The Week In Trans 2/22/21

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Danica Roem

In Virginia, Delegate Danica Roem has authored a bill to ban trans and gay panic as a defense in criminal cases. The bill has passed committees in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate. This story appears in LGBTQ Nation.

A judge in California has ruled that Twitter has a right to ban a TERF for transphobic hate speech, in the form of deliberately misgendering a transgender woman. Them has this story about Meghan Murphy.

A new bill introduced into Congress would make it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity when selecting jurors. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

The Equality Act was introduced in Congress again. While Democrats do control both the House of Representatives and the Senate, there may not be enough votes to pass the act, despite it being a priority of President Biden’s. Them has this story.

Rachel Mosby

A federal judge in Georgia dismissed Rachel Mosby’s case alleging sexual discrimination when she was let go as a firefighter because she changed her gender. The dismissal is based on a technicality of the filing, and is not a judgment of the merits of the underlying case, according to Yahoo News. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

This week, the Utah House of Representatives passed its version of a bill to ban transgender females from girls’ school sports, as Deseret News reports. However, the next day’s story indicates that Governor Spencer Cox will not sign the bill as passed by the House. He talked of ongoing discussions, indicating that he might sign it after all. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

In North Dakota, there was expected to be a protest against that state’s bill on transgender athletes. Inforum has an advance notice, with no particular date. Given that it is winter in North Dakota, and there is a pandemic going on, it would not be unusual for the protest to have been cancelled.

Professor Robyn Ryle points out in Newsweek that sports have a built-in bias towards some participants, based at least in part on genetics.

Scary Mommy has a nine-year-old transgender daughter, and she knows that the “common sense” behind the transgender-females-in-sports bills is not based on reality.

Juniper Eastwood

Juniper Eastwood was a runner both before and after a medical transition. 406 Montana Sports has an interview with her.

Governor Spencer Cox of Utah also expressed reservations about a bill that would forbid doctors from medically treating gender dysphoria in minors. The House Health and Human Services Committee sent the bill back to the House Rules Committee, where it is expected to stay for the rest of the legislative session. The Salt Lake Tribune has this story.

A new bill in Alabama would make it a crime for teachers to not tell parents that their child has come out as transgender at school. This would take away the one place some transgender students have where they can express their true selves. This story comes from them.

A proposed bill in Iowa would ban anti-bias training and protect “unwelcome, disagreeable, or even offensive” speech. Of course, they would find a way around this if the disagreeable speech were to disagree with them. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

The Human Rights Campaign and Marie Claire have lists of the anti-transgender legislation that is under consideration at various state legislatures.

Transgender people are praising President Biden for moving fast to abolish the ban on transgender people in the military. WCJB-TV has this story.

A new report from Media Matters for America notes that the major television news networks dedicated little time to reporting on anti-transgender violence last year.

Chyna Cardena (a.ka. Chyna Carillo.)

A transgender woman died after being assaulted with a blunt instrument. Police in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, tried to get the assailant to stop, and when he would not, they shot him. He, too, died. WKBN-TV has this story about Chyna Cardena, also known as Chyna Carillo.

More details are coming out about the death last week of Alexus Braxton. She is the subject of a story in People magazine.

South Dakota state Senator Red Dawn Foster, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, has proposed two new bills to protect the Native American Two-Spirits in South Dakota. Native News has details.

The Gloucester County School Board has filed an appeal to the Supreme Court in the case of Gavin Grimm. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in his favor last August; it was the second time that the court ruled the school board’s policy was unconstitutional. This story comes from The Advocate.

A new study has found that efforts to combat COVID-19 have been hard on the mental health of LGBTQ people. The report comes from Just Like Us, and a story about it appears in Them.

Medscape has a brief primer on what a doctor should do when a patient comes out as transgender.

There is an online petition demanding access to gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth. You can find a link at One Green Planet.

Elliot Page took to Instagram to let everyone know that The Umbrella Academy has begun filming season 3. Them has this story.

Fox

An online petition calls for Fallon Fox to replace Gina Carano in The Mandalorian. Disney has not announced what will happen to the character. There is also an online petition to bring Gina Carano back, according to the story in Sportskeeda.

Brian Michael Smith discusses his role in 9-1-1 Lone Star in the latest installment of LGBTQ&A at The Advocate.

Shakina Nayfack’s play Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club is now available on Audible. The storyline involves a group of transgender women who meet in Thailand. Other transgender actresses appear, according to The Advocate.

