A Wild Elegance

2007-07-22T16:55:00.000-07:00

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.)

On to post two

2007-06-22T18:00:00.000-07:00

POST Two, Issue Two

A Wild Elegance
Contents:
transsexual Prisoner placement
Crooked Guns Can't Shoot Straight

TRANSSEXUAL PRISONER PLACEMENT
Jessica Maria Brooks

It is a sad fact of life that occasionally even a TS woman will commit a crime and get sent to prison. More often than not, the TS woman is stealing, selling drugs, or perhaps even her body for the purpose of getting money to pay for hormones and other treatments; Whatever the reason, TS women do get sent to prison and once there, life can be hell.
Generally, federal and state prison systems will house TS prisoners based on their external genitalia. A TS woman who has had a sex change surgery might be placed in a women's prison. Not all states make such transfers. Any other TS prisoners however, regardless of their state of transition - hormonal - surgical or otherwise, will remain in a male facility if they still have male genitals.
Unfortunately, this system of classificatiori and placement can have horrific consequences for TS women entering into an all male prison environment against their will. They are placed at great risk of being raped, assaulted. This is often a result of putting themselves at risk however, by engaging in unsafe behaviors. While the author may live in a prison system that has a number of very dangerous prisons, this is not the reality in most states anymore.
There are some limited safety precautions available to prisoners in such circumstances, but none of them adequately protect the TS prisoner and all of them are punitive in effect.
Many prison systems have protective custody or other protective units for prisoners susceptible to victimization such as snitches and prisoners who would otherwise be at risk in a prisons general population. In the vast majority of prison systems, prison inmates who are housed in protective custody or segregation units are NOT preyed on by other inmates housed on such units because the inmates on these units do not have direct contact with one another.
Protective and segregation units also may exclude inmates housed on such units from privileges and activities available to other inmates in the general prison population.
There is a lot of drama and risk in the jailhouse relationship arena, but for those who feel they have no other alternative for safety and are willing to sacrifice their health by putting themselves at risk for AIDS or HEP C, it does offer some protection.
Really, when all is said and done, there is no adequate form of protection for TS prisoners, and you may be subject to discrimination, harassment , assault. ( Often dependent upon your attitude and the manner in which you relate to your peers.) I have come up with a possible solution however. One that promises to take a lot of time, effort and research, help from outside sources, etc., but one that has the potential to truly solve the problems of placement for TS prisoners as well as many other aspects of life for TS women in prison.
What if the prison system in your state had one prison that they earmarked for housing only a certain type of prisoner? Transsexuals, queens, the intersexed, effeminate inmates, inmates who were vulnerable and victim prone based on their appearance or behavior. Mostly it would be a place for housing transsexuals and gays.
In New York City several years ago, a school was opened for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual children. It was believed that this would allow such students to be free of stress in the classroom and allow for better study.
Teachers, counselors, other students, and parents of other , students regularly complained about having gender variant or gay children in close proximity with their children. Schools established arbitrary rules against cross-dressing, or homosexuals establishing groups within the school.
Punishments were generously handed down to those students who were just being themselves and hurting nobody.
One day, some students had a seemingly great idea and proposed that a school be created for students who were sexual or gender variant minorities where they could go to school and learn without unnecessary stress and anxiety, and teachers, counselors, and other school employee's now had an opportunity to relocate to a school where they too would be treated with respect, dignity and acceptance.
So what if a state prison system adopted a similar solution to the placement problems associated with TS, intersexed, homosexual, and gender variant prisoners? This is my idea and I hope to pursue it aggressively until it becomes a reality. I would propose that NY State clear out one of the maximum security prisons and repopulate it with minorities of the above type, both inmates and staff.
Once operational, this prison can have medical staff that are qualified to deal with the specific needs of inmates who are TS, gay, intersexed, etc. A program can be set up with mental health staff, with at least one professional who has training and experience in dealing with GID where the prisoner has never been diagnosed with GID and or never begun hormone therapy or any other form of treatment and can be evaluated, diagnosed, and possibly placed on hormone therapy.
The benefits of creating such a prison far outweigh the negatives.
While I am persistently fighting to obtain treatment for my GID, and to have the system change its policies regarding all inmates with GID, I have devoted myself to this new and additional cause, as I believe it is a very promising solution to the problems we face in our prisons currently. I hope that this inspires others to come forward with similar ideas, and maybe some of those individuals will also take up the fight themselves .
Hope is good , but action can be far more rewarding. (Editor note: this article was heavily edited due to space requirements and content. The Editor does not advocate prisons in which gay, queens, intersexed and transsexual inmates are placed at. Transsexuals should be placed in female prisons. Period. The solution cited in the body of this article only further marginalizes transsexuals.)

