POV, Critique, Opinion: Santhi Soundarajan: Sport, Gender and Suicide in India

September 09, 2007

Amrita Rajan

Just a few months ago, Santhi Soundarajan was the butt of late night jokes on American television and the subject of outraged editorials in Indian newspapers as the Indian woman athlete who failed a gender test.

While details are scarce and confusing, news reports have it that shortly after Soundarajan won the silver in the women’s 800 metre event for India at the Asian Games in Doha last year, she failed a routine (but not compulsory) test carried out by a team of doctors (including a gynecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist and internal medicine specialist). Their consensus? Soundarajan “does not possess the sexual characteristics” necessary to qualify as a female of the species.

Perhaps it was the outcome of Games officials seeing an Indian win a medal in a sporting event and thinking, Now what’s wrong with this picture?

Levity aside, this past week, Soundarajan, now stripped of her medal (featured above, first from left), made the news again when she was admitted to a hospital in her native Tamil Nadu for attempted suicide. Well, there’s a shock for Chief Minister Karunanidhi - apparently a shiny new plasma TV and a check for a few lakh rupees isn’t a magical cure-all for having your life turned upside down.

Leading the life of a recluse and unemployed, this was the first anybody had heard of her since the results of the gender test were revealed. Although she has denied all allegations even in her weakened state, her doctors insist that she swallowed “veterinary medicines” in a bid to end her life. A few thoughts:

When somebody tries to commit suicide and you’re called to attend to them, kindly keep the details of your patient to yourself. The place for a doctor attending a high risk patient is by that patient’s bedside, not confirming the particulars of the case to whichever reporter that’s on the phone. She’s already been through a lot if she’s tried to kill herself, she doesn’t need your tuppence to help her that last remaining inch over the edge, alright?

Secondly, why is it that we’re only hearing about her now and in these circumstances? Immediately after the scandal broke there was a lot of stuff written up in the papers about the smelly state of affairs in Indian sport, especially women’s sport. Months and one successful sports movie later, everything is very Chak De and all the righteous indignation is about media coverage.

This is what really bothers me about the Chak De phenomenon. I loved the movie unreservedly and I agree with the point that so many have raised i.e. that our famous obsession with cricket has slowly strangled all other sport in India. I even agree with the argument that publicity has a lot to do with the popularity of a sport. Look at spelling bees, for example - I mean, spelling bees for crying out loud, people! All it took was one bizarre documentary full of kids going crazy under parental pressure and hey, presto! Memorizing the dictionary is now a sport and you can catch it on ESPN (funny post).

But coming back to Chak De, very little of the focus seems to have shifted to underlying point driven home relentlessly with everything but a sledgehammer throughout the movie: the apathy and downright criminal negligence on the part of the government authorities and officials who run Indian sport and the deep rot that has set into the “system”. . . .

Gender changes, but a wife's love stays

No living a lie: Janet Rice (left) with husband Penny — formerly Peter — Whetton

September 9, 2007

Greens candidate married Peter, who is now Penny, reports William Birnbauer.

JANET Rice arches forward in her seat, her eyes on high beam and her manner direct. "Absolutely," she declares when asked if she would discuss her personal life. "If you don't talk about it, it's going to be used against you."

Her eagerness to talk about her long-term partner's gender swap and its impact on her own sexuality is a little disconcerting. But keen she is.

Ms Rice is the Greens candidate for Saturday's byelection in the safe Labor seat of Williamstown, vacated by the retired Premier Steve Bracks.

She is a former mayor of Maribyrnong and has lived within two kilometres of the Williamstown electorate for 40 of her 46 years.

Unlikely to win the byelection, she hopes her activism and community profile might pull a few votes from traditional Liberal and Labor party voters.

Like most aspiring politicians, Ms Rice is only too happy to run through the problems plaguing the electorate. Unlike most politicians, however, she is willing to tell the truth about a personal life that is anything but conventional.

"Absolutely," she repeats.

