Transgender Discrimination Hearing: Diane Schroer

Diane Schroer, a retired Colonel in the United States Army, testifies before the Committee on Education and Labor at a hearing examining discrimination against transgender Americans in the workplace on June 26, 2008.

Critique, POV, Opinion: "Letting Go Of God"

A lot of Ts (and others, too) have questions, concerns about religion and being T (or somewhere GLBTQ). Here, Julia Sweeney, who played "Pat" the androgynous person, on one of my favorite television programs,"Saturday Night Live," presents her personal perspective on religion, titled, "Letting Go of God."

Strongly recommended.

Also, see the numerous listeners' comments than follow on the same page.

RA

Jack Bee Garland (aka Babe Bean)

by Liz Highleyman

Lavender Magazine, Issue 341

Jack Bee Garland was a pioneer on multiple fronts, crossing boundaries of gender, ethnicity, class, and geography.

Born Elvira Virginia Mugarrieta in 1869 in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, Garland was the child of an upper-class white woman and a Mexican military officer who became the city’s first Mexican consul. A rebellious tomboy, Garland was sent to a convent school, but escaped by marrying a family friend at age 15, and divorcing a few months later.

Garland began dressing in men’s clothing, and spent the next several years traveling and working odd jobs. In 1897, he was arrested in Stockton, California, for masquerading as a man. Claiming to be mute, and communicating in writing, he gave his name as Babe Bean, and made no attempt to hide that he was biologically female. The authorities soon released him, much to the chagrin of a group of young women who demanded that if he could dress in men’s clothing, they ought to have the same privilege.

Garland, who lived alone on a houseboat in a lake, was hired as a reporter by The Stockton Evening Mail. He was accepted as an eccentric local celebrity. The press often speculated about his gender, referring to him as “the mysterious girl-boy, man-woman.” . . . .Read More

The “Transational” Dr. Marci Bowers

by Chris Jackson

Lavender Magazine, Issue 340

A polite round of applause, and she takes the stage. Adjusting her glasses, and buttoning the microphone to her blouse, she begins to speak. Doctors, med students, and activists alike lean forward in anticipation.

Dr. Marci Bowers
Photo by Sophia Hantzes

“Never dreamed I’d walk back in here in a dress,” she mused.

And then she was off. Coyly, letting her audience idle, and then full force. Smiling, she started in.

The Denver Post calls her the “Rockstar” of gender-confirming surgeries. Dr. Marci Bowers is that and much more. She is one of the premier sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) surgeons worldwide, performing more than 350 alignment procedures every year. Trained under the direction of Dr. Stanley Biber, she has followed in his footsteps, perfecting the techniques that he pioneered.

I had a chance to speak with Bowers just before her recent keynote address at the Minnesota Trans Health & Wellness Fair on May 10.

Dr. Bowers, what is your background in the medical field? Sexual reassignment surgery, in addition to being highly controversial, is a challenging and specialized field. How did you come to call it your own?

I am trained formally as an Ob/Gyn. I attended the University of Minnesota, where I graduated in 1986, where I was Medical School Class President and President of the Medical Student Council. I then went to Seattle, where I did my residency in Ob/Gyn at the University of Washington.

I settled into private practice at a large multispecialty clinic in Downtown Seattle called the Polyclinic. I practiced there for 12 years.

About my 10th year, I actually met Dr. Biber. He indicated that Trinidad was in need of an Ob/Gyn, and that, if I came here, I could learn the SRS procedure from him, while performing obstetrics and gynecology for the community. In January 2003, I finally did just that, leaving the relative security of an established practice in Seattle, and facing the specter of the many hours and hassles that go with practicing in a large urban area.

I decided to roll the dice, so to speak, noting that there were very few reassignment surgeons in the United States, and that two of the most prominent, Dr. Biber and Dr. [Eugene] Schrang, were already well into their 70s at the time. I worked with Dr. Biber, side by side, for six months, and then, with his inability to obtain malpractice insurance, took over his duties in July 2003, surviving with a combination of good luck, good skills, intuition, and faith that I was doing the right thing. . . .Read More

My EX-HUSBAND on Dr Phil!

