eFeminate Introduction

Compare Natalie's experience and process with that of a transgender person.

eFeminate is a blog about me, Natalie: an intersexed asexual who is taking estrogen to fully develop as a female. I’m in my 20s and discovering more and more about the strange and rare condition that caused me to generate an almost complete female anatomy while having a 46,XY karyotype.

Come with me on my journey as my body becomes feminine, and I face the challenges of female puberty in my adulthood. I’m completely candid and open about my experiences - there is simply not enough on the web about XY females for me to reserve myself. Let me be a force of learning in a world that doesn’t think people like me exist. There must be a place for the two-spirits of the world.

Where do you start? Try my Introduction. Alternatively, you can learn more about my condition here.

UK: Review of Cairn Hotel

RealTravel

“My weekend with the Transvestite/Transgender Congress”

By Joseph Smith

Okay, imagine this. You're in an area where there are many hotels and many more people who need hotel rooms.

It's the season for English holidays (vacations for those of you who haven't read or watched movies) and that equates to the season where lots of English hotels are full.

Here I am, on my own for the weekend to fend for myself in a foreign land. It's Thursday and I don't have a place to stay yet. I've called several places and no one seems to have any room at the Inn...

So imagine my surprise when a fairly nice hotel in Harrogate says that they can accommodate me for the weekend. Beautiful!

As with most hotels, the Cairn offers breakfast as part of the cost of the room. The breakfast buffet consists of scrambled eggs, sauteed mushrooms, stewed tomatoes, English bacon, fried eggs, baked beans, potato dumplings, toast, coffee or tea, sausage (herb and Leek or Cumberland), fruit juice (orange, apple, grapefruit).... They call it a "Full English Breakfast." Enough food even for a large, hungry American.

There I was, finishing up my breakfast when it starts to slowly register in my mind that most of the English ladies I'd seen walking in had been extraordinarily... Well, not nice looking. Once that goes from subconscious to conscious, I begin to notice that these ladies are also seriously tall for women. That's followed shortly by the fact that some of the ladies seem to be wearing wigs and still others seemed like they probably should have shaved a little more carefully.....

This is England. There are some cultural differences between our countries. Could be that this was some sort of strange men's club that required it's members to dress up as women and go to breakfast at a local restaurant. I mean, we have "The Hawgs," Washington Redskin fans who dress up as pigs in women's clothing and go to all the Redskin home games. Then they resume their normal lives the following day.

Okay, I'm very "live and let live." I'm very secure in my own sexuality and I figure everyone elses sexuality is their own affair. But wading through 60 or 70 extremely well-dressed (I'm talking pearls, silk dresses, furs, and some lovely perfumes...) "ladies" is a little odd. Following dinner, I felt like I needed to find out what was going on.

Me: "Um, can I ask you a question?"

Hotel Employee: "Certainly sir."

"The, um... Ladies in the other room...?"

"Yes?"

"Uhh... I don't want to be rude, but what's going on?"

That's when I found out that I was there during the Transvestite and Transgender Congress. Apparently an annual event hosted by the Cairn Hotel. . . .

A big year on the small screen

While a lot of work remains to be done, the 2006–2007 television season saw some important milestones for transgender people.

By Joanne Herman

An Advocate.com exclusive posted August 8, 2007

Last year, for the first time, we saw transgender characters in recurring roles on popular television programs, as opposed to one-episode, single-season cameos. In prime time, viewers of the popular ABC sitcom Ugly Betty saw the return of Alex Meade as Alexis (played by actress Rebecca Romijn). And during the day, viewers of ABC’s long-running soap All My Children witnessed Zoe (played by actor Jeffrey Carlson) deal with her transition to female.

ABC was very careful to seek the guidance of media watchdog GLAAD about Zoe’s character and chose to cast a male actor for the role, resulting in a very realistic and perhaps even overly sensitive portrayal. And while Ugly Betty’s story line does not lend itself to educating the public about transgenderism, Alexis has managed to avoid many of the stereotypes and sensationalism that have characterized transgender roles in the past.

I suppose we can forgive the casting of the gorgeous Romijn as Hollywood’s idea of a trans woman, in much the same way we still watch The L Word in spite of its slick L.A. lesbian chic. And I have to admit I had fun imagining myself in Zoe’s place as she fell in love with the very cute Bianca (played by actress Eden Riegel), the lesbian character known for participating in the first romantic kiss between two women on a daytime soap opera (All My Children in 2003).

