A transsexual may return to prostitution to pay for gender reassignment surgery because the Government waiting list is too long.

The Health Ministry has provided funding for gender reassignment surgery under its High Cost Treatment Pool since 2004.

Jasmine Eastall, 28, is so desperate for the surgery - which she said is the final piece "to being the woman you really are" - she was considering returning to prostitution to fund it herself.

While Eastall was born with male genitalia, she said she never identified with being a male.

Although the cost of male to female surgery costs an average of $45,000 in New Zealand, the price in Thailand is about a third of that, said Racheal McGonigal, who recently wrote to Health Minister Tony Ryall urging him to consider alternatives to the current funding, including funding for surgery overseas.

The 12 operations funded by the ministry in the past eight years were all performed by a team of three Christchurch-based surgeons.

It has funded three people to travel overseas for female to male surgery, as there are no surgeons in New Zealand who can perform the operation.
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"As NZ has specialists who can perform the male-to-female surgery we do not send people overseas for that surgery. This is policy in line with all other funding by the High Cost Treatment Pool,'' the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said there are 53 people on the waiting list and an average seven-year-wait - but McGonigal said most people will have to wait much longer than that, considering only 12 surgeries have been performed in the last eight years.

"At this level of surgeries New Zealand transsexuals are being strongly disadvantaged and marginalised by our health system," she says.

"Here in New Zealand it is very much regarded as cosmetic surgery, but it's not.

"It's easy for people to just say it's plastic surgery, but it's basically a disability on a person born with the wrong genitalia."

Similar calls are being made overseas with the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays in Australia calling on their government to make the surgery a priority.

McGonigal, 56, travelled to Thailand in 2006 to have the male-to-female surgery performed, but said many people cannot afford to do that.

Simone Whitlow has been on the waiting list since last year, but is also saving to travel to Thailand for surgery.

"As far back as I can remember I've felt completely in the wrong body," the Aucklander, who works in finance, said

The 36-year-old said she has lived as a female for about five years, has had hormone treatments and laser treatment on her facial hair, but said she will continue to feel "deformed" until she has the surgery.

"It's no different to someone who is a burns victim or has a cleft palate," she said.

"We struggle with this daily."

But Louise Gizzi, parent of four young children, said the ministry should consider sending people overseas as well as performing the surgery here.

The Dunedin-based systems engineer is now living as a female and is on the waiting list, while also saving for the surgery herself "because you're on the waiting list but you never think you're going to get there.

"Even if I did get the surgery tomorrow I would fight for others," she says.

"It's so fundamental to who we are."

Source: http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/transsexual-may-return-prostitution-fund-sex-change-4879984

Argentina — Transgender rights activists say Argentina now leads the world by granting people the right to change their legal and physical gender identity simply because they want to, without having to endure degrading judicial, psychiatric and medical procedures beforehand.

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 his 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.

Source: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/10/argentina-passes-law-that-allows-people-to-change-their-gender-at-will/

Lobby group Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) is urging the Gillard Government to commit to fully subsidise the cost of gender reassignment surgery, saying trans people unable to afford surgery are facing unnecessary hardship.

Although the federal budget was handed down this week, the call has been made, in part, following a Queensland trans woman’s threat to perform her own gender reassignment surgery in protest at the current costs.

PFLAG national spokeswoman Shelley Argent told the Star Observer she will lobby MPs in Canberra in the coming weeks to push for greater Medicare coverage of surgery costs.

“I think it’s extremely important. We’ve still got people who are trying to self-harm, the suicide rate is still so high and I think what we need to do is take some active steps to halt this,” Argent said.

“I’ve had parents [speak to PFLAG] recently with young children who are identifying as trans and one particular child of a very young age is wanting to die so she can come back as a boy.” Medicare currently covers the costs of parts of the gender reassignment process. Without private health insurance, however, trans people can be left thousands of dollars out of pocket.

Australian Transgender Support Association Queensland (ATSAQ) spokesperson Krissie Johnson said trans people living on pensions are unable to afford private health insurance and cannot afford the cost of surgery overseas.

“It is coming to a critical point, and I can only speak of Queensland, where people are starting to commit suicide again in big numbers,” Johnson told the Star Observer.

“It’s a big thing for people.”

