Personalities

Born in Chichester, West Sussex, UK in 1971, Hegarty moved with his family to Amsterdam in 1977 for a year, before settling in San Jose, California in 1981. In 1990 he moved to Manhattan to attend the Experimental Theatre Wing of NYU, and founded the performance collective Blacklips with creative partner Johanna Constantine.

Born August 13, 1967. She is a ballerina, modern dancer, choreographer and actress from the People's Republic of China, and owner of the contemporary dance company "Shanghai Jin Xing Dance Theatre".

Alecs Recher was born in Switzerland in 1975 under the name of Anja Recher. He is a teacher currently involved in politics, working as a communal counselor (deputy) in the canton of Zurich. Although he was born a woman, in September 2008 he declared in the media that he had begun a hormone treatment in order to undergo a definitive change of sex.

Bülent Ersoy (born 1952) is a Turkish celebrity. She is a popular singer of Ottoman classical music. Over the years, Ersoy has become a symbol for the increased tolerance to LGBT figures in Turkish media.

She was born in Brazil as a man and then had surgery in France becoming the first transsexual woman in the Republic of France. She is dermatologist but she is dedicated to political activism since she changes her identity because was forbidden to continue working in her profession.

Her life had been written for herself in two books I am my own woman: The true story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf and Beat it!, written in co-operation with Peter Süß. Her life also had inspired some movies, plays and literary books, as the one of american author Dough Wright.

Jan Morris is the first writer who famously chronicled her sex-change operation in the book Conundrum.

She was born in Scotland in 1935 under the name of John Cummings, but in reality she was Katherine. The life of Katherine Cummings is the same as many transsexual e intersexuals people that should fight for a name, a voice and an identity.

Raewyn Connell (formerly Robert William Connell), born January 3, 1944. She is an australian social scientist known for her work in the disciplines of sociology, education, gender studies, political science and history. Raewyn is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a recipient of the American Sociological Association's award for distinguished contribution to the study of sex and gender, and of the Australian Sociological Association's award for distinguished service to sociology in Australia.

Louis Arbour’s term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expires on June 30. It is a cause for concern, but we hope UN will not abandon Arbour’s fight for LGBTI human rights.