I wrote this post to educate LGB people about transgender people going into surgery over at PHB, but am crossposting here to a more transgender audience as I wrote it for the broader LGBT community.
~~Autumn~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday is the day I go in for my gastric bypass surgery. I needed to be at or below 262 pounds to be eligible for the surgery (that’s an arbitrary Lose Weight Exercise set by my surgeon, based on me losing ten pounds between my last appointment and the surgery date). On my friend’s electronic scale yesterday, I weighed 260 pounds. I’m guessing by the way I feel and the way I look, and my continued liquid diet and continued rigorous Lose Weight Exercise plan, I’ll be adequately below the 262 pound mark.

The reason one has to loseWeight Exercise 10 pounds right before surgery has to do with shrinking the liver. The plan is to do this surgery laparoscopicly, so a shrunken liver facilitates easier access to the stomach and intestines. There is a chance I may need to be opened up fully for the bypass, but it’s not the norm.

The gravity of this surgery is really hitting me. This past two weeks while I’ve been on a full liquid diet, I’ve been craving KFC and In and Out Double-Doubles (double cheeseburgers), the reality is that these foods won’t be part of my diet for a long time to come, and even then only in very infrequent doses — my reduced stomach and my long term health plans aren’t going to stomach junk food. My life is forever changing, pretty much as my life changed when I began transitioning to Autumn on February 6, 2003.

These days, I don’t usually talk about the shape of my genitalia or about my secondary sex characteristics because, frankly, my gender isn’t determined by these. I know I’m female just because I just know — as actually how most people know what their gender is. But, per my birth state’s laws, my legal sex is determined pretty much by the shape of my genitalia. There are some commenters here at PHB, as well as a lot of the religious right community, that are genitalia essentialists — they see me as a man because of the current shape of my genitalia (in the case of commenters here at PHB) now, or see me always as a man because of the shape of my genitalia at birth/because they believe my genetics will indicate I’m male.

[More about going into surgery as a pre-operative transsexual after the fold]

Read the rest of this entry »

In the diary We Wouldn’t Want To Actually Tolerate Transgender People, Would We?, I profiled a school in Pleasanton, California where a cross-dressing day was included in week of school spirit activities.

Some of you may remember that an article from the Contra Costa Times where tolerance of transgender people were derided:

Word of boys being told to dress as girls for a day, and girls as boys, touched a nerve with some parents at Valley View Elementary School in Pleasanton last week..

Parents were concerned that the supposed “Cross Gender Day” was meant to promote tolerance of transgender people.

“I think it’s absolutely appalling,” said one mother, who had heard about the event the night before from her first-grader. Then she heard it briefly explained as “gender day” by a school staff member that morning. “They should promote academics, and let morals to the family.”

My diary focused on how tolerance of transgender people is considered by many to anathema. However, some commenters in the thread pointed out that a school crossdressing day should be considered offensive to transgender people as a protected class of students. Jami wrote in a comment that seemed to sum up what some were feeling about a crossdressing day:

[W]hat the parents’ reactions would have been if the Spirit Day theme had been “Dress Like Someone of a Different Race” or “Dress Like a Foreigner”? Would the protests have been as loud?

Well, I’m absolutely amazed at how small the world is sometimes. It turns out that my best friend in the world, Vicki Estrada, has a daughter who teaches at the very Valley View Elementary School mentioned in the Contra Costa Times article. And, she put me in contact with her daughter.

Well, it turns out that there will be no more spirit week crossdressing days at Valley View Elementary School in the future — And, it won’t be because crossdressing days are considered to promote tolerance of transgender people, but because crossdressing days are deemed to promote intolerance of transgender people — for the exact reason Jami described.

[What Vicki's daughter did after the fold]

Read the rest of this entry »

~~Article 2 of 2 on transgender outing today~~

I got a call tonight from Shannon Garcia of TransYouth Family Advocates (TYFA) last night. She described a 9News report from Douglas County, Colorado, saying there is enough information being put out in this article and accompanying video to out the transgender child for ridicule and violence.

The news station apparently wasn’t interested in talking to anyone with expertise on transgender children to get the child’s perspective out in their on air broadcast. The accompanying print article refers comments from Kim Pearson, the TYFA Executive Director, but these weren’t included in their on air comments.

