Transgender Law

No it's not a new television show (unfortunately). My friend Bobbie was kind enough to send along this information from a police publication called "Dealing with Transgender Subjects". Here is an excerpt:

"Officers must often protect and serve members of special groups. Providing this service can bring challenges that demand agency guidance or targeted training. One such group that has rarely been seen or contacted by officers in the past has become empowered to step out and live openly in their communities. They are the transgender individuals. On every continent there is at least one culture that gives social recognition to individuals who don't fit the gender binary of male or female. Only until recently has medicine made it possible to match the individual to their appearance with surgical procedures. Our Western societies have forced these individuals underground (into "the closet") to survive by avoiding ridicule and persecution. Being transgender has nothing to do with who you are attracted to for sex; it is not attached to sexual attraction identifiers such as being gay, lesbian, or bi-sexual. You can be transgender and also be gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, straight, or none of the above. Being trans is about your gender identity; it's who you feel and know you are. Our society develops a spectrum of gender possibilities from ultra-masculine to ultra-feminine and every variation in-between."

Obviously it's refreshing to see law enforcement taking a look at the transgender community for what it really is. The huge majority of all of us are not sex workers or some sort of criminal up to no good. Which used to be the norm in how we were presented. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to be treated with respect in my dealings with law enforcement. Perhaps more information such as this will continue that trend for the entire transgender community.

Read more here.

Blondes Do Have More Fun!

I have a friend you sends me YouTube videos which we have a fun time critiqing and everyone in a while I find one out of the transgender transition type and find a drag one like this blond bombshell drag queen:

Male Privilege

Relax, I'm not going into a contrived emotional post concerning "male priviledge".
Talk about a horse that has been beaten into the ground!
Recently I read a article called "Sex change patients are getting younger and are more likely to be women".

That's right. "Transsexuals in Hong Kong are now seeking gender-changing surgery at a much earlier age than two decades ago, and those coming forward are more likely to be women seeking to become men. "It seems that more and more patients are in their 20s," said Dr Albert Yuen Wai-cheung, chief of service at Ruttonjee Hospital's department of surgery and the only specialist performing sex reassignment surgery at the city's public hospitals. "In the past, they were in their 30s. Now they are quite young, still studying," Yuen said. "With more information available, more are willing to see doctors." Also, women undergoing sex change operations to become men now outnumber men wanting to become women."

Granted this is a very small sampling but interesting none the less. I'm fortunate to know two trans men. One is exploring how he can finance his change and the other is in a very exciting exploration phase. Both could speak to this issue much better than I know but it seems to me I see more women where I live who are really masculine in appearance.  I'm not talking about the much maligned idea that women are allowed to wear men's clothes and not vice versa. I'm talking about women who would have given me a run at my masculinity in my macho acting days. Now,  I also know that having a male ready body does not make a person a transgender candidate. Most of you also know I'm a proponent of the increasing blurring of the genders. (Jamie) Is my small local sample an example? The last thing I claim to be is a statistician, so let's just call it an observation and move on.

Regardless of all of this, the true male or female privilege is the ability to change your body to the extent you need to feel comfortable.  If nothing else, new medical advances have the potential to completely blur the genders- if one has the resources to do it.

For more on the article above, go here.