Thursday, June 14, 2007
Genderqueer
Genderqueer is a gender identity. A genderqueer person is someone who identifies as a gender other than "man" or "woman," or someone who identifies as neither, both, or some combination thereof. In relation to the gender binary (the view that there are only two genders), genderqueer people generally identify as more "both/and" or "neither/nor," rather than "either/or." Some genderqueer people see their identity as one of many different genders outside of man and woman, some see it as a term encompassing all gender identities outside of the gender binary, some believe it encompasses binary genders among others, some may identify as a-gender and some see it as a third gender in addition to the traditional two. The commonality is that all genderqueer people reject the notion that there are only two genders in the world. The term genderqueer is also occasionally used more broadly as an adjective to refer to people who are in some way gender-transgressive, and could have any gender identity. . . .
The Transgender Rock Music Explosion
by Robert Urban, March 17, 2005
Some of the highest profile transgendered people in the world are musicians, and they have done much to raise positive public awareness for both the transgender community and the broader gay community. Many years ago, Wendy Carlos hit platinum sales status with her 1968 recording Switched-On Bach, which propelled the Moog synthesizer into the public consciousness and won three Grammy Awards. More recently, Israeli singer Dana International won the Eurovision Song Contest, and now plays to sold-out converts around the world.
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As with other categories in the larger gay community, transgenders have their own culture and voice, and this is what many trans artists aim to share. In doing so, they not only entertain but also inform.
Here are a few examples of some of the exciting new trans artists making waves across the U.S.
LISA JACKSON
In just a few years time, NYC-based transgender rock powerhouse Lisa Jackson and her band Girl Friday have risen to become one of the top GLBT music acts in the U.S. Lisa began as an occasional cross-dressing rocker playing Blondie songs in small clubs on the lower east side of Manhattan, but her “fem side,” as she calls it, eventually got the best of her. Good thing too: with great support from both GLBT and hetero fans, Lisa came to life, let the lady within come out, and started cranking out her own original songs.
Lisa is utterly fascinating to watch onstage. She deconstructs the typical, over-glitzed drag-queen look, and instead goes for a softer, quasi-Alicia Silverstone, middle-America mall-teen image. With little makeup, no cheap glitter, no spike heals, and no big hair, there is nothing "gaudy" about Lisa. She lets her considerable natural beauty shine through.
With her realistic "everygirl" approach to the feminine, and the fact that she really sings, (and plays great rock guitar), Lisa is poised on the cutting-edge of the new cross-dressing rock revolution. On the band's latest CD I Am AOK, Lisa's original song lyrics praise the bravery of those who dare to be "different," and promote tolerance of gender and sexual orientation differences.
“I hope those of you out there that are thinking about performing, and maybe putting on a dress for the first time, if you are feeling a little off beat--please go for it," says Lisa. "There are people around that will lift you up and help you make your dreams come true." . . .
A Sense of Anxiety a Shirt Won’t Cover
By ALEX KUCZYNSKI
Published: June 14, 2007
ON a recent afternoon, Dr. Michelle Copeland, a plastic surgeon whose offices face the Metropolitan Museum of Art, clicked her computer’s mouse as images of young men’s torsos flickered across the screen. Unlike the ancient Greek statues of Herakles or the bronze discus throwers in the newly renovated galleries across the street, the young men in Dr. Copeland’s digital images were a bit different: Rather than bearing the broad, flat chests of Greek athletes, their pectoral areas assumed a fuller, more feminine shape.
The patients were found to have enlarged male breasts, a condition known as gynecomastia. While it is not a new disorder, more men are seeking treatment for it, and new statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons show that the majority are adolescent boys.
In 2006, according to the group, nearly 14,000 boys age 13 to 19 underwent surgery to reduce the size of their breasts. That represents 70 percent of all the male patients who had such surgery last year, and an increase of 21 percent over the previous year for that age group.
In a culture that increasingly encourages young boys to be body conscious, demand for chiseled torsos and sculpted pecs is rising, so much so that the number of boys ages 13 to 19 who had breast reduction surgery last year is equal to the total number of all men who had the procedure just two years earlier, in 2004.
The foremost reason is the rise in obesity, according to several plastic surgeons who were interviewed. At the same time, there is a new willingness among pediatricians and plastic surgeons to surgically treat enlarged male breasts.
