Gender and Life's Paths: Oct 27, 2008

Monday, October 27, 2008

10.28.2008

blacktown sun.com.au

CARLOTTA will present her scintillating Priscilla Show at Blacktown Workers Club on Friday, December 5.

Presented in the style of a theatre restaurant, the show will feature all the glitz and glamour you'd expect from this ever-popular performer who's been in show business for more than 40 years.

Not that you'd think so to hear and see Carlotta.

The Priscilla Show has it all, including costuming that can be described only as out of this world. The show takes audiences on a journey comparable to productions staged in Las Vegas.

There will be feathers, sequins, headdresses, bikini-clad showgirls and much more. The lot, in fact. . . .Read More

Ask the Flying Monkey!

by Brent Hartinger

October 27, 2008

Q: I've just watched the pilot of Ryan Murphy's new series Pretty/Handsome and am really impressed by it. Do you know why FX didn’t pick it up? Was it because of the topic? Should a show about a transsexual man still stir controversy after Dirty Sexy Money? -- Tobias, Frankfurt, Germany . . . .Read More

Opinions and Editorials: Transgender Day of Remembrance

By Katherine Boyle - B.O.D.I.E.S

27 October 2008

As it approaches the end of October, some very important national and international dates are coming up quickly; some will be recognizable, and others less known but still significant.

The first of these is November 20 for Transgender Day of Remembrance; this date may not be widely known because the topic of transgendered individuals still seems to be taboo in some circles. The purpose of Transgender Day of Remembrance is to recognize men and women who have been killed due to ignorance and hatred, targeted specifically because they were transgendered. The first such event took place in 1999 in San Francisco, to honor murder victim Rita Hester, who had been murdered brutally the previous year. The 1999 event was organized by Gwendolyn Anne Smith who began the website Remembering Our Dead, and launched the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Transgendered individuals are people who feel that their biological sex doesn’t match with their inner selves, and isn’t representative of who they are. In order to represent the gender that they feel they are, transgendered individuals often make changes through dress, mannerisms, and hair length, or by using or shunning cosmetics. . . .Read More

Gender variance or nonconformity is found wherever one finds people.

A closer view reveals many variations in gender expression. Note “sex” refers to biology, genes, hormones, body development, whereas “gender” is social role, cultural expectations for appearance and behavior. Gender expression varies over time and throughout cultures and may vary in the lifetimes of individuals. We sometimes hear “male or female”, “masculine or feminine”, as defining “the binary”. Typically, many want males masculine and females feminine, in a world where being androgenous or a hybrid may actually work better. Yet many individuals, for example, parents, teachers, and friends, including some with gender issues, crave the binary. In the case of a significantly gender variant person, gender expression often does not match the social or binary gender role assigned at birth. Nevertheless, the person's expressed gender may feel correct or natural. Thus a gender nonconforming person, maybe someone who even sees themselves as “non-binary”, may feel very uncomfortable with the gender expression expected by parents and significant others. Fortunately, there are a growing number of resources to help those interested understand gender, development, change and adaptation. And there are creative paths one may explore to hopefully find comfort, experience a measure of peace and happiness, and in the process find the gender expression that works best. Here I offer some news, information, resources, opinions and POVs to help you learn more about gender expression and life situations. We now know there are a variety of paths individuals discover that may contribute to positive life changes.

Books you may find interesting:

Benjamin, Harry. (1966). The Transsexual Phenomenon. New York: The Julian Press, Inc. Full text and photographs available as an electronic book: http://www.symposium.com/ijt/benjamin/

Blanchard, Ray and Steiner, Betty W. (1990). Clinical Management of Gender Identity Disorders in Children and Adults. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, Inc.

Bolin, Anne. (1988). In Search of Eve: Transsexual Rites of Passage. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin and Garvey.

Boenke, Mary, (Ed). (2003). Trans Forming Families. Hardy, VA: Oak Knoll Press.

Bornstein, Kate. (1994). Gender Outlaw: On men, women and the rest of us. Routledge: New York & London.

Brill, Stephanie & Pepper, Rachel. (2008). The Transgender Child. San Francisco: Cleis Press.

Brown, Mildred L. & Rounsley, Chloe Ann. (1996). True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Brownmiller, Susan. (1984). Femininity. New York: Linden / Simon Schuster.

Buss, David M. (1994). The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. New York: Basic Books.

Califia, Pat. (1997). Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism. San Francisco: Cleis Press.

Cameron, Loren. (1996). Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits. San Francisco: Cleis Press.

Colapinto, John. (2000). As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. New York: HarperCollins.

Cromwell, Jason. (1999). Transmen and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders and Sexualities. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Devor, Holly. (1989). Gender Blending: Confronting The Limits of Duality. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Devor, Holly. (1997). Female to Male Transsexuals in Society. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Docter, Richard F. (1988). Transvestites and Transsexuals: Toward a Theory of Cross-Gender Behavior. New York: Plenum Press.

Ehrensaft, Diane. (2011). Gender Born, Gender Made. New York: The Experiment, LLC.

Green, Jamison. (2004). Becoming a Visible Man. Nashville:Vanderbilt Univerrsity Press.

Griggs, Claudine. (1996). Passage through Trinidad: Journal of a Surgical Sex Change. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co.

Griggs, Claudine. (1998). S/He: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes. Oxford: Berg.

HBIGDA, Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders, Sixth Version. (2001). http://www.hbigda.org/socv6.html#top

Kessler, Suzanne and McKenna, Wendy. (1978). Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Serano, Julia. (2007). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Women on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. San Francisco: Seal Press.

Stuart, Kim Elizabeth. (1983). The Uninvited Dilemma: A Question of Gender. Portland, Oregon: Metamorphous Press, Inc.

Available from Metamorphous Press, Inc. P.O. Box 10616, Portland, Oregon 97210-0616. Fax (503) 223-9117 or Toll Free 1-800-937-7771

Sullivan, Lou. (1990). Information for the Female to Male Cross Dresser and Transsexual. Seattle, Washington: Ingersoll Gender Center.

Available from Ingersoll Gender Center. 1812 E. Madison Seattle, Washington 98122-2843. (206) 329-665

Williams, Walter L. (1986). The Spirit and The Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

Zucker, Kenneth J. and Bradley, Susan J. (1995). Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents. New York: Guilford.

Gender and Life's Paths

Monday, October 27, 2008

transsexuals - man \ woman

See the lot with Carlotta

Ask the Flying Monkey!

Opinions and Editorials: Transgender Day of Remembrance

By Katherine Boyle - B.O.D.I.E.S

Gender variance or nonconformity is found wherever one finds people.

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Design concept © (2006) by Rebecca Auge. No claim to other authors' works is intended or implied.

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