US: 40 ’Transgender heroes’ honoured at Stonewall bar

[ftmichael]

http://baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=92846

Local activists among 40 ’transgender heroes’ honored at Stonewall bar
by Ethan Jacobs
Bay Windows staff reporter
Thursday 25 June 2009


Stonewall’s legacy: (from left) Gunner Scott, Nancy Nangeroni and Grace Sterling Stowell will be immortalized as ’Transgender Heroes’ at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. (Source:Marilyn Humphries)

Historians have long credited poor and working class drag queens, bull dykes and other transgender and gender-non-conforming people as key participants in the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion, but within the wider LGBT community that defining moment is all-too-often remembered as a gay, rather than LGBT, milestone. The International Court System and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force hope to change that. On June 25, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the riots that marked the birth of the modern LGBT rights movement, the two organizations will hold a dedication ceremony at the fabled New York City bar to unveil a plaque featuring the names of 40 transgender heroes past and present.

The plaque will go on permanent display at the bar, and Bay State visitors will likely recognize a few familiar names on the list. Among the 40 heroes are Gunner Scott, director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC); Grace Sterling Stowell, executive director of the Boston Alliance of GLBT Youth (BAGLY); longtime activist Nancy Nangeroni, former president of the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), former co-host of GenderTalk Radio and current host of GenderVision; and Cole Thaler, an MTPC founder who is now the transgender rights attorney for New York’s Lambda Legal.

"It will be permanent, so people going into the Stonewall Inn will be able to see this plaque and see the names of these, to me, true heroes of our community," said Nicole Murray-Ramirez, a longtime San Diego-based activist who presides over the International Court System as Empress Nicole the Great. The International Court System was founded in 1965, four years before Stonewall. Member courts in the United States, Canada and Mexico, including the Imperial Court of Massachusetts, hold events in which members don campy and outrageous costumes and adopt royal titles, all while raising money for LGBT and HIV/AIDS organizations.
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Swedish parents keep 2 year old's sex secret

[ftmichael]

Sex, not gender. Pop will make Pop's gender known pretty clearly at some point, whether or not it aligns with Pop's sex. Either way, this reminds me strongly of Baby X - A Fabulous Child's Story, which I think is fantastic.


http://thelocal.se/20232/20090623/

Swedish parents keep 2-year-old's gender secret
Published: 23 Jun 09 16:24 CET

A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl.

Pop’s parents [see footnote], both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”
( Read more... )