The recent Australian Private Lives 2 study showed trans men and women reported the highest levels of psychological distress, with depression rates soaring up to 50 percent in trans men.

Queensland support group, Changeling Aspects spokesperson Kathy Noble said she has been pushing the Queensland and federal government on the issue since 2002.

“It annoys me when people turn around and say, ‘But you’re so complex’,” Noble told the Star Observer.

“Well, we’re not, it’s the government that has made us complex with the laws they have made.

“I’m disgusted with the whole thing, I keep saying this … but no one seems to be taking any notice.”

TransGender Victoria spokesperson Sally Goldner said while she supports greater coverage of surgery costs, a holistic approach needs to be taken.

“We’d like to see initiatives on Medicare as part of a whole spectrum of health initiatives for a whole range of trans people,” Goldner told the Star Observer.

“We’d like to see the federal health minister take a very directive stance on getting surgeries performed in the public system, given the urgency of them, and working with relevant state counterparts to do that.

“We also need funding for support services in all states and territories … because if you just help with the medical side of things it only creates a bottleneck down the line when it comes to support services.”

National LGBTI Health Alliance CEO Warren Talbot said the Alliance will hold a round table discussion with trans groups in June to map out an action plan to submit to the federal Government.

INFO: Lifeline 13 11 14

Source: http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/australia-news/new-south-wales-news/2012/05/10/urgent-trans-help-needed-pflag/77186

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is encouraging trans activists behind a wave of online petitions calling for improved Medicare coverage of sex reassignment surgery, to focus on lobbying the federal health minister.

Gold Coast trans activist Michelle Diamond, who’s behind one of the more popular Change.org petitions pushing for better coverage, had been calling on the AHRC to take up the cause in light of a perceived emphasis on legal rights rather than associated medical issues.

“Psychiatric care and medications often do very little for a person living with mismatched genitals,” Diamond said.

“Some of these people have to confront these issues and endure extreme discomfort every time they use a toilet, bathroom or get dressed.

“Sex reassignment surgery is much more than just being cosmetic surgery and has more of an impact on a transsexual person’s life. It is highly regarded as life-saving surgery by medical professionals around the world.”

The AHRC, which produced the Sex Files gender diversity report in March 2009, said it had tried to draw attention to the medical, as well as legal, issues affecting the trans community in its talks with the federal Government.

“While the focus of the Sex Files report was specifically the examination of legal identity, the need for gender reassignment surgery to be covered by Medicare was also raised with us in consultations of the sex and gender diversity project at the time, as were a range of other health concerns,” a policy unit representative said.

“In the Sex Files report, we explained how the Commission did not have an opportunity to investigate these matters further in the report. However, we raised them with the federal Minister for
Health and recommended that the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference consider them.

“We will continue to raise human rights issues for sex and gender diverse people with the federal Government at the right opportunity.”

The AHRC said it had received many petitions similar to Diamond’s and encouraged supporters of better Medicare funding for sex reassignment surgery to raise the issue directly with the current health minister and federal Government representatives, as they were responsible for deciding policy for Medicare reimbursements.

Source: http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/2012/05/03/plea-for-better-trans-surgery-coverage/76551

A new Australian trans health action group based in Queensland held its first meeting in Brisbane last week to discuss anxiety and depression problems linked to gender identity issues.

Organiser Melody Moore said she wanted to establish the action group to launch a nationwide media campaign to lobby the federal Government to reform Medicare to cover costs of life-saving medical treatments and surgery for trans, sex and gender diverse Australians.

“Urgent action is needed because there are trans people in Australia living with extremely high levels of anxiety and depression who are driven by the despair and desperation of not being able to get funding to access surgical and medical treatments, and often end up harming themselves or turning to suicide,” Moore said.

“These issues often get swept under the rug and many of them eventually end up on disability support, like me.”

Moore, who works with the Cairns Transgender Support Group, also hopes
the group can tackle misconceptions about gender reassignment surgery.

“There is a belief … that medical services and surgical procedures for transsexuals are cosmetic surgery for a lifestyle we choose, but the truth is these services are essential to the health and wellbeing of a trans person,” she explained.

Moore has been using her own story to help inform others of the realities of trans individuals in Queensland.

