The gender identity law that won congressional approval with a 55-0 Senate vote Wednesday night is the latest in a growing list of bold moves on social issues by the Argentine government, which also legalized gay marriage two years ago. These changes primarily affect minority groups, but they are fundamental, President Cristina Fernandez has said, for a democratic society still shaking off the human rights violations of the 1976-1983 dictatorship and the paternalism of the Roman Catholic Church.

Activists and academics who have tracked gender identity laws and customs worldwide said Thursday that no other country has gone so far to embrace gender self-determination. In the United States and Europe, transgender people must submit to physical and mental health exams and get past a series of other hurdles before getting sex-change treatments.

Argentina’s law also is the first to give citizens the right to change their legal gender without first changing their bodies, said Justus Eisfeld, co-director of Global Action for Trans Equality in New York.

“The fact that there are no medical requirements at all — no surgery, no hormone treatment and no diagnosis — is a real game changer and completely unique in the world. It is light years ahead of the vast majority of countries, including the US, and significantly ahead of even the most advanced countries,” said Eisfeld, who researched the laws of the 47 countries for the Council of Europe’s human rights commission.

Marcela Romero, who was born a man but got a sex-change operation 25 years ago, had to spend 10 years making her case in Argentina’s courts before a judge ordered the civil registry to give her new identity card listing her gender as female. “It’s something humiliating … many of us have had to endure psychiatric and physical tests,” she told The Associated Press on Thursday. “With this law we’ll no longer have to go through this.”

Romero, 48, said she personally knows 40 people who had to get judicial approval for sex-change operations, and are still on waiting lists. The law should help them get the treatment they need, she said.

Romero leads the Argentine Transvestite, Transsexual and Transgender Association, whose legal team helped draft the law with help from an international coalition of activist groups pushing for governments to drop barriers to people determining their own gender identity.

Now that gay marriage and sex-changes have been legalized, the government is pushing for fundamental reforms of Argentina’s civil and penal codes, an often contradictory conglomeration of laws that date back more than a century and cover all aspects of society. Encouraged by the president, congressional commissions including members of all leading parties are working with the Supreme Court to draft wide-ranging legislation.

The Roman Catholic Church, which had an outsized role in forming these codes over the country’s 200-year history, has opposed many social reforms, and not just those affecting gay, lesbian and transgender people.

“The Argentine lawmakers are introducing profound changes in society that don’t respond to any social demand and without taking into account the real consequences,” Nicolas Lafferriere, who directs the church-sponsored Center for Bioethics, Personhood and Family, complained Thursday in “Religious Values,” an online publication sponsored by the archbishop of Buenos Aires.

“We have found ourselves faced with the most permissive law in the world in this area. Now, to change all the civil registries you don’t need any more justification than a personal desire, based on someone’s self-perception. It won’t be easy to predict the consequences.” Lafferriere added.

Most Argentines still identify themselves as Catholic, and Catholicism remains the nation’s official religion; the constitution says only Catholics can be president.

But fewer and fewer Argentines regularly attend Mass, and local priests and bishops don’t have the same power of the pulpit anymore. The church but has become so weakened politically that the government has treated it more like a useful enemy than a force capable of influencing vast numbers of voters.

The Catholic hierarchy also has been inexorably linked with the military junta that killed as many as 30,000 people during the dictatorship. Both enforced conservative social values at the time, even determining what names parents could choose for their own children. Even after democracy was restored, parents had to go to court to get special permission for any name that wasn’t on the approved list, where names from the Bible and each day’s saint predominated.

Karla Oser, 38, underwent hormone therapy before surgeons transformed her male organ into a vagina in 2006, becoming one of only 40 people to have sex-reassignment surgery at a public hospital in the provincial capital of La Plata over the years. First, she had to present a judge with testimony from two psychologists, a psychiatrist, an ear-nose-and-throat specialist, a gynecologist and a urologist.

Even after her sex-reassignment surgery, she has failed to get judicial permission to update her national identity card to reflect her new gender, according to a public health ministry announcement. But the law gives her hope, she said: “The operation changed my life and today I’m celebrating that everyone who faces a situation similar to mine can get their surgery without having to make it through the judicial labyrinth I went through.”

The ministry quoted Oser as part of an announcement saying government surgeons are now open for business, ready to provide similar treatment for anyone who decides they want it — no more questions asked.

Anita Snow in Mexico City and Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Legislation approved 81-59 by the state Assembly last week would add gender identity and expression to state laws banning discrimination based on race, religion, sex, disability and sexual orientation. It would become a hate crime, with increased penalties, to harass or attack someone for being transgender.

Bec Collins was born female and said as a transsexual male it wasn’t a big deal to dress like a man in jeans and T-shirts as an animal care technician outside Albany. But using the women’s locker room was uncomfortable, so Collins got a locker in the unisex bathroom. He said his employers have been accommodating, though it’s new to them. He felt a sense of relief since figuring out in his 30s exactly who and what he is.

“I’m more outgoing and happier,” he said.

The Democrat-controlled Assembly has passed the Gender Expression and Non-Discrimination Act, or GENDA, five times. In the Senate, where four Republicans voted last June to help Democrats and Gov. Andrew Cuomo legalize gay marriage, the bill has been sent to the Rules Committee along with 310 other Democrat-sponsored bills that appear to be shelved as the 2012 legislative session winds down.

“I believe the votes are there. The challenge is getting a vote in the Senate. Folks are going to support expanded equal rights if they’re forced to be on the record,” said Sen. Daniel Squadron, a Manhattan Democrat and chief Senate sponsor. “It seems to be a core civil rights issue.”

New York was the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage but Squadron said the state is falling behind here, where 16 states, New York City and several upstate cities and three counties have passed versions of GENDA.

They include Albany, Rochester, Binghamton, Buffalo and Ithaca, as well as Westchester, Suffolk and Tompkins counties.

Asked about GENDA’s chances, Senate Republican spokesman Mark Hansen said: “Our focus for the remainder of the session is to reduce taxes on businesses and create private sector new jobs.”

The Senate’s Republican majority has historically backed bills to assure civil rights, including tougher penalties for those accused of assaulting people because they are gay. With gay and transgender advocates a power politically, Senate passage could also remove an election year issue for Senate Democrats trying to retake the Senate majority.

Cuomo has expressed his support.

On Tuesday, it will be a principal focus of Empire State Pride Agenda’s annual rally. The group, which pushed for gay marriage, said it expects hundreds of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender New Yorkers and allies at the Capitol.

In a report last week, the New York Civil Liberties Union said discrimination and harassment are persistent for hundreds of thousands of people in New York who present or identify themselves different from their anatomical gender. That includes employment, housing and public accommodations like businesses, schools and hospitals.

“GENDA opponents often exploit ‘bathroom politics’ when they argue that protecting transgender and gender non-conforming people will make ‘traditional’ restroom users uncomfortable and compromise their privacy,” the report said. It noted that decades of experience elsewhere have shown no reported incidents of sexual predators infiltrating women’s public rest rooms.

Brooklyn College Professor Paisley Currah said it’s difficult to gauge the actual number of transgender New Yorkers because many people are reluctant to talk about it.

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” said Paola Gonzalez, 36, of Albany. “I’m treated as a woman. Most people treat me as a woman.”

Growing up a boy in Puerto Rico, she said she knew by age 6 that she was different and came out four years ago after moving to New York. “I haven’t had many difficulties but there have been exceptions,” including harassment from an apartment mate that led to eviction, a human rights complaint and return of Gonzalez’s security deposit.

The legislation is written broadly to include a range of possibilities from those who simply choose to ignore social norms to those who feel their gender is different from how they were born, whether or not they have had surgery or hormone treatments, Currah said.

“This legislation is kind of clarifying what the courts are already doing, which is pointing out that sex discrimination is wrong. It’s just making it super clear that’s how the law should be read,” Currah said.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Pets comes in all shapes, sizes, and species. I tend to have reptiles most of the time, others tend to stay with more traditional pets like cats and dogs. Dogs being a common pet it is important to keep up with their health. Health issues like heart worms in a major problem in dogs and in some parts of the country it is worse than others.

It is also important to keep up with nutrition for your pets. In the case of dogs most people already know chocolate is off limits for dogs but there other things you should be careful about when it comes to food. Many of the cheap dog foods and even some of the better brands have corn products as major ingredients so you really have to be careful what you buy for them even in the dog food section.

Jena Talackova (C), a would be Miss Universe contestant, attends a news conference with her attorney (AFP/Getty Images, Kevork Djansezian)

By (AFP)

LOS ANGELES — A sex-change model barred from Canada’s Miss Universe contest demanded Tuesday that Donald Trump clarify her position despite a U-turn by organizers, sparking a colorful exchange about the tycoon’s manhood.

Jenna Talackova, 23, had complained after being disqualified from the contest, which chooses Canada’s candidate for the Miss Universe Competition — co-owned by Trump — because she used to be male.

In an about-face announced hours before she appeared with her celebrity lawyer in Los Angeles to protest about discrimination, the Miss Universe Organization said it could allow her to take part.

But it said she must meet “the legal gender recognition requirements of Canada, and the standards established by other international competitions.”

Talackova was not happy with that wording, and called on real estate tycoon Trump, who co-owns the Miss Universe organization with NBC Universal, to step in to ensure that she can take part whatever Canadian authorities say.

“I am a woman. I was devastated .. I have never asked for any special consideration, I only wanted to compete. I saw the statement by Mr. Trump’s representative and I found it quite confusing,” she said.

“I wish Mr. Trump would just say in plain words whether or not I would be allowed to compete and, if I win, whether I will be allowed to represent Canada in the Miss Universe competition.”

Despite being born with male genitals, Talackova said in a 2010 interview that she knew she was a woman from a young age, began hormone therapy at 14, and had surgery to change her gender when she was 19.

Talackova, who was selected among some 65 finalists for the 2012 competition, believes she was disqualified because of her sex change.

Celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred said Talackova was “thrilled to be selected as one of the finalists in Canada and was looking forward to the May 17th to May 19th 2012 dates, at which time Miss Universe Canada will be chosen.”

“However Jenna was shocked when she was told that she was not be permitted to continue to compete for Miss Canada because of the rule that… requires that the contestant be a ‘naturally born’ woman.

“She did not ask Mr. Trump to prove that he is a naturally born man. Or to see the photos of his birth to view his anatomy to prove that he was male,” she said.

But Trump said he would not apologize for the initial decision.

“There will be no apology whatsoever,” he told TMZ, adding: “If (Talackova) can compete that’s great. If she doesn’t want to compete because she doesn’t think she’ll win, that’s fine. I couldn’t care less.”

And referring to Allred’s comments about his penis, he added: “I think Gloria would be very, very impressed with me.”

More than 28,000 supporters had signed an online petition demanding the reinstatement of the transgender model, from the western Canadian city of Vancouver.

On Tuesday she said the “naturally-born woman” rule should be cut. “I want Mr. Trump to clearly state that this rule will be eliminated, because I do not want any other woman to suffer the discrimination that I had endured.”

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.

In a groundbreaking decision late last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said a refusal to hire or otherwise discriminate on the basis of gender identity is by definition sex discrimination under federal law.

While some federal courts have reached the same conclusion in recent years, employment law experts say the EEOC decision sets a national standard of enforcement that offers employers clear guidance on the issue.

“This decision is important because the EEOC is the agency with lead authority to interpret and enforce the nation’s employment rights laws,” said Jennifer Pizer, legal director of the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy.

The case involved a California woman who claimed she was denied a contractor job with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after the contractor learned she had undergone a procedure to change her gender from male to female.

Mia Macy, an Army veteran and former police detective, initially applied for the position as a man and was told that she was qualified for the job as a ballistics technician. Then she informed the contractor that she was changing her gender. After that, she was told funding for the job was cut. She later learned someone else was hired for the position.

Macy filed a complaint with the ATF, which told her that federal job discrimination laws did not apply to transgender people. The Transgender Law Center, a legal rights advocacy group in San Francisco, took up her case.

“The term ‘gender’ encompasses not just a person’s biological sex but also the cultural and social aspects associated with masculinity and femininity,” the EEOC decision said.

The ruling does not yet determine that she was discriminated against but that she can bring a charge of discrimination under the law.

EEOC spokeswoman Justine Lisser said the unanimous ruling from the five-member agency does not create a new cause of action. It clarifies that charges of gender stereotyping are considered claims of sex discrimination under existing law.

Until now, Pizer said, it was common for transgender workers to have their complaints rejected by EEOC regional offices and state civil rights agencies due to confusion about the state of the law.

“This is a confirmation that the courts are correct, so public and private employers coast to coast now have the benefit of the EEOC making this clear,” she said.

Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Washington-based Family Research Council, said the EEOC’s decision is misinterpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

“Those who are discriminated against because they are transgender are not discriminated because they are male or female, it is because they are pretending to be the opposite of what they really are, which is quite a different matter,” he said.

Currently 16 states and the District of Columbia have laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity. Mark Snyder, a spokesman for the Transgender Law Center, said that EEOC offices in the remaining states would now have to heed the new decision.

Federal employment discrimination laws cover private and public employers with 15 or more employees.

The Rainbow Alliance filed the complaint on Wednesday with the city’s Commission on Human Relations.

The group represents gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people at the school.

It says the Pitt policy requiring transgender students to use bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities that match the sex listed on their birth certificate is “extremely regressive” and unsafe, putting such students at increased risk of violence and harassment.

Pitt spokesman Robert Hill says the school does not comment on litigation, but does not discriminate based on gender identity and expression.

City officials say the complaint could take six to nine months to investigate.

That’s the word from Chief Charlie Beck, who issued guidelines Thursday telling officers to “respect the expressed gender and do not question it,” according to the memo issued to all department personnel.

The department also will begin housing arrested transgender men and women in a women’s jail by the end of the month, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

This is a major change,” Capt. Dave Lindsay said, that will allow for “an environment that’s safe and secure, as there’s been a history of violence against transgender people” in jail.

The policy is the latest step in the long process of making the Los Angeles police a more sensitive and professional force by ensuring police contacts with the transgender community are respectful and courteous, said Beck.

When in doubt, the memo tells officers to rely on what a transgender person may be wearing or their language and demeanor, and respectfully call the person “sir” or “ma’am” accordingly as they would in any stop.

The memo also bars officers from frisking individuals or questioning them for the sole purpose of learning their anatomical gender.

As with non-transgender stops, when an immediate body search for weapons is required for safety, officers of any gender may conduct the search.

In a less urgent situation where a transgender person is under arrest, they may declare a preference for a male or female officer to conduct the search, and will be accommodated if there is no perceived risk to officer safety.

Requests to remove wigs, prosthetics or cosmetics will be “consistent with requirements for the removal of similar items from non-transgender individuals,” according to the memo.

The San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center applauded the LAPD’s new policies. The center said it has received many complaints from transgender people saying they’ve experienced police harassment.

“This is a huge victory for transgender people who may interact with the police, and for transgender inmates,” said Masen Davis, the center’s executive director.

The center teamed with community advocates and the city human relations commission to provide recommendations for the policy change.

University of California, Irvine Dean of Social Ecology Val Jenness says other cities — including Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. — already have similar policies in place.

Jenness, whose research focuses on transgender people, said the policy is a good first step, but training and follow-up will be necessary to protect the transgendered community.

“Policies like this codify an organization’s values and express them to the community. The LAPD is trying to commit to respecting the transgender community with its policies,” Jenness said. “I wish policies like this had been in place a long time ago.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

A baby sling or baby carrier will make you look like a baby wearer. Your baby is up front in full view of you so you know what is going on instead of those backpacks were the baby is on your back. Either facing you or away from you it is still a great way to carry and watch you baby. It also leaves your arms free to take care of them plus do the other things you need to do. Check out the baby slings and see which one is best for you. It is great way to carrier your baby and when you can see the smiles you will know why.

RICHMOND — A Virginia inmate is getting some help in her fight to have the state pay for a sex change operation — the only thing she says will prevent her from performing the surgery herself.

Alexandria Attorney Victor Glasberg argues in a brief filed Friday that a federal court was wrong to toss out inmate Ophelia De’Lonta’s self-filed lawsuit in October. Mr. Glasberg, who helped De’Lonta win the right to female hormones nearly a decade ago, will represent her in an appeal before the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

U.S. District Judge James Turk dismissed the lawsuit because he said the Virginia Department of Corrections was adequately treating De’Lonta’s gender identity disorder, a mental diagnosis in which people believe they were born the wrong sex. Judge Turk said courts have ruled that inmates are guaranteed only minimum care, not preferred therapies.

De’Lonta was born a man but claims her disorder is so severe that it causes her to attempt castration and that the surgery is the only thing that will make her stop.

Mr. Glasberg argued a medical professional with experience treating gender identity disorder — not a judge or a prison official — should decide whether the surgery is appropriate. He says the appeal is not asking for the surgery, only that De’Lonta be evaluated to determine if the surgery is necessary.

