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The San Diego Kings Club

King of Drag Kings: Questions for Alexander Williams

Interview by EMILY ALPERT

March 29, 2008


By day, he's mild-mannered Alexander Williams, the sweet, somewhat nerdy boy who pampers pooches at the South Bark Dog Wash. By night, he's a hyperkinetic star who lip-synchs before a screaming crowd at a North Park bar, pelvis thrusting under the dizzying spotlights.

Williams, 21, recently earned a spot on the San Diego Kings Club, a troupe of drag performers who mimic male icons, through a three-month contest styled like American Idol, with new themes and competitors voted off week by week. His brand of offbeat, exuberant drag won over the judges and earned him fistfuls of dollars, flung at the stage by fans. His stage name is a bit too raunchy to print. As his alter ego, he's swaggered like Elvis, stumbled like a lounge lizard, and torn off a dress and wig to the tune of Queen's "I Want to Break Free."

Unlike many drag kings, who identify and live as women, Williams is transgender, and lives as a man every day. Born female, Williams came out as lesbian at age 14, and led the gay-straight alliance at Granite Hills High School. Years ago, when he started doing drag, he was still living as a woman, and had to pencil in his sideburns with eyeliner. . . .Read More

Obama Holds LGBT Fund-raiser In New York City

03/29/08-03/31/08

Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate


Sen. Barack Obama waded deep into Clinton territory Thursday evening at a private LGBT fund-raiser in New York City where the price of admission was $2,300 per person.

Held at the apartment of GLSEN founder and executive director Kevin Jennings and his partner, Jeff Davis, the event drew about 125 people and raised $170,000. No press were admitted, but based on several accounts, attendees were struck by the Illinois senator’s candor as well as his fluency with LGBT issues.

“I’ve been to many events over the past 10 years of candidates running for office,” said Corey Johnson, one of the hosts, “This was the most forthright, eloquent, and detailed stuff I’ve heard from a politician [regarding gay issues].”

Molly Lenore, 43, compared Obama’s discussion of the LGBT community to the speech he gave about race in America last week. “During his race speech, everybody said afterward that he treated the American people like adults, and I felt like that’s what he did,” said Lenore, who is transgender and an Obama supporter. “I might not agree 100%, but I want to have an intelligent conversation with somebody.” . . .Read More

Tucson Region: Transgender forum here Tuesday

Region viewed as accepting of gender variance

By Stephanie Innes

Arizona Daily Star 3.30.2008


The word "transgender" does not appear in the Bible. Save a few references to women in masculine clothing and vice versa, it's hard to know whether Scripture says anything at all about people who change their sexual identity.

Interpreting the Bible as it relates to gender-variant people is one of 80 workshops that will take place this week during an international conference in Tucson, titled "Transgender 2008," which begins Tuesday.

About 350 people are expected to attend the conference, an annual event sponsored by the Massachusetts-based International Foundation for Gender Education. The event is in its 22nd year, and this its first time in Arizona.

Among items on the conference schedule are a golf tournament, a gala, a poetry reading, music and a new theater performance titled "TransFormations."

Workshops will cover a gamut of transgender issues, ranging from hormone therapy and post-op blues to transgender Internet dating. The event will culminate Saturday with a public forum about why Tucson is considered a "trans-friendly" place to live. . . .Read More

'It wasn't my choice to be a transgender'

Ethan Baron

March 30, 2008


William, born female, has always known he was really male.

At age two, his mother was dressing the family's children -- three daughters -- for a Christmas Eve party. William, who then had a girl's name, was having none of it.

"He said, 'Little boys do not wear dresses,'" his mother told The Province. "That was one of the last times we ever put a dress on him."

His real name isn't William, but the Fraser Valley teenager, now 19, says he's suffered discrimination because of the kind of person he is, and using his real name would expose him to further bigotry.

As a child, William wanted to play hockey, but young girls couldn't. He settled for ringette. . . .Read More

Transgender Dating: Breaking the Ice in the First E-mail

by Chantel K. Williams

31 March 2008

	Male looks at Tgirl walking by.

How do you date a transgender woman? Are there certain “dos and don’ts” for asking a transgender girl out on a date? What should you say in the first e-mail? If you’re like most men, you probably met a transgender woman in either an 'online' chatroom, dating website, or social network. Along the way, you checked out her photo, profile, and common interests.

The key word is “common interests” and mutual compatibility. So, you fire-off a quick email. Yet, you failed to tell her what you are looking for in relationship or first meeting. Try to look at your first e-mail as a” business card.” It is a way of introducing yourself and exploring possibilities. Remember when you purchased that first greeting card for that special person…you took your time! . . .Read More

Julie reflects on past year

by Steven Hepker | Citizen Patriot

March 29, 2008

John Nemecek rocked Spring Arbor University and made national news last year when the transgender professor came out as Julie. Being fired in February 2007 from the Christian college only strengthened her resolve, and sharpened her pen.

In a prolific stream of one-liners on the Citizen Patriot opinion page, she fires a pea shooter at a hornet's nest.

She says her God is a loving God of diversity and acceptance.
"Sodom was destroyed not because of homosexuality, but for arrogance and lack of compassion," she wrote in a recent one-liner.

Readers thrashed that like red meat in the shark tank.

"Nemecek and people like her have created a cancer that has eaten away at the very fabric of what Christianity has been fighting for centuries," Horton's Rob Anderson responded in a letter to the editor.

His response is typical among dozens of critics who claim Nemecek is a publicity hound out to bend the Scriptures to justify her sinful lifestyle. Some scoff at calling Nemecek a "her." . . .Read More

Q&A with Norman Spack

A doctor helps children change their gender

By Pagan Kennedy March 30, 2008

CHILDREN HAVE CUT themselves. In some cases, 9- or 10-year-old kids have staged suicide attempts. The little boys sob unless they're allowed to wear dresses. The girls want to be called Luke, Ted, or James.

Their parents, desperate to know what is wrong, go online and type "gender disorder."

And what they find is that, even now, decades after doctors performed the first sex changes in America, there's little help for transgender children.

Even the care of transgender adults remains a medical backwater in the United States; in fact, we do not even know how many people in this country have gone through sex changes, because doctors simply did not bother to keep track of patients. Until recently, children with cross-gender feelings rarely received modern medical care - and certainly not hormone shots. After all, who would allow a child to redesign his or her body?

But in the past few years, some doctors have come to believe that kids should be allowed to have some control over how they grow up. Dr. Norman Spack, 64, argues that transgender kids tend to be much happier - and less likely to harm themselves - when they're able to live in their preferred gender role. . . .Read More