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

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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.

Restaurant Tells Woman who Ran into Male Cross-Dresser in Ladies Room to Use Men’s Room (+video)

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Photo Credit: CBS

By Todd Starnes. A Nashville woman who found herself face-to-face with a “big, burly” cross-dresser in the ladies room of a family restaurant felt her horror turn to anger after a restaurant manager suggested she try the men’s room.

Transgendered people in several states have been fighting for the right to use public restrooms that correspond with whatever sex they consider themselves, with lawmakers in California and Massachusetts providing support for the idea. But David Staton, whose wife had the disquieting run-in while eating out at Amerigo, a restaurant in the country music capital, has a simple solution.

“There needs to be some sort of law that says if you are born a man with man-parts, you go to the men’s bathroom,” said Staton.“In a family restaurant, men should go to the men’s room and women should go to the women’s.”

Amerigo owner Doug Hogrefe confirmed to Fox News that the incident occurred and apologized to the couple.

“Amerigo does not have a policy regarding questioning its guests about gender identity in our restrooms,” he said. “In my 20-plus years in the restaurant industry, this is also the first time something like this has come up.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Transgender Teen Voted Prom Queen At Middleboro High

By Lauren Leamanczyk. Cody Tubman had a dream prom night, the perfect dress and then the crown to go with it.

Cody was voted prom queen of Middleboro High School.

“I was all smiles,” Cody says laughing. “We were standing there and they announced I was prom queen. So I was like ‘oh yay, so exciting,’ But it was kind of surprising.”

It was surprising because Cody is transgender.

She was born a boy but she started dressing as a girl when she was a freshman in high school. She says she feels more confident and comfortable in her body. Read more from this story HERE.

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‘Transgender’ person reveals how he served as part of Navy SEAL Team Six for 20 years before retiring and leaving his male self behind

Photo Credit: Daily Mail


By Meghan Keneally. A former Navy SEAL has written a book about the 20 years that they spent in the elite squad before living life as a woman.

Kristen Beck was called Chris while she served in the famous Navy SEAL squad, one team of which gained international recognition for being the ones who killed Osama bin Laden.

As Chris, Beck served for 20 years in SEAL team 6 and retired just months before the May 2011 raid on bin Laden’s compound.

During her time in the military, Beck went on 13 deployments- including seven in combat zones- and earned both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

Now she is detailing her multi-year process in transitioning from living life as one of the world’s most highly-skilled soldiers to that of her female personality that feels like more of a matched fit to her mental and emotional personality. Read more from this story HERE.

Transgender 'Woman' Banned From Idaho Store Over Use of Restroom

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Photo Credit: hunnnterrr

A transgender woman whose use of a women’s restroom in an Idaho grocery store reportedly upset other customers has been cited for trespassing and banned from the store for a year, police said on Friday.

A Rosauers supermarket in Lewiston asked police to charge 25-year-old Ally Robledo, who was born male but identifies as female, with the misdemeanor trespass charge on Monday, Lewiston Police Captain Roger Lanier said.

“The store security officer said he had been dealing with a problem over a couple days with the person going into the women’s restroom and urinating while standing up,” Lanier said. He added that the store had reported that Robledo’s use of the restroom made other female customers “very uncomfortable.”

Robledo said she was being discriminated against.

“I’m a female trapped in a man’s body. It’s natural for me to go to the ladies’ room. Getting the no trespassing order for a public restroom was really painful,” she said. The incident follows several cases that have stoked public debate about the boundaries of gender identity and the rights of transgender people to use accommodations such as restrooms in government buildings and businesses open to the public.

Read more from this story HERE.

University of Iowa First to Offer ‘Transgender’ Option on Admissions Application

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IOWA CITY, Iowa – The University of Iowa has become the first public U.S. university to include optional questions about sexual orientation and gender identity on its application, a move hailed Wednesday by advocates hoping to improve the college experience for gays and lesbians.

University officials say the move sends a strong signal that they value the diversity that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students bring to campus. They say that knowing some students’ sexual orientation will allow them to track their enrollment and graduation rates and promote housing, student groups and programs that might improve their social and academic success.

“This is a question whose time had come,” university admissions director Michael Barron said.

