Gender Identity Project

The Gender Identity Project (New York City) is a program at the Center that offers people of trans experience the opportunity to find support, information and a community. Back in 1989 when the Project first started at the Center there were few resources for transgender and gender questioning individuals. This segment, the first-time work of new volunteer producers, takes a look at the Gender Identity Project from people who were there when it started and those who are running it now. To find out more about the Gender Identity Project call 212 620-7310 or visit www.gaycenter.org/gip.

Stunning model has sex change

EXCLUSIVE Stunning Katherine has sex change to turn into Adrian

by Nick Owens

1.27.2008


With her long blonde hair and green eyes Katherine Dalton had a body most women would die for. She worked as a top model and starred in pop videos.

Yet Katherine has now spent £30,000 on a sex-change operation after feeling trapped for years as a gay man in a woman's body.

And in another amazing twist the ex-model, now known as Adrian, is dressing again as a woman at night - as she launches a new career as a drag act.

"People looked at me as if I was nuts when I told them I was a gay man trapped in a woman's body, but I couldn't be happier since the operation," says Adrian, 30.

"Friends have said, 'You were a beautiful woman so why change?' But when I look back at old pictures, Katherine is to me another person."

Katherine went to an all-girl boarding school in Wiltshire where her life was made a misery by other pupils who called her "the freak". But at 16 the dowdy girl bullied for her odd looks and behaviour - she wasn't interested in boys and talked in a strange way - blossomed into a beautiful teenager. She left school and headed to London where she was soon signed up by a string of modelling agencies.

Yet she was still so unsure about her sexuality that she could only face photo shoots after marathon drinking bouts. . . .

Stella Walsh's Secret

Monica Roberts

January 27, 2008

When the Beijing Olympic Games kick off in August we will hopefully see history made with the first open transgender athlete to win a medal.

Note I said open.

Hall of Fame sprinter Stella Walsh competed in the 1932 and 1936 Olympic Games for Poland, and she had a secret.

But before I tell you what it was, let me give you a little background on her.

Stella Walsh was born on April 3, 1911 as Stanislawa Walasiewiczowna in Wierchownen, Poland. Her family emigrated to the United States and settled in the Cleveland, OH area when she was only three months old.

By the time she entered high school, Stella was a star track athlete. She was so good that she qualified for a spot on the 1928 US Olympic team. She couldn't compete for the US because she wasn't a citizen and couldn't apply for it until she turned 21.

She did compete in American track championships even though she wasn't a citizen and won her first AAU championship in 1930. . . .

Transgender Photography

by admin

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Student Support Services Library News and Updates about the GLBTSSS, located in Bloomington Indiana

From the gorgously striking to the beautifully mundane, this post celebrates photography collections featuring transpeople from all walks of life.

The first book is BODY ALCHEMY: TRANSSEXUAL PORTRAITS by Loren Cameron (1996). This collection features portraits and stories of Female to Male (FTM) Transsexuals that celebrate body modification, masculinization, and every day life in the face of immense oppression from both straight and LGB persons alike.

Next is CASA SUSANNA by Robert Swope and Michel Hurst (2005). When Robert Swope found some old photographs of men in subdued and conservative women’s clothing at a flea market, he had a feeling he had found a goldmine of transgender history. He has turned these personal photographs into a book that celebrates Casa Susanna, a place of refuge for these MTF’s from the harsh gender expectations of the late 1950’s.

Finally we have PERSONA by Susan Brown (1997). These black and white portraits capture the dramatic, sexual, and gender-bending world of drag queens, MTF transsexuals, and other ‘gender illusionists’ who use their talent and gender performance to entertain. Each photograph is accompanied by an essay or interview about their identity and their act. . . .

LGBT community unites under new coalition

1/26/2008

by Heidi Zhou


Some say harmony in Austin's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community has been a long time coming.

