New Thai Airline Hiring Trans Flight Attendants

PC Air is not flying yet and hopes to be doing so across Asia by April, but when it does take to the friendly skies it will have transwomen in its flight attendant ranks.

The initial PC Air crews will have three transsexuals, 17 women, and 10 men in their ranks.


'Our initial quota was set at three transsexuals, but we will consider taking more in the future depending on their qualifications,' a PC Air spokeswoman said.

One thing that does concern me is that according to that same spokeswoman, the trans attendants will wear a special gold-colored "third-sex" name tag to help passengers and immigration authorities know what gender they are dealing with. 

That special tag could potentially open them up to discrimination as well..


Peter Chan, the president of PC Air stated recently that the recruitment of trans women in the "Land of Smiles' would continue.   His company's recruitment of transwomen was motivated by a belief in equal rights and complaints by Thai transwomen about the employment discrimination they face. 

"I think these people can have many careers, not just in the entertainment business, and many of them have a dream to be an air hostess. I just made their dream come true," he said.

Over 100 Thai transwomen applied for the jobs including 2007 Miss Tiffany winner Thanyarat "Film" Jiraphatpakorn, who was successful in garnering one of the three flight attendant jobs slotted for transwomen.


The airline is not requiring candidates to have gone through genital surgical procedures.   PC Air only desires that they meet job criteria that include language skills and good service.

"When it's their dream job or the job they love, they can do it even better," Chan said.  "Our society has changed -- it's evolution. I'm a pioneer, and I'm sure there will be (other) organizations following my idea."

We can only hope and pray other air carriers will follow your lead as well Mr. Chan, and may you have much success when your airline does start up its charter flights.  

Monica Barros-Greene

Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.

One of the Dallas metro area's most esteemed restauranteurs is Monica Barros-Greene.

She owns a well known and highly regarded restaurant in Big D called Monica’s Aca y Alla in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas that innovatively mixes Mexico City and Tex-Mex cuisine.

Oh, did I forget to mention that in 2005 Monica narrowly lost a bid to become the first transgender person elected to the Dallas City Council? She ran for the open District 2 seat on the Dallas City Council, was endorsed by the Dallas Morning News but lost in a runoff to longtime activist Pauline Medrano.

Monica was born in Mexico City. When she was 17, on a whim she decided to travel with two friends to Indiana to win the heart of a Mexican girl who lived there.

At the border, the road trip with her friends couldn't continue because they didn't have the proper visas, so Monica proceeded without them. She arrived in Dallas a little after midnight on January 5, 1974.

But Monica had been struggling with her gender identity, trying on dresses behind locked doors. Her first impression of Dallas at the time was that she wasn't going to stay long. "But life has turns you don't necessarily see ahead," she said.

Her father wanted her to attend business school, but she wasn't amenable to the idea. He issued her an ultimatum: either attend business school or support yourself. She chose the latter, taking a job as a busboy.

After an initial rocky start, she quickly moved up the restaurant ranks and eventually became a manager for some of the hottest restaurants in town. She got married and divorced twice and had two kids with her first wife. In the midst of her second marriage she opened Eduardo's Aca y Calla in February 1992.

Her father died a year later back in Mexico, and that summer she shared her gender secret with her family. On March 4, 1994 she called the restaurant staff together for a meeting and announced that the restaurant would undergo a name change.

The restaurant wasn't the only place undergoing a change. Monica arrived wearing a black plaid miniskirt, white jacket and heels. She left the restaurant management duties to her second wife and moved in with an accountant who was also undergoing a gender change.

The roommate died two days after a successful GRS procedure, but that didn't dampen Monica's determination to undergo what she calls a 'reincarnation in the same lifetime'. With a passport in her new name in hand, on May 7, 1995 she boarded a plane to Brussels, Belgium and had GRS.

Monica has continued to have success post-surgery. She is a member of the international culinary organization Les Dames D'Escoffier and has received the Dallas Leadership Award. In 2002 and 2004 she was recognized by her Dallas area peers as 'Best Restaurateur', was a wine consultant for the Julius Schepps Company and has served as a judge for the Lone Star State Wine Competition and the Dallas Morning News Wine Tasting Competition.

