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Main Menu => BETTY PEARL'S PUB FOR SISSIES => Topic started by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 11:55:16 AM

Title: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 11:55:16 AM

Transgender model to star in reality show

E! Canada has ordered eight episodes of the new series Brave New Girl, which will follow Talackova as she relocates from her hometown of Vancouver to Toronto in order to advance her modeling career.

“I’m so happy to sharing my life with the E! viewers,” said Talackova in the E! press release. “It will be fun letting the world watch as I take the next steps in pursuing my dreams.”

Slated to begin filming in Toronto this summer, the series will also devote screen time to Talackova’s entourage, including documentary filmmaker Elena and fellow model Dajana.

Originally born Walter Talackova, the lanky blonde model began her gender transition at age 14 and completed sex-reassignment surgery at 19.

Talackova made worldwide headlines last year when she was disqualified from participating in the Miss Universe Canada pageant by Donald Trump, the owner of the pageant brand. After bringing lawyer Gloria Allred, Talackova was reinstated into the competition by Trump. Although she failed to reach the top five finalists, she was one of four contestants awarded the title of Miss Congeniality.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 12:08:07 PM

Rally for transgender bride who was refused service at bridal shop

Almost 100 people rallied in front of a downtown Saskatoon (Canada) bridal shop to support a transgender woman who says she was refused service.

"I am damn glad to see all these people here supporting me," Rohit Singh Peace said in an interview Saturday afternoon in front of Jenny's Bridal Boutique.

Some in the crowd carried signs with slogans such as "Trans rights are human rights" or "Respect trans rights."

Singh Peace, a native of India who came to Saskatoon in January 2010 to pursue her master's degree in biotechnology, said she went into the store with her then-fiancee, Colin Peace, on April 21.

Singh Peace said she was not allowed to try on wedding dresses because she was a man.

"I was pretty angry to be brushed off like that," she said.

Singh Peace and Peace went to several other shops and were treated well, she said. They ended up selecting a gown from another Saskatoon shop, Mylynh Bridal and Sew. The couple were wed in a Unitarian Congregation of Saskatoon service April 29.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 12:15:56 PM

Gender-Neutral Bathrooms

The University of Massachusetts student government unanimously supported a new policy that would include gender-neutral bathrooms in all new campus buildings as part of the university's "commitment to creating a supportive and inclusive campus environment." While the students' would like such facilities to be included in all university buildings, it recognizes that retrofitting the buildings might not be feasible. In those cases, it supports the current university policy, which allows students to use the restroom designated for their gender identity or to use the gender-neutral bathrooms in each dorm and choose dorms with gender-neutral showers.

That policy, though, the student government argues, is not as sufficient protection for trans-gendered students. The speaker for the student government, Joey Nguyen, noted that transgendered students have been harassed in university bathrooms. The students believe that the inclusion of gender-neutral bathrooms as a choice – not a requirement – could help those students.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 12:25:34 PM

Transgender tenant's rights

Question: "I have been renting an apartment to a man named Michael, who recently asked me to start calling him Michelle because, he says, he now identifies as a woman. He has also started wearing makeup and women's clothing.

Both the name change and the change in dress make me uncomfortable, and I'm worried that it may make my other tenants want to leave. At least one of the other tenants has commented about the "freak" in Apartment 201 and has asked me if the "freak" has any plans to move out."

---

Answer: The applicable fair housing laws prohibit discrimination based on gender, which includes gender identity. As a landlord, you are obligated to treat each prospective or current tenant the same, without regard to their gender or gender identity.

This tenant must be called Michelle, regardless of the name she initially listed on her rental application and regardless of how you personally feel about her gender identity. If you continuously and intentionally call her by the name and pronoun that does not correspond to her gender identity, you may be liable for gender discrimination and unlawful harassment.

If you terminate Michelle's tenancy because you or your other tenants feel uncomfortable with transgender people, that action would also constitute discrimination, even if some of those tenants threaten to leave if you do not terminate Michelle's tenancy.

You may not take adverse action against Michelle to satisfy the discriminatory demands of another tenant, even if it means you lose that tenant's business. Further, if you become aware of any other tenant harassing Michelle because of her gender identity, you have an obligation to take action to stop it.

You may want to contact your local fair housing agency to inquire about training that may help sensitize you to civil rights.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 12:41:00 PM

First transgender MP seriously ill

The world's first transgender MP, New Zealand's Georgina Beyer, is seriously ill with chronic kidney failure.

Beyer had been about to announce her candidacy in the Wellington mayoral election. She has not confirmed if she will no longer stand, but her illness means she has to have dialysis four times a week for the rest of her life, unless she gets a kidney transplant.

'I'm sure as hell not going to sit back and think, "woe is me",' said the 55-year-old in an interview with Woman's Day magazine.

'I refuse to be defeatist. This health issue has cast a huge shadow, but I'm going to be positive and proactive.'

Beyer had gender realignment surgery in 1984 and worked as a prostitute in Wellington for a brief time afterwards. She stood for election as a Labour MP in the 1999 general election and won a usually right-leaning electorate in Wairarapa, becoming the world's first openly transgender MP. In 2007, she resigned from parliament.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 12:54:44 PM

Pediatricians support transgender student’s use of girls bathroom

The president of the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said Friday that “a transgender girl needs to be treated like any other girl” and should be allowed to use the girls bathroom at school.

Dr. Steve Feder, a pediatrician in Boothbay Harbor and Damariscotta, said in a telephone interview that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court should recognize that gender identity is internalized and not simply a matter of physical characteristics, especially for transgender children.

The physician said that his organization has joined a “friend of the court” brief in a case pending before the state supreme court. Other groups who signed onto the amicus brief are the Maine Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers-Maine Chapter, Trans Youth Equality Foundation, the Maine Women’s Lobby and the Downeast and Southern Maine chapters of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network.

The case concerns a transgender student’s (Nicole Maines) use of the girls bathroom at schools in Orono.

“We would like [the justices] to recognize that from a medical and mental health perspective gender identity is internalized,” Feder said. “It involves more than hormones and external genitalia. Gender identity is a mixture of those things and that is well recognized in the literature.”

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 01:03:21 PM

Transgender Sports Columnist Comes Out

Mike Penner, longtime writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has come out in the paper as a transsexual, Christine Daniels.

"Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation," Penner wrote in a column that ran on Page 2 of the Times sports section "and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation.

"As Christine.

"I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them."

In the column, Penner describes the mental anguish as he came to grips with what he had been fighting for more than 40 years: "As extensive therapy and testing have confirmed, my brain was wired female.

"A transgender friend provided the best and simplest explanation I have heard: We are born with this, we fight it as long as we can, and in the end it wins.

"I gave it as good a fight as I possibly could. I went more than 40 hard rounds with it. Eventually, though, you realize you are only fighting yourself and your happiness and your mental health -- a no-win situation any way you look at it."

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 01:20:13 PM

Civil Services for third sex

The results for the civil services examination that were out yesterday have a fine blend of achievers - men, women and even physically challenged. But the country's top bureaucracy is not yet open for transgenders. One such civil services aspirant from Madurai is taking on the government head on, demanding equity.

When she was 18, Ms Swapna's parents chased her away from home just because she was a transgender. She begged on the streets to pay for her studies to realise her dream to become the first transgender to clear the IAS. But after graduation, a rude shock awaited her. Civil Services had no place for the third gender and she had to apply only as a female candidate.

"The application form offers only two options, male and female. When I received my admit card for the preliminary exam I wasn't comfortable. I'm not a female and how can I be forced to assume that sex. I was also worried, what if a flying squad member drags me out of the hall saying I'm cheating?" she told NDTV.

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) that conducts these exams turned down her RTI petition asking her to approach the government. But Swapna has decided to pursue the issue. "Canada and Thailand have recognised transgenders as the third sex. They even train them to participate in the next Olympics. But in India we still let transgenders beg," she said.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 01:29:53 PM

Author Went From Dad to Mom

As James—a dark-haired man with a “feminine streak” who was a teacher of literature and a fan of Grateful Dead music—he met and fell in love with his wife, Deedie, in his late twenties, and soon became a father to their two sons. But James was harboring a secret: He was transgender, and, in his heart, had never truly felt male. He suppressed the notion for several years after marrying Deedie, but it eventually racked him with debilitating anger and sadness.

“I used to tear my hair out thinking, when you have children, you’re not only living for yourself,” Boylan told Yahoo! Shine in an interview this week. “I was willing to bear a pretty heavy burden that meant keeping the people around me safe, but I got to the point where I couldn’t take another step living a life of falsehood.”

And so, beginning when his sons Sean (now 17) and Zachary (now 19) were about 3 and 5 years old, James, with Deedie’s eventual blessing, began the major, at times heart-wrenching transition to become Jenny. It was a four-year process that began with a difficult conversation with Deedie when James was 44, and culminated with surgery to become a fully physically female (Though the “transition doesn’t end with surgery. And surgery is not the most important thing,” she stresses). Boylan wrote about her transition in what became a best-selling 2003 memoir, “She’s Not There,” landing her on Oprah and making her one of the most recognizable trans individuals in the country.

Now the professor of English at Colby College in Maine and author of a dozen books has published a follow-up to that memoir, “Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders,” exploring what it means to have been a father for 6 years, a mother for 10, and, “for a time in between, neither, or both.”

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 01:45:09 PM

I guess I won't be tuning in Alex Jones anymore. He's finally totally lost his mind

Alex Jones Says Transgender People will Vomit & Crap All Over The Place

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones went on a rambling, transphobic rant during his radio show, warning that protecting the rights of transgender people will cause them to start "vomiting and crapping all over the place."

During the April 30 edition of his radio show, Jones launched a screed against the "globalist mafia," which he blamed for efforts to reduce discrimination against transgender people. After claiming that he isn't bothered by transgender people - but that their "fake rights" don't exist - Jones warned that "transvestites" would "throw up all over the walls" in public bathrooms. "I don't want my daughters growing up in a country where some transvestite walking around hopped out of their brain on drugs vomiting and crapping all over the place."

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 01:57:24 PM

Please be careful where you go cross dressed, & who you let know you're a crossdresser. There's still a lot of hate & evil out there.

Murder of transgender woman in Olmsted Township is hate crime

Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman said the murder of a transgender woman whose body was found in a pond should be treated as a hate crime.

Dive teams retrieved the badly decomposed remains of Cemia Dove, or her given name Carl Acoff Jr., in a pond near MacKenzie Road in Olmsted Township on April 17. There was a concrete block and steel pipe tied to the 20-year-old’s half-naked remains, Olmsted Township police said.

“Cemia lived a trouble life of acceptance,” said Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman in a news release on Wednesday. “While Cemia struggled, she did not deserve to die as what is likely a hate crime. Too often we lose loved ones because of fear or hate. Violence should not be tolerated against anyone regardless of race, gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.”

Dove was reported missing on March 27. Olmsted Township police have not released any details about possible suspects or a motive.

"The violent death of this young woman is unconscionable and needs to be addressed,” said Jacob Nash, Cleveland Transgender Community Outreach Committee Chair. “This is the third transgender woman of color murdered in April in the U.S. alone and this needs to stop.”

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 02:14:53 PM

Honey West will tell you that for the first four years of her life, she was "unedited." Her parents allowed her to play with her sister's dolls, and she was so eager to wear her sister's tutu that she would pull it off the laundry line and put it on before it was completely dry.

Trice: Musical tells transgender story

For a short while her family thought this was cute. Until it wasn't.

"It was the mid-1960s and I was this little boy growing up in Gary, Indiana, who wanted to sing and dance and be a girl," said West, who's now 52 and a transgender woman.

West, whose legal name is Errin Auxier, tells her story in the musical "Genderella," which is one of 12 new plays and musicals running this week as part of the nonprofit Chicago Writers' Bloc 2013 Festival. "Genderella," co-written by West and playwright Joanne Koch, will run Monday and be held, along with the other productions, at the Next Theatre Company in Evanston.

In a way, West's story is about her second "coming out" experience. She said that although she revealed she was gay to a small group of friends in junior high school, it would take her until age 41 to accept she was transgender.

"I come from a generation that wasn't allowed to imagine we were different," West said. "At the time, people knew what it meant to be gay, but the term 'transgender' didn't exist. So I buried who I was and my journey took a lot longer."

She began performing as a woman while still getting gigs as a man. But something unexpected happened. West noticed that as a male performer, she was ordinary. But as a female performer, she was extraordinary — a cabaret star.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 02:27:47 PM

She should have sat down to go pee in the ladies room.

Transgender woman banned from Idaho grocery store

SALMON, Idaho -- A transgender woman whose use of a women's restroom in an Idaho grocery store reportedly upset other customers has been cited for trespassing and banned from the store for a year, police said on Friday.

A Rosauers supermarket in Lewiston asked police to charge 25-year-old Ally Robledo, who was born male but identifies as female, with the misdemeanor trespass charge on Monday, Lewiston Police Captain Roger Lanier said.

"The store security officer said he had been dealing with a problem over a couple days with the person going into the women's restroom and urinating while standing up," Lanier said.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 02:57:49 PM

Batgirl's roommate confesses to be transgender

In Batgirl #19, the character Alysia reveals that she is a transwoman in a conversation with her roommate, Barbara Gordon (Batgirl). Taking care to distinguish Yeoh’s sexual orientation from her gender identity, Batgirl writer Gail Simone noted that the character is also bisexual.

Simone attributed the inspiration for the character to a conversation she had with fellow comic book writer Greg Rucka several years ago at the Wondercon convention, after a fan asked why there were fewer gay male superheroes than lesbian ones. Rucka, who co-created (and rebooted) Batwoman as a lesbian character, replied that it would be a real sign of change for a gay male character to appear on a comic book cover — and an even bigger step for a transgender character to do the same.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 03:09:26 PM

Vigil To Mark Anniversary Of Murder Of Transgender Woman

A vigil was held in downtown Oakland on the anniversary of the slaying of a 37-year-old transgender woman who was sitting in her car socializing with friends when she was killed, vigil organizers said.

Brandy Martell was fatally shot April 29, 2012, in the 400 block of 13th Street in Oakland. Responding officers found Martell in a car and pronounced her dead.

Her murder remains unsolved.

Martell worked as a peer advocate for TransVision, a program within the health center that provides services for transgender people.

Besides remembering her, they want to call attention to Martell’s still unsolved murder and bring awareness to the continued violence against the transgender community.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 04:24:12 PM

Purse snatching soccer player tackled by transvestite

A Lecce soccer player was charged Monday for stealing a purse from a prostitute and fleeing by bicycle after reneging on a deal to give her his iPhone 5 for sex. Ousmane Drame, a French national and striker for the third-division club, was reportedly chased down by a transsexual friend of the robbed Nigerian streetwalker after the incident early Monday.

The 20-year-old Frenchman is alleged to have sought the services of a Nigerian lady of the night in the Porta Rudiae area of Lecce in the early hours of Monday morning, but after failing to pay for the dirty deed with cash, things started to play out like a rejected plotline from The Hangover sequel.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 04:41:33 PM

Eddie Izzard to run for Mayor

EDDIE IZZARD has revealed his plans to run for London Mayor, claiming only a comic can turn the country around.

The funnyman reckons he can inspire people to work harder and said he would pack in the stand-up to fulfil his ambition.

He told TV Biz: “I’m going to chuck in comedy in six years to go into politics. I’ve proved I can be determined and do things in a different way. And you need comedy in politics. There are lots of decisions to be made and people get bored talking about things that are only slightly different.

“It’s very dry so you need comedy to make it palatable.”

He also said he would rather grab people’s attention with his tours than with hellraising behaviour.

He said: “You can get people’s attention by doing huge tours and I’d rather do that than throw a TV out of a window.

“You do that and you’re a rebel. But then you have no telly and a hole in your window. And if you play gigs you earn money, which is good for someone who wants to run for Mayor.”

The comedian recently made BBC show Meet The Izzards, which saw geneticists test his DNA to show he was 2.8 per cent NEANDERTHAL.

Eddie — who rose to fame as a stand-up in the 1990s — is now touring the world with his biggest ever live show, Force Majeure. “Force Majeure means ‘force of nature’ and I think we have to be our own forces of nature because most of the time no one is going to help you." he says.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 05:00:35 PM

Matt Mitrione, UFC Fighter, Suspended After Transphobic Rant

Matt Mitrione referred to Fallon Fox as a "lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak" in a April 8 appearance on "The MMA Hour."

"She's not a he. He's a he," Mitrione is quoted in media reports as saying. "He's chromosomally a man. He had a gender change, not a sex change. He's still a man. He was a man for 31 years. Thirty-one years. That's a couple years younger than I am. He's a man."

Calling Fox "an embarrassment" to fighters and to the sport, he added, "The woman that's fighting him, props to you. I hope you beat his a**, and I hope he gets blackballed and never fights again, because that's disgusting and I'm appalled by that."

According to Yahoo! Sports, the UFC quickly denounced Mitrione's "transphobic" remarks and moved quickly to suspend him.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 05:22:43 PM

More men seek 'domination' in Ireland

Foreign sex workers operating in Ireland say that there is a distinctive market here for "domination" from male customers. Many of the sex workers offer the service where they do not find to be as much in demand in other countries, they say. Prostitutes who provide the service are not otherwise involved in what might be termed dominatrix-type activities.

They say there are two distinct areas of interest in Bondage and Discipline, Sadism and Masochism (BDSM). There is the 'sex industry BDSM', which may or may not include sex.

Some sex workers offer sado-masochistic services but there is a relatively small market for professional sex workers, a female sex worker said. She too said that domination is a frequently sought service by Irish men. She said she has found that the demand for this is less common elsewhere.

She said that men and women with a predilection for "dressing up" mostly find an outlet in scenes where they meet in particular venues once or twice a month.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 05:43:06 PM

Vatican downloads transsexual porn movies

Torrentfreak.com, a website that analyzes file sharing, reports that an IP address in Vatican City has been downloading eyebrow raising torrents from pornographic websites featuring transsexuals and other fetishistic clips.

Torrenting is a way of file sharing that is popular in pornography because the clips become hard to trace. Unfortunately for proud Catholics everywhere, TorrentFreak wanted to uncover if any illegal downloading was going on in the Vatican after learning about a film club.

An owner of a DVD rental shop sparked the research when he claimed a Limerick priest admitted to seeing the film ‘Lincoln’ before its release date, the SiliconRepublic reports. With the help of another website ScanEye, which track and analyzes online activity, the team was able to discover shocking downloads.

The IP address location read ‘The Holy See – Vatican City State’ and had many adult torrents including one that clearly says Tiffany Starr, a transexual porn star, the Irish Independent reports.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Rosieleigh on May 07, 2013, 09:46:09 AM

Quote from: Betty on May 06, 2013, 01:45:09 PM

I guess I won't be tuning in Alex Jones anymore. He's finally totally lost his mind

Alex Jones Says Transgender People will Vomit & Crap All Over The Place

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones went on a rambling, transphobic rant during his radio show, warning that protecting the rights of transgender people will cause them to start "vomiting and crapping all over the place."

During the April 30 edition of his radio show, Jones launched a screed against the "globalist mafia," which he blamed for efforts to reduce discrimination against transgender people. After claiming that he isn't bothered by transgender people - but that their "fake rights" don't exist - Jones warned that "transvestites" would "throw up all over the walls" in public bathrooms. "I don't want my daughters growing up in a country where some transvestite walking around hopped out of their brain on drugs vomiting and crapping all over the place."

Idiot..!!

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures)
Post by: alison on May 12, 2013, 10:53:13 PM

Someone just pointed out this column from the New York Times a few months ago (although it does not have pictures):

When James Becomes Janice: What Not to Ask a Transgender Friend (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/booming/when-james-becomes-janice-what-not-to-ask-a-transgender-friend.html?ref=transsexuals&_r=1&)

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Title: Boy George Is The Dharma Queen
Post by: Betty on July 01, 2013, 10:12:58 PM

Boy George will release his new song ‘Coming Home’ under the artist name Dharma Protocol featuring Boy George.

Dharma Protocol is George with Culture Club’s Mikey Craig, Moto Blanco’s Danny Harrison and The Orb’s Youth. Think George’s first dance song ‘Jesus Loves You’ as a guide to where this is heading.

“Coming Home is about returning to who you really are as a person,” George says in a statement. “Some people grow further away from themselves as they get older, while others like me become who they are meant to be. Right now I feel very comfortable in my skin.”

George has been working with Mikey and Youth for his next solo album ‘This Is What I Do’. ‘Coming Home’ is from the same sessions and it is a pure dance record.

“I wanted to do something for the dance-floor because I DJ every weekend all over the globe and right now I’m very excited about the direction dance music is taking,” George says.

There will be nine mixes of ‘Coming Home’. George recently made a video and will release it soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fda06aWNO7s

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Title: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 12:31:00 PM

Crossdresser arrested after entering lingerie shop in Kuwait

A young Kuwaiti crossdresser was arrested by police after he entered a women-only lingerie shop.

A female shopper, shocked by the presence of a man wearing women’s clothes and heavy makeup, told him to leave the premises, saying he had no right to be there.

However, the crossdresser objected and insisted he was entitled to be in the shop, located in the posh Salmiya area in Kuwait City.

A saleswoman had to call the police to end the dispute, local Arabic daily Al Rai reported.

The crossdresser was eventually taken by the police to the station. He is accused of crossdressing and getting involved in a fight in a public place.

Kuwait, like the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, prohibits crossdressing in public and media often report police swoops and court cases against those who break the rules.

Some of the online comments on the fight called for allocating special areas, mainly in remote places, for “soft men” where they could wear their makeup and transgender clothes.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 12:48:01 PM

Orthodoxy no drag for gay Israeli

Just shy of midnight, Shahar Hadar trades his knitted white yarmulke for a wavy blond wig and a pink velvet dress.

Cheers greet him in a packed gay bar as he starts to swivel to a Hebrew pop song, his shiny red lips mouthing lyrics that mean more to him than the audience knows: “With God’s help you’ll have the strength / To overcome and give your all.”

It has been a long and agonizing metamorphosis for Hadar, 34, from being a conflicted Orthodox Jew to a proud religious gay man — and drag queen. Most Orthodox Jewish gay men, like those in other conservative religious communities around the world, are compelled to make a devil’s bargain: marry a woman to remain in their tight-knit religious community, or abandon their family, community and religion to live openly gay lives.

But while Orthodox Judaism generally condemns homosexuality, there is a growing group of devout gay Jews in Israel unwilling to abandon their faith and demanding a place in the religious community.

“As much as I fled it, the heavens made it clear to me that that’s who I am,” Hadar said. He is marching Thursday — out of costume — in Jerusalem’s annual gay pride parade.

Hadar, a telemarketer by day, has taken the gay Orthodox struggle from the synagogue to the stage, beginning to perform as one of Israel’s few religious drag queens. His drag persona is that of a rebbetzin, a female rabbinic adviser — a wholesome guise that stands out among the sarcastic and raunchy cast of characters on Israel’s drag queen circuit.

“She blesses, she loves everyone,” said Hadar of his alter-ego, Rebbetzin Malka Falsche. The stage name is a playful take on a Hebrew word meaning “queen” and Hebrew slang for “fake.” Her philosophy, and Hadar’s, draws from the teachings of the Breslov Hasidic stream of ultra-Orthodox Judaism: embrace life’s vicissitudes with joy.

“Usually drag queens are gruff. I decided that I wanted to be happy, entertain people, perform mitzvoth,” or religious deeds, he said.

An encounter with a popular Israeli rebbetzin is what launched Hadar’s inner journey at age 19.

He began by wearing a yarmulke, a religious skullcap, and reciting morning prayers in his bedroom. He left home to enroll in a Jerusalem yeshiva, or religious seminary, hoping that daily Torah study would make him stop thinking about men.

It didn’t.

After a brief nighttime encounter with his roommate at the yeshiva, Hadar said, he was booted from the seminary. He transferred to another religious studies center, where a student matched him up with his wife’s ultra-Orthodox friend. They quickly married.

“I wanted to take the path that (God) commanded of us. I didn’t see any other option,” Hadar said. “I thought the marriage would make me straight and I would be cured.”

He felt distressed while intimate with his wife, and wouldn’t tell her why. She demanded a divorce. She later gave birth to their daughter, who is 11 years old today. His ex-wife still refuses to let them meet.

After Hadar’s own sister met a similar fate — she divorced her husband because he was gay — homophobic conversation erupted around the Hadar family dinner table. Hadar’s brother reprimanded the family, who had also become religious, by simply asking, “Are gays not human beings?”

His brother had stood up for Hadar without even knowing it.

A few months later, in 2010, Hadar mustered up the nerve to march in Tel Aviv’s gay pride parade. When he returned home that Sabbath eve, he finally told his mother he was gay. “I thought it would be the blackest day in my life,” Hadar said, but she accepted him.

As a practicing Orthodox Jew, it hasn’t been easy for Hadar to integrate into mainstream gay life. He used to tuck his shoulder-length religious side locks under a cap to fit in at bars. Eventually, he sheared his side locks and trimmed his beard to thin stubble to increase his luck on the dating scene.

He’s still looking for love. But this year, Hadar found acceptance — and self-expression — at Drag Yourself, a Tel Aviv school offering 10-month courses for budding drag performers. Students learn how to teeter on high heels, apply false eyelashes and fashion their own drag personas. Hadar, still a beginner, graduates next month.

The drag school, much like Israel’s gay community itself, offers a rare opportunity for Israelis to interact with others from disparate and sometimes warring sectors of society. The school may be the only place where a Jewish settler, a lapsed ultra-Orthodox Jew, an Arab-Israeli and Israeli soldiers have stuffed their bras together.

Of all the students in his class, Hadar was the only one to show up wearing a yarmulke.

“I think it’s fabulous,” said Gil Naveh, a veteran Israeli drag queen and director of the school, as he painted Hadar’s lips apple-red before his midnight debut at a Jerusalem gay bar. “He stays true to who he is.”

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 01:30:46 PM

Crossdressing photography book improves transgender awareness in Japan

Crossdressing in mainstream media of Japan is still somewhat in its infancy. While on a nightly basis you can easily catch a crossdresser or transsexual person on TV, they often are presented as 2D characters offering little insight to who they really are or why they lead such a life.

“Transgender” and “gay” are still synonymous to many people, but this is a situation that is steadily changing with greater awareness provided by works such as Yuri Danshi which was released on 31 July, and covers nine cross-dressing men in a wide range of styles and fashions from girl-next-door to gyaru.

Otoko no ko is a term used to refer to crossdressing men who have innate feminine characteristics and enjoy dressing in clothes typically reserved for females. These are the types of crossdressers which the creator of Yuri Danshi, Naoko Tachibana wants to focus on for this book.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 01:34:12 PM

Crossdressing photography book improves transgender awareness in Japan (continued)

However, Naoko Tachibana is a seasoned pro at transforming all types of men into women from her studio in Akihabara boasting upwards of 600 customers. Aside from her artistic talents she continuously supports the transgendered by trying to open doors for them. Last year she wrote a column for RocketNews24 speaking out against the no-crossdressing rule at many Japanese cosplay events.

This new book, as well, was not exactly welcomed with open arms by many publishers in the country. Despite her pleas of “wanting to show people the attractiveness of otoko no ko” and “wanting to push away the world’s negative impressions of crossdressers,” Tachibana received more than a few cold shoulders.

Still through her hard work, the book can now see the light of day and was put out by My Way Publishing in stores and online. To celebrate a special event is being held in Tokyo where visitors and hear behind the scenes and more personal stories from the artists and models involved.

Tachibana hopes as many people from different walks of life check out the book whether they’re fans of crossdressing, looking to get into it but are scared, or plain don’t get it. Here are her own feelings on the matter:

“I’m a woman, but I love people who crossdress. Although I’m often asked why, to me it’s clear that if they’re cute or beautiful it doesn’t matter what gender they are. The world has decided that “men should be this way” which is just disrespectful and off-base. You should be able to do by whatever you personally like. Having realized that, I love and cherish those who pursue such a life. Don’t judge these otoko no ko from the viewpoint a woman or a man is expected to have, but by what naturally moves your heart. Then you’ll see it a different way. There’s a lot more going on; facial expressions, gestures, fashion, and contexts to name a few. Keep these ideas in mind when you pick up this book and you may feel like a freer person when you’re done.”

Often when we have published crossdressing or transsexual stories in the past, people judge the men on how convincing their female image is. While that might be a goal for some, for many their aim isn’t to disguise themselves as a woman but to just become themselves.

Once the pretense of being a man or a woman as we know it is stripped away we can better appreciate the raw beauty of an angle, a glance, an action or a moment for what it’s truly supposed to be rather than what it’s “supposed to be.”

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 02:33:33 PM

Japan’s Cross-Dressing Double Standard

At any anime, comic or game convention cosplayers tend to attract a lot of attention. As such, there are a number of rules, informal and formal, that both cosplayers and their viewers should follow to make sure no one gets offended.

Many of them are just common courtesy. If you’re an observer, don’t take a cosplayer’s photo without their permission. If you’re a cosplayer, don’t show excessive amount of skin.

However, there’s one cosplay regulation seen frequently at Japanese conventions that some would argue doesn’t make very much sense: no cross-dressing.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 02:36:18 PM

Japan’s Cross-Dressing Double Standard (continued)

Naoko Tatibana is a photographer who has built a career from her work with sexual minorities, focusing her creative energies into LGBT events, drag shows and transgender model portraits. In 2010, she opened Taiyodo, a cross-dressing studio in Tokyo where, in addition to her photography services, she offers guidance for men who want to learn how to become more beautiful women.

In her new column on our Japanese site, Naoko writes that, “despite all the exposure transsexuals and cross-dressers are given on TV and in magazines in Japan, men are forbidden from dressing up as the opposite sex at the one place you would think it would be most acceptable: cosplay events.”

The practice of dressing up as a character of a different gender is known in English as “crossplay,” and while it does carry a degree of social stigma overseas, it’s still something that can be seen fairly often at anime conventions.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 02:38:18 PM

Japan’s Cross-Dressing Double Standard (continued)

In Japan, however, whereas female-to-male crossplay is both universally accepted and incredibly popular, most major events forbid male attendees from dressing up as female characters.

Presumably, this is because organizers fear the event hall will be flooded with middle-aged men in schoolgirl uniforms and other oddities most people don’t want to see, but Naoko argues that this concern is misplaced and that these days, male-to-female crossplayers are a visual force to be reckoned with.

“Regardless of gender, cosplay is about transformation, which is why it presents so much possibility for cross-dressing,” she says. “Even if you’re a regular guy, there’s nothing to feel ashamed about! Give female cosplay a try!”

If you’re still not a believer, we suggest you check out the gallery below, which contains some of Naoko’s best male-to-female crossplay shots. We think you’ll agree they deserve a chance in the spotlight just as much as the countless women who dress up as androgynous male characters.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 03:01:29 PM

Cosplay Girl is Actually Nerdy Guy

Pictures of the cosplayer seen above have been making the rounds on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, being hailed as “just too cute!” Many women post pictures on the internet of themselves cosplaying and these new photos seem to be more of the same. That’s not to say that this young lady doesn’t look good, but at first glance, it doesn’t seem to be a buzzworthy image…that is until you see the pictures of this beautiful girl without makeup and costume.

That’s right, this cosplayer is actually a man. This beautiful cosplay woman is a the nerdy, glasses-wearing guy. Here’s what people on the internet in China had to say:

So cute!!!

Is that really the same guy?

He’s so good at doing his makeup!

Wow! A little makeup goes a long way.

He’s cuter than most girls.

It now looks like girls who love cosplay have some unexpected competition.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 03:26:08 PM

Army Releases Photo of Wikileaker Bradley Manning in Wig and Makeup

A photograph of Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning wearing makeup and a blonde wig was released yesterday by the army as part of documentation related to Manning's trial. It's the first such photo of Manning, who is transgender.

The photograph was attached to emails Manning had sent to a therapist, Capt. Michael Worsley, and an NCOIC, Sgt. Paul Adkins, about gender identity, in which the army private expressed a belief that a career in the military might "get rid of it." Manning's lawyers introduced the email to Adkins and accompanying photograph as part of the trial.

Manning apologized on the day of sentencing for leaking classified State Department... a statement that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange implied was forced: "It took three years and millions of dollars to extract two minutes of tactical remorse from this brave soldier," he said in a statement.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 03:37:52 PM

Crossdressing jewellery thief jailed for 10 years

A man who disguised himself as a woman to help steal more than £540,000 worth of jewellery has been jailed for 10 years.

Vasile Bogdan, 35, donned a wig and women's clothing during a series of raids at jewellery stores in east London and Birmingham, Scotland Yard said.

The Romanian national, of no fixed abode, was eventually caught in January after he was apprehended by one of the store's owners.

Bogdan was dressed as a woman when he entered a shop in High Street, Manor Park, on November 25 last year, shortly before a group of men burst in wielding sledge hammers.

They fled with £60,000 worth of gold jewellery before detectives tracked down their escape route and recovered Bogdan's clothes and masks in a nearby park.

On December 4, Bogdan disguised himself as a woman again before a gang of men ransacked a shop in Plashet Grove, East Ham.

They escaped with £35,000 worth of jewellery before clothing was recovered later from a nearby railway line and a housing estate.

The gang struck again on December 22 in Green Street, Forest Gate, when two men disguised as women entered a jewellery store.

A group of men wielding sledge hammers then followed and made off with £350,000 worth of gold jewellery.

On January 5, a gang of 10 men, including one dressed as a woman, targeted a store in Stratford Road, Birmingham, but fled empty handed before discarding their balaclavas, gloves and sledge hammers.

Less than three weeks later, a group of six to eight men smashed display case with sledge hammers at a store in Bethnal Green Road, Bethnal Green, to steal £100,000 worth of jewellery.

They fled into into Weavers Field Park when Bogdan was caught by the jewellery store owner.

He was arrested at the scene and found to be in possession of 950 euro (£818) and £320.

Bogdan was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery and pleaded guilty during a court hearing on August 6.

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police's Flying Squad said they are continuing efforts to trace the other men involved in the robberies.

Following the sentencing at the Old Bailey today, Detective Inspector Ralf Kirchel said: "I'd like to thank the jewellery owner store who bravely chased after the gang after they'd robbed his store.

"This gang developed a modus operandi that worked, and they kept repeating it, stealing thousands and thousands of pounds of gold jewellery.

"They are clearly highly organised and put preparation and planning into each offence.

"We know that Bogdan came into the UK on January 23 from Hungary.

"Our investigation is ongoing and does have links to other countries; we will do everything we can to track down the rest of this gang."

Nice coat, hat, & wig, but he should also been charged with looking bad with no makeup

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 04:15:16 PM

Teen transvestite’s fashion show triumph

Teenage transvestite designer Kieran Mceleny showcased his first clothing collection at St James’ Church in Trowbridge on Saturday.

The 17-year-old, of Lower Court, pictured, started designing pieces for the collection a year ago and presented eight pieces on the launch night, which included dresses, tops and skirts.

He said: “It went really well and a couple of possible orders came out of it. The Mayor of Trowbridge turned up and said he was impressed with my work.”

Kieran is now adding more designs to the collection, and is inviting people to have a free consultation with him to find out what shape and style suits them.

To see the collection and to contact Kieran, visit http://diamonddays.weebly.com

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 04:28:22 PM

TransMilitary Web Series Seeks To End Ban On Transgender Military Service

A new documentary web series titled "TransMilitary" hit the web this week, attempting to bring visibility to the lived experiences of transgender individuals serving in the United States military.

Producers hope the stories shared in the series will play an important role in helping to frame the debate around ending the ban on transgender service in the military, a press release for the project pointed out.

The 2011 repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ended institutionalized marginalization of soldiers and officers by their sexual orientation, but had no impact on gender identity -- transgender people are still banned from military service. However, the discussion surrounding transgender military service is evolving to a place previously unprecedented, particularly in wake of Chelsea Manning's announcement that she identifies as a woman.

In the same way that it was important for Americans to see images and to hear the voices of gay and lesbian service members early in the fight for Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- seeing us, hearing our stories -- it changes the equation for many people," said Allyson Robinson, Principal Consultant/FMR. Exec. Director, OutServe-SLDN, in the above preview for "TransMilitary."

The preview released for the project includes commentary from Bryce Celotto, a transgender soldier currently serving in the military who is risking discharge for participating in the series. Other currently serving transgender military personnel will also take part, at their own personal risk.

"I was an army brat and I served in the army myself both as an enlisted soldier and as an officer," Robinson added. "I served in the Middle East, I served in Korea; and yet, none of it was as harrowing, as perilous, as wearing as the fight every day to push down, to keep inside the person that I knew that I was."

http://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2013/08/22/watch-transmilitary-documentary-seeks-end-trans-service-ban

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 04:47:30 PM

Russian journalist Dmitry Kiselyov defends 'homophobic' comments

Dmitry Kiselyov, a well-known television journalist who presents a weekly news program on state TV, made the comments during a televised debate about a controversial law banning homosexual propaganda to minors in April 2012.

“I think banning gays from distributing propaganda to children is not enough,” he says in the clip.

“I think they should be banned from donating blood or sperm, and if they die in a car crash, their hearts should be burnt or buried in the ground as unsuitable for the continuation of life,” he adds, to a round of applause from the audience.

An online petition titled “No Fascism on TV” calling for him to be fired from the state-owned Russia 24 television channel had gathered over 3,500 signatures by Tuesday afternoon.

Last year an anti-gay group in St. Petersburg, the first city to adopt a version of the law, asked prosecutors to investigate a food and drink company owned by Pepsi for putting a rainbow on its milk cartons.

