Monday, November 05, 2007
Transsexual host breaks TV taboo
November 3, 2007
When Ramesh Venkatesan realised that he wanted to be a woman as a teenager he was too ashamed to tell his family and friends.
He even pretended to be in love with a girl at his college in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.
Today, aged 28, he not only wears a sari and make-up openly in the street, but next month he will become the first transsexual host of an Indian television programme.
Using his female identity, Rose, he will anchor a Saturday evening talk show addressing sexual and other traditionally taboo issues on Star Vijay, a popular Tamil television channel.
“I want to set an example,” Mr Venkatesan, who plans to undergo sex reassignment in Thailand in the next few months, told The Times. “The transgender community here is totally disempowered. It is very closeted and doesn’t integrate at all. I wanted to join mainstream society.”
His show, called Ippadiku Rose (Yours Rose), is a sign of how Indian economic growth and integration with the West are slowly breaking down social taboos.
Transsexuals have been part of Indian society for hundreds of years and traditionally sing and dance for money at weddings and birthday parties. Though many still perform this way, declining demand and higher living costs have driven them to begging and sex work in recent years.
Mr Venkatesan, who comes from a middle-class family in Madras, said that he had no desire to live such a life. Knowing that his father, a property dealer, would disapprove, he suppressed his identity to complete his education at engineering college. When he went to do a masters degree in the US and his parents started looking for a wife for him, he came out.
“My mother broke down in tears and couldn’t handle it for a long time,” he said. When he returned to India in 2004 his father threw him out of the home but eventually allowed him to return. He can now wear women’s trousers, but not saris, at home. Dressed as a man, he found work as an American-accent coach at a call centre but later became a freelance software engineer so that he could work from home in women’s clothes.
Mr Venkatesan’s ambition, however, was to work in the media, and he approached several television stations with his talk-show idea. The first two laughed him off, but the third, Star Vijay, embraced the concept.
“We were planning a late-night talk show and Rose just walked into our office. We were really impressed,” Pradeep Milroy Peter, the channel’s head of programming, said.
Star Vijay is watched by more than 60 million people in Tamil Nadu and is available all around India as well as in the US and Singapore.
“We want to push the envelope, but we don’t want to go overboard,” Mr Peter said. “India is still very conservative. We have cryogenics and space rockets, but are still discussing whether to have sex education in schools.” . . .
Man raised as girl tells of life as a wife
November 5, 2007Photo: Reuters
With his wrestler's build and deep voice, it is hard to believe that Hussein Rabei could ever be mistaken for a woman, but in the Middle East cultural norms can blind people to the glaringly obvious.
Formerly known as Zaineb, 33-year-old Rabei was raised as a girl after being born with genitalia that more closely resembled a vagina than a penis. Arab culture and its rigid views on gender meant doctors ignored growing signs that Rabei may in fact be male, he said.
"When I married, my husband used to say, 'It's funny, but when I'm with you it feels like I'm with one of the guys, not my wife,"' said Rabei, who is now divorced.
Rabei returned recently from an operation in Thailand to correct his gender -- a procedure for which he obtained consent from both Sunni and Shi'ite clerics.
He is the first Bahraini to go public with news of such an operation, his lawyer said. It triggered a flood of media coverage and condemnation from many of his fellow Bahrainis for what they see as a procedure forbidden by Islam.
Most Muslim scholars say changing one's sex is forbidden unless it is related to an intersex condition such as Rabei's.
His is one of a range of relatively rare conditions in which there is a mismatch between the body's sexual genetic code and its physical make up. Instead of having two X chromosomes -- the female pattern -- he has an XY or male configuration.
This is a complex issue that Rabei said much of Arab and Islamic society was not yet ready for.
"I want to talk, to educate society that this is an illness, not a sexual perversity ... many aren't listening," he said.
Although Iran permits sex-changes, homosexuality is punishable by death in Iran and by imprisonment and lashings in other Middle Eastern countries, highlighting rigid adherence to perceived gender norms.
A champion shot-putter and discus-thrower, Rabei has photos of himself as a woman towering over other female competitors, which prompted sporting authorities to raid his home looking for performance-enhancing drugs.
But his build was not enough to prompt doctors to entertain the idea that he was not a woman.
"Every time I went to hospital, they told me I was a woman," he said, adding doctors routinely failed to diagnose a lack of internal female reproductive organs. Staff at one clinic laughed when he went for tests to determine his genetic sex.
Doctors instead prescribed pills to induce menstruation and suggested an operation to open the hymen when Rabei could not consummate "her" marriage.
Not all those with intersex conditions are unhappy with their assigned gender, but Rabei was.
"It's Arab society, that's all I can say, with its customs and traditions. A man's a man and a woman's a woman," Rabei said.
Rabei turned to a foreign clinic, which found he was genetically male and lacked a female reproductive system.
Rabei's lawyer, who is fighting to have his sex and name changed on official documents, said her work was not easy.
"People have been attacking me personally, asking me why I encourage sex correction. According to them, this is haram, or forbidden in Islamic and Arab society," Fouzia Janahi said.
Rabei's employers have demanded his resignation and psychiatrists have declined to counsel him for life as a man.
