Britain - 'Groundbreaking' legislation website launched… [2010-07-29 National Archives]

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/478.htm

'Groundbreaking' legislation website launched

29 July 2010

A new website launched today by The National Archives gives clearer, faster and easier access to legislation, from Magna Carta to the latest statutory instruments. At www.legislation.gov.uk < http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ > you can find details of everything on the statute book, in one place and free of charge.


Democracy and transparency

The website is a world first, enabling officials, lawyers and ordinary citizens alike to scrutinise the laws on which their legal rights and responsibilities are based. It takes forward Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's recent call for wider democratic involvement in the legislative process and opens up legislation data for others to use in their own applications and services, in line with the government's open data policy.

'This is the public's statute book,' said Lord McNally, Minister of State and Deputy Leader of House of Lords. 'Legislation.gov.uk presents complex information in a clear and intuitive way. This is groundbreaking work that puts democracy at the heart of legislation and makes a major contribution to the government's transparency agenda.'

Acting CEO of The National Archives, Oliver Morley, described the launch of legislation.gov.uk as 'a bold statement of transparency'.


Evolution of legislation

Containing a massive 6.5 million PDF documents, the new website shows both the original version of any piece of UK legislation covering all jurisdictions (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and details of any amendments, so that those accessing it can see how laws have evolved. A simple web search will quickly find key legislation like the Consumer Credit Act and the Data Protection Act, and special features include an interactive browse facility and timeline.

Mr Morley continued: 'By using the latest technology and opening up the raw data underpinning legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives has given global access to the nation's "operating system". I'm proud to say this website is the only example of its kind in the world. It provides access to an invaluable and historical resource for anyone wanting to know what the law actually says.'

Legislation.gov.uk < http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ > replaces The Office of Public Sector Information < http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ > and Statute Law Database < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/contact/default.htm > websites to deliver an integrated and responsive service and better value to the taxpayer.

-

Getting in touch:

Contact us < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/contact/default.htm >
Press office < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/press.htm >
Have your say < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/get-involved/have-your-say.htm >

Site help:
FAQs < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help/faqs.htm >
A-Z index < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help/atoz.htm >
Accessibility < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help/accessibility.htm >

About us:
Jobs and careers < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/get-involved/jobs.htm >
Terms of use < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/legal/?WT.hp=tou >
Freedom of information < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/foi/default.htm >

Websites:
Legislation < http://www.opsi.gov.uk/?WT.hp=opsi >
Your Archives < http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Home_page >
Directgov < http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm >

-

The National Archives,
Kew,
Richmond,
Surrey,
TW9 4DU.

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8876 3444.
Contact us < http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/contact/default.htm >

--

END

Indonesia - Edict Aims at TV and Sex Change… [2010-07-29 NY Times (AFP)]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/world/asia/29indo.html

Edict Aims at TV and Sex Changes

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Published: July 28, 2010

JAKARTA, Indonesia (Agence France-Presse) — Indonesia’s highest Islamic authority has followed up a series of contentious edicts with a new one barring Muslims from watching television gossip shows or having sex-change operations.

The authority, the Indonesian Ulema Council, said gossip shows about the intimate details of people’s private lives — a popular genre on Indonesian television — were immoral and threatened society. Gossip shows are allowed only if they “uphold the law, warn the public and help people,” the council said.

While the council’s edicts are usually ignored, they can be cited by religious hard-liners to justify vigilante-style crackdowns on “un-Islamic” activities. It has recently issued a steady stream of edicts including bans on interfaith marriages, smoking and yoga.

It was forced into an embarrassing apology recently when it corrected an edict ordering Muslims to pray toward the west, when in fact the holy sites in Saudi Arabia are northwest of Indonesia.

-

Related:

Kuala Lumpur Journal: A Reality Show Where Islam Is the Biggest Star < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/world/asia/29imam.html > (July 29, 2010)

-

A version of this article appeared in print on July 29, 2010, on page A6 of the New York edition.

--

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Argentina - Bella Vista's M2F transsexual politician Rody Humano & tourism director Juan Carlos Lizarraga will marry 2010-08-03… [2010-07-30 momento24]

http://momento24.com/en/2010/07/29/first-politician-transsexual-gets-married-next-tuesday/

Friday, July 30, 2010

First politician transsexual gets married next Tuesday

A transsexual who works as council in Bella Vista, Tucuman, Argentina will marry with the tourism director, becoming the first marriage of a transvestite since the sanction of the homosexual marriage law.

