Tag Archives: Transgender

November #4PUF

Ciao!

Time to present my chosen #4PUF for the last month, and they are as follows:

(4/4) Do you know the difference between sex & gender? #GenderIdentity #4PUF When Do Children Develop Their Gender Identity? http://buff.ly/1SDIujltrans

(3/4) Do you know what #Hepatitis is, the symptoms and how it can be transmitted? #4PUF What is Hepatitis? Here’s our #EasyRead guide: http://www.changepeople.org/Change/media/Change-Media-Library/Free%20Resources/Hepatitis-New-2016_General.pdf …hepc

(2/4) I’d never heard of #DissociativeIndentityDisorder before – have you? #MentalHealth #4PUF Dissociative Identity Disorder: Can trauma change the brain? – http://buff.ly/2enZX17 #mentalhealth #mhsmdid

(1/4) Pretty impressive, and rather important at the same time! 😜❤️ #4PUF Fascinating – “Blood vessels in the human heart” RT @LindsayLuvDavisheart

Hope you enjoy! The next instalment of #4PUF will be the last of 2016!

#ReadLearnShare

Ben

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#TOTW (x 15) #EandDWeek – Spotlight on Equality & Diversity

Ciao!

Well another week goes by and yet another feature week draws to a close. I have recently taken responsibility for equality and diversity (E&D) in our department at work and have also joined ‘Equalise’ – the Society and College of Radiographers group that oversees matters relating to E&D. I have always had an interest in such matters, but only more recently decided to take an active role in educating myself – and hopefully others on E&D. As my regular followers amongst you will know, I frequently post on LGBTI+ matters, but in this feature week I wanted to cover other areas including disability and deaf awareness. Now I could have a feature week for each of the areas – age, race, religion, disability, LGBTI+ etc and maybe at some point in the future I will. However, the purpose of this week was to shine a light on E&D and hopefully provide some interesting links for people to read. I hope I have succeeded!

As per at the end of a feature week, below is all the content relating to the feature – that being #EandDWeek with the focus of matters relating to equality and diversity:

  • The law as it stands expects a gay man to refrain from sex for a year before being allowed to donate blood. #Equality? 👎 #EandDWeek #LGBTI+ Huge thanks to @Mike_Fabricant for raising the “madness” that gay men cannot donate blood without 12 months celibacy in the House of Commons
  • To abuse a person due to their race, colour, religion or sexuality is a #HateCrime. Simple as that 😔 #NoPlaceForHate #EandDWeek @SCoRMembers It’s #HateCrimeAwarenessWeek. Find out more about #hatecrime and how to report it: https://www.gov.uk/report-hate-crime #NoPlaceForHate
  • (2/2) Covered this pm were possible motions for the Annual Delegates Conference next April. ADC here I come! 👍@SCoRMembers #EandDWeek
  • (1/2) @SCoRMembers #equalityanddiversity mtg over – a really interesting & productive one it was too! 👍Thanks to @peterhiggs5 #EandDWeek
  • Topics covered so far at the meeting include the @SCoRMembers transgender guide, FGM, & mgmt awareness of #equalityanddiversity #EandDWeek
  • Meeting of Equalise – the @SCoRMembers group looking at matters relating to #equalityanddiversity is now in session! 👍☺️ #EandDWeek
  • On a 🚄 waiting to depart at 0600hrs London-bound for a meeting on equality & diversity with fellow @SCoRMembers #BetterBeGood! 😂  #EandDWeek
  • Tomorrow brings a new feature week, focussing on matters relating to equality & diversity. It shall be known as #EandDWeek 👍@SCoRMembers

 

Until the next feature week then, please as ever…

#ReadLearnShare

Ben 🙂

 

July #4PUF

Ciao!

Something I don’t always remember/get time to do is publish my  4 Previously Untweeted Favourites at the end of each month, but this month I have! It’s a chance for me to pick a tweet from each week of the moth that I have favourited (now “loved”) for one reason or another. They usually reflect my interests, and last month was no different, with the topics being LGBTI+, cancer, mental health and assisted dying:

(4/4) Meet Chalice – the first  superherosuperherohttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/04/first-transgender-superhero-chalice-alters-aftershock

(3/4) We want to see 75% of eligible people taking up invitations for bowel cancer screening

(2/4) Too many people are made to feel ashamed because of a mental health problem. Our new video:

(1/4) What can other countries’ experiences tell us about what might happen in Britain if assisted dying were legalised? http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/reports/thenhsif/what-if-assisted-dying-legalised/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_term=thekingsfund

Hopefully you’ll find all of them informative and fingers crossed, interesting too!

