TOBY BEAUCHAMP, STEVEN BLEVINS, CYNTHIA DEGNAN, BENJAMIN D'HARLINGUE, CATHY HANNABACH, CHRISTOPHER LEE, TRISTAN JOSEPHSON, LIZ MONTEGARY and KARA THOMPSON authored this guest opinion. They are undergraduate and graduate students at UC Davis, engaged in queer and trans activist and academic work.
QuoteFor a chilling example of governmental regulation of bodies, sexuality and supposed deviance, consider the May 14 sentencing of an HIV-positive man in Dallas, Texas to 35 years in prison for spitting on a police officer. Despite long-standing reports from the Centers for Disease Control that saliva does not transmit HIV, the defendant's saliva was ruled a deadly weapon, meaning he must serve half of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
Consider also the current committee appointments for revising the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The DSM lists diagnostic criteria for mental disorders, including Gender Identity Disorder (homosexuality was removed in 1974). Dr. Kenneth Zucker is chairing the Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders Work Group, despite advocating that queer and trans people (especially youth) can be "cured" through reparative therapy. That many LGBT people are unaware of these recent abuses by state institutions reveals that the same-sex marriage struggle overshadows some of the most damaging actions against queer and trans communities.