"You can look back two, three, four years to see failed attempts among the community at coordination," said Jimmy Flannigan, president of the Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

Coordination is a challenge due to the LGBT community's internal diversity, Flannigan said.

"And accordingly the message has been mixed. Even when you go to a legislator and you say, I want to pass hate crime legislation or employment nondiscrimination, if you can't come with a single voice, you don't get anything done," he said. . . .

Transgender teens: Doctors refine hormone, other therapies

by CHLOE JOHNSON

January 27, 2008


Editor's note: This is one in an occasional series about transgender youth.

Puberty can be scary for many children, but doctors say it's absolutely terrifying for transgender youth.

"If they're not terrified of it, they're not trans," said Dr. Norman Spack, clinical director of the endocrine division of Children's Hospital in Boston.

The hospital opened a transgender clinic for children nearly a year ago, the first in the nation like it, according to Spack.

At the onset of puberty, children begin to feel the effects of their gender assigned at birth and develop the related secondary sex characteristics, such as breasts. That's especially difficult for transgender youth who identify with a gender opposite of the body in which they were born.

ransgender is an umbrella term used to describe people who don't fully identify with their 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.

There is limited and varying data on the number of transgender people in the nation, according to the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C. A report issued last year by a University of Michigan professor estimates the frequency of male-to-female transsexualism is in the range of 1 in 500 to 1 in 2,000.

There are medical options for transgender youth, but opinions differ on the best time to intervene, doctors say.

One option, practiced in the Netherlands, is to delay puberty by prescribing hormone blockers in an early stage of development called Tanner 2, Spack said. He said this is between the ages of 12 and 14 for boys and 10 to 12 for girls on average. The blockers extend the time doctors have to evaluate the child and make a diagnosis, while the child continues to gain the reasoning skills to help make up his or her mind. . . .

Jahna Steele Remembrance

"This video is a memorial to the beautiful and talented transsexual woman Jahna Steele, who passed suddenly on January 24th, 2008. Hers will be a keenly felt loss in the transgender community. This clip was taken from a 1993 talk show where I'd been a guest in another broadcast, and it ends with her singing a song that ironically fits this sad occasion."

See Jahna Steele's website: http://www.thejahnasteele.com

First comes the needle, then comes the pain

Serious physical, emotional problems await athletes after quitting steroids

by Mark Zeigler

January 26, 2008


A few months ago, two head shots of Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman were posted on a Web site called Pro Football Talk. One was from 2005, the other from this season. Merriman has improbably broad shoulders in the 2005 photo and noticeably smaller ones in 2007.

The implication and subsequent Internet chatter was that Merriman, who served a four-game NFL suspension in 2006 for a positive steroid test, was off the juice.

Turns out the 2005 photo, which appears in the Chargers media guide, was doctored by the team. Merriman missed the spring minicamp when player photos were taken, and his college head shot was superimposed on the shoulders of a beefy Chargers lineman – standard procedure in the NFL with unsigned rookies or recent acquisitions. All the body parts in the 2007 shot, presumably, belong to him.

Merriman may or may not have pumped his 6-foot-4, 272-pound frame full of anabolic steroids; he insists his positive test was from a tainted nutritional supplement. But the notion that a star athlete can suddenly shrink before our eyes without the help of Adobe Photoshop is a very real and potentially fatal eventuality. . . .

Gender Fundamentalists

Monica Helms

January 25, 2008

Many of us in the LGBT community are painfully aware of the religious fundamentalists who have such a wonderful time coming up with lies and fear tactics to throw out to the uneducated masses. They know full well that a great deal of those Americans will believe anything they are told, if you follow it up with “Praise the Lord.” Of course, their true God is the Almighty Dollar, which they get in abundance from those people who don’t know any better.

