So, New Zealand has it's first transsexual cop on the beat, a Christchurch bobby who has after many years transitioned into womanhood. And who is now, we hear, back out on the road catching villians, issuing speeding tickets and saving folks in distress. Am I the only one caught somewhere between a yawn, concern and smugness? The yawn comes from knowing that this is all as it should be. That regardless of a person's sexuality, gender or what have you, it is their ability to do the job that counts. And it seems that most of this officer's colleagues in the Christchurch police force feel the same way. Welcome to the new millenium. Concern because the bottom feeders of the media must already be sniffing a story ripe for prurience and sensation. Heaven only knows what the headline writers in the trash media will do with her story once they manage to get more than second or third hand interviews. Come to think of it, they probably won't wait that long! And the amount of spluttering bigotry and misinformed innuendo which will doubtless saturate talkback radio in the next few days doesn't even bear thinking about. Speaking of the barren wastelands of talkback radio, am I the only one who feels a certain smugness remembering back a decade or so to when the then Minister of Police John Banks and his fundamentalist Commissioner of Police John Jamieson were stomping throughout the country decrying the possibility of gays and lesbians (let alone trannys!) in the police force? Well John and John, your worst nightmare has come to pass and the world is still spinning on its axis, villains are continuing to be caught, blah, blah, blah. GayNZ.com congratulates Christchurch's tranny police officer for having the courage of her convictions and of her gender, for being true to herself and for - intentionally or otherwise - setting yet another positive example that diversity is nothing to fear. Go Girrrrl! Jay Bennie - 14th October 2005