vol. iii - issue i - december - january 2003
index
Sex change victory after 30 years
SOCIAL SECURITY POLICY CHANGES HURT TRANSSEXUALS
Beyond Appearances: The Ambiguities of Sexuality
SUPREME COURT REFUSES TO HEAR TRANSSEXUAL MARRIAGE CASE
PENNSYLVANIA HATE CRIMES OFFERS PROTECTION FOR TRANSGENDERS
Sex change victory after 30 years
Clare Dyer, Legal Correspondent, The Guardian, Tuesday December 10, 2002
Transsexuals are to be given the right to change their birth certificates and marry in their adopted sex, after a 30-year legal battle. The lord chancellor, Lord Irvine, is poised to announce the change just weeks before a male-to-female transsexual was due to ask the House of Lords for a ruling that her 20-year marriage to a man was valid. The move has been forced on ministers by a judgment last July from the European court of human rights in Strasbourg, holding that the UK law, which insists that gender is irrevocably established at birth, violates transsexuals right to respect for private and family life.
The Strasbourg judges said: A serious interference with private life arose from the conflict between social reality and law, which placed the transsexuals in an anomalous position in which they could experience feelings of vulnerability, humiliation and anxiety. In the 21st century the right of transsexuals to personal development and to physical and moral security in the full sense enjoyed by others in society can no longer be regarded as a matter of controversy requiring the lapse of time to cast clearer light on the issues involved. The UK is one of four countries in Europe - with Albania, Andorra and Ireland - which still refuse to allow transsexuals to alter their birth certificates. The ban has barred them from marrying in their new sex, affected the age at which they qualify for a state pension and infringed their privacy by ensuring that their previous history is inevitably revealed to any new employer.
A month before the Strasbourg judgment, which the government expected to lose, a working group of officials from 12 government departments was reconvened to consider how to take reforms forward. In a series of court cases judges have expressed sympathy for the plight of transsexuals, but said reform was a matter for parliament. Elizabeth Bellinger, whose case is scheduled for hearing in the House of Lords next month, narrowly lost her case by a majority of two to one in the court of appeal in July 2000. Both judges who ruled against her called on the government to change the law.
Last July the Strasbourg court ruled in favour of Christine Goodwin, formerly a male bus driver, and another male-to-female transsexual named only as I. Ms Goodwin claimed that the UK government violated her right to a private life and discriminated against her by making her wait until she was 65 for a state pension. Ms I argued that her right to respect for her private life was breached because she had to produce a birth certificate showing her as male to register for a nursing course.
Stephen Whittle, of the transsexuals campaigning group Press for Change, said: Im really pleased theyre finally doing it. The fact that theyre waiting nearly six months from the Strasbourg decision is appalling. Dr Whittle, a female-to-male transsexual and law lecturer who has played a leading role in the campaign for transsexuals rights, said the group was concerned that there might be loopholes in the new law and delays before it went on the statute book. Theres no point in doing it if there are loopholes. The nature of the loopholes is what has caused trouble in the past. What I really want to know is that theyre going to do it in the next session. Are they going to put in place more consultative processes because if they are were on a hiding to nothing. He said that one stumbling block was what should happen to people who had changed sex but remained within existing marriages, in some cases for pension reasons.
Ministers were divided on whether they should have to divorce if they wanted to change the sex on their birth certificates. Christine Burns, of Press for Change, said: Its vital that the proposals provide full legal recognition for all purposes. If there are any exceptions, it will be worthless. Lynne Jones, Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak and chairwoman of the parliamentary forum on transsexualism, said: I hope any measures the government introduces will get a fair wind in the Commons and the Lords and well start to catch up with more advanced countries.
SOCIAL SECURITY POLICY CHANGES HURT TRANSSEXUALS
http://www.ntac.org November 18,2002
What does one do if the boss walks in and says, Hey, I thought you were a woman when I hired you. Why did you lie to me?
Farfetched? Hardly, and the Social Security Administration just made it more likely to occur.
In a mid-October 2002 policy change that took place without announcement or explanation, the Social Security Administration instituted a tougher requirement for changing ones gender marker in the SSA records.