Rody Humano is 38 and will marry Juan Carlos Lizarraga, whom she has been living for 10 years.

“He’s an excellent companion and is the man I’ve always been waiting for, although sometimes you think that will never come,” said Humano about Lizarraga, who is divorced and has three children.

--

END

US - M2F transsexual GRS surgeon Marci Bowers battled Trinidad Colorado's Mount San Rafael Hospital… [2010-08-01 Pueblo Chieftain]

http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/article_fdaff2a4-9d3c-11df-a900-001cc4c002e0.html

Trinidad doctor battled hospital

Sunday, August 01, 2010

By ANTHONY A. MESTAS
anthonym@chieftain.com

TRINIDAD — Dr. Marci Bowers, one of the premier gender reassignment surgeons in the world, said Thursday she is considering leaving town because of issues she has with Mount San Rafael Hospital and personal issues.

Hospital officials said they have programs in place and that there would be little if any financial impact if she leaves.

Bowers said she is about 90 percent sure that she will leave the town she loves after seven years of service. If she moves it will be to the San Francisco area Oct. 1.

"I think I've been pretty open about my frustrations at the hospital here, pretty much since Dr. (Stanley) Biber died."

Biber died in 2006. He performed an estimated 5,000 transgender surgeries in Trinidad over a 35-year career, earning the city the moniker of "sex change capital of the world."

Biber's legacy continues with Bowers, his protege, who underwent a transgender operation several years ago.

However, Bowers said she is not content with aspects of her relationship with the hospital.

"I feel like I've been increasingly marginalized and some things are done that affect my patients without my involvement," Bowers said.

Woody Hathaway, chief financial officer for Mount San Rafael, said during a conference call with hospital officials Thursday that Bowers contributes to about 5 percent of the hospital's revenue each year.

"That's very little to the bottom line. I'm talking about gross revenue, bottom line she is a fraction of a percent," Hathaway said.

Kim Lucero, director of marketing at the hospital, said Bowers' procedures are heavily discounted.

"That's why they contribute very little to the bottom line," Lucero said.

Bowers said 5 percent is a huge underestimate.

"Those numbers are based on bill amounts," Bowers said.

Bowers said she brings in nearly 30 percent of the revenue, and the hospital is shortsighted and that moving could cut her patients’ costs.

"They (hospital leaders) see only their bottom line and not the economic bottom line of the area. They just never acknowledge that and so it makes my surgeries the most expensive anywhere in the United States in terms of the hospital fees," Bowers said.

"There is nowhere else in the U.S. that I would have had to pay more, so that has put a hardship on my patients and I am still unhappy about that. That just shouldn't have been," she said.

Besides medical revenue, Bowers said her practice generates other cash for Trinidad.

"Patients and their families stay here for two weeks. On average about two people per patient come to the area and those are people staying in hotel rooms, eating in restaurants every night and shopping," Bowers said.

Jim Robertson, CEO at the hospital, said when pricing services he has to make sure the hospital doesn't lose money.

"If we are higher in prices than someone else across the nation, it's because we have to be there because we are a smaller hospital," Robertson said.

"It would be a business decision on her part if she wants to make a move."

Robertson said the hospital's relationship with Bowers is that she is an independent practicing physician who has medical staff privileges at the hospital.

"We don't control her practice," Robertson said.

Robertson said Bowers has roughly 110-120 transgender patients a year.

"We learned that she was leaving through the media and not through her informing medical staff or our board of directors or leadership here at the hospital," Lucero said.

Robertson said the hospital will offer new services within the next six months.

"We believe that this would take care of anything that might be lost if Dr. Bowers decides to leave," Robertson said.

Bowers said rumors around town that the hospital would close if she left are not true.

"I would not leave if that was the case. That I don't think will happen," she said.

Bowers said she loves Trinidad and never thought she would be leaving.

"It's the hospital issues that have really got me moving in this direction and pushing me toward leaving," Bowers said. "And I just have not been able to get anywhere with them."

Bowers said most people in town do not have a problem with transgender people or the procedure and that she is not leaving because of anyone's view on the issue.

