As a San Diego Pride office volunteer in 2005, I  expressed to a permanent worker there that I wished I had one of these — they had about five of these.  Although I was half-joking, he took me seriously — so now I own a toilet shaped coffee cup.

The No Regrets, TGIF edition …

From the archives of our Transgender News group, a sampling of some recents thoughts on “regrets” …

#1 - Miranda Ponsonby

The stiff-upper-lip vocabulary of her privileged upbringing peppers our conversation and, along with her humour, can distract from the seriousness of what she is describing. But, behind the caricature, and even her repeated denials, hers is, it quickly becomes apparent, a tale of crushing ostracism and lingering self-doubt.

…

There’s a rare note of regret in there somewhere that makes me ask again if it has all been worth it. “My family always say I tend to jump into things - even though they may be wrong. And then I try so hard to make them right that, in the end, they seem like the right decision. It’s no good regretting anything.”

It sounds like Ponsonby’s background talking. Regrets, in her own phrase, would be “not cricket”. Yet the same person who in one breath can proclaim “I am a woman, I am woman, I am a woman” can in the next suggest that if the father (”gloomy Willie, we called him”) of the great (female) love of Rhodri’s youth had not blocked their marriage, he would have lived happily ever after as a man.

“The price I’ve paid, if you will insist on putting it that way, is that there is nobody like me. When I was at school, in the Army, in farming, or out hunting, there was always someone like me. Now I’m totally on my own.

“What, I ask, would Miranda advise anyone reading this article and contemplating a sex change? The answer comes back in a flash. “Don’t do it.”

#2 - Claire Skiffington

… Ms. Skiffington lived her life with few regrets, and her transition was not one. Becoming Claire, “has given me a chance to stop hiding from myself, to stop beating myself up. I have never, ever been able to be this free and truthful to myself. I am so grateful, and I’m content,” she once said.

#3 - Stephen Whittle

The woman he once was has gone forever. “When I look in the mirror,” he says, “I can’t conceive of my old self. In fact, I can’t bring myself to mention her name - even to my kids, and they’re dying to know.”

…

He underwent five operations and two years went by before he was free of pain. He has no regrets, however. “People ask me whether I wish I hadn’t been a trans,” he reflects. “The answer is no. I’ve been able to be at the forefront of a new political movement that is really challenging the issues of body fascism. If we can win the one about trans bodies then we can win all the other battlegrounds surrounding the body, whether to do with people being fat or thin, abled or disabled, black or brown, male or female.”

Mostly, though, being trans has been a privilege because I’ve met wonderful people, been to wonderful places.”

#4 - Claudia

There was a moment when Claudia, as a young gay man living with the person she describes as the love of her life, was “blissfully happy”. Now, approaching 50 and medically retired from her successful career as an opera singer and performer, she is full of regrets. “I feel I was railroaded into having a sex change,” she says, “when I should have been enabled to live happily in my own skin.”

…

“I fundamentally regret having had surgery. I could have lived as a woman without mutilating my body, but no one talked to me about the possibility,” she says. “I could have been enabled to live happily as a gay man. Instead I was put in this box - transsexual - simply because I did not conform to what psychiatrists think a real man should be.”

…

“If we allowed people to be as they wish, whether that is a man being camp and feminine or a woman butch and unadorned,” says Claudia, “then the need to chop up healthy bodies to achieve that acceptance would diminish”.

#5 - Joanne Herman

With the release of Renée Richards’ latest book, No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life, the topic of transsexual regret has once again come out of the closet. Her book is primarily the story of her family, career, tennis, and social life. Yet in a pre-release interview with The New York Times, the reporter asked Richards if she regrets having had sex-reassignment surgery. And even though Richards said no, the headline was “The Lady Regrets.” Why is there such curiosity about whether post-op transsexuals regret their surgery?

…

But how often does it happen that someone regrets having had SRS? Research has been scarce because of the stigma of studying transgenderism and because most of the necessary subjects (transsexual individuals) have been highly closeted until only recently. The only contemporary research I could find, a 2002 paper in the International Journal of Transgenderism citing a 1992 study, observed that “the incidence of postoperative regret is generally extremely low…less than 1% in female-to-males and 1–1.5% in male-to-females.” That’s pretty low. Why the concern?

…

If a story of one person’s regrets makes the headlines, you worry that there must be other stories, right? You may even know a transgender person who is unhappy about some aspect of his or her life and assume that aspect is their SRS.

