Gender Links and Thoughts.

Contents of this page:

General PagesGeneral, but useful! FTM, Intersex, Youth and Family SitesJust what it says. Treatment SitesHormonal treatment, psychological therapy, etc. Surgery SitesSRS and elsewise Specifically Asian PagesChinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, South Asian Political PagesTG people of the world, unite and throw off your chains! Academic and Religious PagesStudying transgenderism Especially important sitesNot to be forgotten.

This point of this page is to collect and enhance resources about transgender issues, specifically East Asian and Chinese resources. Practical, directly-useful resources are my main goal here. This is an area I have some expertise in, so it's something I can be helpful about.

Finally, if this isn't abundantly clear: Everything on this webpage is purely my opinion. If you're looking for treatment, or surgery, or even just thinking about joining a group, check it out first. Don't take my opinion as gospel. Don't take the opinions of any one other person to be fact. Do research. Think critically. Find out for yourself. Sad that I need to say that, but nonetheless true.

The main categories of this page are in the list to the left.

I have a separate page which has info about gender stuff in Minnesota, which is where I live. I also have page of information for transsexuals in Chinese.

As you look at the different sections of this page, remember that few pages fit clearly into one or another category! Look around.

Also Note: Chinese Version available

This page also has a Chinese version that requires a Chinese, Big5 equipped browser to view. If that didn't make any sense, please check what I've written about displaying Chinese with your computer. The information contained there is slightly different from (and also less than) what you'll find on this page. If you speak English but need Chinese gender-related information, please contact me and I'll be happy to help you translate what you need (free if it's for personal use, and you don't mind a somewhat hackneyed translation).

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General (But Useful!) Pages

• Andrea James' excellent TS Roadmap, which gives probably more information than any other single page about the subject on the Web. I also especially recommend her pages about electrolysis, which probably represent the best collection of practical information about the topic on the Web.

• Anne Lawrence's Transsexual Women's Resources. An excellent site with lots of information, second only to Andrea's page, if that. However, Lawrence has been a proponent of some very controversial theories in the past (specifically the concept of "autogynephilia"), and there have apparently also been some problems with her practice. So, her site comes with an even bigger requirement than most to judge carefully and critically.

• Another very good site with lots of information is Diane Wilson's page for transsexuals. Well worth checking out.

• The International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE). IFGE has published quite a nice magazine, Tapestry, and offers many services to the TG community.

• An internet-radio program that's pretty good is GenderTalk. Listening to it requires the RealAudio program, though. They also have a good list of books available.

• There are a lot of for-profit resource sites out there. One example is Transgendered Network International. Another is Transgender Forum.

• A wiki for transgender-related resources seems natural. T-Vox is such a place. Their listing of trans-related terminology is one of the more comprehensive ones around. (And they have a forum, too.)

• Web forums come and go. A few notable ones these days are the GenderLife forum, founded by Calpernia Addams; NuttyCats, which appears to be based in the UK; the My Husband Betty message boards, which include all sorts of transgender people, not specifically focusing on transsexual folks; TrueSelves, specifically for generation X and Y people; and the Transgender community on LiveJournal.

• In Minneapolis, there's the University of Minnesota's Program in Human Sexuality. Their general philosophy is good: trying to find the right gender expression, and a healthy state of mind, for each person. They're also pretty expensive, though, and like all professionals in this field, they have at least a little reputation as gatekeepers rather than helpers.



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FTM, Intersex, Youth and Family Sites

• Maybe the leading Web organization for TG folks who were born female but live as or are moving towards being men: FTM International.

• The Intersex Society of North America. They seem to be the main Web-based group for intersexual people, with frequent updates and lots of information.

• A UK organization devoted to dealing with the troubles of the families of TG young people, Mermaids.

• The AntiJen site has a lot of good information for TS young people.



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Treatment Sites

• If you're considering surgery, electrolysis or other treatment, probably the first place you should go is Andrea James' TS Roadmap, which has excellent guides and information about all aspects of treatment. I especially recommend her pages about electrolysis.

• You may also want to check out Anne Lawrence's Transsexual Women's Resources, with the provisos I mentioned above.

• Melanie Anne Phillips' How to Develop A Female Voice, while being a for-profit site, does give some very good tips about, well, developing a female (or should that be feminine?) voice.

