Cuba Pays for Sex-Change Surgeries: Model for Mass. & Obamacare?

The leftist dream state, Cuba, is a model for Michael-Moore leftists and assorted socialists pushing Obamacare. It serves as a warning to the rest of us.

While breast cancer screenings and elder care may go out the window if the health care nightmare bill is passed, we expect that the GLBT “protected class” will get whatever “health care” they want -- including “sex-change” operations – as they now do in Cuba.

If passed in Massachusetts, Bill H1728 would criminalize discrimination based on “gender identity.” You can be sure that would extend to transgender medical coverage demands, however preposterous. (Remember, GLAD has already won IRS tax write-offs for “sex-change” surgeries.)

Now we read in Bay Windows:

Since 2008, Cuba has begun footing the bill for the country’s transgender men and women to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

Mariela Castro, the daughter of President Raul Castro and niece of former leader Fidel, confirmed to reporters on March 9 that the country has been paying for the operations for the past two years.

"These processes of negotiation are sometimes done very quietly, so as not to stir up ghosts," she told the Associated Press. Castro is the head of the country’s National Centre for Sexual Education and is Cuba’s leading LGBT rights advocate.

An estimated eight transgender people have undergone the government-funded surgery. 22 more are said to be on a waiting list.

The country’s first gender reassignment procedure, performed in 1988, spurred such a public outcry that the practice was banned until 2007. The legislation that legalized gender reassignment surgery three years ago was not publicized, Castro said, so as not to cause controversy. She was one of the Cuban advocates who led push to lift the ban.

During his tenure as the country’s leader, Fidel Castro viewed homosexuality and sexual diversity as a corrupt consequence of capitalism.

Ms. Castro with rainbow flag

Sex Change Operations Now Tax Deductible!

GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders – the group that brought “gay marriage” to Massachusetts) won a big case against the IRS for “transgender rights”.

Former construction worker Rhiannon O’Donnabhain wanted to write off his “male-to-female” sex-change procedures as necessary medical treatments. But the IRS denied the deduction, declaring the procedures “cosmetic”. Then the U.S. Tax Court bought GLAD’s arguments and overruled the IRS.

“In this landmark ruling, the Tax Court affirmed the consensus position of the medical establishment that transition-related medical care is essential for many transgender people,” explained Jennifer Levi, Director of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project. 

 

He’s a “woman” now, and gets a tax deduction too.

The AP reported:

The US Tax Court ruled yesterday that a Massachusetts woman should be allowed to deduct the costs of her [sic] sex-change operation, a decision that could have wide implications for transgender people.

Rhiannon O’Donnabhain, who was born a man, sued the Internal Revenue Service after the agency rejected a $5,000 deduction for approximately $25,000 in medical expenses associated with the sex-change surgery.

The IRS said the surgery was cosmetic and not medically necessary.

In its decision yesterday, the tax court said the IRS position was “at best a superficial characterization of the circumstances’’ that is “thoroughly rebutted by the medical evidence.’’ …

“I think what the court is saying is that surgery and hormone therapy for transgender people to alleviate the stress associated with gender identity disorder is legitimate medical care,’’ said Jennifer Levi, a GLAD attorney. …

The court got down to details, noting he could not deduct the itemized cost for his “breast augmentation surgery, because it found that she [sic] had achieved breast enhancement through hormone treatments.”

Yikes. So what we see in the photo is a combination of hormone treatments plus breast augmentation surgery. What kind of documentation did the court look at to determine that? They must have studied before and after photos, to weigh hormones vs. surgery? How did they determine what breast size was adequate for his mental health needs?

This will be a huge precedent for health coverage in this country, especially as the government takes more and more control. We’re sure that no Massachusetts insurer would now dare to cross GLAD and deny any and all transgender procedures to patients. If the Transgender Rights bill is passed here in Massachusetts, any discrimination on the basis of “gender identity or expression” will be banned.

So all citizens will be underwriting such procedures through their insurance premiums and through our tax system.

But the transgender advocates are also tying themselves -- and us -- up in illogical knots over the grounds for their appeals. In this IRS case, they apparently won by arguing that transgenderism is a “serious mental disorder” needing treatment – including hormone therapy and “sex-reassignment” surgery.

