Meet Transgender model Sarina Thai who went bare-breasted in Grand Central Station for equality

Standing like a statue in the middle of Grand Central Station this topless transgender woman is making a statement for equality.

Sarina Thai braved the stares and comments long enough for these pictures to be taken. In the process, a cis woman went to the police hysterically complaining about a 'naked woman."

Many were surprised to see photographer Allen Henson's return to a public place for a shoot like this since he is being sued for a million dollars after photographing a bare-breasted woman on the empire state building earlier in the year. It is legal for a woman to go topless in New York but it's a subjective law, defined by an officer's perception of lewd behavior.

I wondered what makes a person bare themselves in such a way, so I contacted model Sarina Thai who graciously answered my questions. Sarina, thank you for this is opportunity to interview you.

I would like to open up by asking about you, the person inside the model. You are originally from Bangkok? Please tell us about growing up there.

"Yes , I grow up in Bangkok since I was 8 years old. I was born in the city called Phrae in North of Thailand. In Bangkok I was in a private all-boy boarding school for 10 years. Even though I have a lot of male friends I was not desired to be male. I wanted to be female when I was young."

Sarina, you are a gorgeous woman who has traveled the world doing amazing work. Please tell us about your favorite project.

My favorite project is NYFW Fall/Winter 2014 I had a chance to collaborate with up and coming designers and artists. It was a great time great experiences.

I am a huge fan of the feminist group "Femen." Their topless advocacy has made an indelible statement as yours has too.

Your shoot at the Grand Central station is amazing and courageous. What inspired you to go topless. Is there a statement you would like to make about that shoot?

Sarina Thai on Pin it

"I am standing up for a demographic that has been marginalized. Given that I am publicly promoting LGBT equality, especially Transgender."

Putting a explanation point on her reasons for showing her magnificent curves alfresco to New Yorkers Sarina said:

"I really disagree with Tim Gunn  ( Project Runway Mentor )'s opinion about trans women modeling women's clothing."

Gunn, a gay man doesn't embrace gender diversity in the way most trans and enlightened cisgender people do, instead he embraces the gender binary on the runway. Although Sarina has the body any cis woman would envy its not those curves that make her the model she is. Its what's inside, what motivates, what inspires. Transgender people are so lucky to have this courageous beautiful woman to model and advocate on our behalf.

@AllenHenson you speak with @FEMENUSA https://t.co/ljP45rsqRb for bare breasted activism
— planetransgender (@kellibusey) February 27, 2014

Minnoji from modaCYCLE on Vimeo.

After two year battle transgender woman Robina Asti at 92 finally gets survivor benefits

Robina Asti, married her life-long sweetheart Norwood Patton in In a 2004 ceremony at an airplane hangar in Orange County, NY. Robina had previously changed her legal documents to indicate she was female so her marriage was recognized by the state.

 

However, when Robina filed for Social security survivor benefits after the passing of her husband, her request was denied. The SSA claimed that she was “legally male” at the time of their marriage despite all the legal documents to the contrary.

The SSA without saying as much as a word deposited Robina's first payment into her bank account February 14th after Lambda legal filled a lawsuit on her behalf.

Robina said:

When I saw that the money was in my account, I was so happy. I felt like it was my husband Norwood’s Valentine’s Day gift to me. I’m glad that Social Security finally came to its senses. I hope this means that other people won’t have to experience this.

The issue of survivor benefits remains murky for transgender spouses according to Lambda Legal. "The SSA has an unfortunate policy of referring all claims for spousal benefits to its regional counsel offices for review. This policy often results in unnecessary delays and errors as the counsel’s office evaluates the validity of the marriage."

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer tweets a picture of her vetoing the anti LGBT bill

The bill that would have not only allowed, but encouraged people to discriminate met a righteous demise as this afternoon as Arizona Governor Brewer put a stake through it's heart.

After her tweet meet Rocco DiGrazia, the pizza joint owner who put a face on whom the bill would have hurt. Of all the people who opposed the bill, the Republican senators, the  business owners the corporations, Rocco's voice spoke the loudest from his heart straight to Jan Brewers ears. Thank the stars she heard.

Moments ago, I vetoed #SB1062. pic.twitter.com/gdQn0dG2vB
— Jan Brewer (@GovBrewer) February 27, 2014

Editor's note: Rocco DiGrazia describes himself as a "failed anthropologist and thwarted musician, but a decent father and passable pizzaiolo." He owns Rocco's Little Chicago Pizzeria in Tucson, Arizona, and is married with two children.

