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From the time she could talk, Maggie* has told her parents that she is a boy. She doesn't say, "I want to be a boy." She doesn't say, "I feel like a boy." She says, "I am a boy." She tells her classmates, too. Lately—she's in elementary school now—they've been having debates about it. "Maggie's a boy," one kid said recently, in a not-unfriendly, matter-of-fact sort of way.
"No, you idiot," countered another. "She's a girl. She's wearing pink shoes."
On a recent Tuesday morning, psychologist Kenneth Zucker tells this story at a weekly group supervision meeting, where he reviews cases with his dozen graduate students and postdocs. "As if, 'duh'—it's so obvious," he says, and the room chuckles along with him.
Head of the child and adolescent gender-identity clinic at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Zucker is one of North America's most widely published experts in the field of transgender and gender-variant11. Gender-variant: (adj) acting in a manner that varies from the stereotypical behavior associated with one's gender. Because "vari- ant" may connote deviance, the term is being replaced by "gender nonconforming." children. Since it was established in the mid-1970s, his clinic has assessed more than 600 kids with gender-variant behavior and gender dysphoria—the distress that results from feeling that one's body does not match one's sense of self. He has treated more than 100 of those children.
Given how early dysphoria can emerge in kids like Maggie and how deeply it cuts to the core of who they are, a growing number of therapists, doctors, and parents are advocating an early gender transition: If Maggie says she's a boy, then it's our duty to believe him and treat him as such. Given the very real risks to transgender people who remain in the closet—at one prominent clinic for transgender adolescents and young adults, 20 percent of patients have engaged in cutting or other self-mutilation, and almost 10 percent have attempted suicide—those in this camp say that to deny that Maggie is a boy is to set the child up for a lifetime of repression and pain.
Zucker, on the other hand, believes that girls who say they are boys are not expressing their true identity. Rather, they are confused. Their mismatched gender identity is likely the result of a childhood experience or trauma, or a manifestation of some underlying psychiatric or family problem. The situation will only be made worse, he argues, if parents and teachers encourage it. Zucker's aim, if a family comes in with a kid like Maggie, is to make her more comfortable in her own body: to make her understand that she is a girl.
"We don't know why Maggie mislabeled herself as a boy when she was younger," Zucker says. "Was it because she was in some home day-care thing where she was around a lot of boys?"
One of Zucker's doctoral students has been working with Maggie in play therapy. The student, Julia Vinik, pulls out a drawing that she and Maggie made together. Four stick figures represent a girl who likes to play sports, a girl who likes to play with dolls, a boy who likes to play sports, and a boy who likes to play with dolls. Vinik had asked Maggie which one she was. "She first went to circle the boy," Vinik recounts at the supervision meeting. "And then stopped herself and said, 'Wait a minute. Can you make another one here called tomboy?'
"I asked her, 'What's a tomboy?'
"'It's a girl who likes to do boy things.'
"I said, 'Do you think there's one already here like that?'"
Maggie pointed to the girl who likes sports. "She said, 'Oh yeah, that's a tomboy,'" Vinik tells her colleagues. "And she decided this one over here"—Vinik points to the boy who likes dolls—"would be called a tomgirl." Everyone chuckles. Vinik recounts how Maggie then pointed again to the tomboy. "'OK,' she said, 'This is me.'"
"That was very encouraging," Vinik says. "She didn't see herself as a boy anymore."
This kind of therapy is precisely what worries Zucker's critics. "That looks like psychodynamic free play, but it's really coercive," says Herb Schreier, a San Francisco Bay Area psychiatrist who has worked with children as young as kindergarteners to help facilitate gender transition. Schreier is part of a consortium of some 30 Bay Area psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists who work with gender-variant children and their families. He's one in a large and growing chorus of voices that accuse Zucker of relying on regressive gender stereotypes and practicing a thinly veiled version of 1950s-style reparative therapy22. Reparative therapy: (noun) any clinical practice that aims to change a gay person's sexual orientation to heterosexual. Also known as conversion therapy, it was widespread in the years homosexuality was considered a mental illness; it is now regarded as unethical since it is both ineffective—not a single peer-reviewed scientific study has demonstrated that orientation can be changed at will—and harmful, since it fosters shame and self-aversion. Still, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, nearly 70 therapists in 20 states and D.C. currently advertise that they practice conversion therapy. Many are affiliated with fundamentalist Christian groups., which was used to "cure" homosexuality.
"The therapy session starts with an incredible assumption: that these kids have a problem. 'We're trying to figure out what problem you're dealing with that gives you this particular way of being.' It's not a neutral therapy if it starts with that premise," Schreier says. "Any therapy that starts with that assumption is bound to be problematic. In essence, he's asking parents to deny who the kids say they are."
Schreier characterizes Zucker's approach as, "I think we should change them, and this would be for their betterment." To Schreier and his colleagues, this sounds ominously paternalistic. "We would strongly raise the point: Isn't there a downside to be had by denying a child's identity?"
Zucker's peers have written detailed, impassioned critiques of his work and his theories in professional journals—to which he writes detailed rebuttals—and his lectures and panels at professional meetings are often peppered with hostile questions and comments. A quick Google search turns up scathing, profanity-laced takedowns of Zucker and his clinic, including one calling Toronto the "global epicenter for oppression of sex and gender minorities."
"The reason there is such dislike of and distrust for Dr. Zucker in the community is because he holds a position of immense power," says Madeline Deutsch, a Bay Area emergency-room physician specializing in transgender health care. Since he publishes so widely, and edits an influential journal in the field, Zucker's opinions matter. His opinions, she says, "fail to incorporate the very real empiric findings and experiences of other experts in the field, experienced clinicians, and activists … and instead remain focused on attempting to prove his own theories."
Zucker does have a tone-deaf tendency to operate from the lofty perch of academia rather than engaging with communities on the ground. Despite a palpable empathy for his patients when he's with them, in conversation with his colleagues he slots patients into scientific categories and describes their lives in psych-speak. Zucker doesn't use the language or terminology that members of the trans community use to talk about themselves; instead, he refers to "homosexual persisters" and "homosexual desisters," by which he means boys who grow up to be trans women and boys who grow up to be men. In meetings with his staff, he insists on referring to his patients—even those who have already begun to transition—by the pronouns of their birth sex. In an e-mail to me, he referred to a young patient by using that patient's preferred gender pronouns in scare quotes: "… help us understand 'his' insistence/belief that 'he' 'is' a boy."
The criticism of Zucker only became fiercer in 2008 when the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM—psychiatrists' bible of mental disorders—announced that for the manual's upcoming fifth edition, Zucker would chair the committee to revise the section on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a statement calling the appointment "extremely disappointing and disturbing." In The Nation, Peter Rothberg called Zucker "retrograde" and encouraged readers to sign a petition opposing him. More than 9,000 people did. Circulated by the transgender community, the petition asked for Zucker's resignation or removal, declaring that "in order to have any credibility in the field of gender identity, the DSM must not include discounted theories or junk science."
The DSM is the primary tool by which psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals standardize, diagnose—and, crucially, bill insurance companies for—the mental-health problems their patients suffer. As the authoritative psychiatric guide for the National Institute of Mental Health, pharmaceutical companies, and other national and international organizations, the book's practical and cultural significance is hard to overstate.
It's also a historically loaded book for the LGBT community. Until 1973, homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder, and it was under the guise of treating it as an illness that many psychiatrists offered reparative therapy. (The diagnosis also meant that gay psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychoanalysts were forced to remain closeted in order to practice.) It wasn't until a huge push by the gay community—and with fierce resistance by many association members—that the diagnosis was removed.
Transgender advocates and activists say that in a generation we will see the diagnosis of gender identity disorder as equally ridiculous. "Being differently gendered is not a psychiatric problem," says Lisa Mottet, director of the Transgender Civil Rights Project at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "It's a human variation." Or, as the University of California, San Francisco, child psychologist Diane Ehrensaft writes in a recent journal article, "As with left-handed children, who are also a small minority of the population, I believe these children who experience this discord [between their bodies and their sense of self] are not abnormal, they simply vary from the norm." Ehrensaft and Zucker have sparred publicly on this issue. Gender identity disorder in children, or GIDC, is "a diagnosis and implied treatment that pathologizes perfectly healthy children who are simply expressing their authentic gender identity," Ehrensaft writes. "The job of the clinician is not to ward off a transgender outcome, but to facilitate the child's authentic gender journey."
At the heart of the debate between Zucker and his critics lie fundamental questions: Are transgender people "born this way," as people who support early gender transition argue? Or is gender a set of learned behaviors, a mix of "biological factors, psychosocial factors, social cognition," and other mechanisms, as Zucker argues?
For Zucker, these questions are partly matters of scientific and intellectual curiosity. But for gender-variant kids, the stakes are much higher: If being transgender is part of one's hard wiring, then to try to change kids like Maggie would be impossible at best, psychologically destructive at worst. Therapy that aims to change gay people's sexual orientation is condemned as harmful and unethical by a slew of major professional organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association. Gay people subjected to conversion therapy as children have higher rates than their counterparts of depression, anxiety, and self-harm, including suicide.
Critics say that Zucker's approach will have the same effect on trans kids: It will teach them from an early age that a fundamental part of their identity is wrong. What's more, if these kids aren't truly changed—if they simply learn to hide their identity until they are old enough to make autonomous decisions—then aside from the psychological harm caused by this hiding are issues of physical comfort and safety: Those who transition later in life have a harder time being perceived as the gender they identify with and require many more surgeries.
The argument about the origin of our gender identity has been simmering for decades, particularly among feminist theorists. On one side is the view called "social constructionism": the idea that everything we know about what it means to be a man and a woman is something we learn, through subtle cues and explicit lessons, from our parents, TV, the world around us. The flip side is "essentialism," a word radical feminists have used derisively, snubbing their noses at the idea that there might be something hardwired into women's brains to make them more inclined to like lipstick and less inclined to fix a leaky faucet.