At the same time, the activists are arguing that transgenderism is a normal variation on the “sexuality spectrum” and are actively fighting to de-classify it as a disorder in the DSM-IV manual. They are using this “normal” argument to push their “Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill” in the Massachusetts legislature. That’s so they can deny that the government will be actively sanctioning and promoting a disorder in protecting “gender identity or expression.”

How will they resolve this contradiction?

By the way, O’Donnabhain is a member of the Mass. Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth. He’s there to help confused teenagers.

Coakley’s Support of “Transgender Rights” Would Force Taxpayers to Fund Murderer’s Trans Procedures

The ultra-leftist Huffington Post thinks Scott Brown is a bad guy … for opposing taxpayer-funded sex-change procedures demanded by a convicted murderer.

According to the Huffington Post, it’s bad enough Brown opposes homosexual “marriage” -- but then they go on to list this as another of his bad deeds:

“The two-time incumbent [Brown] took a firm stance on opposing the request of a convicted murderer for a sex-change operation.”

Huff Post brands this "engaging in the culture wars," and that's a no-no. (They want conservatives to just shut up.) But Brown was courageous enough to stand up against the leftist trans madness fad and debated this issue on New England Cable News (7/16/07) with a trans activist from the International Foundation for Gender Education. (Unfortunately, the video has been taken down.)

The convicted murderer’s demands have been supported by a prominent transgender activist (and Massachusetts voter) “Nancy” Nangeroni, who testified alongside Martha Coakley for the “Transgender Rights” bill in Massachusetts last July. The transgender rights bill would mandate coverage for exactly such insane procedures.

 

Attorney General Martha Coakley testifying in favor of “Transgender Rights” Bill H1728.  Nancy Nangeroni (right), trans activist, looks on. [MassResistance photos]

The murderer in question is Robert Kosilek, who has demanded his transgender treatments in court -- dressed as a woman.

Convicted wife murderer, Robert Kosilek [AP photo]

Scott Brown was simply displaying common sense. It’s Martha Coakley who’s out of the mainstream. And if she gets her hands on health care legislation, you can be certain she’ll ensure transgender procedures are covered under all government-approved insurance plans.

“No discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression!”

USA Today, “Transgendered inmates push for state-funded sex-change surgery” (8/19/2006):

In Massachusetts, four of the 12 inmates diagnosed with gender identity disorder are receiving hormone shots.

Kosilek has been receiving hormone therapy since a federal judge ruled in 2002 that he was entitled to some treatment for gender identity disorder. Although Judge Mark Wolf did not order a specific treatment plan, he ruled that Kosilek had proven he has a serious medical condition that had not been adequately treated.

After Wolf's ruling, the corrections department allowed Kosilek to receive female hormones and laser hair removal. He was also given access to female undergarments and some makeup.

During testimony this spring in his second lawsuit, Kosilek said the female hormones and other treatments have not been enough to relieve his suffering and said he would likely commit suicide if he does not get the surgery.

Such talk infuriates state Sen. Scott Brown, who filed legislation seeking to ban sex-change operations for inmates in 1998. The legislation died in committee.

Brown points out that most private health insurers do not cover sex-change operations, and says taxpayers should not have to pay for such "elective" surgery for inmates.

"I just think it would be deemed a luxury for him to have that operation. He is in there because he murdered his wife," Brown said. "There are no luxuries that are supposed to be available."

But advocates for transgendered inmates say that in some cases, sex reassignment surgery is a medical necessity, not a luxury.

See also CBS/AP, “Cross-Dressing Killer Robert Kosilek Wants You To Pay For Hair-Removal Treatments Behind Bars” (11/23/09).

GLSEN-Boston Board Member Forced Transsexual Issue on Third Graders

Kevin Jennings and his GLSEN disciples push "gender identity" concepts as well as homosexuality -- even in the earliest grades. Imagine young children being forced to confront the idea of a sex change operation!   

In 2003, the GLSEN-Boston conference featured workshops on how to sneak GLBT issues into the earliest grades. Massachusetts News reported:

According to one educator who has attended previous GLSEN Boston conferences, "In past years the emphasis was on children and sex. This year's conference appeared to be geared more toward teachers and a 'stealth' agenda that took the focus off sex in favor of more subtle methods, using 'gay allies' to continue the homosexual agenda in schools."

One fifth-grade teacher and workshop leader, Jan Shafer, named Kevin Jennings as her inspiration: 

Shafer recalled that several years ago, while she was still "in the closet," GLSEN executive director Kevin Jennings paid a visit to her school and: "It was at that point that I was able to begin coming out."

