Incoherence and Rulemaking in the USA

Via TransLate, a detailed look at the Looking-Glass world of administrative law concerning trans people in the USA - Documenting Gender : Incoherence and Rulemaking, a draft paper by Dean Spade.

Many people are under the impression that everyone has a clear “legal gender” on record with the government, and that changing “legal gender” involves presenting some kind of evidence to a specific agency or institution in order to make a decisive and clear change to the new category. Because of the long history linking transgender identity with medical authority and popular cultural beliefs that changing gender involves surgical procedures, it might especially be assumed that achieving gender reclassification requires presenting medical evidence to an appropriate administrative or judicial decisionmaker. As it turns out, the reality of the rules that govern gender reclassification in the US is far more complex.

Not to say contradictory, insane, bizarre and inhuman.

From Christie Lee Littleton's Story :

Christie Lee can go to Houston, Texas and legally marry a man, but if she moves back to San Antonio, Texas, her legal marriage in Houston is now illegal. She could legally marry another woman in San Antonio though, and it would be a same-gender marriage because the State of Texas administratively recognizes her current gender as female. Harris County only accepts current gender for marriage licenses, and Bexar County only accepts original birth certificate gender for marriage licenses, not current gender. Confused? Texas government certainly is. This is what happens when government, in this case the courts, starts meddling in people's private lives.

And that's just a start. Such legal psychopathy - for there's no other word that fits - makes a mockery of the law, and the whole concept of marriage. It is beyond Ironic, and well into the Surreal, that all this inhumanity, this making a farce of matrimony, is being committed in the name of defending the sanctity of marriage.

Today's Battles

Back in the saddle again after various medical emergencies, and ready to resume combat.

First at CBS, which aired a program on Trinidad, Colorado, and Dr Marcie Bowers, one of the top genital reconstruction surgeons in the USA.

God will reject these people and send them to burn in hell!
Posted by gophockeymom at 09:48 AM : Sep 08, 2008

SICK AND WRONG!!!! UnNatural... Just sick and WRONG!!!
Posted by AmericaBiker at 09:25 AM : Sep 08, 2008

Ah, I love the smell of fresh bigot in the morning... It makes the calm dispassionate statement of facts that I give - with URLs to back them up - so much more convincing to readers and lurkers. Now I doubt that I'll change the views of either gophockeymom or AmericaBiker. But you never know, hope springs eternal etc. My target audience is that group of people who don't know much about the issue, and want to talk - or at least read - about it. If one side is calm, polite, rational, and the other frothing-at-the-mouth Batsh1t crazy, that makes their task of judging who's likely to be right that much easier.

And taking on Cardinal Pole, "Australian Catholic and secular news commentary from an uncompromisingly Traditional, arch-reactionary perspective".
With an intro like that, how could I not like the man? And how could I not engage in vigorous and robust (and good natured) disputation with him?

Your taxes hard at work: the human rights mafia’s latest pre-occupation

Also in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herod was a totally bewildering article by Ms Adele Horin, in which she reports on how “the Australian Human Rights Commission has undertaken a project to investigate human rights issues affecting the transgender community.” In one of those bitter ironies that this age throws up from time to time, it seems that ‘transgender’ folk are a bulwark against the dissolubility of marriage; they are aggravated that they must divorce their respective spouses in order to, in Ms. Horin’s pompous and verbose terms, “have the sex on all their documentation reflect their lived reality.”

Indeed. Such marriages as mine illustrate the indissolubility his Eminence speaks of with such disbelief. So, Let Battle Commence!

Update: modified the last lines to remove ambiguity

Sarah Palin : Mother, Moose Hunter, Maverick

Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, was selected as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee last week.

Light Blogging

China is set to launch it's first three-man crew space mission this month.

The launch of Shenzhou VII is now expected to take place between September 17 -- the end of the Beijing Paralympics -- and China's National Day on October 1, Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po said, citing unnamed sources.
...
Three "taikonauts" or astronauts will be on board the flight, with one of them conducting China's first space walk, China's official Xinhua news agency said in an earlier report, quoting a spokesman for the mission.

China successfully launched its first man, Yang Liwei, into orbit in 2003, making it the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to put a man in space.

It sent two more astronauts into orbit in 2005 on a five-day mission.

