Trans News/ Issues

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Hey Dapper,

Yes I agree, perhaps it is as you say. I still feel that it was not okay to publicly release the birth name. This is likely just a personal issue that I have about outing people. Many transguys do not want others to know their birth name or that sort of personal info, and I think it just struck a cord with me is all.

Thanks

I absolutely and completely get what you are saying here about many/most transguys not wanting their birth names/trans status released. I assume that a newspaper would have to print the legal name of a suspect in a story (that they wouldn't have a choice about it), is all I was saying.

[alexri]

The newest edition of the psychiatric diagnostic manual will do away with labeling transgender people as "disordered."

http://www.advocate.com/politics/tra...nder-dysphoria

This is interesting and will hopefully help more people...

[EnderD_503]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Thanks for the article. In it's defense the article gave the man's birth name (female) and then said, "Friends say the 27 year old is now a man and goes by the name Jayce...". I think it is possible, if not probable, that the suspect did not legally change his name yet. I also noticed that the article refrained from using any pronouns throughout. I am wondering if this is an attempt to be tolerant?

Originally Posted by DapperButch

I absolutely and completely get what you are saying here about many/most transguys not wanting their birth names/trans status released. I assume that a newspaper would have to print the legal name of a suspect in a story (that they wouldn't have a choice about it), is all I was saying.

Not willing to give what appears to be an extremely conservative newspaper of a very conservative state the benefit of the doubt as far as trying to be "tolerant" or anything of the sort. Other news sources have identified him solely as Jayce D. McClerkin (f.ex. the Advocate article originally posted in the thread). But it also wouldn't be the first time that law enforcement have used a trans person's birth name over their real name (whether legally recognised yet or not).

If I remember right, Nikki Araguz went through the same thing when she was initially imprisoned...they used her birth name on her prison id instead of her real name (then also her legal name). If I remember that was the case with another transwoman recently in the news as well, and happens frequently when trans people are imprisoned. Nothing law enforcement or the media do to refer back to a trans person's assigned sex is ever coincidental or out of innocence/ignorance...ever. Its always another attempt to emphasise to the public and to themselves what they believe of the trans person, rather than who the trans person truly is. Just another humiliation tactic.

[aishah]

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/b...der-community/

What MPD’s Condom Practice Means for the Transgender Community
Posted by Stephanie Haven on Aug. 3, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Transgender individuals don’t have it easy in the District: The last time the District government studied the population, in 2000, it had a 42 percent unemployment rate, and 47 percent of the community didn't have health insurance. To make ends meet, many end up in sex work as a last resort, transgender activist Jeri Hughes says—16 percent nationally, according to a 2011 report by the National Center for Transgender Equality.

For those reasons, one Metropolitan Police Department practice is particularly daunting to the District's transgender community—whose relationship with the police force is already fraught.

According a July 19 study by Human Rights Watch, if police find condoms either in a bag or with a person during a stop and search, they can use them as evidence of prostitution—even though there’s nothing illegal about the contraceptive method. These actions discourage sex workers from using condoms, increasing the risk of HIV—a particularly worrisome possibility for transgender people in the District, where the rate is already so high across the population, says Megan McLemore, a senior researcher in the Health and Human Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

But MPD Chief Cathy Lanier remains steadfastly in favor of using condoms as evidence. She says this practice is analogous to using the discovery of several bags of drugs to demonstrate a person has distributed or plans to distribute an illicit substance, as opposed to mere possession. “If we have an arrest, and there is evidence to support the probable cause for that arrest, we have to submit that as evidence,” Lanier says. “We can’t ignore it and that goes for any case. I think we can still give a strong message about practicing safe sex without encouraging something that’s illegal. I don’t think those two things are exclusive of each other.”


Human Rights Watch studied the practice in four major cities across the country. In D.C., it found that MPD confiscated or disposed of condoms at disproportionately high rates. Condoms can be used as evidence of prostitution in the District, but haven’t been the sole cause of arrests, as they can be in Los Angeles and New York City. Condoms have also never been presented as evidence in District courts, McLemore says.

