Tag Archives: gender identity

Being a Parent of a Gender-fluid Youth

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My child, assigned female at birth, is discovering who they are. They have been gay, straight, pansexual, and everything in between. They have been male, female, both, and neither. They go by both their given name and the name they chose for themselves as a male.

They use the men’s restroom in public and have a “boy” haircut, but still love flowy dresses they can twirl and feel pretty in. They bind their breasts when they feel like a boy, but wear a basic bra when they feel like a girl. They don’t wear a bikini to the pool, but rather a swim shirt and trunks to feel the most comfortable in their skin.

“I am incredibly proud of the person my child is becoming and look forward to all the things they will accomplish.”

Since they now identify as both genders, but more often male, they chose the label gender-fluid. Gender-fluid means “denoting or relating to a person who does not identify themselves as having a fixed gender,” as from the Google dictionary.

Even though they now fit into one of the many labels available to them, it has been hard for me to accept the loss of my little girl. I have felt confusion and fear, sometimes so strangulating I fight back tears. Confusion as to whether I did something wrong in their younger years, or if there was something I could have done better to help them accept the gender they were born in. As I’ve had time to reflect, it has become apparent to me that my confusion came from a place of misunderstanding. An ignorance of how gender expression can be more than just male or female; that androgyny is an expression of gender as well, and there are many ways to explore gender other than simply what I grew up to accept. I have come to understand my child and I are on a path of self-discovery together, learning and growing into more well-rounded people as a result. Continue reading →

Falling Short: Sexual Health and LGBTQ+ Youth

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This guest post comes from the Planned Parenthood Arizona Education Team’s Casey Scott-Mitchell, who serves as the community education & training coordinator at Planned Parenthood Arizona.

We know most young people in Arizona are not getting sex education in their schools — or if they are, it is often abstinence-only, not fact-based, and not inclusive of all students’ identities. Comprehensive sex education programs do a better job of approaching sexuality from a more holistic perspective covering a range of topics such as STDs, relationships, birth control methods, reproductive anatomy, and abstinence, at an age-appropriate level and utilizing fact-based information. Additionally, comprehensive programs are often more inclusive of students’ identities — specifically various gender identities and sexual orientations.

Schools should be responsible for educating all students about keeping themselves healthy.

However, even with comprehensive sex ed, we often fall short of inclusivity when addressing topics of pregnancy prevention and choices, healthy relationships, and sexual health.

As educators and providers of sexuality information to young people, when we talk about pregnancy we often slip into language that assumes (heterosexual and cisgender) identities, which leaves many folks out of the conversation. We all have a gender identity, a sexual orientation, and sexual behaviors that we engage in — sometimes those pieces line up in a way that is “predictable,” but oftentimes, they don’t.

For example, in working with a student who is a cisgender girl, how often are we going to automatically assume she is attracted to boys, and that she will then be having vaginal/penile sex and therefore be at risk for unintended pregnancy? The answer is often. Continue reading →

The Racist Roots of the War on Sex Ed

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JBS-supported billboard accusing Martin Luther King Jr. of communist ties. Image: Bob Fitch photography archive, Stanford University Libraries

The 1960s were a decade of dramatic social and political changes, many of them catalyzed by the shock of assassinations or the dawn of culture-changing technology like the birth control pill.

It would seem, then, that by the end of the decade it would have taken an especially grave development to prompt warnings of a “subversive monstrosity,” a “mushrooming program” that was forced upon an unwitting public through an insidious campaign of “falsehoods, deceptions, pressures, and pretenses.”

The John Birch Society published those words 50 years ago this month in their January 1969 newsletter. What atrocity spurred JBS founder Robert Welch Jr. to write this clarion call? No trigger warning is needed for this one. He was alerting his readers to the “filthy Communist plot” known as sex education.

It wasn’t just premarital and extramarital sex that stirred anxieties. So, too, did interracial sex.

