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.

The post Aides complained about Pompeo event with Florida group that backs gay conversion therapy appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

An NGO working with transgender graduates in China has called on the government to do more to help people change the sex designation on their degree certificates, after many struggled to do so and found that their job prospects suffered.

Beijing Gender, a non-governmental organisation advocating for gender and sexual diversity, said some transgender people could not use their degree to find work and had to take low-paid jobs or study for another degree by enrolling under their new designation.

The group said it had helped 21 graduates to apply to have their degree certificate changed, alongside a lawyer, Yu Liying, but that most had hit barriers to achieving it and only four had so far succeeded, with the process taking several years for some of them.

Xiao Mi, Beijing Gender’s programme assistant for promoting transgender education rights, said there was a guideline for changing the sex status of someone’s legal identity if they had sex reassignment surgery, but not one for changing education records to obtain a degree certificate matching their legal identification.

“We hope the government can adapt to gender diversity and change the system,” he said.

One woman who applied to the education ministry had to wait for eight years before her university gave her a new degree certificate this year, Xiao Mi said.

Xiao Fei, who graduated from Liaoning Normal University in 2013, underwent gender reassignment surgery in Thailand two years ago. She needed the help of Yu, the lawyer, to get her name and sex changed on her certificate this year, after being refused permission to do so by the university and Liaoning’s education department last year.

“My university told me bluntly in 2017 that there was no way to change the information on the diploma, so I asked for help from the Ministry of Education, which ran the website, but was told I needed to talk to my university,” Xiao Fei said.

After being offered help by Yu in June, Xiao Fei asked the Liaoning education department to make public the result of her application, then applied for a review of the department’s response. She received confirmation last month that the information had been changed.

Xiao Mi said Beijing Gender hoped that the education ministry would issue guidelines for universities.

“The successful examples of changing the sex on a certificate depended largely on lengthy persuasion and negotiation by the transgender graduates themselves,” Xiao Mi said. “Others found the process too long and painful.”

The post Chinese transgender graduates struggle to obtain new degree certificates after surgery appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week declined to take up a case from Texas where a transgender inmate sued the state for sex reassignment surgery, which could have implications for a similar case out of Idaho.

Vanessa Lynn Gibson has been in a Texas prison since 1995 after she was convicted of aggravated robbery and later murdered a fellow inmate. Gibson was born male, but has identified as a woman since she was 15. 

Her lawyer argues that not giving her the surgery would violate the 8th Amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment. 

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said its denial wasn’t cruel and unusual punishment because the surgery’s “necessity and efficacy” are disputed within the medical community. 

But dozens of studies show transgender patients report a better quality of life after getting some type of treatment — including surgery.

The 5th Circuit decision is in direct contrast with a case from 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that told Idaho it had to provide the surgery to Adree Edmo, who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in prison.

Gender dysphoria is a condition where those who suffer from it experience significant distress because their biological sex doesn’t match their gender identity. For example, Edmo has attempted to castrate herself twice while in prison, which she says is due to her gender dysphoria.

Courtney Joslin, a professor at University of Californi, Davis School of Law, said the U.S. Supreme Court’s choice to not hear Gibson’s case might not necessarily foreshadow a loss for Edmo.

While the 9th Circuit ruled differently than its sister court, Joslin said the decision in Edmo’s case was narrowly tailored based on her own individual circumstances.

“That decision did not necessarily mean, though, that every transgender prisoner going forward is entitled to the same type of medical treatment,” Joslin said.

The U.S. Supreme Court is also pretty busy. It only accepts 1-2% of the thousands of cases that are appealed every year.

Edmo just received her first round of court-ordered, pre-surgical treatment last month, namely hair removal treatment.

The Idaho Department of Correction and Corizon, the state’s private healthcare provider, have continued to object to providing Edmo with these treatments in court filings. They have asked for the entire 9th Circuit to hear the case again.

Should that fail, Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) has said he will appeal Edmo’s case to the U.S. Supreme Court. But Joslin says Monday’s denial of the Gibson case could signal that the nation’s highest court thinks it’s not the right time to weigh in on these issues.

If the Supreme Court did deny an appeal in Edmo’s case, she would become the first transgender inmate in the country to receive sex reassignment surgery through a court order.

Edmo was convicted of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy when she was 22. She’s eligible for release in July 2021.

The post Supreme Court Rejects Transgender Inmate Case. What Does That Mean For Adree Edmo? appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a convicted murderer’s appeal to receive gender reassignment surgery, leaving in place a lower court’s ruling in favor of the Texas prison officials who refused the inmate the procedure.

The court rejected the appeal of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling by transgender inmate Vanessa Lynn Gibson, formerly known as Scott Gibson, who claimed the prison’s refusal to grant the surgery violates the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment.

Gibson, 41, who was born male but has lived as a woman since age 15, was convicted and sent to prison for aggravated assault in 1995 and two years later convicted of murdering another inmate.

