משתמש:אביעד/אָרגז חול2

הפגנת "לוקחות את הלילה" נגד טרנספוביה - בעקבות תקיפה של אישה טרנסג'נדרית בדרום תל אביב על ידי 11 חיילים בחופשה. צילום: יעל מאירי

טרנספוביה היא מגוון של עמדות ורגשות שליליים כלפי אנשים טרנסג'נדרים (ובתוכם גם ג'נדרקווירים ) וטרנסקסואלים בזהותם המגדרית. חוקרים מתארים טרנספוביה כגועל רגשי, פחד, כעס או אי-נוחות המופנים כלפי מי שאינם תואמים את הציפיות המגדריות המקובלות בחברה. למרות שטרנספוביה דומה להומופוביה, גזענות וסקסיזם, היא זוכה לפחות ביקורת חברתית מצורות האפליה האחרות. אנשים טרנסג'נדרים מופלים ומושתקים לעתים גם בתוך הקהילה הלהט"בית.

טרנספוביה מכונה לעתים גם "סיס-סקסיזם", כשהמילה "סיס-ג'נדר" משמשת כדי לאפיין אדם שזהותו המגדרית תואמת את המין שיוחס לו בעת לידתו. "סיס-סקסיזם" הוא הרעיון כי על המגדר להקבע רק באמצעות ההתאמה למין בעת הלידה, וכי חריגה מכך מהווה הפרעה נפשית או סטייה. מקובל גם להתייחס לשנאה כלפי נשים טרסג'נדריות בשם "טרנסמיזוגניה" (ביטוי שנגזר מהמושג "מיזוגניה").

טרנסג'נדרים רבים חווים גם הומופוביה מאנשים המקשרים את זהותם המגדרית עם הומוסקסואליות, וכן משום שחלקם אכן מביעים העדפה מינית הומוסקסואלית או ביסקסואלית.

המושג "טרנספוביה", כמו המושג "הומופוביה", אינו מייצג הפרעת חרדה כפי ש"פוביה" מוגדרת בפסיכולוגיה הקלינית, אלא משמש כינוי לאופן של שנאת אחר המקובלת בחברה.

גילויים

הטרדה ואלימות

אנשים ונשים טרנסג'נדרים חשופים פעמים רבות לאלימות פיזית, מילולית ומינית. ילדים ונוער טרנסג'נדרים חווים פעמים רבות אלימות ובריונות בבית הספר, ומצויים גם בסיכון מוגבר לאלימות במשפחה. אנשים טרנסג'נדרים חשופים ללעג, לבהייה טורדנית ופולשנית, להתגרות ולאיומים, ואף לתקיפות רחוב.

מחיקת זהות והדרה

פעמים רבות אנשים בוחרים לפנות ולהתייחס לאנשים טרנסג'נדרים שלא על פי המגדר בו הם מזדהים. פנייה זו יכולה להיות מכוונת להעליב, או מתוך חוסר הבנה ובורות. כך יכול אדם לפנות לאישה טרנסג'נדרית בתואר "אדוני" ולדבר איתה בלשון זכר. לעתים בוחרים קרובים ומכרים להתעקש ולכנות אדם בשמו הקודם ששימש אותו לפני השינוי המגדרי אותו עבר. אנשים טרנסג'נדרים חווים פעמים רבות את מחיקת זהותם על ידי ממסדים שונים - משרדי ממשלה המסרבים לשנות מסמכיהם ללשון המגדר בו הם מזדהים, רופאים ושוטרים המסרבים להתייחס אליהם על פי זהותם. כך עשויה אישה טרנסג'נדרית שהורשעה בעבירה למצוא עצמה נכלאת במתקן כליאה המיועד לגברים, כפי שקרה במקרה של סיסי מקדונלד.

מחיקת הזהות וההדרה על ידי ממסדים, מונעים פעמים רבות מאנשים טרנסג'נדרים את הגישה לשירותים המגיעים לאזרחי מדינה, כגון גישה לשירותי רפואה ומשטרה.

