Changes

A brief pictorial history on coming to terms with being transexual, spanning from 1998 to the present day.

Trans-masculine

23 January 2008

The female-to-male transgender experience is possibly the most misunderstood.

Where transgender women (transsexuals in the old parlance) have occupied the media spotlight for decades, less has been written about trans men. The trannie party scene from the film Transamerica (2005) comes to mind. “We walk among you …” says a robust gent, explaining how transgender guys blend into society.

Blending in or ‘passing’ eventually surfaces in discussions around transitioning. No problems there for Jeremy Wiggins (he prefers to be called Jez). As the pictures in the Transmen Translated exhibition reveal and certainly over the phone, there is little indication of Jez’s female past. Just your average guy, albeit queer identified.

But the road to realising your true gender identity is not without obstacles. For starters there are binders, effectively a corset to flatten the chest.

Jez says they are a ‘hassle’ and can be quite painful.
”Many guys want to go to the gym and increase their muscle mass to make the physique more masculine,” he says. “So any sort of physical exercise combined with trying to also hide that you don’t have a flat chest is really difficult and alienating.”

Jez’s symbolic binder burning episode is documented on video in the Transmen Translated exhibition. . . .

Bereavement: A guide for Transsexual, Transgender people and their loved ones

January 23, 2008 by sjennings29

Bereavement: A guide for Transsexual, Transgender people and their loved ones, 2007, Department of Health

This booklet has been produced to assist bereaved trans people or friends, or the family of a trans person who has died. There have been recent legal changes regarding gender recognition for legal purposes as well as obligations to protect the privacy of trans people. These impact on the obtaining and
security of details of trans people in the circumstances where either they have died, or when dealing with the death of a family member. . . .

Sex change op success for woman

By RASHA AL QAHTANI

A BAHRAINI woman, who has successfully undergone sex change surgery in Thailand, has been declared a man by doctors in Bangkok.

Zainab Abdulhafed Rabie is now hoping to clear the final hurdle through the courts, where she is battling for the right to be recognised as a male and her name changed to Hussain.

Her lawyer Fouzia Janahi presented a medical report to Bahrain's High Civil Court last month and the case has been adjourned until February 14 for the legal medical officer to give his judgement.

Zainab, 34, underwent an eight-hour sex change operation at Yanhee Hospital, Bangkok, in December last year.

The procedure was paid for by the Bahrain government, which gave BD5,000 to cover her operation, accommodation, plane ticket and food.

She was also provided with a court order explaining her condition, which she can produce if she was stopped by immigration officers on her way home.

Zainab had already undergone a mastectomy and her lawyer said the medical report certifies that Zainab is a man. . . .

Sports, sex – it's all academic

CSUS prof dives into manly world of talk radio, writes book about it

By Blair Anthony Robertson

January 22, 2008


David Nylund spent the better part of four years researching his book on the phenomenon of sports talk radio, tuning in so much it became part of his life. He woke to it. He drove around with it. It was on when he went to sleep.

Needless to say, Nylund's marriage ended before his field work.

One of the main points in the 190-page book, "Beer, Babes, and Balls," is that sports radio is the one place where men can still be men. If some men are confused about the appropriate way to express their masculinity, radio is the so-called "third place" besides work and home.

"There is this real community where men get together. Talking about sports is really intimate for men and some women. It is very connecting, but it can be very exclusionary if you're not into sports," Nylund said.

Research included eating his share of hot wings and guzzling beer. He went to sports bars often enough that everybody knew his name. He even dated one of the bartenders.

To those he interviewed, such as Isaac Clark III, Nylund seemed like "just a regular guy. I remember him saying he was writing a book and I said, 'Yeah right, whatever.' "

But Nylund, 47, is anything but regular – and would seem to be unlikely to author a sports book.

For one, he is a feminist scholar with a doctorate in cultural studies. For another, one facet of his profession sees him counseling those considering a sex change operation.

"I traffic in these very contradictory sites," said Nylund, a professor of social work at California State University, Sacramento. He is also clinical supervisor for the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center.

Growing up, Nylund did not play the traditional team sports. He excelled at tennis and was a scratch golfer or, as he calls them, feminized sports. . . .

Interview with Margaret Cho

by Josh Rotter


While some women find their beauty fading as they approach 40, award-winning comedienne Margaret Cho has only just begun to feel beautiful -- at 39.

