Trans-land

Transletter

2009-04-26T06:25:00.000+05:30

Tamil Nadu Launches Helpline ‘Manasu’ For Trans-genders!

CHENNAI: A phone helpline, named ‘Manasu’ has been launched in Tamil Nadu for trans-genders on Friday.

The helpline number '044-25990505' will assist trans-genders, whose population is about 50,000 in the state.

The Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative is being administered by Voluntary Health Service (VHS).

Dr. Lakshmi Bai, Project Director, TAI –VHS, said, “For those who want to understand the issues related to trans-genders, this helpline will serve as a gateway of information and counseling.”

At the launch, she also discussed the methods in which people could be psychologically affected, which marks the beginning of the transition into the trans-genders.
This phone line also directs the general public on understanding trans-genders, provide methods of helping them and breakouts false notions around the society.
Subburaj, Health Secretary, said, “This is a good initiative to break the barriers and mainstream the trans-genders. The government is willing to give support from their end.”

Transletter

2009-04-12T19:47:00.002+05:30

Is Women’s Tennis Ready for Sarah Gronert?

Women’s professional tennis is coming to grips with one of the most unusual cases in its 36-year history: an intersex player competing on the tour.

Sarah Gronert, a 22-year-old German, was born with both male and female characteristics. Gronert, who had surgery at 19 and is legally a woman, has been cleared by both the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the WTA Tour to compete — unlike male-to-female transsexual Renée Richards, who was forced to sue to secure the right to play on the women’s tour in the 1970s. “It’s a one-of-a-kind case,” says out lesbian Martina Navratilova, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion who now comments for cable outlet the Tennis Channel.

An ITF spokesman confirmed by e-mail that Gronert “is legally and biologically a woman and entitled to play on the ITF and WTA professional circuits.” The ITF oversees the four Grand Slams and tournaments that fall below the main WTA circuit. A WTA official said the tour became aware of Gronert’s case last spring and conducted a review with a medical delegate during the summer and fall of 2008. Gronert requested the review, the official said.

Under its bylaws, the WTA can question the eligibility of a player and require gender verification to determine sexual status. “The rule is designed to recognize the verified and legitimate gender of individuals, while also minimizing any gender-related advantages,” said tour spokesman Andrew Walker. “Under this rule, Gronert is eligible to compete on the tour as a female.”

Gronert has enjoyed moderate success this season, winning two ITF titles. This week, Gronert, who has earned less than $7,500 in prize money, is at a career high ranking of 574, some 180 places above where she finished in 2008.

Much remains unclear about Gronert’s past and she has declined to speak to the media. The details of her case and the player’s medical records are confidential, Walker said. Gronert could not be reached through the ITF, which declined to provide additional information. A spokesman for the German Tennis Federation said Gronert does not want to discuss her “personal background.”

According to intersex expert Heino Meyer-Bahlburg, an intersex condition covers a wide spectrum of possible manifestations that generally reflect some kind of congenital anomaly. “There are many different conditions and many different hormonal pictures,” says Meyer-Bahlburg, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University.

Transletter

2009-04-02T13:53:00.001+05:30

Trans-gender issues come out of closet at SFSU

The little stick figures on the doors of public restrooms are an easy indicator for most people. It is supposed to come down to this: skirts are for girls and trousers are for boys. But for those who don't declare a gender, it's not so easy.

"Normally, people don't think about something as simple as getting up to use the public restroom -- I do," said Shawn Demmons, a transgender SF State student. "I had an experience where a manager at a restaurant actually came into the bathroom to ask for my ID. Another time, a woman screamed because I was in the restroom. It scared me so bad; I screamed and ran out too."

March 30 is marked as International Trans-gender Visibility Day. In order to commemorate this day, Demmons, a graduate student, created a presentation in the
Cesar Chavez Student Center. Demmons brought together a panel of guest speakers to discuss the discrimination people in the trans-gender community face on an everyday basis and focused on one issue that is basic for most people, the use of public restrooms.
Demmons says that it's sometimes easier to use the men's restroom because people stare way too much, which makes Demmons feel uncomfortable.

"When I leave this diverse Bay Area bubble, I have to deal with a lot more scrutiny," Demmons explains. "I want to raise awareness that people in the 'trans' community go through struggles for just about everything and I want to show that we're human beings with feelings who don't want to harm or offend anyone."

Demmons showcased a short film called "Law and Order in the Restrooms," documenting the abuse people in the trans-gender community face when using the restroom. Everything from getting beat up in the bathroom, to stares and insults are what someone who doesn't fit the norm of gender roles and gender stereotypes usually expects.
Theresa Sparks, a well-known trans-gender human rights activists and CEO of the adult store Good Vibrations, was part of the panel and gave a speech on how far the trans-gender community has come.

"This day of trans-gender awareness is truly touching because it wasn't long ago that we were trying our hardest not to be visible," Sparks explained. "It is amazing to see that this whole movement started off with a bunch of pissed of trans-gender people fighting against the violent discrimination against us to a peaceful and positive day of highlighting our community."

Sparks gave a brief overview of the history of how the trans-gender community came into politics and were shown in a positive strong light.
"There is a lot of talk and speculation on whether or not the trans-gender community is part of the gay and lesbian community," Sparks said. "But not only are we a part of it and not only do we support our fellow brothers and sisters in the gay community, we have fought side by side with them since the beginning."

As of today, 40 percent of trans-gender students have felt unsafe at their schools, 45 percent have been verbally harassed, 26 percent have been physically harmed and 11 percent have been assaulted according to information distributed by the LGBT Center.
Demmons said that the event on campus was really meant to educate people on a brief part of what trans-gender people go through and that every little presentation like this gets people closer to fully accepting who they are.

"I wanted to learn more about the trans-gender community because you don't really hear too much about their struggles from their perspective," counseling student Alicia Lucas, 21, said. "I heard about the event through my counseling class and think it's really beneficial for people to learn about other people's lifestyles."

Transletter

2009-03-27T18:48:00.001+05:30

Documentary opens dialogue about gender identification

By: Tye Rabens

Friday, March 27, 2009

Students and faculty gather in the Life Sciences A building on Thursday for the Trans-gender Film and Discussion Series on “Boy I Am,” a documentary exploring trans-gender issues in society.(Serwaa Adu-Tutu | The State Press)

Opened up a dialogue about gender-identification issues on Thursday night on the Tempe campus.

A group of nearly 40 students and faculty watched “Boy I Am,” a documentary that addresses the difference between gender identity and sexual identity. The group then discussed the film during an open forum intended to raise awareness and answer questions about the film’s themes.

The screening held at the Life Sciences building, was part of the Spring 2009 Transgender Film and Discussion Series, sponsored by, among other groups, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Coalition, and the English Club.

“Boy I Am,” created in 2006 in New York City, documents conversations with several people born as women who later make the transition to live as men and whose decision left them ostracized by the lesbian community.

James Baxter, a gender studies and painting senior who was on Thursday night’s discussion panel, said depictions of trans-gender and gender-queer communities are not often seen in the media. The film and following discussion provided a chance to open a dialogue about trans-gender themes and lifestyles on the Tempe campus.

“Basically, [we wanted to convey] that gender expression is something to consider,” Baxter said.

The film series is a continuation of efforts by event co-sponsor gender WHAT?!, a group Baxter co-founded last November that opens up dialogue about gender and awareness of the terminology used for defining nontraditional gender roles. Baxter, who identifies as gender-queer, defined the term as describing anyone who doesn’t identify as either male or female.

Baxter said the film and discussion series aims to clarify the often-confused differences between issues of gender orientation, how a person views his or her own gender identity, and sexual orientation, which relates to one’s sense of social identity in terms of emotional or romantic attraction.

“People conflating gender with sexuality, without tools to differentiate between the two, they look at [gender identity and sexual identity] the same way,” Baxter said.

Thursday’s film and discussion hopefully engaged the audience in a positive reaction to the unique issues of trans-gender and gender-queer individuals, Baxter said. Their concerns have been “invisibilized” to the point that a free dialogue has not been opened, according to Baxter, and most people lack the emotional tools to address these issues.

“It’s not like we’ve had these discussions [on campus] before,” Baxter said. “They haven’t even been brought up.”

Elizabeth McNeil, director of undergraduate academic services for ASU’s English department, said the panel discussions after the films have been key to creating this dialogue, because simply watching a movie lacks the emotional impact of a room of people sharing their personal experiences.

“The film is a jumping point, really, for the community to talk about relevant issues,” said McNeil, who moderated Thursday’s discussion.

Opening the campus to the themes raised by trans-gender and gender-queer films is an effort to promote a more inclusive way of thinking about gender roles, she said.

“There’s such great, creative, trans-gender films, and we wanted to share [and discuss them] because it is an understudied, under acknowledged area of human existence,” McNeil said.

The Trans-gender Film and Discussion Series is necessary to the ASU community, she said, to help both students and faculty break down barriers and confront the emotional and physical obstacles that trans- gender individuals must face “every time they walk out the door.”

Gender WHAT?! co-director Joshua Judd, a philosophy freshman, said the series is important in clarifying these issues and raising awareness about the consequences of societal ignorance.

“Our goal is [to] … whatever the opposite of ‘muddy up the waters’ is,” Judd said.

Transleter

2009-03-25T01:44:00.000+05:30

From Tim to Kim: German pop star, 16, becomes world's youngest transsexual after sex change operation

German teenager Kim Petras who became the world's youngest transsexual after undergoing an operation at the age of just 16 says she can't wait for the summer so she can try out a whole new wardrobe of tight fitting clothes.

The pop singer - born Tim - is well known in Germany for having started hormone replacement therapy as part of her gender transition by the age of 12.

Now 16, she completed Gender Reassignment Surgery in November, according to a posting on her blog.

Dr Bernd Meyenburg who heads the Psychiatric Special Outpatient Clinic for Children and Adolescents with Identity Disorders at the University of Frankfurt Hospital said: 'Very few youth psychiatrists have any experience with transsexual developments. The families wander from one psychiatrist to the next.

'I was always against such operations on children so young but after seeing how happy one of my patients was and how well adjusted after returning from having the operation abroad while still a teenager – I realized that in some cases it is the right decision.

'Kim is such a case – she always knew what she wanted.'

Kim herself said: 'Everything has changed because of this operation. I just can't wait to put on my favorite bathing suit and go swimming like I've never done before.

'I had to wait until my 16th birthday but once that was past I was able legally to have the operation.

I know that because of my past people will always bring up the subject, I can't get away from it. But I hope that one day I might be better known for something else like my music.' In Germany, such operations are not usually allowed until the patient is 18. However Kim managed to convince doctors when she was just 12 that she should have the surgery.

By 14 she was officially registered as a girl - and was already famous for her choice.

The costs of her procedure were covered by health insurance as her condition was officially diagnosed as an illness.

Dr Achim Wuesthof, an endocrinologist specializing in children and adolescents, who was treating Kim at a clinic in Hamburg, said that he and his colleagues felt that in this case it had been best to start earlier. He said: 'To the best of my knowledge, Kim is the youngest sex change patient in the world.

'According to German law, two independent psychiatrists must confirm that the child is indeed transsexual and approve the sex change. Once that has been done, it is best to start as early as possible.

Transsexuals experience the onset of puberty, and the physical changes it brings, as a serious trauma. 'But there is a general lack of empathy with cases like Kim's, mostly because people know little about the condition. Imagine a man that suddenly starts growing breasts or a woman that starts growing a beard against their will – that is how Kim and people like her experience puberty.

'They are not freaks, nor do they suffer mental illness. They are simply trapped in the wrong bodies. That is why it is best to help them as early as possible and reduce the trauma for them and their families.'

Last year Kim was signed to Joyce Records and released online her first single 'Last Forever'.

It became a YouTube and MySpace hit. In September - just weeks before the cosmetic surgery finalizing her transition from a male to a female -she released her first commercially available single 'Fade Away' into the German market.

Kim said: 'I was asked if I feel like a woman now – but the truth is I have always felt like a woman – I just ended up in the wrong body. 'I had a problem because I couldn't wear skinny stuff, but now I can wear whatever I want to. I really am looking forward to going swimming like everyone else and to wearing tight jeans that show off my figure. They are so tight, I always felt quite uncomfortable in them until now.

