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Gay Teen, 15, Sets Himself On Fire Following Homophobic Bullying

A fifteen year old boy from Agra, India, (who has remained unidentified by the press) set himself on fire this Sunday following homophobic abuse he received from school mates.

Reports are saying that the student was discovered being intimate with a fellow male student in a local park, and subsequently received harassment and abuse. Following the abuse the young man locked himself in his room over the weekend.

Witnesses say that he emerged from his room on Sunday afternoon, running outside and proceeded to pour diesel over himself before setting himself alight. Family and neighbours quickly poured water over him to put out the flames, wrapped him in blankets and rushed him to hospital.

Doctors are saying that he has received burns to 40% of his body. His father spoke to local news
to say, 'He is unable to speak properly. The doctors say he is out of danger but I will only believe it when my son speaks to me.'

Despite not revealing the young mans identity sources are stating that he was an exceptional student and earned distinction grades in his previous year. He is currently pursing higher studies and plans to become an engineer.

Amy.

Twitter Issues New Guidelines For Tackling Hate Speech

The social media giant Twitter has come under fire over the years for it's somewhat laid back approach to policy regarding what is and isn't acceptable conduct on their website. Well, it would appear that Twitter have taken some of that criticism on board as they have issued new rules regarding abusive behaviour from its users.

The new rules will cover abusive conduct and harassment that can target people for race, ethnicity, sexual orientation,age, national origin, gender, gender identity, religion, disability or disease. Under the new rules being rolled out anyone found to be in breach, and engaging in harassment of other users or issuing hate speech, can have their tweets deleted, or even their account locked.

The express inclusion of gender and gender identity is good news for the transgender community, as it would mean that any transphobic hate speech, or direct abuse towards transgender users, can be reported and, hopefully, action taken. Considering the amount of abuse members of the trans community receive on Twitter this could create quite the backlog of reported accounts.

In a blog post, Twitter's Safety Director Megan Cristina said, 'As part of our continued efforts to combat abuse we're updating the Twitter Rules to clarify what we consider to be abusive behaviour and hateful conduct.

'The updated language emphasises that Twitter will not tolerate behaviour intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence other user's voice. As always, we encourage diverse opinions and beliefs - but we continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse.

'Over the past year, we've taken several steps to fight abuse, including increasing our investment in policy enforcement so that we can handle more reports with greater efficiency. One of the areas we've found to be effective in this multi-layered strategy of fighting abuse is creating mandatory actions for suspected abusive behaviour, such as email and phone verification, and user deletion of Tweets for violation.

'These measures curb abusive behaviour by helping the community understand what is acceptable on our platform.'

The new rules will go a long way to helping minority groups that have previously suffered abuse at a frequent rate on Twitter, and may even go a way towards deleting hate groups that have so far suffered no repercussions, such as Westboro Baptist Church.

Despite being established to combat hate speech and abusive behaviour some people have already taken to Twitter to voice their disapproval at the new rules, stating that it infringes on their rights to say what they want, or blaming an LGBT+ anti-white, anti-christian movement for the changes.

It's not surprising at all that the people most vocal against these new rules are accounts that have themselves engaged in harassing other users in the past and using 'troll-like' behaviour.

Time will tell just how effective these new rules will be, but hopefully they will go on to help make Twitter a safer and more enjoyable experience for those using it.

Amy.

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Sunday, 3 January 2016

Maria Miller Calls To Degender UK Passports & Drivers Licenses

Conservative MP Maria Miller, who chaired the recent Transgender Inquiry, has called for official documents to be degendered. She claims that gender markers have no place on identification such as driving licenses and passports as they serve no real purpose, and that they cause issues for the transgender community.

Miller has called for the government to 'strip back' discussions about gender unless it is absolutely necessary, saying that gender leads to biases in things such as job and university applications.

'As a society and a government we should be looking at ways of trying to strip back talking about gender, and only do that when absolutely necessary.' She said in an interview the the Time. 'We need to understand that gender stereotyping can be as damaging for men as it can be for women.'

'For people who have decided to transition but haven't necessarily got the right documentation, it can cause problems. Why do we need gender on our divers license? Why do we have to have it on our passport if it really doesn't add identification? It's not relevant. Australia has decided to degender their passports.'

It should immediately be noted that Australia have not degendered their passports at all, but have added a third gender option of 'X' for those who do not wish their gender to be listed, or feel that they do not fit into the male or female categories. Whilst this does help transgender and gender non-conforming people, it is certainly not degendered as Maria Miller is trying to make people believe.

