A brief interview clip with rapper Foxxjazell

Foxx is one of the young LA Ts in Cris Beam's book, "Transparent. . . ."

Cuba's sexual minorities find a champion in a Castro

Transvestites outside the National Center for Sexual Education in Havana. The center's services include training AIDS counselors. (Jose Goitia/NYT)


by Marc Lacey

HAVANA: Twenty or so transvestites sat in a circle recently discussing their woes: harassment, boyfriend troubles, the challenge of removing hair from their legs. Empathizing with them was Mariela Castro Espín, Cuba's premier sexologist.

"I know, I know," she said, putting her hand on one of her own legs to show she could relate.

Then the conversation took an interesting turn. The transvestites, who are receiving training as AIDS counselors at the National Center for Sexual Education, which Castro directs, brought up sexual liaisons some of them had had with soldiers. Maybe counseling in the barracks was needed, they said.

Castro smiled and raised her eyebrows but did not dismiss the suggestion out of hand. Homosexuality is illegal in Cuba's military. In fact, some Cubans have avoided military service altogether by claiming to be gay.

Making the proposal even more sensitive, everyone in the circle understood, is the fact that Castro, 44, is the daughter of Raúl Castro - the commander of Cuba's armed forces and, with the recent health problems of his brother, Fidel Castro, the temporary leader of the government. . . .

Confessions of An Ex- Ex- Transgender

You’ve probably heard of the ex-gay movement. You may have even heard of the ex-ex-gay movement. Odds are slim that you know anyone that is ex-transgender. But have you ever known anyone that is ex-ex-transgender?

You have if you’ve read this blog.

In 1997 I confessed to my wife that I’d cross-dressed most of my life. After her initial shock wore off, she began to accept and integrate this part of me into our marriage. This was an activity that I’d never told anyone about, much less participate in with another person in. In late 1997 I began to realize that I might not be a crossdresser, but that something deeper was hidden underneath all the shame. My wife, the love of my life, had told me in no uncertain terms that if I was a bisexual or transsexual, our marriage would be over. Those two facts were playing a tug of war in my mind for months that caused me to go into a cycle of depression. In January of 1999 things finally came to a head, this looming thing was something I knew that I couldn’t hide from myself any longer. Crying curled up in a ball in the middle of my bed, I realized I couldn’t rid myself of this. . . .

Minister knows transgender issues

Formerly a man, she will speak at a conference this weekend at the Church of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill

Meiling Arounnarath, Staff Writer

CHAPEL HILL - As a 10-year-old, Eric Swenson stuffed toilet paper in his T-shirt to make breasts.

At 60, Erin Swenson talks to churchgoers, college students and others about life as a transgender person.

This weekend, Swenson, the first known mainstream Protestant minister to go from male to female while ordained, will speak at the Church of Reconciliation as part of a weekend conference, "Transgender Experience: Deconstructing Stereotypes, Constructing Identities and Communities."

"I grew up 'closeted' as a transgender person," Swenson said. "I know what it's like to live in that closet and having to struggle with those feelings of shame and fear."

Transgender people are becoming more visible. Rebecca Romijn plays one in the hit TV show "Ugly Betty." Felicity Huffman starred as one in the 2005 movie "Transamerica." Newsweek ran a cover story last month.

The National Center for Transgender Equality estimates that 750,000 to 3 million Americans are transgender.

Mo Morelli, 24, of Carrboro has been taking testosterone injections once a week for two years. They have made his former feminine features more masculine: His jaw is more square, his body is hairier, and his arms are more muscular. He had his breasts removed in January.

He remembers a defining moment four years ago. He wore an all-white tuxedo to accompany his friend to a nice dinner.

"I was still a 'girl' then with a shaved head," Morelli said. "At first, I felt like I was [dressing] in drag. And very quickly it felt like it wasn't drag -- it felt like it was right."

Amanda Ashley, also of Carrboro, started dressing in women's clothing and taking female hormones eight years ago. She identifies herself as a "translesbian" because she is attracted to women.

"I always knew I was different, yet I couldn't quite put my finger on it," Ashley said. "It was unusual because I was never attracted to men as a male. And since our society tends to identify our genders by our sexual orientation, it was very confusing.

"It took a while for me, but since it was so persistent and it was so ringingly clear, it couldn't be denied." . . .

