Some news and views, trans and otherwise, catching my attention today …

#1 - Sophia Siedlberg from the Organisation Intersex International commented on a Bay Area Reporter feature today (”DSM controversy could overshadow opportunities“) on Kenneth Zucker, Jack Drescher and DSM-V …

If the APA feel that some of the very real anger expressed about how certain people are appointed and the actions of those people, then the APA should consider the possibility that the Clarke Northwestern academics they have elected have, in the past been known to provoke an acrimonious response from those they “discuss” and then deliberately ignore any invitations for polite debate, while crying foul when people get angry out of sheer frustration. That is a well known and documented tactic on the part of the Clarke-Northwestern. And one that renders their objections to being called everything from “Quacks” to “Nazis” utterly meaningless, as they have deliberately taken an invidious approach to debate, in order to cry foul when the predictable response happens. We have to ask why do the Clarke-Northwestern do this? Most logical people would conclude that there may be some truth in the more slanderous accusations levelled at the Clark Northwestern as they persistently fail to engage in open debate, in a way that appears deliberate.

On the The Bay Area Reporter

#2 - Barack Obama supporter and Transadvocate blogger, Marti Abernathey, is the subject of a Bay Windows feature today (”Trans parent, gay son: pride across the generations“) …

Abernathey fights through her involvement with various national and state transgender and LGBT organizations. She runs the Transadvocate group blog (transadvocate.com) and is contributing editor for another, the Bilerico Project (bilerico.com). She also fights simply by being open about who she is. “A lot of the reasons why there are fewer obstacles now for gay and lesbian parents is because there are gay and lesbian parents,” she explains. “There’s exposure to the straight community, so it’s not an abstraction, it’s real. When trans people are open and honest about who they are, then people will start to see we’re just parents. We’re not trans parents, we’re parents. I think that’s what gays and lesbians want, and what trans people want.”

And, speaking of Obama, he has a fan in Rupert Murdoch (”Rupert Murdoch Says Obama Will Win“) …

“He is a rock star. It’s fantastic”

#3 - Actor and comedian Harvey Korman passed away today (”Comic powerhouse Harvey Korman dies at 81“) …

Harvey Korman, the tall, versatile comedian who won four Emmys for his outrageously funny contributions to “The Carol Burnett Show” and played a conniving politician to hilarious effect in “Blazing Saddles,” died Thursday. He was 81.

…

His most memorable film role was as the outlandish Hedley Lamarr (who was endlessly exasperated when people called him Hedy) in Mel Brooks‘ 1974 Western satire, “Blazing Saddles.”

…

After 10 successful seasons, Korman left Burnett’s show in 1977 for his own series. Dick Van Dyke took his place, but the chemistry was lacking and the Burnett show was canceled two years later. “The Harvey Korman Show” also failed, as did other series starring the actor.

“It takes a certain type of person to be a television star,” he said in that 2005 interview. “I didn’t have whatever that is. I come across as kind of snobbish and maybe a little too bright. … Give me something bizarre to play or put me in a dress and I’m fine.”

#4 - Where would some folks be without us … ? (”A better way to morality“) …

Cross-dressing to my mind is the single most important factor in spreading the homosexual lifestyle.

#5 - One way to get rid of some carbon footprints (”Environmentally Friendly Bombs Planned“) …

New explosives could be more powerful and safer to handle than TNT and other conventional explosives and would also be more environmentally friendly.

…

To make safer, more environmentally friendly explosives, scientists in Germany turned to a recently explored class of materials called tetrazoles. These derive most of their explosive energy from nitrogen instead of carbon as TNT and others do.

…

These compounds have great potential, “especially for large caliber naval and tank guns,” Klapötke added

This is a list (which I posted at Transgender News) of gender, transgender and intersex-related books slated for release from now until the end of the year. (The list of publishers and titles is culled from Publisher’s Weekly’s “Lesbian and Gay Titles May-December 2008: Complete Listings.”) …

ARSENAL PULP PRESS

queersexlife: Autobiographical Notes on Sexuality, Gender & Identity
(May, $19.95) by Terry Goldie is the York University English
professor’s frank and intimate collection of responses to theories of
queer sexuality and identity.

–

CITY LIGHTS

So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (Sept., $16 paper) by Mattilda Bernstein
Sycamore is set San Francisco, where a young gay man struggles to find
hope in the ruins of the everyday. Bernstein Sycamore is the
gender-bending author of the highly praised novel, Pulling Taffy, and
the editor of four nonfiction anthologies.

–

CLEIS PRESS

The Transgender Child (June, $16.95 paper) by Stephanie Brill and
Rachel Pepper is a comprehensive guidebook for parents and
professionals exploring the challenges of raising a transgender child.
Brill is founder of Gender Spectrum Education and Training and Pepper
is coordinator of LGBT Studies at Yale University.

–

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience (Oct.,
$23.95 hardcover) by Katrina A. Karkazis examines contemporary
controversies over the medical management of intersexuality in the
U.S. from the perspectives of patients, parents and clinicians.

