Tinky Winky says bye-bye to Jerry Falwell

The former TV star recalls the trauma of being called gay by the conservative preacher.

By King Kaufman

BBC/Ragdoll

Tinky Winky, with his handbag, left, has long denied rumors of an affair with former costar Po, right.

May 16, 2007 | Eight years ago the Rev. Jerry Falwell warned parents that BBC children's television star Tinky Winky was a hidden symbol of homosexuality. Falwell died Tuesday at 73, and the world wanted to talk to Tinky Winky.

"They're calling again, again, again," he said by phone from his home in Islington, in London. A spokesman said the former "Teletubbies" costar got more than 100 calls from reporters in the hour following news of Falwell's death.

"Oh dear, it's easy to say the wrong thing here," he said. "Tinky Winky sad whenever someone dies, but ..." He left it hanging there.

In a 1999 article in his National Liberty Journal headlined "Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet," Falwell pointed out that Winky could be taken as representing gays. . . .

. . . or worse yet TGs!

Professional Golfer Mianne Bagger . . . her thoughts on life

My Thoughts

These are some of my own thoughts and opinions which might give a bit of an insight into the kind of person I am and what I'm about. It's just me writing what's on my mind really and I might change it from time to time...I continue to be amazed at the things that happen in ones life and the direction it can take. Sometimes (well, usually) quite unexpectedly. It just goes to show that you never really know how things are going to turn out. . . .

Ian Harvie: Comedian

Bio & Resume

“Ian Harvie is on a mission. Sure, the Transgender stand-up comic wants to make audiences laugh, but only if s/he can humanize Trans people at the same time. Harvie, who plays to mainstream comedy establishments around the country, including the Boston Comedy Connection, and the Funny Bone clubs, contends that s/he’s the only Trans comic on the circuit.”
– San Francisco Bay Times, July 2006

Ian grew up on Beaver Pond (for real) in rural mountain town, Bridgton, Maine until the age of twelve. Ian’s first comedy performance was in a family variety show on New Years Day 1975. “I was standing in front of a fitted sheet that was hanging on a clothesline in the spare bedroom of my Aunt and Uncle's house in Rochester, New Hampshire. It was a period in my life when I was obsessed with the Carol Burnett Show and her whole cast,” Ian recalls. Channeling the energies of Tim Conway and Rich Little, Ian executed an impression of Richard Little doing an impression of Richard Nixon – a complicated and technical feat. “As I recall, my impression killed. So what if the audience of all 7 or 8 people were family members.” s/he laughs. For years after that, Ian received regular requests for that impression and obliged every time. Still to this day, if a family member were to ask, Ian would do it in a heartbeat. . . .

Check out his/her video clip.

Trans Singer Makes History

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: November 30, 2006

“The world probably isn’t ready for a guy like me,” says trans singer Joshua Klipp, who made musical history on his self released EP Patience by singing in both his pre- and post-transition voices on the R&B track “Little Girl.” Klipp says he was terrified that his transition would destroy his voice and he searched for medial studies about the effects of testosterone on female-to-male vocal chords. Finding none, he enlisted the help of Dr. Edward Damrose, a throat specialist at Stanford University, who monitored Klipp’s physiological changes and its effects on his voice. Dr. Damrose plans to publish his findings.

“It’s funny because now everyone says, ‘You’ve got a great voice.’” Klipp says. “[But] I [used to have] this perfect pitch. I had a pitch in my head and it would just happen… and all of a sudden that muscle memory was just shot... I’m still working with how that actually feels… and I’m still getting used to it.”

Klipp is a bit of a Renaissance man. In addition to his musical endeavors, the trans man holds a degree in law, teaches dance, directs the San Francisco Bay Area hip hop dance company Freeplay, provides promotional photography for local artists, sits on the board of directors for Youth Speaks and he founded San Francisco Bay Area Artist Development and Support (www.myspace. com/cutelittlewhiteguy) to help artists develop business infrastructure.

