Panel to discuss transgender issues

by David Ugarte

February 24th, 2009

Four transgender people will share their experiences at a panel discussion Wednesday night. “Tranny Talk,” hosted by Queers and Allies, is being held in observance of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s “Transaction Day” this Friday. The day and the panel are meant to encourage dialogue about gender, gender roles and gender identities to advocate safe, inclusive schools for all students.

Jayne Henson, junior and panelist for the event, said the panel was meant to educate students and community members on the importance of transgender rights and issues.

“This panel is important to me because I am transgender and have personally felt the effects of transphobia, which I believe is the direct result of ignorance,” Henson said. “I think the best way to combat this and help put an end to it is through education and giving people a face and a voice to go along with the term ‘transgender.’ ” . . .Read More

Transgenders hail government promise of group housing but fear isolation

25 Feb 2009, M Ramya, TNN


CHENNAI: Ten years ago, Rajini, who now lives with another transgender in Mogappair, felt alone. Only 18 then, she was turned out of her home by her parents. She had no choice but to join an older transgender who persuaded her to beg and earn her livelihood.

On budget day this year, when the Tamil Nadu government announced the allocation of Rs 1 crore to construct group houses for the transgender community, Rajini rejoiced.

"Life was tough. I was forced to make a lot of wrong choices. It took me some time to find my feet. Now I do DTP work, but the announcement in the budget to build houses for us will benefit many and help bring down the number of those who beg or engage in commercial sex for a living," she says. Rani, a transgender who lives in Tiruvottriyur, says, "When we approach landlords for houses on rent, most of them refuse outright. Those who agree charge exorbitant rates." . . .Read More

For some, shadow of regret cast over gender switch

By Steve Friess, special for USA TODAY

February 25, 2009


A variety of personal, social, economic and religious pressures can make some transgender people reverse transition, but "going back doesn't automatically clear the conundrum that causes you to get there in the first place," says Donna Rose, a female-to-male postoperative transsexual.

The day Mike Penner left the Los Angeles Times made the news. The longtime sportswriter wrote the article himself, a personal essay explaining that he was taking some time off and, upon his return, he would be known from then on as Christine Daniels.

Penner's public acknowledgment in April 2007 that he was transgender and would soon live as a woman shocked the world of sports journalism and turned his new identity, Daniels, into an instant celebrity. Daniels gave speeches, was profiled in Sports Illustrated, collected honors for courage from transgender groups and wrote a blog for the Times titled "Woman In Progress."

Except that the transition didn't last. In mid-October 2008, after a lengthy leave of absence, Penner, 51, returned to the sports pages and the Times newsroom as a man.

And just as suddenly, Penner's story, heralded in its early days as a triumphant example of transgender progress, has instead become a cautionary tale of the lesser-known phenomenon: transgender regret. . . .Read More

Transgeneration, Episode Six, Part Three

Four college students switching more than their majors.

jonesing82

VA reviewing policy against transsexual surgery

By Carol Ann Alaimo
Arizona Daily Star
2.23.2009


"You people don't exist."

Air Force veteran Diane Steen, who was born male and had surgery to become a woman, still gets steamed when she recalls the comment from a staffer at Tucson's veterans hospital, where Steen is a patient and a longtime volunteer.

The remark came, she said, when she asked the staffer, who had a military background, how much training he had received about people like her.

Officially, transgender patients barely do exist in the Veterans Affairs health care system. They often are denied treatments that experts say could help them most.

National Department of Veterans Affairs policy — now under review — specifically forbids veterans hospitals to perform or pay for "transsexual surgery." It also does not provide for the related health care that experts recommend, such as psychotherapy, hormone treatment and other measures.

Officials at VA headquarters, given 10 business days to answer, said they couldn't determine how many transgender patients are in the VA system nationwide.

Officials at the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System — Tucson's veterans hospital — said 48 VA patients in Southern Arizona are transsexual or have been diagnosed at some point with "gender-identity disorder," the medical term that covers such cases.