–

FEMINIST PRESS AT CUNY

Trans (Dec., $22 hardcover) edited by Susan Stryker, Lisa-Jean Moore &
Paisley Currah explores the meaning of “trans” as it relates to
nationality, culture, race, and gender. Currah teaches at Brooklyn
College; Moore teaches at Purchase College; and Stryker won an Emmy
for her documentary Screaming Queens.

–

FIREBRAND BOOKS

Read My Lips: Second Edition (Nov., $14.95 paper) by Riki Wilchins
weaves theory and personal experience into a story of self-discovery
for lesbians, feminists, queer academics, activists and transpeople.
Wilchins is cofounder of the Transexual Menace and Executive Director
of GenderPAC.

–

HYPERION

Smile as They Bow (Sept., $24.95 hardcover) by Nu Nu Yi was
shortlisted for the inaugural Man Asian Literary Prize. It’s the
mesmerizing, lush story of a gay transvestite, his young assistant,
and a beautiful beggar girl, set among the gay spirit mediums of
Burma. One of Burma’s leading writers, Nu Nu Yi is the author of more
than 15 novels and 100 short stories.

–

ST. MARTIN’S/GRIFFIN

Dandelion: Memoir of a Free Spirit (Sept. $14.95 paper) by Catherine
James is the former Wilhemina model’s memoir of how, after she had
escaped her miserable childhood, her father revealed himself to be not
just a cross-dresser but a transsexual, and her mother came back into
her life just in time to die, but not to change her attitude toward
her only daughter.

–

SUSPECT THOUGHTS PRESS (dist. by Small Press Distribution)

Dying for a Change (Aug., $17 paper) by Sean Reynolds is set in summer
1965, when Miss Dive, a famous drag queen from Chicago’s North Side,
is murdered, sending fierce drag queen Henrietta Wild Child and sexy
black butch Chan Parker on a mad romp, from low life bars to mob dens,
to find the killer.

–

UNIV. OF WISCONSIN PRESS

The Gendering of Men, 1600–1750: Volume 2, Queer Articulations (July,
$65 hardcover) by Brandeis Univ. Professor Thomas A. Kin looks at the
emergence of male homosexuals in early modern England analyzes the
perception of masculinity and effeminacy in the 18th century.

–

HENRY HOLT

Debbie Harry Sings in French (May, $16.95) by Meagan Brothers. A
troubled teenage boy finds strength in the music of Blondie and in
dressing like the band’s lead singer. (14-up)

–

LITTLE, BROWN

Luna (Sept., $7.99 paper) by Julie Anne Peters is a paperback reprint
of Peters’s 2004 novel about a transgender teen’s transition from girl
to boy. (12-up)

–

PENGUIN/SPEAK

Freak Show (Oct., $8.99 paper) by James St. James. The author’s 2007
novel about a teenage drag queen’s new life in Florida returns in this
paperback reprint. (14-up)

–

RANDOM HOUSE

Cycler (Aug., $17.99 hardcover) by Lauren McLaughlin. For four days
each month, high school student Jill turns into a boy. (14-up)

Some of the gender and transgender-related writings we’re reading today …

At Towleroad …

Hillary Clinton on ENDA, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, McCain, and Coulter

At (Ab)Normal Heights …

Donna Rose Comments On The LGBT Americans For Hillary Steering Committee

At Gender and Life’s Paths …

Transgender: Why Don’t We Matter

At Phred’s Blog …

Human hatred on display in Gainesville

At Bilerico Project …

The Gender Anarchist

What Man and What Woman?

And at Intersex Pride …

Elizabeth Reis defames and trivializes intersex people

DSD: North American Medical fascism and manufacturing consent

Catching up on some of the weekend news …

#1 - Saturday on NPR’s Weekend Edition Scott Simon commented on Georgia Fuller’s charge that Riverdale, Georgia city council member Michelle Bruce “pretended to be transgendered, just to be popular” …

“We couldn’t find out how much a member of the Riverdale City Council is paid, but it’s probably not enough to want to make you change your gender to win a council seat — it’s Riverdale, Georgia after all, not San Francisco’s Castro District. Ms. Bruce says, ‘I’m the same Michelle I was four years ago. They’re just trying to distract from the issues.’

… Being transgendered has become a political asset in some parts of the South. Like getting endorsed by Pat Robertson or the NRA, it could have urgent implications for the presidential campaign ahead as both parties try to win votes there. Everyone running for office says, ‘I’m the candidate of real change.’ A transgender candidate can add, ‘and that’s not just talk.’ Rudolph Giuliani famously appeared in drag at a roast in 1997 — maybe that’s why he’s ahead in the polls. Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Jon Edwards — gentlemen, those accents alone may no longer be enough. [Music: "I Enjoy Being A Girl"]

#2 - A journalist asks, Must we respect stupid readers? …

One of the sacrosanct maxims of newspaper journalism is: Respect the reader. But sometimes it’s hard to do. From my phone calls the last couple of weeks:

An irate caller spits bile over our story about a transgender observance. “You people are a bunch of perverts, just like the people you’re trying to make heroes – those transgerderites or whatever they call themselves.”

