It was late on a rainy fall day, and a college freshman named Rey was showing me the new tattoo on his arm. It commemorated his 500-mile hike through Europe the previous summer, which happened also to be, he said, the last time he was happy. We sat together for a while in his room talking, his tattoo of a piece with his spiky brown hair, oversize tribal earrings and very baggy jeans. He showed me a photo of himself and his girlfriend kissing, pointed out his small drum kit, a bass guitar that lay next to his rumpled clothes and towels and empty bottles of green tea, one full of dried flowers, and the ink self-portraits and drawings of nudes that he had tacked to the walls. Thick jasmine incense competed with his cigarette smoke. He changed the music on his laptop with the melancholy, slightly startled air of a college boy on his own for the first time. . . .Read More
Monday, March 17, 2008
When Girls Will Be Boys
Saturday, March 15, 2008
016 My transgender voice-03
In my opinion, voice is one of the most important areas to help in transition. I created the vids to show that even with a deep male voice, you CAN sound female. candiFLA
The trouble with gender
3.13.2008
When I reflect upon being transgender, I often find myself musing about how – in simply being myself – I end up creating a gender space that both fits into stereotypes of gender, and goes against those same stereotypes. Sometimes at the same time. The same is true – maybe even more so – for other transgender men, women, and others.
You see, a gender is a slippery concept. It's not so much a thing as it is a collection of beliefs. We cannot take a gender out of a case and examine it – we can only describe gender. What's more, those descriptions largely boil down to "I'll know it when I see it." Further still, many have differing definitions, based on a viewer's own perceptions and history. . . .Read More
Book Reviews: South Beach: The Novel
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"South Beach: The Novel" By BRIAN ANTONI Review By HENRY ALFORD Many are the sparkly charms of the opera. The live camels, the castrati. The preoccupation with the world's oldest profession. The implication that narrative gathers its force from the combined efforts of caterwauling and wig tape. The plots that are not unleavened by coincidence and melodrama. The assertion that overweight people, when dying, brim over with song. "South Beach: The Novel," Brian Antoni's candy-colored and warmhearted second work of fiction, would make a terrific opera. Though "South Beach" isn't camp -- it lurks in the wings thereof, its bejeweled turban only slightly askew -- it revels in a kind of surface detail that might easily be mistaken for it. Rich with club scenes and descriptions of offbeat forms of physical congress, this story of one man's moral and sexual flowering might best be described as an arrested bildungsroman with a predilection for the psycho-sexual. . . .Read More | ||||||||||
Singer Ersoy to leave fortune to military foundations
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Singer Bülent Ersoy has announced she has amended her will to donate her fortune to the Mehmetçik Foundation -- in support of Turkish soldiers -- and the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV).
Ersoy, a transsexual singer and popular television host, told journalists on Thursday that she has decided to leave her whole fortune to these two foundations and penned her will to this end. Ersoy's remarks came after she made her deposition at a prosecutor's office in İstanbul's Bakırköy district over the allegedly unpatriotic remarks she made last month. . . .Read More
Labor of Love
To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don’t appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are -- a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child.
I am transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy. Unlike those in same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships, or civil unions, Nancy and I are afforded the more than 1,100 federal rights of marriage. Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire. . . .Read More
POV, Critique, Opinion: Friday Five: Randy Thomas
'Gender identity is very important to God.'
Parents of children who struggle with gender confusion are being encouraged to raise their kids according to the gender they want to be.
Nationally, organizations are adopting gender-neutral restrooms.
And in California, students now can “choose their own gender” when deciding whether to use the boys’ or girls’ restroom and locker room.
According to the American Psychological Association, “transgender” is a term used to describe people whose self-perception differs from their biological gender. This condition is commonly referred to as gender identity disorder.
Randy Thomas is executive vice president of Exodus International, the largest worldwide Christian outreach to those affected by homosexuality. He spoke with CitizenLink about transgenderism and his own journey out of homosexuality.
