Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Portugal: Gender Diversity and Transgender Issues
A. Sociolegal Status, Behaviors, and Treatment
There are no specific laws in the country regarding transgenderism or transsexualism, only a few court decisions that serve as references about the latter, and these are sometimes contradictory (ILGA–Portugal 1999). According to one of these court decisions, someone that goes through the process of sex change cannot truly become someone of the other gender. The explanations are, in the case of a male-to-female transformation, that the individual cannot get pregnant or maintain sexual intercourse in the same conditions as a woman. Sex change is seen as an error and transsexuals are considered mentally unhealthy people. These ideas are a step back regarding a previous sentence (in 1984), according to which the moral personality of the individual should be respected, the sex change recognized, and the name change accepted by the civil registration.
In fact, name change is possible for any citizen who wishes it and is a relatively accessible procedure, but only when the new name belongs to the same gender category as the previous one or to a gender-neutral name. This last alternative is the one chosen by some transsexuals in order to avoid the complicated procedure to have gender identity recognized. For this, the person has to go through a complicated legal process, and it can only occur with the decision of a court of law.
It is only since 1996 that sex-change operations are possible and occur in Portugal, because the Portuguese Medical Order allowed it to happen. However, no information is available regarding the real number of operations performed in the national territory. The Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon is the institution that has the major experience with these kinds of operations. Nevertheless, the process to have a sex-change operation is long and implies a severe psychological and psychiatric evaluation to verify whether the candidate is eligible for the process. This difficult process usually takes about two years. Before 1996 and still today, many Portuguese transsexuals went to other countries, like Morocco, or more recently to England, to have their operations done, sometimes under unsafe conditions.
In a study conducted with a sample of approximately 50 transsexual individuals, some of whom were sex workers and others working in various professional areas, the great majority came from rural parts of the country (72%), and many had changed from their birthplace because of their sexual orientation (28%) (Bernardo et al. 1998). This gives us important information regarding the problems that these individuals have to face related to their social adjustment. Besides, most of them do not benefit from social security. . . .
Talk about Not Being Sure
Pro and Con: June is Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month
La Voz Weekly writer Jay Donde tackles the celebration from both sides
By: Jay Donde
Posted: 6/11/07
Gay Pride Month: Pro
For nearly 4 decades, June has been recognized around the world - and especially in the US - as Gay Pride Month. In fact, on June 2, 2000, President Clinton even made it semi-official, by proclaiming Gay Pride Month to be one of the US's handful of National Heritage Months, along with Black History Month and Irish American Heritage Month.
When the former of these was first instituted in 1976, many critics questioned it's value, and some wondered, "Why, then, shouldn't we have a White History Month?" The answer to that question was, and still remains, a lucid insight on American cultural politics: we already have a White History Month - it's every month other than February.
Without the special emphasis and recognition they receive on their respective holidays, weeks, and months, the marginalized groups in American society would likely get no emphasis or recognition at all.
Understandably, some would then be prompted to ask why a lack of recognition for these groups is a problem in the first place. But such a question displays an ignorance of history. It is not happenstance that Gay Pride Month falls in June. June was the month, in 1969, of the Stonewall riots in New York City, when gay and lesbian patrons of Greenwich village bars finally fought back against NYPD harassment that included warrantless raids, police brutality, and unlawful arrests. The police even recorded the names of those present during the raids, but not arrested, specifically in order to send them to newspapers for publication.
Despite a great deal of progress, the prejudices and homophobic sentiments that gave rise to such behaviors on the part of the New York City police are still very much present in our country today. In fact, nearly 16 percent of hate crimes in the US are based on sexual orientation, well beyond the demographic proportion of gays and lesbians in America. Gay Pride Month, and other Heritage Months like it, are not only important to the communities they celebrate, but to American society as a whole. This must have been on President Clinton's mind when he stated, in his 2000 proclamation, that "America's greatest strength is it's diversity." . . .
Bob, bathrooms and bogus anger
By: Kate Bigam
Posted: 6/13/07
Kent State practices tolerance and advocates privacy.What terrible things, I know.
Just how terrible? Ask Akron Beacon Journal columnist Bob Dyer, and he'll tell you how disgusted he is by the school's decision to convert faculty restrooms into gender-neutral facilities.
