‘Becoming a Man’ sets Atlanta actor free

Play about transgender ordeals enlivens 7 Stages

By WENDELL BROCK

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

As a camp counselor in Costa Rica a few years ago, Scott Turner Schofield suffered a serious blow to the head that required a detailed medical examination and extended hospital stay. When his doctor realized the athletic young man had the body of a woman, he thought the kid was just confused.

“Son, you have a terrible brain injury,” the doctor said sternly.

After having a heart-to-heart conversation with another doctor about his quest for a sex change, Schofield was informed that Costa Rica is the cosmetic-surgery capital of Latin America. And the surgeon offered to remove his breasts on the spot. . . .Read More

Transgender Army veteran Diane Schroer

"CNN News reports on transgender Army veteran Diane Schroer and her discrimination case against the Library of Congress (Jan. 5, 2008)" StephanieKayStevens

Transgender Army Veteran Sues Library of Congress for Discrimination

August 19, 2008

by Anne Szustek

Retired Col. Diane Schroer claims the national library rescinded a job offer after she disclosed that she was receiving gender therapy.

Trial Begins on Potentially Landmark Employment Case

A federal court in Washington, D.C., is set to start hearings today as to whether the Library of Congress was in violation of legal precedent on sex discrimination when revoking Col. Schroer’s offer of employment.

David Schroer served 25 years in the Army, and was an Airborne Ranger and headed a classified national security operation. The retired officer was recently hired as a senior terrorism research analyst with the Library of Congress. . . .Read More

Teenager acquitted of murdering transvestite

August 19, 2008

SKNVibes.com

Kellie Telesford

KINGSTON, Jamaica - AN 18-year-old Jamaican who was charged with the murder of a transgendered woman, Kellie Telesford of Thornton Heath, United Kingdom, was found not guilty on August 14, 2008.

According to the Met Police press release, on November, 21, 2007, officers in Thornton Heath responded to reports of concerns from friends for the occupant of 81 Leander Road, Thornton Heath.

After arrival and forced entry they found the body of the 40-year-old who was pronounced dead at the scene.

The release also went on to say that a post mortem conducted at the Mitcham Mortuary the following day revealed that death was caused due to strangulation.

Shanniel Hyatt, 18 of Northborough Road, Norbury, was subsequently charged with Telesford’s murder.

The trial had begun on August 1, 2008 and, according to the prosecution, Hyatt’s motive for the murder came after Telesford performed oral sex on him and he became angry after discovering that she was a transsexual. . . .Read More

Gender games

BY CECIL ADAMS

August 19, 2008

If a man has a sex change, can he compete in the Olympics as a woman? —Stephanie Ketchum

In our enlightened age, when science has made it possible to be the sex you feel like rather than the one nature stuck you with, some think it stuffy to insist on doing things the old-fashioned way. Why not let transsexuals compete as the sex they change to? Obvious rejoinder: Because it’s no fair letting a hulking genetic male go up against smaller genetic females just because he now calls herself Kathy. But as always it’s not that simple.

There’s a history of men sneaking into women’s sports, typically ordinary guys trying to take advantage. One was German high jumper Hermann Ratjen, who competed in the 1936 Olympics under the name Dora Ratjen, placing fourth. Soviet gold medal-winning sisters Tamara and Irina Press, sometimes called “the Press brothers,” were widely suspected of being males in disguise. . . .Read More

Transgender Focus on Passing

"Why is passing so important? Is it not allowing others to define who you are and who you will be?" IXTGQ

Few options for UK’s transgender children

By Viv Grskop
THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Monday, Aug 18, 2008

When the plight of children who don’t fit ‘the pink or blue box’ is ignored, it can lead to serious depression and suicide attempts

Should teenagers who believe they are transgender be helped to change sex? And if so, what about the four-year-olds who feel the same way?

“She was our first child,” said “Sarah,” a mother of two who lives in the south of England.

“But from age three we knew something was wrong. She was very introverted, isolated. When she started school at four she came home and said she was a freak. It seemed a strange word for a four-year-old to use. She was always quite a sad little person,” she said.

Sarah’s daughter was born and grew up as a boy. Now 19, she is far happier in a woman’s body as a post-operative transsexual. It took two years for the family to get used to calling her “she.”

Sarah said her daughter experienced her childhood as mental torture, especially during puberty.

“Looking back, we could never find any tape in the house. It was because she was taping her genitals up every day. She said to us later that she thought it would all go right for her at puberty, that her willy would drop off and she would grow breasts. She said she was going completely crazy because she knew in her head that she was a girl,” Sarah said. . . .Read More

Can Miss SA be an ex-Mr?