"I think even the people that are not crazy about the surgery respect the fact that what I am doing is very well done and it's important work," Bowers said.

"I've also played a role in serving the women of Trinidad with my work in gynecology. How will they replace that? Certainly I've risen to a level of stature that's admirable and I don't think anyone can contest that.

"I'm not trying to put my finger on the hospital so much, it's also personal matters," Bowers said.

Bowers told the Associated Press that she is in a relationship with a first-year surgical resident in San Francisco. She says if she moves, she would join an office in San Mateo with two plastic surgeons and a surgery center.

Bowers said there are advantages to being in a bigger city that is easier for patients to reach.

"It's a small town," she said about Trinidad.

Bowers said her reconstructive surgery on victims of female genital mutilation needs to be front and center and information regarding the procedure is easier to disseminate in a larger community.

Bowers said she wants to keep her roots in Trinidad.

"I don't want to burn any bridges. I am still trying to work on issues within the hospital and I will do so right up until I leave, but there are things that need improving down here and we have had our share of problems," Bowers said.

"Two years ago I would have never said that I was going to leave here, but it doesn't have anything to do with people not accepting what I do."

Bowers said people have come to realize that transgender people are just normal people with an unusual medical problem

She said her surgeries have become part of the fabric in Trinidad.

"It has added a lot of the color to the area and I think it's brought good notoriety here. Some people don't like the notoriety for what it is, but I think people outside of Trinidad have shown a great deal of respect for Trinidad as a community for supporting this work.

"People have come to realize transgender for what it is. It isn't accepted as a mainstream phenomenon but on the other hand, it isn't associated with the shame and the ostracism that was evident a decade ago," Bowers said.

Bowers said she is trying to work something out to where she can practice in both places.

"I'd hate to see it die here," Bowers said.

"People here have been amazingly supportive and I feel the same way about the community. I love the community and I am the biggest promoter of the area, it's beautiful," she said.

--

© Copyright 2010, The Pueblo Chieftain, Pueblo, CO.

Brazil/France - The loneliness of Givenchy’s Brazilian preoperative M2F transsexual supermodel "Lea T" (nee Leandro Cerezo…) [2010-08-01 The Observer]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/01/fashion-transgender

Fashion

Lea T and the loneliness of the fashion world's first transsexual supermodel

Givenchy's new campaign features a controversial face who has emerged from backstage onto the catwalk

Tom Phillips Rio de Janeiro and Lizzy Davies Paris
The Observer,    Sunday 01 August 2010

At first sight, the only thing that is striking about Lea T is her beauty. With her full lips, strong jaw and dark tresses falling in cascades over her shoulders, she is the perfect high-fashion package: alluring, whippet-thin and with a face too distinctive to be considered merely pretty.

No wonder, you might think, she has gone from backroom assistant to sar- torial sensation in just months, appearing in Givenchy's autumn/winter ad campaign, smiling in Italian Vanity Fair and – as a crowning glory – posing naked for the hallowed pages of French Vogue.

But if this Brazilian bombshell is causing such a stir it is perhaps because there is more to her than meets the eye. Lea T was born Leandro and, as well as being a model and a muse, she is an out and proud transsexual.

For Riccardo Tisci, the creative director of Givenchy and the man who first encouraged his "very feminine" friend to go to a party in women's shoes, the move was obvious. For Lea, 28, however, the transition – from man to woman and from misfit to role model – has been anything but.

Not only, she says, has it turned her into someone at whom strangers feel entitled to point and stare, but it has provoked the anger of her Catholic family. It has filled her body with mood-altering hormones and brought her face to face with what she says is the inherent loneliness of transsexuality.

Despite all this, she says, the "war in her head" has been worth fighting. "The choice," she said in an interview in Italian Vanity Fair, "is between being unhappy forever or trying to be happy."

Born in 1981 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil's third largest city, Leandro or "Leo" Cerezo grew up in the privileged environs of a family that, long before one of its number graced the pages of fashion magazines, was no stranger to the limelight.

It was with undisguised glee that, once Leandro had appeared in photoshoots as Lea T, a Rio newspaper's gossip column revealed she was none other than the daughter of soccer hero Toninho Cerezo, the World Cup veteran and contemporary of legendary Brazil players like Falcão, Sócrates and Zico. He had not, the paper said, reacted well to its questions concerning his child's new existence.

