When I first heard this story my brain shorted out.  All of a sudden I started channeling John McEnroe, not the sort of over the hill doing ads for rental cars John McEnroe but the old one who used to unleash the tirades at bad calls, John McEnroe.

Free sex reassignment surgery for some guy who is in prison in Ontario for raping two women…  You can’t be fucking serious?

What the fuck?

I first saw this one over at Questioning Transphobia.  I wanted to say, Lisa, Lisa, not every negative reaction to some one who is either transgender or transsexual is transphobia.  There are some acts that are just so beyond the pale (rape and murdering women) that they are pretty inexcusable.  Even by someone like me who would have commuted  Aileen Wournos death sentence to life.

Anyhow I feel somewhat vindicated that a judge in Ontario agreed with me.

TORONTO — Paying for a sex change assessment for a convicted rapist living in a maximum-security psychiatric facility is not the responsibility of the Ministry of the Attorney General, an Ontario judge ruled Friday.

The Ontario Review Board, the agency that oversees individuals found not criminally responsible, does not have the authority to order the ministry to pay $15,000 for Shauna Taylor to be assessed for his candidacy for a sex change, the court found.

Still Taylor, who legally changed his name from Vance Egglestone, will undergo an assessment and the review board will likely pay through funds provided by the Ministry of Health, said Taylor’s lawyer Michael Davies.

“There is a bit of a shell game going on between the different departments of the government,” said Davies.

Egglestone has spent the majority of his adult life in psychiatric hospitals after being found not criminally responsible by reason of insanity for brutally raping a woman in 1976. He pleaded guilty to raping a second woman in 1986 while living as an outpatient in Toronto.

For the last several years, Taylor has been taking hormones, dressing as a woman and has expressed a desire for an orchidectomy (surgical removal of the testes) as a first step toward an Ontario government-funded sex change.

In 2007, lawyers for Attorney General Chris Bentley went to court arguing the review board exceeded its jurisdiction when it ordered Taylor, 53, to be assessed, and directed the attorney general to pay for it.

The case was settled last August when an Ontario Superior court quashed both orders, ruling the board acted outside its authority.

Only weeks later, the review board appointed an expert to offer his opinion on whether surgical intervention or sex reassignment surgery is necessary or advisable for Taylor’s health and welfare.

This time, the attorney general wasn’t contesting the assessment order, only who should pay for it, said Davies.

“The attorney general said the board should pay and the board said the attorney general should pay,” he said, noting up until now the question of who should pay for review board-ordered medical assessments has been “up in the air.”

A spokesman for the attorney general said the issue in the case was “purely jurisdictional” and the court accepted the Crown’s view that the review board did not have the authority to order the ministry to pay.

Experts have described Taylor in reports to the review board as an “identified psychopath” and “pathological liar,” and suggest his motivation for a sex change is not clear-cut.

Forensic psychiatrists and clinicians who submit evidence on behalf of the psychiatric hospital to the review board suggest Taylor’s interest in the procedure is at least in part a strategy to reduce the perceived danger that he represents and to ultimately be transferred to a less secure setting.

Least people think I am being out of line and cruel I remember seeing another film of someone named Richard Speck who murdered 8 student nurses.  In the 90s a film was circulating of him with his hormone titties hanging out doing dope in prison and cavorting with his fuck buddies. I’m not going to point you to it.  It’s on You Tube.

And hormones or no hormones, this prick, Vance Egglestone AKA Shauna Taylor is a rapist and should spend the rest of his life in men’s prison.

I don’t give a damned what hormones he takes or what surgery he has he will always be a man and a rapist.

I am furious at the attempt to link being a rapist with transsexualism.  He is nothing but a mentally ill sociopath.

As a radical Feminist I put women first and women in prison have enough to put up with without having a rapist who had SRS to be put where he can harm women to put up with.

May he rot in prison.  He is not my sister.

