Vitale Letter #250, January 6, 2003 Anne Vitale PhD, Editor
- Archives of back issues
- Notes on Gender Transition
- To subscribe to this newsletter, send a blank email message to subscribe@avitale.com
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- ANNOUNCEMENTS
- [1][USA: San Francisco Bay Area--Two Male-to-Female Groups Reforming: Advanced transition / Recent post-op
- and Early Stage / Questioning
- [2]USA: California: Researcher looking for documentable experiences where transgenders have experienced discrimination
- [3]USA: California--Documentary On African-American Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Coming Out Experiences Sends Out Call For Participants
- [4]USA: Florida--Heels and Rights: Key West Effort Seeks to Protect Crossdressers
- [5]USA: Missouri--Transgender Chaperon Ignites School Dispute
- [6]USA: Florida--Transvestite shot; man charged with hate crime
- [7]USA: Pennsylvania--Prostitute may have been killed
- [8]Taiwan --Four Human Rights Groups list worst gender rights violations
- MEDIA WATCH
- [9]CANADA--Tired of hiding a 'dark secret', Hotel clerk awaits final transformation of sexual identity
- [10] CANADA--Sex trade often their only option
- Rejection, abuse, drug use make for a dangerous life: THE TRANSGENDERED --MALE? ... FEMALE? ... BOTH?
- LEGISLATIVE ACTION
- [11]UK: Recent Questions in Parliament
- [12]USA: Divide on Gender Continues; Advocates disagree on what the next steps for transgender protections
- IN THE COURTS
- [13] USA: California--Judge says transvestite will dress as a man despite appearance
- [14]USA: Minnesota Gender Law Narrowed Appeals court rips another hole in protections for transgenders
- BOOKS Etc....
- [15]USA: Touring with T;Thanks to her outstanding debut novel, T Cooper wound up seeing the USA on a 30-city tour
- [16] USA: The mystery of gender through the eyes of a photographer who has crossed the divide
- HEALTH AND SCIENCE
- [17]USA: Combination hormone therapy associated with increase in breast density
- [18]USA Menopause, Estrogen Loss, and Their Treatments
- Happy New Year ... busy new year
- By Claire McNab, Press For Change
- State Gay Rights Bill (New York State)
- By Andy Humm, Gotham Gazzette
- Fashion vs. gender : Parents want to decide if their children should be exposed to cross-dressing
- By David C. Mason, Saint Louis Today
- Fashion vs. gender : We should approach the crossing-dressing with tolerance.
- By Arlene Zarembka ,Saint Louis Today
- 'SHAME ON WINN-DIXIE' ANNIVERSARY
- From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
- Transitions: Literary Stereotyping - A Response to Karel
- By Roslyn Manley ,Orange County and Long Beach Blade
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Reflections On The Recent Transgender Day of Remembrance A Message From Rev. Troy D. Perry Founder and Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches
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ANNOUNCMENTS [1][USA: San Francisco Bay Area--Two Male-to-Female Groups Reforming: Group 1:Advanced transition / Recent post-op Group 2: Early Stage / Questioning Facilitater---Anne Vitale PhD 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.
- These are NOT drop-in/social groups. I expect real, intraspective work to be done at each session. Each participant is expected to make an attitudenal commitment to attend all or as many as possible of the 10 scheduled meetings. The fee is $25 per session or $225 if paid in full at the start of the 10 sessions. Participants are responsible for payment of each session whether they attend or not. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and think you can make it to San Rafael from 7:30 to 9:00 pm on alternate Wednesday evenings, let me know. The first meeting for the Advanced Group is January 15th. The first meeting for the Early / Questioning group is January 22, 2003. Visa and MasterCard accepted.
Call Anne Vitale PhD at 415-456-4452 or send an email to Group@avitale.com for more information. Top[2]USA: California: Researcher looking for documentable experiences of transgender discrimination Top Roslyn Manley writes:
- Please Distribute in California
- January 3, 2003
- As we know, Transgender individuals may be subjected to discrimination in employment, commercial and public services when their transgender history is known, discovered, or suspected. We are searching for documentable experiences where transgenders have experienced such discrimination in one or more of the following subject areas.
- If you have experienced such discrimination, your story may assist in designing new legislation and some may be asked to provide testimony. Please send a summary of your experiences to:
- Roslyn Manley
- MzRoslyn@Mindspring.Com
- Please transmit your story by private email and remember to your provide your address and telephone.
- Insurance:
- Have you been wrongly refused medical services on the basis of GID? For example, requiring a hysterectomy for non-GID reasons, but the insurance carrier / HMO refused to provide coverage because you are trans?
- Have you attempted to privately purchase any sort of insurance and been refused because you are transgender? This would include health, life, disability, homeowners, renters, automobile, professional liability, or any other sort of insurance.
- Have you attempted to privately purchase any sort of insurance and been quoted an increased (rated) premium because you were transgender?
- Have you been refused employment, or been terminated from employment because the bonding company would not bond you due to your transgender history?
- Foster Care:
- Are you qualified to be a foster parent, but been refused because you are transgender or gay?
- Do you have direct knowledge of any LGBT child in the foster care system that has been subjected to discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity?
- Employment:
- Within the past three years, have you been terminated, refused promotion, or refused employment because the employer perceived you as a masculine woman or as a feminine man? Note that this question applies to heterosexuals and non-transgenders as well.
- Within the past three years, have you been terminated, refused promotion, or refused employment because the employer was aware of your transgender history?
- Very truly yours,
- Roslyn Manley
- MzRoslyn@Mindspring.Com
- January 3, 2003
- Top
[3]USA: California--Documentary On African-American Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Coming Out Experiences Sends Out Call For Participants- Top
- From: Stephen Gutwillig
- Organization: OUTFEST
- Reply-To: stephen@outfest.org
- Subject: call for documentary subjects
- Documentary On African-American Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Coming Out Experiences Sends Out Call For Participants
- Los Angeles, CA ( Dec. 05, 2002) Barely Breaking Even Productions, a collaboration between journalist and publicist Jasmyne Cannick and long time activist and writer Charlotte M. Young, are seeking participants for a full length documentary film exploring coming out stories of African-American gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
- Barely Breaking Even Productions a division of Bamboo Media, has embarked upon a three-prong project to include a documentary film, a photography book and a photo-text exhibit. "My personal goal is to incite the black family to start talking more openly about sexual orientation and I believe that once we see the diversity of gay people and hear their stories, this in itself will help to combat homophobia in the black community and more specifically in the black church," comments Young.
- African-American gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people wishing to participate need only to call (310) 775-3153 or email bbeprod@hotmail.com for a preliminary interview. Participant selection will begin immediately through March of 2003 with priority given to those who reply first. All ages are welcome.
- The filmmaker's mission is to create a body of work that brings about social change within the African-American community. This project endeavors to create a safe place for people to talk openly about sexual orientation, to educate the black community about the complexities of sexual identity and to document the coming out experiences of African-American gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. This is in an effort to combat homophobia, promote tolerance and increase the understanding of various sexual orientations through the exhibition of film, art and creative expression.
- Top
GENERAL INFORMATION[4]USA: Florida--Heels and Rights: Key West Effort Seeks to Protect Crossdressers Top Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: Washington Post Author: Manuel Roig-Franzia http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11572- 2003Jan4.html Muddy gender identity, by all appearances, is quite the thing in the perpetual party zones in Key West. Men dressed as women croon Diana Ross hits. Women dressed as men strut around in chaps. There are women who used to be men and some in various stages of getting there. But as open and accepting as it looks, some in Key West are worried that the city's sizable population of cross-dressers, drag queens and those who have undergone sex change operations might become victims of discrimination and harassment. Tom Oosterhoudt, a gay Key West city commissioner, knows something about discrimination. Twenty years ago, his first lover was a drag queen. Oosterhoudt says they were kicked out of apartments, ridiculed and lost jobs because of the way his partner dressed. Key West might be a haven of acceptance, Oosterhoudt said, but he still hears allegations of discrimination, including the recent firing of a cross-dressing supermarket worker. So Oosterhoudt proposed adding the transgender community and cross-dressers to the city's anti-discrimination law, which would make Key West Florida's first city to so amend its human rights ordinance. The proposal passed its first vote last month and is up for a final vote this week. "I just want Key West to be in the vanguard of human rights," Oosterhoudt said. © 2003 The Washington Post Company Top
[5]USA: Missouri--Transgender Chaperon Ignites School Dispute Top http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dad5jan05.story RETRIEVED: Monday, January 06, 2003 January 5, 2003 Transgender Chaperon Ignites School Dispute Some insist on a rule on 'appropriate' attire after a dad dressed as a woman goes on trip. By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer ST. LOUIS -- The fourth-grade field trip to the state Capitol was going well: The kids gaped at the rotunda, peeked in the Senate chambers, listened politely to a lecture on how a bill becomes law. Then someone noticed that the parent chaperon with the gorgeous hair and tasteful makeup was a dad. Most of the kids on the trip, apparently, either did not notice or did not care that a classmate's father was dressed as a woman, in jeans, a sweater and nice shoes. Most of the teachers, apparently, were equally untroubled. But when the fourth-graders returned from Jefferson City, Mo., that afternoon in mid-October, the parent chaperon who had spotted the "cross-dressing dad" alerted some friends. Word spread quickly though the Francis Howell School District, in the middle-class suburb of St. Charles. The resulting tumult has not yet subsided. Alarmed, outraged and indignant, several parents demanded that the school board look into the matter. They found a receptive audience in board member Lisa Naeger, a mother of two who recoiled at the thought of her 9-year-old being exposed to a transgender adult on a field trip. "I don't think it's fair to the kids or to the parents," Naeger said. "Parents have a right to make the decision about how their children are to be exposed to these issues. It's crucial that we make a stand." Naeger has proposed a new policy that would require parent chaperons to wear "gender-appropriate" clothing for school functions. It's unlikely, however, that such wording would survive a court challenge. In 1985, a federal court struck down an obscure (and rarely used) St. Louis ordinance that banned anyone from dressing in clothing "not according to his or her sex" while out in public. Naeger expects the board to make a decision by mid-January; she is not optimistic that her colleagues will back her request. But a handful of fired-up parents is not willing to let the matter drop. The parents have asked the district to let them know whenever the father in question visits Castlio Elementary School, so they can withdraw their children from class. And they are pleading for a dress code that would require all adults who interact with students to "dress in what a 9- or 10-year-old perceives as normal clothes for a man or a woman," as mother Patti Hight puts it. "This individual did not use common sense. He did not put the children first. He did not think how this would confuse them," said Hight. Her daughter did not notice the cross-dressed dad during the daylong field trip. Still, Hight said she's furious to think that, if her daughter had noticed, had raised a question, it would have fallen to a stranger to explain transsexualism. "He shouldn't have put the other parent chaperons or the educators in the position of having to explain such a controversial lifestyle," Hight said. The father has not been identified. But sources who know him said he has dressed as a woman at work for at least six years, keeping his hair long, wearing slacks and blouses and using a name that could be either male or female. Actively involved in his daughters' education, he has volunteered in their schools, attended their concerts and conferred with their teachers while in women's attire -- without any backlash, until now. "This guy was not a disruption," said Jon Bennett, a school board member. "He didn't show up wearing a skintight leather dress and fishnet stockings." "It wasn't obvious at all," added Karen Finch, a special-education teacher who went on the field trip. "I'm not going to say I get it. I don't. But that doesn't matter. It's a free country. "We're just a Midwestern, conservative, middle-class white neighborhood -- this isn't San Francisco, you know -- but the staff at the school is supportive of this man. The teachers accept him. A few parents just freaked out and now it's blown up out of proportion." The father's supporters point out that teachers already have the right to remove any volunteer who disrupts the educational process. A parent who cross-dressed so flamboyantly that kids couldn't pay attention to their lessons could be asked to leave. So could a chaperon who made racist remarks. This father, however, was by all accounts dressed in an understated style; he did not seek to explain himself or promote his views on gender to the children. If he were barred from volunteering in the schools, his supporters ask, what would stop the district from excluding a lesbian couple, or an interracial couple, or any other parents whose lifestyles or orientations some would regard as controversial? "We don't have the right to discriminate, and we shouldn't," Bennett said. Transgender advocates point out too that to qualify for sex-change surgery, individuals first go through a prolonged period of "transition," when they present themselves in public as the gender they hope to become. "They can't just arbitrarily switch back and forth to appease parents on a field trip," said Vanessa Edwards Foster, founder of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition. A recent poll by the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay-rights group, found that 77% of Americans favor allowing transgender students to attend public schools. But just half support the idea of transgender high school teachers. -- Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times Top
