[h=1]New immigration detention center in Texas will have a special unit for transgender detainees, who face higher risk of sexual assault[/h]
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and CLEMENCE MICHALLON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 22:55, 23 May 2016 | UPDATED: 03:14, 24 May 2016
A new immigration detention center set to open in Texas will have a special unit for transgender people.
The facility, due to be completed in November, will include 36 beds for transgender detainees, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement.
The privately-run center, located in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, will be the second facility of its kind in the federal system.
The only other one, in Santa Ana, California, held 28 transgender people last week, according to the agency.
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A new immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas, will have a special unit for transgender people. Pictured, immigrants wait after turning themselves in to border patrol agents near Rio Grande City, Texas
Federal guidelines instruct detention staff to ask incoming detainees about their chosen gender identity and make accommodations based on their preference.
The guidelines include instructions on conducting searches, providing clothing based on a detainee's stated gender identity, and maintaining safety.
.
But advocates say transgender immigrants often face certain challenges, such as a higher risk of sexual assault, the impossibility to get hormone replacement treatments, and guards unfamiliar with gender identity issues.
More than half of 28 women were held in men's facilities at some point during their detention, a Human Rights Watch report found in March.
Half were held in solitary confinement.
One Honduran woman identified in the report, who was held at a detention center in Arizona, reported being raped by three men
She said a guard then told her: 'You are the ones that cause these problems and always call the men's attention.'
ICE said Monday it would work with advocate groups in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, just northwest of where the facility is located, to assist transgender people in custody.
But some experts say the best step federal officials could take is to do away with transgender detention altogether.
Independent oversight is needed for detention facilities, particularly those run privately, according to Carmina Ocampo, a staff attorney at the advocacy group Lambda Legal.
'Without any mechanisms to enforce that, it just seems unlikely that transgender people will be kept safe and not subjected to abuse and mistreatment,' she said.
+2
The new center, set to open in November, will be the second of its kind in the federal system. The other one (pictured), located in Santa Ana, California, held 28 transgender people last week
.
- The new center will be the second of its kind in the federal system
- It is due to open in November in Alvarado, Texas, southwest of Dallas
- Will be privately-run and include 36 beds for transgender detainees
- Federal guidelines say detention staff should ask incoming detainees about their gender identity and respect their preference
By ASSOCIATED PRESS and CLEMENCE MICHALLON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 22:55, 23 May 2016 | UPDATED: 03:14, 24 May 2016
A new immigration detention center set to open in Texas will have a special unit for transgender people.
The facility, due to be completed in November, will include 36 beds for transgender detainees, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement.
The privately-run center, located in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, will be the second facility of its kind in the federal system.
The only other one, in Santa Ana, California, held 28 transgender people last week, according to the agency.
+2
A new immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas, will have a special unit for transgender people. Pictured, immigrants wait after turning themselves in to border patrol agents near Rio Grande City, Texas
Federal guidelines instruct detention staff to ask incoming detainees about their chosen gender identity and make accommodations based on their preference.
The guidelines include instructions on conducting searches, providing clothing based on a detainee's stated gender identity, and maintaining safety.
.
But advocates say transgender immigrants often face certain challenges, such as a higher risk of sexual assault, the impossibility to get hormone replacement treatments, and guards unfamiliar with gender identity issues.
More than half of 28 women were held in men's facilities at some point during their detention, a Human Rights Watch report found in March.
Half were held in solitary confinement.
One Honduran woman identified in the report, who was held at a detention center in Arizona, reported being raped by three men
She said a guard then told her: 'You are the ones that cause these problems and always call the men's attention.'
ICE said Monday it would work with advocate groups in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, just northwest of where the facility is located, to assist transgender people in custody.
But some experts say the best step federal officials could take is to do away with transgender detention altogether.
Independent oversight is needed for detention facilities, particularly those run privately, according to Carmina Ocampo, a staff attorney at the advocacy group Lambda Legal.
'Without any mechanisms to enforce that, it just seems unlikely that transgender people will be kept safe and not subjected to abuse and mistreatment,' she said.
+2
The new center, set to open in November, will be the second of its kind in the federal system. The other one (pictured), located in Santa Ana, California, held 28 transgender people last week
.