On Tuesday a transvestite comedian apparently became one of the first high-profile causalities of the new law when he was fired by state television channel.

Ukrainian Andrei Danilko, who performs as drag queen Verka Serdyuchka, was dropped from a Saturday night comedy show because of fears about violating the new legislation, according to reports. The broadcaster had not commented by Tuesday evening.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 04:53:13 PM

Jamaican Cops Rescued Transgender From Angry Mob

Two weeks after a teen transvestite was murdered in Montego Bay, Jamaica, police officers had to rescue another cross-dresser from an angry mob.

This latest incident took place last weekend in Portmore, St. Catherine.

According to reports reaching Urban Islandz, at approximately 9 p.m. on Saturday a group of people spotted the cross-dresser wearing a very short shorts, blouse, bra and a bright orange wig.

He was quickly attacked by an angry mob and ran inside a premises. The mob gave chase and police were called in. Police later called for backup up as the mob grew more boisterous.

One onlooker told Urban Islandz that police officers arrived just in time to save his life. The man’s identity was not released.

Jamaica is not only notorious for reggae music and world class sprinters, but also for its hatred of gays.

A 17-year-old transvestite was mobbed at a street dance in Irwin, Montego Bay.

According to reports reaching Urban Islandz, the teen cross dressing male was dancing with another male when a female recognized him and told others at the party he was not a female.

A man at the party held the teen and discovered he was in fact a male. Patrons reportedly beaten, chopped and stabbed the teen to death.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 05:27:50 PM

Transsexual actress Laverne Cox finds unlikely path to stardom with 'Orange Is the New Black'

Star of Netflix series plays key role with help from twin brother M. Lamar, who shows character's earlier life as a man

She may have been born a he — but now she’s a star.

Netflix’s latest series, “Orange Is the New Black,” has been a critical hit and has left fans buzzing.

Among the most popular characters on the women-in-prison drama is transgender inmate Sophia Burset, who is played by real-life transgender actress Laverne Cox.

“The reality is you don’t often see trans characters played by trans folks,” Cox told the News, “and there aren’t a lot of trans roles written to begin with.”

In an early episode, directed by Jodie Foster, Sophia’s back story revealed how she was once a former fireman named Marcus who longed to be a woman.

It was a role Cox simply wasn’t man enough to play — although it wasn’t for lack of trying. She underwent an eight-hour hair and makeup test to construct a more masculine look, and then presented herself to Foster.

M. Lamar, twin of Laverne Cox, played the character before she undergoes a sex change to become Sophia.

“Jodie looked at me and said, ‘We’re going to have to hire someone.’ She didn’t think I was butch enough to pull it off!”

Then casting directors realized that Cox has a twin brother, musician M. Lamar.

“He went into the audition and he killed it,” Cox said. “I guess acting runs in the family a little bit.”

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 05:50:57 PM

Navy SEAL comes out as transgender

After years spent fighting in some of the world's worst wars, former U.S. Navy SEAL Kristin Beck says she knows what she wants.

"I want to have my life," she told CNN's "AC360" in an exclusive Thursday night.

"I fought for 20 years for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I want some happiness."

Beck recently came out as transgender.

She wrote about the experience in a book, "Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEAL's Journey to Coming out Transgender."

It chronicles her life as a young boy and man, known then as Chris Beck.

Beck deployed 13 times, serving in places such as Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. She earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart along the way.

Though she's felt trapped in the wrong body since grade school, Beck didn't come out until after she left the military in 2011.

Doing so earlier would have been too big a risk.

Transgender men and women are banned from service.

"That's a chance that if I took it, I might be dead today," she said.

"There's a lot of prejudice out there. There's been a lot of transgender people who are killed for prejudice, for hatred. When the book came out -- some amazing support and some amazing praises -- but also some pretty amazing bigotry and hatred."

Beck says she doesn't need people to love, or even like, her.

"But I don't want you to beat me up and kill me. You don't have to like me, I don't care. But please don't kill me."

'No one ever met the real me'

Beck explains her years of hiding as living like an onion.

Deep down, under various layers, or skins, she hid her female persona.

"It is a constant, but as you suppress and as you bottle it up, it's not like on that surface," she said.

"You would never notice it because I can push it so deep, but then it does kinda, like, it gnaws at you. So it's always there."

Looking back, Beck believes she might have wanted to become a SEAL because they are "the toughest of the tough."

She thought: "I could totally make it go away if I could be at that top level. ... Maybe I could cure myself."

But the feeling of being born in the wrong body never went away.

And for her entire career, Beck kept her mouth shut.

She says virtually no one, out of the thousands of people she worked with, knew her secret -- it was so well hidden.

"No one ever met the real me," she said.

Though her identity was hidden, the rest of what Beck offered was true.

"I gave true brotherhood. I did my best, 150% all the time, and I gave strength and honor and my full brotherhood to every military person I ever worked with."

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 06:51:04 PM

Transgender woman dies after assault in NYC

Detectives were investigating Friday the death of a transgender woman who was assaulted last week on a New York City street and later died.

The victim, 21-year-old Islan Nettles, died Thursday, five days after she was attacked.

It was the latest in a of bias attacks this year in New York. Sixty-eight have been reported, from yelled slurs to the May killing of a 32-year-old gay man in Greenwich Village. Last year, 54 attacks total were reported.

Nettles and a friend, another transgender woman, were out Saturday evening in Harlem when they ran into a group of men, and one pounced, punching Nettles in the face, police said. But a witness who spoke to authorities initially did not mention any anti-gay remarks, and the suspect, 20-year-old Paris Wilson, was arrested on an assault charge.

After the attack, Nettles was hospitalized, slipped into a coma and later died.

The witness eventually told detectives about the anti-gay remarks, and the hate crimes task force took over the investigation. Detectives are looking at if the suspect had propositioned Nettles.

In May, police said Mark Carson, 32, was first taunted with homophobic slurs, then shot in the head in Greenwich Village, not far from the site of 1969 Stonewall riots that helped give rise to the gay rights movement.

A suspect was arrested on a charge of murder as a hate crime. The killing, and other bias attacks, sparked a summer protest attended by thousands.

Some of the other bias incidents this summer included an assault last week where two men were attacked in Chelsea.

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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on August 23, 2013, 07:22:56 PM

Billionaire Backer Of Open Transgender Military Service Comes Out

Pritzker, 63, reportedly released a statement to employees at the Pritzker Military Library and Tawani Enterprises that said:

"As of Aug. 16, 2013, J.N. Pritzker will undergo an official legal name change, will now be known as Jennifer Natalya Pritzker. This change will reflect the beliefs of her true identity that she has held privately and will now share publicly. Pritzker now identifies herself as a woman for all business and personal undertakings."

The retired Army lieutenant colonel is president and CEO of Tawani, founder and chairman of the military library and on the board of Squadron Capitol LLC, a private-equity firm in Connecticut. Forbes lists Pritzker as having a net worth of $1.5 billion.

Col. Pritzker has invested millions of dollars in projects in and around Chicago. In the Rogers Park neighborhood, she spent $6 million to restore and preserve the Morse Theater.

A source mentioned that Col. Pritzker's announcement will not come as a surprise to those who know her best.

In July, Col. Pritzker's Tawani Foundation awarded a $1.5 million grant to the University of California's Palm Center to study the feasibility of service by transgender people in the military.

Pritzker was born in 1950 in the U.S.A. He attended the Loyola University Illinois where he completed his Bachelor of Arts/Science degree. Currently divorced, James Pritzker has three children.

I believe she will be the FIRST transgendered billionaire in the USA or the world.

Sorry, no pix as her as a woman yet. I guess being a billionaire, she was able to keep a low profile about it.

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Title: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 02:10:38 PM

The legal battle between Black Entertainment Television (BET) and gender non-conforming host B. Scott took a sour turn Thursday after leaked emails appeared to show that media company officials communicated internally over their disapproval of Scott "looking like a woman" on air.

It all started last summer when Scott was hired as a Style Stage Correspondent on the red carpet before the 2013 BET Awards in June. During the pre-show, BET reportedly "forced" Scott remove his makeup and heels. He changed his outfit but never reappeared on air.

The network later apologized for the "miscommunication," but in August, the media personality announced plans to sue BET for discrimination on the basis of gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation.

Prior to the event, BET music programming president allegedly wrote a message saying: "I don't want 'looking like a woman B Scott.' I want tempered B Scott." Afterward, BET executives reportedly wanted to spin the incident to avoid a public relations nightmare.

"The leaked email exchange between BET/Viacom personnel is both shocking, and hurtful," Scott said. "While I’m disheartened by the blatant and intentional attempt to stifle my gender identity/expression way before the day of the event, I’m also thankful that the truth is starting to surface."

"It’s a shame that a company such as BET/Viacom would rather focus energy towards slandering my reputation in an attempt to further humiliate me instead of learning from their mistakes," he continued. "The time & energy spent creating a ‘spin’ could have more effectively been used to help create a more welcoming environment for LGBTQ employees."

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 02:19:38 PM

Pamela Raintree and her stone are being celebrated by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community of Shreveport, Louisiana, for their incredible parts in sustaining the city's LGBT non-discrimination ordinance, which was under threat of repeal.

As Towleroad notes, the transgender woman recently confronted Councilman Ron Webb, the single dissenting vote against the ordinance, which passed in December, and the mastermind behind a repeal of the law.

Raintree brought the stone with her to the council meeting and stated, "Leviticus 20:13 states, 'If a man lie also with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they shall surely put him to death.' I brought the first stone Mr. Webb, in case that your Bible talk isn't just a smoke screen for personal prejudices."

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 02:31:53 PM

Offbeat Movies

Best Crossdressing Performance: Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club”
With his perfect cheekbones, sparkling doe eyes and slim, feminine physique, the Thirty Seconds to Mars singer was simply born to play this role. Not only did he talk the talk and walk the walk, but Leto played a better woman than some real actresses this year.

Jared Leto said he performed his civic duty by serving on jury duty yesterday, and today he woke up at 5 a.m. and heard about his Oscar nomination.

“Only in America can those two things happen like that, back to back,” the actor said in a phone interview shortly after he received the news.

Leto won a Golden Globe Award Sunday night for his “Dallas Buyers Club” performance as Rayon, a drug-addicted transvestite who partners with Ron Woodroof (played by Matthew McConaughey) to start an alternative-treatment business for patients with HIV and AIDS.

The actor, 42, said he’s received support from the transgender community. “I think everyone knows that I fought tooth and nail to make sure that the dignity and grace of this character was clear and present,” he said, adding that he’s “relieved to get such a wonderful response from that community.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 02:41:18 PM

The 9th Annual Otaku Senryu contest is on in Japan, and this means the open call for the contest mascot Nyako Shikibu is on as well!

The Otaku Senryu contest collects witty otaku slice-of-life moments in the form of Japanese poetry from public, and the contest is also hosting open calls for the character mascot of the contest with cat ears and a calligraphy brush for both the illustration and model category. Cat ears and a brush sound like a great addition to any cute female model, but we should always remember the other demographic. The 6th annual contest is limited to male models and crossdressing is encouraged!

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 02:49:33 PM

Leslie Cochran's health improved enough to move him out of the hospital and into a private hospice. On one hand that's great news for his legions of friends and fans. Still, he remains critically ill, and moving to hospice care, well... lets not read anything more into that.

He has remained alert and conscious since awaking from a two week coma last week.

"Consciousness, however, is not a sign of improvement in his overall health," said his friend Debbie Russell in an email. "He has challenges beyond his brain injuries, and Leslie is making his own choices right now about his future."

On February 16th Leslie ended up in an ambulance after being found unconscious in a parking lot of South First. His health deteriorated and doctors performed brain surgery, Leslie's fourth in the last three years. After nearly two weeks in a coma, he awoke last week.

If comments on CultureMap are any indication, Leslie is the most cared for homeless man in history:

Here's to you Leslie for keeping it weird."

"It was two weeks after I moved here that I met Leslie while checking out Eeyore's Birthday Bash. I always dreaded meeting him in person cause I though he must be nuts, but he shook my hand and we talked about what was going on with politics, school, and the economy. He's one of the strangest people Austin has to offer and I think the most curious thing about him is how not strange he can be."

"Sad to hear the best crossdressing Mayoral candidate Austin has ever had is gravely ill. He gave ATX major personality."

"I used to see Leslie all time in college on 6th. However, I was working at Lucy's in Disguise one fall and he sat right next to me while I was outside on South Congress having lunch. He was really nice and had some good stories to tell. I got a chance to know the guy a little bit and I hope that he recovers and gets the send off that he deserves. The saying "Keep Austin Weird" just seems ironic now, but Leslie was the embodiment of that saying."

"Hey everyone please be sure to keep Leslie in your prayers!"

"Leslie told me the trapper story one time and he's been planning to go back to Colorado for a while now... When I lived on Soco at 2020, he would come by for a beer every night a 10 sharp and hang out with my friends as he moved onward to Trophy's .... Such a good soul that Leslie! In my prayers!"

"PRAYERS GOING TO YOU LESLIE STAY STRONG WE LOVE YA!! GOD BLESS!"

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 03:05:47 PM

A MARRIED man from Dorking has spoken of the inner torment he has been caused by telling family and friends of his cross-dressing lifestyle.

For years, Fiona Jane Edwards has dressed as a woman in secret, but has now gained the courage to talk openly about making such a revelation.

Speaking to the Advertiser in her female persona, the 64-year-old said: "There used to be a huge stigma around dressing as the opposite sex, but things have changed and it is more accepted.

"Talking openly about this is hard, but it needs to be done so people know that there is nothing wrong with it.

"It is not something to be ashamed or scared of, but something to be embraced."

She added: "There are more transvestites in Dorking than you might think.

"I would do anything to publicise what we are and what we are like."

Fiona, whose real name is Francis, said she felt a lot more comfortable when dressed as a woman.

"It feels more natural to me sometimes," she said. "It gives me a confidence boost.

"Children are more likely to spot that I am a man than adults. Adults seem to take things more on face value, at a glimpse, but children are more likely to see beyond the make-up and clothes to the real person."

Fiona first started dressing as a woman as a teenager in Portsmouth, where her mother and father ran a pharmaceutical shop.

She said: "I tried some female clothes on and I kind of liked it and it was from then on that I did it more and more.

"It is in the last 20 years that I gave the female a name, Fiona, and in more recent years I have been going out as her. To begin with it was really scary but, after a while, you grow in confidence and it makes such a difference.

"Some months I dress up lots and then others, hardly ever. It takes a lot of time and effort to create Fiona, and sometimes life gets in the way and I can't."

Fiona has been married for nearly 30 years and said her cross-dressing had not always been easy for her wife to deal with.

She said: "It is not something that she necessarily agrees with, but as long as I don't do it in front of her or parade around in front of her then she is OK with it. I would never say she is happy about it.

"I am a heterosexual man and I love my wife, but this is something that makes me feel good about myself."

Fiona said she had never been tempted to undergo surgery to become a woman permanently.

She said: "I have considered it briefly in the past, but there are a couple of things stopping me. It is expensive, there could be huge complications and I like being able to be a man as well."

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 03:23:48 PM

There's more controversy over the state's Pono Choices sex education program. This time it involves one of the controversial curriculum's critics.

Tito Montes, president of the Hawaii Republican Assembly, is under fire for calling a respected Hawaiian leader and cultural practicioner a "transvestite" and a "drag queen."

Hina Wong-Kalu -- who considers herself a transgendered female -- says the name calling borders on hate speech.

"To utilize words transvestite and drag queen in any political debate is taking a cheap shot," Wong-Kalu said.

Montes remarks were part of his criticism of the state's Pono Choices sex education program. Montes and other Republicans say the program is too graphic for middle school students and is not medically accurate.

Wong-Kalu appeared in Pono Choices skit about HIV risk and here's how Montes described her:

"'Kumu' is the video short story of a transvestite drag queen who wears lipstick, eye liner, a dress, a padded bra and earrings," Montes wrote.

Wong-Kalu, who is the chair of the Oahu Burial Council, shot back:

"A transvestite is someone who puts on clothes, a man who puts on women's clothes in the middle of the night for once in a while but this is not temporary for me. This is an everyday element of my life," she said.

The latest controversy over the Pono Choices program comes as state Rep. Robert McDermott called on the Department of Education to pull the curriculum or revise it.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 04:09:30 PM

Benidorm - ITV, 9pm

Whether you like your breaks in 5-star luxury, or like to keep things a little bit more down to earth, with organised fun, cross-dressing hotel staff, and the unfortunately placed loud-mouthed couple who you spend all week trying to avoid, it’s time for a little bit of sun. Or perhaps you’d rather give the latter a miss and watch somebody else suffer, from the safety of your armchair instead.

Yep, the show that promises sun, sea and sangria serves up another bumper helping of laughs tonight, as Liam bumps into Bianca and immediately falls in love. But it’s not all good news in the resort, as Donald and Jacqueline receive sad news about their friend Big Donna.

Meanwhile, the grand reopening of Blow n’Go is interrupted by a rowdy stag party, and a familiar face returns - old Solana regular Martin Weedon (Nicholas Burns) is the best man with said stag party.

And Madge is keen to stir things up with the Dyke family, so Janice, Mick, Tonya and Clive decide the best course of action is to ignore her.

Benidorm has been entertaining the masses for just shy of seven years, collecting a couple of National Television Awards along the way. It’s certainly found its place in the public’s heart, and Tim Healy, who plays transvestite Lesley, thinks he knows why.

The actor says: “It has the same appeal as Carry On movies. All the characters are larger?than-life, colourful and great fun to play. I’ve been an actor for 40 years, and it’s wonderful to come to work and have a laugh.”

Laugh being the operative word because Tim admits playing Lesley can be hard work at times.

“It is [fun], although it doesn’t always seem that way when I’m wearing a wig, a bra and full make-up and I’m skating round on roller blades in the 90-degree heat! It can be very uncomfortable. In the Christmas special, they dressed me as Santa in thigh-high leather boots and put me on the top of the Benidorm Palace. It was 42 degrees! I’m not allowed to go into the pool at lunchtime because of the make-up. My make up takes as long as any of the glamorous female characters!”

Yet Tim is adamant he wouldn’t be anywhere else, especially enjoying the reaction he gets from fans.

“They come up to me and say, “I didn’t recognise you without your wig or your dress!” he smiles.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 04:45:27 PM

Transsexual Tries for Miss World Crown

A Bangladeshi transgender woman is setting her sights on joining Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra in winning the Miss World title, reports the tabloid Daily Mail.

Born Adesh Maltepe and now called Amelia Maltepe, the young woman said she always felt trapped in a man’s body, so she spent $13,000 on hormone therapy and breast implants and $4,500 on laser hair reduction to make her dream a reality. She identifies as a woman, but has not yet undergone the full gender reassignment surgery.

The 23-year-old business student moved from Bangladesh to Toronto, Canada, in 2009 to study, and while there became aware of her options.

Being in Canada, she said, “It was the first time I realized you could use surgery and medicine to change your birth gender. It was an amazing moment and I felt like I could finally be the person I always was.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 04:52:54 PM

Jose Agustin Hernandez, who goes by the name “Adela”, is the first transsexual ever to occupy a government post in all Cuban history. She was elected municipal delegate – a kind of town councilor – by her neighbors.

Adela lives in the town of Caibarien, in the province of Villa Clara, which is located in Cuba’s north-central region. After a year in office, she agreed to an interview with Publico magazine and to draw a balance of her work during this time.

Delegates and deputies in Cuba are not professional politicians. They make their living through regular jobs and do not receive a salary for these government positions. It was thanks to her day job, in fact, that Adela was able to secure many votes.

“I am a nurse who specializes in electrocardiograms and I am also part of the ER team. I have to deal with many serious cases and I try to establish a human relationship with patients and their relatives. Because of this, they see me as a human being as well and they realize that a person’s sexual orientation is of no importance.”

Adela became her neighborhood’s political and administrative representative through a popular, direct and secret vote. “I have to address the needs of the more than 500 people who voted for me. I am also responsible for managing two ration book stores that sell subsidized food products, a fish shop, a doctor’s office and three schools. I’ve been fairly successful if you bear in mind we’ve taken seven local matters to different State entities and received positive replies everywhere,” she explains to us.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 05:11:51 PM

Brazil star had secret year-long affair with transsexual model

Brazilian icon Romario agreed that he has a year-long affair with a transgender model.

According to Thalita Zampirolli, the pair enjoyed a series of flings over the course of 12 months - although Romario didn't know she was born a man.

The former Brazilian international was spotted leaving a club with Zampirolli recently - but took to Facebook to insist they were merely good friends.

However she told the Brazilian media a different story.

She said: "We did have relations, yes. We had an affair for one year, but he didn’t know about my sex change then.

"I’m a woman and Romario stayed with me knowing this, and I don’t have to go around explaining myself to everyone.

"We also kissed at Luan Santana’s show last week; I didn't want to have to explain this, but I don’t want to be a liar either.

"Romario’s a very good person and I don’t want to do him any harm, but I don’t want to be a liar either.”

There must be something in the water in Brazil because back in 2008 fellow Brazilian legend Ronaldo was caught red handed with three prostitutes who turned out to be transsexual.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 05:46:38 PM

The new album from Florida punks Against Me! is titled Transgender Dysphoria Blues — and that's not just a metaphor. It's the first album the band has released since lead singer Laura Jane Grace went public with her transition from a man to a woman. Now, instead of hinting at feelings of gender dysphoria in her lyrics, they're all right there, front and center, beginning with her barked opening lines: "Your tells are so obvious: shoulders too broad for a girl."

Against Me! has been around more than 15 years, building significant success on the back of those growling, assertive vocals — and as Grace told Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin, her voice is one of many things about the band that haven't changed. Grace and guitarist James Bowman spoke with Martin this week from a tour stop in South Carolina, touching on the vital support of their fans, the lack of transgender representation in the media, and why it's so tough to be a songwriter with a secret.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 05:59:31 PM

Laverne Cox, the transgender actress and activist who plays Sophia in Netflix's Orange is the New Black, is writing a memoir about her personal obstacles and experiences. Harlequin will publish the book, due out in 2015.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 06:39:47 PM

TORONTO — After taking on tycoon Donald Trump and becoming an advocate for equal rights as the first transgender Miss Universe Canada contestant in 2012, Jenna Talackova was swimming in offers promising fame.

“I was pitched many shows when I was in L.A.,” the statuesque, six-foot-one blond said in a recent interview. “My agent kept sending me down there and it just didn’t align with my personality.

“Dating shows and all these kinds of things, it wasn’t the message I was trying to give out to the world and so I lost a lot of confidence.”

The 25-year-old did find one show idea she liked down there — one in which she would train to become a Victoria’s Secret model, a longtime goal of hers — but it didn’t work out.

And then she met the producers of E’s new original Canadian series Brave New Girls, which is on Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.

Talackova said she wanted to star in the reality series because it’s Canadian and offered the chance to move from Vancouver to Toronto to pursue her dreams of modelling and acting.

“I just hope I make it more socially acceptable for anybody that’s different from society’s kind of person,” said Talackova, who decided to fully transition into a woman at age 14 and had sex reassignment surgery at age 19.

I hope this show sends that message — to accept people for who they are

“So I hope this show sends that message — to accept people for who they are.”

The show also stars Talackova’s friend Dajana Radovanovic, a model who’s finishing her criminology degree and wants Talackova to focus on her goals. Also featured is her more free-wheeling cousin Angela Perry, who wants her to loosen up.

Perry wanted to be on the show to support what she felt was a positive message and “a way to promote understanding and acceptance.”

“We’re not in medieval times anymore. Everyone’s different and just to accept it.”

Radovanovic felt it was “an amazing platform for young women and also just people from all walks of life.”

“Just to see Jenna living a regular life like everybody else, that’s probably the main message, and just to see that we’re all just regular girls trying to make it.”

It’s not a smooth road, though.

In the premiere of the half-hour, eight-episode series, Talackova expresses interest in an apartment but agents for the building express concern about her “profile.” Her history also scares off a guy at a bar.

“This is just such a little problem with what transgendered women go through,” said Talackova, who was originally barred from competing in Trump’s Miss Universe Canada because of her gender at birth. After threatening to take Trump to court, she was allowed in and placed in the Top 12.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 06:58:24 PM

SEVEN POINTS — Transgender woman Roxanne Joganik is facing possible mediation in her lawsuit against a property owner who kicked her out of his trailer park in Athens last year.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development filed the lawsuit in October against the park owner, George Toone.

The Justice Department is seeking to restore Joganik and her partner’s housing, as well as bar discrimination against gender identity in the Fair

Housing Act with a ruling in the case that will outline that gender identity falls under sex discrimination.

Dallas Voice was the first to report the story in August. LGBT advocates hope the case is a landmark in establishing discrimination based on gender identity, which is already covered under U.S. law as sex discrimination.

Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nicole Mitchell slated a trial for Dec. 2, 2014, if the case wasn’t resolved through mediation. A mediator in

Tyler has been agreed upon, but Joganik said Toone is refusing to go to mediation because he wants more rights for property owners.

“There’s no sense in mediation,” she said.

Joganik said in the beginning of the case, she offered to settle with Toone, agreeing to dress as a man in public areas of the park if he agreed to follow HUD regulations and participate in sensitivity training. But he declined that offer.

HUD is seeking $16,000 in damages on behalf of Joganik.

“I offered to settle the case. I’m not looking for a fight,” she said, adding that if mediation is required by the court, she’d attend. “I’m waiting for mediation, but I’m not going to accept anything but a large settlement at this point.”

Joganik also is in the process of trying to receive different representation from the Justice Department. She’s filed a complaint against her attorney Lori Wagner for mishandling her case, including losing documents and making inappropriate comments about her gender identity.

“It’s just not working,” she said. “This is a case I think is a very precedent-setting case. I don’t consider it a joke.”

Wagner is also on board with resolving the case through mediation, which would likely prevent a precedent being set with a ruling about gender identity under the Fair Housing Act. She wrote in a proposal that “this case would benefit from mediation.”

Wagner did not respond to an email request for comment. Joganik said she hopes the Justice Department assigned a new attorney to help fight for a ruling in the case at trial so she and other trans people don’t face similar discrimination again.

“It’s a civil rights issue of our time,” Joganik said about trans issues. “If a win in the 5th Circuit is done, then that will set a new precedent for this and keep these bigots from being brave enough to discriminate anymore. If we don’t fight, we lose.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on January 20, 2014, 07:06:24 PM

Transgender activist starts LGBT group

"Some of my earliest childhood memories were that there was something wrong because I should have been born female," Jody Rendall said.

She was born David Rendall, grew up in West Chicago, Ill., and became a physics teacher at Big Foot High School. She said she was uncomfortable, racked with guilt from living as something she was not — a man.

After retiring in 2006, David became Jody.

"What I've done is called transitioning," she said. "I've transitioned from male to female, which basically means I've taken on my affirmed gender."

Rendall also has become an activist. Earlier this year, she started the LGBT of Walworth County LLC, possibly the area's first organization to offer services and support directly to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

She discussed bigger plans for LGBT of Walworth County, which started out as a website listing local resources.

Rendall said she wants the group to organize an ambitious event — a one-day anti-bullying workshop involving the county's public high schools.

"We hope that, by the time that day is over, people will go back to their schools with an action plan (to stop) bullying," she said.

Through the group and her focus on transgender issues, Rendall has drawn several into the group, such as volunteer Chuck Dimick, of East Troy.

"I think she has courage," said Dimick. "Courage and smarts. Her focus, the way she's pulling together this anti-bullying campaign, this is somebody I can get behind."

Dimick said the bullying issue could help make LGBT of Walworth County more visible. Rendall and Dimick said it isn't just an LGBT issue — it affects everyone.

Take Dimick, for example. Although he came out as being gay in 1980, he said he was bullied "because I had acne and because I got straight As," not because of his sexuality.

Rendall was also bullied, and for years, lived in fear.

Title: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 07:30:31 PM

As photos of Kaoru Oshima rack up thousands of favorites and retweets on Twitter, it seems the Japanese model and adult video star is being showered with questions about gender and sexuality – and handling the queries with aplomb.

In April this year, Kaoru tweeted this pretty awesome “I am what I am” statement:

“My name is Kaoru Oshima.
I am a boy.
I dress as a girl.
I’m not a “new half” [male-to-female transsexual].
I don’t want to be a girl. But I want to look like a girl.
Sexual preference? I like both women and men.
Some people might call me transgender, transvestite, or a cross-dresser, but none of those labels really fit.”

Crossdressing in Japan is at once ubiquitous and invisible. As in many other countries, it’s often assumed that all men who wear “women’s clothes” want to change their gender, or are gay. But Kaoru seems to spell out in simple terms that the clothes he wears and his sexuality are separate things. He also says that although people try to categorise him, none of the words feel quite right.

One thing’s for sure: Kaoru’s already got thousands of fans. And at least no one’s accusing him of “trapping” them or pretending to be something he’s not.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 07:36:58 PM

So it's now legal in Indiana for same sex marriage. Cool. Now for the antagonists, get over it! 102 years ago in Crown Point, two men married.

Yes, in 1912, Fred G. Thompson, a male transvestite, was legally married to Frank Carrick.

According to a 2001 thesis written by a University of Illinois history student, the justice of the peace in Crown Point didn't realize Fred was posing as Frances Williams. An Illinois judge did rule their marriage was legal.

Perhaps it's time to celebrate that historic event. “Let Freedom Ring!”

Title: Laverne Cox makes Emmy history
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 08:06:17 PM

Orange Is the New Black" actress Laverne Cox knows her Emmy history. The self-described awards-show junkie even went online last night, checking out her Emmy chances on a predictions website, and went to bed thinking she didn't have much of a chance of landing a nomination.

"I went to sleep and I let it go," says Cox, a transgender actress who plays transgender inmate Sophia Burset on the Netflix show. "I said, 'OK, God, I think the show's going to be nominated. And that's amazing.' And I closed my eyes and let it go."

Eight hours later, Cox woke up to discover she'd become the first openly transgender woman nominated for an Emmy award. Cox herself makes the distinction "openly trans," as she says she knows of another transgender woman who won an Emmy years ago, but was not out. That minor qualification aside, she's "over the moon, effervescent and every cliche that's related to super-happy" about her "game-changing" Emmy nomination in the guest actress comedy category.

"Oh, my god, it's going to take me awhile to get used to saying 'Emmy-nominated actress,'" Cox said in a phone call from New York, where "Orange" is in production for its third season. "I only quit my restaurant job a year ago, so let me tell you, this is pretty good."

GLAAD President and chief executive Sarah Kate Ellis hailed Cox's nomination in a statement.

"Today, countless transgender youth will hear the message that they can be who they are and still achieve their dreams – nothing is out of reach," Ellis said. "Laverne’s success on a hit series is a clear indication that audiences are ready for more trans characters on television."

Ellis also pointed out that this year's Emmy nominees included openly gay actors Jim Parsons, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sarah Paulson and Kate McKinnon as well as shows ("Orange," "Modern Family," "Game of Thrones") sporting LGBT characters and stories.

Cox believes that the media exposure will help the viewers who don't know trans people to understand and connect with them, much in the same way that "Orange" fosters an empathy for its incarcerated characters. But she also cautions that the nation has a long way to go in accepting transgender people.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 08:25:39 PM

After the Supreme Court handed Hobby Lobby a sweeping victory in its fight to not provide employee health insurance that covers certain kinds of birth control, many customers came into the store in Aurora, Illinois, where Meggan Sommerville works, and offered their congratulations.

Hobby Lobby is a chain of craft stores whose founder says he tries to run the company in accordance with his Christian principles. Sommerville has worked there for 16 years. She loves her job and the store, which she said pays a good wage and carries supplies that she’s used for many of her own crafting projects.

Still, the congratulations from customers were hard to swallow. "I'd smile and nod and say, 'Yes, it's a victory for the company,' and then I'd push my real feelings down and not think about it anymore."

Sommerville is a transgender woman, and back in 2011, she filed a complaint against Hobby Lobby with the Illinois Department of Human Rights after the company refused to allow her to use the women's bathroom either as a customer or an employee.

She was never given an explanation. But Sommerville said she sees a connection with Hobby Lobby's argument that Christian principles should excuse it from covering some contraceptives.

"I don't believe that any company has the right to deny access to appropriate medical care, same as the reason why I don't believe that they have the right to deny me access to the washroom," she said in a recent phone call with The Huffington Post. "No company has the right to dictate what is decided between me and my doctor."

Sommerville transitioned to living as a woman in 2010. For the most part, colleagues and management were supportive, trying their best to use her new name and the right pronoun. That summer, she formally changed her name in court and received a new Social Security card and driver's license. A month later, Hobby Lobby provided her with a new name tag that finally matched how she saw herself.

But management refused to budge on one issue: They insisted that Sommerville continue to use the men's restroom. According to Sommerville, she was told she would only be allowed to use the women's restroom if she provided proof that she had undergone genital reconstructive surgery. Neither the state of Illinois nor the federal government require this surgery for a person to legally change his or her gender.

"I was devastated," Sommerville said. "I just want to be treated like all the other women. To do anything else diminishes who I am in the eyes of customers and employees."

Going to the bathroom became an embarrassing ordeal, where she was constantly worried about outing herself to customers or colleagues who didn't know her history. "There have been a few times when a customer has come in and I have essentially been trapped in the stall while I wait for the person to leave," she said. "The stories of trans women that have come under attack are always on my mind when I am forced to use the men's room. At the very least, I don't want to make a scene."

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 08:33:45 PM

A transgender first: A transgender Baptist who pastored a church in Central Texas as a man has returned to the pulpit as Allyson Robinson, the temporary pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington. She may be the first transgender pastor in American Baptist life. The church is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, which last month passed a resolution opposing “all efforts by any governing official or body to validate transgender identity as morally praiseworthy.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 08:45:24 PM

With its long lines and seemingly endless paperwork, a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles can rarely be classified as fun. But it could be worse.

Two West Virginia transgender women claim their recent DMV visits were especially harrowing as they attempted to update their names and change their driver's license photos.

In separate incidents, both recount officials telling them their appearance looked too feminine for a driver's license issued to a male and that they would have to dress down for their photos.

Now they've enlisted The Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund to get their stories heard.

"(A manager) told me it was a DMV policy that people listed as male could not wear makeup," said Kristen Skinner. "The manager referred to me as 'it' and told me to take off my makeup, wig and fake eyelashes."

Skinner, whose hair and eyelashes were her own and not fake, eventually took the license photo after removing all facial makeup.

The 45-year-old IT professional called the experience at the Charles Town office in Jefferson County on January 7 "humiliating."

"The way I was treated was unprofessional," Skinner said. "Isn't the point of a photo identification to identify how you look every day?"

Trudy Kitzmiller said she had a similar experience many months later in neighboring Berkeley County. According to her, after showing all the legal paperwork to change her name on her driver's license, DMV workers in Martinsburg demanded she remove all makeup, jewelry and long hair.

The 52-year-old says she was also called "it."

"It doesn't matter whether my license says M or F. I'm still a transgendered woman, and they shouldn't tell me how to dress or appear," Kitzmiller said.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: jeangurl on July 11, 2014, 08:56:50 PM

Wow Betty you are a real Newshound I dont think I have seen as much related material in our papers in years.
Thank you for placing these items together they make very interesting reading,if a little sad in the ones still being mistreated.

Love Jeangurl

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 09:00:32 PM

Joan Rivers said last week, “You know Michelle is a tranny… She’s a transgender, we all know.”

Bucking calls to apologise, Rivers later said: “I think it’s a compliment. She’s so attractive, tall, with a beautiful body, great face, does great makeup… the most gorgeous women are transgender.”

However, conspiracy theorists from website Info Wars have taken Rivers’ comments seriously, and now seem convinced that Michelle Obama is a trans woman.

Alex Jones of Info Wars said: “Joan Rivers talked about it the other day, and now it’s an international news story.

“The question is, ‘Who is Michelle Obama? Is she really a woman? Is she a man? Now, I’m not drawing any conclusions here. but I know this — it’s fair to question anything and everything this administration says.

“These people are the authors of such tyranny that they shouldn’t whine and complain when the public doesn’t believe anything they’re saying — especially when every time I look at Michelle or Michael Obama – the First Lady, or the First Tranny – something doesn’t look right.

“She doesn’t look like any black woman I’ve ever known. She’s got shoulders that are wider than a man’s, which physiologically doesn’t happen.

“You can put three heads on a man’s shoulders, and two heads on a woman’s shoulders — that’s a known anatomy. You look at her arms when she’s standing straight on, she looks like no woman I’ve ever seen.”

Former Infowars contributor David Ortiz previously claimed that sexual freedom will lead to allowing men to jerk off at bus stops, “as long as he’s not groaning, as long as he cleans up after himself”.

Title: Monthly Donation
Post by: jeangurl on July 11, 2014, 09:01:58 PM

I dont know if I am losing the plot in my old age but I cannot remember if I have donated in the last month so I have just posted my usual on paypal.

Love Jeangurl :-*

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 09:41:04 PM

LOL. We have computer, tablets, & smart phones to help us remember stuff these days. Before that we used to write stuff down on a pad or our calendar so we wouldn't forget stuff. Ever since I was a kid I hardly go anywhere without a pad or paper & a pen in case I have to write something down... just call me an absent minded professor. I'd forget important stuff a lot if I didn't write it down or put it in a computer.

Even right now surrounded by 3 screens & 2 computers, my trusty pen & pad is just 18 inches from me.

I just looked up my account. I see your email address made a previous donation on June 17th, & noticed one from the same address today. Thanks.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 09:47:26 PM

Colombia made its first World Cup appearance in 16 years, uniting the country behind its beloved pastime.—including a group of transgender futbol fans who decided to start a league of their own.

