Gender

The premiere issue of Your Future - "not your father's personal-finance magazine" - poses an age-old question: Is it more expensive to be a woman or a man? Since this is a magazine aimed at folks a generation away from Social Security (and who doubt it'll still be around when they turn 65), the analysis is updated, focused on "typical" single people ages 25 to 34. On what they spend annually for clothes, hygiene, cars, food, entertainment, life insurance and, of course, vices. Some differences are surprising.

I THANK the Daily News for documenting the protest against SEPTA's policy of putting "male" and "female" stickers on its weekly passes. Because the protest was of a modest size and transgendered riders are a minority, some people may not understand that this problem deserves a great deal of attention. SEPTA's current policy asks drivers to determine a rider's gender, and to expel or accept them on that basis. For any customer whose gender is not obvious - because of his posture, hair or style of dress - this odd requirement leads to confrontations that are humiliating and dangerous.

C?sar Chelala is an international public-health consultant A growing number of countries have adopted population and development policies to meet the health-care and education needs of women. Yet gender inequality persists in most countries around the world. According to the United Nations Population Fund state of world population report for 2005, gender inequality hinders not only the growth of affected individuals but also the evolution of societies and the development of countries.

Until this fall, I believed that violence against women was experienced in the same way by all women. But the Clarence Thomas hearings, the acquittals of William Kennedy Smith and Mark McGraw and the conviction of Mike Tyson have taught me otherwise. As it turns out, the way violence against women is experienced has as much to do with race as with gender. As the Thomas hearings unfolded, I watched reactions around me. The white women I know had no problem making up their minds; we knew we believed Anita Hill.

In Different for Girls, a remarkable sex comedy about love in the age of transgenderism, the old boy-meets-girl plot line gets a twist and a snip. Here Boy No. 1 meets Boy No. 2, Boy No. 2 grows up and gets a sex change, and Boy No. 1 falls for her - although Boy No. 1 worries about his feelings. Do his desires for a post-op transsexual make him gay? Does that make any sense? And what will his mates make of it? With generous amounts of humor and humanity, Different for Girls addresses these and other knotty questions of gender and sexual identity.

RE RONNIE Polaneczky's column on the Gates affair: I am appalled that you see it as "boys will be boys. " It doesn't matter if it was black or white, man or woman. The only thing Mr. Gates had to do when the police came was give them his ID plain and simple. But everybody wants to bring race in and now you claim a woman would handle it better. You also let the cat out of the bag why you show resentment toward police because of the incident with your husband years ago. I understand there are bad cops, but there are also great ones who go beyond the call of duty.

You'd have to admit that the Quintero family tree is knotty. Pablo Quintero, a celebrated Madrid filmmaker and hedonist, directs raunchy, homoerotic films and stage plays with enough decor to choke a horse. His sister Tina used to be his brother, but when he was a teenager Tina ran away to Morocco with Papa Quintero, who paid for Tina's sex-change operation before leaving her for another woman. Tina became a lesbian, but her girlfriend has just bolted, leaving Tina with her pubescent daughter Ada, who has a crush on "Uncle" Pablo.

The International Olympic Committee is recommending the establishment of special medical centers to deal with athletes who have ambiguous sexual characteristics. The IOC also wants rules put in place by sports bodies to determine their eligibility to compete on a "case by case" basis when gender is called into question. The IOC organized a 2-day conference with medical specialists in Miami to consider guidelines for handling sex-verification cases. The issue gained global attention last year when South African runner Caster Semenya was ordered to undergo gender tests.

"I don't like conceptual shows," playwright Joe Calarco says of his high-concept, all-male adaptation Shakespeare's R&J. Mauckingbird Theatre's production of Calarco's script is the Philadelphia premiere of a play that had long, successful runs in New York and London (not to mention Japan and Australia). Currently in previews, it opens Wednesday at the Adrienne. Mauckingbird, which is dedicated to re-viewing classic drama through a gay lens, debuted in January with an all-male production of The Misanthrope, a surprisingly persuasive, as well as entertaining, take on the classic Moliere comedy.

CHICAGO - Boy or girl? A simple blood test for mothers-to-be can answer that question with surprising accuracy at about seven weeks, a research analysis published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association has found. Though not widely offered by U.S. doctors, gender-detecting blood tests have been sold online to consumers for the past few years. Their promises of early and accurate results prompted genetics researchers to take a closer look. They analyzed 57 published studies of gender-testing done in rigorous research or academic settings.

