Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com
CNN's Kara Finnstrom has the story of a transgender teenager and his long path to acceptance.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
WHIPPING GIRL: A TRANSSEXUAL WOMAN ON SEXISM AND THE SCAPEGOATING OF FEMININITY
by Julia Serano (Seal), 392 pages, $19.95 paper. Rating:
Julia Serano's incredibly original text - equal parts essay, memoir, manifesto, study in etymology and critique of mass media - examines how our culture's disdain for femininity directly informs our view of trans women.
Serano's background as a biologist, performer and transsexual activist makes Whipping Girl insightful, in-depth and multi-faceted. It combines the readability of a memoir, the humorous sass of the best spoken word rant and a thorough, even-handed analysis of biology versus socialization not found in most gender studies books.
Most anti-trans sentiment Serano has had to deal with as a transsexual woman, she says, is probably better described as "trans-misogyny." She summarizes the myriad ways feminists and gay activists refuse to practise what they preach. For example, some feminists who rally against the objectification of women's bodies see no reason not to ask invasive personal questions about trans people's bodies.
At the heart of these offences is what Serano terms cissexism, the belief that transsexuals' gender identities are less authentic and "normal" than non-transsexuals – or cissexuals.
She takes to task prominent gender theorists like Judith Butler as well as the genderqueer movement bent on destroying the binary gender system, which ends up pitting gender-conforming and non-gender-conforming people against each other.
While offering critical insights or discussing painful personal memories, Serano never condescends or engages in "more oppressed than thou" rhetoric.
The book culminates in a call for alliances, leaving the reader with the hope that matters among the very divided queer, genderqueer, transsexual and feminist communities could really get better.
Rarely do I believe hyperbolic back-cover blurbs claiming "We desperately need this book." But this one's absolutely accurate.
Transgender Bostonian Has Her Day in Court: Verdict Due Today
by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Boston Contributor
Thursday Aug 23, 2007
Massachusetts native Rhiannon O’Donnabhain grew up in the South Shore as part of an Irish Catholic family, went to mass on Sundays, joined the Coast Guard, became a civil engineer, married, and raised three children--all as a man.
But in 1996, after a lifetime of dissonance between her outer appearance and her inner identity, O’Donnabhain received the answers she’d looked for throughout her life: she was professionally diagnosed with GID, or Gender Identity Disorder, a medially recognized condition in which a person experiences a deep-seated and consistent sensation that he or she is a person of a gender different than that of the body.
O’Donnabhain received a prescription for her complaint: gender reassignment, including several major surgeries.
But when she wrote about $5,000 of the approximately $25,000 cost of the procedures off of her 2003 taxes--much as one would write off an appendectomy or other major medical procedure--the IRS balked, denying her claim and calling it "cosmetic" despite the firmly established clinical definition of GID and the widespread acceptance and recognition of the condition as a serious and life-impacting affliction requiring medical intervention, and despite the medical opinion of O’Donnabhain’s health care providers that the treatment was necessary for the sake of her mental health and for her capability to function.
O’Donnabhain, represented by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, took the IRS to court; the trial of O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue began July 24, recessed July 27, and is scheduled to be decided today, after the IRS presents its expert witnesses and the closing arguments are made. . . .
EDGE Boston Contributor
Thursday Aug 23, 2007
Massachusetts native Rhiannon O’Donnabhain grew up in the South Shore as part of an Irish Catholic family, went to mass on Sundays, joined the Coast Guard, became a civil engineer, married, and raised three children--all as a man.
But in 1996, after a lifetime of dissonance between her outer appearance and her inner identity, O’Donnabhain received the answers she’d looked for throughout her life: she was professionally diagnosed with GID, or Gender Identity Disorder, a medially recognized condition in which a person experiences a deep-seated and consistent sensation that he or she is a person of a gender different than that of the body.
O’Donnabhain received a prescription for her complaint: gender reassignment, including several major surgeries.
