S&GD, bussinesses that profit from them, closets and responsability to the community

I've been making comments along these lines at various places from time to time but a recent post at Bilerico has prompted me to fight through the flu i've come down with to blog about this. The post in question is here

The Sex and Gender Diverse population is a very large minority. With estimates of 1 in 500 people Transsexual, 1 in 60 Intersex, 2%-10% of the population regular Crossdressers and who knows how many of the other facets of S&GD there are thats a big minority. Just the MtF crossdressers alone are a demographic large enough to swing elections in some countries if they voted together.

But they aren't voting together. Our community is nigh allergic to the word politics. Our rights depend on politics. We are discriminated against in legislation written by politicians. Where we have had increased decriminalisation and protection it has been through politics. We DEPEND upon politics!

Yet many forums outright ban discussion of politics. I've been banned from one crossdresser forum for 'political innuendo' lol. In truth this is a negligence towards the rights of S&GD people. We NEED to discuss politics where related to S&GD rights! We NEED to be political.

Even those in the closet have an obligation to the rest of the community. There is an obligation to the next S&GD generation to make the rights and social acceptance and Transphobia situation better for them than we have grown up with. Especially as many S&GD variations have been found or are suspected to have genetic components. This means that acting to improve the situation of the S&GD community is part of the FAMILY DUTY of each and every S&GD person! And of their families! Because regardless of whether the S&GD person has children themselves their family members will carry those genes.

Something the Crossdressers' Wives especially whose concerns (or predictions of their concerns) so often direct or limit much of the lives of crossdressers need to address. Their children may well be carrying an S&GD gene. And peoples Neices, Nephews, Cousins...

Because of that fact it totally changes the dynamic of family-based arguments about the closet. Many stay in the closet to protect their family but in fact thats condemning relatives and non-relatives alike to the same societal and internalised Transphobia that has so harmed our own and past generations. People usually will sacrifice much for the sake of their children... well as some of those children or grandchildren will also be S&GD so families must consider what they will decide about that, what they owe to those S&GD descendants and family.

Now if families or individuals choose to remain closeted for whatever reason that does not let them off the hook. The responsibility to family and non-family S&GD people remains. There's much a closeted person can still do. Donations of even petty amounts to S&GD charities and organisations make a real difference. How you decide your vote should still consider candidates and parties stance on S&GD issues. Being closeted is no excuse for any iota of Transphobic remarks, sure it may help dissuade people from thinking your S&GD but it's hurting others in the process and thats just not justifiable. Instead if your going to be closeted your still obligated to speak out against Transphobia and be pro-acceptance.

It's not just S&GD people and their families that have obligations though. As i mentioned already with forums and politics-bans failing the community there is also responisibility from websites and bussinesses to the community.

There's many bussinesses that profit from S&GD people. If your making money from S&GD people then you should be contributing to S&GD people. From specialist transformation-product stores to the sex industry to ordinary online clothing stores which i'm sure get a significant amount of crossdresser bussiness.

The site i was banned from for 'political innuendo' crossdressers.com i used to reach via the domain name crossdressing.com. Not the first time a site has multiple addresses, nothing unusual there. And when i discovered that crossdressing.com no longer went to that site i assumed they'd just sold off a spare domain name like other non-S&GD forums i've been on have done... but they deleted all discussion about them doing this!

There was even a thread where one wife was distraught at finding 'Date A Crossdresser' in her husbands internet history. Did a mod step in and tell her that the web address crossdressing.com that formally went to crossdressers.com was now that 'date a crossdresser' site? No. In fact when i posted this information to that thread it was deleted! The owners for what ever reason deciding to hide the change apparently more important than the marriages of people the site was allegedly there to support. Whether sold off or both sites having the same owner this is hardly an ideal way of handling that. Since then they have added an online store to crossdressers.com.

I think few have any illussions of the profiteers of the sex industry contributing much to the community outside of the services they provide for money. Though often individual sex workers have been some of those fighting for S&GD rights.

And we shouldn't consider that bussinesses making money from S&GD customers is neccessarily a bad thing. Economic power is a way a community can show it's strength and numbers and gain more acceptance in society. But it has to be done in the right way. Helping raise the success of S&GD artists and supporting products positively marketed to and engaging the S&GD community (even regarding sexual products of trans-attraction portrayed positively) and supporting companies which donate to equality orgs and charities are all positive but purely exploitative bussiness have not much value and may actually have a vested interest in maintaining the closet and transphobia.

There's others with a responsibility to the S&GD community.
For example i noticed a book for parents on school bullying the other day and flipped through it and to it's index. Any mention of Gay, Transgender, Intersex in the index or contents? Nope. Just sexual harassment. Yet the amount of homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools is a serious issue. Thats a bad omission. And for that matter was their any books in the bookstore on raising Gay children? Trans children? Intersex children? Nope of course not, just books on raising 'boys' and others on 'girls' by which of course they mean cisgender cissexual heterosexual boys and girls.

Omitting SS&GD where it's actually an important factor that should be addressed even if controvertial is irresponsible. And the general absence of S&GD books is again a problem. It's not just irresponsible to the customers who have need of such it's also irresponsible bussiness practice when there is going to be a growing market for it.

We need to address the responsibility we all have to the S&GD community. If we want things to change we must act to change them. If we would have liked it if others changed things for our benefit in the past then we need to do that for the next generation. Where we have benefited from the actions of past equality-fighters we need to pay that debt forward. We need to consider the legacy we leave to our children and our families and future generations. We need to demand of those that profit by us or claim to exist to support us that they contribute to the cause of equal rights and community building. We need to accept that no matter our ideology politics is an essential part of gaining equality which we must all stop avoiding and start addressing. We need to get those who choose the closet to still contribute. We need to demand the silence over S&GD cease and we get appropriatey addressed in all avenues.

Like other communities with internalised oppression issues and an equality struggle our community is pretty fractious and bitter. But we need to start building our understanding of personal power and responsibility. To consider our responsibility to the community and ourselves.

Dying Transgender Children and Youth.. Beyond Blue starts to do something!

As i mentioned in past posts like this there are a lot of people with blood on their hands in Australia.. the blood of Transgender children, Bisexual children, Lesbian children, Gay children, teens and youth.

Murdered by negligence. By ignoring the horrifically high stats of attempted suicide for these groups.

According to this report Beyond Blue is improving on it's handling of the issue. Will they go far enough? Will they commit the resources proportional to the high rate in figures on their own site? (Oh.. but of course those figures left off Transgender and Intersex didn't it.)

Well of the stats I've seen Trans is the worst suffering group. (Anyone got stats for Intersex suicide?) so surely rationally we should see the efforts proportional to risk... but will we see that? Will we see beyondblue ads on rural local tv about preventing the suicide of closeted transgender kids, of bi-questioning kids? Will we see them as much or more than the ads we see of preventing suicide of farmers? Because the attempted suicide rate of TQBLG Youth in australia is shockingly high and demands not one iota less than the resources appropriate to the degree of the problem!

Lets see how serious this is. Lets see if Beyond Blue start actually acting to save these childrens lives or if they continue to MURDER THEM BY NEGLIGENT INACTION!

When will we see real action? When will we see advertising in the general media to reach the rural closeted and scared and depressed and anxious Transgender, Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay teens? To get them to help before they try and die? To provide effective programs to rural doctors and to rural families and rural schools to stop the slaughter?

Well I'm waiting to see... but while everyone's waiting more children are DYING! So please do remember that when considering just how much the " ‘x’ dollars over ‘x’ period of time" Beyond Blue is comitting to this will be.

Widespread TBLG Support Among Religious Australians!

It's not the way that the anti-GLBT folk who are religious or most religious 'leaders' and authorities paint it, but it's the only possible conclusion from the numbers.

A recent poll on religion found 68% of Australians believe in God, a God or Universal Spirit. (Athiests have a vastly stronger showing than Agnostics interestingly with 24% don't believe in any god or universal spirit and only 7% polled as unsure or don't know).

