Some Events of the year 2009 – Part 2: Persons

This is some more of what happened in 2009.

++ = added later

Part 1: Legislation, litigation, organizations, news media and bookshops
Part 2: persons
Part 3: art, movies, theatre, books

Public

Aitor, a trans man, won the right to serve in the Spanish Army.

Amanda Ashley ran for mayor of Carrboro, North Carolina.

Dana Beyer announced that she is running for the Maryland House of Delegates in 2010.

Stephanie Anne Booth was featured in a four-part documentary on BBC Wales

Marci Bowers was featured in Newsweek for her pro-bono work reversing genital mutilation.

Eric Brewer, 3-year mayor of East Cleveland, lost in the primary after photographs of himself in drag were released to the press.

Kamla Bua elected mayor of Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, defeating the BJP candidate by 40,000 votes.

Belgin Celik ran for the Istanbul district council.

Sharon Cohen (Dana International) accused of racism.

Kate Craig-Wood: South East Entrepreneur of the Year

Adrian Dalton, ex-model, became a man, now an investment banker, and drag queen.

Michelle Duff published two young-adult books.

Chrisie Edkins, was featured in Closer Magazine portrayed as a drag queen and with male pronouns. She made a formal complaint.

Miyuki Hatoyama (1943 - ), the wife of the new Japanese Prime Minister, was an actor in the Takarazuka Revue when young.

Delores Kane, previously David Shayler MI5 whistle-blower, now transgender and living in a squat.

++ Nastaran Kolestani, an Iranian refugee in Idaho, pleaded guilty to killing her lover, and was sentenced to 18 years.

Viviane Namaste was awarded the 2009 Canadian Award for Action on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights for her efforts to address the HIV prevention and treatment needs of trans people, bisexuals and the swingers community.

Christine Newton-John, Kentucky, was convicted of killing her husband.

Kim Petras released her first single.

Miranda Ponsonby published her autobiography

Lisa Du Preez, lingerie model.

Aidan Quinn, Boston subway train driver collided while texting.

Stu Rasmussen, mayor of Silverton, Oregon, reprimanded for clothing choices.

Marcela Romero, who fought for 10 years to have her ID papers reissued, was honoured as Woman of the Year by the Argentine Congress.

Diana Schroer won her case against the Library of Congress for rescinding a job offer.

Nadine Sclumpf, 72, Switzerland, awarded €15,000 reimbursement for cost of gender surgery by European Court of Human Rights.

Susan Stanton hired as city manager in Lake Worth, Florida.

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A neighbourhood watch patrol in Tarapoto, Peru arrested a travestie and her companion, cut their hair, made them strip and then made them do military training exercises until they collapsed.

67 transvestites, mainly Filipinos, arrested at a party in Riyadh.

5 Filipino transvestites in Shanghai picked up men in bars, drugged and robbed them. They have been jailed for 9-13 years and then will be deported.

Internet

In April, Amazon removed GLBT books from many of its search features. After publicity, Amazon apologized and restored the status quo ante.

HBS International created pages on English, French, Spanish, Italian, German and Simple Wikipedias. However they did not comply with Wikipedia standards in that they were mainly an advertisement with no historical references and made unsupported medical claims. The English version was also very rude about other the other 99% of transsexuals. The pages lasted only several weeks. They have been replaced by a Google Knol.

Charlotte Goiar removed her Myspace page.

A new HBS blog is Trans-Fried Fluff, which is mainly written by “P.J. Schrödinger” who gives no profile or even a gender. It has concentrated on attacking the CAMH-Northwestern clique which of course could be in alliance with transgender unity, but its Links are exclusively to HBS sites. Earlier it claimed: “Wikipedia should be treated as the publishing arm of CAMH”

Suzanne Cooke, author of “Good-Bye to Transgender and All That” where she allied herself with the HBS movement, started a blog Women Born Transsexual, which still has ‘HBS” in its About, but she has posted much that is sensible and has thus drifted away from the HBS position.

Southern Comfort Conference Wikipedia page was marked for deletion for being mainly an advertisement and having no historical references. It was rewritten with referenced sources to address these defects and is now okay.

Rebecca, an Australian Wikipedia administrator who had improved many articles on transgender topics to acknowledge the naturalness of transgender and removed abusive language, left Wikipedia for other projects.

Sweet and Sticky, one of the better spousal blogs, was removed.

Hoax killing. In June it was reported on several Trans sites that 18-year-old Raychel Wilson of New York had been viciously attacked and murdered. No New York media source carried the story. Under the name Rachel Roo, the supposed victim had participated on Laura’s Playground for a year before her ‘death’. She was an alter of Edeyn Blackeney.

Jack/Rebecca Molay’s Confessions of an Autogynephiliac, after a sputtering start in 2008, became a regular blog from August 2009.

++ The Transkids Blanchardian site, previously quiescent for a couple of years, was revived with a new essay by  "Cloudy", who then started her own blog dedicated to the Blanchard binary.


Jasper Gregory hit various nerves with his advocacy of male femininity.

Dirty White Boi, a butch lesbian, continues her rant against trans men in particular.

Sophie Siedlberg, a major activist at OII, wrote a blog from August to October, writing from her intersex perspective.

Ron Gold, gay activist who was a major actor in getting homosexuality removed from the DSM, and who has spoken up against the biologistic apologism for homosexuality, that being gay is a moral choice, was invited by the editors of Bilerico to submit an essay. He submitted “No to the notion of Transgender” which was subsequently removed after an outcry. The original has been republished by Wayne Dynes. Ron then participated in a dialogue with Zoe Brain, and started to concede that there might be a biological cause (which is not the position that he took on homosexuality: logically he should assert that transgender is also a moral choice).

