Trans News/ Issues

[*Anya*]

These are probably resources you have already but it was in a peer review article on physician resources for trans clients & patients, so I thought that just in case someone might need it, I would post them:

TABLE 1
Resources for Physicians of Transgendered Patients

Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (http://www.glma.org)

The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Inc. (http://www.hbigda.org)

Transgender Law and Policy Institute (http://www.transgenderlaw.org)

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

These are probably resources you have already but it was in a peer review article on physician resources for trans clients & patients, so I thought that just in case someone might need it, I would post them:

TABLE 1
Resources for Physicians of Transgendered Patients

Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (http://www.glma.org)

The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Inc. (http://www.hbigda.org)

Transgender Law and Policy Institute (http://www.transgenderlaw.org)

The link for The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association does not work-sorry.

This link does and includes standards of care.

http://www.tc.umn.edu/~colem001/hbigda/hstndrd.htm


The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Inc. (HBIGDA) is a professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender identity disorders. There are approximately 300 members from around the world from the fields of psychiatry, endocrinology, surgery, psychology, sociology, and counseling. The HBIGDA provides avenues for scientific interchange through its biannual conferences and publications. The HBIGDA is responsible for establishing Standards of Care for the treatment of gender identity disorders. These standards are internationally accepted guidelines which promote the health and welfare of individuals with gender dysphoria.



For Further Information contact: Bean Robinson, Ph.D, Executive Director
c/o The Program in Human Sexuality
1300 South Second Street, Suite 180
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454
USA
Tel: 1-612-625-1500
Fax: 1-612-626-8311

[DapperButch]

Hey, Anya,

Just to let you know, The Harry Benjamin International Gender Association changed names a number of years ago to the World Professional Association for Transgender health.

They are now on their 7th Standards of Care, which came out in 2012.

Here is a link if you have an interest www.wpath.org

I am not sure if you are looking for medical provider resources, but there is some great information here:

http://transhealth.ucsf.edu/trans?pa...tocol-patients

[Soon]

Does anyone want to speak to the issues presented in this article?

The Transgender Bathroom Debate and the Looming Title IX Crisis

Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently stated that North Carolina’s new law regarding transgender people and public restrooms is in violation of federal civil-rights law.

This month, regional battles over the right of transgender people to access public bathrooms were elevated to national legal theatre. First, the Justice Department told North Carolina that its recent law, requiring education boards and public agencies to limit the use of sex-segregated bathrooms to people of the corresponding biological sex, violated federal civil-rights laws. Governor Pat McCrory responded with a lawsuit, asking a court to declare that the state’s law doesn’t violate those federal laws. Meanwhile, in a suit filed on the same day, the Justice Department asked a court to say that it does.

To top it off, on May 13th the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (O.C.R.) and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division issued a Dear Colleague letter announcing to the nation’s schools that, under Title IX—the 1972 law banning sex discrimination by schools that receive federal funding—transgender students must be allowed to use rest rooms that are “consistent with their gender identity.” The threat was clear: schools that failed to comply could lose federal funding. Protests of federal overreach immediately ensued, including from parents citing safety and privacy as reasons for children and teen-agers to share bathrooms and locker rooms only with students of the same biological sex.

In chastising North Carolina, the Justice Department explained that if non-transgender people may use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity, then denying transgender people access consistent with their gender identity constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex. Similarly, the Dear Colleague letter states that the federal government “treats a student’s gender identity as a student’s sex for the purposes of Title IX.” These interpretations of federal anti-discrimination law are new and surprising. It is not at all obvious that the “sex” in sex-discrimination law means not sex but gender, let alone “an internal sense of gender,” as the Letter says. But it is also reasonable to interpret sex-discrimination law to prohibit discrimination against transgender people. Given that single-sex bathrooms have never been seen as constituting sex discrimination, the tricky question is whether limiting them based on biological sex, rather than gender, does indeed discriminate on the basis of sex.