But wait then... if as we are always told religious belief means opposing transgender and gay and lesbian rights etc then what can explain this?

85% of Australians support Federal Antidiscrimination legislation... on sexuality and also on gender identity but then even if we assume that every single athiest and agnostic is in favour of that 85%-31% = 54%.

Well thats a blow for the anti-equality folks isn't it! the vast vast majority of religious believers are supporters of anti-discrimination laws!

What about Same Sex Marriage?
Well that polled at 60%... Even if we assume every single athiest and agnostic is in favour of it then still nearly half the supporters of same sex marriage are religious!

The only way these numbers can be correct is with substantial support from religious Australians for TBLG rights!

What does that mean?
It means that religious Australians are being missrepresented in politics and the media. It means that religious 'leaders' and authorities are extremely out of step with their congregations.

It means that religious 'leaders' risk pushing their congregations to other churches by insisting on anti-gay anti-trans preachings and activism!

It means that Politicians taking an anti or slow-movement stance on equal rights antidiscrimination and same-sex marriage for fear of losing the religious vote are missreading the position most religious australians have on this matter! They may in fact LOSE the religious vote by their attempts to get or keep it!

It then is important that the Majority, The Religious Majority who support Antidiscrimination and Marriage Equality are recognised as such. Publicly. That it is made clear to Politicians, Media and Religious Authorities and 'leaders' that in fact the majority, the substantial majority, of Religious Australians support Equal Rights for TBLG Australians!

Sex and Love, key to TG and TG-community growth or stagnation

Well I'm back from Sydney.
I travelled to be with my boy/girl (FtM Crossdresser) for their birthday.

The circumstances of one of their friends helped put into focus for me something key to the transgender community.. and often quite taboo. One i've mentioned before but which seems even clearer and more crucial to me now.

It was yet another crossdresser attempting to hang up their heels and quit. They felt their crossdressing need stems from a lack of a girlfriend and would dissapear with a woman in their life. I won't discount the possibility, though it was what i once thught too till i learned from direct experience that i was wrong, and there's been many other crossdressers who thought so too only to then be in the complicated situation of being in a comitted relationship when the need to crossdress returns with all the struggle and stress that comes of telling or hiding or repressing and the partners feellings on the matter etc.

Now this person had been coming out more and more with the support and encouragement of, and with feellings for, my current boy/girlfriend. It's not the first time for hir as being openly TG-attracted for some time. Hir ex-fiance went forward with transition because of the accepting relationship.

Many closteted crossdressers and transsexuals yet to transition have been in that state because of loneliness and the fear of forever remaining in that state. Many other CDs are closeted because of the concerns and feellings and comfort-zones of cis partners. For many an accepting partner is the path to being out and self realisation. Of course for some internalised issues may be strong or stronger nevertheless, but for many it robs them of a terror that holds them back, holds them down. In mainstream society few doubt the need for sex and romance...

Loneliness, the desire for companionship, for romance, for sex, reproduction... why these are recognised as primary drives in life in most communities.. but not ours. No the terror of the labels Fetishist, Gay and the fear of offending, confirming the fears of or scaring off the existing cis hetero wives and girlfriends of MtF CDs rules. To the point of many parts of the community excluding and villifying others.

Now sure some people who are attracted to TG people are badly behaved.. like thats a new thing to women, and to men too. But there are many transgender-attracted people who are quite decent people... and most that I've met are totally closeted about their desires. And most are assuming i mean cis men, but in fact i've met quite a few trans-attracted cis women, most in relationships with cis men. I've even been propositioned by some cis women in my own rural town to join them and their partners for threesomes and in the offline world i've met far more trans-attracted cis women than cis men.

There's also the concerns over sexual images of transgender people, often requiring us to ignore the entire role of appearance in sexual attraction, the reality of sexual imagery of cis women and cis men pervadinng nearly every magazine newspaper film tv show. And often these complaints are about the very existence of non-binary transgender people and objections to them being considered sexually attractive. Now arguments about what kind of sexual images are exploitative and of imagist bias is seperate and reasonable topics, but to say all are is to deny the possibility of erotic art or any beauty in any transgender nudity.

The trans-attracted are labelled 'chasers' and often excluded with much hostility. Flirting and the like often strictly forbidden despite occuring in most hetero cis spaces. And while an argument can be made that it's needed to have some spaces for TG people to discuss issues without having to consider trans-attracted people or interact with them it's often the case amongst CD support groups and sites that such privacy is centred on allowing cis wives such privacy from their CD husbands and the rest of the world but the reverse is less often true.

What we have is a situation where huge numbers of people remain closeted or suffer by delaying transition out of fear of never finding a partner. Where many stay in abusive relationships out of fear of blackmail, loss of custody or of never finding another partner. Where the concerns of cis partners don't just effect the compromises within relationships but also drive the policies of support groups and organisations resulting in the exclusion and marginalisation of some of those already suffering too much. And where those attracted to transgender people are also closetted often, both cis men and cis women, only able to bring themselves to seek the sex but too frightened of judgement to date openly and often staying in the comforts of cis relationships.

Addressing the reality of this is vital, of the need for transgender people to be like everyone else, able to flirt, able to seek sex and/or romance, to seek a compatible partner. The need for incorporating the trans-attracted into our efforts to liberate our diverse community from oppression and to help them overcome the stigma of their desires.

And taking the controling reigns of large chunks of the community from the hands or fears of cis people with cis concerns is equally vital! Sure easing family members through transphobia is important. Sure relationships need compromise and communication. Sure Cis people can be valuable members of the community and the most accepting of Cis people being free of the internalised transphobia that hamstrings us and with little (usually...) transphobia of their own have often been courageous and supportive in helping members of our community to step out into the light.

But all the pandering to cis concerns has gone way too far. It's holding the community back and it's causing harm to many within it. We must address these issues solidly and squarely.

Until we do only a tiny minority of TG people will be out, plenty will slink back into the closet when relationships fail or be overcome with despair that they will never find love.

Transgender Brains, a vital resource for the community?

In many of the worlds cultures there have been traditions of sex and gender diversity where people who would be termed in modern labels as transsexuals, crossdressers et al were given special roles and positions in society. In some cultures they were sacred.
http://blog.ctnews.com/evans/2009/10/19/one-nation-two-spirits-our-native-american-brothers-sisters/

In modern society a wave of anti-transgender oppression has washed over the world, largely unremarked by historians and yet across the colonial world these practices were outlawed and often stamped out. Only through returning to early records have some of these traditions been rediscovered or saved from the brink of cultural extinction. Not just cultural genocide, the discovery of the 'transsexual gene' means many countries oppressive policies against transgender peoples identities being recognised until after they are steralised means such eugenics are actually genocide-genocide. A policy reducing the prevalance of a genetic trait within the population.

At what cost to society? And what advantage could make such a gene so prevalant worldwide?

Well this at Zoe's blog could well give us a crucial answer as well as validating many indiginous beliefs about transgender peoples wisdom and value http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2009/10/web-surfing-and-brain.html

Neurological variations often have great value to the community. Without Asbergers people we'd have far less technological and scientific advancement. Having a distinct advantage in combining both creative and logical thinking, as Zoe suggests may be the case (but in good scientific behaviour she mentions merely the possible as possible not as certain), is something of tremendous benefit.

Zoe mentions there have been studies suggesting a 30-IQ point advantage! That is collossal!

Considering that there is a tremendous advantage to companies, militaries, governments, administrations etc having transgender people in high-ranking positions!

Instead these people are far more often unemployed than average.. so much for the lie that our system is a genuine meritocracy!

Those companies and departments etc that however do rise above the anti-transgender bias have the pick of a very rich crop indeed! Corporate headhunters can pick and choose amongst people with substantial qualifications, often military experience and it seems a distinct neurological advantage! And with the high unemployment they could pick and choose, find people over-qualified for the job and still extremely grateful for what they can get! An employers market, a smorgasboard of talent!

