Equality Philippines

CSWCD, UP Diliman -- The Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) , the pioneer transgender human rights organization in the Philippines, makes history as they send off a communication to the United Nations (UN) that calls attention to state responsibilities of the Philippine Government as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to pay careful attention to how the justice system updates itself with current developments in international human rights law in its understanding of gender identity through the lived experiences of transsexual women. "The launch of this historical and important communication to the United Nations comes at a very opportune time what with the recent hurtful pronouncements made by the mother of Congressman Manny Pacquiao. Mommy Dionisia has made comments about transsexuals and their use of the pill showing the widespread ignorance about transsexualism in the Philippines," says STRAP Chairwoman Naomi...

On June 13, 2009, Justus Eisfeld (shown in the pic above) who sits in the advisory board of the LGBT Program of Human Rights Watch and Transgender Europe delivered a speech at the UN Panel on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Geneva, Switzerland. I am posting his speech in its entirety below. If you read it, you will realize that trans people in Europe share the same life-and-death concerns with trans people in the Philippines and elsewhere. In it, he also makes mention of intersex people, or those who are born with ambiguous genitals, chromosomes and hormones. I do not agree with the other term he uses for them: "people born with disorders of sex development." Intersex rights advocates have maintained that this newer term being used to describe them did not come from them but from sexologists. They reject in on that account and for the further stigma it inadvertently brings to their condition. See the Intersex International website for more informatio...