The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela (2008) Movie Trailer

"The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela is a 2008 drama film directed by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson.

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela Plot

Raquela, a Filipino transsexual prostitute dreams of making a new life in Paris. She becomes an internet porn star and meets Valerie, an Icelandic transsexual, and Michael, the owner of the website she works for.

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela Cast

Raquela Rios as Herself
Stefan C. Schaefer as Ardilo, Michael
Olivia Galudo as Olivia
Brax Villa as Aubrey
Valerie Grand Einarsson as Valerie Einarsson

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela Distribution and reception

The film showed at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film. It will be screened in the Emerging Visions section of the 2008 South by Southwest festival in the United States.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amazing_Truth_ About_Queen_Raquela"   MovieTrailerNetwork

A new twist for 'America's Next Top Model'

By GILLIAN GAYNAIR

23 September 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a little boy in the Washington suburbs, Darrell Walls liked to pretend to be Lil' Kim or a Pink Power Ranger.

He felt different — like a girl mistakenly born a boy.

But Walls eventually embraced that difference and today is living true, as Isis King. Now 22, King is the first transgender contestant on "America's Next Top Model," the CW Television Network reality show hosted by supermodel Tyra Banks.

"I'm just trying to be myself," King said during a telephone interview last week. "If I inspire people, that's a wonderful thing — whether you're trans or not."

While the number of transgender representations on television remains small, activists say in recent years they have seen a movement away from stereotypical roles such as transgender sex workers or villains. Now, the roles are not as marginalized — and some are even portrayed by transgender actors. . . .Read More

Study shows prime-time television showing more gay, lesbian characters

Associated Press

September 23, 2008 

NEW YORK - Broadcast television will have 16 gay and bisexual regular characters in prime-time series this fall, more than double the seven of a year ago, a new study has found.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said it was a positive sign of networks making their shows more representative, although more work needed to be done. These characters accounted for 2.6 percent of all the regular characters in TV series, up from 1.1 percent last year and 1.3 percent in 2006, according to the study, released Monday. . . .Read More

Slowly, Companies Embracing Transgender Employees

Workplace attitudes and policies have eased over time.

By LISA BELKIN
THE NEW YORK TIMES

September 21, 2008

Breanna L. Speed waited four years before announcing to her co-workers that she would not be Wendell anymore.

KOREN SHADMI | THE NEW YORK TIMES

She was concerned that the revelation that she felt more comfortable living life as a woman than in the male body she was born with would jeopardize her job at Hewitt Associates, an outsourcing company in Lincolnshire, Ill., where she had worked as a database administrator for seven years.

But since Feb. 26, 2007, when she walked into the office as Breanna (with a company ID and a workplace paper trail that carried her new name), Speed said she has received nothing but support.

The workplace piece of her transgender puzzle, the part she had worried about most, "turned out to be the simplest," she said. "That was a surprise." . . .Read More