It also makes ENDA and it's ilk around the world as good for the economy. Any short-term costs likely paying for themselves quite quickly. And those countries that more successfully incorporate such neurological varient people as Aspergers and Transgender will likely have advantages over their competitors in international trade, strategic planning, international politics etc. So it's even important for National Security!

Now thats something that demands serious thought.

I find it amusing my disability may come from a 'retro' virus (and transgender)

Amusing because I always have loved old styles of sci-fi, art and fashion.

http://sacfs.asn.au/news/2009/10/10_11_xmrv_retrovirus.htm

Now of course its still early days. There's been other biological factors found for this illness still considered by many even in the medical profession as purely psychological.. yeah they can tell that to the blood tests where i was eating for three and my body still thought it was so starved that canabilising my muscles and bones seemed a good idea to it.

It's a big puzzle and with many complicated aspects, what is thought in one discovery to be causal may instead be consequential and vice versa. And it may well be the umbrella term covers more than one illness related causally or unrelated but for similarity of symptoms.

Seem familiar?

There are quite a few similarities between that and much in the Transgender world.

Of course even with the name conflicts between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Myalgic Encephalomyelitus and whether or not fibromyalgia is a seperate similar maybe related illness or merely just the side of CFS that gets more muscle and joint pain compared to the exhaustion and cognitiove imapirment on the other with a false-divide with lots of people having a chunk from each camp and being difficult to shove into either box there has still not been in my experience any of the vicious vitriol and ad hominems amongst sufferers in these debates.

Unlike the TS anti-TG extremists who in the comments at Bilerico recently went on and on in attacks, but again fell silent when those with an ounce of scientific literacy challenged them and called their pseudo-science and cherry-picked science bluffs. (when oh when will they respond to the discoveries of cross-sexed brain neurology of gays and lesbians and the inclusion of non-ops in some of those studies they tout as proving their claims?)

There's lots of pseudo-science around CFS too.. people get desperate so some of those without conscience will try and fleece sufferers. Other sufferers try all sorts of things and if they are lucky enough to go into remission will celebrate whatever they were taking or doing at the time.. alas all too often theres no evidence it actually will help anyone else. Heck years ago one teenage girl was so desperate she trepaned herself.. drilled a hole into her own skull with a powerdrill to expose her brain!

For those used mostly to my posts being directly related to transgender issues its worth looking at the experience of people with CFS. I'm lucky that I can string written sentences together with a reasonable enough degree of coherancy that the cognitive impairment problems don't so often show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMh_JpPmL-s

And with CFS ignorance and bias amongst the medical fraternity ignoring the evidence, ignoring the science also kills

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y_T5ylWUv4

And of course there are lots of ways that society punishes the disabled.. centrelink is a minefield of ablist beaureucratic traps seemingly designed for no other purpose than to make disabled peoples lives more difficult or to find excuses to cut their pensions.

So there is good news.. but only another piece of the puzzle at the moment, no new treatments are available and there is only a chance this discovery will lead to some.

And its a good opportunity to think about the issue, and for those without disability to think about those around them whose quality of life and their very continued existence depends on society fulfilling the social contract and looking after them.. which all to often it's failing to do.

Save the Lawyers, but who cares about Transgender people dying?

I heard this on the radio th other day, and its a serious issue and I'm not going to denegrate it or partake in lawyer-bashing. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2696426.htm

But with beyond blue having only recently got around to putting a bit of front page space dedicated to GLBT depression despite it being not just well above the average but with a shamefully high attempted suicide rate the ignoring of this critical demographic shows exactly how transphobic and transignorant our society and media really is.

The stats on transgender suicide are sketchy at best, but horrifically high whenever data is collected. The lowest i've seen was about 37%!!! Ranging up to 54%

Lets see how serious beyond blue are really getting or if this is just another under-the-carpet face-saving excercise in token gestures.

The Tranznation Report with its again horribly high rate was long enough ago.. its time some genuine action was taken.

Censorship of Transsexual and Transgender in School Dictionaries?

I just heard from an email group that the words Transsexual and Transgender have dissapeared from recent editions of ALL dictionaries aimed at Australian school students.

Homosexual is in there but not homophobia.

I'll try and find out more about it.

And of course the government appears to be just ignoring the AHRCs sex and gender diversity report, bet it will ignore the paper on intersex infant surgery and the whole human rights community consultation on a charter of rights too.

Sorry Attorney General and Co. We won't go away if you keep ignoring us. The tide of popular opinion is now well on our side and the generational shift coming is truly untouchable. Take another look at those galaxy-polls!

Pandering to the lobby groups of small bunches of fundamentalists is not going to save you from that. Time to cut them loose and pick up the younger folk before it's too late. And no, Hillsong doesn't cut it.

Missrepresentation of Science and transgender politics

I've blogged on this before but its worth returning to the subject again. One of the things that really annoys me is the increasing level of what appears to be lying in politics, mostly related to the Internecine Nomenclature Conflict (easy answer for that conflict i would have thought: we acknowledge the existence of Cisgender Transsexuals, Cisgender Cissexuals, Transgender Cissexuals and Transgender Transsexuals and move onto the human-rights-issues umbrella term of Sex and Gender Diversity which allows better cooperation with Intersex issues too)

You see despite basic scientific methodology people from several positions are making claims not supported yet by the data as if it were totally conclusive and using that as an attack on others.

What do we have? We have good leads from small studies of small sample sets that transsexuals have several brain differences from averages of their assigned birth sex that are closer to their self-identified sex-identity. Both in structure and in function. One gene so far has been found to be more common amongst TSs too. (Zoe's blog is a great source for this stuff)

But what about non-transsexual transgender? Well they haven't done the same studies on genderqueer, bi-gender, crossdressers etc yet. So as science goes it falls into the realm of 'maybe'. Actually 'maybe but we don't know yet'. That doesn't mean 'no' it doesn't mean 'yes' it means 'maybe'. It means that the simple testable hypothesis that the same or similar related phenomena exist in these others could be tested but hasnt yet and until its tested we dont know. Either way.

Thats plain ordinary scientific method, something I got taught in highschool and I would have thought everyone else would have got taught that too.

So what's the problem? Well some are claiming that the tests done thus far say things they do not. The tests needed to say that crossdressing is not biologically caused have not yet been done, yet some are claiming that because 'there's no evidence' that it is not so... but hang on, the neccessary tests havent been done! To test if the same cause causes both you have to do the same test on both! Not biological tests on one but only psychological tests on the other!

Others are claiming the studies done support only their version of the definition of transsexual or only binary-gender identity etc but the selection criteria for these studies didnt split the subjects up like that! To get those results all you have to do is seperate your test subjects into different catagories and compare the results of each catagory.. you likely need more test subjects though as you need a representative sample of specimens from each group, tricky when brain-dissection is one of the studies and expensive for FMRI scans. But doable.. but not yet done either!

Now some folk gave trouble with coping with ambiguity, with living with a maybe till the answer is found. Some even have trouble understanding that to say something is possible (and testably so but not yet tested) is not saying it is definately so, it is however saying that it is not yet definately known as not so.

Science works by refuting testable hypotheses not making stuff up, saying anything untested is true nor by saying that something cannot be so till its proved to be so.. thats all creation-science level nonsense. The stuff that was the laughing stock at the Dover evolution trial, in fact very much like Dembski's non-science.

Sure some people have been let down by the education system and are scientifically illiterate. Not their fault but if they want to use studies to validate their claims and invalidate others at least some basic undersanding of scientific methods a good idea and some self-education might be beneficial.

Other people though seem to play the same tune no matter how refuted, ignoring the facts of scientific method and continuing to make spurious claims. Mistakes happen, everyone gets things wrong sometimes, but to maintain such arguments constantly is falsehood, self deception at best and deliberate lying is definately possible.

It's a common enough tactic. The 'repeat the lie often enough' tactic of hate-groups religious and otherwise.

It's time these people were called out on them though. Gently at first, some will simply be mistaken. But certainly because allowing these myths to propagate unchallenged is often to allow manipulative divisive hate-speech to propagate unchallenged.