The inmate, who is eligible for parole in 2021, has engaged in self-harm and has attempted suicide three times, stemming in part from gender dysphoria, which Gibson was diagnosed with in 2014.

Gibson was provided with hormone therapy but denied a request to be considered for gender reassignment surgery. Lawyers for Gibson argued in court filings that the gender dysphoria, which causes their client to feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body, is life-threatening in this case. However, Texas does not have a policy governing “irreversible surgical intervention” for inmates, the state said.

“A state does not inflict cruel and unusual punishment by declining to provide sex reassignment surgery to a transgender inmate,” Judge James Ho said in the Fifth Circuit’s decision, adding that “the necessity and efficacy of sex reassignment surgery is a matter of significant disagreement within the medical community.”

Ho also noted “no other prison has ever provided” gender reassignment surgery.

Democratic presidential candidates including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former 2020 candidate Senator Kamala Harris have advocated for spending taxpayer dollars on sex-reassignment surgery for prison inmates.

The Supreme Court did not comment on its decision not to consider the case.

The post Supreme Court Declines Inmate’s Request for Sex Reassignment Surgery appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

AMAGASAKI, HYOGO PREF. – A 52-year-old in Hyogo Prefecture has filed a claim challenging the constitutionality of a law that blocks people with children who are minors from changing their sex in the official family registry system maintained by Japanese authorities.

In the claim, filed Tuesday with the Amagasaki branch of the Kobe Family Court, a contract worker with an eight-year-old daughter sought to change her listed sex in the family register from male to female.

The woman has already relinquished custody of the girl. She had sex reassignment surgery this year.

“It’s unreasonable that I can’t change my sex (in the family register) because of my child,” the woman said at a news conference in Amagasaki after filing the claim.

A provision of the special law on gender identity disorder states that in order to change their sex on the family registry, an individual must have no child that is still a minor.

The woman claims that the law provision violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which ensures legal equality for all, and Article 13, which guarantees everyone’s right to pursue happiness.

According to the woman’s lawyer, Shun Nakaoka, such a condition for changing an individual’s listed sex is rarely seen in other countries.

The post Transgender woman with eight-year-old daughter sues over right to change sex listed in Japan’s family register appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

Therefore, the definition should highlight this distinction between transgender persons and intersex persons enabling them to exercise the rights which they are entitled to. Some persons born or living with intersex traits can live with a non-binary identity or may choose to live as gender fluid persons. The Bill fails to account for these possibilities. Neither does it provide for the definition of terms such as gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics.

The Bill doesn’t say much about discrimination against intersex persons. Intersex conditions are termed in derogatory terms even by medical professionals. To address this, the Bill should have included a provision directing medical professionals to ensure that intersex traits are not characterised as “disorders of sex development”. Intersex traits should not be considered as genetic defects/ disorders, and terms like ‘gender dysphoria’ should be used to characterise them.

Unnecessary medical procedures

As per court-based jurisprudence, medical procedures are not a necessity for self-identification. Still, the Union Health Ministry has admitted that medical procedure including sex reassignment surgeries are being performed on intersex children. The Ministry has given the justification that this is only done after a thorough assessment of the child, with the help of appropriate diagnostic tests and only after taking a written consent of the patient/guardian. When this response was presented before the Madras High Court in Arunkumar, the court slammed the Health Ministry for its poor understanding of consent rights and imposed a ban on the practice of sex reassignment surgeries on intersex infants/children. The Bill fails to protect intersex persons from unnecessary medical intervention.

World over, the discourse around gender and sexuality has evolved a great deal in the last decade. However, the current legislative discourse on this issue suffers from lack of foundational understanding. Intersex persons are particularly vulnerable and experience barriers in access to education, employment, marriage, etc. In its current form, the Bill turns back the clock on decades of positive change brought about by intersex activists.

Prashant Singh is an advocate at the Supreme Court of India

The post Setting the clock back on intersex human rights appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

Washington D.C., Nov 28, 2019 / 10:00 am (CNA).- A reporter and a researcher who reviewed literature on “gender affirmation” have raised concerns about growing political and academic support for life-altering surgical procedures.

“We don’t know, we don’t know, we don’t know,” Madeleine Kearns, a William F. Buckley fellow in political journalism at the National Review Institute, told CNA of the long-term results of “gender affirmation” practices.

“And so if the answer keeps being we don’t know, it does raise the rather glaring question that why on earth are we doing it? What evidence suggests this is necessary?” she asked.

Kearns wrote a Nov. 21 article in National Review, “The Tragedy of the ‘Trans’ Child,” which discussed cases of gender dysphoria, as well as efforts to influence the debate over “gender affirmation” practices.

There are three main responses to a child exhibiting signs of gender confusion, Kearns wrote in National Review. Two of them are “talk therapy” to find out what underlying issues might be influencing the child’s confusion, and “watchful waiting” to see if children “grow out” of the stage.

