Our Visible Vote primer on how the Dems see GLBT issues.
by Jennifer Vanasco, 365Gay.com
The historic LOGO/HRC presidential forum on GLBT issues, to be broadcast Aug. 9, will for the first time showcase the Democratic contenders responses to our concerns.
In our comprehensive gay issue round-up, we bullet the issues that are easily quantifiable—a candidate’s stance on marriage, for instance—and then try to sum up in a paragraph or two some of the nuances.
Part One of our series covered GLBT issues as seen by Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Hilary Clinton, Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen. John Edwards, and Sen. Mike Gravel, in alphabetical order.
However, we left out a crucial candidate: Sen. Joe Biden, the only major Democratic contender not to be represented in the forum, because he had a scheduling conflict. His stance is included below, along with Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson. . . .
Sunday, August 05, 2007
POV, Critique, Opinion: The Gendercator
. . .written and directed by Catherine Crouch
TRT : 15 minutes
Super 8mm & Mini DV
The Gendercator is a short, satirical take on gender and social norms. The story uses the “Rip van Winkle” model to extrapolate from the past into a possible future.
In 1973 a group of hippie women are celebrating Billie Jean King’s victory over Bobby Riggs. They are partying in the rural woods outside of Bloomington, Indiana. Our heroine Sally is a simple minded, sporty type who overindulges at the party and passes out under a tree. Sally wakes up 75 years later in 2048 to discover (amongst other social changes) that feminism has failed utterly and completely. Sex roles and gender expression are rigidly binary and enforced by law and social custom. When Sally chooses to dress in flannel and jeans, the doctor at the emergency room calls in the “Gendercator”, a government official who informs Sally that butch women and sissy boys are no longer tolerated – gender variants are allowed to chose their gender, but they must choose one and follow its rigid constraints.
Sally is baffled by this brave new world. All she wants is to “do her own thing” – but her own thing is seen as problematic. Sally is a simple-minded stoner, indoctrinated into 70s feminism. She is no poster girl or freedom fighter, just a gentle tomboy dropped into the future with a tendency to respond in slogans such as “sisterhood is powerful”.
Nurse Nancy locates some of Sally’s former friends – they are 100 now, but because of advances in the medical profession they are still healthy and thriving. The friends tell Sally they heard she moved to California and that’s why they never looked for her. One of her friends appears to be a man and tells Sally, “They made me do it. They’ll make you too.” They explain to Sally that in the early 2000s the evangelical Christians took over the government and legislated their strict family values, legally sanctioning only “one man, one woman” couples. Advances in sex reassignment surgery have made it possible to honor an individual’s choice of gender AND government policy. Sally is comfortable in the middle of the genders, an unacceptable choice in 2048.
Director’s Note
The Gendercator is a work of satirical fiction. A satire is not a prediction of the future, it is a commentary on contemporary social trends. A satire takes these trends to their logical extreme to emphasize their underlying logic. The Gendercator is a comment on 1) the rise of religious fundamentalists as a political power all over the world, all of whom declare homosexuality to be a sin, 2) the medical advancements in plastic surgery, and 3) the culture of individuality which posits that individual “choice” is to be celebrated as the highest good, and therefore cannot be criticized. . . .
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Where They Stand: Part One
Our forum primer on how the Dems see GLBT issues.
by Jennifer Vanasco, 365Gay.com
For the first time in history, the major candidates from a major political party – Democrats, of course – will be gathering in a public forum to discuss gay issues in front of an audience of gay people.
The forum, called “The Visible Vote ‘08" and sponsored by LOGO (which owns 365Gay) and HRC, will be broadcast from Los Angeles on August 9 – already, GLBT’s from around the country are submitting video questions.
A significant amount of information is already out there about the candidate’s take on the issues. Before you send in your questions, do a little prep work: here, in two parts, is a round-up of what the Dems have said they believe.
Part One, below, will focus (in alphabetical order) on Hilary Clinton, Mike Dodd, John Edwards and Mike Gravel; Part Two, next Friday, will put the spotlight on Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson.