My Ex-Husband was on Dr Phil. We were married a few years ago for a short time. He lied and lets just say he wasn't a very good husband. This is about how I feel about him now not anyone else! Right now I'm mad and hurt and I need to vent!

Las Vegas Marks 10th Annual Kristine W Day

by Scott Kearnan
EDGE Contributor

July 2, 2008

Kristine W will be touring the U.S. and Canada the rest of the year as part of her Love is The Boss Tour.

Kristine W learned the art of performance from an unlikely source: a Vegas drag queen named Bubbles.

Well, not exactly. The legendary club diva, one of dance music’s most consistently successful artist (her ninth consecutive #1 hit on the Billboard Club charts shattered a record previously held by Madonna), is a fourth generation entertainer who has been performing since childhood. She’s a songwriter, producer, jazz musician, guitarist; music is in her blood.

But when she began her career as a working entertainer in the Vegas casino circuit, it helped to have friends who knew a thing or two about being fabulous.

"They had a drag show upstairs called Boylesque," Kristine W said of her first casino gig. "I would go up there and study the drag queens. How they put on their fake eyelashes, the way they would roll up the socks and put them in their boobs... There was one drag queen named Bubbles, and he would tell me all his secrets, like why he was shading his face. And I’d say, ’okay, I’m going to put on more makeup!’" . . .Read More

The 13th Annual San Francisco Drag King Contest Announced

The Biggest Drag King Competition in the World to benefit P.A.W.S. - Pets Are Wonderful Support

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com

July 8, 2008


It's coming! Big Ball holder, DragStrip Productions, is proud to announce the most climactic and orgasmic live stage show of orgiastic gender bending revelry in the history of San Francisco: the 13th Annual Drag King Contest - the biggest, girthiest, and most enduring Drag King Competition in the World. Hard and throbbing musical productions, firm and penetrating performances, and extraordinary feats of entertainingly unbridled masculine stamina and staying power are set to explode over the wildly anticipating and engorged-to-capacity-crowd on August 16, 2008 at 8:00 p.m., at the most appropriate venue in town, the DNA Lounge. . . .Read More

Theater - Gender bender

Masquers poke fun at the theatre with Anton in Show Business

BY LINDA SICKLER

July 8, 2008


Imagine a play written for a cast of women who sometimes play men, that was written by a woman who might really be a man. Wait a minute -- what?

Such a play really does exist and it was written by Jane Martin, one of the best-known unknown playwrights in modern theater. Martin is the darling of the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. More plays by her have been introduced at the festival than by any other playwright.

But here’s the strange part. Even though Martin has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, the ATL has kept her identity secret for more than 20 years. However, Martin is believed by many to be a man named Jon Jory, the ATL’s former producing director.

Confused? Don’t worry. There’s nothing confusing about Anton in Show Business, a Martin play that is being presented by the Armstrong Atlantic State University Department of Art, Music and Theatre.

“It has an all-female cast of seven that plays both males and females,” says director Samantha Noon. “The whole basis of the play really is to have a laugh at the theater and all the stereotypes involved in the production of a play.” . . .Read More

Stephanie’s Pillowbook

Transgender Books - My Gender Workbook

Posted in transgenderism by Stephanie Delacey on July 9th, 2008

I read Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us some time ago and found it an exciting and stimulating book. Part autobiography, part introduction to gender theory, and with a large chunk of the text devoted to the script of her play Hidden: A Gender, it is an amusing, honest, touching, passionate, challenging, wildly speculative account of what it means to be transsexual. I had high hopes, then, for My Gender Workbook. Hopes which were rather dashed when I eventually got round to reading it earlier this year. I was very disappointed and, unfortunately, it made me go back to Gender Outlaw and re-assess that, too. . . .Read More

A Platform We Can Believe In, Too

Steve Ralls

8 July 2008


Could this be the year that every American family sees itself reflected in the platform of a major political party? And if so, what would an all-inclusive set of ideals mean for America's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens and their loved ones and friends?

