February 10, 2012

“Monthly Notes” #2 from WPATH President Lin Fraser

Dear Members,

This is the 2nd edition of the Monthly Notes, following the initial January Notes and the interim communication to all of you regarding our ICD Recommendations. As I said last month, these notes are a way for you to stay informed of WPATH activities and for me to keep in touch with the membership. Thanks again to those who have responded with suggestions, requests and ideas for the betterment of our organization. I want you to know that the door is always open. My WPATH address is [email protected].

CUBA The big news this month is that a WPATH contingent, ten strong, went to Cuba in January to present our work and to learn from our colleagues in Cuba. WPATH was invited to present at the 6to Congreso Cubano de Educación, Orientación y Terapia Sexual, by Ms. Mariela Castro Espín and Dr. Alberto Roque Guerra of El Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (CENESEX). It was an incredible trip. We had the opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience and were shown the most wonderful hospitality. The WPATH Executive Committee, comprised of Drs. Jamison Green, President-Elect, Gail Knudson, Secretary-Treasurer, Past-President Walter Bockting (Walter wasn’t there in person but I was able to deliver his excellent talk), ICD, SOC7 and DSM committee member Dan Karasic, and I gave the official WPATH Symposium on Transgender Beyond Disorder: New Paradigms and SOC7.

In addition to the WPATH Symposium, WPATH members Drs. Herbert Schreier, Diane Ehrensaft, and Thomas Steensma presented on gender nonconforming children and adolescents, Dr. Cameron Bowman presented on FTM Chest Surgery and professional photographer Mariette Pathy Allen took pictures.

I have stretched my technical skills to produce for the membership a private video of the WPATH Symposium and to post some photos. When you click on the movie it takes a few seconds to start. Please take a look: http://linfraser.com/2012/02/wpath-presentation-at-6to-congreso-havana-cuba- 12312/

Although the case study has been disguised, keep in mind that this is a private slideshow video for WPATH members only. It is not for dissemination and is therefore located on a private WPATH page on my site. The information on the video is up to date and is a good overview of the recent major work WPATH has been doing to fulfill our vision “to bring together diverse professionals dedicated to developing best practices and supportive policies worldwide that promote health, research, education, respect, dignity, and equality for transgender, transsexual, and gender nonconforming people in all cultural settings”.

The Symposium provided a synopsis of our DSM, ICD, and SOC Consensus Processes, a case study demonstrating clinical applications of our evolution, and a snapshot of our human rights and public policy work. We can also be proud of the work Diane, Herb and team are doing at the newly formed Child and Adolescent Gender Center in San Francisco and that Thomas is doing in Amsterdam.

Our Cuban hosts were just fantastic and we were more than well cared for throughout our visit. We are continuing to dialogue with them. I feel the trip was a wonderful opportunity to continue to open up partnerships with our friends in Latin-America Caribbean (LAC), piggybacking on our meeting with the Pan- American Health Organization (PAHO) in Washington D.C. in December, which I told you about in the January notes. One of our hopes during my tenure is to become a truly global organization so these recent activities in LAC along with starting to plan our major conference in Bangkok (save the date February 15-19 2014) make me very happy.

FAST-BREAKING NEWS POLICY In other news, I’ll let Jamison Green, WPATH President-Elect, policy-wonk extraordinaire and primary media liaise, describe our activities behind the scenes regarding news events impacting the lives of transsexual, transgender or gender nonconforming people. As it is not always clear to the membership how or if WPATH is responding to member requests along these lines, I thought it would be good to give a recent example of our activities in Jamison’s own words:

“On December 17, 2011, a story broke in the media stating that the Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis was being used in defense of a U.S. Army Private suspected of leaking sensitive military information, implying that because the individual may have had GID he should not have been trusted with a security clearance. Many of our members were alarmed that this defense strategy would cast aspersions on all transgender and transsexual people, particularly those who were serving or had served in the U.S. military. Several members reached out to the WPATH office to ask for an official response, seeing this as an opportunity for public education. Almost as soon as the news broke, WPATH was also contacted by transgender advocacy groups asking that we reserve comment on the story and stand ready to support advocates with scientific and policy perspectives should the need arise, a strategy with which the Executive Committee of the Board agreed. We also had WPATH Board Member Dr. George Brown, an expert in military matters, on alert, in case his services were needed.

We took this opportunity to augment our internal Policy and Procedures Manual with guidance for future fast-breaking news stories, requiring that we consult and cooperate with other organizations that may have an interest in the implications of a particular situation to ensure that any statements we do make are not "shooting from the hip" or unintentionally undermining the long-standing work of other groups. The By-Laws, Policy & Procedures Committee will review the policy as drafted and, once it is finalized and approved, will incorporate it into the operating manual maintained in the WPATH office. We're glad to cooperate with other organizations that have a more political charter than ours, and we stand ready to supply educational and clinical background information when it will be most useful to assist in improving transgender and transsexual health and lives.“

MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY IMPROVEMENTS You recently received information from our Executive Administrator Andrea Martin about the improvements to our searchable membership directory. Take a look http://www.wpath.org/member_directory.cfm and please give us feedback. The office has been working with our web designer to make it easier for us to find each other and to make referrals without using the list serve which is reserved for other types of professional communications.

GIRES GRANT I also want to let you know that we are close to launching our “International Fund” page on the WPATH website. As you may recall, in September 2011, WPATH received a generous grant of $20,000 from the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) in the United Kingdom to help us with the cost of translating the Standards of Care into languages other than English so that the Standards may more readily benefit transgender, transsexual and gender nonconforming people and healthcare providers in the many other countries where they are needed. One condition of the grant was that WPATH establish an ongoing translation fund and create mechanisms for further support. I am happy to report that the International Fund page is out for review to GIRES and once their suggestions are incorporated, the page will be up and available for your contributions. We appreciate, in advance, your support.

BOARD ANNUAL MEETING The Board of Directors will be having our annual meeting in Ghent, Belgium, April 26-29. If you have any suggestions to put on the agenda, please send them to me: [email protected].

So that’s about it for this month.

I would love to hear from you.

My best,

Lin Lin Fraser EdD WPATH President