The Week In Trans 1/20/20

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Erin Smith

Erin Smith, a transgender woman mounting an underdog campaign for the state’s 11th Senate District seat covering San Francisco and parts of northern San Mateo County, has secured the support of local Republicans for her candidacy. Learn more from The Bay Area Reporter. Thanks to Ms. Bob Davis for the story.

A group of 45 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed a letter to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency this week, complaining about the deaths of two transgender immigrants while in or just out of ICE custody. The letter recommends that ICE release all transgender people they are holding, because of the agency’s bad track record while detaining transgender people. The Hill has this story.

The attacks on transgender people in state legislatures continues. State lawmakers in Utah and South Dakota have proposed bills which if passed would make it illegal to medically assist a transgender minor in transitioning with either surgery or medication. No doubt the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatricians, and other medical groups will come out against this, as the ACLU already has. It will be interesting to see if some lawmakers will listen to the medical associations. KSFY-TV has the story from South Dakota, while the story from Utah can be found at The New York Daily News.

A state Representative in Arizona has already said that she will modify her proposed bill for sex education classes in the state, a bill which would have made it illegal to so much as mention the word “homosexuality,” and which would have allowed parents to sue any school which disobeyed the law. Even with modifications, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction says that the bill, if passed, will be tough to defend in courts. This story comes from LGBTQ Nation.

Florida does not cover gender-related procedures in its health care plan for state employees. Two state employees are fighting that in federal court. Rewire has their story.

Florida saw four new anti-transgender bills introduced on the last day for filing new bills to be taken up in this year’s legislative session. These included a bill to overturn local bans on conversion therapy and one that would make it illegal to provide transgender medical care to minors. The latter bill would outlaw the way that doctors helped Florida native Jazz Jennings. This story is covered by LGBTQ Nation.

Nikkie De Jager

Nikkie De Jager, who does the NikkieTutorials make-up videos on YouTube, came out as transgender in a 17-minute video she posted to her channel. She says that she did it because she was being threatened with blackmail. CNN has the story. In a follow-up, Oliver Vance tells Metro that he, too, was forced to come out before he was ready because of a blackmail threat. Buzzfeed News has an article about how transgender people live in fear of their secret being revealed without their consent, and E! News reports that Nikkie de Jager reports feeling “freedom” after coming out as transgender.

Ohio is one of the states that does not allow the gender marker on a birth certificate to be changed. The ACLU and Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit. WCMH-TV has this story.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot has asked the Chicago board of aldermen to look into the possibility of setting aside some percentage of city contracts specifically for LGBT-owned companies. The city already has such a policy for companies owned by women and racial minorities. At least one alderman has complained about the idea, and others seem to be receptive to the complaint, prompting the mayor to criticize the council, as The Chicago Sun-Times notes.

Chase Strangio writes at The ACLU website against the new proposed legislation which attacks the rights of transgender people.

LGBTQ Nation also has a round-up of the various bills being introduced in state legislatures. Thanks to reader Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Gray Ellis

We have told you about two transgender people who are running for the state legislature in North Carolina. One of them is Gray Ellis. He is profiled in The Advocate.

The Creating Change Conference was held this week in Dallas. Given that Texas was a state where transgender people were murdered last year, the LGBTQ Task Force organized a rally to oppose violence against transgender people. The Dallas Morning News covered the rally.

We have mentioned before the allegation running through some conservative media circles that transgender people are not targeted for violence, and that transgender people are actually safer than the average American. With that in mind, a new study shows that roughly half of cisgender Americans don’t believe that violence against transgender people is an issue. You can read about this poll at Pink News.

Elizabeth Warren used her closing remarks at the latest debate of Democratic candidates for president to highlight a number of topics which did not come up in the questioning. One of those topics was violence against transgender women, “particularly trans women of color.” This caught the attention of The Advocate.

Elizabeth Warren has also supported the idea that transgender women in prisons should be housed in a prison with women. Many conservatives have voiced their disagreement. The Hill has some of the reaction.

Danica Roem

The Virginia legislature voted to approve the Equal Rights Amendment, and one of the speeches in favor of it was given by Delegate Danica Roem, who said that the constitutional amendment would protect transgender people. You can read about her speech and hear part of it at WFIR radio.

