Man enough to be a woman and still rock’n'rolling [theindependent.co.uk]

by Matilda Battersby / theindependent.co.uk

It has been all over the newspapers that Against Me! singer Tom Gabel has decided to live as a woman. The Mail Online’s headline shrieked: “Punk rocker says he is having a sex change operation to become a woman… but he’s STAYING with his wife.” Another read: “Drugs, Sex(uality) and Rock’n'Roll”.

It was quite a surprise that the frontman of a rather macho band (all black jeans, tattoos and growling guitars) should have felt this way. During an interview with Rolling Stone magazine she described plans to take hormones and undergo gender reassignment surgery, after which he will be named Laura Jane Grace. “I’m going to have embarrassing moments,” she said. “But [I'm] hoping people will understand, and hoping they’ll be fairly kind.”

The news reports have not all been “fairly kind” and a couple were not very understanding at all, revealing thinly disguised ignorance about transgenderism. Several made inferences about Gabel’s sexuality and the implications for his marriage, confusing Gabel’s gender dysphoria (where you feel trapped in a body of the wrong sex) with questions about whether being a woman and having a wife makes her gay. Most strikingly, several of the reports lauded Gabel as “the first major rock star” to come out as transgender. While it is undoubtedly the case that in 2012 transgenderism is still a taboo, the statement that it has taken this long for a major musician to “come out” as trans simply isn’t true.

Fans of Jayne County will already know this. Born Wayne Rogers in 1947, County began performing as Jayne in 1979. With a signature track titled “Man Enough to Be a Woman”, County is acknowledged as one of the earliest, probably the first, transgender rock star. Despite never quite achieving the commercial success of some of her peers, the American was a big part of the English punk scene, forming Wayne County & the Electric Chairs in 1977. David Bowie, Patti Smith and Lou Read have credited her with influencing them.

There are more recent examples of high-profile musicians who have changed gender: Mina Caputo, formerly Keith Caputo, singer of heavy metal band Life Of Agony, confirmed last year that she was transitioning. German pop singer Kim Petras is probably the world’s youngest transgender musician (and one of the youngest post-operative trans people, full stop), after having sex reassignment surgery in 2009 aged 16. Jethro Tull keyboardist Dee Palmer (formerly David) transitioned at the aged of 67, long after he’d left the band.

The word “transgender” doesn’t refer to people who have had sex changes. It is an umbrella term used to describe those who identify with a gender which isn’t the one they were born with, or with no particular gender at all, regardless of whether they have sex reassignment surgery or take hormones.

Another famous muso, Antony Hegarty of the Mercury Prize-winning band Antony and the Johnsons, was born male, but is transitioned. “Do I feel female? You know, I feel like a mixture. I feel pretty mixed. I probably would identify as transgender,” he told NME. Similarly, Genesis P-Orridge of 1970s band Throbbing Gristle, sees himself as “pandrogynous”.

It’s not only rock and punk that have a healthy number of trans representatives. Jazz bassist John Leitham became Jennifer Leitham in 2001. Dana International, who won the 1998 Eurovision song contest for Israel, released her debut album soon after having sex reassignment surgery in 1993.

Regardless of whether Gabel is the first rock star to admit to being transgender, he is still brave to go public. The paradox of the music industry is that, despite nurturing talent and putting musicians with unusual or distinct sounds in the spotlight, there is still a perception that artists need to be squeaky clean and conventional if they’re to sell. Record labels have been known to advise against lifestyle choices that are celebrated and accepted in wider society, such as being gay, for fear that fans will no longer fancy their pop stars or believe that one day they can marry them – and that this will dent sales. Their attitude may be repugnant, but you can understand it from a business point of view.

Of all the companies I called, only one would speak to me on the record. That was Brighton-based Fat Cat Records, whose founder, Dave Cawley, spoke very supportively of trans artists but agreed he wouldn’t be surprised if pressure was applied at the corporate end of the industry not to come out.

Several people I spoke to off the record made it clear that the mainstream music scene is not a happy place to be transgender. One industry executive, who did not want to be named, said: “Trans musicians are treated in much the same way as gay artists. The straight men who run the music business aren’t ever particularly comfortable knowing how to work them and there is pressure not to come out.”

