The Sex Change Capital of The U.S.

A Small Rocky Mountain Town Is Home To A Cottage Industry Helping Transgender People

September 7, 2008

. . .Read More

Decision time for Mont. Co. transgender question

Issue goes before Maryland high court next week

AMY CAVANAUGH 
September 05, 2008

The Maryland Court of Appeals will consider Sept. 8 whether Montgomery County’s transgender discrimination measure will go to a public vote.

County officials last year passed legislation that prohibits “discrimination in housing, employment, public accommodations, cable television service and taxicab service on the basis of gender identity.”
The law was set to take effect in February, but the conservative Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government halted the law’s implementation by placing it on November’s ballot.

Equality Maryland challenged that referendum, noting that a number of the petition signatures were improperly obtained, but Montgomery County Circuit Judge Robert Greenberg ruled that Equality Maryland missed the deadline to challenge. The Court of Appeals is poised to determine whether that ruling will stand. . . .Read More

Salman Rushdie investigates India's transsexual underworld

September 5, 2008

In his contribution to Aids Sutra, a collection of essays about the HIV/Aids problem in India, Salman Rushdie reports on the culture of the hijra

ACCORDING TO GREEK mythology, Hermaphroditus, the child of Hermes and Aphrodite, fell so passionately in love with a nymph named Salmacis that they beseeched Zeus to unite them for all time, and were joined in a single body in which both sexes remained manifest.

The Hindu tradition contains, if anything, a more powerful version of this story, elevated to the very summit of the Hindu pantheon, and glorifying not merely the beauty of the physical union of the sexes but the union of the male and female principles in the Universe, a metaphor reaching far beyond biology. In a cave on Elephanta Island in Bombay harbour is a sculpture of the deity named Ardhanari or Ardhanarishvara, a name composed of three elements: ardha - half, nari - woman, ishvara - god; thus Ardhanarishvara, the half-woman god. . . .Read More

Tobi takes us thru' "Transgender 101" part 3

"Tobi Golightly talks about life growing up and..."  themorningshowlive

Unitarian speaker to talk on sex change

Sun-News report

9/04/2008 

Local businesswoman Tobi Golightly will speak about her physical and spiritual journey from male to female at 10 a.m. on Sunday at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Silver City, 3845 N. Swan.

"I was a fundamentalist Christian for about 20 years. But I was also a transsexual, and being homosexual was considered to be an abomination," she said. "After about two years of intense study and prayers, I discovered that God loves all of us, and that includes me."

"It's the story of my spiritual evolution. . . .Read More

Smoother Transitions

September 4, 2008

By LISA BELKIN

BREANNA L. SPEED waited four years before announcing to her co-workers that she would not be Wendell anymore.

She was concerned that the revelation that she felt more comfortable living life as a woman than in the male body she was born with would jeopardize her job at Hewitt Associates, an outsourcing company in Lincolnshire, Ill., where she had worked as a database administrator for seven years.

But since Feb. 26, 2007, when she walked into the office as Breanna (with a company ID and a workplace paper trail that carried her new name), Ms. Speed said she has received nothing but support.

The workplace piece of her transgender puzzle, the part she had worried about most, “turned out to be the simplest,” she said. “That was a surprise.”

Across the country, particularly at larger companies, transgender workers are being protected and assisted in ways that were hardly imaginable a few years ago. . . .Read More

"Next Top Model" brings transgender in from cold

September 3, 2008

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - When "America's Next Top Model" chose Isis Tsunami as a contestant for its new season that starts on Wednesday, the TV show didn't just put the first transgender woman in the running for its coveted title.

