Thursday, November 29, 2007
Guy Turned Girl Seeks Love on Reality TV
Calpernia Addams was born male but transitioned to female in her early twenties. Now she's looking for love on reality TV. 'Transamerican Love Story' Stars a Transgender Woman Picking From a Pool of Men
By SHEILA MARIKAR
Nov. 30, 2007
In the hormone-loaded, rejection-ridden world of reality dating shows, there are many variations on the old boy-meets-girl/girl-meets-boy scenario:
Dashing boy meets lots of girls -- "The Bachelor." Scorned girl meets lots of boys -- "I Love New York." Bisexual girl meets 10 boys and 10 girls -- "A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila."
And now, transgender girl meets eight boys who know, from the get-go, that their would-be lover was not always a lady -- "Transamerican Love Story."
The show stars Calpernia Addams, a 36-year-old transgender woman who was born male but transitioned to female -- surgery, hormone treatments and all -- in her early 20s. The Tennessee native served in the Navy during the first Gulf war, where her relationship with an Army private led to a brutal gay bashing that killed him, drove her to become a transgender activist and inspired the 2003 film "Soldier Girl."
After moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting, Addams quickly soured on the singles scene. So when Logo, MTV's cable network targeted at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender viewers, came to her with the idea for "Transamerican Love Story," she jumped.
"I get attention from men but a lot of times I won't let a relationship start because I know how complicated it's going to be," Addams said. "Usually on a third date or so, if it seems like it's going to be serious, I tell him about my history. Unfortunately, they usually leave."
Addams gets to decide who leaves in "Transamerican Love Story." The show's format doesn't stray far from the reality dating series norm: Eight bachelors in their 20s and 30s attempt to coexist under the same roof as Addams whittles them down through a series of challenges -- in one, the California boys compete to see who can best cater to her Southern tastes. (None of the bachelors were available for comment because the show is still in production).
What is different is that Addams is honest. While the lotharios and ladies who star in other dating shows may hide everything from their income (remember "Joe Millionaire?") to their sexual preference (the contestants of Tila Tequila's show didn't know they'd be competing with the opposite sex when they signed on), Addams is upfront about her transgender status from the beginning. . . .
Uganda: Govt Must Tighten Screws On Gays, Lesbians
Mayanja Nkangi
Uganda is experiencing an internationally orchestrated Crescendo of demands for "rights" by the homosexual fraternity: male, lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Transvestite:
Essentially these "rights" reduce to only one, namely, the absolute, non-negotiable, "right" to pursue and enjoy sexual pleasure man with man, woman with woman; with the bisexual exploiting the pleasures of both worlds, and the transgender covetting and securing the sexual pleasures which both God and his or her heterosexual parents never gave him or her.
The Transvestite is apparently ambivalent as to which sexual genus to firmly pursue, but fits himself or herself somehow. Thus this alleged right is pure sexual hedonism or the relentless pursuit of sexual pleasure for its own sake.
The gay claim to legitimise same sex unions or marriages is purely ancillary to the sexual pleasures and is merely an insurance or security for accessing and enjoying same sex sexual pleasures.
What is implicit here is a claim to the 'right to sex', and this should be readily conceded as a human right which is universally accepted by humanity.
However, the mode of sexual activity is itself a societal, rather than a human right and can only be sanctioned by the community in accordance with the moral cultural, religious, or legal norms of that particular community. Sodomy and lesbianism are modes or kinds of sex and are therefore subject to societal regulation by sanction or prohibition, in conformity with a community's interests.
Astonishingly, the Ugandan gays and lesbians are claiming their sexual orientations as a 'human right' and are seeking to coerce Ugandans into stamping the national seal of approval on these weird practices. But for the majority of Ugandans this demand is uncompromisingly unacceptable. They could suffer the moral and cultural outrage silently, but asking them to applaud the sexual deviations goes against the grain.
