Vitale Letter #252, January 20, 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
- To unsubscribe send a blank email message to unsubscribe@avitale.com
- ANNOUNCEMENTS
- [1][USA: San Francisco Bay Area--Advanced transition / Recent post-op, Male-to-Female Group Reforming
- [2] USA: Transgender Aging Network (TAN) announces first-ever all-day Transgender Aging Intensive
- [3] USA: California --Two announcements regarding the Monterey TG/TS community.
- GENERAL INFORMATION
- [4a]NEW ZEALAND --Police to look at others who helped fugitive
- [4b]New Zealand News - NZ - Murder case reward unlikely
- [5]UK: Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary gender program endangered
- [6]USA: Attorney honored for two LGBT name-change cases
- [7] USA --New York State--Outa' My Clothes Closet! Trans teen claims "completely essential" victory over city child
- services dress code
- [8]USA: Trans activism gaining traction despite setbacks;2002 saw the greatest gains ever for the transgender community,
- though violence again took its toll
- [9]VATICAN CITY--Vatican says 'sex-change' operation does not change person's gender
- [10]FRANCE: French working girls lose their privileged role
- [11]USA: Florida--The Lee County jail wasn't built with Frank Hague in mind.
- [12]USA California-- Controversial play concerns some parents
- [13] USA Pennsylvania--Cops seeking info in woman's death--Transgender person found on Walnut St.
- MEDIA WATCH
- [14] TURKEY--A city comes out--Istanbul is the hub of gay life in Turkey, a Muslim nation with a tolerance of homosexuals.
- St. Petersburg Times
- [15] USA: More Than Just Dandy --(washingtonpost.com)
- [16] Surgery released woman trapped in a man's body--The Vindicator
- [17]The Village Voice: Hot Spot: Savage Love by Dan Savage
- [18] UK: THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT--Transsexual People
- IN THE COURTS
- [19] UK: Transsexual takes case to Law Lords
- [20] USA: Jailhouse letter about Eddie Araujo case will not be made public
- [21] USA San Francisco--Supervisors could settle transgender groping suit
- [22] KUWAIT --Kuwaiti asks court to ratify sex change
- ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
- [23] USA: Big film stars bring style to TV movies they believe in
- [24] USA: Coolidge Corner screens restored debut by Cassavetes
- [25] USA: Rob Schneider is the "Hot Chick"
- [26] THEATER REVIEW | 'SHANGHAI MOON'
- [27a] Homophobia haunts 'Dead'
- [27b] Walking The Dead
- COMMENTARY
- Not Necessarily An Alternate Transgender Legal Reality
- Katrina C. Rose Texas Triangle (GLBT weekly)
- NTAC Joins Coalition for Peace
- From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
- LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
- Re: CNN comments
- From Debbie
- RE: The sex-change charade
- from R.L.Forrester
- RE: The sex-change charade
- From Jennifer Usher
- ============///========///======///======///==========///==========/
ANNOUNCMENTS [1][USA: San Francisco Bay Area--Advanced transition / Recent post-op, Male-to-Female Group Reforming: 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.
- This is 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 next meeting for the Advanced Group is January 29h. 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: Transgender Aging Network (TAN) announces first-ever all-day Transgender Aging Intensive
- Top
- A TAN spokes person writes:
- Dear Friends:
- The Transgender Aging Network (TAN) is pleased to announce the first-ever all-day Transgender Aging Intensive, to be held on Friday, February 14, 2003, at the Holiday Inn on the Hill in Washington, D.C.
- This Intensive is designed specifically for service providers and advocates to give you the tools you need to appropriately and sensitively serve and advocate for aging transsexuals, cross-dressers, intersexuals, and other gender variant people, and all of their/our significant others, friends, family, and allies (SOFFAs).
- The registration fee of $95 includes a take-home reference binder, follow-up notes if warranted, and break refreshments (lunch is on your own). *** PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. *** For further information and/or to print out a registration form, go to TAN's website at www.forge-forward.org/TAN, or email LoreeCD@aol.com.
- Let us also take this opportunity to remind you that TAN also offers two free email lists:
- 1) TAN informational email list, geared toward professionals and advocates who wish to connect to each others' work and receive periodic news items related to trans aging.
- 2) ElderTG, an email support list for transgender persons age 50+ and SOFFAs.
- To subscribe to either list, send an email explaining your interest/s to LoreeCD@aol.com.
- Top
- [3] USA: California --Two announcements regarding the Monterey TG/TS community.
- Top
- 1) The Monterey Transgender Support Group, for both FtM's and MtF's/Pre-op and Post-op, will be having it's next meeting on Saturday, February 8th, from 10 a.m. to noon. WE WILL BE WELCOMING POST-OP FTM, JAMISON GREEN, KNOWN AROUND THE WORLD FOR HIS ADVOCACY OF TRANS RIGHTS AND EDUCATION, AS OUR SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER!
- For those who do not know, this is a closed (see note regarding guest below), confidential therapy support group run by gender specialists Stephen L. Braveman, M.A., L.M.F.T., D.S.T. (Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, Certified Diplomate in Sex Therapy) and Maren Martin, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. (Licensed Clinical Social Worker). The group meets at Stephen's office in Monterey. There is a $25.00 fee per group and a free, one hour intake is required to be a regular part of this group. There are currently a couple openings for new members available.
- GUESTS IN THE TRANS COMMUNITY (NO PROVIDERS PLEASE UNLESS YOU ARE ALSO TRANS), WHO ARE NOT PART OF THIS GROUP, ARE WELCOME ON SPECIAL OCCASIONS, SUCH AS THE ONE COMING UP IN FEBRUARY. HOWEVER, THIS IS BY RESERVATION ONLY. SORRY, NO DROP-INS ARE ALLOWED.
- Call or write Stephen at the number/e-mail address below if you are interested in joining the group, being a guest at a special meeting and/or both.
- 2) If you are interested in helping get a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender center started here in Monterey, then be sure to attend this meeting on February 8th... This special event below is on the same day we are having our next, very special, group meeting. I've spoken with Wayne and he assured me you can head right over to MCAP for lunch as soon as our group meeting is over (or go directly there if you are NOT attending our special group meeting), have a free lunch and participate in this event!
Stephen L. Braveman, M.A., L.M.F.T., D.S.T. stephen@bravemantherapy.com Top
GENERAL INFORMATION[4a]NEW ZEALAND --Police to look at others who helped fugitive Top New Zealand Herald - Latest News http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=3052193&thesection=news&thesubsection=general From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. 20.01.2003 Police who hunted murder accused Joe "Bucket" Coleman for three weeks, have now turned their attention to others who may have helped him elude capture. Coleman, 39, was arrested in south Auckland five days ago and charged with the murder of south Auckland transvestite George "Georgie Girl" Matehaere, 34, who died in hospital six days after a beating with a baseball bat in Otahuhu. He appeared in the Manukau District Court on Thursday. Coleman's de facto partner Diane Henare-Wynyard, 39, also appeared in the Manukau District Court last week on a charge of helping Coleman avoid arrest. However, today police said they were looking at others who may have helped Coleman elude police in Auckland and Northland for three weeks and if they could find the evidence, more charges would be laid. A $20,000 reward was unlikely to be paid out after police said they found the fugitive as a result of information gathered from several sources. Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Hallett said today the inquiry team would spend the next two or three weeks deciding if more people would be charged. "I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of others (charged) we know helped him. "He was moving every two or three days and he wasn't moving to empty houses." Mr Hallett said other had provided Coleman with food, beds and money for the three weeks he eluded police. He said Coleman had put others, including his family and friends at risk by fleeing when police said they wanted to talk to him about George Matehaere's death. Coleman was remanded to appear in court again at the end of this month and Henare-Wynyard was due to appear again on Friday - NZPA ©Copyright 2003, New Zealand Herald Top
[4b]New Zealand News - NZ - Murder case reward unlikely Top http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3051798&thesection=news&thesubsection=general From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. 17.01.2003 By SCOTT MacLEOD Police say they are unlikely to pay a $20,000 reward offered for the capture of a man charged with murdering Otahuhu transvestite George "Georgie Girl" Matehaere. Joseph Tua "Bucket" Coleman, an unemployed 39-year-old Black Power gang member, was arrested on Wednesday after a three-week police hunt in Auckland and Northland. Coleman appeared in the Manukau District Court yesterday charged with murder. Also appearing was Diane Mihiora Henare-Wynyard, 39, on a charge of helping Coleman to avoid arrest. Police posted a $20,000 reward, but yesterday said there were no plans to pay out because Coleman's location was worked out using too many sources. Detective Senior Sergeant Neil Hallett said Coleman was arrested as a result of information from several members of the public and warrants executed during the manhunt. Mr Matehaere died in the critical care unit of Auckland Hospital six days after he had been severely beaten with a softball bat in an Otahuhu state-housing block. The victim, who preferred to be known as a woman and called Georgie or Georgina, managed to get his 100kg, 180cm frame to hospital after the beating. He was discharged but returned to Auckland Hospital's critical care unit, where he died. Coleman was remanded in custody without plea until January 30. Henare-Wynyard was remanded in custody until next Friday for a bail hearing. ©Copyright 2003, New Zealand Herald Top
[5]UK: Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary gender program endangered Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. BBC NEWS | England | Sex change operations end http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2675963.stm Monday, 20 January, 2003, 10:22 GMT Sex change operations end Medical treatment for transsexuals is under threat because of the retirement of a specialist psychiatrist at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary. Newcastle Primary Care Trust is unable to find extra funding to cover for some of the work carried out by Dr Desmond Dunlevy who has now retired. Now those who have already started surgery will have it continued, but no new patients will be taken on. Transsexual Andrea Marshall is half way through treatment, and said: "It will have a devastating effect. 'Corrective surgery' "Although I am living full-time as a woman I will not be accepted in society until I have had corrective surgery. "The funding was there for the consultant to carry on for another year for two days a week. "Suddenly it has all fallen through, been taken away." 'Collective decision' Dr Dunlevy had intended to work two days a week into his retirement. Bob Smith, chief executive of the Newcastle Primary Care Trust, for whom Dr Dunlevy worked, said they were unable to find extra funding to cover some of his specialised work. Mr Smith said: "The decisions have not just been taken by the Newcastle Primary Care Trust, but have been taken collectively by a number of primary care organisations." WATCH/LISTEN ON THIS STORY Andrea Marshall, transsexual "This will have a devastating effect" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2675963.stm See also: 13 Dec 02 | UK Transsexuals allowed to marry http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2572513.stm 04 Dec 02 | England Police appeal over transsexual case http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2543359.stm 08 Oct 02 | England Sex-change woman sues police http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2310583.stm Internet links: Transsexual Community News http://www.tv-ts.co.uk/support.shtml Newcastle Primary Care Trust http://www.newcastlepct.nhs.uk/ The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites -- © MMIII Top
[6]USA: Attorney honored for two LGBT name-change cases Top From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: Gay Peoples Chronicle (GLBT weekly, Ohio) Author: Anthony Glassman tinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/4l7p URL: http://www.gaypeopleschronicle.com/stories03/03jan17.htm#story4 Date: Jan 17 - 23, 2003 Location: OH,US Item: News Title: Attorney honored for two LGBT name-change cases Cincinnati--Scott E. Knox, who has built a successful practice serving the needs of the LGBT community in southwest Ohio, was named as one of Ohio Lawyers Weekly's Attorneys of the Year for 2002. The journal honored the openly gay Cincinnati attorney for two pro bono cases in which LGBT people were denied routine name changes. The first case involved Belinda and Jennifer Rylen, formerly Priddy and Bicknell respectively. The two women, one of whom was pregnant by artificial insemination, wanted to share a name created by fusing letters of their two names together. The Butler County magistrate who originally heard the case, Charles L. Pater, cited "natural law" and "divine edict" in denying the name change. Ohio law, however, says that name changes can be made for any reason as long as fraud is not the intent. Knox fought the case to the Ohio Supreme Court, which ruled 6-1 on July 31 that the women could share a common last name. Knox also won an Ohio Supreme Court case for a Butler County transgendered woman who wanted to change her name from a man's to a woman's. Magistrate Pater again denied the name change, citing "divine edict," meaning "against God's law." Ohio Lawyer's Weekly also noted his participation in several LGBT and AIDS organizations, including AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati. Knox was one of the major sponsors of AVOC's Red Ribbon Walk, and staff members at the organization call him a crusader. "That totally blew me away," said Knox of the honor. "I just felt lucky more than anything that I got matched up with the clients, instead of them going to someone who'd say, `Sure, I'll take your case for a $10,000 retainer plus expenses.' " "The system's expensive, and that's why the bad guys win so much," he continued. "I had a lot of help from good people, thank God." © 2002 KWIR Publications Top
[7] USA --New York State--Outa' My Clothes Closet! Trans teen claims "completely essential" victory over city child services dress code Top Source: Gay City News (GLBT weekly, New York City) Author: Duncan Osborne http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn203/outamyclothes.html Date: Jan 17, 2003 <<photo description: young woman with sober expression, wearing various hues of green and blue, hair is totally covered with swathed scarf.>> A 17-year-old transgendered woman won the right to dress in female clothing while a resident in foster care facilities run by the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) after she sued the city agency for discrimination last year. "It's completely essential," said Mariah Lopez, the woman, referring to her female attire. "You cannot transition without full expression of yourself." She has been diagnosed with gender identity disorder (GID) and is currently on hormone replacement therapy. Lopez hopes to complete her transition to female by 2004. Dressing in the correct attire is very much a part of that process. Lopez first entered the foster care system at nine after her grandmother, her primary care giver, passed away. She has been in and out of various group homes since then including two that serve gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered kids. Most recently Lopez was a resident in the Brooklyn-based Atlantic Transitional Foster Facility, an ACS unit. Staff there limited her ability to wear clothes fully appropriate for her to times when she was about to leave the all-male facility. She was allowed to wear "scarves, nails, brassieres, and enhancers" in the facility at any time. Those exceptions ultimately undercut arguments in court that wearing female attire was disruptive. Lopez also charged that she was abused by staff. "I was told that I was sick by a supervisor," she said. "There was a point where they would intentionally use wrong pronouns or call me by my wrong name." Lopez sued ACS in 2002 with the assistance of Dean Spade, a transgendered attorney and the founder of the Sylvia Rivera Legal Resource Program at the Urban Justice Center, and Debevoise and Plimpton, a law firm. "What ACS was asking Mariah to do in terms of wearing male clothing was contravening what is best for her health and well being as a transgendered person," Spade said. "Forcing transgendered people to occupy a gender role that doesn't comport with their internal identity is bad for their health." In the suit, Lopez asserted that ACS was discriminating against her based on disabilityˆˆa GID diagnosis can be construed as disablingˆˆ and on sex. She also charged that ACS was violating her First Amendment rights of expression under the U.S. Constitution. ACS countered that it was unaware that Lopez had received the GID diagnosis, that it had "provided a limited accommodation" by allowing her to wear "scarves, nails, brassieres, and enhancers," and that the agency had previously placed Lopez in the two homes for queer youth where she could dress as she wished, but "she was ejected from these facilities because of her own misconduct." Lopez has been involved in violent incidents and she has twice been in juvenile detention. The judge in the case found the ACS arguments unpersuasive. On January 7, Louise Gruner Gans, a state Supreme Court judge, ruled that Lopez had been subject to discrimination based on disability. "The court finds that [ACS has] refused to accommodate reasonably [Lopez's] GID in violation of the New York State Human Rights Law," Gans wrote. "[Lopez] is therefore entitled to relief in the form of an exception from [ACS'] dress policy to the extent that it bars her from wearing skirts and dresses at the Atlantic Transitional congregate foster care facility." Gans did not comment on the other claims raised by Lopez because the disability claim was sufficient to find in her favor. "It's not a class action, but it is a landmark decision," Spade said. "I think it has a huge impact... Basically what this decision is saying is you can't discriminate based on transgender identity." Lopez was recently placed in a home in the South Bronx, but she moved in with friends from the transgendered community after she was "jumped" while traveling to the facility. Interviewed at the offices of People of Color in Crisis, an AIDS services group in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where she works, Lopez said that she had often been placed in unsafe environments. "ACS would constantly, constantly put me in these dangerous group homes where instead of focusing on myself I had to focus on staying safe," she said. Spade asserted that Lopez's experience in the foster care system was not unique. "We see a lot of transgendered youth who get put in a place where they can't survive," Spade said. "They get abused by staff or residents... There is a lack of safe placements, a severe lack, I would call it a crisis." Reached for comment on January 15, an ACS spokesperson said the agency was still looking at the decision. "Currently we are reviewing the decision and we are speaking with the city's attorney to determine an appropriate plan in response to the judge's decision," said MacLean Guthrie. All rights reserved. Gay City News and GayCityNews.com are registered trademarks of Community Media, LLC Top