But the worriers need to look at the big picture. Any gender transition, whether it involves surgery or not, is a major life change. It impacts details of your daily life far beyond the wearing of a different wardrobe, especially if it includes the loss of ties to loved ones, loss of work, or the need to move. Transgender people respond to any major change just like the population at large does. Some navigate change with incredible resilience, many have their ups and downs, and a few are positively consumed by it.

…

In spite of all of these challenges, most people who transition genders remain resolved that living in one’s perceived gender is an imperative, not a choice. Many will have regrets about the consequences of their transition, but few will regret the transition itself. In the unusual case where the consequences were overwhelming enough to prompt a “de-transition,” the return to the old gender is seldom satisfactory either.

Sadly, many of these consequences are the direct result of the lack of awareness of and misconceptions of transgender people by friends, families, colleagues, and others—misconceptions that led to Largo, Fla.’s recent vote to dismiss its longtime and capable city manager before he had even started his gender transition.

Thursday edition …

#1 - Wal-Mart will soon be acquiring the American Medical Association and renaming it the American Medical Associates. The renamed AMA will be responsible for establishing the new Get Real ID clinics in the two million Wal-Mart stores in the United States. Reiterating its commitment to diversity and to keeping the cost of stuff down, Wal-Mart announced that properly-vetted TGs will be eligible for $4 generic RFID transmitters …

Okay, I’m making that up, but …

Doctors could soon be storing essential medical information under the skin of their patients, the American Medical Association says.

The association adopted a policy Monday stating that the devices can improve the “safety and efficiency of patient care” by helping to identify patients and enabling secure access to clinical information.

These radio frequency identification tags (RFIDs) are already used by Wal-Mart and other businesses to speed up their shipping systems by sending out small signals that can be scanned more easily than bar codes.

Doctors back plan to store medical info under your skin

#2 - On this day in history, the Stonewall raid happened …

June 28, 1969

Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village, subjected to routine anti-homosexual harassment by the New York City police raiding the bar, spontaneously fought back in an incident considered to be the birth of the gay rights movement.

Riot veteran and gay rights activist Craig Rodwell said: “A number of incidents were happening simultaneously. There was no one thing that happened or one person, there was just… a flash of group, of mass anger.” A group of drag queens, who had been mourning the death earlier in the week of Judy Garland, mocked the police and threw things at them, and police were forced to retreat into the bar as the crowd of supporters grew; disturbances continued for several days.

#3 - Michelle Kosilek is not the only transgender inmate making news …

A lawsuit filed against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for its failure to protect a transgender prisoner from sexual assault could alter policies and procedures pertaining to housing and treatment of incarcerated transgender individuals.

The trial is scheduled to begin July 2 in San Francisco Superior Court. Gregory Walston, the attorney for Alexis Giraldo, initially sued corrections personnel for negligence. The suit also seeks punitive damages for the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and cruel and unusual punishment while Giraldo has been in Folsom Prison.

…

Giraldo, 30, a Puerto Rican transgender woman whose legal given name is Edwin, alleges in the lawsuit that two inmates with whom she shared cells between January and March 2006 repeatedly raped her. According to the lawsuit, which was filed earlier this year, Giraldo informed multiple prison officials during February and March 2006 that she was being raped daily, beaten, and held “hostage” by her second cellmate. Giraldo, according to the lawsuit, did not report the alleged sexual assaults perpetrated by her first cellmate.

…

“They didn’t use the rape kit, not until two weeks later did they take her to the [University of California at Davis] to do the rape kit,” said Alex Lee, director of the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersexed Justice Project, who assisted with preserving evidence in Giraldo’s case. “At that point … the doctor said this is pointless.”

…

Giraldo was a graphic design student in college, according to Lee, at the time she was sent to prison.

“Her experience is extremely common to our community,” said Lee, who added that transgender prisoners often face “extraordinary amounts of danger while being in prison” that “far outweigh the gravity of any law that they broke.”

…

Walston believes that there are hundreds of other inmates who are in a similar situation as Giraldo.

“They are housed with thousands and thousands of male inmates who look upon them as property and treat them that way,” said Walston.

Walston hopes the judge will make a decision by July 13, when Giraldo is scheduled to be paroled.

“They failed in their obligation in keeping her safe,” said Alex Cleghorn, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California’s LGBT and AIDS Project. “I hope that people will be as outraged as I am.”

TG prisoner sues corrections dept.

#4 - Swedish lawmakers may soon approve a “gender neutral” marriage law …

Sweden, already a pioneer in giving same-sex couples the right to adopt children, looks set to allow gays to marry in the Lutheran Church, with plans to introduce a new marriage law in January 2008.