פעמים רבות התקשורת והעיתונות בוחרים לסקר עניינים הנוגעים לאנשים טרנסג'נדרים תוך התעלמות מזהותם המגדרית, והתייחסות אליהם במגדר הלא-נכון, ולעתים אף בלשון "זה" ("It"). דוגמה לנטייה זו היא הסיקור התקשורתי על פרשת תקיפתה של אישה טרנסג'נדרית בדרום תל אביב בראשית שנת 2014, כאשר עיתונים רבים בחרו להתייחס לאישה כאל "טרנסג'נדר" או אף כ"גבר בבגדי אישה".

טרנספוביה בשוק העבודה

מעסיקים רבים נוטים שלא לשכור אנשים בעלי חזות החורגת מן הנורמה המגדרית. לפיכך אנשים טרנסג'נדרים מוצאים עצמם פעמים רבות מתקשים למצוא עבודה. אלימות ואווירה טרנספובית עשויות להתגלות גם תוך כדי העבודה במקום העבודה, ולעתים אנשים טרנסג'נדרים אשר רק מתחילים את תהליך השינוי המגדרי שלהם מוצאים עצמם מפוטרים מעבודתם בעקבות זאת. מקומות עבודה המעסיקים אנשים טרנסג'נדרים ומונעים היווצרות אווירה טרנספובית מכונים "טרנספרנדליים".

בשנת 2013 מרינה משל, טרנסג'נדרית אשר עבדה כמתרגלת מתמטיקה בבית ספר דתי לנערות בפתח תקווה, טענה שפוטרה מעבודתה בשל סירובה להסתיר את זהותה המגדרית. תביעה תקדימית שהגישה משל לבית הדין האזורי לעבודה בתל אביב נדחתה ברוב דעות, ונקבע בפסק הדין שהיא פוטרה מסיבות מוצדקות שאינן קשורות לזהות המינית שלה.

ראו גם

• הומופוביה
• ביפוביה
• טרנסג'נדר

קישורים חיצוניים

• הבנ"ה - היום הבינלאומי נגד הומופוביה, לסבופוביה, טרנספוביה וביפוביה
• דיון בנושא הומופוביה, לסבופוביה, ביפוביה וטרנספוביה בפורום אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון
• הומופוביה, לסבופוביה, ביפוביה וטרנספוביה באתר תהל"ה
• כך נראית טרנסמיזוגניה מאמר מתורגם מאת טובי היל-מאייר בבלוג "שולפת ציפורניים"

הערות שוליים

קטגוריה:אלימות נגד להט"ב קטגוריה:להט"ב קטגוריה:שנאה קטגוריה:אפליה מינית

תבנית:Transgender sidebar Transphobia (or much less commonly transprejudice) is a range of antagonistic attitudes and feelings against transsexuality and transsexual or transgender people. Transphobia can be emotional disgust, fear, anger or discomfort felt or expressed towards people who do not conform to society's gender expectations. Although it is an aspect of homophobia, and is similar to racism and sexism, views that are homophobic, racist or sexist have largely become unacceptable in modern society, whereas significantly more individuals still maintain transphobic views without fear of censure.

The related term cissexism (or cissexual assumption, which is occasionally used synonymously with transphobia or, more rarely, cisgenderism) is the appeal to norms that enforce the gender binary and gender essentialism, resulting in the oppression of gender variant, non-binary, and trans identities. Cisgenderism refers to the assumption that, due to human sexual differentiation, one's gender is determined solely by a biological sex of male or female (based on the assumption that all people must have either an XX or XY sex-chromosome pair, or, in the case of cisgenderism, a bivalent male or female expression), and that trans people are inferior to cisgender people due to being in "defiance of nature".

Whether intentional or not, transphobia and cissexism have severe consequences for the target of the negative attitude. As homophobia and transphobia are correlated, many trans people experience homophobia and heterosexism; this is due to people who associate trans people's gender identity with homosexuality, or because trans people also have a sexual orientation that is non-heterosexual. Attacking someone on the basis of a perception of their gender identity rather than a perception of their sexual orientation is known as "trans bashing", analogous to "gay bashing".

