Vitale Letter #248, December 24, 2002 Anne Vitale PhD, Editor
- Archives of back issues
- Notes on Gender Transition
COMMENTARY Pass the Right Bill--Sexual orientation law should include transgendered people Editorial The Post-Standard (Syracuse New York) NTAC Applauds New York Senators Heroism, Blasts Expedient Critics From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) NEW YORK SENATE: Merry Christmas to State's Gays and Lesbians Transgenders Left out of Human Rights Protections. From: NTACMedia@aol.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Re: Transsexuals must be allowed to marry From: Bernadette Rogers, Woodford Halse, Northhants
- ============///========///======///======///==========///==========/
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Top The Advance Group is for MTF's who are either in an advanced stage of transition (living full time in the female gender role) or has had SRS in the last year. The group has been meeting for the last 20 weeks and is well established. But due to natural attrition, there is room for two new members. The Early / Questioning Group is for genetic males who have either decided to transition but are still living in the male gender role or genetic males who are trying to get a handle on their gender issues. The group has been meeting for the last 20 weeks and is well established. But due to natural attrition, there is room for two new members.
Call Anne Vitale PhD at 415-456-4452 or send an email to Group@avitale.com for more information. Top
[2] New Essay--Current Thinking Regarding the Etiology of Gender Dysphoria December, 2002., Anne Vitale PhD Posted to the internet on December 16, 2002 http://www.avitale.com/etiologyreview.htm ---This is a repeat from last week's newsletter---ed Top
This essay is taken in part from a paper I wrote in 2001. It was originally published in Gender and Psychoanlysis, An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 6 No. 2, Spring 2001. ...Anne Vitale
It begins with the following paragraph:
Although the origins of being gender dysphoric can not yet be declared outright, there is a growing body of evidence that Gender Identity Disorder (GID) as described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV (1994) is at least in part, the result of insufficient or inappropriate androgenization of the brain at a critical stage of embryonic development. As a result, the affected individual may be left with between a partial and a full sense of having a cross-sexed gender identity. It is this difference that may be the root cause behind an overwhelming need to transition.......
[3]
USA --Dr. Monica Casper, PhD, To Be New Executive Director at the
Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) Organization to Move to
Seattle
Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) Press Release For Immediate Release: December 19, 2002 For additional information, contact ISNA Office at 707-636-0420 PETALUMA, CA - Dr. Monica Casper, PhD, an internationally recognized medical sociologist and biomedical ethicist, has been selected to head the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) as its new Executive Director. The organization is also strengthening the leadership of people with intersex conditions in the board of directors with the promotion of Thea Hillman, an author and intersex activist, to the position of Board Chair, and the addition of intersex activists David Strachan and Esther Morris Leidolf to the board. "I will work with the board and with ISNA's growing constituency to advocate for systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for all people with intersex conditions," said Dr. Casper. "More and more professionals are looking for direction on how to treat people with intersex. ISNA is poised to offer solutions and create real change with its patient-centered model of care." Dr. Casper is the the author of the award-winning and groundbreaking book, The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery, which examines the rise of the controversial practice of operating on unborn babies. Framing fetal surgery as a women's health issue, she challenges society's compulsion to normalize its members, especially those at the beginnings of life, and to subject otherwise healthy individuals to risky medical treatment. "I am very excited about Monica's appointment," said Cheryl Chase, ISNA's departing Executive Director. "Her energy and her expertise in dealing with health care advocates, doctors and scientists are great assets for the organization." ISNA's offices will move to Seattle in January 2003. A separate release will be distributed with full contact information. For full bios of Monica Casper, Thea Hillman, David Strachan, and Esther Morris Leidolf, as well as bios for other board members, please visit ISNA's website at http://www.isna.org/about/board.html The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) is devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy and unwanted sexual surgeries for children born with atypical reproductive anatomies. We are working to end the idea that intersexuality is shameful or freakish. In the U.S. alone, five children are subjected to to harmful, medically unnecessary sexual surgeries every day. We urge physicians to use a model of care that is patient-centered, rather than concealment-centered. For more information, go to http://www.isna.org Top
GENERAL INFORMATION [4] NEW ZEALAND--Wanted man dodging jail over Christmas, say police Top Source Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. New Zealand News - NZ - Wanted man dodging ja... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3048575&thesection=news&t hesubsection=general 24.12.2002 A man wanted by police over the death of a South Auckland transvestite is dodging police to avoid being jailed over Christmas, police say. Gang member Joe "Bucket" Coleman is wanted over the baseball bat bashing of George "Georgie Girl" Matehaere, 34, in Otahuhu last Monday. Mr Matehaere died on Sunday night. Police said yesterday they had been told Coleman, 39 wanted to stay out of jail for Christmas but they warned that anyone sheltering him could face charges. They believe he may be with Diane Henare-Wynyard and their 12-year-old son. Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Hallett said Henare-Wynyard could be setting herself up for a criminal charge if she knowingly sheltered Coleman or helped him evade police. He said Coleman was not thought to be a dangerous "loose cannon" but armed police had been used to search an Auckland address after a weekend tip-off from a member of the public. Coleman, of Maori descent, is 1.8m tall and has the words "Mangu Kaha" and a clenched fist tattooed on his forehead. Another tattoo runs across the bridge of his nose. Anyone with information about him can ring the homicide hotline on (09) 259-1342. - NZPA ©Copyright 2002, New Zealand Herald Top
[5] INDIA Cruising ahead with a cause in a formidable world Top Source Brenda Lana Smith R.af D Cruising ahead with a cause in a formidable w... http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=320 95875 MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2002 THE TIMES OF INDIA INDIA TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2002 10:52:43 PM ] VARANASI: Struggling to carve a niche for herself in this formidable world, she has chosen a mission - to help the society that treats her as an outcast. Laxmi Tripathi, a eunuch from Mumbai, is now active in spreading awareness about HIV/AIDS. Associated with the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society, a wing of the National AIDS Control Programme, she organises street shows to educate people about the factors responsible for the spread of the disease and preventive measures. Laxmi also runs the DAI Welfare Society, an organisation for the development and support of eunuchs. She was here recently with her group leader Lata and others to attend the nine-day national convention of eunuchs, which started on December 21. However, she used the opportunity to involve local residents in her mission by organising a nukkad sabha at Assi Ghat on Saturday. "Jab hum hijrah log is bimari ke bare mein itne gambhir ho sakte hain to aap log kyon nahin (When the eunuchs are serious about this disease, then why not you)," the group leader addressed the onlookers during the sabha. A Bharatnatyam artiste, she puts forward her feelings quite explicitly. Dismayed by the treatment meted out to eunuchs, she says: "Gone are the days when eunuchs enjoyed a respectable position in the society." Today eunuchs have become a subject of mockery, she said, alluding to Mahabharata, in which eunuchs had major roles to play. There are several misconceptions about eunuchs in the society, she says. "With the problem of unemployment rising, even normal people pose to be eunuchs to fleece the public. These people are also a major factor behind the infamy our community had earned over the years. We are just seen as people out to fleece the general public," she said. Though she had worked in many films, she is unhappy with the way eunuchs are portrayed. "It is definitely a profitable source of livelihood but it also entails a lot of humiliation for us. Mostly, eunuchs are portrayed as crooks or funny characters. At the end of the day, there is no job satisfaction," Laxmi said. Talking about the convention, she said it was organised to pay tributes to their gurus and ancestors. © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. Top
[6]UK--Sex change workers win new jobs victory Top Source Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Guardian Unlimited Observer | Politics | Sex ... http://observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,864349,00.html Sex change workers win new jobs victory Gaby Hinsliff, chief political correspondent Sunday December 22, 2002 The Observer A ban on transsexuals serving in sensitive jobs is set to be lifted in a move that would force police and care services to open their doors to people who have had sex changes. Ministers recently announced that transsexuals will in future be able to marry legally in their 'new' gender. But they are now also considering a further shake-up to employment law, which currently allows firms to bar people who have had sex changes from jobs involving intimate contact - such as carrying out body searches of suspects, or working as home helps for elderly people - or from sharing accommodation or to protect 'privacy and decency'. Pressure groups have argued it is insulting to claim transsexuals are not fit to do certain jobs. 'The legislation suggests that trans people should not in general be working with vulnerable people, and I find that actually grossly offensive,' said Claire McNab, vice-president of Press for Change, which campaigns for transsexual rights. Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt admitted to MPs last week that she was now looking at 'modifying' the law in the light of the new climate of official acceptance of transsexuals. The West Yorkshire police force is at present appealing to the House of Lords over the case of a male-to-female transsexual who applied to join the force as a woman officer. They rejected her, arguing that under the legislation governing 'genuine occupational qualifications' - the law now under review - that it would not be appropriate for her to do intimate searches of female suspects. Several other UK police forces already allow transsexuals to join, as does the army - which has even paid for some soldiers to undergo sex changes - and RAF. Employers are still likely to be able to impose restrictions on people who have not yet completed a sex change or only recently embarked on treatment. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 Top
[7]THAILAND --Lampang's 'Iron Ladies' go down Top Date: Dec. 20, 2002 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: The Nation (Bangkok, Thailand) Author: Preechachan Wiriyanupappong http://www.nationmultimedia.com/page.news.php3?clid=9&theme=A&usrsess=1&id=6221 The Maejo Gymnasium came alive yesterday to ear-piercing screams and laughter as the team of transvestite volleyball players from Lampang, widely known as Satree Lek or Iron Ladies, took to the court in front of a big crowd of adoring fans. Until yesterday the indoor volleyball venue for the 33rd National Games had failed to draw spectators due to its location 10km away from downtown Chiang Mai. However, hearing that the Satree Lek players - who caused a sensation at the National Games a few years ago by defeating a strong team loaded with national players to win the title -were to be in action, local enthusiasts packed the arena to cheer on the effeminate players. But the team, with many wearing make-up and sporting long hair, failed to make their mark this time. Lampang lost their third match yesterday to Chaiyaphume in straight sets 25-20 26-24 25-20. The loss upset local fans, who expected a stunning performance from the methodical transvestite players. However, the high-pitched screams and odd dirty curse heard throughout their erratic performance caused giggles and laughter in the stands. "I think Satree Lek were not at their best. Still, they are my idols," said policeman Singha Saijaidee, who took part in last month's Gay Games' volleyball competition in Sydney. Asked about his participation in the Gay Games, Singha said: "A total of 154 teams competed in volleyball including 12 teams in A class. We played under the banner of Poison Guys Thailand in A class and clinched the bronze medal. "In fact, only five Thai players flew to Sydney for the Gay Games' volleyball competition, but fortunately, a Hong Kong-born Australian player, who formerly played in the National Junior Australia team, joined us to complete the starting line-up. "Those who want to take part in the Games must be gay or lesbian. Not everyone in my team wore make-up, and none had long hair," added Singha, 26, a Commando 191 policeman who played for Surat Thani and won the National Youth Games many years ago. Although Satree Lek players from Lampang failed to make the grade this time, the Satree Lek 2 team from Phichit might spring a surprise at these National Games. Also fielding gay players, the Phichit team fell victim to Nakhon Si Thammarat, losing 20-25 13-25 25-16 18-25. © Nation Multimedia Group Top
