The Angels

Sparkle 2010 has been widely acknowledged as the best yet and I just wanted to thank everyone who worked so hard over the weekend itself. Plus all our generous sponsors and, of course, everyone who attended and made the weekend so successful.

For your diary the dates for 2011 are Friday 8^th July to Sunday 10^th July.

The web site will be re-launched in January when we start the fundraising and promotion for Sparkle 2011.

(From The Guardian) I knew that there was no right way to tell my family that I was transgendered – just that some ways were more wrong than others. (Dressing as Marilyn Monroe and bursting from a cake at a birthday was the first I discounted.) To find the least wrong way, I had to rack my memory for any clues, however minor, however old, as to how my family might react – and try to anticipate them.

I’d come out as ‘gay’ to them aged 18, when someone who’d been at school with me called to say he’d heard “a horrible rumour” that the girl over the road had seen me wearing a dress (imagine!). My parents were aware that I wore makeup around college, but I knew that I couldn’t pass off dressing at home as youthful rebellion: panicking, I decided to tell them something before someone else did.

I naively presumed that ‘gay’ would cover any sexual or gender difference in my parents’ minds: after a couple of tough conversations, things had carried on as before. But I came to think (without any real evidence) that they weren’t fully aware of my gender issues, believing that they’d dismissed my sixth-form expression as a phase. For years I avoided the subject because I couldn’t find the right word: cross-dresser sounded too innocuous (like writing to say I’d taken up the ukulele), transvestite too sexual, and transgender too vague – it would invite further questions rather than clarify who I was.

Coming to define as transsexual meant I’d have to come out again. This would be much harder, as my stock line of “I’m still the same person” wouldn’t work so well: in time I’d have a different body, a different voice, and a name different to the one they’d given me.

I discussed it extensively with friends, as well as checking the Transsexual Road Map‘s page on coming out to parents. A letter seemed best: I handwrote three pages, starting with the present and then explaining my past in the context of my gender issues. Then, I figured, they could digest it and respond when they felt ready. Trembling, I posted it: there was no going back.

I spent the following days contemplating their response. I expected neither ecstasy nor excommunication, but could not guess where between those extremes it would fall. I knew that their expectations for me would be challenged – and most likely exchanged for anxieties. Would they think it was their ‘fault’? Fear for my future? Or be ashamed of me?

Days later, I received an email from my father, explaining that although they were struggling to comprehend my decision, time and understanding would enable us to continue to be part of each other’s lives. They visited me in Brighton and we had a long, difficult conversation where we discussed all their fears at length: I might regret it (a risk I was no longer unwilling to take); I might not ‘pass’ (not my primary concern); I might get beaten up (I’d developed strategies against that in Crawley and Manchester).

Eventually, it seemed best to try to talk about something else. “Who am I going to talk to about football?” asked my mother. “Me!” I replied. She was by no means the only person to think of this first. One friend’s second question was, “Will you still support Norwich?” To which I said, “No, Ipswich.”

Perhaps this was because they’d absorbed some stereotypical ideas about trans women becoming Stepford-esque when living as female. I was surprised that they’d applied this to me – but I was more surprised that on coming out, friends and family might initially see my transition as some sort of ‘death’. Carrying on our relationships as normal soon proved that all that was ‘dying’ was my masculine façade.

Fine: as long as your loved ones can accept that conforming to the expectations around your assigned gender was a ‘façade’ and carry on ‘as normal’ – or at least try. Support services for families of transsexual people exist, but remain underfunded and underpublicised: Depend offers information and online discussion forums; the Beaumont Society, originally a support group primarily for heterosexual transvestites and their wives, provides opportunities for trans people and relatives to meet; and Mermaids runs an information line for gender-variant children and their families.

None of these, though, are particularly prominent, and I’m sure that my parents weren’t the only ones who didn’t know where to find them, turning instead to television documentaries – which often overplay the ‘pathetic’ in ‘sympathetic’, or reinforce stereotypes and prejudices handed down through generations as transgenderism became visible during the last century.

Attending the Clare Project for sessions with a gender-specialist counsellor, I saw firsthand how the internalisation of these prejudices affected people – people transitioning in their fifties or sixties because they’d felt too afraid to do so in their youth, in floods of tears because their wives might become estranged, their children (or grandchildren) might disown them, or their elderly parents might die without accepting them. One friend of mine was barred from her mother’s funeral, long after coming out to her family. I’m sure she was not the first, and won’t be the last, to suffer such rejection.

