Lucy Parker: A short musical collage

Here's a video based on a BBC special about a teen's transition from MTF.

Transgender and Transsexual Autobiography

For the last 75 years, transgender and Transsexual Autobiographies have told the stories of their authors' lives and appealed for greater acceptance of transgender people.
	The autobiography of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf published by Cleis Press.
	Kate Bornstein (b. 1948) is one of the best known transgender activists in America. Her book Gender Outlaw (1994), which is part autobiography, part manifesto, and part fashion guide, contributed to the political mobilization of transsexuals.
	Roberta Close (b. 1964), a Brazilian model and entertainer, was proclaimed "The World's Most Beautiful Model" in a 1984 tabloid headline. Her autobiography, Much Pleasure, Roberta Close (1998), raised eyebrows because of her claim to have been involved with many internationally famous male celebrities.
	Lili Elbe (1886-1931) was among the world's first post-operative male-to-female transsexuals. Her letters and diaries were compiled into Man Into Woman (1933), one of the first popular books to draw a distinction between homosexuality and transsexuality.
	Leslie Feinberg (b. 1949) is a pioneering transgender activist, historian, and writer. The main character of Feinberg's novel Stone Butch Blues (1993) shares so many similarities with the book's author that many consider it semi-autobiographical.
	Christine Jorgensen (1926-1989) was the first person to undergo a a sex-change operation that was highly publicized in the United States. Her book Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography (1967) was adapted for a film released in 1970.
	Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (1928-2002) was an East German preservationist and museum founder. Her autobiography, I Am My Own Wife (1992), tells the story of her own life as well as that of a whole generation of East German homosexuals who faced persecution first from the Nazis and then from the Communists.
	Jan Morris (b. 1926), a prolific Anglo-Welsh journalist, historian, and travel writer, was among the first transsexuals to tell her story publicly in a memoir. She dedicated Conundrum (1974) "to all who are suffering still in the same solitary and unsought cause."
	Renee Richards (b. 1934), a transsexual tennis player, successfully sued the United States Tennis Association so that she could compete in the U.S. Women's Open. Her autobiography, Second Serve (1986), reveals the details of her troubled childhood as well as her adult successes in tennis and as an eye surgeon.
	Image Credits: Cover image of I am My Own Wife courtesy Cleis Press. Image of Kate Bornstein courtesy Kate Bornstein. Image of Leslie Feinberg is a detail from a portrait, courtesy www.transgenderwarrior.org. Image of Christine Jorgensen is a detail from a press photograph, courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

A SEX SWAP OP..AT 18

EXCLUSIVE BRITAIN'S YOUNGEST-EVER TRANSSEXUAL

By Sarah Arnold - Sarah.Arnold@Sundaymirror.Co.Uk

IN her low-cut dress Lucy Parker smiles confidently at the camera. She couldn't be more different than the picture of the 11-year-old boy in his school uniform with the pudding-basin haircut.

Yet the pictures taken seven years apart are of the same person. Richard Parker, schoolboy, has become Lucy Parker, the teenage girl who loves make-up and wearing the highest of high heels.

At 18 Lucy is the youngest transsexual in Britain. She started hormone treatment at 16 and has had an operation to give her breasts. In a few months her transformation will be complete after a final operation.

"Some people will say I am too young to have made this decision, but for me becoming a true woman can't come soon enough," says Lucy. "I have spent 16 years trapped in a man's body, but my soul is a woman's."

At the beginning of the year Lucy, who's a Size 8 and 5ft 10in tall, had 34C breast implants - an 18th birthday present from her mum Allison, 41.

In the next few months Lucy will undergo £10,000 sex reassignment surgery, possibly in Thailand, to remove her manhood and build a vagina. "After the operation I will be finally who I was meant to be," says Lucy who lives in Middlesbrough on Teesside.

Lucy may be only 18 but she talks with a maturity beyond her years of the changes she has undergone in her life and how she has never, ever doubted it was the only way she could face the future.