The new policy (RM 00203.210 paragraph C) requires a person -- the Number Holder (NH) in SSA parlance – to provide Clinic or medical records or other combination of documents showing the sex change surgery has been completed. All documents must clearly identify the NH.
Previous policy required documents that show sex change surgery has either been completed or started.
The new policy might seem reasonable at first blush; after all, it is the same requirement that must be met to change gender on ones U.S. passport, usually satisfied by a notarized letter from the surgeon saying that he had performed female-to-male or male-to-female sex reassignment surgery on the individual.
However, transgender activists and many transsexuals and intersexed people realize that the Social Security situations and the passport situations are not the same. Many people can do without a passport while in transition from one sex to another or in the process of correcting birth defects, but everyone must provide ones Social Security number to an employer.
Problems arise when the SSA runs a periodic audit of company records and the gender markers dont match. SSA advises the company that there is an error in the companys records and directs the company to correct its records. This sends the boss or someone from payroll to the persons worksite asking, Why doesnt your gender match what Social Security says it is? And another transsexual is ousted and legally subject to termination in most locations.
The State Department will issue a one-year temporary passport in the new gender for pre-op transsexuals or intersexed people whose surgeons certify that a surgery date has been scheduled. The new SSA policy does not address this issue of people who are in transition or who cannot undergo sex reassignment surgery for health or financial reasons but who live and work in their chosen gender. Because the Benjamin Standards of Care for transsexuals require a minimum one-year Real Life Experience of living and working in the new gender full time before obtaining authorization for sex reassignment surgery, the new SSA policy will adversely impact almost every transsexual in transition.
This step backwards in the Social Security Administrations understanding and handling of transsexual and intersexed needs will lead to further discrimination against a whole class of people who already have enough obstacles in their way, said Robyn Walters, board member of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition. Government should be about making peoples lives better, not about making life more difficult.
Walters noted that such actions by a federal agency that impacts the life of every citizen reinforce the need for an Employment Nondiscrimination Act that includes protection for the transgender community. A transgender-inclusive ENDA would remove the worry of being fired for not appearing as Social Security records indicate, said Walters, but it would not avoid the embarrassment or exposure to bigotry that would come by being outed as a transsexual.
By Susan Reifer, Sports Illustrated Women
Michelle Dumaresq, 32, is a newcomer to the international downhill mountain-biking circuit. Even so, the Canadian's 24th-place finish at the 2002 World Championship in Kaprun, Austria, on Aug. 31 was a hotter topic of conversation than Frenchwoman Anne-Caroline Chausson's seventh-straight world downhill victory. You see, Dumaresq -- who finished 54.7 seconds off the lead mark -- used to be a man.
"I don't go around waving a flag, but people talk, and I don't really blame them for it," says Dumaresq, who suffered from gender dysphoria (a condition in which a person feels he or she is the wrong gender) until initiating hormone treatment at the age of 21 and finalizing her sex change with surgery at 26. "It's not everyday kind of news, right?"
If some of her Canadian teammates (all of whom she dusted quite handily in Kaprun) had their way, she wouldn't be in the news at all -- at least not in the ranks of pro cycling.
"At my first race of the year I got third," says Dumaresq, a Vancouver-area native who rode motocross as a boy named Michael, then transitioned to free-riding the renowned single-track of British Columbia's North Shore as a woman before taking up downhill racing in 2001.
"The next race I came in first by 10 seconds. It was my first win as a pro. All of a sudden everyone freaked out."
Some other racers -- led by top Canadian downhillers Sylvie Allen and Cassandra Boon, with whom Dumaresq had frequently ridden over the preceding two years -- circulated a protest form at the finish line, requesting that the event results be rendered null and void due to Dumaresq's involvement.
"I was beside myself," says the soft-spoken, easy-smiling Dumaresq. "Their complaints are the height of poor sportsmanship."
The race commissioner rejected the request. The reason was simple. Even though the governing bodies of downhill bike racing had suspended Dumaresq's competitor's license during the 2001 season pending further review, in April of this year her license was reinstated with no restrictions.
