Gender- bender teen shot in B’klyn
By CELESTE KATZ
and GREG GITTRICH
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
A 20-year-old Brooklyn man shot a teenage transvestite four times – capping their illicit pre-dawn encounter with gunfire after discovering the youth was a boy, cops said yesterday. Jamel Stevens was tracked down Wednesday by detectives in Bedford-Stuyvesant and charged with attempted murder, assault and menacing
in the attack, authorities said. Stevens shot the 14-year-old twice in the left arm and twice in the left thigh just after 3 a.m. on Feb. 21 in the Marcy Houses playground on Nostrand Ave., police said. The young victim’s wounds were not life-threatening. He was treated and released from Kings County Hospital, police said. The teenage transvestite was wearing lip gloss and tight pants, and had long hair and painted nails, the source said. Still, there is no mistaking him for a girl, said Rafeal Hernandez, 17, a neighbor of the victim.
“It’s just noticeable that he’s a guy,” Hernandez said. Crystal Gonzalez, 19, said she had warned the teen to stop stuffing his shirt and dressing like a girl. “But he didn’t listen to me,” she said. “There are a lot of crazy people in this world who don’t accept gay people.” At Marcy Houses, Stevens’ family was stunned by his arrest. “Jamel has never been in trouble a day in his life,” said his grandmother, Patricia Fleming, 62. “I never had to go to the police station for him.” Fleming said Stevens, a construction worker, was living in Florida but moved back to Brooklyn this year after his sick mother lapsed into a coma. Fleming said she visited Stevens’ mother in the hospital yesterday. “I told her, ‘We need you. I can’t do this alone,'” she said.
Originally published on April 16, 2004
NBC poll on crossdressing
NBC is running a poll as to whether a person being a crossdresser would affect your vote – & right now, the people who wouldn’t vote for a CD are winning!
C’mon, folks, let’s turn this around!
Vote NO!
Trans-Partners forum at GLBT Center/NY
Tuesday, June 8
7 – 9 pm
The Center’s Public Policy Committee, Center Kids, and the Gender Identity Project present a forum on the challgnes facing individuals who are, or have been, or seek to be in relationships or partnerships with transgender, gender-different and gender questioning people. Experts and community members will explore some of the social, legal, medical and personal issues facing partners of trans, gender-different and gender question people, including:
Who are we? What do we call ourselves?
We are often in “community limbo” – where do we fit? Is there space for us in the “gay” community? Should there be? If not, where can we find or create community?
How does our hidden, and sometimes invisible, communite gets its needs met?
Are our concerns sometimes overshadowed by the issues of our trans-identified partners?
How do we maintain our identity when our partners’ identies may be in transition?
How can we create community in the face of these daunting matters?
How can we get our medical needs met by providers who often seem ignorant of our needs and identities?
Some of us are openly attracted to trans-people – why is it so difficult to find space for us too?
For more information, call 212 620 7310, or visit www.gaycenter.org
This Week's Action – 4/5/04
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on Tuesday photographs of candidate Sam Walls dressed in women’s clothes have circulated among political leaders in Johnson County, south of Fort Worth. Local Republican leaders confirmed separately that they had seen the photographs of Walls in a wig, dress and high heels.
The story is on the Reuters newswire, and so is being picked up by other papers – Newsday, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, etc. Find one of these papers – or write to Reuters directly – explaining that a man’s crossdressing by no means affects his ability to do his job! If you are a CD, explain who you are (engineer, teacher, tech, etc).
This is your opportunity, closeted CDs! Stand up for one of your fellow CDs. Mr. Walls is, some stories mention, a member of a chapter of Tri-Ess.
Of course, his being a CD is not a good reason to vote for him, either – unless of course his crossdressing encourages him to vote for trans-friendly legislation.
11 Stories about Crossdressing
An online magazine called The Morning News has a great set of stories up about crossdressing, by a writer named Kevin Fanning. Do check them out.
(thanks, gazingo!)