A national advocacy group estimates that about 300,000 active or retired military personnel are transgender, though experts say an accurate count is impossible because many live under the radar to escape social stigma.

In June, the American Medical Association approved a new policy on the care of transgender patients, effectively putting VA policy at odds with the recommendations of the nation's largest doctors group.

The association said gender-identity disorder is a "serious medical condition . . . which causes intense emotional pain and suffering" and can lead to stress-related illness, chronic depression and suicide if not properly treated.

The group urged all public and private medical insurers to cover the cost of mental health care, hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery whenever doctors deem them medically necessary.

Experts worldwide "have rejected the myth that such treatments are 'cosmetic' or 'experimental,' " the AMA said. . . .Read More

Rapper educates against hate

Athens Boys Choir draws attention to transgender issues

Byron Wilkes

2/23/09


The morning is still in Warrington, Mo. The inside of Harvey Katz's Super 8 Hotel room looks like every other Super 8 Hotel room in the country. Only his belongings and toiletries mark some sort of individuality.

Harvey wakes up at 5 a.m., slightly groggy from a Nyquil hangover and possibly coming down with the flu. His fever was 102 degrees for most of the day before. He feels sick for the next few hours, but manages to pack up and leave the hotel to grab a bite to eat before hitting the road for Columbia, Mo. for his next show.

He sits down at Denny's after picking up a St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Harvey orders the Grand Slam Breakfast - a Denny's classic.

The restaurant's patrons are much like the rooms at the Super 8 Hotel. You see them at every Denny's around the country. There are people of all sorts, and, much like other Denny's, none of them know one another. They are strangers in a place they identify with, hungry for familiarity.

Yet the veil of anonymity draped over the occupants provides more than just erratic ends of conversations and idle glances. For Harvey it is a safety net. It allows him to be himself.

Harvey's legal name is Elizabeth. Anatomically a transsexual, Harvey identifies himself as a transgender who is pansexual. The factors of anatomy, self-awareness and association are integral to the transsexual population and culture. . . .Read More

Kenya: Social Injustice And Transsexual People

Audrey Mbugua

20 February 2009


opinion

Outlining the essential differences between sex and gender, Audrey Mbugua discusses the damaging general incomprehension of transsexualism within Kenyan society. Drawing upon personal experience of prejudice in the field of work and life at large, Mbugua states that transsexual people deserve the same respect and treatment as any other member of society, and urges those uneducated about transsexuals to think before opening their mouths.

A transsexual person is someone who experiences deep and long-lasting discomfort with his or her anatomical (genital) sex and wishes to change their physical characteristics, including genitals (through hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery), to the opposite of those usually associated with their anatomical sex in order to live in the gender role opposite to that normally associated with their anatomical sex. It is not a form of sexual orientation but a clinical condition whose basis is the existence of sex and gender conflicts. It is best managed by a psychiatrist, a urologist and a gynaecologist. Contrary to public misconception, sex and gender are two entirely different entities. Sex refers to the type of genitals one has. Gender refers to one's internal perception as male, female or something else (like androgynous). . . .Read More

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela (2008) - Movie Trailer

about the film

Raquela is a transsexual from the Philippines who dreams of escaping the streets of Cebu City for a fairy tale life and true love in Paris. She spends much of her time on the internet looking for men who can come and rescue her. They promise to come, but time after time Raquela gets stood up at the airport. . . .Read More

ciwciwdotcom

True-life story of the macho sports editor who became a transsexual

Feb 15 2009 by Rachel Mainwaring, Wales On Sunday

WHEN sports journalist Gerry Greenberg married his wife Lynn in 1969, he was a self-confessed rugby-loving macho man.

Forty years on, they are preparing to celebrate their ruby wedding anniversary – but theirs will be a celebration with a difference.

Because proud husband, father and grandfather Gerry is now elegant transsexual Donna Gee, who takes fashion advice and swaps lipstick with the woman he married.

