PEACE AT LAST

November 27, 2007


HAYNE Suthon, owner of Lucky Cheng's, the downtown eatery where the waitresses started out in life as boys, has made peace with ex-husband Robert Jason. Their bitter divorce in 2000 resulted in huge lawyer fees, arrests and domestic-violence accusations. The couple, which once co-owned a production company, has reunited to make a 10-part documentary series on transsexuals to be called "Being T." "Half of them work for me," said Suthon. "One's a professional golfer. We focus on tranny chasers, too." She said that her ex was "back on his game" as a producer and that the two had made amends after dumping their divorce lawyers and speaking to each other in "a civilized manner."

LGBTs in Asia Face Criminalization

Deepali Gaur Singh

November 27, 2007

Earlier in the year a court in Pakistan jailed a same-sex couple for perjury, raising the taboo issues of homosexuality and transsexuality in the conservative society. Shumail Raj, who had undergone a couple of operations already to become a man, was accused of lying by the court as court-appointed doctors who examined Raj said he was still a woman! The sentence was subsequently suspended by the Supreme Court.

Sexuality confronts and challenges cherished notions of culture, traditional values, practices and rituals. And hence sexuality outside marriage is not recognized, sexuality of women is not seen as existing, sexual choices other than of the heterosexual variety are criminalized and transgender people marginalized. And our societies, because of these age-old structures, values and roles assigned to men and women within it, while very rarely assimilating transgender and transsexual issues. Because how do you fit ‘these people' into these traditional roles of a man and a woman? And that is why very often transgender persons, in their own lifestyles, also tend to slip into the accepted stereotypes of orthodox relationships and each person's role within it as defined by the society that rejected them in the first place.

Some Indian epics, so rich in their diverse stories, have had the space for everyone. Shikhandi was the warrior in the epic Mahabharata that no one could kill because he was ‘neither man nor woman.' And yet in many Indian films transgender people have been the subject of ridicule and buffoonery, increasingly replacing the regular targets like overweight or drunk people. And these would be seen as signs acceptance - when they become the butt of jokes in the mainstream media and entertainment. At least you are not been hidden in dark corners and spoken of in whispers!

Sexuality is inextricably linked with social exclusion. Heterosexuals constitute the sexual elite while Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual and Transgenders (LGBT), sex workers, the HIV-infected constitute the sexual pariahs, the social outcastes. And with barely any control over the environment that they live in, they face the worst kind of abuse and human rights violations imaginable. Often abandoned by their families (due to the associated stigma) or given up to be brought up by similar groups due to their ambiguous sex, they very literally start early in life to fend for themselves. Having being pushed into the peripheries of society by their own families, they often become sex workers.

The most serious problem comes when attempting to access health services, if and when they are available. Even in places where health services from the government are accessible, the abusive language and rough physical treatment coming as part of the ‘free service' -- stigmatizing behavior by the supposed care providers -- causes the biggest damage. The attitude of the service providers more often than not forces LGBT individuals to seek recourse in places where they are treated with more dignity or at least the pretense of it.

Most laws for people of alternate sexualities are archaic and continue to treat them as criminals. Hence, due to the illegal status bestowed on them not only is the cycle of exploitation and violence endless but due to the limited access to health services - more out of social ostracism as also refusal of treatment - they are forcibly pushed into back alleys for unsafe abortions and other treatments at the hands of quacks.

And in multicultural societies the laws are not just archaic but even confusing as evidenced at various symposia during the 4th Asia-Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights (4thAPCRSH) in Hyderabad, when several speakers spoke of the laws existing in their respective countries or regions. For instance, the fine on a Muslim transgender in Malaysia is much higher (anywhere between $200-$800) as opposed to $14 for a non-Muslim transgender. And it is this criminalized status that really poses the biggest threat to most people of diverse sexualities as they find themselves in situations of unprotected and potentially risky encounters - both in terms of health and laws of the state. . . .

Gulf authorities to pay for gender reassignment

27th November 2007

Gemma Pritchard


The Bahraini government has agreed to pay for a trans person to undergo gender reassignment surgery in Thailand.

According to daily English-language newspaper Gulf Daily News, 32-year old Hussain Rabie is due to fly out to Thailand on Thursday to undergo female-to-male surgery on Sunday.

Rabie, who is partially blind in his right eye, hopes to return to represent the Bahrain Disabled Sports Federation in the men's shot put and discus.

His trip to Thailand is being fully funded by the Bahrain Health Ministry and he also has a court order to protect him if he is questioned by immigration officers.

The Health Ministry will pay more than BD5,000 (�6,400) for his operation, accommodation, plane ticket, food and drink while he is there.

When he returns, his final hurdle will be the Bahraini courts, where he is battling for the right to be recognised as a man and officially change his name to Hussain.

"I am so happy that the ministry offered to pay for the operation," Rabie told Gulf Daily News yesterday.

"I was very concerned as to how I would manage - I didn't know where to get that amount from."

He said that he wrote to former Health Minister Dr Nada Haffadh asking for support, but could not believe it when the ministry responded.

"I would like to thank the ministry for their help and support."

He added: "I am still not officially Hussain, but hopefully after the operation I will get a court order stating that I am a male and then all my identity cards and passport will change and I will officially be a man."

As a result of his decision to have the operation, he has now been suspended from his job as an operator at GPIC, been shunned by peers, separated from his husband and stopped from going to the gym.