Having survived two suicide attempts, she was put on a disability support pension as the result of anxiety and depression as she continued to repress her gender issues until 2010.

She said she feared coming out because of the intolerance she witnessed in South East Queensland during the 1960s and 1970s.

Now two years into her transition at the age of 49, she said she is struggling to find funds to pay for her sex reassignment surgery.

“I don’t have a mental illness, however, I suffer from the same non-psychotic mental health issues as a direct result of having gender identity disorder,” she said.

“But there are many more trans Australians who have no choice but to rely on Centrelink for welfare payments that barely cover their living costs.”

INFO: Contact the Australian Trans Health Action Group at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Source: http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/2012/04/26/trans-action-group-takes-shape/76221

The second national survey of the health and wellbeing of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) Australians — Private Lives 2 (PL 2) — will be launched by Victorian Minister for Mental Health, The Hon. Mary Wooldridge at 9.30 am on Tuesday 3 April. beyondblue Chairman, The Hon. Jeff Kennett AC will also attend.

WHEN Captain Matthew Clinch said he wanted to become a woman, the army told him he wasn't the first.

There had been others before him and there would be more.

''When I heard that, it was a bit of a relief. I thought they'd have a precedent and know what to do,'' says Matthew - who now lives as a woman, Bridget.

''But they meant, 'we will get rid of you like we got rid of everyone else'.''

Clinch, 31, loved the army - still does. As a young teenager, joining the military was one of his dreams; the other was becoming a girl.

At the age of 30, Clinch finally decided he could no longer ignore it. Instead of finding peace, he found himself in the battle of his life.

Bridget now recalls standing in her commander's office shaking, almost speechless as she was told she would not be allowed to come to work dressed as a woman.

After 11 years in the army, uprooting the family every two years and serving two active tours in East Timor, the army no longer had a place for Captain Clinch. They told her she could reapply for her job when she had an F on her birth certificate, but there were no guarantees.

''I'm in uniform, with clippered hair, just thinking 'what the hell'? This shouldn't be that big a deal,'' Clinch says.

''It's 2010, this is Australia. We don't do this to our people - or we shouldn't. It's not equitable. It's not fair. We don't make gay people in Defence be closeted.''

But the army had its policy: ''Consistent with the current ADF medical and recruiting policy, a person undergoing or contemplating gender reassignment cannot be considered suitable for service in the ADF because of the need for ongoing treatment and/or the presence of a psychiatric disorder.''

Clinch - who is planning on having sex reassignment surgery next year - was not going to walk away without a fight.

One year on, after striving to keep her job against intimidation and prejudice from the top echelons of the military, Bridget Clinch is still in the army.

And because of her, the transgender policy is now gone.

It is a significant victory in Clinch's life-long battle to become herself.

Some of her earliest memories are of blowing out birthday candles and wishing she was a girl. ''I didn't want to be a different person. I wanted to be me - but a girl me.''

Clinch's teenage years, at Melbourne High School, were awkward. ''I didn't want the body I had. I wanted a girl's body. That was just the way it had always been.

''But society and parents and all sorts of influences tell you that's crazy, you can't be thinking like that. You can't be acting on those thoughts. You can't resolve that thing that eats you up.''

For years, Matthew Clinch hid his longing to be a woman. He joined the reserves straight out of school and the army two years later, burying himself in the all-male infantry, pumping iron at the gym and fathering two daughters with wife Tammy.

''But your head and your heart are how they are and you can't get away from yourself,'' Bridget says.

The legacy of the past is still there in Clinch's bulging biceps and 90-kilogram frame, but the hormone treatment has kicked in and there are now breasts where once there were pecs.

Bridget Clinch is pretty, with steady, true-blue eyes and light red hair that curls softly around her face.

She was handsome as a man, too. And when Matthew met Tammy at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, there was an immediate attraction: physically, intellectually and emotionally.

Suddenly, it seemed everything was falling into place. Clinch was a specialist in combat and helped train soldiers to develop resilience in environments of fear and stress.

In a 2003 tour in East Timor, he led an infantry unit. During a second tour in 2008, he was a logistics officer in the parachute battalion. A friend from the army, who asked not to be identified, describes Matthew Clinch as ''a good guy, a good officer and a good, smart soldier''.