Eleven states - including Texas - sue Obama administration over federal guideline to let transgender students choose the bathroom that matches their identity
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 19:52, 25 May 2016 | UPDATED: 21:54, 25 May 2016
Texas and 10 other states are suing the Obama administration over its directive to U.S. public schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
The lawsuit announced Wednesday includes Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, Arizona, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia. The challenge, which asks a judge to declare the directive unlawful, follows a federal directive to U.S. schools this month to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
+3
Texas and 10 other states are suing the Obama administration over its directive to U.S. public schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity (stock image)
The Obama administration has 'conspired to turn workplace and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights,' the lawsuit reads.
Many of the conservative states involved had previously vowed defiance, calling the guidance a threat to safety while being accused of discrimination by supporters of transgender rights. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has previously said 'there is no room in our schools for discrimination.'
The White House had no comment on the multi-state lawsuit.
Texas' lieutenant governor has previously said the state is willing to forfeit $10 billion in federal education dollars rather than comply. The directive from the U.S. Justice and Education Departments represents an escalation in the fast-moving dispute over what is becoming the civil rights issue of the day.
+3
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (seen in July 2015) confirmed the lawsuit at a book signing hours before the state's Republican attorney general was scheduled to formally announce the challenge at a Wednesday news conference
Pressed about whether he knew of any instances in which a child's safety had been threatened because of transgender bathroom rights, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said 'there's not a lot of research' during a news conference about the lawsuit. He said he his office has heard from concerned parents, but didn't say how many, and said he did not meet with any parents of transgender students before drafting the lawsuit filed in a North Texas federal court.
The states claim that the directive demands 'seismic changes' in schools across the U.S. and forces them to let students choose a bathroom 'that match their chosen 'gender identity' on any given day.'
Two school districts joined the states in the lawsuit: one is the tiny Harrold school district in North Texas, which has roughly 100 students and passed a policy this week requiring students to use the bathroom based on the gender on their birth certificate. Superintendent David Thweatt said his schools have no transgender students to his knowledge but defended the district taking on the federal government.
'It's not moot because it was thrusted upon us by the federal government,' Thweatt said, 'or we were going to risk losing our federal funding.'
The question of whether federal civil rights law protects transgender people has not been definitively answered by the courts and may ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. But schools that refuse to comply could be hit with civil rights lawsuits from the government and could face a cutoff of federal aid to education.
The guidance was issued after the Justice Department and North Carolina sued each other overs a state law that requires transgender people to use the public bathroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificate. The law applies to schools and many other places.
Supporters say such measures are needed to protect women and children from sexual predators, while the Justice Department and others argue the threat is practically nonexistent and the law discriminatory.
Education officials in Arizona said campuses already had policies to protect students from bullying and discrimination 'regardless of their gender identity.' A small Arizona school district also joined in the lawsuit.
'The fact that the federal government has yet again decided that it knows what is best for every one of our local communities is insulting and, quite frankly, intolerable,' Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas said
+3
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch (pictured) has said 'there is no room in our schools for discrimination'
Battle in North Carolina over transgender bathroom bill
- The lawsuit accuses the Obama administration of' 'running roughshod over commonsense policies'
- It includes Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, Arizona, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia
- Challenge follows a federal directive to U.S. schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms that match their gender identity
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 19:52, 25 May 2016 | UPDATED: 21:54, 25 May 2016
Texas and 10 other states are suing the Obama administration over its directive to U.S. public schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
The lawsuit announced Wednesday includes Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Maine, Arizona, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia. The challenge, which asks a judge to declare the directive unlawful, follows a federal directive to U.S. schools this month to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
+3
Texas and 10 other states are suing the Obama administration over its directive to U.S. public schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity (stock image)
The Obama administration has 'conspired to turn workplace and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over commonsense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights,' the lawsuit reads.
Many of the conservative states involved had previously vowed defiance, calling the guidance a threat to safety while being accused of discrimination by supporters of transgender rights. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has previously said 'there is no room in our schools for discrimination.'
The White House had no comment on the multi-state lawsuit.
Texas' lieutenant governor has previously said the state is willing to forfeit $10 billion in federal education dollars rather than comply. The directive from the U.S. Justice and Education Departments represents an escalation in the fast-moving dispute over what is becoming the civil rights issue of the day.