“With the World Cup, we are honoring and are proud of Colombia,” organizer Mariana told Vocativ. “We are trans, but we are still Colombians and we want to be involved in Colombian society.”

The trans community in Colombia is often marginalized, not only by straight society, but gays, as well—forcing many into lives plagued by discrimination, violence and prostitution. Members of this new league see soccer as a language everyone understands and a way to bridge the gap.

They may not be the best players the country has to offer, but their spirit and enthusiasm is what the game is all about.

video missing

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 11:24:27 PM

Some areas aren't very good to live in if you're a crossdresser.

This is an actual police report from just outside the Denver area:

Crossdresser reported near park.

A man called Jefferson County Sheriff's deputies on June 22 after he saw a man dressed in women's clothing near Marker Park in the 7300 block of South Newland Street, Columbine (Littleton). The caller pointed out which house he thought belonged the crossdresser. No one was home when the deputy knocked on the door.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 11:28:43 PM

DUBAI - A fashion designer and tailor have been arrested by police at a metro station for wearing women’s clothes.

The two Filipino men, AP, 34, and WP, 44, were referred to Dubai Court of Misdemeanours on a charge of impersonating women after they were spotted wearing bras and high heels.

At court on Tuesday, both men confessed to the charges. AP said that he had been wearing women’s clothes since he was 10 years old, while WP said he had been doing it since he was 8.

On the night of March 16, in Al Rigga, the two stood out to police as they both had long hair, were wearing transparent shirts with bras underneath and were in high heels.

They also were carrying purses containing womanly cosmetics.

“I had been living here since 1999, and never committed any offence,” said AP, who also told police that he had got his breasts enlarged by taking hormone injections. “But I’m not a homosexual.”

WP said he also used the same injections. He told the court that they were heading to a bank to pick up their salaries when they were caught.

“We were wearing women’s clothes but we haven’t done any indecent gestures,” said WP.

The court sentenced each to one month in jail to be followed by deportation.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 11, 2014, 11:55:01 PM

Despite continued legal challenges and discrimination, Istanbul's gay pride celebration featured Turkey's first-ever transsexual beauty contest. The contest is part of Turkey's Istanbul Gay Pride Week, which celebrates its 22nd anniversary this year.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on July 12, 2014, 12:12:07 AM

Kendra Wilkinson's husband Hank Baskett is accused of being unfaithful to his wife and having an affair with a transsexual model.

Ava Sabrina London is claiming in an interview with The National Enquirer that she engaged in sexual acts with Baskett in April.

London alleges that her YouTube videos are what lured in the father-of-two.

"I met Hank Baskett probably around the 22nd or 23rd of April this year," she claimed to the Enquirer.

"He contacted me through a video I had posted on YouTube and we exchanged information."

"Hank never identified himself by his real name. But he used, I believe it was Steve, as his name," she recalled of their tryst.

"Hank absolutely knew that I was a transsexual and he told me that I was the only transsexual he's ever been with," London alleged. "He thought I was beautiful."

London claimed that things got intimate between them for about 20 minutes, but they did not have sexual intercourse.

She added to the tabloid that Baskett paid her $500 for their racy meet up.

Title: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 05, 2014, 11:49:41 PM

At 69, transvestite continues to keep South Africa laughing

JOHANNESBURG--The cross-dressing South African satirist says he doesn't tell jokes and can't remember punchlines.

“Sometimes the truth is funnier,” said Pieter-Dirk Uys, who lampooned the leaders of white racist rule decades ago and now pokes fun at South Africa's politics 20 years after its first all-race elections.

Uys, who is 69 years old but said Tuesday that he feels 30 years younger, was on the cutting edge of criticism of South Africa's white rulers, who more or less tolerated his pointed humor during an era of conflict and censorship. And he's still around, a monument to reinvention who targets a messy democracy.

In a sense, Uys is back where he started.

In 1981, when apartheid South Africa was edgy and fearful, he launched a one-man show called “Adapt or Dye” at Johannesburg's Market Theatre, a crucible for criticism of apartheid despite official curbs on expression. He used to bring a cardboard box with his outfits onstage so he could change under the lights, just in case police were waiting in the wings.

Now, on the same (recently renovated) stage, he is opening a four-week run of “Adapt or Fly,” in which he sends up political figures of the past and present.

They include P.W. Botha, an apartheid president; Nelson Mandela, South Africa's first black president; and Julius Malema, a former member of the ruling African National Congress who is now one of its fiercest critics.

Uys will play signature character Evita Bezuidenhout, a flamboyant white woman from the Afrikaner minority and stalwart of the apartheid era. Uys has kept the character current — Evita is now a member of South Africa's ruling African National Congress, which won re-election this year but has lost some luster because of concerns about corruption and mismanagement.

Evita even has her own Twitter account.

“It's really important that she is in the armpit of power because she reflects power,” said Uys, who put on false eyelashes, makeup (including lip gloss, or “portable Botox,” he said), a wig and a wispy garment in the ruling party colors of green, gold and black.

It was part of his transformation into the gaudily attired Evita, a kind of behind-the-scenes performance for journalists who joined him onstage.

“Every time I do her, I must remember she's not a cartoon,” Uys said. “In fact, she's got to be so real that the women recognize the woman and the men forget the man.”

He pulled out a puppet of Malema, a self-styled advocate of the poor whose new opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, captured attention for its trademark red overalls and berets, and a confrontational manner in the normally staid parliament.

Malema, who has hammered at President Jacob Zuma over alleged corruption, is also under scrutiny, appearing in court Tuesday for a fraud and racketeering case against him. The case was postponed until next year and he defiantly said he had nothing to hide.

Malema has introduced a “new energy and new alphabet in this country,” Uys said. “Do not ignore the things that he says.”

Uys doesn't expect a return of racial segregation — “We've got the T-shirt,” he said — but he worries about segregation in education and other infringements on democracy.

“The cornerstone is to keep a sense of humor,” he said.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 12:08:28 AM

War of words between modelling agency & exhibition over TV model

The MK Modelling Angels agency featured on BBC Three Counties Radio last week to claim that the MK Business Exhibition had had second thoughts about featuring one of its fashion shows - as the business community ‘wasn’t ready yet’ to see 6ft 3in engineer Terry Brooks dressed up in drag.

But the business exhbition, which showcases local firms and is being held on October 17 at Milton Keynes Christian centre, has disputed that account, saying that no agreement was ever in place for the fashion show to take place.

The exhibition’s organiser Peter Barnett told MKWeb: “We had discussed the possibility of having a fashion show as a part of the mix of attractions of the event but nothing was agreed or booked, so it has not been cancelled. We decided that it wouldn’t fit what we’re trying to do on this occasion.”

But AnnJee Sowah, owner of MK Angels, hit back: “I went to Peter’s office and we discussed the details of what time we would be on.”

It’s left things awkward for Terry, who dresses up as ‘Michelle’ for his act.

The 53-year-old said: “I offered to sit out if they wanted to do the show without me, but AnnJee prides herself on being inclusive.

“I just feel bad for the rest of the team that they didn’t get to perform.

“I’m a guy who likes to dress up and I do it well, but I’m not someone who will make a fuss.”

AnnJee added: “The thought of doing the show without Michelle made me feel ill, as I promote my agency as one that accepts everyone.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 12:29:36 AM

Artist talks about frocks, pots and his latest project, a TV series exploring identity. Plus Grayson Perry’s subjects reveal what it was like being turned into art.

Grayson Perry is all manned up – bestubbled, brute of a laugh, verging on the laddish. On a wall in his spanking new north London studio, there is a comforting sight: a framed picture of Perry as Claire, his alter ego, clean-shaven, in a Little Bo Peep dress and matching bonnet. Phew! I thought I’d come to the wrong place.

The Turner prize-winning potter and tapestry-maker, curator, writer and presenter is working on the final stages of a new TV series on identity. It’s not a new subject for him, though: in one way or another, Perry has spent most of his life exploring the subject. He has chosen a number of people to sit for him, and is turning their portraits into a series of pots, tapestries, statues and maps. The idea is that they represent modern Britain, and most have undergone a radical change – so there is the jailbird politician (Chris Huhne), the Muslim convert, the transgender man, the fella who’s famous for being famous and, of course, Perry himself.

He is hush-hush about how the portraits will turn out, partly because he hasn’t finished them and partly because he wants to save the big reveal for TV and an accompanying exhibition. But he shows me his own self-portrait. It’s a beautiful piece of draughtsmanship, intricately drawn, like a psycho-geographer’s board game, and looks nothing like the man himself. Words and expressions squitter about at all angles, some seemingly random, some clearly personal, the conscious and subconscious making merry in a work he’s calling Map Of Days. The map starts with Sad Puberty, My Ultimate Dream, Lingering Doubt, before segueing into Casual Sexist, Internet Porn, Neophilia, Alpha Masculinity, Anecdotage. There are a few bluffs thrown in: is he a casual sexist? No, it was just something he heard on the radio.

What’s at the heart of his self-portrait? He directs me to the dead, empty centre. “If you look in the middle, there is no heart. There’s a tiny figure kicking a can along the road. It says, ‘A sense of self.’” He laughs. “It’s fairly bleak. There is no self.” Has he been surprised by anything the project showed him about himself? “Well, I’ve had a lot of therapy, so there are not many booby traps.” His wife, Philippa, is a psychotherapist. Has she ever analysed him? “No, of course not. You can’t get it from your wife,” he says, slightly impatiently.

There is a hint of self-mockery when Perry uses the word “identity”; he’d rather show himself and others in all their glorious contradictions than reduced to the literal. “It seems so amorphous, it’s like grabbing smoke. Different bits of us come out at different times.” And he is aware that it is his own multiple identities that give him currency as a public figure. “I tick so many boxes. That’s why I get a lot of gigs – because I can do the lectures, I can do the television thing, and I dress up, and by the way, I’m an artist as well.”

When Perry won the Turner prize in 2003, he was in his early 40s and had been working as an artist for a good two decades. He was reasonably well known in the art world, but pretty anonymous outside it. It was hard to say at the time what got the most attention: that a transvestite had won the Turner, or that a ceramicist had – who thought a contemporary artist would be feted for his pots?

In the early days, Perry was defiantly uncommercial, making sculptures and short films, often featuring himself as Claire, seen by few and bought by none. He was also involved with an avant-garde group, the Neo-Naturists (started by his then girlfriend, Jennifer Binnie), who would paint their bodies and exhibit themselves at nightclubs and galleries. (There is a striking image of a twentysomething Perry, body-painted to the nines, with a bell and bow dangling from his penis.)

Then he went to night school, started to make pots and discovered he was good at it. He was heralded as a great ironist: what could be more postmodern than taking a traditional, hidebound form and calling it modern art? “I had friends with a very particular sense of humour, and they’d say, ‘Grayson, you’re making pottery!’ And there were layers of horror, and then it was, ‘Aha, I see what you’re doing. Like, oh yeah, pottery!’ Pottery was what sandal-wearing, windchime-lovers did. Art is sensitive to areas of visual culture that haven’t yet been colonised by the art world, and perhaps what they sensed back then was, here was an area that hadn’t been fully explored.”

In another way, though, it made perfect sense: Claire, whom he has described as a cross between Camilla Parker Bowles and Katie Boyle, seemed just the type of woman who might produce pots at evening class. And Perry was, of course, subverting the form: however wholesome they looked, the pots illustrated scenes of child abduction, sadomasochism, masturbating teddies, sweet little girls with penises hanging from their dresses. Through his work, he explored the issues that had bewildered and fascinated him since childhood: who was he? Where did he belong?

He was born in Essex to working-class parents. He says his father, an engineer, was a weak and narrow-minded man. His mother suffered from mental illness, had a volcanic temper and was eternally disappointed. She was an aspirational woman (hence Grayson’s name, taken from a man she once met), who felt she had been destined for a bigger, better life. When Perry was four, she ran off with the milkman (this is why, he tells me, he has always hated cliches) and married him. His stepfather was violent and intolerant, a newsagent by day and an amateur wrestler by night. (He is no longer in touch with his mother.)

Like his mother, young Grayson was bright and mixed up. He wanted to be an officer in the armed forces and he also wanted to dress up in women’s clothes. He knew from the off that this was an unusual combination. At 10, he had not heard of transvestism and felt he must be a solitary freak. He asked his sister if he could borrow a dress and wore it in private. He didn’t talk about it with her or anybody else, but he knew he wasn’t gay and he knew he didn’t want to be a woman; he also knew it was part of his sexuality. He was outed only when his stepsister found his diary.

How did his family react? “Oooh, not well,” his voice rises to a squeak. “Classic horror, I think. I reacted badly to that as well. I was a big sulker. I closed down and told them I’d stopped. And I put a cap on it until I went to university.”

He recalls watching The Naked Civil Servant, Jack Gold’s classic film about Quentin Crisp, with his father. “They’d just found out about me being a tranny, and I think he was watching me watch it, to see if I was gay.” Did he assume he was? “Yes. In those days, if you dressed up in women’s clothes, people thought you were gay.” Did Perry put him right? “No, I was a pimply, incredibly nervous, anxious, shy 16-year-old. I’m not going to have an open, confident conversation about my sexuality with my father, whom I don’t really know that well.”

His lifelong exploration of identity has always been about more than the girl-boy thing, though. There was the working-class boy moving into a middle-class world and feeling alien to both (he once said he feels most relaxed with the aristocracy); the inhibited conservative who tells me that his wife would be shocked if he ever came downstairs without a shirt on; the man of the people who nurses an unbridled ambition (in Perry’s personal mythology and art, his teddy bear Alan Measles represents the omnipotent artist-God that he would partly like to be); the popular artist who turned his back on the avant garde. Nor is Claire a stable identity. She has evolved from Monsoon girl, to Little Bo Peep, to chic woman of the world – and now has a thing for clown outfits.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 12:32:30 AM

Grayson Perry (continued)

The sofa we are sitting on is covered with one of Perry’s tapestries. It’s a typical work, covered in words and references to places of pilgrimage for the spiritual (Amritsar, Nirvana) and the materialistic (Davos). Perhaps there was something inevitable about his move into tapestry, a craft every bit as traditional as pottery, and so conservative, it’s radical. Did he stitch it himself? No, he says, of course not – it would take for ever. (As it is, it took him two months to complete the drawing on which it was based; the sewing is then done digitally.) Can he sew? “No. I did basic embroidery and can probably mend a sock.” Now he sounds a bit defensive.

In one of the wonderful Reith lectures Perry gave last year, he concluded that today’s art establishment is something of a dictatorship, simpering about the avant garde, snobbish towards the middle ground. He is dismissive of the avant garde, says it’s old hat, conservative. “It’s rather tired and insular. It’s talking to itself a lot of the time. I embrace the middle ground, because curiously it has more edge to it than the cutting edge. It has been a weirdly neglected path for the audience of contemporary art. I’m making art not for people who don’t like art, but for people who are interested but maybe alienated by the more esoteric pieces. I’m addressing them, and I think that’s more interesting than being yet another avant-garde try-hard.” His test of how good a piece is is simple: will he still like it when he comes down in the morning?

He then gives me a brilliant off-the-cuff lecture about how photography destroyed classical narrative paintings, leading to the formation of a new intellectual art elite that trades on abstracts, concepts and multiple meanings. Perry says the problem with many art students is that they are too anxious to create stuff they simply like. “You have to know the impact of everything you’re making, because that is the nature of contemporary art. It is very self-conscious: it knows, or should be seen to know. Irony has become this crippling get-out-of-jail-free card. Britain has the toad of irony sitting on it.”

Has he been squatted on by the toad of irony? Oh yes, he says. He admits that what attracted him to pottery in the first place was its very naffness. “Unwittingly, I stumbled across a niche that hadn’t been occupied by anybody in the art world. There is a long history of ceramics, of course, but nobody who had really embraced the conventional craft, the orthodoxies: pots that are pot-shaped, that are fired, that are glazed, that are decorative.”

When did he realise it was a niche? “Well, it evolved gradually. I, like many artists, am brilliant at post-rationalisation. You stumble into it.”

His first pot sold for £50. He was 24, living in a squat and shocked that anybody would want to buy his work. To date, the highest price a single vase has fetched is £120,000. Is he loaded? “I have a very healthy income, but I don’t make much work.” If he had identified pottery as a niche from the start, would that make him a cynical artist? He laughs that great brute of a laugh. “I’m not in danger of suddenly looking cynical. Hehehehehe! I think that boat has sailed long ago. Hehehehe!” So people already think he’s cynical? “Sometimes they do. That’s the nature of my humour. I ramp it up. My default has always been to be as cynical as possible. Then I’ll row back.” Is he cynical by nature? “No, not at all. It’s probably a protection. The classic thing: the last refuge of the undying romantic.”

Some of his detractors have dismissed the cross-dressing as cynical, a shtick. But they simply don’t understand the nature of transvestism, he says. “People say if you’re trying to access some kind of feminine, emotional experience, dressing up is a rather crude way of going about it. And I always go, yeah, but you don’t decide to be a transvestite when you’re a sophisticated adult – you’re a child. Our sexuality is formed in the Petri dish of our childhood. So that’s why it’s always historic, that’s why men like women who look like their mothers, because that formed their emotional life when they were young.” Friends who have met his mother say Claire bears a resemblance to her.

It’s not even as if he thinks he looks good as a woman, it’s just something he has to do. He gives himself seven out of 10 as a man and nought out of 10 as a woman. Binnie has said that even when he was young, he looked like a middle-aged woman; she’d pretend to be his niece. Perry’s girlfriends have embraced his cross dressing as his parents never did. His mother told Philippa that she must have been desperate to marry a transvestite.

Perry rarely dresses up unless he’s going out, because it’s such an effort. Does he ever get bored with it? Now he tells me I don’t understand the nature of transvestism. “No, I’m not bored with transvestism. That would be silly – I’m a transvestite. The dress is only one element of the psycho-sexual process. Just because you don’t have a dress on doesn’t stop you being a tranny, in the same way as, if you’re not in bed with a man, it doesn’t stop you being gay.”

Does he still find it sexually exciting? “Oh yes,” he shouts excitedly. “Yeah!” But there is a problem, he says, with being a very public tranny. You mean, you couldn’t be seen at the Royal Academy in a nice frock and a stiffy? He nods enthusiastically. “You couldn’t do it. If I could manage it, I’m sure I’d be thinking how to do it. But I can’t.” He pauses. “My days of a spontaneous erection are long gone, anyway,” he adds a little sadly.

As a young man, he dressed as a more conventional woman. Why did Claire change her look? “I had a Damascene moment when I realised that the masquerade of dressing up as a woman and getting away with it, or ‘passing’, as they call it in the tranny world, was a fairly unrewarding experience. I used to come back from shopping in Oxford Street in my Monsoon outfit and think, well, nobody really gave me a second glance and that was boring.” He wanted to be noticed? “I was always slightly envious of those trannies who dressed more flamboyantly and didn’t give a shit.” But why, for instance, the Little Bo Peep look? “It’s a classic look. I used to call it the crack cocaine of femininity. It’s the furthest from the male macho look you could get. It’s vulnerable, it’s young, it’s humiliating. The fantasy of humiliation is a big drug for many men.”

These days, most of his dresses are made by students at Central Saint Martins, where he teaches a course in fashion (“teaching them is pushing it: I expose them to my sensibilities”), and he has to tell them he’s got more than enough Little Bo Peep numbers. At 54, he thinks he is struggling with his look. “Trannies go through this horrible cycle. When they’re really young and just post-pubescent, they can look gorgeous as a woman – you’re fairly androgynous, you’re thin, you just look good. When I look back at the first photographs, I realise what a wasted opportunity it was. I didn’t have the budget, experience or confidence to pull it off. Now I’ve got the budget, experience and confidence, but I’ve not got the features. You go through this cycle where you get older and older, and you get to around 35 to 40 when you’re looking your most manly. Then there’s a little payoff at the end, where, as you get really old, you become androgynous again.” He can’t wait for his 70s: if he’s got his hair, he’s going for the lilac rinse. “I’m going to go the whole way. I’m looking forward to being an old artist and not giving a shit.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 12:37:07 AM

Grayson Perry (continued)

I ask how he broached his transvestism with his daughter, Flo, now 22. It was obvious from a young age, he says, because she’d see him in his frocks. Did he go into details about what it meant to him? No, he didn’t think it was appropriate. “When she was very young, we used to say, ‘Oh, Daddy’s dressing up to go to a party’, which was pretty true most of the time. I never sat her down and talked about my sexuality. Too much information!”

It was when Flo was four that he started going to therapy. “I was getting very depressed and anxious. I wasn’t fully functional. It’s classic: you wait for the chickens of your childhood to come home to roost. Often, when you have your own children, when they get to the age that you had your problems, that’s when there’s some unconscious recognition that brings home your own trauma.” He went to therapy for six years, says it was hugely helpful, and that it continues to inform his art – not least his work on identity.

He opens a few drawers, and takes out roughs and notional ideas for the new portraits, and talks about some of the people he has met. There is a Muslim convert (a 25-year-old white woman), a deaf Jewish woman who chose to identify primarily as deaf rather than Jewish because her synagogue was unsympathetic to her disability, the gay adoptees, Chris Huhne. What fascinates him is the layers within an identity. So, for example, he wanted to know whether Huhne now identified with the prisoners he had just left, or with the rich and powerful he is more used to mixing with. “I interviewed him before he went to jail. He was there as a powerful white male who potentially was going to lose some of that power. I was interested in what effect prison and that condemnation would have on his confidence and identity.”

And has he changed? “You’ll have to see.” Perry comes over all coy. Oh, come on. He grins. “Of course he hasn’t changed. There’s not a flicker. I was fascinated and appalled. I’m white, male, middle-aged myself, and if there’s one aspect I feel alienated by, it’s the class thing. So to see someone with that chutzpah and bullet-proof, Teflon confidence close up is fascinating. And sort of horrifying. At one point, he bragged and said something like, ‘I must be the only politician who comes out of prison without changing.’”

We’re back looking at the self-portrait on the wall, the myriad contradictions and kinks of Grayson Perry that are there for all to see. Between the elegant calligraphy, words and terms such as Tinnitus (which Perry has: he is deaf in one ear), Bullshit Detector, Devil’s Advocate, Matey, there are drawings of the art critic Robert Hughes and the poet Philip Larkin. I compliment him on these likenesses and ask if he’s ever worked as a caricaturist. He takes umbrage, at this more than anything else I’ve asked. “No! You just trace them off a photograph – it’s not that difficult. The skill of the likeness is not one I worry about having. It’s what 14-year-old boys in art class worry about when they’re copying the album cover of their favourite band.”

Well, I’m just saying I thought they were good. No need to throw a wobbly. “I’m sorry, Simon, that empirical judgment of art is something I try to avoid. Craft is a dangerous pit to fall into.”

I burst out laughing. “You’re insulted when I say it’s a good likeness.”

“Sometimes I think it’s an easy way of judging something.”

Look, I say, I’m not going to say you’re a brilliant artist because you can do a decent Larkin likeness.

“I’ll take the compliment!”

“No, you won’t, you’re insulted.”

Now we’re both laughing. Perry is too self-aware not to realise that, for all his protestations about representing the middle ground, he’s still a bit of an art snob at heart.

I ask whether the television project has taught him anything about his own identity. Of course, he says, you continue to learn. “I was reading a book by Julian Baggini about identity, and he said, ‘I is a verb masquerading as a noun.’ You perform yourself. It’s like going for a walk, you carry it along with you and it changes all the time. So the idea that there is a solid, consistent, tangible thing is an illusion.”

He compares it to the tapestry we’re sitting on. “If you want an analogy, all the colours are present right across the tapestry. There are 20 colours, that’s why it’s so thick. But the machine brings the colour to the surface when it’s needed. I think that’s an analogy for our character. We’ve got all of ourselves there, but the bit that’s necessary in any given moment comes to the surface. So, with my daughter, I’m a father. When I’m in the studio, I’m an artist. When I’m out, I’m ‘Grayson Perry’. So you ask what your identifiers are – artist, tranny, father, man, motorcyclist – and you’ve got a hierarchy of things. And that’s the nature of identity, isn’t it?”

One of the most important things he learned in therapy is that you can only begin to understand yourself if you confront your ambition. “When we did group therapy, we went through the various aspects of relationships, and the last one was wishes, hopes and dreams, and that was the most tender, embarrassing and secret of all. Because it can be something very close to the heart and you get shot down, and you don’t want to be seen as an idiot. Therapy is very useful for being ambitious, because you can sound out in a safe space what you’d like to have a go at.”

And was his secret that he was hungrier for success than he would admit? “Yes. It goes in tandem with a realisation of your abilities. A good therapist will give you an accurate reflection of your abilities. I came to realise, maybe I am pretty good.”

How good? Aha! he says, as if he’s caught me out trying to catch him out. And he roars with laughter. “Erm, I’m brilliant at being Grayson Perry. Hehehehehe! Really brilliant at it.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 01:12:40 AM

Attack: A man dressed as a woman was attacked near beauty salon in New York

A man dressed as a woman was chased and shot by a gang shouting homophobic slurs.

The 22-year-old was attacked while walking with a friend in Brooklyn, New York.

According to American website New York Daily News, he was confronted by three young men screaming profanities and anti-gay taunts at around 7am yesterday.

When the victim and his friend tried to get away, the gang chased after them and opened fire, hitting the transvestite in the bottom.

He was treated in hospital and later discharged.

Three men, a 17-year-old, 20-year-old and a 22-year-old were arrested in connection with the attack.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 01:30:44 AM

Did you know The Kinks - Lola is was banned from the BBC?

Written by singer Ray Davies, the song is a tale about a man and woman's relationship. The punch-line? The woman turns out to be a transvestite.

The BBC banned the song for including the words "coca-cola", which blatantly flouted their policy on product placement. They maintain that the song was not banned for the suggestive nature of the song, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LemG0cvc4oU

The Beatles 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' and 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' were banned, but The Beatles outdid themselves with 'Come Together'. Since then, the song has soared in popularity with bands like Arctic Monkeys, Olly Murs and Miley Cyrus covering the track.

Its popularity and longevity could be pinned to the fact it was banned by the BBC for containing lyrical references to "coca-cola" once again. The song failed to top the chart as a result.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 01:41:13 AM

Review: You and the night

The opening scene of You and the Night sets the tone for writer-director Yann Gonzalez’ erotic debut. It’s dark, mysterious and brilliantly bizarre. In her dream sequence we meet Yann’s muse, Ali (Kate Moran) who is taken from her lover Matthias (Niels Schneider) by a mysterious motorcyclist. Think Grease 2 meets The Rocky Horror Picture Show as we are brought to reality meeting Udo (Nicolas Maury), the stylish couple’s transvestite maid.

Udo embodies charm, wit and a sparkly tiara, an instantly likeable character. The threesome, so to say, is anxiously awaiting the arrival of their late night guests. However it’s clear this is no Come Dine With Me set up as Udo exclaims, “If I don’t piss my erection away I’ll come on the first guest.” Toad in the hole anyone?

Ali and Matthias host orgies at their swanky apartment to keep their love and lusts alive. Tonight’s guests include The Slut (Julie Brémond), The Star (Fabienne Babe), The Teen (Alain Fabien Delon) and The Stud played by none other than ex-footballer Eric Cantona. Well why not? Anything goes at this party, sexual orientation is a label long lost and the night is open for exploration.

Now of course it’s not all tits and tiaras, there’s actually an interesting storyline of the coming together of this random group. All characters are battling their own demons, which are explored individually through surreal dream sequences and flashbacks.

The Slut, could easily be called Princess Penis in her sequence where she’s dressed regal, draping herself over naked (fit) men in the search for her mother. Whereas The Stud is facing some serious cock dramas. This is where legend Béatrice Dalle features as a sexual sheriff shouting hilarious profanities such as, “Stab me with your pork sword!”

Udo transforms into the witch from Shakespeare’s Sister’s Stay With Me music video as we learn the eerie secrets of Ali and Matthias. Mixing resurrections with erections the audience learn how this ménage à trois was formed. It’s often strange how sensitive subjects are mixed with erotica, which make you laugh even though they’re sad. But the film prides itself in pushing boundaries whilst boasting cleverly timed comical naughtiness throughout.

The soundtrack is provided by M83, Gonzalez’ brother’s band and the quirky electro vibes fit well and adapt accordingly with the different moods of the characters. From the spirited Slut to the sad Star, the source of the soundtrack often comes from a sensory jukebox in the apartment. A futuristic gadget in which you place your hand and it selects a song for your mood. (When can we order one of the GT office?)

As the journey of the night concludes after an array of simple but stunning sets, Ali learns that dreams can come true but will she receive her happy ending? *Coughs* As the credits roll you are left with the “What did I just watch?” kind of feeling, but in a good way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTtimEAuAIc

http://www.amazon.com/You-And-Night-Kate-Moran/dp/B00LP0D330

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/les_rencontres_dapres_minuit/

It's also on the torrents, but with few seeders & over a GB in size, expect the download to take 3-5 hours at the time of this posting. 100-150kbs loading speeds, but 400-500kbs loading has been reported on good days.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 02:11:59 AM

Award-winning Swiss director Stefan Haupt may have to make room in his trophy cabinet with his latest film The Circle (Der Kreis).

Switzerland has submitted the film, set in post-war Zurich during the gay rights movement, for the Best Foreign-Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards.

“It’s an honour to represent Switzerland but this is just one step on a long road,” Haupt tells Screen from his Zurich base.

Beginning in 1958, The Circle is based on the true story of young teacher Ernst Ostertag who falls in love with transvestite star Robi Rapp. Ostertag becomes a member of gay organization Der Kreis, seen at the time as the pioneer of gay emancipation, and follows its rise and fall.

The film received its world premiere in the Panorama section at this year’s Berlinale and won both the Teddy Award and the Audience Award.

“We hoped to make a successful film but also a good film on an important subject,” said Haupt of its success to date. “We have been overwhelmed by the awards and great reactions.”

The Circle has been sold in more than 15 countries in Europe and Asia and has been invited to more than 70 international film festivals to date, winning prizes in Boston and Los Angeles among others.

The film opened in Swiss cinemas last weekend through distributor Ascot Elite and will be released in Germany by Salzgeber and the US through Wolfe Video in October.

Speaking ahead of the festival, Haupt said: “At the moment, I’m working day and night on a new script. But I won’t miss the opening night of the festival.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_qO03QFGT8

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3148952/

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 03:02:12 AM

Primary school introduces unisex toilets to prevent prejudice against transsexual people

Angry parents have complained after a primary school introduced unisex toilets in a bid to 'prevent transphobia'.

Shocked pupils discovered they had to share the 'gender neutral' toilets at the start of the school year, sparking concerns from mums and dads.

Many say their children do not want to use facilities shared with the opposite sex and it makes them feel 'uncomfortable'.

Harbour Primary School in Newhaven, East Sussex, has defended the move, which it says is about 'preventing transphobia' - a prejudice against transsexual or transgender people.

There are around 500 pupils at the school for three to 11-year-olds.

One concerned mother said her seven-year-old does not feel 'comfortable' using the toilets.

She said: "I know of several parents who have raised complaints and they have now invited us to a meeting about transgender equality.

"There are seven-year-old girls using the same toilets as 11-year-old boys.

"Although we are all up for equality we feel this is not allowing our children to choose."

Headteacher Christine Terrey said the decision to include single sex toilets in their new building had been taken by East Sussex County Council.

She has invited parents to a meeting on 'transphobia', which will include a discussion about the toilets.

Mrs Terrey said: "The toilets are all in cubicles and they all lock. We just want all our children to be able to use the toilets."

And a letter to parents said: "We want all the children in our school to feel safe and be happy.

"We also want our families to feel informed about how to effectively support transgender and gender questioning by their children, preventing any transphobia at the school."

East Sussex County Council said it chose to install unisex toilets because they are better for 'hygiene, maintenance and pupil behaviour'.

Marcus Clark, 36, and Greta Clark, 33, said their two children do not mind sharing.

Mrs Clark, from Newhaven, East Sussex, said: "If it doesn't bother the kids, it doesn't bother us."

Mr Clark added: "I think it's more than reasonable for kids to share."

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 03:08:51 AM

A transsexual has been stoned to death in Colombia’s second largest city, Medellin, a local gay rights group said on Wednesday.

The victim was stoned to death by a group of attackers allegedly because of the victim’s evident sexual orientation, according to Hernando Muñoz, the Medellin representative of gay rights NGO Colombia Diversa.

A 19-year old friend of the victim has said he witnessed how the 46-year old Gabriel Mario Duque was murdered and is willing to testify against the attackers, said Muñoz who urged the local government to take action.

“This is of an incredibly brutality. We call ourselves the most innovative, the most cosmopolitan, the best city, but we are leaving this entire, extremely brutal situation rest,” Muños told radio station Blu.

According to the radio station, local authorities have already committed themselves to investigating the alleged hate crime.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 03:15:36 AM

Dexter will be your next Hedwig. Michael C. Hall is set to take over for Andrew Rannells in the Tony Award-winning production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, EW has confirmed. Hall will begin his run Oct. 16 and will leave the show in January. Hall recently appeared on Broadway in the play The Realistic Jones, but he is a veteran of taking over roles in storied Broadway musicals, making turns as Billy Flynn in Chicago and the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret. The latter role proves he’s also used to copious amounts of makeup.

Girls star Rannells made his debut as the titular transgender rocker from East Berlin in August after Neil Patrick Harris, who won a Tony for his work, departed the show. Lena Hall—another Tony winner, who plays Hedwig’s husband, Yitzhak—will remain in the production alongside Michael C. Hall.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 03:37:31 AM

'Transparent' brings transsexuals into the mainstream

Amazon's new TV show "Transparent" aims to do for transsexuals what "Modern Family" did for gay parents -- bring them firmly into the mainstream.

"In terms of changing the conversation, these shows have an immense amount of reach," said Jay Brown of the Human Rights Campaign, which supports the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities.

Produced by Jill Soloway and with Jeffrey Tambor in the central role, the show reflects a "cultural shift," added Larry Gross, professor of journalism at the University of Southern California and author of a book on the subject.

The online series, released Friday, is far from the first to depict transgender characters. Hilary Swank won an Oscar in 2000 for "Boys Don't Cry," and other big-screen examples include 2003 movie "Normal."

More recently, "Orange is the New Black" broke ground when Laverne Cox, its transgender star, made the front cover of Time magazine in May, under the headline "The Transgender Tipping Point."

But the depiction of transgender characters remains relatively rare, and they are in general portrayed as victims or in "oddity" roles, said Brown.

The first season of "Transparent," on the other hand, "looks like a fairly accurate portrait of transgender parents," said Kim Hutton, head of an association for parents of transgender children.

Brown, who is himself transsexual and a father, stressed: "We're brothers, sisters, lawyers, doctors, in every facet of human lives. But the media pictures only our transition."

"When I wake up every day I don't think of being a trans person. I think of making my kids breakfast or taking them to school," he added.

- Roles reflecting their lives -

Hutton said the TV show "Glee," which includes an adolescent transgender character happily interacting with schoolmates, is "probably the most important thing that happened" for transsexual youngsters.

"Orange Is The New Black" is also widely seen as a key model in changing the image of the LGBT community.

While Cox is herself transgender playing a transgender role, casting decisions have sometimes raised eyebrows.

"There is a long tradition for straight men" playing gay characters, said Gross.

In 2008's "Harvey Milk," Sean Penn played the gay activist, for example. The real "change in acceptance and visibility of minorities is when they get to play the roles reflecting their lives," he said.

"Every day we see gay actors playing straight characters but they don't come out because their managers tell them that if they do, they won't get lead roles especially romantic or action ones," said Gross.

Of "Transparent," he commented: "It remains to be seen how successful," adding: "The big question will be how do heterosexual people respond if they find out that their father is transitioning."

Brown was philosophical. "I look forward to the day we are just characters of a larger story and being transgender becomes the least interesting thing about us," he said.

The comments echo a recent cover story in New York Magazine, which depicted Martine Rothblatt, head of pharmaceutical group United Therapeutics.

"Futurist, pharma tycoon, satellite entrepreneur, philosopher. Martine Rothblatt, the highest-paid female executive in America, was born male. But that is far from the thing that defines her," the magazine wrote.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 03:46:25 AM

The dilemmas of treating Spain’s teenage transsexuals

Maisie says she was bathing her four-year-old son when he told her for the first time that he was a girl and wanted to behave like one. A psychologist told Maisie and her husband not to worry and allow the child to play and dress as he wanted. When he was older, they would see. He was happy at home, where he wore his mother’s clothes and always asked for dolls at Christmas time. But in the street, he continued to dress and behave like a boy. Eleven years on, Lola, now a woman, says she was scared a lot of the time: “I was afraid because I didn’t really understand what was happening to me, and I was afraid that people would reject me; but at the same time, pretending to be somebody different was painful, it was like disguising myself when I went out.”

But eventually, through a friend, she met other people with similar experiences. “I understood that I was transsexual,” she says. At the age of 11, she decided to start calling herself Lola. Her parents accepted the decision, having supported her over the previous seven years. Her father, a social worker, was arguably better prepared than most to help the family deal with such a difficult situation.

Lola says that while the decision to accept her condition was a “liberation,” she had a tough time at school. “I felt that nobody could love me for who I was,” she says.

As adolescence approached, Lola became concerned about any physical sign of masculinity: I couldn’t imagine myself with facial hair, and whenever any hair sprouted, I would wax it off.”

