Neither/Nor Space Across Pop Cultures: 4th Netherlands Transgender Film Festival

Kate Bornstein| BIO |

Posted August 3, 2007 | 03:42 PM (EST)

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I know that the film Transamerica was a big breakthrough for tranny visibility in the USA. But believe it or not, there's more to transgender than director Duncan Tucker and evening soap star Felicity Huffman can bring to the silver screen. In fact, there are movies being made all around the world that cast real live trannies in the tranny roles.

There are documentaries that get made about people who take gender exploration a hell of a lot further than man-becomes-woman or woman-becomes-man. Many of today's radical tranny films never make it to your local Cineplex, but they're out there. I'd love to give you a single link that would open for you the treasure trove of films about radical gender transgression, but no one's put a list together yet. You're gonna hafta google them for yourself, but I promise it'll be a fun search.

Or, if you're lucky, you live near a city that holds a transgender film festival. Don't worry if you're not in one of those cities. I live in New York, and there's not one here. San Francisco has one, though: Tranny Fest. And Seattle has the 2nd Annual Translations tranny film festival, this coming Labor Day weekend. You could still make your travel plans, and Seattle's gorgeous in the summer. You just missed London's Transfabulous this past June. But fret not. I'm gonna write about that next week.

Failing a full-fledged tranny film festival, you can always catch a few of us in most film festivals calling themselves "Lesbian and Gay," or "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender." (It's called LGBT, pronounced as if the B and T were silent.) Many of those festivals do have a tranny track of films, and sitting in the audience at that kind of screening does make my heart leap with joy cuz I'm sitting there for a solid two hours with so many of my family. And look, if I left out a tranny film festival, I'm sorry. My bad -- please send me the link care of the comments section, and I'll include it in my next blog.

But then there's Amsterdam where every two years, people from around the globe gather to celebrate the image of neither/nor gender in film. Film makers, actors, photographers, theorists, journalists and activists from all over the world, and the only thing they've got in common is that they're work somehow contradicts the notion that in this world, there are men and there are woman and never the two shall switch. It's the Netherlands Transgender Film Festival, founded and directed by Kam Wai Kui in 2001.

Kate and Director Kam Wai Kui

Kam Wai asked me to attend the 4th of these festivals, this past May, 2007. I had a wonderful time, meeting so many members of my tribe. Look, it's one thing to look up at the screen and go, "Wow, look how ugly that brave Felicity Huffman has let herself become. Why, she's almost ugly enough to be a real live transwoman." Okay, meow, but it's true. It's another thing to look up and see yourself, or someone really a lot like you and go, "Wow."

Gender doesn't have to be black and white. It can be a sparkling jewel with many facets, and that's what wowed me in Amsterdam: I met gender freak artists who capture us magnificently! Please treat yourself, and peruse the online festival program and see for yourself how bedazzling gender can be. There was art that crossed lines of age, race, nationality, and class. There was some pretty polished stuff and a couple of charmingly rough home-filmed pieces. It was a space where we could meet each other and exchange ideas and art and politics. We even talked about ::gasp:: sex! A lot, in fact. And wow did that ever feel good, because in the USA you so rarely get to sit around in public and discuss sex, do you? Nothing in the Netherlands Transgender Film Festival was boring! . . .

East Bay hosts trans health care forum

by Raymond J. Aguilera

City and state officials gathered with activists, health care providers, and community members for the East Bay's first transgender health care forum July 25. The two-hour town hall meeting took place at the Elihu Harris State building in downtown Oakland, with a goal of starting a dialogue about the need for organized, comprehensive health care services for transgender people in their communities.

According to openly gay Berkeley City Council member Kriss Worthington, the meeting was the start of a much-needed process of improving services in the community.

"I'm here to learn," said Worthington.

About 100 people attended the meeting, which was moderated by noted transgender activist and Oakland native Jamison Green. In his opening remarks, Greene emphasized the need for comprehensive health care for the transgender community.

