotypical female and male bodies on the one hand, considered to be healthy, and bodies that vary from female and male standards on the other hand, considered to be “disordered”, or “abnormal”. Current classifications therefore contribute to stigma and discrimination against intersex people; they endow appropriateness to medical attempts to “fix” or “normalize” intersex bodies through surgical and hormonal means. 

They play a direct role in determining how intersex bodies are treated in society at large. Everywhere in the world, people born with intersex traits are subjected to “normalizing” procedures, including clitoridectomies, labioplasties, vaginoplasties, gonadectomies, hypospadias “repair”, and treatment with steroids or sex hormones. Many of these procedures are performed during infancy and early childhood when intersex individuals cannot provide their informed consent. Intersex babies, infants, children and adolescents are also subjected to related practices in medical settings, such as continued exposure. 

In different parts of the world, treatments also include socio-legal measures, including a lack of birth certificates. Most of these treatments have lifelong consequences: they produce sterility, genital insensitivity and impaired sexual function, chronic pain, chronic bleeding, and chronic infections, post-surgical depression, and trauma (in many cases associated with the experience of rape), massive internal and external scarring, metabolic imbalances. These procedures have been internationally denounced as institutionalized forms of genital mutilation. 

They reproduce and reinforce the cultural sense of intersex bodies as disordered and shameful; they produce coercive social environments. The ICD reform process would benefit from a in-depth revision of assumptions and conceptions around sex, and the connection between clinical language and treatments. In our review of both ICD-10 and ICD-11 (Beta), it is notable that the term intersex is not explicitly included; however, intersex-related diagnoses are contained in both versions, with many common characteristics: ! Both ICD versions share the same implicit and normative conception of sex as binary, rendering all bodies that vary from female or male standards as pathological by definition. ! While heterogeneous in their application, both ICD versions share the same negative definitional approach to intersex bodies, employing pathologizing and stigmatizing diagnostic descriptions such as “disorder”, “disease”, “malformation”, “pathologic”, “defect”, and “abnormality”. Multiple such terms may be employed in the same diagnosis. Both ICD versions combine different diagnostic languages (such as, ‘hermaphroditism’ and ‘DSD’).

Download the Document HERE 

also see: DSM-5 FALLS SHORT ON GENDER DYSPHORIA REVISION, ICD 11 UPDATE 2013 from GLBTQJA Wordpress

Critique and Alternative Proposal to the “Gender Incongruence of Childhood” Category in ICD-11 PDF

Peace & tolerance

H

Dr Shelly Ann Weeks on Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation

When the Caitlyn Jenner matter first came to light and in the height of the euphoria Nationwide radio had a discussion on the issue with the present host of the show "Everywoman" Georgette Crawford who in essence made a mess of herself as a sociologist describing Caitlyn's journey and that of another panelist our own trans voice Satiba co-founder of Aphrodite's P.R.I.D.E Jamaica as mad.

see more on that here Aphrodite’s P.R.I.D.E Jamaica, APJ tackles gender identity, transgender misconceptions & an ignorant sociologist 

Thankfully the previous host of the same "Everywoman" radio show who happens to be a psychologist (maybe NNN needs to reconsider her hosting again) Dr Shelly Ann Weeks (her previous writing: Dr Shelly Ann Weeks on Homophobia - What are we afraid of?) has produced another simple but effective explanation of gender identity and sexual orientation which seems to be conflated in the reaction to the Jenner transition. Sadly we are not as highly exposed as let's say Cuba where their national public awareness programs on LGBT matters via the national TV station provide a steady feed of information, discussion and more.

Have a read of Dr. Weeks' piece as published in the Star today.

You would have to be living under a rock that's under the ocean to not have heard about Bruce Jenner's transition into Caitlyn Jenner.

"Call me Caitlyn" was the statement on the most recent cover of Vanity Fair magazine with a very feminine brunette who vaguely looks like Bruce Jenner in drag. This epic announcement has influenced passionate responses and a myriad of questions.

Bruce's transition to Caitlyn is possibly the most public declaration for a transgender person, and many persons seeing it for the first time were shocked. What made it even more traumatic is that Bruce was the ultimate alpha male. He's an Olympic star, father of six children and has been married three different times.

So how could he want to be identified as a woman? 

This is a very confusing idea especially for many persons who are already secure in how they identify themselves, so the thought of being so unhappy with the body a person was born with, is unbelievable. For some, the big question is about the sexuality, now that the transition has been made and Caitlyn will keep her penis. With all the questions, I found it important to make the distinction between gender identity and sexuality.

