I'm reposting this piece by AuntySarah to spread the word into wider circles. If you get your queer on, either in an activist way or you just damn are, give this one a read.

We are a group of trans activists who wish to make known our concerns about a demo, claiming to support the depathologisation of trans people, in London on 17th of October. The facebook group for the demo can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147494409183

The description of the event reads:

"Being transgendered is not a mental illness. We are simply part of the diversity of humanity. Gender Identity Disorder is therefore not a valid diagnosis. Homosexuality we removed as a mental health diagnosis diagnosis in 1987. For us to achieve true liberation and recognition we need to throw off this unjust stigma. We are not ill, just different"

A large number of people were invited by the demo organiser, a non-trans man by the name of Dennis Hambridge, and some of us were initially concerned by the rationale for the demo. In particular, we were worried that campaigning for the removal of Gender Identity Disorder as a medical diagnosis without proposing an alternative mechanism by which transsexual people would be able to access medical transition resources was premature and dangerous, especially in a climate where NHS primary care trusts need only a minimal excuse to deny funding for our hormonal and surgical procedures. We do not support the labelling of our gender identities as disordered, and realise that our relationship with the medical community is far from ideal, but do not wish to support a movement which may give the impression that we seek complete divorce from the medical community.

These concerns were put to the Facebook group by a number of trans activists. Rather than address them, Mr Hambridge entrenched his position, making claims that gender dysphoria was an artefact of society and the medical community, and that removal of any form of classification of gender dysphoria by the WHO was "non-negotiable".

In moves more reminiscent of the actions of transphobic radical feminists than supposed allies of trans people, Mr Hambridge started deleting some of the comments from those trans people who were concerned about our future access to hormones and surgery. Subsequently he banned a number of those trans people from the group, silencing them in that space.

To reiterate - Mr Hambridge, who is organising a demo which is allegedly supporting the rights of transsexual people is using his position as a group organiser to silence and shut out the voices of the very people he claims to support.

In light of Mr Hambridge's intransigence and refusal to listen to the voices of actual transsexual people, we are calling on all activists who support the concept of transsexual people having a say in our own medical care to boycott this demo. We further call on Mr Hambridge, who is not trans himself, to stop claiming to speak on our behalf when he is ignoring our protestations and silencing our voices, and to call off his demo.

Please spread this open letter widely.

Edit

This has now been cancelled ... clearly the community noise has done it's work in this case. I'm not sure I trust this movement in the slightest, it feels like quietly assimilationist rubbish designed to strip what official recognition there is of gender variant people and quietly slide everyone who doesn't fit out of the mainstream and the movement. Depathologisation is potentially useful and powerful ... but also potentially more than a little damaging to many, many people.

... as we're selling everything to the highest bidder.

I am beginning to think that the current government get together every morning to chant one hundred times 'there is no problem that cannot be solved with a database' as some sort of Huxleyian repitition is the only explanation I can come up with for their fetishising of inappropriate data storage and data sharing.

Already this year we have had the creation of the contactpoint database, containing the name and address of every under 18 year old in the country, a travel database holding the details of every person crossing the borders of the UK and the start and endpoints of their journeys with a ten year retention time and the use of the Coroners and Justice Bill 2009 to try and quietly sneak the use of secret tribunals rather than jury trials for any offense at the discretion of the state and a total exemption to the data protection act for the civil service where their actions will 'enable the government to achieve their policy goals' covering data transfer to private companies as well as other
government departments. This rides roughshod over all of the promised safeguards against release of information in the Citizen database/s underlying the National Identity Card scheme.

Head over to No2ID for more information and the history of this idiocy.

The post from earlier this week about Angie Zapata picked up some interesting comments; particularly one from Lindsay where she talks about the ‘real institutional power’ behind even the smaller everyday Homophobia, Misogyny, transphobia and racism that runs through our lives. Lo and behold, a prime example of this bullshit shows up in the telegraph this morning.

Sexual harassment okay as it ensures humans breed, Russian judge rules

So here we have a Russian Judge, faced with only the third sexual harassment case ever to come to court in the history of the country – one that looks like a pretty cut and dried situation too with evidence stacked from here to the moon and what does he do?

He rules her boss to have acted gallantly, to have performed a necessary action to ensure the perpetuation of the human species and throws the case out of court. Really, what the sweet fucketty fuck is this shit? Apparently the only way human beings can reproduce is if men in positions of power demand women who want to work, want to study, want to have something for themselves in any way shape and form get down on the desk and give them those bedroom eyes.

The statistics from over there are fucking horrible: 100% of professional women responding to a recent survey reported sexual harassment, 80% didn’t believe promotion was possible unless they agreed to have sex with their male bosses, 32% said they had done it at least once, another seven percent report rape ... this is some fucked uppedness and it makes me want to cry and scream all at once.

Some more writing about it here:

Lisa Harney at Questioning Transphobia
(who pointed this one out to me in the first place)

Natalia Antonova at Globalcomment