Saturday, November 03, 2007
Running of the drag queens
by Aya Mueller
11/1/07
Men dressed as Audrey Hepburn, Pocahontas and other famous females were on full display Tuesday night at the annual high heel race in Dupont Circle.
Hundreds of spectators - including D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty - gathered to see men dressed in drag sporting high heels running through the streets. More than 100 drag queens hurled the short stretch between JR's Bar and Grille and Trio Restaurant, vying for the grand prize of a $50 bar tab at JR's, the de facto organizer of the race.
The event is a famed pre-Halloween social gathering that unites the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups, along with anyone else who cares to join.
"I think every neighborhood needs something like this," said Mike Wilson, 30, a first time volunteer at the event. "You get thousands of people out on the street having fun in the middle of the week. It's just one of those events that can bring the community together."
The first onlookers arrived around 6 p.m., quickly crowding bars and sidewalks and then competing for spots in the front row. Meanwhile, contestants - headed by a mixed-gender team of cheerleaders - flaunted their costumes under flashing cameras.
"The High Heel Race makes absolutely no money," said David Perruzza, the general manager of JR's. "We buy a tent, we pay to clean up the street, and we buy the volunteer T-shirts. We end up in the hole because we pay for all the stuff."
At 9 p.m., police cautioned everybody "who is not wearing heels" to get out of the way. Then the race began, covering 100 yards and lasting roughly 90 seconds. While the front 50 or so sprinted, the latter half merely paraded in front of the cheering crowds.
The race was won by a contestant under the alias "Chlamydia Parker, Duchess of Gloryhole," dressed in a yellow wig flowery dress and sunglasses. Her costume was relatively tame compared to many of her compatriots.
"They really enjoy it," said Pina Perruzza, volunteer and mother of David Perruzza. "Some of them start making their costumes as early as a year in advance. Nobody has been hurt since my son took it over, 12 years ago. Nobody has ever been hurt, actually."
The intricate and gaudy costumes included Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), pants down, being pushed on a mobile toilet; a walking Obelisk; and an authentic looking Lady Diana complete with bodyguards.
What started out two decades ago as a friendly challenge between a few drag queens drinking at JR's to run down the street, down a shot, and return, is now a tradition.
"I've been here in D.C. for 12 years and my first year I came to the High Heel Race and thought it was really fun," said Lorraine, an onlooker who did not want to disclose her last name. She has she has returned multiple times since.
Fenty, who also attended last year's race, joined the jovial festivities shaking hands and bowing to the queens.
"The reason I like it," Lorraine said, "is because it's something that going on in D.C. that is not repressed and boring."
Transsexual fights for her lesbian rights
A TRANSGENDER psychotherapist has taken a gay association to an equal opportunities tribunal, alleging she was discriminated against by being refused entry to a lesbian event.
Tracie O'Keefe, of Sydney, said she requested an invitation to a South Australian event organised by lesbian support group Sappho's Party.
The group has a policy of excluding transgender people from its workshops, camps and social events because it only supports lesbians who were born female.
Ms O'Keefe said she was refused an invitation and told the event, in the Adelaide Hills in January 2006, was exclusive to lesbians raised female from birth.
"I sent an email to them saying that I would like to go and they sent me an email back saying it would not be appropriate for me to attend," Ms O'Keefe said.
Ms O'Keefe has taken the issue to the South Australian Equal Opportunity Tribunal, which part-heard the matter last month.
One of the event's organisers, Stacey McCaig, reportedly told the tribunal that Sappho's Party was strictly for lesbian women who were raised as females from birth.
The tribunal also reportedly heard organisers did not want Ms O'Keefe to attend because her presence would affect "intimacy, level of trust and discussion".
Ms O'Keefe, who wants an apology, started living as a woman 35 years ago, at the age of 15, and has had gender reassignment surgery.
"It was offensive," she said. " I've lived in a lesbian relationship for 14 years with the same woman. I don't get discriminated against in any other part of the gay community."
The matter has been adjourned to December 19.
California public school cancels 'gender-switch day'
Officials at a California public school have cancelled a cross-dressing day, following a slew of parental complaints.
Recently, students at Adams Middle School in Brentwood were encouraged to dress like the opposite sex during the last day of the school's "Spirit Week." The mother of a seventh-grade student found out about the activity and contacted the principal to express her concerns. The mother was told she could keep her son at home if she did not want him participating in the event.
She then contacted the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) -- which counseled concerned parents and advised them on how to communicate with the school. The school canceled the event, and instead encouraged students to wear their school colors on the Friday of "Spirit Week."
PJI president Brad Dacus says the school did the right thing. "The only purpose that seemed to be involved with this event was for the sensitivity and tolerance of cross dressers, transsexuals, [and] transvestites. That's what the school was trying to push on these young girls and boys at junior-high age," says Dacus. He says this is also a good example of what parents and individuals can do when they stand up for what is right.