[8] IRAN--Tehran--Barber arrested for helping girls pose as boys Top From: Petra Henderson [mailto:petrahenderson@yahoo.com] Tuesday December 17, 2002 Oddly Enough from Yahoo! News http://uk.news.yahoo.com/021217/80/dgxz2.html TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's moral police have arrested a male barber who gave short haircuts to young women so that they could pass as boys and go out in public without having to cover themselves from head to toe, a newspaper has said Under Iran's interpretation of Islamic dress codes, women must cover their hair and wear long loose garments to cover the shape of their bodies when in public. The evening conservative Kayhan newspaper said on Tuesday police in the central city Isfahan arrested the barber and his assistant, herself a woman dressed as a man, after they received reports of sightings of short-haired girls flouting the dress code. The only restriction on male attire in Iran is that shorts are banned and short-sleeved shirts are frowned upon. Enforcement of the female dress code, known as hejab, has become more relaxed in recent years, allowing women to wear their scarves further back on their heads and don shorter, tighter coats, often in bright colours. Top
[9] USA-- Gender stereotyping is everyone's issue, Wilchins says Top Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" Source: Gay Peoples Chronicle (GLBT weekly, Ohio) Author: Eric Resnick http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/ Date: December 13, 2002 (photo description: Thin woman with short hair, approximately 30 years old, seated on chair with legs crossed and one arm draped across lap. Wire frame of human is to her left.) Cleveland--Gender Public Advocacy Coalition executive director Riki Wilchins made two Ohio stops promoting the Washington, D.C. group's new GenderYouth program. Wilchins, and GenderYouth coordinator Lily Cates toured eight cities, appearing in Columbus on December 5 and Cleveland on December 6. They discussed the new program's goals and raised money at receptions held in private homes. The Cleveland reception, held at the home of Eric Nilson and Jeffrey Mostade, attracted 12 people. Mostade is a member of GenderPAC's board. Wilchins, a Cleveland native, said that the mission of GenderPAC is to end discrimination and violence caused by gender stereotypes. The group is often criticized by transgender and transsexual rights activists for not working on those issues more exclusively. Wilchins, who is transsexual, counters that issues of gender stereotyping are broader than any single group. "One of seven complaints filed with the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] are for gender stereotyping," said Wilchins, "most of which are male-male harassment." Wilchins said gender stereotyping is prevalent even within the gay community, where some might expect it to be less. She noted that some women are harassed for being "too butch," then told her audience how another, all-male group had answered two questions. "I asked them how many of them were gay, and they all raised their hands," said Wilchins. "Then I asked how many of them were bottoms. No one would raise their hand." Wilchins says these hang-ups about gender stereotype often lead to violence. She envisions a world where "a man could wear a dress to work, and people would say, `Nice color. Meeting in five minutes.' " Wilchins introduced Cates, 18, who is openly lesbian and recently out of high school. She has the task of organizing groups on college campuses. Wilchins sees the student organizing as a way to get people to see gender as a legitimate civil rights issue. Cates said she wants the youth groups to be diverse. "Not just queers. Not just straights. Not just transsexuals, and not just feminists," she said. "Around gender equality, those groups don't have to be `allies' any more, because it is all of their issue." Cates said she has over 100 names of people wanting to start chapters on college campuses. The program has a national organizing budget of $530,000 next year. The college organizations will then hold educational events at high schools. GenderPAC will host its second National Conference on Gender in Washington May 18-20. © 2002 KWIR Publications Top
[10] USA--California--Transgendered woman raped in Sacramento Jail files claim Top For Immediate Release: December 18, 2002 From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
TRANSGENDERED WOMAN RAPED IN SACRAMENTO JAIL FILES CLAIM
The Sheriff's Department of Sacramento, California, states its mission as "the protection of life and property, the preservation of the public peace and the enforcement of the laws. To accomplish our mission, we dedicate ourselves to Service With Concern." Last August and September, concern may have been farthest from the minds of Sheriff Lou Banas and his force.
In a civil claim filed against Sacramento County, its District Attorney, and the Sheriff's Department on December 17, 2002, Kelly McAllister alleges negligence, threats and slurs based on her transgender status, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, conspiracy, battery, and assault that culminated in a brutal rape by a male inmate.
Ms. McAllister was arrested on August 16, 2002 in connection with a reported public disturbance. She alleges mistreatment during and following her arrest, including beatings and denial of restroom access. She claims to have been pepper sprayed, hog-tied with hand-cuffs on her wrists and ankles, dragged across the hot pavement face down, and, at one point, left to burn on the hot pavement.
According to the claim, her treatment at the Sacramento Main Jail was even worse. McAllister, a preoperative transsexual in her mid-thirties who has lived full time as a woman for several years, was threatened, demeaned, and subjected to a humiliating strip search.
Following a court appearance on September 6, the five foot seven inch, 135-pound McAllister was placed in a cell with a much larger male prisoner who brutally raped her. Hospital tests, witnessed by a male and female Deputy Sheriff, confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted. Continuing threats and taunts from inmates and jailers drove her to despair, and McAllister attempted suicide soon after her return to jail.
Dean Johansson, principal attorney in the civil action claim, sees no rational explanation for the Sheriff's Department placing a known male to female transsexual in a cell with a man. "The Sheriff's Department was aware of Kelly McAllister's transgender status," he said, "and had previously housed her in protective custody for this very reason in connection with an earlier, unrelated misdemeanor incident."
On September 9, McAllister was returned to court. The judge ordered her released based on time served. Throughout her ordeal, McAllister steadfastly proclaimed her innocence.
Despite having filed a full report with the Sheriff's Department in following her release in September, including photographs of bite marks and other wounds inflicted during the rape, no one has been charged or disciplined for the rape or for the incidents surrounding McAllister's incarceration.
Attorney Johansson stated that he and fellow attorney Dani Williams are prepared to file suit in federal court if the county rejects McAllister's claim. To date, he says, the Sheriff's Department has refused to provide details of their investigation or to release medical records. "Since she was raped, there are very worrisome medical concerns."
The Sheriff's Department had no comment on the case. When reached by phone, the Department's Lt. Lewis said that the claim had not yet come to their attention.
[11]ECUADOR ---'Sold for sex' by prison guard... a news update Top From: "Mrs. Petra Henderson <petrahenderson@yahoo.com>" <petrahenderson@yahoo.com> --- In transgendernews@yahoogroups.com, "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@y...>" <tgnews_moderator@y...> wrote: Source: Amnesty International Via: The Wire, December 2002. Vol. 32, No.10. http://www.arabworldnews.com/p/18/2269fafefb31.html?id=106ee87 Date: December 1, 2002 Three transgendered adults and two adolescents were arrested in April by police in Ecuador, who have a history of persecuting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) people. One of the two adolescents was "sold for sex" by guards to a detainee and raped. The two young people were held for two days in the Centro de Detención Provisional, Provisional Detention Centre, in Guayaquil, ill-treated and threatened with confinement in the Lagartera ? a cell in which the most agressive prisoners are held. After the incident was reported, in May a delegation of the Provincial Ombudsman, the National Human Rights Director for Women, Children and Adolescents, representatives of the Friends For Life Foundation, and the adolescent involved visited the Provisional Detention Centre. As a result five prison guards were detained in July in relation to the case. However, they were released after it was established that they were not the ones identified as the perpetrators. The perpetrators remain at large. The delegation reported to the Director of Prisons that other young people detained at the Centre had said that they had been ill-treated by guards and forced to pay them. The delegation reported that the cells at the detention centre were overcrowded ? holding up to three times more than the maximum capacity ? and that the conditions in which the detainees were held were cruel, inhuman and degrading. Please write, expressing concern that an adolescent was "sold for sex" by a prison guard and then raped, and calling for those responsible to be brought to justice. Express concern that young people are being held in overcrowded conditions in an adults' detention centre. Send appeals to: Ing. Rómulo Ambrossi, Director del Centro de Rehabilitación Social, Dirección de Rehabilitación Social, Kilómetro 16, Vía Daule, Guayaquil, Ecuador. Fax: +593 4 289 3386. [Copyright: AI] Top
MEDIA WATCH [12]KOREA--Seoul--Court makes it official - he's now a woman TOP Source Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Court makes it official - he's now a woman - ... http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/topstories/story/0,4386,162112,00.html? Sunday, December 22, 2002 Request by transexual Ha Ri Su, familiar to Korean drama fans here, to change gender is finally granted SEOUL - The law in South Korea has finally caught up with what fans of transexual singer-actress Ha Ri Su have accepted all along: It has recognised her as a woman. The Inchon district court has granted her request for changing her gender and name on the family register. Born Lee Kyong Yop in Songnam, a town south-east of Seoul, she would be allowed to change her name to Lee Kyong Eun legally. The court said in a ruling: ''Considering that Ha has been socially recognised as female after her transgender operation, it is appropriate that we regard Ha physically as a woman.'' The court also said the decision was made to protect her dignity as the Constitution guarantees the right of an individual to pursue happiness. The 27-year-old Ha got her name Ha Ri Su by adapting the English term ''hot issue''. She has used her 35-24-35 figure to launch a lucrative modelling and show business career. Ha is familiar to Korean drama fans here, having acted in the hit drama serial Winter Sonata. After breast-enhancing surgery in Japan in 1998 and a sex-change operation, she started singing in a nightclub, where she was talent-spotted. She cut two albums - Temptation and Liar - and became a successful model. A television commercial she did for a cosmetic company turned her into a household name. Her Adam's apple had came into full view in some scenes, shocking viewers who had thought that she was a woman. But her career has not been all smooth sailing. In October, US distributors decided not to use her as a model for their game, Warcraft 3. The straight-talking entertainer, who said her father has not really accepted that his only son has become a woman, is unfazed by the focus on her transsexuality. She has been quoted as saying: ''I dont want to face people and be dishonest about who I really am. ''I won't be able to hide it well. ''So, it's better to make it clear from the start.'' TOP
