Antonio Lara

NEW YORK – A sexual tryst turned violent early Friday when a man used a corrosive liquid to douse another man he caught with his transgender lover, police said.
Ruben Olivares, 37, walked into his upper East Side home only to catch his 19-year-old flame about to perform a sex act on Antonio Lara, police and the victim said.
The jilted lover – a porter who works in the building – splashed Lara, 29, with the liquid, which investigators believe to be hydrochloric acid, and high-tailed it away from the scene, cops said.
“She wanted money for oral sex,” Lara told the News from his bed at New York Presbyterian Cornell Weill Hospital. “So I give her $20.
“Then, this guy comes through the door,” the Mexican immigrant said. “He brought a coffee cup.
“I thought it was coffee and he threw it at me,” he said. “It was acid in the coffee – it was very hot.”
Neighbors said they heard a ruckus at about 6:20 a.m.
“The girlfriend came running out screaming, naked,” said neighbor Dianora Niccolini, 74.
Lara said he met the unidentified teen through a phone service he saw advertised on television. She sent him a photo and they agreed to meet before he went to work as a scaffolding builder in Queens.
Olivares used his key to get inside the apartment and soon spotted Lara. An argument erupted and the porter tossed the liquid on Lara, police said.
He suffered burns to his face, neck, arms, chest and stomach. He is in serious but stable condition.
Witnesses said firefighters sprayed the father of two down with water, while cops searched for Olivares.
“The Fire Department guys were telling him to stand still,” said Jason Catlin, 39, who watched the scene from his bar on E. 78th St. “It was crazy. I never saw anything like it.”
Neighbors did not express sympathy for Olivares, who they said has a wife in Queens.
“I feel sorry for Ruben, but he’s not a nice guy,” Niccolini said.
from The New York Daily News

A biological male who claims to be female sued Macy’s Inc., on Thursday, alleging “unfair treatment and humiliation” at a Torrance store including verbal abuse, being thrown out of the women’s restroom and ridicule from management and co-
workers while employed there.
Jason “Jazz” Araquel, 21, described by his attorney as a preoperative male-to-female transgender individual, is also suing for wrongful termination.
Macy’s officials were not available for comment, but attorney Eric E. Castelblanco said the company fired his client for insubordination and use of foul language.
Araquel cited three years of alleged sex gender humiliation, harassment, discrimination, intimidation, coercion and emotional distress while working in the cosmetics department at Macy’s in Del Amo Fashion Center.
Castelblanco said his client’s sexual status was known to store management when Araquel was initially employed in a part-time capacity in November 2006 and became a full-time employee in March 2008 through Sept. 1, 2009, before he was terminated.
Araquel also alleges he was required to do work assignments not in a job description and was held to a stricter standard, Castelblanco said.
“Given the sensitive nature and impact of the decision by any individual to change their sex physically, psychologically and emotionally, it is abhorrent that Macy’s allowed her to be humiliated and harassed by other employees while also contributing to her pain and
suffering through its ongoing unfair treatment of her and then termination,” the lawyer said.
from The Press Telegram

Ticked Off Trannies With Knives

NEW YORK – The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is calling on the Tribeca Film Festival to pull a transgender comedy from its lineup.
The film, “Ticked-Off Trannies with Knives,” pays homage to exploitation films and follows a group of transgender women who are beaten and then seek revenge. It’s to screen at Tribeca in April.
GLAAD alleges the film misrepresents the lives of transgender women and claims the characters are caricatures “written as drag queens.” The organization also objected to the use of the word “trannies” in the title.
Director Israel Luna and producer Toni Miller released a joint statement in response, saying they were surprised by GLAAD’s announcement and that they gave a copy of the film to GLAAD in February.
In a statement, Tribeca said it is “proud of its ongoing commitment to bring diverse voices and stories to its audiences.”
from The Associated Press

