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Sex Identity Myths Dispelled

By Robert Sapolsky, For USA Today

As a resident of San Francisco, I take great pride in this city's famed tolerance and pluralism. Those traits were extended into new territory last month when it was announced that the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Willie Brown would permit city employees' health insurance to cover sex-change operations.

''This is a medically diagnosed condition -- gender identity disorder,'' said Supervisor Mark Leno.

Leno is right; this is an officially labeled disorder. But now an extraordinary scientific study should change how we think about what is ''disordered'' about transsexuality. The study suggests that when someone says, ''This isn't the sex that I was meant to be,'' the structure of their brain agrees with them.

Psychologists and psychiatrists have long opined about transsexualism. In some cases, it has been viewed as delusional and treated with drugs that counteract psychosis. In other cases, it has been viewed as an extreme defense against anxieties about one's gender role, or over-identification with the parent of the opposite sex. The groundwork for the recent finding was laid by researchers who found a fair number of differences in the brains of men and women relevant to reproductive hormones, emotion and cognition. Careful exploration showed that some of these sex differences in the brain are pretty impressive, both in magnitude and consistency.

Different counts in men, women

The new finding concerns one of those brain regions -- called the BSTc -- that has a large, reliable sex difference. The BSTc is involved in emotions and bodily responses to them. Human males average about twice as many neurons within the BSTc as do females.

During this study, done by Frank Kruijver and his colleagues in the Netherlands and published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, a major publication in its field, researchers counted BSTc neurons during post-mortem examination of brains. In both sexes, transsexuals didn't have the neuron number typical of their gender. Instead, the researchers discovered, they had the number typical of the sex they always believed they should be.

The hormones used when a person undergoes a sex change didn't account for this dramatic difference in the number of BSTc neurons that transsexuals have. The pattern was not only seen in transsexuals who had sex changes, but also in transsexuals who wished they had undergone treatment, but never did. And non-transsexuals exposed to those same hormones for unrelated medical reasons did not show a shift in neuron numbers.

Instead, the research suggests something quite new about the source of transsexuality: Your pattern of chromosomes, gonads, genitals, secondary sexual characteristics, the hormones in your bloodstream and the way you are treated by your parents, teachers and society at large may all be agreement that you are of a certain sex. But something as hard-nosed and biological as the number of neurons in a part of your brain may be telling your mind that no, that's not who you are: You are the opposite sex.

Imprisoned

It's hard to imagine anything more tragic than a sense of being trapped in a body that's the wrong gender. Certainly, it seems pretty reasonable to allow those who feel this way to use their medical-insurance money to try to change.

But a study like this does far more than simply justify insurance payments: It dispels the long-held myths about transsexuality.

Transsexuals are often uncomfortable about research that tries to understand the ''pathology'' of those who think they are of the opposite gender than they actually are. But this study suggests just the reverse: The problem, it finds, is that the bodies transsexuals are born into actually are the opposite gender of who they really are.

Robert Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinologist at Stanford University who studies the cellular mechanism of stress-induced diseases. © Copyright 2001 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Targeting Transgendered People

Note: The US News And World Report article in question follows below

March 8, 2001 - GLAAD - Increasingly fair, accurate and inclusive media portrayals of the transgender community -- in outlets as high-profile and diverse as the Los Angeles Times, A&E and the Sundance Film Festival - have prompted conservative columnist John Leo to attack trans-positive coverage in his most recent U.S. News & World Report and syndicated column. Instead of seeing this increased exposure as a positive (and needed) step toward demystifying and destigmatizing transgender people, Leo twists the issue, accusing the media of creating "another victim movement" that he characterizes as "bathed in liberation rhetoric."

Rather than a social movement, Leo perpetuates the myth that transgender people need psychiatric treatment to "cure" them, an argument closely related to the discredited notion that lesbians and gay men can change their sexual orientation. "[The movement] locates the source of the problem in society," he writes, "when the focus should surely be on the hormonal or psychiatric factors that cause some people to hate their own bodies and reject their own sex."

On one hand Leo argues that transgender people need treatment. However, the treatment should not, according to Leo, include hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery. Leo quotes Paul McHugh, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. McHugh is also a well-known foe of the transgender community who has tried for 25 years to stop transsexuals from receiving sex-reassignment surgery. Leo conveniently ignores recent, reputable studies that establish such surgery outcomes are tremendously successful. Leo also callously compares transgender people to those with a condition called apotemnophilia, where individuals seek to have healthy limbs removed. Like anti-gay religious political extremists who frequently associate homosexuality and pedophilia, Leo attempts to de-legitimize transgender people by making them the subjects of spurious, dehumanizing associations.

Defamatory columns like this one must not pass without comment. Please let the following editors know that they have an obligation to exercise better judgment in deciding what columns to run. The column be viewed at http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010312/12john.htm

Contact Names:

• Robert W. Laird, Op Ed Page Editor, The New York Daily News, 450 W. 33rd St., New York, NY 10001-2681; fax: 212-643-7828
• Stephen G. Smith, Editor, U.S. News & World Report, 1050 Thomas Jefferson St., NW, Washington D.C., 20007-3837; fax: 202-955-2685
• Alan McDermott, Editor, United Press Syndicate, 4520 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111-7701
• Your local newspaper editor if the column has run.

The GLAADAlert is the bi-weekly activation tool of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Contact GLAAD by e-mail at glaad@glaad.org or by phone at 323.658.6775 (LA), 212.629.3322 (NY), 415.861.2244 (SF), 202.986.1360 (DC), 404.614.3700 (Atlanta) and 816.756.5991 (Kansas City).

The Sex Change Boom
Is Politics The Appropriate Arena For This Discussion?

By John Leo, US News & World Report

A media boom is underway on behalf of transgender men and women. Last week, for instance, A&E television's Investigative Reports ran a segment, the "Transgender Revolution," quoting an activist who called it the fourth great rights movement of our era. The Los Angeles Times weighed in with two days' worth of long, sympathetic reports. One account featured an enormous bald man with a long beard who had been born a woman, and a husband and wife who are both undergoing sex-change operations. They will stay married, but the husband will become the wife and vice versa.

Some of the current publicity has been triggered by San Francisco's decision to pay the medical expenses of city employees who want sex-change operations. Like most homosexual groups, the city's large gay population is basically committed to the transgender cause. Gay empathy and power in Hollywood help explain the surge of cross-dressing and changed-sex characters appearing in movies and on television. Gay activist Nick Adams, a former female, told the Los Angeles Times that transgender characters are following the earlier TV pattern of blacks, feminists, and homosexuals­appearing in sympathetic roles in comedies and as characters in crisis on dramas.

In general, the media have depicted transgender issues as an extension of the rights revolution. It's a matter of "fighting bigotry" and "taking America to the edge of a gender revolution," as A&E's announcer told us. Transgender complaints and activism are now bathed in liberation rhetoric, with the customary stress on antidiscrimination laws, hate crimes, and even the mandatory new word of indignant accusation, "transphobia." Is there anything wrong with this? Well, yes. Reducing cruelty and acknowledging the humanity of all our neighbors are obvious social goods. But framing transgender individuals and their problems as essentially another victim movement skews the discussion. It locates the source of the problem in society, when the focus should surely be on the hormonal or psychiatric factors that cause some people to hate their own bodies and reject their own sex.

Liposuction for anorexia.

Here's an interesting argument from Paul McHugh, director of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University medical school: A patient feeling that he is a woman trapped in a man's body is not obviously different from an anorexic woman feeling that she is drastically overweight. In 1992, writing on sex-change operations in the American Scholar, he said: "We don't do liposuction on anorexics. Why amputate the genitals of these poor men? Surely the fault is in the mind, not the member." In the late 1970s, McHugh halted sex-change operations at Hopkins, calling them "perhaps, with the exception of frontal lobotomy, the most radical therapy ever encouraged by 20th-century psychiatrists." His conclusion was that reputable surgeons should not be in the business of carving up a healthy body to satisfy a feeling about what that body should be.

At the time, it looked as though the Hopkins decision might discourage and help stop sex-change surgery. But it didn't. One reason is that no medical way of relieving transgender pain and torment has appeared. The cultural acceptance of body modification­everything from breast enlargement to tattooing, scarring, and branding­made drastic surgery on healthy organs seem routine. The rise of radical gender studies on the campuses played a role too, spreading the argument that gender (as opposed to sex) is socially constructed or at least very malleable.

Now a new argument is forming against sex-change operations because of a peculiar demand for a different kind of surgery: People are asking to have one or more healthy limbs cut off because they say they don't feel whole or happy with both arms and both legs attached. This is a psychiatric condition known as apotemnophilia. Last year a surgeon in Scotland drew heavy publicity for amputating the healthy legs of two patients. His hospital stopped him before he could amputate the leg of a third patient, a New Yorker. In the December 2000 Atlantic Monthly, University of Minnesota bioethicist Carl Elliott notes that "clinicians and patients alike often suggest that apotemnophilia is like gender-identity disorder and that amputation is like sex-reassignment surgery." This has the effect of undermining the uniqueness of sex-change surgery and challenging the social value attributed to it.

Elliott suggests that unpredictable psychopathologies rise in certain societies "seemingly out of nowhere . . . and then disappear just as suddenly." In 19th-century France, young men commonly lapsed into a "fugue state," often coming to in a foreign country with no idea of how they got there. In the 1970s and 1980s, thousands of Americans came to believe they had multiple personalities as a result of childhood trauma. Fifty years ago, he says, nobody suspected that tens of thousands of people would have their genitals surgically altered as a way of relieving intense suffering. He thinks transgender activism and many social cues may have resulted in a temporary boom for sex-change surgery. It's a tentative analysis, and maybe he's wrong. But at least he's looking for an answer in the right arena, psychiatry and medicine, not politics.

© 2001 U.S.News & World Report Inc. All rights reserved.

Write US News & World Report at their website.