However, he said although society is slowly starting to accept his situation after he went public, people are still opposed to him having the operation.

"People are still not aware of the kind of surgery being carried out," he said.

"The community accepts homosexuals, so why are they against me?

"What they are doing is legally and religiously prohibited, but I have seen so many people who are leading a normal life and working. Everybody around them accepts them.

"I am medically unfit and I want to correct my problem."

Rabie first approached a lawyer in August 2005 and legal papers calling for him to be legally recognised as a man were filed in June last year.

He submitted medical reports from Al Khalidi Medical Centre, Jordan, Ibn Al Nafees Hospital and Shifa Al Jazeera Medical Centre, Bahrain, at two court hearings last year.

The High Civil Court also ordered for a medical report to be compiled by a Public Prosecution doctor.

That report states that he is suffering from a gender identity problem and has no female reproductive organs. . . .

Let me lead a normal life

By rasha al qahtani MANAMA A WOMAN about to embark on the rest of her life as a man has appealed to the people of Bahrain for acceptance. Bahraini Zainab Abdulhafed Rabie will leave for Thailand on Thursday for her final sex change operation. She hopes to lead a normal life as a man when she returns and has already won the support of the Bahrain government, which is paying for the surgery. The Health Ministry will pay more than BD5,000 for her operation, accommodation, plane ticket, food and drink while she is there. She has also been provided with a court order that explains her condition, which she can produce if she is stopped by immigration officers - something that has happened often in the past. When she returns, her final hurdle will be the Bahraini courts, where she is battling for the right to be recognised as a man and officially change her name to Hussain. "I am so happy that the ministry offered to pay for the operation," she told the GDN yesterday. "I was very concerned as to how I would manage - I didn't know where to get that amount from." Ms Rabie said she wrote to former Health Minister Dr Nada Haffadh asking for support, but couldn't believe it when the ministry responded. "I would like to thank the ministry for their help and support." The 33-year-old will be accompanied to Thailand by her brother and will have the operation next Sunday. She will then remain in hospital for two weeks for supervision. "After the two weeks I will have to stay in Thailand for a month-and-a-half for regular checkups," she said. "I have a court order stating my condition, which will help me at the airport and avoid confusion. "I am still not officially Hussain, but hopefully after the operation I will get a court order stating that I am a male and then all my identity cards and passport will change and I will officially be a man." Ms Rabie was born with a condition known as intersexuality, a term used to describe someone born with a reproductive or sexual anomaly, but only found out the truth when she got married at 25. She has now been suspended from her job as an operator at GPIC, been shunned by her peers, separated from her husband and stopped from going to the gym. However, she said although society is slowly starting to accept her condition after she went public, people are still opposed to her having the operation. "People are still not aware of the kind of surgery being carried out," she said. "They think that I am having a sex transfer instead of a sex correction." Before she learned the truth about herself, Zainab, who is partially blind in her right eye, represented the Bahrain Disabled Sports Federation in women's shot put and discuss. Now she is looking forward to getting back into the sport and competing against men. "I am ready for the operation and I have no fears - the result will make me very happy and hopefully let me go back to my normal life. "The community accepts homosexuals, so why are they against me? "What they are doing is legally and religiously prohibited, but I have seen so many people who are leading a normal life and working - everybody around them accepts them. "I am medically unfit and I want to correct my problem." Ms Rabie's lawyer, Faouzia Janahi, said her client was still struggling to gain acceptance. "They do not want to treat her as a male or a female, so what is she supposed to do?" "She is going to correct her sex, not change it. People should know what the two different procedures are before judging. "As for her work as an operator with GPIC, nothing has changed. She is still suspended from work and is still getting a salary. "Hopefully, after the operation, everything will fall into place and Zainab will lead a normal life." Ms Rabie knew from the age of eight that she was different from other girls, but her family never noticed anything unusual. It was not until she was 31 that she decided to seek legal advice. Zainab first approached her lawyer in August 2005 and legal papers calling for her to be legally recognised as a man were filed in June last year. She submitted 11 medical reports - from Al Khalidi Medical Centre, Jordan, and one each from Ibn Al Nafees Hospital and Shifa Al Jazeera Medical Centre, Bahrain, - at two court hearings last year. The High Civil Court also ordered for a medical report to be compiled by a Public Prosecution doctor. That report shows that she is suffering from a gender identity problem and has no female reproductive organs. It says she also has a higher percentage of male chromosomes in her body than female chromosomes, as well as "obscure external genitals". She has had a mastectomy and will travel for Thailand for her final operation.

Transsexual enlightens crowd

"I thought I was God's one mistake," said Rachel Crandall, executive director of TransGender Michigan, about her being a girl living in a boy's body. The speech took place in the Gold Room in the Bovee University Center on Monday as part of Transgender Awareness Week.



by Ian Glennie

11/28/07


Rachel Crandall is a transsexual on a mission for awareness and acceptance for all.

She made that known Monday night at the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium.

Crandall, executive director of TransGender Michigan, was born a male. She said she only identified with females since she could remember.

She used her personal experience to express the physical, mental and emotional strife transsexuals face.

"I felt like a little girl trapped in a little boy's body," she told the audience of about 30 people. "I wanted someone to understand and except me for who I was."