[Shafer] asked participants to write down reasons why they think GLBT issues should be shared in the K-5 classroom. Among those given:

 To validate children's personal stories

 To destroy "gender binary" (male-female) stereotypes

 To help children learn to become comfortable in the classroom by seeing their families respected

 To help kids who "ultimately will be gay when they're older" feel "validated and comfortable at a young age."

One teacher intern at the Devotion School in Brookline gave this rationale: "It's important to help children become agents of change."

Another GLSEN-Boston 2003 workshop leader, social worker and GLSEN board member Laura Perkins, looked for "teachable moments." By 2006, Perkins had added to her repertoire, not only introducing concepts like "two mommies" or "Daddy's roommate" -- but adding sex-change operations. Newton, Mass. columnist Tom Mountain reported on this shocking occurrence in an elementary school there:

Nightmare at Franklin


By Tom Mountain - Newton Tab, November 8, 2006

Emer O'Shea knew something was wrong the minute she picked up her daughter from Franklin Elementary School. The third-grader was normally very perky upon seeing her mother and new baby sister, but this time she glanced at her mother without indicating what was wrong, except to say that the school's social worker had visited the class. But Emer soon heard from another parent about what had happened in her daughter's class that day, and she was both stunned and mortified. The next day her young daughter finally opened up with a question that would baffle most parents of an 8-year-old child, "Mommy, is it possible for a man to have an operation to become a woman?"

Transgenders and transvestites. These were the topics that a staff member at Franklin School in West Newton chose to teach to a class of third-grade children. The school's social worker described to the children that some men like to dress up as women, and yes, some men even have operations to change into women.

The opportunity for this "teachable moment" - the kind that Superintendent Jeff Young likes to portray as merely responding to some child's "random questioning"- occurred when the social worker was describing various families outside of the traditional mommy-and-daddy norm and showed the class a picture of a woman with two children, asking what they saw in the picture. A child then raised his hand to tell her (are you sitting sit down for this?) that he thought the picture was of a man who had a sex change operation and was now a woman. Apparently, the child's own father was undergoing such an operation (which he/she has since completed).

The social worker then elaborated on this "teachable moment." But this wasn't just any social worker employed by the Newton Public Schools. This was Laura Perkins, former board member of GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network …   READ MORE...

Questions That Must Be Asked at "Transgender Rights" Hearing

More on the Body Mutilation Bill, H1728/S1687:

Why does the state want to promote mental illness in its populace? (See DSM-IV, "gender identity disorder.") "Sex-change surgery is a collaboration with a mental disorder, not a treatment."

What are the long-term health effects of years or decades of opposite-sex hormone injections? (If the medical profession so concerned about female hormone replacement therapies for women, why should we not be even more concerned about transgender hormone treatments?)

What about the children? Experimenting on young children’s bodies is reminiscent of the Nazi era. Yet a doctor at Boston Children’s Hospital is doing just that. It was this blog that first broke the story on Dr. Norman Spack -- the endocrinologist who is injecting supposedly “transgender” children (who are not physically "intersex") with puberty-blocking chemicals so their "gender reassignment" will be easier later. Should the state condone such horrific medical experimentation? (Dr. Spack’s treatments will most likely make the young person infertile, so too bad if they should change their mind later and remain their actual sex.)

What will happen when confused teens are pushed into this world by their schools (through the “Gay Straight Alliances” and GLBT events)? The transsexual world is especially dangerous for male youth who want to behave as women. Do we want our public schools suggesting to young girls that they might have their breasts removed to become "bois"?

What are the long-term physical effects of the various bodily mutilations of sex-change surgeries? An unnecessary hysterectomy? Removal of healthy breasts? Penis amputation? -- especially when done early in one’s life?

What are other risks of sex "reassignment" surgeries -- especially an artificially constructed vagina or penis (with techniques constantly evolving)?

What are typical psychological outcomes of sex-change surgeries? Reports suggest that patients continue to suffer psychological distress, are not satisfied with their “new” bodies, and continue to demand more surgeries and treatments.

What happens when an individual changes his or her mind after sex-reassignment? They can’t go back. Will the state continue to pay for this person's coninuing demand for therapy and physical change?

