The Week In Trans 2/10/20

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One of Green’s photos.

Fashion photographer Ethan James Green, who is known for his striking black-and-white style, shot a group of close friends for Alexander McQueen. The resulting set of high-fashion photos featured three transgender women. The photographs can be found in The Cut.

USA Today has a story about the various bills which would outlaw transition medicine or surgery for minors. While the article tries to be balanced, it seems unable to keep from presenting the sponsors of these bills as uneducated on the subject.

Dr. Jack Turban is a physician who works with some transgender children. He writes about how the current medical standards for treating gender dysphoria in adolescents has changed their lives for the better. His article appears in The New York Times.

More than 200 medical professionals in the South have signed on to a letter which urges lawmakers to not outlaw puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery for minors. NBC News has this story.

Jazz Jennings

In Tallahassee, the Health Quality Subcommittee of the Florida House of Representatives had a hearing on Florida’s bill to restrict medical treatment of gender dysphoria in minors. The South Florida Sun Sentinel tells us that Jeanette Jennings, mother of Jazz Jennings, and her two sons were at the hearing. The Miami Herald reports that although the subcommittee held a hearing, they did not hold a vote. The bill will not advance without a vote from that subcommittee. Thanks to contributor Alyssa Washington for sending a link to this story.

Kentucky will soon be considering its bill to ban medical care for gender dysphoria in minors. An article about some of the transgender teens who would be affected by this bill appears in The Lexington Herald-Leader, which also has an opinion piece by some of the medical professionals who treat transgender teens.

Also in Kentucky, a transgender woman is running for a seat in the state legislature. She is using opposition to these bills as a point in her election campaign. She is profiled by WKYT-TV.

Axios has a report on where these bills stand in various states.

Melvin Miller, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was convicted of killing a transgender woman and her boyfriend in suburban New Orleans. Although the verdict came in on the sixth anniversary of the killing, the trial itself began on Monday, and the jury took less than two hours to reach its verdict on Thursday. WVUE-TV has this story.

Danica Roem

In Virginia, Delegate Danica Roem introduced a bill to add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing anti-discrimination legislation. She made a speech about it, accusing those who vote against the bill of discrimination. This story appears in The Virginia Mercury.

Senators Amy Klobuchar and Lisa Murkowski introduced a bill to strengthen penalties for hate crimes. The bill would change the current standard to say that bias need only be a “substantial motivating factor,” not the sole motivating factor, in order for a crime to be designated as a hate crime. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

This week, a video emerged showing presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg talking at Oxford in 2016, saying how hard it can be to get the masses to agree with some things that “the intelligentsia” have come to believe about equality. He said, “You want to know is somebody a good salesman, give them the job of going to the Midwest and picking a town and selling that town on the concept that some man wearing a dress should be in a locker room with their daughter.” This comment, reported in The Advocate, says something about him, and yet, he seems to have evolved his positions since he made those remarks. Just this week, he talked of the need to do something about the rise in murders of black transgender women. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

WTKR-TV has a feature on the danger trans women of color face with a focus on the story of a transgender woman who was threatened with a gun and shot, but survived the incident.

Rowen Moore, the architecture critic for The Observer, calls for an end to baiting transgender people on Twitter, then retweeting the reaction without the original tweet, and saying, “This is what transgender advocates are like.”

Recently, stories appeared saying that Janelle Monàe had come out as non-binary. It turns out that she had retweeted a Steven Universe tweet that supports non-binary people. Vic Parsons of Pink News looks at the stories in the media about this, and finds one that has a good angle.

Marsha P. Johnson

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced this week that East River State Park in Brooklyn is being renamed Marsha P. Johnson State Park. LGBTQ Nation has this story. Thanks to reader Alyssa Washington for sending a link to this story.

The American Bar Association Journal has an article about transgender people who find it hard to legally change their names in some states, after they were convicted of a felony.

Intuit had a summit for transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming employees and their bosses this week. Also at the summit was a panel of five students, ages 11 to 17. Dawn Ennis covered it in Forbes.

Last week, we heard about the commercial from Starbucks that is playing in the U.K. Starbucks has been presenting itself as friendly to transgender people for a while. However, Buzzfeed has found that there are problems with some managers and supervisors not being onboard with the image the company wants to promote, as well as problems getting insurance to cover transgender medical expenses for trans employees.