One consequence of the practice is a false rumor that could discourage condom use. “In D.C. we found that there was a pervasive rumor and understanding among sex workers that there is a three-condom rule,” McLemore says. “If you carry more than three, the police are going to hassle you. But nothing is on the books about this at all.”

The problematic three-condom practice intersects with an existing tension between MPD and the transgender community. Some police associate transgender people with criminality because of the significant percentage of transgender individuals engaged in sex work, according to Laurel Westbrook, an associate sociology professor at Grand Valley State University. Twenty-nine percent of the transgender population nationwide has dealt with police harassment or disrespect, according to National Center for Transgender Equality. Human Rights Watch's McLemore says that the three-condom practice contributes to profiling of transgender individuals by police.

Such profiling reached such a high level in 2007 that Lanier issued a 10-page general order on how to interact with transgender individuals. The District's police force was one of the first in a major city to create such a guideline. “It’s not just a matter of officers knowing what the policy says,” Lanier says. “They have to be able to interact in role-call training scenarios to demonstrate that they understand.”

Training and reality can present different situations, though. While Lanier says her officers are reprimanded if they don’t comply with the policy, misconduct isn’t always reported. The transgender community remains distrustful toward police, Lanier acknowledges, hindering the frequency with which MPD is notified about police harassment and other types of profiling. Even though Lanier's heard of only two officers who didn’t follow MPD's policy, it’s unclear how many incidents have gone unreported.

Thus, a discrepancy remains between what the policy says police ought do and how some perceive MPD actions. For example: Although they are now under legal review, prostitution free zones were a hot bed for harassment against transgender individuals, says Jason Terry, an activist at the District of Columbia Transgender Coalition. Whether it was catcalls or frequent stop-and-searches, he says prostitution free zones may as well have been called “transgender free zones.” “They used them to push trans women in particular into less safe areas which made them more vulnerable to other forms of violence,” Terry says.

Lanier says she has no account of these issues.

Compared to the other cities in the Human Rights Watch study, MPD has demonstrated more sensitivity toward the transgender community and public health issues overall, McLemore says. It’s a sentiment that Hughes agrees with, although she says MPD needs to tone down what she terms its zealous pursuit of transgender prostitutes.

Which is another issue that Lanier says she’d stop if it were brought to her attention. She says every officer, regardless of personal beliefs, has to interact with individuals according to the force's policy. “When you come to the job, you’re expected to deal with anyone and everyone you come in contact with,” Lanier says. “If you can’t separate your opinions, your biases from law enforcement you’re not in the right line of work.”

[DMW]

Originally Posted by alexri

The newest edition of the psychiatric diagnostic manual will do away with labeling transgender people as "disordered."

http://www.advocate.com/politics/tra...nder-dysphoria

This is interesting and will hopefully help more people...

Don't really wanna start a can of worms. This could be a real catch 22

Don't have a label to your problem sometimes = no help.
I have never really liked the particular word or the label.
But, if i have a disorder with my body not matching my brain since my brain
is fine and you can't get in there to fix my brain cause it isn't broken ...then help me change my body since you have recognized there is an issue.

Ok, trans issue health care coverage for me ...thanks

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by DMW

Don't really wanna start a can of worms. This could be a real catch 22

Don't have a label to your problem sometimes = no help.
I have never really liked the particular word or the label.
But, if i have a disorder with my body not matching my brain since my brain
is fine and you can't get in there to fix my brain cause it isn't broken ...then help me change my body since you have recognized there is an issue.

Ok, trans issue health care coverage for me ...thanks

I understand what you are saying here. If there is no diagnosis, then an insurance company won't "treat" the illness by paying for surgery.

However, they ARE still keeping a form of gender identity in the DSM V. They are simply calling it "Gender Dysphoria". This should meet the requirments for therapy (if the person wants some). If their insurance company will pay for SRS surgery, this diagnosis will meet the requirments for this, as well.

What is different about calling it Gender Dysphoria is that the APA is saying it is not a "mental illness" per se.

I see all this as them finding the loophole we all wanted (both those in the trans community and those of us who are gender therapists)... the DSM is not saying it is a mental illness, but it is still saying that SRS is the TREATMENT for Gender Dysphoria (therefore, insurance companies should pay for any surgery the person may want).