Era of the Gender Crosser (first of two parts)

By Mary McNamara, LA Times Staff Writer

Buoyed by the success of gay liberation and freed by medical advances, the transgender community has found a voice. Still, life often remains complicated.

February 27, 2001 - Once upon a time in San Francisco, two people fell in love, broke up, got back together, joined their names and had a baby.

A conventional love story, except for one detail: When Patrick and Matt Califia-Rice met 10 years ago, they were women. Women who had felt, from the time they were small, that they should be men.

Matt was the first to exchange desire for reality. On the day the two broke up, he began taking testosterone. He grew a beard, had his breasts removed. They got back together five years later, and though they could not legally marry, they took each other's names. Patrick, who was still living as a woman, began thinking that he too would become a man.

Then things got complicated.

The couple decided they wanted to have a child. With their unusual history, adoption would be difficult if not impossible, and Patrick had undergone a hysterectomy for medical reasons years before. The only option, they felt, was for Matt to conceive. Plagued by hormone-induced migraines, he had already stopped taking testosterone and had begun to menstruate again; his doctor had advised a hysterectomy. Instead, they found several sperm donors, and the handsome, bearded 37-year-old computer network analyst entered the world of morning sickness and water retention. During Matt's third trimester, Patrick began taking testosterone and contemplating chest surgery.

A year ago, their son was born, into a family of two male parents and a world that 10 years ago did not even exist.

Since the story of Christine Jorgenson hit the New York tabloids in 1952, transsexuals have hovered on the edge of public imagination, stock characters in a myth that went something like this: Due to a mistake in nature or biology, a woman is born trapped in a man's body. After years of denial and mental torture, he has a sex change operation and goes on to live life as a traditional heterosexual woman, revealing her past only as the result of a medical emergency or as a guest on "Jerry Springer."

But in 2001, that scenario is outdated, if not obsolete.

Gender identity disorder, as defined in medical manuals, is characterized by a "persistent discomfort about one's assigned sex." It has no known cause. Numbers are hard to come by in a still-mostly closeted population, but those who are "out" make up an exceedingly diverse group. There are as many female-to-male transsexuals as male-to-female, and they come from every race, religion and cultural background.

Some transsexuals are straight, some are gay and some are bisexual. Some have children before they make the change, some have children after. Many have sexual reassignment surgery, many do not; many take hormones to change their secondary sex characteristics, some do not; many dress and live as close to the traditional definition of male and female as possible; others are androgynous.

In fact, transsexual, with its historical implications of surgery, is being replaced by the broader term "transgender," which includes cross-dressers, people who identify themselves as stone butch lesbians or flaming queens and anyone who feels or acts outside the traditional gender norms. Within the transgender community, the word "transition" has become a verb to describe what used to be called a "sex change."

Buoyed by the success of the gay and lesbian liberation movement, freed from enforced isolation by changes in the medical and psychiatric establishment, and brought together by the Internet, the transgender community has emerged in the last five years as a new voice in social activism. This voice suggests that, although gender is an identity we are born with, an identity that no amount of social influence can sway, it is too great and varied a force to shoehorn into those ubiquitous boxes marked F and M. While human desires -- for love, passion, work, respect, friends, family -- remain constant, the way those desires are felt and expressed cannot always be categorized at the moment of birth. Anatomy, as feminists have long argued, is not destiny.

"This is the last phase of the sexual identity movement," says Vern Bullough, a USC adjunct professor of nursing who has written extensively on sexuality in America. "The community is much more organized than it was five years ago. It's learning to live with its own differences, and becoming more mainstream. The long-term effect will be interesting. Certainly, it will blur gender lines even further."

It seems a natural extension of arguments made by feminists, gays and lesbians -- and transgender people have found solace, aid and allies in both those communities. But they have also encountered rejection and hostility. Change is difficult, even for revolutionaries. "Many mixed-race people are saying that race, as a means of categorizing people, no longer works," says Robert Dawidoff, a history professor at Claremont Graduate University. "Transgender people are showing us that gender, as a similar construct, has no meaning either. Which is, of course, very frightening to many people."

A Difficult Pregnancy for Matt and Patrick

For Matt and Patrick, that was clear right away. It was a difficult pregnancy, physically and emotionally. Tasks most couples take for granted -- finding a doctor and a birthing class, telling family and friends -- became dramatic events. To strangers, Matt looked like a man trying to hide a beer belly with bigger and bigger overalls. His appearance at a birthing class caused a stir. "We had found an instructor whose partner was transgender," says Patrick, a psychotherapist and the author of several books, including "Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism" (Cleis Press, 1997), "so that was no problem. But the class was pretty frosty."

"Matt was very clearly a man when he walked in," says midwife Kim Touevs, whose classes are geared toward lesbian families. "And he was also very clearly pregnant. Everyone was very respectful, but they were waiting to hear what Pat and Matt had to say in the introduction circle." The two were very open, says Touevs, who has since had two other transgender parents in her class, and by the end of the session, everyone seemed comfortable, or as comfortable as a room full of expectant couples can be.

"We had to buy a lot of chocolate," Patrick says. "I have always found that it's kind of hard for people to say nasty things after you've fed them."

A man, however, cannot have a baby without someone taking umbrage, and to the couple's dismay, the most hurtful criticism came from some of their friends. In San Francisco, they were part of one of the largest and most visible transgender communities in the world. But within that world, they were a scandal. "A lot of [female-to-male transsexuals] are very invested in seeing themselves as 'real men,' " says Patrick. "And they said 'real men' don't have babies. But Matt said 'real men' don't have hysterectomies either. He refused to be shamed."

Support Groups Emerge Across U.S.

"I know I'm not a man," wrote transgender activist and playwright Kate Bornstein in her book "Gender Outlaw," "and I've come to the conclusion that I'm probably not a woman either, at least not according to a lot of people's rules on this sort of thing." Bornstein transitioned from male to female almost 20 years ago, and when she wrote her book in 1994, she reported seeing the beginnings of a "transgender revolution." Since then, across the country, organizations providing information and support for transgender people, their spouses, children and relatives have emerged, with members in the thousands.

Many gay and lesbian organizations also offer transgender services. Late last year, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center added the transgender community to its mission statement, reflecting a trend among national organizations as well.

But more than anything else, the Internet, with hundreds of sites devoted to the subject, has helped transgender people break their silence and isolation. "There is an inherent problem with trying to define a transgender community--it covers so many different people, from casual cross-dressers to transsexuals. But there have been some positive changes in the last few years," says Sara Herwig, director of operations at the International Foundation for Gender Education, publisher of Transgender Tapestry magazine, which has a circulation of several thousand. "I think it's in the process of becoming a social force."

Many transgender men and women have stories about how things have gotten better in the last five years. Some point to the decision Feb. 8 by San Francisco to expand health benefits to include psychotherapy, hormones and surgery for city transgender employees, or to a recent court decision in Brockton, Mass., that allowed a transgender female to wear women's clothing to high school, or to the growing number of people able to transition on the job.

Others refer to the mainstream adulation of the Oscar-winning film "Boys Don't Cry" and "Ma Vie en Rose," or to the recent change in the Associated Press guidelines to require that a transgender person be referred to by the pronoun of his or her choice. But as with any liberation movement, the catalyst for the community's activism is the overwhelming sense of injustice. Every transgender person also has a story of fear and loss and often physical abuse. The well-publicized murder of Brandon Teena (the inspiration for "Boys Don't Cry") symbolized for many the problem of violence against transgender people.

Although national health care plans in many European countries pay for sex reassignment, there is little coverage in the U.S. Obtaining new ID remains a problem, and partnership benefits are almost always out of reach. And many institutions refuse to acknowledge that a person can change from one gender to the other. The Texas Supreme Court recently nullified a transgender woman's legal marriage when she attempted to file a wrongful death suit against the hospital where her husband died. Although her birth certificate and driver's license had been legally changed to identify her as female, the court found that male chromosomes do not change with either hormonal treatment or sex reassignment surgery. "Biologically," wrote Chief Justice Phil Hardberger in the deciding opinion, "a post-operative female transsexual is still a male." (Ironically, some same-sex couples in which one partner is transgender have turned the laws to their advantage by using their pretransition genders to marry, which can result in a perfectly legal same-sex union.)

Unlike race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, gender expression has no protection under antidiscrimination law. Attempts to explicitly include transgender people among those protected by a proposed employment nondiscrimination act have failed thus far. Transgender people may be denied housing, fired from their jobs, expelled from schools, banned from social clubs or businesses -- simply because their boss, landlord or principal does not feel comfortable around them.

In a highly publicized case two years ago, a Sacramento school board voted to fire teacher Dana Rivers after several parents complained that she had discussed her transition with her students. Many students, teachers and parents protested, and Rivers sued. The case was settled out of court -- she agreed to resign and received a $150,000 settlement. "Seeing a man in a dress would be a distraction," one of the students who supported Rivers' dismissal told this newspaper at the time. Regarding gender, she added: "God doesn't make mistakes." But where before there was silence at such treatment, there is now a growing chorus of protest, and with it signs of change.

Several years ago, Richard Odenthal, then a Sheriff's Department captain in West Hollywood, realized that his deputies were having trouble dealing with the growing transgender population of the city. Working with several support groups, he created a briefing program to answer questions such as how to address a transgender person and what makes a person want to change gender. "Like anything else," says Odenthal, now West Hollywood's director of public safety, "there were some people who got it right away, some who need a bit more information, and some who still did not like the idea at all. But they know that they are expected to behave professionally and with sensitivity, and I think things have improved." In fact, the city of West Hollywood recently appointed a seven-member task force to study the needs of the growing transgender population.

"There have been major strides in the last five or six years," says Richard Horowitz, a Los Angeles internist and nephrologist (kidney specialist), who has worked with hundreds of transgender patients for more than 12 years. "In the mainstream, and in the medical community, there is much more acceptance."