'Now I can go as tight as I want to. I used to wear mini skirts too, but yes, now even the tight ones can be part of my wardrobe. 'I can enjoy swimming, and bikinis, go in the changing rooms without a problem, everything has changed because of this operation. I just can't wait to put on my favorite bathing suit and go swimming like I've never done before.'

Kim, who is now studying fashion design, began calling herself a girl when she was just two years old.

Her father Lutz said: 'I suppose it took me longer than my wife to accept it, but Kim is a very persuasive girl, she knows what she wants and how to get it.

'I am very proud of what she has achieved, how she has managed to get there and how she sticks to her dreams no matter how hard and painful they are to follow.'

Transleter

2009-03-23T20:01:00.000+05:30

Reversal casts shadow of regret over gender switch

BY STEVE FRIESS, USA TODAY

The day Mike Penner left the Los Angeles Times, his departure made the news. The longtime sportswriter wrote the article himself, a personal essay explaining that he was taking some time off and, upon his return, he would be known from then on as Christine Daniels.

Penner's public acknowledgment in April 2007 that he was transgender and would soon live as a woman shocked the world of sports journalism and turned his new identity, Daniels, into an instant celebrity. Daniels gave speeches, was profiled in Sports Illustrated, collected honors for courage from transgender groups and wrote a blog for the Times titled "Woman in Progress."

Except that the transition didn't last. In mid-October 2008, Penner, 51, returned to the sports pages and the Times newsroom as a man.

And just as suddenly, Penner's story, heralded in its early days as a triumphant example of transgender progress, has instead become a cautionary tale of the lesser-known phenomenon: transgender regret.

"It's unfortunate, and it's relatively uncommon but certainly not unheard of," says Denise Leclair, executive director of the International Foundation for Gender Education, a transgender advocacy group. "The simplest way to think about it is being trans is something that never goes away. ... There's just a fairly constant social pressure to just go back. You don't have to be a genius to understand that society doesn't really accept this."

Penner, a 24-year veteran of the newspaper, did not respond to calls and e-mails for comment and has not written about his decision.

Though there's no data available on how many transgender people abandon their new gender, psychologist Ron Lawrence of the Community Counseling Center in Las Vegas says about 5% of his transgender patients revert. Leclair echoes that estimate.

Transgender advocates say the case of Penner, who never had sex-change surgery, reflects the success of a system in which American sex-change surgeons, adhering to their own code of conduct, won't operate until the patient has had a year of intense psychotherapy while living publicly in the new gender.

"We're required" by doctors "to go through all this stuff for a reason, even though there are a lot of trans people who bristle at being told what they can and can't do," says Donna Rose, a male-to-female postoperative transsexual in Rochester, N.Y. "The thing that people have to understand is that even though Mike decided to retransition, that doesn't mean he's not trans. It's not like you go all of a sudden, 'Uh, I'm better.' Going back doesn't automatically clear the conundrum that causes you to get there in the first place."

Rose reversed course on her own transition at first because her then-wife became so distraught and coworkers were insensitive. Six months later, she went through with it.

Transitioning carries with it the prospect of losing jobs, friends and family, as well as mockery from strangers who find the gender change visibly jarring, Rose and others attest. "You become a very visible minority," Leclair says. "The average male-to-female transsexual is taller, has bigger hands and feet, has more facial hair than most women. There are a lot of physical attributes that are hard to hide in a society that doesn't like you."

Paul McHugh, director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, is a leading proponent of the belief that the cause is not biological, that transgender people have chosen this path.

He halted the university hospital's practice of performing gender reassignment surgeries in the late 1970s because, he says, a study indicated that postoperative transsexuals were no happier than they were before the operation. "You can live any way you want, but don't come to us and ask us to give medical resources to this proposal of yours, because we think it's a social construct and not a condition of nature," McHugh says.

"No one has demonstrated any physical mechanism or physical problem that causes this. The burden of proof is on them to prove that."

Such comments are anathema to transgender advocates, who insist the decades-old study McHugh cites was debunked. Like most transsexuals, Daniels told Sports Illustrated in 2007 that herurges to be female began as a child, and she wrote in the Times that same year: "We are born with this. We fight it as long as we can, and in the end it wins."

Claire Winter, a transsexual from Seattle who mentored Penner and spoke to him late last year, doubts the sportswriter's reversal will further confuse the general public about transsexualism.

"I think people are so bloody confused, I don't know if this has a significant effect," Winter says. "But maybe this will help people to understand that this is a very complex, highly difficult situation. This indicates the fundamental problem of trying to shove people into either end of the gender pole. It serves to point out the fact that it isn't as simple as flipping a coin.

"I would say give" Penner "some time," Winter says. "We have to wait for him to let us know when he figures it out."

Transleter

2009-03-23T19:28:00.001+05:30

Experts see need for awareness on alternative sexual preferences
22 Mar 2009, TNN

CHENNAI: The society will start accepting members of the gay, lesbian and transgender communities only when there is large-scale awareness of
alternative sexual preferences, said expert testifiers at an event to address stigma and discrimination against homosexuality on Saturday.

Psychiatrist Dr Vijay Nagaswami and sexual medicine consultant Dr Narayana Reddy were part of Homophobia: A citizen's forum' organized by ActionPlus, which is a consortium of 13 non-governmental organisations from across the country including YRGCare and Nalamdana from Chennai. "There are various phases to acceptance awareness, gaining of knowledge, becoming comfortable with that knowledge and trial and testing. It cannot happen overnight. Discrimination happens because of the fear of the unknown and a person's fear that his own sexual identity would be changed," Dr Narayana Reddy said. Dr Nagaswami said, "There is a need for more space to discuss such issues." The doctors were responding to issues on same gender sex put forward by representatives of sexual minorities Srivath, Kalki and Sumathi.

Gay activist Srivath spoke about his success story in getting his family and friends to understand and accept his attraction towards members of the same sex. He said, "I realized that I was attracted to members of the same sex when I was quite young so I didn't have problems with my sexuality or sexual identity. There were problems with being accepted in society, but I realized soon enough that those who bully you usually get bored of it or accept it," he said. He spoke about the need for managements and counselors of educational institutions to be more aware of gender minorities. "There's a lot of awareness being created on transgenders but not enough about gay men," he said.

Founder of Sahodari Foundation and transgender activist Kalki said that more sensitisation is needed before putting transgenders in jobs in the public. "Transgenders earn more than what they would in a BPO through begging or commercial sex and through this money they also support their biological families who often live away from them. So when NGOs come forward to offer them jobs for much lesser pay, they find it difficult to leave their old lifestyle," she said. Sumathi, who heads Lesbit a wing of NGO Sangama that addresses the needs of lesbians in Bangalore, spoke about the invisible pressure on female homosexuals and the domestic violence faced by lesbians, many of whom are unable to give up their old relationships even after being forcibly married to men.

The speakers also highlighted the need to educate parents, teachers and even counsellors on the issue. Similar meetings have been planned in Goa and Delhi.

SOURCE: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Experts-see-need-for-awareness-on-alternative-sexual-preferences/articleshow/4297984.cms

Transletter

2009-03-17T12:14:00.000+05:30

Body of evidence: A special report into the lives of transsexuals

By: Catherine Deveney

15 March 2009

The up trapped in the wrong gender causes hundreds of people to take their own lives. Surgery gives others a new start, but in many cases the price of happiness is still very high.

HE IS clearly a man. I say 'clearly' because when James Morton walks towards me in an Edinburgh hotel he is dressed like any young professional male, in a suit and tie, he has light beard growth on his face and myriad little signals he transmits suggest masculinity. Should I tell you that once he had breasts, a womb capable of bearing children, that in fact he was female, your eyes would tell your brain that this is a lie. You would feel the confusion that James has felt all his life. Growing up, when he looked in the mirror and saw a female body, he thought, 'Who is that?' For in both his conscious and unconscious mind, even in his dreams as he slept, he was male. "Waking up was just like… 'Oh my God, yes, of course. Back to the complicated mismatch that I have.'"

Even now, things are still confused. James has a legal certificate saying he is male. Underneath the 28-year-old's suit, breasts have been removed, his chest reconstructed. He no longer has a womb. But he does not have a penis. Two gender experts in Scotland, and one internationally renowned expert, Dr Griet De Cuypere, in Belgium, have approved him for surgery. But despite continuing to fund male-to-female surgery, Lothian Health Board has refused to fund phalloplasty, the surgical construction of a penis, which would complete his transition from woman to man. "It's a nightmare situation," says James's doctor, Lyndsey Myskow, associate specialist at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary's sexual problems clinic. "There are a number of people in Lothian who have found themselves in this position."

In Scotland, referrals for surgery come through Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and Glasgow's Sandyford Clinic. Female-to-male surgery is still available for Glasgow patients, funded by the health board, yet James has been waiting four years in Edinburgh. Lothian Health Board says his case will remain under consideration, but funding is only for "exceptional" cases. It's hard to imagine what an unexceptional case of phalloplasty would be.

This is a story about identity. It is not about sex. In the public consciousness, transsexualism is often a vague, confused hotchpotch of ideas about homosexuality, Danny La Rue-style drag queens and sexual fetishes. A nudge, a wink, some Rocky Horror Show suspenders. But for most transsexuals, sex comes way down their list of priorities. It has to. By pursuing their need for the correct gender identity, they inevitably place themselves in a twilight world where their opportunity for sexual partners is greatly reduced. "It's a big deal for me," says James, who transitioned at the age of 22. He was so distressed by the mismatch between the body he had and the one he thought he should have, that he couldn't date. "So I don't really have intimate relationships in my life," he explains.

"Some transsexual people find the desire to have intimate relationships overcomes their discomfort, but for me the discomfort about my physical situation overcame the desire, so I felt really lonely. It just felt this horrible mess, with tangled emotions that I couldn't open myself up to because it would upset me too much."

Historically, there have been figures throughout the ages associated with transsexualism, from the mythical Greek goddess Venus Castina, who was sympathetic to "feminine souls locked up in male bodies", to the 17th-century female thief and male impersonator Mary Frith, otherwise known as Moll Cutpurse. But it was only in the 20th century that gender-realignment surgery became possible. The first operations were performed in 1930s Germany by the pioneering sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, and there were a number of notorious cases throughout the 1950s and 1960s – including the American GI George Jorgensen, who became nightclub performer Christine, and the Vogue model April Ashley, who never got another contract after it was revealed that she had been born male.

As a child, James was simply a tomboy who went to Cubs instead of Brownies. But at puberty, things became complicated. "Everything became much clearer in terms of people's bodies. There was no longer much leeway for being accepted as one of the boys. I wasn't androgynous-looking. I had reasonable-sized breasts and a high voice. Generally, through school I wore a shirt, tie, a big baggy V-neck and trousers, trying to keep it as gender-neutral as possible. But nobody ever went, 'Oh, that's a boy.' They thought, 'There's a girl who's not making enough effort.'"

We all transmit gender signals. James felt he was transmitting the wrong ones. Gender, he realised, was more than genitalia. It was also a state of mind. "I felt like all the interactions just went wrong. People didn't necessarily realise it was a gender issue. They just thought, 'Gosh, that person is really strange, quite weird.' The interpersonal dynamic they were expecting didn't always go to plan. I would forget, not looking in the mirror all the time, how I came across, so I'd be relating to them thinking I looked like a guy – and I so didn't. And they'd be thinking, 'What's happened to her? The dynamic is really weird.'"

He retreated into himself, turning to studying because people think if you are bookish you have no interest in parties and dates. An only child, he felt there was no one to turn to. He was close to his mother, but his father, who would die when James was only 19, was ill with heart disease throughout those teenage years and his mother had enough to contend with. At 16, James had been referred to doctors for depression and anxiety. He was sexually attracted to women so he was told he was "probably just a butch lesbian". But that didn't feel right. Lesbians were happy to remain women. He wanted to be a man.

After his father died, he knew he had to confide in his mother. But it was painful. "I didn't want to hurt her by telling her I wanted to change gender, because I knew she had her dreams and hopes and expectations based on having a baby daughter. So I tried desperately hard to just try to find a way of being a woman that I could feel comfortable with, but it was just such a profound sense of who I am that I couldn't. My mum could tell I was really distressed through adolescence but she didn't know why. I know she was really affected that I wasn't sharing things with her, but I didn't want to hurt her. And what if she said, 'No, I'm not going to accept that'? I just didn't want to put that on the line."