Doug Wright wins Pulitzer
I think the headlines all should have read, Gay Playwright Wins Pulitzer for Play about Transvestite
Doug Wright, who wrote the play, “I Am My Own Wife,” won the Pulitzer a couple of days ago. (There goes my chance of interviewing him.) If you haven’t gone to see the play yet, and you’re TG, you should be ashamed of yourself! It’s a wonderful, sympathetic-but-realistic portrait of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who lived through the Nazis and the Communists.
Read more about the play and order tickets
It’s worth checking out Charlotte’s book, I Am My Own Woman, as well as the documentary of the same name.
Join the IFGE
We just came back from the 2004 IFGE Conference, and we absolutely loved it! Lots of smart folks on hand to ask questions of (Richard Docter, Vern Bullough), activists to get inspired by (Hawk Stone, Holly Boswell, Angela Brightfeather), amazing artists (Kate Bornstein, Mariette Pathy Allen), people with medical information (Dr. Ousterhout, Dr. Shrang, Dr. Ostad), advocates (Wally Bacon, Debra Weil), counsellors (Virginia Erhardt, Arlene Istar Lev, Sandra Cole, Judith DiPerna), and presenters on everything from make-up to succeeding as a CD (Lacey Leigh, Susie Paris). The workshops were incredible. The entertainment was amazing. The community was inspiring.
So JOIN!
Subscribe to Transgender Tapestry. Become an IFGE member and go to their next conference, to take place in ’05 in Austin, TX!
www.ifge.org
Betty with Kate Bornstein:
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Prince? (Helen with VP)
Helen with Vern Bullough (author of Crossdressing, Sex, and Gender):
Mariette Pathy Allen and her hard-working camera, with Virginia Prince in the background:
TG Kickboxer in Thailand
From National Geographic:
Read the full article
View a photo gallery of Nong Turn
Here’s their intro to the story:
Thai “Ladyboy” Kickboxer Is Gender-Bending Knockout
Laura Greene
March 25, 2004
Laura Greene, host of National Geographic On Assignment, traveled to Thailand to delve into the world of the ladyboy – Thailand’s “third sex.” While on location she met with the country’s most famous ladyboy – a former champion kickboxer named Nong Tum.
Here Greene describes her time with Tum, and his transformation from a masculine boxer to a petit, pretty young woman. Tum’s story is now the subject of the new movie Beautiful Boxer.
I’m on my way to meet a celebrity who is a gender-bending knockout. Here in Thailand, Nong Tum is a household name.
Meeting a star is a little nerve wracking at the best of times. But today I have extra reason to worry…
MTF TGs in Pakistan
In Pakistan, MTF TGs are apparently called “Zananis.” But their fate isn’t much better than it is anywhere, especially those working as prostitutes.
Here’s an article about Zananis from the Daily Times, a Pakistani paper.
Continue reading “MTF TGs in Pakistan”
Soldier's Girl
A review of Showtime’s Soldier’s Girl showed up in a local NY newspaper, Newsday:
Soldier’s Girl (Showtime Entertainment, $27) is an astonishing piece of work that might have hit theatrical 10-best lists if it hadn’t been made for Showtime. This heartwrenching true-life tale topped my 2003 TV list, and the American Film Institute named it one of the tube’s 10 best (full disclosure: I was on the institute’s jury). The filmmakers could have gone wrong in so many ways with the story of an ingenuous GI who falls for a transgender woman, then is murdered by fellow soldiers for his unconditional love. But this film goes right every step of the way, focusing into its characters’ hearts and minds rather than on a “message” behind it all.
Director Frank Pierson talks in bonus interview footage about the “difficult and dangerous material.” The actors add insight into defining the simple but not simplistic GI (Troy Garity) and the woman/man he let his heart love (male actor Lee Pace, now on “Wonderfalls”) despite his brain’s bewilderment. Even the man behind the murder (Shawn Hatosy) is given depth and compassion. Other DVD extras reveal Pace’s gender-changing make- up routine, and trace the real-life tale as told by murdered soldier Barry Winchell’s mother, lover Calpernia Addams and the crew that put the project together. Addams joins Pierson, Garrity and scripter Ron Nyswaner (“Philadelphia”) on an emotional commentary track that captures how affecting it was to depict, as Nyswaner puts it, “a love that stepped outside the labels.”