In February, Steve Stanton's secret was out. He lost his job as Largo city manager. Then the world came calling. But not for Steve.

By LANE DeGREGORY
Published May 13, 2007

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LARGO -- She couldn't sleep. She lay for hours in the dark.

In the morning, she would pose for her first portrait, at age 48. All her life, she had dodged and wavered and contemplated every avoidance, even suicide. Now, 12 hours to go.

She got up at 1 a.m., made coffee. She took a mug into the den of her Largo home, pulled out her red journal and started to write:

So here I sit. Alone in the early morning hours. Waiting for the rest of my life to begin.

She had spent years planning for this day. In the last month, she had frantically built a wardrobe, learned makeup, fretted over her too-short hair. She thought she looked good. Pretty. Professional.

Her debut would come after four decades of self-examination, in the dust of a leader's best-laid plans, in the remnants of her family. It glowed with the promise of possibility. Like new skin.

But what if others didn't see her the way she saw herself?

She had already lost her job, her friends and her home -- the things that gave her an identity -- for admitting she wasn't the person they knew. Now that she was showing them a second self, would they reject that person too?

She knew that some people would never even see Susan Ashley Stanton.

They would see a man in a dress.

Shedding a life usually means starting over, quietly, somewhere else. Slip town. Get a new job in a place no one knows your name.

For Steve Stanton, that wasn't an option. . . .

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Transgender Student Named Prom Queen

Web Editor: Matt Bush, Online Content Producer

Created: 5/14/2007 1:58:32 PM

Updated: 5/14/2007 2:12:14 PM

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FRESNO, CA (NBC) -- Johnny Vera is not your average prom queen. He's a transgender teen on a mission to spread positive attitude. That's why this crown means so much.

Former Lesbian Feminist Reports on The Man He’s Become

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: November 2, 2006

This Bridge Called My Back Contributor Chronicles His Transition

Max Wolf Valerio isn’t the man he expected to be. Before beginning testosterone treatment nearly two decades ago, the American Indian, Latino, Sephardic Valerio was a lesbian feminist poet whose pre-transition prose is enshrined in the essential feminist of color tome, This Bridge Called My Back. Today he sometimes makes grown women weep.

As he chronicles in his new memoir, The Testosterone Files, within five years on testosterone he’d become a sometimes aggressive, virile heterosexual man accused of being sexist. Valerio sheepishly admits, “I’ve heard of women actually crying after I read the chapter, ‘Cock in my Pocket’ which is graphic about the heightened sex drive, and takes on the issue of rape and violence against women. Because of the intensity of the writing and the fact that I don’t pull my punches when describing intense feelings and impulses, people are often shaken.”

In Testosterone Files Valerio boldly asserts that there are fundamental differences between the sexes, which are rooted in hormonal influences rather than socialization. Saying he’s gained a “darker understanding” of how testosterone activates aggression, Valerio argues that violence seems “a part of the male inheritance.”

He admits that some women have found his conclusions about gender contentious, and his frank discussions about sex and violence disturbing. Willing to address even the most controversial issues, Valerio admits, “I known FTMs who tell me that their sex fantasies became more violent or aggressive.”

Under the influence of testosterone, Valerio says that his own sexual impulses became “colored by an intense and sometimes edgy desire, a sudden desire to take, or even overpower.” Over time, he says, he’s grown into his new sexuality, and, he says, “The heightened drive is just another part of who I am now.” . . .

Poet Embraces Multiplicity

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: April 12, 2007

“I’d rather be a verb than a noun,” says award-winning poet Thea Hillman. “I try not to identify if I can help it. Things that are more true than not about me: I’m a queer, intersex writer, and culturally Jewish activist. I go by she.”

A frequent presenter and spoken word performer addressing intersex issues, Hillman has also chaired the board of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). The premier resource for information about reproductive anomalies and disorders of sex development, the ISNA is dedicated to ending unwanted genital surgeries for those born with anatomy atypical to males or females. ISNA urges that all children be designated as boys or girls without surgical intervention.

Hillman’s first book, Depending on the Light, was a collection of short fiction and poem-stories about sex, family, queerness, language and social change. Her latest, For Lack of a Better Word, is a “very personal, intense book” about family, sex and relationships—centered around growing up intersex. It’s due out later this spring.

Since the mid ‘90s, Hillman has produced spoken word performances. She recalls that the early events, “Morphed into community-building and strengthening events. I brought together really talented people to talk about things that weren’t getting enough exposure anywhere, including on stage: intersex, trans and genderqueer issues, [particularly] from older and younger people and from people of color.”

Although trans issues have gained visibility, Hilman insists, “There are still trans stories that aren’t being told, especially from transwomen and poor and incarcerated trans people.”

Hillman says that while both intersex and trans people face sex and gender oppression, “What is generally true and unique to people dealing with intersex issues is that the bodies they were born with put them at risk of…medical intervention…[that they] had no say in…either because they were too young to consent or were never even told what was being done to them.” . . .

Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative

By Dennis McMillan
Published: May 10, 2007

SF Treasurer Jose Cisneros, Police Commissioner Theresa Sparks, Senator Carole Migden, Sidney with her father Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Ross Mirkarimi and Police commissioner Joe Alioto Veronese at the LGBT Center’s Transgender

The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center, Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), San Francisco Transgender Empowerment Advocacy & Mentorship (SFTEAM), and the Transgender Law Center (TLC) announced a first-of-its-kind program to reduce chronic unemployment and underemployment within the transgender community. Trans activists and their friends gathered on April 26 at the Hotel Monaco. The program, called the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative (TEEI) is unique in bringing together three valuable elements: workforce readiness, job support, and employer training and readiness, in an effort to reduce underemployment in the transgender community. The TEEI effort has been made possible through grants from the San Francisco Human Services Agency and the Walter & Elise Haas Senior Foundation. Mayor Gavin Newsom sent a certificate of recognition naming it Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative Kick-off Day in San Francisco.

Trans Activist and Police Commissioner Theresa Sparks spoke of hard times in the past, trying to secure employment as a transgender. She said she drove a taxicab at first, and while that might have been exciting, it was not what her background had been trained to do. “This is a very exciting and significant initiative event, and the people who organized it are to be congratulated and thanked from all of our hearts in the transgender community,” said Sparks. “In many ways, this initiative is more significant than the health benefits were in 2000 and 2001, because this has the opportunity of affecting every transgender person in San Francisco and potentially everywhere in the United States.” . . .