I contacted seven transgender musicians for comment, receiving polite refusals from Gabel, Dee Palmer and Justin Vivian Bond, and silence from three others.

Our Lady J, a gospel singer who has a growing following and counts Daniel Radcliffe among her fans, launched her musical career after transitioning from male to female. She told me: “There is a responsibility to educate that comes with being trans if you have any hope of surviving. I think this often keeps people from transitioning. There are huge risks, both professionally and personally.”

Joan King, chair of The Gender Trust, has worked as an artist manager in the music industry for two decades. “There is pressure not to come out as transgender in the music industry,” she said. “But I don’t think this is any different from boy bands being told not disclose that they have girlfriends and wives.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/man-enough-to-be-a-woman-and-still-rocknrolling-7766426.html

Adversity and Strength: Young Cancer Patients Sing “Stronger”

The hemoncology floor of Seattle Children’s Hospital performs Kelly Clarkson’s song “Stronger”

A Transgender Candidate Is Hoping to Make History [nytimes.com]

by Kate Taylor / nytimes.com

Zoning. School overcrowding. The design of New York’s transportation system.

These are just a few of the subjects that Mel Wymore, a candidate for City Council on the Upper West Side, brought up in an interview before addressing the elephant in the room: that, if elected, he would be the first transgender member of the Council.

“I’m not running because I’m transgender,” said Mr. Wymore, 50, who was born female but now, after testosterone therapy and top surgery, identifies as transgender. But, he said, that “doesn’t mean that being transgender doesn’t bring a certain perspective.”

Although gay men and lesbians have broken many electoral barriers — serving as mayors, state legislators and members of Congress — the same is not true of the transgender community. Only a few, including a Democratic district leader in Westchester County and a former member of the Hawaii Board of Education, have been elected to office around the country.

“I think there is a feeling that there is too much difference there,” Mr. Wymore said. But he said he believed: “This is the seat. This is the community that’s ready to go forward.”

The race, for the Sixth District seat occupied by Gale A. Brewer, who is term-limited, is competitive and has drawn a number of candidates, including Marc Landis, a district leader; Helen Rosenthal, a former chairwoman of Community Board 7; and Ken Biberaj, a vice president of the Russian Tea Room.

Melissa Sklarz, a transgender woman, said that the race was full of worthy candidates, and that as president of the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, she could not make an endorsement. But she described Mr. Wymore’s candidacy as “an opportunity for transgender people everywhere.”

“He’s a great representative,” Ms. Sklarz said. “Many people only know of transgender, I guess, from watching Chaz Bono on ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ Mel Wymore brings a much different, broader experience.”

Click to read the rest of the story…

San Francisco Police Department Issues “It Gets Better” Videos

Mayor Lee & Chief Suhr Unveil First of its Kind LGBT Youth Video. 

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) along with Mayor Ed Lee is proud to announce the debut of the “SFPD It Gets Better” video project as part of the nationwide campaign to end bullying of LGBT youth. The video provides a message of transformation, hope and encouragement to LGBT yo…uth that it does get better. The SFPD is the first and only Police Department in the country to produce a video for the campaign.

“It Gets Better” is a nationwide project, that offers support and encouragement to youth who are struggling with their sexual identity or bullied for being “different.” These messages of hope let young people know that they are not alone and that help is available.

The making of this video was a concerted effort by numerous members of the SFPD with the assistance of San Francisco film maker Shawn Northcutt who produced and edited the video along with San Francisco local musician Lynden Bair who developed the musical score.

“Today our Police Department joins the nationwide campaign to end bullying of LGBT youth by producing a heartfelt video that provides a message of hope and encouragement that it will get better,” said Mayor Ed Lee. “San Francisco is a city that prides itself on embracing equality for all and this video is another great example of our commitment to reinforcing our City’s values.”

Chief Greg Suhr wants youth to know that it really does get better. “This is a first of its kind video for the SFPD and for any law enforcement agency in the United States. I hope this message of encouragement will give hope to anyone who might be bullied because of who they are. The members of the SFPD will continue to work with all young people and reach out to the communities, as mentors and role models.”

