…but few LGBT rights groups insure for sex reassignment surgery, or sometimes even any other transition related expenses.

The San Francisco Chronicle put up a piece today entitled More U.S. employers cover sex transition surgery…

People who change their gender must undergo rigorous mental health evaluations and trial periods that last years, and they sometimes face stigma, but the biggest challenge for many is paying for the process.

In the past few years, however, following the model of San Francisco, some of the world’s largest employers have begun covering surgical procedures, including gender-reassignment surgery, and a host of other related care.

When San Francisco became the first major American employer known to offer comprehensive coverage for gender transitions in 2001, some city officials feared that people who wanted to transition would flock here for work and bankrupt the city’s insurance fund. But it turned out that covering transition surgeries and other treatment — which can cost more than $50,000 — cost the city relatively little, because there was no flood of claims.

General Motors, IBM, Eastman Kodak and Hallmark Cards, as well as the universities of Michigan and California, now include transition-related coverage in their standard employee benefits.

“We took a look at it, the cost was negligible and we said it was the right thing to do,” said David Kaffnoff, a spokesman for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, N.Y. “We don’t sit here in any judgment on how a person chooses to self-identify.”

(More at the link.)

Of course, the reality is most transpeople don’t work at large corporations that pay for transition related expenses, but it’s good to see that businesses are seeing the cost/benefit of providing transgender specific treatment in their healthcare packages.

And of course, the other side of the coin is few gay rights groups insure for sex reassignment surgery:

As large companies expand health benefits for transgender employees, few civil rights organizations for the gay, lesbian and bisexual community have followed their lead.

Representatives of several gay rights groups said they have too few employees to negotiate for transition-related benefits and that the benefits would significantly increase the costs of their insurance premiums.

Still, two organizations — the Human Rights Campaign and the National Center for Lesbian Rights — do pay whatever expenses are incurred by transitioning employees.

“I’ve seen a shift, nearly unanimous consensus, among medical providers that sex reassignment and hormones are necessary for transgender people,” said Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a San Francisco organization with 21 employees and a $3.2 million budget.

“We have reached that point, which is why I think we’re going to see widespread change in insurance practices,” said Minter, who transitioned while working at the law firm. “There are no good arguments left on the other side.”

Mark Roy, spokesman for Lambda Legal, said his organization inquires about coverage during every negotiation with its insurance provider.

“It’s a catch-22,” Roy said. Insurers offer it, he said. “But in reality, nobody can afford it.”

The 100-employee organization does not pay any of employees’ costs for transitioning.

“Our ($11 million) budget would definitely not allow for that,” Roy said.

Other major organizations — the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation — took the same position.

It’s was relatively easy to add a T to LGB because there are many overlapping issues — discrimination, housing, employment, etc. Yet, the differences between LGB and T people become clearly crystallized when one begins talking healthcare — and as we see, many LGBT civil rights organizations find they just can’t the resources to treat the healthcare issues of LGBT people with parity, because the healthcare costs for T’s are so much higher than for LGB’s.

With transition costs often exceeding a hundred-thousand dollars per transsexual how many transpeople can afford to transition on what non-profits pay their employees? How many donors would give money to LGBT civil rights organizations if they knew thousands of donated dollars went to transition costs for transgender employees?

Idealism has run into the reality of limited resources.

Buying Power of U.S. Gays and Lesbians to Exceed $835 Billion by 2011! Religious Right quotes on this evil…Away!!

Melissa Fryrear of Focus On The Family’s Love Won Out:

I’m sure some people already think that there are too many pro-homosexual messages in the culture within media, and it’s only going to increase.

Peter LaBarbera or Americans For Truth:

The marketing power and the marketing clout of homosexuals has no bearing on whether homosexuality is wrong or a sin. It also has no bearing on whether it’s right for a company to tailor its marketing to homosexuals.

Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost:

The people that you attract, other people are going to be turned off by the ads. The Christian community is going to be turned off by ads specifically targeted at the homosexual community. The buying power of the Christian community, especially evangelical community is always going to outstrip the homosexual community.

Thy’all, I think thy’all prostest-eth too much.