The Democratic National Committee and Senator Barack Obama have announced that the 2008 party platform will be put together through a more "open" process that includes numerous opportunities for the public to weigh in with their ideas on what the party should stand for. The party, and the candidate, will hold public forums in all 50 states and invite voters to meet with party officials, and policy advisers, in a national discussion about the vision of the Democratic party.

"Barack Obama believes that every American should be able to contribute to the Democratic platform, just as record numbers have participated in this campaign," deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand told the Associated Press. . . .Read More

Four Teens Arrested In Possible Bias Attack At Queens Shelter

July 08, 2008


Four teenaged boys were arrested for attacking the director and several residents of a transgender center in Astoria Tuesday. NY1’s Ruschell Boone filed the following report.

Father Louis Braxton, Jr., who leads the transgender center "Carmen's Place" in Astoria, Queens, says he was trying to defend a group of transgender teens who were being assaulted Monday night when four teenaged boys attacked him with belts and paint cans. . . .Read More

My voice at 3 months

This is my voice at around 3 months of testosterone therapy. I started at 50mg every two weeks, and then went up to 100mg about 10 days ago.

Phallus in Wonderland

Male pregnancy and a la carte sex changes.

By William Saletan

July 8, 2008


It's a girl!

Well, it's a girl for now. Thomas Beatie, the "pregnant man," has given birth. Beatie used to be a girl, too. Then he decided to become a man. Which he is now. Sort of.

We like to think there are two sexes: male and female. If you're not one, you're the other. That's what the gay-marriage fight is about: Boys belong with girls, and kids need a mom and dad, or so we tell ourselves. Behavior that confounds these assumptions makes us uncomfortable.

But behavior was the easy part. Homosexuality, tomboys, and female impersonation have been around forever. In those cases, you could accuse the gender bender of defying his or her bodily nature. Not anymore. Now the body itself is being bent, not just through old-fashioned castration but through reversible hormone therapy and surgeries that offer a customized mix of male and female genitalia. You don't have to be one or the other. You can be both. . . .Read More

THE THIRD SEX: New job-training program aims to improve lot of India's eunuchs

JASON OVERDORF July 8, 2008


NEW DELHI -- Following the example of India's 18th-century Mughal rulers, who used castrated men or hermaphrodites to guard their harems, the government of the eastern state of Bihar plans to post eunuchs as guards in girls dormitories, colleges and hospitals.

"We are trying to prepare a plan for them so they can be involved in normal economic activity of society," said Vijay Prakash, a principal secretary in the state social welfare department. "They will be trained to work as security guards and for other types of activities which suit their temperament or in which they have developed certain expertise. They will also be involved in promoting activities related to women and child development and AIDS education."

The program will begin as early as this summer, Mr. Prakash said. The department estimates that about 2 per cent of the state's population of 100 million are transgender.

Known as hijras in the Hindi-speaking north, the so-called third sex has a 4,000-year history in India, where they comprise a distinct religio-ethnic group. Most hijras are born as men, but renounce their gender and sexuality to worship the mother goddess Yellamma, also called Renuka. Traditionally, the castration ceremony was performed, at great peril to the recipient, by an elder of the community. Sex reassignment surgery is not available in India, and even today many hijras go to quacks or fly-by-night hospitals to be castrated, which, though it is not compulsory, gives them higher status among their peers. . . .Read More

God Loves You

By paul martin, 8th July, 2008

This month, in honour of the Pope’s imminent arrival, we’re taking a look at religion from a number of different angles. This week psychologist Paul Martin asks us to remember that there are many paths to spiritual fulfillment.

The imminent arrival of the Pope is likely to conjure up a great deal of emotion for most of us in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities – and it goes well beyond the fact that his red Papal shoes clash badly with the detail in those high camp robes!

