Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The Gender Identity Center of Colorado — right in your own backyard
By Matt Kailey
This trans thing I’ve been writing about isn’t some modern invention, folks. Transgendered people have been around since the dawn of time (at least I have — or I feel like it most days).
But Colorado, as conservative as its reputation has been in the past, has actually been at the forefront of a lot of progressive social movements, and trans issues has been one of them.
Most people aren’t even aware that the Denver Metro area has one of the oldest gender centers in the country — the Gender Identity Center of Colorado (GIC), founded in 1978 and incorporated in 1980. In fact, most people don’t even know what a gender center is. So let’s find out …
What in the heck in a gender center?
Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and sometimes you want to go where nobody does. A gender center provides both through weekly support meetings where you can meet your friends and talk about specific issues, or come to listen and learn, remaining anonymous and saying as much or as little as you want. . . .Read More
Fallout continues from transphobic radio show
by Dan Aiello
6/11/2009Sacramento morning drive time radio show will devote an episode to transgender issues today (Thursday June 11), after a broadcast last month was widely criticized as anti-transgender and 11 companies subsequently pulled their ads from the program.
After the May 28 broadcast, Rob Williams and Arnie States, two of three talk show hosts of the "Rob, Arnie and Dawn in the Morning," heard in Sacramento on KRXQ 98.5 FM, came under fire following a discussion about an 8-year-old transgender boy in Omaha. Both men justified the use of violence to "correct the behavior" of "drama queen" transgender and gay youth the men called "freaks of nature."
The third host, Dawn Rossi, tried in vain to convince her co-hosts that no child would willingly choose to be different or the subject of ridicule and repeatedly apologized to "any listeners who are transgender."
The live show was pulled from broadcast for several days this week. . . .Read More
Calif radio hosts to address transgender issues
6/8/2009
Rashad Robinson of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation said Monday that the general manager of station KXRQ-FM told him that talk show hosts Rob Williams and Arnie States also plan to apologize during Thursday's show. . . .Read More
Male mum gives birth to son
The Sun
PREGNANT man Thomas Beatie yesterday gave birth for the second time - to a boy.
Transsexual Thomas had conceived through artificial insemination.
Sources said it was a "natural childbirth" and that the boy was healthy and well.
Thomas, 35, was born a woman and became the first man to give birth after having daughter Susan Juliette last June.
Thomas, of Bend, Oregon, changed sex in his twenties.
He had a breast removal op and legally became a man - but kept his ovaries. . . .Read More
Australian Aims to Become First Transsexual Pro Footballer
An Aussie Rules football fan is looking to become the first transsexual to play the competitive sport, according to an article in Sunday's edition of The Age.
Will, who asked not to use his last name, told The Age writer Jill Stark, "I'm just an ordinary guy who wants to play football, just with slightly different circumstances of how I came to be a guy."
The 25-year-old had a sex change two years ago and has had a double mastectomy. He takes hormones to induce body hair growth and to lower his voice. The article stated that Will "does not feel the technology is advanced enough to create a functioning penis."
The Australian would-be footballer has gained the support of Victorian Country Football League's president Glenn Scott, who told Will that in order to play he would need to legally change his birth certificate to reflect his male sex, but that otherwise his attempt, if successful, would be allowed. . . .Read More
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Controversial Trans Pioneer Prince Dies at 96
May 6, 2009
Virginia Prince, a pioneer of the cross-dressing community and longtime activist for transgender rights, died on Saturday, May 2. She was 96 years old.
Prince's philosophies attracted fierce criticism, especially from transgender people. She was staunchly against sex-reassignment surgery, writing in 1978 that she believed it was "perfectly possible to be a woman without having sex surgery." She is widely believed to have coined the term "transgender" around 1970, but as a description exclusively for heterosexual people who did not wish to have reassignment surgery. . . .Read More
LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER PRIDE MONTH, 2009
Office of the Press Secretary
June 1, 2009
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION
Forty years ago, patrons and supporters of the Stonewall Inn in New York City resisted police harassment that had become all too common for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Out of this resistance, the LGBT rights movement in America was born. During LGBT Pride Month, we commemorate the events of June 1969 and commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans.
