World Professional Association for Transgender Health, WPATH Statements on Identity Recognition & Legal Recognition of Gender Identity

WPATH already opposes surgery or sterilization as requirements to change legal gender, per WPATH’s Identity Recognition Statement, 2010. However, some governments erect many other legal barriers preventing trans people having congruent identity documents. Some of these barriers involve health professionals directly, e.g., examining people and filling out paperwork for court proceedings.

These legal barriers are harmful to trans people's health because they make social transition more difficult, put congruent identity documents out of the reach of many, and even contribute to trans people’s vulnerability to discrimination and violence. These laws are at odds with WPATH's perspectives expressed in SOC 7 and in our letters advising governments at those governments’ request. The statement, dated January 19, 2015, written by the WPATH Public Policy Committee and approved by the WPATH Board of Directors

WPATH Statement on Legal Recognition of Gender Identity

January 19, 2015

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) recognizes the right of all people to legal identity recognition and to identity documents consonant with their gender identity. Further, for optimal physical and mental health, all persons must enjoy the right to freely express their gender identity, whether or not that identity conforms to the expectations of others. Legally recognized documents matching self-identity are essential to the ability of all people to find employment, to navigate everyday transactions, to obtain health care, and to travel safely; transgender, transsexual, or gender-nonconforming status should not preclude individuals from enjoying the legal recognition all citizens expect and deserve.

Barriers to legal recognition for transgender and transsexual individuals may harm physical and mental health. WPATH continues to oppose surgery or sterilization requirements to change legal sex or gender markers. No particular medical, surgical, or mental health treatment or diagnosis is an adequate marker for anyone’s gender identity, so these should not be requirements for legal gender change. 

WPATH Standard of Care 7 recognizes that there is a spectrum of gender identities, and that choices of identity limited to Male or Female may be inadequate to reflect all gender identities: an option of X or Other (as examples) may be advisable.

Marital status and parental status should not affect legal recognition of gender change, and appropriate legal gender recognition should be available to transgender youth. The right to legal recognition of gender extends to those incarcerated or institutionalized. Court hearings create financial and logistical barriers to legal gender change, and may also violate personal privacy rights or needs. Therefore, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health urges governments to eliminate unnecessary barriers, and to institute simple and accessible administrative procedures for transgender people to obtain legal recognition of gender, consonant with each individual’s identity, when gender markers on identity documents are considered necessary.

HIV maturation inhibitor BMS-955176 looks promising in early study

A second-generation HIV maturation inhibitor, BMS-955176, demonstrated good safety and high potency, including activity against viral strains that were not susceptible to an earlier drug in this class, researchers reported yesterday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2015), taking place this week in Seattle, USA.

Combination antiretroviral therapy consists of drugs that target different steps of the HIV lifecycle, but none of the currently approved agents act on viral assembly, maturation and release from host cells. Drugs that work in new ways could be particularly beneficial for highly treatment-experienced people with HIV who have extensive drug resistance.

As HIV replicates, it uses the cell's machinery to produce large polyproteins which are then cut up by protease enzymes and assembled into new virus particles. The final steps include forming a capsid around new viral RNA and budding out through the cell membrane, resulting in a mature virus surrounded by an outer envelope.

Maturation inhibitors like BMS-955176 interfere with protease cleavage between the p24 capsid protein and a smaller peptide in the Gag polyprotein, leading to the release of immature virus particles that cannot complete their lifecycle and are not infectious.

A company called Panacos, later acquired by Myriad Pharmaceuticals, previously worked on an older maturation inhibitor, bevirimat (also known as PA-457 or MPC-4326). Bevirimat showed promising antiviral activity in early studies, but it was hampered by formulation problems and more than half of study participants had virus with reduced susceptibility due to naturally occurring Gag variations. Myriad halted development of bevirimat in 2010.

Max Lataillade from Bristol-Myers Squibb and colleagues designed a phase 2a proof-of-concept study to evaluate BMS-955176, a second-generation maturation inhibitor that appears to overcome these difficulties.

Early studies showed that BMS-955176 binds tightly to the Gag polyprotein, has greater potency than bevirimat and remains active against HIV with a variety of Gag polymorphisms. It has a long half-life allowing for once-daily dosing and no significant safety issues have been identified so far.

This study, conducted in Germany, enrolled 60 previously untreated participants with HIV-1 subtype B, the most common type in Europe and the US (subtype C is more common in much of Africa and Asia, and is responsible for the worst global epidemics).

All participants were men, most were white and the median age was about 37 years. The median CD4 cell count was approximately 500 cells/mm3 and the median pre-treatment viral load was approximately 4 log10 copies/ml.

Participants were randomly assigned to receive BMS-955176 monotherapy at doses of 5, 10, 20, 40, 80 or 120mg, or else placebo, once daily for 10 days. They were then observed off treatment for an additional 14 days.

BMS-955176 produced median declines in HIV RNA levels from baseline through day 11 ranging from 0.15 to 1.36 log10 copies/ml across the BMS-955176 dose groups. Maximum median viral load declines ranged from 0.50 to 1.70 log10 copies/ml.