[13] USA--California SEE NO EVIL : Why did it take a murder for the people of Newark to wake up to the harassment of one of their own? TOP SEE NO EVIL / Why did it take a murder for th... http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/12/22/CM173274.DTL Julian Guthrie <jguthrie@sfchronicle.com> Sunday, December 22, 2002 The grim rumors were passed from person to person, during "Monday Night Football," over the phone, in front yards. As many as a dozen people were buzzing with news of the beating and killing of a cross-dressing male on the night of Oct. 3. But no one went to the police. No one called the victim's mother. >From Newark, where century-old railroad tracks divide the 13-square-mile working-class town of 43,500 into new subdivisions and old tract homes, the family of the slain teen, Eddie Araujo Jr., is struggling to honor his young life and understand his horrific death. They are plagued by something else, too: How to live in a community where hate was met with indifference - even after it became too brutal to ignore. Four men have been charged with killing 17-year-old Eddie, who identified and dressed as a female. The murder reportedly occurred after it was discovered at a party that the bubbly 100-pound girl in the denim skirt, peasant blouse and flip-flops, was a he. On Oct. 16, Eddie's body was recovered from a shallow grave in the El Dorado National Forest near Placerville. The body was wrapped in a sheet, hands and feet bound. The official cause of death is asphyxia due to strangulation, associated with blunt trauma to the head. The crime scene is a faded yellow house with blue trim that sits on a corner lot. Grimy beige curtains are pulled tightly shut. A spindly dead tree stands in the middle of the small, square front yard. The garage, which juts out past the front of the house, is where Eddie was said to have been bound, beaten, hit in the face with a shovel, slashed with a knife and strangled. Police recovered empty Corona bottles from a shelf next to the shovel. On Oct. 25, the day of Eddie's funeral, the driver of the hearse inadvertently led the procession past the yellow wood-frame house on Saint Matthew Drive. "There were a bunch of people standing in the yard drinking beer, as if they were having a party," said David Guerrero, Eddie's uncle. "We were going slow. It was torture." David said that before the media descended on Newark, "People were making statements about how Eddie contributed to his own death, that he shouldn't have tricked people. We've dealt with a lot of negative treatment for a long time because of the way Eddie was." Eddie's mother, Sylvia Guerrero, who is 38 and has four children - three now, she reminds herself - is taking time off from her job as a legal assistant. She has given interviews reluctantly and somewhat impatiently. She is doing it for Eddie, she says. "I was proud to be his mother. He won't die in vain." She never expected to be a leader, except in her own family. Ten of her 13 siblings - six girls and seven boys - are younger and were often left in her care. Since the gripping details of the case emerged, she has been approached by major networks, talk shows, newspapers, magazines and gay rights groups to speak out against hate. A reporter from Spanish television told Sylvia that she owed it to the Latino community to do an interview. It's a Latino issue, the reporter insisted, to which Sylvia angrily replied, "No, it's a human issue," and politely but firmly hung up. It's an issue, she says angrily, that had been simmering for years. In middle school, as a slight and effeminate boy with a bright smile and fine features, Eddie was called names - faggot being the epithet of choice. He was bullied and beat up on his way home from school. In ninth grade, when he had begun to dress as a girl, experiment with makeup and hair color and call himself Gwen, he got an early lesson in adult rejection. Job applications were tossed in the trash when potential employers looked at the pretty face of Gwen and read the birth name Edward. And in church, there were whispers and stares. Last Easter, Eddie and his family, dressed in their Sunday best, left halfway through the service, vowing never to return. So in November, a month after losing her son, Sylvia said she plans to leave Newark. The Guerrero family has retained high-profile Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred. They have left open the possibility of filing a civil lawsuit. For now, Allred says, she is there to protect the victim's family's rights. "I'm so angry that he was taken from me," Sylvia said. "Everywhere I drive, around every corner, I see him and I'm reminded of how he suffered. I still feel disrespected, even in his death." She has nightmares about his ending. Like the murders of many gay, lesbian or transgendered youth, she fears that Eddie saw rage in his final moments. Psychologists and specialists in the field of gender identity say such attacks often stem from a fear of what's inside of oneself. In many cases, victims of hate crimes are pummeled, as if there were something to be exorcised. In one telling account of what had happened, Newark resident Brian Seabrands, who was not at the party but had heard the rumors, told police that things went wrong after guys at a party "found out it (Eddie) wasn't a chick, beat the hell out of it, killed it and supposedly buried it in South Lake Tahoe." The overwhelming majority of hate crimes involve men. "There is a fear of the feminine hidden in the masculine self, and somehow that translates into violence," said Anne Fausto-Sterling, a Brown University professor who works with transgendered people and has written several books on human sexuality, including "Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality." She believes that such bias has less to do with class or race than education and familiarization with gender issues. "The more these other modes of existence become part of the familiar, the less threatening they seem." COMMUNITY'S SHAME Newark Mayor Dave Smith said he has been stunned and saddened by the crime. It's been 2 1/2 years since there was a murder in Newark. He can't remember there ever being a hate crime. He has been the city's mayor for 25 years - the longest-serving mayor in the state. Smith, whose day job is as vice president for a plumbing products company, said he was touched and provoked by a recent performance of "The Laramie Project," a play about gay college student Matthew Shepard, who was beaten and left to die in Laramie, Wyo. The play, which opened last month to standing ovations at Newark Memorial High School, had been in the works long before Eddie's slaying. "Just like the people of Laramie grappled with what happened there, we are doing the same," said Smith, who feels protective of the city he has grown to love. "I look at Newark and can't imagine this happened here. This is not representative of the city of Newark. It's a caring community." He was never aware of Eddie's problems: the taunts; the awkward challenges of finding a job; the discomfort in church. He hadn't known, either, that community members shared details of Eddie's death but didn't alert the police. "I would say to those people, 'Shame on you,' " he said. "We all wonder how something like this occurred. But it comes down to a mix of individuals and the variables of whatever else was going on that night." In retracing the labyrinthine spread of rumors, the police report reads like a high school diary. Eddie's aunt heard the rumor from her brother, "who heard it from a third party, who heard it from the host of a party, who heard it from the acquaintance at a party -- who heard it from a girlfriend of a person who had been at the party" where the crime allegedly occurred. The rumors finally reached the family on Oct. 9. Before calling Newark police - who had been investigating Eddie's disappearance as a runaway or missing juvenile - family members tracked down names, addresses and car license plate numbers of individuals who reportedly knew what had happened. Within a week, police had interviewed witnesses. Within days, suspects were taken into custody and charged with murder and a hate-crime enhancement. The suspects are Michael W. Magidson, 22; Jose A. Merel, 23; Jaron Chase Nabors, 19; and Jason Cazares, 22. Nabors, who led police to the shallow grave site, has pleaded not guilty. Attorney Robert Beles says his client Nabors "adamantly denies the allegations of a hate crime." The other suspects have not entered pleas. All are being held without bail. The break in the case came from information provided by the family. They had heard that Nabors relayed parts of the story to a friend, Adam Hewson, while watching football on the evening of Oct. 7. Hewson later told his roommates, one of whom told a friend, who is related by marriage to a cousin of David Guerrero's. Police persuaded Hewson to wear a wire and record a conversation with Nabors. Hewson began the conversation by telling Nabors that he had been questioned by police. According to the police report, Nabors responded by saying, "You ain't gotta worry about s-, dude; no way do you gotta worry about s-. I gotta worry about s-, homie." David Guerrero, a 32-year-old real estate agent who helped his sister raise Eddie, never expected an ending like this. Eddie had a group of close friends - all girls - who knew his gender. He had places in Newark where he was welcome. He had the support of most of the Guerrero clan, including his grandparents. But on the night of Oct. 3, his friends had declined to go to the party with him. He had only recently met the Merels, at whose house the party was held. David's home is situated in a new, upscale section of town. A handful of blocks away, across the tracks, sits the Merel home. Imelda Guerrero, who lives with her brother and keeps her upstairs window open at night, wonders whether she could have heard Eddie's anguish. David finds himself driving by the Merel house at odd hours, slowing down or stopping. Sometimes he just stares in disbelief or anger; other times he cries. On a recent Friday afternoon, Paul Merel, the older brother of suspect Jose Merel, answered the door but declined to be interviewed. "The story has been stretched in the media," he said, standing in the doorway with a red ski cap pulled low, just above his eyes. "I don't want to talk about it." Originally taken into custody, Paul, who is 25 and on probation, was later released. He has told police that he and his girlfriend left the party when the altercation began. It was his girlfriend, Nicole Brown, 22, who had discovered Eddie's gender in the bathroom and had announced "It's a man" to the others at the party, according to police records. Brown was questioned and released. Police say other arrests are possible. A GUTSY LIFE Eddie's mom seethes when she hears Brown's name. She believes that those who walked away from the party and did nothing to help her son are equally culpable. At the same time, she replays her own role that night, wondering if she could have done anything differently. Her family and friends remind her that she did her best to be protective while allowing her teenage son his freedom. She is being lauded for loving her son like a mother should: unconditionally. It wasn't easy; it never is. Every family faces challenges, but her obstacles were a little more unconventional, she says now. She remembers the day, hour and setting when Eddie began to cry as he told her how he truly felt about himself. "Mom, you know how I feel?" he said on the weekend of July 4, 1999. The two were in her bedroom, in their pajamas. "I feel like a girl trapped in this body with a penis I don't identify with." Sylvia started to cry. She already knew, but "this was laying it out for me." She told him, "It's time for you to be who you are." She would help him and try to protect him. She warned that it wasn't going to be easy, "that the world is not accepting, that people are mean, especially at school." She began to buy his makeup, clothing, purses, bras. After he'd dropped out of high school because he felt harassed, she told him she expected him to get a job, but that she would help pay his way through beauty school. He wanted to become a famous Hollywood makeup artist. "I was behind him all the way," Sylvia said. "I wanted him to go for it. It takes a lot of guts to come out as a freshman in high school." Sitting in her brother's living room, which has served as ground zero since the slaying, Sylvia talked of how she was beginning to see Eddie as Gwen. He had tried out other names, including Wendy and Lida, but chose Gwen because of his love for rock star Gwen Stefani, front woman for the band No Doubt and a fashion icon. His favorite songs, which he played over and over again, driving his mother crazy in a timeless teenage tradition, were "I'm Just a Girl," "Magic's in the Makeup" and "Underneath it All." Sylvia believes she would have eventually seen Eddie as her second daughter and called her Gwen. They talked about the day when he would have a sex change. They even talked about the best breast size, considering he was a size 0. But she still called him Eddie, except when he was around his friends. "I told him that I loved him to pieces, but that he was still my Eddie," Sylvia said. "I knew he had this guy part, but I saw him becoming a beautiful girl. I was happy. I would have had two beautiful daughters." The family uses the pronoun he when speaking of Eddie. When people would call for Gwen - and men were calling "a million times a day" - Sylvia would roll her eyes, cover the phone and yell, "Eddie!" She didn't see her son changing so much as becoming who he truly was. The transformation had just begun. She knew that he was using alcohol and had experimented with drugs, something she saw as an unfortunate rite of passage for many teenagers and all too common with youth who question their gender. Although Jaron Nabors told police that Eddie might have had a sexual relationship with Jose Merel and Michael Magidson, Sylvia believes her son was not sexually active. He had told her he planned to wait until he had his sex change. The night of the fateful party, Sylvia had come home from work to find Eddie had cleaned the house and made dinner. Eddie told Sylvia that he was going to a party to "kick it" - hang out, drink and smoke blunts, which are marijuana cigars. She saw that he was wearing a denim skirt and had borrowed her black blouse and ankle bracelet, a gift from her boyfriend. As he was on the way out the door, she told him not to lose the bracelet. SEARCHING FOR ACCEPTANCE Eddie's sister Pearl, who lives in Tracy, is trying to focus on the happy times. She sinks into depression when she thinks of how Eddie was treated. "He would tell me, 'Girl, you're goin' to see me on the red carpet one day, ' " said Pearl, who is 20 and was "like glue" with her brother. "When I gained weight, he said, "Oh, my gosh, girl - 1-800-JENNYCRAIG.' He joked and was bubbly, but I knew it was hard for him. I know he believed in God. At the same time, he questioned God and why he made him like that. No one would hire him, men would stare because he was beautiful, and other people would give him looks and call him names." Sylvia divorced their father, Eddie Araujo Sr., when Eddie Jr. was 10 months old. There were other father figures in Eddie Jr.'s life. He had a full childhood and loved to camp, swim, play Little League, attend Bible study and enter slot car races. He had 44 cousins in the Newark area. "There were places in Newark that accepted him, but he used to tell my mom, "We gotta move out of here,' " Pearl said. "He liked going to San Francisco because he felt normal there." The slaying has drawn national attention because of its similarity to other high-profile murders of gay or transgendered youth. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence programs - a network of 26 organizations that monitor and respond to crimes against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders - reports that between 1999 and 2000, the number of incidents increased by 8 percent, from 1,992 to 2,151. Some experts say the increase in such crimes may stem from heightened awareness and better reporting. Fausto-Sterling, the Brown University professor, is seeing a slow but steady change in the awareness and acceptance of transgendered people, an umbrella term used to describe those whose sexuality is not readily characterized as definitely male or female. "If you start with liberal college campuses, our university recently added the word 'transgender' to our nondiscrimination policy. The word 'transgender' is starting to roll off the tongues of people you'd never expect. Hopefully it will trickle down into more conservative areas of society. Obviously, it's a process." At times, the process comes at an unspeakable price. In October 1998, in a case that struck a chord across America and spurred calls for the passage of hate-crime legislation, Matthew Shepard was lured from a local bar, robbed, beaten and left tied to a post on a wind-whipped prairie. Discovered 18 hours later, he died in a Colorado hospital, having never regained consciousness. In December 1993, in another case that drew outrage and became a catalyst for awareness, Brandon Teena, born Teena Brandon and raised as a girl, was raped, beaten and later killed when two men in Falls City, Neb., learned that he was a she. The story of the murder was turned into the Academy Award- winning movie "Boys Don't Cry." In words that could have been uttered by Eddie, Brandon explains in the film, "Brandon is not quite a he. Brandon is more like a she." PAINFUL LESSONS Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother, believes hate is learned. It is something she has spent days and nights thinking about - and trying not to think about. "Hate is all around us, in our family living rooms, churches, schools, playgrounds, popular media - it is everywhere," Shepard said. "It is in different formats, presented in different ways - couched in 'God's word' or some other way to explain our lack of understanding - our lack of wanting to." When she learned of what had happened to Eddie, she wondered whether the community had been accepting or rejecting. Since her son's death, she has become an advocate for teaching acceptance. "There is one word that covers all aspects of acceptance and compassion, and that is respect," she said. "Why is it so hard to simply respect everyone's right to be who they are? If parents, educators and society at large could convey the simple concept of respect and live by example, I think many of the problems of violence we deal with today could become moot." Too often, Shepard said, it takes a tragedy before society does what's right. The communities that are supposed to help to raise children to become good citizens are "not living up to their responsibilities," Shepard said. "Silence and doing nothing is complicit in the torment Gwen suffered." There is no end to the tears that well in Sylvia's eyes as she thinks of her son's pain. He would have turned 18 on Feb. 4. But slowly and thankfully, she is finding reasons to smile again. There has been a constant stream of letters and cards of condolence and support, from strangers and celebrities, from Gov. Gray Davis to church leaders across the state. The letters from the pastors have been of special significance. Inexplicably, she has begun to feel forgiveness and a renewal of her faith. She said that she plans to return to church - albeit not the one that ostracized her Eddie. "Churches, schools and entire communities need to open their doors to kids like mine," she said, looking at photos of Eddie as a baby, toddler, child and young adult. "We need to teach tolerance. There are a lot of people like my Eddie out there." . Contributions may be made to the Eddie "Gwen" Araujo Jr. Fund at Bank of America, 36900 Newark Blvd., Newark, CA 94560. The account number is 1059805854. Julian Guthrie is a staff writer at the Chronicle. E-mail her at guthrie@sfchronicle.com. -- RELATED ARTICLES: 10/23/2002 - Hearsay spurs arrests in killing. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/23 /MN55443.DTL 10/19/2002 - Slain Newark teen balanced between two worlds. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/19 /MN243494.DTL 10/18/2002 - Three charged with hate crime-murder of cross-dressing teen . http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/suglist.cgi?article=/chronicle/archive/2002/12 /22/CM173274.DTL&wt=0 more related articles... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/suglist.cgi?article=/chronicle/archive/2002/12 /22/CM173274.DTL&wt=0 ===== CLARIFICATIONS http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2002/12/22/MN86640. DTL CLARIFICATIONS Sunday, December 22, 2002 -- (SNIP) -- A story about the slaying of Eddie "Gwen" Araujo in this Sunday's Chronicle Magazine states that one of the four suspects charged with murdering the transgender teen had pleaded not guilty and the others had not entered pleas. Since the magazine went to press several weeks ago, the other three suspects have entered not guilty pleas. ©2002 San Francisco Chronicle TOP
[14]UK: Law could change transsexuals' lives TOP Source Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. This is Brighton & Hove | News |Law could cha... http://www.thisisbrighton.co.uk/brighton__hove/news/NEWS6.html Saturday, December 21, 2002 by Krista Beighton <krista.beighton@theargus.co.uk> Despite being born a boy, Mel Cherriman always knew she would grow into a woman. As a five-year-old she remembers being confused by her body, unable to grasp what it was that made her feel so different. As she grew into adolescence, Mel began to realise she was a transsexual. Unable to fully accept the reality of her existence she immersed herself in manhood, desperate to prove she was just like everyone else. She played sport and joined the Scouts and later even got married. But she knew she was living a lie and soon fell into depression. Three years ago, denying who she was became too much of a burden and Mel confessed to her wife that she wanted to become a woman. Today, seven weeks after having a sex-change operation, she now lives as a woman - and despite the odds, her marriage has survived. But with the Government set to announce legislation enabling the birth certificates of transsexuals to be changed, Mel and her wife's lives could be dramatically changed. The move from ministers has been prompted by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in July that binding a transsexual to the gender they are given at birth is a violation of their right to a private and family life. If the law is changed, transsexuals will be able to marry in their adopted sex for the first time - a move widely welcomed by the transsexual community. For Mel and her wife, however, it could have the reverse effect of annulling their marriage. Mel, 41, said: "In general I think what is being proposed is wonderful. I see it as a validation of who I am. I have always known I am a woman - it has never been a choice I had to make." But Mel, from Adur, admits the laws may have an adverse effect on her life. She said: "We will have to wait and see the details of this legislation. We potentially face problems though, as I may be faced with the decision of changing my birth certificate and not remaining married - or remaining married and not changing my birth certificate. "I will have to discuss that with my wife when the issue arises." Persia West, who is also a transsexual, sees the proposed changes as an acceptance of who she is. Persia came out as a transsexual about 10 years ago, having previously been married. She has a 20-year-old son, Rowan, who has fully accepted her change. She said: "It is ridiculous that in every way other than what is written on that piece of paper, I am a woman. "I'm not just a bloke in a frock and this change in the law would acknowledge that. "At long last, it would be an acceptance that we exist. Essentially, there is no reason why I should not be treated equal to other women." Persia, 44, from Brighton, has no wish to get married but she does not know what the future may hold. If she chose to live with a man, she would have no legal recognition as his partner. She would not have any rights to his pension or be identified as his next of kin. She said: "This change will not effect my day-to-day life but it will give me greater general privacy. I went to Nice with a man recently and we hired a car. I filled in my details as the second driver, as a female. "Then it hit me that I would be making a false declaration, as I am legally still a man. "Would the insurance cover me? What should I do? Divulge my medical history in the middle of a crowded airport and open myself up to abuse? I am not willing to do that. "That is why the ruling in the European Court of Human Rights is such a big step, because it acknowledges our right to privacy and equality. I should not have to discuss the intimate details of my life with strangers." Despite their personal battles in coping with their identities, Mel and Persia have both taken on public roles. Mel is chairwoman of the Clare Project in Hove, a self-help group for people with gender issues. Persia is a manager at Brighton's Gender Trust, which supports transsexuals and is also a trustee at Spectrum, which brings together all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups in the city. Persia said: "It would have been easy for me to just vanish once I came out but I am not willing to do that. "I have made the decision to discuss who I am openly, because this issue is too important not to be on the agenda." -- What do you think? Have your say http://www.thisisbrightonandhove.co.uk/brighton__hove/news/letters.html END © Copyright 2002 Newsquest Media Group - A Gannett Company TOP
[15]INDIA--People of the nowhere world TOP Source --Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?artid=319 22970 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2002 THE TIMES OF INDIA CITIES: CHANDIGARH People of the nowhere world VANDANA SHUKLA TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 2002 05:22:15 AM ] STRONG movements are taking place across the globe for different sections of human rights -- there are movements for gay rights, rights for handicapped, children's rights, and so on. There are also those who fight for animal rights. But in the midst of all these 'rightful' voices, eunuchs are always left outside the purview of the term 'human' and 'rights'. Dismissed by educated, sensitive minds as objects of curiosity and entertainment, the constitution too while defining fundamental rights for men and women of the federal republic, remains silent about these accidental errors of nature. Addressed as chakka, hijra, khusra, the words carrying derogatory connotations that hurt one's self-esteem for expressing lack of manliness, eunuchs have been unable to come out of their identity characterised by a peculiar style of speaking, dressing up and clapping of hands, though the educated among them wish to carve a place for themselves. As a result unlike one-odd Shabnam Mausi, an MLA in the Madhya Pradesh state assembly, or an Asha Devi, mayor of Gorakhpur, UP, and some recovery agents (used for their great embarrassing value) by credit card companies in Mumbai, the status of eunuchs has remained by and large that of beggars. Madhu Mahant, a senior city-based eunuch who did his B Com from Delhi University, almost two decades back is disillusioned with the total apathy of society to their problems. "Even the handicapped are given 5 per cent reservation.We are more able than them. At least the educated among us should be given a chance to lead an independent, normal life." Pained at his own fate, as he was dragged into the life of nachna-gana after his mother's death, who struggled to protect him from the life of a eunuch till she was alive, Madhu says, "I think ultrasound should be used to eliminate all hermaphrodite pregnancies. After all people do get female pregnancies aborted. I want the birth of eunuchs to be stopped in this world forever. I don't want them to be born and go through the same pain we have undergone." Did he ever try to educate other eunuchs? "A woman got to know through an ultrasound in the sixth month of pregnancy about her child being a eunuch. It was too risky to abort it then. When the premature baby was brought to me I asked my senior mahant's permission to adopt it on the condition that I be allowed to educate it. After a long debate I was granted permission. But the baby fell sick and though I hired a woman to breastfeed, it died within six months. You see we don't have the biological gift to take care of a child." © 2002 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. TOP