The U.S. Tax Court ruled Tuesday that a Massachusetts woman should be allowed to deduct the costs of her sex-change operation, a decision that could have broad implications for transgender people.
Rhiannon O’Donnabhain (oh-DON’-oh-vin), who was born a man, sued the Internal Revenue Service after the agency rejected a $5,000 deduction for approximately $25,000 in medical expenses associated with the sex-change surgery.
The IRS said the surgery was cosmetic and not medically necessary.
In its decision Tuesday, the tax court said the IRS position was “at best a superficial characterization of the circumstances” that is “thoroughly rebutted by the medical evidence.”
The legal group Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which represented O’Donnabhain, said the ruling could potentially affect thousands of people a year in the U.S. who undergo similar operations.
“I think what the court is saying is that surgery and hormone therapy for transgender people to alleviate the stress associated with gender identity disorder is legitimate medical care,” said Jennifer Levi, a GLAD attorney.
IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge declined to comment on the ruling.
In a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, O’Donnabhain said she underwent sex-reassignment surgery at age 57, after a tormented existence as a father, husband, Coast Guardsman and construction worker.
She wrote off the $25,000 in medical expenses on her taxes, but the IRS disallowed the deduction, ruling that the procedure was not a medical necessity.
O’Donnabhain, now 65, said she brought the lawsuit in an attempt to force the IRS to treat sex-change surgeries the same as appendectomies, heart surgeries and other deductible medical procedures.
“It is not OK for them to do this to me or anyone like me,” she said.
O’Donnabhain’s lawyers argued that because gender-identity disorder is a recognized mental disorder that is generally treated with hormones and surgery, the costs are legitimate medical deductions.
The tax court agreed.
“The evidence amply supports the conclusions that petitioner suffered from severe GID, that GID is a well-recognized and serious mental disorder, and that hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery are considered appropriate and effective treatments for GID by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals who are knowledgeable concerning the condition,” the court said in its ruling.
An estimated 1,600 to 2,000 people a year undergo sex-change surgery in the United States, according to the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association.
The tax court said O’Donnabhain could deduct as a medical care expense the costs associated with treating her gender-identity disorder, including sex-reassignment surgery and hormone therapy. But the court said she could not deduct the costs of breast augmentation surgery because it found that she had achieved breast enhancement through hormone treatments.
from The Associated Press

Amanda Simpson

The Human Rights Campaign — the  lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization — did not find find a David Letterman joke Tuesday night about the appointment of transgender Amanda Simpson to a senior position at the U.S. Department of Commerce funny.
The group sent a letter today to Letterman and CBS Corp. expressing disappointment and asking for a public apology.
In a skit during Letterman’s opening monologue, the Late Show host announced Simpson’s historic appointment and revealed that she is transgender, displaying a photograph of her.  The show’s announcer, Alan Kalter, then feigned “trans panic,” implying he had some prior relationship with Simpson but was not aware of her gender history, and ran yelling from the stage.
In the letter, the Human Rights group writes:  “You may not be aware that the punch line in your skit has been used as a defense in nearly every hate crime perpetrated against transgender people that has come to trial.  For example, the ‘trans panic’defense was infamously used by Allen Ray Andrade, who was convicted in 2009 of beating 19-year-old Angie Zapata to death with a fire extinguisher after learning of her gender history.”
Simpson, 48, who started her job yesterday as senior technical advisor to the Department of Commerce, has said the fact she was “Mitch” before becoming Amanda is relevant if only to illustrate the need for greater equality.
from USA Today
*