The Rocky Mountain News is doing an article on this story soon, but they at least are getting a perspective other than the worried parent in the same classroom.

The article’s headline read Boy wants to return to school as a girl. Some gems from the text:

- “I see this as being a very difficult situation to explain to my daughter to explain why someone would not want to be the gender they were born with,” said Dave M.

His daughter will be in the same class as the student.

- “I do think that there’s going to be an acknowledgement that ‘Why are you in a dress this year when you were in pants last year?’” said Dave M.

- That thought is not comforting to Dave M., who believes his daughter is not ready to think about the issue of being transgender.

“I don’t think a 3rd grader does have the rationale to decide this life-altering choice,” said Dave M.

- [Dave M.] is also unhappy with the way the school is handling this. The district has been preparing for the child’s return to this school for months. Dave M. thinks other parents should have been made aware of this sooner.

“I just find it ironic that they can dictate the dress style of children to make sure they don’t wear inappropriate clothing, but they have no controls in place for someone wearing transgender clothing,” said Dave M.

Yes, let’s force everyone to conform.

For an idea of how irresponsible the press is in releasing this to public in this sensationalized way, let’s remember that the child we are talking about is in third grade. This be emotionally disastrous for this child due to the media attention. Has anyone looked at LGBT youth suicide rates lately?

And, it could have been dangerous with for this transgender third grader even without the media coverage. Let’s not forget about what the Christian Civic League encouraged in Maine. In their online publishing arm — The Record — they commended a grandfather for encouraging his grandchild to protest an m2f transgender classmate. From that commendation:

Mr. Melanson told his grandson to use the girls’ bathroom whenever he saw the other ten-year-old boy using it. Melanson reasons that the same anti-discrimination laws that are likely to be used to justify one boy’s use of the girls’ bathroom may also be used to justify his grandson’s use of the same bathroom.

His reasoning is sound. Nevertheless, he has been told by school administrators, and the local police, that his grandson cannot use the girls’ bathroom. The administration persists is allowing only one boy to use the girls’ bathroom at the Asa Adams Elementary School.

And who can forget that NARTH’s Canadian psychiatrist Joseph Berger advocated, on NARTH’s website, for the ridiculing of gender variant children:

In a blog on NARTH’s website, Berger expressed disgust with a Northern California school that accommodated a cross-dressing kindergartner and other children with “gender-variant” behaviors. Berger said that instead of teaching tolerance, schools should “let the other children ridicule” boys and girls who don’t conform.

“It is a mistake for various interfering, ignorant and biased busybodies to try to ‘counsel’ the other children into accepting the abnormal,” Berger wrote. “It is very healthy to be able to draw the line between what is healthy and what is sick.”

So, with our third grader, we see religious right organizations have advocated protesting transgender elementary school kids, as well as ridiculing them. Well, I feel Christ’s love there, don’t you?

For those of us with LGBT families, do any of us think that outing an LGBT elementary school child in the media is responsible? Would you have wanted to be outed by the television news, even if they didn’t mention your name?

