Helen Boyd Kramer's journal on gender and stuff
Having worked for NYPIRG long long ago, I’m pleased to see internet consumer advocacy, like www.mouseprint.org, covering standard consumer issues.
They update every Monday on issues like how big that jug of OJ really is, to the fine print for car rentals. Lots of useful stuff.
Today’s the Summer Solstice, the day where there’s the most hours of light. In celebration, I thought I’d remind everyone that it’s legal for women to go topless in New York, and that a clever photographer did a nice photo essay celebrating the fact.
I particularly like the one of the tattooed girl asking the NYC cop for directions.
And Happy Birthday, Lara!
The AMA passed a resolution attempting to make home births illegal, and yet in the same session, they also passed Resolution 114 (MS Word .doc):
Whereas, Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is a serious medical condition recognized as such in both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Diseases; and
Whereas, GID, if left untreated, can result in clinically significant psychological distress, dysfunction, debilitating depression, and, for some patients without access to appropriate medical care and treatment, suicidality and death; and
Whereas, The medical literature has established the effectiveness and medical necessity of mental health care, hormone therapy, and sex reassignment surgery in the treatment of patients diagnosed with GID; and
Whereas, Many health insurance plans categorically exclude coverage of mental health, medical, and surgical treatments for GID, even though many of these same treatments, such as psychotherapy, hormone therapy, breast augmentation and removal, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, and salpingectomy, are covered for other medical conditions; and
Whereas, The denial of otherwise covered benefits for patients diagnosed with GID represents discrimination based solely on a patient’s gender identity; and
Whereas, Our AMA opposes discrimination (AMA Policies H-65.983, H-65.992) and the denial of health insurance (H-180.980) on the basis of gender identity; and
Whereas, Our AMA opposes limitations placed on patient care by third-party payers when such care is based upon sound scientific evidence and sound medical opinion (H-120.988); therefore be it
RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association support public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder in adolescents and adults (New HOD Policy); and be it further
RESOLVED, That our AMA oppose categorical exclusions of coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder in adolescents and adults when prescribed by a physician. (New HOD Policy)
Which doesn’t do the job entirely, but it’s certainly a good weapon in a trans person’s arsenal when arguing for why their transition related costs should be funded.
(thanks to Veronica for the news)
Do you see that belly? Our downstairs neighbor – soon to depart for IN – calls her Butterball, now. And whenever I take her out on her leash, someone invariably asks me if I take her out so she can get some exercise, or they ask if she’s pregnant. I’m glad she can’t speak English.
The AMA just passed a resolution to outlaw home births. Astounding. As if women haven’t been giving birth for eons at home, with the help of midwives. My own mother was born in her family’s home in PA with the help of a midwife (and she had to fight for the right to have natural childbirth when she was giving birth to her own children in the 1950s & 1960s).
This is baffling, and unfair. For a lot of poor women, the increased costs of health insurance, the debilitating recovery needed from the over-prescribed C sections, and just the sheer cost of a hospital delivery, make it nearly impossible for these women to do anything BUT give birth at home.
& Here I was cheered by the news that the AMA resolved to support the treatment of GID by health insurance coverage (more on that tomorrow). I feel like I’ve just been spun in a revolving door.
(via Feministing)
My thoughts, and condolences, and best wishes for all of you in the midwest who are worried about the Mississippi’s levies breaching (or who are dealing with the ones that already have, in IA).
Recently it’s been as if Mother Nature has decided to show us exactly who’s boss.
Feministe has compiled a bunch of evidence that gay couples are being something like hand-picked to get married in CA. Why? So that they look right. So that there’s no men in dresses. So that images from the gay weddings can’t be used by opponents of same-sex marriage to prove we’re all freaks.
Well you know what? The real gender “problems” like me & Betty are already married, people, so quit worrying. Let the boys wear gowns – I mean, how long have some of these couples waited to tie the legal knot?
Larry Sabato, in commenting on Michelle Obama, just said on Anderson Cooper, that “probably the best thing a first lady can be is innocuous.” I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt & assume he wasn’t talking about his own personal opinion, but more as a spin-doctor and political historian.
Still: Eleanor Roosevelt, anyone?
The memorials for Tim Russert have been like one huge celebration of the culture I was raised in – working class, political, Catholic, and Democratic. I bawled straight through Bruce Springsteen’s performance of “Thunder Road” because I grew up with Bruce; whenever the E Street Band came on WNEW-FM, someone cranked it up and most of my family sang along while the rest of us shook our heads and rolled our eyes at the sheer silliness of it, the life of it. The only people with dry eyes at Russert’s memorial had to be the people who didn’t know the lyrics.
He was raised by Jesuits, and like Jack McCoy once said on Law & Order: “When you’re raised by the Jesuits, you end up either obedient or impertinent.” But it strikes me, upon hearing so much about who Tim Russert is, and the ways his culture and community cross paths with my own, that a well-raised Catholic is not one or the other, but both.
There is nothing like an Irish wake to bring out the story-telling, the luck & the blarney as well as the earnestness and moodiness of this part of the American pie. There’s a sense of grief under all of it, the foreshadowing of the grief that will come later, at night, when the doors close and the phone stops ringing. But I get the feeling that for those in Russert’s circle, there won’t be a time late at night when there isn’t someone on the phone to tell another story of the person who is so sorely missed.
Thanks, Tim Russert, for all those Sundays watching Meet the Press, but moreso, for always choosing the one kid for his team who he thought might never otherwise get picked. That’s the kind of underdog empathy that my upbringing foregrounded, and apparently it was in his, too.
Just in time for Pride month, Lena found this lovely 1st Battalion Transvestite Brigade: Airborne Unit t-shirt. Now before anyone gets upset with me for using the term transvestite (again), this shirt is drawn from an Eddie Izzard routine in Dress to Kill, and Izzard is, of course, a self-identified transvestite himself.
Were you surprised?
I was surprised.
Which are lines that Betty & I use on a regular basis at home.
& Yes, I’ve already ordered one for myself, even if I already missed wearing it to Brooklyn Pride.