Posts

Transgender Teacher to Return to California Classroom as ‘True Self’

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Kellie ParkerParents of students at a California high school are reacting to news that a long-time male high school science teacher is going to return after spring break as a woman.

The teacher, Gary Sconce, informed the Yosemite School District that he will be back in the classroom April 22 as his “true self,” a woman by the name of Karen Adell Scot, KFSN-TV reported Thursday.

“When you aren’t who you really are, it’s like being smothered. It’s like being rolled in a wave, if you’ve ever been rolled in a wave in the ocean where you can’t find your way up, you don’t know which direction you’ve been turned,” Scot told the station.

The 56-year-old husband, father and award-winning teacher came out to his family last April. Since then he has been undergoing hormone replacement therapy to transition to the person he says he is intended to be. He has been a teacher for 24 years

School district Superintendent James Sargent announced that Sconce was “in the midst of gender transition” in a March 19 letter to the parents of all 650 students at Yosemite High, the Fresno Bee reported.

Read more from this story HERE.

Tranny Blames Former Male Self for Triple Murder

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters Authorities in Washington State believe that a series of murders of prostitutes in 1990 were committed by Washington resident Douglas Perry. Now Perry has been captured and charged with the murders, but Douglas has become “Donna,” a transgender woman who claims that she is not responsible for the murders because Douglas no longer exists.

Donna’s novel defense is that as a male she was prone to violence so she had gender reassignment surgery in Thailand a few years ago in order to purge herself of those violent tendencies. Further, since she is now a woman, she is a wholly different person and therefore she isn’t responsible for what her former male self did.

Donna was arrested for the murders in 2012 after being apprehended on an unrelated weapons charge. Police found that her fingerprints matched what had become a cold case in the murders of the three prostitutes decades ago.

If Donna’s defense were to be accepted by the courts, it could lead to unintended consequences for the transgender community as their former selves could possibly be universally considered mentally ill. This is a diagnosis that people with alternate lifestyles have been working hard to defeat for decades.

LGBT spokesmen warn against accepting Perry’s claims at face value.

Read more from this story HERE.

D.C. Health Plans to Include Gender-Reassignment Surgeries

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: ASTRID RIECKEND.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray on Thursday announced that the city will recognize gender dysphoria as a medical condition, forcing insurance companies to cover treatments such as gender-reassignment surgery for transgender people.

The coverage extends to all D.C. residents with group or individual health insurance — including the roughly one-third of city residents receiving Medicaid benefits — whose doctors diagnose the condition and for whom treatment is deemed medically necessary.

“This action places the District at the forefront of advancing the rights of transgender individuals,” Mr. Gray said at his ceremonial office at City Hall. The District joins California, Colorado, Connecticut, Oregon and Vermont in requiring the coverage, which the federal government will not be made to offer to its employees.

Transgender activists applauded the move, saying it guarantees coverage for treatments such as gender reassignment surgery that can cost tens of thousands of dollars and which have been denied by insurance companies that deemed the procedures cosmetic.

“This isn’t about who’s paying for things. This is about whether or not it’s medical care and who gets to decide that,” said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “Nobody in America wants their health care decisions made by the insurance companies.”

Read more this story HERE.

California Schools Prepare for Transgender Rights Law

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

With a law that spells out the rights of transgender students in grades K-12 set to take effect in California, school districts are reviewing locker room layouts, scheduling sensitivity training for coaches, assessing who will sleep where during overnight field trips and reconsidering senior portrait dress codes.

But administrators, counselors, teachers and school board members also are watching and waiting. The law, the nation’s first requiring public schools to let children use sex-segregated facilities and participate in the gender-specific activities of their choice, could end up suspended within days of its Jan. 1 launch if a referendum to repeal it qualifies for the November ballot.

To obtain a public vote on the law, passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown, a coalition of conservative groups called Privacy for All Students has collected hundreds of thousands of signatures. Counties have until Jan. 8 to verify them through random spot-checking.

Depending on how many are found to be valid, the secretary of state will approve the referendum, determine that it failed or order a review of every signature.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen when kids come back from their holiday vacation,” said Republican state Sen. Steve Knight, who voted against the law. “Are there going to be 15-year-old girls talking in the bathroom and in walks a boy? What are they going to do? Scream? Run out?”

Read more from this story HERE.

No Recourse for Girls Harassed by Transgender Student (+video)

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: hunnnterrrThe push for radical transgender rights in schools is trumping privacy rights at one Colorado high school.

A male student at Florence High School who claims to be a transgender has been harrassing girls in the bathroom. When parents complained, school officials said the boy’s rights as a transgender trumped their daughters’ privacy rights.

As the controversy grew, some students were threatened with being kicked off athletic teams or charged with hate crimes if they continued to voice concerns.

Read more from this story HERE.

Prop. 8 Players Join Bid to Repeal Transgender Law

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

An effort to overturn a new law allowing transgender students to choose which school restrooms they use and whether to play boys or girls sports got a boost Friday when a major player in the passage of California’s now-defunct same-sex marriage ban threw its support behind the campaign.