A right being an entitlement to own, possess, do or say something, or else, forbear, the homosexual fraternity maintain that they are entitled to sodomise natural men, and the lesbians to adopt masculine sexual postrues (whatever they do).
And their rationale for this? "Well, that is what we want and how we want it!" Wanting something is not a sufficient reason for a community or state to sanction it. The next demand could then be the decriminalisation of bestiality (sex with animals) or the laws against adultery or incest. The demand for homosexuality and lesbianism, and their related activities, must be firmly resisted on the ground that these practices violate the cultural, religious, moral, and legal norms of the country. . . .
OMG! First post!
Okay. I'm supposed to use this first entry to describe myself a little and some of my background so that from here on in whenever you read anymore of this thing you have a good idea of where I'm coming from, but it's like the most awkward thing in the world.
I thought about it, though, and I decided the best possible way to do this is to just drop all the major bombs first and get them out of the way. That's how I handle this stuff when I have to talk about them with someone in real life, so I may as well do it here - so here we go:
a. I'm 17. I've been HIV+ since I was 14, so that's 3 years now.
b. I'm a transgender kid. FTM to be more specific. No, if you met me on the street you wouldn't be able to tell. Seriously. I've been on HRT for almost 5 months now, it's a pain in the ass (literally, they're intramuscular injections and your ass cheek is a pretty muscular place) and it's difficult for such a variety of reasons (physically/emotionally/mentally/financially, is the list I usually run off) that I can promise you it's not something I chose.
c. Also, I'm gay. I like the boys. The boys like me. You know how it goes.
I'm a gay, HIV+, 17 year old trannyboy. Be afraid, bitches.
All things considered though, I'm not that strange (I know, shut up). There are a few other things that are a bit different about me than most boys my age though. I don't go to a regular public highschool. I used to, but kids suck. I'm now homeschooled via a cyber school on the net - it's safer for me, I can work at my own pace, I don't have to stress over what the kids in my class are gonna do or say to me and I get to sleep in. Also, it's much more comfortable to do Brit Lit in your pajamas. Taking into consideration the amount of time I took off for not feeling well, because I was afraid of being harrassed and because my teachers gave me a hard time because of all of that, I was missing a lot of school, as well. I'm doing much better now. My geometry grade is crap (like a really low C at the time of writing this) but everything else is all As and high Bs.
I guess one of the things that bother me the most about being + at this age is the fact that a lot of people assume that it's okay to ask me 'how I got it'. You don't ask adults how they became positive, so why is it alright to ask me? Seriously guys. Most people assume that I was born with it, or I got it medically somehow, but I didn't. And if you think 14 year olds (and even younger, honestly) aren't having sex, I suggest you take a day trip to reality to get a better understanding of what's going on. They are, and I was, and a great deal of the stuff you'll probably hear me angrily rant about is how poorly kids are being taught about sex and HIV. I angrily rant a lot, though, you'll notice. :D
As far as the transguy thing goes, I am usually pretty outspoken about it. However, I reserve the right to live my life as comfortably and happily as possible, and that includes not informing everyone I know about the fact that I am trans. I want to just live my life as a normal guy. Unfortunately there is so much trans prejudice in the world that wanting to be treated like a normal guy and simultaneously telling everyone I'm trans just isn't possible. That is why not wanting to go public about my HIV status isn't the only reason why I will not be using my full name in this blog, and why I've chosen to use a baby picture instead of a recent picture of myself. That's just how it's gonna be, at least for now and until/if I decide I'm willing to risk the chance of everyone finding out about these things - which I'm not saying is never gonna happen, but for right now I think that'd be a pretty bad idea.
I'd like to use this space to not only talk about what's going on in my life, but to bring to the attention of whoever is reading some issues that normally go ignored that are personally relevant to me. You don't hear a lot of talk about issues specific to HIV and teenagers, or how trans people are affected by HIV, either. Those are topics that are important to me so I'll probably be bringing them up a lot. Not to bore you guys or anything, just because I think they deserve some attention.