The half-hearted UK space programme that could have been a contender. Still could, if they could summon up the enthusiasm, and the cash. The ESA (European Space Agency) seems to be more like Eventually Some Activity.

A visit to London’s Science Museum is both awe-inspiring and a somber experience. The first exhibit that strikes the visitor is the hulk of the final and successful Black Arrow rocket that launched the Prospero satellite for Britain at the turn of the 1970s. Looking closer at the other associated pieces in this collection, it is extremely hard to avoid the feeling of unfinished business. Bewilderment could strike any visitor regarding why this technology was not part of a continuum running through to the latest space-exploring and space-exploiting vehicles of today. Indeed, this is encapsulated in one exhibit legend that states that Britain remains the only country to gain and then abandon an indigenous launch capability.

As opposed to Australia, which has gained and then abandoned and indigenous payload capability. Twice. *SIGH*

Love Triumphs Across the Line - an article on other Australian couples like us.

Talking to these couples, it is apparent their relationships are especially close. Their survival suggests that sex or sexual attraction is overrated in some marriages as the glue that holds couples together, and that even gender is less crucial than an appreciation of a partner's essential self.

Well, yes, now that you mention it.

Some Good News

From the ABC :

Legislation to end discrimination for same-sex couples under Commonwealth law has been introduced in Federal Parliament.

The changes create equality for gay couples in the areas of social security, veterans affairs, medicare, tax and educational assistance.

Laws ending discrimination in superannuation were tabled earlier this year.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland says it is historic legislation.

"This bill amends some 68 Commonwealth laws which involve 19 Government departments." he said.

"It will not only remove discrimination against same-sex couples, they also remove discrimination against their families and most specifically their children."

We're not a gay couple. But we are same-sex. This legislation, when if passed, will take a huge burden off my mind, and make a real difference to our son's life.

Oh yes, and "tabled" in Australian English means "put into play", not "rejected", as it does in US English. Another two countries separated by a common language.

Anomaly Revisited

"Anomaly" really is the word you least want to hear at launch.

Today's Battle

Over at Catholic Answers Forum : what happens when theological dogma and biological reality collide?

Unsubtle Political Comment

See Conservapedia : Cat Hating Homosexual Agenda

Blogging May Be Light

I've had to take my partner in to the Emergency Department twice in the last week. She's scheduled for surgery on Tuesday.

We can't afford health insurance, but we have enough savings 'for a rainy day' to manage. It's not like the USA - medical care for "public patients" is relatively inexpensive.

There have been better weeks.

Whatever Happened To.... Radar O'Reilly?

He became a professor of History and Political Science, and he's now a Delegate at the Democrat National Conference. Somehow that seems... appropriate.

From MPR Minnesota:

He is, in fact, Don Shaffer (and his wife is Pat). And he is the person on whom the character of Radar O'Reilly was based in the book that later became the movie and TV series M*A*S*H. Richard Hornberger (who took the name Richard Hooker) thinly disguised the characters in the book as soldiers who served with him in an Army field hospital in Pyongyang, Korea. Shaffer was company clerk and a chaplain assistant. When the unit had to "bug out" to escape the advancing Chinese, Shaffer had to drive two USO members. One was Joe DiMaggio.

He told me the real "Hot Lips" Hoolihan was "much more beautiful than Ms. Swit," and that the soldier on whom Klinger was based was gay (and was named Springer), but it was the Army that was trying to throw him out , while he wanted to stay in the service.

He served in both Korea and Vietnam and -- after concluding his service in intelligence work -- became a professor of history and political science.

So now you know.

A Reading List concerning Transition

So you want to be a T-girl : an unvarnished look at the difficulties of transition - and after. I should add that I have some severe differences with many of the opinions expressed therein, and some of the statements of fact too.

Gender Identity Disorder . Written in 1999 by Sarah Becker MD. A good 1-page explanation.

Gender identity change in a transsexual: an exorcism.A 1977 paper (without follow up as to long term success) showing the desperate lengths some psychiatrists went to when dealing with Transsexuality. Yes, Exorcism is a word used literally. A Later paper used the more innocuous term "Spirit Release Therapy". Same thing though, Bell, Book, Candle, Ju Ju Masks, Pyramids... But at least not Electro-Convulsive Therapy, Aversion Therapy using nauseating drugs and pain-inducing devices, or destroying parts of the brain, all fashionable therapies at the time. I'm immensely glad I kept my mouth shut, and didn't fall into the hands of these people.