"Tonight's town hall was planned by community members who are concerned about transgender health care, and who want to make sure that [we] have the health care we need to fully participate in making Alameda County a great place to live," Green said.

The meeting also included health care providers, including representatives of the Berkeley Free Clinic and Tri-City Health Center in Fremont. Practitioners and transgender people spoke to the need for comprehensive, affordable care sensitive to the needs of transgender people. A common thread was the need for people to be able to access appropriate health care close to home. . . .

	Moderator Jamison Green speaks at last week's forum. Photo: Rick Gerharter

Trans drop-in center ‘swamped’ by youth

Funding for D.C. facility expires in September

LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, August 03, 2007

When the local group Transgender Health Empowerment, Inc., launched its Tyra Hunter Drop-In Center last March in a three-story townhouse on North Capitol Street, organizers expected to provide a variety of HIV prevention and social services to mostly adult transgender women.

But in the past two months, younger clients like 19-year-old Nannaboo Mack, a transgender woman who said she learned about the center from the “streets,” have descended on the facility in large numbers, stretching its resources and threatening to overextend its budget.

“We’re getting swamped,” said Brian Watson, Transgender Health Empowerment’s director of programs.

As a first-of-its-kind transgender facility in Washington, the center includes a washer and dryer, a shower, a kitchen and a supply of emergency clothing and hygienic products for clients who often are homeless, Watson and other center staff members said.

They said the center, among other things, provides employment, medical and drug treatment referral services, along with HIV testing and prevention counseling — all aimed at helping transgender persons in need get on their feet and become self-sufficient. . . .

Star Trek: TNG - "The Outcast" - 'I Am Tired of Lies' Scene

Male Sportswriter Returns To Work As a Woman

By John Ireland, In These Times. Posted August 1, 2007.

When Mike became Christine, she gave Los Angeles sports fans a courtside view of gender politics.

For all of its trappings of money, fame, and corruption, professional sports has a lot to do with character. Avid sports fans seem to respect those who face up to overwhelming challenge and overcome adversity. So it should not come as a surprise that readers rose in solidarity when a 23-year veteran sports writer announced in the Los Angeles Times that he would return from a short hiatus ... as a woman.

On April 26, Mike Penner wrote what he thought would be the toughest article of his career. "I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words." The piece ran in the Sports section, next to his regular column.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Penner's story was "by mid-evening, one of the most heavily viewed stories on latimes.com in the last year, with about half a million page views." Nancy Sullivan, executive director of communications for the newspaper, says "There was a massive response to this story, not only on our website, but across the media spectrum." The online message board accompanying the article was closed to comments in less than 8 hours, with 800 comments logged in. Hundreds more messages were sent via e-mail. Responses to the revelation came in three distinct flavors: kudos from sports fans, effusive thanks from other transsexuals and rants from bible-thumpers. Readers' initial shock, however, subsided almost immediately. . . .

Autogynephila in the advice column

Curious and curiouser

BY ANDREA NEMERSON

Dear Andrea:

My straight (?) man who loves women and their curves and smiles and butts and legs, who loves me and my mom and his mom and all the pretty girls who pass us on the sidewalk, also really, really likes looking at transsexual porn. . . .

The Rainbow Babies.com Turns One Year Old

TheRainbowBabies.com turns one year old this month. With over 200 pages of original content aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered parents and those wishing to become parents, TheRainbowBabies.com is the destination site for up to date information and news impacting LGBT families.

Long Beach, CA (PRWEB) July 31, 2007 -- TheRainbowBabies.com is a web site dedicated to providing space for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to share stories of their respective paths to parenthood. Launched on June 27th, 2006, the website is excited to be celebrating their one year anniversary. TheRainbowBabies.com is also a place where parents (and would-be parents) can turn to for timely and timeless information, advice and stories about getting pregnant, having babies and raising children, from experts in various fields and other gay parents.

