Transgender groups lobby for protection

By: Mike Deeson

Washington, D.C. - More than 100 transgendered people lobbied Congress for protection from being fired because of gender. Susan Stanton, who is in Washington for the event, stayed away from some of the media circus early in the day when the group began the lobby effort.

While you could tell from some of the looks that their agenda wasn't going to be an easy sell, when they went to see their congressmen, they found some sympathetic ears.

"Discrimination is not right in this country," says Rep. Jan Schakowsky, (D-IL). Schakowsky says she is aware of what happened to Susan Stanton and she will co-sponsor the Employment Non-discrimination Act. "It would include gender identity in there," she says. "You can't discriminate on the basis of gender identity." . . .

Undercover as a man

Video: Journalist Norah Vincent who spent a year disguised as a man is surprised by her findings. Her book is, "Self Made Man."

Facing rejection

Video: Social worker Caitlin Ryan, Ph.D. on how rejection affects transgender children.

A very important area for research.

TransYouth Family Advocates

TYFA Believes: All people, especially children, have the right to be listened to when they express something as core to their sense of self as gender identity, particularly when that gender identity expression differs from their assigned birth sex.

TYFA Believes: Anyone who supports and honors a child’s gender identity expression deserves in return the support and respect of their extended families, neighbors, communities, schools, child welfare agencies, the courts and last, but not least, the medical community.

TYFA Believes: There is no greater gift we can give, or positive role-modeling we can do, than to teach our children to respect and cherish diversity.

Susan Stanton debuts in D.C.

She will join a large group to lobby Congress today for transgender rights.

By LORRI HELFAND
Published May 15, 2007

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Author Jennifer Finney Boylan awards Susan Stanton a toaster Monday for "coming out" at a celebration with members of the National Center for Transgender Equality at the National Press Club in downtown Washington D.C.

In February, Steve Stanton's secret was out. He lost his job as Largo city manager. Then the world came calling. But not for Steve.

By LANE DeGREGORY
Published May 13, 2007

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LARGO -- She couldn't sleep. She lay for hours in the dark.

In the morning, she would pose for her first portrait, at age 48. All her life, she had dodged and wavered and contemplated every avoidance, even suicide. Now, 12 hours to go.

She got up at 1 a.m., made coffee. She took a mug into the den of her Largo home, pulled out her red journal and started to write:

So here I sit. Alone in the early morning hours. Waiting for the rest of my life to begin.

She had spent years planning for this day. In the last month, she had frantically built a wardrobe, learned makeup, fretted over her too-short hair. She thought she looked good. Pretty. Professional.

Her debut would come after four decades of self-examination, in the dust of a leader's best-laid plans, in the remnants of her family. It glowed with the promise of possibility. Like new skin.

But what if others didn't see her the way she saw herself?

She had already lost her job, her friends and her home -- the things that gave her an identity -- for admitting she wasn't the person they knew. Now that she was showing them a second self, would they reject that person too?

She knew that some people would never even see Susan Ashley Stanton.

They would see a man in a dress.

Shedding a life usually means starting over, quietly, somewhere else. Slip town. Get a new job in a place no one knows your name.

For Steve Stanton, that wasn't an option. . . .

Click on title above and view related video.

Transgender Student Named Prom Queen

Web Editor: Matt Bush, Online Content Producer

Created: 5/14/2007 1:58:32 PM

Updated: 5/14/2007 2:12:14 PM

Play Video

FRESNO, CA (NBC) -- Johnny Vera is not your average prom queen. He's a transgender teen on a mission to spread positive attitude. That's why this crown means so much.

Former Lesbian Feminist Reports on The Man He’s Become

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: November 2, 2006

This Bridge Called My Back Contributor Chronicles His Transition

Max Wolf Valerio isn’t the man he expected to be. Before beginning testosterone treatment nearly two decades ago, the American Indian, Latino, Sephardic Valerio was a lesbian feminist poet whose pre-transition prose is enshrined in the essential feminist of color tome, This Bridge Called My Back. Today he sometimes makes grown women weep.