Hold on, I say. Our job is to reflect the goings-on in our community and that event was news about people who live here.

“I don’t want to hear about them!” she wails. “How dare you give publicity to those kind of people.”

…

Respect the reader. Respect the reader. It’s gotten so I have to mumble those words like a prayer every morning. It is a challenge, after all, to respect readers who luxuriate in blissful stupidity and angry vacuity.

#3 - I don’t know exactly why “intersex advocate” Alice Dreger does things that seem calculated to hurt and offend intersex people (such as delivering a lecture here last June). Earlier this month, Prof. Dreger delivered a lecture at Indiana University entitled, “No Matter How You Slice It? Parsing Intersex,” which prompted this response from Curtis Hinkle of Organisation Intersex International …

That title reveals an insidiously hateful side of Dreger’s character: For someone who prides herself in being ever so clever with words, she had to know how hurtful that title would be to intersex people (especially those who’ve been “sliced” physically and emotionally by the system Dreger represents, and who don’t appreciate being referred to as “it” either).

What reason could she have had to use such an awful title? Now I’m not one to attribute motives without hard evidence, but some folks might suspect Dreger of being in a rage against intersex people for having “turned the world against her”, or some other such imagined injury. Folks might also suspect Dreger of designing that title to ensure that few or no intersex people would attend her talks (given the difficulty in maintaining one’s emotions in the face of such despicable taunts).

Alice Dreger, have you no shame?

#4 - The New York Post reported yesterday about this grisly murder case …

November 24, 2007 — Police are searching for the killer of “Sugar Bear,” a professional drag queen from Brooklyn - whose head was found frozen in the ice of a Long Island pond by skaters in 2003.

The killer had dumped the head, with a single bullet wound in the temple, in the pond in Moriches, where it was found on Jan. 25, 2003, said Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick, commander of the Suffolk County Police Homicide Squad.

The victim’s arms and legs were later found miles away in plastic bags.

It took Suffolk detectives almost a year and a half to identify the victim as Andre Jamal Isaac, 25, of East New York, the grandson of a Vietnam POW.

DNA tests linked the body parts to a torso found clad in a skirt, black body suit and tank top in Far Rockaway, Queens, in December 2002.

Detectives showed photos of his head to transvestites in Manhattan.

In May 2004, one drag queen told a detective, “Hey, that looks like Sugar Bear.” Another knew Isaac’s real name, and detectives found his mother, Kim Long Jordan, 50, on Long Island.

Jordan gave investigators a key piece of information: One of her son’s pals had seen Isaac just before Thanksgiving getting into a car with a “secret friend.” He was never seen again.

“He went out without a coat and said he would be right back. He left his pocketbook,” she said.

Fitzpatrick said the car was a red, BMW-type coupe with “nice rims” driven by a Hispanic man.

Fitzpatrick asked anyone with information to call the Homicide Squad at (631) 852-6392. All calls will be kept confidential.

Isaac was the grandson of the late Donald Rander, an Army soldier held by the North Vietnamese for five years.

Jordan, a teacher, said her son was a talented female impersonator and dancer who would enter contests from New York to Washington, DC.

“He was a big bear,” she said. “No matter what his lifestyle, he was still a human being.”

Hunt For Clues in Tranny Slay

#5 - Transgender student Andrew Gomez was elected Homecoming King at Pasadena City College earlier this month …

For late Friday …

#1 - Another Black Friday’s here — and I hope that the start of this Christmas shopping season includes more than just Wii and flat panels. So, please consider this purchase …

In Ethan St.Pierre’s Thanksgiving Day interview on TransFM with TYFA’s Kim Pearson (sorry, no link), Kim expressed a hope and a wish, if I’m not mistaken, that the Amethyst Ribbon might become a broader symbol/icon for the entire trans community.

#2 - More on Michelle Bruce … ANONYMOUS LOBBYIST at Wonkette comments on gender, genitalia, small towns and small minds in Riverdale (what a world away from the place of the same name I grew up by in NYC), Georgia …

Michelle, you see, was born intersexed (i.e., with ambiguous genitalia) but has lived her entire life as a woman. She self-identifies as transgendered and is pretty open about it (in a city of 15,000 people, it’s hard to hide certain things) though she refuses to discuss the specifics of her medical records — and good for her. She’s been a City Council member for almost 4 years, has been mocked on a local radio program and if anyone doesn’t know her backstory, well, it ain’t because she’s been in any kind of closet.

However, Georgia “I Only Ran to Get the Queer Out of Office” Fuller and her lawyer, Michael King, may have climbed out from under a rock. Miz Georgia lost the election, garnering only 171 votes out of the 685 cast earlier this month but she damn well thinks she should have won against that “person.” In court papers, she and her scum-sucking lawyer refer to Michelle as “Michael” and are demanding another general election in which Michelle would be forced to run as Michael (a name she’s never used and an identity she’s never claimed) to be more “accurate” about herself. The lawyer told the press that women have an “unfair” advantage in elections, ignoring every single thing that most people know about female politicians.

#3 - This athlete’s now attempting to cross over a new bar …

A former European pole vault medallist has decided to quit the sport, possibly to pursue a sex change operation.