TheRainbowBabies.com features information on such topics as insemination, surrogacy, adoption and foster parenting. Also featured on the site are book and movie reviews, articles on legal, financial and mental health issues and most importantly, stories from moms and dads. All information is provided free of charge; the web site is funded in part by advertising.

The Rainbow Babies is proud to have made it to the one year mark. "One year in internet terms is likely equal to 4.5 regular chronological years, so we figure that we're doing pretty good," says founder Angela Watson. "Additionally, the entire web site team is proud of the fact that we have well over 200 pages of original and unique content that is aimed specifically at LGBT parents and their families."

With well over half a million hits in the last six months alone, the web site hopes to continue it's phenomenal growth. Watson continued, saying, "As we enter into our 'Terrible Twos', we are changing around the look and navigation of the web site and this new look should roll out in the next 30 days. We are all 'terribly' excited!" . . .

Debate with radical feminist Julie Bindel

The debate regarding surgical treatment of transsexuals and outcomes with Julie Bindel aired Wednesday 1 August 2007 in the UK.

You can listen to it on "Hecklers" here:

"Radical feminist Julie Bindel postulates that sex change operations constitute unnecessary mutilation, before an audience of doctors and transsexual people at the Royal Society of Medicine. The panel of expert opponents includes gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and two people who feel they were born into the wrong gender."

Recommended!

First, read the stories regarding Bindel I posted yesterday.

Transgender Prom Queen on Boston Public: A Drama

POV, Critique, Opinion: Gender As Neither/Nor

Kate Bornstein

July 30, 2007 | 02:22 PM (EST)

In the last four months or so, I've traveled to 10 or 12 states in the USA, followed by trips to Amsterdam, London, and a tiny village named Inderoy, just an hour's drive north of Trondheim, Norway. And no matter where I go, I can see that most people are convinced there are two kinds of people in the world: men and women. But I hang out with people who, mostly, are neither men nor women. I would call most Neither/Nor people my tribe. It's a difficult place to live, being neither/nor in an either/or world. Nah, it's not difficult... it sucks. Don't get me wrong, being neither/nor is GREAT in a neither/nor world, and thank heavens there are more and more spaces like that in the world. But there's not enough of those kind of spaces to keep up with the increasing number of people around the world who are calling themselves not-men and not-women.

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Just look at this email someone sent me through my website:

I am a [35-39] year old in [the Midwest, USA], born female. For many years I felt masculine. However; I don't believe I am male or female. I am so afraid to live the way I have [become] because I am living a lie, but I don't necessarily want to die. Is there such thing as being neither? How do I help the "professionals" understand that I am not a pathological freak? I just don't identify with either one of those genders. So what does it make me? I need to know how can I continue to live in this world now that I have come to this realization? [unsigned]

Ouch. I answered the email as best I could, but I realized that I could be of more help to this person and the rest of my tribe of neither/nor people if I started talking more directly about it on this blog. So that's what I'm gonna do. Gloves off. People who are not men and not women really live in the world, everywhere, and it's high time to stop ignoring that and insisting on some archaic binary system of genderfying people.

Just look at this poem sent to me by my righteous neither/nor friend, the M word, from Myspace.

Either/Or

I'm not either/or

this or that, I'm not

here nor there;

Shit, I'm everywhere

you care

not to look

I'm so much more

than Either/or

I won't pick and choose

Good or bad

Black or white

Single out or accept

Bitch or bombshell

Opt or decide for

Saint or sinner

Homo or hetero

Goddess or whore

I'm neither/nor

I won't let binary

beat me

into selection submission

I won't let one or the other

kill me

I won't name my desire

by sex/parts alone

man or woman

or in between,

or none of these

beings, my Self

I can't assign identity

through DNA or race;

You can't define, this face

simply won't give you simple

answers

The M word said I could include a link to her MySpace home page. Totally worth a visit.

