News and views for Tuesday, November 18th …

[MD, USA] ” If all humans are created equal, then why do only two Maryland jurisdictions have laws to protect a group that includes hundreds of Marylanders? It’s a statewide conflict over transgender discrimination. Sally Thorner reports people close to the issue say it’s time for a change.” — Top Model Talks About Being Transgender

[TN, USA] “The videotaped beating of a transgender woman in police custody in Memphis last February led to charges against two officers and national condemnation from gay rights groups. The officers were fired, and the Police Department overhauled some of its procedures and began sensitivity training for the entire force. But a week ago, the woman, Duanna Johnson, 43, was found fatally shot near downtown. Ms. Johnson’s death has revived scrutiny of the case as the department is under pressure to find the killer. “Duanna Johnson’s case was tragic before, and now it’s an almost unimaginable loss,” said Jared Feuer, the Southern regional director of Amnesty International. “Her treatment demonstrates a culture of violence against transgender people that must be addressed.” — Murder of Transgender Woman Revives Scrutiny

[MN, USA] “On the November 14 edition of his Minneapolis radio show, Chris Baker repeatedly referred to Thomas Beatie, a pregnant transgender man, as a “mutilated lesbian.” He also referred to Beatie as a “freak.” Baker also stated: “If a lesbian gets pregnant, I’m fine with it. I’m OK. Just stop alternating reality and trying to force me to buy into your psychosis.” Baker made the comments while discussing Barbara Walters’ interview of Beatie and his wife, Nancy Beatie. Guest co-host Nicole Remini said of Walters’ interview, “[S]o Barbara goes, ‘Are you pregnant again?’ Like, bluh. Sorry, I just threw up in my mouth on the radio.” Remini added: “It’s disgusting. I really have a problem with it.”" — Radio host Baker referred to Thomas Beatie as a “mutilated lesbian”

[NH, USA] Virginia Prescott of New Hampshire Public Radio interviewed journalist Hanna Rosin, whose article about a transgender child, “A Boy’s Life,” appeared in the November 2008 issue of Atlantic Monthly. — Transgender Children

[CA, USA] “A transsexual former California state prison inmate, who claimed to have suffered repeated sexual assaults and beatings at the hands of two cellmates, should be allowed to pursue a negligence damage claim against prison officials, an appeals court ruled on November 14, but she was not entitled to pursue damages under the “cruel and unusual punishment” provision of the state constitution. The plaintiff’s demand for injunctive relief was properly denied, ruled the court, because by the time of her trial, she had been released on parole … As a result of the ruling, Alexis Giraldo, who was sent to Folsom State Prison on January 4, 2006, while serving time for a parole violation, will be given a trial of her charge that prison officials were negligent in failing to protect her from attacks by her cellmates … Since Giraldo was released on parole before the trial, the state might take the prudential step of offering Giraldo a monetary settlement of her claim rather than have to go through a trial at which each of the named defendants would have to testify, especially considering the specific allegations of callous disregard on the part of some of them recited by the court.” — California Appeals Court Revives Transsexual Inmate’s Negligence Suit Against Prison Officials, but Rejects State Constitutional Claim

[MA, USA] “Remember that President-elect Obama has promised equal rights for the whole GLBT community — “T” meaning transgenders or transsexuals. (“Gender identity” is the code language used for trannies.) Clearly, there is no bottom to this pit of confusion, sadness, and perversion into which these people have fallen. Yet our leftist political leaders will encourage even more troubled people to fall in.” — Anti-Prop 8 Demo in Northampton Pushes “Transgender Rights”

[WI, USA] From Jillian Barfield, ” … I’ve concluded that the overwhelming majority of corporations that have been contacted by The Transgender Job Bank who are on the CEI 100% inclusive list are NOT inclusive and that I believe that the Human Rights Campaign organization is deceiving the public by representing that the problem of transgender workplace discrimination is not as prevalent as it truly is. At the same time The Human Rights Campaign accepts substantial financial support from these same organizations to promote their rich, white, gay, male agenda. The Human Rights Campaign has used their political ’scorecard’ system as a political weapon to disenfranchise the transgender community in Congress. I call upon the Human Rights Campaign to cease these practices immediately and to remove references to the transgender community from their public agenda.” — The Human Rights Campaign – Rich, White, Male, Agenda