Gary Alter, a surgeon at Century City Hospital who has performed sexual reassignment operations for seven years, is more blunt: "It used to be people looked at transsexuals as freaks. Now they realize these are just normal people trapped in bodies that don't suit them."

Both doctors say they are seeing more transgender patients than ever. Medically, a transition begins with hormone treatments, which cause the development of secondary sex characteristics, such as the development of breasts or facial hair. After that, several surgeries may be involved. Male-to-females usually have breast implants. Many have genital surgery. This can cost $10,000 or more. There is often electrolysis to remove facial and body hair, and some undergo surgeries to feminize the face -- to make the nose smaller or the brow less prominent, to remove the Adam's apple.

Most female-to-males take testosterone and many have mastectomies. Fewer have genital surgery. At $70,000 and up, it is often prohibitively expensive, and far less successful. Part of the myth of the transsexual was that the process began and ended with surgery and that success was judged by how much of a woman or a man one resembled, how well one "passed." Lately, however, some are rejecting these criteria, arguing that transgender, rather than man or woman, is an end in itself.

"The problem with the traditional model," says Patrick Califia-Rice, "is that it . . . doesn't reflect the reality that many of us are never going to pass." Before transition, his was an hourglass figure with D-cup breasts, and although hormones have shrunk his breasts and hips, he says he looks neither like a traditional man nor a traditional woman. He is still debating whether or not to have his breasts removed. "I don't know if fitting into my Brooks Brothers shirts is worth such an invasive procedure, with possible loss of sensation," he says. Influencing his decision is the knowledge that within the transgender community there is a perceived surgical hierarchy. "People on top are those who've had all the surgery; under those, partial surgery; under those, people who pass with just hormones; under those no hormones; under those, those who just don't pass." Having lived outside the boundaries of traditional conformity, he says, he doesn't relish the idea of capitulating to transgender conformity.

Many 'Standards of Care' Are Loosened

In 1966, New York endocrinologist Harry Benjamin published "The Transsexual Phenomenon," thereby giving a name to a syndrome and establishing a list of "standards of care" by which it should be treated. As recently as 10 years ago, the standards required, among other things, that before transitioning, the patient quit his or her job, move and live for at least a year, without benefit of surgery or hormones, as the desired gender. This included taking a new, "gender appropriate" job, which could mean for a prospective male-to-female, exchanging a law practice for a secretarial post. After surgery, the patient was evaluated regularly, encouraged to keep the reality of his or her life a secret and discouraged from associating with other transgender people.

"Which flies in the face of mental health," says Michelle Kammerer, co-director of the Center for Gender Sanity, a resource and support group. "You were supposed to cut off all communication with your support group at a time when you needed the most support, supposed to quit your job at a time when you needed lots of money." Kammerer transitioned rather famously more than 10 years ago while a station commander with the Los Angeles Fire Department. Although her bosses were supportive, many members of her crew were not. She eventually transferred; she is now a station commander in West Hollywood.

She and her spouse, Janis Walworth, a nontransgender woman, founded the center six years ago. Walworth has written two guides, one for employers and one for employees, that are used across the country. From the couple's home in Westchester, they try to explain the realities of transition to anyone who would like to know--the novelist attempting a transgender character, the mother who doesn't understand what her child is talking about, the woman who cannot live one more day in a man's body.

In the last decade, many of the "standards of care" have been relaxed. As the number of transgender people increased, it became clear that most were not suicidal or pathological.

A diagnosis of gender identification disorder is required before hormone therapy or surgery can take place, and people are generally still required by their doctors to live for at least a year as the gender to which they aspire. But the expectations are more realistic -- a prospective male-to-female patient will not be denied surgery if she eschews makeup or wears slacks rather than skirts. And whereas once doctors and psychiatrists would refuse someone not planning to live as heterosexual after transition, now most do not.

Even the trial year has many critics -- after all, by the time most people make their way to a doctor's office, they have been questioning and denying and fighting their desires for decades. "Most of us have tried everything else," says Kammerer.

Everything else includes being straight, being gay, being celibate, getting married, having kids, getting divorced, joining the Armed Forces, moving across the country, abusing drugs and alcohol, spending years in psychotherapy, even taking religious vows. Most transsexuals say they knew they wanted to have surgery, or at least live as the other gender, at a very early age but were simply too afraid.

In most states, one's gender on a driver's license can be changed, and in some states even on birth certificates. Passports can be changed as well. But all require a letter from a doctor and/or psychiatrist stating that the individual has had reassignment surgery or has been living as the requested gender for at least a year. For those who do not have surgery or hormone treatments, getting a new driver's license or passport can be impossible.

This is one reason it is difficult to find an accurate count of transgender Americans. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Assn. says that one in 30,000 men and one in 100,000 women suffer from gender identity disorder, but this is based only on those who seek psychiatric help. A number that is commonly used -- that about 1,000 Americans have sexual reassignment surgeries each year -- does not take into account the many who go to Europe or Mexico for their surgeries, or those who do not have any surgery at all.

But numbers are important politically, and so the relatively small community has sought various alliances. Many people coming to terms with their gender issues turn to the gay and lesbian community, says Marie Keller, director of the Gender Center in Los Angeles, because there really hasn't been anywhere else to go.

Some of the issues the two groups face are similar, she says -- how to cope with the often-traumatic effects of coming out, how to learn to be honest about who you are -- but the diverse nature of both groups has made the alliance an often-uneasy one, with each side having to confront its own bigotry.

Last year Norah Vincent, a columnist for the gay-oriented periodical the Advocate, took issue with the transgender community's use of language, winding up her argument by asking why "transsexuals mutilate their bodies in order to make them conform to the fashionable version of the opposite sex and gender" instead of living "with all the polymorphy God gave you, body and soul."

In the big coastal cities, Kate Bornstein says, gays and lesbians have become so accepted they're almost chic. "But," she says, "it's still OK to laugh at trannies." Bornstein says she used to feel bitter about the lack of what she sees as real inclusion from the gay and lesbian movement, but now she's not so sure it is a natural alliance. "Gays and lesbians are more about fixed identities -- they have a lot more in common with heterosexuals," she says.

Gwenn Baldwin, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, says she became convinced that the organization should specifically include transgender men and women after hearing someone use the term "gender nonconformity." "We had been serving the transgender community for years," she says, "but we hadn't really been talking about it. But then I realized that we are all gender nonconformists in one way or another."

The phobia exists on both sides, says James Green, co-director of Gender Education and Advocacy, a support group with offices in Oakland, Washington, D.C., and Decatur, Ga. Many straight transgender people do not want to be allied with gays and lesbians, often because they have been mistakenly dubbed homosexual during their pre-transition lives. But the alliance is a necessary one, he says, because "the reason people are getting bashed is because of gender signals." Many female-to-males who lived for years in the lesbian community or as radical feminists say their decision to transition was seen by many as a betrayal.

"I had to overcome the attitude that the good people are women, which I had bought into for so long," says Patrick Califia-Rice. "Although, after taking testosterone, I have to admit most men are pretty well behaved, if they're experiencing what I'm experiencing."

"I lost some friends," says Mike Hernandez, a lawyer living outside Los Angeles who transitioned 10 years ago. "When you go from being a lesbian separatist to being a man, well, there are going to be some problems."

Many transgender people say they wish they had simply been born in the "right" body, but that is not what happened. Instead their lives followed unmarked paths in the darkness beyond the pale, paths of fight or flight and then surrender--to a transformation that neither begins nor ends with the traditional definition of man or woman.

"One of my girlfriends said during an argument, 'I can't believe you were ever a woman,' " says Green. "And I said, 'I wasn't. That's the whole point. I was something else.' "

How does he think of himself now? "I am a man," he says, "with an unusual history."

Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times

Fitting Into Their Own Skin (second of two parts)

By Mary McNamara, LA Times Staff Writer

For some, the emotional freedom gained by gender transition has been worth the complications.

February 28, 2001 - Lynda Bengtsson realized there were some drawbacks to a successful transition the day she had an automobile accident. She could see quite clearly what damage had been done to her car, but the CHP officer on the scene dismissed her opinions. "He treated me like a second-class citizen," she says, "like it was impossible that I would understand anything about cars."

Very frustrating for a former Marine who has rebuilt more than one engine. But it was just one of many revelations she had during her first year as a woman. "I [had been] a white male, at the top of the totem pole," says Bengtsson, 34, who lives in Eagle Rock. "I had no social issues, no perception of prejudice, I could do what I want, walk down any street. As a woman, it's very different. There are ATMs I would never go to now. I do feel much more vulnerable."

She is, however, happier than she's ever been in her life, and blessed with the kind of support from colleagues, family and friends that she never dreamed of during the years she tried to pretend she could live her life as a man. "I keep waiting for someone to have the reaction I was so afraid of," she says. "And it really hasn't happened."

For many of the hundreds of transgender men and women in the Los Angeles area, recent social and medical changes have lightened the burden of living outside the mainstream. Bengtsson found support where she assumed she would meet rejection; Mike Hernandez, a lawyer who transitioned from female to male 10 years ago, has watched the emergence of a true community with increasing hope and serenity; and for Mona Rios and Boe Randal, parents of a 10-year old daughter, the discovery that they were not alone has profoundly changed their lives.

Throughout history, there have been men who lived as women and women who lived as men, but it wasn't until 1952 that the well-publicized "sex change operation" of Christine Jorgenson brought the concept of transsexualism into the American consciousness. For subsequent decades, transsexuals were considered shocking figures--at best, mentally conflicted; at worst, morally corrupt.

But in the last 10 years, as treatment of gender dysphoria has evolved, the once closeted and isolated population of transsexuals in this country has become more open and unified. In the wake of the gay and lesbian liberation movement, this newly dubbed "transgender" community has grown in number, diversity and social presence. Brought together by the Internet and emboldened by alliances with the gay and lesbian community and their own increasing numbers, transgender people are forcing society to reconsider, once again, its definition of gender, sex and civil rights.

