Chaz Bono “Dangerous for Kids to Watch”

Dr. Keith Ablow recommends that we protect our children from seeing trans people on TV — for their own good:

Don’t Let Your Kids Watch Chaz Bono On ‘Dancing With the Stars’ 

You’ll have to read the whole thing, but here’s a taste of some of Dr. Ablow’s insight and wisdom:

The last thing vulnerable children and adolescents need, as they wrestle with the normal process of establishing their identities, is to watch a captive crowd in a studio audience applaud on cue for someone whose search for an identity culminated with the removal of her breasts, the injection of steroids and, perhaps one day soon, the fashioning of a make-shift phallus to replace her vagina.

Trans: A Documentary Feature Film in Production

http://www.transthemovie.com/

“TRANS” is a feature documentary now in post production scheduled for exclusive release in selected festivals and markets in early 2012.

“TRANS” is an up-close and very personal journey into the transgender world through the memorable stories and the unusual lives of a remarkable cast of characters.

It begins with the story of Lt. Commander Christopher McGinn, a Navy flight surgeon selected by NASA to serve on two space missions. But, upon her discharge from the armed forces, Chris McGinn would set out upon a different mission…from which she was never to return. Now Dr. Christine McGinn is able to tell her own amazing story, (picked up by the media on both MSNBC and the Oprah Winfrey show) and provide an entrance into a complex and dramatic world that is “TRANS.” Below you may watch our previous DEMO REEL that tells Dr. Christine’s story in greater detail.

On the main screen above WATCH A BRIEF SAMPLE of just four of our many stories that will give you a glimpse of a few of the other characters featured in TRANS.

• Danann, a 7 year old MTF (male to female) who knew who she was at 2 years old and has spent the rest of her short life making believers out of her parents and the rest of her world.
• Cris, who only recently came to the realization that he is transgendered in a college classroom.
• Pam and Erica, who had never met, but had been living the same lie for over 50 years. Now they are about to undergo surgery and begin new lives in their mid 50s.
• Finally we glimpse a moment from San Francisco’s Transgender Day of Remembrance and witness a community under siege.

These are the stories of boys and girls, men and woman…and all the shades in between. Stories of extraordinary people who face fear, discrimination, ignorance and violence in the hopes they might one day be able to live…ordinary lives.

Is 2010 the Year of the Transsexual?

Transsexuals are Edging into the Mainstream, New York Times, Dec 9, 2010

online at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/fashion/09TRANS.html

The letters to the editor are also instructive.

Excerpts:

Not since the glam era of the 1970s has gender-bending so saturated the news media. The difference now is that mystery has been replaced with empowerment, even pride. Consider a few happenings that have blipped recently on our radar. The blog of a young mother whose 5-year-old son had dressed like Daphne on “Scooby-Doo” for Halloween went viral, initiating a nationwide discussion on the fluidity of gender. (The mother ended up on “Today.”) The performance artist Kalup Linzy became a downtown phenomenon in Manhattan for his gender-bending portrayals of soap-opera divas. Oprah Winfrey welcomed transsexual men to her program.

 

and

“Sixty years ago, The New York Daily News used its whole front page to talk about Christine Jorgensen’s sex change operation — ‘Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty,’ ” Mr. Currah said. “Now you have transgender models and mayors. They elicit interest, but it’s not some incredulous response. The public is much more aware of the possibilities of transgender people existing and taking part as leaders in the social and cultural life.” And so they are. “There are always going to be people who don’t fit into boxes,” said Victoria Kolakowski, who was just elected a superior court judge in Alameda County in California. “What we consider to be normal is evolving and changing. That frightens many people, but it’s the nature of our times.” When Ms. Kolakowski takes the bench in January, she will be the nation’s first transgender trial judge.

 

Transgender Athletes, College Teams

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/10/05/trans

Inside Higher Ed, October 5, 2010

A spokeswoman for the NCAA said that the association doesn’t have a formal policy on transgender athletes, but recommends to colleges that they follow the classifications on students’ identification documents, such as driver’s licenses or voter registration cards. But it is currently the college’s right to designate an athlete as male or female. The spokeswoman said that while this system has worked, “the matter can become complicated because of the differences in identification documents among states.”

U.S. Job Site Bans Bias Over Gender Identity

By BRIAN KNOWLTON
Published: January 5, 2010

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has inserted language into the federal jobs Web site explicitly banning employment discrimination based on gender identity.

Read the rest: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/us/06gender.html

Changing Genders, Changing Policies

From the Chronicle of Higher Education. If you’re a subscriber, you can read it online, along with the comments. Otherwise, here are excerpts:

October 11, 2009
Changing Genders, Changing Policies

By Greta W. Schnetzler and GayLynn Kirn Conant

A significant number of students and faculty and staff members who openly identify themselves as transgender are appearing on college and university campuses.

In fact, nearly 300 colleges and universities have policies that recognize the rights of transgender people to be free from discrimination and harassment. Case law under federal nondiscrimination statutes has also recognized some degree of protection for expression of gender identity, as have some states, counties, and municipalities.

As medical understanding of gender variations has increased, and as treatment and support for people who wish to change gender has become more widely available, it seems natural that the visibility of transgender people on campuses should also increase. But that may depend on the extent to which individual colleges have created a welcoming environment where transgender individuals feel that they belong and know that resources are available to them when difficulties arise.

Perhaps the first step in sending a signal that individuals will be welcomed and respected on your campus, regardless of their gender expression or gender identity, is to explicitly prohibit discrimination against and harassment of students and faculty and staff members for any reason. Posting such policies on the college Web site will help assure transgender people that your administration is committed to equal treatment for all.