"She is legally a woman," says the Canadian Cycling Association's Pierre Hutsebaut, echoing the 1977 New York State Supreme Court decision that granted transsexual Renée Richards the right to play tennis in the women's division at the U.S. Open.
But Allen persisted. She drafted a petition asserting that Dumaresq had an unfair advantage over "natural women" and should be either banned from the professional racing circuit or relegated to a new, "transgender" category. In late June some of Dumaresq's teammates took their protest to the World Cup at Mount St. Anne, Que. -- but their complaints fell flat.
In the meantime Dumaresq won an event in the Canada Cup series, beating her nearest competitor by 17 seconds, which secured her a spot on the national team that would compete in the world championship in Austria.
"The [World Cup] women are self-confident, they're amazing bike riders, and they were not intimidated by me at all," says Dumaresq. "They took this opinion of, Bring it on, let's see what she's got!"
According to medical experts, Dumaresq has no more physical advantage than any one female athlete might have over another. "The advantage that males have comes from testosterone and higher levels of hemoglobin," says Louis Gooren, M.D., one of the world's leading experts on endocrinology, gender and transsexuals.
The testosterone generates larger muscle mass and greater muscle strength; the hemoglobin allows the blood to carry more oxygen. But after hormone treatment and removal of the male sexual organs, testosterone and hemoglobin levels drop, and the advantages diminish.
As it happens, the International Olympic Committee recently abandoned its long-standing policy of gender-testing women athletes to verify their sex because scientists are so far unable to find one single biological indicator that proves in all cases that a woman is really a woman.
As many as one in 500 women do not have standard XX chromosomes. Women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, for example, have the XY chromosomes of men but the identities, bodies, external sexual organs (albeit infertile ones) and athletic prowess of women. Then there are the women with seemingly "normal" female bodies who have a mosaic chromosome pattern: XXY.
Women with congenital adrenal hyperplasia have a standard XX chromosome pattern but adrenal glands that produce an excessive amount of male hormones, which could give them a distinct athletic advantage. At the Summer Games in Atlanta in 1996 eight female athletes reportedly had this condition -- and were approved for competition.
"The idea of a natural woman is not a real category," says Suzanne Kessler, Ph.D., and author of two books on sex and gender. "These people who are saying they are 'natural women' have a naive view. What this issue forces us to grapple with is the question of what it means to have a natural advantage or disadvantage. And there are many reasons why someone could be advantaged. They could afford lessons. They could afford a better bike. My guess is if [Dumaresq] has an advantage it's because she was raised as a male. Being treated as a male, even if you never felt like one, leaves you with a higher level of confidence."
"I am mentally capable of going fast," says Dumaresq, but she doesn't attribute that advantage to gender. Quite the opposite. Beyond losing much of her testosterone, 30% of her muscle mass, some bone density, three inches of height (through shrinkage of her vertebral discs, she now stands 5'9") and lots of her former endurance and strength, Dumaresq has found that her approach to risky situations has changed.
"I find myself thinking about things before I do them," she says. "Guys have this unique risk-taking ability that comes with testosterone. They deal with consequences after. Women always examine the consequences beforehand, analyze them and then take a calculated risk. I think that's the biggest difference between how I used to be and how I am now."
That said, Dumaresq intends to stay in the game. "I love racing, and I'm good at it," she says. "I never set out to change the world or anything. I just want to race a bike."
Beyond Appearances: The Ambiguities of Sexuality
By DINITIA SMITH, New York Times, October 29, 2002
What maketh the man? Is it chromosomes? Or is it genitalia? Or, to borrow from Polonius, is it clothes?
In her new book, "How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States," Dr. Joanne Meyerowitz, a professor of history at Indiana University and the editor of The Journal of American History, examines changing definitions of gender through the prism of transsexuality, that most mysterious of conditions in which a person is born with normal chromosomes and hormones for one sex but is convinced that he or she is a member of the other.
Dr. Meyerowitz shows how mutable the words "male," "female," "sex" and "gender" have become, and how their meanings have evolved through time.
Hers is one of several new books on the subject of the transgendered, an umbrella term to define those whose sexuality is not readily characterized as definitely male or female. The flow of books is evidence of society's continuing puzzlement and fascination with the subject.