It's not just the drag queens, social constructionists argue; we're all in drag, performing our gender as surely as RuPaul does. Gender is "a kind of persistent impersonation that passes as the real," writes social constructionist Judith Butler in her seminal 1990 work, Gender Trouble. Or, as Simone de Beauvoir famously said, "One is not born a woman, but, rather, becomes a woman."
To embrace social constructionism means that there is no "born this way," no born any way, except with a body around which the world begins spinning meaning and symbolism even before we are born. (See: blue nurseries, "it's a girl" balloons, and, the latest, "gender reveal parties.") So to hear the politically progressive, trans-positive community embrace essentialism, and then to hear Zucker, the man they accuse of being retrograde, embrace social constructionism is enough to make one's head spin. Until you remember the gay gene.
When, in the early 1990s, geneticists discovered a relationship between homosexuality and certain genetic markers, many members of the gay community embraced these findings, using them as the basis of a new push for acceptance. If we were born this way, the argument went, then you can't hold it against us; we can't help it. Indeed, the work of these geneticists was read from the floors of many a senate chamber, and the "gay gene" was part of what turned the tide of public opinion in favor of compassion and nondiscrimination.
But this emphasis on biological determinism is discomfiting. First of all, even if gay folks weren't born this way—even if they "learn" to be gay or develop the identity over time as a result of complex social processes—why would that make it any easier to change their identities? Second, there's something apologetic about the whole premise that the world should accept gay people because they can't help being gay. The unspoken part two of that argument is that if they could change, they surely would—or should.
It's now widely accepted that no amount of therapy can change a person's sexual orientation, and Zucker says he would not try to do so. But gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same thing. Sexual orientation is a matter of whom you are sexually attracted to. Gender identity is more elemental: It's who you feel in your bones that you are. Zucker's critics say that most transgender children know precisely who they are. "These kids come out very early and say, 'Mommy, I'm in the wrong body,'" Schreier says.
Sure, Zucker says, but that doesn't make it a fait accompli. Children's gender identity is plastic and malleable, he says, shaped and formed by the world around them, by the feedback they receive, by the emotional resonance of the things they do, by their personal relationships, even by the clothes they wear. If this is true, then it should be possible for these kids to change.
Zucker is quick to point out that his clinic has referred more than 60 kids for the medical interventions required to begin their transitions; a paper he wrote on the subject was, in fact, the first such study published in North America. By age 11 or 12, he concedes, trans kids are typically "locked in" to their gender identity, and for them, "I very much support that pathway, because I think that is going to help them have a better quality of life." But it's different, he says, for younger kids. "If a child can grow up and feel comfortable in his or her own skin that matches their birth sex," Zucker argues, "then you avoid the complexity of fairly serious surgical treatments. Penectomy and castration are not the same thing as having mild and minor cosmetic surgery. Lifelong hormonal therapy. It's serious."
It's not just the medical interventions, he says. "One could argue, like many things, that there's a strong value component to it. Holding everything else constant, at least at this point in time it's relatively easier to grow up with a gender identity that matches your birth sex."
That may be true. But for how much longer? Society is changing. The alphabet soup of LGB—lesbian, gay, bisexual—has, bit by bit, broadened, first to include "T" for transgender, and, more recently, to become the unwieldy LGBTQQIAA, which includes people who identify as queer, questioning, intersex,3
3. Intersex: (noun or adj) someone whose genitals, chromosomes, hormonal systems—or some combination of these—don't fit the standard parameters for male or female. "Intersex" replaced the outdated and derogative term "hermaphrodite"; the more culturally neutral term is "disorder of sex development," or DSD. As many as 1 in 100 people have a DSD like Turner Syndrome, androgen or estrogen insensitivity syndrome, and Klinefelter's (or XXY) Syndrome.
4. Genderqueer: (adj) used to describe someone whose gender identity or gender expression blurs the line between masculine and feminine or rejects the binary of male and female altogether.
5. Bi-gender: (adj) identifying or presenting as female at some times and male at other times.
6. Agender: (adj) identifying as having no gender, which is known as "neutrois." Agender people often prefer the pronoun "they" to the singular "he" or "she."
7. Two Spirit: (noun) a traditional American Indian term for people who occupy a third gender category. Also known as berdaches, Two Spirits were typically genetic/physical men who did women's work, cross-dressed, and formed relationships with non-berdache men; some tribes had additional gender categories for women who hunted and acted as warriors. asexual, and ally. "Transgender," usually used broadly to encompass a range of gender-variant people (including transsexuals, the word traditionally used to describe people who make a full medical change to the "opposite" sex), is bursting at the seams as 21st-century gender identities proliferate. There are people who identify as genderqueer,4 bi-gender,5 agender,6 Two Spirit.7 There are trans people who choose surgery but no hormones, hormones but no surgery, or no medical interventions at all.
To the extent that Zucker builds upon this gender diversity by encouraging kids to widen their sense of what their gender can be—by helping kids feel comfortable as "tomboys" or "tomgirls," or other gender inventions in between—he furthers the worthy cause of making the two traditional boxes bigger or helping to break them down, rather than stuffing kids inside them. At the same time, Zucker knows that the more society moves in this direction, the more his work becomes obsolete. "One could argue that with the emergence of gender-transition subculture, Western culture in some ways now has a third gender category," Zucker says.
"Gender-transition subculture" is Zucker's mildly dismissive go-to term for the approach of people like Schreier and Ehrensaft who advocate allowing gender transition for very young children in certain cases. "One could argue" is also a favorite formulation—it's an easy way to distance himself from potentially controversial statements. He's not necessarily arguing this, it seems to imply—just that one could. "It could be that in the next 10, 15 years, there will be more and more acceptance of extremely gender-variant kids, and the reaction will be, 'Oh, he's just a transgender.' And we'll see. If there is this greater acceptance, the argument that [not being transgender] is an easier pathway may be harder to make."
Alex exemplifies the growing acceptance of gender diversity. Born with a girl's body six years ago, Alex is "just a cool little kid, really," says his mom, Andie. At school, he is a boy: boy clothes, boy hair, boy pronouns. "And at home, we respectfully—somewhat faking it, because I'm not 100 percent there—we treat Alex as a boy."
Andie knew from the time Alex was a toddler that something was different. "I noticed that Alex gravitated towards playing with the boys," Andie recalls. "She* preferred to do the boy things." At three, Alex refused to put on a girl's bathing suit. She refused to wear dresses, then she refused to wear skirts, and then "it got down to, if there was a little pleat that you wouldn't even notice on the shoulder," Alex would refuse to put it on. Still, Andie was herself a tomboy as a kid, so she mostly let Alex dress how she wanted and didn't think much of it.
About halfway through Alex's kindergarten year, Andie's usually easygoing, happy kid seemed anxious and irritable. She discovered that Alex was polling kids at school: "Do you think I'm a boy or a girl?"
"And I go," Andie says, "'Why are you doing that? You're obviously a tomboy.'
"'Well, I want to be a boy.'
"I'm like, 'Well, you're not a boy.' I had no idea, really, about issues like that."
She went to talk to Alex's teacher, who had noticed a similar change in Alex's behavior. "It's almost like she doesn't know who to play with or what to do," the teacher said. "Have you heard of gender dysphoria?"
Andie took a few weeks to think it over, do some research, and talk to her family. Then she called the principal. "Listen," she said. "Alex thinks she's a boy. So we need to somehow make Alex comfortable at school." The principal said, "OK. I'll make some calls."
It was that easy. But it won't necessarily stay easy.
In five or six years, as boys his age find their voices deepening and their upper lips darkening, Alex will begin to develop breasts and hips. He will get his period. Unless, that is, he begins the long journey of medical interventions that will allow him to stay a boy.
First there are hormone blockers, medications that are used to suppress puberty in one's birth sex. These are fully reversible—an adolescent who stops taking them will begin puberty in their birth sex—and are meant to buy the child some time to mature enough before he or she makes irreversible choices.
For adolescents who continue their transition, hormone blockers also help to prevent later surgeries; a boy like Alex who never grows breasts in the first place need not have them removed. By around age 16, Alex could start on cross-sex hormones, which would deepen his voice, cause hair to grow on his face and his chest, and prompt the other hormonal changes of a typical teenage boy. Genital surgery—a much less common choice in transgender men since the surgical techniques are less advanced than they are for transgender women—can happen as early as age 18.
Andie admits that she would prefer Alex not go down this path. Not because she has a problem with him being transgender but because she hates giving her kids medication. "I don't care what drug it is," she says. "I don't like the thought of kids putting drugs in their body. But I also want a kid that's alive," rather than at high risk for suicide. "My other little guy has epilepsy. So he has to take high levels of meds to keep his body safe. I'm going to try to look at this the same way. If that's what Alex needs to feel secure, that's what Alex will have."
Andie brought Alex to Zucker's clinic after Alex had already made his gender transition at school. She Googled Zucker only once her family had gotten to know him and was shocked by the criticism she read; she says he has been supportive of her approach and has never encouraged her to treat Alex like a girl.
"One starts, more or less, with where a family is at," Zucker says. "I offered for us to see Alex in individual therapy to get a further and more in-depth understanding of Alex's internal, subjective world. I think that both Andie and I are watching to see if Alex will develop any alternative ways of how Alex currently experiences 'his' gender." Zucker stops short of saying that fostering these alternative ways is his aim. "It would have to be their aim," he says of Alex's family. "It's not my job to impose it."
