Bad Questions to Ask a Transsexual: The Director's Cut

http://www.calpernia.com/diary
After years of teeth-grindingly ignorant and insulting questions, Calpernia Addams finally snaps and shares her list of Bad Questions which you should never ask a transsexual. These are all real questions from real life!

Director's Cut: I edited this so that it gets to the point more quickly, cuts out some extraneous chatter and repeated information, and illustrates the "Do you date gay or straight guys?" question more simply with graphics. =)

Chuck Colson’s “Sick” Commentary Regarding TransYouth — And The Doctors Who Treat Them

July 10th, 2008 by Autumn Sandeen

I really get tired of going over the same crap over and over again regarding gender. The mental hebetude of conservative Christians discussing transsexual youth and adults is beyond incredible. These dullards have no personal qualifications that indicate expertise in gender issues, and even in their supposed area of expertise — Biblical scriptures — they cherry pick scriptures on sex and gender to make points on gender when other scriptures counter the evangelical message.

Chuck Colson, in a Breakpoint article entitled It’s a Sick, Sick World takes another stab at transgender people and issues — some of his previous stabs include here, here, here, and Coming to a School Near You. In It’s a Sick, Sick World, he gets around to attacking Dr. Norman Spack, who treats transyouth with puberty delaying medications — in large part to keep these not-gender-confused children from committing suicide.

So here’s what the former Watergate conspirator and hebetudinous writer said in his most recent piece about Dr. Spack and transyouth (links added for reference; emphasis added):

He has been called “demonic,” “barbaric,” and has been compared to Nazi doctors. And when you read about his work, it is easy to see why Americans are so outraged. Dr. Norman Spack is a pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. Not long ago, he opened a clinic for what he terms “transgendered” children. Incredibly, he is giving kids as young as seven drugs that delay the onset of puberty–the first step in sex-change surgery when they are older.

…When these kids hit their teen years, they are given the option of taking cross-hormones for a few years—which will allow them to develop the characteristics of the opposite sex. Tragically, the treatment will condemn these teenagers to lifelong infertility.

…So why are doctors like Spack altering young bodies instead of treating confused minds?

The answer is that many doctors have embraced the modern teaching that sexual identity, rather than being biologically determined, is a preference or a choice. According to this, people should be allowed to choose whatever sex they want to be. . . .Read More

ANDROGYNY

Boy meets girl

Menswear designers blur gender lines with androgynous looks that revive the persona of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust

Jul 11, 2008


Derick Chetty
star styist

Gold jeans pimped out with large, colourful crystals, lacy shorts, flouncy silhouettes and miles of shocking pink. Are these the trends that emerged recently during women's couture week?

No.

They are the boy-meets-girl trends that marched down the runways of the spring/summer 2009 menswear shows in Milan and Paris.

The recurring theme raises the question: Are men the new women?

Well, at least when it comes to the fabrics they are.

This new take on androgyny brings such traditionally feminine fabrics as silk, tulle, organza, lace and crepe de Chine and embellishments like sequins, beading and embroidery to menswear.

This was not a drag show or a cross-dressing spectacle, however. Designer Jean Paul Gaultier did that years ago when he put men in skirts and corsets.

This crossover is executed in a remarkably masculine way.

Take the high top sneakers at Lanvin, for example – very modern and urban, but now sexually ambiguous when blinged out with shiny beads.

As for those glittering gold jeans with the jewels at Dior Homme, haven't we seen that look before? During the glam rock era, perhaps on David Bowie? . . .Read More

"Little Britain" takes satire to U.S

By Alex Dobuzinskis, LOS ANGELES (Reuters)

12/07/2008


Hit BBC television show "Little Britain" is taking its outrageous satirical humour to U.S. premium cable channel HBO in September, drawing on stars such as David Schwimmer and Rosie O'Donnell to lure U.S. audiences.

The show, a cultural phenomenon in Britain, is the latest comedy import to the U.S. after programs like "The Office," which airs on the NBC network, have made their mark in the U.S.

Creators Matt Lucas, 34, and David Walliams, 36, told reporters and TV critics gathered in Los Angeles for an early look at the show that they know how far to push their riskier jokes and trade-mark mockery of the disabled, poor, gay and fat people.

In one scene in "Little Britain USA," which premieres in the U.S. on September 28, Lucas appears in drag as the leader of a weight-loss group. O'Donnell -- the gay U.S. actress and talk show host -- drops in for a visit, playing herself. . . .Read More

The Pyrrhic Victory of OHIP-funded Sex Reassignment Surgery

An open letter to George Smitherman and David Caplan

by Nikki S., Transgender Columnist

14 July 2008

	CAMH Gender Identity Clinic.