• Although it's a commercial site, TransGenderCare.com is pretty cool: a single site that discusses psychotherapy, hormones and electrolysis in depth. The specialists behind the site appear to be quite legitimate, but as always (and especially with commercial sites), think critically.

• One of the few established and continuing trans health centers in the US is the University of Minnesota's Program in Human Sexuality.

• There are a ridiculous number of e-mail lists out there that also give information about surgery, hormones, etc. Try, for example, Yahoo! groups. Many of them, however, are populated by kooks and flakes. Wherever you go for information, be careful. Maintain reasonable skepticism.



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Surgery Sites

• If you're considering surgery, electrolysis or other treatment, probably the first place you should go is Andrea James' TS Roadmap, which has excellent guides and information about all aspects of treatment. Really. She has far more information than I could index here. Some other useful sites follow, though.

• As I mentioned above, there are some possible problems with Anne Lawrence's Transsexual Women's Resources, but a lot of the information there is still useful. As always, take care and be cautious.

• The PAI site is the main web presence of Dr. Preecha Tiewtranon, who performs SRS in Bangkok, Thailand.

• A former student of Preecha's, Dr. Sanguan Kunaporn, has his own practice in Phuket.

• Another quite famous Thai SRS surgeon is Dr. Suporn Watanyusakul. Dr. Suporn's website gives quite a bit of information, as well as links to a lot of women who've had SRS with him.

• There are also many other Thai surgeons who are not quite so famous. Some of them are listed below:

  • Greechart Pornsinsirirak. A friend of mine in Taiwan recently had her surgery done with him. She seems satisfied, although the post-op care left a lot to be desired. Among other things, he was very vague about dilation methods and time requirements. Also, he doesn't have a website, so I've linked to his e-mail address.

  • Chettawut Tulayaphanich. He was trained by Dr. Preecha, and his website gives a lot of good answers. However, I haven't heard any reports, good or bad, from anyone about him.

• According to many, the best SRS surgeon out there is Dr. Toby Meltzer, late of Oregon but soon moving to Arizona. He's one of the best, but also one of the most expensive.

• The web page of Drs. Menard and Brassard, who perform GRS surgery in Montreal. Many people have said they're excellent.



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Specifically Asian Pages

Note: Some of the sites referred to below primarily use languages other than English. If you understand Japanese, Korean or Chinese languages but don't know how to access them (i.e., make them show up in readabale form) on the Web, please see the section of my pages devoted to displaying East Asian writing on your computer.

The sections here are divided as follows:

• Chinese and Taiwanese-related sites.
• Korean sites.
• Japanese sites.
• Thai sites.
• South Asian sites.
• General Asian sites.


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Chinese and Taiwanese-related sites

Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of resources for Chinese-speaking people in English. There are quite a few useful sites out there with very nice information in Chinese, though -- for these, please see my Chinese-language gender page.

• Well, okay, it's actually all in Chinese, but the Intermargins website has a great page for transgender folks in Taiwan.

• Another great resource that's all in Chinese is Phinnie's TS Circle, a Yahoo group. It's one of the best local support groups, so it's worth checking out if you're TG and in Taiwan. The knowledge contained in this group is vast.

• The 台灣TG蝶園跨性別團體 Taiwan Transgender Butterly Garden is Taiwan's first trans support and advocacy group. They have an English page with contact information.

• Another one that's all in Chinese but very worthwhile is Xia Shilian's page. This site is vast: news, forums, how-to, articles... It's got everything. It's easily the single best Chinese transgender-related site. It's from mainland China, if that's important to note.

• National Central University of Taiwan has one of the intellectual hotbeds of transgender research in Taiwan, the Center for the Study of Sexualities. The director of the Center, Josephine Ho (He Chunrui, 何春蕤) is probably the best scholarly expert on TG issues in Taiwan. The Center is primarily academic, though; they shouldn't be the first place you turn for advice on surgery, for example.

• A nifty site which is by another Chinese-English bilingual person in Taiwan is Nicole Darcy's site. She's a really cool musician and activist in Taiwan (and sometimes in the US).