Gerry, now Donna, 64, spent 50 years wishing he was a woman – cross-dressing in secret and fantasising about girlie trips to the cinema while at the same time trying to prove himself in the macho arena of sports journalism.

By day, as a man, Gerry grew a beard and shaved his head to emphasise his masculinity but by night, the former Western Mail sports editor was secretly trying on Lynn’s clothes, constantly terrified that someone would discover his guilty secret. . . .Read More

Richie Rich

cityfile New York

Who

The ice skater-turned-club kid-turned-fashion phenom founded trash-chic clothing label Heatherette with Traver Rains, and now has solo lines of clothing and shoes.

Backstory

Richie Rich, of course, isn't his real name: Once upon a time, the Northern California native was known as Richard J. Eichhorn. According to Richie, he was just two when he first took up ice skating and went on to train with Kristi Yamaguchi, becoming the 12th ranked skater in the U.S. before touring the world with the Ice Capades. (Sadly, the records of his extraordinary accomplishments on the ice seem to have been lost to history.) But wherever he was in his teenage years, by the early '90s Richie had emerged as a promoter on the San Francisco club scene and later decamped to New York, where he joined Michael Alig's merry band of scenesters, promoting parties at venues like the Limelight and befriending other club fixtures like Amanda Lepore, James St. James, and Kenny Kenny. . . .Read More

SKorea court convicts man for transsexual rape

18 February 2009


SEOUL (AFP) — A South Korean court Wednesday handed down a landmark verdict, convicting a man of raping a transsexual woman.

The court in the southern port of Busan sentenced the 28-year-old to three years in prison but suspended the sentence for four years. It also ordered him to do 120 hours of community service.

The man was found guilty of raping the 58-year-old transsexual after breaking into her home in Busan last August.

In its ruling quoted by Yonhap news agency, the court said the victim should be considered a woman because she had maintained normal sexual relations with her partner since her sex-change operation in 1974.

The criminal code does not recognise the concept of homosexual rape. . . .Read More

Houston's Transgendered Cop

After serving nearly 30 years in the Houston Police Department, veteran Sgt. Oliver announced that he was becoming a she. KHOU's Ron Trevino reports on Oliver's transition.

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CBS

A Somber Singer Reveals a Different Set of Colors Offstage

By MELENA RYZIK

February 18, 2009


LONDON — For the last few years Antony Hegarty, the ethereal torch singer of Antony and the Johnsons, has been obsessed with what he calls unconscious lines — “a line that you can’t see, a line that you don’t even know exists.” Mr. Hegarty has followed these lines creatively as much as possible, literally tracing them on paper, filling sketchbooks. Some of the results are hanging at Isis Gallery, a small second-floor space in the Fitzrovia neighborhood here, where Mr. Hegarty had his first solo show of visual art.

“The Creek” has 13 pieces, mostly large photo reproductions of his collages and drawings. The titular work uses a found image of a creek over which Mr. Hegarty has drawn black, red and green dashes, inspired, he said, by the imagined history of the pastoral scene, the inner life of the trees and rocks. . . .Read More

I'm transgender...should I tell?

by Chase on February 18, 2009

Yeah. I feel like I should be a boy, which is what makes joining this site kinda weird, because I'm not a lesbian. If I liked girls only, I would consider myself straight. Makes this site confusing to me...

Well, anyways, I'm mentally a boy. The only people who know so far are my roomate, my crew, and my neighbor friends. My mum was kinda told by my roommate, but she's pretty much the person I don't want to tell.

After my roomate kinda told, my mum agreed to have my hair cut in a boy way, something I've been asking for for a while now. I don't think it's a conicidence.

I've been concidering soon doing the whole pack-and-wrap deal...But, of course, my mum would surely notice. . .Read More

Transgendered HPD officer: I'm the same cop I've always been

February 18, 2009

by Ron Trevino / 11 News


HOUSTON—Sgt. Julia Oliver serves and protects the public. She’s been called an excellent police officer, but she’s also been called other, less-flattering things.