Like many others in the trans community, I was pleased to hear that the Liberal government had taken the bold step of re-listing Sex Reassignment Surgery (also known as SRS, GRS, or simply, “the operation”) under the list of OHIP-provided services. When it was removed in 1998, it caused a great deal of hardship to many people.

There’s no question that, for some, SRS is a medical necessity. For those with severe gender dysphoria, SRS is the only cure. No amount of psychotherapy or hormone treatment will alleviate the pain of being disgusted with a major aspect of one’s own body. For those who suffer the most, surgery is the only option, and without access to quality services and medical care, some people choose to undergo this procedure however possible – often with devastating consequences and horrifying results. . . .Read More

Big Brother 5 - Housemates Talk About Transsexuals

Housemates talk about transsexuals in front of Nadia who they don't know is a transsexual.

Bold stand

After living her entire life as a woman, Atlanta Police Officer Darlene Harris learned she is intersex. Now she’s going public with her journey

by Dyana Bagby

July 11, 2008


Growing up in Spanish Harlem in an abusive household, shuffled between foster homes and nearly killed when shot in the face a decade ago, Atlanta Police Officer Darlene Harris faced considerable struggles growing up.

Harris’ mother, who suffered from lupus and numerous other medical issues, spent much of her time in the hospital. She died at the age of 40 when Harris was 17, forcing Harris and her older sister to raise their younger siblings.

“We were literally dirt poor. I remember eating oatmeal cookies for dinner,” Harris said.

Harris, now 35, over came all of these hardships and built a successful career with the Atlanta Police Department, where she currently serves as the department’s full-time liaison to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgenders.

But Harris still faced an internal struggle nobody knew about — one she never understood until just this year. During puberty, she began growing facial and chest hair. She never had a regular menstrual cycle. Emotionally, she said, she had a rage that couldn’t be controlled.

Now she knows why her experiences were more different than others. She was “uniquely different” because she is intersex. . . .Read More

U.S. laws struggle to keep up with gender advances

From children born with DSDs to transgender adults, the legal issues confronting certain groups can be challenging.

by Dave Levitan

July 10, 2008

Whether renewing a driver’s license, applying for a credit card or even getting married, there is always a space on the form to specify one’s gender. Generally speaking, we are only given two options: male or female. In recent years, however, the medical community has moved toward thinking of gender as more of a continuum than a stark dichotomy, with numerous children born with various disorders of sex development and increasing numbers of transgender adults.

The question has become more important then, as our understanding of gender has improved: which box to check on those forms? This question is only meant to be an easy analogy for how the rest of society in America, and particularly U.S. law, has been slow to catch up with the changing notions of gender. The legal problems faced by gender minorities are many, and they range from the mundane to the extremely critical: Which bathroom to use? What can I wear to work? Can I get married? For infants, what is the most ethical and legal way to treat certain conditions?

Although the legal world needs to answer some of these and other questions, the medical professionals who treat both children with disorders of sex development (DSDs, formerly referred to as intersex disorders) and transgender adults should be aware of the challenges their patients face on a daily basis. . . .Read More

My Transgender Life After Wesleyan | Transphobia

Jean Pockrus

July 7, 2008

Yesterday I was violently, physically attacked by a group of transphobic teenagers, three black girls probably between the ages of 15 and 17 years old, in downtown Philadelphia. I was waiting for a bus on the corner as the three girls were walking across the street, staring at me and saying aloud to each other, "Is that a boy or a girl?" Then they began addressing me, "Are you a boy or a girl?" while looking down on me and laughing.

I did what I usually do in these transphobic situations when I'm taunted or stared at. I stared back. I stared back at the girls and said plainly, "It's rude to stare at people." (I also usually answer: "No, I'm not a boy or a girl," to that familiar question, "Are you a boy or a girl?" But I didn't say anything else this time.) One of their friends who was walking with them, a young man who looked about twenty, shouted, "Oh! That bitch said 'respect her.'" I thought the group was just going to continue walking on and leave me alone, but a few moments later one of the girls took a few sauntering steps towards me, smiling a little, and then pulled her arm back fast and punched me hard in the left side of my face. . . .Read More

Transgender Discrimination Hearing: Diane Schroer

Diane Schroer, a retired Colonel in the United States Army, testifies before the Committee on Education and Labor at a hearing examining discrimination against transgender Americans in the workplace on June 26, 2008.