The restrooms, available in the Student Center, may soon be located in other buildings on campus, too. Although they came into play as part of a request from the Queer Liberation Front as a means to make transgender students more comfortable, university architect Tom Euclide said in an April Stater article that the facilities are also open to the rest of the public, anatomy and gender preference aside. They can even be used as family facilities for parents whose young children need assistance in taking care of their bladder woes.
But on the online version of Dyer's May 17 column about gender-neutral bathrooms, more than 600 reader comments provide an array of opinions on the issue. Although Dyer admits the majority of students he polled weren't offended by the new restrooms, plenty of his readers, most of whom are unaffiliated with the university, were outraged. . . .
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Companies Grapple with New Sex-Change Rules
6/11/2007
TRENTON - New state work force laws that take effect next week could force small businesses and others to reach deep into their pockets to build new restrooms, lockers and other facilities for cross-dressers and other transgender individuals.
Labor lawyers say companies that watch their step may be able to keep out of trouble, but experts point out that many small-business owners are clueless about the new legislation.
“Recent amendments to New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination (LAD) contain certain provisions that may result in a conflict between transgender employees’ rights and the personal privacy rights of other employees,” says Tricia O’Reilly, an employment law partner with Connell Foley LLP in Roseland who represents businesses involved in employment and other disputes. “Employers should be updating their personnel policies, postings, handbook provisions and training programs to include ‘gender identity or expression’ as a protected characteristic.”. . .
Not Your Typical Hairdressers
Published: April 26, 2007
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| Nick Meinzer |
Makeover shows like What Not to Wear and Style by Jury abound these days, illustrating the dramatic impact a new hairstyle can have on a person’s appearance. But some stylists complain their profession still doesn’t get the respect it deserves. “Many people think that our job is easy; especially when they can get any old scissors out and cut off their hair,” bemoans Seattle transgender stylist Lancer Forney.
It’s even more difficult for stylists who don’t happen to be gay men or feminine women, says San Francisco transman Nick Meinzer, also a stylist, complains that even as television shows like Bravo’s Shear Genius highlight the stylist behind the hairstyle, they do little to debunk the stereotype that it takes flamboyance or femininity to successfully wield a pair of scissors.
It’s a stereotype, Meinzer says, that has cost him business—especially when he was still a butchy dyke before he transitioned from female to male. “I’ve had clients come in and refuse to let me cut their hair.” Instead they would demand a gay hairstylist, even when Meinzer had, “been there a decade and he’s been there three months.”
Still, Forney, Meinzer and other transmen who cut and style hair are creating a niche for themselves, serving transgender, genderqueer and other LGBT clients. They say that offering any cut, regardless of their customers’ gender identities or expression, sets them apart from other stylists.
“You’d be surprised how many [stylists] simply refuse to cut women’s hair really short,” Meinzer remarks. “I don’t have strict rules about which cuts belong with which gender.”
Both Forney and Meinzer began their careers in the early 1990s, attending beauty school, and then learning the trade at up-scale salons. At the time, neither had transitioned. Forney recalls that his mother suggested he get into the field because he was always doing something different with his own hair. While Meinzer found the creative aspect of the job appealing, he admits he entered the profession hoping it would force him to become more feminine.
It didn’t. Far from feminine, the post-transition Meinzer is known locally as “the tranny hairdresser,” because he specializes in styling hair for MTF clients, who he says often experience bias and discrimination at other salons—even in the renown gay Castro district.
Forney would find that particularly unfortunate because he believes trans people need the advice of professional stylists. “Our hair and faces change throughout transition,” he notes. “The texture, amount of hair, how it lays and how it looks, all changes when we change our appearances with hormones and different clothing.”. . .