The deliberate anti-science, unscientific, unethical missrepresentation of science in order to denegrate others and propagate divisions and hate and various ideological positions is abominable.

Much more study needs to be done on transsexuals, on intersex, on crossdressers, genderqueer, bi-gender etc in verifiable sciences like neurology and genetics to rule that out first. Especially as psychology is a kind of speculation, like taxonomy before genetics, a simple attempt to explain complex systems with only a minute amount of data. It must cede to the physical sciences in all things at all times.

And last of all, from a Human Rights perspective even were there no biological causation for ANY of it, not even for any transsexual the hman rights claims would not diminish one iota. Because human rights are filled with choices at every level, choices of religion, expression, medical treatment as just some examples. Check out the Yogyakarta Principles on that. These attacks on others using missrepresentations of science involve at their heart a disregard for human rights of others in order to propagate their preferred (and usually self-serving) ideology.

It's time to call out missrepresentations of science used as tools of hate for what they are in transgender politics as much as GLB politics (including the anti's). Whether hatred of non-bianary folk or of binary folk, of gay-supporting Tgs or TG-supporting gays etc etc etc.

Transgender and being sexual, the double-edged-sword of transphobia

There are a myriad of issues about sex and Transgender.

Just the word sex alone is a problem. Peoples inability to deal with the subject meant that euphamisms became standard for any polite discussion of coitus, of copulation of humans. So it became 'the sex act' and then 'sex' making any duscussion of the differences between sex and gender in ordinary english with people uneducated in TG issues a mess to begin with.

Transgender has often been cast as a fetish, a going-wrong of sexual desires. So this sets up a conflict where ordinary sexual expression of a transgender person is labelled fetishistic so some reject such behaviour in themselves and others, condemning the sexually expressive as bringing problems onto the whole transgender community.

Others internalised transphobia results in them trying to excuse their transgender nature as purely sexual. This may be conscious or unconscious. But as they grow in self-acceptance many self-proclaimed fetishists find that the more they accept being transgender to some extent the more non-sexual TG aspects of themselves get unlocked after years of repression.

Seems a bad 'devil and the deep' scenario already huh? But it gets worse.

Many wonder why if studies suggest TG is comparably common to GLB then why is it so invisible, so closeted?

Ah well here you come to the worst part of the dilemma.

While there are a very significant number of TG-attracted people as the market for TG pornography, TG sex workers shows this is considered further taboo.

Despite the many women who have had posters of folk from David Bowie to Marilyn Manson to Davey Havok and Jefree Starr on their walls in their teens few seriously consider a relationship with gender-non-conformists let alone taking them home to meet their parents. The attraction is there but the social pressure is strongly to conform and have relationships with cis folk. Same for those who visit TG sex-workers, they'd happily pay for the sex but not consider openly dating the same person or openly admitting their sexual attraction to TG to their friends, family and workmates.

And those who do find TG sexually attractive are further condemned by parts of the TG community just for finding TG attractive! Now sure if a TG wishes to transition fully then someone who finds the combination attractive may not be for them, but plenty of TG people do not transition fully.

And in fact it is the fear of not finding a long-term partner that keeps a huge proportion of TG people in the closet, keeping being TG secret form their current and prospective partners.

The desire for sex in fact keeps TG people trying to be Cis!

The sexual drive is the most powerful social force in our and most other species. Yet for TG people it is condemned if present and used to invalidate their gender identity and expression. And yet the taboo of TGs being attractive sexually to others is also one of the major forces holding Transgender people back!

The sexest and transphobic notion that a TG person cannot be sexual without their transgender-ness being a fetish causes horrendous harm. Cis men and women are sexual constantly. Much of media revolves around Cis sexual expression both male and female.

The Transphobic notion that non-gender-binary attraction is wrong also does horrendous harm. This is perpetuated by some binary-identified transgender people (and cisgender transsexuals for those who prefer another term) too which can perpetuate the sexual-phobia in the TG community.

And in society at large the many TG-attracted people need to start coming out about their attraction. That taboo needs to be undone.

Transgender people are sexual beings but no moreso than any cis straight or gay or lesbian or bisexual. We need to be seen in public as sexual beings and more than just sexual beings. We need to be acknowledged as attractive just like cis-folk get acknowledged as attractive.

And TG people will not make sufficient headway by trying to cast sexuality out of the community. That only keeps the majority of TG folk closeted and lonely and miserable. The reactionary fear of the sexual-taboo and fetish label is holding us back. We have to find ways to claim our sexual expression and attractiveness as being as valid as everyone elses.

85% of Australians support Gender Identity anti-discrimination!

This makes me chuckle about the 'phobes who were complaining that a charter of rights would dilute majority rule which would force them to put up with antidiscrimination protections for GLBT folk against the views of the majority... but lets see if the goverment acts quickly on this.. oh wait, they haven't yet on the almost 60% supporting full same-sex marriage yet have they?

Still check this out! http://www.coalitionforequality.org.au/GalaxyPoll-AntiDiscrimination.pdf

85% support federal anti-discrimination protections based on sexuality and gender-identity.

85%!!!!!!!!

So come on politicians! Act on the views of the VAST MAJORITY of Australians!
And don't you dare think you can get away with narrowly interpreting gender-identity to short-change whole swathes of the transgender community either! You gotta count Bi-gender folk, Crossdressers, Genderqueers, the whole shebang!

And Media.. where is the coverage appropriate to this level of Australian opinion? You hardly mention GLBT issues but this shows it's mainstream!

If a poll-number ever justified action it's 85%

Crossdressing and Biological Causation, a lack of studies doesn't mean a lack of causation

In the coments at Zoe's I had an argument with radicalbitch and since I've referred to it a few times elsewhere I think it's worth discussing here. To see the full argument, the original discussion is here

But there's really a simple way to say it.

Some folk quite rightly disregard the past 'evidence' and 'theories' of psychiatry and psychology regarding homosexuality and transsexuality yet insist on still applying them to crossdressing/transvesticism and/or other parts of Transgender.

It's hypocracy, a clear double-standard.

For those arguing Transsexuals have a biological causation (which the science definately supports) they say rightly that the biological evidence is more valid than the psychiatric... unsurprising ad fairly safely valid.

But they often claim there is no evidence for a biological causation of crossdressing etc...
An archaeologist I know often says 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'. But importantly in this case... no-one has looked yet! Absence of Studies is not Absence of Evidence

Pretty simple notion.

Possibility 1. Crossdressing is caused by a mild case of the same cause as transsexualism.

How do you test it? Do the same tests on crossdressers thats found evidence for biological causation in TSs and see if you find milder versions of the same as predicted.

Possibility 2. Crossdressing is unrelated to the cause of transsexualism.

How do you test it? Do the same thing as testing possibility 1.

Posibility 3. Crossdressing is also biologically caused but from a different causation to TS.

How do you test it? First rule out 1 and 2 by doing that test. If that doesn't work then look for other biological causes, functional MRI scans and other brain examinations that have found biological factors in homosexuality etc may provide clues as to what else to look for.

Possibility 4. Crossdressing is not biologically caused but is purely psychological.

How do you test it? Rule out 1 and 2 with that test, then rule out 3 by searching for and not finding any biological cause.

So as those tests aint been done yet all those folk who say its purely psychological are full of it.
It doesn't matter how many psychological studies have been done on it either, that has no bearing on whether or not there is a biological factor, component or causation.

And the 'it's understood as psychological already' argument is full of manure too. Science regularly re-asseses old ideas and tests new explanations. The discovery of the bacteriological cause of stomach ulcers is a good example.

I keep running into anecdotal evidence that crossdressing is inherited. Crossdressers finding a parents clothes and book stash after their deaths I've heard of plenty through to one of the FtM CD friends of mine discovering a coworker is a closeted MtF CD whose brother also turned out to be a CD. Those sorts of cases alone suggest its worth looking into if these are just coincidences or whether incidence of CDs are far more common than usually assumed and whether it is an inherited trait.