Critique, POV, Opinion: "Letting Go Of God"

A lot of Ts (and others, too) have questions, concerns about religion and being T (or somewhere GLBTQ). Here, Julia Sweeney, who played "Pat" the androgynous person, on one of my favorite television programs,"Saturday Night Live," presents her personal perspective on religion, titled, "Letting Go of God."

Strongly recommended.

Also, see the numerous listeners' comments than follow on the same page.

RA

Jack Bee Garland (aka Babe Bean)

by Liz Highleyman

Lavender Magazine, Issue 341

Jack Bee Garland was a pioneer on multiple fronts, crossing boundaries of gender, ethnicity, class, and geography.

Born Elvira Virginia Mugarrieta in 1869 in the Russian Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, Garland was the child of an upper-class white woman and a Mexican military officer who became the city’s first Mexican consul. A rebellious tomboy, Garland was sent to a convent school, but escaped by marrying a family friend at age 15, and divorcing a few months later.

Garland began dressing in men’s clothing, and spent the next several years traveling and working odd jobs. In 1897, he was arrested in Stockton, California, for masquerading as a man. Claiming to be mute, and communicating in writing, he gave his name as Babe Bean, and made no attempt to hide that he was biologically female. The authorities soon released him, much to the chagrin of a group of young women who demanded that if he could dress in men’s clothing, they ought to have the same privilege.

Garland, who lived alone on a houseboat in a lake, was hired as a reporter by The Stockton Evening Mail. He was accepted as an eccentric local celebrity. The press often speculated about his gender, referring to him as “the mysterious girl-boy, man-woman.” . . . .Read More

The “Transational” Dr. Marci Bowers

by Chris Jackson

Lavender Magazine, Issue 340

A polite round of applause, and she takes the stage. Adjusting her glasses, and buttoning the microphone to her blouse, she begins to speak. Doctors, med students, and activists alike lean forward in anticipation.

Dr. Marci Bowers
Photo by Sophia Hantzes

“Never dreamed I’d walk back in here in a dress,” she mused.

And then she was off. Coyly, letting her audience idle, and then full force. Smiling, she started in.

The Denver Post calls her the “Rockstar” of gender-confirming surgeries. Dr. Marci Bowers is that and much more. She is one of the premier sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) surgeons worldwide, performing more than 350 alignment procedures every year. Trained under the direction of Dr. Stanley Biber, she has followed in his footsteps, perfecting the techniques that he pioneered.

I had a chance to speak with Bowers just before her recent keynote address at the Minnesota Trans Health & Wellness Fair on May 10.

Dr. Bowers, what is your background in the medical field? Sexual reassignment surgery, in addition to being highly controversial, is a challenging and specialized field. How did you come to call it your own?

I am trained formally as an Ob/Gyn. I attended the University of Minnesota, where I graduated in 1986, where I was Medical School Class President and President of the Medical Student Council. I then went to Seattle, where I did my residency in Ob/Gyn at the University of Washington.

I settled into private practice at a large multispecialty clinic in Downtown Seattle called the Polyclinic. I practiced there for 12 years.

About my 10th year, I actually met Dr. Biber. He indicated that Trinidad was in need of an Ob/Gyn, and that, if I came here, I could learn the SRS procedure from him, while performing obstetrics and gynecology for the community. In January 2003, I finally did just that, leaving the relative security of an established practice in Seattle, and facing the specter of the many hours and hassles that go with practicing in a large urban area.

I decided to roll the dice, so to speak, noting that there were very few reassignment surgeons in the United States, and that two of the most prominent, Dr. Biber and Dr. [Eugene] Schrang, were already well into their 70s at the time. I worked with Dr. Biber, side by side, for six months, and then, with his inability to obtain malpractice insurance, took over his duties in July 2003, surviving with a combination of good luck, good skills, intuition, and faith that I was doing the right thing. . . .Read More

My EX-HUSBAND on Dr Phil!

My Ex-Husband was on Dr Phil. We were married a few years ago for a short time. He lied and lets just say he wasn't a very good husband. This is about how I feel about him now not anyone else! Right now I'm mad and hurt and I need to vent!

Las Vegas Marks 10th Annual Kristine W Day

by Scott Kearnan
EDGE Contributor

July 2, 2008

Kristine W will be touring the U.S. and Canada the rest of the year as part of her Love is The Boss Tour.