I’m fortunate enough to be able to negotiate a new ‘normality’ with my parents: I’ve asserted my new identity more slowly than with my friends, allowing them time to adjust, and share the news with other relatives, who – having less invested in my gender and public image – have been accepting. For my parents, my ‘becoming a woman’ has not realised their worst fears (embodied by those Daily Mail columns and cartoons): ‘time and understanding’ from both sides have indeed allowed us to remain part of each other’s lives, thanks to our willingness to respect and share each other’s concerns.

I hope that with each generation, more families are able to do the same.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/14/tell-family-transgender

The Sparkle Flickr group is now open for photos of this weekend’s Sparkle event.

please tag pictures with sparkle10 where you can, and geotagging is useful, but not essential

group can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sparkle05/

I can’t make it this year due to other commitments, but I hope you all have a great weekend

Jo
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(Sunday Sun) A TRANSGENDER teacher has been praised for putting her own complex problems behind her and helping to fight for minority rights and recognition.

Bea Groves was born as a man but decided to live as a woman around three years ago.

The 54-year-old teacher, of Cullercoats, North Tyneside, said she struggled with gender issues throughout her teens and went through bouts of depression as she found it difficult to fit in with the world around her.

She realised she had a male’s body but a woman’s mind, and eventually took the decision to live as a woman.

She officially changed her name to Beatrix and stepped out wearing female clothes and make-up. While some transgender people have surgery to change their sex, Bea does not wish to have any medical procedures.

Bea, who teaches history, politics, computing and philosophy to adults through the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), said she was supported by her family, work colleagues and students.

She added: “I’ve known I was different all my life. I went through huge depression and the cause was my gender issues.

“When I got to my teens, I realised I could not relate to other males or to maleness.

“At first it was a difficult thing to admit to myself because of the stigma attached to it.

“When I decided to ‘come out’ in women’s clothes, I was scared witless.

“I drank a lot of white wine for Dutch courage. But it felt liberating too.

“Once you’ve done that, there’s no turning back. I now consider myself as a woman.

“I understand it is difficult to take on board when someone you have known as a male starts looking like a female. But thankfully I have good friends and supportive family. And my students have accepted me.”



Bea has been helping to give transgender people a voice and holds presentations for various groups about what it’s like and about the various problems and prejudices

She has just completed an NVQ level two qualification in community development work through the Sunderland-based ETEC Development Trust charity. Her project focused on raising transgender awareness.

At a celebration event, Bea was one of 22 to receive certificates for their hard work.

Now she hopes to set an example to others who are struggling with their identities.

Bea, who is 6ft 1in tall, describes her look as “secretarial”, wearing conservative skirts, blouses and shoes.

She said: “Transgender people have a negative image in the media and in society. We suffer from prejudice and abuse like any other minority group. Most just want to be accepted for who they are. But many are at the receiving end of personal attacks.

“I have not had any physical or vocal abuse, but there has been what I call drive-by abuse where drivers stop and make comments.

“You also get drunken yobs or people who mutter under their breath.

“The worst part is the underground prejudice, when nothing is said but people’s actions show how they feel. For example, others not wanting to sit next to you or people not using the proper pronouns. Some will not say ‘she’, they will say ‘he’ or even worse ‘it’, which is very hurtful.

“In the Press and on TV, transgender people are often at the receiving end of inappropriate jokes. But our lives are not a joke. The suicide rate among transgender people is high, with many suffering severe problems.

“Through my work, I hope to raise awareness about these issues.”

Original Article here. by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

(The Guardian) Juliet Jacques was born a boy, but always knew that something wasn’t quite right. In the first of a series of columns charting her gender reassignment process, she describes how she gradually came to terms with her true identity

I decided my name should be Juliet when I was 10. It took a further 17 years to let it rise from the back of my mind, where I had swiftly buried it, and become my identity. Don’t ask my “real” name: it’s not polite.

Changing my name was easy – a deed poll costs about £30. Changing my body is far harder. In Britain, there are two gender reassignment routes: expensive (private) or slow (NHS). Having declined the terms by which I could raise £30,000 for private treatment, I’ve chosen slow – which some people feel shouldn’t exist. Without it, though, I’d face a lifetime in a body I loathe, being asked to meet social expectations which feel alien to me, creating mental health problems that would require (state-funded) treatment for years, even decades.

Beginning the gender reassignment process is the next, admittedly huge, stage in managing my lifelong gender dysphoria. Fulfilling the classical transsexual narrative – the one that gender clinics like to hear – I knew I was “different” as a child. My first indication of how came at primary school, when a friend said: “We’ve got to make you more masculine.”

