Mardi Gras 2010 was a huge success!! Around 100 people participated in our float - around five times more than last year. Our costumes were amazing, our spaceship made it all the way to the end in one piece, and our shining blue light sabres looked awesome. We also had music and lights this year thanks to a small grant from Mardi Gras organising committee. Everyone had a blast - and we got a good reception from the crowd. Thanks to everyone who put so much hard work into making this happen - and thanks to everyone who turned up and joined in on the day.

Now, we all know that raparative therapy doesn't cure homosexuality, and in fact administering electric shocks or administering non-consensual medical treatments to homosexuals is generally frowned upon these days, even if it was not 30 years ago.

That said, raparative therapy is still a technique used on gender variant children with terrifying frequency.

Andrea James, a Canada based trans activist recently gave a run down on one of the worlds most well known 'gender clinics' and their raparative therapy techniques.

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) decided that gay people were no longer mentally ill, but that changed nothing for trans and gender-variant people. In fact, "experts" led the push to create a new disease called "gender identity disorder," which they successfully got added to the APA's big book of mental illnesses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Though trans activists have been protesting to get this mental illness removed in the 2012 revision, these Toronto "experts" hold key positions among the people doing the revising.

Even worse is a sub-disease they created called "gender identity disorder in children." They have made a lot of money claiming to "cure" hundreds of children who are "too feminine." While they also treat kids who are "too masculine," in most clinics which have adopted their methods, 5 to 30 times more children assigned as males are treated. The methods? No playing with dolls, no drawing with the "wrong" colors like pink or purple, and no playing with or drawing pictures of girls. The anxious parents who bring their children in to be "cured" are expected to enforce all rules. They are sent home with instructions to make the child go through all their possessions and remove anything "inappropriate," as well as ways to use reinforcement to "correct" their child's thinking and behavior. How did nonconformity become a disease? And how did Toronto become infamous for this? It's a textbook case of pathological science with roots in the 20th-century eugenics movement, and it shows how a few misguided people can have impact all over the world.

Read the whole post here

Over at Accepting Dad, the news is that there is a new study that has found supportive parenting practices to be good for the mental health of our gender variant children.

He says:

This is what I take from the study; I’m not a scientist and I can’t speak to the statistical analysis, I’m just looking at the text of the study itself:

1. Supportive parenting which acknowledges and accepts a child’s gender non-conformity is good for kids; even when this non-conformity leads to awkward social situations and various degrees of peer disapproval. Taking the good with the bad, supportive parenting is associated with better outcomes than suppressing these behaviors completely ‘for the child’s own good.’
2. Accepting and affirming a child’s impulses and deeply held feelings, while monitoring and limiting a child’s gender expression to lessen a communities negative response works well for the children in this sample.
3. Higher levels of pathology in the Netherlands sample does not invalidate early transition or hormone blocking but it suggests that early social transition and blocking is truly a last resort. Everyone knew this anyway, but for parents who are moving slowly and cautiously and feeling guilty about that, this study would seem to validate this approach.

Sounds good to me!

Drag kings and queens, crossdressers, transsexuals, genderqueers! Transgender people of all kinds!
Friends, family, partners, supporters!

Come march with us in the Mardi Gras parade. Come on, it's heaps of fun!

We're using the theme "The Transsexual Empire Strikes Back" because it's bold and pro-trans and funny - you don't actually have to be transsexual to join us (but if you hate transsexuals then you shouldn't be in this group). A long time ago in a country far, far away, somebody wrote a book called "The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male" that said a lot of mean and silly things that we don't agree with.

You could come as your most glamorous self, or wear a sci-fi costume, or come in drag (or even sci-fi drag?). The important thing is that you turn up, and if you turn up looking awesome, that's even better.

If you're coming to the parade and you don't live in Sydney, book your accommodation as soon as possible. Like, now. If you leave it too late, it might be hard to find a place.

On the day, meet us near the War Memorial in Hyde Park. Try to get there around 4pm. If you arrive late it will be difficult for you to find us, and if you arrive after 6pm we will not be able to get you into the parade at all.

RSVP on FACEBOOK or via This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

I hope that everyone is having a great summer. Here at AGA we've not been online much over the past month, but we're back now, and gearing up for 2010.

A few housekeeping matters:
- The Blog is now fully integrated into our website. You can see the new blog here. Remember to subscribe to the new RSS feed. This is the last post that will appear on the old feed!

- We're still in need of donations for our community space. We are unfunded, and run completely on volunteer time and donations. We have recieved a few small grants, and continue to apply for more, but we desperately need funds if we are to continue to grow. If you can afford to give, please do.

- Our end of year report from 2009 is available now. You can download it now if you'd like to see an overview of everything we have achieved in the last 12 months.

- Memberships are still open! If you would like to get involved in one of the fastest growing queer organisations in the ACT, check out our membership page for details.

I'm looking forward to seeing you soon, so remember to keep an eye on our Events page and we'll hear from you soon!

Cheers

Ryan