Counterpoint and controversy: Trading My Sorrows
I was originally diagnosed as suffering from gender dysphoria, and the treatment suggested by Dr. Paul Walker was sex change surgery. The transsexual surgery was approved and performed by Dr. Stanley Biber. But trouble persisted with my identity and persona. The trouble was agonizing and mind boggling for several years--working and living in different genders; recovering from alcoholism. As a transsexual female I was working in a hospital psych unit in a Santa Monica California Hospital some 8 years after the sex changing surgery. A very alert psychiatric doctor begin to ask me questions. He suggested I was suffering from a dissociative disorder. After I went to several other doctors over several months it was discovered the sex change surgery was an incorrect treatment and unnecessary surgery for someone who, while he insisted he was "a woman born in a man's body," had been suffering from multiple personalities from a very young age. Thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ, a church family and a wonderful large group of supportive friends who loved me to recovery not only from alcoholism but a tragic and unnecessary surgery, I have been restored to the man God intended me to be. How many others have been caught up in the madness of sex change surgery and transsexualism? | ||
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Gloria Hemingway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gloria Hemingway (12 November 1931 – 1 October 2001), known previously as Gregory Hemingway, was the fourth and youngest child of famed author Ernest Hemingway and his second wife Pauline Pfeiffer. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1931. Hemingway died in 2001 of hypertension and cardiovascular disease in Miami-Dade Women's Detention Center. For years Hemingway had been a transsexual and eventually had sex reassignment surgery.[1][2] She was due to appear in court on the day that she died, facing charges of indecent exposure and resisting arrest without violence.[3]
Hemingway was a doctor, but the authorities in Montana chose not to renew her medical license in 1988 because of her ongoing alcoholism.[3] She had also battled bipolar disorder and drug abuse for many years.[4]
Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir
| Tue Jun 12 John Hemingway reading & booksigning forStrange Tribe: A Family MemoirWebsite | |
| Location | Date and Time |
| 1644 Haight St. San Francisco, CA 94117 map cross street: Clayton district: Haight (Upper) | Tue Jun 12 (7pm) |
| Description "Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir" reveals the peculiar dynamics betweenNobel Prize winning writer Ernest Hemingway and his youngest son Gregory. Gregory, the author’s father, tried to live up to Ernest’s macho reputation. But as a cross-dresser and (eventually) a transsexual, Gregory was obsessed with androgyny and his female half. In this wonderfully crafted narrative, John Hemingway reveals how Ernest and Gregory (who both suffered from bipolar illness and were both fascinated by androgyny) were “two sides of the same coin.” John Hemingway, a grandson of the Nobel Prize winning author Ernest Hemingway, is a writer and translator who lives with his wife and two children in Milan, Italy. |
Monday, June 11, 2007
Looking Back: Why Did He Cut Off That Man's Leg?
The Peculiar Practice of Dr. John Ronald Brown
By Paul Ciotti
Wednesday, December 15, 1999 - 12:00 am
Twenty-five years ago, when I was a junior reporter and stringer for the San Francisco bureau of Time magazine, I came across the greatest story I never wrote, which was actually a pretty smart decision at the time, given that the story had no ending, I didn’t know how to write such a story then, and even if I had written it, Time wouldn’t have run it. It wasn’t merely that the story was too bizarre. Time was a news magazine, and this wasn’t news. It was, rather, a glimpse into the darker corners of the human spirit, the kind of thing you naturally gravitate to late in the evening, when, tired of films and politics, you’d say to your friends, "Do you want to hear something really sick?" And there’d be a silent, collective "ahhh," like that of children snuggling in for a bedtime story, knowing they were about to hear what they’d been waiting for all night.
I first came across the name John Ronald Brown in the late fall of 1973 in the San Francisco Chronicle when I saw an item in Herb Caen’s column about a doctor down on Lombard Street who was "lopping" people’s penises off. As it was my (self-appointed) job for Time in those days to cover the more raggedy edges of the ongoing paradigm shift, I called up the clinic and found myself talking to Brown’s partner at the time, Dr. James Spence, who, despite some reservations, invited me to see him.
Spence struck me as a bit of a hustler, far less polished than one would expect of someone with a medical degree — if he had a medical degree. To some people he gave business cards reading "Dr. James Spence." But to me he said he’d earned his medical degree in Africa and thus couldn’t practice here. (I later heard he was an ex-con who claimed to be a veterinarian, but that degree was phony, too.)
The clinic wasn’t much — just a few rooms on a busy street, it seemed more like a real estate office than anything else. Sensing my skepticism, perhaps, Spence invited me to an upcoming formal dinner at his hilltop home in Burlingame, where he and his partner, the renowned plastic surgeon Dr. John Ronald Brown, would be explaining his new operation to a group of urologists, proctologists and internists, some of whom, Spence hoped, would join him and Dr. Brown in setting up the finest sex-change facility anywhere in the country.
A week later, I drove to Burlingame and discovered that Spence had a splendid home — if it was his home — overlooking the distant San Francisco Airport and, beyond, the bay. It was a surreal evening. Dinner was served by half a dozen attentive transsexuals who were undergoing hormone therapy while awaiting surgery. . . .
