A few of the films playing at the SF Int’l GLBT Film Festival are playing here in NY next week, too.
For information, tickets, memberships and descriptions, check www.newfest.org
The latest on Eddie Izzard
www.itv.com/news/641203.html
Izzard to star in his own life story
7.02PM, Sun May 16 2004
Comedian Eddie Izzard is making a feature-length documentary about his life.
Cameras have been following cross-dressing Eddie for the past three years in preparation of the documentary, called Diva 51, which will feature footage from his shows, backstage scenes and interviews with family and friends.
It will explore the subject of his transvestism, which he once described as being like “a lesbian trapped in a man’s body”, and follow his rise to fame in the States culminating in two Emmy awards for his stand-up show and a Tony nomination for his performance in A Day In The Death of Joe Egg.
Robin Williams, Tim Roth and Eric Idle also feature in the documentary, paying tribute to Izzard’s talents. Izzard is currently promoting the film at the Cannes
Film Festival which is scheduled for release in 2005. “There’s an element of my wild and large, rollicking ego about doing it, but I want the film to dig deep,”
he said.
Two TV shows this week
On Monday, May 10th, Entertainment Tonight is doing something about crossdressing, although even the participants don’t know exactly what. They stopped by Ina’s Silver Swan to film on May 1st, and also filmed at Fairplay (the transformation salon) in Staten Island. 7:30pm, CBS.
On Wednesday, May 12th, Oprah is doing a show on trans-youth. Here’s the description:
“She’s only 11 years old and wants a sex change. Meet the young girl living as a boy. Then, he’s only 5 years old and wants to be a girl. If this was your son, what would you do? A family torn apart. Meet children who say they were born in the wrong body. “
"The Opposite Sex" – Showtime documentary
From The Advocate, May 11, 2004
The Opposite Sex, a two-part Showtime documentary, begins with the gripping journey of trans man Rene Pena, a God-fearing, married truck driver
By Christopher Lisotta
The Opposite Sex: Rene’s Story opens with documentary subject Rene Pena jogging through the countryside. Handsome, muscled, and driven, he’s a prime example of masculinity. That only grows more obvious when the traditional, God-fearing Pena, a truck driver, interacts with his pretty wife of 11 years, Wona, and their two young sons. But appearances can be deceptive – although everything about Pena’s mind and heart shows he is a man, his body still forces him to face the fact that, at least biologically, he is a woman.
Films and documentaries exploring the transgender experience have become all the rage thanks to the success of Boys Don’t Cry, Southern Comfort, and Soldier’s Girl. But Bruce Hensel, MD, a heterosexual practicing physician and emergency room director who has been a medical reporter on Los Angeles’s KNBC-TV for more than 15 years, wanted to make a powerful film that presents the process of transition from start to finish.
The result is The Opposite Sex, a documentary in two parts, with each part telling the story of a different individual. The first part, Rene’s Story, airs May 3 at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on Showtime. Jamie’s Story, which follows a male-to-female transition, will debut in June. After each segment, Hensel moderates a panel in which trans men and women talk about their own experiences.
“I was so fascinated that so many people are so prejudiced about what they don’t understand,” Hensel explains. “I also knew that I could show the medical side. No movie has ever shown the full journey.” Pena wasn’t Hensel’s ideal choice for the female-to-male segment. Since the now-33-year-old was so masculine, Hensel feared that the audience wouldn’t believe Pena was a biological woman, and he felt the medical journey he was hoping to capture on film would be too short. But after a meeting with the couple – and with prodding from his business partner, out reality TV producer Stuart Krasnow – Hensel changed his mind.
“When we interviewed Rene and Wona, [the decision] was a no-brainer,” he explains. What was initially a liability became an asset once Hensel heard Pena’s personal story. Pena tells The Advocate, “I told my mom when I was 3 years old that God was going to make me a boy, and I never turned back from that statement, not one day of my life.” He refused to wear dresses and fought attempts by his family to make him act or appear feminine. At 11, Pena decided to live his life as a boy. “I just happened to have the strength to be what I wanted to be,” he says, noting that other transgendered people often wait decades before taking that step. “I may be different, but I’m not special.”
Pena’s reason for doing the project was clear: He wanted to get his lower surgery paid for and performed by a world-class doctor. In his early 20s Pena had a double mastectomy, but he’d never had a medical procedure to alter his vagina. Although the film’s producers refused to pay for any surgery, Pete Raphael, MD, a Texas surgeon who performs an innovative procedure that transforms a clitoris into a penis, did the work for free. One of the distinctive elements of the film is its graphic medical footage, which shows exactly what Pena went through to become a man.
Aside from Pena’s unswerving determination, Hensel was fascinated by his relationship with Wona (the couple are in the process of adopting the two boys who live with them). Intensely loyal to one another, the former high school sweethearts were reeling from being shunned by their church after Pena’s transgender status was revealed. “They have so many layers,” Hensel says. “They really love each other in the deepest way possible.” The Penas gave Hensel complete access to their lives, which play out with intense emotion on the screen as one revelation after another comes out into the open.