"I'm not saying I'm not under intense pressure, but as long as what I'm doing is right medically, religiously and legally, I don't care what people say," he said. "Praise God, I feel like I'm a man, I feel like I'm myself." . . .
POV, Critique, Opinion: Little Boy Pink
"Declan, fix your tiara, it's slipping."
"Declan, lift up your dress, you'll slip on the tafetta."
"Declan, stop fidgeting, the nail polish will smudge."
As the mother of two boys, I thought that I'd never have to worry about Polly Pockets or learning how to French braid. But soon after my son Declan turned two, he ran up to me with a hopeful look on his face and said, "I want to dress up as a ballerina!"
It was inevitable; since we moved in with my sister, Declan's constant playmates are his cousins Erika, six, and Hilary, four. They're not just girls, they're girly-girls: Cinderella-loving, skirt-wearing, icky-bug-hating princesses. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised.
Declan has always been quirky. Soon after his younger brother was born, Declan hiked up his shirt and tried to breast-feed a baby doll. Just before he turned two, he started wearing socks on his hands; this evolved into a love of wearing gloves, which in turn became a love of wearing one glove (note to friends: enough with the Michael Jackson jokes). I don't even get embarrassed any more when we have guests over and Declan runs through the house naked, shouting, "Look at my penis!" So when he wanted to be a ballerina, I figured it was just par for the course. That first night, Declan ended up in a white leotard and black tights, and he and his cousins put on a marvelous ballet. But then at some point girly outfits just became his regular clothes.
Declan's certainly not the first little boy to find comfort in crinoline; it seems that everyone knows someone with a little boy who likes to play dress-up (mostly those with a big sis who likes to do the same). One friend introduced me to Tema, whose four-and-a-half-year-old son Adin began dressing up in his big sister's princess outfits when he was three. She took it in stride. "[We] thought it was incredibly cute and funny and wonderful that he was being interactive with his big sister," she says. "We think it's a natural phase of childhood and do not feel the need to discourage it." Adin's dress-up interests changed as he grew up, and now he is as likely to dress as Scooby Doo or a Power Ranger as a princess.
Whether because of his closeness with his girly cousins or due to some inner aesthetic, Declan has always shown a preference for the pretty. When I showed Declan a shoe catalog that came in the mail, he picked out the white Mary Janes with giant purple flowers. When I took him to buy sheets for his big boy bed, he picked out a pink set. And there's no place he'd rather be than by my side in the kitchen, helping decorate sugar cookies.
I've wondered if this means Declan is gay or will be a cross-dresser when he gets older, or if he will come out down the road as transgendered. But experts say probably not. "Some boys will be more interested than others in dressing up as feminine characters," says Dr. Robert Lindeman, a pediatrician in Natick, Massachusetts, when I ask. "This does not mean that they suffer from gender confusion."
According to Dr. Lindeman, Declan isn't expressing his innate sexuality when he puts on his cousin's Tinkerbell costume, he is simply playing with facts. "Little boys in the preschool years are starting to learn about gender differences," he explains. "To them, the differences are merely facts. When children 'cross-dress,' they are merely having fun with this new fact they've learned. If their parents laugh, it reinforces their sense that they're being funny."
And at our house, we do laugh. A little boy in a fuschia off-the-shoulder ball gown is funny. Everyone looks when Declan descends the staircase holding up the edge of his dress so he doesn't trip. He loves to be the center of attention. (His most oft-used phrase these days is, "Mommy, look!") And when Declan is dressed as Snow White, everyone is looking.
Which is fine for now. Declan still doesn't have any real friends, and the girls he plays with (his cousins and their friends) love to help him get dolled up. But I hope he'll have friends soon. What will the other boys think of the pink ruffles?
Dr. Lindeman tells me I've got plenty of time before peer pressure hits. "This occurs much later than most parents think," he says, "often not until age eight or nine." Until then, it's okay to set some boundaries on dress-up. "Most parents have decided that children should attend kindergarten in gender-appropriate clothes," explains Dr. Lindeman. "There are things a child can do at home that he shouldn't do at school, like put his hand down his pants or pick his nose at the table." Or wear a purple flowered tutu over striped fleece footy pajamas.
According to Dr. Lindeman, "the greater danger is from causing the children to become frightened of their game without knowing why they should be frightened."
Declan in drag has become a fairly frequent occurrence in our house, and we try not to draw too much attention to it or even talk about it; after all, if we make a big deal of it, Declan will come to think of it as a big deal. But one day his cousin Erika teased him: "You're dressed like a girl!" Declan replied indignantly, "No, I'm not!" This inspired the following conversation over dinner (when he was wearing the aforementioned fuschia off-the-shoulder ball gown):
My sister, Amy: Declan, what are you dressed as?
Declan: A ballerina.
Amy: But not a girl ballerina?
Declan: No.
In Declan's mind, he's not dressing like a girl; he's just wearing clothes he likes. What could possibly be wrong with that?
That's the philosophy Tema has maintained through two years of her son playing dress-up. "We encourage his creativity and love that he feels good doing it," she says. And her husband, Doug? "He certainly gets a good laugh out of his sturdy son wearing a pink princess dress."