Quite apart from a possible legal right, it is reasonable to think that the appropriate bathrooms for transgender people to use are ones fitting their gender identities. But the parents’ rhetoric of federal overreach on Title IX is not off base. It is of course unexceptional for the federal government to enforce federal law. But, unlike the Education Department’s many regulations, the Dear Colleague letter is not law, because it wasn’t enacted through legal procedures, involving public input, that federal agencies must follow when making law. The Education Department’s rule that schools must provide prompt and equitable grievance procedures to hear complaints of Title IX sex discrimination results from that required process and is legally binding. But the agency chose not to have such a process for its missive on transgender students.

This is a familiar but controversial O.C.R. strategy. Its last Dear Colleague letter about Title IX, in 2011, said that sexual violence is a form of sexual harassment and is therefore sex discrimination. It detailed how colleges and universities must discipline perpetrators and prevent such incidents. It too came with a threat to cut off federal funds, and O.C.R. proceeded to investigate hundreds of schools for noncompliance. (O.C.R. found Harvard Law School, where I teach, in violation of certain terms of the Dear Colleague letter. I have been critical of the federal pressure on schools to adopt policies and procedures that deny fairness to accused students in the name of Title IX compliance.) Several lawsuits claiming that O.C.R. unlawfully promulgated and enforced the contents of its Dear Colleague letter on sexual violence are currently pending in the federal courts.

Whether or not the federal government acted unlawfully, it has now set in motion a potential Title IX collision course between its directives on sexual violence and on bathrooms. Schools attempting to comply with the federal bathroom policy have at least two possible ways of doing so: allow students to use sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity, or move away from sex segregation of such facilities. The latter, gender-inclusive arrangement, which was in place in my college dormitory more than twenty years ago, is not uncommon on campuses, and a social movement to desegregate at least some portion of bathrooms is growing. Some colleges have made every bathroom on campus open to any gender, and this solution could well become a practical choice at K-12 public schools.

But there is also a growing sense that some females will not feel safe sharing bathrooms, shower rooms, or locker rooms with males. And if a female student claimed that a bathroom or locker room that her school had her share with male students caused her to feel sexually vulnerable and created a hostile environment, the complaint would be difficult to dismiss, particularly since the federal government has interpreted Title IX broadly and said that schools must try to prevent a hostile environment. This is not wholly hypothetical. Brandeis University found a male student responsible for sexual misconduct for looking at his boyfriend’s genitals while both were using a communal school shower. The disciplined student then sued the school for denying him basic fairness in its disciplinary process, and a federal court recently refused to dismiss the suit.

Continuing to have segregated bathrooms could also put schools in a bind on Title IX compliance. According to the federal government, a transgender girl who is told to use the boys’ locker room, or even a separate and private stall, instead of the girls’ facility, has a claim that the school is violating Title IX. A non-transgender girl who’s told she must share a locker room with boys may also have a claim that the school is violating Title IX. But would she not have a similar claim about having to share with students who identify as girls but are biologically male? Well, not if her discomfort and “emotional strain” should be disregarded. But this week, in a letter, dozens of members of Congress asked the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education to explain why they should be disregarded. The federal government is putting schools in a position where they may be sued whichever route they choose. (Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, declined to comment on this issue.)

The debate around which bathrooms transgender people should use has given rise to deeper questioning of why we even have a norm of gender segregation for bathrooms in the first place. But a push to make those spaces open to all genders comes up uneasily against feelings of female sexual vulnerability and their effect on an equal education or workplace. To make things more complicated, the risk of sexual assault and harassment of transgender females in male bathrooms is a salient reason for providing access to bathrooms according to gender identity, while many worry about transgender males being sexually bullied in male bathrooms.

