Transsexuality Is A Medical Condition, Not A Community Identifier

There are times that Cathryn Platine and I are on opposite sides of debates in this community, but every now and then she says something that I just have to say amen too and I'm in lockstep agreement with her.

We've had a lot of sniping going on in the past two weeks about who is more 'transsexual than thou'.  In addition to not liking the heated internecine rhetoric going on between wings of the trans community,  I also agree and have since the 90's that the trans community shouldn't be using a medical condition (transsexuality) as a community identifier, much less a political one.

But Cathryn was more blunt about it than the diplomatic and historical context approach I took in that post.

Cathryn Platine: "Transgender" is an identity, a political motivated one. "Transsexuality" is a medical condition, one does not identify as a medical condition unless they wish to appear a fool. If you have cancer you are not a "cancer". If you have an ulcer you are not identified as being an ulcer American.

Amen, Cathy.

Transsexuality is a medical condition.  Transgender is a community identifier.   Granted it's close to the transgenderist that was coined by Virginia Prince who let's get real, hated on transwomen.

But the transgender word for political purposes does the trick in describing the vast array of gender variant humans.

Can we do a much better job in pointing out the differences between transsexuals, intersex people, crossdressers and genderqueer people?    Yes we can and should.  Do we need to do a better job of calling out the transwomen who hate on crossdressers and vice versa?  Damn straight we do.. 

But as I have said ad nauseum, our enemies aren't each other.   Our enemies are in the Religious Reich and the conservative movement who hate all of us irregardless of how we identify under the transgender political umbrella.  

If you don't like transgender, do what I do and simply call it the trans community.    But stop hating on each other and get it through your thick heads that transsexuality is a medical condition, not a community identifier.

TransGriot Note:  transgenderist was coined by Virginia Prince.   Transgender came into more popular usage as an umbrella term in the 1990's, but has been around since the 70's.

Argentinian GL Peeps Vow To Help Trans People Get Expanded Rights

Argentina's Gay Pride parade was held yesterday in Buenos Aires and they had much to celebrate as the first country in Latin America to legalize same gender marriage despite determined Roman Catholic Church opposition to it.  .

Since President Cristina Fernandez signed the law into effect on July 21, over 500 same gender couples have jumped the broom.   They have also witnessed  a major spike in gay tourists wishing to visit the South American nation
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In the wake of that success and in conjunction with the pride parade theme of 'Let's Go For More', the GL community is vowing to help the Argentine trans community pass a gender identity law that makes it easier for transpeople to change their gender on birth certificates and identity cards.

In many cases Argentine transpeople have had to fight tooth and nail just to do so, and because of those difficulties with mismatched identification,  it has caused problems for Argentine transpeople when they do interact with government     Uruguay passed their gender ID law in 2009, but a similar one for transpeople in Argentina has languished in the Argentine senate since 2007.

There is hope since the same gender marriage issue passed, that there will finally be movement on the stalled gender ID legislation. "The gay marriage law helped open the doors to discuss LGBT issues in Argentina," said Socialist Deputy Roy Cortina. "And that's going to be beneficial for the gender identity law."

We'll be watching to see if the Argentinian GL community keeps their promise to help their trans brothers and sisters pass this legislation, or do what their GL brothers and sisters did in the States and Canada to trans people and ignore them