Top Ten Transgender Friendly Colleges

Campus Pride has published this list of top ten colleges in the United States on their Campus Climate Index that are particularly trans friendly and have pro-trans policies and programs.

The Top Ten:

Ithaca College – Ithaca, New York
New York University – New York, New York
Princeton University – Princeton, New Jersey
University of California, Los Angeles – Los Angeles, California
University of California, Riverside – Riverside, California
University of Massachusetts, Amherst – Amherst, Massachusetts
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, Michigan
University of Oregon – Eugene, Oregon
University of Pennsylvania – Philadephia, Pennsylvania
University of Vermont – Burlington, Vermont

While I am not at all surprised at the selection or the fact they all are located on the West Coast or in the Northeast, I am surprised that Portland State University and UC Santa Cruz and Berkeley did not make the list.

This list is a good starting point, but by no means a complete list of schools that are trans-friendly. Many schools across the country are making strides in the way of LGBTQ folk and are great places for trans* people to go to school, even if they didn't make the list. Even schools in the south (like my alma mater, University of North Florida) are making strides in terms of creating a safe space for trans* students to go to school and are always open to ideas as to what they can do to accommodate transgender students and make their college experience as pleasant as possible.

In locations like the South and Midwest where one doesn't find the same mind-set of the progressive Northeast and West Coast, institutions of higher education are taking to the transgender movement more quickly than their non-university counterparts.

Transgender Victory in California, LGBT Studies Major at San Diego State

Great news for transgender Californian's - Governor Brown signed the Gender Nondiscrimination Act (AB 887) on Monday, October 10th.

San Diego State now has an LGBT Studies Major! They are the first institution in California to approve this major as well as only the second college in the US.

- about the major

Over on the East Coast, New York is considering Medicaid to cover transgender surgeries and hormone replacement therapy.

Transgender People Included in White House's Champions of Change! [news]

Transgender people are included in the White House's Champions of Change Series!

Transgender activist (and founder of LaGender, Inc) Dee Dee Chambly is featured.

Portland Wins Trans-Inclusive Healthcare! [trans news]

Good news, Portlanders! Most of you were probably aware of Mayor Sam Adams' push to get the city of Portland to end discriminatory practices and include trans-related healthcare in its benefits, including surgeries (!), hormones, and other treatments for transgender people. Well, it just PASSED, making Portland the third city in the country to offer "sex change" benefits to transgender people.

via Basic Rights Oregon:

WE DID IT! After nearly two years of working with city leaders, we are proud to announce that today the Portland City Counil unanimously voted to end insurance exclusions against transgender City employees.

This is huge. Portland is now the third municipality in the country to provide trans-inclusive care to their employees, and Oregon is a clear leader in the national efforts to end insurance discrimination against transgender communities.

This victory belongs to Basic Rights Oregon's Trans Justice Working Group-trans and allied community leaders who have worked tirelessly for nearly two years on our campaign to end health care discrimination against transgender Oregonians. It also belongs to the Portland City Council, especially Mayor Sam Adams whose leadership for the LGBT community shone through today.

Why is this care so important? Basic Rights' Executive Director Jeana Frazzini explained it in her testimony today:

The American Medical Association has identified transgender health care as being medically ncessary. Yet many transgender Oregonians are routinely denied the ability to purchase health insurance or are denied coverage for basic, medically-necessary care solely becaust they are transgender. Without health insurance, many transgender people have no access to health care and have nowhere to turn if they develop health problems. This discrimination is all too common and can lead to serious-even life-threatening-conditions.

We are thankful to the dozens of you who turned out to help make history, and countless more helped make this a reality. This victory shows just what can happen when each of us takes a stand, large or small for trans justice.

Thanks for all of your extraordinary work. We'll be working with the City to ensure smooth implementation and continue onward to the next victory!

PS-If you're in or near Portland, be sure to join us to celebrate tonight at Crush (1412 SE Morrison) from 5:30-7:30pm!

Trans Canadian Military Dress Codes, Transgender Insurance Coverage, etc. [trans news]

From the National Post:
As U.S. politicians continue to debate whether to let gays serve openly in the American military, the Canadian Forces have issued a new policy detailing how the organization should accommodate transsexual and transvestite troops specifically. Soldiers, sailors and air force personnel who change their sex or sexual identity have a right to privacy and respect around that decision, but must conform to the dress code of their “target” gender, says the supplementary chapter of a military administration manual.

In other transgender news, according to Joanne Herman, more employers are going to start covering transgender surgeries, but new hurdles are to be expected.

Also, Brian Katcher, a 35-year-old Missouri dad, has won the second Stonewall children's book award for his tale of transgender love.