The San Francisco singer, who is in his early thirties, says the latter project is something he devoted a great deal of time to during the initial part of his transition. “I didn’t know if I would be able to be the artist. So I made a commitment to myself that if I can’t be it…I’m going to take all that energy and put it towards getting other people out there and…supporting their art in whatever way I can.”

Klipp originally recorded “Little Girl” about five years ago, but recently enlisted songwriter Kristopher Cloud in pairing those female vocals with Klipp’s masculine verses, so that the song becomes a soothing lullaby from his male self to the girl he was.

“The whole process of letting go of that voice that I used to have was such a hugely emotional experience for me, that singing along with it with my current voice kind of felt like a resolution.” . . .

Japan's Saitama Medical University stops sex-change operations

05/14/2007

BY KANAKO IDA, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Japan's leading hospital in sex-change operations has stopped offering its services, leaving a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the treatment of patients suffering from gender identity disorder.

Saitama Medical University called a halt to the operations after professor Takao Harashina, a surgeon specializing in plastic surgery, retired at the end of April.

University President Toshio Yamauchi said it had become impossible to assemble a team of experienced doctors to perform sex-change operations.

Gender identity disorder, the condition in which people do not identify with the sex they were born with, is slowly beginning to win social recognition in Japan.

The suspension of operations at Saitama Medical University could jeopardize the hopes for the treatment of the nation's estimated 10,000 patients, experts say.

The university's plastic surgery department has canceled the nearly 60 sex-change operations it was scheduled to perform between May and October.

Yamauchi said the university hopes to resume sex-change operations as early as possible, emphasizing that its policy to offer the medical treatment remains unchanged.

Three years ago, it became possible for people diagnosed with the condition to change their sex on family registers by applying to family courts.

Applicants must undergo sex-change operations and fulfill other conditions before applying for the changes to registers.

Several other universities, including Okayama University and Kansai Medical University, perform sex-change operations, but the number of operations carried out by those institutions is limited.

The change from woman to man is particularly difficult. The procedure requires advanced technology and experience, experts noted.

Saitama Medical University carried out the nation's first legal sex-change operation in 1998.

The treatment of people suffering from gender identity disorder was formally introduced after the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology compiled guidelines in 1997.

The guidelines call for patients to first receive psychotherapeutic and hormone treatment and, when necessary, to undergo sex-change operations.

So far, 357 patients suffering from gender identity disorder have undergone sex-change operations at Saitama Medical University, according to Harashina.

About 60 percent have undergone relatively simple operations to remove their breasts.

But 21 people have had male sex organs attached.

Toshiyuki Oshima, director of the Japanese Society of Gender Identity Disorder, said Japan should have its own treatment center for patients.

Oshima, a professor at Kyushu International University, said doctors who can perform sex-change operations are limited. He also noted that such operations are not covered by medical insurance.

Operations done overseas can involve considerable difficulties due to language problems as well as issues during post-operation medical care, he added.(IHT/Asahi: May 14,2007)

Trans Surgeon Keeps Small Town On Map

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: November 23, 2006

Dr. Marci Bowers is not a hero in her small-town Colorado.

At first glance, the small Colorado town of Trinidad seems an unlikely travel destination, yet over the last four decades, thousands of trans women have flocked to the quiet burg. Their pilgrimage continues today despite the resistance of local religious leaders.

Behind its quaint architecture and coal mining history, Trinidad conceals its reputation as “sex-change capital of the world.” The town first became a trans destination in the late 1960s when Dr. Stanley Biber began performing vaginoplasty for male to female transsexuals. When Biber retired in 2003 after 5,800 surgeries, his protégé Dr. Marci Bowers took over the practice.

A trans woman and former Biber patient who lives in Trinidad with her female partner, Bowers brings a rare insider perspective to her practice, but it’s not appreciated by some of the town’s 9,000 mostly conservative residents. For the past year, Trinidad Ministerial Association has circulated petitions and pressured Mount San Rafael Hospital to prohibit Bowers from operating at their facility.