Etymology and use

The word transphobia is a classical compound patterned on the term homophobia, sharing its second component -phobia from the תבנית:Lang-el, phóbos, "fear". The first component is the neo-classical prefix trans- from transgender (originally meaning "across, on the far side, beyond"). Along with biphobia, homophobia and transphobia are members of the family of terms used when intolerance and discrimination is directed toward LGBT people.

Transphobia need not be a phobia as defined in clinical psychology (i.e., an anxiety disorder). Its meaning and use typically parallel those of xenophobia.

The adjectival form transphobic describes things or qualities related to transphobia, whereas the noun transphobe is a label for people thought to harbor transphobia.

Origins

The transfeminist theorist and author Julia Serano argues in her book Whipping Girl that transphobia is rooted in sexism. She locates the origins of both transphobia and homophobia in what she calls "oppositional sexism", the belief that male and female are "rigid, mutually exclusive categories, each possessing a unique and nonoverlapping set of attributes, aptitudes, abilities, and desires". Serano contrasts oppositional sexism with "traditional sexism", the belief that males and masculinity are superior to females and femininity. Furthermore, she writes that transphobia is fueled by insecurities people have about gender and gender norms.

The transgender author and critic Jody Norton believes that transphobia is an extension of homophobia and misogyny. She argues that transgender people, like gays and lesbians, are hated and feared for challenging and undermining gender norms and the gender binary. Norton writes that the "male-to-female transgender incites transphobia through her implicit challenge to the binary division of gender upon which male cultural and political hegemony depends".

Manifestations

Harassment and violence

תבנית:See also Harassment and violence directed against transgender people is often called trans bashing, and can be physical, sexual or verbal. Whereas gay bashing is directed against a target's real or perceived sexual orientation, trans bashing is directed against the target's real or perceived expressed gender identity. The term has also been applied to hate speech directed at transgender people and to depictions of transgender people in the media that reinforce negative stereotypes about them. Notable victims of violent crimes motivated by transphobia include Brandon Teena, Gwen Araujo, Angie Zapata, Nizah Morris, and Lauren Harries.

According to the American Psychological Association, transgender children are more likely than other children to experience harassment and violence in school, foster care, residential treatment centers, homeless centers and juvenile justice programs. Researchers say trans youth routinely experience taunting, teasing and bullying at school, and that nearly all trans youth say they were verbally or physically harassed in school, particularly during gym class, at school events, or when using single-sex restrooms. Three-quarters report having felt unsafe.

As adults, transgender people are frequently subjected to ridicule, stares, taunting and threats of violence, even when just walking down the street or walking into a store. A U.S. survey of 402 older, employed, high-income transgender people found that 60% reported violence or harassment because of their gender identity. 56% had been harassed or verbally abused, 30% had been assaulted, 17% had had objects thrown at them, 14% had been robbed and 8% had experienced what they characterized as an unjustified arrest.

A study of 81 transgender people in Philadelphia found 30% reported feeling unsafe in public because they were transgender, with 19% feeling uncomfortable for the same reason. When asked if they had ever been forced to have sex, experienced violence in their home, or been physically abused, the majority answered yes to each question.

A review of American studies on sexual violence towards transgender people found that around 50% of transgender people have been sexually assaulted.

When transgender people are murdered, they are often shot or stabbed repeatedly, riddled with bullets or bludgeoned beyond recognition.

Misgendering and exclusion

Misgendering is a word coined by transgender American writer and biologist Julia Serano to refer to the experience of being labeled by someone as having a gender other than the one you identify with. Misgendering can be deliberate or accidental. It ordinarily takes the form of a person using pronouns (including "it") to describe someone that are not the ones that person prefers, calling a person "ma'am" or "sir" in contradiction to the person's gender identity, using a pre-transition name for someone instead of a post-transition one (called "deadnaming"), or insisting that a person behave consistently with their assigned rather than self-identified gender, for example by using a bathroom designated for males even though the person identifies as female. The experience of being misgendered is common for all transgender people before they transition, and for many afterwards as well. Transgender people are regularly misgendered by doctors, police, media and peers, experiences that they have described as mortifying, hurtful, especially to transgender youth, cruel, and "only making our lives harder". Knowingly and deliberately misgendering a transgender person is considered extremely offensive by transgender individuals. In 2008, Allen Andrade beat to death Colorado transgender teenager Angie Zapata, whom he later described to police as "it."