Gender Identity

Simply put, your identity is how you see yourself, and how you want to be seen by others. Gender can be masculine, feminine, intersex (having both male and female characteristics), or transgender (when a person's biological sex and gender identity don't match up). For some, gender identity is defined simply by the biological gender that they were born with. Culture and tradition also influence gender identity because there are defined gender roles that most persons conform to.

Sexuality

A person's sexuality is defined by the gender of the person that they are attracted to sexually. The spectrum can vary from asexual (no sexual attraction), heterosexual (opposite gender), homosexual (same gender), bisexual (male and female), pansexual (all genders).

It is important to note that while identity and sexuality are important aspects of human behaviour, they are not mutually exclusive.

Gender identity is very personal and though there are a lot of expectations placed on individuals because of their biology and so deviating from that is met with much skepticism. Butch women, for example, have become commonplace in Jamaica as quite a few young women choose not to express their identity in a stereotypically feminine way. While some of these ladies are homosexual, it's not always the case. While we continue to understand each other and persons express their identities, it is important that we are respectful of each other's choices whether we agree with them or not. 

Have fun and stay sexy!

ENDS

XXtraz here she is originally from her Youtube channel on Buggery and such:

Peace and tolerance

H

Aphrodite’s P.R.I.D.E Jamaica, APJ tackles gender identity, transgender misconceptions & an ignorant sociologist

 Caitlyn Jenner (pic from the net)

As the euphoria continues surrounding Bruce Jenner’s transition from male to female and subsequent pre-released photos via the magazine Vanity Fair’s online edition for June 2015, a firestorm of sorts has also erupted here in Jamaica regarding gender identity, misplaced or conflated cross dressing with homosexual intent and supposed imposing foreign values. Sadly when these topics are made to collide or being lumped as one the fear of the unknown comes to dominate rational thinking and all kinds of statements, unqualified diagnoses and pronouncements including psychiatric ones are made that persons who either are transgender or transsexual are mentally ill despite the fact that the guiding instrument for qualified professionals who can make such diagnosis has removed gender dysphorphia (linked to the former Gender Identity Disorder, GID) from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, DSM now in its fifth dispensation. "Dysphoria" is a feeling of dissatisfaction, anxiety, and restlessness. With gender dysphoria, the discomfort with your male or female body can be so intense that it can interfere with the way you function in normal life, for instance at school or work or during social activities.

Gender dysphoria used to be called “gender identity disorder.” But the mismatch between body and internal sense of gender is not a mental illness. Instead, what need to be addressed are the stress, anxiety, and depression that go along with it.

The condition has also been called “transsexualism.” But this term is outdated. Some consider it offensive. Now “transgender” is often used to describe someone who feels his or her body and gender do not match.

Gender nonconforming (GNC) is a broader term that can include people with gender dysphoria. But it can also describe people who feel that they are neither only male or only female. Informally, people who identify with both genders or with neither gender might call themselves "genderqueer."

Gender dysphoria is not homosexuality. Your internal sense of your gender is not the same as your sexual orientation.

At the time of this post NNN did not post the audio of the discussion and my recorded copy the quality is not so hot as it was captured by a third party device (phone) but here it is for now, please pardon the static:

APJ's Satiba & Dr Karen Carpenter on Gender Sex & Transgenderism (NNN) 01.06.15 

Also see some previous posts:

Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis to be Moved Out of Sexual Disorders Chapter of DSM-5 ....... The "D" Switcharoo? 2012

Sexual & Gender Identity Disorders | APA’s proposed changes for DSM 5 2011

APA offers New Position on Transgender Care ......... 2012

Ten Reasons Why the Transvestic Disorder Diagnosis in the DSM-5 Has Got to Go 2010

Stop Confusing Gender Dysphoria With Body Dysmorphia Already 2014

Gender Variance (Dysphoria) another look 2010

Transgender/transexual discourse ...... Open Mic Open Soul 22.06.11

The difficult task of separating drag culture from transgender identity ....... 2013

pic.twitter.com/X7FvYrEH2D

— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) June 1, 2015

Jenner after opening her new Twitter account has broken the record for most followers in a short time as her handle gained over one million followers in less than an hour beating the previous record holder President Obama’s personal handle POTUS just some weeks before. Jenner is a former Olympic athlete of Kardasian parents formerly known as Bruce made her debut as a woman yesterday; goodbye Bruce hello Caitlyn was how some media outlets opened their coverage of the story, Jenner had revealed earlier this year his transition status after years of contemplating and the relevant engagements required for such a life altering activity. In April in that now infamous interview with Diane Sawyer revealed the issues he faced then.