Since the news of Millers asking the government to scrap gender markers there has been a lot of debate around the subject already. Some people are supporting the proposal, agreeing that gender markers hold very little purpose on official documents. These supporters are even going so far as saying that you don't need to include gender because you don't include religion or sexual orientation on these documents either.

Whilst in a lot of cases gender means very little on ID's towards proving you are who you are, for transgender people it can be extremely important to have these gender markers on your official identification.

There are many transgender people who will at one time or another face challenge over who they are, they will be denied recognition of their gender and their identity. For these people, being able to produce an official document that clearly states whether they are male or female can be a very easy way to bring any discussion over the legitimacy of their gender to a close.

Having their true gender listed on a passport or drivers license can help them in difficult situations, it can validate who they are, it can shut down naysayers and abusers. It can do a lot of good. Removing gender markers from these ID's can actually take away these opportunities though.

Imagine if someone is trying to deny a trans woman access to a women's only space, stating that they don't believe that she is female. That trans woman can produce her passport or drivers license, show that she is female and hopefully defuse the situation. But, imagine if she produced these documents, but they do not list her gender, then it won't help against that person denying her access at all.

The problem that transgender people face isn't that they have ID's with their genders listed on them, it's that changing your ID's so that they display your correct gender is so difficult for a lot of trans people. Which is something Maria Miller should have learnt through the trans inquiry.

If there are problems for trans people getting their correct gender on their ID's because the system is too difficult or it's stacked against them, the solution isn't to scrap the whole thing, but to make changing gender markers easier for people.

There will be people who argue that scrapping gender markers is the best solution, that in the long run it will help trans people, but I personally think that having those gender markers are important tools for trans people to prove and justify their genders and that losing them will put trans people at a disadvantage.

Amy.

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Thursday, 31 December 2015

A Look Back At 2015

2015 has been a big year for me, there have been more personal ups and downs this year than most other years, but it's also been a great year for both my writing and the site. Not only has my work become featured in new places, including Gay News Network, Australia's biggest LGBT+ website, but my website itself has gone from strength to strength, leading to a rebrand and rename, to Trans-Scribe.

To cap off the year I'm going to be looking back at some of my top articles of the year, plus one extra that resulted in something extremely weird.

Cosplay Is Not Consent - An Interview With Kerry Holland

Being a geek has never been more popular than it is today, and cosplay is quickly becoming a popular past time amongst convention attendees. Unfortunately with the rise of coplay there has also been a rise in sexual abuse women have been suffering at these events. In this article I speak to cosplayer Kerry Holland about her experiences and some of the issues faced by the cosplay community.

Daily Mail Brands Trans Students & Allies

As Fascists On TDOR

When well known anti-trans feminist Germaine Greer was told that a number of students at Cardiff University were protesting her appearance there she quickly turned the event into a media storm of hate and transphobic sentiment. A storm that The Daily Mail felt the need to jump into, deciding that the Transgender Day of Remembrance was a good day to insult the transgender community.

Oklahoma City Cop Guilty of Multiple

Rape Charges

Some of you may have heard of the story of Daniel Holtzclaw, a Oklahoma City police officer who used his position of power to target vulnerable women of colour in order to sexually assault them. The court case was given little to no attention in the press, but thankfully justice was served as Holtzclaw was told that he'd spend the rest of his life in prison, on his 29th birthday.

I Self Harm, And It's Helped Me To Survive

Being Transgender

A personal article where I talk about some of the struggles I have faced, and how discovering self harm when close to taking my own life saved me. Self harm is something that can help some people, and should not be a taboo subject.

Miley Cyrus Comes Out As

Pansexual - People's Shit Reactions

Earlier this year singer Miley Cyrus made headlines as she came out as pansexual. What came next was a torrent of Internet abuse, not just because she is a sexually confident young woman in the public eye, but because some people hate the idea of pansexuality, even people within the LGBT+ community.

Yes, My Breasts Are Real, No, I Will Not Prove

It - Being Hounded By The Wrong Questions

It doesn't matter if you're a celebrity or just a regular person, as soon as someone finds out that you're transgender all they ever seem to want to know about is the state of your genitals.

Why Are Trans Women Treated Like Outcasts

In The Feminist Community?

