POST ONE; Issue Two
A Wild Elegance

contents:
Transsexual politics
Discrimination disguised as diversity and acceptance
(Trans) Gender is the Last Minority
Trying to speak Like a Woman
Transsexual Success Stories You Don't Hear About in prison

A wild Elegance is published 4 times a year, or as possible and is a free support and resource newsletter for prisoners with gender identity disorder. American Friends Service Committee ( AFSC ) is an authorized distributor of A Wild Elegance. You can also now find Wild Elegance at our blogspot at, http:// wildelegance.blogspot.com , in addition AFSC can be reached at 2161 Massachusetts avenue, Cambridge Ma. 02140-9961. This newsletter is published and edited by Donna Dawn Konitzer.

Transsexual politics

Political candidate is a milestone for transsexuals in America. Dr. Dana Has the prescription for you. This 54 year old former eye surgeon believes that the glut of lawyers in state legislatures leads to too many confrontations and too little team work on such issues as expanding access to health care, creating incentives for driving environmentally friendly cars, boosting the minimum wage and ensuring equality for all. Teachers, engineers, architects and doctors are whats needed to air out chambers filled with stale ideas, she says. And so when her local delegate in Chevy Chase, MD., announced he was running instead for state senate, Dr. Dana jumped into the crowded field.
The contest for one Maryland House seat normally wouldn't attract national attention. But this seat is special: Its being vacated by Richard madaleno, the first openly Gay non-incumbent elected to the Maryland House. Heavily favored to win this November, Madaleno's poised to become the state's first openly gay state senator. And if Dr. Dana Beyer wins, she'll be the first transsexual person to become a lawmaker in any state, legislature.
When I transitioned three years ago, I found myself, my voice and my cause. I have an opportunity to give back to the people who have laid the groundwork for me, the progressive Democrat explains of her leap into politics.
While transsexual Americans are increasingly being welcomed in workplaces, faith communities, and social circles, politics is still a relatively new field for them. New Zealand and Italy each have a transsexual member of parliament. In our country, Michelle Bruce, who sits on the Riverdale, Ga., city council, and Jessica Orsini, on the Board of Alderman in Centralia, Mo., are among the groundbreaking transsexual politicians.
This Novembers elections will feature a slew of races important to the GLBT community. One of the most exciting is in Alabama: Democrat Patricia Todd, who won her state House primary on July 18 and has no Republican opponent, will become the first openly gay lawmaker at any level in her state.
But while openly gay officials - now numbering 350 - can fight for the rights of transsexual citizens, they can't speak with the trans perspective of someone like Dr. Dana Beyer.
For example, two of her priorities are pushing for an amendment to the Maryland Constitution to prohibit health care providers from denying treatment based on their personal or religious beliefs. Dr. Beyer recalls a notorious incident in Washington DC., when a transsexual woman who had been in a car accident died after a paramedic stopped and interrupted treatment on the woman after discovering that she had male genitalia. By the time treatment had resumed, it was too late to save her.( Editors note: During the incident, the paramedic made degrading comments and laughed and invited others to observe the accident victims male genitalia.)
Dr. Beyer also wants to push for in depth research into how certain drugs and environmental toxins are affecting human beings, leading to such things as drops in sperm counts.
Competing in a progressive district already comfortable with a gay lawmaker, Beyer is now testing new political waters: A credible candidate who happens to be both a doctor and a transsexual is a milestone on transsexual Americans road to full acceptance.
Despite feeling she was always female, Dr. Beyer didn't make the transition through hormones and surgery until after September 11. She decided life is too short for her body not to match her mind and heart.
Her mothers biggest shock has been how much more Dana smiles now, after she has fully transitioned.
Dr Dana Beyer literally embodies what we so desperately need more of in politics: the courage to change.


Discrimination disguised as diversity and acceptance
The headline reads... 5 year old ' girl ' starting school is really a boy; Broward County Schools progressive policy on transgendered children will be tested by the admission to kindergarten this fall of a boy who believes that he's a girl.
The headline alone shows how far we have to go yet to find acceptance, and that no matter how we view ourselves, people in the media and the religious right will insist on addressing us or referencing us as males.
Only in a America can we accept and expect the media to out a five year old child with gender identity disorder on the front page of the local newspaper, with full cooperation from school officials.
While this child is likely the youngest trans child in a South Florida school system, she is not unique. Both Broward and Miami-Dade County School systems have policies in place to " smooth the way for such students."
While school officials and mental health professionals believe that it is in Pat's best interests to blend in as a female, their progressive policy for those with gender identity disorder also dictates that Patricia will be required to use a gender neutral name, Pat rather than Patricia.
Patricia will be required to use a unisex bathroom, will be addressed by a unisex name, and has been asked to dress in gender neutral clothing, such as shorts and pants and a shirt! School officials said this is standard practice in helping trans students fit in.
This sounds very familiar; any of you recognize this nonsense? You experience it everyday, its called bigotry veiled as security concerns. Prisons do it all the time. Not because they truly feel concerned about our safety, but because they are threatened by us and do not want to have to acknowledge us. Making us as invisible as possible helps them do this.
I thought I had seen pathetic at its worst, but this story in Florida has been a real eye opener. If they are willing to abuse a 5 year old child like this, one cringes at the thought of the worst they might be capable of.


