SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian transsexual is suing two policemen for allegedly telling her unsuspecting boyfriend about her gender switch, leading to a violent confrontation, it was reported Wednesday.

Brigitte Fell has launched a lawsuit accusing the officers of breaching privacy laws by telling her then-boyfriend about the sex change while he was in police custody, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph reported.

Constables Tyrone Stacey and Brendan Ritson pleaded not guilty in a Sydney court Tuesday and could face two years jail if convicted of unlawfully disclosing information, the newspaper reported.

It said Fell’s boyfriend was picked up by police for suspected theft in September 2006 and while he was in custody Stacey allegedly accessed confidential information about Fell, revealing she was born a man.

Ritson, who was looking over his colleague’s shoulder, allegedly shouted to Jacobson that he was having sexual relations with “a bloke”.

After the boyfriend, Garrick Jacobson denied it, he was allegedly shown paperwork indicating her gender and told: “See, it’s a guy.”

Fell told the court that when Jacobson was released he stormed into her flat and confronted her, asking if what the police told him was true.

She said he repeatedly punched her in the face, resulting in her hospitalization for several days.

Fell told the court that she underwent sex change surgery in London about 12 years ago and claimed the privacy breach “ruined my life”, the Telegraph reported.

She said she had not previously revealed her surgery to Jacobson, her boyfriend of about two months, because “he was temperamental enough”.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Not content with banning “vulgar” reality TV shows, China’s culture guardians have added transsexuals and plastic surgery patients to the burgeoning hit-list of proscribed content on the country’s airways.

China’s broadcasting watchdog, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), has outlawed shows featuring “public participation” in sex-change operations and plastic surgery.

“All levels of television broadcasters must not plan or produce sex change or plastic surgery programs involving public participation (including news, specials or interviews), effective immediately,” SARFT said in a notice posted on its Web site Friday.

“(Such programs) currently being screened or in production must stop at once,” it added.

The order follows the axing of controversial “Beautiful Makeover,” a reality show produced by a TV station in China’s southern province of Guangdong, showing scenes of plastic surgery operations.

China’s broadcast watchdog has moved to crack down on the country’s increasingly freewheeling TV broadcasters, urging them to imbue “socialist” values in their programming, instead of using “vulgarity” and “weirdness” in the pursuit of ratings.

Last week, SARFT pulled Chongqing TV’s popular talent show “The First Heartthrob” from the air-waves, citing vulgar content among a raft of other transgressions.

“Happy Boys Voice,” China’s male-only take-off of U.S. talent show “American Idol,” cut scenes involving contestants in tears, with wild hair or singing “unhealthy” songs in its first season to comply with the watchdog’s demands.

BANGKOK, Thailand – Mr., Mrs. or Ms.? Thailand may soon let people who have had a sex change officially alter their title, too.

A proposal which would allow transgender men or women to choose how they are addressed is being considered by the country’s National Legislative Assembly to support an anti-discrimination provision in the draft constitution, Thai newspapers reported.

Wiroon Tangcharoen, an assembly member who is also rector of Srinakharinwirot University, said he supported the move and did not believe it would affect room assignments in university dormitories, where students are segregated by sex, The Nation newspaper said.

Students wishing to live with members of their adopted gender would have to produce medical certificates proving they had undergone sex-change operations, he said.

“The university has nothing against male transsexual students staying in female dormitories on the campus,” he was quoted as saying.

Even though Thailand is widely tolerant of gays, transvestites and transsexuals, many face family pressure, social prejudice and domestic violence.

Three years ago, a college in the northern province of Chiang Mai designated a bathroom for the exclusive use of the school’s 15 cross-dressing students. The transvestites — who had to wear male attire at school but were allowed to sport feminine hairdos — had annoyed female students when using the women’s bathrooms, and faced harassment in the men’s facilities.

PATTAYA, Thailand (AFP) – Thailand’s most beautiful transsexuals take the stage late Friday to compete for the Miss Tiffany Universe crown, which is just as prestigious as traditional pageants here.

The 30 finalists will compete in evening gowns and cocktail dresses in the pageant, which is broadcast live on national television from the beach resort town of Pattaya, 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Bangkok.

There were 60 entrants this year, but half were eliminated during preliminary rounds, organisers said.

“The number of applicants was higher than any year in the past,” Chantana Petchprom, Tiffany’s spokeswoman said.

“It shows how successful we are,” she added.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the contest, which has evolved from a cabaret sideshow to a major national competition whose winner is often showered with television or music contracts.

In addition to a tiara, the winner will walk off with 100,000 baht (2,900 dollars) in cash and a new Mercedes Benz.

She will also compete in October for the Miss International Queen crown, in which contestants from around the world vie for what is believed to be the world’s largest transsexual beauty pageant.

In a nation obsessed with beauty pageants and famous for its sexual tolerance, local media often compare Miss Tiffany favourably to the winner of the traditional Miss Thailand contest.