“Suicide is not the answer.”
If you’re considering suicide or need help, call the Trevor Project now.
1-886-4-U-TREVOR
(866-488-7386)

www.thetrevorproject.org

Just How Bad Is Child Abuse in America? Very. [jezebel.com]

by Cassie Murdoch / jezebel.com

 Child abuse is a dark and depressing reality in American life, but until now, it’s never been clear just how widespread a problem it was. A new study, led by Dr. John Leventhal of Yale University, offers the first comprehensive estimate of serious injuries caused by child abuse in the U.S., and the results are pretty horrifying.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that nearly 4,600 children in the U.S. were hospitalized for injuries caused by physical abuse in 2006, the most recent year for which data was available. Overall, six out of every 100,000 kids under 18 were hospitalized with injuries that ranged from broken bones and burns to traumatic brain injury. The average hospital stay for these children was one week, and 300 of them ended up dying. That puts the death rate for abuse at 6 percent, which is a far higher death rate than exists for other kinds of injury or medical problem that required hospitalization.

Very young children tended to be the most common victims of abuse. For babies under one, there were 58 cases of hospitalization per 100,000 infants. Sadly, children under one who were covered by Medicaid fared worst of all, with one out of every 753 of those babies ending up in the hospital because of abuse. According to Dr. Leventhal, “Medicaid is just a marker of poverty, and poverty leads to stress.”

Stress appears to be a key factor in abuse. There was another smaller study that showed an obvious increase in abusive brain injuries after the financial crisis in 2007, which researchers attributed to added stress on parents. Leventhal said stress disproportionately affects younger kids because they are by nature, more difficult to care for:

They are challenging for some parents to take care of because they cry, it’s hard to understand what they want and parents can get frustrated, exhausted and angry.

Of course, they also can’t defend themselves or runaway as easily as older children can. A heartbreaking reality, and one Dr. Leventhal thinks we need to address urgently. According to his team, at the rate this study found abuse to be occurring, it’s a bigger threat to babies than Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. And, of course, this study only deals with kids who are hospitalized. There are many more children who endure abuse but aren’t injured severely enough to require medical attention.

So Dr. Leventhal proposes we act to stop abuse in the same way we’ve worked to stop SIDS: “We need a national campaign related to child abuse where every parent is reminded that kids can get injured.” Another probably even more effective option would be to send public health workers to do home visits with new parents to offer support and advice, a practice that is already common in a lot of European countries.

While that level of intervention sounds costly, the expense to society of caring for the abused is far more substantial. Beyond the obvious personal cost to the children and individual families, the study found that abuse-related hospitalizations ran us about $73.8 million in 2006. And in terms of the overall expense of abuse, the CDC reported that one year’s worth of child maltreatment cases costs $124 billion over a lifetime.

But no matter what the cost is, preventing abuse is worth it. Leventhal says, “This is a serious problem that affects young children. We need to figure out a way to help parents do better.” We spend so much money educating people on everything from cancer prevention to the dangers of cholesterol, but now that we’ve got a more accurate picture of the damage abuse is doing across the entire country, there’s no excuse for not going after the problem immediately on a national level—especially because the children who are falling victim to this abuse can’t advocate for themselves.

Child abuse experts calls for U.S. campaign [Reuters]
Study: Child Abuse Affects More U.S. Kids than SIDS [Time]

http://jezebel.com/5882911/just-how-bad-is-child-abuse-in-america-very

Cynthia Nixon says she’s gay by ‘choice.’ Is it really a choice? [latimes.com]

By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times/For the Booster Shots blog

Former “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon says she is gay by “choice” – a statement that has riled many gay rights activitists who insist that people don’t choose their sexual orientation.

Here’s what Nixon, who recently shaved her head to play acancer patient in a Broadway production of “Wit,” told the New York Times Magazine:

“I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.”

The question of whether sexual orientation is subject to nature or nurture – or some combination of both – has been hotly debated for years. If it is not an immutable characteristic, that would imply that a gay person could be somehow transformed into a straight one. In other words, homosexuality could be “cured.” Which in turn implies that being gay is some sort of illness.