Her narrow loss in the 2005 city council runoff garnered her recognition amongst the Dallas political ranks as a rising star. Former Dallas mayor Laura Miller said about her, "Monica is bright, she is gutsy, she is independent. All very important traits that few politicians at City Hall possess."

Monica has worn many hats in her lifetime. She's familiar with the plight of immigrants. She's a staple of the Dallas hospitality industry. Her story resonates with a wide spectrum of potential voters, GLBT and non-GLBT. And as she proudly points out, "I have become part of the fiber of this community."

Here's hoping that one day she'll add Council member to that list of accomplishments as well.


TransGriot Note: Thanks to KarenSerenity.com for some of the info I used to compile this post.

Lupe's Place

Plenty Of Hair, Nary A Mustache

“I was very feminine,” says Lupe Gonzalez, standing, whose salon is staffed with four Spanish-speaking transgender stylists.

By JENNIFER BLEYER
From the New York Times
Photos; Annie Tritt
Published: November 11, 2007

Lupe’s Place is a shoebox-size beauty parlor and barbershop, wedged between a fried chicken shop and a party goods store, underneath the elevated No. 6 train on Westchester Avenue in the Soundview section of the South Bronx.

Thirteen miles from the city’s gay epicenters of Chelsea and the West Village, it seems an unlikely location for a popular salon where four of the eight hairstylists are transgender. Yet the salon is beloved among the men and women in the neighborhood, most of them Latino immigrants.

The salon was opened in 1993 by Lupe Gonzalez, the ninth of 13 children from a family in Puebla, Mexico. Ms. Gonzalez, who is 38, had arrived in New York six years earlier, at first doing deliveries for a Midtown restaurant and living with eight others in a cramped apartment in Soundview.

“I came as a boy, but I was very feminine,” said Ms. Gonzalez, smiling coyly and pushing back a lock of her long dark hair. “I used to have my mustache and short hair. I started changing in 1991 when one of my boyfriends said, ‘Grow your hair and shave your legs.’” She pursued her transition with electrolysis, hormones and makeup.

As Ms. Gonzalez’s business grew, she hired other Spanish-speaking transgender stylists.

On that afternoon, the salon was permeated with bouncy salsa music and a heavy fog of hairspray. One of the transgender stylists, a 45-year-old named Emily Quiñones who was wearing thick mascara and Farrah Fawcett bangs, worked furiously on a customer’s hair with a blow dryer and a circular brush. Nearby, Lily Saldana bopped around in a leather miniskirt and high boots while molding a customer’s updo into heavily shellacked curls.

In the rear of the shop, Ms. Gonzalez brushed highlights onto a woman’s wet hair, while in the front, a handful of people waited their turn, among them a 63-year-old retired maintenance worker named Anibal Garcia. He started getting his hair cut at Lupe’s Place when it opened. Today, he said, he would not go anywhere else.

“Now my wife, my daughter, my sister-in-law, all my family come here,” Mr. Garcia said. “They’re professional. They do it perfect.”

Cathy Hughes

Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-trans women who have qualities that I admire.

As a child who grew up around radio stations, Cathy Hughes is someone I have much love and respect for. If it weren't for her your local Black radio stations probably wouldn't exist or much less have the intense community oriented focus that the 71 Radio One stations in 22 markets nationwide pride themselves on.

Born in Omaha, NE in 1947, the founder and chairperson of Radio One, Inc is considered one of the most powerful women in Black America. Essence Magazine named her one of '100 Persons Who Changed the World'. Radio Ink lists Hughes as one of the “20 Most Influential Women in Radio”. She and her son Alfred C. Liggins III, Radio One's President & CEO run the largest African-American owned and operated broadcast company in the nation. She's also made a lot of history in the process.

