Susan Stanton made her Washington debut this week after garnering national media attention two months ago when Largo, Fla., officials fired her for coming out as transgender. (Blade photo by Henry Linser)
Friday, May 18, 2007
Susan Stanton makes D.C. debut
Transgender / Transsexual Men on the Maury Show / Lando FTM
Here's a video with Lando Thomas et al educating the masses on Maury's talk show.
Boy, 12, Given Questionable Sex-Change Therapy after “Diagnosed” as Transsexual
Leading US psychiatric researcher strongly criticizes such procedures
By Gudrun SchultzVIENNA, Austria, January 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A boy of 12 began receiving radical hormone treatment to stop the natural development of male puberty and prepare his body for a sex-change operation, after doctors and psychiatrists diagnosed him as transsexual.
The boy, now 14--called Kim instead of his original name of Tim--convinced his parents and medical professionals that he was “in the wrong body” and needed to receive treatment to prevent him from developing into an adult male, the UK Telegraph reported earlier today. His parents said they initially assumed their son’s desire to be a girl was a temporary phase, but after psychiatrists supported the child’s request for therapy, they accepted the decision to pursue physical treatment for a desire they said had been expressed by their son since he was a toddler. . . .
Boston Children’s Hospital Opens “Transgender” Children’s Clinic
Will reportedly offer the treatments to children as young as seven years old
By Gudrun SchultzBOSTON, Massachusetts, May 19, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new clinic at Children’s Hospital Boston is offering hormone treatment to young children identified as “transgender” to facilitate eventual surgery for a gender switch, according to a report by MassResistance May 17.
Led by endocrinologist Dr. Norman Spack, the Gender Management Service Clinic is the first U.S. clinic to initiate medical intervention for healthy children on the basis of a “transgender” identification. A 12-year-old German boy who began receiving puberty-blocking hormone treatments last winter in preparation for sex-change “transition” surgery was believed to be the youngest child to receive the treatment at the time.
The Boston clinic will reportedly offer the treatments to children as young as seven years old, according to researcher Ari Taube for MassResistance.
Hormone treatment of pre-pubescent children is intended to prevent normal development of gender characterization in order to ease eventual surgical procedures to complete a change of gender, which can take place once the child is about 16.
On a MassResistance radio report, Taube emphasized that transgender procedures can only achieve the outward appearance of the opposite gender. . . .
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Helen and Betty Interview part 1
Author Helen Boyd and Betty Crow discuss their lives together. Betty is Helen's transgender husband.
I recommend Helen Boyd's books.
Transsexual Wins Battle Over Surgery Payment
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: May 17, 2007 - 7:00 pm ET
(Allentown, Pennsylvania) A 15-month battle with the administrator of a company insurance plan over the cost of sex reassignment surgery has ended in victory for an Ohio transsexual woman.
Electronics engineer Jan Stacy was told by company that its self insured plan covered the surgery, and in 2006 she entered hospital.
But when she later submitted her bills to the plan's administrator, Highmark Blue Shield, it refused to pay.
Stacy went back to the company human resources officer and again was told the company plan included sex reassignment. Nevertheless, Highmark stood firm, refusing to pay.
She then took her case to Equality Advocates, a Pennsylvania organization that provides legal services to the LGBT community.
Even after the initial intervention of Equality Advocates, Highmark continued to insist that it owed no reimbursement to Stacy and extended the policy exclusions to a routine office visit.
The organization and Highmark agreed to an arbitration process to avoid going to court. But even after Highmark finally conceded that Stacy’s surgery was covered by her employer’s current plan, they continued to refuse to pay most of the claim, on the grounds the surgery was performed "out of network", and that the surgeon did not charge the "reasonable and necessary" amount for the procedure.
Equality Advocates persisted and Stacy’s employer intervened forcing Highmark to reverse its position.
Stacy was ultimately awarded $14,097, the bulk of the surgery costs.
