BRAVE: Chaz's Manly Exit from 'DWTS'!

Chaz Bono was eliminated from Dancing with the Stars last night after a season that turned up none of the controversy predicted by right-wing blowhards like Dr. Keith Ablow.

Said Chaz upon his departure: "I took so much away from this. This was an amazing journey that really pushed me and showed me that I could do so much more than I ever thought I could. I came on this show because I wanted to show America a different kind of man. If there was somebody like me on TV when I was growing up, my whole life would have been different. And so I dedicated everything I did to all the people out there like me and especially to kids and teens who are struggling. You can have a wonderful, great life and be successful and happy."

(OUTscene America) Film Director Sabine Bernardi on “Romeos” a feature film about love, a transgendered man, and identity for all!

By Ethan L. McMahon 

OUTscene Special

Female-to-Male transgendered people have not been a widely discussed topic, historically focus has been on the Male-to-Female, but recently there has been a shift in attention. A good part of that shift has been due to the public announcement of Chaz Bono transitioning from daughter of the superstar Cher, to son, causing no small amount of debate inside and outside the LGBT community. 

Into this somewhat heated debate comes “Romeos”, a fun and powerful little film from Germany, with a straight forward and honest perspective on what is a very internal struggle for most. Centered on the lives of young adults in Cologne, this film is young and hip, vibrant and occasionally reckless, and funny while at the same time very serious. 

I had an opportunity to sit down for a chat with the Writer and Director, Sabine Bernardi, the day after its US debut. Bernardi is a self-avowed lesbian, petite and good-looking, with alert hazel eyes, a firm handshake, and a charming German accent. My first impression is that she is a person who knows what she is about, and loves what she does.

TRAN-sition: Lady Gaga Talks About Pushing 'Trans' Comfort Levels!

Noah Michelson talks to Lady Gaga in the HuffPost's new Gay Voices section. Gaga ruminates on activism, 'DADT' repeal, outing celebrities, and her recent incarnation as male alter ego Jo Calderone at the VMAs. 

Said Gaga to the HuffPo: The performance of Jo is meant to manipulate the visualization of gender in as many ways as I possibly could. And in a completely different way, sort of do that by creating what seems to be a straight man -- a straight and quite relatable American man. I wanted to see how I could take someone who is so approachable and so relatable and press a much more unrelatable issue that is so hidden or so chained up. [I wanted to see] how I could put someone who is challenging all of those things in a very pop culture moment and force people to deal with it no matter how uncomfortable or exciting it may be.

I see the trans community as a very inspiring group that on a daily basis deals with obstacles and struggles that most of us can't perceive of. I think they should be revered and honored and protected and I think it's important for me, as an artist, to push those particular boundaries because of how many of them I know and how important it is to the young community and in order to stop bullying and to inspire teachers in schools and the heads of giant organizations to be kind and tolerant to one another so that we all may discover who we are in a free and loving space.

PIONEER: NYFD Has First Trans Firefighter!

Brooke, whose last name was withheld for privacy reasons, is  New York City's first transgender firefighter, the NY Post reports: The tall blonde, who now goes by Brooke, is a third-generation firefighter, with her father still on the job. The Post is withholding her full name.

Around Metrotech headquarters, where she is currently assigned, the famously macho department -- almost 100 percent male with only 32 women on the job -- is taking her transition in stride.

...The firefighter initially was assigned to Ladder 172/Engine 330 in Bensonhurst, according to department sources, before taking a desk job at FDNY headquarters where she works scheduling appointments for recruits.

Said Brooke to the Post: “I am appreciative of the support that the FDNY has given me during this time in my life. However, it is my expressed wish that the details of my personal and professional life remain private."

BANNED: Trans Worker Told to Get Off Premises of 'Family Friendly' Farmer's Market!

A transgender worker for True2You, a candle and incense vendor at Trail's End Farmer's Market in London, Ontario, was disturbing the "family friendly atmosphere" there according to the market's owner and would not be allowed back on the premises.

True2You owner Karen Clarke tells AM890 she got a call from one of the market's managers: "Everything was fine when I left and it wasn't until five to 8 on Saturday night that I got a call from the management at Trails End. Basically they said if I was going to have those people there anymore I'm invited to take my business elsewhere....He said it made everyone uncomfortable and it just wasn't right. This is a family place, a family market and this just isn't right. I just kept insisting what happened that was wrong and he said you walk up to the person and they're dressed like a woman and they've got big hands, a deep voice and tattoos and it's just not right. It's just not a family place he kept repeating that over and over again. And I kept trying to get from him what was wrong, what was so not right, what was it that people were complaining about and there was no details forthcoming that way. He called them 'those people' several times."