WASHINGTON - President Obama has called for creation of a governmentwide strategy "to address any gender pay gap in the Federal workforce," focusing on how salaries are set when employees are hired and when they are promoted. "While salary ranges in the Federal workforce are generally determined by law, the fixing of individual salaries and other types of compensation can be affected by the exercise of administrative discretion," said a presidential memo issued Friday. "Such discretion must be exercised in a transparent manner, using fair criteria and adhering to merit system principles, which dictate that equal pay should be provided for work of equal value.

HARRISBURG - A dispute involving a decades-old law that allows boys to play on girls' high school sports teams appears to be headed to court. Lawyers representing the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association - which says it would like the law changed to make sure girls do not lose athletic opportunities and for safety reasons - and Attorney General Kathleen Kane's office met Friday afternoon in Commonwealth Court. "It looks like we are headed toward an evidentiary hearing of some sort," Pittsburgh lawyer Mary Grenen said after the status conference between the two sides.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) You're more likely to roll up your sleeves in the spirit of determination than to throw up your hands in defeat. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Don't worry about pleasing the audience or the critics. Any victory will be hollow unless you first please yourself. GEMINI (May 21-June 21) It is easy to discount the learning you do when you are having fun. However, don't be too modest, or you'll miss an opportunity. CANCER (June 22-July 22) There will be outside factors to challenge you and obstruct your path, so do not create extra impediments.

This story has been updated. IN A MOVE that the LGBT community called "historic," City Council approved a bill yesterday that would require the city's health plan to pay for transgender city workers to complete "gender-confirmation surgery. " The bill also would require newly constructed or renovated city-owned buildings to have gender-neutral bathrooms. "We're continuing on the American road to full equality and civil rights for all of our citizens," said Councilman Jim Kenney, who sponsored the bill at the request of the LGBT community.

As a white, Christian, heterosexual, able-bodied male who was born in the United States with an uncomplicated gender identity, Andrew Lloyd hit the privilege jackpot. No one has stared at him, thinking he was in the "wrong" restroom. No one has asked him why he flaunts his sexuality when he holds hands with a girlfriend. No classroom building is inaccessible, because he can walk anywhere. "It was never 'Mom and Dad, people treat me differently. Why is that?' " said Lloyd, 21, a senior at West Chester University.

Montgomery County is studying the possibility of a nondiscrimination ordinance that would protect gay, lesbian, and transgender residents. A state law bans discrimination in the workplace, housing market and other areas based on race, ethnicity, disability, gender, age, and religion. Several counties, including Philadelphia, and municipalities have banned discrimination based on sexuality or gender expression. Democratic Comissioners Josh Shapiro and Leslie S. Richards promised to pass such an ordinance during their 2011 campaign.

PHOENIX - A prominent GOP lawmaker in Arizona wants to link public bathroom use to birth certificates in what civil rights advocates are calling the nation's toughest anti-transgender measure. The bill would require people to use public restrooms, dressing rooms or locker rooms associated with the sex listed on their birth certificate or face six months in jail. The proposal had been scheduled for a vote Wednesday during a House of Representatives committee. But in an unusual scene for the usually staid halls of state government, men in dresses, women in business suits and other transgender supporters crowded into the committee room and the lobby of the House to protest the legislation.

TRENTON - Gov. Christie has been asked to apologize for referring to the first black female leader of the Assembly by race and gender, and not by name, during a church-hosted meeting. Christie, who is white, told an audience Tuesday that an "African American female speaker of the Assembly" is blocking a vote on a school voucher bill that would let children in failing districts attend classes elsewhere. Democratic Speaker Sheila Oliver later said she was "appalled" that the Republican governor injected race into a discussion on education.

A bored pronouncement from an ultrasound technician, or a sealed envelope anxiously torn open back at home - these did not, to Tanisha Pollard, seem like adequate ways to deliver such momentous news as the gender of her first child. Instead, the 26-year-old Lawnside resident and her boyfriend, Da'Rius Lemon, invited their families to join them for a "gender-reveal party," an increasingly popular way to inject a little ballyhoo into the prenatal condition. "This is my first child, so I just wanted to find a fun way for us to find out what we were having, and to share that - rather than a text message or an e-mail.

RE: AVI NONSENSE. Taxpayers, we are going to have a class-action suit against the city of Philadelphia. I am not going to pay taxes on $56,000 to live in Kensington, which is a ghetto. My friend was held up at gunpoint in October. People down there don't clean up their yards, leaving dog waste and open trash all over. There's loud music all the time and no decency. This is what happens when you have one party ruling for too long. The Democrats have become dictators and have been thumbing their noses at us for years, and it's up to the people of this city to start voting another party into power.