[16] USA: Transsexual parents and donor insemination - ask the experts TOP Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: HRC FamilyNet http://www.hrc.org/familynet/chapter.asp?article=683 Date: December 13, 2002 Ask the Experts Transsexual parents and donor insemination Q: Dear Liz, I encouraged my spouse, a male-to-female transsexual, to deposit sperm before her sex-reassignment surgery. We have been a couple since then, and I would like to have a child before it's too late. While we would like to use my spouse's stored sperm, I don't want to spend a fortune on a very small chance of success. My spouse had at least three years of hormone therapy before depositing sperm, and the deposits have few sperm, with low motility, etc. Is there much of a chance of a successful insemination with my spouse's sperm after three years of hormone therapy? Another complication is that the first sperm bank we went to (located in Virginia) would not accept us, saying we were high HIV risks. Subsequently, the place where we deposited sperm closed and transferred all their deposits to the same place that turned us down. Going to Virginia from our home in Maryland to get the sperm is not a problem. I just don't want to be treated poorly. How do I find a good doctor who welcomes "alternative families" like ours? Do you have any recommendations? Thanks, Dayna A: Dear Dayna, You ask a very interesting question, and there are several parts to my answer. My first concern is about the effect of estrogen on the development of sperm. We don't know how this would affect the health of your child. It is our practice at Fenway Community Health to have sperm donated before a person starts hormone therapy. Since your spouse was on hormone therapy for three years before depositing sperm, the sperm she deposited would have been formed during estrogen therapy, and we don't know if the pregnancy or the fetus would be healthy. I am unaware of any research in this area but you could consult a geneticist or a reproductive endocrinologist (infertility specialist) to see if you could obtain more information. My second concern is about the fertility of the sperm specimens. It seems unlikely that you would conceive with your spouse's frozen samples due to low motility (movement) and quantity of sperm. I know it can be hard to let go of the wish for a child who is biologically related to both of you, but I believe your chances of a successful and healthy conception would be much higher using anonymous donor sperm. [See HRC FamilyNet's donor insemination chapter.] Your experience at the sperm bank sounds so unpleasant! Since you are in Maryland, I also suggest you contact the Lesbian Services Program at the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C., to get a referral for a gay-, lesbian-, bisexual- and transgender-friendly medical provider who is experienced with alternative insemination. They may also be able to refer you to a reproductive endocrinologist who is GLBT-sensitive. I wish you the best as you go through this process. Liz Coolidge Coolidge is coordinator of the LGBT Family and Parenting Services at Fenway Community Health in Boston. Dec. 13, 2002 copyright © 2002, THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN FOUNDATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. TOP
[17] USA: Transsexuals and the military - Ask the Experts TOP Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: HRC WorkNet http://www.hrc.org/familynet/chapter.asp?article=682 Date: December 6, 2002 Q: Dear Sharra, I am a post-operative female-to-male transsexual. I desperately want to join the military, but I am aware of that the military medically disqualifies transsexuals. I am a registered nurse, so I would be in high demand in the military. I was wondering if there is any hope for me being able to join the Reserves. I'd appreciate any advice. Thank you, Seb A: Dear Seb, Unfortunately, the short answer to your question is that you will probably not be able to join the Reserves. The Department of Defense sets the physical standards criteria, and they must be met by all applicants for military service, including the Reserves and National Guard. Each person attempting to join the military must undergo a physical examination as part of the induction process. The military considers having had any type of gender-confirming surgery to be a major genital abnormality or defect, even if there are no complications after surgery. If an individual is at any other stage of transition, or does not plan on having surgery, the military considers transsexuality to be a disqualifying psychiatric condition. The military would find out about a post-operative transsexual either during the physical exam and history or through the entry-level background security-clearance investigation. Lying on the form or to the doctor, or omitting the information, could be viewed as a fraudulent enlistment and subject an individual to Uniform Code of Military Justice penalties and discharge. You may request a waiver for any medical condition from the branch that you are attempting to join. Each service sets its own rules regarding whether or not a waiver request is appropriate and whether or not such a request will be approved. However, no waivers for gender-confirming surgery were requested between 1996 and 2000, the years for which data was available from the Department of Defense. Sincerely, Sharra E. Greer Greer is the legal director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Dec. 6, 2002 copyright © 2002, THE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN FOUNDATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. TOP
[18a]CANADA: --Vancouver--Transgendered B.C. teacher upsets some parents TOP Source: CTV.ca Author: CTV News Staff http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1040092783417_13/?hub==CT Date: December 17, 2002 Staff at a Vancouver elementary school are preparing for the return Tuesday of a Grade 5 teacher who left the school last June as a man -- and will come back as a woman. Parents were told about the situation Friday in a weekly newsletter. Parents must give consent to discuss puberty with children, and some say the topic of a sex change is not something for the classroom. "You don't introduce these thoughts because teenagers are struggling with their sexuality," said parent Ravi Lally. "Children are trying to find their place as well." Bill Kincaid, whose nine-year-old daughter Serena goes to the school, is calling for a new teacher. "I as a parent also have a right to decide who educates my child," Kincaid said. CTV Vancouver reporter Renu Bakshi said several parents have told her they are supportive of the teacher. However, they didn't want to speak on camera. Karen Bunting, the principal of the school, refused to discuss the situation, saying it was confidential. Vancouver's new school board said it is a great learning opportunity. "To create a caring community," said Adrienne Montani of the Vancouver School Board. "That's what we want to model for all of our students, is that we are a caring and accepting community." There will an undercover police officer with the teacher at all times on Tuesday, Bakshi reports. As well, all the teachers have been given talking points. Among them is a description of transgender as a "medical condition." Roz Shakespeare, a detective with the Vancouver Police Department, became a woman in 1996 -- and Canada's first transgendered police officer. She offered the teacher some support ahead of her first day back at school. "If this woman was a good teacher before transition, now that's she's being true to herself, she'll be an even better teacher." As for those who are opposed, Shakespeare said opening up children to diversity will only make them more accepting of the world. "The earlier we introduce our children to the diversity of our community and the world, the more accepting they are of the diversity of the world," she told CTV Vancouver. "It's worth considering that five to 10 per cent of the population of that school that teacher is teaching at, at some point will have to struggle with the issue of coming out." Washington-based Human Rights Campaign commissioned its first national survey this year of public attitudes toward transgender people. The survey found the majority of respondents supported the rights of transgender people to attend school and hold most jobs. However, they were opposed to transgender people working as elementary school teachers or day-care workers. With reports from CTV Vancouver and The Associated Press Related Video Clips <<please visit the link to the original source to access these video clips>> CTV Vancouver: Teacher's transformation forces elementary school to confront delicate sexuality issues 2:50 CTV Vancouver: Transgendered cop says her experience helped educate the police force 1:46 © 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. TOP
[18b] CANADA --Field trip concerns students more than teacher's sex Elementary principal says kids must be given credit for response to sex change TOP Vancouver Sun - Story - canada.com network http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/story.asp?id={472D5629-AB1C-4BE 8-BF7D-3DAC8000D397} Janet Steffenhagen Vancouver Sun Wednesday, December 18, 2002 Students at a Vancouver elementary school had two main questions when they heard that the man who had taught Grade 5 until last June would be returning from medical leave in January as a woman. They wanted to know if he -- now she -- would wear a dress and whether she would still take them on the field trip to Lynn Valley Canyon in North Vancouver that had been enjoyed previously by other students in that class. Karen Bunting, principal of Henderson elementary, said the children's response is an indication of how accepting they are of the decision of transgendered teacher Jack Johnston to have a sex change and return as Jenna Stuart to the same school where she had been employed as a man for eight years. "We need to give them more credit for understanding," Bunting said of the children while she fielded a flood of media queries Tuesday and a handful of calls from parents in response to a newsletter she sent out last week advising them of the teacher's new identity. The letter explained that Johnston "a very positive, enthusiastic and most capable teacher" was diagnosed by medical doctors as a transgendered person. "Transgender people are those who change their gender in order to successfully continue their lives," she wrote. "Ms. Stuart has had her identity changed medically and legally so she is now recognized as her true female gender. The Henderson staff welcome Ms. Stuart's return to the staff team." As of Tuesday afternoon, only one parent had registered a protest by asking that his daughter be transferred out of the main school and into the nearby Henderson annex. Bunting said she accommodated the request immediately. "We are going to respect people's choices, and that's been the only one," she noted. As well as sending letters to parents, Bunting sent notes to staff to help them answer questions from students. For example, she said teachers could remind children that "Ms. Stuart is the same person she was last year when she still had the name Mr. Johnston. She has the same feelings inside -- but now looks different on the outside." Although Stuart isn't the only transgendered teacher in the Lower Mainland, the situation is still quite unusual, and Bunting said the school strived to be sensitive to an individual in the midst of great upheaval and the needs of children and their parents. "Everything we've done is with our heads and our hearts," she said in an interview. "But there are no guidebooks for dealing with this." Sylvia Cole, a resource teacher who has worked alongside Stuart for five years, said the staff has known about the sex change for many months and has had time to ask questions, adjust and prepare for her return. "There's a very upbeat feeling about all of this," she said. "It's an experience that we've all felt has been enriching. Life is about change ... and accepting and adapting are a part of living." "She's the same wonderful person who left on medical leave six months ago." Jamie Ross, a Coquitlam teacher who was president of the local union between 1991 and 1997 when two transgendered teachers had sex-change operations and returned to their schools as women, said the adults had more difficulty with the adjustment than students. "It didn't seem to be an issue for students. They wanted to ask questions -- as students do -- but they seemed better at asking the questions and then moving on," he said. "[Adults] always have a fear of the unknown." One of the Coquitlam teachers worked at a junior secondary school while the other was at a full secondary. "In a sense, the students respected them for doing what made them happy." Adrienne Montani, chair of the Vancouver school board, said there are other transgendered teachers in Vancouver as well, but they have not received media attention. "I'm a bit disappointed [with the publicity]," she said. "I worry about individual rights being violated." The fact that a transgendered teacher was returning to Henderson elementary became a media issue this week after someone connected with the school called a local television station. Bunting said she has no doubt the media reports have been "unsettling" for Stuart. "She told me she feels incredibly supported by the staff here but of course she was hoping there would be no media attention." The teacher attended a meeting with parents and the principal Tuesday to deal with any questions or concerns before classes resume in the new year. "When Jan. 6 comes, we want to have harmony in our school. We want to have students learning and teachers teaching," Bunting said. She said the meeting, which drew only three parents, was positive and ended in 25 minutes. A student who was in Stuart's Grade 5 class year sent a letter to the principal Tuesday recalling the teacher's ability to turn "sad faces" into "happy faces." "I really think she is the bravest person I know," the child wrote. jsteffenhagen@pacpress.southam.ca © Copyright 2002 Vancouver Sun TOP