If the so-called “gender neutral” marriage legislation is adopted, the Scandinavian country would become the first in the world to allow gays to marry within a major church.

Other countries only allow gays to hold civil ceremonies.

Sweden’s current law from 1987 defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. The new law would strike any reference to gender.

Church weddings for gays soon a reality in Sweden

#5 - Just call her “daddy” …

A single tooth led archaeologists to identify the long-overlooked mummy of an obese woman as Egypt’s most powerful female pharaoh — what could be the most significant find since King Tutankhamun’s tomb was uncovered in 1922, experts said Wednesday.

The mummy was identified as Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled for 20 years in the 15th century B.C., dressing like a man and wearing a fake beard. A monumental builder, she wielded more power than two other famous ancient Egyptian women, Cleopatra and Nefertiti, who unlike her never took the title of pharaoh.

Cross-dressing Queen Hatshepsut found?

When one is born with ambiguous genitalia, how should the parents and/or government determine what is the official gender marker on the birth certificate?

A child was born in Nepal with both male and female external genitalia.  The Ministry of Local Development has asked Bara District Development Committee Office to register the child as “both.”

“Since it is the right of the child to get its birth registered, the personal incidents registration office has been asked to give birth certificate to the “hermaphrodite” child mentioning gender as-both,” the Ministry’s letter dated 24 June stated. The ministry took the decision last Thursday, according to the letter.

The Kantipur Online went on to mention the parents’ suffering at having an intersex child:

The Kathmandu Post in its Saturday issue carried a news report mentioning the suffering of the child’s parents due to refusal of local authorities to register the child’s birth. The parents who suffered much due to the behavior of society, had moved to Kathmandu and knocked on the door of the Local Development Ministry.

It’s a strange thought — the reaction by local authorities to a child born with indeterminate sex/ambiguous genitalia was to just not register the birth.  The local authorities seem to essentially seem to have been saying that this intersex child wasn’t considered one of us homo sapiens. 

What a horrible thought — that having determinate sex is a prerequisite for being considered human.

I don’t know what to do with my feelings of sorrow and anger at reading The Advocate’s story Transgender firefighter decides to opt out of Obama dinner.

Jennifer Lasko was one of the four small contributors that Barak Obama’s campaign selected to have a private dinner with the presidential candidate. Ms. Lasko had given $25 to the Obama campaign with a written an essay about being a firefighter, a Republican-turned-Democrat, and an Army veteran. What she hadn’t included in her essay was that she was transgender — the Palm Beach Post outed her after the Obama campaign released the names and essays of the selected small contributors.

Now, Jennifer Lasko has withdrawn from the dinner. In The Advocate article about the story, it was said:

“I’m just a citizen who wants to discuss issues. I was foolish to think I could keep [being transgender] under wraps,” she said in the article. “There are a lot of close-minded people who’ll make an issue of this.”

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in the article that the Illinois senator would “love for her to attend the dinner,” which is set up as meeting ground to discuss changes needed in the United States.

I’m with Jen Psaki — I wish she hadn’t withdrawn. I admire that Jennifer Lasko put her concern for others before her own wants to be part of the political dialog, and it saddens me that she withdrew after being outed. Outing people just sucks.

But her withdrawal also angers me — Jennifer Lasko’s reaction to the outing sounds to me too much like internalized transphobia.

I want to scream at Jennifer that transgender people are allowed to be part of America’s political process. Her withdrawal says something more than just about herself as a transwoman who appreciates that some will find her presence offensive — what her withdrawal also says is that my transgender peers and I have something to be ashamed of.

I have nothing to be ashamed of; neither does Jennifer Lasko. I wish she’d have sent that message to my transgender peers and me — as well as to the rest of her’s and my country.

Pam Spaulding has a post up today about Department of Defense revises its statement about DADT, in which she alludes to a couple of her earlier posts about Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness.

Frankly, I don’t keep up with these things like Pam and others do, so I don’t know much about Elaine …

But she strikes me as one cocky chicken hen … and a dumb*ss to boot.

Among many other places, I’m sure, there are more than a few Canadian pansies planted here …

in Normandy.

My friend Vicki and I went to San Francisco Pride this past weekend.  Probably 95% of why we went to San Francisco Pride this Year was to see the first episode of Sex Change Hospital at Frameline 31 (Vicki was featured in the first episode of the six part documentary).  Episode one of the television series (shown as a stand alone film at Frameline 31) followed Vicki through her male-to-female genital reassignment surgery, and followed female-to-male Jim L. Howley through his hysterectomy.