As he chronicles in his new memoir, The Testosterone Files, within five years on testosterone he’d become a sometimes aggressive, virile heterosexual man accused of being sexist. Valerio sheepishly admits, “I’ve heard of women actually crying after I read the chapter, ‘Cock in my Pocket’ which is graphic about the heightened sex drive, and takes on the issue of rape and violence against women. Because of the intensity of the writing and the fact that I don’t pull my punches when describing intense feelings and impulses, people are often shaken.”

In Testosterone Files Valerio boldly asserts that there are fundamental differences between the sexes, which are rooted in hormonal influences rather than socialization. Saying he’s gained a “darker understanding” of how testosterone activates aggression, Valerio argues that violence seems “a part of the male inheritance.”

He admits that some women have found his conclusions about gender contentious, and his frank discussions about sex and violence disturbing. Willing to address even the most controversial issues, Valerio admits, “I known FTMs who tell me that their sex fantasies became more violent or aggressive.”

Under the influence of testosterone, Valerio says that his own sexual impulses became “colored by an intense and sometimes edgy desire, a sudden desire to take, or even overpower.” Over time, he says, he’s grown into his new sexuality, and, he says, “The heightened drive is just another part of who I am now.” . . .

Poet Embraces Multiplicity

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: April 12, 2007

“I’d rather be a verb than a noun,” says award-winning poet Thea Hillman. “I try not to identify if I can help it. Things that are more true than not about me: I’m a queer, intersex writer, and culturally Jewish activist. I go by she.”

A frequent presenter and spoken word performer addressing intersex issues, Hillman has also chaired the board of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). The premier resource for information about reproductive anomalies and disorders of sex development, the ISNA is dedicated to ending unwanted genital surgeries for those born with anatomy atypical to males or females. ISNA urges that all children be designated as boys or girls without surgical intervention.

Hillman’s first book, Depending on the Light, was a collection of short fiction and poem-stories about sex, family, queerness, language and social change. Her latest, For Lack of a Better Word, is a “very personal, intense book” about family, sex and relationships—centered around growing up intersex. It’s due out later this spring.

Since the mid ‘90s, Hillman has produced spoken word performances. She recalls that the early events, “Morphed into community-building and strengthening events. I brought together really talented people to talk about things that weren’t getting enough exposure anywhere, including on stage: intersex, trans and genderqueer issues, [particularly] from older and younger people and from people of color.”

Although trans issues have gained visibility, Hilman insists, “There are still trans stories that aren’t being told, especially from transwomen and poor and incarcerated trans people.”

Hillman says that while both intersex and trans people face sex and gender oppression, “What is generally true and unique to people dealing with intersex issues is that the bodies they were born with put them at risk of…medical intervention…[that they] had no say in…either because they were too young to consent or were never even told what was being done to them.” . . .

Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative

By Dennis McMillan
Published: May 10, 2007

SF Treasurer Jose Cisneros, Police Commissioner Theresa Sparks, Senator Carole Migden, Sidney with her father Supervisor Bevan Dufty, Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Ross Mirkarimi and Police commissioner Joe Alioto Veronese at the LGBT Center’s Transgender

The San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Center, Jewish Vocational Services (JVS), San Francisco Transgender Empowerment Advocacy & Mentorship (SFTEAM), and the Transgender Law Center (TLC) announced a first-of-its-kind program to reduce chronic unemployment and underemployment within the transgender community. Trans activists and their friends gathered on April 26 at the Hotel Monaco. The program, called the Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative (TEEI) is unique in bringing together three valuable elements: workforce readiness, job support, and employer training and readiness, in an effort to reduce underemployment in the transgender community. The TEEI effort has been made possible through grants from the San Francisco Human Services Agency and the Walter & Elise Haas Senior Foundation. Mayor Gavin Newsom sent a certificate of recognition naming it Transgender Economic Empowerment Initiative Kick-off Day in San Francisco.