"We got in touch with the former star but, irritated, he limited himself to saying that he had four children, one of them called Leandro," the newspaper reported. "When asked if the boy had starred in the Givenchy campaign, Cerezo hung up the phone." The same newspaper, Extra, noted that in a 2007 interview Cerezo, now manager of the second division club Sport, had claimed to have only three children.

Lea's brother, Gustavo, has denied claims of a family rift, insisting: "It's Lea's success, not the family's. All I will say is that we are on her side and we support her."

But the model herself has admitted that Toninho is not overjoyed by her transformation. "He doesn't even like to touch on this matter," she told Brazilian radio. In the Vanity Fair interview, moreover, she said she "never spoke directly" to her father about undergoing the hormone treatment that will, eventually, give her the body of a woman. Conversation, she said, was limited to trivialities.

This reaction, say observers, may be unfortunate, but it is not surprising. "In a macho, Latin-American, Catholic culture… [a family's response] is complete denial," Brazilian transsexual Walkiria la Roche, founder of Belo Horizonte's transsexual and transvestite association, Asstrav, said. "We are excluded when we go to primary school, but the first institution that excludes us is our family."

According to Léa, this fact that his young son was different from other boys had not escaped Toninho, even though their time together was limited to sporadic visits by the footballer. "When papa came home he would look at me and say there was something wrong with me. In the years to come, everyone started to pray that I was gay. It would have been the lesser evil for a religious family used to rules and type of colonial, rigid way of life," she said.

Even as an adolescent at a European school, in Italy, however, Lea knew her situation was not that simple. She had been attracted to girls and boys and remembers feeling she had no "defined sexuality, or a precise direction to follow". However, it was a big leap from that uncertainty to embracing the idea that she might be happier as a woman. "When I discovered transsexuality, I was curious then recoiled with fear, telling myself, 'I am not like that,' she said.

It was only later on, when she met Riccardo Tisci, a young graduate of Central Saint Martins art college, London, that Lea began to consider the prospect for real. With his penetrating artist's eye, Tisci, then an aspiring young Italian designer, recognised his friend's inherent femininity. "One night he encouraged me to wear pumps to a party," she recalled in French Vogue. "We went shopping for 'drag queen' shoes and we bleached my eyebrows. It was a revelation."

Fast forward several years and Tisci is now a star of the fashion world at Givenchy. But he has never forgotten his old friend, employing Lea as his personal assistant and using her as his fit model behind the scenes of the prestigious couture house. He is unstinting in his praise of her to the industry bible, WWD: "She's a true goddess. She's always been very feminine – super-fragile, very aristocratic." When, in a reflection of a growing industry trend, Tisci decided to base his autumn/winter collection around the idea of androgyny, there was one person he wanted above all, and – to his delight – she said yes.

"I agreed to pose in the name of all my transsexual friends," Lea has been quoted as saying. In a sign of her increasing self-confidence and determination not to hide her transsexuality, the French Vogue photograph is unashamedly bold. With one arm around her waist and another only partially covering her male genitalia, it leaves little to the imagination.

Carine Roitfeld, the magazine's formidable editor, is known for her desire to shock – to use fashion to push the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not. In the past she has featured Karen Elson tied up in a "glamour bondage" shoot and Eva Herzigova as a blood-spattered butcher lovingly fingering a meat cleaver.

Some commentators have dismissed both Tisci and Roitfeld's use of Lea as a "gimmick". But others welcome the boldness of the gesture, regardless of the motivations behind it. "Carine Roitfeld consistently leads in advancing our international discussion of human sexuality," remarked one US blogger, adding that the French Vogue picture "would never run in a fashion magazine in America."

In Lea's hometown, too, reaction has been positive among activists who see her fame as a step towards greater tolerance. "It's a good, positive example and this is very rare," said La Roche, who heads a government department fighting for transvestite and transsexual rights and claims to be one of only three transsexuals working in government around the world. "It is important to have Lea in a magazine. All positive press shows society that we are capable of things other than prostitution or being hairdressers."

The enduring difficulties which people incur when they choose to switch sex are all too familiar to Lea. From the every day humiliation of being laughed at by strangers to the disorientating effects of sex change drugs – "I would wander the streets, full of hormones, depressed, with people laughing behind my back" – she is proving to be an eloquent ambassador to what remains a globally marginalised and misunderstood community.