Both Pena and Hensel insist that the film does not exaggerate. “The pain you see is the pain that’s really there,” Hensel explains. “And triumph, the triumph is really there.”
TG Kickboxer – "Beautiful Boxer"
Film Tells of Kickboxer Who Had Sex Change
Fri Apr 16, 7:54 AM
SINGAPORE – A film about a real-life champion Thai kickboxer who hung up his gloves to undergo a sex change operation has meant more than box-office receipts to its subject – it’s given her peace of mind.
The recent Thai release of “Beautiful Boxer,” a dramatic film about her life as a transvestite and transsexual, has helped people understand the tough choices she’s made in her life, former prizefighter Parinya Charoenphol said at a news conference Wednesday.
“After the movie came out, it seemed like people could now understand the reasons why I made certain decisions,” Parinya said through a Thai translator, referring to the sex change operation she underwent in 1999.
“They have given me a lot of encouragement,” said Parinya, decked out in a white satin blouse, floral skirt and sharp-toed boots.
Parinya has been offered several acting roles and has accepted parts in four Thai television soap operas and an action movie.
“Beautiful Boxer” opens in Singapore on April 29.
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.”
Take My Breasts Away event
February 7, 7:00-10:00 pm
TAKE MY BREASTS AWAY
Gala fundraiser to raise money for FTM Evan Schwartz’s chest surgery. The incredible line up includes: Emcee Tristan Taormino; The Cast of Butch McCloud with Episode 7, Honey I Shrunk The Lesbians!; Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty; Drag performer extraordinaire Johnny Kat; clips from Transparents, a film about FTMs and their children; plus postcards to send to your congress persons, raffle with great prizes, and tasty culinary delights.
Location: The Center, 238 W. 13th Street, NYC
Admission: $20* (*no one turned away). You can purchase tickets in advance at www.smarttix.com.
Email: johnnykatloveschilifries@hotmail.com
URL: www.hottrannieboy.com
Take My Breasts Away event
February 7, 7:00-10:00 pm
TAKE MY BREASTS AWAY
Gala fundraiser to raise money for FTM Evan Schwartz’s chest surgery. The incredible line up includes: Emcee Tristan Taormino; The Cast of Butch McCloud with Episode 7, Honey I Shrunk The Lesbians!; Helen Boyd, author of My Husband Betty; Drag performer extraordinaire Johnny Kat; clips from Transparents, a film about FTMs and their children; plus postcards to send to your congress persons, raffle with great prizes, and tasty culinary delights.
Location: The Center, 238 W. 13th Street, NYC
Admission: $20* (*no one turned away). You can purchase tickets in advance at www.smarttix.com.
Email: johnnykatloveschilifries@hotmail.com
URL: www.hottrannieboy.com
10 Year Anniversary of Brandon Teena's Death
I found this article here
Brandon Teena 10 Years Later
(Falls City, Nebraska) While most of the world prepares to celebrate New Year’s Eve this week, transgendered Americans are pausing to remember Brandon Teena on the tenth anniversary of his murder.
The December 31, 1993 killing of the good-looking 21 year old galvanized Falls City, Brandon’s hometown, and for the first time put a national spotlight on the plight of the transgendered. It was the inspiration for the award-winning 1999 film, “Boy’s Don’t Cry” and led to the first civil rights laws for trans citizens.
Teena was a female to male pre-op transsexual and had been living as a male for several years. In December, 1993 he went to County Sheriff Charles Laux and reported he had been raped by two men, John Lotter and Marvin Nissen, after they discovered he had been born female and still had female organs. Teen had been dating a female friend of Lotter’s at the time.
Laux refused to investigate. A week later Teen was murdered by the pair who also killed two people who witnessed the killing.
Lotter and Nissen were eventually charged, tried, and sentenced, but not before the nation became gripped by the brutality of the case and the indifference of authorities.
An appeal by by Lotter was rejected by the Nebraska Court of Appeal earlier this year.
But, in his death, Teena gave birth to transgender militancy. Trans men and women across the country began to organize, forming lobby groups to not only educate the public but to press for civil rights.
Today, 65 municipalities and states have hate crime laws that specifically include transgendered people, according to the Transgender Law Policy Institute. California became the fourth state to adopt such a law earlier this year.
“How many times do you get to see a giant sea change like this in people’s perceptions? But you look at Congress, corporate America, and cities and states … and you see this enormous change in how people are looking at gender as a civil rights issue,” said Riki Wilchins, executive director of the Washington-based Gender Public Advocacy Coalition.