Testing The Borders Of Inclusivity
When Reuben Zellman was a girl, he didn’t know that he wanted to become a rabbi. But since he began identifying as male four years ago, his Jewish involvement has become more intense and, with the support of his synagogue community, he realized that he wanted to become a leader of the Jewish people.
Zellman has recently been granted his wish with admission to the Reform movement’s rabbinical school. He will begin his studies next summer. Sources say that Zellman will be the first transgender individual ever to study in rabbinical school.
“I applied to rabbinical school because I love Torah,” said Zellman, in an interview from his San Francisco home. “I realize that there are political ramifications to what I’m doing and hope that they will be positive,” said the 24-year-old, who currently studies music and teaches Hebrew School at his synagogue, the predominantly gay Sha’ar Zahav. “And I hope people will remember that I’m a regular human being like others are.”
Zellman, a California native, declined to specify how his physical appearance has changed since he began his transition from female to male, but described himself as a transsexual as well as someone who falls under the broader scope of transgender. . . .
Israel: A transgender agenda
As the representative of the most rejected minority group of all - transgenders - Nora Greenberg is busy lobbying the Interior Ministry to permit `sex changes' on identity cards.
Nora Greenberg, a transsexual who underwent a sex-change operation two years ago, stops the car at the hitchhiking stop by the North Tel Aviv train station, to pick up Lior Mencher, the director-general of the Association of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals and Transgendered in Israel (known as the "Agudah"), and Shaul Ganon, the Agudah's coordinator of minority affairs. The group is heading to Jerusalem for a first meeting with Guy Ben-Gal, the new interior minister's deputy in the population registry department. On the agenda: the problem of Palestinian gays who flee the Palestinian Authority seeking refuge in Israel because their lives are in danger. Seemingly unrelated to transgenders, but Greenberg says the struggle is the same: Transgenders (people whose identity includes a component of the other gender, that is, whose internal gender identity differs from their physiological gender, but who do not want to change their sex).
"Transgenders are people who do not feel good with the gender identity with which they were born. Some undergo a process of transition or change, and then all they want to do is disappear and live their life quietly," Greenberg explains.
Wearing two hats - as representative of transgenders on the Agudah's national board, and as coordinator of the political lobby representing all of the organizations affiliated with her community - she makes sure that the other parties present at the meeting give her at least 15 minutes to speak of the unique problems faced by her own small population. When the other speakers exceed the amount of time allotted to them, at her expense, she lets them know that it is her turn.
Greenberg begins her remarks at the meeting with a complaint that the Interior Ministry is not providing access to information on the number of persons who have had sex-change operations in Israel, thereby making it impossible to assess the scope of the phenomenon. She then moves on to more acute problems. . . .
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Gender correction for Saudi girls
BBC world's media reporter
The doctor carrying out the surgery stresses that he is performing what he calls "gender correction" rather than sex change operations.
As a conservative Islamic state, Saudi Arabia does not allow surgery for transsexuals, but permits operations on people with an intersex condition.
Three of the five sisters have already been operated on. The remaining two are to have surgery next week.
The sisters' ages range from 19 to 38.
Dr Yasser Jamal - who is performing the operations at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah - says the sisters are not Saudi by origin but Arabs who have lived in the country all their lives. None of them is married.
After their operations, they are moving to a different district, although Dr Jamal says they are not facing problems in their community.
'Smooth transition'
In tacit acknowledgement of the sensitivity of the subject in Saudi Arabia, Dr Jamal, himself a Saudi, emphasised that the sisters fell into the intersex category - without clear male or female sexual characteristics.
He said that he would never perform surgery on transsexuals - people with normal genitalia but who believe that they belong to the opposite sex.
He said Islam did not allow people to change what God had created.
In Saudi Arabia, transsexuals are associated with homosexuality, which is banned in the kingdom.
Dr Jamal has performed more than 200 intersex operations.
He said the transition from being treated as a woman to a man in Saudi Arabia usually went smoothly, but that there could be problems for men becoming women.
He said they found the restrictions of being female in Saudi Arabia difficult to cope with. . . .
"The Birthday": Dutch Documentary on Iranian Transsexuals
January 11, 2007
Dutch filmmakers Negin Kianfar and Daisy Mohr take viewers inside the experience of young Iranian men who decide to become women. As noted here before, sex change operations in Iran are legal, sanctioned by none other than Khomenei himself.
