"Hi, I'm Alex," he says. Firm handshake.
Would anyone know? Probably not.
Alex Myers, Class of '00, speaks in an unexceptional tenor. He is 19 years old. About 5 feet 6, he doesn't stand out from myriad other college men. Yet at another time, or in another place, he might well have ignited a serious scandal.
As a freshman last year, Myers moved into a coed dormitory called Greenough Hall, assigned to a single room on the all-male fourth floor. A bit of a nerd who piled on science and math courses, he objected when a neighbor blared rave music at night, but otherwise kept pretty much to himself. The other guys knew he came from a tiny Maine town via a prestigious prep school, Phillips Exeter Academy; they said hello in passing.
Anonymity was fine, for a while. But by the second month on campus, former Exeter classmates had started to gossip. And Myers himself felt uneasy about concealing an essential fact. "It makes me feel as though I'm ashamed of who I am," he reasoned. And he wasn't.
So he told his dorm mates the truth: For his first 17 years, he'd been Alice Myers, a tomboy who kept her hair short and loathed dresses but was, nonetheless, a girl. Just before her senior year at Exeter, however, Alice figured it out: Despite her female body, she felt like a man, a state known as being "transgendered."
So Alice legally changed her name; Myers's driver's license and Harvard ID now read Alex. But despite having jettisoned his Alice identity, he hadn't opted for hormone treatments or surgery, hadn't even seen a doctor. So technically -- biologically -- the guy in Room 407 still belonged to the female side of the species.
Perhaps the most arresting part of this story is what happened next, which was . . . practically nothing. Mild surprise followed by a collective so-what. Confronted with what might have seemed a masquerade, a falsehood, possibly a psychiatric disorder -- "to most people, transgenderism isn't something you expect to meet, it's something you see on `Oprah,' " notes Mike Hellerstein, one of Myers's dorm mates -- the men of Greenough Hall mostly shrugged. There was more fourth-floor bickering about loud music than about sharing bathrooms with a man who got menstrual cramps.
"There really wasn't any reason for a problem," says T. Timothy Wang, who roomed down the hall. "He didn't make a big production out of it. He was just like anyone else.". . .Read More
Dear Mr. President:
I want to start by congratulating you on this historic achievement. You have waited a lifetime for this moment in time, but our country has waited generations. I’m still pinching myself to make sure it’s real.
This historic election has meant so many things to so many people. More than simply a contest of ideology or political doctrine, it has tested deeply held ideals and has transformed the very fabric of our country. It has been a contest pitting Hope against Fear, Change against Status Quo, and Future against Past. After all that has happened in recent years it has renewed my confidence in the American People and in the political process in general. More than once, it has moved me to tears.
I believe to my core in your twin campaign mantras of Hope and Change. I have pledged to do what I can to help you make your vision of a country where all are valued, where each of us has opportunity, and where a renewed vision of America that is committed to integrity and credibility become reality. You cannot do that by yourself, and I have dedicated myself to be one of the many faces that represent the diverse depth and breadth of Americans it will take to achieve it. . . .Read More
But nowhere are attitudes toward sex and gender quite as elastic as in the far reaches of the southern state of Oaxaca. There, in the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into gay and straight. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” (pronounced MOO-shays) — men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned netherworld between the two genders.
“Muxe” is a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish “mujer,” or woman; it is reserved for males who, from boyhood, have felt themselves drawn to living as a woman, anticipating roles set out for them by the community. . . .Read More
A MIDLAND clinic offering sex change operations for just £1,500 is being investigated by health chiefs.
The cut-price chop is being advertised by Shangri-La & Surgeon Ltd, which is based in an industrial unit in Birmingham’s Chinatown area.
Adverts plastered around the Arcadian Centre under the title “Beatiful You, Beautiful Price” boast that the surgeon is now working with “Tiffany Models” and promises cosmetic surgery everybody can afford.
As well as a full sex change op, the menu of surgery options includes a £1,200 boob job, liposuction for just £890 and buttock implants for £1,281.
Horrified transsexual support groups say the ultra-cheap Birmingham surgery is the lowest-priced operation anywhere in the world, and is half the price of the cheapest surgeries in Thailand. . . .Read More
(. . .very high risk, IMO! R.A.)
About 25 protesters braved a brisk wind and fumes from cars zipping past Friday afternoon to show their support for Blake Williams, a transgender teen who says he dropped out of Aspen Valley High School because he didn't feel safe.
Williams, 18, said he's endured bullying and verbal abuse at three schools - two in Academy School District 20 and one charter school - in the two years since he began transitioning from female to male. He called on District 20 and other district administrations to begin training staff on the issues facing Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students.
"We need to be protected from the hate, the bullying," he said. "We want to be treated as human beings."
Others at the rally across from Aspen Valley, an alternative school in D-20, said the education community, including colleges, must work harder to address issues that face LGBT students.