CROOKED GUNS CANT SHOOT STRAIGHT: PART ONE
Michelle Lynne Kosilek

For a long time now transsexual prisoners have been challenging their conditions of confinement regarding medical care for GID. The first successful challenge was in the summer of 1991 when Lindsay Phillips got an injunction from a federal court in Michigan to be placed back on estrogen, based on the fact that she had been on estrogen prior to being arrested.'
This was the last meaningful court ruling for many years, as a number of prison systems later, developed policies to match the courts ruling, but no more than what the court ruled. As a result, the few states that did allow hormones only did so for ladies who were on prescribed hormones prior to incarceration. Kosilek vs. Moloney J changed that, resulting in a ruling that required an individual evaluation by a specialist in gender identity disorder, and outlawing the blanket policies that treated everyone the same, effectively denying treatment to most.
When the federal Courts began to subject GID treatment claims by prisoners to closer scrutiny, the search began for experts in the treatment and etiology of gender identity disorder, who were willing to testify that prisoners could be safely denied adequate treatment for GID, with no risks to the prisoners health.
The use of contradictory expert testimony in criminal and civil trials is a time honored practice in this country, often quite helpful to juries deciding issues that affect thousands or even millions of lives, as in cases involving product liability litigation. In most cases, this is a balanced legal battle, where differing opinions on scientific facts are easily settled by solid science. This surety does not exist where GID treatment is concerned, especially when a powerful state funded agency has taken an adversarial approach position against GID treatment for prisoners for political or personal reasons. This is compounded when many people who purport to be experts in and treat GID also bring to the table their own antiquated views as to what constitutes appropriate care for a prisoner with GID.
In recent years, a small cadre of experts with GID experience has been responsible for treatment denial for numerous prisoners in this country seeking congruity between mind and body. Their decisions regarding prisoner treatment for GID are not based on not on the HBIGDA1 standards of care, but rather, on political opposition, security concerns ( which is really often nothing more than a veil for hate and bigotry) fiscal frugality, and any other claim their masters in the DOC of any state insist is relevant, often with tragic results.
Some of these so called experts ( even one traitorous trans woman ) who are willing to take payment from anyone willing to pay them, to say anything the particular dept of corrections wants them to say and testify to are profiled below. These are litigation whores in the truest sense of the word. Like a prostitute who walks the street, they will sell you whatever you wish, say whatever you like. They allow anyone to subvert what few principles they may have, for a price.
Robert Dickey MD, Who is head of the gender clinic at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, affiliated with the university of Toronto, Canada. He is also head of the Lawward mental health program for correctional services Canada. In his private practice, Dr. Dickey requires trans women to take estrogen for a minimum of two years of living as a female before he will consider them for sex reassignment surgery. Twice as long as the HBIGDA standards of care require. This may be due to the fact that Canada has socialized health care, and tries to minimize surgeries that it considers expensive.
As an expert witness, Dr. Dickey has testified both for and against GID treatment for prisoners, depending on who was paying him for his testimony. His colleague, Maxine Peterson, herself a trans woman, has also testified against prisoners with a hostile anti-GID treatment for prisoners philosophy. ( Dr. Dickey, Why are you such a Dickey!?)
Chester W. Schmidt Jr. MD, of Bayview Medical Center, a Johns Hopkins affiliated clinic, claims to be a GID specialist, yet, in more than 30 years of periphial affiliation with transgendered patients, he has never recommended sex reassignment surgery for a single patient. This makes him a valuable witness for any prison system wishing to deny SRS to a prisoner. His colleague at Johns Hopkins, Cynthia Osborne, personally believes that no prisoner should even be allowed hormone therapy and .will diagnose a prisoner without even meeting the prisoner, if enough cash is offered to Ms. Osborne, despite legal and ethical prohibitions against this practice.
The Johns Hopkins School of Medicines Dept of Psychiatry was headed until very recently by Dr. Paul McHugh MD, who is so opposed to sex reassignment surgery that he petitioned the Vatican to condemn such surgery as a sin! Dr. McHugh has gone on the record referring to trans women as mere Caricatures of women.
An honorable mention goes to Walter Meyer III MD, a former president of the HBIGDA who is willing to lend the stature of that organization to a personal claim by him, motivated by personal bias, that prisoners should never be allowed SRS because once its allowed, trans-women will commit crimes so they can be sent to prison and get free SRS. Using his same convoluted reasoning, prison systems could save billions every year by denying medical treatment for HIV-AIDS, Cirrhosis, Hep C, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Cancer and any other medical condition that might be expensive to treat. In the Law, there is a term for such intellectual sloppiness, its referred to as Reductio Ad Absurdum. This is Latin for: Reduced to Absurdity. And that is what happens with Dr. Meyers argument upon only brief examination. The fact is, no trans woman would EVER commit crimes to purposely be sent to prison so that she could get SRS, knowing how trans women are treated by prison officials and prison guards, everywhere in this country. That would be far too high price to pay for any surgery.
Those who are politically opposed to treatment for GID do anything, will do anything, even seek an expert from outside the country when they can find nobody in the United States unethical enough to support their hate driven mandate of refusing to provide treatment for GID to prisoners with GID.
Although only a small handful of these anti-treatment whores exist, it only takes one to achieve a victory in federal court for a prison system who's abusive treatment of trans women results in auto-castrations, genital mutilations and suicide for the trans woman who's hope has been snatched away by a paid liar.
If you are a prisoner who is suing for GID treatment, make sure you are aware from the onset, and that your attorney is too if you have one, that DOC's will generally go sniffing around Johns Hopkins for an expert in GID who has an anti-treatment for prisoners philosophy. ( Editor's note: If you are an inmate and you do not have an attorney representing you, you will likely lose your case up against such an expert and create bad case law as well, which has a negative effect on us all. Don't try to litigate your own case because you think you can tell your story better than a lawyer, lawyers have resources available to them that prisoners just do not have, and those resources are absolutely necessary even to win a winable case.)
1. Phillips vs. Michigan 731 Fsupp ( 1990 WD of Mich) ; 2.
Kosilek vs. Maloney 221 Fsupp 2d 156;
3. Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association.

On to Post Three

2007-06-14T20:36:00.000-07:00

pictures of donna

2007-05-22T18:12:00.000-07:00

Post Three; Issue Two

A Wild Elegance;
contents:
poetry Corner
The Poetry of Michelle Lynne Kosilek
Penpals

POETRY CORNER

THE STORY'S OVER WHEN
The crowds are gone
and the actress
is all alone
playing the saddest song........a
mournful melody
bitter melancholy
wishing
the lights could stay turned
on.
Again to shine
upon her loneliness within
the barren theatre of her life.
She plots and plans and
hopes
in vain.
Sadness and tears
cry out
to the lure of
a night and a life
without unfulfilled dreams
grasping to a leaving
world and slipping....
No longer able to pay the charge.
Submitted By: Anonymous

LOVES EMBRACE
Sheathed inside
soft like velvet
a warm moist silken shroud

For me, a sweet fullness
soft biting
nails scratching down your back
my moaning...
as you tunnel my warm depths

Waves peak
come crashing down
and I shudder
over and over and
throbbing....
then stillness
In our embrace.
By: Anonymous

THE POETRY OF MICHELLE LYNNE KOSILEK

DARKNESS, DAWN & HOPE
The darkness wore many faces that year
As in days of old
Superstition ruled the lives of all
Senators and jailers took turns at the podium
And the face of public opinion
Embraced their poison words
As if the panacea for their fears
Could be distilledFrom the pain of the powerless
Drop by desperate drop
The blood of our sisters ran deep
While society swallowed sit-coms
To ease the pain of knowing
When their suffering ended, their screams became a paean
To self-determinationAnd the dignity that sisterhood demands
Those that remained stared into the abyss
Denying its power became our strength
As we licked each others wounds
Our sisterhood became a scalpel
To excise the cancer of apathy
And out of this darkness, Dawn
Like sisters separated at birth
We celebrated our reunion with cleansing tears
And the Hope that she created
From the years of her bloodshed
Has defeated my darkness
And brought me home at last.
By Michelle Lynne Kosilek

TO MY DAUGHTER
Hesitant, and profoundly alone
You wandered onto this stage
Playing an impossible part
To a hostile audience
Seeking only validation
And a few small kindnesses
I came to Motherhood like a newborn
Nakedly afraid
And knowing only how to scream
Beaten and Scared
And weaker than the January sun
Till your tears
Rewrote the language of my heart
Childbirth doesn't make a Mother
We are created by our children
Whose very innocence defies the status quo
As they dare us to read life again
And find the messages
That the author never intended.
By: Michelle Lynne Kosilek