Pink News, UK

Opponents seek to repeal gay and trans protection provisions in Florida

By Jessica Geen • March 16, 2009 – 15:18

Voting has begun today on whether to repeal a Gainesville, Florida, ordinance that gives protection to LGBT citizens.

If passed on the March 24 election, the Charter Amendment 1 will make the ordinance conform to the Florida Civil Rights Act, cancelling the anti-discrimination protections Gainesville extends to gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people.

Howard Simon, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said: “If this ordinance were repealed, it would be perfectly legal in Gainesville to fire someone from a job, to kick someone out of rental housing, to deny someone service simply because the owner does not like the idea that someone is gay.”

Opponents say they have one reason to seek the amendment – a clause which allows trans men and women to use whichever public toilets they feel most comfortable with.

Members of Citizens for Good Public Policy, which collected the 6,343 valid signatures to get the amendment on the ballot, have said that this policy puts women and children at risk from sex offenders.

The provision, passed by a 4-3 vote a year ago, was added to the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance to benefit around 100 trans residents.

Opponents of the move are currently campaigning against it, with one television advert featuring a blonde girl entering a restroom in a park as a scruffy-looking man loiters outside and then follows her in. The ad ends with the words ‘Your city commission made this legal’.

Cain Davis, chairman of Citizens for Good Public Policy, told AP that the issue is about regulating a “government gone wild” and ensuring public safety, adding that sexual predators could now simply enter a women’s restroom claiming to be a trans individual.

“We know when men go into women’s restrooms, bad things can happen,” Davis said.

However, computer programmer Clare Holman, who was born male but now lives as a woman, said she thought it best to avoid using public toilets at all.

“I don’t want to run afoul of the law by using the wrong restroom,” Holman said.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-11616.html

By WILLIE HOWARD

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, March 13, 2009

LAKE WORTH — Susan Stanton, the former Largo city manager who drew national media attention after being fired for announcing plans for a sex change, is a finalist for the city manager’s job in Lake Worth.

The former Steve Stanton worked as assistant city manager and manager for Largo for more than 16 years. He was fired by Largo commissioners in February 2007 after announcing plans to change his gender.

Later that year, Stanton appeared as Susan Ashley Stanton while lobbying for transgender rights in Washington. She finished third in the competition for the city manager’s job in Sarasota in May 2007.

Stanton, 50, formerly of Clearwater, has since moved to Arizona, according to Connie Hoffman, vice president of The Mercer Group, which conducted the city manager search for Lake Worth.

The national discussion that followed Stanton’s firing led the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council to persuade West Palm Beach, Tequesta, Lake Worth and Palm Beach County to add provisions to their codes that prevent discrimination based on gender identity.

Stanton’s gender was not mentioned by city commissioners Thursday during a discussion of city manager finalists.

“We don’t have time for bigotry in the city of Lake Worth,” Mayor Jeff Clemens said. “There’s too much for us to do. I’m going to make my decision based on who the best candidate is, period.”

In her cover letter to the city, Stanton offered to work 90 days without pay on a trial basis. The letter says she used to live in West Palm Beach and has spent “many enjoyable afternoons in Bryant Park.”

Stanton and three to five other candidates will come to Lake Worth the weekend of April 4. The city manager candidates are scheduled to tour the city with commissioners and meet the public at the city golf course April 5. They will be interviewed April 6. Final selection is set for April 7.

Other city manager finalists, selected by commissioners Thursday from a list of 10 semifinalists, include:

Former Fort Pierce City Manager Dennis Beach, who retired in September after 13 years with the city.

Former Broward County Administrator Pamela Brangaccio.

Former Royal Oak, Mich., city manager Thomas Hoover.

The Mercer Group might add another finalist or two to add racial and ethnic diversity to the list before commissioners approve it on Tuesday.

Lake Worth is offering a salary of $140,000 to $160,000 to the new city manager. Former City Manager Bob Baldwin, whose last day with the city is Sunday, worked for Lake Worth on a month-to-month basis. Baldwin begins his new job next week as city manager in Dania Beach.