I am surprised that someone did not blog this, so for those of you who might have missed this, here you go.
http://www.standard.net/stories/2013/05/30/first-transgender...
It means that our Military will start recognizing transgender service. I do not know how long this will take to trickle down to the VA but I have two meetings in as many weeks in which I intend to help them along, inshallah.
It will be nice to go in for care and not have some dork ask if I have a penis, or want to test my testosterone level. In the second meeting I intend to take lots of information with me including a link to the SRS video I recently posted as a blog.
I am hoping to convince them, based upon this new information, to at least put a conspicous note in T folks charts stating certain medical matters that they should jolly well have been aware of before they got to be interns.
G
Comments
VA and Transgendered Veterans
I am a veteran and live in the Boston area. I use the VA here. Boston was the first VA with a Transgender care Policy, which was turned into a policy in 2011 and was updated this year. According to that policy you can change your gender in the computer system. I will post the policy later, as this is not very hard to do. What the hard part for Autumn Sandeen was to have her gender changed in DOD records and on her discharge.
The team that wrote the National Transgender Policy is from here in Boston and they are working on building a local and national Care Team for us.
Things with in the VA have changed a lot of there last few years.
I would also like to mention that Boston Vet to Vet, which is a peer to peer support program is the only group that has Transgender groups that meet. With this group we are in contact with the the people that wrote the national policy. In fat one of them is my therapist I see.
But I do agree that the policy on service needs to be changed, the US is one of the only major militaries that does not allow service. I hope and pray that this will change in the near future, but it will take years before it does. I will be waiting for that day.
Rebeca lynn
Transgender Service
I address this issue in "Soaring With Eagles" Which I posted here a little over a month ago.
Portia
Military Recognizes
Transgender wlll be of great interest to the many veterans here. I for one hope the military recognizes all of the Transgender veterans and soldiers both living and dead.
May Your Light Forever Shine
The VA Is Not The Military, Fortunately
The VA is the Veterans' Administration. It is not run by or controlled by the military - thankfully. They help and provide service for veterans, especially those with military related physical or mental problems. That's why many VA hospitals are providing psychiatric and medical assistance for transgendered veterans. It's a whole different ball game there. Take a look at what's happening in our military today.
Gender discrimination has been inculcated into the military system for decades, and it's going to take more than a congressional investigation or legislation to correct the problem. I've seen the change to female pilots and female launch officers. We have just recently brought a woman into a wing commander's position in a fighter wing. Men (and women) may be intimidated by rank; however, bigger, stronger, sex driven males will continue to assault lower ranking women (and men) if the opportunity arises. Rapists are rapists whether they are in the military or not. The only trouble is that some commanders still think boys will be boys and they need to have their sexual urges satisfied so that they will be better soldiers.
When I went to Squadron Officer School in 1971, my wife and family came along. My wife attended a spacial program where the wives were told to submit to their husbands because the husbands were going through stressful times at SOS. That also applied to those returning from combat. In other words, don't complain. Just lie back and enjoy it. It's the husband's (man's ) right to have sex when he wants it. Things haven't changed that much since then.
Portia