WHEN YOU'RE NOT HERE
How do I survive this emptiness, this hollow, throbbing pain
When you should be holding me, your mouth exploring
How did the others survive, surely I'm not the only woman
To be separated from her lover
The newness of this is vicious, and I have known pain
Intimately, and far too often to be fragile
But this, this is organized pain, like organized crime
It has big, powerful henchmen, soldiers
Who knock me down, laughing at a job well-done
Like a dishonest, unfriendly neighbor
Pounding on the door of my heart, demanding blood
At midnight, midday, at all possible hours
Reminding me how your love completes me
By laughing about your absence while I cry
Your love makes me more than I was, more generous
More feminine, more alone when you're not here
It teaches me kindness, and patience to wait
While love and pain become obscenely intertwined
Woven like an emotional tapestry, making me wonder
Which threads are love, and can pain know so much about me
That it isn't satisfied with the hunt
But has to own the darkness, like a rabid predator
Threatening our survival, with the brutal caress of loneliness.
By: Michellc Lynne Kosilek

SISTERS
There are moments, sometimes unnoticed
When life rewards even the undeserving
With a measure of fleeting kindness

We plough through these poison fields
Searching for a small, fertile spot
Where kindness and understanding might grow

Sisterhood is such a place, I believe
A song that calms the frantic heart
A warm cave that holds the storm at bay
By: Middle Lynne Kosilek

on to post four

2007-04-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

Issue Two, Post four

A Wild Elegance
contents:
resources
Letter from the Editor

RESOURCES
( Editors not: many GLBT groups add a T to their name, but do not really seek to actively represent the interests of transsexuals. Bear that in mind if you do not get a response from such a group.)

ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project / Aids Project.
125 Broad Street., 18th Floor
New York NY 10004

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.
294 Washington Street
Suite 740
Boston MA 02108
(serves only the six states of New England area. Legal information and
Referrals for LGBT and HIV+ Prisoners.)

Lesbian & Gay Insurrection
Boston MA 02108
( serves only the six states of New England area. Legal information and
Referrals for LGBT and HIV+ Prisoners.)

Lesbian & Gay Insurrection
3543 18th Street #26
San Francisco CA 94110
( A grassroots organization doing direct action and education for radical
social change from a LGBT perspective and produces the bimonthly
newspaper ULTRAVIOLET. Free to prisoners)

Out Of Control Lesbian Committee To Support Women Political
Prisoners
3542 18th Street
San Francisco CA 94110
( Does education and advocacy work and publishes OUT OF TIME for
women prisoners, political prisoners, related issues. Free to all.)

SINISTER WISDOM, INC.
PO Box 3252
Berkeley CA 94703
( SW publishes work by lesbians only, prose, poetry, essays, graphics,
and book reviews. Free to Women.)

T. I. P. JOURNAL
3895 Upham Street
Suite 40
Wheat Ridge CO 80033
( A newsletter for TS prisoners, with its own agenda. Not anything like
AWE in that AWE is not afraid to be critical of prisons and prison
officials, whereas TIP often seems to be getting editorial input from
prison officials. Order it if you want to, if only to point those TS inmates
you meet through it to AWE.)

TRANS/GENDER VARIANT IN PRISON COMMITTEE
California Prison Focus
2940 16th Street #307
San Francisco CA 94103
(An advocacy group dedicated to ending the human rights abuses of
trans and gender variant prisoners in general and California in
particular.)

PRISON BOOK PROGRAM
C/O Lucy Parsons Bookstore
13 06 Hancock Street.
Suite 100
Quincy MA 02169
(617)423-3298
on the Net: info@prisonbookprogram.org
( Organization that provides books and other services to prisoners.
Generally free of charge, have your people check out their web site.)

ATTORNEY KRISTINA HOLT
1237Haddonfield- Berlin RD
Voorhees NJ
PH: (856) 719-0909
Alternate Address/Phone
1518 Walnut St
Suite 800
Philadelphia PA
PH: (215) 545-7789
( Sorry about the zip codes, you will have to check your library for them.
Kristine is a fully transitioned MTF attorney who has had SRS.)
Helen Hill, MA
PH: (215) 545-7789
( Sorry about the zip codes, you will have to check your library for them.
Kristine is a fully transitioned MTF attorney who has had SRS.)

Helen Hill, MA
2211 Corinth Ave
Suite 203
Los Angeles CA 90064
(Helen Is a Therapist experienced in GID issues. Who is also TS
herself.)

Daniel Zwitman PhD
11645 WilshireBlvd
suite 1080
Brentwood CA 90025
PH: (310) 208-6000
( Daniel is a Speech therapist who teaches MTF's to talk like women.)

OUT/WORD
C/O S. Berry
PO Box 20900
Tomkins Square Station
New York NY 10009-8974
( Resource guide for LGBT/TS/HIV affected prisoners. Free to all.
Donations appreciated)

NATIONAL CENTER FOR LESBIAN RIGHTS
SHANNON MINTER, LEGAL DIRECTOR ( Shannon is a man)
870 MARKET STREET
SUITE #370
SAN FRANCISCO CA 94102 Ph: (415) 392-6257

TGI JUSTICE PROJECT ATTENTION: ALEX LEE 1322 WEBSTER ST. SUITE #201 OAKLAND CA 94612
Ph: (510) 677-5500

PRISON LEGAL NEWS
2400 NW 80th STREET #148
SEATTLE WA 98117-4449
( monthly mag which covers prison legal issues/conditions of
confinement/prisoners rights cases. VERY instructive and worth every
Penny at 18$ a year)

ATTORNEY FRANKLIN ROMEO
LAMBDA LEGAL NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
120 WALL STREET
SUITE 1500
NEW YORK NY 10005-3904 (212) 809-8585 Ext. # 288

AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE
AFSC CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
1611 TELEGRAPH AVE
SUITE 1501
OAKLAND CA 94612

JAMES ESSEX
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
LESBIAN & GAY RIGHTS PROJECT
125 BROAD ST
18TH FLOOR
NEW YORK NY 10004

JAMES ESSEX
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
LESBIAN & GAY RIGHTS PROJECT
125BROADST
18TH FLOOR
NEW YORK NY 10004

MS. PUBLISHERS
1600 WILSON BLVD
SUITE 801
ARLINGTON VA 22209
( free subscription to female prisoners)

AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE
APSC CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
2161 MASSACHUSETTS AVE
CAMBRIDGE MA 02140

INTERFAITH ADVOCATES
111 MILBURN ST
ROCHESTER NY 14607-2918

GENDER THERAPISTS
Carl R. Viest Jr., Ph.D. 3720 Sunset Lane , Suite D
Antioch CA 94509
(510)778-1444

Lisette Lahana, LICSW
609 Kearney Street
EICerrito, CA 94530
800) 928-9085
( Lisette is bilingual in the Spanish language.)