The novelist and psychotherapist Amy Bloom has published "Normal," interviews with transsexuals; transvestites, who like to dress in clothing of the opposite sex but may not want to change their gender; and the intersexed, people born with ambiguous genitalia, in the past referred to as hermaphrodites.
The transgendered in Ms. Bloom's book, including the intersexed, refuse to be categorized as either male or female, and defiantly celebrate their ambiguity.
A third book, "Scanty Particulars," by Rachel Holmes, is a biography of Dr. James Barry, a transvestite and the highest ranking military doctor under Queen Victoria.
Dr. Barry, a pioneer in public health, is credited with performing the first successful Caesarean section. The doctor lived as a man, but on her deathbed was revealed to be a biological woman.
Finally, there is "Middlesex," a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, about a character born with 5-alpha reductase deficiency syndrome, in which a person is genetically a male, but has ambiguous genitalia and may at first appear to be a girl. At puberty, the person may develop testes and other male characteristics, including the enlargement of the clitoris into a penis.
But in terms of the scientific quandary of gender, the most important of the books is "How Sex Changed."
At the turn of the century, Dr. Meyerowitz writes, the word sex was a catchall term meaning both biological sex and sexual behavior. Today, biological sex usually refers to chromosomes, genes, genitals, hormones and other physical markers. Gender usually means male or female, or some mixture of both. The word sexuality has come to connote sexual behavior.
Of all the conundrums of identity, transsexuality is most imbued with the contradictions between physical sex and sexual orientation, and it illustrates the difficulty of defining gender.
Until the turn of the century, Dr. Meyerowitz writes, gender was defined through a binary taxonomy of opposites: people were either male or female. But in the late 19th century, Sigmund Freud, the German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing and Wilhelm Fliess, a German physician, began putting forth the notion that humans were inherently bisexual, and that sexuality existed on a continuum between male and female.
In 1910, a Berlin physician, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, published a pioneering work on transsexuality and articulated a relatively new modern definition of gender. "Absolute representatives of their sex are," he wrote, "only abstractions, invented extremes."
The 1920's and 30's were a time of sexual emancipation in Europe, and in that atmosphere, Dr. Meyerowitz says, sex change operations were performed in Vienna, and at Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science. In 1931, Dr. Felix Abraham, a physician at the institute, published the first scientific article on human transsexual surgery.
The operations consisted of mastectomy, hysterectomy and in males, castration, creation of a vagina and even ovarian transplants. Phalloplasty, the creation of a penis on a genetic female, was not commonly done until after World War II in the United States.
But until the 1960's sex-change surgery was rarely performed in this country, and treatment was largely unavailable. Desperate people begged doctors for help. The drive is so "fierce and demanding that it frightens me," one man, who had asked a friend to castrate him, told Dr. Harry Benjamin, a pioneer in sex-change treatment.
According to one review of the medical literature in 1965, 18 of 100 male-to-female transsexuals had tried to remove their own testicles or penises; 9 succeeded. Dr. Meyerowitz writes that one man injected air, hand cream and mother's milk into his chest to give himself breasts. A female-to-male transsexual had her breasts removed on a kitchen table. A male-to-female transsexual who could not afford surgery studied medical texts to learn how to remove testicles, ligate, suture and anesthetize. She bought surgical equipment and successfully performed the operation on herself.
With the publicity received by Christine Jorgensen, attitudes changed. Formerly George Jorgensen Jr., an Army private from the Bronx, in 1952 he underwent sex-change operation in Denmark. Dr. Meyerowitz argues that Ms. Jorgensen, by cultivating the demeanor of a lady and by refusing to call herself homosexual, removed some of transsexuality's stigma.
From the 1960's on, a handful of courts permitted transsexuals to change their names. In 1976, the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court ruled in an alimony dispute involving a male-to-female transsexual that the person could be called female in the case of that particular marriage.
But the court said that generally, conventional gender definitions should apply to marriage, public records, military service, sports eligibility and some occupations. In 1977, the New York County Supreme Court ruled that Renee Richards, a postoperative transsexual, could play in women's tennis tournaments despite being genetically male.