I am a bit concerned about the way the story is being carried both locally and abroad as the novelty like creation of this due to the celebrity-dom of Jenner bearing in mind other persons also have come out and tracked publicly their own transitions. The co-modification element of it in terms of her look and comparisons to what he looked like before prior to the change and thus making transitioning seemed limited to someone's vain idea of being different.

I can understand some of the ignorance and the difficulty for locals to digest this new information for some as the lack of understanding of sex and sexuality (remember the HFLE fiasco?) gender identity and sexual orientation and the exposure for some Jamaicans is limited to the eyes of Hollywood, celebrity gossip and the almost glorification of cosmetic surgery which is not the same as a gender re-assignment surgery for proposes of addressing gender dysphorphia. The comments on social media suggest there is a lot of public education work that is required that our school systems have failed to do hence the resistance.

Nationwide New Network, NNN devoted some forty five minutes of prime time yesterday evening to discuss the issue and help listeners to at least begin to process some of the information coming from the most public declaration exercise as done by Jenner. Guests on the show were Dr Karen Carpenter Board Certified Clinical Sexologist and Psychologist, ‘Satiba’ from Aphrodite’s P.R.I.D.E Jamaica of which I am affiliated and Lecturer (Sociologist) and host of Every Woman on the station Georgette Crawford Williams (sister of PNP member of parliament Damian Crawford); one of the first questions thrown at Satiba by host Cliff Hughes was why has Jenna waited so long at 65 years old to make such a life changing decision?

Satiba responded that many transwomen have to hide their true identity in life .... given her life when she was younger she was a star athlete she would have been under tremendous precious to stay in from the expectations by the public and her team etc, also owing to the fact that she had a family as a man with children one may not want to upset the flow at that time until the kids are old enough. There is a lot of burden of guilt that some persons carry in weighing the decisions of coming out or transitioning so suppression of one’s true self is the modus operandi.

Dr Karen Carpenter was on point with explaining the differences in gender identity and sexual orientation while also pointing to the fact that genitalia is not all that determines ones designation of male or female, she highlighted the Hidras in India and due to their high numbers and visibility in that country a third gender designation has been granted by law however things got a little dicey when Ms Crawford’s turn came around has she went on to designate Satiba and others like her as mentally ill, it was hard to decipher whether she was being fastidious or deliberately contrarian so as to stir up controversy. Even after Dr Karen Carpenter explained gender dysphoria Ms Williams still persisted sighting dubious artciels and studies and even after Dr Carpenter subtle prodding warning her not to make psychological pronouncements as a sociologist while highlighting co-morbid conditions affecting such persons.

Dr Carpenter cautioned:

“We really must remember as professionals we must stay in our lane I will never pronounce as a Sociologist cause I am not a Sociologist ............When we have an opportunity to speak publicly we must be careful of what we say unless it is extremely well informed......”

Miss Crawford Williams then went further to suggest such persons were suicidal as they are out of touch with the bodily reality and even comparing anorexia with gender dysmorphia and the idiotic “cut off a part of their body” is not normal and goes against the societal norms. Satiba was asked to intervene she opened with her line she had to hold her tongue after hearing the mentally ill designation albeit by a sociologist. Satiba then outlined she is in transition and her timeline journey summarised from 2003, she also explained her tipping points to include a suicide attempts and failed heterosexual relationships as a man she could not continue to live a lie.

She continued: 

“I wasn’t happy ......... questions about getting married and having kids ........ this idea of having children then one day finding out about the real me ..... I could not live my life as a lie any longer, so I went out and I sought help I found a doctor who was one of the doctors who actually worked with Dr Harry Benjamin, Dr Ruth Dobar who was the one who diagnosed me and that is where my transition begun.”

Satiba also spoke to her support from her father the most unlikely of persons as she thought he would have been less accommodative and her mother more so however things played out the oppositely; she claimed the devil was in her and so on but Stiba managed to win her over somewhat by presenting research data and so on the subject and it was not about homosexuality as most persons misconstrue gender non conformity to be a gay issue .. She outlined how difficult it was losing family friends and the changes wrought due to the decision to come out.

“I was completely alone, I only had the support of my father and that was a big surprise for me cause I thought he was gonna punch me in the face and tell me get the hell outa my face and he didn't he turned around and said to me you know; you only have one life, if this is gonna make you happy do it, just make sure it’s the right thing and from that I have never looked back, he has been in my corner ever since.”