In August 2013, after murdered 21-year-old New York trans woman Islan Nettles was referred to as "he" by a speaker at her memorial service, transgender actress Laverne Cox characterized misgendering as "part of the violence that led to Islan's death."

In 2014, a Connecticut trans girl known only as Jane Doe (due to her status as a minor) has several times been placed in facilities for men and boys during her continuing imprisonment without charges. She has also been misgendered by the writers of some letters to the editor of the Hartford Courant.

Transgender people are often excluded from entitlements or privileges reserved for people whose gender identity they share, but whose assigned gender they do not. It is very common, for example, for transgender women to be stopped or questioned when they use public bathrooms designated for women.

Homeless shelters, hospitals and prisons have denied trans women admission to women's areas and forced them to sleep and bathe in the presence of men. This situation has been changing in some areas, however. For example, on February 8, 2006, New York City's Department of Homeless Services announced an overhaul of its housing policy with the goal of specifically ending discrimination against transgender people in its shelters.

As users of healthcare

תבנית:See also A study of 81 transgender people in Philadelphia found 14% said they had been refused routine medical care because they were transgender. 18% answered yes when asked if, when they went in for a check-up, "being transgendered create[d] a problem" for them.

Transgender people depend largely on the medical profession to receive not only hormone replacement therapy, but also vital care. In one case, Robert Eads died of ovarian cancer after being refused treatment by more than two dozen doctors. In the US-based National Center For Transgender Equality's 2011 survey, 19% had been refused medical care due to their transgender or gender non-conforming status, showing that refusal of treatment due to transphobia is not uncommon. Another example of this is the case of Tyra Hunter. Hunter was involved in an automobile accident, and when rescue workers discovered she was transgender, they backed away and stopped administering treatment. She later died in a hospital.

In many European countries, any transgender person who wishes to change their legal gender must first be sterilized. Several countries are reviewing this law; Sweden repealed it in December 2012.

In the workplace

Transphobia also manifests itself in the workplace. Some transgender people lose their jobs when they begin to transition. A study from Willamette University stated that a transsexual person fired for following the recommended course of treatment rarely wins it back through federal or state statutes.

News stories from the San Francisco Chronicle and Associated Press cite a 1999 study by the San Francisco Department of Public Health finding a 70 percent unemployment rate amongst the city's transgender population. On February 18, 1999, the San Francisco Department of Public Health issued the results of a 1997 survey of 392 trans women and 123 trans men, which found that 40 percent of those trans women surveyed had earned money from full or part-time employment over the preceding six months. For trans men, the equivalent statistic was 81 percent. The survey also found that 46 percent of trans women and 57 percent of trans men reported employment discrimination.

A 2002 American study found that among educators, trans educators are 10-20% more likely to experience workplace harassment than their gay and lesbian colleagues.

In the hiring process, discrimination may be either open or covert, with employers finding other ostensible reasons not to hire a candidate or just not informing prospective employees at all as to why they are not being hired. Additionally, when an employer fires or otherwise discriminates against a transgender employee, it may be a "mixed motive" case, with the employer openly citing obvious wrongdoing, job performance issues or the like (such as excessive tardiness, for example) while keeping silent in regards to transphobia.^{[דרוש מקור]}

Employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression is illegal in some U.S. cities, towns and states. Such discrimination is outlawed by specific legislation in the State of New Jersey and might be in other states (as it is in the states of California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington) or city ordinances; additionally, it is covered by case law in some other states. (For example, Massachusetts is covered by cases such as Lie vs. Sky Publishing Co. and Jette vs. Honey Farms.) Several other states and cities prohibit such discrimination in public employment. Sweden and the United Kingdom has also legislated against employment discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. Sometimes, however, employers discriminate against transgender employees in spite of such legal protections.

