Editorial

by Katherine Cummings

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

Here we are again, with a feeling that there has been a long layoff, a feeling brought on partly by the three month gap between the previous issue and this one and partly because in the interim I have been to hospital, cruised the Valley of Death (Im still the meanest bitch in the valley), had my beating heart extracted from my chest cavity by whiz surgeon John Legay Brereton (Richard Carletons words from his 60 Minutes report on his own wander through the Valley a year or so ago) and spent a strange day and a half hallucinating in Intensive Care while the morphine wore off.

I thought I had made a deal with the anesthetist to wake me as my beating heart was held aloft in triumph, so that I could appreciate the cheers from the Aztecs in the grandstand, but he either forgot or was overruled. I am assured by my surgeon, however, that my heart is not as black as most people seem to think. Of course I have always been known for being open-hearted. The surgeon merely made it official.

You will be glad (or you may be terribly disappointed) to know that I am back to normal (?) after my triple bypass and returned to work today (19 September) with only a few Cardiac Health Police getting in the way of my moving filing cabinets around and forbidding me from going sailing. Sob!

This abbreviated account of Katherine's Fine Adventure would not be complete without a tribute to the nursing staff who were expert, efficient, kind, compassionate, co-operative and interested to know that they had a transgendered person in their care. Not vulgar, silly interest, mind you, but intelligent, caring, fact-finding interest. I left the nursing staff a copy of my book and Julia Doulman's film (Becoming Julia) and when I called in last Friday I was told both film and book were much appreciated and doing the rounds. I would also like to thank Julia who visited me often, brought me home when I was fit enough to travel, and stayed with me, fetching, carrying, cooking and driving for the critical week and a half after my return home.

Enough about me.

The Gender Recognition Panel set up in Britain to decide whether to issue Gender Recognition Certificates to transgenders who meet certain criteria, and thus enable those transgenders to receive amended birth certificates has run into an obstacle which appears to relate to interpretation of the regulations rather than a substantive objection to any individual claim. The information on which the G.R.P. bases its decision on whether to grant a G.R.P. certificate or not requires a statement by a registered professional, attesting to the existence or otherwise of gender reassignment (or affirmation) processes having been carried out. This is now being interpreted as meaning an individual registered in Britain, which greatly inconveniences transgenders who have moved away from Britain since they underwent G.R.S. or who moved before G.R.S. and have had their surgery in countries whose medical professionals are unlikely to be registered in Great Britain.

The consequence is that instead of the simple procedure of going to the surgeon who carried out the reassignment and obtaining a statement describing the procedures carried out, it will be necessary for transgenders with British birth certificates to seek out a local medical practitioner who happens to be registered in Britain, and prove to him or her that the procedures have in fact taken place. Unnecessary complication and possible expense.

Surely national medical associations have some some sort of inter-national accreditation and recognition procedure which would circumvent this clerical pettifoggery? If you wish to help in this area and know of medical professionals in this country who are registered, for whatever reason, in Great Britain , please let us have their names and contact details. We will then find out if they are willing to have transgenders referred to them for Gender Recognition accreditation, and whether they are, in fact, qualified to make such a statement (an acquaintance with gender reassignment procedures is implicit in the Gender Recognition Panel requirements).

I will place an advertisement elsewhere in this issue, reminding our readers of our wish to compile a list of British-registered practitioners practicing in Australia. Please help. North Shore Private Hospital Cardiac Surgery Theatre

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.