Gordon 1. Ulrey, Ph.D.
433 F Street Davis CA 95616
530) 756-0276

Davis Flemming, MFCC
6010 Wilshire Blvd. Stc. 307
Los Angeles CA 9003 6
323)960-5257

Marie Keller, M.A., M.F.C.C
Los Angeles Gender Center
1923 1/2 Westwood Blvd.
Suite 2
Los Angeles CA 90025
310)4758880

Bonnie R. Saks, M.D.
Bonnie Saks & Associates
3333 West Kennedy Blvd
Tampa Fl 33609
813)354-9444

Diann B. Meek, LMFT
1021 Majestic Drive , Suite 100
Lexington KY 40513
859)278-1085

Alex Coleman, J.D., Ph.D.
246 Tappan Street
Brookline MA 02146
617)738-0463

Ellen Rottersmann, LICSW
1093 Beacon Street, Suite 401
Brookline MA 02446
617)730-9417

Randi Kaufman, PsyD
1218 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 02138
617)441-2100

Arlene istar lev LCSW, CASAC
Choices counseling and consulting
321 Washington Ave
Albany NY 12206
518)463-9152

Shelly Juran, Ph.D
158 Montague St
Brooklynn Heights NY 11201
718)625-6526

Joanne Zager, Ph.D
118 Park Lane
Ithaca NY 14850
607) 272-6353

Marcia Schultz, Psy.D
3111 University Dr.
Suite 400
Coral Springs FL 33065
954)649-1957

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
I haven't really picked a particular topic for this editorial. Its more a mishmash of thoughts I have on a variety of subjects.
The placement of transsexual prisoners is not the huge problem that corrections officials and politicians make it out to be. Solving the problems that plague TS prisoners is not a difficult task. Conquering the institutionalized hatred and bigotry that lives in the hearts of those who have power and authority over us and who work in the bitter arena of the American penal system is another matter entirely. It is a battle we have fought for many years now with very little success. It is not going to be won by creating a prison for gay, transvestite, intersexed or transsexual prisoners. All this does is further marginalize us and ignore the seriousness of gender identity disorder by relegating it to the level of a perversion or sexual fetish and necessitating that we be housed at a special prison to be shut away from others sight.
We are not gay, we are not transvestites, we are not intersexed. We are not queens. We are women who through no fault of our own have been born into this world with reproductive system birth defects. Parts that have absolutely no place on our body, but through a cruel trick of nature we are stuck with for a good portion of our lives. Some of us have the emotional and financial wherewithal to do something about this early on in our lives. Others among us struggle daily, many for their entire lives, until that spark that we all have within us is extinguished with finality.
Many of us struggle with our condition to such a degree that it has a negative effect not only on us, but also the lives of everyone we have contact with. We are often incarcerated because we are unable to sit down and honestly face our condition and learn to live with it. We engage in a wild reckless lifestyle, a dangerous lifestyle. For those of us who cannot afford such pursuits of a socially acceptable nature, criminal behavior is often likely in a deliberate in some, and an unconscious attempt in others, to show everyone how macho and badass we are so that others will hopefully see this as masculine. Maybe even ourselves. This is not an unrealistic goal, since our society had repeatedly drilled into us through the media in all its various forms, that certain types of behaviors are considered masculine, and others feminine. Certain acts of criminal behavior are typically committed by males, but generally not by females.
This country has one very ignorant approach to gender identity disorder, and not just in how it treats its prisoners. We all suffer. Even the best among us who through hard work and an iron determination have professional and very productive lives.
It is a sickness of the spirit which causes the hatred for us in this society that is largely responsible for the excessive number of incarcerated transsexuals in this country. Some estimates place the incarceration rate of transsexuals as high as 65%, while others place it at 30%. Even at 30%, that is three times the national average. We are the tiniest of all minority groups, yet we have the highest incarceration rate. It does not take a genius to figure out what is going on here and why.
Even the U.S. Government has codified bigotry. Within the Social Security Act exists language which specifically denies SSI benefits to people with gender identity disorder for gender identity disorder, claiming absurdly that having gender identity disorder is not a disability and not coverable under the social security act. This act exists to help people who are for the most part unemployable, or who find it very difficult to become employed or remain employed, due to disability of some type or another. If one makes such determinations using a common sense and reasonableness approach, then Gender identity disorder should be near the top of the list of disorders that are covered under this act. Instead, it is on the list which lists conditions that are specifically excluded from coverage. One of the most common complaints of transsexuals in this country is that they cannot obtain decent jobs, or any jobs, due to prejudice.
Violence will not end hatred. Violence is always a solution that only provides temporary results. Often very temporary. The damage violence does lasts forever though, and will fester in the hearts of people who are victim to it through their own ugliness, forever. It will breed within them and be passed on to their offspring; perpetuating the cycle. It is not the answer.
I am not a girly-girl pacifist. Don't get me wrong. But I know what works and does not work. You do not achieve long lasting results, or respect, through violence. It doesn't work. Violence only breeds hatred and fear. Not respect. It also poisons your soul.
Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things and generally return upon he who began. Think about that when these nazis bring ugliness into your lives. They'll reap what they sow, and you wont have to be any part of that. Show them how vastly superior you are by not responding to their ugliness with ugliness of your own. Remind yourself daily that you are superior to them.
Recently, two people who are really close to me, one of them my best friend, found love and commitment among one another. Because of some lousy attempts by the mainstream media to sensationalize this issue when they caught wind of it, I am not going to mention their names, but all of us in this small community of TS prisoners know of them, or likely will at some point. Ours is a small world and news travels fast.
Separate by many miles, they chose a time and day to read their vows to one another even though they could not be together physically, and in all likelihood never will be. They both have life prison terms. But they found love in each other even though they were separate by many many miles.
I am so happy for them. I look around me daily and see how terrible many MTF's are treated. In the TV Media, news, on the street by cops, in the grocery store. The conclusion that I have come to and I readily admit that it may not be an accurate one, is that those of us who are unable to function in stealth mode convincingly are likely to never find real love and happiness except in the arms of another MTF. Its my understanding that many MTF self identify as lesbian. Who can blame them, Its been said that people do not become lesbian, but I personally believe that to be untrue. I think that a trans woman can become so disgusted with men that she is willing to take love wherever she may find it, even if its in the arms of another trans woman. Thats not a bad thing, though there are so many of our sisters out there who are afraid that if they do not conform to some archaic standard of the ideal male/female relationship that they will not get the treatment they need for GID, or any surgery to obtain psychosexual congruency. Those days are past. We no longer have to live in fear of the charlatans who perpetuated this sick agenda for many years in this country. In closing, I want to remind you all of the words that I always end this newsletter with. And I want you to ponder them with seriousness and thoughtfulness. Until next time. I love you all. Donna Dawn Konitzer.
It is the soul of the true warrior to struggle so that others might claim the prize.
Love One Another