BMS-955176 demonstrated an overall dose-response relationship. While the 5mg dose was similar to placebo, potency then increased with doses up to 40mg, where it stabilised. The largest decline was seen in the 40mg dose group.

BMS-955176 was substantially more potent than bevirimat, and its antiviral activity was similar against wild-type HIV and virus with baseline Gag polymorphisms that led to failure of bevirimat.

A majority of participants still had viral load at least 1 log below the baseline level at one week after the end of BMS-955176 treatment, likely due to the drug's long half-life, Lataillade said.

BMS-955176 was generally safe and well-tolerated at all doses tested. There were no deaths, serious adverse events, study discontinuations due to adverse events, grade 3 or 4 drug-related side-effects or clinically relevant laboratory abnormalities.

"BMS-955176 is a potent, once-daily, second-generation maturation inhibitor with a maximum median decline in plasma HIV-1 RNA of 1.7 log10 copies/ml at the 40mg dose," the researchers concluded.

Based on these findings, a phase 2b study of BMS-955176 is expected to start in the second quarter of this year.

Lataillade said that BMS-955176 had overcome serum binding issues that were problematic for bevirimat and the new drug is suitable for use in coformulation – practically a necessity in the era of single-tablet regimens for HIV.

Reference

C Hwang et al (M Lataillade reporting). Antiviral activity/safety of a second-generation HIV-1 maturation inhibitor. 2015 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), Seattle, USA, abstract 114LB, 2015.

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Amnesty International 2014/5 Report mentions Jamaican LGBT Matters

The latest report from AMNESTY is now available for download. Amnesty International’s Annual Report provides a comprehensive overview of the state of human rights in 160 countries over the course of 2014.

The inability of world leaders to deal with the changing face of conflict, including a growing threat from armed group attacks, has left millions of people unprotected and in grave danger, Amnesty International warned as it launched its annual assessment of the world’s human rights.

download HERE

It mentions as usual the LGBT community's struggle and has mentioned the so called promised conscience vote that was missed in April 2014 that was to address the decriminalization of buggery on the duped promise by the Prime Minister. See: Human Rights of Most Marginalised Must Be Protected – Portia Simpson Miller at "Justice for All" conference 2014 for more background on the political trick played on us.


Also see: Buggery law conscience vote for parliament soon .............

RIGHTS OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER AND INTERSEX PEOPLE 

Consensual sex between men remained criminalized. LGBTI organizations continued to report attacks, harassment and threats against individuals based on their real or perceived sexual orientation, which were not fully and promptly investigated. 

On 14 June a mob attacked a young man at a shopping mall in the town of May Pen because he was allegedly seen putting on lipstick. 

There was no police investigation into the incident. In August, Javed Jaghai, a member of the Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays, discontinued the constitutional challenge he had filed in February 2013 against laws criminalizing sex between men, following the receipt of threats against him and his family. A “conscience vote” by MPs on legislation criminalizing consensual same-sex relations, which the government announced would be held before April, did not take place.

According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, 78 countries have laws in effect that are used to criminalize consensual sexual relationships between adults of the same sex.

Other matters:

BACKGROUND 

Levels of homicide remained high, mainly in marginalized inner-city communities, although there was a decrease on 2013 figures. The Jamaica Constabulary Force reported that 699 people had been killed up to 14 September, 15% fewer than in the corresponding period for 2013. 

POLICE AND SECURITY FORCES

 Following rising numbers in police killings in recent years (210 in 2011, 219 in 2012 and 258 in 2013), 2014 saw a reduction in the number of police killings according to the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), an independent police oversight agency. 

By the end of October, 103 civilians had been killed by police, compared with 220 for the same period in 2013. A number of people were killed in circumstances suggesting that they may have been extrajudicially executed. 

Following the death of Mario Deane (latest news on there HERE) in suspicious circumstances in police custody in August, in September the Ministers of Justice and National Security announced a review of the detention system in order to “develop a strategic response to the issue of the treatment of persons in lock-ups and correctional facilities”. The Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organizations) Act, which is aimed at “disruption and suppression of criminal organizations” became law in April. 

Concerns were raised that this law could be used to
criminalize whole communities by association.
In February a Commission of Enquiry was finally established into the state of emergency of May 2010, when 76 civilians were killed during an operation by the security forces.

The three-person Commission began its work on 1 December. In April the Office of the Public Defender handed over all files pertaining to its investigations into the state of emergency to INDECOM. The files include
the cases of 44 people alleged to have been unlawfully killed by the security forces. Eleven police officers from Clarendon suspected of being part of a “death squad”
were arrested and charged in April by INDECOM. 

They were alleged to have been involved in the murder of nine civilians since 2009. Investigations were ongoing at the end of the year.

JUSTICE SYSTEM
Overburdened courts led to continued delays in the justice system. In February, the National Security Minister stated there was a backlog of approximately 40,000 cases. In June, the Chief Justice said that the unavailability of forensic evidence, outstanding statements and ballistic reports, as well as an absence of adequate court infrastructure, human and financial resources, were seriously hampering the
justice system.

also see: 
Mark Wignall on Buggery law review promise was a political sham 2013

Peace & tolerance

H