"It is appalling how badly Highmark Blue Shield mishandled Ms. Stacy’s claim," said Katie Eyer, Employment Rights Project Attorney at Equality Advocates.
"Their repeated refusal to pay this claim was clearly the result of bias against the transgender community, and demonstrated a willful ignorance of the medical necessity of procedures such as SRS."
Eyer said that transgenders across the country have "systemic" problems dealing with insurance claims. Stacy was fortunate, said Eyer, that her company has a written policy on equality and that it had its own insurance plan which specifically covered transsexuals.
Few other self administered plans or HMOs have such provisions.
Crowning moment . . .
 |
| Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee |
Johnny Vera, at 6-foot-4 in heels, towers over enthusiastic supporters as he sports the tiara representing his selection as queen for Roosevelt High's prom Saturday. More photos |
Roosevelt prom queen a transgender pioneer.
05/13/07 06:05:54
The silver tiara matched his silver stilettos when Johnny Vera was named prom queen Saturday night at Roosevelt High School.
He's the first transgender prom queen in Fresno -- and possibly anywhere.
Vera's win probably didn't surprise anyone who had seen the prom queen candidates' speeches Friday in the quad during lunch. Vera, effeminate and towering in heels, had wrapped his manicured nails around the microphone.
"For me, it's about more than a crown. It's about saying to people, 'Come out and be who you want to be,' " Vera said. A crowded, urban high school scene paused to listen. "You have to say, 'I am who I am, and I'm proud of who I am. My spirit will never be down on the floor.' "
The students cheered and whistled. The girls on Vera's cheerleading squad got teary-eyed. A boy wearing a pin supporting another queen candidate started the chant: "Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!"
On Saturday night when his name was announced, Vera wept like a newly crowned Miss America to thunderous applause in a downtown Radisson Hotel ballroom. The same chant started: "Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!"
Vera's crowning comes less than a month after Cinthia Covarrubias made national news by running for prom king at Fresno High School. . . .
The crying game . . .
Amanda Milan was a jet-setting, transgender escort. Why did she wind up with a knife in her throat at New York's Port Authority bus terminal?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Nina Siegal
June 20, 2001 | NEW YORK -- The sky was unusually bright that night, the air humid and sultry, embracing the light. Amanda Milan had pulled a trick for an escort agency, then stopped by Times Square to join an early-morning coffee klatch with a group of transsexuals who sometimes gathered at McDonald's on Eighth Avenue and 43rd Street to trade laments over Styrofoam cups.
Amanda was a tall black transsexual, with a long hair fall that masked the broad cut of her chin and a welcoming smile dabbed with glossy red lipstick. She had ample breasts (with the help of D-cup implants), and much of the time she could "pass" as a woman. But around the Port Authority, people recognized "the girls" who hung out by the Duane Reade drugstore, and Amanda was something of a celebrity in that circle.
Amanda kissed her friends goodbye at about 4 a.m. and then crossed Eighth Avenue, hoping to catch a cab in front of the bus terminal. Her friends watched her go, and continued to watch as a man approached her. . . .
It's a trans world . . .
The author of a new book about transgender teenagers in Los Angeles talks straight about hormone smuggling, life on the street, and the rise of America's first trans-rapper.
By Nona Willis-Aronowitz
Jan. 5, 2007 | "Transgender": Does even the word confuse you? If you were asked to define it, could you?
If not, you're hardly alone. For years, the transgender community has existed in the shadow of the gay, lesbian and bisexual rights movement -- though most trans-people agree that redefining their gender has little to do with their sexual orientation. The word is applied to everyone from drag queens and sex reassignment surgery patients to femme gay men and butch straight girls. And these days, when discussions of transgender do happen, it's usually in the context of the sex industry or debates about unisex bathrooms and gender-blind hallways in college dormitories. With such boundless, cloudy meanings, is it any surprise that even the most sex-savvy, gay-friendly, politically correct among us still have a hard time explaining the term?
