WHO praises Argentina’s gender rights; says country is example to follow for transgender rights.

[forest444]

Argentina is a global leader in gender equality policies, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared in a report citing the Gender Identity Law, passed in 2012, as an example that other countries have started to follow.

Argentina — along with Uruguay and Nepal — was described as an example to follow, thanks mainly to the approval of the groundbreaking legislation. The law made access to gender-affirming procedures a legal right, allowing gender re-assignment surgery, as well as other medical procedures related to transgender health, a part of public and private health-care schemes. The law also meant that a trans person’s informed consent was the only requirement needed for surgery to be approved. It also allows trans men and women to change the sex and name listed in their birth certificates, national identity cards and passports.

The way the law changed what insurance companies had to cover to include hormonal treatments and surgical procedures for trans people was also praised, particularly the removal of psychological assessment in order to allow a sex-reassignment surgery from moving forward.

Before the law was written the Health Ministry worked with “several NGOs that had been working with the trans community throughout the country” that helped them figure out what procedures needed to be covered, Sex Health Programme director Luciana Kanterewicz told state-run news agency Télam. The government also wrote and published a guide to trans health that was distributed to all health workers.

“The objective is so that all those working in hospitals and health centres have an open mind to treat transgender people with dignity,” said Kanterewicz.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/194616/who-praises-argentina%E2%80%99s-gender-rights

[passnobuck]

1. Sweet Sometimes we Americans forget

We forget that we are no longer the leader nation in equality and human rights around the world. We often fall far short.

[forest444]

2. The answer?

A couple of things that will, sadly, probably never happen: compulsory voting, and state-wide party lists instead of (gerrymandered) districts.

Take Argentina. Yes, it's one eighth the size of the U.S. and less advanced (hovering somewhere between the 1st and 3rd worlds); but socially and ethnically it's probably the country in the region most similar to the U.S.: a large (mostly white) middle class which shares much of the same disdain for the "undeserving" (mostly dark-skinned) poor we see in the U.S.; a large fundamentalist population (Catholic, in Argentina's case) who are largely intolerant of anything "alternative"; and active, well-financed right-wing pressure groups ready to exploit both (led by the Opus Dei, in Argentina's case).

But the current administration (Cristina Kirchner) was able to enact laws allowing LGBT individuals to serve openly in the military (2009), marriage equality (2010), full adoption rights (2010), and transgender rights (2012). Each of these bills was met with loud and highly vitriolic opposition from social conservatives and their allies, economic conservatives and much of the same hysteria we see in GOP circles here; but in Argentina they lost because Congress there more or less reflects the entire spectrum of Argentine politics - and is not skewed sharply to the right of national opinion by massive campaign contributions or gerrymandering.

A vast majority (75% or so) vote in each and every election, and each state (actually, province) is assigned their seats in Congress according to party vote totals in each, rather than in tailor-made districts. As a result, Congress there pretty much reflects the totality of public opinion, rather than that of a small but vocal (and well-funded) extreme.

The culture war types, as you can imagine, hate all this, and especially hate Cristina Kirchner and her party for these reforms and many others. In the old days, of course, they could prod a few generals and admirals into staging a coup - but this day and age, they've had to learn to pound sand.