Editorial

by Katherine Cummings

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

Yet another period of confusion, disorientation and disorganization for your beloved editor.

I moved house at the end of September, with all the hassle and chaos that this implies, ranging from a removalist who couldn't fit everything into his van so that Chester and I spent a night sleeping on carpet in a virtually empty house, to a daisy-chain transaction where someone at the far end of the chain failed to raise his money, and everyone else down the line found their transactions jeopardised.

None of which would matter from your or Polare s point of view (apart from the delays to publishing inherent in the time taken to organise a sale, a purchase and a house move) had it not been for the unavailability of my files and my computer during, and after, the move. We finished up in our new house surrounded by boxes and furniture in an arrangement similar to those designed to study maze­ learning in rats (Psychology I, 1952).

Matters were not helped by my falling over and breaking my right wrist in the midst of settling in. I am still in a cast [ed. note ... it finally came off on 12 October] and keyboarding very slowly like someone practicing the motto of the Fleet Air Arm (Search and Strike) so I hope you will forgive me if there are even more typos than usual.

I have decided that this issue will not be October-November but October-December, giving me a little breathing space after this issue comes out. I have wanted for some time to bring Polare into line with the calendar year, rather than having an issue which straddles December-January. Now seems like a good time to do it.

Our cover this issue features Roberta Perkins, who was largely responsible for the creation of the Gender Centre and who pointed out at the A.G.M. that this momentous event (and I am not being ironic) took place twenty years ago! The GC has passed through good times and bad, name changes, external crises and internal conflict but has survived and is still the only government-funded service for the gender variant in Australia. My congratulations to Roberta and to the many workers in the Centre who have achieved the viable and useful organisation we know today.

To pretend that everyone loves us would be naive but the people who have been helped far outnumber those who feel they have not and I, for one, hope that the Gender Centre continues to supply care and service to the transgendered until we outlive our usefulness because the concept of gender variance is accepted as simply another characteristic of the human condition, like eye colour, height or ethnic origin.

Elizabeth-Anne has returned from Belgium, revivivified by her attendance at the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association Biennial Symposium and her overview of the symposium appears on page 26. Her own paper will be featured in Polare 55.

On the home front, Elizabeth Riley, the Gender Centre General Manager, was honoured at the Diva Awards, receiving a Diva for Outstanding Service to our Community. A well-deserved recognition of her unflagging work for all those who are disadvantaged by reason of being transgendered. Our congratulations!

Jenny Lovelace drew my attention to a piece in the British Daily Telegraph by Pamela Stephenson, the comedienne and psychologist. I have reprinted it on page23. It seems that Ms Stephenson is trying to be nice to transgenders but she goes about it in a peculiar way, suggesting that transgenders are likely to be "the fully-bloused matron with a five 0' clock shadow, the tomboyish teenager with flattened C-cups, the gravel voiced coquette in the size 12 heels". She seems to suggest that trans genders are obvious and we should tolerate them. She even says that some people need to be given a washroom marked "Just Different". Oh, my yes, that is sure to make them feel comfortable in a binary society. I suppose it is better than the mean spirited attacks launched by Germaine Greer. But why Stephenson thinks a purple beard is incongruous on her husband baffles me. Purpling his beard is one of the least incongruous acts of the delightful Billy Connolly.

Laura Seabrook (page 6) contributes her strategies for dealing with intrusive strangers, strategies kinder than stamping on their insteps or spraying them with mace, but only marginally. Remind me never to upset Laura.

And there is creative writing from Paula Kaye, who displays a sure touch when she describes the bitter­sweet moment of loving renunciation which occurs in the lives of so many trans genders as the circumstances of their convoluted lives force them to renounce a loved and loving partner.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.