And some of the scientists predict that the rest of TG is biologivally cuased. From one of the comments in the above link:

riki said...
I am doing a PhD on the political and social implications of the brain sex theory of trans. My assessment is that there is certainly more evidence for that theory than for any other, but that it is far from "proven", and that many biological hypotheses have been falsified on the past (EG the HY antigen in the 70s and 80s). The psychological theories have very little evidence to support them.

I interviewed Dick Swaab, whose lab produced the BSTc research that is the strongest evidence for a neurological correlate for trans. It should be noted that one of the six MTF transsexual people in the original 1995 Zhou study had never transitioned, but insisted that they had a female gender identity. It sould also be noted that the 2002 Chung study found that the difference between males and females in the BSTc does not occur until after puberty, which poses some problems for a pre or early post natal hormonal causation theory.

Swaab thinks the BSTc is probably a part of a network in the brain involving the hypothalaumus and cortical areas.

"We only, by accident, hit on a little bit of it"

He also explicitly supported the idea that there is a biological causation for the whole range of gender identity variations:

"I think we talked about a scale like the Kinsey scale for sexual orientation – we should also have a gender identity scale. It is not either this or that; there is also something in between. The distribution will not be simple, but here will be people somewhere in the middle."

"So it is not the entire brain that is switching, it is some systems, and that may also be the explanation for the [gender identity] scale. Some systems do switch and others don’t and it depends on which systems have switched where you enter on the scale."

Other recent research (as reviewed by Zoe in earlier blogs) also supports the idea of certain sex differentiated brain areas being switched in ts or tg people while others are not.

So if that is the opinion of Swaab, perhaps the best qualified scientific researcher in the field, perhaps we can accept that tg is as likely to be biological as ts?

Now even if it's not the case that it's biologically caused we won't know for sure till we test for it! so everyone who keeps on about it being certain that CDing is unrelated causilly to TS need to STFU cause we don't know that cause the studies aint been done yet! And to the scientificly literate you look like either ignorant or lying.

Besides, even if it were to turn out to be purely psychological, which I doubt, it's still ethical. And as such should no longer be considered any less valid as homosexuality or any other ethical form of self-expression.

Absence of studies is not absence of evidence.
So it's about time people stop throwing the non-transsexual transgender folk under the bus too.

On CFS, Psychiatry, TG and idiocy in medicine

I link to two great articles whether you have CFS, know someone who has or have no idea about it.

Read this.

Some days, when my natural instincts slip past my stict internal ethics-filters, i consider how just it might be to get all the people who make ignorant assumptions about CFS and jam them in a room filled with mosquitos carrying Ross River Fever or some other illness with similar symptoms to CFS so they get a taste of it, oh and use some drug to mess with their memory so they have no idea whats wrong with them when they start to feel ill.

That or just take a big hammer with the studies showing biological factors in CFS wrapped around the hammerhead and smack them right in the knee with it to remind them of the damned data!

Thankfully for all these I am both too tired and too ethical for such behaviours.

But lets check another shall we? Try this It took something like 5 years before I was diagnosed. During which time I had to leave school, tried to get work, tried to do several forms of further education all of which made me deteriorate to the point of having to quit and overall dramatically worsened my condition with all the antibiotics and antidepressants, (the latter i was not informed were antidepressants I might add, the doctor led me to believe it was a different antibiotic for the 'unknown virus' he said was the likely cause of my illness after the courses of anitbiotics had no effect... only when i webt for a second opinion did i learn what i'd been placed on!) let alone the fact that no matter how sick i felt I still kept up a moderate level of activity (I get bored too easilly to be happy being bedbound thank you very much you *censored*) till after trying several different doctors one said:

I'd say you had chronic fatigue syndrome.. If i believed it
existed

Amusing no? So when I tried another doctor i mentioned this quote. He was astonished. A bunch more tests later to rule out more possibilities he said i clearly had CFS and there i was, finally diagnosed. Now if this moron discussed in the second article is correct then what the heck illness did i have for years and still have long before I had internet access or had heard anything about CFS beyond vague jokes about Yuppie Flu?

Back from my experiences to the excellent article:

Why can they not see this? Because they don’t want to admit that they don’t know
everything, perhaps? I think that’s a component, but there’s more to
it.
Here’s my current take: These psychologisers are believed, because they
are the people who are reinforcing existing prejudice. I think that popular
conceptions of CFS are heavily gendered: If a disease is suffered more often by
women, we all know they’re doing it to themselves, don’t we? And if people -
especially women - have diseases we don’t understand, they must be to blame
somehow. We’re not very comfortable with uncertainty, we don’t like “shit
happens” as an explanation.
We seek to blame, and who better to blame that
the people who we see at the centre of the problem - women with disabilities?
The shadows of victim-blaming rear their ugly heads again and again and again
within every axis of oppression, and those shadows are multiplied at the
intersections**.
And so, people with disabilities are abused - medically,
socially, financially, and psychologically. Every day. Because of people like
Wessely who are “just trying to help”.

Well my oh my does this seem familiar to me. Just like the Zucker and Blanchard nonsense. Just like constantly calling non-binary folk all 'fetishists'. Despite the data when it fits the prejudice it must be true.

I should point out though that for several years after my diagnosis I was still trying to get work and study. I asked three times and DSS/Centrelink about the disability pension and was told each time that CFS was not covered. Then I met a local woman who also had CFS (and a much much milder case than mine) who had been on the pension for years! I mentioned this to my doctor and he had several other patients with CFS on the disability pension, all women, and he helped straighten things out so I finally got my pension.

So in this case was it an assumption that as a 'strong' male i could just ignore the illness and keep going while 'frail' women could not? Or was it that womens contributions were considered negligible and could be pensioned off while I as a male needed to keep being a productive worker?

I'd appreciate others theories on that. Either way back then I heard of quite a few cases locally at least where males with CFS had much more trouble obtaining the disability pension than females.

At any rate there are patterns here. Patterns of sexism, ablism and more. At each turn there is a lack of Ethics, a lack of conclusions based on thorough data. Just prejudice used to draw faulty conclusions from the outset and construct bad studies to support them.

(Trans)gender Security Threat?

Well finally the Australian Human Rights Commissions report into the Identity Documentation Issues of Sex And Gender Diverse People is out... and it's mostly very good indeed.

They have sensibly included a call for the Government to remove as many sex/gender markers as possible from peoples documentation which is excellent.

But they still have two points in which they argue that they are neccessary one of which makes sense and the other... the other I am convinced is not just absurd but threatens our national security!

One is that census data on women is important for Australia to fulfill its obligations to UN treaties to measure the degree of sucess in reducing inequality to women. Well that does seem pretty reasonable. Adding other options to the Census would be good too then to allow for more than just M or F. If someone has gone to the trouble of getting a U for Unspecified on their other documentation then surely they should be able to use that in the Census too.

But the other need for sex markers....
You see... they say that having your sex marked on a document is neccessary for Identifying you for Security Purposes!

There are many ways in which a person can be identified as who they claim to be. By measuring characteristics of them as they present themselves with ones previously recorded about them.

DNA is one of the primary standards as few people will share an exact DNA match (of course there are identical twins), there are fingerprints of course, Iris patterns too. Much has been made of Facial Recognition software. Then there are less unique ones that nevertheless help identify someone compared to someone else.

Height, build, eye colour, skin colour, hair colour, handedness, blood type....

Each of these can narrow down which of, say 50 people in a room, is the individual you are looking for.

Many are very mutable... none are immutable!
Blood type has been known to change in a single instance from a bone marrow transplant. Handedness changes to a point (I have personally lost a good deal of my ambidexterity over the years). Hair colour is easy to change and skin colour is for some and changes naturally over time for many. Eye colour changes too. I know 2 people one of whom is my brother whose eyecolour changed naturally. It can also be disguised easilly by contact lenses. Body proportions change as does height over time. Iris paterns shift and alter especially with certain illnesses. Fingerprints don't just change... they can completely dissapear! Few people hear of this but it occurs to from what I've heard about 13% of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers! Even DNA changes, though not greatly and ussually it's genes switching on or off.. still it does change. Facial structure... well a lot of costly surgery can change that.

