Rachel's Pages -- Gender stuff

I've been interested in gender and sex studies for quite a while, largely because of some personal reasons. Located here are some of the best sites and information I've found on the Web and elsewhere or which I've written myself.

I should note, though, what my predispositions are. I prefer sites that are of direct, quality use to transgendered people, especially transsexuals, and most especially East Asian and Chinese speaking folks. Not because of any preference for a specific heritage, but because I happen to have lived in Taiwan for quite a while and to be able to understand Mandarin, so this is the area in which I can be of the most use. I also prefer non-profit sites over profit ones, and sites by the people concerned than about the people concerned. Thus, you will not find a lot of pictorial-heavy or corporate sites here; neither will you find lewd gawkers' pages. Many of these sites are available through the links I have given, though, if that's what you're interested in.

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. Find out for yourself. Sad that I need to say that, but so's life.

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 I consider my home. 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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Personal Pages

From a really friendly and cool Taiwanese woman, there's Winnie's House of Beauty. She's very nice -- give her a visit! Winnie also has a copy of a very good article about hormone treatment located on her site.
The homepage of Andrea James. She has written relatively little about herself here; most of the site is her excellent TS Roadmap, which gives tons of great advice and information for transsexuals.
Another nice Japanese-oriented site is Genie Murasaki's web page. Actually, there are vast numbers of Japanese TG sites out there, but I'm not too adept at getting my computer to display Japanese, and I don't understand it very well, either.
A CD from Taiwan has her own page called Jessie's Hut. She hasn't updated her page recently, but she's got some very good crossdressing resources on her English page. Her Chinese page, if you can read it (with a Big5 equipped browser, that means), has a lot more personal information. If you can read Chinese but don't have the equipment to do so, please check my information about displaying Chinese with your computer.
A very good source of information in Chinese is Juliana's Secret Garden. She has clippings of almost every TG related article that's appeared in Taiwan on her site, as well as some other things. However, most of her site's in Chinese (Mandarin), so unless you understand Chinese and have a computer equipped to display it, you may not be able to access much of the information on her site. If you need me to, I'd be quite willing to translate anything on her site for you, for free if you need the info for non-profit reasons -- just contact me about it. Also, if you can read Chinese but aren't sure how to get your computer to display Chinese characters, I've got a little essay about it.
An American girl of Chinese descent, Amber has a lot of really wonderful information and ideas on her site, amberspace. Certainly much better than my hackneyed babblings!
Of course, the number of TG folks on the Web is vast. There have been many attempts to present a list of all of them; Susana Marques' Directory is one of the best. It appears that she is no longer keeping the site up to date, but perhaps I'm wrong.

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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.
Jennifer Diane Reitz's Transsexuality has a lot of very intelligent emotional and spiritual advice for those who have gender dysphoria or are transsexual, as well as a lot of good general material. Plus, she's interested in manga and stuff too! (Would you like to see my own page about manga?)
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 publishes quite a nice magazine, Tapestry, and offers many services to the TG community.
One of many corporate/for-profit sites is Transgendered Network International. It has a fair amount of resources, mostly web-based. TGNI is not, as you could probably guess, any more more international than Canada and the US. I think geocentrism is possibly as large of a problem as sexism.
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.
Another general site which has news and general fun stuff is the Transgender Gazebo.
Another for-profit company is Transgender Forum, which offers a huge amount of resources (on-line shopping, advice, library, contact list, etc.) for transgender people, especially crossdressers.
A page by Andrew Matzner called Transgender in Thailand. The site has some very good informative articles about the katoey (M2F transgender/transsexual folks, and sometimes gay men, too) of Thailand, as well as links to other informative sites on the Net.
A fairly useful web-search is at Pridelinks.com. Another good BLTG (bacon, lettuce, tomato and gay) search engine is at Rainbow Queery.
When I lived in Minneapolis, I briefly went to the University of Minnesota's Program in Human Sexuality for therapy. The doctors there seem quite good -- not hung up on making anyone into an idealized or stereotypical man or woman, neither hung up with "primary transsexuality" and "secondary transsexuality" and stuff like that, just helping everyone to find a gender in which they can feel comfortable and to deal with their issues.
My Transgender Handout. I made this when I was at graduate school, and wanted to make a very brief, read-it-quick-and-basically-understand piece of literature to help people understand gender and transgender stuff. The definitions are of course my own, and boring to boot, so they may not be well-suited to everyone. (Also, this page is in black-and-white, so prepare your eyes before you click to it.)

