Some Events of the year 2009 - Part 3: Books and the arts

 This is just some of the books and arts that happened in 2009.

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

Painting & Photography

Tiwi Islands: Melbourne photographer Bindi Cole’s photographs of a Tiwi sistagirl Crystal Love wins a Victorian Indigenous Art Award.

Spain: a calendar of Virgin Mary photographs all modelled by trans women.

Films & Television

See the trailers here and here.

The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela. Dir: Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, scr: Olaf de Fleur Johannesson & Benedikt Jóhannesson, with Raquela Rios as herself and Valerie Einarsson as herself. Iceland/Philipines/France/Tahiland 80 mins 2008. Raquela gets from the Philipines to Iceland. Will she get to Paris?

Be Like Others. Dir & Scr: Tanaz Eshaghian. Canada/Iran/Uk/US 74 mins 2008. Sex changes in Iran.
Chan di Chummi. Dir: Khalid Gill, with Ainee, Sonya and Boota. Germany/Pakistan 80 mins 2009. Transsexuals in Lahore.

La Dany. Dir: Jim Giles. With La Dany. Canada 2009. A street performer in Medellin, Columbia.

Life is Hot in Cracktown. Dir & scr: Buddy Giovinazzo based on his short story, with Kerry Washington as Marybeth, and Mark Webber as Ridley. US 99 mins 2009. Prostitution, crack, lifes of crime.

Morrer Como Um Homem. Dir: João Pedro Rodrigues, scr: Rui Catalão & João Pedro Rodrigues, with Jenni La Rue as Jenny & Fernando Santos as Tonia. France/Portugal 133 mins 2009. problems of an aging drag performer.

Prodigal Sons. Dir: Kimberly Reed, with Kimberly Reed. USA 86 mins 2008. Kimberly meets her long estranged brother..

Rage. Dir & scr: Sally Potter, with Jude Law as Minx, Eddie Izzard as Tiny Diamonds. UK/US 98 mins 2009. Played Berlin Film Festival in February.

Still Black: A Portrait Of Black Transmen. Dir: Kortney Ryan Ziegler. US 77 mins. 2008.

Stock Shock. Dir: Sandra Mohr, scr: Liz Bolwell & Sandra Mohr. With Martine Rothblatt. US 72 mins 2009. What happened to Sirius Radio after Martine left.

Taking Woodstock. Dir: Ang Lee, scr: James Schamus base on the book by Elliot Tiber & Tom Monte, with Live Schreiber as Vilma. US 110 mins 2009.

Transproofed. Dir Andrea James, scr: Andrea James & Calpernia Addams, with Calpernia Addams as Ava and Andrea James as Joyce. US 14 mins 2009.

Two Spirits. Dir: Lydia Nibley, scr: Russell Martin & Lydia Nibley US 65 mins 2009. . Documentary on the homophobic murder of 16-year-old Fred Martinez, a Navajo nadleeh.

Veselchaki. Dir & scr: Feliks Mikhaylov, Russia 2009. Five Moscow drag queens go on a tour in the countryside.


Nicole Kidman in The Danish Girl, still in pre-production.

Heaven and Earth, a highly fictionalized film about James Barry, met financing problems and may have been discontinued.

Theatre

Bette Bourne, had her life done as a play at the Edinburgh Festival.

Jo Clifford’s play, Jesus, Queen of Heaven, at Glasgay Festival.

Pieter-Dirk Uys/ Evita Bezuidenhout put on the play MacBeki: A Farce to be Reckoned With.

Books

• Giovanna Ambrosio. Transvestism, Transsexualism in the Psychoanalytic Dimension. Karnac Books. 2009.

• Arturo Arnalte. Transfugas, travestis y traidores: Rebeldes Ejemplares De La Historia De Espana. 2009.

• Robin Bauer. "Ihre Eltern dachten, dass sie ein Junge wäre.": Transsexualität und Transgender in einer zweigeschlechtlichen Welt. Maennerschwarm. 2009

• Dan Baum. Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans. New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2009. One of the nine is Joann Guidos, whose pub in New Orleans stayed open during Hurricane Katrina.

• S. Bear Bergman. The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009.

• Mark J. Blechner. Sex Changes: Transformations in Society and Psychoanalysis. Routledge. 2009.

