When Aidan Key was a little girl, he didn’t realize he had gender identity issues. He simply knew something was off.
“I didn’t necessarily become aware that I was trapped in the wrong body,” says the 49-year-old Bellingham, Wash., native who had gender reassignment surgery at the age of 33. “I became aware that people didn’t perceive me as I felt myself to be. It was just odd to me to have to wear a dress the first day of kindergarten. It didn’t make sense.”
Today, Key might have received counseling — and perhaps even puberty blocking drugs — at one of a handful of U.S. clinics designed to help adolescents with what’s now called gender identity disorder or GID. The psychological diagnosis is used to describe a male or female who feels a strong identification with the opposite sex and experiences considerable distress because of their actual sex (the word “disorder” refers to the distress the person feels, not the fact that they identify with another gender).
According to reports published Monday in the medical journal Pediatrics, a small but growing number of teens and even younger children who think they were born the wrong sex are now getting support from parents and from doctors who give them treatments that could eventually help them change their sex.
Some estimates say about 1 in 10,000 children may have GID, Dr. Norman Spack, author of one of three reports published Monday and director of one of the nation’s first gender identity medical clinics, at Children’s Hospital Boston told the Associated Press. And that number does appear to be on the rise, experts say.
Continue reading this article from MSN Vitals by Diane Mapes here
Ellen DeGeneres used her TV monologue on Wednesday to express her gratitude to those supporting her against criticism that JCPenney should not keep her as its spokesperson. One Million Moms, self-described as a conservative pro-family group, have publicly protested the department store’s partnership with Ellen because she is openly gay. Despite such criticism, JCPenney stood behind their decision to keep DeGeneres as spokeswomen.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals made a ruling today in regards to Proposition 8 in California, the controversial “Marriage Initiative” which amended the California constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. A lower court had ruled that the initiative was unconstitutional, but a stay was placed of that ruling. Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals announced that they will uphold the lower court’s ruling, striking down the initiative as unconstitutional and moving us one step closer towards same-sex marriage in California.
”Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.” -Judge Stephen Reinhardt, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
While marriage equality advocates rejoice, the strong possibility that this case will make it all the way to the Supreme Court still looms.
For the first time ever, gay-rights advocates will launch a sassy advertising campaign aimed at football fans in the mostmacho of American venues — the Super Bowl.
Four award-winning public service announcements feature various celebrities telling teens to “knock it off,” when they overhear them using the ubiquitous line, “That’s so gay.”
The videos will be strategically placed on a screen at the entrance of Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind., to be viewed by the 150,000 Super Bowl ticket holders on Feb. 5.
In its newest ad, GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, has garnered cooperation from the NBA and Phoenix Suns stars Grant Hill and Jared Dudley. The NBA is the first professional sports league to address antigay language among teens.
