If you think you might be interested in participating in this survey, please read more below the break, and contact the person doing the survey. I am not doing it, do not endorse it, but do not suspect it, either.

Dear Potential Participant,
You are cordially invited to participate in a research study. The purpose of this research study is to explore the possible relationship between changes in a wife’s self-esteem upon discovery of her husband’s transgenderism. This study is a requirement for my earning the degree of Doctor of Education in Counselor Education and Supervision. If you participate in this research, you will be asked to complete a survey consisting of three segments. The first will rank in order to what degree each statement you feel is true for your situation. The second will be a series of true/false statements, and the last portion will be a semi-structured open-ended series of questions regarding your memory of how you perceived yourself before learning of your husband’s transgenderism as well as after, along with a description of your perception of the meaning of this discovery in your life . The risks to you in this study will be minimal as you will determine how much or how little to disclose. If you report that you are suicidal or homicidal the researcher is legally required to ensure that you are taken to a healthcare facility to be evaluated and possibly admitted. If reports of child abuse are reported by you, the researcher is legally required to report such to the Department of Children and Family Services for investigation. If some discomfort arises when discussing the discovery and its effects during the informal interview, you should feel free to discuss this discomfort with the interviewer as she has been trained in how to handle these conversations and conducts a private practice which provides services to individuals who are transgendered (and their significant others).

Your participation will take approximately two hours.

Your participation in this research is strictly voluntary. You may refuse to participate at all stages of the study, or choose to stop your participation at any point in the personal interview component of the study, without fear of penalty or negative consequences of any kind.

The information/data you provide for this research will be treated confidentially, and all raw data will be kept in a secured file by the researcher. The majority of the results of the research will be reported as aggregate summary data only, however, individual comments will be used without any identifying data other than assigned codes. The raw data and codes will be kept in a secured room in a locked file of which the researcher will be the sole person with access. After the completion of the study the raw data and codes will be destroyed.

If you become a participant, you have the right to review the results of the research, if you wish to do so. A copy of the results may be obtained by contacting the researcher at the address below:

Deborah L. Wilke, M.S., LCPC
867 W. Briarcliff Road
Bolingbrook, IL 60440

There will be no direct or immediate personal benefits from your participation in this research. The results of the research may contribute greatly to the field of mental health counseling and to the education of counselors-in-training.
If you are willing to participate in this study please contact the researcher at the following telephone number to arrange an in-office interview or arrange a meeting in a more accessible private setting. The private telephone number to call is 630.854.7030. Email address is: docwilke@gmail.com

The difficulty arose because Simpson is a former NCTE Board member, & so they sent out a press release noting their former board member’s new job, which is what caused all the hullabaloo.

The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college’s 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services.

“We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men,” he said.

Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus’ gay organization.

“We talked about it and then they took a vote,” he said. “Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it.”

There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.

Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom.

I’m wondering if someone needs to tell them about straight crossdressers, and about pre-transition MTF trans people. Hopefully Morehouse’s Safe Space already does – but I doubt it.

So, the rules, such as they are, for watching a trans documentary:

1. Putting on makeup. Two drinks for reverse camera shot into mirror.
2. Doing anything better done in jeans and sneakers in heels and a skirt. Examples: cleaning the house, shoveling the sidewalk, yard work, walking the dog.
3. Before picture shown. Two drinks for picture in stereotypical male mode (sports team, facial hair, military, wedding tux)
4. Camera shot putting on or taking off a bra.
5. Photo of any wig, breast form, padding, etc.
6. Surprise disclosure, when a trans woman is introduced and then partway through the piece, her secret is revealed.
7. Camera focus on masculine body parts: hands, feet, Adam’s apple, height, etc.
8. Any reference to genital surgery that refers to “becoming a woman” or “finally a woman”
9. Minor chords played softly on a piano
10. talk show host saying “you go girl”
11. any discussion of plumbing or electricity
12. black and white childhood shots, MTF with cap gun and cowboy hat, FTM as ballerina.
13. Trans woman saying, “I am not a crossdresser. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
14. Trans woman clutching large teddy bear in hospital bed.
15. Birthday balloons after surgery.
16. Trans woman with new boyfriend (after shot of tearful ex-wife).
17. Trans woman sitting in chair in above-the-knee skirt, posed so you can see what great gams she has.
18. Patient wheeled off to surgery …
19. … lingering shot of the hospital bed with the teddy bear (or wife) left behind.
20. Shot of protaganist sitting at the computer keyboard, looking at a trans support website or surgeon’s website….
21. Any helping professional teaching deportment
22. Camera in the operating room – just drink the whole bottle
23. Any and all deployments of soft focus = 1 shot
24. Close up of dotted lines in magic marker on pale fleshy body parts = 1 shot
25. Earnest surgeon describes his motivation as “to help [girlname] become the woman she’s always really felt herself to be” = 3 shots
26. Before picture with extreme facial hair – 1 shot
27. Before picture in uniform – Military, Football, etc… – 2 shots
28. Video from hair removal session : Laser – 1 shot, electrolysis – 2 shots
29. Before picture – Last time she wore a dress (F2M) – 1 shots
30. Breast binding – 2 shots
31. Taking Hormones – Self-injecting -3 shots, orals – 1 shot
32. Did anyone mention an arduous and lonely childhood?
33. Meeting the school bully as “the new me” at the High School reunion?
34. Looking at the old picture of self and saying something to the effect of “he was a nice guy….” or “Ken was a lot of fun, but his time is over. It’s Ginger’s turn now!”
35. Trans woman claiming to have IS chromosomal pattern, an affinity for washing dishes, a sudden dislike of sports, etc.

Believe it or not, these are not the most snarky suggestions by some of our mHB board members. Also remember: there are quite a few people who hang out on our boards who have done this kind of media work, including me & Betty, of course, but also Jenny Boylan, amongst others. We need to laugh at ourselves as much as we laugh at the inanity of it all.

Twelve-Steppers should find their own version, of course. Maybe those ice cream poppers? But the point is to feel as physically ill by the end as the drinking crowd.

(Thanks and love to Gwen Smith who wrote her own version of this back in 2005 and to anyone else who has posted their version of this game.)

Dina says some residents believe that embracing the story of Jennie Hodgers will help bring tourists to town. “Other people, I think, frankly, would rather everybody not know we had a cross-dresser in Saunemin,” she says.

She fought from start to finish in the Civil War. She went on to live as a man for the rest of her life, having gotten used to the freedom, the income, & the friends she made as a soldier.

“The women who went to war,” she says, “who disguised themselves as men and carried a gun, were overwhelmingly working-class women, immigrant women, poor women, urban women and yeoman farm girls.”

Surely not! Women couldn’t have chosen to live as men because the rest of their choices sucked!

So this Memorial Day I’d like to honor all the transgender people who fought in their nation’s wars: the trans guys, the trans women pre-transition, the crossdressers of all genders.

• the sexuality forum on our MHB message boards
• the GenderLife forums
• Christine McGinn, who has done workshops on orgasms for post-op trans women

With your input, I can put a bigger list together.

Surprising campaign, under the auspices of the (Chilean goverment’s) Division of Social Organizations (they provide grants and help to NGO’s) and the communications division of the Metro in Santiago (2,000,000 riders a day).  The posters appeared at all the metro stations and their design is very good; one can see a full size version from the last link. It was produced by a transmen’s org but displays very balanced info about MTF and FTM treatment and most of all about the difficulties and discriminations associated to being trans, pointing out that this is not a choice but an inborn condition.  Trans orgs there are also in conversations with the government’s civil registry to be able to get national ID cards with the appropriate gender marker without having to certify surgeries (as in Spain).

(Apparently trans guys who speak Spanish are as cool as they’re English-speaking counterparts.)

Blabbeando covered it, as did Queers United.

Note: prostitution is not illegal in Peru.

• Uncovered therapy (primary therapist–until surgery date): $2000
• Uncovered therapy (second therapist–Randi Ettner): $450
• Orchiectemy: $2000
• HRT (uncovered amount until surgery): $600
• Electrolysis (up and down god damn it): $17,000
• Genital surgery & breast implant surgeries (round one): $25,000
• Round 2 of surgeries: $2500

Estimated total not covered by any insurance: $49,550.

Costs not included:

• voice (dvd)
• entire new working wardrobe
• moving out and setting up new apartment
• legal fees for name change
• eating awful hospital food for a week.