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  1. #121
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    Default Re: Trans News Worldwide

    September 15, 2018

    Transgender kids: the number of WA children seeking to transition up 350 per cent

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    THE number of WA children seeking to transition to the opposite sex has jumped more than 350 per cent in four years.

    Perth Children’s Hospital’s gender diversity service received 121 referrals for children aged under 18 in 2017-18 and currently has 207 patients in the service.

    This compares to 116 referrals in 2016-17 and 105 in 2015-16. The steady increase over the past three years compares with just 26 referrals in 2014-15.

    About two-thirds of current referrals are birth-assigned females and about one-third are birth-assigned males.

    At the moment, there are 43 children receiving stage one hormonal treatment, which involves puberty suppression and reversible treatment, while 30 children are receiving stage two cross-sex hormone, oestrogen and testosterone treatment.

    The rising number of transgender children comes as the WA’s Law Reform Commission recommends an overhaul of the State’s gender reassignment laws.

    As revealed by The Sunday Times last month, the commission has recommended a baby’s sex classification no longer appears on birth certificates.

    Under the changes, people would no longer have to undergo a medical procedure to have their gender identity officially recognised. Instead they would just apply for a “proof of gender’ or “proof of sex” certificate.

    There would be three categories on these certificates — male, female and a new category of “non-binary”. Under the recommendations, minors aged 12 or over could seek a certificate to formally change their gender.

    If they didn’t have permission of both parents, the Family Court would decide.

    Moves to change gender classification laws come amid social media backlash to a recent tweet by Prime Minister Scott Morrison that said: “We do not need ‘gender whisperers’ in our schools. Let kids be kids.”

    The PM was responding to moves by schools to invite specialist consultants to offer support to transgender students and their families.

    WA’s Gender Reassignment Board’s latest annual report shows there were 34 new applications last year, compared with just six in 2007-08.

    A spokeswoman for the Child and Adolescent Health Service said PCH’s gender diversity service provided “assessment and care of children and adolescents experiencing gender diversity issues”.

    “Any child or young person up to the age of 18, who lives in WA, can be referred to the GDS for consultation about concerns regarding their gender identity, gender non-conforming behaviour or gender dysphoria,” the spokeswoman said.

    “Gender dysphoria refers to the distress that a person may experience when their gender identity does not align with the sex assigned to them at birth.”

    She said the service started midway through the 2014-15 financial year and only provided services intermittently.



  2. #122
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    September 20, 2018

    Federal court denies Trump administration’s latest attempt to push forward with transgender military ban

    Judge's decision coincides with 7-year anniversary of end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

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    Photo: Staff Sgt. Teddy Wade, U.S. Army, via Wikimedia.

    A federal court in California has rejected the latest request by the Trump administration to dissolve a nationwide preliminary injunction that prevents the Pentagon from forcibly discharging transgender service members.

    U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal of the Central District of California denied the government’s motion to lift the injunction, rejecting the premise that the ban on transgender troops is essential to ensuring military readiness or facilitating unit cohesion.

    “In the history of military service in this country, ‘the loss of unit cohesion’ has been consistently weaponized against open service by a new minority group,” Bernal wrote in his opinion. “Yet, at every turn, this assertion has been overcome by the military’s steadfast ability to integrate these individuals into effective members of our armed forces. As with blacks, women, and gays, so now with transgender persons.

    “”The military has repeatedly proven its capacity to adapt and grow stronger specifically by the inclusion of these individuals,” he added. “Therefore, the government cannot use ‘the loss of unit cohesion’ as an excuse to prevent an otherwise qualified class of discrete and insular minorities from joining the armed forces.”

    Equality California, which signed on as a plaintiff in the case on behalf of its transgender members, praised Bernal’s decision.

    “Anyone willing to risk their life to protect our country should be treated fairly and with dignity and respect,” Rick Zbur, the executive director of Equality California, said in a statement. “As long as President Trump continues to double down on this unpatriotic and discriminatory ban, we’ll continue to fight him with everything we’ve got — and we have a pretty good track record of winning.”

    The California case, known as Stockman v. Trump, is one of four cases challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s proposed transgender ban, which the administration has been trying to implement since last July. In each of the cases, federal judges have blocked the ban from going into effect while the case moves through the courts — and refused to lift their injunctions when asked to by the government.