With encouragement from Zucker, Andie reminds Alex that he could grow up to be anything—a girl, a boy, or anything in between—and tries to encourage him in any case to love his body. "My goal is for Alex," she says, "to feel good about herself, and to have the tools she needs to be able to say, 'Hey, this is who I am.' I have no right to tell somebody that they're something that they're not."
Alex plays on a local boys' hockey team; his dad volunteered to coach so Alex would feel more comfortable playing. He goes snowboarding and dirt biking with his mom. In advance of Thanksgiving, Andie called her own mom—who is slowly coming around—to lay out the ground rules for their family dinner: "'Refer to Alex as he, or I'm not OK with it.'" Andie's family complied.
Andie doesn't want Alex to talk to reporters, so I didn't get to meet him. But as Andie was gathering him to leave after his therapy session, I couldn't help but see his little snowboarder jacket and his mop of dark hair out of the corner of my eye. Zucker was bending down, hands on his knees, to look at the newly loose tooth Alex was excited to show off. "Now what," Zucker said, with grandfatherly excitement, "do we have here?"
The industrial sign marking the bathroom in Zucker's clinic is all-inclusive, with a hybrid male-female symbol indicating a myriad of gender possibilities. Zucker's office door is papered with colorful marker drawings of smiling cartoon figures, trees, flowers, and houses. "Thank you!" several of them read, in rainbow letters. "I enjoyed being with you!" reads one. "Thanks for helping me," reads another.
While countless individual therapists work with transgender kids on an individual basis, there are only about a dozen clinics for transgender kids and adolescents at major medical centers in the Western world. Most clinics take a "watchful waiting" approach. They advise against an early gender transition, instead counseling parents to find "a sensible middle-of-the-road approach," as one clinic describes it—neither encouraging nor actively discouraging. A few, like Herb Schreier's Bay Area group, will—in extreme cases—help children make an early gender transition. But none attempt to actively prevent transsexuality as Zucker does.
With short silver hair and beard, mismatched belt and shoes, and a perpetual pen stain on his shirt pocket, Zucker looks, and has the demeanor of, the workaholic grandfather that he is. The first thing you notice, talking to him, is his voice: Its deep basso timbre rumbles in a blend of Canadian and Midwestern accents. He has a dry sense of humor and a penchant for deadpan teasing that at times catches even friends off guard. "One of the things I told everybody that they really needed to think about today," Zucker said at the opening of his Tuesday-morning clinic-supervision meeting, "was what to wear." He never even broke a smile, but he was (mostly) joking that everyone should try to impress the visiting journalist. "I wore my best shirt and got here early and then"—he pointed to that day's pen stain—"put my blue pen in upside down."
Zucker grew up in suburban Skokie, Illinois, the older of two kids (his sister Barbara, he points out with an ironic smile, is nicknamed Barbie). His "intellectual, left--winger" Jewish parents were victims of McCarthy-era witch hunting—his dad lost several jobs, Zucker says, because he refused to "rat on his Commie friends." In Zucker's telling, they ultimately decided that "for the sake of their children, they needed to become conformist," and they moved to the suburbs to "disappear from the scene—trapped in middle-class consumer subculture for the good of the cause."
Born in 1950, Zucker came of age at the dawn of a different kind of scene. During our time together, Zucker happened to mention, in passing, a cow that stuck its head into his VW van at Woodstock and a summer he spent in Cambridge, Massachusetts, driving "the People's Bus," but when I pressed for more details, he would say only, "We'll leave it at that." What he will say is that he emerged from those times with a distaste for dogmatism and a sense that "maybe hiding in science is safer than fighting political, dogmatic battles."
He regards his detractors as dogmatists. "I would say one thing that does bug me about some of the debates in this area is people's supreme confidence that gender is a complete social construction, or that gender is completely biologically determined, or that this can all be explained by specific psychodynamic mechanisms." Zucker calls himself a "gender agnostic." He thinks that gender emerges as a mix of these elements, but he feels that the mechanisms are still far from clear.
His fascination with gender identities began while Zucker was a psychology graduate student and he read a book by UCLA psychiatrist Richard Green, whose pioneering work in the emerging field of sexology laid the groundwork for Zucker's practice today. Green's 1974 book Sexual Identity Conflict in Children and Adults was the first longitudinal, scientific description of a cohort of "feminine boys" and included transcripts of Green's sessions with these boys and their families. Zucker was intrigued. "Identity is such a core part of what it means to be human," he says, "and gender identity is such a core aspect of the self that it's inherently interesting."
When Green began his "Feminine Boy Project," the research study on which his book (and The Sissy Boy Syndrome, a subsequent book) is based, his aim was to describe the "natural history" of transsexuals. He thought that by studying these boys early in life, he could watch their cross-gender identities unfold, like caterpillars in chrysalises. That's not what happened. Green's most striking finding was that only one of his 44 "sissy boys" turned out to be transsexual. Most of them—75 percent—grew up to be gay men. Subsequent studies led to similar findings: Gender-bending kids who grow up to be transsexual adults are the exception, not the rule.
This may be changing. Given increasing visibility and acceptance (think Chaz Bono, Transamerica, RuPaul), more and more people who challenge traditional gender stereotypes (from butch women to "sissy boys" to those whose gender identity is more fluid) feel empowered to take on the mantle of genderqueer or transgender—and, in some cases, to seek medical attention. Recent studies indicate that the number of people seeking treatment at gender clinics in the United Kingdom and Canada has risen sharply in the last five years.
Does this mean that Green's numbers are an under-estimate—that with greater parental and societal acceptance more of his "sissy boys" would have grown up to be transgender? New data might help to answer this question. During the time I was in Toronto, Zucker talked a lot about a scholarly paper currently under review by a group of well-respected Dutch clinicians and researchers. In their group, kids like Alex who underwent an early gender transition were more likely than other gender-variant kids to be "persisters"—that is, to continue to identify as the opposite sex into adolescence and early adulthood.
Because the Dutch data seem to support Zucker's theory—that the way parents respond to a child's early gender dysphoria has an impact on whether it persists—the paper feels, to him, like something of a vindication. Herb Schreier sees the same data and reaches the opposite conclusion: The kids who transition early, he says, are the ones who identified themselves vocally and from an early age—the ones who were clearly going to persist anyway.
In the vast majority of these kids, however, gender dysphoria resolves on its own. In light of that, I asked Zucker, how do you know your interventions are working? He was honest: "I don't think we know."
As a child, Karl Bryant, now a sociologist at the State University of New York, New Paltz, "desperately wanted to be a girl, and I expressed it often," he recalls. But this was the early 1960s—there was no early gender transition subculture—and Bryant was growing up in a small farming town about an hour from Los Angeles. So he became one of the earliest subjects of Richard Green's Feminine Boy Project. He was enrolled in the "treatment" arm and had sessions with Green every other week.
Bryant liked Green and remembers trying hard to please him. "I knew at a certain point what the expectation was," he recalls. Bryant wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the politics of gender identity disorder, and he recounts the story in the introduction. "I remember occasionally trying to muster the kinds of masculine behaviors that I knew I was supposed to naturally express," he writes. "Ultimately I learned to hide as best I could my feminine behaviors and identifications."
Bryant grew up to be a happy, successful gay man, and he refuses to speculate how, or whether, things would have been different if his parents had allowed him to follow his fervent childhood wish to be a girl. But his "happy outcome," he says, is despite, not because of, Green's interventions. The study, he says, gave him the lasting impression that "the people closest to me, and that I trusted the most, disapproved of me in some profound way." He says it's hard to overstate the harm that such knowledge can inflict: "The study and the therapy that I received made me feel that I was wrong, that something about me at my core was bad, and instilled in me a sense of shame that stayed with me for a long time afterward."
Zucker acknowledges "more similarities than differences" between his treatment and Green's. "The UCLA group, Richard's group, certainly had a big impact on me," Zucker says. That said, developmental and cognitive psychology are much more sophisticated now than they were then, and Zucker says that the theoretical underpinnings of his work rely on much of this new research. For example, he bases his approach in part on the concept of "gender identity self-labeling." Zucker explains: "You somehow, by the age of two or three, have recognized that gender is a social category. The world consists of males and females: mommies, daddies, men, women, boys." Children figure out how to label themselves as a boy or a girl (how they do this is the big question, and one that has not been satisfactorily answered) and then "search out information in their environment: If I'm a girl, how is a girl supposed to behave? You look to the social environment."
Take something as seemingly arbitrary as color preferences. In general, girls like pink and boys like blue. This is not just anecdotal, Zucker says; studies have confirmed "sex-dimorphic88.Sex-dimorphic: (adj) used to describe a trait or characteristic that varies along gender lines—height, for instance, or the presence of facial hair. color preferences." This isn't because girls are "born" to like pink, Zucker says, but rather because they say to themselves, "'I'm a girl. OK, so what do girls do?' You have your own self-label and then you actively try to behave in a way that matches the label." Zucker's aim, then, is to broaden the kids' sense of what someone of their birth sex can be. "Let's say a little boy with a strong desire to be a girl, in part, has come to this because temperamentally he has a lot of trouble with rough-and-tumble play," Zucker says. "And so recognizing that some kids might think in binary terms—'I'm not like that, therefore, the only alternative is to be a girl.' But if one can help kids realize there are different ways one can be a boy, maybe that lessens the wish to be a girl. Because one realizes, 'Oh, I don't have to be running around on a soccer field as the only way one can be a boy. I can do something else.'"
Zucker also relies on more traditional behavior--modification therapy, in which you reinforce or reward certain behaviors and ignore or discourage others. He encourages "limit setting," like allowing your boy to wear a dress at home but not out of the house, for example, or only for a certain number of hours a day. But he stresses that each child's treatment plan is individualized: For a kid like Alex, encouraging him to be flexible in the way he thinks about gender is as far as he'll push. For a kid like Olivia, he felt comfortable going further. This is largely because Olivia's parents felt comfortable going further.