Okay, that's enough for today. Over the next three weeks, I'm gonna be writing about some wonderful spaces for folks of the neither/nor persuasion, as I chronicle my visits to the 2007 Amsterdam Transgender Film Festival, London's Transfabulous '07, and Jafnaðr the 2007 Nordic Queer Youth Festival. All these events and places sure opened my eyes and my arms to a great many of my tribespeople.

Kiss kiss, and remember: we are everywhere.

Kate

POV, Critique, Opinion: The Prisoner of Gender

by David/Katie Solomon

One of my earliest memories is of being three years’ old and joyfully hurtling down a slide wearing a dress and a policeman’s helmet. I was going to have to stop that sort of thing at some stage and fortunately I did. After all, you can get into serious trouble for impersonating a police officer. Unfortunately, you can also get into serious trouble for wearing a dress, especially if you’re not female. Needless to say, I only grew out of the dress size and not the actual dress wearing.

For me, gender identity is more complicated than masculine and feminine or even transvestite and transsexual. I don’t want a gender reassignment/‘sex change’ yet at the same time my motivation to cross dress goes way too deep for an uncomplicated case of transvestism. Dressing ‘en femme’ now and again won’t satisfy me. I’d more readily describe myself as transgendered, or even third gendered - neither male nor female. Modern science may well have found physical evidence to explain why we’re like this. Meantime, we struggle under a bi-polar gender regime in which only two mutually exclusive gender options are recognized.

How does it feel to be transgendered/third gendered in an either/or society? It hurts. It’s suffocating. I’ve read pieces in which the pain of trans is described as being treated by others like a non-person, feeling invisible. Yet worse still is not merely having your identity disregarded by others but having no choice other than to endure their insistence on choosing a different one for you that they superimpose upon you without permission.

Despite the influence of feminism encouraging greater overall awareness of gender as a patriarchal construct, in mainstream society it’s still virtually impossible to avoid being categorized as either female or male. Bi-gender apartheid pervades all; manifesting itself in male or female (either/or) tick boxes on application forms, airport security queues, public lavatories (naturally), car insurance, pub quiz teams, and of course, in how we’re expected, or even told, to dress – at least for those all-important job interviews. Strictly conforming to one of the two socially, legally legitimised genders is considered a prerequisite for respectability and treating women and men differently is seen as the height of good manners. They call it chivalry; I’d call it ‘respect a gender’. . . .

POV, Critique, Opinion: My trans mission

Julie Bindel

August 1, 2007 2:00 PM

There can be no doubt that transsexual people are often targets for abuse and cruelty. Good liberals should find this appalling, and add our voices to those within the transgender rights movement, calling for an end to discrimination towards this community. However, for many years I have felt uncomfortable accepting a diagnosis created by reactionary psychiatrists in the 1950s which claims that it is possible to be born "trapped in the wrong body".

Feminists want to rid the world of gender rules and regulations, so how is it possible to support a theory which has at its centre the notion that there is something essential and biological about the way boys and girls behave? As someone who spurned dolls and make-up as a child, I find it deeply troubling that, had I gone to one of the specialist psychiatrists while growing up and explained how I did not feel like a "real girl" (which I did not, because I wanted to be a lesbian), I could be writing this as a trans man.

In 2004 I wrote a column in the Guardian Weekend magazine complaining about the fact that a male-to-female transsexual had sued a rape crisis centre in Canada for refusing to let her counsel rape victims, on the grounds that it was a "women only" service. I had, in my piece, referred to one transsexual as a "man in a dress".

The then readers' editor, having received 200 letters of complaint, wrote, "[This column] abused an already abused minority that the Guardian might have been expected to protect."

In hindsight, the sarcasm I used in my column was misplaced and insensitive ("Imagine a world inhabited just by transsexuals," I wrote, complaining about the way many transsexuals parody traditional masculine and feminine styles of dress. "It would look like the set of Grease."). However, the hundreds of angry emails I received, and the levels of vitriol contained within them, made me realise just how much of a sacred cow - at least among us liberals - the issue had become.