There is at least one high-profile employment-related court case unfavorable to transgender people. In 2000, the southern U.S. grocery chain Winn-Dixie fired longtime employee Peter Oiler, despite a history of repeatedly earning raises and promotions, after management learned that the married, heterosexual truck driver occasionally cross-dressed off the job. Management argued that this hurt Winn-Dixie's corporate image. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Winn-Dixie on behalf of Oiler but a judge dismissed it.

Sometimes transgender people facing employment discrimination turn to sex work to survive, placing them at additional risk of such things as encountering troubles with the law, including arrest and criminal prosecution; enduring workplace violence; and possibly contracting sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV.

From government

Transgender people also face the denial of right of asylum or inhuman treatment in process of asylum-seeking. For example, Fernada Milan, a transsexual woman from Guatemala was placed in an asylum center for males in Denmark and while there, was raped by several men. She was in danger of deportation into Guatemala where transgender people have no rights and face possible execution, but has since been granted entry.

Transgender disenfranchisement is the practice of creating or upholding barriers that keep transgender individuals from voting and therefore restrict the principles of universal suffrage. תבנית:See also

In social conservatism

The Christian Right, including organizations such as the American Family Association, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and Roman Catholic Church, believe that transgenderism is unnatural and that transgender people are and remain their birth sex, and they oppose laws and policies intended to accommodate transgender people, such as allowing them to change their legal sex, use the washroom corresponding to the gender with which they identify, or become ordained Christian ministers. They say that God created people's bodies as they are meant to be, that accepting transgender people would violate scripture and natural law, and that the bible refers to male and female.

According to the Ontario Consultants for Religious Tolerance website, under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican first stated its opposition to reassignment surgery in 2000, although it was not made public until 2003.

In feminism

תבנית:See also Radical feminists that hold antagonistic views of transgender people, particularly against trans women, are commonly called TERFs, or trans exclusionary radical feminists. Radical feminist Janice Raymond's 1979 book, The Transsexual Empire, was and still is controversial due to its unequivocal condemnation of transsexual surgeries. In the book Raymond says, "All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves .... Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive." Raymond also authored a paper in the 1980s which the United States Department of Health and Human Services used to deny trans people access to transgender-specific healthcare.

Perhaps the most visible site of conflict between feminists and trans women has been the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. The festival ejected a transsexual woman, Nancy Burkholder, in the early 1990s. Since then, the festival has maintained an intention that it is for "womyn-born-womyn" only. The activist group Camp Trans formed to protest the "womyn-born-womyn" intention and to advocate for greater acceptance of trans women within the feminist community. A number of prominent transgender activists and transfeminists were involved in Camp Trans including Riki Wilchins, Jessica Xavier, and Leslie Feinberg.^{[דרוש מקור]} The festival considered allowing only post-operative trans women to attend, however this was criticized as classist, as many trans women cannot afford sex reassignment surgery.

Kimberly Nixon is a trans woman who volunteered for training as a rape crisis counselor at Vancouver Rape Relief & Women's Shelter in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1995. When Nixon's transsexual status was determined, she was expelled. The staff decided that Nixon's status made it impossible for her to understand the experiences of their clients, and also required their clients to be genetically female. Nixon disagreed, disclosing her own history of partner abuse and sued for discrimination. Nixon's attorneys argued that there was no basis for the dismissal, citing Diana Courvant's experiences as the first publicly transsexual woman to work in a women-only domestic violence shelter. In 2007 the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear Nixon's appeal, ending the case.

Outside Canada, not all rape survivors organisations refuse to support transsexual rape survivors. Wellington Independent Rape Crisis featured former sex worker, New Zealand Labour Party MP and the world's first transsexual elected national representative Georgina Beyer on one of its "Take Back the Night" marches as a rape survivor herself, and Beyer has also assisted the Auckland-based HELP Foundation for sexual abuse counselling, prevention and support, appearing in a poster campaign to call for higher levels of government funding.^{[דרוש מקור]}

Transsexual women such as Sandy Stone challenged the feminist conception of "biological woman". Stone worked as a sound engineer for Olivia Records from about 1974 to 1978, resigning as the controversy over a trans woman working for a lesbian-identified enterprise increased. The debate continued in Raymond's book, which devoted a chapter to criticism of "the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist." Groups like Lesbian Organization of Toronto then voted to exclude trans lesbians. Sheila Jeffreys labeled transgenderism "deeply problematic from a feminist perspective and [stated] that transsexualism should be seen as a violation of human rights."