Yvonne Buschbaum said that a persistent achilles tendon injury and a feeling that she was “emotionally in the wrong body” have contributed to her decision to end her career.

The 27-year-old said on her website: “For many years, I have had the feeling I am in the wrong body.

“Those who know me have seen a clear fault. I feel like a man and yet must live my life in the body of a woman.

“I would not like to be misjudged any longer.

“I am conscious of the fact that transsexuality is a difficult topic, but I don’t want to be involved in a game of hide-and-seek with the truth.

“I appeal to the public’s understanding, to respect my decision and not draw any wrong conclusions.”

Champion athlete may have gender reassignment surgery

#4 - Five years here is 4.99 years too many …

[<< The Abuser] A DRAG queen has told how he suffered months of abuse from a `neighbour from hell’ …

Mr Prescott urged other people suffering homophobic abuse or anti-social behaviour not to feel that they have to suffer in silence.

He said: “She is THE neighbour from hell. I have lived here for five years and the abuse started the day I moved in. She asked me if I was married and I told her I was gay.

“She immediately started shouting abuse at me and it has gone on ever since.”

… Mr Prescott called police. Jones was arrested after each incident, but each time she was interviewed by police she claimed she could not remember what she had said or done because she had been drunk.

[<< The Abused] Mr Prescott had described how he had put up with similar abuse for years but the situation got worse in recent months …

Mr Craig Parkinson, defending, said Jones had difficulties looking after herself and this was exacerbated by her drinking. She had been intoxicated when she committed each offence.

Sentencing was adjourned until December 6 - and Jones was remanded on conditional bail.

Mr Prescott, who has been a professional female impersonator at clubs for 20 years, said: “I ignored her at first, but she has been relentless.”

Neigbour made life a drag

#5 - Well, forget pulchritude, but, first gender dysphoria, now I have to worry about gender dysmorphia …

[<< Victoria Beckham] The Diana inquest drags on and drags up all sorts of questions. Among them: what on earth has happened to women’s bodies since the Queen of Hearts died in that tunnel?

… When I look at these women I think of car commercials: leaner, zingier, and now with better suspension. Never curvy, God help us. These martyrs to weight-loss hate curves. Jolie complained recently that her part in the film Beowulftook the edge off her angular frame – she risked looking too sexual in front of her children. Are they women at all, I sometimes ask myself, peering more closely at my copy of Grazia. Will there come a day when it will be revealed to the world that this is a huge practical joke? Will the world’s most supposedly enviable women turn out to be escapees from a Pat Pong transsexual club?

The body of evidence

Ten years ago Diana was the female figure all women aspired to. Why are our role models now ‘boys with breasts’

After that, and having already mentioned (my) “flat panels,” I can’t help but consider this question …

The lifelong Democrat in me says, “Laura,” but this seems like a non-partisan election to me …

After a three-week hiatus, 5 Things returns with this Thursday edition of trans and gender-related news …

#1 - Today, November 8th, is Intersex Solidarity Day.

#2 - Paul Schindler writing in the Gay City News yesterday had a pretty good wrap-up (”What Does Victory Mean?“) of the U.S. House’s passage of H.R. 3685 (ENDA) on Wednesday.

#3 - While GLBT solidarity may have suffered a setback yesterday here in the U.S., there’s “solidarity” aplenty in South Korea, where not just the “T” … but the “G” … and the “L” … and the “B” were all left out of proposed anti-discrimination legislation …

“A supposed landmark nondiscrimination law has been hollowed out to exclude Koreans, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, who are in need of protection,’’ Jessica Stern, a researcher from the group, said in a statement this week.

Critics blast proposed South Korean nondiscrimination bill for excluding gays, lesbians

#4 - Back in the States, the Montgomery County (Maryland) Council is scheduled to vote Nov. 13 on a bill to add “gender identity” to the county’s anti-discrimination policy. Opponents of the measure, such as Dr. Discrimination, are now focusing their arguments on the “bathroom” issues …

… this bill would not define ‘‘facilities” as bathrooms alone, but would include locker rooms and showers as well.

The bill, if passed by the council on Nov. 13, would allow biologic males to access female showers and dressing facilities. Many transgenders have not had reassignment surgery but would still be allowed into lockers and showers.

Also, what was considered indecent exposure in the past will be legalized. Unless people communicate their concerns to the County Council, indecent exposure will be legalized by Bill 23-07.

Ruth M. Jacobs, MD, Rockville

#5 - Kim Pearson of TransYouth Family Advocates (TYFA) has a feature in the Nov. 2nd issue of BottomLine San Diego on transgender kids …

In the GLBT movement, most of us are familiar with the capital “T” representing Transgender folks, but there is also a lower case “t” beginning to emerge as a bright and shining star of education and advocacy in our community. The lower case ‘t’ represents the trans and gender variant children in our community and the families who love and support them.

Due to the flurry of recent media attention, these children have been thrust into the public eye. Unless you are personally acquainted with one of these children/families, how much do you really know about their lives and experiences? How accurate is the information you may have?

