Response to "Gender: The Final Frontier"

by Bruce Parker

March 17, 2008


My response to "Gender: The Final Frontier" by Josh Kilmber-Purcell is a part of my weeklong obsessive dissection of Out magazine's transgender issue. When, from time to time, I do pick up Out, I always enjoy Kilmer-Purcell's column. He is engaging, witty and often I agree with his analysis. This month really isn't all that different.

I, of course, was a little skeptical when he opened by declaring himself "post-gender" and still think it was a regrettable way to start out his otherwise astute column. After declaring himself post-gender he says,

"From this day forward I'm not going to use the words masculine, feminine, or any of their derivations. They're meaningless, useless, and far too often meant as weapons rather than compliments."

To hear more about Kilmer-Purcell being post-gender and some of the really cool things he says in his column, follow me after the jump. Please?. . .Read More plus readers' Comments

Film Days 5-7: Amazing Truths and Beautiful Losers

by Kevin John and Justin Follin

18 March 2008


The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela
Directed by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson

The last thing filmdom needs is an exposé on a transsexual, especially since we’re still waiting for that feature-length investigation into heterosexuality. So it’s just as well that we never learn any amazing truth about Raquela in Olaf de Fleur Johannesson’s fantastic The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela: the “truth” would only cheapen a subject that usually devolves into movie-of-the-week topicality. Instead, Johannesson immerses us in the texture of an everyday existence.

Essentially playing herself, Raquela (Raquela Rios) pines for a life beyond her native Philippines, where transsexuals face a bleak future. She’s fed up with the prostitute life and has moved successfully into the world of internet porn. With some money saved, she gets a temporary visa to Iceland, bringing her closer to the city of her dreams, Paris. . . .Read More

Review - "Undoing Gender"

by Judith Butler
Routledge, 2004

Review by Kathy Butterworth
Mar 18th 2008 (Volume 12, Issue 12)

Undoing Gender is a collection of recent essays from the feminist thinker Judith Butler. There are 12 articles in the book , including the introduction, ranging from the brief 'Quandaries of the Incest Taboo' (9 pages) to the more weighty 'The End of Sexual Difference? (30 pages). There is no obvious guiding principle at work in the organization of the articles which have a far reaching thematic range extending from transgender and intersex issues through psychoanalysis and arguments for recognition to the foolishly, according to Butler, isolationist stance of academic philosophy as a discipline in contemporary (American) universities. . . .Read More

OUT Magazine

This issue of Out magazine has a variety of trans stories. They include:

. . ."Under Cover"

. . ."But There's No Dick?"

. . ."Transexy Time"

. . ."The Trans Fags"

. . ."The Dream Life of Tilda Swinton," and More

Ladyboy - "Making of" a film about Ladyboys (Queen Raquela)

Making of the film "THE AMAZING TRUTH ABOUT QUEEN RAQUELA" by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson - more info on: www.queenraquelathemovie.com

Be a Trans Ally

by Bruce Parker

March 18, 2008

In the Out Magazine April 2008 Transgender Issue, hidden at the bottom of page 25 is a really strong list of five ways to be a trans ally, by Dean Spade. Dean is a Harvard Law teaching fellow and founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Below is his list of ways to be a trans ally.

1. Work with transpeople to push your city's homeless shelter system to place residents according to their gender identity and safety, rather than birth gender.

An important component of this point is that it emphasizes working with transpeople. Oftentimes, as lesbian or gay folks try to work on transgender-related issues, they forget to include transgender people in the conversations and actions. This ends up being damaging, and reflects a paternalistic approach to being an ally that I experienced a lot while working with Indiana's lesbian and gay communities.

The other four ways and my thoughts are. . .Read More

helen boyd’s Transgender Books

by Helen Boyd

Here’s a list of books I recommend on transgender issues and lives.

The starred (*) listings are books that I reviewed in greater depth in the annotated bibliography of My Husband Betty.