However, Andrea Dworkin, a noted anti-pornography feminist supported the right of trans women to be considered authentic women in her book Women-Hating (1978). Other cisgender feminist support came from the work of poststructuralist feminist Judith Butler, particularly her books Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter (1993), which argue that the violent "inscription" of gender as a social construct on human bodies leads to violence against those that violate such binaristic gender dichotomies. Butler is lesbian. Most younger lesbian and other cisgender feminists strongly dissent from feminist transphobia. The latter is now generally regarded as archaic, rooted in feminists' historical distrust of patriarchal medical definitions of and interventions into women's physicality.^{[דרוש מקור]}

In the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities

Transphobia is documented in the lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) communities, despite historic cooperation between these communities in campaigns for equality, such as in the Stonewall Riots.

Authors and observers, such as transgender author Jillian Todd Weiss, have written that "there are social and political forces that have created a split between gay/lesbian communities and bisexual/transgender communities, and these forces have consequences for civil rights and community inclusion. 'Biphobia' and 'transphobia' are a result of these social and political forces, not psychological forces causing irrational fears in aberrant individuals."

Gay and lesbian communities

Protesters outside the 2010 premiere of Ticked-Off Trannies With Knives, written and directed by gay filmmaker Israel Luna, objecting to what they considered to be transphobic portrayals in the film and its trailer, which referred to several notable real-life murders of transgender people before being taken down.

Historian Joanne Meyerowitz documented transphobia within the gay rights movement in the mid 20th century in response to publicity surrounding the transition of Christine Jorgensen. Jorgensen, who made frequent homophobic remarks and insisted she was not connected to or identified with gay men, was a polarizing figure among activists:

In 1953, for example, ONE magazine published a debate among its readers as to whether gay men should denounce Jorgensen. In the opening salvo, the author Jeff Winters accused Jorgensen of a "sweeping disservice" to gay men. "As far as the public knows," Winters wrote, "you were merely another unhappy homosexual who decided to get drastic about it." For Winters, Jorgensen's story simply confirmed the false belief that all men attracted to other men must be basically feminine," which, he said, "they are not." Jorgensen's precedent, he thought, encouraged the "reasoning" that led "to legal limitations upon the homosexual, mandatory injections, psychiatric treatment – and worse." In the not-so-distant past, scientists had experimented with castrating gay men.

Several prominent figures in second wave feminism have also been accused of transphobic attitudes, culminating in 1979 with the publication of The Transsexual Empire by radical lesbian feminist Janice Raymond, who popularized the term shemale as derogatory slur referring to trans women in 1994, and her statements on transsexuality and transsexuals have been criticized by many in the LGBT and feminist communities as extremely transphobic and as constituting hate speech.

Kay Brown of transhistory.net (website no longer online) compiled a long chronology of trans people being ejected from gay organizations since the 1970s. Her work was cited by Jillian Todd Weiss, who also wrote that "[t]here was a vigorous debate in the U.S. homophile movement of the 1950s [...] Some gay men and lesbians denounced those who felt themselves to be of the opposite sex, criticizing them for acting like "freaks," bringing disrepute to those gays and lesbians trying to live quietly within heterosexual society. Such attitudes were prevalent within the gay and lesbian community at the time."

Some trans men face rejection from lesbian communities they had been part of prior to transition. Journalist Louise Rafkin writes, "[t]here are those who are feeling curiously uncomfortable standing by as friends morph into men. Sometimes there is a generational flavor to this discomfort; many in the over-40 crowd feel particular unease", stating that this was "shaking the foundation of the lesbian-feminist world". Trans men were part of the protest at the 2000 Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, the first time the 'womyn-born womyn only' policy has been used against trans males, women supporting the transsexual community and young gender-variant women.

In the early 1970s, conflicts began to emerge due to different syntheses of lesbian, feminist and transgender political movements, particularly in the United States. San Francisco trans activist and entertainer Beth Elliott became the focus of debate over whether to include transgender lesbians in the movement, and she was eventually blacklisted by her own movement.