Gender Odyssey Presents Conference Dedicated to Families Raising Gender-Variant Kids

Thu Jun 7, 12:22 PM ET

Families with gender variant and transgender children will find a wealth of information and support at Gender Odyssey's first national conference focused specifically on them. The ground-breaking conference will be held Aug. 31 -- Sept. 2, 2007 at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center in Seattle. At this event, families with kids who do not conform to society's traditional gender expectations can connect with each other, while having access to national experts in the field of gender variance. . . .

Counterpoint and controversy

Theron Bowers | Thursday, 7 June 2007

Focus on gender politics: Is changing gender as simple as changing clothes?

Newsweek recently painted a sympathetic portrait of women imprisoned in men's bodies. Such people need a psychiatrist, not a surgeon.

Political correctness is not only contrary to the spirit of the First Amendment of the American Constitution but also makes for soporific discourse. Newsweek’s recent cover story on transgenders certainly proves that the priests of tolerance and diversity have successfully exorcised the ghost of satirist H.L. Menken from the mainstream media. Newsweek’s coverage was so saccharine that I needed wet wipes after each page.

An issue involving sex and castration should generate a lot of hotly disputed questions. Unhappily, Newsweek relegated any dispute to the usual evangelical bogeyman, with mild scepticism replacing controversy. After all, it averred, we can’t really know the difference between men and women, or male and female. Even the experts at the International Olympic Committee plead ignorance, it was claimed, when it comes to "scientifically" differentiating between a man and a woman. (If East Germany still existed I guess that its athletes could get their medals back!) . . .

Speed Skater: Transgender Athlete

Chile: Transgender murders go unpunished

Chilean court freed Andrea Sanchez's confessed killer. Album de familia de Andrea Sánchez

Benjamin Witte. Jun 6, 2007

Hate crime is on the rise.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee turned its attention to Chile this year — something it has not done since 1999. And, for the first time ever, the committee made a brief reference to problems affecting the country’s sexual minorities.

The Committee praised Chile for finally doing away with legislation in 1998 that criminalized homosexual relationships.

But “the Committee is still concerned about the discrimination to which certain people are subject because of their sexual orientation. Among other areas, [discrimination] exists in the courts and in access to health care,” the UN body concluded, following its 89th session in March.

The report went largely unnoticed in Chile. The country’s mainstream press made no mention of the Committee’s conclusions nor local media note that on March 23, a court in the northern desert city of Calama — as if to illustrate the Committee’s observations exactly — concluded a two-and-a-half-year-old case involving a murdered transvestite by allowing the confessed killer to walk free.

Ana Sánchez, a middle-aged woman from Santiago’s impoverished La Granja district has neither read nor even heard of the recent Human Rights Committee report. Without realizing it though, she is familiar with its contents. After all, it was her son — Calama resident Andrea Sánchez (born Fernando Andrés) — who on Nov. 12, 2004 was brutally beaten to death by a man who bought her sexual services for 2,000 pesos, less than US$4.

The attacker, later identified as Víctor Vicencio Marín, was arrested at the scene of the crime. He spent the next three days in jail, but then went free on bail. “Turns out it’s cheap to kill a faggot,” he was quoted as telling reporters upon his release.

Despite the killer’s admitted guilt, the case dragged on. Vicencio was able to hire a private lawyer. Ana Sánchez was not. Finally, in late March, the Calama criminal court reached a decision: a four-year suspended sentence thanks to Vicencio Marín’s plea bargain. Unless he commits another crime, the confessed murderer will not spend a single additional day in prison. . . .

Transgender in Russia

(Approximately 33% of the clicks on my blog come from outside the US. Russia is the low count with typically 1% or less.)