Rethinking Sexism : How Trans Women Challenge Feminism The world's largest annual women-only event excludes trans women, sparking a debate among feminists about sexism and privilege.

Can a marriage survive transition? A spouse's perspective. Some can. Usually not.

ETHICAL CONCERNS RELATED TO TREATING GENDER NONCONFORMITY IN CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE: LESSONS FROM THE FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA The best single article on medicine, the law, and transsexuality I have yet found. Some people "get it". A must-read for medics, lawyers, and those with TS children.

And finally... an extact from correspondence with Dr Veronics Drantz, Geneticist

...I fit the standard gender binary model very well in terms of mind, it's just the body that's odd. The Gender Binary Model is not complete rubbish - it covers well over 70% of all people. It's like saying all road vehicles have 4 wheels, a good first approximation. It's only when you insist that motorbikes, semi-trailers, large trucks, bulldozers etc have to have 4 wheels too, or don't exist (or can't be allowed to exist), that you run into trouble. Reality gets in the way. And Unicycles cause complete cranial implosion.

OK, that's enough about me for the time being. I blogged my transition, and that is as good a record of what happened, as it happened, as you'll find.

What do I think of the Diamond-Money controversy? I have very few differences from Milton Diamond's views. He's right in the main, though I think he underestimates the importance of emotional response when it comes to gender identity formation.

I'll try to explain: rather than Gender Identity being a "Tabula Rasa" at birth (the Money theory), certain propensities, tendencies, embedded in the Lymbic system already exist long before birth. They dictate what is "uphill" and "downhill", the direction further development will TEND to go, all other things being equal, and the "steepness" is variable. The causation of these tendencies and their strength, is probably primarily hormonal, but gene sequences (rather than the very crude metric of chromosomes) may play a large part too. The directions may be towards what is stereotypically female, stereotypically male, or neither, as "male" and "female" only describe attributes most often found in standard 46xy bodies, and standard 46xx bodies, the "70%" with 4 wheels.

The child with such emotional pre-programming then discovers their gender identity through the "what am I most like" process described by Diamond, with appearance and social role playing some part, but not a big one.

A terribly crude approximation is that 1/3 will be boys, 1/3 will be girls, (their "steepness" is high), and 1/3 could function in either role, depending on circumstances. I feel so awful making such horribly imprecise statements, it's not as if "boy" and "girl" are single variables, they're vectors, not scalars, and not absolutes. BBngbbGb we'd call "Boy", gGGgbgBn we'd call "Girl", just assuming there's a continuum of B..b..n..g..G and only 8 quantities. In fact, you could say that even that terribly simplistic model would indicate 5⁸ different genders! Worse, it's not discrete, rather than each variable having only 5 different values, they are continuous, 0.000.. 1.000. And not 8, but possibly thousands of coefficients.

Worse still, something as nebulous as "sexual orientation" might be, say, a product of the 2nd and 4th coefficients. Bg and Gg respectively. Corresponding to appropriate numbers on the Kinsey scale, itself a crude model.

To cut a long story short - I'm in the Diamond camp, very firmly. I see nothing magical about the 18 month mark.

From Laminated Mouse to Telepathic Cat

From Wired: Pentagon Begins Fake Cat Brain Project :

The Pentagon's crash program to create an artificial brain is just about up and running. And, if it all goes as planned, we could see an electronic chip that mimics the "function, size, and power consumption" of a cat's cortex some time in the next decade.
...
"The follow-on phases of the project will create a technology that functions like the brain of a cat, which comprises 10⁸ neurons and 10¹² synapses," Dr. Narayan Srinivasa, SyNAPSE Program Manager and Senior Scientist, said. "The human brain has roughly 10¹¹ neurons and 10¹⁵ synapses."

The gray area between circuitry and gray matter has become one of the hotter topics in military research. The Army is funding a study into "synthetic telepathy" that would translate the brain's electrical activity into computer code.
...
The JASONs, the Pentagon's premiere scientific advisory board, has warned of the dangers of enemies implanted with brain-computer interfaces. And the Defense Intelligence Agency just released a report, saying the military needs to spend more on neuroscience - up to and including "mak[ing] the enemy obey our commands."

