Police State

I thought people said things would get better under Rudd.

Where’s the evidence? This certainly isn’t it!

The State Government faced a public backlash yesterday after the Herald revealed laws had been quietly introduced to prevent people “causing annoyance” to participants in the huge Catholic event which will climax with the Pope’s arrival in Sydney in two weeks.

During a meeting with two leading victims groups yesterday, senior police said protesters would also have to include details of their planned messages.

Protesting without police clearance could result in demonstrators being charged under extraordinary new powers which came into effect yesterday.

The sweeping nature of the regulations is threatening to create a legal and political minefield with protesters apparently willing to test both the scope of the laws and the willingness of the authorities to uphold them.

12 year old FTM to Undergo Hormone Treatment

This morning the news broke that a 12 year old FTM is to be allowed to have hormone blockers to delay puberty until they are 16. At 16 a new court approval must be sought before he can begin testosterone therapy, and no surgery will be allowed until he is 18. (Dude ain’t gonna NEED top surgery if he’s on blockers though, which is AWESOME for him).

The media coverage has been quite offensive. I have quickly discovered that there are *levels* of offensive.
The Australian: “‘Best to delay’ decision on sex changes for children”
This article was just stupid. It parades out some professor of psychiatry who isn’t familiar with the case (the article even admits as much), and who says that “Even in the the best of circumstances [transition is] something that most regret.”

News.com.au: Sex Swap Approved for Girl, 12
News.com.au persistently refers to the process as a ’sex swap’ and claims that it will be ‘tax payer funded’. (Which is bull shit, Australian medicare doesn’t cover transition, it only covers the doctors appointments, but not hormones or surgery).
In another article they claim that the child has been pressured into it to spite his father.

A 12-year-old girl who a court has allowed to begin sex change treatment has been vindictively “brainwashed” by her mother into making the decision, a relative says.

There’s not much to say really. I may post again later. I wrote a letter to the Australian, but now I need to get to work on the HREOC submission.

It never bloody ends. Fight fight fight…

Link Round Up: DSM-V

Read the discussion at Bilerico. Right now. The comments are most enlightening.

Galling Galla has a post about it too.

This is EmmaG’s commentary.

Alma Cork also has a post.

Check out Lynn Conways excellent transgender news site.

Download the APA’s press release.

This is a copy of the disclosure that each of the members of the ‘task force’ had to produce before selection. Thankyou to my boy for digging this up for me.

I know that the DSM-V wont be instituted until 2011… 3 years away. I am also in Australia, where the American Psychiatric Association is influential, but not the be all and end all of thinking on these matters.
I have been asked… why do I care? I’ll get to transition. I’ll be ok. I’ve been told I am over reacting.
I don’t think so. This has massive potential to adversely effect trans rights and deserves an international response.

Lets face it, transgendered people already get the raw end of the deal. We are beaten up, killed, raped, fired, refused treatment, evicted from home, disowned from families… I am not playing ‘Our Oppression is Worse than Your Oppression’, I am just saying that we get FUCKED OVER. We have a reason to fight even if this wasn’t happening. It is happening, and it is a threat to those few rights we have managed to eke out.
All the more reason to fight. The DSM-V should be an opportunity to make sure that things are about to get better for us.

Now I would like to echo Emma G’s comment:

The personal and emotional impact of this announcement are high for me. Which seems to require that the degree of careful rational thought be proportional to that impact. I’ve cross posted Mercedes post & links, and have received a few responses. This has lead me to ask further questions of myself.

1) What & How: What can I do to have any impact on this and how do I go about exercising any options? As satisfying as expressing anger, frustration, disagreement or annoyance may be personally, I fear that such expressions will not be heard by anyone who needs to hear them. In the worst case scenario, they might be dismissed as an attempt by the “inmate” (me) attempting to take charge of the “asylum” (the APA in this case). Therapists do not routinely allow their patients to direct the methods or guidelines under which they deliver therapy.
Academic structures are at least somewhat susceptible to peer pressure. I assume “professional” sympathy and advocacy would be beneficial. Peraps my own GP and therapist to start, but there are other gender specialist internationally who might not be commonly identified.

2) Who & Where: Where and who provides accurate and necessary information in an accesible method and where do we refer to if we need or acquire information ourselves? As has been pointed out, partial and presumed information opens the door to discrediting information itself. The emotional and personal importance cannot be allowed to taint the information.

3) Can we define a commonality of impact beyond our personal interests? I do not presume that my right to define my gender identity is in any way “secured”. If the medical basis for transition is removed, I do not expect any legal right to self identify to be maintained.
If GID is removed from the DMS are there other, unassailable legal protections in place? I would not want to rely on a presumption that such protections will continue to exist or that they would be entirely maintained as is.
Both Blanchard and Zucker base their “treatment” theories currently on implied “homosexuality” and that implication is very much additionally treated as a disorder which necessitates “Treatment”
Could their influence return homosexuality to an inclusion in the DMS?

I don’t see any of these questions as being alarmist inherently considering how poorly my rights have been served by the current DMS-IV. The addition of two blatantly anti trans appointees to the work group does nothing to lend creedence to an expection of improvement of conditions.

The hair splitting over labels of self definition becomes meaningless if you no longer have the right to self define.

Trans Rights Disaster

First a little background:

The controversy surrounding gender identity disorder is no news to most transsexuals, but for the rest of you, heresDented Blue Mercedes on Destigmatization versus access to medical cover.