I was expecting more in the discussion though about the procedures required for the surgery and that the emphasis is on the psychological and psychiatric engagement that precedes the actual transition process. 

Mariela Castro

I wanted to hear about Cuba more so than the United States references as the island neighbour offers state sponsored surgeries and pre and post operative treatment so long as the client is diagnosed by the requisite professional; albeit the communist nation even under Fidel Castro where his daughter Mariela Castro runs an organization named CENESEX which is involved in state television awareness programming on transgenderism and sexuality. I think a non US reference might come over easier to some than a US one as the may justification for resistance of any such gender identity and sexual orientation is the first world is imposing values and new norms.

Previous interviews with Satiba and APJ:

Nationwide Radio's (Jamaica) Everywoman On Gender Identity & Transgenderism

Radio program "Love & Sex" on Sexual Identities & Transgenderism (Were you born in the wrong body?) 2010

Intersexuality, Ambiguous Genetalia & Psycho-social issues Discussion on Nationwide Radio Jamaica 11.09.09

and see:

Barack Obama Praises Caitlyn Jenner: ‘It Takes Courage To Share Your Story

Peace & tolerance

H

Impossible for Intersex People to be Cisgender?

Dr. Cary Gabriel Costello

"Is it impossible for intersex people to be cisgender because it is impossible in society to live completely as in intersex person with no male or female legal checkbox?"

In my experience, what you find when speaking with intersex people about this is an interesting split based upon gender identity. Intersex people who do not identify with the binary sex they were coercively assigned at birth tend to see all intersex people as forced to live trans lives. Intersex people who do identify with the binary sex label they were given at birth instead generally see themselves as cis people, and only frame as trans gender those intersex people who gender transition or who assert a nonbinary gender identity.

Personally, as an intersex gender transitioner, I fall into the camp that does not view intersex people living in our society as cis gender, even if their gender identity matches their assigned sex. Intersex children are born neither male nor female, but are forced into a binary sex category by a contemporary social ideology that says this is mandatory. Many are then subjected to infant sex assignment surgery to try to make their bodies conform to their assigned sex. What is that other than a forced sex change? Just because a person grows up to identify with the sex they were assigned at birth does not mean they will feel surgeries they were subjected to were appropriate. Loss of potential fertility and loss of capacity for sexual sensation are prices that they may not consider worth the result of a somewhat-more-sex-conforming body--note that many people who gender transition by choice choose not to get genital surgery. Thus, I believe, framing medical interventions into the reproductive organs and genitals of intersex people as trans interventions, not "corrections," is important, as it will force doctors to give us agency over what is done to our bodies, and prevent them from removing the very sexual features we may most identify with.

The problem with my framework politically is that a majority of intersex people today do live in their assigned binary sexes, growing up as we do in a society in which that is the norm. The percentage of us who mature to gender transition or assert a nonbinary gender identity is much higher than is the case for nonintersex people, although we don't know the exact degree of the difference because doctors are emphatically not collecting data on us, their sex-assignment "failures." Still, a majority do live their lives in their assigned sexes (often completely in the closet about being born sex-variant, as doctors have urged parents to train their children to be). And most such people do not identify at all as "forced to live a transgender life." That is, they identify as cis gender.

If someone says, "I was assigned female (or male) at birth, and I identify as female (or male)," then we usually call such a person cis gender. So intersex people who understand themselves as cis gender have a very valid basis for framing themselves that way. Certainly this is the way the medical field treats the situation, in claiming to assign us to what they used to call our "true" sex, and now call our "best" sex. Doctors view themselves not as imposing sex changes upon unconsenting infants, but as revealing our "real" binary (cis) sex.

I feel that understanding all intersex people who have been assigned a binary sex (which, in the US today, is all of us) as trans is useful, because it gives us a way to oppose unconsented-to infant genital surgeries. I view those intersex people who are happy in their assigned sexes as no different from people who are not intersex, but gender transition by choice and are happy as a result.

At the same time, I don't feel I have a right to tell an intersex person who identifies as cis gender that they can't do that. After all, as trans gender advocates note, every person is coercively assigned to a binary sex at birth. A person who grows up to identify as genderqueer, or with the binary sex they were not assigned, is forced to struggle with medical and legal and social forces to have their identity recognized, whether sex variant by birth or born with a body considered normative. So, viewing all cis people as coercively assigned to the sex with which they identify makes calling intersex people who identify with the sex they were assigned "cis gender" reasonable, from a trans-affirming perspective. (Of course, many people are not trans-affirming, and transphobia can motivate rejection of being labeled trans gender. But I do not believe it is either charitable or necessary to assume that an intersex person who identifies with their birth-assigned sex and rejects being labeled as trans is motivated by bigotry.)