"They're following a fairly standard arc," says USC adjunct professor Vern Bullough, a historian who has written many books on sexuality. "First, people come out, break the silence, then they overcome their own differences and unite, then they demand their rights and acceptance from the mainstream. The transgender community is now becoming united and very visible for the first time ever."

For historians and activists, the narrative of the transgender experience is a chronicle of social change; for Bengtsson, Hernandez, Rios and Randall, it is simply the way life occurred.

Since childhood, Bengtsson had known she was not really a boy. The only son in a family of four children, she had waited patiently for something to happen that would make her feel different from her sisters, and that something never came. "It's impossible to explain," she says, "like trying to describe the color blue to a blind person. When my eyes were closed, I was this one person, and then I would open them, and there was this other person instead."

Although they had no words to explain it, Bengtsson's family also knew something was wrong. "When Dave hit puberty, something happened," says Holly LeMasters, Bengtsson's older sister. "He just seemed so unhappy; something was just off." The family, she says, was completely shocked by Bengtsson's decision to join the Marines. "It was so not him," she says.

"I was running from myself, from my family," Bengtsson says. "I was looking for a place to get lost, to fit in."

On leave after boot camp, Bengtsson seemed even more distant than before. "It was like no one was there," LeMasters says. "And after that we hardly ever heard from him. For years."

Bengtsson spent almost 12 years trying to will herself into being male, drawing on the discipline and order of the armed forces to quell her true feelings. As she approached 30, however, she realized that this was not a permanent answer. Her research had transcended episodes of "Donahue," and she knew all about hormone treatments and sexual reassignment surgery. She also knew she wasn't going to be able to do either in the Marine Corps. "It's really too bad," she says, "because in a lot of ways, the Marines would be the perfect place to transition. Because really you are not judged on how you look or sound, but on how you perform."

Just as she had made her decision, she was offered a job as a juvenile probation officer in Orange County. Although this might not be the ideal setting for transition either, it offered her a salary that would pay for hormone treatments and allow her to begin saving for the surgery.

After a year of leading a double life, as David during the week and Lynda on the weekends, she began taking hormones in 1999. She was still living publicly as a man, and as the hormones began softening her features, changing her shape, life as a probation officer got a little complicated. "Way before any of my colleagues noticed, I had kids picking up on me," she says. "I started getting the 'ma'am-sirs.' You know, 'yes, ma'am, I mean sir, I mean ma'am.' The first time it happened I freaked out. I mean, I had this kid up against a wall and I was dressing him down pretty good. I still don't know how he knew. Maybe it was because my hair was getting long, or maybe," she adds, laughing, "it was just all that female energy."

It is hard to imagine Bengtsson pinning anyone against a wall--she is not a big woman, with a gentle manner and a soft, light voice that rises and falls with her restless gesturing hands. She feared she would have to leave her job to take her transition any further, but her Employment Assistance Program representative asked only how much time off she thought she would need.

Around the same time, her parents paid her a surprise visit. Although her sisters were aware of her transition, her parents were not. Greeting them as David, Bengtsson finally asked her mother how she would feel about having another daughter. "They were both very concerned, and my Dad, my Dad," she repeats a little more softly, "he only wanted to know if there was anything he could do to help."

When Bengtsson went home for the following Thanksgiving, she went home as Lynda. "We were all very nervous," says LeMaster. When Lynda first walked in the door, LeMaster says, "it was very weird. But Lynda seemed so much more present than Dave had ever been. Much more real and happy. Soon it was like 'Oh, hello, there you are after all.' "

Their mother is having the hardest time adjusting, LeMaster says. She still calls Lynda "Dave" sometimes and agonizes over what to tell extended family members or Lynda's high school friends. But there is no rejection or condemnation. "I keep reminding Lynda that although she's had her whole life to deal with this, we've had less then two years," says LeMaster. "For me, it's like a reincarnation, like Dave died and Lynda was born. And it's amazing how different they are--Lynda is so much more open and articulate. Even her handwriting is better."

Although her family stood by her, many of her buddies from the Marines have not spoken to her since she told them of her new life. And as her transition proceeded, some of her colleagues in the probation department were clearly uncomfortable. So when a job as a systems technician opened up in another county office, she took it. "I really miss working with the kids," she says. "Maybe someday I'll go back."

The cost of the transition process is Lynda's biggest worry right now. She is still saving for sexual reassignment surgery, which costs more than $10,000, and it's slow going, since none of her other transition-related medical expenses, including the hormones, which cost several hundred dollars a month, are covered by insurance, a fact Bengtsson finds infuriating. "I don't know if I could have done this without the support of family and friends," Bengtsson says. "Sometimes I think I should have done this 10 years sooner. But then, it wouldn't have been like this 10 years ago."

Former Daughter's Beard Is a Symbol

Mike Hernandez's father hates the beard. Not because it grows from the chin of the person he once called daughter; after 10 years, he and his wife have long since accepted Martha's decision to live as Mike. "You're a grown-up, you're a lawyer, you always made good decisions before" were his words at the time.

But the beard is another thing. Long, dark and luxurious, it is a lovely beard, but every time Mike visits, his father threatens it with the garden shears. The Hernandez family is Cuban, and although they've lived in the United States for almost 40 years, the sight of a man with a Castro-esque beard still has a rather dramatic effect. "It's a problem for many Cubans," Hernandez says.

For the beard's owner, it is also a symbol--of masculinity. It is also an attempt, he jokes, to compensate for the lack of hair on his head. "One of the drawbacks of testosterone," he says. "If you've got the bald gene, it all goes south." That hair loss is an issue marks a decided shift in Hernandez's life. For many who transition from female to male, baldness, like facial hair, is considered a blessing, especially in the early years after transition. After a decade of life as a man, however, Hernandez says, his gender identity is no longer constantly on his mind. "Whole days, weeks go by without me thinking about it," he says. "Now I tend to brood about other issues, like aging."

Yet the one time the 39-year-old Woodland Hills litigation attorney shaved off his beard, the aging issue took on a whole different twist. "He came to work looking like a 17-year-old boy," says Darcy Mullen, an attorney who works with Hernandez. "I laughed so hard, and I told him that he had to immediately grow it back. I was concerned that he wouldn't be taken seriously by defense counsel and the court."

Mullen met Hernandez in 1992, and although she did not for a moment doubt he was a man, she says that when she shook his hand and looked into his eyes, she felt that something about him was "soft." The two hit it off immediately and began working together. Mullen discovered they had a mutual acquaintance who had recently transitioned from female to male. It dawned on Mullen that something similar might account for the softness she had felt. "I asked him if he was also transitioning," she says. "His response was mostly of surprise. I apparently was one of the only--if not the only--people to question his gender."

Disclosure is a lifelong issue for any transgender person. At worst, it may damage or end a relationship; at best it requires a conversation full of explanation and edification. Hernandez has been with his partner, who is also female-to-male, for nine years, so he hasn't had to have "the big conversation" that precedes a sexual relationships with non-transgender people. And he doesn't feel obligated to open up to every acquaintance and co-worker. But, he says, "if you get intimate with someone, at some point you have to have a chat." He has had that chat so many times that it has begun to bore him, although he knows that telling the truth, over and over again, is the only way the transgender community can dispel the myths that surround it.

"For folks who are used to black and white, this is disconcerting," he says. "Just as many people didn't think women could be pilots or lawyers. Any time you shake up a system, there is turmoil. Internal and external turmoil." His story, he says, is not the standard transsexual tale in that he does not remember longing to be a boy as a child. He was, however, a very masculine girl and then a very masculine woman. He tried to be straight and failed miserably, he says. Working as an attorney in San Francisco, he decided he was gay and lived as a lesbian for five or six years but never really felt like he fit in. Then, at a gay and lesbian conference in Portland, he heard a female-to-male speaker at a workshop. "My stomach just hit the floor," he says.

Back home in San Francisco, Hernandez began hanging out at female-to-male support groups, meeting transsexuals and cross dressers and other masculine women. "I was afraid lesbians wouldn't accept me [if I transitioned]. And I didn't know if I could do it. I hadn't been socialized as a man." In the end, though, his concerns did not matter. "This is what I had to do," he says. "The conference had been in October; I started taking hormones in March."

His lover agreed to keep an open mind, but after six months, the relationship ended. "Not surprising, since she is a lesbian and I was now identifying as a man."

Hernandez continued to work as a woman until during one trial the judge was clearly quite confused. "She kept asking who I was again until finally she figured it out. But even then, she thought I was going from a man to a woman. So the next day, I grabbed a friend and went shopping for some suits."

The firms he worked with, he says, were very accommodating; one lawyer even pointed out that Mike was much nicer than Martha. "And I think she's right. As a woman, I was very angry. Now I'm much more at peace with myself." He also sees that many of the stereotypes regarding social expectations are true. "People now do assume I understand auto repair," he says, "and the hardest thing has been was realizing that I can't tell [a stranger] how beautiful their kids are, because I'm a man and so might be a threat."

On the other hand, wardrobe issues are simplified. "My clothes last forever now," he says. "And my shoes, man, it really is scandalous how much better men's stuff is than women's."

An Instant Bond Between the Couple

As a couple, Mona Rios and Boe Randal have lived one of the most dramatic transgender stories possible--a man who became a woman married to a woman who became a man. Within the marriage, each has been the husband, each has been the wife. Neither of them uses those terms however; they prefer the word "spouse." When discussing their 30-year relationship, even they sometimes get confused. But like many couples, they vividly remember the moment they met.

Rios, then 14, had recently arrived in Los Angeles, leaving what she calls a dysfunctional family situation in Northern California to live with one of her mother's ex-boyfriends. Randal and his family were neighbors in the Hollywood apartment building. "I remember he walked into my room just as I was putting on my makeup and he just stood there," Rios says, "and stared."