"When I was still very young I felt I didn't fit in," says Lucy. "I was about four when I asked my mum, 'Why am I different?' She didn't understand what I meant and, unfortunately, I was too young to explain it to her."

At school Lucy hated the rough-and-tumble of boys' games, and would secretly dress up at home in girls' clothes with her cousin Rachel.

"At home I used to play with my cousin a lot, we were like siblings. As we got older, she started to experiment with make-up and dressing up. We used to pretend she owned a salon and get our hair done and nails, make-up applied... badly! I can remember putting on one of my cousin's dresses and her high heels and thinking... transformation complete!

"I was caught three times by members of the family dressed up as a girl. They would tell me to get changed and tell off my cousin for dressing me up like that."

Allison, who split from Richard's dad when he was four, says that as a little boy Richard was a loner who didn't have many friends. "He was a melancholy little boy," she says. "He always preferred playing with the girls, but after I split up with my husband I took him along to the Cubs and got him involved in a football team."

It's a time Lucy hated. "I would rather have pulled each of my eyelashes out singly than join the Cubs or play football," she says.

"Each week I was there, I pretended to have asthma attacks so I could go home. I only went to football twice. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed throwing out those ugly football boots."

Approaching puberty as Richard, Lucy says she sank into a dark depression. "Senior school was hell. I was bullied every day, called a gay or a wimp. I was 14 and I still felt different. My body was changing and with every change I felt less comfortable in my own skin.

"I began smoking because I had heard it could stunt your growth and I wanted my body to stop growing. I didn't want my body to be healthy, because a healthy body meant a male body." . . .

Translations: Seattle Transgender Film Festival

Gender Odyssey and Three Dollar Bill Cinema are pleased to present the second annual Translations: The Seattle Transgender Film Festival. Translations provides the Pacific NW with a venue for films for, by, and about transgendered and genderqueer people.

Advance tickets are available through Ticket Window.

Wednesday, August 29th

PORTRAITS: SHORT FILMS

FREE SCREENING FOR TRANS AWARENESS WEEK
7:30 PM, LGBT Community Center

This program of short films includes various portraits of trans individuals, including work by local filmmakers. (total running time: 1 hour)

EXPERT, dir. Aaron Raz Link, 2006, 3 min.
What is a "gender expert?" These people just might have the answer.

MONA, dir. Kathy Kiefer, 2007, 4 min.
Discover the heart of a Chicana transwoman living in rural Eastern Washington.

JUST CALL ME KADE, dir Sam Zolten
At fourteen, Kade began the initial stages of transition as an FTM. He and his family share their concerns, candidly express their feelings about the changes, and talk about the impact on everyone involved.

MUCH ADO ABOUT ONE, dir. Barbara Cole, 2007, 11 min.
A person wants to be single-gendered in a bi-gendered world.

FINDING PEACE, dir. Barbara Rosenthal, 2006, 15 min.
This is the story of Janice’s search for inner peace. In the 1970s, as John, she went to Vietnam to become a man. Only years after returning does she make the life-saving decision to transition.

Friday, August 31st

SOMETHING SPECIAL

FREE SCREENING FOR TRANS AWARENESS WEEK
7:00 PM, Northwest Film Forum

It goes without saying, 1986’s SOMETHING SPECIAL (whose original title, WILLY/MILLY, was thankfully changed) was a bit of an odd duck. In a way, this pint-sized TOOTSIE variation was part "After School Special" and part adolescent gross-out comedy, seemingly forgotten by audiences before it was even released.

The problem? Its plot concerning the magical overnight sex change of a 14-year-old girl into a 14-year-old boy was more than a little revolutionary and (sadly) would probably be considered ahead of its time even today. Sure the whole thing comes to a far-too pat (and safely heterosexual) conclusion, but Milly/Willy’s journey between genders is still handled with remarkable honesty, emotion, dexterity and care.