For 16 years she lived with her husband, Peter Whetton, a high-profile climate change expert, in what she saw as a normal marriage. They had two boys, now aged 15 and 12.

Four years ago, Peter broke the news that he was a cross-dresser and felt more woman than man.

Peter had a sex-change operation and changed his name to Penny. Her first years as a woman were a rollercoaster ride and coincided with Ms Rice's election to Maribyrnong council. She told a confidential meeting of councillors and officers about the sex change.

She acknowledges that many marriages would not have withstood such a dramatic shift in roles and beliefs. For many couples "it doesn't work out for them sexuality-wise, whereas for me, I still love Penny", she says. "For me, it was saying, 'Oh, I'm a bisexual. OK, I'm not a heterosexual.'

"That was a big thing for me. I'm not heterosexual; I'm bisexual. The main shock was that here was this person I had been married to for 16 years and here was an incredibly important part of her life I knew nothing about."

The boys, while being "absolutely terrific" about it, differed in their responses. The older boy was "not all that open about it", while the younger one tells his mates, "My dad's Penny; my dad's a woman."

Trying to hide the truth would be used against her, she says. After the initial shock of discovery, there was acceptance and a willingness to stay together. A marriage between a passionate local campaigner and a classic scientist.

"We're a good pair," she says, "because Penny does the unravelling and understanding and I need to be taking action on it."

Transgender pastor's new test of faith (United Methodist Church)

The Rev. Drew Phoenix, formerly the Rev. Ann Gordon, at St. John’s of Baltimore City. The Judicial Council will take up his case next month, deciding whether the church should accept transgender pastors.


LA Times ^ | September 9, 2007 | Stephanie Simon

Posted on 09/10/2007 7:32:00 AM PDT by NYer

BALTIMORE — The Rev. Ann Gordon stood in front of her United Methodist congregation last fall and announced that she was now he.

Surgery and testosterone had transformed Ann into the Rev. Drew Phoenix -- still as liberal and laid-back as always, but now legally male. Most in the small congregation accepted their pastor's transition; they even threw him a renaming party, complete with birthday cake.

But when Phoenix, 48, was reappointed to another year of ministry this spring by his bishop, it sparked a protest in the United Methodist Church.

The denomination's highest authority, the Judicial Council, will take up the case next month, deciding whether the church should accept transgender pastors. The decision will determine Phoenix's future; it could also have political implications. Presiding over the Judicial Council is Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., President Bush's nominee for surgeon general and a longtime lay leader of the United Methodist church. Democrats have objected to Holsinger in large part because of work he has done for his church over the years.

In 1991, Holsinger wrote a paper for the church describing gay sex as abnormal and unhealthy. On the Judicial Council last year, he supported a pastor who would not permit a gay man to join his congregation. Holsinger has also affirmed the church's stance against openly gay and lesbian clergy.

The Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on Holsinger, though his confirmation hearing was two months ago. He has been asked to answer further questions in writing. In the meantime, Holsinger will handle several Judicial Council cases dealing with sexuality. Most prominent is the question of Phoenix's right to remain in ministry.

Significant Majority of All Adult Americans Believe it is Unfair that Federal Law Allows Employers to Fire Someone Because. . .

Sixth Annual Out & Equal/Harris Interactive/Witeck-Combs Communications Survey Explores Workplace Attitudes toward GLBT People
2007 Out & Equal Workplace Summit

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. & ROCHESTER, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nearly two-thirds of all American adults (64%) believe it is unfair that federal law currently allows for an employer to fire someone because they are gay or lesbian. A similar majority (60%) of heterosexual adults were not even aware that federal law does not provide protections for employees on the basis of sexual orientation. An overwhelming majority (79%) of heterosexuals also feel that how an employee does his or her job, and not their sexual orientation, should be the standard for judging an employee. When it comes to the issue of transgender employees in the work place, two thirds of heterosexuals (67%) also agree that employee performance should be the standard by which they are judged and not whether they are transgender.

