[Portugal]
Portugal's president expected to let gays marry
Portugal's parliament passed a bill Friday that would make the predominantly Catholic nation the sixth in Europe to permit same-sex marriage.
Conservative President Anibal Cavaco Silva is thought unlikely to veto the Socialist government's bill, which won the support of all left-of-center parties. His ratification would allow the first same-sex marriage ceremonies to take place in April - a month before Pope Benedict XVI is due on an official visit to Portugal.

FELGTB celebra avance en igualdad de Portugal al haber aprobado el matrimonio gay

[España]
La Nueva España y la Transfobia
El tratamiento dau por La Nueva España (LNE) a la primera operación fecha a un transexual asturianu nun dexa de causar perplexidá. Nun ye la primer vez, nin probablemente seya la última, que LNE se desmarca con unos comentarios que nun escuenden pa nada un pensamientu que namás se pue caracterizar de transfóbicu. La esperiencia d’años anteriores diznos que’l decanu de la prensa asturiana xugó, y siguirá xugando, un papel hostil no que respecta a los derechos del colectivu de llesbianes, gais, transexuales y bisexuales (LGTB).

[UK] [Blog/Commentary]
THE GENDER TRUST BLOG: Debt, Depression and Detox
Happy New Year? Of course -your favourite blog’s back!
Hope you enjoyed the winter festival and are now feeling suitably fat, spotty and generally blue. Well, I wouldn’t want to be the only one…
But let’s start this new decade off positively. It may still be the bad old days for us trans people but history proves that, for minorities, a decade or two can make a major difference:

[UK]
Holyrood bosses apologise after transsexual searched by male guard
Bosses at the Scottish Parliament have been forced to apologise after a “very vulnerable young” transsexual visitor was searched by a male security guard.

[Sweden]
Give young transsexuals special ID cards: doc
Young Swedes who suspect they are transsexuals ought to be issued special ID cards allowing them to hide their undesired gender during their trial phase as the opposite sex, according to one of the country’s most respected child psychiatrists.

[France]
Les deux visages du troisième sexe
Dans « Claudette », la réalisatrice Sylvie Cachin brosse le portrait d’une hermaphrodite prostituée et père de famille. Un film sensible et nécessaire, entre destinée multiple et plaidoyer social.

[Kenya] [Commentary]
Africa: Pro-Transgender Development - Challenges Posed by Religious Extremism
Excerpt: Bashing lesbian, gay and transsexual Kenyans has become an easy score for preachers and priests. It's been used in congregations across the country. Sadly, Kenyans are a gullible people and their appetite for violence and miracles has turned them to easy prey for people wishing to make a quick buck. I mean, if not rebuking 'demons' these preachers would be working in holy gas stations (as Dawkins would call them), filling gullible Kenyans with hate against innocent transsexual Kenyans and other minorities.

[Iran]
la transsexualité n’est plus considérée comme un grand handicap
Un exemple supplémentaire de l'étonnant rapport de la République islamique à ses transsexuels: désormais, ils ne seront plus réformés de l'armée pour désordre mental.

[Japan]
Sex-change husband told to register boy as illegitimate child
A Hyogo Prefecture man, who had legally changed his sexual status due to sexual identity disorder, said Sunday that a local municipality had told him to register his son born by artificial insemination as an illegitimate child.

[Canada]
Living life as Ms. Understood
Former restauteur Ken Bogas has been living as a woman as part of the process of qualifying for gender-changing surgery.

[Canada]
Toronto may get first transgendered councillor in 2010 election
It’s possible that this coming fall George Smitherman will be our city’s first openly gay mayor. But Toronto’s October 2010 election could result in a council with more than one big – and queer - first.
(Photo: Meri Perra/NewsFIX - Ready to win: Enza Anderson is gearing up for this fall's election.)

