CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi has urged prime minister Manmohan Singh to ensure that the transgender community is also enumerated in the Census 2011.

Describing the massive exercise as a milestone since the first ever National Population Registry was going to be prepared, Karunanidhi, in a letter to the prime minister on Saturday, sought that necessary provision be made in the census format to enumerate trangenders. “There are a number of persons in the country, who are called transgenders. I suggest that they may also be enumerated and necessary provision may be made in the format,” he said.

The move is seen as yet another initiative of the state government to draw transgenders into the social mainstream. Tamil Nadu has taken several pioneering initiatives for the welfare of this community in recent months. Tamil Nadu was the first state to form a welfare board for transgenders in 2008, headed by the social welfare minister. The state government also issued separate ration cards to transgenders. Tamil Nadu government also added the option of third gender in the application forms of state-run schools and colleges for unhindered admission of transsexuals in educational institutions.

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France has become the first country in the world to remove transsexualism from its list of recognised mental illnesses.

The decision was announced by France’s Minister of Health, Roselyne Bachelot, on the eve of last year’s International Day Against Homophobia, but did not come into effect until last month.

Bachelot made the announcement parallel to the launch of a campaign petitioning the World Health Organisation to do the same. The campaign was endorsed by some of the country’s leading minds who put their names to a letter published in French newspapers.

In France, hormone treatments and gender reassignment surgery are funded by the state.

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We, the undersigned, support the members of the Organisation Intersex International, in their demands that:

• The International Olympic Committee (IOC) reject demands that female athletes with intersex variations have their variations diagnosed and treated.

• The IOC allow the above mentioned athletes, known as intersex women, to compete as females without having to undergo diagnosis or  “treatment.”

• The IOC, its press, and medical practitioners refer to females with intersex variations as “women with intersex variations” and not “women with disorders of sex development.”

People with atypical internal and/or external sex anatomy are commonly and historically known as “intersex men” or “intersex women.” OII is the largest intersex organisation in the world, with over three thousand members on all continents except Antarctica, and all our members reject the term “disorders of sex development” which the IOC is using to describe us.  This term pathologizes our differences, which none of our other labels throughout history has done, and was imposed on us in 2006 by a group consisting primarily of physicians, without taking our views into account.

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Iran’s military will no longer classify transgender people as “mentally disturbed,” said Hasan Mousavi Chelk, who heads the Socially Vulnerable Groups section of the State Agency for National Well-Being.

Chelk said Jan. 6 that putting such a determination on transgender people’s military discharge papers creates problems for them.

From now on, transgender people being separated from the military will be labeled as “diabetics” or “people with a hormonal imbalance,” he said.

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MANAMA, Oct 31, 2009 (IPS) - Transsexuals in the Gulf call Bahraini lawyer Fawziya Janahi “guardian angel”. She is the Arab world’s only female lawyer who takes up cases on behalf of clients who want to change their sex.

Janahi’s clients want legal permission to undergo sex change operations. While the law is quite straightforward on this in Bahrain, the lawyer says it is more difficult in other countries in the region.

“But that wouldn’t stop me from helping transgendered trapped in their bodies,” she says. “I’m ready to challenge the odds!”

Janahi, 47, spoke with IPS about her unusual practice, her future and hopes of greater acceptance of transgendered/transsexuals in Gulf societies. Excerpts from the interview.

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A campaign that aims to end the classification of transsexuals as individuals who suffer an ‘illness’ as well as educating the general population that sexual diversity not limited to the male and female genre was launched in Lisbon this week. Identical events were held simultaneously in 38 cities in Europe, Latin America, the USA and Asia, to promote the Stop Trans Pathologisation 2012 movement that has been organized by more than 180 international associations.

Transsexualism is a condition in which an individual identifies with a physical sex different from the one they were born with. A medical diagnosis can be made if a person experiences discomfort as a result of a desire to be a member of the opposite sex, or if a person experiences impaired functioning or distress as a result of that gender identification. “The aim is to demand an end to the classification of non-conforming gender identities, like transsexual and intersexual [hermaphrodites] individuals, as mentally ill on reference documents belonging to the World Health Organisation’s American Association of Psychiatry (AAP), which will be reviewed in 2012 and 2014”, said Sérgio Vitorino of Portugal’s Pink Panther Association, which is promoting the event in this country.