Bisexual communities and binarism

One view is that the word bisexual is transphobic, as "bi" means "two" (thus implying a belief in the binary view of gender). Some people, such as scholar Shiri Eisner, say that some make the claim that the term "erases nonbinary genders and sexes out of existence", as many dictionaries define bisexuality as "[o]f, relating to, or having a sexual orientation to persons of either sex", "[s]exually attracted to both men and women" and other similar definitions.

However, some bisexual individuals and scholars object to the notion that bisexuality means sexual attraction to only two genders, arguing that since bisexual is not simply about attraction to two sexes and encompasses gender as well, it can include attraction to more than one or more than two genders and is occasionally defined as such. Others, such as the American Institute of Bisexuality, say that the term "is an open and inclusive term for many kinds of people with same-sex and different-sex attractions" and that "the scientific classification bisexual only addresses the physical, biological sex of the people involved, not the gender-presentation."

In order to deal with issues related to transphobia and the gender binary, many individuals have taken on terms such as pansexual, omnisexual (an alternative word for pansexual) or polysexual in place of the term bisexual. The American Institute of Bisexuality argues that these terms "describe a person with homosexual and heterosexual attractions, and therefore people with these labels are also bisexual" and that the notion that bisexuality is a reinforcement of a gender binary is a concept that is founded upon "anti-science, anti-Enlightenment philosophy that has ironically found a home within many Queer Studies departments at universities across the Anglophone world". Eisner agrees with this view, stating that "allegations of binarism have little to do with bisexuality's actual attributes or bisexual people's behavior in real life" and that the allegations are an attempt to separate the bisexual and transgender communities politically.

Consequences

Transphobia creates significant stresses for transgender people which can lead them to feel shame, low self-esteem, alienation and inadequacy. Transgender youth often try to cope with the stress by running away from home, dropping out of school, using drugs or cutting. Although it is difficult to obtain accurate statistics, suicide rates among transgender people are thought to be especially high, because of how they are treated by their families and by society. Suicide attempts reported by transgender and gender non-conforming adults vastly exceed the rate of the general U.S. population, 41 percent versus 4.6 percent.

See also

• Cissexism
• Genderism
• Global Action for Trans Equality
• Hate crime
• Corrective rape
• Legal aspects of transsexualism
• LGBT people in prison
• LGBT rights opposition
• List of transgender-related topics
• List of unlawfully killed transgender people
• Non-binary discrimination
• Press for Change - UK law organisation for transgender people
• Transgender Day of Remembrance
• Transgender Europe
• Transgender Law Center
• Transgender youth
• Transmisogyny
• Yogyakarta Principles

Further reading

• Thematic report on Discrimination against trans and intersex people on the grounds of sex, gender identity and gender expression, The European Commission, 2012.

External links

• Remembering our Dead
• Survivor bashing – bias motivated hate crimes
• Translatina documentary (2010)

Category:Discrimination against LGBT people Category:Sexism Category:Sexuality and gender-related prejudices Category:Prejudices

Supercell variations

Supercell thunderstorms are sometimes classified by meteorologists and storm spotters into three categories. However, not all supercells fit neatly into any one category, being hybrid storms, and many supercells may fall into different categories during different periods of their lifetimes. The standard definition given above is referred to as the Classic supercell. All types of supercells typically produce severe weather.

Low Precipitation (LP)

Schematics of an LP supercell

Idealized view of an LP supercell

LP supercells contain a small and relatively light precipitation (rain/hail) core that is well separated the updraft. The updraft is intense and LPs are inflow dominant storms. The updraft tower is typically more strongly tilted and the deviant rightward motion lesser than for other supercell types. The forward flank downdraft (FFD) is noticeably weaker than for other supercell types and the rear-flank downdraft (RFD) is much weaker—even visually absent in many cases. Like classic supercells, LP supercells tend to form within stronger mid-to-upper level storm-relative wind shear, however, the atmospheric environment leading to their formation is not well understood. The moisture profile of the atmosphere, particularly the depth of the elevated dry layer, also appears to be important and the low-to-mid level shear may also be important.