Even now, with her education and privileged background, and all the comforts that come from her burgeoning celebrity status, Lea is under no illusions about the emotional challenges that lie ahead —and not only from the intense media interest, which has been relentless since the Givench ads were launched.

Lea, who says she "cannot allow [herself] the luxury of being in love", is pessimistic about her chances of finding happiness with someone else. Those transsexuals who do enter into serious relationships, she says, often do so by keeping their past from their partners.

"They live as hypocrites; it is a variation on solitude," she said. "We transsexuals are born and grow up alone. After the operation we are born again, but once again alone. And we die alone. It is the price we pay."

--

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Britain - Welcome to the GIRES transphobic crime reporting service… [2010-08-01 GIRES]

Courtesy GIRES…

2010-08-01 13.00.19

REPORTING TRANSPHOBIC CRIMES

Go to: http://tcrime.net/

Please help us to publicise this new service.  We can supply posters and reporting forms if you send an order to: info@gires.org.uk

The Home Office has awarded GIRES a grant to fund a national system for reporting transphobic crime.  Appended below are examples of the crimes that trans people have experienced.  It appears that only a few victims of such crime report it to the police.  One young trans person we know has experienced 60 criminal incidents in the past six months, which include being beaten up and a death threat.  Yet she hopes by suffering all this persecution with dignity she will teach the perpetrators to behave better without involving the police.  There are other reasons for not involving the police: the fear of being outed in Court; the lack of confidence that the police will deal sensitively and properly with the incident.  Yet we know from our work with police forces throughout the UK that many are fully aware of the needs of trans people and very keen to support them.

TCrime.net enables crimes to be reported confidentially and leaves it the individual to decide what information should be passed on to the police.

We hope that TCrime.net will reveal the true extent of transphobic crime to policy makers within the criminal justice system, enable the police to pinpoint the hotspots where it occurs most frequently and provide examples of effective police responses that will build trust with trans people. The system will also enable us to put victims of transphobic crime in touch with the many groups that can provide them with practical support

Around 30% of people in the UK do not have access to the Internet.  So, GIRES has provided both manual as well as electronic reporting facilities.  In addition, reporting by third parties and witnesses will be a key element of the system.

TCrime.net is an intelligence gathering and communication system.  GIRES recognises that the much more detailed information required to obtain a conviction should be obtained by the police.


EXAMPLES OF TRANSPHOBIC CRIME

   Ø  A 16 year old trans girl, on her way to school,  regularly experienced people shouting insults from their cars like, ‘Girl with a cock’, ‘There’s the he/she/it’’, ‘Tranny boy’, and other names.

   Ø  An 18 year old received 84 abusive and threatening text messages within three days after she told her former school class that she had transitioned

   Ø  An older boy pulled up the skirt of a 12 year old trans girl to look at her genitals.

   Ø  A trans women was discovered at a bus station by another woman who then engaged in yelling abuse, spitting, punching, kicking and trying to scratch the trans woman’s face.

   Ø  A trans police officer was outed by the press under the headline “Lady Boy in Blue”.  She was then threatened by a group of young men, near her home; her car was vandalised.

   Ø  An elderly trans man was surrounded by a teen-age gang who shouted insults and poked him with sticks.

   Ø  A 15 year old trans girl was beaten up on her way home.

   Ø  A trans woman was raped at knife-point on her way home.

   Ø  An assailant approached a trans woman, after realising she was transsexual, punched her to the ground, undid his trousers and forced her to perform an act of oral sex on him.

   Ø  A son murdered his father on discovering he was a transsexual person.

=====

END

Bolivia - Video - Bolivia hosts first Miss Transvestite contest… [2010-08-01 YouTube (ITN)]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/HTWq0W2pS3k" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/HTWq0W2pS3k</a>

Kenya - Audrey Mbugua: "Myths About Transgender People…" [2010-07-29 AllAfrica.com]

http://allafrica.com/stories/201007291004.html

Kenya: Myths About Transgender People

Audrey Mbugua

29 July 2010

opinion

On 30 July 2010, a transgender woman (who I shall refer to as Storm) was arrested in Thika District in Kenya's Central Province. She was arraigned in court for intent to commit crime and remanded thereafter in a female remand facility. It was discovered she didn't possess 'female genitalia' the day after. She was thoroughly whipped by a warden for 'causing the confusion'.