When a little boy dresses like a little girl, "he is merely having fun," says Dr. Lindeman. "I recommend that parents try to have fun, too."
Fun with a boy in a dress? I can do that. When Declan puts on his tutu and starts pirouetting, I put on the classical music and grab my video camera. I can't wait to play it at his wedding (even if on the big day, he's still the one in the dress).
POV, Critique, Opinion: Kindergarten Cross-Dressing
4 December 2006
Well, I didn't think much could top adults in NYC being able to adopt their gender based on their feelings. But it looks like 5-year-olds in Oakland, Ca., are now being encouraged to cross-dress. Yes, that's right...boys donning pigtails and pink jumpers, if they feel so inclined. The same goes for girls who have a hankering for sporting boyish bobs and clothing.
The worst part...some psychologists are encouraging children at this young age to "be who they are," by cross-dressing in public.
This is outrageous considering the conclusions of a 30-year-study by Dr. Kenneth Zucker, head of the gender-identity service at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Canada.
Zucker, a psychologist, has worked with about 500 young children who have shown tendencies toward wanting to live as the opposite sex, also known in the field as "gender variant." He has discovered that 80 percent of these young children end up growing out of the behavior, while 15-20 percent continue to show anxiety about their gender.
There's no denying that homosexuality is mysterious, and for those struggling with it, the feelings are powerful and confusing. But this growing trend among parents to let their kindergartners cross-dress is the product of a culture that refuses to set and stand by rules (what five-year-old gets to tell his parents what he is going to wear to school?)
And why are we now taking advantage of our children in this way? Many homosexual adults are fighting to be accepted no matter how they feel or behave. Now our toddlers are learning they can act whatever way they want, based on their feelings?
Moreover, with an 80 percent chance of growing out this behavior, what cross-dressing five-year-old boy is going to grow up and say, "Hey, Mom and Dad. THANK YOU so much for letting me wear that princess dress and tiara to school!" It seems looking back on those school photos would cause a good deal of pain and resentment later in life.
It's time for parents across this country to take a stand. Don't let your five-year-old rule over you! Children look up to their parents to guide them and lead them. They need direction. Fathers, spend quality time with your sons. Mothers, teach your daughters how to embrace and celebrate femininity. Together, encourage your child to be happy with the gender God made him or her to be. This is a positive principle that has healthy benefits no matter your religious beliefs.
Finally, remember children are highly impressionable, so immediately stop your children from emulating any behavior or wearing any clothing that isn't consistent with his or her gender. That's obviously not going to remedy all feelings in all children. Children who grow up with homosexual feelings will need counseling, unconditional love, and God's strength to fight temptation. But what they don't need is to be confused even more by adults dressing them up as drag queens on the school playground. . . .
See Comments.
Pushing the transsexual envelope
Hartford Courant
By now, Entertainment Weekly reports this week, 61 percent of college freshmen, who grew up with Will & Grace, approve of gay marriage. The finding in the national poll is up 10 percentage points from a decade ago.
A turn around the dial will bring you gay story lines in daytime soap operas, same-sex dating on MTV shows like Next and A Shot of Love With Tila Tequila, and prominent gay characters on ABC's Brothers & Sisters and several cable shows — FX's Nip/Tuck, HBO's The Wire and Showtime's The L Word.
Suspected of being gay is no longer the guaranteed laugh it was on TV anymore, even on macho shows like Two and a Half Men. And characters like George on Grey's Anatomy or Barney on How I Met Your Mother can be credible as virtual Lotharios, even though they are played by gay men.
Some surprises
No, to add shock to TV shows in 2007, writers have turned to transsexuals.How surprising was it last season on Ugly Betty when Alex, the long-lost brother of Mode magazine editor-in-chief Daniel Mead, returned as Alexis, who was not only a woman but also a woman who looks like Rebecca Romijn (exactly like her, as it turned out)?
A story line over the summer on Entourage involved Johnny Drama trying to get in good with the mayor of Beverly Hills by hooking him up with what appeared to be a beautiful woman at a trendy bar. Her pre-op secret was revealed in one of those skirt flash shots the paparazzi so love. But the mayor (Stephen Tobolowsky) decided he liked his exotic new acquaintance, anyway.
Another politician on a TV series who decided to stick with his transsexual is William Baldwin's Patrick Darling on ABC's Dirty Sexy Money. Although a married New York state attorney general running for U.S. Senate, he is determined to continue his illicit relationship with Carmelita, despite entreaties from his family lawyer.
Carmelita, a sultry blonde with a very low voice, is notable because she might be broadcast TV's first recurring transsexual character who actually is played by a transsexual.
Other shows
She is played by Candis Cayne, whose previous credits include Wigstock: The Movie, To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar and an episode of CSI: New York.A transsexual story line also occurs early on another new ABC series, Big Shots, in which divorced cosmetics CEO Duncan Collinsworth, played by Dylan McDermott, hooks up with a transsexual prostitute at a rest stop — a tryst that threatens his career when the story gets out.