Two decades later the film still comes as a bit of a shock, and if it isn’t perfect it’s still an endearing curiosity, solid enough to warrant a second look. Pamela Adlon (then Seagall) makes an inspired debut while Patty Duke, John Glover and a pre-Buffy Seth Green all co-star.

SOMETHING SPECIAL, dir. Paul Schneider, 1986, 86 min.

GENDER REDESIGNER

9:00 PM, Northwest Film Forum

fAe always knew he was different - at the age of three, he dreamt of creating a penis that would allow him to pee like a boy even though he had been "born with girl parts," and on the first day of school he screamed when they tried to force him to use the girls’ room. Years of introspection led to the conclusion that fAe was transgendered. Supported — though not always understood — by friends and family, fAe begins his transition in his early 20s, encountering a host of difficulties to navigate: How will he afford his expensive, "optional" chest surgery? Will he find acceptance and community as he transitions in conservative rural Pennsylvania? How can he reconcile his now-male appearance with the female characteristics he wants to retain? Will his mom learn to love and approve of the son she raised as a daughter? Ironically, what started as a film about exploring queer America became a documentary about a transman’s self discovery.

GENDER REDESIGNER, dir. Johnny Bergmann, 2007, 72 min.

Saturday, September 1st

TRANSPARENT

3:55 PM, WA State Convention Center

Categories often taken for granted are broken apart in TRANSPARENT, a documentary about 19 FTM parents who have given birth and, in all but a few stories, gone on to raise their biological children.

TRANSPARENT focuses on its subjects’ lives as parents, revealing the diverse ways in which each person reconciles being a biological mother with a masculine identity. Traditional views of gender are further re-examined through the variety of ways the children refer to and understand their parents’ gender.

TRANSPARENT, dir. Jules Rosskam, 2005, 80 min.

This screening is sponsored by Frameline, which provided TRANSPARENT and five other films playing as part of Translations: The Seattle Transgender Film Festival. Frameline has been the leading distributor of LGBT media since 1981. Their collection has more than 200 titles, which can be seen online, on-air and in theatres as well as purchased for institutional or home use. Visit www.frameline.org/distribution.

UNIQUE JOURNEYS: SHORT FILMS

5:00 PM, Northwest Film Forum

How do we get to the life we want to lead? How many struggles and triumphs are along the way? These films chronicle this process in a variety of ways.

TRANNYMALS GO TO COURT, dirs. Dylan Vade & Abe Bernard, 2007, 12 min.
Eight fierce and fiery-talking genitals expose harmful legal practices and spread unapologetic tranny pride.

CASTING PEARLS, dir. Andrea James, 2006, 7 min.
Transsexual actress Cassandra (Calpernia Addams) endures a series of Hollywood auditions.

MAGGOTS AND MEN, dir. Oakie Treadwell, 2006, 5 min.
A trailer for a historical drama set in post-revolutionary Russia, shot by a cast and crew rampant with gender anarchy.

TASK/IN-PROGRESS, dir. K. Terumi Shorb, 2004, 6 min.
An experimental exploration of race, masculinity, and gender identity.

STRANGE OBJECTS, dir. Jude Mahan, 2004, 4 min.
A high-schooler’s response to the filmmaker's self-portrait sparks this exploration of appearance in the context of gender, class, and ethnicity.

QUEERING GENDER, dir. Kalil Cohen, 2005, 25 min.
A documentary exploring an array of gender identities, including genderqueer and trans identities, disrupting the notion of "binary" gender.

Festival Centerpiece:
RED WITHOUT BLUE

FREE SCREENING FOR TRANS AWARENESS WEEK
8:45 PM, WA State Convention Center, 6th Floor Ballroom

RED WITHOUT BLUE is an artistic and groundbreaking portrayal of gender, identity, and the unswerving bond of twins, despite transformation. An honest portrayal of a family in turmoil, the film follows a pair of identical twins as one transitions from male to female and both, along with their parents, struggle to redefine their family.