We hear a lot about the Islamic fundamentalists and how they are such a threat to America. In many ways, they are ranked amateurs compared to the Christian fundamentalists here in the US. Oh yes, we hear of gays being executed in the country that has no gays, Iran. I’m sure that every time that happens, Beverly LaHaye, ChairMAN of the Concerned “June Cleavers” for America, salivates, hoping we get a Republican President who will support that as well. I’m sure she would like it if President Eddie Haskell “gave us the business.” (The “June Cleaver” comment is not to put down the beloved character in “Leave it to Beaver,” but to emphasize the time period their mindset is in.)

Not to make light of it, but the Christian fundamentalists are a dangerous group of people, even if there weren’t any gay people for them to hate. Mike Huckabee’s comments on wanting to change the Constitution to reflects God’s laws instead of the Founding Fathers’ wonderful ideas is a prime example of the danger this group of Americans can be.

But, I didn’t title this article “Christian Fundamentalists.” There are plenty of others who can talk intelligently on that subject. My article is on a growing number of transsexual women who use their post-operative status as a symbol of their superiority over any other gender-different people. I can guarantee that as soon as this article sees the light of day, they will rise up out of their holes and swoop down on me like the creatures in the movie, “Pitch Black,” with Vin Diesel. I’m not afraid of the dark. . . .

Trans-Feminism (Transgender Feminism)

by Gale Brooker

25 January 2008


Tran feminism is a form of feminism that includes transgender and transsexual rights and issues, especially those of transwomen. Trans feminism has also been described as a social force working for the rights and goals of transsexual and transgender individuals.

This particular group has many struggles of their own, starting with having the heart and soul of one gender while having the genitalia of another. They also have huge economic struggles if they wish to have any medical procedures.

This type of feminism has created quite a stir among other groups. Some feminists feel they do not belong. One of the major reasons is because of how some Trans gender or transwoman behave or exaggerate their femininity. Another reason is some feel that trans genders could not possibly understand all the struggles and what it is to be a “true gender.”. . . .

Trans-Feminism Is Changing The Way Women View Themselves

07/30/2007

The ever changing world in which we live seems to regularly identify new scenarios that challenge the way in which society behaves. No more so than with transfeminism which is now creating a reaction that might not initially have been perceived. The reaction is from women who believe that trans-feminism is in fact a third gender assignment - a hybrid male-female that should not be included in any scheme involving original females.

How an individual born female sees herself is a reflection of the society in which she exists. It is acknowledged that women today have changed their social position dramatically over the past twenty years by competing with men on every level. Female equality is now no longer a concept but rather a way of life.

However where trans-feminism fits into the female psyche is proving difficult for many women born women to accept. It seems that if you were born male but feel that you should really have been born female and make physical efforts to right what you see as wrong, then you are not only distancing yourself from the male community but you are also not really a part of the true female alternative community. Gender issues have reached new controversial heights with the introduction of liberalism and a growing acceptance within society that some people prefer to wear the bodies of their opposite gender. This does not make it easy on those of us who walk the middle road because the extremists in both camps are full of woe about allowing what was ostensibly an opposite gender individual to join their ranks simply because it is the way they feel, even if they have also taken the significant step of having surgery performed so that their body is more in keeping with the bodies they prefer.

If one considers that the human body is simply a host vehicle, a receptacle in which our spirits are contained, it is possible to better appreciate how people can feel that they are not born of the sexual gender they should have been. If you take this a step further and suggest that the reincarnation of the soul is partly to blame and that as a result the individuals in question may have lived a previous life as a woman rather than a man it can been seen that the issue can really bring some fairly complex concepts to the fore. . . .

Male hormone has a Jekyll and Hyde effect

by JOE SCHWARCZ

January 26, 2008

Roosters probably considered Professor Arnold Berthold public enemy No. 1. But to scientists, he was a pioneer. And to athletes who abuse steroids, he's probably a hero. Providing that they have heard of him. If they haven't, they should have. Because it was Berthold's classic experiments carried out at the University of Gottingen in Germany in 1849 that laid the foundations for research leading to the eventual isolation of testosterone, the main male sex hormone.