As a result of the article I was firmly branded "transphobic" by the community. No other topic I have addressed in this newspaper has attracted such fury, even though I regularly express controversial opinions.

This realisation made me determined to further explore why any criticism of transsexuality seems to be deemed unacceptable outside of homophobic, rightwing circles. Which is why, when the producer of the Radio 4 debating series Hecklers approached me, asking if I would argue a controversial point in opposition to four leading experts, I chose the title, "Sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation".

My concerns about the increasing acceptance of "transsexuality" as a diagnosis are based upon my feminist belief that it arises from the strong stereotyping of girls and boys into strict gender roles. . . .

POV, Critique, Opinion: Are sex change operations justified?

By Innes Bowen Producer, Hecklers, BBC Radio 4

Julie Bindel believes sex change operations are wrong

Many people who have been through sex change operations say it was the only solution to a distressing condition.

But a leading feminist campaigner claims that sex reassignment surgery is based on unscientific ideas - and could be doing more harm than good.

"I should never have had sex change surgery," Claudia MacLean, a transsexual woman told the audience at a recent debate organised by the BBC Radio 4 programme Hecklers and the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

"As a result of the surgery, I am incapable of sex and I have lived a life apart."

Claudia was speaking out in support of Julie Bindel, a radical feminist and journalist, who was trying to persuade medics and trans people that sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation.

Threatening concept

Radical feminists have ideological reasons for opposing sex change surgery.

To them, the claim that someone can be "born into the wrong sex" is a deeply threatening concept.

Many feminists believe that the behaviours and feelings which are considered typically masculine or typically feminine are purely socially conditioned. . . .

Coming Out Issues for Spouses & Significant Others

(en) Gender: helen boyd’s journal of gender & trans issues

Trans Partner Advocacy

Posted in trans partners on July 30th, 2007

Recently on our message boards, the partner of someone who was transitioning posted about her very last day with her male husband. She was sad, she was mourning, and she was feeling both loss & resentment.

Sometimes the larger trans community seems to view feelings like that as anti-trans; that a partner isn’t throwing the big coming out party for her transitioning companion is seen as less than enthusiastic, and the difficult feelings are interpreted as saying ‘trans is bad.’

But the thing is, it’s part of the gig. There’s a lot of change involved in transition, which every trans person with half a brain admits. I mean, that’s the point. Change is a difficult thing for most people - all people, really - and it is stressful even when the change is a good thing, like getting a better job or getting married or having a baby that you’ve long wanted.

But to miss the old, worse job, or thinking fondly about the time when you were single or childfree, doesn’t mean you don’t want the new change in your life. You do. But you can’t just tell your mind not to think about how it once was, either.

& Sometimes I think that’s what’s expected of partners, that we never have a time to say, “I did love him as a man.” We can’t admit that we liked the cocky or shy guy we first fell in love with, & the partners of FTMs aren’t supposed to mourn the loss of breasts and smooth cheeks that they loved to touch.

But the thing is, as any trans person should know, repressing a feeling of loss or sadness is really bad all around; repression poisons the groundwater, in effect, and everyone feels it. So while I don’t advise partners make themselves miserable longing for the past (just as I wouldn’t advise trans people to think the future will definitely be rosy simply because they’ll transition), expressing the more difficult feelings associated with transition is healthier, in my opinion, in the long run. Not easy to hear as the trans person, for sure, but from what I hear from same trans people, they too may need some time to mourn the loss of their own former self.

What book publisher says

GROWING up in a traditional Chinese middle-class family meant that Ms Leona Lo had to suppress her gender identity conflict throughout her adolescent years.

From Leonard To Leona: A working cover of the book. The final version is being decided upon.

One of the reasons Select Publishing decided to publish MsLo's book is to foster better understanding of such issues.

Said its managing director, Ms Lee Wen Fen: 'Select Publishing, a subsidiary of Select Books, publishes a wide range of books on Asia, ranging from literature to works on Asian history, society, politics and culture.'