The outdated, black and white, homophobic beliefs that are regularly espoused as ‘God’s words’ have directly led to a great deal of unnecessary human suffering. They’ve contributed to a society where for many of us there is much self-loathing, depression, suicide and other psychological conflicts. These are torturous issues for many gays and lesbians who have been brought up in religious environments. A great deal of the fundamentalist religious propaganda attempts to manipulate people through negative emotions, like shame and guilt. It’s a very effective way of getting people to believe in stuff that is unbelievably stupid.

As you know, I’m a psychologist at a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender psychological wellbeing centre. In my line of work I, all too often, see the devastation caused by those who have been strongly influenced by these destructive beliefs. The damage from these experiences can be extremely significant and can have long-term negative consequences including depression, anxiety, shame, self-anger and low self-esteem. And then there are those who decide to get married to try and escape these feelings. I have heard too many stories of religious families who have rejected their gay son or daughter, only to find out later that they’ve committed suicide as a result, having drowned in a sea of shame and trauma. . . .Read More

Transgender to play lead in Tamil film

8 Jul 2008, Ajitha Karthikeyan,TNN

In Paal, Karpaga dons the role of an intellectual who is in love but faces a dilemma in revealing her identity to her lover. (TOI Photo) CHENNAI: Young Karpaga, who makes her debut as a heroine in a Tamil film, is understandably nervous. She is busy rehearsing her lines and learning the nuances in the art of make-up, as the offer is not a passport to fame and wealth, but a lifetime opportunity to join the mainstream of the society. Karpaga, the heroine of ‘Paal', is the first transgender in the country to don the leading role in a mainstream movie. "They have played lead roles in short films and documentaries earlier. But, this is the first time a transgender is featured as a heroine in a commercial film," says D Sivakumar, the film's director. Barring a few exceptions, transsexuals have always been shown in poor light in Indian films. But the heroine of Paal is an intellectual, director of a short-film who is smitten by the love bug but facing a dilemma in revealing her identity to her lover. . . .Read More

A Humorous View: "Reasons 2 date transsexuals"

Yes, another very mis-informed, un-politically correct and very insensitive video by me. Yay. . . .Read More

Pregnant with discrimination

Ultimately it is prejudice about Thomas Beatie's perceived gender transgression that lies at the root of the objections to his decision to give birth

Jane Czyzselska

6 July 2008

For many it's the stuff of pure science fiction. But when Thomas Beatie gave birth to a baby girl in Oregon on Friday, he also gave the world a strong message: gender identity isn't as simple as Adam and Eve.

Dubbed "the pregnant man" Beatie had legally become a male, yet he opted to keep his female sex organs when he switched gender because his partner Nancy was unable to have children.

Beatie's case has sparked controversy. Interviewed on the Oprah Winfrey show, he said he believed that the desire to have a child is not gendered but rather it is a human need. He told Oprah, "I see pregnancy as a process and it doesn't define who I am. I'm a person and I have the right to have a biological child."

Doctors have discriminated against the couple, turning them away on religious grounds. Healthcare professionals have refused to call Beatie by a male pronoun or recognise Nancy as his wife. Friends and family have been unsupportive, most of Nancy's family unaware that he is transgender. . . .Read More

Girl, Interrupted

July 7, 2008

Monica Roberts


One of the things that bothers me from time to time is the fact that I didn't get to experience growing up female.

Sometimes it's triggered when I see a little girl walking hand in hand with her mother. Other times it may be a group of teenage girls walking through the mall laughing, giggling and talking as they wear their tight jeans and discreetly ogle the boys walking by. Sometimes it's seeing as prom season approaches girls with their dates or getting made up for the first time at the department store makeup counter. Sometimes it's a reaction to the depressing news of another transwoman found dead or the madness of ignorant people who haven't picked up science textbooks or read the Constitution in a while. . . .Read More

Spain: Transsexual refused army entry for 'total lack of male genitalia'

By thinkSPAIN 7 July 2008

28 year old Aitor GR, a transexual from a small village in Jaén province, has had his application to join the Spanish armed forces turned down after doctors discovered he had neither penis nor testicles during a routine medical last February. . . .Read More