In their campaign to oust Bowers, the Ministerial Association frequently cites a Johns Hopkins University study they claim proves surgery isn’t successful in treating gender identity issues. Bowers (marcibowers.com) calls the 1972 John Hopkins study “a sham,” that misinterpreted its own data and has never been replicated. Originally pioneers in sex reassignment surgery, Johns Hopkins abandoned the practice decades ago, partly based on the study’s findings.

“If you look at the actual study itself, the satisfaction rates and happiness rates after [surgeries] were overwhelmingly positive,” Bowers insists. “Their interpretation of the study was that the respondents—the patients themselves—couldn’t possibly be accurate about what they were feeling, because they were crazy in the first place.”

The 40-something Bowers, who practiced as an OB/GYN for nearly two decades says that today’s vaginoplasties bear little resemblance to those 30 years ago, and she boasts, “Sixty percent of what I do no one else does anywhere else in the world.” . . .

Transgender groups lobby for protection

By: Mike Deeson

Washington, D.C. - More than 100 transgendered people lobbied Congress for protection from being fired because of gender. Susan Stanton, who is in Washington for the event, stayed away from some of the media circus early in the day when the group began the lobby effort.

While you could tell from some of the looks that their agenda wasn't going to be an easy sell, when they went to see their congressmen, they found some sympathetic ears.

"Discrimination is not right in this country," says Rep. Jan Schakowsky, (D-IL). Schakowsky says she is aware of what happened to Susan Stanton and she will co-sponsor the Employment Non-discrimination Act. "It would include gender identity in there," she says. "You can't discriminate on the basis of gender identity." . . .

Undercover as a man

Video: Journalist Norah Vincent who spent a year disguised as a man is surprised by her findings. Her book is, "Self Made Man."

Facing rejection

Video: Social worker Caitlin Ryan, Ph.D. on how rejection affects transgender children.

A very important area for research.

TransYouth Family Advocates

TYFA Believes: All people, especially children, have the right to be listened to when they express something as core to their sense of self as gender identity, particularly when that gender identity expression differs from their assigned birth sex.

TYFA Believes: Anyone who supports and honors a child’s gender identity expression deserves in return the support and respect of their extended families, neighbors, communities, schools, child welfare agencies, the courts and last, but not least, the medical community.

TYFA Believes: There is no greater gift we can give, or positive role-modeling we can do, than to teach our children to respect and cherish diversity.

Susan Stanton debuts in D.C.

She will join a large group to lobby Congress today for transgender rights.

By LORRI HELFAND
Published May 15, 2007

---

Author Jennifer Finney Boylan awards Susan Stanton a toaster Monday for "coming out" at a celebration with members of the National Center for Transgender Equality at the National Press Club in downtown Washington D.C.

In February, Steve Stanton's secret was out. He lost his job as Largo city manager. Then the world came calling. But not for Steve.

By LANE DeGREGORY
Published May 13, 2007

---

LARGO -- She couldn't sleep. She lay for hours in the dark.

In the morning, she would pose for her first portrait, at age 48. All her life, she had dodged and wavered and contemplated every avoidance, even suicide. Now, 12 hours to go.

She got up at 1 a.m., made coffee. She took a mug into the den of her Largo home, pulled out her red journal and started to write:

So here I sit. Alone in the early morning hours. Waiting for the rest of my life to begin.

She had spent years planning for this day. In the last month, she had frantically built a wardrobe, learned makeup, fretted over her too-short hair. She thought she looked good. Pretty. Professional.

Her debut would come after four decades of self-examination, in the dust of a leader's best-laid plans, in the remnants of her family. It glowed with the promise of possibility. Like new skin.

But what if others didn't see her the way she saw herself?

She had already lost her job, her friends and her home -- the things that gave her an identity -- for admitting she wasn't the person they knew. Now that she was showing them a second self, would they reject that person too?

She knew that some people would never even see Susan Ashley Stanton.