Hence, the offense taken to this point of view.

Nixon seemed to anticipate the controversy her remarks might generate. She also told the New York Times:

“A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.” Her face was red and her arms were waving. “As you can tell,” she said, “I am very annoyed about this issue. Why can’t it be a choice? Why is that any less legitimate? It seems we’re just ceding this point to bigots who are demanding it, and I don’t think that they should define the terms of the debate. I also feel like people think I was walking around in a cloud and didn’t realize I was gay, which I find really offensive. I find it offensive to me, but I also find it offensive to all the men I’ve been out with.”

As expected, this did not go over smoothly with everyone. Writing on AmericaBlog Gay, John Aravosis wrote that Nixon “needs to learn how to choose her words better, because she just fell into a right-wing trap, willingly. When the religious right says it’s a choice, they mean you quite literally choose your sexual orientation, you can change it at will, and that’s bull.”

So, what’s the scientific evidence that sexual orientation is either a biologically determined trait or an actual choice?

A Spanish study published in 2009 in the journal Investigacion Clinica summarizes the evidence forgenetic influences. Based on research comparing identical twins, fraternal twins and even siblings who were adopted, scientists have determined that 27% to 76% of the chance that one is gay is determined by DNA. The genetic influence appears to be greater for men than for women, according to the study.

Other stuff is probably happening in utero that influences one’s sexual orientation. As a review articlepublished last year in the journal Endocrinology explains, exposure to atypical levels of testosteroneand other steroids in the womb is probably responsible for some people being gay. Another review article, published last year in Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, makes the same point:

“The evidence supports a role for prenatal testosterone exposure in the development of sex-typed interests in childhood, as well as in sexual orientation in later life, at least for some individuals. It appears, however, that other factors, in addition to hormones, play an important role in determining sexual orientation. These factors have not been well-characterized, but possibilities include direct genetic effects, and effects of maternal factors during pregnancy.”

One of those prenatal influences may be the number of males who have previously inhabited the mother’s uterus. It may sound strange, but Canadian researchers have found that “having one or more older brothers boosts the likelihood of a boy growing up to be gay,” as I explained in a 2006 Los Angeles Times story. As I wrote at the time, “The so-called fraternal birth order effect is small: Each older brother increases the chances by 33%. Assuming the base rate of homosexuality among men is 2%, it would take 11 older brothers to give the next son about a 50-50 chance of being gay.” Those findings were reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In addition, my colleague Shari Roan wrote about a fascinating controversy surrounding treatment for a rare condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The disorder can cause girls to be born with genitals that look male, making it hard to tell the baby’s gender. One treatment is to give women hormones during subsequent pregnancies to reduce the risk for siblings. But doctors have found that this approach has an unusual side effect:

“The treatment might reduce the likelihood that a female with the condition will be homosexual,” Roan wrote. “Further, it seems to increase the chances that she will have what are considered more feminine behavioral traits.”

This is all just the tip of the iceberg. But the scientific consensus seems to be that there is indeed a biological basis for homosexuality – though it’s not necessarily 100% determined by either genes or by environmental factors.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-cynthia-nixon-gay-by-choice-20120125,0,2504094.story

 

Transsexual in Miss England field [upi.com]

A transsexual says modeling agency officials had no idea she had been born male when they urged her to enter the Miss England pageant.

Jackie Green, 18, Leeds, is the first contestant in the pageant to have undergone a sex change and says she was flattered when talent scouts urged her to enter.

“I went to the Britain’s Next Top Model show in London and was really surprised when scouts came up to me,” Green told The Sun. “Miss England is a prestigious competition. I’d love to win and I have as good a chance as anyone.”

Green’s image was posted online with the other teenage contestants for the Miss Fresh Photographic round of the contest, in which members of the public cast their votes for their favorites.

