For almost one hundred years, Sydney women have been able to bathe at Coogee’s ladies-only pool, free from the prying eyes of pervy men.

But much has changed since the McIver’s Ladies Baths — reserved for the exclusive use of women and small children -– opened in 1922.

Back in those days, England had a king, Australia had a Labor Prime Minister and women doing laps of the historic ocean pool had vaginas.

Fast forward to 2021.

England has had a queen for the longest time. The Liberal in the Lodge is unassailable. And women tucking penises in their swimsuits have bomb-dived all the other bathers looking for privacy at Coogee pool.

The gals at the Randwick and Coogee Ladies Swimming Association aren’t against a bit of gender freestyling – they’re swimming laps in the twenty-first entury, after all.

So they decided that trans women should be able to dip their toe in the women-only pool; provided that their trans sisters had fully transitioned, meaning their toe was the only thing being dipped in the water.

“Only transgender women who’ve undergone a gender reassignment surgery are allowed entry,” the Swimming Association’s website stated.

Cue outrage.

This was a clear case of ladies with vaginas discriminating against ladies with penises.

Members of the University of NSW Student Representative Council released a statement describing the Association’s “outdated” definition of women as “disgusting”.

“Anyone who identifies as a woman … should have access to this space,” the statement said. “To our community, students, and staff at UNSW — your gender identity needs no validation from anyone but yourself.” 

The students did not explain how a women-only pool remains a women-only pool if women are only what the guy in the bikini says they are.

“Trans women are women,” the students insisted, in what now passes for debate on university campuses; the aggressive repetition of mindless slogans as if it were reasoned argument.

“Any statement to the contrary lacks empathy, understanding and scientific rigour and is based in bigotry.”

There was zero empathy or understanding for the woman who wrote on the Baths’ Facebook page: “Please don’t give in to the trans bullies. Muslim women rely on places like this. Trans identifying men can go everywhere; Muslim women cannot.”

She received a curt response.

“Muslim women need to take the opportunity to learn that having the biological parts does not make you a man”

Right. Because, you know, “scientific rigour”.

But the gender-fluid cheerleaders at the Student Representative Council were just warming up.

They went on to warn that a policy stating only trans women who opted for full emersion would be considered to be female swimmers was itself a form of violence “and will only increase community violence toward transwomen”.

This cynical manipulation of people’s goodwill — ‘let us swim or you will be responsible for violence against us’ — worked a treat, as it usually does.

Within 24 hours of the complaint, the historic women-only pool had become the progressive women-are-only-an-idea pool.

The pool’s website now says: “Yes. Transgender women are welcome to the McIver’s Ladies Baths, our definition for transgender is as per the NSW Discrimination Act.”

The NSW Discrimination Act defines transgendered women as someone “who identifies as a member of the opposite sex by living, or seeking to live, as a member of the opposite sex”.

So there you have it. 

If you identify as a member of the opposite sex; and would like to swim as a member of the opposite sex among members of the opposite sex who have been trying to avoid members of the opposite sex for the past hundred years, well now you can.

And barely a ripple of protest.

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On Oct. 14, some 1,200 IBM employees signed on remotely to a company website for what was billed as a celebration of the life and career of Lynn Conway, a “tech trailblazer and transgender pioneer,” as the event was titled.

Conway’s record as a computer science pioneer at IBM and subsequently at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, was undoubtedly well known to the attendees, as was the story of her gender transition in 1968.

What was unexpected was that IBM would take the occasion to confess that it had fired Conway in the midst of her transition, after promising to support her — or that it would formally apologize for how it had treated her 52 years earlier.

“I wanted to say to you here today, Lynn, for that experience in our company and all the hardships that followed, I am truly sorry,” said Diane Gherson, an IBM senior vice president of human affairs who was leading the event.

“Thanks to your courage, your example, and all the people who followed in your footsteps, as a society we are now in a better place,” Gherson continued. “But that doesn’t help you, Lynn, probably our very first employee to come out. And for that, we deeply regret what you went through — and know I speak for all of us.”

No one was more surprised at the apology than Conway herself, who long ago had shed any resentment about IBM’s actions in 1968.

“I didn’t know how to react,” Conway told me. “I started to tear up. I didn’t know when it started that Diane was going to apologize on IBM’s behalf.”

The event then continued along the lines Conway, 82, had expected — as a recognition not only of her work but the progress the company had made in supporting transgender employees.

“They are the leading company in this, which is amazing,” she says. She expected the company to merely “admit this happened and they know about my work, and then we would jointly celebrate how far we’ve come.”

To grasp the importance of IBM’s step, it helps to review Conway’s personal and professional journey.

I first met Conway when I was working on my 1999 book about Xerox PARC, “Dealers of Lightning,” for which she was a uniquely valuable source. In 2000, when she decided to come out as transgender, she allowed me to chronicle her life in a cover story for the Los Angeles Times Magazine titled “Through the Gender Labyrinth.”

Growing up male in New York’s strait-laced Westchester County, Conway struggled with an inner turmoil.

A natural engineer, Conway excelled academically and won a place at MIT, but wound up flunking out due to a lack of social or medical support. In 1961, however, Conway enrolled at Columbia University, acquiring bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering in only two years.

Conway also impressed a Columbia instructor who was an executive at IBM. That led to a position on a team secretly designing the world’s fastest supercomputer, a pet project of IBM Chairman Thomas Watson Jr.

Conway moved with the team to Menlo Park, Calif., producing engineering innovations that would remain central to IBM’s most advanced computers for years.