At this point, her parents requested professional help. A pediatrician recommended using hormone blockers, which inhibit the orders the brain sends to the body to produce sex hormones. The idea is to hold off development until the minor is old enough to decide whether to commit to definitive hormone treatment, which in some regions is at the age of 16, and in others is 18. Such treatment has been available in Spain for five years, and is reversible. If at any time Lola, who is now 15, were to stop taking the blockers, her body would begin developing masculine sexual features, says her endocrinologist, Javier Martínez.

To be able to continue the treatment, Lola needs a psychiatric report establishing her status as a transsexual. For many families, this is the most difficult moment: at such a young age, how can they be sure that their son or daughter is really transsexual? Psychiatrists explain the parameters they use: aversion on the child’s part to their genitals; discomfort at being referred to by the gender they have rejected; and above all, the persistence of behavior patterns that conform to the sex the child expresses.

In Lola’s case, a psychiatrist confirmed that she was transsexual. After an examination by an endocrinologist, she began taking hormone blockers at age 13 under the national health service. During this time, she has continued to grow, but without developing sexually. Her quality of life, however, has improved hugely: “I am very happy, and in large part, that is due to the inhibitors,” she says.

At such a young age, how can parents be sure that their son or daughter is really transsexual?

Lola lives in the Canary Islands, where, with parental consent, hospitals are authorized to use hormone blockers. But the situation varies from region to region. Spanish law says that hormone blockers can only be used in cases where puberty begins too early, but not in transsexual cases such as Lola’s. The Health Ministry says each regional government must decide on its own policy in this regard. In the Canaries, Andalusia, Asturias, Navarre, Castilla y León and Valencia, adolescents can be given hormone blockers. But in Extremadura they must be aged 14 or over, and in Murcia, Cantabria and the Balearics, they must be aged at least 16. The procedure in each case is the same: a pediatrician begins the process, and then refers the minor to a psychologist or psychiatrist, who confirms their status as transsexual, and finally, an endocrinologist certifies that there is no reason not to use hormone blockers.

But the Basque Country, La Rioja, and Aragon have no laws regulating the issue. In Galicia, hormone blockers are only available to over-18s.

Madrid is preparing legislation to help young people in this situation, and whether to provide access to hormone blockers is one of the issues under debate. The Popular Party-controlled regional government of Madrid has previously rejected proposals to provide hormone-blocking treatment and new identity cards in the chosen sex of the minor: for many young people in this situation, something as simple as applying for a bus pass is a major obstacle.

There is no register of transsexual minors in Spain. A parent-run association called Chrysallis helps around 150 families, and says it receives more and more requests for information each week. Ana Belén Gómez, a psychologist with the PIAHT, an information program for homosexuals and transsexuals, says there are probably many more children who are hiding their condition.

Patrick is aged 12, and lives in Benasque, a small town in the Pyrenean province of Huesca, which is part of the autonomous region of Aragon. His mother, Natalia, says that when she asked her local health authority for information about transsexuality, she was told that there were no specialists available.

Everybody who knows Patrick says that despite having female genitalia, he is a boy. So far, he has enjoyed a trouble-free childhood in that capacity. But with the onset of puberty, Patrick’s parents are concerned because their regional government has no rules regarding treatment for transsexual adolescents.

Patrick’s parents have had to secure hormone blockers from a private clinic in Barcelona, and he began treatment in July. “I am paying for treatment that other children receive free of charge,” says Natalia, his mother, adding that the cost of the medicines and travel so far has been €2,500. She is among the many mothers arguing in favor of national legislation to help children like hers: “These children need to be left alone to grow up quietly, like all children,” she says.
Growth and fertility

The relationship between hormone blockers and growth is the subject of considerable debate among healthcare professionals. Endocrinologists such as Itxaso Rica, the head of a pediatric unit in Barakaldo in the Basque Country, who have experience of using them with children who have begun puberty early say they have no impact on the final height and weight of their patients. But things are different in the case of transsexual adolescents: the age of patients and the duration of treatment are different, and blocking hormone development can delay growth.

Rica says that even though it is not possible to be sure whether hormone blockers do influence growth, it is not a serious problem. “It is necessary to check each case on an individual basis to be able to apply the right medicines,” she says.

Javier Martínez, Lola’s endocrinologist, says delaying puberty prolongs the growth phase into early adulthood. Another side effect can be sterility. Martínez explains that this is still not fully established. “By blocking the production of sex hormones, we bring on temporary infertility, but it disappears when treatment is stopped.”

This is a controversial topic, because many adolescents go straight from taking hormone blockers to a definitive hormone treatment that can induce permanent sterility some time between the ages of 16 and 18, depending on the region in which they live.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 04:16:07 AM

A Winnipeg family is the target of an alleged bully waging a campaign against their daughter because she is transgender. Only in this case, the alleged bully isn't another kid, it's an adult woman.

The Burgos family has long asked the school division to do something about it, but has now submitted a police complaint and resorted to a formal human rights complaint, citing the school division.

The parents of Isabella Burgos, a transgender Grade 3 student at Joseph Teres School, have filed complaints with the human rights commission and the police over alleged verbal abuses by another parent.

"This is where we're shocked: Why did it get to this, to go to the police?" said the girl's mother, Izzy Burgos.

Izzy and her husband, Dale Burgos, filed the complaints after a month of incidents in which the woman, the mother of another student, allegedly confronted her, her daughter, her son and other parents.

"She's been talking to everyone in the community and she says she feels bad, but I don't believe that because she's still doing it," Burgos said.

At first, the issue was which bathroom her daughter, Isabella, 8, was to use.

Now it's turned into a campaign over the issue of transgender individuals.

"My daughter is transgender. She's out and she's proud. It's hard. The community loves her. Her school loves her and the other students love her.

"One parent can do this, can make her want to hide? I don't think this woman is even aware of the damage she's doing," Burgos said.

Isabella, meanwhile, said she's lost her friendship with the woman's daughter, who is in her Grade 3 class at Joseph Teres School in Transcona.

None of the other students has bullied her, but now because of publicity, the child said going to school is getting harder.

"A lot of people have seen me on TV, and they're asking me questions, like 'Why are you a girl now?' " Isabella said. "I feel confused."

The Burgos family says it will be up to the police and the Manitoba Human Rights Commission to take over.

The couple said they can't understand why the school didn't shut the alleged bullying down when it first started a month ago, rather than trying to accommodate both her concerns and the rights of the Burgos family.

Other parents have told the family she's also lobbed them with transgender criticism outside the school.

"The parents have walked away, but she's very dominant, abrasive and intimidating," Burgos said.

The trouble started Sept. 11, when the woman confronted the child at the school and demanded she stop using the girls washroom, Burgos said.

When Burgos picked up Isabella from school the same afternoon, she said the woman confronted her daughter again, then her and her 18-year-old son outside the principal's office.

"She started screaming in Bella's face and I just froze. She was saying "I don't give a f " and there's a kindergarten class watching all this. I waited for the secretary in the office to intervene. She put her head down. Here she is, she stuck her finger out and she's yelling at a transgender child, then at my gay son and she's yelling about bathrooms," Burgos said.

After that, the Burgoses were told Isabella could no longer use the girls washroom.

Telling the principal her whole family felt traumatized hasn't settled the issue.

This week, the same woman confronted the 18-year-old son, who went to pick up Isabella and her brother, Gavin, 10 from school, Burgos said.

"The human rights commission called me today, and they said they're taking it up with the school, with mediation," Burgos said.

Meanwhile, Burgos said her family has heard back from the police, who've told them an adult who confronts a child could be charged with harassment or a hate crime.

Kelly Barkman, superintendent and CEO of the River East Transcona School Division, confirmed the woman at the centre of the family's complaints has been contacted about the comments she made to Isabella and her family.

For the school, the issue comes down to its students' safety.

Barkman did not mention the human rights complaint or the possibility of a police investigation.

He described the the issue as an internal matter.

"We are dealing with both parents to ensure our students are safe. Every student needs to feel safe in our buildings," Barkman said.

To that end, the school division is now working to set up an education seminar at the school with the Rainbow Resource Centre, a non-profit human rights group for transgender, gay and lesbian individuals, he said.

The division's policy is for transgender students -- Isabella is not the only transgender student in the division -- to use a gender-neutral washroom, Barkman added.

"I think it's important to say our stance is we are supplying reasonable accommodations as outlined in the Manitoba Human Rights code. That's where we're at," the superintendent said.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 05:04:47 AM

Monthly “Propaganda” event in Tokyo is a paradise for the trans and crossdressing communities

As another one of those tricky wasei-eigo words, “new half” refers to transsexual individuals and those people who identify more with the opposite gender. A new Japanese term has also established itself within the past several years to denote the same thing–男の娘, which is pronounced as otoko no ko (the usual way to say “boys”) but written with the kanji for otoko no musume (“young women-men”; musume refers to “young ladies” as in the name of the sensational idol group Morning Musume).

Thanks in large part to the prevalence of otoko no ko in popular manga, social media sites, and video games, casual crossdressing events are enjoying a relative boom of popularity in Japan, and nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than at the monthly Propaganda event held in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Best of all, there are no strings attached–everyone is welcome, from professional drag queens to adults just looking to experiment with a different way of having fun! More details after the jump.

Propaganda has been held on the last Saturday of each month since 2007. From its humble beginnings with an average attendance of 50 people, the event has grown to accommodate almost 400 people per meeting, of which nearly 70% come crossdressed. Office ladies, Gothic Lolitas, schoolgirls…you name it, and someone is sure to be dressing as it! The only thing is, the gender lines are so blurred that you’ll probably have trouble telling the men from the real ladies.

In addition, the attendees have many different motives for dressing up; for some, dressing in clothing of the opposite gender feels the most natural for them, while others see it as a chance to fulfill their cosplay dreams in an accepting haven.

Satsuki-san, Propaganda’s current organizer, has herself undergone a sex change operation within the past year. Since then she has even won fourth place in an international transsexual tournament (we unfortunately don’t have the details of that event, but are impressed nonetheless!). When asked to describe the premise behind Propaganda, she explained, “The concept is ‘liberation’. I want to create a place of cultural exchange where people of various views can be free to wear different styles of clothing and makeup.”

A new book exploring the subculture has also arrived on the scene. Nao Kawamoto, the 34-year-old author of the newly published Otoko no ko (musume)-tachi: Kare (kanojo) no life histories ["Otoko no ko: His (her) Life Histories"], had the following to say regarding the phenomenon in Japan:

“Once, the places to crossdress were very limited and people with this hobby were shunned. But now thanks to Twitter and video sites on the internet, there are better opportunities to watch and share clips of men crossdressing as women. The community is now even more exciting than ever before!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI_DRlrCGqI

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 05:11:45 AM

Wentworth's Otto: Long nails a drag

Wentworth Prison newcomer Socratis Otto has revealed how he couldn't wait to get rid of the long nails he sported on the show.

The Australian actor sported wigs and heels, and donned special garments to join the drama's second season as male-to-female transsexual inmate Maxine Conway.

"As soon as we wrapped the season, I started biting my nails off. They grew so wonderfully that the make-up team were envious that I can grow better nails than them," he explained.

"They were a rare treat for me, but at the same time, they were a pain in the a**e especially when I'm cooking. So I couldn't wait to cut them off!"

Socratis said he would get a surprise whenever he saw his transformation in the mirror.

"It's crazy from the neck down. I have special trans-gender underwear, which accentuates the physique so I've got butt implants and hips, not to mention my chicken fillets," he explained. "Everyone at work is very jealous because I've had different looks throughout the season. But the make-up does take longer than the others."

The actor had no doubts about signing up for the role.

"It was a dream come true. I grew up watching Prisoner and Cell Block H as a child. My sisters and I would pretend to be inmates because my parents wouldn't allow us to watch it. So when they came to me about this transgender character in this re-imagining, I didn't hesitate," he said.

"I pride myself on pushing my own boundaries. You do get stale in the roles you get, so when this came around, I thought, 'Absolutely, I'm going to educate myself'. I was very narrow-minded about the idea about what trans-gender meant until I did my research."

:: Wentworth Prison continues on Wednesdays on Channel 5.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 05:35:22 AM

Sophie, 19, and her 13-year-old sister Libby were deeply moved by the boxing legend’s brave performance on reality TV

Transsexual Kellie Maloney’s teenage daughters have finally accepted her as a woman after witnessing her tearful soul searching on Celebrity Big Brother.

Sophie, 19, and her 13-year-old sister Libby were deeply moved by the boxing legend’s brave performance on reality TV.

And now Kellie – better known as flamboyant fight promoter Frank Maloney until coming out in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mirror – is overjoyed to find she’s been welcomed back into the arms of her family.

“After nearly two years of living alone and as a recluse away from my family I can’t believe what has happened,” she said this week. “Being on Celebrity Big Brother was a tremendously positive thing.

“It has helped the girls learn who I am as a person and as Kellie and that has been good for all of us.”

As Frank, the 61-year-old endured a life of turmoil battling to keep his gender issues hidden from the family he was terrified of losing. He divorced the girls’ mother Tracey after confessing to her in 2009 that he was secretly living as a woman.

As Kellie, she had expected to live the rest of her life alone.

She said: “When I left Big Brother I told the girls I was buying a flat on the Kent coast and they said, ‘Why don’t you come back to live closer to home? We can have two homes then.’

"My ex-wife Tracey also said they would love to have me back in their lives again and as part of the family.

“It is unbelievable. I feel I am able to be their father again.”

Kellie, who was also close to his older daughter Emma from a previous marriage, is now building a future with her family again.

During a glamorous photoshoot with the two teenagers at a country hotel, she said: “I thought I would be an outcast and I was preparing myself to lose the girls. Before I came out publicly the situation had not been great.

“They had not really met Kellie. Every time I had seen them until then I had still been Frank as much as I possibly could, although at the same time I was going through hormone treatment.

“I was so frightened of losing them. If they had turned their backs on me and never wanted another thing to do with me I had to be prepared to lose them.

“I could tell by their eyes when I told them how upset they were. I was prepared for the rejection.”

Wiping away a tear of joy, she said: “I told them I would never close the door on them if they rejected me and that I would always be there for them as a dad. Sophie didn’t understand what was going on at first but after she began to accept it things it got easier.

“Obviously Libby is younger and so it was more difficult. She only saw me as Kellie after I had come out. I called her straight after the first TV interview I did and asked what she thought.”

But the answer he got was the last one he expected.

“She said, ‘You came across OK but who did your make-up? Who did your hair? You need to let me do it in future.’”

In fact, unknown to anybody, Libby had been aware of her father’s harrowing secret life long before she finally came out to her children, but refused to admit it to herself.

She said: “I found pictures on Dad’s mobile phone of him dressed as a woman and I never dared tell anyone.

“I tried to block it all out for three months before he told us.” Laughing, she adds: “To be honest when he came out I thought he was a complete freak. He still is really.

“The bitching side of him that came out on Big Brother is like being a girl. Him being on there made me feel easier about the situation. I knew he was still my dad after watching him on the show as Kellie.”

But before Kellie took up the controversial offer to appear on the reality show, she says she was given stern warnings not to embarrass her daughters.

She said: “At first Libby said ‘it’s Celebrity Big Brother. Why would they want you on it? You’re not a celebrity.

“They drove all the way to the hotel with me, where we were staying before the show started. They told me they were worried I would show them up.

"They said, ‘You cry a lot.’ They said ‘Every time you feel like blubbing just remember these faces.’ Then they both pulled very stern faces at me.

“All three of us took a selfie on the way in the car and they warned me again, ‘Make sure you don’t let us down.’”

Despite being told before her younger sister, estate agent Sophie, admits she found her father’s unexpected transition to a woman difficult to cope with.

She recalled: “When I was told he had something to tell me about why he had been withdrawn and ill I thought at first that he was going to tell me he was gay.

“I didn’t understand what was going on at the start. I felt like I was losing him.

“Before he went on Big Brother I only met Kellie a couple of times. Seeing him on the show helped. It helped me understand things so much more. Since she’s come out of the house she’s been so much nicer. It has all brought us closer together.”

Kellie couldn’t agree more. She says she actually received less than half of the £400,000 she was
reportedly paid for her appearance on the three-week-long show, but insists the real rewards have proved priceless.

She said: “I know people knock Big Brother but I’ve been a winner in all this.

“Gary Busey will go down as the show’s winner but to me Kellie Maloney was the winner. I went on the show and gained back my family. ”

She adds: “I have no idea where the £400,000 story came from. It was complete rubbish. I got less than half that amount for going on the show and I gave £20,000 of that to my counselling group TGPals who
have helped me for two years.”

Kellie will also pay for full gender reassignment surgery early next year. But she is still grateful that her Big Brother earnings have bought her financial peace of mind – and the opportunity to enjoy some retail therapy with her girls.

She said: “The money means we are now financially secure for a few years and that I can afford to take the girls shopping. That is an experience in itself as they spend a fortune – picking things out for me.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 06:07:13 AM

Beware the Chasers: “Admirers” Who Harass Trans People
By Christin Milloy

There are people whose primary sexual attraction is to trans people. I've seen this described as "trans-oriented" or "trans-attracted," and many such people self-identify as trans "admirers." Unfortunately, a great many admirers demonstrate misogyny and transmisogyny. When these badly behaved admirers actively seek out trans partners and inflict their disrespectful nonsense on us, we call them "chasers."

What's it like to date a chaser? Once upon a time, when I was much earlier in my life as a woman and had more insecurity than wisdom, I briefly dated "Chad," a chaser. I've considered that experience carefully and consulted other trans people on their chaser experiences: There's a disturbing common narrative.

When a cis person is attracted to a trans person, that should never be viewed (in and of itself) as a fetish, because that would cast any relationships between trans and cis people as shameful—just as same-sex relationships were called sick and perverted in decades past. Author Janet Mock has explained this rather elegantly. But what about when cis people specifically seek out sex with trans bodies, in a way that serially objectifies us, and disrespectfully treats us as their kink?

Trans people are not fetish objects, but chasers’ behavior is highly fetishistic. And while their attraction for trans people mustn't be stigmatized, their bad behavior toward trans people absolutely should be: It's harmful, it's demeaning, and it needs to stop.

Who exactly am I calling out when I use the C-word? I don't mean cis people who are willing to date a trans person when they meet someone they like, and I don't mean all trans-attracted people. I'm referring to individuals whose primary motivator in dating is that they really, really, really want to "be with" a trans person, one with original anatomy intact ... to the extent that other interpersonal concerns are neglected and ignored. They don't care to know us very well; they just want to date us. Date us so hard.

While there’s no way to know for sure how many trans-attracted people exhibit chaser behavior, it feels like a lot to me: I’ve only ever met one or two nice ones, whereas the jerks seem to come at me by the dozens.

It's not unheard of for chasers to pursue trans men, but most of the attention on admirer websites and message boards seems to be directed at trans women. From what I can tell, there's little awareness of non-binary people at all. They often proposition me. (Overwhelmingly, they're men—I've only been contacted by women exhibiting chaser behavior a handful of times, and in each case they wanted me to join them with their boyfriend or husband.)

Here are some tips to recognize and deal with chasers, to help any trans person navigate safely through unplanned chaser encounters with dignity intact.

When they meet you, they won't notice or care that you're a skater, a writer, a gamer, or an avid reader. Whether you're into documentaries, romantic comedies or the latest horror film, you'll get to pick the flick. Shawarma, street meat, sushi, or steak? Eat anywhere you like, because it's all about you.

Are you insecure about your looks or about passing? He'll compliment, reassure, and hold you (he'll be very physically affectionate), and he'll say all the things you need right now. He wants to be your dreamboat, to let you know that he's extremely attracted to you. He'll say this, and you'll believe him, because he's telling the truth.

His physical attraction is real, but he doesn't notice details of your personality or ask much about your life experience, because those factors are secondary to his interest. The chaser is first and foremost hungry for your trans body. He'll humor your interests for a while, but before long the conversation will inevitably turn (and return, repeatedly) to your transness. You might, very early on, be asked some eyebrow-raising questions like, "How long have you been on hormones?" From chaser websites, he knows hormone therapy can give a "svelte shape and more-than-ample boobage," but also "often results in feminine mood swings."

You might also be unpleasantly surprised by some of his word choices. My friend Maya told me that a man who was hitting on her once tried to impress her by explaining how much he "really respects trannies."

Respectful terminology is a big problem for chasers, and there's a simple explanation: They come to much of their educational material in an audiovisual format. Men who know us primarily from porn will be much more likely to casually drop grotesquely inappropriate slurs and demeaning labels like "tranny," "T-girl/gurl," and "she-male," all of which are keywords in the exploitative trans porn industry ... for which the paying audience is—wait for it—admirers!

Chasers may confuse or misuse terms like "transvestite," "cross dresser," "hermaphrodite," "transgender," or "transsexual," and have a strange tendency (given their apparent trans enthusiasm) not to know much of anything about principles of gender identity, social justice, or basic Trans 101.

He may obsess over, even manipulate, your feminine expression. Chad used to praise me when I wore more makeup; he often described which of my clothing he preferred ("You should wear..."); and he continually pressured me to switch from flats to heels, even after I explained that I didn't want to. (I'm 5'11'', and I don't wish to appear taller or risk falling down stairs unless it's for a special occasion.)

Pay close attention for clues that may indicate previous trans partners, especially if he's a straight man with no real connection to the queer community and doesn't identify himself openly to you as trans-attracted. A string of trans exes is a strong indication that he's had multiple chances to fix his bad behavior and hasn't. Remember, every single one of those women broke up with him for a reason, and you don't just want to be the new replacement. Chad had a framed photo of his ex on display, a long-haired trans redhead (just like me, except older). I should have noticed the warning sign, but I was too naive and inexperienced.

The night I finally went to bed with him, it ended abruptly after he whispered, "You are the cutest boy I've ever met." Despite his intense attraction to me, that's how he saw me: as a boy who was girly and used female pronouns. He couldn't see past my penis to the young woman I was, because he was completely fixated on the idea of my penis and how I was different than other women.

Online chaser dialogue frames trans women as "a person with some combination of female and male aspect." No matter how much the chaser gushes over how beautiful a woman you are, that's not how he really thinks of you at all, judging by how they talk to us and how they talk about us on their websites and communities. Even if he doesn't secretly consider you a boy exactly, you'll never truly be a woman in his mind, either, because you've been exoticized as "the woman with something extra." Something else. Something other.

Mathematically speaking:
Woman = (You - x). Solve for x.

You will never be "equal" to woman unless the value of "x" is zero: unless the body parts mean nothing to him. But to the chaser, they mean everything. You are an object, appraised against "normal" women (who are also objects to him), and found to have greater value, rather than being considered a thinking, feeling human being. He focuses on how you're outside what is normal, without ever challenging that normativity in any way, and he seeks to possess you in the process. Chasers are entirely unhelpful—in fact, they're harmful—to our cause of working toward eliminating cis-sexism and cisnormativity from society.

If you catch a guy who acts this way, throw him back: Chasers think they do us honor by offering their "love," but they're really just cis men expressing entitlement to women's bodies ... "with something extra."

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 06, 2014, 07:26:24 AM

Although I can agree with the above article at some points for some people, it is also very wrong on many levels too.

First of all the term the transgender community has commonly used for any male attracted to crossdressers is not "chasers", the real term for about 60 years, is the very derogatory label, "panty chasers".

What happens is that many transgender M-F are more attracted to females. But because females are supposed to date males, they try to, but the ones really attracted to females don't want to sleep with a male. So they feel their male partner is being a real pain when he gets horny. The less the poor guy is getting anything, the more horny he gets, & the more of a pain he becomes.

And as far as males who are attracted to crossdressers & transgendered, who do trangendered & crossdressers think was going to be attracted to them? You are going to attract the people who like you for who you are more than people who don't like who you are. When someone goes to buy a red truck, he's not gonna leave with a blue station wagon instead, he's gonna get what he wants.

If you don't want men to think you're sexy & drool over you, don't dress, look, & act sexy. A red truck will only attract people who like red trucks. If you don't like people who like red trucks, don't sell red trucks.

But if he's gonna take you out for dinner, take you shopping & foot the bill, change your flat tire, pay your rent, or paint your garage, you have to put out or your boyfriend will become a frustrated pest. If you're not gonna sleep with your boyfriend, you should not have one.... ever. I don't mean once or twice a month or every other month. It should be at least twice a week. Once he's satisfied, then he can think of other things.

He'll care about what you think & do if you care about him. The number one thing at the top of almost every boyfriend's list, way above the others is sex. Just give him that, & get it out of the way so you can both concentrate on the other stuff.

Some crossdressers are transvestites. That means they get more sexually excited over what they're wearing & how they look than any boyfriend. Again, if you don't want to sexually please your boyfriend, or don't intend to try, you really shouldn't have a boyfriend. Save the poor guy a lot of frustration & don't date him.

Other M-F transgender naturally have very low testosterone levels so feel more like a girl... even before any hormone treatments. If also has the effect of them having no or a low sex-drive or being impotent. So because they don't want to have sex with anybody, a horny boyfriend may seem like a pain too. Again, if you can't satisfy a boyfriend, then don't have one.

He's a boyfriend for gods sake! That means he's gonna want sex. He's not treating you like an object, he's just trying to get something all boyfriends need & want badly. If you can't provide it, don't get a boyfriend.

Some transvestites are gay. But some only want to sleep with other TVs. If that's your tastes, don't date a guy you're not attracted to.

Most "chasers" are gay. So you shouldn't be surprised they want you with your male parts or call you a pretty boy. Some gay men are turned off by big, hairy, or muscular men. They prefer more delicate, feminine, or smoother men. Many even prefer them with something sexy or silky on. So don't be surprised if he wants you to leave you nylons on to bed or wear a sexy nightie either. A few "chasers" are mostly or almost straight but had a bad turn off with a women or a few of them, or something happened where they find themselves not minding going after a guy that looks like a woman, even if they do have a penis. Those are the ones that will cuddle, hug, & hump, but be afraid to touch your penis, or if they do, only awkwardly.

If you don't want to be treated like a sexual object or fetish, then don't get a boyfriend. If he's a healthy male, he'll have a hard time thinking of anything else until he's satisfied. After he's had what he's wanted, then he can think clearly about other stuff.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Angela M... on October 06, 2014, 11:28:58 PM

WOW Betty, you have been busy today. Thanks for all this info it made for some great reading and very informative. I do recall reading about the woman in Winnipeg and after the first or second confrontation I would have decked this bitch and let the police deal with it as nobody else seems to want to bother. I certainly would press charges for harassment if I were this family and even hate crime status.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 05:10:34 PM

I hadn't posted any news in a while, so I figured I'd sit down & read what's going on.

If the school, district, & authorities have already approved & set up for transgender kids, somebody elses parents have no business telling the kid where to go, or bother the kid.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 07:18:04 PM

Tama Toys, the makers of the “my first makeup set” for otokonoko, have been steadily expanding their lineup targeted at men who have a thing for dressing up as girls, and they just made a new breakthrough with their new latest product, sanitary panties for men. The product even comes packaged with a sanitary napkin enclosed.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 07:19:29 PM

Otokonoko (おとこの娘), written with a kanji character which means “daughter” or “young woman”, refers to men who look and dress like girls. Of course, these men could always purchase and wear actual women’s clothing, but that didn’t deter Tama Toys from expanding the line of products for the niche market of otokonoko, specifically those who have an interest in otaku culture.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 07:23:00 PM

Specially designed for otokonoko: lingerie sets, high school girl uniforms and more, they're packaged with illustrations of meek looking androgynous characters on the box, The newest addition to the product lineup are lacy sanitary panties in two color variations.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 07:25:08 PM

Sanitary panties are special underwear designed for the use with sanitary napkins during that time of the month. They usually come in a cutting that provides excellent coverage and fit to prevent leakage, and the crotch area is double-layered so that the wings of the sanitary pad can be tucked in between the fabric to help keep the pad in place even with vigorous movement.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 07:27:59 PM

Women use sanitary panties because they’re comfortable and easy to use with pads, and also simply because it sucks to get stains on the cute undies they’d want to use on most days of the month. Don't know why a guy would need them except to feel girly.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 07:34:28 PM

Perhaps the imaginative otokonoko would see the fun in using these sanitary goods, but as you would have expected, the non-otokonoko population is slightly baffled by the idea.

This appears to be a company who wishes to diversify, by pleasing some of us, but has only scratched the surface. Perhaps we can email them some suggestions.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 07:52:33 PM

California GOP Congressman Posts, Removes Image Insulting Transgender People

Commenting on a bill allowing death certificates to reflect the expressed gender identity of the decedent, Devin Nunes [pictured below], a Republican representative for California’s 22nd District, has posted an image insulting to the transgender community on his official Congressional website.

The post on Nunes’s blog, which appears to have since been deleted, included an image of Johnny Depp portraying the title character in Tim Burton’s biopic Ed Wood. Wood was an actor, writer, director and producer who is best known for his B-movies including “Glen or Glenda” and “Plan 9 From Outer Space.”

Wood was open about both cross dressing and his interest in drag.

According to transgender groups, the image does not reflect what transgender is, but is clearly an a snarky put-down the Democratic attempt to respect a group of citizens long treated poorly by society, and of that group itself.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 08:10:39 PM

Crossdressing comedian Eddie Izzard is teaming up with NBC to adapt Timothy Hallinan’s comedic crime novels based around high-end thief and private dick Junior Bender for the small screen. Though he is not set to star in the project, he will be executive producing alongside Royal Pains’ Jessica Ball, who is also on board to pen the script.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 08:28:12 PM

-Kenya court victory for transgender activist Audrey Mbugua

-Kenya's high court has ordered the country's education authorities to amend the name on a school certificate of a woman who was born male

The name should be changed from Andrew Mbugua to Audrey Mbugua, it ruled.

Audrey Mbugua has been battling to get recognition to live as a woman, says the BBC's Robert Kiptoo in Nairobi.

This is a significant ruling for the transgender community in Kenya, a country with conservative views towards sexuality, he adds.

"We won. It's a huge watershed moment," Ms Mbugua told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The court gave the National Examinations Council 45 days to comply with the order to to change the name on her high school exam certificate, without marking her gender.

Judge Weldon Korir said the council had failed to demonstrate why it could not make the changes she desired.

The transgender activist had stunned many Kenyans with her decision to be recognised as a woman, our correspondent says.

The court ruled that Ms Mbugua will have to pay for any extra costs incurred by the council to make the change.

This is Ms Mbugua's second legal victory.

In July, the high court ordered the authorities to register her lobby group, Transgender Education and Advocacy, saying their refusal to do so had no legal basis and was an abuse of power.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 08:44:34 PM

Nicki Sullivan says her child, designated male at birth, has always identified herself as female. After seeking advice from GLSEN, a gay lesbian and straight education network, last Monday Nicki's 7-year-old daughter Ella made her identity public.

"She came back Monday as a girl. New teacher, new wardrobe, new backpack, completely changed. She was introduced as a new student, Ella Grace,” explained Nicki Sullivan.

Sullivan says over the last week Owen County Elementary School has been more than accommodating to her transgender 7-year-old daughter Ella providing a unisex restroom and protecting her from potential bullying.

"They've been supportive. There hasn't been any issues with the school at all,” said Sullivan.

But parents of Ella's 2nd grade classmates are concerned.

"I've told my son to be nice when he sees this boy. I've told him to never refer to him a girl because that is not what he is,” said Caynah Lindsey.

Lindsey says Ella's new name and new wardrobe is confusing to other kids including her own.

"To me, a boy who on Friday is a boy and on Monday decides to be a girl, to me that's a major distraction. Our kids shouldn't have to go through that. It's one thing when they are older or in high school. They are adults. They can make decisions. But we are talking about a 7-year-old child. How does a 7-year-old know what they want?” said Lindsey.

Nicki says this isn't about any other child but her own and allowing Ella to be who she has always been.

"People have said they're going to pull their kids out of the same class, stupid things like that but I'm not worried about it. She's the same kid. Different name. Different clothes,” said Sullivan.

Sullivan says Ella has been chased on the playground, her clothes pulled and some children have asked her mean questions but school officials have been monitoring the situation and disciplining those children. Sullivan also says she has received threats through Facebook from adults who disagree with the change.

The superintendent of Owen County schools Rob Strafford would not comment on this specific case but says it's their job to provide a safe learning environment for all children regardless of gender, race or any other specification.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 08:47:06 PM

Transgender New Yorkers would be able to change the gender listed on their birth certificate without proving they have had sex-reassignment surgery under a proposed overhaul to be introduced Tuesday.

Councilman Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan) will introduce legislation to strip the surgery requirement from the city rules - and also remove any requirement to prove other medical treatment, such as hormone therapy.

“It’s going to improve the lives of transgender New Yorkers and allow them to get birth certificates that match their accurate gender,” he said. “Gender won’t be about your physicality. It won’t be about your body. It’s about how you identify.”

The state acted earlier this year to stop requiring surgery to make a birth certificate change, but since the city handles its own birth certificates, the change did not apply here.

The state, like other jurisdictions that have loosened birth certificate rules, also continues to require proof of appropriate clinical treatment for gender dysphoria.

The city will instead only require a certification from one of a broad list of providers - including doctors and nurses, social workers, therapists, and midwives - that the person seeking a change is living a different gender than the one listed on their birth certificate.

“It’s the most progressive policy in the entire country,” Johnson said.

A similar set of changes to birth certificate rules will also be introduced at the city Board of Health Tuesday, Health officials said.

Transgender people often complain of being harassed or denied services when they’re unable to produce ID that matches the gender they present as. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey found that 40% of respondents had faced discrimination because of mismatched documents.

The gender listed on drivers licenses and other official ID is generally based on the birth certificate, though the city’s newly created municipal ID card will allow people to specify their own gender.

“When people’s gender isn’t portrayed accurately, it causes problems. They get turned down from jobs...They may be accused of fraud, turned away, harassed, attacked,” said Carrie Davis, chief programs and policy officer at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center. “In the best cases, they face embarrassment, confusion, and delays.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 09:28:24 PM

In "American Horror Story: Freak Show" transgender performer Erika Ervin will star alongside series regulars Jessica Lange, Evan Peters and Emma Roberts as "Amazon Eve," a role she says was originally written for a man.

"I auditioned for the part as a guy, slicked back my hair, no make-up...flannel shirt, bound my breasts, dropped my voice and walked in, and nailed it," Ervin recalled of the casting process in this FX clip.

The actress, whose credits include the Netflix series "Hemlock Grove," also reveals the struggles she experienced with her family after coming out as transgender in 2004.

"My first inkling of knowing I was different was when I was about 4 or 5," she said. "It was an issue of gender ... it's not until later on that I discovered there was a way to fix it."

She hopes her "American Horror Story" role will allow her estranged father to see her "make it on TV and film," and believes the transgender community at large could stand to learn from the show's overall message.

"It's more than a freak show," she said. "There's a family here."

"American Horror Story: Freak Show" will debut Oct. 8 on FX.

Erika Ervin (AKA Amazon Eve), BTW, even by basket player standards is a giant! She stands 6 feet & 8 inches tall before putting on the heels. That means she would tower 2 1/4 feet above me without heels. Her head would scrape the tops of some of the doorways in my house. With heels you can bet she's around 7 feet tall. Where does she find her shoes & dresses?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Eve

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 10:00:04 PM

India's first transgender news anchor

Padmini appears every evening at 19:00 to present a news show on the Tamil-language Lotus TV based in the city of Coimbatore.

She's is thrilled with her new job - not only because she is on air at prime time, but also because it is making a world of difference to her and her community.

"I am so happy. The message has gone all over India and the internet," she says.

According to one estimate, India has about two million transgender people and most live on the fringes of society, often in poverty, ostracised because of their gender.

Most make a living by singing and dancing or by begging and prostitution.

It was only recently that the Supreme Court recognised transgender people as a third gender in a landmark ruling.

Padmini's life has not been very different from others in her community.

"I had a troubled childhood," she says.

Disowned by her family when she was 13, she left home and attempted suicide, but was saved by some people.

"After leaving home, I travelled all over. I enrolled into an undergraduate programme in commerce through distance education, but I had financial problems so I dropped out after two years," she says.

But, she was not disillusioned. "I learnt Bharatnatyam [classical Indian dance form]. I took part in transgender beauty contests and won them. I then acted in a television serial."

Lotus TV says the idea of hiring a transgender anchor was proposed by programme executives Sangeeth Kumar and Saravana Ramakumar.

The two men were returning home after work a few months ago when they came across some transgender people being treated badly. They felt the negative social attitudes had to change and discussed it with their management.

"Our chairman GK Selva Kumar accepted our idea to give an opportunity to a transgender to be a news presenter," Mr Kumar said.

Padmini's name for the job was suggested by Rose, India's first transgender to host a talk show on TV. "I recommended her name to the network when they contacted me," says Rose. "Padmini is doing a very good job and she has been well received," she adds.

"We got in touch with Rose who introduced us to Padmini. She was well aware of news and we gave her two months of voice modulation training," said Mr Ramakumar.

He denies that appointing a transgender news anchor is "a stunt to increase the channel's TRP" - television rating points. "This is done only to give transgender people respect in society," he says.

The move has been welcomed by campaigners.

"Padmini's assignment carries a message about this neglected community. Since they are not socially acceptable, they cannot display their talent. Such is the situation today that some of them are in the sex trade or forced to beg on the streets," says Coimbatore-based activist Anjali Ajeeth.

Akkai Padmashali of Sangama, a group fighting for the rights of sexual minorities in the southern city of Bangalore says: "It's a good move. For the first time, there is an effort to bring transgenders into the mainstream. There are very few right now in mainstream professions."

The audiences too seem to approve of Padmini.

"Her performance is really nice. She not only looks like a woman but her voice modulation, her pronunciation and her over all presentation is very good," homoeopathic doctor U Sreekumar told the BBC.

"Honestly, I could not find any difference between her and any other woman anchor on other television channels,"' said housewife Vaijanthi.