…

Difference isn’t wrong…it just is

For Sunday, a non-ENDA inclusive edition where we catch up with some of the other recent news …

#1 - AfterElton did a feature on the “TV Landscape Changing for Transgender Characters” …

The portrayal of transgender characters on television these days seems to be sort of a glass-is-either-half-empty-or-half-full situation. For years television has presented a steady stream of “transsexual” prostitutes, murder victims, and other assorted minor characters that usually appeared for one episode and were portrayed as little more than a collection of stereotypes to advance the plot or get a cheap laugh.

A recent example of that aired this past summer on HBO’s hit show Entourage. In the episode “Sorry, Harvey” a secondary storyline centered on Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) trying to get the sad sack mayor of Beverly Hills (played by Groundhog Day’s Stephen Tobolowsky) hooked up with a beautiful woman in order to curry his favor. At a bar to which he takes the mayor, Drama thinks he has succeeded with a woman named Anika — at least until he learns that she is actually transgender.

The mayor turns out not to mind, but the show portrays this as due more to his being so pathetic rather than a message of acceptance. This impression is further underscored by the main characters’ clearly being repulsed at the idea of a transgender person, and by the episode’s big “reveal” when Anika’s male genitalia are shown during a panty-less Britney Spear’s-type incident.

On the “half-full” side of the equation there is ABC’s Ugly Betty. Last season the hit dramedy included Alexis Meade, a transgender character portrayed as self-accepting, not desperate for the approval of a man, and who wasn’t a prostitute. Audiences loved the character.

Already the most diverse network when it comes to LGBT representation, ABC deepened their diversity with two new transgender characters introduced this fall, one each on Dirty Sexy Money and Big Shots. Neither are regulars at this point, and while the Dirty Sexy Money show continues to build on the progress of Ugly Betty, thus far Big Shots is a throwback to more stereotypical portrayals of transgender women. (There are no transgender men – female to male – characters currently on network TV.)

Despite setbacks like the recent episode of Entourage, Mara Keisling, Executive Director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, believes things are improving when it comes to transgender representations on television. “I’m really, really optimistic. Things are changing so much so fast. Oprah has had so many sensitive shows. Montel has done some good shows. Larry King does show after show, and that’s just really educating the public.”

As to what is driving that change, Keisling stated, “It’s just natural that as there are more and more trans people visible in public, that’s going to be reflected in popular culture.”

The rest of that feature can be read here.

Monica Roberts at TransGriot had some thoughts about the role of Dontrelle in Entourage …

It figures that we transsistahs once again get stuck being painted by the hooker brush while white transwomen are seen running a magazine or being the love interest of a US senator.

As the late Esther Rolle said in her Good Times role as Florida Evans, “Damn, Damn, Damn!”

Memo to Hollywood: Is it so hard for you to create an African-American transgender character that fits the reality of the 90% of us who don’t partake of sex work to make our living? Is it that difficult for you to craft an African-American transgender character that isn’t the punchline of a joke or doesn’t end up dead in the first five minutes of the show?

And, by the way, Oprah Winfrey has an upcoming show this week (Friday, 10/12) entitled, “Trangender Families” …

Meet transgender individuals who had the courage to say “this is who I am.” What happens in a family when Dad becomes a woman? Oprah talks with the new American family.

Read the rest of this entry »

First came the intersexed, seven-legged deer. Next came the four-legged duck. Then came the baryard of multi-legged animals. Then came the intersexed, seven-legged lamb.

Now, we have the Tootsie — formerly Amy — the intersex pony. The story is that the owner thought the pony was a mare for twelve years, but now Tootsie has made friends with a donkey named Derek. And…

The Shetland, who lived with a family for all his life, was only found to be different when he was taken in by the RSPCA. Vets are now carrying out blood tests to check Tootsie’s chromosome levels and determine his exact sex.

Despite his upbringing as a mare, Tootsie still has an eye for the ladies.

Could there be a story more important than this? 

The Huffington Post: Bill O’Reilly to join crusade for LGBT equality
Excerpt:

Okay, you gotta love this. Bill O’Reilly, conservative talk show host extraordinaire, claims that a man’s sex life is a private thing.

I’m serious.

Gay, New Zealand: ‘Lady boy’ war erupts in Thailand
Excerpt:

Scores of teenage “lady boys”and male prostitutes have been involved in a three day “gay war” on the Thailand resort of Pattaya.

(En)Gender: Black Men Can’t Read?
Excerpt:

It turns out young black men have a better chance of getting made fun of for reading books than for playing sports. Not news, I know, but the commentary on how that fact intersects with gender is…

…What’s interesting to me is that the cultural forces that would discourage black men from learning - because being brainy isn’t considered “masculine” or “strong” - are exactly the opposite of the ones at play that have historically kept women from learning, who are/were told that being too brainy makes a woman “unfeminine.”

The Toronto Sun: Man performs self-castration
Excerpt:

You can find do-it-yourself makeover guides for just about anything on the web.

British construction boss Howard Shelley discovered just that when — desperate for a change in his own plumbing — he searched out directions for homemade castration.

