I remember that I was stretched out on the floor facing the television back in the days with only three commercial and one educational station with knobs, not buttons or remotes, and sans color, a world of noire. Television newscasts were not as slick as they are now. A news anchor, the “weatherman”, usually a be-bosomed young woman, and some guy still going by his high school athlete nickname reporting on sports all standing or sitting behind a cheesy desk or in front of a chalk board with a map on it for the weather segments. Local reports occasionally had rather grainy black and white films that got better with the years, but for good news reel quality film, the national networks had it, and at the end of the news broadcasts on each station after giving the heavy news, the anchor would mention something interesting that happened, so the stations would report on different things on the same night and at the same time.
The station we were watching did a report on Christine Jorgenson who had just returned to the United States from Sweden. I assumed she was some movie star I didn’t know and asked my father who she was.
In a totally matter of fact, neutral way with nothing of note in his voice that would reveal hints of an opinion, he simply stated, “He used to be a guy, but he didn’t like it, so he went to Sweden where they will turn a man into a woman.”
Christine was an ex-GI, something with which men like my father could identify, but in the parlance and extremely limited knowledge of what the scientific reality was the recipient of the first “sex change” a type of surgery that had been performed by German doctors in the late 1920s and early 1930s among whose patients had been the Danish artist Lili Elbe, the subject of the book and film The Danish Girl, and is more correctly referred to as Gender Alignment, as the only change is to have the person be the complete person they were meant to be but for an early or late hormonal release in the womb.
And that was mid 1950’s knowledge on what Transgender meant.
Life moved on and other things came up, and having had her fifteen minutes of fame, for the most part Ms. Jorgenson faded away.
Her celebrity as a lecturer, author, and being unique, did not shield her from prejudice as she and her fiancée could not obtain a marriage license because, in spite of the “sex change” operation that everyone knew about, her birth certificate said “Male”, so, male she was.
In the years before the Stonewall Rebellion and the battle over which group started it all instead of seeing it was a full unified community spontaneously speaking as one, Jorgensen had brought gender identity out in the open as a topic to be discussed and learned about and had advocated for Transgender people to fight to have their birth certificates reflect the reality too subtle to have been seen at birth and have their dead-name buried.
The Irony of her situation was that while using a misnomer for her Gender Alignment and not actually understanding the science and psychology, people accepted that a person’s gender could be changed, and that a former male GI was now a woman.
So, a person who was a boy, if Transgender is now a girl, and should be treated as one, like when it comes to sports.
The questions then is when did the Republican party and its religious branch, evangelical Christianity, change what they had already accepted as a thing as they railed against the idea of a person changing their sex. They never said they can’t, just that they shouldn’t.
Over time with Transgender remaining a fuzzy concept that was simply mixed in with Transvestites and Drag Queens, they were overlooked during the time that Gay and Lesbian people took over as the group society would allow bigotry toward when its previous targets began to lose their convenience because of things like the Holocaust. Continued bigotry would have been distasteful, and all that was needed was a new group because there was always the Blacks in a pinch.
Then, Renee Richards brought it up again in the news.
While being considered one of the best college tennis players in the country, specializing in ophthalmology and serving a two-year internship and a two years of residency, and playing competitive tennis while serving in the Navy winning both the singles and doubles at the All Navy Championship and after that ranking 6th out of 20 male over 35 in civilian competitive tennis, Renee Richards, not yet her true self ,had begun her struggle with gender identity that created sexual confusion, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
She went through the process of Gender Alignment with those connected to Christine, a process that was interrupted by choice but finally completed.
Tucker Carlson’s father, Richard, first reported Renee’s background on his local news broadcast and this resulted in the United State Tennis Association, the Women’s Tennis Association, and the United States Open Committee requiring all female competitors to have their chromosomes verified. Renee refused to take such an invasive test, and one not required of the male competitors, and was ousted from two tennis opens.
The argument then, as now was that “there is competitive advantage for a male who has undergone a sex change surgery as a result of physical training and development as a male”
might be an acceptable excuse unless one asks the obvious follow up question, then why do we not allow the girls, if they so choose, to develop that competitive advantage they would get if allowed to that same physical training and development as the boys.
Renee finally took the test whose results were ambiguous, but refusing to take it a second time, she was barred from play.
