Micah Grzywnowicz: Rebel with a cause
HELEN WOLKOWICZ, The Montreal Gazette, AUGUST 9, 2013
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Micah+Grzywnowicz+Rebel+with+cause/8770961/story.htmlHuman-rights expert Micah Grzywnowicz came to Montreal with an admittedly crazy objective: "To change the world." The trajectory to accomplish this... went all the way to the UN.
Dedicated to advancing the rights of trans people, the Polish-born activist finds the gender binary of male and female stifling and identifies as transgender. (Grzywnowicz has requested the use of gender-neutral pronouns, accepted within the trans community: "hir" for her/him and her/his, and "zie" for she/he.)...
Originally, hir project was to develop a tool kit for activists to fight laws that oblige trans people to submit to sexual reassignment surgery in order to have their gender marker changed on legal documents. When the surgery is not desired by those who want to change their gender marker on those documents, Grzywnowicz says, it is tantamount to forced sterilization...
With a spectrum of gender identities, the path of a trans person is a highly individual one. Many are eager to have sexual reassignment surgery, to complete their identification as the opposite of their birth gender. But not all trans people feel the need for medical transition...
