Transgender

When we talk about gender, we tend to describe the fixed poles of male and female. But what if gender is a spectrum and what we think of as male and female are at opposite ends, like chocolate and vanilla, and there is a multitude of flavors in between? Gendernauts, filmmaker Monika Treut's journey across the gender lines, proposes this hypothesis in a clinical kind of way. Essentially it is a nature documentary, except that it trains its camera on humans rather than animals. It does, however, open with a brief discourse on the female spotted hyena, the gendernaut of the animal kingdom, with its high levels of testosterone and pendular clitoris that resembles a penis.

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.

Police have arrested a 22-year-old transgender prostitute in the killing of Patrick Michael Brady, the Chester County man who was strangled last weekend in his Old City hotel room. Brady had checked into the Omni Hotel at Fourth and Chestnut Streets on Friday night. In the early hours of Saturday morning, Brady, 49, let 22-year-old Herman Burton, who police said dresses and identifies as a woman, into his eighth-floor room. There, police said, a fight broke out between the two. "The only thing we know," Philadelphia Capt.

A transsexual man has sued the drug-treatment center in Camden where he worked, claiming that it discriminated against him when it fired him from a job that only a man is allowed to do: watching men urinate. El'Jai Devoureau of Deptford was born with female genitalia but says in his legal complaint that he has always considered himself male. Five years ago, Devoureau, 39, began counseling and male-hormone treatments. In 2009, he had sex-reassignment surgery. His driver's license, birth certificate and Social Security cards have all been reissued to reflect that he's a man. He said that managers at Camden's Urban Treatment Centers believed that he was a man when the drug-treatment center hired him in June to monitor men as they gave urine samples for drug tests.

State Rep. Brian K. Sims, the first openly gay candidate to win a legislative election in Pennsylvania, recently was asked by another lawmaker to explain a proposed antidiscrimination measure. " 'Tell me about your gay bill,' " Sims recalled Rep. Mario Scavello, a Monroe County Republican, asking him on the floor of the House. Three other Republicans who were nearby listened as Sims argued that it was overdue for Pennsylvania to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected categories such as race, religion, age, and disability.

  Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and niece of former President Fidel Castro, told a Philadelphia gay-rights conference Saturday of her efforts to promote equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Cubans. Castro, who was to receive an award Saturday night for her advocacy, also defended her country's government, which has been accused of repressing political dissent. "There is not any government or any country who has the right to impose or make decisions to the other ones regarding the human-rights area," she said.

TODAY City Council is expected to give final approval to a bill that would add transgender people - people who are switching their sex through medical means - to the list of groups protected against discrimination. Normally it's the kind of bill this page would support without question. But after examining the bill and speaking to city officials, we do have questions. And until they can be answered with some satisfaction, it would be best if City Council delayed today's vote.

HARRISBURG - The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is changing its policy on how transgender people identify themselves on driver's licenses. The department and Equality Pennsylvania announced a settlement Wednesday that allows people to change the gender on their licenses if they are living full-time in their new gender and it can be verified by a licensed medical or psychological caregiver. The previous policy only allowed changes in gender for drivers who could prove they had sexual reassignment surgery.

You might not have noticed the difference at first. The figure behind the microphone as the Gainesville, Fla., quartet Against Me! drove through a hard-charging 45-minute set at the Electric Factory on Sunday night looked much the same as she did a few months ago, before the band's singer, who had been known as Tommy Gabel, announced that he had become a woman named Laura Jane Grace. If you stood 12 feet away from the stage, you might have missed the mascara and the dangling earrings and seen only a performer commanding the stage with a furious joy and the tight-knit knot of bodies churning on the floor below.

A transgender Norristown woman has pleaded guilty in Montgomery County Court to fatally stabbing her boyfriend during an argument at a relative's Moore Street home last August. Asia Santana, 40, whose given name is Tyrone Crawley, appeared before Judge William J. Furber Jr. Wednesday and admitted to one count of third-degree murder and one count of possessing an instrument of crime. Assistant District Attorney Cara M. McMenamin described the Aug. 13 stabbing as "a rage killing" in which Santana stabbed Eric Nevith, 28, six times with a kitchen knife.