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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. (By the way, any handsome guys reading this, please write me a line!)
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. I wish there'd been something like this in Minneapolis when I was growing up...
The AntiJen site has a lot of good information for TS young people.
Another good page for TS young people is JustEvelyn's page. (It also makes me feel very jealous of her, but that's my problem.)

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Treatment Sites

If you're considering surgery, electrolysis or other treatment, probably the first place you should go is Anne Lawrence's Transsexual Women's Resources or Andrea James' TS Roadmap, both of which have excellent guides and information about all aspects of treatment.
I especially recommend the pages about electrolysis at Andrea James' TS Roadmap.
At one time, I had a link here to a wonderful page with information about hormone dosages and regimens for transsexuals. The page is no longer there. If anyone knows where it went, or where there's a page of equal utility, please let me know.
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.
Amber Chan has some very good advice about voice training. Plus, it's free. (I haven't linked directly to her voice section, due to the structure of the site, but navigation is very clear once you get there.)
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 TG treatment centers out there is the University of Minnesota's Program in Human Sexuality. I briefly saw one of the doctors there, and I can vouch for the program's high quality.
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 Anne Lawrence's Transsexual Women's Resources or Andrea James' TS Roadmap, both of which have excellent guides and information about all aspects of treatment. Really. They have far more information than I could index here. Some other useful sites follow, though.
The single best listing of surgeons is at the Sex Change Indigo Pages. Every surgeon I've ever heard of is listed there.
The PAI site is the main web presence of Dr. Preecha Tiewtranon, who performs SRS (sometimes erroneously called GRS) at the Bangkok Nursing Home hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. Read about my experiences in Thailand with Dr. Preecha, if you'd like. (Dr. Preecha used to maintain a separate website, www.zundara.com, but this appears to have been a temporary website while they got the new PAI site set up.)
Heather Jean Lamborn also has a very informative site regarding her own GRS surgery in Thailand with Dr. Preecha Tiewtranon. Her pages also offer a good transcription about cosmetic surgery for TS folks from the famous Dr. Ousterhout. (He seems to be recognized as the best cosmetic surgeon around, from what I've seen.)
A former student of Preecha's, Dr. Sanguan Kunaporn, has his own practice in Phuket. Dr. Kunaporn's GRS web site doesn't seem to give as much information as Preecha's, though it is quite beautifully designed.
And again I must recommend looking at Anne Lawrence's pages about surgery in Phuket -- several people's own experiences are presented here, as well as correspondence between Dr. Lawrence and Dr. Kunaporn.
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, struck me as rather smarmy, to be honest, but many people have said they're excellent.
A long time ago, I wrote a short article about one of my own surgical experiences in Taiwan. It was not SRS, but nonetheless my experiences might be informative. And, like I mentioned above, you might also want to check out my page about SRS in Thailand.

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Romance

Trying to find love is difficult for anyone, much less a TG person. There are tons of porn and pick-up sites around, but is it possible for a TG person to find true love through the Internet?
There are many personal ad sites out there. Finding good ones is hard. A couple of the relatively okay ones are:
- The ads at International Transgender magazine. They haven't been updated in a while, though.
- It's a commercial site, but altmatch.com seems to have some strong possibilities.
If you know any more, please let me know!
Other than that, there isn't a lot more that I can say. Although I should note that I am in fact looking for a boyfriend myself. Come on, there must be a nice, intelligent, respectful guy out there somewhere!