Crandall said being one's self is not only an issue that transsexual, bisexual and gay people face, but is an issue that everyone must come to terms with.

Her speech was part of CMU's first Transgender Awareness Week.

"It's a great step in the right direction," said Flint senior Will Calhoun. "It's bringing awareness to students that have been previously unaware of these issues."

Crandall said she was in an almost constant state of despair and depression while growing up, and spent the majority of her life crying.

"It was the feeling that you were God's one mistake," she said. "A number of times I wanted to kill myself."

She said she didn't come out as a transsexual until she was 34. Before then, she lived as a man.

Once she came out of her failed marriage to a woman, she lost her career and she admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital.

She said there was a period in her life when she would do nothing but rock back and forth in the fetal position for weeks. . . .

being transgender - MtF (. . . very good voice work, too)

Love Your Body! A Transwoman's Guide to Health & Wellness

By David Mariner

November 25, 2007


National Coalition for LGBT Health
www.lgbthealth.net

Our transwomen's bodies come in all colors, shapes and sizes, and all of us need to take care of them. However, good health care can be hard to get, due to discrimination, lack of medical clinicians who understand our needs, and lack of health insurance coverage. To keep our bodies healthy and whole, we must become informed consumers, educating our health care providers and ourselves.

HORMONE THERAPY involves taking estrogen and sometimes an anti-androgen to promote breast development, soften skin, lighten body and facial hair, decrease fat in the belly and increase fat in the hips and thighs. It is not risk-free, and you should not take estrogen without medical supervision and regular blood tests. If you are taking estrogen or considering it, keep these points in mind:

• Every transwoman's body is different ñ there is no way to predict how your body will respond to estrogen. Taking more estrogen than prescribed by your clinician will not speed up the changes you desire, and will possibly make you ill.
• After breast growth occurs, you should learn how to do a monthly Breast Self-Examination (BSE). You also should get an annual breast exam and an annual mammogram.
• If you smoke, quit, because smoking increases the risk of blood clots while taking estrogen. Blood clots can stop the blood flow within your legs, lungs, brain (stroke) or heart (heart attack), all of which can cause permanent damage, including paralysis and even death.
• If you want to become a biological parent in the future, you should consider freezing your sperm prior to starting estrogen. Estrogen lowers your sperm count and will eventually cause infertility. However, you still could make someone pregnant, especially in your first year of hormonal use. If you have penetrative sex with someone who can get pregnant, you should use condoms or some other protective barrier.
• You still should get an annual prostate exam, even if youíve had Sex Reassignment Surgery. Taking estrogen should reduce prostate problems, but there is a slight chance it may cause prostate enlargement.
• If you inject estrogen, never share your syringes with anyone. Discard used syringes immediately and safely. If you can't afford new syringes, contact your local needle exchange program.

Injecting silicone is dangerous to your health. The safest way to get your curves is still through medically supervised hormone therapy. Contact a local transgender support group for the most experienced doctors in your area, or inquire at a local gay and lesbian clinic.

SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY - If you want Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS), follow the Standards of Care of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA). Although imperfect, these guidelines still offer the best protection for patients and surgeons. After SRS, see a gynecologist for a pelvic exam once a year.

SEXUAL HEALTH - Use condoms or a protective barrier with your sex partners. If youíve engaged in unsafe sex, be sure to get tested for Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

MENTAL HEALTH - Living in an intolerant world can cause stress, anxiety and depression. A mental health therapist can really help you deal with things. Take care of your body and your mind. . . .

Intersex Children: Into the Hands of Babes

by David Mariner

November 6, 2007


By Melissa Hendricks

Reprinted with permission from the Johns Hopkins University Magazine. Visit the JHU Magazine website here.

Hopkins's William Reiner vividly remembers the child whose case made him rethink his approach to medicine.

"It was a little 7-year-old," says Reiner, "who just about tore everybody's guts out."

A urologist turned psychiatrist, Reiner had devoted his career to treating young patients born with irregular genitals. Some had ambiguous genitals--a scrotum along with a phallus that resembled a clitoris, for example. Others, though genetic males, had no penis or had an extremely rare condition called micropenis.

Physicians for several decades had recommended that children in this latter group be raised as girls--thinking based largely on pioneering work done in the 1950s and '60s at Hopkins, one of the few medical centers in the world that specialized in treating children with such disorders. Common practice in a case of a boy who lacked a penis or had a micropenis was to surgically remove the testes, construct female external genitals, and prescribe female hormones--then send the child home to be brought up as Sally or Susie. To do otherwise, it seemed, was to subject these babies to an unimaginably cruel childhood of locker room taunts and psychological pain, followed by a frustrating adulthood of sexual inadequacy.

Gender reassignment occurred in other cases too, depending on the diagnosis. But in all cases, the standard was to decide promptly whether the infant ought to be a boy or girl and then to be consistent in rearing the child as that gender (a process described in my story "Is It a Boy or a Girl?" in the November 1993 Johns Hopkins Magazine).

Reiner had wholeheartedly subscribed to this model throughout the 1970s and '80s, first as a urology resident at Hopkins and then as a urologist in private practice in central California. But over the course of his career, he had become troubled by a dearth of information on the psychological and sexual outcome of children with urogenital conditions.