A summary of another of Cordwainer Smith's works: The Game of Rat and Dragon.

Mankind has achieved the ability to travel to the stars, through interstellar space, but there are hazards, namely monsters that people call "dragons" who kill many of the passengers and crew on these ships, drive people insane. To battle these noncorporeal monsters, human psychics have proven very useful, but engineers have found that these human psychics work better against the monsters when they have partners—psychic cats.

See previous post on another Cordwainer Smith related neurological issue : Laminated Mouse Brains

Kiel Paroli Maldece en Esperanto

How To Talk Dirty in Esparanto.

Mi ricevis anoniman eseon per posxto titolita Kiel Paroli Maldece en Esperanto

Trans: I received an anonymous essay in the mail entitled How to Talk Dirty In Esperanto.

NSFW. Really. And Atentu al la elefantaj fekeregoj!


Curtsy to Darwin Central

What my life is worth

5 years. Unlike a human's. If you're unlucky enough to get caught while hunting, and any old story will do, no matter how much the facts contradict it. It's always open season, and no bag limit.

From Philadelphia Gay News:

Oates, 20, of the Olney section, faces a minimum of five years in prison when he is sentenced next month, but could be released within the next 30 months because of credit for time served.

Police arrested Oates after the February 2006 incident and he has been incarcerated since then.

Minehart didn’t explain his ruling, but it appears he accepted the defense’s position that Oates acted in the heat of passion after he picked up King for sex in February 2006, then shot her twice after realizing she was a biological male.

Assistant D.A. MK Feeney argued for a first-degree murder conviction or, as an alternative, a third-degree-murder conviction. She said the evidence indicated that Oates targeted King because of her transgender status.

But defense attorney Brian McMonagle stressed the youth and naiveté of his client when he went out looking for sex about 5 a.m. Feb. 1, 2006, at Broad and Spring Garden streets.

He said Oates wasn’t aware that transgender sex workers frequented the area. He didn’t know King was a biological male until she became sexually aggressive inside Oates’ car and indicated that she had a penis. Then, Oates went into a frenzy and shot her twice in the heat of passion, McMonagle said.

Feeney scoffed at that defense.

“Mr. Oates isn’t so naïve that he can’t find a gun,” she said. “He has an illegal gun in his car, he’s out at five o’clock in the morning on a school night and he’s going to a strip club when he’s underage. He’s sophisticated enough to be doing those things. Yet the defense portrayed him as an innocent, naïve little boy.”

Oates told police he didn’t realize King’s biological status until King grabbed Oates’ hand and placed it on King’s penis, inside the car.

Oates did not testify during the trial but his early statements to police were read for the record.

However, Sgt. Daniel Dutch, who’s worked undercover as a “john” in the area, testified that he’s never heard of — nor experienced — such behavior by a transgender sex worker.

To the contrary, transgender sex workers normally go out of their way to avoid having the johns touch their penises, Dutch said.

And medic William Murphy, who administered emergency care to King after she was shot, testified that King’s penis was “tucked” between her legs, held in place by her panties, when he got to her.,

Bit of a contradiction there...

The shooting happened in the Nicetown section, near the intersection of Bott and Kerbaugh streets. King was shot twice, from the side and rear, according to the medical examiner’s report.

Her body was found about 120 feet from Oates’ car, where she collapsed in a pool of blood, evidently trying to run for safety, said Feeney.

McMonagle said the shooting happened during “pandemonium” in Oates’ car, after he felt King’s penis, tussled with her for Oates’ pistol, then King moved toward him.

But Feeney refuted that scenario.

“At no time was she ever coming toward him when he shot her, because she was shot from the side and rear,” Feeney said. “That tells you right there that the defendant is lying. If you’re coming toward someone, your front would get shot.”

But mere facts won't stop a transphobic judge from issuing an amazing decision. And the odds are pretty good of getting one.

She said Oates’ actions after the shooting also contradict a heat-of-passion defense.

“He immediately got rid of the weapon,” Feeney continued. “If you can’t think straight, you’re not going to do that. Then he calls 911, does this act on the phone about a robbery and unknown gunman and lies to the responding officer and detectives. To me, that shows a pretty good presence of mind, don’t you think?”

