Canada, US: California Gay Marriage, Ontario SRS

Same sex couples in California, and transgendered people in Ontario have made great steps in the past week. In California same-sex couples won a great victory this week as the California Supreme Court struck down the ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. This would make California the second state in the USA that same-sex marriage is legal, the other being Massachusetts which made same-sex marriage legal in 2004. In Canada it took slowly province by province before a decision was made in the Federal Court however, such a large state as California could prove to have weight on other states' rulings.

In Ontario transsexuals are on the edge of rejoicing with the decision that the provincial government will be reinstating coverage of sex reassignment surgery which was delisted from health care in 1998. The coverage of SRS will provide about 10 people with operations per year. There is apprehension however, about what standards will be used to approve people for the surgery. There is a hope among the trans community that the decision will not be left to the Clarke institute which works on very strict interpretations of gender as well as is heterosexist.