In that moment, the two discovered a deep and enduring bond. Both had been dressing, and living, as the opposite sex since they were very young. When they first met, Boe's name was Karen Ann, and Mona's was William John. Although they did not become a couple until much later, for the next 20 years, they were more than friends, they were family. They hung out together, ran around together, partied together. For Rios, especially, Randal was always a safe haven, the one person who never required an explanation, the one person who understood. One horrible night, Rios remembers, she had "my 'Crying Game' moment." A new boyfriend, became enraged and tried to kill her when he discovered her anatomy was not female. She fled to Randal's apartment, naked, for protection. So when she entered her 30s and decided that she really needed to settle down, she turned to her closest friend to see if somehow they could fashion a "normal" life, as a couple.

At the time, Rios, who was taking female hormones, thought of herself as a feminine gay man, and Randal considered himself a lesbian. But they decided to give it a shot. "It seemed like the natural thing to do," says Randal.

"We loved each other," says Rios. "We still do."

They got married, and four months later, Randal was pregnant, which was a bit of a shock; he had never had the desire to parent a child, much less carry one. Rios, on the other hand, was ecstatic. In an effort to conform to their new roles, they joined a church where cross-dressing was not acceptable. So Rios stopped taking hormones, put away her dresses and donned a suit--"I had to learn to walk in boys' shoes; I had never worn them," she says--and Randal struggled into his first skirt, his first pair of heels.

"Oh, man, I hated it," he says now, laughing. "And it was awful, I felt like everyone was staring at me."

"They were staring at you," Rios says. "You looked like a football player in those dresses. And he was so rebellious. He would not do any of the things around the house a woman is supposed to do."

"I'd never done them," Randal says, holding his hands up, palms out. "I tried it for eight months. And then I said, forget it. I gave my purses to her." He went back to his big T-shirts, his baggy jeans.

When their daughter, Elizabeth, was born, it became clear that the parental roles were not going to follow conventional rules either. Rios, although then still making a go of it as a male, felt all the maternal urges that Randal did not. "I'm definitely more of a father," Randal says.

Although Rios continued for a while to present herself as a male, she still cross-dressed in private, and after a few years, she began taking hormones again and dressing pretty much full time. To the world, they look like an average family--Rios is slender and lithe enough to be a dancer, her dark hair pulled back from a heart-shaped face, and Randal is wide-eyed, wide-shouldered and boyishly friendly. But from the time 10-year-old Elizabeth was small, her parents have been completely open about their biological history and their choices. "I would rather deal with it now," says Rios, "than have her grow up and hate us for lying to her or hiding things."

Until about two years ago, they believed that there was no one out there like them. They did not realize that the word "transgender" even existed. Although they knew of transsexual women, the ones they had seen on television did not seem to speak for, or to, either Rios or Randal. And they didn't know a transsexual man was even possible. Then one day while on the Internet, Rios discovered several transgender Web sites; a while later, Randal saw a couple of advertisements for female-to-male support groups in a local free newspaper. "I'm reading these things and thinking, 'Hey, that's me,' " he says.

"It was just such a relief," says Rios, "you know, to find other people like us, to know, oh that's who we are."

Since then they have embraced their new lives. They've had their names changed on their driver's licenses and transitioned at work, where neither one encountered any real problems. The bathroom issue that baffles so many employers was not an obstacle--at the manufacturing plant where Rios works on the assembly line, there is only one lavatory, and Randal has long used the men's room at his IBM office. "I never have any trouble there," he says. "Back when I was trying to be a girl, I would walk into the women's room, and women would yell."

Both are planning to have chest surgery in the near future, although neither has immediate plans for genital surgery.

Their daughter, they say, has adjusted to their new identities. "She knows who had her," says Randal. "But she usually calls me Boe, or Dad."

"I told her I would always be her father," says Rios, "and she sometimes calls me Dad, but when we're in public, she calls me Mom. I tell her not to worry about what other people think. I don't any more. You have to be who you are."

© Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times

Bill Would Clarify Sex Change Legalities

By Timothy Inklebarger, Express-News Austin Bureau

March 09, 2001, AUSTIN, TX - People who have undergone a sex change could more easily change their legal gender under a bill filed by San Antonio lawmaker Leticia Van de Putte. Van de Putte's uncle is married to Christie Lee Littleton, whose previous marriage was ruled invalid by an appeals court because Littleton was born a man.

Littleton's previous husband, Jonathan Littleton, died in 1996. Because his wife, Christie Lee, was a transsexual, she was prevented from pursuing a lawsuit in the death, which she alleged was caused by medical malpractice. "The outcome would have been totally different" if the law had been in place Littleton said. "I would have had my day in court like any other woman."

Currently, individuals who have undergone a sex change can legally change their gender, but the decision is made at the discretion of a county court judge.

Sarah DePalma, director of the Texas Gender Advocacy Information Network, took a lead role in drafting the bill. She said many judges will not grant the gender change because there is no law that expressly permits them to do so. More judges would allow the change if the bill becomes law, DePalma said, but they'd still have the authority to deny the request.

In Littleton's case, the 4th Court of Appeals said it is the Legislature's job to write the laws and the court's job to enforce them. "There was a grave concern in our district because of the 4th Court of Appeals opinion on the Christie Littleton case," Van de Putte said. "The 4th Court said it's not their jurisdiction, it's the jurisdiction of the Legislature to clarify this, and I'm attempting to clarify it."

Though the bill has been sponsored for several sessions in the House, companion legislation in the Senate has not appeared until this session. The House sponsor, Rep. Debra Danburg, D-Houston, said the bill was around long before the Littleton case. "Basically all these people are trying to do is get everything in their lives consistent ... something that all of us take for granted, and they end up having to go through all of this expense and hassle and questions from other people," Danburg said.

Passing the bill into law would more easily allow transsexuals to obtain employment and apply for health insurance, DePalma said. "There is a problem in obtaining medical insurance because according to them you're not male or female," she said. "And finding a job can be difficult when your driver's license says male, but you are dressed like a woman."

Similarly, Danburg said inconsistencies in public records could have side effects. Police serving an arrest warrant, she said, might be looking for John Doe, and they get there and find Jane Doe. "It is very confusing not only to law enforcement ... " Van de Putte said. "So all I'm after is a consistency in law."

Marc Levin, Communications Vice-Chairman for the Young Conservatives of Texas, said the organization was not aware of the bills. But he said it is fair to say the group would be skeptical of the proposed legislation.

Portions © 2000 KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express-News. © 2000 MyWay. All rights reserved.

Now that I am older, here's what I have discovered:

I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.
I finally got my head together, now my body is falling apart.
All reports are in; life is now officially unfair.
If all is not lost, where is it?
It is easier to get older than it is to get wiser.
Some days you're the dog; some days you're the hydrant.
It's hard to make a comeback when you haven't been anywhere.

N.Y. Considers Trans Protection

By Barbara Dozetos, Gay.com / PlanetOut Network

March 8, 2001 - Deciding that protections based on gender are not enough to keep trans* people from experiencing discrimination, some members of the New York City Council are pushing for a more inclusive amendment. New York City may soon add transgender people to the list of those protected by its non-discrimination law.

An amendment being considered by the city council would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, self-image, appearance, behavior or expression, regardless of any difference "from that traditionally associated with the legal sex assigned to that person at birth," reports the New York Post.

The bill has been dormant for most of the last year because Council Speaker Peter Vallone's office believed the protection based on gender already offered in the city human rights law was sufficient. They were waiting for input from city attorneys that has not yet materialized.

Margarita Lopez, one of the sponsors of the gender identity amendment, told the Post, "Gender to me is male or female. It does not include those perceived to be male but who dress like a female." She and fellow sponsor Bill Perkins told the council victims of gender identity bias loose jobs, homes, and are often refused public accommodations.

Lopez and Perkins are moving ahead with the process to have the proposal made law. Although Mayor Rudolph Guiliani's office has not taken a position on it, a hearing on the matter is tentatively scheduled for later this month.

Transgendered Christians Speak Out

Transgendered Christians will be highlighted in The Other Side's upcoming May-June 2001 issue, with a groundbreaking cluster of articles lifting up the unique concerns of transgendered people within the church. With particular attention to the spiritual ramifications of gender oppression, this cluster invites the church and society to listen to and learn from the experience of transgendered Christians - both their personal stories as well as their challenge to mainstream cultural understandings of gender.

ERIN SWENSON, a Presbyterian minister who had a sex-change operation and whose ordination was upheld, uses her remarkable journey to make some very powerful challenges to the church about justice and inclusion--challenges that move far beyond gender issues.

ROBIN SHANER writes insightfully about the issues gays and lesbians share with transgendered Christians as well as the issues that separate them.

CHRIS PAIGE (publisher and co-director of The Other Side) tells her personal story--her experience of being "Otherwise," and the challenge of finding a place in this world that allows her to live authentically apart from gender dichotomies.

VIRGINIA MOLLENKOTT (feminist biblical scholar and author of soon-to-be-released OmniGender) writes on gender and the Bible, arguing that the concept of gender is much more diverse and fluid than we normally allow, and that Scripture has more gender fluidity than we read into it. It also includes a "Definitions" sidebar to help readers understand some of the variety of the transgender experience.

The Other Side (http://www.theotherside.org) is an independent and ecumenical Christian publication advancing a healing Christian vision that is biblical and compassionate, appreciative of the creative arts, and committed to the intimate intertwining of personal spirituality and social transformation.

Deadline for Abstracts Draws Near:

This year's venue is Galveston, Texas, which is the very place where HBIGDA was granted its charter May 19, 1981, exactly 20 years ago. Galveston is a seaside resort about 50 miles south of Houston, Texas. At the end of October the weather is nearly perfect. Day time highs in the mid to upper 80's and night time lows in the low 70's to mid 60's. The 5 star conference hotel overlooks the Gulf of Mexico and provides both a swimming pool and a beach with ocean swimming. Many other forms of outdoor recreation are available such as tennis, golf, jogging, etc. By Texas standards Galveston is a historic town with preserved Victorian architecture and museums which highlight its past as a seaport and major point of entry to the U.S. from 1870 to 1920. One can easily reach Galveston by car or limo from the two Houston airports: Hobby (50 min) or Bush Intercontinental airport (90 min).