These are some of the results from the latest national Out & Equal Workplace survey, conducted online by Harris Interactive® in conjunction with Out & Equal and Witeck-Combs Communications, among 2,868 U.S. adults, of whom 350 self-identified as, gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT)1. The survey is an annual barometer of attitudes surrounding GLBT issues in the workplace and is the longest-running survey of its kind.

Within the next two weeks, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a proposed U.S. federal law that, if enacted, will prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The current version of the bill was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2007 and for the first time includes gender identity as a protected category in relation to job discrimination.

“This survey continues to demonstrate that clear majorities of American adults agree that discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is wrong,” says Out & Equal Executive Director Selisse Berry. “It is apparent that heterosexual co-workers are realizing that sexual orientation is not relevant to job performance.”

In addition, more heterosexuals (88%) say they would feel indifferent or feel positively upon learning that a co-worker is gay or lesbian. About one-in-ten (12%) say they would feel negatively. . . .

Transgender men outraged over mall bathroom incident

Simon Adriane (left) and Sean Brochin

Story Updated: Sep 8, 2007 at 2:25 PM PDT
By KOMO Staff

Watch the story

SEATTLE -- Two transgender men say they're the victims of discrimination after they were kicked out of a downtown mall for allegedly using the wrong restroom.

Trouble began when Simon Adriane and Sean Brochin needed to use the bathroom after watching a movie at Pacific Place mall in downtown Seattle.

Adriane and Brochin, who were both born female but consider themselves male, entered the men's bathroom, which upset a man in teh bathroom.

But the mall claims the men were simply disruptive.

"He was screaming 'you're a woman, you can't be in here!'" said Adriane.

"The first thing I thought is 'oh no, not again.' Because it happened many times in my life," Brochin said.

Adriane tried calming the man.

"I said I'm not a girl, I'm just here to pee," he said.

But the customer called security.

"Security was banging on the door and ordered us to get out," Adriane said.

The security guard escorted the pair out of the bathroom and out of the mall.

According to the state Human Rights Commission, transgenders are protected and have the right to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with.

But the commission recommends they use the unisex or family restroom to avoid wrestling with gender issues. In this case, Adriane and Brochin said it was occupied. . . .

Singapore transsexual battles culture of shame

Ten years after fulfilling a lifelong dream to become a woman through sex-change surgery, Leona Lo, seen here, has embarked on an uphill battle to change the "culture of shame" surrounding transsexuals in Asia

SINGAPORE (AFP) — She loves children and her lifelong dream is to be a wife and a mother, but the raspy voice and masculine frame betray the fact that Leona Lo was born a man.

Unlike many other transsexuals in Asia who prefer to live privately because of the social stigma of sex change, the British-educated, Singaporean transsexual woman has chosen to live a normal life, but in public.

Smart, confident and articulate, the communications specialist who heads her own public relations company has embarked on a mission to help turn around the "culture of shame" surrounding transsexuals in Singapore and the region.

"Somewhere out there, not just in Singapore but throughout Asia, there are lots of young people who are suffering the way I suffered years ago," Leona, 32, tells AFP in an interview.

In her former life as a man, she was called Leonard.

These days, she draws on her experiences of gender identity crisis, rejection and discrimination to challenge social mores on behalf of the so-called silent community.

"It's this entire culture of shame that gets under your skin. It's not something that you can isolate and demolish because it is so much a part of our culture," she says.

While a few transsexuals are gaining prominence in Asia -- notably China's Jin Xing -- most continue to live in silence.

In May, a 32-year-old South Korean transsexual entertainer, whose sex alteration led the country to change its family registry laws, married her rapper boyfriend.

Parinya "Nong Toom" Charoenphol's rags-to-riches story was made into a movie, "Beautiful Boxer." Former Chinese People's Liberation Army colonel and now woman Jin Xing is a prize-winning dancer and choreographer.

Slim and taller than the average local woman, Leona packs charm and gets animated when talking about children.

But her lipsticked mouth creases into a pensive smile when she says: "I can't bear children. I have to be on hormones for life and I have this body structure of a guy."

