[Spain]
Government studying political asylum for Algerian transsexual arrested in Alicante

He faces persecution in his home country if he is deported under an order issued by an Alicante court.

An Algerian transsexual who is due to be deported as an illegal immigrant under an order from a court in Alicante could be granted the right to stay in Spain as a political refugee.

[UK]
Pizza Hut sued for discrimination

Three gay men from Wales are suing Pizza Hut for sexual discrimination after they were refused service at a restaurant in Blackpool. Michael Kemp, 42, Paul Barnabas, 47, and his partner Iain Buck, 38, were among nine gay men and transsexuals who visited the Church Street restaurant.

[Germany] [Blog/Film]
Be Like Others

Be Like Others , a documentary on a topic that seems almost like the start of a joke -- did you know that in Iran, homosexuality is punishable by death, but sex-change operations are not only sanctioned by the governing clerics but almost actively encouraged? -- turns out to be a thoughtful, touching, and at times even wrenching study of sexual and religious hypocrisy in that troubled land.

[India]
Sex-reassignment surgery

Excerpt: Access to safe sex-reassignment surgery (SRS) remains a widely neglected medical issue in India. Despite the advances made in the field of cosmetic surgery, the majority of transgender persons can afford only crude methods of castration. Unfortunately, transsexuality is more a subject of cheap jokes than of any serious medical inquiry in India.

[USA] [Blog/Commentary]
The High Road?

Excerpt: The use of the phrase "a classic transgender" is clearly meant as either a pejorative or an attempt to dehumanize the person who created the offensive post…or both. If we are offended by people referring to women or men of transsexual experience as "a sex-change" or "a post-op/pre-op" rather than as a person, then we should not do it to other people. The high road needs to start somewhere, it might as well start here.

[USA] [Blog/History/Commentary]
Transgender History: Trans Expression in Ancient Times

History is written by the victors. Unfortunately, this tends to mean that a lot of truth gets lost over the eons, peaceful tribes can become demonized, portrayals of nature reverence can be twisted into"witchcraft" and a lot of the accurate documentation becomes lost over the years in intellectual pogroms, such as the burning of the library at Alexandria in Egypt by the Romans.

[NY, USA]
New York tabloid's "dehumanising" trans story

The story is now inaccessible from the Daily News website.

American tabloid newspaper the New York Daily News has been condemned by gay activists for its reporting of the murder of a trans woman.

On Sunday the paper published the headline Fooled John Stabbed Bronx Tranny.

The story referred to the murder a 25 year old transgender woman named Sanesha Stewart.

A "john" is American slang for a person who uses prostitutes.

[Blog/Commentary] Sanesha Stewart is dead and I have only tears and frustration for her

A man named Steve McMillian apparently stabbed Sanesha Stewart to death on Saturday morning. Who was she? She lived in the Bronx. She was tall and femme and well-liked by her neighbors. None of that makes any difference to the news media. They covered this tragedy with the appropriate mixture of respect for the deceased and a very cold eye towards the man who was dragged from her apartment, covered in her blood.

[USA]
The Queer Heterosexual, Redux

Excerpt: Once staunch separatists, queer people are flaunting our fluidity when it comes to gender and identity. Whereas in the late '80s and early '90s, the dominant LGBT narrative was a coming-out story, today it's more like "I'm a lesbian in a relationship with a gay-identified bi guy, so what does that make me?" Plus, the evolution of an out, proud, vocal, and visible transgender community has turned everything on its head, making the term "opposite sex" practically meaningless, or at best confusing. What's the opposite sex of a male-to-female transsexual? Is the lesbian lover of a male-to-female transgender person bisexual or something else entirely?