Kristine W learned the art of performance from an unlikely source: a Vegas drag queen named Bubbles.

Well, not exactly. The legendary club diva, one of dance music’s most consistently successful artist (her ninth consecutive #1 hit on the Billboard Club charts shattered a record previously held by Madonna), is a fourth generation entertainer who has been performing since childhood. She’s a songwriter, producer, jazz musician, guitarist; music is in her blood.

But when she began her career as a working entertainer in the Vegas casino circuit, it helped to have friends who knew a thing or two about being fabulous.

"They had a drag show upstairs called Boylesque," Kristine W said of her first casino gig. "I would go up there and study the drag queens. How they put on their fake eyelashes, the way they would roll up the socks and put them in their boobs... There was one drag queen named Bubbles, and he would tell me all his secrets, like why he was shading his face. And I’d say, ’okay, I’m going to put on more makeup!’" . . .Read More

The 13th Annual San Francisco Drag King Contest Announced

The Biggest Drag King Competition in the World to benefit P.A.W.S. - Pets Are Wonderful Support

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com

July 8, 2008


It's coming! Big Ball holder, DragStrip Productions, is proud to announce the most climactic and orgasmic live stage show of orgiastic gender bending revelry in the history of San Francisco: the 13th Annual Drag King Contest - the biggest, girthiest, and most enduring Drag King Competition in the World. Hard and throbbing musical productions, firm and penetrating performances, and extraordinary feats of entertainingly unbridled masculine stamina and staying power are set to explode over the wildly anticipating and engorged-to-capacity-crowd on August 16, 2008 at 8:00 p.m., at the most appropriate venue in town, the DNA Lounge. . . .Read More

Theater - Gender bender

Masquers poke fun at the theatre with Anton in Show Business

BY LINDA SICKLER

July 8, 2008


Imagine a play written for a cast of women who sometimes play men, that was written by a woman who might really be a man. Wait a minute -- what?

Such a play really does exist and it was written by Jane Martin, one of the best-known unknown playwrights in modern theater. Martin is the darling of the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. More plays by her have been introduced at the festival than by any other playwright.

But here’s the strange part. Even though Martin has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, the ATL has kept her identity secret for more than 20 years. However, Martin is believed by many to be a man named Jon Jory, the ATL’s former producing director.

Confused? Don’t worry. There’s nothing confusing about Anton in Show Business, a Martin play that is being presented by the Armstrong Atlantic State University Department of Art, Music and Theatre.

“It has an all-female cast of seven that plays both males and females,” says director Samantha Noon. “The whole basis of the play really is to have a laugh at the theater and all the stereotypes involved in the production of a play.” . . .Read More

Stephanie’s Pillowbook

Transgender Books - My Gender Workbook

Posted in transgenderism by Stephanie Delacey on July 9th, 2008

I read Kate Bornstein’s Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us some time ago and found it an exciting and stimulating book. Part autobiography, part introduction to gender theory, and with a large chunk of the text devoted to the script of her play Hidden: A Gender, it is an amusing, honest, touching, passionate, challenging, wildly speculative account of what it means to be transsexual. I had high hopes, then, for My Gender Workbook. Hopes which were rather dashed when I eventually got round to reading it earlier this year. I was very disappointed and, unfortunately, it made me go back to Gender Outlaw and re-assess that, too. . . .Read More

A Platform We Can Believe In, Too

Steve Ralls

8 July 2008


Could this be the year that every American family sees itself reflected in the platform of a major political party? And if so, what would an all-inclusive set of ideals mean for America's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens and their loved ones and friends?

The Democratic National Committee and Senator Barack Obama have announced that the 2008 party platform will be put together through a more "open" process that includes numerous opportunities for the public to weigh in with their ideas on what the party should stand for. The party, and the candidate, will hold public forums in all 50 states and invite voters to meet with party officials, and policy advisers, in a national discussion about the vision of the Democratic party.

"Barack Obama believes that every American should be able to contribute to the Democratic platform, just as record numbers have participated in this campaign," deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand told the Associated Press. . . .Read More

Four Teens Arrested In Possible Bias Attack At Queens Shelter

July 08, 2008


Four teenaged boys were arrested for attacking the director and several residents of a transgender center in Astoria Tuesday. NY1’s Ruschell Boone filed the following report.

Father Louis Braxton, Jr., who leads the transgender center "Carmen's Place" in Astoria, Queens, says he was trying to defend a group of transgender teens who were being assaulted Monday night when four teenaged boys attacked him with belts and paint cans. . . .Read More