This type of supercell may be easily identifiable with "sculpted" cloud striations in the updraft base or even a "corkscrewed" or "barber pole" appearance on the updraft, and sometimes an almost "anorexic" look compared to classic supercells. This is because they often form within drier moisture profiles (often initiated by dry lines) leaving LPs with little available moisture despite high mid-to-upper level environmental winds. They most often dissipate rather than turning into classic or HP supercells, although it is still not unusual for LPs to do the latter, especially when moving into a much moister air mass. LPs were first formally described by Howard Bluestein in the early 1980s although storm chasing scientists noticed them throughout the 1970s. Classic supercells may wither yet maintain updraft rotation as they decay, becoming more like the LP type in a process known as "downscale transition" that also applies to LP storms and this process is thought to be how many LPs dissipate.

LP supercells rarely spawn tornadoes and those that form tend to be weak, small, and high based tornadoes but strong tornadoes have been observed. These storms although generating lesser precipitation amounts and producing smaller precipitation cores can generate huge hail. LPs may produce hail larger than baseballs in clear air where no rainfall is visible. LPs are thus hazardous to people and animals caught outside as well as to storm chasers and spotters. Due to the lack of a heavy precipitation core, LP supercells often exhibit relatively weak radar reflectivity without clear evidence of a hook echo, when in fact they are producing a tornado at the time. LP supercells may not even be recognized as supercells in reflectivity data unless one is trained or experienced on their radar characteristics. This is where observations by storm spotter and storm chasers may be of vital importance in addition to Doppler velocity (and polarimetric) radar data. High-based shear funnel clouds sometimes form midway between the base and the top of the storm, descending from the main Cb (cumulonimbus) cloud.^{[דרוש מקור]} Lightning discharges may be less frequent compared to other supercell types, but on occasion LPs are prolific sparkers, and the discharges are more likely to occur as intracloud lightning rather than cloud-to-ground lightning.^{[דרוש מקור]}

In North America, these storms most prominently form in the semi-arid Great Plains during the spring and summer months. Moving east and southeast, they often collide with moist air masses from the Gulf of Mexico, leading to the formation of HP supercells in areas just to the west of Interstate 35 before dissipating (or coalescing into squall lines) at variable distances farther east. LP supercells have been observed as far east as Illinois and Indiana, however. LP supercells can occur as far north as Montana, North Dakota, and even in the Prairie Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in Canada. They have also been observed by storm chasers in Australia and Argentina (the Pampas).^{[דרוש מקור]}

LP supercells are quite sought after by storm chasers, because the limited amount of precipitation makes sighting tornadoes at a safe distance much less difficult than with a classic or HP supercell and more so because of the unobscured storm structure unveiled. During spring and early summer, areas in which LP supercells are readily spotted include southwestern Oklahoma and northwestern Texas, among other parts of the western Great Plains.^{[דרוש מקור]}

High Precipitation (HP)

Schematics of an HP supercell

High precipitation supercell

The HP supercell has a much heavier precipitation core that can wrap all the way around the mesocyclone. These are especially dangerous storms, since the mesocyclone is wrapped with rain and can hide a tornado (if present) from view. These storms also cause flooding due to heavy rain, damaging downbursts and weak tornadoes, although they are also known to produce strong to violent tornadoes. They have a lower potential for damaging hail than Classic and LP supercells, although damaging hail is possible. It has been observed by some spotters that they tend to produce more cloud-to-ground and intracloud lightning than the other types. Also, unlike the LP and Classic types, severe events usually occur at the front (southeast) of the storm. The HP supercell is the most common type of supercell in the United States east of Interstate 35, in the southern parts of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec in Canada, and in the central portions of Argentina and Uruguay.

Mini-supercell or low-topped supercell

Whereas classic, HP, and LP refer to different precipitation regimes and mesoscale frontal structures, another variation was identified in the early 1990s by Jon Davies. These smaller storms were initially called mini-supercells but are now commonly referred to as low-topped supercells. These are also subdivided into Classic, HP and LP types.