In 1992, he returned to Hopkins to train as a psychiatrist and to specialize in treating patients with urogenital disorders. He now directs Hopkins's Gender Identity and Psychosexual Disorders Clinic. Recently, he concluded the first phase of an outcomes study that included 36 genetic males who had been born with a complicated birth defect that included the lack of a penis. It was during the course of the study that Reiner met the 7-year-old I'll call Kayla.

Like most of the other children in the study, Kayla had been castrated and was being raised as a girl. But she was not a happy child. Small and aggressive, she had gotten into a number of fights with her classmates. Rather than the dolls her parents gave her, she played with cars and trucks, and she had insisted that her schoolmates call her by the biblical boy's name she had chosen for herself. Eventually she had refused to go to school altogether.

Reiner gave Kayla a battery of psychological tests and found that she came out overwhelmingly male on measurements of gender-typical behaviors and self-concept. He told Kayla's parents what he had observed. After some reflection, the parents decided that their child ought to know that she had been born a boy. They asked Reiner if he would tell her.

So the next day, Reiner explained to Kayla that she had been born a boy who had no penis, so her doctors and parents had decided to raise her as a girl.

"His eyes opened about as wide as eyes could open," recalls Reiner. "He climbed into my lap and wrapped his arms around me and stayed like that."

As Reiner cradled the child in his arms, he felt as though an enormous weight had been lifted, and he himself was overcome with emotion. The child remained in his arms without moving for half an hour.

Reiner now believes children are born either boys or girls, and that no matter what happens to them, be it surgery or rearing, they remain that way. "When you work with these kids, you see that they're not making a decision," he says. "They have always known. The sense of who one is--[boy or girl]--is a crucial existential aspect of humanity. It is powerful and inborn." The absence or presence of a penis is incidental. "The most important sex organ is the brain."

Reiner now says that surgeons ought to hold off on surgically castrating patients like Kayla. Further, he suggests that the same cautious approach should perhaps apply to patients with other urogenital conditions. "One can draw inferences, but one has to do it with caution," he notes, given that having ambiguous genitals stems from myriad causes. "But if it's not life threatening, I would favor prudence." If a child has ambiguous genitals, he says, families and physicians might decide using the best medical information available whether to call them boys or girls, but wait for the child to decide whether to opt for genital surgery. . . .

Pam Bennett set to run for council again

Pam Bennett



11/20/2007

By J.C. O'Connell


Aurora | Pam Bennett, an at-large candidate for city council who missed unseating one of two incumbents this November, says she intends to start her next campaign this December for a seat on city council in 2009.

"It's one of those things I'm looking at as an option. I had a wonderful run, surprised a lot of people this time. I'm going to do it all the way (in two years)," Bennett said.

In two years, the city's other two at-large seats will be up for grabs with one incumbent - Councilman Steve Hogan - term limited.

Bennett came in third in this fall's race, within 2,400 votes in a five-way contest. She won 21 percent of the vote while Councilman Ryan Frazier received 26 percent and Councilman Brad Pierce got 25 percent of the vote. In Adams County, where Frazier lives, Bennett pulled ahead of both candidates with 24 percent of the vote.

Many spectators thought voters would be turned off by the idea of a transgender candidate, but Bennett openly talked about her experience while running on the issues of smart growth, water rates and Aurora's importance in the Front Range's future.

"We did something historic, and we're going forward now and having a good time and wanting to be a public servant," said Bennett of herself and her campaign team.

Although a few transgender candidates have been elected to offices across the United States in recent years, an openly transgender candidate has never held office in Aurora.

"Pam is absolutely a pioneer - not the first, but part of the first handful," said Mara Keisling, executive director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, an organization that does not make political endorsements.

Joanne Conte ran successfully for Arvada city council in the 1990s before she was outed as a transgender official and was subsequently defeated in her re-election bid.

Keisling described Bennett's effort as "a really good first run for a candidate."

"She didn't run as a 'trans person' but she didn't hide that fact - I think the people in Aurora really appreciated that, apparently," Keisling said.

During the campaign, none of Bennett's rivals attacked her transgender status.

"People get to see we're pretty much just like anybody else; they also see the focus and integrity it takes to survive as a transgender person," Keisling said. . . .

Two Transgender Members Quit Group

November 27, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two transgender members of the Human Rights Campaign quit Tuesday, saying the group's support of an employment nondiscrimination bill that excluded transgender workers put them "in an untenable position."

Jamison Green and Donna Rose's resignations from the Human Rights Campaign's business council are effective immediately, according to a joint letter.

"Considering recent broken promises, the lack of credibility that HRC has with the transgender community at large, and HRC's apparent lack of commitment to healing the breach it has caused, we find it impossible to maintain an effective working relationship with the organization," they said.

The House, with support from the Human Rights Campaign, earlier this month passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The measure would make it illegal for employers to make decisions about hiring, firing, promoting or paying an employee based on sexual orientation.

But it does not protect transgender workers. That term covers transsexuals, cross-dressers and others whose outward appearance does not match their gender at birth.

Supporters of the bill say it would not have passed the House if it had included transgender protection. However, many transgender activists and their supporters were furious at their exclusion from the legislation and lobbied to scrap it.

The bill is now in the Senate.

"We at HRC look forward to continuing our groundbreaking work on building support for policies that help transgender workers in corporate America," Human Rights Campaign spokesman Brad Luna said. "We wish Donna and Jamison well in their future endeavors."

