UK: 'I've felt like a boy for a long time'

[ftmichael]

http://guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/29/transgender-documentary-channel-4

'I've felt like a boy for a long time'
He suffered years of depression and bullying. Now, as he begins the process of becoming a man, Jon wants to help other transgender teenagers
Viv Groskop
The Guardian, Saturday 29 August 2009

In his checked shirt and ripped jeans, his gelled hair artfully messed up, Jon, 16, comes across as an average teenage boy. He starts sixth form in September, describes himself as a "metalhead" and wants to be a journalist after university. One thing, however, is unusual: he was born a girl.

He knew he was a boy from about the age of six. "I just always identified as one of the lads. I liked playing rough and tumble games. I didn't like sitting with the girls in the playground." His mother, Luisa, didn't worry in the least: "He was just happiest with the boys and all his friends were boys. I just thought, 'I've got such a tomboy.'"

This week Jon and his mother Luisa, 46, appear in a Channel 4 documentary, which follows Jon as he starts the testosterone treatment that will push his female body into male puberty. It is the first time in the UK that a family with a transgender child has agreed to be identified on camera.

Jon started treatment at the beginning of this year and simultaneously began attending school for the first time as a boy. Initially there was daily verbal bullying. "I've been called 'chick with a dick', which is a pretty moronic insult as I obviously don't have one," he jokes. "One student said to me: 'You're a tranny and you have AIDS.' That was a low blow. But I went back for my sixth-form induction week recently and there was pretty much nothing going on. I have some good friends at school who have stuck by me."
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India: First of Its Kind: A Clinic Just for Transgender People

[ftmichael]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/India/First-of-its-kind-A-clinic-just-for-transgenders/articleshow/4947057.cms

First of its kind: A clinic just for transgenders
Bosco Dominique, TNN 29 August 2009, 03:43am IST

PUDUCHERRY: Transgenders, often distanced by society, will soon have a clinic functioning exclusively for them in this former French enclave.

Even as a group of transgenders in Chennai launched a matrimonial website exclusively for them, in Puducherry the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute showcased a clinic, which, they claimed was the first such medical facility for transgenders in south India.

The clinic boasting of providing complete health care services for transgenders will offer consultation and treatment free of cost in the disciplines of gynaecology, urology, dermatology, psychiatry and paediatrics. "The transgender clinic will function thrice a week from 9am to 3pm," said Prof D R Gunasekaran, V-C of the Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University to which the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College is affiliated.

The clinic screened first batch of 20 transgenders for various disorders on inaugural day on August 24.

"Transgenders are vulnerable to a host of ailments including HIV, skin complications and failure of various organs. We have roped in specialists from all disciplines to extend health care services to them," said Prof Gunasekaran.

The university has joined hands with an NGO, Sahodaran, to work on projects targeting males having sex with males, HIV+ and transgenders. The university has plan-ned to approach government and NGOs to enlighten transgenders on their new facility. "As a deemed university we aspire to engage in several innovative fields of specialization and to establish a greater interface with society. We decided to open an exclusive clinic for transgenders realising that they are most oppressed lot and are denied basic health care facilities," he said.

US, OR: Congregation embraces transgender minister as his secret is revealed

[ftmichael]

http://sherwoodgazette.com/news/story.php?story_id=125167426609679800

Congregation embraces transgender minister as his secret is revealed
Rev. David Weekley hopes his story will help change United Methodist Church doctrine

By Christine Mcfadden
The Portland Tribune, Aug 30, 2009, Updated Aug 31, 2009


The Rev. David Weekley and his wife Deborah share a quiet moment at Epworth United Methodist Church Sunday morning after telling his congregation the story of his life. (L.E. BASKOW / Portland Tribune)

The Rev. David Weekley grows uncomfortable in his chair.

As soon as he raises the topic of gay rights to his conservative clergyman friend one day at lunch, he knows it’s a mistake.

He knows that the United Methodist Church long ago retained the right to turn away openly gay clergy members.

So Weekley listens to his friend espouse the opinion of the church, and buries his secret deeper. No one can ever find out that Weekley, a married father of five in Southeast Portland and a Methodist clergyman of 27 years, was born female.