We invite you to submit abstracts on any research or clinical aspect of your speciality in the field of gender dysphoria. Due: Monday, April 16, 2001

Guidelines

1. To present a poster, please send an abstract and identify it as a poster.
2. To present a paper, please send an abstract. The time for individual papers will be 15 minutes, discussion included.
3. Each submission must be accompanied by an abstract that is suitable for publication in the volume of abstracts for the meeting. Deadline is April 16, 2001. Abstracts should meet these guidelines:
   • Size: letter size
   • Margin: 1 inch (2.5 cm) all around
   • Single spaced
   • Identification as follows:
     • Title:
     • Author(s):
     • Affiliation(s):
     • Address of the first author:
4. Please include information about which presentational devices you will need (for example: video, overhead, slide projector, laptop & projector).
5. Please include a brief comment regarding your current professional involvement with Gender Identity Disorder.

Send Abstracts to:
Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association
1300 S. 2nd Street, Ste. 180
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55454
FAX: (612) 626-8311
Email: HBIGDA@famprac.umn.edu

Vote Defeats Ban On Same Sex Rites

By Richelle Thompson, The Cincinnati Enquirer and The Associated Press

March 15, 2001, NEW YORK - Presbyterian ministers and churches can decide individually whether they will officiate at same-sex commitment ceremonies.

A national proposal to ban blessing rituals for same-sex couples in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was defeated in balloting tabulated early Wednesday. The Presbytery of Cincinnati cast one of the deciding ballots Tuesday, supporting the status quo and voting against the proposal.

The decision leaves clergy free to conduct such ceremonies, as long as they are not confused with marriages.

The vote is a victory for the liberal side in the conflict over homosexuality that has divided U.S. Presbyterians for 24 years. This is the second time in seven years the church has struck down proposals to ban same-sex unions. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has 3.6 million members.

The result was announced on the Internet news site Presbyweb.com, which has closely monitored the voting. The official count at denominational headquarters in Louisville, Ky., lags behind, but both sides have acknowledged for days that the proposal was dead.

Tristate reaction to the decision was mixed. The Rev. Steve Van Kuiken of Mount Auburn Presbyterian praised the vote. ³We obviously believe that the same benefits for intimate caring relationships should be available and recognized for gay and lesbian folks as well as straight folks,² he says. His church has held same-sex ceremonies for years and openly disobeys the denomination's ban on sexually active gay and lesbian elders. There's still more work to be done, he cautions. ³The church is slowly evolved through the century. But it's like a glacier. This is just another small movement.²

But the Rev. Pat Hartsock of College Hill Presbyterian Church considers the decision a setback. ³I don't want to be thought of as homophobic,² he says. ³I think the church should be full of truth and grace ... (The church should be) able to call something a sin and yet still not condemn and wound people.²

The decision is inconsistent with other church teaching, the Rev. Mr. Hartsock says. Consider the denomination's governing rules, which dictate that actively practicing sinners, which the Rev. Hartsock says includes gays and lesbians, cannot be ordained. Yet the church also says same-sex unions can be performed.

The decision ³puts us at odds with ourselves as a denomination,² he says.

Under the Presbyterian system, the measure to ban same-sex ceremonies was passed by the national assembly last June and sent to 173 regional legislatures, known as ³presbyteries,² for ratification. A simple majority of 87 presbyteries was needed for passage, but the count now stands at 63 in favor and 87 opposed, defeating the measure.

Hans Cornelder, who runs the nonpartisan Presbyweb site, said most Presbyterians oppose same-sex rituals but the proposal lost because those voting felt it intruded too much on the powers of local clergy and congregations.

³Very few people in the presbytery debates have spoken in favor of blessing same-sex unions,² he said.

For two local pastors, the vote was less about same-sex unions than about the individual church's right to make its own decisions. ³God is lord of our conscience,² says the Rev. Clarence Wallace of Carmel Presbyterian Church in Avondale. ³We cannot legislate people's personalities or points of view.²

That doesn't mean there will be a flurry of gay and lesbian weddings, says the Rev. Mr. Wallace. He's never been asked to perform a same-sex union. And in Avondale, he says, there are other, more pressing issues of poverty, hunger and unemployment, than spending a great deal of time arguing over the issue of same-sex unions.

The Rev. Martha Cross Sexton of Kennedy Heights Presbyterian Church was pleased with the decision too. The amendment was poorly worded, she says, and would have made it difficult to offer pastoral care to many groups, not only gays and lesbians. For instance, the language may have called into question whether it was appropriate to baptize a child born out of wedlock. Further, ³The Presbyterian church traditionally has trusted its pastors and sessions (governing boards) to make responsible, spirit-directed decisions about care for people in their congregations,² says the Rev. Ms. Sexton. The amendment suggests ³we have to be micro-managed. ... It would have had a very bad effect on our way of governing the church.²

Transgender Artists, Works Gaining Acceptance

By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 28, 2001 - Though depicting a relatively tiny segment of the population, transgender-themed works of art and entertainment have been racking up quite a few awards for quite a few people. Last spring, Hilary Swank won the Oscar for best actress for her portrayal of female-to-male Brandon Teena in "Boys Don't Cry." A few months later, transgender comedian Eddie Izzard won two Emmys for his one-man show "Dress to Kill." And this year, two of the top prizes at Sundance went to "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," about a transgender rock singer, and "Southern Comfort," a documentary about a female-to-male dying of ovarian cancer.

It is impossible to overstate the significance of these works, particularly "Boys Don't Cry," among the transgender community. Brandon Teena did not fit the social stereotype of a transsexual. He had taken no hormones nor had any sexual reassignment surgery, although some friends and relatives say he hoped to someday. After his murder in Nebraska, his mother and other members of the family refused to refer to him by his chosen name or pronoun, and early media reports, including a seminal piece in the Village Voice, referred to him as her.

For many, the subsequent protests, controversy and final decision by the media to refer to Teena as him, were liberating. It brought to the mainstream a whole new definition of transsexual, or transgender. For female-to-males, especially, it provided an image they could point to when explaining their past, or their chosen future, to friends and family.

It also marked a shift in the role transgender characters play in movies and television. Where once they were comedic oddities, or serial killers, recent portrayals have been more sympathetic, often because actual transgender people are behind them. Izzard's award-winning show, the title of which plays off the transsexual serial killer in Brian DePalma's "Dressed to Kill," is by no means a diatribe on the transgender life. Very little of the stand-up performance deals directly with the fact that the British comedian identifies as much as a woman as he does a man. The history of imperialism, the building of Stonehenge, the secret longings of squirrels -- all get more air time than Izzard's makeup and high heels and feminine garb. But that's the whole point. "Basically, I think everyone has got to come out," he says. "And I've engineered my career to be out. But if you go on and on about it, people turn off. If you just talk crap, which I do, people think, 'Oh, he's all right.' And I do have a life; I'm not just sitting around thinking about my sexuality."

His sexuality has, however, been the subject of endless speculation since his career took off in the mid-'90s. Profiles invariably had him "insisting" he was straight, which, he says, got a bit tiresome. "I remember I was on some show and I said I was straight, and this drag queen [who was also a guest] screamed, 'Liar!' I was prepared for all sorts of reactions, but not for a drag queen to call me a liar."

Now Izzard identifies as "a male lesbian," and that seems to have quieted everyone down a bit. He says he has considered having sexual reassignment surgery for years. "But I realized that given my face and figure, I'd only look like a bloke in a dress. And if that's the case, I might as well just live as a bloke in a dress."

Transgender, he says, is probably the best word we've got. "Although it does sound a bit like a railway system."

There is something inherently dramatic in a transgender character--the challenge to society's construct of sexuality, the tension of revelation, the test of tolerance and imagination. Theater and film have a rich history of transgender characters -- from Shakespeare through Benny Hill, cross-dressing has been a keystone of British comedy. America had Uncle Miltie, and who can forget Joe E. Brown's nonchalant reaction at the end of "Some Like It Hot," when his girlfriend, played by Jack Lemmon, reveals he is really a man? Or Dustin Hoffman's plea to Jessica Lange in "Tootsie": "I was a better man with you as a woman. ... I just have to learn to do it without the dress."

More recently, films from all over have dealt with various aspects of the transgender experience -- "The Crying Game" came out of Ireland, "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" from Australia, "Just Like a Woman" from England and "Ma Vie en Rose," Belgium.

On American television, transgender characters tend to appear on those "very special episodes" that run during sweeps week, often as sex workers, crime victims or potential suicides. Last November, however, transgender women were portrayed with varying degrees of sympathy on three mainstream shows -- "Just Shoot Me," "Gideon's Crossing" and "Ally McBeal." "Just Shoot Me" featured a story line in which David Spade met up with an old school chum only to discover that "he" had transitioned into Jenny McCarthy. On "Gideon's Crossing," a transgender woman was confronted with discontinuing her hormone treatments, and revealing to her husband that she was born in a man's body, or dying from cancer. And on "Ally McBeal," Mark fell for a client of the firm, not knowing she was a transgender woman. After being told by his colleagues, with hostility and prejudice, that a relationship with her would be impossible, he dumped her.

The last story line, which ran over three episodes, drew fire from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which called on members to contact creator David E. Kelley’s office in protest. "The first episode really got my hopes up," says Nick Adams, a spokesman for GLAAD and a female-to-male. "The character was outspoken, confident, secure, but the outcome really just reinforced stereotypes. No one came to her defense; not one character reacted sympathetically. In the end, it was just an exercise in trans-bashing."

As a matter of fact, in February, the transgender character reappeared on "Ally McBeal" and got married, but not before an enlightened Mark made an impassioned declaration regarding her true womanhood.