My best wishes are for the continued health and well being of this child, especially after this kind of press coverage.

~~~~~~
Note: I talked to Kim Pearson of TYFA on the phone Thrusday night, and she told me that GLAAD is going to take on News9 for their article and news story. That’s good news to my ears, that’s for sure.

Some of the recent transgender-related legal and legislative actions and happenings affecting trans people …

* In Florida, Miami-Dade County voters passed a bill of rights …

The bill of rights, which received little attention, contains a clause that bans the city, directly or indirectly, from discriminating based on race, sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. City employees who violate the code could loseWeight Exercise their jobs, and other residents could file civil lawsuits.

* Also in Florida, Gainesville City Commissioners voted to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance for transgendered people …

Commissioners voted four to three.

The ordinance is mostly addressing housing and employment discrimination, but the part of the ordinance that created much controversy; allowing transgender people to use whichever restroom they wanted in public settings.

* Again in Florida, mirroring what happened at the Federal level, there are competing versions of a proposed statewide anti-discrimination bill …

Gay political organizations are clashing over the best way to pass GLBT-friendly anti-discrimination bills through the Florida Legislature. The head butting is taking on strategic tones similar to those that emerged last year in the fight over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the U.S. Congress.

Gay rights organizations are taking different stances on whether to support a two-pronged effort that sends separate anti-discrimination bills through the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate. If passed, House Bill 47 sponsored by Kelly Skidmore (D-Boca Raton) would ban employment and housing discrimination based on sexual orientation as well as gender identity and gender expression. Senate Bill 572, introduced by Ted Deutch (D-Delray Beach), bans discrimination based on sexual orientation only. Both bills are expected to go before the Florida Legislature during the spring session, which begins March 4.

* In Utah, a statewide GLBT anti-discrimination bill apparently has been put on hold …

A bill prohibiting employers from discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gendered people hit a wall today. While the bill is still officially active, it is not clear when – or if – it will be re-considered this session. The bill’s sponsor, Representative Christine Johnson, says the bill is intended to protect everyone in Utah from discrimination.

* In Massachusetts, the mayor of Boston is supporting …

… H.B. 1722, which would expand the state’s non-discrimination and hate crimes statutes to include protections based on gender identity and expression. In letters sent to both O’Flaherty and Creedon, Menino notes that he signed similar legislation for the City of Boston in 2002. “All citizens of the Commonwealth deserve equal protection against discrimination,” Menino wrote, “and I hope that you will help spread that message with passage of this legislation.” The bill, filed by state Reps. Carl Sciortino and Byron Rushing, is awaiting action by the judiciary committee.

* Finally, in Maryland, Montgomery County school’s new sex education curriculum withstood a challenge …

A state court judge has ruled in favor of new sex education lessons in Montgomery County middle and high schools, dismissing a legal challenge from religious conservatives who said the county school board violated state law by teaching that sexual orientation is innate.

No kidding, Florida’s Holmes County School District/Ponce de Leon High School is indicating that any expressions of support for gay rights at all because such speech would “likely be disruptive.” And in a statement that can only be characterized as unbelievable, an attorney for the Holmes County School District went further, stating in a letter to the ACLU that a student with a rainbow flag on his or her notebook may be an indication that the particular student is in a “secret/illegal organization.”

It would all sound too hilariously funny if this weren’t the official, school district response to the apparent bullying of an LGBT youth.

Per the ACLU press release:

The ACLU sent a letter in November to the school board’s attorney on behalf of [student Heather] Gillman, asking for clarification as to whether a variety of symbols and slogans, such as the rainbow flag or “I support my gay friends,” would be allowed at the school. The school district replied that it would not allow any expressions of support for gay rights at all because such speech would “likely be disruptive.” The district then went even further, claiming that such symbols and slogans were signs that students were part of a “secret/illegal organization.”

The letter was sent after Gillman and other students approached the ACLU about an atmosphere in which students say they were routinely intimidated by school officials for things like writing “gay pride” on their arms and notebooks or wearing rainbow-themed clothing. According to students, problems began in September when a lesbian student tried to report to school officials that she was being harassed by other students because she is a lesbian. Instead of addressing the harassment, students say the school responded with intimidation and censorship.

“Because the Supreme Court has held that students have a right to free speech at school unless that speech disrupts the educational process, many administrators think they can just slap the label ‘disruptive’ on anything they don’t like and get away with stomping on students’ First Amendment rights. The law doesn’t work that way,” said Benjamin James Stevenson, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Florida. “School should be a marketplace of ideas, where students share new ideas and learn about themselves and others. Just talking about gay rights or any other topic outside of class isn’t inherently disruptive.”

The ACLU filed a complaint on January 31st, asking the court for an injunction against officials at Ponce de Leon High School to stop them from suppressing students’ free speech in the future.

“Writing something like ‘I support gay rights’ on your notebook doesn’t mean you’re part of some secret conspiracy or shadowy organization,” said Christine Sun, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s national Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project. “Schools shouldn’t be in the business of trying to frighten students into silence.”

The “secret/illegal organization” statement sounds to me like a perfect opportunity to make fun of people who believe the “homos” may have a secret, sinister, gay cabal in place to implement the Homosexual Agenda®. That is, it sounds funny until I realize it’s our LGBT kids these school officials are oppressing; oppressing kids in the name of keeping the school free of LGBT affirmations that school administraters believe would “likely be disruptive.” It’s just not funny.

To me, it’s incredible — and offensive — that the school’s and school district’s response to an LGBT bullying incident was to oppress the LGBT students and their allies.