She said Oates tried to flee the scene but was stymied because his car wouldn’t start. “But for the fact that his car wouldn’t start and he was stuck at the scene, we’d probably never even know who killed Alexis King,” Feeney said.

So let's see - King exposed her penis, while it was tucked. And she advanced on him, so he shot her in the back. Then in total panic he calmly gave his prepared story.

Any old story will work, won't it? As long as it's that scary TRANS PANIC!!!!!

Fantastic Contraption: A fun online physics puzzle game

Fantastic Contraption: A fun online physics puzzle game

Posted using ShareThis

This Means Something

From the University of Rochester :

Most scientists have believed that the instant a quantum object was measured it would "collapse" from being in all the locations it could be, to just one location like a classical object. Jordan proposed that it would be possible to weakly measure the particle continuously, partially collapsing the quantum state, and then "unmeasure" it, causing the particle to revert back to its original quantum form, before it collapsed.
...
In the latest issue of Nature News, Postdoctoral Fellow Nadav Katz explains how his team put the idea to the test and found that, indeed, he is able to take a "weak" measurement of a quantum particle, which triggered a partial collapse. Katz then "undid the damage we'd done," altering certain properties of the particle and performing the same weak measurement again. The particle was returned to its original quantum state just as if no measurement had ever been taken.

Because theorists had believed since 1926 that a measurement of a quantum particle inevitably forced a collapse, it was said that in a way, measurements created reality as we understand it. Katz, however, says being able to reverse the collapse "tells us that we really can't assume that measurements create reality because it is possible to erase the effects of a measurement and start again."

Now if only I could decypher what Mother Nature is telling us about the nature of Reality.

Is it consistent with the "Many Worlds" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? Having a do-over before a particular branch of the Multiverse is chosen as the perceived one? I don't know, this is getting beyond my pay grade.

More on Quantum Mechanics and the nature of Reality at a previous post, The Real, the Complex, and the Imaginary.

This means something. But I have no idea what.

The Slavoj Test

Over at Tim Blair's, there's a list of 32 personal questions.

Now since transsexuals are constantly being accused of being narcissistic, I thought I'd indulge in narcissism for a change. So rather than making a post of any great worth and moment, I decided to try answering the questions myself. This is pure self-indulgence, as I intend to come back to this post in a few years and use it to try to figure out how I was thinking, back there in distant 2008.

Oh yes, some readers might find it interesting too. Not so much for what my answers might be, though they may give some insight into the author's personality, but by using it as a tool to examine themselves. I invite any other bloggers to take the same test.

1. When were you happiest?
The day my son was born.

2. What is your greatest fear?
That I might screw up in my work and let someone die. In my line of work, safety-critical engineering, this is not an unreasonable fear.

3. What is your earliest memory?
The taste of the california redwood blocks my uncle gave me, and being bathed in the kitchen sink. I would have been about 2.

4. Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Too many to name, many of whom you've never heard of. People who circumstances not of their own making brought to the ultimate in degradation, and who came back, and now help others so they're spared the same thing.

5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
So many, it's difficult to choose. Arrogance. Being blind to my own faults.

6. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Arrogance. Being blind to their own faults.

7. What was your most embarrassing moment?
Apart from answering this question? I was once called in as a "hired gun" capital-E Expert to help Centrelink with their computer system. The computer I was given had a floppy disk drive installed vertically, and could I insert the disk I needed? Nope. It was obviously broken, as happens sometimes. Then someone suggested I flip the disk upside-down... ooops.

8. Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought?
Genital Reconstruction Surgery. $22,000 including all costs.

9. What is your most treasured possession?
A german lady's pocket watch, rudely inscribed "LCpl David Brain, Thiepval 23rd September 1916". My grandfather was a sniper in WW I, and had just had a 3-day duel in no-man's land with an enemy counterpart. He managed to win, and as orders dictated, went in to make sure the enemy was dead. The enemy sniper had had his shoulder shattered, and was lying, dying in a crater. No-one knew he was there. My grandfather summoned a german stretcher party - had the enemy only been lightly wounded, he would have bayonetted him instead - and in gratitude, the german gave my grandfather the watch he'd been given by his fiance, "for good luck". It worked, it has several dents from splinters, and as it was in my grandfather's breast pocket, may have saved his life as well.

