Tag: transgender

Recently the World Professional Association for Transgender Health released new guidelines for transition related medical care and therapeutic assistance for transgender and gender nonconforming people at a health symposium at Emory University in Atlanta.  This is version 7.  Version one was written in 1979 by Dr. Harry Benjamin.  One of the main changes is its title.  Called the Standards Of Care For Gender Identity Disorders in the last version (February, 2001) and all previous versions (1979, 1980, 1981, 1990, and 1998), it is now called the Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People.

The sharp-eyed will notice that they dropped the words “Gender Identity Disorder”.  I can’t claim to have read every word yet, but I have been informed that the word “disorder” has been expunged.  The condition is now referred to as gender dysphoria…which I recall many of us using back in the early 90s (see The Uninvited Dilemma:  a question of gender by Kim Elizabeth Stuart.

My own feelings are not out of line with those of Sebastian and Annika at Autostraddle.

I don’t normally cover stories about transpeople committing crimes.  I hope that is understandable.  I write so that maybe someday we’ll get equal rights.  I personally don’t think transpeople committing crimes advances that cause.  I don’t write about those incidences unless something else is involved in the story, like maltreatment by the police or while incarcerated.

This past week I took another look at one of those stories.  I think it warrants some commentary.

Crishaun (Cece) McDonald is a 23-year-old transwoman from Minneapolis.  She has been charged with second-degree murder in the June 5 stabbing death of Dean Schmitz, 47, of Richfield, outside of the Schooner Tavern in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis.

McDonald remains in jail in lieu of $150,000 bail. Because of his gender transition status, McDonald is being held in isolation for his own safety, said Tony Dulski, who looks after McDonald’s finances as a trustee and has visited him in jail.

Dulski said that McDonald is a man who is “in the process of becoming female,” receiving hormone treatment while living as a woman.

As a trustee and counselor, Dulski said, he helps McDonald handle his finances. McDonald, who attended Minneapolis Community and Technical College this past spring semester, receives Social Security disability payments because of emotional and mental difficulties tied to gender identity, Dulski added.

Don’t think we didn’t notice the use of the male pronouns.

You’ve probably heard by now that Keith Ablow wrote an op-ed (link, if you really need to read it) that has warned folks not to watch Dancing with the Stars this season as long as Chaz Bono is still competing…ostensibly because the simple act of seeing a transman dance is going to turn the nation’s children transgender.  Ablow, who uses air quotes around the word transsexual has managed in that op-ed and in subsequent public appearances on television and radio to slandered all transsexual people everywhere, has likened seeking gender reassignment to wanting to have ones arms cut off or being changed into a farm animal.

Jerk.

If you are inhabiting a male body and you believe yourself to be female you are essentially delusional.

…

I’m not going to have my kids watch a show in which people pretend to be farm animals.

–Keith Ablow

Is someone going to pull this guy’s license to practice…or what?

In order to treat a transperson, he would “team up with a spiritual counselor, if that seemed indicated.”  I can only beg that he never accept any gender dysphoric patient.  Ever.

So this 21-year-old transwoman with a learning disability was walking down the street in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle on August 16.  A woman with a baseball bat and a man started following her.

The woman with the bat accosted the soon-to-be victim and said, according to the police report, “I don’t want to see you around the skate bowl anymore.”  The skate bowl referred to is at the Ballard Commons Park.

Then the woman bashed the transwoman on the side of her head with the bat.

Washington, DC mayor Vince Gray met with LGBT activists on August 4 to discuss transgender employment issues in the District.

In the wake of too many recent transgender deaths and other violence, it sounds to these ears to be a good step forward.  Or at least reasonable.

Teonna Monae Brown, 19, pleaded guilty today in a Baltimore court to one count of first degree assault and one count of a hate crime in the April 18 attack on Chrissy Lee Polis, 22.

Aleesha Farhana.  That’s the name she wanted.  And she wanted to have her legal gender changed after undergoing a sex change operation in Thailand.  

Malaysia’s National Registration Department refused to update the name and gender on her identity card.  The court ruled that she must remain Ashraf Hafiz Abdul Aziz.

Today we learn that Aleesha Farhana, nee Ashraf Hafiz Abdul Aziz, died today at the age of 25.  She entered Hospital Sultanah Nur Zahirah in Kuala Terengganu after experiencing chest pains and low blood pressure.  She was diagnosed with angina and cardiogenic shock.

This past Saturday people a community of people gathered because one of their own had been taken from them too soon.

Lashai Mclean, 23, was shot and killed in Northeast DC during the early morning of July 20.  It was in the same neighborhood as the Wanda Alston House and  Transgender Health Empowerment.  Lashai was a client at THE but not a resident of the Wanda Alston House.

Deputy D.C. Police Chief Diane Groomes, who spoke at the vigil, said later that homicide detectives are pursuing information provided by a witness that the fatal shooting took place shortly after two unidentified males “had some words” with Mclean in an alley shortly before she was shot.

“The motive is still not clear to us,” Groomes told the Blade after the vigil. Groomes said police haven’t found evidence of either a robbery or a hate crime in the early stages of the investigation.

—Washington Blade