Topic: Generic

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #101, Spring 2003.

The following list is a glossary from the Rainbow Access Initiative to help those interested in learning more about the terms most frequently used in reference to gender and identity issues.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #101, Spring 2003.

?2003 Center for Gender Sanity
www.gendersanity.com

The ?sex? scale refers to biological sex and includes external genitalia, internal reproductive structures, chromosomes, hormone levels, and secondary sex characteristics such as breasts, facial and body hair, and fat distribution. These characteristics are objective in that they can be seen and measured (with appropriate technology). The scale consists not just of two categories (male and female) but is actually a continuum, with most people existing somewhere near one end or the other. The space more in the middle is occupied by intersex people (hermaphrodites), who have combinations of characteristics typical of males and those typical of females, such as both a testis and an ovary, or XY chromosomes (the usual male pattern) and a vagina, or they may have features that are not completely male or completely female, such as an organ that could be thought of as a small penis or a large clitoris, or an XXY chromosomal pattern.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #101, Spring 2003.

? Transgendered youth often face enormous hardships when they acknowledge
and express their gender identity.

? They may be thrown out of the house when their family discovers they
are transgendered, often forcing them to live on the streets.

? They typically face harassment and abuse in school to such an extent that they quit,
which makes it hard for them to get a decent-paying job (for example, a survey
of more than 250 transgendered people in Washington, D.C. found forty
percent had not finished high school and another 40 percent were unemployed).

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #101, Spring 2003.

Maine Gender Resource and Support Service
Jean Vermette, Director (207) 862-2063
PO BOX 1894, BANGOR, ME 04402-1894
http://personalpages.tds.net/~megress/
megress@tds.net

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #99, Fall 2002.

Nancy Nangeroni wrote the following in response to Juli Goins? letter in the Vitale online newsletter.

As J?Noel Gardiner now knows all too well, it?s all a lie. The surgery that was supposed to bring happiness, that was supposed to make her a real woman, the surgery that was supposed to change her sex, didn?t. The Supreme Court in Kansas, following the lead of the Supreme Court in Texas, has now ruled on that question, and they both agree. The sex that was assigned to you at birth is your sex, period. No ifs, ands, buts, or changes.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #99, Fall 2002.

The following was submitted as a letter to the editor. Zantui Rose is Holly Boswell?s life partner. Holly received the Virginia Prince Lifetime Service Award in April at the 2002 IFGE Coming Together conference in Nashville? Ed.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #99, Fall 2002.

by Barbara Curry

The following was published in Outreach News, the newsletter of the Connecticut Outreach Society, in July of 2001, and shortly afterwards on TG Forum.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #99, Fall 2002.

We present these two pieces as originally written, to preserve the flavor of the author?s translation from Portuguese? Ed.


I n the beginning of this century and also millennium lots of moments and minorities had done their retrospective about win and lost along their existence. And following their tendency of verifying and reconstruction of their existential journey transsexual people from all over Brazil participate intensively trying to register in the history the evolution of the Brazilian transsexuality.

Testimony
Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #99, Fall 2002.

I ?d like to take a few minutes today to speak to the New York City Council as an advocate for our communities through my role as a counselor at the Gender Identity Project at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center. I am also speaking in my role as a founding director for the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy and a director for the International Foundation for Gender Education. But, most importantly, today I am speaking as a woman of transsexual experience.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #99, Fall 2002.

by David Steinberg

One fine spring day in 1997, Hank Wolny?like thousands of other sightseers?found himself strolling along legendary, star-studded Hollywood Boulevard, not far from the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Heading west from Frederick?s of Hollywood, Hank noticed a store that was exclusively devoted to selling fetish footwear. A block further along, there was another store selling exactly the same thing, then another, then another.