    “More than 9,000 transgender troops are serving honorably and deserve to be protected by the constitution they are defending,” said Shannon Minter, the legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is representing the plaintiffs along with GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders. “Today’s decision underscores the importance of our nation’s courts in enforcing those constitutional guarantees.”

    “Judge Bernal’s decision is the most recent in a now long line of federal district court cases rejecting any military-focused justifications for a ban on transgender service members,” GLAD Transgender Rights Project Director Jennifer Levi said in a statement. “Transgender service members have been courageously putting their lives on the line for their country. It is in the interest of our country’s security that they continue to be permitted to do so.”

    Bernal’s decision comes during the same week that LGBTQ advocates celebrate the seven-year anniversary of the overturn of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that banned gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members from serving openly. Minter and Levi issued a statement addressing the anniversary and drawing parallels to the proposed transgender ban.

    “Seven years ago, our country discarded a baseless and discriminatory policy that forced dedicated and courageous service members into the shadows,” Minter and Levi said. “But under President Trump, we see history repeating itself. The same stigma and false stereotypes used to justify Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell are being reprised by the Trump-Pence administration in an attempt to force out 9,000 trained, qualified transgender troops, who are serving honorably at home and overseas.

    “To date, every court to hear a case challenging the ban has recognized that these arguments ring hollow and that any service member who can meet the standards should be permitted to serve. But the Trump-Pence administration continues to try to push the ban forward,” they added. “Just as we stood with our community during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, we will continue to stand with transgender service members now until Trump’s unconstitutional, discriminatory transgender military ban is relegated to the dustbin of history.”



  3. #123
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    24th September 2018

    Hero trans kid, 9, defies cruel bullies by returning to school as a BOY

    A HEROIC transsexual aged just 9 has defied cruel bullies who taunted that "God doesn't make mistakes" by returning to school as a boy.

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    BRAVE: Jonus 'Raye' Mayden before (left) and after (right)


    "She would wear her Buzz Lightyear costume and her Woody Toy Story costume with a tutu over it.

    "It wasn't really anything I thought about until pre-school and she was acting out a little bit. I thought it was for attention at first.

    She was always having stomach issues and I thought it was an allergy.

    "In the beginning of second grade he said, 'I have a boy brain and a girl's body.' I kind of froze. All these thoughts ran through my head.

    As open-minded as I am, I still didn't want to go through with that and I thought it could be altered. I thought, 'You are just androgynous.'

    "I was trying to comfort him. Then he said, 'OK, well, there is something else I need to tell you. I'm gay.' So I started laughing.

    "He said, 'If I'm a boy brain and I have a girl's body and I like boys, that means I'm gay.'

    "It was such a grown up thing and I didn't really know if he knew what he meant."
    So far the journey has resulted in a "complete 180" in Raye's health and mood.

    But Stevi admits the change has divided her family of Texan conservatives, and she has been told by religious colleagues it is "not right".

    Last month he returned to school in fourth grade at a new middle school, where he is registered as a boy and where teachers and classmates teach him as male.

    She added: "The boys at school thought he was weird and didn't have much to do with him, but the girls were more accepting.

    "Every now and then he gets comments like, 'My mom says that God doesn't make mistakes and the Bible says you can't be transgender.'
    "It's always things that relate to religion. I have had a hard time talking about it at work. When I first decided my son was going to come out, I spoke to a lady at work about it.

    "She said she wanted to talk to me about it and took me into a room and went on about her Christian beliefs and how this isn't right.

    "A lot of the ridicule has been directed at me. The child makes a decision but people tend to question the parent.

    "The question I get most is, 'How do you think this is right?' But I have seen such a dramatic change in my child.
    "There is a high risk of suicide in transgender and gay people, especially in the teen years, so if I have to shelter my child until he is old enough to fight his own battles then I will."

    Raye plans to legally change his name from Layla Raye to Jonus Raye, and at 11 he will have the option of undergoing hormone blockers to prevent female puberty.

    At 17, he can start taking the male hormone testosterone.

    The youngster added: "To other children who are going through this, just be yourself. Rather be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."


    Last edited by smalltownguy; 09-25-2018 at 08:42 PM.

  4. #124
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    September 26 , 2018

    A Transgender Software Engineer Alleges Nike Failed to Stand Up for the Values It Advertises
    Jazz Lyles' complaint paints a damning picture of a toxic workplace—and of discriminatory behavior toward a transgender person that continued even as the CEO pledged reforms.

