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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