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by Miki Thomas

In my November column, I promised I would highlight some of the transgender sites available on the Web, but I wound up sick just before deadline.

However, I do eventually deliver on promises and/or threats, so what follows are some of the best sites I found for information on the “T” in GLBT.

I have to admit that I do not know much about issues affecting the transgender community, which is why I enjoyed doing the research for this month’s column. I was blown away by the amount of information available on the Web on the transgender community. Given how overwhelmed I felt, I figured the best approach was to visit a few resource sites.

The first one I came across was Christy’s Place. Christy describes her site as a “transgender resource megasite,” and she isn’t bragging. Click on any icon and you are greeted to a plethora of sites for TG chats, Web rings, support groups, and hormone information. However, the focus of this site is mostly Male to Female (MtF).

TG Resources is a huge resource list from Transgender Forum. The site offers two searchable databases for support groups and resources as well as a listing of sites grouped in commercial, non-commercial, political and newsgroup categories.

Transhistory is another great resource site; it offers articles and site listings on transgender history, organizations, and medical resources. For a more scholarly look at the subject, check out The International Journal of Transgenderism, an online quarterly that is peer-reviewed. In addition to full text articles and abstracts, there are some classic books on the subject available for free at the site.

When I switched my research from general transgender resource sites to more specific sites, I came across topics that, for some reason, never occurred to me as relevant to the lives of transgender individuals. Of course, in retrospect, it seems obvious that they would.

Take spirituality, for instance. Of course there are spiritual concerns among transgenders! Among the Web sites addressing those concerns is the Transgendered Christian Resource. Its focus is primarily on the community in Tampa, Florida, which is especially reflected in the links page, but there are some interesting features such as the “inspirational messages” from Pastor Calvin Tate, “online clergy.”

Employment is another concern. The Transgender Employment Links offers articles on transitioning on the job, diversity training, and transgender-friendly employers.

In case you think that there are no Web sources specifically for FtM (female to male) people, there’s the American Boyz site American Boyz is a nationwide organization for FtMs, drag kings, butches, and their allies. Its Web site offers articles and links of interest to FtMs. However, some of the links are out of date or dead ends.

An excellent web site along similar lines is Butch-Femme.Com. It’s dedicated to butches and femmes and it features a FAQ, forums, email groups, and resources. It is a wonderful page and it is a must see even if you are neither butch nor femme.

This is simply a sampler of what’s available on the Web for transgender people. However, as I quickly found out, many of these sites are also great resources for those of us who want to learn more about a community that has until fairly recently been mostly on the back burner in the struggle for civil rights.

FYI

Lily Tomlin is God! I was among the many lucky individuals who caught her when she hit the state with her show The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. If you missed her – or if you are like me and simply can’t get enough of her – check out her Web site. It is a wonderful site, with graphics of her many characters as well as photographs from her childhood and early career sprinkled liberally throughout. I guarantee you’ll want to spend hours perusing this site.