~~~~~
Further reading:
* ACLU: Gillman v. Holmes County School District

~~~~~Update~~~~~
Related:
* Stupidity As School Dress Code Policy

Turning from small persons to small minds, there’s this snippet from the Contra Costa Times this morning …

Word of boys being told to dress as girls for a day, and girls as boys, touched a nerve with some parents at Valley View Elementary School in Pleasanton last week..

Parents were concerned that the supposed “Cross Gender Day” was meant to promote tolerance of transgender people.

“I think it’s absolutely appalling,” said one mother, who had heard about the event the night before from her first-grader. Then she heard it briefly explained as “gender day” by a school staff member that morning. “They should promote academics, and let morals to the family.”

Principal Michelle Brynjulson told The Eye she had gotten calls, too but was able to quell fears.

Every Friday is “Spirit Day,” when Valley View students are asked to wear clothing with the school logo or blue school color. Once in a while, there’s a different theme — like pajama day, or funny hair day.

Brynjulson said the student council got the idea for a day for girls to dress like boys, and vice-versa, after a boy student came to school on Halloween dressed as a girl.

“It’s pure fun,” she said.

Porn is so yesterday — today, it’s pork. Forget Montgomery County, it’s time for CRC to take a stand on a meatier issue …

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese middle school has ordered children to feed pigs three times a day, angering parents who complained it was denying their children a proper education, state media said Monday amid worries over soaring pork prices.

Chunchang Nanlu Middle School on the southern holiday resort island of Hainan had used 10,000 yuan ($1,400) in poverty alleviation funds to buy 36 piglets, the Beijing News said.

“Besides raising pigs, the students must also grow vegetables as part of a compulsory class,” the newspaper said.

Some parents were angry because the class was taking time from other studies and had taken their grievances to local media.

“Each pig can be sold for 1,600 yuan ($220) with each class splitting the profit of 1,000 yuan ($130), so of course it is advantageous for the school to continue raising pigs,” the newspaper quoted a parent as saying.

The school maintained that the class was good for students’ education.

China’s pork prices have been ballooning on the back of high feed costs and an outbreak of blue ear disease that killed as many as a million pigs last year.

Worries about rising prices reached new heights in a southwestern town where a man has been raising three squealing pigs in his apartment, local media reported earlier.

Su Yanshan, a livestock slaughterer, kept the animals on the enclosed balcony of his second-floor home in Chongqing.

Su’s wife told the Chongqing Evening News they planned to sell the 100 kg pigs for the Lunar New Year holiday in early February, when pork is in peak demand for dumplings, sausage and other traditional dishes.

Parents snort as school enforces pig rearing

I didn’t need a GPS (Gender Porn Sex) device to find the place. I simply relied on WorldNetDaily. “WorldNetDaily!?”, you say. Well, heck, they got “World” in their name so they must know a thing or two about … geography, at least, right?

So, aided by a recent story in WND, and by another one today, I think I’ve pretty well located this wicked and evil place:

The horror! The horror!

Sometimes, you see legislation that hits the hopper and just scratch your head in disbelief. A piece of proposed legislation in Tennessee (House Bill 2997) fits that “scratch your head” description. From Out & About:

Representative Stacey Campfield (R-Knoxville) has filed a bill in the Tennessee House of Representatives that would outlaw any discussion or free speech about homosexuality or bisexuality in any public elementary or middle school….“We wouldn’t have expected something like this,” said Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) President Christopher Sanders. “Since it was filed we have to take it seriously. It shows the absurdity the far right will go. The bill would compromise the very purpose of education and would inhibit the free speech rights of Tennesseans.”

Representative Stacey Campfield apparently has a history of submitting some “interesting,” socially conservative legislation in the past:

He has in the past proposed to replace the state’s tax on food with a tax on pornography and last year wanted the state to require death certificates for abortions.

LGBT people can hope this bill has no traction, yet the sad part is that the LGBT community will likely have to expend time and resources to fight this astonishing piece of legislation that would obviously marginalize children in LGBT families.