18 August 2008

Eagan Williamson, Beeld


Johannesburg - The organisers of the annual Miss South Africa pageant have been in crisis the past week, after a woman who had had a sex-change operation wanted to enrol in a workshop for prospective participants, and encountered a very chilly welcome.

The identity of the woman, who used to be a man, was not revealed by Sun International, which owns the pageant.

It must still be decided whether the woman may participate in the contest. . . .Read More

APA RESOLVES TO PLAY LEADING ROLE IN IMPROVING TREATMENT FOR GENDER-VARIANT PEOPLE

August 17, 2008

American Psychological Association

Gender Identity Task Force Calls for Nondiscriminatory Guidelines, Better Research and Training

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BOSTON—The American Psychological Association urged psychologists today to take a leading role in ending discrimination based on gender identity, calling upon the profession to provide "appropriate, nondiscriminatory treatment to all transgender and gender-variant individuals" and encouraging more research into all aspects of gender identity and expression.

The action came at APA's Annual Convention when the association's governing Council of Representatives adopted a resolution supporting full equality for transgender and gender-variant people. The resolution also calls on APA to:

• support legal and social recognition of transgender individuals consistent with their gender identity and expression;
• support the provision of adequate and medically necessary treatment for transgender and gender-variant people;
• recognize the benefit and necessity of gender transition treatments for appropriately evaluated individuals;
• call on public and private insurers to cover these treatments.

In addition to adopting the wide-ranging resolution, the Council of Representatives received a report by APA's Task Force on Gender Identity and Gender Variance. The six-member task force spent more than two years reviewing the scientific literature, as well as APA policies regarding transgender issues. It was also charged with developing recommendations for education, professional training and further research into transgenderism, and proposing how APA can best meet the needs of psychologists and students who identify as transgender or gender-variant. . . .Read More

Simon Cowell admires 6ft drag queen’s legs!

By ANI on Monday, August 18, 2008

Music mogul Simon Cowell told 6ft drag queen, SaHHara, that she had fabulous legs.

Paying anyone a compliment is a very rare thing for the acid-tongued judge, and for the glamorous pre-op transsexual Cowell’s praise of her legs made up for the nasty comments. . . .Read More

Fox News: America's Newsroom 08.13.08 - Top Model Contestant

"Fox News' Gregg Jarrett interviews Us Magazine editor-at-large Ian Drew about the transgender America's Next Top Model contestant. Both make anti-transgender comments." glaadvideo

Shame on FOX News, Ian Drew

by Rebecca Armendariz

August 15, 2007

FOX News doesn't have a very clean record when it comes to the treatment of trans people in the news. Morning show Red Eye showed horrendous statements regarding pregnant trans man Thomas Beatie, and now GLAAD has sent out an alert regarding anchor Gregg Jarrett.

During a segment discussing the transgender contestant on the upcoming season of "America's Next Top Model," Jarrett and US Weekly editor Ian Drew made disgusting anti-transgender comments. . . .Read More

My husband the transsexual

August 17, 2008

Telegraph.co.uk

One day the man you married reveals that he wants to become a woman. How do you cope? Anna Moore meets two couples whose relationships have survived the ultimate test - and even flourished

Seated close together in their cluttered country cottage, laughing in unison, interjecting and correcting one another, the Conways are - on one level, anyway - typical of any couple who've managed to remain married for 33 years.

Polly, left, and Sigi Conway at home in Herefordshire

They can recall how - to the day - they met ('The eighth of November 1971, Leicester University. I was on my way to a chemistry practical and she made me late!'), and, from there, the story sounds unremarkable. Paul and Sigi married in their early twenties. Paul was a bank manager, while Sigi taught maths. They had one daughter, Ros, now married and living close by with Abbie, their grandchild. They enjoy walking and boating and, at 55 and 56, remain, in their words, 'best friends'. . . .Read More

Five Questions With… Monica Canfield-Lenfest

helen boyd’s journal of gender & trans issues

As many of you know, Monica Canfield-Lenfest is the daughter of a trans woman and created a new resource, with COLAGE, for kids with trans parents.I highly recommend it.

1) First, tell me about COLAGE & how the book for Kids of Trans happened, what your goals were.