Berthold was certainly familiar with the idea that removal of the testes caused profound changes in a male's behaviour. Eunuchs, for example, had long been known to have less aggressive personalities. Indeed, that's why Roman emperors like Constantine, fearing assassinations, surrounded themselves with servants who had been rendered mild-mannered by removal of their manhood. (One suspects, though, that they weren't exactly mild-mannered during the procedure.) In any case, not only did castration affect behaviour, it also affected physiology. Eunuchs were less likely to go bald, and if castration took place before puberty, their childish voice was retained.

The effect of castration on animals had also long been known. By 2000 BC, castration of farm animals to make them easier to handle was widespread. Bulls, rams and stallions were made more docile with a few well-targeted snips, making them less likely to protest when asked to haul loads or pull ploughs. But nobody really took much interest in just how castration brought about these dramatic changes until Berthold began his investigations. . . .

Yo is giving you a lesson on singular pronouns

By Wallraff, Barbara

1.28.2008

The latest news from the language front is that teenagers in Baltimore have invented a gender-neutral singular pronoun: "yo." When I learned of this, I was fascinated - for about 10 minutes. Then I started to get upset.

I was fascinated at first because English needs such a pronoun, or a set of them - words to fill in the blanks in sentences like "These days, an English teacher sure has ... work cut out for ..." Thank goodness, an unspecified teacher isn't automatically /him/his" anymore. "She/her/hers" is no more equitable as an alternative, though. Another possibility is "they/them/their" - but any English teacher who's satisfied with this option is in the wrong line of work.

English-speaking people have been searching for and inventing gender-neutral singular pronouns for at least 150 years. Among the many that have been proposed are "ne," "thon," "hesh," "he'er," "shey," "e," "hisorher" and the unpronounceable "s/he." Unfortunately, none of these coinages has caught on outside subcultures. So people keep inventing new ones.

Why does it upset me if kids in Baltimore came up with their own solution to the pronoun problem? Well, for one thing, that isn't what they did. Their teachers, having discovered their students' use of "yo," went on to document how the kids used it. Two of the examples the teachers collected were "Yo is tuckin' in his shirt" and "Peep yo." In the first example, note the word "his," which makes it clear that "yo" here isn't an unspecified person - it's a particular male. The second example means "Look at him (or her)." Out of context, we can't tell the sex of the person being referred to, but obviously, whoever was speaking was referring to someone he or she could see - another particular person of known gender. In neither case do we have an unspecified person, and therefore "yo" isn't that holy grail of pronouns our entire culture has been seeking. . . .

Rose, India's first transgender television show host

Host of Southern India's "Yours, Rose" will seek to challenge stereotypes, social taboos.

New Zealand: Reporting on the value of kindness

By Carroll du Chateau

January 26, 2008


It was Sir Ed who put it best: "Well, James has really changed," he remarked to his former climbing companion Dr Mike Gill. They had just met again with the reporter from the Times who had climbed to base camp, 18,000ft (5496m) high in the Himalayas, lugging his typewriter, to cover the original Everest expedition of 1953. Back then James Morris was a "fit, intensely ambitious" 26-year-old former Army intelligence officer who so impressed the Times it gave him its toughest assignment.

And when he showed up for one of the Everest reunions, as the understated Sir Ed remarked, he had really changed. He had become Jan: he was a woman.

Jan Morris doesn't want to talk about that sex change stuff now. She has been a woman for more than 35 years, since the operation in Marrakesh. It is detailed in her book, Conundrum (1974). She has suffered the sniggers, answered the questions. Now 81 and an acclaimed writer with around 40 books behind her, she refuses to discuss it any more. . . .

A New Writer Arrives at Ex-Gay Watch

by David Roberts

January 25th, 2008

We would like to introduce Yuki Choe, a commenter turned writer at XGW. Some may know her already from her thoughtful comments, but for those who don’t she has written an introduction which follows. Please join us in welcoming her to the site!