Olivia is nine now. But from the time she was two, "She wouldn't wear things if there were a pleat or a bow or a sparkle," her mom, Erin, says. Olivia wouldn't drink from a pink cup or eat off a pink plate. She refused to go to school on her birthday, because the teacher gave girls a princess crown to wear on that day. "And if there was a special day where I would tell her that a dress was required, there would quickly be juice dumped down the front of it." Erin laughs recalling it. "Smart kid."
Erin also noticed that Olivia couldn't tolerate social situations. She got teased a lot at school, and at home, if Erin's friends came over with their kids, Olivia would either go up to her room and shut the door or sit and rock in the corner—"almost like she was autistic," Erin says.
By the time Olivia was four or five, they would argue about her gender constantly. "I would clarify—not understanding what the heck," Erin recalls. "I would say, 'Olivia, you're a girl. You're a bit of a tomboy. You're a girl that likes boys' things.' Then it started into the whole dialogue of, 'When am I going to become one?' That's when I realized that she needed help."
Erin was referred to Zucker by a therapist she was seeing, but having read some of the criticisms of him online, she was wary. "My values are that you take people for who they are, and people can be whoever they want to be in life," Erin says. "So if my daughter chooses to be a boy or chooses to be gay or whatever, so be it, and I'll love them and support them and do whatever I can to make them happy in their world."
But then Zucker asked her a question that stuck with her: "If your daughter said to you that she wanted to stay up until two in the morning, would you let her?" No, Erin told him. "Well," Zucker continued, "she's telling you that she's a boy and is going to change into one. And she's young enough that we think in this clinic that she's confused, and you can clarify that for her. What do you think about that?"
Erin thought, "OK, let's try this."
The first thing Zucker encouraged them to do was to go shopping for clothes. "You'll have to try to make her clothes gender-neutral," Erin recalls Zucker saying to her. "We're not telling you she'll ever wear a dress. But you need to try to get her to grow her hair, get it so she's not looking so much like a boy." He also told her to be clear with Olivia why they were coming to the center for ongoing therapy sessions and why they were going shopping. Erin was nervous about it, because she knew it would upset her daughter, but she recalls, "I said, 'You're not going to be able to wear boys' clothes anymore. So we're going to go to the store, and you're going to wear girls' clothes because you're a girl.'"
Zucker is mindful that clothes and hair length—not to mention toys and games, indeed, just about every outward sign of gender that he targets—are superficial. "Yet, if you look at normative studies of gender development, kids often use cues pertaining to hairstyle and clothing style to not only mark their own gender but to mark the gender of other kids," Zucker says. "So those cues, or markers, are surface representations of a child's underlying gender identity. And I think, in young childhood, there can be a feedback effect."
If a young boy feels he is a girl, Zucker argues, then playing with Barbies is not as simple or as neutral as playing with blocks or puzzles. Part of the thrill of the Barbies for that boy is that they make him feel like a girl. Because he feels like a girl, he will continue to want to play with Barbies. And so on. "There is a back-and-forth between gender identity and surface behavior," Zucker argues. "I've been trying little questions out lately, like: 'If you like to eat leaves off tall trees, would that make you a giraffe?' Some little kids fit that kind of thinking. Kids conflate identity with appearance."
This was certainly true for Olivia. Finding gender--neutral girls' clothes was a challenge, but she and her mom finally agreed on some collared shirts and cargo pants cut in a girl's style. "What happened over time was, she stopped getting bullied at school because she stopped looking like a boy," Erin says. "It would get her confidence going."
On days that Olivia came home from school and complained that "so-and-so called me a boy," Erin would steel herself and reply, "Well, you kinda look like one today, Liv. Your choice. I don't know what you're expecting." Ultimately, Olivia "got to a point where she would get upset when people would get confused, calling her a boy. Even though originally that was what she wanted."
The final recommendation her parents followed was to help Olivia make more female friends. She'd always had more boy friends than girl friends, but her parents enrolled her in girls' soccer and hockey and were amazed at the difference it made. "The girls are like her," Erin says. "They're still more girly than her, but they're rough, and when they go to a tournament, they're just tearing around playing Hunger Games. They relate to her."
Social interactions still don't come easily for Olivia, but Erin feels the changes they made have helped give Olivia the confidence she needs to move through the world more peacefully. "I think that if I hadn't gotten the help, I would have allowed her to continue to dress the way she was, and life would have been really tough," says Erin. "I think she would have been very withdrawn and disturbed and had difficulty making friends, and been bullied." Erin knows the future is still uncertain: "Who knows what she's going to decide? Is she going to be gay? Is she going to be transgender? I don't know. But I do know that she's going to be a confident person and be her own person and feel like she can make her own choices, and recognize how to fit in and how society works. I think this place has saved her."
There's a chance, of course, that Olivia might feel otherwise later in life. "If your parents have brought you to Dr. Zucker to figure out your gender, and they are already perhaps less than supportive or [at] least nervous and confused, and then you sit in a play space with an authoritative doctor suggesting you play with a truck, what do you think the child would do?" asks emergency-room physician Madeline Deutsch, who is transgender. "I suspect that we will see a large number of Dr. Zucker's former patients in their thirties, forties, or fifties seeking gender reassignment, only to regret having not been able to do so decades earlier."
Traditional epidemiologic studies have assumed the prevalence of transgender people to be rare: somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 10,000. But recent studies show the numbers are much higher than previously thought (or are higher now than they used to be): 1 in 200, or even, in one recent sample of middle schoolers, 1 in 100. This means that only a tiny sliver of what may be a relatively large population of transgender people are showing up at clinics to make a medical transition. It speaks to the fact that in between living fully in one's birth gender or undergoing all of the cross-gender interventions that Western medicine has to offer is a whole range of options that Zucker's approach doesn't account for.
"The proliferation of gender categories that represent people's desires and experiences and identifications, those are fairly new," Bryant says. So "to look at kids today who are gender-nonconforming and try to make some prediction about what they're going to be when they grow up is really fraught. The things that they are going to be when they grow up don't exist right now."
Because of this proliferation, critics like Bryant say, Zucker is basing his work on an outdated conception of gender, suggesting parents radically change the way their children live—not let them play with the toys they choose, or wear the clothes that make them most comfortable, or play with the friends they most connect with—on the basis of a dubious guess that some tiny percentage of them will one day want to have sex-reassignment surgery. Or, worse, on the basis of societal prejudice: because the world will not accept them for who they are. This seems as unsettling as Zucker's parents moving to the suburbs and conforming for the good of the cause. It's fair to ask: Whose cause, exactly?
Although the DSM is strictly a diagnostic manual—it does not make treatment recommendations—implicit in the very existence of a diagnosis is the suggestion that it warrants treatment. This is largely the concern that transgender activists and mental-health professionals had when they heard that Zucker would be chairing the DSM's Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders work group.
Zucker's approach "has this default assumption that not identifying with the sex you were assigned at birth is in some way psychopathology," says Karl Bryant. "It treats the gender of the child [as] a problem that merits some kind of correction."
But transgender advocates concede that the new diagnostic criteria represent an improvement over the old. In the previous DSM, for instance, the bar seemed lower for diagnosing boys than girls: To meet the criteria, boys need only have a "preference for" wearing girls' clothes, whereas girls had to "insist on" wearing boys' clothes. In the new DSM, the language is more analogous. The new DSM, which will be published in May, also recognizes the limitations of the gender binary, noting that a child could express either "a strong desire to be of the other gender" or "some alternative gender different from one's assigned gender."
Still, whether the diagnosis should be in the DSM at all remains a contentious issue. Because hormone--replacement and sex-reassignment therapy cost tens of thousands of dollars, transgender people are in a bind: They need a diagnosis to get health-insurance coverage for their transition-related medical care. Zucker and his colleagues tried to address some of the community's concerns by renaming the diagnosis "gender dysphoria." This means that it's not the identity that is a disorder but rather the distress that may result from that identity. A gender-variant kid—a boy who likes to wear dresses, for instance—wouldn't automatically meet the criteria, unless the behavior caused him "clinically significant distress or impairment." In other words, unless he were suffering.
The name change alone was a big deal, says psychiatrist Dan Karasic of the University of California, San Francisco, because it implies that "the distress of gender dysphoria is the pathology as opposed to gender identity."
Zucker likes to say that the DSM is "agnostic" with regard to the origins of one's suffering, but the question of where the distress originates is not a small one. Many kids in Zucker's clinic come in with psychiatric and psychosocial issues. A quarter of them have been involved with child protective services and a quarter have attempted suicide. Zucker concedes that "experiences of ostracism, social rejection in the peer group, et cetera, does account for some" of the distress. But, he says, "I personally think that it's too simplistic to say that it's the peer ostracism or the stigma that explains it all. We see a lot of adolescents whose families are pretty supportive," he continues. "They're not being rejected. Their friends are chill. But they're still very unhappy and very distressed and miserable. So even with external acceptance, the incongruence between somatic sex99.Somatic sex: (noun) the sex implied by one's physical body. People with gender dysphoria suffer a disconnect between their somatic sex—their physical sexual characteristics—and their gender identity. and felt gender is still very painful."
For the most part, following his interpretation of the standards of care, Zucker will not recommend puberty suppressors or cross-gender hormone therapy for anyone whose psychiatric issues aren't addressed first. His critics say this misses the point: Transitioning is addressing their psychiatric issues. By offering hormone therapy and other medical interventions, "you treat not only the medical hormonal deficiency and help them attain the body that they wish, but you are very likely to erase a whole bunch of psychopathology that's all secondary," says Norman Spack, an endocrinologist who runs the Gender Management Service at Boston Children's Hospital. Spack says he has seen major depression, anxiety—even mild Asperger's—resolve after kids are able to transition.