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    "Language has the ability to erase a person completely," says Jazz Lyles, who went to work at Nike last year. (Justin Katigbak)

    Few American companies have touted their commitment to civil rights and inclusion more proudly than Nike.

    Its current ad campaign featuring quarterback Colin Kaepernick, ostracized from the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality, is merely the latest example.

    But to Jazz Lyles, a transgender software engineer who worked at the company's Beaverton headquarters until earlier this month, Nike's reputation is a cruel joke.

    Over the past six months, Nike has been rocked by complaints and lawsuits from female employees who say a white male-dominated culture created a hostile workplace and widespread inequity.

    CEO Mark Parker responded by firing a half-dozen senior executives and pledging in a May email to all employees that he was "personally committed to making Nike a place where everyone can thrive in an environment of respect, empathy and equal opportunity."

    But this week, Lyles filed a workplace discrimination complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries against Nike and its IT contractor, Mainz Brady Group. The complaint, if true, paints a damning picture of a toxic workplace—and of discriminatory behavior toward a transgender person that continued even as Parker pledged reforms.

    In early 2017, Mainz Brady recruited Lyles to work at Nike Digital's engineering group. Lyles is black and transmasculine/nonbinary (meaning Lyles was assigned the female gender at birth but identifies with masculinity and as a nonbinary person.) Lyles lived in the San Francisco Bay Area but was familiar with the culture Nike claimed to promote.

    But the culture Lyles actually experienced left Lyles humiliated, depressed—and unemployed.

    "They talked a great game on LGBTQ issues," Lyles says, "but when you ask them to actually stand up for these issues, it gets communicated to you that you are the problem."

    Nike declined to comment.

    Lyles, 36, grew up in Houston and studied art and art history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. A photographer and tinkerer, they worked in database management for a while and then learned software skills. A stint in the video game industry led to a 2017 offer to come to Beaverton.

    Before accepting the offer to work at Nike, Lyles told the recruiter from Mainz Brady that they were transgender and stressed the importance of being identified by the pronouns "they," "them" and "their."

    Mikki Gillette, who conducts workplace training for Basic Rights Oregon and identifies as transgender, says some people may find such a request puzzling, but the correct pronouns are far more than just words.

    "It reinforces a stigma and an injustice for people to look at someone and say, 'I know who you are and I'm going to refer to you that way,'" Gillette says.

    Gillette adds it's understandable that people might get confused about pronouns when they first come into contact with people who identify as transgender.

    "Everybody makes mistakes," Gillette says. "Transgender people know that. But if somebody is willfully using the wrong pronoun or the wrong name, it's reinforcing this idea that transgender people aren't who they say they are."

    Erin Kirkwood, a Portland lawyer who trains other lawyers on transgender issues, says language around identity changes regularly. "In the '70s, when people started using the term 'Ms.,' a lot of people struggled with it," Kirkwood says. "Today, it's completely normal and 'Mrs.' is more unusual."

    When Kirkwood represents trans clients, she lets the judge's clerk and opposing counsel know the pronouns the client wants to be called. "If a white male were in court and a judge referred to them as 'she,' at a minimum the man would feel uncomfortable," Kirkwood says.

    Lyles started at Nike's campus on May 1, 2017, working on IT teams that combined independent contractors with Nike employees and supervisors. Lyles was paid $62.50 an hour.

    Lyles says from the beginning, colleagues insisted on referring to them as "she" and "her" and greeting them by saying such things as "Hey, girl, what's up?"

    Lyles' colleagues and Nike supervisors ignored their requests to be referred to with correct pronouns. Lyles sent one colleague an article titled "What You're Actually Saying When You Ignore Someone's Gender Pronouns." The colleague's response: He stopped talking to Lyles.

    A female colleague, according to Lyles' complaint, refused to use the correct pronouns "because it would compromise [the co-worker's] religious beliefs."

    Lyles enjoyed the technical challenges of working at Nike but increasingly came to dread interactions with colleagues. Every day brought a new slight.

    "Nike's response and solution was not to take corrective action," Lyles writes in the BOLI complaint. "But instead [the response] was to treat me like I was the problem."

    Near the end of last year, Nike transferred Lyles to a different team. Nothing changed.

    "From the moment I introduced myself to the new team on Dec. 13, 2017, I received pushback regarding the use of my proper gender pronouns," Lyles' complaint says.