A new study published in MMWR shows that transgender women with HIV are not asked about their partners as often as other HIV patients are, and when they are asked, it turns out that one out of five of their partners on average is HIV positive. Healio has this story.

LGBTQ Nation has an article about the difficulty in finding out what transgender health care a particular health insurance plan does and does not cover.

Research from the University of Toledo has shown that transgender students participating in sports is an area in which the public is resistant to the rights of transgender students. Those who know a transgender person and those who have strong egalitarian views are more likely to look kindly on the idea of transgender students participating in sports in the gender with which they identify. SciTechDaily has this story.

Quiddich has been growing in popularity as a sport, despite the fact that the flying brooms that are supposed to be used are not currently available to muggles. (The game is played on the ground, often with a broomstick between the player’s legs.) Pink News notes that many LGBTQ players are still playing, although they denounce J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender people.

Model and transgender activist Kenny Ethan Jones talked to NBC News about the physical and psychological issues associated with mensuration in transgender men.

Kenny Ethan Jones also participated in filmmaker Rebecca Snow’s latest project, which tries to take a look at menstruation in general and especially as it relates to transgender, non-binary, and intersex people. You can read about the film at Huffington Post. It is called Pandora’s Box: Lifting the Lid on Menstruation.

Andrea Halliley

Andrea Halliley is a 52-year-old veteran of the British military, a transgender woman, and now a model. She is profiled in Birmingham Live.

TLC has released a teaser trailer for the upcoming season of I Am Jazz. The trailer shows Jazz Jennings going through yet another surgery, this one to make her new genitalia more aesthetically pleasing. The Advocate has this story. I Am Jazz returns on Monday, January 28.

Sean Dorsey is a trans man and a choreographer. His latest show is Boys In Trouble, which explores toxic masculinity. It is reviewed in The New York Times.

AsiaSF has been a place for transgender performance in San Francisco for 22 years now. They are opening a new location, in Palm Springs. The Desert Sun has this story.

The first Compton’s Transgender Cultural District art exhibition opened this month with PLURALS, a transgender and queer art show featuring the work of New York City-based artist KC Crow Maddux and Oakland-based artist Joel Gregory. It is being curated by Oakland-based editor Ellis Martin. The exhibit is open through February 28. Get more information from The Bay Area Reporter.

Jerrod Blandino, the founder of the cosmetics brand Too Faced, fired his sister after sis made some transphobic comments about Nikkie de Jager. You can read about it at LGBTQ Nation.

Model Leyna Bloom.

Insider has a look at twelve transgender models who have good careers in the industry.

A transgender sex worker was found strangled to death in Australia. The police are investigating. The Daily Mail has this story.

Two years ago, a court in British Columbia ruled that a teenager could receive transgender medical care even if his father objected. Furthermore, the court ordered that the father address the teen using his chosen name and masculine pronouns. The father took the matter to an appeals court, and this week, the court of appeal agreed with the lower court. You can find this story in The Toronto Star.

The Keystone Conference is looking for speakers, presenters and workshop moderators to cover a diverse range of topics that appeal to the spectrum of transgender individuals, their families and friends. The deadline to submit a proposal is January 31st, 2020. Find more information on the conference website.

Ava Moore

Ava Moore learned that she was turned down for a job in retail because she is transgender. Now she has won a discrimination case. The retailer is Debenhams, which is undergoing a bankruptcy reorganization. Sky News has this story.

Juno Dawson had a long interview with British MP Jess Phillips. You can find it at Pink News.

The NHS is known to have long waiting lists for transgender clinics. One person who got treated by the NHS, and who spent £10,000 on services that the NHS didn’t cover says that the NHS needs to pay for more services for the gender patients whom they do see. Pink News has this story.

We have told you about the British group LGB, which is trying to drop the T from LGBT. They have surfaced again, this time with a new song. The song stinks, and not just politically, according to Pink News.

South Korea is trying to decide what to do with its first transgender soldier. The soldier received gender confirmation surgery while on leave overseas, but wishes to stay on in the women’s corps. The New York Times has this story from Reuters.

