The International Foundation for Gender Education

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.

by Stasha Goliaszewski

Can a male develop breasts because of some natural function or medical problem? Here is the story of one Stasha Goliaszewski. She developed B cup breasts as a result of a medical condition known as Conn?s Syndrome, which put her in the painful, agonizing, excruciating, distasteful, heartbreaking, and overwhelming position of having to choose between possible death or feminization.

How many of us have wished the Boob Fairy would visit us and we would wake up with a nice set? Even a cute B would do. The intensity of the wish may wane, but every time you fill that bra with birdseed or water balloons, it comes back in full force. If only they were real! Well, in my case, it happened. It didn?t happen overnight, but it did happen.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.



Text by Katharine Coleman, photographs by Mariette Pathy Allen.
Last September, Mariette accepted an invitation to speak at the Fifth International Congress on Sex and Gender at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Oct. 24-27. We also attended the Gay Games in Sydney and journeyed to Melbourne. The latter was the subject of an article in Tapestry #103; we saved the Congress and Games for this issue.



The Fifth International Congress
on Sex and Gender
Perth is a city of about a million people, set on the Indian Ocean in the far west of Australia, about five hours by air from Sydney. Perth has a reputation as a redneck town, but to us it looked much like downtown San Diego: new, clean and stylish. It has a beautiful location and a balmy climate. If you want to see what Perth was like seventy years ago and what the surrounding countryside still looks like, then go see the film ?Rabbit Proof Fence,? which is showing at art cinemas around the U.S.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.



Review by Katrina C. Rose



Most of us are aware of the concept of ?the big lie?: make sure it, whatever ?it? may be, is repeated enough, and it becomes accepted as true whether or not it has any basis in reality.
Another type of big lie is the assertion of something so preposterous, yet so simplistic, that the perfectly accurate yet equally simplistic response/refutation sounds even more preposterous than the initial lie?necessitating extensively-researched answers presented in laborious, boring academic formats that most people can?t follow and, as such, are ignored.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.



Review by Marisa Richmond, Ph.D.



Transsexuality has become an increasingly popular topic of study by many therapists. Many support groups are contacted, often by graduate students seeking to expand their knowledge in a field that is not well-understood by outsiders. More and more, members of the transgender community are speaking for themselves through books and journals, produced both for the transgender community and various professional communities. One new entry in this field is by
J. Michael Bailey, an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern Univer-sity. Bailey?s contribution to the field is, however, marked by numerous snide remarks about transsexuals and shows an incredible disdain for the community he purports to support while simultaneously using very poor methodology in making his claims.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.



by Miqqi Alicia Gilbert

Part 1 of 2





Clothing is a political issue. It serves a great number of purposes, all of which are social, but many of which are also political. First, I want you to think about what we know, or, more correctly, what we assume about someone from their clothes.



Of course, the first thing that comes to your mind is gender, and you may well be right. But clothes are not always safe gender signals in every context. I work on a university campus, and as often as not, the young women and men there are wearing the same thing?jeans, a T-shirt, and runners. When a young woman dresses like that, she can be stating many things, including, to cite just one, that she is not in a romantic space and is focusing on her classes.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.



J. Michael Bailey is Chair of the Department of Psychology and Professor at Chicago?s prestigious Northwestern University.



A Ph.D. graduate of Louisiana?s Baylor University, he is trained in clinical psychology and known as a sexologist. The bulk of his research has concerned the behavioral and vocal mannerisms of gay men.
This year, Bailey made a play for the big time?if one considers the talk show and lecture circuit the big time?via a book published under the imprint of the prestigious National Academies of Science. The title is The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.



by Monica F. Helms



?Sheriff! Sheriff! The new doc just got off the train!?



?Calm down, Cleatis. Iffin? ya seens one doctor, ya seens ?em all.?



?Not like this, Sheriff. This doctor?s a ?she?!?



?Well, I?ll be hornswaggled. We got ourselves another Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman!?



In Trinidad, just 126 miles south of Colorado Springs, where the fictitious Dr. Quinn hung out her shingle, a new pioneer woman has come onto the scene?only this one is doing sex reassignment surgery. Dr. Marci Bowers, 45,
a successful and award-winning OB/GYN doctor from Seattle, has decided to use the knowledge and skills she has learned to give back to our community. After all, she is one of us.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.



by Shirley Boughton



My efforts to control and suppress my transgender urges failed in a spectacular way. In 1983, in a moment of weakness, I lost control and acted out on my transgender urges by dressing as a woman and engaging in sex with a man. This was the only way, I thought, that I could be affirmed as a woman.



Following this incident, I knew my efforts at control and suppression would not work. I finally got up the nerve to bring my wife in on my deep secret, and together we sought professional help. I still kept the fact of the sexual encounter from her, hoping I had avoided being infected by a sexually transmitted disease. The AIDS virus had not yet been identified; AIDS was called Gay Related Immune Deficiency, or GRID. I wasn?t gay, so I didn?t think I was at risk.

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.

?Have you ever wondered why I have long hair??



?No. Lots of people have long hair.?



?Have you ever wondered why I have my ears pierced??



?No. Lots of guys have their ears pierced. What the hell are you getting at??



?Pete, are you going to tell me you?re gay? Get on with it already; it?s no big deal!? This from a second friend.



?Do you know what gender identity is??



?Yeah. I saw it on Oprah a while back.?



?Well, what is it, then??



?Well, ah, well, it?s how you see yourself, as a male or female?you know, like I identify myself as female and you, well, you identify yourself as male.?



?Well, that?s what I?m dealing with. Gender identity.?

Originally appeared in Transgender Tapestry #104, Winter 2004.



In 1979, Boston?s Beacon Press published Janice J. Raymond?s pseudoscientific polemic The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male. Based on her Ph.D. thesis at Boston College, Raymond argued that male-to-female transsexuals (or, in her terminology, ?male-to-constructed females?), are tools of a patriarchal medical system, designed to make women obsolete.



Raymond?s book appeared in the same year as a methodologically flawed and almost certainly fraudulent study by Jon Meyer and Donna Reter of Johns Hopkins University, published in the professional journal Archives of General Psychiatry. Together, these two publications?one a 200-page political manifesto masquerading as science, and one a six-page politically-motivated article which also masqueraded as science, dealt American transsexuals a blow from which they are only now recovering.