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This blog can never be all inclusive, but hopefully it shows you how much transgender coverage there has been in one liberal newspaper over the past few days; in a month where we have the first trans comedy with a trans actress in a starring role in the UK - Boy meets Girl on the BBC - for me it is interesting that the Guardian and BBC both cover the trans community now on a regular basis. Fortunately the Guardian will continue to do this as it is protected financially from the decline of printed newspapers and has created a large global niche for itself as an on line liberal left of centre caring paper. The BBC is under threat from the current government, it's very survival is at stake in my opinion - so whether it is still around 10 years from now being edgy and eclectic is hard to say.
Anyways back to the blog. I have brought you different stories about how trans people are living their lives in Russia (less than 1% of the population supposedly?), how Cid becomes a man (which is different than the way most of us here look at things, transgender fiction for teenagers and a link to the Eddie Redmayne film with a trailer of the Danish Girl, and comments about transgender actors in the film industry.
I am ignoring the story that Vatican says transsexual people cannot be godparents - it's not really a surprise from a religion that almost encourages pederasty and has women as permanent second class people in their set up. If you want to read it her is the link
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/sep/03/transgender-people-cannot-be-godparents-says-vatican
1. When I wear high heels my soul soars - meet Moscow's transgender community
Eva is a transgender pharmacologist and offers patients free consultations on hormone therapy. Photograph: Pascal Dumont/The Moscow Times
“Those who see me for the first time at the steering wheel are surprised how a lady can operate such a huge truck,” explains Vika, a 48-year-old driver who works on a construction site in Moscow.
For Vika, there’s no Russian equivalent of Caitlyn Jenner to relate to. Instead, like so many transgender Russians she’s forced to keep a low profile, worried about the discrimination she could suffer at the hands of a society that struggles to understand what being transgender really means.
There are no official statistics on the number of transgender people in Russia, but experts put the number at around 15,000 across the country – about 0.1% of the population.
Vika is one of them. She declined to give her last name, but explained that she came to the capital from Novosibirk in Siberia, where her wife and 10-year-old son still live
She didn’t intend to be a truck driver. Vika worked in a beauty salon for eight years before it closed, and subsequently spent a long time looking for work. In her most desperate days, she even resorted to selling her body, an experience she describes as as shameful and terrifying.
Finally, she found her current job, where she says her boss is very supportive. “Once a couple of colleagues wanted to beat me up for being a transgender person. After my boss found out about it, he fired them immediately.”
Anastasia Gerasimova, 48, tried to take on the most masculine jobs she could think of as a young person, with the hope that it would make her feel more like the gender she was born as.
“I wanted to be a woman since my early childhood, but I thought serving in the army and having a masculine profession would help me to remain a man,” said Gerasimova, who worked on the railways after her military service. “I wanted to fit the public opinion that your genitals define who you are. I got married and had two kids, but nothing changed.”
Eventually, Gerasimova joined a transgender support group and began living as a woman. She now works as a laser epilation specialist.
For more of their stories here is the link - and theirs are so similar to many of us on here. - so please go there and read about our brothers and sisters in Moscow
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/10/moscow-transgender-community-russia
For transgender men, advanced surgical techniques make a functioning penis more attainable than ever. But for Cid Isbell, the desire to look like a man unclothed comes with quandaries of privilege, masculinity and identity
Cid Isbell hadn’t been nervous about the seven-hour operation until the day before he went into the hospital. But once he made it to his San Francisco hotel room, he began burning sage for good vibes.
“Advanced surgery for female-to-males has been way behind male-to-female until now,” Isbell said. “The surgeons always told me, ‘it’s easier to make a hole than a pole’ but now we’re catching up.” And catch up he did.
Inside the operating room, a surgeon lifted up a six-inch length of flesh that looked exactly like a penis but had been crafted out of a chunk of Cid’s arm. He handed it, almost ceremonially, to the lead surgeon, who began sewing it between Cid’s legs, just above where his vagina used to be.
The whole procedure took most of the day, and when Cid finally woke up and glanced down, he said: “Wow, I have a penis! That looks freakin’ amazing.”
Alex Gino, the genderqueer author whose new middle grade book George features a trans protagonist, spoke to teen site member John Hansen about writing a trans character for children, working with David Levithan, and recommends their favourite children’s and YA books with LGBTQ+ themes
Alex Gino, author of George, a middle grade novel about a trans character. Photograph: Blake C AarensGeorge by Alex Gino, a middle grade novel just published in the UK, is making waves. Following Melissa, a transgender fourth grader who the world calls George, it covers everything from theatre to school bullies to a happy-tears-inducing relationship between Melissa and her best friend Kelly. But what is perhaps most revolutionary about the novel is the empathy through which it explores Melissa’s isolation and her frustration with not being seen for the girl she is.
Alex Gino – a genderqueer author, gardener, and We Need Diverse Books member – has crafted an honest and ultimately hopeful novel that everyone needs to read. It is a much-needed addition to the realm of LGBTQ+ middle grade literature, and I was so pleased to be able to discuss the book with Mx Gino.
George is an incredible novel, and Melissa herself is a lovable, dynamic character. How much do the two of you have in common?
Well, we’re both trans, white, bad at sports, and grew up in New York. (I grew up in Staten Island; she lives an hour north of the city). We both want to be seen for who we are, and we both love Mario Kart! In other ways, we’re not all that similar. I knew I was different as a kid, but I could never have named my gender as clearly as Melissa knows for herself. Part of that is about the fact that I’m genderqueer. Another part is that Melissa was born into a different culture than I was, one in which she’s able to find the word transgender and what it means outside of an afternoon talk show brawl.
After winning the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, Eddie Redmayne is hitting the awards circuit again for his role in The Danish Girl.
The trailer for the drama, directed by The King’s Speech’s Tom Hooper, has just arrived and it gives us a closer look at the fact-based tale. Redmayne stars as Einar Wegener, one of the first recipients of sexual reassignment surgery, who became Lili Elbe.
The film chronicles her journey in the 1920s and her role in a love triangle with her illustrator wife and childhood friend, played by Alicia Vikander and Matthias Schoenaerts. Ben Whishaw and Amber Heard also star.
It’s a film that’s almost come to the screen on numerous occasions but always with two female leads (Charlize Theron was once linked to the role). Transgenderactivists have criticised the choice of Redmayne as they believe it should have been given to someone who has undergone the transition themselves. But director Hooper has defended his decision.
“Eddie was really the person I wanted to make the film with, and I was very passionate about that,” Hooper said to Screen Daily. “I was a great believer in him as an actor. I think also there’s a certain gender fluidity that I sensed in him, that I found intriguing and it led me to think he might be a really interesting person to cast in this role.
“I felt that there was something in him that was drawn to the feminine,” he added. “That was something that I felt he might be interested to explore further.”
The Danish Girl is set to have its world premiere at the Venice film festival on Saturday, 5 September, and will hit US cinemas on 27 November and UK cinemas on 1 January
To watch the trailer which is on a video link you need to use the Guardian website first - here is the link
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/01/eddie-redmayne-first-trailer-the-danish-girl-transgender-biopic
And here is another link about director Tom Hooper's views
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/05/danish-girl-eddie-redmayne-tom-hooper-transgender-actors-venice
September 11, 2015- -
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