LGBT Americans have made, and continue to make, great and lasting contributions that continue to strengthen the fabric of American society. There are many well-respected LGBT leaders in all professional fields, including the arts and business communities. LGBT Americans also mobilized the Nation to respond to the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic and have played a vital role in broadening this country's response to the HIV pandemic.
Due in no small part to the determination and dedication of the LGBT rights movement, more LGBT Americans are living their lives openly today than ever before. I am proud to be the first President to appoint openly LGBT candidates to Senate-confirmed positions in the first 100 days of an Administration. These individuals embody the best qualities we seek in public servants, and across my Administration -- in both the White House and the Federal agencies -- openly LGBT employees are doing their jobs with distinction and professionalism. . . .Read More
KRXQ Sacramento Radio Hosts Encourage Violence Against Transgender Children
June 2, 2009
Even by the flexible moral, ethical, and professional standards of American talk radio, the May 28th segment of KRXQ 98.5 FM Sacramento's Rob, Arnie, & Dawn in the Morning radio talk show makes for a sickening half-hour of ugliness and cruelty. For once, the focus was not LGBT adults, but minors. The hosts, Rob Williams and Arnie States, devoted the segment in question to a vicious diatribe against transgender children, some as young as five, focusing in particular on the case of one Omaha family raising a gender dysphoric child, and their decision to support her transition from male to female.
Williams and States took turns referring to gender dysphoric children as "idiots" and "freaks," who were just out "for attention" and had "a mental disorder that just needs to somehow be gotten out of them," either by verbal abuse on the part of the parents, or even shock therapy.
"Allowing transgenders to exist, pretty soon it becomes normal to fall in love with the animals," they said. . . .Read More
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Conservatives Warn Quick Sex Change Only Barrier Between Gays, Marriage
Rep. Iscoe warns gays will give penises to lesbians who will give them vaginas so that homosexuals can marry and continue their attack on the American family.
TheOnion
Harvard to Endow Chair in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies
June 3, 2009
Harvard University will endow a visiting professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies, a position that, it believes, will be the first endowed, named chair in the subject at an American college.
The visiting professorship was made possible by a gift of $1.5 million from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, which will formally announce it at a dinner on Thursday, after Harvard’s commencement exercises. With the gift, Harvard said it would regularly invite “eminent scholars studying issues related to sexuality or sexual minorities” to teach on campus for one semester, according to a draft of a university press release.
The chair is being named for F.O. Matthiessen , a Harvard scholar and literary critic who “stands out as an unusual example of a gay man who lived his sexuality as an ‘open secret’ in the mid-twentieth century,” according to the release. . . .Read MoreI was a lipstick lesbian... now I’m a gay man
21 May 2009
WITH her sexy curves, perfect pout and long, blonde hair, gorgeous Katherine Dalton was in big demand as a model.
But beneath her beauty lay a secret which had troubled her from an early age — she felt she was a MAN and found herself attracted to girls rather than guys.
The 31-year-old says: “For years I was a man trapped in a woman’s body. And although I was a beautiful woman I felt ugly because I was not who I wanted to be. Now I feel complete and it is fantastic.
"Going through the op to be a man was scary but it's the most fulfilling thing I've done and I feel right for the first time in my life."
Katherine - who has changed her name to Adrian - is single but hopes to pursue relationships. . . .Read More
Fare lady cabbie 'fired for sex swap'
4 June 2009
A TRANSSEXUAL taxi driver claims she has been sacked for wearing skirts and nail polish.
Andre Edwards, 50 - who was born a man and was known as Andrew - said her bosses and passengers could not cope with her bizarre lifestyle.
She said: "It's not easy when people shout things at you and call you vile names."
But yesterday bosses insisted Andre was fired after customers complained about HER "bad attitude" - and for upsetting staff by criticising their appearance.
Andre is undergoing "gender re-alignment" after getting hormone replacement pills on the internet, but hopes to have a sex change operation next year.
