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TGF News Briefs
From our fabulous News Hawks!
Have you seen a TG-related news story online or in your local paper? Send it in to TGF and become a News Hawk! Don't assume we know everything that's out there, because you are our eyes and ears. To file a story, send it in to Cindy.
Ask Harriet Gets Bad Review
Contributed by Elizabeth Parker
Transactivist Jessica
Xavier, a consultant for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
's Washington, D.C.
Media Resource Center, has less than a ringing endorsment for this "Tootsie"
throwback: "Unlike Jack Lemmon's sweet surrender to the notion of getting
married to a male millionaire while posing as a woman in the classic Some
Like It Hot, same-sex encounters are continuously portrayed on Ask Harriet?
as a dire threat to Jack and his all-American red-blooded heterosexuality.
Thus the show goes far beyond just presuming a heterosexist status quo. It
views same-sex attraction as the ultimate horror, to be escaped at any
comedic cost." Others point out that Jack's discomfort with receiving the
treatment he habitually dishes out is some small comfort for feminists.
Most Popular Cosmetic Surgeries
Contributed by Hebe Dotson
The ten most popular
cosmetic surgery procedures in the USA for 1996 (source: American Academy of
Cosmetic Surgery). More than three million procedures were performed, about
79 percent on women. The eighth most popular procedure was breast
augmentation, performed on 76,407 women and 220 men at an average physician's
fee of $2,895. (This was actually the least popular among men of the top ten;
number 9 was face lifts -- 42,269 women and 6,674 men.)
--Via the Washington Post
British Cross-Dressing Comic Lobbies for Europe
Contributed by Elizabeth Parker
Comic Eddie Izzard is described by the "London Times" as "Britain's most
celebrated transvestite," but this week he appeared on BBC 1's honored public
affairs roundtable "Question Time." Although politics has not generally been
the subject of Izzard's humor, he says that, "I've always been political.
It's nothing new, but I'm stamping on about Europe because the British can be
so small-minded." He's an enthusiastic supporter of the European single
currency , which Britain doesn't
seem likely to adopt soon, and about which even Germany and France seem to
have increasing reservations.
Gender-Switching Bugs
Contributed by Sharon Marie O'Shea
Pollution and human waste appear to be causing the majority of male roach, one of
Britain's most common freshwater fish, to undergo sex changes. A study by Brunel
University revealed that 100 percent of the male roach examined in two rivers, the
Nene and Aire, showed signs of feminization. In the worst case, large parts of the
fish's sperm-producing testes had turned into egg-making ovary tissue. This is the
first time that feminization of male fish has been attributed to factory discharges.
Earlier studies have linked fish sex changes to human and synthetic estrogen released
into waterways through sewage.
--Via the Asbury Park (NJ) Press
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