It includes within its publishing portfolio each year a few works on niche subjects that are under-represented on book shelves or in public discourse, such as books on migrant worker issues or civil society.

'When the subject of transsexualism is publicly discussed at all, usually it is treated with derision or, at best, as a subject of ribald humour,' said Ms Lee.

This book contributes to the raising of gender awareness, she said.

Co-worker's sex change is upsetting

LYNNE CURRY
MANAGEMENT

(Published: July 30, 2007)

Q. I work for a large federal organization, and for three years I've worked with a man who's a bit of an odd duck. "Frank" is moody and indecisive. When you talk with him, he often doesn't finish a thought or even a sentence, and so when you and he discuss something, you're left hanging. He also has a strange appearance for a man, with obviously manicured fingernails and plucked eyebrows.

Two months ago, the situation changed from odd to surreal. We were told Frank was undergoing surgery to change into a woman. We all left the meeting shaking our heads. I consider this sort of behavior immoral, and I decided I would interact with Frank only when I absolutely had to.

Two weeks ago, Frank returned from surgery. Management informed us by e-mail we were to call him "Frances." Last week, things got worse. Frances and I got assigned to the same business process improvement committee, and so I have to work with him daily. Yesterday, I was en route to the restroom when I noticed Frank behind me in the hallway. I stopped just short of the restroom door and then he went in. This makes me nauseous.

I went to see my manager, who sent me to HR, who told me that Frances can use the women's restroom as he's now a she and has the right. What happened to my rights?

A. You have rights -- but not the right to tell Frances what sex she is or what restroom she uses.

In the last two decades, about 200,000 individuals have elected surgery to change from male to female or female to male. Nine states, among them Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Hawaii, New Mexico, Maine and California, ban gender-identity discrimination.

Although no Alaska law addresses this issue, the U.S. Supreme Court set a partial precedent in its landmark 1989 Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins decision. When the accounting firm denied Ann Hopkins the right to become a partner because she dressed and acted in a masculine manner, the Supreme Court ruled in Hopkins' favor and against sexual stereotyping.

Since then, multiple employers such as American Airlines, IBM, Xerox, Walgreens, Nike, Apple, Kodak and Aetna have created specific policies so that transsexuals -- those who choose sexual identities different from the one in which they were born and raised -- can work without facing discrimination from co-workers.

Meanwhile, your employer can support you as well as Frances. No-cost arrangements, such as asking Frances to use a single stall bathroom with a locked door or inexpensive modifications such as ensuring that restroom stalls provide adequate privacy can go a long way in making this situation more palatable.

Although many share with you the strongly held belief that changing one's sexual identity is a moral issue, three thoughts may help you come to terms with the fact that you work with Frances.

First, those who feel at home in their own skin ordinarily perform better than those who always feel not quite right. Some of Frances' former odd behaviors may fall away now that she has the chance to present herself to the world in the sexual identity that she feels is hers.

Second, although you feel put out by Frances' transformation, can you imagine what it must have been like for her to have felt in the wrong body and sexual identity since birth? No one elects the painful and rigorous surgery needed to change sexual identity without having experienced severe anguish over the situation.

Finally, as you employer apparently feels, Frances and Frank possess the same skills. In the workplace, that's what matters.

Female impersonator is a Rehoboth 'Eyecon'

Zoom Photo

Female impersonator Christopher Peterson performs at the Atlantic Sands Hotel & Conference Center on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through Labor Day.

By Roger Hillis
Staff Writer

Television viewers may enjoy watching ABC's new celebrity impersonators show, "The Next Big Thing," but Rehoboth Beach has hosted a master of the craft for close to a decade now.

Christopher Peterson takes the stage of the ballroom at the Atlantic Sands Hotel & Conference Center on the boardwalk every Friday though Sunday. For approximately 70 minutes per evening, he portrays the likes of Liza Minelli, Bette Davis and Cher. Instead of taking breaks or intermissions, he changes wigs between songs right in front of the audience.