Padmini says she is happy that she is finally being "recognised".

"People look at me with some respect now," she says.

"I am really so happy. More such opportunities should be given to other transgenders too. The social taboo should go."

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 10:11:38 PM

Canada's Senate committee begins hearings on transgender rights bill

An NDP MP is urging the Senate to pass his bill making it illegal to discriminate against transgender people, saying the upper chamber isn’t going to learn anything new by taking a second look at the legislation.

Opponents, including Conservative Sen. Don Plett, argue the bill pits the rights of one group against the rights of others and may cause more problems than it is intended to solve.

NDP MP Randall Garrison’s bill would add gender identity to the list of issues for which discrimination is prohibited in the Canadian Human Rights Act. The bill defines gender identity as an “individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth.”

That definition was a compromise to garner Conservative support for the bill in the House of Commons.

Plett, however, argued at a Senate committee that the definition would open the door for a clash between rights, for instance when a transgender woman, who is biologically male, may want to use a bathroom with biological females.

“It’s never our job to protect minority rights at the expense of others’ rights,” Plett said.

“How can this 0.3 per cent of society trump the rights of my grandchildren, my granddaughters?”

Plett’s concerns were dismissed as hypothetical, with Garrison and Sen. Grant Mitchell – who is sponsoring in the bill in the Senate – saying that such concerns have not been borne out in provinces where similar laws already exist. Policies are also in place in several jurisdictions, such as the Edmonton public school board, to ensure no one’s rights are trampled.

“You have the right to your beliefs, but you can also at the same time be quite mistaken. … Transgender women are women,” Garrison told Plett.

“There’s no debate we can have about that. You persist in your position that is not well founded.”

Garrison’s bill was on the verge of becoming law earlier, but didn’t come to a final vote in the Senate before Parliament was prorogued. When that happened, Garrison’s private member’s bill had to go through the Senate’s legislative process anew.

Garrison urged senators on the legal and constitutional affairs committee to quickly pass the bill, which received bipartisan support in the House of Commons, lest it be pushed to the back burner again by government business. (Government bills take precedence in Senate committees’ agendas.)

“If you do choose to amend the bill, one of the possible outcomes is that you will receive it back in its current form (from the House of Commons) and many months will have been wasted,” Garrison said.

“I’m asking you respect the compromise already reached in the House of Commons.”

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 11:09:24 PM

A new book that tackles the topic of transgender children is co-authored by a teenager from South Florida who has first-hand experience with the often misunderstood issue.

“I wanted everyone to look at me and say wow what a beautiful little girl,” said Jazz Jennings.

At a first look, Jazz appears to be like many 13-year-old girls.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 11:10:45 PM

Her room is filled with pink and purple accents and mermaids, but pictures of her lining the stairs reveal a more complicated past as a boy.

“That was the age when I felt like I was different and I knew that something was going on,” Jazz said.

Jazz’s parents quickly noticed a difference in their child too. Although physically and genetically born a male, Jazz would always pull dresses, high heels and dolls from the closets.

Jazz insisted he was a girl at two-years-old.

“We thought it was a phase, but a phase goes away and this was not going away,” said Jazz’s mother, Jeanette Jennings. “So we took her into a specialist and they confirmed, in fact, that she had gender identity disorder.”

The condition is also called gender dysphoria.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 11:12:31 PM

“I was shocked, I was sick to my stomach. I don’t want my child to be diagnosed with something. But we didn’t know what to do. We wanted to do right by her. We just cared that she was happy,” explained Jeanette Jennings.

Jeanette and her husband made the decision when their son was five-years-old to let him live privately and publicly as a girl named Jazz.

“I’m wearing pink, I have a big bow in my hair. I have longer hair and I don’t know I just seem happier,” Jazz explained to CBS4 Anchor Irika Sargent.

Researchers at UCLA’s School of Law estimated 700,000 Americans identify as transgender.

The numbers of young “trans” children are not as clear.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 11:14:02 PM

Doctors who specialize in transgender issues at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles tell CBS News more trans people are coming out at an earlier age.

Jazz and her family agree it’s not without major challenges.

“We have a birth certificate that says she’s male, but according to law, we cannot change that until she has surgery,” said Jeanette Jennings.

At times, Jazz has been banned from using girl’s bathrooms or playing on the girl’s soccer team.

“I was devastated,” said Jazz. “It made me feel like an outcast.”

Jazz’s parents fought the US Soccer Federation for two years until they allowed her to play on the girl’s team. That also led to changes for all trans players in the organization.

She still gets bullied by other children at school.

“Kids are mean. There’s no doubt about it,” Jeanette added.

Jazz’s escape is her room filled with mermaids and her backyard pool where she becomes one.

Jeneatte says she’s met many transgender children who are fascinated with mermaids because from the waist down, they don’t have to worry about whether they have male or female parts.

“They’ve been my favorite creatures for as long as I can remember,” said Jazz.

This confidence is now translated onto the pages of a book.

The teenager is sharing her life with the world by releasing a children’s book about her evolution from boy to girl.

“We feel this message is universal,” said co-author Jessica Herthel. “It’s about speaking your truth and not being ashamed about what makes you different.”

Jazz considers herself an activist, appearing at universities and national conferences, and with each year she lives as a girl, she plans on speaking louder.

“You just have to be proud of who you are and have confidence because you are beautiful no matter what,” Jazz said.

Title: Re: In The News
Post by: Betty on October 07, 2014, 11:43:56 PM

Transgender girl becomes homecoming princess

Scarlett Lenh was officially crowned the 2014 homecoming princess for Sand Creek High School during Friday night's football game.

Scarlett, however, is biologically male. She was born Andy Lenh and this school year started identifying as a female transgender.

"It was really exciting. It felt really good. I couldn't stop smiling," Scarlett said after she found out at an afternoon assembly that the majority of the junior class had voted for her over three other candidates.

Two of the other girls who were nominated by their peers were "extremely supportive," Scarlett said, and the other "was really upset."

Scarlett, 16, has dressed in girls' clothing for the past few weeks and also uses the girls' bathroom at Sand Creek, which is on North Carefree Circle in Falcon School District 49.

Both issues are concerning to some adults and students.

"It's craziness," said Jana Neathery, whose granddaughter attends Sand Creek.

"Originally, it was a joke that he was going to be nominated for homecoming princess, but he got a lot of nominations," she said, referring to Scarlett, "and now there are a lot of upset girls because a spot was taken from them.

"I'm very sympathetic that he's transgender, but he should be on the boys' side, not the girls'."

Scarlett said that being in the running for homecoming princess was no joke to her.

"One of my friends mentioned it, and I didn't think anything of it because I didn't think I'd be nominated. But, now, it really matters to me," she said. "This is something I've wanted to do since my freshman year. I want people to be themselves and not feel uncomfortable in their own body and mind."

But Scarlett's behavior does make some uncomfortable.

"I think it's wrong because he's actually a guy, he's not a girl, and he hasn't been doing this his entire life - he's only been recently doing it," said Jarrod Clarke, a junior at Sand Creek.

"We know him pretty well," another Sand Creek student who asked not to be identified said of Scarlett. "He's only cross-dressing, putting on girls' clothes."

Sand Creek student Michael Carl said he has been a friend of Scarlett's since the seventh grade.

"He has always been there for me and is truly a good person," Michael said. "I support him because it takes a lot of courage and a lot of character to do what he is doing."

Scarlett said she has gotten positive and negative comments after recently coming out as transgender, from "Do your thing," "Be yourself" and "We have your back" to "This isn't right" and "It shouldn't be like this."

D-49 spokesman Matt Meister said he could not comment on the issue due to student privacy laws but in a statement said, "The leaders at Sand Creek High School and in District 49 respect the decision of the Scorpion student body in electing their homecoming court."

The statement went on to say, "Our board policy sets the standard that we do not exclude any person from participating in any program or activity on the basis of gender identity and gender expression."

Neathery also is mad that Scarlett uses the girls' bathroom.

"It's ridiculous - he's interested in girls, and they're allowing him to use the girl's bathroom," she said of Scarlett.

When asked by The Gazette if she is attracted to girls, Scarlett said, "For the last year and a half, I haven't been attracted to anything."

Neathery said that when she complained to the principal, he told her if a girl feels uncomfortable in the bathroom when Scarlett is in there, the girl should leave.

"I suggested he go to a nongender-specific restroom, whether it be in the office or the teachers' lounge," Neathery said. "I said, 'So my granddaughter can put on jeans and say I feel like a boy today' and go into the boys' restroom?' "

In June 2013, at another local school, a transgender first-grader who also was born a boy but identifies as a girl won the right to use the girls' restroom at Eagleside Elementary in Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8.

Coy Mathis' parents took the case to the Colorado Civil Rights Division, claiming the district's refusal to allow Coy to use the girls' bathroom violated Colorado's Anti-Discrimination Act. The division ruled in favor of the girl, saying keeping the ban in place "creates an environment that is objectively and subjectively hostile, intimidating or offensive."

Still, it's strange to have a student who has a male body in the girls' restroom, some students say.

"We thought he was doing it as a joke. He's a guy and doing this for whatever reason. But he's still a guy," Jarrod said.

Scarlett said her high school counselor told her he would speak with administrators to "figure out a solution."

"For a while, I tried to avoid using the bathroom as much as I could at school. But when I do, I have used the women's restroom," Scarlett said. "I didn't make a big deal about it."

Scarlett said she has known since she was 7 or 8 years old that she felt like a girl and not a boy.

"It was always in the back of my mind. In middle school I tried to block it out. This year, I got serious about expressing it," she said. "I see it as a great thing. I hope it helps people understand if they want to be something and work hard at it, it can happen."

Scarlett told her family this week.

"It was really hard," Scarlett said. "My mom didn't like it, but she wants to support me for what I do in life."

Title: In the News (with pix & video)
Post by: Betty on September 02, 2016, 01:57:54 AM

Comedian Eddie Izzard was subjected to homophobic abuse after refusing to give a stranger a ride in his 1958 VW Beetle.

Jamie Penny, 24, allegedly threatened to 'do' his house after Izzard said he would not give him and a friend a ride.

A month later, Penny saw the stand-up comic again and branded him a 'f***ing p***ter'.

Penny, who lives in Pimlico, is charged with two counts of using threatening and abusive words or behaviour. He is yet to indicate a plea.

In court, Amee Emby, prosecuting, told how Penny's friend had spotted Izzard on April 3, and demanded: 'You should take me for a ride in your car.'

Tempers are said to have flared when the comic shot back: 'I would never take you for a ride in this car.'

Then on May 4, Penny allegedly launched into a homophobic tirade after bumping into Izzard again.

'This time Mr Penny was on his own and saw the same complainant in Gillingham Street at around lunchtime,' said Miss Emby.

In court, Penny demanded time to get an 'autistic aware' solicitor because he has been diagnosed with ADHD and autism.

He told magistrates: 'If I enter a not guilty plea you're going to find me guilty, it's your job, I want it dropped.

'I want this case dropped, I need a solicitor to get it dropped.'

When the bench rose to consider whether to adjourn the case, Penny referred to Miss Emby by shouting: 'Evil f***ing woman she's going to hell, scumbag prosecution, what kind of f***ing job is that anyway?'

His mother, who sat with him throughout the hearing, observed: 'If the policeman had the flu they would adjourn it, that's British justice for you.'

When a security guard was called to sit by Penny, he moaned: 'Don't kiss your teeth at me mate, there's no need for that. In his culture - not my culture - that's an insult.'

Chair of the bench Stevie Dee adjourned the case until 16 August and ordered Penny not to go to the area of Pimlico where the encounters took place, or contact Izzard while on conditional bail.

Update:

A man accused of hurling homophobic abuse at comedian Eddie Izzard claims he was beaten up by two gay men in a revenge attack in Soho, a court has heard.

He and his mother have now turned down the services of three solicitors, claiming they are yet to find one who is ‘autism-acknowledgeable’.

Penny said: "Wait wait wait wait. I’m not going to plead today. I have been abused by two gay men in Soho, assaulted.

"Assaulted because I have been in the paper, lies told about me. I didn’t say nothing to Eddie Izzard, he’s a f*cking liar. I’m not entering a plea, sorry mate."

Judge Coleman replied: "I’m not your mate."

Penny turned his attention to the press in court and fumed: "Who’s this man in the public gallery? I want him to get arrested.

"You have got people writing stuff about me in the paper."

Penny’s mother was told to leave after sidling up to a reporter in the public gallery and saying: ‘You smug little b*stard.’

Her son continued: "As I have said, my dad died this week, I have had too many problems, I have been assaulted twice because of the lies that have been put in the paper."

Penny said: ‘That’s why it’s all a big f***ing conspiracy you’ve got people here writing stuff about me because people all f***ing dress as women."

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 02, 2016, 02:31:53 AM

A transvestite who was spotted wearing a traditional burka is facing jail or flogging after sporting the garment while walking around a shopping centre in Saudi Arabia.

He was filmed on camera walking through the shopping mall in Taef, in the west of the country wearing an ababya, which all women are required to wear in public.

However, one shopper at the mall was puzzled by the man's appearance and followed him around the building.

According to Gulf News, he then discovered it was a man wearing the clothing and reported him to the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, who were inside the complex.

His identity was checked and after they discovered he was in fact a man, he was caught on camera being marched out of the mall and arrested.

Crossdressing is banned in Saudi Arabia and many other Middle Eastern Gulf countries.

Some men in these countries do wear the long veil in order to disguise themselves as women to beg for money.

They believe that people are more likely to be more sympathetic towards women and they will make more cash.

One Saudi man begged for five months before he was found to actually be a woman in disguise.

He told police he earned £35 per day and even more on Fridays when devout Muslims head to mosques.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 02, 2016, 09:39:39 AM

1950s Transvestite Hideaway photos inspire a new play.

“I never stopped to think what a heterosexual transvestite was,” said Tony award-winning writer and actor Harvey Fierstein in a discussion about his new play, Casa Valentina, and the powerful real-life photos that inspired it.

Based on the story of Casa Susanna... a little-known refuge for transvestites in the 1950s and early 1960s in the Catskills, New York, the play, Casa Valentina tells a tale of people searching out their true selves against a backdrop of both fellowship and intolerance.

The Casa Susanne photos were discovered about a decade ago at a Manhattan flea market by an antiques dealer, and later published in the book, Casa Susanna. Today, the photographs are all that remain of Susanna, once called the Chevalier d’Eon, after an 18th-century crossdresser and spy.

The photos document the secret lives of men dressing as women and who are, perhaps in flight from their traditional male roles. In the old photos, we see them playing bridge, scrabble, having cocktails, & in modern parlance, vamping for the camera.

“I believe these are ‘witness’ pictures,” Swope writes in the book’s introduction, “a way of validating an identity, a part–time life that was perhaps more real than their lives away from Casa Susanna.”

“What I love about these photographs is the joy in their faces,” says Fierstein, an artist who has wrought gold from the joys (and drama) of cross-dressing in works like Torch Song Trilogy, La Cage aux Folles, Kinky Boots, and now Casa Valentina. (He changed the name of the place and all the characters for reasons of privacy.) Here, however, he immersed himself in the world of transvestites. To write the play, he says, “I had to get into the mind of a 1962 transvestite.”

His research led him to the writings of the house matriarch, Susanna Valenti, also known as Tito, who ran the resort and wrote essays for Tranvestia, a magazine published from 1960-1980 and aimed at cross-dressing men. Tranvestia also first published many of the photographs republished years later in Casa Susanna.

At one point a character in his play says, “Women have fashion, bubble baths, daytime dramas, bridge clubs and weddings. What do men get? Work, war, and oil changes. It’s the curse of the Y chromosome and it’s punishable by dearth.”

These ideas were far more radical in the 1950s, when gender roles were so narrowly defined, than they are today, in our marginally more “enlightened” era.

“It’s all the pleasures and none of the pain of being a woman, because it’s a fantasy,” Fierstein notes. “It has nothing to do with being a real woman, except that some of these men went on to become women.”

In the end, in Casa Valentina and the photos made at Casa Susanna, gender is a quality that’s so undefined and personal for everyone, gay or straight. When speaking about pursuing ones own happiness and his own sexuality Fierstein says, “Why would you deny yourself anything possible!”

Here are some of those original Casa Susanna photos, not to be confused with photos circulating around of the play that tell a FICTION story about the place. The place really existed, but the play is an interpretation of what the writer saw in a few old magazines, & the writer is not trans in any way. It's sort of like an American writing a story about life in a town in China based on what he read in a few magazines from China & looking at the pictures in it.

Many of the photos I had to try to fix the color, clean up or sharpen as best I could. Most of them didn't look anywhere this good originally.

The youngest of those in the photos may still be alive, but would now be grandparents or great grandparents.

Anybody recognize their grandpa?

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 02, 2016, 09:41:04 AM

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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Angela M... on September 02, 2016, 09:42:46 PM

I had heard of Casa Susanna before and seem to remember my parents talking about a friend who liked to go to the Catskill resorts for a vacation. My parents never went but I remember a few of the men in our neighbourhood dressing up for a mock wedding at somebody's anniversary party. My father was a bridesmaid and they got the whole thing on 8 mm film and another friend dressed as a pregnant woman stopping the wedding blaming the groom for putting her in the family way. The friend who always went to the Catskills was also dressed up so perhaps he was visiting Casa Susanna. The film was brought out several times over the years at house parties ( and there were many in our neighbourhood) and I believe I still have it among all my dads films.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 02, 2016, 10:57:25 PM

Wow. You should save those old films to digital before they turn yellow & brown or get too brittle & break, or nothing exists to play them anymore. Functioning 8 & 16mm projectors are becoming very rare, expensive, & impossible to find parts for.

Even if you have to project them on a light color wall or sheet, & record them on a lousy phone camera, it's better than not having a copy that will play at all anymore.

Then burn the digital copy onto a permanent data DVD-r disc in mp4 format. Out of over a 1,000 DVDs, almost all of them withstood the heat, soot, & steam of the fire, then being under water a day, then being scrubbed in hot soapy water. Almost none of the CDs withstood the fire. The silver backing on CDs can flake off if left in a damp area a while, in high humidity, & can be scratched off. DVDs have a protective coating over the backing. Even if a DVD is badly scratched, the scratches can be buffed out or filled in. Sometimes just polishing them with a little furniture polish or car polish smooths out the scratches enough to get the data off of them. So for long-term preservation, storage, & archiving, a DVD-r seems like the best choice.

However even though mine survived the fire, they were damaged. Some of them took several passes/tries, at a reduced read speed to get all the data off of them. It's not a good idea for you to leave your disks, hard drives, laptops, tablets, & phones in a hot car on a summer day for hours. Even your trunk/boot will be cooler because it has a less greenhouse effect. And because disks are burned with the heat & light of a laser, avoid exposing them to lots of bright, direct sunlight.

Originally disks had their data etched into the silver backing by a laser or pressed into them like records used to be pressed. But modern disks have on organic layer over the silver that changes the reflectivity of the disks to encode them instead. That enabled fast home recording on disks, with small cheap lasers. Exposing them to too much heat & light will have the same effect as a laser on them.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 03, 2016, 03:24:31 AM

Back to the news...

Earliest Painting of a Transvestite confirmed.

An 18th-century portrait sold in New York to a British gallery as a "woman in a feathered hat" turns out to actually portray a man dressed as a woman, becoming the earliest known painting of a transvestite.

The transvestite painting, now called the "Chevalier D'Eon," is currently hanging in the Philip Mould Ltd. gallery in London and will possibly become a permanent feature in the British National Portraits Gallery, said art dealer and art historian Philip Mould, director of Philip Mould Ltd.

"We spent 30 years honing our skills at looking at British portraits, and you begin to spot anomalies," Mould said. "Portraiture, despite the diversity of odd-looking people in the world, particularly in the 19th century, before advances in cosmetic science and dentistry and medical advances had taken place, but portraiture is always extremely straight-laced."

The finished portrait was typically a compromise between the artist (who was painting what he or she saw) and the sitter (who wanted to look their best); that means anomalies of facial features can be subtle.

Something about the "muscularity of his face" and a "suggestion of stubble" caught Mould's eye as odd. So Mould and a team of his "lost faces bureau" went to work to figure out the sitter in this painting, and along the way ended up finding the actual artist of the work.

Once the painting had been cleaned and restored, "his masculine traits became far more manifest," Mould said, including the masculine-angled face shape and the facial hair stubble. The other thing they noticed was the signature of the artist, which had been listed as Gilbert Stuart, actually was "T. Stewart." (5 Myths About the Male Body)

Putting the pieces together, including the fact that Charles D'Eon spent a fair amount of time on the stage fencing, the team nailed down the painter as Thomas Stewart, who also spent a lot of time in the theatre, Mould said.

Since the painting's unveiling this week, "we've had an interesting succession of individuals coming to pay homage," Mould said. "It's a combination of mirth and respect for a man who was bold enough, brave enough, but also extrovert enough to state his case."

In fact, D'Eon apparently lived the second half of his life as a transvestite during a time when cross-dressing was essentially unheard of.

Here's how D'Eon's transvestitism came to pass: He joined King Louis XV's secret service in 1755, had his first major military posting in London in 1763, before being appointed Plenipotentiary Minister to London. However, within months, he had a falling-out with the ambassador appointed to replace him in London, accusing the ambassador of trying to murder him. D'Eon also made public secret documents and ended up being sent to prison, which he escaped.

Once escaped, D'Eon concealed his identity, reportedly, by dressing as a woman. Gossip about his gender began in 1770, with rumors that people were even betting on whether he was a man or a woman.

"D'Eon refused all offers to confirm or deny the rumor," Simon Burrows, professor of modern history at the University of Leeds, said in a statement in 2010. "He also demanded the French government pay off his debts and they agreed, terrified he would betray state secrets, including plans to invade England."

And after that, apparently D'Eon was forced to adopt female dress, and others accepted him as a female. So much so, that the truth was only revealed upon a medical examination after his death on May 21, 1810, which revealed his very male anatomy. Reportedly, his housekeeper did not "recover from the shock for many hours," according to the gallery.

The term "eonism," which is used in psychiatry to describe male adoption of female dress and manners, was derived from D'Eon's name.

Chevalier D'Eon was also known as, Lea de Beaumont, or Lady Beaumont.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_d%27%C3%89on

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 03, 2016, 03:37:03 AM

I've discovered there's a few books, plays, films, comic books, anime, & manga based on Chevalier D'Eon. However many of these works got it wrong & are historically totally incorrect. Many of them depict him as a girl who dressed like a boy. Although Chevalier D'Eon often insisted he was a girl who was raised as a boy by his parents, at the time of his death in his 80s, an autopsy did reveal he was in fact male... with larger breasts than normal for a male though (insert theories here).

Chevalier D'Eon is popular in the cosplay crowd, probably because of the anime & manga made about him. He's also very popular at Deviantart.

Here's some of the artists, cartoonists, & animators depictions of him. Some are quite cute.

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 03, 2016, 03:39:06 AM

Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 03, 2016, 03:41:53 AM

Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 03, 2016, 03:43:06 AM

Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 03, 2016, 03:46:10 AM

Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
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Title: Re: In the News
Post by: Betty on September 03, 2016, 03:56:21 AM

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: alison on September 04, 2016, 07:53:51 PM

Two years ago, Casa Valentina was playing on Broadway. I got tickets and went to see it, properly. By that, I mean I was cross dressed when seeing it.

In fact, I spent the day in New York City. I spent most of my time at the Museum of Natural History/Haydon Planetarium. I went in by bus to the city, and then took the subway up to the museum. The forecast for the day was for heavy rain in the evening, so I took along some boots with me (with a 4" heel no less). As it was getting close to closing time, I went into a bathroom and changed my skirt, and then came out and changed into my boots, took the subway downtown, had some dinner, and wandered my way up to the theater.

I had a good time at the show. The characters were real and believable. It was interesting, because it was not only about Casa Susanna (Valentina), but also about the beginnings of Tri-Ess. I am a member of a group that used to belong to tri-ess but became independent, partly because tri-ess is for heterosexual cross-dressers, and rejects or shuns homosexuals. This point was a major source of conflict in the second act.

When the show was over, there was a big backup in the lobby because the skies opened up and it was pouring. Since it was a few blocks to the bus station, I had to buy an umbrella from a street vendor. I had an umbrella with me but lost it. I'm glad they didn't jack up the price because of the weather (I think I paid $5). I'm glad I had on my boots and a skirt, because some of the roads became small streams. If I were dressed as a man, my shoes would have been soaked along with the cuffs of my pants.

I got back to the bus station, bought a can of soda (I wasn't going to pay the rip-off price of 3 times as much for the same can in the theater during intermission). It was a short wait for the bus, which I took to the park-and-ride before driving home. Between the time I got in the bus station and off the bus, the rain had thankfully stopped. Oh, and I found the umbrella I lost on the ground right next to the car. I put the wet umbrella in my car to dry off when I got home.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 05, 2016, 12:41:45 AM

LOL, Tri-Ess... that's a very odd group. They're a uptight far-right "good old boys" club of straight & closeted crossdressers with very strict homophobic & trans-phobic policies.

http://www.tgforum.com/wordpress/index.php/the-tri-ess-wars/

They think they would gain more acceptance from the public by shunning, gays, lesbians, transsexuals. & being incredibly homophobic. In modern times, in many states, & provinces, their homophobic & trans-phobic policies are technically illegal.

Many of them are pretty hypocritical too. Lots of their members & even a few of their board members/officers a few years down the road move on to having a boyfriend, or became transsexual anyway.

Granted, it's good to point out the fact that most crossdressers are not gay, but to shun or ban gays & transsexuals makes them no better than the people who want to shun & ban them.

Indeed, the percentage of crossdressers who are gay is just about the same as the general population. That is, about 10% are totally gay. 10% more have mostly gay tendencies, 10% more that swing both ways, & another 10% would have a gay experience if the opportunity came up with the right person.

But here's a thought to ponder. If you want to look like a woman, act like a woman, be treated like a woman, feel like a woman, BUT want to sleep with a woman, doesn't that make you more a lesbian that hetro? Then I get a laugh out of the crossdressers, who say they're really a woman inside, so they're not really gay when they sleep with a man, even if they do get an erection... because they're really a woman inside. There's a lot of gay men who feel like a girl when sleeping with their boyfriend, who never crossdressed. Are they saying they're really straight because they feel like a woman when they have sex too?

That's being in denial. It's just like the majority of crossdressers in my town are in denial that they're TV, TS, or a crossdresser. They have closets & dressers packed with woman's clothes, stockings, girdles, shoes, wigs, & makeup. But they say they're an impersonator, & performer, not a crossdresser. They get 3-5 minutes on stage lip syncing terribly to some old song in a gay club, once a week to once every couple of months. Yet they've spent a small fortune & lots of time on tons of girl's stuff. Yeah right, it's all for that occasional 3 minute performance.

Anyway, the author of Casa Valentina, & the guy who sold the book of pictures of Casa Susanna got their story all wrong. Although I was probably about 8 or 9 by the time Casa Susanna closed, it was right in my state. By the time I was 18, I had heard about it from crossdressers who had actually had been there. Because I was gay, the ones I talked to that were there, were were gay, & not married.

Back in the 50s & 60s, one could get arrested just for being suspected of being gay, or hanging out in locations where gays were known to be. Worse yet, your names or pictures would get in the newspaper as the town's scandal of the week. Indeed, even gay clubs, bars, & restaurants were regularly raided, busted, & shut down for having gays in them or for being gay-friendly... except those places owned by the mafia who paid off crooked cops & politicians to stay open.

Since the days of prohibition, if you were gay, the mobsters were your friends who bribed cops & politicians to leave us alone in their establishments.

So places for crossdressers, & many crossdressers would say they were straight even if they weren't to avoid extra harassment, arrests, raids, getting closed, & getting in the newspapers. There were plenty of gay crossdressers going to Casa Susanna. To protect the place & themselves it just was never mentioned. The place was promoted as a straight place in the newsletters, magazines, & through word of mouth to keep the cops, raids, & harassment away.

Even as late as the early 1970s, you could still be arrested for just being on a stretch of street, suspected to have gays around. The official charge was loitering with the intent to meet prostitutes, homosexuals, & other degenerates. Yep, it was a real law in most cities in the USA, & enforced to harass gays. It was not like a minor loitering charge either, it was a serious charge & got your name or picture in the newspaper if you were busted for it.

If there were prostitutes at one end of the street, & you were on the other end of the street, if the cops suspected you were gay, or the building you were near was gay-friendly, the cops would leave the prostitutes alone & go after you.

So any gay-friendly places were very hush-hush about it. The official word was always that they were straight places, & we all were innocent straight people.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 06, 2016, 11:46:30 PM

Transgender candidate, 20, challenging fellow Democrat.

If Vancouver-area voters elect her, Kaitlyn Beck would be the youngest member to ever serve in the Washington Legislature, and likely the first transgender woman to hold office there.

Beck, 20, faces long odds in her quest to unseat a fellow Democrat, Sharon Wylie of Vancouver. But Beck’s challenge highlights a slew of issues, including the rarity of transgender candidates and lingering tensions within the Democratic Party over this year’s presidential candidates.

Beck comes to politics as an outsider and acolyte of Bernie Sanders, the U.S. senator and former Democratic-socialist presidential candidate.

Wylie, 67, casts herself as progressive but with a pragmatic bent, and a longtime admirer of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

“I’m not somebody who’s been in office for a long time,” said Beck, who lives in Vancouver and works in Portland at a medical staffing company. “I would be a truly progressive voice for the state.”

Beck’s candidacy comes at a time when conservatives in Washington and across the nation have attempted, and sometimes succeeded in passing laws restricting transgender people’s access to public bathrooms and locker rooms.

A bill to do that in Washington died in the state Senate this year, after a trio of moderate Republicans joined most Democrats in opposing it. A similar proposal put forth as a ballot initiative failed to draw enough signatures to qualify for the November elections.

Having an openly transgender representative “would have a pretty profound impact on the conversation that happens in the state Legislature,” said Danni Askini, executive director of the Seattle-based Gender Justice League.

There are no openly transgender men or women elected to any state legislatures in the nation, according to Elliot Imse, spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

Meanwhile, the contest in the 49th District is one of two House races there pitting Democrats against each other in the general election, a first for the district.

Beck grew up in Paonia, Colo., a town of about 1,450 people a few hours’ drive southwest of Denver.

She moved to Washington in 2014. Beck said she’d always dreamed of living in the Northwest.. and later became drawn to the Sanders campaign.

“She’s very progressive both socially and economically,” said Vaughn Henderson, who said he met Beck earlier this year and now works on her campaign.

Henderson, 19, ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate, losing in the primary but earning an endorsement from The Columbian newspaper, which also backed incumbent Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver.

In her campaign, Beck has proposed a statewide 5-cent tax on plastic bags to raise money for education and said she’d like the state to have more ambitious clean-energy goals.

Beck called Clinton “corrupt” and “a little too conservative for my taste” and said she liked Sanders because he was “really a candidate for the people.”

Citing the Clinton-Sanders divide between her and the incumbent, Beck said she decided to run when it seemed Wylie, a consultant, wasn’t going to draw a challenge. Beck indeed was the only candidate to file against Wylie.

“It took me entirely by surprise,” said Wylie, adding later: “Southwest Washington is one of those areas that feels very neglected by the people power of the Puget Sound region, so I don’t think it makes sense for us to be split and not work together.”

A former nonprofit worker and lobbyist, Wylie was appointed to the seat in 2011 and fended off challenges from Republicans in 2012 and 2014. She describes herself as a progressive who tries to be pragmatic.

Wylie touts legislation she sponsored to save the state money through its contracting process and to strengthen laws against so-called revenge porn.

“The best practice for being in office is having a lot of life experience,” said Wylie, who sits on the House Finance Committee, which could play a large role in budget and education-funding policy next year. “That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have more young people.”

While Henderson touts the fact that Beck’s campaign Facebook page has more likes than Wylie’s, Beck nonetheless faces a tough challenge.

Wylie collected nearly three out of four votes in the August primary, her best primary performance so far, and raised over $51,000, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission.

Beck is likely to only raise a few thousand dollars, and said she’d prefer not to raise much money.

Meanwhile, the Young Democrats of Clark County and the Washington Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, have endorsed Wylie.

Beck hasn’t yet applied to get an endorsement from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, though there’s still time to do so, according to Imse.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 02:18:29 AM

Crossdresser leaves the Cowboy State for Portland

Sissy Goodwin, the Cowboy State's most famous crossdresser, is leaving Wyoming for Portland.

The college science professor and his wife Vickie plan to buy a small farm. He may wear petticoats and peasant blouses as he tends to the animals, Goodwin told the newspaper.

John Glionna described Goodwin in a 2013 Los Angeles Times article as "a linebacker-sized figure in a pink skirt, lacy yellow blouse and five-o'clock shadow, a gold lamé purse slung over his shoulder and a white bow affixed to his receding gray hair."

Goodwin does not consider himself gay or transgender. He identifies as a male who believes in "gender independent," he told the Los Angeles Times. He just likes to wear dresses.

He was born Larry Goodwin in 1947. He chose the new name after a stranger called him "sissy" in a derogatory way.

"I knew I had to hide my behavior," Goodwin told his wife. "So I tried to be very macho, as you know."

Goodwin broke the news to his wife sometime after they were engaged.

"I thought, 'Well, that's not a big deal,'" Vickie Goodwin said.

Still, Sissy Goodwin faced several attacks in Wyoming. He said one man beat him up on his front lawn, kicking Goodwin's teeth in in front of his son. Another neighbor used a knife to threaten to castrate Goodwin.

Casper police arrested Goodwin in a department store in 1979 for wearing a dress then offered to drop the charges if he stopped crossdressing in public. Goodwin refused, saying the practice was not illegal.

That kind of discrimination wouldn't go far in Portland. Two years ago, the Bureau of Labor and Industries awarded the Rose City T-Girls $400,000 after the owner of The P Club asked the crossdressers not to return to the North Portland bar.

The city has a full service crossdressing salon, several meet-up groups and a popular blogger who documents life as a Portland crossdresser.

Goodwin told The Los Angeles Times he isn't being chased out of Wyoming. But he and his wife imagine a happy, easy life in Portland.

Vickie Goodwin told her husband on StoryCorps she hopes in 20 years she hopes they'll be "walking along with our little canes, holding hands, you in your pretty dress and me in my jeans, being happy."

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 02:43:14 AM

In history on the news:

Lucy Hicks Anderson was assigned male when born in Waddy, Kentucky, but she had already taken the name Lucy when she started school. She left school at 15 and became a domestic worker, later setting in Pecos, Texas, and working at a hotel. At age 34 she married Clarence Hicks in New Mexico. After the couple moved to Oxnard, California, she saved her earnings from domestic work and operated a brothel from a property she’d purchased. She and Hicks divorced in 1929. Fifteen years later, she married soldier Reuben Anderson. In 1954 her trans status became known, and she was prosecuted for perjury in Ventura County because she allegedly lied on her marriage license. Because Anderson had received government checks from the U.S. Army as the wife of a soldier, both she and her husband were convicted of fraud and sent to prison. She lived in Los Angeles upon her release.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 02:59:12 AM

Transgender Politicians:

Geraldine Roman, who identifies as transgender, made history last spring when she was elected to the House of Representatives in the Philippines.

The 49-year-old will become her country’s first openly trans person to hold public office, securing the congressional seat in Bataan previously held by her mother, Herminia Roman.

Roman, who transitioned more than two decades ago, will set a precedent in a country where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people only enjoy limited rights. Still, she’ll now join an elite group of trans pioneers who’ve held various elected offices around the world, including Venezuela’s Tamara Adrián, Poland’s Anna Grodzka and Luisa Revilla Urcia in Peru.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:03:27 AM

New Zealand’s Georgina Beyer became the world’s first openly transgender MP when she entered Parliament in 1999. At the time, the media heavily emphasized Beyer’s past as a sex worker, but she said the scrutiny “did not make enough of an impact to destroy my credibility as a human being, as a person, as a politician. Which is remarkable.’’

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:08:07 AM

Tamara Adrián, a lawyer and human rights campaigner, became the first openly transgender member of the Venezuelan National Assembly in 2016. “My sole presence in the Parliament, it brings fresh air to an environment that was full of homophobia and transphobia,” she has said. “My presence will require tolerance and I will very strongly request that respect.”

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:12:39 AM

In 1992, Althea Garrison was elected as a Republican to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Just days after that victory, however, The Boston Herald published an article outing Garrison, who had been living as her authentic self as a woman at the time of her campaign, as transgender. In 1994, she lost her re-election bid.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:18:08 AM

Aya Kamikawa, who is a Tokyo municipal official, became Japan’s first openly transgender person in a public office in 2003. Still, in 2006, she said, “My mission is not over yet. There are still many who are suffering as I used to.”

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:23:43 AM

Often called the “highest elected office holder“ in Hawaii who happens to be openly transgender, Kim Coco Iwamoto is a commissioner on the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission. “For me it’s about resilience and having a strong core of self-esteem, which I was very fortunate to have the support and love my parents, my family,” she has said.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:28:28 AM

Anna Grodzka was elected in 2011 as a member of the Palikot’s Movement party in Poland, making her the world’s only openly transgender MP and the second ever in history. “The real issue is a lot more complicated,” she has said of her country’s stance on LGBT rights, “And Polish people are a lot more divided on the issue.”

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:32:49 AM

Shabnam Mausi is the first openly transgender person in India to be elected to public office, serving as part of the Madhya Pradesh State Legislative Assembly from 1998 to 2003. A film about her life was released in 2005.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:37:08 AM

Stu Rasmussen became the United States’ first openly transgender mayor after being elected in Silverton, Oregon, in 2008.

