EXPLORING WHAT MAKES US MALE OR FEMALE

Article appeared in Polare 40, May 2001

On a frozen winter evening, Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling, a professor of biology and women's studies at Brown University, sat in a restaurant nibbling on a snack and talking about her favourite subject: the application of ideas about gender roles to the formal study of biology ...

KYLIE: TATTOOED, LEATHER WEARING, MOTORBIKE RIDING, BUTCH BEAR AND MOST-OP M.T.F. TRANSSEXUAL

Article appeared in Polare 29, February 1999

Kylie describes herself as a tattooed, leather-wearing, motorbike-riding butch bear who is also a most-op M.T.F. transsexual. Each of these facets make the whole of who she is, yet as she explains, it was a case of not knowing exactly where she fitted into a gendered world ...

APPEALS COURT RECOGNISES “SEX NON-SPECIFIC” ANNOTATION FOR BIRTH CERTIFICATES

Article appeared in Polare 96, July 2013

Emily Christie, a Pro Bono lawyer with DLA Piper, the firm of solicitors that represented Norrie explains the legalities of the recent momentous Appeals Court decision allowing recognition of a 'Sex Non-Specific' annotation for birth certificates in New South Wales ...

THEY JOINED THE WARRIORS ON THE WARPATH, BEHAVED LIKE WOMEN IN ATTENDING TO THE FOOD AND HAD MAGICAL POWERS OF HEALING

Article appeared in Polare 2, December 1993

North American Indian gender-crossers often held a high status within their tribes,treated as wise, sacred, holy and respected for their shamanism, nothing could be decided without their advice. However not all were treated with respect, some were outcast, others killed ... 

SOMEWHERE, JUST SOMEWHERE IN-BETWEEN

Article appeared in Polare 7, May 1995

Throughout his childhood, Nicky couldn't freely express his feelings to his parents who thought he was a tomboy like his sister. As his breasts began to develop and periods began, his obsessive compulsion to wash became worse, he became deeply depressed and moody ... 

REPRESSION OF QUESTIONS ABOUT, BEHAVIOUR ASSOCIATED WITH, OR SELF-IDENTIFYING WITH A TRANSGENDER IDENTIFICATION

Article appeared in Polare 22, December 1997

Atype of child abuse that affects transgender people is Gender Identity Developmental Repressive Abuse. It forces children to repress questions about gender identity, cross-gendered play-acting and behaviour, or from self-identifying with a transgender identification ...

INTRODUCING THE GENDER-QUEER SUPPORT GROUP

Article appeared in Polare 103, April 2015

Gender Centre Counsellor, Anthony Carlino explains the increase in young people confident enough to define themselves as transgender, to those seeking support for their gender-queer identities ...

THE VARIETY HUMAN SEXUAL REALITY

Article appeared in Polare 20, August 1997

Recent attempts to deny marriage to all but culturally defined males and females is doomed to failure because a binary system can never encompass the variety of human sexual realities with perhaps millions of XX males and XY females living in the United States today ...

EVEN A SINGLE ACT CAN HAVE A MASSIVELY DETRIMENTAL EFFECT TO SOMEONE'S MENTAL HEALTH

Article appeared in Polare 93, October 2012

While bullying is often thought of as an experience most likely to be encountered by children and adolescents, it is also a reality in adult life for those unfortunate enough to encounter adult bullies. We know that bullies exist everywhere - in our school system, in universities and workplaces ...

A JOURNEY REPEATED OVER AND OVER

Article appeared in Polare 58, July 2004

Jenny is biologically male and happy to be, and to live her male-gendered life. She is also, and no less, a woman by gender. Admitting that she cannot live as an androgyne, she is a true chameleon. This is the way she is, the way she has always longed to be, pangendered ... 

TRUE TALES OF SEX AND GENDER DIVERSITY

Article appeared in Polare 54, October 2003

Finding the Real Me by Tracie O'Keefe and Katrina Fox is unstructured and as such reflects the nature of diversity, stories of male-to-female, female-to-male and androgyny are interspersed with stories of older and younger people, complete and incomplete transitions ...

SHEDDING SOME LIGHT ON THE RARE CONDITION, TRANSSEXUALISM

Article appeared in Polare 75, April 2008

Scientists say they may have found genes that shed light on transsexualism. The research could help clarify one of the most contentious and poorly understood questions in biology: what creates gender-identity, the sense most people have that they are men or women ...