While I was in Toronto, a teenage patient of one of the other psychologists in the clinic came in for a follow-up visit. This person had the body of a female but covered his breasts in layers of binders and was so afraid to be read as a female that he wouldn't leave the house, even for school—he attended high school online and ventured out only for his appointments and, once a week, to the in-person component of his curriculum. He told his psychologist, one of Zucker's colleagues, that if she wouldn't refer him for hormone therapy, he would kill himself. The colleague stopped by Zucker's office to ask him what to do.
The standards of care say someone is ready for hormone therapy when he has lived successfully as his preferred gender for a period of time. Did this person qualify, if he never left the house? Is his extreme distress the result of his gender dysphoria? Or is the depression clouding the psychologists' ability to get an accurate read on his gender identity? All these questions were theoretical, though. In the next room was a real patient who was suffering, and Zucker did what he thought was best: He referred him to the endocrinologist to begin hormone therapy.
*The names of Zucker's patients and their family members have been changed to protect their privacy.


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The BMW 5 Series puts an emphasis on the driving. This mid-size luxury sedan remains a true sports sedan in any of its variations, including the 530ix wagon and other models equipped with all-wheel drive. Regardless of engine size or equipment level, the BMW 5 Series delivers lively acceleration, precise handling and outstanding brakes. It's available with a conventional manual transmission, which is increasingly hard to find in this class.
For 2007, the 5 Series offers two new options. BMW's Night Vision safety system uses a thermal-imaging camera to highlight pedestrians and animals on dark roads, while HD Radio is designed to bring CD-quality digital audio to radio broadcasts.
Now in its fourth year on the market, the styling of the current 5 Series models has become familiar, perhaps less jarring than it was when first revealed. And while there are no significant changes for the 2007 model year, the 5 Series is anything but stale. For 2006, BMW introduced new engines across the board, including a high-tech magnesium alloy six cylinder for the 525i and 530i and a larger, more powerful V8 for the 550i.
Behind its kabuki-eyebrow headlights, the 5 Series is a true driver's car, with more model choices than most cars in its class. Even the base 525i boasts spirited performance, with decent fuel economy to lower operating costs. The more powerful six-cylinder in the 530i matches some V8s, while the 550i delivers true high performance by any definition. The limited-production M5 can out-accelerate, out-brake and out-corner some expensive sports cars, with comfortable seating for five. There's a wagon for those who want more room for cargo. And BMW's x-Drive full-time all-wheel-drive is available for drivers in the Snow Belt.
This car has just about everything you could ask for in a luxury car. It has the features, comfort and convenience of full-size luxury sedans, the sporting character of smaller ones, and a good compromise between interior space and physical bulk. In many respects, it's the benchmark for critics and auto industry engineers alike.
As such, the 5 Series is loaded with technology, and some of its systems have a dark side. The i-Drive point-and-click control system, for example, takes time and energy to learn, and drivers who aren't willing to invest the energy, or those who just prefer to keep things simple, might want to look at a competitor. But those who place a premium on driving satisfaction should start their shopping here.
The BMW 5 Series sedans are available with six- or eight-cylinder engines or an ultra-high performance V10, and manual, automatic, or automatic-shifting sequential manual transmissions and optional all-wheel drive. The 5 Series Sport Wagon is offered only with a six-cylinder and all-wheel drive.
The 530i ($47,500) gets a 255-hp version of the 3.0-liter six and xenon adaptive headlights. The 530i comes standard with the six-speed manual. The six-speed Steptronic automatic ($1,275) and the six-speed sequential manual gearbox ($1,500), or SMG, are optional.
The 525i and 530i sedans are available with BMW's x-Drive permanent all-wheel drive ($2,200).
The 530xi Sport Wagon ($52,100) comes standard with the all-wheel-drive system.
The most popular option for the six-cylinder models is the Premium Package for the 525i ($2,000 and 530i ($1,800), which adds Dakota leather upholstery, a universal garage door opener and the swanky interior lighting package with ambient light, auto-dimming and outside approach lighting.
The 550i ($58,500) is powered by a 360-hp 4.8-liter V8 and comes standard with the items in the Premium Package plus Park Distance Control parking assist and a choice of the manual, SMG or automatic transmission at no charge.
The M5 ($81,200) sits atop the 5 Series lineup. It's powered by a hand-built 500-hp 5.0-liter V10, with suspension and brakes enhanced to match all the power.
Option include: HD Radio ($500); Night Vision ($2,200); a Cold Weather Package ($750) with heated front seats, heated steering wheel and heated, high-pressure headlight washers; the Sport Package for the 525i ($2,500) and 530i and 550i ($2,800) with BMWs Active Steering and Active Body Control systems, 18-inch wheels with performance tires, more potent brakes and sport seats; and the Premium Sound Package ($1,800) with BMW's high-power Logic7 audio system and a six-CD changer; a navigation system ($1,800); radar-managed Active Cruise Control ($2,200); and Sirius satellite radio ($595).
Safety features that come standard include front airbags with dual threshold deployment, front-passenger side airbags, and full-cabin curtain-style head-protection airbags. Also standard are seatbelt pretensioners and force limiters; seatbelts are the first line of defense in a crash so be sure to use them. Active safety features include antilock brakes with Dynamic Brake Control auto-proportioning, Dynamic Traction Control, Dynamic Stability Control. Also standard is the standard BMW Assist communications package with automatic collision notification, an SOS button, roadside assistance and locater service. Rear passenger side-impact airbags are optional ($385).
Many buyers will find the BMW 5 Series a near-perfect size. It seems more substantial than some small luxury or sport sedans, with more usable interior space. At the same time it's not so physically bulky as large sedans, and therefore easier to maneuver in tight spaces and to park.
The 5 Series sports BMW's now-familiar corporate design themes, introduced on the larger 7 Series sedan and subsequently applied to the smaller 3 Series. BMW's new approach to styling has been discussed as frequently as any in the car world, and more than occasionally criticized. On the 5 Series at least, the curvy front-end, flat sides and high rear deck stand out less than they once did. That may simply mean we've grown more familiar with the shape, rather than more appreciative.
The critics contend that, with the flared-nostrils look in front and the chunked-off shape of the trunk lid, the 5 Series seems almost like two halves taken from different cars. In our view, the lines create a fairly compact appearance, and that may be part of the problem. The 5 has the appearance of a well-built mainstream sedan, and that may not be the precedent one expects for an expensive European job. In any case, the look doesn't seem to have hurt 5 Series sales.
The comma-shaped, wraparound taillights apply a technology introduced by BMW that has spread to a number of makes. The company calls them adaptive brake lights, and they illuminate more intensely, over a larger area, when the anti-lock brake system engages, in other words when the driver is braking as hard as possible. The point is to inform drivers following that it's stopping quickly, possibly in an emergency situation. It could help, if the driver following correctly interprets the increased intensity of the brake lights.
BMW re-introduced a 5 Series wagon for 2006. The big difference, of course, lies behind the rear roof pillars and back seats, where the 5 Series Sport Wagons offer more load-carrying potential and versatility than the sedan. The rear gate opens electrically, with a switch on the key fob or dashboard, and swings very high for easy access to the load floor. A big reflector on the bottom of the gate adds an element of safety in darkness.
The lift gate has a soft-close feature. When it's lowered, it automatically sucks itself shut, no slamming required. The glass window opens separately, which is convenient when dropping a briefcase or a couple of bags in back.
New for 2007: Xenon adaptive headlights are now standard on the 530i and above. The xenon high-intensity discharge headlights offer a brighter, more intense, more white light that appears blue when we're used to seeing halogen lights with a warmer, relatively yellow light. Adaptive means the lenses turn slightly with the steering, throwing light around a curve in the direction of travel.
BMW's current 5 Series sedans are noticeably roomier than the previous-generation, pre-2004 models. Front passengers have a fraction more shoulder and head room, but the improvement is more obvious in the back, where there's more shoulder room and a lot more legroom. Increased cabin space put the 5 Series on better footing with key competitors like the Mercedes E-Class, Audi A6, and Lexus GS.
The finish and quality of materials is nice. Soft plastics covering the dashboard and doors are handsome and rich to the touch. The seats feature a draped-leather look, with the upholstery hung loosely over the seat frames. Leather inserts in the front door panels compliment the seats.
The standard 5 Series seats are very good, with above-average support and just enough give to keep from feeling hard. The seats in the optional Sport Package have so many adjustments that those who lean toward obsessive/compulsive may start stressing out as they try to settle in. If you can get them just right, save the position in memory, because these are some of the best seats in the business. They're firm, but not church-pew hard like the previous-generation sport seats.
The 5 Series dashboard applies BMW's familiar double-wave theme, with one wave or bubble over the instrument cluster, defining the driver's area, and another that begins over the dash center and sweeps toward the right side. From a functional view point, it's an effective design. The instrument cluster features two gauge pods, with the gas gauge wrapped inside the analog speedometer and a miles-per-gallon gauge inside the tach. The tachometer has a variable warning LED that circles the gauge. When the engine is cold, this LED extends to 4200 rpm, then gradually increases the rpm limit to the redline as the oil warms up.
The center dash is dominated by a large electronic screen that displays various control functions, system readouts and the navigation map or Night Vision image when the car is so equipped.
There are vents below the screen and on either side off the steering column that move an impressive quantity of air with minimal fan noise. Three big climate control knobs sit below the display screen, for fan speed, temperature and airflow direction.
There's also a volume knob next to the CD slot, a station selector on the right steering wheel spoke, and phone controls on the left spoke. Window switches are just above the armrest, and right where the hand naturally rests. In short order, these knobs will become the 5 Series driver's best friends.