“I just happen to be transgendered [sic] - something I didn’t even know the word for until I discovered it on the Internet,” Rasmussen notes. “I’ve been a crossdresser or transvestite my whole life, only ‘coming out’ recently and thereby discovering that life goes on very nicely.”

In 2013, a musical about Rasmussen’s life debuted in Seattle, Washington.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:41:09 AM

In 2001, Camille Cabral was elected to the council of the 17th arrondissement of Paris by the French Green Party. The dermatologist made history as the first openly transgender woman in France to be elected into office and bravely defended the rights of sex workers. She served until 2008.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:44:15 AM

Nikki Sinclaire became the United Kingdom’s first openly transgender parliamentarian in 2013 when she came out in her autobiography. In the book, Sinclaire revealed she underwent gender confirmation surgery in 1995.

Sinclaire served from 2009 to 2014, when she was not re-elected.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:48:09 AM

In 2014, Luisa Revilla Urcia became the first openly transgender person to be elected to public office in Peru when she won a seat on a local council in La Esperanza in the province of Trujillo.

“I am going to promote equality and I will say no to discrimination,” she told The Washington Blade. “We want everyone to have equal access, to succeed and to achieve their goals. When there is no discrimination, there is pacification. Infrastructure and modernity is important, but promoting values and showing concern for the people matters even more.”

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 07, 2016, 03:59:21 AM

In 2014 Michelle Suárez became the first openly transgender official elected to the Uruguayan legislature, as well as the first openly trans person elected to a national assembly in the Americas.

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 21, 2016, 12:24:06 AM

The U.S. Navy will require all of its sailors to undergo transgender education training by next summer in response to a recent policy change that will allow transgender people to serve in the military.

The training will begin Nov. 1 and is intended to educate all sailors about the new policy as well as emphasize ”expectations of personal behavior” in response to the policy change.

The Navy plans to dispatch “mobile training teams” to senior leaders to conduct face-to-face meetings on how to appropriately handle the policy change. In addition, a “commander’s tool kit” will be distributed to Naval leaders that will further guide all personnel through the education process, Naval Personnel Command spokeswoman Lt. Jessica Anderson told Military.com.

However, the content of the education sessions has not yet been made public.

“Service members are expected to maintain standards of conduct and treat each other with dignity and respect,” Anderson said. “Training for sailors will be conducted by command triads via mobile training teams or DVD with a facilitation guide if the unit is in a remote area and unable to receive face-to-face training. There will also be webinars for [commanding officers] to ask questions prior to delivering training to their commands.”

All Naval personnel are required to undergo the training by July 1, 2017, which coincides with the day the Navy plans to begin accepting transgender recruits.

The Navy also plans to create procedures on how to handle sailors who want to undergo gender changes, Military.com reports. In addition, a policy already exists that requires all transgender members to use bathrooms that correspond with their “preferred” genders.

The military reversed its policy in June that had barred transgender people serving in the armed forces.

“This is the right thing to do for our people and for the force,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said at the time. “We can’t allow barriers unrelated to a person’s qualifications prevent us from recruiting and retaining those who can best accomplish the mission.”

Title: Re: In the News (with pix & galleries)
Post by: Betty on September 21, 2016, 12:37:09 AM

Philippines' first transgender lawmaker wins a standing ovation pushing for equality

The country’s first transgender lawmaker brought the House to a standing ovation on Tuesday, after she delivered an impassioned address urging fellow lawmakers to pass a dormant anti-discrimination bill.

Geraldine Roman of Bataan province spoke at the Philippines House of Representatives in Quezon City. In her speech, she asked for equal treatment for the LGBTQ community in gaining access to basic services and employment, and to put a stop to the harassment many members face at the workplace and school.

The bill prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity has been refiled repeatedly in Congress, but has remained in limbo for 17 years, according to Rappler.

The Philippines does not have laws criminalising homosexuality, but there are no laws protecting the community in the majority Roman Catholic nation.

Roman said during her speech: “My dear brother and sisters in the LGBT community, I want you to know that I am but one voice among many in this august chamber that says it is time: It is the time to pass the Anti-Discrimination Bill on the Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. And the time is now!”

The bill asks those found guilty to face a six-year jail term and fines of up to PHP 500,000 (US$10,450).

Roman recounted how her father, the late former Bataan congressman Antonino Roman, fully accepted her as transgender, despite being the stereotypical “macho politician”.

She said it was his dream for her to take the House podium to champion the rights of her community.

"Daddy, you and I need not beg my colleagues for respect. I am glad and proud that the members of the 17th Congress have not only welcomed me with open arms. They have dealt with me as a full-fledged colleague, as an equal.” Roman said, close to tears.

She noted that there have been 164 cases of hate crimes against members of the LGBTQ community since 1995 in the Philippines.

“Hopefully as you have fully accepted me, you would also accept equality among all Filipinos, LGBTQ or not,” she said.

Title: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 01:13:50 PM

As the Texas legislative session nears its official end, the state’s lieutenant governor is so set on passing a “bathroom bill” that he is threatening to hold the budget hostage and force a special session if he doesn’t get his way.

Sunday night, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s tactic seemed to be working.

The House passed a measure that would prohibit transgender students in public and charter schools from using a bathroom that matches their gender identity.

Though the legislation is much narrower, it drew comparisons to the contentious North Carolina bill that spurred boycotts and protests, marring the state’s image and ultimately forcing at least the appearance of a retreat.

And that’s not all Texas lawmakers did Sunday night. The Senate voted to advance another bill decried by LGBT advocates as discriminatory, a measure that would allow publicly funded foster care providers and adoption agencies to refuse to place children with non-Christian, unmarried or gay parents because of religious objections.

http://buffalobetties.com/news/TexasBathroomBill.mp4
Served by UncleGadget/PSK

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 01:48:13 PM

Daniielle Alexis – who you might know as Dana Malouf from Wentworth Correctional Facility (in a TV show) – has come out as transgender, saying that her TV debut on the Prisoner series this year helped her gain the confidence to speak publicly about her gender identity.

Speaking with Women's Day, the 31-year-old Western Australian actress & part-time gym manager detailed her life growing up with gender dysphoria, and how her dad struggled to accept her identity.

“Dad, however, never supported my feminine pursuits, and when he bought me a yellow boy’s mountain bike for my fifth birthday," Daniielle says.

"I bawled my eyes out, wondering why I was being punished."

Her confidence to speak publicly about her gender identity has stemmed from being on television, and says she feels like she can talk about her past "without being teased."

Daniielle took to her Instagram to talk about her identity and her fight for LGBT and transgender rights.

"I have lived in silence for over 12 years - Not prentending to be somebody else - but frieghtened (sic.) to come out with the whole truth," she says on her Instagram.

"I have lived two lives as two people and lived a journey that not many people would understand."

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 01:56:03 PM

A top Pentagon official has called on the civilian and uniformed leaders of the armed services to report on their plans to begin accepting new transgender troops by July 1, according to a memo obtained by USA TODAY.

Last year, the Pentagon rescinded its ban on transgender troops, allowing those in uniform to serve openly. The policy, established under then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter in the Obama administration, also called for the services to develop plans to educate troops about transgender issues and to accept enlisted recruits and officer candidates by this summer.

The May 8 memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work instructs the service secretaries and chiefs of the armed services to assess the military’s “readiness to begin accepting transgender applicants on July 1, 2017.” Their assessments are due May 31.

Developing a policy on accepting new transgender troops is taking on new urgency. Later this month, two transgender cadets — one at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and another at the Air Force Academy in Colorado -— are scheduled to graduate and receive degrees. But neither will be commissioned as officers because the military has not yet developed a policy to accept them.

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 02:32:48 PM

A chart hangs in a hallway between the bedrooms of a sister and her two brothers. Their parents – as many parents do – have etched lines marking the height of each child over the years.

The smallest among them is Colton, the third son of Amy and Kevin. The blond-haired, green-eyed baby loved to snuggle, said the child's mother.

Each mark represents a year of memories, she said. As the children reach new heights, they develop their own personalities and transform in ways beyond a parent's control.

By age 6, the name "Colton" had all but disappeared from the chart. It had been replaced by “Emma,” a name the child gave herself as she began to discover her gender identity and her parents decided they would not force her to be someone she is not.

Emma and her mother sifted through family photographs one day after school in April. Dozens of prints documented her six years of life. There were photos of holidays, old pets, vacations and family milestones. In one, a blue ribbon pinned on Emma's outfit says "Baby Boy."

"What?" questioned the 6-year-old, who is still learning to read. "I don't like that. I'm a girl."

The child’s logic was simple. People are different and that’s OK. Emma is happier wearing girls’ clothes and thinks a lot of the toys for boys are "weird." Some people like eating meat, she said as she snacked on a banana after school, but she likes fruit.

"I like to be a girl," said Emma, who wears her blonde hair long. "Actually, girls can be boys or girls, it doesn't matter," the child added with authority. "You can like any clothes you want, and also toys, shirts and pants."

But navigating life with a transgender child hasn’t been so simple for the young family. Emma started school last year, just as North Carolina was in the midst of a bitter debate over the rights of transgender people.

It was an issue the parents said they had thought little about. It wasn't until they saw how happy their daughter was as Emma that they knew it was cause worth the fight.

Each passing year has brought moments of joy and desperation, they said. There is so much more to learn.

The youngest of three biological boys, Amy and Kevin said they would try to dress Emma in football and baseball clothes when she was a baby, but as the child became old enough to make her own decisions, she began to protest.

“She always wanted dolls, pink things, shiny things,” said Kevin. “We tried to push her toward boy things sometimes, but she didn’t want it. It wasn’t who she was.”

It was around age 3 when Emma began showing signs of being transgender, said her mother. The two would go to clothing stores and she'd want to browse in the girls' departments, she said. When they went through the toy aisle, she was amused by the dolls.

The parents went through a roller coaster of emotions, said Amy. They first wondered if Emma was confused. She was calling all people boys, even her mother and the other females in her life.

Then, they worried about their parenting. They wanted their child to be happy and were scared they were causing long-term damage by allowing the toddler to make decisions that didn't match societal conventions.

The parents would often leave two outfits out for Emma to choose from and she would always pick the more "girly" option, her mother said.

"It was more confusing for us than it has ever been for her," Amy said. "She always went that way. It was just us catching up."

Amy and Kevin devoured all the information they could find about gender identity and transgender youth. They consulted a licensed family therapist and a sexologist.

The therapist told them they were on the right track, that as long as the child grew up feeling loved and supported she would be OK, Amy said.

She said the biggest issue was going to be other people and their beliefs, the mother recalled. "She was right about that," Amy said.

People in the Arden community have commented on a transgender flag that flies from Amy and Kevin’s front porch. Family members have refused to accept Emma as a girl, some even rejecting her new name.

Kevin runs his own towing service in Asheville. In his free time, he would browse the websites of transgender support organizations. Once he called for more information. Kevin said he was stunned to learn many groups also operate suicide prevention hotlines.

Amy didn't know about the American Civil Liberties Union or its efforts to protect the rights of transgender youth until she turned to Facebook to ask for help.

The two want to raise Emma in an environment where she feels proud. Amy is an artist who chose to stay at home while her children were young. She plans to write and illustrate a children’s book called, “Yes, My Brother Wears a Dress."

Kevin wants people to see beyond Emma’s gender. "We had no idea what was happening, but you know, she’s my baby," the Western North Carolina native said. "We accept her the way she is."

"We’re all just human beings," the father would later add. "Her being transgender doesn't do anything to anybody."

One day Emma came to her parents with a question: "Why do people call me 'he' when I'm a 'she'?" Amy recalled.

"That's about the time we started realizing that she has always known her soul was female," the mother said.

Eventually, Emma asked her parents for a new name. It was after seeing a family friend who brought her daughter, also named Emma, for a visit. That little girl was beautiful and dainty, Amy said. Their Emma was inspired.

Ever since, the parents have followed their daughter's lead. When they let Emma be herself she beams with joy, her mother said. That fills her parents' hearts with joy, too.

Amy and Kevin didn't think Emma's developing gender identity would be an issue during her first year at school. It isn't until puberty that parents and their transgender children must consider medical interventions such as hormone blockers. At such a young age, Emma's transition is purely social.

"She's there to get an education, not to worry about whether her teacher thinks she's a boy or girl," Kevin said.

The family has a photo of Emma and her brother sitting together on their front porch holding a pink and blue sign that says "first day of kindergarten 2016-2017."

Emma smiles a toothy grin at the camera. She dresses in pink leggings, a yellow T-shirt and silver, glittery shoes with pink laces. She couldn't wait for the school year to begin, her mother recalled.

Emma came home from her first day of school crying, Amy said. She said her teacher told her she had boy hair and a boy body.

The child was enrolled in kindergarten under "Colton," the name on her birth certificate, but the parents said their daughter made it clear she was a girl and she wanted to be called "Emma."

The tears were back on day two, after Emma said her teacher told her in front of the class that she had to use the boys' bathroom, essentially outing her as transgender, Amy said.

Emma came home and said, "'Now, everyone knows I'm not a girl on the outside,'" the mother recalled.

Emma was embarrassed using the boys' bathroom while wearing skirts and said the kids were asking her "so many questions," Amy said.

The parents started communicating with the school counselor that first week. Amy wrote her a letter Aug. 29 asking that staff please call their "transgender daughter" Emma.

“I appreciate your efforts on this as my main concern is for my daughter to be happy and comfortable in her skin and most important not to feel differently than her heart tells her she is,” it said.

Yet, things got so bad at the school of 540 students that the family requested a new teacher. Emma switched classes just months into the school year.

David Thompson, student services director for Buncombe County Schools, spoke with Emma's mother throughout the school year and said the two problem-solved together several times.

Thompson said he would not discuss Emma’s situation, citing ethical and privacy concerns.

The parents said Emma’s first teacher would tell her in front of the other kids that boys don’t wear skirts or have long hair.

If Emma protested she would get in trouble for talking back, they said.

Emma was devastated when she was told she had to be a pilgrim boy in the school play, they said.

The first teacher would single her out in front of the other students and make her use the bathroom located in the classroom before heading to another location at the school, her mother said.

Emma was told that if she wouldn't use the boys' restroom, she could only use single-stall facilities, said Amy.

The main building at Glen Arden Elementary is 78,738 square feet. There are four single-stall restrooms available for students and 10 multistall bathrooms.

Just weeks into the school year, Emma came home with urine-soaked clothes in her backpack, her mother said.

She told her parents that she did not want to use the boys' bathroom in gym class anymore and wasn't able to hold it, Amy said.

The parents requested a meeting with the principal. There, they said, the administrator kept asking them why they were buying "him" girl clothes and brought up North Carolina House Bill 2.

"We don’t have any problems with the kids," said Kevin. "If (the adults) would just leave her alone and let her be a girl, everything would be fine.”

The N.C. General Assembly adopted HB2 in March 2016, sparking debate about transgender bathroom use across the United States. The now-repealed law said, among other things, that people must use the bathroom that corresponds to the sex listed on their birth certificate.

Emma's parents said Glen Arden Principal Kristina Specht eventually agreed to address their daughter as Emma and use the "she" and "her" pronouns, but remained intransigent on the restroom issue.

Specht said it was best if Emma would only use the classroom bathroom that is a single-stall, the mother said. They were worried Emma might expose herself to the other girls at school, she added.

Emma is a private person who doesn't want her classmates to know she was born male, Amy said.

Buncombe County Schools declined requests for interviews with Specht and Emma's two kindergarten teachers, citing strict laws protecting student privacy.

Amy and Kevin worried that Emma might sometimes be in the hallway, the gymnasium, the cafeteria or some other multipurpose room and need a restroom, they said. Also, after kindergarten, there are few classrooms at the school with single-stall bathrooms.

The parents say a teacher told them not to be concerned. Emma will likely grow out of this "nonsense," they recall the staff member saying.

There are 12 classrooms in the school with bathrooms attached; most are reserved for the kindergarten and first-grade students.

By October, Amy and Kevin had organized a meeting with school staff and a liaison from the WNC Advocacy League. The nonprofit organization was referred to the family when the mother sought help online.

The school staff was defensive, Amy said. They offered Emma a counselor who "specializes more in those types of cases," she said.

Notes taken by Sharon Hanson, formerly of the WNC Advocacy League, from an Oct. 3 phone call with Specht say the conversation began “with blame toward parents because Emma presented as female, but all records had the name ‘Colton.’”

The principal said that no one told the school that Emma is transgender and denied any “outright discrimination” by Emma’s first teacher, according to the document.

The advocate’s notes from an Oct. 14 meeting at the school say the teacher seemed “very combative,” and that while the principal and counselor “seemed willing to help,” all were “defensive.”

The teacher said her “job is on the line if she lets Emma use the girls’ room,” according to the document.

The parents said they were eventually told Emma could use the multistalled girls' room, but only if no other option is available, and only if she goes in alone, her mother said.

In March, Emma urinated on herself again at school. She was in the lunchroom and said her teacher told her to "hold it," her mother said.

Emma didn't eat her lunch that day and sat in her soaked clothes until an adult noticed, Amy said.

A teacher's aide later told the mother that her understanding was that Emma was only was allowed use the single-stalled facilities, Amy said.

School staff had Emma walk back to the kindergarten room at the opposite end of the school to change, her mother added. "She kept saying how cold she was walking to the bathroom she could go in," Amy said.

Nearly one week later when Amy came to the school to have lunch with her children, she noticed the single-stall bathrooms in the cafeteria were locked.

http://buffalobetties.com/news/TransEmma.mp4

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 02:37:25 PM

(Emma, continued)

In an April 14 email provided to the Citizen-Times by Emma’s mother, Specht apologizes for any miscommunication.

“It was very unfortunate that the restrooms in the cafeteria were still locked the day Emma needed to use one,” she writes. “As I explained before, it wouldn't matter if the hall restroom had one or five stalls, the teachers do not let the kindergarten students leave the cafeteria unattended.

“…I am sorry if you or Emma have gotten the feeling or impression that I have treated Emma any differently than any other student, that certainly was not my intent.”

Four days later, Specht emailed Emma’s mother again and said she had spoken to her teachers to make sure everyone was on the same page.

“When Emma, or any student, needs to use the restroom when they are not in the classroom they will take her to the nearest restroom,” it says. “If they are in the cafeteria and the doors have not been unlocked, they will ask a custodian to unlock the door. (I have also reminded the custodians that those need to be unlocked every day).

“Please let me know if there is anything else that I can do to do help you and Emma feel comfortable with the situation.”

Buncombe County Schools strives to support and accommodate its transgender students by recognizing that each person is their own individual with unique needs, Thompson said.

“We look at everything on a case-by-case basis," he said. "We will identify what the options are in the building and then we work with students about what they are comfortable with and where they feel safe."

When a student identifies as transgender, a school principal will then talk with the student and their parent to understand their specific situation before making a plan, he said. The student’s needs must remain forefront despite the personal or political opinions of the staff.

"We have to make it about the child and not about the person who is making that choice," Thompson said. "What does the child need? And if we keep that child focus rather than staff focus, then we’re making the right decision."

Thompson said he is unaware of any issue where the district and a family haven’t been able to find common ground.

The cafeteria bathrooms should have never been locked at Glen Arden, Thompson said. That was unintentional. They had been locked from the day before and school staff never reopened them, he said. “The restrooms are typically not locked during the day,” Thompson said.

HB2 also would not normally be part of the conversation about transgender student bathroom use, he continued. Despite changing state and federal priorities, Buncombe County Schools has always kept its focus on the individual child, he said.

"It's not a political decision," Thompson said. "It's a personal decision.”

It can be a delicate balance to address a student's wants with safety, he said. Buncombe County Schools does not want to see any of its students become a target, Thompson said. "It's always about safety, safety of the student and knowing our population," he said.

There will always be students within any large school that are very accepting and understanding and others who are not, he said.

To avoid a transgender student feeling singled out, the challenge is to create a bathroom routine that is the same for everybody, he said. That could mean students use the hall restroom two at a time or they only use a classroom bathroom, Thompson said.

Buncombe County's school board doesn't have a policy specifically protecting transgender students or clarifying what bathrooms they can use.

The district has, however, adopted polices protecting all students against discrimination, sexual harassment, violence and bullying.

Roberson District school board member Amy Churchill declined to discuss Emma's situation.

"The issue of how to support transgender students has not come before the board since I have been on," said Churchill, who has talked with Emma's mother about her concerns.

"Of course the issue of how to support all of our students comes up in almost every discussion we have," she said.

The district relies on transgender students and their parents to voice their concerns, Thompson said.

"It is a much newer issue to deal with transgender issues at elementary schools than it is for middle and high schools who have dealt with this over several years," Thompson said. "So, we probably have, you know, greater growth to experience about how do we do this well and how do we support elementary kids.”

Buncombe County Schools is slowly engaging the district in Compassionate Schools, a nationally recognized training framework that helps educators better address the social and emotional needs of students, Thompson said.

The model doesn't deal specifically with transgender issues but does discuss gender, he said. Staff at Glen Arden and six other schools received the training May 1.

Social workers and counselors across the district also received LGBT sensitivity training last summer from Western Carolina University and Youth OUTright, a local nonprofit organization supporting LGBT students, Thompson said.  There are also more student-led support groups such as Gay Straight Alliances, he said.

Several years ago the district participated in a training done by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction that covered the intersection between LGBT students, depression and suicide risk, he said.

"This is something that is different for folks, and it is something that we're still learning, and we're open," Thompson said. "As with any situation, there might be a staff member who is uninformed, or a staff member who is not aware, and they may make a mistake, and when we find that out, we'll correct it. Again, we take these situations very individually."

The problem with dealing with the needs of transgender students on a case-by-case basis is that there is no minimum standard of support, said Allison Scott, a transgender woman who is the advocacy and media director for Tranzmission, a local nonprofit advocating for the lives of transgender people.

Too much is left up to the individual principals and their personal beliefs, she said.

Tranzmission recently started a networking group for the parents of transgender kids. Six to eight families come to each meeting, Scott said.

Many of the participants are struggling to navigate Buncombe County Schools' policies, she said. Some administrators are very friendly toward the transgender population and there are others who are not, Scott said.

It's a double standard, said Scott. Cisgender people, those whose gender identity matches their biological sex, never have to prove who they are.

"It's harassment from the top down," she said. "This administration is not understanding these issues and they are putting incredibly terrible burdens on these youth, separating them out and making them use different restrooms and different changing facilities and making these kids undergo things they shouldn't have to go through."

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy operates the largest clinic for transgender youth in the world at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. There are 150 kids under 12 in the program.

Families come to The Center for Transyouth Health and Development looking for networks and support, she said.

The National Center for Transgender Equality in 2015 completed the largest survey to date examining the experiences of transgender people in the United States.

Thirty-nine percent of the some 27,715 respondents reported experiencing serious psychological distress in the month before completing the survey, compared with only 5 percent of the U.S. population.

Forty percent had attempted suicide — a number nearly nine times the national rate of 4.6 percent.

The majority of respondents who were out or perceived as transgender while in school experienced some form of mistreatment, including verbal harassment, physical or sexual assault, the survey reports.

Seventeen percent of respondents said they dropped out of school because of the stress.

Children naturally discover and begin expressing their gender identity around ages 3 and 4, Olson-Kennedy said.

Gender is something people are born with and doesn't change over time, she said. It also doesn't always match the biological sex presented and assigned at birth.

For transgender or gender nonconforming individuals, the feeling that one's body does not reflect their gender can cause distress, anxiety and depression, she said. Children who grow up this way often hear a lot shame messages, both overt and implicit, she said.

A female child might be told not to play with a toy because it is for boys. A male child might be told that dressing a certain way is wrong. This can be especially difficult for people like Emma who are born biologically male but present as female, Olson-Kennedy said.

American culture is a lot more accepting of tomboys and girls wearing pants than boys who chose to wear skirts, she explained. To survive, transgender children have to create their own path, fighting against social norms, she said.

"The expectation is your gender identity will match your assigned sex. That is the construct in which all of us grow up, including transfolks," Olson-Kennedy said. "Now, they are going to have to swim against that."

The best predictor of healthy outcomes for kids is having supportive adults in their lives, she continued. Transgender children, like all children, need parents who accept them.

Schools are a child's second home, the doctor said. Those in charge need to ensure that transgender students are treated no differently than their peers, she said.

A lack of support or outright hostility, violence or discrimination can carry a big toll, she said.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey reported that in the past year they had avoided using a restroom in public, at work or in school because they were afraid of confrontations or other problems.

Nearly one-third said they refrained from drinking or eating so that they would not need to use the restroom, and 8 percent reported having a urinary tract infection or kidney-related medical problem as a result of avoiding restrooms in the past year.

A school can have a huge impact on positive development for young people, Olson-Kennedy said. Administrators and teachers have the opportunity to model acceptance and openness, creating a wider net of support.

"Our trans kids need compassion and love," she said. "They don't need hostility and discrimination at the age of 6."

As the school year comes to an end, Amy and Kevin are at a loss of how best to support Emma as she prepares to enter first grade. They considered transferring her to a nearby charter school, but Emma has been put on a wait list.

They are also contemplating selling their house and buying something smaller so they can afford to home-school. Amy was planning on going back to work this year. She has a car detailing business that she put on hold while her kids were young.

Amy said she might leave the work and the only home her young children have even known behind. “(Emma’s) self-worth is worth so much more than where or how we live,” she said.

The family doesn’t want to leave Glen Arden Elementary. It’s close to their home and Emma’s brother loves it there. But, they don’t know what other options they have, the parents said.

An entire year has gone by and Amy and Kevin still aren’t sure their daughter has access to the facilities she needs to be healthy and safe at school, they said.

It’s hard to stomach Emma facing discrimination and shame over something as basic as using the restroom, her parents said.

"She's feelings these feelings thinking it's all her fault,” said Kevin.

The couple have sought the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. The nonprofit civil rights organization is monitoring the situation, said Irena Como, a staff attorney.

Title IX prohibits gender discrimination in educational programs or activities, she said. All schools have an obligation to support all children. They should be inclusive, accommodating and safe, Como explained. A child should not feel singled out for any reason.

"Being able to use the bathroom where the children look like you and you are comfortable is one of the most basic things a school should ensure in fostering a safe and inclusive environment," she said.

A child's ability to learn is compromised when teachers and school administrators, who are supposed to be role models, create an environment lacking support and acceptance, Como added.

It’s a kindergarten tradition at Glen Arden for children to get an "About Me" day, said Amy. Emma came home from hers crying, her mother said.

The teacher gives each student a large piece of paper with a child drawn on it and the kids use it to tell their classmates who they are.

Emma’s poster had "Colton" written on top. The drawing the staff made showed a child with short hair, a red shirt, colorful shorts and black shoes.

That day Emma had specifically worn a pink shirt with a heart on it and matching shoes, her mother recalled. Emma’s hair was long and she had already changed her name.

According to the notes taken by the WNC Advocacy League, Emma’s teacher said she had no pink markers in her classroom.

Emma came home angry and upset, Amy said. She took the paper, taped it to the wall and redrew it. Her parents crossed out the name “Colton” and wrote “Emma.”

The young girl then colored pink around the shirt and made her hair blonde. She gave herself rosy cheeks and pink nail polish. The family still has the poster.

“I’m proud of her for doing that because she’s taking a stand," her mother said. "She's saying, 'That’s not who I am; this is who I am.'"

http://buffalobetties.com/news/EmmaTrans.mp4

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 03:22:18 PM

Hallmark is expanding the company’s line of greeting cards to be more inclusive of the experiences of transgender people. But will your local store actually carry them?

The new card depicts a butterfly on the front with the words, “You’re becoming who you’ve always been.” The interior reads, “How wonderful is that?”

The card is intended to both acknowledge the journey of transition for trans people and help the people in their lives celebrate their experiences.

“Hallmark is committed to helping people share what’s in their hearts with those they love, and we strive to be inclusive and relevant with our products,” a spokesperson for Hallmark said. “We are committed to reflecting people’s real lives and enriching their relationships, and our mission includes all people. We know how increasingly diverse our connections to each other are, and we’re here to help people express love, celebration, support or recognition in a wide range of situations.”

While Hallmark first introduced the card in 2015, it has recently made waves on after several viral tweets related to the product.

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 03:50:52 PM

22-year-old millionaire wanted to be tied to the bed and threatened with having his hair shaved off with a set of electric clipper by a transgender dom.

She claimed he said he earlier had a threesome with a team-mate and a transgender woman.

Juno said the fling ended after the star kept insisting she tie him up and shave off his hair.

“He explained that he had first discovered his attraction to trans women through a fellow player, who regularly bought the services of a trans mistress to dominate him.

“They had once had a threesome, which he had found particularly arousing. Unfortunately, his team-mate was territorial and told his friend to chip off and find his own.

“Apparently, that is where I came in, thus answering the timeless question: “What do you get the millionaire 22-year-old who has everything?”

She went on: “This man had specific fetishes. He had a thing for hair. Not my hair; his own. He wanted me to tie him to the bed and threaten to shave off his hair with a set of electric clippers.

“I obliged in this complex setup a couple of times (he was really hot), before realizing this was a terrifying glimpse of my new sexual reality.

“He offered to pay me to continue the arrangement, but I was done.”

---

A guy's fetish for head shaving may be a little strange, but not too much. What I find real strange is that she wouldn't accept the millionaire's money to do it.

If any millionaire wanted to pay me to shave his head, sure, c'mon over! I'll even dress as a girl, clown, unicorn, or goat while I'm doing it if you like. Don't barbers & hairdressers charge for haircuts & head shavings anyway?

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 04:29:54 PM

Gay Marriage rights in Taiwan will be up for legislation on Wednesday. If passed, Taiwan will be the first Asian nation to have gay marriage rights.

http://buffalobetties.com/news/TaiwanRights.mp4

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 08:20:13 PM

The family of a transgender woman who was brutally beaten to death in the street by thugs who dragged her from her home have paid tribute to their 'selfless' Dandara.

Dandara dos Santos, 42, was kicked, punched, and hit with shoes and a plank of wood in front of residents in Fortaleza, Ceara state, Brazil.

Harrowing footage of the attack was shared by police in an attempt to catch her killers.

It shows Dandara begging the savage attackers to spare her life, but her pleas fall on deaf ears.

A witness described the attack as a 'cruel lynching'.

Dandara's sister described her 'never saying no' and 'always being helpful'.

'Wherever we asked her to go, she would. She never said no,' Sonia Maria said.

In the video, Dandara lies on the ground covered in blood and struggling to stand, her callous attackers simply lift her into a wheelbarrow and roll her away to a back alley where she was beaten more and shot.

The person who filmed the clip is heard saying in Portuguese 'they will kill the f*****' and laughing while the attackers make cruel taunts about her hormone-therapy induced breasts and hurl homophobic insults.

The attack is one of the latest in a sickening trend in Brazil for targeting transsexuals and transvestites. It is estimated that someone is killed every 25 hours in Brazil for being suspected of being gay or transgendered. 40% of those were transgendered.

---

WARNING! The video is the graphic, violent, brutal last few minutes of Dandara's life just before she was killed. You may want to skip it if you can't handle it. She is later rolled off to an alley, beaten more & shot in the face. But she still lived after being shot, so they beat her to death.

This is beyond hatred of trans & gays... These sick bastards were laughing & enjoying it. The neighborhood was watching, laughing, & cheering them on too, while yelling insults at her.

I no longer want to be President in 2020. I wanna be God so I can take these sick devils, all those who laughed, cheered, & yelled insults, chain them to their homes, & burn down the whole neighborhood. Vote for me for God... I couldn't be any worse than the current "Gods" are doing, & probably be a whole lot better at it. Look at all the shyt in the world, & all the shyt that has happened throughout history. Where are these "Gods" when you need them?

Don't tell me everything is according to God's "plan". Look around you, & look at history. If it's a "plan", it's a damn awful shytty plan, & it isn't working.

http://buffalobetties.com/news/Santos.mp4

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Betty on May 22, 2017, 08:32:25 PM

Eight suspects have been arrested in connection with the murder of Dandara dos Santos, a Brazilian transgender woman who was kicked, punched, and hit with a plank of wood before being shot in the face twice and bludgeoned to death.

The 42-year-old Brazilian was pulled from her home in Fortaleza. A witness says the attackers used rocks, sticks, a plank, & even flip-flops, to beat her, calling the incident “a cruel lynching.” The assailants dumped dos Santos in a wheelbarrow and took her to a back alley where she was murdered.

Five men were initially arrested—two adults and three minors. In all, eight men have now been charged–four adults and four teens, one of whom turned himself in. Homophobic and transphobic violence is a major issue in Brazil: In 2016, one LGBT person was killed approximately every 25 hours, with 42% of the victims identifying as transgender.

Unfortunately with these types of crimes against gays & transgendered in Brazil, Russia, & many Muslim dominated countries, the criminals rarely get more than a slap on the wrists even when found guilty in their courts.

This sort of thing is going on every minute somewhere in the world. And how many kids, just in you're local town's school, or neighborhood are getting harassed, tormented, or beaten just for being suspected of being gay, a little fem, different, or simply not macho enough? Your own town, neighborhood, school, or workplace is not safe from these sickos.

Title: Re: In the news
Post by: Robyn Jodie on May 23, 2017, 12:41:58 AM

Any time a politician says he is doing something "to protect the children," hang on tightly to your wallet and your civil rights; you can be sure he is after one or the other.

Title: I Am Jazz returns June 28
Post by: Betty on May 30, 2017, 05:05:18 PM

When the TLC reality show, "I Am Jazz" returns in June for its third season, audiences will watch 16-year-old Transgender Jennings learn to drive, date and break down from the pressures of being a transgender teen.

In the newly released trailer for the series, Jennings practices driving with her mom, admitting, “I really hate driving,” and also reveals to a friend that she is “for sure” open to dating transgender people.

But viewers will also see the teen confront numerous hardships in the new episodes.

The upcoming season will also document her interview with conservative TheBlaze host, Tomi Lahren.

I Am Jazz returns for season 3 on June 28 at 9 p.m. ET on TLC.

http://buffalobetties.com/news/IAJazz.mp4

Title: London Tower Fire could have been prevented
Post by: Betty on June 14, 2017, 05:09:08 PM

Highly flammable cheap plastic cladding, materials, trim, & insulation burned like an oil fire. Tenants have been complaining of power surges that caused their appliances to smoke & burn. Witness claimed his refrigerator started smoking & exploded just before the fire. Workers were just working on gas lines earlier too.

Recent & past complaints were made by tenants & neighbors about the fire safety of the building. There were 120 family-sized apartments in the building. Estimates say there may have been 400-500 people living in there. Dozens are reported missing. Many of the tenants were poor, handicapped, disabled, elderly, or immigrants. So nobody will be sure how many are missing until they check the rental records & count the bones.

So why is this on our sissy news? We get more visitors from the London area than any other city in the world (The NYC area is a close second). With 400-500 people occupying that building, there's a good chance that a few are visitors to Betty's, & definitely a few of our visitors had family or friends in the building.

http://buffalobetties.com/news/LondonFire.mp4

*Note: To prevent more than one video or audio from playing at the same time, make sure your browser is not set to "auto-play" & so it doesn't try to play all the media on a page at the same time. With auto-play shut off, you click on the audio or video your want to play so you don't get a mess of stuff trying to load & play all at once.

Google how to shut off auto-play for your specific browser, if it came with it on, or accidentally got turned on by a bad app. Surfing is a lot easier & peaceful with it shut off, & it will block some audio/video ads too. You'll also save a lot of bandwidth & browser overloading it your browser isn't trying to load every audio & video on a page even if you don't want it. You can still view, hear, or download all the media you want by clicking on it instead.

Audio-syc problems can usually be corrected by backtracking or moving ahead a couple seconds in the video.

Title: Ireland Gets First Openly Gay Prime Minister
Post by: Betty on June 14, 2017, 09:11:20 PM

When Leo Varadkar assumed power in Ireland on Wednesday, he blazed a trail of firsts: At 38 years old, the biracial son of an Indian immigrant father and Irish mother became the country's youngest-ever taoiseach, or prime minister.

He also became the first openly gay man elected to lead the Republic of Ireland, where homosexuality was illegal until just 24 years ago.

Now, as newly elected leader of the ruling Fine Gael party, Varadkar has delivered his first speech to Parliament and received his seal of office from the country's president, Michael D. Higgins.

"The government that I lead will not be one of left or right, because those old divisions don't comprehend the political challenges of today," Varadkar told lawmakers Wednesday.

Despite Varadkar's firsts, Irish media and voters are "not obsessed about his sexuality or his racial origins," The Guardian's Henry McDonald said. Rather, it's the center-right politician's policies that have been the subject of significant debate.

"Some people label him a Thatcherite," McDonald says. "They think he's a kind of a son of Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister — right of center, very pro-free market, you know, in the style of Thatcher and Ronald Reagan."

These rightward-leaning economic stances stand in contrast with Varadkar's generally liberal positions on abortion rights and other social issues — and they drew criticism from Varadkar's rival for his party's leadership, Simon Coveney. Varadkar, who defeated Coveney earlier this month, appointed him the party's deputy on Tuesday.

Varadkar cemented his win Wednesday, with a confirmation parliamentary vote of 57 to 50, with 47 abstentions.

His predecessor, Enda Kenny, lauded the man he'd nominated as his replacement.

"As the country's youngest holder of this office, he speaks for a new generation of Irish women and Irish men," he said earlier this month, according to the BBC. "He represents a modern, diverse and inclusive Ireland and speaks for them like no other, an Ireland in which each person can fulfill their potential and live their dreams."