Welch’s alarmist language was common currency in an organization that was known for its anti-Semitism and its espousal of conspiracy theories. They were traits that kept the Birchers’ numbers modest throughout the 1960s and ’70s — an estimated 20,000 to 100,000 members — and led to the group’s decline in later decades. The JBS, a far-right group that advocated for limited government, got its name from a Baptist missionary and military pilot who was killed by Chinese communists — an early martyr of the Cold War.

However fringe they may have been, Welch’s words signaled the beginning of intensive backlash against sex ed among a broader base of conservatives. Within months, that backlash put organizations like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Medical Association on the defensive. As the debate raged, the NEA sought allies nationwide in churches, civic groups, and the media to save sex ed. By the following year, the NEA was reporting that sex ed programs had been “canceled, postponed, or curtailed” in 13 states and were under scrutiny in 20 state legislatures. Continue reading →

Meet Our Candidates: David Schapira for Superintendent of Public Instruction

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The time to fight back — and fight forward — for reproductive justice is fast approaching. The stakes are high in this year’s state election, with candidates for governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and other races on the ballot. The Arizona primary election will be held August 28, 2018, and voters need to be registered by July 30 to cast their ballots. Reproductive health has been under attack, both nationally and statewide, but Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona has endorsed candidates who put our health and our rights first. Get to know them now in our series of “Meet Our Candidates” interviews, and make your voice heard in 2018!

[D]avid Schapira is not a newcomer to education or politics in Arizona. A passionate educator and lifelong Arizonan, Mr. Schapira has advocated for public education as an elected official for more than a decade. He has served in a diverse array of roles — ranging from the Tempe Union Governing Board to the state Senate — and this November he will challenge Republican incumbent Diane Douglas for the office of superintendent of public instruction.

Sexual and reproductive health care education are critically important to the overall well-being of Arizona’s students. Our state’s current laws regarding sex education fail students by limiting access to medically accurate information, disingenuously promoting abstinence above other contraceptive methods, and actively perpetuating homophobic myths about HIV. Our next superintendent of public instruction should be someone who will help guide Arizona out of the Stone Age and into the modern world, where young women and men are empowered to make informed decisions about their bodies and their futures.

“If your goal is to reduce teen pregnancy and abortions, then the best way to accomplish those two goals is to have comprehensive sex ed.”

Mr. Schapira has a track record that speaks to his support for reforming Arizona’s outdated sexual education statutes. As both a member of the Senate and a member of Tempe Union’s Governing Board, he spearheaded campaigns to include LGBTQ students in anti-bullying and anti-discrimination protections. He has also volunteered for Planned Parenthood since childhood, and played an integral role in the 2014 overhaul of Tempe Union’s sex-ed curriculum.

If elected, Mr. Schapira says he will work to restore respect to the teaching profession, which he believes has eroded as a result of the Arizona Legislature’s animosity toward public education. His open support for the #RedForEd movement stands in stark contrast to that of his opponent — Diane Douglas — who on April 24 threatened punitive action against teachers who participate in a walkout. Douglas’ stance reflects her general disdain for traditional public education, which continues to be starved by her ongoing efforts to funnel public funds into private and charter schools. Continue reading →

STD Awareness: Transgender Men and Cervical Health

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Healthy cervical cells as seen under a microscope. Image: National Cancer Institute

Just one month ago, headlines screamed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received a list of “banned words” from the Trump administration. One of those words was transgender, raising the alarm that the current president might be eyeing policies that would further marginalize the trans population and harm their health. (Other forbidden words include fetus, evidence-based, and vulnerable.) Some have argued it wasn’t Trump policy per se, but self-censoring on the part of the CDC to protect their budgets from being slashed by legislators hostile to transgender rights, abortion rights, science, people of color, and poor people.

In any case, refusing to use words like transgender can have grave consequences for trans health. If the CDC can’t reference the trans population when requesting money for services and studies, they will be hobbled in their ability to serve that population’s needs.

Recommendations for cervical cancer screening are the same for anyone with a cervix, whether trans or cisgender.

January is Cervical Health Awareness Month. Anyone who has a cervix can develop cervical cancer — including transgender men who have not had their cervixes surgically removed. In observance of the month, and in defiance of directions to avoid the word transgender, today we’ll discuss the importance of cervical health in trans men — and why taxpayer-funded entities like the CDC and the National Institutes of Health must be able to study and serve this population.

