It is a sad and aggravating story about a woman that adopted a baby that turned out to be intersex. Not that big of a deal on the surface right. Well not quite so fast. The doctor wanted to do invasive surgery to “FIX” the child and the mother told the doctor not to do any surgery at all. Later, after the mother had taken the baby home, the doctor called her and told her that the baby’s single testicle may become cancerous and they should do a biopsy to make sure. The doctor CLEARLY went against the mother’s wishes and removed the testicle trying to turn the child into a girl. UGGGGGGGG. PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO. I feel that it is very important that everyone watches the video and if you can please pass it on to others.
Why is it so important? Have you heard of Alice Dreger? To quote TSRoadmap, “Dreger is the J. Michael Bailey of the intersex community: someone whose trade is writing and speaking about controversies surrounding marginalized populations.” Read this and maybe you’ll understand. Anyways, its people like this that give make this world so difficult for the intersex and transgender communities. Ugggg. I also believe its attitudes like this “I know better than you” that give doctors like the one in the story above the attidude that they can do anything they want. What do you think?
I said I would keep it short, so I’ll say good night for now. Thanks for listening.
Michelle

The following is a review of one woman’s take on tonight’s episode of Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit. NBC titled this particular episode “Stabler’s Comfort”. The episode tackled the issue of a 13 year old transgender girl named Hailey. You can watch a clip of the episode HERE. I typed these notes as I watched, so don’t hate on me if I screw up some of the details. I give my final take at the end, so stay tuned through to the conclusion at the end for my opinionated summary.

The opening scene is of a male victim whose genital area has been bleeding profusely, an obvious assault outside a local strip club and a case specifically for the Special Victims Unit.

At the station, an acrylic fingernail was found eventually leading forensics to prove that “the perp is definitely female.”

Olivia and Elliot, SVU’s main detectives, head over to the strip club to try and find the identity of the then unconscious victim and eventually meet up wtih Frankie the Bouncer, a butch lesbian who clues them in on the club.

Soon, through questioning of some of the strip club’s girls including “Misty,” the identity of the man is revealed to be Mark Van Curen, a Repo man who drives a tow truck.

Olivia and Elliot find their way to Mark’s soon to be ex wife Ellen who admitted she “would kill him” before he let him take his son away from her.

At this point, Henry, Ellen’s 13 year old “son,” is introduced to Olivia and Elliot as Hailey.

“My son is transgender,” Ellen says to a confused Olivia and Elliot. “When he was four he pranced around in a tutu and screamed ‘God made a mistake!’”

Read the rest of the summary, and Lori’s take on the episode here.

Please visit the websites below to find out more about the Transgender Day of Remembrance and the location of a vigil near you where you can join with others to honor those who have died because of who they are.

Remembering Our Dead, the project that began the Day of Remembrance

International Transgender Day of Remembrance, maintained by Ethan St. Pierre, contains a comprehensive listing of Transgender Day of Remembrance events around the world.

Transgender Day of Remembrance, a website maintained by Gwendolyn Ann Smith, the founder of the Transgender Day of Remembrance

Transgender Day of Remembrance Webcomics Project, a collaboration of various webcomics to help raise awareness about the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Although there are many videos memorializing the Transgender Day of Remembrance, one of the most moving I have seen is this one, created just this year as a collaboration of several members of the trans community. After you watch it, click on the link above and leave a comment thanking all those who participated in this project.

Whatever you do, please take a few moments tomorrow to honor those whose lives have been ended simply because they expressed their gender in ways that made other people uncomfortable, which, at bottom, is the source of all hate and bigotry. Then, think of one thing that YOU can do to help end the hate and DO IT, and KEEP DOING IT until there are no more names to add to the list of our dead.

Cross-posted from my personal blog.

UPDATE, 11/19/08, 1:55 p.m. MST:  To understand why the Transgender Day of Remembrance is vital to our community and why some of us are so angry about our needs being ignored in favor of priorities that others have set, read little light’s latest post.  If her writing doesn’t make you cry and vow to take action, at least to show up at your local Transgender Day of Remembrance event, I don’t know what will.

So many things struck me with this, such as the shear ignorance of some of her fellow racers, with their primary complaints being that she weighed more, and had more “muscle fibers”. (I’ve met many cisfemales who are heavier and stronger!) Also the fact that they were apparently quite happy to be her friend until she won – what does that say about the prevailing competitiveness in our society today? Finally, the conversation with the guy with the French accent as they ride up to the top of the hill – I’d love to believe that was staged, but sadly I’m sure it wasn’t.

I’m glad that the petition against her was ignored, and I was impressed by the conversation they showed where she explained her status to her fellow competitors. There were genuine reactions, with the issues that commonly come up with the cisgendered who have not encountered a transwoman before.

I haven’t watched Parts 2 through 6 yet. But I know I will.

What do you think?

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3: