Kai Shappley, an 11-year-old transgender girl from Texas, is in the spotlight once again after she was named a Time Kid of the Year finalist. Kai, an elementary school student, first made national headlines in April, when she testified about trans rights before the Texas Senate Committee on State Affairs.
After she was named one of five Kid of the Year finalists, Kai and her mom, Kimberly Shappley, talked to NBC affiliate KXAN of Austin about the motivation behind Kai’s activism.
“I started my activism because I thought it was unfair how they were treating us,” Kai said. “We’ve seen a lot of what’s going on multiple times in history, and it’s just history repeating itself over and over. It’s terrible, so I started speaking out, because I wanted that to stop.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/VFGHDEx?_showcaption=true&app=1
Texas is one of over 30 states that considered legislation targeting transgender youths last year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Texas alone considered over 50 such bills, according to the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas. It was one of those bills — a measure that sought to criminalize providing or assisting minors with gender-affirming health care — that led Kai to testify last spring.
“It makes me sad that some politicians use trans kids like me to get votes from people who hate me just because I exist,” she said at the time. “God made me, God loves me for who I am, and God does not make mistakes.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/lVVrWXE?_showcaption=true
The Shappley family has moved three times in the past few years and now lives in Austin because “it’s the safest place” for Kai to be, Kimberly Shappley told KXAN.
The Shappleys anticipate that they will have to continue fighting bills that target transgender youths, and that’s fine by Kai.
“I’m a bold and strong, independent little lady,” Kai said, “and I will keep fighting for as long as I need to.”
More than 120 German Roman Catholic priests and officials have jointly come out as LGBT+ and called on the church to do better by queer Catholics.
Presenting a fresh test for the church, which has long resisted calls to modernise when it comes to LGBT+ rights, 125 former and current priests, teachers, church administrators and volunteers came out on Sunday (23 January).
In a Change.org petition, the group wrote that while some have “bravely and dared” to come out in the past, others have only “just taken the step”.
“We no longer want to remain silent,” they wrote.
Jointly, the group is demanding that church leadership bring an end to “outdated statements of church doctrine” when it comes to sexuality and gender.
“We want to be able to live and work openly as LGBTIQ+ persons in the church without fear,” the statement read.
The initiative, called Out In Church, posted Sunday evening a lengthy list of demands addressed to the Roman Catholic Church.
LGBT+ Roman Catholics must have access to “all fields of activists and occupation in the Church without discrimination”, they said.
Out In Church also took aim at Church employment rules that consider being openly queer as a “breach of loyalty or a reason for dismissal”.
“Defamatory and outdated statements of church doctrine on sexuality and gender needs to be revised on the basis of theological and human scientific findings,” the officials continued.
“This is of utmost relevance especially in view of worldwide church responsibility for the human rights of LGBTIQ+ persons.”
Among the group’s other calls is a plea for the church to give LGBT+ people of faith access to God’s blessings and sacraments, and to oppose LGBT+ discrimination in all its forms.
Above all, the group urged church leaders to shoulder accountability for the institution historic discrimination of LGBT+ people.
“In dealing with LGBTIQ+ persons, the church has caused much suffering throughout its history,” Out In Church concluded.
“We expect bishops to take responsibility for this on behalf of the church, to address the institutional history of guilt and to advocate for the changes we call for.”
It’s the latest example of Catholics challenging the Vatican’s increasingly mixed messages on LGBT+ inclusion.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said that it does not “discriminate” but that God “cannot bless sin”.
The Vatican even objected to a proposed bill in Italy that would protect queer people from discrimination, with the unprecedented intervention sparking outrage.
Francis himself has flip-flopped on the issue of LGBT+ rights. While he once appeared to suggest support for civil unions, he has previously said that parents of queer children should “consult a professional” and referred to “gender ideology” as a “move away from nature”.
The French fashion designer Manfred Thierry Mugler has died at the age of 73. His death was due to “natural causes” according to his agent.
On his official Mugler Instagram page, a statement said, “We are devastated to announce the passing of Mr Manfred Thierry Mugler on Sunday January 23rd 2022. May his soul Rest In Peace.”
Mugler was born and raised in Strasbourg, where he trained in his teens as a ballet dancer for six years. He relocated to Paris at the age of 24 and launched his eponymous fashion line in 1973. He opened his first boutique in 1978 and his fame skyrocketed in the 80s, with his broad-shouldered, theatrical designs perfectly chiming with the power-dressing ethos of the times.
Diana Ross, David Bowie and Grace Jones were among those he dressed, and celebrities flocked to his spectacular runway shows.
In later years, besides his clothing, he became just as known for his perfumes, including Angel and Alien.
Mugler sold the rights to his name to Clarins in 1997. He retired from his label in 2002 but continued to design occasional outfits for big-name clients. This included Lady Gaga, Cardi B, Rihanna, and Kim Kardashian’s Met Ball outfit in 2019. He was creative director for Beyoncé’s I AM world tour in 2010.
Mugler was an out, gay man. After retiring from his label, stepped away from the limelight and went by his real first name, Manfred. A longtime fan of bodybuilding, he transformed his body with the help of a trainer and bulked up, becoming quite unrecognizable from his former self (although this was partly due to reconstructive facial surgery he also underwent after a bad motorbike accident).
In a 2019 interview with Fashion, Mugler said he’d never had a problem with being gay, only with the reaction of others to it.
“I didn’t have a problem with my sexuality or identity. I had a problem with my family, and I had a problem with the world. I was feeling out of place, and I was feeling very miserable. I was in the ballet for six years, and no one in my family came to see me onstage; I was the ugly duckling who left the theatre alone. I guess I was too bizarre. I would watch the skies at night and look for the blue star and know that I had to hold on.”
“He was timeless and ahead of his time,” supermodel Jerry Hall told the New York Times in 2019. “He knew all about gender fluidity and his clothes reflected the heat and sexuality of the late 70s and early 80s.”
Among those to pay tribute to the designer was Diana Ross.
Casey Cadwallader, the current creative director at the house of Mugler, wrote on Instagram, “Manfred, I am so honored to have known you and to work within your beautiful world. You changed our perception of beauty, of confidence, of representation and self empowerment. Your legacy is something I carry with me in everything I do.”
More than a year after the January 6th insurrection where a mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and violently entered the Capitol Building, leading to multiple deaths and injuries. Now, prosecutors are readying themselves for the trials of a number of the alleged organizers of the events.
While some insurrectionists, like Brandon Stratka, have cut deals to provide investigators with information, others have stood their ground. Jessica Watkins, a trans woman who is one of the most prominent figures in the trials, has maintained her innocence and is set to argue her case at the end of January.
Who is Jessica Watkins?
Jessica Watkins is an Army veteran. She served in the military under her former name, serving in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2003. Later, she was a first responder as a firefighter and emergency medical technician in North Carolina. She lived in Woodstock, Ohio with her boyfriend Montana Siniff. There, she owned and operated a bar and grill with him called The Jolly Roger.
Watkins was a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers. In addition, she formed a small, local “paramilitary group” according to Buzzfeed News, called the Ohio State Regular Militia.
What did Jessica Watkins have to do with the insurrection?
According to social media evidence, records obtained by investigators, and various videos, Watkins traveled to Washington, DC to take part in the insurrection and, wearing full tactical gear, was a part of the group that entered the Capitol, getting at least as far as the rotunda. According to prosecutors, though, she not only participated in the action but helped to coordinate it: investigators showed texts to those she wanted to join her militia and other messages where she tried to get them to come to trainings. She mentioned getting the recruits “fighting fit” for inauguration.
After Watkins home was raided — she was not there — where FBI agents found numerous firearms, pool sticks cut down to baton size, and medical supplies, she turned herself into police.
What does Jessica Watkins say happened at the January 6 insurrection?
According to Watkins, she was in Washington D.C. as security for various speakers for the events leading up to the Capitol invasion. Her posts on Parler made this clear. In another Parler post, she wrote that she had been a part of the storming of the Capitol.
“Teargassed, the whole, 9,” she wrote. “Pushed our way into the Rotunda. Made it into the Senate even. The news is lying (even Fox) about the Historical Events we created today.” In interviews, she has consistently claimed that once inside she tried to stop others from vandalizing the building.
After being arrested, in court Watkins disavowed the Oath Keepers and said she had disbanded her militia. A judge ruled that she was to remain in custody until her trial though Watkins said she was being treated unfairly as she is transgender. She said that injuries she had were not treated and she was forced to remain naked in her cell for days. Officials denied this happened.
“My name is Jessica Watkins, and I am a January 6th defendant,” she wrote in a statement to The Gateway Pundit in December. ” I have been incarcerated nearly a year for crimes I did not commit, so as to serve as a pawn for ‘The Party’ to exploit. And exploit they have.” In the statement, she claimed that January 6 was a riot incited by police.