COLAGE (www.colage.org) is a national movement of children, youth, and adults with one or more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer parents. We build community and work toward social justice through youth empowerment, leadership development, education, and advocacy. I first contacted COLAGE five and a half years ago, when I was working on my undergraduate thesis: “She’s My Father: The Social Experience of People with Transgender Parents”. Looking for references for my project, I discovered a diverse community of queerspawn who gave me the space to better articulate my experience and encouraged me to continue my work, since there are hardly any resources for transgender parented families. . . .Read More

Civil rights should protect all people

By Ruth Schneider | The Olympian

August 15, 2008


"When I grow up, I want to be a boy," Alix Elder told me when she was 2 1/2 years old.

I was tucking her into bed for the night and we were playing the usual game . Her goal was to come up with a topic that pushed bedtime a few minutes later; mine to complete the bedtime ritual as soon as possible.

That isn't a blow-it-off kind of statement.

"Well, that is something you can decide when you get older," I told her.

I understood her thinking. Boys had the coolest toys. Who wants to play with dolls when you can protect the world from evil?

Her heroes at that age were basic: Batman and "the red one," Power Ranger. Both had cool toys and great moves.

At 4, she was throwing pennies into fountains, still wishing she was a boy. . . .Read More

Another kind of bullying

August 15, 2008

LoHud.com

A Journal News editorial

We know that parents in New York have an awful lot on their minds, from keeping the lights on to filling the gas tank. What no parent should have to worry about is whether their children are safe in school. The classroom should be a sanctuary for all students, not just from physical violence, but also bullying and harassment. Someone should have to answer for it -students, parents, teachers, administrators - when these minimal expectations aren't met. That should be the major takeaway from a weekend story about Michael Arone, 16, the transgender teen at Rockland's Clarkstown South High School, where he has been treated to all manner of perjoratives this summer, the litany from "faggot" to "queer," and relegated to using a separate entrance.

Arone, a North Rockland school district 10th-grader enrolled in the summer-school program at Clarkstown South, is a male transgender teen who publicly goes by Melissa Andrews and prefers to be referred to as a female. As staff writer Ben Rubin reported, Arone wears eye shadow and lipstick, straightens her shoulder-length brown hair and carries a purse. This reality is too much for some of Arone's classmates; she told Rubin she is routinely called "faggot," "she-male," "it" and "queer," and in one instance a female student threw a punch her way. "Come fight me, you faggot," the girl called out, according to the Clarkstown police report. In response, school administrators had Arone use the separate entrance, changed her class period, and escorted her to and from class. . . .Read More

Transsexual / Transgender Spouses - Embracing Hope, an interview

"If there is just one of these videos that you watch, it should be this one. I interview Randi and Shellie from Phoenix, Arizona. Randi just recently transitioned successfully from male to female while on the job, and her relationship with her spouse Shellie has withstood the test of time. Shellie and Randi explain some of those reasons, and they encourage anyone who is transgendered / transsexual, or is a friend, family member,or spouse of someone who is transgendered, that they can hold on to hope and overcome the trials that come your way." lorisrevival

Metamorphosis

by Mister Marcus 8.14.2008

	Yes, from Left to Right, that's Scott Brogan, Jay Harcourt and Ray MacKenzie performing at Marlena's last Saturday, Aug. 9th. Don't you just love those polka dot dresses?

The line outside of Marlena's bar stretched almost half a block last Saturday night, August 9, obviously because the word was out that several local leather titleholders would be performing in drag. A busload of tourists from Sacramento was lamenting the fact that the bar was filled to capacity and as one or two people left, only one or two people were admitted.

Now most of you who know me well are aware that I am not exactly a big fan of drag, but I can appreciate the expensive gowns, the outrageous hairdos, the dazzling jewelry, and the lip-synching expertise of most drag entertainers. . . .Read More

MARYLAND BRIEFING

August 13, 2008

MONTGOMERY COUNTY

Court to Weigh Transgender Law

Maryland's highest court has agreed to hear a case involving a referendum on Montgomery County's new transgender rights law.

The Court of Appeals will determine whether voters are asked in November to keep or throw out the law that provides protections for transgender individuals in housing, employment and public accommodations. . . .Read More

Transtheatre comes to Saint John

The Silicone Diaries hit the stage at Theatre on the Edge Festival

August 14, 2008

canadaeast.com

A famous transsexual is coming to town.

Wrapping up their Theatre on Edge Festival, the Saint John Theatre Company in partnership with Port City Rainbow Pride, is premiering The Silicone Diaries, a one-woman tour-de-force written and performed by well-known author, actress and transsexual Nina Arsenault.

"I first became aware of Nina through her media work," says the company's Artistic Director Stephen Tobias. "I read her series from Fab Magazine, and the articles are funny, sad, compelling, and intriguing. They offer insights into a world that few of us encounter or understand."

Arsenault's honesty and candidness is part of her charm. . . .Read More