A more normal depiction of a transsexual life comes as a small part of the FX series The Riches, about a family of grifters, whose youngest son prefers to dress in women's clothes.
Even as more daytime talk shows take a more serious look at transsexuals, including an October episode of Oprah Winfrey, some in the transgender community are not encouraged by TV's tendency to depict transsexual women, especially those of color, as prostitutes. The only transsexual women who so far escape that profession are white.
But on There's Something About Miriam, an imported BBC series on the Fox Reality cable channel, a group of men vie for the affections of a Mexican woman. According to Fox Reality, the show involves "six eligible men, one beautiful model named Miriam and an enormous secret reveal you never saw coming."
Miriam speaks out
But in this season of transsexuals, of course you saw it coming.And if you didn't, it was revealed in the premiere (shown, oddly, on Halloween, following the announcement of a winner on The Search for the Next Elvira).
"I'm not a real woman. I wasn't born as a girl, I was born as a man. I'm a transsexual," Miriam says with about 10 minutes left in the first episode. "I see myself as a girl because I've been living about half my life the way I am living now.
"I don't have any operation. I'm totally natural, this is me."
A doctor from Spain is then interviewed, so he can say, "I can confirm that she has got masculine genitals."
"I see myself as a girl, so basically I like straight guys," Miriam says. The guys won't find out until the final episode.
When There's Something About Miriam first aired in the United Kingdom in 2004, it was called "the cruelest reality-show idea yet."
Filed suit
Its participants sued the show for conspiracy to commit sexual assault, defamation, breach of contract and personal injury in the form of psychological and emotional damage.The cases were settled out of court, and the show since has been shown in Australia and Poland. Still, it is perhaps understandable that the cast refuses to do interviews related to the show's U.S. debut.
Mara Keisling, executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, has said, "It's just natural that as there are more trans people visible in public; that's going to be reflected in popular culture."
Some take offense
But with its emergence come terms that are offensive to the community, from "she-male" to "tranny."And conservative watchdog groups are against it altogether.
Christopher Gildemeister, in the TV Trends column for the Parents Television Council, says ABC has an "apparent fetish for transsexuals" in a season where "bizarre forms of sex are being emphasized to a much greater degree on television than ever before." . . .
Sex changes put on police agenda
by Emma Stone
POLICE chiefs in Coventry are to get new guidelines on how to deal with officers who are going through a sex change.
West Midlands Police has plans to improve its policy relating to members of staff going through the sex change process and how it treats transsexual officers and civilian staff.
The current guidance used by managers in the force - which includes advice on dealing with the likely press interest, how to refer to individuals after surgery and how their pensions are affected - has been discussed by members of the Police Authority.
Members of the authority - the body that holds the force to account - asked the force to show them its current policy, so it can be discussed as part of the personnel committee's next meeting.
A transsexual is a person who believes that he or she belongs to the gender opposite to the gender they were born.
Having guidelines relating to transsexual and transvestite members of staff is now a must as part of sex discrimination regulations.
West Midlands Police diversity officer Emily Smith explained that the force's policy was unlikely to remain the same and would have to evolve.
She said: "We are trying to make sure that there is no discrimination in the ranks and that managers have an understanding of it - it is not something a lot of people know a lot about. We are looking at introducing a question in the staff data review, asking if the gender you identify with is the same as your birth gender.
"There is a lot of consultation planned before any of the changes are made.
"Transsexualism doesn't occur that often but it has done in the past and we have to be prepared to handle it in an appropriate and sensitive manner." . . .
Sunday, November 04, 2007
AAP: Androgen Insensitivity Does Not Mean Immediate Surgery
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
November 02, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 -- Many patients with the intersex syndrome of complete androgen insensitivity can safely delay gonadectomy and vaginal reconstruction at least until late adolescence, suggests a long-term study.
- Explain to interested patients that this study found that people with the intersex syndrome of complete androgen insensitivity can safely delay decisions about orchiectomy and vaginal reconstruction.
- This study was published as an abstract and presented orally at a conference. These data and conclusions should be considered to be preliminary as they have not yet been reviewed and published in a peer-reviewed publication.
Of 27 patients who underwent gonadectomy, 20 had the procedure in late adolescence or early adulthood, and seven had surgery in childhood, Todd Purves, M.D., of Johns Hopkins reported at the American Academy of Pediatrics meeting here. None of the surgical specimens demonstrated evidence of malignancy.
Additionally, 11 patients have had vaginal reconstruction, 10 procedures performed after puberty. Seven of the 10 postpubertal patients who had vaginoplasty are sexually active, as are 12 of 15 who decided not to have the surgery.
"A woman who has a vaginal depth of two or four centimeters won't be able to have sexual intercourse, but that finding and that decision [about surgery] can be made at age 19," Dr. Purves said in an interview. "The decision can't be made at age two or three or four."
"One of the bottom-line findings of this study is that if a physician sees a two- or three-year-old child with this condition, it would be inaccurate, inappropriate, and wrong to tell the parents 'Your child is going to need vaginal surgery,'" he added. "That is incorrect. Not all of these patients need surgery."