Like blacks, feminists, gays and lesbians, Adams says, transgender characters are following a fairly familiar TV arc -- appearing most sympathetically in comedies and as characters in crisis on dramas. That arc, he hopes, will end with transgender characters simply being part of a cast. "In comedies," he says, "they're allowed to be a bit more real, which is also true of gays and lesbians. Humor traditionally defuses all sorts of bigotry. Who would have thought five years ago we'd have 'Will & Grace'?"

Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times

Eddy Izzard

Holding Out For A Hero

By Tech. Sgt. Phillip E. Copeland, USAF http://www.defenselink.mil/news/

Washington, March 7, 2001 -- The Confederate soldiers appeared to have defeated their Union opponents at the Battle of Shiloh. Confederate Lt. Harry Buford, a handsome, scrappy officer, anticipated a glorious victory for his army. But all that exuberance was to be short-lived.

The next day, April 7, 1862, a retrenched, reinforced Union army miraculously rebounded and crushed the South decisively. Rather than feeling the expected flush of victory, surviving Southern soldiers felt lucky they had escaped the battlefield with their lives.

After the dust of war settled, Buford and some fellow soldiers revisited the Tennessee battlefield. They witnessed the horrible aftermath: dead men and horses, body parts and broken wagons littered the grounds. The aftermath consumed over 23,000 men either dead, wounded or missing from both sides. The soldiers knew war was not to end anytime soon.

As Buford rode along the battleground, he was suddenly thrown off his horse and struck the ground forcefully. A soldier helped the shaken lieutenant up. Buford remounted and rode back to camp with an extreme pain in his hand and arm. Enduring the pain until he could no longer avoid medical care, the agonized lieutenant sent for a surgeon.

The doctor examined Buford and began to suspect something miss. Only then did the lieutenant reluctantly disclose the truth. His name wasn't Buford, and he wasn't a man, but a woman who'd been masquerading so well that she'd fooled her commanding officer -- her husband!

Loreta J. Velazquez was born June 26, 1842, in Havana, Cuba, of a Spanish father and French-American mother. Her family inherited an estate in Texas, but did have a chance to move in before the Mexican-American War began. Her father served in the Mexican army as an officer. After Mexico's defeat, he abandoned his estate rather than become a Texan and U.S. citizen.

While living in Puerto de Palmas, Cuba, the Velasquezes hired an finish governess to tutor their young daughter. The girl would later live with her aunt in New Orleans and become accomplished in the English language.

Throughout her childhood, Loreta was inspired by the story of Joan f Arc. She dreamed of being a war hero and had a growing obsession to be a man. As a child, she would dress as her male role models and heroes, such as Columbus and Capt. James Cook.

On April 5, 1856, Loreta married a U.S. Army officer whom she referred to only as "William" in her memoirs. Her family disowned her. She was a dutiful wife and mother, but after the deaths of her three children, her grief revived her childhood notions of pursuing battle.

William reluctantly resigned his commission from the U.S. Army nd hesitantly joined the Confederate army at the wishes of Loreta and his father. Meanwhile, Loreta continued to possess this burning desire for a war to happen and a stronger inclination to dress as a soldier engaging battle.

William tried to discourage Loreta by allowing her to disguise herself in one of his Confederate uniforms and accompanying him in a local bar full of men. William assumed that once Loreta saw how vulgar men acted in the absence of women, she would not be so inclined to pursue her desire. While at the bar, two dear male friends of the couple came up to greet them. They did not recognize Loreta. This boosted her confidence of her new male identity.

On April 8, 1861, William went off to war thinking Loreta had hanged her mind about battle. However, the moment he was gone, she pursued her dream of war.

With the help of a good tailor, wire body shields and loose undergarments, a handsomely dressed Confederate soldier stood in the mirror ready for a gallant new life. All evidence of a beautiful, slender woman vanished. Now, the aspirations of a child influenced by Joan of Arc were to be realized.

Loreta neatly packed a trunk full of Confederate officer uniforms. On he lid of the trunk were the shiny letters of her new name -- "Lieutenant H.T. Buford, C.S.A."

She swore a male friend to secrecy and with his help fine- tuned her act -- the appearance and mannerisms of a male Confederate officer ready for combat. After that careful preparation, her plan was to recruit a battalion and present it to her unsuspecting husband for his command.

At her own research and expense, Loreta recruited a battalion of en in the name of the state of Virginia. She established a regiment and a chain of command beneath her that included two subordinate officers, a sergeant and a corporal. A friend in Memphis provided transportation for her troops and helped prepare them for war.

Buford and the recruits met up with William in Pensacola. He didn't recognize his disguised wife. In confidence, she revealed herself to her profoundly astonished and aggrieved husband. William knew she would just try somewhere else if he sent her packing. He took command of Buford's troops and started to train them.

Loreta, as Lieutenant Buford, went off to New Orleans to get supplies. While there, a terrible message arrived. The commander was dead, killed when a weapon exploded in his hands during training. The unfortunate death of her husband left Loreta alone in the war ahead -- and motivated even more by the secret fact she was a widow.

From the skirmish at Blackburn's Ford on July 21, 1861, until the ut umn of 1863, Loreta Velazquez pursued war as both a male Army officer and female spy. Few knew the truth about either role.

As Lieutenant Buford, Loreta and her fellow soldiers took part in such hard-fought battles as Bull Run, Ball's Bluff, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh. Although her charade was discovered other times, it seems Buford would simply vanish or be "reassigned."

Buford would take leaves between battles. Loreta used those times o doff the uniform for dresses and go into enemy territory to spy as a social butterfly. She would later write of the time she met President Lincoln, saying she greatly admired the man, but not his politics.

After two and a half years of faithful service, Lieutenant Buford retired She kept up the fight from the autumn of 1863 until the end of the war as Madame Velazquez, full-time Confederate spy. Loreta gathered information in the north and passed it to the south. No Union opponent ever saw through her deception.

While many women on both sides of the war served as spies, Loreta Velazquez is the only one known to have served disguised as a man at the same time and for so long. Soldiers who served beside Buford attested to the lieutenant's valor, integrity, ability and conduct becoming a gentlemanly army officer. Madame Loreta J. Velazquez was not a real man, but a real woman.

For those who want to read about this story in much greater detail, visit http://docsouth.unc.edu/velazquez/velazquez.html

Transgender Behavior Often Misunderstood

By Stephanie Zimmermann, Chicago Sun-Times Staff Reporter

March 19, 2001 - About 200 cross-dressers, transsexuals, their family members and health professionals will converge on an Arlington Heights hotel Wednesday for a convention to explore the diverse--and often, misunderstood--world of transgender behavior.

The International Foundation for Gender Education's "Transgender 2001" 15th annual convention, to be held through Sunday at the Radisson Hotel, 75 W. Algonquin Rd., will include programs on transgender medicine, surgery, psychotherapy, politics, law and family issues.

People who consider themselves transgendered range from happily married men who dress up like women on the weekends to men and women who feel as if they are trapped in the wrong gender's body.

The foundation exists "for people in need, that is, both the cross-dresser or the person that doesn't understand their female feelings or the caring professional. It serves as a resource organization, to kind of help everybody out," said S. Kristine James, one of the conference organizers, a nearly 70-year-old married businessman and father who describes himself as a "recreational cross-dresser." Convention participants will travel from as far away as Holland, France, Taiwan and Japan.

The convention coincides with the grand opening Thursday of the Rikki Swin Institute, a nonprofit center for gender education, research and archives. The institute, to be housed at 22 W. Ontario, Chicago, was founded by Swin, a wealthy, retired Chicago-area manufacturer who had sexual reassignment surgery to become a woman.

Many people don't understand transgender behavior--or realize that vast differences exist in the transgender community. For example, most cross-dressers, like James, aren't gay or lesbian. They don't want to change their biological gender; they just want to occasionally play out the opposite role. "I enjoy both sides of my life," said James, whose wife discovered his secret after they were married, and stuck by his side.

"In the '50s, if you were found out wearing the opposite gender's clothes, you were thought to be sick, you were tested for the psychiatric hospital and you were thought to be gay," James said. Now, "I can walk down in the middle of downtown Chicago and stop in any store and any restaurant, any hotel, and be accepted for the gender presentation that I have. I've done it on Rush Street, on the Gold Coast, on Michigan Avenue," said James, who lives in Pennsylvania.

Transsexuals, by contrast, usually aren't happy in the body they were born with. They often seek hormone therapy and a sex-change operation. Miranda Stevens-Miller of It's Time, Illinois, an Oak Park group that pushes for legal protections for transgendered people, is a post-operative transsexual woman who will speak at the convention. "You just know it," Stevens-Miller said of her gender identification as a woman. "It's something we're born with. . . . This is just who we are, and you know it."

"Gender is instinctive. Most of us fight it for most of our lives," she said. "But eventually, you have to be who you are, or you kind of wither away and die." Stevens-Miller said that although things are improving, only two Illinois cities--Evanston and DeKalb--include gender identity in their human rights laws. "Basically, we are being fired and denied housing and kicked out of public accommodation without any reason," she said. "It's still a travesty that transgendered people are made the butt of mainstream media jokes. . . . Think of the impact on someone's self-esteem when this happens day after day after day."

Hate Attack At Canadian P-Flag Fund Raiser

By Michael Kinsey, 365Gay.com Newscenter Bureau Chief in Vancouver

(March 13, Vancouver) Police on Vancouver Island are searching for a teenager after an attack on a gay fund raiser in the Courtenay, north of the BC capital.

The Vancouver Lesbian and Gay Choir was into its third song at the Sid Williams Theater Saturday night, when a youth set off a canister of bear repellant. The spay, similar to pepper spray quickly filled the auditorium and sent people gasping for air out of the hall.

The fund raiser for Parents and Family of Gays and Lesbians had drawn a capacity crowd at the theater. As emergency service vehicles arrived outside the building, the remaining members of the choir sang 'We`re Going to Keep on Marching Proudly' as their leader was taken to hospital. A baby was also treated and a number of people suffered burning throats and watering eyes.