Isis Tsunami, 22, is not the first transgender person to appear on a popular American TV show. But the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) called her inclusion an "unprecedented opportunity for a community that is under-represented on television." . . .Read More

Male to Female Transformation

"Look what i have become"   christopherteo

Nigel Barker: Transgender on America's Next Top Model shocking but necessary

By Emily Hulme | ehulme@am-ny.com

September 3, 2008

New Yorkers on America's Next Top Model: Isis, Nikeysah, and Sheena(amNewYork composite from Handout Photo/ America's Next Top Model / August 12, 2008)

After five years and 10 cycles, there are certain elements viewers have grown to expect from 'America's Next Top Model.' There's the Ivy Leaguer who thinks she's too smart for modeling, the mean girl who'd seemingly rather fight than model, the affable lesbian who acts as a foil to the conservative Christian and the 'issue' girl -- in past cycles we've seen blindness, Asperger's Syndrome, female circumcision, homelessness, rage issues and mail-order brides on the show. . . .Read More

Majority of Americans Agree That Transgender Employees Should Be. . .

New Workplace Report also Shows that Majority of Americans Support
Marriage-Like Benefits for Same Sex Couples in the Workplace

Sept. 2, 2008

HarrisInteractive


SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. & ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sep 02, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE)

According to a recent national survey, seven out of ten
heterosexual adults (71%) agree that how an employee performs at their
job should be the standard for judging an employee, not whether or not
they are transgender. The new survey also showed that nearly eight out
of ten (79%) heterosexual adults strongly or somewhat agree that how
an employee does his or her job should be the standard for judging an
employee, not their sexual orientation. . . .Read More

Transgenders get home of their own

Arelis Hernandez | Sentinel Staff Writer

September 3, 2008

Andre Johnson has struggled his whole life to find a home.

Johnson, 44, in his blond wig, nail polish and gold bracelets, longs to live as a woman. But calling himself Angie, he felt neither safe nor comfortable. People told him God didn't make mistakes, but Johnson couldn't shake what his "inner something" was telling him -- that he was a woman living inside a man's body.

The feelings of isolation worsened when Johnson contracted the human immunodeficiency virus.Today, the once-homeless transgender woman -- a man who lives and dresses as a woman -- has found a home among others looking for acceptance and refuge.

The house is the region's first residential haven for HIV-positive transgender patients, a place for people besieged not only by gender-identity issues but also by health concerns and drug abuse. The city of Orlando's Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program arranged the accommodations while the Center for Multicultural Wellness and Prevention paid the rent. Together, they opened the home July 1. . . .Read More

Kenya: My Rights Abused, Says Double-Sex Prisoner

September 2, 2008

Jillo Kadida
Nairobi

A hermaphrodite who is seeking to be released from Kamiti maximum security prison wants a report about his medical and physical condition tabled in court.

Richard Mwanzia Muasya says the report will help the court understand the continuous human and constitutional rights violations he is going through at the prison, where he is being held after he was convicted for robbery with violence.

A detailed report by medical experts will also help the court to fully understand his gender, says Muasya.

Muasya was born with both male and female sex organs, but goes about life as a man. . . .Read More

016 transgender voice-3

"part 3. my transgender voice steps. ya, 80s hair is not so hot. jeez, can i look more stupid."

candiFLA

On being transgender

September 1, 2008


My name is Mia Nikasimo. As a volunteer for Changing Attitudes at the Lambeth Conference I found myself in an opportune position to reflect from a translesbian (i.e. a transsexual woman who identifies as a lesbian not to be confused with above or beyond “lesbians,” or a transgender man) standpoint on the Anglican Communion and attempts to exclude the LGBTI.

I have purposely mentioned my trans status here because “transgender” as an umbrella term (for transsexual female, male, sister, brother, mothers, fathers any of the following might choose to cross dress, are intersexed, queer, kings, drag queens and more) can easily loose ones identity in the mix and because I can only share this reflection as a translesbian in the full awareness that some, like my LGBTI African brothers, sisters cannot. As the founder of an online support group call Transafro I aim to give voice to our various narratives Anglicans or otherwise, to promote, empower and raise consciousness in Africa, the Diaspora and allies. . . .Read More

A transgender woman's difficult job search

Prejudices compound the struggle to find employment

September 3, 2008

By Alex Pickett

In July, Florida topped the nation in job losses for the third month. The state's unemployment rate is the highest in 13 years. And, with over 16,000 jobs lost over the last year, the Tampa Bay area has taken the brunt of the economic downturn. The market is flooded with laid-off workers, all competing for an increasingly shrinking piece of the employment pie.

