Last Week in Review: Gender Issues
I seemed to get my nose rubbed in things when my sister-in-law referred to me as "he" when ordering at a cafe and the waiter called me "sir" afterwards when delivering the meal. And that was within 2 hours of arriving. Mind you, there were other reminders about the issues for me in Perth.
Still no update that i know about the status of the High Court appeal over the gender recognition of AB and AH in Western Australia. . The Trans plenary on Friday was however very informative, especially the talk given by Zoe. I hadn't realised that apart from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), that there is another reference for medical use out there produced and maintained by the World Health Organisation (WHO) , the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10). That means we can quite easily delete certain offending sections of the DSM that pigeon-hole trans folk as mentally ill if we use the ICD.
There may be be some progress in human rights in W.A. as well. At the the moment you have gender reassignment before granted gender recognition which changes one's birth certificate. And only those with gender recognition get anti-discrimination protection! However, this maybe changed soon.
The incident at the Court Hotel just reinforces my opinion about Western Australia being a parochial and conservative state. Am glad that I don't intend on living there again, any time soon.