• While I'm at it, I might as well list a few terms related to trans issues in Chinese:

  • 跨性 kuàxìng: Literally, 'to go beyond gender' or 'to cross over in terms of gender'. This term was coined (possibly by me?) as a translation for 'transgender'.
  • 變性 biànxìng: Literally, 'to change gender' or 'to change sex'. Used as a synonym for 'transsexual' (as a general descriptor, but not as a noun).
  • 變性者 biànxìngzhě: Literally, 'one who changes sex'. Used as a synonym for 'transsexual (person)'.
  • 反串 fǎnchuàn: A traditional Chinese term. Fǎnchuàn is, historically, when a person assigned one gender at birth portrays a different gender on stage. Traditional examples include Běijīng opera (where 旦 dàn feminine roles were traditionally taken by people assigned male at birth) or Taiwanese opera (where masculine roles were traditionally taken by people assigned female at birth). Fǎnchuàn can now generally mean crossdressing or general transgender portrayals in movies.
  • 異裝癖 yìzhuāngpì: Literally, 'an addiction for the other's attire', used as a translation for 'transvestism'. Yìzhuāngpì has all the negative associations of 'transvestism', too.
  • 紅頂藝人 Hóngdǐng Yìrén were a drag troupe who flourished in Taiwan during the 90s. The company's success and eventual dissolution caused many groups to form with homophonous names, such as 虹鼎、宏鼎、etc. Homophonous terms may also evoke general trans/crossdressing/drag culture in Taiwan; there has been, for example, a photo studio named 虹顶 that specialized in crossdressed photo shoots.
  • 人妖 rényāo: Literally, 'human monsters'. Often used to describe Thai kathoey and other people who are trans performers. However, this term is really very offensive, so I strongly urge you not to use it, for anyone.
  • 扮裝 bànzhuāng: Literally, 'to take on the attire of [another gender]'. Sometimes used as a synonym for 'drag'. 扮裝皇后 bànzhuāng huánghòu is a fairly common, fairly literal translation of 'drag queen'.
  • 中性人 zhōngxìngrén is a pretty common translation of 'intersex person'. 陰陽人 yīnyángrén may be a more traditional term; literally, it means 'a person who is both yīn and yáng'.
  I originally wrote these terms up on Wikipedia, but they may or may not be present there anymore (as Wikipedia tends to work).

• And finally, please don't forget that my pages contain a Chinese-language gender page which includes some links to good sources of gender-related information in Chinese. If your system is equipped to view Chinese characters, and you understand them, please check the page out! And again, if you need any help with translation or even displaying Chinese characters on your system, please contact me.



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Korean sites

The excellent Pauline Park has told me about a couple good Korean-related GLBT sites:

• First is Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights of Korea, who look like a great, transgender-inclusive group with lots of useful resources and accomplishments.

• Second is the Dari Project, primarily aimed at giving Korean and Korean-American GLBT people a place to share their stories. Cool stuff.



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Japanese sites

• A good Japanese site to start at is Eon/W.

• gid.jp looks like a very helpful organization. They sponsor a yearly all-Japan conference and appear to be very politically active.

• Another good Japanese support site is Trans-Net Japan (TS to TG wo Sasaeru Hitobito no Kai). It seems quite diverse and well organized.



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Thai sites

• The Transgender in Thailand website is now down, but some of the original articles are hosted on Sam Winter's site.

• There appear to be several academic articles by Peter A. Jackson on the Net. Probably the one that interests me most is Male Homosexuality and Transgenderism in the Thai Buddhist Tradition. Another is Non-normative Sex/Gender Categories in the Theravada Buddhist Scriptures (however, the location of this article is not current). His scholarship may be problematic at times, but at least for now, it's about the best there is (or rather, the best I could find).

• Another article about transgender and queer folks in Thailand is "Whiskey is Whiskey; You Can't Make a Cocktail from That!": Self-Identified Gay Thai Men in Bangkok, by Jillana Enteen.



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South Asian sites

• A very good South Asian organization for queer folks is Trikone (I have linked here to their San Francisco chapter's page.) They publish a self titled magazine, offer support and do all kinds of things.

• A Western hijra (a Hindi term, somewhat equivalent to transsexual) has her own page, The Sampark Project. The idea was to have an exchange between American TS's and Indian hijras.



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General sites

• One of the best collections of general Asian TG links out there is Dr. Sam Winter's TransgenderASIA page. He has a lot of good general information -- the legal status of transsexuals in various countries, personal webpage links from TS's all over the world, and a lot of good research papers.