DENIED: Killer Loses Bid for Prison-Paid Sex Change!

A transgender California prisoner has lost a bid to force the state to pay for a sex change operation. Lyralisa Stevens, who was born male but lives as a woman, sued the state, demanding that the public fund surgery to remove her male genitalia, at a cost of as much as $50,000. A San Francisco appeals court nixed the suit, but Stevens, 42, may still take her case to a higher court, reports the Los Angeles Times. California, like many states, provides hormone treatments for transgender inmates. 

Had Stevens been successful in her suit, the state would have become the first in the nation to pay for a sex change operation. Stevens, who's serving 50-years-to-life for shooting to death a woman in a dispute over clothing, argued that hormone treatments alone are inadequate for her situation. She also looked forward to being placed in a woman's prison once her penis was removed. Stevens said she's under constant threat of sexual assault in the men's prison where she's currently housed, even though she has a cell to herself. "She has not been outside in over a year because she is not safe out on the yard, and she has to be very careful about when she showers," said her attorney.

BOOGIE BOY: Chaz Bono Cha Chas in 'Dancing with the Stars' Debut!

Chaz Bono made his debut on last night's Dancing with the Stars, doing the Cha Cha with partner Lacey Schwimmer. Bono is the first transgender contestant in the show's history and has stirred up much controversy over the past few weeks.

DWT(T)S: Joy Behar Talks to Chaz and Lacey Schwimmer About Anti-Trans Right-Wing Attacks!

Joy Behar talks to Chaz Bono about why he joined Dancing with the (trans) Stars, losing weight, hate mail and death threats over the 'controversy', Dr. Keith Ablow and his offensive FOX News editorial, how they'll identify him on the show (author and activist), Cher, and how his dancing is going.

Says Chaz of Ablow: "He's not one of my favorite authors so I don't read him...He's got an agenda so he's jumping all over this to further himself and his career."

They are joined by Chaz's dance partner Lacey Schwimmer, who says some of her (DISNEY) fans disagree with the fact that she is dancing with Chaz, but she's not focusing on the negative.

NEW: Aussie Passports Get a Third Gender: X

Australians applying for new passports now have three gender options to choose from: Male, female, or "X." The government says the option for indeterminate gender has been added to remove discrimination against transgender people, some of whom had faced questioning and detention at airports, the AP reports. 

Applicants will be allowed to list their gender as X if they can provide a doctor's statement supporting the choice. "'X' is really quite important because there are people who are indeed genetically ambiguous and were probably arbitrarily assigned as one sex or the other at birth," says lawmaker Louise Pratt, whose partner was born female and is now identified as a male. "It's a really important recognition of people's human rights that if they choose to have their sex as 'indeterminate,' that they can."

MAMA BEAR: Cher Rips Chaz 'DWTS' Haters in Surprise Call to 'Ellen'!

DANGER ZONE: D.C. Trans Community 'in Crisis' Over Violence, Series of Shootings!

Two more incidents (a non-fatal shooting, and the homicide of an unidentified individual found in make-up and heels) in Washington D.C. concerning violence against transgender individuals prompted police to call a news conference on Monday afternoon, the Washington Blade reports: A transgender woman suffered a non-fatal gunshot wound to the neck about 2 a.m. Monday on the 2300 block of Savannah Street, S.E., D.C. police said. The incident was the fourth reported shooting of a transgender person in D.C. since July. The latest case prompted police officials to call a news conference Monday afternoon to discuss this and other transgender related cases.

Transgender activists Earline Budd and Ruby Corado, who spoke at the news conference, said the latest shooting was among more than a dozen violent attacks against transgender women in D.C. this year.

“The transgender community is now in crisis,” Corado said.

CAGED: Five Year Prison Sentence Handed Down for Brutal Attack on Trans Woman at McDonald's!

Teonna Monae Brown, 19, who pleaded guilty last month to first-degree assault and a hate crime in the beating of Chrissy Lee Polis, 22, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday, with five years suspended, plus three years of supervised probation. The maximum sentence for Brown's crimes is 35 years.