1. Why are transgenderism and gender confusion so prevalent today?
With my parents' generation — the boomers and older — there were deeply taught gender roles, but that started breaking down with Gen X. Now people don’t know how to teach being a male or a female to younger males or younger females. We’ve lost our history of what it means to be a man and our history of what it means to be a woman, and activists have worked to obliterate that history because they feel it’s sexist. So if a man doesn’t know how to teach a little boy how to be a man, there’s a void there.
These activists are preaching this very strict worldview that there is no gender, and people are left confused. It’s no wonder that they come up with all kinds of ways to identify. . . .Read More
Fashion Tips, Prom Advice, Period Planning and Transgender Talk
by Megan Feldman
A few months ago, I got a call from an editor at Seventeen who‘d come across a story I wrote for the paper version of Unfair Park about a female-to-male transgender teen who began living as a boy while attending an Irving high school. The editors wanted to feature Jay in the magazine, so I put them in touch. . . .Read More
Reading in the dark - Finalists for 20th Annual Lambda Literary Awards Announced
* Transparent, Cris Beam (Harcourt
* Male Bodies, Women's Souls, LeeRay M. Costa, PhD, (Haworth)
* The Marrow's Telling, Eli Clare (Homofactus Press)
* What Becomes You, Aaron Raz Link & Hilda Raz (University of Nebraska Press)
* Nobody Passes, Mattilda, aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore (Seal Press). . . .Read More
Transgender people confront a puzzle of identity in a veil of secrecy
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Transgender people have existed for at least as long as there is written history, but the term "transgender" is relatively new, coined in the 1990s.
It broadly encompasses a number of ways a person's biological sex can differ from their gender identity — the sense of who they are, the things they're drawn to and the way they prefer to appear.
But many people are still uncertain exactly what it means to be transgender — and that sometimes even includes those who are. . . .Read More
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Part-1...My Top Surgery Recovery (days 1-3).
Daily updates filmed from day of surgery up to and including day 3. This is part 1 of a 5 part series documenting my recovery following a subcutaneous double mastectomy with nipple grafts.
Helping Trans Kids Out of the Shadows
March 13, 2008
“How does a 14 year old shoot a 15 year old in the back of the head because he’s wearing high heels?” Trans activist Jenn Burleton muses about the recent murder of southern California teen. “More than any other source of childhood abuse, teasing, and bullying; femininity in male children kills.”
Dedicated to preventing another causalty, the founder and executive director of TransActive Education & Advocacy (transactiveonline.org), a Portland, Oregon based organization, works with parents and schools to support transgender and gender variant children.
“This work is not just for trans kids,” she insists. “Because all children are victims of gender expression oppression.”
A lesbian-identified trans woman, who recently celebrated her 25th anniversary with her partner, Burleton previously co-founded Trans Youth Family Allies (TYFA - formerly Trans Youth Family Advocates) a national organization providing support for trans kids and their families, where she served as the inaugural executive director and board president.
Once a trans teen herself, in the mid-1960’s, then 12-year-old Burleton became one of the first - albeit unsanctioned - trans youth to begin hormone treatments - after she discovered Dr. Harry Benjamin’s The Transsexual Phenomenon and began stealing her mother’s Premarin. “I had the benefit that my mom was an alcoholic,” she jokes. “She was out of it so much she couldn’t keep track of what was going on.” . . .Read More
Trans women get ready for 'Catwalk' event
by Katie Dettman
3.13.2008Tita Aida, who has hosted numerous charitable benefits over the years, has something new this month – "Catwalk '08," which is billed as an "elite modeling competition and beauty pageant for the transgender community."
The competition is expected to feature 16 transgender women, said Aida, who during her day job at the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center is Nicky Calma, a transgender woman herself who was named to the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women last month.
Aida, who is a health program supervisor at the API Wellness Center, said the agency will receive most of the proceeds from the March 22 Catwalk pageant, which she is producing along with Lee Evans. She explained that she used the word "elite" to describe the event because "we hope to bring it one step higher for the TG community. It is time for the TG community to get what they truly deserve, a well put-together event and competition." Aida hopes to hold the event annually. . . .Read More
Transgender Teen Tells Her Story
In her own words, a transgender teen talks candidly about acceptance and tolerance.