Much of the debate about caring for patients with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome centers on the need for, and the timing, of gonadectomy and vaginal reconstruction or dilation, Dr. Purves noted. For patients who have surgery, the principal issue becomes timing: Should the surgery be done before or after puberty?
The testes are not necessary for development after puberty, but patients with the syndrome face a risk of malignant transformation of 2% to 5% per year after age 25. Additionally, some patients and parents are advised that surgery will be required for normal sexual functioning.
Complete androgen insensitivity syndrome occurs in two to five of every 100,000 live male births, according to the National Institutes of Health. Those with the condition have XY sex-determination chromosomes of males, but because their body does not respond to androgen, they may develop female characteristics, including sexual characteristics. . . .
The travails of the third gender
Karachi
Bindiya, a member of the Hijra (Eunich) community, won the hearts of a jam-packed audience at The Second Floor on Saturday night with her witty responses during the question-answer session after the screening of a documentary on her life entitled, ëBindiya Chamki Gií.
The 24-minute documentary was a short narrative on the lifestyle and challenges encountered by the Hijra community [also known as Khwaja Siras] in Karachi and Pakistan in general. Through the documentary, Bindiya highlighted the harassment they face at every step. ìBe it public buses or
public toilets, we are harassed by both men and women. We donít even know where to stand in public queues; the women say we should be with men, when we join the menís queue they tease us and ask us to join the women,î shared Bindiya during her interview with Ragini Kidvai, Director/Producer of the documentary.
Ragini, through her documentary, tried to draw peopleís attention towards this important segment of the population, whose rights are conveniently being ignored by the government. From the issuance of NICs to the provision of jobs, the presence of a third gender has still not been acknowledged by the state, she complained. Ragini informed that the Hijras can be classified
into three types - transsexuals, transgenders and crossgenders - and that most of the doctors are unable to determine the right gender at the time of birth.
In the documentary, Bindiya disclosed that her parents could not determine that she belonged to the third gender until she was old enough. “I had other brothers and sisters but could not relate to either of them. When I found out about Hijras I starting hanging out with them and realised this is where I belong and then abandoned my family to stay with other Hijras. However, I am still in touch with my family,” she said.
Bindiya said that the Khwaja Siras, would willingly accept jobs if offered by the government or the private sector. ìWe deserve as much respect and recognition as any other citizen of the country,î said Bindiya. . . .
Japan sex-change parents can't change records: court
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Supreme Court has denied pleas from two people with gender identity disorders to change their sex in government household records, their legal adviser said on Monday.
Masami Osako, 51, and Sayaka Morimura, 47, had wanted to have their registered sex switched to female from male after undergoing sex-change operations.
But both were denied the move under a law that says people who have children cannot change their sex on the household registry. Osako and Morimura each have a child with wives they had divorced before their sex changes.
Lawyer Toshiyuki Oshima, who advised the two separate cases, said he now planned to urge politicians to change the conditions under which transsexuals can change their records.
"Now that the Supreme Court has denied the change, we now have grounds to ask lawmakers to revise the law so that people with children can also have their registry changed," Oshima said by telephone.
Under a law in place since 2004, people diagnosed with gender identity disorder can change their sex in Japan's detailed household registry system, but under several conditions, including that they are unmarried and have no children.
More than 570 people succeeded in changing their registered sex under the law up until the end of 2006, Oshima said. Eight have been denied the change, all because they had children.
The Supreme Court ruled that allowing a registry change for someone with a child would "add confusion to family discipline and would possibly cause problems for the child's welfare." . . .
Efforts to 'cure' gays draw protests
29 October 2007
29 October 2007
The long-raging debate over efforts by some religious and psychological groups to "cure" homosexuals is flaring anew this weekend on two battlegrounds: at a conference in Irving and at a Barack Obama campaign concert in South Carolina.
Several dozen people demonstrated Saturday outside the DFW Airport Marriott, where the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality is holding its annual conference. Members are discussing research in conversion therapy: therapy to suppress homosexual desires.
Protesters are also expected to stage a vigil today in Columbia, S.C., where a gospel outreach concert is being held to help Obama's efforts to reach out to black voters in the pivotal South Carolina primary. At issue is one of the event's featured stars: Grammy-winning gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, who has said he believes that homosexuality is a choice, one he was able to break loose from with the power of prayer.
The message from the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender groups protesting at both events is that homosexuality needs no cure because it is not an illness and that attempts to convert gays to a straight lifestyle are based on quack science.
The views of the therapy association and McClurkin "are patently absurd, unscientific and have no basis in fact," said Wayne Besen, an author and political organizer who helped arrange Saturday's protest.
Besen also helped spark the national controversy over Obama's concert by publicly challenging the Illinois senator to disavow McClurkin. . . .
Born Again
October 31, 2007
Clinton Edwards’ journey to womanhood.
It’s her hands that will always give her away.
Strong and broad and coarse with wide nail beds, they’re folded daintily across her lap, fidgeting and smoothing the fabric of her tan skirt. She doesn’t try to hide her hands. Doesn’t dress them up. No nail polish. No French manicure.
Just hands.
They are Clinton Edwards’ hands. They are also Nova Edwards’ hands.