~~~~~
Further Reading:
* Text of House Bill 2997

ProudParenting is pleased as punch. Equality California and the GSA Network are pretty pleased too. The Student Civil Rights Act Of 2007 – SB 777 –survived an attempt at repeal by referendum. As 365Gay is reporting:

A conservative Christian group has failed to collect enough signatures to force a vote to repeal a California law protecting students from discrimination, harassment and bullying in publicly-funded schools.

But a legal challenge to the law is still before the courts.

Save Our Kids, the organization that spearheaded the referendum effort says it collected over 350,000 signatures to overturn the law – far short of the required 434,000 signatures that had to be turned in on Friday.

The Student Civil Rights Act, passed and signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year, mandates that teachers and school administrators fully understand their responsibilities to protect LGBT youth.

Various California laws have prohibited discrimination in public education on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, religion, race, disability and gender for a number of years.

But in some instances school administrators have been unclear about all the laws and what they need to do to fight bullying. The Student Civil Rights Act updated the existing Education Code to bring all the discrimination laws under one section.

Religious right organizations are attempting to put a good face on this defeat, and perhaps it’s not completely spin.

WingNutDaily is reporting War over indoctrination moves to initiative arena; Pro-family groups seeking to overturn ‘gay’ mandates.

The battle in California over a new state law that would mandate a positive – and no other – portrayal of bisexuals, homosexuals, transgenders and others choosing alternative sexual lifestyles in public schools has moved into a campaign for an initiative.

Officials with Save Our Kids made the announcement yesterday after confirming that their effort to obtain 434,000 signatures for a referendum fell short, coming up with 350,000 names.

[Save Our Kids and Focus On The Family comment/report on efforts to peal back protections for LGBT youth after the fold]

Read the rest of this entry »

In the last week or so there has been some interesting commentary coming from the religious right, as well as an editorial in this morning’s Los Angeles Times, regarding transgender folk. There’s been a few interesting stories too. So, instead of writing up a bevy of individual posts on a variety of transgender stories, here’s a “This And That” post to catch y’all up on the news and commentary relating to gender identity and expression.

~~~~~~~~~~

○ The Phoenix Arizona LGBT publication Echo Magazine picked their woman of the year: Regina Gazelle.

Almira Enos had used meth since she was 13 years old. To get drugs, she would often prostitute herself. She was born a man, but always knew she was supposed to be a woman. Her own mother told her so. Her confused gender state fueled the chronic drug use. She often felt lost and suicidal. Enter Regina Gazelle, Echo’s Woman of the Year.

In April, Enos met Gazelle, who helped the now 26-year-old clean up and learn how to live in her own skin. Enos enrolled in Gazelle’s halfway house for transgender girls, “This Is H.O.W. (Honesty, Openmindedness, Willingness),” and today is sober and even has a job.

She credits Gazelle with her remarkable transformation.

Editor Patrick Roland wrote in his commentary on the article:

So it is with great pride I announce Echo’s first transgender woman of the year, the fabulous Regina Gazelle.

We know there may be some controversy in making this decision. We thought about having “people of the year” because Regina’s accomplishments were so amazing we knew she had to get the much-needed recognition she’s earned.

But at the end of the day, Regina is a woman, period. And she’s been through a hell of a lot more and created so much with what little she had to work with, she’s made our community a far better place for having her in it.

~~~~~~~~~~

○ And, the first thing you should know is you should be afraid of me and my kind because we are a bunch of bullies — so says the Catholic Online in their editorial Beware of the ‘Gender Identity’ Bullies. The article begins by framing San Francisco’s plan to begin issuing some municipal identification cards without gender markers for undocumented workers and transgender people. Some choice excerpts from the piece:

● Rather than seeing our gender as a gift and a given, this movement is a part of a growing effort to place some perceived power over sexual identity in the hands of individuals so that they can make their own decision as to whether they are men or women; or to change their mind regularly.

These new municipal identification cards will contain birthdates and photos. However, they will not indicate whether the holder is male or female. Why? Because the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco have determined that to do so is somehow “discriminatory’.

So called “transgender” activists added this provision to the ordinance.

