Articles- Collected Articles For The Transgender Community

By DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press Writer Daniel Woolls, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jan 12, 1:15 pm ET

MADRID – A 16-year-old Spaniard has had a sex change operation, becoming the country’s first minor to undergo a procedure that few countries in the world allow for people so young, a doctor said Tuesday.

The two-and-a-half hour surgery was performed in Barcelona three weeks ago and the patient is doing fine, reconstructive surgeon Ivan Manero, who did the surgery, told a news conference in Spain’s second largest city.

Manero said the patient had been undergoing hormonal and psychiatric treatment for two years, after deciding he wanted to undergo surgery to have the body of a woman. The boy “said he felt like a woman from the age of four or five,” Manero said. The patient’s name has not been disclosed.

The surgery was authorized by a judge, as required by Spanish law for minors seeking such an operation.
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Italy is to open one of the world’s first prisons for transgender inmates, reports say.

The prison, at Pozzale, near the Tuscan city of Florence, is expected to house inmates who mainly have convictions for drug-related offences and prostitution.

Gay rights groups in Italy welcomed the move to convert an almost empty medium security women’s prison into a specially equipped detention centre.

It is thought that Italy has a total of some 60 transgender prisoners.

The centre will house about 30 people, according to reports.

The BBC’s Duncan Kennedy, in Rome, says that until now transgender prisoners have been located in women’s prisons where they are often segregated for their own safety.
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Calcutta News.Net
Monday 11th January, 2010 (IANS)

The first ever dedicated beauty pageant for transgenders – ‘Vcare Indian Super Queen’ kicked off in Mumbai Monday.

‘The contestants shall be judged on the basis of their creativity, special skills and confidence, and the grand finale shall be held here Feb 21,’ transgender activist Laxmi Narain Tripathi told media persons here.

‘The contest will aim to bring out the community of transgenders, urge them to unite and emit positive vibes about what they are and what they can do. It is not about who is the best and most aesthetically beautiful, but about who is willing to proudly display their character, take pride in who they are and to prove that they are as human as the rest of us,’ Tripathi, who attained fame after a reality television show, said.

Her company, Twelve Noon Entertainment has tied up with Vcare, a diversified business conglomerate for the mega event, said Tripathi, flanked by Bollywood actors Celina Jaitely and Seema Biswas.
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Prohibiting gender change on licenses a top priority

By Todd A. Heywood 1/21/10 6:50 AM

State Rep. Paul Scott, (R-Grand Blanc), announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination for Secretary of State just five days ago, but he’s already caused a shock wave.

Scott, who just completed the first year of his first two-year term in the state House, is rankling feathers with a promise he made in his Jan. 15 announcement letter, which listed four top policy priorities, including:

· I will make it a priority to ensure transgender individuals will not be allowed to change the sex on their driver’s license in any circumstance

In an interview with Michigan Messenger, Scott said the issue was about “values.”

“It’s a social values issue. If you are born a male, you should be known as a male. Same as with a female, she should be known as a female,” he said.

When asked to explain how such a mandate from the Secretary of State would benefit Michigan, he said it was about “preventing people who are males genetically from dressing as a woman and going into female bathrooms.” (more…)

January 24, 2010
by Tonei Glavinic

Transgender children are some of the most vulnerable students in America’s schools. Nobody knows how many there are, and very few educators know what to do with them. Despite extensive advocacy efforts, trans youth are subjected to bullying and harassment in the classroom; diagnosed with nonexistent learning disabilities and psychological problems; and generally misunderstood by their doctors, teachers, and classmates. As a result, these students get lower grades than their classmates and are less likely to pursue higher education. The lack of a basic understanding of trans youth puts them at an extremely high risk for failure and unsatisfactory performance in schools.

(Authors note: “Transgender” and “trans” are used interchangeably to refer to transgender, transsexual and gender-nonconforming individuals. The term ‘transgender’ generally describes people whose physical sex characteristics do not match their psychological gender identity.)

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Published on San Francisco online (http://www.sanfranmag.com)
The life and times of Theresa Sparks

As I watched Theresa Sparks during Pride weekend this past June, it was clear to me that something had changed. The soon-to-be-ex–Police Commission president seemed more restrained than when I’d followed her during the same events in 2008. Then, she had shouted through the microphone with an activist’s recklessness (“Fuck the Human Rights Campaign!”—a reference to the LGBT group’s futile attempt to win congressional votes for a federal antidiscrimination bill by agreeing to cut transgender people out of it). But this year, Sparks kept it short and sunny. The most controversial thing she did all weekend was introduce departing police chief Heather Fong, and Sparks’ rhetorical bouquet—“Every now and then, an individual comes along who is the right person at the right time in history”—stirred things up only in that it brought the room to a five-minute standing ovation. Never mind that she could have been talking about herself.