It shows sensitivity to so intuitively understand the hopes and dreams of your mother. Does that make James sound feminine? Only if gender and behaviour are black and white. Ironically, what makes his masculinity convincing is that he doesn't adhere desperately to masculine stereotypes to prove his gender identity. "I wouldn't say I am particularly macho. There are loads of people who are comfortable in the female world who are way better than me at DIY or football or things that are meant to be masculine behaviours.

"I always joke that if you polled my classmates in the final yearbook, they would not have picked me out. They would have picked one of the other poor sods who was a tomboy but more classically butch than I was. I like to think of myself as someone who has tried to integrate masculine and feminine styles of behaviours. I don't want to lose any of the knowledge that I have gained."

There is another irony. Sexual ambiguity has so often provided comic material: the hairy men in dresses in a well-known kitchen towel advert, for example. In real lives, it's the source of enormous pain. Transsexuals' stories often have suicidal moments in them, and James's is no exception. Asked how life would have been if he'd continued living as a woman, he hesitates. "I don't know if I would have made it. I tried to kill myself in my teens. I would like to believe I would have been a strong enough personality to have made it through all the difficulties and the distress, but I don't know that I would have been."

Understandably, there is reluctance to look back on that time. He was 19 and became so low that he actually thought it might be easier for his mother if he killed himself rather than transitioning. "Maybe I was feeling dead to her anyway," he says. "I couldn't see a future where I wouldn't wake up feeling distressed. I just felt like, 'Every social interaction is going to go wrong. Every time I think about my body, I am going to feel depressed. Everything is always going to jar.' I couldn't stand the idea of 60 years…"

His suicide attempt failed. It makes him feel a bit inept but he's relieved too. "If I had died at that point, there would have only been pain and it would have been devastating for my mum."

When he finally confided in her, it felt like going into uncharted territory. "I thought, 'Where does this end up? Please let it be a good place.'" It was. His mother lost a daughter but gained a son. She learned to have new dreams and aspirations. So did James. "There are lots of people that I have met over the years, and I'd like to think their lives have been enriched by knowing me, and my life has been enriched by knowing them, and that the overarching effect of me being alive is a positive one."

FOR MOST PEOPLE, nature is wonderful. Complex beyond our understanding, imaginative beyond our own human creativity. But mistakes happen in nature. Physical deformities, genetic disorders, rare internal malfunctions. We know that, yet when it comes to gender, it's as if nature is infallible, beyond question. Transsexualism is seen almost as some kind of perverse and unnecessary lifestyle choice. So what is the scientific evidence?

Current estimates suggest that one in 100,000 women are transsexual and one in 25,000 men. In the past, some doctors have argued that surgery is inappropriate because transsexualism is a psychiatric illness. While gender dysphoria – confusion – does appear on the international list of psychiatric conditions, this is more to do with the psychological distress it causes than the nature of the condition itself. "I would absolutely disagree that it is a psychiatric condition," says Myskow, who has more than 20 years of experience in the field. "Anyone who works with transsexuals knows they are just driven, that there is something within them that they absolutely have to get sorted out. They give up so much because this is a real need."

There is undoubtedly something unnerving about healthy bodies being operated on. But is correcting a mind/body imbalance really different to fixing a broken limb, a hole in the heart or a baby's cleft palate? We know what causes these more visible defects. But transsexualism is not fully understood, which makes it more contentious. "We know what it's not," says Myskow. "We know it's not a chromosomal abnormality. We know it's not a hormonal abnormality. We know these patients are not psychotic. But there's no absolute proof of what goes on. We think that it occurs in the uterus, and is probably some influence of the hormones on the developing foetus that is having an effect on the brain that is different from the effect on the body. Parents are often very anxious to know if there is anything they did wrong in the upbringing of these children. There is absolutely no evidence that it is down to upbringing and experience in early childhood. I think it's too late by then – it has already happened."

People with psychiatric conditions who mistakenly think they are gender dysphoric are relatively easy to weed out, says Myskow. Two specialists must approve treatment, and there are three main stages of treatment. The first is hormone treatment, which brings about obvious physical changes; hair growth or breast development, changes to skin, hair and voice. Then patients are given the real-life test of living for a year in their chosen gender. If, at the end of that, they want to proceed further, surgery is an option. But there are dangers. "There is a risk from hormone treatment," acknowledges Myskow, "and we're talking major surgery. There are risks of infection, and clearly you are disturbing the anatomy considerably."

But results can be very good. "Male-to-female transsexuals will function sexually perfectly well. It looks cosmetically very good. There are stories of post-op women going into casualty with a bleed and being asked if they could be pregnant. The other way round is more complex. They are able to have intercourse because they have a penile implant that enables them to get an erection, but the penis is made from skin from the forearm so they just have the sensation of the forearm – if they are lucky. In my experience, many female-to-male transsexuals wouldn't go as far as phalloplasty. However, there are patients in relationships for whom it's really important to have a penis."

There seems something immoral about leaving a person halfway through such a traumatic transition. But James knows public support is limited, despite the psychological extremes he has been driven to. If he wants surgery, he may have to move to another region of Scotland. "It's a postcode lottery, and because it's not a sympathetic topic NHS policymakers think they won't get flak from the general public for cutting surgery – in fact, they think the general public would approve. I don't know if it's because they don't understand how much of an impact this has. It's no more a conscious decision to be a transsexual than any other part of your personality."

JULIA GORDON'S EARLIEST memory is of a man in black lighting the gas lamp outside her Glasgow tenement home. It is a shadowy recollection, a vague awareness of darkness, fear and anxiety. "My first memory is of being a very frightened little boy." That fear lasted much of her life. Now 60, she smiles as she recalls the child who was always left out when football teams were picked. Back then, she didn't smile. "It was crushing." She asked for football boots for Christmas, hoping they would bring acceptance. "I got the boots, and my experience was exactly the same. I was still an outsider. It felt really sad at the time."

I first met Julia ten years ago, for a story I was writing. She lived in Inverness, dividing her life between teaching piano as a man and living her private life as a woman. I met her as both. I was fascinated, I remember, meeting her masculine persona for the first time, experiencing a sense not just of physical slightness that I had been unaware of meeting her as a woman, but somehow of less emotional solidity. Whatever signals she transmitted, they were inexplicably stronger when she presented as a woman.

Transsexualism is a spectrum, not a fixed point, and Julia, now retired, did not want surgery back then. She was, she said, not defined either by masculinity or femininity. Her sense of self went beyond gender labels. "My whole life has been a search for identity. I was worried that if I had surgery people would think I saw myself as a woman. I don't think for a minute that it makes me a woman, because a woman is not a body… a woman is a sense of who she is, a mental construct that is supported by the shape she is."

But then her father died. "It had an effect on me that even today I find quite difficult to understand. It was so liberating. Almost as soon as I heard, I knew I was going for surgery. Obviously, I guess I had feared his reaction. We always had a difficult relationship, and to even contemplate his disapproval if he ever found out didn't bear thinking about. He was a very distant person. There was no warmth."

Her parents had held together only tenuously; her late mother stayed for her three children. Julia says everything she did as a man felt like failure, and yet she does not believe her father influenced her sense of masculinity, even though she became emotionally distant, like him. "I was a very cold fish. No emotion. It was too scary for me. People found me a difficult person to know – I don't think they wanted to know me."

Her first experience of cross-dressing was simply part of sexual exploration in puberty. But over the years it became a retreat, a place of inner peace. "When I cross-dressed, in some strange way it enabled me to connect with my emotional self and allowed emotions to surface that didn't overwhelm me." Women, she thought, were emotional beings. Men weren't. Wasn't her sense of masculinity skewed, then, rather then her body? She simply couldn't change that, she says.

At times, she clung to male stereotypes. "I chopped down trees and hauled timber. I put effort into trying to present myself as a man." At 19, she married, but left six months later. By her mid-20s she was suicidal. Working in hospital laboratories at the time, she had access to poisons. She took a bottle home with her. "It was an option. Life had never felt so difficult."

Music provided rare sanctuary. "It has been so important in my life. I have always experienced music as a way of expressing myself emotionally. It was a positive, nourishing experience, and there weren't many around. On many occasions it was my salvation, especially when I was really low, suicidal. I remember going to the piano and just working out the sadness. At other times it would lift me, just kind of hold me, stop me going further."

Julia married for a second time in her late 20s, and this time it lasted 13 years, producing a son and a daughter. But she knew this was just another desperate attempt to conform. "I knew I wasn't in love. I didn't know what love was but I knew it wasn't this." Bringing up the children was "delightful for a while" but the old fears and confusions surfaced again. "I'm not sure how much of becoming a father was tied in to my need to normalise how I functioned in life as a man, a husband and therefore a father."

Deciding to live her life as a woman was inevitably traumatic, but she only has one regret. "I want to stop hurting people." Her ex-wife lives in a nearby town, and Julia can imagine she feels angry and betrayed. But surgery has brought fulfilment. "It was an opportunity to add a few more finishing touches to the picture I had been creating all my life." It did, though, bring rejection. She has a close relationship still with her daughter, who even as a teenager said the important thing was that Julia should be happy. But her son, who lives in Glasgow, wrote her a letter. "He said that in view of his impending marriage, his career, he felt – I'm paraphrasing here – that he would only be able to sustain a relationship with me as a friend, not as a parent, not as who I am." Did she receive an invitation to his wedding? "No."

It hurt, she admits. "But any time I am in a difficult place, struggling to know what to do, I ask myself the question, 'What would love do?' And it's quite clear that what I need to do is let him lead his life, the life he chooses. I can't ask others to give me that if I can't extend it to other people."

Julia trained as a counsellor after transition, and enjoys an informal role as agony aunt to friends. She wants as much love as possible in her life but thinks romantic love is a fantasy too far. Sexual orientation is separate from gender, and she is still attracted to women. But she has never operated well sexually, and opted for surgery knowing her life was likely to be asexual in future. "Though, despite that awareness, there's always the little hope that maybe not…" Has she never been in love? "Perhaps tomorrow," she says, and smiles. "But not yesterday."

MARTHA HAND STILL remembers the dress her sister wore as a bridesmaid. It was so lovely. But Martha was an 11-year-old boy at the time. A few years later, when her sister moved out, she found the dress in a closet. "I remember picking it up and thinking, 'It would be fantastic to try that on.'" Was she scared? "I had to make sure there was nobody else about, that I wasn't going to get caught. We had a work room in our loft space, and I used to go up there and hide and take clothes with me." By the time she was a teenager, she spent her paper-round money on a secret stash of clothes and make-up. "I always suspected my mother knew but she never admitted it."

Martha is an attractive woman. The interesting thing is the almost Diana-like mixture of shyness and coquettishness that she transmits, a look that somehow sweeps up from under eyelashes. It is almost impossible to imagine those same signals coming from a masculine body. Yet Martha has not had surgery. Hormone treatment has given her breast development, but from the waist down she is still male. She suffers from diabetes and is uncertain whether surgery is going to be physically possible. It depends on her mood how she feels about her incongruous body. "Sometimes it can be hilarious; sometimes it can be painful."

Gallows humour. Martha has had the same suicidal tendencies as many other transsexuals, made the same desperate efforts to conform. She works in radio communications for the police and is an executive member of the National Transgender Police Association. It is not uncommon for transsexuals to gravitate to uniformed service and macho environments to try to 'cure' themselves. Martha married in 2001 and divorced three years later, but had been with her partner for ten years. They worked in the same place, and though the split was acrimonious, Martha asked her employers for as much protection for her ex-wife as possible. "She hasn't spoken to me in almost four years. I don't think she knows who I am. My whole appearance has changed, my whole demeanour."

When she confessed to cross-dressing, her partner had asked her not to do it. Martha complied until a few months before the wedding, when it all started again. She just needed to get it out of her system, she said. But in all those years she conformed, she was filled with an anger that is difficult to reconcile with the reserved woman she seems now. "I was just an angry person. With hindsight, I can say it was about how I felt about myself, but at the time I didn't really know what was causing it. I was terrible with my mum and dad, always in a strop. My ex-wife would probably say the same, that I was angry to the point of brutal."

It was listening to a transwoman on a police training course that sparked off her own transition. "I sat there and went, 'Oh my God.' Her story was very similar to my own. I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression, and that's when I started to explore myself and my feelings more fully."