(CNN) -- On Wednesday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rightly vetoed the state bill that would have allowed businesses to deny service to gay people on religious grounds. I had a bet with a friend that she wouldn't sign it -- and wonder why it took her so long. She won't take a hit to the pocketbook -- she's too savvy for that.

In the days leading up to this, I put a sign in the window of my pizzeria that said: "We reserve the right to refuse service to Arizona legislators." The reaction was vastly and overwhelmingly positive, with only a few people telling me they wouldn't ever eat at my restaurant again. Mainly, we have received many, many messages of support; phone calls, e-mails and texts, from people who live in Tucson, across the state and even from outside the United States.

Arizona pizzeria owner Rocco DiGrazia says he can't condone discrimination against one group of people.

The sign is part of a tradition we have. When I moved into the supposedly cursed restaurant space on Broadway in Tucson, Arizona, 15 years ago, I found a box of letters -- the kind you put on a marquee sign out front. By the end of the day, I had a message on the sign. We've been changing it every day since. I am often told people plan their routes to see what we have to say each day -- even if just for a chuckle.

Sometimes we put up song lyrics, or a snarky comment about someone in the news, such as Anthony Weiner. One day we put up "Free Pussy Riot." Some people get their knickers in a twist about our messages, but we do it for ourselves as much as anything.

Then I learned that the state Senate once again passed an appalling bill that attempted to save me from my fellow Arizonans. I thought, "Oh no, not again." If anything seemed ripe for parody, this was it.

It was irresistible. I instantly typed a comment on my Facebook page, saying that the busybodies in the capital of Phoenix were not allowed to come in and sit at my table. Minutes later, one of my followers supplied the sign that so eloquently expressed my viewpoint. I laminated it, and by that afternoon it was on my doors.

Since then, a lot of similar signs showed up in the windows of Tucson businesses saying "We reserve the right to serve anybody." Tucson is a little more liberal than Maricopa County and Phoenix: We're a university town. People here just don't care about things like that. At restaurants, we just serve you and smile.

Petition to force a vote on California Transgender students rights fails: San Fran peeps celebrate in the street

Just posted by the California Secratory of State:
"Privacy for all students" failed to gather enough VALID signatures to force a referendum of AB1266

The petition to force a public vote on AB 1266, Pupil rights: sex-segregated school programs and activities, fell short by 17,276 valid signatures. The petition needed 504,760 signatures to put the referendum on the November ballot.

The haters aren't done just yet. They want to check the signatures that were thrown out

Click to see the full spreadsheet

Karen England, co-chairwoman of 'privacy for all students told the Washington Times they have 'people lined up' for Tuesday to check the signatures.

Fav. Picture from #AB1266 rallies yesterday is this person taking on the "transgender" vs. "transgendered" debate pic.twitter.com/BRhuhCeRve

— Parker Marie Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) February 25, 2014

San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.com

Sign at Sacramento suburb sig gathering for #CA2014 referendum of transgender teens bill #AB1266. pic.twitter.com/Q05F4jjNGz

— John Myers (@johnmyers) October 11, 2013

Stop this from happening! Visit http://t.co/a9K5XSswtu to sign the petition against School the Bathroom Bill! #AB1266 pic.twitter.com/nVMLBRZJxD

— Pacific Justice (@PacificJustice) October 30, 2013

Uganda's president signed anti LGBT bill into law

(CNN) -- Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed into law Monday a bill that criminalizes homosexuality.
He had gone back and forth about the controversial bill.
Last month, Museveni said he wouldn't sign the bill, describing homosexuals as "sick" people who needed help, not imprisonment. Then he backtracked this month and said he'd sign it because scientists had determined that there's no gene for homosexuality and that it's merely abnormal behavior.
Then, last week, he said he would seek advice from American scientists before he made any decision.

Post by Cleve Jones.

Minister's proposal would allow Irish transgender people legal gender recognition at 16

Transgender people will be allowed to apply for legal recognition of their acquired gender from the earlier age of 16, under proposals Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton will bring to Government today.

Last summer Ms Burton published the draft heads of the Gender Recognition Bill which will allow transgender people to have their status recognised by the State for all purposes – including the right to marry or enter a civil partnership in the acquired gender.

