Tag: transgender

Amidst all the celebration of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the recent past, most people were completely unaware that the prohibition of transpeople serving in the ranks remains inviolate.

Well, it remains sacrosanct except for the fact we have served and do serve and probably shall continue to serve…and try to take care of our transitions in the future.

It is estimated that 1 in 5 transpeople have served, do serve or will serve in the military.  That is twice the rate of cis-gendered people.

Such was the case for Kristin Beck.  Beck served as an enlisted petty officer in the Navy Seals for 20 years, including a tour with the renowned Seal Team Six.  That was not under the name Kristin, of course.

Beck retired as an E-8 Senior Chief Petty Officer, having deployed 13 times, during which she earned both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

Beck’s biggest battle came after she retired.  It was the battle to become herself.

Audrey Mbugua is a 26-year-old Kenyan transwoman.  She is currently suing both the Kenya National Examinations Council and the Attorney General for failing to recognizing her gender identity.

Audrey is seeking to have her name changed on the certificates she earned and her identity cards and to have those reflect her new gender.  She says she has suffered prejudice and discrimination because of the reactions of potential employers to the disparity between her appearance and the data on her identification.

We realise that the matter is tricky… We may have to liaise with the registrar of births and deaths for the necessary procedures to be followed before we can put in a proper reply.

–lawyer for the State

Judge Weldon Korir refused to grant a 30-day period sought by the state, saying the case was of urgent nature.  Then he gave he respondents three weeks to reply instead.

The parties are to meet again in court on August 6.

I’m starting a new serious which will be added to periodically, which I shall call Transgender Heroes.  I will add people to the list as I encounter them and personally judge them to be heroic.  

Now there are plenty of people I’ve known about for years who qualify, but I shall endeavor to shine the light on those who I deem will be helping to carry us forward.  

First up is Jake Rostovsky.  I invite you inside to hear Jake’s story.

When Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission, called for more research on the effects of homophobia, the Agency for Fundamental Rights stepped forward.

The result is the EU LGBT survey.  As always, I have read the relevant pdf so that you do not have to do so.

In the past decade, a growing number of international and national developments have addressed the fundamental rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons.  Standards on non-discrimination and equality for LGBT persons have been further developed or reinforced by the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe and the United Nations (UN).  Sexual orientation and gender identity have increasingly been recognised as grounds of discrimination in European and national legislation.  Today, the situation of LGBT persons in the EU is no longer a marginalised issue but a recognised human rights concern.

–Morton Kjærum, Director of the Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)

M. C. Crawford is 8 years old.  He was Identified as a male at birth until doctors determined that he had ambiguous genitalia, with parts of both female and male reproductive structures.  When a court terminated the parental rights of his mother and he was abandoned by his father, he was placed in state custody.  At 16 months old doctors removed his penis and one testicle, leaving enough to form a clitoris and labia.  A bit after that the child was adopted in South Carolina by Pam and Mark Crawford.

The first thought that I had was, let’s make sure they don’t do the surgery.

—Pam Crawford

Unfortunately the Crawfords were too late.  They raised M. C. as a girl until about a year ago, when he told his parents he wanted to be raised as a boy.

On Tuesday lawyers for the Crawford family said they were filing suit against the Department of Social Services.

Several social welfare groups have joined an amicus brief in the Case of Doe v. RSU 26 (formerly the Orono School District), which has been appealed to the Maine Supreme Court.  The Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Maine Chapter of National Association of Social Workers and the Maine Psychological Association have joined with the Trans Youth Equality Foundation, the Maine Women’s Lobby, and the Downeast and Southern Maine chapters of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to file a brief in the case, which involves a transgender girl (now publicly identified as Nicole Maines) who was forced to stop using the girl’s restroom at her Orono elementary school in 2007.

When she was in the fifth grade, Susan Doe (as she is identified in the suit), was forced to use a separate, staff-only restroom after the grandfather of another (male) student complained that she was a boy and shouldn’t be allowed to use the girls’ restroom.

