Transgender News – Page 2

Transgender Children: Making The Change Early

While not a common issue, growing up feeling like your body is the wrong gender is a struggle. About 700,000 people in the U.S., or 0.3% of the population identify as transgender in 2014. This often translates into stress for individuals and families because society has rigid guidelines for how it identifies an individual’s gender. In a shocking 2013 study, 41 percent of 6,400 transgender respondents claimed to have attempted suicide. Becoming who we feel we are is a very important journey; one seven-year-old A.J. (who’s name has been changed for privacy concerns) would go on much sooner than the average person.

A.J. was originally born a boy, but not long after A.J. turned 3, things started to changed. At the time, he wanted longer hair. Mother, Debi, claimed A.J. “screamed and fought when I got out the clippers and got one cut down the side … there were tears… like torture.” He did not feel comfortable in his clothes, frequently telling his parents he wanted to wear dresses and jewelery. The victim of constant harassment, A.J. said “When I first, in the fourth grade, cut my hair they called me he-she.”

At 4 years old, A.J.’s parents took her to their pediatrician, who declared the then boy’s gender identity did not align with her then body. While much happier now, her (A.J.) parents expressed great difficulty with the transition. Many of A.J.’s childhood friends have been distanced. Her parents have transferred her to a new school and guarded her transgender status with secrecy; something they plan to continue to do, fearing the discrimination their daughter could face.

A.J.’s story is truly a testimony of the power of love and family. Her family are not only Southern Baptists, they are also Republican and generally do not support things like transitional surgery/therapy. A.J.’s mother says they are in no way pushing a liberal agenda, and was quoted stating, “There is a profound difference between wanting to be something in imaginary play and in declaring who you are insistently, consistently and persistently. Those are three markers that set transgender children apart, and my daughter displayed all of them.”

Of transgenderism, A.J.’s dad said, “It’s not something we asked for. It’s not something we wanted. It just happened. My thought process all along is I would rather have a happy, healthy little girl than a suicidal, dead son.”

Dr. M. Mirza, LGBT Health Wellness – 2014

Turkish Police Detained Trans Women in Istanbul

Turkey Women’s Movement, met the day before the March 8 International Women of Kadikoy. As they dispersed after the action, trans activists were stopped by the police and asked to be taken into custody. Trans women got into taxis after other protesters prevented their detention. However, trans women were detained in taxis that were stopped by the police.

Police took strict security measures during the demonstration. Some banners were not allowed.

The 8 March Women’s Platform announced that, Havin Özcan and Yıldız İdil Şen were detained.

It was learned that a total of 6 people, 1 of whom was a journalist, were detained.

On Friday, before March 8, International Women’s Day, women gathered in Istanbul to prevent femicides, end violence and effectively implement the Istanbul Convention.

After the Bosphorus protests, there is a harsh attitude towards LGBTI people. LGBTI banners were not allowed in the action held yesterday in Beşiktaş on Friday.

Harry Potter Game will Allow Players to Create Trans Characters

The forthcoming Harry Potter game Hogwarts: Legacy will allow players to create trans characters, according to a new report.

The news comes after the author of the Harry Potter novel series, JK Rowling, has faced repeated accusations of transphobia relating to her social media activity.

Hogwarts Legacy, announced last year, is set to be published in 2022 by Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment Inc, and is developed by Avalanche Software.

According to Bloomberg, people “familiar with the game’s development” have revealed that players will be able to customise their character’s “voice, body type and gender placement” in a bid “toward inclusivity”.

While it’s becoming increasingly common for video games to allow the creation of characters that fall outside of the cisgender binary, the report claimed that the development team’s push for inclusivity was motivated in part by the controversy surrounding Rowling.

Rowling’s comments “rattled some people working on the game,” the report alleged. “As a result, some members of the Hogwarts Legacy development team have fought to make the game as inclusive as possible, pushing for the character customisation and even for a transgender character to be added.”

Removing Health Stereotypes Within The Trans Community

A recent study published in the journal of LGBT Health (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., 2014), reported findings that reveal health disparities among the transgender community within the U.S. These studies involved comparing transgender participants to non-transgender, otherwise known as cisgender, participants.

The common assumption is that the transgender community suffers from more cases of sexually transmitted diseases, along with other physical and mental health problems, than their cisgender counterparts. What has been missing, however, is an adequate comparison of transgender and cisgender participants from similar cultural and geographical backgrounds, thus eliminating those influencing factors.