Radio One is the first African-American company in radio history to dominate several major markets simultaneously. Hughes also has the distinction of being the first woman in radio history to own a number one ranked major market station. In 1995, Radio One made broadcasting history again when the largest transaction between two Black owned companies occured when it it purchased Washington, D.C. WKYS-FM for $40 million.

In May 1999 another milestone historical moment occurred. When Cathy Hughes and her son took their company public, it made her the first African-American woman with a company on the stock exchange. In 2000, Black Enterprise named Radio One, “Company of the Year”, Fortune rated it one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For,” and Radio One was inducted into the Maryland Business Hall of Fame.

Her goal of building a broadcast empire with a solid foundation in the African-American community has come to fruition. Radio One’s value is currently in excess of $2 billion, and with that increace in revenue opportunities for minorities and women in the white-male dominated radio buisness have increased as well.

Hughes currently has more than 1,500 Black broadcasters on staff at Radio One, Inc. the seventh largest radio corporation in the United States. Radio One stations reach over 18 million Black listeners daily in 15 states and just celebrated its 25th anniversary last August.

Her dedication to minority communities, entrepreneurial spirit, pride in our heritage and mentoring of women are proudly manifested in her work and life. It has earned her many awards, including an honorary doctorate from Howard University.

She's been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Washington Area Broadcasters Association, The Seventh Congressional District Humanitarian Award. In 2001, she received the National Association of Broadcasters’ Distinguished Service Award and the Advertising Club of Metropolitan Washington’s Silver Medal Award. Hughes was presented with the coveted Golden Mike Award from the Broadcasters’ Foundation; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters; and a 2002 Essence Magazine Award.

She moved to Washington, D.C. in 1971 and became a lecturer in the newly-established School of Communications at Howard University. She entered radio in 1973 as general sales manager at Howard University’s WHUR-Radio, increasing station revenue from $250,000 to $3 million in her first year.

In 1975, Hughes became the first female vice president and general manager of a station in the nation’s capital and created the "Quiet Storm" format. It is the most listened to nighttime radio format and is currently heard in over 50 markets nationally. Purchasing her first station in 1980, Washington D.C.'s WOL-AM she pioneered yet another innovative format -- “24 hour Talk from a Black Perspective.” With the theme, "Information is Power," WOL became the most listened to talk radio station in the nation’s capital.

Radio One’s newest venture is TV One, Inc., launched in partnership with Comcast on January 19, 2004. TV One caters to the adult lifestyles of African Americans offering quality programming such as “B. Smith with Style,” and an array of original programming. Hughes is on the board of TV One, is the Executive Producer of “The Gospel of Music with Jeff Majors,” and also hosts TV One’s interview show, “TV One on One.”

Radio One also owns REACH Media, Black America web.com, and The Power, a 24/7 satellite radio channel on XM radio 169 devoted to talk about social, political and economic issues from an African American perspective.

She went though some trials to get to that point. She was all set to go to college in 1965 until the discovery that she was pregnant put an end to those plans. She was a divorced single mother when she made 32 presentations to banks trying to get the loan she needed to purchase WOL-AM. The 33rd presentation to a new Latina loan officer at Chemical Bank garnered her $600,000 of the $1 million she needed with the remainder coming from venture capitalists.

That was only the beginning. When Hughes took possession of the station she discovered that the previous owner fired the entire staff and they responded by trashing the station. She had to bring LP's from her personal collection to play on the air. In addition during those lean years she had to sell a family heirloom white gold watch made by slaves that belonged to her great-grandmother for $50,000. When her house and car were repossessed she slept in a sleeping bag in the station for 18 months. She and her son persevered and six years later WOL turned its first profit.

So the next time you're listening to the Quiet Storm on your local radio station or are checking out TV One on cable, say a word of thanks to Cathy Hughes and her son for not only making history, but keeping Black radio alive in the 21st century.

The Washington Post had it right. In D.C. Hughes was called 'The Voice of the Black Community' from her days as an outspoken talk show host at WOL-AM with deep roots in it. She's now expanded that reach to cover the entire nation.