So the news has broken that there is a new panel who are to discuss GID’s inclusion in the DSM-V.

More info from people who know more about it and say it better than I do:
Dented Blue Mercedes
Burning Words

There is a strong chance that the people that have been selected to run this investigation of Gender will find that transition is a negative outcome, and that ‘raparative therapy’ (that is transsexualities equivalent of ex-gay brainwashing) is a better approach for treating us.

Now, the DSM-V effects every gender variant person in the western world… INCLUDING cissexual gays and lesbians. No matter where you are in the west, our medical model of transsexuality is underpinned with the APA’s diagnosis of GID. Our legal rights, access to hormones, and surgery all rely on this document.

Please, please link to this post, or link to Bec or Mercedes’ posts on the matter. Pass along the word to trans people, and allies. Post it to e-lists. Phone people.
This is cause for an international protest movement. I am willing to put up my hand to organise the Canberra branch, but this needs to go global. There needs to be out rage.

We cannot take this lying down.

Protests that are coming up!

On the 30th of November (this friday) there is a protest in support of the West Papuan Refugees. The details as they were sent out are:

Your support is needed this Friday for the 30 West Papuan boat people who are presenting a petition to the new Australian Government this Friday and also celebrating the declaration of independence on December 1 1961.

The event on Friday also celebrates Vanuatu’s decision to support West Papua’s listing on the UN decolinisation list.

Please come and show your support:

Friday 30 November
8:00am Rally Garema Place
Walk to Indonesian Embassy across main bridge
9:15am Peaceful protest outside Indonesian Embassy
12:30 West Papuan dancing, singing and speeches on Parliament House lawns.

On the 1st of December it is International AIDS Awareness Day, but I haven’t got any info about events planned for that, locally. Ditto for the International Day of Action scheduled for the 10th, concerning the Intervention in the Northern Territory. Anyone know if something is happening in Canberra?

On the 11th the Torch for Human Rights is arriving in Canberra. This is organised by CIPFG I think, but it appears to be taking a much broader view than simply looking into the persecution of the Falun Gong. It is calling for the Olympics to never be held in any country that has a current record of extreme human rights violations. There is a meeting at 11am in Garema Place, Civic. Other than that, I don’t have the details with me. (I may or may not be blogging from work *looks around shiftily*)

Good cheese, great chocolate, and LGBT rights!

Yay for the Netherlands supporting LGBT rights!

Reclaim the Night - Tonight!

Reclaim the Night is TONIGHT!

Starts at 5.30pm and will run in Civic no later than 8.30pm, but is followed by an afterparty. Action have provided a bus that will be taking people from Civic to Tillies for the party.
In Civic there will be dancers, and singers, and buskers, and stalls, and a sausage sizzle (egglant for vegetarians!), and groovy t-shirts, and badges, and white ribbons to buy!
There are four prominant women that are going to be speaking on a Panel about sexual violence, and a survivor will be giving a brief address!

All in all, its going to be an AWESOME evening out, so if you are in the ACT come on out. I’ll be down there helping with the set up from about 4.15pm, events start at 5.30, and we will be on the road marching at around 7pm.

Election Fever!

I just watched the last part of the Debate between Howard and Rudd, and I was very amused. Poor Howie, he simply wasn’t at his best.

I was very very impressed by Kevin Rudd though, and I sincerly hope that he is our next Prime Minister. (Dude is promising fast, cheap broadband… that is a PM I want in power!)

I was quite surprised to hear announced at the end of the ABC broadcast of the debate that backstage John Howard had ordered the cutting of the Opinion Worm transmission that was being streamed to channel 9, and its back up stream. Channel 9 managed to pirate the Worm from another source, and it was broadcast anyway. The Worm did not like Howard at all, it was Rudds pet.

As the channel nine presenter said about it: “So much for freedom of speech.”

Reclaim the Night

Reclaim the Night is being held next Friday on the 26th of October. Its in Civic somewhere, I think that its probably being held at Garema Place.

For those not in the know, Reclaim the Night (or Take Back the Night) is an international march and rally against sexual violence evening of October every year. Men are more than welcome, although I think some places prefer that men don’t actually participate in the march, but cheer as the women and children march.

Back in Bega I used to be involved with Reclaim the night until it was cancelled cos of lack of interest from women, combined with hostility from men. It didn’t run the last few years I lived in Bega, and I haven’t attended one since I was a teenager.

I’ll definitely be there. I don’t know what group is organising it here, but I plan on tracking them down and helping… there is usually stuff that needs handing out etc. I will probably take a bunch of my own flyers on sexual violence statistics and various sexual abuse victim support services to raise awareness, just in case I can’t find someone with stuff for me to do.

If anyone wants to hook up with me out there, leave me a comment here, and we can make arrangements.

***EDIT***
I found the following information regarding the Reclaim the Night event:

Reclaim the Night 5:30 pm
Canberra Rape Crisis Centre celebrates ‘Reclaim the Night - it can happen to anybody - Sexual Violence’

There will be stalls, a sausage/eggplant sizzle, fire twirlers, buskers, drummers and a hula hoop troupe! We get a little more serious at 6:30 pm when we talk about sexual violence against women and women taking back the night! It’s a fitting send off for the beginning of the Reclaim the Night March at 7:30 pm.

There will then be an after party at Tilley’s in Lyneham from 9:00 pm. A bus will be provided from Civic.