The contest is a major step forward for Green, who underwent a sex-change operation at age 16 after years of bullying. The Sun said Green, who was born Stuart, adopted a female lifestyle at age 4 and wore long hair and a girl’s uniform to school.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2012/01/15/Transsexual-in-Miss-England-field/UPI-97001326644787/#ixzz1kjqC144t

Girl Scout Troop in Louisiana Disbands to Protest Tardy Ban on Transgender Children [jezebel.com]

by Doug Barry / jezebel.com

In what could go down as the next great instance of parental immaturity since calls for a cookie embargo, mothers in Covington, Louisiana have dismantled their daughters’ Girl Scout troop to protest a Colorado troop’s decision to accept a 7-year-old transgender girl named Taylor into their ranks. Actually, the Girl Scouts East Louisiana officially (because they posted on their website) repudiated the Colorado Girl Scouts by barring transgender children from joining their mafia of door-to-door cookie peddlers, but troop leader Susan Cramond was so unnerved at the Louisiana chapter’s delayed response that she pushed to disband her troop.

Cramond says that when she first contacted the acolytes of the Louisiana Scouts high council, she didn’t get the swift “non” in response to her pearl-clutching query about whether Louisiana too would go the way of barbarous Colorado and teach children valuable life lessons such as respecting the differences in others because that’s what being a human is all about. Another troop mother, Susan Bryant-Snure (Louisiana, after all, being the land of unpronounceable surnames), said that the Louisiana Scouts made “the right decision; they just made it in a way that made us nervous.”

The mothers wanted to be part of an organization that only admits children who have been “persistently and consistently” identified as girls, one that reinforced their professed Christianity and their shared opinion to “let family decide” on the issue of gender, instead of, say, psychology, because families are always super accepting and judgment-free units. Enter the American Heritage Girls, a group whose origin story is deeply rooted in all those anachronistic, quasi religious virtues that made America a more wholesome and bigoted place in the 50′s. As the organization’s website explains,

American Heritage Girls was founded in 1995 in West Chester, Ohio by a group of parents wanting a wholesome program for their daughters. These parents were disillusioned with the increasing secular focus of existing organizations for girls. They wanted a Judeo-Christian focused organization for their daughters and believed that other parents were looking for the same for their daughters. This became the catalyst for the birth of the organization we have come to know as the American Heritage Girls.

Girls lucky enough to have value-centric, nuclear families can earn merit badges in such categories as “Family Living Frontier” and “Heritage Frontier” because the American Heritage Girls exist as the last outpost of good, Christian living on the frontier between Louisiana and Colorado. Here follow some of the badges themselves, reminders that we’ll probably never get our shit together enough to send a mission to Mars:

• All God’s Children
• Bible Basics
• Daughter of the King
• Puppetry
• Stick Shifts & Safety Belts (somebody listens to Cake)
• 7 C’s of History
• Archery

In any other context, “archery” would seem normal, but here it just seems unsettling, especially when you think of the American Heritage Girls not as innocent children but armed members of the next Children’s Crusade.

Transgendered Girl Scout in Colorado causes stir [Times-Picayune]

American Heritage Girls

http://jezebel.com/5878240/girl-scout-troop-in-louisiana-disbands-to-protest-tardy-ban-on-transgender-children

How to Quit Worrying And Actually Assert Yourself [jezebel.com]

Original article title: How To Quit Worrying About Being Bitchy and Actually Assert Yourself

By Anna North / jezebel.com

When you’re a lady — even if you’re smart, together, and tough — standing up for yourself can be pretty difficult. Women are supposed to smooth things over, be nice to everybody, and defuse conflict rather than cause it — so asking for anything at all controversial can seem transgressive or even bitchy. Here’s how to get over that, and start getting what you want.

Challenge your assumptions about what’s “nice”

Or rather, what’s kind, or good. I talked to Sue Hadfield, author of How to Be Assertive, who says,

People aren’t going to like it when you start saying no if you have always been a doormat. But constantly trying to please other people in the end leads to stress and sometimes depression.