With the growing power of the medical establishment, doctors began to assume the right to define sexuality. In 1966, when the Johns Hopkins Gender Clinic opened with money from Reed Erickson, a wealthy female-to-male transsexual, there were 2,000 applications for surgery.
Sex change operations became more frequent, though doctors balked at performing surgery for fear of prosecution under obscure statutes based on English common law that forbade the maiming of men who might serve as soldiers.
Even as the medical establishment was trying to define gender through surgery, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and psychologists contended that transsexuality and transvestitism resulted from psychological conditions.
In 1962, the Gender Identity Research Clinic was founded at the University of California at Los Angeles. There, boys regarded as "sissies" and "tomboy" girls received behavioral treatment to make them conform to traditional definitions of gender.
Today, scientists, psychiatrists and psychologists have reached something of a consensus about gender, saying that sexuality is determined by "psychological sex" or "gender role orientation," possibly caused by hormones or genes.
As a consequence of the sexual revolution and the Internet, which has provided a forum to organize, transsexuals have begun to demand the right to define their own sexuality. Some male-to-female transsexuals have sex with men and call themselves homosexuals. Some female-to-male transsexuals have sex with women and call themselves lesbians. Some transsexuals call themselves asexual.
The transgendered have begun to insist that sex, gender and sexuality represent "analytically distinct categories," Dr. Meyerowitz says. Doctors can alter the physical characteristics of sex, but bodily sex does not determine gender.
No one knows how many transsexuals are in the United States today, Dr. Meyerowitz writes, though a 1993 study in the Netherlands reported that 1 in 11,900 born male and 1 in 30,400 born female took hormones to change sex.
SUPREME COURT REFUSES TO HEAR TRANSSEXUAL MARRIAGE CASE
http://www.ntac.org October 17, 2002
The Supreme Court has the final authority to make pronouncements on the application of existing laws, by actively considering, or by passively rejecting consideration of a case. On Monday, October 7 the Court did the latter by rejecting the case of J'Noel Ball Gardiner.
Under Kansas law, Ms. Gardiner, whose marriage was called into question after her husband, Marshall Gardiner, died in 1999 without a will, should have been entitled to half of her husband's estate. Her husband's son, Joe Gardiner, wanted the marriage invalidated on the grounds that J'Noel, a transsexual, had been born male.
Joe Gardiner challenged J'Noel's inheritance claims in probate court, and a trial court agreed with the son. But a Kansas Appellate Court later overturned the decision. The Appellate Court ruled that gender is not fixed and that gender at the time of marriage is the determining factor in the validity of that marriage.
Joe Gardiner appealed this decision to the Kansas Supreme Court, which ruled, in a 9-0 decision, that J'Noel was "male for purposes of marriage." Relying heavily on dictionary definitions, the Kansas Supreme Court announced: "The words "sex," "marriage," "male," and "female" in everyday understanding do not encompass transsexuals.
"The common, ordinary meaning of 'persons of the opposite sex'", according to the state's Supreme Court opinion, "contemplates what is commonly understood to be a biological man and a biological woman. A post-operative male-to-female transsexual does not fit the common definition of a female."
The Kansas Supreme Court decision, and the U.S. Supreme Court's concurring sidestep of the issue, is problematic on several levels. It defines "male" and "female" according to ability to produce sperm or ova and to beget or bear offspring. But this seems to render sexless any women who had a hysterectomy or man who was infertile. It would also exclude those with extra chromosomes, or ambiguous genitalia at birth.
The decision should be a "wake-up call to the entire post-operative transsexual community," according to attorney, Alyson Meiselman, based in suburban Washington DC. She opined that it's possible the petition to the nation's high court may not have "properly preserved or argued" the Article IV issue. Meiselman, herself transsexual, added that "unless that attorney is an expert in transsexual legal matters, the transsexual client's cause will suffer."
"The court's ruling completely ignores the existence of intersexed citizens and totally denies their rights to marry," stated Vanessa Edwards Foster, chair of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC). "There are a large number of American citizens who are now legally barred from marrying." Foster continued, "Women who are unable to conceive, men who are impotent, males with androgen insensitivity syndrome - none of them have the right to marry thanks to the state of Kansas. And the Supreme Court apparently agrees."
