Changing Sex, and Changing Teams

By IAN LOVETT

May 6, 2013

LOS ANGELES — Not so long ago, Toni Bias dreamed of playing in the W.N.B.A. But after starring on the girls’ junior varsity basketball team as a high school freshman, Toni came out as transgender last summer, began going by the name Tony and started transitioning to male. . . Read More

Cross-Court Winner

Renée Richards (1934– ), from Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame.

By Emily Bazelon  Oct. 25, 2012

This piece comes from Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame, edited by Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy, and published this week by Twelve.

Before Renée Richards became a star of the professional women’s tennis circuit, she was a nice Jewish boy—the puritz, or prince, of her household. Richards was born in 1934 as Richard Raskind, known to everyone as Dick. The child of two doctors in Forest Hills, Queens, Dick spent weekends fetching tennis balls for his father on dirt courts by the Long Island Railroad tracks.

In public, Dick was a self-assured athlete, captain of the Yale tennis team and one of a small number of Jews picked for his fraternity. But he had begun surreptitiously dressing up in his sister’s clothes at age 9. In the privacy of his college dorm, he shaved his legs and disguised his genitals, urgently trying to give life to his female side. By this time he’d named her Renée, French for “reborn.” . . . Read More

When Talking About Children's Gender, Words Matter

Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D.

Developmental and clinical psychologist; mental health director, Child and Adolescent Gender Center

 

1 March 2012

Over the last year, there is no question that transgender and gender-nonconforming children have become more visible in our media and culture than ever before. Most recently, a Colorado Girl Scout troop ignited a national controversy by stepping up to include a transgender child as a member of their troop. And a very unconventional young boy, Roscoe Kaan, who wears girls' clothing and wants to play Sandy in his school's production of Grease, is a featured character on the popular Showtime series House of Lies. . . Read More

Born This Way?

BETH SCHWARTZAPFEL

MARCH 14, 2013

Transgender activists believe that when children insist their birth sex is the wrong sex, their wishes should be honored. Dr. Kenneth Zucker disagrees. . . Read More

LIFE TIMES Boys No More

Discrimination against girls in Pakistan is so strong that families cross-dress their daughters as boys so they can move more freely about town 

MUDASSAR SHAH

FROM ISSUE #619 (24 AUG 2012 - 30 AUG 2012)

LAST DAY OF FREEDOM: Rafiqa Sayed enjoys her last day dressed as a boy, and plays with a toy gun. Her parents dressed her as a boy so she could go to school in Peshawar.For as long as she can remember Rafiqa Sayed has been dressed like a boy by her parents, she even went to a boy's school in Peshawar. She had grown to like being a boy, but last week when she turned 10, Rafiqa suddenly had to be a girl.

She is among many young girls known as bacha posh (girl in boy's clothes) whom parents dress up as boys just so they can move about more freely and go to school in the conservative culture of this arid and rugged border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. . . Read More

Gender-identity clinic opens for children

'What's hard for some people to wrap their head around is that this condition actually exists,' pediatrician says

March 24, 2013|By Rex W. Huppke, Chicago Tribune reporter

At about age 6, there was dissonance in Jae's life.

"I started to play with dolls and to do all these things that girls would do," Jae said. "But people would say, 'Why are you doing that? You're not supposed to do that.' And I thought, 'I'm just doing what I want to do.'" . . . Read More

CA Bans Insurance Discrimination Against Transgender Patients

SAN FRANCISCO [April 9, 2013]: California’s Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) has ordered California’s health plans to remove exclusions of coverage based on gender identity and expression.

DMHC has issued guidance (.pdf) clarifying the obligations of California’s health plans under the Insurance Gender Nondiscrimination Act. In a groundbreaking directive to health plans, the DMHC confirmed that California’s Insurance Non-Discrimination Act of 2006, authored by former Assemblymember Paul Koretz, guarantees all people the right to access coverage for medically necessary care regardless of their gender identity or gender expression. The directive also provides that patients who are denied coverage can appeal the decision for review by the Department. (See also: FAQ) . . . Read More

Cher Was Almost a Transsexual!