• Jula Böge. Ich bin (k)ein Mann: Als Transgender glücklich leben - Ein Ratgeber. Agenda Verlag. 2009.

• Joseph Bristow. Oscar Wilde and Modern Culture: The Making of a Legend. Ohio University Press. 448 pp 2009: 138-140. 3 pages on Herman von Teschenberg.

• Julia Burg. Abnormal = Normal? Homo- und Transsexualität in den Filmen Pedro Almodóvars. Grin Verlag. 2009.

• José Calvo Segarra. La Pastora: Del monte al mito. 2009.  On Florencio Pla Meseguer.

• Sara-Jane Cromwell. Becoming Myself: The True Story of Thomas Who Became Sara. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2008.

• Mara Drummond. Transitions - A Guide To Transitioning for Transsexuals and Their Families. Lulu.com. 2009

• Ernst Günther. Travestie - Die große Revue: Carte Blanche. 2009.

• Joanne Herman. Transgender Explained For Those Who Are Not. AuthorHouse. 2009.

• P. J. Heslin. The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius' Achilleid. Cambridge University Press. 2009.

• Walt Heyer. Perfected with Love. Longwood, Fla.: Xulon Press. 2009. Heyer has returned to being a man. Sequel to Trading My Sorrows, 2006.

• Franziska Hofmann. Transsexualität: Wenn Körper und Seele nicht zusammenpassen. Grin Verlag. 2009.

• Morgan Holms. Intersex: A Perilous Difference. Susquehanna University Press. 2008.

• Morgan Holms. Critical Intersex. Ashgate Pub Co. 2009.

• Elli Hunter. Der bunte Mann: Aus dem Leben eines Transvestiten. ElliVersum Verlag. 2009.

• Icon Group International. Intersex: Webster’s Timeline History, 1869 – 2007. ICON Group International, Inc. 2009.

• Gary Kinsman & Patrizia Gentile. The Canadian War on Queers: National Security As Sexual Regulation. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.

• Evelyn Kleinert. Transsexualität / Transidentität - Die Betrachtung zwei erzählter Lebensgeschichten vor dem Horizont der Identitätstheorien von Erikson, Mead und Goffman. Grin Verlag. 2009.

• Amanda Lear. Je ne suis pas du tout celle que vous croyez. Paris: Hors collection, 2009.

• Axel Léotard. Mauvais genre. Paris: Hugo & Cie, 2009.

• Katja Losensky. Der intermediale Zugriff auf die Figur der Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. Grin Verlag. 2009.

• Tommi Avicolli Mecca. Smash the Church, Smash the State!: The Early Years of Gay Liberation. City Lights Publishers. 2009.

• Markus Orths. La mujer travestida. Salamandra Publicacions Y Edicions. 2009.

• Ousterhout, Douglas K. Facial Feminization Surgery: A Guide for the Transgendered Woman. Omaha, Neb: Addicus Books, 2009.

• Julien Picquart. Ni homme ni femme: enquête sur l'intersexuation. Paris: La Musardine, 2009.

• Miranda Ponsonby. The Making of Miranda: From Gentleman to Gentlewoman in One Lifetime. Gretton: Noble, 2009.

• Raphaela Reiber. Die Rolle des Transvestiten bei Almodóvar. Grin Verlag. 2009.

• Elizabeth Reis. Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex. Hopkins Fulfillment Service. 2009.

• Laurie J. Shrage. You've Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity. Oxford University Press. 2009.

• Brian Still. Online Intersex Communities: Virtual Neighborhoods of Support and Activism. Cambria Press. 2008.

• Louis-Georges Tin. L'invention de la culture hétérosexuelle. Paris: Éd. Autrement, 2008.
• Charles Upchurch. Before Wilde: Sex between Men in Britain's Age of Reform. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Features several anecdotes of trans persons in 19th century London
• Volker Weiß. "... mit ärztlicher Hilfe zum richtigen Geschlecht?": Zur Kritik der medizinischen Konstruktion der Transsexualität. Männerschwarm. 2009.
• Kelley Winters and Dan Karasic. Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity. Dillon, CO: GID Reform Advocates, 2008.