Sports

Sarah Gronert, German tennis player won a tournament in Israel.

Jennifer McCreath, Newfoundland, runner, participated in the World OutGames in the 3^rd gender category.

Mercedes Newbiggin, previously known as Rob, a light middleweight boxer, announced that she was starting transition.

Andreas Paredes, Chile, was able to enter a tennis tournament in Buenos Aires, but defeated in first round.


Caster Semenya, South African runner, won gold in 800 metres at the World Championships, had her gender questioned and was obliged to take a sex test. She was generally supported by South Africans.

Will, in Victoria, Australia, was allowed to play football.

Sanam XI, an hijra cricket team, beat the local club in Sukkur, Sindh.

Doctors & Sexologists

Surgeon Yvon Ménard, 69, of Montreal retired.

Urologist Murray Kimmel of Philadelphia retired due to ill health.

Drs Daniel Simon & Norman van der Dussen started FFS in Marbella, and hope to start in Dublin also.

Kenneth Zucker threatened a lawsuit against Lynn Conway.

An internal report at CAMH GIC was critical of its practices.

The work on DSM-V continued in secrecy.

The Monash Gender Clinic was temporarily closed and its director, Dr Trudy Kennedy, forced to quit. This in response to reports into its workings in 2004 and 2006, and after eight patients have claimed to have been misdiagnosed. It re-opened in July with Dr Fintan Harte as director

The second International Experts' Meeting on HIV Prevention for MSM, WSW [men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women] and Transgenders met in Amsterdam in early November and issued a report in late December “Gender identity variance (transgenderism) should be reclassified from its current classification as a mental health disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual and the World Health Organisation’s International Classification Of Diseases (ICD). Instead it should be classified as a medical condition. This would provide a diagnostic category in the ICD that would accommodate the needs of those gender identity variant people who require medical care for their condition, but without the stigma attached to mental disorder."

Medicine & Genetics

Wyeth’s Premarin went up in price 800% in some areas.

Article in Lancet by Apar Ganti summarized study of 16,000 post-menopausal US women. Those on HRT are at greater risk of death if they develop lung cancer.

New prostate cancer detection.

A new study of mice published in Cell journal finds that a single gene, FOXL2, is all that prevents adult ovary cells turning into cells found in testes.

Vancouver Women’s Health Collective declines to serve trans women at its new pharmacy.

Celebrities

Chaz Bono started transition.

Lady Gaga encouraged rumours that she is intersex, and then denied everything.

Boy George served jail time for imprisoning a prostitute.

Michael Jackson died. Androgynous, black/white, boy-man. It is the opinion of some that he was somewhere on the spectrum of gender variance.

Michael Bailey wrote that Michael Jackson is an ‘autohebephile”.

Richard O’Brien, 67, writer of Rocky Horror Show, comes out as transgender and how he is oppressed by the two-gender system.

Daniel Radcliffe dated a trans person.

Obituaries – other than murder

Virginia Prince (1912 – 2009) US femiphilic activist.

Susan Huxford-Westall (1921 – 2009) Canadian school teacher. Director of FACT.

Angela Morley (1924 – 2009) UK musician.

Danny La Rue (1927 – 2009) UK drag star.

++ Shi Pei Pu (1938 - 2009) Chinese Opera performer & spy.  The original for M. Butterfly.

Richard Sharpe (1954 – 2009) US dermatologist, wife-killer, committed suicide in jail.

Christine Daniels (1957 – 2009) US sports writer, suicide after short transition and then changeback.

Femke Olyslager (1966 – 2009) Belgian electrical engineering professor.

Michele de LaFreniere (? – 2009) US Human Relations Commissioner.

Octavia Saint Laurent (196? – 2009) US performer

Pequeña P. (1982 – 2009) Argentinian television actor.

Nora Jean York (19?? – 2009) US activist, killed by police in a domestic incident with guns.

Murdered

Almost 200 murders of trans persons were recorded in 2009. These are but a small sample.


Brenda (19?? – 2009) Brazilian prostitute featured in blackmail case of governor of Lazio region, found burnt to death.

Melek K. (? – 2009). Ankara.

Destiny Lauren (1979- 2009) UK sex worker, niece of Paul Hill of the Guildford Four who spend 15 years in prison falsely convicted of an IRA bombing.

Kristina Lucaj (1971 – 2009) Albanian sex worker.

Tyli’a Mack (? – 2009) Washington, DC.

Cynthia Nicole (1977 – 2009) Honduran activist.

Ebru Soykan (? – 2009) Turkish activist with Lamda Istanbul.

Kellie Telesford (1970 – 2009) Norbury, London, beautician.

Steven Yablonski (1986 – 2009) Canadian drag queen died in fire at Aquarius Baths, Winnipeg.

Andrea Waddell (1980 – 2009) Brighton, UK, philosophy student/sex worker.

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Marcus Watlington is charged with murdering an unidentified trans woman 25 in Trinidad, Colorado for gender surgery.

British motivational speaker, Michael Lane, killed a Las Vegas woman, and then 10 days later a trans woman he met on the Internet for sex. The trans woman has not been identified.

Private Events

Rocky Michael Bryant, poet, has recovered his male identity.

Ruben Noe Coronado, first trans man pregnant with twins.

Rachel Fleetwood, ex-boxer and coalminer, started transition at age 70.

Sarah Stafford, Irish farmer, transitions.



Unnamed 12-year-old permitted to switch to girl at school.

UK prisoner, convicted of manslaughter and attempted rape, move to a women’s prison.