This is his third, and possibly final, season at the hotel. It booked him in 2005 after his former venue, the gay nightclub the Renegade, was torn down by developers. That club's owners had discovered him in Key West, Fla., where he still performs each winter with the help of his stage manager (and partner of 23 years), James Mill. Peterson's career got a national boost in 2001 when he landed a scene-stealing cameo opposite Cuba Gooding Jr. in the comedy movie "Rat Race."

Peterson, 44, is in fine form. A recent show found him kicking off the evening with a Cher impersonation. And yes, folks, those are his real, uh, vocals. He kept the crowd in stitches between songs with jokes about national topics and also local references geared to the coastal Sussex Countians in the house. While the crowd at that particular show was predominantly gay, more and more straight people have been attending the show to see what all the fuss is about.

We caught up with him Monday for a chat.

Q: Is this really "farewell"?

A: We only signed up for three seasons (at the hotel). Neither side has decided yet whether we'll continue or not. I'd certainly like to continue to perform in Rehoboth. This is my home in the summertime. The ballroom at the Sands is great because it almost has a Vegas feel to it.

Q: Your Bette Davis and Liza Minelli impressions stole the show when I saw you.

A: I always save the best for last. And I opened with Cher because that wig takes a lot longer to put on than the others. It's a fun opening.

Q: You also have two other shows which are completely different?

A: Yes. I have one where Marilyn Monroe opens the show wearing the "Happy Birthday, JFK" gown. That gown sold for $1.3 million at Christie's; mine cost about 1-one-hundredth of that.

Q: What was it like working with Cuba Gooding Jr. in "Rat Race"?

A: He was a total professional and a very nice man. He was very funny between takes. I was paid a flat sum for that movie and had to sign away my rights for six years, but now the contract is up so I just received my first residual check.

Q: Have the crowds changed over the years?

A: I'm 44 and they're getting older along with me. But there is a lot of nostalgia going on these days. Even the rock bands who come to Dewey are old bands from the '70s and '80s. And look at the biggest band in the world (the Rolling Stones). They're fossils! I always say my audience consists of gay men and women and their mothers. But we're getting a lot of straight people who come to enjoy a good cabaret show.

Q: Will you ever retire for real?

A: The promoters say I'll be able to do this into my sixties because some of the people I'm portraying are that old anyway. Every performer wishes they could take their final accolades and then the curtain closes and you drop dead. It doesn't always happen that way, unfortunately. But that's what I want.

Transgender inmate wins hormone therapy

By REBECCA BOONE

Associated Press Writer

BOISE, Idaho --

An inmate who castrated herself with a disposable razor blade after prison officials refused to treat her for gender identity disorder should have female hormone therapy paid for by the state, a federal judge said.

Jenniffer Spencer, who was born biologically male, sued the Idaho Department of Correction and its physicians, claiming that her constitutional rights were violated and that she was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment when the doctors failed to diagnose gender identity disorder and treat her with female hormones. Instead, the department and its doctors repeatedly offered Spencer the male hormone testosterone.

A trial over the lawsuit has not been scheduled, but U.S. District Judge Mikel Williams ruled Friday that the state must provide Spencer with psychotherapy and estrogen pending trial. Williams also noted that Spencer is scheduled for release in two years, and that getting the lawsuit to trial could take that long or longer.

The state's attorneys contend that prison doctors did not find conclusive evidence that Spencer, 27, has gender identity disorder. It would be unethical for the doctors to prescribe a drug that wasn't needed and that could do harm, attorney John Burke said.

The judge disagreed.

"There is no evidence before the court that female hormones have, in fact, proved harmful to male subjects who are no longer producing testosterone," Williams said.

Other transgender inmates are already receiving female hormone therapy, the judge said, and so the state is able to handle any special concerns that might arise if Spencer were given estrogen. . . .

That was then this is now