GenderPAC applauds trend toward waiting to initiate intersex surgery

The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition on Friday released a press statement applauding recent shifts in doctors' attitudes away from early treatment of intersex infants with cosmetic surgery. The previous standard of treatment has been to perform early cosmetic surgery on intersex infants to give them more normal-appearing male or female genitalia, but studies and interviews with surgery patients suggest it may be wiser to delay such procedures until the children are older or forgo them altogether.

"Cosmetic genital surgery for intersex infants is another effort to make sure that even our bodies conform perfectly to gender stereotypes," says GenderPAC executive director Riki Wilchins. "We applaud this growing trend of doctors rethinking this surgery and hope this will spare many children unhealthy and invasive procedures."

A recent study by the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics shows that early surgeries often result in pain and lack of sensation and that children raised as one gender may later in life identify as another. As more adults who received such surgery as infants are stepping forward to challenge its effectiveness, medical professionals are increasingly opting to postpone surgery until the child is older and can contribute to the decision, providing families with psychological support instead.

"Everyone's rethinking this," Bruce Buckingham, associate professor of pediatric endocrinology at Stanford University, told The New York Times. "There's no good scientific data, and more and more we're leaning toward waiting."


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TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBERANCE
TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBERANCE TO COME TO COLUMBUS
by: Kellye Pinkleton, OIA Newswire


Transgender Days of Rememberance and Action is to be held in Columbus in November.

The transgender Day of Rememberance is an international event held every November 20 to commemorate the lives of individuals who have been murdered in the past year because of their gender identity or expression. In Columbus, the Day of Rememberance will be observed on November 17 with a candlelight vigil at the shelter house in Goodale Park at 7 p.m.

In addition to honoring the lives of transgender people who have been killed, the Columbus Day of Rememberance planning committee will be holding a series of events to educate people about transgender issues and to get them involved.



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Sexy and Loathsome
Author J.T. LeRoy talks to the creators of the graphic novel How Loathsome about one of gay readers’ leading phobias: sexual ambiguity 
The Advocate


Staring at a sexy figure across a crowded room, you suddenly catch yourself: Wait! Is that a boy or a girl? To which the authors of the underground comic How Loathsome might reply, “Who cares?” For artist Ted Naifeh and photographer Tristan Crane, who cowrite the comic—in addition, Naifeh does the drawing, Crane the lettering—the importance of fluidity and honesty and possibility far outweigh the politics of sexual identity. 

Now that Loathsome’s first four issues have been republished as a beautiful, compelling graphic novel, every gay man and lesbian whose lust has ever accidentally crossed gender lines has a chance to meet supercool Catherine Gore, the comic’s adventurous central character, and Chloe, the magnetic and mysterious object of her affection. And maybe gay readers will come away from the experience a little closer to “Who cares?” 



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Hermaphrodite (sic) alleges racial bias
By J.M. Lawrence


Federal civil rights investigators are probing whether Plympton officials discriminated against a black female hermaphrodite horse trainer who was denied permits to house migrant workers in mobile homes on her farm.

     Justice Department lawyers launched an investigation based on complaints Patricia Renee Pina, 45, filed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development last year, according to letters signed by DOJ trial attorney Charla Jackson in Washington.

     Plympton officials deny discriminating against Pina and strongly reject her claim in a lawsuit pending in federal court that a building inspector called her a racial epithet in Town Hall


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Officials denied role in suit on 'marriage'
By Robert Redding Jr.
THE WASHINGTON TIMES


A bipartisan group of state lawmakers said yesterday that it will challenge a Baltimore judge's decision to bar them from joining the legal fight against an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit aimed at forcing Baltimore and four Maryland counties to accept homosexual "marriage."

    The group of eight lawmakers — seven Republicans and one Democrat — was rebuffed by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge M. Brooke Murdoch, who ruled that the lawmakers could not join the city of Baltimore and the counties of Dorchester, Prince George's, St. Mary's and Washington in their battle to fend off the ACLU lawsuit.


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Man Says His Name Was Forged On Gay Marriage Ban Petition
Summit County Examining 100 Signatures


CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio -- A 78-year-old Cuyahoga Falls man said his name was forged on a petition to ban gay marriage, NewsChannel5 reported.

Hilary Labbe said his name was misspelled and his address is wrong on the petition. The registered Democrat said he would never sign a petition to support the proposed amendment.

Labbe said he was stunned to get a letter from the county Republican Party last week thanking him for signing the ballot petition.


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Attorney general: Marriage amendment would harm economy
Associated Press


COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro is the first statewide elected official to oppose the proposed state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, saying vague language makes it the most intolerant-seeming of proposals in 10 other states.

Petro, arguing the amendment would hurt Ohio's economy, is splitting from fellow Republican statewide officials who support the proposal: Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and Auditor Betty Montgomery, who might be Petro's opponents in the 2006 governor's race.

Gov. Bob Taft has not taken a public stance, saying his legal team is still reviewing the amendment language.

Blackwell has not determined if the question will be on the statewide Nov. 2 ballot


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Carter fears Florida vote trouble
Voting arrangements in Florida do not meet "basic international requirements" and could undermine the US election, former US President Jimmy Carter says.


He said a repeat of the irregularities of the much-disputed 2000 election - which gave President George W Bush the narrowest of wins - "seems likely".

Mr Carter, a veteran observer of polls worldwide, also accused Florida's top election official of "bias".

His remarks come ahead of the first TV debate between Mr Bush and John Kerry.

They are expected to discuss the war on Iraq and homeland security during the programme on Thursday.