Martha would go home and drink whisky until she really ceased to function. "I remember the doctor saying, 'I think you're depressed, can you tell me what the problem is?' I just cried. Even then, I didn't want to acknowledge it."

If it can be a struggle for transsexuals to accept themselves, it is also a struggle for those around them. Martha's sister hasn't spoken to her since she transitioned, and while she is close to her mother, they only talk on the phone. Her mother has seen her only once as a woman and never wants to again. Her father still comes to see her but insists on using her masculine name. "I can't really say, 'Can you stop doing that,' because I suppose for him I will always be a son. I guess I can maybe see that point of view. I don't hold it against them. I don't say, 'Why are you doing that?'"

If she does have surgery, will she feel a moral obligation to risk more rejection and tell prospective partners? Not necessarily. "But if I felt it mattered, yes. It depends how many vodkas I've had!" Now in her 30s, relationships are restricted. "If I need companionship and can't attract a man because I have the wrong plumbing, and can't attract a woman because I have the wrong plumbing, there is a whole subculture of transpeople who'll be attracted to me. I'm a strong believer that appearance is secondary to the person."

IT'S THE USE OF the word 'subculture' that really hits home. Martha waiting for her male genitals to be removed; James waiting for his male genitals to be added; Julia saying she has found peace but not partnership. Their struggles, their resilience, their courage make them deserving of a love that has so far eluded them. It might always elude them. Socially, people might be happy to accept their chosen gender. Sexually? They are stuck in Martha's 'subculture'. Even the surgery that is meant to define them often defines only their difference to other people.

The Sex Discrimination Act and the 2004 Gender Recognition Act protect transsexuals both in the workplace and in society. Legislation is crucial. But legislation can't govern the laws of human attraction, or make your mother or your sister or your son not just love you, but love you enough. Gender dysphoria is a brutal conflict to resolve. Being true to the gender you feel yourself to be can make you less authentically male or female to other people.

This is underlined after the interviews. There's a late-night phone-in on the car radio about nightmare blind dates. A male caller says that, for a laugh, his friend once set him up with a dinner date who confessed 'she' had once been 'he'. I shift uncomfortably at the presenter's forced laughter, thinking of Martha and Julia and James.

We all want to be loved for who we are, but the fact is that we are also loved for what we are. When what we are is somehow in doubt, it means a lifelong struggle for acceptance.

"So what did you do?" the presenter asks.

"I made my excuses and left," said the man. R

SOURCE: http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/spectrum/-Body-of-evidence-A.5071047.jp

Transletter

2009-03-15T09:47:00.000+05:30

Free sex-change operation gives hope to transgenders

5 Mar 2009, TNN

CHENNAI: A four-hour-long surgery at the Government General Hospital has remarkably transformed Ambika (name changed). Doctors removed the male genitals and reconstructed a vagina to enable the trans-gender to perform the sexual functions of a female.

"It is the first time we are doing this based on a request from the welfare board for transgenders under the government scheme that offers free sex-reassignment surgeries for transgenders," said plastic surgeon Dr V Jayaraman of the Government General Hospital. GH and the Aravani Welfare Board will now independently place a proposal before the state health department urging it to form a team of specialists comprising urologists, endocrinologists, sexologists and psychologists for sex reassignment surgery.

In the first phase, the hospital wants to focus on feminization (male to female) surgeries. The social welfare department in a government order dated December 21, 2006 had stated that aravanis (the trans-gender community) were born biologically male, who sought to define themselves as a woman trapped in a man's body'. While in early 2008, they were offered ration cards with T' marked against the gender column, a board was constituted in September to help them with access to health care, education and housing.

"We need to counsel them and put them through a programme that will make their gender transition smooth. It is a complex process that needs physiological and medical therapy at least four months ahead of surgery. They need to put on hormonal pills to avoid any imbalance after surgery. And post-surgery, they need to be monitored and counseled about various things, including anatomy and physiology of the new gender. This will require a special team of doctors," Dr Jayaraman said.

In Ambika's case, a vagina has been constructed to resemble a normal woman's vagina. But there is no uterus or ovary. The patient is likely to have silicon implants for breast construction. She' will be on hormone replacement therapy and require counseling.

Aravani Welfare Board members said they were delighted. "We are sure the number of deaths due to crude surgeries will now come down. Those who can afford scientific surgeries go abroad but the rest have no other option but to visit quacks. We will be urging government to increase the strength of the surgical team to make it on par with international standards," said Noorie, a trans-gender, also a member of the board.

Presently, there are no medical guidelines for sex reassignment surgeries in India. Most transgenders go to quacks or dhai ammas (leaders in the trans-gender community) for castration. "They are done in a bizarre environment. The transgenders is prepared for the crude surgery days ahead with special poojas and diet. There is a six-foot deep pit dug before the dhai amma cuts the penis. Hot oil is poured to stop the bleeding. If the transgenders dies, he is buried in the pit. Else, a function is held after the wound heals to celebrate her' puberty," says Dr Lakshmi Bai, project director, Tamil AIDS Initiative.

In the US, people are put through a rigorous screening process before sex reassignment surgeries. After three months of psychiatric counseling, the person has to undergo a real life test for two years, dressing and living like a woman, while undergoing hormone therapy. "Only after the team of doctors is satisfied that the person is fit to undergo genital reassignment is the surgery done," says sexologist Dr Narayana Reddy

SOURCE:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Free-sex-change-operation-gives-hope-to-transgenders/articleshow/4225466.cms

Transleter

2009-03-13T11:08:00.000+05:30

Chennai: Move on toilets for transgenders sparks off debate

By Chinki Sinha

March 09, 2009

New Delhi: Besides “ladies” and “gents”, public lavatories in Chennai may soon offer a third option — for transgenders. The Chennai Municipal Corporation has set aside Rs 45 lakh for a pilot project to build three such lavatories for transgenders in the city.

While the construction is expected to begin after the polls, the officials have already identified areas with a considerable transgender population in south and central Chennai. The first will be built in Saidapet, where it will cater to those living in Kothamedu, Theedeer Nagar and Athuma Nagar.

Each lavatory, with both male and female urinals for those who have undergone sex change as well as those who are yet to do so, is estimated to cost about Rs 12-15 lakh. Muncipal Commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni said that more such toilets would be built, depending on the response.

For the moment, the response has been rather mixed. While there are some who have welcomed the move, many feel that it would lead to more isolation of the transgender community.

“I don’t agree with this. We want to mingle with the mainstream. We don’t want to be separated like this,” said Aasha Bharathi, president of the Tamil Nadu Aravanigal Association. “Using separate toilets will open the way for discrimination. We want to be considered as females. In our hearts, we are women.”

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/chennai-move-on-separate-toilets-for-tra.../432575/

Translleter

2008-11-22T09:28:00.000+05:30

Teen undergoes forced sex change surgery by eunuchs

20 Nov 2008, 1129 hrs IST, Lawrence Milton , TNN
MYSORE/BANGALORE: This is a story of a teenager who was forced to undergo a sex change surgery and face a traumatic life as a girl.

Manju, (19), a native of Mysore taluk, turned a girl in a few months and wears feminine clothing. Like other children, he had dreams of pursuing higher education and leading a normal life, but his fate took a turn for the worse after an encounter with two eunuchs in Mysore city, about six months ago, when he came for admission into a PU college.

The eunuchs pounced upon him that afternoon and bundled him into a four-wheeler on Sayyaji Rao Road, before being taken to Mumbai via Chennai.

He did not know what had happened to him for nearly three months after his abduction as he was sedated continuously without being allowed to regain consciousness. Later, he realized to his shock that a forced surgery had been performed on his genitals.

“I was served only two chapattis and coffee every day. But, when I gained conscious, I was shocked to see that my genitals had been amputated,” he recalls, adding that the trauma he underwent was unimaginable. “I writhed in pain for many days.”

Manju managed to escape from the clutches of the “hijras ” in Mumbai only five days ago and reached Mysore taluk. But the incident came to light only on Sunday, after the district police visited his house to pursue the case of “missing person” his parents had filed in July, two months after he went missing.

Manju, now Manjula, said: “It was on May 6, when I was kidnapped by a gang of six ‘hijras’ from Sayyaji Rao Road. I was intercepted by two of them when I was visiting a college to enquire about admissions to first PU.

“They took me to a house in Mysore and later shifted me to Chennai the same night. Before that, a group of hijras served me rice, probably mixed with some sedatives. But when I regained conscious I was handed over to them in Chennai, who later shifted me to Mumbai few days later.”

A tearful Manju recounted how he was put to sleep for three months inside a closed room. “At that time, I was not aware about the surgery. They also administered hormonal injections on my chest to develop breasts. Later, after a few weeks, I was let out along with a group of hijras to beg on the streets of Mumbai.

In the meantime, I befriended a Marwari from Karnataka during my visit to the shops there. On 12 November, I escaped from them on pretext of washing hands after having a lunch at a hotel. The Marwari helped me to reach Bangalore and later funded to go his village,” said Manju.

According to the police, they came to know of it only after a visit to his house to check whether “the missing boy” had reached home or not.

The police said they would crack down on eunuchs in the city, so that it may lead them to solve some more cases of missing children.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Forced_sex_change_of_teen_by_eunuchs/articleshow/3735765.cms

Transletter

2008-11-21T09:20:00.000+05:30

Transexuals should be allowed to change legal gender without surgery

SEOUL, Nov 18 (Yonhap) — Transsexuals should be allowed to change their legal gender without undergoing a sex-change operation, South Korea’s rights watchdog said Monday, suggesting the Supreme Court amend its trans gender guidelines.

The top court’s guidelines stipulate that transsexual people have to have sex reassignment surgery in order to officially change their gender.

The guidelines were made in 2006 to maintain judicial consistency amid concerns that rulings had varied according to judges’ social leanings since the first case for a male-to-female transsexual person was approved in 2002.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea said such court guidelines, however, overlook the expenses and health risks transsexual people have to bear for surgery.

“A sex reassignment surgery is very expensive, and its results sometimes can have fatal effects on one’s health. Considering those concerns, it is too excessive a demand for the judiciary to require surgery, while there can be other medical methods for sexual transition, like hormone therapy,” Yoon Seol-ah, the commission spokesperson, said.

A 2006 survey by the rights commission suggests many transsexual people live in poverty due to prejudice and discrimination. Their monthly income averaged 700,000 won (US$497), it found, while a sex-change operation costs up to 100 million won.

No official data exist, but the commission assumes there are about 4,500 people in South Korea who identify with a physical gender different from the one with which they were born. Those who have had gender reassignment surgery number 300 to 400.

The watchdog also said other guidelines, such as requiring applicants to be 20 or older and unmarried, or to have finished the military service or be exempt from it, violate their human rights and should be abolished.

“Their lives will be better off if their gender gets changed early and their identity forms early,” Yoon said.

The watchdog also said judges should rule over transsexual cases with legislation rather than the top court guidelines and suggested that the National Assembly speaker establish a special law on the issue.

Source: http://transgendernews.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/transsexuals-should-be-allowed-to-change-legal-gender-without-surgery-watchdog/

Sweden says transvestism is not a disease

19 Nov 2008

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Swedish health officials say they will remove transvestism, fetishism and sadomasochism from the country's official list of diseases and mental disorders.

The National Board of Welfare says labeling those aspects of sexual behavior and gender identity as disorders can add to prejudices in society. Gay and trans gender rights activists welcomed this week's decision.

The board's director Lars-Erik Holm says he will raise the issue internationally when the World Health Organization starts the process of renewing its classifications.

Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5htDq3Q_3TiNePrv8sxqtODfquukwD94I5E681/

Transletter

2008-10-18T06:01:00.000+05:30

Tamil actor to highlight transgender problems in 'Ardhanari'
Aug 26 (IANS)
Chennai:Tamil offbeat actor Karan is set to play a transgender in 'Ardhanari', a movie that will highlight their problems. 'After playing college student, liquor vendor and negative roles in myriad films, I now am playing something totally different. Society is slowly becoming aware of the difficult life of a transgender and filmdom is presenting them in a favourable light now. Mine will be one more such attempt,' Karan told IANS Wednesday. Directed by N. Periyasamy, the film will be released early next year.
© Copyright 2008 Indo Asian News Service.