Introduction

Greetings everyone! I am YukiChoe, and I am an Asian transsexual female with strong interests in ex-gay related issues. I will be living in Australia soon with my newly wedded husband. I became involved with Real Love Ministry in Malaysia back in mid 2006, and was quickly disillusioned with their camouflaged, anti-gay, anti-transgender rhetoric. I was also appalled with the way lesbians, gays and transgenders were represented by other ex-gays and felt their misinformation of LGTs needed a strong counter voice. That is when I started advocating against ex-gay efforts toward those who have no problem with their orientation.

So why is a transsexual female like me contributing to a site like XGW? I believe there is an ex-gay or ex-transsexual experience in everyone of us. Be it a gay, having to be closeted by pretending to be completely heterosexual in public due to the pressures of society, a lesbian that may be comfortable in pants being forced to wear clothes that are totally femme against her will by her family, or a transsexual female being coerced into confining herself by pretending to be a boy before the church authorities. Our differences have been exploited by people who wish to cause discrimination and marginalization among those of differing sexual orientations. . . .

T is for...

Zoe Brain

1.24.2008


Taxonomy.

An expansion of a comment (with some corrections) I wrote over at Bilerico, where the fractures and fault-lines of T politics are all too evident.

A Taxonomy stating how we differ, and what we have in common.

1. First, we're all human beings. That needs saying because we too often lose sight of the fact that everyone, even those we don't identify with, even those we feel uncomfortable being around, have human rights. And I speak as a conservative neo-con, not a tree-hugging kumbayah-singing liberal.

2. Then some of us are GLBT - people who do not fit in in some way with the standard bigendered model, where men look and act in accordance with society's norm for men and are only attracted to women, and women look and act accordance with society's norm for women and are only attracted to men. About the only thing such people have in common with each other is that it's the same people who persecute them. Many in this conglomerate - that is, a matrix containing parts of very different nature - don't remotely understand each other, and there's both phobia - fear - and loathing even when they do understand.

There's Androphobic Lesbians who see men, even Gay men, as a threat, Gynaphobic Gays who see anything redolent of femininity as beneath contempt, Homophobic Transsexuals who resent being conflated with those they see as morally corrupt, you name it. And straight Intersexed people who don't see why having an unusual medical condition automatically drafts them into a political activist group made up of weirdoes like mentally ill Transsexuals, Fetishistic Crossdressers, and perverted GLBs.

3. The there are some who are T. This is where it really gets confusing. T for Transgender. And what that word means changes from day to day. The original definition meant straight males who like wearing female attire, and rejected any insane body-modifiers or perverted faggots. Now to the bulk of the populace, it means those weirdoes who get a sex change. To political activists, it means anyone who "transgresses gender norms" of appearance, behaviour or body, except (for historical reasons) in the specific area of sexual orientation. Very often, arguments are based on both sides using different definitions, and sometimes changing the definitions in mid-stream if it supports the point they're trying to make. Again, many feel dragooned into being categorised and confused with other groups they not only don't identify with, but actively dislike, sometimes with good reason.

It appears that the majority of the "Transgendered" in the last definition, and certainly the ones with the most power and money, are (and I hate using RadFem vocabulary, but it fits) Patriarchal males in positions of relative privilege, but who are afraid (with good reason) that they will be marginalised if they have a high profile. The heirs to J. Edgar Hoover. They have much influence, a great deal of money compared to other parts of the TG mixture, but are largely unseen. Cross them, you get squashed like a bug. They have no interest in any medical or marital issues, and wish to disassociate themselves from the highly visible segments. Especially Transsexuals. They're with Virginia Prince on that one.

4. T is for....

Q: What's the difference between a cross-dresser and a transsexual?
A: Oh, about 5 years...