Yet, despite the advances, violence against the transgendered continues. Last year, 17 year old Gwen Araujo was murdered in California by three men who discovered she had been born male. A year ago, Nizah Morris a TG performer was murdered in Philadelphia. In the past 12 months, Remembering Our Dead, an online memorial that tracks bias killing of transgendered people around the world, recorded 17 deaths in the United States.
How To Tell Your Wife
I was recently asked by a CD how he should tell his wife on a mailing list I’m on, & since this is definitely one my most “Frequently Asked Questions” I thought I’d post the ’10 Guidelines For Telling Your Wife or Girlfriend” here. It always makes me so happy to know a CD wants to tell his wife. I know the urge is a little bit selfish on the part of the CDer, but it’s also a great sign of the respect & love he has for his wife.
After that, there is no simple answer. There is no guarantee she’ll deal well with the new info, or accept you. That said, I still think it’s worth it.
The things I’ve learned in doing the research are that:
1) The sooner a man tells his wife the better. Before marriage is best, but still – the sooner the better.
2) Know what your CDing means to you, so you can talk to her about it in some intelligent, sensitive way. If after you tell her, every answer afterward is “I don’t know” she’ll freak out. Be prepared for the ‘Are you gay?’ and ‘Do you want to be a woman?’ questions, & don’t get upset when she asks them.
3) Does she know gay & lesbian people? Any close friends or family members? Does she have any firsthand experience of discrimination or feeling ‘different’? How does she feel about being a woman, herself (ie is she a feminist, traditionally feminine, tomboyish, etc?) But keep in mind her general open-mindedness or political liberalness might go right out the window on this issue.
4) I’d recommend not hitting her with all of it at once – that is, tell her a story about yourself as a kid, putting on your mom’s nylons or whatever your first childhood experience was. Make sure you bring this up in a quiet time between you, conversationally, & you give her time to tell some childhood stories of her own. (In general, the ‘announcement’ method isn’t very good, it has to be more of a conversation, as unconfrontational as it can be.) Or, you can say you’ve been thinking about doing some female character for Halloween (please not a hooker or slut! Wonder Woman, an Amazon, some cool woman or heroine is usually better!) & see how she reacts. If she wants to play Charlie Chaplin to your Louise Brooks… you know she can ‘play’.
That doesn’t mean you can stop there. She needs to know the whole of it. I’m just saying it might be a good conversation starter. Eventually you will have to explain why you didn’t tell her sooner, apologize for not having done so, and be clear that you understand you screwed up.
5) This one’s personal: letting your fear & vulnerability about how scared you are of her acceptance worked like a charm in our case! All women differ, though – sometimes a woman might freak out if you come off as too feminine, or ‘soft’ – it depends on her. If she thinks it’s great you can cry at sad movies, then she might appreciate how much it means to you/hard hard it is for you to tell her. Not in a ‘woe is me’ kind of way – but just so she knows you’re sharing something about yourself that you wouldn’t trust most people to know.
6) After you tell her, don’t bring it up again until SHE does. In the meantime, read some books about women (not glamor magazines, biographies of famous women, or gender theory, or whatever. I just read “Am I A Woman?” by Cynthia Eller & recommend that.)
7) If she is accepting, make sure it’s fun for her and not all about you! Let her take the lead in figuring out how it can be. That is, if you suggest she be Charlie Chaplin for Halloween, she’ll just feel bad – but if she decides to, it might be totally empowering for her! Alternately, I’ve now heard of three happy younger couples who all went, for their first Halloween together, as “starlets.” You both get to glam up & feel sexy –
8) If she’s freaked out by it, drop the subject & wait wait wait to bring it up again. Don’t wait forever, but do give her time to sort out her own emotions about it. Be sensitive – if she seems like she needs to talk, ask her if she wants to. But don’t start the conversation with “So have you made up your mind about my crossdressing?” but more with something like “Do you have any questions?” Don’t assume crossdressing is what she wants to talk about. She may be wanting to discuss your little problem with leaving your dirty clothes outside the hamper.
9) Know your wife, make sure you keep up all the other romantic things you do for/with her. Bring her flowers, buy her gifts, & be less inhibited about telling her how much she means to you. Don’t lay it on too thick – just tell her how you feel about her, honestly. You CDs are all romantics, imho, so let it out!! Re-emphasize your non-CD life together, even if she is totally accepting! (as I like to put it, I don’t mind having a girlfriend, too, but I still always want my husband!)
10) Listen until your ears bleed. You have “known” a CD all your life – but this is probably the first time she’s met one! So it will take her time to get the idea wrapped around her head. In fact, when you first tell her, what you’re telling her may not even ‘register’ at some level. She won’t have any idea in the beginning that this is a permanent thing. Expect phases of anger, sadness, fury,disappointment. Try to remember that if you, as a CD, sometimes wish you weren’t a CD, she’ll have similar feelings.
P.S. If the husband needs to stay in the closet, so that she can’t tell anyone either, make sure she knows there are other wives of CDs who she can get to know & let off some steam with.