Perhaps the most troubling issue in this decision is its violation of the U.S. Constitution. Article IV, clause 1 of the Constitution states: Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and Judicial Proceedings of every other State. Gardiner's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court asked whether this clause "requires a State to recognize an individual's sex as reported in a birth certificate issued pursuant to court order by the State in which the individual was born." The State of Wisconsin recognizes J'Noel Gardiner to be female as manifest on her birth certificate.
The state of Kansas has opened a breach in Article IV of the Constitution. "The decision of the Supreme Court of Kansas side-stepped the Full Faith and Credit issue" based on the Kansas Appellate Court ruling, according to attorney Meiselman.
The attorney who petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Christie Lee Littleton, Meiselman added the high court's declining to hear the case would have two effects. "First, it leaves the Kansas Supreme Court's decision as the law in Kansas, as well as being authority that opponents to recognition will use in future cases outside of Kansas, as persuasive authority."
On the other hand "it allows the possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court may address the issue in the future," though Meiselman added it's unlikely given the ultra-conservative ideological make-up of the conservative Justices.
The decision not to consider the Gardiner v. Gardiner case definitively brings the case, and marriage, to an end. Meanwhile, J' Noel Gardiner, an assistant professor of finance at Park University, has had her personal and professional life turned inside out.
Gardiner, who met her husband at a university reception four years after having undergone sexual reassignment surgery, issued a statement after the ruling. "The pain, intrusion of our privacy, and the anger that runs through our blood could not be felt by anyone not in our shoes - not even the well-intentioned."
"People don't realize we have personal lives," lamented Christie Lee Littleton, who endured her own mistreatment at the hands of the courts. "What J'Noel needs right now is privacy. She just needs time to heal."
"The media wants to get quotes from us, and people call us wanting to help, but they don't realize we just want to be left alone," Littleton added. "We just lost our husbands, we need time to grieve."
with Neve
You are not a caterpillar. I know this because you are reading my column, and caterpillars are largely illiterate. Which is fine. In fact, there are some nice things about not being a caterpillar. Those little crawly guys don't live very long, they have green goo where their blood ought to be, and they spend most of their time chewing on bitter-tasting leaves. On the other hand, not being a caterpillar also means that you can't fast-forward through periods of change by spinning a cocoon, hibernating in safety and solitude for a few weeks, and emerging from your shell fully prepared to fly into a new life with wings.
Nope, for better or worse, you're human. You're too behaviorally complex to transform in a single moment from one abstract state (e.g., "child") to its opposite ("adult"). It takes years to cross the wide gulf that divides youth from sophistication, and each of us must paddle over choppy waters while we learn through the trial and error of interacting with others. As we endure these in-between phases, we suffer from our own mistakes, and spend many moments struggling to find ourselves. It can hardly be avoided: wisdom is the fruit of disappointment and tears.
And, for a very few of us, then comes gender reassignment. During this long, progressive voyage of self-reinvention, we must pass through intermediate limbo worlds, where our old routines and social identities are obsolete, but it's impossible to fully embrace a new role because further changes are still forthcoming. In deciding to transition, we all envision our past selves, and imagine the future lives, or at least the bodies, we long to inhabit. Yet, we must also accept that, before we can get there, we will have to wander through strange places whose rules are hazy and shifting. Places where our own instincts may sometimes torment us, and we will no longer be sure where we stand, or what we ought to be doing.
As I write this, I am preparing to enter my 30th month of hormone replacement therapy. It has been 18 months since I began officially living "full-time" in a female role, and just over a year since my marathon session of facial feminization surgery with Dr. Ousterhout in San Francisco. In an earlier column, I talked a bit about my experience there, and expressed my delight and "honest-to-goodness giddiness" with the results of his unique facial recontouring technique. My healing has since continued (though the tip of my right nostril is still only partially sensate), and with my electrolysis needs starting to tail off, the appearance of my face and skin has become fairly normal for a woman.