Male voice pitch predicts reproductive success in hunter-gatherers

Researchers studied tribe that lives much as humans did 200,000 years ago

Deeper voice pitch predicts reproductive success in male hunter-gatherers, according to a new study from researchers with Harvard University, McMaster University and Florida State University. This is the first study to examine the correlation between voice pitch and child bearing success, and the results point to the role of voice pitch in Darwinian fitness in humans.

The study, published online this week in the journal Biology Letters, was led by Coren Apicella, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, with David Feinberg of McMaster University and Frank Marlowe of Florida State University.

“The results of this study have implications for the evolution of vocal dimorphism,” says Apicella. “While we don’t know the exact reason that these men with deeper voices have fathered more children, it may be that they have increased access to mates, begin reproducing at an earlier age or their wives have shorter inter-birth intervals because they provide more food to them.”

The anthropologists studied the reproductive patterns of the Hadza, a Tanzanian hunter-gatherer tribe that lives much the same way that human beings did 200,000 years ago. According to the Apicella, the Hadza were chosen because they provide a window to our past. The females gather berries and dig for tubers, while the males hunt animals and collect honey. Marriages are not arranged, so that men and women choose their own spouses. The Hadza are monogamous, but extra-marital affairs are common, and the divorce rate is high.

For the study, voice recordings were collected from 49 men and 52 women between the ages of 18 and 55, in nine different Hadza camps. Participants provided the names of children born to them, whether surviving or deceased, and were then recorded speaking the Swahili word for “hello” into a microphone. These vocal recordings were analyzed for fundamental frequency.

The researchers found that, controlling for age, males with lower vocal pitch had more surviving children. Lower voice pitch did not have an effect on the number of deceased children; however, men with lower voice pitch were found to have fathered more total children, leading to a greater number of surviving children.

It was previously known that women find deeper male voices more attractive, especially during the more fertile phase of their menstrual cycle, but understanding the relationship between mate preferences and fertility is difficult in most modern populations, because of the widespread use of birth control methods. The Hadza, however, do not employ birth control methods, and therefore reproductive success corresponds directly with natural fertility.

Hadza females may choose mates with deeper voices because they are perceived to be better providers, according to the researchers. Previous studies have also shown a relationship between testosterone and deeper vocal pitch, and so increased testosterone may contribute to the male’s ability to hunt. Because of their similarity to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of our ancestors, the reproductive success of the Hadza could be indicative the way that human beings evolved.

“It’s possible that vocal dimorphism has evolved over thousands of years, partly due to mate selection,” says Apicella. “Perhaps at one time, men and women’s voices were closer in pitch than they are today.”

University of Illinois: Community feels transgender care, services lacking

Specialty pills, shots necessary

By Andrea Cheng

11/27/07


McKinley Health Center is the primary source of health care for many students. McKinley patrons include those who identify themselves as transgender, and a lack of specialized care services has them concerned, said Rod Githens, graduate student and participant in a recent Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community forum.

"For transgender students, hormone treatment is very vital," Githens said. "When you're dealing with something as central to someone's well-being, it's important to get that through to your only primary source of health care."

McKinley officials have said that, though they address issues of gender identity, they do not offer specialized services for the transgender community.

The doctors hired by McKinley are all general practitioners, so no one doctor specializes in a particular field, said Dr. David Lawrance, medical director of McKinley Health Center. There have been no alterations to McKinley's health care service in the past several years, he added.

Specialized care services would include a specific area a general practitioner would not normally handle, which could range from cancer treatment to allergy treatment to hormone replacement treatment, Lawrance said.

Having specialized care services at McKinley is an issue that not only affects the transgender population, but the entire student population as well, Githens said.

McKinley doctors refer students to specialists if they are seeking or need specialized care, said Kim Rice, sexual health educator at McKinley.

McKinley providers can administer a valid prescription from a specialist, which could include hormones, Lawrance said. In the past, transgender students with a prescription have received testosterone shots or estrogen hormone pills, he added.

"We try to provide the best care possible where gender identity is concerned," Lawrance said.

Even though there are no specific services that directly address transgender students and gender identity, there are medical services applicable for everyone, which include counseling services, Lawrance said.

"In our mental health unit, psychiatrists and therapists certainly see patients that address gender identity," Rice said.

There are advocacy, education and outreach projects within the counseling services that deal with educating students on gender identity, Rice said.

In addition to promoting gender identity sensitivity, McKinley has unisex bathrooms so that transgender students will feel more comfortable, Rice said. The counseling services are now in the process of creating an educational handout on gender identity, soon available on the Web.

"The transgender student population is a pretty small segment," Githens said. "It's a sensitive issue." . . .

Transgender student elected king

FTM chest surgery healing year

View video here

Boys must be boys – for all our sakes

November 18, 2007

Our uptight, risk-averse world is denying boys the outlets they need to grow up into civilised, successful adults, writes Sue Palmer

Ryan was eight when he tried to kill himself. He saved up his Ritalin tablets until there seemed to be enough for an overdose, then knocked them back and waited to die. Later, after he had been very sick, his mum asked why he had done it. “Because I’m too naughty,” he said. “I’m just a nuisance to everyone.”

Ryan is constantly in trouble at school and at home. He has been diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), a “developmental disorder” involving problems with concentration and self-control. ADHD did not exist as a medical condition until 40 years ago but is now thought to affect about 5% of the population. The vast majority of sufferers are male.