[18c] CANADA --Teacher's sex change creates a stir TOP News - Vancouver - canada.com network http://www.canada.com/vancouver/story.asp?id={C63F71D5-F78B-40EB-8572-95A5F4 5B56AC} With reporting by Sophie Lui Global BC - canada.com Tuesday, December 17, 2002 Students at the unnamed east Vancouver elementary school will be greeted in the New Year by a female teacher whom they previously knew as a man. (BCTV News on Global) School principal Karen Bunting says those parents who initially complained about the sex-change showed 'empathy' after discussing the issue. (BCTV News on Global) Some parents of students at a Vancouver elementary school are worried about the implications as the school prepares to welcome back a transgendered teacher. The grade 5 teacher, who taught as a man last year, will return in January as a woman following sex-reassignment surgery. More than half a dozen parents have complained to school administrators about the teacher, who underwent a sex change during a medical leave this year. The school sent out an information letter to parents last week. Some have since complained that it's an inappropriate thing to confront children with as they struggle to understand their own sexuality. "I don't feel too comfortable with my kids to have the same teacher [who is a man] one day and the second day the teacher is a woman," said one against the move. Several parents were supportive, however. "I think it's OK, and I think people should accept them, whoever the person is," said another. School administrators and the school board argue the sex change is a learning opportunity for students, and a chance to create a more caring community. Few parents have complained about how their children would be affected by an elementary school teacher's sex change, says a Vancouver School Board spokeswoman. "There have been some parents who are concerned but not overwhelmingly so," Deborah Carty said. "This is a very large school and it has been a very low number of concerns so far." Counsellors are available to assist staff, students and parents, Carty said. "We're telling [the students] that it is a medical condition," said principal Karen Bunting, "that her identity has been changed medically and legally. "I've heard from seven parents, and after we've talked the parents have shown great understanding and empathy." Colleagues say the teacher in question is upset about the attention, but that they support her decision. "He was an excellent teacher as 'Jack,' and I think now that he's come to terms with his sexuality he can only be a better teacher," says educator Bob Parrott. "I think it's a wonderful opportunity for us to be positive role models, and show the kids how we can deal with diversity." Annie Ehman, acting chairwoman of the District Parent Advisory Council, said the organization doesn't have a formal position on the matter, which hasn't been discussed among its members. Ehman said her personal opinion is that she hopes the issue won't raise problems for parents or children. "Kids need to know about these things," she said, adding the matter is akin to a child seeing someone in a wheelchair. "I'm sure it could be confusing to a child but you have to talk about it." © Copyright 2002 Global BC, with files from CP TOP
LEGISLATIVE ACTION [19] USA: A victory for Boston's transgender population Top Boston Globe Online / Editorials | Opinions /... http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/355/oped/A_victory_for_Boston_s_transgende r_population+.shtml By Libby Adler 12/21/2002 WHILE LOCAL and national elections seized the limelight last month, Mayor Thomas Menino quietly signed a new city ordinance that propels Boston to the forefront of protecting its citizens from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression. As a result of this forward-thinking decision on the part of the mayor and nine members of the City Council, Boston becomes the 50th jurisdiction in the country, including 42 cities, six counties, and two states that have recognized the irrationality of prejudice on the basis of gender identity and expression and acted unequivocally to stop it. Gender identity refers to one's internal sense of oneself as a man or a woman while gender expression refers to the external characteristics (dress, hair, mannerisms) that manifest that identity. Transgender people are those who were born anatomically female but identify as men or born anatomically male but identify as women. Some seek surgical interventions to bring their anatomy into conformance with their identity, while others just choose new names and clothing that correspond to their sense of themselves as male or female. Even non-transgender people may be victims of discrimination because they defy commonly held expectations about masculinity and femininity, such as the man who is fired because he is ''effeminate'' or the woman denied a promotion because she is ''too masculine.'' The ordinance protects everyone who lives in or visits Boston from discrimination on the basis of gender identity in housing, employment, public accommodations, educational opportunities, and lending. Its provisions implicitly recognize, that like discrimination based on race, national origin, religion, sex, and sexual orientation, discrimination based on gender identity or expression is senseless and hurtful. The one member of the Boston City Council who manifested an underdeveloped sense of humanity was James Kelly. After losing the vote, 9-1, the mystified councilor asked, ''If I put on a dress and heels and lipstick, am I a woman?'' But Kelly misses the point. The question is whether, if he puts on a dress, heels, and lipstick, he should be discriminated against in housing, employment, public accommodations, and so on. Gender identity is not typically a casual matter of mood or whimsy, but something that people feel deeply - a point that members of the transgender community appreciate perhaps more than anyone else. Putting on a dress might seem absurd to the compassion-challenged councilor, but when a person is willing to risk familial and social rejection, discrimination, and even personal safety to do it, doesn't it make sense that the inclination must be sincerely and profoundly felt? Fortunately, nine members of the City Council and the mayor agree. They acted swiftly and unambiguously to ensure that businesses, universities, and other local institutions in our city do not discriminate. As with all measures that combat prejudice and promote diversity, the ordinance promises to benefit local institutions by enhancing their ability to attract the best candidates for work and study, including those to whom it is important to live in a place known for its broad acceptance of difference. In this way, the ordinance serves not only transgender Bostonians, but all members of our community. Libby Adleris an assistant professor of law at Northeastern University. This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 12/21/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. Top
[20a] USA: New York State--Gay Rights Advance Top Newsday.com - Gay Rights Advance http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpsig193052153dec19,0,5172649.story?c oll=ny%2Dviewpoints%2Dheadlines By Michelangelo Signorile December 19, 2002 To some it may have seemed like a ho-hum affair when the State Legislature on Tuesday finally passed a gay rights bill that was swiftly signed into law by Gov. George Pataki. After all, 12 other states - beginning with Wisconsin, way back in 1982 - had beaten us to it, including most of our Northeast neighbors. The Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act languished for 31 embarrassing years, not clearing the Democrat-controlled Assembly until 1993, and continually denied a vote in the Republican-controlled Senate. But make no mistake: This week marked a watershed moment for both the Republican Party in New York State and the gay and lesbian civil rights movement, locally and nationally. No matter how late it was in coming, the influence that New York wields on the national stage ensures that the law's impact will ripple across the country. As the story goes, Gov. Pataki, after years of unfulfilled promises, had cut a deal with the Empire State Pride Agenda, the statewide gay lobby. In exchange for the group's endorsement in the election he would get conservative Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, who'd thwarted the bill year after year, to bring it to a vote in a special session. In the end, Bruno even voted in favor of the bill and, with Pataki, urged his colleagues to do the same, bringing in enough fellow Republicans to pass the bill by an eight-vote margin. As Pataki himself has realized in recent years - and has clearly telegraphed to the State Senate - the Republican Party in New York won't maintain the control it has (let alone gain more) if it doesn't continue to moderate on social issues such as gay rights. Before the bill's passage, a landlord could refuse to rent an apartment to a lesbian couple, as happened to two women in Potsdam. Or a furniture store owner might turn away a couple because they were gay, as occurred in Oneonta. Now gays and lesbians in many cities, towns and suburbs in New York will have protections in employment, housing and accommodations. The law also now lays the groundwork for pursuing statewide domestic partnership laws, civil union legislation and even marriage rights for same-sex couples. Those are contentious, red-hot issues about which conservatives in the Legislature will surely put up a fierce fight - and some of the bill's most vociferous antigay critics in fact argued that gay marriage would be the next step. But the truth is, pushing for marriage rights is the next logical step. In Vermont, civil union laws came about only because gay advocates demanded the legal right to marry and the legislature compromised. Advocates here should do the same. On the national level, New York's action puts more pressure on legislators whom gay activists are lobbying in states around the country. Of the 12 other states (and the District of Columbia) that have similar laws, California is the only other large, politically and culturally influential state to have passed a gay rights bill. And the fact that New York passed its bill under a Republican governor and Senate is notable, particularly during a conservative time nationally. This law may indeed bring us a bit closer to still-elusive federal gay rights legislation. An unwitting impact of the law has been to dramatically raise the profile of transgender activists, who fought to have an amendment added to the bill that would outlaw discrimination on the basis of "gender identity" in addition to sexual orientation. In a bitter public squabble among gay rights advocates, State Sen. Tom Duane (D-Manhattan), the state's only openly gay senator, had commendably taken up the cause - though far too late, some said, for it to have a chance - proposing a transgender-inclusive amendment, as advocates from the Empire State Pride Agenda furiously charged him with jeopardizing the bill. Although the losing amendment garnered 19 votes - a decent number - the discussion perhaps educated a few legislators. The near debacle underscored that the law clearly has its limitations. Still, for the gay community, it's the start of something very big. Michelangelo Signorile is a former editor at The Advocate, a national gay magazine, and author of "Queer in America" and "Life Outside." -- © Newsday, Inc. Top