Why? I didn’t consider myself predominantly masculine or feminine: I liked violent toys (particularly Transformers – the irony had not yet become apparent) AND fluffy kittens. I hadn’t realised the fundamental role gender plays in most children’s development: how it provides both a group to belong to and something to define themselves against, and a base for all future personal development. And all this before most are old enough to question why girls should do X and boys should do Y (or, more often, in both cases, not do).

Unlike most of my contemporaries, I had reason to question gender stereotypes. Aged 10, I saw two men cross-dressing on television (I’d love to say it was these two, but it wasn’t), and I felt an irresistible urge to copy them.

Putting on a dress, I was floored by a surge of energy. Momentarily, I felt completely at ease: then total confusion. Why was I turned on? Was I a “transvestite”? Did I want a “sex change”? Then fear: what if my family caught me? What if my classmates found out? Nobody must ever know, I told myself, cross-dressing behind closed curtains, panicking when my parents’ car pulled up the drive before I’d covered my tracks.

Publicly, I struggled to present a convincing masculine persona. First, I became misogynistic, resenting the girls at school who I imagined had an easy, fun relationship between their gender identities and their bodies (little did I realise, aged 13, how utterly absurd that was). Soon, I learned to respect women: I turned my rage on myself, and my inability to feel comfortable in my body, let alone fit in with my peers.

I never joined my classmates when they waxed fantastical about who was “fit”. I didn’t dare admit, even to myself, that I enjoyed cross-dressing and found transgender people attractive (not that I knew the word “transgender” then). I channelled my frustration into football (which became my main concession to masculinity) and fronting a punk band.

Isolated, I scoured the mainstream media for like-minded individuals, but it seemed the closest people to me in the public eye were objects of ridicule: Lily Savage or Pauline Calf. I knew I wasn’t a drag queen, or a transvestite, but I didn’t know what I was.

I refused to admit how drawn I was whenever I saw the word “transsexual” – usually in my parents’ Daily Mail. Their coverage tended towards stories about greedy transsexuals milking the state or their employers, usually accompanied by cartoons of burly men in floral dresses with stubbly legs (little has changed – note the pronouns).

Then I discovered Eddie Izzard, who hilariously normalised cross-dressing, and The Smiths, with their sublime glorification of the outsider. I felt less alone – but I still knew nobody like me in suburban Surrey.

The internet was a godsend: at last, I found men who dressed as, or had become, women. Finally, I accepted myself. Moving to college, I was ready to come out – but as what?

I declared myself gay and a cross-dresser: “gay” because although I felt attracted to males who were somehow female, I still considered them men; and “cross-dresser” because it seemed the most innocuous term. I picked a male image off the post-punk peg – spiky hair, raincoat, DM boots and Joy Division T-shirts – and started cross-dressing with female friends, periodically scandalising the people of Horsham (it wasn’t difficult) by wearing makeup and women’s clothes around town. Mostly, though, I kept my femaleness private: I didn’t want my gender to become sensational (at least, not all the time), and presenting as male seemed the easiest option.

After two idyllic years, I went to university in Manchester. Now, the city has a vivid transgender scene – including Sparkle, Britain’s only national transgender celebration – but I arrived too early. In turn-of-the-millennium Manchester, as elsewhere, trans culture was struggling to achieve visibility within, let alone a distinct identity from, the gay scene made famous by Queer As Folk.

I soon realised that men-only clubs weren’t for me, gravitating towards Manhattan’s, with its cross-dressing barmaids and bizarre opening times, and the Hollywood Showbar. Both featured drag acts, but I rarely saw transgender people there: when I did, they were a small number, often huddled in a corner, nearly always at least 20 years older than me. I created my own spaces, cross-dressing at club nights I organised: I felt accepted by my friends, but lonely, still knowing no trans people.

In Brighton one summer, I went out as Juliet for the first time, aged 20. A friend took me to Harlequins, where trans people were made especially welcome (its toilets were designated ‘Gents’ and ‘Ladies/TV/TS’). Its music and decor resembled the campest gay clubs – there were drag acts followed by a hyper-cheese disco. Although I hated the playlist (OK, apart from the numerous guilty pleasures), I loved the atmosphere, and the liberation it provided: I’d never felt so myself.