This post is related to the story posted here (and crossposted here) regarding the Matt Barber’s comments on the story of the 14 year old Austrian transgirl — My friend TransApologist sent me this e-note, and I think it’s worthy posting here unedited.  IIt’s so well said that ‘d like to take credit for this piece, but I didn’t write this.
——-

Am I confused or What?

I love satire–it makes me smile. That’s why I have always been a big fan of the Concerned Women of America (CWA), which I suspect more and more might be a creation of the true geniuses at The Onion Magazine, who snarkfully proclaim themselves “America’s Finest News Source.” I think CWA may be America’s Finest Views Source.

These CWA folks on more than about six million occasions have written very concerned (and womanly and American) sounding screeds abut transgender people in which they inevitably use the word “confusion”–usually in the context of “gender confusion.” The brilliance therein is that the spokesperson for the CWA is almost always not a woman and therefore probably not a concerned woman of America, although maybe, I suppose, a confused woman of America.

Thankfully yesterday, the group tipped its hand, presumably because we were too confused to get the joke they were so anxiously playing on us all. Sure they went a little over the top, but now we at least see the joke.

They start a press release (and remember the “of America” part of their name) with the words “a 14 year-old German boy.” Apparently, somewhere in the Germany part of America, a fourteen year-old, in consultation with parents and doctors, has opted for medical treatment that said parents and doctors believe is appropriate for that person. I don’t know the particular case, so I am unwilling to pass judgment on the diagnosis or treatment, although I too am concerned and a woman and of America.

The best part for me about the story is that in this case the spokeswoman for CWA is a not gender-confused concerned woman named “Matt Barber”–which I hope is not some sort of tacky homosexual euphemism I don’t know about.

Thank you, CWA. Now I get it. You are not women, you are not of America and you are not concerned–except maybe about other people’s medical treatment and raising money for your hatemongering.

From PlanetOut:

Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov vowed Monday never to allow a gay rights parade, calling such events “satanic,” but activists said they would defy a city ban to hold what would be the Russian capital’s first gay rights parade.

Luzhkov and city authorities had barred activists from staging a parade last year, citing the threat of violence. Activists ignored the ban, and were pummeled by right-wing protesters and detained by police.

Speaking at a Kremlin event attended by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Luzhkov again lambasted gay and lesbian groups.

“Last year, Moscow came under unprecedented pressure to sanction the gay parade, which can be described in no other way than as satanic,” he said to applause in comments broadcast on a city-controlled TV channel. “We did not let the parade take place then, and we are not going to allow it in the future.”

He also charged that Western countries were facing a crisis of religious faith and were corrupting children.

Well, what can one say to that? Well, one can say that sometimes Christians who belive homosexuality is sin sincerely believe that they act in love in pointing out sin, and sometimes — as we can see here — there is only hate and despite invloved when pointing at LGBT folk. Russian anti-discrimination laws be damned — abuse and hatred ahead.

Per PinkNews.co.uk, the parade will go on:

The organisers of Moscow Pride have vowed to hold the event in 2007, as they formally start proceedings at the European Court of Human Rights concerning last year’s Pride.

They are also considering appealing to the Russian Supreme Court in parallel with their European action.

In May 2006 the first Pride march in the city was beset by violence and police intimidation after Moscow’s mayor refused to grant a permit.

And…

Moscow Pride 2007 will take place on Sunday May 27, marking the day in 1993 when homosexuality was decriminalised in Russia.

In the Los Angeles Times’ article The ‘Democrat majority’ is still the talk of the capital, reporter Maura Reynolds begins her article asking the question “Will President Bush put the ‘-ic’ back in ‘Democratic’?”

It seems the Republican Party has been using the term “Democrat Party” as a sort of pejoritive to needle and slur members of the Democratic Party. And Lordy, according to the article this has been going on since the McCarthy era:

The use of the term “Democrat Party” goes back decades. One explanation sometimes offered is that Republicans began to use it to hint that corrupt Democrats were not terribly “democratic” and had no right to use that word to describe themselves. Others say it was adopted because it sounds annoying and echoes the word “bureaucrat,” with its negative connotations.

Whatever the initial impulse or rationale, the term became controversial as far back as the 1950s. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) famously used it to deride Democrats during his hearings investigating whether Communists had infiltrated the U.S. government. During the 1956 Republican convention, the usage was so common that it prompted the New York Times to report that dropping the “-ic” had become official party policy.