[20b] USA New York State--State Senate approves anti-gay discrimination bill Top Newsday.com - State Senate approves anti-gay ... http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--anti-gaybias1217dec17,0,3711526.story?coll=ny%2Dap%2Dregional%2Dwirege By SEANNA ADCOX Associated Press Writer December 17, 2002, 4:00 PM EST ALBANY, N.Y. -- State senators passed a bill Tuesday that would outlaw discrimination against homosexuals in New York state, 31 years after advocates began lobbying for it. The 34-26 vote put the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) a pen-stroke away from becoming law. The state Assembly approved the measure in January _ as it has annually since 1993 _ and Gov. George Pataki has promised to sign the bill if it reaches his desk. Pataki received an endorsement for re-election from Empire Pride Agenda, the largest gay and lesbian group in the state, after the Republican state Senate said in October it would take up the bias bill. SONDA would protect people from abuse, harassment and discrimination in employment, housing, education and public services based on their sexual preference. It would become law 30 days after gaining the governor's signature, making New York the 13th state to prohibit anti-gay bias. "This lays the foundation for winning full equality under the law in areas such as taxation, protections for gay youth and transgender people and recognition of our families," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda. A proposed amendment Tuesday to add protections for so-called transgenders _ ranging from cross-dressers to people undergoing sex-change procedures _ failed 19-41. Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, a Rensselaer County Republican, voted for the bill, as did 12 other Republican senators. Twenty-one Democrats also voted yes. "The time has come to move on in our lives put this behind us," he said before the vote. "People can live their lives the way they see fit." "The bill itself is a step in the wrong direction," countered Sen. Serphin Maltese, R-Queens. "We cannot legislate politeness ... the way people feel. That comes through mutual respect." Cheers and applause from bill advocates sitting in the Senate gallery greeted the announcement of the final vote total Tuesday. Usually, bills that make it onto the floor are predestined to pass in the Senate, where Republicans dominate 37-24 and the GOP controls the flow of legislation. The fate of SONDA, however, remained unclear until the voting began Tuesday. Michael Brennan, a Rochester resident who came to Albany to protest SONDA, carried a sign outside the Capitol that read "God's plan is marriage between husband and wife." "This is leading down the road to loss of free speech. Eventually, my convictions will become a hate crime," he said, before he and transgender advocates began arguing. "It will interfere with my ability to teach my grandchildren my values." SONDA opponents included both religious organizations and transgenders, who argued a non-discrimination bill was also needed to protect them. "I think it would be an absolute and utter tragedy if this passes" without protecting transgender rights, said Charles King, co-president of Housing Works. New York City resident Melissa Sklarz accused Empire State Pride Agenda of abandoning transgenders. "They have closed the door on us time and time again," she said. They preferred that SONDA be voted down without the transgender amendment proposed by Sen. Thomas Duane, the chamber's only openly gay member. "We are fighting among ourselves," said the Manhattan Democrat. "I promise the transgender community I'm not going to forget. The battle for that begins right away." Foreman estimated that 75 percent of transgender people in the state live in New York City _ where a city law already protects them against discrimination. "It's totally unfair for all these downstate people to be saying, 'All you upstate gays can wait"' for an anti-gay discrimination bill, said Foreman. He said establishment of protection against discrimination for homosexuals was a historic step for gays and lesbians rights advocates, who plan to propose a sweeping change of the state's human rights laws next year. "You really can't be advancing things like domestic partnership rights when, if you go to your employer and say, 'I have a domestic partner,' they can fire you because you're gay," Foreman said. Talk About Anti-Gay Discrimination Thirty-one years after advocates began lobbying, the New York State Senate approved legislation outlawing discrimination against homosexuals. How do you feel about the measure? Politics really IS a chess game where you take two steps forward and one back. Transgendered people now have to mobilize for our rights. See Ed Lowes' column in the 12/11 Newsday - these are the people we have to inform by being visible. We're your neighbors and we're not going away! Submitted by: Tracee Trax 9:33 PM EST, Dec 17, 2002 -- Long overdue - unfortunately our Transgender inclusion was voted down, but that will doubtless be on the agenda for us to push for in the (near) future. Good point about the protection we have in NYC, though.. Submitted by: Tracee Trax 9:28 PM EST, Dec 17, 2002 Read more comments or post your own: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-gayboard1218,0,121872.graffitiboar d?coll=ny%2Dap%2Dregional%2Dwire More Coverage: How They Voted Dec 17, 2002 http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--anti-gaybias-roll1217dec17, 0,2082362.story?coll=ny%2Dap%2Dregional%2Dwire © 2002, The Associated Press © Newsday, Inc. Top
BOOKS etc...... [21a] 'Normal' By AMY BLOOM (NYT) Transcript FIRST CHAPTER Top 'Normal' http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/books/chapters/1215-1st-bloom.html RETRIEVED: Saturday, December 21, 2002 BOOKS / FIRST CHAPTERS | December 15, 2002 'Normal' By AMY BLOOM (NYT) Transcript FIRST CHAPTER What would you go through not to have to live the life of Kafka's Gregor Samsa? Not to realize, early in childhood, that other people perceive a slight, unmistakable bugginess about you, which you find horrifying but they claim to find unremarkable? That glimpses of yourself in the mirror are upsetting and puzzling and to be avoided, since they show a self that is not you? That although you can ignore your shell much of the time and your playmates often seem to see you and not your cockroach exterior, teachers and relatives pluck playfully at your antennae with increasing frequency and suggest, not unkindly, that you might be more comfortable with the other insects? And when you say, or cry, that you are not a cockroach, your parents are sad, or concerned, or annoyed, but unwavering in their conviction-how could it be otherwise?-that you are a cockroach, and are becoming more cockroachlike every day. Would you hesitate to pay thirty thousand dollars and experience some sharp but passing physical misery in order to be returned to your own dear, soft, skin-covered self? Approximately two people in every hundred thousand are diagnosed-first by themselves, then by endocrinologists, family doctors, psychiatrists, or psychologists-as high-intensity transsexuals, meaning that they will be motivated, whether or not they succeed, to have surgery that will bring their bodies into accord with the gender to which they have known themselves, since toddlerhood, to belong. Until a decade or so ago the clinical literature and the unreliable statistics suggested that for every four men seeking to become anatomically female, there was one woman seeking the opposite change. Now clinical evaluation centers report that the ratio is almost one to one. In twenty years of practice as a clinical social worker, I met men who liked to wear women's clothing, women who preferred sex in public conveyances to sex at home, men who were more attracted to shoes than to the people in them; I didn't meet any transsexuals. I encountered transsexuals only the way most people do: in Renee Richards's story, in Jan Morris's Conundrum, in Kate Bornstein's books, and on afternoon talk shows, where transsexuals are usually represented by startlingly pretty young women, sometimes holding hands with their engagingly shy, love-struck fiances, sometimes accompanied by defensive, supportive wives turned best friends. I wondered, in the middle of the afternoon, where the female-to-male transsexuals were. Even if there were four times as many male-to-female transsexuals, there still had to be a few thousand of the other kind somewhere. But not in mainstream bookstores, not in magazines, not in front of talk-show audiences of middle-aged women standing up to applaud the guests' ability to "look just like the real thing." I thought there must be a reason female-to-male transsexuals were invisible. I wondered if their physical transformations were so pitiful that no one could bear to interview them, if women who wished to be men were less interesting, less interview-worthy than men who wished to be women, or if these people were so floridly disturbed that even the talk-show hosts were ashamed to be seen with them. Much of the early psychiatric literature about transsexuals, from the pre-Christine Jorgensen 1940s until the late 1970s, leaned heavily toward psychoanalytic explanations and toward clinical descriptions that, however sympathetic to the unhappy patient, emphasized the bizarreness not of the biological condition but of the conviction that there was a biological condition. The next psychiatric wave emphasized "personality disorders" as the root of transsexuality, specifically the popularized borderline personality syndrome, with its inadequately formed sense of self and frightened yearning for symbiosis. In The Transsexual Empire (1979), Janice Raymond dismissed the biological reality of transsexuality and attacked transsexuals as agents and pawns of the patriarchy. Her overwrought theories about the meaning of transsexu- ality and the training and practice of surgeons who perform transsexual procedures read like the feminist equivalent of some of the Mafia-CIA-White Russian conspiracy theories of Kennedy's assassination, but her essential point, that transsexuals are psychologically unstable victims of a society that overemphasizes the roles of sexual insignia and gender difference, made sense to me. If the people involved were less nuts and society were less rigid, it seemed, neither transsexuals nor the surgery they seek would exist. Most of us can understand a wish, even a persistent wish, to belong to the other gender. History and fiction are full of examples, many charming, some heroic, of women who dressed as men throughout their lives. It's the medical procedures that make transsexuals seem crazy: six months to two years of biweekly intramuscular injections of two hundred milligrams of Depo-Testosterone, which cause an outbreak of adolescent acne, the cessation of menstruation, and the development of male secondary sex characteristics; then a double mastectomy, in which most but not all of the breast tissue is removed, the nipple saved, and the chest recontoured for a more masculine, pectorally pronounced look; and then, a year to ten years later (depending on the patient's wishes and financial resources), a hysterectomy and one of two possible genital surgeries: a phalloplasty (a surgery to create a full-size phallus and testicles) or a metoidioplasty (a surgery that frees the testosterone-enlarged clitoris to act as a small penis). In short: multiple, expensive, and traumatic surgeries to remove healthy tissue. Who would do this? Lyle Monelle, a burly man of twenty-eight, lives with his mother, Jessie, in a trailer park in suburban Montana, a state in which I'd never imagined suburbs. The trailer park is neatly laid out beneath a shocking cobalt sky, and all the culs-de-sac have their own blue-and-white street signs, none of which are bent or rusted or facing the wrong way. The careful hand of people who are used to making do, doing without, and trying again is everywhere. Jessie and Lyle are watching for me from the trailer's little porch, and they come toward the car like a couple of welcoming relatives. The inside of the trailer looks familiar; it is the Montana twin of my late mother-in-law's home in northern Minnesota. Sturdy, slightly bowed Herculon love seat and matching recliner in shades of orange; copper mallards hanging on the opposite wall, arching over the TV. The three of us finish two pitchers of iced tea during the afternoon's conversation, and Lyle and Jessie allow themselves to be sad and occasionally puzzled by their own story, but not for long. All their painful stories are followed by moments of remembered grief but end in the genuine and ironic laughter of foxhole buddies; they know what they know, and they are not afraid anymore. Lyle is older than I had thought he would be-he's an adult. He was a patient of three of the people I've already interviewed-Dr. Donald Laub, a preeminent plastic surgeon known especially for female-to-male sex change surgery; Judy Van Maasdam, the counselor at Laub's surgical center in Palo Alto; and Dr. Ira Pauly, a noted psychiatrist and when they told me about Lyle, they all focused on how young he was at the time of transition, much younger than most people who apply for surgery. Even though I knew better, I had half expected to meet a teenager. He was fourteen when he began hormone treatments, with medical approval, fifteen when he had his mastectomies, but twenty-three before he and his parents had enough money for the phalloplasty, the "bottom" surgery. (That's what the guys say about their surgeries-"my top," "my bottom.") I was horrified when I first heard the stories about this kid, and I imagined meeting his parents and clinically evaluating them as misguided, covertly sadistic, or perversely ignorant, acting out their own unhappiness on their helpless child. We should all have such parents. When Lyle entered puberty, his mother and his late father took him from doctor to doctor, looking for explanations for Lyle's unhappiness and fierce resistance to being treated like a young woman. An endocrinologist who had worked with Don Laub recognized Lyle as possibly transsexual, and Ira Pauly and