Raised in San Francisco by Korean parents (her father is a joke-writer) and neighboring drag queens, Margaret Cho was never the "All-American Girl," according to her 1999 one-woman show-turned record-breaking concert film and best-selling book "I'm The One That I Want." In fact, on this and subsequent tours: "Notorious C.H.O." (2001), "Revolution" (2003) "Assassin" (2005) and "The Sensuous Woman" (2006), Cho's personal struggles with racial identity, queerness and distorted body image are gravely evident in her humorous routines.

Set to formally announce the spring launch of "Beautiful," her new one-woman show, on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on Jan. 23, a newly confident Cho has graciously given Gay.com a sneak peak of the tour in an exclusive interview, where she discusses the secret to and importance of feeling beautiful inside and out -- especially if you're queer. . . .

Trail blazer

by Laura Kiritsy

Jan 24, 2008


Diego Sanchez, the director of public relations and external affairs at AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, will have a hand in shaping the Democratic Party platform that will be adopted at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August. Sanchez’s appointment to the Platform Committee marks the first time a transgender person has been nominated to a convention committee by a Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman, a post currently held by Howard Dean.

Sanchez said he is "truly humbled" by the appointment. He is among seven members of the LGBT community -- a record number -- who were nominated by Dean to serve on the 2008 Democratic National Convention Standing Committees, which include the Platform Committee, the Credentials Committee and the Rules Committee. . . .

Trans-HRC schism widens

by Ethan Jacobs

Jan 24, 2008


Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), came out swinging against the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) during her Jan. 17 speech at the First Event transgender conference at the Boston Marriott Peabody. Speaking to a small audience of about 12 people during a town-hall-style meeting, Keisling accused HRC of undermining the coalition of organizations working to pass a trans-inclusive version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) last fall. HRC has come under fire from some LGBT activists for supporting an ENDA bill in the House of Representatives that only offers protections based on sexual orientation. First Event, organized by the Tiffany Club of New England, is the region’s largest transgender conference.

Keisling told attendees that while HRC joined other LGBT organizations last October in publicly opposing the sexual orientation-only version of ENDA, its lobbyists were working behind the scenes to ramp up support for the bill. Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass) stripped out gender identity language from ENDA in September after House leadership warned that there were not enough votes to prevent Republicans from sinking a trans-inclusive bill through a procedural motion. On Oct. 2 HRC announced that it would not support the sexual orientation-only version of ENDA, yet it was one of the only national LGBT organizations not to sign onto United ENDA, a coalition that went a step further and urged Congress to vote against any ENDA bill that did not protect transgender people. . . .

Unclassifiable Musician Baby Dee Is Now 'Safe'

By Christian Bordal

January 2008

Day to Day, January 22, 2008 - There have been many wild and wooly characters in the history of rock and pop music, but none wilder or woollier than a transsexual artist named Baby Dee. Her unusual life and career have led to her latest record — Safe Inside the Day.

Dee launched her musical career as a harpist in New York's Central Park in a bear costume. She says, "I just had this fuzzy picture in my mind of something sort of festive playing a harp. I don't know, it just sort of came to me."

She was a street performer, but Dee also studied music seriously and was so obsessed with Gregorian chant and the Renaissance that her conducting teacher suggested that she learn to play the organ and get a job in a church. Dee thought that was sensible advice. She'd been playing religious music for years, but the idea of working in a church had never occurred to her. "Within weeks of him saying that, I had a big job up in the South Bronx that became what I thought would be my life's work," she says.

What eventually changed Dee's mind about her life's work at the church was her sexuality. Dee is a transsexual, and after years of living what she says was a life of pretense as a man, she finally made the decision to become a woman. . . .

Trapped inside the wrong body

Al Martinez

21 January 2008


There is a place between reality and make-believe where strangers dwell. They are unable to fully integrate into a world of clear definitions but equally unwilling to pretend that they are something they are not. It's in that gray and lonely place that Meredith lives.

She's a transsexual, and although she says she is comfortable with who she is, the loneliness can become unbearable, because she exists on the fringes of a culture that still considers humans trapped in the wrong bodies as freaks.