Understand that, for over two years, my attention had been focused exclusively on the earlier, more basic steps of the gender transition process. The pain of self-discovery and coming out. The quest to accept and understand myself, while convincing family, friends and colleagues to do the same. The difficult battle against genetics in trying to alter my external appearance and voice. The preparation for facial surgery and the recovery therefrom. The colossal task of deconstructing certain learned behaviors that are associated with masculinity, and replacing them with reflex responses more consistent with this culture's vision of the female social role. If I was to achieve the transition I wanted, these things all had to share top priority.
Slowly, as I have been able to accomplish these goals, I've become confident that others are seeing me as female. This has allowed me to internalize in my subconscious my self-image as a woman, which helps me to feel more comfortable and attractive socially. With that, I've become less focused on insecurities I might have about my own appearance and presentation, and have begun to consider my emotional needs as I become more attuned to other people.
And so I enter a new stage, one that I did not anticipate prior to beginning transition. An intermediate stage where my desire for a romantic partner is very strong, even though I have unfinished business. There's still major work to be done on my body, as I'm scheduled for SRS in April 2004. And yet, my heart doesn't want to wait until I'm through with my physical transformation. This ardent, fluctuating soul just wants, based on the temporary status I possess today, and what it persistently asks for is the kind of relationship I have always desired, but could not maintain pre-transition: a long-term union, most likely with a female partner. This, despite the fact that I won't really know where my identity and my sexuality truly lie until my physical changes are complete.
It's not that my feelings don't make sense. For the first time in my life, I am able to freely project a solid feminine identity, which makes me feel far more unified as a person than ever before. Feeling comfortable in that identity makes my interactions with others feel newly authentic and rewarding. Suddenly, there is a hunger in me to form bonds with people (well, at least the ones I like), whereas prior to my transition, I would often shy away because it made me uncomfortable to always be hiding a part of myself. This intensified presence makes me very susceptible to powerful feelings, even though they might be impractical given my life situation.
The question I ask myself is, can I responsibly search for love if I know that I'm still planning to undergo such a significant anatomical revision? Isn't there too great a risk that my sexual desires will change once the surgery is complete? Love is never certain, and there's always a risk that feelings will evolve, people will grow apart, and someone will get hurt, but in my case, I can't even make a good faith promise that I'll try to remain the same person through next spring!
Some of my friends say that it's not a good idea to look for a relationship before surgery, because things are so likely to be profoundly different afterward. Objectively, I can't say that this argument is flawed. However, when you've been without someone for several years and you feel a strong desire to connect, another year and a half of nothing-but-friendships seems like a terribly long sentence. Especially since I can't shut off my biology or my emotions until everything down there is ready to go, and I'm bound to have feelings to deal with even if I agree to bench myself from the dating game. Others tell me that it's perfectly fine to look for someone, since there are never any guarantees anyway.
Then, of course, there's that other elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. Even if I put myself out there and try to market my wares, not very many singles are looking to have a meaningful relationship with someone like me. Though I may look like a normal woman at first glance, any kind of intimacy is going to reveal glaring inconsistencies. It might be hard for me to find situations that will work, even if we're only talking about a relatively brief fling. In terms of finding a partner, it would certainly be easier if I was completely post-operative. The element of surprise might be an advantage in competition, or in comedy, but when it comes to sex, people usually hope to find exactly what they imagine.
So what will I do tomorrow night, or next weekend? I don't know. The thought of remaining by myself for the time being is less than tempting, but what I want might be incompatible with who I am right now. Sooner or later, I'll probably be out there looking, having been unable to resist the temptation to brush aside the cautious perspective in favor of my own needs. We do have to live with our own emotions, no matter what common sense seems to suggest.
Meanwhile, here I sit, silently transitioning in the warmth of my quiet apartment. I hope that a few years from now, I'll be telling people that I'm a better person and a better significant other because of the lessons I'm learning today. Wouldn't it be just awful if the pains we suffer in life turn out to be for nothing?
http://www.ntac.org October 17, 2002
The Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services needed time to implement internal policy changes following the June 2002 news that intersexed people and post-operative transsexuals born in Florida were to be allowed amended Florida birth certificates reflecting their corrected sex and gender-appropriate names. The policy clarification, implemented in mid-October 2002, reflects current medical knowledge concerning transsexuals as well as their realistic needs.