In a conversation with a PJI staff attorney, the school's principal says he wanted to encourage students to be "free thinkers," but that the community did not grasp the intent of the "gender switch day."
TheStar.com
Q: I'm 24 and have been in a relationship with a guy for four years. I discovered 18 months ago that he has a deep, dark secret: he wishes he had been born a girl.
I was the first person he ever told this to, but he's felt this desire since he was a child.
He hates the idea of sex-change surgery and also realizes he'd have to tell everyone, which would affect his social world. He's been seeing a doctor and has decided to dress as a girl at home and occasionally go out as one.
I hang out with him acting as a guy, and usually he'll stay dressed as a guy. I'm having a hard time deciding what to do because I really love being with him but feel very uncomfortable with this whole thing.
How can I deal with this? I don't want to have to leave him only because of it.
Torn
A: This is a transition period for your guy, which is going to require a lot more of his time and effort to find his own comfort level. He'll want to explore his gender identity further than this quick decision about cross-dressing and should ask his doctor for referral to a gender identity clinic for assessment.
But for your comfort level, you're going to have to decide, soon, how far your friendship or your relationship goes. He's confided in you and trusts you. You could continue to be his closest pal and support him through the process of self-discovery, but if you feel too awkward to stay a couple, say so.
Meanwhile, you both need more information, such as that most cross-dressers are heterosexual and only dress as the other sex part-time, for various reasons including pleasure or relief of stress.
Q: What's up with women and shoes? My fiancée has about 40 pairs and is always shopping for more. Is this a sign of insecurity, or is she a shopaholic I shouldn't marry because she'll make me go broke?
Four-Pair Guy
A: Everyone to their own retail therapy – and if you're into stereotypes, there are plenty of guys who can't resist a DIY store. For shoe-lovers, women and men alike, shoes are the key style statement, from "cool," to "funky" and more.
If your fiancée can afford this indulgence, it's her business. If not, better discuss future finances along with marriage plans.
Tip of the Day In relationships, pushy equals needy and is usually a big turnoff.
'The Second Half of My Life'
Talk of the Nation, February 8, 2007 · Dr. Richard Raskind was a champion tennis player and a renowned eye surgeon with a wife and son. But in 1975, Renee Richards emerged, after a highly publicized sex reassignment operation. Richards talks about her new book and questions the effects of her decisions and her notoriety.
Excerpt: 'No Way Renee: The Second Half of My Notorious Life'
by
Preface
In 1976, I was one of the most famous people in the world. The paparazzi were on my trail twenty-four hours a day, hungry for any photo, the less flattering the better. The mainstream press was better, sometimes. People, Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated — I was featured in them all, an international phenomenon. Once, at the height of my notoriety, I found myself in Uruguay, where I had gone beyond the urban centers like Montevideo and was walking down the beach at Carrasco, a tiny coastal village. I was enjoying a welcome sense of anonymity, but a man in a little kiosk pointed to my picture on a magazine and with much excitement asked me to sign it, which I did. Recognizable even in the countryside of Uruguay: that sums up the Renée Richards phenomenon at its zenith.
During that time I was deluged by a myriad of television opportunities. All the major figures wanted to interview me: Phil Donahue, Tom Snyder, Howard Cosell, and many others I can't recall. I was on the Today show, Good Morning America, and a host of other major shows. I was even invited to do The Hollywood Squares, but I declined. I had my limits.
And what had I done to merit this interest? Perfected an organ transplant procedure? Gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Neither. Simply put, I had undergone a male-to-female sex-change operation and then had the temerity to play in an amateur women's tennis tournament. Of course there was more to it than that, but basically that was the source of my infamy. To compound my audacity, I had not hung my head and apologized. I had gone to court, won my case, and played professional tennis as a woman.
The story of how I got into that situation was told in my autobiography, Second Serve. Born Richard Raskind. Raised a nice Jewish boy. Educated at Yale. Tournament tennis player. Top surgeon. Lieutenant-commander in the Navy. Married to a beautiful woman. Father of a wonderful son. But compelled by a secret drive that could not be suppressed, even with years of psychotherapy and every trick in the book. Another entity, Renée, kept growing stronger and stronger until she eventually took over.
It was a long nightmare for Dick, and just when it seemed to be over, another one started for Renée. She had to walk onto a tennis court and endure the intense scrutiny of thousands of people. It was a choice, yes, but not a happy one and not made out of a desire to show off. I took a stand on principle, but it exacted an emotional and financial price. When I left the tour, I was very tired of the fishbowl.