Trans Activist and Police Commissioner Theresa Sparks spoke of hard times in the past, trying to secure employment as a transgender. She said she drove a taxicab at first, and while that might have been exciting, it was not what her background had been trained to do. “This is a very exciting and significant initiative event, and the people who organized it are to be congratulated and thanked from all of our hearts in the transgender community,” said Sparks. “In many ways, this initiative is more significant than the health benefits were in 2000 and 2001, because this has the opportunity of affecting every transgender person in San Francisco and potentially everywhere in the United States.” . . .

If a boy, 6, thinks he's a girl, how should he be raised?

By SooToday.com Staff
SooToday.com
Sunday, May 13, 2007

NEWS RELEASE

NEWSWEEK

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Newsweek explores the question: 'What makes us male or female?'

On the decision to let Jona Rose, who was born Jonah, a six-year-old kindergartner, live as a girl

'We wrung our hands about this every night,' says her dad, Joel. 'She has been pretty adamant from the get-go: I am a girl.' . . .

(Rethinking) Gender

A growing number of Americans are taking their private struggles with their identities into the public realm. How those who believe they were born with the wrong bodies are forcing us to re-examine what it means to be male and female.

By Debra Rosenberg

Newsweek

May 21, 2007 issue - Growing up in Corinth, Miss., J. T. Hayes had A legacy to attend to. His dad was a well-known race-car driver and Hayes spent much of his childhood tinkering in the family's greasy garage, learning how to design and build cars. By the age of 10, he had started racing in his own right. Eventually Hayes won more than 500 regional and national championships in go-kart, midget and sprint racing, even making it to the NASCAR Winston Cup in the early '90s. But behind the trophies and the swagger of the racing circuit, Hayes was harboring a painful secret: he had always believed he was a woman. He had feminine features and a slight frame—at 5 feet 6 and 118 pounds he was downright dainty—and had always felt, psychologically, like a girl. Only his anatomy got in the way. Since childhood he'd wrestled with what to do about it. He'd slip on "girl clothes" he hid under the mattress and try his hand with makeup. But he knew he'd find little support in his conservative hometown. . . .

Stanton lobbies Congress Tuesday

By LORRI HELFAND
Published May 13, 2007

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Weeks before she plans to live full time as a woman, Susan Ashley Stanton will lobby Congress.

The former Largo city manager is scheduled to meet with legislators Tuesday.

She wants to convince lawmakers to support federal legislation that protects gay and transgender people.

She won't start living as Susan until the end of this month. She could have lobbied as Steven Stanton, but she said she wanted to be authentic.

"I want to go as who I am," Stanton said. "It would almost be insulting to the legislators to go as someone else and expect them to be honest with you if you can't be honest with them."

On Monday night, Stanton also is scheduled to make a public appearance as Susan at a Washington, D.C., reception honoring transgender advocates. . . .

A History Making Moment At A Valley Prom

By Amanda Perez

05/13/2007 - It's the second time a transgender teen has been in the royal court for a valley prom this year, but this time, the results are much different. . . .

No Big Deal

Q&A: A Prudential VP on Her Transition

A veteran of corporate America says big companies are leading the way in helping transgender social reform.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Lorraine Ali

Newsweek

Updated: 4:11 p.m. ET May 12, 2007

May 13, 2007 - Margaret Stumpp, 54, is a vice president at Prudential Financial Inc. A 20-year veteran, she is the first openly transgender person at the firm, which has nearly 40,000 employees. Stumpp transitioned from Mark Stumpp to Maggie in February 2002, all while maintaining her position as chief investment officer for Quantitative Management Associates (a subsidiary of Prudential). When Stumpp returned to the office as Maggie, she sent this memo to her fellow employees: "From: M. Stumpp. Subject: Me." "This will be new ground for all of us," Stumpp wrote. "However, if September 11 taught us anything, it was that life is far too precious and short. Each of us must strive to be at peace with ourselves." She signed the note "Margaret." She spoke with NEWSWEEK's Lorraine Ali. . . .