10. What makes you depressed?
Injustice to others I can do nothing about.

11. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

My ribcage. 45" on a 5'6" frame. Ewwww.

12. What is your most unappealing habit?
Making foetid puns.

13. What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?
Xena, warrior princess. If I can lose some weight.

14. What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Blogging when I should be doing work on my PhD.

15. What do you owe your parents?
Everything. Bill payable to one Andrew Edward Brain, my son.

16. To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
When I was being bullied rather severely by several gangs, one of the biggest who had hurt me worst was walking near my house. I came up behind and attacked, then when he was on the ground, deliberately broke his collarbone. Just so he wouldn't hurt me any more. I was only 8. But he was only 10, just a small boy. He didn't deserve that. I'm truly sorry, and I wish I could apologise to him.

17. What does love feel like?
Fizzy. Tingly. Like being in Free Fall. Snuggly. Comfy. Warm.

18. What or who is the love of your life?
The woman I married and the mother of my child. I just wish we were of opposite sexes, or at least, lesbian.

19. What is your favourite smell?
My son when he snuggles up next to me in the morning.

20. Have you ever said ‘I love you’ and not meant it?
No.

21. Which living person do you most despise, and why?
Despise... TV evangelists and others who con well-meaning people out of their money, and often perpetrate bigotry and hatred. And spammers.

22. What is the worst job you’ve done?
Cassandra at a Deathmarch Software project, doomed to fail.

23. What has been your biggest disappointment?
Not being able to have another child.

24. If you could edit your past, what would you change?
I'd go back and get my father to have his heart condition checked out before it was too late. And I'd get myself a second X chromosome in lieu of the Y one. Except then my son wouldn't exist. I might have other children, but not him. So best not.

25. If you could go back in time, where would you go?

If I could be an observer, and not change anything due to a temporal Butterfly effect... to the Library of Alexandria before it's destruction. With a digital camera, to copy the contents.

26. How do you relax?
A nice hot bath.

27. How often do you have sex?
As often as I can fit it in. (see answer #12)

28. What is the closest you’ve come to death?
Holding the hand of my father as he died, and promising to look after my sister and my mother. In terms of personal extinction, having meningo-encephalitis at age 21.

29. What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Having a billion dollars, so I could give it away to people who really need it. That would make me feel unbearably smug. So smug I'd probably vanish in a black hole of smugness. Especially since I'd do it anonymously, so no-one knew but me.

30. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Fathering a child, despite odds so remote, they're incalculable. My endocrine system barely qualifies as human.

31. What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Be kind.

32. Tell us a secret.
Not possible, for then it wouldn't be a secret, would it? I have a clearance, I don't discuss such things, no, not even in jest. Those who say don't know, and those who know don't say.

It gets a bit wearing sometimes.

This year, an 18 year old beautician was found dead in her flat. She'd been dead about 3 days.

She'd been garrotted with a scarf, so tightly wrapped around her neck that the ambulance crew couldn't put a finger beneath it. Unconsciousness would have happened within seconds as the carotid artery was compressed, and blood prevented from getting to the brain.

Her body was found with a throw carefully placed over it. Her flat had been ransacked, and her mobile phone, electrical equipment, even her public transport card taken.

Now there was a CCTV camera outside, and a man was spotted emerging from her flat at about the time of death, carrying a bag containing bulky items, like the DVD player and other electrical equipment. He was seen using the victim's public transport card. DNA evidence from the scarf pointed to him, but was inconclusive.

He was identified, arrested, and changed his story several times under questioning. He had a long record of petty theft of electrical equipment and the like.

Of course he was found not guilty of all charges.

You see, the victim was a transsexual. "Everyone knows" that transsexuals are "particularly suited to prostitution" as Dr Bailey, a noted psychologist, has said. so even though there was no suggestion that she was a sex worker, no evidence, well, she probably was. They all are. And everyone knows that transsexuals habitually engage in "other paraphilias" too, bondage and the like, Dr Bailey says that too.

