At 12:01 a.m. Wednesday morning, a new law legalizing civil unions
took effect in Colorado. Denver and Boulder immediately started to issue
licenses, and on Wednesday morning Fran and Anna Simon, the first gay
couple granted a civil union in the state, said their vows at a ceremony
held at a downtown Denver municipal building.
After a crowd of hundreds of people counted down the moments until
midnight, the Simons were given their license at 12:02 a.m. A few
minutes later Denver Mayor Michael Hancock officiated their civil union
ceremony.
The Simons were joined at the ceremony by their 5-year-old son
Jeremy, and the couple wore the same white wedding dresses they wore
seven years ago at their commitment ceremony.
“Our commitment doesn’t change, but we will have a burden lifted off
our shoulders,” Anna Simon said. “Loving and committed couples need
legal protections.”
The state’s new law grants gay and heterosexual unmarried couples the
ability to form civil unions and exercise rights similar to those
granted to married couples, including the right to make medical
decisions, qualify for health insurance and survivor benefits, transfer
property and adopt children.
The Denver clerk’s office stayed open until 3 a.m. Wednesday morning
issuing civil union licenses, and U.S. Hancock, Rep. Diana DeGette and
local judges spent hours officiating civil union ceremonies in the
atrium of the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Building.
“I’ve been a part of the effort to legalize civil unions in Colorado
now for several years,” Hancock told the Associated Press. “I feel a
tremendous amount of pride for the people of Denver to work with their
legislators to finally pass this piece of legislation to allow people to
love and live as they so choose.”
DeGette, who has been a longtime supporter of gay rights, told the
Associated Press that she’d specifically earned her clergy status online
so she could participate in Wednesday morning’s ceremonies.
“Members of the GLBT community are the same as everyone else — they want loving, permanent relationships,” she said.
In Boulder the first license was granted to Bonnie Lloyd and Pattea
Carpenter, who’d already made history when they became the first lesbian
couple in the U.S. to have both of their names on their child’s birth
certificate.
By the 3 a.m. cutoff time, 130 couples in Denver and 48 couples in
Boulder were reportedly granted civil unions. The state resumed granting
licenses at 8 a.m. Wednesday morning.
In 1992 voters in Colorado approved a ban on discrimination
protection for gay people, and they made gay marriage illegal under the
state constitution in 2006. The civil union bill was signed this March
by Gov. John Hickenlooper, a development indicative of the major gains
that gay rights advocates have made in recent years.
But as happy as the Simons were to celebrate their civil union, Anna
Simon told the Associated Press that the law only represents another
step in the struggle for LGBT marriage rights.
“Like most people growing up, you have a dream of falling in love and getting married, not getting a civil union,” Simon said.
(Original post here.)
Showing posts with label The Chicago Phoenix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Chicago Phoenix. Show all posts
CHICAGOPHOENIX.COM: Gender Identity Disorder removed from the American Psychiatric Association manual
LOS ANGELES — The American Psychiatric Association has eliminated
“gender identity disorder” from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders.
For decades, the manual has classified all transgender people as
having a mental disorder. The new DSM, which will be called the DSM-5,
has been revised to refer to “gender dysphoria,” specifically focusing
on people who feel “a persistent discomfort with gender role or
identity” and not including people who are content with being
transgender.
The APA board of trustees finalized the revision last month, but the change went largely unnoticed while most headlines focused on the APA’s controversial revisions to its policies regarding autism.
The elimination of the GID diagnosis will have far-reaching ramifications for many transgender people.
In addition to being the guide that mental health professionals use to diagnose their patients, the DSM has been employed by insurance companies and other organizations to set their policies regarding transgender people.
Dr. Tanya Jacob, a Los Angeles psychologist with a specialty in LGBT patients, is one of many mental health professionals praising the change.