As does Measurable Sex, naturally on occassion and with medical assistance (to affirm sex identity).

And yet sex markers on documents is apperntly KEY to identifying someone. Not Blood Type, not DNA and certainly not facial proportions. The entire field of Biometrics which is frequently touted as a vital tool against terrorism etc is less useful than an M or F (or U or X) on a document???

WTF?

At absolute best it halves all the possible people you could be other than the person you claim you are!

Especially when, except when walking through one of those new 'views-through-clothes' cameras the only way this suppossedly vital characteristic is tested is by visual examination of appearance!

Lets imagine this in an easilly possible hypothetical scenario shall we?

You are an official at an airport checking passports.
First in line is someone called Leslie Smith. Leslie has a genderqueer appearance... it's hard to tell if they are male or female. They have an F on their document. Suspicious? Off you send them to be interrogated, possibly stripped and perhaps physically violated with an internal cavity search. On to the next person in line.

Second in line is Joe Smith. Joe looks like a guy and it says Male on the document. Guess he must really be Joe then. Off he goes onto the plane.

Third is Habib Hussein. Looks Male, it says male. He fits two flagged catagories though, he looks arabic and he's male. That means he's a high-risk of being a terrorist then. Off you send him for interrogation just in case.

Fourth is Maryanne Michaels. It says female, looks female. She is passed through.

Later at the inquiry you discover that Leslie was a military trained security analyst and martial arts expert.. if she'd been on board things might have turned out differently.

Turns out Joe Smith was a known member of a hate-group fleeing before an arrest warrent was issued for murder. But being visibly male and white and having a common name he got waved right through as no risk. But he didn't do anything bad on the plane...

Poor Habib. A christian convert. Is now languishing in extended detention without charge. His lawyers hope that the results of this inquiry will help them get him released.

Maryanne Michaels though.... she was a terrorist. Her name wasn't Maryanne Michaels, the real Maryanne was found buried in an unmarked grave in the woods later. The passport was a fake. But she looked unlike an Arab. In fact she wasn't. She was a member of another non-arabic and non-islamic terrorist organisation (remember them?) and most importantly she looked female and it said F on her document! She didn't appear to belong to either of the high-risk catagories. And how were you to know she wasn't really Maryanne when the key to identifying a person is that M or F on their documents?

And yet she took over a plane and killed hundreds of people.

You see how ridiculously stupid this is? There have been plenty of female terrorists. Enough that any sex-based screening is a threat to national security that can and has been exploited by terrorists.

And sex markers merely cut down the number of people someone can be. And not very well at that! To have a catagory like that as considered vital to identifying someone is beyond rediculous. We could replace it with facial recognition, with swift blood-typing technology, with digital fingerprinting, with Iris scans and rather than having a loss of security we would in fact have an increase in it!

In fact if we combined those four off-the-cuff options together we'd have several measurable biometric identifiers that in combination could vastly improve our security far more than paying someone to look at an F or M a photo and a name and decide using their own highly fallible subjective judgement as to whether they are who they say they are.

And what is the real practical function of sex marker visual screening? What does it really do?

Does it correctly identify people reliably? Heck no! As my example shows the visual apraisal by an official comparing your appearance to an M or F classification has only one practical function! Only one result, regardless of intent. It makes life more difficult for people whose appearance goes against gender stereotypes!

Thats the only conceivable logical result! It can do nothing else! Whether it's facial bone structure, hairstyle, makeup, bodyshape, clothing style... all these contribute to whether an official will decide you 'look like an M or F'. If that does not match the document you suffer.

Not just transsexuals. Not just Crossdressers. Not just Androgynously fashionable Goths and Emos. It's the subjective appraisal of the official you see. It entirely depends on how they personally catagorise M and F!

And that means a crossdressing terrorist that 'passes' will get through this idiotic notion of identification but a law-abiding citizen may not.

And the passport theft nonsense? A man can steal another mans passport and a woman a womans. So why then is the possibility that, GASP, a woman could try and use a stolen mans passport or vice versa something so desperatly serious when its a lot easier to have a woman using a stolen womans passport without attracting attention!

Believe me 'passing' is not easy. To do so as to not attract any attention would be for your average cis errorist far more trouble than recruiting some terrorists of the opposite sex!

This is idiocy of the most farcical level!
I would have thought it were some kind of joke.

And really that is what it is. A dangerous, a deadly, joke.

If sex markers are considered important, nay vital to identifying someone for security purposes then terrorists rejoice! Our security services are clearly utterly incompetant morons!

The only real practical effects of making sex markers an important part of security identification is to discriminate unjustly against sex and gender diversity to ensure compliance with sex and gender stereotypes while making life easier for terrorists!

Crossdressing hurting others? But which hurt?

This is short but hopefully sweet. It's an excerpt from a post I've made on a forum in response to someone talking about how crossdressers being out can hurt families, friends, other people etc and that while we have freedom we should consider that the consequences may hurt others.

As for hurt, there are several kinds of hurt that should be considered.

1. The hurt caused to person A by person B using their own rights in a way A would
rather they not use (A's selfish hurt) or

2. the kind where person A is hurt by the interferance of their right by person B overstepping their rights (injustice) and of course

3. the hurt caused to person A when person A's rights are limited by the existence of equal rights of person B (justice).

Some examples of each to make them easier to grok.

1. examples include Goths looking like Goths, Interracial marriage, same-sex marriage, tattoos, body piercing, blue and green worn together, min skirts, women not wearing veils, rock and roll music,
comic books etc.

2. includes racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, theft, murder, rape, forced sterilisation or surgical 'normalisation of Intersex children, circumcision of infants etc

3. includes people not being able to rape, murder, assault, steal etc.

All three are felt as genuine emotional hurt. 1 is essential for people to suffer. It has to happen. People must overcome their own pain with this. 2 is an evil that must be stopped as much as possible. 3 is the point where you introduce equality to liberty, where freedoms are only restricted by the mutual obligation of respecting the equal freedom of others ie fairness. It too is a pain that must be borne.So some hurt is inevitable, neccessary and fair.

In fact avoiding or attempting to limit the first and third types of hurt is arguably bad, wrong, harmful to society and contributing to the worst hurt, the second one.

If we are not ready to inflict the hurt of justice, the hurt of exposure to difference which all of us should suffer and overcome in order to have our own equal liberty then by that choice we inflict the far worse hurt of allowing and encouraging injustice!

Someone wrote a Genderfree Manifesto!

http://intersexnews.blogspot.com/2009/01/genderfree-manifesto.html

I definately think it needs to be read and discussed.

I like it substantially.
Though I do take exception with this paragraph:

For the general public do not even know the difference between the intersex (with *biological* disorders of gender differentiation), the transgender (with minds that are hardwired to the opposite of his/her biological gender), or the transvestite (with normal minds and normal gender biology, but a fetish for the opposite gender's clothing). Each of these is a choice, but the first two is allowed in Islam.

Namely that it ignores the possibility that transvestites, or some of them anyway, may have minds hardwired between biological genders or to have no hard-wired gender. Certainly Genderqueer people are likely to fit somewhere into such a situation. Are they 'fetishising'? Also if a brain is hardwired or the body differently differentiated how is it a choice? Other than what to do in response to existing in such a state?

And in this otherwise excellent part that I support substantially:

WE THE GENDERFREE AND OUR SUPPORTERS

HEREBY DECLARE:

That the rights of children with intersex conditions must be fought for, and the choice given for them to make on their own—without any kind of “corrective” surgery before the age of consent.

That the rights of transgenders to change their bodies in accordance to their true mental gender must be fought for as a God-given right.

That bigotry against the genderfree must be fought against in all forums of discussion and spheres of existence.

That the genderfree statuses, whether intersex or transgender, is a symbol of power, not a stigma, and the genderfree must be proud of the innate capabilities of hir/her/his kind.