After graduating, I took a postgraduate course at the University of Sussex. Feeling more comfortable, I became more open about my ‘cross-dressing’, but I was only just discovering the deliberately vague, all-encompassing transgender identity theorised in the 90s by Leslie Feinberg, Kate Bornstein and others – all cornerstones of Sussex’s Gender Studies MA programme (which I neglected in favour of Literature and Visual Culture).

Feeling more at home in Brighton, I finally acted on my belief that I was a gay man. I had two brief relationships with men, both of which foundered on their sexual disinclination towards my irrepressible femininity. I realised that the reason I didn’t fit into the gay scene was because I was not a gay man. Instead, I finally admitted to myself that I must fit somewhere on the daunting, ill-defined CD/TV/TS spectrum. But where?

Original Post on The Guardian

Talks and Workshops – Sparkle @ The Mechanics Institute: 10am – 4.30pm

The venue this year is The Mechanics Institute, 103 Princess Street, M1 6DD. Which is easily accessible just behind New York, New York and AXM Bar – just two minutes walk from Canal Street

As in previous years we have invited a number of speakers each to give a talk and answer questions in sessions lasting about an hour each. They are all experts in their respective fields and are ready to share knowledge and experience which will be of interest to many. There is also an art display and your chance to help create an artwork for auction!

Directions To the Mechanic’s Institute:

From Sackville Gardens walk along Canal Street, past “Villaggio” and turning right at “Spirit” into Abingdon Street. Continue straight on crossing Richmond Street, Bloom Street and Hart Street. The entrance to the Mechanic’s Institute is in Major Street, opposite the entrance to Cruz 101.
The route from Sackville Gardens will be signed on the day.

There is good disabled access and a lift and stairs to the second floor. The bar will be open at lunchtime and will stay open “as long as it is being used”. No food is available in the Mechanic’s Institute but visitors are welcome to bring sandwiches (no hot food please) and please take away any rubbish with you.

The days events at the Mechanic’s Institute have largely been funded by a grant from the Manchester Pride Community Fund 2009.

10.30am to 11.30am – Professor Stephen Whittle OBE, Press For Change

12.00pm to 1.00pm – Vicky Lee, Wayout Club
Feminism, Its Relationship To Transgender And What Happened To It

2.00pm to 3.00pm – Natacha Kennedy
Transgender Children: Extreme Social Exclusion

3.30pm to 4.30pm – Denise Anderson
Domestic Abuse and Trans People

Lee Middlehurst in The Dean Room 10.00am – 4.30pm

For Sparkle, Lee, as well as displaying previous work, will be inviting visitors to help create a new work – A picture of Audrey Hepburn – by adding their own CD/DVD fragment to the picture. This will be completed on the day and kindly donated by Lee and auctioned at the Sparkle Ball on Saturday night for Sparkle funds.

Full information is here:

http://www.sparkle.org.uk/events.html

 (Daily Telegraph) After five years living in India and New Zealand I was struck on coming to China how effeminate many of the young men look – walk along some of the trendier hutong streets of Beijing or through the university campuses and the gender vibe is very ambiguous.

In so many ways – dress, attitudes to work and old Confucian family values, personal ambitions and spending habits – China’s young post-80s and 90s generation is pushing against the boundaries of conventional society.

The latest example of this is the mixed public reaction to a 19-year-old boy who dared to appear at a regional heat of China’s “Super Boy” singing contest – a kind of Chinese Pop Idol – dressed as a girl: and a very attractive girl at that.

The judges were completely stumped by the appearance of Liu Zhu, a student at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, who sported luxuriant long hair (real) and wore high-heels and stockings that concealed legs that would be the envy of many a woman.

Liu brushed off the indignity of the judges’ skeptical questioning – rightly refusing an invitation to chose a male or female judge to ‘check his gender but swearing ‘on his dignity’ that he was male – and then proceeded to sing sufficiently well to make to the next round.

Asked in an interview afterwards why he’d appeared dressed as girl, Liu matter-of-factly replied that this was simply the way he always dressed.

“This way is more natural, if I purposely dress like a boy just for this contest, I think it would be very fake. I am indeed a boy, and I dress like this every day, but I think everyone has their own choice, their own way of life.”

It was a statement of quiet defiance that turned him into an internet sensation. As of lunchtime today his blog page had received 2,847,226 visits from a fascinated public. (You can see a gallery of photos of Liu here on China Hush, and a video of his performance.)

The twist in the tale came last weekend, however, when Liu was eliminated from the competition as he attempted to reach the last 300 competitors, with the internet fizzing with allegations that the State authorities had ordered his elimination after deciding Liu threw up too many awkward social questions – a charge the producers denied.