[8]USA: Trans activism gaining traction despite setbacks;2002 saw the greatest gains ever for the transgender community, though violence again took its toll Top Source: Bay Windows (GLBT weekly, Boston) Author: Laura Kiritsy http://www.baywindows.com/news/346319.html Date: Jan 16, 2003 Media Credit: Marilyn Humphries <<photo caption>> Gunner Scott of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition Locally and nationally, the movement for transgender equality gained unprecedented momentum in 2002. However, there were setbacks legislatively and in the courts, as well as personal tragedy in the form of several shocking incidents of anti-transgender violence. "It's a year we can look back at with mixed feelings," said Robyn Walters, secretary of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC). "We did make gains, [but] there were losses." On the local level, activists hailed the enactment of the "Ordinance regarding discrimination based on gender identity or expression" passed by the Boston City Council and signed by Mayor Thomas Menino last October. Sponsored by City Councilor Chuck Turner, the ordinance added gender identity and expression to the city's nondiscrimination laws. Cambridge, which passed a similar ordinance in 1997, is the only other city in Massachusetts to explicitly include transgendered people in its nondiscrimination statute. Gunner Scott of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, the organization that spearheaded the ordinance, called it the most significant gain for the local transgendered community in 2002. "It sent an important signal throughout the region about non- discrimination ordinances -- for everyone," agreed Jennifer Levi, staff attorney at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD). October brought another victory, when the Cambridge Women's Center's board of trustees voted to change to the center's access policy, capping a five-year struggle to create a more transgender-inclusive space. Previously, the 32 year-old center welcomed only biological and post-operative transsexual women. With the revised policy, "Now anyone who lives full-time as a woman and identifies as a woman is welcome," said Scott. The Massachusetts Superior Court also weighed in on anti-transgender discrimination, handing down a positive decision in the case of a transgendered woman who was fired from her job. "In a very thoughtful decision by Judge Linda Giles, she said that coverage of the state [anti-discrimination] law extends to transgendered people," Levi explained. The case involved Allison Lie, born Robert Lie, an employee at Cambridge's Sky Publishing since 1994. Formally diagnosed with gender dysphoria, Lie began treatment to change her gender in 1998, including hormone treatments, psychotherapy and dressing as a woman. Sky management demanded she wear male attire at work, prompting Lie to file complaints with the Cambridge Human Rights Commission and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) alleging discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, sexual preference, perceived sexual preference, disability, and perceived disability. Shortly afterward she was fired. Lie withdrew those complaints but filed suit in Superior Court in July 2001. In moving to have the case dismissed, Sky argued in part that discrimination against a transgendered person does not violate state law against discrimination based on sex, sexual preference or disability. While Giles rejected Lie's sexual orientation discrimination claim, she refused to dismiss the case, holding that anti-transgender discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. She also ruled that gender dsyphoria is a diagnosable psychiatric condition which could possibly qualify as a disability under state law. Additionally, she upheld Lie's claim of retaliation. Boston's anti-discrimination ordinance reflects a national trend among city and county governments. A total of 14 localities, including Chicago, Ill.; Dallas, Texas and New York City adopted transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination laws in 2002, a record number for a one-year period. Now, more than 50 cities or counties and two states -- Minnesota and Rhode Island -- explicitly protect transgendered people in the areas of credit, employment, housing and public accommodations. Activists attribute the number of new laws to sustained education efforts in the political realm about transgender issues. "I firmly believe that transgender-inclusive laws are in the mainstream now," said Lisa Mottet, legislative lawyer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's (NGLTF) Transgender Civil Rights Project. When legislators believe and understand that discrimination against gays and lesbians is wrong, she said, "they also understand that it's wrong for transgendered people as well." Pennsylvania took the lead in enacting protections for transgendered individuals. Four localities -- Allentown, Erie County, New Hope and Philadelphia -- enacted transgender-inclusive non-discrimination laws. Former Governor Mark Schweiker in December signed an expanded hate crimes bill that included sexual orientation and gender identity. Mottet noted the hate crimes bill was passed by a Republican- controlled state Legislature and signed into law by a Republican governor. "If that doesn't show people what's possible with regard to transgender-inclusive laws, I don't know what will," she stated. The state of New Jersey also stepped up to the plate, enacting a comprehensive Safe Schools law that explicitly protects students from harassment and discrimination based on gender identity and expression. The state Legislature voted unanimously to pass the measure. Though the advances were numerous, the transgendered community also suffered setbacks in 2002. Efforts to add gender identity and expression to nondiscrimination ordinances in St. Petersburg, Fla.; Topeka, Kan.; and Eugene, Ore. failed. In a high-profile controversy pitting transgender activists and their allies against the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), New York's largest gay lobbying organization, state legislators in December passed a bill that protects gays, lesbians and bisexuals from discrimination but excludes transgendered individuals. ESPA came under fire for refusing to make the bill, known as the Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act [SONDA], more inclusive for fear that it wouldn't pass. There also remains the fact that proposed federal legislation, particularly the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), which would protect gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination, does not include transgendered people. While NTAC's Walters called ENDA's failure to pass last year a blow to the transgendered community, she noted, "Even if it had it was not transgender inclusive." Walters and Mottet both expressed optimism that the bill would be amended for the upcoming legislative session. "There have been assurances that the redrafting of this legislation would include the transgendered," said Walters. "We stand ready to help with that effort." Other blows came in the form of unfavorable court decisions, including a September ruling ruling in the case of Peter Oiler v. Winn-Dixie Lousisiana, Inc. Oiler, a 21-year employee of the supermarket chain, was fired after his superiors learned that he cross-dressed off the job, though Winn-Dixie never claimed his cross- dressing interfered with his job performance. Represented by the ACLU, Oiler filed a lawsuit charging that Winn-Dixie violated state and federal sex discrimination laws. The ACLU argued that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled nearly 15 years ago that laws against sex discrimination bar employers from firing a person who doesn't conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity. The District Court judge, however, tossed out Oiler's suit on the grounds that the federal ban on sex discrimination does not apply to transgendered people. In a case emblematic of what GLAD's Levi said will be a signficant area of work for transgender activists, the Kansas Supreme Court invalidated the marriage of J'Noel Gardiner, a transsexual woman, and her husband Marshall. Gardiner underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1994 while living in Wisconsin and was allowed under state law to change all of her identification, including her birth certificate, to reflect her new gender. In 1998 she married Marshall, who was aware of her sex reassignment, in Kansas, where amended birth certificates aren't recognized. The Kansas Supreme Court refused to recognize Gardiner as a woman, basing its decision on definitions of male and female found in a 1970 edition of Webster's dictionary. Her marriage was then invalidated based on Kansas' ban on same-sex marriage. The U.S. Supreme Court in October refused to hear the case, leaving Gardiner no further legal recourse. Hate crimes continued to plague the transgendered community in 2002, most notably the widely publicized October murder of Gwen Araujo, a 17 year-old Californian who was brutally killed at a party after her four assailants learned she was a biological male. In August, Ukea Davis, 18 and Stephanie Thomas, 19, both transgendered, were killed in a hail of bullets as they sat in a parked car in Washington, D.C. Though tragic, such high-profile murders, ironically, put the media spotlight on transgender lives, ultimately serving to advance the cause of transgender civil rights. But activists attribute much of the progress of this year to better organization within the transgender community, educational outreach to lawmakers and perhaps most importantly, more attention from the gay, lesbian and bisexual community. "There's been both an acceptance of transgendered people within the GLB movement, but also an enthusiasm and I think that's positive," said Levi. In an effort to capitalize on the enthusiasam, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), in conjunction with several GLBT organizations will hold an open town meeting on gender identity and the political and social challenges that lie ahead Jan. 21. The meeting will be moderated by Bay Windows Editor Andrew Rapp and features panelists Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality, Levi, Diego Sanchez of JRI's TransHealth and Education Program, the MTPC's Scott, HRC's David Smith and Grace Sterling Stowell, executive director of the Boston Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Youth (BAGLY). Activists also plan to build on 2002's momentum, mainly by concentrating on continued efforts to pass nondiscrimination protections at the local level. Not surprisingly, there have already been results in 2003: The Key West, Fla. City Commission voted Jan. 7 to amend its local nondiscrimination law to include transgender people. On the same day, Springfield, Ill. added sexual orientation and gender identity and expression to its nondiscrimination ordinance. Not surprisingly, a Western Mass. chapter of MTPC recently formed in Amherst with the goal of passing a nondiscrimination ordinance similar to Boston's. Closer to home, MTPC members are launching a public education effort on the Boston ordinance. "We need to get the word out about it," said Scott. Scott is enthused about the gains of 2002 but says there is more work to be done. "I think this has been an exciting year for the local trans community in that there has been a tremendous movement forward in the past year," he said. ...It's just the beginning but it's been an exciting beginning." Laura Kiritsy is the Associate Editor at Bay Windows. Her e-mail address is lkiritsy@baywindows.com. Comments, criticism or praise regarding this article or writer -- or just about any other subject of interest to the lesbian and gay community -- are always welcome. Send comments for publication to letters@baywindows.com. Send comments not for publication to news@baywindows.com. © 2002 Bay Windows - 631 Tremont Street - Boston, MA 02118 Top
[9]VATICAN CITY--Vatican says 'sex-change' operation does not change person's gender Top Source: Catholic News Service Author: John Norton Via: TGV_Advocacy mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tgv_advocacy Date: Jan. 14, 2003 VATICAN-TRANSSEXUALS Jan-14-2003 (710 words) xxxi Vatican says 'sex-change' operation does not change person's gender By John Norton Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After years of study, the Vatican's doctrinal congregation has sent church leaders a confidential document concluding that "sex-change" procedures do not change a person's gender in the eyes of the church. Consequently, the document instructs bishops never to alter the sex listed in parish baptismal records and says Catholics who have undergone "sex-change" procedures are not eligible to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life, according to a source familiar with the text. The document was completed in 2000 and sent "sub secretum" (under secrecy) to the papal representatives in each country to provide guidance on a case-by-case basis to bishops. But when it became clear that many bishops were still unaware of its existence, in 2002 the congregation sent it to the presidents of bishops' conferences as well. "The key point is that the (transsexual) surgical operation is so superficial and external that it does not change the personality. If the person was male, he remains male. If she was female, she remains female," said the source. Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., president of the U.S. bishops' conference, sent a brief letter to U.S. bishops in October informing them of the Vatican document and highlighting its instruction not to alter parish baptismal records, except to make a notation in the margin when deemed necessary. "The altered condition of a member of the faithful under civil law does not change one's canonical condition, which is male or female as determined at the moment of birth," Bishop Gregory wrote. The Vatican text defines transsexualism as a psychic disorder of those whose genetic makeup and physical characteristics are unambiguously of one sex but who feel that they belong to the opposite sex. In some cases, the urge is so strong that the person undergoes a "sex-change" operation to acquire the opposite sex's external sexual organs. The new organs have no reproductive function. The document's conclusions close one area of controversial speculation that arose in Italy in the late 1980s when a priest publicly announced he had undergone a "sex-change" operation. Given church teaching that only males can be validly ordained priests, the question posed in newspapers at the time was whether a priest who undergoes a "sex-change" operation remains a priest -- the answer is "yes" -- and whether a woman who undergoes the procedure can be ordained -- "no." A Vatican source said the text was prepared largely by Jesuit Father Urbano Navarrete, now a retired canon law professor at Rome's Gregorian University. In 1997, Father Navarrete wrote an article on transsexualism in an authoritative canon law journal and has been consulted by the doctrinal congregation on specific cases involving transsexualism and hermaphroditism. The priest, citing confidentiality rules, declined to speak on the record to Catholic News Service for this story. The Vatican document's specific points include: -- An analysis of the moral licitness of "sex-change" operations. It concludes that the procedure could be morally acceptable in certain extreme cases if a medical probability exists that it will "cure" the patient's internal turmoil. But a source familiar with the document said recent medical evidence suggested that in a majority of cases the procedure increases the likelihood of depression and psychic disturbance. -- A provision giving religious superiors administrative authority to expel a member of the community who has undergone the procedure. In most cases of expulsion from religious life, the superior must conduct a trial. -- A recommendation of psychiatric treatment and spiritual counseling for transsexual priests. It suggests they can continue to exercise their ministry privately if it does not cause scandal. -- A conclusion that those who undergo sex-change operations are unsuitable candidates for priesthood and religious life because of mental instability. -- A conclusion that people who have undergone a sex-change operation cannot enter into a valid marriage, either because they would be marrying someone of the same sex in the eyes of the church or because their mental state casts doubt on their ability to make and uphold their marriage vows. -- An affirmation of the validity of marriages in which one partner later undergoes the procedure, unless a church tribunal determines that a transsexual disposition predated the wedding ceremony. END 01/14/2003 2:33 PM ET Copyright (c) 2003 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Top
[10]FRANCE: French working girls lose their privileged role Top Guardian Unlimited Observer | Focus | French ... http://observer.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,877667,00.html Paris's sex trade is threatened by a new conservatism and a wave of East European prostitutes. Hannah Godfrey talks to the streetwalkers fighting to save their livelihoods Sunday January 19, 2003 The Observer Casual visitors to the Bois de Boulogne at night find they have wandered into a surreal enchanted wood. Among the trees gleam exposed flesh, bottoms and breasts are displayed in bizarre leather arrangements, thighs spring from high boots - here almost all the prostitutes are men. Some have been operated on but most are pumped full of hormones and silicone. Behind this carnivalesque scene is a rigid organisation. Each section of each alley relates to a geographical area - Colombian, Brazilian, Peruvian, North African, Spanish, and so on. On a secluded street in another part of town are transvestites, mainly from Algiers. Prostitution in Paris is a complex industry, with tight internal regulation. Pimps are behind most of what goes on along the Maraichaux - a ring road now superseded by the périphérique - which is worked by girls from Africa and Eastern Europe. But many of Paris's prostitutes work for themselves. However, as of next week, every person who, 'by any method, even passive, by their way or dressing or their attitude, publicly solicits another individual to have sexual relations with them in exchange for money', will be liable for a two-month prison sentence and a fine of £2,500. In four lines of legislation, which make no distinction between prostitutes who are overtly exploited and 'traditional' sex workers who work independently, the face of Paris is set to dramatically change. It is part of a tough new crime Bill being introduced by Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, cracking down not only on prostitutes but also beggars, gypsies and young boys who hang around the stairwells of residential buildings. The drastic measures are a response to the fear of crime that helped to sweep a right-wing government to power last year. Prostitutes are among those singled out, because the influx of girls from Eastern Europe and Africa working the streets has anti-social consequences. Most traditional prostitutes respect a self-imposed code of conduct, which includes not servicing their clients in residential areas or leaving condoms in the street. But young immigrant girls, under pressure from their pimps to turn as many tricks as is possible, often do not observe these courtesies. There is a measure of resentment towards the filles de l'est, who, it is felt, are giving the profession a bad name. Complaints from residents have led to repressive measures, first by a number of mayors, now by central government. The streetwalkers believe the authorities should focus on eradicating mafia networks that use girls as little more than slaves, rather than criminalising women who have chosen to make their living selling sex. For most prostitutes, Sarkozy's bill seems a throwback to the bad old days. Brothels, where girls had little freedom and were pitifully exploited, were outlawed at the end of the Second World War and, following a campaign by streetwalkers and feminists, there was a crackdown on pimps in the mid-1970s. This legislation led to a rise in the number of girls working for themselves, bringing them out of the underworld. In 1994 the law under which a man living with a prostitute risked being imprisoned for living off the proceeds of prostitution, even if he could give proof of his earnings, was repealed, opening the way for women working as prostitutes to have family lives. Many have carved out an almost bourgeois existence, with families and mortgages, by achieving the sought-after status of self-employment. But the new threat to their livelihoods has re-awakened political activism. France Prostitution was founded last August in response to rumours of the forthcoming Bill. It now has 1,000 members. The principal is that prostitutes are citizens with rights and duties. Its spokeswoman Claudia, a transsexual, believes that women who choose prostitution gain a dignity they lacked in an unloving or abusive marriage, or in a relationship where, on a tacit basis, financial support was exchanged for sex. France Prostitution does not recognise the girls from Eastern Europe as prostitutes but as victims, because they have been coerced into the profession. The president of France Prostitution is Michelle, 58, who has witnessed the evolution of prostitution from a situation in which it was synonymous with organised crime, to the emancipation of working girls. Seeing that the pendulum is about to swing back, she has become a campaigner: 'Not for myself, I'm on the way out anyway, but for the younger girls.' Michelle works in the Bois de Boulogne - a place for female prostitutes in daylight. She has always worked for herself. Like most women who work here or in the Bois de Vincennes, on the other side of town, she takes her clients to a van and charges the going rate: £13 for fellatio and £25 for sexual intercourse. She said prostitutes are more often the targets than the perpetrators of crime. 