Transsexuals

Brazil's public health system will begin providing free sex-change operations in compliance with a court order, the Health Ministry said. Ministry spokesman Edmilson Oliveira da Silva said the government would not appeal Wednesday's ruling by a panel of federal judges giving the government 30 days to offer the procedure or face fines of $5,000 a day.

A complaint has been filed against a Maryland minister who had a sex-change operation during a leave of absence from church duties, possibly affecting her availability for pastoral appointment. "The content of the complaint is confidential," Bishop Felton May, of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church, said. "Rev. [Rebecca Ann] Steen's availability for appointment may be affected by this prayerful process--the complaint process."

State medical authorities are seeking to revoke or suspend the license of a Newhall physician accused of deliberately addicting patients to painkillers and profiting from their frequent need for new prescriptions. Dr. Sandra Soho, who was Dr. Stanley Soho before a 1986 sex-change operation, was charged by Los Angeles prosecutors last year with two felony counts of illegally prescribing controlled substances after she was arrested by sheriff's narcotics officers.

Well after midnight on a recent chilly weekend, long stretches of Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards were lined with scantily dressed people lingering on sidewalks, wading through traffic, waving at cars. Some were men, some were women, and some were people who have taken on the dress and identity of the opposite sex, often with the aid of surgery or hormones. To Los Angeles police, the growing amount of prostitution by male-to-female transgenders in Hollywood "is pretty obvious.

The police finally figured out where to find Freddy Lee Turner. But when they went to arrest him, they put the handcuffs on Valerie Nicole Taylor. Ms. Taylor, arrested in Los Angeles last week, has been identified from fingerprints as Mr. Turner--the man wanted for 17 years in a South Carolina murder. Burbank police said they believe the suspect, who was known as a transvestite, had a sex change operation some time after the killing.

A woman arrested in Los Angeles has been identified from fingerprints as a man wanted for 17 years for murder in South Carolina. Burbank police said they believe that Valerie Nicole Taylor, who was known as a transvestite, had a sex change operation sometime after the killing. "Upon the arrest, we actually had a medical evaluation performed [to determine] what jail facility the inmate should be housed at," said Burbank Police Lt. Larry Koch. "The person is a female at this time.

An inmate who claims he is a woman trapped in a man's body should receive treatment for gender identity disorder, but cannot force the state to pay for a sex-change operation, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Michelle Kosilek, formerly known as Robert Kosilek, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for murdering his wife.

The California Assembly on Monday honored the first transgender recipient of its "woman of the year" award. Theresa Sparks, a member of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission, was one of 80 women chosen by their Assembly representatives for extraordinary dedication to the community. Winners in the 17-year Assembly tradition included a college president, a minister, an environmentalist and many volunteers at libraries, hospitals, schools and parks.

In life, 17-year-old Eddie Araujo Jr. wanted to be known by the name friends and family agreed best suited the teenager: Gwen. In death, Araujo got that wish as a judge posthumously granted a name change. The decision was a bittersweet victory, coming 18 months after Araujo was beaten and strangled and less than two weeks after a mistrial was declared in the case against the three men accused in the killing.