We bullet the issues that are easily quantifiable—a candidate’s stance on marriage, for instance—and then try to sum up in a paragraph or two some of the nuances.
What will they say during the forum? Print out our round-up before you watch The Visible Vote '08 and see if they are consistent with their histories, or if on that historic night, they decide to break new ground. . . .
by Jennifer Vanasco, 365Gay.com
|
|
For the first time in history, the major candidates from a major political party – Democrats, of course – will be gathering in a public forum to discuss gay issues in front of an audience of gay people.
The forum, called “The Visible Vote ‘08" and sponsored by LOGO (which owns 365Gay) and HRC, will be broadcast from Los Angeles on August 9 – already, GLBT’s from around the country are submitting video questions.
A significant amount of information is already out there about the candidate’s take on the issues. Before you send in your questions, do a little prep work: here, in two parts, is a round-up of what the Dems have said they believe.
Part One, below, will focus (in alphabetical order) on Hilary Clinton, Mike Dodd, John Edwards and Mike Gravel; Part Two, next Friday, will put the spotlight on Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson.
We bullet the issues that are easily quantifiable—a candidate’s stance on marriage, for instance—and then try to sum up in a paragraph or two some of the nuances.
What will they say during the forum? Print out our round-up before you watch The Visible Vote '08 and see if they are consistent with their histories, or if on that historic night, they decide to break new ground. . . .
Hong Kong: Gender bender stole brother's ID card to get job at Wing On
Scarlett Chiang
Saturday, August 04, 2007
A 19-year-old girl - diagnosed with a gender identity disorder, and said to have a tendency to dress like a male - pleaded guilty to stealing her brother's identity card and using it to apply for a job.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
 |
Ng Chun-mei admitted three charges when she appeared at Eastern Magistracy on Friday - using an identity relating to another person, knowingly misleading a police officer and perverting the course of justice.
Ng, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and accompanied by her mother, was remanded in custody.
Acting principal magistrate Douglas Yau Tak-hong adjourned sentencing to August 17, pending community and rehabilitation center reports.
The court heard that Ng had used an identity card belonging to her brother, Ng Chun-wing, 21, to apply for a job as a part-time promoter at Wing On Department Store in Central in June 2005 because she was under 18 at the time.
In December last year, Ng Chun- mei was arrested by police and charged with the theft of nine department store vouchers worth HK$4,500.
She pleaded guilty to the charge in February and was fined HK$500.
Ng Chun-wing, who studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, was shocked when he was interviewed by a school social welfare officer about the theft case in early March.
He denied having committed the offense, and when he was shown a photo of the defendant in a newspaper clipping, he recognized the person was his younger sister.
Pleading for leniency, Ng Chun- mei's lawyer said his client admired her brother and had liked to dress like a boy since 2002.
He said the defendant had been diagnosed with a gender identity disorder and had to visit a therapist every month. . . .
Talk about suffering for your art
Friday, August 3, 2007
Any reporter who has covered O.C. courts knows what it's like to get The Look from Deputy District Attorney Susan Schroeder. You write something she perceives as unfairly critical of the D.A.'s Office, come out a little too pro-defendant and, Uh-oh, here it comes:
She stands stock still, coal-black hair framing a face that says nothing, yet everything. Lips closed, but not pursed. Dark eyes narrowed slightly, shooting daggers sharp as the heels of her black Manolos. The Look says it all: Were it even remotely legal, I would grind that gelatinous lump you call your spine into the marble hallway floor with my stilettos and scrape the residue off on the curb. Then I'd go to a nice lunch and immediately forget you ever existed.
I got The Look this week.
Not because of anything I wrote. But because I displayed a complete breakdown in metrosexual masculinity (her oxymoronic ideal male archetype) in regard to her other passion: women's shoes. Specifically, she was disgusted I lacked the huevosto buy myself a pair of six-inch pumps for my drag number in this year's Lagunatics. (Tickets on sale Sunday at www.nosquare.org.)