Title: Roem May Become First Trans State Legislator
Post by: Betty on June 14, 2017, 09:28:51 PM

Roem won the Democratic nomination for Virgina State Legislator Tuesday after beating fellow Democrats Steve Jansen, Andrew Adams and Mansimran Kahlon. Now, her focus is on defeating Marshall who has served 13 terms in the legislature and was once called transgender people “gender confused.” Marshall was also responsible for the Marshall-Newman Amendment which made a ban on same-sex marriage part of the Virginia state constitution until it was overturned by a federal judge.

Recently, Marshall has championed legislation that would bar transgender people from using the bathroom that conforms with their gender identity in government buildings. Roem sees her potential victory as a landmark event in transgender acceptance. “Let me make this really clear for you: When the people of the 13th District elect a transgender woman to replace the most anti-LGBT legislator in the South, it will be an act of certainty, and it will be a defining moment that will resonate across the country,” Roem said.

“Danica Roem is a leader in a national movement of trans candidates who are determined to become a voice for their community in the halls of power,” Aisha Moodie-Mills, CEO of Victory Fund, a political action committee dedicated to increasing the number of LGBT public officials in government, said. “This historic primary win sets up a general election battle where voters will choose between ‘Bigot Bob’ Marshall—the most anti-LGBTQ member of the Virginia state legislature—or Danica, a proud trans woman who is committed to representing all people in her district. I am confident voters will choose leadership over divisiveness and make Danica the first out trans candidate to win and serve in a state legislature.”

Virginia voters will have the opportunity to elect Roem on November 7th.

Title: Trans Teachers
Post by: Betty on June 15, 2017, 02:04:47 PM

Growing up, Kelly Jenkins spent his spare time playing sports. He was an all-star player on the baseball team at his school in the mountains of east Tennessee. And sometimes, he wore lipstick to practice.

As he grew up, Jenkins felt like he wanted to become a teacher.

"Everybody told me it was a horrible idea," Jenkins remembers. "They said, 'Nobody will ever hire you as a transgender woman.' "

Transgender students have been in the spotlight this year – from President Trump's decision to rescind rules aimed at protecting them, to the Texas legislature battling over a bathroom bill.

There has been less focus, though, on how school can be a difficult place for transgender teachers.

When Jenkins finished college, he picked the most masculine profession he could imagine: firefighting.

He hoped that by battling blazes he'd somehow convince himself that he wasn't transgender. That didn't happen. Instead, Jenkins learned that his favorite part of the job was doing fire safety presentations for kids at schools.

Eventually, Jenkins transitioned to a woman and decided to become a teacher, started using female pronouns and taking hormones. Jenkins knew that she had to be stealth about her gender identity, presenting as a man at work and a woman at home.

"I didn't tell anybody anything," Jenkins recalls in talking about the start of her career more than a decade ago at Knox County Schools in Tennessee.

However, a few months into teaching, Jenkins confided in a coworker. "She went to my principal the next day and told him."

When it came time for the district to renew her contract, Jenkins was not rehired. "They said, 'We're not hiring you because you are transgender,' " Jenkins says.

In a statement, Knox County Schools did not comment on Jenkins's specific situation. However, officials said the district is an equal opportunity employer, which does not discriminate based on sex. The statement did not mention gender.

Experts say it's hard to know exactly how many transgender teachers there are in the country because they often don't disclose their status, fearing discrimination. Across the country, estimates show less than one percent of the population identifies as transgender.

Jenkins says over the next few years a pattern emerged: get a new job, then someone finds out, and — within the year — her contract isn't renewed.

"In some of my classes, like half of my kids were pulled out."

Jenkins says it wasn't just the parents who were concerned that she was transgender. Her colleagues stopped including her in staff meetings.

"It felt like walking into silence," she says. "And the one thing that made it all bearable was the students."

But, it was ultimately too much, and Jenkins left teaching.

"I delivered pizzas for a living, with a bachelor's in forestry and a postgraduate certificate in education."

In Georgia, Nathan Williams taught high school English for more than a decade. Williams always wanted to become Natalie, but one big thing stood in the way.

"I love teaching," Williams says. "And the idea of losing that was so scary."

After years of deliberating and working up the courage, Williams started taking hormones and — like Jenkins — presented as male at school and female at home.

She says she rarely ventures out of her home. Worried about her safety as a transgender woman, she limits outings to the necessary errands. But, one weekend, Williams decided to make a quick trip to a nearby cosmetics store.

She walked in – wearing a dress and makeup – and spotted one of her students across the store.

"She came up to me and I was like, 'Well...uh...' " Williams remembers stuttering, until she managed to get out a question: "Does this freak you out?"

"And without missing a beat, she just said, 'No, you always told us to be who we really are.' "

Soon after, Williams told her school. Although she kept her job, she says she never feels totally secure.

She says some of her colleagues avoid eye contact when passing in the school hallway. "They don't look at me. They turn away if I try and talk with them."

And parents call up with concerns. Williams says she's been summoned to the principal's office four times in the past year and a half. In her ten years teaching as a male, she says she was never called down.

Still, Natalie Williams says it's worth it. She's hoping students see her as a role model.

Kelly Jenkins has found that sense of fulfillment, too. She moved 900 miles away to find it.

The hallways are quiet and the chairs tucked in at Wellesley Middle School outside of Boston. It's early morning – well before the students arrive – and Jenkins is peering into a bucket of dissection frogs.

"So, are these leopard frogs?" Jenkins asks. She's a teaching assistant here, hoping to get licensed soon, prepping for a seventh grade frog dissection.

Carefully picking up a frog, Jenkins inspects it. "They're going to open it up and check the tongue out, which it still has. That's always good!"

When the halls fill with students, Jenkins is busy racing between classes and working with different students. One boy is eager to say he's a big fan of Ms. Jenkins.

David Lussier, superintendent of Wellesley Public Schools, says that Jenkins's young fan is one among many. "Everything that I've heard has been very positive."

He says he hasn't received any pushback from parents or community members. His explanation for this is simple: "First and foremost, Kelly is an excellent educator."

Jenkins has now been teaching in Wellesley for two years. Lussier says she wasn't hired for being transgender, but she has helped the district become more open. "Having Kelly's guidance on that has been a huge help to us."

He says this is particularly true as the district accommodates students who are questioning their gender. Jenkins has spoken with classes, launched a local TV show and mentored students.

Mace, who is now in high school, is one of those students. "It's really nice because it's not really easy to find other trans people out in the world."

For Jenkins, this is the first time in her teaching career that she's not dreading the end of the school year.

"I pinch myself because I've never got to taste this. I get to go home and walk my dogs and not worry, 'Am I going to be fired?' "

Kelly Jenkins says she's saving up in the hopes of getting licensed as a science teacher in her new home state.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on June 15, 2017, 02:11:14 PM

The Israeli Embassy marked LGBT Pride Month with a reception for Jewish and Israeli activists and leaders.

About 100 people attended the event, which featured an address by Talleen Abu Hana, an Arab Christian from Nazareth who won the first Miss Trans Israel beauty pageant in 2016.

The embassy also paid tribute to the 49 victims of last year’s massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida.

“Just as the noxious fumes of anti-Semitism ultimately poison all of society, so too hatred towards the LGBT community threatens all of us,” Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, said in brief remarks.

He also asserted that Israel is the sole country in the Middle East with the “values that progressives are supposed to champion,” referring to Israel’s legal and popular support for gay rights.

Abu Hana spoke about her experience as a transgender woman in Israel. After winning the beauty pageant, she was runner-up at the Miss Trans Star International Pageant and a contestant on Israel’s “Big Brother.”

As a boy growing up in Nazareth, Abu Hana grappled with an intense internal conflict between “body and soul,” she said. When she showed an interest in women’s clothes and makeup, her father lashed out at her.

“Transforming from the most beloved child to the one everyone hated … I was lost and started thinking of killing myself,” she said.

Abu Hana moved to Tel Aviv, where the LGBT community is known to be strong and accepting. One evening while hanging out with new friends, a transgender woman was talking about her transition.

“I didn’t get what she was talking about,” Abu Hana recalled.

Another male friend said, “She’s transgender, just like you.”

Abu Hana was taken aback and insisted she was not. The male friend then took her face in his hands and said, “You are going to be a woman and a beautiful one.”

In an interview before the Pride event, Talleen emphasized the importance of moving to Tel Aviv, where the support she found as a Christian and an Arab facilitated her transition.

Israel’s universal health service covers the costs of sex-reassignment surgery.

“The law is on your side,” Talleen said, referring to the ease of changing one’s gender and name on government-issued documents.

After winning Miss Trans in 2016, Abu Hana quickly rose to fame in Israel, where she is often mobbed by fans eager to take a selfie. In addition to modeling, she speaks to transgender youth at shelters in Tel Aviv and most recently at Casa Ruby, an LGBTQ community center in Washington. She said she is humbled to be “an ambassador for peace between one’s soul [and] one’s body.”

Abu Hana now lives with her boyfriend, who she met before her transition on a night of dancing at a Tel Aviv club.

“I’m lucky to be an Israeli,” she said. “Being an Israeli means being truly free.”

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Robyn Jodie on June 15, 2017, 03:44:52 PM

Autoplay Off??
Ran into a major problem on Youtube with autoplay off. Clicking on a video no longer worked -- I had to click it, click stop, click it again, or else do a page-reload after the video came up. So I am back to "autoplay on" and shut off the sound (nice of Firefox to provide that option in tabbed mode).

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on June 15, 2017, 05:05:31 PM

That's odd. I have autoplay off in my Firefox, & everything works great... surfing is so much better. I use the Pale Moon browser over 90% of the time though, it's a more streamlined, & more secure version of Firefox, with a lot of the useless fluff removed. But I use Firefox as a hack tool, to download audio/video or streams from sites, & the news where they don't let you download & save the media on the page. So the media must function or I can't use Firefox.

Here's my Autoplay settings for Firefox in about:config

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on June 15, 2017, 05:13:58 PM

Here's my autoplay settings for Pale Moon. Almost, but not quite the same thing.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on June 15, 2017, 05:39:07 PM

These are the only plugins I have installed on Firefox & Pale Moon. Perhaps you got a plugin or extension overriding your browser settings. Of course, you should never have a google plugin or extension installed on a non-google browser, they tend to take over the browser so it does what they want instead of what you want or the browser was designed for.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on June 15, 2017, 05:54:00 PM

Oops. At some Youtube videos, & at our private movie section, you may have to double-click the play button in the lower left corner of the video to get it to play, after you click on the video. That is, one click on the play button will set it to pause, & the next click on it makes it play.

It depends if your browser is using flash, HTML5, or VLC player to open the video. All Betty's videos are compatible with all 3, but the method need to open or start the video may vary. Usually the double click on the lower left play button works on all players, browsers, & settings to start the video.

Autoplay tries to use all methods automatically until it finds which one works. Unfortunately it often tries to play all or load all the videos on the page rather than just the one you want to see.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Robyn Jodie on June 16, 2017, 01:53:37 PM

Exactly my experience. Thank you.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on June 16, 2017, 02:58:17 PM

Simple enough to double click on something... no sweat. Many apps, programs, features, operating systems, & even some of our movies or their folders require a double click. A click is the easiest thing in the world to do except blinking. Clicking twice is almost as easy.

I'll estimate 1/4 to 1/3 of everything I click on requires a double click no matter what browser or operating system I use. In Linux, & windows in its default settings, almost everything requires a double click. It was considered an anti-goof mechanism so you don't accidentally click on stuff, delete stuff, or change stuff that you didn't want to.

It's handy if you got pets or kids, so they don't click on stuff if they get near your computer, & screw up you machine or send an email to Mars just by bumping something. I have my windows & Linux set for single click rather than the default double click though, but there's still a lot that requires a double click anyway.

I'm lucky that all my pets learned within weeks not to touch keyboards... I got a lot of keyboards. I think screaming as soon as they stepped on one as babies made them figure out early to stay away from them. It's usually pretty quiet around here, & I don't scream often, so it was easy for them to figure out.

Pets are a lot like kids -- if you yell & shout orders at them all the time, it gets confusing to them, so they don't know what to do. Or they think whatever they do will get a yell or orders, so it doesn't matter what they do. I like to keep it short, & simple so they don't get confused about what I mean.

But the cats have caused some accidental clicks. They'll rub their face against my hands while I'm typing or using the mouse, causing a click or miss-type. I also gave up trying to get cats not to step or sit on a remote control or portable radio nearby. I guess I never screamed loud or enough when they stepped on them. I just say "Hey!" & push them off of it. And, although they won't step on a keyboard, if I close the lid on a laptop, they can't wait to step on it or sit on it.

With cats, I don't try to make them learn too much & make it confusing, that way they actually learn more. I live alone. So except for if there's somebody at the door or a phone call, they never hear me speak unless I'm talking to them. With everybody texting, hardly anybody calls anymore... I just get texts & messages most of the time. So when I talk, they perk up & pay attention trying to figure out what I'm saying.

Title: Oregon State Approves Third Gender
Post by: Betty on June 16, 2017, 03:08:09 PM

In a victory for people who identify as neither male nor female. Oregon became the first U.S. state to offer a third gender option on state-issued identifications.

The change approved by the State allows Oregonians to select “X” for “not specified” as their gender, as it appears on state IDs, driver licenses and driver permits.

“Our lives are so gendered, which is why it’s important that driver licenses and other forms of IDs recognize people who are non-binary,” said Basic Rights Oregon co-executive director Nancy Haque, whose organization campaigned for the change. “Removing barriers for people is critical to helping all of us live healthy, productive lives.”

The change comes almost a year after a court decision that prompted it. Last June, an Oregon judge granted Jamie Shupe, a retired Army tank mechanic, the right to legally identify as non-binary. The decision marked the first legal recognition of someone being neither female nor male.

“In order to comply with the order, the Department of Motor Vehicles needed about a year to implement the change,” the department said in a statement Thursday. “Time was required to study state laws, update computer systems, work with business partners such as law enforcement and courts, and change administrative rules.”

Thursday’s decision is the latest in Oregon’s progressive track record on LGBTQ issues. In November, the state became the first in the country to elect an openly LGBTQ governor ― Kate Brown, a bisexual woman who first began serving as governor in 2015 following Gov. John Kitzhaber’s resignation.

While Oregon is the first U.S. state to offer the option, the “X” is also in use in Australia, New Zealand and the Canadian province Ontario.

California could be next. The state Senate is considering a bill that would allow residents to identify as non-binary on all official state issued documents, including birth certificates.

Title: Canada Extends Trans Protections
Post by: Betty on June 16, 2017, 03:34:07 PM

While many LGBTQ advocates in the U.S. have been fighting against retrenchment of their rights, Canada set an international precedent for the protection of transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

The Canadian Senate passed Bill C-16 by a 67-11 vote. The bill adds prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act, amends the criminal code to extend protections against hate speech and allows judges to take into consideration when sentencing whether a crime was motivated by hatred of the victim’s gender identity or expression.

Title: Maine Trans Residents Face Discrimination
Post by: Betty on June 17, 2017, 04:31:13 AM

A survey of transgender life in the state of Maine suggests transgender people in Maine face discrimination in health care, housing and the criminal justice system.

Results were released Thursday by members of the Maine-based Health Equity Alliance and the Maine Transgender Network (MaineTransNet) at a news conference in Portland. Proponents called the survey the largest ever done on transgender life.

“This data gives voice to the experiences of Mainers from Aroostook to York,” Quinn Gormley, president of MaineTransNet, said in a statement. “We, as advocates, face a constant struggle to impress upon providers, politicians and the public the severity of discrimination faced by transgender Mainers. These statistics come as no surprise to anyone in our community.”

In the Maine report, 43 percent of respondents who saw a health care provider in the past year reported at least one negative experience, including being refused treatment, verbally harassed or physically or sexually assaulted.

The survey reported that 28 percent of Maine respondents experienced some form of housing discrimination in the past year, including being evicted or being denied a home or apartment because they are transgender.

And the survey of Mainers said 62 percent of transgender people who had encounters with police reported being verbally harassed, referred to as the wrong gender or physically assaulted. Fifty-nine percent said they felt uncomfortable asking the police for help.

“From employment to housing, to education, to police violence, sexual assault, access to health care and beyond, transgender Mainers experience disparities that can scarcely be compared to the lived reality of the general population,” Maggie Campbell, director of communications and development for the Health Equity Alliance, said in a statement.

Title: Catholics pray to scrap trans school policy
Post by: Betty on June 17, 2017, 04:45:37 AM

Catholics came from across the state of Missouri Tuesday to pray for restoration of Catholic principles in the controversy caused by a Diocese of Jefferson City initiative pushing acceptance of gender ideology in its schools.

Roughly 120 Catholics traveled to be part of a pilgrimage conducted at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima adjacent to the diocesan chancery in the middle of a workday, praying the rosary together with two diocesan priests in the 93-degree heat.

Jefferson City Bishop John Bishop Gaydos has defended the new policy, insisting to priests in an internal memo that it promotes Catholic moral teaching. He dismissed opposition and subsequent media reporting as “public furor” coming from “outside our diocese.” He also called the pushback “falsehoods” and a “misinformation campaign.”

The policy makes the diocese a forerunner in the U.S., according Superintendent of Schools Sister Elizabeth Youngs, who had told the Jefferson City News Tribune for a June 4 report, “We probably are in the lead.”

The policy — referenced by the diocese as a “pastoral process of accompaniment and dialogue” — allows pastors to admit transgender students to diocesan schools and also encompasses anyone from a “non-traditional” family such as children in household led by same-sex couples or living with cohabiting parents.

To justify the policy, the diocese cites #250 of Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia, which says families with members experiencing same-sex attraction should be given respectful pastoral guidance and assistance in understanding and carrying out God’s will in the their lives.

Title: U.M. Church Appoints Trans Deacon
Post by: Betty on June 17, 2017, 04:50:54 AM

The United Methodist Church is raising brows after appointing its first "non-binary" transgender deacon.

Deacon M. Barclay does not identify with either gender and prefers to be referred to by the pro-noun "they," the United Methodist News Service reports.

Barclay spent 12 years studying theology and training to become a minister in the church. There were times when those years were filled with uncertainty and a crisis of faith.

"I struggled with how much harm the church had done, not only to LGBT people but to other marginalized people. I wasn't sure I wanted to be a part of that… My faith was still there. It was just really hard to imagine the church living out what I think God is trying to do in the world right now… I understand the rules of the church… But here's the truth: I'm queer, and I'm called to this. I tried to walk way."

The topic of LGBTQ clergy has been a source of heated debate in the Methodist church in recent years. Texas rejected Barclay's request to become a deacon.

It wasn't until Barclay went to Chicago that she finally got appointed.

The Methodist church is not the only place where transgender and queer ministers are popping up. The First Baptist Church of Greenville opened its doors to LGBTQ ministers and weddings in 2015

First Baptist Greenville cut ties with the Southern Baptist convention in the early 1990s. It's now a member of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

However, the fellowship opposed the church's decision.

"The foundation of a Christian sexual ethic is faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman and celibacy in singleness," the CBF said in a statement.

Title: Trump bans Trans from the military
Post by: Betty on July 26, 2017, 12:30:37 PM

Trump said he will ban transgender people from serving in the military in any capacity, a reversal of the Obama administration decision that would have allowed them to serve.

The missive comes after Trump's defense secretary, retired Gen. Jim Mattis, delayed the implementation of the plan to accept transgender troops by six months. The decision came one day before the deadline for the military to update its medical standards to accommodate transgender service members.

Under Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, the military lifted the ban on transgender troops and was given one year to determine how to implement a policy that would allow transgender service members to receive medical care and would ban the services from involuntarily separating people in the military who came out as transgender.

Thousands of troops currently serving in the military are transgender, and some estimates place the number as high as 11,000 in the reserves and active duty military, according to a Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Defense Department.

Brad Carson, a former congressman who worked on transgender policy deliberations under the Obama administration, said in an interview Wednesday that months of delays last year in implementing a change in transgender policy “left the door open” to Trump's scrutiny now.

“That being said, just from the tweets it seems as if what he is doing is rolling back already implemented policies, which will force out several hundred openly transgender service members out of the military,” Carson said. “This will be personal tragedy for them, but it will be a professional loss for the military, and it's going to invite litigation that will distract the Department of Defense for months, if not years, to come.”

Carson predicted that the courts ultimately could have a larger hand now in deciding transgender policy in the military, and that the Pentagon could lose some of its say in how to implement it in the process.

Carson said he is unclear who is driving Trump's decision. While the president tweeted Wednesday that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were involved, Carson said he talked to “every single chief” while he was working on transgender policy and none of them was in favor of a full ban.

Trump's announcement comes two weeks after the House rejected an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would have blocked the Pentagon from offering gender transition therapies to active duty service members. Twenty-four Republicans joined all 190 Democrats voting to reject the measure.

Title: R.I.P. Tom Petty
Post by: Betty on October 03, 2017, 07:00:14 PM

Tom Petty passed away last night of a heart attack at the age of only 66.

Here's a mix of some of his popular stuff:
http://unclegadget.com/media/Petty.mp3
(13.9mb, 39.5 minutes mp3 V3)

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on October 04, 2017, 09:13:24 AM

Sick elistist pig!

This is the leader of one of the most powerful nations on earth?

http://unclegadget.com/media/pres.mp4

http://unclegadget.com/media/TrumpTowers.mp4

Title: Re: R.I.P. Tom Petty
Post by: sissy_precious on November 03, 2017, 11:40:50 PM

:-[ I was fortunate enough to see him in concert with Bob Dylan. I loved Tom. His music was wonderful, he was unique.

Title: Re: R.I.P. Tom Petty
Post by: Betty on November 04, 2017, 09:56:26 AM

I have to admit in recent years, I haven't listened to much Tom Petty except for a couple favorites. When I made the mix above, it was the most Tom Petty I heard in a row in a long time, but enjoyed it.

Even as a kid, I was never one of those people to regularly listen to a whole album all the way through, except for when it was brand new. I didn't even like listening to one artist or band continuously for a lot time. But most of my friends didn't mind listening the the same (favorite) song over & over again. I'd probably go nuts if I had to hear the same song, even if it was a favorite, more than 3 times in a day.

Early on in my house, my brothers & I mixed our favorites onto reel to reel tape. It wasn't a state of the art expensive deck, but sounded just as good as the stereos in the house & most albums of the time... or at least we would put a stack of albums or 45s on a record changer. That way you only listened to one 12-23 minute side of an album before it jumped to the next album.

Now that I made the Tom Petty mix, I found I played & enjoyed it quite a few times already. But my original mix of it is pretty good hi-fi quality, not this compressed version for web use.

I had started making a mix of his best music videos & concert video clips, but ran into delays & problems. It seems his most popular music video & concerts were produced in the VHS era. In those days American broadcasters, video producers, & networks of the time felt 270-320p video was good enough for their viewers even though most TVs of the time were capable of 400-550p. In America, we were lucky when they'd broadcast a big NFL game or special in 360-400p, while most of eastern Europe was regularly enjoying TV in over 400-500p. Most American broadcast video was produced or broadcast in 320p or less.

Although 16mm film was capable of DVD quality, you had to use good film, good lighting, & a good camera to do it. The Tom Petty concert films appear to be produced on poor quality 16mm film & cameras, probably much like someone would use to film their wedding before VHS tape. Those little 8mm cameras of course, looked no better than VHS.

Before DVDs, & before good film quality video projectors cost less than $10,000 I ran my local, weekly movie nights for many years on a pair of old 16mm projectors. We leased the reels of films from the distributors. Almost all the popular mainstream films were at least DVD quality or better. So the ability to produce & play good quality moving pictures on a budget was around for over 80 years. It's just that some didn't bother, or didn't know better -- or the originals are long lost, forgotten, or destroyed, & were copied in inferior quality before they were lost.

I was also looking for Tom Petty's last ever audio or video performances too. But there's a lot of controversy over which ones were the last as companies make a mad dash to make money claiming they have the last or "lost" recordings. Dates of the recordings were deliberately changed for sales, where in the video Tom clearly looks a bit younger, or the concert is recognized by many as having taken place a few years ago.

Maybe friends of his will eventually come forward & confirm which ones are really his last recordings.

So the Tom Petty music video mix I planned for last month, looks like it will be a winter project instead at this rate.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on November 15, 2017, 12:24:13 PM

YAY AUSTRALIA!

With over 80% voter turn out, Australia has voted to approve gay marriage by over 61%. Every state voted in favor.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on November 18, 2017, 03:57:49 AM

Coinhive is a popular browser-based service that offers website owners to embed a JavaScript to utilise their site visitors' CPUs power to mine the Monero cryptocurrency for monetisation. It was hacked last month.

An unknown hacker managed to hijack Coinhive's CloudFlare account that allowed him/her to modify its DNS servers and replace Coinhive's official JavaScript code embedded into thousands of websites with a malicious version.

Apparently, the hacker reused an old password to access Coinhive's CloudFlare account that was leaked in a Kickstarter data breach in 2014.

According to Cloudflare (who also hosts thousands of hackers, spammers, & scammers), "Tonight, Oct. 23th at around 22:00 GMT our account for our DNS provider (Cloudflare) has been accessed by an attacker. The DNS records for coinhive.com have been manipulated to redirect requests for the coinhive.min.js to a third party server." Coinhive said in a blog post today.

"This third-party server hosted a modified version of the JavaScript file with a hardcoded site key."

As a result, thousands of sites using coinhive script were tricked for at least six hours into loading a modified code that mined Monero cryptocurrency for the hacker rather than the actual site owners.

Coinhive gained media attention in past few weeks after world's popular torrent download website, The Pirate Bay, was caught secretly using this browser-based cryptocurrency miner on its site.

Immediately after that, more than thousands of other websites also started using Coinhive as an alternative monetisation model by utilising their visitors' CPU processing power to mine digital currencies.

Even hackers are also using Coinhive like services to make money from compromised websites by injecting a script secretly.

Mining for virtual currency is being examined as an alternative to third-party ads as a way to generate revenue and it was the Pirate Bay's pilot trial which propelled the idea into the spotlight.

Due to a coding error, users spotted the website's miner as it pulled huge amounts of CPU power from visitor systems, rather than 20 to 30 percent as originally intended.

Following visitor backlash, the Pirate Bay admitted to testing the miner as a "way to get rid of all the ads."

Other parties have begun exploring mining, too. According to a report from Adguard, 2.2 percent of the top 100,000 websites on the Alexa list are now mining through user PCs -- but few are asking for permission first.

============

The use of American companies to push Russian hackers & propaganda goes beyond social media sites like Facebook. Russians also used American internet services to keep their websites up and hide their true owners, according to internet records and two executives at internet routing companies.

The firms routing these websites' internet traffic include Cloudflare, a major Silicon Valley corporation, and a Ukrainian company's subsidiary in Florida.

The websites are part of a network run by the Internet Research Agency, a troll army based in St. Petersburg, Russia, with ties to the Kremlin. The groups, with names like "Don't Shoot Us" and "Black Matters," posed as black American activists. They posted videos showing police brutality against African Americans and attempted to organize protests across the United States. But they need internet infrastructure to keep sites online.

The use of the routing companies shows how Russian trolls & hackers tried to mask their efforts that also used Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, and other popular social media platforms.

Cloudflare provides protection from hackers, placing its computer servers between clients' websites and the outside internet. This allows Cloudflare to absorb cyberattacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service attacks that flood a website and take it down.

But Cloudflare's services can also be used as a mask, because the outside world can no longer identify who operates the website -- or the location of its physical home.

That's because Cloudflare serves as a guard that receives incoming internet traffic. It offers this service to legitimate companies, but in this case, it is also assisting the Russian trolling & hacking operations.

Cloudflare admits its role as a proxy service for trolls & hackers, but it said "terminating a customer wouldn't actually remove their content from the internet." Cutting off that customer would, however, stop them from using that particular American firm as a shield.

Cloudflare said it would not consider dropping these Russia-linked websites & hackers unless compelled to by a court order.

"Cloudflare does not view its role to pass judgment of content that runs on our infrastructure and our network," the company's general counsel, Doug Kramer said. "An open internet and an opportunity for all voices is a good principle. If we try to regulate in any way with our resources and capabilities, we would do more harm than good."

Cloudflare is, however, willing to pass along public complaints to the websites' operators, Kramer said.

============

Betty's has always blocked/firewalled all ISPs used by Cloudflare & it's services. We also do not allow links to sites hosted by Cloudflare because their servers are listed internationally as malicious & dangerous.

Title: David Cassidy dies
Post by: Betty on November 22, 2017, 03:45:01 AM

David Cassidy dies at only 67!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/21/entertainment/david-cassidy-dies/index.html?

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on November 22, 2017, 05:25:06 AM

65,000 mental care professionals signed a petition declaring the president nuts! Play the attached mp3 there. 32minutes but only about 4mb in size. HTML5 friendly to stream for browsers that support it. Or right-click, & select save or "save as" to download & save to play later. Unclegadet is one of my own domains, PSK Research in 1 of my sites on my own leased servers. There is no tracking, data mining, malware, & only a few minor ads at the top & bottom of the page. I hand design my sites, coding/programming, & security on them. Most online stores, & many online banks are not as safe & secure as our simplest or oldest sites & forums. Your privacy & safety is very important to me at our networks. I spend more time on safety & security on them than anything else.

http://unclegadget.com/pski/index.php/topic,89.0.html

Title: CDC is forbidden to use words like Trangender, fetus...
Post by: Betty on December 16, 2017, 08:45:23 PM

Trump is prohibiting officials at USA's top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender”

The forbidden terms are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

More: http://unclegadget.com/pski/index.php/topic,90.0.html

Where's our regular other trans news? It's the link at the top of every page. It's now a regularly automatically updated news feed served externally off our UncleGadget/PSK Research server.

Title: Dance Moms host get early prison release
Post by: Betty on January 27, 2018, 10:37:26 AM

Abby Lee Miller gets early release from prison.

She’s not entirely free yet, but former “Dance Moms” host Abby Lee Miller will be walking out of jail next month after having served less than half of her sentence for fraud.

The often explosive reality TV host will leave a federal prison in California on February 20 and segue to a halfway house, Deadline has learned. It is unclear how long Miller will spend at the Van Nuys facility after her release, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation.

This news comes just over five months after Miller started serving her year and one day sentenced on July 12, 2017. She’s being released early for good behavior.

Miller was indicted on 20 counts of fraud back in October 2015. Facing a pile-up of charges and evidence and seeking a deal that was not going to be, Miller entered a guilty plea on June 27, 2016.

This whole sordid affair, which among other things saw Collins Avenue paying Miller’s fees to her mom instead, only came to light when the judge in the host’s almost-completed bankruptcy case came across “Dance Moms” on TV one night by chance. Judge Thomas Agresti wondered why money from the show was never a part of the bankruptcy he was overseeing, which had Miller claiming a total income of $8,899 a month.

That soon led to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Pittsburgh pursuing the case of the missing money – which resulted in hundreds of thousands being stashed away. The charges against Miller followed.

======================

On the TV show, Dance Mom's she trains little girls to be in pageamts, & dance shows.

From May 9, 2017

Former “Dance Moms” reality TV star Abby Lee Miller was sentenced Tuesday to a year and a day in prison for bankruptcy fraud and for taking $120,000 worth of Australian currency into the country without reporting it.

A federal judge also ordered Miller to pay a $40,000 fine and spend two years on probation following her release. Miller pleaded guilty in both cases last year.

Prosecutors said she tried to cheat her creditors by hiding $775,000 worth of income and deserved prison. Miller’s attorneys argued for probation, saying her creditors were made whole after the fraud was discovered.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Melucci told the court that Miller went from being a “dance mom in the bankruptcy case to dance con.”

Prosecutors said Miller repeatedly hid her true income and contracts for future income from her TV shows until her channel-surfing bankruptcy judge saw her on TV and concluded she must be making far more than the $8,899 in monthly income she initially declared.

Miller eventually coughed up $288,000 in TV income she didn’t initially report, but then federal investigators found she’d hidden nearly $550,000 more from personal appearances, dance sessions and merchandise sales.

Miller filed for bankruptcy after defaulting on a $245,000 Florida condominium mortgage and a $96,000 mortgage on her dance studio in Penn Hills, a Pittsburgh suburb, her bankruptcy lawyer said.

==============================

Where is our regular Trans & CD news? It's the link to a live updated news feed at at top of every page at Betty's now.

Title: Vintage dress pattern database online
Post by: Betty on February 08, 2018, 04:16:09 PM

83,500 Vintage Sewing Patterns Put Into Online Database From Vogue, McCall’s, Butterick, And Simplicity.

https://www.inquisitr.com/4345306/83500-vintage-sewing-patterns-put-on-an-online-database-from-vogue-mccalls-butterick-and-simplicity/

Searching through these 83,500 vintage sewing patterns may sound like a daunting task, but it is actually much easier than you might think. For instance, if you hanker after a particular era of clothing and a style worn by specific people like Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn, for example, you can search the database of vintage sewing patterns by decade.

From the 1920s flapper dress to the slim line sheath and tubular dresses of the 1960s, there is a pattern for everyone in this database of sewing patterns. You can even get the disco look of the 1970s with wrap-around dresses, as well as the once-popular vests and jumpsuits of the era.

http://vintagepatterns.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on February 22, 2018, 06:03:53 PM

You have to be 21 to buy beer or liquor or hard core porn in the USA. 18 to buy cigarettes, lottery tickets, other adult (light core) magazines, or vote. A kid can't legally drive a car or work a cash register.

But a 13 year old can legally & easily buy a gun in the USA.

And NO sane, normal citizen of any age needs a weapon of mass destruction that can fire 72 bullets per minute.

Video: http://unclegadget.com/media/Kidbuys.mp4

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: alison m on February 23, 2018, 02:50:08 PM

In all honesty Betty the boy bought a 22 bolt action rifle. That means he did not buy a weapon of mass destruction that can fire 72 bullets per minute. I had my own 20 gauge shotgun when I was that age and bought my own shells and hunted rabbits regularly with the neighbor guys and my family. When I was a senior in high school a classmate brought a 22 rifle to school on the school bus, unloaded, breech open and the bus driver laid it up front. When the student got off the bus he took the gun to the principals office until class time. He retrieved the gun later went to speech class and gave his demonstration speech on how to tear down and clean a rifle. On the first day of deer season every year there were a lot of boys absence because they had submitted a hunting excuse to the office prior and were considered excused. So the problem is not actually guns it is a system that already has laws that does not enforce them. No 19 year old should be able to buy that many guns in a 12 month period. The laws are already there, not enforced. The FBI is also to blame for not taking action on the reported situation.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on February 23, 2018, 05:41:27 PM

Yep. I knew someone would bring that up, that's why I included the picture to show the difference.

However, the point of the video is the double-standard in the USA. If one can only get a limited learners permit or drivers license at 16, can't drink or buy real porn until 21, can't operate a cash register or buy cigarettes & lottery tickets until 18, why can a 13 year old buy & own any gun?

In the USA, it's illegal to carry a folding pocket knife with a blade over 4 fingers long, or about over 3- 3 1/2 inches long.

The times have changed too. People have gotten more violent. Rather than discuss, debate, ignore, or deal with something, people are choosing to hit, stab, or shoot at anything or anybody they don't like, annoys them, or disagree with. We no longer live in the same world or country we did a few decades ago. The idea of a debate or intelligent discussion is almost gone, in favor of just attacking or shooting them. And the one doing the attacking or shooting, is usually not the intelligent one.

Don't blame just realistic violent computer games for desensitizing our society to violence & murder either. On almost any evening on prime time TV on the popular channels, half to more than half the "entertainment" are crime dramas, crime or murder related, or extremely violent. Likewise, look at the best selling movies are at the cinema or on disks & streaming. Lots of crime, violence, & murder. Killing, violence, bloodshed, pain, & misery have become a source of very popular entertainment for our society instead of something bad that we should avoid.

At least some adults will think twice about getting violent or shooting, but a teen is less likely to think about it... especially these days.

A kid who gets too violent or was suspected of being a danger to society got locked away in reform school or a lockdown home for wayward kids until they were 18 or 21 in the old days. Now days most bad or crazy kids just get a slap on the wrist & are let go. As a kid, I had to run away from home because I had been scheduled to be locked away in one of those hell-holes until I was 18-21 just because I was suspected of being gay & a crossdresser (a very serious offense in those days).

Excessive violence also the fault of our defective health care system compared to most other countries. If there is a physical or mental problem causing behavior or other problems in a person, the insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, & medical community will most likely either ignore it or do whatever is the most profitable for them rather than want to help the person or protect society.

By ignoring or mistreating people with physical or mental problems, or that are getting bullied & teased daily for years for being different, small, weak, or handicapped, we cause more violence in our society or force those tormented people to snap more often.

Universal health care for all would go a long way in treating the nut cases, the tormented, & even those violent bullies. Don't forget for each of those tormented nut cases that snap, you can bet there were a few bullies harassing them who were just as nuts (many bullies grow up to be bigger bullies, violent criminals, & abusive to family members or animals).

But in our society we cheer an unstable threatening bully like Trump, but when the protestors get seriously pepper-spayed or beaten just for peacefully demonstrating about it, we say they got what they deserved & laugh.

I'm all for gun rights. But I don't believe everyone & teens should be able to own one or have access to one. Kids can learn how to use a gun, target practice, or hunt with their parents or guardian. There is no reason for a kid to own or have access to guns without a parent's permission & supervision. When not in use, they should be locked in a good cabinet with a good lock.

Never underestimate the ingenuity, & determination of a kid.

Some of those cabinets can be easily opened with a paper clip, or slipped with a butter knife, credit card, or student card. A crappy cabinet is pointless.