The hormone treatment has "feminised" the former man. While traces of masculinity are evident, Leona says she has already come to terms with being a woman -- although a transsexual one.

"I can't deny that biologically I'm different," says Leona, wearing a blue dress, the muscles on her shoulders and arms clearly visible. . . .

FTMs and female-bodied men throughout history

A Stir, but No Crisis, From Principal’s Gender Change

By TINA KELLEY
Published: September 10, 2007

PORT EWEN, N.Y., Sept. 5 — Cassandra Laycock, 17, who is studying fashion design, put on shiny red high-heeled boots and black pants with red pinstripes for her first day of school at Ulster County’s Career & Technical Center on Wednesday.

Her principal chose a tasteful pantsuit to match a new identity. Gary Suraci, who had been running the school for the past dozen years, returned this fall as Genna Suraci, causing something of a stir among students, staff and the broader Hudson Valley community surrounding the school. Cassandra met the change with a beneficent shrug but an outdated pronoun. “If he wants to do it, let him do it,” she said. “It’s just his business.”

But Renée McCormick said her daughter Nicole had not returned to the school this year, in part because of the principal. “It’s a horrible influence for the kids,” she said. And Michael Locasio, who owns a tattoo parlor in a neighboring town, complained, “God makes things perfect and people want to screw it all up.”

School officials would not allow a reporter or photographer on campus and told students to refrain from taking pictures for a couple of weeks, lest they turn up on the Internet. They scheduled several meetings on the first days of classes for the 1,150 students — most of them in 11th and 12th grades — to discuss the change with guidance counselors and social workers, having offered similar sessions for parents and teachers the previous week.

In a brief telephone interview, Ms. Suraci said, “My impression was things were normal, like any opening day for me.” She declined to discuss her transformation, referring all questions to the district superintendent, Martin Ruglis.

“My only focus right now is on the kids and my family,” Ms. Suraci said before classes began. “The starting of the school year requires energy, and I want to have a great opening day, so it doesn’t affect them.”. . .

Hopeful future for trans athletes

Keith Langdon / Remember When Images

Kristen Worley has been recognized as a female athlete by international and Canadian cycling groups and hopes to compete in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Canadian cyclist shares her struggle to be recognized as a woman

By Elizabeth Chuck

Reporter

MSNBC
Updated: 9:13 a.m. ET Feb 26, 2006


Kristen Worley, a 2008 Olympic hopeful in cycling, has a secret.

But now, with great anxiety, she’s divulging it.

A few years ago, the Canadian had sex-change surgery to change her gender from male to female. With the help of a steady regimen of estrogen, Worley looks female, sounds female and, to anybody who didn’t know her before, is female.

Worley has told her story to sports organizations across Canada in her quest to get permission to compete in the Olympics, but she spoke for the first time publicly in an interview with MSNBC.com.

“I shouldn’t be worrying about what people are going to do when they find out, but I’m so afraid,” she said. “I'm just like any other girl there.”

Major milestone for Olympics
If Worley competes in the Beijing Games in 2008, it will be a milestone in Olympics history. There have been rumors of transsexual athletes participating in the Games, but none has ever come forward.

The International Olympics Committee officially changed its rules for transsexual people in 2004. To compete, an athlete must wait for two years after sex-reassignment surgery.

People who have had the surgery differ on how they want to be known. Worley refers to herself as a transitioned athlete, while others call themselves transsexuals.

Although the new Olympics rule hasn’t been put to the test yet, the transsexual community says it has already benefited from it. . . .

He’s my daughter

By ELIZABETH TAI

Appalled by how transsexuals are generally mistreated by society and even their families, the third winner of FreedomFilmFest07 hopes to change mindsets by showing how a mother’s love and acceptance can make all the difference.

IT was an assignment that seemed straightforward enough: do a video clip on transsexuals in Malaysia for a news website. But after meeting and interviewing transsexuals and learning about their lives, Indrani Kopal, 28, could not get them out of her mind.