It can also lead to relationship problems. You may think you’re being nice by keeping your emotions to yourself, but you’re also depriving the people around you of the opportunity to know how you’re feeling. People who care about you — partners, friends, family members, etc. — don’t want to unintentionally bug you or make you feel bad. Nor do they deserve the simmering resentment you may start to feel if you never speak up. So while being assertive about your own needs may seem like a more confrontational choice in the short term, in the long term it can actually be the loving thing to do. Also, remember that a lot of prohibitions against women’s assertiveness are rooted in sexism. Dr. Lois Frankel, author of Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It: 99 Ways to Win the Respect You Deserve, the Success You’ve Earned, and the Life You Want told me,

What women need to understand is that the fear of being seen as “not nice” or bitchy comes from social messages about how they should behave.  It’s the way men have gotten women to acquiesce for centuries.  Just the thought of being considered less than nice makes a woman feel less than feminine.  Each time you hesitate or avoid asking for what you want you’ve bowed to these messages.  The vast majority of women could be more assertive and still be far from bitchy in reality.  When you’re called that, it’s usually because you didn’t do what someone else wants –- in which case, kudos to you!

Do your homework

Ah, this tip again. But seriously, preparing beforehand can make you more confident about standing up for yourself — and it can make other people more likely to give you what you want. Says Frankel,

Advance preparation is the key.  If you want to ask for a raise, you don’t just go in and ask for it, you prepare your business case in advance and practice delivering it to a friend before you speak with the boss.  Or if you want to have a difficult conversation with your mother-in-law, write down in advance what you want to talk about, why it’s important to you and what you’d like to see happen in the future.  Then stick to the script.  The more you do this, the easier it becomes.

You can also practice your script with a friend beforehand. Says Hadfield,

If you are asking for something (promotion, more help, etc) get as much information as you can to help your case. Decide what exactly you want and then role play it with someone you trust. Learn the words you are going to say and then practice your body language to make sure that you don’t appear aggressive or nervous. If it’s a difficult phone call write down what you want to say and practice saying it calmly.

Getting plenty of information will help you feel secure about whatever you’re asking for, and practicing will help you actually ask for it — especially if you’re not in the habit of doing that thing. If you practice your pitch beforehand, you’re less likely to slip back into doormat behavior.

Don’t be afraid to ask for more time

Hadfield offered me this tip:

If you are ever asked to do something that you are not sure about always say, “I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

This is great advice for a lot of reasons. First of all, it’s a lot easier to say no if you haven’t already said yes. And if you feel like you have to answer on the fly, you’re more likely to say yes — in the short term, this is the easy, “nice” response. But if you take some time to think about it, you might realize that you’d really rather say no. And then you can do your homework (as above) and get back to the requester prepared to be assertive.

Show that you appreciate the other person

Standing up for yourself doesn’t have to mean being a total dick. You’re not responsible for keeping everybody else happy all the time, but you can also maximize your chances of getting what you want by showing your appreciation and being a little bit conciliatory. Frankel offers a couple of strategies:

One great way is to practice the technique of “contrasting” when delivering difficult messages.  It enables a woman to say what she does want and doesn’t want without being too strident or demanding.  It sounds like this, “I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful for all that you’ve done for me because I am.  At the same time, we agreed that you would provide additional services for that price and I didn’t receive them so I’d like to discuss when you will be delivering those.”  Another is to use “inclusive” taglines after you give a strong opinion.  For example, “You can hear I feel strongly about this but I’d also like to hear what you think so that we can get all of the best ideas on the table and move forward.”  At its core, assertiveness is about expressing yourself clearly while showing concern for others.  Do that and you won’t wander into aggressive territory.

Don’t confuse being appreciative with beating around the bush. Frankel also has a couple of warnings: “don’t couch your opinions in the form of questions” and “don’t use preambles before getting to the point.” It’s tempting to lead up to your request or complaint with a bunch of equivocal language, but that can just confuse listeners and prevent you from getting your point across. And if you ask a question when you really want to make a statement, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

Start small

If the idea of standing up for yourself freaks you out a little, Frankel says you can “begin by taking small steps in low-risk situations.” Maybe that means not saying sorry when somebody else bumps into you. Or it could mean asking for clarification rather than pretending you understand. Hadfield says that “I’m not sure what you mean” can be a very assertive statement, adding “assertive people aren’t afraid to say when they don’t understand something — but don’t be self-deprecating.” For me, learning to speak up when I don’t understand something has been really important. It’s easy just to let somebody continue talking, and harder to interrupt and admit you don’t get what they’re saying. But once I got in the habit of saying “I don’t know what that word means” or “tell me who that is,” I learned that admitting you don’t know something actually shows you’re confident — you know you’re smart, and you’re not worried that the other person is going to doubt your intelligence. And asking questions when you need to can build confidence too — you’ll have the information you need, and people will often take you more seriously when you make the effort to seek it.