The barrister for the defence managed to convince the jury that she'd either managed to strangle herself in some kinky sex game (carefully arranging the throw over herself in the few seconds before losing consciousness), or had been coincidentally asphyxiated by a person or persons unknown, probably a "client", only minutes after the suspect had left the scene with at least some of the victim's property. Someone who managed to evade the CCTV and left no DNA evidence.

That the suspect came from quite possibly the most transphobic western nation on earth, where transsexuals and even gays are routinely assaulted and even murdered, may not have been mentioned. I'm sure it didn't help that the victim wasn't, you know, IC1. Wasn't white.

The victim's name was Kellie Telesford.

More over at TransGriot.

This gets old, very quickly.

In the state of Colorado, Angie Zapata was bludgeoned to death recently with a fire extinguisher. Angie was also killed by someone with a history of petty theft, who ransacked her flat and put a cover over the body. And who, when the apparently dead victim started to revive, hit "it" again.

It tends to be the young and the beautiful who are the victims, but not always. Some 4 or 5 months ago, also in the state of Colorado, a woman my age was assaulted and left for dead, with severe head injuries.

She's recovering quickly from the brain damage, and was present at Angie's funeral. She's starting to recover her memories of the attack now,and they're not good ones. I have some experience of recovering from brain damage, so I've been giving her what help I can. Here's what she remembers so far from a trip to the shops that went terribly wrong.

There are still many hours of memory unaccounted for. I still don't remember the very beginning except before it all took place and we do know the attack started a good bit of time before where the memory picks up due to the blood in and around where my car was found a good distance or it was driven there after the fact.

What I am regaining is a whole section in the middle that is very violent at a location that is tiered down a hill with concrete with three foot drops. I visualize two individuals one with blond hair the other with dark hair but can't see the facial features. The one with blond hair pushes me off the top tier landing on my back and head then it rebounds up and hits again, I lay there for a moment then roll over on my side to try to get up again and hear talking and laughter but I can't make out what is being said. Next I'm being kicked in the face and chest when it fades out until I made it back to a stand position where I'm pushed off again down to the next tier where similar actions take place except the one with dark hair straddles me, grabs my hair and repeatedly slams my head on the concrete. Then I must be out for awhile because I come to hearing them but nothing is happening until I try to move and groan then laughter starts back up and I start being kicked over and over until it blacks out. Even though I don't remember anything after that yet I was found wondering a mile and a half from where this took place.

She's getting Flashbacks, and needs some support. Only three weeks separates her age from mine. It could have been me.

Often,I wish I could leave all this behind. I've transitioned, after all, and could go back to well-merited obscurity, just another soccer mom, an academic doing a PhD and bringing up her seven year old son. Just life.

But while a single person is drowning, how can one leave the pool? Had I taken the usual route to womanhood, had I had the XX chromosomes and such, I like to think that had I been made aware of the situation, I couldn't rest until I'd done something to help. That I have a view from the inside, as it were, doesn't matter. I just wish I could do more.

At least, now this blog is being archived by the National Library, there will be a permanent record of how it was, and how we felt, back in the Dark Ages of the Naughties. How being victimised, we refused to become victims.

How we moved that mountain, one teaspoon at a time.

Hello Pharyngulites

For those visitors who have been flocking here from Pharyngula on the ScienceBlogs site complex, welcome!

Some of my more recent posts on Intersex, Transsexuality and Biology are:
BiGender and the Brain, Sex and the Brain, Square Peg, Round Hole, Mommy, Don't Take me There, and Transsexual Causation, the American Psychiatric Association, and Interpol. But you'll find a lot more, going through the archives. Plus "Blue Suede Shoes" in the original Klingon, thoughts on Euler's equation, and a miscellany of subjects. Quite a bit on TS and IS human rights too, or rather, the lack thereof. My experience has certainly been educational.

My own peculiar and ongoing story is described at Year Three and related posts.

Today's Battles

You know, sometimes I think I do more interfering in other countries' internal affairs than the Central Intelligence agency.

So here's some more, at the Detroit News.

"Hamtramck is following in the footsteps of a number of cities who recognize this is an important issue," said Kevin McAlpine, the Triangle Foundation's deputy director. "The majority of people in Hamtramck believe everyone should be treated with fairness and respect."

That's not so, said Brian Rooney of the Thomas More Law Center.