[6]USA: Florida--Transvestite shot; man charged with hate crime Top The Miami Herald | 01/03/2003 | Transvestite ... http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/2003/01/03/news/local/4863148.htm Posted on Fri, Jan. 03, 2003 BY NICOLE WHITE AND RICHARD BRAND nwhite@herald.com Upon learning the object of his attention was not a woman, a New Jersey man pulled out a gun on South Beach and shot a transvestite in the shoulder on New Year's Day, police said. Adrian Miller, 19, of Long Branch, N.J., was charged with attempted murder-hate crime, as was his companion, Billy Ledan, 19, of Miami. Both remained in jail Thursday without bond. The incident occurred before 7 a.m. Wednesday at 11th Street and Collins Avenue. Miami Beach police said the men propositioned the victim, who told them: "I think you know what you're getting into. I'm a man." Incensed, Miller pulled a gun, cursed at the victim with an antigay slur and fired. The two men fled in a car. The victim, whose name was unavailable Thursday, was taken to Ryder Trauma Center. His condition was not known as of Thursday evening. The men were caught on the MacArthur Causeway after a police officer spotted a dark blue hatchback speeding west. The car matched the description that had been given to police. Police said they found a semiautomatic weapon inside the car. Miller was also charged with carrying a concealed firearm. The men are scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 22. The shooting marred an otherwise orderly New Year's celebration, police spokesman George Navarro said. He called the incident an "extreme case." Miami Beach is a city that prides itself on being extremely tolerant of gays. In 1992, it became the first city in the county to give equal protection to gays and lesbians in housing, employment and accommodations. Still, the Beach, which has a huge gay population, has had its share of gay-bashing. So much so, says David Silver, general manager of Crobar on Washington Avenue, that the club hires additional security to protect partygoers at the weekly Sunday night gay "anthem nights." "Hate crimes are just the most heinous things one can imagine," Silver said. Top
[7]USA: Pennsylvania--Prostitute may have been killed Top Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer Author: Mark Fazlollah http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/4843853.htm Dec. 31, 2002 The man found dead last week at 16th and Chestnut had fatal head injuries. Police are investigating. The death of a male prostitute whose battered body was found last week on a Center City street corner is being investigated as a possible homicide, police said yesterday. Robert Morris, 47, of the 5000 block of Walnut Street, was found early Dec. 22 lying on the street at 16th and Chestnut Streets with fatal head injuries. Morris, who was dressed as a woman, was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he died the next day. The city's Medical Examiner's Office performed an autopsy and determined on Dec. 25 that Morris died from "blunt head trauma," but there is no ruling yet as to whether the case was a homicide. Morris' death is still listed in police records as a "hospital case," meaning police transported him to the hospital for medical care but did not identify his injury as the result of a crime. One homicide detective said Morris could have suffered the injuries from a fall. According to police, Morris had a long history of arrests for prostitution but was always released and went back to the streets. Investigators were scheduled to conduct predawn interviews today in the area, in the hope of finding someone with information about Morris' death. Police said anyone with information about the case is asked to call the homicide unit at 215-686-3334. Top
[8]Taiwan --Four Human Rights Groups list worst gender rights violations Top Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 From: tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: Taiwan News Author: Jessie Ho http://www.etaiwannews.com/Taiwan/2002/12/29/1041142805.htm Date: Dec. 29, 2002 Four human rights groups yesterday revealed their list of the ten worst violations of sexual and gender rights in Taiwan in 2002 to enhance society's perception of sex and gender issues and compel the government to improve rights in these areas in the future. "Sexual and gender rights are human rights," said Wang Ping, Secretary General of the Gender/Sexuality Rights Association Taiwan. Wang suggested that improving human rights is a universal goal of the international community, but Taiwan still only has a limited understanding and interpretation of human rights - perceiving them from a physical angle while ignoring their mental and psychological components. "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has existed for over fifty years, but groups of people in Taiwan can still be deprived of their rights because of their gender or sexual behavior," Wang accused. The top violator of rights in 2002 was considered by the groups to be the controversial ruling by the Council of Grand Justices on Friday - upholding the constitutionality of a law classifying adultery as a crime. "The ruling is groundless because no substantive evidence can be found to prove that deeming adultery a crime guarantees and maintains the happiness of a marriage," Kenneth Chiu, a human rights lawyer said. "Love and affection are much more important than physical loyalty in a marriage." The other violations of sexual and gender rights listed by the groups include: putting restrictions on the outfits of betel nut vendors; overly restricting online pornographic materials; requiring prostitutes to be lectured on AIDS prevention if caught with customers who don't use condoms; the blackmailing of prostitutes by the police; refusing to change the names and photos on the ID cards of transsexuals; invading the privacy of transsexuals; discriminating against transsexuals to the point that one committed suicide; viewing homosexuality as a crime and disease that prevents homosexuals from becoming part of the military police; and rejecting the registration of homosexual marriages. "The law, law enforcement, and the news media should be places people look to for help and the protection of human rights. But as seen in these cases, they became the most powerful agents in jeopardizing sexual and gender rights," said Ho Chuen-juei, an expert on sexual issues and professor at National Central University. "Taiwan people should cast aside their prejudiced understanding of gender and sex, which prevents them from appreciating the beauty of human diversity. This is precisely the urgent lesson Taiwanese people need to grasp in the near future." Top
MEDIA WATCH [9]CANADA--Tired of hiding a 'dark secret', Hotel clerk awaits final transformation of sexual identity Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Local News - Edmonton - canada.com network http://www.canada.com/edmonton/news/story.asp?id=8C4319C8-ECA1-43D8-A595-8D0 34FD63030 Jodie Sinnema, Journal Staff Writer The Edmonton Journal Saturday, January 04, 2003 Lisa Amber Hardy sits on the edge of the couch in her downtown apartment, thinking back to when she began wearing high heels, skirts and makeup. Lisa was known as Doug until about a year ago. And the dresses were kept hidden in the back of her closet, worn only on her days off from work as a front-desk manager at an Edmonton hotel. She was a part-time woman who was ready to take on the role full time. "The fact that I was a woman only part time was hard because I was forced to keep it a secret," said Hardy, a transgendered person who celebrated her 34th birthday on Dec. 27. "It was quite difficult and that's what was causing so much anxiety. I was frustrated because I wasn't really myself. I wanted to tell somebody, but it still felt dirty. "Because it was so part-time, to me it felt perverted and gross, like a deep, dark secret." No more. Hardy speaks openly about starting a strict hormone diet to create breast tissue and inhibit facial hair growth. She talks about the makeup tips she picked up, such as reducing the amount of foundation she uses and staying away from delicate pink blush so that she doesn't overemphasize her femininity. She talks about growing out her naturally curly hair and covering up her receding hairline with a permanent hairpiece, purchased just before the Grey Cup weekend when the city was filled with curious strangers, some of whom she helped in her new job at the Mayfair Hotel on Jasper Avenue. She talks, partly tongue-in-cheek, about being a healthy size 5 and being the envy of other women at work with her slender 5-11 frame. And she talks about her very public human rights complaint against her former employer, who, she says, forced her to resign last December under duress despite initially offering support. She had worked there three years as a man and had worked a total 14 years in the hospitality industry. Hardy has since dropped her complaint with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission. In September, she and the Calgary Trail Travelodge settled out of court. Hardy received a substantial, though undisclosed, amount of money, plus a written apology from Garry Jones, general manager of the south-side Travelodge. "Please accept this as an indication of our sincere regret that you suffered as a result of our decision to terminate your employment," Jones wrote on Nov. 25. "We believe this experience taught everyone a lesson, and we wish you the best of luck in the future." Jones declined to make any further comment. Hardy has mixed feelings about the settlement and sometimes wishes she had fought to protect other transgendered individuals from discrimination. "It might happen to other people in other industries," she said, her blue eyes intent. "What I was doing was important. It wasn't just a weird stunt." Hardy had legally changed her name and visited Dr. Lorne Warneke, a clinical psychiatrist at the Grey Nuns gender disorder clinic who explained to Hardy that before she could have a sex change operation, she must first live at least a year as a woman. "It wasn't easy, I admit that, but everything I got up to now, it was because of me," said Hardy, her French-manicured fingernails clicking together as her hands rose and fell to emphasize her words. After quitting her job at the Travelodge, she was offered a job at the Best Western Fort Inn in Fort Saskatchewan, but couldn't keep it because of the long commute. She sent out over 20 job applications and went through numerous interviews before landing a job at the front desk of the Mayfair. Before she bought her hair- piece, which wasn't affordable until she received the settlement from Travelodge, pedestrians would look through the Mayfair's front window, point and laugh. Her mom has cut off all contact, as has her brother, a professional football player with the Edmonton Eskimos. "I'm very proud of who I am and I'm very proud of my brother," Hardy says, pointing to the football jerseys and posters on her wall. She spent Christmas with her stepsister and father, both of whom support her. Hardy hopes her father may eventually consider her his daughter, rather than his son. "Your next-door neighbour or your co-worker could have been the opposite sex," Hardy said. "I wouldn't call it a disease. It's an illness. This is the way it is for us. ... I appreciate that I brought this to the spotlight. Discrimination still occurs." Ever since she went public with her story, she said, strangers have approached her on the street to offer their support. In about one year, she hopes to fly to Montreal to have sex-reassignment surgery. After that, she dreams of becoming a hotel manager, dreams of marriage and a husband. "I'm getting closer to being a woman 100 per cent," she said. "The faster I become complete, the better. "Then I will no longer be a transgendered person. I will be a full woman." jsinnema@thejournal.southam.ca © Copyright 2003 Edmonton Journal Top