” ‘Democratic’ as an adjective is not descriptive of the party as it exists today,” GOP spokesman L. Richard Guylay explained in that report, referring to allegations of vote-fixing by the Democratic Party’s political machine in large cities. “I can’t consider the party of the Pendergasts or Tammany Hall as a democratic party.”

In 1957, writing about the phenomenon in American Speech, the quarterly journal of the American Dialect Society, scholar Ignace Feuerlicht wrote: “It will be interesting to see whether ‘Democrat Party’ will stay with us or go out of existence again or be revived and revitalized at intervals just before successive national elections.”

Feuerlicht seems to have been prescient: A search of a database of presidential speeches and remarks shows that use of the term has increased during election seasons and has been aimed primarily at partisan audiences.

And of course, President Bush used the term “Democrat Party” in his recent State of the Union speech, even when the text read “Democratic Party.”

It’s hard, I imagine, to get a civil discussion going when one doesn’t act civil…I wonder how often we’re going to hear the intentional slight from Republican Party members in the near future? My guess is a little less often, until 2008.

Sound the alarms! Danger! DANGER! Danger Will Robinson! The HO-MO-SEX-U-AL LOBBY is out to evilly destroy the world!

…Again.

*sigh*

If you didn’t know it, dear homosexual friends, you, in a most bleak and evil way, support sex change operations for 12 year olds. It’s part of your homosexual agenda.

How do I know? Well, the new “concerned woman” Matt Barber (of the Concerned Women for America’s Culture And Family Institute) says that’s what you think. Read it here in this Concerned Women For America press release:

A 14-year-old German boy has decided to undergo a sex change, making him the youngest patient in history to receive this extreme procedure. The young boy Tim, who prefers to be called “Kim,” has wanted gender reassignment surgery since he was 12 and claims to have considered himself female since age two. Concerned Women for America (CWA) is saddened that doctors and parents have fostered this young boy’s gender confusion and are allowing him to go forward with the surgery.

“This poor kid’s situation really undercuts the homosexual lobby’s deceptive equality-fluff and hyperbole,” said Matt Barber, CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues. “It casts a bright light on the truly destructive, bleak and evil nature of the homosexual agenda. Has our world completely lost all sanity? That parents would allow their child to be treated like this is mind-boggling.

“Rather than addressing the emotional or chemical problems responsible for Tim’s gender confusion, his parents and doctors have bought into the homosexual lobby’s PC puffery hook, line and sinker. They’re about to rob him of his ability to father a child, and render him horribly disfigured and further confused. It’s not just a tragedy. It’s a travesty.”

For those of y’all who are not read up on exactly what the experts actually say about transsexual youth, please take a read at the Point 1. of the Ex-Gay Watch’s Mike Ensley On Gender Fluidity piece — no one is going to support doing sexual reassignment surgery on a 12 or 14 year old. Summed up briefly, the Harry Benjamin Standards Of Care actually state “…irreversible physical interventions should be delayed as long as is clinically appropriate” because ”[i]dentity beliefs in adolescents may become firmly held and strongly expressed, giving a false impression of irreversibility; more fluidity may return at a later stage.” So, the standards of care plan is actually to put transgender youth off of irreversible changes as long as possible — and put off irreversable surgeries until adulthood.

Heck, most transgender activists don’t support sex reassignment surgery for folk under 18 because the surgeries are significant…irreversible. A lot of us transpeople — believe it or not — actually think about the consequences of sex reassignment surgery for adolescents! Imagine that — thinking!

But don’t let us get in the way of what Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera believe you darn evil homosexual agenda-ists believe. You bleakly and evilly think sex reassignment surgery for 12 year olds is a super idea — Matt and Pete said it’s so, so it must be true…Right?

Oh that’s right — not right. The statements of Barber and LaBarbera are what we call straw man arguments. Duh.

So maybe the alarms were sounded for nothing? Quoting the always cross-dressing Bugs Bunny, “Could be!”

I know I’m slow to this story, considering how I’m usually all over media portrayals of LGBT people. But this is one of those stories that’s better talked about later rather than never.

Americablog has a story up on their site entitled CNN defends host’s use of the word “faggot” - network slammed by lead gay anti-defamation group. GLAAD has a press release up on the story too.