Last year I published a book called Toxic Childhood, looking for reasons behind recorded increases in children’s behavioural and learning difficulties over the past 20 or so years. I concluded that rapid social and cultural change – junk food, poor sleeping patterns, a screen-based lifestyle, marketing pressures, family upheavals – were interfering with healthy development.

It was clear from my research that behavioural and learning difficulties hit boys hardest. Educationally, for instance, many now fall at the first fence and never recover: boys are three times as likely as girls to need extra help with reading at primary school, and by the time they reach GCSE they trail behind in almost every subject on the curriculum. Indeed, less than a century after women’s emancipation, female students significantly outnumber male ones at British universities.

Behavioural disorders such as ADHD are about four times more likely to affect boys and so are the emotional, behavioural and mental health problems that, according to the British Medical Association, now beset 10-20% of our children and teenagers. As these sorts of problems in teenage boys all too often lead to school failure, disaffection and antisocial behaviour, there are powerful reasons for trying to solve them.

So I’m now researching another book to find out why the modern world seems particularly toxic for boys. It’s already clear that the sort of behaviour we require from our offspring in an uptight, urban, risk-averse and increasingly bureaucratic society comes far less naturally to infant males than to their sisters.

Take the “naughtiness” that is wrecking life for Ryan and those around him. There have always been naughty boys, but in the past the activities of scamps, scrumpers and scallywags were usually shrugged off as high spirits. Fictional rascals, like Huck Finn and William Brown, clearly viewed themselves as heroes, not suicidal victims.

The big difference between Ryan’s miserable existence and that of youngsters in the past is that, until the end of the 20th century, much of boys’ boisterous behaviour went unnoticed and unrestrained by adults. There was time, space and freedom for lads to run off steam. Even when shades of the prison house did close around the growing boy, the time at the edges of the school or working day was still his own and the local woods and hills were his natural habitat.

This is not simply a case of “blue-remembered hills” – the tendency of adults to romanticise childhood. There have, of course, been periods in the past when children were mercilessly exploited and probably had little time or energy to play, but most historical accounts of boyhood, even recent urban ones, involve a degree of freedom to roam that seems unthinkable today. . . .

A Cover Girl Who’s Simply Himself

From left, Lenox Fontaine for The New York TImes; Neil Rasmus/Patrick McMullan; Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

AROUND THE TOWN From far left: Andre J. attending a party in his honor at Runway; posing with Malik Sterling, a regular on the Manhattan social scene, at an event for Patrick McMullan’s book “Glamour Girls” in September; at a party in April.

by Guy Trebay

25 November 2007

WHAT follows is, in brief (well, not so brief), the curious tale of how a handsome black man who can also look an awful lot like a beautiful black woman, except with better legs than most and a beard, happened to end up on the November cover of French Vogue.

David X. Prutting/Patrick McMullan

THAT SMILE, THAT HAIR Think of Andre J. as rolling out his own stage every day.

The time was summer 2007. The man, who goes by the name Andre J., and who was born Andre Johnson 28 years ago in Newark, and who is a sometime party promoter and former perfume salesclerk at Lord & Taylor and former publicist at Patricia Field’s boutique and current downtown personage (an “It” person, as he was termed in Paper magazine), was running out of his apartment on Thompson Street in the Village for lunch.

It was a hot day. On this particular scorcher, Andre J. had chosen to stay cool in a neon green caftan and gold gladiator sandals. His hair, which, pulled taut, measures 24 inches in length and which he usually wears in a bouffant nimbus that gives him the appearance, as a magazine stylist recently remarked, of “a big Afro-daisy,” was dressed that day in a 1970s Wet & Wild style and covered in a enormous white turban à la Nina Simone.

This was not an unusual grab-a-sandwich ensemble, as Andre J. is quick to point out. “That’s me every day, honey,” Andre J. said on Friday, right before a party at a club called Runway to honor his election to the elite cover girl sorority, Gallic chapter.

“Most people are conditioned to think of a black man looking a certain way,” Andre J. went on. “They only think of the ethnic man in XXX jeans and Timberlands, and here Andre J. comes along with a pair of hot shorts and a caftan or maybe flip-flops or cowboy boots or a high, high heel.”

And so, Andre J. was running out for a sandwich and who should he bump into but Joe McKenna, the stylist who is the secret weapon behind the success of many, many very celebrated designers? Mr. McKenna was on the phone at the time. The person on the other end was Bruce Weber, the celebrated photographer of, among other things, dreamily homoerotic calendar art for Abercrombie & Fitch.

When Mr. McKenna spotted Andre J., he immediately put Mr. Weber on hold. Mr. McKenna then called out to Andre J., whom he had met before and had once suggested for a V magazine pictorial photographed by Vinoodh Matadin and Inez van Lamsweerde.

“Andre,” said Mr. McKenna, “you look amazing!”

ACTUALLY, he did not say it in quite that way. It happens that the adjective “amazing,” pronounced with a bunch of superfluous vowels, is how fashion types, and also certain urban gay men and also one or two tuned-in heterosexual copycats, lately express their approval. Amazing has replaced such locutions as “genius” and “major,” which today sound even more old-hat than “fabulous.” . . .

