TSG16: Taking Action, Making Change

"The TG community exists beyond just the internet. Get out there, get involved in real issues. Don't just talk about issues. Make real change.

We show a hearing on LGBT prison issues from this last week (how timely for this question) and discuss awkward teen moments."

TrannystarGalactica

Gender-identity protection on City Council's agenda

Anti-discrimination proposal would add transgender people

Sunday, December 14, 2008

By Robert Vitale

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Transgender residents of Columbus -- men who consider themselves women, and women who consider themselves men -- would gain legal protection under legislation going before the City Council on Monday night.

The Columbus Community Relations Commission has recommended that the city add gender identity to the list of categories in local anti-discrimination ordinances. The move would put Columbus another step beyond Ohio law and on par with dozens of other big cities and college towns.

"We don't want discrimination in the city of Columbus for anyone," said Councilwoman Priscilla Tyson, a sponsor of the legislation.

Mayor Michael B. Coleman and a majority of council members back the idea.

Ordinances barring discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations already protect Columbus residents based on their race, sex, religion, ancestry, national origin and sexual orientation.

The legislation on Monday night's council agenda also would add age (for those 40 or older), disability, family status and military status as protected classes, although state or U.S. laws already cover each of those.

Columbus has protected gays in its civil-rights ordinances for about 20 years. Backers of the new legislation say the term sexual orientation once was thought to include people who live or dress as the opposite gender. . . .Read More

S. Idaho transgender woman fights use of male name

by JESSIE L. BONNER | Associated Press Writer • December 13, 2008


PAYETTE, Idaho – For nearly a year, Catherine Carlson refused to pay the fine for driving with a suspended license because it was issued to both her and the man she used to be.

She went to jail four times over the ticket that includes both her legal name and the one she was born with, Daniel Carlson. She had surgery 28 years ago to become a woman, the gender she believes should have been assigned her at birth.

Carlson legally changed her name in the 1970s, but police and court records include both in this rural farming and ranching community east of the Snake River in southwestern Idaho.

"The ticket was the last straw," Carlson said.

Her fight against local authorities brought up questions Payette County had never answered before: where to house a transgender person in a jail with separate cells for men and women, which courthouse bathroom should she use, should the former male name be stricken from county records.

"This is a very conservative old-fashioned community, that's just the way it is. This is rural, small town Idaho. This is new to us," said Payette County Sheriff Chad Huff. . . .Read More

MEXICO: Supreme Court Debates Transsexual’s Right to Privacy

By Diego Cevallos


MEXICO CITY, Dec 10 (IPS) - When transsexuals or transgender persons in the Mexican capital have their birth certificates altered to reflect their change in identity, is it legal to include a notation on the new document indicating that Ms Y used to be Mr X?

That is the question raised by a Mexican transsexual through an appeal under consideration by the Supreme Court, which brings up the issue of the right of transsexuals to privacy and non-discrimination.

The 11 Supreme Court justices are expected to issue a final ruling on the appeal in the first few weeks of 2009, in a case that is the first of its kind to be brought before the country’s highest judicial body with jurisdiction over constitutional matters.

"The decision the judges have in their hands involves our right to live without the shadow of discrimination hanging over us," Gloria Davenport, a transsexual who works as an adviser to the government’s National HIV-AIDS Prevention and Control Centre (CENSIDA), told IPS.

Studies show that transsexuals are especially vulnerable to violence, discrimination and humiliation, all of which are exacerbated by the length of time it takes for them to legally change their identity in Mexico City, the only place in the country where they can do so, thanks to a municipal law approved in August.

According to estimates by the governmental Human Rights Commission of Mexico City, at least 148 lesbians, gays, transvestites and transsexuals were killed from 1995 to 2006 in homophobic attacks. . . .Read More

Transsexuals find new body doesn’t ensure happiness

by Nhu Lich December 10, 2008

A Vietnamese transsexual (L) with her boyfriend There are no official statistics on the number of transgender people in Vietnam and how many undergo gender reassignment surgery.

But post-operative transsexuals say the painful and expensive medical procedures they endured didn’t give them the normal lives they were expecting. Several local transgender men have sought sex change operations overseas because the surgery is not performed in Vietnam. In 2000, singer Cindy Thai Tai, who spent US$30,000 for sex reassignment procedures in Thailand, became one of the first locals to go public about her gender reassignment surgery. Dr. Nguyen Thanh Nhu of Binh Dan Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City said he wasn’t familiar with any cases of local women undergoing surgery to become men. However, men seeking surgery to become women were relatively common. Surgically altering a man’s sexual organs to resemble a woman’s was simpler than making a woman’s resemble a man’s, he said. Dr. Nhu estimated more than 100 Vietnamese transsexual men, most aged around 30, had undergone sex reassignment surgery abroad to become women. . . .Read More