The Cambridge International Dictionary of English defines a transsexual as a person who feels that they should have been born the opposite sex, and therefore behaves and dresses like a member of that sex, or a person who has had a medical operation to change their sex.

Despite enduring daily insults from some inconsiderate people because she’s a transsexual, Sarika, 23, is confident about her femininity.

In real life, that’s much harder to do. The transsexuals Indrani met told her stories of how they were harassed and abused by strangers when they walked down the street. Some were turned out by their loved ones. As a result, many became sex workers because they could not fend for themselves as no one was willing to employ them. And this led to the arrests by the police.

Indrani quickly realised that her short video clip for Malaysiakini was not enough. She kept in touch with the many transsexuals she had come to know and looked for the chance to tell their stories in a bigger and more profound way.

She first thought of highlighting the injustices faced by transsexuals, because “in the Asian region, our country is the worst for transsexuals to live in,” but that angle did not feel right nor new to Indrani.

Then, she got to know Sarika Samalakrishnan, 23, a university graduate who works in a human resource department of a company.

After hearing numerous tales of how transsexuals were turned away by their families, she was astounded to find out that Sarika’s family accepted her for who she was. . . .

Who was Billy Tipton?

Video: View here.

Why the Bailey controversy won't die soon

To focus on the overzealous response of some trans activists is to miss the bigger picture -- that transsexuals are fed up with non-trans "experts" claiming to know us better than we do

By Joanne Herman

An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 4, 2007

To refresh: Transsexuals are those who live or seek to live as the gender opposite the one assigned at birth, sometimes utilizing hormones and surgery to help do so, and as such they represent only part of the large and diverse transgender community. I am a male-to-female (MTF) transsexual. And J. Michael Bailey, the psychologist who authored the controversial 2003 book The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, is not.

Bailey concluded, based largely on interviews of transsexuals in a gay bar, that MTF transsexuals transition solely to satisfy their sex drive. Bailey claimed that some of us are really gay men believing that being a woman will normalize our attraction to men; that some of us are men sexually aroused by the idea of having a female body; and the rest of us are lying when we say we don’t fit those two categories. Noticeably absent is a discussion of female-to-male (FTM) transsexuals.

But I and most other MTF transsexuals do feel strongly that we don’t fit Bailey’s two categories. And we are furious to be called liars by a nontransgender “expert.” While most trans people were deeply closeted in years past, that’s no longer the case, so the backlash by trans activists in 2003, when his book came out, was intense.

That backlash was recently rekindled on word that another nontransgender “expert” is about to publish an article in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, asserting that the personal attacks on Bailey by trans activists presented “problems not only for science but free expression itself.”

This defense sounds very much like the rhetoric of nongay psychiatrist Charles Socarides after he ended up on the wrong side of the vote to remove homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in the early 1970s. Socarides felt the APA's decision was not based on any empirical evidence but influenced by gays, both within and without the organization, who had their own agenda.

Focusing on the personal attacks against Bailey is like discussing the clashes between protesters and police in Chicago at the 1968 Democratic National Convention without emphasizing the incredible wave of social change sweeping the nation at the time. Trans people have reached the point where they are fed up with any nontrans “expert” -- not just Bailey -- who's dismissing our opinions. Our view is that, much like a nongay person can't possibly imagine loving someone of the same sex, a nontransgender person can't possibly imagine the feeling of living in the wrong gender.

Trans people are venting years of frustration. Julia Serano has written a crisp summary of the latest Bailey developments on the Feministing blog. But more important, this rising star's new book, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, has shed much-needed light on the bigger picture.

It starts with the observation that MTF transsexuals pose a problem for the patriarchy. We actually prefer to be female and go through a huge number of hoops to get there. This very fact subverts the idea of male superiority: How can anyone possibly not think being male is better? On the other hand, FTM transsexuals transition in the “right” direction, so the patriarchy rarely manages to conduct research about them.

As treatment started becoming available in this country in the 1970s, the nontransgender men running the gender clinics set the femininity requirement very high to limit the number the number of "subversives" admitted. Some clinics even limited treatment, reserving it for MTFs who aroused the male doctor sexually, thereby objectifying them as sex objects.

