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How to talk to a Tranny
Though the now-infamous video of a former Memphis police officer beating a transgendered inmate didn’t include audio, the victim claims the officer called her “he/she” and “faggot.”

While such slurs are obviously inappropriate, other terms commonly used to describe transgender men and women fall into a gray area. Is it okay to call someone a transvestite? How do you determine a transgender person’s preferred pronoun — he or she — without being offensive?

Casey Lanham, co-founder of local trans support group Perpetual Transition, attempted to answer these questions in a lecture titled “How to Talk to a Tranny” last week at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center.

“A lot of people tend to want to ask what pronoun to use, but if you ask, then that implies that you’ve already read them. You’re assuming that a person is trans,” says Lanham. “The best thing to do is listen to the person and follow their lead.”

Because some trans people are living as “stealth,” a term used to describe someone who is private about their trans status, it’s considered inappropriate to assume gender identity.

“Some people wave their trans flag proudly, but others would rather sit back and be accepted as they are,” says Lanham.

There are also many levels of transgenderism, a broad umbrella term that applies to crossdressers, transsexuals, and intersexed people. Crossdressers have no desire to change the sex of their birth but enjoy dressing as the opposite sex, while transsexuals believe their gender identity is at odds with their birth sex. Intersexed people were born with chromosomal anomalies or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the definitions of male or female.

According to Lanham, there are several terms one should never use when referring to a transgender person. Some, like “chick with a dick” or “shemale,” are self-evident. But other inappropriate terms include “transvestite” and “tranny.”

“‘Tranny’ sounds cutesy and dismissive and is, therefore, a bit disrespectful,” says Lanham, who named the workshop “How to Talk to a Tranny” as an example of what not to say.

Other no-no’s include asking a trans person about his or her sex life or genitals and whether or not he or she has had gender reassignment surgery or is taking hormones.

“Most people ask inappropriate questions, and most often, they ask about genitals,” says Darlene Fike, an intersexed person who identifies as female. “Even if they’re asking how far along I am in transition, that’s actually a question about my genitals.”

Lanham says many trans people also take offense to questions about their relationship with their family, their former names, and requests to see childhood photos.

“Even well-meaning questions sometimes come off as not-as-well-intended as they are meant to be,” says Lanham. “Simple curiosity is not justification.”

So what can one say to a trans person? Lanham says people should remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“And if you make a mistake, it’s okay,” says Lanham. “Just say you’re sorry and correct the problem next time.”

ANKARA, Turkey – A transsexual singer charged with illegally criticizing mandatory military service in Turkey said in court Wednesday she would say the same thing again.

Singer Bulent Ersoy has acknowledged saying on television that if she had children she would not want them to join the army to battle Kurdish rebels who are fighting for self-rule.

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“I spoke in the name of humanity. Even if I were to face execution, I would say the same thing,” the state-run Anatolia news agency quoted Ersoy as telling the court in Istanbul.

In Turkey, defendants are not expected to enter a plea before a panel of judges hears testimony at a trial and returns a verdict.

Ersoy questioned the fairness of a law making it a crime to criticize Turkey’s mandatory 15-month military service for all men over 20. If found guilty, she could face two years in prison.

Ersoy, 56, who sings traditional Turkish music and dresses in flamboyant gowns, served in the military before her 1981 sex-change operation, her lawyer Muhittin Yuzuak told the court Wednesday.

A small group of pro-Kurdish protesters demonstrated outside the court house in support of the singer, holding a banner that read in Kurdish “Long live Diva.”

The European Union, which Turkey wants to join, is pressing the nation to do away with laws that stifle free expression.

Under EU pressure, Turkey amended a law in April that barred the denigration of Turkish identity and institutions. The law had been used to prosecute Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and other intellectuals. But human rights groups said the changes did not go far enough.

Ersoy is one of Turkey’s best-loved singers. In February, she made the comment about Turkey’s military service while appearing on the jury of a Turkish version of “Pop Idol.”

At the time, Turkey had thousands of troops in northern Iraq pursuing rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, who maintain bases there.

In the indictment, prosecutor Ali Cakir accused the singer of “alienating the public toward military service” and affecting the morale of the soldiers and their families. He asked that she be sentenced to between nine and 30 months in prison.

PATTAYA, Thailand - A 21-year-old student and aspiring social worker was named Thailand’s most beautiful transsexual on late Friday, in a pageant bursting with glitter and sequins that has become a national spectacle.

In a nation obsessed with beauty pageants and renowned for its sexual tolerance, the Miss Tiffany Universe competition is taken every bit as seriously as more traditional pageants here.

Wearing a white beaded evening gown, Thanyarasmi Siraphatphakorn won the crown in the early hours of Saturday after a glittering competition that was broadcast on national television.

Known locally as “kathoey,” or the third gender, Thai transsexuals have slowly been leaving cabarets for mainstream success in music or other pursuits, helped in part by the popularity of the Miss Tiffany contest.

