We were saddened to hear that Zoe Belle took her own life last Monday night. Zoe was a member of  Trans Melbourne Gender Project and was involved in the effort to start a gender drop-in and resource centre in Melbourne. She was much loved, and will be missed by many, many people.

Zoe was passionate about trans rights, and wanted to make a  difference in the world. She was meticulous in her work and presentation, and was a valued team member and friend. She had her finger in many, many pies. In fact, she was involved in so many projects that it is almost impossible to think of a trans- or queer-related event that has taken place in Melbourne recently without her presence. She was the main organiser of Trans/Destinations, the first dedicated trans conference in Melbourne, which is about to happen as part of the Midsumma Festival. But she wasn’t just interested in one issue: Zoe saw the big picture, and was also committed to disability rights, queer rights, feminist politics and anti-violence work. For her ongoing volunteer work with Midsumma, Zoe was mentioned in the GenerationQ  list of Australian suporters of the GLBTIQ community for 2007 as an unsung hero. She was involved in Out of the Silence, a conference for tranz, women and genderqueer people. She was also about to perform onstage in the Melbourne run of The Vagina Monologues. She had worked as an electrical engineer, and had great website design skills. In fact, this year, she was going to be the TMGP website update manager.

Zoe had a wicked sense of humour, and was a trouble-maker in the best way possible. In meetings she was always very focused, but on the TMGP email list, she let her sense of fun have free range. Recently, someone had written expressing their anger that she had to listen to transphobic and homophobic comments by some popular DJs on NOVA FM at work, because her boss was a big fan of the radio station. Zoe suggested re-cutting the radio show so that Hughsey, Kate and Dave sounded like they were making pro-queer and pro-trans remarks, and playing it at work to ‘retrain’ the annoying employer. It was a very Zoe thing to say: a perfect, geeky, wicked response.

Zoe tried the best to be herself in a world that was often unsympathetic and unyielding to her needs. The space she leaves is not only painful because of the loss of a friend, colleague and co-conspirator. It’s also a reminder that the causes she fought for are doubly important to win.

Zoe, we all love you and we hope that wherever you’ve gone, you are free.

PUBLIC MEETING: COMMUNITY CONSULTATION FOR PROPOSED GENDER CENTRE

Congratulations and well done to the winners of the 2006 Tranny Awards….

Most Outstandingly Unhelpful and Transphobic Gay and Lesbian Organisation:
United We Dance

Most Supportive and Trans-Friendly Health Professional:
Dr Nick Medland, Centre Clinic, St Kilda

Most Trans-Friendly Organisation:
Gender Schmender

Best Genderfucking Event of 2006:
Gender Schmender – Damnation

Most Misinformation About Transpeople in a Newspaper or Magazine Article:
Jason Foster, MCV (the only nominee)

The Harry Benjamin Award for the Most Inappropriate Comment by a Psychiatrist:
Dr Trudy Kennedy, Monash Gender Dysphoria Clinic

The Milli Vanilli Award for the Most Lazy and Uninspired Drag Performance of 2006:
Jim Karma (drag king)

Best Example of Simultaneous Racism Sexism and Transphobia from A ‘GLBTIQ’ Perspective:
Los Ridiculos (drag king)

The TransAmerica Award for the Most Conservative Trans Movie:
Transamerica (with a nod to ‘Normal’)

Golden Shower Award for the Best Gender Neutral Bathroom in Melbourne:
Robot Bar

The Ratbag Award for the Most Incorrigible Gender-Variant Upstart:
Ashlan ‘Radio’ Pike

The Red Tape Award for the Most Time Consuming Gender Related Administrative Nightmare
VicRoads Carlton

The Sharp Learning Curve Award for Most Improvement in Gender Awareness:
Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria

The Token Award for the Best Performance of Trans-Friendliness Without the Action to Back it Up
Victorian Aids Council Gay Mens Peer Suport Program
(Australian Bureau of Statistics a close runner up)

International Achievement Award for the Best Example of Trans Advocacy Overseas:
Spanish Parliament

Best Tranny:
Sally Goldner

The Binary Award for the Most Gender Restrictive Trans Publication:
Craig Andrews, TORQUE magazine, Men’s Transsexual Resources Australia

This is an exclusive invitation for you and your favourite people to
attend……

The 2006 Melbourne TRAANAA’s: Trans Revolutionary Achievement and
Non-achievement Awards

or more simply… The Tranny Awards!

