Tag: transgender

Tweet of the Day: Japan to Publish Controversial Book on Child Transgender Surgeries

Korean Olympic Medalist Conned By Transgender Fiancé

Just when you thought you had heard it all then you read this:

Former Olympic medalist Nam Hyun-hee said Thursday that she had been deceived by Jeon Cheong-jo, who was engaged to the 42-year-old fencer before being revealed as a con artist.

Nam, who became the first South Korean woman to win a fencing Olympic medal by winning silver in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, said in a media interview that she learned Wednesday that her boyfriend had swindled money from her acquaintances.

She said Jeon instigated everything in their relationship, including their marriage, and even tricked her into believing that she was pregnant.

Jeon supposedly showed her positive pregnancy tests, despite this being impossible as he was transgender.

In a subsequent interview with local media, Nam said that she had known that Jeon had had sex reassignment surgery. When asked why she thought she could get impregnated by a transgender man, who cannot produce sperm, Nam said she “thought it was strange.”

Korea Herald

Keep reading at the link because it keeps getting stranger.

The Pentagon Updates Policy Banning Transgender Personnel from Serving in the Military

If I am reading this right, after April 12th any transgender person that wants to serve in the US military will need to serve in their biological gender and stop taking hormones:

The Defense Department has approved a new policy that will largely bar transgender troops and military recruits from transitioning to another sex, and require most individuals to serve in their birth gender.
The memo outlining the new policy was obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, and it comes after a lengthy and complicated legal battle. It falls short of the all-out transgender ban that was initially ordered by President Donald Trump. But it will likely force the military to eventually discharge transgender individuals who need hormone treatments or surgery and can’t or won’t serve in their birth gender.
The order says the military services must implement the new policy in 30 days, giving some individuals a short window of time to qualify for gender transition if needed. And it allows service secretaries to waive the policy on a case-by-case basis.

Under the new rules, currently serving transgender troops and anyone who has signed an enlistment contract by April 12 may continue with plans for hormone treatments and gender transition if they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

But after April 12, no one with gender dysphoria who is taking hormones or has transitioned to another gender will be allowed to enlist. And any currently serving troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria after April 12 will have to serve in their birth gender and will be barred from taking hormones or getting transition surgery.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but of course the usual people are complaining this is discriminatory. Of course this is discriminatory because the Army discriminates all the time such as not allowing handicapped or obese people to join. This is less a discrimination issue, but more of one where DOD leadership has decided that the medical issues involved with transgender personnel is not worth the trouble of accommodating.

Man on Guam Who Was Born White Says He Is a “Transracial” Filipino

If you didn’t guess it already from the picture below the man featured in this article says he is transexual as well:

Ja Du, born a white male named Adam, now considers himself a Filipino.

He even drives what he calls a Tuk Tuk, an Asian-derived vehicle used for public transit in the Philippines.

Ja Du is part of a small but growing number of people who call themselves transracial. The term once referred only to someone (or a couple) of a one race adopting a child of another, but now it’s becoming associated with someone born of one race who identifies with another.

Ja Du says he grew up enjoying Filipino food, events and the overall culture.

“Whenever I’m around the music, around the food, I feel like I’m in my own skin,” he said.

“I’d watch the History Channel, sometimes for hours … nothing else intrigued me more but things about Filipino culture.”  [Guam PDN]

You can read more at the link, but how many ROK Drop readers are ready to declare themselves transracial Koreans because it appears it is okay to declare whatever ethnicity you want to be now.

US Army’s New Transgender Policy Raises Concerns About Transitioning Males Showering with Females

I think there are going to be so few of these situations that this really will not be a problem:

Mandatory Army training materials state that females will have to accept transgender women showering with them.

The Army has been rolling out a series of training materials entitled “Tier Three Transgender Training” to prepare soldiers to accept transgenders in their ranks, and one of the bullet points states that soldiers will have to accept austere, primitive conditions, which entails acceptance of trans women showering with other female soldiers.

The Federalist obtained the materials from an active-duty officer who completed the training last week.

According to the training, soldiers will be allowed to switch their gender markets without undergoing any kind of transition surgeries or physical changes. There are two crucial elements needed for transition.  [Daily Caller]

You can read more at the link.

US Military To Provide Free Sex Change Surgeries for Qualified Recruits

Times are a changing and I am looking forward to the new recruiting commercials:

Transgender men and women can serve openly in the United States military following the repeal Thursday of Pentagon policies that forced them to keep their gender identities secret or risk a discharge.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said those policies discriminated against “talented and trained Americans,” and did not represent the values of the United States military as he announced his decision at the Pentagon nearly a year after he vowed to repeal the ban. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers blasted Carter’s decisions as “politics over policy” during a time of war.

“Our mission is to defend this country, and we don’t want barriers unrelated to a person’s qualification to serve preventing us from recruiting or retaining the soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine who can best accomplish the mission,” Carter said. “We have to have access to 100 percent of America’s population for our all-volunteer force to be able to recruit from among them the most highly qualified and to retain them.”

The new policy will be rolled out over a one-year period. Effectively immediately, Carter said, troops cannot be discharged, denied reenlistment or involuntarily separated solely because of their gender identity. But it will be about a year before the military begins to openly recruit transgender individuals to join the service. Even then it will only allow transgender individuals who have completed any gender-related medical treatment to join the military, and it will require certification from a doctor that they’ve been “stable in their preferred gender for 18 months,” according to Pentagon documents.  [Stars & Stripes]

Here is part of the policy I have concerns with.  Considering all the pay and benefits currently being taken away from troops the DoD some how found the money to pay for expensive sex change surgeries and hormone treatments?:

Also beginning Oct. 1, the Military Health System will begin providing transgender troops “all medically-necessary care” related to gender transition, Carter said. A military doctor will determine what medically-necessary care is needed for such individuals on a case-by-case basis. That care could include gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy, a senior defense official said. It will not include any cosmetic surgery, added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the policy publicly.

