Thursday, May 17, 2007
Helen and Betty Interview part 1
Author Helen Boyd and Betty Crow discuss their lives together. Betty is Helen's transgender husband.
I recommend Helen Boyd's books.
Transsexual Wins Battle Over Surgery Payment
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: May 17, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET
(Allentown, Pennsylvania) A 15-month battle with the administrator of a company insurance plan over the cost of sex reassignment surgery has ended in victory for an Ohio transsexual woman.
Electronics engineer Jan Stacy was told by company that its self insured plan covered the surgery, and in 2006 she entered hospital.
But when she later submitted her bills to the plan's administrator, Highmark Blue Shield, it refused to pay.
Stacy went back to the company human resources officer and again was told the company plan included sex reassignment. Nevertheless, Highmark stood firm, refusing to pay.
She then took her case to Equality Advocates, a Pennsylvania organization that provides legal services to the LGBT community.
Even after the initial intervention of Equality Advocates, Highmark continued to insist that it owed no reimbursement to Stacy and extended the policy exclusions to a routine office visit.
The organization and Highmark agreed to an arbitration process to avoid going to court. But even after Highmark finally conceded that Stacy’s surgery was covered by her employer’s current plan, they continued to refuse to pay most of the claim, on the grounds the surgery was performed "out of network", and that the surgeon did not charge the "reasonable and necessary" amount for the procedure.
Equality Advocates persisted and Stacy’s employer intervened forcing Highmark to reverse its position.
Stacy was ultimately awarded $14,097, the bulk of the surgery costs.
"It is appalling how badly Highmark Blue Shield mishandled Ms. Stacy’s claim," said Katie Eyer, Employment Rights Project Attorney at Equality Advocates.
"Their repeated refusal to pay this claim was clearly the result of bias against the transgender community, and demonstrated a willful ignorance of the medical necessity of procedures such as SRS."
Eyer said that transgenders across the country have "systemic" problems dealing with insurance claims. Stacy was fortunate, said Eyer, that her company has a written policy on equality and that it had its own insurance plan which specifically covered transsexuals.
Few other self administered plans or HMOs have such provisions.
Crowning moment . . .
 |
| Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee |
Johnny Vera, at 6-foot-4 in heels, towers over enthusiastic supporters as he sports the tiara representing his selection as queen for Roosevelt High's prom Saturday. More photos |
Roosevelt prom queen a transgender pioneer.
05/13/07 06:05:54
The silver tiara matched his silver stilettos when Johnny Vera was named prom queen Saturday night at Roosevelt High School.
He's the first transgender prom queen in Fresno -- and possibly anywhere.
Vera's win probably didn't surprise anyone who had seen the prom queen candidates' speeches Friday in the quad during lunch. Vera, effeminate and towering in heels, had wrapped his manicured nails around the microphone.
"For me, it's about more than a crown. It's about saying to people, 'Come out and be who you want to be,' " Vera said. A crowded, urban high school scene paused to listen. "You have to say, 'I am who I am, and I'm proud of who I am. My spirit will never be down on the floor.' "
The students cheered and whistled. The girls on Vera's cheerleading squad got teary-eyed. A boy wearing a pin supporting another queen candidate started the chant: "Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!"
On Saturday night when his name was announced, Vera wept like a newly crowned Miss America to thunderous applause in a downtown Radisson Hotel ballroom. The same chant started: "Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!"
Vera's crowning comes less than a month after Cinthia Covarrubias made national news by running for prom king at Fresno High School. . . .
The crying game . . .
Amanda Milan was a jet-setting, transgender escort. Why did she wind up with a knife in her throat at New York's Port Authority bus terminal?
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By Nina Siegal
June 20, 2001 | NEW YORK -- The sky was unusually bright that night, the air humid and sultry, embracing the light. Amanda Milan had pulled a trick for an escort agency, then stopped by Times Square to join an early-morning coffee klatch with a group of transsexuals who sometimes gathered at McDonald's on Eighth Avenue and 43rd Street to trade laments over Styrofoam cups.
