The Week In Trans, 2/24/20

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Angela Bridgeman

Two transgender candidates are running for the state legislature in North Carolina. Grey Ellis is mentioned in the headline, but Angela Bridgeman also gets a good bit of space in a profile piece at The Daily Beast.

We are almost two months into 2020, and so far, transgender people are still being murdered at a high rate. The Advocate has this story.

A week after a four-year-old video of Mike Bloomberg saying that transgender rights were a hard sell came to light, another video came to light this week, in which Mike Bloomberg was complaining about candidates talking about transgender civil rights, which he still saw as not resonating with the public last year. Buzzfeed has this story. Thanks to contributor Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Morman Church, has released a new ministerial handbook. A FAQ on the guidelines say, “It encourages church participation for those who identify as transgender,” although temple ordinances are received according to birth sex, so transgender people are encouraged to participate according to their “birth sex”. You can find this story at KSL-TV.

Rev. Kori Pacyniak

The Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement, a breakaway group of Catholics who believe in the ordination of women as priests, has ordained the Reverend Kori Pacyniak, their first non-binary priest. The San Diego Union Tribune has this story.

The legislatures of three states advanced bills limiting participation in school sports prior to college according to gender assigned at birth, at least for girls sports.

• In Arizona, the bill seems to allow a note from a doctor to confirm the gender, according to a report in Metro Weekly. This one also allows the family of a girl who lost a spot to a transgender female to sue.
• In Alabama, the “Gender Is Real Legislation” was said to be stalled in committee earlier in the week, according to Alabama Daily News, but did advance from committee to the state House of Representatives later in the week. The AP has this story.
• In Idaho, the bill is limited to girls sports. It passed the committee and is going on to the state House of Representatives. Idaho News has this story.
• In Missouri, a member of the state House of Representatives wants the matter to go to the ballot, for the people to decide. Parents of transgender children appeared before the committee, and some of them brought their children with them, according to The Springfield News-Leader.
• Anne Lieberman wrote about how sports participation builds character and how that could help transgender people in an editorial for The Hill.
• A transgender woman has joined a local league to play hockey at age 45. Kelowna Capital News has this story from British Columbia.
• We told you last week about three girls in Connecticut suing because a transgender woman is competing against them. One of those girls, Chelsea Mitchell, beat that transgender girl, Terry Miller, in a race this week. Pink News points out that this undermines her case.

Many of the pieces of legislation that are aimed at transgender people are coming from Project Biltz, a group which brings ready-made conservative legislation to state legislators, who can then introduce the measure in their states. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Nikki Kuhnhausen

Washington state Representative Sharon Wylie introduced a bill named for a deceased constituent of hers, Nikki Kuhnhausen. The legislation would limit transgender panic as a legal defense. This story comes from The Columbian.

Some schools have dealt with the issue of transgender student restroom use by creating a few individual-user restrooms to augment the larger, multi-user restrooms. When the number of individual-user restrooms is not large, some students can monopolize that space, and crowd out transgender students. A high school in Santa Paula, California, tried to prevent that by having students ask for a key for an individual-user restroom, but that tended to out the transgender students who might otherwise use an individual-user restroom. That policy has changed, and students no longer need to ask for a key to use an individual-user restroom. You can read about this in The Ventura County Star.

A study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh shows that transgender youth often avoid telling their doctors about their gender identity, even when they know that this information is important to getting them good health care. WILX-TV has this story from NBC.

Sol Hall

Sol Hall, a transgender man from Victoria, Australia, shared a video of the moment he saw himself after top surgery on Youtube. He received some positive feedback, and shared his story with Yahoo lifestyle.

When Irene Brank chose to speak at the Power Of Women series sponsored by the Worcester, Mass., Regional Chamber of Commerce, she talked about her transgender daughter, who is now 22, and how she let her daughter know that she accepted her daughter’s gender identity. Irene, a human resources professional, then talked about how the same sorts of acts could show acceptance of a transgender co-worker. The Worcester Telegram has this story.