She was transferred to a police station and placed in isolation. While the senior officer was absent, one of the police officers transferred her to a male cell where she suffered sexual assault on top of being 'baptised' with a bucket full of urine. Her food was grabbed by some inmates. When she reported the matter to the senior officer, she was beaten up by the officer. Three weeks later a law court released her on a personal bond.

This case presents one of the many incidences of gender oppression transgender people in Kenya face. Gender oppression against transgender people takes the form of violence, sexual assault, verbal abuse, intimidation, victimisation and psychological torture.

The dynamics of these cases of gender oppression are not too hard to understand. First, people look at you and make the assumption that you are a man or a woman. Storm never mentioned that she was a female but the officers assumed she was. This is predicated by the assumption that there are only two sexes/genders: Male and female. Anything else has to be pigeon-holed in these narrow categories. Storm is a transgender woman and the best option would have been to have placed her in a 'transgender prison facility'.

Secondly, it illuminates the invalid excuse called ignorance. Ignorance is used by many to justify the oppression of transgender people in Kenya. One police officer admitted that if the officers had known about the transgender identity, things would not have gotten out of control. What sort of moral and intellectual cowardice is this? Some of us transgender people don't know much about pregnancy, but we don't go around beating up pregnant women because they impersonate fat people. And why do people have to react so violently towards a transgender person? How is violence going to resolve the issue? Transgenderism is not an issue to us but it becomes an issue because people want it to be one.

A year ago, I reported a theft case in our local police post. A suspect was arrested, but not for long. The suspect told the police officers that I wasn't a woman, but a man. The police released the suspect and raced hotfoot to my house. 'We are arresting you for female impersonation' said the leader. 'And did I ever claim to be a female?' I enquired. 'Are you a man or a woman?' asked the shorter one (Frodo). 'Am none' I answered to the boys in blue. 'You can't be neither, do you have two organs?' they pressed. 'You have no business knowing what I have between my legs and between my ears. Am a transgender, deal with that' was my response. 'What is transgender?' both asked in unison. I explained the transgender concept in a simple way (considering who my audience was). 'So, if you are a transgender, are you a male transgender or female transgender?' they continued. 'Am none of that. I said I am a transgender person. Your labels have no space in the world.' Well, they went back to their station with their tails neatly tucked between their legs.

Storm revealed that one of the police officers brought his wife and two kids into the police station for a 'freak show'. The police officer requested Storm to strip in the full view of the family. She refused and the officer rained blows on her as he tore her clothes. His family burst into laughter, aiming degrading remarks at her. Well, I am scared by this incidence because if this disfunctional family does not receive help soon, they will be picking prostitutes from the streets and torturing them before drinking their blood. As I said, ignorance is not the problem; it is the human propensity to harm vulnerable members of the community.

The politics of penises are evident in this sad tale. This is the assumption: A penis is a male organ and anyone having a penis is male/man. I have the greatest sympathy for this flabbiness in reasoning. A penis can also be a transgender penis. A transgender woman who has a penis is a transgender woman not a man/male. If anyone has a problem with that, then they must deal with it. Also, identities are personal and no one has the right to tell a transgender woman that she is a man because of so and so. We are sick and tired of people denying us our right to identity and dignity.

This reminds me of a confrontation I had with part of the gay community related to HIV programming for transgender people. Some experts coined the term 'Men who have Sex with other Men' (MSM), which initially was used as a behavioural term rather than as a noun. What these experts were ignorant about was that, whether the term is a behavioural term or a noun, it is disrespectful to refer to transgender women as men who have sex with other men. We are not men but transgender women. But then someone mentioned that most transgender women do have receptive anal sex with men, so the term serves them right. I don't know where people got this rubbish from but I sincerely hope it will die out sooner than later. There are cisgender women (women born women) who have anal sex with men. Does that make them men who have sex with other men? In a nutshell: Their argument shoots itself in the foot.