[USA]
Is Transgenderism a mental illness?
The American Psychiatric Association thinks so, or is history repeating itself? The new DSM-V, the medical profession’s bible for diagnosing, is set to come out in May after delays caused by several areas of controversy. But, the APA has a legacy of uneasy relations with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, having included homosexuality in the DSM’s list of psychiatric disorders until 1973. Some transgender activists want issues of gender identity kicked off the list of mental illnesses too.

[USA]
Trans woman seeks uterine transplant
Sarah Luiz of The Colony, who’s no stranger to the media spotlight, aims to be world’s 1st trans mom.
(Photo: Renee Baker/Dallas Voice - Miramax Films once listed Sarah Luiz among its 100 most influential people in the world, and she holds the record for most appearances on Sally Jessy Raphael’s talk show.)

[USA] [Commentary]
Seeing My Transgender Roommate Transition Changed Me Too
There’s a certain amount of brouhaha amongst some evangelical Republicans over a minor presidential appointment in the Commerce Department. Amanda Simpson will perform a job for the public benefit that I can’t define.

[EUA]
Polémica en Estados Unidos por un chiste tránsfobo en televisión
Polémica en Estados Unidos por un gag supuestamente humorístico en el show de David Letterman de la CBS, uno de los late night televisivos más populares de la televisión de ese país. El gag se burla de la condición transexual de Amanda Simpson, recientemente elegida para ocupar un alto cargo en el Departamento de Comercio de la administración Obama.
La 'trans' de Obama
Amanda Simpson se convierte en la primera transexual en la Casa Blanca
Obama Appoints “Transgender” as Latest Homosexual Nominee
Christian group wants ’self-mutilating’ Obama appointee fired
[Blog/News] Religious Right Is Wrong on Amanda Simpson: She Deserves U.S. Job

[DC, USA] [News/Blog]
Dylan Orr Has The Honor Of Being First Trans Person Appointed To Obama Administration

Excerpt: Zoe Brain has pointed out in a quite a few places on the web that the honor of being the first actually goes to Lynn Conway. From the Clinton Administration media release entitled President Clinton Names Lynn Conway to the Air Force Academy Board of Visitors:

[USA]
Transgender actor makes finals of reality dating show
Alaskans who watched "Conveyor Belt of Love" on KIMO Channel 13 Monday night might have recognized Scott Turner Schofield. The transgender playwright and performer is associated with Anchorage's Out North theater company where he is the current guest artistic director.
(Photo courtesy Out North - Scott Turner Schofield is shown in a scene from "Debutante Balls" at Out North theater company. Schofield, who was born female, competed recently as one of 30 bachelors on ABC's "Conveyor Belt of Love.")

[USA]
Should your school’s dress code address transgender students?
Teenagers who push the limits of school dress codes are nothing new. Experimenting with clothing, hairstyles, and even make-up is a way for teens to explore their identities and test the limits of socially-acceptable behavior. Although school officials might find dress code enforcement challenging, dress code violations in the past tended to be fairly routine and usually revolved around prohibiting overtly sexually suggestive clothing or outward signs of gang affiliation.

[MA, USA]
Mass. trans couple settles discrimination case
A housing discrimination case brought by a Massachusetts transgender couple against landlords and a real estate agent of a rental property in Oxford, MA, has recently been settled.

[NY, USA]
Transgender bias at Thruway
A transgender woman who was secretly subjected to harassment, openly called "drag queen" and "freak," and later fired by the New York State Thruway Authority has been awarded more than $55,000 for her ordeal.

[OR, USA]
Kindergarten Complications
What the journey of transitioning from female to male means for a five-year-old in Silverton, and for those around him.

[Venezuela]
Cicatrices de una transexual reclaman justicia en exposición del Celarg
La universidad de la vida le otorgó el título de prostituta, las huellas en su cuerpo son el testimonio del maltrato y de la exclusión, es transexual, su nombre es Yhajaira, y en una exposición del Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos Rómulo Gallegos (Celarg) sus cicatrices hablan y su voz reclama justicia.