Uruguay Congress Approves Gender Change Law

Uruguay is considered the most liberal-progressive country on the South American continent, and yesterday they lived up to their progressive reputation.

On Monday Uruguay's Senate approved a gender change law that sets the legal guidelines for men and women who want to change from one gender to the other. It was already approved last month by the Chamber of Deputies,

An early draft of the legislation allowed people to choose a different gender starting at age 12. The text of the passed law reads, "Every person has the right to freely develop their personality in accordance with the proper identity of their gender, independent of their biological, genetic, anatomic... identity."

The measure authorizes gender reassignment surgeries starting at age 18 and allows people to change their name and gender codes on identification documents.

It now awaits President Tabare Vazquez's signature to become law.

Diego Sempol of the pressure group Ovejas Negras (Black Sheep), told BBC Mundo its approval was a "big step forward for transsexuals" and said it would ease their integration into the education and health systems, as well as the labor market .

The new gender change law comes only a month after Uruguay became the first Latin American country to allow gay couples the chance to adopt. Same-sex civil unions were legalized in 2008.

Earlier this year, the Uruguayan Congress also cleared the way for gay candidates to enter military schools by lifting the ban imposed under the 1973-85 military dictatorship.

However, the Catholic Church is hatin' as always, and made it clear that they would support candidates in the upcoming October 25 elections in Uruguay that promoted laws with 'Christian values.'

I submit the current center-left government reflects Christian values moreso than the old military dictatorship or center-right governments did.

We'll get the people of Uruguay's verdict on how they feel about their government on October 25.

Positive Transgender TV Commercial

Joshua posted a link on TSTB to an Argentinian TV commercial for a local bank there that was rather interesting. It not only wrapped a plug in for the bank, but also taught a lesson about tolerance at the same time.



Hmm, maybe some of Queerty's readers need to see this.

Brazilian Transgender Sambistas

In addition to New Orleans celebrating Mardi Gras, the other famous celebration takes place in Brazil. Carnival kicked off on the 18th and the samba schools (or sambistas) have been gearing up for their two day competition at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro.

And some of our peeps are part of the celebrations. Here's some video of two transwomen doing their thang at a sambista practice for Carnival.

Introducing Faiza

I wrote a post a few days ago in which I asked the question, where are the positive Black Brazilian transpeople?

Well, ask and ye shall receive. Gina sent me the link to Dr. Lynn Conway's (love her) TS Successes website (although it's noticeably thin on African American transpeeps) that featured Faiza's story.

She's a woman after my own heart as a TK (teacher's kid). She's an English teacher in Brazil and I'm looking forward to one day getting to know her.

Where Are The Positive Black Brazilian Transwomen Role Models?

Brazil has a population of African descended people of about 100 million, which is more than the combined population of African descended people in the Caribbean, the US, Canada and Central America.

Based on Lynn Conway's 1/250 ratio of transgender births the estimated potential population of Black Brazilian transsexuals in Brazil is 400,000. But most of the transwomen that we've heard about who have garnered international attention from Brazil are people such as Roberta Close or recently Patricia Araujo, who just walked the runway at a Rio fashion show.

Unfortunately it seems as though the same pattern that we have of invisibility of Black transpeople in the United States has replicated itself in Brazil. Yeah, you see Black transpeople in Brazil, but unfortunately, just like what happened here in the States, they are disproportionately the subjects of adult websites.

So the question I ask as a concerned citizen of the Diaspora, where are the Brazilian transwomen of African descent who are positive role models? Where are the ones who have transitioned and are contributing to Brazilian society and why haven't their accomplishments and achievements been told to the rest of the world?

I know they must exist, it's just they haven't had their moment in the media sun yet.

Miss Brazil Transsex Pageant 2008

The Thais proudly state that they have the most beautiful transwomen in the world, and have frequent pageants in the 'Land of Smiles' to prove it. But the Brazilians would vehemently argue that point.

Here are some photos from the 2008 Miss Brazil Transsex Pageant held a few months ago. The winner, Fernanda Lima was supposed to go on to compete as Brazil's representative in the Miss International Queen Pageant held in Pattaya at Tiffany's Cabaret, but that pageant eventually got postponed due to the political crisis that was raging in Thailand at the time.

So we'll have to wait a few months to see the 2009 version of the Miss International Queen Pageant to get the resolution to the question of who has the world's most beautiful transwomen.

Peruvian Neighborhood Watch Attacks Transwoman

Well, it didn't take long for Papa Nazi's Yuletide hate speech against transsexuals to filter down to the flock. Peep what happens to this transgender sex worker when she has the misfortune of being caught by the local neighborhood watch.

An Argentine Transgender Rights Win

One of the things about being transgender is that your family expands, not contracts. You gain a whole lot of sisters and brothers all over the world to replace the blood relatives you may lose because of this issue.

How good life is for you as a transgender person depends on where you were born. Since we are all battling various levels of ignorance and faith based intolerance, no matter what country we live in, we sometimes become reluctant civil rights warriors fighting for our right to just live our lives openly and peacefully.

That makes the transgender civil rights struggle a worldwide human rights issue. No matter where we reside on Planet Earth, we are all painfully aware that whatever we do in our own locales and countries affects everybody in the global transgender community.

For example, an advancement in rights law in Britain affects us in the US. Our South Korean sisters and brothers being able to get name changes may have had a positive effect in Japan and now led to this news from Argentina.

Thanks to Andres Duque at Blabbeando for alerting me to this post about Argentinian transwoman Tania Luna. She won a legal case allowing her to change her name WITHOUT having surgery.