In the meantime Conway had gotten married and began to raise two daughters. Family life only intensified that inner turmoil, and in 1968 Conway decided to undertake gender reassignment surgery.

As I wrote in 2000, Conway had visualized a nearly seamless transition. IBM would change the name on company records and execute a transfer to another lab, marking a fresh start.

It was not to be. IBM corporate management, unable to see how the secret could be kept from co-workers, feared disruption. Although Conway’s immediate superiors had said they would find room for her at another company lab, contrary orders came down from on high and Conway was quietly fired.

“They thought they were doing the right thing,” Conway told me. “I’m sure in his own mind, T.J. Watson Jr. thought so. He was responsible for a corporation.” Gender transition and sex reassignment surgery were alien concepts at the time.

“Christine Jorgensen was the last time anything had come out about stuff like this,” Conway recalls. Jorgensen’s transition, which had made front-page news in 1951, had been reduced to a historical curiosity nearly two decades later. “Watson was thinking there would be endless publicity, and I can understand that.”

In an era when there was no recourse for anyone fired for sex or gender discrimination, Conway’s job loss could not have come at a worse time.

Conway was living as a woman but the gender reassignment surgery was not scheduled to take place for a few months. It would cost about $4,000 — an enormous sum in 1968 — not including several thousand dollars in related costs: electrolysis, counseling, hormone therapy.

The family went on welfare for three months. Conway’s wife barred her from contact with her daughters. She would not see them again for 14 years.

Beyond the financial implications, the stigma of banishment from one of the world’s most respected corporations felt like an excommunication.

She sought jobs in the burgeoning electrical engineering community in what would soon become known as Silicon Valley, working her way up through startups, and eventually received an offer in 1973 from the research lab Xerox had just established in Palo Alto.

PARC has become famous for inventing the personal computer, but Conway’s work was on a different trajectory. In partnership with Caltech engineering professor Carver Mead, she codified the design rules for the new technology of “very large-scale integrated circuits” (or, in computer shorthand, VLSI). The pair laid down the rules in a 1979 textbook that a generation of engineering students knew as “Mead-Conway.”

VLSI fostered a revolution in computer microprocessor design that included the Pentium chip, which would power millions of PCs. Conway spread the VLSI gospel by creating a system in which students taking courses at MIT and other technical institutions could get their sample designs rendered in silicon.

Professional and academic accolades began to accumulate. In 1983, she was recruited to head a supercomputer program at the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA — sailing through her FBI background check so easily that she became convinced that the Pentagon must have already encountered transgender people in its workforce. A figure of undisputed authority in some of the most abstruse corners of computing, she was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1989.

By then she had joined the University of Michigan as a professor and associate dean in the College of Engineering, where she is professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science. In 2002 she married a fellow engineer, Charles Rogers, and with him has nurtured a 24-acre homestead in a rural district not far from Ann Arbor.

She also became a mentor and model for generations following her path to gender transition. She also has written about how women and minorities can get written out of the histories of scientific and technical innovations — drawing from her own experience of fighting to be recognized for her role in developing VLSI technology.

Conway’s record of professional achievement and personal growth, along with her engineer’s clear-eyed contemplation of the world around her, helped her to look back on her experience at IBM without rancor — “I don’t go around holding grudges,” she says. “That’s just bad karma.”

She was aware, moreover, that IBM had become a leader in its support of transgender employees. But there was something missing in her relationship with IBM. The process of filling the vacuum started with Arvind Krishna, who learned the outlines of Conway’s story from a transgender employee shortly after become IBM’s CEO in April. He asked Gherson to look into the background

Her research left her “stunned and heartbroken,” Gherson said at the Oct. 14 event, which incorporated the announcement that Conway had received IBM’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

“While your experience wouldn’t happen today at IBM, there will always be challenges in today’s workplace that we just aren’t prepared for,” Gherson told Conway and the audience.

“One thing 2020 has taught all of us is that we have a lot to learn when it comes to creating an inclusive workplace in society,” Gherson said. “We know there is much work to be done. So we are here today not only to celebrate you as a world renowned innovator and IBM alum, but also to learn from you — and by so doing create a more inclusive workplace in society.”

For Conway, the event points to a way that society can redress historical wrongs without sweeping them under the rug.

As members of the audience related some of their own experiences of coming out, “the whole thing quickly turned away from recrimination and dissing people who did things in the past that by present standards don’t look very good,” Conway recalls.

“For me personally, it brings a lot of closure,” she says. “It ties things up so that all of that is now ancient history. And it shows a path forward for a lot of issues where there are regrets over past actions. People need resolution, but you can’t go back in space and time and judge those by the techno-social standards of today.

“There are ways of not carrying hate and vendettas, but to be able to historically recognize exactly what happened, and then take away the lessons that any one of us can share about how to avoid entrapping oneself in a similar situation that might be judged in the future. It isn’t really about me. I’m just a messenger.”

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who graduated from the Madurai Government Medical College in 2018 has ended up begging on the streets with a group of transgenders as she was sacked from a hospital after undergoing sex change surgery.
The doctor was among a group of transgenders who were rounded up by police recently following complaints that they were begging on the streets in the city and troubling passersby.

Police inspector G Kavitha said she didn’t believe the doctor at first. “We checked her documents and spoke to doctors from Madurai Medical College, who confirmed the story. We were told that the doctor, who was a male in college, was brilliant in studies. It has been 20 days since I met her. She is now staying along with a transgender in the city,” she said.

The inspector said that after working in a city hospital as a male doctor for a year, she underwent a surgery and became a woman. As a result, she lost her job. She needs to get her certificates changed so that she can start working as a doctor again, Kavitha said. She also wants to do post-graduation, the inspector said.