'Because we no longer have pimps, we are easy targets for delinquents who want to steal our money. The transvestites, working at night, are men; they know how to fight.' She is shocked that prostitutes are again going to find themselves criminalised - the more they are forced to work out of view, the more they are in need of the protection pimps can offer - and is clear about her own motivation: 'It was something I could do, no woman is born to be a prostitute. It's a way to get by. My parents owned a brasserie, and I saw how they slaved away from dawn till dusk. I didn't want to do that.' Michelle frequently ran away from her restrictive home life when, finding herself on the streets, she would get herself taken out to dinner by men and sleep with them in return. Her horrified parents sent her to a school for delinquents whereshe met young girls who were working as prostitutes. 'They taught me the ropes, and having met them I no longer felt that this was something that only other people did.' At 16 she decided to be a prostitute. 'I could take Pierre's money and spend it with Paul,' she says. 'I had fun.' She became pregnant, by a mobster who was shot dead before the baby was born. Her son discovered what she did for a living at nine and asked her: 'Do you kiss them?' The answer was no. 'Well, that's all right then,' he said. Now a 35-year-old actor, he still lives with her. 'He's come out of all this very well.' After 40 years as a prostitute, early years of back-street abortions, nights in 'filthy, overcrowded police cells' and physical attacks Michelle has no regrets but fears the end of the tolerance in society which the profession has attained. Over the years, as friends broke away from the grip of pimps, she noticed that with independence has come a new competitive spirit. 'For example, this afternoon, in the Bois, the police came and told me I would no longer be allowed to work on Wednesdays or weekends, when children are around, so I asked some women who work another section if I could park my van on their patch. When they saw that I'd had a couple of clients one of them said, "Are you sure you're not going to be here next week?" They let me stay because, at my age, I don't get many clients and because they've known me for 20 years, but it was touch and go.' France Prostitution wants prostitutes to receive the same protection from social security as everyone else. Michelle pays tax, but has only the basic state pension (about £300 a month) to fall back on, so she continues working, despite a major cancer operation. 'Now I'm pimped by my bills,' she laughs. -- Special report: France http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/0,11882,681877,00.html -- World news guide: France http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldnewsguide/europe/page/0,11376,622970,00.html -- Media: Le Monde http://www.lemonde.fr/ Le Figaro http://www.lefigaro.fr/ Libération http://www.libe.com/ Les Echos http://www.lesechos.fr/ L'Equipe http://www.lequipe.fr/ -- Government sites: The presidency http://www.elysee.fr/ Prime minister's office http://www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr/ The government http://www.internet.gouv.fr/francais/index.html -- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 Top
[11]USA: Florida--The Lee County jail wasn't built with Frank Hague in mind Top heraldtribune.com: Southwest Florida's Inform... http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Site=SH&Date=20030119&Cat egory=NEWS&ArtNo=301190536&Ref=AR&Profile=1060 Fraud, divorce, sex change are factors in Tuesday trial By JAMIE MANFUSO jamie.manfuso@heraldtribune.com When he was arrested in late March, the former builder from Boca Grande was taking hormones in preparation for a sex-change operation. Investigators said Hague overcharged a client nearly $300,000 while overseeing construction of a 7,000-square- foot house on Gasparilla Island. And when he learned he was being investigated, they said, he made plans to leave the country and have his surgeries in Thailand. But he was arrested before he could leave the country. A judge deemed Hague a flight risk and set his bail at $1 million. Now Hague, 56, who also uses the name Jennifer Patterson, is in the jail's medical ward. Transsexuals are typically kept in isolation while at the jail, said Lee County sheriff's spokesman Deputy Larry King. Hague's trial on communications fraud charges is scheduled to begin Tuesday in Fort Myers. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison, and if it's proven that he bilked anyone, he could be forced to pay them back. The charges stem from Hague's billing practices on a home he built for Richard A. Brown of Commerce, Ga. Hague was supposed to collect a $35,000 fee to oversee construction, and then pass along the costs of construction directly to Brown, according to court papers. But the Florida Department of Law Enforcement claims that Hague overcharged Brown by more than $292,000. On at least 63 invoices, Hague paid either nothing or less than he billed Brown, according to a probable cause affidavit. Some invoices he doctored with correction fluid before sending them to Brown, FDLE claims. There's another story beyond the charging papers. At the time of his arrest, Hague was living in Port Charlotte with Terrye Brown, the estranged wife of Richard Brown. The Browns separated in spring 2001. In January 2002, Terrye Brown went to work for Hague's business, Southcorp Inc. The nature of their relationship is not clear. Not long before his arrest, Hague gave an affidavit in the divorce case between the Browns in Georgia. Michael G. Fink, an attorney for Terrye Brown, said that may have cost Hague. "There were some derogatory statements about Mr. Brown's wife that Mr. Hague admitted hearing from Mr. Brown," Fink said. "Then he (Richard Brown) conducted an investigation." Brown hired a private investigator to look into Hague's billing practices, Fink said. That investigation led to Brown filing a civil suit against Hague on March 27, and to Hague's arrest March 30. "Frank Hague would be a free man today if he had not gotten involved in the Brown divorce," Fink said. Richard Brown has also sued his estranged spouse for abetting Hague in the alleged swindling scheme. Brown claims she was "responsible for receiving and verifying invoices," and knowingly sent false invoices to her husband. Brown gave a deposition in Hague's divorce case, saying that she had practically no role in Hague's billing practices. Hague was also sued in April by Edmund and Carole Pennock, a Massachusetts couple who asked Hague to help them build a house in Boca Grande. The Pennocks claim that Hague billed them at two to three times the actual cost of labor. Their suit claims that Hague embezzled more than $149,000 from them. Richard Brown, Terrye Brown, Hague's attorney and his former wife, Grace Harvey, could not be reached for comment on this story. Punta Gorda attorney David Holmes, who is representing Richard Brown in the lawsuit, declined to comment. Few people in Boca Grande care to discuss Hague, who moved to the island from Pennsylvania a few years ago with his wife, Grace Harvey. The couple had been married for 23 years when she filed for divorce last January. About a week before the arrest, after a domestic incident, Harvey got a restraining order against him. According to Harvey's complaint, Hague got angry at her because she would not sign an affidavit. The complaint did not say what the affidavit concerned. "He is not acting rationally and is taking numerous hormones," she wrote in her complaint. In recent years, Hague had also begun to call himself Jennifer Patterson. The incorporation papers for a handful of businesses under Hague's name list Patterson and Hague, or Patterson only, as corporate officers. But this identity was hidden to some people who knew Hague. "I thought he was an honest guy," said James R. Palamara, a concrete worker from Pinellas County who worked on Hague's house and other houses where Hague had contracts. When Hague was arrested, "it kind of hurt." Palamara said he received a visit from Richard Brown's private investigator, and later from FDLE investigators. Susan DeLosh of Rotonda rented one of her properties to Hague so he could house out-of-town construction workers. She remembered Hague as a nice man who was always excited to share his knowledge about home building. He was supposed to help her build several homes in Rotonda, she said. His arrest shocked her. If Hague was guilty, "I chalked it up to him having to deal with his personal problem," she said. Frank Hague came to Boca Grande in the late 1990s a burly, 250-plus-pound construction worker who liked to wear jeans, work boots and work shirts, according to people who knew him. But in a year's time, he lost 100 pounds or more. Along with the weight loss came other changes. He traded in his boots, jeans and work shirts for silk shirts and pressed slacks. "To me, it appeared like a midlife crisis," DeLosh said. Last modified: January 19. 2003 12:00AM -- © Sarasota Herald-Tribune. All rights reserved. Top
[12]USA California-- Controversial play concerns some parents Top Monterey County Herald | 01/19/2003 | Controv... http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/local/4984108.htm Posted on Sun, Jan. 19, 2003 By ALEX FRIEDRICH afriedrich@montereyherald.com As schools across America perform the play "The Laramie Project" to teach tolerance, some Carmel High School parents are saying it doesn't belong in their children's classrooms. The explicit work, which deals with the 1998 murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard, might be inappropriate for study at Carmel High, they say. Teachers are hoping to introduce the script into classes next semester. No one has publicly opposed the subject matter, but many aren't sure the text deserves classroom study. "I don't see the need," said John Meyer, a Carmel Valley computer consultant. "I am not aware of any problem at Carmel High School of a racial nature or a homophobic nature." Some parents have persuaded the school board to review the play and the tolerance program it's part of. If trustees don't approve the curriculum, Carmel High could drop the text -- or the entire program. A decision could come at a board meeting late next month. "Some believe the issue of homophobia would be better served in the families than in the schools," Principal Karl Pallastrini said. The play, which debuted in 2000 and became an HBO movie last year, focuses on the effect of Shepard's murder on the small city of Laramie, Wyo. On Oct. 6, 1998, Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, met two young Laramie men in a local bar. They beat him unconscious, tied him to a fence on a rural road and left him for dead in near-freezing temperatures. He never regained consciousness and died five days later. Parental concern In Carmel, parental concern over the play has been expressed in 15 or so e-mails to Pallastrini. Some expressed concern over classroom discussions of homophobia and homosexuality, he said. Parents learned about the project when teachers asked for a $2,000 grant from the booster club. Some aren't sure they want to fund such a controversial project. Booster member Jeanne Hale said the play is "very explicit" with "a lot of foul language." Teachers aren't criticizing parents or school authorities, who they say have supported their programs over the years. The play doesn't advocate or even dwell on Shepard's sexual orientation, they say, but focuses on the effect his death had on the community. And study of the play, they say, would take up only a fraction of class time. "I hope parents read the text," said Therese Strutner, a 45-year-old history teacher who helped start the tolerance project. The play has been scheduled for performance at more than 400 high schools and colleges across the nation this school year, according to press reports. Teaching guides and related material are available, but it's unclear how many teachers are using it in the classroom. When Carmel High teachers discussed programs for tolerance and character building with a school accreditation team two years ago, they thought local students could learn from the Shepard case. After all, many students on campus still use the term "gay" for anything they dislike. "I can't walk down the hall without hearing 'fag' five times a day," said Carly Costanza, co-president of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, which was formed this school year. "People don't realize what they do is intolerant... and that (such words) can be hurtful to others," said Carly Dahl, the other co-president. Effect of intolerance Intolerance of homosexuality or transgender people has assumed deadly proportions in other schools. Last fall, just as students at Alameda County's Newark Memorial High School were preparing to perform "The Laramie Project," transgender teen Eddie "Gwen" Araujo was strangled and beaten to death. Four former Newark Memorial students had attacked him at a party Oct. 3 after partygoers learned "Gwen" was male. Similar killings of transgender youths occurred in 1999 in San Jose, when 19-year-old Alina Marie Barragan, a biological male who dressed as a woman, was murdered, and last year in Cortez, Colo. The most famous was the story of Brandon Teena, a 21-year-old Nebraska woman slain because she identified herself as a man. That story became the movie "Boys Don't Cry," for which Hilary Swank won an Oscar. Cases such as those have helped prompt programs like Carmel High's Tenth Grade Tolerance Project. It began this year, and its activities include a reading and viewing of "The Laramie Project." In it, sophomores examine intolerance in history and modern society through activities in English and history classes. So far, they have studied historical cases of intolerance, and have made a "personal integrity" Web page focusing on figures who fought intolerance. This spring, they'll visit the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. By the end of the year, students will have spent 22 classroom hours during the school year on tolerance material -- a small portion of it discussing the play. Subject for English class "The Laramie Project" was supposed to be the subject in this spring's English class, when students studied the impact of intolerance on communities. They were to read the 112-page text and discuss it, and watch the HBO movie on the bus ride back from the Tolerance Center. In history class, meanwhile, students were to analyze the 1992 Los Angeles riots. "World history is so abstract when you're 15 years old," said history teacher Strutner. Reading a text about a recent event "makes so much more of an impact." The play isn't completely new to the school. Last year one history teacher gave students extra credit for attending a professional performance of the play in Carmel Valley. "It was really sad, because it showed you how people who aren't used to seeing homosexuality... overreact with violence," said Brittany Downing, a 17-year-old senior who attended a showing. Use of class time Extra credit is fine, some parents say. But taking class time for the play is another. Meyer, 50, the computer consultant, said teaching values is the work of parents -- not the school. Class time should instead be used for traditional subjects, he said. The problem, he said, lies with the media. "We take isolated incidents... like something that happened in Laramie and (Newark) and the dragging death (of Texas resident James Byrd in 1998) and use a broad brush to say that everybody is racist or homophobic," he said. "We aren't. I don't think we need to overreact and take away from the curriculum." Booster President Tyerin Dennis said teachers "were asking for quite a bit of money for something that was controversial and not approved by our board. It didn't seem like a wise expenditure." She said she has no problem with the play. And if the board endorses the project, the club will consider the funding request. So far, the trustees haven't indicated what they'll decide when they discuss the topic at a meeting sometime next month. District board President Amy Funt said she hasn't read or seen the whole play, so she declined to comment. Gay-Straight Alliance leaders Costanza and Dahl, who plan to attend the meeting, hope Funt and the other trustees endorse tolerance training. "It is something that should be taught at home, but unfortunately it is not," she said. "If it were, I wouldn't walk down the hall every day and hear people call each other 'fag.'" Alex Friedrich can be reached at 648-1172. Top
[13] USA Pennsylvania--Cops seeking info in woman's death Transgender person found on Walnut St. Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Philadelphia Daily News | 01/15/2003 | Cops s... http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/4950036.htm Posted on Wed, Jan. 15, 2003 By CATHERINE LUCEY luceyc@phillynews.com It has been several weeks since Nizah Morris, a transgender person, was found on a Center City street with a fatal head injury. Police say they are looking for more information on her death - trying to determine if it was an accident or if she was murdered. Morris, 47, suffered the injury on Walnut Street near 16th on Dec. 22 at about 3:30 a.m., police said. Earlier that night, cops found her in front of a bar on Juniper Street near 13th. She had been drinking heavily and had fallen asleep in the street, police said. Police offered to drive to her home in West Philadelphia, but she asked to be let out on Walnut Street near 15th at about 3:25 a.m. A few minutes later, passers-by saw her lying in the street a block away. She was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and died on Christmas Eve. The medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide, but police said they were awaiting results of further medical tests before they decide the cause. Her family yesterday asked anyone who might know what happened to Morris that night to come forward. "You may have seen something that could help the police," said Morris' mother, Roslyn Wilkins, tearfully. Morris was a transgender person, meaning that while she was born male - her legal name was Robert Morris - she was living as a woman, and had done so for more than 20 years. Nizah was the name she had used for decades, her sister, Andrea Dhunna, said. A popular member of the transgender community, Morris worked at a day-care center run by her mother, and lip-synced and danced at a nightclub on South Street called Bob and Barbara's. "Nizah was loved by everybody who knew her," said Wilkins. Some members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community have said they are concerned about the investigation, worried that they are not getting any answers. But cops said they are continuing their investigation. Top