Cris Beam, the author of "Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers," hopes her new book will help take on some of the mysteries and misconceptions that still haunt the transgender community. Beam, now 34, moved to Los Angeles in 1997, while her girlfriend attended graduate school. Lonely in her new city, she became intrigued by Eagles, a local high school specifically for gay and transgender kids; with the time left over in her freelance writing schedule, she began to work there as a volunteer. During the two and a half years Beam taught at Eagles, she discovered a complex but marginalized tribe of transgender teens who had nowhere to go but the streets. "Transparent" chronicles those stories, and describes how, within a few years, Beam found herself deeply involved in the kids' lives, entangled in their dreams, disappointments and their search for the truth about themselves and their gender. . . .
A plague undetected . . .
(This story's over 6 years old, but as relevant now as then.)
Did shady backroom hormone treatments and dirty needles cause a killer outbreak of HIV in the transgender community?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Nina Siegal
March 28, 2001 | NEW YORK -- Fourteen years ago, when Barbara Cassis was a 24-year-old man, she asked a family physician to give her hormones so she could become a woman. He prescribed a visit to a psychiatrist instead.
Undeterred, Cassis, now a towering blond with swimming-pool-blue eyes and a C-cup chest, entered an underground economy of fake doctors and self-appointed medical gurus who were willing to help her make the transformation she desired. She didn't know at the time that she was putting herself at risk for AIDS.
At transgender clubs in Hell's Kitchen, she asked the convincing-looking girls where to start. One gave her a business card for a hormone home delivery service. Another, she recalls, told her about a doctor who administered treatments in the bathroom of Sally's, a popular Hell's Kitchen bar catering primarily to transgender patrons.
According to Cassis and outreach workers who are familiar with the transgender scene in New York, this so-called doctor would set up shop in a bathroom stall for hours, injecting possibly hundreds with a single needle, without sterilizing it between shots. . . .
Tinky Winky says bye-bye to Jerry Falwell
The former TV star recalls the trauma of being called gay by the conservative preacher.
By King Kaufman
BBC/Ragdoll
Tinky Winky, with his handbag, left, has long denied rumors of an affair with former costar Po, right.
May 16, 2007 | Eight years ago the Rev. Jerry Falwell warned parents that BBC children's television star Tinky Winky was a hidden symbol of homosexuality. Falwell died Tuesday at 73, and the world wanted to talk to Tinky Winky.
"They're calling again, again, again," he said by phone from his home in Islington, in London. A spokesman said the former "Teletubbies" costar got more than 100 calls from reporters in the hour following news of Falwell's death.
"Oh dear, it's easy to say the wrong thing here," he said. "Tinky Winky sad whenever someone dies, but ..." He left it hanging there.
In a 1999 article in his National Liberty Journal headlined "Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet," Falwell pointed out that Winky could be taken as representing gays. . . .
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Professional Golfer Mianne Bagger . . . her thoughts on life
My Thoughts
These are some of my own thoughts and opinions which might give a bit of an insight into the kind of person I am and what I'm about. It's just me writing what's on my mind really and I might change it from time to time...I continue to be amazed at the things that happen in ones life and the direction it can take. Sometimes (well, usually) quite unexpectedly. It just goes to show that you never really know how things are going to turn out. . . .
Ian Harvie: Comedian
Bio & Resume
“Ian Harvie is on a mission. Sure, the Transgender stand-up comic wants to make audiences laugh, but only if s/he can humanize Trans people at the same time. Harvie, who plays to mainstream comedy establishments around the country, including the Boston Comedy Connection, and the Funny Bone clubs, contends that s/he’s the only Trans comic on the circuit.”
