You're expecting people to be ID checked before going into a bathroom? Obviously, for hospital beds and the like, they are going to know who you are, but changing rooms? It's just transphobia, pure and simple.
[RD] LGBTQ news
- Thread starter bernie14
- Start date
I think he means the support groups. But to speak to that one... My driver's license and birth certificate are both going to have 'F' gender markers on them by the end of next month, and my passport, health insurance, social security record, and employment records will follow shortly afterward, yet I've had no surgery and am not even remotely 'passable' at this point. While I'm not on TERF Island, nor in a US blood state ('red state' seems an inadequate term nowadays), legal transitioning seems more generally an early option for trans folk versus the "can't legally transition and go stealth until after lots of surgery" situation that has previously been the case a decade or more ago.
Having a same-sex support group does make sense if you have a visibly trans member amongst a group of traumatised cis women, but as someone already said, that's just an argument for having more support groups, not trying to force your transphobia onto everyone else.
schlaufuchs
Break My Heart
schlaufuchs
Break My Heart
Oh hey wow look at that, remember how we were banging on about how trans people (even ones who cannot get pregnant) are generally very fervent advocates for broad abortion protections because we correctly recognize how abortion and trans care are interconnected issues? Well here's Georgia using the Dobbs ruling as a basis for denying trans care to minors (and also laying the legal foundation for denying it to adults as well)
https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public...heStateofAlabamaetalDocketNo221170?1656508589
https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public...heStateofAlabamaetalDocketNo221170?1656508589
Page 5 said:
Agreed, my point was that a 'background check' (at least to whatever minimal depth a traumatized abuse survivor will get prior to joining a charitable org's help network) is not going to necessarily be useful as some sort of trans-screener.
To be clear, I was meaning for a women's rape support group, which I was assuming was an official medical practitioner kinda space.. Not a toilet.
Also that absolutely everyone needs and deserves support.
schlaufuchs
Break My Heart
Meanwhile, in a non-s*hole country:
Spain approves landmark bill making it easier for trans youth to change gender
In a massive step for trans rights, Spain has approved a new LGBTQ+ inclusive bill that allows trans youth to change their gender via self-identification.
On 27 June, the country’s cabinet ministers approved a landmark legislation that allows trans teens 16 and over to change their name and gender without parental consent.
For trans youth between the ages of 14 and 16, the individuals would need permission from their parents, or they can apply for a judge’s authorisation.
In regards to those aged between 12 and 14, they’ll be allowed to change their name but must receive approval from a judge to change their gender.
The new law, which was presented by Spain’s United We Can party, is a stark contrast to the country’s current rules – which require individuals to be on hormonal treatments for two years and obtain an official medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
The new bill is also set to include expats that reside in the country. However, officials have said that “their rights are not guaranteed in their home countries.”
Alongside the landmark improvement for trans rights, the bill will ban conversion therapy as well, as reported by EuroWeekly.
“This is a historic day after more than 15 years without any legislative progress,” Spain’s Equality Minister Irene Montero said in a statement.
“We want to send a very clear message that the lives of LGBTQ persons matter. Today we again place ourselves in the vanguard of LGBTQ rights.”
Since the bill’s cabinet approval, LGBTQ+ activists have taken to social media and praised officials for their landmark decision.
One Twitter user wrote: “Big news for trans people out of Spain! Spain just drafted a new law that will allow trans youth there to change their legal gender freely at 16 years old without parental permission. For all the talk about how TERFs are taking over Europe, they are not succeeding in Spain.”
Another person tweeted: “So excited for this win for the trans community in Spain I hope other countries follow suit.”
With the bill passing in Spain’s cabinet, it now heads to the country’s Congress for final approval.
Spain approves landmark bill making it easier for trans youth to change gender
In a massive step for trans rights, Spain has approved a new LGBTQ+ inclusive bill that allows trans youth to change their gender via self-identification.
On 27 June, the country’s cabinet ministers approved a landmark legislation that allows trans teens 16 and over to change their name and gender without parental consent.