Fiction

• Hamish Pillay. The Rainbow Has No Pink. Johannesburg: 30° South Publishers, 2008.
• Juliette Jourdan. Le choix de Juliette. Paris: Dilettante, 2008.
• Zoe Whittall. Holding Still for As Long As Possible. Toronto: Anansi, 2009. Being young and in Toronto. Includes a trans ambulance driver.

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.

-----------------------
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.

------------
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.

Some Events of the year 2009 – Part 1: legal etc

 This is just some of what happened in 2009.

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

++ = added later

Organizations

++ Asia Pacific Transgender Network launched.

After 10 years, IFGE and TransEvents split and put on different conferences.

The International Court System recognized 40 trans persons for their contributions, but was unable to find a single person outside the US despite being ‘International’.

GIRES issued a report concluding that 1 in 166 in the UK are gender variant.

Transgender Equality Network Ireland (Teni) with the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and Belong To Youth Services organized a two-day conference on the lack of transgender rights in Ireland.

London pride: TransLondon first boycotted London pride because of the discrimination by Pride marshals in 2008, but then agreed to march “under protest”.

STP 2012 campaign to depathologize transgender persons.

Equal marriage & civil unions

Albania: announced equal marriages.

Argentina: city court judge permitted first gay marriage in Buenos Aires (civil unions have been in effect since 2002), but a higher court overruled it the day before the wedding.  Update 28/12/09:  Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre were married in Ushauaia, the capital of Argentina's Tierra del Fuego state, on 27/12/09.

Australian Capital Territory: started civil unions.

California: Proposition 8 (despite not saying what it claims to say) went to the Californian Supreme Court which accepted it into law. However out-of-state marriages are now recognized.

The States of Jersey voted for civil unions.

Kenya: Daniel Chege Gichia and Charles Ngengi, both Kenyans, had a civil union in London, and became a media scandal back home.

Maine: a referendum reversed last year’s equal marriage.

Malaysia: Fatine Bahari met Ian Young of Derby, UK, in Kuala Lumpur. She travelled to the UK on a six-month tourist visa. They were joined in civil union. This became a media scandal in Malaysia, where it is claimed that she has shamed Malaysia. She has applied to the UK Border Agency to stay in the UK but is encountering bureaucratic problems.

New Jersey: approved equal marriages.

Mexico City: legalized equal marriages. Civil unions had been permitted since 2007.

New York: executive order to recognize out-of-state gay marriages, but attempt to introduce equal marriages defeated in state senate.

Portugal: about to remove references to gender in its marriage law.

Prince Edward Island: The Domestic Relations Act changed 29 pieces of provincial legislation to replace references to "man and woman" and "husband and wife" with gender-neutral terms, as required by the 2005 Canadian Civil Marriage Act.

Tennessee: Terri Jo Rittenberry had her marriage declared invalid, as gender change is not recognized.

Uruguay: first gay civil union.

UK: heterosexual couple refused a civil union.

Vermont: equal marriages

Washington, DC: legalized equal marriages.

Other Legislation, Litigation, other government actions, etc

Aceh: introduced whippings for homosexuality.

Alberta: delisted funding for gender surgery; added sexual orientation but not gender identity to its human rights legislation.

Australia: another case, not Alan Finch’s against the Monash GIC for giving him his requested sex change reached the Supreme Court, and was then settled out of court.

Australia: intersex and trans persons needing anti-androgen medication or testosterone were obliged to register as potential sex-offenders.

Bolivia: trans persons may now appear as themselves in the photograph on national ID, but it will still list their legal name.

Burundi criminalized homosexuality

China: new rules for sex change: must not have a criminal record, be single, be over 20, and have cross-lived for two years.

Ecuador: court ruling that state should fund sex changes.

France: transsexuality no longer classified as a mental illness.

Honduras: Following the US-supported coup, “There have been [other killings] as well, notably a rise in murders in the LGBT community since the coup. In particular, several transvestites have been recently killed in similarly gruesome ways. Human rights advocates report that ‘up to 18 gay and transgender men have been killed nationwide — as many as the five prior years — in the nearly six months since a political crisis rocked the nation.’ “ Full article here.

India: decriminalized homosexuality; Hijras may be listed as other, rather than male or female on electoral rolls.