Brazil has lowered the minimum age for gender confirmation surgery from 21 to 18. The updates also requires that doctors wait for the start of puberty before administering puberty blockers. You can read about this at Pink News.

Ajda Ender

Ajda Ender is a transgender woman in Turkey who received threats from transphobes who said  they would attack her with acid. She has been afraid to leave her house since the threats were made. Her story is at Pink News.

News of a transgender doll is burning up social media. In fact, this particular doll showed up at one store in Russia. It has long hair and wears a dress, but has male genitalia. It does not appear to have any marketing behind it, which makes one wonder if the doll might not be intentionally transgender. Then again, with all the buzz on social media, this doll creates its own marketing. The Mirror has the story of the doll.

Jessica Yaniv seems to find her way into the news, and not in a good sense. She sued a beauty parlor which would not do a Brazilian wax on her genitals (she has not had gender confirmation surgery), then she got charged with possession of an unauthorized firearm. Now, she punched out someone who was giving her a hard time. The person she punched considers himself a reporter, although he was unable to get media credentials to get into the courtroom for a hearing on the weapons charge. When the reporter, Keenan Bexte, tried to interview her outside the courtroom, she hit him while telling him to go away. The incident got the expected amount of play in sites like The Blaze.

The New York Public Library was about to host an event called Cancelled Women. The event was supposed to provide a place for feminist women who had been cancelled elsewhere to talk to an audience. However, the library came to find out that these women are TERFs, or at least, they are willing to travel with TERFs. The library cancelled the Cancelled Women event. The Washington Examiner has this story, but be forewarned: they take a decidedly pro-TERF viewpoint.

Yiscah Smith

The podcast Unorthodox has an interview with Yiscah Smith, a teacher of the Torah, a spiritual activist, an author, and a trans woman. She also is the subject of the documentary I Was Not Born A Mistake.

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, head of the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas and chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, tells The Catholic News Service that Pope Francis brought up the issue of transgender people as “another significant issue of our day,” and went on to say more things which show a misunderstanding of the issue. While it is hard to be certain if the message was quite what is being presented, it is becoming quite clear that both the Pope and bishops have made up their own argument, and won’t listen to us.

Pastor James Domen is a self-proclaimed “former homosexual.” He promotes conversion therapy, and he put a video about it on Vimeo. Vimeo removed it, saying it violated their rules. The pastor sued the tech firm for discrimination. A federal judge dismissed the complaint this week, saying that the Communications Decency Act allows the online host to set its own rules for what content it will and won’t host. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Kaitlin Bennett, a contributor to InfoWars, is extremely anti-transgender, which probably comes as no surprise to most people. In a mocking tone, she did some “person-on-the street” style interviews, asking questions which mock transgender people, such as, “What do you think about putting urinals in the women’s restroom for women who have penises?” and “What about tampons and pads in the men’s restroom for men who have periods?” She is clearly trying to make the people she is interviewing uncomfortable, but the responses she got were gentle and quite accepting of transgender people. You can find some of the responses at Pink News.

TWITs

A newly-appointed judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, refused to use the correct pronoun for a transgender defendant in a ruling. He argued that the use of pronouns is a courtesy. He expects others to extend that very courtesy to him, yet he refuses to do the same in return. For hiding his bias behind a self-defeating argument (an argument which announces to the world that he is a discourteous jerk), Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan gets a TWIT Award. (We thought of returning the rudeness by referring to Judge Duncan as “it” rather than “he,” but decided to not lower ourselves to his level of rudeness.) Vox has this story. Thanks to contributor Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

In Missouri, Ben Baker has introduced legislation to ban Drag Queen Story Time. The legislation goes so far as to threaten a librarian with prison if he or she holds this event. The children attending the event realize that this drag queen is playing a character, but these politicians do not. For not having the common sense of a five-year-old, Ben Baker gets a TWIT Award. This story comes from LGBTQ Nation, and reader Alyssa Washington contributed the link.

TWIT is assembled by Cecilia Barzyk with additional content and editing by Angela Gardner. Care to make a comment on this post? Login here and use the comment area below.

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Category: Transgender Community News