When Shelley recently used online advice and took a common kitchen knife to his manliness — in a dangerous search for a quicker way to take a step to becoming a woman — he did what many people would consider unthinkable…

(Okay, I know Stephanie posted this same story — but not the same article — in her Headlines In Search Of A Story post, but this story is so interesting that I had to highlight it too.  )

BlogHer: Privacy: Wiretaps, cell phones, blogs, and Larry Craig
Excerpt:

We are in the midst of a critically important debate about the proper scope of the government’s surveillance authority. This debate should not take place in a vacuum.

The public has a right to know, at least in general terms, what kinds of surveillance the court authorized and what kinds of surveillance it disallowed.

AEBrain: 60 Seconds of Zoe
Excerpt:

I’m in the first day of a 3-day course on “Communicating Science to the Media”. I had to give a 60-second presentation about myself:

——
I’m Zoe Brain, and was born in 1958 not very far away from Windsor Castle in England.
How to compress 49 years of life into 60 seconds?
I could talk about how I came to Australia in 1968, and to Canberra in 1983.
I could talk about some of my achievements, projects I’ve worked on, from the Fedsat satellite to submarine combat systems. Laser eye surgical devices too.
I could talk about the places I’ve been to that shaped my life: the snow-covered Bahnhoffstrasse in Zuerich, seeing a sunset from a Destroyer in the middle of the Pacific. I could even talk about the Zeppelin Hangers in Akron Ohio.
I could talk about who I am, the parent of a 6 year old son, an SF fan, a gamer, a political blogger and more.
But there is no time. I’m me, Zoe Brain.
——

We were supposed to prepare the speech beforehand, but I didn’t get that e-mail, so I made it up impromptu.

There is so much more to life than just being TS. I shouldn’t let it define myself.

Some of the trans-related news we’re reading today, Friday …

#1 - Bathrooms have been in the news recently (here, here) in North Carolina …

In the past, an activist might picket City Hall, burn a draft card or occupy a segregated lunch counter. Now there’s a new cause: public restrooms.

Bathrooms — how and where they are built, and who should use them — are an urgent topic on college campuses across the Triangle and nation.

Three N.C. State University students have proposed installing lockable, unisex restrooms in all new campus buildings as a convenience for transgender students, the disabled, nursing mothers and single parents with children of the opposite sex. They seek to join at least 17 universities, including UNC-Chapel Hill, in mandating a gender-neutral john.

“There’s been a real push to support diversity on campus,” said Madeline Goss, a senior and male-to-female transgender student. “I go to the bathroom and I don’t get a second look. But there was a time when people walked out when they saw me in the bathroom.”

…

Goss settled on the restroom idea in a summer technical writing class. The assignment: find something on campus you’d like to change and draw up a report to make it happen. When she began becoming a woman in the spring, she met confused faces and dirty looks when she used a men’s room. Two classmates joined her in the project, and they saw potential for unisex bathrooms beyond N.C. State’s transgender population, which is small and hard to gauge.

Disabled people often have caregivers of the opposite sex. Mothers may not be comfortable taking a son into the women’s room, or sending a small child into a men’s stall alone. The students’ proposal envisions bathrooms with doors that can be locked, something that might appeal to sexual assault victims. And nursing mothers need a place to themselves.

Goss, senior Ashley Winfree and junior Karen Achtyl spent the summer poring over plumbing codes and state regulations, finding allies in advocacy groups and investigating campuses nationwide. They found policies supporting gender-neutral bathrooms at the University of Arizona and University of California-Berkeley.

At Arizona, students can choose restrooms based on perceived identity than biological gender, and the students seek a similar provision here. New restrooms would go in new buildings, those getting major renovations or anyplace possible.

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Students rally for gender-neutral johns

#2 - Autumn posted a story yesterday of one teacher in transition. From North Carolina, here’s a another teacher story …

A teacher at a Durham private school underwent a sex change over the summer, sparking a debate among school administrators and at least one parent over how to approach the issue in class.

Leslie Webster has taught music at Duke School for Children for 12 years as a woman but started the new school year Wednesday as a man.

The parents of all 460 students at the private elementary and middle school, which isn’t affiliated with Duke University, received a letter this week notifying them of Webster’s sex change and outlining plans to inform students on Sept. 4.

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In his letter to parents, [headmaster Dave] Michelman called Duke School “an open, accepting community that honors diversity in many aspects.”

“Leslie’s transition is making him more content,” Michelman said in the letter. “Leslie’s feeling of peace can only translate to the children having a better (classroom) experience with him.”

Parents picking up their children from school Wednesday said they hadn’t yet talked to their children about Webster.

Parent Doesn’t Want Children to Learn of Teacher’s Sex Change

#3 - From Seattle, a story on trans kids and the Gender Odyssey Family Conference which begins today …

Five-year-old Zach stands barefoot in the middle of his bedroom, faced with a dilemma: Should he wear the pink dress or the powder blue? Both are long princess-style affairs, the first displayed on a hanger held by his mother, Rebecca, the second, slightly wrinkled, pulled from the top of a dresser by Zach himself.

“Or would you rather wear your witch’s outfit?” his mother asks him, nodding at a black polyester costume in the closet, its neckline trimmed in orange.

