Munroe Bergdorf attacks anti-trans policies in a must read threads

British trans activist and model Munore Bergdorf writes over at twitter:

Yesterday I posted about the UK Conservative government’s plans to roll back healthcare for transgender youth, this is not only an abhorrent attack on equality, but also part of a global trend.

Using COVID-19 as a cover for discriminative legislation

Conservative governments using the COVID-19 pandemic as a cover for pushing discriminative legislation across the finishing line.

They are taking advantage of the fact that many of us feel overwhelmed by the scale of the current world issues, many of us have less access to support services, many of us are facing financial hardship and all of us are physically restricted & unable to protest.

In America, Trump is pushing to allow doctors to refuse transgender patients treatment if they contract COVID-19. In Puerto Rico trans women are being hunted and burned in cars with no arrests.

In Hungary the government is seeking to no longer recognise the existence of trans people. In Indonesia transgender women are being burned alive with no consequences.

In winding back our rights and legal access, these governments are sanctioning the ongoing violence that we see time and time again enacted on members of our community worldwide.

Please be aware that COVID-19 is NOT some kind of great leveller. It is not bringing us all closer. It is being used as a trojan horse to target minority communities that were already facing systemic oppression before this pandemic hit.

THIS is the time to get political. THIS is the time to hold governments to account and demand accountability and action.

The day before she published the following thread:

Despite the fact that we are currently in the midst of a global pandemic, both the British and American Conservative governments continue to work to wind back transgender rights as they currently stand.

Last week saw [British] Conservative Minister for Women & Equalities, Liz Truss announce plans to review parts of the Gender Recognition Act. Liz wants to remove healthcare for trans youth, over ‘concerns’ that under 18’s do not possess the wherewithal to understand their own gender.

Her direct quote is that she is “making sure that the under 18s are protected from decisions that they could make, that are irreversible in the future”.

If this was a push for equality, then we SHOULD be having the conversation of “how can we reduce the 71% spike in transphobia in the UK” or “addressing the rampant transphobia in the British press” or “helping to improve the mental well-being of trans youth”.

Violence against LGBTQA youth is increasing

The number of transgender hate crimes recorded by police forces in England, Scotland and Wales has risen by 81%, latest figures suggest. - BBC NEWS 27/06/19

According to the @UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, domestic violence against LGBT youth is increasing: “many LGBTI youth are confined in hostile environments with unsupportive family members or co-habitants. This can increase their exposure to violence, as well as their anxiety and depression.’’

“Given overloaded health systems, treatment of LGBTI people may be interrupted or deprioritized, including HIV treatment and testing, hormonal treatment and gender affirming treatments for trans people.Decisions about scaling back services should be medically-based and data-driven and should not reflect bias against LGBTI people.’’

Human rights are being attacked

The Secretary General of the @UN spoke out about how, in the midst of a global pandemic, human rights are being attacked. “Against the background of rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism & a pushback against human rights in some countries the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic.”. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, added that the pandemic has led to “an increase in homophobic and transphobic rhetoric”.

Support Mermaids!

We cannot let Coronavirus be used as a pretext to remove healthcare rights for transgender children and young people. As Patron of trans kids charity @Mermaids_Gender, I am asking that you DONATE DONATE DONATE. Trans kids charities are not government funded, surprise surprise!

So we need all your love, time and money if you are able to share it. Especially when there are a lot of trans kids at home, scared and feeling more voiceless than ever, as adults with no experience of their situation, continue to debate their right to exist as themselves.

Amazing TED talk on the way the strict gender binary harms us, by XY intersex woman Emily Quinn

sinclusionist:

goosegoblin:

skankosaurus-uwu:

crossdreamers:

Here’s an extract of her talk:

“I have a vagina. Just thought you should know. Just thought you should know. I look like a woman. I’m dressed like one, I guess. The thing is, I also have balls….I’m not male or female. I’m intersex.

“Most people assume that you’re biologically either a man or a woman, but it’s actually a lot more complex than that. There are so many ways somebody could be intersex. 

In my case, it means I was born with XY chromosomes, which you probably know as male chromosomes. And I was born with a vagina and balls inside my body. I don’t respond to testosterone, so during puberty, I grew breasts… I don’t actually have a uterus – I was born without one, so I don’t menstruate, I can’t have biological children…

“We put people in boxes based on their genitalia. Before a baby’s even born, we ask whether it’s a boy or a girl, as if it actually matters; as if you’re going to be less excited about having a baby if it doesn’t have the genitals you wanted; as if what’s between somebody’s legs tells you anything about that person. 

Are they kind, generous, funny? Smart? Who do they want to be when they grow up? Genitals don’t actually tell you anything. Yet, we define ourselves by them. In this society, we love putting people into boxes and labeling each other…

“But there’s one really big problem: biological sex is not black or white. It’s on a spectrum. Besides your genitalia, you also have your chromosomes, your gonads, like ovaries or testicles. You have your internal sex organs, your hormone production, your hormone response and your secondary sex characteristics, like breast development, body hair, etc. 

Those seven areas of biological sex all have so much variation, yet we only get two options: male or female. Which is kind of absurd to me, because I can’t think of a single other human trait that there’s only two options for: skin color, hair, height, eyes…”

Listen to whole talk here. Believe me, it is worth your time!

Saying sex isn’t binary because some people are born intersex is like saying humans have tails or extra fingers because some people are born like that…

The definition of a binary is that only two options exist. Therefore, the existence of intersex people means sex cannot be a binary by definition. It can have a bimodal distribution- and indeed, it does- but it cannot be truly binary.