The common denominator in all of these scenarios is fear of attacks and harassment carried out by males—not fear of transgender people. The discomfort that some people, some sexual-assault survivors, in particular, feel at the idea of being in rest rooms with people with male sex organs, whatever their gender, is not easy to brush aside as bigotry. But having, in the past several years, directed the public toward heightened anxiety about campus sexual assault, the federal government now says that to carry that discomfort into bathrooms is illegitimate because it is discrimination. The sense that the Education Department has not looked down the road to consider the conflict is only confirmed by its penchant for announcing bold and controversial rules in letters, rather than through lawful processes.

[Kelt]

Interesting link comparing trans rights by state.

Seems this last move took me from "Very good" to "Unacceptable"

[Jess]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

These are probably resources you have already but it was in a peer review article on physician resources for trans clients & patients, so I thought that just in case someone might need it, I would post them:

TABLE 1
Resources for Physicians of Transgendered Patients

Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (http://www.glma.org)

The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, Inc. (http://www.hbigda.org)

Transgender Law and Policy Institute (http://www.transgenderlaw.org)

thanks!

In the D/FW area (and soon to have chapters in OK), a great and thoughtful support group.

http://www.dfwtranscendence.com/

For health resources in D/FW

http://www.rcdallas.org/

[Nadeest]

Simple solution , but VERY complex implementation: Quit perpetrating 'rape culture', and teach men and boys not to rape, and that NO means NO.

[dreadgeek]

The link is a guest post I wrote for the Basic Rights Oregon web site:

http://www.basicrights.org/news/my-e...o-be-who-i-am/

Please feel free to spread around so that folks will know that things *do* go right--even for us black transwomen.

Cheers
AJ

[Nadeest]

The VA is proposing lifting the ban on transgender surgeries. Finally, I have some hope!
http://www.advocate.com/transgender/...mation-surgery

[*Anya*]

Transgender-Care Exclusion Case Faces Trial

By ADAM KLASFELD

MANHATTAN (CN) — With New York's longstanding transgender-care exclusions declared illegal, the Empire State must now stand trial over what treatments currently labeled cosmetic or banned for minors qualify for Medicaid, a federal judge ruled.

Former Gov. George Pataki's ban on Medicaid payments for transgender care had been on the books for 16 years before Bronx resident Angie Cruz led a class-action lawsuit opposing the policy in 2014.

The following year, the state's Department of Health lifted the prohibition but stopped short of the full spectrum of coverage. The reformed regulations denied payments for facial feminization surgery, breast augmentation, tracheal shaving and other treatments that the state considered cosmetic.

The state also refused Medicaid coverage for transgender care administered to people under the age of 18, such as pubertal suppressants, commonly known as puberty blockers.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff found that the blanket ban on "cosmetic" treatment violated the Medicaid Act, which requires the state to provide "medically necessary care."

Cruz's lawyers celebrated the ruling in a conference call on Thursday evening.

Kimberly Forte, a supervising attorney with The Legal Aid Society's LGBT Law and Policy Initiative, said that the clients she contacted have been "thrilled" with the judge's decision.

"It's very unclear as to when the regulation will actually be changed and the new regulation will go into effect," Forte said.

A date has not been set for a trial to determine whether treatments like puberty blockers quality for coverage.

On the road to trial, Cruz's lawyers presented testimony by such expert physicians as Johanna Olson from the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles and Nicholas Gorton from Kings County Hospital in New York.

Mary Eaton, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, said that the city had "no medical experts, no experts at all."

Judge Rakoff's opinion confirms that this is not an exaggeration, blasting the state for submitting "inadmissible hearsay" and concluding that its sole expert "did not opine on the efficacy of treatments for individuals with gender dysphoria."

Eaton added in a statement that the ruling demonstrates "Albany turned a deaf ear to the chorus of medical experts" on transgender treatment for 16 years.

For Mik Kinkead, an attorney with the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, or SRLP, the development marks a victory "not only for the transgender community but also all low-income New Yorkers" to keep the state from determinations of medically necessary care.

Founded in 2002, SRLP takes its name from the late transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, one of the central figures of the Stonewall Inn uprising that launched the modern LGBT liberation movement.