The `I' column
... on how sexual rights affect one personally, and how they are affirmed and/or violated in one's local cultural setting.
I was born male, am 32 years old, and single. During weekends you will catch me cooking, washing, gardening or giving a bath to my pet dogs. Enough for my community in Kathmandu to raise eyebrows where an individual's choice and behaviour are factors for others to decide his/her sexuality and sexual preference. My father was usually out-stationed due to his duties and my elder brother was in another local hostel. I was close and in constant communication with only the female members in my family including my grandmother, two elder sisters and my mother. All along I have grown up with `different' choices. In the early 80's when I was in a coeducational school hostel, I became friendlier with the senior boys. They used to take me out and I learnt many `sexual activities' including masturbation in their company. I was not only enjoying the phase but I also loved the idea of being adored and wanted by my seniors as this made me `happening'. Although I was unaware of it then, now, I feel my behaviour might have been a catalyst for them to think that I was `available' to them. exploring my sexuality, I got into a relationship with a girl. After sleeping with her, I came to understand myself and my desire for men. I began to ignore my girl-friend and took up a job in a local 5-star hotel to reduce the frequency of meeting her so that the relationship would die a natural death. I met her along with her husband and son many years later at a musical event. Though we shared sweet conversations, I am still haunted with the feeling that in the process of exploring myself, I may have `used' her. In Nepal, the whirlwind in the use of internet and cyber outlets is a saving grace for people like me who are confused or have a low level of confidence. It has helped me in understanding other `like-minded souls' in terms of their sexuality. I had a serious and an open relationship, with a foreigner I met in a night club, for more than three years. I will name him A. He is still in Nepal and our relationship ended in February 2004. He is a manager at a reputed educational institution and is nine years older to me. With him, I really enjoyed every nuance of being in a same-sex relationship, which later on developed into a monogamous one because I could not handle the pros and cons of sharing a third man in bed. Initially I prompted A for a threesome, both for experience and fun. While it was okay for me with some foreigners, I used to throw tantrums whenever there was a Nepali guy in our room and in our bed. I realise that, out of jealousy, I have discriminated against both A and the other guys at various points. Post our break-up, which A suggested, due to his personal responsibilities, we tried to meet up as friends but it was not easy for both of us. At present, we just share major happenings of our lives. In terms of my work, I had been volunteering for an NGO active in control/prevention of HIV/AIDS amongst men who have sex with men in Nepal. In 2004, I joined the same organization. I have experienced a high level of discrimination within the community due to lack of knowledge, education and information. In Nepal, a person is labelled not only because of one's appearance, choice of dressing but also because of one's preference in sexual roles and choice of partners. The community often attributes labels to an individual before understanding or realising his/her choice of identity. Hijra, chakka, kothi are some of the terms used by the community in Nepal. I have never identified with cross-dressing in feminine outfits and accessories. I tried it out once out of curiosity and peer pressure. The result was horrifying and I never tried it out again. My community members treat me with respect and nondiscrimination due to my age, appearance, education and my professional association despite the sexual choices I make. But, I realise it will not be the same for me as a transgender person decked up in a sari and out in the streets of Kathmandu, Nepal. Anonymous lives and works in Nepal. We know him. We appreciate his courage in writing this and support his decision to remain anonymous to our readers.
Source: http://www.tarshi.net/asiasrc/plspk/2008_2/i_column.asp

Did You Know

Trans Talk
We live in a world where gender is socially constructed. It is conceived of and practised as a ‘binary’. Only ‘two’ genders are considered legitimate: ‘male’ and ‘female’, though in some cultures, there are people who identify as hijras (in India), warias (in Indonesia), baklas (in the Philippines), to name just a few gender non-conforming people. However, fortunately, the understanding of gender is expanding and there are many new terms that have been formed, and many more that are forming at this very moment and older meanings are being challenged, as the words and concepts below show.

Transgender Person
Is an umbrella term for someone who identifies, acts or thinks in a manner not socially approved for the gender assigned at birth. Examples of specific variants within this would include: Transvestite, Transsexual, Transman, Transwoman, etc. It is common to use just the word Trans, as well.

Transsexual Person
Is one whose gender identity is different from the sex assigned at birth who may or may not desire to alter the body through hormonal and/or surgical procedures like Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS). The person may or may not go through any/the whole gamut of medical procedures available towards this, depending on their own conceptions of their identity, as well as, factors like their health, finances, social situation and other such constraints. FTM stands for Female-to-Male transsexual person or Transman and MTF stands for Male-to-Female transsexual person or Transwoman.

Crossdresser
Is one who dresses, for any of a number of reasons, in clothing usually worn by the other sex, but one who does not identify as the other gender.

Intersexed Person
Is one in whom the process of biological sex differentiation has been non-standard. Such individuals are often surgically reassigned a sex at birth and this practice has come to be questioned by intersexed persons themselves as a violation of their body, agency and well being.

Sex Reassignment Surgery
Any/all of a range of medical procedures that a transsexual person undergoes to allign their body with their gender identity. For FTMs the range of procedures available include: hormone therapy, mastectomy, shaping of a ‘male’ chest, removal of internal reproductive organs and lastly, phalloplasty or the construction of a penis. For MTFs, the range of procedures available include: hormone therapy and hair removal, augmentation mammoplasty or construction of breasts, non-genital surgeries like shaping the nose, revision of the thyroid cartilage and other such surgeries for a ‘feminine’ appearance, and lastly, genital surgery for the removal of the penis and testicles and construction of a vagina. Some additional interventions like speech therapy for voice modulation are also sometimes undertaken. SRS is preceded by a psychiatric evaluation where the benefit of such a procedure is ascertained for the person desiring it. Evaluation and counselling may take any time between a year to two. Certification by two independent mental health professionals is often a requirement before undergoing SRS. The legal status of the reassigned gender is different in different parts of the globe. Even within India e.g., Tamil Nadu has been the first state to recently grant an official status to the third sex. The ration card has a sex column marked T, instead of M or F.

Trans and Sexual Orientation
Trans people can be of any sexual orientation - heterosexual, gay, lesbian or bisexual. Trans refers to gender identity whereas sexual orientation refers to the gender of the person whom one is attracted to. Many people think that Trans people will only be sexually attracted to members of the other sex, but this is untrue. So a person can be a Transwoman and lesbian, or bisexual or heteresexual.

Trans Network
It is useful for Trans people to know that there are networks, e lists and support groups where they can share resources and experiences. Sampoorna is a network of Transgender/Transsexual/ Intersexual/Questioning persons who are Asian or Diasporic Asian and Non-Asians who have professional and/or social links with Asia. The network keeps connected through an e-group by the same name. This is a moderated e-list. Occasional group meetings are held in Mumbai and Delhi. The e-group came into being in April 2004 and there are currently 65 members from various parts of India and also from Sri Lanka, Canada and the United States of America. Sampoorna is a platform for networking, support and information on Trans issues specific to the Asian and Diasporic Asian experience. Membership can be requested by writing to: sampoorna@yahoogroups.com
Source: http://www.tarshi.net/asiasrc/plspk/2008_2/did_u_know.asp

Transletter

2008-07-11T07:30:00.000+05:30

An interview with Khartini Slamah
Khartini Slamah is the Coordinator for the Asia Pacific network of Sex Workers. She is an advocate for the rights of sex workers, people living with HIV and aids and people who do not conform to sexual and gender norms.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Right when I was 8 years old I knew there was something ‘different’ about my gender and sexuality. I used to love playing more with girls than boys. We were never taught about sexuality. It was not even talked about. It was extremely difficult growing up as a transgender person. I also had a friend who is transgender and she was teased and bullied a lot.

How about your family?
In terms of my family, my father used to work with the public department – a ‘man’ s’ job. He would not allow me to grow my hair and would insist on getting my hair cut short and I just hated it. I tried but I just couldn’t fit in. My mother was quiet but supportive. Like many other women, she would not open her mouth in front of my father . My parents had two girls and five boys (including me). I was bullied in my family. Also, a lot of people in my village would tease my parents about me. At , I was sent to stay with my uncle who used to work with the religious order so I could perform ‘good’ things and be reformed. Instead, I knew about sex when I was years old. I was raped by my cousin then.

How was it in your later teenage years?
In my small village, I would hide from my family to cross-dress. I moved into the city to work with a hotel. When I moved into Kuala Lumpur , I would cross-dress often. After I moved to the city I was raped by my friend who was in the police. After the incident I was in trauma for two years. During the time of the economic recession I had no choice but to get into sex work. Many transgender persons were working as sex workers. There is violence within sex work but it also helped us to get a lot of money. I was into both brothel-based sex work as well as street-based sex work. I preferred street-based sex work as that would allow me more negotiating power and I could earn more money through that. When HIV came into the picture, we were very confused because there was an automatic association of HIV with being gay. Though I prefer men, I have had sex with women when I was doing sex work and have also taken part in sex orgies, but I do not want to have sex with a woman. I have explained to my mother and my family that marriage is not in my diary. I cannot imagine getting married to a woman.

How did you begin the work that you do now?
I began my work in 98 in the area of transgender issues with a project with the Ministry of Welfare. It was around the time when beauty contests and parties etc were being stopped by religious groups. For three years I worked on interventions with religious groups. Then I started working with the Pink Triangle (PT) Foundation in 1990. My work with PT Foundation related to training work and HIV . I was the first transgender person to join PT Foundation. At the time when I joined I was quite naïve about sexuality issues. I was uncomfortable with gay men. It was unthinkable for me to see two men, mustachioed, kissing each other . It would repulse me. I found that abnormal. But now I am okay with it. I left PT Foundation in 2000 as I felt it was time for me to move on and use the knowledge I gained there elsewhere. I still remain on the Board of Trustees for the foundation. PT Foundation was earlier known as Pink Triangle Sdn Bhd and we were forced to change the name because of compulsions of funding etc. At PT Foundation we work with drug users, sex workers, transsexuals, men who have sex with men (MSM), and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). I work as the Chair of the Transgender Core Group and also contribute towards developing the vision and programmes of the foundation.

Tell us more about transgender people in Malaysia.
Here, transgender persons are called Mak Nyahs which essentially means the ‘soul of a woman’. The word transgender is western. Transgender people do not want to be called gay. Mak nyahs are those who are biologically male and behave and feel like women and like wearing women’ s clothes. Nowadays, there are more mak nyahs who wear their hair short, are not very rigid and also wear men’ s clothes. Many of them coming from smaller towns cannot afford to wear women’ s clothes for fear of being discriminated against. Many of them are also forced into heterosexual marriages and they often have to conform. They have to hide their breasts and so on. Such marriages do not last for long.

Do all mak nyahs want to have a sex change operation?
We feel that any person who thinks or feels like and wants to become a woman is a mak nyah. They do not have to go in for sex change operations to be called one because we realize that these operations are expensive and not everyone can afford them. In terms of transsexuals, there are more male to female transsexuals in comparison to female to male transsexuals. There are more opportunities for the former than for the latter . I have counseled six female to male transsexuals in Malaysia, out of which two are into sex work. Female to male transsexuals are also rare because the sex change operation is more risky for them with creating a penis, tucking of breasts, hormone treatment etc. A male to female transsexual can opt to only get his penis tucked.

What does Islam say about sex change?
Earlier, in the 90s and 80s, men could get married to men and sex change operations were allowed and they could acquire a female name. However, in 98, there was a fatwa (edict) by a religious group because they saw sex change operations as hurting the body and also changing God’ s will. However , these operations are allowed for hermaphrodites so that they can choose to be male or female. Although they can change their names in the passport or bank accounts, they are not allowed to change their name in their birth certificate. There are also a lot of unanswered questions in religion for me which is why I have not opted for a sex change operation yet. For example the inheritance to property rights are not equal for men and women in our religion. So, if I opt for a sex change operation I will have to give up an equal share in the property. Also, the tombstones for men and women are different. For women it is a flat tombstone whereas for a man it is a round one. Also, if one is a biological male, the person would be bathed by other men as a part of the death rites and if one is a biological woman, a man cannot touch her body. These are part of the dilemmas and unresolved questions for me. Also, my mother loves me very much and has asked me not to go for a sex change operation in her lifetime. I really love and respect her and would not want to hurt her . I am also very comfortable with my body.