That's because almost everything else, including some basic stereo functions, is controlled by i-Drive, the computer interface that manages virtually every system in the car. The master control is a big aluminum knob on the center console between the seats. The knob is easy to locate from the driver's seat without a glance, and with each move of i-Drive, menus appear on the video screen. In effect, the system works something like the point-and-click operation of a computer mouse, though there is no cursor.
The problem is that it can be confusing to use i-Drive to wade through various menus to get to the function that needs adjustment. At best, it's difficult to master, and while BMW has simplified the system by reducing the number of movements for the main control, and adding a Main Menu button, it still takes time to get used to i-Drive. Operation becomes more intuitive with time, but many still find it a cumbersome way to make everyday adjustments.
HD Radio, new for 2007, delivers digital audio quality, with FM reception that is supposed to sound like a CD and AM that replicates traditional analog FM. Our test car had HD radio, and it's great, with a caveat. When it locks on a signal the clarity and fidelity is amazing, especially on the AM band. The problem is that, depending on where you're driving, the radio can fluctuate from HD to standard broadcast as signa
The BMW 5 Series cars are a pleasure to drive, though it's hard to say which model we'd choose. The light-on-its-feet 525i makes clean, satisfying driving without a lot of high-tech drivers aids to get in the way. We're quite happy in one. On the other hand, high-tech systems such as Active Steering or Active Roll Stabilization can quickly demonstrate their value, and there's nothing quite like the thrust developed when you slam the accelerator on the 550i V8.
The 5 Series is not whisper quiet like BMW's full-size 7 Series sedan, so a bit more road and wind noise finds its way into the cabin. Yet with the stereo turned up about two-tenths of the way, you won't hear any of it. And the 5 Series feels smaller on the road than its dimensions suggest. Consider its near-perfect weight balance, and a rock-solid body that's free of creaks, rattles or unpleasant vibration, and this BMW is exactly what we'd like a luxury sedan to be: smooth and comfortable regardless of the speed, nimble and reassuring when it's appropriate to travel at a good clip. The 5 Series has nearly all the bells and whistles, and almost nothing to diminish the driving experience. If you decide to pick up the pace, you'll discover handling and overall performance that's hard to match in any sedan. No matter which engine sits under the hood, there's plenty of power to get you up to speed.
BMW's inline engines remain one of the great experiences in motoring. The classic straight six delivers a balance of smoothness, torque, and response that V6 engines can't seem to match. Other luxury manufacturers have switched to V6s because they're easier to package, and they've proven easier to certify for stringent emission standards. We're glad BMW sticks with its trademark inline engines.
The 5 Series engines were overhauled for 2006, starting with a new inline six cylinder that is the only current production engine with a magnesium alloy engine block to reduce weight. The engines in the 525i and 530i are actually the same size (3.0 liters); the difference in power (215 hp vs. 255) is the result of different controls and intake systems.
From a stop or at high-speed roll, the six-cylinder 530i delivers as much acceleration-producing torque as some thirstier V8-powered sedans. Off-the-line acceleration surpasses probably 70 percent of the vehicles on the road, and top speed exceeds anything you'll get away with anywhere outside a desolate Nevada desert. Power delivery in the 530i is very linear, meaning that you'll get the same response and acceleration whether the engine is turning 2500 rpm or 5000 rpm when you step on the gas.
Still, those who put a premium on straight-line acceleration might choose the V8-powered 550i. The 4.8-liter V8 produces 360 horsepower and an impressive 360 pound-feet of acceleration-producing torque. The power delivery flows in the same even fashion as it does in the six-cylinder engines.
Pushing the accelerator to the floor in this high-performance sedan is a truly enjoyable experience. The 550i will squirt from 0-60 mph in about 5.3 seconds, which is substantially quicker than sports cars such as the Jaguar XK or Nissan 350Z. Top speed is electronically governed at the voluntary limit adopted by most German automakers: a mere 155 mph.
For those who don't mind a little work, we heartily recommend the six-speed manual transmission. It's one reason to choose the 5 Series over other luxury sedans, in which manuals are increasingly few and far between. The shifter is tight and reasonably quick, and shifting is smooth, precise and easy. Particularly with the six-cylinder models, the manual transmission maximizes performance potential, as well as the driver's involvement.
The great majority will choose the automatic transmission, a six-speed Steptronic, and they won't give up much. The Steptronic reacts to the gas pedal in fine style. Ful
The BMW 5 Series mixes comfort, performance, high-tech features and passenger-friendly accommodations in a relatively compact package. Yet with Active Steering, Active Roll Stabilization and an available manual transmission, the 5 Series is more obviously engineered with an emphasis on the driving. It's remarkably well balanced, and satisfying to own and drive. Even with its love/hate exterior styling, the 5 Series remains a luxury sedan benchmark.
NewCarTestDrive.com correspondent J.P. Vettraino filed this report from Detroit, with NCTD editor Mitch McCullough reporting from Charlottesville, Virginia.


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RALEIGH — From here, the Carolina Hurricanes go on the road for their final two games this season. From there, no one knows.
RALEIGH — From here, the Carolina Hurricanes go on the road for their final two games this season. From there, no one knows.
The Hurricanes completed their home schedule Thursday by slumping to a 5-2 loss to the Washington Capitals in front of an announced attendance of 15,735 hardy masochists, leaving them mere days away from what may be the most uncertain offseason in the team's tenure here.
The 41st home game is always the end of something. Even in the playoffs, there's no way of knowing when that last home game will come. Players always come and go over the summer, an unavoidable dynamic of the business. For this team, this franchise, with no playoffs on the horizon yet again, even more change is imminent. Only the degree is unknown, leaving so many uncertain goodbyes.
Was this the final home game for Jim Rutherford? The team's only general manager since moving here in 1997, Rutherford is expected to step aside after the season. If he does, he could remain with the team as president or he could walk away entirely. Only he knows. The noisy fans in Section 328, hedging their bets, tried to start a "Thank you, Jimmy" chant late in the third period. Like the Hurricanes' season, it failed to catch on despite the best intentions.
Was this the final home game for Kirk Muller? The coach was dealt a bad hand from the beginning and has played it as well as he could. There was some understandable on-the-job learning, but there's no question the Hurricanes' younger players have collectively improved.
The problem, of course, has been the unwillingness or failure of the Hurricanes' best players to play the way Muller wants them — needs them — to play. But it's easier to change the coach than it is to change them. Throw in the likelihood of a new general manager, and Muller may not get the second chance he probably earned this season.
Was this the final home game for Cam Ward? If it was, he goes out the way he came in, wearing a baseball cap on the bench. As a rookie, choosing which hat to wear was his biggest responsibility when the playoffs began in 2006. They ended with Ward lifting the Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
Eight years later, Anton Khudobin is set to open next season as the starter and Ward is a $6.3 million anchor, unquestionably talented but unavoidably injury-prone and inconsistent. No matter who the general manager is, moving Ward and his contract will be a top priority this summer.
Was this the final home game for Eric Staal? His devotion to team and community is unquestioned, yet the growing current of fan anger over his performances and perceived failures of leadership as captain – having presided over all five seasons of this playoff drought — makes the once-unthinkable thinkable.
His salary ranks among the top five in the entire NHL, but he hasn't played at that elite level. Despite leading the Hurricanes in scoring with a modest 58 points, he hasn't scored a single game-winning goal. It would be best for everyone involved if Staal can get the fans back on his side.
"Whether people think that or not, I'm out there competing as hard as I can, regardless of the situation," Staal said. "That's what I'm going to continue to do."
Was this the final home game for thousands of weary season-ticket holders? Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos admitted, in his baffling FS Carolinas interview on Tuesday, that renewals aren't going well. The coaches and players were apparently not the only ones unsure whether they'll be back next fall.
There was a time when Canes-Caps in April invariably mattered. All it meant Thursday was the end is near. The only question was for whom.


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When Entertainment Industry Numbers Are More Suited To Comedy Than Analysis
from the sorry-MPAA-but-nobody's-buying-it dept
We've often criticized the entertainment industry for their use of utterly bogus math to claim massive, completely unrealistic losses from piracy. As Mike once noted, "it would actually be kind of funny... if policy makers and the press didn't actually believe those numbers and pass bad legislation based on them."
That said, it can still be pretty damn funny, as this brilliant 5-minute TED talk by Rob Reid demonstrates:
If you didn't watch the video (you should), it's a sarcastic take on "©opyright Math™" in which Reid plays along with the industry's numbers in order to expose how ridiculous they are:
The movie folks also tell us that our economy loses over 370,000 jobs to content theft, which is quite a lot when you consider that back in '98 the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that the motion picture and video industries were employing 270,000 people. Other data has the music industry at about 45,000 people. And so the job losses that came with the internet and all that content theft have therefore left us with negative employment in our content industries. This is just one of the many mind-blowing statistics that copyright mathematicians have to deal with every day. And some people think that string theory is tough.
Reid doesn't do any actual debunking, because he doesn't need to—the numbers are so plainly false that just putting them in the spotlight is enough to get the audience laughing. It's a lot of fun, but it also underlines the bigger question: why do journalists and policy makers still blindly accept and repeat those same numbers? Hopefully, as more and more people recognize the industry's claims for the comedic fiction that they are, that will begin to change.
Filed Under: bad math, piracy, rob reid, ted talks
Companies: mpaa


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Gross MotorToddlersPreschoolers13 Comments
A very silly and fun gross motor activity to get the kids moving with a simple jumping game!
This is so simple. So, so simple.
I taped out 6 lines (after Henry defeated the 6, we upped it to 8) on the floor that are roughly a foot apart. Probably not quite. I numbered them, just as a measure of their success.
And that's it. I just told the boys to see how far they could jump. Starting at number one and see if they could jump to the end.