MEDIA WATCH [14] TURKEY--A city comes out Istanbul is the hub of gay life in Turkey, a Muslim nation with a tolerance of homosexuals. St. Petersburg Times. Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Floridian: A city comes out http://www.sptimes.com/2003/01/17/Floridian/A_city_comes_out.shtml By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN Times Senior Correspondent January 17, 2003 ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Saturday night slides into Sunday morning as the crowd at Hengame, a popular club, gyrates to the ear-splitting sound of techno and electronic music. The men are generally good-looking; many of the women are eye-poppingly gorgeous. But even in the faint, pulsating light of the strobe, you can see that something is different about the striking figures in sequined bustiers and micro-miniskirts. Most are as tall, if not taller, than the men they are dancing with. They are men, too, or used to be. Hengame is one of several gay clubs in Istanbul where homosexual men, transvestites and transsexuals can mingle without fear of harassment or arrest. It's the kind of place you'd expect to find in New York or Amsterdam, not in a city and country that are 99 percent Muslim. Homosexuality is a crime in most Muslim nations, where penalties range from prison to death. But Turkey has no laws against it, and Istanbul, the largest city, attracts those whose sexual orientation would be considered aberrant elsewhere in the Muslim world. "When you see transvestites on the street, that is something," says Demet Demir, who was born a man 41 years ago but had a sex-change operation in 1996. "That is the first step for freedom in a country." Turkey not only tolerates those with alternative lifestyles, it embraces them. One of its most famous writers, Murathan Mungan, is gay, and one of its most popular singers, Bulent Ersoy, is a transsexual. Another gay singer, Zeki Muren, achieved such legendary status before he died a few years ago that his picture -- bearing an uncanny resemblance to Liberace -- is sometimes displayed alongside that of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey. Nor is it hard to find gay gathering spots. The Internet site of Lambda Istanbul, a gay organization, lists almost 20 gay bars, clubs and discos in the city, in addition to sex shops, "blue movies," cruising areas and bathhouses. Even Time Out, the city guide distributed in luxury hotels, provides a half-page rundown of Istanbul's gay scene, including the most popular item in local sex shops -- a $70 "inflatable transexual doll." Turkey's acceptance of homosexuality is often said to be rooted in the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim dynasty that ruled for more than five centuries. Islam does not specifically prohibit same-sex relations, and Ottoman sultans purportedly took boys along when they went into battle because they didn't want to endanger women. The Ottomans also are credited with transforming bathhouses into social centers, where tellaks -- young boys -- not only washed their male customers but provided other services as well. But don't make too much of the Ottoman influence, says Kucuk Iskender, a gay man and one of Turkey's best-known poets. "The biggest mistake of the West is still seeing us as Ottomans," says Iskender, chain-smoking Winstons as he sits in his apartment beneath posters of Leonardo DiCaprio and the movie Pulp Fiction. "Every civilization comes from an empire in the past; seeing us as Ottomans is like seeing Germans as Nazis. There is not a very clear explanation of homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire, and judging a country's history on rumors is not a very good thing." He offers another reason for Turkey's tolerance of homosexuality: In a still-conservative country such as this, even men who consider themselves straight often go to gays for oral sex or "because for many men in Turkey, it is not easy to have a relationship with a woman." Iskender has written more than 30 books of fiction and poetry, touching on a variety of themes, including homosexuality. "Just as there is homosexuality in life, there is homosexuality in my books," he says. He gets some of his inspiration from observing gays in clubs such as Hengame; otherwise, he prefers to stay home with friends and his calico cat, Zozo. A lifelong resident of Istanbul, Iskender comes from a somewhat unorthodox background; his late father was an artist and a Communist. Iskender, 38, has had a few long-term relationships; he shows photos of a former lover who looks strikingly like Brad Pitt. But he says that gays who grew up in cosmopolitan Istanbul have a tough time forming lasting partnerships with each other because they are too preoccupied with advancing their careers. It is hard, too, he says, to have relationships with gay men who flee the more repressive countryside and arrive in Istanbul with little money or education. "For a metropolitan gay, he wants his books published all over the world, but for others, they want a new T-shirt, a new pair of shoes, $10 in their pocket. There is a clash among us," Iskender says. Gay men from outside Istanbul are also the main perpetrators of violence against other gays, he says: "They aren't afraid to take risks because they don't think they have any future." Iskender says that he was nearly killed a year or so ago when an Ankara man he met tried to strangle him with a chain, then robbed him. Modern Turkey has not always been accepting of gays. In July 1993, authorities banned activities planned for Christopher Street Day, when gays worldwide commemorate the 1969 police raid and ensuing riot at the Stonewall Inn bar in New York's Greenwich Village. Nearly 30 foreign gay and lesbian delegates were forcibly deported from Turkey, and organizers had to cancel workshops on AIDS and other topics. Police acted on the grounds that the events would violate public morals, the vague strictures used to crack down on homosexual activity in lieu of specific laws. The debacle fueled Turkey's gay rights movement and led to the formation of Lambda Istanbul. In addition to maintaining an Internet site and hosting regular get-togethers, it published the first AIDS guide for gays. HIV and AIDS are not major problems in Turkey, but the country's health minister warned that they could be a "serious threat" unless conservative elements become more open to the use of condoms and public discussions of safe sex. Turkey's conservative society has made it especially difficult for one group to win acceptance: transvestites. Because they act and dress as women, Turkish transvestites often have no choice but to go into prostitution because they cannot find jobs. Many used to live and work on Ulker Sokak, a small Istanbul street where they were routinely harassed and beaten by police. Officers even took scissors and cut their hair. Demet Demir worked for 15 years as a prostitute and was arrested more than 300 times, she says. She became active in the Radical Democratic Green Party, which championed sexual rights, and ran unsuccessfully for public office. Now the leading voice of Turkey's transvestite and transsexual community, thought to number around 3,000, Demir says the push for acceptance has been helped by the country's bid to join the European Union. The EU has been critical of Turkey's human rights record. Harassment "never disappeared, but in the last two years, things have gotten very loose, mostly because of Turkey trying to get in the European Union," Demir says. "Now the police are trying to be nice." Growing up in suburban Istanbul, Demir preferred to play with girls instead of boys and around age 19 confirmed what the family suspected: "I said, 'You can send me away, but I'm not going to change.' " Although Demir's mother is a devout Muslim who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, she accepted the news, and the two have remained close. Like many Turkish transvestites beginning the transformation to woman, Demir initially wore heavy makeup and short skirts; tight-fitting pants reveal the outlines of the male sex organ. By 1996 Demir had saved the $5,000 for a sex-change operation, performed at a Turkish hospital by a Turkish doctor. "At the time, it was very easy. You paid the money and you had it," she says. Now, candidates for the operation must get permission from a judge and go through psychological counseling. Less flamboyant these days, Demir dresses casually in faded, snug-fitting jeans and a loose red sweater. Her wavy brown hair skims her shoulders; her skin is smooth. She carries a pink national identity card (men have blue). The only visible clues to her original gender are thick eyebrows and a deep, rich voice. Demir lives in a tiny apartment with five dogs and 10 cats. A year ago she quit prostitution and now does volunteer work with Lambda and other organizations. Money is so tight, she may move back in with her mother. Her life has not been easy, but "I am happy with my identity. I'm proud of it. I don't think a heterosexual could stand so much pressure and survive." -- © Copyright St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved. Top
[15] USA: More Than Just Dandy Top (washingtonpost.com) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63951-2003Jan16.html From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. More Than Just Dandy By Jonathan Yardley, whose e-mail address is yardley@twp.com Thursday, January 16, 2003; Page C03 SCANTY PARTICULARS The Scandalous Life and Astonishing Secret of Queen Victoria's Most Eminent Military Doctor By Rachel Holmes Random House. 361 pp. $25.95 Victorian England had more than its share of odd ducks, but few can have been odder than James Barry. He was a physician of great distinction, prominent in what Rachel Holmes calls "a new medical elite whose application of modern science was revolutionizing medicine" throughout the 19th century, but he was also a flamboyant dandy who, Charles Dickens recorded in his diary, was "unique in appearance, and eccentric in manner." Dandyism emerged early in that century, just as Barry undertook his medical studies and apprenticeship in Edinburgh and London, and he took to it as, well, a duck to water: "Dandyism was the style of the parvenu. It suited the modern professional who wanted to demonstrate his indifference to convention. His was a new urbanity in the republican spirit of a postaristocratic age. While what Balzac dubbed the new 'elegantology' challenged prerevolutionary hierarchies of social class and privilege, dandyism above all its offshoots played with conventions of gender." The prose in that passage may emit more than a whiff of the contemporary university, obsessed as it is with class, gender and the like, but in Barry's case it speaks to what appears to be truth. More than two centuries before the term was coined, Barry was a certifiable gender-bender. For the approximately seven decades of his life -- the precise date of his birth is unclear -- James Barry lived betwixt and between. He was barely five feet tall and, in the words of a contemporary, "was completely devoid of all the outward signs of manly virility." As a military physician, he worked and resided among men, yet for all his flamboyance he was "strangely physically reticent among his fellow officers"; he had what he called "my peculiar habits," many of which involved his firm insistence that he be permitted to change his clothing and do his toilet in absolute privacy. He was a man of many secrets: "These were not the ordinary secrets of petty irregularities and youthful indiscretions that most people carry with them. Barry's secrets were of a nature that placed him beyond the understanding of the society in which he moved. They were also the secrets of the impostor." Within days after his death, the maidservant who had prepared him for burial confronted his doctor with an astonishing allegation. "Amongst other things," he reported, "she said Dr. Barry was a female and that I was a pretty doctor not to know this and that she would not like to be attended by me." He also said: "I informed her that it was none of my business whether Dr. Barry was a male or a female, and that I thought he might be neither, viz., an imperfectly developed man." The word spread through London and the military. The Manchester Guardian breathlessly reported that "it stands as an indisputable fact, that a woman was for 40 years an officer in the British service, and fought one duel and had sought many more, had pursued a legitimate medical education, and received a regular diploma, and had acquired almost a celebrity for skill as a surgical operator!" The gossips were in heaven, not merely because Barry had been dragged so rudely out of his closet, but because in Victorian England "the dissection room and anatomical theater was no place for a woman." Immediately, speculation boiled down to two possible motives for this cross-dressing performance. The one "most commonly attributed to Barry's deception was that she had fallen in love with an army surgeon and cross-dressed in order to follow him throughout the pathways of his career." The other, far more plausible, "was that she was a young woman who cross-dressed in order to enter a male profession from which she was barred," indeed "not just one but two professions: medicine and the military." It is also possible, as Holmes argues, that he/she was born "a strangely sexed child" -- a hermaphrodite -- whose mother sought to protect her from the prying eyes of a society that surely would have rejected and ridiculed her. None of this is certain, but on one matter there can be no doubt: James Barry was "one of the 19th century's most exceptional doctors, and one of its great unsung heroes." Holmes summarizes his/her remarkable accomplishments: "Famed for opening up the vistas of modern medicine, Britain's most indefatigable colonial doctor specialized in surgery, tropical disease, obstetrics, leprosy, and venereal diseases. Barry campaigned for the humanitarian rights of the patient. A champion of the socially marginalized and economically dispossessed, Barry prioritized the treatment of women, prostitutes, slaves, the insane, lepers, and children. On three continents, Barry implemented new methods of hygiene, sanitation, quarantine, diet, and effective treatment of some of the most virulent diseases known to the age. Barry's medical reforms saved the lives of thousands of people." In many ways, the most important influence on him was his maternal uncle and namesake, the artist James Barry, "a romantic painter, a progressive aristocrat, and a revolutionary" through whom the younger James "was cultivated into a radical tradition." If one assumes that he was, in fact, either a woman or a transsexual, then it obviously is tempting to conclude (as Holmes does) that this explains why "he was a scientist and humanitarian who advocated the rights of the people most downtrodden by the advance of nineteenth-century British imperialism and the social inequality and injustice it drew in its wake." There may indeed be some truth to this, but the very language Holmes employs in that analysis should give the reader pause. Self-evidently, she is a 21st-century feminist, academic and litterateur who holds -- or so it certainly seems -- decidedly left-of-center political and social views. To all of this she is fully entitled, but there seems little doubt that it colors her interpretation of a life that began more than two centuries ago and was lived in an age far different from our own. Thus, while Barry was an outspoken opponent of slavery, there is not much evidence that he was also an opponent of imperialism per se. Such evidence as can be gleaned from Holmes's account suggests that it was the brutality and indifference to human suffering of the imperialists, not imperialism itself, that he disliked. Probably he believed, as did most Englishmen (and women) of the age, that his was the most civilized nation on Earth and that an Earth presided over by England would be a far better place than one left to its own inadequate devices. Whatever the true explanation for his career and his convictions, both were indeed remarkable, all the more so for having been achieved over such daunting obstacles. His story is as arresting as it is peculiar and -- except for the occasional fit of political or feminist correctness -- Holmes tells it well. She is especially good on 19th-century medicine and the culture of the British army. However unintentionally, she tells us that it really isn't necessary to set up Barry as a feminist hero because his -- or her -- story is far larger than that. -- © 2003 The Washington Post Company Top
[16] Surgery released woman trapped in a man's body--The Vindicator Top The Vindicator http://www.vindi.com/local_news/286799399732879.shtml Wednesday, January 15, 2003 Gender reassignment was her salvation, despite the ridicule she experienced when she returned to the life she once lived as a man. By MARALINE KUBIK VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER WHEN JONICHRISTIAN was a little boy, she prayed every day that God would change her into a girl. The Ursuline High School graduate got her wish &emdash; with the help of hormone therapy and surgery &emdash; at age 26. This November marked a milestone for Christian: 27 years as a woman, one year longer than she was a male. The process of gender reassignment, although a seemingly radical transformation, was Christian's salvation, despite the ridicule, sarcasm and shunning she experienced when she returned to the life she once lived as a man. Women she worked with at General Motors Lordstown assembly plant circulated a petition to keep her out of the restroom; men stared and hurled cruel remarks. "I became a freak in a sideshow when I went back to work," she said, adding, "I don't blame them; they had no other way to deal with it." Since 1975, the year of her surgery, the culture in the Mahoning Valley and at GM has become more tolerant but, she said, there is still a long way to go. "By the time I was 4 or 5 years old, I knew I wanted to express my natural femininity," Christian recalled, "and I realized it wasn't acceptable." Lessons learned in a Catholic grade school reinforced the notion that boys should be tough, masculine. Even the playground was segregated &emdash; boys on one side, girls on the other, Christian said. "Puberty was a nightmare. My body was turning into a monster &emdash; doing the opposite of what I wanted to happen. In high school I thought I might be gay, even though I wasn't attracted to boys, and I knew you must deny and suppress that." What happened In 1968, a year after graduating from high school, Christian went to work at GM and was drafted into the Army a year later. "That was where I came to know that this was something I had to deal with," she said. During the 10 months and 28 days Christian spent in the service &emdash; she was released on a family hardship &emdash; she saw an article in Life magazine about women who had been born male and had undergone sex-change surgery. "That's when I knew it was possible," she said, breathing a sigh of relief. In 1970 she went to Cleveland Clinic, where she said she "instantly became an experiment." After a series of psychological exams, she started taking estrogen. The rapid changes taking place in her body weren't readily apparent under her work coveralls in the paint department at the automotive assembly plant, so she encountered few problems with co-workers. But with all the costs for hormone therapy coming out-of-pocket, and the knowledge that the costs of the surgery would also be her personal expense, Christian began wondering whether this was the best route for her to follow. She stopped taking estrogen, met a woman who had a young daughter, and began entertaining the idea of living a more traditional life. The couple married three months later. "I thought a relationship would make it all go away," Christian said. "I thought I could be straight, or normal &emdash; is that the right word?.... I really wanted to be a parent and my wife's