A student in North Carolina is suing his school district, because he says the lack of restroom access for transgender students led to a worsening of his kidney problems. This story comes from The Charlotte Observer. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Just as some states are talking about limiting medical treatment for transgender patients under age 18, new research shows what appear to be “gene variants” that can affect the masculinization of the brain–either promoting masculinization that should not happen or preventing masculinization that should happen. You can read about this in EurekAlert, or read the entire paper in Nature.

Schuyler Bailar, who swam for Harvard, talks about being a transgender athlete in an interview with Sea Coast Online.

Katrina C. Rose managed to find and review a copy of Dinah East, a cheap 1970 film in which a famous ’50s actress is found to be a man after her death. The film is so forgotten that those who remembered it at all thought to be forever lost. Fortunately Rose found it on DVD. Her review is found in LGBTQ Nation.

Trans Scripts Part I: The Women is a play whose dialogue comes from interviews the playwright did with transgender women. Seven transgender actresses will perform the play in Vancouver, in what will be the play’s Canadian premiere, March 12-21. Broadway World has this story.

I Am My Own Wife is a play based on the story of a transgender woman in Germany during the time of the Nazis. A new production by The Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven uses a non-binary actor in the lead role, and transgender and non-binary people both on stage and in the crew. You can read more about the production in The Hartford Courant.

Sasha Velour

The first trailer for Sasha Velour’s new television show has been released. Out magazine has a link and a story.

For more coverage of trans people and issues in entertainment check out our TransTainment column.

Did you known that avoiding transphobia is good for your complexion? Well, that’s the beauty tip from Nicola Coughlan, who plays a “wee lesbian” on the British television series, Derry Girls. Pink News has this story.

From time to time, a rumor pops up that someone on some reality show is transgender. The new one is Haley Vernon, on the show Married At First Sight. She is not transgender, but she is a body builder, according to Who.

An online study aims to determine whether there are any differences in how transgender and cisgender people recognize gendered bodies and objects while being eye tracked. If you are interested in participating in this study being conducted by a Lecturer in Social and Health Psychology at Nottingham Trent University visit the study page for more details.

It has been said for a few weeks that there was a High Court case in Britain that attempted to overturn transgender rights. Such a case has now been filed. A 13-year-old girl is trying to argue that a guidance which supports the rights of transgender people puts her at risk. The BBC has this story, while additional details can be found in Pink News.

As the Labour Party continues to look for new leadership in the British House of Commons, several of the top candidates are expressing their support for transgender rights. Pink News has a story about Dawn Butler, who has made a name for herself by pushing the Conservative Party to speed up reform of the Gender Recognition Act, joining the ballot for Deputy Leader.

Nur Sajat

Nur Sajat, a social media celebrity from Malaysia who is a transgender woman, visited Mecca. She shared pictures of herself, wearing a woman’s prayer dress, visiting some of the holiest sites of Islam. As might be expected, this led to some complaints, followed by complaints about the complaints. You can find this story in Free Malaysia Today.

Sir Keir Starmer is the frontrunner in the fight for leader of the Labour Party in the House of Commons. He mentioned his strong support of transgender rights in a place where many people are known to oppose transgender rights: Mumsnet. You can read about it in Pink News.

Emily Thornberry, a challenger for the leadership of the Labour Party, also took to Mumsnet to voice her support of the rights of transgender people. She used to think quite differently about the issue, but her views have evolved, she said. Pink News has this story as well.

When Britain legalized same-sex marriage, they did not amend the Marriage Act, but rather created a new act, specifically for same-sex couples. One consequence of this is that the spouse of a transgender person has to agree to move the marriage from the Marriage Act to the act for same-sex couples, or else the transgender person cannot transition. Baroness Hunt, who until last year was in charge of the LGBTQ charity Stonewall, told the House of Lords about this. You can read the story in Pink News.

A woman in Britain is now on trial for having written some very transphobic things in a series of tweets, including one in which she called a transgender woman a “pig in a wig.” The Daily Mail has this story, though they are quite sympathetic to the defendant.

Self-proclaimed “King of the Transphobes” Graham Linehan is creating a list of “gender critical” therapists in Ireland. This is not a term that has been used much before, but many people assume that it refers to practitioners of conversion therapy. Conversion therapy is still legal in Ireland, according to Pink News.

Victim Lauren Jackson

The Idaho man who beat a trans woman when he found she had used a women’s bathroom at an Oregon coast park has been found guilty. His attack on her was so severe that he fractured her skull and broke her jaw. He was sentenced Friday to nearly six years in prison. Oregon Live has the story.