Until now, there has been just one openly transgender Methodist clergyman in the U.S. to retain his ordination (That man, Drew Phoenix, 50, had his ordination challenged by members of the church after coming out publicly in 2007 to his congregation in St. John’s of Baltimore United Methodist Church in Maryland.)

Today, Sunday, Aug. 30, Weekley – who leads the congregation at the Epworth United Methodist Church in the Sunnyside neighborhood in inner Southeast Portland – became the second.
( Read more... )

US, VT: Transgender Teen Wants Genderless Bathrooms

[ftmichael]

http://nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/27/us/AP-US-Genderless-Bathrooms.html

Transgender VT Teen Wants Genderless Bathrooms
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 27, 2009

Filed at 7:06 p.m. ET

MONTPELIER, VT (AP) -- A transgender teenager is lending his voice to a movement in Vermont to require the state's middle and high schools to offer genderless bathrooms.

Kyle Giard-Chase, 16, asked the Vermont Human Rights Commission on Thursday to endorse the effort. He said that before he came out last year as transgendered, he was a three-sport athlete and the co-captain of the field hockey team, a girls' sport, at South Burlington High School.

At an away game, he said he was verbally harassed and threatened by the members of the host school's football team for using the girls' restroom.

"The harassment only stopped when I was reduced to tears and told them I was in fact a female," said Kyle, now a senior.

But Kyle said it wasn't the harassment that affected him the most.

"It was the fear and apprehension of possibly having to use the bathroom during the school day that caused me the most harm," he said. "By eighth grade I had almost made a game out of waiting for the end of the day so I could use the bathroom at my own home."

Gender-neutral bathrooms can be as simple as what are now considered handicapped accessible bathrooms that are in a single room, he said.

The commission expressed some sympathy toward the plight of young people whose struggles with gender identity make them uncomfortable using gender-specific bathrooms, but it didn't take any action.

Joseph Benning, chairman of the commission's board, told Kyle he should prepare to deal with resistance from school officials who wouldn't have the resources to change school bathrooms.

"You've begun the process by opening up doors even to us, who never would have envisioned this being a problem at all," Benning. "Once you start on that path, however, you are going to run into opposition. As you go down the road you need to be prepared for it."

No opponents of the idea attended the meeting, although Benning said they would be welcomed at future meetings.

Kyle is working with the Burlington-based group Outright Vermont, a social service organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth.

"The hope is that this is the first statewide gender-neutral bathroom campaign in the country,'' said Outright Executive Director Christopher Neff. ''Vermont is a leader. This is another opportunity to again be the first in the nation and say we are going to make sure that all of our students, no matter who they are, are safe and protected."

A Vermont Department of Education spokesman couldn't find anyone to answer questions about the issue on Thursday.

Vermont was the first state in the country that allowed same sex couples to form civil unions and earlier this year the Legislature approved same-sex marriage. State law also includes the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Act of 2007.

In a separate statement given to the board, Kyle said that he did not feel safe in gender-specific bathrooms. Throughout middle school he said he would "hold it" to avoid being harmed by others.

"This procedure of 'holding it' caused me to pay less attention in class, neglect my studies, and fear going to school in the morning," he said.

He said South Burlington High School has a number of unisex bathrooms and his feelings of "fear and apprehension" dissolved.

Neff told the board the process was just beginning and they hoped the board would take a stand on the issue that young people need to feel comfortable when they are in school.

US, DC: Who Botched the Gender Identity of a Homicide Victim?

[ftmichael]

http://washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/sexist/2009/08/31/who-botched-the-gender-identity-of-a-dc-homicide-victim/

Who Botched the Gender Identity of a DC Homicide Victim?
Posted by Amanda Hess on Aug. 31, 2009, at 2:11 pm


Vigil attendees pay their respects to Tyli’a Mack. (Photo by Darrow Montgomery)

On Wednesday, Aug. 26, one person was killed and another critically injured in a daytime stabbing outside 209 Q St. NW. In the hours following the homicide, police and reporters gathered witness testimony, formed a description of the suspect, and chased likely motives. This time, cops and journalists were also forced to devote resources to another developing story: the gender of the victims.

Within three hours of the incident, three local news sources had independently verified the victims’ gender identity with police. They all got it wrong.
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