“We are ready to help her as a student of our college. After he completed his house surgency, I heard he was undergoing sex reassignment surgery. After that I did not know what happened,” Dean of Madurai Medical College and Government Rajaji Hospital Dr J Sangumani told TOI.
The police and medical lab owner are setting up a clinic for the doctor in Madurai, They’ve already got her a stethoscope and a doctor’s coat. Police sources said the doctor was a bit upset with all the publicity after her photo in the new coat and with the stethoscope went viral on social media.
Inspector Kavitha said the doctor’s family had disowned her because she underwent sex change surgery.

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• The teenager is being assisted in his fight for action by The Good Law Project
• It says the NHS has ‘legal obligation’ to provide specialist care within 18 weeks
• But the average waiting time for a first appointment is 18 months, group says
• NHS England insists an independent review into the service is already underway

A transgender teenage boy is launching legal against against NHS England over delays to gender reassignment treatment, having waited more than a year for a referral to the specialist clinic.

The 14-year-old is being assisted in his fight by The Good Law Project, which says the NHS has ‘a legal obligation’ to provide specialist care, or an alternative, within 18 weeks.

However, the average waiting time for a first appointment with the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), based at London’s Tavistock Centre, is 18 months, the organisation says, with some even waiting up to four years.

This is not even to actually get what the NHS describes as fully reversible puberty blockers, but just to begin the process of being assessed for eligibility.

Some 10,000 more young people have been referred to the already over-subscribed GIDS, according to figures obtained by the BBC.

NHS England says an independent review into the service has been launched, and insists any legal action ‘will only cost taxpayers’ money and not help the actions already under way’.

The service, which is run by the Tavistock and Portland NHS Foundation Trust, provides support to people under the age of 18 who experience difficulties related to their gender identity.

Reece, who came out to friends and family in primary school, told the BBC he would not want to bring such action ideally, but felt he didn’t have a choice as ‘nobody else is sticking up for trans young people’.

He added: ‘I know more than 30 trans people, from school and LGBT groups. Everybody’s been waiting for months, or even years, but nobody’s been able to get in yet.

‘It’s scary because it shows the service isn’t available to the people who need it.’

In a statement he added: ‘The length of the NHS waiting list means the treatments which are essential for my wellbeing are not available to me.

‘By the time I get to the top of the list it will be too late, and in the meantime I suffer the fear and terror that gender dysphoria causes, every day.’ 

Gender dysphoria is when a person feels a sense of unease because of a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity.

The NHS announced in September that an independent review into GIDS would be carried out.

An NHS England spokesman said it would include ‘how and when’ young people are referred to specialist services.

Jolyon Maugham QC, director of the Good Law Project said: ‘Whatever your views about the right treatment regime for young people with gender dysphoria, it can’t be right that they face lengthy waiting lists – on some reports up to four years – for a first appointment.

‘Children are losing the opportunity to be seen within a window in which they can secure effective treatment and so are, in practice, being denied access to that treatment.’

The Good Law Project said the case was not about the treatment GIDS should provide, but the ‘lengthy delays’ in accessing it.

The GIDS’ website says it is aware that young people are having to wait a ‘long’ time for their first appointment. 

An NHS England spokesperson said: ‘There has been more than a 500% rise in the number of children and young people being referred to the Tavistock’s gender identity service since 2013 as more people come forward for support and treatment.

‘The NHS has already asked Dr Hilary Cass to carry out an independent review including how and when children and young people are referred to specialist services, so legal action against the NHS will only cost taxpayers’ money and not help the actions already under way.’

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Showing support. 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? alum Larissa Dos Santos Lima expressed her appreciation for boyfriend Eric Nichols before undergoing her latest cosmetic procedure at Smith Plastic Surgery in Las Vegas, Nevada.  

“Thank you for [being] here,” Larissa, 34, gushed alongside a selfie with her beau on Thursday, October 29. Eric remained by her side for as long as he could before she had Cellfina done, which “treats the primary structural cause of cellulite.”

Larissa explained more about the process on her Instagram Stories, writing, “Cellfina is a nonsurgical treatment for reducing the appearance of cellulite dimples.” The former TLC personality continued, “It’s the only FDA-cleared minimally invasive procedure that has been clinically proven to be effective for cellulite reduction on the thighs and butt for up to three years.” 

After the treatment was completed, the Brazil native shared an update with her followers to confirm she was “good” and already working toward her recovery.  

Although she and Eric now live in Colorado, the couple returned to Sin City to go to the same place she had her other plastic surgery procedures done. Larissa previously had a nose job and a boob job in February, and liposuction, a tummy tuck and a fat transfer in August, all of which were done by Dr. Lane Smith.  

“The reason that I did it because as you know, I have a family in Brazil, I have a boyfriend who is 28 years old and I am exposed daily on social media,” Larissa shared with Life & Style after unveiling her results in early September.  

“People have haters, but the lovers, they ask you what procedures you use, what clothes that [you have] on. So, I want to look good for myself and to make money to send to Brazil and to make a living here,” the reality star further explained.

Larissa announced she was fired from TLC on September 26 because of her affiliation with CamSoda. The season 5 alum confirmed she would still be sharing life updates on social media in the wake of her exit and “continue producing content for [her] official channels on Instagram, OnlyFans and YouTube.”

In a follow-up interview, Larissa revealed she is “happy” to be paving her own path and has really been looking forward to her “new beginning.”