A few months ago, the advice column Ask Amy featured a letter from a transgender college student whose parents continued to deadname him. This week, the same column featured two letters written in reaction to that letter and Amy’s reply. You can find it at The Denver Post.

WTTW-TV reports that an inmate in Illinois says that a transgender prisoner raped her, and that the Department of Corrections did not do a thorough investigation of her complaint when it was an internal matter.

Christine Hallquist

Christine Hallquist, the transgender businesswoman who ran for Governor of Vermont last year, has announced an endorsement of Bernie Sanders for President. Pink News has this story.

Elizabeth Warren said at a town hall that she would consider a non-binary or gender non-conforming person for vice president on her ticket. You can find this story at Pink News.

Alex Myers, a trans man, wrote a book called Continental Divide, about a trans man cut off from his family and living in Wyoming. The book is fiction, but contains some of the author’s own experiences, according to Laramie Live.

The new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race will premiere on Showtime, with episodes coming to VH1 later. Both channels are owned by ViacomCBS. Variety has this story.

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is among the panelists who will be guest judges of the season 12 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, according to Out magazine. That announcement brought the expected derision from right-wing commentators. Borrowing a line from the show, the Representative told her critics, “Go back to party city.” You can see this response in LGBTQ Nation.

Alexis Atauri is proposing that drag queens should unionize for better working conditions. Out magazine has this story.

Trans contestant Ciara.

The Bravo series Blind Date has a transgender woman as a contestant, according to Pink News.

Out magazine has a long piece in its print issue and on the web about the need for a new transgender tipping point in Hollywood. It is the cover story of their new print issue.

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, showed his agreement with the Labour Party’s support of transgender rights in a tweet. You can find the tweet and reaction to it at Pink News.

A small but noisy group of protestors complained about the Labour Party’s support of the rights of transgender women at a recent public event. Lisa Nandy, a candidate for Labour Party leadership, said that she would “redouble her efforts” to support the rights of transgender people. Pink News has the story.

Three candidates for Labour Party leadership in Parliament, including Lisa Nandy, released details of how they plan to support the rights of transgender people if elected. You can find this story in Pink News.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair said that he wouldn’t sign the transgender rights pledge that the Labour Party is asking its MPs to sign. He did use transgender rights as an example of “things that are right” that the party should stand for, but said that the pledge dealt with “all sorts of difficult issues that need to be resolved.” He strongly supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq, so he has shown questionable judgment before this. Pink News has more.

Andrew Brown feels, much like Michael Bloomberg, that a too-strong stance on transgender rights will be a hard sell for the Labour Party. We say that popular opinion is changing fast, with young people favoring civil rights for transgender people. You can find his opinion piece in Foreign Policy.

Camila Prins

When dancer Camila Prins entered Sao Paulo’s Carnival parade grounds, a costume of feathers clinging to her sinuous body, she fulfilled a dream of feminine beauty nearly three decades old. Last Saturday she became the first transgender woman to lead the drum section of a top samba school in either of the renowned Carnival parades put in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Learn more from ABC News.

Despite any controversy, the Scottish Parliament is moving ahead with its plan to reform the Gender Recognition Act. The Scottish Sun has this story.

In Britain, Lee Harrison is charged with arson, specifically setting fire to a transgender woman’s house. The crime was motivated by the gender identity of the woman, and even the accused admits to that. He just got a five-year prison sentence, The BBC reports. Thanks to reader Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

The British store Marks & Spencer issued a formal apology to a transgender customer, who was told that he could not use the men’s changing room. The Independent has this story.

Both The BBC and NL Times have stories about a rise in transgender people self-medicating, due to long wait lines to see doctors. This is a problem in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, as well as elsewhere.

The Netherlands removed the requirement of sterilization prior to receiving a change of gender status in 2014, but some transgender people who changed their gender status before that are now asking for an apology from the government. You can read about this in Dutch News.

