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August 27 She wed her partner in June after Calif. allowed same-sex marriages 
Del Martin, left, places a ring on her partner Phyllis Lyon, right, in this June 16, 2008 file photo during their wedding ceremony officiated by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, center, at City Hall in San Francisco. Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP file SAN FRANCISCO - Pioneering lesbian rights activist Del Martin, who married her lifelong partner in June on the first day that same-sex couples here gained that right, has died. She was 87. Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said Martin died at a San Francisco hospital Wednesday morning, two weeks after a broken arm exacerbated her existing health problems. Get the whole article here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26425975/ August 24 Each year I expect August to pass a little easier than the year prior. This year however August has felt like it's been way too long. I even took a week away and took my daughter down to spend some time with my parents and my sister's family. No luck, it's only the twenty forth and I feel like I've been through five August's already. I dread what August 2009 is going to be like and I'm pretty certain I will go on a pilgrimage of sorts. God Bless, -Dana August 09 I received an unexpected gift of sorts this morning which touches me deeply. All I can say is "thank you" Always, DZ Thaindian.com - Bangkok,Bangkok,Thailand
Melons sexual switching gene offers clues to evolution of sex
August 8th, 2008 - 12:47 pm ICT by ANI
Washington, Aug 8 (ANI): A newly discovered function of a gene for
sexual switching in melons can provide a great deal of information
about evolution of sexual systems in plants, says a new study by
French and American scientists.
While French scientists led by Abdel Bendahmane of the National
Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), isolated the melon sex
determination gene and determined its function, New York University
biologists Jonathan Flowers and Michael Purugganan conducted the
evolutionary analysis of the study.
The sexual system in melons, called andromonoecy, carries both male
and bisexual flowers and appears to have evolved recently, and the
scientists in the study aimed at understanding what determines the
recent formation of melons" new sexual system.
"If we can understand how different sexual systems in plants have
evolved, we can then begin to understand how sex in general evolves,"
explained Purugganan.
Focussing their study on the role of hormone ethylene, which is known
to help fruit ripen, the French scientists determined that an enzyme
involved in making this gaseous hormone also plays a role in the
evolution of the sexual switch of female flowers to hermaphrodites.
This finding links hormone levels to sex determination in flowers.
They also wanted to find out if the change in ethylene levels, and
therefore the resulting sexual system, was the result of evolutionary
selection. Thus, they looked at the ethylene enzyme gene, called
CmACS-7, which had the mutation that causes the sex change in melons.
When the researchers examined the molecular diversity in this gene,
compared it with other genes in the melon genome, and used
mathematical modeling, it was concluded that the level of molecular
variation at the sex determining ethylene enzyme gene was not
something that occurred by chance.
Instead, the pattern was consistent with evolutionary selection
favouring the sex switch mutation in melons.
"Humans and other mammals generally have only two sexes males and
females. But other species, including plants, can evolve bewildering
arrays of sexual combinations," observed Purugganan.
He suggested that this study provides us with new insights into the
molecular basis for sex determination, enabling us to understand the
advantages of different sexual systems.
The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Science. (ANI)
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/melons-sexual-switching-gene-offers-clues-to-evolution-of-sex_10081324.html August 04 Can be an eternity; or it can seem like it.
Love always,
Dana August 03 The New York Times today has an op/ed by author Jenny Boylan, I've reprinted it below. Read it, consider its simple value and then come on back up here to this alternative opinion. I'm so impressed with the Times this past year or so on so many fair coverage fronts.
Naturally, I expect there always to be 'another viewpoint' as linked below. However, based on several of the readers comments, I can see that our journey for equality has nearly begun.
That is to say; we've got a long effin way to go.
Please don't link through until your patience and piety is high.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-fi...ympians-gender
-Dana
The XY Games
by Jennifer Finner Boylan
New York Times op/ed, Sunday August 3, 2008
IN the 1936 Olympic Games, the sprinter Stella Walsh — running for Poland and known as the fastest woman in the world — was beaten by Helen Stephens of St. Louis, who set a world record by running 100 meters in 11.4 seconds. After the race, a Polish journalist protested that Stephens must be a man. After all, no woman in the world could run that fast.
Olympic officials performed a “sex test” on Stephens, who was found, in fact, to be female, proving once and for all that a person could be incredibly fast and female at the same time.
Forty-four years later, Walsh, who had become an American citizen, was shot to death in the parking lot of a discount store in Cleveland. Her autopsy revealed a surprise: It was Stella Walsh, and not Helen Stephens, who turned out to have been male all along, at least according to the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office.
Last week, the organizers of the Beijing Olympics announced that they had set up a “gender determination lab” to test female athletes suspected of being male. “Experts” at the lab will evaluate athletes based on their physical appearance and take blood samples to test hormones, genes and chromosomes.
On the surface, it seems reasonable for there to be some sort of system by which Olympians can be certain that female medalists really are female. The problem is that China’s tests are likely to produce the wrong answers, because they measure maleness and femaleness by the wrong yardsticks, and in the process ruin the lives of the innocent.
It would be nice to live in a world in which maleness and femaleness were firm and unwavering poles. People can be forgiven for wanting to live in a world as simple as this, a place in which something as basic as gender didn’t shift unsettlingly beneath our feet.
But gender is malleable and elusive, and we need to become comfortable with this fact, rather than afraid of it.
At the original Olympic Games, no gender testing was considered necessary. Back in 776 B.C., the Games were for men only, and they were conducted in the nude (with female spectators prohibited).