parents thought I was a good catch." For the first two years, married life "was pretty OK," she said. She adopted her wife's daughter and the family seemed like any other. "But after two years that thing I had tried to suppress, run away from, was still there." Surgery Christian turned to drinking and using drugs to escape, but an automobile accident brought her face to face with reality. "I had to do something to get real again. I told my wife and I started back on estrogen." The night before gender reassignment surgery &emdash; the term she prefers over "sex change" &emdash; she lay in her bed at the former Southside Hospital, praying no one would barge in and stop the procedure. The only time she had contemplated suicide was when she had opted to go forward with the surgery and physicians at Cleveland Clinic turned her away. Nine months before the surgery, Christian's wife had given birth to their daughter. While Christian was recovering, the wife brought the baby to the hospital to visit. Christian said she loved the baby and was wracked with guilt for going forward with the surgery, not knowing what the impact would be on her daughter. She was also worried about how her mother would react. "My mother never knew about it until after the surgery. I couldn't tell her. I asked my ex to do it," she said. Afterward, "my mom became my best friend for life. She stayed when the rest of the world left." Christian's marriage was dissolved in February 1976, three months after her surgery. After the wife remarried, she tried to abolish Christian's parental rights so her new husband could adopt the little girl. The ensuing court battle bankrupted Christian, but it was worth the expense, she said. "The hardest thing I ever did was one day when I took my daughter to the playground when she was about 7 years old. She was playing on the monkey bars and I asked her how she would feel if she didn't see me anymore. She said she wanted to keep seeing me and I decided right then that it should be her choice when she doesn't want to see me anymore." Although the relationship has never been a traditional father-daughter one, Christian said she and her biological and adopted daughters have maintained family ties. They call her Joni, not Dad. When her biological daughter married, Christian selected the music and sang at the ceremony. "People asked me if I felt bad because I couldn't walk her down the aisle. I told them walking her down the aisle isn't as important as being here." Glad for GM, union Although returning to work 31/2 months after undergoing gender-reassignment surgery was challenging, Christian said her job at GM and membership in United Autoworkers Local 1112 made it possible for her to change her life. The company provided the paycheck that enabled her to pay for medical treatment and a drawn-out court battle to maintain her parental rights; the union protected her from being fired or discriminated against on the job. "If it would not have been for my union, I would have been fired," Christian said. "A lot of supervisors had major issues with me. Some did not want me working for them." "The union respected me as a union person even if some of the members didn't approve of me. The union taught me that an injury to one was an injury to all." As years passed, Christian transferred from the paint department to quality assurance, a job in which she moved throughout the plant. She and her co-workers eventually got used to each other; she won their respect and even managed to build some friendships. Twenty-seven years ago, when Christian came out as a transsexual, "no one at work was out as being gay, bi [-sexual] or tran," she said. Since then, she said, the situation has "relaxed a little." GM and the UAW both sponsor diversity programs and sensitivity training. kubik@vindy.com -- © 2003, The Vindicator Top
[17]The Village Voice: Hot Spot: Savage Love by Dan Savage Top http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0302/savage.php Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Hot Spot: Savage Love by Dan Savage January 8 - 14, 2003 I am a single parent with a wonderful 15-year-old son. My son's father, my ex, is a gay man. We've accepted this and we love him dearly, but there are issues affecting my son which my ex is ignoring. My ex has also been diagnosed with HIV. This was heartbreaking news for all of us. Now he's announced that he is undergoing hormonal treatments to become a woman. He kept his therapy and the entire process a secret until two weeks ago. My son is deeply disturbed by this and I don't know how to help him. Basically he is angry. I'm not saying my ex should put his life on hold for us, but he has blatantly disregarded how his choices affect our son. Our son was told about his dad's sexuality when he was younger. But as he got older, he began to fully understand the hatred, bigotry, and ignorance in our society when it comes to having a gay loved one. Unfortunately, his father has flaunted his sexuality in inappropriate settings (school) and other children noticed. I explained to my ex that I wasn't asking him to give up who he was, but to be more aware of how his behavior affects our son's life. Dan, what can I do? My son is truly upset at the prospect of having two moms. I don't know how to make my ex see that it's not just about him. &emdash;Heartsore and Saddened -- On the one hand, HAS, I want to tell your son that it's not his father's fault that some people are hateful and ignorant. Your ex shouldn't have to hide his sexuality at your son's school any more than my boyfriend and I hide our sexuality at our son's school. (We also don't flaunt our sexuality&emdash;i.e., we don't make out at parent-teacher conferences and we don't wear those hi-fucking-larious "Pitcher" and "Catcher" T-shirts when we have his friends over for a play date.) It simply isn't fair of your son to hold the existence of anti-gay bigots against his father, and I sincerely hope my son won't hold their existence against me. On the other hand, divorced parents, gay dad, the HIV bombshell&emdash;and now so suddenly a woman&emdash;are an awful lot for a high-school-age boy to deal with. The trannie activists are going to jump down my throat for this, but it seems to me that your ex could've put off the sex change until after his son was out of high school. One thing parents are supposed to do is make sacrifices, big and small, for the sake of their children. And while I think people have a right to do pretty much as they please (and parents are people), I also believe children have a right to some stability and consistency from the adults in their lives. Perhaps I'm a transphobic bigot, but I honestly think waiting a measly 36 months to cut your dick is a sacrifice any father should be willing to make for his 15-year-old son. Call me old-fashioned. Unfortunately, your ex wasn't willing to make that sacrifice (selfish trannie!), or it never occurred to him to make that sacrifice (stupid trannie!). So what do you tell your son? Tell him his father can do what he likes&emdash;suck dick, flaunt it; get his dick cut off, flaunt that. If dear ol' dad chooses to live as a woman, well, there's not a lot you or your son can do. But guess what? Your son is old enough to do what he likes, and if he chooses to live without seeing or speaking to his father, well, there's not a whole lot his father can do. If your son can't deal with having his dad/mom/whatever around right now, support your son and tell his whatever to leave the two of you alone for the time being. Don't get me wrong, HAS: I hope that when your son is an adult, he'll be able to forgive his whatever for this selfish decision to run off and have a sex change operation when his only son, like all teenagers, was struggling with his own identity and didn't need to struggle with his father's. Good luck. -- (SNIP) mail@savagelove.net © 2003 Village Voice Media, Inc. Top
LEGISLATIVE ACTION [18] UK: THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT--Transsexual People Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. Lord Chancellor's Department - Transsexual Pe... http://www.lcd.gov.uk/constitution/transsex/bellinger.htm RETRIEVED: Saturday, January 18, 2003 *Frequently asked Questions on Bellinger -v- Bellinger [17 January 2003] 1. What is the Bellinger case about? 2. Why not withdraw from the Bellinger case? 3. But you have announced the Government's intention to enable transsexual people to marry in their acquired gender? 4. So the Government will continue opposing Mrs Bellinger's application for a declaration of the validity of her marriage? 5. Does this mean that you will be fighting the case? 6. Why has the Attorney General withdrawn from the case? 7. So why has the Lord Chancellor not withdrawn as well? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. What is the Bellinger case about? * Bellinger -v- Bellinger is a transsexual marriage case scheduled for hearing in the House of Lords on 20-21 January 2003. The petitioner asks the Court to recognise her ceremony of marriage in 1981. * The Government made clear, in an announcement made on 13 December, its intention to bring forward legislation to clarify generally the position of transsexual people and their right to marry in the acquired gender. We cannot comment on the particular case of Bellinger -v- Bellinger. 2. Why not withdraw from the Bellinger case? * The Government's view is that legislation will be necessary to enable transsexual people to marry in their new gender; they do not already have that right. * The Court's judgments do not automatically change or override our own laws. The Court recognised that they raised complex issues and that the Government needed time to decide how to implement the judgments. 3. But you have announced the Government's intention to enable transsexual people to marry in their acquired gender? * Yes &endash; but what we are proposing is that transsexual people will gain that right as a consequence of recognition in the acquired gender, for which they will have to apply to the proposed authorising body. 4. So the Government will continue opposing Mrs Bellinger's application for a declaration of the validity of her marriage? * The Government has presented to the House of Lords its response to Mrs Bellinger's application &endash; based on its view that legislation will be necessary to enable transsexual people to marry in their new gender; at present they do not have that right. 5. Does this mean that you will be fighting the case? * Yes, because it is the Government's position that transsexual people are unable to marry in their acquired gender under our law. However, the Government believes that transsexual people should be able to marry in their acquired gender; that is one of the matters for which we have set out proposals to legislate. 6. Why has the Attorney General withdrawn from the case? * Subject to Their Lordships' wishes, the Attorney-General has decided that he does not need to be represented at the hearing. * At an earlier stage he took the view that it was necessary for him to intervene in the public interest, to ensure that Mrs Bellinger's Petition would be fully and properly considered and determined. Once leave to appeal to the House of Lords was granted, however, the Lord Chancellor (whose Department has responsibility for fundamental marriage law in England and Wales) was brought into the appeal on behalf of the Crown in accordance with the practice of the House of Lords. * The Attorney-General has concluded, after taking advice, that the public interest no longer requires that he be represented. He had regard, in particular, to the extent of the Lord Chancellor's case (which substantively covers the matters which might be raised on behalf of the Attorney-General), and to the additional costs of his being separately represented. 7. So why has the Lord Chancellor not withdrawn as well? * t is still necessary to ensure that Mrs Bellinger's Petition will be fully and properly considered and determined. * The Government's view is that legislation will be necessary to enable transsexual people to marry in their acquired gender; they do not already have that right. That is one of the reasons why legislation is necessary to implement Goodwin -v- UK and "I" -v- UK. The Government has announced that it is committed to legislating as soon as possible to give transsexual people their Convention rights, including the right to marry in their acquired gender. -Return to the Transsexual People's Index page http://www.lcd.gov.uk/constitution/transsex/index.htm Top
IN THE COURTS [19] UK: Transsexual takes case to Law Lords Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. this is lincolnshire - news, entertainment, j... http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=57711&command=displ ayContent&sourceNode=57238&contentPK=3720000 TRANSSEXUAL TAKES CASE TO LAW LORDS 10:30 - 20 January 2003 A transsexual from Lincoln will today ask Britain's highest court to recognise her as a married woman. Lawyers acting for Elizabeth Bellinger (55) and her husband Michael (57) are to petition the House of Lords to grant them the same legal status as any other married couple. In what is expected to be a two-day hearing, three Law Lords will be told that current interpretations of Britain's marriage laws are wrong. Mrs Bellinger, who was registered male at birth, married her husband at Southwark Register Office, London, in 1981 - the same year she had surgery to remove her male genitalia. In the past judges have ruled that a person's sex is irrevocably established at birth and cannot be altered afterwards. In December the Government announced it was to change the law - to allow transsexuals to change their birth certificates and marry. The announcement followed a landmark judgement by the European Court of Human Rights last July. But the Bellingers want the Government to go one step further and acknowledge that they already are married. Their lawyer Clive Ardley said: "The Government put out a press release on possible changes in the law on the very day that we had to submit our case. "Even if it does change the law, it will be some time in the future. "Anyway, our case is that the law doesn't need to be changed - it has been misinterpreted." The Bellingers' case hinges on the wording of legislation which says marriage can only take place between people of different genders - and not sex. "The fact that the legislation uses the word gender and not sex is crucial," said Mr Ardley. "A person's sex cannot be changed, but their gender can, and the law leaves the way open for a reinterpretation of how we define gender. "Someone can be born with a complete set of female genitals and have male chromosomes. If the Law Lords agree with us, the Government won't even have to change its law - because we would have proved our case." The case has already been heard and rejected twice in Britain, most recently in July 2001 when three High Court judges ruled two-to-one against recognising Mrs Bellinger as female. The Bellingers will hear the Law Lords' decision in around three months. The couple have vowed to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if they lose this time. See tomorrow's Echo for full coverage of the London hearing. -- Click here for an easy way to tell us what you think! http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=57368&command=newPage Top
[20] USA: Jailhouse letter about Eddie Araujo case will not be made public Top Mercury News | 01/17/2003 | Jailhouse letter ... http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/4974610.htm Posted on Fri, Jan. 17, 2003 By Yomi S. Wronge Mercury News An Alameda County judge ruled today that the public will not -- at least for the time being -- get to see a potentially damaging piece of evidence that implicates a Fremont man in the killing of 17-year-old Edward "Gwen" Araujo, a transgender teen from Newark. Judge Dennis J. McLaughlin said that the defense team representing 22-year-old Jason Cazares had not followed proper court procedures in submitting for possible evidence a letter written by co-defendant Jaron Nabors, in which Nabors details Cazares' alleged role in the Oct. 4 slaying of Araujo. Instead of releasing the letter to the public, McLaughlin returned the evidence to attorney J. Tony Serra and gave him until 5 p.m. Tuesday to submit an edited version of his motion to have the letter sealed. His motion -- which also hasn't been released to the public -- made several references to the contents of the letter. An edited version would black-out any damaging information Serra deems could jeopardize his client's right to fair trial. "The exhibit was created to defer culpability from the defendant, and infer culpability of my client," Serra said of the jailhouse letter intercepted by prison officials. Deputy District Attorney Connie Campbell called the ruling fair. "I thought it was a very wise decision," she said, "It complied with the law and equity." Cazares is charged with first degree murder with a hate crime enhancement along with Nabors, 19, of Newark, Jose Merel, 23, of Newark and Michael Magidson, 22, of Fremont. The young men all knew Araujo, whom they called "Lida,", and at least one defendant -- Magidson -- had sexual relations with the victim. According to police reports and court documents, the defendants had discussed Araujo's gender among themselves days prior to the murder. Police say they beat and strangled the teen when, at a party, Araujo was proven to be anatomically male. They then drove a bound Araujo 150 miles to a campsite near Placerville to dispose of the body. It was Nabors who eventually lead detectives to the makeshift grave. All four men have pleaded not guilty. Campbell, today, said she had no plans of using the "explosive information" in the letter during preliminary hearings, which are set to begin Jan. 29. But she may use it during the trial. The case has garnered widespread media attention and earned prosecutors some public criticism for not seeking the death penalty. Although Campbell herself has said the murder was premeditated, because a hate crime is not considered a special circumstance, she said the case is not eligible for the death penalty. "We're hoping during through the course of the trial, with further discovery and witnesses, that charges will be upgraded," said Araujo's uncle, David Guerrero. "But if that doesn't happen our focus will continue to be to make hate crimes a special circumstance." Top
[21] USA San Francisco--Supervisors could settle transgender groping suit Top From Brenda Lana Smith R.af D. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/01/17/BA92976.DTL Rachel Gordon Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, January 17, 2003 San Francisco -- Robert Haaland, an activist in San Francisco's progressive political movement and a female-to-male transgender person, could receive a $107,500 legal settlement from the city after he accused a police officer of improperly "groping" him during an in-custody search four years ago. Haaland sued the city, seeking damages for assault, pain and suffering and emotional distress. City Attorney Dennis Herrera recommended that the case be settled, spokesman Matt Dorsey said. The Board of Supervisors' Rules Committee on Tuesday sent the proposal to the full board for consideration next week without recommendation, and suggested that the supervisors discuss the case in closed session. Haaland's lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, claims the wrongdoing took place at the Park police station in San Francisco's Haight- Ashbury neighborhood after he was arrested for trespassing in connection with a housing dispute. He was locked up for 30 hours before he was released. The district attorney declined to press criminal charges. While in custody, the lawsuit states, Haaland was "subjected to an unjustifiable groping of his private parts by a San Francisco police officer who characterized it as a 'search.' " He said the incident lasted three to five minutes and that he also was asked degrading questions about his gender. In recent years the San Francisco Police Department has stepped up sensitivity training for officers who interact with members of the transgender community. Others besides Haaland have complained of being mistreated by police officers. The city attorney's office would not comment on the Haaland case, pending final settlement. Haaland and his attorney also declined to comment at this time. E-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon@sfchronicle.com. -- RELATED ARTICLES: 11/12/2002 - S.F. jailer allegedly fired in sex case. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/11/12 /BA147553.DTL 08/09/2002 - Transgender man sues S.F., police, saying he was beaten, taunted . http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/09 /BA126993.DTL more related articles... http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/suglist.cgi?article=/chronicle/archive/2003/01 /17/BA92976.DTL&wt=0 Page A - 18 ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle Top
