recceguy said:
I'm just taking a stab in the dark here, but I suspect your 'condition' will require ongoing medical surveillance, prophylaxis and possible surgery.
And your stab misses. My 'condition' is one is not going to ever change because there is no cure. SRS is not a cure, it is a treatment, optional one at that. All trans members presently active in the CF, their condition does not change just because they got SRS.
It is also not the only treatment, as there is also hormones, actually living life as your actual gender and all that entails to do so, other surgeries like breast removal, breasts augmentation, orchiectomy, Hysterectomy, and then legal aspects like employment and legally changing one's sex.
Each province have different requirements for legally changing one's sex that has nothing to do with medical. I fulfilled the requirements of my home province and so I got my sex legally changed. Federal government leaves it up to each province to handle that, and recognizes my legal change. So passport, driver's license, health card, insurance, SIN, medical files, employments, etc all say female with no issues or problems legally.
I fulfilled the requirements of "transitioning" as I am living my gender without any issues, hence no need of ongoing medical surveillence. Legal requirements have also been fulfilled. SRS at this point for me is optional, not requirement or needed for my ongoing mental health and gender, and not something I am presently in the process or scheduled to get. All the paperwork as been provided to medical...and still ignored and full SRS still required with no valid reason provided.
Steel Badger said:
Perhaps it is not a conspiracy to ignore what an applicant considers to be an open and shut solution to their own particular case: mayhap it is just that member of the CF doing his or her job IAW regulations. One should not implicate an idividual who is doing their job IAW regs.
As mentioned multiple times in this thread, there is nothing the medical standard and no present policy/regulation for my condition which was confirmed by various including a letter from DOD to an inquiry I made last october. The individual is using individual initiative, not rules, in his decision, no matter what their intentions was, and then failed to provide their reasoning as to how exactly genitalia or lack off is considered a limitation as per defined in the medical standard.
In the recruiting system, we are held to current rules and regs. And it is equally true, as Herr Loachman indicated, that rules and regs change over time. Perhaps in time the regs will change in Melian's favour...perhaps not.
Yes, but there is no current regs on my 'condition', hence a decision is made without it at the individual level which results in unfair treament.
ArmyVern said:
BUT, have you undergone GRS already or do you plan on doing so in the future?
Only a partial one to fulfill requirements of legal change, and presently not planning full SRS as I do not need it to maintain my gender and health.
to enrol anyone into the CF who is awaiting surgery - it has nothing to do with sexuality.
I am not awaiting surgery, and that has been made clear to the Major MD.
If you do not plan on undergoing GRS, the "legal" issue itself raises issues with both personal and operational security.
That is not the Major MD's job to determine that, especially unilaterally.
Members of the CF are required to deploy on international operations, at any time, anywhere in the world - often with zero notice. When we deploy internationally, we are required to comply with Canada's laws, our military laws, AND the laws of whichever country we are deploying into. A sad fact of life, unfortunately, is that there are more nations in the world who are a whole lot less 'accomodating' or 'advanced' socially if you will than Canada.
I am female, live as female, and my legal identification is female. I pretty fulfill every countries legal requirements in that regard.
What happens when you are arrested at their border because your non-girlie goods don't match what your legal documentation states? This creates an issue of both personal security and safety for you and, by default as your 'potential employer', onto the CF. Many nations will not be 'nice' with their inquisitions of you in that circumstance as the fact of the matter is that although your gender is legally recognized in Canada as that of a female, it is not so in the vast majority of those hellholes into which we deploy who's law we are also subjected to. In many of those places it is quite illegal (and severley punished) to "live as the gender you are not physically" and I'd imagine it'd be especially more so given that you'd hold legal paperwork (passport etc) that also didn't match up with the physical package being presented.
If they do not recognize legal identifications, and I am arrested, chances are I am screwed no matter what. There are countries who can arrest women for not covering themselves up in clothe, for wearing pants, for not being the right ethinicity, for not following a particular religion, etc. What does the CF do in those cases?
While I understand what you are saying here, it is a slippery slope and what ifs with no evidence. Again, also not something part of Major MD's job to determine that or medical in general.
On that front, I can see the legitimate concerns that not having, or ever intending to have, GRS places on both your capability to deploy on international ops in a universal manner (which has already been determined to be a 'military necessity' which was upheld during a Charter Challenge, thus allowing the CF to release personnel who do not "meet" that universality of service requirement) and the additional admin tasks placed upon the CF in dealing with any deployment to a foreign-theatre you may be subject to.
That is not a medical decision, and also, what does the CF do for intersex individuals? At present, I am not different from an intersex women with ambiguous genitalia.
Also, talking the charter. I am legally female and proven to live as female for many years, and getting denied because I am not "female enough" is goes against discrimination base on Sex. If the individual Major MD cannot prove how not having a particular set of genitalia is a medical limitation, or how it goes against "universality of service requirement", that is where it will end up if the CF backs him on that individual decision.
Whatever the case, there is no present clear cut regulation or policy on this (as confirmed by letter from DOD), hence still room to appeal.
