What Would YOU Do?

This seems to be "stuff reported elsewhere" week.  I've had some of these links queued up for a long time and I'm trying to downsize.  Since I was saving them to share, well....

Today's article came out of the HuffPost and the headline reads:

Steve Crecelius Goes To Hospital For Kidney Stone, Discovers Female Sex Traits

He's now transitioning, although how far isn't clear from the article.  An follow-up article from KDVR has some more details.  And, of course, having an unusual name means the googles will burp out all sorts of additional articles, pictures, videos.  (Funny thing: when I put his name in, I got several pictures in the "images for..." box ~ the last one was Steve Jobs.  Imagine his surprise.)

I'd go the "validating what I felt" route and take it as a sign that Meg should be Meg.  How about you?

I may have mentioned this before ~ I'm happy being Meg when I can, I wouldn't go the 24x7 route (too much work, methinks) but if the gummint knocked on my door and said "new law: you have to choose.  Male or female clothing, but none of this back-and-forth stuff," all of my pants and men's shirts would be in the Goodwill bin within the hour.

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Dysphoria, From Dysphoros, Hard to Bear

It's progress, I guess.

Following an American Psychiatric Association report on transgender health, the APA has issued an "official position statements on the care and civil rights of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals."

Some good news: they acknowledge that we're not "disordered."  Gender Identity Disorder is a thing of the past.

We're now have (suffer from?) "gender dysphoria," which means we're "unhappy with our birth gender."  I can agree with that.

Zack Ford summarised the statement for the HuffPost:

'The APA explained the importance of standing up for the trans community, citing the “significant discrimination, prejudice, and the potential for victimization from violent hate crimes, as well as denial of many basic civil rights, protections, and access to health care, to the severe detriment of their mental health.'

The entire article is here.  I've communicated with Mr Ford (and mentioned him before) a couple of times about issues I raised yesterday, about us being added on to the LGB ship as ballast, much as social conservatives are ballast for the Republican Party ~ not needed, except to add to the weight of the ship so it sails better (or the number of the cause so they can increase their strength).  I don't know if I made a difference, but Mr Ford's been much more attentive to T issues, and I salute him.

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More Than Just A Letter

Fran Drescher wrote an article for the Huffington Post, The Time for Equal Rights for LGBT Americans is Now!

I added the following comment:

There are six "read more" categories pertaining to gays, plus one that adds "T" to the mix. And this article could have been about "Equal Rights for LGB Americans" and the story only would have been more accurate.

Transgendered individuals such as myself, and many more up and down the spectrum from "occasional dresser" to "girl, you'll be a woman soon" are ignored by that 24-hour news cycle except when one kills or gets killed.

I'd like to see stories about how we're accepted by people such as Fran and the rest of my friends on the left.

Equal rights needs to include us too. We're more than a letter at the end of the LGB label.

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