As I said, the documentary episode with Vicki was submitted and shown as a stand-alone film at Frameline 31, which seems kinda funny to me — this is because all six episodes of the series have already been shown public television in the UK. 

Oh!  I forgot to mention earlier that Sex Change Hospital was produced by World Of Wonder — the same production company that produced Transgeneration for the Sundance Channel.

Okay, so let me try to do an unbiased review of the film Sex Change Hospital … although with my best friend as one of the two focal characters of the episode/film, giving an umbiased review may be difficult.  

Seriously, I thought this was probably the best “sex change” film I’d ever seen — and I’ve seen a lot of these kind of films on Discovery, Discovery Health, as well as other channels.  Sex Change Hospital stands our for three reasons:  The first is that they showed the surgery in graphic detail.  We heard such lines “Testicles Away!” from surgeon Marci Bowers, while actually watching the testicles being cut away.  The second is the emotional connections with the families of the patients.  With Vicki’s portion of the film/episode, you saw her Dad being so supportive and loving, and Vicki feeling the a wide range of emotions that she was feeling both pre- and post-surgery.  With Jim’s portion of the film, you saw and felt the real pain his Mom was going through as she was seeing a hard milestone of her daughter “dying” to become even more so her son.  Lastly, the episode/film wasn’t narrated — the stories were completely told in the words of the people filmed.  I can’t tell y’all what a difference that made to the storytelling — it make for a very personal experience vice a purely clinical experience.

Sex Change Hospital was shown at Frameline 31 with the film One in 2000, a film on intersex people.  The film was at least as compelling as Sex Change Hospital.  After watching One in 2000, I was left with the strange thought that two intersex infants have “corrections” done to their genitalia a day in North America (paid for by insurance companies) — with many intersexuals finding themselves as adults upset that genital surgeries were done on them without their consent for no other reason than their genitalia didn’t conform to physical “norms” — while most transsexuals can’t get insurance companies to pay for their wanted surgeries on their genitalia.  What an odd juxtoposition of human experience.

Anyway, when Sex Change Hospital and/or One in 2000 makes it to the television market where you live, I would highly recommend taking the time to watch the either or both of these.  Well worth the time.

CNN devotes the day to a “new series of stories that takes a closer look
at America’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community.”

The network’s special coverage about GLBT Americans provides
thought-provoking reports as it explores the morality debate over
homosexuality, investigating the issue of whether homosexuality is
genetic or learned, as well as reporting on related civil rights issues.

Special coverage culminates tomorrow, Wednesday, June 27, with a full
day of special features, on-air and online, on issues related to gay
life in America.

Among the scheduled special features are …

• Special correspondent Thelma Guitierrez’s report from Trinidad,
Colo.–the “Sex-Change Capital of the World”–for Paula Zahn Now.
Guitierrez interviews Dr. Marci Bowers, who every week performs about
five vaginoplasties, an operation to transform men into women. Nine
years ago, Bowers was a man herself, and she provides first-person
insights into the physical and emotional journey that her patients
experience.

and …

• Paula Zahn Now examining the complexities of gay and straight
lifestyles, and whether a gay person can be “turned straight.” As part
of her nightly feature segment Out in the Open, anchor Paula Zahn
speaks with several members of the “ex-gay movement,” which consists
of gay individuals who say they became straight. Paula Zahn Now airs
weekdays from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

and …

• Correspondent Gary Tuchman’s reports on the “ex-gay movement” for
Anderson Cooper 360°. Thousands of Christian conservatives are
convinced that homosexuality is a developed pathology that can be
cured. “Ex-gay ministries” have developed therapy programs that claim
to “turn” gays straight. Tuchman attends Focus on the Family’s “Love
Won Out” conference to hear first-hand from “ex-gays,” speaks to a
former “ex-gay” participant who does not believe these programs work,
and profiles a family with a gay teen who is reluctantly participating
in an ex-gay program. Anderson Cooper 360° airs weekdays from 10 p.m.
to midnight.

Tresspasses, transpasses, whatever …

In the UK, a jailed Islamic preacher is complaining to the prison authorities there about his gay personal care nurse …

Hamza has a hook instead of a right hand, and requires help from a nurse to wash and dress.

The Mirror reports that the hate preacher has discovered that his regular nurse for the last two years is a gay man.

