Storm Florez

"Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Storm Florez is an FTM, genderqueer singer/songwriter, poet, duct tape and performance artist, and live tranny porn producer who now lives in the Bay Area.

Storm has performed his music and spoken word across the US and co-produced and performed in the pornarific cabaret Trans as Fuck in San Francisco in 2004 and in West Hollywood in 2006.

Storm has featured at the National Queer Arts Festival: Intercourse (2001), Viva La Joteria (2004), Home Queer Home and Transforming Community (2007)."

A man in lipstick, high heels?

New county law says its OK

January 4th, 2008

By John Johnston

County Commissioners have unanimously approved new rules that prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations based on gender identity or expression.

The amendments to county ordinances add gender identity to a list of protected classes that include race, sex, color, religion, national origin, handicap, familial status, sexual orientation and marital status – in sum, so-called “transgendered” or “transsexual” persons are now protected.

Which would, according to Commissioner Mary McCarty, permit a man to come to work in high heels and lipstick, and not be subject to any official reprisals.

What will upset opponents is that the rules apply to both the public and private sectors. The new laws cover most real estate transactions, together with both public and private employers with 15 or more employees. And it went into effect New Year’s Day. . . .

Bolivia to protect gays in constitution

January 2008

by Rex Wockner

Bolivia is set to become the sixth nation to ban anti-gay discrimination in its constitution.

Article 14 of the finalized text of the planned new constitution states: "The State prohibits and punishes any form of discrimination based on sex, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, origin, culture, nationality, citizenship, language, religious creed, ideology, political affiliation or philosophical beliefs, marital status, economic or social status, type of occupation, level of education, disability, pregnancy, or other factors that have the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of the rights of everyone."

Once ratified, the constitution will become the first in the world to protect transgender people. . . .

A Tale of Two Susans

January 4, 2008

(cross-posted at Pam’s House Blend)

I’m spending part of my winter break getting rid of piles of paper. Those in the trans community who have had the pleasure/misfortune of entering any place I’ve lived know how, umm……, out of hand my piles of research can get (ask Gwen Smith; she saw the original Casa de la Kat a decade ago - and none of the succeeding Kat Boxes have been less paper-laden.)

Well, I’m trying to get them out of the physical space of my office and into my computer - via scanner.

I am getting there….

Trust me.

Now - on with our regularly scheduled rant:

One of the scraps o’ paper I just ran across is an article about a transsexual named Susan - who had a rather public, political life prior to transition and who has had occasion to say some things trans since her transition that have rubbed some trans folks the wrong way.

Unlike Susan Stanton, however, Susan Kimberly earned the right to mouth off.

No, she doesn’t need my approval on that point - and I imagine I’ll get an e-mail to that effect at some point. However, I’ve earned - in my own way - the right to mouth off. . . .

OPINION: Educating our children

Dale O’Leary

January 2008


The state-funded Massachusetts Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Youth recently met in Brockton to plan how to present the gay activists’ view of sexual identity in public schools of the state.

Students will be exposed to pro-GLBT programs at every level from kindergarten to the graduate school. Since the programs challenge in various ways Catholic teaching, it is important for parents to be in possession of the facts necessary to answer their children’s inevitable questions.

First, persons with same-sex attraction may believe that they were born that way, but there is no scientific evidence that same-sex attraction is genetically pre-determined. If it were, one would expect that identical twins would virtually always have the same pattern of sexual attraction. In the largest study of sexual attraction patterns in identical twins (287 pairs of male identical twins), there were 24 pairs of men where only one had predominant same-sex attraction and only 3 pairs in which both did (11 percent). This precludes a purely genetic cause.

Each person with same-sex attraction has his or her own unique personal history. It is therefore unlikely that we will find a single cause for same-sex attraction. We do know that many, but not all, suffered from a gender identity disorder as children. This failure to identify with one’s own sex leads to loneliness and isolation. According to experts in the field Dr. Kenneth Zucker and Susan Bradley, these children have many other problems beside gender identity disorder. When gender identity disorder is identified early and treated, it can be resolved. . . .

Transgender woman sues hospital

CATHOLIC-OWNED SETON WON'T LET HER GET BREAST SURGERY

By Barbara Feder Ostrov
Mercury News

01/05/2008

"God made you a man."

That's what Charlene Hastings said she was told when she called to inquire about breast enlargement surgery at Seton Medical Center, a Catholic hospital in Daly City.

Now the San Franciscan is suing the hospital, claiming officials there discriminated against her because she had a sex-change operation.

Hastings, 57, had already had the major surgery she needed to become a woman. She had chosen a San Francisco plastic surgeon with privileges at Seton to perform the breast augmentation in October 2006. But the surgeon, Dr. Leonard Gray, told her that Seton no longer allowed him to operate on transgender patients, Hastings said.

When Hastings called Seton to learn more, a surgical coordinator said the hospital would not allow its facilities to be used for transgender surgery, according to the lawsuit, "She was saying, 'It's not God's will,' " Hastings said. "I couldn't believe it. It's a blatant case of discrimination."

The lawsuit, filed Dec. 21 in San Francisco Superior Court, pits the rights of transgendered people against the hospital's rights to operate according to its religious principles.

State law allows religiously affiliated hospitals to refuse to provide abortions, but there is no specific religious exemption allowing hospitals to deny elective surgery to transgender people. . . .