After the issuing of a gender recognition certificate by the Department of Social Protection, the transgender person will be able to apply for a new birth certificate that recognises his or her acquired gender.

The person has also right to have a birth certificate that recognises his or her acquired gender. This will be done through the issuing of a gender recognition certificate by the Department of Social Protection. The transgender person will then be able to apply for a new birth certificate. However, the original draft legislation recognised those rights for people over the age of 18. Source: Irish Times

Why does Gender Recognition Legislation matter?

Trans people cannot legally change the gender on their birth certificate under any circumstance. Birth certificates are a foundational identity document and are often requested for official purposes (such as accessing social welfare, attaining a PPS number and getting married). While Ireland does, in certain cases, allow for changing gender on documents like passports and driving licences, this results in trans people having inconsistent official identification documentation. That is, a person may be recognised as one gender on certain documents and another gender on their birth certificate. The result of this can be a ‘forced outing’, where a trans person is outed as trans against their will when they apply for a job, a new passport or entry to college. Forced outing can result in harassment, discrimination and even violence.

The lack of legal recognition for trans people has also been deemed a clear human rights abuse. Presently, Ireland is the last country in the European Union that does not allow for legal recognition of trans people, despite a High Court ruling that this is incompatible with Ireland’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2009, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg stated, “There is no excuse for not immediately granting [the transgender] community their full and unconditional human rights”. source: Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) 

Barneys New York Brothers, Sisters, Sons, & Daughters: The Film

This one is for you Candy Darling.

Arin Andrews, Edie Charles, Valentijn de Hingh, Ashley de la Cruz, Sawyer Devuyst, Peche Di, Dezjorn Gauthier, Trevon Haynes, Katie Hill, Eve Lindley, Niki M’nray, Ryley Pogensky, Ines Rau, May Simon, Ahya Taylor, Maxie Neu, and Gisele Xtravaganza.

These seventeen extraordinary men and women, transgender individuals with diverse experiences and unique personal stories, are the faces of Barneys New York’s Spring 2014 campaign: Brothers, Sisters, Sons & Daughters, which launches today exclusively on The Window.



Directed by Bruce Weber, Brothers, Sisters, Sons, & Daughters takes a closer look at the lives of seventeen transgender individuals and allows them to tell their stories in their own words.

Even on her death bed Candy Darling was the star
She lives on today in the hearts of all who knew her..

Transgender Purple heart recipient abused by Houston VA hospital

Born intersex and raised as a male Charlene Lauderdale found herself identifing more as a female later in life.

@BarackObama...end transgender discrimination... I served in the US Air Force in Desert Storm...now I am denied medical care at the VA

— Charlene Lauderdale (@CrTexLady1960) November 13, 2012

Monica, AZ Transgender woman takes a stand against the religious discrimination law

Monica's mother told her about her involvement in the civil rights movement of her time, but she never dreamed she would have to do it all over again.

Monica is experiencing much the same discrimination her mother did with the Arizona legislature's passing of a bill which allows anyone to discriminate if they claim they are doing it for religious reasons.

The second video is of Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer says she will decide by next Friday whether or not to sign the bill.

I'll be at the White House next week reporting for the Transadvocate, a newly designated news site

I will be at the White House next weekend and not outside looking in but inside it with the rest of the LGBT bloggers, who will be attending the 5th Annual LGBT Media Journalists Convening.. Having attended my first one last year I'll tell you, except the unexpected, every second.

But this year is extra special. I will be visiting the president's house as a reporter for the transadvocate, formally a blog, but now a newly designated news site. So we will be heard loud and clear, above the din, with the rest of the world's news agencies.

So will I meet with the president? That's unknown, but probably not. However, in case I do I'd like to forward your questions and comments to him. And if enough people respond here it's possible Mr. Obama's peeps might take notice. And if they do they might even ask him to speak with us, as long as we are in his house and all.

So what's up? Is this possible or just hype? Expect the unexpected.

What would you say to the president of the United States?

I'll be at @BarackObama's house next weekend with the #LGBTMedia14 What would you ask him? http://t.co/8QgGZa3nPK @mitchellreports #Trans
— planetransgender (@kellibusey) February 22, 2014

Biolife rejects transgender woman plasma identifying her as male assuming promiscuity

Western Washington University alumni Briana Reynolds donated plasma four years prior to beginning transition at Biolife without a hitch. She said that Biolife never asked her about her sexual orientation. However, after she began the transition to female, Biolife continued to identify her as male and assumed she was having unsafe sex with men and would not allow her to donate.