+3
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (seen in July 2015) confirmed the lawsuit at a book signing hours before the state's Republican attorney general was scheduled to formally announce the challenge at a Wednesday news conference
Pressed about whether he knew of any instances in which a child's safety had been threatened because of transgender bathroom rights, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said 'there's not a lot of research' during a news conference about the lawsuit. He said he his office has heard from concerned parents, but didn't say how many, and said he did not meet with any parents of transgender students before drafting the lawsuit filed in a North Texas federal court.
The states claim that the directive demands 'seismic changes' in schools across the U.S. and forces them to let students choose a bathroom 'that match their chosen 'gender identity' on any given day.'
Two school districts joined the states in the lawsuit: one is the tiny Harrold school district in North Texas, which has roughly 100 students and passed a policy this week requiring students to use the bathroom based on the gender on their birth certificate. Superintendent David Thweatt said his schools have no transgender students to his knowledge but defended the district taking on the federal government.
'It's not moot because it was thrusted upon us by the federal government,' Thweatt said, 'or we were going to risk losing our federal funding.'
The question of whether federal civil rights law protects transgender people has not been definitively answered by the courts and may ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. But schools that refuse to comply could be hit with civil rights lawsuits from the government and could face a cutoff of federal aid to education.
The guidance was issued after the Justice Department and North Carolina sued each other overs a state law that requires transgender people to use the public bathroom that corresponds to the sex on their birth certificate. The law applies to schools and many other places.
Supporters say such measures are needed to protect women and children from sexual predators, while the Justice Department and others argue the threat is practically nonexistent and the law discriminatory.
Education officials in Arizona said campuses already had policies to protect students from bullying and discrimination 'regardless of their gender identity.' A small Arizona school district also joined in the lawsuit.
'The fact that the federal government has yet again decided that it knows what is best for every one of our local communities is insulting and, quite frankly, intolerable,' Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas said
- SHARE PICTURE
+3
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch (pictured) has said 'there is no room in our schools for discrimination'
Battle in North Carolina over transgender bathroom bill
Transgender woman wins landmark discrimination case forcing ferry firm to remove the words 'ladies' and gents' from toilets after she was told to use the disabled loo
Condor Ferries has become the first firm to change the gender specific signs on the doors after Erin Bisson (pictured) proved she was 'humiliated' at being told to use the disabled toilets.
[h=1]Transgender woman wins landmark discrimination case forcing ferry firm to remove the words 'ladies' and gents' from toilets after she was told to use the disabled loo[/h]
PUBLISHED: 21:45, 25 May 2016 | UPDATED: 21:52, 25 May 2016
A transgender woman has won a landmark discrimination case forcing a ferry company to remove the words 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' from its toilets.
Condor Ferries has become the first firm to change the gender specific signs on the doors after Erin Bisson proved she was 'humiliated' at being told to use the disabled toilets.
Ms Bisson, formerly known as Robert until she identified herself as a woman, complained to the Jersey Employment and Discrimination Tribunal that she had been discriminated against after the operator banned her from using the 'ladies'.
She argued the use of words rather than symbols on toilets amounted to indirect discrimination.
It was the first decision of its kind taken since Jersey introduced gender discrimination laws in 2015 and Ms Bisson has now urged other companies to follow Condor's lead.
Condor later admitted to the tribunal that there had been a 'non-intentional and non-malicious act of discrimination'.
The company is now replacing the 'offending' words on its toilet doors and will use gender symbols instead.
The actions were approved by Ms Bisson and the tribunal panel as a satisfactory resolution to her complaint.
Condor, which sails between Poole, Portsmouth, France and the Channel Islands, now has until June 30 to implement the changes.
Ms Bisson, 40, a taxi driver, said she was humiliated after being told by a staff member over the phone last September that she must use disabled facilities.
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Discriminated against: Condor Ferries has become the first firm to change the gender specific signs on the doors after Erin Bisson proved she was 'humiliated' at being told to use the disabled toilets
She said: 'I am transgender. Rather than just going to use the ladies toilets I phoned up Condor before I sailed to St Malo to advise them as such.
'They are the ones that own the toilets and decide who uses their facilities. I did not want to be humiliated. Condor said the only facility I should be using are the disabled facilities.'
Ms Bisson said she was 'totally embarrassed' by the incident and claimed it amounted to direct discrimination.
A panel chaired by Nicola Santos-Costa found her complaints to be 'well-grounded' and agreed that the recommendations drawn up by Condor would remedy the complaint.
Ms Bisson added: 'Gender is down to identity and symbols is one way of dealing with this.
