Month: March 2015

2015 Trans 100 Honors Positive Work By Transgender And Gender Non-Conforming People Nationwide

2015 Trans 100 Honors Positive Work By Transgender And Gender Non-Conforming People Nationwide:

“While much work is left to do, we’ve happily seen unprecedented growth for mainstream transgender visibility in the past several years. Now, it’s time to once again honor those who are doing fighting to make this visibility possible.”

(Via. The Huffington Post)

Hotel Partying Preceded Deadly Shooting At NSA Gate, Sources Say – ABC News

I shudder to think how this is going to be twisted to make all trans people out to be terrorist or worse.

 

Hotel Partying Preceded Deadly Shooting At NSA Gate, Sources Say – ABC News:

“One man is dead and another severely injured after gunfire erupted at one of the main gates of the National Security Agency located at Fort Meade, Maryland.”

Transsexual & Transgender Road Map

Sometimes the answers you seek are found in unexpected places…

 

Transsexual & Transgender Road Map: 

“Much of this information applies to all transsexuals, but this site is specifically about passing and about being able to exercise the option of “stealth.” While I am open about my transsexual status when it comes up, I am glad to be able to work and have relationships with people who don’t necessarily know or think of me as transsexual, even if they do know. Having worked with and dated people who knew and didn’t know, I can assure you there is a big difference in the way you are treated if they don’t know you are transsexual.”

Romance Writer Roslyn Holcomb Says She Would Have Shot Trans Woman In Planet Fitness Locker Room | The TransAdvocate

I have no words for this level of hate…

 

Romance Writer Roslyn Holcomb Says She Would Have Shot Trans Woman In Planet Fitness Locker Room | The TransAdvocate:

“One of the fairly regular commenters on GenderTrender is Roslyn Hardy Holcomb, a published writer of color. She’s been interviewed by USA Today, she has twenty-three books reviewed on Goodreads, and you can buy her books on Amazon. Basically, she’s a moderately well known author in the romance genre.

She apparently is also a trans exclusionary radical feminist, abbreviated as TERF.

Holcomb made a comment on the GenderTrender post ‘We must look, act and live the part’ about the Planet Fitness story. In the comment, Holcomb writes that if she were still carrying a gun she’d shoot visibly trans women in gym locker rooms.”

(Via. The Transadvocate)

Court Rules That Affordable Care Act Bans Gender Identity Discrimination | Human Rights Campaign

Court Rules That Affordable Care Act Bans Gender Identity Discrimination | Human Rights Campaign:

“LGBT advocates are cheering a court ruling this week that has important implications for transgender people seeking competent and appropriate healthcare.  A federal district court in Minnesota confirmed that a section of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)  specifically prohibits gender identity discrimination in healthcare under the umbrella of sex discrimination.  “

(Via. hrc.org)

Structural Connectivity Networks of Transgender People

Structural Connectivity Networks of Transgender People:

Although previous investigations of transsexual people have focusedon regional brain alterations, evaluations on a network level, especiallythose structural in nature, are largely missing. Therefore, weinvestigated the structural connectome of 23 female-to-male (FtM)and 21 male-to-female (MtF) transgender patients before hormonetherapy as compared with 25 female and 25 male healthy controls.Graph theoretical analysis of whole-brain probabilistic tractographynetworks (adjusted for differences in intracranial volume) showeddecreased hemispheric connectivity ratios of subcortical/limbicareas for both transgender groups. Subsequent analysis revealedthat this finding was driven by increased interhemispheric lobar connectivityweights (LCWs) in MtF transsexuals and decreased intrahemisphericLCWs in FtM patients. This was further reflected on aregional level, where the MtF group showed mostly increased localefficiencies and FtM patients decreased values. Importantly, theseparameters separated each patient group from the remaining subjectsfor the majority of significant findings. This work complementspreviously established regional alterations with important findings ofstructural connectivity. Specifically, our data suggest that networkparameters may reflect unique characteristics of transgender patients,whereas local physiological aspects have been shown torepresent the transition from the biological sex to the actual genderidentity.

(Via. Oxford Journals)

Suicide Attempts Among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults

Download the PDF from eScholarship.

New analysis of responses to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) showsthat transgender respondents who experienced rejection by family and friends, discrimination,victimization, or violence have a higher risk of attempting suicide. 78 percent of survey respondentswho suffered physical or sexual violence at school reported suicide attempts, as did 65 percentof respondents who experienced violence at work.

The study suggests that several minority stressors – negative experiences related to antitransgenderbias – may contribute to elevated prevalence of suicide attempts among transgenderpeople, such as experiences of harassment, family rejection, housing instability, and discriminationin health care. Over half of those who experienced harassment or bullying in schools reportedlifetime suicide attempts, as did 57 percent of those who reported that their family chose not tospeak/spend time with them. High prevalence of suicide attempts was also found among thosewho had ever experienced homelessness (69%) and those who reported a doctor or healthcareprovider refused to treat them (60%).

The study utilized data collected through the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS),which was conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay andLesbian Task Force. 6,456 transgender and gender non-conforming people in the United States reported on their experiences of discrimination and abuse at work, at home, in school, and in thepublic sphere, amassing the largest transgender survey sample to date.

Becoming Us: ABC Family to Air Transgender Reality Show : People.com

As much as I believe visibility can be a means for change, I also think being seen as “jumping on the bandwagon” comes with the danger of being reduced to a cliche and not being taken seriously by society at large. I can see a day when someone announces, “discrimination based on gender is a thing of the past,” and it will be as true as saying “racism has been overcome” despite all the evidence to the contrary.  

 

Becoming Us: ABC Family to Air Transgender Reality Show : People.com:

“Another cable network is looking to capitalize on the public’s interest in the transgender community by airing a real-life version of the Amazon drama Transparent.

This summer, ABC Family will premiere Becoming Us, an unscripted show that chronicles the life of 17-year-old Ben Lehwald of Evanstan, Illinois, as his father Charlie transitions to become Carly.

The docu-series from Ryan Seacrest Productions will take Ben’s perspective as he watches his dad divorce his mom, Suzy, before undergoing gender reassignment surgery. “