P h o e n i x Transgender Magazine

Created By Fanny Maroto Yalma Chavez Daniela Rivera

Challenging AssumptionsCan you defi ne the term transgender?

rel ig ionAnd being transgenderIs someone helping?

Being a transO n l i n eFind out the new sexual categories

We aspire to inspireReal people talk today!

Government Support and Religion

http://www.leadingeff ectively.com/building-a-platypus-interagency-leadership-in-the-federal-government/capitolatnight/

Celebrating lives with dignity, honor, respect, integrity and love. Fanny Maroto Solórzano

Government Role Regarding Transgender People The National Center of Trans-gender Equality is an institution that protects the civil rights of trans peo-ple. They want to improve the lives of the transgenders and their families, one way to do it is to recognize the stereotypes inside of the laws, that is why one of the main objectives of the institution is to improve the laws and to promote equality. One of the issues they want to eradicate is the discrimination at work. Trans peo-ple are forced to have unstable jobs and careers. When they are looking for federal jobs, someone interferes, people in charge can fire them just because of their condition. Another problem is regarding privacy, sin-ce privacy is a right, the transgender status is disrespectful and it promo-tes the discrimination against them, they are not receiving health insu-rance and youth are being unprotec-ted. Since bullying increases at this age, they are extremely vulnerable to dropping out school and with all the issues related to work and unemplo-yment they are becoming homeless.

With all these, it is clear that go-vernment should create laws and plans to teach people about the stereotypes related to transgender people. It is im-portant to understand that trans people are not the people that we imagine, they are humans in the wrong body, as they say, they need the government´s su-pport and more important our support.

God and Gender Religion has been criticized for the lack of respect and the in-tolerance related to Trans people, but the truth is that we cannot ge-neralize, there are many churches that accept Trans people based on love. Most of transgender peo-ple are strongly spiritual, they can find support in churches such as the Dignity USA- gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender Catholics. This institution works for respect and justice for people with any kind of gender identity or orien-tation in the Catholic Church. As they say: “as GLBT Catholics, it is our right, our privilege and our duty to live the sacramental life of church” one of their objectives is to present a good testimony from the perspective of Catholics with the

civil rights, the help and support they have been receiving from the church. Even though, Trans people know that the Catholic Church is against surgery becau-se they are mutilating and chan-ging a perfectly healthy body, for them it is better to treat them psy-chologically and try to find the solution keeping the respect and the tolerance to these people. Fanny Maroto

Is Religion Supporting Trans People?

Online Support Nowadays, millions of transgender in-dividuals are in contact thanks to the inter-net. There are several pages in which you can find support, love and comprehension.

One of this pages is I AM: Trans Peo-ple Speak, this website wants to show the diversity that exists within transgender com-munities. Their main objective is to give a voice to those who need it, it includes trans people, their families and friends. Also, they want to educate people about the reality of being transgender, eradicate stereotypes and the homophobic and transphobic bullying. What you have to do, is to upload a vi-deo with your testimony. In this video you can answer questions such as how did you come out to your family? Did they accept you? Why is it important to use the correct pronoun and name when someone is talking with you? What do you think people should know about this community? and so on. Even though, if you are not a transgender, visiting this website you can learn lots of things about them, you are going to eradicate your own stereotypes and you will be able to understand at least, a little bit about their lives as transgender individuals. Fanny Maroto S.

Testimonies

Adapted From: transpeoplespeak.org

It´s ok to be trans, if I had known that growing up, my life would be very di-fferent, but I learned at a very young age that is a fact that is not ok to be trans, I wanted to hide what I was. NoahLouis

As a transgender man and as a person of faith, I live, pray and work for that day when all people are equally valued David

I tried to be patient,I tried to give them time,

I thought eventually they would be proud of me...... but then we hit a wall.

They want me to be a SECRET.

