We've decided to call TransAction Day, Gender Diversity Day here in Canberra (and hopefully Australia when it catches on elsewhere!)

To celebrate Gender Diversity Day we will be holding a BBQ. It will be a laid back, no pressure event. A bunch of us will be around eating food and hanging out for several hours, so even if you don't feel like staying for an entire meal, feel free to just drop by and say hello.

This event celebrates Gender Diversity in all its forms, and so we encourage everyone to come along... whether you are gay, lesbian, straight, trans, non-trans, genderqueer, a parent, a partner, or a friend of someone who would like to come. The more the merrier is our philosophy!

The BBQ will be in Glebe Park at 1pm on the 28th of February. Bring your friends, and family and partners. This is a kid friendly event, and is definitely open to non-trans people as well as trans people and their families.

Yesterday we posted about a transphobic advertisement from the UK. Today I wanted to post something much more pleasant.

This video is an advertisement for an Argentinian bank, and features a trans woman. I say, good on Banco Provincia! May they get throngs of new customers for this!

Transcript after the cut.

A trans woman in Warrington where this poster is most widely distributed has made an official complaint, and a request for it to be removed. NHS Warrington, the organisation behind the image, has claimed that they consulted with the "national lead for the transgender community", and that they saw no problem with the image. I am slightly dubious about that claim, and would like to know what 'national lead' they spoke to. Perhaps the UK is much more organised than Australia, but it seems unlikely that there is one organisation or person who is the 'national leader' for trans people.

As was pointed out at the Sociological Images blog:

The ad is relying on the viewer being disgusted at the idea of a masculine face covered in make-up. That is part of what is supposed to create a negative reaction. But make-up and masculinity are not intrinsically or naturally at odds. We only believe this to be so.

Relying on people to be disgusted by a masculine face wearing make up? Thats transphobia, and that should not be acceptable.

I have a great love of movies, books and other media that is aimed at children. Not long ago I went and saw The Tale of Despereaux at the cinema. I quite enjoyed it, although it had a heavy dose of body fascism, and sexism, I felt that its attempt to discuss quite serious political themes in language that a 5 year old can understand was quite impressive. Towards the end of the film the narrator talks about how names can become swear words. She asks us how we would feel if our name was a terrible insult, if our name was a very bad word.

Unfortunately most people who are part of the sex and gender diverse community know only too well what it feels like to have our names and identities be a very bad word, to have our identity thrown at us as if its a grave insult. I've had emails get caught up in my spam filter, I've had Google Mail step in and refuse to send an email because it was suspected of being offensive. Just because my identity is also a dirty, filthy, spam-trap-triggering keyword.

I think that this is one of the key reasons that identity labels are so hotly contested in the sex and gender diverse community.

The Gender Centre defines Transgender as:

Transgender means anyone who lives, has lived, or wants to live as a member of the opposite gender (sex) to their birth gender.
In the past, the common term for transgender has been transsexual. However, in general, people who are transgender prefer to use the term transgender as this is a more accurate reflection of their identity or behaviour – that is, that they want to live and behave as a member of the opposite gender to their birth gender, not the opposite sexuality, sexual preference or sexual orientation. A transgender, just like anyone else, may be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.

However, under the Discrimination Act 1991, a “transsexual” is defined as meaning:

a person of one sex who—
(a) assumes the bodily characteristics of the other sex, whether by means of medical intervention or otherwise; or
(b) identifies himself or herself as a member of the other sex or lives, or seeks to live, as a member of that other sex.

That to me sounds like a very similar definition. Sometimes even when someone is asked what the difference is, its still not clear. FTM Australia says that the difference is quite easy to understand:

"A transgender individual takes hormones to appear as one gender or another; a transsexual person takes hormones and undergoes surgery as rehabilitation for a physical condition."

I still don't get it though.

Even the psychiatrists can't decide who is transsexual, who is transgender, who is a transvestite, and who is just a filthy pervert with a fetish for ladies lingerie. The medical industry also draws lines between 'primary' transsexuals and 'secondary' transsexuals. Harry Benjamin himself had a scale of transsexuals, TRUE transsexuals, and everyone else.

I find the idea of categorising someone elses identity extremely problematic, and it is often used as a way of privileging one identity over another. Doctors like to withhold treatment from those people they suspect aren't 'trans-whatever enough' and because its thrown as us constantly by everyone else, sometimes we end up turning on each other and saying "So and so had surgery, but she's really a 'post-operative transvestite' not a TRUE transsexual/real woman/whatever". Its just not cool.

You wont see the words transsexual and transgender used as much as would probably be expected by A Gender Agenda. We prefer to cut off the end, and refer to people being 'trans' or someone being a 'trans person'. It helps us stay clear of the debate, and be inclusive, without having to define terms that no one can agree on anyway.

What is most important, is how you define yourself. If you define as a woman, or woman of transsexual history, then you are a woman to us. If you define as third gendered, intersex, or genderqueer? No worries. We'll respect that too. If you define as a 'trans identified FTM', we can respect that. Respect is important, and there is no place for being judgemental about other peoples identities within A Gender Agenda, or at any of our events. We want to be warm and welcoming, you need not worry about not passing, or not being 'trans enough' to join. We even welcome woman-identified women, and man-identified men, if they respect our cause, and want to work for change along side us. Its not only people that transgress gender boundaries as radically as those who transition that experience discrimination for expressing their gender differently.

Names are important, they help us communicate. In the end though, its the communication thats important, not the name itself. Labels are only useful when we are free to apply them without judgement, and express ourselves freely no matter what label we have claimed for ourselves.

A friend of my mothers once told me that it is a sin to be gay. This should have been entirely unsurprising given that my mother is heavily embedded in the Christian church. However, I was surprised in this instance because I thought that this particular woman would know better... she had a Masters in Science, and a Masters in Teaching, and was almost a year into her MBBS, to become a GP. A medical doctor. When I questioned her thinking, she went on to explain that it is clearly a sin, because Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual people suffer poorer health than the general population.

That logic is flawed right from the beginning, after all, the native Aboriginal people of Australia have the poorest health of any minority group in the country, but one can hardly claim it is a sin to be born black. (For more information about Indigenous Health, see Health Info Net)

The part of that argument that I most want to address today though, is the incorrect notion that LGB people are suffering from poor health *because* they are LGB. A recent study has shown that there is a clear link between a young lesbian, gay or bisexual identified persons health, and their relationship with their family. That would imply that these people have poorer health, not because they are LGB, but because their family has a negative attitude to a large part of their identity.

"For the first time, research has established a predictive link between specific, negative family reactions to their child's sexual orientation and serious health problems for these adolescents in young adulthood such as depression, illegal drug use, risk for HIV infection, and suicide attempts," said Caitlin Ryan, who is the lead author of the paper.

So, if you are the parent it would seem that the greatest gift you can give your child, the best way that you can help ensure them a happy, healthy future, is not by trying to 'stamp out the gay' in them... but to love and accept them for who they are, whether they are same-sex loving, or have a gender identity at odds with how you perceive them.