When nontransgender second-wave feminists saw these über-feminine products of the clinics, they assumed that no thinking person could willingly choose to so actively embrace that level of femininity. They labeled us as dupes of the patriarchy who had been deployed to preserve feminine stereotypes. In reality, we knew full well what we were doing -- we were embracing excessive femininity because it was the only route open to us that would allow us to live in our perceived gender. . . .

Employers Should Be Mindful of Sex-Stereotyping Claims in Dealing With Gender Identity

Carla J. Rozycki and David K. Haase
Special to Law.com
September 5, 2007

Jenner & Block's Carla Rozycki

Jenner & Block's David Haase

Courts have long been in agreement that discrimination against a transgendered person is not sex discrimination actionable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, because "sex" means biological male or female status, not sexuality or sexual orientation.

See, for example, Holloway v. Arthur Andersen & Co., 566 F.2d 659, 662-64 (9th Cir. 1977) (rejecting the idea that "sex" as defined in Title VII could be extended to gender identification, the 9th Circuit concluded that "Congress had only the traditional notions of 'sex' in mind" and held that "[a] transsexual individual's decision to undergo sex change surgery does not bring that individual, nor transsexuals as a class, within the scope of Title VII."); Sommers v. Budget Marketing, Inc., 667 F.2d 748, 749 (8th Cir. 1982) (rejecting a transgender sex discrimination claim, the 8th Circuit held that "the Court does not believe that Congress intended ... to require the courts to ignore anatomical classification and determine a person's sex according to the psychological makeup of that individual . ... Plaintiff, for the purposes of Title VII, is male because she is an anatomical male."); Ulane v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 742 F.2d 1081, 1085 (7th Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1017 (1985) (finding that a post-operative transsexual was not protected by Title VII, the 7th Circuit held that "The phrase in Title VII prohibiting discrimination based on sex, in its plain meaning, implies that it is unlawful to discriminate against women because they are women and against men because they are men. The words of Title VII do not outlaw discrimination against a person who has a sexual identity disorder, i.e., a person born with a male body who believes himself to be female, or [vice versa]; a prohibition against discrimination based on an individual's sex is not synonymous with a prohibition against discrimination based on an individual's sexual identity disorder or discontent with the sex into which they were born.").

In a case that did not involve a transgendered employee, the U.S. Supreme Court stated in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 251 (1989), that in "forbidding employers to discriminate against individuals because of their sex, Congress intended to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sex stereotypes" (emphasis added).

But in several transgender cases that followed Price Waterhouse, courts distinguished that case and did not recognize sex discrimination claims brought by transgendered employees who claimed to be the victims of unlawful sexual stereotyping. . . .

Sunny's Rob McElhenney on Trannies and Danny DeVito

by Anthony Layser

Rob McElhenney, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia may sound like a pleasant enough show, but there's nothing saccharine about FX's cult-hit comedy. Following the deplorable behavior and self-absorbed shenanigans of a group of friends who operate a South Philly dive called Paddy's Pub, the series enters its third season on Thursday, Sept. 13 (10 pm/ET, FX), and the DVDs for Seasons 1 and 2 arrive in stores today. Creator, producer and star Rob McElhenney recently spoke with TVGuide.com about the new season and provided some insight on attractive transsexuals, the City of Brotherly Love and whether he plans to get loaded with costar Danny DeVito before their upcoming appearance on The View.

TVGuide.com: In the beginning you, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day did all the writing. Was it at all difficult to let some new people into the creative circle for the third season?
Rob McElhenney: Well, it's still very much like the first two seasons. We did hire a small staff of writers to work with us this year, and they were very helpful, but we have 50% more episodes this year than we had last year. It's a lot of work.

TVGuide.com: Is there any chance a protagonist will arise this season, or is the plan to keep every character just as loathsome?
McElhenney: There's no changing. Our characters are going to stay just as loathsome as they were from Day 1. Now, I think you can root for all the characters from time to time, but I don't know if any will ever be sympathetic. Maybe Charlie, because he's so darn loveable. . . .