I just feel that labeling anyone who is medically altered to change the sex characteristics of their body as trans makes the most sense, and is useful from an advocacy standpoint.

UPDATE:

I've done some additional thinking about this topic, and would like to have people consider approaching gender identity in intersex people by acknowledging that we can never address intersex experience well through binary terminology. What we may really need to do is to introduce another term.

what I would suggest doing is adding to the terms "cis" and "trans" another term often used in scientific terminology. In chemistry, which gives us the language of cis and trans isomers, there are chemicals based upon a ring structure, called arene rings. When a chemical substitution is made in the same place on the ring, this is referred to as "ipso" substitution.

If we were to add the term "ipso gender" to trans and cis gender, we could perhaps describe intersex experience more accurately. A cis gender intersex person would be one with an intermediate gender identity, since that "matches" their birth sex. An ipso gender intersex person would identify with the binary sex they were medically assigned (the social sex substituted for their intersex birth status being the same as their identified sex). And a trans gender intersex person would be one who identifies with the binary sex other than the one they were assigned by doctors.

This terminology solution is not without its drawbacks. Usually people who are genderqueer in identity are considered to fall under the trans umbrella, but in the case of intersex people, they'd fall under the cis heading, which could prove confusing. But it's also possible that confusion would itself prove productive.

It's certainly worth considering.

Dr Costello is an academic and scaler of boundary walls, intersex by birth, female-reared, legally transitioned to male status, and says he is pleased with his trajectory

Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis to be Moved Out of Sexual Disorders Chapter of DSM-5 ....... The "D" Switcharoo?

image from GIRESUK

As transgender allies we continue to pay close attention to the new developments on the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, DSM 5 front a leading expert has provided more insight into the development of Gender Dysphoria to get a chapter of its own. 

The Gender Identity Disorder Reform Advocates reported that:

Dr. Jack Drescher, a member of the subworkgroup on Gender Identity Disorders of the DSM-5 Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, confirmed on December 6 that the Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis will be removed from the sexual disorders chapter and placed in a separate category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:

GD is supposed to be placed in a chapter of its own, no longer linked with sexual dysfunctions and paraphilias (which will also have chapters of their own)

This reclassification, along with the change in title from Gender Identity Disorder to Gender Dysphoria, is a significant improvement in the diagnostic coding used for access to medical transition care, for trans and transsexual people who need it. Preceding diagnoses of Transsexualism/Gender Identity Disorders were grouped with “psychosexual” disorders in the DSM-III. They were briefly moved to the class of Disorders Usually First Evident in Infancy, Childhood or Adolescence in the DSM-III-R in 1987 but were returned to the sexual disorders chapter in the DSM-IV, and DSM-IV-TR. Community advocates and supportive medical providers have long raised concern that this placement was clinically misleading and reinforced false stereotypes about gender diversity. Gender identity is not specifically related to sexuality, sexual orientation or sexual dysfunction. Political and religious extremists have exploited the sexual disorder grouping in the DSM to sexualize gender diversity and defame trans people as deviant. Trans and transsexual individuals have consequently lost their jobs, homes, families, children, and civil justice.

The DSM-5 working group responsible for sexual and gender diagnoses hinted at a possible change in diagnostic placement in February, 2010, stating

The subworkgroup questions the rationale for the current DSM-IV chapter Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, which contains three major classes of diagnoses: sexual dysfunctions, paraphilias, and gender identity disorders… Various alternative options to the current placement are under consideration.

The decision to separate the revised Gender Dysphoria category from sexual disorders is consistent with aprevious determination by the working group to remove sexual orientation specifiers from the diagnostic criteria. While many shortcomings remain in the proposed Gender Dysphoria diagnosis, this change in placement in the DSM represents forward progress for trans and especially transsexual individuals.

Unfortunately, the DSM-5 Task Force and APA Board of Trustees retained the Transvestic Disorder category in the sexual disorders chapter. Previous known as Transvestic Fetishism, it is grouped with paraphilic diagnoses such as pedophilia and exhibitionism and authored by Dr. Raymond Blanchard of the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (formerly called the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry). 