The National Organization for Marriage announced it was working with another conservative group, the Capitol Resource Institute, to repeal the law at the ballot box. The marriage group provided early fundraising and organizing for the 2008 ballot initiative that outlawed same-sex marriages, known as Proposition 8.

Opponents of the transgender student law have until Nov. 8 to gather the signatures of 504,760 registered voters needed to place a referendum on the November 2014 ballot to nullify the statute.

The National Organization for Marriage is encouraging its members to help circulate petitions and to give money that could be used to hire professional signature-gatherers.

The political strategist who ran the successful Proposition 8 campaign, Frank Schubert, has signed on to manage the referendum campaign. Noting that no one has ever qualified a referendum in California using only volunteers, Schubert said “it’s a virtual certainty” the campaign will hire paid petition-circulators to supplement work already going on at churches statewide.

Read more from this story HERE.

Top ‘LGBT Friendly’ Colleges Offer ‘Gender-Free’ Bathrooms, ‘Queer Studies’ Minor

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Campus Pride, a gay rights advocacy group, released its annual list of the “Top 25 LGBT Friendly Colleges and Universities” on Tuesday, which includes schools with gender-neutral bathrooms and a minor in “queer studies.”

The top 25 schools had to achieve five stars in overall, sexual orientation, and gender identity/expression categories in order to be listed in the top 25. Each school also had to be 4.5 stars or above in eight LGBT-friendly factor areas.

The final Top 25 had the highest percentage ratings and reflects colleges with student populations from 2500 to over 25,000, both public and private schools.

The University of Oregon is the only institution in the state to offer Queer Studies as a minor in their Department of Women’s and Gender Studies.

“Help change the world with your newfound critical thinking skills by promoting respect in the workplace. Aid a city as it institutes its new gay-marriage law. Promote diversity in adoption rights. You’ll be able to create and foster a culturally responsive community wherever you go,” the university said its website.

Read more from this story HERE.

Air Force Base Hosts Drag Queens

/22 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox NewsMilitary personnel at the Los Angeles Air Force Base were treated to a Diversity Day musical performance featuring three individuals dressed in drag. The performance sparked outrage among some airmen who called the performance “totally offensive and inappropriate.”

The Diversity Day celebration featured a speech by Brigadier General Tammy Smith and included booths representing and honoring a number of ethnic heritages as well as an LGBT booth.

The airman said he was troubled when three individuals dressed in drag began performing on the air base.

Photographs of the event show an individual wearing a giant wig performing to a sparse crowd underneath the American flag. It’s unclear whether the individuals in high heels and form-fitting dresses are members of the Air Force.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bill to Allow Transgender Students to Choose Bathrooms Moves to California Governor’s Desk

/1 Comment/in , /by

A bill that would let school kids use whatever bathroom or play on whichever sports team they believe matches their gender identity – and not necessarily their anatomy – is on the desk of California Gov. Jerry Brown.

Brown won’t say what he plans to do, but the measure passed easily in the two legislative chambers despite criticism from conservative groups who want biology to dictate bathroom use.

Supporters say transgendered kids feel alienated when they can’t use the bathroom of the sex with which they associate.

The law would end exclusion that “negatively impacts students’ ability to succeed in school and graduate with their class,” said Jesse Melgar, a spokesman for Equality California.

Read more from this story HERE.

Crossdressing Camp for Boys As Young As Six Draws Criticism From Christian Leaders

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Lindsay MorrisYoung boys preening in front of mirrors putting on makeup, picking flowers in skirts, and prancing in heels and dresses at a talent show: all these are depicted in controversial photoessay, featured on Slate this week, documenting an annual summer camp for gender confused boys. The images are drawing praise from gay activists, and criticisms from pro-family leaders.

For the last three years, photographer Lindsay Morris has attended the four-day-long camp for “gender variant” boys from 6 to 16 and their families held in an undisclosed location in New England. Morris refers to the camp by the pseudonym “Camp ‘You Are You,’” although her description of the camp closely matches the one given on the website for Camp Aranu’tiq for “transgender” boys, which was featured last year in the Boston Globe, and which makes campers and visitors sign a confidentiality agreement. According to the Globe, it is the only camp of its kind in America.

Morris, who recently published the photoessay on her website, told Slate that the camp is aimed at “parents who don’t have a gender-confirming 3-year-old who wants to wear high heels and prefers to go down the pink aisle in K-Mart and not that nasty dark boys’ aisle.”

She said that the fashion show was one of the highlights of the camp, and something that many boys and their families worked to prepare for all year. “Some … create their own gowns with their mothers or friends of the family,” Morris said. “The focus and enthusiasm is really pretty incredible.”

On her own website, Morris describes the camp as “a temporary safe haven where gender-variant boys can freely express their interpretations of femininity alongside their parents and siblings.” Adds Morris, “Here, they can be true to their inner nature without feeling the need to look over their shoulders.”

Read more from this story HERE.