Why should we let mentally disturbed individuals be in charge of their sexual identification? What does that mean for people they interact with? Dr. Paul McHugh described a situation which will surely arise:
Dr McHugh warned the [NYC Health] board that such changes would make sexual identification impossible. "I’ve already heard of a ‘transgendered’ man who claimed at work to be ‘a woman in a man’s body but a lesbian’ and who had to be expelled from the ladies’ restroom because he was propositioning women there," he said. "He saw this as a great injustice in that his behavior was justified in his mind by the idea that the categories he claimed for himself were all ‘official’ and had legal rights attached to them."

Transgender Rights Bill H1728: "Body Multilation Bill"

Trans Rights marchers (men) in Northampton, Mass., June 2008 (MassResistance photo)

The "Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill" (H1728, S1687) is once again pending in the Massachusetts legislature, now with an astonishing 104 sponsors (a majority in both houses!). The Judiciary Committee has announced a hearing on July 14, where it must be stopped. No, it's not just about men in dresses using women's restrooms. It's much more far-reaching and dangerous than that. See our lengthy study (originally published in 2008) for a detailed examination.

Gunner Scott, the woman leading the radical "Mass. Transgender Political Coalition," at the Transgender Pride march, Northampton, Mass. in June 2008. (MassResistance photo)

How is the “Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes” Bill -- H1728/S1687 -- a threat to your rights?

This bill would criminalize any objection to bizarre behaviors covered by the undefined phrase “gender identity or expression.”

Gender identity confusion is considered a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. But if Bill H1728 passes, the disordered behaviors of “transgender” individuals would be protected as a “civil right”! And power will rest with disturbed individuals who self-identify as the opposite sex, or who act out some public “expression” he or she insists is part of his or her “identity”. This bill is about protecting public, not private, behaviors. It is part of the radical strategy to leave the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” undefined in the bill.

And it’s not only about allowing cross-dressing and sex changes. It would normalize and mandate support for cross-dressing, sex changes, and various other perversions and practices. For example, “gender expression” (and the likewise undefined “sexual orientation”) could be interpreted to protect voyeurism, sado-masochism, prostitution, incest, or even sex in public places. Already, hotels are scared by “sexual orientation” anti-discrimination laws, so won’t deny access to transgender (or sadomasochist) conventions. Things will only get worse if this bill is passed.

In the “public accommodations” portion of the bill, for example:
“Whoever makes any distinction, discrimination or restriction on account of … gender identity or expression … or … treatment in any place of public accommodation … or whoever aids or incites such distinction, discrimina- tion or restriction shall be punished by a fine … or by imprisonment … or both.” [MGL, Ch. 272, Sec. 98, with phrase “gender identity or expression” added by Bill H1728.]

- In Mass. law, “public accommodations” could be interpreted to include any place other than private homes.

- Individuals and churches will lose their freedom of speech and religion to object to transgender behaviors or “gender expression,” or even publicly oppose the new law. No sermon could be delivered, no seminar held disagreeing with this new “civil right” (as it could be considered “incitement” to “distinction or discrimination.”) No effort to overturn it could be organized in any “public accommodation,” no referendum signatures could be collected on sidewalks to overturn the law.

- A crime committed against a self-identified transgender person will receive extra penalties as a “hate crime”.

- Business owners will lose the ability to choose employees suited to their particular environment or clientele, no matter what it means for their profitability. Charges of discrimination could be brought if a “transgender” person is fired for valid causes totally separate from “gender identity”.

- Schools will normalize this psychological disorder to our children, exposing them to unimaginable stresses. Restrooms and locker rooms will be open to the opposite sex. Sports teams, proms, and homecomings will see “transgender” youth demanding “equal” treatment. Children of all ages will be given sensitivity lessons when teachers, staff or even parents undergo “sex changes” (which has already occurred in Newton, Oxford, and Brookline). The youngest children will be forced to imagine the removal of body parts as a healthy and reasonable option. “Anti-bullying” lessons will add this new category of victims.

- Landlords and property owners will not be able to deny rental or sale to anyone protected by the loose phrase “gender identity or expression” – which could include groups of “swingers”, sadomasochists, or even prostitutes.

- Restrooms and locker rooms at any public accommodation will be forced to allow a person who claims to be the opposite sex to use whichever restroom or locker room he or she chooses. It is especially frightening for women to have (often very large) men dressed as women sharing their restroom space.