*

Kerry Bell

BOUNTIFUL, UTAH – As a child, Kerry Bell dreamed of growing up to become a policeman — both a police officer and a man.
Becoming a cop was relatively simple — Bell joined the Bountiful Police Department 14 years ago. Becoming a man took more time.
Born female, Bell came out as transgender about a year and a half ago and started a transition to a new life as a man. He always had felt male, but did not think switching genders was a viable option until he saw transgender people gaining wider acceptance, along with advances in medical technology.
Surprisingly, the 42-year-old — working in what many perceive as a super-macho culture — says he did not fret about telling the police chief or his co-workers to start referring to him as “he,” not “she.”
“I wasn’t worried about coming out at work,” says Bell, who has had hormone treatments and surgeries. “I’ve worked for Bountiful for 14 years. I know everybody I work with.”
Although some employees have trouble remembering to use masculine pronouns, Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross says, “everyone’s done a great job of accepting Kerry and staying focused on why we’re here in the first place.”
Bell, a corporal and SWAT member, is a “well-rounded police officer,” Ross adds. “We’re glad that he works here.”
Some things about Bell’s transition were easy. He did not have to wear different clothes to work. Uniforms, he jokes, are exactly that –uniform. His first and last name also stayed the same, although he dropped a middle name, Ann, and changed the gender marker on his driver license.
His “only anxiety,” he says, was telling his parents, who divorced when Bell was 2 years old. But his mother, his father and their spouses were supportive.
“You have to accept your children for who they are,” says his dad, Terry Bell, who lives in Rockville near Zion National Park. “It’s a little difficult for me, after 40 years, to think of my daughter as a son. That’s hard. [But] it hasn’t changed a thing about how I feel about him as a person.”
Now, Kerry Bell works to increase understanding between his two worlds: law enforcement and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
The relationship between the two communities has had ups and downs. A police raid on a New York gay bar erupted into the 1969 Stonewall riots, launching the modern gay-rights movement.
Far less hostility exists today — homosexuality has been decriminalized — but many LGBT people remain wary of contacting the cops, Bell says. Some worry about whether they will be treated with respect. Others, who are in the closet, fear being outed.
Bell belongs to the LGBT Public Safety Committee, an informal group with police representatives from Weber County to West Valley City that has been working for nine years to bridge the gap.
The committee members help gay and transgender people understand police procedures. They coach police on how to respond to cases of same-sex domestic violence and gay cruising in parks. In fact, they helped launch a successful Salt Lake City program that steers those caught having sex in public places toward counseling, not jail. If the violators do not repeat the offense for a year — the vast majority don’t — the charges are dropped.
That many LGBT officers now serve openly at several Utah law-enforcement agencies speaks volumes to how far society has progressed, says Salt Lake City Capt. Kyle Jones, a founding member of the committee.
“Twenty years ago, they wouldn’t have been [welcome],” says Jones, who was inspired to get involved with the LGBT community after his son came out as gay. “The current crop of officers, by and large, don’t give it a second thought.”
Jones, along with other committee members, recruits potential new officers at the annual Utah Pride Festival for the Salt Lake City Police Department.
“Our department has tried for years to recruit from the populations that we represent,” Jones says. “Anywhere from 8 to 12 percent of [Salt Lake City] is thought to be LGBT so we should have 8 to 12 percent of our cops who are LGBT.”
Bell hopes being out can help “demystify” what it means to be transgender.
As a Davis County kid, Bell says he always felt like a boy. It was something he didn’t know how to express to his family. At age 6, he gathered up all his dolls and gave them to a neighbor. He hated going to church on Sunday because it meant he had to wear a dress.
“I thought God had just put me in the wrong body, and one day I’d wake up and I’d be the way I was supposed to be,” says Bell, a Salt Lake City resident. “Of course, you reach an age where you realize that’s not going to happen.”
At 16, Bell told his parents he was attracted to women after they asked if he was gay. As a lesbian, Bell found a home in the LGBT community. He also learned more about people who are transgender. He looked into surgery at age 18 but decided the techniques were too “barbaric.”
More than 20 years later, he decided he was ready for the change.
“I’m a generally optimistic and happy person,” he says. But “I’ve probably felt better in the last year and a half than I have at any point in my life.”
His other joyful moments are similar to those for most police officers: helping someone in need, maybe even hearing a “thank you.”
from  The Salt Lake Tribune
*
*

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved.
Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgendered — that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant — each was a victim of violence based on bias against transgendered people.
We live in times more sensitive than ever to hatred based violence, especially since the events of September 11th. Yet even now, the deaths of those based on anti-transgender hatred or prejudice are largely ignored. Over the last decade, more than one person per month has died due to transgender-based hate or prejudice, regardless of any other factors in their lives. This trend shows no sign of abating.
The Transgender Day of Remembrance serves several purposes. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgendered people, an action that current media doesn’t perform. Day of Remembrance publicly mourns and honors the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. Through the vigil, we express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. Day of Remembrance reminds non-transgendered people that we are their sons, daughters, parents, friends and lovers. Day of Remembrance gives our allies a chance to step forward with us and stand in vigil, memorializing those of us who’ve died by anti-transgender violence.
from Gender