"This doesn't stop at high schools," Ayden Merino, a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs freshman said of discriminatory practices. "It goes on in colleges. They can't even figure out what kind of dorm room to put us in." . . .Read More
The commission distributed a paper entitled "Sex Files -- The legal recognition of sex: Proposed reform" among transgender and transsexual advocates that supports adding "intersex" to the recognized genders of male and female for use on passports and driver's licenses, the Sydney Daily Telegraph reported Friday.
"Recognition of intersex: Persons who cannot or do not identify as either male or female would be able to choose to be identified on their birth certificate and passport as intersex," the paper reads. . . .Read More
WEST PALM BEACH, FL -- Two of the eight Real World house-mates will be moving from South Florida to Brooklyn.
One is sure to be the topic of much conversation. Katelynn grew up in West Palm Beach as a male. According to MTV, she began to realize she was more comfortable as a woman in high school. By 17, she was living full-time as a woman. Now 24, she went to Thailand last summer for the surgery to complete the transformation. She has a boyfriend she hopes to marry. . . .Read More
December 3, 2008
He had been toiling for ages on an autobiographical coming-of-age story about his mentors, the great American poets Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. For this occasion, though, he longed for new material.
"I was sick and tired of reading from my memoir. I wanted to write a fairy tale," says Ewert. "So I wrote the first draft of a transgender book for kids."
He picked up a thread from Piki and Poko, a Web cartoon he co-created that has a strong transgender character, someone whose self-identification doesn't match his assigned sex. Getting the story right took a couple of tries.
"Originally, the book was written for a child who had an uncle or an aunt who was transitioning," he says. "But it was too serious. I was boring myself." . . .Read More
TUESDAY, Dec. 2 (HealthDay News) -- The illusion of body-swapping -- making people perceive the bodies of mannequins and other people as their own -- has been achieved by Swedish neuroscientists.
In one experiment, the team fitted the head of a mannequin with two cameras connected to two small screens placed in front of volunteers' eyes, so that they had the same view as the mannequin.
When the mannequin's camera eyes and a participant's head were directed downwards, the participant saw the mannequin's body where the person would normally have seen their own body.
The researchers created the illusion of body-swapping by touching the stomach of both the mannequin and the volunteer with sticks. The person saw the mannequin's stomach being touched while feeling (but not seeing) a similar sensation on their own stomach. As a result, the person developed a strong belief that the mannequin's body was actually their own. . . .Read More
Pulse of Equality Survey, Conducted by Harris Interactive, Reports that 75% Favor Either Marriage or Civil Unions/Domestic Partnerships for Gay and Lesbian Couples
New York, December 3, 2008 – A new survey conducted by Harris Interactive in the wake of the passage of and protests against California's Proposition 8 reveals that majorities of Americans favor a broad range of policies and legal protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.
The Pulse of Equality survey, commissioned by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), shows that majorities of Americans favor either marriage or civil unions/domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples, as well as gay- and transgender-inclusive hate-crimes laws and non-discrimination laws, and allowing openly gay service members to serve in the armed forces, while a majority opposes laws that would ban adoption by qualified gay and lesbian couples. . . .Read More
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November 30 2008
If I'm on a day shift in the hospital, I start work at 8am. For this, I usually get up at 5.30am. I get up early to make myself beautiful. I have to wash my hair and straighten it. I want to look great for my patients. I work in the orthopaedic surgical ward. The patients are sick and they can be down, so I want to build them up. When I don't fix myself up or have make-up on, they're surprised. They ask me if I am sick, and I tell them that it's just that I have been lazy that day. I have a coffee before I leave the apartment, and I have breakfast later on at work.
I used to shave in the mornings, because I used to be a man. I had stubble and all those problems, but then I went to a laser clinic in London and got rid of all my facial hair. I went through a transformation. At first I was gay, then I started dressing up in women's clothes and becoming effeminate. But I suppose I was always effeminate. I think it's an environmental thing. I'm the youngest in my family -- I have two older sisters. I wasn't allowed to try on their clothes, but I was always playing with their dolls. My father was out working all day, so there wasn't a strong male influence at home. I was with my sisters and my mother and I tended to imitate them when they were doing their hair and make-up. My family is into this whole Catholic thing, and they had all these expectations -- you have to do this, you have to do that -- but eventually I achieved my own expectations by transforming.
I let my hair grow long. I got my eye bags removed and I had my tits done at the same time. I think I'm addicted to surgery. I had my lips plumped with injections, and I've had implants into my bum and hips to make them look curvier. I also had two jobs done on my nose and got my chin fixed too. My pain threshold is very high. . . .Read More
Do you have questions about the coming out journey? The Human Rights Campaign has a set of resources to help you along the way. Download a copy of our newly released Resource Guide to Coming Out, or read it online. Or download our Resource Guide to Coming Out for African Americans, the Spanish-language Guía de Recursos Para Salir Del Clóset or our guide to Living Openly in Your Place of Worship.