Lawyers for Hamza have written to the Prison Service demanding a replacement, claiming his religious human rights are being breached by being assisted by a homosexual.

Prison sources say the nurse is openly gay and clearly effeminate, and his homosexuality has been obvious the entire time he has been working with Hamza.

Talk about gratitude …

The nurse is upset about it. He has spent the last couple of years doing everything for Hamza, even wiping his bottom.

I’d be upset too.  The more so to learn that …

… transsexuals are cursed.

Men who imitated women, or women imitating men, were cursed. “Now if a woman is also trying to build muscles and decides to grow a moustache or cut her hair short or she wear suits from Lord Jones what will the next be? She will be picked by another woman.”

And to top it all …

He declared if the state did not stop homosexuality “some people have to stop it. People will be killed, no problem.”

Abu Hamza unhappy with gay nurse

Back on our side of the Atlantic, fraudster Laura Albert stopped by the New York Post yesterday for a chat with columnist Andrea Peyser …

… she sailed into the newsroom yesterday - a bone from a raccoon’s penis hanging jauntily from her neck - dropping A-list names like Bono, Madonna and even Paris Hilton. And the middle-aged mom originally from Brooklyn Heights insisted she was, deep down, that teenage, transgendered hooker.

At least, in her extremely colorful head.

“I really don’t know the truth,” she told me. “I’m not going to articulate my truth until I know it.”

Then she fingered the penis bone, joking, “This will endear me to PETA!”

and …

“I’m fighting for my life, Andrea!” she insisted. “I’m up against a conglomerate.

“I’m a brightly colored fish, swimming among the coral,” she said - one of several curious self-descriptions she’s fond of employing.

and …

“I was able to take problems of the soul and transform them into problems of art, to put on a disguise.

“I create like an oyster creates a pearl - out of irritation. Not to see itself on Paris Hilton’s neck - and I’m not attacking her! Paris Hilton does not solve the problems of the spirit.”

Peyser concludes with …

It’s hard to tell where the reality starts and the show ends.

I Am Still The Real Leroy: Laura

No kidding.  Finally, on to Philly where …

… SEPTA has another issue, as a local transgender person has filed a complaint. There’s a sticker on a TransPass (ba dum pum) that marks your gender, and this trans person was apparently hassled for being a drag queen or whatever.

SEPTA Facing Attacks From All Sides 

Monica Roberts has a really terrific post, with much historical context, on her blog about transgender athletes.                  

I may be dating myself a bit (… gosh, what scary thought … ), but I remember quite well seeing — in B&W– the Press sisters many, many time on ABC’s Wide World Of Sports.

Monica brings up a number of interesting issues, such as …

Regarding transmen …

In the case of a post-puberty gender transition, the athlete must undergo complete genital surgery and get their gonads (their ovaries or testes) removed before they can compete. They also have to get legal recognition of their chosen gender, complete hormone therapy to minimize any sex-related advantages and wait two years before they can become eligible to apply for a confidential IOC evaluation.

While most transwomen are okay with the new [International Olympic Committee] policy, transmen understandably bristled at the genital reconstruction requirement. Jamison Green in a 2004 CNN.com interview criticized the genital reconstruction completion requirement.

“I don’t think that needs to be a criteria,” said Green, who sits on the board of directors of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute. “Many female-to-male people can’t afford to have genital reconstruction, so I think that’s an unreasonable penalty.”

That thought is echoed by Keelin Godsey(left in photo), who is a transgender track and field star at Bates College has a goal of making the US Olympic team and competing in Beijing next year. The transman is delaying his transition in order to make it happen.

… and …

Regarding “unfair advantage” …

Some of the issues against transgender athletes stem from ignorance or jealousy. In 1996 a Thai volleyball team made up primarily of gays and transgender people nicknamed the ‘Iron Ladies’ won the Thai national championship and was immortalized in two Thai films of the same name. Thai governnment officals barred two of the transpeople from joining the national team and competing internationally out of fears and concern for the country’s international image. Canadian mountain biker Michelle Dumaresq is constantly accused of having an ‘unfair advantage’ by biowomen especially afer she began to frequently win events on the Canadian mountain biking circuit.

The ‘unfair advantage’ argument is actually a bogus one and medical science is increasingly backing that up. Even though a transwomen grows up with testosterone coursing through her body, hormone replacement therapy takes the muscle building advantage away over time. A genetic female skeleton is lighter, so a transwoman has the handicap of lugging around basically a heavier skeleton with FEMALE musculature.

