Comments on: Doctors claim NHS has "come a long way" on gay acceptance

By: Hank

Hank — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 01:16:35 +0000

Many questions need to be answered for Maryland’s citizens when dealing with “freedoms” for transsexual, transvestite, and cross-dressers. It will have major implications for other of our states that are considering similar “bills.: There are many potential flaws by giving too much “freedom” too quickly in such a complex issue.

Maryland's state legislature is now considering bills that would extend "non-discrimination" protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations to transsexuals, transvestites, and other cross-dressers. The expansive definition of "gender identity" in the bill would allow people to change their sex every day, if they wanted to.

FRC's Vice President for Policy Peter Sprigg testified against the bill at a committee hearing yesterday in Annapolis. He pointed out that "gender identity disorder" is classified as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, and that "transgendered" people need mental health treatment to overcome their disturbance, not legislation to affirm it. Peter added that "residents who believe it is better for men to remain men and women to remain women ought to have freedom to act on those beliefs, without facing stigma or punishment."

The most extreme application of the principle of “non-discrimination” based on “gender identity” would be to the use of gender-separated restrooms, locker rooms, and showers. As currently written, this bill would legally protect the right of a person who is still biologically male (but who has adopted a female “gender identity”) to strip nude in front of women in a women’s locker room.

Dr. Paul McHugh ended the practice of performing "sex reassignment surgery" when he was psychiatrist-in-chief at Maryland's prestigious Johns Hopkins University Hospital. He wrote, "We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it." Let's hope the Maryland legislature rejects the idea of "collaborating with madness," and defeats this bill.

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By: Jessikat

Jessikat — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:47:36 +0000

And it was hardly a "major step forward" or offered any legal protection beyond one tiny slither of matters. Might have been those things when first proposed in the late '90s but it was tokenistic fail by the time the Government chose to pass it.

@ Anders – FYI it actually covers all trans people (who can get through the medical 'gatekeepers challenge'), not just TSs …but given the establishments attitude that 'Trans/Transgender = white middle-class 40yo gender-normative male-to-female TSs' such misunderstandings are understandable.

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By: hugs, Jenny

hugs, Jenny — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:12:01 +0000

I had the same comment in mind, Anders, but would have preferred a different terminology. The term "transsexual", though still preferred by some socially gender re-assigned people because of its pre-existing social recognition and TV documentary usage, doesn't appear any more in the DSM .. as from DSMIV-TR, published in 2000, (predating the 2004GRA, note) … so, one might take it, this term no longer has medical profession currency, implying its future rapid abandoment. The bad news is, that nothing's emergent to replace it, "Gender Identity Disorder", the alternative term that's still used in DSMIV-TR, being unacceptable by reason of its inbuilt presumption that we're "disordered", ie. clinically barmy. So, to fill that void, might I suggest that in truth, the 2004 Gender Recognition Act benefitted "intergendered" people,(ie. people born brain-intersexed) ??

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By: Anders

Anders — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:01:30 +0000

"The 2004 Gender Recognition Act was a major step forward and at last offers legal protection to homosexuals."

NO it doesn't! It offers this for TRANsexuals

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