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.

Jason Tseng of the Bilerico Project recently wrote an article called Reinventing the Wheel: Cultural Reproductive Labor and its cost on Queer youth

In it he discusses how queer youth are faced with the problem of finding and then reproducing queer culture often without the benefit of mentorship by the previous generations of queer people.

Because of the highly lateral dispersion of queer people in our society, (being that there are few indicators showing that queer people are more likely to come from one part of our society than the other), from our entrance into the world, the queer nation is constantly a nation in diaspora. With each successive generation, the new queer generation is mustered together by a collective sense of "otheredness," and introduced to a radically new culture to which we may choose to cleave to.

However this process is highly individualized and extremely informal, with very few opportunities for mentorship or leadership. What often occurs is learning through mimicry and trial and error. Queer youth learn to copy examples of queerness that they see in television, in film, the older queers they might see on misadventures into queer life. But most importantly, queer youth learn about being queer mostly from each other.

This process of recreating queer culture is not without its benefits. It means that we are a highly adaptive culture, and although there is a massive 'generation gap', I think that young queers are moving in the right direction, particularly when it comes to accepting gender variance and making cultural space for all kinds of trans people and new sexual orientations.

However, there are also problems. For example, we forget our history so quickly. The history of the LGBT movement is not taught in school. When I came out, I had no idea what 'Stonewall' was and was quite alarmed when I saw a documentary about the first Australian Mardi Gras. (Police brutality!? IN AUSTRALIA? What a shock!) Then on the trans side... who knew that the first medical transitions occurred only a few decades ago? Amazing!

Another notable issue for young people, is that even today, and particularly sex and gender diverse children and teens, we are still often rejected by our families, leaving us alone, and somewhat vulnerable. We create new queer families, and tribes, but we miss the mentorship from the older generation. Sometimes we wonder what on earth will become of us... we wonder if we'll ever grow up, what we'll look like when we are 40, 60, or 80. We wonder how other, older people coped with transition, with being genderqueer, whether they lost their family and friends too, or maybe they patched things up? If so, how? How hard is it to have kids? How do you go about having kids? What about negotiating the legal minefield surrounding marriage?

There are so many questions, and its often hard for young sex and gender diverse people to find older mentors who can help them with their unique gender journey.

There are ways to combat these problems. There are websites about our history that celebrate successful trans people. Organisations like AGA have members who range in age, providing a valuable source of mentorship. As individuals we can all do our bit, helping out young people, and people who are newly awakening in their identity as gender diverse.

Its very important that older people understand how important they are to the next generation of gender diverse people, and that young people have access to safe mentors and leaders.

A Gender Agenda have plenty of plans for 2009, we hope that something coming up tickles your fancy.

Sex and Gender Diversity Community Survey
The survey closed early in January, and we're currently in the process of analysing the data. Once we've looked at the info, and pulled out some interesting factoids we'll publish our findings to the AGA Website. We hope that our data will be instrumental in convincing the ACT Government that people undergoing medical transition are of a significant enough number in the ACT to have services and funding provided to us.

T-Boy Get-Togethers
Most of the trans guys in Canberra have at some point thought that they are the only FTM in the area, but we actually have a pretty healthy population! We hold regular informal get togethers for FTM Spectrum folk (not everyone there identifies as a man... I for example, identify as a genderqueer), and so if you've been looking for a laid back and chillaxed group to hang out with, shoot me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I'll add you to our email list. This year we hope to be able to hold bi-monthly events, a dinner or coffee night on a weekday evening after work, and a Saturday lunch event - picnics, and bbq's etc.

TransAction! Day - Feb 27
A Gender Agenda are looking forward to the first ever TransAction! Day. TransAction! Day is eventually intended to be a day of education in schools, and as such has already stirred up some controversy in the USA. The Illinois Family Institute is calling it 'Deviant Transgender Day' which I think is a very amusing, and catchy name for it.
We don't have the resources to plan anything really spectacular for this year, but will probably hold a BBQ on the weekend following, and send out press releases in the weeks prior.

Mardi Gras Gaggle - March 7
A Gender Agenda are marching with Tranny Panic for Trans Rights in the Australian Mardi Gras Parade. We've got a group of about 16 takers so far, but the more the merrier! I hope you'll consider coming along. For more information or to register your interest, contact our Mardi Gras organiser Robyn Grafkin at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ASAP.

Butch Auction Fundraiser
We hope to run a Fundraising party at the end of June. We're aiming to coincide with New York Cities annual Trans Day of Action. The night should be loads of fun, with performances from local musicians and Drag Kings and Drag Queens. Tranny Panic will also be running an interactive performance to raise awareness about trans people and our constant battle over toilets.
If you are interested in performing at the Butch Auction, or you are some-kind-of-masculine identified man, woman or genderqueer and wish to be Auctioned off to raise money for A Gender Agenda's work, please shoot me an email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Workshops and Education
Later in the year, perhaps September and/or October (dates to be announced), we plan on holding a series of workshops about issues facing the sex and gender diverse community. We want to cover a variety of topics, from dating and sexuality, raising children outside of traditional gender roles, the intersection of trans and intersex needs, and how to deal with trans people within your organisation. The workshops will cost money, so that we can afford to fly presenters in from other cities, and so that we can book a nice venue and so on. We will be offering subsidies and free places to sex and gender diverse identified individuals who would like to attend, but cannot afford it.

Possible Film Festival
Pending news about sponsorship of the event, we may be holding a "Breaking the Binary" film festival, for talented young film makers who want to say something about being sex and gender diverse. More news about this will be published to the AGA website if we can get sponsorship.

Well! Its going to be a busy year! I hope that something there appeals to you!