'Companies should be aware that they should welcome everyone. If they are providing services they should not discriminate on religion, gender, disability, or anything.
+2
Condor later admitted to the tribunal that there had been a 'non-intentional and non-malicious act of discrimination'. The company is now replacing the 'offending' words on its toilet doors with gender symbols
'It is about equality.
'What is important is a lesson has been learned by Condor. As much as I dislike the fact that I had to take the action that I did, I have to respect Condor because they put their hands up, and they were wrong and made changes.
'I only hope other companies take Condor's lead.'
Condor Ferries said it had worked with Ms Bisson to draw up a list of measures 'to remove the possibility of inadvertent discrimination.'
A spokesman said: 'Following lodging of a complaint about transgender discrimination, we worked with the person concerned to draw up a list of measures that Condor ferries could take to remove the possibility of inadvertent discrimination.
'These measures were then approved by both the complainant and the tribunal and we have been happy to implement all actions to their satisfaction.'
Vic Tanner Davy, chair of Trans* Jersey, formed to provide support to transgender residents, said that while the group was 'pleased' the tribunal had found in favour of a transgender person, the community preferred 'the approach of education' rather than 'litigation' against employers.
[h=1]Transgender woman wins landmark discrimination case forcing ferry firm to remove the words 'ladies' and gents' from toilets after she was told to use the disabled loo[/h]
- Erin Bisson won a landmark discrimination case against a ferry company
- Condor Ferries is to remove words 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' from its toilets
- Transgender woman Ms Bisson said it amounted to indirect discrimination
- Condor is now replacing the words on its toilet doors with gender symbols
PUBLISHED: 21:45, 25 May 2016 | UPDATED: 21:52, 25 May 2016
A transgender woman has won a landmark discrimination case forcing a ferry company to remove the words 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' from its toilets.
Condor Ferries has become the first firm to change the gender specific signs on the doors after Erin Bisson proved she was 'humiliated' at being told to use the disabled toilets.
Ms Bisson, formerly known as Robert until she identified herself as a woman, complained to the Jersey Employment and Discrimination Tribunal that she had been discriminated against after the operator banned her from using the 'ladies'.
She argued the use of words rather than symbols on toilets amounted to indirect discrimination.
It was the first decision of its kind taken since Jersey introduced gender discrimination laws in 2015 and Ms Bisson has now urged other companies to follow Condor's lead.
Condor later admitted to the tribunal that there had been a 'non-intentional and non-malicious act of discrimination'.
The company is now replacing the 'offending' words on its toilet doors and will use gender symbols instead.
The actions were approved by Ms Bisson and the tribunal panel as a satisfactory resolution to her complaint.
Condor, which sails between Poole, Portsmouth, France and the Channel Islands, now has until June 30 to implement the changes.
Ms Bisson, 40, a taxi driver, said she was humiliated after being told by a staff member over the phone last September that she must use disabled facilities.
- SHARE PICTURE
+2
Discriminated against: Condor Ferries has become the first firm to change the gender specific signs on the doors after Erin Bisson proved she was 'humiliated' at being told to use the disabled toilets
She said: 'I am transgender. Rather than just going to use the ladies toilets I phoned up Condor before I sailed to St Malo to advise them as such.
'They are the ones that own the toilets and decide who uses their facilities. I did not want to be humiliated. Condor said the only facility I should be using are the disabled facilities.'
Ms Bisson said she was 'totally embarrassed' by the incident and claimed it amounted to direct discrimination.
A panel chaired by Nicola Santos-Costa found her complaints to be 'well-grounded' and agreed that the recommendations drawn up by Condor would remedy the complaint.
Ms Bisson added: 'Gender is down to identity and symbols is one way of dealing with this.
'Companies should be aware that they should welcome everyone. If they are providing services they should not discriminate on religion, gender, disability, or anything.
+2
Condor later admitted to the tribunal that there had been a 'non-intentional and non-malicious act of discrimination'. The company is now replacing the 'offending' words on its toilet doors with gender symbols
'It is about equality.
'What is important is a lesson has been learned by Condor. As much as I dislike the fact that I had to take the action that I did, I have to respect Condor because they put their hands up, and they were wrong and made changes.
'I only hope other companies take Condor's lead.'
Condor Ferries said it had worked with Ms Bisson to draw up a list of measures 'to remove the possibility of inadvertent discrimination.'
