The Althingi parliament voted 49 to 0 to change the wording of marriage legislation to include matrimony between “man and man, woman and woman,” in addition to unions between men and women.

Iceland, a socially tolerant island nation of about 320,000 people, became the first country to elect an openly gay head of state in 2009 when Social Democrat Johanna Sigurdardottir became prime minister after being nominated by her party.

“The attitude in Iceland is fairly pragmatic,” said Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, a political scientist at the University of Iceland. “It (gay marriage) has not been a big issue in national politics — it’s not been controversial.”

The prime minister’s sexual orientation garnered far more interest among foreign media than in Iceland, where the attitude toward homosexuality has grown increasingly relaxed in the past two or three decades, Kristinsson added.

Iceland’s protestant church has yet to decide whether to allow same-sex marriages in church, although the law says “ministers will always be free to perform (gay) marriage ceremonies, but never obliged to.”

Iceland will become the ninth country to legalize same-sex marriage following legislation that passed the country’s parliament earlier this month. Same-sex marriage is already legal in Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden, but the issue creates more controversy in Mediterranean Catholic nations.

In the United States, gay marriage remains a frought political issue, with laws varying widely from state to state. Vermont was the first state to allow same-sex civil unions in 1999, followed by Massachusetts and Connecticut and others.

The U.S. State Department on June 9 altered its policy on transgender people and passports.

 State said it was “pleased to use the occasion of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month to announce its new policy guidelines regarding gender change in passports and Consular Reports of Births Abroad.”

Effective immediately, “When a passport applicant presents a certification from an attending medical physician that the applicant has undergone appropriate clinical treatment for gender transition, the passport will reflect the new gender.”

“Sexual reassignment surgery is no longer a prerequisite for passport issuance.”

The department said “It is also possible to obtain a limited-validity passport if the physician’s statement shows the applicant is in the process of gender transition. No additional medical records are required.”

The policy is based on the standards of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which is “recognized by the American Medical Association as the authority in this field,” the State Department said.

Prior to the policy change, trans people had to undergo sex-reassignment surgery before a new passport would be issued.

“By issuing this policy change, the State Department has recognized that transgender people need to be able to travel and live with identity documents that accurately reflect who they are,” said National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey. “The old policy regularly put transgender people at increased risk for harassment and violence.”

Lambda Legal’s Dru Levasseur said he was “grateful” for the change.

“When traveling at home and abroad, transgender people have been subject to dangerous situations because their passports did not reflect their gender,” Levasseur said. “These policy changes will have a real impact on people’s lives.”

Source: Yahoo News

Amanda Simpson is the first transgender person to be appointed by the Obama administration.

President Barack Obama has selected Amanda Simpson as a senior technical adviser to the Department of Commerce, making her the first transgender appointment of his administration.

“I’m truly honored to have received this appointment and am eager and excited about this opportunity that is before me,” Simpson said in a news release posted at the National Center for Transgender Equality’s Web site. “And at the same time, as one of the first transgender presidential appointees to the federal government, I hope that I will soon be one of hundreds, and that this appointment opens future opportunities for many others.”

Simpson has worked for over 30 years in the defense and aerospace industries, most notably at Raytheon, the news release said. A former military test pilot with degrees in physics, engineering and business administration, Simpson was named a “Woman on the Move,” by the YWCA in 2004, and received Arizona’s Human Rights Foundation Individual Award in 2005.

Simpson was the first transgender person to win a primary election when she became the Democratic nominee running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in Tucson. She later lost her bid to become the first transgender member of Congress. In 2002, she made the transition from male to female, undergoing gender reassignment surgery while at Raytheon.

“Amanda is incredibly smart and capable,” said Mara Keisling, executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, where Simpson has served as member of the board of directors for the past three years. “This was a merit-based appointment. What’s significant about it is that we finally have an administration in which being transgender isn’t a disqualifying factor for a job.”