This also takes us to the land of 'misgendering' transgender women by the gay hungry media and some sexual minorities organisations. A case in point is the just ended Tiwonge and Steven charade in Malawi. Tiwonge maintained she wasn't male, but I guess a gay hungry media and some gay rights activists couldn't hear of that. They reasoned: Tiwonge has a penis (and is therefore male), and Steven has a penis (and is therefore a male), so their union was a gay wedding. There is nothing wrong with gay weddings, but it is offensive to label a transgender person gay. You deny her the fundamental right to self-identity; you are simply calling her a man. She is not a man and it is also wrong to assume that a man dating a transgender woman is gay. Yes, explaining this to my 100 year-old grandmother might be a hair splitting exercise but it shouldn't be quantum physics for the current crop of human rights activists. The valiant Monica Roberts wrote a moving publication about these shenanigans of turning transgender issues into gay issues:

'We are getting beyond sick and tired of gay organizations misgendering and gayjacking transpeople's identities to fit their agenda ... Hot on the heels of the misgendering and mischaracterization of the Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza relationship in Malawi as a 'same-sex' one... now comes the story out of Pakistan that an attempted marriage to a transwoman was broken up by Pakistani police.

'42 year old Malik Muhammad Iqbal and 19 year old transwoman Rani were arrested May 26 in Peshawar. She and the 43 other guests assert they were celebrating her birthday and Iqbal was just a friend... As the story unfolds, like clockwork the Advocate and some gayosphere blogs continue their ongoing patterns of misgendering Rani and other transwomen to pimp the story as a gay marriage issue.'[1]

I am not being polemic or running away from the gay label. I would not be allowed to get away with the following argument: Female genital mutilations are part of African cultures. Any woman who opposes it is running from the 'traditional woman' label. Why do people feel they have the right to put a label on us as if we are some kitchenware in a mall? Transgender people need to stop sucking up to mislabelling and proclaim their true identities.

While we support efforts by gay rights organisations to have same-sex marriages and decriminalise same-sex activities between consenting adults, we abhor this 'gaynising' trend and spinning of transgender issues into gay issues. It is not wrong to be gay or a lesbian, but it is wrong to refer to a transgender person as gay. It is like referring to a doctor as a carpenter - not because being a carpenter is wrong, but because it is incorrect. Let us respect one another for the sake of sanity.

Another appalling phenomenon in Kenya is the know-it-all attitude people have towards transgender matters. After Storm was released, our lawyer and I were doing the paperwork relating to the case. One police officer started 'educating' us on how transgender/transsexuality develops: 'These people were sexually molested while young so their "male" genitalia no longer works,' he lectured. What a crackpot! First, no one had asked (or cared) for his expert opinion. If we needed to know what causes transsexuality, we would have sought it from the necessary authorities, not from a police officer who is just trained to shoot. Why is it that people at any level of ignorance feel they have the capacity to lecture about transsexuality? Had Storm been arrested for creating an atomic bomb, would this officer have lectured us on nuclear fission? I don't think so. Kenyans, please refrain from jumping unto our issues like stolen bicycles.

Some antagonists might resort to using religion to deny us our claim for a third sex. God created two sexes: Male and female. Nothing else and in-between, we should not find flaws in God's creation. This is not a matter to be handled from a pulpit using some pre-medieval mumblings not worth more than the papers they were written on. Doctors, gender activists and policy makers should not lecture priests on giving 'Christian children' alcohol which is christened as the blood of Jesus. We don't go around reprimanding our priests on the taste of the holy loaf of bread. It doesn't bother gender activists in any way, the same way the third sex shouldn't interfere with their holy duties.

The structural roots that sustain gender oppression against transgender people in Kenya are complex but they have solutions. We need the government to recognise the fact that some of us are simply not male or female. We would best fit in a third gender. Gender markers on official documents need to change. It would be best if we didn't have gender markers at all. What is the purpose of having information in identification documents whose purpose is to give other people an idea of the kind of spanner you have in your pants? If this is untenable, then people who aren't male or female should be recognised (as the third sex) and the necessary instruments put in place to ensure equality and affirmative action.

-

Audrey Mbugua [2010-08-02 BLS: <

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/dPTkR9MUV24" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/dPTkR9MUV24</a>

>] is a member of Transgender Education and Advocacy, a Kenyan organisation formed to address social injustices committed against the country's transgender community.

NOTES:

[1] Monica Roberts. Transgriot 2010. Chill With The 'Gayjacking' of Trans Lives for Your Gay Agenda.

http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2010/06/chill-with-gayjacking-of-trans-lives.html

© 2010 Fahamu.