“I am so happy to win the title. This is the biggest dream of every kathoey,” Thanyarasmi told reporters after winning the tiara, a 100,000 baht (2,900 dollar) cash prize, and a new Mercedes Benz.

The winners of the Miss Tiffany pageant, now in its 10th year, are often showered with entertainment deals, but Thanyarasmi said she wanted to return to the impoverished Issan region where she grew up to become a social worker.

“I want to become a social worker. Many people, particularly in Issan, do not have many opportunities, so they need help from teachers and social workers to improve their lives,” she said.

The contestants compete in evening gowns and cocktail dresses, while other kathoey performers danced in garters, fishnets and feathered head-dresses.

Judges also made a nod to Thailand’s political turmoil, using the question and answer segment to quiz the contestants about their hopes for the constitution currently being drafted by a military-appointed panel.

Many contestants said they hoped the new charter would for the first time guarantee legal protections for gays, or that a kathoey politician would emerge to join in the process.

Seri Wongmonta, a prominent academic and an organiser of the event, said the judges asked political questions to show that the contestants are more than just pretty faces.

“Over the next five or 10 years, Thai kathoeys will become more and more famous for their beauty and their brains,” he said.

Police arrested a wife and her husband - who was born a woman and underwent sex reassignment surgery 16 years ago - and accused them of lying about the husband’s gender to a court in eastern Pakistan.

Pakistani transsexual arrested for wedding woman against Islam

The case pits the bride’s father, who wants to annul his daughter’s wedding on the grounds that it is against Islam for two women to marry, against the couple, who said they married to protect the bride from being sold into marriage to pay off her uncle’s gambling debts.

The husband, Shumail Raj, 31, first brought the case to court, appealing for protection from harassment by their relatives. But earlier this month the Lahore High Court ordered the arrest of Raj and his wife, Shahzina Tariq, 26, for lying to the court.

Raj told the court he is male, but a court-appointed panel ruled that Raj is a woman, whose breasts and uterus were removed in sex-change surgery.

Raj told the court-appointed doctors that he underwent gender reassignment surgery when he was 15 after he noticed changes in his voice and began to grow facial hair. The court-appointed medical panel found Raj had no penis, and a vagina that was surgically closed.

After the couple’s arrest on Sunday, Raj insisted the sex-change operation made him a man, and he married Tariq to save her from the arranged marriage.

“I decided to help her out when she came to me with the problem. She told me that one of her uncles wants to sell her to pay off a debt,” Raj told The Associated Press by telephone from a police station in Faisalabad, the pair’s hometown.

“I had told Shahzina that I have had two operations and I am not a male. But she said that it was not a problem for her. She said she just needs protection,” Raj said. He refered to himself both as male and not male during the interview.

Tariq said she was aware of Raj’s surgery, and they married for her protection.

“I knew that Shumail was not a male. She had some problem due to the operations, but I begged her for protection,” she said, referring to her husband as a woman throughout the interview.

“We had planned to leave Faisalabad to settle elsewhere permanently,” Tariq said by phone.

Aslam Tareen, a senior police officer, said that police will wait for orders from the court, where Raj and Tariq will appear on Tuesday, before further investigating the case, including the claim that Tariq’s uncle wanted to sell her to pay off his debt.

The couple have not yet been charged with any wrongdoing, Tareen said.

After their arrest at a relative’s home in Lahore, Raj and Tariq were moved to Faisalabad, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the west, Tareen said.

Transsexual heads up prostitution rally
May 18, 2007, 04:32 AM
Other news, World
PADUA, Italy, May 17 (UPI) — A Brazilian transsexual named Kristal offered leadership skills this week to protesting prostitutes in the northern Italy city of Padua.

Acting as the demonstration’s spokesperson, Kristal said the march was aimed at bringing attention to a new Padua ordinance punishing those who use the prostitutes’ services, the Italian news agency ANSA said Thursday.

We’re being used as a lightening rod to distract people from the real problems like transportation, theft and people getting killed on the work site, Kristal said.

To not offend local citizens during Wednesday’s march, the prostitutes even toned down their typical work wardrobe.

One noted absentee from the demonstration was Padua Mayor Flavio Zanonato, who chose to address the topic on a TV show in Rome.

ANSA said Zanonato had made it clear to the protestors he would only discuss the controversial topic with them if their talks focused on limiting prostitution.

Seoul - A South Korean transsexual entertainer, whose sex change helped the country to change its family registry laws, was married on Saturday.

The 32-year-old male-to-female singer, who goes by the stage name Harisu, married her 27-year-old rapper boyfriend at a ceremony attended by many of the country’s top celebrities.

The surgeon who performed Harisu’s sex change operation in 1995 acted as the ceremonial head of the wedding.

The couple will spend their honeymoon in Koh Samui, Thailand.

“I will become a wife who cooks well and is sweet, sexy and like a friend,” Harisu told a news conference before the wedding. “We will adopt two boys and two girls.”

Transsexualism became a hot topic in South Korea after Harisu was granted a petition by a lower court to change gender in the family registry in 2002.