Read all of it here …

Transgender Athletes Get Into The Game

Thank goodness, I never promised you good, gentle — and reasonable — people any such thing here at the Heights.

But, I will almost guarantee that most reasonable people anywhere are happy for the Chungs …

A judge on Monday ruled in favor of a dry cleaner that was sued for $54 million over a missing pair of pants in a case that garnered international attention and renewed calls for litigation reform.

Dry Cleaner Wins in Missing-Pants Case

And, I will almost guarantee that there will a bit of time before any litigation reform. So, I hope the Chungs have a shot at Judge Pearson. It just doesn’t seem like “costs” are adequate recompense for what he did to these people.

A couple of reactions to the verdict …

Too bad Judge Bartnoff couldn’t find some way to have Pearson reimburse all of us …

Fortunately, the plaintiff (a wackjob who gives Larry Seidlin a run for his money) failed in his self-imposed goal of “suing the pants off” of the offending cleaners.

A couple of items in the news today brought to mind some of Marti Abernathey’s recent posts (Words Mean Things: You’ve Been Transgendered!, What’s In A Word? Context, Ya Fag!) at Transadvocate.

First, this press release, whose title has a bit of a Beatlesesque, Lucy In The Sky resonance …

There is no question that a great deal of people lead healthier and happier lives today thanks to prescription drugs …

What many are not aware of is that a portion of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), or what makes the drug “work,” does not become metabolized by the body and thus, is flushed. Various experts estimate that up to 90% of the drug could be excreted back into the environment, unchanged.

Transgendered Trout in Serotonin Streams

And, from Kevin Nance in the Chicago Sun-Times writing about “queer” and “faggot” …

In the past two decades, however, the two slurs have evolved in two distinctly different directions.

Today, “faggot” seems to have grown even more offensive, and to more people, than ever before. Ask “Grey’s Anatomy” star Isaiah Washington, who may have been fired this month partly for having repeatedly used the term in reference to a gay co-star. In what cynics viewed as an effort to save his job, Washington apologized, filmed public-service announcements and even went to rehab over the incident — a fact that Coulter was hamfistedly trying to lampoon in a way that sparked its own firestorm. She was chastised by Republican presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and John McCain and dropped by several newspapers that had carried her column.

In fact, “faggot” shows signs of becoming the new N-word, an expression so taboo that in their reporting on the Coulter incident last winter, several big-city newspapers, including the Washington Post, declined to print the term itself; “anti-gay epithet” was a common euphemism. (Other papers, including the New York Times and the Chicago Sun-Times, elected to print the unexpurgated version.) In phone conversations and interviews related to this column, I’ve found myself avoiding using the word whenever possible, and worrying that co-workers sitting near me might be offended.

The F-word’s diminutive version, “fag,” carries slightly less sting. Coulter called Al Gore “a total fag” a year before the Edwards incident, with much less public reaction. And when Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen called Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti a “fag” last year, the consequences were relatively muted. “Completely unacceptable,” said commissioner Bud Selig, who nonetheless simply ordered Guillen to attend what seems to have been a perfunctory bit of “sensitivity training.”

In Coulter/Edwards and Guillen/Mariotti, by the way, the attackers later insisted that their words weren’t meant as references to their targets’ sexual orientation; Guillen says he meant to imply that Mariotti was a coward, and Coulter meant — well, who knows what she meant? Both explanations don’t entirely wash, however, because of how sexual identity and gender are so closely bound, and confused with each other, in the public mind.

“Gender is about sex roles, and when you call a heterosexual man a faggot or a sissy, you’re attacking his masculinity — accusing him of doing something that doesn’t conform to traditional masculine sex roles,” explains Gregory Ward, a linguist at Northwestern University. “Gay men have been thought of the same way, and there’s a conflation of the two that people exploit in their choice of words.”

…

While “faggot” has plummeted in the American lexicon in recent years, “queer” is a rising star. Still a sore spot for some — especially gay men and lesbians in their 40s and older, people who remember the Q-word being hurled at them like verbal Molotov cocktails — “queer,” like Isaiah Washington, has gone to rehab.

…

“There was a lot of reaction and resistance to the term,” recalls Stuart Michaels, assistant director of the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Chicago. When he would use the phrase “queer studies” — referring to research into the intertwined ways society views traditional gender roles and sexual identity — “even some of my students would look a little bit surprised,” Michaels recalls. “Queer was taking a term of denigration against people who were not considered ‘normal,’ then recuperating and transforming it into a term of something between neutral and pride.”