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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 Joan's Circle is 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; now if the members could just get motivated...
Another one that's all in Chinese but very worthwhile is Xia Shilian's page. I think this might even be one of the best Chinese TG sites in existence at present.
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, ???) 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.
The Chinese Society for the Study of Sexual Minorities is still in its infancy, but holds great promise. The actual information here is all in Chinese, whether accessed through their English language page or their Chinese language ones (Big5 or otherwise). If you're not sure how to display Chinese characters with your computer, I've got a little write-up to help.
Another interesting site is a history of the Tongzhi movement in Taiwan. It's all in both English and German (!), I think.
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 here in Taiwan.
An article I wrote to communicate the problems that TG people in Taiwan face, which I call simply My Friend's Life. Transgender people in Taiwan have to deal with a lot more crap from society than TG people in the US, for example. Trust me, being transgender in Taiwan is a very difficult thing. This is why I want to collect all the information you see here on this page.
Another article I wrote, which will apparently be published in Transgender Tapestry, is called Being Transgender in Taiwan. This article is more generic than the above, and less to the point, but maybe a better general introduction.
An article I wrote about my own experiences, called Being Transgender in East Asia, Part I. I wrote this article for Transgender Forum soon after I came back from my first visit to Taiwan. It's about my experiences that summer and in 1992 when I lived in Beijing for half a year. I sent it to TGForum, who published it quite well on the Net. I haven't yet scanned part II, about my experiences the first time i came to Taiwan. Soon... I will eventually write a more up-to-date version of the whole thing -- although I think my experiences since coming to Taiwan the second time are more likely to form a book than a short article.
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

Okay, this is getting annoying. I've tried several times to keep up-to-date links on resources in Korean for TG and TS folks, but they are disappear rather too quickly for me to keep up. If you know of any good Korean resources, please let me know.

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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

An excellent place to look for articles about katoey (i.e., transgendered people in Thailand) is Transgender in Thailand, a site maintained by Andrew Matzner.
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.
Now here's a class I'd love to take -- Gender and Historical Anthropology: History of the South Pacific, taught by Margaret Jolly.
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.
As soon as I have the money, I'm going to buy My Sisters: Their Stories, by Leona Lo. It details the lives of TG/TS women in Singapore; this is a subject that hasn't been treated with enough attention, so it's good to see a book written about it.

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Political Pages

The GenderPAC homepage. GenderPAC is a very important organization, fighting transphobic hate crimes and other shit that happens to transgender people. (Sorry for the bad language, but that stuff really makes me ANGRY!)
My own personal protest to lodge here is against McAfee Software and their parent company, Network Associates Incorporated. A few years ago, they ran an ad equating transsexual women with computer viruses ("Be careful, or who knows what you might get!"). So far as I know, they have never issued a suitable retraction or worked to combat the transphobia they fostered by doing so. In addition, I personally have had quite bad experiences using their anti-virus software -- when I tried it, their VirusScan suite didn't work well with other programs and had many internal bugs. I finally decided to go with PC-Cillin, at least when I'm not using Linux.
Probably one of the coolest people campaigning for the liberation of transgender people is represented in Leslie Feinberg's site. 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 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 major political GLBT (Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender) organization in the US is The Human Rights Campaign. They appear to be becoming more TG-friendly. They have a fairly good page about job issues (especially transition) for transgender people.

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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, ???) 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. (Namedropping: I briefly consulted one of the editors, Dr. Bockting, when I was trying to get treatment through the University of Minnesota's Program in Human Sexuality, and my family members also briefly went to sessions with one of the doctors there.)
The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association are the people who decide the Standards of Care, which will affect your life very directly if you are considering hormones, SRS or other medical treatment for gender dysphoria. 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). (And wouldn't you know it, the U of Minnesota is apparently the HQ of the HBIGDA! It was right under my nose the whole time. Maybe I just couldn't smell the alphabet soup...
I've found a very interesting article about the status of transsexuality in Judaism, which is to say under Talmudic law, if I'm not mistaken. While the article is of course not representative of Judaism as a whole, and is far from necessarily being authoritative, it is nonetheless well worth reading. The article is apparently by Beth Orens, but is about the ideas of Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg.

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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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Gender Links and Thoughts.

Also Note: Chinese Version available

Personal Pages

General (But Useful!) Pages

FTM, Intersex, Youth and Family Sites

Treatment Sites

Surgery Sites

Romance

Specifically Asian Pages

Chinese and Taiwanese-related sites

Korean sites

Japanese sites

Thai sites

South Asian sites

General sites

Political Pages

Academic and Religious Pages

Especially Important Sites