It started out OK. We met at the Nordstrom Café at South Coast, just a couple of working girls knocking off a little early to hit the Anniversary Sale.
"Did you know that of all the Nordstrom departments, the Café has the highest degree of customer satisfaction?" she said, displaying the insider's knowledge that was the reason I chose her for this mission.
"Uh, no," I said, fearing to tell her that until three minutes ago I had never even seena Nordstrom Café.
"It's true," she said.
Was as cordial as our dialogue would get.
She took me to the second floor and a section called Salon Shoes. Best in the store, she said. She gave me a primer: sling-backs vs. pumps, spike heels vs. wedge-heels, peek-a-boo toes vs. closed toes. I started to covet a black Jimmy Choo pump. $635, roughly double my shoe budget for this century. An open-toed black Prada with silver studs caught my eye. $690.
"OK," she said, leading me to one wall display, "you want to walk over here with reverence." The sign said "Manolo Blahnik." I thought she was going to genuflect. She let me touch a pair of leopard-skin pumps I adored. $695. . . .
Friday, August 03, 2007
Neither/Nor Space Across Pop Cultures: 4th Netherlands Transgender Film Festival
I know that the film Transamerica was a big breakthrough for tranny visibility in the USA. But believe it or not, there's more to transgender than director Duncan Tucker and evening soap star Felicity Huffman can bring to the silver screen. In fact, there are movies being made all around the world that cast real live trannies in the tranny roles.
There are documentaries that get made about people who take gender exploration a hell of a lot further than man-becomes-woman or woman-becomes-man. Many of today's radical tranny films never make it to your local Cineplex, but they're out there. I'd love to give you a single link that would open for you the treasure trove of films about radical gender transgression, but no one's put a list together yet. You're gonna hafta google them for yourself, but I promise it'll be a fun search.
Or, if you're lucky, you live near a city that holds a transgender film festival. Don't worry if you're not in one of those cities. I live in New York, and there's not one here. San Francisco has one, though: Tranny Fest. And Seattle has the 2nd Annual Translations tranny film festival, this coming Labor Day weekend. You could still make your travel plans, and Seattle's gorgeous in the summer. You just missed London's Transfabulous this past June. But fret not. I'm gonna write about that next week.
Failing a full-fledged tranny film festival, you can always catch a few of us in most film festivals calling themselves "Lesbian and Gay," or "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender." (It's called LGBT, pronounced as if the B and T were silent.) Many of those festivals do have a tranny track of films, and sitting in the audience at that kind of screening does make my heart leap with joy cuz I'm sitting there for a solid two hours with so many of my family. And look, if I left out a tranny film festival, I'm sorry. My bad -- please send me the link care of the comments section, and I'll include it in my next blog.
But then there's Amsterdam where every two years, people from around the globe gather to celebrate the image of neither/nor gender in film. Film makers, actors, photographers, theorists, journalists and activists from all over the world, and the only thing they've got in common is that they're work somehow contradicts the notion that in this world, there are men and there are woman and never the two shall switch. It's the Netherlands Transgender Film Festival, founded and directed by Kam Wai Kui in 2001.
Kam Wai asked me to attend the 4th of these festivals, this past May, 2007. I had a wonderful time, meeting so many members of my tribe. Look, it's one thing to look up at the screen and go, "Wow, look how ugly that brave Felicity Huffman has let herself become. Why, she's almost ugly enough to be a real live transwoman." Okay, meow, but it's true. It's another thing to look up and see yourself, or someone really a lot like you and go, "Wow."
Gender doesn't have to be black and white. It can be a sparkling jewel with many facets, and that's what wowed me in Amsterdam: I met gender freak artists who capture us magnificently! Please treat yourself, and peruse the online festival program and see for yourself how bedazzling gender can be. There was art that crossed lines of age, race, nationality, and class. There was some pretty polished stuff and a couple of charmingly rough home-filmed pieces. It was a space where we could meet each other and exchange ideas and art and politics. We even talked about ::gasp:: sex! A lot, in fact. And wow did that ever feel good, because in the USA you so rarely get to sit around in public and discuss sex, do you? Nothing in the Netherlands Transgender Film Festival was boring! . . .