Finally, I suppose, if by reading what I write here one teenager prevents himself or herself from getting HIV, or one trans person that is already HIV+ understands there are other people out there struggling with their issues, or someone who isn't affected by any of this stuff comes away with a better understanding - and maybe even has some of their opinions changed, I would be happy.
Also, I really like to talk, so that's appealing, too. I have a couple of friends that are going to tell me to just blog about it now whenever I start ranting. . . .
Cross-dressing terrorist 'bride' caught in Iraq
November 28, 2007
A wanted terrorist has been arrested in Baghdad after he tried to slip through a checkpoint dressed in a wedding gown.
The crossdressing criminal was stopped by US soldiers who became suspicious of the man, and his companions who were posing as a bridegroom and witnesses.
It is just the latest ruse conceived by terrorists who are coming up with more elaborate plots to attack occupying forces.
There are tens of thousands of extra US troops in the Iraqi capital as part of the 'surge' policy.
And levels of terrorist violence in Baghdad have been falling.
But US forces are themselves increasingly being blamed for shootings. American soldiers killed at least six people yesterday in a variety of incidents, including three women who were travelling in a minibus. . . .
POV, Critique, Opinion: Constitutional Amendment to Protect the Transgendered?
November 28, 2007
Mrs. Schlafly asserted that the constitution refers to “we the people” and “citizens”. The word “men” is not in the constitution, and therefore an amendment to include women is unnecessary. Furthermore, it is a lie that the proposed amendments will add the word “women”. The texts read: “equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex.” Neither “sex” nor “equality” is defined, leaving wiggle room for interpretation by activist judges. Such lack of specificity could have dire results. The amendment would have implications for property, divorce, and prison regulations. The courts could require the integration of single sex schools, and the merging of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. They could insist that school sports become unisex, and bathrooms as well. The amendment could even be interpreted to require recognition of same-sex marriage. The list of unintended consequences is endless.
Mrs. Schlafly inquired if the amendment pertains to “the sex you are or the sex you do”. We should further ask if it pertains to the sex you’ll become in the future or the sex you think you are. Despite the audience’s laughter, the question has serious implications.
Even if the amendment were modified to read “women” rather than “sex”, it is unclear how “women” would be interpreted. Genetically male transsexuals who undergo surgery to become female, still retain male chromosomes. Though male at birth, they elect to have “sex-reassignment surgery” to “correct” mind-body dissonance. Hermaphrodites who do not get corrective surgery (“intersexuals”), also do not fall neatly into one category of sex. Additionally, “she-males” who obtain female hormones and breasts, but choose not to complete surgery, forever remain pre-op transsexuals. The definition of “women” could include the gambit of sexually confused individuals who present themselves as women.
The “transgender movement” refuses to be limited to two genders. There is a “gender continuum” they explain. Male and female are two extremes on that continuum. Other genders include intergender, agender, ambigender, gender atypical or “other”. (This is unrelated to one’s sexual orientation, which runs the gamut from straight, to gay, bisexual, asexual, and pansexual.) Some make the distinction between gender and sex. They explain that sex is determined biologically and is male or female. Gender is a social construction composed of psychological, social, and cultural aspects of maleness and femaleness. It includes clothing, personal interests, and personality traits, which are characterized as masculine or feminine. Gender appears to be an obvious fact, but is really a societal invention. To social constructionists, everything is subjective. There is no such thing as reality, only social convention. More radical sociologists contend that sex, in addition to gender, “belongs to the world of meaning” rather than physical reality.
The extreme left claims that children as young as 15 months old can exhibit signs of being transgendered. Children are transgender when “what’s between their legs does not match what’s between their ears” and it’s not a passing phase. Transgender “experts” advise parents of transgender children to go along with their child’s pronouncement that they are a member of the opposite sex. Supposedly, this will help the child avoid depression, self-hate, drug use, negative body image, and all kinds of harm the child might develop if encouraged to acknowledge the truth of his or her physical sex.