Laverne Cox popped up on The View, talking of her new love. He is 22 years younger than her, and she is trying to keep him out of the public spotlight, but she is talking about him. PinkNews has this story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Fans of famed female impersonator The Cuban Legend, David de Alba, will be happy to hear that David’s number one fan, Mario Jimenez, has posted another video about David on YouTube.

Precious Brady-Davis has a new memoir coming out, titled I Have Always Been Me. There’s a preview in them.

Munroe Bergdorf

Munroe Bergdorf has left Twitter. She said she has received racist and transphobic abuse online, and said that Twitter is not a safe place for transgender people. Them has this story.

Nicole Gibson will go through vocal cord surgery to sound more feminine. She will be among the first patients in Britain to receive the surgery, according to The Daily Mail.

There is an effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom, largely over his handling of COVID-19. One person who announced that she does not want to be part of this recall effort is Caitlyn Jenner. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Travis Alabanza

British playwright and performer Travis Alabanza appears in a new ad campaign for Pantene, alongside their mother. They wanted to do the campaign in order to show young transgender and non-binary people that they can come out to their families and to the world. PinkNews has this story.

Out.com has a story about how drag queen Jackie Cox became the “face” of Orbitz’s ad campaign Orbuttz.

ILGA-Europe gave the U.K. a low grade in its latest report on LGBTQ life, in large part because of transphobia. From celebrities to members of the government, many in Britain have expressed negative thoughts about transgender people this year. Those thoughts have led to an increase in hate crimes against transgender people. Them has this story, and PinkNews has additional analysis. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Ulricka Jonnson is a writer and television presenter in Britain. She stepped into a controversy about acceptance of transgender people, starting off with an inaccurate but common misinterpretation of the guidebook from a British hospital, which supplied gender-neutral terms for pregnant people and such, but which clearly said that staff were not required to use these terms exclusively in place of traditional terms. She went on from there. She insists that she is not transphobic, but you can judge for yourself at PinkNews.

175 transgender people were murdered in Brazil last year, according to a new report. This likely is an undercount, as such counts often miss people who had not come out publicly or who had not yet changed their legal name or gender. This sad statistic is examined in a story in PinkNews.

Thu Nguyen

29-year-old Thu Nguyen recently announced a run for an at-large seat on the City Council in Worcester, Mass. If elected, Nguyen would be the city’s first nonbinary City Councilor — Nguyen doesn’t identify exclusively as a man or a woman. Learn more from Telegram & Gazette.

Voluntary Health Services has trained 25 members of the transgender community to provide mental health services to others in the transgender community. The Hindu has this story.

A group of transgender people held a nude protest in Jammu, India. Transgender people in the area have been missing out on many opportunities, and recently, four of their community say they were abducted and castrated by a rival group. This story appears in Down To Earth.

Police in Hyderabad, India, are adding a special desk at their Cyberabad Police division, specifically to deal with transgender people. The idea is to have some police people who are familiar with the transgender community, who know how to interact with them and can understand their concerns. The Hindu has this story.

The rash of bills aimed at transgender people, especially transgender youth, caused Georgia Public Broadcasting to take a look at some who would be directly impacted by the new legislation if it becomes law.

Bobrisky

Bobrisky is a Nigerian transgender woman who is very active in social media. She is being applauded for paying for the medical treatments for a cancer patient. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Isaac Amend is a transgender man attending Yale University. He wants to debunk a few myths about transgender people. His piece appears in The Washington Blade.

Parrish Turner notices that a lot of books trying to talk to children about transgender people tend to use animals as stand-ins for transgender people. This has its problems, as he points out in School Library Journal.

TWITs

The bills limiting the rights of transgender people which are currently being considered in various state legislatures not only cover similar ideas, but often share the same language. This is evidence of some organization coordinator. That coordinator is none other than the Alliance Defending Freedom. For creating a campaign to deny others rights, the ADF gets yet another TWIT Award. NBC News has this report.

An article in The Daily Signal notes that Planned Parenthood is offering medical services to transgender people in areas where transgender people have trouble finding doctors. Being a far-right publication of the Heritage Foundation, The Daily Signal is hardly happy about this situation. For excessive editorialization and for exaggerating the potential negative impact of HRT, The Daily Signal gets a TWIT.

A TikTok post says that new laws would require teachers or doctors to examine girls who want to participate in sports, to make sure that they are girls. Politifact reports that none of the proposed laws would require a teacher to examine girls, but that several laws do mention getting a note from a doctor. LGBTQ Nation has a story about the proposed law in Georgia, which suggests a panel of three doctors be empowered to settle any dispute over a girl’s gender. All lawmakers who want to burden doctors during a pandemic with the task of verifying genders of girls so that they can play sports share a TWIT Award.

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