The Week In Trans 11/25/19

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Monster

In a cover story for Vanity Fair, we learn that RuPaul’s drag character is named “Monster.” Or at least, we learn that is what RuPaul said in the interview. Out Magazine has this story.

RuPaul is also working on a scripted series for Netflix, called AJ and the Queen. This story also appeared in Out magazine. Moreover, Out magazine reports that Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova have created a new series for Netflix as well.

The largest study of transgender children found that those who were allowed to socially transition were virtually undistinguishable from cisgender children in terms of social development. Newsweek has this story.

Alex Tilnica is a student at Hofstra University, who is working to become Mr. Olympia. He is a transgender man. His story can be found at News 12 Long Island.

Six transgender models talked about themselves and their personal fashion styles in Who What Wear.

Over fifty transgender actors and filmmakers participated in the new movie The Garden Left Behind. Out magazine has a look at the trailer.

P.I.B. audience member.

Thirty years ago, the movie Paris Is Burning showed its audience the ballroom scene for transgender people of color in New York City. In February, it will be released on Blu-ray for the first time, and a new DVD version will be released by Criterion as well. The new version will include quite a bit of previously unreleased footage, as LGBTQ Nation notes.

Hillary Clinton published a statement about transgender people on her Facebook account. Entitled, “Trans rights are human rights,” she begins with the statement, “Let me be clear: transgender people deserve nothing short of full equality.” She went on to remind us that while she was Secretary of State, she eased the rules for changing gender on a passport. She is still trying to recover from an interview with the Sunday Times, in which she appeared to sympathize with TERFs. The Advocate has this story.

This week marked Transgender Day of Remembrance. Dawn Ennis wrote about what this day means. Her story appears in The Daily Beast. (CNN also had a good story on TDOR.)

USA Today took a look how the death of a transgender person impacts family and friends.

Some transgender people and allies in Jacksonville, Florida, have tweeked Transgender Day Of Remembrance into Transgender Day Of Resilience, announcing that transgender people are not going to go away. The Florida Times-Union has this story.

Susan Miller of USA Today looks at 2019 as a year of gains and losses for transgender people, and notes that many still misunderstand who transgender people are.

Daniela Claderon-Rivera

Also on Transgender Day of Remembrance, people gathered to urge local authorities in Dallas to keep looking for whoever attacked Daniela Claderon-Rivera. The person who shot her six times has not been found. The Dallas Morning News carried this story.

Nancy Pelosi made a statement on Transgender Day of Remembrance, as The Advocate noted. However, that evening, the Democratic candidates for president had a debate, at which Transgender Day of Remembrance was not brought up, as The Advocate notes in a separate story.

Also for Transgender Day of Remembrance, The Advocate carried a commentary from Dr. Julie Nemecek, about the case of Aimee Stephens which is currently before the Supreme Court.

CNN decided to use Transgender Awareness Week as a chance to run their list of transgender people who made history this year.

Trans activist Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, wasn’t going to go viral since he kept a low online profile. That changed when he acquired a brood of just the cutest puppies. They went viral. Thanks to Ms. Bob Davis for the link to the story in The Bay Area Reporter.

Trixie Mattel, Shangela, and Sasha Velour made the Out magazine list of 100 Out entertainers. The magazine gave the three drag performers an article.

Charlene Incarnate

Charlene Incarnate also caught the attention of Out magazine. The drag performer was named the Showgirl Of The Year.

Last week saw more than half the employees of the National Center for Transgender Equality choose to take a buyout package rather than continue to work for the organization. This week, the Nonprofit Professional Employees Union filed a complaint that workers who tried to organize a union had been retaliated against. You can read the union’s press release at on their website.

The Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign has released a new t-shirt, which proclaims the legend, “Phenomenally Trans.” Out.com says that the profits support community organizations working for justice for transgender people.

The state of Michigan has become the latest state to update its procedures for changing the gender marker on state ID cards and drivers licenses. The new policy is self-declaration, with the person filling out a form and paying a fee of $9 to change a drivers license and one dollar more to change a state ID card. A new photo will be taken, and a new card will be issued. The Detroit Free Press has this story. It also says that the option for a non-binary gender is coming, once all the software is updated to accept a third option.

Out magazine has a guest editorial which says that every transgender person needs corrected ID. Many thanks to Alyssa Washington and reader Christie Wo for contributing links to this story.

Erika Klash

A security guard a a Whataburger restaurant in Austin, Texas, refused entry to a drag performer, claiming that the performer was a “security risk.” This particular performer, Erika Klash, does use elaborate make-up, with elements of anime cosplay and notes of horror. Yes, this can be intense, but is that really a reason to deny someone food? LGBTQ Nation has this story. Thanks to alert reader Alyssa Washington for sending along this link.

Los Angeles is opening “bridge housing” for homeless transgender people. Curbed LA has this story.

The Web Integrity Project decided to take a look at how government websites have handled certain topics since Donald Trump took over, and the results are not positive for LGBTQ people. You can see some specifics from Fast Company. (Two specifics: The Centers for Disease Control uses the term “LGB” rather than “LGBTQ” and has hidden transgender statistics from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, and the Department of Health and Human Services has had a marked decrease in the word “transgender” in reports.)

Transgender students are often bullied in school, and the Department of Education is unwilling to enforce policies which would protect transgender students. In some cases, online education is the best alternative, as The Advocate reports.

Bullies don’t quit bullying after they leave high school. Online bullies in Morgantown, West Virginia forced a library to cancel their Drag Queen Storytime event. Then over 100 people filled the sidewalk in front of the Morgantown Public Library last Saturday morning for the Drag Queen Storytime Support Rally. Thanks to Jamie Roberts for the links.

