‘X’ Now A Gender Option In Australian Passports
A forward-thinking move, as the gender-ambiguous can now classify themselves as ‘X’. Still no “android” or “monkey-man” passport options, though. Associated Press reports:
Australian passports will now have three gender options – male, female and indeterminate – under new guidelines to remove discrimination against transgender and intersex people, the government said Thursday. Intersex people, who are biologically not entirely male or female, will be able to list their gender on passports as “X.”
Previously, gender was a choice of only male or female, and people were not allowed to change their gender on their passport without having had a sex-change operation. The U.S. dropped the surgery prerequisite for transgender people’s passports last year.
Any country that complies with the International Civil Aviation Organization’s specifications for machine-readable passports can choose to introduce a gender “X.”
“‘X’ is really quite important because there are people who are indeed genetically ambiguous and were probably arbitrarily assigned as one…
CA Legislature Passes Bill To Teach LGBT History In Schools
They say history is written by the winners, who will be writing the LGBT history curriculum? Via Reuters:
A bill to require California public schools to teach the historical accomplishments of gay men and lesbians passed the state Legislature on Tuesday in what supporters call a first for the nation.
Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has not said publicly whether he supports the bill, which he has 12 days to sign or veto once it reaches his desk later this month. If he takes no action, the measure would become law automatically.
The bill gained final passage from the state Assembly on a vote of 49-25, without a single Republican supporting it. The measure cleared the state Senate in April.
California already requires public schools to teach the contributions made to society by women and by racial and ethnic groups that were historically discriminated against, such as blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.
McDonald’s Transgender Beating
Not sure what’s more shocking, the beating itself or the employees warning the women to get out before the police come as the victim has a seizure… From the Daily News:
The victim of a vicious beating at a Maryland McDonald’s is a transgendered woman, according to a LGBT advocacy group that’s calling for authorities to investigate the case as a hate crime. [Warning: Video footage may be disturbing to some people]
The shocking video, which went viral on the Internet this week, shows the woman being kicked in the head by two girls at the Rosedale fast food chain as some of the staff stood by laughing…
Why Do Girls Wear Pink?
No, it’s not an immutable law of nature. In the 1920s, retailers began encouraging pink (a strong color) for boys and blue (a dainty one) for girls, before the trend reversed after World War II. For centuries prior, both boys and girls wore white dresses.
In light of hysteria over a photograph in J. Crew’s new catalog depicting a mother painting her son’s toenails pink, Smithsonian Magazine explores how we got to this point:
For centuries, children wore dainty white dresses up to age 6. “What was once a matter of practicality—you dress your baby in white dresses and diapers; white cotton can be bleached—became a matter of ‘Oh my God, if I dress my baby in the wrong thing, they’ll grow up perverted,’ ” Paoletti says.
The march toward gender-specific clothes was neither linear nor rapid. Pink and blue arrived, along with other pastels, as colors for babies in the mid-19th century, yet the…
La Maupin: 17th Century’s France’s Cross-Dressing Duelist Opera Star
'Six Drawings Illustrating Theophile Gautier's Romance Mademoiselle de Maupin' (Aubrey Beardsley, 1898).
La Maupin once scandalized a ball by kissing another woman on the dance floor. She was challenged to a duel by three men, beat them all, and promptly returned to dancing. Jim Burrows is writing a novel about her, and has this account of her life:
La Maupin, 17th century French swordswoman, adventuress and opera star, was like something out of a novel by Dumas or Sabatini, except for two things.
First she was real, and second few authors would have attributed her exploits to a woman.
Theophile Gautier borrowed her name and a few of her characteristics for the heroine of his novel Mademoiselle De Maupin, but in many ways his character was only a pale imitation of the original. The real Maupin was a complex creature.
Well born and privileged, she knew how to use her influential friends and contacts to get what…
UN Accreditation For Gay Rights Group
The U.N. Economic and Social Council approved the US-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission application for a “consultative status.” With many countries still prosecuting laws against homosexual activity and gay rights, this accreditation from the UN has been a great leap forward. The Washington Post reports:
The U.N. Economic and Social Council voted Monday to accredit the U.S.-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission after strong lobbying by the Obama administration.
Obama, in a statement issued by the White House, welcomed the vote as an “important step forward for human rights.” With the group’s inclusion, he said “the United Nations is closer to the ideals on which it was founded, and to values of inclusion and equality to which the United States is deeply committed.”
The group will now be able to attend U.N. meetings, submit statements and collaborate with both government and U.N. agencies on human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual…