Not only was Reynolds self esteem damaged she also lost an important source of income.

Although Reynolds filled out a form at BioLife stating she has never engaged in male-to-male sex and sexual orientation was never brought up during her meeting with the nurse, homosexual behavior was the reason given to explain why Reynolds was ineligible to donate, she said. 

“I don’t know how to describe how it made me feel,” Reynolds said. “It’s judging me and making assumptions about me simply based on the way I dress.”
Even though Reynolds is a virgin and has never engaged in any type of sexual encounters, the nurse wouldn't budge on the issue, Reynolds said. 

“I don’t dress like a woman when I go out. I wear women’s clothing because I am a woman.” Reynolds told Western University's student newspaper.

The Biolife eligibility criteria makes no mention of transgender status in determining eligibility. It states that a potential donor's "medical history interview consists of a series of questions about their past and present health history, including questions regarding possible exposure to certain infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis."

Recently in 2013 a transgender woman sued a Plasma collection company.  “You people can't give plasma,” Lisa A. Scott allegedly was told by a CSL Plasma nurse, according to her suit filed in 2013 at the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

I spoke with "Bridget" at CSL Plasma Fort Worth, who told me that I could not donate plasma because I am transgender. Bridget would not give me her job title, last name or reason for denial other than my transsexuality. Keep it classy Bridget.

Although the FDA has been aware of the need to study transgender people independently from gay men since 2009, there has been no such initiative undertaken.

AABB/FDA Liaison Meeting – 5/29/09

The current guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to indefinitely defer any male donor who has had sex with another man, in the period from 1977 to the present day.

Female sexual partners of MSM are deferred for one year since the last exposure. This is the same policy used for any sexual partner of someone in a high risk group. The argument used to follow these policies is that blood should be collected from a population that is at low risk for disease, since the tests are not perfect and human error may lead to infected units not being properly discarded, and these population groups would be considered a high risk. The policy was first put in place in 1985


Source CDC "Under existing guidelines, FDA bans any male who has had sexual contact at least one time with another male since 1977 from donating blood during his lifetime. The American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers, and several major U.S. cities have called for changes to the lifetime ban. HHS is currently revisiting the policy."



In June of 2010, HHS brought together an independent panel of experts. The Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability reviewed the policy and decided to keep it and concluded the ban was "suboptimal," because it allows high-risk individuals to donate while keeping low-risk donors out. However, the expert committee also concluded "available scientific data are inadequate to support change to a specific alternate policy." The panel suggested the policy not be changed and recommended further evaluation.

AZ SB 1062

Steven 'Steve' B. Yarbrough's Ratings and Endorsements Equality AZ and Imiagrant rights both 0.

Nation wide effort as bigots endeavour to throw Transgender people back to Jim Crow era citing 'religious' beliefs.

You better glance over your shoulder people.  There is a concerted backdoor effort to strip you of your rights and its not a isolated initiative, its happening in your state.

Transgender people, just emerging from Jim Crow are all too familiar with the day to day reality of living as second-class citizens, it's a living hell.

That we are not included in the Wikipedia definition is testament to our historical invisibility.

The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 in the United States at the state and local level. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African Americans. The separation in practice led to conditions for African Americans that tended to be inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages. De jure segregation mainly applied to the Southern United States. While Northern segregation was generally de facto, there were patterns of segregation in housing enforced by covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination, including discriminatory union practices for decades.

kansas bill HB 2453

According to Dana Liebelson at Mother Jones that bill is dead, but before you sigh in relief know there are similar bills popping up all across the country. South Dakota, Tennessee, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Ohio and Mississippi to name a few.

Post by Rocco's Little Chicago Pizzeria.

The Kansas bill, a catalyst for Arizona which just passed a bill legalizing discrimination and other state's efforts to enact similar legislation, didn't die in the Senate because of group epiphany, it's dead because of public outrage over it. If nothing else most Republicans are pragmatic politicians.

There will be a rendezvous at the Kansas State house on February 25th organized by Equality Kansas, Great Plains Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, The MainStream Coalition, and the ACLU of Kansas. Read more about that at the Daily Kos.