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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.

UK BBC Crew
Caught in Drag

Contributed by Elizabeth Parker
via Reuters
May 22, 1998

YEMEN - The image called to mind by the British Broadcasting Corporation isn't generally one of men in drag, but a three-man BBC crew being held in Yemen were caught disguised as women. The men had hoped the traditional all-covering black garments would hide them from police as they exceeded their official authorization to enter secretly an area the government had deemed unsafe for them in order to pursue a story about kidnapping.

TG Hate Bill Passes

via UPI
May 27, 1998

SACRAMENTO, CA - The California Assembly has passed (Wednesday) a bill aimed at toughening prosecution of gender-related hate crimes. The bill now advancing to the Senate would clarify that hate crimes include those aimed at victims who dress like or behave like the opposite sex. Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, says few district attorneys are pursuing charges related to attacks on transgender victims under the state's hate crimes law.

(Contact: Jennifer Richard, Kuehl's spokeswoman 916-445-4956)

TG Racer Wants To
Compete Again

Contributed by Susan Hall
via Newsweek
May 25, 1998

In the 1980s he was J. T. Hayes, up-and-coming NASCAR driver. Then he dropped out of sight. Now we know why. Hayes decided to switch gears in 1992, and now he's back and going by the name Terri O'Connell, racing's first transsexual driver, as far as we know.

"It was like, 'I really am a chick, and it's groovy'," O'Connell says, "but I wany to get back into racing." This weekend's Cannonball Run launches her bid for next year's Indy 500. Oh, and here's a little secret O'Connell wants the boys in the pit to know: when she raced as Hayes she liked to wear panties and pink toenail polish.

TGs Added To Plag Mission Statement

Contributed by JoAnn Roberts

The PFLAG Transgender Special Outreach Network (T-SON) is pleased to report that the PFLAG National Board of Directors has accepted T-SON's request and its own Bylaws Committee's recommendation to add transgendered to PFLAG's mission statement by a unanimous vote. The vote now goes to the membership at the PFLAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco on September 12, 1998.

T-SON was initiated 2 1/2 years ago at the Indianapolis national PFLAG convention with the help of Sharon Stuart and many others and since then has worked steadily for trans inclusion. It created an on-line support service (tgs-pflag) and an organizational communiation link (PFLAG-T-SON) and operates a telephone Help Line. With Jessica Xavier as chief author, it has published a readable, inexpensive and succinct introduction to transgender issues, called "Our Trans Childen". Over 8000 copies have been sold to date. T-SON now has a Core Steering Committee and Regional Transgender Coordinators (Tcords) across the country.

Over 160 PFLAG chapters now have local Tcords seeking to educate their members on trans issues, especially with the help of local trans persons. Many chapters already have transgendered members and some have speakers ready and willing to meet with other groups. T-SON is planning an informal educational gathering in San Francisco September 11-12, in conjunction with the Annual meeting; all PFLAG and members and friends and all members of the transgendered spectrum are cordially invited. T-SON is INclusive and still learning!

While T-SON members are excited about the steady progress towards trans education and inclusion within PFLAG, we wish to be especially respectful of our collegues who are not yet with us on this issue. We look forward to further sharing and dialog with them; we know there is much work yet to be done, internally and in the larger community on behalf of our trans children and friends.

For further information please contact T-SON's Co-Chairs, Nancy Sharp at StressGone@aol.com or Mary Boenke, at maryboenke@aol.com. (or 540/890-3957). Please feel free to repost.

Texas TG Attacked

via GenderPAC
May 23, 1998

VIOLENCE AGAINST TRANSPEOPLE ============================ AMARILLO, TX -"At 1:30 in the morning, a loud noise woke me up," said transexual woman Joy Richards. "There were pieces of glass and blinds everywhere, with holes in the far wall." She had been stalked the previous day. Now she is afraid for her life.

Sixty percent of the transgender people responding to GenderPAC's 1st National Survey on Transviolence report that they have suffered physical assault. The story of Ms. Richards puts a human face on that number. On Friday, 22 May 98, she noticed a man staring at her in a neighborhood grocery store.

"I know the difference between lust and stalking in a person's eyes," she said. "As I left the store he was waiting, staring from his pickup. He was looking back at me--glaring. I continued walking; he drove around the corner and passed by me slowly, still glaring. He went up the street past my house and was still staring at me as I crossed the street."

The police responded to her 1:30 a.m. 911 call. There were two bullet holes in the wall opposite her window and two in the brick outside her window. The police called the incident a drive-by shooting. "Yes, I'm definitely moving," Ms. Richards said. "I just hope I can move soon enough. I don't want to be a statistic."

One of GenderPAC's priorities is getting gender-based hate crimes tracked in the Hate Crimes Protection Act (HCPA) of 1998, currently in Congress.

Femme Conference Comes to SF

via GLAADLINES
On May 30-31, San Francisco's Harvey Milk Institute (HMI) will hold the first Femme Gender Conference: Creating Community on the Frontier of Gender. With a keynote address by writer and native rights activist Chrystos and panelists including Kate Bornstein, Karen Bullock-Jordan, Lani Ka'ahumanu, JoAnn Loulan and Mark Silver, the conference aims to promote exploration and discussion of gender issues, and is expecting hundreds of artists, activists, academics and others from around North America to examine femme identity, culture and history. For more information contact Kevin Schaub (HMI Executive Director) at (415) 552-7200.




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