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Comedienne Mai Titi is living her best life in South Africa where she is visiting her Nigerian boyfriend Mr. Obina.

Last weekend she had a meet and greet In Durban and has one lined up for this weekend in Cape Town. Recently, the outspoken comedienne announced that she had undergone liposuction surgery and face peeling procedure for the very first time.

The procedure, which is done to remove fat in plastic surgery, was conducted at Herrwood Medical Centre, one of the most prominent medical centers in South Africa where popular Mzansi celebs like Zodwa Wabantu and Dj Tira have actually gone there to get their surgery. Mai Titi had liposuction to remove all the belly fat.

Her week just keeps getting better and yesterday, South African dancer Zodwa Wabantu took her out for dinner.

From her Facebook post after the ladies’ night out, the Zimbabwean comedienne said she enjoyed Zodwa Wabantu’s company. Mai Titi said Zodwa Wabantu surprised her with a request to take her out for dinner. She jokingly added that Zodwa Wabantu wanted to advise her on how to keep her new man Mr. Obina.

Apart from having a nice time with Zodwa, Mai Titi said she learned a thing or two from the controversial South African dancer. She thanked Zodwa Wabantu for a wonderful ladies night out saying:

So tonight Zodwa wabantu said I want to take u out and I made sure Oga stays at home kwaaaaa it is indeed girls night out haha but I learnt something from this woman. Definition of Boldness and I don’t care …. thank you Zodwa for the treat.

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Assam has become the first Indian state to add “transgender” as an identity category for people seeking civil service jobs, allowing 42 trans candidates to apply to sit an entry exam, an official and a campaigner said on Friday.

The application form for the exam, which recruits for state roles such as administrative officials, magistrates, and police officers, now lets applicants tick male, female or transgender, a move welcomed by local trans rights advocates.

“Forty-two (applicants) is not a small number… It is a historic decision. Assam has become the first state in India to have included us,” said Swati Bidhan Baruah of the Assam Transgender Welfare Board, which sought the change.

Calling the decision a “big victory”, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation her group had also urged Assam’s state government to reserve a quota of civil service jobs for trans candidates.

“We are confident our demand will be met soon,” she said.

Pallab Bhattacharya, chairman of the Assam Public Service Commission, which conducts the test, said about 76,000 candidates had applied to sit this year’s examination, which will be held in December.

In April, India’s federal government instructed all ministries and departments to modify forms for recruitment tests to include “transgender” as a separate category to conform with a trans rights law passed last year.

The law set out to improve the lives of about two million trans-Indians, who face discrimination in the largely conservative nation and mostly survive through begging, performing at weddings, or selling sex.

Still, campaigners have expressed concern about the limits on self-determining their gender, with the law stating they must obtain an identity certificate from a district magistrate to be declared transgender.

They also have to give proof of having undergone sex reassignment surgery if they then want to be listed as male or female.

India’s Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that trans people had equal rights but they are still often rejected by their families and denied jobs, education and healthcare.

Assam, which lies in northeast India, has a trans population of about 11,500, according to the last census of 2011.

One trans woman who filled out the state application form said sitting the entry examination could change her life, adding that she hoped to join the local police force.

“It’s a matter of pride and self respect to have a category where we can boldly mention ourselves as transgender,” the 24-year-old said, asking not to give her name.

“I want to change the system and do away with discrimination faced by the transgender community.”

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An employment tribunal has recently considered whether a gender fluid/non-binary employee falls within the definition of gender reassignment in order to benefit from protection under the Equality Act 2010.

Taylor v Jaguar Land Rover ET1304471/2018

Facts

The claimant worked as an engineer for the company for almost 20 years. She began identifying as gender fluid/non-binary in 2017 and usually dressed in female clothing. She was subjected to insults and abusive jokes in the workplace and experienced problems in relation to the use of toilet facilities. She pursued claims of harassment, direct discrimination and victimisation on the ground of gender reassignment, in addition to claiming constructive unfair dismissal. Her employer resisted the claims on the grounds that she did not fall within the definition of gender reassignment under the Equality Act 2010.

Employment tribunal decision

The tribunal upheld the claims, finding that the claimant’s status as gender fluid/nonbinary fell within the definition of gender reassignment under the Equality Act 2010. With reference to comments recorded in Hansard during parliamentary debates on the Equality Bill in 2009, the tribunal considered gender to be a ‘spectrum’, with gender reassignment being a personal journey moving a gender identity away from birth sex. The tribunal held that it was beyond any doubt that the claimant was covered by the Equality Act 2010. At a subsequent remedies hearing earlier this month, the respondent agreed to pay the claimant £180,000 in compensation. In addition, the respondent consented to the appointment of a Diversity and Inclusion Champion and to the commissioning of a report by a recognised diversity organisation to investigate diversity and inclusion throughout the respondent’s business and setting out the necessary steps to becoming a “standard setting organisation” across all protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. An annual report into progress in achieving this will be produced for a period of five years.

Consequences

This is a first instance decision of the employment tribunal, meaning that it is not binding on other tribunals. However, it suggests that tribunals will be prepared to find that individuals with complex gender identities are protected under the Equality Act 2010 alongside those who elect to reassign their birth sex to a binary gender. The high level of compensation agreed by the respondent reflects the tribunal’s finding that aggravated damages were appropriate due to the egregious way the claimant had been treated and the insensitive stance taken by the respondent in defending the proceedings. Note, the tribunal’s full written reasons have not yet been published in this case.

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State Department employees complained this month after members of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s advance team discovered overtly anti-gay flyers when scoping out the site of a Florida event with a conservative Christian group that promotes conversion therapy for LGBTQ individuals.

