Bio & Resume
“Ian Harvie is on a mission. Sure, the Transgender stand-up comic wants to make audiences laugh, but only if s/he can humanize Trans people at the same time. Harvie, who plays to mainstream comedy establishments around the country, including the Boston Comedy Connection, and the Funny Bone clubs, contends that s/he’s the only Trans comic on the circuit.”
– San Francisco Bay Times, July 2006
Ian grew up on Beaver Pond (for real) in rural mountain town, Bridgton, Maine until the age of twelve. Ian’s first comedy performance was in a family variety show on New Years Day 1975. “I was standing in front of a fitted sheet that was hanging on a clothesline in the spare bedroom of my Aunt and Uncle's house in Rochester, New Hampshire. It was a period in my life when I was obsessed with the Carol Burnett Show and her whole cast,” Ian recalls. Channeling the energies of Tim Conway and Rich Little, Ian executed an impression of Richard Little doing an impression of Richard Nixon – a complicated and technical feat. “As I recall, my impression killed. So what if the audience of all 7 or 8 people were family members.” s/he laughs. For years after that, Ian received regular requests for that impression and obliged every time. Still to this day, if a family member were to ask, Ian would do it in a heartbeat. . . .
Check out his/her video clip.
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“The world probably isn’t ready for a guy like me,” says trans singer Joshua Klipp, who made musical history on his self released EP Patience by singing in both his pre- and post-transition voices on the R&B track “Little Girl.” Klipp says he was terrified that his transition would destroy his voice and he searched for medial studies about the effects of testosterone on female-to-male vocal chords. Finding none, he enlisted the help of Dr. Edward Damrose, a throat specialist at Stanford University, who monitored Klipp’s physiological changes and its effects on his voice. Dr. Damrose plans to publish his findings.
“It’s funny because now everyone says, ‘You’ve got a great voice.’” Klipp says. “[But] I [used to have] this perfect pitch. I had a pitch in my head and it would just happen… and all of a sudden that muscle memory was just shot... I’m still working with how that actually feels… and I’m still getting used to it.”
Klipp is a bit of a Renaissance man. In addition to his musical endeavors, the trans man holds a degree in law, teaches dance, directs the San Francisco Bay Area hip hop dance company Freeplay, provides promotional photography for local artists, sits on the board of directors for Youth Speaks and he founded San Francisco Bay Area Artist Development and Support (www.myspace. com/cutelittlewhiteguy) to help artists develop business infrastructure.
The San Francisco singer, who is in his early thirties, says the latter project is something he devoted a great deal of time to during the initial part of his transition. “I didn’t know if I would be able to be the artist. So I made a commitment to myself that if I can’t be it…I’m going to take all that energy and put it towards getting other people out there and…supporting their art in whatever way I can.”
Klipp originally recorded “Little Girl” about five years ago, but recently enlisted songwriter Kristopher Cloud in pairing those female vocals with Klipp’s masculine verses, so that the song becomes a soothing lullaby from his male self to the girl he was.
“The whole process of letting go of that voice that I used to have was such a hugely emotional experience for me, that singing along with it with my current voice kind of felt like a resolution.” . . .
05/14/2007
Japan's leading hospital in sex-change operations has stopped offering its services, leaving a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the treatment of patients suffering from gender identity disorder.
Saitama Medical University called a halt to the operations after professor Takao Harashina, a surgeon specializing in plastic surgery, retired at the end of April.
University President Toshio Yamauchi said it had become impossible to assemble a team of experienced doctors to perform sex-change operations.
Gender identity disorder, the condition in which people do not identify with the sex they were born with, is slowly beginning to win social recognition in Japan.
The suspension of operations at Saitama Medical University could jeopardize the hopes for the treatment of the nation's estimated 10,000 patients, experts say.
The university's plastic surgery department has canceled the nearly 60 sex-change operations it was scheduled to perform between May and October.
Yamauchi said the university hopes to resume sex-change operations as early as possible, emphasizing that its policy to offer the medical treatment remains unchanged.