Amanda was a tall black transsexual, with a long hair fall that masked the broad cut of her chin and a welcoming smile dabbed with glossy red lipstick. She had ample breasts (with the help of D-cup implants), and much of the time she could "pass" as a woman. But around the Port Authority, people recognized "the girls" who hung out by the Duane Reade drugstore, and Amanda was something of a celebrity in that circle.
Amanda kissed her friends goodbye at about 4 a.m. and then crossed Eighth Avenue, hoping to catch a cab in front of the bus terminal. Her friends watched her go, and continued to watch as a man approached her. . . .
It's a trans world . . .
The author of a new book about transgender teenagers in Los Angeles talks straight about hormone smuggling, life on the street, and the rise of America's first trans-rapper.
By Nona Willis-Aronowitz
Jan. 5, 2007 | "Transgender": Does even the word confuse you? If you were asked to define it, could you?
If not, you're hardly alone. For years, the transgender community has existed in the shadow of the gay, lesbian and bisexual rights movement -- though most trans-people agree that redefining their gender has little to do with their sexual orientation. The word is applied to everyone from drag queens and sex reassignment surgery patients to femme gay men and butch straight girls. And these days, when discussions of transgender do happen, it's usually in the context of the sex industry or debates about unisex bathrooms and gender-blind hallways in college dormitories. With such boundless, cloudy meanings, is it any surprise that even the most sex-savvy, gay-friendly, politically correct among us still have a hard time explaining the term?
Cris Beam, the author of "Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers," hopes her new book will help take on some of the mysteries and misconceptions that still haunt the transgender community. Beam, now 34, moved to Los Angeles in 1997, while her girlfriend attended graduate school. Lonely in her new city, she became intrigued by Eagles, a local high school specifically for gay and transgender kids; with the time left over in her freelance writing schedule, she began to work there as a volunteer. During the two and a half years Beam taught at Eagles, she discovered a complex but marginalized tribe of transgender teens who had nowhere to go but the streets. "Transparent" chronicles those stories, and describes how, within a few years, Beam found herself deeply involved in the kids' lives, entangled in their dreams, disappointments and their search for the truth about themselves and their gender. . . .
A plague undetected . . .
(This story's over 6 years old, but as relevant now as then.)
Did shady backroom hormone treatments and dirty needles cause a killer outbreak of HIV in the transgender community?
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By Nina Siegal
March 28, 2001 | NEW YORK -- Fourteen years ago, when Barbara Cassis was a 24-year-old man, she asked a family physician to give her hormones so she could become a woman. He prescribed a visit to a psychiatrist instead.
Undeterred, Cassis, now a towering blond with swimming-pool-blue eyes and a C-cup chest, entered an underground economy of fake doctors and self-appointed medical gurus who were willing to help her make the transformation she desired. She didn't know at the time that she was putting herself at risk for AIDS.
At transgender clubs in Hell's Kitchen, she asked the convincing-looking girls where to start. One gave her a business card for a hormone home delivery service. Another, she recalls, told her about a doctor who administered treatments in the bathroom of Sally's, a popular Hell's Kitchen bar catering primarily to transgender patrons.
According to Cassis and outreach workers who are familiar with the transgender scene in New York, this so-called doctor would set up shop in a bathroom stall for hours, injecting possibly hundreds with a single needle, without sterilizing it between shots. . . .
Tinky Winky says bye-bye to Jerry Falwell
The former TV star recalls the trauma of being called gay by the conservative preacher.
By King Kaufman
BBC/Ragdoll
Tinky Winky, with his handbag, left, has long denied rumors of an affair with former costar Po, right.
May 16, 2007 | Eight years ago the Rev. Jerry Falwell warned parents that BBC children's television star Tinky Winky was a hidden symbol of homosexuality. Falwell died Tuesday at 73, and the world wanted to talk to Tinky Winky.
"They're calling again, again, again," he said by phone from his home in Islington, in London. A spokesman said the former "Teletubbies" costar got more than 100 calls from reporters in the hour following news of Falwell's death.
"Oh dear, it's easy to say the wrong thing here," he said. "Tinky Winky sad whenever someone dies, but ..." He left it hanging there.
In a 1999 article in his National Liberty Journal headlined "Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet," Falwell pointed out that Winky could be taken as representing gays. . . .
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