Transsexual toilets for Thai school

(Daily News on http://www.parsnewz.com/blog )

A Thai school has created toilets for its transgender students with a sign that's half male, half female.

The Kamphaeng School in Si Sa Ket, in northeastern Thailand opened separate toilet facilities to accommodate hundreds of transgender students who have always longed for their own restroom.

Helen Long reports.SOUNDBITES:

# Sittisak Sumontha, Kamphaeng School Direction, saying (Thai):

"When they used the male toilets, they would be teased so they would just go to the female toilets with their female friends. When I saw that, I wondered if the girls felt uncomfortable . When I asked the female students how they felt about it they told me that it all depended on whether the transgender students were their friends or not."

# Wichai Saengsakul, Transgender student, saying (Thai):

"I want them (school officials) to decorate the toilet to make it better than this. Something like, painting the toilet pink because it suits us - maybe a flower pattern." parsnewz

Mexican sex workers want place at AIDS conference

3 August 2008

By Tan Ee Lyn

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A global AIDS conference that opens in Mexico City on Sunday is meant for people infected with HIV, but transsexual sex worker Elma Delea cannot get inside.

She will be protesting on the fringes of the six-day biennial event.

"They (Mexican health authorities) said they had no money for everyone who wanted scholarships. We are very angry," said Elma Delea, as she stood at the junction of Calle de Alfredo Chavero and Calzada San Antonio Abad, a stretch of road where transsexuals wait all night to be picked up by customers in passing cars.

Her friends nodded, citing other explanations given by organizers, such as not being able to speak English.

Some 25,000 people are expected at the event, which draws scientists, international agencies, government officials, non-government organizations and the media.

But people most at risk of the disease, such as sex workers, homosexuals and intravenous drug users, are least visible. Most are poor and cannot afford registration fees. . . .Read More

The XY Games

By JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN

August 3, 2008

Belgrade Lakes, Me.

Vivienne Flesher

Related

Times Topics: Olympic Games (2008)

IN the 1936 Olympic Games, the sprinter Stella Walsh — running for Poland and known as the fastest woman in the world — was beaten by Helen Stephens of St. Louis, who set a world record by running 100 meters in 11.4 seconds. After the race, a Polish journalist protested that Stephens must be a man. After all, no woman in the world could run that fast.

Olympic officials performed a “sex test” on Stephens, who was found, in fact, to be female, proving once and for all that a person could be incredibly fast and female at the same time.

Forty-four years later, Walsh, who had become an American citizen, was shot to death in the parking lot of a discount store in Cleveland. Her autopsy revealed a surprise: It was Stella Walsh, and not Helen Stephens, who turned out to have been male all along, at least according to the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office. . . .Read More

Transwoman Gives Eyewitness Account Of Knoxville Church Shooting

August 4, 2008

by Joe


Michelangelo Signorile has interviewed Carla Lewis, a transgender woman who was inside the Knoxville Unitarian Church when last week's shooting happened. Signorile:

This is a clip from my interview with Carla Lewis, who was inside the Tennessee Valley Universalist Unitarian Church when a gunman opened fire little over a week ago. She came on the program last week to take us through the tragic event, talk about the gunman's motives of hatred against gays and liberals and tell us a bit about hero Greg McKendry. The 60-year-old church volunteer was killed in the shooting, jumping in front of the gunman to protect others. He and his wife had recently taken in a transgender foster child. . . .Read More