Becoming a man

Nick Mwaluko

November 20, 2007

I grew up in a rural Tanzanian village with no electricity. We couldn't go to school unless we fetched water from the river, milked cows, let them graze for the day. Our chores reminded us that we were disciplined but poor so school was a privilege. School took place in the late afternoon, children of all ages sat under a tree into the early evening learning lessons that had little if any relevance to our daily lives. My father could not afford the mandatory uniform so every year I went to school for three weeks in the semester until the teacher dismissed me.

I didn't care; well, I did but I didn't let it show. I hated poverty; I hated its limitations. Stupid me because all around were golden fields of wild savannah, the sun set against the plains.

In those days, I knew I wanted to live as a man so I walked with my shoulders hunched so my chest was hidden deep into my back. My father scolded me, thinking I was ashamed because we were so poor. He told me to take pride in what little we had so that future blessings would shower our lives in the next life, if not this one.

I was never ashamed of him, ever. I loved him deeply. He was all I cared about but there was no room to say such things to your father. Respect meant little or no eye contact; speak only when spoken to; measure your words carefully with pointed, brief answers. One side-glance from my father ensured all pretense was lost: I straightened my back, held my head high, chest forward, hoping some day he might respect me, too, maybe even love me as a man in much the same way I loved him for being one.

Then the voice of God came to me, reassuring me that I'm already a man. But by nine my chest betrayed me and, more importantly, betrayed (my) God. By 13, my whole body was in revolution. Blood came between my legs once a month; little hills spurted into huge mountains on my chest. I couldn't afford a razor so I shaved my chin with dry leaves. Still, very little hair grew and the hair that did was faint, wispy compared to the mane on my father's handsome face. My sisters -- over six feet tall and less than one hundred pounds -- were all arms and long legs with little or no hips. I looked more like my brother: short, stubby, limbs stunted by family standards with no sign of future growth besides a slight bump from a permanent potbelly. Worse: boys walked barefoot until twenty-five to make sure their sisters wore sandals, "Jesus slippers" we called them in my language because they opened at the mouth. The slippers were an aphrodisiac to showcase the streamlined beauty of a woman's feet; they made me wear them.

Enough was enough. Rather than go to the edge of the village to consult with the witchdoctor -- a spiritual mediator between this world and the next -- I broke with tradition, going directly to my mother's grave for answers. I figured my body was going crazy because she was jealous that I looked nothing like her. My large chest, high-pitched voice, smooth delicate skin was her violent attempt to embarrass me into womanhood. So I waited. Nothing: stillness at her grave. So I asked my other ancestors. What did they do? Send a torrential downpour of such magnitude that I thought about wearing a dress for months. . . .

Neigbour made life a drag

June Jones



Jean Cowan

22/11/2007


A DRAG queen has told how he suffered months of abuse from a `neighbour from hell'.

June Jones repeatedly swore and shouted homophobic abuse at Martin Prescott after learning he was gay and worked as a professional female impersonator. Mr Prescott, 40, who works under the name Miss Martell, could not take any more after five months of verbal abuse and vandalism.

He complained to the council and police in Wigan, who took action against his next-door neighbour. Jones, 56, of Higher Ince, admitted `pursuing a course of conduct amounting to the harassment' of Mr Prescott between June 4 and October 3. She appeared before Wigan magistrates.

Mr Prescott urged other people suffering homophobic abuse or anti-social behaviour not to feel that they have to suffer in silence.

He said: "She is THE neighbour from hell. I have lived here for five years and the abuse started the day I moved in. She asked me if I was married and I told her I was gay.

"She immediately started shouting abuse at me and it has gone on ever since."

Lucy Ashton, prosecuting, said Jones had verbally abused Mr Prescott and made homophobic remarks to him on numerous occasions. She swore at him in the street.

The most recent incident occurred on October 2 when Mr Prescott was at home.

Abuse

He heard Jones shouting and swearing in the street outside and decided to go out in his car. But she jumped in front of the vehicle, preventing him from driving away and hurled abuse at him.

Mr Prescott called police. Jones was arrested after each incident, but each time she was interviewed by police she claimed she could not remember what she had said or done because she had been drunk.

Mr Prescott had described how he had put up with similar abuse for years but the situation got worse in recent months.

The court heard Jones had a previous conviction for making hoax 999 calls last year and had also received a conditional discharge for wasting police time.

Miss Ashton asked the court to impose a restraining order preventing her from further harassing Mr Prescott.

Mr Craig Parkinson, defending, said Jones had difficulties looking after herself and this was exacerbated by her drinking. She had been intoxicated when she committed each offence.

Sentencing was adjourned until December 6 - and Jones was remanded on conditional bail.

Mr Prescott, who has been a professional female impersonator at clubs for 20 years, said: "I ignored her at first, but she has been relentless." . . .

What it means. . .

Queen Emily

21 November 2007


I was reading Bint Alshamsa's blog, and she said recently that “The truth is, I can't know exactly what being transgendered means unless I make more of an effort to seek out and listen to the voices of transgendered people. Otherwise, I'm just doing the same thing as those who deem it appropriate to speak on behalf of people like me without ever taking into consideration what I have to say about my experiences.."

Now normally I find it frustrating to asked what it means to be transgendered, but this wasn’t really directed at anyone, and was framed in a different way, one predicated on reciprocity. Often cis people demand an answer, but since that very question is steeped in privilege, don’t really hear your answer anyway. All of which is to say that I choose to answer the implicit ethical call in bint's post, and to in turn listen to her tell her stories on her blog.