But when she wrote about $5,000 of the approximately $25,000 cost of the procedures off of her 2003 taxes--much as one would write off an appendectomy or other major medical procedure--the IRS balked, denying her claim and calling it "cosmetic" despite the firmly established clinical definition of GID and the widespread acceptance and recognition of the condition as a serious and life-impacting affliction requiring medical intervention, and despite the medical opinion of O’Donnabhain’s health care providers that the treatment was necessary for the sake of her mental health and for her capability to function.
O’Donnabhain, represented by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, took the IRS to court; the trial of O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue began July 24, recessed July 27, and is scheduled to be decided today, after the IRS presents its expert witnesses and the closing arguments are made. . . .
Bi social club bars some trans women
by Heather Cassell
h.cassell@ebar.com
The Chasing Amy Social Club came under attack last month after its anti-transgender membership policy was revealed on a trans woman's blog.
Charlie Anders, a bisexual transgender woman in her 30s who has not undergone convertive surgery, posted an entry, "Chasing Transgender Women Away," on July 21 on her Charliegrrrl blog protesting the club's transgender policy. She posted a follow-up entry on August 13, which encouraged people to contact Amy Larson, CASC founder, to voice their disagreement with the policy.
Anders told the Bay Area Reporter that she contacted Larson sometime in July to inquire about joining CASC. Anders, a former staff member of Anything that Moves, the now-defunct national bisexual magazine and a longtime LGBT community activist, was bothered by the policy.
The policy, according to Larson, is "partially" modeled after one used at Osento, the all-women's bathhouse in San Francisco's Mission District. According to its gender policy, Osento allows transgender women who have had surgery. In an e-mail response to questions August 20, Larson stated, "There is a fair amount of semi- or full-nudity at various of our private group events."
CASC is a private social group founded, organized, and funded solely by Larson, a bisexual woman, for bisexual and bi-supportive woman in the Bay Area that has been operating for six years. The group has an estimated 500 members, according to Larson, who screens potential members by phone to see if they meet the club's membership criteria.
Women excluded from joining the club, Larson said, are women who smoke indoors, "vegans offended by the presence of animal products, those with cat allergies, red wine drinkers, folks partaking of drugs during events, women under the age of 18, women seeking a singles hookup environment or sex club, and a variety of other things," including bisexual transgender women who haven't undergone surgery. . . .
h.cassell@ebar.com
The Chasing Amy Social Club came under attack last month after its anti-transgender membership policy was revealed on a trans woman's blog.
Charlie Anders, a bisexual transgender woman in her 30s who has not undergone convertive surgery, posted an entry, "Chasing Transgender Women Away," on July 21 on her Charliegrrrl blog protesting the club's transgender policy. She posted a follow-up entry on August 13, which encouraged people to contact Amy Larson, CASC founder, to voice their disagreement with the policy.
Anders told the Bay Area Reporter that she contacted Larson sometime in July to inquire about joining CASC. Anders, a former staff member of Anything that Moves, the now-defunct national bisexual magazine and a longtime LGBT community activist, was bothered by the policy.
The policy, according to Larson, is "partially" modeled after one used at Osento, the all-women's bathhouse in San Francisco's Mission District. According to its gender policy, Osento allows transgender women who have had surgery. In an e-mail response to questions August 20, Larson stated, "There is a fair amount of semi- or full-nudity at various of our private group events."
CASC is a private social group founded, organized, and funded solely by Larson, a bisexual woman, for bisexual and bi-supportive woman in the Bay Area that has been operating for six years. The group has an estimated 500 members, according to Larson, who screens potential members by phone to see if they meet the club's membership criteria.
Women excluded from joining the club, Larson said, are women who smoke indoors, "vegans offended by the presence of animal products, those with cat allergies, red wine drinkers, folks partaking of drugs during events, women under the age of 18, women seeking a singles hookup environment or sex club, and a variety of other things," including bisexual transgender women who haven't undergone surgery. . . .
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