“No,” Zach says. “I think I want the blue one.” He dashes out of the room with dress in hand, returning half a minute later, his pink T-shirt replaced by a tight crushed-velvet bodice. Zach bounds around the room, smiling, wisps of blond hair breaking free from the French braid that trails down his back.

It’s that playful exuberance that Rebecca and her husband, John, hope their son never loses. “But we’re concerned that this piece of him will get lost, if other children aren’t able to respond to him well,” says Rebecca, 39, who asked that her family’s real names not be used.

Of course, most parents dream of the best for their children. But Rebecca and her husband are a certain kind of parent: They’re raising a boy who wants to dress in girls’ clothes. And that places them in largely uncharted territory. Is this a passing phase or something central to Zach’s identity?

A compass of sorts may await the family this weekend, when mother and son participate in a local conference called Gender Odyssey Family. The event at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center will be Seattle’s first conference for parents raising “gender-variant” kids, or those children who fall outside what’s traditionally defined as “boy” or “girl.”

The conference will offer 23 sessions over the course of the weekend, some geared toward entire families and others focused specifically on gender-variant teens.

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“Whoever he becomes, that’s OK because that’s who he is”

#4 - COSMOS magazine from Australia has a feature on intersex …

AFTER YOUR NAME, what’s the first thing you’re asked on most forms? It’s almost always whether you’re ‘male’ or ‘female’, right? Gender is so basic to our identity that few of us stop to even think about it. However, for a significant proportion of the population it’s not so black and white. Consider these real-life stories:

There once was a boy named Bruce. As a baby he lost his penis in an accident and was surgically transformed into a girl called Brenda.

Then there’s Kylie. She was told that she was born with deformed ovaries that were surgically removed at age four. As a young woman, she discovered she was actually born with testes and male chromosomes, though she has only ever considered herself female.

Tony was also technically born as a genetic male but, because of his atypical genitalia, the doctors at the time decided he would be better off assigned as a female. By the time he turned seven, his phallus had started to grow. Doctors subsequently removed his testes to prevent him from masculinising any further; but the truth was he had always felt like a man, not a woman. When he turned 30, he chose to live his life as a man.

Zoe was born a male but always felt like a female. She did her best to accept her male form and identity but found the effort to maintain the charade became increasingly difficult and stressful over the years. Then, aged 47, her body spontaneously began making the transition into a female … and the relief was enormous.

SO WHAT’S THE STORY? Is gender merely a state of mind, an attribute that can be switched over with a bit of surgery and positive thinking? We think of our gender as something ‘given to us by nature’; but could it have just as much to do with ‘nurture’?

The issue of gender is not as sharply defined as most people believe. As the stories of Bruce, Kylie, Tony and Zoe make clear, the boundaries that separate masculine and feminine can sometimes be difficult to delineate. And science attests to that.

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Intersex: The space between the genders

There’s also a companion article, Intersex: Case studies, co-authored by Zoe Brain.

#5 - The quote(s) of the day, from the Washington Blade’s Bitch Session …

It’s transgender people that need the gay and lesbian movement to succeed not the other way around. They are a minority within a minority who couldn’t get very far without us yet they always arrogantly fail to recognize that! Learn some humility instead of being so damn uppity!

To the transgender activist who had the gall to say that gays and lesbians can’t move forward without them: The fact is transgender activists have opposed gay rights legislation in the past simply because they weren’t included! Despite their being as bad as Christian conservatives or selfish brats, we often managed to succeed without them! They should thank us for forgiving them for this and allowing them to retard our progress by including them now!

Or not, Tuesday edition …

#1 - Miss ya, Mom … (2 years today) …

#2 - It’s been one of those days …

#3 - So … we’re not going here today …

#4 - Instead, we’re off to Anchorage …

“What are you?”

The question came at Tafi Toleafoa from a young woman across the computer lab.

People always want to know, but they rarely ask out loud. Students wear the question on their faces the first day of class. Professors trip over pronouns. It’s been that way since Tafi came from Samoa two years ago to attend the University of Alaska Anchorage.

“Are you a boy or a girl?”

Now, one more time, Tafi had to explain, to untangle the contradiction of her long thick hair and plump, glossy lips with the masculine tenor of her voice and her tall, substantial body. She had to tell the girl that, no, she isn’t a boy, or a girl, exactly. She’s something else.

“I’m fa’afafine,” Tafi said. “That means I have a boy’s body, but I was raised in Samoa as a girl.”

Tafi could have explained that in the islands, nobody ever asked. She could have told the girl that a Samoan mother with a fa’afafine among her children is considered lucky. Fa’afafine help with babies and cooking, they tend the elderly and the sick. They are presumed to have the best traits of both men and women.

But the girl didn’t want to know more. She picked up her things and left, giving Tafi one last look over her shoulder.

The way most Americans understand it, gender breaks down simply: there are men and there are women. But across Asia and the Pacific Islands, many cultures recognize a third gender with characteristics both male and female. In Samoa, when a son or a daughter prefers the work and clothes of the opposite sex, they are called fa’afafine “like a woman” or, far less commonly, fa’atama, “like a man.”