Clinch thrived under the structure of army life - where gender seemed less important than rank - and eventually became a captain.

But the feeling that he did not fit in his own body was always there. ''In quieter times … it was starting to chew up too much head space.''

Tammy, who long ago left the army, recalls that Matt's smile never reached all the way to his eyes. She thought he was depressed, had something on his mind. She never dreamed it was this.

Clinch finally decided to see a psychiatrist in August last year.

When Matthew told his wife of eight years that he needed to live as a woman, Tammy says ''the earth stopped spinning''.

After the initial shock, came the grief. She mourned her husband and the body he would lose. But, she says, she ''realised that the person I loved and built my life with is still there. All the good things I loved are still there. I just have to adjust to what's on the outside now.''

They now live as a same-sex couple in Queensland, raising their 5-year-old and 16-month-old daughters, who have both adjusted fairly well.

The family's trials, however, are far from over. The couple will have to divorce next year before Bridget's operation, so she can become legally recognised as a woman.

In the meantime, despite almost single-handedly forcing Defence to throw out its transgender policy, Clinch's struggle to stay in the military continues.

She has the support of Transgender Victoria spokeswoman Sally Goldner, who says her success in challenging the policy and having it abolished, will now help others.

Ms Goldner says the policy practically, if not explicitly, gave Defence the right to sack employees who were undergoing sex change treatments. Under the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's standards of care, people wanting a sex change operation must first live continuously as the opposite gender for at least 12 months, during which time they usually receive hormone therapy.

According to the Australian Defence Force's head of people capability, Major-General Craig Orme, the force's medical policy stipulated that anyone receiving medical treatment for 12 months or more would be discharged.

After being told in December last year that she could not dress as a woman at work, Clinch had no option but to go on leave to begin her transition. Her termination notice was signed in February, just weeks after Defence joined the Pride in Diversity employer program, which a Defence newsletter says aims ''to make workplaces more responsive to the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people''.

After lodging a Human Rights Commission complaint in March, which is yet to be heard, and appealing her sacking - with her doctor's support - through Defence's own channels, the termination was suspended in May. Defence cancelled its transgender policy in June and Clinch's termination was withdrawn a month later.

Although she has worked intermittently, Clinch has remained on sick leave for most of the year due, she says, to ongoing stress caused by her superiors in Canberra.

She remains upset that Defence has downgraded her psychological and medical ratings to below the level required for active service, despite, she says, positive assessments.

Her psychiatrist, Dr John Parkinson, wrote to the army in her defence, attesting to her good physical and mental health and ''emotional stability''.

Major-General Orme says ''there has never been a ban on being transgender in the ADF''.

But he says: ''It may have been interpreted that way - that is why we withdrew that particular piece of policy.''

The ADF is now handling transgender personnel - sources say several others have come forward - under its ''equity and diversity'' policy.

He says a review of how transgender personnel are treated would be completed by the middle of next year. Under the new policy, he says cases would be assessed individually, but it was unlikely people in transition would be allowed to do operations with their units or be deployed overseas.

Ms Goldner says it is reasonable that people not be deployed during transition treatments but she stresses that having a sex change ''doesn't incapacitate you because you are moving towards the body that you've always wanted … you are a lot happier - a lot more productive''.

Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria director, Associate Professor Anne Mitchell from Latrobe University, says a sex change should not prevent someone from participating in active service. ''The person is the same. They have the same skills, experience, understanding,'' she says.

Sources say at least two members of the British military undergoing gender reassignment have remained in active service, with one in a position of senior command in a war zone.

Human Rights Commissioner Catherine Branson says anti-discrimination principles would prevent employers from singling out people who were going through a gender transition.

Bridget Clinch still has to clear some hurdles in her journey to womanhood. But now she feels more comfortable in her own skin. Best of all, when she tells people she used to be a man, some don't care at all.

She hopes one day soon the top brass will feel the same way.

Until then, she says: ''It takes more than the military to sort me out.''

Bridget and Tammy Clinch's website is justlikeyou.com.au

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/sexchange-soldier-forces-army-to-scrap-transgender-policy-20101204-18ks9.html

Josie Romero loves the colour pink, braiding her hair and having her fingernails painted.