East Bay hosts trans health care forum
by Raymond J. Aguilera
 |
 |
Moderator Jamison Green speaks at last week's forum. Photo: Rick Gerharter |
Trans drop-in center ‘swamped’ by youth
Funding for D.C. facility expires in September
LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, August 03, 2007
When the local group Transgender Health Empowerment, Inc., launched its Tyra Hunter Drop-In Center last March in a three-story townhouse on North Capitol Street, organizers expected to provide a variety of HIV prevention and social services to mostly adult transgender women.
But in the past two months, younger clients like 19-year-old Nannaboo Mack, a transgender woman who said she learned about the center from the “streets,” have descended on the facility in large numbers, stretching its resources and threatening to overextend its budget.
“We’re getting swamped,” said Brian Watson, Transgender Health Empowerment’s director of programs.
As a first-of-its-kind transgender facility in Washington, the center includes a washer and dryer, a shower, a kitchen and a supply of emergency clothing and hygienic products for clients who often are homeless, Watson and other center staff members said.
They said the center, among other things, provides employment, medical and drug treatment referral services, along with HIV testing and prevention counseling — all aimed at helping transgender persons in need get on their feet and become self-sufficient. . . .
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Male Sportswriter Returns To Work As a Woman
When Mike became Christine, she gave Los Angeles sports fans a courtside view of gender politics.
For all of its trappings of money, fame, and corruption, professional sports has a lot to do with character. Avid sports fans seem to respect those who face up to overwhelming challenge and overcome adversity. So it should not come as a surprise that readers rose in solidarity when a 23-year veteran sports writer announced in the Los Angeles Times that he would return from a short hiatus ... as a woman.
On April 26, Mike Penner wrote what he thought would be the toughest article of his career. "I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words." The piece ran in the Sports section, next to his regular column.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Penner's story was "by mid-evening, one of the most heavily viewed stories on latimes.com in the last year, with about half a million page views." Nancy Sullivan, executive director of communications for the newspaper, says "There was a massive response to this story, not only on our website, but across the media spectrum." The online message board accompanying the article was closed to comments in less than 8 hours, with 800 comments logged in. Hundreds more messages were sent via e-mail. Responses to the revelation came in three distinct flavors: kudos from sports fans, effusive thanks from other transsexuals and rants from bible-thumpers. Readers' initial shock, however, subsided almost immediately. . . .
Autogynephila in the advice column
Curious and curiouser
My straight (?) man who loves women and their curves and smiles and butts and legs, who loves me and my mom and his mom and all the pretty girls who pass us on the sidewalk, also really, really likes looking at transsexual porn. . . .
The Rainbow Babies.com Turns One Year Old
TheRainbowBabies.com turns one year old this month. With over 200 pages of original content aimed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered parents and those wishing to become parents, TheRainbowBabies.com is the destination site for up to date information and news impacting LGBT families.
Long Beach, CA (PRWEB) July 31, 2007 -- TheRainbowBabies.com is a web site dedicated to providing space for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to share stories of their respective paths to parenthood. Launched on June 27th, 2006, the website is excited to be celebrating their one year anniversary. TheRainbowBabies.com is also a place where parents (and would-be parents) can turn to for timely and timeless information, advice and stories about getting pregnant, having babies and raising children, from experts in various fields and other gay parents.
TheRainbowBabies.com features information on such topics as insemination, surrogacy, adoption and foster parenting. Also featured on the site are book and movie reviews, articles on legal, financial and mental health issues and most importantly, stories from moms and dads. All information is provided free of charge; the web site is funded in part by advertising.