I can be contacted at : Donna Dawn Konitzer PO Box 220 Winnebago wi 54985-0220

2006-10-21T18:57:00.000-07:00

A Wild Elegance Issue One, Post One

July / August 2006

Included here:
Sex Abuse at State Prisons
Scientific Proof of transsexual
Some facts About transsexual and Incarceration

SEX ABUSE AT STATE PRISONS
According to the U.S. Justice Departments Bureau of Justice Statistics, sexual abuse of state prisoners by their keepers is rampant in this country. In 2004 alone, more than 8,000 reports of sexual abuse and assault were made against corrections officials in state and federal prisons across this country, according to coauthor of the study, Allen J. Beck.

Of the 8,200 reports of sexual abuse by prison officials and staff against prison inmates, 1/3 of them were deemed substantiated. 15% of the assaults were still being investigated, and the study claims that prison officials determined that 55% of the claims by inmate victims were false or there was not enough evidence to support or reject the claims.

Sexual assaults by prison guards are also deemed to be underreported by prisoners, who likely are fearful of retaliation or being labeled a liar. Everyone doing time knows that prison officials will file disciplinary charges against prisoners for reporting abuse from prison staff, to discourage such reporting of abuse in the future.

If you would like more information on these statistics, contact the US Justice Departments Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Reports of Sexual abuse by prison guards at Juvenile Prisons are reported at ten times the rate they are in adult facilities. According to the study, there were 10 reported incidents of sexual abuse per 2000 youths at State run juvenile facilities. I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who is not surprised that there are a bunch of pedophiles working in our Juvenile Facilities as prison guards.

If you have been the victim of sexual abuse by a prison guard. You must report the abuse. It may be difficult, but not doing so puts others at risk. Get outside officials involved as well, DOC officials should never be the sole investigators of your sexual victimization. They may not always be objective.

You may be retaliated against for reporting such abuse. That is the price you must be willing to pay for doing what is right. Doing the right thing is not always easy, but you must still do it.

SCIENTIFIC PROOF OF TRANSSEXUALISM

Scientists in Holland at the Netherlands Institute of Brain Research Discovered in 1995 that transsexuals, that is, biological males who identify as women, have a strikingly different Brain structure than normal biological males.

The research was reported in the Journal NATURE and reported that a particular area of the brain that is normally 44 percent larger in men, is not the same size in male to female transsexuals. This area of the brain in MTF's is the same size as in biological females. The particular area of the brain in question is believed to influence gender identification, ones perception of oneself as male or female.

The authors of the study believe now that transsexuals are born the way they are. That these changes in the brain are the result of a genetic anomaly.

Although there have been some scientists who state that this research proves nothing, and that these changes in the brain structure may be due to the influence of estrogenic medications that the MTF's are taking, this suggestion is somewhat at odds with reality and probably wishful thinking by people with negative attitudes toward transsexuals. These pundits also claim the different brain structure is the result of treating GID with female hormones.

The idea that the changes in brain structure could be caused by MTF's taking female hormones seems absurd, since the brain has no estrogen or testosterone receptors, there is no way that brain tissue could increase or decrease in size based on hormonal influences that occur postnatally.

Currently, scientists at UCLA Geffen School of Medicine are doing genetic research to prove that transsexuals are born, not made. That we are the result of genetic defects which result in the development of a female brain structure.

The leading geneticist involved in the research at UCLA, Dr. Eric Vilain, hopes to prove this by doing MRI studies of the brains of transsexuals who have never taken female hormones, and then doing further MRI studies after these same subjects have begun female hormone therapy.

SOME FACTS ABOUT TRANSSEXUALISM AND INCARCERATION

Transsexual prisoners do not have a right to be housed in a facility consistent with their gender identity. If you have not had gender reassignment surgery, you will virtually always be classified by your birth sex, regardless of how long you have lived as a female, or how much feminization and procedures you have undergone. This often puts transsexual prisoners at great risk of predation by male inmates. People who have had gender reassignment surgery are generally classified according to their reassigned gender.

One method that is sometimes used to protect transsexual women who are at risk of violence due to being housed in male prisons is to separate them from male prisoners. This is done by placing them in what is called administrative segregation. There is nothing at all positive about administrative segregation. It is generally a placement that exists only in punitive segregation units and such units are known to be incubators of psychosis.

Some transsexual prisoners are able to obtain hormone therapy in prison. Others are not. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has a policy which allows hormone therapy, and states that they will maintain inmates on the hormone levels they were at prior to incarceration.

Even if a prison system does provide hormones however, there is no guarantee that they will be provided at the appropriate levels, and with the necessary physical and psychological support services. At times, prison officials flout their own policy and arbitrarily deny hormones even when they are technically allowed.

The issue of whether or not a transsexual inmate is entitled to hormone therapy while in prison has been litigated extensively in the federal courts, based on the established constitutional principle that it is a violation of the 8th amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment for prison officials to exhibit deliberate indifference to a prisoners serious medical needs. Until the last few years however, in almost every case, courts have ruled in favor of prison officials.

More recently however, prisoners have had more success. The following cases may prove helpful.
Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994); Farmer v. Haas, 900 F.2d 319 ( 7th circuit 1993); Maggert v. Hanks, 131 F..3d 670 ( 7th circuit 1997); South v. Gomez, 211 F.2d 1275, 2000 WL 222611 ( 9th circuit) ; Kosilek v. Nelson, 2000 WL 1346898 (D.Mass 2000); Kosilek v. Maloney, 221 F.Supp 2d 156 ( D. Mass 2002); Phillips v. Michigan Dept of Corrections 731 F. Supp 792 ( W..D. of Mich. 1990) affd 932 F2d 969 ( 6th Circuit 1991) granting preliminary injunction against prison officials ordering them to provide hormone therapy to a preop transsexual woman who had been taking estrogen for several years prior to transfer to another prison, and most recently,Konitzer V. Bartow et a/., case number 03-C-717, Eastern District of Wisconsin, in which Federal Judge Charles Clevert ordered the defendants to continue the plaintiffs (Konitzer, ie: yours truly) hormone therapy.