[22] KUWAIT --Kuwaiti asks court to ratify sex change Top Yahoo! News - Kuwaiti asks court to ratify se... http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=834&ncid=731&e=10&u=/nm/20030116/ wl_india_nm/india_100759 Thursday, January 16, 2003 KUWAIT (Reuters) - A Kuwaiti has asked a court to change his legal gender to female after he had a sex change operation, in the first case of its kind in this Gulf Arab Muslim country, a local newspaper said on Thursday. The Qabas daily said the unnamed 29-year-old transsexual, who appeared in court wearing make-up, submitted medical papers stating that he had undergone an operation in Bangkok. "He approached the judge and demanded him to (accept) his new sex," it added. The newspaper said the court has yet to rule on the case, but quoted a lawyer as saying the request would probably be accepted if all the papers were in order. Pro-Western Kuwait still remains conservative, with gender segregation applied to some aspects of society even though women can hold public office and head some major businesses. © 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. © 2003 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Top
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT [23] USA: Big film stars bring style to TV movies they believe in Top Kansas City Star | 01/20/2003 | Big film star... http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/4936635.htm Entertainment Posted on Mon, Jan. 20, 2003 By HAL BOEDEKER The Orlando Sentinel (SNIP) Two-time Oscar winner Lange, 53, has a challenging role in HBO's "Normal," which premieres in March. She plays a rural Illinois wife of 25 years who learns that her husband (Tom Wilkinson of "In the Bedroom") wants a sex-change operation. "It is a character study in-depth, and I don't think stories like that are all that common anymore," she says. "It was like a throwback to films that we saw a lot of in the '70s and '80s, which were always my favorite films anyhow, where you really had two hours to deeply investigate a character that's on some kind of emotional journey." Lange also liked the unique situation in the film, based on Jane Anderson's play "Looking for Normal." Anderson wrote and directed the film. "For me, as an actor, always the most interesting thing is: Am I going to kind of plumb new territory?" she says. "That's why I decided to do it." This is only the third television work for Lange, who won Academy Awards for "Tootsie" and "Blue Sky." She is preparing for another big-screen movie, Tim Burton's "Big Fish," in Alabama. (SNIP) Top
[24] USA: Coolidge Corner screens restored debut by Cassavetes Top Boston Globe Online / Living | Arts / Coolidg... http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/019/living/Coolidge_Corner_screens_restored_debut_by_Cassavetes+.shtml By Loren King 1/19/2003 (SNIP) SCREENS AROUND TOWN: Richard Spence 's film ''Different for Girls'' and Alain Berliner 's ''Ma Vie en Rose,'' both from 1997, will screen Jan. 22 as part of the Festival of International Transgender Film at MIT, in Building 35, Room 225, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. There will be discussions after the screenings. (SNIP) -- Loren King can be reached at lorking@attbi.com. This story ran on page N16 of the Boston Globe on 1/19/2003. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. Top
[25] USA: Rob Schneider is the "Hot Chick" Top ENTERTAINMENT NEWS | - MB.COM.PH http://www.mb.com.ph/news.php?art=26086§=6&fname=EN03011826086f.txt 01/18/2003 By Walden Sadiri Since making the world laugh with his antics as a "manwhore" in his debut movie "Deuce Bigalow" in 1999, international actor-comedian Rob Schneider (who has a Filipino lineage) never played an ordinary man in his movies that followed. In "The Animal," (2001) he was a man saved from near death by a doctor who gave him new life through various animal parts and organs. And now in "The Hot Chick," his latest film to open on January 22 in movie theaters in Metro Manila, he is a woman trapped inside a man's body because of an ancient curse! "The Hot Chick" is about a teenage-prima-donna-high school cheerleader, Jessica whose mischievousness led her to stealing a pair of earrings from Manbuzza, a store in a mall that sells artifacts. Unknown to her, the earrings she stole were cursed. On her way home with her friends, she stopped over for gasoline. Again, unknown to her, the service attendant who filled her car's tank was actually robber who has just held up the gas station. Lastly, unknown to her, she dropped one of the cursed earrings which the robber took. The next day, Jessica woke up a man! The gender-bender premise behind "The Hot Chick" was born out of its director Tom Brady's innate keen sense of observation. He once saw Rob Schneider imitating his ex-girlfriend's actions and voice. And from that moment, he realized that to be Rob Schneider's next comedy flick. As Tom has said in his past interview, seeing Rob Schneider play an 18-year old was exciting. For him, Rob is a very effective comedian in uncomfortable situations, thus, an 18&endash;year old girl trapped in a man's body possessed a lot of uncomfortable and funny situations for the comedian. "He is an old friend so it is like there's a good shorthand between the two of us," described Rob of Brady as a director. "He is a very good director and he got a good eye. He knows what works for me. And also feels comfortable with me not stepping on his toes." Under Touchstone Pictures and distributed by Buena Vista International. "The Hot Chick" is produced by John Schneider, Carr D'Angelo, Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo and Guy Ridedel. Written by Tom Brady and Rob Schneider, the move also stars Anna Faris ("Scary Movie" and "Scary Movie 2"), Matthew Lawrence (Mrs. Doutbtfire") and Rachel Adams ("Earth: Final Conflict"). According to Rob, "The Hot Chick" appealed to him so much because it was a film that channeled effectively his talents as a comedian to the moviegoers. "For me a good comedian is someone who could care about and is somebody that is very human. I want people to be able to look at me and look at my movies and go, 'My life may not be that great but look at this guy's! He's got real problems!' And I like to do that and I want them to laugh really hard. It is not just being humorous. If they say you are humorous, that means you are not funny. I want people to laugh from their guts." Comedian Adam Sandler, like in the past movies of Rob, will again have a cameo, as the "Weed Guy" (Rob Schneider's character in "Saturday Night Live") in manbuzzaq and a surprise appearance from comedian Dick Gregory. Rob's mother, Pilar, as always, has a part in "The Hot Chick" as one of the Cheerleading Competition Judges. "I always have to hire my mother, a Filipino lady and I gone one at home... Pilar is turning to be a very fine actress," he said. Below are snippets from a casual interview with Rob Schneider on being a "Hot Chick" and more: You have always been a creative writer in SNL, a creative collaborator in your films. Can you share with us how you get your inspiration or your creative juices flowing? Does it just happen spontaneously, like out of the blue? If it is something that is going to be challenging and fun and I get excited about it like a little kid and you know something that I think the audience will enjoy. The audience likes to see me suffer, I noticed that. This was a fun journey for me to take as an actor. And to pull it off was quite a challenge I hope that the audience feels with me. I've read about how "The Hot Chick" came about. But what made you think or feel that such as idea of a woman trapped in a man's body would be a successful comedy film? Tom Brady thought of this idea and I thought it was a good challenge. We always want to make a funny and an interesting story. I think we did a good job on it and I'm proud of it. Because if I don't believe me as a woman in 10 minutes then there's no movie. And I think the bigger the risk, the bigger you can make a fool of yourself. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. What was the biggest challenge for you in "The Hot Chick?" Not to overdo things. When I was talking to the best friend April about love and stuff, it should be like the audience could relax seeing us. And I think that was the most challenging thing. And the most fun for me was to be a girl trying to be a guy. The most embarrassing part was putting on those panties and tight T-shirts. How was it being 18 years old again and a hot chick? My butt was a lot bigger and I'm definitely not a hot chick. Did playing a hot chick make you realize that men do have a feminine side? Well yeah. I think no man is one hundred percent man and no woman is one hundred percent woman. I just had to find the middle ground there. And I didn't want to be insulting to women by playing it over the top like a screaming fruitcake. But I think I've said that it is valuable for men to try to at least a day in their lives looking at world through the eyes of a woman. Aside from these, were there anymore insights you learned as a woman? That women always have a feeling that they are being looked at and judged by the way they look. And that's something that a man should never truly feel; what that's like. I think it is tougher to be a woman. In "Deuce Bigalow" and "The Animal," there were lessons learned at the end of the movies; how about for "Hot Chick?" Oh yeah. I think it is about acceptance of who you are. The superficiality of what you look like doesn't really mean who you are as a person. If you put your self worth on how you look, you're going to miss out. Actually your looks are going to go away; then, what will you have? How did you prepare for the role? (Joking) I've been studying teenage girls all my life, how they talk, how they walk and shower. Now that the lawsuits are all settled, I can finally talk about them. Should we expect more Rob Schneider tranformations in your future films? I think that's good for a while. I"m going to do "Deuce Bigalow 2." Out of curiosity, what are the criteria you look for in a film before pushing through with a movie project? I want to make sure it's something I'm not going to be bored at three months in. We have to live with the movie for a year, we produce them, we write them. And I haven't seen anybody play a woman convincingly as a guy, especially a young girl. And that was a challenge. It just has to excite me like a little kid. We see Adam Sandler in your film, and vice versa, how do you guys maintain your strong friendship in a business where everyone wants or seems to compete with one another? We have been friends since we were young men and we enjoy each other's company. I love making him laught and he loves making me laugh. That's always been our bond. He is also the youngest in his family and I'm also the youngest in my family. We are both entertainers. Our parent also has created a bond. The main reason we show up in our movies is to hang out with each other. Any lessons learned from your successes in your showbiz career that you would like to share to inspire other aspiring comedians or actors? Stick to what excites you and what you believe in and when no one else is writing you a movie or television show, write it yourself. Never stop believing in yourself. And if you can, try to be best friends with Adam Sandler before he becomes a big movie star. (Joking) Is there a dreaam movie project you would like to work on someday? I want to do my mother's childhood in the Philippines during World War II. She has great stories we've putin tape and I would like to make that. It would have comedy in it but it would be a story of a young Filipino woman, and how she survived and thrived in circumstances. It is about a period of Filipinos. (Rob Schneider is already working on the sequel to his first movie "Deuce Bigalow." He plans to start shooting this summer and has in mind to put in a Filipino gigolo as one of the movie's characters.) -- ©2001 Manila Bulletin. All Rights Reserved. Top
[26] THEATER REVIEW | 'SHANGHAI MOON' Top Despite the Finery, This Babe's a Brute http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/17/arts/theater/17MOON.html Friday, January 17, 2003 Despite the Finery, This Babe's a Brute By BEN BRANTLEY lot of gloriously bad dialogue is devoted to defining the charms of Lady Sylvia Allington, the heroine of "Shanghai Moon," Charles Busch's happy, cockeyed new melodrama. Much is made of her beauty, her scandalous past, her opalescent skin, the mystery in her eyes. But what makes Sylvia so immensely appealing can really be summed up quite simply. The lady, you see, is a broad. Incarnated by the likes of Jean Harlow, Mae West and Barbara Stanwyck, the broad was one of the great contributions of the early Hollywood talkies. She was scrappy, blunt-spoken and unconditionally American &emdash; the kind of woman who, even dressed up with a title, a tiara and a slipping debutante's accent, revealed the guts, pluck and craft of a seasoned street fighter. Mr. Busch, who apparently consumes old Hollywood arcana the way other people wolf down popcorn, has managed to distill the essence of every bona fide broad who roamed the silver screen in "Shanghai Moon," a highly perfumed tale of fatal passion that opened last night at the Greenwich House Theater with the playwright as Lady Sylvia. And the fact that the broad is, in this case, embodied by a man is almost beside the point. Long before he achieved mainstream fame as the author of the Broadway hit "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife," Mr. Busch had created his own welcoming garden in the large, flowery field of female impersonation with lampoons like "The Lady in Question," "Psycho Beach Party" and "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom." He was never an uncanny mimic, turning himself into an exact replica of Bette Davis at the drop of an eyelash, as Charles Pierce did. Nor does he have the cool physical precision of the cabaret diva Lypsinka, who anatomizes tacky feminine flourishes like a surgeon. And he's certainly no camp deconstructionist, the kind of artist who takes a movie apart frame by frame, as the Theater-A-Go-Go! did so memorably with "Valley of the Dolls." No, Mr. Busch's work is more like a smart but affectionate fan's notes, written in bright crayon with lots of exclamation points. He spoofs his subjects to get closer to them. And at his best, he illuminates why we still respond so warmly to certain stars and films that would seem to have long ago passed their sell-by dates. With "Shanghai Moon," a Drama Dept. production directed by Carl Andress, Mr. Busch evokes the racy, gritty sensibility of Hollywood movies in the precode days of the Depression, before censorship clamped down on the studios. The story of a Western woman who falls disastrously for the charms of the East (i.e., opium, temple dancing and a handsome Chinese man), "Shanghai Moon" is most directly inspired by "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" (1933), which starred Stanwyck in what is perhaps the strangest and least sentimental film that Frank Capra ever made. Hardcore Hollywood scholars will find plenty of references to other movies, including "The Cheat," a 1915 film by Cecil B. DeMille that provides "Shanghai Moon" with its flesh-searing climax, and "The Letter" (1940), the Bette Davis vehicle from which Mr. Busch borrows a famous declaration of guilt. But you don't need to pick up on every allusion to appreciate the general tone of "Shanghai Moon," which summons an era in which wide American eyes looked to what was then referred to as the Orient as a place of exotic adventure and decadence. The plot, as it tends to be in such dramas, is hopelessly convoluted, packing in more twists in 90 minutes than a year's worth of "All My Children." Mr. Busch is Lady Sylvia, who arrives with her English husband, the diplomat Lord Allington (Daniel Gerroll), in Shanghai as a guest of the suave General Gong Fei (B. D. Wong). What happens thereafter can be traced through Mr. Busch's changes of costumes (designed with gusto by Michael Bottari and Ronald Case): from a white traveling ensemble with pearls to the skimpy outfit that suggests Hollywood's idea of a Chinese temple dancer to disheveled undergarments to tasteful, veiled black for that big teary trial scene at the end. In between, many sordid secrets are revealed by a cast of characters that includes the General's scheming concubine, Mah Li (Sekiya Billman), and his ancient adviser, Dr. Wu (Marcy McGuigan), plus an opium-smuggling sailor (the invaluable Mr. Gerroll again), who holds the key to Lady Sylvia's past. There is also Mrs. Carroll (played with winningly shrill gentility by Becky Ann Baker), an ambitious brothel owner, of whom Gong Fei says, "If you weren't a figure of malevolent evil, you would be the stuff of tragedy." Advertisement In truth "Shanghai Moon" begins a bit shakily, with an easy if jovial vulgarity that brings to mind basement drag shows of an earlier era, when just to say the word pansy was to elicit knowing giggles. And while B. T. Whitehill's exuberantly gaudy set accurately nails the clichés of period Orientalia, Mr. Andress doesn't appear to have much instinctive feeling for the staccato rhythms of the vintage talkie style. Even Mr. Busch, in his first major cross-dressed performance in several years, seems a bit tentative in his opening scene. But once Gong Fei makes his first pass at Sylvia, forcing her to reveal her inner bruiser, the production finds its tempo and it rarely slackens again. The dialogue at this pivotal moment is worth noting: "Ah, the beautiful flower has thorns," says Gong Fei. "And a good right hook," answers Lady Sylvia. That exchange sums up exactly what made audiences root for Harlow and Stanwyck: no matter how soignée they looked, they were always ready for a good brawl. And Mr. Busch's dialogue gleefully matches this muscular attitude. Listen to Sylvia as she dresses down Dr. Wu and Mah Li: "Listen, you two fortune cookies, I know you can't stand the sight of me. Well, I've got news for you, that goes double." Or when she speaks of her childhood on Chicago's South Side, raised on "a steady diet of kielbasa and bitterness." Mr. Wong, best known as the ambiguous love interest in "M. Butterfly," plays yang to Mr. Busch's yin (or is it the opposite?) with silken style, even when he's cracking a bullwhip. And the ominous aspiration with which he pronounces Dr. Wu's name summons in itself an entire genre of East-meets-West films. But it's Mr. Busch's palpably sincere love for the Hollywood dames who stood up for themselves that gives "Shanghai Moon" a fizzy sweetness seldom associated with campiness. When Lady Sylvia dons that over-the-top temple dancer outfit and tries her own interpretation of the Chinese terpsichorean art, the result is clunky and endearingly game, an exercise in American hootchy-kootchy without smut or smirkiness. No Hollywood heroine ever danced in quite this manner. Yet the moment magically captures a whole breed of spunky, forthright movie women who were innocent without being naïve and were always up for something new. Even in the depths of martyred suffering, they had an irresistible zest. Mr. Busch makes a tasty and persuasive case for the theory that broads do indeed have more fun. SHANGHAI MOON By Charles Busch; directed by Carl Andress; sets by B. T. Whitehill; costumes by Michael Bottari and Ronald Case; lighting by Kirk Bookman; sound by Laura Grace Brown; wig design by E. Katherine Carr; Mr. Busch's wig and hair design, Paul Huntley; fight director, Rick Sordelet. Presented by the Drama Dept., in association with Sondra Lee. At the Greenwich House Theater, 27 Barrow Street, Greenwich Village. WITH: Charles Busch (Lady Sylvia Allington), Becky Ann Baker (Mrs. Carroll/Sir Geoffrey), Sekiya Billman (Mah Li), Daniel Gerroll (Lord Allington/Pug Talbot), Marcy McGuigan (Dr. Wu/Sir Lionel) and B. D. Wong (General Gong Fei). -- Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company Top