FTM International Leaders Honored

Three San Francisco FTM International community leaders have been honored with awards at the 8th annual Gender Odyssey national conference August 31-September 3, 2007 in Seattle, Washington, states FTM International President Levi Alter.

alterlevi.jpg

San Francisco, CA, September 4, 2007: Three San Francisco FTM International community leaders have been honored with awards at the 8th annual Gender Odyssey national conference August 31-September 3, 2007 in Seattle, Washington.

“FTM men across America, Canada and the world are proud of the accomplishments of our dedicated members Mr. Marcus de Maria Arana, Sergeant Stephan Thorne and Shannon Price Minter, Esq.,” stated Rabbi Levi Alter, President of FTM International, spanning 21 years and 18 countries.

Marcus de Maria Arana is a Discrimination Investigator for the SF Human Rights Commission. Marcus has been an activist for gender identity rights since 1995. Marcus designed and conducted transgender cultural competency trainings for the SFPD, UCSF, the Red Cross, etc. Marcus is a Board Member of the Native American AIDS Project (NAAP) and the Native American Cultural Center (NACC), and authored the Commission report Discrimination By Omission, which documents discrimination against Native Americans in SF.

Sergeant Stephan Thorne 45, came out thirty years ago in Lincoln, Nebraska and promptly was forced out of high school. Stephan joined the SF Police Department in 1984 and transitioned on the job in 1994. Stephan has provided ongoing transgender cultural competency trainings for the SFPD.

Shannon Price Minter, Esq. and other community members succeeded in a campaign to secure equal health-care benefits for transgender SF city employees. Minter founded NCLR’s Youth Project, the first legal-advocacy group to address the needs of LGBT youth and supervises the Safe Homes Project at NCLR, which helps LGBT youth who face discrimination in foster care, group homes, or the juvenile-justice system. Shannon writes publications such as Transgender Equality: A Handbook for Activists and Policymakers, and speaks in forums, hearings, and gatherings around the country. Shannon is the Legal Director of NCLR and was lead attorney on Sharon Smith's groundbreaking wrongful death suit and has litigated many other impact cases in California and across the country. He received the Ford Foundation's "Leadership for a Changing World" award, the Anderson Prize Foundation Creating Change Award by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the distinguished national service award from GAYLAW. . . .

Tula Interviews Female Impersonators

Video: View here.

Undercover in all ways

Detective Rick Grahn dropped a bombshell on his chief: He wanted to keep his job-but not his gender

by Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Grahn, with crime scene investigator Randy Neri, looks over a crumpled check she found in a stolen Mustang at a towing storage area in Parker on Wednesday. Grahn, who was diagnosed with gender identity disorder, says that from a young age she felt she really was a woman. . . .

Emerson makes restrooms gender-neutral

Joins other schools after student pleas

By Emily A. Canal, Globe Correspondent | September 1, 2007

On the inside, a set of bathrooms at Emerson College looks like standard fare. On the outside, there are newfangled signs to ease the concerns of students who prefer not to signal that they are entering a men's or women's bathroom.

The symbols are gender-neutral, a picture of a man and a woman. In response to students' pleas, Emerson has changed the signs that used to be aimed at a specific gender on 21 restrooms in campus buildings and one of the college's two dormitories.

Emerson's changes, made in preparation for the upcoming school year, mirror moves by Tufts University and the University of Vermont, part of a small but growing number of universities modifying policies and facilities on behalf of transgender students. Several colleges have amended nondiscrimination policies to include gender identity, but student groups recently began pursuing more concrete changes, including gender-neutral housing, locker rooms, and bathrooms.

"This will bring more equal opportunities to the students of Emerson," said Jessica Ganon, a junior at Emerson who campaigned with fellow students to get the school to provide the gender-neutral bathrooms. "I am much happier that this makes life easier for others. I felt sorry for those who felt unsure of where to go." . . .

