Transgender Army veteran Diane Schroer

CNN News reports on transgender Army veteran Diane Schroer and her discrimination case against the Library of Congress (Jan. 5, 2008)

Signatures due to block gender bill

Senate bill 777 still creating buzz

RYAN ORR

January 5, 2008

SACRAMENTO — A group trying to block the Student Civil Rights Act — recently signed into law — has until Monday to gather 433,971 signatures.

Proposed by Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, Senate Bill 777 bans school texts and activities that would exhibit any bias against homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality and cross-dressing.

Gender, for instance, would mean sex, and includes a person’s gender identity and gender-related appearance and behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.

It would also define sexual orientation as meaning heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality. . . .

Concerning "Susan Stanton's Lonely Transformation"

by Susan Ashley Stanton

Like many people in the transgender community, I was shocked and disappointed when I read the recent article in the St. Petersburg Times entitled “Susan Stanton’s Lonely Transformation”. The St. Petersburg Times is an excellent newspaper and I consider Ms. Lane DeGregory to be a gifted writer and a personal friend so I am not sure how my words could have been so terribly misunderstood. Since the publication of this story, I have received hundreds of email messages from people all over the nation expressing their disappointment and anger for the hurtful and insensitive statements that have been attributed to me. Simply stated, this article is not an accurate representation of my beliefs concerning the transgender community or my experiences as a transgender person.

Due to the very public nature of my job as a government official and the national attention my termination received by the national media, I have tried to represent the transgender community with honor, grace and dignity. Instead of engaging in litigation with my former employer or becoming angry and bitter over the circumstance that caused my very public termination, I have attempted to use my experiences to educate the public of the transgender journey.

Many people have expressed their strong belief that I am not qualified to be a spokesperson for the transgender community. Admittedly, prior to my own experience becoming public, I had very limited interaction with members from the transgender community due to the public nature of my job and the need to keep my private struggles from becoming disruptive to my city and community. Unfortunately, for better or for worse, today I am often perceived to be the face of the transgender community. This is not a role I ever sought or have particularly enjoyed. However, it is appropriate that I clearly address the concerns expressed by so many people concerning my position regarding ENDA and being a member of the transgender community. . . .

Long-Term Treatment of Transsexuals with Cross-Sex Hormones: Extensive Personal Experience

Louis J. Gooren, Erik J. Giltay and Mathijs C. Bunck

Department of Endocrinology (L.J.G., M.C.B.), Vrije Universiteit University Medical Center, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Leiden University Medical Center (E.J.G.), Department of Psychiatry, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands

Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Dr. L. J. Gooren, Department of Endocrinology, VU University Medical Center, De Boelelaan 1118, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: ljgooren@truemail.co.th.

Context: Transsexuals receive cross-sex hormone treatment. Its short-term use appears reasonably safe. Little is known about its long-term use. This report offers some perspectives.

Setting: The setting was a university hospital serving as the national referral center for The Netherlands (16 million people).

Patients: From the start of the gender clinic in 1975 up to 2006, 2236 male-to-female and 876 female-to-male transsexuals have received cross-sex hormone treatment. In principle, subjects are followed up lifelong.

Interventions: Male-to-female transsexuals receive treatment with the antiandrogen cyproterone acetate 100 mg/d plus estrogens (previously 100 µg ethinyl estradiol, now 2–4 mg oral estradiol valerate/d or 100 µg transdermal estradiol/d). Female-to-male transsexuals receive parenteral testosterone esters 250 mg/2 wk. After 18–36 months, surgical sex reassignment including gonadectomy follows, inducing a profound hypogonadal state.

Main Outcome Measures: Outcome measures included morbidity and mortality data and data assessing risks of osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. . . .

Gays, transgenders fight for legal protections in Utah

7 January 2008

Brock Vergakis - THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SALT LAKE CITY -- Ariana Losco says she's just another suburban wife.

The Tooele woman drives a minivan, loves spending time with her family and shops at the local Wal-Mart. Her lifestyle, she says, is the epitome of ordinary.

But not everyone sees it that way. That's because Losco was a man until 1994.

When she took a job at a nursing home six months ago, she said she never imagined how hostile her work environment would become when co-workers learned she used to be male.

"It's been pure hell," Losco said, noting that her shifts have been cut as a result. "I've gone home many times crying, but I have to do it. I have to have a paycheck."

Under Utah law, discriminating against gay and transgender people is legal. Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake City, wants that to change in one of the nation's most conservative states.

"If I'm not shaking things up, I'm not doing my job," said Johnson, one of three openly gay lawmakers.

Johnson said it's time Utah's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community fights back against years of hostility, highlighted by a ban on gay marriages and attempts to eliminate gay-straight alliances in public schools.

"It's very clear that if the LGBT community does not begin to act in an offensive manner that we will continually end up playing defense," she said. "I think the statewide community is frustrated with this unapologetic discrimination."

Johnson is sponsoring House Bill 89, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to a list of protected classes in the Utah Antidiscrimination Act.

There are 20 states that include sexual orientation in their antidiscrimination laws, and 11 of those include gender identity.

Johnson acknowledged that her bill will be a tough sell in Utah. Most lawmakers are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which considers acting on homosexual feelings a sin. . . .

Is it a boy or a girl?

5 August 2006

Stockholm - A hen in southern Sweden that has grown a rooster comb, tail and wattle and begun to crow is wreaking havoc in its henhouse, where the rooster, Henry VIII, is hopping mad, Swedish media reported on Friday.

"Henry VIII is bloody angry. The other hens are mostly just surprised but they seem to increasingly accept him or her," the owner of the henhouse, Christel Hammar-Malmgren, told the online edition of regional daily Blekinge Laens Tidning. . . .

Boston's First Transgender Legal Clinic To Open

......With liberty and justice for all

TRANSGENDER PEOPLE .

We invite you to join our stride towards justice

Beginning with our January 16^th kick-off celebration of

Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates,

a new legal clinic serving transgender people in Massachusetts.

WHAT: Kick-off celebration for Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates with guest speaker Mara Kiesling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality

WHEN: Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 6-8pm.

WHERE: JRI Health, 25 West Street, Boston. Take the Orange or Red line to Downtown Crossing stop or the Green Line Park Street stop.

Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates is a joint project between Cambridge Cares about AIDS, AIDS Action Committee, and the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition.

For more information about the kick-off event or the legal clinic, please contact: 617.450.1353 or
TransgenderLegalAdvocates@gmail.com

Transgender student, SUU face dilemma

Appropriate housing debated; application remains incomplete

Samantha Arnold

1/7/08

Kourt Osborn, a sophomore sociology major from Kanab who has been living as a male, does not qualify to live in male on-campus housing because of failure to provide medical information defining him as a transgender person as well as his neglect to turn in the required application fee.

Born a female, Osborn previously attended SUU from fall 2004 to spring 2005 and lived in female on-campus housing.

Osborn then left SUU to start his transition in Philadelphia at a health center that specializes in transgender care, he said.

Upon his return to SUU, Osborn wanted to live in the male dorms, but said that after being open about his transgender situation, his housing application was denied by housing authorities because he was not able to fulfill certain medical criteria.

Dean O'Driscoll, SUU director of Marketing & Public Relations, said Osborn was not denied the right to live in male housing. His application was not considered because he failed to pay the required application fee.

However, Osborn said he did not turn in the money with his application because he did not want to be "promptly denied."

"I was afraid this would happen, and it did," he said. . . .