    Instead, the situation got worse. In January 2018, the BOLI complaint says, one female colleague said, "I'm really not sure what to call you. I know I'm not supposed to call you 'shemale.'"

    Nike provided employee training on gender issues Jan. 25, 2018, but only for a few people who worked directly with Lyles, not the entire department.

    "It again singled me out, made me a problem, and exacerbated the issues with my team," Lyles writes in the BOLI complaint. "It would be like holding a training on racial sensitivity with the only team with a black person on it."

    Lyles' contract was extended twice, but the stress of continually being misgendered affected Lyles' health, they claim.

    "I felt invisible and unheard and silenced," Lyles says. "Language has the ability to erase a person completely."

    In early August, Lyles filed formal HR complaints with Mainz Brady and Nike and began working from home. Nonetheless, Lyles says their Nike boss moved to hire Lyles as a full-time employee.

    Lyles' boss was overruled. Nike said it was entering a "hiring freeze." Lyles did not believe that, because other contractors were shifting over to full-time Nike employment.

    Lyles' attorney, Shenoa Payne, filed their BOLI complaint Sept. 25, alleging discrimination and retaliation.



  5. #125
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    7 OCTOBER 2018

    Transgender lawyer launches UK's first 'deadnaming' case against Father Ted writer Graham Linehan

    TRANSGENDER lawyer has launched Britain’s first "deadnaming" case in the High Court against Father Ted’s screenplay writer after he referred to her using her birth name.

    Stephanie Hayden is suing Graham Linehan, the co-writer of the popular comedy TV series, for defamation and harassment after he allegedly published a series of tweets “deliberately misgendering” her by using her previous male name, otherwise known as “deadnaming”.

    Ms Hayden, who is legally female, said Mr Linehan “caused her distress” and that his actions constitute harassment, a misuse of private information, and were a “gross affront to her dignity as a woman".

    Ms Hayden, a lawyer and current affairs commentator, was born Anthony Halliday and began her medical transition to a woman in 2007. She was awarded her Gender Recognition Certificate in May 2018.

    In the court papers, filed on Monday last week, Ms Hayden alleged that Mr Linehan retweeted material from another account that included photographs of her former male self, her family and friends, as well as suggestions that she was a criminal.

    She is also accusing him of sharing defamatory remarks against her reputation, including a tweet Mr Linehan is alleged to have directed at Ms Hayden from 26 September, in which he wrote: “I don’t respect the pronouns of misogynists, stalkers of harassers”.

    According to the court papers, another tweet by Mr Linehan from a similar date is alleged to have said: “Yes we must always be nice to con men, sexual predators and misogynists hijacking a noble movement for their own ends.”

    The documents also cited an interview Mr Linehan gave to The Times newspaper at the end of September where Ms Hayden says he called her “a dangerous troll.”

    Commenting on the case, Ms Hayden told the Daily Telegraph: “It was a gross violation of my privacy and who gets to know this information about me.

    “Anyone can now type my name into Google and it will tell them who I used to be. I can never recover from the publication of that knowledge and it would be absurd to try.

    “This is about sending a very strong signal. I am quite prepared to resort to the law if people cross the line.”

    Mr Lineham, who is a regularly vocal critic of transgenderism, has been given a verbal harassment warning by West Yorkshire police following the incident and has since locked his Twitter account due to “abuse and harassment”.

    The writer, who has nearly 700,000 followers on Twitter, was accused of “abusing his high profile” by Ms Hayden, who said she had been “mocked and ridiculed” online.

    David Banks, a media and defamation law expert, said the case “could set an interesting precedent” if successful in court.

    He said: “It is an interesting case because it’s the first for this sort of comment made about someone that could potentially make it to court.

    “If you are saying something like your name is private information that’s an interesting approach going down the road.

    “If the court decides that personal information that was once public now becomes private information, then that sets an interesting precedent.

    “Deadnaming someone will be something that is actionable if the case succeeds in court.”

    Mr Linehan was approached by The Telegraph for comment.



  6. #126
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    11 October 2018
    Trans inmate jailed for Wakefield prison sex offences
    A transgender prisoner who sexually assaulted two inmates at a women's jail and had previously raped two other women has been given a life sentence.

    Karen White attacked two women in 2017 while on remand at HMP New Hall, in Wakefield, for other offences.

    White, 52, who is transitioning, was described as a "predator" who was a danger to women and children.