So, to state the obvious, there’s no one meaning to being transgendered. I imagine my experiences will be rather different to, say, Lisa’s, Nix’s, Little Light’s, Nexy’s (some of those minor things like age, nationality, sexual history, sexual identity, gender). So here’s part of what it means for me to be transgendered. Now I don’t identify as transsexual. I think it’s bound up certain kinds of essentialist thinking that don’t really work for me, and I’m not so invested in notions of authenticity or naturalness. A lot of the time I fumble around for words to try to explain, because “trapped in the wrong body” is an easily understood narrative, but it just doesn’t work for me. I think Julia Serano’s notion of “gender dissonance” is much better, that idea that my subconscious gender and the one I was born with don’t match up. So I could explain by saying that I’m a genderqueer trans woman, but that’s just a way of saying that there’s something that doesn’t fit with me, a sense of tension with regard to masculinity.

But I’m not under the illusion that wearing dresses or whatever equals being a woman (I think that assumption underlies a lot of rad-fem transphobia.. oh those poor MtFs, they actually think that's what being a woman is about). Let’s just think of femaleness as having a greater range of possibilities for gendered expression that work for me. I do consider myself female, or sometimes becoming-female, but I’m not sure I can ultimately grasp any gender as being properly real (I’m not sure if that makes any sense to anyone else besides me). Femme is as solid an identity for me as I’m going to get right now, maybe that will change after a couple years of transition.

So being transgendered means for me, I think, to be radically disconnected in a number of ways. If there’s always a thread of gender non-normativity or dysphoria, when I look back at my earlier life as a boy it seems strangely disconnected from the present. I am very early in my transition physically, but have been out for a number of years. And gender is cut across interestingly with sexuality with me—I have identified variously as a heterosexual boy (if a rubbish one), a bisexual boy, a mostly male-desiring queer boy, a queer third gender, and finally a queer girl who predominantly desires women. All of that has had an important impact on how I—and even more so, other people—see myself and my gender presentation. A lot of people seemed to think that I am transitioning so that I could be a straight woman, as though it were a natural extension of my queer sexuality (heterosexist logic, that). When yeah, I don’t like straight blokes AT ALL.

Then there’s the bodily disconnection. I don’t like talking about it much cos it’s such a trans cliché, but sometimes the sheer maleness of the body I was born with makes me sick to my stomach. Most of the time it’s not so bad, it just feels wrong. I don’t hate my body, I just want it to be different. But yeah, every so often. Not so blasé.

And yeah, obviously the social disconnection. Your relationships with family and friends get more fraught. I have been lucky enough that my family hasn’t disowned me, and some extended family have been supportive, but it’s… tense… with my parents. And it’s amazing that some liberal (feminist, queer) friends who were quite fine with my being not-male suddenly got weird about me transitioning. Clearly being genderqueer equated to “unorthodox queer man” in their heads.

Then there’s the day-to-day minefield of social interaction. Ignoring the whole shitty general public for this post (I’m sick of talking about what bastards random strangers are to me), there’s a disconnection with people you know. When people who’ve known forever call me by my male name or by male pronouns, I don’t like it. I don’t make a big deal about it, because I know how hard it is to change that instinctive naming and gendering people do in their heads, but it’s not fun. And some people, even people who think they’re being supportive, just don’t even try, and that hurts.

And the thing is, with all this talk of disconnection, I think transitioning for me is about connection. It’s not some humanist project of becoming a whole person or whatever (is anyone? Is that even possible?), but it is about making some of the bits fit together better.

Ok that’s enough for now, I might write some more on this topic some other time.

Eunuch creating AIDS awareness within her community

Shalini

Nov 26, 2007


New Delhi: According to the latest UN figures, nearly 2.5 million men and women in India are HIV+. But these figures have overlooked transgender people.

"When I walk on the road, I don't want to be seen just as a eunuch. But I want an identity of my own," says Muskaan.

A 24-year-old transgender and a graduate in Economics, Muskaan like many others of her samaj always leads a life in isolation.

"We can't live everywhere because the society doesn't let us. What can we do? And we even if we are literate, we don’t get jobs," she says.

But the last few months have been different. Muskaan has been roped in to work with Naaz foundation to create awareness about HIV and AIDS in her community.

"In my community not everybody is aware. So through this project I am trying to spread awareness so that nobody gets affected," says she.

Today, 2.5 million Indians are reported to be affected with HIV or AIDS, but experts feel that the numbers that go unreported are far more.

"There is no count as such that so many number of transgender people are effected and so many from other communities but its prevalent everywhere so they are at risk,” says Project Manager, Naaz, Sumit Dutta.

Muskaan is now training to make a film to promote the use of condoms. While the project is going to last another month or two, she hopes to achieve much more.

"What I really want to do is try and bridge the gap. I'd ask people to talk to us frankly and we'll talk frankly too. We are not bad people. Please don't force us. We want to co exist in the society. So please help us," says Muskaan.

With people like Muskaan coming forward to bridge the gap and create awareness, there's no reason why we shouldn't do the same. And if you find it difficult to fight the apprehensions, just ask yourself does the virus know how to differentiate when it strikes? The answer would be not really. . . .