She has already had electrolysis to get rid of facial hair. . . .Read More
Monday, June 01, 2009
Kenya: The Fallacies of Identity Politics
21 May 2009
OPINION
Deeply concerned about the profound discrimination experienced by Kenya's transgender community, Audrey Mbugua berates Kenyan society for its unjust treatment of a marginalised group. Rather than creating 'transgender rights' per se, Mbugua calls upon the country to view transgender people as human beings like any other group. Deeply scathing of Kenya's entrenched 'trans-phobia' and the divisive nature of different groups' competing for recognition, the author implores those marginalised to see themselves as part of a wider struggle for justice that transcends identity politics.
Identity politics refers to a political action to advance the interests of a group whose members perceive themselves to be oppressed by virtue of a shared and marginalised identity (such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation).
Two weeks ago, a colleague of mine summoned me into his office and played a news clip dating back to August last year. It involves a Kenyan transgender girl been brutally beaten up in the streets by a group of women and men. Her face is swollen and her clothes torn. She begs for mercy but her pleading is drowned out by the laughter of women and children. She tries to cover her tiny breasts but a man uncovers them for the cameraman to capture it all. After this macabre footage, a female news anchor laughs before yapping about something else 'important' (probably the trauma of gender violence among abused women).
A week ago, I got hold of a collection of hallowing experiences that a group of Kenyan women went through during the infamous post-election violence.[1] One of the accounts reveals a woman who was raped by a group of 11 policemen as her son watched in horror. In the process, she was infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Another lady reveals that she had full-blown Aids and was bedridden when Kenya went to the elections in 2007. But this did not deter a group of Kenya's General Service officers from raping her. She further revealed that her husband had died a year earlier and her health had deteriorated to the level of her giving up on anti-retroviral therapy. Apart from religious fanatics who believe everything happens for a purpose and God knows and plans everything, who would justify these horrendous acts? Who would want these things to happen to oneself whether there was any purpose or if God had planned them? . . .Read More
Change of direction, new love
May 31, 2009
RACHEL and Kimberley Rae say they owe their lives to Dr Trudy Kennedy and the gender dysphoria clinic she worked at. Theirs is an unlikely love story.
Born male, they both longed to be female, knowing from the age of five they weren't like other little boys. In adulthood the decision to "stop living a lie" brought them together.
They met in 2002 a week after Rachel's surgery, which transformed her from Bob, previously a carpenter, a welder and a security guard from central Victoria, into a woman who had finally found peace but who had lost her family as a result. . . .Read More
Gender change 'priceless'
May 11, 2009
Local transsexual woman beginning PhD on the topic
The approximate cost of surgery to transition from a man to a woman? Around $20,000.
The cost for a woman to become a man? Roughly $80,000.
The peace of mind that comes after years of hoping, dreaming and planning to make the gender you feel match the sex you are? Priceless, according to Carol Allan, a local transsexual woman who made her transition nearly two decades ago and is now beginning a PhD on the topic.
Transsexual people, both pre- and post-surgery, have been in the media across Alberta since the provincial government announced in April that it would no longer fund sexual reassignment surgery.
But while Allan fully disagrees with that move, she says transsexuals have been portrayed as needy people lapping up welfare money, unable to stand on their own feet. . . .Read More
Gender setters- when doctors play God
31 May 2009
Two former patients of Australia's controversial sex-change clinic say misdiagnosis and wrongful surgery destroyed their lives. Jill Stark reports.
HE WILL never forget the noise. Lying on the hospital trolley being pushed towards the operating theatre he heard a primal wail. He looked back to see his younger sister sobbing, traumatised by what he was about to do.
Andrew*, born male, was minutes away from an operation that would make him a woman. Psychiatrists said he had a female brain in a male body. Gender reassignment surgery was the only way to ease the mental torment.
But as he headed to surgery he was struck by an unshakeable thought: "It's not right." He remembers telling the surgeon: "I think I'm doing the wrong thing, I think we've got to stop it."
The surgeon stroked Andrew's face, telling him it was natural to feel frightened before an operation. He protested again. Then it went black. When he woke up he was sure the surgery had been cancelled. The tales he had read of transsexuals who awoke post-surgery feeling "reborn" convinced Andrew, then 21, the operation had been halted, because he felt no different. "Then I remember lifting up the sheets and … feeling it all bandaged. I just started bawling my eyes out and screaming … I remember saying to myself, 'how could you be so bloody stupid?"'. . .Read More