Indonesia: Nadia Ilmira, a post-operative, applied to the Batang District Court to be legally recognized as a woman, and her petition was approved. However, the Indonesian Council of Ulema said that gender surgery in haram in Islam unless it is a medical necessity.

Iran: allowed the first marriage of a trans man; it continues to execute gay men.

Ireland: announced bill to recognize acquired gender of transsexuals.

Isle of Man: Gender Recognition Bill like the UK’s.

Manitoba: turned down proposal from province’s bureaucracy to fund gender surgery.

Navarre: La Ley Integral de Transexualidad.

New York: executive order that state agencies are not to discriminate based on ‘gender identity and expression’.

Nigeria extended death penalty for homosexuality (previously only in northern states); illegal for gay couples to live together; prison for abetting gay couples.

Pakistan to add a third gender option on identity cards; introduce measures to entitle hijras to inherit property; the government was advised to employ hijras in debt collection.

Panama: The Association of Trans People requested the mediation of the Ombudsman to stop police abuse.

Portugal: consulting re having a gender identity law like Spain’s.

Rwanda, newly accepted into the Commonwealth, announced criminalization of homosexuality with sentences of 5 – 10 years and fines in excess of the average annual salary, but then denied the intention.

Sindh has agreed to a quota of 5% of provincial government jobs for hijras and free medical treatment.

Sweden: cross-dressing, fetishism and sadomasochism removed from list of medical conditions, but transsexuality, exhibitionism, voyeurism and paedophilia remained.

Thailand: new rules for sex change: must be over 18, a year of cross living, and a mental evaluation.

Uruguay: trans persons permitted to change names and gender on all legal documents; gays allowed to adopt; gays allowed in military; civil unions.

Uganda: new bill that adds life imprisonment for consensual adult homosexuality and the death penalty if HIV+ or other party under 18. Three years prison for third parties who do not report homosexuality to police within 24 hours. Seven years for defending the rights of homosexuals. This bill is a project of the local branch of the US group The Family.

UK: Trans persons in transition will be allowed to buy a second ID card.

The Netherlands, the UK and elsewhere: Machines introduced at airports that can see your genitals under your clothes.

News Media & Bookshops

Window Media LCC, the largest publisher of LGBT newspapers (including the Washington Blade and Southern Voice) and websites in the US, closed down.

Candy, “the first transversal fashion magazine” debuts.

Oscar Wilde Bookshop in New York and Out Word Bound Book Store in Indianapolis and Librairie Serge et Real in Montreal closed.

The art director, graphic designer and most of the writers at the Chicago Free Press left the gay publication Monday after the company stopped paying its employees, according to Matt Simonette, who also left his position as editor.

Domingos Rodrigues (1595 – 1621) dancer.

Domingos, son of a black female slave and a white father, was raised in Lisbon. He was sometimes called Rocha, the name of his owner.

He made a living as a dancer, and was known as Domingos of the Dance. The dances were known as those of the fanchonos, sometimes the dances of the woman, as the participants were cross-dressed.

In 1621 he was arrested by the Holy Inquisition. Two priests, two married men, two lay bachelors and a free mulatto gave evidence of sex with Domingos from when he was 15. They testified that he was notoriously feminine in manner, and usually but not always the passive partner in sex. Domingos did not confess.

He was passed to the secular authorities, and strangled and burnt at an Auto da Fé in Lisbon.

There is no record of what happened to his sexual partners, nor whether his owner was compensated or accused.

*The Portuguese word fanchono is cognate with the Italian finocchio.

• David Higgs. “Lisbon”. In David Higgs (ed). Queer Sites: Gay Urban Histories Since 1600. London: Routledge, 1999: 116-7.

Evgenii Fedorovich M. (1898 - ?) Soviet agent.

Evgeniia Fedorovna M. was expelled from school for refusing to wear a skirt. Her father accommodated her by educating her at home and she wrote the external gymnasium examinations. She was orphaned in 1915 and from then presented as male.

Evgenii worked for the Cheka during the Revolution as a political instructor, took part in searches of monasteries, and in operations against bandits in the southern provinces. During this time he also got his identity papers changed to male.