Today, he says, the word isn’t used just in academic or politically radical contexts. “It’s more generic now, especially among young people.”

…

Context is crucial, of course. ” ‘Queer’ still carries a lot of social power, a lot of charge,” Ward says. “It retains some of its old transgressive quality, and it can still be a derogatory epithet. Kids yelling ‘queer!’ out of a car when you’re walking down Halsted Street — them’s fightin’ words. In that context, the distance between ‘faggot’ and ‘queer’ is quite small.”

But if “queer” retains its power to hurt in certain settings, that capacity now co-exists with a range of desirable meanings. As public attitudes toward homosexuality have liberalized and gays and lesbians have become more assimilated into mainstream culture in recent years, gay activism — once so loud and angry — has toned itself down considerably, so much so that many young gays are hardly aware it exists. But “queer” still carries a whiff of those heady, clenched-fist days, and it confers on those who use it an edgy, urban quality that goes nicely with snug jeans and a strategically placed facial piercing or two.

The word has proved handy, too, as an umbrella term for the various groups existing outside the heterosexual norm: gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people, of course, but also “questioning” folk and those of ambiguous sexuality and/or gender. Instead of using the cumbersome alphabet soup of “LGBT,” you can just say “queer” and have everybody covered.

None of which applies to “faggot.” You will never, as Michaels points out, find a “faggot studies” department at any university. Nor would “Faggot Eye for the Straight Guy” ever have made it to public access, much less a major network. “We’re here, we’re faggots, get used it”? Certainly not, and anyway, it doesn’t rhyme.

Faggot vs. queer

From Jessica’s story,  Never quite male or female, it’s her decision now,  in today’s Houston Chronicle …

Jessica, now 21, was born intersex, meaning as an infant she fell somewhere in that gray territory between male and female. Babies like her arrive in hospitals every day, their confusing bodies confounding parents in an estimated one to two of every 1,000 births, according to a 2000 survey of medical literature.

For decades, these babies were treated as secrets. Often, doctors alone picked their sex and prescribed the surgeries and lifetime of hormones. Parents were rarely involved in the decision-making process, and their children even less so.

But in recent years, this has begun to change. Emboldened by the Internet and patients’ rights movements, adults classified as intersex at birth have begun sharing their stories of botched surgeries and childhoods filled with shame. And some doctors are listening. Within the past five years, many have begun delaying irreversible surgery until later in a child’s life, seeking more parental input and following up on the results of the treatments they recommend.

In other words, they are realizing that gender is complicated.

… and …

“The decision made about the sex assignment of these babies is actually a decision which has never been looked at in the past through the ethical framework,” she said.

Let’s see …

Gender is complicated?

Never been looked at in the past through the ethical framework?

The shame that it’s taking this long to see that.

Best wishes to Jessica …

 When she wakes up, she hopes to finally have a body that feels complete.

Normal society?

Well, not to be judgmental, and I wouldn’t wanna dare say anything about this society or that society, and certainly I wouldn’t wanna comment about what this society is doing involved in some other society when maybe it shoulda been more concerned with that society, or nevermind this one … but …

All I know is, I don’t care for any society deciding whether someone is normal or not …

A final psychoanalysis would determine Shumail Raj and Shahzina Tariq’s (same-sex couple) current mental status in terms of sexuality, said official sources of the Health Department on Saturday.

They said an initial report was submitted to the Lahore High Court (LHC) and that the final report would be made after the two chromosomes tests were conducted, which had been pending in a hospital’s laboratory.

Sources said that till then, it would be unjust to tag the couple as transsexual.

They said the board was examining the patients in detail and focusing on three aspects of the issue in depth to find out why and how such people acquire abnormalities in a normal society. They said the aspects were trans-sexuality, homosexuality and transvestism. They said that a person was transsexual when his/her internal sex organs indicated one sex but he/she related more to the other sex.

They added that homosexuality was the concept of a person being sexually attracted to someone of the same sex.

They said that transvestites were those people who liked to dress up like the opposite sex. They added that these changes usually develop in childhood.

Sources said that the board of doctors could call the matter a “social issue” but not “evil”

They added that the board would look into whether this was a natal or an acquired disorder that may have occurred because of issues like parents’ negligence or lack of education.

They said the board was also looking into why clerics condemned the issue so dreadfully if it were a natal matter.

They added that the board saw the matter objectively and used such matters in developed countries as their point of reference, where such people had social rights to live their lives as pleased. They also said that the board believed that such an issue should not become a social taboo and should be dealt with rationally.

