The Week In Trans 11/9/20

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Sarah McBride

In the United States, last Tuesday was Election Day. While some ballots in the presidential election are still being recounted, and court challenges have been filed, many local elections have clear winners. In Delaware, Sarah McBride won election to the state Senate. She is the first openly transgender person to be elected to the upper chamber of a state legislature. CNN has this story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Taylor Small was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives. She is the first transgender person to win statewide election in Vermont, according to WCAX-TV.

Stephanie Byers, a retired teacher, is the first transgender person elected to the state legislature in Kansas. She is also the first transgender person of color to win statewide election in the U.S. The Hill has this story.

Mauree Turner, a 27-year-old, non-binary Black Muslim, unseated an incumbent to win election to the Oklahoma state House of Representatives. Their story can be found at LGBTQ Nation.

Brianna Titone

Brianna Titone barely won election to the Colorado state House of Representatives in 2018, in what had been a reliably conservative district. Some conservative groups wanted to reclaim her seat, which they felt was vulnerable. Unfortunately, some of those groups used nasty anti-LGBTQ advertising in the attempt to unseat Colorado’s only transgender state representative. Colorado Public Radio has this story. She won re-election anyway.

Harper’s Bazaar has a run-down of the stories of various transgender politicians who won election on Tuesday.

Transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming representation in state legislatures nearly doubled, according to NBC News. The headline in Pink News referred to it as good news in the election.

A Joe Biden administration is expected to change several executive orders regarding transgender people. Pink News has a rundown of some of the things that a new president can change on his own.

During the days of non-stop news coverage of election results, at one point former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill had a list of a few issues that seem to drive voters away form the Democratic party. One of them was “transsexuals.” Not the rights of transgender people, but “transsexuals.” (She also mentioned gay marriage, abortion, and gun safety as issues that drive voters away.) She later apologized for the remark, but the damage was done. The Advocate has this story.

Jennifer Williams

Jennifer Williams is a transgender woman, an LGBTQ advocate, and a Republican with libertarian leanings. She wrote two articles expressing her political thoughts in this election season. One article appeared in The Advocate, and focused on her support for a Democrat in a race for the U.S. House. The other article focused on the presidential election, and appeared in Al Jazeera.

An overwhelming majority of LGBTQ voters cast their ballots for Joe Biden as president. However, exit polling shows that Donald Trump increased his percentage share of the LGBTQ vote. (The accuracy of exit polling is less certain when there are a lot of mail-in ballots cast.) Out.com has this story.

The Boston University School of Theology held a webinar looking into the spirituality, resilience, and sense of community of transgender people of color. A story about this appears in The Daily Free Press.

Sadly, we have word that another transgender woman of color was violently killed. Angel Haynes would have turned 26 next month. Her body was found in a motel in Memphis. She had been shot in the head. WTAN-TV has this story. Alyssa Washington supplied a link to this story.

Miley Selena Fletcher, a transgender woman who is a prisoner in Pennsylvania, wrote a letter in which she alleges that she was sent to a men’s prison in retaliation for reporting a rape. She says that as a transgender woman in a men’s prison, she is “hounded by not only the male inmates, but also the guards and staff and abused physically and sexually.” Her allegations can be found in Pink News.

A law in Wisconsin forbids sex offenders from legally changing their names. One transgender woman who was convicted of a sex crime has challenged that law, saying that it puts an unconstitutional limit on free expression. A panel of judges of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case this week. Courthouse News has a summary.

Apple issued an update to iOS 14.2 this week. The update includes an emoji of the transgender pride flag, at long last, and a transgender symbol as well. There is much more to this update, according to The Verge.

Transcapsule is a new app that will allow people to document their transition journey. Toby Tozier of Portland, Maine, developed the app to keep photos, record a diary, set reminders, and notify the user of anniversaries. He has talked with many transgender people over the last four years, to get input for the app. The Southern Forecaster has this story.

A new study from Minnesota shows that transgender youth are twice as likely to suffer from depression and as much as seven times more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior than the general public. This study is summarized at Pink News.

Out.com has a list of eleven celebrities who did photo shoots in elaborate costumes for Halloween. Among them are Janelle Monáe, Angelica Ross, Jaida Essence Hall, and Pabllo Vittar.

Even as the ballots of the presidential election were being counted, Billy Porter and India Arie teamed up to sing a song of unity for the nation. You can read about it in Pink News.

Ian Alexander has joined the cast of Star Trek: Discovery. He talks about the show, and discusses the first episode of the season (which has aired, but beware of spoilers if you haven’t seen it yet) in an interview with Dawn Ennis for Forbes.

