Regina Célia

     Roberta Close is one of the most striking Brazilian
beauties and she might be a mother very  soon,  but  she 
still  is  unable  to  get Brazilian documents that will
classify her as a woman. 
     For eight years  she  has been trying to change the 
name on her ID, which says Luís Roberto Gambine Moreira.
Her  case  came  to the Supreme Court last February, but 
Flávio Giron,  the federal vice-prosecutor,  opposed the 
change, arguing that  "the expert exams carried out have 
concluded for the male sexuality of the petitioner." 

 La Close, who lives in Switzerland, 
she is recognized as a  woman there,
with her Swiss husband Ronald Grana-
cher, is the most famous  Brazilian
transsexual.       She underwent an
operation to extirpate her penis in
1989. Recently Roberta declared, "I
am Brazil's happiest woman because,
at last, I could reunite my body to
my soul which has always been deeply
feminine." In Augut 1996, she posed
for very revealing  pictures to the
lenses of photographer Tripoli in an
essay he made on her for Sexy magaz.
 In February  she repeated the dose
with the same publication. 
 In Brazil for Carnaval, she didn't
want to comment on the prosecutor's
decision, but some voices stood  up
for her. Among them was that of writer and Academy  "immortal" João Ubaldo
Ribeiro. " Hypocrisy, too much hypocrisy, this business of denying Roberta 
Close the right of being a woman, when she already is patently a woman, only
forced to carry a masculine name,"   he wrote in his column in the  weekly 
Manchete magazine. " Let's give the girl the new ID card, let's stop being
pharisees. 
             "As for being a mother, Roberta wants a girl, 
                  she intends to use her own semen.