In 1922, the Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie (GPU, the successor of the Cheka) posted him to a provincial town, and he courted and officially married “S”, a female postal worker. Initially “S” did not doubt that Evgenii was a man, but rumours reached her and Evgenii admitted as much to her. Local authorities charged him with a ‘crime against nature’. However the Commissariat for Justice recognized the marriage as legal because it was ‘concluded by mutual consent’.

“S” had an affair and a child with a co-worker, which Evgenii legally adopted. However in 1925 the GPU regiment was transferred to Moscow. Evgenii abandoned his wife and child to follow, but was fired after arrival.

He didn’t adapt to civilian life. He started drinking, was promiscuous with woman, and took a second wife. In 1926 he was arrested for impersonating bureaucrats and party members for profit, and for disorderly conduct.

This led to his being examined by Dr Edelshtein of the Moscow Health Department’s Bureau for the Study of the Personality of the Criminal and Criminality. Throughout all this, Evgenii maintained his presentation as male. Edelshtein did not attempt a “cure”, but did get him to write a short autobiography that was included in the author’s article in Prestupnik i prestupnost.

• Evgeniia Fedorovna M. “History of my Illness” presented in Edelshtein.
• A.O. Edelshtein. “K klinike transvestitizma”. Prestupnik i prestupnost: Sbornik 2 1927: 273-82.
• Dan Healey. "Evgeniia/Evgenii: Queer Case Histories in the First Years of Soviet Power," Gender & History 1 1997: 83-106.
• Dan Healey. Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia: The Regulation of Sexual and Gender Dissent.  The University of Chicago Press xvi, 392 pp 2001: 50, 57-8,68-72, 130,308n14.

•  

___________________________________________________________________________________

At almost the same time, 1923, Frances Carrick in the US had her marriage recognized in that her husband was not allowed to testify.

Ovo Maltine (1966 - 2005) performer.

Christoph Josten was born in Rech an der Ahr, Rheinland. He took his drag name from the Swiss beverage powder (known as Ovaltine in England).

Ovo was part of the Spreedosen acting ensemble, and appeared in several Rosa von Praunheim films, notably with Tima der Göttlichen.

Ova lived in Berlin and was a regular MC at gay street parties. In 1990 she publicized violence against queers. In 1997 she managed a program on 100 years of gay movement at the Berlin Academy of Arts.

In the 1998 election she stood for the Bundestag and received 534 votes.

She had been HIV+ since 1992. She was active in Act UP, with Aids charities, marijuana legalization, legal rights for prostitutes and transgender visibility.

She died of lymph cancer. In the last year of her life she promoted for a memorial for gays persecuted under the Nazis. The memorial was erected in 2008.

• Michael Bruntrup (dir). Das Ovo. With Ovo Maltine. Germany 2006.
• “Ovo Maltine”. Wikipedia: Die freie Enzyklopädie. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovo_Maltine.
• http://spreedosen.de/ensemble/ovo-maltine.php.
• www.das-ovo.de.

Benjamin Dickerson (1960 – 1999) musician.

Robert Dickerson was raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He was doing drag in public from the age of nine. He was active in the Atlanta underground musical scene in the 1980s.

He was a blues punk queer drag queen who was in many bands, and led especially Opal Foxx and Smoke. He often wore drag while performing. He used the names Opal Foxx and Benjamin Smoke.

The documentary Benjamin Smoke was filmed over a decade 1989-99 until his AIDS-related death.

• Jem Cohen & Peter Sillen (dir & scr). Benjamin Smoke. With Benjamin Dickerson & Patti Smith. US 72 mins 2000.
• “Benjamin Smoke”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Smoke.
• “Smoke”. Trouser Press. www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=smoke.
• “The Art of Self Destruction”. Flagpole Magazine. http://flagpole.com/Weekly/Features/TheArtOfSelfDestruction.11Feb04.

Click here to sample his music.

Tito Anibal da Paixao Gomes (1933 – 2007) fraudster.

Maria Teresinha Gomes was born on the island of Madeira. She ran away from home at 16, and made her way to Lisbon. Her parents gave her up for dead.

Maria transitioned to Tito Anibal da Paixao Gomes.

He had a general’s uniform made by a tailor for carnival in 1974. He gave out that he was a real general, and was occasionally seen in uniform. He also gave out that he was a lawyer and an employee at the US embassy.