Is there any focused work with lesbians?
Although there is no focused work with lesbians, they are present within the group of female sex workers and cases related to them are referred to a lesbian who handles these issues. I know a transgender person – a biological man who feels like a woman. She has however , not got a sex change operation done as yet. She is in a relationship with a ‘real’ woman. They would term the relationship as a lesbian relationship. However , using the penis to have sex with the ‘real’ woman is not acceptable in their relationship.

Tell us more about your current work.
I now work as the Coordinator for the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers. I speak about issues of transgender people in newspapers and magazines appear on the television and talk about sexuality and rights. HIV is very often the entry-point to talk about issues of sexuality. Through my work I try to challenge the assumptions and notions of psychiatrists, religious leaders etc and I think that works. However , I do not believe in confrontation. I explain to people about the stigma and discrimination one has to face as a transgender person and I ask them ‘Do you think I want to go through that?’ I talk about how one may realize one’ s sexuality at any age, be it 13 or 30. But, people do not understand easily.I started to work as a volunteer with APNSW since a meeting held in Chiang Mai in 1995 . I feel the work is very important and we need to do it. There was no funding for the network in all these years. We got some funds only about one and a half years ago after the performances put up by my performance group, Prima Donna, at the International Women’ s Health Meeting in Delhi in 2005 and another performance. We now have funds from AJSW, International HIV/AIDS Alliance and from United Nation’ s Population Fund. Our website www.apnsw.org has a lot of details. Interestingly, we have changed the name of APNSW from Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers to Asia Pacific Network on Sexual Health and Welfare. I feel it is very important to translate the bigger objectives of the network to different countries.

What are your other interests?
Feel gender and sexuality are still very taboo subjects in Asia. Both are still constructed in the binary. I also feel hat we need to go much beyond talking about identity politics of different groups like kothis, panthis and hijras. It s important for all of us to get together and share ideas and views. We are planning to organize a meeting/ conference in Toronto in August, 2008.One of my other areas of interest is to see the linkages between religion and sexuality because we cannot ignore religion in our contexts and ignoring it will not solve our problems.

This interview was published in the 'Jan 2008' edition of the magazine "inplainspeak".

Brazil, Cuba to provide free sex-change surgery
Brasilia/Havana, June 7 / IANS
Brazilian and Cuban authorities are to provide free sex-change operations as part of their healthcare plans.In Brazil, the Federal Medicine Council has approved sex-change operations since the late 1990s, but the procedure could only be conducted in the private healthcare system at a very high cost. The government will now begin paying for the operations, local media reported Friday, citing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao.In communist Cuba, sex-change surgery was authorized for the first time, and it will be offered free of charge, sources at the National Centre for Sexual Education (Cenesex) told DPA Friday.The Brazilian minister announced that country's move late Thursday alongside Lula, as they opened the first National Conference of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transvestites and Transsexuals being held through Sunday in Brasilia.Gomes Temporao said the move is in accordance with the government's homosexual rights policy.'It is one more step towards the consolidation of that policy, in which Brazil is a world leader,' he noted.Lula said the state's refusal to pay for such operations would amount to 'discrimination'.'When you pay your taxes, nobody asks you which is your sexual option. Why discriminate against you when you freely choose what to do with your body?' Lula said.Gomes Temporao said the surgery will initially be performed only in state university hospitals in large urban areas.The move in Cuba was announced by a source at Cenesex, which is headed by Cuban President Raul Castro's daughter, sexologist Mariela Castro. It was said to be part of the framework of a programme for the 'integral' care of transsexuals.The resolution by the Public Health Ministry is operational but has yet to be formally made public. The document was signed earlier this week by Public Health Minister Jose Ramon Balaguer, and stipulates the 'creation of a specific health centre for transsexual people,' the sources added.Mariela Castro said recently that a 28-person waiting list for sex-change operations has already been approved in Cuba. The only instance of such surgery so far in Cuba was in 1988 and received so much criticism that the programme was called off.Cuban specialists are currently preparing alongside Belgian colleagues, and it was not known when the surgery would start to be performed on the communist island, Mariela Castro said as she celebrated the International Day Against Homophobia last month.

Transletter

2008-07-11T07:12:00.000+05:30

Transgender to play lead in Tamil film

8 Jul 2008, Ajitha Karthikeyan, TNN

CHENNAI: Young Karpaga, who makes her debut as a heroine in a Tamil film, is understandably nervous. She is busy rehearsing her lines and learning the nuances in the art of make-up, as the offer is not a passport to fame and wealth, but a lifetime opportunity to join the mainstream of the society.
Karpaga, the heroine of ‘Paal', is the first transgender in the country to don the leading role in a mainstream movie. "They have played lead roles in short films and documentaries earlier. But, this is the first time a transgender is featured as a heroine in a commercial film," says D Sivakumar, the film's director.
Barring a few exceptions, transsexuals have always been shown in poor light in Indian films. But the heroine of Paal is an intellectual, director of a short-film who is smitten by the love bug but facing a dilemma in revealing her identity to her lover.
Besides exploring the emotional and physical conflicts, the film stresses on the need for families to accept transsexuals. Before the society and the government step in, it is parents, who should understand their feelings and protect them, says Sivakumar, who is confident that the low-budget (around Rs 80 lakh) movie will do well at the box office.
The hunt for a heroine took several months. A film crew visited Mumbai and Pune before finally zeroing in on Karpaga, who lives in Bangalore. Actor Revathi will play the role of Karpaga's mother in the film.
Born in a middle class family of Erode in western Tamil Nadu, Karpaga, who was then the only son to his parents, left home at 17 and headed for Mumbai. When he returned as Karpaga after five years, the family was shattered but eventually accepted her. "I was reluctant to accept the offer to act in the film. I was sceptical about the way transgenders are shown in films. It was only after the director told me the story and explained the positive aspects of the film that I agreed," recalls Karpaga.
Karpaga, who has taken a crash course in acting and is training to become a dancer, has offers from other film-makers. "I've a couple of offers to act as heroine and one as a villain," she says. "I'll take a decision after the release of Paal."

Transleeter

2008-05-21T04:47:00.000+05:30

Mexico transgender couple ties the knot, pushes law
By Mica Rosenberg /Reuters
MEXICO CITY
A couple who both changed their sex married on Saturday, May17 in Mexico's first transgender wedding, as the traditionally conservative country loses some of its inhibitions. Mario del Socorro, formerly Maria, and Diana Guerrero, who used to be Jose, held an austere ceremony for friends and relatives in a community center. The couple said they hoped media coverage would pressure Mexico's Congress to pass a proposed law that would let people get sex change operations in public hospitals and then be able to change their names and genders in public records. "When you are applying for a job and your documents don't coincide with what you look like, you just don't get hired. It's that simple," said del Socorro, 55, who is balding with a wispy goatee and stands several inches shorter than his new bride. Lawmakers behind the transgender proposal are challenging a swath of conservative customs in largely Catholic Mexico, and in recent years they have been gaining momentum. In 2006, gay civil unions were legalized in Mexico City and the northern state of Coahuila. Lawmakers in the capital last year legalized early-term abortions and approved a law allowing terminally ill people to refuse treatment. The Catholic Church has strongly criticized all of these measures. Del Socorro and Guerrero got married under their pre-sex change names because the law allowing gay civil unions does not give partners the same benefits as a traditional marriage. At the ceremony, guests cheered the teary-eyed groom and beaming bride as they cut two tall wedding cakes before a crowd of journalists. Members of the bride's Catholic family said the couple tried for months to find a priest that would marry them in a church. "At the end of the day, it's a marriage between a woman and a man, so what's the problem with blessing this union in the eyes of God?" said the bride's sister, Flor Guerrero.

Transletter

2008-03-08T03:19:00.000+05:30

Society is gradually shifting ground on sexual diversity
Cuban society’s traditionally chauvinistic and homophobic nature is littleby little opening up to sexual diversity –a fact largely disavowed untilquite recently– to the point that some strings are being pulled to give itsacceptance a legal character.
Seen for centuries as the “right” rule of conduct, heterosexuality has lostground to other sexual preferences and behaviors which turn-of-the- centuryCuba can no longer deny.
Homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals and transvestites are all anincreasingly visible sector, yet to be absorbed by mainstream society butpartly tolerated, if not accepted, in academic, university and culturalcircles, as well as among people sensitized to this issue.
According to psychologist Mayra Rodríguez from the National Center for SexEducation (CENESEX), “although society frowns at these non-heterosexualconducts, identities, leanings and expressions, there’s more acceptancethese days”.
Rodríguez, holder of a master’s degree in Sciences, puts their success downto CENESEX, a governmental entity established in the seventies under thename of Sex Education Group and devoted from the very outset to this kind ofwork and its promotion among other institutions through the qualification ofactivists whose mission has since been to raise consciousness about sexualdiversity in a very ethical and humane way.
“We came to realize that we also needed to make people more aware, sothere’s been a significant social impact which paved the way for betterunderstanding and tolerance”, she remarks.
“I’m amazed sometimes when a man holds out his hand to help me get off thebus. I never dreamed it would ever be like that. Maybe they do it byinstinct or because they find me pretty, which I’m not”, points out amale-to-female transsexual.
“For a long time I stayed in the closet, but since they gave me my newpapers recognizing me as a woman, I said goodbye to trousers, and I’ve wornnothing but skirts and dresses”, he cheerfully says. As a result ofCENESEX’s work, a group of Cuban transsexuals were able to change theiridentity.
According to Rubén de Armas, coordinator of a project involving men who havesex with other men (MSM) in Havana, for all the openness that exists in theisland, transsexualism is still considered by many a taboo subject and acause for fear.
“Some journalists who are aware of this problem try to make programs aboutit, but then they come up against lack of understanding and are preventedfrom giving more information about and promote the issue”, he added.
Diversity
In Cuba, as in other countries, the absence of public debate on this topicpaves the way for widespread ignorance; hence academia’s advice to provideall the whys and wherefores for the sake of better understanding.
Rather than a concept, sexual diversity is based on the acceptance of,respect for, and coexistence with those who are different, assures Dr.Rodríguez. And although it belongs in contemporary society, it has long beendescribed by various authors, including Austrian physician and founder ofpsychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, who talked about the existence of differentsexual behaviors.
Other studies in which both such variety and the struggles of the gay andlesbian movements were recognized had a considerable bearing on thedisclosure of what we know today as sexual diversity, she says.
What’s new since she started her research on this topic 23 years ago, sheholds, is that in the past they only talked about sexual behaviors otherthan heterosexual. “Nowadays heterosexuality is also a part of sexualdiversity, because it’s practiced by different people who behavedifferently. Nevertheless, placing people within frameworks is not to myliking, as they’re all human beings, and splitting them into groupstranslates into a form of discrimination and stigmatization; I only usethese concepts so as to make the difference more understandable.
“Sometimes sexual orientation is linked to sexual preference, namelydepending on the erotic direction of the individual’s desire, of which thereare three: homosexual –attraction to the same sex–, bisexual –attraction toeither sex– and heterosexual –attraction to the opposite sex,” she explains.
Sexual orientation, she assures, is structured like any other behavior in aperson’s sexuality, which is another constructed category. “We are born assexed beings, but we build our sexuality with the passing of time and theexperiences we live and learn from in the process”.
In the case of transsexualism, there’s disorientation and role confusionamong those who identify with a physical sex different from the one thatthey were born with.
“A transvestite man with homosexual leanings is different from amale-to-female transsexual in that he’s biologically and psychologically amale and was classified as such when he was born, but he prefers to havesame-sex relations, while the latter feels like a woman even if he’sbiologically a male, also classified as a male at birth”, she holds.
This feeling of belonging forces individuals to fit their body to theirmind, and that’s why most apply for sex-reassignment surgery in order tochange their genitalia, since their biological sex remains the same.
Some who are reluctant to make such decision are wrongly seen astransvestites. “In the old days, those who wanted surgery were said to betruly transsexual. That’s not the case today, as some transsexuals are knownto feel the inconsistency but still refuse surgery for a number of reasons,say, they’re too old, afraid or socially visible”, she comments.
Then came the term transgender in reference to transsexuals unwilling tohave a sex change, but eventually the concept extended to everything thatgoes beyond the social standards and now includes any kind of sexualpreference, be it transvestism or transsexualism.
For an individual to be classified as a transsexual beyond any doubt, he/shemust have a series of tests done by the CENESEX-based National Commissionfor Transsexuals’ Issues, provided the person is above 18 –no diagnosis ispossible before that age– and receives treatment for at least two years.
“You cannot really tell what someone’s identity or sexual orientation is onthe basis of outward aspect only. There’s more to it than that, and everyonemust be studied from the psychological and biological point of view. It’svery difficult to make a differential diagnosis,” she says.
In the article Gender disorders and transsexualism: the Cuban experience–‘Sexología y Sociedad’ No. 13. 2007– Rodríguez and two other expertsdescribe various difficult situations facing Cuban transsexuals, includingproblems to maintain a love relationship, family and social pressure, longperiods of loneliness, limited interaction with society, and renunciation oferotic-emotional experiences.
Towards a legislation
Ending the legal isolation of these individuals is one of CENESEX’s majorgoals.
“If you’re protected neither by law nor by policy, you’re left somehowostracized and helpless,” stated CENESEX director Mariela Castro in a 2005interview with SEMlac. They therefore put forward a strategy “centered onthe provision of all-embracing attention to whoever requests it, not onlyfrom the standpoint of healthcare but also taking into account society’sresponsibility for facilitating their integration into society and therespect they deserve”.
This strategy is based on efforts to raise consciousness abouttranssexualism among various sectors of Cuban society, projects to fostertheir understanding and regard, and measures to give them employmentopportunities, with all due respect to their physical appearance as befitstheir gender identity, even if their identity papers are yet to be changed.
In addition to the strategy –submitted to the Parliament in 2006– an offerto reform the Family Code was proposed to the Communist Party last June, andthere’s a resolution by the Ministry of Public Health.
If approved, the new code would give recognition to heterosexual andhomosexual couples alike, including their personal, patrimonial, hereditaryand housing rights, and it would make the current laws on adoption moreflexible to favor both types of couples.
According to Dr. Castro, what all levels of authority consulted on thematter oppose the most, for reasons of ignorance and prejudice, is the ideaof recognizing a homosexual couple’s right to adopt a child.
As to the Ministry of Public Health, its resolution covers a specializedintegral healthcare process for transsexuals, including a medical unitspecifically designed to this effect.