For trans youth between the ages of 14 and 16, the individuals would need permission from their parents, or they can apply for a judge’s authorisation.
In regards to those aged between 12 and 14, they’ll be allowed to change their name but must receive approval from a judge to change their gender.
The new law, which was presented by Spain’s United We Can party, is a stark contrast to the country’s current rules – which require individuals to be on hormonal treatments for two years and obtain an official medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
The new bill is also set to include expats that reside in the country. However, officials have said that “their rights are not guaranteed in their home countries.”
Alongside the landmark improvement for trans rights, the bill will ban conversion therapy as well, as reported by EuroWeekly.
“This is a historic day after more than 15 years without any legislative progress,” Spain’s Equality Minister Irene Montero said in a statement.
“We want to send a very clear message that the lives of LGBTQ persons matter. Today we again place ourselves in the vanguard of LGBTQ rights.”
Since the bill’s cabinet approval, LGBTQ+ activists have taken to social media and praised officials for their landmark decision.
One Twitter user wrote: “Big news for trans people out of Spain! Spain just drafted a new law that will allow trans youth there to change their legal gender freely at 16 years old without parental permission. For all the talk about how TERFs are taking over Europe, they are not succeeding in Spain.”
Another person tweeted: “So excited for this win for the trans community in Spain I hope other countries follow suit.”
With the bill passing in Spain’s cabinet, it now heads to the country’s Congress for final approval.
Good development in Spain, obviously. But it's not like Spain itself is some bastion of human rights (which was implied by the comparison to US). It literally has other countries in it not allowed to self-identify.
That said, lately it did pass positive legislation for other things too (eg the minimum wage).
That said, lately it did pass positive legislation for other things too (eg the minimum wage).
Snerk
Smeghead
AFAIK we still don't know it there was any political motivation behind the shootings or no. He refuses to say anything on possible motives.
Wasn’t he under investigation for something connected to that?
Snerk
Smeghead
Yeah he has previously been in the spotlight for possible radicalisation, but was deemed not a threat. Bluntly put we still don't know if he's a terrorist who actively targeted a gay community, or just mentally ill, or something else.
When it is a lone wolf, especially when there is a history of mental illness, it is a slightly different story as to compared when an ideology combines to get a conspiracy of evil behavior. Obviously, some ideologies are more dangerous than others, but you can also measure who is convinced by them and their level of coordination when trying to judge their evilness.
Amazon bows to UAE pressure to restrict LGBTQ+ search results
Amazon has bowed to pressure from the United Arab Emirates and restricted search results for LGBTQ+-related products such as books and rainbow-coloured flags on its website in the country.
The company decided to restrict the searches after being threatened with penalties by the UAE government, according to the New York Times which first reported the story.
The news comes as Pride month, designed to celebrate LGBTQ+ people around the world every year, comes to an end.
Homosexuality is illegal in the UAE, one of 69 countries in the world that have laws that criminalise being gay.
“As a company, we remain committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and we believe that the rights of LGBTQ+ people must be protected,” an Amazon spokesperson told the BBC.
However, they added: “With Amazon stores around the world, we must also comply with the local laws and regulations of the countries in which we operate.”
The company decided to restrict the searches after being threatened with penalties by the UAE government, according to the New York Times which first reported the story.
The news comes as Pride month, designed to celebrate LGBTQ+ people around the world every year, comes to an end.
Homosexuality is illegal in the UAE, one of 69 countries in the world that have laws that criminalise being gay.
“As a company, we remain committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and we believe that the rights of LGBTQ+ people must be protected,” an Amazon spokesperson told the BBC.
However, they added: “With Amazon stores around the world, we must also comply with the local laws and regulations of the countries in which we operate.”
"we remain committed to something so long as it doesn't in any way affect our bottom line"
I mean, I'm not surprised. Capitalism working as intended. But you'll never see it called "cancel culture"
From WSJ
As Workers Come Back, More Are Coming Out
When Mikal Kelaidis took a new sales job a few months ago and started going back into an office, he came out as gay at work.