The Trannys are about celebrating the joys and difficulties of
trans/queer existence with a dash of glamour, an ounce of piss-taking,
and the serious need to out the crappy transphobic institutions that
make our lives hell.

WHERE
Near the Dolphin Fountain
Fitzroy Gardens
Wellington St East Melbourne
Melways map ref 2G, B2.
(Catch the 48 or 75 tram from Flinders St)

WHEN
Sunday December 17
2pm picnic
Awards presentation at 4pm
BYO picnic blanket, chairs, food and beverages
No RSVP necessary

THEME: glitz and glamour, baby. Come walk the pink carpet with us….

Check out the Trannys page or nominate someone for an award here
or email us for more information.

The Trannys are supported by our lovely friends at Gender Schmender….

Nominations are now open for Melbourne’s first annual Trans Revolutionary Achievement and Non-Achievement Awards (TRAANAA), otherwise known as the Tranny Awards.

We call for nominations of

• local community organisations
• bureaucratic institutions
• community leaders
• films
• events
• performers
• health professionals
• random personal moments of revelation
• people we love, or love to hate

The Trannys are about celebrating the joys and difficulties of trans/queer existence with a dash of glamour, an ounce of piss-taking, and the serious need to out the crappy transphobic institutions that make our lives hell. We challenge the conservatism of the pink champagne
circuit, where the same ‘community leaders’ parade around, year after dull year. We challenge the skewed representations of the queer media, for whom the latest Anthony Callea single is more important than trans and queer people living with poverty, discrimination and violence. We challenge the fallacy that there is a GLBTQI community in which we are all equal.

By awarding prizes for transphobia, tokenism, unprofessional psychiatry and bureaucratic nightmares, we draw attention to the everyday discrimination many people in the ‘GLBTIQ’ community experience because of their gender presentation. We’re not afraid to laugh at ourselves, either. By awarding prizes for supportive healthcare, gender-neutral bathrooms, gender-messy events and improvements in the community’s treatment of transpeople, we honour the random kindnesses of strangers and the moving tide of knowledge about trans and gender-variant people, and the growing acceptance that for most of us humans, gender is never stable.

Nominations can be made for the following categories:

1. Most Outstandingly Unhelpful and Transphobic Gay and Lesbian Organisation
2. Most Supportive and Trans-Friendly Health Professional
3. Most Trans-Friendly Organisation
4. Most Unexpectedly Non-Traumatic Coming Out Moment
5. Best Genderfucking Event of 2006
6. Worst Case of Misinformation About Transpeople in a Newspaper or Magazine Article
7. Best Example of Simultaneous Racism, Sexism and Transphobia from A ‘GLBTIQ’ Perspective
8. The Harry Benjamin Award for the Most Inappropriate Comment by a Psychiatrist
9. The Milli Vanilli Award for the Most Lazy and Uninspired Drag Performance of 2006
10. The TransAmerica Award for the Most Conservative Trans Movie
11. The Golden Shower Award for the Best Gender Neutral Bathroom in Melbourne
12. The Ratbag Award for the Most Incorrigible Gender-Variant Upstart
13. The Red Tape Award for the Most Time Consuming Gender Related Administrative Nightmare
14. The Sharp Learning Curve Award for Most Improvement in Gender Awareness
15. The Token Award for the Best Performance of Trans-Friendliness Without the Action to Back it Up
16. International Achievement Award for the Best Example of Trans Advocacy Overseas
17. Best Tranny

HOW TO NOMINATE

1. Go to http://www.genderproject.net.au/trannys/ and follow the link.
2. Email info[AT]genderproject.net.au with the person/thing you’d like to nominate, the award category, the reason they should win, and your name.

Apart from the International Achievement Award, please keep nominations limited to Australia. Be imaginative.

Nominations close 6pm, Friday 8th December.

HOW TO VOTE

Once the nominations have closed on the 8th December, vote at http://www.genderproject.net.au/trannys

THE AWARDS CEREMONY

The Tranny Awards will be held on Sunday December 17 at an as yet undisclosed location. Look out for more publicity coming soon or join the announcements list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/trannys_2006_announce/.

Want to tell some of The Powers That Be a thing or two about trans health and wellbeing?