The Advertising Standards Association has told the LGB Alliance that they have received several complaints about their recent newspaper ad, “Press Pause on the Gender Recognition Act.” The ASA said that they found the ad to be “potentially misleading.” Pink News has this story.

Aaron Devor of the University of Victoria in western Canada hosts an annual conference called Moving Trans History Forward, and curates the Transgender Archives at the university. He is profiled in University Affairs.

Five men in Nepal have been arrested in connection with the murder of a transgender woman, who was strangled after the men refused to pay her for sex work. The New York Daily News has this story.

Police in Pattaya, Thailand, warned a transgender woman to be nice to tourists, after she apparently yelled at a tourist who took her picture without her permission. The Pattaya Mail has this story.

In Tiblisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia, a transgender woman was attacked in a supermarket, where she works. This story comes from OC Media.

TWITs

A new book about Donald Trump, entitled Sinking In The Swamp, by Lachlan Markay and Asawin Suebsaeng, is about to be released. Some excerpts from the book have been made public, and in one of them, Donald Trump refers to MSNBC reporter Katy Tur as “that b**** with the t***** dad.” (Her father, Zoey Tur, transitioned to female in 2013.) For treating others in a way that he would not allow others to treat him, Donald Trump gets a TWIT Award. Gold plated, of course. The Advocate has this story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for providing us with a link to this story.

Dwayne Bensing, a lawyer for the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education, once released emails which revealed how the department was hoping to undermine the rights of transgender students, and how the department’s lawyers were uncertain whether the department had the legal authority to undertake those actions. Despite the fact that the Whistleblower Protection Act should have protected his job Bensing was moved to doing administrative duties and then told by the head of the department he had lost trust with him and Bensing would be removed. Rather than fight it Bensing submitted his resignation. The Office of Civil Rights managers get a TWIT. This story can be found in Pink News.

A California field organizer for the presidential campaign of Elizabeth Warren was filmed by Project Veritas saying, “no one gives a f*** about a g**damn pronoun.” While some blame has to go to Project Veritas, which is notorious for pushing people to say something out of emotion, which they will then exploit (often out of context), we have to admit that this seems to be a case where their video is more accurate than usual. We give a TWIT Award to Angel Alicea. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

In the same week that saw the release of a video of Michael Bloomberg from four years ago, in which he says that ordinary people could not understand transgender rights, Bill Maher used his HBO show to attack Elizabeth Warren for her support of transgender rights. To be fair, it is not so much the fact that she supports transgender rights that gets him, it’s the fact that she is so vocal about it. He seems to think that she will lose credibility in “the heartland” (also known as “fly-over land”) because of her vocal support of transgender rights. Nonetheless, Mr. Maher is not subtle, calling transgender rights “crazy stuff,” and later saying that this was a “boutique issue in a Walmart nation.” For perpetuating a problem instead of seeking a solution, Bill Maher gets a TWIT Award. You can find this story in Pink News.

Tony Perkins has written two pieces with a distinct anti-transgender tone. (Note: the author is not Anthony Perkins, the actor; he died in 1992, of complications from AIDS. This is the head of the Family Research Council, a pressure group which has been described as a hate group.) He wrote one piece about “transgender regret,” tying it in to Starbucks. (Apparently, he doesn’t read Buzzfeed.) He claims that the relatively few stories of transgender regret are “horror stories.” The stories of children who are sexually molested by priests and ministers are real horror stories. To paraphrase his headline, “After reading these horror stories of pedophile clergy, how can you attend church?” Mind you, Tony Perkins and his friends always overlook their own involvement in causing transgender regret, which often comes from rejection by friends and families–rejection which Mr. Perkins and his followers encourage. For complaining about a problem he helps to cause, Tony Perkins gets a TWIT Award. LifeSiteNews has this article.

The other TWIT Award winning article by Perkins is about the emotional and negative reaction of one mother to her child getting a double mastectomy. This mother spoke about it to the South Dakota legislature. You can find that article at The Daily Signal.

Lynn Meagher, who appears in Tony Perkins’ first article, is the subject of a long article in The Christian Post. She goes into detail about how she “lost two kids to the transgender cult,” and she “want[s] them back”. She could have still had them, had she been compassionate and understanding. But, Pink News has an article in which her children describe her attempts at manipulating them. For a lack of compassion and attempted manipulation, Lynn Meagher gets a TWIT, and the Christian Post gets a TWIT for giving her a platform.

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