    She must serve a minimum of nine-and-a-half years for rape, sexual assault and wounding, Leeds Crown Court was told.

    The court heard White, who was born male and now identifies as a woman, used her "transgender persona" to put herself in contact with vulnerable women.

    Passing sentence, Judge Christopher Batty said: "You are a predator and highly manipulative and in my view you are a danger.

    "You represent a significant risk of serious harm to children, to women and to the general public."

    White was on remand at HMP New Hall for other offences when she attacked the two women between September and October last year.

    She was moved to a male prison after pleading guilty to the offences in September.

    She also is highly unlikely to be moved back into a women's prison due to the risk she poses even if she were to be legally declared a woman, the BBC understands.

    The court heard White has previous convictions for indecent assault, indecent exposure and gross indecency involving children, violence and dishonesty.

    Prosecutor Christopher Dunn told the court: "She is allegedly a transgender female.

    "The prosecution say allegedly because there's smatterings of evidence in this case that the defendant's approach to transitioning has been less than committed.

    "The prosecution suggest the reason for the lack of commitment towards transitioning is so the defendant can use a transgender persona to put herself in contact with vulnerable persons she can then abuse."

    White, who was born Stephen Wood and is originally from the Manchester area, was first arrested last August after attacking a 66-year-old neighbour with a steak-knife in Mytholmroyd.

    While on remand at HMP New Hall, she began gender re-alignment, wearing a wig, make-up and false breasts.

    She also admitted to probation officers she was sexually interested in children and could abuse a child and "think nothing of it".

    'Spiked drink'
    The two counts of rape did not come to light until one of the victims came forward after White wrote to her from prison.

    The woman, in her 20s, said White had violently raped her five or six times between January and December 2016, after meeting at a psychiatric unit in West Yorkshire.

    Investigators also discovered White had raped a woman in 2003 when she was two months pregnant.

    The court heard White attacked her after spiking her drink with vodka until she passed out.

    White was arrested but no information was given in court as to why he was not prosecuted at the time.

    A Prison Service spokesman said: "We apologise sincerely for the mistakes which were made in this case.

    "While we work to manage all prisoners, including those who are transgender, sensitively and in line with the law, we are clear that the safety of all prisoners must be our absolute priority."

    Det Insp David Rogerson said: "White has pleaded guilty to a number of serious sexual offences which span many years.

    "We are pleased to see White appropriately sentenced by the courts for what are very serious offences."



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    14 Oct 2018

    Women’s groups claim ‘silencing’ on transgender concerns
    Fears of intimidation are stifling discussion of changes to the Gender Recognition Act, campaigners say

    Nearly 200 prominent figures have signed an open letter raising concerns that public and private bodies are helping “close down discussion” about government plans to make it easier for trans people to have their preferred gender legally recognised.

    Writers Marina Strinkovsky and Beatrix Campbell, actors James Dreyfus and Frances Barber, and Pragna Patel, the founder of the Southall Black Sisters Centre, are among 195 people to put their names to the letter, published in the Observer. “We believe the right to discuss proposed changes to the law is fundamental in a democratic society,” they write.

    A government consultation on reforming the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) closes at the end of this week. When she launched it last month, the minister for women and equalities, Penny Mordaunt, said the government particularly wanted to hear “from women’s groups who we know have expressed some concerns about the implications of our proposals”.

    But, according to the letter’s signatories, there have been a “series of attempts to close down discussion among women about GRA reform”.

    Last month, Leeds City Council cancelled a booking by Woman’s Place UK, a group formed “specifically to ensure women’s voices are heard in the debate around proposals to change the Gender Recognition Act” after complaints it was giving a platform to transphobic views.

    Earlier this year, the Mercure Hotel in Cardiff and Millwall Football Club cancelled bookings made by women’s groups who wanted to hold panel discussions about proposed changes to the law. In Bristol, a meeting was picketed by masked activists in an attempt to prevent it going ahead.

    Women’s rights groups say that both online and real-world harassment of those organising, speaking and attending meetings is now routine. In one case, a woman had the details of her children’s school posted online, in an attempt at intimidation.

    Last month, a 60-year-old woman was violently assaulted when she was part of a group gathered at Hyde Park Corner waiting to be directed to a meeting to discuss the GRA. There are also concerns about the intimidation and ostracising of female academics who speak out on the issue.

