Tag: transgender

Anais Celini, 18, attends Martin Luther High School in Maspeth, NY.  She is a senior and was planning to go to the prom with her boyfriend, Nathaniel Baez.  Not so fast says the private Christian high school.  Nathaniel is transgender.  The school says that this is “unconventional,”  so Nathaniel attending would not be “beneficial” to the proceedings.

Celini says the school views them as a same-sex couple.

Rather than engage the school in a knock-down/drag-out, the couple has decided to create their own prom.

I’m not going to fight them, that wasn’t the point. It’s a big night for everybody and I don’t want to cause a scene.

–Celini

Naya Taylor found out that her primary care physician, Aja Lystila, considered her to be less than human.  When Taylor requested the start of hormone therapy in order to treat her gender dysphoria, Lystilla first claimed that she was not experienced enough to supervise the hormone therapy of  transgender person.  But the clinic in which Lystilla works provides hormone therapy to non-transgender patients every day.

Later the truth of the matter came out, when clinic staff told Taylor,

We don’t have to treat people like you.

When they said, ‘we don’t have to treat people like you,’ I felt like the smallest, most insignificant person in the world.  The doctor and office provide hormone replacement therapy for others at the same clinic, they just refused to do that for me.

-Naya Taylor

The Affordable Care Act is partially a civil rights law in that it prohibits health care providers that receive federal funds from discriminating against any individual on the basis of sex for the purpose of health care.

Taylor is being represented by Lambda Legal in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday charging Dr. Lystila and the Carle health care services group which operates the clinic with denying medical care.  Lambda Legal claims that discrimination based on sex extends to discrimination based on gender identity or failure to conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity, as per Title IX.

Lumberton, TX Independent School District substitute teacher Laura Jane Klug has been suspended for being transgender.  The school district says they are “looking into the matter”…and that Klug has not been terminated…yet.  Klug is supposed to hear about the resolution of the school board today, after the school board met on Thursday.

Klug substituted for a teacher in a fifth grade class last Thursday, which was the first day she discovered that someone might have “issues”.

Parents of some of the students at the school say, of course, that they don’t have any problems themselves with the teacher being transgender, but that the teacher may be confusing the 11-year-olds who are in her charge.

Within an hour of them being exposed or dealing with this, there’s a few issues here, I think these kids are too young for this issue, so that’s our main focus is, if it happens in older grades, high school, ok but too young for this.

–Roger Bread

Other parents say there has not been an issue before with Klug and they don’t see why it is an issue now…and that they have no problem explaining to their child what a transgendender person is.

My son knows who he is and I don’t think any outside influence is going to change that, I’m more concerned about straight predatory teachers rather than I am someone who lives an alternative private alternate lifestyle, I don’t worry about my son.

–Jammie Marcantel, parent with a pronoun problem

Texas, of course, has no employment protections for transgender people.

Sunnie Kahle, 8, prefers to have short hair and dress comfortably (t-shirts, jeans and sneakers).  Officials at the school she has attended, Timberlake Christian School near Lynchburg, VA, decided that wasn’t appropriate for one of their students.  So they wrote to Sunnie’s grandparents, who are also her guardians, to inform them that Sunnie would have to dress more femininely if she wanted to attend that school.

Despite what you may see in any headlines, Sunnie is not transgender.  She is perfectly satisfied with being a girl.

The school officials, however, expressed their concern about her appearance and cited their policy against condoning sexual immorality, practicing a homosexual lifestyle, or having an alternative gender identity.

The Palm Center released the Report of the Transgender Military Commission yesterday, funded by transgender billionaire Jennifer Pritzker, who is also a military veteran, to the tune of $1.35 million, about the suitability of transgender people for service in the military.

Although Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed in 2010, transgender people have remained banned from the military on the basis of the Department of Defense medical regulation DODI 6130.03 which considers any type of gender-confirming clinical, medical or surgical treatments as “disqualifying physical and mental conditions.”

The new report asserts:

Removal of the military’s blanket ban on transgender service members would improve health outcomes, enable commanders to better care for their troops, and reflect the federal government’s commitment to reducing disparities in health care access for transgender people.

The commission was co-chaired by former US Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and Rear Admiral Alan M. Steinman, MD (Ret.) and included former military officers and top scholars on gender and health.

Portsmouth, New Hampshire is perhaps going to be the ignition point for transgender rights in New Hampshire.  The state is the only New England state which has not passed protections for transgender people.  

New Hampshire is one of four states which has protections for people on the basis of sexual orientation, but not on the basis of gender identity or expression.  The others are New York, Wisconsin and Maryland.  I reported on efforts to change that status in Maryland in January.

I want to make sure the ‘City of the Open Door’ has a welcome mat for all residents and visitors.  There’s nothing more important than the way we treat one another.

Portsmouth Assistant Mayor Jim Splaine

Splaine and transgender advocates spoke Wednesday to the editorial board of the Seacoast Media Group.

Republican Utah lawmakers Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, and Rep. Jacob Anderegg, R-Lehi, decided to act like twelve-year-old boys on twitter last Monday.  And I mean no offense to 12-year-old boys.

At least one intern was blamed for the “embarrassing situation.”  

Anderegg posted that a private men’s room near his office was occupied and went on to add that he was “strongly considering a gender identifying change to use the open women’s.”

Niederhauser’s account was quick to respond, chiding Anderegg for a computer glitch that last week mistakenly listed him as a co-sponsor of a bill that would ban discrimination against GLBT Uthans:

Switching your gender identity?  Just can’t keep up with you!  You’re a new man.  Er … woman.

Within an hour of the exchange, Brandie Balken’s telephone began to ring.  Balken is the executive director of Equality Utah, which advocates on behalf of the GLBT community in Utah.  Many of the phone calls were from staff members of lawmakers.  

They said, ‘We’ve got a problem here.”

–Balken

Robina Asti is 92 years old and has been recognized by the government as a woman for over 30 years.  She transitioned in 1976.  She is a commercial pilot and the FAA has recognized her as a woman ever since they awarded her a license.  She has made a living teaching people how to fly airplanes.  The government issued her a passport designating her to be a woman.  Her Social Security account labels her a woman.

Robina is a WWII veteran, having served as a Navy pilot.  She is currently locked in a battle with the Social Security Administration…which she is losing.

In 2004 Robina married Norwood Patton in Hanger A of Orange County Airport in New York.  Norwood new she was a transsexual woman, but he didn’t care.  Oh, he was upset at first, but he got over it in a week.  He asked her to get married every month for a lot of years.

Norwood died in 2012 at the age of 97.  So Robina asked the Social Security Administration for survivors benefits.  After almost a year of review, she was denied.  

The reason?

[H]er marriage does not meet the requirements under Federal law for payment of Social Security widow’s benefits.  

At the time of your marriage, you were not legally a woman.