Iowa’s decision was praised by Campus Pride, an advocacy group that has been lobbying colleges to ask the questions so schools can track the progress of LGBT students. Elmhurst College, a private liberal-arts school in suburban Chicago, became the first — and is still the only other — college to do so last year.

Iowa’s new application, which went into use Dec. 1, asks students whether they “identify with the LGBTQ Community.” The item is listed with other optional questions about topics such as their interest in military programs and fraternities and sororities. A second change added “transgender” as an option for an applicant’s gender.

Read more from this story HERE.

Culture in Flames: States Allow Men to Expose Themselves to Girls in Public Bathrooms

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I know that many conservatives don’t like talking about the politics of sex and how our country has now normalized perversion. But it’s precisely due to this passivity that we’re now at a point in many states where a man, calling himself “transgendered,” can legally walk into a girls’ locker room, strip down, and lay out spread eagle for everyone to see.

Yes, it really happened in the state of Washington. That state, as well as 15 others plus the District of Columbia, prohibit “discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression.”

So what exactly does that mean? If the state has a public facility, it can’t prohibit access based upon one’s declaration that he is a “woman trapped in a man’s body” or vice-versa.

The insanity of this is obvious to any common-sensed American. And if you have any doubt, what happened last month in Olympia, Washington, should make that insanity crystal clear.

Evergreen State College has a swimming pool that it shares with several secondary schools in the Olympia area. Of course, in addition to a pool, the college also has a women’s locker room. A man named Colleen Francis (pictured above), who claims he is “transgendered,” stripped naked, laid out in the sauna, and according to Fox News, “exposed his genitals on several occasions.”

After several high school girls in the women’s locker room saw him, they complained.

Nevertheless, given Washington law that “requires equal access to state facilities regardless of gender identity,” it appears that Francis’s naked display to juvenile girls was legally protected.

So what’s the solution? The minor girls are now using a smaller locker room at the pool while Mr. Francis may continue to expose himself to the adult female patrons in the larger facility.

This is flat out CRAZY. And frankly, it hits close to home. I fly through the Seattle Airport, not infrequently, with my beautiful daughters and wife. They use the women’s public restroom that the State of Washington says Mr. Francis must have equal access to. So now, I get to cross my fingers hoping that some “transgendered” man won’t be lurking in the female restroom, waiting to (legally) expose himself to my young girls.

But why should I be surprised at this world-upside-down? My GOP-led state just allowed Alaskans to choose what sex they are on their driver’s licenses . . .

Biden: Transgender discrimination is ‘civil rights issue of our time’

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Vice President Joe Biden described transgender discrimination as the “civil rights issue of our time” after speaking with a woman at a campaign event Tuesday in Sarasota, Fla.

As reported by Politico, Biden singed Linda Carragher Bourne of Sarasota out because of her beautiful eyes. Bourne told reporters that she spoke with the vice president and told him that her daughter was Miss Trans New England and asked if he would help. In response, Biden said the words, “civil rights issue of our time”.

Biden has been very passionate and dedicated when it comes to LGBT issues. It was just this past August in Provincetown, MA that Biden enthusiastically told a group of LGBT advocates that they were “freeing the souls of the American people” and are a symbol for the advancement of “civil rights of every straight American”.

Bourne was encouraged by Biden’s response and believes the Democratic ticket is the country’s best chance of obtaining civil rights for all.

Read more from this story HERE.

Out-of-Control Judiciary: Federal Judge Orders Expert Opinion on Whether Electrolysis is Necessary for Sex Change Murderer

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The federal judge who last month ordered taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery for transsexual wife-killer Robert Kosilek is now forcing the state prison system to hire an expert to determine whether he needs electrolysis hair-removal treatment.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf issued the order today, telling the Department of Corrections to identify the expert by Nov. 2 “to evaluate Kosilek to determine whether electrolysis is medically necessary, and/or to provide the electrolysis, if it is ordered to do so.”

A state prison doc testified in 2010 that Kosilek doesn’t need the treatment; that doctor, Robert Deiner, will be called to testify again at a Nov. 19 hearing.

The Department of Corrections refused to comment on today’s order.

Wolf, in a landmark ruling last month, ordered the surgery for Kosilek, 63, an MCI-Norfolk lifer who suffers from gender-identity disorder and sued the state to provide sex-change surgery in 2006. Wolf ruled the surgery was “a serious medical need” and to deny the surgery would violate Kosilek’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

Read more from this story HERE.