Genderfreedom Fighters of the World, Unite!

The phrase: "a God-given right" Is invalid as the manifesto needs to apply outside of god/s-based theistic worldviews as well as within them so I suggest "an Inalienable Right" is more appropriate.

Transgender Beauty

"You look better than many..."

It's a phrase that seriously rankles a lot of people. But one a lot of people use.

On some crossdressing forums its considered quite the no-no as many wives and girlfriends feel quite offended that some consider that a TG person might look more female than a cissexual female or more attractive as a female than one (so far on the forums I've explored it doesn't seem to be as big an offense for boyfriends and husbands of FtMs but that may not be the case and please correct me if I'm in error on that). Some have argued that the actuallity is that some TG folk look more feminine than many Cis females, some CDs find it outrageous that any CD considers themselves more female than any female no matter how naturally masculine and the conversations tend to fall apart as people struggle to defend their own identities from the threat that peoples judgement of anothers appearance seems to constitute to them.

I could go into an analysis of what it means for many cis womens self identity if a crossdresser does look better or more female and the way that seems to speak of a lack of value of masculine physical traits in cissexual women, but thats not the point I want to make today.

See one thing I note in most cases where members of the general public respond with the phrase "You look better than..." in it's varients that most seem to fail to consider..

A lot of the time the TG person did not 'pass' and still got that compliment!

So what does this mean?
It means that these people see that the person is trans and yet still say they are good looking or attractive.

That means there must be qualities of Transgender Beauty that are utterly independant of strict masculine or feminine traits or which exist because of the mixture of these.

Now that many people can find androgyny attractive or fashionable is nothing new, their have ben trends in fashion for centuries where aspects of male or female fashion swap over and there have been plenty of people who've had success with a presentation that sits solidly between standard presentation of male and female.

But neither of those is what I mean. Because in the cases I'm referring to, the transgender person is clearly presenting strongly in a way that is, culturally, female or male, who is nevertheless perceived to be anatomically not matching that presentation and who yet is perceived to be attractive in that state.

And that is significant I think.

Genocide and Transgender

I urge everyone to read this and pass it around.

http://takesupspace.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/genocide-julie-bindel/

But it is worth taking this further, because in much of the world to obtain basic rights and essential services as a transgender person that cis folk always enjoy one must be steralised.

It's all well and good for those who choose to undergo procedures that render them sterile. Its their right to make that decision for themselves and everyone should support their right to do so. But to mandate it in exchange for basic rights and access to essential services is a human-rights abuse plain and simple. Forced and coerced sterilisation has been one of the great crimes of the 20th century.

But consider this also and consider it well.

If there is a genetic cause or factor involved in being Transgender then forced sterilisation is clear and direct biological Genocide.

It is Eugenics!

Transgender people do not automatically lose their reproductive rights! They may choose to waive them but should never be forced to waive them.

Those who do go through treatment that renders them sterile should be able to preserve reproductive material where possible and to use that later in life if they so choose.

Where there are state-based health systems these should provide for this service for those that are covered by them.

Transgender people have the same reproductive rights as anyone else. They may choose whatever treatement is appropriate to suit them according to their own priorities. They ahve a right to their own culture too.

These are all Human Rights. Basic fundamental Human Rights.

To deny them these rights is a Human Rights Abuse and where it constitutes Genocide it is a Crime Against Humanity!

Sex and Gender Diversity Human Rights Project in Australia

I'm confused.

Very confused. Downright vexed and discombobulated even.

So the Australian Human Rights Commission (formerly the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) is concentrating it's sex and gender diversity issues project on Documentation.

It's an important issue but as far as I can tell there are far more important issues and I wonder why this one has been focused on. Still I have pondered and discussed the issue.

For starters there is the issue of genital surgery as a requirement for legal recognition of sex. That seems reasonable to many folk at first but is an utter catastrophe under examination.

For one thing it's discriminatory against FtM transexuals for whom surgery is still behind in results compared to MtF surgery, that then makes such a requirement an unacceptable discrimination.

Also it's discriminatory towards those who are denied surgery or who choose not to have surgery on the grounds of increased risk of complications caused by other health issues. That can include many things from diabetes, obesity and haemophillia or family history of near-death coma resulting in missdiagnosis of death such as runs in my own family. Discrimination based on health issues is a form of ablism and not acceptable.

Then there is the matter of reproductive rights! Making documentation amendment predicated on surgery means coercivly enforced sterilisation! There is a huge difference between a person choosing to undergo a procedure that will result in loss of reproduction and a state denying essential services to someone unless they are sterilised! Also I've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence that many types of sex and gender diversity including crossdressing is hereditary! That would make requiring sterlisation genocide! So then such a requirement could be a crime against humanity!

So far the best solution seems to be removal of sex markers from documentation! I considered this: "What is the functioning purpose of sex markers on documentation?"

As a tool to verify the identity of a specific person it functions only to rule out around half of the billions of humans on the planet the person might otherwise be, so without a long list of other visual descriptor traits for identification purposes it is utterly useless.

As a security marker it is also useless, the advent of female suicide bombings shows that using sex markers as screening tools might help female terrorists pass through security measures. Therefore as a security measure it is useless.

As a key to sex segregated spaces it is useless. This is because these documents are not used to access these spaces!

So then what is the actual function of these documentation markers?

Well if someones appearance does not match the expectations of an official interacting with that document then they will act accordingly... in other words the primary use of sex markers on documentation is to discriminate against sex and gender diverse people, to deny them essential services or make those services more difficult for them to obtain.

Thats what they do! Thats their actual purpose whether intended or not that is the day-to-day function!

But while considering these notions and discussing them at the Human Rights Comissions discussion forum I've been raising other issues. I'm not the only one to do so of course with a number of people objecting to the way the commission chose to do things.

As important as the documentation issues are, and they are very important, there are other issues as or more important!

Ending unethical surgical procedures on Intersex children
Ensuring access to both basic services and vital services (from general healthcare to SRS)
Removing the risk of genocide from potential targeted abortions
Patching holes in antidiscrimination and antivillification legislation
Improving protection from bullying and improving services for S&GD school children
Increasing public education and media representation
Addressing poverty and economic disadvantage

So, along with others I have been raising these issues. Alas some have thought it more important to object to having their issues related to other groups issues.

It seems a reasonable objection considering the current narrow focus of the project but for some key points.

Firstly each group shares at least some of their issues with another group.

The HBS Transexuals share issues of somatic sovereignty with the Intersex and with cissexuals! The same right of maximising later choices of a child once they are considered capable of doing so at once makes the unneccessary surgery on intersex children wrong, the denial of hormone blockers to Transexual children wrong and also circumcision of all children wrong!

The needs of those who don't fit binary views of Sex and Gender effects members of the Intersex community, Crossdressers, the Genderqueer and in some cases transitioning transexuals too.

The gaps in Antidiscrimination legislation effect various groups state by state and is one of the issues that effects me directly but sex and gender diversity is largely absent from antivillification legislation making it everyones issue.

Hate-crime protections, public education, suicide prevention, anti-bullying strategies and resources in schools etc are all issues that effect all involved groups.

So in fact dealing with each group seperately does not ensure that each groups needs are met. One reaction of one of the participants is here: http://joanneproctor-hbs.blogspot.com in the Open Letter To HREOC post (sorry for my poor comp skills for not linking directly to the post)

Lets consider some of the points raised...

Commissioner,
As anticipated the inevitable has occurred. Your discussion has been colonised by individuals with gender role transgressive behavioural issues: individuals with disorders in sexual formation have been completely sidelined and have given up trying to place their circumstances before you.

Actually AFAIK I'm the only one who is involved in the discussion 'fitting' the 'gender role transgressive behavioural issues' description, though the fit is a poor one at best. Individuals with disorders in sexual formation seem to have posted a significant number of times though and their issues and needs raised and discussed at length, that hardly seems sidelined except by the narrow documentation focus which also sidelines my personal issues, the lack of protection of me in my state under antidiscrimination legislation. So laying any blame on me for being involved is mistaken.