The third route is so-called “gender affirmation,” which presents a radical departure from previously-accepted medical practice, Kearns said. It involves practices which could seriously or permanently alter a person’s development.

“Gender affirmation” could involve having a child’s community reinforce their desired sex to them—“a form of social-psychological treatment,” Kearns said—or administering puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones followed by puberty-blocking drugs. Surgical intervention would be the most drastic action, she said.

The post Does ‘gender-affirming’ treatment really improve mental health? appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – U.S. legislators would do better relying on medical evidence, not opinion, as they consider a spate of new proposals that would ban transgender children from treatments such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, expert doctors say.

A measure newly introduced in South Carolina would revoke licenses of doctors who treat trans children, while other lawmakers proposed banning gender reassignment for minors after a Texas father tried to stop his ex-wife from raising their child as a girl instead of a boy.

“These legal efforts could not be more archaic,” said Scott Leibowitz, associate professor of psychiatry at the Ohio State University College of Medicine who works with trans youth.

“The absence of access to beneficial, evidence-based care, which does exist, is very harmful and quite frankly puts youth in the middle of political battles when lives are at stake,” said Leibowitz.

Trans issues are politically contentious in the United States, where the administration of President Donald Trump has banned most trans people from serving in the military. State-level battles have been waged over whether they can use restrooms of their choice.

Leibowitz recently co-wrote a statement condemning “efforts to ban evidence-based care” issued by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, with nearly 10,000 members.

“This is no place for a legislators to lay in on what their opinion is,” he said.

An estimated 150,000 U.S. teens are trans, according to The Williams Institute, a research group at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law.

No public data was readily available on the numbers of younger trans children nor on patients at the nation’s nearly 50 clinics that treat trans youth.

Clinics in other countries have reported increases in referrals, which along with the greater visibility of trans people in the media, has prompted fierce debate over whether children who identify as trans may change their minds.

In the United States, Republican legislators in Texas, Georgia and Kentucky proposed banning gender reassignment treatment for minors following the court battle of a Texas father over how he and his ex-wife raise their 7-year-old child.

The parents disagree over whether the child can have long hair, wear girl’s clothes and go by a female name and pronouns.

Conservative politicians and commentators have sided with the father, and the Texas attorney general has asked for an investigation into possible child abuse.

Legislation to ban gender reassignment “would essentially be going against what is thought in the medical community to be best practice,” said Jennifer Abbott, a family doctor in North Carolina, who has treated trans youth.

“The evidence shows decreases in depression and anxiety in people who receive gender-affirming care,” she said.

Stewart Jones, the lawmaker behind the South Carolina bill, acknowledged that mental illness issues need to be addressed.

“However, to have a person under 18 go forth with that kind of life-altering decision while they’re still developing is a dangerous thing,” he said.

The post U.S. lawmakers weigh bans on trans youth treatments appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — A Tennessee dance teacher pleaded guilty to sex charges after authorities say he raped a student and exposed him to HIV.

According to the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, John Conner III met the then 16-year-old boy on social media in 2015 and met up on several occasions to have unprotected sex. They even exchanged text messages about their sexual activities along with nude photos.

Soon after that, the teen joined the suspect’s dance team, the Infamous Dancerettes.

During that time, Conner failed to disclose his HIV status to the minor, authorities said. It wasn’t until several months after their first sexual encounter that the teen learned from another source that Conner was HIV positive. It was then that he finally revealed the abuse to his parents, stating he needed to go to the doctor for testing.

The tests came back positive, authorities said.

Conner was arrested and charged with criminal exposure to HIV, statutory rape by an authority figure and solicitation of a minor. His trial was set to begin this week, but he decided to plead guilty instead.

Conner has two other similar cases pending.

The post Dance teacher pleads guilty to rape, exposing teen to HIV charges appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

IMAGE: Dr Jagan Mohan, who is in charge of the sex reassignment clinic at the Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital in Chennai, examines a transgender patient. Photographs: A Ganesh Nadar/  

Tamil Nadu is only the second state in India to set up a clinic exclusively for transgenders, to provide sex reassignment surgeries free of cost.

The first one was started in Kerala two years ago and the second one was inaugurated in Tamil Nadu in June at the Rajiv Gandhi government general hospital in Chennai.

The clinic is open once a week, on Fridays between 9 am and 1 pm.

The Friday I visited the clinic, there were a few transgenders consulting the doctors.

“We started this clinic because otherwise they would have to go to various departments to get what they need. Here all the needed doctors sit together for the convenience of the patients. Last week there were some patients, and today a few more,” says Dr Jagan Mohan, head of the department of plastic surgery who is in charge of the clinic.