It's a sad fact that certain members of the feminist community hate trans women, with a passion. These women will often go out of their way in order to try and push trans women out of the feminist community, and in some extreme cases even push them towards suicide. This article did not go down well with these trans exclusionary radical feminists, and even got me my first death threat.

Patch Reynolds - Remembering An Amazing Person

This was the second most read articles of mine this year, and I'm glad that so many people read it. It's a memorial piece to a friend of mine, Patch Reynolds, who died aged only 21. A beautiful, passionate and amazing young woman who I miss dearly. A loss to the whole world.

Stonewall Movie Erases Black Trans Women And

Drag Queens From History

My most read article of the year, the highest read and shared article on Planet Transgender, and the piece that got me published on Gay News Network and featured on Buzzfeed. I'm immensely proud at how well accepted this article was, and want to thank everyone who helped make it a success.

Read Nolan's response here.

Men's Rights Activist Peter Nolan Publicly Calls For The

Murder Of Women As 'The Only Path Of Justice For Men'

Now, this is an interesting one, I'm including this article based purely on the response it received. Not the torrent of Twitter messages, or the threats, but the response article that Peter Nolan himself wrote.

Click below to read my article, and beneath that to see Nolan's insane response.

Read my article here.

Thank you to everyone who has made 2015 a great year for both me and Trans-Scribe, you're all amazing. Let's hope that 2016 will be even bigger and better!

Amy.

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Wednesday, 30 December 2015

Nicky Morgan Says Schools Should Teach Britain Is A Christian Country

The Secretary of State For Education and Women and Equalities Minister Nicky Morgan has come under fire once again, this time for saying that schools should teach children that Britain is a Christian country.

Nicky Morgan, who has sidestepped a high court ruling which found that she has unlawfully excluded atheism from the school curriculum, has also said that whilst schools should teach that Britain is a Christian country they do not have to teach non-religious world views.

The government has released new guidance that reads, 'There is no obligation for any school or ASC to give equal airtime to the teachings of religious and non-religious views. There is no obligation on any school to cover the teaching of non-religious world views (or any other particular aspect of the RE curriculum) in Key Stage 4 specifically. Rather it is for the schools to determine how they meet their wider obligations across the key stages.'

The new document also states that religious education should 'reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are, in main, Christian'. What the document fails to note or reference though is that after a two year commission it was decided that Britain is no longer a majority Christian country.

These findings have been backed up by a separate inquiry, chaired by Baroness Butler-Sloss, involving leaders of all faiths and beliefs that concluded that Britain is not, in fact, a Christian country any more.

According to the Daily Telegraph a spokesperson for Nicky Morgan stated that she feels the new measures are to prevent a 'creeping ratchet effect' wherein atheists are trying to force schools to teach a humanist view of the world.

Interestingly Nicky Morgan seems to have something of a history of a prejudice against atheist and humanist views as in November she was found by the High Court to have made an 'error in the law' by leaving humanism from her changes to religious studies content.

Once again it would seem that Nicky Morgan is allowing her own personal beliefs to dictate government policy and her professional choices. In the past Nicky Morgan has let her own personal religious views dictate how she does her job, claiming that these personal views were in part responsible for her voting against marriage equality.

Nicky Morgan believes that her faith trumps actual equality for marginalised groups. She feels that her faith trumps other people's religious beliefs, or lack of. She feels that because she is a Christian woman in a position of power that she can dictate that schools need to educate others in her beliefs, despite repeated evidence that Britain is no longer a Christian country.

That kind of closed minded and defiant attitude is not something that should have a place in a minister in charge of both equality and education.

Amy.

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Twitter Hires LGBT+ Advocate To Oversee Diversity

The social media networking giant Twitter has faced a great deal of criticism over the last few months over their workplace diversity as their own figures painted a less than desirable picture. According to it's own reports it was revealed that within their US workforce only 3% of staff were African American, and only 30% were female.

In August this year Janet Van Huysse, Head of Diversity and Inclusion, announced several targets that the company has set for itself going forward into 2016. These include increasing the number of women working for Twitter to 35%, and increasing 'underrepresented minorities' to 11%.

Jeffrey Siminoff, the former director of worldwide inclusion and diversity at Apple, has now replaced Van Huysse as Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion, and aims to meet these 2016 targets.