- “Gender expression” will open the door to sexual activity in public or public nudity. Women claiming to be men will expose their scarred chests (from breast removal) in public. Exhibitionists could claim “expression” when exposing themselves. GLAD – the legal group behind “gay marriage” in New England, as well as transgender rights – actually held a forum recently promoting public sex called “Sex on the Margins.”

Jennifer Levi (blue shirt), lead attorney with GLAD for transgender issues, pushes baby stroller at Transgender Pride march, Northampton, Mass., June 2008 (MassResistance photo).

- Sensitivity training at work will normalize cross-dressing and "transitioning" employees.

- Transgender medical care will be mandated coverage for insurers (including state health insurance) – costs which can run into hundreds of thousands – subsidized by you. This includes hormone treatments, cosmetic treatments, radical body-mutilating sex change surgeries, and psychological counseling.

Get ready to see lots more of this if H1728 passes: A young woman who has removed her breasts to become a "boi" or "transman". Transgender Pride march, Northampton, Mass., June 2008. (MassResistance photo)

- Hospitals, doctors and therapists will be forced to provide this medical care and offer pro-transgender counseling; no religious objections are provided for.

- The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) – a shadow court system without usual legal procedures – will come after all offenders with huge fines, with no appeal possible. (This is already happening in Canada on “sexual orientation” issues.)

- Charges of “bigotry” and “transphobia” will intimidate citizens who object.

CONTACT the Judiciary Committee with your testimony!

Gov. Deval Patrick's Daughter: Latest Recruit for Transgender Radicalism

Gunner Scott, "female-to-male" co-leader of Transgender Youth Summit.

Grace Stowell, "male-to-female" co-leader of Transgender Youth Summit [photo: M Humphries].

How sad to read that Gov. Patrick's daughter not only thinks she's a lesbian, but is now working for Massachusetts' leading transgender radicals (pictured above). As an intern at MassEquality, Ms. Patrick would have been pressured big time to adopt their whole extremist agenda, including lobbying for the "Transgender Rights" Bill H1722.

Now we read on the Mass. Transgender Political Coalition web site that Ms. Patrick will be a featured speaker at their upcoming "Transgender Youth Summit" on June 28: "Youth Organizer Katherine Patrick from MassEquality - Youth Activism in Schools and Communities."

Governor Patrick publicly supports "transgender rights" -- but does he know what transgenderism is all about? Has the Gov seen our photo report on what "Trans Pride" really looks like? Has he contemplated the reality of "male-to-female" surgery? Or how girls become "bois"? Has he met the organizers of the Trans Youth Summit? And it's really OK with him that his daughter is up to her neck in this movement?

Male-to-female surgery (photo: Nashua Telegraph)

"Female-to-male" exhibiting breast removal scar.

Since Ms. Patrick will be attending Smith College -- a hotbed of the wackiest transgender and lesbian activism, where the girls learn to hold really good riots -- the Gov had better prepare himself. His young daughter might just decide she's always been a boy and needs to have "gender reassignment" surgery (hysterectomy, breast removal, beard growth, and possibly the addition of a ...). We're sure the Gov would support her, since he loves her "no matter what."

Will Massachusetts Make Cross-Dressing & Sex-Changes a "Civil Right"?

House Bill 1722 has lots of hidden dangers, such as enshrining "gender identity or expression" as a civil right. If H1722 is passed, Mass. public accommodations law would add that phrase as a new category of people against whom no discrimination (including public verbal opposition) is permitted. The law declares:

“All persons shall have the right to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable to all persons. This right is recognized and declared to be a civil right.”

So, as we've already noted, "public accommodations" as defined in Mass. law can mean almost any place outside of private homes. Hospitals are specifically named and therefore will have to perform sex-change surgeries, because they will be a civil right! Adoption agencies will have to place children with transsexual parents, because that will be a civil right. Men who think they're women will be able to use the women's restroom or locker room, because that will be a civil right. Transsexual porn writers will be able to hold conferences at any hotel they choose, because it will be their civil right. And since the phrase "gender identity or expression" is not really defined in the bill, who knows what else could be argued to be a civil right?