But life has not always been easy for this sweet and charming eight-year-old, who was born in the body of a boy.

The transgender youngster, then called Joseph, knew at the age of four that she was the wrong sex and even told her parents: 'I am really a girl.'  

At five, she was refusing to have her hair cut and only wore colours like orange which were nearest to girly pink. ~bJosie Romero has always insisted she is a girl and loves playing with dolls


By the time she reached six, Josie had been diagnosed as transgender and was beginning her transition to becoming a female.

Mother Venessia, 42, said: 'When she was a toddler, she was always trying to turn her boy toys into girl toys.

'She used to take her army figures, wrap them up and rock them like a baby.

'As she grew older and started to talk, she always said: "I'm a girl".

'We used to correct her and say: "No you're a boy".

'But by the time she was four, she was insisting: "No I really am a girl".   

'We started to realise she wasn't just playing. She would always correct anyone who called her a boy.

'She'd wrap one of my scarves around her waist to make a skirt. It was her favourite game.'  

Venessia and her husband Joseph, 42, an airforce engineer, from Vail, Arizona, made the brave decision to tell their daughter's story to help other parents of transexual youngsters.

Venessia said: 'When Josie was four we adopted a two-year-old girl, Jade, from China because we lived in Japan at the time and wanted to help a child in need. ~Josie, aged five-and-a-half loved dressing up in pink clothes with sister Jade

'We were a worried Josie would jealous of a new sibling, but she was so excited to have a sister. They loved playing together and there were even more girls toys around.

'We'd accepted Josie was a bit different and after about six months something clicked and I thought: 'Oh, we have a gay boy'.

'We were totally fine with having a gay boy. We thought: "As long as our child is happy" everything will be fine.'  

'She looked kind of androgenous by the time she was five and people would always ask if we had a girl or a boy,' said Venessia.

It was Josie's paediatrician who finally brought the situation into the open.

'I think he worked it out because of various things Josie had said over a couple of years,' said Venessia.

'He just said to me: 'Look up the word transgender'.

'I went home and started looking up transgender on the internet.

'At first the only sites I found were medical ones and websites talking about adults.

'But eventually we did find out that there were other children who thought they were born as the wrong sex.
Enlarge   Before the change: Pictured here as Joseph, with adopted sister Jade

Before the change: Pictured here as Joseph, with adopted sister Jade

'We discovered a site called Transgender Youth Family Allies where there were 100 children who were all going through the same thing as Josie.'  Venessia started giving Josie options about how she wanted to live.

'I bought some girls clothes and put them in one side of her wardrobe,' she said.

'All her boys clothes were in the other half.

'Each morning she was free to choose what she wanted to wear - but she always chose girls clothes.'  

Josie was referred to a gender specialist who confirmed the diagnosis and the family began accepting Josie as a real girl.

Venessia said: 'It was definitely hardest for my husband, because he felt like he had lost a son.

'Joseph used to spend time with Joey doing things like jogging and swimming.

'But he could do those the same with Josie as a girl.'  Joseph said: 'At first I denied it. Then, after reality kicked in, I deeply mourned the loss of my son.'  But he added: 'We had a family photo shoot where Josie dressed up like a princess, with a butterfly in her hair and gloss on her lips.

'I forced a smile onto my face hoping she'd be content with my effort. Josie's own face lit up in response, and a sparkle I hadn't seen in so many months was back in her eyes. I made the connection with her then, for the first time, knowing I had gained a daughter.

'After the first few pictures, both Josie and I were wearing genuine smiles and laughing out loud.'  
Enlarge   Family support: Josie and Jade pictured with their father Joseph and mother Venessia

Family support: Josie and Jade pictured with their father Joseph and mother Venessia

But unfortunately other people in the fiercely conservative environment of the American military base, where the family lived in Japan, were less accepting of Josie and picketed outside her school gates.

'It was horrible for Josie and for all of us,' said Venessia.

'I know it affected her although we tried to protect her from it.

'When we returned to the States last year we arranged for counselling for Josie to help deal with what she's been through, as well as for her transition.'  Now, in a few weeks' Josie will see her doctor to find out more about puberty blockers, drugs which will prevent her starting male adolescence.

Then, when she reaches the age of 12, she will be given female hormones containing oestrogen.

