Transgenderism – in the news

My friend Jo T brought two articles to my attention today.

The first was a Huffington Post Blog article by Marvi Matos called On the Other Side: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly about how her husband became her wife, and the three categories that their friends and family fell into – good, bad and ugly. The ‘good’ being the people who were open-minded, accommodating, understanding, and willing to be positive. The ‘bad’ being people who were closed-minded and refused to accept, or were at best indifferent, or attempted to pretend that it doesn’t exist (giving a cloak of invisibility in the process). Sadly I would put my family into this category – it’s all very much swept under the rug and ignored, is not talked about, or is considered an irrelevance and of no consequence, depending on family member. Lastly there are the ‘ugly’ who were abusive about it. I am thankful that I have none of those in my life. The article also talks about how their children accepted it, and also the questions people asked. I found it a really good article.
You can read it at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marvi-matos/…

The second thing that Jo mentioned to me was the story of the Radio DJ Stephanie “Hirsty” Hirst, formerly Simon. She was a presenter on Capital FM Yorkshire and Vinyl Heaven on Gold when she was Simon, and who left her position in June after 11 years in the studio shortly after she decided to transition from male to female. It is looking very much like she was pushed out of the job by her employers who “did not think gender reassignment was suitable or commercially viable content” for her shows. I’m quite saddened by this. However, on the other hand, the public support for her has been very strong with an active Facebook campaign to get her back and also a lot of positive press and support from various quarters.
There are many articles about Stephanie if you google for them. However, I thought this article by the Independent was a good one: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/stephanie-hirst…

Just before Jo contacted me, I had been reading a report from the BBC of the truly bewildering situation in Iran where homosexuality is banned, but where gender transition to the opposite gender binary so that you are then effectively heterosexual is almost encouraged. This is a very odd dichotomy of conservative and liberal. However, it’s deeply flawed as it completely misses the rather fundamental fact that gender identity and sexuality are two completely (and radically) different things – it’s not an uncommon misconception. A man who is sexually attracted to men is not a woman inside – he’s a man who is attracted to men. His gender identity is male, and is separate and distinct from his sexuality.
You can read the whole article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29832690

I’m sure there are plenty of other stories too, but these are the ones that I came across today and I just thought I would share them with you.