The TranZnation survey aims to examine the health and wellbeing of individuals in the trans communities. It is being carried out by the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University and Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria which is part of ARCSHS.

Visit the survey at http://www.tranznation.org/

This English translation quotes from Guerilla Travolaka:

We of the ‘Trans’ Guerrilla believe in the power of SHOWING ourselves, talking about our bodies, our sexuality, our differences and the thousand identities that are hidden beneath that label of “trans”. We want to be visible and we speak in the first person.
We want to possess gender, redefine our BODIES and create free, open networks where we can develop, where anyone can build up their security mechanisms against gender pressure.

We aren’t victims; our war wounds are our shields.

In opposition to the Trans-normativity that imposes strict medical morals and a binomic gender system, we propose new alternatives to understand and construct our bodies. We are NOT talking about a third sex, as we don’t even believe in a first or second sex. This is a question of being able to express our gender freely, of understanding the utopia that means and the pressures that exist.

We present ourselves, not as terrorists, but as pirates, trapeze artists, guerrillas, members of the gender RESISTANCE.

We defend Doubt, we believe in the ‘going back’ medically and in going forward, we think that no construction process should be labelled as IRREVERSIBLE. We want to make the beauty of androgyny visible. We believe in the right of removing our bandages to breathe, and that of not removing them ever; in the right of undergoing operations at the hands of good surgeons and not BUTCHERS, in free access to hormone treatments without the need for psychiatrists’ certificates, in the right of self hormone administration. We demand the right to live without asking for permission.

We believe in direct action against trans-phobia. And to achieve this, we feel it is necessary to redefine the limits of this phobia, understanding it to be the rejection of any non-regulatory expression of gender identity, not just transexualism.

(Via Jay Sennett)

Reminder:

TMGP admin meeting
6pm, Monday 23rd of October
Group Study Room (in the Frank Crean Independent Learning Centre)
City Library, 253 Flinders Lane
Melbourne

Admin meetings are open to everyone, including people who haven’t come along before. Our admin meetings are quite informal and we don’t require you to say anything if you dno’t want to. If you have an idea for a project, something to contribute or if you’d just like to know kore about TMGP, please come along.

WANTED: cowfreaks, showgirls, six shooters, high rollers, queer outlaws and the wild tranz
get your glad rags on, saddle up and ride out west for a whip crackin’ good time at

TEX ROYALE

For red dust glam rock, punk n’ western queer party action……..

get a sneak preview at www.myspace.com/gender_schmender
be sure to check out the video show reel featuring all of your favourite genderschmenderers!!

Featuring performances by Wiley Peyote, Chic Magnet, Udderly Bovine, Lady ge Darian, Stanley Nice and the Cutters, Lady Heartbreak

From the dirty south, a live western band: Shane French and Ryan Sterling
DJ’s silverspurs & tokyolovekitten

Show down 9pm Saturday 21st October
Show up The Commercial Hotel 238 Whitehall Street Yarraville
Quick Draw $8 unwaged $10 waged

genderschmender will meet YOU at Yarraville Train Station at 8.30pm and 9.00pm, walk/ride the western streets with us all the way to the ranch

………………………………………………………………………

this is a genderschmender event so as always there is no door policy. what we ask is that you leave your sexist, classist, racist, transphobic and homophobic attitudes at home.
…………………………………………………………………………..

hit us on the web: www.myspace.com/gender_schmender for details, photo’s and video’s.
watch the TEX ROYALE SHOW REELon youtube
or shoot us by email

Yeehaw!!!

Homofactus Press is a small press in the US run by Jay Sennett. It publishes ftm writing. Wow, how’s that, a whole press devoted to ftm stuff.

The press just released its first book, Self-Organizing Men.

Jay says, “I created this book out a need I had to address the complexities in my own life,” says editor Jay Sennett. “I also wanted an anthology that included as many types of masculine voices as possible, not only transsexual ones. This book is very much a both/and kind of read.”

Welcome to the website for Trans Melbourne Gender Project (TMGP). The design for this site is still under construction but the text is done - so look around and find out more about who we are, what we do, and how you can get in on the action.

TMGP in brief

TMGP is a coalition of people of all genders. We engage in activism and support around issues of gender. We meet in person and online.

One of the best ways to keep up-to-date with TMGP activities is to join our e-mail list. You can also contact us by email, phone or post.