If you're a woman in your mid-thirties, the dating scene is challenging enough. You're conscious of feeling older, wrinkles become a reality, and you feel like your stock value as a potential wife has started to head south faster than the housing market. So in the past year, I decided it was high time I met a fabulous man.
In my good moments, I feel quite fabulous myself. I feel like an attractive, successful and snarky strawberry-blond who cooks like a dream and has a joie de vivre unlike most. I was open to meeting all sorts of men. I assumed I'd eventually find a like-minded guy who would appreciate me for me. . . .Read More
June 16, 2009
by Donna Rose
Special to CNN
(CNN) -- It was only a matter of time. The real-life drama of being transsexual has come to Hollywood. Chastity Bono, the impossibly cute little blond girl who, for many of my generation, remains frozen in time as the sweet, chubby-faced cherub closing many a Sonny and Cher show in the arms of her doting parents, recently announced that he is transsexual and will be transitioning from female to male. He will go by the name of Chaz.
As shocking as this news may be to some, it is yet another reminder that all is not necessarily as it appears and that each of us is more complicated than simply the skin and bones of our bodies. Rather, it is our heart and spirit that defines us. . . .Read More
June 18, 2009
by etonline.com
I hope that Chaz can understand that he is not alone and he's never been alone and anyone like him will never be alone," Alexis Arquette offers words of support for Chaz Bono. "It's an important time in his life; a lot of people don't understand that it is very difficult to come out as transgender."
Vivacious and blonde and decked in teal, the actress who has appeared in film and TV projects such as 'The Wedding Singer,' "Californication," "Friends" and 'Last Exit To Brooklyn' -- and is a member of the famous Arquette family -- is energetic, prepared and ready to talk when she walks into the Entertainment Tonight offices to sit down with Thea Andrews. She knows about the public scrutiny Chaz is facing, she has lived it.
Her transition from male to female was the subject of the 2007 documentary, 'Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother.' Her family includes actresses Rosanna and Patricia, actors Richmond and David and sister-in-law Courteney Cox Arquette. In many ways, Alexis believes that their Hollywood backgrounds have made it less difficult for her and Chaz. . . .Read More
CHINA IS introducing its first medical guidelines on sex change surgery that require candidates for surgery to be single, to have no criminal record and an agreement from police to change their sex on their identification cards once the procedure is complete.
There are an estimated 1,000 transsexuals in China, but there are believed to be many hundreds of thousands who would go for a gender reassignment operation to have their sex changed but are unaware of the regulations.
Candidates also must show they have lived publicly as the other gender for more than two years, demonstrated “unwavering desire to change” for at least five years and spent one year in psychotherapy, according to the ministry of health website. They must be over 20 years of age. They also have to have told their family about their wishes. . . .Read More
Be Like Others
Premieres June 24 on HBO
Much of the best science fiction posits a society operating under a set of rules that cast our own society's unexamined assumptions in relief. Let's just say, for example, that homosexuality was a crime, punishable by death. And what if, in this same society, transsexuality were merely seen as an illness, curable with an operation partially funded by the state? But this is no Ursula Le Guin novel — this is Iran, which is second only to Thailand in the number of sex-change operations performed each year. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may claim that there are no homosexuals in Iran, but estimates of transsexuals run as high as 150,000. What happens when gender is mutable but sexual orientation is not? When science produces a medical solution for what religion prohibits? Tanaz Eshaghian, an Iranian-American filmmaker, set out to find out in Be Like Others, which premieres on HBO on June 24. . . .Read More
Hosts of a Sacramento-based radio show apologized Thursday for making offensive comments about transgender people.
“I hurt people,” Arnie States told listeners. “And that wasn't my goal.”
That apology came after gay rights groups decried a May 28 broadcast of the Rob, Arnie & Dawn in the Morning radio show, which airs on KRXQ in Sacramento, where hosts Arnie States and Rob Williams called transgender people “freaks” and “weirdos” during a segment devoted to transgender children.
“If my son, God forbid, if my son put on a pair of high heels, I would probably hit him with one of my shoes,” States told listeners. “I would throw a shoe at him. Because you know what? Boys don't wear high heels. And in my house, they definitely don't wear high heels.” . . .Read More
Gay marriage isn't legal in the state of New York, but that didn't stop two New York City men from marrying in May when one of them posed as a woman. The New York Post reports that despite the couple's marriage license, their marriage is not legally valid.