Judge Alfred M. Ascione who heard Renee’s discrimination case against the various tennis organizations ruled,
“This person is now a female” and requiring a chromosome test was “grossly unfair, You do not have to bear viagra prescription with strangers trooping to your compound or posting adverts everywhere. It is rich in anti-oxidants and can control blood sugar cheap generic tadalafil levels. It has immense positive effects on the soft muscles of levitra 60 mg body and so it effects on the muscles of heart and penis. buy cipla cialis However, individuals who are allergic to the ingredients in the medication have been approved by the FDA. discriminatory and inequitable, and a violation of her rights,” and that the USTA intentionally discriminated against her and granting her an injunction against the USTA and the USOC, allowing her to play in the US Open. In her first competition, she lost against a ci-gender woman to whom she was assumed to be a threat.
This was about 45 years ago.
Accept or reject the reality of Transgender people, while they might have been looked on with curiosity or allowed to dwell in the fringe shadows as just one letter in a list of letters that continues to grow and is assumed to be just a cover for Gay and Lesbian, Transgender women were in general accepted as men who became women, with the change, though it is misunderstood, still acknowledged the Transgender reality, and no one had a problem calling one Christine and one Renee even though people knew their dead names from the media coverage.
But for politics and to address the need to have someone to use as a threat, and the GOP is going all out to build the image that will be most frightening.
The party of family values has been proposing and passing bills in the states with Republican controlled legislatures, pitting parents against their own children much as they and their evangelical base managed to get done when they advised and encouraged parents to kick out any son or daughter who was not heterosexual.
In Texas, a mother has had to testified before the Texas legislature poised to pass a bill to criminalize parents who support their transgender children.
“I’m terrified to be here today. I’m afraid that by speaking here today that my words will be used against me should S.B. 1646 or S.B. 1311 pass, and my sweet son whom I love more than life itself will be taken from me.”
The bill would redefine child abuse to include “consenting to or assisting in the administering or supplying of a puberty suppression prescription drug or cross-sex hormone to a child.”
A parent will have to choose between listening to a doctor or other specialist as to what is best for their child’s health or follow a law that really doesn’t care about the child but winning an agenda point.
Parents will be breaking the law, becoming unfit parents, if they allow gender-affirming health care procedures like reversible puberty blockers that delay the onset of puberty toward one gender where, if it had not been for a gestation blip, would be going in another direction. are reversible and have been found to significantly reduce suicidal thoughts for trans people. Delayed puberty eliminates future possible complications, and the blockers have been found to reduce the number of suicides that result from lone confusion with no one to talk to and a rushed time to make important decisions.
The mother explained that while making the effort to learn about Trans youth she found that surgery is not performed on minors no matter how much Republican lawmakers like to claim the opposite either by refusing to learn the truth, or by ignoring it if they have.
“Today, my son is 13-years-old, the most popular boy in seventh grade, and loved by our friends, family, our church, and our community. This is possible because he has parents who affirm him and provide him with the support he needs.
Taking that support away from him, or worse, taking him away from his family because we broke the law to provide that support – will have devastating and heartbreaking consequences.
If this bill becomes law, that, senators, is child abuse. And I promise I will call every single one of you every time a transgender child dies from suicide to remind you that their lives could have been saved, but you chose not to.”
Doctors For Change stated in an open letter to the sponsors of the bill,
“The care provided to children and youth with gender dysphoria is tailored to their specific needs by a team of highly trained providers, including pediatricians, mental health specialists, endocrinologists, surgeons, and allies and supporters including parents and guardians. Each provider plays a role in ensuring the health of the child based on established standards of care and the peer-reviewed medical literature.
“In our experience, affirmation and acceptance from parents, guardians, physicians, and all other important adults in a child’s life is extremely beneficial to the child’s health outcomes and happiness. These benefits are also supported overwhelmingly by the medical literature and highly respected pediatric organizations including the Texas Pediatric Society, American Academy of Pediatrics, and Pediatric Endocrine Society.”
But not to be outdone in its anti-Transgender animus by anyone, even itself, along with this bill, the Texas legislature is also considering one to expand religious exemptions for health care professionals that could result in doctors being able to turn away GLBT patients if they for “religious beliefs.”
The party of less government is now passing bills that put the government over the parent when raising their own children.
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