If you don't speak Farsi or Dutch, the documentary "The Birthday" may be bit tough to follow, but it's worth it even for the on-the-street, behind-closed-doors, and in-the-operating-room visuals. Watching conservative Iranian parents try to come to terms with their son's decision is particularly interesting. Heading into doctor's office is also eye-opening. And simply walking the streets of Iranian cities like Qom offers a window into a world we rarely see. . . .
THIS WEEK AT THE LGBT FILM FESTIVAL
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The story of this year's San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Film Festival, a.k.a. Frameline, isn't necessarily how many films made the cut, but that more than 600 were considered. The number says it all: The LGBT experience is being showcased and analyzed in more films than ever before, from every corner of the world.
This year's festival kicks off Thursday and continues over the following 10 days with a dizzying array of films. From features, to shorts, to documentaries, to experimental works and films from established directors, Frameline swirls with variety and creativity.
This week and next, we'll offer an overview of some of the films to be shown at the four festival venues: San Francisco's Castro Theatre, Roxie Film Center and Victoria Theatre and the Parkway Theater in Oakland.
Here are thumbnail looks at some of the films scheduled for the first few days of the festival: . . .
"Alexis Arquette: She's My Brother," 7 p.m. Friday at the Victoria: Kids, meet Charlie Weaver's transgender granddaughter. Well, of course, no one needs to meet her at this point. David, Rosanna and Patricia's sibling has been proudly out and visible on the Hollywood scene for several years. The film ends up being a kind of inside-out look at single-subject reality films, as Alexis gets a bit tired of being in the spotlight halfway through. At that point the film gets even more interesting and, in many ways, much more real. . . .
"Trained in the Ways of Men," 4:15 p.m. Saturday at the Castro: Shelly Prevost takes on the very difficult story of Gwen Araujo, the transgender East Bay teen who was savagely murdered in 2002. Although it could stand some significant editing, the film looks at Araujo's struggle with her identity, her mother's journey of understanding and the trial of the young men who ended Gwen's life. The film is an often poignant reminder of how important it is to protect other Gwen Araujos. . . .
"25 Cent Preview," 10:15 p.m. June 17 at the Castro: Cyrus Amini looks at the not-so-pretty life of hustlers in the Tenderloin, mixing documentary footage from the real streets of San Francisco with improvised performances. The raw, gritty texture of the film fits the texture of the lives of a pair of hustlers, named Marcus and Dot.com, who just want to survive. Kids, don't try this at home. . . .
FRAMELINE 31: The film festival runs Thursday through June 24. Schedule and ticket information: www.frameline.org.
Men are really the weaker sex
First published: Sunday, June 10, 2007 In the world of gender politics, death is the latest measure of parity.
Not only do women outlive men, but recent research shows that they're also being born more often than in the past. The allegedly stronger sex, it turns out, is really the weaker and more vulnerable -- from conception until death do us part.
Nature has always seen to it that about 105 males were born for every 100 females, but that ratio has been shifting the past three decades, possibly owing to environmental pollution as well as to stressful current events.
In both the U.S. and Japan, the male-to-female ratio dropped between 1970 and 2001 -- from 106.3 boys for every 100 girls to fewer than 105 per 100 in Japan, and from 105.5 to 104.6 in the U.S.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh say that these dips, though small, suggest that paternal exposure to environmental pollutants is taking a toll on the male reproductive system. Some studies have shown that certain pollutants may affect the viability of sperm that bear the Y chromosome, which determines male sex.
In Italy, men who were exposed to dioxin during an industrial explosion fathered significantly fewer boys than girls. Another study of workers at a Russian herbicide plant found that only 38 percent of children born to male workers were boys, while female workers produced the normal male-to-female ratio.
If the environment doesn't reduce the male population, current events may. Last year, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley reported that women stressed out during pregnancy tend to produce fewer males. In the former East Germany, for instance, male birth rates declined following the country's 1991 economic collapse.
One possible explanation is that when women are stressed, their bodies produce high levels of stress hormones -- glucocorticoids -- that cause problems for male fetuses. Researchers concluded that women's bodies spontaneously abort weak male fetuses and embryos because weak sons aren't likely to produce as many offspring as will strong sons -- or even weak daughters.
If nature is unpredictable, at least she is consistently ruthless.
Not only do the strongest survive, but only the strongest males make it to the birth canal. . . .