[10] CANADA--Sex trade often their only option Rejection, abuse, drug use make for a dangerous life: THE TRANSGENDERED -- MALE? ... FEMALE? ... BOTH? Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Local News - Edmonton - canada.com network http://www.canada.com/edmonton/news/story.asp?id=DD6FCC5C-C4D7-4ED9-AE13-B10 9E9C95B00 Jodie Sinnema, Journal Staff Writer The Edmonton Journal Saturday, January 04, 2003 They call it Tranny Alley. It's a block of streets in downtown Edmonton where 30 to 50 transgendered prostitutes sell sex after the sun goes down. Most drivers pass through here without giving these people a second glance. The location is kept quiet by those who know and want to protect the individuals who end up here, people who were born in the wrong bodies. Deon Gladu, a 23-year-old from Slave Lake who feels like a woman inside but has a man's body, used to stroll these sidewalks. "My mother insisted it was just a phase," says Gladu, her cheeks dimpling as she smiles. She sips coffee in a downtown cafe, her fingernails flashing a brilliant purple. At six feet, she's tall and slender -- too slender because of a drug addiction -- 114 pounds. With aboriginal genes, her face is smooth with no hint of a five-o'clock shadow and her neck isn't marked by the tell-tale Adam's apple. Clients Have No Idea "It takes a lot to be who I am and face society," she says, admitting she has a severe cocaine addiction which keeps her on the streets. Before that, she worked as a supervisor for an A&W and at the RCMP offices in Slave Lake, where everyone knew she was transgendered. "It takes a lot of willpower. It takes a lot of guts." Gladu has moved on from Tranny Alley and strolls in the shadow of the Chinatown gates. She says 99 per cent of her clients are heterosexual males and 95 per cent of the time they have no idea that she has male genitalia tucked beneath her short minis. She knows that not telling them puts her at an extreme risk. She knows of transgendered individuals who have been run over, slashed with knives, sexually assaulted, hit with metal pipes, all because of who they are. She advises her transgendered friends who work the area to reveal all when the customers roll down their windows. Gladu says she has limits when it comes to sex -- oral sex and hand work. With her feminine looks, it's easy to pass under the radar, but for others, the differences are more obvious. They struggle in every aspect of their lives -- danger lurks in the LRT, rejection comes from loved ones, disgust lingers in the eyes of people who see them walk into the wrong public washrooms -- and that's partly why a disproportionate amount of transgendered people end up on the street. Statistics vary wildly, but some believe there are between 150 to 300 transgendered individuals in Edmonton, with 30 to 50 on the streets, not including some who are working with escort agencies, on 1-900 phone lines and Internet sex sites. 'Seen as Freaks' "If you took a cross-section of people who are working the streets, there may be more transgendered people there than you would expect from the prevalence rate in the population," says Dr. Lorne Warneke, a clinical psychiatrist at the Grey Nuns gender disorder clinic. "That's almost understandable when you see what these people go through in terms of expressing their sexuality, the huge conflict over gender, maybe some of the abuse they have had because of expressing gender. "Often, the only place where they can find work is in the sex industry," said Leslea Herber, a 32-year-old woman who is still healing from her sex-reassignment operation three months ago and is unemployed. She runs a transgendered support group in Edmonton. "I know people with PhDs and BAs and master's degrees and they can't get jobs flipping burgers because they are not socially acceptable. They are seen as freaks." For those who end up homeless, housing choices are bleak. They can't go to the male-only Herb Jamieson Centre. If they show up in a skirt and makeup, they risk sexual or physical assault. Many don't want to go to women's shelters because they are banned from the floors where women sleep. Most often, they are given mats and forced to sleep in a common room with 24-hour supervision. "They find it degrading. They are women," Gladu says of her friends. She stays in hotels instead of worrying about finding a shelter bed. "They have to live out in the open. I guess it has to do with their organs." Tanya Tellier, program manager at the Women's Emergency Accommodation Centre, says their concerns are valid, but her priority is to keep the women in the shelter safe. "Because they are transgendered individuals and this is a women's shelter, some of the women who access services here ultimately feel a threat because they are male," Tellier says. "A man's presence in the building tends to upset some of the women who are staying here who have left an abusive situation. "They tend to be bisexual and that's a concern as well. There's a chance they could be having sex with the women." Housing Problems She says the transgendered individuals who sleep on the mats are encouraged to present themselves as female at all times, with makeup to cover masculine features and wigs. The centre is considering setting up a room reserved for the transgendered. Crossroads Outreach has a duplex rental project for women and transgendered people when they want to get off the streets and away from drug use. "I know there's a need," Tellier says. Many apartment managers turn away transgendered individuals. "It is a little unfair for them." During the day, Gladu and her friends find respite at Kindred House, a drop-in centre for street workers where 40 per cent of the clientele are transgendered, and all but one are aboriginal. Here, Gladu can touch up her makeup, get a pedicure or stock up on donated deodorant or razors. Here, they let their hair down and often sing the lyrics to Bette Midler's The Rose. "You think that love is only for the lucky and the strong," they sing. "Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snow, lies the seed that with the sun's love, in the spring, becomes a rose." "The resilience of their bodies and lives and hearts is amazing," says Shawna Hohendorff, project co-ordinator at Kindred House. "When we close the doors, there isn't anywhere else for them to go. It just breaks your heart." Often, the rooms are filled with sleeping bodies, balanced on window ledges and in doorways until work begins in rush-hour traffic at 5 p.m. Transgendered individuals live day to day in the middle zone, says Kristy Harcourt, a client support worker at the drop-in centre. At one time, they used to be revered in the aboriginal culture as two-spirited people and were honoured as seers. "We taught aboriginal people to hate themselves," Harcourt said. Volatile Dates Now, even if their clients know they are hiring a transgendered prostitute, the dates are volatile because the clients are often closet homosexuals, terrified of admitting their desires and angry that they are engaging in what is deemed unthinkable. If the transgendered prostitutes are picked up by police, they are thrown into the psychiatric ward, mainly for their own protection, although some believe it reflects an attitude that this is where they belong. Gladu says some police officers ridicule people like her. "I feel this small, being called an it," she says. "Some say, 'What the devil is this? A she or he?' They are very rude and ignorant about the whole thing." Gladu says she can't leave the street, partly because of the drugs, partly because this is where she has found her family. "The street life has got a tough grip on me," she says. "I'm more or less a street protector. I take care of my girls. Without me being out there, I feel that I'm abandoning a part of the street. "There's a pack of us that look after each other. I'll protect them more than I protect myself. Staying alive is the basic thing out here. You have to be strong." Harcourt says, "They are superstars in their own life. "They are sisters and mothers and daughters and partners and they are beloved. They are not disposable." jsinnema@thejournal.southam.ca -- TERMS OF CONFUSION It's generally believed that one out of 20,000 people are male-to-female transgendered people, and one out of 140,000 female-to-male. Dr. Lorne Warneke, a clinical psychiatrist at the Grey Nuns gender disorder clinic, says transgenderism is three to four times more common than that. He has dealt with about 200 Alberta residents in the past seven years with gender identity disorder, but only two or three have ever been involved in the sex trade. Most of his clients are professionals -- teachers, doctors, lawyers -- who are willing to risk losing their jobs and their families to set things right with their bodies. He says he knows of 10 to 15 people who lost their jobs because of changing genders, three of whom have taken their cases to the human rights commission. Definitions: - Transgendered: A blanket term for any person whose internal gender identity differs from their physiological or physical gender. - Transsexual: This is a person who wants to have an operation to change his or her gender and live permanently in the new gender role. - Transvestite: The same as a cross-dresser who enjoys dressing in clothes appropriate to the opposite gender. Cross-dressers have little or no interest in changing gender. To some, transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses for sexual stimulation. Ran with fact box "Terms of confusion", which has been appended to this story. © Copyright 2003 Edmonton Journal Top
LEGISLATIVE ACTION [11]UK: Recent Questions in Parliament Top Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 From: Petra Henderson <petrahenderson@yahoo.com> Source: PFC News Via: Petra Henderson Date: Dec. 19, 2002 Location: UK Item: Transcript Title: Some recent questions in Parliament Some recent questions in Parliament...Readers may be interested to know that a total of 70 Parliamentary questions have been tabled in the last year, from quite a variety of MPs. Well done to everyone who has their MP briefed and on the case.Here are a selection of some of the most recent and interesting exchanges. 19 Dec 2002 : Column 895W MINISTER FOR WOMEN Transsexuals Mr. Ben Chapman: To ask the Minister for Women what her policy is on including the treatment of transsexuals who are now women within her Department's work. [87277] Ms Hewitt: The treatment of transsexual people under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 is already part of the Department of Trade and Industry's responsibilities. The Sex Discrimination Act (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999 amended the 1975 Act to protect people intending to undergo, undergoing, or who have undergone gender reassignment from discrimination at work and in vocational training. The part of the Department with responsibility for these Regulations is the Women and Equality Unit. The wider issue of the legal status of transsexual people is the lead responsibility of the Lord Chancellor's Department. 19 Dec 2002 : Column 899W Transsexual People Mr. Ben Chapman: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department what plans he has to amend the genuine occupation requirements included in the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999 to remove reasons for refusing transsexuals jobs. [87279] Ms Hewitt: I have been asked to reply. The Government is now considering whether, once legal recognition is given to a transsexual person's acquired gender, the Genuine Occupational Qualifications exceptions in the Gender Reassignment Regulations should be modified. 18 Dec 2002 : Column 862W Transsexual People Mr. Todd: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department when she expects full legal status to be granted to transsexual people; and if she will make a statement. [87784] Ms Rosie Winterton: The Government is committed to legislating as soon as possible to give legal recognition to transsexual people in their acquired gender. I refer the hon. Member to the Ministerial Statement I gave on Monday 16 December 2002. Mr. Ben Chapman: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (1) when she expects to respond to the European Court of Justice ruling that discrimination against transsexuals is in breach of the Equal Treatment Directive; [87280] (2) what plans she has for ending discrimination against transsexuals. [87276] Ms Rosie Winterton: I refer the hon. Member to the Ministerial Statement I made on Monday 16 December. This sets out our plans for giving transsexual people legal recognition in their acquired gender. Transsexual people are already protected from discrimination in employment and vocational training by the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999, subject to limited exceptions. The Government are considering whether those exceptions should be modified in respect of transsexual people granted legal recognition in their acquired gender 22 Oct 2002 : Column 254W Transsexual People Lynne Jones: To ask the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department if she will make it her policy to refer to transsexual people rather than transsexuals in Government documents and in material that will form parliamentary records. [75744] Ms Rosie Winterton: My Department has already adopted this convention. In so far as I am able to ensure this, all official documents published in the future on this subject should refer to transsexual people or transsexual persons, rather than transsexuals. 15 Oct 2002 : Column 600W Lynne Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many transsexual people have applied to have their birth certificates changed since the European Court of Human Rights ruling on 11 July on the case of Goodwin and I v. UK. [73917]Ruth Kelly: The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply. Letter from John Kidgell to Dr. Lynne Jones, dated 15 September 2002: The National Statistician and Registrar General for England and Wales has been asked to reply to your recent question on the number of transsexual people who have applied to have their birth certificates altered following the ECHR ruling in the case of Goodwin and I v. UK. I am replying in his absence. (73917) The number of applications received at the end of September is 101. This excludes 2 requests from people born in Scotland which were referred to the Registrar General for Scotland. 24 Apr 2002 : Column 323W Transsexual Women (Rape) Lynne Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has on the number of transsexual women who have been raped vaginally in each of the last five years; and in what way charges against the perpetrator may differ from the same crime committed against other women. [49777] Mr. Keith Bradley: There are no statistics available relating to the number of victims of vaginal rape who were transsexuals. Under existing sex offences legislation, rape is an offence perpetrated by a man against a man or a woman. It consists of non-consensual penetration of the vagina or anus. There has been at least one case where a court has held that penile penetration of a surgically reconstructed vagina does constitute rape, but the current law on rape is not clear on this point. Alternative charge could be indecent assault. The Government are currently considering a proposal made within the context of the Sex Offences Review, that the offence of rape should include surgically reconstructed male or female genitalia. This would make clear in statute what is currently a matter for judicial interpretation. Top
