14D - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NATIONAL NEWS
MONDAY, AUG. 19, 2002
Transsexuals demand more rights
KRT Campus
Cities across the United States are crossing one of the last civil rights frontiers, extending employment, housing and public accommodation protections to transgender people.
Dallas, New York and Philadelphia have each passed such anti-discrimination ordinances within the last three months, bringing the total to 46 U.S. cities and four states across the country.
Most have been enacted within the last three years, with many activists in part crediting a rise in political organizing by gender activists since the mid-1990s and the Internet-fueled rise of community organizing for transgender people.
They say they also have been helped by shifting public awareness and understanding fueled by movies such as the Oscar-winning "Boys Don't Cry" and "Southern Comfort", winner of the 2001 best documentary award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Companies ranging from Aetna to Apple. Lucent Technologies. American Airlines, Xerox and Intel have included protection of the transgendered in their anti-discrimination policies, and corporate sponsors are sending money and representatives to transgendered community events in large cities such as Houston.
"I really think more and more that public and business entities are recognizing that being transgendered is not a moral failing. It's a condition that you have," said veteran Richardson, Texas Police Officer Diana Powe, who changed her identity to female in 2000 with support of her chief.
The term transgendered covers a broad spectrum of gender issues, including transsexuals, or individuals found to have been born with physical attributes of one gender and psychological attributes of the other, to cross-dressers and the intersexed individuals born with some degree of
both male and female sexual organs
Since the late 1960s, transsexuals in whom gender identity disorder has been formally diagnosed have been able to undergo surgery to change their sex organs and appearance.
But community leaders say bias and ignorance about the medical nature of the condition meant that taking on a new sexual identity caused the loss of jobs, families, friends and virtually all else associated with the old.
"This has always been a misunderstood and little known phenomenon. And a lot of the bias against us is just the fear of other. We mess with people's primary gender concepts," said Vanessa Edwards Foster of Houston, a board member and spokeswoman for the National Transgendered Advocacy Coalition.
"A lot of folks assume it's very captivious, that we decide on a whim. I'm going to be a woman," she said. "The fact is that it is a very agonizing decision. It's a tremendous leap, and there's still not much of a safety net."
Making the transition once always meant "going stealth," or hiding every aspect of one's former life, and Foster and other activists say that many transgendered people in Texas still turn their lives upside down to avoid being found out.
"I know a number of teachers around the state — 35 to 40. They change cities. They change records. They get the gender changed on their employment records. They do it in total secrecy. They totally turn their lives upside down out of necessity," said Houston activist Sara DePalma. "They're not going to be honest and open about it. They live in terror of being out."
She and others said that fear has begun to lift in recent years, as a national web of support and advocacy groups began coalescing on the Internet in the mid-90s and gay and lesbian rights issues began drawing
"I think it's accurate to say that we're now probably where the gay and lesbian communities were 20 years ago," Foster said.
increasing public attention and support
She and others estimate that as many as a third of transgendered people who undergo identity changes now do so relatively openly and manage to keep their jobs.
Stephanie Gonzalez, an assistant city attorney in Lewisville, Texas, said she was greeted widely with concern and support after a recent return to work after sex change surgery. City officials there issued a statement to explain what had happened.
"This is 2002, and it's not a new concept," Gonzalez said. "I think it is becoming more accepted as we get more educated and understand that this is a medical condition."
But community activists say many who make the change on the job still face hurdles as basic as where they can use office bathrooms.
They note that discomfort with gender identity issues is still so common that gay and lesbian activists often jetison efforts to add protection for the transgendered to try to make anti-discrimination and hate-crimes measured.
One New York gay lobbying group has fought for several years to keep such protections out of bills aimed at outlawing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Foster said the hate crime bill passed by the Texas Legislature in 2001 excluded bias crimes against the transgendered because supporters feared the bill would otherwise be torpeded.
DePalma said she and other Texas transgender activists have repeatedly tried without success to convince state lawmakers of the need for legal protections to ensure such basic rights as being able to get a driver's license or state ID card with the proper sex designation.
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Tommy Lee's new solo album, "Never a Dull Moment," has a few
NEW YORK _ Tommy Lee called his new album "Never a Dull Moment" because, in his life, there never is.