Deployed US Soldier Begins Sex Change

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She’s a lesbian, and almost everyone in her unit knows it.

She wears her hair cropped short and has a distinctly boyish appearance.

And she’s becoming manlier by the day, now that she’s started taking male hormones.

Call her Keith. That’s the name this 26-year-old specialist, now deployed to Afghanistan, plans to take when she completes a transition begun several months ago when she started giving herself testosterone injections every other week, under the direction of a civilian doctor who specializes in gender changes.

“It’s going well. My voice is deeper, I’m getting more muscle. I feel more energy. I feel more like myself,” she told Military Times in a recent interview via Skype from her containerized housing unit in Afghanistan.

Read more from this story HERE.

Insanity: Federal Judge Orders Sex-Change Surgery for Convicted Murderer

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A federal judge on Tuesday ordered state prison officials to provide a taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery to a transgender inmate serving life in prison for murder.

U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled in the case of Michelle Kosilek, who was born as a man but has received hormone treatments and lives as a woman in an all-male prison. Robert Kosilek was convicted of murder in the killing of his wife in 1990.

Judge Wolf is believed to be the first federal judge to order prison officials to provide the surgery for a transgender inmate.

Kosilek first sued the MassachusettsDepartment of Correction 12 years ago. Two years later, Judge Wolf ruled that Kosilek was entitled to treatment for gender-identity disorder but stopped short of ordering surgery. Kosilek sued again in 2005, arguing that the surgery is a medical necessity.

In his ruling Tuesday, Judge Wolf found that surgery is the “only adequate treatment” for Kosilek’s “serious medical need.”

Read more from this story HERE.

FAA Drops Psychological Testing for “Transgendered” Pilots

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Individuals suffering from gender identity issues will no longer be required to undergo psychological evaluation in order to qualify for a pilot’s license, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has decided. The change, reported the UK’s MailOnline news site, came after a “transgender” individual identifying himself as Tamsyn Waterhouse (pictured, from YouTube video) campaigned to have the long-time safety policy dropped. Waterhouse, who lives in San Francisco, “learned to fly as a child under her [sic] father’s supervision and gained her private pilot’s license in 2003 at the age of 23,” reported the news site. “But when the 32-year-old attempted to get her medical certificate renewed after finishing grad school in 2009, the Federal Aviation Administration made it near-impossible for her.”

In a YouTube video posted by the Transgender Law Center, which assisted in the case, Waterhouse explained that at the time he applied for the medical certificate renewal, he was also “in the process of gender transition” — meaning, apparently, that he was going through various surgical and hormonal procedures to assume a female identity. “The aviation medical examiner I saw had to defer my app to the FAA,” explained Waterhouse. “And the FAA responded by demanding a litany of psychiatric tests, which one psychologist I spoke to described as ‘every test in the book.’ ” Waterhouse explained that the tests “would have taken days and thousands of dollars” to complete, “and the FAA would still have the discretion as to whether to issue certification after that.”

The man-turned-woman complained that “even if I could have paid the money, passed the tests, and got a limited form of certification back, every transgender pilot in the U.S wold be subject to the same discrimination,” something he and the Transgender Law Center determined was unacceptable. With the help of, among others, homosexual Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the National Center for Transgender Equality, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Waterhouse and the Transgender Law Center succeeded in forcing the FAA to drop the policy. “Over the course of several years, and a lot of hard work,” Waterhouse said on the YouTube video, “now we’re proud to announce, finally, that the FAA has removed this unnecessary, burdensome, and prejudicial, psychiatric testing requirement.”

Waterhouse, who hopes to be in the air soon with a renewed medical certificate, said [s]he felt that the effort was “a big first step” toward ending discrimination against people who feel like changing their gender identity. “Someday I hope that all pilots can be treated fairly with regard to gender,” Waterhouse told ABC News.

Matt Wood, the Transgender Law Center attorney who helped Waterhouse with the case, argued that the FAA policy was tethered to “outdated stereotypes that someone who changed their gender had something mentally wrong with them. Anyone who is transgender has to undergo medical or psychological treatment to help their external body match their internal sense of self. That is no different from any other kind of medical condition….”

Read more from this story HERE.