Pompeo’s decision to address the Florida Family Policy Council was initially flagged by members of his advance team to their supervisors, and other State Department employees also complained after finding the group offers LGBTQ individuals “help leaving the gay lifestyle” on its website, according to two sources familiar with the internal protest.

Lisa Kenna, executive secretary at the State Department, was alerted to the concerns and attempted to mitigate fallout from the event.

Pompeo ultimately addressed the Florida group’s Oct. 3 event virtually. The gathering — which filled a ballroom in Orlando with roughly 700 guests — coincided with an outbreak of COVID-19 at the White House that infected President Donald Trump and some of his closest aides.

The State Department frequently condemns conversion therapy programs abroad in its human rights reports as among “acts of violence, discrimination, and other abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” Conversion therapy is a discredited practice that aims to change the sexual orientation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.

One source described several aides as “appalled” the event still took place despite the concerns, and that afterward, the secretary highlighted his appearance in his latest “Miles with Mike” message to department employees.

The event was opened by Jannique Stewart of Missouri, a speaker who described her work as training others in opposing abortion and in “countering some of the agenda when it comes to LGBTQ.”

Before joining the Trump administration, first as CIA director and then as secretary of State, Pompeo made his views on LGBTQ rights explicit, opposing same-sex marriage and once alluding to homosexuality as a “perversion.”

The Florida Family Policy Council says on its website the phrase “conversion therapy” is an ideological term used to discredit therapeutic practices, but it also explicitly opposes efforts to restrict conversion therapy.

“Conversion therapy bans disguise themselves as bans on ‘abuse.’ Rather, such bans place unconstitutional limits on freedom of speech because they do not consider the patient’s (or minor patient’s parents) right to pursue avenues of therapy consistent with their beliefs and choices,” the website states.

The group’s website also includes links to multiple religious-based organizations that offer help “Leaving Gay Lifestyle” and a YouTube video titled “If Conversion Therapy Is Bad, Why Is Sex Reassignment Good?”

A spokesperson for the State Department downplayed internal dissension over Pompeo’s appearance at the event, but did not address the group’s views or answer questions on whether the secretary supports conversion therapy.

“The Secretary was asked to speak to this group about the mission of the State Department and he did. The Secretary believes that organizations like Florida Family Policy Council are entitled to hear from him on important national security policy matters,” the spokesperson said.

“The Secretary was not made aware of any concerns with respect to speaking before this group given that other major leaders have addressed this event,” the spokesperson said.

John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, in an emailed statement said there had been nothing on conversion therapy related to the event.

“There were no flyers about anything, let alone conversion therapy at our dinner, either from us or other organizations,” Stemberger said. “We did not talk with the State Department about conversion therapy. We did meet with members of the Diplomatic Security and advance team to do a walk through before the event. The State Department never asked about conversion therapy, and we as an organization, do not [do] any therapy or counseling at all.”

DOMESTIC POLITICAL SPEECHES

Pompeo and his wife have been the subjects of an ongoing internal inquiry from the State Department inspector general looking into whether they used taxpayer dollars and official personnel for personal errands.

The Democratic-led House Foreign Affairs Committee is now also investigating whether Pompeo has used State Department resources to deliver a series of domestic political speeches ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election, including the Oct. 3 Orlando event, a Sept. 23 visit to the Wisconsin State Capitol and a Sept. 20 speech to a Texas church.

“It is concerning that the Secretary is suddenly crisscrossing the country at taxpayers’ expense,” Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel of New York and Joaquin Castro of Texas wrote to the State Department on Oct. 5. “The nexus of speeches about the Secretary’s personal religious beliefs, to a swing-state legislature accompanied by a former senior Republican party official, and at a paid-access event for an anti-abortion advocacy group, to the Secretary’s official duties as America’s lead diplomat is unclear and possibly illegal.”

Pompeo was initially scheduled to address the Orlando event in person, and an invitation to the gala obtained by CNN offered a “personal visit” with Pompeo for those who sponsored a table for $10,000. Access to a VIP reception was also being offered as part of tickets that were sold for $3,000 and $5,000.

The Florida Family Policy Council is a state-based affiliate of the national group, Focus on the Family, which has long opposed same-sex marriage. Pompeo has repeatedly engaged with the national group over the years to promote religious freedom.

The state group is a well-known advocacy organization for social conservative issues in Florida and has hosted several national Republican politicians, such as former Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and Dr. Ben Carson, before he became Housing secretary. Former Kansas Sen. and Gov. Sam Brownback addressed the group in 2007 ahead of his unsuccessful run for president in 2008, and now is the State Department’s ambassador at-large for international religious freedom.

Stemberger, an Orlando lawyer who is also a registered lobbyist in Tallahassee, is a longtime supporter of Republican politicians, including Trump, and has pushed for legislation like a bill signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that requires minors seeking an abortion to obtain parental consent.

The Florida Family Policy Council’s events, including the annual awards dinner and forums with candidates running for political office, are often important stops for Republican politicians seeking to win influence with conservative Christians, particularly in contested Republican primaries.

Stemberger has also been at odds with some Florida Republicans, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, over issues like legalizing medical marijuana.

ANGER AMONG LGBTQ

Progressive groups that fight for gay rights said it was an inappropriate venue for a speech from a secretary of State.

“The Florida Family Policy Council is an anti-LGBTQ extremist group that has sought to undermine and attack our community’s most vulnerable at every opportunity,” Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said. “The highest levels of the State Department clearly knew about FFPC’s extremism and yet, even over the objections of staff, chose to embrace it anyway.”