● In the USA TODAY article, Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council was quoted as the only voice which even questioned the ordinance. He told the paper that he was concerned that the use of such cards would encourage the idea that gender identity is flexible. “It gives support to the philosophy that says gender is a social construct,” Sprigg said “I think that philosophy is harmful to society at large.”

● No longer content to keep their lifestyle choices private, these activists have decided that the police power of the State must now enforce their vision of a brave new world on everyone else. They have also decided that anyone who sees things differently is “intolerant” or bigoted, and must be stopped.

Oh, I know some may consider that my even commenting on this issue is somehow “insensitive”. Well, when a group goes beyond the pale by forcing a change in the law to accommodate their own lifestyle choice, and, in so doing, risks the safety of others, I will not remain silent.

They are the ‘Gender Identity Bullies’ and they may be coming to a City or town near you.

So apparently, since San Francisco is going to issue ID’s without gender markers, the terrorists win. I probably should tell the Department of Defense that, since my Military Retiree ID card is sans a gender marker.

~~~~~~~~~~

○ Keeping with the Catholic Church, a Catholic hospital has denied a post-operative, transsexual woman breast enlargement surgery because was born male. (The California Catholic Daily has a piece up on the story too in their piece God made you a man.) Quoting from the PinkNews‘ article on the story:

A trans woman is suing a Catholic hospital, claiming medical officials blocked her from getting breast enlargement surgery there because she had a sex-change operation.

Charlene Hastings, 57, told The [San Jose] Mercury News that when she called Seton Medical Centre, a Catholic hospital in Daly City, California, to inquire about breast enlargement surgery, an official told her it wasn’t “God’s will” for her to have such a treatment, because “God made you a man.”

The Catholic League’s Bill Donahue has commented on this story:

…Significantly, the IRS ruled in 2005 that a woman’s transsexual sex reassignment surgery is not allowed as a deductible medical expense. Moreover, consider what Johns Hopkins professor of psychiatry Paul McHugh has concluded: ‘I have witnessed a great deal of damage from sex-reassignment.’ In other words, the government sees the requested surgery as elective in nature and experts like McHugh see it as destructive. Why, then, should Catholic hospitals be forced to cooperate with this objectionable venture?

○ One of my hero’s, Monica Roberts, has a piece up (from November) entitled Why Is The Catholic Church Hatin’ On Transpeople? It’s a pretty good summary piece on the history of the Catholic Church with transsexuals.

~~~~~~~~~~

[Articles not related to Catholics on Gender Identity And Expression after the fold]
Read the rest of this entry »

This is Part 2 of my chronology of some of the trans-related news archived (well over 6,000 items) during 2007 at Transgender News and TNUKdigest (see Part 1 here) …

MARCH (Continued)

In Spain, a transsexual geriatric care worker is taking her former company to court, alleging sexual discrimination. It will be the first court case in Spain where transsexuality is given as the reason for employment discrimination, and it comes just two weeks after Congress approved a new law which allows transsexuals to change their registered name
and sex without a sex-change operation.

In Vermont, a bill that would prohibit discrimination against people based on their gender identity or expression wins preliminary approval in the state Senate and the governor says he will likely sign it if it reaches him.

In Maryland, opponents of the new sex education curriculum being tested in Montgomery County schools will ask state officials this summer to quash the gay-inclusive lessons. As part of that curriculum students in eighth grade are taught to recognize health relationships and how to define sexuality, gender identity and other terms. Students in 10th grade receive a more thorough curriculum, including an examination of topics such as coming out and transgender discrimination.

In Georgia, a gay- and transgender-inclusive hate crimes bill passes its first test in a long, uphill battle to become law, by gaining broad bipartisan support during a state Senate Judiciary Committee meeting March 13.

Largo City Manager Steve Stanton files a written response to the city commission’s decision to begin the process of firing him because he is changing his sex. The document represents Stanton’s rationale as to why he should not be let go from a post he has held for 14 years. The gist of it reiterates what Stanton, 48, has said publicly: namely, that he should be judged on his job performance and not his plans to become a woman.

In Oregon, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people would gain protection from discrimination in employment, housing, access to public places and other areas, under legislation approved by the state Senate.

In Washington, DC, the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Hate Crimes Prevention Act is introduced in the U.S. House.