They literally jumped to do this game! It was so much fun. And really not much point to it except to get them moving and work on gross motor skills. But the game itself is just fun and silly.
You could add to the learning and have a preschool tally up their scores and work towards a number (maybe a number just a tad out of their counting reach).
They did this over and over. Henry was leaping beyond the 6, so we set it up to 8 to challenge him a little. It made him do a little running start. He may have slipped on a few landings and had a wipe-out. But it was all fun for him!
George didn't jump too far each time. He made it more a game to try to jump just to the next line. And that was a great challenge for him! I loved seeing him jump. Henry wasn't jumping from a stand until he was probably 3, George has been doing is successfully for the past 6 months, since he turned 2. He seems very advanced in his gross motor skills. (But that's just me comparing my kids, which I know I shouldn't be doing… at what age should a child be learning to jump?)
They just had a blast! I had a hard time taking photos through the laughter. It was just a great time for giggles.
It was so nice to get the kids moving indoors on a cold, winter day. Definitely something we need to do more often. And this tape jumping game was just too simple (and definitely fun) to not do again and again!
Check out these gross motor activities to get the kids moving too!
The Imagination Tree also has an active jumping game to learn phonic sounds.


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Thanksgiving observances were not always focused on harvests and feasts.
A good example is this 1755 proclamation, issued by Spencer Phips Esq., lieutenant governor and commander in chief of Massachusetts.
He proclaimed a celebration of public thanksgiving for Dec. 4, 1755 and urged colonists to give thanks for the successful harvest, along with victories over the French, the good health of King George and other British officials, and the good life colonists enjoyed.
The proclamation notes that "all servile labor" is forbidden for the day.
Giving Thanks
This Exhibit Contains 10 Items
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Item 20113
Thanksgiving observances were not always focused on harvests and feasts.
Item 5716
A more personal comment about Thanksgiving comes from Abner Small of Gardiner, a soldier in the 16th Maine Volunteers during the Civil War.
He writes, before Thanksgiving, to his friends in Waterville:
"You are cordially invited to take a thanksgiving dinner with the 'subscriber' who would be most happy to help you to some choice bite of horse meat and condiments raised on the sacred soil of old Virginia."
Clearly, home and a more sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner were on Small's mind.
Item 19248
Another Civil War soldier, John Dillingham of Freeport, in an 1862 letter to his mother, described his Thanksgiving dinner, which sounded no more appealing to him than Small's did.
Dillingham wrote:
"I forgot to tell you what we had for thanksgivin dinner first we had hard bread and water then come the desert you had ought to have seen that desert shall I tell you what it was? well I will it was hard bread we had something else about three o clock but we stole it that was hard bread to."
Other meals probably were similar, but the fact that Dillingham mentions Thanksgiving and his lack of interesting food suggests the importance he placed in the holiday.
Item 6890
The 13 American colonies celebrated Thanksgiving in 1777, in part to observe their victory over the British at Saratoga.
President George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789. President Thomas Jefferson declined to do the same when he was president.
Thanksgiving did become a national holiday, however, in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln designated the last Thursday in November as a day of thanks.
The painting at left by Seth W. Steward (1844-1924), a native of Monson, entitled "Home for Thanksgiving," depicts what quickly became a tradition around the holiday: returning home for a family celebration.
Item 1142
By the time Maine Governor Edwin G. Burleigh issued his proclamation setting aside Thursday, November 28, 1889 as a day of public thanksgiving, the date already was a national holiday.
Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book, spent 40 years lobbying to have a permanent national day of Thanksgiving, an event she believed would help unite the country and preserve the Union.
Hale wrote a number of editorials in her publication advocating for such a day until 1863 when Lincoln agreed.
In one editorial, Hale wrote that on Thanksgiving, "the noise and tumult of worldliness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart."
She suggested the day be observed by "sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and rejoicing."
Item 18070
The "first" thanksgiving with the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians in Massachusetts included a feast that lasted three days, according to Edward Winslow's journal in 1621.
Most historians agree that the menu probably did not include turkey or many vegetables. Venison and wild fowl likely were the main features.
As this menu from a Thanksgiving dinner at the Preble House in Portland in 1914 suggests, the early 20th century version offered numerous choices -- bluefish, salmon, capon, beef tenderloin, venison, ribs of beef and turkey for starters.
Item 6121
Most children and adults can remember Thanksgiving observances in school -- from drawing turkeys by tracing one's hand to dressing as Pilgrims and Indians and reenacting a version of the "first" Thanksgiving.
Here students at North School on Portland's Munjoy Hill, hold letters that spell out the name of the holiday.
Item 108
Not everyone agrees that Massachusetts was the site of the first thanksgiving observance after Europeans arrived in North America.
And, despite the friendly handshake between the "Indian" and the "Pilgrim," by students at Portland's Chestnut Street School in 1924, not all American Indians view Thanksgiving as a time to celebrate that mythic past.
Many argue that the relationship between the Indians and the colonists was more complex than the holiday observance often suggests.
Item 5267
Regardless the meaning or composition of the "first" Thanksgiving, several things are certain.
Most Indians and colonists ate with their hands, not utensils. They sometimes used cloth to hold hot food while they ate it.
Food often was not passed around a table. Instead, the diners ate the food that was closest to them.
Meals were not served in unique courses. Instead, all the food was put on the table at once.
Dried corn and fruits probably were the most common "side" dishes at the meal.
Item 72
Three "Pilgrims," children at Casco Street School in Portland, stand with cornucopias of food in what may have been a Thanksgiving food drive at the school in 1922.
The tradition of gathering and sharing food with the needy goes back to the mythic "first" thanksgiving and also was an important element of Sarah Josepha Hale's campaign for a national Thanksgiving holiday.


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CIO… the Missouri Valley ConferencePosted by Brian Goodman on January 23rd, 2013
Patrick Marshall is the RTC correspondent for the Missouri Valley Conference. You can also find his musings online at White & Blue Review or on Twitter @wildjays.
Looking Back
- A Two-Team Race, Or Is It? Heading into last weekend, it looked to be a two team race between Creighton and Wichita State in the MVC. But don't count Indiana State out of the mix. The Sycamores' RPI is high right now and they have won three of their last four games. Also keep an eye out for Evansville, Bradley, and Northern Iowa to be a thorn in the contenders' sides, hoping to score some upsets to keep things interesting. So far, the Bluejays and the Shockers have been able to mostly avoid those four teams, but Wichita State will play three of its next four games against Bradley, Indiana State and UNI. If you know anything about the Valley, anything can happen when two teams lace them up so this race is far from over yet.
- McDermott Continues To Light It Up: Doug McDermott continues to impress the nation with some extraordinary numbers. Since the start of 1996-97 season, no player has averaged more than 20 points per game while shooting better than 50 percent from the three-point line for an entire season. The Creighton junior is currently averaging 24.1 points per game and shooting 52.5% from beyond the arc. In addition, he is averaging 28 points per game and shooting 59.5 percent from deep in five road games this season. His offensive efficiency has continued in the last three games by shooting 62% from the field, 72% from three and averaging a ridiculous 31.6 points per game. He has already scored 29 points or more in seven games this season. He is without question a legitimate National Player of the Year candidate.
- Hall Returns With Fire: Wichita State's Carl Hall had been out the last several weeks with a thumb injury. Of the injuries that the Shockers have suffered this season, losing Hall hurt the most. After missing the first six games of conference play, he returned this past week and he was ready to play. The senior only scored two points but grabbed 10 rebounds in a victory over Illinois State, but against Creighton, Hall added the scoring back to his game by going for 17 points and 13 rebounds (including six offensive) to lead the Shockers to a narrow victory. The only thing he needs to shake the rust from is his free throw shooting. Hall went 3-of-8 in the two games, including a 1-of-6 disaster against Creighton after starting the season 20-of-23. He may be the difference-maker that Wichita needs if the Shockers are to win an MVC championship.
Power Rankings (Overall, Conference, Last Week)
- Wichita State (17-2) (6-1) (2)–The Shockers sit in first right now based on their win over Creighton this past weekend. Do I think they are the better team? I guess I do for now. I will be watching to see how both Creighton and Wichita fare in their next games and how they react to last weekend's result. Wichita State got a boost from the return of Hall to help offset his 8-of-20 shooting from the three-point line against the Bluejays. Their rebounding has been outstanding, out-boarding their opponent in each conference game this season. They are grabbing almost nine more boards each game than their opponent. Wichita State is now #14 in the RPI and is 6-1 against the top 100 and 3-0 versus the top 50. Read the rest of this entry »


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Vodafone Smart 4 Max
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Misono UX10
Misono's top of the line, the UX10 is one of the best hybrid knives available. Sub zero treated Swedish steel gives long lasting edge life, durability and a razor sharp edge. The angled silver nickel bolster balances the knife and the curved wooden handle fit comfortably and snugly the hand. Each knife is hand sharpened on a combination of water stones and checked to ensure they meet Misono's exacting standards.
|Handle material
|Wood composite
|Blade length
|130 mm (5.1")
|Thickness at spine
|1.5 mm
|Thickness at tip
|0.5 mm
|Hardness (Rockwell scale)


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No matter who you are, where you're from, or where you want to go, we speak your language.
We're excited to announce our renewed promise to the public and our new look to reflect who we are and the exceptional service you can expect from us.
At Queens Public Library, we speak your ...
Back-to-School Legos
Location: Broad Channel
Registration: Not required
Join us in creating your own school or classroom! There will be prizes and fun for all.
Ask A Specialist
Location: Broad Channel
Registration: Not required
Come into our Broad Channel branch for answers to your technology-related problems!
Additional Program Dates/Locations
This is a recurring program. If registration is required, you must register individually.
Additional Dates
Free computer access is available at all the libraries.
The Broad Channel Community Library has:
Each branch of the Queens Library provides for general and local needs by collecting both general interest materials and more specialized materials in English and other languages.
Special Interest/Noteworthy Collections at the Broad Channel Community Library include:
| Child Care / Preschools
Community Board
Community Organizations & Services
Fire Department
Local Hospitals
| Local Newspapers
Parks and Playgrounds
Police Department
Post Office
Public Elementary Schools
| Public High Schools
Senior Centers
Elected Officials
Special Services
|Child Care / Preschools
Rockaway Child Care Center
14-66 Beach Channel Drive
Far Rockaway NY , 11691
phone: (718)327-1384
Rockaway Community Neighborhood Head Start Program
72-05 Beach Channel Drive
Far Rockaway NY , 11691
phone: (718) 945-3077
Hammels Child Care Center
82-10 Rockaway Beach Blvd
Rockaway Beach NY , 11693
phone: (718) 474-3162
|Community Board
American Legion Post 1404
209 Crossbay Blvd.
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718) 474-5029
|Community Organizations & Services
American Littoral Society North East Chapter
Meetings are held on the 1st & 3rd Fridays of the month
28 West 9th Rd
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718) 474-5029
Broad Channel Athletic Club
P.O. Box 1
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718)318-0600
Broad Channel Civic Association
P.O. Box 4
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (212) 530-7774
Broad Channel Historical Society
The collection is housed in the Broad Channel Library c/o Broad Channel Civic Association
P.O. Box 4
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718) 474-1127
Iroquois Yacht Club
1004 Church Rd
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718) 474-9668
North Channel Yacht Club
1622 Church Rd
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718) 634-5106
Prince-Wynn VFW Post 260
713 Shad Creek Rd
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718)327-1384
Shad Creek Association, Inc.
529 Crossbay Blvd
Broad Channel NY , 11693
|Fire Department
FDNY- Engine 266
92-24 Rockaway Beach Blvd.
Far Rockaway NY , 11693
Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Dept.& Ambulance Corps.
Emergency Phone: (718) 474-8888
15 Noel Rd.
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718) 474-6888
|Local Hospitals
Peninsula Hospital Center
5115 Beach Channel Dr
Far Rockaway NY , 11691
phone: (718) 734-2000
|Local Newspapers
The Wave
Located off Crossbay Blvd. 1½ miles Joseph Addabbo Sr. Bridge (Formerly North Channel Bridge) Look for the brown Parks Dept. sign
P.O. Box 930097
Rockaway Beach NY , 11693
phone: (718) 634-4000
|Parks and Playgrounds
Gateway National Park Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge
Floyd Bennett Field
Brooklyn NY , 11234
phone: (718) 318-4340
Playgrounds Gene Gray Park
East 9th Road and Crossbay Blvd
Seventeenth Road Playground
Seventeenth Road and Crossbay Blvd
|Police Department
100th Precinct
92-24 Rockaway Beach Blvd
Far Rockaway NY , 11693
phone: (718) 318-4200
|Post Office
Post office
90-14 Rockaway Beach Blvd
Rockaway NY , 11693
|Public Elementary Schools
P.S. 47 Chris Galas School (Preschool–8)
9 Power Rd
Broad Channel NY , 11693
phone: (718) 634-7167
|Public High Schools
410 Beach Channel High School
100-00 Beach Channel Dr
Far Rockaway NY , 11694
phone: (718) 945-6900
|Senior Centers
Queens Community Board # 14
19-31 Mott Avenue
Far Rockaway NY , 11691
phone: (718) 471-7300
Hammel Senior Center United Irish
90-01 Rockaway Beach Blvd.
Far Rockaway NY , 11693
phone: (718) 634-4047
Rockaway Senior Service Center
90-01 Rockaway Beach Blvd.
Far Rockaway NY , 11693
phone: (718) 634-1215
|Elected Officials
|NYC Council
Hon. Eric Ulrich
District Office Address 93-06 101st Avenue
Ozone Park NY, 11416
phone: (718) 738-1083
fax: (718) 738-1918
Legislative Office Address 250 Broadway, Suite 1555
New York NY, 10007
phone: (212) 788-7069
|NYS Assembly
Hon. Stacey Pheffer Amato
District Office 95-16 Rockaway Beach Boulevard
Rockaway Beach NY, 11693
phone: (718) 945-9550
fax: (718) 945-9549
Albany Office LOB, Room 827
Albany NY, 12248
phone: (518) 455-4292
fax: (518) 455-4723
|NYS Senate
Hon. Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr.
District Office 159-53 102nd Street
Howard Beach NY, 11414
phone: (718) 738-1111
fax: (718) 322-5760
Albany Office Room 811, Legislative Office Building
Albany NY, 12247
phone: (518) 455-2322
fax: (518) 426-6875
|US Congress
Hon. Gregory W. Meeks
District Office 153-01 Jamaica Avenue, Suite 204
Jamaica NY , 11432
phone: (718) 725-6000
fax: (718) 725-9868
Legislative Office 2310 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington DC, 20515
phone: (202) 225-3461
fax: (202) 226-4169
|Boro President
Hon. Melinda Katz
Hon. Bill de Blasio
Broad Channel is a small close knit community, two miles long and three blocks wide. In the 1640's the area was sold to the Dutch. The land was granted to Hempstead settlers and became part of the Town of Jamaica.
In 1881, it became a stop on the Long Island Railroad. The railroad allowed Broad Channel to become a summer hot spot for city travelers. Over 3 million people traveled by train each year to the Rockaway beaches and the Broad Channel hotels. Hotels grew and seasonal bungalows popped up. Residents paid $25 in rent each year to the city's Dock Department.
Around 1900, Jamaica Bay became part of New York City. By 1907, there were an estimated 300 homes and businesses in Broad Channel. Fishing was a big industry there until 1921 when the bay became too polluted to continue to fish. The completion of Cross Bay Boulevard in 1925 allowed Broad Channel to change from a seasonal area to a year round residence.
In 1938, Robert Moses tried to have the residents evicted and the whole area made into wildlife refuge and recreational park. The plan was too expensive, and in 1950, after the train trestle burned down, the Metropolitan Transit Authority took over train service. Several small islands were connected by filling in part of the bay for the construction of the new A train. The area that was filled in became the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. The 9,155 acre refuge was opened in 1953. Today more then 325 species of birds have been found there.
This was not the first or the last time the residents were facing eviction, including by a JFK runway expansion plan and a plan to make Broad Channel part of Gateway National Park. During this whole time residents were fighting to purchase their land from the city. Finally in 1995 the battle was won and residents were able to buy the land their homes were built on.
Broad Channel is the home to one of New York City's ten remaining volunteer fire departments. The Broad Channel Volunteer Fire Department has been serving the community for over 100 years.
The community was served for many years by a weekly Bookmobile, which was withdrawn during the city's fiscal crisis in the mid-1970's. After some years of community pressure for the reinstatement of library service, Queens Library decided to provide library service by means of a pre-fabricated Porta-Branch, the first to be erected in Queens. Serving a population of 2,500 people, the Broad Channel Library opened on July 17, 1990.
Broad Channel Historical Collection
Home Town Long Island by Newsday with Forward by Billy Joel
The Other Islands of New York City: a History and Guide by Sharon Seitz and Stuart Miller
Return all Queens Library books, videos, music at Queens Library at Broad Channel. Use the self-service book return, available every day and every night. Receipts given for your security.


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Category Archives: Nature Photography
Celebrate Woodinville Festival ~ August 15th
My fine art photography booth will be set up in the parking lot of Wilmot Gateway Park from 12:00pm – 5:00pm on Saturday, August 15th, for the Celebrate Woodinville festival! Address: 17301 131st Avenue N.E., Woodinville, WA 98072 At the … Continue reading
Mill Creek Festival ~ July 11th & 12th
You are cordially invited to the 2015 Mill Creek Festival! Be sure to stop by my fine art booth, Kimberly Dunlap Photography, and say hello! This year's event will include 50 juried artisan booths which feature only handcrafted items, neighborhood business booths, … Continue reading
Spring Boutique ~ May 2nd
Come find the perfect gift for Mother's Day at the Spring Garden Boutique! This special event is being held at the IUOE Union Hall – 18701 120th Ave NE in Bothell. It runs from 10:00am – 6:00pm on Saturday, May … Continue reading
Spring Art Show ~ April 25th & 26th
Our fine art photography will be on display at the first ever "Homespun Spring Bazaar" at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in Monroe, Washington! Come visit our booth and take a look at our landscape and wildlife photography. Just in time … Continue reading


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End-of-life notice: American Legal Ethics Library
As of March 1, 2013, the Legal Information Institute is no longer maintaining the information in the American Legal Ethics Library. It is no longer possible for us to maintain it at a level of completeness and accuracy given its staffing needs. It is very possible that we will revive it at a future time. At this point, it is in need of a complete technological renovation and reworking of the "correspondent firm" model which successfully sustained it for many years.
Many people have contributed time and effort to the project over the years, and we would like to thank them. In particular, Roger Cramton and Peter Martin not only conceived ALEL but gave much of their own labor to it. We are also grateful to Brad Wendel for his editorial contributions, to Brian Toohey and all at Jones Day for their efforts, and to all of our correspondents and contributors. Thank you.
We regret any inconvenience.
Some portions of the collection may already be severely out of date, so please be cautious in your use of this material.
Connecticut Rules of Professional Conduct
Commentary - Rule 5.4
[1] The provisions of this Rule express traditional limitations on sharing fees. These limitations are to protect the lawyer's professional independence of judgment. Where someone other than the client pays the lawyer's fee or salary, or recommends employment of the lawyer, that arrangement does not modify the lawyer's obligation to the client. As stated in subsection (c), such arrangements should not interfere with the lawyer's professional judgment.