The organization has been fighting Pataki's regulation from its earliest days, and Kinkead said of its namesake: "I think she would be very excited, especially for young people, because she advocated for young people."

The Department of Health said it is reviewing the judge's decision.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/0...aces-trial.htm

[DapperButch]

I feel so bad for LGBTQ people who live in republican controlled states.

I think about how while we are supposed to be ONE NATION, literally lines in the sand determines LGBTQ people's equality and freedoms.

This little 5 year old girl isn't free or equal enough to use the bathroom that her heart and head tells her she should use. I hope the bathroom she is forced to use is a safe place for her.

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/08/t...-U2Ds.facebook

[Jesse]

Rae Lynn is the 19th KNOWN trans person, (many of them young black transwomen) to be murdered this year! Such a tragic loss!

http://www.advocate.com/transgender/...s-ex-boyfriend

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Rae Lynn is the 19th KNOWN trans person, (many of them young black transwomen) to be murdered this year! Such a tragic loss!

http://www.advocate.com/transgender/...s-ex-boyfriend

"Known". Exactly.

[*Anya*]

August 22, 2016 The Associated Press

Texas (AP) — A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked an Obama administration directive on bathroom rights for transgender students in U.S. public schools.

U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth issued the preliminary injunction Sunday.

Texas and 12 other states asked O'Connor to halt the directive after the federal government told U.S. public schools in May that transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity.

That announcement came days after the Justice Department sued North Carolina over a state law that requires people to use public bathrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificates. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch had likened that law to policies of racial segregation.

Republicans have argued such laws are commonsense privacy safeguards.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

August 22, 2016 The Associated Press

Texas (AP) — A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked an Obama administration directive on bathroom rights for transgender students in U.S. public schools.

U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth issued the preliminary injunction Sunday.

Texas and 12 other states asked O'Connor to halt the directive after the federal government told U.S. public schools in May that transgender students must be allowed to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity.

That announcement came days after the Justice Department sued North Carolina over a state law that requires people to use public bathrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificates. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch had likened that law to policies of racial segregation.

Republicans have argued such laws are commonsense privacy safeguards.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Hopefully, Obama will remove the Texas's federal funding. Texas didn't want federal money to help expand Medicaid when the federal government was going to pick up 90% (95%?), of the cost for them. Nor did they do what was needed to get their citizens good priced health plans with the marketplace. I guess they don't care about the education of their students, just like they don't care about the health of their poor.

They certainly aren't stopping trans men, it is masculine looking females that get the harassment. Their expectation is that FTMs would look like masculine females or as "inbetween" genders. They would never expect that the guy with the full beard who uses the men's room is the one that has a birth certificate that says female on it.

Idiots.

[BullDog]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Hopefully, Obama will remove the Texas's federal funding. Texas didn't want federal money to help expand Medicaid when the federal government was going to pick up 90% (95%?), of the cost for them. Nor did they do what was needed to get their citizens good priced health plans with the marketplace. I guess they don't care about the education of their students, just like they don't care about the health of their poor.

They certainly aren't stopping trans men, it is masculine looking females that get the harassment. Their expectation is that FTMs would look like masculine females or as "inbetween" genders. They would never expect that the guy with the full beard who uses the men's room is the one that has a birth certificate that says female on it.

Idiots.

Yes, that is what is so stupid. Of course it's highly discriminatory, but there is no way it could be enforced.

[dreadgeek]

I was published at Huffington Post! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adrien..._11258546.html

[DapperButch]

When I read these articles I always feel this desire to invite every trans Texan to move into my home....

I am so blessed to live in in a democrat heavy/liberal state.

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/tex...ampaign=buffer

[Lyte]

Yeah... Texas blows in this area.

[JDeere]

Yeah Texas is pretty bad but why cut federal funding, if they do it affects me and some of my friends, to me that's not cool!

Then again I have differing opinions on issues.