Tom Witt, the executive director of Equality Kansas, the leading LGBTQ rights organization in Pompeo’s home state, criticized Pompeo’s decision to address a group that promotes conversion therapy.

“I’m stunned that our secretary of state would be spending his time going to local organizations whose actions drive kids to suicide, to drop out of school, to otherwise dangerous behaviors because the adults around them are trying to force them to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, which is not something that can be done,” Witt said, noting the State Department’s advocacy for LGBTQ rights abroad.

Witt lives in Wichita, the largest city in Pompeo’s former congressional district.

During his four successful runs for Congress, Pompeo opposed several key LGBTQ rights measures, including the legalization of same-sex marriage and the 2010 repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to allow openly gay individuals to serve in the military.

“He’s never supported equality for LGBT Americans, even the ones who are fighting for our country,” Witt said.

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s first transgender soldier plans to file an administrative litigation after the military decided to discharge her from her duties on Wednesday.

Byun Hui-Su, staff sergeant and tank driver, stationed in Gyeonggi Province, north of Seoul, underwent gender reassignment surgery in Thailand last year while on leave.

“She is indeed very brave. I think it is time for change in Korean society to embrace the gender diversity and minority groups as part of our members,” said Jieun Lee, a human rights, finance and art specialty lawyer who helps represent Byun along with the Military Human Rights Korea and Lawyers’ Knowledge Forum pro bono committee, told ABC News.

Byun was waiting for the court to approve her request to change legal gender from male to female. The National Human Rights Commission has recommended that the military wait three months before any discharge decision is made.

But South Korea’s military abruptly discharged Byun on Wednesday based on a related military personnel management act which allows discharge of people with physical or mental disabilities if those problems were not a result of combat or in the line of duty.

“It is very disappointing and annoying that the military medical review committee sees her transgender operation as physical defect based on legal gender as male,” Lee added.

Shortly after the military announcement, Byun, holding back tears, read a statement to the press describing her childhood dreams of becoming a soldier.

She was proud to have made that choice but confessed “symptoms of depression turned worse day by day because of gender dysphoria” throughout her duty.

“(Being a soldier) was my earnest dream but I continuously thought that I could not serve the military in this condition,” she read. “Apart from my gender identity, I want to show everyone that I can also be one of the great soldiers who protect this country.”

This is the first time in South Korea that an active-duty member has been referred to a military panel to determine whether to end his or her service due to a sex reassignment operation.

South Korea prohibits transgender people from joining the military but has no specific laws on what to do with those who have sex reassignment operations during their time in service.

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CHENNAI:  A week after Mylapore’s Raga Sudha Hall played host to some highly talented yet very unlikely guests — Tamizh musicians who have taken up the cause of environmental activism on behalf of the oft-ignored north Madras — it set the stage for a host of transgender artists and activists for the first time. A place that has long since been synonymous with Carnatic concerts and Bharatanatyam recitals was witness to poetry readings and record dance performances by transmen and transwomen, offering them a passage to the mainstream. All thanks to Chennai Kalai Theru Vizha’s insistence on extending inclusivity to marginalised arts and people.

Making a shift 
“A platform like this did not exist 15 years ago. We had to organise events ourselves; we’d call 10 people and they would be people of our own. But now, I am starting to see this shift to the mainstream. It is nice to see so many new faces among the audience. For our work spreads only through word of mouth. So long, we had been talking among ourselves; now, with the Kalai Vizha, we have been able to reach more people,” pointed out Sankari of Nirangal, one of the two NGOs that Kalai Vizha had collaborated with for its first Thirunar Vizha. 

Day one of the weekend event had many artistes from the trans community putting up their work on display as not just a celebration of their art but also a quiet declaration of their everyday travails. Between her hard-hitting poetry readings and art installation, The Red Wall Project, the inimitable Kalki Subramaniam — artist, activist, writer and author — called for the need to discard the debilitating stereotypes the world still held on to; she also placed the onus of reparations on the society that had been the cause of strife in the first place. 

Identity struggles
With a solo theatre performance that has had global attention in as long as a decade, the astounding A Revathi, writer and activist, offered a glimpse into the life of ‘your neighbourhood transwoman’ — detailing the identity struggles, need for self-assertion, the born-again journey of adopted ‘mothers’ and ‘daughters’, the value of such trusted kinship. This, alongside the barrage of assault and abuse that’s thrust upon the people just living life on their terms.

Despite the exemplary work of these women — Revathi’s books are prescribed text for Gender Studies in many colleges and universities, Kalki’s Sahodari Foundation continues to offer a platform for the empowerment of the community — a brief interaction they had with the audience showed how much more there is to be achieved in the arena of inclusivity and sensitivity. 

Spectators, most likely well-intentioned, had only to ask them about their sense of fashion (too loud, in his opinion), sex reassignment surgeries and ways of sexual pleasure. While they could have easily been dismissed at any other forum, Kalki and Revathi took the time to provide them with meaningful answers. Even as Kalki thinks it’s a breach of privacy. “As a person, as a woman, as a transwoman, I feel that I shouldn’t answer that. Let him go to Google to find it. But as an activist working for the community, there is a compulsion to answer. If some ignorant person is asking this question, it is also an opportunity for me to answer it to a hundred people for they may have it too,” she explained. 

Perhaps if the society did not have such rigid norms for sex and gender, we wouldn’t need reassignment surgeries, quips Revathi. “Naan Bharathi oda meesai vecha penna irunthuttu poren, (Let me be Bharathi’s ideology of a woman — but one sporting a moustache),” she remarked to a question on surgery options. 