[12]USA: Divide on Gender Continues; Advocates disagree on what the next steps for transgender protections Top From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: Gay City News (GLBT weekly, New York City) Author: Duncan Osborne http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn31/divideon.html Date: December 27, 2002 - January 3, 2003 Location: NY, US Just as they split over whether to include transgender rights in the state Sexual Orientation Non Discrimination Act, activists are divided over how to add protections for the transgender community to state law now that SONDA has been enacted. SONDA, which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing, and public accommodations, passed the state Senate on December 17 by a vote of 34 to 26. It cleared the state Assembly earlier this year and Governor George Pataki signed it into law the evening the Senate approved the bill. The Senate vote followed a bruising battle among queer activists over transgender inclusion in the bill, with state Senator Thomas K. Duane being a leading advocate in support of that unsuccessful effort. The out gay Chelsea Democrat offered an amendment to SONDA that would have added transgender protections, but it failed, garnering the support of only 19 Democrats in the 61-member Senate. Using the courts to establish protections for transgendered New Yorkers under the law is one scenario. "I believe it would have been better to have done it with [SONDA]," Duane said. "I wish that someone could give a guarantee that transgender people could be covered next year, but I believe its going to be an enormous court battle." Using the courts to advance transgender rights was backed as a possible route by state Senator David Paterson, a Harlem Democrat. "First of all, people who are transgendered may be protected under the law now," he said at a press conference following the vote. Paterson, who leads the Democratic minority in the Senate, cited two legal cases in which courts have concluded that transgendered people are protected by existing nondiscrimination laws. "There have been two significant court cases, one in New York and one in New Jersey, where discrimination against a transgender person is considered discrimination based on sex," he said. That kind of discrimination is banned under New York State law. Pauline Park, the co-chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, disagreed that litigation would be effective. "There is no case law under the New York State human rights law that suggests that transgendered people are already covered," Park said. A New York court would not necessarily be swayed by a decision out of New Jersey, she added. "It would not be a binding legal precedent." Park said. "There is no reason to believe that New York courts would rule the same way." Ultimately, litigation is "no easier than legislation" and a lawsuit could take as long to achieve its goal as a concerted lobbying effort, according to Park. "I don't know that the likelihood of getting a big win through litigation is very high," Park said. Paterson also suggested that legislators might be willing to add transgender protections to the state human rights law when they see that their vote on SONDA does not have devastating consequences for New York or their political careers. "As we make that clear and understood and perhaps use the case law to buttress it, and SONDA will buttress it, then it shouldn't be too hard to amend the human rights law to include transgender as a protected class," Paterson said. "I think it's going to happen. I just felt that some of the members on the other side didn't understand the transgendered community. The more they do, as was the case with sexual orientation, I think they'll come around." The Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), the state's leading gay lobbying group, has argued for enacting an "omnibus bill" that would fix the state human rights law and the State Division of Human Rights, the agency that handles discrimination cases. The division has been plagued by huge backlogs in its cases. Transgender protections could be added at that time, according to Matt Foreman, ESPA's executive director. He said his group had broached the idea of introducing an "omnibus bill" with Republican Joe Bruno, the state Senate majority leader. "We raised it with him," Foreman said. "We raised the issue of coming back with an omnibus human rights law and he's open to looking at that." That bill would be in front of the legislature by 2004 and a vote on it would be a campaign issue, according to Foreman. Joann Prinzivalli, director of the New York Transgender Rights Organization, was aware of that omnibus proposal and thought it had some chance for success. "The vote on the amendment was encouraging," she said. "I know that there are 19 Democrats who would react positively to sponsoring a bill." But that strategy was rejected by some activists who championed transgender inclusion in SONDA. "I don't think that is actually going to be the vehicle at the end of the day," said Charles King, co-president of Housing Works, an AIDS service organization. "Sneaking transgender rights through the back door is not going to happen...What we are advocating for is a straightforward transgender bill." It is more likely that transgender protections will come in a bill like SONDA, according to King, who argued that the effort his group, Duane, and others waged may contribute to that outcome. Activists lobbied members of the Senate and Assembly on transgender inclusion this year, and newspaper editorials, including one in The New York Times, urged legislators to add those protections. The 19 "yes" votes on Duane's amendment are evidence of some success. "We were able for the first time able to get a house of the state legislature to debate and vote on transgender rights," King said. "We have a lot of work to do on the Republican side of the Senate to prove to Senator Bruno that this is also an issue whose time has come. I like to believe that with a diligent, concerted effort we could see human rights extended to transgender people within the next five years." Other activists questioned if a legislative route could be effective, now that the effort to include gender identity upfront has failed. "I think it would be extremely hard to get a bill through that would protect people because of gender variance," said Rusty Mae Moore, a co-chair of the Metropolitan Gender Network. Transgender issues are relatively new to many elected officials and educating them can take years. That explains, in part, why activists fought so hard for trans inclusion in the bill just passed. "It's a lot easier for us to get civil rights when we are with the GLBT community than when we are by ourselves," Moore said in an interview prior to the vote. That education, however, was furthered by the debate, regardless of the outcome, she conceded. "The upside of it is having gone through this process we got more press on transgender stuff," Moore said. "In that sense it raised the issue to a front burner." A major obstacle before any effort to advance rights for the transgender community is the residual anger from the SONDA debate. Many activists on both sides of the issue have pledged to work together following the vote, but they've also said, both publicly and privately, that they remain very angry at their opponents. For the transgender community that feeling is especially poignant. "Trans people are really upset," Moore said. "It's a psychological moment that is very unsettling when you are officially considered a non-person by the state and the gay and lesbian community... This is the first time that we have had this feeling... There was a feeling of betrayal from the lesbian and gay community." Top
IN THE COURTS [13] USA: California--Judge says transvestite will dress as a man despite appearance Top Mercury News | 01/03/2003 | Judge says transv... http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/news/breaking_news/4868416.htm Posted on Fri, Jan. 03, 2003 VENTURA, Calif. (AP) - A transvestite facing a murder trial wants to appear in court dressed as a woman: He looks like a woman, acts like a woman and considers himself a woman. But Superior Court Judge Roland Purnell ruled Jamie Cid will dress as a man because he is a man. That decision led Cid's attorneys to file a motion Thursday that challenges their client's mental competency. The reason for the motion was sealed by the judge, but Cid's attorneys said it argues his mental competency and whether the defendant can assist in his own defense. Last week, the judge said Cid must dress like a man while in the courtroom. Cid's lead attorney, Robert Sheahen, declined to comment after a brief hearing Thursday in Ventura County Superior Court, during which Purnell assigned a psychologist to evaluate Cid. A hearing was set for Jan. 14. Deputy District Attorney John West called the motion another stall tactic. "The people wish to move this on as quickly as possible," West told Purnell. "The people also express some skepticism regarding this motion." Cid, 31, is charged with murder and robbery in the March 2000 beating death of Jack Jamar, 78, inside the victim's Varsity Street home. Jamar was known to frequent Thompson Boulevard looking for prostitutes and apparently knew Cid, investigators said. Cid has claimed he attacked in self-defense, but prosecutors believe he beat Jamar during a robbery, then took his wallet and fled to San Diego where he was arrested. If Purnell rules he is incompetent, Cid will be transferred from Ventura County Jail to a mental hospital for treatment until he is ready for trial. If the judge rules Cid is competent, jury selection could begin within a few days. Top
[14]USA: Minnesota Gender Law Narrowed Appeals court rips another hole in protections for transgenders Top Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: Gay City News (GLBT weekly, New York City) http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn31/minnesota.html Date: December 27, 2002 - January 3, 2003 By ARTHUR S. LEONARD Following on a state supreme court decision in late 2001 that narrowed the application of a Minnesota statute protecting transgendered employees of private sector companies from discrimination, the state Court of Appeals issued a new ruling on December 17 that also severely undermines the ability of transgendered public employees to secure protection under the law. The court held that public officials and, by extension, the government itself, are immune from suit under the state's Human Rights Act for discrimination that is neither willful nor malicious. The John Doe plaintiff was hired by the Minneapolis Police Department as an openly transgendered person, in the process of transitioning from a genetic female to a male. Professionals treating Doe recommended that he live as a male, that others refer to him using male pronouns, and that he use male restrooms and shower facilities. Doe and his lawyer initiated discussions with the police department to work out these accommodations, but after many meetings and internal consultations, and based on the advice of department counsel, the police decided they were unable to make the requested restroom accommodation. Doe resigned in March 2000, claiming that he had been "constructively" discharged when he was assigned to a shift in which no unisex bathroom was available and he was not permitted to use the men's room. Doe filed suit under the state human rights act, which specifically covers sexual orientation, the definition of which includes situations where people encounter discrimination due to their gender identity. The City of Minneapolis moved to dismiss on grounds of "vicarious immunity." Under Minnesota law, state officials performing discretionary functions calling for policy judgments are generally immune from suit when they are acting in good faith. The city argued that if the police department personnel who made these decisions were immune, then the city itself should be immune as well, since its only liability would be vicarious, and there still would be no bad faith shown. The trial judge in Minneapolis denied the city's motion, concluding that if the law was violated, then somebody had to be liable, and if the officers were immune, then the city would be liable. The court of appeals disagreed, finding that the reasoning behind the doctrine of vicarious liability supported extending immunity to the city in cases where the decisionmakers had not acted willfully or maliciously. In this case, the court noted, there were numerous consultations, and the department sought legal advice before taking any action. The legal advice, subsequently confirmed by the state supreme court's decision in 2001 in the Goins v. West Group case, was that an employer is not required to allow a genetic female to use a men's room, or vice versa, despite their transgendered status. The court also noted that the officials making decisions about Doe's requests also had to take into account a city ordinance in Minneapolis making it a violation of the law "for one to use a restroom designated for a particular sex, when one is not of that sex." "Thus, in making their decisions," wrote Judge Roger M. Klaphake for the court of appeals, "city officials attempted to ascertain and understand Doe's rights and the state of the law. There is no evidence that they willfully or maliciously trampled on those rights. In light of their extended consideration of the issues and the uncertainty of the law, we conclude that city officials did not engage in willful or malicious acts. We cannot conclude that their treatment of Doe was so at variance with expected conduct that discrimination was the probable explanation." Top
BOOKS Etc.... [15]USA: Touring with T;Thanks to her outstanding debut novel, T. Cooper wound up seeing the USA on a 30-city tour Top Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 15:52:56 -0000 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: The Advocate (GLBT bi-weekly) Author: Michele Kort http://www.advocate.com/html/stories/880_1/880_1_tcooper.asp Date: Jan 21, 2003 "I've been to Middle America," says T Cooper with faux gravity, as if she'd just returned from the Lewis and Clark expedition. This past fall, the 30-year-old queer author's first novel, Some of the Parts (Akashic Books), proved to be one of the great successes of the year in GLBT fiction and was chosen by Barnes & Noble for its Discover Great New Writers program. That meant the book˜which skillfully knits together the disparate lives of a healthy but HIV-positive gay man, the handsome genderfucking woman he lives with, his beautiful but directionless bisexual niece, and his lonely divorced straight sister˜ would be displayed prominently for three months in every B&N bookstore in America. Cooper, while on a 30-city tour, stopped to sign copies at each one she passed. "I've been to 75 or 80 stores," she says while sipping tea in Los Angeles's Venice neighborhood, near where she grew up. "And authors don't just pop into Normal, Ill." Let alone authors as out of the norm as Cooper, whose appealingly boyish personal style makes people occasionally question her presence in ladies' rooms˜not unlike the questioning faced by the character Isak in Parts, who goes so far as to appear in a carnival sideshow as an "Is it a boy or a girl?" freak. Cooper has also been a member of the Backdoor Boys, a New York City drag king boy-band parody quartet who turned the supposedly innocent "I Want It That Way" into a paean to anal sex. "On the surface it might seem I'm more similar to Isak, but in some ways I relate more to Arlene (the straight sister) than anyone else," says Cooper, who insists the book isn't autobiographical. Called T (short for Teresa) since childhood, she grew up in an intact family with her older brother; her mother worked in radio promotion, and her father wrote songs such as Donny and Marie's "A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock and Roll." Yet her book explores a postnuclear 21st- century family. "There are a lot of people around the East Village"˜ where she now lives with her girlfriend, founder of the women's bookstore Bluestockings, and their miniature pinscher, Murray˜"who take the families they were given and leave them, then make their own. I'm surrounded by straight people, gay people, artists, nonartists˜it doesn't matter. We watch each other's kids, walk each other's dogs, took care of each other when September 11 happened. I wanted to look at that kind of family." Cooper studied writing at Middlebury College in Vermont and at Columbia University in Manhattan, where her mentors included Michael Cunningham, the out author of The Hours. She has worked as a magazine writer-researcher and as a high school teacher and tutor to support her fiction, and her nonfiction efforts include an essay in the recent anthology Dog Culture (Lyons Press). She's currently mulling another "family" project˜a novel about lower east side immigrants in the preˆWorld War I era. Again, it's not autobiographical, she says, but her own Jewish family did come to the New World from Russia, Poland, and Latvia. Meanwhile, Cooper has a few more B&N stores to call on. "It's kind of comforting to know that their program is interested in my kind of fiction," she says. "It's not even about making money, but about getting the support to go on writing." Kort is the author of Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro. Some of the Parts - The Advocate's book review http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/188845136X/theadvocatemagaz T Cooper's website http://www.t-cooper.com/ Advocate.com © 2003 by Liberation Publications Inc. All rights reserved. Top