The DSM IV is the authoritive source of diagnoses for professionals in the psychological and psychiatric fields. It lists alternative gender identities as mental disorders. The transgender community disputes this characterization, insisting that it is only a disorder if the person who has it experiences feelings about it that cause him/her distress or disability. Instead, they promote the view that these disorders constitute “gender giftedness.” Anyone who thinks otherwise is likely to be slapped with the newest label: “transphobic”.
Most federal and state anti-discrimination laws limit protections to men and women. There are no legal protections against discrimination for people who consider themselves to be both sexes, neither sex, or “other”. Even the Employment Non-discrimination Act (ENDA), recently promoted by liberals in Congress, was stripped of legal protections to the transgender community.
If amendments are made to the federal or state constitutions prohibiting discrimination “on account of sex”, then who will be protected depends on how the courts define “sex.” Will it extend to the transvestites in women’s bathrooms, male employees who want to wear dresses to work, transsexuals in military barracks, or male psychotics with delusions of being female? If gender is socially constructed, then the push from the left is to reconstruct it. They endorse the notion of “gender self-identification”, which dictates that you are what you think you are, even if your biology indicates otherwise.
Will your sex be defined by your physical characteristics at birth, by society, or by each individual?
You might think that your sex was determined by God, nature or science. But leftists promoting the ambiguous language in the ERA are all too happy to leave that determination up to the courts. . . .
Transforming Coverage
Transgender issues get greater respect—but anatomy remains destiny
Transgender is hardly a new concept, but until recently it’s been considered by the media to be a topic for tabloid talkshows, not serious news programs. The tide is turning, though; as more and more public figures are coming out as having a gender identity different from their birth-assigned sex, and transgender characters are finding their way into more mainstream entertainment media (on TV shows like All My Children and movies like Transamerica), transgender stories are likewise moving from Jerry Springer to CNN at a remarkable pace.
As of this writing, the major network and cable news programs had nearly doubled their coverage of transgender issues in 2007 compared to the same period of time in 2006. But while it’s an encouraging start, quantity does not necessarily equal quality, and coverage is still plagued with a narrow uniformity of subjects and a relentless and invasive fixation on anatomy.
The explosion of coverage this year can be traced in part to the public coming out of two relatively high-profile figures: Largo, Florida city manager Steve Stanton was outed as transgender by the St. Petersburg Times on February 22; just two months later, longtime L.A. Times sportswriter Mike Penner announced in a column that he would henceforth be writing as Christine Daniels (4/26/07).
Stanton, who had served as city manager for 14 years, had developed a detailed communication plan for transitioning from male to female at work that was pre-empted by the St. Petersburg Times’ “scoop”; city commissioners fired Stanton a week later. It was hardly the first time a transgender person has been fired for transitioning, but it got an unusual amount of media play, no doubt because of Stanton’s high-level public position.
Daniels’ coming out, too, received a good deal of attention, though it was done with the support of the L.A. Times—another indication of media’s shifting attitudes towards transgender issues—and thus resulted in a less dramatic and shorter-lived news story. When Daniels told her boss at the Times that she was planning to transition from male to female, the paper arranged for her to make the change in a column in the paper, and added an online blog for her to write about the process; the feedback, according to Daniels, was overwhelmingly positive and supportive (LATimes.com, 4/30/07).
‘One ugly chick’
Newsweek soon explored gender identity in a cover story (5/21/07). And similar stories have been cropping up in other outlets across the country; the Boston Globe, for example, recently published a lengthy two-part feature on a local family practice doctor who transitioned to female (8/12/07, 8/19/07), and the Rocky Mountain News (9/1/07) profiled a detective who did the same.