Crucial legal document

In June 2006, South Korea’s Supreme Court ruled transsexuals who have had medical treatment such as sex change operations can legally change their sex in their family registry, a crucial legal document for citizens.

The family registry and unique personal identification numbers associated with it form the basis of almost all aspects of South Koreans’ lives, from getting a job, claiming medical insurance, and even subscribing to a mobile phone service.

Transsexual ‘mom’ becomes mayor

May 25, 2007 Edition 4

London - Britain’s first transsexual mayor, a female father-of-two, has been sworn in as the leader of the Cambridge City Council.

Jenny Bailey (45), whose female partner Jennifer Liddle was also once a man, fathered two children during a marriage before having a sex change operation in her 30s.

“This is fantastic,” she said yesterday to loud applause, donning her mayoral robes and posing for photographs with Liddle (49) in the university city in eastern England.

In an interview, she said becoming mayor was a great honour. “I’m proud that I managed to get through something quite difficult and to come out of it a better person. If you ask what defines me, I would say being a parent, an engineer, a woman,” she said. - Sapa-AFP

Marvel Comics’ Ultron is World’s First Transsexual Cyborg
By Annalee Newitz

Femaleultron Ultron is a totally awesome android supervillain, and two months ago she became the first male-to-female transsexual cyborg supervillain. Though Ultron has had many forms — my favorite being the giant robot one he had in Runaways — this is the first time Ultron has gone girly. And she’s quite the girl. She’s some kind of kinky outgrowth of Iron Man’s armor (see her emerging from his Ultron’s head at left), and appeared randomly in the middle of a giant fight in issue #1 of New Mighty Avengers. Not only did she kick the crap out of Mole Man’s monster army, but she also smacked down Ares. Nobody could figure out who she was until Ms. Marvel realized this nearly-invincible cyborg tranny was in fact Ultron.

I’ve always loved Ultron because he was a giant, flying robot who hated humans and paralyzed his victims with his astonishing encephalo-ray. Now that she’s a chick, I’m just not sure what to expect. Is this just Marvel’s excuse to have a naked chick beat the crap out of the Avengers (not such a bad idea)? Is she actually naked, or is her skin some kind of freaky new armor? Shouldn’t she have a new super power other than nakedness?

Now’s your chance to weigh in: Should Ultron stay female? Was Ultron secretly female all along? Wouldn’t she be even better if she were giant, too? If only Marvel scribe Brian Bendis would make her super big, then all my dreams would be realized: a giant, hot, cyborg tranny supervillain. Please, Mr. Bendis, make it so!

Jacksonville sting nets 3 escorts, 1 was transsexual
By Lindy Thackston
First Coast News
Originally posted on May 24, 2007

JACKSONVILLE - The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office arrested three people Tuesday on prostitution charges after an undercover escort sting.

26-year-old Sara Ann Jewell is accused of agreeing to have sex with an undercover detective for $260.

Police says they found 31-year-old Abied Padun on a transsexual escort site. They also say Padun took $200 for a massage, then took off his clothes and talked about going further.

40-year-old Sheryl Lynn Pierce is charged with agreeing to have sex with the officer for $260.

Padun and Jewell also face charges for participating in escort work between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m., which is against the law.

All three remain in the Duval County Jail.

MOVILH President Rolando Jimenez warns of Region V dangers
Photo by Ben Witte

(March 29, 2007) The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Freedom (MOVILH), Chile’s leading advocacy group for sexual minorities, issued a public alert this week, warning all transgender and transsexual people to stay clear of Region V.

“Because of the constant attacks against the transsexual and transgender population in the Region of Valparaíso - the most recent case involved a trans person named Grace Morales León (42), who was the victim of a shooting - MOVILH has decided to initiate an international campaign warning this sector of the population that (Region V) is extremely dangerous,” the MOVILH alert reads.

In the last five years four transgender people have been murdered in the Region. The most recent victim was Moira Donaire González, 30, who on March 5 was stabbed to death in Viña del Mar (VT, March 28). Seven months earlier, in neighboring Valparaíso, a transgender sex worker named Vivian Cuevas Henriquez, 30, was also murdered.

At least 18 other transgender or transsexual people have been brutally beaten in the Region, which in addition to the twin cities of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar also includes the towns of Los Andes, Quillota, Papudo and San Felipe.

MOVILH is asking international human rights and pro-sexual minority groups to pass along the alert. The group is also asking for international organizations to send letters of concern to Chilean consulates and embassies in their respective countries.

In Chile, according to MOVILH’s president, Rolando Jiménez, transgender and transsexual people are particularly vulnerable because - denied opportunities elsewhere - a large percentage turn to prostitution as an only means of survival.

“We believe that the Chilean State, and Chilean society as a whole, has to begin, once and for all, to improve conditions so that future generations of transgender people, of homosexuals and of lesbians, don’t have to turn to the streets as their only alternative,” Jiménez told the Valparaiso Times.

“Just like other human beings, they need to have the opportunity to develop themselves professionally and in different areas. Right now, that’s not happening, and the result is that people are being denied a basic right human right: the right to life.”