Those hands had been used to hide things. They helped Clinton hide Nova. Tried to cover up all the little things that might have given her away. That might have revealed her true nature to the world, to her family, to the people that both she — and he — love.
Now they’re a reminder of Clinton and his sometimes painful past, but they’re nothing that Nova needs to hide from any more.
“My first memories of my life are of me identifying as a little girl,” says Nova, who stopped hiding from herself about three years ago. That’s when she began the rocky transition from a full-grown man — with a life and a woman who loves him — to the woman that she hopes soon to be.
She says she’s a much happier person than she was living Clinton’s lie, but there are some things from Clinton’s life that Nova doesn’t want to lose. Such as “Elizabeth,” Clinton’s girlfriend of 17 years, the woman who might have been his wife if life had turned out differently. The woman Nova still hopes might have a change of heart.
“I don’t want to say goodbye, because when I do, she’s not going to want to see me and she’ll consider me dead,” Nova says softly while sipping coffee in a booth at Perly’s on Franklin Street near her apartment.
Clinton and Elizabeth got together in 1990, when both of them were students at Virginia Commonwealth University. Clinton was 22 and had discovered only four years earlier as a freshman with unfettered access to a university library that there was a name for the way he’d felt all his life.
He told Elizabeth everything about his secret. He told her that at 19, he’d nearly begun the process of gender reassignment, but had held back for the sake of his mother.
Elizabeth didn’t like the truth, but she accepted him. Although Clinton wanted to be a woman, he was still sexually attracted to women — and to Elizabeth. They could make it work.
Now, their solid friendship is months — maybe days — away from the end.
While Nova gets closer and closer to the day that her transition from male to female will be complete, Elizabeth can no longer accept Nova as part of her relationship with Clinton.
And Nova can no longer accept Clinton.
Once bottled up inside Clinton, Nova is as honest as can be about who she is. She is a transgender woman — a T-girl, a TG woman — who as a man came to the decision to accept her true nature as a woman lost in a man’s body.
She’s not unique, but whether her condition is part of the natural range of human sexuality or the manifestation of perverted thoughts or a personality defect remains a public debate.
While the debate continues, so does the social stigma. It’s much more complicated, and less accepted, than being gay in today’s society. To want to change your sex is something else. Jobs are lost. Families are lost. Friends are lost. Few can — or want — to understand. Psychiatry still views transgenderism as a disease, classifying it as an aberration and recommending treatments in its official literature.
People like Nova often gather the courage to make the transition to living as women late in their lives, long after their duties and social ties have become well-established. It’s ironic that courage comes only with time, when an earlier transition might have made for a simpler reintegration into society as a woman. Hormones can do a lot for a teenager not yet fully endowed with the masculine traits of a middle-age man.
Often the decision to risk losing girlfriends, wives, children and extended families is one of desperation. Living for decades in a body they feel is not theirs and trying to play the role in society assigned by their gender, the transgendered desperately seek a way out. Years of depression — of contemplating or attempting suicide, or sometimes just the simple inability to continue in a lie — eventually take a toll.
Some transgender women commit suicide; various medical community statistics put suicide rates among TG women as high as 25 percent. That’s regardless of whether they are still living as men, are beginning a new life as something between man and woman, or have made the full transition to surgically achieved womanhood. . . .
Never mind the reassign
>> For Toronto’s the Cliks, queer and
transgender politics take a backseat to rock
CROSSOVER POTENTIAL: The Cliks
by ANDREA ZANIN
Toronto-based rockers the Cliks have attracted quite a lot of attention this year. Their music has been compared to the White Stripes and David Bowie, and their major-label debut album, Snakehouse, was released in April by Warner in Canada and Tommy Boy in the U.S. This summer, the Cliks played several cities with Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors tour, and now they’re making a few stops in Canada before heading off to open on the Cult’s U.S. tour.
It should come as no surprise that an all-queer band with a female-to-male transgender frontman, the charismatic Lucas Silveira, would have a distinctly queer fan base. But the labels are betting that the foursome (with bassist Jen Benton, drummer Morgan Doctor and guitarist Nina Martinez) has crossover potential, and Silveira has high hopes as well.
“All I know is that we’re creating music,” he says. “To be good, it should be universal. The kind of stuff I write about is particular to the human spirit as opposed to a community or a politic of people.”
Silveira is happy to embrace his pop roots. “I’m not underground. I grew up listening to pop rock and mainstream rock music, so of course the music I create would be of that genre.”
Much has been made of Silveira’s transgender status—the Toronto Star described him as “on the verge of becoming the first transgendered pop heartthrob ever to register on mainstream radar,” and he’s been told he’s the first trans male to be signed to a major label.
“Everyone has a story,” he says. “This just happens to be my story and I happen to be a songwriter. I’m visible because it’s important to talk about these things. But I walk around thinking about music, not gender.”
Musically speaking, however, a gender change is more than an interesting factoid. A typical female-to-male transition involves using testosterone to help develop masculine physical traits—including a deeper voice, which can take several years to mature. For a singer, that’s no small consideration, especially since Silveira’s transition began just as the band was embarking on the upward spiral of success.
