Wednesday 23 March 2016

Try this quick quiz...


“Allowing students to use restrooms, locker rooms and showers that are reserved for students of a different sex will create potential embarrassment, shame, and psychological injury to students,” - Kansas Bills SB 513 and HB 2737
So... which of these two causes "psychological injury"?

Like bills proposed in other states, these measures attempt to define “sex” in a narrow way — in this case, “the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s chromosomes, and is identified at birth by a person’s anatomy.
Because Intersex people not only don't exist, they can't exist. The 1 in 300 men who are not 46,XY, and the 1 in 600 women who aren't 46,XX, they are causes of "shame and embarassment" because... well, just because. And that's worth Big Bucks.

The “Student Physical Privacy Act” would apply not only to public schools, but all public universities in the state as well, guaranteeing that anyone who saw someone transgender in the bathroom could sue their school for $2,500 for every time that it happened.
At a minimum, plus court costs and actual damages for "psychological injury".

See http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2016/03/22/3762490/kansas-transgender-ransom-bathrooms/

Friday 11 March 2016

In Summary

Too many times I've seen assertions in Op-Eds and comments that "there is no evidence for a biological origin for transsexuality". Sometimes it's "no evidence whatsover",  sometimes "no convincing evidence", "no peer-reviewed evidence". The impression is given that there's only one or two papers written by pay-for-comment idealogues in vanity press publications, if anything, and probably not even that.


The truth is rather different. Evidence Supporting the Biologic Nature of Gender Identity Saraswat et al, Endocrine Practice: February 2015, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 199-204.

Objective: To review current literature that supports a biologic basis of gender identity.
Methods: A traditional literature review.
Results: Evidence that there is a biologic basis for gender identity primarily involves (1) data on gender identity in patients with disorders of sex development (DSDs, also known as differences of sex development) along with (2) neuroanatomical differences associated with gender identity.
Conclusions: Although the mechanisms remain to be determined, there is strong support in the literature for a biologic basis of gender identity.
 "Strong support" - like there's "Strong support" for the theory that the Earth isn't flat. It's about as close to certainty as you'll find in any scientific publication.

Thursday 3 March 2016

Correcting a falsehood

The state’s Human Rights Commission wants to be clear: A new rule allowing transgender people to use restrooms that match their gender identity does not permit men to undress in women’s locker rooms. The agency sent out a news release Friday responding to a recent incident in which a man undressed in a women’s locker room in Seattle. According to the news release, the man refused to leave, citing the state’s new rule about transgender restroom access, but he never identified himself as transgender. State officials said the man’s behavior isn’t permitted under the recent regulation approved by the Human Rights Commission. The new rule, which took effect Dec. 26, says transgender people in Washington can’t be forced to use a restroom or locker room that is inconsistent with their gender identity. Opponents of the rule have said the policy threatens the privacy of women and children, while providing cover for sex offenders who might want to enter locker rooms to prey on members of the opposite sex. On Friday, the Human Rights Commission characterized the man’s actions in the Seattle locker room as an attempt “to make some kind of misguided point” about the new state rule and “to make the women and girls in the restroom upset and uncomfortable.” “His behavior is inexcusable and reprehensible. And it is absolutely not protected under the law,” said the news release from the commission’s executive director Sharon Ortiz. “Men cannot go into the women’s locker room, as this man claimed he had the right to do,” the news release said. “Only women – including transgender women – can go into the women’s locker room.”
News Tribune

They believe their own propaganda, you see.

A Seattle, Wash. community is in uproar after a man undressed in the women’s locker room at a local pool, seemingly to test a new rule that allows transgender people to use the bathroom of their gender identity, according to King 5 News.
An unidentified man wearing board shorts walked into the women’s bathroom of Evans Pool, in the heart of Seattle, on Monday evening.
The women inside the locker room at the time attempted to kick him out, but the guy refused and said “the law has changed and I have the right to be here.”
Expect to see this example used and re-used on Right Wing sites. They couldn't find any actual example of any of the horribles they claim giving Trans people equal rights would cause, so they have to manufacture them.

It's not the first time this has been done.

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Sometimes you win...


With such a document, I can apply for a correction of my UK birth certificate under the UK Gender Recognition Act (Overseas Track).

I've been waitimg (and agitating and lobbying, and informing, and educating, and persuading) for ten years. I can wait another 6 months.