If you happen to be transgender, then you have a reason to celebrate: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently ruled that an employer who discriminates against a transgender job applicant or employee due to said person's gender identity is practicing sexual discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This, in a word, is huge.

A transgender woman, Jenna Talackova, ended up as a finalist in the Miss Universe Canada pageant, likely the first known transgender finalist in Miss Universe—or at least the first I'd ever heard of. For a brief period of time, a transgender woman was part of one of the world's biggest pageants dedicated to feminine beauty. Then something happened: Talackova was removed from the event.

In 1972, back in the days of Earth Shoes and the Watergate scandal, a law passed in Sweden. The law, in the works since 1966, covered the legal standards for sex reassignment in the country. With this law, Sweden became the first country in the world to officially recognize gender reassignment.

Many years ago, a friend of mine came to me, frustrated. She could not grasp why we needed to spell out who was included in various non-discrimination bills. Why did we need to spell out race, and gender, and religion, and disability, and sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression, and so on? Why not simply say that no one could discriminate against another person? Frankly, I might take it a step further: we should not even need to point out that one should not discriminate: that should be a given in a humane society.

Vandy Beth Glenn, a transgender woman from Georgia, had been working as a proofreader and editor in the state's Office of Legislative Counsel. Two years into her employment, in 2007, Glenn went to her supervisor to inform her of the pending transition. Her supervisor then took this news to her boss, Legislative Counsel Sewell Brumby. Brumby then terminated Glenn's employment.

Bobby Montoya wanted to join the Girl Scouts.

Born with male genitalia, Montoya decided at age 2 that she was a girl. She dresses and acts like a typical American 7 year old. Her mother, Felisha Atchuleta, has been supportive of her child, even holding “princess parties” for Montoya’s birthday. Recently, she tried to get Montoya into the Denver chapter of the Girl Scouts of Colorado, a part of the Girl Scouts of the USA. You know, the folks who sell cookies.

At MTVs video music awards, Lady Gaga took to the stage as her more masculine alter-ago, Jo Calderone.

Calderone started the show with a performance of Gaga’s “You And I,” but only after a mock-tirade about his relationship with Gaga. The act itself was bold and showy and quite good overall. Gaga remained Calderone for the whole show, accepting a moonman as well as presenting one to Britney Spears completely in character.

I do have to confess, I’ve never been a big Lady Gaga fan. I must admit, though, after seeing the VMA performance, Gaga can really put on a show. Unlike previous incarnations, Calderone is not in a meat dress or plastic bubbles. He sports a white t-shirt with rolled up sleeves, jeans, and slicked-back hair: one might expect Calderon to start performing tunes from Grease rather than Gaga’s tunes. He struts around the stage, taking drags from a cigarette or swigs from a beer bottle. If you’ve ever seen a good drag king show, well, you’ll recognize the moves―and they’re done well.

I recently violated one of the golden rules of the internet, and read the comments under a news article.

The piece itself was a follow up on the assault on Chrissy Polis, a 22-year-old post-operative transsexual who was assaulted in a Rosedale, Md. McDonalds for using the women’s restroom. The older of the two women who beat Polis, Teonna Monae Brown, was offered a plea agreement. In exchange for Brown pleading guilty to assault and committing a hate crime, prosecutors will seek a five-year prison term at the sentencing hearing next month.

In a suburb of what is now Prague, some five thousand years before today, a body was buried. Funeral rites were a very big deal at the time, with a great deal of symbolism attached to exactly how a body was buried, and what items would be interred with them.

If one was male, the body was buried lying on their right side, with the head facing west. You’d also be buried with various tools and weapons, as well as a few portions of food to tide you over as you headed to whatever passed for the afterlife then.

Newsweek magazine, in its June 12 issue, ran a profile on Brazilian model Lea T. Good in places and bad in others, the piece tells of Lea’s early years growing up with a Brazilian soccer star for a father, her early years as a model, and onto her current life as she prepares for male to female genital reassignment surgery. It’s not that uncommon of a dialogue given the scores of transsexual narratives that have graced the printed page as far back as at least 1931, when Lili Elbe’s transition
store, Man Into Woman, was published.

Color-coding infants and the family that chose to opt out

In this era of instant information overload, even the smallest of fads becomes big news. From vajazzling to planking, we live in a time when even the most inane trends are inescapable.

Chrissy Lee Polis, a 22-year-old, post-operative transsexual, was at a Baltimore County McDonald’s recently. While there, she opted to use the bathroom. Two other women—18-year-old Teonna Monae Brown and a 14-year-old whose name has not been released—were also there. A now-former employee of the fast food restaurant recorded what followed.

An unnamed transgender woman went to the San Antonio, TX police station in 2010. Some time before she visited the station, a police officer, Craig Nash, has picked her up for prostitution. It would seem, according to investigators, that Officer Nash did not take her directly to the lockup. Instead, after cuffing her, he told her to lie down in the back seat and drove her to a remote location. Once there, Nash forced her to commit sexual actions on him. He then dropped her off near a school back in town.

When I sat down to write about 2010, I wanted to tell you how horrible the year has been. Indeed, I could not help but look at the personal situations of my friends and myself, and conclude that the year was one of increasingly bad times.