By Michael Musto
Tuesday, July 5, 2011

​In a play!
In the book Robert Altman, An Oral Biography, Cher remembers that Altman wanted her to play the transsexual Joanne in the 1981 play (and later movie) Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. . .Read More

Renée Richards Wants to be Left Alone Sitting down with the transgender icon and onetime most controversial woman in sports

By Michael Weinreb

The doctor practices on Madison Avenue, five blocks from Grand Central Station, in a narrow little office set amid a frenetic corner of Manhattan. Every day, hordes of commuters bustle past this particular ophthalmology clinic without really seeing it, let alone registering the mellifluous name on the sign, let alone, after so many years, recognizing that this name ever meant anything beyond the practice of ocular medicine. Fame is fleeting, and such, but she is still here, a 6-foot, 2-inch redhead hiding in plain sight, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and ducking under an umbrella amid an early spring rain, almost daring you to ignore her. . . .Read More

So they say: "I AM: Transgender People Speak"

BAY WINDOWS: New England's Largest GLBT Newspaper 6.29.2011

This week’s "So They Say" section is devoted to the transgender people and allies who took part in the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition’s (MTPC) "I AM: Transgender People Speak" project, an ongoing public education effort that allows transgender people to speak from the heart.

The "I AM" project involves transgender volunteers sitting down in front of a video camera and describing their experiences as transgender individuals. . . .Read More

Frameline focuses on transgender cinema for 35th film festival

KALWNews.org

By Kevin Robinson

Listen: 7:39 min

(Download Audio)

It's National Gay Pride Month, and in San Francisco that means it's time for Frameline! Now in its 35th year, it's the longest-running LGBT film festival in the world - and one of the biggest film fests in America - period. The festivities kick off Thursday, so KALW News invited executive director K.C. Price to come into the studio to talk about it. He sat down with Kevin Robinson, producer of Medium Rare - a website dedicated to women and minorities in media. . .Read More

Please read and discuss this investigation with others

What Are Little Boys Made Of?

An original BTB Investigation.

Jim Burroway

June 7th, 2011

In 1970, a well-known expert on homosexuality and transgender issues appeared on a local television talk show in Los Angeles to talk about feminine boys. He described how very young boys who behaved in a feminine manner would almost invariably grow up to become a homosexual. Alongside that expert was a gay man who described his own childhood and confirmed what the expert said. But there was hope, the expert announced. A new program at the University of California at Los Angeles would ensure these young boys grew up to become masculine, normal men. The expert gave a list of symptoms to watch out for, and urged his viewers to call him if their children exhibited the problems he described. . .Read More

Transgender Health Care for Veterans

Important Development!

Department of Veterans Affairs VHA DIRECTIVE 2011-024

Veterans Health Administration - Washington, DC 20420

June 9, 2011

PROVIDING HEALTH CARE FOR TRANSGENDER AND INTERSEX VETERANS

http://www.va.gov/vhapublications/ViewPublication.asp?pub_ID=2416

8 Year Old Transgender Girl (MTF)

Eight year old Josie appears on the Dr. Oz show. She was born a boy, but realized at an early age that she was really female.

JosiePussycat2009

Meet Josie, 9: No secret she's transgender

Stephanie Innes Arizona Daily Star | Sunday, July 25, 2010

Wearing a khaki skirt and black tank top with a splash of heart-shaped rhinestones, 9-year-old Josie Romero skips across her family's living room, eager to show off her Great Dane, her little sister, and the birds in her backyard.

When asked about her necklace - a silver triangle on a black cord - she beams.

"This is a transgender symbol," she says of the circle that joins the symbols for male and female with a third symbol that combines the first two. Read More. . .

Father of a transgender tween speaks out

by MELISSA JELTSEN on AUGUST 2, 2010

What’s it like to raise a transgender child? In this Thriveexclusive, a father reflects on his experience. Click here to read more about his daughter and a new medical treatment at Children’s that offers hope to transgender teens.

My 12 year old transgender daughter is my mentor. Read More. . .

Southern Colorado Sex-Change Doctor Considers Move

Trinidad, Colo. (AP) - A town nicknamed the "sex change capital of the world" could be losing a doctor who has performed hundreds of the operations.

Dr. Marci Bowers said Monday she is "98 percent sure" she will be moving to the San Francisco area Oct. 1. Read More. . .

k.d. lang sings Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah

k.d. lang's Juno Awards in Winnipeg in 2005 singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Thank you!

oneandonlyck

(k.d. lang's performance at the opening ceremonies for the Vancouver Olympics was outstanding . . . here she is doing "Hallelujah" in a better audio venue. Love her . . . a big fan. RA)

2.02.10 - Transgender Confidence

This week I'm focusing on being confident as transgender as well as when I have to be a guy.

FancyEllie

Amanda Lepore Chief of Parade

by Peter Hackney

10 February 2010


World famous transsexual icon Amanda Lepore will be the Chief of Parade at this year’s Mardi Gras, it has been announced.

The role will see Lepore, arguably the world’s most famous transsexual, lead the floats up Oxford and Flinders Streets on Saturday, February 27 for the 32nd annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade.

“I’m thrilled and honored to be invited to be Chief of Parade,” Lepore said. “I can’t wait to be a part of Mardi Gras and the celebration of our community.” . . . Read More