Advocates were upset by the ruling, the Baltimore Sun reports: "The whole incident is unfortunate and demonstrates the lack of knowledge and understanding, and discrimination against transgender people," said Patrick Wojahn, board president of the Equality Maryland Foundation. "If anything, five years may have been too short of an amount of time for the attack and the amount of hatred that was shown in the incident."

SHOOTING STAR: Trans Contestant Wows Australia's X-Factor!

X-Factor Australia's panel asks Paige Elliot Phoenix what made him wait until now to audition for the show.

"I've needed a whole bunch of things to really fall into place in my life. Probably the most significant thing was gender transition. I'm a female to male transsexual."

DIETING: Chaz Trims Down for DWTS!

Chaz Bono is already wiggling his tush and shaking off the pounds in preparation for Dancing With the Stars. Only six days into rehearsals, his DWTS partner Lacey Schwimmer says Bono is "funny," "awesome," "so nice" and 5 pounds lighter than when he started. "It's so great," Schwimmer tells People. 

"He says he's not eating any differently, he's just dancing." "When I first met him, he didn't want to do anything that made him look silly," she adds. "Now he's all for it. He's goofing off and he's pretending to be Maks [Chmerkovskiy] in rehearsals. It's really funny." But there's one thing Chaz won't do: "dance to any of his parents' songs," says Schwimmer of the 1970s mom and pop duo, Sonny and Cher. "But the show really wants it to happen, so we'll see."

TRANS TALK: Chelsea Handler “jokes” about Chaz being on “DWTS”!

 

Chelsea Handler has hosted the LA Gay & Lesbian Center’s annual gala and is generally known as being an LGBT ally.


But she is getting a lot of Back Talk for remarks she and others made on her nightly E! show Chelsea Lately about transgender male Chaz Bono being cast on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars.

Via the GLAAD blog: Friday night’s episode of Chelsea Lately repeatedly made a mockery of Chaz Bono’s transgender identity when discussing the transgender advocate’s upcoming appearance on Dancing With the Stars.

Host Chelsea Handler herself started the discussion off with a joke about Chaz Bono’s identity and anatomy, but was joined a few moments later by two members of her all-​comedian panel in using transphobic humor to mock him.

LAY OFF: No Way Chaz is Backing Down!

STIFF: At VMAs, Gaga Had a Penis?

You already knew Lady Gaga’s dedication to her drag performance at the VMAs was so intense that she didn’t drop character, even backstage. But apparently it was even more intense than we all presumed: so much so that she wore a prosthetic penis, which Us cutely refers to as a “little monster in her pants,” during the award show. More details: Gaga, AKA Jo Calderone, was sporting Armani men’s undies and fake stubble.

MAMA BEAR: Cher defends Chaz!

It’s very disappointing that there are people who have a problem with Chaz Bono participating in the new season of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars because he is a transgender male, reports Greg in Hollywood.

His famous mother, Cher, took to Twitter on Wednesday to defend her child with the late Sonny Bono .

Cher initially struggled with Bono’s transition from the female Chastity to the male Chaz but she clearly loves and supports her child.

“Chaz is Being Viciously Attacked on Blogs & Message boards about being on DWTS!This is Still America right ? It took guts 2 do it.” Cher wrote in one Tweet then added: “I support him no matter what he chooses 2do! God! will there always be haters! It took COURAGE 2 do dwts ! TG Chaz has an Unlimited supply.”

(Into the Light Walk) Three Idaho Walkers and the First 1,000 Miles!

by Alan Bounville

We would like to thank all the people I met during the first 1,000 miles, including OUTview's Nikki Lee Taylor and Lincoln Rose. 

FIRE: Chaz's DWTS Pick Sparks Dialogue on Transgenders!

If ABC wanted to generate buzz with the announcement of the new Dancing With the Stars cast, then it looks the selection of Chaz Bono was a wise choice. Tim Molloy of the Wrap notes that the show's message board has been besieged with comments about the transgendered Bono, many of the I'm-not-watching-this-season variety. But Bono also has his fair share of defenders on the board, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation welcomes the attention, notes the Daily News. 

Along with the selection of former Queer Eye star Carson Kressley, ABC has "created primetime firsts that reflect the growing acceptance of gay and transgender people in America today," says a GLAAD statement. The 42-year-old Bono, who was born a female before changing his gender, showed up for his first rehearsal today, notes the Daily Mail. "His inclusion on the popular show makes him one of the most visible transgendered people, a position that he seems to be slowly coming around to," writes Zara Golden at Mediaite.