by By Elizabeth Cline
Transmale Nation
Remaking manhood in the genderqueer generation


digital call to action spread on friendster.com last month, and a crowd of tranny boys descended on the East Village gay dive the Boiler Room. It was the very first Manhunt, a party for transmen and their admirers.

When several dozen genderqueers crashed the place, a few of the bar's gay patrons threw a tantrum. They tried desperately to sort out who was a dyke and who was a dude by rating the tranny boys—with their flat chests, short hair, and male posturing—according to who still "looked like girls." But eventually, these hecklers were outnumbered by some of New York's au courant gender outlaws, a mix of young masculine-identified dykes, bois, and trans guys clamoring for a space of their own. By the end of the night, the trans folks and the gay guys had made peace, and Riley MacLeod, a 22-year-old, gay-identified tranny boy, even stole a kiss from the bartender.

Just a few years ago, the transmale community was still underground, connecting with each other in group therapy and chat rooms. How things have changed. Some of the city's hottest queer parties are fundraisers for chest-reconstruction surgery, tagged with names like "Take My Breasts Away." Ethan Carter's Trans*Am party has gotten so popular it has outgrown its digs at the lesbian watering hole Meow Mix, and Manhunt plans to carry on through the summer.


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Transgender official thanks community
Councilman(person) appreciative toward Rapid City during group's protest
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


RAPID CITY - Tom Murphy, the Rapid City councilman who has said he plans to have a sex-change operation, praised the community for its support during two days of protests from members of an out-of-state church who called him an ''abomination'' in the eyes of God.

''I was very proud of Rapid City in the way people conducted themselves,'' said Murphy. ''They showed they were independent thinkers and don't like what this group represents.''

Followers of the Rev. Fred Phelps, pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., carried pickets outside local churches on Sunday and demonstrated on Monday near Sen. Tom Daschle's office and in front of city hall.

''I think Rapid City actually won out on hate,'' Murphy said a few hours after the picketers left town, taking their ''God Hates Fags'' signs with them.


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Transsexual eyes Tour
By Claire Middleton in Zandvoort, Holland 


Mianne Bagger, the transsexual who competed at the Australian Women's Open in March, wants to play on the Ladies' European Tour next season and has written to chief executive Ian Randell asking that the rule stating players must be female at birth be changed.


Bagger, 37, has also contacted the tours in America and Australia saying that now the International Olympic Committee have decreed transsexuals can compete at the Olympics, it is time golf followed suit.

"It was indicated to me that the Ladies' European Tour would consider changing the condition once the IOC had made their rule change official," she wrote. "I have been waiting for news but there does not seem do be an intention unless they are specifically prompted."

Bagger has been a spectator at the KLM Dutch Open here because the Telia Tour in Sweden - where there is no "female at birth" criteria - did not have an event. Her aim is to play in the European Tour's qualifying school at the end of the season.