In Wisconsin, despite the state’s same-sex marriage ban, Barbara Lynn Terry and Nicole Winstanley carried purses into a judge’s office Friday and emerged as Mrs. and Mrs. Terry. But first, a doctor had to confirm the male anatomy of Barbara Lynn Terry, who was born a man, lives as a woman and has been undergoing hormone therapy for years. The judge performed the wedding after learning that gender-reassignment surgery hadn’t been performed on the person who used to be Ronald Francis Terry.

In Indiana, a state lawmaker decides not to call the hate crimes bill he’d sponsored after changes to it made it unpalatable to him. The proposed bill would have allowed judges imposing sentences to consider it an aggravating factor if the criminal selected the victim of the crime because of “color, creed, disability, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex.” A critic of the proposal objected to giving “cross-dressers … special legal treatment.”

Largo, Florida’s city commission votes 5-2 to uphold its Feb. 27 decision to fire its city manager. City manager Steve Stanton said he was fired because he revealed his plans to become a transgendered woman named Susan. [More here.]

Radio personality Michael Savage blames sexual reassignment surgery for the Columbine massacre. [More here and here.]

In Iowa, the Iowa Senate approves legislation prohibiting discriminatory practices in employment, public accommodation,
housing, education and credit based on a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Debate on the legislation now shifts to the House, where the outcome is uncertain.

Maryland legislators vote down an effort to bar discrimination against the state’s transgender residents and workers.
By a 6-5 vote, the Senate judicial proceedings committee rejected a measure that sought to outlaw discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, credit and public accommodations. [More here.]

In South Korea, a group of transgendered people will file a suit in April to seek the legal right to change their genders in
their family registries, a civic group said.

In Washington, DC, any thoughts that a transgender protection clause in the recently introduced federal hate crimes bill would slip through Congress without controversy were put to rest as social conservative groups blasted the legislation as a pro-homosexual measure that would promote “cross-dressing” and “transsexualism.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Autumn and I (along with our colleague, Meryl) are what she calls “news archivists,” so I felt I should present here over the next week or so (better later than never, I hope) a chronology of some of the news we’ve archived (well over 6,000 items) this past year at Transgender News and TNUKdigest …

JANUARY

A Japanese court refuses to amend the birth records of a transsexual because prior to sex reassignment surgery she had
fathered a child.

On Pakistani television, Ali Saleem, 28, portrays Begum Nawazish Ali, a flirty, teasing widow, to achieve both political and
personal goals.

The author of a new book about transgender teenagers in Los Angeles talks straight about hormone smuggling, life on the street, and the rise of America’s first trans-rapper. [More here.]

An American transsexual woman who says she was forced out of a job at Hitachi Data Systems in London has lost the biggest discrimination case brought by a transgendered person under Britain’s anti-bias law. [More here.]

New Jersey extends statutory rights and protections to civil union partners and prohibits discrimination on the basis of
gender identity or expression.

In Washington, DC, news surfaces about the Jan. 3 murder of Grafton Lee Person, a 42-year-old transgender woman known in the community as Diamond Lee Person, whose death has reverberated through the local transgender community. [More here.]

A Mexican transsexual wins a new hearing on claims both for asylum and, alternately, for protection in the U.S. under the international Convention Against Torture, or CAT.

Mordechai used to be known in his Toronto Orthodox community as Nord, short for Nord the Barbarian, which referred to his girth and hairiness. He now wishes to be called Nicole, and has chosen Neshama, or Soul, as a Hebrew name. [More here.]

With the Democrats in control of Congress for the first time in 12 years, gay rights advocates are optimistic about a vote in the House and Senate later this year on the long-stalled Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA.

A Taiwanese teacher’s involved in sex-change drama.

A former San Antonio, Texas police officer is sentenced to 24 years and four months in prison for the rape and
beating of a transsexual woman.

The Division of Corrections in Maryland wonders “Where To Place Transsexual Convict.”

In Ohio, cross dressers, transsexuals, gays, lesbians and bisexuals may be protected from job discrimination in the attorney general and secretary of state’s offices under soon-to-be expanded employment policies.