A nurse, Joaqina Costa, shared his house his house for 15 years. Using this authority, he persuaded neighbours to trust him with their investments.

In 1992 he was arrested for fraud and his original gender was revealed. However he presented as male at his trial. Costa testified that she had never doubted that he was a man. Other witnesses still addressed him as ‘general’.

He was given a suspended three-year sentence. He retreated to a remote village and lived in poverty until his death.

• Giles Tremlett. “Portugal's cross-dressing 'general' dies after 20 years as a man”. The Guardian. 19 July 2007. www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jul/19/gilestremlett.
• Miguel Mora. “La Generala no tiene quien la entierre : La portuguesa que simuló ser militar durante 20 años muere en la soledad’. El Pais. 19/07/2007. www.elpais.com/articulo/ultima/Generala/tiene/quien/entierre/elpepuint/20070719elpepiult_1/Tes.
• “Maria Teresinha Gomes”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Teresinha_Gomes.

____________________________________________________________

Tito Gomes is in both the English and Spanish Wikipedias under his pre-transition name.  This is also true of Charlotte Bach.   For whatever reason there is no entry in the Portuguese Wikipedia under either of Gomes' name.

Murry Pickford (? - 1976) drag performer.

Murry Pickford of  Boston was deaf-and-dumb. She worked a drag act with pigeons that she insisted were doves.

In 1947, when female impersonation was banned in Boston at the instigation of the Catholic Archbishop, she went to the officials and pleaded that because of her disability, she had no other way to make a living. She was issued a special license, and was the only drag queen then working in Boston.

• Minette, edited by Steven Watson. Recollections of a part-time Lady. New York: Flower-Beneath-the-Foot Press 1979: 22-3.

William Smith (190? - ?) farm worker.

William Smith worked in Queensland as a farm labourer, drover, railway navvy and cane cutter in the 1920s. He obtained 851 acres of land, but lost it and his cattle after a severe drought. He returned to labouring and moved with the seasonal farm work.

In 1928 he rode into New South Wales.  He took employment at the Waterside Estates. He agreed to a pay cut in the middle of a drought on agreement of higher wages afterwards. The drought broke in March 1929 but from then on he was not paid at all. He quit in May, and in June took legal action claiming £39 12s 3d.

Thomas Waters, the employer, first avoided the claim by transferring the property to his wife, and declaring bankruptcy, and then by claiming that William Smith was a woman. Smith gave interviews to a few newspapers in which he admitted that he might not be male. He was admired as a “plucky Sydney girl” trying to survive.

The first court case was on 28 August 1929 and Matilda Waters, now the owner of the farm, made a counter claim of £45 12s 3d for the keep of Smith and his horse. The defence solicitor pursued the argument that Smith was a woman based on the newspapers articles. Smith conceded that he he might be a ‘half-and-half’ or a hermaphrodite. The agreed wages had been at a male rate.

There were several adjournments and the second hearing was heard on 13 November. A doctor testified that Smith was a woman but with the muscular development of a man and capable of doing physical work as well as a man.

Evidence was also admitted through cross-examination that Thomas Waters had a previous conviction of obtaining £350 through false pretences, was a declared bankrupt and had been committed for trial on two charges of false pretences. The magistrate criticized Smith as “not an entirely truthful witness”, but but awarded him the full amount claimed plus £1 5s 3d cost. The counter claim was denied.

*Not the jockey, Bill Smith.

• Ruth Ford. “'Prove first you're a male': A Farmhand's Claim for Wages in 1929 Australia”. Labour History 90 2006: 52. www.historycooperative.org/journals/lab/90/ford.html.

Enza Anderson (1964 - ) civil engineer, political candidate, journalist.

Enzo Anderson was born and raised in Toronto by Italian-immigrant parents.  He graduated as a civil engineer in 1988, and worked as a supervisor at a concrete manufacturer.

At weekends he hung out with drag queens in Toronto’s gay village. When he was laid off, she became Enza and worked at a gay bar. She started calling herself ‘Supermodel’ although she has never walked a runway.


In 1998 she was on the cover of the Toronto Sun giving the then Toronto mayor, Mel Lastman, a sloppy kiss at the end of Pride. Two years later she ran against him for the office of mayor and came in third. In 2002 she ran for the leadership of the homophobic Canadian Alliance Party (previously the Reform Party and now the Conservative Party). Stephen Harper (now Prime Minister) won, and Anderson had to drop out because she was not raising enough money. In 2003 she ran against the city incumbent in the Toronto downtown ward, and came second.