“Our charges are false, the truth manipulated, and we will one day be vindicated,” she wrote.
What are the charges against Jessica Watkins for the January 6 insurrection?
Watkins is of the most high-profile cases in the prosecution of those involved in the January 6 insurrection. According to investigators, she went beyond being a participant and was an organizer of the event, recruiting, training, and directing others. On January 13, 2022, she was one of 11 individuals indicted in federal court with seditious conspiracy. She has also been charged with conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building, and tampering with documents.
Watkins faces decades in jail. The sedition charge carries a maximum of 20 years.
Watkins first trial begins on January 31, 2022, and then she has another trial on April 19, 2022.
A gay cruise company has described a New York Times story which questioned whether 2,000 gays would be safe on a boat during COVID as “homophobic” and “sensationalised”.
This week a New York Times article was published which looked at the safety of an upcoming cruise by LGBT+ tour operator Atlantis Events, which will carry almost 5,000 passengers.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is carefully monitoring cruise ships as Omicron cases continue to spread.
The story interviewed various prospective gay cruise passengers, with some expressing the desire to sell their tickets for fear of catching COVID, and others looking forward to “dirty dancing, sex, drugs, raves, orgies and sweet, sweet freedom”.
The newspaper also referenced the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship, which LGBT+ cruise company VACAYA has chartered this week for a seven-night Caribbean cruise, and said that prospective Atlantis Events passengers would be “watching closely” to see how the trip panned out.
The New York Times noted that the Millennium, which carries more than 2,000 people, had been flagged by the CDC as having “met the investigation threshold for COVID-19 cases” on board.https:
VACAYA has now hit out at the newspaper, calling the article “homophobic”.
VACAYA co-founder and CEO Randle Roper told Seatrade Cruise News: “The venerated Times, whose article quoted several people not even travelling on either cruise, did not live up to the journalistic integrity we expect and was an affront to Atlantis Events, LGBT+ travel companies in general and the gay community.”
Referencing the New York Times’ slogan, he added: “This certainly wasn’t news ‘fit to print’.”
Roper continued: “As we begin to come out of the pandemic, it’s OK to ask questions about how, why and when we’ll return to normal, but the Timescompletely missed the story here.
“Their decision to focus on errant quotes taken from various social media pages to sensationalize the story was both a misfire and — let’s hope unintentionally — homophobic.
“The focus should have been on the positive steps being taken by travel companies to adapt to live in a new world of testing, screening and exposure reduction through contact tracing, upgraded onboard medical facilities and staff, and improved guest stateroom ventilation.”
Roper said that passengers were vaccinated, most had received a booster, and all were tested.
PinkNews contacted The New York Times for comment.
A group of activists invite social media to join their campaign to ‘disrupt the religious violence trans people experience every day’.
Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi and J Mase III edited the Black Trans Prayer Book to dismantle toxic religious practices that alienate people in the LGBT+ community. The anthology is composed of work by Black trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people.
In 2019, the pair hosted their first annual event for the #TransphobiaIsASin Campaign. The online campaign highlights religious violence that impacts trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people worldwide – especially those from Black, Indigenous and other marginalised communities.
Now, on Saturday (15 January), Dane and Mase will launch their fourth iteration of the campaign. In it, they are inviting anyone that is “invested in ending religious (ie: all) violence against Trans, Non-Binary and Gender Expansive Peoples”.
“Anti-trans religious violence does not just look like demonising trans people within worship spaces,” they said. “It is the theology that finds its way to the tongues of politicians who create anti-trans policies.”
They continued: “It manifests as the framework that blooms violence against trans people on the street, in their families, and in community at large.”
In a post on social media, Dane and Mase explained they want to “call attention to, and disrupt the religious violence trans people experience everyday”.
They have invited anyone interested in taking part to take a photo holding up a sign with one of the following lines: “Transphobia is a Sin”, “Transphobia is Haram”, “Trans People are Divine” or “Trans People Exist Because Our Ancestors Existed”.
The photo should be posted to social media on or close to Saturday, and it should use the hashtag “
Mase told them that the book came into existence as they wanted to do “some intentional work on creating spiritual space” for people within their community.
“That included Black trans people who are part of religious communities as well as Black trans folks who’ve been run out of religious communities,” Mase said.
He added that they knew this wasn’t a job just for him and Dane. So the pair gathered a “crew of people from all over the US and beyond” to offer their insights for the interfaith, multi-dimensional work.