It seems Glenn Beck, who hosts an opinion show on CNN’s Headline News doesn’t think the term “faggot” is anything more than a “naughty name.” Just so I don’t mistate this, let me excerpt the exchange between Beck and a guest, as reported by GLAAD:

GLOVER: Yes. Basically you have Isaiah Washington, who’s one of the stars of the show, who referred to one of his co-stars during a heated argument as a derogatory term for a gay man that starts with ‘F’ and rhymes with maggot. Did it a couple more times after that. And do you like how I did that?

BECK: Yes.

GLOVER: And –

BECK: Do you know that “The New York Times” wouldn’t even print, I mean, we can say the word. We’re having an adult conversation here. Wouldn’t even print the word “faggot.”

GLOVER: Right.

BECK: Wouldn’t print it. I find that amazing.

John of Americablog reported that…

So CNN is now defending its host, Glenn Beck, and his use of the word “faggot” on the air, AND his suggestion that the word isn’t very derogatory. Way to step in it even further, CNN. Faggot is the n-word to gays, and you think it’s appropriate? Does CNN permit the n-word on the air? And would they permit their hosts to suggest that it’s simply a “naughty name”? CNN has a host who is a loose cannon and who has already slurred Muslims, gays, and more. (Though, interestingly, I doubt CNN would let a host slur blacks or Jews, so apparently free speech has its limits even at CNN.) But rather than apologize, CNN defends their host who thinks the word “faggot” is appropriate for CNN, and who thinks the word “faggot” is simply a “naughty name.”

I think CNN is about to see just how the gay community feels about TV networks who think the bigoted slurs are no big deal. Why? Because now GLAAD is involved. They’re the gay community’s largest anti-defamation group. That elevates the CNN controversy to a whole new level. And the fact that CNN is defending their host’s use of the word “faggot,” and his attempt to belittle the damage the word causes, is not going to sit well with the non-FOX-news crowd that usually watches CNN.

From GLAAD’s press release:

“Beck’s obnoxious repetition of the slur — and his flip dismissal of it as simply a ‘naughty name’ – speaks volumes about his appalling ignorance of its impact,” Giuliano said. “Beck added nothing to the audience’s understanding of the issue, except perhaps to demonstrate his juvenile belief that repeating an anti-gay slur makes him an ‘adult.’”

On Tuesday, GLAAD reached out to CNN’s standards and practices department to discuss the matter. On Wednesday, a CNN spokesperson told GLAAD that Beck wasn’t using the word himself, that Beck’s show is an “opinion show” and not a news program, and that Beck was expressing an opinion about The New York Times’ decision to not use the word.

“The ugliness of Glenn Beck’s word choice and his ignorance of its impact really speak for themselves,” Giuliano said. “Other CNN personalities have discussed derogatory slurs as part of this story without debasing that discussion. CNN has a responsibility to address Beck’s crudeness and require that he adhere to basic standards of respect.”

I used the comment section to CNN Headline News to let CNN know I won’t watch either of the CNN networks as long as Glenn Beck is employed there; I let show sponsors Best Buy and Office Depot know I won’t shop at their stores until they drop sponsorship of Beck’s show.

An epithet isn’t a “naughty name.”  Sometimes folk in and out of the LGBT community need to remind people just how ugly a term “faggot” can be. For me, this is one of those times.

*****Update*****

Mara Keisling blogged on this CNN/Beck story on the NCTE’s new T-Equality Blog.

Mara adds some insight on Beck as “The Thinker,” reminding us of a May 2006 segment about the transgender teen in Indiana. The teen was barred from a high school prom for wanting to wearing an appropriate prom gown after wearing girl’s clothes in school for an entire school year — Beck called the teenager “Dame Edna” and “freak boy.”

If it weren’t for my kat Bon-Bon butting her head into mine most mornings (she’s hungry, and wants me to feed her), I know I wouldn’t be in a hurry to get up. I feel emotionally beaten down — being under my covers means life doesn’t have a chance to beat me down.  But, real life does break-in some days, and I do feel tired…worn.