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Cultural contradictions

#5 - And then to Boston …

When Dr. Roy Berkowitz-Shelton decided to live as a woman, he gambled that his marriage and medical practice would survive the change. In the conclusion of our two-part series, Dr. Deborah Bershel emerges and confronts her new reality.

At age 52, Deborah Bershel made her first trip to the mall. It lasted nine hours. It was July 2006, and there was barely a rack of clothes in the Burlington Mall that she didn’t comb through. The next day she headed to the Natick Mall and logged another five hours shopping. She was making up for lost time. In each store, her approach was usually the same. She’d march up to a salesclerk and explain, “I’m a transsexual, so I’m new to this.” Then she’d ask her particular question, whether it be which cut of jeans would cover the top of her panties or which type of fabrics wouldn’t cling to her arms. “I have questions that no 50-year-old woman should have,” she said.

It was behavior so uninhibited it would have been unthinkable in her previous life. As a husband, father, and family physician, Roy Berkowitz-Shelton was many things – compassionate, dutiful, funny. But no one would have called him uninhibited. For years, he had struggled to understand the feelings inside him that made him question whether he really was a man and made him attracted to the clothes that went along with being a woman. Yet that struggle had been almost entirely internal.

A month before the maiden visit to the mall, he had gone public. He told his patients and colleagues what his family had known for some months: that he was a woman and would soon transition to live life that way. He stressed his hope that even after Roy Berkowitz-Shelton, MD, was gone, replaced by Deborah Bershel, MD, his patients, colleagues, and family would naturally become hers. Whether that would actually happen was anybody’s guess.

On June 29, 2006, after more than a year and a half of taking female hormones, Roy Berkowitz-Shelton lay on an operating table while a Boston University School of Medicine plastic surgeon smoothed down his forehead, made his nose smaller and more upturned, lifted his brow and upper lip, softened his jaw line, brought his hairline forward, and performed what’s called a “tracheal shave,” removing the lump on the throat that is so identified with being male that it’s named after the original one. Seven and a half hours later, bruised and drained, Deborah Bershel emerged.

She quickly found that more than her appearance had changed. As a man, Roy cared little about clothes, and a trip to the mall held all the appeal of a dental cleaning. As a woman, Deborah was surprised to learn that she genuinely enjoyed shopping. Of course, not everything had changed. She was still compassionate and well informed. And frugal. She blanched at the price tags on the designer outfits she saw at Macy’s and ended up making many of her purchases at TJ Maxx. For one brown top, she splurged and plunked down $50, but that was an aberration. More common was her pattern of acquisitions at Payless: nine pairs of shoes for a total of $85.

In the weeks after surgery, everything was building toward her July 24 return to Davis Square Family Practice, the Somerville medical office she had run as Roy for nearly 18 years. Alison, who had married Roy a quarter-century earlier and served as the practice’s office manager, had helped care for Deborah in their Newton home during the week immediately following her surgery. But the future of their marriage, like so much else, was uncertain. However supportive she may have been, Alison had made it clear there was a reason she had married a man. Deborah had agreed to move back into the Brighton apartment where Roy had lived during the months leading up to the transition and stay there until their daughter left for college.

The Saturday before her return to the office, Deborah spent hours organizing all her new clothing, by color. It was a move that Roy, who had been infamous for his clutter, would have resisted. It felt good to be packing up all of Roy’s clothes, a ho-hum collection of off-the-rack suits, button-down shirts, and khakis. It was only when she came to a favorite colorful tie that she lingered. Roy had taken pride in his many vibrant ties, which were especially popular with his pediatric patients. Holding the tie, she felt a small pang of sadness, the same pang she’d felt at the supermarket when she spotted a young father roughhousing with his son on his shoulders. That scene, that tie, were part of the past now. There was a whole new life to be lived.

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Freeing Up Deborah

Sunday edition …

#1 - BME has a fascinating and lenghty interview with British tattoo and body modification artist Ash Crawford …

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BME: “Post-gender” as a concept, versus a more delineated switch of gender role is very interesting to me… how common is that concept?

I’ve noticed that a major genderqueer/post-gender scene here in the UK seems to be very much based around the fringes of the sex-positive dyke and bisexual scenes and there seem to be a large number of people there on the FtM spectrum, probably because a lot of those people used to identify as butch dykes. However, there are some very vocal post-gender spokespersons on the MtF spectrum too. Kate Bornstein is a big name among those of us who like our gender theory good and radical. Also, genderqueer people on the MtF spectrum have been hanging around the gay male scene for years. Maybe those communities have developed a slightly different language and set of priorities around transgender issues, but interesting things are still going on there.

Post-gender is absolutely not a transitional point between genders. That phrase implies that there are two proper genders to travel between and post-gender is somewhere you stop off on the way. The gas station of genders, if you will. Not a proper sort of place in itself. I see post-gender as a useful viewpoint for looking at society in general rather than a sort of half-way place between genders at which individuals can choose to reside.

For me personally, the basis of a post-gender identity is being aware that nothing is essent