A faux, yet fo' real, star turn at Le Chat Noir

by dcuthber August 31, 2007 5:00AM
Categories: Theater

By David Cuthbert
Theater writer

Brian Peterson has been seen at Le Chat Noir as a Running with Scissors actor on several notable occasions - the passe blanc Sarah Jane in "L'Imitation of Life" and the melodramatic Mom in "The Bad Seed." He was also part of the revue celebrating the old "My-O-My" female impersonator nightclub on the West End. The latter was an inspiration for his current cabaret act, "Sadie & The Ant in ... Just Sing" at Le Chat.

Peterson is very upfront about being Peterson, a young man whose female accouterment goes back in a drawer, shelf and wig stand once the show is over. He is also an entertainer of considerable creativity whose mother used to tell him he lived "in a fantasy world -- like it was a bad thing."

Here, he gives us that fantasy, or one of them, as Sadie Shepherd, nightclub singer, with longtime accompanist Anthony "The Ant" Sears, who is, in fact, Peterson's friend of 20 years. Sadie's mother could have been one of Peterson's zaftig, gemutlich caricatures in Scissors shows. Sadie Shepherd, however, is a radiant glamour girl song stylist on the blowzy side. Think Judy Holliday with a Mamie Van Doren cotton candy coiffure.

Brian Peterson as Le Chat Noir songstress Sadie Shepherd ...and Anthony 'The Ant' Sears, her accompanist.

Peterson's Sadie has a pliant, all-purpose voice with showy moments, an eclectic repertoire that runs from the 1930s to the ¤'90s with a minimum of patter.

She gets off to a great start with Joe Raposo's "Sing," from "Sesame Street," segueing cleverly into Louis Prima's slam-bang "Sing, Sing, Sing." Sadie and Anthony duet on Irving Berlin's sassy "Sisters," ingeniously paired with Quincy Jones' insinuating "Miss Celie's Blues," with the lyric that begins,

"Sister, you've been on my mind;
Sister, we're two of a kind .¤.¤."

In a coquettish vein, she winds her way through the audience cooing "Let Me Entertain You." Sadie slyly asks Cole Porter's question "Is It The Girl or Is it the Gown?" that, given the circumstances, is pretty sophisticated stuff:

"Is it her hair that makes her so fair?
Or is it the lips you long to caress
Or is it that exquisite dress?"

Like many another cabaret artiste, Sadie has discovered Betty Hutton's raucous repertoire and dives into "Doin' It the Hard Way." From the golden age of cabaret and off-Broadway comes "Guess Who I Saw Today?" and Sondheim's hilarious "The Boy From .¤.¤. " Present-day revue is represented by "Bigger is Better" from Howard Crabtree's "When Pigs Fly." Streisand gets a two-song nod with "Soon It's Gonna Rain," from "The Fantasticks" and "On Rainy Afternoons," a Lalo Schifrin-Marilyn and Alan Bergman obscurity from the ¤'70s album "Wet." Sadie ends with a dynamite "Where You Are" from Kander & Ebb's "Kiss of the Spider Woman," which ties into the theme of fantasy. . . .

Peeking Up the Skirt of Online Sex Work

Topless and proud, Second Life escorts sidestep gender discrimination
by Bonnie Ruberg
August 31st, 2007 3:40 PM

Tonight at Dream Girls the theme is “Best in White.” Five beautiful women in flowing, white dresses dance around me. Since there are no men in this club, they laugh together, planning their outfits for tomorrow’s theme: “Best Topless.” Aside from the labels floating above their heads (“Escort”) or the details of their conversation (“Which skirt would you look better with my nipples?”), it’s impossible to tell that this is a group of online prostitutes. Or that they might not be women.

Second Life is, among other things, a world of sex. It’s also a world with its own free market economy. Put those two things together, and you get a thriving industry of sex work. One of the biggest markets in Second Life is the market for adult services. For the right number Lindens—the game’s local currency—players can choose from literally thousands of online escorts: other users who specialize in text cybersex, sexy voice chat, or even video cybering. . . .