March 20, 2019 – Bridge Agents

For Native Americans, US-Mexico Border Is an ‘Imaginary Line’

March 20, 2019 Bridge Agents

United States (Conversation) – The traditional homelands of 36 federally recognized tribes – including the Kumeyaay, Pai, Cocopah, O’odham, Yaqui, Apache and Kickapoo peoples – were split in two by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and 1853 Gadsden Purchase, which carved modern-day California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas out of northern Mexico. Today, tens of thousands of people belonging to U.S. Native tribes live in the Mexican states of Baja California, Sonora, Coahuila and Chihuahua, my research estimates. The Mexican government does not recognize indigenous peoples in Mexico as…

Japan: Compelled Sterilization of Transgender People

March 20, 2019 Bridge Agents

(Tokyo) – Japan’s government should stop forcing transgender people to be surgically sterilized if they want legal recognition of their gender identity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Requiring a medical intervention as a condition of having their gender identity legally recognized violates Japan’s human rights obligations and runs counter to international medical standards. The 84-page report, “‘A Really High Hurdle’: Japan’s Abusive Transgender Legal Recognition Process,” documents how Japan’s Gender Identity Disorder Special Cases (GID) Act harms transgender people who want to be legally recognized but…