Nicole Maines has identified as a girl from a very young age and dressed, acted, and looked like a girl.  She is now 16.

The thought of me being a boy just kind of makes me cringe.  I couldn’t do it.  So I would always wear the turtleneck shirt as long hair.  I was always into the girl characters of everything.  That’s how I rolled.  I was like, yeah, I’m a girl.  I don’t think I could be a boy.

–Nicole Maines, 2011

Idaho’s transportation department has made the surprising decision (because this is, after all, Idaho) to amend its policy on driver’s licenses to allow transgender people to change the sex designation on their licenses without confirmation from a surgeon that they have had sex reassignment surgery.

The ACLU of Idaho had expressed concern in support of two transgender Idaho residents who had changed the sex designation to match their gender identities only to have the state turn around and cancel their licenses when it was realized that proof of surgery had not been provided.  ACLU of Idaho Executive Director Monica Hopkins said the state “did the right thing in updating its policy.”

From our standpoint, [the] surgical reassignment is not necessary to operate a motor vehicle on the highway.

—Hopkins

Ashley Del Valle, 38, decided to take a vacation from her home in Queens, New York to sunny Savannah, GA.

Apparently that was her first mistake.

Del Valle has been living as a woman for 20 year and had her name legally changed in 2002.  She and her cousin decided a trip to Savannah would be fun.  They were wrong.

On Saturday Night, April 6, Ashley chose a sheer blouse to wear on their nightlife adventure for that day.  Mistake number two.

Del Valle, who appeared on an episode of TLC’s “NY Ink,” said she and her cousin were club hopping and hit popular gay club Club One as well as other clubs before stopping in Ellis Square to decide where to go to eat.

She said many people recognized her from the TV show and she was posing for pictures with tourists.

—GA Voice

Early that morning (about 1am) she was arrested for indecent exposure by a Savannah Chatham Metro Police officer.  The police report claims that her breasts were exposed.  She disputed the arrest, which earned her a second charge of disorderly conduct.

She was then taken to the jail, where a she was examined by a nurse, who discovered she was still “technically male.”  So she was placed in a holding cell in the men’s portion of the jail.  For two days she was referred to as “a thing” and otherwise harassed.

I felt like I just wasn’t being treated like a human being.

–Del Valle

The John L. Young Women’s Shelter is located three blocks from the US Capitol.  The shelter is operated by New Hope Ministries, Inc of Woodbridge, VA.  Not surprisingly the shelter is operated under a city-funded contract.  And in the District of Columbia that usually means federal money is involved somewhere along the line.

A lawsuit was filed against the shelter on April 5 and a complaint was filed with the DC Office of Human Rights on March 22 by two transgender women who charge that employees of the shelter said they could not be admitted because of their transgender status.

An attorney with the DC Trans Coalition filed the lawsuit on behalf of Lakiesha Washington, a homeless woman who attempted to spend the night in the shelter on April 3.  The lawsuit says at that time a discriminatory act took place.

A female employee at the shelter asked Washington, “Are you a woman or a man?”  Washington replied, “I am a transgender woman.”  The employee asked Washington if she had any documentation (presumably a court ordered legal name change or proof of gender reassignment surgery) and Washington said that she did not.  The employee then told Washington,

We thought everything had been settled in Sweden.

Apparently we were premature.

Two members of the Swedish Parliament are warning the government that forced sterilization of transpeople must continue, else the government will have to recognize a third gender or third sex.

And everyone knows it would be wrong to have three because…THREE!

Conservative MPs Tuve Skånberg and Annelie Enochson, Christian Democrats, have written an op-ed in the Christian newspaper Dagen in which they offer a counter-proposal to the government plan to remove requirements that transpeople be sterilized before undergoing gender reassignment procedures.

The [government] proposal would have far-reaching consequences.  The key consequence being that Sweden would introduce the possibility of creating a third gender, called ‘person’ in the law books – men who give birth.

–Tuve Skånberg and Annelie Enochson