( TRANS ) GENDER IS THE LAST MINORITY
By Michelle Lynne Kosilek

American jurisprudence has historically been the gateway to freedom, while remaining the last bastion of oppression to those most oppressed in our society.
Before Brown V. Board of Education, black Americans were not only denied equal access to education; in some states they were legislatively prohibited from sharing in the bounty of a free society.
Likewise with Roe V. Wade. Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling, back alley abortionists ( butchers ) thrived, while honorable and courageous physicians and midwives were jailed if they assisted in abortion.
Thousands of women followed their unborn children to the grave due to the compromised sanitation that existed in the back alley abortionists parlor, and just as many newborns were sentenced to a half-life, born to parents unable or unwilling to nurture them properly.
In recent times, The Court has finally ruled, in Lawrence V. Texas, that homosexual acts are protected, overturning a bias against homosexuality that had been legislatively enshrined for decades. The Court takes a long time to get in synch with America sometimes. The Illinois legislature came to this same conclusion in 1961.
Two years ago, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that gay people had the right to marry. Others will follow as Americans finally learn that gay people are only different in their bedrooms and only with each other, and not with children as religiou s right propagandists would have you believe.
Now it's our turn. The freedom train left the station years ago, but except for a few instances where it has slowed down enough for us to get a look at equality's elusive face, this train has never picked up passengers of the transsexual type. It is time to stop this train.
In the few instances where the courts have deigned to recognize that we (transsexuals) have a unique status, it has usually been in a limited capacity, and only after a lengthy, painful legal battle. In adopting this only as a last resort stance, the courts have enhanced the ability of prison systems to marginalize and abuse transsexual prisoners
O know a transsexual prisoner is to know her pain. A daily dase of this pain is generated by uninformed or more often abusive corrections staff who insist on using male names and pronouns when addressing us, which are extremely painful and damaging to our sense of self. More often than not, the courts will help to perpetuate this abuse, by joining prison staff in the use of genital based pronouns, or commenting in a footnote that only post-operative transsexuals are deserving of appropriate pronoun references. ( see U.S. V. Mendoza 262 f3d 957. 9th circuit 2001 ) The use of a footnote to dispense with preferred gender references, instead of a ruling in the body of the decision that would have precedent strength, is a means of marginalizing us. When we prevail, we gain nothing.
Medical treatment is even worse. The only instance in the annals of the federal judiciary where a specific medical condition has repeatedly been identified as being in need of no treatment or a minimal band-aid approach, is Gender identity disorder. From Phillips V. Michigan 731 Fsupp 792 C1990) to Kosilek V. Maloney 221 fsupp 2d 156 (2002) The courts have made a number of rulings that almost recognize our right to complete treatment, and even began to challenge legislative restrictions to treatment as in the case of Konitzer V. Bartow.(2005'); but almost is not good enough.
In 1994, Justice David Souter wrote in Farmer V. Brennan. that transsexualism is a rare psychiatric disorder that sometimes requires surgery. Until a Federal court specifically rules on this necessary medical procedure, all of us will stand in the station of societal rejection and watch as the freedom train roars right by us, fueled by hatred, misunderstanding, and court-sanctioned bias against us, the last minority on earth. Maybe 2006 will be our year. (Cases above that are underlined are federal civil case law. In Konitzer V. Bartow, the court issued a preliminary injunction ordering continued hormone therapy for Konitzer.)