In 2006, Oliver, a 27-year veteran of the Houston Police Department, announced that he was becoming a she.

A lot has happened since then.

At the age of 16, Oliver – then called Jack – said she saw herself as a woman.

Ever since she can remember, she said she’s considered herself a female trapped in a man’s body.

“I just didn’t think it was right for me not to be able to be who I am,” Oliver said. . . .Read More

Transsexual wife 'exercised' her elderly husband to death

By Daily Mail Reporter
16 February 2009

A transsexual woman has admitted exercising her 73-year-old husband to death in a swimming pool by repeatedly refusing to let him leave the water.

Surveillance video showed Christine Newton-John, 41, pulling James Mason around the pool by his arms and legs.

But Newton-John, who used to be John Vallandingham before a sex change operation in 1993, stopped her husband from leaving the water 43 times.

The tape showed Mr Mason resting his head on the side of the pool several times while gasping for breath.

'The video is bone-chilling. The whole case is very sinister,' said police chief Joseph Stehlik. . . .Read More

Students call for new transgender policy

by Alli Hoff and Emily Cahn
Hatchet Staff Writers

2/5/09


The Student Association joined an LGBTQ student organization last week in demanding explicit protection for transgender students in the University Code of Conduct.

Members of the Allied in Pride student organization have been fighting to alter the University's anti-discrimination policy to include transgender students - and won a major victory on Jan. 27 when the SA voted unanimously to support the change.

The vote came after junior Devin Alston-Smith testified during an SA public comment session that he was harassed by the sisters of Zeta Phi Beta sorority, of which he was a member, and later forced to withdraw from the multicultural sorority for dressing and identifying himself as male - though he was born female.

"All of a sudden, it was just a huge problem - the way I dress, how I identified," Alston-Smith later said in an interview.

Zeta Phi Beta President Vanessa White challenged Alston-Smith's assertion, saying that he was suspended from active participation in the chapter because he failed to provide their graduate chapter with his transcript, adding that she was unaware harassment had been an issue. . . .Read More

Even Transsexuals Need To Pee Somewhere

By Cathy Matusow in Spaced City

Feb. 5 2009


If you're a transsexual and you gotta pee, there are at least 21 locations in Houston where you won't run into any problems - at least according to safe2pee.org, a website that lists 1,848 transsexual-friendly bathrooms in 476 cities.

Hair Balls tried to get in touch with the person who started the site, but we haven't heard back. But in the FAQ section, ze writes:

"So the story goes something like this: Back in Fall 06 there was a really bored queer. Ze had a lot of extra days off, and roaming corners of san francisco by bicycle, was in need of safe (gender neutral) places to pee. Ze remembered reading about PISSR years before, but was not able to find the site anymore, and could not contact the great people behind it.... and so the idea occurred to create a fun, new dynamic gender neutral bathroom resource! The project grew as the community added hundreds of bathrooms and others joined, wanting to work to add more features and improve the site."

The Houston section lists some places you'd expect - JR's, the Mining Company, Baba Yega - and some other places that just seem random, like the Popeyes on Harrisburg and a couple of Jack in the Boxes. . . .Read More

Isle of Man politician compared to Nazis over trans comments

By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk • February 11, 2009

A member of the Isle of Man's parliament has been accused of using language more akin to the Nazis during a debate about the rights of transexuals.

John Houghton, a House of Keys member for Douglas North, spoke out against a gender recognition bill that will bring Isle of Man legislation into line with the UK.

"It defies common decency," he said.

"I can't support it, I won't support it. It takes human rights too far."

Fellow MHK Peter Karran (Onchan) told iomotoday.com.im:

"It's what the Nazis used to say about the Jews.

"I thought we had got away from this Island being seen as a fascist, reactionary backwater." . . .Read More

Spanish Defence Ministry to allow transsexuals to enter the armed forces

By h.b. - Feb 11, 2009

The change in medical legislation is being planned following the second rejection of a 28 year old transsexual from Jaén who was not recruited because of his lack of a penis. . . .Read More