[16] USA: The mystery of gender through the eyes of a photographer who has crossed the divide Top Date: Dec. 15, 2002 Title: Portrait of New Man; The desire to change sex is not an illness, although it is classified as such by the psychotherapeutic professions. Neither is it a perversion, a form of mutilation, or the wrong answer to a poorly framed question of personal identity. It is a form of communication, a way to manifest to others a deeply felt sense of identity that is otherwise unintelligible. It is about becoming real. I met Loren Cameron, whose self-portraits you see here, outside the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco in the spring of 1993, during a protest rally at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. I was a member of Transgender Nation, a militant transsexual rights group. I had begun the transition from male to female about two years earlier, just about the time I finished up my Ph.D. in American history at the University of California, Berkeley. I was determined to use the privilege of my education to help change the way that transsexual people are treated. Loren had made the transition from female to male in the late '80s, a decade after moving to San Francisco from rural Arkansas and was at the protest looking for other transsexuals to photograph. After a series of low-paying jobs, he'd finally found his niche, taking portraits of people who had made or were making the journey he had made. "It struck me forcibly that [beginning as a photographer] was quite a bit like the experience of transitioning from female to male," he has written. "I felt like people would recognize immediately that I wasn't `really' a man, and it took a while to build up my confidence that, yes, I really was. I became a photographer the same way I became a man--by just taking my act to the streets and doing it and learning to pass in the process." Now he splits his time between the art world--where his reputation is growing rapidly--and working just enough at other jobs to make ends meet. (The first book-length collection of his work, Body Alchemy, is due out from Cleis Press in November.) Of course, transsexuals looking for a camera to stand in front of can usually find one; we're popular sideshow attractions in the fin de siècle cultural circus. Photographers as famous as Diane Arbus and Nan Goldin launched their careers by shooting us. But most nontranssexual photographers don't seem to really see us--rather, they use us to investigate their own discomfort with what they make us represent. Cameron is the first imagemaker to bring a sophisticated insider's eye to the subject. What he sees is truly "something else"--not the stereotypical view of dejected social outcasts lurking in the dim hallways of derelict hotels, but a redemptive vision of transsexual people leading remarkable (though often quite commonplace) lives. The missing ingredient in most representations of transsexuals, Cameron contends, is "the sense of satisfaction we feel about ourselves and our body changes. I want to show that we're not ashamed, that we're expressing pride in being who we are." If anybody wonders what pride there is to find in being transsexual, Cameron has a ready answer: "It takes a lot of guts to acknowledge how uncomfortable you are before transition, and to willfully accept the challenge of re-creating yourself." That's a level of responsibility for one's own life most people never have to confront, he says. And given the stigma that surrounds the entire process, it's a wonder anyone even attempts--let alone ever accomplishes--the arduous journey from one gender to another. Why, then, do we go through with it? Imagine a scenario in which you've been locked in a dark room with only a telephone. It rings constantly. You always answer it, longing to connect with something beyond the solitude of the space you inhabit. It's always a wrong number. You begin to talk with the people who call, for the simple reason that the conversation offers companionship, a link to something outside yourself. Over time you develop real relationships with the callers. Perhaps you even fall in love with a few of the voices. You want to tell everyone that you are not the person they think you are, but you are afraid they will hang up and leave you utterly alone if they realize after all this time that you are not the person they have been trying to call. The body itself, transsexuals eventually discover, is the "translation device" that codes our communication with others. Changing our bodies is how we get out of our Twilight Zone predicament. Transsexuality is thus about breaking out of psychological isolation, correcting a case of mistaken identity, and bringing a personal sense of self into meaningful interaction with others. It's also, in Cameron's words, "to set one's self in motion, and to survive an impossibly difficult space. It's an in-between space, outside duality. It's like standing in a neutral zone, where you can see and hear the opposing sides lobbing grenades of misunderstanding at each other. You can see the fictions of separation, this idea of distinct genders that everybody manufactures, just like we manufacture fictions of race and class. The transsexual space feels sacred, a space where many things that are hidden become clear." Expressing the courage his transsexual subjects have shown in undertaking this project is what Cameron strives for in his work. And courage is needed. As the fate of Brandon Teena shows, the act of transgressing gender norms can get you killed in this country. (Teena chose to live as a man in a small Nebraska town, and after being exposed as biologically female, he was brutally beaten, gang raped, and eventually murdered. His case is one of many.) Only a handful of cities and one state, Minnesota, now have laws to help protect the rights of transgendered people. Despite all this, the thing that Cameron most wants people to understand about transsexuality when they look at his photographs is "the joy of the experience. That's the bottom line. It's not about failing. I didn't fail to be a woman. I just decided to have another experience." Susan Stryker is co-author of Gay by the Bay: A History of Queer Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area (Chronicle, 1996). She is currently working on Trans: Changing Sex and Other Ecstatic Passages Into Postmodernity, forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Top
HEALTH AND SCIENCE [17]USA: Combination hormone therapy associated with increase in breast density Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Combination hormone therapy associated with i... http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-12/jotn-cht122002.php Public release date: 31-Dec-2002 Contact: Linda Wang jncimedia@oupjournals.org 301-841-1287 Journal of the National Cancer Institute A new study suggests that the use of combination hormone therapy, but not estrogen alone, is associated with a modest increase in breast density, a known risk factor for breast cancer. The findings appear in the January 1 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The degree of breast cancer risk that is associated with breast density is greater than that associated with almost all other known breast cancer risk factors. A previous analysis of data from the Postmenopausal Estrogen/Progestin Interventions (PEPI) Trial, a randomized trial looking at the effects of postmenopausal hormone therapy (estrogen alone or estrogen plus three different progestin regimens) on breast density, showed that some women who used combination estrogen/progestin therapy experienced an increase in breast density. However, the analysis did not look at the magnitude of that increase. Past studies have suggested that the greater the breast density, the greater the risk for breast cancer. Gail A. Greendale, M.D., of the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, and her colleagues examined digitized mammograms at baseline and after one year of therapy from 571 postmenopausal women enrolled in the PEPI trial who were randomly assigned to receive daily doses of estrogen alone, estrogen plus cyclic medroxyprogesterone acetate, estrogen plus continuous medroxyprogesterone acetate, estrogen plus micronized progesterone, or a placebo. They found that use of estrogen/progestin combination therapy, regardless of how the progestin was given, was associated with 3% to 5% increases in breast density. Use of estrogen alone was not associated with such increases in breast density. The authors conclude that the use of combination hormone therapy, but not the use of estrogen alone, is associated with increases in breast density. "However, the link between change in breast density resulting from hormone use and change in breast cancer risk remains uncertain," they say. In an accompanying editorial, Rowan T. Chlebowski, M.D., Ph.D., of the Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute in Torrance, Calif., and Anne McTiernan, M.D., Ph.D., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, point out that breast density is a useful marker of increased risk for breast cancer, and they add that breast density may be a valid marker of the effect of interventions that increase or decrease breast cancer risk. ### Contact: Kirsten Holguin, UCLA, 310-794-0777; fax: 310-794-2259, kholguin@support.ucla.edu Editorial: Pamela Clem, Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute, 310-222-7922; fax: 310-782-0486, pclem@rei.edu Greendale G, Reboussin B, Slone S, Wasilauskas C, Pike M, Ursin G. Postmenopausal hormone therapy and change in mammographic density. J Natl Cancer Inst 2003;95:30&endash;7. Editorial: Chlebowski R, McTiernan A. Biological significance of interventions that change breast density. J Natl Cancer Inst 2003;95:4&endash;5. Note: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute is published by Oxford University Press and is not affiliated with the National Cancer Institute. Attribution to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute is requested in all news coverage. Top
[18]USA Menopause, Estrogen Loss, and Their Treatments Top I want to thank Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. for bringing this web site to my attention. Although the article is undoubtedly directed toward genetic females, it could very well apply to post-op Male-to-Female transsexuals who are considering going off HRT. The article is quiet long so I am only running a few lead-in lines here and the URL for the web site.....ed RETRIEVED: Wednesday, January 01, 2003 http://www.reutershealth.com/wellconnected/doc40.html#postmeno March 2002 WHAT IS MENOPAUSE? Female Hormones The ovaries, at the time of birth, hold between 200,000 and 400,000 follicles; these tiny sacks contain the materials needed to produce mature eggs, or ova. The ovaries produce two major female hormones: Estrogen. Estrogens have an effect on about 300 different tissues throughout a woman's body: * They are essential for the reproductive process and for the development of the uterus and breasts. * Estrogens determine the characteristic female distribution of body fat on the hips and thighs, which develops during adolescence. * They also are involved in tissues in the central nervous system (including the brain), the bones, the liver, and the urinary tract. * Estrogen also has different forms: * The most potent form is estradiol. * The other important, but less powerful, estrogens are estrone and estriol. Top
COMMENTARY Let's quit fighting yesterday's battles BY Steve Weinstein, New York Blade (GLBT weekly, NY) top Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: New York Blade (GLBT weekly, NY) http://www.nyblade.com/ Date: Dec. 27, 2002 Gay people, to paraphrase Woody Allen (he said it about New York intellectuals), are like the Mafia: They only kill their own. The latest combat in this bloodletting is taking place in the shadow of the greatest success New York's gay community has known for years. Instead of basking in a long, well-deserved victory, gay politicos and those who are paid to observe them have already begun street fighting. Like cats in a garbage can, we just can't help ourselves: We're like alley cats fighting over someone else's fishbones. Case in point: With SONDA signed into law, we are now supposed to be at each other throats. Why? Because State Sen. Tom Duane introduced a last-minute resolution to include transgendered people among those protected by the state's non-discrimination act. I have no doubt that Duane acted out of noble motives. Even if he were miffed that he was shut out of a strategy session between ESPA's Matt Foreman and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (he was), he had every right to try to bring up the issue. What is not acceptable is the assumption that such a resolution immediately means an "us-against-them" set-up. In the Village Voice, Richard Goldstein framed the issue as one of haves against have-nots. Goldstein was probably on articulating what many were thinking. But by framing the issue as one of the "haves" ˜ the moneybag white folks who supposedly dominate newly empowered ESPA ˜ versus the "have-nots" (the poor, downtrodden lumpengayprolectariat), Goldstein isn't prepping us for tomorrow's battles. He's fighting yesterday's. Make that the day before yesterday. All of this stuff about the rich white guys (most of them are guys) who have taken control of "the movement" (you'll notice most of this language is as dated as Jefferson Starship lyrics) comes from an argument much older than gay liberation: What happens when an oppressed group ... isn't so oppressed anymore? Well, guess what: The system stinks. Big news. That means that money, lots and lots of money, remains the mother's milk of politics. But it's the system