    “Public authorities, academic institutions, unions and NGOs should be facilitating discussions and protecting the rights of people to take part in them without harassment or intimidation,” the letter states. “We find it troubling that institutions have not condemned these actions and in some cases have expressed support.”

    On Saturday the human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said that he had refused to sign the letter, condemning it as “one-sided” and “totally devoid of compassion for the suffering of trans women and men”.

    “It does not acknowledge and condemn the abuse, threats and intimidation by some feminists against trans people and their supporters, including really vile abuse directed against me personally because of my support for trans human rights,” he said. “I always stand with the oppressed. Trans women and men are certainly some of the most vulnerable and oppressed people. They deserve our support, but this letter does not offer even a shred of solidarity.”

    Those campaigning for greater transgender rights say that the reforms to the act are long overdue. But Woman’s Place UK has a number of concerns, including how they might affect women-only spaces. The group calls for a “respectful and evidence-based discussion about the impact of the proposed changes”.



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    October 16, 2018

    ‘Butterfly’ is game-changing TV for transgender kids and their parents

    ITV drama 'Butterfly' is centred around a young trans girl. Adrian Lobb interviews Susie Green, CEO of trans charity Mermaids, about a dramatic change in attitude around the issue in recent years

    Big Issue Invest The Big Issue Foundation The Big Issue Shop
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    ‘Butterfly’ is game-changing TV for transgender kids and their parents
    ITV drama 'Butterfly' is centred around a young trans girl. Adrian Lobb interviews Susie Green, CEO of trans charity Mermaids, about a dramatic change in attitude around the issue in recent years
    October 16, 2018
    By Adrian Lobb@adey70
    Child referrals for gender identity issues have rocketed in the last decade; from 97 in 2009-10 to 2,519 last year, a rise of more than 2,000 per cent. Heated debate continues, but often the loudest voices about transgender issues are not the most informed. On the rise in child referrals, experts say there’s more information about gender issues than ever before, and so a greater awareness.

    Now a new TV drama, Butterfly—focusing on a young trans girl—is telling the human story behind the figures. Susie Green, CEO of Mermaids, a charity that supports gender-diverse children and their families, and which advised in the making of the new show, says there has been a chilling change in atmosphere in recent years.

    “About 18 months ago, it seemed to kick off with a really massive push against trans women and trans kids in particular,” she says. “The narrative is that ‘children can’t possibly know’ and that it is ‘child abuse’ to do anything other than make them live as their birth gender. That causes an environment of fear,” she says. “The backlash is not from experts. We get a lot of people who have nothing to do with transgender people and maybe have never met a transgender child saying what is best for trans kids.”

    Into this heightened atmosphere comes Butterfly, which stars Anna Friel and Emmett J Scanlan as the estranged parents of young Max, played by Callum Booth-Ford.

    Big Issue Invest The Big Issue Foundation The Big Issue Shop
    GENDER IDENTITYSocial Activism
    ‘Butterfly’ is game-changing TV for transgender kids and their parents
    ITV drama 'Butterfly' is centred around a young trans girl. Adrian Lobb interviews Susie Green, CEO of trans charity Mermaids, about a dramatic change in attitude around the issue in recent years
    October 16, 2018
    By Adrian Lobb@adey70
    Child referrals for gender identity issues have rocketed in the last decade; from 97 in 2009-10 to 2,519 last year, a rise of more than 2,000 per cent. Heated debate continues, but often the loudest voices about transgender issues are not the most informed. On the rise in child referrals, experts say there’s more information about gender issues than ever before, and so a greater awareness.

    Now a new TV drama, Butterfly—focusing on a young trans girl—is telling the human story behind the figures. Susie Green, CEO of Mermaids, a charity that supports gender-diverse children and their families, and which advised in the making of the new show, says there has been a chilling change in atmosphere in recent years.

    “About 18 months ago, it seemed to kick off with a really massive push against trans women and trans kids in particular,” she says. “The narrative is that ‘children can’t possibly know’ and that it is ‘child abuse’ to do anything other than make them live as their birth gender. That causes an environment of fear,” she says. “The backlash is not from experts. We get a lot of people who have nothing to do with transgender people and maybe have never met a transgender child saying what is best for trans kids.”

    Into this heightened atmosphere comes Butterfly, which stars Anna Friel and Emmett J Scanlan as the estranged parents of young Max, played by Callum Booth-Ford.

