TDOR

Are there any groups plannning a Transgender Day of Remembrance this November 20th?

I know of one in Baltimore. I attended on in DC last year. What about the rest of the country?

Live and Let Live

For as much progress our society makes in understanding gender identity disorder( not my term, its the medical profession's) we, as a culture, really take some stupid back pedaling moves.

Take for instance this article from The Vital Voice in St Louis. It's yet another government body discriminating based on "moral" grounds.

I don't want to hear any knee jerk "Moral Majority" "Religious Right" cracks. No , "Bush went down to Georgia and made them do that" lines either. A person insults their own intelligence in making such statements.

Live and Let Live.

Hold yourself to account and forgive others as they find their way.

Immoral?

By who's standards? Over 50% of the work force could be fired for premarital sex based on "moral" codes.

Inappropriate?

Possibly. It depends on the way a person HANDLES their transition.

Yet that's not the issue. Vandy Beth Glenn wasn't fired for just showing up to work one day as Vandy, wear something out of Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Doesn't she have the right to treat her disorder? (REMEMBER its the medical profession's term). If a person had a cleft palette and required a procedure to correct an inconsistency, should they be fired?

Any medical or psychological condition should receive treatment if that treatment will abate or suppress the condition.

Here's what McDoc has to say (WebMD)

How Is Gender Identity Disorder Treated?

Individual and family counseling usually is recommended to treat children with gender identity disorder. Counseling focuses on treating the associated problems of depression and anxiety and on improving self-esteem. Therapy also aims at helping the individual function as well as possible within his or her biological gender.
Counseling is recommended for adults, as is involvement in a support group. Some transsexual adults request hormone and surgical treatments to suppress their biological sex characteristics and to achieve those of the opposite sex. The surgical alteration of a person's sex is called gender reassignment surgery (sometimes referred to as a "sex change" operation). Because this surgery is major and irreversible, candidates for surgery must undergo an extensive evaluation and transition period.

What Are the Complications of Gender Identity Disorder

If not addressed, the disorder can cause a poor self-image, social isolation, and emotional distress. Untreated, the disorder can also cause severe depression and anxiety, and can interfere with an individual's ability to function, leading to problems in school or work, or with developing relationships.

So an individual, receiving treatment for a condition, is terminated from their job for seeking and following their health care provider's prescription?

Morality supposes we have a choice in our actions. And while I have a choice to drink myself to death over depression, its actual immoral to do so.

Is it immoral to take Viagra so that sex with your wife is as fulfilling as with your mistress? Or better yet, your femme boy you've got stashed on the side.......

Oh wait, you have a "medical" condition. You're addicted to sex.

Set your TiVos

There are some up coming programs on cable this month.
On LOGO


7/22 8:00am
Southern Comfort
Robert Eads, a transgender man, is dying of ovarian cancer. This documentary follows his struggle with the disease as he reveals traumatic events as well as stories of personal triumph. Highlighted are the often poor medical attention transgender people receive and the love expressed between family members faced with terminal illness. Part of Logo's Real Momentum documentary series.


7/25 6:00am
Beautiful Daughters

This original Logo documentary looks at the lives of four transgender women intertwined with the casting, rehearsal and opening of a V-Day benefit production of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." The women confront and discuss the issues they face as transgender women and how "The Vagina Monologues" is used as a vehicle to address these issues to a mass audience. Part of Logo's Real Momentum documentary series.



7/27 1:00pm
The Believers
What happens when a group of trans-people want to reclaim their spirituality and start an all-trans gospel choir? Transcendence Gospel Choir, the first ever entirely transgender choir, consists of individuals who are attempting to overcome feeling "Bible burnt" by the Christian Right while at the same time trying to form a musically cohesive choir. The documentary follows the Transcendence Gospel Choir from the start and shows how the members had to overcome instability and commotion and build trust with one another. The diverse backgrounds of the choir members, white and black, young and old, parents of children, fully transitioned and not, are profiled-all of whom are working their high notes to find acceptance in Christian churches as well as the LGBT community. Part of Logo's Real Momentum documentary series.



On The Sundance Channel
7/24 10:00am
Ten More Good Years

In the latter part of the 1960’s the Civil Rights Movement made its way into the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Community. Across the country LGBT persons defiantly stood up and fought for the right to be out, proud, and equal. Today, the LGBT Community is out and definitely proud; however, they are far from equal. Those who “could not take it anymore” some 40 years ago at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco, The Stonewall Inn in New York City, and elsewhere across the United States, are older now and are facing an onslaught of discrimination from their government, social service networks, and even from their own Community.