Meredith isn't her real name, but I will respect her desire for anonymity. She was born a boy, but sensed from an early age that the true person within her, the one she wanted to be, was a girl. She identified with the Sallys around her, not the Michaels.

She has e-mailed me for years, urging me to publicize the plight of those often arrested by the police and beaten by thugs for very little reason, other than the clothes they wear, the manners they assume and the gender lines they cross. She became more persistent in her demand for attention when Times sportswriter Mike Penner courageously announced in print that he was transsexual and would reemerge as Christine Daniels. . . .

Donna Rose: My Trans-America - Part 3

Over Nov. 1-4, 2007 I traveled across country from Rochester NY to Washington DC to Phoenix AZ. This is Day 3 (1200 mile drive starting in Little Rock AR and ending in Douglas AZ) and Day 4 (240 mile drive to Chandler, AZ). It covers Arkansas, Oklahoma, northern Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona - a diverse landscape changing from hills, to flatlands, to desert, to mountains.

Status of Transgender Life in Canada

In response to some comments from curious folk regarding my article, “Transbigotry?” I thought I’d chronicle a bit about the current situation in Canada.

Hate Crimes Protection and Human Rights

Hate crimes protection exists somewhat unofficially in places, but combined with crimes against GLB folk, resulting in a situation in which there are often no statistics that can be sifted through specific to us. “Sexual orientation” was added to the Criminal Code in 2004, but at that time, the NDP motion (tabled by Svend Robinson) left transgender folks behind.

“Gender Identity” and “Gender Expression,” however, are not included in any Human Rights Charter in Canada, except in the Northwest Territories (NWT – and this inclusion was more fluke than anything, and has not been tested to my knowledge). In practice, however, human rights of transpeople vary based on different court rulings, in which inclusion is sometimes made based on alternate bases of “gender / sex” or “disability” (from the classification in the DSM-IV).

Employment

Protection in employment is governed by court rulings (which is also the same process by which Canadians acquired the right to same-sex marriage). In Alberta, there was a victory based on a read-in protection under “sex,” and this ruling has influenced some cases in other Provinces. I may be wrong, but I believe that Saskatchewan and Ontario have protective rulings, and likely other provinces as well. In B.C. however, in the case of Kimberly Nixon vs. Rape Relief, the provincial Supreme Court ruled that Rape Relief had the ability to discriminate with regard to Nixon volunteering, and noted among other things that transgender people are not specifically protected in the Human Rights Charter. This note may have been meant to draw attention to this fact and call for it to be addressed in a subsequent appeal, but when the case went to the Supreme Court of Canada, the court refused to hear it. Consequently, that the B.C. court ruling stands. . . .

~ by dentedbluemercedes on January 20, 2008.

‘Cross-dressing alien to Kuwaiti society’

January 2008


KUWAIT : A leading Islamist member of parliament hit back on Sunday at human rights group
“The law criminalising people who imitate the appearance of the opposite sex must be implemented and respected,” said Faisal al-Muslim, who heads a parliamentary committee monitoring “practices alien to Kuwaiti society.”

“Kuwait should ignore any international criticism in this respect. We call on Human Rights Watch to adopt the Kuwaiti law in dealing with such cases,” in the United States, Muslim told reporters.

The New York-based watchdog urged Kuwaiti authorities on Friday to release from prison 14 men jailed in recent months for having dressed as women in public, describing a law passed by parliament as “repressive.”

It quoted friends of the prisoners as saying the men were being subjected to “physical and psychological abuse”, including beatings, and that none had access to legal representation. . . .

Transsexual trucker 'forced from job'

January 22, 2008

A transsexual truck driver was humiliated and forced out of a job when he started to dress as a woman, a tribunal heard yesterday.

Vikki-Marie Gaynor – who changed her name from Mike – said colleagues branded her a 'queer' and taunted her after she began to live as a woman full-time. . . .

Baptist seminary refuses to change diploma for grad who changed gender

17 January 2008

Bruce Tomaso

The Rev. Ronnie Elrod graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1998.

Now he's a she, and she wants her name changed on her diploma.

The school, not surprisingly, refused.

It will, however, re-issue the diploma with just her middle initial, which is "E," instead of her full name, which used to be Ronnie Eugene Elrod. Elrod now goes by her new middle name, which is "Elise." . . .

Taking a look at the transgender community in N.H.

