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Omaha Steve

(99,055 posts)
Thu Jan 22, 2015, 07:34 AM Jan 2015

Why It’s a Big Deal That Obama Said ‘Transgender’

X post in LGBT

http://time.com/3676881/state-of-the-union-2015-barack-obama-transgender/

Video: http://ti.me/1umh2oV

It's all about legitimacy

Every word in every State of the Union speech is vetted. And President Barack Obama’s decision to say a certain word among the 6,718 he uttered on Tuesday is reverberating through the LGBT community. That’s because Obama just became the first President to say the word transgender during such a high-profile occasion. And most advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights are thrilled.

“The President’s acknowledgment helps shatter the cloak of invisibility that has plagued trans people and forced many to suffer in silence,” author and MSNBC host Janet Mock tells TIME. “By speaking our community’s name, the President pushes us all to recognize the existence and validity of trans people as Americans worthy of protection and our nation’s resources.”

“As a transgender man and an advocate for transgender people, it was thrilling to hear, for the first time in our nation’s history, the President of the United States acknowledge transgender people as an integral and valued part of our national community,” says Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

The issues of validity and legitimacy are huge ones for transgender people. Decades ago, doctors didn’t think their feelings about their gender identity were legitimate—that they were inclinations requiring correction. Today, the medical community has evolved, but many people still mistakenly assume transgender people are only really transgender if their bodies look a certain way.

FULL story at link.

Edit to add PHOTOS: 21 TRANSGENDER PEOPLE WHO INFLUENCED AMERICAN CULTURE @ link



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