Nobody, male, female, or somewhere between, is born with knowledge of gender roles and cultural gender role expectations. Not clothing, hairstyles nor makeup! These are all acquired!
The way the brain functions in the context of its body is not learned. The confluences are biological. And you have chosen to place the performative wants of the learned behaviours in advance of the physical wellbeing of those people with biological disorders.

Well as to the first thats a matter of dispute in behavioural biology circles, certainly cultural gender role expectations exhibit wide variety and few would dispute they are learned, however that does not rule out the possibility that there are some aspects of gender-behaviour that are biologically determined. There is an assumption that there are no gender identity issues that lead to variations in gneder behaviour.

As this open letter goes on to complain about the fundamnetalist adam and eve view of sex might I suggest that the possibility of more variability of neurological sex development than is taken into account in the 'behaviour' argument. That just as there are variations in genital anatomy sex development issues then so too should we predict and expect likewise variation in neurological sex development issues! So that suggests that without concrete evidence either way the safe bet is that crossdressers, the genderqueer etc are but other forms or variations of the same form of neurological diversity as transexuals.

The anecdotal evidence I've heard of crossdressing running in families (often taking the form of crossdressing children finding evidence after a parents death amongst their belongings but also including people coming out only to discover that living parents, siblings or cousins are also crossdressers) certainly supports a biological causation.

Also important though is that human rights are not dependant on the causation! Religion is not biologically determined yet plenty of human rights apply to it, same for culture and expression making gender expression part of the purvue of the comission regardless of hypothetical causation!

It is important that no group that is oppressed or discriminated against on sex and gender diverse issues should be left out! That means that just as people with sex development disorders should not be left out nor should those whose gender expression is discriminated against!

The issues of targeted abortion is raised then as well as unneccessary genital surgery on children and those are important issues.

Then we get this:

Still, you have clearly absolved your conscience and given the floor to a variety of self professed cross-dressers, gender F+++kers, drag queens and transvestites of various persuasions. Choosing to turn away from the genital mutilating, the shoe-horning, the force-fitting, the redefining, and denying that takes place as western cultures attempt to make all human beings fit their fundamentalist Adam and Eve model of biological sex.

Huh? WTFH? Huh? Something must have seriously gone wrong with my communication skills these last months. Why? Because I'm the crossdresser there whose been given the floor and yet... and yet...

I've been advocating for the rights of the Intersex children! I've been speaking out about ending the uneccessary surgery and stating it as being more important than the documentation issues and even my own issues!

So I really can't understand this.

Why am I being blamed for, as the vocal self professed crossdresser involved (and I wonder who all the others are!), taking these issues off the floor when I've been one of the main ones raising those very issues? It's truly vexing and confusing that someone who, going by the issues we both clearly feel are vital, should be a strong ally working with me is instead accusing crossdressers (i.e. me) of the opposite of what I'm doing!

And why is the Australian Human Rights Comission still concentrating on documentation when clearly calling for a cessation of such permanant surgery that robs the child of their right to determine for themselves later in life is clearly a vital issue that many on the forum including myself think should be the first priority?

It's really important that all the human rights needs of all sex and gender diverse poeple are addressed fully. All people involved have a responsibility to that.
And this crossdresser, whose male aspect is rather genderqueer anyway, is intent on just that!

Yeah, that would be me!

So I was scrounging through links to TG news articles and found this one:

http://2ser.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2008-08-18T00_03_16-07_00

The person being interviewed seemed somewhat vexed that the human rights and equal opportunity commisions blog mixed Intersex and Transgender issues together. Why when she went onto the HREOC discussion forum there was even a crossdresser on there!

Yeah, that would be me!

I also am one of those quoted in the pdf report of initial consultation too.

I think all this seperate issues stuff is really misguided.

Why? Because I think it's rather certain that all the groups she and others want seperate have at the heart of things the same issues, just different aspects of them. Like two sides to the same coin, or different faces on a cube.

Example: Intersex people want surgical 'normalisation' of children stopped while Transgender people want medical treatment for transgender children. So that would make them opposites right?

Nope. For starters the reparative therapy of Dr Zucker et al is a psychological version of the medical treatment of the Intersex children, a painful stressful and often unsuccessful attempt to 'normalise' the child. Psychological trauma too can be permanant making the two similar enough even if distinctly different.

See A child can't give 'informed consent' to medical procedures or psychological ones. So any decisions made on their behalf should be minimal with the main aims being to maximise the freedom of choice of the child once they reach maturity sufficient to be considered able to make those choices! We need to keep the child alive and healthy of course but we don't want to make permanant choices for the child that there is a reasonable possibility that the child will regret having been made if we have the option of waiting.

So then if we follow this to it's logical conclusion the Intersex child should have minimal treatment for their condition to enable them to make their own minds up on what kind of surgery is right for them. For the Transgender child hormone blockers to delay puberty give them the same choice! They neither go through male puberty nor female puberty till they are able to decide for themselves from a fully informed perspective.

The same principle, the same result. It's exactly the same issue, just two different expressions of the same right!

And that right extends to all children. I know guys who were upset that they were circumcised as children. Plenty of people are horrified at the practice of female 'circumcision'. Sure these are cultural/religious practices and people have a right to their culture and religion. But they have a right to reject some or all of the culture and religion they are raised as too! People convert, they give up religion too. So then making a decision for a child based on permanant body modification because of cultural and reliious reasons is wrong because the child once mature enough may regret the choice made on their behalf!

So then this same right applies not just to the Intersex community or the Transgender community but to the entirity of humanity!

Let the Intersex kids decide for themselves, let the Transgender kids decide for themselves, let the Jewish and African and Aboriginal and all the other kids who may go through initiations or permanant body modification rituals decide for themselves!

The rights of these children to make their own decisions about their own bodies is very important. If the child is not mature enough to decide for themselves any decisions made on their behalf should not be guesses as to what the kids will probably want nor ever what the parents want for their kids but whenever options exist permanant changes should be put off till the child is old enough to be considered competant enough to decide for themselves!

Now the medical treatment issue doesn't concern me directly so long as I consider myself a crossdresser and so long as being a crossdresser doesn't prevent me getting medical treatment (a possibility but a lesser one than for many others) but there are still plenty of issues I personally share with the Transexual and the Intersex communities.

Anti-discrimination and Anti-villification legislation is patchy at best from state to state. That effects all of us!

If someone assaults me will they know if I'm a Metrosexual? Genderqueer? A Crossdresser? A Drag Queen? A Transexual? Intersex? Nope. They will just perceive that I don't fit into their views on gender and apply violence accordingly.

That makes it everyone's issue! In fact when stated as: 'Gender identity and expression' it covers not just all those catagories but literally everyone! Someone could be discriminated against for being too masculine a man or too feminine a woman too. Those words mean everyone is protected.

You see lots of people want everyone dealt with seperately, but thats not how human rights work. They are always as broad as possible. They can't be equal or universal if they don't work that way!

Does freedom of religion only cover the Abrahamic religions? Just Christain denominations? No, of course not! It covers Shinto and Daoism and Parsee and the Yezidee and even Agnostics and Athiests!

And thats why while the different needs of Intersex and Transgender people need to be represented they are still just different variations of the same basic human rights that everyone should have!

Thats why everyone has a right to be there. Thats why we need to understand the basic philosophical principles behind these issues.

Fighting for seperation is unjustifiable. Either we all should have the same rights or we shouldn't. The right of a child to not have others make permanant choices on their behalf that can be put off till the child is old enough belongs to all children. The right of someone not to be discriminated against or villified because of their gender identity or expression also belongs to everyone!

So then lets not leave anyones needs out, lets not leave anyone with less rights than others. Lets all try and learn about and understand each others needs and work towards satisfying them all.

So there is indeed a crossdresser at the HREOC forums on Sex and Gender Diversity Issues. And it's good that one is there.

Yeah, that would be me!