Dane said her main takeaway from the book was: “Wow, Black trans people are just amazing”.
“Black trans people are the leaders this world has been looking for,” she explained. “It’s time some of these cis folks, especially the white ones, get out the way.”
Dane continued: “Get out the way and pour resources into the community.
“The solutions for liberation that the world has been seeking have already been theorised.
“Now it’s time for the world to actually honour the role that Black trans people have always been destined to play: healing the world, prophesying a future and birthing liberation.”
Dane and Mase will also close out the new campaign with a workshop on how to heal from religious trauma which is set to take place on 18 January.
New Jersey is set to decriminalise HIV transmission, ending an historic law that “fuels stigma”.
Under current New Jersey law, a person who engages in sexual penetration by any body part without disclosing they are HIV-positive could face up to five years in prison.
For other sexually-transmitted infections, the sentence is limited to 18 months.
On Monday (10 January), state senators voted 26-11 to pass a bill, S-3707, that would put an end to this.
The bill would still criminalise the transmission of non-airborne infectious or communicable diseases, but will no longer target those living with HIV or STIs.
“This legislation is a step in the right direction [to] removing the stigmatisation that surrounds individuals living with HIV,” said Senate majority leader Teresa Ruiz, one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
“The criminal code is meant to punish actions that harm others, not discriminate against people living with a chronic health condition.”
Co-sponsor senator Joe Vitale said the bill would bring New Jersey in line with “what we now know about the transmissions of certain diseases, especially in light of the advances in treatment”.
It’s a law that has been a “huge priority” for activists, he said.
“I am thankful to the advocates who brought this issue to our attention, not only for leading the way on solid public health policy,” Vitale added, “but also in serving those in need in New Jersey.”
‘Criminalisation does not prevent HIV transmission’
Even activists across the pond celebrated the news, who said that such laws are based on long-outdated conceptions of what HIV is and deepen animosity.
Matthew Hodson, a British HIV activist and executive director for NAM aidsmap, which monitors HIV criminalisation law, told PinkNews: “Criminalisation of HIV creates barriers to HIV testing and treatment, which only serves to increase opportunities for HIV to be transmitted.
“Criminalisation does not prevent HIV transmission.
“There is a shameful history of such laws being used against people in cases where not only has HIV not been passed on but there was no actual possibility of HIV being passed on.
“Criminalisation fuels stigma and is often used against those who are already marginalised or vulnerable, including against LGBT people in countries with state-sanctioned homophobia.
A history of the US criminalising the transmission of HIV
At least 35 US states, many in the Midwest and Deep South – still have laws on the books that criminalise “HIV exposure”, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A 2017 analysis of 393 HIV-related convictions in Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee found the average sentence was nearly eight years in prison for having sex without first informing their partner of their status.
In Arkansas, ‘intentional HIV exposure’ carries a minimum of six years and a maximum of 30 years alongside thousands of dollars in fines.
People convicted of ‘intentional exposure’ in South Dakota and Louisiana are also required to register as sex offenders, the Center for HIV Law and Policy says.
Ohio and Tennessee enforce this requirement regardless of intentionality, while in Arkansas it is not a statutory requirement but a court may order it.
At least six states even have laws that enhance sentences for sexual offences if the person convicted is living with HIV, the Movement Advancement Project found.
The Movement Advancement Project said nearly three in every 10 LGBT+ people live in a state with such outdated law in place. Such laws are often used to punish people who have done no harm, the American Academy of HIV Medicine has warned.
Michigan, for example, exempts those living with HIV who have sex without disclosing their status as long as they are on viral suppression medication.
Many states scrambled to roll out laws criminalising people living with HIV amid the paranoia of the early HIV epidemic, when acquiring the virus was considered a death sentence.
Science in no way supports laws that single out people living with HIV, and activists have argued that these laws are tinged with racism and transphobia.
People living with HIV are more likely to be trans, Black and Latinx, meaning that they are disproportionately targeted by the laws, Lambda Legal and Injustice Watch have found. Some prosecutors even weaponise hateful stereotypes of these demographics to justify the charges.
If New Jersey repeals its law, it would join Illinois and Texas in throwing out entirely their HIV-specific criminal laws.
Missouri, California, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia and Michigan, meanwhile, have all softened their anti-HIV laws since 2014, according to the CDC.
A gay rights advocate who was integral in legalizing same-sex marriage in Florida was found dead in a landfill in what is being investigated as a homicide, authorities said Wednesday.