Laura Jane Grace talks about a new album and about being considered a transsgender icon in an interview with The Naples Daily News.

Tate Logan of the band Happy wrote about his transgender identity and his new punk band. Atwood magazine has his essay.

The Cluster has a list of creative transgender people to keep an eye on.

Envy Peru

Drag Race Holland has just completed its first season, and Envy Peru is the winner. Out.com has this story.

The global pandemic forced Drag Race U.K. to shut down for a while. Because of this, the show has announced its third season before the second season airs. Both seasons will air in 2021, according to Out.com.

Reports from the Disney+ series Loki say that the title character is bisexual in the series, and that the series might show Loki as gender-fluid, as the comic books describe the character. Out.com has this report.

The Times printed an interview with Margaret Atwood, in which she once again affirmed her views in support of transgender identity. The interview was taken down within a day of when it was posted, according to Pink News.

A U.K. television show called Adults Only aired an episode called Kinky For Cash. In it, a transgender escort discusses the reaction she gets when people discover what her job is. The Mirror has this story.

Zoe Luna

The Craft: Legacy was released on demand in time for Halloween. Among the cast is Zoe Luna, a transgender actress, who plays Lourdes, a character written specifically to expand the circle to include a transgender witch. The Advocate has this story.

Laxmii, a Bollywood film, is a remake of a transphobic film entitled Kanchana, and was directed by the same man, Kagnava Lawrence. It seems that he has not changed his views much in the past nine years. The new “horror comedy” is based on the same premise, that a man dressed as a woman is a serial killer. Kris Chudawala argues that this presents a problematic view of transgender people. His views appear in Huffington Post India.

Eiji Uchida is a filmmaker who immigrated from Brazil to Japan with his parents. His new film is Midnight Swan, about a dancer at a transgender nightclub. The film has been released at some theaters in Japan. Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, a cisgender male who gained fame with the boy band SMAP, plays the transgender character. Nikkei Asia has this story.

Chloe Walker appeared in a British court in both male and female modes at a sentencing hearing. She received ten months in prison for sex offenses. This story comes from The Daily Mail.

COVID-19 cases are sharply increasing in Britain, and the government is reimplementing lockdown. At this critical time, the British government is once more doing a public consultation about transgender people. This time, the specific topic is transgender people using the restroom. Pink News has this story.

A law school dean in Australia who received a lot of feedback on comments he made regarding transgender children has suddenly announced that he will retire, according to The Brisbane Times.

In Canada, a Black transgender woman died mysteriously while in police custody. Details are being withheld, as an investigation continues. Pink News has this story.

The BBC reports that a school specifically for transgender students has opened in Bangladesh.

In Hungary, a transgender woman married her cisgender fiancee. Hungary does not allow same-sex marriages, but since the government identifies transgender people by their “birth gender,” the transgender woman is male in the eyes of the law. This Reuters story comes from U.S. News And World Report.

The National Catholic Register tells of a webinar for priests in which they will hear the stories of transgender people, and hear about how some Catholics have treated them. Around 30 priests are expected to tune in.

Beatrix Jackman

Beatrix Jackman is a 19-year-old transgender woman who just made Eagle Scout. Her service project was the sourcing, creation, and distribution of self-care kits which she gave to PFLAG Austin. Upworthy has her story.

TWITs

Joel Rivera, a trans activist, was arrested in New York City and charged for carrying a megaphone at a protest. Rivera has been a leader of protests to call attention to the lives of Black trans people, which happen every Thursday. Rivera was wearing a ballgown and heels when tackled by the arresting officer. For unnecessary roughness, the police officer who made this arrest gets a TWIT Award. Pink News has this story.

Politifact had to recently debunk the still-circulating nonsense which claims that Michelle Obama is transgender. Not only is there no evidence of this, there are a significant number of people who knew her when she was growing up, who always knew her as female. For spreading a lie, and for acting as though being transgender is something evil, the people who spread this get a TWIT Award.

In a campaign stop in Detroit, Donald Trump Jr. said of the Democratic Party, “They’re more concerned about the 9,276 genders” than about blue collar workers. “I can’t list them all. I don’t have enough time and they don’t even know which ones they are,” he continued. For supporting discrimination, demeaning a group of people, and showing a lack of understanding of the issue, Donald Trump Jr. gets a TWIT Award. Pink News has this story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Zsolt Semjen, the deputy prime minister of Hungary, said in an interview that he wants to break up families which support their transgender children. He also suggested taking away the licenses of doctors who treat gender dysphoria in children. For a denial of the studies published in medical journals, and for deliberate brutality to others, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen gets a TWIT Award. You can read about it in Pink News.

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