2006-10-20T19:06:00.000-07:00

A Wild Elegance, Issue One, Post Two
included here :
Ask Mamma Michelle
resource Listing

ASK MOMMA MICHELLE

Dear Momma Michelle:
I'm Serving a life sentence and these people won't even let me see a psychologist to talk about my suffering. They won't give anyone hormones unless they were on them prior to being incarcerated. Can they do this. Help me, Please. Amy.

Amy, Federal courts have ruled more than once that prison systems can't refuse medical treatment for GID because the inmate can't prove previous treatment. See Kosilek V. Maloney 221 F. Supp. 156 (2002); De'Lonta V. Angelone, 4th circuit court of appeals; Brooks v. Berg 270 F. Supp. 302, 312 (ND of new york 2003). All of these courts ruled that policies denying hormones without an individual medical evaluation by a qualified specialist in gender identity disorder, were illegal.

Dear Momma Michelle:
We aren't allowed to grow our hair in our state prison. Can they
do this to us? Brenda.

Brenda, If they do not make the biological females at the
womens prisons cut all their hair, you may have an equal
protection claim under the 14th amendment. However, you
may also have a case based on their stated reasons for not
allowing inmates to grow their hair out at male institutions. It
depends on their reasoning.

Dear Momma Michelle:
I've been plucking my eyebrows and facial hair, but it never ends, don't they ever just die? Debbie.

Debbie, Sorry honey, but they never just die. The problem is testosterone, which controls the growth of facial hair in men and women ( though much less so in biological women). This is why post-menopausal women who are not taking an estrogen supplement often wind up growing a mustache. The testosterone receptors in a biological males face are the strongest in the body. Even a tiny bit of testosterone will cause you to grow facial hair. Unless you have electrolysis or laser hair removal to destroy the area that the hair grows from, you will have to pluck, and pluck and pluck and pluck!

Dear Momma Michelle:
Is a law library hard to use? Gloria

Gloria, Not for what we usually need. The important cases are
listed like this: Kosilek v. Maloney 221 F Supp 2nd. 156. This
means book number 221 of the 2nd series of the Federal
Supplement at page 156. All the information that you need is in
the published opinion on the pages within this case. Learn as
much as you can about the law girl, because getting help from
others often means being manipulated in ways that are not
very appealing.

Dear Momma Michelle:
Are there any prisons that have a special housing unit for women like us and are such units like living in segregation? Honey.

Honey, The only two places that I know of are a 40 bed unit at Vacaville prison in California. Vacaville is the California medical facility for prisoners. Although this special unit only houses women like us, the DOC there still insists on treating them like men! Another place is a Federal medium security facility near Butner N.C., which is the usual location for trans prisoners that wind up in the federal system. If you have already had SRS, you will generally be placed in a female prison, neither of the above mentioned units are lockdown units. They are not like being in segregation, its GP status.

Dear Momma Michelle:
I've never been on Estrogen; what happens besides breast growth? Diane.

Diane, many wonderful things and a few aggravating things. Your body fat will begin to redistribute in a pattern that matches that of other women. Bigger rounder bottom, more curve to your hips, your male muscle mass will disappear and you will lose upper body strength, your hair will get thicker and softer, your skin will get softer, beard will grow slower, but so will your nails and they may get thin and break easily. The smell of your perspiration will change for the better. Loss of scalp hair will slow or stop, with some regrowth in some cases. It will also seem like you have more patience, and your depression may disappear very rapidly. You will get silly at times and cry a lot at other times, just like you are going through puberty, because you are. Its a wonderful experience. The above are just some of the changes you will notice.

Dear Momma Michelle:
My voice is not very feminine, what can I do to change it? Janice.

Janice. The best way is with the help of a speech therapist who specializes in speech/voice issues for transsexual patients. Otherwise there is practice practice practice. There is a book called Speaking as a woman, by Alison laing which purports to and suggests that it teaches MTF's how to speak like a woman but that is misleading. It teaches some of the differences between male and female speech, but it does not really teach you how to achieve the female sounding voice. Watch other women when they talk. Women pronounce words very differently than men do. It is almost as though women speak an entirely different form of the English language than men do. One good way to practice working on your voice is to read out loud to yourself.

RESOURCE LISTING
NATIONAL CENTER FOR LESBIAN RIGHTS
SHANNON MINTER, LEGAL DIRECTOR ( Shannon is a man)
870 MARKET STREET
SUITE #370
SAN FRANCISCO CA 94102 Ph: (415) 392-6257

TGI JUSTICE PROJECT
ATTENTION: ALEX LEE
1322 WEBSTER ST.
SUITE #201
OAKLAND CA 94612
Ph: (510)677-5500

PRISON LEGAL NEWS
2400 NW 80th STREET #148
SEATTLE WA 98117-4449
( monthly mag which covers prison legal issues/conditions of
confinement/prisoners rights cases. VERY instructive and
worth every Penny at 18$ a year)

ATTORNEY FRANKLIN ROMEO
LAMBDA LEGAL NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
120 WALL STREET
SUITE 1500
NEW YORK NY 10005-3904 (212) 809-8585 Ext. # 288

AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE AFSC
CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
1611 TELEGRAPH AVE
SUITE 1501
OAKLAND CA 94612

JAMES ESSEX
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION
LESBIAN & GAY RIGHTS PROJECT
125 BROAD ST
18TH FLOOR
NEW YORK NY 10004

MS. PUBLISHERS
1600 WILSON BLVD
SUITE 801
ARLINGTON VA 22209
(free subscription to female prisoners)

AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE AFSC
CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
2161 MASSACHUSETTS AVE
CAMBRIDGE MA 02140

INTERFAITH ADVOCATES
111MILBURNST
ROCHESTER NY 14607-2918

Back to wild Elegance, Post One

On to post Three

2006-10-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

A Wild Elegance, Issue One , Post three
included here: Even In America,
poetry Corner,
transsexualism and Incarceration

EVEN IN AMERICA
By Michelle Lynne Kosilek

Imagine if you will, that you have a potentially fatal illness and you get put in prison, where the U.S. Supreme Court says you have an absolute right to state paid medical treatment, because the state has, by virtue of your imprisonment, deprived you of a living wage that would allow you to provide for your own medical care.

For seventeen years, you slowly die a little bit every day while you try to convince your jailers that you have this condition and even provide them with a clinical diagnosis from a qualified medical professional. They ignore this diagnosis and continue to refuse to have you seen by any clinician who specializes in the treatment of this condition.

In frustration you file a federal civil rights lawsuit and your jailers respond by telling the judge that you are crazy, that you have a diagnosis called Borderline Personality Disorder, a mental illness that closely mimics psychosis. The court believes this and dismisses your complaint because you have no expert testimony to support your claims.