As Workers Come Back, More Are Coming Out
When Mikal Kelaidis took a new sales job a few months ago and started going back into an office, he came out as gay at work.
Like many whose professional and personal lives blurred during the pandemic pause of office life, Mr. Kelaidis says he’ll no longer stay closeted from 9 to 5. He came out to friends and family a decade ago, but worried that overt or unconscious biases on the job could hinder his career. Now he’s less concerned. “I don’t have the energy to wear a mask,” says Mr. Kelaidis, 31 years old, who works in a conservative part of Utah. “People can deal with it.”
There is no official measure of on-the-job comings out, but LGBT workers and colleagues who support them generally agree that people are more open about their sexual and gender identities in the postpandemic workplace, mirroring a societal trend. In a recent Gallup survey, 7.1% of American adults identified as LGBT, up from 5.6% in 2020.
Many LGBT workers say they’re usually, though not always, well received. A smaller subset are seeking more from their employers, pushing beyond tolerance and urging companies and co-workers to advocate for them.
“There’s been a turning point in the way people have integrated their work selves and their personal selves,” says Alexandra Brooks, accounting chief at Hertz, where a group for LGBT employees and allies has tripled its membership since the start of the pandemic.
Coming out to co-workers, once considered a career gamble, has become more routine over the past decade. A Boston Consulting Group report in the first half of 2020 estimated that 6 in 10 LGBT workers are out at their places of business, an increase over previous years. The firm plans to study the issue again this year and, based on anecdotal evidence, expects to find more people are out, says BCG partner Gabrielle Novacek, who helps lead the research.
Some of the most visible changes in workplaces now include transgender people debuting new appearances they refined while remote. A tight labor market in which employees have gained more say over when and how they work has made some less fearful about the risks of revealing personal details to co-workers.
Among the Fortune 500, a record 379 companies participated this year in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual survey of corporate LGBT policies. The poll is a way for companies with robust protections and benefits to advertise them, and participation has increased by 10% since 2019.
So many companies are embracing the shift that LGBT groups have skewered some corporate pride month demonstrations as superficial, or “rainbow washing.”
Historic numbers of job changes in the past year also mean lots of people have started afresh in offices, so an LGBT worker who kept quiet in a previous role might decide to be out and proud in the next.
That’s Gilbert Banda’s plan. A traveling intensive-care nurse, he identifies as nonbinary, meaning he doesn’t consider himself exclusively male or female. (He chose male pronouns for this column.) He describes his style as feminine—long hair, plucked eyebrows— but says he typically puts up a more masculine front when beginning a new assignment. He’ll drop his voice, tuck his hair under a hat, grow his brows and even some facial scruff.
Mr. Banda, 43, says he used to repeat this routine every few months, establishing his competence as a nurse before sporting his preferred look. This summer he will move for the first time in a few years, and says he plans to skip the introductory beard and baritone.
While he and others are coming out more fully, “the haters have also come out,” he says, noting that some people seem more likely to make a critical comment about his appearance now, when in the past they might have given him a strange look but said nothing.
Still, he feels more comfortable overall, which he attributes partly to expanded diversity training programs. Many companies set out to educate or re-educate their teams on equity and inclusion after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. While some have complained about what they describe as a woke agenda in management, Mr. Banda says the efforts have been helpful for people with nuanced identities like his.
Americans’ support for same-sex marriage hit 71% in a Gallup poll this month, an all-time high and 8 points more than in 2019. A slight majority of Americans said “changing one’s gender” is “morally wrong” in a separate Gallup survey last year. Such divergent views can complicate decisions like the one Hertz made to hoist rainbow flags over its headquarters in Estero, Fla., and another large office in Oklahoma City at the behest of its growing LGBT employee group.