The modern era of gender testing began in 1968, at the Games in Mexico City, when it was believed that Communist countries in Eastern Europe were using male athletes in women’s competitions. (The truth was that some of the Eastern European athletes had been on a regimen of testosterone and steroids, giving them the physiques of young Arnold Schwarzeneggers.)
The test, which began as a crude physical inspection, has become more sophisticated over the years. In the 1970s and ’80s, the test was performed by a buccal smear — the scraping of cells from the inside of the mouth — and the sample studied for chromosomal material.
Over the past 40 years, dozens of female athletes tested in this manner have tested “positively” for maleness. That’s because these tests don’t measure “maleness” or “femaleness.” They measure — and not always reliably — the presence of a Y chromosome, or Y chromosomal material, which no small number of females have.
The condition, known as androgen insensitivity, occurs in about 1 in 20,000 individuals. Basically, a woman may have a Y chromosome, but her body does not respond to the genetic information that it contains. Some women with androgen insensitivity live their lives unaware that they have it. By any measure, though (except the measure of the Olympic test), they are women.
In 1996, eight female athletes at the Atlanta Games tested positively. Seven of these women were found to have some degree of androgen insensitivity, and one an enzyme defect. All were subsequently allowed to return to competition.
Ten years later, however, Santhi Soundarajan, a runner from India, was stripped of her silver medal in the 800 meters at the Asian Games for “failing” a sex test. An Indian athletics official told The Associated Press that Soundarajan had “abnormal chromosomes.” She was ridiculed in the press, and her career was destroyed. In the wake of her global humiliation, she attempted suicide.
The rest of the article can be found here!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/opinion/03boylan.html?scp=1&sq=boylan&st=cse
Jennifer Finney Boylan, a professor of English at Colby College, is the author of “She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders” and “I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted.” August 02 By DAN FROSCH
GREELEY, Colo. — Angie Zapata began living as a woman six years ago
even though she was born male and named Justin.
While Ms. Zapata, 18, was accepted by her many friends and five
siblings, she was bullied in school and at times was lonely and
troubled, an older sister, Monica, said. Eventually, Ms. Zapata
dropped out of school and got her own apartment here in Greeley.
It was in that apartment that Ms. Zapata's badly beaten body was found
on July 17.
On Wednesday, the police arrested Allen R. Andrade, 31, and charged
him with murder. According to the authorities, Mr. Andrade had gone
out on a date with Ms. Zapata, and upon discovering she had male
genitalia, beat her to death —starting with his fists and then with a
fire extinguisher.
Mr. Andrade told investigators that he thought he had "killed it,"
according to an affidavit filed by the police. Mr. Andrade, who is in
custody, has said nothing publicly about the killing, and his
arraignment has not yet been scheduled.
On Thursday, the Weld County district attorney announced that he would
prosecute the killing as a hate crime, which carries an additional
18-month sentence if Mr. Andrade is convicted.
"We applied the law to the facts, and we thought the law was
appropriate," said the district attorney, Kenneth R. Buck.
The killing has both shaken and rallied this rural, conservative town
about 60 miles north of Denver, where there has long been a sense that
minorities face discrimination, a feeling that became especially
inflamed among Hispanics after a federal immigration raid on a
meatpacking plant here in 2006.
"We've heard from so many people expressing not only just outrage but
also shock as to how this could happen," said Chris Fiene, a board
member for the Lambda Community Center in nearby Fort Collins, which
provides services for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
community.
At a recent memorial service, nearly 200 people filled the church Ms.
Zapata had attended. A vigil is being planned for this month. With her
long hair, baby-smooth face and distinctive looks, Ms. Zapata cut a
glamorous figure, friends and family members said.
"We loved to take her out, because she got so much attention," her
sister Monica, 32, said. "I couldn't even take her to Wal-Mart because
people would turn around. Everybody knew Angie."
According to the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, there were 121
incidents of violence committed against gay, lesbian, bisexual or
transgender people in Colorado last year, numbers that have held
relatively steady over the past few years.
In 2007, however, there was a 24 percent increase nationally in the
number of victims reporting such violence, said Avy Skolnik,
coordinator of statewide and national programs for the National
Anti-Violence Project in New York City. Ms. Zapata's death is
emblematic of a surge in the violence over the past month, Mr. Skolnik
said.
Ms. Zapata had dreamed of moving to Denver, becoming a professional
drag queen and working as a cosmetologist. But she started hanging out
with a rough crowd and dated too many men, some of them dangerous, her
sister said.
"One time she came home crying saying, 'Why, Monica, why won't people
accept me?' " Monica Zapata said. "All my sister wanted was somebody
who would take her down the street and be proud of who she was."
Monica Zapata said her sister had drifted into drugs and at one point
talked about prostitution to make extra money.
"I worried about her every time she left my house," she said. "I
couldn't fix her loneliness."
According to an arrest affidavit, Ms. Zapata met Mr. Andrade on an
Internet dating site. They spent time together at Ms. Zapata's
apartment on July 15, and she performed oral sex on him. But Mr.
Andrade told the police that Ms. Zapata would not let him touch her,
and that they slept in separate rooms that night.
The next evening, after viewing photographs in her apartment, Mr.
Andrade confronted Ms. Zapata over her sexual identity just before
killing her, the affidavit said. "I am all woman," Ms. Zapata told
him, according to the affidavit.
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