"I walk around saying that to myself a lot," says the former drummer for Motley Crue, ex-husband of Pamela Anderson, and co-star with her in an infamous unauthorized home-video sex tape. With his new girlfriend Maya Gurcia who was previously married to Prince, in tow, he's touring the country with his own heavy-rock band.
Bounding into a conference room lined with pictures of Jimi Hendrix he's wearing denim and a "wifebeater" undershrift that shows off a tattoo of Mighty Mouse bursting through a bass drum. Lee got it in 1981, and hasn't been able to stop inking himself since. "They're like potato chips: Once you get one, there's no turning back."
"A really good friend of mine said to me! Dude, you've got to call your record that!" And I was like 'Of course I do!' It's perfect. I have a very exciting life and there's always something fun going on. I'm never, ever bored."
On this particular recent Marhamtian evening, the tanky, nose-ringed 39-year-old is principally excited about "Never," his first proper solo album ("Methods of Mayhem"), his initial 1999 post-Crue move, was a modest-selling rap-metal collaboration with the rapper Tilo.
Lee is amped and open. As Anderson told an interviewer in the June/fuly issue of Jane magazine, "Tommy can be very charismatic." The renowned rock 'n' roll bad boy is a "people pleaser" who exudes an earnest, goofy charm. When asked about saying, "I do things because I love them, but also
because I want the recognition," in the best-selling Motley Crue tell-all book "The Dirt," he says, "I said that? The Realy? Darn."
He's up for talking about the "ugly" custody battle he locked in with Anderson. And the lawsuit involving the death of a 4-year-old boy in his back-yard pool. And the decades of debauchery chronicled in 2001's "The Dirt," which makes the Crue sound like the sleaziest rockers of all time.
But first, the music
Lee recorded most of "Never" at his Mallu, Calif. home, playing the majority of the instruments himself. Onstage, Lee, a powerhouse drummer known for playing his kil while suspended upside down, sings and plays guitar. In one extended segment, however, he pounds the skins while Garcia shows off her belly dancing.
"When I did the 'Methods' record, creatively I was going to do whatever I wanted. It was wide-open and called for some guest stars," including Fred Durst, Snoop Dogg and Kid Rock, who is now engaged to Anderson. On the "Never" liner notes, Lee thanks Rock, for "taking #S"" off my hands."
After going home in September 2000 after doing the Ozzfest tour with "Methods," I just started doing everything myself. The drums and the guitars, the bass lines, everything."
There's a misguided cover of David Bowie's "Fame" and a handful of surprisingly melodic songs such as "Blue" and "Held Me Down." After seven weeks, it's No. 162 on the Billboard albums chart after peaking at 39.
The result is a serviceable heavy-rock record with generic vocal that backs away from the 'Methods' rap metal blueprint.
Lee, who was born in Athens boast American Army sergeant father and a Greek beauty queen mother, says he left Motley Crue after nearly two decades because his creativity was being stymied. Songwriter bassist Nikki Sixs "used to say that Motley Crue was a brand."
Because the material Lee was writing didn't fit the "Girls, Girls, Girls" model that served the Los Angeles hair-metal band so well in the 1980s, however, "it was like .. I'm going to die if I don't make a move."
Outside of music, Lee has plenty going on to keep his life from ever getting dull. Like Anderson, who is now writing an advice column for Jane, he's dabbling in magazine work as a guest photographer for Playboy.
And he's dedicated to doing "whatever it takes" to win the custody battle for his sons, Brandon, 6 (who is heard saying, "That's bad. Dad" after a particularly gnarly riff on "Never"), and Dylan, 4.
"I just want what's best for the kids, and what's best for them is to spend just as much time with me as their mom," says Lee, who says his seven-year pre-Anderson marriage to actress Henther Locklear went sour because the actress did not want to have children.
On "Larry King Live" last week, Anderson repeated allegations that she had contracted hepatitis C from sharing a tattoo needle with Lee. The rocker, who spent three months in jail for spousal abuse in 1998, denied he has the disease, and accused Anderson of making false allegations.
"I don't know why anyone would sling around anything like that. I just know it's wrong."
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