The clinic has been averaging 40 patients a month. At the clinic‘s inauguration in June, Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijaya Bhaskar said the hospital had performed 17 sex realignment surgeries in the last three years free of cost, which costs up to Rs 300,000 in private hospitals.

There are protocols to follow for those wanting to undergo sex change operations.

The clinic has four doctors sitting in four corners of the room — a plastic surgeon, a venereologist, an endocrinologist and a psychiatrist who need to be consulted by the transgender person.

As the surgery is irreversible, the hospital seeks an affidavit from the patient that they are doing so on their own and are solely responsible for the end results.

But the process is a lengthy one. The patients will have to see the psychiatrist for a year before they give the go-ahead for surgery.

“We have to ascertain whether they are prepared to live the life they chose after surgery. You have to remember that they have to face the same society they live in, but as the opposite gender of what they have been all their lives,” Dr Jagan Mohan explains.

“When a man wants to become a woman because in his mind he feels he is one, we first ask him to dress up as a woman and face society. If he cannot do that, then the surgery is pointless. Just think, if after surgery he continues to dress up like a man because he is ashamed of the surgery, what then?” adds Dr Jagan Mohan.

“So we first prepare him for that and only when we feel he or she will manage in society does the psychiatrist recommend surgery,” says Dr Jagan Mohan.

IMAGE: Dr M S P Saravanan, the psychiatrist at the transgender clinic.

“The first thing they always mention is that they are not comfortable with their present gender. They talk about their suffering,” says psychiatrist Dr M S P Saravanan, who has been practising for 20 years.

“Then there are those who want a change because of the situation they are in. A woman feels that if she was a male people would treat her differently or vice versa. Then there are men who like to make themselves beautiful, so they want to become women,” Dr Saravanan adds.

“There are also histrionic traits. Subconsciously they have already changed. This can happen owing to genetic predisposition or hormonal imbalance.”

“Social constraints add to their problems and their desire to change is reaffirmed because of society. They have to face psycho-social pressures,” says Dr Saravanan. “We ask them to come for consultations for a year. Some may drop out during the course of the year which means they have decided to stay the way they are.”

The accepted ages for undergoing sex reassignment surgery is between 18 and 40. It is illegal if done to a younger person, while after 40 if someone has lived with the body they are born with for so long, they are usually used to it or have learnt to live with it.

Only after the psychiatrist gives the go-ahead does the endocrinologist start the hormone therapy.

In a man‘s body, the hormone therapy leads to growth of breasts to which silicon is added later for size, and through surgery a vulva is provided. But there is no uterus, so there is no chance of childbirth, which is made very clear to the patients.

‘I am a man in a woman‘s body‘

One of the patients at the transgender clinic spoke to A Ganesh Nadar.

“I lost my mother when I was 5 years old. My father married again and my stepmother had two children. She was always partial towards them. I used to feel that she wouldn‘t dare treat me like that if I was a boy.”

“Then in school I fell in love with my teacher and told her. Being a teacher she understood and accepted my love. I was heartbroken when she got married and moved away.”

“I have told my pastor my leanings. He told me I must do what makes me happy, he also told my family that they must let me be happy.”

“Now I am in love with another girl. She knows I am a man in a woman‘s body and has accepted my love. She is supportive of sex change surgery.”

“I work in a firm and always dress up like a man. Both of us know we cannot have children, but that doesn‘t bother us. We will adopt when we feel the need for children.”

In case of a woman wanting to become a man, they first remove the breasts and also create a penis out of the patient‘s own flesh, after adding either a small bone or cartilage to make it stiff. The patients are informed that unlike a natural penis this will not change shape or size during intercourse.

“After we started this clinic in June, three male patients who had been meeting us from earlier on for over a year have been operated upon. We changed them to females,” Dr Jagan Mohan adds.

“Later this month we will perform another surgery where we will change a female to a male. This surgery is more complex.”

Once the surgery is successful, the ENT surgeon will make voice alterations if necessary to suit the new gender.

Sounds straight enough detailing with men wanting to become women and vice versa, what about inter-sex persons, that is, those with congenital sexual ambiguity?

Dr Jagan Mohan provides an answer: “Intersex people are individuals born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals. Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY male and XX female.”

“Parents of some intersex infants and children with ambiguous outer genitalia may request surgery or hormonal therapy to alter the sex of the child according to their choice, in order to make them attain more socially acceptable sex characteristics.”

“But some of these children, when they grow up, may identify themselves as belonging to a gender other than what they were assigned by parents. As any sex change surgery is irreversible, it should not be performed on the intersex children.”

“Only after they attain 18 years should they be offered medical examination supported by lab investigations and given counseling. Only after they choose their gender — the choice being supported by a legal document — any sex change surgery if necessary can be performed. Surgeries do not assure ability to procreate.”

The post Help For People Trapped In Wrong Gender appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

Chennai: A Chennai resident has moved the Madras High Court, seeking to declare passport rules which require submission of Sex Reassignment Surgery certificate for gender determination as “unconstitutional”, saying they violate Article 21 of the Constitution that deals with personal liberty.