The increased attention and apparent seriousness with which media are taking transgender stories today is remarkable; the idea of CNN inviting a transgender media critic to explain to them on the air the appropriate terminology to use when covering transgender issues (11/29/05), for example, would have been unthinkable not long ago, and both the Associated Press and New York Times style guides have recently added editorial guidelines to ensure that transgender people are covered using the name and pronouns they prefer, regardless of their biological or anatomical status—in other words, calling a transgender woman “she,” for example, regardless of whether she’s had any sort of surgery, taken hormones, or looks masculine or feminine to the reporter. It may seem like a small or simple detail, but for transgender people who had long been denied the right to define themselves—with media calling them by names and pronouns they don’t identify with—it’s an important step in the right direction.
That’s not to say that tabloid coverage has disappeared from the mainstream media; both the New York Post and New York Daily News headlines regularly refer to transgender people as “trannies,” often in stories emphasizing crime or scandal. The New York Post (6/13/04) ran an article on transgender Medicaid recipients getting critical hormones under the headline “Tranny RX Sex Scams,” and has no compunction about referring flippantly to transgender people with sensational and dehumanizing terms such as “he-turned-she” (6/2/07) or “transvestite hooker” (11/17/06).
MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson, too, regularly brings up transgender news items to scorn or make fun of them; he has called being transgender a “profound personality disorder” (2/23/06), declared sex reassignment surgery “an act of a crazy person” akin to “setting your hair on fire or blinding yourself” (2/23/06), and often makes derisive and immature comments about transgender people like “That dude is one ugly chick” (10/25/06). “Just because you’re castrated and have a fake set of boobs does not make you a woman,” Carlson insisted (6/1/06).
And sometimes the transphobia is slightly more subtle, as when Paula Zahn introduced a segment on a transgender teenager (CNN, 3/9/07) as being about “a family dealing with a truly bizarre problem,” or Barbara Walters explaining in a preview of her special on transgender children (ABC, 4/27/07) that “only by compassion, and understanding, and enlightenment can we accept them.”
A uniform narrative
What’s notable about so much of the more ostensibly “good” coverage, though, is how uniform and narrow it is. The narrative is by now quite familiar: A somewhat prominent white, middle-to-upper-class man comes out as a transgender woman, her long history of feeling “trapped in the wrong body” is detailed, and her struggles and surgeries are documented, as are the struggles of those around her to understand and embrace her change.
The focus on white male-to-female transgender people isn’t terribly surprising, considering media’s long-standing bias towards white male newsmakers (e.g., Extra!, 5–6/02); people like Stanton, Daniels, the Boston doctor and the Colorado detective, originally living as men, were all in reporters’ and editors’ sphere and on their radar, and so theirs are the stories that tend to make the news.
While Newsweek’s cover story broke that mold with a think piece on gender and gender identity, it was accompanied by five online profiles (5/13/07) of transgender individuals, every one of whom was a professional, white male-to-female. Most of the profiles were simply personal coming-out stories, with only a hint of political critique here and there. In fact, the piece most focused on discrimination was a profile of a vice president at Prudential, who talked about corporations’ advancement in transgender rights and what it’s like to come out at work—from a white senior manager’s perspective. While it’s perhaps simultaneously heartening and depressing that the worst challenge she identified was suddenly experiencing sexism in the workplace, the profile, the Newsweek package as a whole and the prevailing media narrative all project a vision of a transgender reality that hardly reflects the struggles of the many transgender people in positions of less power in their workplace, or those who can’t even get a job in the formal work sector, or those who otherwise face discrimination compounded by factors of race and class.
Statistics are not easy to come by, but one study found that in Washington, D.C., only 58 percent of transgender people surveyed had paid employment, 15 percent reported losing a job due to discrimination and 43 percent had been the victim of violence or crime (Gender.org, 2002). A similar study in San Francisco found that nearly half of transgender respondents had faced gender identity–based employment discrimination and over 30 percent had faced discrimination while trying to access healthcare (NCLR.org, 2003). It’s these stories that go missing while Newsweek muses to the Prudential VP, “Switching from slacks to panty hose cannot be easy.” . . .