Transphobia in Russia
Brian Dark / LGBT center together (RUS)

Unfortunately, there are few transgender specialists in Russia. They work only in big cities, such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk. They say there are some transgender specialists in Rostov-Na-Donu, but anyway the situation is far from perfect. Doctors (psychiatrists) often don’t see the difference between transgender inclination and schizophrenia . They mix up self-idendification with sexual orientation. There is no fixed document in Russian legislation, which lets a determine sequence of changing the documents simultaneously or before changing the sex. Few people can change documents before the operation. The transgender problem is considered to be a completely medical one. That means that only doctors deal with transgenders, but there is no social support for them. Transgender people often face homophobia and transphobia, especially in small towns. Transgender people are often abused, insulted and raped. However, victims seldom go to the police. There are cases, when transgender persons went to the police, but they were refused any help, because there is also great homophobia among policemen. In the media this topic has scandalous and marginal trace, most „normal people“ think that transgenders are prostitutes or people, lost for the society. We would like to find new friends among foreign transgender people, to learn their experience with homophobia and transphobia and their adaptation after the change of the sex. We are interested in everything connected with the life of transgender people abroad. Download Brians Speech - Abstract Download PDF, 293 KB

Interview: We're Here, We're Queer ... Kind of

Authors Diane and Jacob Anderson-Minshall on mystery and being second-born

By Amy Atkins

Jacob and Diane Anderson-Minshall

Blind Curves, the first in the Blind Eye mystery novel series by husband-and-wife writing team Diane and Jacob Anderson-Minshall, opens with investigative reporter and lesbian Velvet Erickson flipping off passing motorists as she cruises down San Francisco's 101 North freeway. Velvet is soon the prime suspect in the murder of a prominent lesbian publisher and turns to Yoshi Yakamota, her blind lesbian, private investigator friend, and Yoshi's assistant, Tucker Shade, an ex-Idaho lesbian, for help.

Yes, there's a pattern here. The publisher of Blind Curves is Bold Strokes Books, a company that publishes lesbian-themed fiction by lesbian authors that appeals to not only a lesbian audience, but also a larger lesbian-gay-bi-transgender (LGBT) audience. And, before 2005, Diane and Jacob would have been called lesbian authors because until 2005, Jacob was Susannah prior to undergoing female-to-male sex reassignment surgery. Now the couple, who are both from Idaho and met at a Pride rally, are husband and wife. . . .

transgender. . .the struggle and blessing. . .an art film

Would Jesus really have terminated Stanton's employment?

Jesus, the transgender terminator?

Some citizens of Largo, Fla., cited religious grounds for the dismissal of Susan Stanton, the transgender city manager. Would Jesus really have terminated her employment? This and other transgender tales from the Bible.

By Joanne Herman

An Advocate.com exclusive posted June 5, 2007

With dozens of citizens speaking at the February hearing that would ultimately lead to the dismissal of Susan Stanton, the transgender former city manager of Largo, Fla., the media needed a pithy sound bite, and it found an especially good one: “If Jesus was here tonight—and believe me, I know the Bible—I can guarantee you he’d want [Stanton] terminated.” Those words were spoken by the Reverend Ron Sanders, pastor for the Lighthouse Baptist Church. Never mind that his church has only 30 members; his words were broadcast around the world. Why? Because we (or at least the media) tend to assume that any one clergyperson may speak for all religious people.

Meanwhile, in an interesting coincidence, Newsweek ran a story about Boston University professor Steve Prothero’s new book Religious Literacy. A prime tenet of Prothero’s book is that while more than 90% of Americans say they believe in God, only a tiny portion actually know anything about religion. Newsweek says that almost everyone fails Prothero’s religious literacy quiz on the basics, such as the names of the four Gospels. (You can take his quiz on the Newsweek Web site.)

If Prothero’s assertion is correct, many Americans must be relying on others to interpret religious tenets and, even worse, may be unable to recognize when clergy are embellishing a bit, to put it politely. As one of the citizens at the Largo hearing said, “I wanted to quote the story of Jesus leading the mob to come take someone’s job, but I couldn’t find that passage in the Bible.” . . .

A Wild Elegance

"A wild Elegance is published 4 times a year, or as possible and is a free support and resource newsletter for prisoners with gender identity disorder. American Friends Service Committee ( AFSC ) is an authorized distributor of A Wild Elegance. You can also now find Wild Elegance at our blogspot at, http:// wildelegance.blogspot.com , in addition AFSC can be reached at 2161 Massachusetts avenue, Cambridge Ma. 02140-9961."

"A Wild Elegance" is published and edited by Donna Dawn Konitzer.

Blending Genders

By Katrina Fox.

6/06/2007 6:44:15 PM


The transgender liberation movement in the West came into its own in the 1990s, but other cultures have their own take on sex and gender diversity, writes Katrina Fox.