A division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee issued notice to Union Ministries of Law and Justice and External Affairs, returnable by December 12, on the petition of Sivakumar TD.

The petitioner, who has been actively involved in furthering the interests of the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer) community, referred to a Supreme Court judgment relating to

the rights of transgenders in the plea.

He said the judgment had authoritatively held that any insistence for Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) for declaring one’s gender was ‘immoral’ and ‘illegal’.

The judgment also held that a person’s right to choose and express a gender identity fell within the ambit of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

Alluding to Passport Rules 1980, with reference to change of sex in their passport and list of documents to be provided, Sivakumar said Rule 39 sought from an applicant certification from the hospital where the sex change surgery was performed.

He contended that the rule was illegal and unconstitutional.

Highlighting the plight of transgender people who applied for passports as late as 2016, the petitioner said though the apex court had laid down clear directives that insistence on SRS certificate was illegal, they were required to produce a medical certificate for it.

He submitted that world over insistence on SRS certificate was held to be ‘unnecessary’ and ‘violative’ of the choice of the individual.

The petitioner sought the intervention of the high court to declare passport rules requiring production of SRS certificate as unconstitutional and being violative of Article 21 of the Constitution.

The post Madras HC Issues Notice to Centre on PIL over Passport Rules on Sex Reassignment Surgery appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

During an Oct. 31 press conference, leaders from conservative advocacy organizations in Texas urged Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special legislative session to elect a new House speaker.

Earlier that month, embattled House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Lake Jackson, announced that he would not seek reelection to his seat in the House.

The activists also outlined policy proposals that they want lawmakers to address during a special session, proposals they say Republican leaders failed to pursue during the regular session earlier this year.

Cindi Castilla, president of the Dallas Eagle Forum, said lawmakers need to take steps to limit what gender transition treatments are available to children, in light of an ongoing legal battle in Dallas over the gender identity of a 7-year-old.

“During our last session, our legislators decided to pass a law protecting Texans from e-cigarettes until they reach the age of 21,” she said. “They left children able to be sterilized and mutilated at any point in their life. This was a failing, and we need a remedy.

“Texas Eagle Forum asked lawmakers to carry a very common-sense bill that would protect young Texans. That bill would have protected (the child), no matter what the verdict was going to be from the courts.”

Before we dive into this check, it should be noted that medical or surgical treatments used by doctors for transitioning must meet the same safety requirements of other medications or surgeries. To suggest that any child might be mutilated by doctors is inaccurate.

“Children in Texas are already robustly protected by the Texas Family Code and medical rules of ethics,” Brian Klosterboer, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said in a statement. “No one in Texas may harm a child, including parents and medical professionals.”

When reached via email, Castilla said that she is unaware of any state laws that “protect children from being given treatments that can lead to sterilization and no law prohibiting surgeries that would seek to make a child appear to be a gender different than the gender they were born.”

“Thus far, it appears very young children have been protected from this only because of the good sense of the medical community,” she said. “As we see this protection waning among a small portion of the medical community we would like to make sure that the most vulnerable Texans are protected.”

Castilla said the bill she mentioned at the press conference would have “protected children from these procedures,” but the group could not find a lawmaker to carry the legislation.

Dallas custody case

The legal battle in Dallas that Castilla mentioned in her remarks is a custody dispute between a mother and father that centers on the gender identity of their 7-year-old child.

The child’s mother says the 7-year-old is a transgender girl and wants to dress as a girl and be identified by female pronouns — a process referred to as a social transition. The child’s father disagrees and insists that the child is a boy.

The case has spurred a national debate about children and their gender identities, with some Texas Republicans pledging to pursue legislation to prevent minors in Texas from transitioning by medical means.

Gillian Branstetter, spokeswoman for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said an important point to consider in this case is the child’s age.

“This child is 7 years old,” she said, noting that “no one is talking about” pursuing a medical or surgical transition. “We’re talking about gender affirming parenting and letting the child explore who they are.”

Looking at the law

Under federal law, transition-related medical care is considered the same as any other medically-necessary care and carries the same requirements when it comes to minors, according to Branstetter and attorneys with ACLU of Texas.

Generally speaking, Texas law dictates that parents have a “duty” to provide medical and dental care to their children and they have the “right” to consent to that care.

But pursuing gender transition treatment is an individualized process for transgender and gender non-binary people and can take many forms, according to multiple resources on gender identity and gender dysphoria.

People with gender dysphoria — when a person feels a conflict between the gender they were assigned at birth and the gender with which they identify — choose to act on this in different ways.

This can include wearing clothes and using pronouns associated with their gender identity; changing their gender and name on legal documents; pursuing hormone treatment or surgical options available for transitioning.

Not every person who has gender dysphoria and is transgender will pursue medical or surgical transition treatment.