But I have had more than twenty-five years to get my second wind, so I want to respond to the question I hear so often: "What have you done lately, Dr. Richards?" One answer is that I have been doing what I always wanted to do in the first place: live a private life. Yet I remain a subject of interest and live in the memories of the many people who followed my adventures years ago. Unhappily, their mental image of me is too frequently tainted by grainy tabloid photographs and sensational headlines. I don't deny that my life has been strange, but strangeness is only part of a complex whole that is not well understood.
I have practiced a highly specialized form of eye surgery for forty years, and I am still operating every week. I am also an educator, having served as a clinical professor, first at Cornell Medical School and later at New York University, where I continue on the faculty to this day. I have instructed and influenced hundreds of residents and postgraduate fellows who are out in the world putting my lessons to work. They think of me as a distinguished mentor, not a curiosity. In 2001, I received the Helen Keller Services for the Blind Award, Manhattan Branch, given yearly to an outstanding ophthalmologist.
Many people know that I coached Martina Navratilova to two of her Wimbledon championships, but few know about the many lesser-known players, both professional and amateur, whose skills I have helped improve. They have gone on to become ambassadors for the game I love. This behind-the-scenes contribution is at odds with the picture of Renée Richards as an unbalanced, publicity-crazy flake. I am not despised by the tennis community. I am a respected figure, despite my notorious past, and in 2000 I was inducted into the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame.
And I am seldom given credit for all that I have done in the area that has made me notorious, transsexualism. I'm the first to admit that I have not been an avid ambassador for transsexuals. I do not think of myself primarily as a transsexual. In fact, I fought for my rights largely because I was personally affronted that a medical operation could overshadow everything else I was as a human being. But there is no denying that when I retired from tennis, the world was much more aware of what a transsexual was, and that familiarity, not to mention my success as a professional coach, dispelled a lot of the condition's scandalous overtones. I opened doors for those who came after me, and I am a hero to many of them.
But I have not written No Way Renée as a justification of my life; rather, it is a look at the second half of a life that I hope no longer needs justifying. It is the story of how I thought through and reconciled my bizarre family life; how my son and I coped with my changed persona; how I gave my new incarnation an adolescence; how I restored my medical career; how I searched for understanding, stability, romance, health, and a sense of my place in a changing world. It answers the question in the minds of so many, "Was your sex change a mistake?" . . .
The Feminine Critique
DON’T get angry. But do take charge. Be nice. But not too nice. Speak up. But don’t seem like you talk too much. Never, ever dress sexy. Make sure to inspire your colleagues — unless you work in Norway, in which case, focus on delegating instead.
Writing about life and work means receiving a steady stream of research on how women in the workplace are viewed differently from men. These are academic and professional studies, not whimsical online polls, and each time I read one I feel deflated. What are women supposed to do with this information? Transform overnight? And if so, into what? How are we supposed to be assertive, but not, at the same time?
“It’s enough to make you dizzy,” said Ilene H. Lang, the president of Catalyst, an organization that studies women in the workplace. “Women are dizzy, men are dizzy, and we still don’t have a simple straightforward answer as to why there just aren’t enough women in positions of leadership.”
Catalyst’s research is often an exploration of why, 30 years after women entered the work force in large numbers, the default mental image of a leader is still male. Most recent is the report titled “Damned if You Do, Doomed if You Don’t,” which surveyed 1,231 senior executives from the United States and Europe. It found that women who act in ways that are consistent with gender stereotypes — defined as focusing “on work relationships” and expressing “concern for other people’s perspectives” — are considered less competent. But if they act in ways that are seen as more “male” — like “act assertively, focus on work task, display ambition” — they are seen as “too tough” and “unfeminine.”
Women can’t win.
In 2006, Catalyst looked at stereotypes across cultures (surveying 935 alumni of the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland) and found that while the view of an ideal leader varied from place to place — in some regions the ideal leader was a team builder, in others the most valued skill was problem-solving. But whatever was most valued, women were seen as lacking it.
Respondents in the United States and England, for instance, listed “inspiring others” as a most important leadership quality, and then rated women as less adept at this than men. In Nordic countries, women were seen as perfectly inspirational, but it was “delegating” that was of higher value there, and women were not seen as good delegators.
Other researchers have reached similar conclusions. Joan Williams runs the Center for WorkLife Law, part of the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. She wrote the book “Unbending Gender” and she, too, has found that women are held to a different standard at work.
They are expected to be nurturing, but seen as ineffective if they are too feminine, she said in a speech last week at Cornell. They are expected to be strong, but tend to be labeled as strident or abrasive when acting as leaders. “Women have to choose between being liked but not respected, or respected but not liked,” she said.
While some researchers, like those at Catalyst and WorkLife Law, tend to paint the sweeping global picture — women don’t advance as much as men because they don’t act like men — other researchers narrow their focus. . . .