Bob the Drag Queen

Bob the Drag Queen, Shangela, and Eureka O’Hara are all slated to appear in a new HBO series about the power of drag. It’s a reality series called We’re Here, and it will take the three queens across the nation as they makeover contestants in small towns. The contestants then have to perform in a drag show.

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras cancelled a panel featuring a lesbian YouTube star named Arielle Scarcella, after there were complaints about her transphobia. She admits to being anti-transgender, and entitled one of her videos, “I Won’t Apologize For Being Transphobic.” Pink News has this story.

Indonesia, a nation with a large Muslim population, is considering a bill which would require LGBTQ people to receive conversion therapy at “rehabilitation centers.” This story comes from LGBTQ Nation.

TWITs

Joan McAlpine, a member of the Scottish National Party, is hosting a seminar on March 5, entitled “Gender dysphoria/confusion in children and young people.” She has confused the reform of the Gender Recognition Act with medical treatments for gender dysphoria; the act removes the need for medical treatments in order to change gender status under the law. There is also evidence that the seminar has not done a thorough job of fact checking. For conflating things, and for not caring if she spreads lies, Joan McAlpine gets a TWIT Award. Pink News has this story.

The Leicestershire Police have been observing LGBT+ History Month in Britain by flying the flags of certain LGBT+ identities. When they flew the transgender pride flag, they expected to receive a few negative comments, but the amount of negative comments and their vileness were beyond expectations. It’s one thing to have a differing political opinion, and to express that differing opinion, but it is another thing altogether to be nasty to others. For bad manners, the people behind complaints to the Leicestershire Police about the transgender pride flag get a TWIT Award. You can read about it in Pink News.

Transgender rights are one of the civil rights issues of this time. However, since the term “civil rights” tends to invoke a positive feeling in people, people who oppose civil rights for transgender people will argue that this is not really a civil rights issue. To support this, The Daily Caller has an article in which it says that many African-Americans disagree with the idea that transgender rights are civil rights. They ignore those who do see this as a civil rights issue, and they never say any reason why transgender rights are not civil rights other than that some people don’t see them as such. For bias, and for not even trying to use logic, The Daily Caller gets a TWIT Award.

Piers Morgan is at it again. A non-binary poet read a poem about the trouble they have deciding where to get their hair cut, since barber shops serve men, and beauty salons serve women. Mr. Morgan, who never had a problem with this, insists that no one has a problem getting a haircut, despite being told of the problem. For a lack of sympathy and a failure to listen, Piers Morgan gets another TWIT. Pink News has this story.

Some parents in Wisconsin have filed a lawsuit against the Madison Metropolitan School District, opposing a policy which says that the district will not notify parents that their child has changed genders in school. The reason for this policy is that some parents do not react well when they discover that their child is transgender. So, these parents display exactly the attitude which necessitates that rule. For not seeing that their own attitude is the problem, these parents get a TWIT Award. This story can be found in Channel 3000. Thanks to reader Alyssa Washington for giving us a link to this story.

Rick Wiles is a minister with a right-wing radio show. As with so many right-wing radio hosts, he has more time to fill than cogent thoughts. He also has some guests with far-out thoughts. His guest recently were Steve and Jana Ben-Nun, a pair of Messianic Jews. Messianic Jews believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and have broken away from Judaism. Well, these two have developed some wild conspiracy theories about mainstream Jews. Among their oddball theories, they say that Jews believe that Adam, the first human, was intersex, and that Jews want everyone to return to an androgynous state. For that reason, Jews are pushing people to be transgender. The couple even claim that Jews are putting something in water and food to promote this androgyny. Their proof for that is–just that they say so. For one of the most outrageous conspiracy theories ever, Steve and Jana Ben-Nun get a TWIT. And for not questioning them much, Rick Wiles shares in their TWIT Award. Right Wing Watch 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.

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Category: Transgender Community News