Siminoff helped to launch the inaugural 'Out on the Street' event in 2022, which looks at the ways of advancing LGBT+ equality in the business and financial sectors. CEO of Out Leadership Todd Sears, was amongst the first to congratulate Siminoff on his appointment, tweeting 'Amazing news! Congrats @TwitterOpen on landing amazing #OutLeader @jmsSanFran to drive #lgbtprogress & #diversity'.

Despite his track record of promoting diversity and inclusion in the past some people have taken to twitter to question the decision of hiring a white man to head diversity and inclusion.

Amy.

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Anti-Gay Bakery Agrees To Pay $135,000 Fine

Sweet Cakes Bakery, which has become known as the Anti-Gay Bakery around the world by the media, has finally agreed to pay the $135,000 fine placed on them after saying that they would not pay for months.

The bakery gained attention last year, 2014, when they refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. Melissa and Aaron Klein, the owners of Sweet Cakes Bakery, stated that they refused the produce the wedding cake as it would violate their religious beliefs to provide a cake for a gay wedding as they felt that same sex marriage was 'wrong' and they 'didn't want to be a part of it'.

The couple were found guilty of discrimination in 2014 under Oregon state laws that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. They were ordered to pay $135,000 compensation and damages to the women they discriminated against.

Since being found guilty and having been ordered to pay the fine the Kleins have refused on several occasions, stating that they were unable to afford the fine, claiming 'financial hardships'. This was despite the anti-gay American Family Association rallying support and raising $400,000 to help the Kleins.

The attorney for the Kleins said that the decision was being appealed, saying that the Kleins 'continue to stand on their well-established constitutional rights to live and work based on their values and beliefs.'

This week, however, the Kleins sent out a cheque to cover the costs of their fine, a small amount for them now that their supporters have given them close to half a million dollars. The Bureau of Labour and Industries have confirmed that the Kleins have fully paid their fine.

Amy.

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Monday, 28 December 2015

Mermaids Charity Reports Some Schools Reluctant To Help Trans Children

It is being reported by the transgender children's charity Mermaids that up to 80 primary school aged children are now actively seeking help to transition to their true genders. Some cases have children as young as four years old having already started the transition process, according to Susie Green, Chair of Mermaids.

Her comments have emerged following the reports of a primary school in the north west of England who are in the midst of a 'stand-off' over the issue of refusing to allow an eight year old transgender student the right to transition to his true identity.

'We are working with them, we are trying to resolve that but the school are very reluctant,' Mrs Green said. She went on to say that these kinds of stand-offs are becoming more and more common and even went on to say that a legal challenge to these issues could not be ruled out in the near future.

Mrs Green says that eight is no longer considered to be particularly young to begin the process of transitioning, as awareness of transgender issues is increasing and becoming more accepted than it once was.

'We've got four year olds, five year olds, six year olds who are transitioning as parents know more about it and are more aware if they have a child who is suffering. You wouldn't necessarily do anything unless it's causing distress, but these children are so much happier now that they have been supported to live in the gender they identify with, it's a no brainer.'

'We've had parents reporting back saying 'my kid is so much happier now, they are attending school now, they are making friends now'.'

She went on to suggest that the charity is now dealing with around 80 cases involving primary school children each year.

'In terms of families joining our parents group, this year alone we've had over 200 families. The majority of those - around 60 per cent - are teens, but the rest are families with young children. It's a lot more than people realise.'

'But one thing is that there is more information getting out there now and we are finding now that about half the schools are dealing with actually accommodating and want to learn because there is more in the media and more out there.'

Despite this statement indicating that there are still a great deal many schools who are not dealing with transgender students in a positive or accepting way, there is evidence that those schools who are embracing their trans students and allowing them to transition at school are having a positive impact, even allowing other students the chance to deal with their gender identity issues by seeing their peers come out.

'I have seen that with a school I did some training with before Christmas, they had one trans boy come out and then had two other young people come forward asking for help. If they see other young people dealing with it, it could be a light-bulb moment, or it could be that they feel confident that they will be helped.'

Obviously some detractors will turn around and say that by allowing children to transition at such an early stage in life and in school it is trying to encourage a certain agenda or promote a trans 'lifestyle', but the fact is that any student who comes forward with gender identity issues following the coming out of another student will be given help. They will have guidance and support to figure out if they themselves are trans, or if any gender issues they might have are coming from another place.

This system is designed to help all children who are facing gender identity struggles, trans or not. Hopefully more schools will realise that accommodating their trans students is the right thing to do,

Amy.

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