The attorney argues the “pain, anguish and suffering” caused by De’Lonta’s gender identity disorder constitutes a serious medical need, reflected by records that show she has tried to mutilate her genitalia more than 20 times while in prison.

“She has engaged in this behavior not because she delights in hurting herself, but because her repulsion is so overwhelming that it is uncontrollable,” he wrote in the brief.

Since 2004, De’Lonta has been given hormone treatments, psychotherapy and other allowances, such as requiring prison officials to address her as a woman and allow her to wear some female clothing, because of a settlement with the state negotiated by Mr. Glasberg. The hormones have caused De’Lonta to develop noticeable breasts and other feminine features.

In that case, Judge Turk also had dismissed De’Lonta’s claims, but the 4th Circuit sent the case back to the district court for further review. The state agreed in the settlement to provide the treatment.

De’Lonta says the therapy no longer works and that she can’t control the urge to mutilate her genitals. She and Mr. Glasberg point to established treatment guidelines that say the roughly $20,000 surgery is needed in severe cases of gender identity disorder.

“The persistent and serious — indeed, potentially life-threatening — manifestations of Ms. De’Lonta’s GID despite years of hormone therapy and cross-living, compel the conclusion that her current GID treatment is inadequate,” Mr. Glasberg wrote, arguing that the surgery is needed in rare, very severe cases.

In his October opinion, Judge Turk cited federal court rulings that say there is nothing cruel and unusual about denying inmates treatments “that only the wealthy can afford.” He wrote that De’Lonta was not being denied medical care, only her preferred treatment — surgery.

De’Lonta has said she fears she will someday die from trying to perform the surgery on herself.

A Department of Corrections spokesman declined to comment because the case was pending.

De’Lonta has been in prison since 1983, serving a 73-year sentence for bank robbery and other charges.

She filed the lawsuit against Department of Corrections officials, prison doctors and mental health directors last year, claiming that she had not received adequate medical treatment for her disorder, that the failure to do so had caused her to attempt to castrate herself and that she had been punished for doing so.

She was hoping to become the first inmate in the nation to receive a state-funded sex change operation.

Similar lawsuits have failed in a handful of other states, and lawmakers in some states are trying to ban the use of taxpayer money for the operations. Meanwhile, inmates in several states have sued and won the right to hormone treatments.

De’Lonta’s case is similar to the Massachusetts case of convicted murderer Michelle Kosilek — born Robert — who argues her surgery is a medical necessity. She says state officials have violated her constitutional rights by refusing to provide the operation. Kosilek has received hormone treatments and lives as a woman in an all-male state prison. Her case has been ongoing for more than 20 years, and a judge in August apologized for the delay in issuing a ruling.

Jessiah MacDonald, 24, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Nova Scotia’s Medical Services Insurance billed him because it considered the hysterectomy to be sexual reassignment surgery, which it doesn’t cover.

He said he had the operation in 2010, but was never told he could be charged for it.

“I felt it was wrong because, despite my gender, I still have pieces of my body and if a piece of my body gets sick, I expect it to be treated as any other piece,” he said.

MacDonald, born Jessica MacDonald, said medical problems arose after he began taking testosterone when he was 18.

He said he went to a gynecologist after experiencing abdominal pain.

“The gynecologist had mentioned during the consult that I had a small uterus and she could feel multiple polyps during the internal exam, and that was sufficient enough for her to suggest a hysterectomy. But there was no mention then that it was only if I was female. There was no mention in the nine months between that and the surgery date,” he said. “The gynecologist said I had two options to deal with the symptoms I was having. The first would be to take birth control to raise my estrogen levels but she ruled that out as an option because I take testosterone. I’m a man. And the second option was the abdominal hysterectomy, which was her suggestion.”

After learning he was being billed for the operation, MacDonald hired lawyer Kathryn Dumke, who is also transgender, and filed his complaint against MSI.

“I have never heard and I don’t think anybody has ever heard of a case where a condition needed treatment and the treatment was denied because MSI questioned that it wasn’t medically necessary,” Dumke said.

MacDonald is seeking to have his bill covered and for MSI to change its policy so transgender people can have a hysterectomy if medically necessary.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/04/23/Transgender-man-fights-hysterectomy-bill/UPI-57091335221940/#ixzz1t3osOWCb