Previously, the closest we had come to a recurring transgender character was on the CBS show The Education of Max Bickford in 2001. Actress Helen Shaver (of Desert Hearts fame) played Erica Bettis, a 40-something professor at an all-female college who had just returned to work after her sex-reassignment surgery. While Shaver played the part very realistically and her character dealt sensitively with some real-life transgender issues, Erica quietly disappeared from the show after only a few episodes. Some say that was the beginning of the end for the series, which was canceled only a few weeks later.

Of course, all of these television transgender roles have been played by nontransgender actors and actresses. But here we have a milestone too. This season saw trans woman and actress Candis Cayne as a murder victim in the episode "The Lying Game" on the hit CBS series CSI: New York. Her role, too, was a step up for the whole CSI series, in which transgender characters central to the plot have previously appeared only as murderers—Paul Millander in 2002 and Dr. Lavalle in 2004—although it’s true that some transgender people did have ancillary noncriminal roles in that 2004 episode.

In spite of that progress, CSI still has a long way to go. Cayne’s character was a confusion of transgender types. She clearly presented as a woman and yet was shown using the men’s room, probably because the writers thought that’s what we do when we have not had sex-reassignment surgery. Even though there was nothing about her character that felt like a gay man in drag, the murderer responded with the “ick factor” over the thought that he kissed a “guy,” offending many LGBT viewers in the process. And when the victim’s body was discovered, the detective declared that “Jane Doe is actually a John,” as if all transgender people are involved in sex work. Even the episode’s title was a slur against trans people who have not had surgery.

On the serious side, there was a huge milestone achieved this past season thanks to the ABC newsmagazine 20/20. Barbara Walters devoted an entire program to an informed and sensitive look at the issues of transgender children. For many viewers, it was their first exposure to trans kids and—more significant—an introduction to amazing parents who understand and do not reject their child’s gender non-conformance. ABC further posted additional helpful information on its Web site, including a comprehensive list of resources for parents.

But as good as that 20/20 episode was, this past season also included one of the worst televised documentaries in recent memory. MSNBC’s Born in the Wrong Body set a new low for the portrayal of transgender women. Virtually every camera shot seemed to be of a trans woman putting on lipstick or pantyhose, as if that’s the overriding reason someone would transition to female. This is yet another example of the sexism we trans women are subjected to, as I wrote about in my last column.

It’s too bad, because that documentary also featured some very insightful and useful segments from an interview with Simon Aranoff, deputy director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Speaking of Simon, his Trans Media Watch blog highlights another problem we had last season—the f word. No, not the one you were thinking of. Transgender people have an additional f word—freak. Radio talk show host Michael Savage used it in reference to murder victim Ruby Ordenana, as if transgenderism justified her murder. OK, so Savage’s show is not on TV, but his rant did make nightly news broadcasts. . . .

Larry King Live:

Men who have surgery to become women, women who become men. I go inside the world of transgender people. Tonight, 10 August 2007 9 ET.

New Jewish Reform movement manual

By Ben Harris

NEW YORK (JTA)—In a groundbreaking move to recognize the experiences of transgender Jews, the Reform movement has published several prayers for sanctifying the sex-change process.

The Union for Reform Judaism this week released the second edition of Kulanu, the union's 500-page resource manual for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender inclusion. The guide includes two blessings authored by Rabbi Elliot Kukla for transitioning genders.

Kukla, who was known as Eliza when ordained in 2006 by the movement's New York seminary, originally wrote the blessings for a friend who wanted to mark each time he received testosterone therapy. Still, Kukla believes they are appropriate for multiple moments in the sex-change process, including "moments of medical transitions."

Broad sections of the Jewish community now accept gays and lesbians serving as rabbis and cantors, and many support rabbinic officiating at same-sex commitment ceremonies. But the Reform movement, the country's largest synagogue denomination, had never gone as far as to say that it is kosher to recite a blessing for a sex change.

"There was a conversation about what we should include and what we shouldn't include," said Rabbi Richard Address, one of Kulanu's editors and the director of the union's Department of Jewish Family Concerns. "This was going to be a little bit out there."

The first Hebrew blessing praises God as "the Transforming One to those who transform/transition/cross over." A second blessing, intended to be said after completing the transition process, praises God, "who has made me in his image"—a reference to the description in Genesis of the creation of Adam.

A final blessing is the familiar Shehechiyanu, traditionally recited to mark special events or notable firsts.

"The midrash, classical Jewish exegesis, adds that the adam harishon, the first human being formed in God's likeness, was an androgynos, an intersex person," Kukla writes in a brief introduction. "Hence our tradition teaches that all bodies and genders are created in God's image whether we identify as men, women, intersex, or something else." . . .