There's a big difference between the part-time cross-dressing male, and a post-operative intersexed woman. But there's gradations in between, and sometimes it's impossible for an external observer to tell where one begins, and another ends. Operative status is a nice, clean, easy metric to use - but is inaccurate for many reasons. Having major surgery is a Big Deal, not without risks, and neither is it free nor available to those who most need it. Conversely, there are many women who can live with physical deformities - be they having three breasts or one, or even having masculinised genitalia. Unless they intend having some form of love life, and that can be really dangerous for anyone who's transgendered, the benefits may be outweighed by the disadvantages.

My own view is that hormonal body modification is more a important divider, but even that isn't wholly reliable. So yes, there is a difference, but no, I can't give a simple test for it. You know it when you see it - the guys tend to bubble about silky underwear and frilly dresses, the women about feminism and childcare. However, those who are TS and unable to transition at puberty - and that means most - are evolving in their own identity. 80% cross-dress before transition. . . .

Allyson at the Transgender Religious Summit

Rev. Allyson Robinson

January 24, 2008

When I read last year’s news coverage of the first-ever Transgender Religious Summit, I was thrilled to know the event was taking place. I had always assumed that coming out transgender meant the end of my ministry career, and was so encouraged to know that enough transgender religious professionals existed to warrant a conference! So you can imagine how excited I was to receive an invitation to this year’s follow-up event, held last Sunday and Monday at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.

I’ll be blogging some of the topics we covered at the summit over the next few days, but I want to open my coverage of the event by thanking all those who made my attendance there possible and by greeting all the wonderful new friends I made (who I hope will eventually find their way here). It was incredibly inspiring and empowering to be among them, and I left them with great hope for the future–both for all trans people of faith, and for myself as a trans woman called to serve the world on God’s behalf. . . .

Transgender Don't Mean Punk

Monica Roberts

1.24.2008


TransGriot note: Just in case you're wondering who the transwoman is with the boxing gloves on, that's Thai kickboxer Nong Tum, whose story was told in the film Beautiful Boxer.

One of the things our enemies and potential assailants presume to their detriment is that if a transperson is placed in a confrontational situation, we're just gonna acquiesce to the verbal beatdown (or worse) that you want to inflict on us.

Au contraire, my misguided friend.

I still chuckle about an incident that happened while I was out and about in Montrose one night. I was hanging out with one of my transwoman girlfriends outside an iconic Black gay nightclub then called Studio 13. Three white males rolled up in a truck and blocked the club's parking lot exit access to Westheimer Road. Two of them got out of the truck and started uttering anti-gay and anti-Black epithets.

Two female illusionists literally got in their faces and read them like cheap novels to the point where we were laughing at them. The 'macho' men took a swing at one of the illusionists, who not only ducked the incoming punch, but proceeded to administer a beatdown that these boys will never forget. It only ended when security pulled them away from the silly boys. They left bruised, battered and anxious to scurry back to their truck and run back to wherever they came from. . . .

Living with honor

One person's struggle for identity

Michael Rizzo

1.24.2008


"Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina."

When Mr. Kimble, aka Governor Schwarzenegger, got that tip from one of his pupils in "Kindergarten Cop," we all laughed.

If only it were that simple.

Meet Amanda Clark, 28. She joined the ranks of San Jose State University on Wednesday, working toward a post-baccalaureate degree in accounting. She comes to us after a four-year stint in the Army Reserve, studying Korean at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey.

Oh, and she has a penis.

Amanda identifies as transgender, so she gets lumped in with the queer community. "You can't have the LGB without the T," she told me.

"I just want to live fulltime as a woman," Amanda said. "And be acknowledged as that by society."

In less sympathetic times, "trannies" were thought of as just "gays-to-the-extreme," a fetish gone out of control. And even today, some psychologists would say that Amanda is sick and suffers from a mental disorder.

But the way Cassie Blume of the Billy DeFrank Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in San Jose explained it to me, the transgender identity is misunderstood because society's ingrained notions of male and female are completely abstract. . . .