[MD, USA] “Martine Rothblatt envisions you uploading a digital version of yourself that could live forever online. It’s not her first far-out idea … it’s a tough sell, that is, until you consider the other seeming impossibilities Rothblatt – who has a doctorate, a master’s degree in business administration and a law degree – has already achieved. When she was young, she dreamed of tiny satellite antennas that could fit on the tops of cars; she later launched Sirius Satellite Radio and won recognition as one of the inventors of the medium. She was born male, but felt female, and in the early 1990s underwent a sex change operation and became an advocate for transgender rights. With no drug development background, she started a biotech company to find a treatment for her daughter Jenesis’ primary pulmonary hypertension, a rare, life-threatening disease that elevates the pressure on blood vessels in the lungs. Today, Silver Spring-based United Therapeutics has a stock market value of about $2.6 billion and gave Rothblatt a compensation package worth $25 million in 2007.” — Virtual immortality

[USA/Australia] “New research suggests transsexualism is indeed a genetic trait. But how conclusive is the study?” — Discovery of a “Transsexual Gene” Raises More Questions Than Answers

[Spain] “The Spanish monarchy is upset that the cranky things their Queen says to them all day managed to get written down and have said that she was quoted “inexactly” and apologized if Grandma’s nutty rants upset any of the local homosexual peasantry. The Spanish Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexual accepted the apology, failing to mention that come Madrid Pride, you can bet half the gays will be dressed up as sexy, glittery Sofía’s.” — Spanish Queen Doesn’t Understand Parading Queens

[South Korea] “Transsexuals should be allowed to change their legal gender without undergoing a sex-change operation, South Korea’s rights watchdog said Monday, suggesting the Supreme Court amend its transgender guidelines. The top court’s guidelines stipulate that transsexual people have to have sex reassignment surgery in order to officially change their gender. The guidelines were made in 2006 to maintain judicial consistency amid concerns that rulings had varied according to judges’ social leanings since the first case for a male-to-female transsexual person was approved in 2002. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea said such court guidelines, however, overlook the expenses and health risks transsexual people have to bear for surgery. “A sex reassignment surgery is very expensive, and its results sometimes can have fatal effects on one’s health. Considering those concerns, it is too excessive a demand for the judiciary to require surgery, while there can be other medical methods for sexual transition, like hormone therapy,” Yoon Seol-ah, the commission spokesperson, said. A 2006 survey by the rights commission suggests many transsexual people live in poverty due to prejudice and discrimination. Their monthly income averaged 700,000 won (US$497), it found, while a sex-change operation costs up to 100 million won. No official data exist, but the commission assumes there are about 4,500 people in South Korea who identify with a physical gender different from the one with which they were born. Those who have had gender reassignment surgery number 300 to 400. The watchdog also said other guidelines, such as requiring applicants to be 20 or older and unmarried, or to have finished the military service or be exempt from it, violate their human rights and should be abolished. “Their lives will be better off if their gender gets changed early and their identity forms early,” Yoon said. The watchdog also said judges should rule over transsexual cases with legislation rather than the top court guidelines and suggested that the National Assembly speaker establish a special law on the issue. — Transsexuals should be allowed to change legal gender without surgery: watchdog

[Nepal] A real Shangri-La? “Close on the heels of an international furore over the state of California’s decision to ban same-sex marriages, the apex court of nascent Himalayan republic Nepal has given its nod to such unions. “My eyes were filled with tears when I read the Supreme Court decision,” said Sunil Babu Pant, Nepal’s first publicly gay lawmaker and a gay rights icon in South Asia … Also striking a blow for transgenders, who were the butt of abuse for crossdressing, the court has ruled that crossdressing is not perversion but an individual’s freedom of expression.” — Same-sex marriage gets court nod in Nepal