This study provided important information regarding the overall health and wellness of the transgender community and helped combat the stereotype that those within this community are more likely to have STDs. Coming from the same geographical and cultural backgrounds, the transgender and cisgender communities had an equal amount of sexual transmitted diseases. The common factor among individuals with a higher presence of sexual and mental health issues, therefore, was the urban culture they came from; with economic status and cultural background being the most reoccurring commonality.

Research studies such as this help disprove findings based on limited comparisons and narrow views that don’t take other important factors into consideration. It’s hoped that with time better research methods will help the health stigma placed on the transgender community be demolished.

Dr. M. Mirza, LGBT Health Wellness – April 2014

Many Transgender People Are Completely Avoiding Doctors

It can be difficult for many individuals to have discussions about their sexual history with a physician. It’s not uncommon for people to consider it uncomfortable. But, for many transgender people, the conversation never happens because they do not seek out health care, according to Adrian Juarez, PhD, a public health nurse and assistant professor in the University at Buffalo School of Nursing.

A preliminary study (“Examining the Role of Social Networks on Venue-Based HIV Testing Access and Decision Making in an Urban, Transgendered Population”) that examined health-based decision making and access to HIV testing in urban, transgender populations, showed that many transgender individuals withheld from pursuing necessary care due to social stigma and lack of affordability.

“There is evidence that health care providers do tend to be judgmental, and it’s unwelcoming,” says Juarez. Of course, people are not going to visit health care providers if they fear that they’re going to face discrimination and stigma.

The results of the study are especially cause for concern because, according to a 2009 report from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), about one third of transgender people in the U.S. are HIV positive. And, transgender women of color are even more at risk of HIV infection. According to the NIH study, more than 56 percent of black transgender women are HIV positive.

Among other reasons, an inability to afford medical care is keeping transgender patients away from doctors. Transgender people are more than twice as likely to be homeless and four times more likely to experience extreme poverty (compared to the general population)…having a household income of less than $10,000 per year. This data comes from a 2011 report from the National Center for Transgender Equality. It’s not as if it’s easy for transgender people to get work, either. According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, out of more than 6,000 transgender people surveyed in the nation, 90 percent said they were subject to mistreatment, harassment, and discrimination at work.

If a transgender person does happen to visit a healthcare provider, some doctors are not informed on how to properly treat the patients. Juarez says, “It puzzles me how doctors will still refer to trans individuals by their biological name. That’s their identity.”

The line between identifying and biological gender can be blurry in healthcare settings. For example, transgender men still need Pap smears and transgender women need prostate screenings, but some health care providers might not offer these tests in order to keep from making suggestions that go against the patient’s identified gender. There is an urgent need to address stigmatization and provide health care professionals education on how to appropriately and compassionately treat transgender patients.

7 Ways To Improve Healthcare For The Transgender Patient

Many healthcare workers lack the training to deal with the unique issues the transgender community faces. While others disapprove of the lifestyle of the LGBT community for one reason or another. This can compromise the patients’ care.

That’s according to a study in LGBT Health that discusses the issues the transgender patient faces and measures that can be taken by providers to improve care.

The transgender population struggles with social stigmas and rejection, and this experience has compounded in some medical settings, according to the study. The lack of cultural competency and knowledgeable physicians interferes with the patients’ ability to receive compassionate, knowledgeable and nonjudgmental healthcare. Awkward doctor-patient interactions occur because many physicians lack training in transgender healthcare issues, such as how to approach the gender identity of the patient.

This is a problem because more than 7,000 transgender patients postpone medical care due to the discrimination they face, according to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. This group is at an increased risk for HIV infection and its related illnesses like depression, anxiety, suicide and substance abuse.

Healthcare facilities and workers at these organizations can take steps to improving transgender care by conducting an education campaign.

Here are some ideas on how to start:

Schedule a series of lectures from healthcare workers with specific training in transgender healthcare.
Hold consumer panels with transgender individuals.
Conduct cultural-sensitivity trainings.
Make resources about transgender healthcare available to workers whether online or via printed materials.
Post LGBT-friendly signs and welcome information at the facility and on the organization’s websites.
Signal in your publications that your physicians are comfortable with transgender patients and knowledgeable about their unique care.
Review office documents and update them accordingly to respectfully address the complex issue of gender identity, such as providing gender-neutral or transgender-inclusive terminology.

The cultural sensitivity provided at your healthcare facility can minimize barriers so transgender patients receive the care that they need. The study believes it will help prevent further health complications, build rapport within the transgender community and diminish healthcare delays.

Dr. M. Mirza, LGBT Health Wellness – 2014

Transgender Activists & Radical Feminists Battle On Social Media

There’s something trending on Twitter but also offline. Both transgender activists, and feminists who do not view trans women as women are debating online and on college campuses.

#TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists is a hashtag being used and is a pejorative term used on Twitter to describe anti-trans feminists. Anti-sex work, anti-porn, anti-trans feminists seem to be reappearing from the 1970’s. Many wonder why.

An open letter published in the Guardian of London and the Observer that claimed those who expressed opinions regarded as “transphobic” were being censored on England’s college campuses triggered a significant debate on social media. The letter posted revealed a strong hostility that many wouldn’t be aware of unless they were in specific activist or academic circles, that is occurring between transgender activists and a certain group of feminists who do not believe transgender women are ‘real’ women. Beliefs they hold include, transgender women should not be let into feminist events or female bathrooms. Some of these women are even doxing transgender teens, which means they are revealing their identities to the public online.

These radical feminists have been nicknamed “the Westboro Baptist Church of feminism”, referring to the church known for its hate speech that pickets at funerals of LGBTQ people. Urban Dictionary has a definition listed, which describes them as “group of feminists that claims that trans women aren’t really women, as biological determinism is only a fallacy when it used against them, not when they use it against others.”

One of the loudest anti-trans feminists is Germaine Greer, a 1970’s feminist who wrote the book “The Female Eunuch”. Greer, now 76, has said that transgender women are a “ghastly parody”, that they are men with “delusions” who use their male privilege to sneak their way into the feminist movement. She believes that transgender women don’t know what it is to “have a big, hairy, smelly vagina”.

Some people regard this as transphobic hate speech and connected to essentialist ideas regarding sex that have been challenged since around the 1990’s, when debate was shifted from sex to gender and its social construction.

It seems that that, according to the “TERFs”, one must be a woman who has suffered sexism in order to be a feminist. Thankfully, present day feminists tend to believe this is an outdated and narrow-minded approach. More and more people are understanding the importance of inclusion, and not rigid definitions about what it means to be a man or a woman. Hopefully this will only continue.

Dr. M. Mirza, lgbt health wellness .com – 2015

Male To Female Before And After Photos

Transsexuality is when a person adopts a different gender identity by not feeling belonging to their assigned gender. Transsexuality refers to a person’s gender identity, so it should not be confused with sexual orientation. A transgender person may have sexual orientations such as heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual or asexual.

Transgender people, if they wish, can get medical help when making a permanent transition to the gender they define. During this transition period, practices such as hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery aim to adapt their bodies to the gender they are defined.

Transsexuality is seeing and feeling as a different gender in the inner world rather than one’s behavior. Therefore, it is not possible to determine transsexuals by their appearance. Because they do not always reflect on their external appearance that they feel different sex. Unlike transvestism, other than clothing, physical appearance and behavior, some of the transsexuals undergo gender reassignment surgery and switch to different gender socially and legally.

Trans Woman “Transgender Woman, Transsexual Woman, MTF, M2F, Male To Female…” is a term used for transgender women. Gender assignment at the birth of a person is the name given to people who are male, but who define themselves as female. Trans women can be heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual or asexual.

Many transgender people share their photos before and after the gender transition process.

I am sharing some of the before and after trans women photos I found on the internet.

Transgender Ban Lifted in The US Military

US President Joe Biden signed a decree allowing transgenders to serve in the US military, revoking another controversial decision by his predecessor Donald Trump.

Biden, who signed the decree in front of the cameras in the Oval Office with Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Minister Lloyd Austin and Chief of General Staff Mark Milley, stated in his Twitter account that he abolished the discriminatory ban against transgender persons working in the army, “It’s very simple: It is necessary to perform “America is safer when everyone who meets the conditions can do it openly and with pride.”

Under the Democratic President Barack Obama, the way for transsexuals to serve in the military without hiding their identity and to change their gender was opened in 2016, but Republican President Donald Trump ended the practice of recruiting transsexuals in 2017.

Lifting the ban on the recruitment of trans people was among Biden‘s election promises. Defense Secretary Austin had also said he supported the lifting of the ban in the Senate session to approve his post.

There are 1.3 million active personnel in the American army. Although there is no official data on the number of trans people in the army, it is estimated that there are approximately 9,000 trans people active in the military.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Sexual harassment in the workplace is, unfortunately, something that women, in particular, may face during their working lives. Women go out of the home and into the workplace, expecting to be treated as workers and colleagues, and not as sex objects, or substitute wives, or to be reminded that they are women. Those who are transsexual, and particularly male to female transsexual, will be no exception to this, and may face reverse gender harassment.