Company executives prepared for internal opposition, understanding that certain employees may be split on LGBT issues. Ultimately, no one complained to management, says Ms. Brooks, the accounting chief, who serves as a liaison between the company’s LGBT group and its C-suite. Leaders concluded it was important to be in sync with changing workplace dynamics, she adds.
Randy Askins, a 34-year-old Hertz employee who chairs the LGBT group, says younger workers like him want employers to go beyond acceptance. He says his members felt emboldened this year to ask for a high-profile show of solidarity and is considering what’s next. “We’re looking at how we can keep this momentum going throughout the year and make sure it’s not just a flag that’s folded up and stuck in a closet,” he says.
The on-the-job advocacy is an adjustment for many, including older generations of LGBT workers, says Brooke Skinner Ricketts, a former Cars.com executive who along with her wife recently helped launch a leadership accelerator for women. At 42, she says she’s never concealed her sexual orientation but adds that LGBT workers have often reserved aspects of their styles and personalities for gay bars or pride marches outside of work. Those distinctions are fading, says Ms. Skinner Ricketts. “What we’re seeing play out in the workplace is this really interesting intergenerational conversation about boundaries,” she says, “ both in the queer community and the community at large.”
Randy Askins, above, chairs an LGBT group at Hertz. Gilbert Banda, a nonbinary traveling ICU nurse, plans to stop hiding his preferred look.
FROM TOP: OLIVIA WILD; REWAT NAKKORN
ON THE CLOCK
CALLUM BORCHERS
Transgender woman is first to be able to breastfeed her baby
A 30-year-old transgender woman has become the first officially recorded to breastfeed her baby. An experimental three-and-a-half-month treatment regimen, which included hormones, a nausea drug and breast stimulation, enabled the woman to produce 227 grams of milk a day.
The transgender woman had been receiving feminising hormonal treatments for several years before she started the lactation treatment. These included spironolactone, which is thought to block the effects of testosterone, and progesterone and a type of oestrogen.
This regimen enabled her to develop breasts that looked fully grown, according to a medical scale that assesses breast development based on appearance. She had not had any breast augmentation surgery.
When her partner was five-and-a-half-months pregnant, the woman sought medical treatment from Tamar Reisman and Zil Goldstein at Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City. Her partner had no interest in breastfeeding, she explained, so she would like to take on that role instead.
A hormone called prolactin usually stimulates the production of breastmilk in women who have just given birth, but this chemical isn’t available as a lab-made drug. Instead, the woman decided to try using a nausea drug called domperidone to trigger breastmilk.
There’s anecdotal evidence that this drug may boost milk production, although the US Food and Drug Administration has previously warned that it shouldn’t be used for this purpose.
She took it with increasing doses of the hormones oestrogen, progesterone and spironolactone. At the same time, she began to use a breast pump to stimulate her breasts.
Within a month, the woman was able to express milk droplets. After three months of treatment, this increased to 227 grams of breast milk per day. Once the baby was born, she was able to exclusively breastfeed the infant for six weeks – during which time a paediatrician confirmed the baby was growing and developing normally and healthily.
Although significant, this is below the average of around 500 grams that a baby consumes by the time the it is 5 days old. After six weeks, the woman supplemented her breastfeeding with formula.
Paper WriteupThe transgender woman had been receiving feminising hormonal treatments for several years before she started the lactation treatment. These included spironolactone, which is thought to block the effects of testosterone, and progesterone and a type of oestrogen.
This regimen enabled her to develop breasts that looked fully grown, according to a medical scale that assesses breast development based on appearance. She had not had any breast augmentation surgery.
When her partner was five-and-a-half-months pregnant, the woman sought medical treatment from Tamar Reisman and Zil Goldstein at Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery in New York City. Her partner had no interest in breastfeeding, she explained, so she would like to take on that role instead.
A hormone called prolactin usually stimulates the production of breastmilk in women who have just given birth, but this chemical isn’t available as a lab-made drug. Instead, the woman decided to try using a nausea drug called domperidone to trigger breastmilk.