In the May 28 hearing, the judge ordered the medical superintendent of the Jinnah Hospital to constitute a body of psychiatrists, led by Dr Saad Malik, to reflect on Shumail’s case and file a report on the findings on June 22.

However, the couple’s counsel Rana Sajjad Hussain told the judge that he had not received a copy of Shumail’s psychiatric report and therefore, was unable to present the case on the matter. Therefore the judge adjourned court proceedings till July 6.

‘She’ couple’s sexual status being found

… because we should never forget this one and its many lessons.

Saturday edition …

#1 - Truth is stranger than fiction …

“How many persons are in the God head?” Cindy Tuten asked.

Micah tapped three times.

“How many God’s are there?” The dog tapped once.

Math mutt inspires faith
Terrier knows square roots and the Bible, too

#2 - Truth triumphs over fiction …

A Manhattan jury - refusing to buy the sob story of a writer who created a shocking, sham alter ego that hoodwinked Hollywood heavyweights and literary critics alike - ordered her to fork over $116,500 yesterday.

Laura Albert, 41, tried to convince the court that she created the best-selling boy scribe “JT LeRoy,” the gifted son of a truck- stop-trolling hooker, as a way to cope with her having been an overweight, sexually abused child teased for being like the cartoon character Fat Albert.

…

“Laura Albert is a complicated person,” [Judge Jed] Rakoff said, “but I think no one would suggest that she and the truth are anything but occasional bedfellows.”

Books Thrown At ‘Leroy’
Fraud Author Must Pay

#3 - And truth is, it does seem that it’s always the bathroom …

Conspicuous “Men” and “Women” signs on public bathrooms aren’t simply convenient labels for transgender people.

In some cases, the words signal danger of harassment or, at the least, a reminder of the culture’s insistence on two exclusive genders, say advocates for transgender people.

“That is the sticking point whenever people talk about trying to integrate trans people into the mainstream of the society,” said Nancy-Jo Morris, a transgender woman who lives in Colorado Springs. “The main sticking point where people fall out and say, ‘Oh no, not here,’ is when you get to the bathroom.”

…

“Those gender-neutral bathrooms are very comforting for transgender people who are just starting out, because they are totally nervous about going into any other bathrooms but those kind,” she said. “You have no idea how nervous a newly budded transgender person is. I mean they look this way and that way before they cross the parking lot, and not because they’re worried about cars.”

Finding a friendly restroom tougher than it might seem

#4 - “Clear and unequivocal”? Well, it’s sorta like truth …

In the Democratic presidential field, our community’s pet candidate is Hillary. The junior senator from New York schmoozes our donors and rakes in our money. In the first quarter, Hillary got 53 percent of individual contributions to the top three democratic candidates in heavily gay Los Angeles zip codes. Obama got 34 percent and Edwards 13 percent. That’s according to Frontier’s magazine. Donor patterns in gay zip codes across the country are broadly similar.

She’s our girl. But what are we to her?

When she talks to gay donors, she tells us what we want to hear. A month ago, she gave the keynote speech at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner. (Note: The Human Rights Campaign is the country’s wealthiest and most prestigious if not necessarily most effective LGBT political lobbying organization, beloved by gay men in the heartland—a major source of Clinton campaign money.) Clinton said she opposes the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy her husband had instituted. “This policy doesn’t just hurt gays and lesbians, it hurts all our troops, and this to me is a matter of national a and we’re going to fix it,” Clinton said to rousing applause from the wealthy attendees.

Brave words, speaking to the ghetto. But who heard them, except her gay donor pool? Exactly nobody. The speech was not announced and remains unpublished, though a video was posted on the group’s web site.

When Clinton talks outside the gay ghetto, she sounds quite different.

…

Why is she so bland when she speaks to the larger America? Of course, it’s tempting to blame her, to talk about hypocrisy.

But I blame mostly us. We are the ones who fail to ask “our” candidates to take publicly clear stands on our issues. We are the ones who write checks and give our votes without attaching clear demands. Look at the Jewish community. No candidate will get a cent of Jewish money who does not clearly articulate his or her support for the security of Israel. We must take a lesson from their book. We need to demand from our candidates an equally clear and unequivocal statement about the security of our lives and the advancement of our rights.

Hillary’s ’Moments
We must demand clear statements from candidates about LGBT civil rights

#5 - If you’ve never seen any of these, it’s worth taking a look at the collection of videos at the San Francisco Sentinel …

San Francisco Transgender Pride 2007 - Let Us Be