Educational reforms 
It was to address these trappings of the society that the Vizha featured the works of transmen too, a section of people that gets even less attention and care than transwomen. It also offered a platform for the ‘record dance’ — a work that has provided a livelihood for many from the community. Even this came with a heavy dose of reality — a dance crew named after Tara, a transwoman, whose death in a police station in Chennai was quickly forgotten over the disruption that came with demonetisation. 

While most of the society is happy doing the bare minimum for people it marginalises, the Vizha was a means to reassert the need for educational reform. Schoolteacher Mahalakshmi Kannan from Jawadu Hills and assistant professor V Sri Latha both emphasised on the importance of keeping children within the fold of the family and the education system to aid them through the transition, their identity crisis. 
Neelam NGO’s Muththamizh Kalai Vizhi insisted on representation — a means to offer children a different narrative about the transgender community. Kalki, though she is happy to witness the change in certain quarters, thinks there’s much more that has to be done. She didn’t end the night without doing her part in offering an alternative narrative. 

“You call it the third gender but we are the first gender, for we have transitioned from one state to another. Women come second for they are the creators. It is men who are the third gender.” Only then do you realise that it had to be said and it had to be said by her.

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January 14, 2020 (American Thinker) — It is a startling reaction, but LGBT advocates are continuing their campaign to ostracize “transgender” people who want their appearance once again to reflect their sex.

Charlie Evans fits the profile of a “former transgender” who felt shunned by LGBT members and was labeled a “traitor.” She naively set out to help teenagers avoid making the same “horrendous mistakes” she had made when starting to “transition” at age 17. She began living as a boy, binding her chest and shaving her head.

The floodgates to this bizarre phenomenon opened in the aftermath of Evans appearing on a popular cable program, Sky News, in the United Kingdom. Hundreds of “former transsexuals” who (also) “feel like a social contagion,” says Evans, had contacted her wanting to do the same thing. 

Evans further enraged leftists by founding a nonprofit that recognizes the extent of the problem spelled out in its name, “Detransition Advocacy Network,” in England. Transsexuals sought out Evans for support, calling from countries around the world.

Pulling back the curtain on Evans’s regrets, and those of others like her, couldn’t come at a worse time for the LGBT community. They literally can’t afford to have hundreds of “retransitioning” transsexuals come between them and their dream of getting more taxpayers to foot the bill for so-called sex change procedures.

Apparently, “former transsexuals” fail to fit their romanticized narrative on how to achieve “gender inclusivity.” Leftist advocates can’t be bothered with examining the tragic details of devastated health and ruined lives of transsexuals, but rather must stick with their ideology foisted on the public.

Seeking the gold standard of approval, transgender advocates have prominently displayed the ACLU’s statement summing up their economic goal: “A general recognition in America that transition-related care is basic healthcare for transgender people,” reads the ACLU “blog of rights … [and] that no one should be denied coverage.”

Most politicians know which way the ideological argument is going, and they’re jumping on board the gender-activist train — and not without your tax dollars.

Massachusetts’s former governor Deval Patrick successfully forced taxpayers to subsidize sex-obscuring surgery by expanding Medicaid coverage. Why stop there? Gov. Patrick was lauded by leftists for his state’s unprecedented “significant advances” in health care legislation: that translates to mean he has targeted the deepest pockets in the medical insurance industry.

Private health care insurers are now prohibited from denying the claims of members who are suffering from sexual dysphoria and undergoing “sex change” operations, according to the Massachusetts Division of Insurance.

This is the tip of the subsidy iceberg. Oregon and California have led the campaign to offer Medicaid and Medicare (respectively) funds for sex-obscuring procedures.

Now even elderly patients can opt for gender-related health care coverage through Medicare. (Requests are handled on a case-by-case basis, according to the government website.) No doubt, voters can anticipate thousands of pages more of legislation coming down the subsidy pike in 2020.

Taxpayers need to question more than subsidies for sex-obscuring operations; they need to ask whether their politicians are keeping up with serious and lasting risks of transgender procedures.

One physician in Los Angeles addressed the obvious but rarely discussed “dangerous” pre-treatment and surgical regimen. “A patient administered high doses of sex-change [sic] hormones must factor in the potentially catastrophic effects of totally disrupting the body’s normal physiologic function,” he says. The FDA has already received 24,000 reports of adverse reactions to cross-sex hormones, which now include puberty-blockers for children who “identify” as the opposite sex.

One world health organization has admitted that sex-obscuring treatments “can cause permanent bodily impairment and are generally irreversible,” according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).

Mounting clinical evidence reveals the fallacy of the “rainbow dream” to safely “transition.” That means gender ideology cannot save transsexuals who are now suffering from ruined health and experiencing more serious health disorders (including cancer, diabetes, severe osteoporosis, etc.)

It’s rare, but cases of gender regret are surfacing in the media.

Mike Penner, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, returned to the newsroom as Christine Daniels after surgery. Colleagues were very accepting, even after Mike decided to return to presenting himself according to his true sex. Tragically, the reporter became another transgender statistic. He died by suicide in 2009.

The numbers mounted, according to nonprofit websites. Walt Heyer — who had his sex-obscuring surgery reversed — thinks this phenomenon is far more common than what the public has been led to believe. 

“People don’t fare well in life experience after undergoing gender surgery,” Heyer tells National Review. “So it’s always kind of troubling for me why we would pay for something … that is actually [going to] be more harmful than if we left the person alone and dealt with the psychological component.”