Here in San Diego yesterday, a 19-year-old homeless transperson was really beaten down by a flashlight in Balboa Park. San Diego’s local affiliates for NBC and CBS both referred to the victim as a man — either a transgender man or cross-dressed man. So much for page 249 of the Associated Press Styleguide’s direction of how to report on transgender people.

The CBS affiliate had this to say about the beating:

The beating victim was taken to the hospital with moderate injuries. Police are treating the attack as a hate crime, as the victim is transgender and witnesses say the suspect used derogatory terms to describe the victim’s sexual orientation during the assault.

I called both affiliates regarding the use of male terms for someone dressed as female, and the NBC affiliate’s person answering the newsroom telephone that the police aren’t treating this as a hate crime. I’ll be calling the LGBT liaison officer on Monday to find out why, since per the reported witnesses the person doing the beating called out a gay epithet while hitting the transgender youth.

Meanwhile, reality crashed in from an update to a story about a Philadelphia murder — the police have refused to release the unedited 911 tape covering a courtesy ride police gave to transgender woman Nizah Morris. For those who don’t know about Nizah Morris, she was found with a fatal head injury on Dec. 22, 2002, shortly after police gave her a courtesy ride.

A previous Philadelphia Daily News article on the murder said the following about the some of the peculiar circumstances surrounding her death and the aftermath:

A witness testified yesterday that he had been struck by the lack of urgency by police and an ambulance team in tending to a transgender entertainer who was fatally injured near 16th and Walnut streets in December 2002.

The witness, who asked not to be identified, said he was driving on Walnut Street about 3:30 a.m. on Dec. 22 when he came upon Nizah Morris, 47, lying in the street in front of a stopped car.
The witness said he thought the car had hit and killed her because she didn’t appear to be breathing and no one was tending to her.

In addition, an ambulance had pulled up but no emergency lights or sirens were on.

And after two ambulance paramedics placed Morris on a gurney, they put her black jacket over her face as they put her in the back of the vehicle.

“I thought she was deceased,” he said, adding that he had not learned until he read a newspaper article that Morris had not died until two days later.

Police admitted they have a longer version of the tape they released in 2003.  As said above, the Philadelphia Police decided this week not to release the longer version of the tape.

And elsewhere, the transgender community is left wondering about the portrayals of transgender people on TV, such as the recent CSI New York episode where they showed the fictional CSI investigators calling the victim “John Doe” and using male pronouns, the new Ugly Betty transgender apparent “Dressed To Kill” character, and the whole Zarf/Zoe plotline on All My Children.

And me? I haven’t as yet been called back with final resolution information regarding my San Diego VA’s urgent care waiting area experience of hearing a patient say about me:

I can’t tell if that thing is a man or a woman.

As a transperson, I am feeling a beaten down today as I did yesterday before I went to bed — yet at least my feelings aren’t literal like the 19-year-old homeless transperson here in San Diego, or life-ending experiences of Nizah Morris’s.

From the Smoking Gun:

When throwing a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day party, it’s probably not a good idea for attendees to wear gang apparel, Afro wigs, and dress as Aunt Jemima. Oh, and the menu should not entirely consist of fried chicken and malt liquor served in brown paper bags. Somehow, students at one Texas university did not grasp this simple concept.

Any wonder why the Smoking Gun article title was Outrage Over Texas College MLK Day Party?

Seriously, what the heck were these kids thinking?

–
Related article: Another Celebration Of Black Culture.

From the Los Angeles Times’ ‘Fruit’ in that juice? It could be red dye; Many foods marketed toward children are misleading in their packaging, report says:

About half of the most aggressively marketed children’s food with pictures or names of fruit on the packaging contains no fruit at all, according to a report to be released today at the 2007 California Childhood Obesity Conference in Anaheim.

Some of the least fruity products were cereal and yogurt, said lead author Leslie Mikkelsen, a dietitian for Prevention Institute, an Oakland-based nonprofit that promotes community-based health and safety programs.

She pointed to a box of Berry Berry Kix that showed a big spoonful of cereal with what at least looked like raspberries and blueberries.

“Parents do think cereals are a good way to start the day,” Mikkelsen said, and they look at this one and think “it has the goodness of fruit.”

But in fact, said Mikkelsen, pointing to the ingredients listed on the box, “all that’s in there is red dye and blue dye.”

