Tag Archives: australia

Australian Transgender Assault Victim Stunned by Assailant’s Sentencing

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Elizabeth Andersen (a fellow hostess of “The Tenth Voice” on 90.1 KKFI) passed this news on to me: when transgender woman Stephanie McCarthy was beaten by two men in a case of anti-transgender violence, she lost the hearing in her left ear, has damaged eye sight in one eye, and has lost feeling in the top part of her face – in addition to suffering an untold emotional toll. Nonetheless, she stood brave and proud, and faced her assailants in court, where they were found guilty.

What she didn’t expect was to be victimized by the court system in Sydney, Australia, as the primary assailant was sentenced to 150 hours of community service and an 18-month good behavior bond. In short, pretty much no punishment. The other assailant remains to be sentenced, but will likely receive a lesser sentence. Even worse, McCarthy was not told of the sentencing date by the prosecutor or the court, and thus was denied her right to make a Victim Impact Statement.

From the article:

“I asked the leading investigator (Detective Nick Kenny) when the sentencing date would be and he told me sometime early next year,” she said.

“I waited five months for that day in court and giving the Victim Impact Statement would’ve been important for me.

“And I think it would’ve made a difference in the sentence.”

…

The emotional toll of the assault has also been significant as the once outgoing punk rocker and trans woman feels her life will never be the same again.

“I’m well known in [Sydney’s] inner-west and most people are very nice,” she said.

“But I’ve been spat on, bottles thrown at me and had bottles thrown at me from passing cars.

“My life will never be the same.”

Source: Assault victim Stephanie McCarthy devastated at assailant’s sentencing | Star Observer

Two Flashbacks – 1942 and 1954

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I’ve added many old photographs of transgender and crossdressing women to the Transas City archive lately, and continue to add them. I thought as a random update I’d show you these two photographs, and give a little history of them.

The main photograph above is a mug shot of Neville McQuade (age 18) and Lewis Stanley Keith (age 19), at the North Sydney Australia Police Station, early June 1942. Arrested for “being idle and disorderly persons, having insufficient means of support, and with having goods in their possession believed to be stolen,” they were almost certainly transgender prostitutes. They served one week in jail, a surprisingly lenient sentence.

Charlotte McLeod

This second photograph is a very rare one showing the second Atomic Age transsexual woman, Charlotte McLeod, at work as the receptionist at an all-night beauty counter, circa late 1954/early 1955. Unlike Christine Jorgensen, Charlotte McLeod did not receive the fame and attention which she desired, and after a short attempt at a show business career, disappeared into relative obscurity.

Transgender Man’s Transition is Celebrated by His Parents in a Classy Manner

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This article shows a very inspiring and classy way in which the parents of 19-year-old Kai Bogert announced their support for his transition. They took out an advertisement in the Brisbane Courier “retracting” their earlier birth announcement of their daughter.

The photo says it all folks. This is certainly a show of support by Kai’s parents which he shall never forget.

Teen gets sex change, parents retract newspaper birth announcement in heart-warming fashion – Australasia – World – The Independent.

Exclusive – Photographs of Transgender Women from Sydney in the 1970’s

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Mel_Small

A couple of years ago I stumbled across a very interesting book which I managed to purchase for a steal, not realizing how rare it would become. The book is “As a Woman” by Barry Kay, and it is a photographic essay book of transgender women of Sydney, Australia, who were photographed from 1974-1975. Kay, a stage designer who was a fair hand at photography, had many encounters with the Sydney transgender community in the early 1970’s, and he collected photographs which he took of both crossdressers and transsexuals in their private spaces, at home, with friends, at work, and about the town.

The book is made up of 80 photographs of more than 60 different women, all of them in black and white save for a sepia print which makes up the cover photograph. The photographs are often shot with a soft filter or soft focus, which either helps soften the images of the women, or else serves to create an air of gentle unreality to the photographs.

I selected 16 photographs from the book to highlight here on Transas City. Each photograph is scaled for easy display online, but if you right-click and save the file you will see the high-resolution scan.

Barry Kay – Transgender Women of 1970’s Sydney in “As a Woman”

Countries Introduce Gender-neutral Policies for Transgender Persons

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India_Transgender
Some bloggers have been noting several recent advances in transgender rights around the world, and have been declaring that these countries are so much more advanced than the United States. But one really must take the whole picture of how transgender people are treated, not just one or two factors. Yes here in the good ol’ U-S-of-A we are lagging behind in several areas of transgender acceptance – but we also do have a basic legal structure and set of Constitutional protections which many countries which seem much more open to transgender persons appear to have.

For example, my friend Shoshana sent me this link to advances made recently in India, where Indian’s Supreme Court has in a landmark ruling recognized transgender people as a third gender. Quoting:

“It is the right of every human being to choose their gender,” it said in granting rights to those who identify themselves as neither male nor female.

It ordered the government to provide transgender people with quotas in jobs and education in line with other minorities, as well as key amenities.

But remember, homosexuality is still a crime in India, and so this brings into play a troubling issue – are transgender persons only allowed to have sex with men and women, but not other transgender persons?