100 days

2008-01-30T03:05:00.000+05:30

So finaly it's the time to celibrate,why? becuse on 27 jan 2008 my blog completed 100 days. And that 's why it is also necessary to give my complete view on the last 100 days. First of all I like to say thanks to every body who by desire or by fault of by search engine comes on to my blog. Today I will tell u that how many stories and profiles I viewed on net,also I will like to tell u that how many of them at present in my friend list. Before creating this blog I just think that I am a person of my own type, but my myth comes to an end when I found that I am not alone in this big world. I found people of different age, religen, work-field but they all have the same kind of feelings as I found in myself. Now by not wasting any more seconds I will tell u about my friends. Some of them became my friend on Yahoo and some of on Orkut.So that the list of my friends on net;
Seema,Samera,Lipsika,Preety,Payal,Rani,Twinkle,Sukanya,Rekha,Laila,
Anushka,Ananya,Urvasi,Mansi,Neharikaa,Payal,Revti,Shonali,Anamika,Manisha,
Rujata,Shonali,Minakshi,Rujata,Radha,Appu,Udita,Varonica,Sneha

For every one I just want to say that They are all Too good even I never found such friends in real world. I wish sooner or later what so ever your desires must comes to reality. Every one of you have same feminine feelings which I found in myself and also as I feel all of you will have some special dreems. In the last line, I want to say to all of you that plese never forget me what so ever happen in future between you and me.

Transletter

Homos Gets Relief In NEPAL

Now in NEPAL an open world of thoughts take a place silently.Although it happen due to the presure of Supreem Court of NEPAL.In a hiring the court given favour to the homos. The court ordered to make new rule for the consideration of homos regarding to their marriage and social status. After Supreem Court's decision now in the country such people which counted as minorties can live a better life.On the record in NEPAL a total of 8-10 percent people are comes under such type of minority. Supreem Court said that homo-sexual,bi-sexual and transsexual people all are nature's created human.On the basis of sexuality we can not classified any one as male or female.But that does't mean that we not provide them their human rights. Also court said in this regard that on nessary documents such as Voter ID,Passport these people will defined as the Thired sex.

It Happens In INDIA

Every day 2000 girl feotus killed.
Every year nearly 8,50,000 abortions took place.
In every metropolitin city more than 100 cases of rape are registered.
With every minute a person is sold without his/her wish for the money.

Sex Disease

2007-12-14T07:09:00.000+05:30

Syphilis

Infectious disease caused by the spirochete Treponema pallidum (Bacteria) and usually transmitted by sexual contact. It may also be transmitted from a pregnant woman to her foetus.

Historical Background

Syphilis was probably introduced into Europe in 1493 by sailors returning from the expedition to America of Italian-Spanish navigator Christopher Columbus. In the early 20th century German scientists discovered the spirochete responsible for syphilis, and in 1909 German bacteriologist Paul Ehrlich discovered the first treatment. In 1943 penicillin was shown to be effective against syphilis, and incidence of the disease has declined.

Stages and Symptoms

Syphilis first causes a small sore at the site of infection a few weeks after exposure. About six weeks after the sore appears, the patient develops a rash, mouth ulcers, and sometimes wartlike lesions in the genital area. These symptoms usually disappear within 12 weeks. The disease then enters a latent stage, which can last 20 to 30 years without outward symptoms. When the final stage occurs, it may produce hard nodules under the skin and in the internal organs, paralysis, psychosis, and death.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Syphilis is detected by symptoms and verified by blood or spinal fluid tests. The preferred drug for treatment is benzathine penicillin, and syphilis control includes finding and treating sexual contacts of infected people.

Chancre

The hard nodular swelling that develops in the primary stage of syphilis.

Chanc'roid

A sexually transmitted disease characterized by ulceration of the genital organs and enlarged lymph nodes in the groin. Also called soft chancre.

Gonorrhoea

Infectious sexually transmitted disease of humans, primarily involving the urogenital tract. It is caused by the gonococcus bacterium, Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

Symptoms and Diagnosis

In men and boys gonorrhoea causes an acute discharge of pus from the urethra, leading to frequent urination, often with a burning sensation. In women and girls the infection occurs in the urethra, the vagina, or the cervix and usually few or no early symptoms appear. Prompt treatment of gonorrhoea is usually effective, but if the disease is left untreated it may spread, causing sterility. The gonococcus may enter the bloodstream, resulting in infective arthritis, heart inflammation, or other diseases. Gonorrhoea may be transmitted from a pregnant woman to her newborn during delivery: if untreated, it may cause a serious eye infection in the infant.

Treatment

Penicillin is commonly used against gonorrhoea, although penicillin-resistant strains have arisen. Other effective antibiotics include tetracycline, spectinomycin, and the cephalosporins.

Herpes

Name applied to several types of virus-caused skin eruptions involving formation of blisters. Herpes simplex causes cold sores or fever blisters around the mouth and on the lips; about the nose, face, and ears; and in the mouth and pharynx. Genital herpes, a distinct type of herpes simplex, similarly affects the genital area (Sexually Transmitted Diseases). Infants born to women with active genital herpes have a high risk of contracting an often fatal infection, so they are frequently delivered by Caesarean section. The virus can also invade the central nervous system, especially in people who are weakened by other diseases, such as cancer, causing severe encephalitis. Herpes zoster causes a one-time recurrence of the symptoms of chickenpox, known as shingles. It is caused by the chickenpox virus attacking a sensory nerve. The inflamed nerve may cause severe pain which can last for weeks.The herpes virus resides in the cell bodies of nerves and may produce repeated attacks. An effective treatment in many cases is acyclovir, a drug available in ointment and in oral form. Herpetic infections of the eye, called dendritic keratitis, can cause scarring of the cornea.Other herpes viruses include Epstein-Barr virus, the cause of infectious mononucleosis and cytomegalovirus, which can lead to birth defects when the virus invades pregnant women.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus

(HIV), retrovirus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Retroviruses go through a long incubation period before disease onset; they infect blood cells and the nervous system, and they suppress the immune system. HIV was discovered in association with AIDS in the mid-1980s.The virus particle consists of an envelope derived from the outer membrane of a host cell. From the membrane protrude proteins that bind to target cells. Inside the envelope is a matrix of protein and a protein nucleoid, which contains two strands of ribonucleic acid (RNA), the genetic material (Nucleic Acids) and its associated enzyme. Once the virus fuses to a target membrane, its RNA enters the cell and is converted into deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA): this is inserted into the new host's DNA. Viral components are made as the host cell reproduces. New whole virus particles are assembled and then released by budding from the cell surface. HIV replication can kill CD4 T-lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell. Loss of these cells paralyses the immune system and is one mechanism by which HIV infection causes AIDS.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

(AIDS), disease that results from infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). A person infected with HIV gradually loses immune function, becoming less able to resist numerous ailments and cancers, which eventually result in death.AIDS was first identified in homosexual men in the early 1980s, and in 1983 scientists isolated a new human retrovirus that came to be known as HIV. Infection with HIV does not necessarily mean that a person has AIDS. In fact, a person may be HIV-positive for more than ten years without developing any of the illnesses that defines AIDS.

Clinical Progression of AIDS

The progression from HIV infection to AIDS has several indicators. One measure of the progression is the declining number of CD4 T-cells, the major type of white blood cell lost due to HIV infection. More recently the actual amount of HIV in a person’s blood has been used to predict the progression to AIDS, regardless of CD4 T-cell count.One to three weeks after infection with HIV, most people experience a brief period of flu-like symptoms and a vague feeling of discomfort. HIV reproduces to high concentrations and establishes infections throughout the body. Individuals are thought to be highly infectious during this phase.Infected individuals then enter a prolonged symptom-free phase that can last ten years or more. They remain in good health, although HIV continues to reproduce, progressively destroying the immune system. Eventually, an infected person experiences rapidly falling levels of CD4 T-cells and opportunistic infections that are not life-threatening, a phase that can last up to several years.Finally an infected person suffers extensive immune destruction and serious illness during a phase that may also last months or years. The immune system fails, and death from severe opportunistic infections and cancers follows.

Opportunistic Illnesses

Death from AIDS is generally due not to HIV infection itself, but to opportunistic infections that occur when the immune system is damaged. Among the more than 25 illnesses that attack people with AIDS are a fungus-caused pneumonia, a bacteria-caused pneumonia, and tuberculosis. Many people with AIDS also develop cancers, the most common types being B-cell lymphoma and Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), a cancer of blood vessels that result in purple marks on the skin.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)

AIDS is caused by HIV, a human retrovirus. HIV enters cells by binding with a receptor protein known as CD4, located on immune-cell surfaces. The classes of white blood cells called CD4 T-cells are the most affected by HIV because they have high levels of CD4. The CD4 T-cells help other immune system cells function. As they are killed during HIV infection, general immune system failure results.

Modes of Transmission

HIV is spread through the exchange of body fluids such as semen and blood. It is most commonly transmitted by sexual contact. HIV is also spread through unsterilized syringes and needles such as those shared among people using intravenous (IV) drugs. Although the routes of HIV transmission are well known, fear continues of possible transmission through casual contact in a school, workplace, or food-service setting. HIV does not survive well when exposed to the environment and is unable to reproduce outside its living host. Therefore, it does not maintain infectiousness outside its host.

Occurrence

In the United States, HIV infection was initially concentrated in the homosexual community and in people with haemophilia, who received contaminated blood products. It then became established among intravenous drug users and was spread by heterosexual contact into all groups of society. By December 1996, 13,720 cases of AIDS had been reported in the United Kingdom, of whom 9,678 had died, and over 28,400 cases of HIV infection had been reported. Worldwide, an estimated 30 million people were living with HIV or AIDS by the end of 1996, with the cumulative estimate of AIDS cases being 8.4 million. About 62 per cent of cases were in sub-Saharan Africa and 23 per cent in South and South-East Asia. In Africa and Asia, most people contact the disease through heterosexual contact.

Detection and Diagnosis

The discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS was made in 1983, and in 1985 the first blood test for HIV was approved. This test detects the presence of antibodies against HIV, an indication of exposure to the virus. However, for about four to eight weeks after exposure, an individual continues to test negative because the immune system has not yet produced antibodies against HIV. In 1996 an additional blood test was developed that detects HIV antigens, proteins produced by the virus itself.