The Rainbow Babies is proud to have made it to the one year mark. "One year in internet terms is likely equal to 4.5 regular chronological years, so we figure that we're doing pretty good," says founder Angela Watson. "Additionally, the entire web site team is proud of the fact that we have well over 200 pages of original and unique content that is aimed specifically at LGBT parents and their families."
With well over half a million hits in the last six months alone, the web site hopes to continue it's phenomenal growth. Watson continued, saying, "As we enter into our 'Terrible Twos', we are changing around the look and navigation of the web site and this new look should roll out in the next 30 days. We are all 'terribly' excited!" . . .
Debate with radical feminist Julie Bindel
The debate regarding surgical treatment of transsexuals and outcomes with Julie Bindel aired Wednesday 1 August 2007 in the UK.
You can listen to it on "Hecklers" here:
"Radical feminist Julie Bindel postulates that sex change operations constitute unnecessary mutilation, before an audience of doctors and transsexual people at the Royal Society of Medicine. The panel of expert opponents includes gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell and two people who feel they were born into the wrong gender."
Recommended!
First, read the stories regarding Bindel I posted yesterday.
Recommended!
First, read the stories regarding Bindel I posted yesterday.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
POV, Critique, Opinion: Gender As Neither/Nor
Kate Bornstein
July 30, 2007 | 02:22 PM (EST)
In the last four months or so, I've traveled to 10 or 12 states in the USA, followed by trips to Amsterdam, London, and a tiny village named Inderoy, just an hour's drive north of Trondheim, Norway. And no matter where I go, I can see that most people are convinced there are two kinds of people in the world: men and women. But I hang out with people who, mostly, are neither men nor women. I would call most Neither/Nor people my tribe. It's a difficult place to live, being neither/nor in an either/or world. Nah, it's not difficult... it sucks. Don't get me wrong, being neither/nor is GREAT in a neither/nor world, and thank heavens there are more and more spaces like that in the world. But there's not enough of those kind of spaces to keep up with the increasing number of people around the world who are calling themselves not-men and not-women.
The M word said I could include a link to her MySpace home page. Totally worth a visit.
July 30, 2007 | 02:22 PM (EST)
In the last four months or so, I've traveled to 10 or 12 states in the USA, followed by trips to Amsterdam, London, and a tiny village named Inderoy, just an hour's drive north of Trondheim, Norway. And no matter where I go, I can see that most people are convinced there are two kinds of people in the world: men and women. But I hang out with people who, mostly, are neither men nor women. I would call most Neither/Nor people my tribe. It's a difficult place to live, being neither/nor in an either/or world. Nah, it's not difficult... it sucks. Don't get me wrong, being neither/nor is GREAT in a neither/nor world, and thank heavens there are more and more spaces like that in the world. But there's not enough of those kind of spaces to keep up with the increasing number of people around the world who are calling themselves not-men and not-women.
Just look at this email someone sent me through my website:
I am a [35-39] year old in [the Midwest, USA], born female. For many years I felt masculine. However; I don't believe I am male or female. I am so afraid to live the way I have [become] because I am living a lie, but I don't necessarily want to die. Is there such thing as being neither? How do I help the "professionals" understand that I am not a pathological freak? I just don't identify with either one of those genders. So what does it make me? I need to know how can I continue to live in this world now that I have come to this realization? [unsigned]
Ouch. I answered the email as best I could, but I realized that I could be of more help to this person and the rest of my tribe of neither/nor people if I started talking more directly about it on this blog. So that's what I'm gonna do. Gloves off. People who are not men and not women really live in the world, everywhere, and it's high time to stop ignoring that and insisting on some archaic binary system of genderfying people.
Just look at this poem sent to me by my righteous neither/nor friend, the M word, from Myspace.