You try to get back into court, but you don't have the resources to attack the state's deceptive litigation practices, and you have no money for an attorney, so you ask the prison trained legal aides for help and they refuse by order of the warden at your facility, who tells you that this is not a valid challenge to the conditions of your confinement! You appeal this decision, and your appeal is denied on the basis that your complaint is not a valid challenge to your conditions of confinement and that they ( the prison system ) do not have to provide medical treatment for every medical condition.

By sheer chance, you are contacted by another prisoner in another state who has successfully sued for the treatment for the same condition. She offers to help you and sends you legal documents. The mail room supervisor confiscates and destroys them, claiming that the prison mail room policy KSP 16.2, disallows this, when it clearly DOES allow it! At this point things become very scary as those charged with protecting you are slowly killing you. The condition you suffer from is very rare, so people are reluctant to accept it as real, and there is a fair amount of bigotry attendant to such beliefs.

Now imagine that your insistence on receiving treatment has caused you to be placed in isolation, where your already fragile mental state deteriorates further. You've been denied treatment, legal help, and have been locked in isolation because you have an internationally recognized medical condition that caused you to be born with the brain of a woman. Recent research has demonstrated that male to female transsexuals have a female brain structure and that they are born like this. A genetic anomaly that has caused you to be born with the brain of a woman, and the genitals of a man. To add insult to injury, you are punished for trying to adopt a feminine appearance and as part of your punishment, your head is forcibly shaved!

In total desperation, you try to remove the source of male hormones that have masculinized your female self. Your jailers take you to a hospital, have you repaired, and give you isolation time as further punishment for trying to perform surgery on yourself that has otherwise been denied to you for 17 years. You have no hope left, and your next move,according to experts in GID, is suicide.

This is the life of my sister Shelly Leann Wright 102077, who has five more years to look forward to at the Kentucky State Penitentiary at Eddyville, KY., PO Box 5128, 42038.
The Kentucky chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union could not be bothered to help shelly, nor even respond to our inquires for help, or return documents sent to them. Is there anyone out there that can help me save Shelly's life?

POETRY CORNER
We will be publishing a limited amount of poetry in each newsletter and look forward to receiving submissions for this. Quality will be the deciding factor.
All material submitted must be original, and certified as such on each page of your poetry. By certified, we mean that you must write on each page or your poetry that you are certifying that the material is your own original work.
You should try to make your poetry about your gender identity disorder and how it has affected you personally & how it interfaces with your prison environment.

TRANSSEXUALISM AND INCARCERATION
People who walk between the traditional boundaries of sex and gender face significant challenges while incarcerated. These individuals - transsexuals - are those for whom biological sex and gender identification are not always congruent.

Prison systems in this country generally have a small number of transsexual prisoners, but it is disproportionately high when compared to the general population. For example, the Wisconsin DOC has 8 known transsexuals incarcerated, with 5 more labeled as having gender dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria which lasts more than two years is classified as transsexualism, or by the newer term, gender identity disorder. That is extremely high considering that Wisconsin DOC has less than 30,000 prisoners, and transsexualism occurs at a rate of about 1 in 30,000 biological males.

TS prisoners are frequently at very high risk of sexual assault in certain prison systems in this country, where they are often set up to be sexually assaulted. Sometimes those assaults are committed by the very people who should be preventing them.

TS prisoners who are treated as males in their prison system are at particularly high risk of self injurious behaviors, such as suicide attempts and genital mutilations and castration attempts. This self harm is generally linked to extremely abusive treatment of the inmate secondary to that inmates transsexualism. ie: being forcibly treated as a male. In many cases this means that staff purposely and with exaggerated emphasis, address TS inmates as males, with a male name.

It means conducting offensive strip searches on TS inmates in which 6 or 8 male guards are present to watch, for no legitimate reason.
MTF's experience strip searches conducted by male guards as sexual assaults, just like most females would. And while TS inmates have all complained about this in their various prison systems, their pleas not to be victimized in this way are ignored. And male prison officials and guards fight

very hard to ensure that they can continue to do this to us.
Forcibly treating TS prisoners as males worsens any other existing clinical pathology in these individuals and Can result in additional mental illnesses developing.
It means refusing to allow TS inmates to feminize their appearance in any way, and denying TS inmates hormone therapy if they did not enter the prison system on such therapy. In some prison systems, TS prisoners are not even allowed hormone therapy if they enter the prison system on such therapy.

They are forced to go through withdrawal of their female hormones and face potentially life threatening medical conditions as a result of having their hormone therapy discontinued, especially if they have been on such therapy for a significant amount of time. Discontinuation of hormone therapy puts TS prisoners at high risk for self-mutilating behaviors and suicide.
At the very least, MTF TS prisoners with gender identity disorder need some female hormone therapy, strip searches to be performed by female staff in such cases where the individual has already been fully developed into a female physically through hormone therapy, be allowed a one time name change to a female name, be addressed as a female and with female pronouns, be showered separate from male inmates without being sexualized or put on display, and some female clothing and makeup to help consolidate a female identity.

The above would cost very little for state prison systems, but very few of them provide any of this to TS prisoners. Which results in TS prisoners suing prison systems and creating costly litigation that costs taxpayers many thousands of times more than the originally requested treatment would have cost. But thats what happens when prisons are allowed to be run in secrecy without any public oversight and a belief that they can treat prisoners however they please with no repercussions.

If you are a TS prisoner and are or have been trying to obtain treatment for your gender identity disorder, which is a recognized medical condition, and are not receiving it, make copies of your requests, symptoms, how you are feeling as a result of a failure to provide that treatment to you, file a grievance and exhaust all of your administrative remedies exactly as the prisoner litigation reform act and your prison grievance procedures require, and pursue legal action.

Courts are now more open than ever to lawsuits filed by TS prisoners who are not receiving treatment for their medical condition. Attorneys are being appointed to represent TS prisoners in such litigation, but you must go through the initial steps on your own. When you do get an attorney, make CERTAIN that attorney networks with other attorneys who have been or are currently involved in similar litigation. This has been a very important strategy in our winning these types of lawsuits, and it is working. We are winning by networking with one another.
When you seek help from your sisters who have already won ahead of you, make sure you do what they ask you and provide the information that they ask you to provide. We are only going to win if we work together and help each other.