[27a] Homophobia haunts 'Dead' Top http://www2.ocregister.com/ocrweb/ocr/article.do?id=20898§ion=SHOW&year=2003&month=1&day=17 Friday, January 17, 2003 Homophobia haunts 'Dead' Rude Guerrilla's fine cast fleshes out Keith Curran's 1991 story, a tragedy with darkly comical overtones. By ERIC MARCHESE Special to the Register Keith Curran's "Walking the Dead" was written over 10 years ago, yet its subject &endash; gay bashing in general and, in particular, the murder of a transgender woman-turned-man &endash; is, sad to say, vivid and fresh. Recent hate crimes like the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay man, only serve to remind that intolerance toward those of alternate lifestyles continues to exist in American culture. Most gays and lesbians deal with such prejudice on a daily basis. Some, like Curran's main character, Veronica, wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time, paying the price with their life. In Rude Guerrilla Theater Company's new staging, well directed by Jeff Marx, the story's unflinching brutality is ably balanced by grim spurts of laughter, anchored in Curran's often morbid sense of humor and brought to life by Marx's skilled, well-chosen cast. The play's inevitably violent conclusion, shown in flashback, spurs Veronica's lesbian lover, a performance artist, to create a service for her murdered partner that's part memorial, part performance-art piece. It's through this service that "Walking the Dead" reveals who Veronica was and why she made the choices she did. More critically, it shows how those around her reacted to her in death &endash; shown in the present &endash; and in life &endash; shown in flashbacks.'Walking the Dead' We're in the greater Boston area, where we meet Maya, Veronica's black lover; Veronica's gay friend Chester (known as "Chess"); Bobby, a cynical advertising copywriter and Chess' newest partner; and Stan, a small-time New York cinematographer out to document Veronica's life and the series of operations that turn her into the man named Homer. Looming large over this circle of characters is Veronica's mother, Dottie, a devout Catholic completely out of touch with her daughter's life. On those occasions when Dottie pulls her head out of the sand, her blunt comments reveal her as an equal-opportunity bigot, as intolerant of blacks and other ethnic groups as she is toward "dykes" like Veronica or, for that matter, any other alternative sexual orientation. At the Empire Theater in Santa Ana's Artists Village, Marx and company richly flesh out Curran's humane yet unblinking, unsentimental text. It's obvious that by reliving scenes that revolved around Veronica/Homer, the survivors of his/her murder are "walking the dead" to exorcise their angst over the loss of a gentle yet troubled soul who always felt she was "born in the wrong body." As Veronica/Homer, Alison Hartson's pretty face belies the nature of her role. Hartson is petite and only vaguely androgynous, but she capably communicates the character's no-nonsense nature, determination to become a man, and anger and frustration toward her mother, who has the uncanny ability to make her feel "like a friggin' freak." It's a bittersweet performance that doesn't ask for our pity, but, in the end, receives it anyway. Hartson's onstage presence is well-balanced by Karen Chapin as Dottie, the mother from hell. Chapin shows this society matron's blithe unawareness of the hurts inflicted by her callous, unthinking remarks. Chapin's sweetly oblivious handling of the role also underscores the final irony of Curran's script &endash; that the pressures of Dottie's expectations indirectly cause her own child's death. As Bobby, Patrick Hurley provides the evening's most vivid performance. He doesn't just hiss the man's caustic, often cold-blooded comments; his wisenheimer impertinence and deft comic timing make this self-hating gay man's comments real, not stereotypical, and add depth to his ambivalence toward Chess' bland agreeability. In the latter role, Eric Eisenbrey is more a naive, innocent cipher than the death- obsessed young gay man so tortured that he spouts nonsense words whenever emotionally agitated. Vivian Vanderwerd's imposing physical presence lends Maya strength but is in ironic contrast to her inconsolate grief, of which the actress could stand to reveal more. Likewise, Tyler Nelson's Stan is amusingly colorful where the character calls for more of a cynical, shameless exploiter. -- CONTACT US: emarchesewriter@aol.com -- WHAT: Rude Guerrilla Theater Company staging of Keith Curran's often brutally funny drama WHEN: Through Feb. 2. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays (also 8 p.m. January 30) WHERE: Empire Theater, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana HOW MUCH: $12-$15 LENGTH: 2 hours, 25 minutes SUITABILITY: Violent content and nudity; those under 17 admitted only with parent or guardian CALL: (714) 547-4688 or http://www.rudeguerrilla.com -- Copyright 2003 The Orange County Register
[27b] Walking The Dead Top Backstage.com http://www.backstage.com/backstage/showguide/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_ id=1797311 West Southern CA January 15, 2003 Reviewed By Kristina Mannion Once again the darkly comic and boldly thought-provoking voice of the Rude Guerrilla Theater Company rings loud and clear in this staging of Keith Curran's bittersweet tragedy--a well-written tale about a transgendered woman's search for acceptance. Featuring Jeff Marx's precise direction and a near-flawless cast that punctuates every scene with mesmerizing intensity, this marks one of the most compelling productions to grace the RGTC stage in a long time. Much of the credit goes to Curran's moving script, which offers an impressive mix of biting humor and wrenching emotion as it explores the transgender point of view and the concept that we are all "works of art," albeit alterable works of art. At the heart of the story is Veronica--a young woman whose life is being celebrated by a group of loved ones who have gathered at the behest of performance artist Maya, Veronica's longtime girlfriend. Under Maya's artistic direction, the joint remembrance plays out like a living piece of art as each participant recalls bits of the past: funny moments between Veronica and her circle of friends, her difficult decision to undergo a sex change, the tense interplay between Veronica and her homophobic mother. Ultimately the play crescendos with two striking events: Veronica's violent murder at the hands of two would-be rapists, and Maya's creation of an arresting visual art installation that aptly represents the conflicting facets of Veronica's sexuality and personality (kudos to set designer Marx, who orchestrates a stunning realization of Maya's artwork). With Curran's solid script as their foundation, the performers build a powerful illustration of Veronica's tragic story. Each one contributes an invaluable blend of humor and pathos to the proceedings. Alison Hartson convincingly and engagingly portrays Veronica's vulnerability as she transitions from woman to man and copes with the conflicting reactions of those around her. As Maya, Vivian Vanderwerd offers a strong, confident presence as Veronica's loyal partner, and Karen Chapin delivers a hilarious yet poignant performance as Veronica's politically incorrect mother, who consistently puts her foot in her mouth as she struggles to understand her daughter's choice. Also adding dimension are Alexander Rodriguez as Veronica's psychiatrist, as well as Tyler Nelson as a smarmy and rather tactless documentary maker. Among the secondary roles, however, Eric Eisenbrey and Patrick Hurley turn in the most indelible portrayals. As Chess, Veronica's unlucky-in-love homosexual neighbor, Eisenbrey is an amusing jumble of naivete and awkward insecurity. Hurley, as Chess' one-time lover, is just the opposite--a brash, overly confident cynic. Each shines during their monologues, in which their characters add insight to Veronica's character and their own. Together they are hilarious, as Curran uses their characters--and Veronica's story--to satirize and indict various homosexual stereotypes. "Walking The Dead" presented by Rude Guerrilla Theater Company at the Empire Theater, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2:30 p.m. Jan. 10-Feb. 2. $12-15. (714) 547-4688. © 2003 VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved. Top
[28] THAILAND --For he's a jolly good lady Top Bangkok Post Thursday 16 January 2003 - For h... http://www.bangkokpost.com/en/Outlook/16Jan2003_out52.html Thursday 16 January 2003 OUTLOOK - ART REVIEW Chakaphan Ratanachan vowed to offer something different ... and did Cheng Zu In a brief press release for this show, artist Chakaphan Ratanachan simply states: "For this exhibition, I have thought of something that will make myself completely different from others." Well, in terms of his main and only subject matter, he certainly did. He has used his paints to tackle the whims and fancies of the "ladyboy" world, "ladyboy" being slang for transvestites, transsexuals and cross-dressers. Rather brave, I must say, considering that these pieces allude to the confrontation, on the part of viewers, with implied assumptions about gender, identity and representation. Contextually, an incredibly potent intimacy is felt with this pervasive social phenomenon. Scattered around the gallery, the works are at once fun, flirty and a bit frightening. At a distance, the bold and unflinchingly excessive use of colour &emdash; almost to the point of jarring &emdash; is overwhelming. It's hard to gaze into the melange of elaborate physiques and not end up contemplating the "masculine" body &emdash; whether that's good or bad depends on, well, your sense of self, your level of humour, and of course, your sentiments concerning the subject matter. Clearly a figurative outing, the whole series is comprised of four distinct sections. A full wall of similar drawings &emdash; that of a face with closely-cropped hair &emdash; feels like a make-up session, as these faces are adorned with unfettered brashness in terms of colour and pattern. Curly floral shapes and twisted, expansive lashes, especially around the eyes, dominate the face in one piece that the artist rendered only in monochromatic black shadings against a completely white background. With slightly less drawn details, the coloured faces in this series are garish looking, seemingly made intentionally so by the artist, as if to signify the liberating pleasure of choosing to look as "womanly-like" as possible. It's an exaggeration of their outward incarnation that we have grown so accustomed to seeing. Some of the drawings are influenced by cubism, as if to suggest the creation of a perfect look. While we think they look "abnormally" ugly, it's their empowerment, their ability to control their real inner identity, that really matters. Nevertheless, some archetypes normally associated with these gender-benders are unavoidable, especially as the artist goes all out to create a highly campy aura in the narration in some of the works. An example is Rajini Haeng Kwam Ngarm (Queen of Beauty), where a gathering around a long table has these characters dressed in various ways. Some are down to suggestive bras and underwear, while others wear outlandish dresses that could stun the catwalk out of a fashion show. We are then informed, in a way that's been done many times before, as to how they are stereotyped or looked upon through the painting of a lone figure, sitting in front of a mirror, during the transformation of the subject into his female identity. Though this reading cannot be dismissed &emdash; it must be as real as reality itself &emdash; yet, it doesn't bring us to a deeper level of empathy. Instead, most of the works exude a relaxed humour rather than a smug sarcasm that might have affected our skewed perception of transvestism. On the contrary, this exhibition deepens the stereotypes further, but having said that, it is these very same highlighted attributes that make these characters all the more passionate and assertive than most of us would ever be about our own identity. Technically, on the whole, there is still much refinement and polish needed in most of these expressive works. That said, it is still very much appreciated that a local artist is taking on a subject dealing with such a minority, rarely tackled in art though their presence is so widely felt in society. - "He is the most beautiful lady" by Chakaphan Ratanachan can be viewed at Jamjuree Gallery, Chulalongkorn University, Phya Thai Road, until January 22. Tel: 02-218-3709. -- © Copyright The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2003 Top
COMMENTARY Not Necessarily An Alternate Transgender Legal Reality Katrina C. Rose Texas Triangle (GLBT weekly) Top Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 From: "tgnews_moderator <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com>" <tgnews_moderator@yahoo.com> Source: Texas Triangle (GLBT weekly) Author: Katrina C. Rose http://www.txtriangle.com/archive/1115/vp4.htm Date: Jan 16, 2003 This is the story of a transgendered person who for many years was an exemplary employee for a large grocery store chain in Louisiana, but who was unceremoniously fired after confiding to a superior that the exemplary employee who everyone there knew as an average male was, in fact, transgendered. However, it isn't the story you're likely thinking of. The employee in question is Patricia Titan, a pre-operative, male-to- female transsexual, and the large southern grocery store chain is Lose-Union. This is also the story of the Federal Gender Transition Recognition Act (FGTRA), passed by Congress in 1949 as a positive, forward- thinking response to the 1945 Swiss decision In re Leber (which a handful of House members had heard of while on a ski vacation in the years following World War II) and signed by President Harry Truman. Arlette Leber could still be alive today (she'd be in her early 90's if she is) and longtime Triangle readers will recall my mentioning her on occasion. However, I have to assume that no one has heard of Patricia Titan, Lose-Union or the FGTRA. And with good reason. They don't exist. By now I'm sure most of you are familiar with the basic facts of Oiler v. Winn-Dixie: a heterosexual male was fired from his employer of many years solely because the employer learned that the employee occasionally crossdressed away from work. The crossdresser asserted that this was gender-stereotyping sex discrimination, but, shunting aside Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins and totally ignoring Schwenk v. Hartford, a Louisiana federal district court ruled in favor of Winn- Dixie. So, all transgendered people in Louisiana outside of New Orleans (which has a transgender rights ordinance) are screwed, right? Well, what's the ultimate trump card that is always shoved down the throat of transgendered plaintiffs seeking redress under Title VII? The theory (based in part on the quarter-century of failed Gay Elite- backed, gay-only federal civil rights proposals that would not have protected any transgendered person had any such bill ever become law) that Congress had no intention of incorporating transgender concepts into Title VII when `sex' was added, as a last-minute ploy to derail it, to the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. However, most states now have their own laws prohibiting employment discrimination based on sex and other aspects of personal existence, with some predating Title VII and others coming afterward. In 1964, Louisiana labor law contained an entire series of statutes under the heading "Female Persons." Ostensibly for the protection of women, the statutes had little-to-nothing to do with equality, and many remained on the books until 1976. Moreover, not until 1983, during the interregnum between now-involuntary-Fort Worth-resident Edwin Edwards' second and third terms as Louisiana's governor, did Louisiana enact somewhat of a proper state complement to Title VII. According to a Tulane Law Review article at the time by Prof. Joel Friedman, 43 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico by 1983 had such a complementary set-up. Six others, including Louisiana, had a "patchwork of independent statutes" which did various things, with Louisiana's (aside from the "Female Persons" statutes) only addressing age and "handicap." (Alabama had no protection for non- government employment settings and precious little for government employment.) "On the last day of its regular 1983 session, however, the Louisiana Legislature made its own attempt at enacting a broad-based equal employment opportunity law and passed a statute prohibiting intentional discrimination in employment on account of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." No sexual orientation (either with a legit definition or with the transphobic New York state variety) and, no gender identity. Yet, a case could be made that if Peter Oiler was not a crossdresser but, instead, a transsexual (post-op or likely even pre-op) and if he had sued Winn-Dixie under Louisiana state law rather than federal law, the same reasoning which was used to bounce his federal case would have mandated a more favorable result. Why? What if Congress had passed an FGTRA prior to passing Title VII? Among other things, there could be no validity to any contention that Congress had no intention of encompassing `because of change of sex' in Title VII's phrase `because of sex'. By 1983, however, Louisiana had had a transsexual-specific birth certificate modification statute on its books for a decade and a half, having been the third state to pass such a statute (predating Stonewall by roughly a year.) My point? There can be no validity to any contention that, after June of 1968, the Louisiana Legislature had only some so-called traditional (read: not inclusive of transsexuals) concept of sex whenever it included the word "sex" in a piece of legislation, including employment anti- discrimination legislation enacted in 1983. Of course, even if this is recognized as being viable by Louisiana's courts (and, yes, I'm willing to acknowledge that it's a big `if'), there are significant gaps. Post Oiler v. Winn-Dixie, there definitely will be no protection for non-transsexual, non-intersexed transgendered people (or too-effeminate gay men or too-masculine lesbians either for that matter) at all in Louisiana, outside of New Orleans. And, there still would be no protection for any transgendered person with respect to federal employment (one of many little problems that I've yet to hear addressed by any proponent of the `transgendered people should rely on state and local law until a gay-only ENDA can be amended' lie.) But I'm sure that's a price proponents of a gay- only-ENDA are willing to see paid. After all, they're not the ones who will pay it. That, unfortunately, is not an alternate reality. Katrina C. Rose is an attorney and transgender legal historian. Contact her at TexKatrina@aol.com. Posted January 16, 2003 ©2002 Angle Media, Inc. The Texas Triangle Online Top
NTAC Joins Coalition for Peace From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
- Top
- For Immediate Release: Dated January 15, 2003
- From: The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC)
- Contacts: Robyn Walters, Seattle, Washington
- 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
The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) joins other human rights organizations, including the National Council of Churches, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the NAACP, the National Coalition for Women, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Rainbow Push Coalition; and Women's Action for New Directions, in a coalition seeking to exhaust peaceful means in pursuit of the necessary disarming of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime.