Where is the L-O-V-E?

As I geared up for my 4th SCC, I had the opportunity to reflect on my personal journey of the last 4 years.

By 2003, I had come to terms with the fact I was transgendered. Even though I could not quantify the cause, I accepted it as part of my nature. It had been since the tender age of 6. Years of guilt and shame had taken its toll and I was ready for a change. Many things had transpired in the preceding year. My last relationship(HST i.e. hostage taking situation....) had ended in miserable failure. I was finally on my own, and, as I found to be later, on my way. New job, new income status, and new freedom allowed me to express this identity in a safer environment.

As these planets all came into alignment I found less than a harmonic convergance. The more exposed I was to the multivalent construal known as transgenderism, the less shielded I was to its stark divisions. I knew I was transgendered, however which subset did I belong to?

Communication and language are tools mankind has developed to express a point of view as to allow another person to understand it. For the purpose of my assessment I choose to define three subsets as following; transsexual (both op and non-op), androgynous ( including gender queers and crossdressers who dress for gender identity expression), and transvestites ( to include any fetish based or emotionally driven cross gendered expression through attire/clothing). At the core to each of these BROAD subsets is HOW gender and its expression relates to THEM.

[Please note: A crossdresser is ANYONE who wears clothing of their opposite physical sex. Transgender is an umbrella term used to describe ANYONE with a gender identity or expression that is at odds with society's binary gender construct]

To the transsexual, its is an innate sense knowing they who they are gender wise, its the body which is incongruent to this defined sense of self.

To the androgynous, its a sense of two genders.Sometimes singularly expressed, and sometimes jointly expressed. Yet typically never just one gender identity as defined by society's binary constructs.

To the transvestite, its a sense of fulfillment to an aspect of their gender definitions through the wearing of garments typically associated to the opposite physical sex. The fullfillment can be sexual in nature and it can be emotional too.

And therein, as the Bard would tell us, lays the rub.

Some transsexuals feel detached or wish to detach themselves from other transgendered individuals because their sense of self is, at least at the point they affirmed their status as transsexual, innate, permanant and quite clear. They were born with the right mind, its just the body which lagged behind. Anyone with less than the same feeling or sense of self could possible cause society at large to demean their situation. (Like its stereotypical TG characters in such movies as Dressed to Kill or Silence of the Lambs) Not dressing within a binarily defined gender contruct ( gender queer/fuck, or androgynous) or dressing in a fetish way can be seen as destructive to them and they need to blend in and be accepted. For many the ultimate goal is to fit into mainstream society and allow themselves to finally just live.

Some androgynous people consider and classify themselves as transgendered because in society's collective vocabulary, they have no accurate word to define themselves. They feel more bi-gendered variant that transvestites and less inconguent in their gender -physicality relationship than transsexuals. They see fetish based crossdressing involving intimate appearal or the lack there of(exposed body parts) in online photo albums as a threat to their legitimacy.

And, some transvestites, content on living with their gender which is in sync with their physical sex, will think in terms of their sense of self and do not possess the capacity to reasonably empathize beyond that contrust. To no fault of their own. How can white Americans truly understand personal biasses afflected upon black Americans. They lack a certain perspective. They are no less ridiculed by society than any other transgendered person however.

I have found, at times, a deep and dark distain for each other by some of us within all of these three subsets. However it seems to be strongest between the two extremes, transsexuals and transvestites. Transgender has been called an umbrella term . Yet I see it more like a covered bus stop. We're all in it together, however none of us want to look at or communicate with each other.

So this beg's to ask the question.

Where is the Love?

At a national level, most of the activism is directed to provide acceptance for those actively living and expressing, on a full time basis, a gender expression inconguent to their natal physicality. This means transsexuals both op and non-op or those 24/7.

At the local level most of the support mechanisms are gears towards the transvestites and provide a social outlet in addition to any emotional support provided.

While both of those two extremes benefit in small part to the actions taken on behalf of the other, there seems to be no middle ground and I certainly fail to see all of us holding hands and singing KumBayah anytime soon.

Which leaves us with the androgynous. You know us, chameleons as we are, we partied with the jocks and the stoners......