we're stuck with, at least for now. Many of these people went to the "right" schools. They worked at networking and making the right connections. They played the game. Some of them probably never did much more than collect their trust funds. Life isn't fair. But just because you don't like the rules doesn't mean you can afford to walk away from the game. For Goldstein or anyone else to claim that ESPA has turned into the Whore of Babylon for playing ball with the Republican Senate majority to get SONDA passed is self-defeating at best. If we want to advance our agenda, we need all of those rich people who summer in East Hampton and winter in St. Barth's and drive Jaguars and do all of that other stuff that makes them apparently unpalatable to people like Goldstein. So until the revolution comes, we're all going to be beholden to all of those rich boldfaced names for a while longer. If they have the means to fight our battles, I say go for it! For 39 years, this bill has been introduced and has gone nowhere. Yes, ESPA's endorsement of Pataki was a back-room deal ˜ one that I criticized on these pages. But not because ESPA was playing footsy with the Republicans, but because Carl McCall had been a loyal friend for so much longer. Now that SONDA is a reality, instead of putting these battles behind us, why are we waging a rear-guard action? It doesn't make sense. As for the claim that ESPA only represents gay men and lesbians and not transgendered persons: I have known officers of this organization from the days when it was still Fairpac. I have never encountered anyone claiming that the group stood for anyone other than the well- trodden acronym "LGBT." Discussion is always good. Discourse is always good. It's only by arguing amongst ourselves that anything new comes about. What is not acceptable, however, is trying to set ourselves against each other. Remember silly arguments like the "I hate straights" diatribe? Or the "post-gay" debate? I didn't think so. These unnecessary distractions only take away from the urgent business at hand. Similarly, trying to pit transgendered persons against "mainstream gays" (now there's a 21st century turn-of-phrase! Wow, now if you're merely "gay," you're Donna Reed) is self-defeating. Our enemies do such a great job of vilifying us; why do some of insist on helping them along by setting us against ourselves? This situation is very far from the best of all possible worlds, but in the world of realpolitik, where ESPA has to dwell, progress is measured in small steps, not quantum leaps. Maybe it's about time Goldstein and his ilk realized this. Duane provided a valuable service in opening the discussion to include transgenders. Now, it is something that has become part of the language of the state's legislative bodies. But it's over. It's time to move on. And time to stop fighting yesterday's battles. State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, among many others, have argued that SONDA would probably have been tabled yet again if an amendment of any kind had been successfully introduced. Now ESPA is engaged in a serious movement to amend the state's human-rights commission and body of laws to include gay men, lesbians ˜ and, pointedly, the transgendered. Furthermore, there are cases now making their way through the courts that may well define "gender orientation" as including the transgendered. ESPA feared, not unreasonably, that including transgendered persons in a bill that would probably then have failed would have sent a distinct message to these judges that transgendered people are not included; otherwise, why the need for such an amendment? Therefore, the very introduction of such a legality could have had the exact opposite effect of its intention: the protection of the transgendered from discrimination. The fact is, ESPA was as instrumental as any group in shepherding the landmark addition of transgenders to the city's non-discrimination law in 2002. If it took several years for the relatively liberal City Council to move from a gay-rights bill to this, how could anyone think that Albany, hardly a bastion of progressive thinkers, would move in a few short minutes from a stance of "I'm holding my nose but voting for gay rights" to "hey, let's let people sue their employers if they come to work dressed in drag!" This is politics. Not high-minded, Jeffersonian ideals, perhaps, but the bare-knuckled way things work in the real world. The only way to play the game is to win. At the end of the day, the Conservative Party and its allies have been beaten and defeated. SONDA was one for the good side. Let's keep the momentum going. And stop fighting over scraps. top
Happy New Year ... busy new year- By Claire McNab, Press For Change
- top
- Date: Wed, 01 Jan 2003
- From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>"
- <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>
http://www.pfc.org.uk/
- It's time to wish a very happy New Year to everyone.
- A Happy New Year not just for all the countless people who campaign
- under Press For Change's banner, but for all the other people whose
- work helps to sustain and improve the lives of trans people in the
- UK ... and to the thousands of people who benefit from all this work.
- As we start another year of campaigning, it might be nice to think of
- some of the people outside our community who thoroughly deserve our
- good wishes. I won't name individuals -- there are far too many
- people we need to thank -- so I'll suggest a few groups who we could
- include in our thoughts as we welcome the New Year.
- There are lawyers fighting crucial battles for our rights, often
- without any pay. It's fashionable these days to sneer at lawyers,
- but we could not have made so much progress in our campaign without
- the dedication of some wonderful solicitors and barristers.
- There are plenty of decent, caring medical professionals whose
- treatment of their trans patients is light years ahead the low
- standards set by some of their colleagues. Some of them pay a high
- price for their failure to treat us as lab-rats, and most of them
- receive much less professional praise from their colleagues than they
- would find if they practiced in different fields of medicine.
- Civil servants are another unpopular bunch. According to stereotype,
- they are surly individuals who unbendingly enforce harsh rules, or
- connive to obstruct policy changes; but in 2002, we've seen the
- results of the hard work of a dedicated group of civil servants in
- Whitehall. Government conventions mean that it would be
- inappropriate and unhelpful to name them, but it is their hard work
- which produced the Working Group report in 2000, setting out to
- ministers just how much disadvantage we face, and *why* we wanted the
- law changed. Their continued efforts bore fruit before Christmas:
- it's thanks to the civil servants that ministers could decide *how*
- to grant us legal recognition.
- On the index of public loathing, journalists rank somewhere down near
- the bottom of the heap -- with estate agents and politicians. There
- are indeed some awful journalists, but there have also been plenty
- who have taken the trouble to make a real effort to understand our
- campaign and to explain to their readers why our search for basic
- rights matters. Amidst the pressures of deadlines and the search for
- eye-catching news, plenty of decent writers have helped to keep our
- campaign in the public eye.
- Some religious people get a bit of public attention by vociferously
- denouncing our existence and our right to dignity in society:
- unsurprisingly, religion has earned itself a bad name in many trans
- circles. But for every one of the religious angry brigade, I hear of
- many more decent folk from all religious faiths who not only treat us
- with the respect and dignity which all people deserve, but who
- workaway quietly to calm the fears of those who might be alarmed by
- the angry brigade. Most of them keep a low profile; but in Anglican,
- Islamic, Jewish, Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Buddhist, Quaker,
- Hindu and other faith communities, there are plenty of good people
- doing wonderful work for us as well as for others. Their voices may
- sometimes appear to be drowned out by the people who prefer to shout
- fear and hatred ... so let's hope that the new year is a good and a
- happy one for all the religious people who uphold the finer values of
- their faiths.
- * * * * *
- I suppose that the thank-you list above might not be the one which
- some people would expect, but I think it's one worth considering. It
- may be a bit surprising, but then 2002 has been a year of surprises --
- some nasty surprises, but some pleasant ones too.
- In the mid-1990s, Christine Burns and I used to write an annual
- review of the year. We listed the ups and downs of the campaign, the
- indignities endured by far too many of us, and the successes of our
- efforts to assert our dignity. Eventually the effort became too
- great, because as the trans community grew stronger and more
- organised, we were able to tell the story of many more of the
- injustices and indignities which blight our lives ... and we also had
- many more successes to report. At this point, we'd better leave that
- job to the historians.
- For a few years, I also wrote a satirical review of the next year,
- trying to laugh at some of the things which might happen. It was fun
- to write, and I hope it was fun to read -- just as it was fun to
- watch a staff member of the Charing Cross GIC carefully extracting
- all the references to that clinic and turning them into overhead
- projections so that the clinic could deny it was going to get quite
- as bad as worst fears. But somehow, I'm not in the mood for satire
- these days. Maybe it's the upturn in our fortunes as a community,
- maybe it's the forthcoming war, or maybe I'm just getting old ... but
- whatever the reason, at the end of 2002 I feel uneasy about poking
- fun.
- We enter the New Year with the landscape dramatically altered. PFC
- campaigners have been closely involved in those changes, so let's
- remember just how much has happened.
- Since the end of 2001, we have seen the European Court of Human
- Rights (ECtHR) unanimously uphold our right to privacy and to legal
- recognition in our true sex. I've written sentences like that many
- times, and we've all reads them many times ... but let's stop for a
- moment and think about the scale of the change.
- * * * * *
- In 2002, the ECtHR gave up arguing that maybe our rights didn't
- matter all that much. It gave up any attempt to excuse the delays in
- recognising us. It didn't get bogged down in the sterile (and
- ultimately irrelevant) debate over the existence of scientific proof
- for *why* we are trans. It simply accepted the basic principle that
- we exist, and that as people we are entitled to laws which treat us
- with dignity and respect. No ifs, no buts, no excuses: a simple
- application of a basic principle of human rights.
- The legal consequences of that ruling are far-reaching, but that the
- change in *thinking* may have even greater consequences. Most
- minorities and disadvantaged groups struggle for years, maybe even
- for centuries, enduring endless debates how much their disadvantages
- should be eased.
- Should women be allowed to vote? And if so, at what age? Should
- women be allowed to own property? And what with restrictions? In
- the last few hundred years, we find in Europe the same questions
- being asked about black people, Jewish people, disabled people, gay
- and lesbian folks, gypsies, and ... and it's a long list.
- And in each case the breakthrough comes not in any of the important
- small steps taken, although those do much to improve people's lives.
- The breakthrough comes with the change in consciousness, the change
- in whether people are recognised as people.
- That may sound trite, but it is fundamental. 2002 was the year in
- which "the trans question" was finally turned upside down by the
- highest court on this continent. It was the year when the courts
- stopped asking whether the law should be changed to meet our needs,
- and started asking the opposite question -- asking *how* laws which
- do not meet our needs can be changed. The question of "whether" to
- make changes was left behind.
- 2002 was the year in which the issue stopped being that trans people
- were a problem ... and when the question became one of removing the
- barriers to our full participation in society.
- * * * * *
- Those barriers are not yet gone. Some of them will take years to
- dismantle, and others will corrode in the passage of time.
- In 2003, our work will continue. We have to work with government to
- help them draft legislation to implement the ECtHR's judgment. We
- have to press our MPs and ministers to make sure that the draft bill
- gets space in the parliamentary timetable. And then we have to work
- with MPs and Lords to make sure that our case is understood and
- supported by all those whose vote is needed to change the law.
- This will not be quick work, and it won't be easy work. When it is
- done, and a law is finally passed, it will not bring about an
- overnight change in our lives: there will still be discrimination and
- prejudice, and there will still be thousands of us whose lives have
- been blighted by years as non-people. There are trans people whose
- careers have been destroyed and their families divided or estranged;
- people whose morale and confidence has been shattered; people for
- whom the changes may seem to be coming too late. There is so much
- still to be done.
- Still, we start 2003 with a fair wind behind us. There is every
- chance that it will be a productive year as a well as a busy one.
- But above all, may it be a very Happy New Year
- Best wishes
- Claire McNab (Vice-President, Press for Change)
- http://www.pfc.org.uk/
- top
- State Gay Rights Bill (New York)
- Andy Humm, Gotham Gazzette
- top
- Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003
- From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>"
- <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>
- http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/civilrights/20030103/3/46
- Date: January, 2003
- When the New York State Senate voted 34 to 26 to pass the Sexual
- Orientation Non-Discrimination Act on December 17th, it was the first
- time that house had voted on the bill in the 31 years since it was
- first introduced. (By contrast, the Assembly has passed it by ever-
- widening margins since 1993, most recently 113 to 27) Governor George
- Pataki immediately signed it, but he had to work the phones during
- the day to make it happen as the Conservative Party and Catholic
- bishops lobby mounted fierce opposition to it. For a full on-the-
- scene account of the bill's passage, see my story in the "Gay City
- News". http://gaycitynews.com/gcn30/historicvote.html
- I also did a sidebar on "What the Bill Means" legally.