Similarly, Yoplait Go-Gurt Strawberry Splash yogurt contained no strawberries. General Mills, the maker of both the cereal and the yogurt, declined to comment, saying the company had not seen the report.

Of the 37 products examined, 19 contained no fruit ingredients and six had only minimal amounts of fruit juice. Two contained 100% fruit juice, and 10 contained actual whole fruits, which have less sugar and more fiber and nutrients than juice alone…

Yummy! So just under half of the tested kid’s breakfast stuff is deliciously sugary, semi-nutritiously loaded with dyes and chemicals, and almost healthy for the kids too! Wow!

From the Bay Area Reporter’s Daley leaving TLC:

The groundbreaking Transgender Law Center is nearing a landmark stage in its growth as it begins a search for its first-ever executive director. Current director Chris Daley has announced he will step down later this year from the organization he helped launch.

“We are at that point where it’s time to leave the start-up phase and it’s just really logical to bring in someone new with a lot of energy that can catapult the organization to the next level,” said Daley, 36, a non-transgender gay man, who co-founded the organization with Dillon Vade, a gay transgender man, soon after graduating from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley in 2001.

Daley plans to remain in his current position until July when the Transgender Employment Initiative, a collaboration between the city, community organizations, and TLC is launched…

I consider Chris Daley a personal friend. I’m really sad to see him move on, specifically because of the wonderful work he’s done for the transgender community. However, I certainly wish him the best in his future endeavors.

The Ex-Gay Watch and the Box Turtle Bulletin have some pretty good analysis pieces up on Christianity Today’s article Evangelicals Behaving Badly with Statistics.

The article in Christianity Today begins with the paragraph…

American evangelicals, who profess to be committed to Truth, are among the worst abusers of simple descriptive statistics, which claim to represent the truth about reality, of any group I have ever seen. At stake in this misuse are evangelicals’ own integrity, credibility with outsiders, and effectiveness in the world. It is an issue worth making a fuss over. And so I write.

I highly recommend reading the Christianity Today article, and the two analysis pieces from the Ex-Gay Watch and Box Turtle Bulletin. It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that statistics are mangled by Evangelicals regarding LGBT people and issues — Paul Cameron is one example that comes to mind immediately.

*****Update*****
Pam’s House Blend also has some good commentary up on this.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported on a small scale study on the experiences of transgender people in an article entitled Transgendered community faces abuse, discrimination: survey. Here’s an excerpt:

A Winnipeg researcher who conducted a first-of-its-kind report on about 70 transgendered Manitobans paints a portrait of a community racked by higher rates of self-reported depression and sexually transmitted diseases.

However, Nine Circles Community Health Centre project coordinator Jennifer Davis is careful to point out it’s not all grim news for people who live outside traditional gender norms.

“I was surprised by the volume of discrimination and amount of discrimination, and some of the ways people are discriminated against,” said Davis.

“(Respondents) were talking about the abuse, and being kicked out of homes, and not fitting in at school and dropping out, and getting into drugs, and not having work, being beaten up, and knowing people that have been killed, it goes on and on and on. But these people are still moving forward, they’re still wanting to be committed citizens.“

The year-long research project released Monday recommends the province establish a health centre specifically designed to meet the needs of men or women who begin life as one sex, then later reject social expectations of their gender through methods like cross-dressing or sexual reassignment surgery.

Transgendered people still face major hurdles in everyday life, said Davis, particularly a lack of specialized health care.

Most respondents to the survey live in poverty or near poverty, and expressed a lack of access to mental and physical health services specific to their needs.

Davis estimated only about 15 per cent to 20 per cent of people who identify as transgendered seek sexual reassignment surgery, which is not currently available in Manitoba.

She said respondents to the survey indicated that they face serious health risks, with 21 per cent with sexually transmited infections and 8 per cent with known HIV/AIDS. About 28 per cent of respondents said they’d attempted suicide at least once, said Davis, a rate much higher than that of the general population.

The article continues with multiple paragraphs on how harrowing it is for many transpeople to use public restrooms.

It’s a small scale study for sure, but the experiences of transpeople that the study highlights ring true to me — I’ve heard a lot of these stories from my transgender peers.

