There is an increasing amount of legal, academic and media coverage about transgender people. In the UK the organizations Stonewall and LGF are now promoting themselves as being transgender supportive as well. Published 28th July, Alexandra Topping of The Guardian interviewed Ruth Hunt, the new chief executive of gay rights group Stonewall. The group

• is to meet leading members of the UK's transgender community to see how the organisation can best promote rights for all members of the LGBT community.
• Speaking to the Guardian on the first day of her new job, Ruth Hunt said Stonewall, which does not campaign or lobby on transgender issues but works with transgender groups, would be opening conversations with the trans community at a meeting at the end of August.
• "We are at quite an important tipping point in terms of trans equality, and we are looking at how we can best support and maximise that tipping point," she said.

But there is still a long way to go.

On 22nd May Paris Lees made an article entitled, "It's Time We Exposed the Media's Lies About Transgender Kids". She wrote:

• What a horrible pile of shit the Mail on Sunday ran on its cover last weekend: “NHS to give sex change drugs to nine-year-olds: Clinics accused of ‘playing God’ with treatment that stops puberty”. You know what that means, don’t you? That the NHS is definitely NOT giving nine-year-olds any “sex change drugs” and won’t be any time soon.
• The Telegraph, a paper that revels in being openly hostile towards trans people, is now repeating the misleading headline. And what’s with the “playing God” bullshit? As one parent of a trans child pointed out by email: “The Mail wouldn't be questioning the treatment of diabetic children or children with congenital hypothyroidism on the NHS, so what makes it OK to print this shite about children receiving another kind of endocrine treatment?”

Jayne Hanson writes in a Huffington Post entry about Cher's transgender son:

• To be clear, Chaz Bono does not speak for me. To me he represents an ideology and rhetoric surrounding trans identities that only serves to further stereotypes that make it easier for conservative-minded cis-gendered people (i.e., people whose gender identity matches the gender they were assigned at birth) to grasp the concept of transsexuality. This ideology is the notion of becoming a man or woman through medical intervention (and a very stereotypical and misogynistic man, at that).

Trans* identities can include those who are BIGENDERED. My PhD covers that as well as countering several of the legal, medical, academic and media mistakes that the Equality and Human Rights Commission recognises. Some those that EHRC acknowledges, which I write to counter, include:

- Comprehending present-day transvestism.

- Inconsistent definitions of ‘transgenderism’ and the connected terms.

- Understanding online transgender communities.

- Information regarding

• Transphobia.
• Family issues with transgender people.
• Employment difficulties of transgender people.
• Presentations of transgender people within media texts.

But of course EHRC have had their funding dramatically cut back so those mistakes carry on... and books written in the 60s and 70s carry on being assumed to be the correct ways of looking at the ranges of transgender identities.

This is partly why I was interviewed by the Gaydio radio station as part of highlighting some of those errors. (A big 'thank you' to the Gaydio people.) Well it'll be a taster until the book I'm editing, that's from my PhD work, gets published. Click on the picture for the link to my interview:

Once again I was planing to write more about past experiences but present international situations are very dominant. 

Once again troubles in Western Asia, including Iraq issues, have significantly come to the fore.

Iraq and the areas in it have apparently long been important to humanity.  The rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run through the middle of Iraq.  Between these rivers is an area referred to as Mesopotamia.  Here it is claimed is the birth of modern civilization.

The militant group Islamic State have gained a lot of recent controversial publicity.  The BBC News website states on the 11th August:

• The rapid advance across Iraq by militant fighters from Islamic State, widely known as ISIS, has thrown the country into chaos and led to US air strikes against their key positions.
• The brutal, extremist group, which claims to have fighters from across the world, has announced the establishment of a "caliphate" - an Islamic state - across parts of Iraq and Syria and forced many minority communities from their homes.

The beheading of Steven Sotloff, a US journalist, by the Islamic State was apparently in retribution for the US air strikes.  It was stated on a BBC website that:

• The "humanitarian crisis has not gone away" in the Middle East and is getting significantly worse, a Labour MP has said.
• Speaking of Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS, John Woodcock said it was "in our clear interest to act against them".
• He spoke to Jo Coburn on the Daily Politics after David Cameron gave a statement to MPs on UK backing for US airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq, adding he would not rule out participation in similar action in the future.

But what effects does this unsettled and distressing time in the Middle East have in the UK?  We've already seen that the Israeli/Palestinian conflicts have led to debatable incidents/protests in this country.

Well, Ava Vidal published several thoughts about Islamophobia in the Telegraph.  In an article entitled "'People grab our veils, call us terrorists and want us dead'" she writes:

• I am not denying that there are countries where the predominant religion is Islam where women are treated badly. But patriarchy is the problem, not Islam. In Islam, the rights of women were recognised much earlier than they were in the West.

It could be convincingly argued that wearing a veil is not an essential part of being a Muslim.  This area is a very difficult position for me to be in.  I am feminist (yes, men can be feminists - have a look in a dictionary - feminists are not only women) so I am deeply uncomfortable with the suppression of women.  Alongside that, as I have hearing difficulties, I regard someone wearing a veil as discriminating against deaf and hearing impaired people who need to lip-read... so I see veils as both expressions of sexism and disablism. 

BUT I do not discriminate against any religion nor do I appreciate anyone else discriminating against religious beliefs.

Now I've heard the... 'debatable' statement that "Islamic people breed so much in this country that white people will get out numbered".

Let's look at this rationally shall we?

I have created a table of the ethnic composition of the United Kingdom according to the 2011 Census:

White people are not likely to get out numbered any time soon.  In fact, mixed race people are the fastest growing racial identity in the UK. 

How about we look at religious variations in the UK too?

So Christianity is by far the biggest UK religion with no religious beliefs being the second largest.  So the racist and religious bigots don't have any rational facts to back their opinions on... but then they wouldn't need rational figures to reinforce their views...

I certainly think that the sometimes violent and destructive campaigns in the UK don't really help matters. They enhance the irrational prejudices and distrust instead of trying to be examples of tolerance - but maybe many human beings can't be like that.

Perhaps human beings much prefer - and are more comfortable with - "our group is better than your group" - we can cope with feeling we belong to some group (aka "tribe").

Maybe conflicts can't ever be resolved as long as we think like humans...