Tag Archives | Transgender

Third, Fourth, and Fifth Genders In Cultures Around The World

By on March 19, 2013 in News 20

Via PBS, a fascinating tour around the globe of societies which did not or do not recognize a male-female gender binary:

On nearly every continent, and for all of recorded history, thriving cultures have recognized, revered, and integrated more than two genders. Terms such as transgender and gay are strictly new constructs that assume three things: that there are only two sexes (male/female), as many as two sexualities (gay/straight), and only two genders (man/woman).

Skoptsy were a Christian religious sect with extreme views on sex and gender. The community, discovered in 1771 in Western Russia, believed that Adam and Eve had had halves of the forbidden fruit grafted onto their bodies in the form of testicles and breasts. Therefore, they routinely castrated male children and amputated the breasts of women to return themselves the the state prior to original sin. Sex, vanity, beauty, and lust were considered the root of evil.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 20

Transgender First-Grader Banned From Girls Bathroom

By on March 4, 2013 in News 45

Picture: Kurt Lowenstein Educational Center Outreach Team

Kathryn DeHoyos writes at the Good Men Project:

On Wednesday, the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund announced that it had filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division against Eagleside Elementary School and the Fountain-Fort Carson School District on behalf of Coy Mathis, a transgender first-grader who, up until December, was using the girls’ restroom at school. Coy was born with male genitalia, but according to her mother Kathryn Mathis “has identified as female since she could express herself.” Kathryn told CNN that she and her husband were “shocked” when they received a phone call in December to inform them that Coy could, “use the boys’ bathroom, gender-neutral faculty bathrooms or the nurse’s bathroom, but not the girls’ facilities.” She said, “We were very confused because everything was going so well, and they had been so accepting, and all of a sudden it changed and it was very confusing and very upsetting because we knew that, by doing that, [Coy] was going to go back to being unhappy.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 45

Washington, D.C. Launches Transgender Respect Ad Campaign

By on September 20, 2012 in News 14

The new series of PSAs breaks ground as the first such effort by an American city. DCist writes:

Mayor Vince Gray and the D.C. Office of Human Rights yesterday launched an ad campaign promoting respect for the city’s transgender and gender-non-conforming residents. The five ads, which will appear this fall, use images of members of the transgender and gender-non-conforming and convey the message that they are no different than any other D.C. resident.

City officials say that the government-funded ad campaign is the first of its kind in the nation to focus on transgender and gender-non-conforming residents.

At the launch of the ad campaign yesterday, Gray admitted that while the ads themselves would not be enough to stop discrimination and acts of violence, they would serve to raise awareness and highlight legal rights and protections that members of the community enjoy under the expansive D.C. Human Rights Act.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 14

Sweden To Use New Gender Neutral Pronoun, ‘Hen’

By on April 16, 2012 in News 20

A70-13940If the language and words we use determine the frameworks within which we think, the newest edition to Swedish may have an enlightening effect. Slate explains:

For many Swedes, gender equality is not enough. Many are pushing for the Nordic nation to be not simply gender-equal, but gender-neutral. What many gender-neutral activists are after is a society that entirely erases traditional gender roles and stereotypes at even the most mundane levels.

Earlier this month, the movement reached a milestone: Just days after International Women’s Day, a new pronoun, ‘hen’ (pronounced like the bird in English), was added to the country’s National Encyclopedia. The entry defines hen as a “proposed gender-neutral personal pronoun instead of he [han in Swedish] and she [hon].” The announcement came amid heated debate that has been raging in Swedish newspaper columns and TV studios and on parenting blogs and feminist websites. It was sparked by the publication of Sweden’s first ever gender-neutral children’s book, Kivi och Monsterhund.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 20

Obama Was Raised By Transgender Nanny In Indonesia

By on March 5, 2012 in News 24

Indonesia Obama NannyA sad and interesting story for a number of reasons — chiefly, how can the U.S. president allow one of his childhood caretakers to live in such terrible circumstances? Fox News will no doubt cover this in a sensitive and enlightened manner. The Associated Press reports:

Once, long ago, Evie looked after “Barry” Obama, the kid who would grow up to become the world’s most powerful man. Now, his transgender former nanny has given up her tight, flowery dresses and is living in fear on Indonesia’s streets.

Evie, who was born a man but believes she is really a woman, has endured a lifetime of taunts and beatings because of her identity. But the turning point came when she found a transgender friend’s bloated body floating in a backed-up sewage canal two decades ago.

Evie, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, now lives in a closet-sized hovel in a tightly packed slum in an eastern corner of Jakarta, collecting and scrubbing dirty laundry to pay for food.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 24

‘X’ Now A Gender Option In Australian Passports

By on September 28, 2011 in News 9

737450-3x2-940x627A forward-thinking move, as the gender-ambiguous can now classify themselves as ‘X’. Still no “android” or “monkey-man” passport options, though. Associated Press reports:

Australian passports will now have three gender options – male, female and indeterminate – under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender and intersex people, the government said Thursday. Intersex people, who are biologically not entirely male or female, will be able to list their gender on passports as “X.”

Previously, gender was a choice of only male or female, and people were not allowed to change their gender on their passport without having had a sex-change operation. The U.S. dropped the surgery prerequisite for transgender people’s passports last year.

Any country that complies with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s specifications for machine-readable passports can choose to introduce a gender “X.”

“‘X’ is really quite important because there are people who are indeed genetically ambiguous and were probably arbitrarily assigned as one sex or the other at birth,” Pratt said.

… Read the rest

Continue Reading · 9

CA Legislature Passes Bill To Teach LGBT History In Schools

By on July 6, 2011 in News 39

Maria_EfremenkovaThey say history is written by the winners, who will be writing the LGBT history curriculum? Via Reuters:

A bill to require California public schools to teach the historical accomplishments of gay men and lesbians passed the state Legislature on Tuesday in what supporters call a first for the nation.

Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has not said publicly whether he supports the bill, which he has 12 days to sign or veto once it reaches his desk later this month. If he takes no action, the measure would become law automatically.

The bill gained final passage from the state Assembly on a vote of 49-25, without a single Republican supporting it. The measure cleared the state Senate in April.

California already requires public schools to teach the contributions made to society by women and by racial and ethnic groups that were historically discriminated against, such as blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.

Continue Reading · 39

McDonald’s Transgender Beating

By on May 1, 2011 in News 75

Not sure what’s more shocking, the beating itself or the employees warning the women to get out before the police come as the victim has a seizure… From the Daily News:

The victim of a vicious beating at a Maryland McDonald’s is a transgendered woman, according to a LGBT advocacy group that’s calling for authorities to investigate the case as a hate crime. [Warning: Video footage may be disturbing to some people]

The shocking video, which went viral on the Internet this week, shows the woman being kicked in the head by two girls at the Rosedale fast food chain as some of the staff stood by laughing…

Continue Reading · 75