"All My Children" - Zoe's mom (part 2)

"All My Children" - Zoe and her mother (part 1)

Ireland: Transsexual wins plea to alter gender on exam certs

By Fergus Black
Friday June 01 2007

A TRANSSEXUAL who sat her state exams as a male has won the right to have her exam certificates reissued to reflect her new name and gender.

In a groundbreaking case described as a "real breakthrough" by the Equality Authority, the State Examination Commission has agreed to reissue her Intermediate and Leaving certificates in her new name and in accordance with the gender she now identifies with.

Equality Authority chief executive Niall Crowley said the case was unique and a real breakthrough for gender equality.

He revealed that the authority was beginning to receive increasing numbers of cases from transsexuals, saying that the issue was one society had yet to come to terms with.

The outcome of the case reflected a valuable and necessary recognition for transsexual people from an important statutory body, said Mr Crowley. . . .

First transgender officer on KC's police force looks to the future

Jessica, a Kansas City police officer, is 6 feet tall with a chin dimple, pink manicured fingernails and a birth certificate that says “male.”

But in her mind, Jessica believes she has always been a female.

She legally changed her name from David to Jessica last year. And in January, she gained the right to dress as a woman at work.

She asked co-workers to refer to her in female pronouns, like “she” and “her.” She started hormone therapy and removed most of her body hair with laser surgery, but she hasn’t had a sex-change operation, known as gender reassignment surgery. She needs to raise $17,500 first.

Her co-workers are slowly getting used to the idea of working with a transgender police officer — a first for the department. But still, some point to Jessica and tell citizens to talk to “him,” prompting the citizens to look around, perplexed, since all they see is Jessica with her pink lipgloss and coiffed copper hair.

The bad guys can be equally confounded.

They see an officer wearing blue topaz earrings but shouting, “Get down on the ground!” in a deep, booming voice.

“When I get loud, I sound like a man,” Jessica conceded. “It throws the bad guys off. They can think whatever they want. I don’t care.”

Jessica understands the confusion because she lived 40 years mixed-up herself, not fitting in anywhere. . . .