If a person has a criminal history of violence, or robbery they should not own a gun. If a person has a history of serious mental illness they should not own a gun.

If you or your loved ones are suddenly taken surprise by an attack by a drug crazed maniac, bear, rabid animal, or in a home invasion or car-jacking, will you be able to take them down with the first shot in the sudden emergency? Probably not. So to able to get off a few shots in a few seconds may be handy. But nobody needs to fire off 72 rounds a minute unless they're in a war or are a mass-murderer.

In a constantly changing world, times are always changing. Standards or rules of 50-60 years ago may not be realistic in modern times. Long ago smoke alarms in every home & seat belts in every car were not required. But the fact is, they saved a lot of lives, pain, & misery. Not all inconvenient change is bad, even though change just for the sake of changing is not usually a good idea.

We don't have to do any studies or research on gun control & universal health care. Fortunately other countries have been way ahead of us on this for decades. All you have to do is look at their data & evidence for proof that it works very well, & how to do it.

Title: The NRA lies
Post by: Betty on February 26, 2018, 03:54:44 PM

Former chief justice Warren Burger knows something about firearms and the law -- and that knowledge has led him to a strong conclusion about the National Rifle Association. In a taped interview Mr. Burger says he is "outraged" by the NRA leaders' conduct. Noting that he is a gun owner and hunter, Mr. Burger says that the NRA officials "have trained themselves and their people to lie,"

http://unclegadget.com/media/nra.mp4

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on February 27, 2018, 06:16:22 PM

Greatest Country?

http://unclegadget.com/media/greatest.mp4

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on February 22, 2019, 10:56:28 AM

Trump finally gets his Parade -- in Italy, including a 5 story high Warrior God of Trump. Is this what 'Making America Great" means?

Incredible parade. Must see.

Share, like, or repost. It's my job. If you don't like, share, or repost, I don't get paid. Video & music personally edited & mixed by me.

https://youtu.be/Rd-kkik1ps0

Title: Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify
Post by: Betty on March 08, 2019, 02:23:24 PM

Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning was jailed on Friday after refusing to answer questions from a federal grand jury in Virginia looking into the release of documents to WikiLeaks.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton told Manning that she would remain in federal custody “until she purges or the end of the life of the grand jury,” a statement from her representatives said.

Earlier in the day, Manning told reporters that she was prepared to go to jail following the closed contempt hearing over her resistance to provide testimony because she doesn't believe in the grand jury process.

On Wednesday, Manning appeared before the same grand jury, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, but refused to answer any questions.

"I responded to each question with the following statement: ‘I object to the question and refuse to answer on the grounds that the question is in violation of my First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendment, and other statutory rights," Manning said in a statement.

"All of the substantive questions pertained to my disclosures of information to the public in 2010... answers I provided in extensive testimony, during my court-martial in 2013," the statement said.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking a trove of military intelligence records to the anti-secrecy website Wikileaks. Her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in 2017 after seven years behind bars.

On Tuesday, a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia denied a motion filed by Manning's attorneys challenging a subpoena calling her to testify, according to her lawyers.

Title: George Washington's general might be intersex.
Post by: Betty on April 11, 2019, 07:51:43 PM

Casimir Pulaski was one of many men who helped win the Revolutionary War. A Polish nobleman, he fought to protect the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth against Russian domination, then later traveled to America to become a general in the Continental Army.

He is considered the “father” of the American cavalry and was one of George Washington’s top commanders. Pulaski was gravely wounded at the Battle of Savannah in 1779, and died shortly thereafter.

Now, researchers, examining a burial site at Pulaski’s monument in Savannah say that they have confirmed via DNA testing that his remains are located under the monument.

One thing puzzled researchers, however: an examination of the bones revealed details more likely to be found in female remains, including changes to the pelvic bones, a rounded jaw line, and an otherwise delicate face.

While many have mischaracterized these findings to declare Pulaski a woman, even referring to him with female pronouns, Pulaski was baptized as a male and had both facial hair and signs of male-pattern baldness, leading researches to argue that Pulaski may have instead been intersex.

“Intersex” refers to people who are born with sexual characteristics that don’t fit societal or medical norms for male or female bodies. This leads to discrimination and stigma, even from birth.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Angela M... on April 12, 2019, 11:12:16 AM

Hey Betty, how are you doing these days? This picture looks familiar but I don't recall reading anything about Pulaski until now. I wonder if there were others like him and I have read about some woman passing themselves off as male during the wars.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on April 15, 2019, 12:38:02 PM

Having a rough time surviving as my COPD continues to get more severe. But I have some good days too.

Getting ready for some changes & a possible move soon... if the changes & move itself don't kill me. My condition improved just before the weekend until yesterday afternoon. But now it's deathly worse again & am absolutely terrible.

Dramatically rapid fall in the barometer & high humidity probably is a contributing factor.

Title: National Guard Won't Discharge Trans Troops
Post by: Betty on April 15, 2019, 12:41:04 PM

One of the highest-ranking officers in the California National Guard told lawmakers on Tuesday that the state will not discharge transgender soldiers from its ranks — even as President Trump’s administration makes strides in doing so.

“As long as you fight, we don’t care what gender you identify as,” said Maj. Gen. Matthew Beevers, who serves as assistant adjutant general for the California National Guard. "Nobody's going to kick you out.” he said.

An estimated 13,763 transgender service members currently face dismissal across the nation, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

https://www.advocate.com/politics/2019/2/07/defying-trump-calif-national-guard-wont-discharge-trans-troops?

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Angela M... on April 15, 2019, 02:09:57 PM

I always think about you when the weather changes and hope you are OK. Are you moving someplace with easier access for you and maybe closer to family? That would be helpful if you were near somebody that could look out for you and help a little. Maybe better for your work too for people dropping things off. Hope all goes well with that and it does not kill you.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on April 17, 2019, 12:40:58 AM

Maybe I might get a place closer to someone I know. But because I'll also need more assistance around the house, & for the move, I'll lose some privacy. I may have to purge my sissy stuff.

Easy enough to lock down, & encrypt all computers, drives & files. I should have plenty of private time to get online too. But my sissy life may be reduced to digital rather than physical. Too many people just wouldn't understand the sissy side of things, & I may have to have them poke around the house for me, or come in to take care of the cats if I'm away in a hospital for the day or a few days.

It's also time to admit that I should prepare for the end of life while I'm still able to. There's already been a few times I was near death since December 2017. It would be nice to tie up some loose ends, & leave no surprises behind if I don't pull through the next time.

At this point maybe I could go on another 10 years if I'm very lucky, or have another turn for the worse again in a week & be gone.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on April 17, 2019, 12:46:16 AM

Notre Dame Cathedral fire, aftermath, and a look inside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iY7CmQHvuU&t=7s

Produced, processed, mixed, & edited by me.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: marybethsanford on April 17, 2019, 07:57:13 AM

Quote from: Betty on April 17, 2019, 12:40:58 AM

Maybe I might get a place closer to someone I know. But because I'll also need more assistance around the house, & for the move, I'll lose some privacy. I may have to purge my sissy stuff.

Easy enough to lock down, & encrypt all computers, drives & files. I should have plenty of private time to get online too. But my sissy life may be reduced to digital rather than physical. Too many people just wouldn't understand the sissy side of things, & I may have to have them poke around the house for me, or come in to take care of the cats if I'm away in a hospital for the day or a few days.

It's also time to admit that I should prepare for the end of life while I'm still able to. There's already been a few times I was near death since December 2017. It would be nice to tie up some loose ends, & leave no surprises behind if I don't pull through the next time.

At this point maybe I could go on another 10 years if I'm very lucky, or have another turn for the worse again in a week & be gone.

When I had all my troubles that purge was taken out of my hands but it was kind of a God send in someways. Now in the house I share I've got a room, bathroom and a small office setup with a computer that's private. I do have a few hours a week when I'm alone which is cherished but I can't do much any more so even with the time it's mostly in my mind. The good thing is I've taken care of nearly everything that has to be taken care of.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Angela M... on April 17, 2019, 12:41:58 PM

Hey Betty & marybethsanford, I guess when we get "up there" in age the reality is to face the fact that we need to prepare and maybe even purge our hobbies but it pains me to throw anything out these days as I have done so too many times in the past. I recently decided to clean out my workshop of tools I no longer use or need, giving some to the young neighbour who bought the house next door a few years ago and also to the Habitat for Humanity group for sale in their charity shop. I then rounded up the boxes and containers full of my girly things. I found I have four large plastic containers and three large boxes full of things and the more I delved into them the more memories came flooding back and I could hardly throw anything away. I nkow at some point it needs to happen and I may need to downsize my home too as it is just too hard to manage and costly also to pay people to do a job you are not really satisfied with. I have numerous little health problems but Arthritis is my worst sometimes keeping me in bed for days. The other things are nagging at me all the time but I just try to live with them and all of them together are not as bad as Betty's so I pray for you both to whatever God up there can help. My mom lived to be 90 and sometime I hope I have her genes but then other times I think I don't want to suffer like she did the last year or so of her life. Anyway all we can do is hope we have more time left than we think and then face the reality of living within our confines.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: jeangurl on April 17, 2019, 09:03:41 PM

Ladies what does it matter what people find in regard to our girlie things when we are gone :-*
As long as there is nothing that affects others i.e. identifies someone who doesn't wish to be what the heck if we are gone :P
Luv Jeangurl :-[

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Angela M... on April 17, 2019, 11:34:37 PM

Hey jeangurl, I know what you mean but I don't want to leave this stuff for family to find and then think less of me. Sure it would not affect me as I will not be here but I would rather they not discover my other life if I can help it. I am pretty sure nobody who knows me would ever think I had a real girly side and wore panties and tights almost every day of my life. I am pretty sure my mother never told my brother and sister about my other self even though she had discovered my girl clothes several times. She pretty much knew about my girl side or she would not have taught me so many girl things like cooking and sewing and knitting or looking after the house. She was proud of my first apartment and how well I kept things and asked to bring her friends round to see the place several times after I was moved in and settled. I would throw wine and cheese parties for them and my friends as well and do a Christmas open house with a roaring fire in the dining room fireplace when they would walk over after church as it was close by. Probably the only time my father told somebody how proud he was of me that I knew of.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Angela M... on April 17, 2019, 11:51:03 PM

Boy each time I read something I posted I realize how effected I was by my father wanting a mans man for a son but finally excepting that I would not be that guy. Oh well he had my little brother to follow in his footsteps and that he did, joining Scouts and playing hockey and baseball etc. Even his son as quiet and shy as he was, grew into a good hockey player in his teens. Dad only saw his grandson play as a Pee Wee player though before he passed on.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: marybethsanford on April 18, 2019, 07:52:12 AM

It's mostly being pragmatic. I've witnessed enough friends and relatives going through the process to know what would be nice, necessary and nasty. I've got a disk of numbers, instructions and small bits and pieces for the cousin who's been kindest. When I purged I contacted a couple of cross dressing friends and they got what was left. Goodwill got the rest. It's mostly being pragmatic. We should prepare and I don't feel sorry about it.

God, the life I've led! It's been an amazing ride and I'm serious about that and still is. Just a different chapter and a little less active is all. Now it's mostly writing but even that's been more enjoyable given I've got more time. Funny but even the incontinence, however slight it is, has been a blessing and you can bet I've played that one up a lit. Poor me having to sleep in diapers and plastic pants like a damn baby (grin) or wear a disposable to my doctors (horrible). It's not something I'd pick but since it's there, there it is.

Things are fairly stable now and I'm learning to live with what's happening and life is what it is (did someone say that - if not, I claim it - smiley face). My only regret... among the thousands is waiting too long for a lot of things, although looking back much of what I did was done in the right order at the right time so who's to say? Anyway, I'm thinking that life is unfolding as it's meant to... And I'm still reading what you guys have to say, so there is that.

Hugs
Mary Beth.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Angela M... on April 18, 2019, 05:55:45 PM

Hey marybethsanford, we are glad you are still here to read and write some of the posts. I guess I too could say it has been a hell of a ride and there are a few things I would have done different but I was pretty brave doing some of the things I got away with. In the 60's there were very few boys into Ballet in Toronto, never mind where I lived. In the early 70' when I worked in Toronto I also volunteered at the National Ballet so I could be around the dancers and student and soak it up. I do have a few regrets about borrowing panties off clothes lines in my area but mostly I returned them in good and clean condition. I know what you mean about poor me having to sleep in diapers and plastic panties but it is what it is and truth be told I do kind of enjoy it and I also get a good nights sleep not having to worry about wetting the bed when I can't rush to the bathroom. Much of what I did also was in the right order as time and circumstances would allow. My one big regret if there is one is that Transgender youth today have so much help to discover who they really are and try as I might I could not get help or anybody to take me serious. Glad you are still reading and posting and may we still have long life ahead of us.

Title: Judge backs parents who allowed their four-year-old son to live as a girl
Post by: Keri on May 14, 2019, 09:13:09 AM

A couple who sent their four-year-old son to school wearing a girl's uniform have been praised as 'good parents' by a senior judge.

Social workers accused the couple of being too quick to recognise the child - referred to as 'H' in court - as transgender at such a young age.

Threatening to take H into care, they said the couple had 'actively encouraged' the child and 'acted in a precipitate manner in relation to perceived gender dysphoria.'

But now High Court judge, Mr Justice Williams, has exonerated the couple, describing them as 'attuned and careful' parents, devoted to H's welfare.

A gender specialist earlier told the judge at the Royal Courts of Justice, in Westminster, that H's 'gender related presentation was consistent with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.'

She 'clearly identified herself as a girl' and 'appeared to be a content, alert and socially engaged little girl'.

And the judge said H had suffered no harm as a result of her 'complete transition into a female occurring at a very young age'.

He added: 'The evidence demonstrates to the contrary, this was likely to minimise any harm or risk of harm.

'The evidence does not support the contention that it was actively encouraged rather than appropriately supported.'

'H' and other children in the couple's care were 'prospering' and it was 'overwhelmingly obvious' that they were good parents.

The family's local council had initially sought the 'immediate removal' of H and the other children from the couple's home.

Social workers said the couple were 'resistant to acknowledging any potential disadvantage to H of being identified as transgender prematurely.'

There was, they claimed, a risk that the the man's 'attitude to gender dysphoria might lead to faulty decision-making'.

The couple were accused of 'failing to prioritise' H's needs and jeopardising her emotional, physical and sexual development.

The council in the end withdrew the care proceedings in the light of glowing expert reports on the couple's parenting skills.

But the couple still felt there was 'a cloud of suspicion hanging over them' and sought complete exoneration in a public judgment.

Mr Justice Williams said the care proceedings had had 'a very obvious and considerable' on the couple.

And he told the court: 'It is self-evident that it is not in the children's welfare interests for these proceedings to continue any further.

'The lives of this family should now proceed on the basis that those concerns were comprehensively dispelled'.

The expert evidence 'provided clinical justification' for the couple's approach to H's gender identity, he added.

When asked about H, her six-year-old brother - 'C' - touchingly acknowledged that she was a 'boy when she was born'.

But the lad showed a 'nuanced understanding' of gender issues and said that his sister was 'now a girl and would grow up to be a woman.'

The judge concluded: 'Issues relating to gender identity and the medical understanding of such issues is complex and developing.

'Inevitably there is some lag between those professionals at the cutting edge and others, in which I include myself, which might have played some role in how these proceedings came about.

'Beyond that I will not venture.'

Title: Boy grows hair for cancer
Post by: Betty on June 04, 2019, 05:29:27 PM

At 10 years old, boy who spent two years growing his hair, donates it to make wigs for kids with cancer.

https://theheartysoul.com/10-year-old-boy-spent-two-years-growing-his-hair-to-make-wigs-for-kids-with-cancer/?

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: SissyPhilipa on July 23, 2019, 08:33:37 PM

Hi girls (and any male admirers),

Not sure if this is a repeat but BBC news article about gender neutral school uniforms. I hate the term gender neutral (I like to be a girl) but it is a good read and has a nice mention of boy welcomed into School one day wearing a skirt (no photo though)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46373351

Philipa xxx

Title: Phony Science to Justify Transphobia
Post by: Betty on August 03, 2019, 02:58:43 PM

Stop Using Phony Science to Justify Transphobia

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/stop-using-phony-science-to-justify-transphobia/?

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on August 30, 2019, 05:23:49 PM

Funny musical parody about some recent news events.

The Chosen One:
http://unclegadget.com/media/chosen.mp4
2.5mb, 3.5 minutes

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Robyn Jodie on August 31, 2019, 02:40:14 PM

I read the "Phony Science" article a while ago and thought it was well thought out and well written. I only wish that a (perhaps) rewritten version could have been published as a true scientific article rather than in the "Voices" [Opinions/Editorials] section.

Title: Social distancing protesters
Post by: Betty on April 18, 2020, 07:59:22 PM

Crowding closely together to protest social distancing. I see older people there, & they brought their small children too. If they lighten restrictions, & call you back to work, would you want to work right beside these careless people who actually believe you should die for the economy, that their faith will protect them, or that the virus is fake news?

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on April 18, 2020, 08:00:18 PM

(Go to the next page for more)

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on April 18, 2020, 08:01:19 PM

(Continued from the previous page)

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on April 18, 2020, 08:03:08 PM

I see protester signs saying, "I need a haircut." Buy a comb & learn how to use it. You're willing to risk your life & the lives of those around you just because your hair is an inch longer? WTF is wrong with you?

At most of these protests they're not practicing any social distance or care at all, & are close together in a crowd of people. These are the LAST people you want to let out if they relax restrictions, because they exhibit the most dangerous behaviors.

Didn't they see on the news that when some churches tried this, a few weeks later a lot of them got very sick or died? Mark my words, within a week or 2, the people who attended these things will be very sick, or dead, & they would have spread their disease to their families & communities.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on April 18, 2020, 08:06:06 PM

We're doomed

Title: Social distancing protesters
Post by: Betty on April 18, 2020, 08:07:58 PM

Title: Social distancing protesters
Post by: Betty on April 19, 2020, 12:06:25 AM

Fake news & fake social media? Only since we had a fake president who depends on it while calling everyone else fake. Criminals will always deny or blame someone else when caught. Liars will always say their accusers are lying or wrong. A lesson from the Philippines we all should learn -- wise up America:

http://unclegadget.com/media/fake_lessons.mp4
(23 minutes, 19mb)

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: francene on April 19, 2020, 12:29:51 AM

I think those people are playing with fire while carrying an uncapped bottle of gasoline. The one guy who has the sign "Covid 19 is a lie" is in serious trouble. It would be interesting to see how many of them wind up in the hospital. Lord help them, they are going to need it.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: andyg0404 on April 19, 2020, 11:26:01 AM

Here is a very sad story showing the direct ramifications of the disinformation campaign.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/nyregion/coronavirus-jjbubbles-joe-joyce.html

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on May 11, 2020, 11:58:03 AM

Masks were required when Shanghai Disneyland reopened to the public on Monday.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Robyn Jodie on May 11, 2020, 12:59:18 PM

Guessing that many of the protestors are homophobic right-wingers, I wonder if they would observe COVID-19 guidelines if we could convince them that if they caught COVID-19 it would make them gay. They're probably at least that stupid.
(Bwaa-haa-haa)

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on May 12, 2020, 12:13:12 PM

They're still living on outlandish conspiracy theories, & presidential fake news propaganda. We didn't have much fake news until we had a fake president running -- he deflects suspicion by accusing everybody else of doing exactly what he's doing.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Robyn Jodie on May 13, 2020, 01:29:41 PM

Saw something on Facebook suggesting that anyone who wants things to reopen should "put his money where his mouth is" by going on a volunteer "treat me last" list, stating that if resources are constrained and it's a choice between treating him/her and someone else not on the list, the other person gets treated and he/she only gets treatment if there are resources left over. This list is published to all medical facilities in and around the area. ... Then, when enough young healthy people have volunteered for the list, the area opens back up to its pre-COVID-19 state.
An interesting, if somewhat diabolical, idea.

Title: Miss Peel passes away at 82.
Post by: Betty on September 10, 2020, 08:16:02 PM

Actress Dame Diana Rigg who played Emma Peel in the 1960s TV series "The Avengers" passed away this morning at 82 years old. She also starred in James Bond, Game of Thrones, & many other shows, plays, & movies.

Who had a crush on Miss Peel & her skin-tight outfits or with leather as a little kid in the 1960s?

Remember to visit our transgender news & other news feeds at the top of our pages served by our UncleGadget.com & PSKresearch.com. UncleGadget.com & PSKresearch.com are also part of Betty's Pub, created & owned by me.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on September 10, 2020, 08:37:34 PM

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Spankypants2 on September 13, 2020, 08:15:38 PM

<Sigh> Mrs. Peel was certainly the object of my prepubescent fantasies; the very embodiment of "hot."

Title: First transgender senator
Post by: Betty on November 04, 2020, 12:07:50 PM

Sarah McBride has won her Delaware state Senate race, poising her to become the first and only openly transgender state senator in the U.S. and the country's highest-ranking transgender official.

She easily defeated Republican Steve Washington to represent Delaware's 1st Senate District. Incumbent Democrat Harris McDowell, who did not seek re-election after 44 years, had endorsed McBride.

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/sarah-mcbride-become-first-transgender-state-senator-u-s-history-n1246211

Title: IBM Apologizes For Firing Transgender
Post by: Betty on November 21, 2020, 09:14:18 PM

IBM Apologizes For Firing Computer Pioneer For Being Transgender.

Long before becoming a highly respected professor at the University of Michigan, Conway was a young researcher with IBM IBM. It was there, on August 29, 1968, that IBM’s CEO fired her for reasons that are illegal today. Nearly 52 years later, in an act that defines its present-day culture, IBM apologized and sought forgiveness.

On January 2, 1938, Lynn Conway’s life began in Mount Vernon, NY. With a reported IQ of 155, Conway was an exceptional and inquisitive child who loved math and science during her teens. She went on to study physics at MIT and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at Columbia University’s Engineering School.

In 1964, Conway joined IBM Research, where she made major innovations in computer design, ensuring a promising career in the international conglomerate (IBM was the 7th largest corporation in the world at the time). Recently married and with two young daughters, she lived a seemingly perfect life. But Conway faced a profound existential challenge: she had been born as a boy.

Having struggled with her gender identity since childhood, Conway had made a failed attempt at transition in the late 1950s while a student at MIT. In 1967, she learned of the pioneering gender-transition work of Manhattan-based doctor Harry Benjamin (a partner of famed sexologist Alfred Kinsey). Conway sought Dr. Benjamin’s help and began the life-changing transition from male to female.

Despite cultural clichés at that time, both her immediate family and IBM’s divisional management were accepting and supportive. However, when IBM’s Corporate Medical Director learned of her plans in 1968, he alerted CEO Thomas J. Watson, Jr., who fired Conway to avoid the public embarrassment of employing a transwoman.

The termination turned Conway’s life upside down. The loss of income and looming inability to support her family shattered their plans for a quiet divorce with visitation rights. To worsen matters, California’s Social Services threatened her with a restraining order if she ever attempted to see her children.

Conway was devastated by these unexpected events. While she was coherent and decisive in recognizing that she was born into the wrong gender, society and the government were treating her as if she were a mentally deranged outlaw. “I’d begun a deeply dangerous traverse and wasn’t sure I’d ever get across,” says Conway.

Even so, she pressed on with her social, hormonal, and surgical transition, and began seeking employment as a woman in a secret new identity in early 1969. First finding work as a contract programmer, Conway rapidly ascended the career ladder. By 1971, she was working as a computer architect at Memorex Corporation. Her rising reputation led to her recruitment by the (soon to become famous) Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973.

In 1977, while leading PARC research into enhanced methods for computer chip design, Conway began co-authoring a book on the methods with Carver Mead, a professor at Caltech. On sabbatical from PARC as a visiting professor at MIT, she created and taught an experimental course on Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) chip design based on the draft of her textbook with Mead.

In 1983, the Department of Defense recruited Conway to join the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as Assistant Director for Strategic Computing. Spearheading DoD research into machine intelligence technology, she received the Secretary of Defense’s Meritorious Achievement Award from Secretary Caspar Weinberger for her work.

Conway then brought her skills and insatiable intellectual curiosity to academia. In 1985, the University of Michigan hired her as a professor of computer science and electrical engineering and associate dean of its engineering school. She spent 15 years with the university, helping its engineering college become one of the foremost in the nation, retiring in 1999 as professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science.

For over 30 years, from 1968 onward, Conway never revealed she was transgender (excepting close friends, relatives, HR offices, and security-clearance agencies). However, in 1999, when computer historians began investigating her early innovations at IBM, she foresaw the inevitability of public outing. With the support of her husband Charlie (they’ve been together since 1987) she chose to reveal her gender history online, including the reason she had left IBM.

Many of Conway’s colleagues were amazed by the disclosure, never suspecting Conway was transgender. In 2000, her former Michigan colleague Charles Vest, by then President of MIT and a member of IBM’s board of directors, relayed the story to Louis V. Gerstner, IBM’s CEO at the time. Gerstner was appalled at what IBM had done but was unable to bring about a resolution. IBM avoided the issue for the next two decades.

Freed from fear of exposure, Conway gained a strong voice in transgender activism, regularly sharing the story of overcoming adversity after IBM’s firing. She jokingly says, “From the 1970s to 1999, I was recognized as breaking the gender barrier in the computer science field as a woman, but in 2000, it became the transgender barrier I was breaking.”

Since then, she has won awards from many advocacy organizations, including being named one of the “Stonewall 40 trans heroes” by the ICS and NGLTF in 2009. She was also recognized by Time Magazine in 2014 as one of the most influential LGBTQ figures in American Culture.

In recent years, the scope of Conway’s scientific and engineering contributions also began gaining wider retrospective attention. “Since I didn’t #LookLikeAnEngineer, few people caught on to what I was really doing back in the 70s and 80s,” says Conway.

As NAE President John L. Anderson says, “NAE member Lynn Conway is not only a revolutionary pioneer in the design of VLSI systems . . . But just as important, Lynn has been very brave in telling her own story, and her perseverance has been a reminder to society that it should not be blind to the innovations of women, people of color, or others who don’t fit long outdated – but unfortunately, persistent – perceptions of what an engineer looks like.”

As awareness spread, so did recognition. Conway received the prestigious James Clerk Maxwell Medal of the IEEE and the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2015 and was awarded honorary doctorates from Illinois Institute of Technology (2014), University of Victoria (2016), and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2018), where she also gave the Winter 2018 Commencement Address.

But while IBM knew of its key role in the Conway saga, the company remained silent. That all changed in August 2020.

When writing an article on LGBTQ diversity in the automotive industry, I included Conway’s story as an example of the costly consequences to employers that fail to promote an inclusive culture. I then reached out to IBM to learn if its stance had changed after 52 years.

To my surprise, IBM admitted regrets and responsibility for Conway’s firing, stating, “We deeply regret the hardship Lynn encountered.” The company also explained that it was in communication with Conway for a formal resolution, which came two months later.

In early October, IBM emailed its employees an invitation to attend a virtual event titled “Tech Trailblazer and Transgender Pioneer Lynn Conway in conversation with Diane Gherson.” Gherson was IBM’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources and reported directly to its CEO. The details were sparse, with many IBM employees believing the event would be a discussion of Conway’s discoveries in computer science. Over 1,200 IBM employees attended online.

The event began with a heartfelt apology from Gherson for Conway’s firing. “Diane delivered the apology with such grace, sincerity, and humility. Lynn was visibly moved,” explained Anna Nguyen, an Advisory Software Engineer with IBM who attended the session but does not speak on behalf of IBM. “I struggled to hold back tears,” says Conway.

Dario Gil, Director of IBM Research, who revealed the award during the online event, says, “Lynn was recently awarded the rare IBM Lifetime Achievement Award, given to individuals who have changed the world through technology inventions. Lynn’s extraordinary technical achievements helped define the modern computing industry. She paved the way for how we design and make computing chips today — and forever changed microelectronics, devices, and people’s lives.”

The company also acknowledged that after Conway’s departure in 1968, her research aided its own success. “In 1965 Lynn created the architectural level Advanced Computing System-1 simulator and invented a method that led to the development of a superscalar computer. This dynamic instruction scheduling invention was later used in computer chips, greatly improving their performance,” a spokesperson stated.

The virtual event, along with the accompanying apology and award, was widely acclaimed by those in attendance. “Instead of just being a resolution of what had happened in 1968, it became a heartfelt group celebration of how far we’ve all come since then,” says Conway.

Lynn Conway rechanneled discrimination, hatred, and ignorance into a positive force that benefited others. She advanced technology, protected our country, and most notably made our society more inclusive. Conway admits IBM’s firing forced her to become a stronger person than she thought was possible. And its apology, while 52 years in the making, provided her with closure to an event that shaped her life.

As for IBM, its apology to Conway is a testament to its current culture. IBM engineer Anna Nguyen explains, “I was already proud of present-day IBM…The very public apology to Lynn made me even prouder.”

As for everyone else, Conway’s impact on society and technology makes her a hero for us all.

Title: Ricky Schroder Gets Harassed
Post by: Betty on November 27, 2020, 02:34:29 PM

Ricky Schroder Calls Police After Being Harassed Online for Helping Kyle Rittenhouse Post Bail:

Ricky Schroder is getting some well-deserved hate for helping alleged mass shooter and murder, Kyle Rittenhouse, make bail. Yet it seems like Schroder can't stand on his bad decision since he's looking for the police to help him out.

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ that authorities were dispatched to the actor/filmmaker's home after he called them to review "negative social media posts" made about him. Unlike Rittenhouse's actions, none of these messages and posts were deemed "life-threatening." Instead, they merely hurt his fragile feelings forcing him to try to tattle tale on his trolls.

This weekend TMZ reported that the NYPD Blue actor donated six figures to Rittenhouse's bail fund. Per the suspect's attorney, Lin Wood, Schroder's $150,000 helped Rittenhouse pay the $200,000 needed to post $2 million bail and get out of jail.

Rittenhouse is awaiting trial for murder after he opened fire during a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The people were protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, but Rittenhouse felt the need to kill two people and wound another. Rittenhouse claims he was acting in self-defense.

Schroder gallery:
http://pearlcorona.org/bettys/index.php?topic=434

Kenosha shooting timeline -- Tracking Kyle Rittenhouse:
https://youtu.be/Q5AvEmFPq1g

More:
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and actor Ricky Schroder donated tens of thousands of dollars to a fund totaling $2 million in order to secure the 17-year-old Rittenhouse’s release from jail, according to the New York Post. Schroder, a star of the hit police drama NYPD Blue, reportedly pitched in $150,000 to go along with Lindell’s $50,000.

News of the release sparked severe backlash online, including from actress Bette Midler, who called for a MyPillow boycott. “Thanks to everyone who let a murdering child out to do it again?” Midler tweeted. “This boy killed 2 & gravely injured another. Why are you celebrating him? Anyone who owns #MyPillow should toss it immediately into the nearest landfill. And #RickySchroder? Who knew he could be so malevolent?”

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, said he took a toxic, FDA-rejected therapeutic extract at the recommendation of the CEO of MyPillow to cure himself of the coronavirus. Carson said he took oleandrin after hearing about it from Mike Lindell, the pillow tycoon and Trump loyalist. “Anybody who has ever gotten covid and taken the oleander extract -- they are fine in five hours, and the next day are running around playing floor hockey in the hallway,” said Lindell, who has a financial stake in the company that produces the extract. Lindell’s claims are completely unsubstantiated; there are no peer-reviewed studies on oleander extract’s effect on COVID-19 patients. Lindell has come under criticism for false advertising before, settling a class-action lawsuit in 2017 after making unsubstantiated claims that MyPillow could cure insomnia, among other ailments.

Trumpster MyPillow corona fraud:
http://pearlcorona.org/media/mypillowfraud.mp4

May 2019:
Wednesday morning actor Rick Schroder was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has announced. This is the second time in the past month that the 49-year-old star has been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence.

According to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday deputies were called to Schroder’s residence on the 21900 block of Gold Stone Road in the Topanga in response to a report of possible domestic violence. “When deputies arrived, they made contact with the suspect and the victim,” a sheriff’s statement said. “They also identified evidence of a physical altercation.”

The Sheriff’s Department also said in their statement that a similar incident occurred at Schroder’s residence on April 2. “On April 2, at approximately 12:26 a.m., a similar incident occurred between suspect Schroder and the victim at the same residence,” the statement reads.

Schroder was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence on April 2 and later released on bond. After Wednesday’s arrest, Schroder was being held on $50,000 bail.

Title: "Alien" movie character is trans
Post by: Betty on February 05, 2021, 02:21:48 PM

"Alien" movie character is trans:

Among the small crew of the Nostromo is navigator Joan Lambert, played by actor Veronica Cartwright. By the end of the "Alien" film she and Ripley are the ones remaining aboard the doomed ship, left alone to battle it out against the Xenomorph. Lambert was ultimately killed by the Alien while gathering oxygen tanks, but it wasn’t her final appearance in the quadrilogy.

The 1986 sequel "Aliens" opens with Ripley being debriefed by her employers over the destruction of the Nostromo. Behind her, biographies of each of the deceased flash up on a computer screen.

Lambert’s file includes reams of personal data like her date of birth, height, weight and hair color, but one important detail stands out. Under gender it states: “Female (unnatural),” before expanding: “Subject is Despin Convert at birth (male to female). So far no indication of suppressed trauma related to gender alteration.”

The fact that Lambert was trans has been known among sci-fi circles for years. But the blink-and-miss-it moment is easily overlooked, and many newer viewers are only now discovering this early trans representation.

https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/iconic-alien-character-canonically-trans-100852955.html?

Title: Samsung removes trans ad
Post by: Betty on January 21, 2022, 12:25:53 PM

Samsung ad featuring a crossdresser was removed because it offended some in Singapore, other countries, & a religion.

http://pearlcorona.org/media/samsung_ad.mp4
You have to watch about 3/4 of it to see her fully dressed up.
(4 1/4 minutes, 3.89mb)

About ad:
http://pearlcorona.org/media/about_samsung_ad.mp4
(45 sec, 1mb)

More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60078515

Title: Mattel designs transgender Barbie
Post by: Betty on May 27, 2022, 09:06:29 PM

Award-winning actress and LGBTQ advocate Laverne Cox has become the first transgender person to have a Barbie doll modeled after her, Mattel unveiled this week.

"I hope all the kids who are feeling stigmatized when their health care is being jeopardized, ability to play sports, I hope they can see this Barbie and feel a sense of hope and possibility," Cox said. "If they don't see themselves in this Barbie I hope they know that they can create spaces where they do see themselves."

https://youtu.be/oAakwTfTI3Q

Title: Anti-trans group threatens worldwide.
Post by: Betty on September 03, 2022, 01:51:21 PM

An online anti-trans stalker group is chasing victims around the world, & their list of targets is growing.

But now, as the site’s users launch a wave of anti-trans attacks, a trans Twitch streamer targeted by the group is spearheading an unprecedented campaign to take down the fringe website.

Clara Sorrenti and those supporting her are hoping to open up the group to debilitating virtual attacks by demanding Cloudflare, one of its internet security service vendors, drop the site. Cloudflare has so far refused to budge.

We should spread the word to our friends & internet services providers to boycott Cloudflare until the illegal hate group's website is taken down.

The group often features social media pictures of their targets’ friends and family, along with contact information of their employers. The information is used in an effort to get their targets fired or socially isolated by spreading rumors & lies that they are criminals... such as rapists, predators, or violently dangerous.

On Wednesday, Alex Kaplan, the senior researcher at Media Matters, reported that trolls from the online group, with support from other far-right influencers, began a campaign to clog up suicide hotlines for The Trevor Project, which is meant to help LGBTQ+ youth who are considering self-harm.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/cloudflare-kiwi-farms-keffals-anti-trans-rcna44834?

Update: Cloudflare has cancelled their services with the group, but the group has found alternative services, so is back online already. If they don't kick the group out, let's make sure they're boycotted too.

Read more about it here:
https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/kiwi-farms-cloudlfare-anti-trans-speech.html

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on November 03, 2022, 12:19:37 AM

John Oliver: Transgender Rights
https://youtu.be/Ns8NvPPHX5Y

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: ace on November 04, 2022, 10:16:14 PM

Quote from: Betty on November 03, 2022, 12:19:37 AM

John Oliver: Transgender Rights

Hi Betty, thanks for the post, but for your information it's not available outside of the States (or at least not in Aus).

Keep well my friend.

Ace

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on November 05, 2022, 01:11:17 PM

Odd that they would block John Oliver when he isn't from the USA.
Here's a copy directly from us. It's been highly compressed to ease loads on the server (not the same as our private movie lists). It's also been modified to confuse the hell out of all the automated internet bots that will want to jump all over it.

If you get the YouTube version, use that instead, not this one. It's a better clearer version than this. This version is for the people who can't get it from YouTube. This is off our old servers, so if it don't work, it may be too busy. Just try again in a few minutes.

http://buffalobetties.com/news/transgender_rights.mp4
24 minutes, 25mb.

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: ace on November 06, 2022, 05:53:34 PM

Quote from: Betty on November 05, 2022, 01:11:17 PM

Odd that they would block John Oliver when he isn't from the USA.

Odd yes, just checked again and it's still not available. Ironically, the first part is available ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmoAX9f6MOc
Go figure!

A

Title: Re: In the News (with pictures & videos)
Post by: Betty on November 09, 2022, 03:17:59 AM

Probably because that one is a few years old. The one I posted was new.

Betty's Pub 20.1

Main Menu => BETTY PEARL'S PUB FOR SISSIES => Topic started by: Betty on May 06, 2013, 11:55:16 AM