You can read more about most of these books, find reviews and discussions of other books, or post your own book for discussion in our Reader’s Chair Forum.

Here is my Top Ten List of Transgender Books, with these and others reviewed below.

1. Butch Is A Noun - S. Bear Bergman
   
2. Gender Outlaw - Kate Bornstein
   
3. Crossdressing, Sex and Gender - Bullough & Bullough
   
4. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism - Patrick Califia
   
5. Head Over Heels: Wives Who Stay with Crossdressers and Transsexuals - Virginia Erhardt
   
6. Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman - Leslie Feinberg
   
7. Becoming a Visible Man - Jamison Green
   
8. Mom, I Need to Be a Girl - Just Evelyn
9. Whipping Girl - Julia Serano
   
10. Transition & Beyond - Reid Vanderbergh. . .Read More
    

The Tenth Voice Radio magazine

3/22/2008 1:00 pm-2:00 pm

This month the team looks at being Transgender. . . .Read More
90.1 FM KKFI
http://www.kkfi.org

Walters Wins GLAAD Award

March 18, 2008

Barbara Walters was awarded a GLAAD Media Award last night for her April 2007 20/20 special report, "My Secret Self: A Story of Transgender Children."

The report focused on the lives of transgender children who were diagnosed with gender identity disorder. When it aired, it won the A18-49 demo for the night.

According to the Reuters article about the event, Walters said, during her acceptance speech, "You can forget all the Emmys. This means more to me." . . .Read More

Breast Augmentation In Male-to-Female transsexuals

(There's lots of helpful information here, but you may want to turn the music down or off.)

The Difference Gender Makes

By Cedriann J Martin

3.15.2008

Mary and Jane don't know why they feel like women though they were born boys. Jane proffers the obviously wrong explanation that it's because they have an extra chromosome. But even the experts aren't certain about what causes gender identity disorder.

The most current (but still mysterious) explanation is that something happens to the part of the Central Nervous System responsible for gender identity in the womb. Theories that transsexuality is a mental illness or related to upbringing, social interactions and sexual experiences have largely been debunked.

Sex, the biological construct, is straightforward. Penis: boy. Vagina: girl. Gender and sexuality, on the other hand, can be confusing. And for those who fall outside patriarchal expectations of how men and women should behave, the gender journey can be difficult. . . .Read More

Oakland set for historic June primary

by Matthew S. Bajko

3.13.2008

	Victoria Kolakowski

History could be made this June in Alameda County as five LGBT candidates are vying in races for two Oakland City Council seats, a judicial post, a county central committee slot, and a state Assembly seat.

It is believed to be the largest slate of openly gay candidates to appear on a ballot in an East Bay city. And with three of the June 3 primary contests involving open seats, the candidates in those races have a fighting chance of being elected.

"I guess it is, especially in Oakland, it is historic," said longtime Hayward City Councilman Kevin Dowling. "We have three openly gay elected officials in Hayward alone. The Oakland area has a large lesbian population. . .Read More

Victoria Kolakowski

. . .for Superior Court Judge

A Judge for All of Us

Experienced and Fair

It is uncommon for the voters to have a choice for Superior Court Judge in a contested, open election. On June 3, the voters of Alameda County will have that opportunity.

Victoria Kolakowski has the experience as an administrative law judge and attorney, the demonstrated commitment to the community, and the calm demeanor needed to be a fair judge for all of us. . . .Read More

"Unraveling Michelle"

by Amanda Pacitti
Hatchet Reporter
3/13/08


Michelle Anne Farrell is a filmmaker. So was Joe O'Ferrell.

Arguably the most-anticipated feature-length documentary at the D.C. Independent Film Festival Monday evening, "Unraveling Michelle," (A Tough City Bitch Production), recounts the full transgender transformation of filmmaker Joe O'Ferrell into Michelle Anne Farrell - spending a worthy 85 minutes of self-conscious energy grappling with issues of authentic self-representation, personal struggle and gender identity.