In my case, this kind of small act of assertiveness has paved the way for bigger ones. For you, what constitutes a small self-assertion might look different. But taking small steps — no matter what they are — can help you get closer to being the kind of person who stands up for what she wants even when what she wants is something big. And as Frankel says, if that kind of person is a bitch, so be it.

http://jezebel.com/5877566/how-to-quit-worrying-about-being-bitchy-and-actually-assert-yourself

Sweden keeps sterilisation rule for trans recognition [pinknews.co.uk]

by Joseph McCormick /pinknews.co.uk

The Swedish Government have announced that they will not modernise a law from the 1970s which makes sterilisation compulsory for transgender people before the state will recognise their gender identity.

Many have argued that the current law breaks Article 3 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which protects “the right to respect for [everyone’s] physical and mental integrity”.

The majority of the Swedish Parliament are reportedly in favour of the change, but the process has been blocked by a small conservative party.

Sirpa Pietikäinen, Finnish centre-right MEP told The European Parliament LGBT Intergroup: “This isn’t about LGBT rights; it’s about human rights and torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”

Raül Romeva i Rueda, Green MEP from Spain added: “The government’s decision is rather surprising: forcibly sterilising transgender people is recognised as inhumane across the political spectrum. It’s barbaric, outdated and highly unnecessary—not to mention against Sweden’s human rights commitments.”

At this time, the World Health Organisation classifies gender dysphoria under “mental and behavioural disorders”, a definition the European Parliament have already called to be changed.

As well as mandatory sterilization, the 1972 law also makes divorce compulsory for trans people, which it has been suggested, does not line up with recent “gender neutral” marriage law changes in the country.

Speaking to news agency TT in 2010, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt described the law as “a dark chapter in Swedish history.”

Other party leaders also supported this suggestion, including Christian Democrat Göran Hägglund.

Jane Fae, feminist writer and campaigner on issues of sexual rights responded today, saying: “It is wholly ironic that Sweden is in the news today over this issue – since the question has surfaced in relation to moves to repeal existing laws in this respect, which would be wholly positive.

“It is to be hoped that the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, currently in thrall to a small reactionary right-wing party, will pluck up the courage to resist their pressure and allow reform through his parliament.

“However, we should not overlook the fact that despite Human Rights declarations to the contrary, in Europe and elsewhere, the requirement for surgery that effectively sterilises an individual before they can be recognised in their identified gender, is pretty widespread, throughout much of Europe and the United States. Or worse, as in states like Tennessee, gender assertion is not recognised at all, no matter what an individual does.”

Some European countries have already put an end to sterilisation as a prerequisite for recognition, including the UK, Austria, Germany and Portugal, whilst others are soon to follow.

The Nederlands LGBT Equality Policy states that they are currently abolishing the sterilisation requirement, but several other Western countries uphold this law.

France has been at the centre of controversy surrounding this issue, specifically in the case of Delphine Ravisé-Giard, who, despite living as a woman for some years, was told in 2010 that she had to prove that her “change of sex” was “irreversible” before the state would recognize her gender.

Several American states also still have the same law.

A key player in the fight to have these laws changed, Thomas Hammarberg has, in the past, criticized the EU for a general lack of knowledge on these issues.

Hammarberg, the commissioner for Human Rights, wrote in 2009 that “Discrimination against transgender persons must no longer be tolerated” and has criticized the slow move towards the end of transphobia.

There have also been calls from the Swedish Left and Green Parties to review the minimum age for gender reassignment surgery, however this news comes as a blow to those in support of the changes.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/01/17/sweden-keeps-sterilisation-rule-for-trans-recognition/