Transgender men (or trans men for short) are individuals born with female reproductive organs, but who identify as male. Likewise, cisgender women were born with female reproductive organs and identify as female. Both trans men and cisgender women were born with cervixes, and wherever a cervix exists, the possibility of cervical cancer exists. Continue reading →

May 17 Is IDAHOT: The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia

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The following guest post comes to us via Kelley Dupps, public policy manager for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.

Pride flags in Reykjavík. Photo: Dave

Pride flags in Reykjavík. Photo: Dave

Tomorrow marks the annual celebration of IDAHOT — the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia. Established in 2004, the day was originally focused on combating homophobia and quickly began to consolidate with other identity groups. Transphobia was included in the title in 2009 and biphobia was included in 2015 to acknowledge the unique challenges faced by the trans and bisexual communities. In actuality, all expressions of sexuality and gender are acknowledged and celebrated: queer, asexual, and pansexual. IDAHOT is commemorated each May 17 — the day the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality as a mental disease from the WHO Standards of Care in 1990.

No one is free until we are all free.

IDAHOT is a day both to celebrate LGBTQI identities worldwide, but also to draw attention to the violence and discrimination LGBQI communities face. LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex) people have more visibility, and with that comes increased violence and discrimination. This year, more than 130 countries are scheduled to participate — nearly 40 of those participating countries criminalize same-sex relationships. Interestingly, participating countries like Egypt, Russia, and Ghana are just a few of the countries around the world that punish same-sex attraction, behavior, and relationships — often by harassment, arrest, imprisonment, public humiliation, and even death.

This year’s theme for IDAHOT is mental health and well being. Individuals who identify as LGBTQI are often overlooked and left out of health systems around the world. Research has shown individuals in the LGBTQI community drink more alcohol, smoke more tobacco, and are at unique and increased risks for cancer, HIV, and other significant health events. Most LGBTQI folks are not aware of these risks and do not see a health care provider on a regular basis. Continue reading →

Square Pegs, Round Holes: Building Trans-Inclusive Health Care

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transgenderFor the first time in history, trans persons are being recognized in the mainstream and their identities are being embraced like never before. Laverne Cox’s cover story for Time and Amazon Prime’s original series Transparent winning four Emmys are examples of this recognition.

Kinda.

Today is National Transgender HIV Testing Day.

Truth is, the trans persons in the media are not representative of the norm. The findings of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey — a survey that collected responses from more than 6,000 transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals — give a clearer picture, and it’s not pretty. The authors of this study found trans persons faced adversity in almost all aspects of life, from experiencing double the rate of unemployment to suffering through a high rate of violent attacks (26 percent and 10 percent of the respondents reported being physically and sexually assaulted, respectively) because of their gender identities. Among all these results, I found one to be particularly unsettling:

“Respondents reported over four times the national average of HIV infection, with rates higher among transgender people of color.”

To me, a person born after the AIDS epidemic of the ’80s and privileged with a world that now has readily accessible condoms and HIV prevention medication (i.e., Truvada), HIV seemed like a relic of the past. Examining the amount of new HIV infections in the cisgender population (0.4 percent for females and 1.2 percent for males), this is an easy assumption to make. I was wrong. Other studies echoed the large disparities of HIV incidence and prevalence in trans persons. One systematic review uncovered four studies that found that 24.8 to 30.6 percent of male-to-female (MTF) transgender persons tested positive for HIV. Another study — conducted in Ontario, Canada — sampled 433 trans persons and found 7 percent of female-to-male (FTM) transgender persons and 19 percent of MTF persons had a high-risk sexual experience in the last year. Yet another found that 35 percent of MTF persons (and 2 percent of FTM persons) had HIV, and again, persons of color — in this case, African-American identified individuals — were at a greater risk. Indeed, in this study, African-American trans persons (FTM and MTF) were approximately three to 12 times more likely to have HIV. Given these data, the cynic in me questions, “Is anyone even trying to prevent HIV in trans persons?” Continue reading →