Transgender Woman Killed in Minneapolis [trans news]

This saddens me to even have to write this, but a fellow transsister, Krissy Bates, was found dead in her Minneapolis apartment on January 11th around 3pm; she had been murdered. A 40-year-old male suspect has been arrested for her murder.

She was the first murder victim of this year in Minneapolis, and to my knowledge, the first transperson to be murdered this year in the US. She will be honored on Transgender Day of Remembrance in November.

The US isn't the only place transpeople, especially transwomen, are victimized. Killings of women, especially transgender women, has been on the rise in Honduras, according to vivirlatino.com.

In the last four weeks the bodies of five transgender women in Honduras have been found. The murder of women, especially transgender women, has been on the rise following the June 28, 2009 coup. According to the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, prior to the most recent murders, there have been 31 deaths of LGBTI people in Honduras in the last year and a half.

Violence against transpeople has to stop - there is a need for awareness and education; that is why I remain visible and do what I do.

Falling in Love with a Transgender Man [oprah magazine]

Oprah magazine: Falling in Love with a Transgender Man

Statement on Gender Incongruence in Adolescents in the DSM-5

PRESS RELEASE

TransActive Education & Advocacy "TransActive"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 13, 2010

Contact: Jenn Burleton, Executive Director
Phone: 503-252-3000
Email: jenn@transactiveonline.org
Website: www.transactiveonline.org

TransActive Education & Advocacy Fully Endorses Statement by
"Professionals Concerned About Gender Diagnoses in the DSM"

We recognize that gender dysphoria in youth is a serious issue and may require medical intervention as well as therapeutic support. For those youth who identify as transgender or transsexual, or who express gender dysphoria and discomfort with their anatomical body, early intervention can alleviate future difficulties, and can assist young people to mature in their affirmed gender identity. This is consistent with the American Psychological Association’s goal of promoting “legal and social recognition of transgender individuals with their gender identity and expression” and is especially important for adolescents who typically lack the resources and authority to achieve this goal without clinician assistance.

Statement on Gender Incongruence in Adolescents in the DSM-5

by Professionals Concerned with Gender Diagnoses in the DSM

We are mental health and medical professionals, clinicians, researchers and scholars concerned about psychiatric nomenclature and diagnostic criteria for gender-variant, gender-nonconforming, transgender and transsexual people in the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and call ourselves Professionals Concerned About Gender Diagnoses in the DSM. Below are our suggestions for the diagnosis of Gender Incongruence (in Adolescents) in the DSM 5.

Our group recommends a separate diagnostic category for adolescents. Adolescent issues are markedly different from those facing pre-pubescent children and those experienced by adults. Adolescent sexual and gender development are complex processes (Pleak 2009; Striepe & Tolman 2003) and should be clearly separated out with the DSM from the presenting issues of prepubescent children and/or adults.

We recognize that gender dysphoria in youth is a serious issue and may require medical intervention (Spack, 2009), as well as therapeutic support. For those youth who identify as transgender or transsexual, or who express gender dysphoria and discomfort with their anatomical body, early intervention can alleviate future difficulties, and can assist young people to mature in their affirmed gender identity (Cooper 1999). This is consistent with the American Psychological Association’s goal of promoting “legal and social recognition of transgender individuals with their gender identity and expression” (APA 2009, para. 18) and is especially important for adolescents who typically lack the resources and authority to achieve this goal without clinician assistance.

We also recognize the severe harm that can occur and the future problems that can be averted by clinician responsiveness to adolescents requesting assistance toward living in a manner consistent with their gender identities and expression. We therefore support providing reversible hormone blockers to teenagers who are capable of giving informed consent (Gross, 2001) based on scientific evidence that clearly documents successful outcomes for transitioning teenagers (Cohen-Kettenis, Delemarre-van de Waal, & Gooren, 2008). Many adolescents who are forced to wait to access hormones or hormone blockers access gender-aligning medications in dangerous environments without proper monitoring (Rosario, 2009); for this reason, we caution against a 6 month waiting limit, as adolescent mental health can deteriorate rapidly when youth are forced to endure the traumatic experience of daily life in bodies that do not meet their psychosocial needs.

We further caution clinicians against imposing specific packages of medical interventions or dictating the order in which youth receive particular medical interventions, as adolescents’ needs vary considerably and should be addressed, based on individual self-reported need or request.While medical intervention are essential for some youth, others may seek legal or social recognition without any gender-aligning medical interventions. Youth who are utilizing gender-aligning medical interventions, and those who have successfully transitioned without medical interventions, should be considered to have achieved gender alignment.