A conservative Christian minister began work on a referendum to overturn Washington state’s inclusion of gays
and lesbians in its human rights law.

A groundbreaking conference in California gathers transgender Christian advocates.

California’s first transgender administrative law judge is sworn in.

A Mexican congressman says he will submit a bill to Congress in March that would amend the country’s constitution to guarantee the rights of transsexuals and change civil laws to ensure they can legally change their name and gender. [More here.]

Gay Sports publishes a feature on 1932 Olympic gold medal sprinter, Stella Walsh –”The Story of Stella Walsh.”

Artnet Magazine publishes a feature on transgender artist, Greer Lankton.

In Austria, a boy of 12 is believed to have become the world’s youngest sex change patient after convincing doctors that he wanted to live the rest of his life as a female. [More here and here.]

More U.S. employers are covering sex transition surgery. [More here.]

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Every now and then I get a wild hair up my ass and send a letter to an editor off. I sent this one off today to the Providence Journal (Rhode Island), regarding David Carlin’s Bathrooms for the transgendered. Summing up the article, he stated that providing gender-neutal restrooms that would benefit transgender students is a “lethal cocktail of compassion-plus-stupidity,” and:

…Let me get back to the compassionate New England colleges. They have solved the bathroom problem by doing away with men’s rooms and women’s rooms. Now everybody will use a gender-neutral bathroom. That is to say, men, women and transgender people will all use the same restrooms.

What a splendid institutional improvement! They have improved the bathroom lot of a small (and mentally ill) fraction of the student population, and they have inflicted embarrassment and discomfort on everybody else. Well, not quite everybody else. The politically correct administrators who run many of our colleges will feel a glow of moral superiority every time they relieve themselves in a gender-neutral rest-room.

The French philosopher Jacques Maritain felt that we should be both compassionate and intelligent. One without the other would not do. He summed this up in a memorable phrase that we should all remember: “We must have tough minds and tender hearts.”

America today suffers from what may eventually prove to be a lethal cocktail of compassion-plus-stupidity. We solve little problems that tug at our heartstrings by creating immense future problems. Hard cases make bad law.

Anywho, below is my letter to the editor. It’s probably too long for them to actually post in their hard copy publication, so I thought I’d share it here.

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Dear editor,

David Carlin doesn’t seem to comprehend that the “difficulty [transgender] students face when choosing a bathroom” isn’t superfluous, it’s serious mistreatment and violence. The Transgender Law Center published the document Peeing In Peace, which stated:

For many transgender people, finding a safe place to use the bathroom is a daily struggle. Even in cities or towns that are generally considered good places to be transgender (like San Francisco or Los Angeles), many transgender people are harassed, beaten, and questioned by authorities in both women’s and men’s rooms. In a 2002 survey conducted by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, nearly 50% of respondents reported having been harassed or assaulted in a public bathroom. Because of this, many transgender people avoid public bathrooms altogether and can develop health problems as a result. This not only affects people who think of themselves as transgender, but also many others who express their gender in a non-stereotypical way but who may not identify as transgender (for instance, a masculine women or an effeminate man).

[More of the letter to the editor after the break]

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In her December 19th blog post, former HRC board member Donna Rose had some commentary on the December 17th XM Radio broadcast of The Agenda. HRC Executive Director Joe Solmonese was interviewing Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), and Frank was transcribed as stating on the show (emphasis added):

At this point three important pieces of legislation to vindicate our rights, or – there have been three votes: two in the House and on in the Senate saying, “No. It’s wrong to mistreat people because of their sexual orientation and with regard to hate crimes on their gender identity.” That doesn’t yet become law. It does mean this, and I’m confident of this: If in 2009 people who are pro-LGBT win the presidential election – I wish I wasn’t partisan but right now that means the Democrats – and we have a couple more Senators who are pro-LGBT, they you’re going to see, I think, by the end of 2009 the Employment Non-Discrimination Law will become law. It will be illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation anywhere in the country. A hate crimes law including protection for people who are transgender will have passed. And we will be, at that point, well on our way to try to extend this to people who are transgender and to getting rid of the ban of gays in the military.

Rose made the following comments in her blog entry prior quoting the transcript of Rep. Frank on The Agenda:

[Donna Rose's blog commentary after the break]

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