As a gender therapist, I am pleased with this change. As a gender variant individual, I am happy with it, as well.

[Nadeest]

I am happy with the change in the DSM, as well. Now, we won't be charactized as having a mental illness, when we, in fact, do not have one. Our brains and gender identities simply do not match our bodies. The only possible fix, these days, is to remodel our bodies and our lives.

[Tony]

Been reading through this thread. Very interesting & nice to see the exchange of thoughts & experiences. I definately want to contribute as soon as I have enough time. Just hoping to keep the thread going.

[EnderD_503]

I can't help but get frustrated over these whole "x trans person has it worse than y trans person" discussions. Over in my city its manifested itself in some circles as transwomen constantly hating on transguys acting as though there is only one kind of transguy with one experience. One prominent transwomen activist here even ranted on about transmen as part of her speech at Slut Walk. Meanwhile, there's quite a number of homeless or incarcerated transguys out there with few places to turn for support because most the orgs focus on transwomen. So you end up with situations where transguys are placed into women's shelters because someone decided to designate a woman's shelter as "the trans shelter," yet fail to recognise the issues that transguys face in those shelters (being denied access to health care facilities because they are "women only" and no effort by the shelter to organise something for transmen staying at the shelter, being harassed, people trying to get them kicked out of the shelter etc), to the point where what little statistics exist (thanks to one transguy activist in the city, who sadly recently committed suicide) point to the fact that the majority of homeless transmen prefer to sleep outside than in shelters. These are things both transmen and transwomen face. And yet, neither can transguys (just as transwomen as well) go to male shelters safely because of the violence and harassment they face there.

So why can't there be more inclusive resources? I feel the idea that transwomen face more issues than transmen can create this imbalance where there aren't really inclusive resources, so that transmen "can stay here too" but there's not the same level of organisation to provide them with support, health care etc.

I don't mean to always bring it back to shelters, streets and prisons, but that is where a huge amount of the abuse of trans people occurs...so we shouldn't really be looking at as much at the experiences of trans people in office jobs or something as the way of saying "oh such and such has it so easy."

It becomes frustrating. I think all trans people should be equally considered, and there just seems to be so many barriers wedged between transmen and transwomen right now.

And it feels like no one ever thinks of people's experiences depending on their choices or situations as far as hormones/surgery etc. A lot of trans people who are low income, suffer from depression, have a history of substance abuse or incarceration are denied hormones or surgery because therapists decide they aren't "stable enough"...and the more they deny them what they need, the more "unstable" they appear to the therapist or health care professional. That happens equally with all trans people in those situations.

And what are those people having to go through? How many transguys have had people abuse them to try to "make them acknowledge" their "femaleness," especially when they're not on T...but that's one thing I've noticed talking to friends and such is that there seems like there's little space to talk about that, and partially because some people feel it will detract from their identities as men. So how to get over that... And I also feel that because a lot of transguys who are not on T are frequently mistaken for female, when it happens there's just zero visibility statistically.

Everything that happens to vulnerable transwomen, there's a flip side for transguys in similar situations, whether its visible or not...and especially since there are very few statistics that include transguys who are in more vulnerable living situations.

But then there's this fucked up feeling that every time these discussions occur, someone is being left out. Like transguys feeling left out when a lot of the resources out there are for transwomen, but then you also get transwomen feeling left out when things focus on transguys. How do you strike a balance?

Edit: and I think it stems too from the fact that everyone is struggling for space. Because society in general doesn't leave much space for trans people, especially certain trans people, its like we struggle among each other to create more safe space for ourselves or to get our struggles across...but again how to strike a balance?

Blah...

[DMW]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

I see all this as them finding the loophole we all wanted (both those in the trans community and those of us who are gender therapists)... the DSM is not saying it is a mental illness, but it is still saying that SRS is the TREATMENT for Gender Dysphoria (therefore, insurance companies should pay for any surgery the person may want).

That is really refreshing. Kinda been waiting on what the outcome would be and been out of the loop. It is what i wanted. It is nice to hear this, in a concise manner, from someone whom is knowledgeable about the issue. This way, i don't feel the need to go foraging through the DSM now.
Thanks.