They would see a man in a dress.

Shedding a life usually means starting over, quietly, somewhere else. Slip town. Get a new job in a place no one knows your name.

For Steve Stanton, that wasn't an option. . . .

Click on title above and view related video.

Transgender Student Named Prom Queen

Web Editor: Matt Bush, Online Content Producer

Created: 5/14/2007 1:58:32 PM

Updated: 5/14/2007 2:12:14 PM

Play Video

FRESNO, CA (NBC) -- Johnny Vera is not your average prom queen. He's a transgender teen on a mission to spread positive attitude. That's why this crown means so much.

Former Lesbian Feminist Reports on The Man He’s Become

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: November 2, 2006

This Bridge Called My Back Contributor Chronicles His Transition

Max Wolf Valerio isn’t the man he expected to be. Before beginning testosterone treatment nearly two decades ago, the American Indian, Latino, Sephardic Valerio was a lesbian feminist poet whose pre-transition prose is enshrined in the essential feminist of color tome, This Bridge Called My Back. Today he sometimes makes grown women weep.

As he chronicles in his new memoir, The Testosterone Files, within five years on testosterone he’d become a sometimes aggressive, virile heterosexual man accused of being sexist. Valerio sheepishly admits, “I’ve heard of women actually crying after I read the chapter, ‘Cock in my Pocket’ which is graphic about the heightened sex drive, and takes on the issue of rape and violence against women. Because of the intensity of the writing and the fact that I don’t pull my punches when describing intense feelings and impulses, people are often shaken.”

In Testosterone Files Valerio boldly asserts that there are fundamental differences between the sexes, which are rooted in hormonal influences rather than socialization. Saying he’s gained a “darker understanding” of how testosterone activates aggression, Valerio argues that violence seems “a part of the male inheritance.”

He admits that some women have found his conclusions about gender contentious, and his frank discussions about sex and violence disturbing. Willing to address even the most controversial issues, Valerio admits, “I known FTMs who tell me that their sex fantasies became more violent or aggressive.”

Under the influence of testosterone, Valerio says that his own sexual impulses became “colored by an intense and sometimes edgy desire, a sudden desire to take, or even overpower.” Over time, he says, he’s grown into his new sexuality, and, he says, “The heightened drive is just another part of who I am now.” . . .

Poet Embraces Multiplicity

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: April 12, 2007

“I’d rather be a verb than a noun,” says award-winning poet Thea Hillman. “I try not to identify if I can help it. Things that are more true than not about me: I’m a queer, intersex writer, and culturally Jewish activist. I go by she.”

A frequent presenter and spoken word performer addressing intersex issues, Hillman has also chaired the board of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). The premier resource for information about reproductive anomalies and disorders of sex development, the ISNA is dedicated to ending unwanted genital surgeries for those born with anatomy atypical to males or females. ISNA urges that all children be designated as boys or girls without surgical intervention.

Hillman’s first book, Depending on the Light, was a collection of short fiction and poem-stories about sex, family, queerness, language and social change. Her latest, For Lack of a Better Word, is a “very personal, intense book” about family, sex and relationships—centered around growing up intersex. It’s due out later this spring.

Since the mid ‘90s, Hillman has produced spoken word performances. She recalls that the early events, “Morphed into community-building and strengthening events. I brought together really talented people to talk about things that weren’t getting enough exposure anywhere, including on stage: intersex, trans and genderqueer issues, [particularly] from older and younger people and from people of color.”

Although trans issues have gained visibility, Hilman insists, “There are still trans stories that aren’t being told, especially from transwomen and poor and incarcerated trans people.”

Hillman says that while both intersex and trans people face sex and gender oppression, “What is generally true and unique to people dealing with intersex issues is that the bodies they were born with put them at risk of…medical intervention…[that they] had no say in…either because they were too young to consent or were never even told what was being done to them.” . . .

Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative

By Dennis McMillan
Published: May 10, 2007

SF Treasurer Jose Cisneros, Police Commissioner Theresa Sparks, Senator Carole Migden, Sidney with her father Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Ross Mirkarimi and Police commissioner Joe Alioto Veronese at the LGBT Center’s Transgender

The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center, Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), San Francisco Transgender Empowerment Advocacy & Mentorship (SFTEAM), and the Transgender Law Center (TLC) announced a first-of-its-kind program to reduce chronic unemployment and underemployment within the transgender community. Trans activists and their friends gathered on April 26 at the Hotel Monaco. The program, called the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative (TEEI) is unique in bringing together three valuable elements: workforce readiness, job support, and employer training and readiness, in an effort to reduce underemployment in the transgender community. The TEEI effort has been made possible through grants from the San Francisco Human Services Agency and the Walter & Elise Haas Senior Foundation. Mayor Gavin Newsom sent a certificate of recognition naming it Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative Kick-off Day in San Francisco.

Trans Activist and Police Commissioner Theresa Sparks spoke of hard times in the past, trying to secure employment as a transgender. She said she drove a taxicab at first, and while that might have been exciting, it was not what her background had been trained to do. “This is a very exciting and significant initiative event, and the people who organized it are to be congratulated and thanked from all of our hearts in the transgender community,” said Sparks. “In many ways, this initiative is more significant than the health benefits were in 2000 and 2001, because this has the opportunity of affecting every transgender person in San Francisco and potentially everywhere in the United States.” . . .

If a boy, 6, thinks he's a girl, how should he be raised?

By SooToday.com Staff
SooToday.com
Sunday, May 13, 2007

NEWS RELEASE

NEWSWEEK

*****************************
Newsweek explores the question: 'What makes us male or female?'

On the decision to let Jona Rose, who was born Jonah, a six-year-old kindergartner, live as a girl

'We wrung our hands about this every night,' says her dad, Joel. 'She has been pretty adamant from the get-go: I am a girl.' . . .

(Rethinking) Gender

A growing number of Americans are taking their private struggles with their identities into the public realm. How those who believe they were born with the wrong bodies are forcing us to re-examine what it means to be male and female.

By Debra Rosenberg

Newsweek

May 21, 2007 issue - Growing up in Corinth, Miss., J. T. Hayes had A legacy to attend to. His dad was a well-known race-car driver and Hayes spent much of his childhood tinkering in the family's greasy garage, learning how to design and build cars. By the age of 10, he had started racing in his own right. Eventually Hayes won more than 500 regional and national championships in go-kart, midget and sprint racing, even making it to the NASCAR Winston Cup in the early '90s. But behind the trophies and the swagger of the racing circuit, Hayes was harboring a painful secret: he had always believed he was a woman. He had feminine features and a slight frame—at 5 feet 6 and 118 pounds he was downright dainty—and had always felt, psychologically, like a girl. Only his anatomy got in the way. Since childhood he'd wrestled with what to do about it. He'd slip on "girl clothes" he hid under the mattress and try his hand with makeup. But he knew he'd find little support in his conservative hometown. . . .

Stanton lobbies Congress Tuesday

By LORRI HELFAND
Published May 13, 2007

---

Weeks before she plans to live full time as a woman, Susan Ashley Stanton will lobby Congress.

The former Largo city manager is scheduled to meet with legislators Tuesday.

She wants to convince lawmakers to support federal legislation that protects gay and transgender people.

She won't start living as Susan until the end of this month. She could have lobbied as Steven Stanton, but she said she wanted to be authentic.

"I want to go as who I am," Stanton said. "It would almost be insulting to the legislators to go as someone else and expect them to be honest with you if you can't be honest with them."

On Monday night, Stanton also is scheduled to make a public appearance as Susan at a Washington, D.C., reception honoring transgender advocates. . . .

A History Making Moment At A Valley Prom

By Amanda Perez

05/13/2007 - It's the second time a transgender teen has been in the royal court for a valley prom this year, but this time, the results are much different. . . .