Judy Van Maasdam confirmed the diagnosis. Then, after extensive hormone treatments, Laub performed the first surgery and the family moved to another state, to allow Lyle to enter high school as a boy. Later, they nursed him after his hysterectomy and his phalloplasty, and used all their savings, and then some, to pay his medical bills. Jessie says, "I want everyone to know who reads this that this wasn't easy-it was a really terrible shock. I didn't understand. I said to the first endocrinologist, 'Where did we go wrong?' and he said nowhere, it was biological. I called every single-I'm not kidding you-every single insurance company in the USA, and they said, 'No, it's cosmetic.' " Lyle interrupts-the only time I'll see him openly angry. "Yeah, right. Like I wanted a nose job. Cosmetic. Well, it was only my life." Jessie makes soothing hand gestures, reminding him that it's all right now. "And of course, the money," she says. "Our other kids resented it. I understand. But what could I do? What could we do? If your child has a birth defect, you get help. We understood-we understood even when he was little that something wasn't right. And we knew, when the doctors told us what could be done-we just knew what we had to do. When the doctors said he was transsexual, I felt that I knew that." After hearing Lyle's stories about his hated girl name, his astonished, frightened tears and protracted battles over party dresses, Mary Janes, and even girl-styled polo shirts, and his deep, early sense of male identity-the same stories I would later hear, with minor variations, from almost every transsexual man I spoke with-I ask him about life since the transition. He gives me a glossy friend-filled account highlighted by a two-year romance with an older woman (twenty, to his seventeen) and a successful football career cut short by an ankle injury. And after high school? Finally, a bit of trouble: "I had a little money problem and a little drug problem. I got some counseling, came back from Las Vegas, started college. Now I'm taking classes, paying off my bills, working for the state. Eventually, I'll get my bachelor's." He sighs, and Jessie says quickly, "That's all right. Lots of older kids are in college these days. Aren't they?" I say I know quite a few, and we sip our iced tea. -- Excerpted from Normal by Amy Bloom Copyright © 2002 by Amy Bloom Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. -- Role Reversals (September 10, 2000) http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?res=9502E1DF1530F933A2575AC0A9669C 8B63 Writing From the Heart But Drawing on the Mind (August 21, 2000) http://query.nytimes.com/search/article-page.html?res=9C00E3D8103EF932A1575B C0A9669C8B63 BOOKS OF THE TIMES; How Do I Love Thee? Count the Unusual Ways (July 24, 2000) http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?res=9C03EFDE123AF937A15754C0A9669C 8B63&fta=y Lovers and Other Perverts (January 19, 1997) http://query.nytimes.com/search/full-page?res=9502E1DF1530F933A2575AC0A9669C 8B63 Find more results for Bloom, Amy <http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=per&v1=BLOOM%2c%20AMY&fdq=199601 01&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=BLOOM%2c%20AMY> and Books and Literature <http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=des&v1=BOOKS%20AND%20LITERATURE& fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=BOOKS%20AND%20LITERATURE>. Doing research? Search the archive for more than 500,000 articles: Copyright The New York Times Company Top
[21b] 'Normal': Unusual (But Not Abnormal) Sexuality Top Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: New York Times Author: Erica Goode http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/15/books/review/15GOODET.html? ex=1040533200&en=9df41945a9195a59&ei=5062 Date: Dec. 15, 2002 This is not, at its core, a politically correct book. In one of the three fluid and deftly constructed essays that make up ''Normal,'' Luis, a female-to-male transsexual, admits that although he has undergone surgery so that his outside ''matches'' his inside, he is less sure than ever what it means to be a man or a woman. ''Male, female -- I don't even understand that anymore,'' he says. In another chapter, a woman, loyally attending a cross-dressers' convention in St. Louis with her husband, confides that she would rather not be there. She explains, ''I don't mind, but really, if he could learn to do his makeup properly and fasten his own bra, I'd rather stay home.'' Such confessions are not the stuff of which sexual polemic is made. Rather, they are the kind of messy truths that appeal to someone with a multitude of unanswered questions and both ears open. Amy Bloom, a novelist and psychotherapist, is just that, as her three essays -- on transsexualism, cross-dressing and intersexuality (having ambiguous or mixed genitalia) -- demonstrate. On a holiday cruise for heterosexual cross-dressers, she is both confidante and coolly detached observer. Her eyes well with sympathetic tears when Felicity, a burly Southern Baptist minister, describes feeling as if ''there are three of me in this little boat: the husband, the cross-dresser and the minister . . . and I know, I know with all my heart, that one of us will not survive this ride.'' But Bloom questions the assertion, put forward in a brochure on cross- dressing, that the practice is simply something that men who are unusually in touch with their feminine side like to do, a ''compulsive behavior'' but not a ''sickness.'' ''This seems to me to be the heart of the cross-dresser's dilemma, and now the heart of mine in writing about them,'' Bloom comments. ''A good wife should tolerate it because the man has no choice, but it shouldn't be too hard to tolerate because it is, after all, a gift.'' In interviewing female-to-male transsexuals who have undergone either phalloplasty, in which a full-sized penis and testicles are constructed, or the more moderate metoidioplasty, in which the vagina is preserved and the clitoris is freed to act as a small penis, Bloom notes that she had expected to find self-hating women driven to mutilation. Instead, she writes, ''I met men. Some I liked, some I didn't.'' But she also makes clear that the relationship between anatomy and sexual preference is more complex and elusive than surgeons, patients and many writers on the subject often assume it to be. A number of the transsexuals she talks to opted for metoidioplasty, though it left their sexual transformation incomplete. As one put it: ''It's not all or nothing. I can live this way, as a man with a vagina. . . . I know who I am.'' Bloom's unwillingness to embrace simple formulations, her insistence on digging deeper, is her book's strength. A very male, very heterosexual senior law partner, she tells us, can still enjoy wearing Chanel sling-backs. A woman so convinced she is a man as to be undeterred by the surgeon's knife can still prefer men as bed partners. A man with a penis so tiny as to be almost invisible can still be healthily and happily masculine. Bloom's robust sense of the absurd helps readers relax in what for some might be uncomfortable moments: a graphic description of the mechanics of sex surgery, for example. And for most of the book, she is a trustworthy narrator, sorting through political artifice, societal prejudice and defensive rationalization. But somewhere along the way, Bloom loses her distance. The third essay, on intersexuality, is less incisive than the previous two. And in a brief afterword, apparently tacked on to make what are really separate magazine-length pieces into a coherent whole, she cannot resist connecting dots and filling in blanks, as if she worries that her readers, faced with so many subtleties, might be unable to do so themselves. The aspects of sexuality she writes about, Bloom says, may be unusual but they are not abnormal. Like the platypus and the blue potato, they represent nature's infinite variety, not its mistakes. If readers have not already reached similar conclusions, they are unlikely to be persuaded by the author's abruptly heavy hand. And some of the transsexuals who inhabit the pages of ''Normal'' might disagree with Bloom's argument about nature's infallibility: if there is one thing they are convinced of, it is that, at least in their cases, nature erred. Erica Goode writes about behavior for The Times. Copyright The New York Times Company | Top
[22] The Phallus Palace: Female to Male Transexuals Top Dean Kotula Alyson Press, 2002 by Eli Clare In Phallus Palace, photographer and writer Dean Kotula gathers together photos, essays, and interviews that explore the experiences of being a female-to-male transsexual (FTM). This is a book of many fragmented parts. There are Kotula's photo portraits of FTMs accompanied by their personal statements, a handful of autobiographical pieces by Kotula about transsexuality and his life as a transman, several articles by non-trans professionals who work with FTMs, a series of interviews with doctors who do FTM surgeries and photo essays of their surgical procedures, a couple essays about trans history and the process of transition, and two pieces by family members of FTMs. In short this book is a collage of information. Not quite an anthology but more than a single-authored volume, it is hard to characterize and feels a bit like a whirlwind. At the center are Kotula's portraits of FTMs. These black-and-white full-page photos show a whole range transmen from the 22-year-old guy who has just started taking testosterone and looks all of 14 to the man who transitioned 24 years ago; from the impish looking clarinet player hunkered down on a railroad track to the kayaker paddling away from a dock. Paired with these portraits are smaller pictures of these men before transition &endash; when they were often perceived as women &endash; and short statements by each of them. The words and pictures combine to create powerful stories about what transition means to FTMs. Michael writes: "I was always masculine in my innermost essence &endash; though I didn't come by my physical manhood until much later, and not easily... And this journey, this bliss, is my manhood. I have approached, and breached, what I was made to believe was the impossible: to become a man" (p. 120). It is necessary for non-trans gay, lesbian, and bi people to absorb these stories about FTMs who are men. All too frequently in non-trans queer space I hear mutterings about how transsexuals are just selling out, how it's essentially conservative to transition, how the lesbian community is losing all its butches. These transphobic attitudes are frustrating at best, and as a genderqueer on the FTM-spectrum, I get really weary of responding to them. The men in Kotula's portraits are repeatedly saying, "Through transition I became whole, I became happy, I became able to live in my body." These aren't stories of selling out or becoming conservative or losing anyone, but rather stories of liberation. The book as a whole focuses on FTM transsexuals who identify as men, which is a small slice of the whole range of FTM-spectrum gender possibilities. Kotula goes to great lengths to differentiate transmen from other trans identities. His story and belief, bolstered by the other voices in the book, is that he and other transsexuals are simply men whose female bodies needed to be corrected. This viewpoint is vital, and around its edges lies a lot of complexity. First, I want to acknowledge the sexist messages that declare all women's bodies wrong and the ways those messages get internalized. Given this truth about sexism, some feminists are quick to dismiss Kotula's FTM transsexual reality of being a man living in the wrong body &endash; a female body &endash; as internalized sexism. I believe that these truths &endash; one feminist and the other trans &endash; actually aren't contradictory. Women can struggle mightily with internalized sexism, and transmen can struggle with a deeply internal feeling, unconnected to sexism, that their female bodies are in need of correction. By holding these two realities together, we can all arrive at a more complex understanding of sex, gender, and sexism. And second, I want to note that there are many different kinds of gender identities among trans people. Kotula's focus is narrow, and The Phallus Palace would be best read in conjunction with trans books that are broader in scope. Genderqueer, edited by Joan Nestle, Clare Howell, and Riki Wilchens, (reviewed in October's OITM) and Leslie Feinberg's Transgender Warriors come to mind. Around the central series of portraits is a constellation of information designed to educate readers about FTMs. We hear from a number of non-trans professionals: surgeons, therapists, and a researcher. Kotula took his camera into several operating rooms, and the resulting pictures are quite graphic. If you are squeamish, skip the surgical photo essays. While they are somewhat informative for folks wanting to know more about FTM chest and genital reconstruction, I wonder whether they play into the widespread prurient interest in trans people's bodies, particularly genitals. (The book's rather flip title, The Phallus Palace, comes from a device by the same name used in one of the surgeries that creates a penis.) The therapists in the book are a mixed bag. Katherine Rachlin adeptly debunks many myths and stereotypes about FTMs, clearly taking the position of an ally to the trans community. With Gender Identity Disorder and Gender Dysphoria still listed as psychiatric diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM-IV), too many non-trans therapists and health care prov