Gender and Life's Paths: Sep 7, 2008

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Trinidad Colorado - Sex Change Capital of the World

The Sex Change Capital of The U.S.

A Small Rocky Mountain Town Is Home To A Cottage Industry Helping Transgender People

September 7, 2008

. . .Read More

Decision time for Mont. Co. transgender question

Issue goes before Maryland high court next week

AMY CAVANAUGH
September 05, 2008

The Maryland Court of Appeals will consider Sept. 8 whether Montgomery County’s transgender discrimination measure will go to a public vote.

County officials last year passed legislation that prohibits “discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, cable television service and taxicab service on the basis of gender identity.”
The law was set to take effect in February, but the conservative Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government halted the law’s implementation by placing it on November’s ballot.

Equality Maryland challenged that referendum, noting that a number of the petition signatures were improperly obtained, but Montgomery County Circuit Judge Robert Greenberg ruled that Equality Maryland missed the deadline to challenge. The Court of Appeals is poised to determine whether that ruling will stand. . . .Read More

Salman Rushdie investigates India's transsexual underworld

September 5, 2008

In his contribution to Aids Sutra, a collection of essays about the HIV/Aids problem in India, Salman Rushdie reports on the culture of the hijra

ACCORDING TO GREEK mythology, Hermaphroditus, the child of Hermes and Aphrodite, fell so passionately in love with a nymph named Salmacis that they beseeched Zeus to unite them for all time, and were joined in a single body in which both sexes remained manifest.

The Hindu tradition contains, if anything, a more powerful version of this story, elevated to the very summit of the Hindu pantheon, and glorifying not merely the beauty of the physical union of the sexes but the union of the male and female principles in the Universe, a metaphor reaching far beyond biology. In a cave on Elephanta Island in Bombay harbour is a sculpture of the deity named Ardhanari or Ardhanarishvara, a name composed of three elements: ardha - half, nari - woman, ishvara - god; thus Ardhanarishvara, the half-woman god. . . .Read More

Gender variance or nonconformity is found wherever one finds people.

A closer view reveals many variations in gender expression. Note “sex” refers to biology, genes, hormones, body development, whereas “gender” is social role, cultural expectations for appearance and behavior. Gender expression varies over time and throughout cultures and may vary in the lifetimes of individuals. We sometimes hear “male or female”, “masculine or feminine”, as defining “the binary”. Typically, many want males masculine and females feminine, in a world where being androgenous or a hybrid may actually work better. Yet many individuals, for example, parents, teachers, and friends, including some with gender issues, crave the binary. In the case of a significantly gender variant person, gender expression often does not match the social or binary gender role assigned at birth. Nevertheless, the person's expressed gender may feel correct or natural. Thus a gender nonconforming person, maybe someone who even sees themselves as “non-binary”, may feel very uncomfortable with the gender expression expected by parents and significant others. Fortunately, there are a growing number of resources to help those interested understand gender, development, change and adaptation. And there are creative paths one may explore to hopefully find comfort, experience a measure of peace and happiness, and in the process find the gender expression that works best. Here I offer some news, information, resources, opinions and POVs to help you learn more about gender expression and life situations. We now know there are a variety of paths individuals discover that may contribute to positive life changes.

Books you may find interesting:

Benjamin, Harry. (1966). The Transsexual Phenomenon. New York: The Julian Press, Inc. Full text and photographs available as an electronic book: http://www.symposium.com/ijt/benjamin/

Blanchard, Ray and Steiner, Betty W. (1990). Clinical Management of Gender Identity Disorders in Children and Adults. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, Inc.

Bolin, Anne. (1988). In Search of Eve: Transsexual Rites of Passage. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin and Garvey.

Boenke, Mary, (Ed). (2003). Trans Forming Families. Hardy, VA: Oak Knoll Press.

Bornstein, Kate. (1994). Gender Outlaw: On men, women and the rest of us. Routledge: New York & London.

Brill, Stephanie & Pepper, Rachel. (2008). The Transgender Child. San Francisco: Cleis Press.

Brown, Mildred L. & Rounsley, Chloe Ann. (1996). True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Brownmiller, Susan. (1984). Femininity. New York: Linden / Simon Schuster.

Buss, David M. (1994). The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating. New York: Basic Books.

Califia, Pat. (1997). Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism. San Francisco: Cleis Press.

Cameron, Loren. (1996). Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits. San Francisco: Cleis Press.

Colapinto, John. (2000). As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl. New York: HarperCollins.

Cromwell, Jason. (1999). Transmen and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders and Sexualities. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

Devor, Holly. (1989). Gender Blending: Confronting The Limits of Duality. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Devor, Holly. (1997). Female to Male Transsexuals in Society. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Docter, Richard F. (1988). Transvestites and Transsexuals: Toward a Theory of Cross-Gender Behavior. New York: Plenum Press.

Ehrensaft, Diane. (2011). Gender Born, Gender Made. New York: The Experiment, LLC.

Green, Jamison. (2004). Becoming a Visible Man. Nashville:Vanderbilt Univerrsity Press.

Griggs, Claudine. (1996). Passage through Trinidad: Journal of a Surgical Sex Change. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co.

Griggs, Claudine. (1998). S/He: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes. Oxford: Berg.

HBIGDA, Standards of Care for Gender Identity Disorders, Sixth Version. (2001). http://www.hbigda.org/socv6.html#top

Kessler, Suzanne and McKenna, Wendy. (1978). Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Serano, Julia. (2007). Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Women on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity. San Francisco: Seal Press.

Stuart, Kim Elizabeth. (1983). The Uninvited Dilemma: A Question of Gender. Portland, Oregon: Metamorphous Press, Inc.

Available from Metamorphous Press, Inc. P.O. Box 10616, Portland, Oregon 97210-0616. Fax (503) 223-9117 or Toll Free 1-800-937-7771

Sullivan, Lou. (1990). Information for the Female to Male Cross Dresser and Transsexual. Seattle, Washington: Ingersoll Gender Center.

Available from Ingersoll Gender Center. 1812 E. Madison Seattle, Washington 98122-2843. (206) 329-665

Williams, Walter L. (1986). The Spirit and The Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

Zucker, Kenneth J. and Bradley, Susan J. (1995). Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents. New York: Guilford.

Gender and Life's Paths

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Trinidad Colorado - Sex Change Capital of the World

The Sex Change Capital of The U.S.

Decision time for Mont. Co. transgender question

Salman Rushdie investigates India's transsexual underworld

Gender variance or nonconformity is found wherever one finds people.

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