The costs to the military associated with allowing open transgender service will be relatively low, the defense official said. The military was only likely to incur about $4 million to $14 million per year in additional medical costs to provide the medically-necessary transition care.

You can read more at the link, but I also think this is all the more reason why there has to be one physical fitness standard now.  How is it fair that someone biologically male, but identifies as a female gets to take the female physical fitness test?  This puts them at an advantage against both male and female troops by taking an easier fitness test and thus scoring more points for promotion.

Oregon Court Says Army Veteran Can Legally List Himself as A Third Sex

So does this mean that we have to have a third bathroom built around the country?  Maybe we should just all go to one bathroom that would be much easier:

An Oregon judge ruled Friday that a transgender person can legally change their sex to “non-binary” rather than male or female in what legal experts believe is a first in the United States.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Amy Holmes Hehn legally changed 52-year-old Jamie Shupe’s sex from “female” to non-binary.

Nancy Haque, a co-executive director for Basic Rights Oregon, called the ruling a “momentous day for genderqueer Oregonians.”

“It’s really exciting for the courts to actually recognize what we know to be true: gender is a spectrum,” Haque said. “Some people don’t identify as male or female.”

Shupe, an Army veteran who retired in 2000 a sergeant first class, began transitioning in 2013 while living in Pittsburg. Shupe knew then that neither male nor female fit. Shupe chose “Jamie” as a new first name primarily because it is a gender-neutral name. Shupe prefers to be called “Jamie,” rather than by a pronoun.

“I was assigned male at birth due to biology,” Shupe said. “I’m stuck with that for life. My gender identity is definitely feminine. My gender identity has never been male, but I feel like I have to own up to my male biology. Being non-binary allows me to do that. I’m a mixture of both. I consider myself as a third sex.”  [The Oregonian]

You can read the rest at the link.

Should Transgender Koreans Be Exempt from Mandatory Military Service?

Here I was thinking that transgender people wanted to have their junk cut off?:

A South Korean transgender woman Wednesday lodged a human rights complaint against the military for forcing her to undergo genital surgery in order to be exempted from military duty.

The 22-year-old trans woman went through a mandatory medical checkup for the draft in 2012. She submitted a medical report that confirms a “crisis in sexual identity” and documents on her cross-sex hormone therapy to apply for a military exemption.

The Military Manpower Administration (MMA), however, rejected it, saying she would need to present convincing evidence that she would never be able to become a man again.

She had no choice but to undergo an orchiectomy and was exempted from the military duty in October 2013.

“The MMA demanded her to come up with an irreversible proof, obviously referring to the surgical removal of testicles,” Yun Da-rim, secretary general of the Korean Sexual-Minority Culture and Rights Center, told the Korea Observer.

“Those who receive military medical checkups are in their early 20s and many of them simply cannot afford to have genital surgery. Can you imagine how much an ordeal a transgender woman has to suffer to live with male conscripts?”

Yun argued that trans women should be exempted from their compulsory military duty without undergoing genital surgery as no measures have been taken to protect the rights of sexual minorities in the barracks.  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link, but if you still have your male body parts than you are a male and should do your mandatory military service like every other male.  Letting transgender people dodge mandatory service without the surgery would lead to non-transgender people claiming they are transgender to avoid mandatory service as well.  The ROK military needs a standard and clearing have male body parts is a pretty clear standard.

US Marine Accused of Killing Transexual Filipino

I think we can all guess what happened in regards to this story:

Transgender Filipinos via Flickr user Craig.

A Marine has been detained following the suspected murder of a transgender Filipino at Subic Bay.

Media outlets in the Philippines, quoting a police report, said Monday that the victim, Jeffrey Laude, 26, also known as Jennifer, was found dead on a floor inside the Celzone Lodge in Olongapo City.

A witness said he saw Laude enter the hotel with a short-haired male foreigner, aged 25-30, around 10:55 p.m. on Saturday, the reports said.

Later, Laude’s naked body, partially covered with a blanket, was found in a bathroom at the hotel.

The incident comes at a sensitive time for U.S.-Philippine relations.

The close allies are getting ready to implement an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement — signed by President Barack Obama during a state visit in April — that will see large numbers of U.S. troops rotate through bases in the Philippines over the next decade.

Patricio Abinales, a University of Hawaii expert on the Philippines, said in an email Monday that Filipinos are likely to be angry about the alleged involvement of a Marine in Laude’s death, but that the incident won’t cause widespread opposition to a greater U.S. troop presence.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but since the Philippines is eager to host US troops again as a security guarantee against growing Chinese aggression I doubt the Filipino government will try and demagogue this incident for political advantage.  I guess we will see what happens, but it will interesting to see if the US government turns him over or not to face trial in the Philippines.

Anyway, this incident reminds of a transgender story I have from my days in Dongducheon.  The majority of the transgendered Koreans I have seen in Korea were in Dongducheon.  They would flock to the clubs up there to hit on drunk GIs.  I was at the infamous Rendezvous Club one time and saw this soldier hanging all over what was obviously a transexual, but he was too drunk to tell the difference.  I sat by him and then pulled him a side to explain to him his folly.  He got pissed and wanted to throw down because he thought I was trying to steal his chick.  Since he was so enamored with his new girlfriend, I left him to his folly. I never saw that soldier show his face ever again in that club.