– San Francisco Bay Times, July 2006
Ian grew up on Beaver Pond (for real) in rural mountain town, Bridgton, Maine until the age of twelve. Ian’s first comedy performance was in a family variety show on New Years Day 1975. “I was standing in front of a fitted sheet that was hanging on a clothesline in the spare bedroom of my Aunt and Uncle's house in Rochester, New Hampshire. It was a period in my life when I was obsessed with the Carol Burnett Show and her whole cast,” Ian recalls. Channeling the energies of Tim Conway and Rich Little, Ian executed an impression of Richard Little doing an impression of Richard Nixon – a complicated and technical feat. “As I recall, my impression killed. So what if the audience of all 7 or 8 people were family members.” s/he laughs. For years after that, Ian received regular requests for that impression and obliged every time. Still to this day, if a family member were to ask, Ian would do it in a heartbeat. . . .
Check out his/her video clip.
Trans Singer Makes History
By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: November 30, 2006
Published: November 30, 2006
 |
“The world probably isn’t ready for a guy like me,” says trans singer Joshua Klipp, who made musical history on his self released EP Patience by singing in both his pre- and post-transition voices on the R&B track “Little Girl.” Klipp says he was terrified that his transition would destroy his voice and he searched for medial studies about the effects of testosterone on female-to-male vocal chords. Finding none, he enlisted the help of Dr. Edward Damrose, a throat specialist at Stanford University, who monitored Klipp’s physiological changes and its effects on his voice. Dr. Damrose plans to publish his findings.
“It’s funny because now everyone says, ‘You’ve got a great voice.’” Klipp says. “[But] I [used to have] this perfect pitch. I had a pitch in my head and it would just happen… and all of a sudden that muscle memory was just shot... I’m still working with how that actually feels… and I’m still getting used to it.”
Klipp is a bit of a Renaissance man. In addition to his musical endeavors, the trans man holds a degree in law, teaches dance, directs the San Francisco Bay Area hip hop dance company Freeplay, provides promotional photography for local artists, sits on the board of directors for Youth Speaks and he founded San Francisco Bay Area Artist Development and Support (www.myspace. com/cutelittlewhiteguy) to help artists develop business infrastructure.
The San Francisco singer, who is in his early thirties, says the latter project is something he devoted a great deal of time to during the initial part of his transition. “I didn’t know if I would be able to be the artist. So I made a commitment to myself that if I can’t be it…I’m going to take all that energy and put it towards getting other people out there and…supporting their art in whatever way I can.”
Klipp originally recorded “Little Girl” about five years ago, but recently enlisted songwriter Kristopher Cloud in pairing those female vocals with Klipp’s masculine verses, so that the song becomes a soothing lullaby from his male self to the girl he was.
“The whole process of letting go of that voice that I used to have was such a hugely emotional experience for me, that singing along with it with my current voice kind of felt like a resolution.” . . .
Japan's Saitama Medical University stops sex-change operations
05/14/2007
BY KANAKO IDA, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Japan's leading hospital in sex-change operations has stopped offering its services, leaving a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the treatment of patients suffering from gender identity disorder.
Saitama Medical University called a halt to the operations after professor Takao Harashina, a surgeon specializing in plastic surgery, retired at the end of April.
University President Toshio Yamauchi said it had become impossible to assemble a team of experienced doctors to perform sex-change operations.
Gender identity disorder, the condition in which people do not identify with the sex they were born with, is slowly beginning to win social recognition in Japan.
The suspension of operations at Saitama Medical University could jeopardize the hopes for the treatment of the nation's estimated 10,000 patients, experts say.
The university's plastic surgery department has canceled the nearly 60 sex-change operations it was scheduled to perform between May and October.
Yamauchi said the university hopes to resume sex-change operations as early as possible, emphasizing that its policy to offer the medical treatment remains unchanged.
Three years ago, it became possible for people diagnosed with the condition to change their sex on family registers by applying to family courts.
Applicants must undergo sex-change operations and fulfill other conditions before applying for the changes to registers.