His sixth book, Trans Life Survivors, compiles 30 life experiences of transgender regret, capturing the painful experiences of those caught up in today’s “transmania.” The most heartbreaking are “survivors” who felt pressured into gender “transition” by social media, political correctness, and even public school officials.

“Blair,” who holds a Guinness World Record for the most so-called sex change surgeries, underwent a shocking 167 procedures. He, and others, are left feeling as though the transgender movement has become a sickening money-making industry.

None of this can be found on the ACLU “blog of rights.”

A note to taxpayers: Generally, taxpayers remain clueless about the costs attached to gender “reassignment” surgery. Procedures now federally subsidized include: basic “male-to-female” surgery ranges from $25,000 to $50,000, including testicle removal, breast augmentation, and genital surgery; and “female-to-male” ranges from $30,000 to $50,000, covering mastectomy, reconstruction of chest, areolar reduction, and genital surgery, according to the Philadelphia Center for Transgender Surgery.

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Two transgender women are suing Florida government agencies for being denied gender-affirming health care under the state employee health plan’s exclusion for “gender reassignment or modification services or supplies.”

It’s the latest legal challenge to state health plans that deny coverage for gender-affirming procedures.

The Florida lawsuit, filed Monday, argues that the state’s exclusion of gender-affirming care violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. The plaintiffs, Jami Claire and Kathryn Lane, are state workers who were denied treatment for gender dysphoria. Claire is a scientist who has worked at the University of Florida for over three decades, and Lane is an attorney in the public defender’s office in Tallahassee.

“This was an intentional decision made by the [Florida] Department of Management Services to exclude this type of care, and we know that because there is already an exclusion for non-medically necessary care,” Simone Chriss, attorney at Southern Legal Counsel, told Rewire.News. “If what our plaintiffs were seeking was not medically necessary, it would just be denied for that reason, but it wasn’t. It was denied under the exclusion for gender-affirming care, which means that they recognize it is medically necessary but they choose not to cover it.”

The ACLU of Florida, Southern Legal Counsel, and pro bono attorney Eric Lindstrom filed the lawsuit against the Florida Department of Management Services, the Public Defender of the Second Judicial Circuit of Florida, and the University of Florida.

Claire said Florida’s exclusion of gender-affirming care has affected her financially and emotionally. She has had to pay out of pocket for many of the procedures she needs.

“When I had tried to access the medical care, the exclusion was there and I couldn’t access it and I had three suicide attempts,” she said. “Life wasn’t worth living at that point.”

Claire added, “I’ve spent thousands of dollars already and if this exclusion is not overturned and I get to the point where I retire, I will have to use approximately a third of my retirement money to pay for bottom surgery.”

Hormone replacement therapy, electrolysis, augmentation mammoplasty, orchiectomy, and facial feminization surgery were some of the procedures denied by the plaintiffs’ state plans due to the exclusion of gender-affirming care.

Transgender people face numerous barriers to health care access, including discrimination by health-care providers and economic barriers to accessing affordable care. According to the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality, one-third of respondents who had seen a health-care provider in the past year had at least one negative experience related to being transgender. One in four respondents said they had a problem with their insurance in the past year related to being transgender, such as being denied gender-affirming care. Black, Native American, Latinx, and multiracial trans people were more likely to be uninsured than white trans people, according to the survey.

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have policies that prohibit health-care discrimination based on gender identity, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Stateline. Twenty-one states have no policy for health-care coverage for trans people.

Billy Huff, a transgender man who worked at the University of Florida as the director of LGBTQ Affairs, said he was surprised when he found out about the state’s exclusion. He had only researched Aetna to find out if he had coverage.

“I was heartbroken,” he said. “I was at that point literally marking days off on my calendar until my surgery date and already had my consultation and paid for my down payment on the surgery out-of-pocket.”

There have been other lawsuits against exceptions for gender-affirming care in state plans. In 2018, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit against the state of Alaska on behalf of Jennifer Fletcher, a state legislative librarian, because the state prohibited coverage for her transition-related care. The LGBTQ rights-focused organization, which does litigation and public policy work, said the denial of care violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The case is still open.

Lambda Legal and the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF) filed a lawsuit in 2019 on behalf of current and former employees of the state of North Carolina who were denied transition-related care under the state employee health plan. In the complaint, Lambda Legal and TLDEF argue this violates the equal protection clause, the nondiscrimination clause of Affordable Care Act, and Title IX, since the defendants include state colleges and universities.

Lambda Legal attorney Taylor Brown told Rewire.News that defense of state plan exclusions vary from arguing that the procedures aren’t medically necessary and qualify as “cosmetic” to claiming that refusing to cover gender dysphoria is not discriminatory.

“We’re doing the research about these exclusions and looking into state plans and looking into public record requests on when these decisions were made and debated, and they often rely on outdated science or just pure speculation and misinformation,” Brown said.

“Every major medical association in the United States recognizes the medical necessity of transition-related care for improving the physical and mental health of transgender people and has called for health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria,” according to the American Medical Association. The American Medical Association also cites studies showing that health coverage that includes gender-affirming care is cost-effective compared to the costs associated with untreated gender dysphoria.

Brown said the claim that refusing treatment for gender dysphoria isn’t sex discrimination doesn’t hold legal water.

“We argue that it’s sex discrimination because these procedures we call transition-related health care—they’re often procedures available to cisgender people. So they’ll say that this is not sex discrimination. It’s condition discrimination. We’re not treating gender dysphoria. But we understand that the only people who have gender dysphoria are transgender people,” she said.

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