Three years ago, it became possible for people diagnosed with the condition to change their sex on family registers by applying to family courts.
Applicants must undergo sex-change operations and fulfill other conditions before applying for the changes to registers.
Several other universities, including Okayama University and Kansai Medical University, perform sex-change operations, but the number of operations carried out by those institutions is limited.
The change from woman to man is particularly difficult. The procedure requires advanced technology and experience, experts noted.
Saitama Medical University carried out the nation's first legal sex-change operation in 1998.
The treatment of people suffering from gender identity disorder was formally introduced after the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology compiled guidelines in 1997.
The guidelines call for patients to first receive psychotherapeutic and hormone treatment and, when necessary, to undergo sex-change operations.
So far, 357 patients suffering from gender identity disorder have undergone sex-change operations at Saitama Medical University, according to Harashina.
About 60 percent have undergone relatively simple operations to remove their breasts.
But 21 people have had male sex organs attached.
Toshiyuki Oshima, director of the Japanese Society of Gender Identity Disorder, said Japan should have its own treatment center for patients.
Oshima, a professor at Kyushu International University, said doctors who can perform sex-change operations are limited. He also noted that such operations are not covered by medical insurance.
Operations done overseas can involve considerable difficulties due to language problems as well as issues during post-operation medical care, he added.(IHT/Asahi: May 14,2007)
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| Dr. Marci Bowers is not a hero in her small-town Colorado. |
At first glance, the small Colorado town of Trinidad seems an unlikely travel destination, yet over the last four decades, thousands of trans women have flocked to the quiet burg. Their pilgrimage continues today despite the resistance of local religious leaders.
Behind its quaint architecture and coal mining history, Trinidad conceals its reputation as “sex-change capital of the world.” The town first became a trans destination in the late 1960s when Dr. Stanley Biber began performing vaginoplasty for male to female transsexuals. When Biber retired in 2003 after 5,800 surgeries, his protégé Dr. Marci Bowers took over the practice.
A trans woman and former Biber patient who lives in Trinidad with her female partner, Bowers brings a rare insider perspective to her practice, but it’s not appreciated by some of the town’s 9,000 mostly conservative residents. For the past year, Trinidad Ministerial Association has circulated petitions and pressured Mount San Rafael Hospital to prohibit Bowers from operating at their facility.
In their campaign to oust Bowers, the Ministerial Association frequently cites a Johns Hopkins University study they claim proves surgery isn’t successful in treating gender identity issues. Bowers (marcibowers.com) calls the 1972 John Hopkins study “a sham,” that misinterpreted its own data and has never been replicated. Originally pioneers in sex reassignment surgery, Johns Hopkins abandoned the practice decades ago, partly based on the study’s findings.
“If you look at the actual study itself, the satisfaction rates and happiness rates after [surgeries] were overwhelmingly positive,” Bowers insists. “Their interpretation of the study was that the respondents—the patients themselves—couldn’t possibly be accurate about what they were feeling, because they were crazy in the first place.”
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By: Mike DeesonWashington, D.C. - More than 100 transgendered people lobbied Congress for protection from being fired because of gender. Susan Stanton, who is in Washington for the event, stayed away from some of the media circus early in the day when the group began the lobby effort.
While you could tell from some of the looks that their agenda wasn't going to be an easy sell, when they went to see their congressmen, they found some sympathetic ears.
"Discrimination is not right in this country," says Rep. Jan Schakowsky, (D-IL). Schakowsky says she is aware of what happened to Susan Stanton and she will co-sponsor the Employment Non-discrimination Act. "It would include gender identity in there," she says. "You can't discriminate on the basis of gender identity." . . .
Do you have questions about the coming out journey? The Human Rights Campaign has a set of resources to help you along the way. Download a copy of our newly released Resource Guide to Coming Out, or read it online. Or download our Resource Guide to Coming Out for African Americans, the Spanish-language Guía de Recursos Para Salir Del Clóset or our guide to Living Openly in Your Place of Worship.