- http://gaycitynews.com/gcn30/whatthegay.html The fact is,
- few of those discriminated against in New York City will be tempted
- to go to the State Division for Human Rights which has a much bigger
- backlog of cases than the City Commission on Human Rights. The state
- law is also considered weaker than the city's, and is less appealing
- to attorneys seeking to prosecute discriminators in the courts.
- The city added "gender identity and expression," protecting people of
- transgender experience, to our human rights law back in February. An
- effort to include transgenders in the state bill has been pushed for
- several years now, but the Empire State Pride Agenda
- www.prideagenda.org concluded that it would derail the lesbian and
- gay rights proposal and did not push for its amendment. State Senator
- Thomas Duane did offer such an amendment on the floor of the Senate
- and it got 19 Democratic votes (out of 24) and no Republicans.
- Rusty Mae Moore of the Metropolitan Gender Network, a transgender
- advocacy group, said: "Trans people are really upset. It is a
- psychological moment that is very unsettling when you realize you are
- officially considered a non-person by the state and the gay and
- lesbian community." But the Pride Agenda insists that they will help
- secure protections for people of transgender experience either
- through using existing protections under the category of gender in
- the law or explicitly adding "gender identity" to the protected
- classes.
- Matt Foreman, acting director of the Pride Agenda, said they are
- looking into working in a broad coalition of human rights groups on
- an "omnibus" overhaul of the state human rights law and would put the
- transgender amendment into that with hopes of a 2004 vote. Others,
- including the New York Transgender Coalition, want a stand-alone
- Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act.
- Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice in "Life after SONDA [the
- Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act]: Gay Politics Will Never
- be the Same" wrote that this was "a struggle between haves and have-
- nots, between warring definitions of what it means to be queer, and
- between very different styles of activism. Under its baffling
- surface, the battle of SONDA was a clash over the future of
- liberation politics."
- Indeed, the Pride Agenda members sported stickers in Albany
- reading: "Equal Rights: Nothing More, Nothing Less." But it took so
- long for this bill to come up for a vote that it was outdated and
- incomplete. It does forbid discrimination on the basis
- of "heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or asexuality,"
- using language that was developed by Wisconsin, the first state to
- pass such legislation in 1985. (That was the language used in the New
- York City gay rights bill that passed in 1986.) New York is now the
- 13th state to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
- And while transgendered people were left out, upstate and suburban
- gays and lesbians are now protected, and city gays can travel the
- state (or move within it) without having to worry about losing
- coverage by the law.
- Now that basic gay rights protections have been won, New York can
- move on to broader issues affecting its lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
- transgendered communities. Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who
- represents Greenwich Village, is looking to secure domestic partner
- rights for same-sex couples, perhaps starting with the right to
- bereavement leave. Duane will be pushing for transgender inclusion
- (about which Pataki has been mum) and a state same-sex marriage bill
- (which Pataki opposes) that is sponsored in the Assembly by Dick
- Gottfried, who represents Chelsea. Duane also has proposed a Dignity
- for All Students Act, which is an anti-bullying bill that would
- outlaw harassment on the basis, among other things, of "gender
- identity" and "sexual orientation."
- <<end>>
- Andy Humm is a former member of the City Commission on Human Rights.
- He is co-host of the weekly Gay USA on Channel 35 on Thursdays at 11
- PM.
- top
- Fashion vs. gender : Parents want to decide if their children should be exposed to cross-dressing
- By David C. Mason
- top
- Source Brenda Lana Smith R.af D.
- STLtoday - news
- http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Editorial/C547686E3FF3BC2186256CA10066936A?OpenDocument&Headline=Fashion%20vs.%20gender%20%3A%20Parents%20want%20to%20decide%20if%20their%20children%20should%20be%20exposed%20to%20cross-dressing
- RETRIEVED: Monday, January 06, 2003
- A MATTER OF OPINION: Parents want the option to decide how their children
- should be exposed to cross-dressing.
- I have written before about the cultural dynamics of change in our
- community, and the need for us to be more tolerant. Tolerance requires the
- acceptance of some degree of discomfort when we are confronted with
- lifestyles that conflict with our own. Even tolerance has its limitations.
- But such limitations are difficult to discuss, as we all oppose limits
- placed on how we are tolerated. And yet, we all have a few hot buttons, if
- you will, when it comes to how much we will tolerate from others. Mine
- happen to be children and parental control of their socialization.
- We all want our children to grow up to be well-adjusted, moral people of
- integrity who can exercise good judgment and "play well" with others. The
- majority of us have a religious or moral and ethical values system that we
- inherited from our parents and want to pass along to our children. The last
- thing we want to deal with is other adults, in whom we have entrusted the
- temporary custody of our children, teaching those children values that
- contradict ours. We want to raise our kids right; and we expect the schools,
- churches and public libraries to help, or at least not hurt, our efforts. We
- want to live in a village that raises our children to share our values.
- Television, modern music, pop culture, Hollywood, street gangs, peer
- pressure, and Internet porn all seem to be part of an axis of evil that
- conspires against parents who desperately try to fight back.
- Historically, parents have been able to look to the schools for some degree
- of assistance. Recently, however, St. Louis area parents learned that a
- father had accompanied schoolchildren on a field trip while dressed as a
- woman. This wasn't a diversity lesson that other parents had notice of. This
- was just someone who believed he had a "right" to dress as he felt, and the
- other children had to accept it.
- Did the village school intervene and say, sorry, you should have at least
- sought permission so that we can allow other parents to decide if their
- children were ready for this? No, and several parents had to deal with a
- shocking "Guess what I saw today, Mommy?" question that had nothing to do
- with museum exhibits.
- Most parents and children probably weathered this little child-rearing storm
- as parents in the Central West End have handled the "Kingshighway dancer."
- The shock of seeing a man dressed as a woman is not the issue. The issue is
- whether the parents of the other children should have been able to decide if
- they wanted their child exposed to such matters.
- Admittedly, how men and women dress is a matter of style, not substance. We
- are not biologically wired to dress in any fashion, if at all. The Irish
- kilt, Arab robe or African dashiki are matters of cultural style. Dressing
- like a man in one place may be dressing like a woman in another.
- "Gender-based" styles, therefore, are determined by culture, not nature.
- Still, the realities of people who do not follow cultural norms can conflict
- with the values parents are trying to instill in their children.
- I, for one, would be outraged if my child's school allowed a parent to wear
- a Ku Klux Klan robe as if it were acceptable. Yet an American Indian parent
- in tribal garb would be, to me, a positive cultural experience. However, let
- me make that choice, or require that all parents on field trips dress
- appropriately for children.
- Respecting parenthood means giving parents the option to talk to their child
- in advance about matters like transgendered people and sexual identity, or
- to keep their child at home if school events run counter to parental
- beliefs. Parents expect schools - and other parents - to respect the
- parenting role and support them. Schools should provide assurance that
- children won't be exposed to anyone's whimsical expression of sexuality or
- counterculture without parental notice and consent.
- My friend and yours, Columnist Greg Freeman, died Tuesday morning. He often
- wrote about the exploits of his son, Will, to illustrate a point. I have
- done the same with my son, who is also named Will. As a tribute to Greg, I
- will recommit myself to teaching my sons not to ridicule and condemn but to
- respect and love.
- David C. Mason of St. Louis is a judge in the 22nd Judicial Circuit.
- top
Fashion vs. gender : We should approach the crossing-dressing with- tolerance.
- By Arlene Zarembka
- top
- http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Editorial/F91A2C3CB1350F7286256CA10066931A?OpenDocument&Headline=Fashion%20vs.%20gender%20%3A%20%
- 20We%20should%20approach%20the%20crossing-dressing%20with%20tolerance.
- RETRIEVED: Monday, January 06, 2003
- 01/02/2003
- A MATTER OF OPINION : We should approach the question with tolerance, not
- legally questionable dress codes.
- Perhaps nothing is as basic to our self-definition as how we dress. Yet some
- parents insist that the Francis Howell School District in St. Charles either
- must ensure that "proper dress" is worn by the "proper gender," or else must
- notify parents if an "identified cross-dresser" will be at a school
- function.
- How, exactly, would the district decide who is an "identified
- cross-dresser"? Would it rely on rumors to decide if a parent is
- cross-dressing? Or, would it require parents to strip to determine their
- real gender?
- For that matter, how would the district even decide what is proper dress for
- each gender? Notions of "male" and "female" dress are subjective. Respected
- male members of the French aristocracy used to wear high heels, stockings,
- powdered wigs and frilled blouses. And many of the women who attended the
- Francis Howell school board meetings about the cross-dressing controversy
- wore what could be considered traditionally male clothing - jeans or pants.
- Most fundamentally, adopting a dress code for parents would be
- unconstitutional.
- In 1985, a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Missouri
- struck down a St. Louis ordinance that prohibited any person from appearing
- in public "in a dress not belonging to his or her sex." (I represented the
- plaintiffs in that case as a cooperating attorney for the American Civil
- Liberties Union , together with attorney Stephen Miller.)
- Controversy about what constitutes appropriate appearance for males is not
- new to St. Charles. In 1971, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a
- St. Charles School District policy that regulated the hair length and
- hairstyle of male students.
- In the St. Louis case, ((ITAL))D.C. et al v City of St. Louis((ITAL)), Judge
- William Hungate ruled that the cross-dressing ordinance was
- unconstitutionally vague. On appeal of this same case - involving a
- different part of the same ordinance - the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals said
- that vague laws result in arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, because
- policy decisions end up being made ad hoc and on a subjective basis.
- As Judge Hungate noted in his decision, prohibiting a woman from wearing a
- man's hat, or a man from wearing a kilt, or a teenage girl from wearing her
- brother's shirt or, for that matter, a woman from wearing a pants suit,
- would be unreasonable. Moreover, he pointed out, "Necklaces and earrings are
- not infrequently worn by both sexes."
- The 1971 case involved the suspension of a 15-year-old boy, Stephen Bishop,
- by the St. Charles School District, because his hair was longer than allowed
- by the district's hair policy. Stephen sued. The district lost.
- The St. Charles School District defended its hair regulation by claiming
- that long hair would cause disruption, that the adverse reaction of others
- could jeopardize St. Charles' educational program, and that the St. Charles
- community favored the dress code.
- The 8th Circuit rejected all these arguments. It held, in ((ITAL))Bishop v
- Colaw((ITAL)), that ". . . among those rights retained by the people under
- our constitutional form of government, is the freedom to govern one's
- personal appearance. As a freedom that ranks high on the spectrum of our
- societal values, it commands the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment Due
- Process Clause."
- The 8th Circuit Court's decision was about the hairstyle of a 15-year-old
- boy in a public school. Its conclusions in that case apply with even more
- force to the dress and hairstyle of adults, who are not subject to the kind
- of supervision faced by students in schools.
- Perhaps the most important lesson from the 8th Circuit decision is this
- statement: "Toleration of individual differences is basic to our democracy,
- whether those differences be in religion, politics, or life-style." Sadly,
- the parents who have started the brouhaha in the Francis Howell District
- have failed to learn this basic democratic lesson.
- Arlene Zarembka is an attorney in Clayton.