Rika Navarro
We were shocked by the recent murder of 15-year-old Lawrence King--a young boy who was openly gay and reportedly wore mascara, lipstick and jewelry to school. Transgender teens have been in the spotlight lately and have left a lot of parents at a loss when it comes to talking to their own kids. Rika, pictured, a 17-year-old boy who came out as a girl during her freshman year (pictured), sheds a little light on the world of transgender teenagers.
Mom Logic: How did your parents react when you realized that you were really a girl?
Rika: I was in this depressive state. I didn't know if I was gay. I had good friends I was able to connect with, but I wasn't really sure of myself. At that point it was a taboo thing for me to wear female clothing. I was doing badly in school. And my parents asked me questions to know what was wrong and to help them help me. Finally I came out and told them, "Yes I am transgender." Then we went to Puerto Rico and I wore feminine clothing comfortably. That was my freshman year of high school. At that point, I went to a therapist and she said, "Well, she knows that she is a girl and it would be more polite to refer to her as 'her.'" . . .Read More
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Calpy Slams - Reading Comments on Transamerican Love Story
Calpernia and Andrea read some of the worst comments people have left on perezhilton.com and abc.com in response to "Transamerican Love Story", their new Logo transsexual dating show coming out in February.
Advocates turn out en masse for transgender civil rights bill
Bay Windows
Monday Mar 10, 2008
Supporters of a bill to add gender identity to state civil rights laws far outnumbered opponents at a marathon public hearing before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary at the State House on March 4. The committee listened to 10 hours of testimony on a host of bills related to same-sex marriage, abortion, victim’s rights and other issues. But the bulk of the hearing, which lasted until 11:30 p.m., was devoted to H.B. 1722, the first major piece of transgender rights legislation to come before the Massachusetts Legislature. . . .Read More
Patricia Arquette: 'Brother's sex change shocked me'
Patricia Arquette questioned how open-minded she was when her transgender brother Alexis first announced he was going to become a woman.
The True Romance star admits she felt "a loss" when Alexis - born Robert Arquette - told her of his transition plans. . . .Read More
Australia: Trans films welcomed
Rachel Cook
The festival is showing 19 films, including short film, features and documentaries, covering a wide range of topics regarding trans and gender variant subjects.
MQFF Festival Director, Lisa Daniel, told MCV that the festival has always wanted, and had a trans element, but that the quality and quantity of films previously available hadn’t always been as strong as they were this year.
“We search a lot trans films festivals, and a few more trans festivals are popping up now and so more films are being made,” she said. . . .Read More
Author: Gender theory needs to be questioned
Bornstein draws about 100 people to Spring Pride lecture
Author Kate Bornstein threw conventional wisdom out the window as she discussed gender issues before about 100 people in the Michigan League last night.
"I want people to question gender," Bornstein said.
Bornstein's address, which served as the keynote speech for the Spring Pride and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health Week, delved into what it's like to be transgender in a world that largely focuses on just men and women.
Bornstein was born a man and underwent reconstructive surgery 22 years ago to become a woman. After her transition, Bornstein discovered she still didn't feel comfortable in her gender. She said she still feels like she's pretending to be a woman.
"I am not a man, and I am not a woman," she said. . . .Read More
Transsexual bares all in 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch'
Derek Campbell
3/10/08German, transsexual, would-be rock star trapped in a small Kansas town in the glam rock era of David Bowie sounds like culture shock at its best. Steven Eubank's production of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" provides just that, and more.
As the audience filtered into the Off Center Theatre at Crown Center, they entered the world of Hedwig, a young male-to-female, post-operative transsexual who fled East Berlin while the Berlin Wall still stood.
Biting, sarcastic and humorous, Hedwig's character represented the battle all people face in discovering their true identities. As Hedwig stripped layers of clothing during the course of the show, she bared more about her true self. . . .Read More