“I think that it’s a great sign that society is beginning to accept the fact that a person’s gender does not always correlate naturally with their biological sex,” Dr. Jacob told Phoenix Nation. “Much of the so-called ‘dysphoria’ of a transgendered person is based off of society, not necessarily themselves. Gender itself is a societal construct, it’s an expression, and one that most people, transgendered or not, don’t fall completely on either side of.”
The elimination of the GID diagnosis has not met with universal approval from transgender rights advocates. The diagnosis of GID is used to justify insurance coverage for gender reassignment surgery, hormone treatments and other medical procedures related to gender transition. Some transgender rights advocates fear that without the GID diagnosis, insurance companies will class these procedures as cosmetic or elective and deny coverage.
Other transgender rights advocates feel that the DSM revision doesn’t go far enough. Kelley Winters, founder of the Gender Identity Disorder Reform Advocates group, objects to the DSM-5 retaining the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis in the sexual disorders chapter. Transvestic Disorder covers people who experience psychological distress related to cross-dressing.
“This punitive and scientifically capricious category maligns many gender variant people,” Winters wrote on the group’s blog, “including transsexual women and men, as mentally ill and sexually deviant, purely on the basis of nonconforming gender expression.”
The APA did not declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1973, and the change did much to increase the acceptance of gay people worldwide.
Transgender advocates have been pushing for the elimination of GID from the DSM for years. They finally saw some progress last summer, when the APA released new health guidelines for transgender patients and a new position statement supporting transgender care and civil rights, citing the importance of protecting transgender people from “significant discrimination, prejudice, and the potential for victimization from violent hate crimes, as well as denial of many basic civil rights, protections, and access to health care, to the severe detriment of their mental health.”
The DSM-5 is due to go into effect this May.
(Original article posted here.)
The APA board of trustees finalized the revision last month, but the change went largely unnoticed while most headlines focused on the APA’s controversial revisions to its policies regarding autism.
The elimination of the GID diagnosis will have far-reaching ramifications for many transgender people.
In addition to being the guide that mental health professionals use to diagnose their patients, the DSM has been employed by insurance companies and other organizations to set their policies regarding transgender people.
Dr. Tanya Jacob, a Los Angeles psychologist with a specialty in LGBT patients, is one of many mental health professionals praising the change.
“I think that it’s a great sign that society is beginning to accept the fact that a person’s gender does not always correlate naturally with their biological sex,” Dr. Jacob told Phoenix Nation. “Much of the so-called ‘dysphoria’ of a transgendered person is based off of society, not necessarily themselves. Gender itself is a societal construct, it’s an expression, and one that most people, transgendered or not, don’t fall completely on either side of.”
The elimination of the GID diagnosis has not met with universal approval from transgender rights advocates. The diagnosis of GID is used to justify insurance coverage for gender reassignment surgery, hormone treatments and other medical procedures related to gender transition. Some transgender rights advocates fear that without the GID diagnosis, insurance companies will class these procedures as cosmetic or elective and deny coverage.
Other transgender rights advocates feel that the DSM revision doesn’t go far enough. Kelley Winters, founder of the Gender Identity Disorder Reform Advocates group, objects to the DSM-5 retaining the Transvestic Disorder diagnosis in the sexual disorders chapter. Transvestic Disorder covers people who experience psychological distress related to cross-dressing.
“This punitive and scientifically capricious category maligns many gender variant people,” Winters wrote on the group’s blog, “including transsexual women and men, as mentally ill and sexually deviant, purely on the basis of nonconforming gender expression.”
The APA did not declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1973, and the change did much to increase the acceptance of gay people worldwide.
Transgender advocates have been pushing for the elimination of GID from the DSM for years. They finally saw some progress last summer, when the APA released new health guidelines for transgender patients and a new position statement supporting transgender care and civil rights, citing the importance of protecting transgender people from “significant discrimination, prejudice, and the potential for victimization from violent hate crimes, as well as denial of many basic civil rights, protections, and access to health care, to the severe detriment of their mental health.”
The DSM-5 is due to go into effect this May.
(Original article posted here.)