Hannah Sadler is a veteran of the Marine Corps who has since transitioned genders. She credits the VA Healthcare System in Alaska for saving her life by helping with her gender transition. KTUU-TV has this story.

An egg from a transgender man was fertilized, then implanted in his wife, who carried and gave birth to the couple’s son. You can read about this in The New York Post.

Estrella Vázquez

The muxe of southern Mexico are the subject of the cover story of Vogue for the Mexican and British editions. Estrella Vázquez, a muxe, will be on the cover. NBC News has the story from Reuters.

The American Medical Association had a meeting of its House of Delegates. The organization came up with guidelines for legislation banning conversion therapy, which they plan to encourage Congress and state legislatures to adopt. On a more practical note, the body recommended that electronic health records for transgender people have more options than just “male” or “female,” and that they include relevant data if the patient approves. This story comes from Healio.

For the first time, chlamydia has been reported in the neo-vagina of a transgender woman. Healio has this story.

A study on the effects of hormone replacement therapy found that those taking testosterone had greater insulin sensitivity, while those taking estrogen had decreased insulin sensitivity. Both groups were measured before beginning hormone therapy and after being on hormones for one year. You can read about this in Healio.

The CBC reports that some politicians in British Columbia spent Transgender Day Of Remembrance seeing a new documentary about a transgender male supermodel from their province, Krow, who joined them for the event.

The wait time to see a gender specialist under Britain’s NHS is still way too long, as The Guardian reminds us.

A British police officer named Henry Miller has complained to a court that the ban on anti-LGBTQ “hate speech” violates the principle of free speech. The Guardian has this story.

Ricky “Rikki” Nathanson

Rikki Nathanson was arrested and tried for using the ladies’ room at a bar in Zimbabwe. This week, she won damages for unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution, as well as emotional distress. The story of this decision, the first of its type in Zimbabwe, can be found in The Advocate.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation recently launched a committee to research the history of gender and sexually nonconforming people. The group plans to create a source book for interpreters and guides to use at Colonial Williamsburg while interacting with the half a million people who visit the historical site every year. Get more info from The Washington Post. Thanks to Jamie Roberts for the link.

Lieutenant Colonel Anastasia Biefang is the first transgender commander in the German military. She is also the subject of a documentary film, as Deutsche Weldt.

Emma Ellingsen

Emma Ellingsen is a transgender girl who has been making a name for herself in her native Norway. She just turned 18, and is now old enough to get gender confirmation surgery in her home country. The Daily Mail has a profile.

The city of San Francisco recently paid $13,000 to the transgender activist known as the “Supergirl of San Francisco” to settle a First Amendment lawsuit brought against it. In April 2017 to hold a one-person demonstration against police inaction on a physical attack she said that she experienced four months earlier and she was intimidated her. Thanks to Ms.Bob Davis for the link to the story in The Bay Area Reporter.

Pope Francis has at times told people who work with LGBTQ people that he supports what they do, then make statements agreeing with anti-LGBTQ sentiments. This week, in a speech that touched on many topics, he said of some anti-LGBTQ legislation, “These are actions that are typical of Nazism, that with its persecution of Jews, gypsies, people with homosexual orientation, represent an excellent model for the throw away culture and culture of hatred.” This is just one line in a long speech on many topics, and it is not accompanied by any action, even within the Catholic Church. The Associated Press has this story.

TWITs

Caroline Farrow is a Brit who is known for her anti-LGBTQ activities. She kept harassing a transgender lawyer until a court ordered her to stop that. Now, largely because of her legal difficulties, she has been denied permission to enter the U.S. So, naturally, she blames LGBTQ people. For failing to take responsibility for her own actions, and for playing the part of the victim, Caroline Farrow gets a TWIT Award. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Alongside stories about how the investigation of Donald Trump’s actions is an attempt at a coup and a story comparing Donald Trump to Bobby Fischer playing 3-D chess, PJ Media has a story about a 19-year-old detransitioner who is so horrified with the results of gender confirmation surgery. Behind this story is none other than Walt Heyer, promoting this narrative. Walt has shown lately that he is either incredibly clueless or willing to lie in order to make transgender people look bad. (He repeated the lie that a seven-year-old was about to be “chemically castrated,” even though he knew that there was no way a child that young would get cross-sex hormones. And yet, PJ Media is willing to promote whatever Walt Heyer says. As for the particular story, this detransitioner likely had a very unrealistic expectation of surgical results. Also, it ought to occur to someone that, if detransitioning were such a large phenomenon, we should be hearing statistics about detransitioning, rather than just a very occasional story about one detransitioner. For believing to a lying self-promoter, and for bad logic in general, PJ Media gets a TWIT. (PJ Media this week also published a story which refers to puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy as “experimental transgender drugs.”)

The Christian Broadcasting Network decided that Transgender Awareness Week was a good time to run an article entitled, “‘Mom, I’m Transgender’: Parents Grapple As Trans Phenomenon Explodes.” The article tells of parents who refuse to accept their child’s gender identity, as though that is how Christians are supposed to act. (Jesus never told anyone that they would suffer eternal punishment because they failed to accept someone else’s identity.) For promoting dissent in the family and the sort of animosity which leads to suicide ideation (hardly in keeping with their claim to be “pro-life”), CBN gets a TWIT Award.

South Carolina state Representative Stewart Jones has filed House bill 4716, which he callse the “Youth Gender Reassignment Prevention Act.” The bill would punish doctors for helping a minor to change genders through any medical means. This comes while medical studies keep finding that transitioning at a young age is very beneficial to transgender people. For attempting to forbid the practice which medical studies show produces the best results, South Carolina state Representative Stewart Jones gets a TWIT Award. Out magazine has this story.

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.

Tags: featured, news, Transgender, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News