As ever, thanks for reading.

#ReadLearnShare

Ben 🙂

#TOTW from 03-6-16 ‘#LGBTI+’

Ciao!

Good week? Weekend? Hope so! Now I popped this tweet out on Friday afternoon and I don’t think it was seen by as many people as I think it should be seen by – hence my choice for #TOTW is:

Know what they mean?

As I said in my reply to the tweet, a lot of people may not feel that this is important and fair enough, each to their own. I however, would respectfully disagree. It *IS* important if you are one of the minority groups that is trying to get your message out there and to educate others as to who you are and how you feel.

The link above takes you to a really good webpage that explains the whole abbreviation thing and how it has evolved. I too used to think that we should stop at ‘LGBT’ and the other minority groups would come under that umbrella. However, as I have learnt more about the issues of equality and diversity, I feel that it is important to represent the ever-growing number of individuals that do not feel they are either lesbian, gay, bi, transgender or intersex. This we can most easily and fairly do I believe, by adding either a ‘+’ or a ‘*’ after the the abbreviation LGBTI – hence giving you the title of this blog!

It would be great if we lived in a world where a person’s gender and or sexuality wasn’t an issue. However, we don’t, and so it is important that people of a minority group feel suitably represented. Agree or disagree, but thanks for taking the time to read it 🙂

#ReadLearnShare

Ben 🙂

Male or female? Neither one nor t’other? Both?

Ciao!

The majority of you reading this will probably be able to answer yes to being either male or female, certainly with regards to your sex at birth. Some of you may also have transitioned from male-to-female or female-to-male, with others of you having been born with both male and female genitalia. What happens however, if you are born either male or female but you don’t feel like either of these “fit” your gender? This morning on my way into work I took the time to listen to the following programme:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07btlmk

Called ‘Beyond Binary,’ it’s only 30 minutes long and if you are at all interested in gender, it’s definition and evolution, then I can thoroughly recommend it. It looks at the concept of gender and how it is traditionally defined as binary, either male or female, with nothing in between. It explores the concept of gender as a spectrum. Why should a person’s gender have to be either male or female? OK, so birth sex may be either of the two, but a person’s sex does not define their sexuality or gender.

Confused? Yeah, OK so maybe you are, but it’s not rocket science and if you take some time to listen to the programme you’ll most likely find that you learn something about gender and how it’s not the binary construct that the majority of us are educated to believe.

“We’re all learning along the way.” 

These are the words of Dr. Polly Carmichael, the Director of the Tavistock Clinic, the gender identity clinic to which people are referred. This is how it should be. Just because you might not understand how it is that there are people who associate as being both male and female or any such variations on the gender spectrum, does not make such people any less real or worthy of the respect you would afford to someone who is comfortable being either male or female.

Food for thought? I hope so 🙂

#ListenLearnShare

Ben

TOTW (x3!) Transgender children

Hola!

This week saw the start of a new daily programme in the mornings on BBC2 – Victoria Derbyshire. One featured a really good interview with a couple of transgender children:

(1) *VIDEO* (<15mins) Really interesting & informative interview by with children

Later in the week there was an article in The Telegraph about how parents do/could/should react to issues around transgender children:

(2)  to interview ‘How should parents react when children question their gender roles?’

Another really good article appeared in The Independent, from a mother about the abuse she suffered as a result of allowing her child to be themselves:

(3) If I had refused to listen to my trans daughter then it’s very likely I would have a dead son

I just wanted to use the opportunity of my weekly TOTW to draw together these 3 tweets on an issue that raises quite a lot of emotions from those who do not know much about transgender issues. If you’re one of those people, then please take the time to check out these links and learn a little about the pressures that both the children and parents go through when a child grows up in the wrong body.

It’s not a fad. It’s not trendy. It’s real.