Then there's Julie Yoo.

A year ago, CL profiled the Dunedin resident as she began her transition from male (her name used to be Jim) to female. At the time, she was the owner and cook of the Tarpon Diner in Tarpon Springs, and her main concern was keeping up with the breakfast orders and getting comfortable with her new gender.

But in December, disagreements with a new co-owner and a desire to get out of the restaurant industry drove her to sell the Tarpon Diner and search for a new career.

Eight months later, she's still looking. . . .Read More

Vancouver transsexual says city party nixed parks board candidacy over sex issues

1 September 2008

VANCOUVER — A transsexual Vancouver prostitution advocate is preparing a human rights complaint against the city's governing party after it rejected her as a parks board candidate nominee.

Jamie Lee Hamilton said candidate interviews with two board members of the Non-Partisan Association party about being a nominee for November's municipal elections focused on her sex life.

B.C.'s Human Rights Code says it is illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of sex or sexual orientation.

Hamilton said the interviews made her very uncomfortable.

"I felt that my whole lifestyle was being interrogated. . .that I was somehow immoral," she said. . . .Read More

Changing Sex Documentary Transsexual Trans #6 of 8

"Changing Sex documentary" changingsexuk

Iranian film explores transsexual world

By COLLEEN BARRY

August 30, 2008

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Organizers of the Venice Film Festival waited to announce "Khastegi (Tedium)" by first-time Iranian director Bahman Motamedian until the last minute to avoid alerting authorities to its sensitive subject: transsexuals in modern-day Iran.

The struggles of seven transsexuals depicted in the film are made more complicated by Iran's strict gender codes and cultural obstacles. But Motamedian, who is best known in Iran for theater work, insists the problems they face are universal to transsexuals anywhere in the world: finding their identity and seeking acceptance from their families.

"We know that throughout the world this problems exists," Motamedian said. "The idea was to raise awareness among families especially, because this is the first layer of barrier, and to help people to realize they are not alone and be able to face the problem."

Motamedian said he was inspired by the Italian neo-realists in his filmmaking, and for the movie he cast transsexuals, not professional actors, to act a role that he created. . . .Read More

Now he really is Jahn the Man

August 31, 2008

BY LYDIA MARTIN


Jahn Kirchoff calls to check in, and the voice on the phone is startling. It has dropped considerably in just a couple of weeks. No way it sounds like a woman's voice anymore.

''Yeah, my voice is getting deeper. My vocal cords are expanding -- and my beard is really growing in now,'' says Kirchoff, who is getting used to five-o'clock shadows.

In 2004, after living as a biological woman for 48 years, Kirchoff had surgery to remove his breasts. In August he marked the one-year anniversary of the start of hormone treatments.

''It takes almost three years of taking the hormones for all the changes to happen,'' Kirchoff says in his sweet, laid-back way.

As stories about gender transitions go, this one is remarkable for what Kirchoff hasn't had to endure: He was never shunned by family or friends. As co-owner of the popular Deli Lane cafes in South Miami, Brickell and Sarasota, he doesn't worry about being fired. Over the years, he has gotten plenty of ''long looks'' from strangers but isn't afraid, even as his transition from female to male becomes more obvious. . . .Read More

Dads who found love together

Aug 31 2008 by Katie Bodinger, Wales On Sunday

JENNY-ANNE Bishop and Elen Heart are a very unusual couple – they both have the bodies of men and were once husbands and fathers.

But they gave it all up to dress as women and become a “lesbian” transgender couple.

Like all transsexuals, Jenny-Ann, 62, who used to be Paul, and Elen, 65, who was once Alan, think they were born in the wrong bodies.

But they have decided against sex-swap surgery because of health risks at their age.

Instead they both take female hormones, doll themselves up in fashionable dresses, lipstick and mascara, and curl and style their hair and wigs.

“Our relationship is hard to define,” said Jenny-Anne who was married for 35 years before she met Elen. “We’re not exactly lesbians, but people might use that word. . . .Read More