In the same year, she had breast enhancement, charging it to her credit card.


She got herself a job writing for the free daily, Metro, by cold-calling the Toronto editor and reminding her of her political runs. She profiles Toronto’s party scene, attending 200 parties a year, and also profiles transit users. She also contributes to Fab and to Xtra.

She has done volunteer work with AIDS and gay youth charities, and was on the Police Liaison Committee.

In 2008 she was Grand Marshall for Toronto Pride.

She has a small part in the 2010 horror movie, Horrorween.

• Antoine Tedesco. “My date with Enza: Enza "Supermodel" Anderson: drag queen, politician, and a great set of legs too” Scene and Heard. 2002. www.sceneandheard.ca/archive/V2_03/focus_enza.htm.
• Chris Dupuis. “Pride grand marshall: Model citizen”. Xtra June 19, 2008. www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=3&STORY_ID=4952&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=2.
• Rita Zekas. “Enza gets her Marilyn moment”. The Toronto Star. Jun 21, 2008. www.thestar.com/living/article/444921.
• “Enza Anderson”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enza_Anderson.

Beth Elliott (1950 - ) singer, activist, writer.

++ revised August 2011.

Beth transitioned to female in her late teens. She became a hippy singer/ songwriter, sometimes using the name Mustang Sally, and antiwar activist. One of her songs, “Teen Love” was a doo-wop lesbian love ballad.

She was the first woman under 21 to be an officer in the pioneering lesbian organization, The Daughters of Bilitis, where her transition was known, and where after a heated controversy, she had been accepted. In 1972, she was vice-president of the San Francisco branch.

Bev Jo,  who had been a friend of Beth’s at college just before she transitioned, and, who was now active in the lesbian separatist Gutter Dykes Collective, accused the adolescent Beth of sexual harassment. Beth was was expelled from the Daughters for not being woman-born.

In 1973, Beth was one of the organizers West Coast Lesbian Conference held at the University of California, Los Angeles, and had played benefits to help finance it.  However the Conference split over whether Elliot should be allowed to perform. The Gutter Dykes protested the presence of a ‘man’.  Two-thirds of the women present voted to allow Beth to remain, and she performed as had been arranged, but she left after the performance.  The keynote speaker, the heterosexually married Robin Morgan, incorporated the protests into her speech the next day, and referred to Beth as a ‘male transvestite’ and as a ‘rapist’.

Beth was also a founding member of Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club, an activist in the California Democratic Party, a Director of the California Committee for Sexual Law Reform, the lobbying organization that won repeal of California’s sodomy laws in 1975.

She put out an album, Kid, Have You Rehabilitated Yourself?  but the women’s music distribution channels were closed to her. In the 1980s she played bass for the all-women new wave band Satin Food Stamps; in the 1990s she was in the dykeabilly The Bucktooth Varmints with Anderson Toone; she did backing tracks for the drag king musical Hillbillies on the Moon, which again featured Anderson Toone. Her recent CD, Buried Treasure contains the tracks from Kid, Have You Rehabilitated Yourself?, some Satin Food Stamps tracks and some others (listen to previews of it at www.cdbaby.com/cd/bethelliott).

Beth was blacklisted by lesbian publishers, and was still traumatized by the 1973 events, until 1985 when she was profiled in Telewoman with a pseudonym and no photographs.  This eventually became the book, Mirrors, but that took another decade.  Bev Jo denounced Beth in 1985 and again in 1992, and this contributed to the decision to issue the book as 'told to Geri Nerrick'.  The 2011 re-issue of Mirrors clarifies that Geri and Beth are the same person.

Beth has been a writer for a variety of publications including a weekly column for three and a half years for the Bay Area Reporter. She has also written for off our backs and FrontPage Magazine.  She has recently written lesbian science fiction.

Beth is a keen softball player and hiker, and has traveled the world chasing and photographing solar eclipses. She is also the historian and genealogist for her long-time California family, which finally accepted her back. 

*Not the artist, nor the other singer with the same name, nor the romance novelist.

