Transgender

She's one of the transgender community's most passionate advocates. Yet New Hope plastic surgeon Christine McGinn has an equally intense suspicion of the news media even as she relies on them to get her message heard. "There is so much ignorance out there about transgendered people," says McGinn, one of half a dozen transgender men and women profiled in Trans, a documentary screening Sunday as part of Philadelphia QFest and one of an unusually large crop of transgender films at the annual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender film festival.

A media boom is under way on behalf of transgendered men and women. Last week, for instance, A&E's "Investigative Reports" ran "The Transgender Revolution," quoting an activist who called it the fourth great rights movement of our era. The Los Angeles Times weighed in with two days of long, sympathetic reports. One account featured an enormous bald man with a long beard who had been born a woman, and a husband and wife who are both undergoing sex-change operations. They will stay married, but the husband will become the wife and vice versa.

The death of a transgender woman in her Point Breeze house on Monday has been ruled a homicide by strangulation and asphyxiation, police said yesterday. The 31-year-old victim, known to friends and neighbors as Stacey and identified by police as Michael Lee, was found half-dressed on the floor of a second-story bedroom by her live-in boyfriend about 9:30 p.m., police said. He called police to the house and is not considered a suspect at this point, said Homicide Sgt. Bob Wilkins.

Nico Adamor is fighting a policy that's been in place longer than he's been alive. And though his opponent declared again just last month that it would not budge, Adamor, 28, says he's not quitting either. The opponent is SEPTA and the issue is the transit agency's use of M for male and F for female stickers on weekly and monthly passes. The stickers, in use since 1981, are meant to prevent riders from sharing passes, said spokeswoman Jerri Williams. But transgender activist Kathy Padilla said that doesn't make sense because "any two women or two men can share passes.

On May 16 the Philadelphia City Council voted 15-2 to pass a bill that prohibits discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations on the basis of "gender identity. " Many sexual minority-rights groups consider inclusion of people under this rubric a major victory. Mara Keisling, co-chair of the Pennsylvania Gender Rights Coalition, described City Council's action as "a wonderful step forward for civil rights for citizens of Philadelphia. " I thought the Constitution's 14th Amendment - equal protection under the law - took care of that.

Herman Burton, a transgender prostitute, was ordered yesterday to stand trial on murder, arson and related charges in the slaying of a Chester County businessman in a Center City hotel room in October. Burton, who identifies as a woman and goes by the name Peaches, walked into the preliminary hearing wearing a quizzical expression, a gray sweat suit under which enlarged breasts were visible, and tightly braided hair with tiny pigtails on either side. So violent and brutal are the facts involving the defendant's alleged beating and strangulation of Patrick Michael Brady, 49, that the attorneys on both sides agreed that Burton's police statement would not be read in open court and that the city medical examiner was not called to testify - both of which normally happen in murder hearings.

Jennifer Finney Boylan is at ease now in the living room of the Devon home where she spent her boyhood. She has not always been comfortable in this place. When she lived here as 13-year-old James Richard Boylan Jr. and had the whole top floor to herself, she did her homework with the dead bolt on the bedroom door, wearing the bra and sweater she kept hidden behind the room's faux wood paneling, and trusting she'd hear the stairs creak if anyone approached. Now a professor of creative writing at Maine's Colby College since 1988, Boylan, 52, is a visiting prof this semester at Ursinus in Collegeville.

THE SCHOOL REFORM Commission unanimously approved the revised Code of Student Conduct on Thursday night but added a resolution on language regarding nonconforming gender identities to be included under the dress-code/uniform policy. Fred Ginyard, an organizer for Youth United for Change, sent an email Tuesday to the SRC asking for such language to be included in the new code. Under current rules, transgendered students or those nonconforming to their genders "can be disciplined for expressing their preferred gender identity," Ginyard said in his email.

The parents of a transgender first grader filed a civil rights complaint today in Colorado after the child's school barred their daughter from using the girls' lavatory. Coy Mathis, 6, had attended Eagleside Elementary School south of Colorado Springs since 2011. The child's parents say Coy was born male but as soon as Coy could talk insisted she was a girl, according to the Denver Post . Coy, who is the first of three triplets, dresses as a girl. Her siblings, fellow students and school staff use female pronouns when referring to her. That was not sufficient for Fountain-Fort Carson school district officials.