January 20, 2008

By ASHLEY SMITH, Telegraph Staff


In the months ahead, The Telegraph will introduce its readers to people who say they’ve shared the same life-defining urge to live as the opposite sex – eventually revealing the secret to the shock of those around them: parents, friends and family, co-workers.

This was a community rarely mentioned in New Hampshire – at least publicly – before last year, when Dr. Jennifer Madden, of Nashua, decided to use her medical expertise to take on the Statehouse, fighting for the rights of all transsexuals in the state.

Until this week, New Hampshire was considering legislation that would have made it the first state to require insurance companies to cover the cost of hormones for people transitioning from one gender to another. Not even Madden thought the bill would make it past subcommittee. . . .

Transgender youth: Advocates say students need more safeguards

By CHLOE JOHNSON

January 20, 2008


Transgender youth need more protections in schools, advocates and parents say.

Children who express a gender identity opposite of their outward appearance often are bullied. But those who repress their identities because they don't feel safe are at a high risk of suicide, according to advocates.

One Seacoast parent whose child came out as transgender in high school said he and his wife struggled over how to keep their daughter from harm.

"We want our child to be alive," he said, "not suicidal or a hate crime victim."

The parent asked not be named to protect his daughter's identity.

Transgender is an umbrella term used to describe people who don't fully identify with their apparent birth gender or who were born with intersexed conditions. It can include people ranging from transsexuals who live as the opposite sex or have been surgically reassigned, to someone who cross-dresses occasionally.

The student, now 19, was teased about what other students perceived as effeminate characteristics and for trying out for female parts in plays before transitioning. After she learned how to formally describe her situation in ninth grade and came out, the teasing escalated into harassment and physical threatening, her father said. . . .

Terms to know

January 20, 2008


CROSS-DRESSER: A person who dresses in clothing culturally associated with the other sex.

DRAG QUEEN/DRAG KING: Biological males and females who present occasionally as members of the opposite sex, generally for
entertainment.

FTM: An acronym that stands for female-to-male, or, the direction in which a person is transitioning. MTF stands for male-to-female transition.

GENDER: Generally defined as a set of sociologically and culturally constructed roles, behaviors, practices and attributes that a society considers appropriate for men and women. There are many definitions of gender.

SEX: Classification of people as male or female based on biological characteristics, such as chromosomes, hormones, reproductive organs and genitals.

GENDER EXPRESSION: The external display of a person’s gender identity, usually expressed through masculine or feminine behavior.

GENDER IDENTITY: A person’s internal, personal sense of being a man, woman, transgender or other.

GENDER IDENTITY DISORDER: A controversial psychological diagnosis that can be given to transgender people, which identifies the incongruence between the person’s biological sex and their gender identity. Some contend the diagnosis inappropriately characterizes the condition as abnormal. Others say they country’s health-care system needs such a label to justify medical or psychological treatment. . . .

Turkey: transsexuals take to the stage to defend their rights

January 20, 2008

ANKARA (AFP) — A unique play in an Ankara theatre ended with a standing ovation this week as the little-known actors -- transsexuals and gays raising their voice against discrimination -- fought back their tears on stage.

Their play, "Pink And Grey," put the spotlight on the plight of transsexuals in mainly Muslim Turkey, in the latest initiative of a fledgling but increasingly vocal movement for rights by a community long ostracized and often harassed.

Beaming with pride and excitement, the amateur stars, male-to-female transsexuals Derya Tunc and Sera Can, received congratulations in the boisterous backstage, taking a welcome respite from their actual jobs as sex workers.

"Despite all the discrimination we face, I have no regrets for what I am," Can cheerfully told AFP. "My only regret is having ended up in the prostitution sector."

Almost all transsexuals and transvestites in Turkey make their living as prostitutes. They say they have no other option in a society where homophobia is strong and often accompanied by violence.

Three quarters of Turks say they are "disturbed" by homosexuals, a recent opinion survey showed, although many gays today are recognized as being among the country's most prominent singers and fashion designers.

Notoriously harsh against transsexual prostitutes, police have been accused of arbitrary round-ups, mistreatment, torture and rough "clean-up" operations in several Istanbul neighbourhoods popular with transsexuals. . . .

The Two Faces of Transgenderism in Chicago

Dave Keating examines the tensions between the older and younger transgender communities in Chicago