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By Daniel Williams

March 17 (Bloomberg) — To the Egyptian government, to her doctors, and especially to herself, Sally Mursi is a woman. To al-Azhar University, the most prestigious Islamic school in Egypt and the Middle East, she’s a man.

Twenty-one years ago, Mursi, 43, went through a sex-change operation as she was about to enter her fourth year at al-Azhar’s medical school, where classes are segregated by gender under Muslim traditions of piety. Al-Azhar officials expelled her, saying she couldn’t go to the men’s classes because she was impersonating a woman — or to the women’s classes because she was actually a man.

Since then, al-Azhar has refused to abide by repeated court orders to readmit Mursi, filing appeals. The contest has become a battle between civil law and religious fiat, reflecting conflicting attitudes about sexuality in an increasingly pious country.

For Mursi, the struggle is a singular and lonely quest for self-worth as she challenges a major Islamic institution and copes with public curiosity.

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The Egyptian Medical Syndicate (EMS) organized a new oversight committee, which it mentioned to be constituted of “Top Doctors and Consultants” for the control of “sex change operations”.

Dr. Ahmad Imam, General Manager of the Medical Association, said that the association decided organizing the committee so that it could be consented before “sex change operations” take place.
Imam warned the doctors not to conduct such operations without first consulting with the committee that the association formed, so that the violating doctors not be subjected to legal proceedings. He explained that the committee includes a fine selection of professors and consultants in the specialties of genetics, “masculinity diseases”, psychology, neurology, general surgery and a member of the Egyptian Islamic Legislation Authority.

Dr. Saeed Sayyed, Rapporteur of the Media Committee of the Medical Association, said that the doctor violating the association’s decision in this matter will be transfered to a “disciplinary committee” to be investigated, and this committee will determine his punishment according to the magnitude of the problem.
Sayyed points that the association saw violations occurring due to “scientific reasons”, such as not determining the chromosomes of the patient and whether they were “compatible” with his external appearance, explaining that “it might be the psychological state that is in control of the patient to change his sex”.

By: Mohamed Abdul-Khaleq Musahel
Source (Arabic): Al-Masry Al-Youm Newspaper

It’s worth noting that the Egyptian Medical Association has long banned the sex reassignment (or gender confirmation) surgery for transsexuals, especially after the infamous case of Dr. Ezzat Ashamallah’s operation on Sally Mursi more than 20 years ago, with allegations such as it being a “crime against nature and God’s will to change his creation”.

As a result, we have written a lengthy petition (on 1st of February) aimed mainly at the EMS and a few other local NGOs including the National Council for Human Rights, and still await any official response from the EMS.

The transcript of our letter (in Arabic) can be found on the Arabic version of our site.

The researchers focused on three genes

Australian researchers have identified a significant link between a gene involved in testosterone action and male-to-female transsexualism.

DNA analysis from 112 male-to-female transsexual volunteers showed they were more likely to have a longer version of the androgen receptor gene.

The genetic difference may cause weaker testosterone signals, the team reported in Biological Psychiatry.

However, other genes are also likely to play a part, they stressed.

Increasingly, biological factors are being implicated in gender identity.

There is a social stigma that transsexualism is simply a lifestyle choice, however our findings support a biological basis of how gender identity develops.
– Professor Vincent Harley, researcher

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Ali Askar had a sex change operation and is now called Negar

Be Like Others (also known as Transsexual in Iran) is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Tanaz Eshaghian about transsexuals in Iran. It explores issues of gender and sexuality while following the personal stories of some of the patients at a Tehran clinic.

In 2008, Be Like Others was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and the Berlin International Film Festival where it won three Teddy Awards; the Amnesty International Film Prize – Special Mention, Reader Jury of the Siegessäule and the Jury Award. The film was shown on BBC television as Transsexual in Iran in February 2008. It is due to be screened at the Seattle International Film Festival in June 2008. Writing for Variety, Robert Koehler called Be Like Others “a powerful window into a once-hidden side of the country” and “a model of non-dogmatic filmmaking on a highly charged topic.”

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