    RECOMMENDED…Undiluted, unpatronising and made by women – ‘Killing Eve’ is a revelation
    Max has identified as a girl from a very young age. Enforced football has, unsurprisingly, failed to change her conviction that she is a girl – despite her desire to please dad Stephen. So, at home, after initial resistance from her mother, she has been quietly living as Maxine when the series begins. But when she wants to start living openly as Maxine? That’s when life becomes more difficult.

    The series has to perform a tricky balancing act. It must entertain, accurately represent trans children and their families, and educate.

    “It could be a real gamechanger for trans kids and their families,” says Green. “It addresses some of those preconceptions and tells the story from a really human place. You identify with the people and their struggle – and for a lot of families it is a real struggle. It shows this isn’t something that happens overnight. Maxine didn’t put on a dress and immediately her mum said, ‘Oh, you must be a girl, then.’ It shows that it is about parents listening to their children.”

    Writer Tony Marchant and the cast spent time talking to trans kids and their families ahead of filming. Stories were shared, and the actors were left shocked by anecdotes of grown adults spitting in children’s faces at the school gates.

    One little girl who was nine, her mum was talking about the issues they have had with bullying at the school. She told them about the time her daughter came home from school and there was a size eight footprint in the middle of her bag.

    Green has lived through this. She became involved with Mermaids when her daughter Jackie, now 25, was six. At 13, Jackie was beaten up by two 40-year-old men because she was trans. Proudly, she discloses how her daughter is now seen as “a bit of a rock star” by some of the younger trans girls. “She is tall, she is gorgeous, she is very confident.”

    “She had told me at four that she was a girl,” recalls Green. “Everybody was telling me to force boy stuff on her. I was told I needed to make her play with an Action Man. I’d say ‘You are a boy who likes girl things, and that is fine’, but she was really clear about it. ‘No, I am a girl.’

    “That is why Butterfly is so important. Because kids know. Children go through periods of gender non-conformity and will express themselves in different ways. But you can’t make anybody trans. And you can’t make anybody not be trans. What you can do is shame people into not talking about who they are because it is too difficult.”

    Green’s advice to parents in a similar situation is simple.

    “Support them. Love them. Make them know they are loved and supported, and they will work it out. But if you try to force an identity on someone because it doesn’t fit with your sense of how the world should be, all you are going to do is make them ashamed.”



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    17 Oct 2018

    Transgender law reform has overlooked women’s rights, say MPs

    Inquiry into trans people’s rights accused of being ‘fundamentally flawed’

    Senior MPs have called on the government to reconsider plans to make it easier for trans people to have their preferred gender legally recognised to ensure that the reforms are not detrimental to women’s rights.

    Maria Caulfield, the Conservative party’s former vice-chair for women, said the parliamentary inquiry into transgender rights, which informed the consultation that is due to end on Friday, was “fundamentally flawed” and failed to consider the wider implications of the proposals for women.

    The MP for Lewes, who sat on the inquiry, said she was writing to the minister for women and equalities, Penny Mordaunt, to ask her to extend the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act to ensure that women’s voices were heard. Mordaunt’s office declined to comment.

    Speaking at a meeting of MPs with women’s rights groups at Portcullis House on Tuesday, Caulfield said the transgender inquiry was focused on the difficulties trans people faced in obtaining legal recognition of their preferred gender and “didn’t really look at the implications for women as a whole. I think that was fundamentally flawed”.

    She said MPs should have more time to assess the concerns of women’s groups about the changes, such as how they might affect women-only spaces.

    “I very much feel that the female side of the argument hasn’t really had a strong enough voice,” she said. “I don’t want to make legislation if we feel that there’s a group in society who feels that [it] is detrimental to them. I think it’s a fair comment that women’s groups do not feel that they’ve had their voice heard.”

    A number of MPs including Conservatives Andrew Selous and David Davies, and Labour MPs Karin Smyth, Tonia Antoniazzi and Paul Williams attended the meeting with activists from Fair Play For Women, Woman’s Place UK and Transgender Trend, who said they and other women had faced online and real-world harassment for organising, speaking at and attending meetings to discuss the reforms.

    Davies, the MP for Monmouth, said: “[The inquiry] failed to take evidence from women’s groups on what the impact might be of allowing people to change their gender without any checks and balances.

    “Ideally I’d like to see [the consultation] stopped and the whole process restarted after the government and ministers have had a proper conversation with women’s groups about their rights to protection.”