Intersexed or transsexual persons requesting an amended Florida birth certificate must provide the Florida Department of Health with (1) a copy of the court order granting a change of name under either Florida Statute, Section 68.07 regarding legal name change or a substantially similar statute from another state; (2) a notarized affidavit from the physician who performed the sex reassignment surgery; and (3) a fee for birth certificate amendment (currently $20). Use of Florida Department of Health Form DH 430, Affidavit of Amendment to Certificate of Live Birth, is recommended. The affidavit must include the physician's medical license number and be accompanied by medical records, signed by the physician who performed the surgery, certifying that the individual has completed sex reassignment in accordance with appropriate medical procedures and is now considered to be a member of the new gender for all medical purposes.
The issued birth certificate will be marked "Amended" but without identification of what has been changed. Additional copies may be ordered for a moderate additional cost.
Both Equality Florida [www.eqfl.org] and the National Center for Lesbian Rights [www.nclrights.org] will post a Florida Name Change/Birth Certificate Amendment kit at their respective websites. The kit will include required forms as well as a sample physician's letter. NCLR has supported Equality Florida in its efforts to bring about this policy change.
Intersexed and postoperative transsexuals born in Florida can obtain additional information by contacting the Office of Vital Statistics, Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, P.O. Box 210, Jacksonville, FL 32231-0042. (904) 359-6929.
PENNSYLVANIA HATE CRIMES OFFERS PROTECTION FOR TRANSGENDERS
http://www.ntac.org October 17, 2002
It has been a very good year for transgender rights in Pennsylvania. Following passage of local gender-identity anti-discrimination ordinances by Erie County, Allentown, Philadelphia and New Hope, the state legislature has passed a hate crimes bill that that includes gender identity as well as sexual orientation. When the measure is signed by Governor Mark Schweicker, as promised, Pennsylvania will become the fifth state to enact hate crimes laws that include the transgendered, joining California, Missouri, Minnesota, and Vermont. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia currently have hate crimes legislation that protects gay, lesbian and bisexual people.
Years of hard work and coalition building among LGBT organizations led to House of Representatives passage of the bill on November 26, 2002 by a vote of 118 to 79. The measure passed the Pennsylvania Senate in 2001 and now goes to the governor’s desk for signature. This is the first statewide Pennsylvania legislation to provide protection for transgendered people. The legislation amends the state's Ethnic Intimidation Act by adding actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender, mental and physical disability, and ancestry to the existing law.
While celebrating the importance of this legislation to the transgender people of Pennsylvania, Mara Keisling, co-chair of the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition, noted the equally important development of a coalition of LGBT and other progressive groups working to ensure that everyone is protected.
“While the PA Gender Rights Coalition and transgender people around the state played a pivotal role in the passage of this bill,” Keisling stated, “it would not have been possible without the total commitment to our inclusion exhibited by our partners at the Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance (PA-GALA), the Statewide Pennsylvania Rights Coalition (SPARC), the Center for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights, Outfront, PFLAG and many others.”
Technical support and assistance was also provided by several national LGBT groups, including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Human Rights Campaign, which provided funding for support of a professional lobbyist.
by Gwendolyn Ann Smith - gwen@gwensmith.com
Chandini, aka Nazir
Location: Bangalore, India
Cause of Death: Burned to death
Date of Death: December 1, 2002
Source: Sangama (rights organization)
Georgina "Georgie Girl" Matehaere
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Cause of Death: Beaten with a baseball bat
Date of Death: December 22, 2002
Source: New Zealand Herald, December 23, 2002
Notes: Matehaere was given a "couple of good, solid blows" with a
bat and died a few days later from her injuries.
Roberta Nizah Morris
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Cause of Death: Beaten with a crowbar
Date of Death: December 22, 2002
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, December 31, 2002
Timothy "Cinnamon" Broadus
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Cause of Death: Shot multiple times
Date of Death: January 8, 2003
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel, January 8, 2003