We believe the focus of this diagnosis should be on dysphoria (defined as distress, extreme discomfort, or an emotional state of dis-ease), because it is discomfort, not a particular gender identity or expression, that is the psychological issue. It is essential that the diagnostic criteria focus on anatomical distress or distress with current assigned gender role, with explicit verbalization from the youth that his or her current gender role or anatomical sex does not match his or her internal sense of gender. Gender dysphoria may also be manifested by distress or discomfort with deprivation (Vitale 2001) of social role or anatomy that is congruent with experienced gender identity. Experienced gender is not limited to fixed binary roles, but may encompass fluidity, masculinity, femininity, both, or neither.

It is important to note that social role transition, or Real Life Experience (WPATH 2001), and puberty blocking medical care in adolescence may have diagnostic value in clarifying gender dysphoria. While transition to an affirmed social role may relieve the distress of gender role dysphoria, transitioned youth may still suffer anatomic dysphoria and remain particularly distressed about anticipated pubertal changes associated with their natal sex. It must be carefully stated that the diagnostic threshold is distress related to assigned gender role or physical sex characteristics and not gender nonconformity due to social expectations of normative gender (Vanderburgh 2009).

Finally, we suggest restoration of a clinical significance criterion, which would clarify that distress, discomfort or impairment must meet a threshold of severity. This would limit false positive diagnosis of gender nonconforming youth who would not benefit from diagnosis. It is crucial, however, that this criterion exclude distress or impairment that is caused by societal prejudice or discrimination. To cast victimization as symptomatic of mental illness would inflict further harm upon victims of prejudice.

Our Suggested Diagnostic Criteria for Gender Incongruence in Adolescents:

A. In youth who have reached the earlier of age 13 or Tanner Stage II of pubertal development, a distressing sense of incongruence between persistent experienced or expressed gender and current physical sex characteristics or assigned gender role, as manifested by the youth’s self-report or documentable observation of at least one of the following indicators for a duration of at least 3 months. Incongruence, for this purpose, does not mean gender expression that is nonconforming to social stereotypes of assigned gender role or natal sex.

1. A distress or discomfort with living in the present gender or being perceived by others as the present gender, which is distinct from the experiences of discrimination or the societal expectations associated with that gender.

2. A distress or discomfort caused by deprivation of gender expression congruent with persistent experienced gender. Experienced gender may include alternative gender identities beyond binary stereotypes.

3. A distress or discomfort with one’s current primary or secondary sex characteristics that are incongruent with persistent experienced gender or with anticipated pubertal development associated with natal sex.

4. A distress or discomfort caused by deprivation of primary or secondary sex characteristics that are congruent with persistent experienced gender or with anticipated deprivation of congruent physical sex characteristics after puberty.

B. Distress or discomfort is clinically significant or causes impairment in social, educational or other important areas of functioning, and is not due to external prejudice or discrimination

References:

Cohen-Kettenis, P. T., Delemarre-van de Waal, H. A., & Gooren, L. J. G. (2008).The treatment of adolescent transsexuals: Changing insights. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 5(8), 1892–1897.

Cohen-Kettenis, P. et al. (2010). “Gender identity disorder in adolescents or adults,” American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 Development. Available online: http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=482#

Cooper, K. (1999). Practice with transgendered youth and their families. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services: Issues in Practice, Policy & Research, 10, 111-129.

Gross, B. H. (2001). Informed consent. Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association, 4, 24.

Nuttbrock, L., Hwahng, S., Bockting. W., Rosenblum, A., Mason, M., Macri, M., & Becker J. (2010). Psychiatric impact of gender-related abuse across the life course of male-to-female transgender persons. Journal of Sex Research, 47(1), 12–23.

Pleak, R.R. (2009). Formation of transgender identities in adolescence. Journal of Gay &Lesbian Mental Health, 13(4), 282 -291.

Rosario, Vernon A.(2009). African-American transgender youth. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 13(4), 298 — 308.

Spack, Norman P. (2009). An endocrine perspective on the care of transgender adolescents’, Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 13(4), 309 — 319.

Striepe, M.I, and Tolman, D. L. (2003). Mom, dad, I’m straight: The coming out of gender ideologies in adolescent sexual-identity development. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 32(4), 523-530.

Vitale A. M. (2001). Implications of being gender gysphoric: A developmental review, Gender and Psychoanalysis, An Interdisciplinary Journal, 6(2), 121-141.

World Professional Association for Transgender Health (2001). Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders Sixth Version, Available online: http://wpath.org/Documents2/socv6.pdf

Yunger, J.L., Carver, P.R, & Perry, D.G. (2004). Does gender identity influence children’s psychological well-being? Developmental Psychology, 40(4), 572–582.


TransActive educates the public on subjects useful to the individual and beneficial to the community. We provide necessary support to improve the quality of life of transgender and gender non-conforming children, youth and their families through education, services, advocacy and research.