From ancient Greek cults to Mahayana Buddhism, Hinduism and even early Christianity, the concept of transcending or blending gender has been around for centuries. In the West, the German-born sexologist Dr Harry Benjamin coined the term 'transsexualism' in 1966 to describe individuals who were born biologically one sex but believed they were the other (such as a woman 'trapped' in a man's body and vice versa).

Transsexualism was subsequently hijacked by the medical profession and deemed a pathology, for which the solution was to undergo psychiatric assessment, take hormones and eventually have genital realignment surgery. Transsexuals were required to comply with stereotypical dress codes and behaviours attributed to their opposite gender, and under no circumstances were they allowed a sexual orientation outside that of strictly heterosexual.

Enter the 1990s and the birth of the 'transgender' and 'genderqueer' movements, in which a plethora of sex and gender identities emerged. Some people identified as having no sex or gender, some considered themselves male and female, and others claimed they were a 'third' or 'other' gender.

Such concepts of third, fourth and more genders are not new to non-western cultures, however. . . .

Point Foundation Announces 2007 Scholar Class

LOS ANGELES, June 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Point Foundation -- the nation's largest publicly-supported organization granting scholarships to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students -- today announced awarding the largest number of scholarships in its six-year history. The diverse group of 38 recipients includes many firsts for the organization.

"Since taking the helm at Point earlier this year, I have been pleased with the high caliber and diversity of candidates who applied for support," said Executive Director Jorge Valencia. "This class represents many 'firsts' for the Point Foundation: our first male-to-female transgender Point Scholar, our first Muslim Point Scholar and our first Point Scholars who are also parents. This class expands on the current diversity among our scholars and we are excited to begin working with them," concluded Valencia.

"As someone new to the scholar selection process, I was immediately struck by the profound impact it has on everyone involved," commented Valencia. "For example, after the panel interview with a finalist who appeared particularly nervous, I approached him and asked, 'It wasn't all that bad, was it?' The young man replied, 'No, not really. It is just that I have never been surrounded by so many people who were accepting of me and who simply wanted me to succeed.'" Valencia concluded, "If that does not underscore the importance of our work with these bright and promising individuals, I don't know what could."

Point Foundation provides financial support, leadership training, mentoring and hope to LGBT individuals who are marginalized because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. As of June 2007, a total of 84 Point Scholars will be currently enrolled in school, and 26 alumni will have continued on to pursue their life goals. . . .

Star cluster RCW 38 in Vela

Medical Therapy and Health Maintenance for Transgender Men: A Guide For Health Care Providers

R. Nick Gorton, MD, Jamie Buth, MD, and Dean Spade, Esq

Available in three formats, click on title above. . .an excellent resource.

Gay Trans Man Collaborates With Feminist Mom

By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: April 5, 2007

“Perception,” trans man Aaron Raz Link remarks, “is in the eye of the beholder. It legitimately belongs to them,” he says of his new book What Becomes You, an unusual trans memoir, which offers both Link’s perspective and the perspective of his mother, renown feminist scholar and poet Hilda Raz. “We’re all unreliable narrators,” Link argues. “Which is, ultimately, what the book is about. Both art and family teach a larger vision, a shared vision, of identity.”

A Nebraska native currently directing Portland’s Museum of Nature, Link has been a lot of things in his life: a professional clown, museum preparator, writer, HIV tester, theatre teacher, butterfly wrangler, social service worker, jeweler, mask maker, teacher, forensic entomologist’s assistant, object puppeteer, sex educator and performance artist.

The gay man also co-founded Portland’s Transgender/ Identity Resource Center (TiRC), which provides gender-related services and resources. TiRC offers a reference library, peer counseling, referrals, support groups and ResourcesPDX (www.resourcespdx.org) The latter, provides listings of professionals and service providers educated about and supportive of unique challenges facing trans and genderqueer individuals. . . .

Iran: Attitude regarding sex change

Connecticut: Transgender Rights Bill Loses Momentum

June 5, 2007
By COLIN POITRAS, Courant Staff Writer

An effort to give transgender individuals equal protection under the state's anti-discrimination laws got bogged down in debate Monday, leaving the bill's future in doubt with the legislative session scheduled to end at midnight Wednesday.

The proposal had made its way through several legislative committees earlier this year and was approved by the state Senate May 23. But after nearly three hours of House debate Monday afternoon, the bill was set aside, a sign that the legislation is in trouble. . . .