Jorge Diaz-Johnston, 54, the brother of former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, had been last seen alive Jan. 3, Tallahassee police said. Shortly after a missing person alert was issued for him Saturday, his body was found in a trash pile at a landfill in Baker, Florida, about 60 miles west of the Alabama border, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
Diaz, who served as mayor of Miami from 2001 to 2009, released a statement on Twitter confirming his brother’s death.
“I am profoundly appreciative of the outpouring of support shown to me, my brother-in-law Don, and my family after the loss of my brother, Jorge Diaz-Johnston,” he wrote. “My brother was such a special gift to this world whose heart and legacy will continue to live on for generations to come.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/jv8Jwwr?_showcaption=true&app=1
While he had a high-profile brother, Diaz-Johnston made a name for himself. In 2014, he and his husband, Don Diaz-Johnston, and five other same-sex couples sued the Miami-Dade County clerk’s office after they were barred from getting married.
“For us, it’s not just only a question of love and wanting to express our love and have the benefits that everyone else has in the state, but it’s an issue of equality, and it’s a civil rights issue,” Jorge Diaz-Johnston told NBC Miami at the time.
In January 2015, a Miami-Dade circuit court judge ruled in the couples’ favor, legalizing same-sex marriage in the South Florida county more than a year before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
Elizabeth Schwartz, who represented the six couples in the case, called Diaz-Johnston’s death “heartbreaking.”
“They fought so hard for their love to be enshrined and to be able to enjoy the institution of marriage, and for the marriage to end in this way — in this gruesome, heartbreaking way — there are no words,” she told NBC Miami.
Shortly after winning their case, Jorge and Don Diaz-Johnston married in March 2015, according to public records. Coupled with an image of his husband grinning at the camera over dinner, Don Diaz-Johnston addressed his death on Facebook.
“There are just no words for the loss of my beloved husband Jorge Isaias Diaz-Johnston,” he wrote. “I can’t stop crying as I try and write this. But he meant so much to all of you as he did to me. So I am fighting through the tears to share with you our loss of him.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/oZecGrV?_showcaption=true&app=1
The current mayor of Miami, Daniella Levine Cava, acknowledged Diaz-Johnston’s role in advancing LGBTQ rights in the city.
“In Jorge Diaz-Johnston, we lost a champion, a leader, and a fighter for our LGBTQ community,” she wrote on Twitter. “His tragic loss will be felt profoundly by all who loved him, as we honor his life and legacy.”
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem released a national advertisement on Thursday promoting legislation that targets transgender youths.
Without saying the word “transgender” or “trans,” the ad promotes a bill that Noem, a Republican, introduced last month. The measure would prevent trans girls from playing on any female sports teams at school, including club teams.
Noem, the first woman to serve as South Dakota governor, said it would be “the strongest law in the nation protecting female sports.”
“In South Dakota, only girls play girls’ sports,” the ad begins. “Why? Because of Gov. Kristi Noem’s leadership. Noem has been protecting girls’ sports for years and never backed down.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/Qt6aXee?_showcaption=true&app=1
Noem wrote on Twitter that the ad, which promotes her 2022 re-election campaign, will appear on prime-time national news shows Thursday evening.
But last month, she made an about-face, introducing the new bill, which mandates that students compete on sports teams that match the sex listed on their birth certificates “issued at or near the time of the athlete’s birth.”
“Common sense tells us that males have an unfair physical advantage over females in athletic competition,” the governor said in a statement at the time.
“I am certain that Governor Noem would much rather talk about this issue than her pandemic response,” said Gillian Branstetter, a longtime trans advocate and the media manager for the National Women’s Law Center. “We have significantly larger problems, for example, problems that exist! Those would be good problems to solve as opposed to conjuring fictional ghosts of a changing society and attempting to exploit people’s ignorance.”
Major sports organizations, including the NCAA and the International Olympic Committee, allow transgender and nonbinary athletes to compete on teams that correspond to their gender identity under certain conditions. The IOC updated its guidelines on transgender athletes in November, removing policies that required competing trans athletes to undergo what it described as “medically unnecessary” procedures or treatment.
However, South Dakota and 29 other states introduced restrictions on trans athletes last year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group. Ten states have passed laws restricting trans athletes, with nine doing so last year.
Since the start of the new year, state lawmakers in at least seven states have proposed laws that would limit the rights of transgender and nonbinary youths. Several of those measures mirror Noem’s bill, blocking trans students from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity.