People can be diagnosed with gender dysphoria at any age, even as children.

“While some children express feelings and behaviors relating to gender dysphoria at 4 years old or younger, many may not express feelings and behaviors until puberty or much later,” reads an article on the subject from the American Psychiatric Association. “For some children, when they experience puberty, they suddenly find themselves unable to identify with their own body.

Medical treatment standards prioritize affirmation

When it comes to caring for children who might be exhibiting signs of gender dysphoria, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the “gender-affirmative care model” that prioritizes validating a child’s gender identity and supporting their exploration and expression of that identity.

“There are absolutely no medical interventions or surgical interventions on any prepubertal child,” said Colt Keo-Meier, a Texas-based psychologist and author who specializes in gender and sexual health. “That is not happening.”

The widely accepted “Standards of Care” maintained by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health also emphasize this point.

“Before any physical interventions are considered for adolescents, extensive exploration of psychological, family, and social issues should be undertaken,” the standards read. “The duration of this exploration may vary considerably depending on the complexity of the situation.”

Once a child starts puberty, other options emerge. Keo-Meier said the most common treatment — medication to delay the onset of puberty — is fully reversible.

“That is literally just hitting pause,” he said.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health outline minimum criteria that must be met before a child can receive puberty-suppressing medication, including that the child has demonstrated a “long-lasting and intense pattern of gender nonconformity or gender dysphoria” and that it “emerged or worsened with the onset of puberty.”

Other interventions like hormone therapy (partially reversible) or surgery (irreversible) won’t be considered until a patient reaches adolescence.

Even then, the Standards of Care stress that certain procedures should not be performed until a patient is old enough to consent on their own (typically 16-18 years old) and others should occur only once a person has received other treatments for a specific time period.

Our ruling

Castilla said state lawmakers “left children able to be sterilized and mutilated at any point in their life” by failing to adopt a law prohibiting minors from undergoing medical or surgical gender transitions.

Castilla is right that there is no law regulating transition-related treatment separately from other medically-necessary care and the same age regulations apply — minors need parental consent.

Widely accepted guidelines for transition care emphasize gender-affirming care and therapy as primary tools for children. More intensive options, like surgery or hormone treatment, are typically reserved for older adolescents (with parental consent) and adults.

We rate this claim Mostly False.

The post Fact-check: What does the law say about children and sex reassignment surgery? appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

Last week, a jury awarded custody of the 7-year-old Texas boy James Younger to his mother, pediatrician Dr. Anne Georgulas, who treats him like a girl and calls him Luna. She also wants to flood his body with puberty-blocking drugs and ultimately cross-sex hormones. The boy’s father, Jeffrey Younger, strongly objects to this treatment. A judge later issued an order giving the father a say in his son’s treatment but also imposing a gag order on him.

Before that gag order came into effect, Younger had spoken with LifeSiteNews about the case and revealed a horrifying piece of evidence. During the trial, Younger had shown the jury an email in which Georgulas contemplated genital mutilation and castration for her son — and the jury still awarded her custody of him.

When asked about the jury’s decision, Younger said he was “just completely shocked.” He added, “We put up an email from Ms. Georgulas to me in which she contemplates cutting the pen*s off my son. Twenty minutes later, they go into deliberations, and they come back voting against me. I mean, the Texas that I grew up in, the Texas that I live in, if a parent did that, we’re just going to give them to the other parent: we’re not going to tolerate that kind of craziness.”

Younger lamented the decline in the cultural impact of Christianity and encouraged Christians to speak out against transgender activism.

“It tells you, I think, how far our society has changed and how much less Christian we are and the way we think about things now,” Younger said. “I hope it’s a wake-up call to the churches to awaken from their dogmatic slumber and step back onto the streets of the agora like Paul did in Athens and start taking on these issues head-on.”

The father admitted that there were competing narratives about his character after his bitter divorce battle with Georgulas. Even if people consider Younger untrustworthy, he argued that at least he is “not trying to cut the pen*s off my son. And I’m not trying to cross-dress my son and mislead him into thinking that he’s a girl. And I’m not pushing my son toward medical transition. And I haven’t done all that without the consent of the other parent. So I think that if we’re looking at two parents who are imperfect, I think I’m a lot less imperfect than Ms. Georgulas.”

Where did Georgulas get the idea that her son was “really” her daughter? According to The Texan, the mother said her son liked the movie Frozen and asked to get a “girl toy” from McDonald’s. She also claimed he expressing a desire to wear girl’s clothing.

Younger claims that Georgulas had started putting James in dresses and painting his nails when he was three years old. The father also claims his ex-wife locked James in his room and told him that “the monsters only eat boys.” He claims that Georgulas would withhold affection from James if he did not act like a girl.