A local minister offered her church for the remainder of the concert. Royal Canadian Mounted Police tell 365Gay.com they have pinpointed the seat where the spray was released and have a description of the teenager sitting there. Police say they are treating the attack as a hate crime and expect to make an arrest shortly.

Sheriff Backs Deputy's Sex Change

By Bill Hendricks, San Antonio Express-News

A high-ranking Bexar County deputy undergoing a transformation from man to woman got public support Monday from Sheriff Ralph Lopez as well as deputies he supervises.

"I support Lt. (Brian) Lunan's constitutional right to make individual choices," Lopez told reporters at a news conference at Bexar County Jail. "As sheriff, I have to support everyone's constitutional rights," said Lopez, citing provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Lopez said the federal law required his office to make a "reasonable accommodation" regarding Lunan's decision.

Minutes later, on the sidewalk in front of the jail, a circuslike demonstration featuring two men preaching that God hates homosexuals attracted scant attention, except from reporters, news camera crews and Christie Littleton, a San Antonian who underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1979.

Lopez said Lunan would be the first Bexar County deputy to undergo a sex change while keeping a law enforcement job.

Elsewhere across the county, sex changes among law officers go back at least to the late 1970s.

Lunan is the highest-ranking officer in the sheriff's traffic unit, which comprises 16 deputies within the patrol division and is headquartered at the Windsor Park substation.

On duty Monday afternoon at the substation where Lunan works, Sgt. Ronald Dale Bennett said he supports his supervisor and believes other officers stand behind him.

Lopez told reporters he had asked Lunan, a 15-year veteran, to attend the news briefing but Lunan declined. Instead, Lopez circulated a written statement that he said Lunan had initialed. "I have been diagnosed as having gender identity disorder," the statement began, adding, "I will be receiving treatment to correct this problem." Lunan's statement said he was grateful for backing he got from top administrators.

Among the rank and file, Bennett said Lunan's revelation was a "complete shock to all of us." At the same time, Bennett said, "He's a damn good lieutenant and a damn good supervisor, fair to everybody." Bennett said he expects to maintain the same professional relationship with Lunan that they established when the lieutenant took command of the traffic unit several months ago.

Reflecting back on the mid-1980s, when both he and Lunan got into law enforcement, Bennett said he doubted a deputy then could have kept his badge in Bexar County if he elected to undergo a sex change.

Lopez said Lunan has three children but declined to say anything else about the deputy's family. Lopez told reporters: "The society is changing. You have to be responsive." In past years, officers who were openly gay or who underwent sex changes left law enforcement, Lopez said.

The sheriff said Lunan first revealed his intentions Feb. 21, when he went to Chief Deputy Roland Tafolla seeking permission to grow his hair longer than regulation length for male officers. Lopez said the department granted Lunan's request, adding that when the lieutenant's hair grows longer than regulation length, he'll be required to work in plain clothes.

Littleton made news in 1999 when 4th Court of Appeals Chief Justice Phil Hardberger upheld a district court ruling denying her legal standing in a medical malpractice lawsuit against her late husband's doctor. Hardberger agreed with 285th District Court Judge Frank Montalvo that Littleton's marriage to Jonathon Littleton was a same-sex marriage, which is not recognized in Texas.

Lopez, who last November won re-election to another four-year term as sheriff, said the department will continue accommodating Lunan's transformation, a process he said takes about three years.

Wall Of Not

By Chaylin

Transgender Lobby Days Announced

It's lobbying time again! The National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) is pleased to announce preliminary plans for the group's first-ever organized lobbying effort in Washington DC. The premier transgender community initiative on Congress will occur the week of May 14, with a plenary training and strategy session on Sunday, May 13.

NTAC, the newest national transgender civil rights organization, is sending out a call to the nation's transgender and intersex community, all supportive family and friends, and helping professionals to unite for a show of strength on Capitol Hill. Founded in 1999, NTAC is currently the only national group with special focus given to education about, and advocacy for, all gender variant citizens.

Many may ask why attempt lobbying a Congress that is numerically tacked against us? While there is no shot at favorable legislation this session, there is still much education to be done with our legislators. NTAC realizes that only by educating our legislators regarding our needs, can we affect change for our community - and our community has ample need.

Some talk around the nation has centered around a "mandate for morality" this congressional session, and what that means to our community. If indeed there is such a mandate, the last thing any of the target minority communities should do is to disappear or become complacent. This only lends the impression that we, as a community, have become disgusted and "given up the fight." Anyone who would have such a mandate in mind will take our inaction at this time as momentum for their movement.

Our community can make a statement by being proactive. Our needs must be heard, our experiences must be told. Help us as we begin laying the foundation for our future equality. We can do this! Please join NTAC, and other transgender and intersex groups and individuals from around the nation, on the week of May 14 in our nation's capital. For more information see the NTAC web site at www.ntac.org/lobby.html

The following corporations deserve your support for their commitments to the GBLT community.

This is the training for those interested in either our speakers Bureau or SSAFE presentations. Speaker's Bureau topics are usually about awareness of general LGBT issues. These range from "Homo 101" to specific topics like marriage, hate crimes, parenting, HIV/AIDS and aging. SSAFE presentations focus on GLBT issues.

To register, please call The Center at 216-651-GLBT (5428) or TransFamily at 216-691-HELP(4357). There is no charge, but reservations are needed, so please call by. Please help SSAFE and TransFamily to be successful in this join endeavor with The Center and GLSEN! !

SSAFE Coalition has voted to accept TransFamily as one of the collaborative groups. Our name will now appear on all SSAFE brochures along with GLSEN, PFLAG, and Gay Lesbian Center. We need many of you to volunteer to help with their projects. Please call the center (216-522-1999) and Judy Maruszan, identify yourself as a member of TransFamily, and ask what you can do to help. Their biggest project is the annual fund raiser, which is held in either March or April (at the Cleveland International Film Festival). Let's have many of our members available to help with the project. In the fall, there will be a need for many of our members to speak at area schools. Please let the center know if you will be available.

Trans information is being required more often at some of the SSAFE seminars. It is really important to have a transperson represented at some of these programs. Please help schools better understand how to help trans youth and take part in these programs!

Courtesy of The Center April

April 5 TransFamily Of Cleveland, meeting at our usual location, 6:30 pm

April 7 "Building a Stronger Community" A Healing Day for HIV+ People at The Center 6600 Detroit Ave. 10am-4pm. There is no cost for the Healing Day. Continental Breakfast and lunch will be provided for free. For more information or to register please call The Living Room at 216-651-6466.

April 7 The Gay and Lesbian Catholic Community's Lenten Day of Prayer 9am-8pm Carroll Lodge 14525 Chillicothe Road in Russell Township. $10 per person lunch and dinner provided. IF you are unable to join attend the entire day, join us at 4:30p for Mass followed by dinnner. For reservations call Dennis at 216-939-8198 or Judy at 216-227-1243.

April 10 and 11 Spring Love Bazaar at the Cleveland AIDS Taskforce. from 1-5:30 on the 10th and 11am-3pm on the 11th. All proceeds benefit the HOME Program.

April 11 HIV/AIDS Community Seder 6:30-9pm at Park Synagogue in Cleveland Hts. Sponsored by Jewish Family Service Association. For more information call Carol Wolf 216-292-3999.

April 20 The Center's Single Mixer 6600 Detroit Ave 5:30-8pm.

April 21 Square Dance with caller Besty Gotta and the Cleveland City Country Dancers for a Potluck Dinner. Potluck @ 6:30p and Dancing @ 7:15p at Archwood United Church of Christ 2800 Archwood Ave. $3 for members and $4 for non-members.

May

May 3 TransFamily Of Cleveland, meeting at our usual location, 6:30 pm

May 14-15 Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio AIDS Coalition presents their Leadership 2001 conference. The Conference is designed to offer leadership training for people living with HIV/AIDS and those working in the HIV/AIDS community. Application deadline is April 7. The conference is free to the first 400 pre-registered. Lodging will be offered free of charge to those living with HIV/AIDS. Meals provided at no charge to all pre-registered participants. To request an application call 614-444-1683 or 1-800-226-5554.

June

June 7 TransFamily Of Cleveland, meeting at our usual location, 6:30 pm

June 16 Cleveland Pride Parade and Festival

June 17 Pride Interfaith Service 3pm @ Trinity Cathedral E. 22nd and Euclid

June 23 Columbus Pride Parade and Festival

June 23 North Coast Men's Chorus "Our Time" Waetjen Auditorium 2001 Euclid Ave. at E. 21 st Street on the campus of CSU. Tickets are $12 in advance; $15 at the door. Tickets can be ordered at tickets.com or by calling 1-800-766-6048

July

July 5 TransFamily Of Cleveland, meeting at our usual location, 6:30 pm

July 15 The Center's Garden Party! Save the date!

July 22 Dancing in the Streets

August

August 2 TransFamily Of Cleveland, meeting at our usual location, 6:30 pm

August 26 NOCI Picnic

September

September 6 TransFamily Of Cleveland, meeting at our usual location, 6:30 pm

September 8 Ohio Lesbian Festival

September 14-16 Stonewall Democratic National Conference

September 16 Cleveland AIDS Walk

FTM 2001: A Gender Odyssey

(Seattle, WA) FTM 2001: A Gender Odyssey is the fifth conference organized under the auspices of FTM International for female to male transsexuals and anyone interested in gender issues, or the people who love them. It will be held in Seattle, WA. Memorial Day weekend, May 25th -28th, 2001.

This is the follow-up to the very successful Forward Motions conference held in Burbank, CA. in October 1999. Local organizers for FTM 2001: A Gender Odyssey expect as many as 500 participants from around the world, across the nation, and all walks of life.

The featured speakers will be Phyllis Randolph Frye, Houston attorney for C