Either/Or
I'm not either/orthis or that, I'm not
here nor there;
Shit, I'm everywhere
you care
not to look
I'm so much more
than Either/or
I won't pick and choose
Good or bad
Black or white
Single out or accept
Bitch or bombshell
Opt or decide for
Saint or sinner
Homo or hetero
Goddess or whore
I'm neither/nor
I won't let binary
beat me
into selection submission
I won't let one or the other
kill me
I won't name my desire
by sex/parts alone
man or woman
or in between,
or none of these
beings, my Self
I can't assign identity
through DNA or race;
You can't define, this face
simply won't give you simple
answers
The M word said I could include a link to her MySpace home page. Totally worth a visit.
Okay, that's enough for today. Over the next three weeks, I'm gonna be writing about some wonderful spaces for folks of the neither/nor persuasion, as I chronicle my visits to the 2007 Amsterdam Transgender Film Festival, London's Transfabulous '07, and Jafnaðr the 2007 Nordic Queer Youth Festival. All these events and places sure opened my eyes and my arms to a great many of my tribespeople.
Kiss kiss, and remember: we are everywhere.
Kate
POV, Critique, Opinion: The Prisoner of Gender
by David/Katie Solomon
One of my earliest memories is of being three years’ old and joyfully hurtling down a slide wearing a dress and a policeman’s helmet. I was going to have to stop that sort of thing at some stage and fortunately I did. After all, you can get into serious trouble for impersonating a police officer. Unfortunately, you can also get into serious trouble for wearing a dress, especially if you’re not female. Needless to say, I only grew out of the dress size and not the actual dress wearing.
For me, gender identity is more complicated than masculine and feminine or even transvestite and transsexual. I don’t want a gender reassignment/‘sex change’ yet at the same time my motivation to cross dress goes way too deep for an uncomplicated case of transvestism. Dressing ‘en femme’ now and again won’t satisfy me. I’d more readily describe myself as transgendered, or even third gendered - neither male nor female. Modern science may well have found physical evidence to explain why we’re like this. Meantime, we struggle under a bi-polar gender regime in which only two mutually exclusive gender options are recognized.
How does it feel to be transgendered/third gendered in an either/or society? It hurts. It’s suffocating. I’ve read pieces in which the pain of trans is described as being treated by others like a non-person, feeling invisible. Yet worse still is not merely having your identity disregarded by others but having no choice other than to endure their insistence on choosing a different one for you that they superimpose upon you without permission.
Despite the influence of feminism encouraging greater overall awareness of gender as a patriarchal construct, in mainstream society it’s still virtually impossible to avoid being categorized as either female or male. Bi-gender apartheid pervades all; manifesting itself in male or female (either/or) tick boxes on application forms, airport security queues, public lavatories (naturally), car insurance, pub quiz teams, and of course, in how we’re expected, or even told, to dress – at least for those all-important job interviews. Strictly conforming to one of the two socially, legally legitimised genders is considered a prerequisite for respectability and treating women and men differently is seen as the height of good manners. They call it chivalry; I’d call it ‘respect a gender’. . . .
One of my earliest memories is of being three years’ old and joyfully hurtling down a slide wearing a dress and a policeman’s helmet. I was going to have to stop that sort of thing at some stage and fortunately I did. After all, you can get into serious trouble for impersonating a police officer. Unfortunately, you can also get into serious trouble for wearing a dress, especially if you’re not female. Needless to say, I only grew out of the dress size and not the actual dress wearing.
For me, gender identity is more complicated than masculine and feminine or even transvestite and transsexual. I don’t want a gender reassignment/‘sex change’ yet at the same time my motivation to cross dress goes way too deep for an uncomplicated case of transvestism. Dressing ‘en femme’ now and again won’t satisfy me. I’d more readily describe myself as transgendered, or even third gendered - neither male nor female. Modern science may well have found physical evidence to explain why we’re like this. Meantime, we struggle under a bi-polar gender regime in which only two mutually exclusive gender options are recognized.
How does it feel to be transgendered/third gendered in an either/or society? It hurts. It’s suffocating. I’ve read pieces in which the pain of trans is described as being treated by others like a non-person, feeling invisible. Yet worse still is not merely having your identity disregarded by others but having no choice other than to endure their insistence on choosing a different one for you that they superimpose upon you without permission.