Hakim Nelson and Jason Stenson filled out their initial marriage license application online. Nelson is a male-to-female transsexual who lives as a woman and hopes to have gender-reassignment surgery. . . .Read More
25-year-old Spaniard transsexual Rubén Noé Coronado made headlines a few months ago when he revealed that he was pregnant with twins shortly after Thomas Beatie (aka the "Pregnant Man") gave birth to his first child last June.
Unfortunately, Spanish newspaper El Mundo is reporting that Coronado suffered a miscarriage in his 17th week of pregnancy and lost the babies. He and his partner had already picked out the names Rubén Noé and Luis María for the little ones. Coronado told the paper, "I began to have some pains this week. There were a few days where I realized that my stomach had seemed to shrink and that seemed strange to me. I went to the doctor and they had to scrape my uterus.". . .Read More
Question: What does someone that identies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, transsexual or queer-fluid...have in common with someone who is transhuman?
Answer: These are terms that people use to define themselves regarding their own sex, gender, body.
Eventually, he found a plastic surgeon to help him, and his physical changes were complete by 1949, but his family rejected him. The British tabloids hounded him. To escape publicity, he was forced to carve out a life for himself virtually alone. He became a Buddhist monk, and died in Tibet in 1962 at the age of 47.
His name was Michael Dillon, and he one of the Western world's first transsexual people, that is, someone who changes sex and/or gender by medical means. His extensive writings were suppressed and destroyed by his family -- only fragments survive. . . .Read More
Transgender men fighting for legal protections say Thursday's announcement by Chastity Bono, child of Cher and the late Sonny Bono, that she will be transitioning from female to a male as Chaz Bono is a welcome break from an all too common "invisible" paradox.
For reasons that are part biology and part society, transgender men say in some ways they have an easier time being accepted and recognized as masculine than transgender women have being perceived as feminine.
Yet at the same time, there has been a virtual black hole in public awareness of female-to-male transgender people.
"Testosterone is a powerful chemical," said Justin Tanis, a female-to-male transgender man and the community education and outreach manager for National Center for Transgender Equality in Washington, D.C. "For people who are female-to-male, it really changes your body and it makes it easier for people to perceive you as male.". . .Read More
This trans thing I’ve been writing about isn’t some modern invention, folks. Transgendered people have been around since the dawn of time (at least I have — or I feel like it most days).
But Colorado, as conservative as its reputation has been in the past, has actually been at the forefront of a lot of progressive social movements, and trans issues has been one of them.
Most people aren’t even aware that the Denver Metro area has one of the oldest gender centers in the country — the Gender Identity Center of Colorado (GIC), founded in 1978 and incorporated in 1980. In fact, most people don’t even know what a gender center is. So let’s find out …
What in the heck in a gender center?
Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and sometimes you want to go where nobody does. A gender center provides both through weekly support meetings where you can meet your friends and talk about specific issues, or come to listen and learn, remaining anonymous and saying as much or as little as you want. . . .Read More
After the May 28 broadcast, Rob Williams and Arnie States, two of three talk show hosts of the "Rob, Arnie and Dawn in the Morning," heard in Sacramento on KRXQ 98.5 FM, came under fire following a discussion about an 8-year-old transgender boy in Omaha. Both men justified the use of violence to "correct the behavior" of "drama queen" transgender and gay youth the men called "freaks of nature."
The third host, Dawn Rossi, tried in vain to convince her co-hosts that no child would willingly choose to be different or the subject of ridicule and repeatedly apologized to "any listeners who are transgender."
The live show was pulled from broadcast for several days this week. . . .Read More
Rashad Robinson of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said Monday that the general manager of station KXRQ-FM told him that talk show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States also plan to apologize during Thursday's show. . . .Read More
Do you have questions about the coming out journey? The Human Rights Campaign has a set of resources to help you along the way. Download a copy of our newly released Resource Guide to Coming Out, or read it online. Or download our Resource Guide to Coming Out for African Americans, the Spanish-language Guía de Recursos Para Salir Del Clóset or our guide to Living Openly in Your Place of Worship.