Surfing the chatrooms, however, you get the real sense of an age-divide when it comes to attitudes towards Liu and homosexuality and cross-gender issues in general.

His fans – and they are many – felt that Liu had the right to stay in the contest since he was male and should be free to dress whatever way he wanted.

The antithesis of this was summed up by a comment from an older generation who suggested bluntly that Liu go off to Thailand or Japan where that kind of monkey-business (I paraphrase) was acceptable.

“I was born in the 1970s into a generation that looked up to virility. If you want to prove your value please go to Thailand or Japan,” the commenter said, “Hopefully you can stand on the stage dressed as a man one day. I believe at that time you will win much more support”

The media in China are now talking about the dawning of the era of “Ta” – so coined because the Chinese personal pronoun “Ta” (he/she/it) is non-gender specific.

It is also worth noting that in the world of Chinese singing contests at least the gender-issue cuts both ways. In Super Girl 2009 one of the most popular girl contestants, Zeng Yike, was nicknamed “Brother Zeng” because of her tom-boyish appearance.

I don’t know where all this leads, beyond the fact that it is sure evidence of a socio-cultural upheaval in Chinese society that is evolving at a rate much faster than the country’s elders are able to comfortably handle.

This can be seen in the strangely schizophrenic attitude of the Chinese authorities towards the gay world – some days, with great self-congratulatory fanfare, allowing gay parades, bars, fashion shows and movie festivals and then, sometimes even on the same day, shutting them down again.

If I was a young, gay Chinese, I think I’d rightly be confused, but excited all the same to be living in the ‘era of ‘Ta’’.

(GayNZ.com) A researcher has found transgender youth are particularly vulnerable to being drawn into the sex industry.

A team led by Gillian Abel from University of Otago, Christchurch, interviewed 772 sex workers for the book Taking the crime out of sex work – New Zealand sex workers’ fight for decriminalisation.

Abel says they found decriminalisation of New Zealand’s sex industry has resulted in safer, healthier sex workers.

“The book provides compelling evidence decriminalisation has achieved the aim of addressing sex workers’ human rights and has had a positive effect on their health and safety.”

It found sex workers have knowledge of their employment rights and are more likely to assert them. They also have a better relationship with police and are more likely to report violence, but there is still stigma associated with the job.

An area of concern that emerged was transgender youth, who the researchers found are particularly vulnerable to being drawn into the industry and need greater support.

Abel says transgender workers tend to work either privately or on the street.  She says street-based workers are still acknowledged as being the most vulnerable sector of the sex industry – even in a decriminalised environment.

“Transgender participants in our study tended to start sex work, on the street, at an early age because they had often left home as a result of conflict within their families about their gender identity,” she says.

“They then found some sense of community with other transgender people on the street.”

Abel adds that when transgender participants tried employment in other occupations, they were often discriminated against and made to feel like everybody was staring and talking about them.

Abel says there needs to be more support for transgender youth, while Government social policies need to be improved overall to protect all those aged under 18 entering sex work.  She cites freeing up access to the independent youth benefit as one possible way forward.

http://www.gaynz.com/articles/publish/2/article_8797.php

(NY Daily News) It just got a little easier for a transgender person to work at American Eagle Outfitters – at least on paper.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has forced the flannel and khaki outpost to make some changes, including nixing a rule about employee “personal appearance” that banned men from wearing women’s clothing and ladies from dressing as guys.

“This shows me that there’s faith and hope. There might be a domino effect, that’s what I’m hoping for,” said Joi-elle White, 35, a transgender member of Make the Road New York.

The community group complained to Cuomo’s office about what it called a pattern of discrimination against transgender job hunters. A probe confirmed the complaints, officials said.

The retailer – which employs more than 2,000 people in its 61 New York stores – signed a settlement deal promising to change its policies and employee handbook.

“To avoid further expense and the distraction of a prolonged argument, [we have] agreed to a compromise settlement in this case, with the understanding that AEO is not admitting to the findings,” a company spokeswoman said.

“We wholeheartedly believe that transgender individuals should be treated equally,” she added in a statement.

The chain store also has agreed to train its staff on transgender issues – like which pronouns to use when referring to workers and customers.

The April settlement is the first crackdown against a retailer under the section of the state’s Human Rights Law that bars employers from discriminating against applicants because of their gender identity.

“If more places would follow behind American Eagle’s experience, a lot of us would be able to work more. and there would be less of us on the street or on the Internet risking our life just to survive,” White said.