Transgender Rights Bill H1722 Would Force Catholic Hospitals to Perform "Sex-Change" Surgeries

In California, a man who wants to be a woman is suing a Catholic hospital for refusing to allow his “breast augmentation” surgery there. (photo left)

Get ready: If the Mass. Transgender Rights Bill H1722 is passed, it would make it illegal for any hospital here, including a religious hospital, to refuse such “sex-change” surgeries. Freedom of religion would go out the window, since hospitals are named in Massachusetts law as “public accommodations.” (Ch. 272, Sec. 92A) Bill H1722 would ban discrimination on the basis of “gender identity or expression” in all public accommodations, including hospitals. There is no exemption in the bill for religiously-affiliated hospitals, businesses, or organizations.

In the past few years, we saw former Governor Romney allow homosexual demands to overtake our supposed freedom of religion: First, Catholic Charities’ ban on adoptions by same-sex couples was disallowed (though there was not even a law requiring this, just administrative regulations!). Then, Romney’s Dept. of Public Health forced Catholic hospitals to dispense morning-after pills. In both of those cases, even former Governor Dukakis said there were no laws requiring those policies. So, given that hospitals are specifically named in the existing public accommodations law, this new situation would be even more cut and dried.

Existing Mass. law, Section 98 of chapter 272 (here including the proposed new phrase, "gender identity or expression"), seems to imply that even speaking publicly against the non-discrimination law could result in fines &/or imprisonment:

“Whoever makes any distinction, discrimination or restriction on account of race, color, religious creed, national origin, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, which shall not include persons whose sexual orientation involves minor children as the sex object, deafness, blindness or any physical or mental disability or ancestry relative to the admission of any person to, or his treatment in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement, as defined in section ninety-twoA, or whoever aids or incites such distinction, discrimination or restriction shall be punished by a fine of not more than twenty-five hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, and shall be liable to any person aggrieved thereby for such damages …” [emphasis added]

From the Fox News story (1-18-08):

... Hastings, who already has had one major sex-change surgery, claims that Seton Medical Center in Daly City, Calif., would not allow her plastic surgeon to operate on a transgender person.
"I honestly believe that God has plans for me to have this surgery," Hastings told FOXNews.com.
"I felt simply less than equal," she said. "Here I am, a woman. I had the reassignment surgery, and not to allow me this right, I felt violated."...

The Catholic hospital does not allow transgender surgery, [the hospital's] statement says.
"Seton Medical Center, a Catholic hospital and a member of the Daughters of Charity Health System, provides services to all individuals. However, the hospital does not perform surgical procedures contrary to Catholic teaching; for example, abortion, direct euthanasia, transgender surgery or any of its related components."
Shannon Minter, legal director for the Center for Lesbian Rights and an expert on transgender rights, said California law protects Hastings.
"It's against California law, and it's wrong," Minter said. "They should be ashamed of themselves for turning away anybody because of their identity."
Minter said the Unruh Civil Rights Act protects Hastings against discrimination based on gender identity, adding that there is no exception for religious-affiliated businesses. [emphasis added]

AP Stylebook and Trans Madness

Have you wondered why all the big media stories on transgenders or transsexuals refer to men as "she" and women as "he"? The heavyweight GLBT activists took control of the AP Stylebook some years back. The AP Stylebook sets usage standards by reporters and editors throughout the country. Since the late 1990s, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and GenderPAC have met with the AP Stylebook editors -- and have had their way. The New York Times and Washington Post have also bent over.

Since 1997, pronoun confusion was enabled by the AP Stylebook in its usage guidelines for the term sex change. At first, physical changes (through surgery, etc.) were considered a requirement for such usage (a he referred to as she). Then from 2000 on -- as transgender activists wanted to downplay surgeries in favor of the individual’s self-identification as the opposite sex – the AP played along. By 2005, the word transgender first appeared in the AP Stylebook. And by 2006, the terms sex change and transsexual were essentially disabled and rolled into the new concept transgender – thereby including a much larger population for the biased media to use in its propaganda war on biological reality.

See GLAAD’s history of AP Stylebook compliance with their most radical demands:

The 2006 edition also relocates the sex changes entry under the more accurate and inclusive term transgender. The transsexuals entry, which used to direct readers to the entry for sex changes, now also points to transgender:

• transgender Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.
  
• If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.
  

So now the individual gets to choose what “gender” he or she is, whether or not he or she has undergone physical alterations, and the media plays along. An 8-year-old boy in Colorado decides (with full parental and school administration support) to return to school dressed as a girl … and the biased media refer to the boy as she. Just following the AP Stylebook!

And the Massachusetts Legislature is asked to play this game, too, in the Transgender Rights Bill H1722.