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A Message from Kim Pearson, TNET President“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” -Margaret Mead.
A few weeks ago an amazing thing happened. The Rob, Arnie and Dawn Morning Show, of radio station KRXQ in Sacramento, CA publically took responsibility and apologized for their hateful anti-trans youth commentary from two previous broadcasts.
While hate speech (disguised as free speech) in popular media seems to be common place, it can only survive if “we the people” don’t step up and say enough! This is exactly what happened in this instance. The LGBT community and our straight allies exercised their freedom of speech in a manner that made it economically and socially unacceptable to malign and marginalize our transgender children, youth and adults. Click here to read about the apology and education that took place during the 2.5 hour show, featuring new media blogger Autumn Sandeen, KRXQ hosts Rob, Arnie, Dawn and myself. I think you will agree that, when presented with the sourest of lemons, we truly made some amazing lemonade.
To all of you who wrote the station, the hosts and the advertisers, I wish to express a heartfelt thank you from PFLAG-TNET, TransYouth Family Allies, and all our trans youth, family and friends!.
Namaste,
Kim Pearson TNET President
Note from the Editor
Welcome to the June issue of eTransParent!
The highlight of this issue is a series of reports and presentations from the May, 2009 American Psychiatric Association (APA) Conference in San Francisco. Leading members of WPATH, AMA, and APA spoke out for elimination of Gender Dysphoria or Gender Identity Disorder from the DSM. Rebecca Allison, Chair of the AMA Advisory Committee on GLBT Issues, recommended changing the description to Gender Variance and including it instead in the International Classification of Diseases as a treatable medical condition.
My favorite quotes: "Human Brain Gender Identity is independent of Biological Sexual Identity and Behavior"
"We may choose our behavioral expressions of our identity, but not our Gender Identity."
"Conclusion: Brain gender identity is determined very early in fetal development, but gender expression, expressed as behaviors requires hormonal, environmental, social and cultural interactions which evolve with time."
We can't influence our children's gender identity any more than we can influence the color of their eyes. Here are links to these reports and presentations: Strategies for Diagnostic Harm Reduction Major Changes Loom for Bible of Mental Health Brain Gender Identity Being Transgender is Not a Mental Disorder Aligning Bodies With Minds
Dave Parker,
Editor
| June Special Articles | Equality Mag interview with Kim Coco Iwamoto:
“When Kim Coco Iwamoto told her father over lunch one day that she had decided to run for the Hawaii Board of Education, he didn’t miss a beat. Her dad, one of the state’s top business owners, said it would be a “great learning experience,” warned she’d lose the race and then asked her how much money she needed.
Well, Robert Iwamoto Jr. was right - on at least one point. Her race was a great learning experience. But he was wrong about the outcome. His daughter won. And she’s now the country’s highest ranking transgender elected official.”
‘Maddy’ Just Might Work After All
“We can’t keep calling you ‘Daddy,’ ” he said. “If you’re going to be a girl. It’s too weird.”
When a Staffer Switches Genders
"If you start limiting your choices in staff based on this kind of thing, you're cutting yourself off from a lot of good people," he says. "We could have lost a valuable manufacturing supervisor - it was as simple as that." |
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