Several other universities, including Okayama University and Kansai Medical University, perform sex-change operations, but the number of operations carried out by those institutions is limited.
The change from woman to man is particularly difficult. The procedure requires advanced technology and experience, experts noted.
Saitama Medical University carried out the nation's first legal sex-change operation in 1998.
The treatment of people suffering from gender identity disorder was formally introduced after the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology compiled guidelines in 1997.
The guidelines call for patients to first receive psychotherapeutic and hormone treatment and, when necessary, to undergo sex-change operations.
So far, 357 patients suffering from gender identity disorder have undergone sex-change operations at Saitama Medical University, according to Harashina.
About 60 percent have undergone relatively simple operations to remove their breasts.
But 21 people have had male sex organs attached.
Toshiyuki Oshima, director of the Japanese Society of Gender Identity Disorder, said Japan should have its own treatment center for patients.
Oshima, a professor at Kyushu International University, said doctors who can perform sex-change operations are limited. He also noted that such operations are not covered by medical insurance.
Operations done overseas can involve considerable difficulties due to language problems as well as issues during post-operation medical care, he added.(IHT/Asahi: May 14,2007)
Trans Surgeon Keeps Small Town On Map
By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Published: November 23, 2006
Published: November 23, 2006
 |
| Dr. Marci Bowers is not a hero in her small-town Colorado. |
At first glance, the small Colorado town of Trinidad seems an unlikely travel destination, yet over the last four decades, thousands of trans women have flocked to the quiet burg. Their pilgrimage continues today despite the resistance of local religious leaders.
Behind its quaint architecture and coal mining history, Trinidad conceals its reputation as “sex-change capital of the world.” The town first became a trans destination in the late 1960s when Dr. Stanley Biber began performing vaginoplasty for male to female transsexuals. When Biber retired in 2003 after 5,800 surgeries, his protégé Dr. Marci Bowers took over the practice.
A trans woman and former Biber patient who lives in Trinidad with her female partner, Bowers brings a rare insider perspective to her practice, but it’s not appreciated by some of the town’s 9,000 mostly conservative residents. For the past year, Trinidad Ministerial Association has circulated petitions and pressured Mount San Rafael Hospital to prohibit Bowers from operating at their facility.
In their campaign to oust Bowers, the Ministerial Association frequently cites a Johns Hopkins University study they claim proves surgery isn’t successful in treating gender identity issues. Bowers (marcibowers.com) calls the 1972 John Hopkins study “a sham,” that misinterpreted its own data and has never been replicated. Originally pioneers in sex reassignment surgery, Johns Hopkins abandoned the practice decades ago, partly based on the study’s findings.
“If you look at the actual study itself, the satisfaction rates and happiness rates after [surgeries] were overwhelmingly positive,” Bowers insists. “Their interpretation of the study was that the respondents—the patients themselves—couldn’t possibly be accurate about what they were feeling, because they were crazy in the first place.”
Transgender groups lobby for protection
|
By: Mike DeesonWashington, D.C. - More than 100 transgendered people lobbied Congress for protection from being fired because of gender. Susan Stanton, who is in Washington for the event, stayed away from some of the media circus early in the day when the group began the lobby effort.
While you could tell from some of the looks that their agenda wasn't going to be an easy sell, when they went to see their congressmen, they found some sympathetic ears.
"Discrimination is not right in this country," says Rep. Jan Schakowsky, (D-IL). Schakowsky says she is aware of what happened to Susan Stanton and she will co-sponsor the Employment Non-discrimination Act. "It would include gender identity in there," she says. "You can't discriminate on the basis of gender identity." . . .
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Undercover as a man
Video: Journalist Norah Vincent who spent a year disguised as a man is surprised by her findings. Her book is, "Self Made Man."
Facing rejection
Video: Social worker Caitlin Ryan, Ph.D. on how rejection affects transgender children.
A very important area for research.
A very important area for research.
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