Puerto Rico Steps Up!

From the Metro Weekly, DC, USA


"Court orders Puerto Rico to issue accurate birth certificates to transgender residents

Crder comes in response to a first-of-its-kind federal lawsuit

By John Riley on April 4, 2018 


A federal court has struck down a policy that prohibits transgender people born in Puerto Rico from amending the gender marker on their birth certificates. The court also issued an order requiring officials to allow those corrections.

The order comes in response to a first-of-its-kind federal lawsuit brought against the commonwealth challenging its categorical ban prohibiting people from correcting gender markers on birth certificates, even in the face of evidence that a person has undergone a gender transition.

“This is a tremendous victory for our clients and all transgender people born in Puerto Rico,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, a staff attorney for Lambda Legal, said in a statement. “The Puerto Rican government must now allow transgender Puerto Ricans to change the gender markers on their birth certificates so that they accurately reflect and affirm their identities.

“The Commonwealth’s categorical ban was not only discriminatory; it also was a relic from the past reflecting archaic views about who we are as a people and a society,” Gonzalez-Pagan added. “A birth certificate is an essential identity document. It is vital for identity documents to accurately reflect who we are. We are pleased that the court recognized that the government cannot interfere with transgender people’s ability to live as their authentic selves and that attempts to do so are unconstitutional.”

Maybe Ohio will be next!

Again, 45 is Just Wrong

"There is no medically valid reason to exclude transgender individuals from military service. "

Zack Ford | Apr 5, 2018, 10:50 am

The largest doctors’ association in the country is lambasting Defense Secretary James Mattis for signing off on a ban on transgender people serving in the military.

The CEO of the American Medical Association (AMA), James Madara, sent Mattis a letter this week — published by Politico — decrying the conclusion that a “history or diagnosis of gender dysphoria” is disqualifying for military service. 

“We believe there is no medically valid reason — including a diagnosis of gender dysphoria — to exclude transgender individuals from military service,” Madara writes in the letter. He goes onto to say that the memo to President Trump laying out the justifications for the ban “mischaracterized and rejected the wide body of peer-reviewed research on the effectiveness of transgender medical care.” 

That breadth of research led the AMA to approve a resolution in 2015 supporting trans military service. "

For more, go here.

Updates

Voters in Anchorage, Alaska, appear to have defeated a ballot measure that would have required transgender people to use only those bathrooms, locker rooms, or other “intimate spaces” that match their biological sex at birth, rather than the gender by which they identify.

About 16,000 ballots have been received by officials but have not yet been counted in Anchorage’s first election using vote-by mail. Updated results are expected to be posted later Wednesday, according to the Anchorage Daily News. 

As of Wednesday morning, the “no” side — opposing the anti-transgender restrictions on public, shared facilities — was leading “yes” by about an eight-point margin, 53.9% to 46.1%, among the pool of votes that had been tabulated. Due to the mail-in ballots yet to be counted, the Fair Anchorage campaign, which is fighting against the measure known as Proposition 1, has said it does not expect to call the race until April 6.

Plus:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – A Tennessee bill that would have required the state attorney general’s office to defend local school districts over their bathroom policies with transgender students appears dead.

The measure failed to make it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday amid concerns that it could prove costly. One of the provisions of the measure allowed school districts to use private attorneys if the state attorney general’s office didn’t want to take the case. Some lawmakers saw it as a gift to lawyers."

Finally! A couple small steps forward!