While many people do experience gender dysphoria — the painful sensation of identifying with the gender opposite their biological sex — the condition can often be traced to childhood trauma. Walt Heyer, a man who identified as a woman for eight years and underwent sex reassignment surgery, explained that his gender dysphoria stemmed from childhood trauma from sexual abuse and being dressed as a girl by his grandmother when he was four years old.

Heyer says he has spoken with thousands of formerly transgender people who connect through his website, which helps people who regret their transition.

“In the ten years or so that I’ve worked with people, 100 percent — every single last one of them — has had some kind of event — traumatic, painful, horrible, some sexual, some physical, some emotional — happen to them, sometime between the ages of 4 and 15, that caused them to not want to be who they are,” Heyer told PJ Media last year.

Even if 7-year-old James were struggling with gender dysphoria as Georgulas claims, it is far from clear that affirming a transgender identity would be the right way to help him.

After years of encouraging transgender identity and sex-reassignment surgery, Johns Hopkins psychiatry professor Paul McHugh closed the gender identity clinic at Johns Hopkins in 1979, coming to the conclusion that transgender identity and surgery do not meet the psychological needs of struggling people. McHugh has compared transgender surgery to “performing liposuction on an anorexic child.” Indeed, many who have undergone transgender surgery have been permanently scarred.

Whatever Georgulas thinks about her son or whatever James thinks about himself, the 7-year-old boy is biologically male. His maleness is written into every cell in his body. Before he was born, his body produced more testosterone in the womb. Even the most invasive surgery could not transform him into a woman.

Worse, the “treatments” to affirm a transgender identity have not been approved by the FDA and have dangerous side-effects. In order to delay or “reverse” the natural sexed process of human development, pro-transgender doctors give young boys and girls “puberty blockers” that prevent their brains from sending the right signals to their gonads to produce the right hormones. According to endocrinologist Michael Laidlaw, this effectively gives these kids a disease.

“I call it a development blocker — it’s actually causing a disease,” Laidlaw told PJ Media in August. The disease in question is hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. It occurs when the brain fails to send the right signal to the gonads to make the hormones necessary for development. “We’re talking about what in nature is a rare condition. In the United States, if someone has this condition it’s going to be recognized and treated so the long-term results are unknown,” the doctor explained. “It’s an area that needs to be explored further.”

While endocrinologists — doctors who specialize in hormones and the endocrine system — are familiar with the disease and gladly treat it when a patient has been diagnosed, many of them are effectively causing their patients to contract the same disease in an attempt to affirm gender identity, Laidlaw said. “An endocrinologist might treat a condition where a female’s testosterone levels are going to be outside the normal range. We’ll treat that and we’re aware of metabolic problems. At the same time, an endocrinologist may be giving high levels of testosterone to a female to ‘transition’ her.”

This is a serious medical scandal, and doctors should not be rushing to “transition” children in this way. Many of these drugs have side effects like weakened bone density and infertility. Children cannot understand what it means to be a man or a woman and what it means to have children of their own. These young people cannot truly consent to experimental “treatments” that may leave them sterile. Georgulas’ desire to put her son through these is terrifying.

In many cases, surgeons will remove the genitals and mutilate them before replacing them with a synthetic version of the genitals of the opposite sex. Not only are these fabricated organs unable to produce children, but they may also pose health risks for the patients.

This kind of genital mutilation is disgusting and extremely unfit for children to undergo.

Studies have found that most children who are not put on “puberty blockers” or cross-sex hormones and who have not suffered genital mutilation are extremely likely to reject a transgender identity after going through puberty. Charlotte Evans, a woman who once identified as a man but now understands that she is lesbian, is setting up a network for detransitioners in Britain. She suggested that brains continue to mature into a person’s 20s, and until the brain is fully formed — a process that involves sex hormones during and after puberty — it is unwise to consider any transgender “treatment.”

As a Christian, I cannot help but agree with Younger that there is a spiritual dimension to this madness. I believe Christianity has the most loving response to the problems posed by gender dysphoria — far better than any transgender identity or medical “treatment.”

In any case, it is both tragic and terrifying that a jury in Texas would award custody of a 7-year-old boy to a woman who has considered subjecting him to what amounts to chemical castration and genital mutilation. What kind of ideology encourages this kind of child abuse? What kind of jury abets a woman’s desire to do this to her son?

Americans must push back against this madness to save children from this kind of abuse. Decades from now, men and women should file medical malpractice lawsuits against the doctors who subjected them to chemical castration and genital mutilation. But before that time, Americans should speak out and prevent more lives from being ruined.

The post Father Claims Ex-Wife Contemplating Genital Mutilation for 7-Year-Old ‘Transgender’ Son appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

The growing phenomenon of transgender detransitioning has hit the headlines recently. Although it is difficult to estimate how common detransitioning is, the networks of detransitioners around the world attract growing attention both of the media and of the medical community.