Sparks is tall, with a Julia Child–like solidity and tousled, shortish hair that shifts through various shades of red. She dresses conservatively—for Pride, she chose blue jeans and a black cardigan, with designer sunglasses—and moves with deliberate grace, though sometimes she forgets herself and chops at the air with her hands. You would never guess that she used to be male until you hear her voice—the baritone drawl of the blunt-spoken Kansas oilman she once was. Usually, she wouldn’t have cared who was listening, which made her a reporter’s best friend (and a handler’s nightmare). On Pride weekend, however, she expertly buttonholed politicians—supervisors Bevan Dufty and David Campos, state senator Mark Leno—for conversations out of earshot. Sparks, it turned out, had made a momentous decision: to run for San Francisco supervisor in November 2010, perhaps the most high-profile bid for power ever attempted by a transgender person in the United States. And the way these elected officials were treating her—their body language showed respect, even deference.
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Transgender identity should be classified as a medical condition and not a mental illness, according to HIV experts as reported by Pink News. The issue was raised at the second International Experts’ Meeting on HIV Prevention for MSM, WSW [men who have sex with men, and women who have sex with women] and Transgenders in Amsterdam last November.

A report unveiled at the conference, titled Moving From Intentions to Action, argues that classifying transgender identity as a mental illness further stigmatizes this community.

“Gender identity variance (transgender identity) should be reclassified from its current classification as a mental health disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD),” the report said. “Instead it should be classified as a medical condition. This would provide a diagnostic category in the ICD that would accommodate the needs of those gender identity variant people who require medical care for their condition, but without the stigma attached to mental disorder.”

Homosexuality was once classified as a mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association removed it from its list of mental disorders in 1973, and the World Health Organization did the same in 1990.

By Joanne Herman- Transgender advocate and author of “Transgender Explained For Those Who Are Not”

Defense industry veteran Amanda Simpson of Tuscon, Arizona, who really is a rocket scientist, was just appointed by President Obama to the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security as a senior technical advisor. Her job will include managing exports of dual use technology as well as conducting press and media liaison work for the agency.

Simpson is highly qualified for the position. She has worked in the aerospace and defense industry for 30 years, most recently serving as Deputy Director in Advanced Technology Development at Raytheon Missile Systems. She holds degrees in physics, engineering and business administration, and is a certified flight instructor and test pilot with 20 years of experience.

Simpson is not the first high-profile transgender appointment in Washington. She joins Diego Sanchez, who was named in 2008 by Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, as senior policy advisor on issues regarding healthcare, veterans, labor, the U.S. Census, and LGBT rights.
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by Seth Hemmelgarn
s.hemmelgarn@ebar.com

With huge HIV/AIDS funding cuts and a continuing prevalence of the disease among African Americans, Oakland continues to battle HIV/AIDS as officials worry the disease could spread.

In 2007-08, the budget for education and prevention in Alameda County was $1.5 million. That included money from the state general fund.

Now, the general fund money is gone, leaving $661,000, which comes primarily from Ryan White Part B funds – federal money that’s distributed by the state. That funding is only for education, prevention, counseling, and testing, according to Kabir Hypolite, director for Alameda County’s Office of AIDS Administration.

The county’s budget allocation from the state AIDS office for care and treatment services this year is $1,190,000, according to Hypolite.

He said the cost of providing care for someone with AIDS can be as much as 10 times as providing HIV care.

At the state policy level, “We are, in essence, gambling now with thousands of people’s lives, and we may wind up paying a far, far greater price in the very near future if we don’t restore these cuts,” he said.
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by Seth Hemmelgarn
s.hemmelgarn@ebar.com

The man suspected of murdering a transgender woman in San Francisco more than two years ago has been found guilty of several charges related to the rape of another transgender woman.

The March 2007 murder of Ruby Ordenana is still under investigation, but Donzell Francis, 41, could face 15 years in prison for charges related to the rape of another transgender woman in 2007.

Michael Swart, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Francis in the recent trial, said the district attorney’s office is presently reviewing the Ordenana case. Sergeant Wilfred Williams, a spokesman for the San Francisco Police Department, said the case is still under investigation.

“Now that the jury has convicted the defendant of committing his atrocities against the victim” whose case was the subject of the recent trial, “the DA’s office is looking forward to charging the defendant with the serial rapes of several other transgender women in San Francisco, including the rape/murder of one such victim,” Brian Buckelew, director of legal affairs and public information for the district attorney’s office, wrote in an e-mail to the Bay Area Reporter .
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