Humans can indeed have tails and extra fingers, in the same way that humans can be intersex. If you said ‘humans always only have five fingers on each hand’, you’d be wrong. If you said ‘humans can only be 100% ‘male’ or 100% ‘female’’- i.e. that sex is binary- you’d be equally wrong.

I’d like to also take this opportunity to remind people that there are more people with intersex conditions in the world than there are natural redheads or people with natural ambidexterity, and yet we always talk about how intersex people are statistically unimportant, a fluke, a mutation, because they’re such a small percentage while redheads are included in surveys and accepted as a possibility in almost all aspects, and ambidexterity is recognized as an existing middle state in what could very easily be reduced to a (mistaken) binary as well. Hmmmmm.

This has become one of my most popular blog posts ever, with more than 47,000 likes and reblogs. The main reason is likely because Emily Quinn gives this kind of diversity an unavoidable human face. 

I would like to add one more thing: What those who are committed to the strict binary forget is that the variation found in intersex people continue into the world of non-intersex people. 

Take genitals: Some intersex people have what people call “ambiguous” genitals. But the genitals of non-intersex people also vary a lot in shape and sizes. 

Some scientists argue that there are as many as nine different types of vulvas. The average penis size is between 13cm and 18cm (5in to 7in). But a large number of men have penises that are not of average size, from less than 4cm to more than 26cm long. Some have identified as many as seven different penis types. 

You cannot draw a clear line between the normal and the abnormal, when it comes to human genitalia.

Averages are precisely that: averages. Nature is ruled by diversity, not averages.

(via )

Teaching children about LGBT issues is not brainwashing – it equips them for life

Russell Hobby points out  over at the Guardian that the United Kingdom has decided, through democratic procedures and enshrinement in law, that everyone is equally valued whatever their sexuality or gender identity. He argues that there is no single recipe for a happy family and that we celebrate all loving homes.

Schools therefore have a duty to highlight diversity in families. 

Clearly I should protect my children from some harmful views and knowledge – hatred, incitement, radicalisation. Clearly I have a right to teach my values and beliefs to my child – again assuming that I am not teaching hatred or inciting illegal behaviour.

But no parent has a right to restrict their children from learning about other safe and legal values and other perspectives on the world. Not restricting knowledge seems to me to be the best criteria for balancing the rights of parents, young people and society as a whole.

It is the exposure to multiple perspectives that gives young people the strongest start in life and the ability to make their own choices.

Russell Hobby is head of the teacher-training organisation Teach First and a former general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers

Trans Supehero Cover by Cheyne Gallard. https://www.instagram.com/artbycheyne/

Children’s book with trans heroine scores US$27k  on Kickstarter

Raven Wild  is the third in a series of LGBTQ inclusive children’s books written by Caitlin Spice, Adam Reynolds & Chaz Harris, with illustrations by Christine Luiten & Bo Moore. 

It follows previous entries Promised Land, released in 2017, and Maiden Voyage released in 2018 (co-written with Jaimee Poipoi). 

The writers say:

“With ‘Promised Land Tales’, we’re creating the kind of children’s books we needed to see when we were kids. Through collaborations with authors of other queer identities, we hope to tell more ‘stories that never were, but that always should have been’.

In the Promised Land universe, all are equal - no matter their gender, what they look like or who they love. We believe it’s important for LGBTQ youth and their peers to see themselves represented in positive ways, where who they are is never questioned or used as a plot device or a point of conflict.

Visibility in media is a powerful way to show young people they belong; if we don’t see ourselves in stories, we don’t see ourselves in the world.”

More over at Kickstarter.
Promised Land Store

Amazing TED talk on the way the strict gender binary harms us, by XY intersex woman Emily Quinn

Here’s an extract of her talk:

“I have a vagina. Just thought you should know. Just thought you should know. I look like a woman. I’m dressed like one, I guess. The thing is, I also have balls….I’m not male or female. I’m intersex.

“Most people assume that you’re biologically either a man or a woman, but it’s actually a lot more complex than that. There are so many ways somebody could be intersex. 

In my case, it means I was born with XY chromosomes, which you probably know as male chromosomes. And I was born with a vagina and balls inside my body. I don’t respond to testosterone, so during puberty, I grew breasts… I don’t actually have a uterus – I was born without one, so I don’t menstruate, I can’t have biological children…

“We put people in boxes based on their genitalia. Before a baby’s even born, we ask whether it’s a boy or a girl, as if it actually matters; as if you’re going to be less excited about having a baby if it doesn’t have the genitals you wanted; as if what’s between somebody’s legs tells you anything about that person. 

Are they kind, generous, funny? Smart? Who do they want to be when they grow up? Genitals don’t actually tell you anything. Yet, we define ourselves by them. In this society, we love putting people into boxes and labeling each other…

“But there’s one really big problem: biological sex is not black or white. It’s on a spectrum. Besides your genitalia, you also have your chromosomes, your gonads, like ovaries or testicles. You have your internal sex organs, your hormone production, your hormone response and your secondary sex characteristics, like breast development, body hair, etc. 

Those seven areas of biological sex all have so much variation, yet we only get two options: male or female. Which is kind of absurd to me, because I can’t think of a single other human trait that there’s only two options for: skin color, hair, height, eyes…”

Listen to the whole talk here. Believe me, it is worth your time!