The "Keep America Safe: Win Without War Coalition" issued the following statement when its formation was announced on December 11, 2002:
"We are patriotic Americans who share the belief that Saddam Hussein cannot be allowed to possess weapons of mass destruction. We support rigorous UN weapons inspections to assure Iraq's effective disarmament. We believe that a preemptive military invasion of Iraq will harm American national interests. Unprovoked war will increase human suffering, arouse animosity toward our country, increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks, damage the economy and undermine our moral standing in the world. It will make us less, not more, secure. We reject the doctrine -- a reversal of long-held American tradition -- that our country, alone, has the right to launch first-strike attacks. America is not that kind of country. We can achieve the valid U.S. and UN objective of disarming Saddam Hussein through legal diplomatic means. There is no need for war. Let us instead devote our resources to improving the security and well being of people here at home and around the world. As the Bush Administration prepares for battle, religious, civil rights and citizen organizations have banded together to promote disarming Iraq without war."
In announcing the NTAC decision to support pursuit of peaceful solutions to the Iraqi crisis as well as to the developing North Korean crisis, NTAC Chair, Vanessa Edwards Foster, stated, "The world has traditionally looked to the United States for leadership. They expect us to be the arbiter of human rights and to be calm and measured in our responses even in the face of volatility and pressure. From all indications, it appears what the world is seeing with regards to Iraq completely breaks with that tradition.
"With so many pressing social issues in our own country and an economy that is suffering badly, it makes no sense to stretch our limited resources in order to engage in saber rattling. Where once this nation was concerned with humanity and human rights, we now flirt with initiating a conflict that will cause suffering and death. Worse, this is being done without instigation or direct acts of aggression. We stand with our coalition partners in beseeching the government to explore all methods of creating a peaceful world by peaceable means. The appropriate focus should be on human rights at home and abroad -- not on human strife and suffering."
Founded in 1999, NTAC - the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition - is a §501(c)(4) civil rights organization working to establish and maintain the right of all transgendered, intersexed, and gender-variant people to live and work without fear of violence or discrimination.
TopLETTERS TO THE EDITOR
- Re: CNN comments
- From Debbie
- top
Dear all,
the following is an e-mail from a friend who heads the GLBT student affairs at Princeton...I think she has a good idea. This morning I was watching CNN while I was getting ready for work, and Jack Cafferty in his segment reported on the court ruling this week that will allow a NYC foster child to be able to wear dresses and express herself as trans in her all boys home. When he made this report he read it with such disgust and disdain and followed it with a comment along the lines of and we wonder why our courts are so screwed up or failing us or something else along those lines. I am writing CNN complaining about his insensitivity and suggesting that they feature a segment about transgender youth. I hope others will also write in and complain at: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/american.morning/index.html and then you click contact us.Debbie
- RE: The sex-change charade
- from R.L.Forrester
- top
From: Pagan Femme <mailto:PaganFemme@sympatico.ca>
To: emakkai@worldnetdaily.com ; jkovacs@worldnetdaily.com ; dkupelian@worldnetdaily.com ; jfarah@worldnetdaily.com ; anne@avitale.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 8:29 PM
Subject: Printed Articles
The sex-change charade To whom it may concern,I do understand that you are a religious group. What I don`t understand is why you chose to attack others without their being able to voice a defence.
The writer spoke briefly about several people , like Renee Richards. I always say that we can prove anything we chose to, for instance by using a shortened quote from a person we can make it seem that the person has now changed their mind. I too read the information that was reported, however I read all of what Ms Richards said. Since neither I nor anyone else I spoke to knew the other so called people, but all of us were able to agree on the same thing. We are glad your crossdresser never had surgery. It`s funny that some crossdressers think that is what they need but when it comes down to it all they really want is the person they love to accept the person they are. A man that likes to dress in women's clothes.
Why is it that your writer refused to speak directly with a known person, instead of rewording another`s words?
I find it funny and sad that the religious institutions keep trying to hurt others. Is not your belief about loving each other? So then why are you doing this?
I watched a film the other night about what has happened to the religious groups in the last few years. It is sad that you have all felt that the only way to spread your "words" is to use words of hate.
Odd that I never hear transexuals speaking about what the churches have always been charged with. Pedophilia.. Yes show me one article about us trans people committing such a disgusting act, and I`ll find you 1000 articles or more. We are not the one`s that have to worry about being seen as "unholy".
The writer of that disgusting article has made it clear that she will go to every extent to falsely prove her hateful views. Why else would she twist the words of another? Why else would she not attempt to learn the truth?
I wonder if the writer or yourselves will even care that I have proven her to be a liar.
Answer if you can, but I don`t think you really can.
R.L.Forrester top
RE: The sex-change charade From Jennifer Usher top This was originally written in response to a copy of your essay that was posted on Usenet. It has been updated a bit. I know, I know, I should leave well enough alone...but I just can't. > The sex-change charade > > > > WorldNetDaily.com > > > Gender gymnastics are going on out there. Transsexuals disenchanted > with their chromosomal selves are having parts lopped off or stitched > on in attempts to change sexual identity. Nope, it is in an attempt to bring their physical sex in accord with their mental gender. > They hope to override male XY or female XX hardwiring; thinking > a newly configured appendage or cleft re-defines gender. And they > enlist a surgeon to mutilate the body accordingly. Again, nope. First off, most of us don't know what our chromosomes are. And second, sex reassignment does not redefine gender, it redefines one's sex. Gender is what is between one's ears, sex is what is between your legs/ And I have to ask, what about those who are neither XX or XY? Some are X, XXX, XXY, XXXY, and most interesingly, there are those who are mosaic, having both XX and XY chromosomes. Would you simply exclude them from the human race? Oh, and then there are the even rarer cases of XY females. They have female genitalia, a female gender, but those chromosomes say XY. Now, what are they? Are they females? Or are they males? Keep in mind, some of these XY females have borne children. > These tortured souls don't need draconian measures to align their > physical exterior with confused gender suppositions; they need > psychological and spiritual truth that frees them to celebrate the > skin they're in. Gee, really? Are you aware that no one, not a single transsexual, has ever been cured by psychological means? I am. When I first discovered I had this condition, I did an extensive search through Medline. I found articles that mentioned that transsexualism could not be cured, or that said it had not yet been successfully curec, but none that said there was a single verified cure of a transsexual. > Last month the legitimacy of so-called sex-change surgery was > challenged. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a New > York state employer, P & C Food Markets, was not required to pay for > an employee's "gender reassignment." And a number of courts have ordered it covered under Medicaid, as well as private insurance. Why? Because the courts accepted the argument that it is medically necessary. In fact, I plan to visit a friend tommorow who had her surgery today. She is one of the first two people to have it payed for by MediCal. The California State Supreme Court ordered that it be paid for. > Marc Mario, born Margo, argued that she suffered "gender dysphoria," a > recently hatched phrase describing the sincere conviction that one's > gender was a mistake ˆ he or she should have been born as the > opposite sex. Not all that recently. The term has been around quite a number of years. The concept is even older. In fact, there are documented cases of the condition we now know as gender dysphoria dating back to ancient times. > Could the Creator have flubbed it? This is a very lame argument, unless you would argue that the correction of a disfiguring birth defect is also wrong. God does not make mistakes, He allows them. And what of those who are born with intersexed characteristics? Where do they fit into God's plans? Is it not possible that if God allows children to be born with ambiguious genitalia, that he might not also allow them to be born with a gender that does not match their body? There is mounting evidence that transsexualism has a physical cause which occurs during prenatal development. And again, what about XY females? > Former transsexual Gordon Babcock, who stopped short of surgery, says, > "I used to pray, 'Lord, make me the same on the inside as on the > outside. I don't care whether I wake up as a man or a woman, just as > long I'm the same inside and out.'" It is extremely unlikely that he was actually a transsexual. Quite a few people who start down the path to sex reassignment surgery come to realize that it is not the correct choice for them. Calling such a person a "former transssexual" is intellectually dishonest. > Margo Mario wanted out of her female physique and "transitioned" from > female to male via voluntary double mastectomies, a hysterectomy and > hormone therapy. The newly minted Marc then sought reimbursement > through his employer's health-care plan. > > The court nixed it, saying costs were not "medically necessary." P&C > Food Markets also cited conflict in the medical community over whether > or not gender dysphoria is a legitimate illness worthy of such severe > medical intervention. And yet, a number of courts, physicians, and even companies do feel that it is medically necessary. One example does not prove your point as it can be countered with numerous examples where the outcome was different. > "I had misgivings at first," says James J. Reardon, M.D., a Manhattan > surgeon who specializes in female-to-male transitions. "But I did > research and found that gender dysphoria is an acknowledged > condition." > > Acknowledged, perhaps, but valid? Yes, it is valid. > "Some people consider it mutilating. And, of course, the scientific > side of it is pretty damn weak," said Chester Schmidt, M.D., one of > the founders of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit at Johns > Hopkins School of Medicine. Really? Not even close. The overwhelming evidence indicates that transsexuals who undergo sex reassignment surgery lead far happier and successful lives afterwards. > In 1960, Johns Hopkins was the first U.S. medical facility involved in > sex reassignment procedures. The program was discontinued in 1979 > after Dr. Jon Meyer published his long-term follow-up report of adult > transsexuals treated at Johns Hopkins. None of the post-operatives > showed measurable improvement in their lives. > > "Sex re-assignment surgery confers no objective advantage ·" > Meyer concluded. The Meyer report is considered extremely flawed. It was deliberately designed so that no other conclusion could be reached. The overwhelming evidence shows the opposite to be the case. > Dr. Paul McHugh, chairman of the Johns Hopkins Department of > Psychiatry, criticized the procedures as "the most radical therapy > ever encouraged by 20th-century psychiatrists," comparing it to the > discredited frontal lobotomy. McHugh is trying to force his own moral beliefs onto his professional positions. Funny that he still allows John Money, who has been accused of child molestation, to maintain an office at John-Hopkins. Oh, and I might add that my primary care physician for 13 years, who attended John-Hopkins Medical School as well as doing her residency, sees sex reassignment surgery as medically necessary. > Surgery will not silence Margo/Marc Mario's torment. Transsexual and > medical doctor Gregory Hemingway, son of author Ernest Hemingway, went > through sex-change surgery. But the sought-after serenity escaped him > ˆ he died an alcoholic shortly after his arrest for indecent > exposure in October 2001. He was not really a transsexual. I agree, he should have never had surgery. You are aware, are you not, that he was not even living as a woman at the time of his death. > "I would have been better off staying the way I was," said tennis star > Renee Richards, the high-profile sex-change recipient. "Today, there > are better choices · for dealing with the compulsion to cross > dress and the depression that comes with gender confusion." Having read Richard's book, I found it obvious that she was not a good candidate for surgery. Yes, mistakes can happen. Some people are not transsexuals may seek surgery. That is why reputable professionals follow the Standards of Care published by the Harry Benjamin Internaton Gender Dysphoria Association. > "How can outward physical change bring about the needed change within? > [After surgery] there is still a painful void," says a regretful > Joseph Cluse, who in 1979 had surgery in Trinidad, Colo. > "Relationships are destroyed and everyday I have to live with scars. > The mirror is ever before me." > > Cluse and Gordon Babcock point to acute psychological wounding in > earliest childhood as pivotal to their severe rejection of > masculinity. Both say they then heard the reoccurring lie, "No hope." That's interesting. Most transsexuals don't express such feelings. In fact, most transsexuals are free of other psychopathology. > And both credit powerful divine assistance for their rescue, saying > that the Creator ˆ through counseling, revelation and > unconditional acceptance ˆ rewires and heals the damaged psyche. Perhaps that is true. But were either really transsexual? Did either have a brain that really was female in sexual differentiation? Almost certainly not. > "God touched my heart and showed me truth," says Cluse. Babcock > initially thought his impending sex switch was God's will, but now > says, "Jesus led me out of the prison I'd been in for more than 40 > years." And what was that prison? Clearly, it was not transsexualism. > Transsexuality signals a deceptively fierce disorder. Elective > castration, mastectomy, hysterectomy, etc. are futile non-solutions. > The cruel, permanent disfigurement of so-called gender reassignment is > not the answer. It is hardly disfigurement...unless you consider a normal male, or female, body to be disfigured. After surgery, it is difficult to tell that the person was born the opposite sex. > Fortunately there looks to be a better way. Quite frankly, no, there does not. You cite a few bad examples against the rather large number of transsexuals who live successful and happy lives following the surgery. Oh, by the way, I am a Christian, and have been one for 30 years. I asked God to "heal" me, and He said "No!" I asked Him, finally, did He want me to be a woman, and He said "Yes, My child, you finally understand." And he Has been there for me ever since. I am closer to Him now, than I ever was before. And I might add, my theology is evangelical and, in the proper sense of the word, Fundamentalist. That is, I believe in the fundamentals of the Christian faith. The Virgin Birth, the death, burial, and ressurection of Jesus Christ, that He died on the cross for the signs of the world, including mine. That He is my personal Savior. Jennifer Usher top-----------------------------------------*****----------------------------------------------
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- copyright November 25, 2002