Veterans’ health records can now include their gender identity, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced Wednesday.
The department said it began including gender identifiers in its national medical record system last month “to help VA providers better understand and meet the health care needs of Veterans,” including transgender and gender-diverse veterans.
It added the categories “transgender male, transgender female, non-binary, other or does not wish to disclose” as options in its gender identity field. Nonbinary refers to an individual whose gender identity is neither exclusively male nor female.
Denis McDonough, the secretary of veterans affairs, said in a statement that the VA’s goal “is to align the department’s policies and procedures with the president’s vision for a more inclusive government.”
“All Veterans, all people, have a basic right to be identified as they define themselves,” McDonough said, according to the news release. “This is essential for their general well-being and overall health. Knowing the gender identity of transgender and gender diverse Veterans helps us better serve them.”
Trans veterans said though it might seem like a small change, it’s meaningful and will make it easier for them to get health care.
Landon Marchant, who uses gender-neutral pronouns and left the Air Force in 2011 on an honorable discharge, said they are “completely and utterly blown away” that the department made gender identifiers on medical forms a priority. “Changing health databases and medical records is not as easy as updating a form in Excel,” they said.
Marchant said without a field for gender identity on their medical forms, they often have to go through unnecessary details about their medical history every time they see a new provider, which they described as exhausting. They were assigned female at birth, transitioned in 2012 and updated all of their gender markers to male. But they identify as nonbinary and use gender-neutral pronouns, which can confuse providers who aren’t competent in trans care.
They said they saw a social worker recently who assumed they were “unstable” in their gender identity because they use gender-neutral pronouns.
“And then she proceeded to tell the rest of my psychiatric care team that, and I had to go sort that out,” Marchant said, adding that these types of misunderstandings are common. “People assume they know my pronouns, people assume things about me because they see me passing as male, and then I have to go explain, actually, I also need routine female reproductive care and all of these other aspects of medical care.”
Marchant said many of those miscommunications could be avoided if providers could look at their file and see gender identity, sex assigned at birth and pronouns, which they said would give providers a more “complete picture.” The new VA policy doesn’t mention the addition of a section for pronouns, but a VA spokesperson said it is developing a pronoun field to add to its health record system.
“In direct communication, VA policy requires staff to use a Veteran’s chosen pronoun,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Staff are also required to use a Veteran’s preferred name, and that information is incorporated into our health record systems.”
Avalisa Ellicott, communications director for advocacy group Transgender American Veterans Association, said including gender identity will make medical record systems more consistent. Previously, she said, some providers would only see a patient’s legal name instead of their chosen name, and they would accidentally use the wrong name, an action known as deadnaming. Trans people who are deadnamed or misgendered will be less likely to get care, Ellicott said.
“If you go to an appointment for your hormone therapy, and the person refers to you by your deadname and is using the wrong pronouns, how likely are you to continue going back to that place?” she said. “So people were going out within their own communities and finding other people and paying more money and not receiving the benefits that they worked hard for.”
She said the policy change is just one of many efforts by President Joe Biden’s administration to support trans service members and veterans and, in some cases, undo Trump administration policies. Just after he was inaugurated, Biden reversed Trump’s ban on trans people enlisting and openly serving in the military. In June, the VA announced it would start the yearslong process of creating a federal rule to offer gender-affirming surgeries for trans veterans.
Sheri Swokowski, who lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and served in the Wisconsin National Guard as a federal civil servant and on active duty, said adding gender identity to health records is a great step forward, but she’s worried about how long it will take for every part of the VA to enact the change.
“It’s kind of a crapshoot,” she said. “All of the VA organizations that are out there are all led by different individuals and are all located in different parts of the country. Some parts of the country are less accepting of transgender people and older people.”
Swokowski said rather than creating more policies to foster a safe environment for trans veterans, she hopes the VA will enforce the military’s values of treating everyone with dignity and respect.
In addition to enforcing its current values and rules, Ellicott said the VA should institute mandatory training for all medical professionals.
“There are a lot of courses and classes that are optional,” Ellicott said of trans-specific medical training. “I think mandatory training on trans-related health care, and just how to interact with trans people, would do a lot for the VA and do a lot for our veterans.”
She said including gender identity on forms is an important change, even if it’s small, because then providers can’t ignore who someone is.
“It’s a way to highlight that this is important for veterans, and this is important for people to feel comfortable coming to the VA for care,” she said.