The European code on sexual harassment defines sexual harassment as “unwanted conduct of a sexual nature or other conduct based on sex affecting the dignity of women and men at work.” It can include unwelcome physical, verbal, or non- verbal conduct. The key is that behaviour is “unwanted by the recipient” but each individual is left to determine what behaviour is acceptable to him, or her, and what he, or she, regards as offensive. Sexual attention becomes sexual harassment if it is persisted in, once it has been made clear that it is regarded by the recipient as offensive. The European code is now persuasive on all industrial tribunals, as a result of the case of Wadman v Carpenter Farrer Partnership (I993), to the extent that all employers should now be considering the drafting of policies to combat sexual harassment in the workplace.

There is nothing to prevent an employer from introducing into his disciplinary code rules which would prohibit discrimination against employees on the grounds of their sexuality, or related reasons, such as transvestism or transsexualism. Many employers also include a promise not to discriminate on such grounds within their equal opportunity policy. As there is no legal provision in relation to sexuality, or to transvestism or transsexualism, there is no legislative framework around such matters. However, if there is such a provision in the disciplinary code, and a member of staff does harass an individual on the basis of his or her sexuality, which would include transvestism and transsexualism, then, provided that proper disciplinary proceedings are taken against them, and the harassment is sufficiently serious to warrant dismissal, that dismissal will be fair in the normal way. This approach was confirmed by an industrial tribunal in the case of British Home Stores Ltd. v Burchell (1978).

New provisions in section 40 of the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993 allow tribunals to impose limited reporting restrictions on parties’ identities, which would greatly assist any transsexual taking a case before an industrial tribunal, although there are no cases as yet, other than the case already mentioned, which is to come before Oxford Crown Court, of a transsexual who has been indecently assaulted. Furthermore, section 1 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 provides for victims of indecent assault and other serious sexual offences, in that it is an offence to publish reports identifying the victim, unless they give their consent to be identified. These respective provisions, together with the case of P v S and Cornwall County Council (1993), greatly assist the transsexual, by no longer having to worry about running the gauntlet of adverse newspaper publicity.

You may decide that the only way to end the harassment, or to gain some financial compensation for what you have endured, is to take legal action. You might consider legal action in the following circumstances, such as:-

1. The harasser refuses to stop
2. Your union and your employer do nothing to resolve the problem.
3. Your employer offers an impossible solution such as moving you instead of the harasser.
4. You are being victimised after having made a complaint.
5. You have felt forced to leave your job by the harassment and lack of action by your employer.
6. You have been sacked.

However, most of us will want, when faced with harassment, to put a stop to it as quickly as possible, so as to create a pleasant working environment. You usually will want to stay in your job, if at all possible, and to solve the problem with a minimum of fuss. We want our relationships with our colleagues to stay smooth, and we want to limit the damage to our self confidence, and get on with living. The standard advice that is given by employment professionals in dealing with harassers is as follows:-

l. Make sure the harasser is informed by a you or someone else that you dislike his or her behaviour.
2. Tell him or her in writing and keep a copy.
3. If you confront the harasser in person, you could take someone such as a union representative, or someone senior in the office with you.
4. Keep a note of the date and time of each incident of harassment, with details of what the harasser did and said.
5. Tell your union representative or women’s officer.
6. Report the harasser to someone in authority in your organisation. Even if the senior person takes no effective action, this is an important step should you have to consider legal action.
7. If the harasser touches you on an intimate part of your body, you could report them to the police for indecent assault.

To take legal action in an Industrial Tribunal, you must do so within three months of the last incident of harassment. You must complete a form called Application to an Industrial Tribunal, which is known as the ITI, or “originating application” which is available from job centres and citizens advice bureaux. You should also complete the “green form” for legal aid, so that you can obtain some free legal advice and assistance. If you have been sacked after sexual harassment, or were forced to resign because of it, you can appeal to a tribunal under EPCA claiming unfair dismissal.

References

Saunders v Scottish National Camps Association (1981) IRLR 277
Wiseman v Salford City Council (1982) IRLR 202.
Whitlow v Alkanet Construction Limited (1975) IRLR 321.
Turner v Vestric (1981) IRLR 23.
British Home Stores Ltd. v Burchell (1978) IRLR 379.
EA White v British Sugar Corporation (1977) IRLR 121.
This information sheet is based on an article which appeared in GEMS News in June 1994 which was later included in the book Transvestism, Transsexualism and the Law by Melanie McMullan and Stephen Whittle. This book is at present out of print but is being revised and rewritten. Contact the Gender Trust for details about publication of the revised book.

Gender Trust – 2003, This information sheet is distributed by the Gender Trust and is intended as a basis for information only. The Gender Trust does not accept responsibility for the accuracy of any information contained in this sheet.