- Copyright 2002, by Arlene Zarembka
- top
- 'SHAME ON WINN-DIXIE' ANNIVERSARY
- From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
- top
- For Immediate Release: January 4, 2003
- From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
- Contacts: Media Director, Robyn Walters, Seattle, Washington
- NTAC Chair, Vanessa Edwards Foster; Houston, Texas
- Contact Email: ntacmedia@aol.com
- media@ntac.Org
- Contact Phone: 832-483-9901
- 360-437-4091
- Website: http://www.ntac.org
Three years after the southern grocery chain Winn-Dixie fired Peter Oiler for cross-dressing on his own time and four months after a federal court ruled that such discrimination is legal, transgendered people remember the Shame on Winn-Dixie protest campaign.
Employment discrimination strikes at a core American value. Many Americans believe that qualified, hardworking individuals should not be denied job opportunities, fired or otherwise discriminated against for reasons that have nothing to do with their job performance and abilities.
Laws have been enacted to remedy workplace violations and many view such discrimination as reprehensible. An employer today rarely admits workplace discrimination. But Winn-Dixie showed the nation that such discrimination does occur when they admitted firing Oiler for no reason other than clothes he wore at home. A federal district judge ruled that &endash; while morally questionable -- this is permissible under current U.S. law.
Oiler had worked 23 years for Winn-Dixie. While attempting to resolve workplace rumors that he was gay, he told his supervisor that he sometimes wore women's clothing away from the job. This information was passed on to Michael Istre, president of Louisiana Winn-Dixie, who decided that Peter Oiler should resign. Oiler, who had been regularly promoted and who had excellent performance evaluations, repeatedly refused and was subsequently fired.
Oiler sued Winn-Dixie in U.S. District Court, alleging employment discrimination on the basis of sex, under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "This case is about whether someone can be fired because he doesn't look or act the way his employer thinks a man should," said Eric Ferrero, Public Education Director of the ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights/AIDS Project.
In court testimony, Istre admitted that Oiler was fired for no other reason than that, "I was concerned about my business and what kind of impact and effect that this - this type of behavior would have on my business and my customer base that if my customers saw him…"
Oiler's argument was denied in a September 2002 District Court decision, but Judge Lance Affrick was almost apologetic. The "Defendant's rationale for plaintiff's discharge may strike many as morally wrong," he wrote, " however, the function of this court is not to raise the social conscience of defendant's upper-level management, but to construe the law in accordance with proper statutory construction and judicial precedent."
Judge Affrick explained, "The repeated failure of Congress to amend Title VII supports the argument that Congress did not intend Title VII to prohibit discrimination on the basis of a gender identity disorder. In reaching this decision, this Court defers to Congress who, as the author of Title VII, has defined the scope of its protection. Neither
Title VII nor the Unites States Supreme Court's decision in Price Waterhouse affords plaintiff the protection that he seeks."
In its decision, the U.S. District Court upheld the right of an employer to fire a worker simply for legal off-duty behavior. In doing so the Court highlighted the gaps in existing employment anti-discrimination laws and indicated the need for additional legislation that would better protect against workplace discrimination.
Although Peter Oiler has found new employment and the quality of his work is undiminished, the job discrimination that he faced three years ago not only still exists but also has been strengthened. Oiler's firing by Winn-Dixie -- while unjust -- has been ruled legal under existing federal law. His case is strong evidence of the need for revised federal laws protecting against employment discrimination.
Courtney Sharp, a Louisiana activist who helped organize the Winn-Dixie protest campaign recommends that people continue to call Winn-Dixie management to remind them that the GLBT community has not forgotten this issue. "The transgender community had demanded that Winn-Dixie institute a non-discrimination policy for gender identity and expression and sexual orientation. We also asked them to institute sensitivity training. Those demands have not been withdrawn and were not dependent upon the legal case."
Winn-Dixie contact information can be found at <http://www.shameonwinndixie.org/action_main.html>.
- Transitions: Literary Stereotyping - A Response to Karel
- By Roslyn Manley ,Orange County and Long Beach Blade
- top
(GLBT monthly, California) URL: http://www.metrog.com/headline/blade/0103/transitions.html Date: January, 2003 When one writes for an LGBT publication such as "The Blade," it is tempting to assume that the publisher, editor and columnists are well informed, accepting and supporting of the greater LGBT Community. In Charles Karel Bouley II's December column ("Karel's Komments, Death in Newark") that assumption was proven to be incorrect - frighteningly so. In fairness, Bouley apparently set forth in an honorable fashion to object to the brutal October murder of Gwen Araujo in Newark when her anatomical sex was discovered to be male. However, along the way he managed to offend the transgender community by referring to Gwen with male pronouns, by insinuating that gender identity is a choice, by mislabeling Gwen as a transvestite, by an incorrect assessment of transgender acceptance, by stating that schools would not hire otherwise qualified transsexual teachers, and by opposing hate crime sentencing enhancements. These errors are particularly frightening because Bouley is a radio personality with occasional national audiences. This publication is guided by the "Associated Press Stylebook" that provides guidance in any number of areas ranging from punctuation to adjective and pronoun usage. With reference to transsexuals, it says to "use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics (by hormone therapy, body modification, or surgery) of the opposite sex and present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly." Gwen Araujo clearly identified as female and lived publicly in that presentation. Bouley's reference to Gwen with masculine pronouns, his reference to "the girl's really a guy," and characterizing her as a "man in a dress" deeply offended Gwen's memory and the greater transgender community. These statements represent stereotyping at its worst and highlight the fact that some within the gay and lesbian community judge and negatively characterize transgenders. I'm offended by Bouley's statements and utterly amazed that the publisher and editor allowed his views to be disseminated on these pages. I was surprised that Bouley objected to the hate crime enhancements that have been attached to the charges against the alleged murders. He sets forth the same argument that Dr. Laura Schlessinger used, being that hate crime enhancements are a special right afforded gays, lesbians and transgenders. "Somehow" he says, "these boys killing Gwen for being a transvestite is more horrific and carries more of a sentence than if they had beaten and strangled him [sic] for some other reason. Poppycock," he says. On November 20, the international transgender community held commemoration services for our dead. This has turned out to be the deadliest year on record for transgenders, with 2002 having a 30 percent increase in anti-transgender murders over all previous years. Statistically, transgenders are 16 times more likely to be murdered than the general population and three times more likely than African American males, the next closest group. Transsexuals, the statistics demonstrate, are more likely to be murdered than they are to be married. Poppycock, Mr. Bouley? Bullshit! There is substantial historical basis for such enhancements; the "murder is murder" rationale is insufficient. Special Circumstances, the Felony Murder Rule, Murder for Financial Gain, and Murder of a Law Enforcement Official are all instances where society has decided that the murder is more heinous and more deserving of greater punishment. California has determined that the murder of somebody because of their race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation is particularly heinous, given that such an act robs people of civil and human rights to equal treatment under the constitution. Contrary to Bouley's recommendations, prosecution to the full extent of the law will include the hate crime enhancements. Would I be correct in assuming that he would also oppose hate crime enhancements for those circumstances when the killer selects a homosexual for extermination? "Well, that's what he got for living like that," he wrote. Where on God's green earth did he come up with such thoughts? Does he cast such broad judgments to those who are infected with HIV? "How many schools would employ known transvestites or transsexuals, even if qualified? Parents would scream . . ." California's AB 2222 expands the definition of disability under the Fair Employment and Housing Administration to include transgenders. AB 537, codified as Section 200 of the California Education Code, the Student Safety and Violence Protection Act, extends protections to teachers as well. There are many transsexual teachers in the K-12 system, including at least 16 in Orange County. How many schools would employ known transsexuals? Many, Mr. Bouley. Many. I suspect that where he missed the boat is in assuming that transgenders are hated and reviled in the United States. There have been a number of polls, both local and national, sponsored in whole or in part by the Human Rights Campaign. A North Carolina poll found that transgenders have greater public support in the workplace than homosexuals. A national poll released in September, indexed on acceptance factors to identify cohort acceptance found that all groups supported transgenders in the workplace and already assumed that transgenders were protected under hate crime laws. Further, they supported K-12 transsexual teachers, although the degree of support diminished at the lower grades. As Bouley pointed out, "There's plenty of guilt to go around." Please, let's be certain that our own ignorance and, if present, our own prejudices do not contribute to that guilt. Copyright © by The Orange County Blade. top
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Reflections On The Recent Transgender Day of Remembrance A Message From Rev. Troy D. Perry Founder and Moderator of Metropolitan Community Churches Top From: "Michelle K." <mjkinnuc@juno.com> Source: Metropolitan Community Churches http://www.mccchurch.org/ Date: Jan. 3, 2003 Dear MCC Friend: I want to take just a moment today to salute all MCC churches which participated in the Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20. I know many MCC churches held special services and community programs to commemorate this important annual event. Among those who provided leadership for these events, I'd like to especially recognize two members of the MCC Headquarters Staff: Michele Horn Davis, who organized the Transgender Day of Remembrance Service and Candlelight Vigil at MCC's Founding Church, MCC Los Angeles, along with Rev. Neil Thomas, senior pastor of MCCLA, and Rev. Dr. Justin Tanis, who was the featured speaker at Services at Christ Chapel MCC in Santa Ana, California, where Rev. Robin White is pastor. The event at MCC Los Angeles featured participation by community leaders, prayers by Rev. Neil Thomas, senior pastor of MCCLA, and participation by Captain Castro of the West Hollywood Sheriff's Department. A Candlelight Vigil and March followed the service and processed from the church to the Matthew Shepherd Human Rights Triangle, where a permanent memorial will be placed to honor all transgender persons whose lives have been lost to hate crimes based on gender variation. MCC Los Angeles also donated an offering to the ongoing community work of FTM Alliance of Los Angeles, a transgender group which is active in Los Angeles and Southern California. I encourage you to mark this annual event on your calendar for 2003 and to plan observances, services and prayer vigils on behalf of all transgender persons who continue to experience rejection, oppression, and even loss of life. The very sad reality is that vicious hate crimes are regularly committed against transgender persons -- and these hate crimes and deaths have too often received little or no coverage by the media. Metropolitan Community Churches around the world must be safe and welcoming places for our transgender brothers and sisters. From MCC's founding, we have been committed to providing places of acceptance and authenticity for people who have experienced all forms of rejection by families, society and other faith communities. Did you know that transgender persons have even less legal rights than gays and lesbians? While great strides have been made in many places to include protections based on sexual orientation, these laws often do not provide legal protections based on gender variance to protect our transgender sisters and brothers. As part of MCC's commitment to Christian social action, I call upon all friends and members of Metropolitan Community Churches to work for anti-discrimination laws which will provide protections based upon both sexual orientation and gender variation. Finally, today I want to share with you a list of transgender persons who have been murdered during the past twelve months -- most during hate crimes based on gender variation. I encourage you to take the time to read this list. Perhaps you will want to reproduce it in your church's publications, or post it on a church bulletin board. I am indebted to my friend, attorney, and longtime transgender activist Phyllis Randolph Frye for sharing the list below. Incidentally, Phyllis offers an e-mail newsletter on transgender legal and societal issues which I highly recommend. Free subscriptions are available upon request by writing to Phyllis by e-mail at PRFrye@aol.com. To learn more about transgender issues -- and to keep fully informed of legal and court actions impacting transgender persons -- I also encourage you to visit Phyllis' website at http://transgenderlegal.com. In Christ, Troy Perry Rev. Troy D. Perry Office of the MCC Moderator Source: http://www.mccchurch.org/ Top-----------------------------------------*****----------------------------------------------
- Disclaimer: The accuracy of any information presented herein cannot be guaranteed. The opinions expressed may not reflect those of the Editor, Anne Vitale PhD.
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- copyright November 25, 2002