Treatment

Drugs that attack HIV exploit the viral reproduction cycle. One target is the process of reverse transcription—the conversion of viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) into deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)—that HIV must undergo to be infectious (Nucleic Acids). Reverse transcription is performed by the enzyme reverse transcriptase (RT). A class of anti-HIV drugs known as nucleosides is RT inhibitors. These drugs were never considered a cure for HIV infection, but it was hoped that they would slow the progression of AIDS. While showing some benefits, however, nucleosides can also become toxic to the person receiving the drug.A new class of anti-HIV drugs known as protease inhibitors work by crippling a key enzyme called protease, which is vital to the reproduction of HIV in the advanced stage of infection. These drugs may dramatically increase the number of CD4 T-cells and decrease the amount of virus in the blood, although tests are still being conducted. Other treatments, such as anti-fungal and anti-herpes drugs, are available to fight many AIDS-associated opportunistic infections, and these treatments have provided clinical benefit and prolonged survival for individuals with AIDS. Other procedures, such as bone marrow transplant, gene therapy, and immunization, are also being studied.

Prevention Efforts

Because there is no successful vaccination against HIV, prevention efforts have focused on educating the public about HIV transmission and personal measures that reduce the risk of infection. Safe-sex campaigns encourage sexual abstinence and the use of latex condoms during sexual intercourse. Needle-exchange programs reduce needle sharing among IV drug users. Testing of the blood supply has greatly reduced the risk of contracting HIV from blood products.

Social Issues

Many people consider AIDS to be preventable because the routes of HIV transmission are well known and can be avoided. Yet prevention efforts that promote sexual awareness and needle exchanges have been opposed by some, for fear that they may encourage sexual activity and promote drug abuse. Programmes that promote HIV testing at the time of marriage or pregnancy have been criticized for invading personal privacy. HIV-infected public figures have worked for AIDS awareness and prevention, and the U.S. government has attempted to assist HIV-infected individuals through legislation and community funding measures. There are currently no equivalent provisions made by central government in the United Kingdom. Although the amount of government funding for AIDS research is large, most of these funds have been used for expensive clinical studies to evaluate new drugs. Many scientists recommend shifting the emphasis of AIDS research to the study of basic HIV biology, which could ultimately result in greater understanding and more effective medicines.

Transletter

2007-11-14T07:37:00.000+05:30

Country’s first transgender TV host is here

Chennai, November 01, 2007

She walked into the hall with an aura of a celebrity and apologized for the 30-minute delay, blaming the make-up and traffic snarl for it. Even though her first show is still to go on air, Rose is already a star. She is the first transvestite to host a show in Indian television history. The 28-year-old from Chennai will host a talk show on Star Vijay, a popular Tamil TV channel. Titled Ippadikku Rose (Yours Rose), the show will discuss various social issues, including those that are taboo — like her own misunderstood sexuality. An engineering graduate with two Master degrees from the US, Rose was born a boy. “I used my male identity to complete my education and only three years ago I announced ‘my coming out’,” Rose told a crowded press meet in Chennai. Rose hopes that the show will change the image of transvestites, most of whom have been forced into begging or to live as sex workers by a society that shuns or ridicules them. “There is a misapprehension that transvestites are those with deformed genitals. We are normal except that we are females trapped in a male body, wanting to be women, or vice versa,” she explained. Her family has now grudgingly accepted her. Rose, who now works as a web designer, is also associated with non-governmental organizations. “Since I will not have a family, all I need is food, clothes and a decent place to sleep,” she said. Pradeep Milroy Peter of Star Vijay said an institute that trained social workers introduced Rose to them. “As soon as Rose got talking on what she wanted to do, we knew we had a new star among us,” he said. The weekly show will be aired from December.

Transsexuals want space, acceptance

Chennai, Febuary 23, 2007

Over 3,000 transsexuals in Tamil Nadu who donated their eyes last month are hoping that society will now "see" them differently. "I am Nayantara," said a transvestite who is an AIDS awareness campaigner from Vellore and pledged a pair of eyes along with 3,000 others under the aegis of the Tamil Nadu AIDS Initiative (TAI), a body affiliated to the state's Voluntary Health Services. The mass eye donation by the 'aravanis' (those with half a voice) - as transvestites are called in the state - on January 24 also marked the first 'Aravani Day', a special day for Tamil Nadu's 200,000 transsexuals. "Society has so long looked at us with suspicion. I have donated my eyes. Will society now look at us with new eyes?" Shekhar, who hails from Perambur, told IANS. At least 1,500 aravanis gathered in Chennai in the last week of January to talk about their community work, the professional changes they had to make, their health-care initiatives and self-help groups. They also displayed their artistic talents by reciting poetry and playing drums. Slowly but steadily, the transgender society, including transvestites, in the state are emerging from the shadows to claim their rightful place in society. "In the tsunami-hit coastal village of Nallur, where people are still coming to terms with life, we were welcomed with open arms and even found 1,500 new homes," said Rajkumari. Karthick, a film-maker from Chennai, is a diploma-holder. Priya from Erode, and Sudha, Raju and Sona Sampath from Coimbatore are trained video-graphers and have together made a 15-minute film - Nalladoru Samudayatrikku Nangalum - on inclusiveness. Priya, 20, from South Arcot is a trained caterer and currently provides work to aravani community members. Amba, 40, from Washermanpet has stopped peddling sex to become a tailor and Ramya is working at a call centre after completing a computer course. Saranya is a beautician who does not hesitate to say: "I was not comfortable being a boy. I am an aravani. She continues: "During adolescence itself I realized I am different. I stopped going to school and went to work in a hospital, which fired me for dressing like a woman. I began working as a commercial sex worker near the Salem railway station, earning about Rs 300 a day, half of which I had to give to the beat police. "It was during this time that I was introduced by the NGO, People's Development Initiative, to the TAI project's anti-AIDS clinic. They sent me for a beautician's training course. I saw beautiful women and wanted to be beautiful myself, wanted to dress myself, wanted to make up others," Saranya said. Well-known beautician Vasantha taught Saranya the art of threading eyebrows, bleaching faces and doing facials. Among the first graduates from this beautician's course in 2005 were Vidhya, Saranya, Ashwariya and Dyana. Today there are at least 36 trained beauticians among them, many with their own parlors. TAI's Kavya is a folk art group that uses theatre as a medium for anti-AIDS messages and employs aravani dancers and musicians. "It is an emotionally satisfying moment for all the aravanis who participate in our campaigns that they are able to contribute to other people's lives," said TAI project director Lakshmi Bai. Though TAI's main objective is AIDS control, a major fallout of their social initiatives has been a dramatic perception change within India's transgender community. Former chief election commissioner T N Seshan had initiated electoral enrolment for aravanis. There are currently many elected aravanis in legislative assemblies in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and several municipality offices in Tamil Nadu. India has an estimated 500,000 transsexuals, including transvestites and eunuchs, demanding equal social space.

2007-10-19T16:30:00.000+05:30

Transsexualism

Strong identification with the gender role of the opposite sex.

Transsexuals adopt the dress, mannerisms, and, usually but not always, the typical sexual preferences of the opposite gender, and may also be prescribed hormones prior to sex reassignment surgery (SRS) to alter their physical appearance further. Transsexualism should not be confused with transvestism, which is dressing up as the opposite gender without necessarily having the desire to become it.

In biological men, the penis and testicles (see Reproductive System) are removed and a functional vagina is created. Feminizing estrogen is taken to enlarge the breasts, but it does not, however, make the male voice less deep. Biological females can have a mastectomy, nipple reconstruction, and total hysterectomy; male genitalia may be created, but this involves many operations. Testosterone is usually prescribed, producing body hair and a deeper voice. Unlike estrogen, which has reversible effects, effects of testosterone are irreversible.

Pre-operative transsexuals are usually seen by a specialist psychiatrist, who encourages the patient to adapt his or her appearance, and adopt the mannerisms and perceived social behavior of the chosen gender for a minimum of two years.

Medically monitoring for side-effects ensure that gender reassignment is not simply based on learning to adopt the appearance of the chosen gender, but on making an enormous transition without endangering health.

Sex Education

Instruction in the processes and consequences of sexual activity, ordinarily given to children and adolescents. Historically, the task of instructing adolescents about sex has been seen as the responsibility of the parents. In the late 19th century attempts to supplement parental sex instruction concentrated on biological and medical information about human reproduction (Reproductive System) and venereal disease. After World War II a more comprehensive program, taught in public schools, became desirable to many parents.

The variety of subjects explored and discussed as part of sex education include the physical processes of human reproduction; the workings of male and female sex organs; venereal disease; family roles and structures; and emotional and psychological aspects of sex, marriage, and parenting.

Although many parents approve of some type of sex education in schools, in practice there has always been some opposition to such classes. In many schools in the United Kingdom, the policy is to send a letter of consent to the parents of each child before the study is embarked upon to enable them to remove their children from classes should they so wish. Some parents object to sex education on religious or moral grounds.

Do You Know

2007-10-19T16:03:00.000+05:30

Sex
Physical and behavioral differences that distinguish individual living things according to their functions, termed male and female, in reproduction. Through these differences, a species can reshuffle its genetic information (Genetics; Heredity). Sex occurs at all levels of biological organization, with the exception of viruses. Bacteria can transfer genes. At the more advanced levels, individuals produce gametes (sex cells in gonads, which are specialized organs). Genetic information is transferred from the mobile spermatozoa (male gametes) to the eggs (female gametes). Most plants, many invertebrates, and some fish exhibit hermaphroditism (have both male and female gonads), although they are rarely self-fertilizing.

Adaptive Advantages

Although sexual reproduction is slower and less direct than non-sexual reproduction, it has the advantage of creating offspring with slightly different genetic make-up than the parent organisms. During meiosis (the formation of sex cells), the double set of chromosomes is reduced to a single set in the gamete. When this single set is united with that of the other gamete in fertilization, the genes are shuffled, so that no offspring is an exact copy of the parent. The role of sex in perpetually shuffling parental genes is a fundamental mechanism of natural selection.

Sexual Characteristics

In animals, the sex of an individual is generally determined at the time of fertilization by the sperm cell. Primary sexual characteristics are the kind of gamete the gonad produces: eggs in the female ovary and sperm cells in the male testis. Secondary sexual characteristics are all other sexual distinctions that play a role in uniting sperm and eggs, including everything from the specialized male and female features of the genital tract, to the brilliant plumage of male birds. Generally, the more highly evolved the species, the more elaborate are its secondary sexual characteristics.

Gender
The sex-role identity used by humans to emphasize the distinctions between males and females.
By the age of three, children tend to be aware of their gender; they are encouraged to prefer the games, clothing, modes of speech, and other aspects of culture usually assigned to their sex. It appears that many of the behavioral differences between males and females are caused by socialization. However, gender roles are shifting due to increasing numbers of Western women employed in wage labor Stereotypical sex-associated behavior such as male aggression and female passivity is derived at least partly from roles which are taught during childhood. Similarly, many boys and girls tend to excel only in the areas of study traditionally attributed to their sex, which may partly explain male dominance in fields such as science and engineering.
Cases where a person's gender identity differs from his or her biological sex often result in transsexualism and subsequent sex-change.

Namita's View

2007-10-19T13:22:00.000+05:30

I am an Aquarian. I am 5 feet 6 & 1/2 inch tall. I have not a curvy figure, but my physic details is 34-30-34. My blood group is 'O' Positive What I am ,I understand it when I am in my teen age. At the age of 16 i put on my elder sister's Suit Salwaar and Chunni. As I grow one by one
i try to wear out all the feminine dress of my sister and mother. At the age of 23 I get to know that my kind of person is defined as a transvestite . Still I am not tell it to my parents because I know that they can not understand it. In future I want to become a transsexual girl .At present I am not financially independent, so I have to wait for the right time.
From my childhood I always like to be a part of kitchen work. But as in every family boys are not allowed in the kitchen, my mom do the same thing. At the age of 17 I make a hard step and I enter in the kitchen , but my mom not feel it right. She said to me "Tumahri bahan jab kaam karne ke liye yaha per hai toh tum kyu yaha aate ho.Tumahri koi jarurat nahi hai." From the last two and half year passed out of my sister's wedding and I helping my mom in the cooking.
By nature I am not foody but I like to cook and serve the food to others. Not completely but I am little bit satisfy with thepresent conditions.