And it is still in progress. . . .Read More

REPORT: ILLEGAL BUTT INJECTIONS ON THE RISE IN NYC

March 09, 2008. Hey New York women - watch out. MediaTakeOut.com has learned that there's some chick going around town offering booty injections for dirt cheap. Here's how the NY Post is reporting it:

A shady Atlanta businesswoman armed with a gallon jug of silicone and syringes is offering to inject women seeking "J.Lo butts" in a Manhattan hotel room - an illegal and potentially lethal cosmetic treatment.

"I need to see your butt," Kimberly Smedley told a Post reporter posing as a customer last week in a suite at the Eastgate Tower Hotel on East 39th Street.

Smedley, a heavyset woman wearing camouflage pants and fake Ugg boots, then demanded $1,600 in cash to give nine injections to each cheek. . . .Read More

When Girls Will Be Boys

By ALISSA QUART

March 16, 2008

It was late on a rainy fall day, and a college freshman named Rey was showing me the new tattoo on his arm. It commemorated his 500-mile hike through Europe the previous summer, which happened also to be, he said, the last time he was happy. We sat together for a while in his room talking, his tattoo of a piece with his spiky brown hair, oversize tribal earrings and very baggy jeans. He showed me a photo of himself and his girlfriend kissing, pointed out his small drum kit, a bass guitar that lay next to his rumpled clothes and towels and empty bottles of green tea, one full of dried flowers, and the ink self-portraits and drawings of nudes that he had tacked to the walls. Thick jasmine incense competed with his cigarette smoke. He changed the music on his laptop with the melancholy, slightly startled air of a college boy on his own for the first time. . . .Read More

016 My transgender voice-03

In my opinion, voice is one of the most important areas to help in transition. I created the vids to show that even with a deep male voice, you CAN sound female. candiFLA

The trouble with gender

by Gwendolyn Ann Smith

3.13.2008


When I reflect upon being transgender, I often find myself musing about how – in simply being myself – I end up creating a gender space that both fits into stereotypes of gender, and goes against those same stereotypes. Sometimes at the same time. The same is true – maybe even more so – for other transgender men, women, and others.

You see, a gender is a slippery concept. It's not so much a thing as it is a collection of beliefs. We cannot take a gender out of a case and examine it – we can only describe gender. What's more, those descriptions largely boil down to "I'll know it when I see it." Further still, many have differing definitions, based on a viewer's own perceptions and history. . . .Read More

Book Reviews: South Beach: The Novel

March 14, 2008 "South Beach: The Novel" By BRIAN ANTONI Review By HENRY ALFORD Many are the sparkly charms of the opera. The live camels, the castrati. The preoccupation with the world's oldest profession. The implication that narrative gathers its force from the combined efforts of caterwauling and wig tape. The plots that are not unleavened by coincidence and melodrama. The assertion that overweight people, when dying, brim over with song. "South Beach: The Novel," Brian Antoni's candy-colored and warmhearted second work of fiction, would make a terrific opera. Though "South Beach" isn't camp -- it lurks in the wings thereof, its bejeweled turban only slightly askew -- it revels in a kind of surface detail that might easily be mistaken for it. Rich with club scenes and descriptions of offbeat forms of physical congress, this story of one man's moral and sexual flowering might best be described as an arrested bildungsroman with a predilection for the psycho-sexual. . . .Read More

Singer Ersoy to leave fortune to military foundations

15.03.2008

Singer Bülent Ersoy has announced she has amended her will to donate her fortune to the Mehmetçik Foundation -- in support of Turkish soldiers -- and the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV).

Ersoy, a transsexual singer and popular television host, told journalists on Thursday that she has decided to leave her whole fortune to these two foundations and penned her will to this end. Ersoy's remarks came after she made her deposition at a prosecutor's office in İstanbul's Bakırköy district over the allegedly unpatriotic remarks she made last month. . . .Read More