So, is it or isn't it? Do the people of Hamtranck believe everyone should be treated fairly or not?

At least Mr Rooney is being honest - that it's because certain behaviours, and in the case of transsexuals, even having certain congenital medical conditions, contravene his particular sect's beliefs (though not those of other Christian groups) that he wants to be able to continue denying some people their basic human rights.

Somehow Jews and Muslims manage to get by without ordnances prohibiting eating pork and bacon. We have many laws that go against the beliefs of sundry religions, yet somehow we manage to get by, condemning sin as we see it, yet not actively persecuting pork-eaters or divorcees.

Freedom of Religion is freedom of belief: not freedom to oppress others who may not share the same views.

I should add that Mr Rooney's honesty really is appreciated. It's a point of view I disagree with, but it's come to and presented without malice nor mendacity. Unfortunately, many think - and with some justification - that because "that dog won't hunt", they have to resort to distortion, concealment of facts, and even blatant lies. All in a good cause, of course. My respect for Thomas More Law Centre and its staff is increased because they're not falling into this terrible temptation.

Moving right along... at the Gainesville Sun once more. A commenter asked an honest and reasonable question about legislation preventing discrimination against gays and transgendered people.

Name another city that has this policy and if it was successful

2007 State of Colorado
State of Iowa
Lake Worth, FL
Milwaukee, WI
Palm Beach County, FL
State of Oregon
Saugatuck, MI
State of Vermont
West Palm Beach, FL
2006 Bloomington, IN
Cincinnati, OH
Easton, PA
Ferndale, MI
Hillsboro, OR
Johnson County, IA
King County, WA
Lansdowne, PA
Lansing, MI
State of New Jersey
Swarthmore, PA
State of Washington
West Chester, PA
2005 Gulfport, FL
State of Illinois
Indianapolis, IN
Lincoln City, OR
State of Maine
Northampton, MA
Washington, DC
2004 Albany, NY
Austin, TX
Beaverton, OR
Bend, OR
Burien, WA
Oakland, CA
Miami Beach, FL
Tompkins County, NY
2003 State of California
State of New Mexico
Carbondale, IL
Covington, KY
El Paso, TX
Ithaca, NY
Key West, FL
Lake Oswego, OR
Monroe Co., FL
Oakland, CA
Peoria, IL
San Diego, CA
Scranton, PA
Springfield, IL
University City, MO
2002 Allentown, PA
Baltimore, MD
Boston, MA
Buffalo, NY
Chicago, IL
Cook County, IL
Dallas, TX
Decatur, IL
East Lansing, MI
Erie County, PA
New Hope, PA
New York City, NY
Philadelphia, PA
Salem, OR
Tacoma, WA
2001 Denver, CO
Huntington Woods, MI
Multnomah Co., OR
State of Rhode Island
Rochester, NY
Suffolk County, NY
2000 Atlanta, GA
Boulder, CO
DeKalb, IL
Madison, WI
Portland, OR
1999 Ann Arbor, MI
Jefferson County, KY
Lexington-Fayette Co., KY
Louisville, KY
Tucson, AZ
1998 Benton County, OR
Santa Cruz County, CA
New Orleans, LA
Toledo, OH
West Hollywood, CA
York, PA
1997 Cambridge, MA
Evanston, IL
Olympia, WA
Pittsburgh, PA
Ypsilanti, MI
1996 Iowa City, IA
1994 Grand Rapids, MI
San Francisco, CA
1993 State of Minnesota
1992 Santa Cruz, CA
1990 St. Paul, MN
1986 Seattle, WA
1983 Harrisburg, PA
1979 Los Angeles, CA.
Urbana, IL
1977 Champaign, IL
1975 Minneapolis, MN

Number of cases of sexual predators using the law as a defence: 0

Number of cases of men exposing themselves in women's rooms and being convicted despite the law : At least 1 (Portland OR)

Source is the Transgender Law Centre.

Opponents of such legislation, be it in Hamtramck Michigan, Montgomery County Maryland, or Gainesville Florida, do tend to gloss over this issue. Just a bit. Some have even claimed that although no other jurisdiction has had any problems, it's "too soon to tell", and one, Peter LaBarbara, stated that he "expected a problem at any time".

I really think 33 years is a long enough trial period in a large city, and 15 for an entire state.