Dr. Dea reports her four or five child-patients, all under the age of 15 living as the opposite sex, as being ‘much happier’ and having better grades. She also stated she was ‘waiting for the study that says supporting these children is negative.’ I’m waiting on the research that says supporting such behavior is positive on a long-term basis. The problem I see with this approach is that there are professionals engaging in this type of psychotherapy without valid, empirical research to support it. Would you take a pill that has not been through the rigorous testing of not only the developer, but also the FDA? Even then, such treatment can be questionable.
–National Association For Research & Therapy Of Homosexuals (NARTH) professional David C. Maynard, MA, LPCA

The quote above is from the NARTH article Pediatricians Urge Normalizing ‘Gender Variant’ Children. It’s an particularly interesting comment on empirical research and rigorous testing coming from someone affiliated with NARTH – considering the lack of empirical research and rigorous testing to determine the need for and the effectiveness of the reparative psychotherapy NARTH advances.

The former president of NARTH apparently didn’t feel the need to engage in empirical research or rigorous testing of reparative therapy. The HRC, in its document It’s not about hope, it’s about anti-gay politics, states the following regarding Joseph Nicolosi and NARTH:

The questionable “success rate” of reparative therapy was underscored in a Newsweek article when the head of NARTH, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, was asked why he has done no research or follow-up study on his patients. “I don’t have time,” he glibly responded. The fact is, NARTH doesn’t keep statistics because they know they would have been put out of business decades ago. ( Newsweek, August 17, 1998 )

The American Psychological Association has stated it’s opinion about reparative therapy. In Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation & Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators and School Personnel, the organization states:

The term “reparative therapy” refers to psychotherapy aimed at eliminating homosexual desires and is used by people who do not think homosexuality is one variation within human sexual orientation, but rather still believe homosexuality is a mental disorder. The most important fact about “reparative therapy,” also sometimes known as “conversion” therapy, is that it is based on an understanding of homosexuality that has been rejected by all the major health and mental health professions. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the National Association of Social Workers, together representing more than 477,000 health and mental health professionals, have all taken the position that homosexuality is not a mental disorder and thus there is no need for a “cure.”

Given David C. Maynard’s statement on the importance of empirical research, should we now expect NARTH to counter the opinions or 477,000 health and mental health professionals with the empirical research and rigorous testing of the need for and effectiveness of reparative therapy?

I won’t be holding my breath. NARTH to this point hasn’t done such research, and there’s no reason to expect such research will be forthcoming any time soon.

What we’re then left with is well articulated hypocrisy from NARTH professional David C. Maynard — Yes Mr. Maynard, empirical research and rigorous testing is important. Perhaps as a NARTH professional you might wish to stress to the new NARTH leadership how important it is to validate the effectiveness of the reparative psychotherapy that your own organization advances.

(Previous letters here and here.)

This time, I’ve sent off a letter to the Fresno Bee for their article Working a double shift. The offensive phrase from the article reads as follows:

“…a transvestite going through a sex change who had a compulsion to set fires…”

My letter to the writer and his editor was as follows:

Dear Tim Eberly,

I realize you were paraphrasing Fire investigator Rick Moore when he referred to James Haag as “a transvestite going through a sex change who had a compulsion to set fires;” however, the reference to a transsexual as a transvestite wasn’t per the guidelines found in the Associated Press Stylebook (2006, p. 249) under the entry for transgender.

Although this doesn’t seem to be the most convenient case for drawing the distinction between those who cross-dress part-time and those who are in the process of acquiring the physical characteristics of the opposite sex, it’s consistent use of guidelines — such as the AP Styleguide — that means when you cover stories about non-criminal transgender people like me, you as a writer gets the terms and pronouns correct from habit.

Mr. Eberly, when you paraphrased Fire investigator Rick Moore in his use of the term transvestite vice quoting him in his use of the term, I believe you took on some responsibility for use of the wrong term to describe a transgender woman.

Please consider how you use the term “transvestite” to refer to transsexuals / transgender people in the future.

Best regards,

Autumn Sandeen
(my address and phone number redacted here to maintain my privacy)

And, per usual, I courtesy copied my contact at GLAAD so she got a copy of the letter as well, so she can contact the editor of the publication  — this time the Fresno Bee — if it’s needed.

I sure do seem to write a lot of letters to metro editors these days…Wish I didn’t feel there was a need to do so.