Alexis Arquette on the Politics of Gender Change

Actor Alexis Arquette on the politics of gender in America.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

By Lorraine Ali

Newsweek

Updated: 4:30 p.m. ET May 12, 2007

May 13, 2007 - Seventeen-year-old Alexis Arquette landed her first acting role in 1986 playing a transgender in "Last Exit To Brooklyn." Eighteen years later, she went through a real transition from man to woman. Arquette, an actress, musician and cabaret drag performer, comes from a family of actors that includes siblings Patricia, David, Richmond and Rosanna Arquette, father Lewis Arquette and grandfather Cliff Arquette. She's done almost 70 films—mostly indie, some adult—but one of her most memorable roles was as the Boy George character in 1998's "The Wedding Singer." "I did play transgender characters that were comedy roles and I feel bad about that now," says Arquette, 37. "That Boy George character, it's offensive to me now." She's now starring in a forthcoming A&E documentary about her transition, "Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother," which just debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. . . .

Transgender pioneer rises to powerful spot

Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, May 12, 2007

If ever there was a real-life, rags-to-riches fairy tale, Theresa Sparks' story is it.

Only, this being San Francisco, Cinderella used to be a man and went from riches (traveling in a corporate jet) to rags (driving a taxi and sleeping on friends' couches) to prominence again by becoming a pioneering transgender activist and the chief executive officer of a multimillion-dollar sex-toy company.

It's not the way Sparks, 58, ever thought her life would turn out.

As she says in her profile on an Internet dating site, she's "just another San Francisco trans-woman with the uncanny ability to get myself into trouble."

But this week Sparks started what could be one of the most important chapters in her life when she was voted president of the San Francisco Police Commission. Her election shook up City Hall -- she beat out Mayor Gavin Newsom's pick for the job and prompted a prominent member of the board to resign abruptly.

After her election as president of one of the city's most powerful commissions, which oversees department operating rules and sets crucial policies, Newsom's administration is promising to work well with her, the transgender community is hailing her ascent as groundbreaking, and Sparks is enjoying the ride.

"Yesterday, I hit a new record in phone calls," Sparks said Friday, juggling a morning of interview requests from the media and meeting appointments with Newsom and other City Hall politicos. "I actually had to start counting them. Fifty-three!"

It's a far cry from the life she led a decade ago when, shortly after she transitioned from being a man to a woman, Sparks suffered countless rejections of job applications and was a near-homeless cabdriver.

"I went on 30 interviews, sent out 150 resumes," she said. "I couldn't find a job."

They were barriers Sparks never had to encounter as a male. . . .

Transwoman Elected President Of SF Police Commission

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

Posted: May 11, 2007 - 11:00 am ET

(San Francisco, California) The San Francisco Police Commission has elected openly-transgender Commissioner Theresa Sparks as its new President.

Sparks, who joined the commission in 2004, has a long history of advocating for the transgender community, including working on a set of transgender-specific policy reforms adopted by the Police Commission in 2003.

Her election as President makes Sparks the city’s first openly transgender head of a major commission in San Francisco and likely the city’s highest ranking transgender official.

"I feel honored to have been selected for this position by my fellow commissioners," said Sparks in a statement.

"While I think it is important to recognize the historic step they've taken to make San Francisco a city in which everyone, regardless of our gender identity, can meaningfully contribute, I am thrilled for this opportunity to represent all of the people of San Francisco."

Sparks said that she wants to lead the Commission towards more fully realizing the police reforms endorsed by voters in 2003.

Prop H was a city initiative that passed in the fall 2003 election. It ushered in reforms to the Police Commission to improve citizen oversight of the San Francisco Police Department.

Among other things, it expanded the size of the commission, including expanding the number of Commissioners appointed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Sparks joined the larger commission in 2004 as an appointee of the Board of Supervisors.

Sparks election has not been without controversy. It led to the resignation of the current President, Louise Renne, who had backed Mayor Gavin Newsom's chosen candidate, Commissioner Joe Marshall.