As with everything else, though, Silveira has made some unusual choices—he’s opted out of taking hormones. “I decided right at the beginning about the effects it would have on my voice, and I just couldn’t take the risk,” he explains. “Having a moustache would have been nice but it’s not worth losing my voice. It’s carried me throughout my life. I felt sorry for myself at first but because of this, I was sort of forced to start thinking about gender a little differently.”
He did have a double mastectomy—top surgery—“so that’s made me feel a lot more comfortable with my body. But I don’t necessarily need to have a beard or a deep voice to consider myself a transgender male.”
Silveira wrote the album while going through an intense period in his life, and that certainly comes through in the music. “It’s a strong album not just musically but because it’s about going to the deepest, darkest places inside yourself and coming out and finding hope and strength that you never thought you had,” he says. “But if people just want to dance around and say, ‘Yeah, it’s hot, that’s a great song’—well, that’s fine too.” . . .
Thailand's secret history
About 2,000 books, magazines, photo albums, video tapes, movie and audio CDs relating to homosexuals fill the small room that is the country's only library dedicated to documenting the local gay community. Called the Thai Queer Resource Centre (TQRC), it was founded by Australian scholar Assoc Prof Peter Jackson with the aim of preventing the history and voice of the Thai GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) community from erosion by the state.
''No official library in Thailand is collecting this material. Also, the police are out to destroy them. It's therefore essential that the Thai GLBT community, and researchers such as myself work together to save these important records of Thai queer history,'' explained Jackson, senior fellow in Thai history at the Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies.
There is a lot of interest among Thai university students in conducting research on Thailand's gay, lesbian and transgendered community, he said, but the authorities view material that reflects the lives of the Thai GLBT community as immoral and illegal, which must be destroyed. So there is no place where students or researchers can find such historical records.
Hence his effort to set up the Thai Queer Resources Centre to collect as many publications as possible before the police and ill-informed government policies lead to them being destroyed.
The Thaksin administration's social order campaigns, for example, severely affected gay publishing in Thailand, with police raiding magazine and book shops, even second-hand bookshops, to confiscate gay magazines.
''If private citizens, academics and Thai gay organisations do not work together now, then the negative attitudes of Thai bureaucrats and the police may mean that vital historical records will disappear forever in this country,'' he pointed out.
''To understand the real lives and situations of the Thai gay, lesbian and transgendered communities, it is necessary to read what they say about themselves and their own lives,'' he said.
''This material forms an excellent record of how Thai gays, lesbians and transgendered people have lived their lives in Thailand over the past few decades amid so many negative and misinformed stereotypes of gays, lesbians and transgender people in the Thai press and media.''
Thai GLBT magazines have been written and published by people from these communities, for readers who are gay, lesbian and transgendered. They include short stories and novels, biographies and autobiographies and movie reviews.
Jackson himself has his own academic collection in Australia, now kept at the Australian National University. It will eventually be transferred to the National Library of Australia. To him, it is important that a similar collection also be established in Thailand.
He started collecting Thai magazines and books on gay, lesbian and transgender issues in Thailand on his first research visit to Thailand in 1982.
''I now have about 300 Thai-language books, and about 2,000 Thai gay magazines, which have been published since the early 1980s. I think I probably have the largest collection of Thai-language publications on gay, lesbian and transgender issues in the world,'' he said proudly. . . .
Saturday, November 03, 2007
Running of the drag queens
by Aya Mueller
11/1/07
Men dressed as Audrey Hepburn, Pocahontas and other famous females were on full display Tuesday night at the annual high heel race in Dupont Circle.
Hundreds of spectators - including D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty - gathered to see men dressed in drag sporting high heels running through the streets. More than 100 drag queens hurled the short stretch between JR's Bar and Grille and Trio Restaurant, vying for the grand prize of a $50 bar tab at JR's, the de facto organizer of the race.
The event is a famed pre-Halloween social gathering that unites the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups, along with anyone else who cares to join.
"I think every neighborhood needs something like this," said Mike Wilson, 30, a first time volunteer at the event. "You get thousands of people out on the street having fun in the middle of the week. It's just one of those events that can bring the community together."
The first onlookers arrived around 6 p.m., quickly crowding bars and sidewalks and then competing for spots in the front row. Meanwhile, contestants - headed by a mixed-gender team of cheerleaders - flaunted their costumes under flashing cameras.
"The High Heel Race makes absolutely no money," said David Perruzza, the general manager of JR's. "We buy a tent, we pay to clean up the street, and we buy the volunteer T-shirts. We end up in the hole because we pay for all the stuff."
At 9 p.m., police cautioned everybody "who is not wearing heels" to get out of the way. Then the race began, covering 100 yards and lasting roughly 90 seconds. While the front 50 or so sprinted, the latter half merely paraded in front of the cheering crowds.
The race was won by a contestant under the alias "Chlamydia Parker, Duchess of Gloryhole," dressed in a yellow wig flowery dress and sunglasses. Her costume was relatively tame compared to many of her compatriots.