Trans in the News: Rare Gender Identity Defect Hits Gaza Families

One of the things I would like to do with this blog is keep up to date information on transgender/transsexual happenings in the news. The first post in the "Trans in the News" series is about male pseudohermaphroditism, which is affecting an unusual amount of boys in Gaza. Very interesting, and a fascinating video accompanies the article.

Read the article on CNN.com and watch the video here.

Gaza City (CNN) -- Two Palestinian teenagers stroll amid the mounds of rubble left by last year's Israeli military offensive, listening to the tinny beat of a Turkish pop song playing on a cell phone.

Nadir Mohammed Saleh and Ahmed Fayiz Abed Rabo are cousins and next-door neighbors. With their gelled hair, buttoned-down shirts and jeans, they look much like any other 16-year-old Palestinian boy. But looks, Ahmed says, can be deceiving.

"Only my appearance, my haircut and clothing, makes me look like a boy," Ahmed says, gesturing with his hands across his face. "Inside, I am like a female. I am a girl."

Until last summer, both Nadir and Ahmed were -- for all intents and purposes -- girls. They wore female headscarves, attended girls' school and even answered to the female first names Navin and Ola.

Both Nadir and Ahmed were born with a rare birth defect called male pseudohermaphrodism.

Deficiency of the hormone 17-B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17-B-HSD) during pregnancy left their male reproductive organs deformed and buried deep within their abdomens.

At birth, doctors identified Nadir and Ahmed as girls, because they appeared to have female genitalia.

As a result, they spent the first 16 years of their lives dressing and acting like girls. It was a role that grew increasingly difficult to play, as they hit puberty and their bodies began generating testosterone, resulting in facial hair and increasingly masculine features.

"They used to travel by car to girls' school and back," says Nadir's father Mohammed Sadih Ahmed Saleh. "Because of their facial hair, it was difficult for them to go out into the street. Psychologically they were distressed."

Finally, on June 22, with the support of their families, both Nadir and Ahmed transformed themselves into boys.

"They transferred on the same day," Saleh says. "Clothing, they switched to the other [boys'] school on the same day. They cut their hair on the same day. Both of them helped each other get through this crisis."

There are an unusually high number of male pseudohermaphrodite births in the Gaza neighborhood of Jabalya, where Nadir and Ahmed live.

Dr. Jehad Abudaia, a Canadian-Palestinian pediatrician and urologist practicing in Gaza, says he has diagnosed nearly 80 cases like Nadir's and Ahmed's in the last seven years.

"It is astonishing that we have [so] many cases with this defect, which is very rare all over the world," Abudaia says. He attributes the high frequency of this birth defect to "consanguinity," or in-breeding.

"If you want to go to the root of the problem, this problem runs in families in the genes." Abudaia says. "They want to get married to cousins... they don't go to another family. This is a problem."

In Western, more developed countries, doctors typically identify and then operate to correct disorders of sex differentiation at birth. But in war-torn Gaza, which has a lower standard of medical care, the birth defect can go undetected for years.

"Some of them unfortunately will be discovered late, when they are more than 14 years [old]. When they have been living as a female and they don't have menstruation, then they will go to the gynecologist," Abudaia says.

Abudaia's first advice to patients with the disorder is to immediately adopt male clothing and hair cuts, and then to plan for a sex-change operation.

This unusual ritual has been performed several times in the extended family of Nadir and Ahmed, where sex differentiation is a recurring disorder.

Nadir's 21-year-old brother Midyam and his 32-year-old cousin Ameen Abd Hamed share the same condition of male pseudohermaphrodism. As adolescents, they too underwent the gender identity transformation process the family refers to as "the transfer."

The traumatizing experience is all the more difficult because Gaza is a socially-conservative society, where there is a fair amount of segregation between males and females.

"I sat down with Nadir and explained to him how to adapt to the street, how to sit with the guys and talk to them... because at the beginning his mental state was bad, just like what happened to me," Ameen says.

"We did not understand what to do," says Ahmed, one of the 16-year-olds. "It was a new life for us, as if we were born again."

Though Nadir and Ahmed clearly have the love and support of their family, they say that is not enough. They are appealing to the international community to help them get the expensive and complicated sex-change operations they say they need to live normal lives.

"It's the only obstacle and the source of all the problems," Nadir says.

Until the sex-change operation is completed, Palestinian officials won't change the gender on their identity cards to "male," thus restricting their access to higher education.

In addition, Nadir and Ahmed complain of health problems like kidney infections due to complications resulting from the disfigurement of their genitalia.

"This is 100 percent a humanitarian issue," says Nadir's father, Mohammed. "There are four conditions in the same [extended] family. If we propose conducting the same operation on all four of them, the cost would be $30,000. We don't have $30,000 and there is no advanced medicine in Gaza."

Until then, these troubled Palestinians say their genders and their identities will remain in conflict, much like the land around them.