Hijra_BBC
And note that the transgender persons of India, many (but not all – this is important) of whom are hijra, are not exactly living happily there. Even a cursory study of the lives of the hijra finds that they are still and may well be for decades an oppressed underclass. Also from the BBC article:

Their fall from grace started in the 18th Century during the British colonial rule when the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 categorised the entire transgender community as “criminals” who were “addicted” to committing serious crimes. They were arrested for dressing in women’s clothing or dancing or playing music in public places, and for indulging in gay sex.

After Independence, the law was repealed in 1949, but mistrust of the transgender community has continued. Even today, they remain socially excluded, living on the fringes of society, in ghettoised communities, harassed by the police and abused by the public. Most make a living by singing and dancing at weddings or to celebrate child birth, many have moved to begging and prostitution.

Stepping back to the CNN article on the subject (linked below), they report that several countries have passed laws to protect the rights of transgender persons, including Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, and Portugal. Meanwhile, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have also worked hard to improve transgender rights. So yes there is a lot of progress here, but the United States has been advancing rapidly as well on innumerable transgender fronts. I like to tell the audiences I speak to that transgender rights have advanced more in the last 5 years than in the last 500, and I feel that might even be underselling the situation somewhat.

It still can really suck to be transgender in America, but it sucks less than ever before.

Countries introduce gender-neutral policies for transgender community – CNN.com.

The ‘Curing’ (Torture and Exploitation) of Australia’s First Transgender Man

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A compelling historical piece from the Atlantic magazine. The subject is the life of Ellen Tremaye, one of the first European transgender men known on the continent. Changing his name to Edward De Lacy Evans and living as a man, including having several wives who claimed not to have any idea their husband had a vagina (see the story of Billy Tipton), he found employment as a miner and blacksmith. More importantly, the story focuses on the way he was treated when he was forcibly committed to an asylum for depression. Upon being stripped for bathing, they discovered he had female genitalia and breasts, and then:

Doctors diagnosed him with “cerebral mania” and “mental weakness,” and offered him only female attire to wear. He refused to wear it, or to eat, for days at a time. Over the course of Evans’ three-month treatment, physicians subjected him to extensive vaginal and rectal probing, during which he reportedly “sobbed and wept.”

Well yeah, I’m pretty sure most of us would sob and weep over extensive rectal and vaginal probing.

Evans’ exposure caused, to put it mildly, an incredible stir. One local photographer snuck into the hospital and took photos of Evans dressed in both male and female clothing, as well as in a straight jacket. Local sideshow operators offered the hospital 5 Australian pounds a week to display Evans as an oddity.

After his release, Evans did appear in one such traveling carnival, where reporters noted that he appeared “weak and half-witted” from the ordeal. Sideshows billed him as “The Wonderful Male Impersonator” and a pamphlet about his life, The Man-Woman Mystery, was published in 1880.

I give a spoiler and say that Evans did not lead a long and happy life. Much more information at the link below.

The ‘Curing’ of Australia’s First Transgender Man – Olga Khazan – The Atlantic.

Two Steps Backwards (and one Update) for Same-Sex Marriage

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IndiaCourt
Same-sex marriage is an issue which is closely linked with transgender civil rights, as somewhere from 33-70% of transgender persons identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Just in the past week there have been two significant defeats for same-sex marriage in the world, which I thought I would report on.

First, in India their Supreme Court has upheld a colonial-era law which criminalizes homosexuality by a 10-year prison term. The Court essentially said there was no constitutional protection for homosexuality, and that lawmakers were the ones to decriminalize it. This brings up an interesting question, in that given the hijra of India often identify as “third gender”, I wonder if a lower court will find that a hijra (who is typically an XY male) can marry either a man or a woman.

Second, in Australia we have their Supreme Court going out of its way to overturn a same-sex marriage law passed in the Australian Capital Territory. Basically, this case is a “states rights versus national rights” issue, and the Court decided here that there was no over-riding civil rights protection for same-sex marriage, and therefore the federal law banning same-sex marriage takes precedence.

Finally, in more positive news, Ireland appears to be headed for a vote on same-sex marriage in 2015. It’s going to be a close vote by most news reports I’ve read, with the conservative religious rural areas strongly against. The media campaigns have started, and this is a sweet video spot which is running in Ireland now.

Indie Film Winner “Bamboozled” Accused of Transphobia, Homophobia, etc.

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BamboozledTropfest is the world’s largest short film festival, and in this year’s contest the winner is a 7-minute short film by West Australian film maker Matt Hardie. The film, Bamboozled, is a “revenge sex” film where a gay cisgender man (Harry) pretends to be a transman who was once the girlfriend (Helen) of the protagonist, Pete. However, the entire thing is a set-up for a TV “gotcha” program, and thus the film portrays someone pretending to be a transsexual person for the purpose of tricking them into sex.

Setting off any alarm bells yet?

You can watch the entire film at the link below. I was not hugely offended by it, more just turned off. Nonetheless, it’s getting a lot of press and spurring a lot of commentary, and none of it is positive towards transgender persons.

Tropfest winner Bamboozled accused of transphobia, homophobia | Crikey.