The twins’ early lives were quintessentially all-American: picture-perfect holidays, and supportive parents who cheered them on every step of the way. By the time they were 14, their parents had divorced, they had come out as gay, and a joint suicide attempt precipitated a forced separation of the siblings for two and half years.

Through its portrayal of these articulate and independent twins, each haunted by the painful experiences of their adolescence, the film questions normative standards of gender and identity — as Mark and Clair reassert their indescribable bond as identical twins. Through the power of the Farleys’ voices, we hear the story of a family’s redemption from a dark past, and ultimately, its revival to the present.

RED WITHOUT BLUE, dirs. Brooke Sebold, Benita Sills, & Todd Sills, 2007, 74 min.

Sunday, September 2nd

TWO SPIRIT PEOPLE/ HOTEL GONDOLIN

5:00 PM, Northwest Film Forum

TWO SPIRIT PEOPLE is an overview of historical and contemporary Native American concepts of gender, sexuality, and sexual orientation. This documentary explores the berdache tradition in Native American culture, in which individuals who embody feminine and masculine qualities act as a conduit between the physical and spiritual world, and because of this are placed in positions of power within the community.

HOTEL GONDOLIN is a portrait of transvestites and transsexuals in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Often rejected by their families and society at large, they have a found a refuge and place of empowerment and community in the Hotel Gondolin.

TWO SPIRIT PEOPLE, dirs. Michel Beauchemin, Lori Levy & Gretchen Vogel, 1991, 20 min.

HOTEL GONDOLIN, dir. Fernando Lopez Escriva, 2005, 25 min. (subtitled in English)

ANOTHER WOMAN (Une Autre Femme)

7:00 PM, Northwest Film Forum

Heartbreaking and inspiring, ANOTHER WOMAN is a journey crossing both familial and gender barriers with dexterously emotional ease. It is TRANSAMERICA meets Desperate Housewives without unnecessary porn sideshows or slapstick. The film is a straight-to-the-heart winner guaranteed to give audiences something to think about.

After a decade away, Léa (Nathalie Mann) returns to Paris and rediscovers a family she felt forced to abandon. None of them recognize her, since during that time Nicolas transitioned to her current gender. Now a woman and a stranger, Léa decides to be honest about her true identity and try to reclaim parental privileges she once forsook.

Mann (Patrice Leconte’s RIDICULE) is a revelation, while French television star Micky Sébastian is fantastic as Léa’s angry, bewildered, and confused former wife Anne. ANOTHER WOMAN is a harrowing and unforgettable saga of struggle and resilience, Foulon crafting an honest and empowering tale which resonates long after the final credits roll.

ANOTHER WOMAN, Dir. Jerome Foulon, 2004, 106 min. (subtitled in English)

THE BELIEVERS

9:15 PM, Northwest Film Forum

THE BELIEVERS is an unprecedented documentary that shatters assumptions about faith, gender, and religion. Built around the world’s first transgender gospel choir, the film portrays the choir members’ dilemma — how to reconcile their gender identity with the widespread belief that changing one’s gender goes against the word of God.

The film takes us from the Transcendence Gospel Choir's shaky beginnings — a heartwarmingly chaotic, cacophonous group unable to agree on much of anything, and learning to sing with transitioning voices — through their transformation into the polished, award-winning choir and close-knit family they are today, garnering major performances and winning an Outmusic Award in 2004 for the album "Whosoever Believes."

The intimate personal stories shed light on the complexity of balancing social change, family history, religion and identity. As one of the film’s subjects eloquently says, "I'm living in a window. I get to see both sides."

THE BELIEVERS, Dir. Todd Holland, 2006, 80 min.

Festival Program Director — Jason Plourde
Festival Program Assistants — Sara Michelle Fetters, Marek Falk

Three Dollar Bill Cinema are the folks who have brought you the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival for the past eleven years.