Josie also understands that she will need to have surgery when she is an adult in order to become a full woman.

Her case has already been referred to Dr Norman Spack at Boston Children's Hospital a top specialist in transgender children.

Josie said: 'I am happy that everyone knows I am a real girl, and that I don't have to pretend to be a boy anymore.

'Being a girl is nice because I get to bake and cook in the kitchem wear long hair and earrings.'   By the time Josie's family moved back to Arizona last year she had been legally accepted as a female.

Her birth certificate, passport and even her social security number were changed to show her completely as a girl.

Venessia said: 'Unfortunately the local school barred us from enrolling Josie, so we made the decision to home school both girls, which is very rewarding.

'We're bringing them up in a very happy protected environment.

'Maybe when the girls are older they will be able to go to high school, but that is still a few years away.'  Josie is a spokesperson for transgender children and gives talks to other groups in Arizona.   Her mum said: 'Josie is very happy to speak about being a transgender child.

'We feel that by being open about her experiences, it will help other parents and children still coming to terms with their gender.

'The most important thing is to love your child unconditionally.

'Whatever happens you still have a daughter, or a son, who needs you to be there for them.'  Josie and her family are one of several families featured in a new BodyShock documentary.   Age 8 and wanting a Sex Change will be shown on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday October 19.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220577/Pictured-Josie-transgender-year-old-born-boy.html

Human Rights Commissioner, Graeme Innes, launched the Australian Human Rights Commission’s concluding paper for the sex and gender diversity project, Sex Files: The legal recognition of sex in documents and government records, containing 15 recommendations for improving the current system for legally recognising sex identity, at Parliament House in Canberra today.

“It is difficult for most of us to understand being born into a body that is the wrong sex, or into a body that is not exclusively male or female,” said Commissioner Innes, “but for some people this is an extremely frustrating reality that they have had to deal with in their lives.”

“While some people who are sex or gender diverse take steps to rectify or come to terms with this situation themselves, others have the decision made for them when they are young, but both potentially face the humiliation and added frustration of having to argue for their sex or gender at some stage in their lives when asked for identification by various official documents.”

Mr Innes said that the issue of sex and/or gender identity arose when the Commission was undertaking consultations and research for the Same-sex: same entitlements inquiry into discrimination against same sex couples and families regarding financial and work-related entitlements.

“The appalling thing about this situation over sex and gender identity in documentation and records is the disruption it causes in the life of the person concerned by putting a spotlight on what in many cases is a very private matter in an otherwise completely ordinary life and, in others, a life that is lived without usually having to make such frustrating and embarrassing justifications,” Commissioner Innes said.

The Sex and gender diversity project’s focus on documentation arose after a majority of responses to the project’s initial issues paper revealed that the recording and proof of sex and/or gender in official documents and government records was a major human rights issue to sex and gender diverse people. Subsequent investigation found that it was fraught with inconsistencies that inadvertently caused additional frustration and distress.

Part of the research and consultation process on the project was the use of a blog, where sex and gender diverse people could anonymously share their thoughts and experiences.

“One of the most articulate summations of the reason for the entire project was a blog comment that said, ‘Having documents that reflect one’s sense of identity is important for employment, access to healthcare and medicines and also for self affirmation and acceptance by the government that – yes – this is who you really are’,” said Commissioner Innes.

Commissioner Innes said that, after consulting with people in public meetings in Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, and hearing stories of terrible discrimination and immense bravery, he hoped the 15 recommendations in the paper would lead the Australian Government to create a fairer and less complicated identification system that recognises sex and gender diversity.

• Download the HRC Sex Files Report (2009) in PDF Format

Source: http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about/media/media_releases/2009/15_09.html

This research has its beginnings in an act of transgender activism, arising out of dissatisfaction with the capacity of the 2005 Private Lives project to capture the complexity of transgender lives.  A central pivot in the concerns of the transgender communities about health services is that of recognition.

Practices of medicine are implicated in many of the attempts by transgender people to achieve positive health and self- and social recognition for their preferred gender. Additionally, recognition on formal documentary records is, in many cases, dependent upon certified medical intervention.

• Download the TranZNation Report in PDF Format

Source: http://apo.org.au/research/tranznation-report-health-and-wellbeing-transgender-people