A spokesman said: 'Following lodging of a complaint about transgender discrimination, we worked with the person concerned to draw up a list of measures that Condor ferries could take to remove the possibility of inadvertent discrimination.
'These measures were then approved by both the complainant and the tribunal and we have been happy to implement all actions to their satisfaction.'
Vic Tanner Davy, chair of Trans* Jersey, formed to provide support to transgender residents, said that while the group was 'pleased' the tribunal had found in favour of a transgender person, the community preferred 'the approach of education' rather than 'litigation' against employers.
Mental Illness Should Not Drive Policy That Disrupts Thousands Of Years Of Moral Order
Transgender Bathroom, John Arehart (Photo: Shutterstock
Agnes Nelson lived just down the street from us in Deer River. She worked as a clerk in Butch Shafer’s drug store. She wore men’s shirts and pants. She carried her pack of Lucky Strikes in her shirt pocket like the rest of the men in town. She had her hair cut in Ken Hill’s barbershop.
As I grew old enough to notice something didn’t seem normal I asked my mother what was going on.
My mother responded, “She’s a lovely person, but she’s just different.”
Looking back I feel certain that Agnes, from time to time, had to go to the bathroom. It didn’t cause any problem for that little town of 800 people in Northern Minnesota. It was no big deal.
President Eisenhower did not decide to show his concern for Agnes by mandating that she be allowed to use the bathroom of her choosing. Had he done so it would have forced the people in that town to consider the issue, not as a question of decency or modesty, but as a matter of public policy. Then views would change.
The Obama administration has used transgendered people, 0.3 percent of the population, as a means to achieve a political end.
Two years ago a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare would pay for the “reassignment” surgery sought by the transgendered.
One year ago, in his first trip as Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter held a town hall style meeting in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was asked his thoughts on transgender service members.
Secretary Carter responded, “I’m very open-minded about … what their personal lives and proclivities are, provided they can do what we need them to do for us.”
In the past week the Obama administration announced to great fanfare the appointment of Barbara Satin, an 82 year-old transgendered woman, to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based Neighborhood Partnerships.
The appointment was accompanied by a press release that highlighted Satin’s lifetime of commitment to LGBTQ issues.
A Minnesota company was sued by the administration for refusing to let an employee, who was hired as a man, to use the women’s bathroom. The settlement included a $115,000 payment, an agreement to call the person “her” and the expunging of “any poor evaluations, discipline, or discharge documents after September 1, 2010” from personnel records.
The order that public schools open all bathrooms to any person is a natural follow-on to administration policy that is willing to use confused people to disrupt thousands of years of order.
The effort over the past several years to “normalize” what is clearly abnormal does not enhance the lives of the object class. They deserve humane consideration, not objectification.
We know very little about the psychological issues that lead one to “wish” or “choose” to live a life totally different from how they were born.
Mental health professionals who specialize in gender identity differ on how it should be dealt with, but are clear on what they are dealing with, a mental disorder.
“It’s different from other mental disorders,” says Jack Drescher, a New York psychiatrist who was part of the American Psychiatric Association’s work group on gender identity.
“In a typical mental disorder, we try to make those symptoms go away. “He said. “Here the treatment has emerged to align the person’s body to match their gender identity.”
Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh says that it is a “mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.”
The transgendered person’s disorder, said Dr. McHugh, is in the person’s “assumption” that they are different than the physical reality of their body, their maleness or femaleness, as assigned by nature. It is a disorder similar to a “dangerously thin” person suffering anorexia who looks in the mirror and thinks they are “overweight.”
Johns Hopkins was the first American medical center to perform sex-reassignment surgery in the 1960s. After a 1970s study of outcomes of those who had undergone the surgery they stopped the procedure.
Rates of suicide among those dealing with sex confusion are 20 times higher than in the general population.
Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic tracked children who had reported confusion about their sexuality and found that in 70 to 80 percent of the cases the feelings dissipated over time.
Proving that this is a political issue rather than a medical issue, progressive legislatures passed laws barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor.
Making sexuality the central focus of administration policy forces the nation to make a judgment on normalizing a mental disorder as a matter of public policy.
This does nothing to help the confused 0.3 percent of our population, but it does disrupt thousands of years of moral order which fits precisely with President Obama’s commitment to “transform” America.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/26/m...usands-of-years-of-moral-order/#ixzz49nSpGSwE
Agnes Nelson lived just down the street from us in Deer River. She worked as a clerk in Butch Shafer’s drug store. She wore men’s shirts and pants. She carried her pack of Lucky Strikes in her shirt pocket like the rest of the men in town. She had her hair cut in Ken Hill’s barbershop.