Believing in music

FILM | washingtonblade.com

Film about transgender chorus gets screening at Lincoln Temple UCC

By
May. 11, 2007

Anyone attending a gay choral concert has experienced the strange power of seeing a group of gay men or lesbians singing together. Amplify that by about 100 percent, and you’ll get a slight idea of what it must be like to hear Transcendence, the transgender choir of San Francisco that’s the focus of the documentary “The Believers.” Music soothes the savage beast, and in this case, that beast is intolerance.

The film opens with a transgender woman, Ashley, listening to a phone message from her mother, who says she shouldn’t “give [the filmmakers] a screwed up background” during any interviews. It’s a perfect beginning for a film about misconceptions, denial and the need for community, especially since Ashley’s not just another chorus member — she’s actually one of the group’s founders.

She approached her San Francisco-based United Church of Christ’s leaders about starting a transgender chorus, and they went for it. The film follows the group from its early, off-key stages to its performances at various venues (queer and otherwise) and the recording of an album. One of the film’s selling points is that it’s not a cheerleading piece for a remarkable group of people. There is a definite journey and arc for the chorus and the individuals, giving the documentary the feel of a feature film.

EACH PERSON’S PERSONAL story is framed by the group’s growing cohesion and musical abilities, and the questions of identity and community are movingly handled for everyone profiled, including Bobbie, one of the group’s most prominent singers. Bobbie is a black, male-to-female “transgender person” (her words), who has chosen not to undergo gender reassignment surgery but lives full-time as a woman. She’s a recovering crack addict, did some time in prison and is one of the group’s strongest soloists.

For many of the singers, vocal placement and hormones are a challenging cocktail, with most singers wanting to be the soprano they’ve always dreamed of being but not having the physical voice for it. Bobbie has a killer “man’s” voice, and when it comes out of that feminized body, the experience is unearthly, exhilarating and a testament to the long and hard road that she’s walked.

Bobbie’s chorus mentor, Miss Major, is a 62-year-old transgender woman who went through shock therapy and institutionalization during the ’50s to help her become more “normal.”

DESPITE THE DIFFICULTIES of their daily lives, the chorus members look to the music and the ministry of singing to help heal themselves and their audiences. Transcendence is made up of both male-to-female and female-to-male transgender people, which makes the squabbles between gay men and lesbians seem paltry in comparison to the ability of this mixed gender group (in more ways than one) to focus and get along.

It’s not all sunshine-and-roses among the singers, but the group regularly has sit-down sessions to discuss ways to address their communication difficulties. The chorus’ ways of interacting, working, listening and playing apply as much to their ability to sustain a functioning community as to their music.

After numerous rehearsals, the chorus’ sound finally clicked (in the early days, the non-transgender conductor said, “God, they can’t sing. How am I gonna do this?”). They even performed at the UCC’s 2003 international synod, also testifying before a committee on the necessity of including transgender inclusive and affirming language as part of the church rhetoric. (In a triumphant moment for the chorus and for transgender Christians, this measure did pass.)

Music made inroads where regular speech failed, allowing them to become part of a decision-making body that, because of their voices, sent a landmark message to churches and Christians around the world. Now, that’s a good tune.

Making Change: The Cost of Being Transgender

Cast Out of Their Homes and Unable to Find Work, Many Transgender Young People Turn to Prostitution to Buy Illegal Hormones

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN

May 10, 2007 —

Kenyatta can't talk long; she has a date.

"We call them dates," she said of the men with whom she has sex for money.

Anxiously, she brushes her long dark hair off her slight shoulders and out of her smoky eyes.

Once you know that Kenyatta, 22, was born a male, her large hands and Adam's apple seem obvious. But at first -- and even second -- glance, there is little to suggest that she wasn't a girl her entire life.

She prostitutes herself "about twice a month" in order to buy the black market hormones that enlarge her breasts, raise the pitch of her voice and keep hair from growing on her face.

"Honestly," she said, "I have to pull a trick to pay for hormones."

Kenyatta is one of 25 young people spending the night at Sylvia's Place, an emergency homeless shelter for New York City's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth. . . .