    Davies said he had been threatened with police action by another Conservative MP for holding meetings in parliament with women’s groups critical of the reforms.

    LGBT+ Conservatives, the party’s official LGBT group, has called Davies’ comments that someone with male genitalia is “definitely not a woman” transphobic and abhorrent.

    Selous said MPs were treading very carefully. “It is stifling freedom of debate if we can’t discuss these issues,” he said. “The fact that MPs can’t come and be briefed calmly and freely and without fear is appalling.”

    Prof Stephen Whittle, the founder of trans rights group Press for Change, warned that many trans people would “become depressed and dejected” if reform was delayed. He said: “I am sure there will be a flurry of attempts and suicides. But in the end we will pull ourselves together and continue the campaigning. We know we have Labour behind this one, so will simply do our best to get them elected.”

    Submissions to the consultation will be analysed by an independent company, which is due to report its findings to the government next spring, when ministers will consider what next steps to take.

    The comments from MPs came as dozens of academics accused ministers and universities of ignoring and censoring experts concerned about the proposals.

    In a letter to the Guardian, they write that some academics have come under pressure from trans activists and their own universities to not publicly raise their concerns.

    The academics accuse trans advocacy groups of using suchwide ranging definitions of transphobia that “their effect is to curtail academic freedom and facilitate the censuring of academic work”.



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    25 Oct 2018

    Trump administration wants to remove 'gender' from UN human rights documents

    Exclusive: US diplomats have pushed for rewriting of collective statements to remove language inclusive of transgender people

    The US mission to the United Nations is seeking to eliminate the word “gender” from UN human rights documents, most often replacing it with “woman”, apparently as part of the Trump administration’s campaign to define transgender people out of existence.

    At recent meetings of the UN’s Third Committee, which is concerned with “social, humanitarian and cultural” rights, US diplomats have been pushing for the rewriting of general assembly policy statements to remove what the administration argues is vague and politically correct language, reflecting what it sees as an ‘ideology’ of treating gender as an individual choice rather than an unchangeable biological fact.

    For example, in a draft paper on trafficking in women and girls introduced by Germany and Philippines earlier this month, the US wants to remove phrases like “gender-based violence” would be replaced by “violence against women”.
    “We are seeing this more and more coming up on the Third Committee, and this is going to be a battle in the coming weeks,” said a UN diplomat. The diplomat noted that US policy on the word is not entirely consistent.

    While on a number of recent occasions, US diplomats have called for the removal of the word “gender”, at least once the same word has been added into a text on US insistence.

    The diplomat, a European, speculated that the inconsistency might reflect a tussle between different members of the US mission.

    To succeed in its campaign, the US will have to forge unusual alliances, with Russia and conservative Islamic states, against its western European partners.

    “If you only say violence against women, it doesn’t really tell the whole story,” a senior diplomat at the UN said. “We shouldn’t be going along with encouraging their society to be regressive. And if that means a blazing row in the Third Committee, I would have a blazing row in committee because I think some things are worth cherishing and worth hanging on to.”
    The US mission to the UN referred inquiries to the state department, which did not offer a comment before publication.

    Last month, the state department quietly changed the name of a webpage to address transgender issues on passports, from “gender designation change” to “change of sex marker”, in what appears to be a wider campaign against the word “gender”.

    “It’s clear the administration is engaged in a broad strategy of erasing transgender people’s existence across the federal government,” Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Centre for Transgender Equality, said. “While it’s infuriating they would behave in such an extreme and volatile manner at the United Nations, we are confident their prejudice will lose out to science, reason, and the ongoing fight for human rights.”

    The New York Times reported on Monday that the administration had drawn up a policy paper to define gender narrowly as restricted as male or female only, and immutable from birth, despite the American Medical Association (AMA) ruling last year that gender and sexual identities are not always binary.

    The effort is aimed at reversing changes to federal programmes made by the Obama administration. Those reforms made gender a matter of individual choice rather than the sex designated at birth. A leaked memo from the Department of Health and Human Services said government agencies should adopt a definition of gender determined “on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable.”

    Roger Severino, the director of the office for civil rights in the department, was a fervent opponent of the Obama reforms. In July 2016, he said that the then defence secretary, Ash Carter, had dishonoured the sacrifices of “hundreds of thousands of veterans and current troops who were traumatized, wounded, or died fighting against Nazis, Communist aggressors, and terrorists, yet, believe that biological men should not be allowed into the same barracks and showers as women.”



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