If you are a TS prisoner who is not receiving treatment or know of someone who is not, and you want help filing a lawsuit to get that treatment, you can contact the following individuals for some basic help on how to go through the initial steps that lead up to filing a lawsuit, beginning with requesting the actual medical care for your gender identity disorder, at the institution level.
DONNA DAWN KONITZER
PO BOX 220
WINNEBAGO Wl 54985-0220

MICHELLE LYNNE KOSILEK
PO BOX 43
NORFOLK MA 02056

MARK "JESSICA" BROOKS
#90A6426
PO BOX 618
AUBURN NY 13024

Never address any TS prisoner mail with a female name if there is a male name as part of the address on the envelope unless that TS prisoner tells you it is okay to do so. Some prison systems or individual prisons will refuse mail if it is addressed with a female name.
If you are in a state which does not allow correspondence between prisoners, make sure that you make that known to others so that they do not waste their time and money sending you legal information, perhaps photocopies in the mail directly only to have it returned to them. Be responsible in your requests for help and provide all the necessary information requested.

A Wild Elegance will be printing limited pen pal ads. This is a support publication for those who have made the choice to stop hiding their condition from themselves and others.
Your ad will not be printed unless your address includes your institution number and the name of your prison. No exceptions. Your ad will be a basic listing of your address with a brief ten word sentence underneath it. No smut no soliciting. All ads are subject to my arbitrary approval, and must include your complete name and address and prison number. Ads without a prisoner ID number and name of prison will be discarded.

All ads must include whether or not you can be addressed in your female name on the envelope, or not. This publication is not for curious male prisoners who do not have GID. In the body of the letter itself, you will be addressed by your female name. If you chose not to provide your female name you will be assumed not to have one and will not be listed or placed on our mailing list. Some prisons allow TS inmates to have their ( true ) female name as part of their address on the envelope and others do not. Make very certain that you specify in your correspondence to us which is true for your particular situation, or whether you have had a legal name change and are therefore not required to use a male name at all.Don't waste other people's time. If you are not serious and genuinely interested in getting medical care for your GID, don't request help in that area, just out of curiosity, to see how much work might be involved.

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On to post four

2006-10-17T19:20:00.000-07:00

A Wild Elegance , issue one, post four

included here:
editor's note,
Poetry Page,
News brief,
secret phrase
Specific langusge to Obtain Appointment of Councel.

Editors Note

A Wild Elegance is seeking contributing writers for this newsletter. If you have an article, story or personal experience to share and like to write, send it to us. We will probably publish it.
Don't worry too much about spelling and punctuation. We'll take care of that.

Any correspondence to A Wild Elegance should be addressed directly to : Donna Dawn Konitzer, PO Box 220, Winnebago Wl., 54985-0220. DO NOT include " A Wild Elegance " or anything else in the address or you will not receive a reply. Address envelope only as indicated.

SECRET PHRASE
CAN YOU FIGURE OUT WHAT IT MEANS?
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

POETRY PAGE
BY DAWNS EARLY LIGHT
Poetry By Donna Dawn Konitzer

By dawns early light,
THEY fight the good fight.
all the while
exclaiming how
THEY are in the right.

By dawns early light,
the death toll knells-
eerily...
as the body count rises.
By dawns early light,
missiles of destruction,
scream across the horizon,
past the speed of sound
bullet nosed sheet steel
shielding the terror within.

By dawns early light
THEY wage the good fight,
doing what THEY feel THEY must,
what THEY claim is just.
Killing and maiming and destroying
innocent people
In their lust for world domination
and power.

The incubus of the new imperium.

By dawns early light,
the youthful fist of power,
strikes a mighty blow to the
nose of freedom
the struggle of others seeking the same
dream, as once we did,
they fight to be free of tyranny
in the only way they can.

Just as we once did,
by dawns early light.

How quickly history can be forgotten
in the dimness...

of dawns early light and
how ludicrous it is that the once terrorists
now claim to be
the virtuous.

NEWS BRIEFS

On January 31, 2006, Governor Gregoire of Washington State singed into a law a bill which prohibits acts of prejudice against gay, lesbian, bi, AND transgender people. Washington becomes only the eighth state to include gender identity in its non-discrimination law, and the seventeenth state to include sexual orientation. As one might expect, the right wing are already planning a ballot initiative in an attempt to repeal the law.

On April 19, 2006, Bloomington, Indiana, became the second city in Indiana to provide gender identity protections. Bloomington has decided that it will provide civil rights protections based on gender identity. This means that the Bloomington city code will treat gender identity as a category protected against discrimination, just like race, religion, disability, sex, and sexual orientation. The Bloomington City Council vote was preceded by two years of broad community advocacy. The April 19 vote provides for voluntary mediation to address complaints of gender identity discrimination. The ordinance also allows the Bloomington Human Rights Commission to pursue gender identity complaints selectively as sex discrimination complaints, with the power to enforce compliance.

On February 8, 2006, The New York City Department of homeless services issued a trans affirmative housing policy. Gender identity will determine shelter placement for transgender new yorkers. The new york city dept of homeless services ended discriminatory practices toward transgender clients at its homeless shelters with the release of a new policy. Advocates from the GLBT community center and others participated in the activism that lead to these changes, which guides intake, assessment, and shelter staff to ensure that gender identity is taken into consideration when making intake assignments.

Specific Language to obtain appointment of counsel

In Konitzer V. Bartow, the plaintiff ( Konitzer ) filed a motion for appointment of counsel to represent her in her lawsuit seeking proper care for her gender identity disorder. The court ruled in the following exact language.

" Although civil litigants do not have a constitutional right or a statutory right to counsel, this court has the discretion to request attorneys to represent indigents in appropriate cases pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1915 (e) (1). Lutrell v. Nickel, 129 F3d. 933, 936 (7th circuit 1997) ( citing Zarnes V. Rhodes, 64 F3d. 285, 288 ( 7th circuit 1995). As a threshold matter, litigants must make a reasonable attempt to secure private counsel on their own. Zarnes, 64 F3d @ 288. Once this threshold burden has been met, the court must address the following question: given the difficulty of the case, does this plaintiff appear to be competent to try the case and, if not, would the presence of counsel likely make a difference in the outcome of the case. Id. (citing Farmer v. Haas, 990 F2d 319, 322 (7th Circuit 1993)).

The plaintiff has provided evidence that attempts to obtain legal counsel have been unsuccessful. Although the plaintiff appears more than capable than the average prisoner litigating pro se, this case presents complicated and novel medical issues and appears to require expert medical testimony. See Zarnes, 64 F3d @ 289 ( " We often find counsel necessary when a case involves complex medical evidence."). Accordingly, the court finds that fundamental due process may be denied if an attorney is not asked to represent the plaintiff. Therefore, the plaintiffs motion for the appointment of counsel will be granted. "

It is the soul of the true warrior to struggle so that others may claim the prize.

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