TRYING TO SPEAK LIKE A WOMAN

The first thing we think of in making speech more feminine is pitch. Unfortunately, without surgery, pitch is probably the one thing we can do the least about. On the other hand, pitch is only one part of a complex system which influences the apparent gender of speech. Inflection, intonation, intensity, resonance, vocabulary, sentence structure, and nonverbal communications, ( facial expressions, gestures, body language and attire ) are all important and these are aspects that we can do a great deal about.
Before you even begin to work on the mechanics of trying to make your speech more feminine, you must first be in the proper mental state. As is the case with any task requiring skill, more than half the battle is having an internal mental image of being able to do
it.
Many traditional speech Therapy programs are available only to those who will be living as a woman full time. The training and cionditioning of such programs are designed to develope permanent changes in voice patterns to the extent that they become more than second nature, they become natural.
Switching vocal styles is not easy. At first,it may not feel natural. You may find yourself having a difficult time, first with pitch, then with quality, intonation, inflection, etc. Mind set is very important You also cannot expect to develope a feminine voice overnight just by reading a book, or watching a video. It takes time and practice and lots of trial and error to find your true voice. It helps a great deal if everything else you do in your daily life reflects your internal female identity.
Finally, and very important: females learn to speak female
talk as children and therefore, in addition to physical differences, they also have a different manner of speaking. While you cannot significantly change your voices without surgery, you can learn to control them and effect a more feminine manner of speech.
If you are to begin working on developing a more feminine style of speaking you must begin by learning language that women use. One cannot and should not practice more feminine styles of speaking using a masculine vocabulary and sentence structure.
Words associated with female speech tend to be more expressive and therefore females have a more colorful vocabulary for descriptions and more superlative terms for intensity. A typical male may see several ladies in red dresses where a more feminine person sees the same dresses as rose, scarlet, cerise or crimson dresses. To give an example: Thats a lovely dress she's wearing, is what a woman might say. A male would say the same thing as: That's a good looking dress. He might also say nice dress or beautiful dress. The more feminine person might say its a marvelous dress, or a gorgeous dress. The following chart (Chart A ) lists some examples of comparative masculine and feminine words and phrases. The choice of words is not really written in stone, or totally black and white, and will certainly be likely to vary from person to person. But this chart will provide you with a good example of the general differences. If you decide to select a biological female as a model for your speech, make sure she sounds feminine. Current trends are leading toward a blurring of the male/female vocabulary, with women trying to speak in a more masculine manner, particularly in previously male dominated careers. THAT STYLE WILL NOT HELP YOU. IT WILL EXPOSE YOU.
Chart A Comparison of masculine and feminine vocabulary.
Adjectives
Masculine Feminine
Pleasant Charming
Pretty Lovely
Nice Sweet
Great Fabulous
Different Quaint
Skinny Slender
Fragile Delicate
Mean Nasty
Big Large

Nouns
Dishes china
Sheets and Towels linens
Wash ( or dish ) rag Wash cloth
Finger Nails Nails
Shorts Panties
Underwear Lingerie
Women also structure their sentences differently than a male. In creating a more feminine speech style, you want to emulate this. A great example of the progression from the more masculine to the more feminine sentence is found in "LANGUAGE and the Women's Place " by Robin lakoff. Published by Harper & Rowe, New York NY (1975)

Here are some example sentences
a. Close the door. b. Please close the door.
c. Will you close the door? d. Will you please close the door? e.
Won't you close the door?

You can see the difference. With ( a ) starting out very masculine, and ( e ) being very feminine.
To take it one more step, a very polite and feminine way would be to say: Would you mind closing the door, please? You can see the progression from the direct request to the very polite plea to close the door. A male will make the request very direct and a fertiale will make the request more of a question or a polite plea to do something.

Women are also often more grammatically correct and polite in their conversation. They often add polite-isms or tag questions and qualifiers to their sentences. For example, if we take the sentence: Thats a lovely dress she's wearing. We can add the tag phrase, Isn't it? , So that the sentence becomes, Thats a lovely dress she's wearing, isn 't it? , or even, Don't you think that's a lovely dress she's wearing? We will have more on voice in next issue, and invite comments and suggestions as well as questions.

TRANSSEXUAL SUCCESS STORIES YOU DON'T USUALLY HEAR ABOUT IN PRISON.
Ben Barres knows what it feels like to be treated like a woman. He used to be one! Ben, who was formerly named Barbara, was born a biological female with gender identity disorder.
While in School, Barbara was desperate to ditch the woman stuff and join the boys. Ever year she asked, and every year she was told no.
Although a top science student, when it was time for college, Barbara was told that she would never achieve her dream of going to MIT. Her guidance counselor telling her, " Oh no, you'll never get in there." But Barbara did get in there and today Barbara is Ben with a B.S. from MIT, an M.D. from Dartmouth, and a Ph.D from Harvard. At 51, Ben is now a leading neuroscientist and a tenured professor at Stanford University.
Barres began his physical gender transformation at age 40, seeking testosterone therapy. Barres states, " I'm much happier now!" For those of us who have gone down this road, Ben's happiness comes as no surprise. I know I can remember how ecstatic I was when I began female hormone therapy 7 years ago! (Ben was recently featured on Dateline on NBC.)

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