There’s anecdotal evidence that this drug may boost milk production, although the US Food and Drug Administration has previously warned that it shouldn’t be used for this purpose.
She took it with increasing doses of the hormones oestrogen, progesterone and spironolactone. At the same time, she began to use a breast pump to stimulate her breasts.
Within a month, the woman was able to express milk droplets. After three months of treatment, this increased to 227 grams of breast milk per day. Once the baby was born, she was able to exclusively breastfeed the infant for six weeks – during which time a paediatrician confirmed the baby was growing and developing normally and healthily.
Although significant, this is below the average of around 500 grams that a baby consumes by the time the it is 5 days old. After six weeks, the woman supplemented her breastfeeding with formula.
Christian doctor who insisted on misgendering trans people loses case
A doctor who insisted on misgendering trans people while assessing benefit claimants has lost his discrimination claim against the government.
David Mackereth claimed he had suffered discrimination for his religious beliefs, as well as harassment, because the Department for Work and Pensions required him to use patients’ correct pronouns.
In a decision published on 1 July, the Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed with an earlier tribunal held in Birmingham that the doctor’s beliefs did not qualify for protection under the 2010 Equality Act because of the harm they would likely cause to trans people.
Mackereth began working as a health and disabilities assessor at a Birmingham DWP centre [Job Centre] in 2018. The role required him to carry out in-person interviews assessing claimants’ eligibility for disability-related benefits.
During an induction on 29 May 2018, the centre’s lead physician Dr Ahmed explained that DWP policy demanded trans service users “be treated with respect and referred to in their presented gender at all times”.
Mackereth told his employers that he would not use trans patients’ preferred pronouns because of his Christian beliefs, and because of “a lack of belief in transgenderism”, the tribunal heard.
Following a series of meetings and emails between Mackereth and his employers, the doctor resigned.
In order for a belief to be protected under the Equality Act, it must pass a set of criteria called the ‘Grainger test’, the judges explained in their decision.
Mrs Justice Eady, Mr D Bleiman and Mr D G Smith wrote that one of these requirements is that the protected belief “is worthy of respect in a democratic society, is not incompatible with human dignity and is not in conflict with the fundamental rights of others”.
Although the tribunal accepted that Christianity is a protected characteristic, it found that none of the doctor’s specific beliefs satisfied this requirement as they were all “incompatible with human dignity” and in conflict with the fundamental rights of trans people.
David Mackereth claimed he had suffered discrimination for his religious beliefs, as well as harassment, because the Department for Work and Pensions required him to use patients’ correct pronouns.
In a decision published on 1 July, the Employment Appeal Tribunal agreed with an earlier tribunal held in Birmingham that the doctor’s beliefs did not qualify for protection under the 2010 Equality Act because of the harm they would likely cause to trans people.
Mackereth began working as a health and disabilities assessor at a Birmingham DWP centre [Job Centre] in 2018. The role required him to carry out in-person interviews assessing claimants’ eligibility for disability-related benefits.
During an induction on 29 May 2018, the centre’s lead physician Dr Ahmed explained that DWP policy demanded trans service users “be treated with respect and referred to in their presented gender at all times”.
Mackereth told his employers that he would not use trans patients’ preferred pronouns because of his Christian beliefs, and because of “a lack of belief in transgenderism”, the tribunal heard.
Following a series of meetings and emails between Mackereth and his employers, the doctor resigned.
In order for a belief to be protected under the Equality Act, it must pass a set of criteria called the ‘Grainger test’, the judges explained in their decision.
Mrs Justice Eady, Mr D Bleiman and Mr D G Smith wrote that one of these requirements is that the protected belief “is worthy of respect in a democratic society, is not incompatible with human dignity and is not in conflict with the fundamental rights of others”.
Although the tribunal accepted that Christianity is a protected characteristic, it found that none of the doctor’s specific beliefs satisfied this requirement as they were all “incompatible with human dignity” and in conflict with the fundamental rights of trans people.
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