URNotAlone

TheOlympian.com - Ruth Schneider

So, it turns out Olympia's best-kept secret is hardly a secret.

Drag night, the last-Saturday-of-the-month event at Jake's on Fourth, is one of the hottest places to be.

Even if you're straight.

Even if you're married.

SoVo.com - By Dyana Bagby

Transgender identities cross a fluid spectrum, causing confusion for some, freedom for others

Nation’s largest trans conference comes to ATL

Southern Comfort Conference
Sept. 29-Oct. 5
Crowne Plaza Ravinia
4355 Ashford Dunwoody
770-395-7700
www.sccatl.org

Cole Thaler is a gay man. But, he explained, he was “assigned female at birth.”

Confused?  Read more »

Stuff.co.nz - Ben Fawkes - The Dominion Post

Employers with transgender staff should assist them as they change sex, proposed Labour Department guidelines say.

Such assistance would include helping them to decide which toilets to use and ensuring the person's new name was used.

The draft plan says employers should meet an employee intending to change sex and establish a "written action plan" to ensure their workplace transition was smooth.

Old.TheJakartaPost.com - Slamet Susanto, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

Access to prayer, transcendence and feeling closer to God are the religious rights of every human being.

However, in practice, it seems that heterosexuals maintain a monopoly over access to these needs in many places of worship.

But what about people with same-sex orientation, like lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals (LGBT)?

WashingtonBlade.com - Melissa Rothstein & Darby Hickey

D.C. should require the Dept. of Corrections to comply with the Human Rights Act  Read more »

PrideSource.com - by Jessica Carreras

On Sept. 17, TransGender Michigan Executive Director and co-founder Rachel Crandall was presented with the Michigan Bar Association's Liberty Bell Award at a ceremony at the Hyatt Regency of Dearborn.

Nominated by the Stonewall Bar Association, Crandall was presented with the award for her dedicated work over the past ten years advocating for the understanding of and equal rights for the transgender community. The organization was started after Crandall lost her job, marriage, home and friends after coming out as transgender.

TheScotsman.com - By Tim Cornwell

There was one play by Tennessee Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of such American classics as A Streetcar Named Desire, which he never wanted performed in his lifetime. It was And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens, with its central character of a transvestite who brings a sailor home in the hope of seducing him.  Read more »

KennebecJournal.MaineToday.com - Theodora J. Kalikow

Here’s a little exercise for your imagination.

Take some feature of yourself - maybe your ears or your nose, or your height or weight - and then imagine being insulted about it every 15 minutes during your day at work. How long would you last?

I predict you would run screaming out of there very soon or feel the need for revenge. With your last shred of rationality you would, I hope, complain to your boss about a hostile work environment.

PhnomPenhPost.com - Written by Nguon Sovan

From an early age Leang Sothea knew she was different, but since having a sex-change operation in 2006 she hasn't looked back

Based on the prediction of the midwife, Leang Sothea's mother's was certain the child would be a girl. Before she gave birth, she even started sewing girl's clothing for her new baby.

Leang Sothea was not born a girl, but the midwife wasn't exactly wrong either.  Read more »

Xtra.ca - David Bateman

"If there's one thing I've learned in my career it's that death is not a pretty thing. In fact, it's down right ugly. That portal is not nearly as pearly as it is made out to be. When a friend's time has come the least you can do is be there and hold their hand - and do their nails." - Charles Hayter in Lady in Waiting

You think you've heard every coming-out story going, then you walk into a theatre and a delightfully bitchy, slightly garish drag queen saunters onstage and begins to tell her own unique version of what it's like to break down the closet door...