This punitive and scientifically capricious category maligns many gender variant people, including transsexual women and men, as mentally ill and sexually deviant, purely on the basis of nonconforming gender expression. It is written to promote Blanchard’s unfounded theories of “autogynephilia” and “autoandrophilia” that conflate social and medical gender transition with fetishism. More than 7000 people have signed an online petition, sponsored by the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), calling for the removal of this harmful diagnosis from the DSM.

Other activists are bemoaning the "D" word switcharoo and are not impressed just yet until Gender Identity Disorder is completely removed from the manual. The DSM 5 is slated for release May 2013. 

Planettransgender administrator Kelli Busey sounded off on the switcharoo:

"There are extremes in all communities and ours is no exception. Being radical it seems right that I occupy the one on the far side advocating for our removal lock, stock and barrel from the DSM-5.

I'm also open to others opinions and since it's such a hot button issue, one I felt needed our attention I created a Facebook event that was joined by five thousand people for conversation. Some against some for our removal and some in the middle, but all respected.

Did those of us who wanted our removal succeed? No, most likely we failed despite my best effortsat getting local people out from behind their keyboards. That was somehow my fault. Not the gay communities. We didn't take to the street at key moments and gain the spotlight as they did twenty years ago.

The facts.

The December first 2012 press release from the APA announcing the next bureaucratic step needed to publish the DSM-5 had been taken by the board voting it's approval.

And the world fell over themselves to announce trans people were no longer listed as "disordered" by in the DSM.

Did I miss something in that press release?

The Message From APA President Dilip Jeste, M.D., on DSM-5 offers no specifics, only justifications and denials regarding the process.

So whats up?

The often quoted Med Page published in May following the last public meeting reports what may not up:

"Gender identity disorder. Individuals who believe their biological gender doesn't match their gender identification will no longer be labeled with a disorder. Instead, if they seek psychiatric treatment, they can be labeled with "gender dysphoria."

The workgroup responsible for dealing with the hot-button issue considered a variety of other approaches, addressed later in this article. Ultimately they settled on a formal diagnosis -- potentially qualifying a patient for insurance-paid treatment if they want it -- but with a less pejorative name than "disorder."

So the name might change but what is the difference between the two words and what does it mean to trans people? The free medical dictionary defines....

Gender Identity Disorder:

"The psychological diagnosis gender identity disorder (GID) is used to describe a male or female that feels a strong identification with the opposite sex and experiences considerable distress because of their actual sex."

Gender Dysphoria:

"unhappiness with one's biological sex or its usual gender role, with the desire for the body and role of the opposite sex.

Not much difference between the two words is there?

Please understand this is just conjuncture since no further official information available until the DSM-5 is published in May 2013.
But given that one D word is being substituted for another what's the end result?

We remain pathologized by the APA

pa·thol·o·gize

/pəˈTHäləˌjīz/Verb

Regard or treat (someone or something) as psychologically abnormal or unhealthy

Which in my opinion denies us our rightful place among the worlds well adapted productive citizens.

So try as hard as I may I failed, kind of. Who knows. I did give space to those who wanted conversation. But most importantly, those who wanted our total removal from the DSM as well.But now its just a waiting game. The APA has what it wants, our undivided attention, our money, the guidelines to normality, acceptability and our chances at success in life.

ENDS

Certainly we are headed into interesting times as transgender activists especially in the US no longer are prepared to be relegated somewhere else anymore and are making their voices heard, LGB activists need to take note and align ourselves in their efforts if it is that we are working from a truly cohesive LGBTQ mantra if not say so, change organizations names if neccessary to reflect their true position and work within their own parameters and not use the call letters randomly to seem to be inclusive then silent on the other issues ...... take note. 

Our Jamaican advocates are guilty of this invisibility and commensurate reference convenience as not a peep has come from them since this important development has taken place, buggery is far more attractive and commands soundbites more than the struggle for our trans brothers and sisters.

also see on GLBTQJA (Blogger): Being Transgender Is No Longer A Mental Disorder ?. and APA Board of Trustees Approves DSM-5

and previous posts: Trans Depathologization: the spark of change and APA offers New Position on Transgender Care

additional reading: Trans Mental Health Study UK 2012

In Canada a Transgender Rights Bill was passed (waiting for royal assent to become law) in Nova Scotia protecting residents their from discrimination in employment and housing for those who have undergone reassignment surgery. See More HERE some say that yet have to see the terms “queen” and “denied GLBT rights” appear alongside each other.

Peace and tolerance

H