A transgender lobbying group says SEPTA has agreed to remove gender identification stickers from monthly transit passes next year under pressure from transgender riders and others who feel discriminated against. Since the 1980s, the transit authority has required that all TransPasses have a male or female gender sticker affixed to prevent heterosexual spouses from sharing passes with one another. As a result, opponents argue, riders whose gender identifications don't match the stickers on their passes, including transgender men and women who are not living in one gender full time, and people who do not present themselves as male or female, have been harassed and ridiculed by drivers in front of other riders.

D EAR ABBY: My 87-year-old mother is narcissistic, self-absorbed and extremely cruel. When she says something or acts out, she'll say, "I am who I am, so don't expect me to change. " How can my sister and I deal with the needs of an elderly parent who continues to verbally and emotionally mistreat us and others? My sister is beginning to react in a defensive, angry manner (rightfully so), and all I do is cry and feel guilty for wanting to get away from her. - Wit's End in Loma Linda, Calif.

The parents of a transgender first grader filed a civil rights complaint today in Colorado after the child's school barred their daughter from using the girls' lavatory. Coy Mathis, 6, had attended Eagleside Elementary School south of Colorado Springs since 2011. The child's parents say Coy was born male but as soon as Coy could talk insisted she was a girl, according to the Denver Post . Coy, who is the first of three triplets, dresses as a girl. Her siblings, parents, fellow students and school staff use female pronouns when referring to her. That was not sufficient for Fountain-Fort Carson school district officials.

A Philadelphia transgender prostitute pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday and was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison for the 2010 strangling of a Chester County man in an Old City hotel. Herman Burton, 24, of Southwest Philadelphia, who police said dresses and identifies as a woman, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, arson, and abuse of corpse in the Oct. 30, 2010, killing of Patrick Michael Brady, 49, at the Omni Hotel at Fourth and Chestnut Streets. Burton said nothing before Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Glenn B. Bronson imposed the prison term negotiated by Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore and defense attorney F. Michael Medway.

As Chaz Bono recounted his transformation from cute little daughter of singers Sonny and Cher to the 43-year-old transgender man standing at the lectern, students at Penn State Abington recalled pieces of their own stories. For Richard Kirchenbauer, 60, it was the memory of seeing a 4-year-old Chastity Bono in Sonny Bono's arms during a performance at the old Valley Forge Music Fair. For Seonne Baylor, 23, it was coming out as a lesbian to her parents. For Erin Donnelly, 18, it was accepting a cousin who revealed that she was pansexual.

Philadelphia police are searching for information on the death of a 27-year-old transgender woman found shot in the head in the Northeast last week. The victim, known to friends as Kyra Kruz, was well-known in the city's gay community, said Gloria Casarez, director of the city's Office of LGBT Affairs. "She was a visible, friendly presence," Casarez said. "This has been surprising and upsetting to all of us. " Police found Kruz's body about 5 a.m. Sept. 3 in a wooded area off the 1100 block of Adams Avenue, in the city's Frankford section.

CHARLOTTE - Enveloped by red, white, and blue, thousands of black and brown faces will stand out this week at the Democratic National Convention, mirroring an increasingly diverse America and contrasting with scenes from the Republican convention that just ended. Led by a president with a black father and a white mother, Democrats will tout diversity and sell themselves as inclusionary, sensitive to the most marginalized, and hip to the nation's changing demographics. Of their delegates, one study found, 26 percent are black.

GULF COAST - The nation's oil-and-gas hub along the Gulf Coast is slowly coming back to life in the aftermath of Hurricane Isaac. Offshore oil platforms are beginning to ramp up production as crews are returning. Refineries are beginning to restart units as power is restored and floodwaters are cleared out. No major damage to oil platforms or refineries has been reported, and no further storm-related spikes in energy prices are expected. At the height of the storm, 1.3 million barrels per day of oil production was suspended.