• • Beth Elliott. “Bisexuality: The best thing that ever happened to lesbian-feminism?” In Loraine Hutchins & Lani Kaahumanu (eds). Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out. Alyson Books 408 pp 1991.
  • Beth Elliott. “Holly Near And Yet So Far”. In Elizabeth Reba Weise (ed). Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism. Seal Press 320 pp 1992.
  • Geri Nettick and Beth Elliot. Mirrors: Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual. N.Y.: Masquerade Books 1996.  Revised edition: CreateSpace  2011.  
  • Joanne Meyerowitz. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, Ma, London: Harvard University Press.  2002: 259-260.
  • Beth Elliot. Don’t Call It Virtual. ENC Press 2003. A satirical lesbian time-travel novel. With an associated biography at www.encpress.com/Beth_Elliott.html.
  • Susan Stryker. Transgender History. Seal Press. 190 pp 2008: 102-5,108-9.
  • Marcia M. Gallo. Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2006: 190-2.  
  • Josh Sides. Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009: 120-2. 
  • http://gerinettick.com.

Destiny Lauren (1979 – 2009) sex work, IRA bombings, miscarriages of justice and US royalty.

++ updated August 2013.

On 5th November 2009, Destiny Lauren aged 29, was found strangled in her flat in Kentish Town in northern London.   She was rushed to hospital but died shortly afterwards.

She was pre-op and worked as a prostitute.  Whether we classify her as a transsexual or as a prostitute, deaths like this are far too common.

Destiny had an interesting although rather sad family nexus, that most newspapers, with the exception of the Hampstead and Highgate Express, her local newspaper, did not pay any attention to.


Elizabeth and Paul Hill, brother and sister, were raised in Belfast, but moved to London.

On 5 October 1974 The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated two bombs at two pubs, The Horse and Groom and The Seven Stars, both in Guildford, Surrey, and both popular with British Army soldiers.  Four soldiers and one civilian were killed; a further sixty-five were wounded.  Under pressure to come up with results, the police arrested Paul Hill and three others (Gerry Conlon, Patrick Armstrong, Carole Richardson).  They were convicted and imprisoned.   Elizabeth Hill was also questioned and held at the police station for a week.

Elizabeth married a Mr Samuels, and they had four sons, including Justin who felt that he should have been a girl, and grew up to be Destiny.  Elizabeth endured the strain of campaigning for 15 years for her brother’s release.

In 1990, The Guildford Four were released.   Their convictions were overturned on appeal in that they were based on confessions extracted by torture, and evidence of innocence had been held back by the police.  In addition, at the trial of the Balcombe Street Four, the IRA men instructed their lawyers to draw attention to the fact that innocent people were serving time for the Guildford bombings.

The movie, In the Name of the Father, 1993, based on the autobiography by Gerry Conlon, is the story of the Guildford Four.

After release, in 1993,  Paul Hill married Mary Courtney Kennedy, the fifth child of Robert and Ethel Kennedy of Massachusetts.  They legally separated in 2006.

Elizabeth committed suicide in November 2005, at the flat that she shared with her daughter, Destiny.  Destiny, was well-known in London’s transsexual scene, and was an acquaintance of Boy George.  She continued to live in her mother’s flat, until she was found strangled.

Leon Fyle, 23, was convicted for the murder and jailed for 21 years in September 2010, but the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction the next April,  and he was again found guilty at the retrial.  He had stolen £350 found on her and spent £250 of it on two sex workers at a brothel in Kings Cross the same night.  Det Insp Liz Baker pointed out that Fyle never showed any remorse.

• “Tragic story of murdered transsexual, whose uncle was one of the Guildford Four”. Hampstead and Highgate Express. 26 November 2009. www.hamhigh.co.uk/content/camden/hamhigh/news/story.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=Newshamhigh&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newshamhigh&itemid=WeED26%20Nov%202009%2016%3A32%3A18%3A477. 
• "Man Jailed for "Brutal and Pre-Meditated" Murder".  LBC, 3/6/11.  www.lbc.co.uk/man-jailed-for-brutal-and-pre-meditated-murder-30611.
• "Man guilty of Destiny Lauren murder in Kentish Town".  BBC News, 21 Sepember 2011.  www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15010132.