Thursday 8 June 2006

Re Kevin In Perspective

From what I think is the definitive article about Transsexualism and the Law, in Australia and to a lesser extent the rest of the world : RE KEVIN IN PERSPECTIVE :
As people with transsexualism have been increasingly ‘reading themselves aloud’ over the past decade, and as transsexualism has increasingly been recognised in Australia and elsewhere as a biologically derived intersexual condition with an established diagnosis and treatment regime, the demands have intensified for the full recognition of the fundamental human rights of people who experience transsexualism such as the right:

• to be diagnosed as experiencing transsexualism and treated without being medically classified as suffering a mental illness or disorder such as Gender Dysphoria and Gender Identity Disorder;

• to be accorded equality of legal rights with others who experience intersexual conditions in respect of access to medical treatment and the re-assignment or correction of an individual’s legal sex;

• of children and adolescents with transsexualism (and their parents) to receive personal, medical and legal support for the affirmation of their innate sex so as to be able upon diagnosis to promptly (without court approval) undergo various non-surgical aspects of sex affirmation treatment so as to forestall the development of inappropriate and harmful secondary sexual characteristics and to enable such children to experience their adolescence with physical characteristics appropriate to their affirmed sex;

• to receive medical treatment for the condition funded by the state as for any other critical medical condition;

• of a person of transsexual background (one who has undergone irreversible sex affirmation treatment so as to physically affirm her or his sex) to have that person’s legal sex altered so as to accurately reflect that person's physically affirmed sex and sexual identity without the precondition of having to end an existing marriage and so as to provide for full and unconditionally equal rights in the individual’s affirmed sex;

• of a person with transsexualism who, as a result of age or health, is unable to undergo complete irreversible sex affirmation treatment, to be assessed by an expert panel and, in appropriate circumstances, to be permitted the reassignment of legal sex on a compassionate and/or provisional basis;

• of a person of transsexual background to participate in competitive sport in the person’s affirmed sex; and

• of a person of transsexual background to otherwise have the right to live a full and fulfilling life in the person’s physically affirmed sex on the same terms as others of that sex in respect of such issues as superannuation and other forms of insurance without discrimination.
We're getting there. Sometimes it's one step forward and two back though. Right now, we're going backwards, but this too shall pass, and in the long run, we'll get there.

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