Transvestites

A Santa Ana man who allegedly fired several shots at two transvestite prostitutes in West Hollywood early Sunday was being held without bail on suspicion of attempted murder and civil rights charges, authorities said. "I'm going to kill you queens," Ruben Velasquez, 29, allegedly yelled at the transvestites, ages 19 and 32, just before firing three or four times at them, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Irma Becerra.

RuPaul, the 6-foot-4 to 6-foot-7 (by his own varying accounts) African American drag queen who sashayed his way into mass consciousness in the 1990s with the club hit "Supermodel" and a VH1 talk show, is back on TV with "RuPaul's Drag Race." A reality competition show now about three-quarters through its first cycle on Logo, the LGBT-themed cable net, it aims to discover "America's next drag superstar" -- that is, the next RuPaul.

A Santa Ana man was arrested in West Hollywood early Sunday for allegedly shooting at two transvestites who were walking along Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies reported. "I'm going to kill you queens," the gunman allegedly shouted at the men just before firing three or four shots at them, said Deputy George Ducoulombier, a Sheriff's Department spokesman.

MONEY and fame do not automatically bestow respectability. But anniversaries might. Just ask Mark Tomaino. The 46-year-old theater producer witnessed camp movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" grow from an obscure, fringe obsession to material worthy of none other than the grand marquee of the Hollywood Bowl. Tomaino led his Rocky Horror theater troupe, the Long Beach-based Midnight Insanity, to perform at the bowl at the 30th anniversary of "Rocky Horror" in 2005.

"I moved to New York from Atlanta with a pair of high heels and a dream . . . and look at the bitch now." What the dance-music world is looking at is a bouffant vision in diamonds and chiffon named RuPaul, who stands seven feet tall when you include the stiletto heels and platinum wig. RuPaul is the first transvestite to enter dance music's top ranks since Sylvester in the late '70s, thanks to his lively dance-chart hit "Supermodel."

Outraged friends and colleagues are rallying to the defense of late '50s screen hunk Jeff Chandler to offset damage done to his reputation by Esther William's racy bestselling autobiography, "The Million Dollar Mermaid." According to Williams, who began a love affair with Chandler during the shooting of "Raw Wind in Eden" in 1956, Chandler was "happy and secure only in women's clothing." Cross-dressing, she writes, gave the actor a sexual thrill.

RuPaul, the 6-foot-4 to 6-foot-7 (by his own varying accounts) African American drag queen who sashayed his way into mass consciousness in the 1990s with the club hit "Supermodel" and a VH1 talk show, is back on TV with "RuPaul's Drag Race." A reality competition show now about three-quarters through its first cycle on Logo, the LGBT-themed cable net, it aims to discover "America's next drag superstar" -- that is, the next RuPaul.

Stephanie, who still wears Eddie Araujo's friendship ring, bumped into her childhood friend about three years ago. He was sporting his new look: a cascade of black hair with red streaks, perfect makeup and sculptured brows. Seeing him surprised her, but she didn't ask why he was dressed like a girl. "I understood him so much," said the 17-year-old friend, who did not want her last name used. Araujo's closest friends tried to understand. His mother tried to understand.

Finally--an article in the Times that almost mentions the severe and scary bashing/harassment situation in West Hollywood ("3 Suspects Held in Assault and Threats Against 3 Transvestites," Feb. 9). But, oh, how trivializing of our lives and limbs! First, you take five paragraphs to report on an ugly but minor incident involving transvestites. Then, you quote a detective as saying it was the second gay-bashing to occur in less than a month (maybe it was the second reported to him), then gloss over the much more serious and injurious prior episode which was accurately reported in the West Hollywood Independent in January.

Brazilian police said that 79 people were killed during Rio de Janeiro's raucous Carnival--eight more than during last year's five-day event--and complaints poured into television stations for airing scenes of nudity and raunchy behavior. Police blamed high unemployment and inflation for the upsurge in violence.

On a hot summer day in 1937, Walter Cole, 7 years old, pulls a little red wagon loaded with a 25-pound block of ice down the two-lane highway through Linnton, a small community on the edge of Portland. He chips at the ice with a rock as he goes, and offers a sliver to his black-and-white mutt, Spot. A nameless pet crow clings to the dog's back as they head home past the barbershop and the feed store.

A figure appears at the door in a simple black dress, matching head scarf and single strand of pearls. The wearer, a man, surely is aware that we're gawking at his attire. Yet unselfconsciously, he proceeds to lead us on a tour of what turns out to be a private museum in Mahlsdorf, an eastern suburb of Berlin. "Come in, please," he says as he heads toward one of the groupings of late-19th century furniture kept on display in his home. "There is room for everyone, yes?"

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf scoops the last of her strawberry yogurt from its plastic cup. With a satisfying smack, she downs the last dollop. It's Feb. 2, 1993, and tonight I've been interviewing her for more than four hours. One day, I hope to forge a play from the disparate puzzle pieces of her life. "It's late," she says in her signature lilt. She peers at me cautiously and asks, "You are going to take a taxi back to West Berlin, yes?" Indeed I am.

It's gloomy and gray, and the rain is coming down in sheets. An ominous crash of low-rumbling thunder resounds outside. An even more ominous crash of indeterminate origin resounds within the Belasco Theater, where technical rehearsals for "Dracula, the Musical" are underway. The atmosphere on this mid-July day is grim and gothic, in keeping with the 1897 Bram Stoker novel on which the musical is based.

Brini Maxwell, the self-professed lifestyle guru and hostess of her own retro homemaker program on the Style Network, is a self-made woman. "You don't have to spend a lot to have a gracious existence," declares the soignee stay-at-home seamstress, who in one episode fashioned a collapsible cabana out of a bedsheet and two hula hoops. "Don't let people tell you that there's a right way or wrong way to express yourself. You have to find your own way," she says. Maxwell certainly has.

The woman who revealed the biological identity of Eddie "Gwen" Araujo the night the teenager was killed testified Tuesday that she "freaked out" when she discovered the pretty woman she and her friends knew as "Lida" had been born a man. Nicole Brown said she started screaming after pushing Araujo's legs apart. "I can't believe this is a [expletive] man," Brown recalled saying as she ran out of the bathroom where she had investigated Araujo's gender.

A New York-based group which publishes "Performance Journal," a quarterly magazine about the arts, is the latest grant recipient to square off with the National Endowment for the Arts over allegedly improper use of federal NEA funds. Movement Research, which received a $4,400 general operating support grant from the NEA last year, has received a demand that it return $1,400 to the NEA by Oct. 10, according to the organization's board of directors.

Robert Dunne tried hard to live like a man. He got a job in heavy construction and became a skilled sheet-metal worker. He got married--three times. But for nearly 30 years, he knew he wasn't being true to himself. Finally, he decided to have a sex change operation, but when word leaked out at his workplace, he found himself without a job. Now Robert has become Roberta, and the onetime hermit has blossomed into an activist fighting discrimination against transsexuals and cross-dressers.

A defense attorney for one of three men charged with killing a transgender teen described his client Thursday as a quiet, even-tempered man caught up by ungovernable passions the night he discovered he had unwittingly had sex with a man. "What followed was absolute pandemonium and chaos," said attorney Michael Thorman, who described the killing as "classic manslaughter," not murder.