Deen

It is all about been myself and express myself in the way i want to. I shoudn´t have to justify it. Maddie

To me gender queer is to wake up in the morning and not assign yourself to a male or female gender, it means you can move about on the spectrum, you can try things or you can do different things with who you are, how you pre-sent and you don´t have to put yourself down. Suzie

It´s been a challenge but we are doing it, every day in every family event, every work situation and every medical change. We are doing it but it´s defini-tely a journey. Gene

I want to show the world that is not just man and woman, and it´s not just straight or gay, there is a lot more in between and out-side of that.Tre´Andre

We are human beings just as everyone else, we are just I a different place, I guess on a gender continuum, just like sexuality continuum and it´s ok to be different.Raffi

All residents, including transgender youth and adults, should be treated fairly and equally by the laws in our state.Michelle

Internet and social networks have become the favori-te place of young people to create new sexual categories. On February of this year, Facebook added new 56 sexual catego-ries in its gender information setting of the North American version. This is for not to exclude any gender in which the users may belong. Young people say that social networks and internet nowadays is a great tool to express their sexual pre-ferences and gender and to feel connect to other people with the same sexual preferences or gender. These are some of the categories: neutral, is a person who does not identify her or himself as a women or men; androgynous, are people who-se clothes put them in a neutral zone, you cannot identify if they are women or men. Androgynous people can be straight, bisexual or homosexual. Another category is the bigender in which people identify as women or men in different moments of their lives. Dimesexual are people who have a lack of se-xual attraction towards any person unless they become dee-ply emotionally. Pansexual is a person that associates or feels attracted to all sexual orientations or genders, such as gay, straight, transsexuals, etc. Poliamorous are humans who fall in love of more than one person at the same time. A queer is someone who considers that categorizes him or herself in men, women, transsexual or establish a type of sexual attrac-tion is just a cultural issue, for them there are many possible options for every human. The internet phenomenon is chan-ging the way the young people define themselves, they do not want to belong just to one category, they want to belong to group in which they can feel support and a conexion to it, and the internet gives them all the answers. Daniela Rivera Hdez

T h e I n t e r n e t a n d t h e Ne w S e x u a l C a t e g o r i e s

Famous Transgender People

Jenna Talackova is Canadian trans woman who made head-lines; when in 2012 decided to compete in the Miss Universe Canada. She was disqualified when the producers realized that she was a transgender wo-man. Talackova made a legal battle to return to the competi-tion, the Miss Universe organi-zation reversed the decision and allow Jenna to come back. At pageant, she reached the top 12.

Isis King became the first trans-gender woman who appeared in the famous program America´s Next Top Model. She is also a person who fights for the rights of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) community.

Chaz Bono was born as Chas-tity Sun Bono and he is the son of Salvatore Phillip and Cher. Chaz is an activist of the human rights of the LGBT communi-ty. Chaz became his transfor-mation in 2008 and in 2010, he changed his gender and name. Danuela Rivera Hdez

Every November 20, since 1998 it is celebrate the International Transgender Day of Remembran-ce. This day was created to honor and remember all the transgender victims who have been killed due the violence and discrimination during the year. Rita Hester is an example of the anti-trans violen-ce; she was an African American woman murdered in 1998; just because of the fact of been trans-gender. More than fifteen years have passed and the transgender community is still suffering from abuse and discrimination. Every year the rates of anti-trans crimes increased all over the world. The most affected transgender people are black woman and Latin Ame-rican people. The Day of Remem-brance is a day to appreciate all the lives of trans people and do not forget those who already pass away. Another celebration is the International Transgender Day of Visibility, which is held each year on March 31, is a day to celebra-te the courage of those who live openly as transgender; fighting for equality and no discrimination towards them. In addition, there is a protest named the “Trans March” in San Francisco, California du-ring the “Pride Weekend” in June.

The transsexual and transgen-der people joined to protest so-cial justice and equality. This event is a great party full of co-medians, music and dance. The-se kinds of events and days of celebration help the transgender community to be stronger, res-pect by others and give them the power to fight for equal treatment. Daniela Rivera Hdez

Their Especia l Days to Celebrate

Let´s Celebrate Transgender PeopleLet´s Celebrate Transgender People

All the images were taken from Google Images