Often, enlarged breasts are simply part of adolescence, most commonly caused by the hormonal fluctuation of puberty, according to the National Institutes of Health. But in a society that values chiseled abs and Rafael Nadal biceps, adolescent boys are willing to resort to surgery to fix problems their bodies might resolve later on their own. . . .
Published: June 14, 2007
ON a recent afternoon, Dr. Michelle Copeland, a plastic surgeon whose offices face the Metropolitan Museum of Art, clicked her computer’s mouse as images of young men’s torsos flickered across the screen. Unlike the ancient Greek statues of Herakles or the bronze discus throwers in the newly renovated galleries across the street, the young men in Dr. Copeland’s digital images were a bit different: Rather than bearing the broad, flat chests of Greek athletes, their pectoral areas assumed a fuller, more feminine shape.
The patients were found to have enlarged male breasts, a condition known as gynecomastia. While it is not a new disorder, more men are seeking treatment for it, and new statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons show that the majority are adolescent boys.
In 2006, according to the group, nearly 14,000 boys age 13 to 19 underwent surgery to reduce the size of their breasts. That represents 70 percent of all the male patients who had such surgery last year, and an increase of 21 percent over the previous year for that age group.
In a culture that increasingly encourages young boys to be body conscious, demand for chiseled torsos and sculpted pecs is rising, so much so that the number of boys ages 13 to 19 who had breast reduction surgery last year is equal to the total number of all men who had the procedure just two years earlier, in 2004.
The foremost reason is the rise in obesity, according to several plastic surgeons who were interviewed. At the same time, there is a new willingness among pediatricians and plastic surgeons to surgically treat enlarged male breasts.
Often, enlarged breasts are simply part of adolescence, most commonly caused by the hormonal fluctuation of puberty, according to the National Institutes of Health. But in a society that values chiseled abs and Rafael Nadal biceps, adolescent boys are willing to resort to surgery to fix problems their bodies might resolve later on their own. . . .
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Chile: Karina's Story
Buidling a life as a transgender woman
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| Background Facts and Related Links Find out more about Chile's recent political struggles and visit Chilean Web sites dedicated to advancing transgender issues.  Julie Willmarth, a California native, has a B.A. in media studies from Mills College. Yo Soy Asi (I Am Who I Am) was her senior thesis film and was subsequently featured in the New Fest Film Festival in New York City in the summer of 2004. Willmarth currently works under the name Joui Turandot, inspired by the French word jouer, meaning "to play," and the Puccini opera Turandot, which features a powerful female protagonist. She lives in San Francisco. If you didn't know what you were watching, the opening scenes of this week's Rough Cut might look like the rushes from a film by Pedro Almodovar. Our stories come in a variety of styles; this time around, we present a cinema verite piece, a "day in the life," narrated by its main character, a transgender hairdresser living in Santiago, Chile. All Karina Parra wants is to lead the life of an ordinary 27-year-old woman. But, as filmmaker Joui Turandot explains, a normal life for a transgender person in Chile is no easy task. "Transgendered people are almost always rejected by their families and end up on the streets. Basic human rights and opportunities do not apply." Many of them, says Turandot, become child prostitutes, and many who have mainstream jobs often lose their jobs as soon as they assume a female identity and are then forced into prostitution to survive. Turandot spent a year studying in Santiago, where she was surprised to find a visible community of transvestite prostitutes in a society characterized by overt homophobia. With her film, she wanted to explore what it was like to be transgender in a fiercely Catholic and conservative country such as Chile. "It's difficult for transgenders to make it as professionals. They are often condemned to dwell at the margins of society," says Turandot. "With few exceptions, Chilean universities will not accept openly transgendered students, and the best schools often expel male pupils who come to school dressed as a woman." . . . | |||||
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
An articulate FTM spectrum 21 year old talks about being in between, exploration, working at finding out who you are, and the importance of being comfortable with yourself.
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
Few small businesses appear to be prepared to comply with legislation
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.
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
By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: April 26, 2007
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
Transsexuals and Multiple Personalities by Walt Heyer
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
(Redirected from Gregory Hemingway)
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 | |
Schedule
| 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
HUC admits first transgender rabbinical students as broader community begins to confront such issues. 
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. . . .
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
By Merav Sarig
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. . . .
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. . . .
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