"They really enjoy it," said Pina Perruzza, volunteer and mother of David Perruzza. "Some of them start making their costumes as early as a year in advance. Nobody has been hurt since my son took it over, 12 years ago. Nobody has ever been hurt, actually."
The intricate and gaudy costumes included Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), pants down, being pushed on a mobile toilet; a walking Obelisk; and an authentic looking Lady Diana complete with bodyguards.
What started out two decades ago as a friendly challenge between a few drag queens drinking at JR's to run down the street, down a shot, and return, is now a tradition.
"I've been here in D.C. for 12 years and my first year I came to the High Heel Race and thought it was really fun," said Lorraine, an onlooker who did not want to disclose her last name. She has she has returned multiple times since.
Fenty, who also attended last year's race, joined the jovial festivities shaking hands and bowing to the queens.
"The reason I like it," Lorraine said, "is because it's something that going on in D.C. that is not repressed and boring."
Transsexual fights for her lesbian rights
A TRANSGENDER psychotherapist has taken a gay association to an equal opportunities tribunal, alleging she was discriminated against by being refused entry to a lesbian event.
Tracie O'Keefe, of Sydney, said she requested an invitation to a South Australian event organised by lesbian support group Sappho's Party.
The group has a policy of excluding transgender people from its workshops, camps and social events because it only supports lesbians who were born female.
Ms O'Keefe said she was refused an invitation and told the event, in the Adelaide Hills in January 2006, was exclusive to lesbians raised female from birth.
"I sent an email to them saying that I would like to go and they sent me an email back saying it would not be appropriate for me to attend," Ms O'Keefe said.
Ms O'Keefe has taken the issue to the South Australian Equal Opportunity Tribunal, which part-heard the matter last month.
One of the event's organisers, Stacey McCaig, reportedly told the tribunal that Sappho's Party was strictly for lesbian women who were raised as females from birth.
The tribunal also reportedly heard organisers did not want Ms O'Keefe to attend because her presence would affect "intimacy, level of trust and discussion".
Ms O'Keefe, who wants an apology, started living as a woman 35 years ago, at the age of 15, and has had gender reassignment surgery.
"It was offensive," she said. " I've lived in a lesbian relationship for 14 years with the same woman. I don't get discriminated against in any other part of the gay community."
The matter has been adjourned to December 19.
California public school cancels 'gender-switch day'
Officials at a California public school have cancelled a cross-dressing day, following a slew of parental complaints.
Recently, students at Adams Middle School in Brentwood were encouraged to dress like the opposite sex during the last day of the school's "Spirit Week." The mother of a seventh-grade student found out about the activity and contacted the principal to express her concerns. The mother was told she could keep her son at home if she did not want him participating in the event.
She then contacted the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) -- which counseled concerned parents and advised them on how to communicate with the school. The school canceled the event, and instead encouraged students to wear their school colors on the Friday of "Spirit Week."
PJI president Brad Dacus says the school did the right thing. "The only purpose that seemed to be involved with this event was for the sensitivity and tolerance of cross dressers, transsexuals, [and] transvestites. That's what the school was trying to push on these young girls and boys at junior-high age," says Dacus. He says this is also a good example of what parents and individuals can do when they stand up for what is right.
In a conversation with a PJI staff attorney, the school's principal says he wanted to encourage students to be "free thinkers," but that the community did not grasp the intent of the "gender switch day."
TheStar.com
Q: I'm 24 and have been in a relationship with a guy for four years. I discovered 18 months ago that he has a deep, dark secret: he wishes he had been born a girl.
I was the first person he ever told this to, but he's felt this desire since he was a child.
He hates the idea of sex-change surgery and also realizes he'd have to tell everyone, which would affect his social world. He's been seeing a doctor and has decided to dress as a girl at home and occasionally go out as one.
I hang out with him acting as a guy, and usually he'll stay dressed as a guy. I'm having a hard time deciding what to do because I really love being with him but feel very uncomfortable with this whole thing.
How can I deal with this? I don't want to have to leave him only because of it.
Torn
A: This is a transition period for your guy, which is going to require a lot more of his time and effort to find his own comfort level. He'll want to explore his gender identity further than this quick decision about cross-dressing and should ask his doctor for referral to a gender identity clinic for assessment.
But for your comfort level, you're going to have to decide, soon, how far your friendship or your relationship goes. He's confided in you and trusts you. You could continue to be his closest pal and support him through the process of self-discovery, but if you feel too awkward to stay a couple, say so.
Meanwhile, you both need more information, such as that most cross-dressers are heterosexual and only dress as the other sex part-time, for various reasons including pleasure or relief of stress.
Q: What's up with women and shoes? My fiancée has about 40 pairs and is always shopping for more. Is this a sign of insecurity, or is she a shopaholic I shouldn't marry because she'll make me go broke?
Four-Pair Guy
A: Everyone to their own retail therapy – and if you're into stereotypes, there are plenty of guys who can't resist a DIY store. For shoe-lovers, women and men alike, shoes are the key style statement, from "cool," to "funky" and more.
If your fiancée can afford this indulgence, it's her business. If not, better discuss future finances along with marriage plans.
Tip of the Day In relationships, pushy equals needy and is usually a big turnoff.