As I grew old enough to notice something didn’t seem normal I asked my mother what was going on.
My mother responded, “She’s a lovely person, but she’s just different.”
Looking back I feel certain that Agnes, from time to time, had to go to the bathroom. It didn’t cause any problem for that little town of 800 people in Northern Minnesota. It was no big deal.
President Eisenhower did not decide to show his concern for Agnes by mandating that she be allowed to use the bathroom of her choosing. Had he done so it would have forced the people in that town to consider the issue, not as a question of decency or modesty, but as a matter of public policy. Then views would change.
The Obama administration has used transgendered people, 0.3 percent of the population, as a means to achieve a political end.
Two years ago a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare would pay for the “reassignment” surgery sought by the transgendered.
One year ago, in his first trip as Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter held a town hall style meeting in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was asked his thoughts on transgender service members.
Secretary Carter responded, “I’m very open-minded about … what their personal lives and proclivities are, provided they can do what we need them to do for us.”
In the past week the Obama administration announced to great fanfare the appointment of Barbara Satin, an 82 year-old transgendered woman, to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-based Neighborhood Partnerships.
The appointment was accompanied by a press release that highlighted Satin’s lifetime of commitment to LGBTQ issues.
A Minnesota company was sued by the administration for refusing to let an employee, who was hired as a man, to use the women’s bathroom. The settlement included a $115,000 payment, an agreement to call the person “her” and the expunging of “any poor evaluations, discipline, or discharge documents after September 1, 2010” from personnel records.
The order that public schools open all bathrooms to any person is a natural follow-on to administration policy that is willing to use confused people to disrupt thousands of years of order.
The effort over the past several years to “normalize” what is clearly abnormal does not enhance the lives of the object class. They deserve humane consideration, not objectification.
We know very little about the psychological issues that lead one to “wish” or “choose” to live a life totally different from how they were born.
Mental health professionals who specialize in gender identity differ on how it should be dealt with, but are clear on what they are dealing with, a mental disorder.
“It’s different from other mental disorders,” says Jack Drescher, a New York psychiatrist who was part of the American Psychiatric Association’s work group on gender identity.
“In a typical mental disorder, we try to make those symptoms go away. “He said. “Here the treatment has emerged to align the person’s body to match their gender identity.”
Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Dr. Paul McHugh says that it is a “mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.”
The transgendered person’s disorder, said Dr. McHugh, is in the person’s “assumption” that they are different than the physical reality of their body, their maleness or femaleness, as assigned by nature. It is a disorder similar to a “dangerously thin” person suffering anorexia who looks in the mirror and thinks they are “overweight.”
Johns Hopkins was the first American medical center to perform sex-reassignment surgery in the 1960s. After a 1970s study of outcomes of those who had undergone the surgery they stopped the procedure.
Rates of suicide among those dealing with sex confusion are 20 times higher than in the general population.
Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic tracked children who had reported confusion about their sexuality and found that in 70 to 80 percent of the cases the feelings dissipated over time.
Proving that this is a political issue rather than a medical issue, progressive legislatures passed laws barring psychiatrists, even with parental permission, from striving to restore natural gender feelings to a transgender minor.
Making sexuality the central focus of administration policy forces the nation to make a judgment on normalizing a mental disorder as a matter of public policy.
This does nothing to help the confused 0.3 percent of our population, but it does disrupt thousands of years of moral order which fits precisely with President Obama’s commitment to “transform” America.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/26/m...usands-of-years-of-moral-order/#ixzz49nSpGSwE
Texas and 10 other states are suing the Obama administration over its directive to U.S. public schools to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
The lawsuit includes
Oklahoma,
Alabama, Wisconsin,
West Virginia,
Tennessee,
Maine,
Arizona,
Louisiana,
Utah
and Georgia.
The challenge, which asks a judge to declare the directive unlawful, follows a federal directive to U.S. schools this month to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
The lawsuit includes
Oklahoma,
Alabama, Wisconsin,
West Virginia,
Tennessee,
Maine,
Arizona,
Louisiana,
Utah
and Georgia.
The challenge, which asks a judge to declare the directive unlawful, follows a federal directive to U.S. schools this month to let transgender students use the bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.