Despite the influence of feminism encouraging greater overall awareness of gender as a patriarchal construct, in mainstream society it’s still virtually impossible to avoid being categorized as either female or male. Bi-gender apartheid pervades all; manifesting itself in male or female (either/or) tick boxes on application forms, airport security queues, public lavatories (naturally), car insurance, pub quiz teams, and of course, in how we’re expected, or even told, to dress – at least for those all-important job interviews. Strictly conforming to one of the two socially, legally legitimised genders is considered a prerequisite for respectability and treating women and men differently is seen as the height of good manners. They call it chivalry; I’d call it ‘respect a gender’. . . .
POV, Critique, Opinion: My trans mission
Julie Bindel
August 1, 2007 2:00 PM
There can be no doubt that transsexual people are often targets for abuse and cruelty. Good liberals should find this appalling, and add our voices to those within the transgender rights movement, calling for an end to discrimination towards this community. However, for many years I have felt uncomfortable accepting a diagnosis created by reactionary psychiatrists in the 1950s which claims that it is possible to be born "trapped in the wrong body".
Feminists want to rid the world of gender rules and regulations, so how is it possible to support a theory which has at its centre the notion that there is something essential and biological about the way boys and girls behave? As someone who spurned dolls and make-up as a child, I find it deeply troubling that, had I gone to one of the specialist psychiatrists while growing up and explained how I did not feel like a "real girl" (which I did not, because I wanted to be a lesbian), I could be writing this as a trans man.
In 2004 I wrote a column in the Guardian Weekend magazine complaining about the fact that a male-to-female transsexual had sued a rape crisis centre in Canada for refusing to let her counsel rape victims, on the grounds that it was a "women only" service. I had, in my piece, referred to one transsexual as a "man in a dress".
The then readers' editor, having received 200 letters of complaint, wrote, "[This column] abused an already abused minority that the Guardian might have been expected to protect."
In hindsight, the sarcasm I used in my column was misplaced and insensitive ("Imagine a world inhabited just by transsexuals," I wrote, complaining about the way many transsexuals parody traditional masculine and feminine styles of dress. "It would look like the set of Grease."). However, the hundreds of angry emails I received, and the levels of vitriol contained within them, made me realise just how much of a sacred cow - at least among us liberals - the issue had become.
As a result of the article I was firmly branded "transphobic" by the community. No other topic I have addressed in this newspaper has attracted such fury, even though I regularly express controversial opinions.
This realisation made me determined to further explore why any criticism of transsexuality seems to be deemed unacceptable outside of homophobic, rightwing circles. Which is why, when the producer of the Radio 4 debating series Hecklers approached me, asking if I would argue a controversial point in opposition to four leading experts, I chose the title, "Sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation".
My concerns about the increasing acceptance of "transsexuality" as a diagnosis are based upon my feminist belief that it arises from the strong stereotyping of girls and boys into strict gender roles. . . .
POV, Critique, Opinion: Are sex change operations justified?
By Innes Bowen Producer, Hecklers, BBC Radio 4 |
 Julie Bindel believes sex change operations are wrong |
But a leading feminist campaigner claims that sex reassignment surgery is based on unscientific ideas - and could be doing more harm than good.
"I should never have had sex change surgery," Claudia MacLean, a transsexual woman told the audience at a recent debate organised by the BBC Radio 4 programme Hecklers and the Royal Society of Medicine in London.
"As a result of the surgery, I am incapable of sex and I have lived a life apart."
Claudia was speaking out in support of Julie Bindel, a radical feminist and journalist, who was trying to persuade medics and trans people that sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation.
Threatening concept
Radical feminists have ideological reasons for opposing sex change surgery.
To them, the claim that someone can be "born into the wrong sex" is a deeply threatening concept.
Many feminists believe that the behaviours and feelings which are considered typically masculine or typically feminine are purely socially conditioned. . . .
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Posted August 3, 2007 | 03:42 PM (EST)