The possibility of regret and reversal of gender transitioning is an important factor that cosmetic surgeons have to consider before they start the treatment of transgender patients. Due to the possibility of detransitioning, the scope and pace of surgical procedures has to be carefully adjusted according to the medical history and psychological condition of the individual patient.

Transgender detransitioners are the people who chose to return to their original biological gender after first changing it. Despite the controversy that detransitioners cause inside the LGBT community, healthcare professionals expect the phenomenon to become even more widespread as a growing number of people start transgender transitioning at a very early age.

“Gender dysphoria is a very complicated condition not only sexually, but also psychologically. Patients often suffer from conflicting emotions and aspirations. Therefore, gender transitioning has to be a subtle and gradual process. I would strongly advise against quick and radical surgery that transgender person may come to regret,” said Andrius Pajeda, surgeon at Nordesthetics clinic.

The World Health Organization has recently reclassified gender dysphoria – a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because there’s a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity – as sexual rather than a mental condition. But it causes great psychological stress and a recent study suggests that surgical treatment of gender dysphoria results in psychological relief.

However, Andrius Pajeda suggested starting with corrections that could make a transgender person feel better about the general appearance of the body, such as rhinoplasty, lip augmentation, other facial corrections. These could be followed by liposuction and breast or buttock implants.

“The full range of our services to transgender patients varies from facial corrections to breast removal and buttock lift. However, the particular list and sequence of operations depend on the individual patient. Our doctors pay full attention to the medical history of the patient and the advice of mental therapists in trying to find the treatment that would make that particular person feel better, not worse,” Andrius Pajeda explained.

According to him, up to 2-4 transgender persons are treated at Nordesthetics clinic every month Most of the procedures offered by the clinic could be reversed or their results could be corrected if a particular patient considered detransitioning.

Nordesthetics clinic is one of the leading centers of medical tourism in the Baltic states. Located in Kaunas, Lithuania, the clinic provides plastic surgery procedures to foreign patients of whom the majority come from the UK and other EU countries. Nordesthetics clinic offers European standards of high-quality surgery for prices 2-3 times lower than those in the UK and Western EU. In addition to that, the clinic provides full travel support to their patients as well as the possibility of recovery treatment in Druskininkai – the Lithuanian SPA resort very popular among their patients.

The post Caution Advised in Treatment of Gender Dysphoria appeared first on MyMedicPlus.

A sex change is usually one of the toughest and most traumatic processes a human being undergoes, involving hormonal treatment and multiple surgeries and dealing with the reaction of families and friends. However, getting that newfound identity officially endorsed has its own share of agony.

For trans women in the city, updating identity cards and other documents after a sex reassignment surgery has been a nightmare, which left them feeling discriminated against and humiliated.

FELT LIKE A LESSER HUMAN

Vandana (name changed to protect identify) hated it when she visited the Sampark Centre at Sector 10 to update her Aadhaar card.

An engineer by profession and a male, Vandana, who been undergoing hormonal therapy for over a year, had transformed into a beautiful woman by the time she went for a name change. “It was difficult, standing there and feeling eyes boring into you. The looks I got from the officials made me feel like a lesser human. When I walked in and asked how one’s name and gender could be changed people looked at me in disgust, some others smirked while others refused to answer my questions.”

At first there was point blank refusal. “Ye sab yahaan nahi hota (this doesn’t happen here),” she was told . “I felt suffocated in that office and wanted to rush out, but I knew I had to get the documents so I insisted that they do my bidding.”

She was then given a form to fill and asked to attach an affidavit from a doctor and a newspaper clipping of the name change advertised.

“Within a month I got an updated Aadhaar. The feeling of holding the first document with my new name, new picture and gender was unexplainable. I didn’t have words to express it,” beamed Vandana.

Determined to face all the negativity she went about the business of upgrading all the other documents and was now the proud owner of a voter as well as ration card.

MOVING HIGH COURT

Updating her educational certificates was another challenge.

It was not easy. “That was the most challenging part. I had to finally move the high court and file an application for changing my identity in my educational documents. I received a letter from the university concerned that they would change the documents after the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) updated my record. I am still waiting for a message from CBSE,” Vandana said.

She wished the process was simpler and staff more sensitive when interacting with trans people.

However, most cases go unreported as trans women do not want trouble. “As such no one has approached us with any complaint. But if any trans person is facing a problem, the department of social welfare is ready to help them. They can approach us anytime and we will do our best to help them,” said Navjot Kaur, director, department of social welfare, Chandigarh.

NEVER-ENDING BATTLES

Amruta (name changed), another trans woman from the city, however, was convinced that her battles would never end. “Since I gained consciousness, my soul and body were in conflict; when I decided to undergo surgery I had to fight another battle with family and society. After surgery, I thought this would bring an end to my troubles, but changing my identity on every document had its own share of problems.”  

The post Endless struggle: Process to update IDs after sex change traumatic, say trans women appeared first on MyMedicPlus.