• There doesn't appear to be much by about warias (Malaysian transgender/transsexual people) yet. There is, however, a very nice collection of photographs of waria.

• A site which offers lots of general queer-related (but unfortunately not TG-inclusive) information about countries in Asia is Utopia.

• A very nice, though unfortunately rather small, list of Asian, queer-related books is available. The list is, however, specifically disinclusive of transgender sources (it's mainly gay, a little lesbian and nominally bisexual). Oh, well, it's still a good list.



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Political & Legal Pages

• A good TG-related law center is the Transgender Law and Policy Institute.

• One of the most effectice organizations is the National Center for Transgender Equality.

• The Transgender Law Center is mostly focused on California, but still has lots of useful resources.

• The Sylvia Rivera Law Project does a lot of good work at the intersection of trans issues, race, class and gender.

• Monica Roberts' TransGriot is a great source for trans-related news. She also does a great job of covering how racism intersects with transphobia.

• The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a major political organization in the US which is very inclusive of TG folks. Please note that this page is graphics-intensive and takes a while to load.

• The GenderPAC homepage. GenderPAC was once one of the most important transgender-related organizations, fighting transphobic hate crimes and other crap that happens to transgender people. However, in recent years, they've broadened (or, some might say, weakened) their focus to include pretty much all hate crimes, bullying, etc., as well as general oppression of poor people, GLBT people, etc.

• Probably one of the coolest people campaigning for the liberation of transgender people is Leslie Feinberg. Feinberg is an amazing speaker, and in my opinion is one of the better forces working in the TG liberation movement. The site is rather bare, but contains some good links and a lot of access.

• A UK-based organization which provides support and activism, Press for Change, is mostly focused on helping the legal status of transsexual people in the UK. (Although the UK recently passed laws making post-op transsexuals eligible for marriage in their target genders, I think that PFC is continuing to work for the betterment of transgendered people's lives.)

• The major political GLBT (Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender) organization in the US is The Human Rights Campaign. They have at times appeared to be transgender-inclusive, but they recently pushed for the specific exclusion of transgender people from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), when it looked just as likely to pass either way. So, the HRC no longer has my confidence; it appears that, when it really gets down to it, they consider trans people expendable. They still have a fairly good page about job issues (especially transition) for transgender people, however.

• Here's a note to avoid Sky Publishing, who put out Sky & Telescope magazine. They fired an employee for being transgender, and when she sued them, not only did they not repent, they tried to eliminate the local law against anti-transgender discrimination (several paragraphs down)! In e-mail, they've told me that "...Sky has not admitted any guilt in the settlement and we did not discriminate against anyone," which to me seems patently false. I've recently gotten back into astronomy in a big way, and it pains me to see fellow hobbyists being such jerks.



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Academic and Religious Pages

• The best site around for transgender research done in Taiwan is the Center for the Study of Sexualities, located on the campus of National Central University. The director of the Center, Josephine Ho (He Chunrui, 何春蕤) has done a lot of research about TG issues in Taiwan, and is a really nice person to boot.

• There are many academic programs in queer or GLBT studies out there. One good place to start is the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the City University of New York.

• Another good academic program is the one at the University of Chicago, called the Lesbian and Gay Studies Project.

• Yet another good program is the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Program at UCLA.

• A good directory of academic queer studies is John C. Younger's page at the University of Kansas.

• The International Journal of Transgenderism, an academic journal, peer-reviewed with lots of good, well researched information and some pretty good links, too.

• The World Professional Association for Transgender Health, Inc., originally known as the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, aka The Gatekeepers, are the people who decide the Standards of Care (PDF), which will affect your life very directly if you are considering any kind of professional treatment related to transgender issues. The Standards of Care detail the diagnosis and treatment of gender dysphoria, and, for example, set the conditions under which people may undergo hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or sexual reassignment surgery (SRS).



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Especially Important Sites



We must never stop remembering our dead. Let us not forget, many transgender people have been killed for their identities -- just for being who they are! In memorial of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I've added a bit of freeware memorial art to my site.



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This page (http://www.jiawen.net/ gender.html) designed and ©2000-2014 by Rachel Kronick. All rights reserved by author. Last updated March 1, 2014.