The Week In Trans 3/2/20

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Camila Maria Concepcion, who appeared in Gentefied and Daybreak on Netflix, has died. She was a writer as well as a performer. You can read about her on Radar. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

RuPaul has created a Masterclass, in which he talks about his childhood, as well as instructs in the finer points opf the art if drag. Out.com has this story.

Drag superstars Trixie Mattel, Katya, and Bob the Drag Queen all have specials on Logo. You can read about them at Out.com.

Drag on television is fine, but live is better. Out.com tells you why.

Alaska the drag queen is demanding that trans queens be included at the LGBTQ Awards Ceremony, according to Out.com.

Camila Prins is a transgender dancer who became the first transgender woman to lead the drum section of a samba school in either of the two major Carnival parades in Brazil. The Associated Press has a profile of her.

Death and Bowling is a new movie with a mostly transgender cast and crew. Its filmmaker, Lyle Kash, wants to get beyond mere representation. He talks about his cinematic desires with The Advocate.

Pink News has a story about Alex Norris and their creation, Webcomic Name. The comic features a pink blob who is neither male nor female, but people (within the comic and in the real world) keep trying to find out the blob’s gender.

Alexa Luciano Ruiz was murdered in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. She was shot to death the day after some people complained about her using the ladies’ restroom at a McDonald’s. The Governor of Puerto Rico said that this appears to be a hate crime, and will be treated as such. Perhaps she has heard the video, in which people are talking about killing Ruiz (and in which they misgender her). NBC News has this story. Thanks to reader Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

During an appearance on The Tonight Show, Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny (Benito Ocasio) took off his blazer to display a tee shirt which said, in Spanish, “They killed Alexa, not a man with a skirt.” The latter was a reference to an early newspaper story which described Alexa (then unidentified by name) as “a man in a black skirt.” You can read about this tribute in Pink News.

Two committees of the Alabama state legislature have passed a bill to forbid doctors from prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to transgender minors. The Health Committees of both the state House of Representatives and state Senate approved the measure. The bill now goes to the whole Senate, and is clear to be voted on by the House of Representatives. Alabama Daily News has this story.

As Sarah McBride continues her campaign for Delaware State Senate, she is profiled in LGBTQ Nation.

In Idaho, the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee heard testimony about its version of a bill to forbid doctors prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors, or performing gender confirmation surgery on them. Some people who signed up to testify before the committee were unable to do so, because they ran out of time. The chair of the committee says that those witnesses would have be allowed to testify before the committee takes a vote, which effectively means that the committee will not vote on the bill. This story can be found in The Ideho Statesman.

Also in Idaho, the state House has passed a bill to forbid transgender girls and women from participating in female sports at schools, colleges, and universities. The bill now goes to the state Senate. The Hill has this story. The Idaho Falls Post Register says that the state’s Attorney General is “concerned about the legality” of the bill.

Two years after a federal court ordered the state to update the birth certificates of two transgender plaintiffs, the Idaho House State Affairs Committee has approved a bill which would forbid updating the gender on a birth certificate except “on the basis of fraud, duress, or material mistake of fact, with the burden of proof upon the party challenging the acknowledgement.” The only state which currently forbids updating birth certificates is Tennessee. You can read about this in The Idaho Statesman. The AP reports that at least one group is ready to sue if the bill passes.

A lawyer representing three cisgender girls who are suing over the inclusion of transgender females in school athletics in Connecticut said that the fact that one of the litigants, Chelsea Mitchell, won a race against a transgender runner should not affect the lawsuit. This sounds odd at first, but what he is saying is that the suit is about principle, not about individual ability. ABC News has this story.

Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, the two transgender runners who are named in the lawsuit, have decided to come forward and discuss it. You can read their comments in The Hartford Courant.

In Alpine, Texas, a classmate beat up a transgender student. Perhaps as disturbing, two friends watched the attack, and did nothing to stop the attacker–while one of them even went so far as to record the incident on video. Because the incident happened off campus, the school says that it will not discipline the attacker, despite not condoning such behavior. CBS 7 has this story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Michael Bloomberg this week made a phone call to some leaders of the transgender community. In the call, he apologized for comments he made that have come to light in recent weeks, seeming to disparage the topic of transgender rights. He then talked to The Hill about the matter, again taking blame for a bad choice of words and apologizing publicly.

Elizabeth Warren tweeted she is “heartbroken” by the murder of Alexa in Puerto Rico, and also sent a tweet denouncing attempts to ban transgender women from girls’ athletics at school. While Senator Warren included a link to a bill in Arizona, her comments were easily construed to refer to all such bills in all states. Pink News has this story.

In a debate among Democratic presidential candidates, Pete Buttigieg said that he did not look forward to a presidential campaign which saw Bernie Sanders and his “revolutionary politics of the 1960s” opposing “Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the 1950s.” Several people pointed out on social media that those “revolutionary politics of the 1960s” included the Stonewall riot. This story comes from LGBTQ Nation.

Also at that debate, every candidate on the stage said that he or she would repeal President Trump’s ban on transgender people serving openly in the military. Pink News has this story.

The Department of Defense released the results of a poll of active-duty members of the U.S. military, and found that two-thirds of them said that they would have no problem with serving alongside openly transgender people. While it is somewhat disturbing that this number is not higher, it still pokes a hole in the argument that allowing openly transgender people to serve would cause disruption in the ranks. This study caught the attention of Military Times.

Ellie Krug is a transgender woman and a lawyer. She also is an advocate for transgender people, and KELO-TV ran a profile of her.

The Hill points out that 378,000 transgender Americans will be unable to vote, due to ID that does not match their gender presentation, according to a new study.

Ro Khanna, a U.S. Representative from California, introduced a bill which would allow a gender of “unspecified,” signified by the letter “X”, to appear on U.S. passports. Even if the bill does get passed by the House, it is quite likely that Mitch McConnell will not allow the Senate to take up the legislation, effectively killing it. Still, passing it would be a nice gesture of respect for transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming Americans. Pink News has this story.

Evan Minton writes for The ACLU website about his experience being denied medical treatment because of his gender identity.

As we mentioned recently, transgender immigrants have been taken out of the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, New Mexico, and have been sent to various other facilities. A dozen of them ended up in Tacoma, Washington, where they came to be featured in Crosscut.

A non-profit in southeastern Pennsylvania has set up to help transgender people navigate the legal system in order to get a name change. They will also help with getting a change of gender on identification. WFMZ-TV did a feature on them.

Benson Churgai is the first openly-transgender person to graduate from the Philadelphia Police Academy after having already transitioned genders. He was profiled in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Kimberly Anderson is a transgender woman who works as a marriage and family therapist in northern California. She is also a Mormon, and as such, wrote an editorial for The Salt Lake Tribune regarding the new instruction for Mormons regarding transgender members.

In December, a jury in Missouri was persuaded by evidence of abusive behavior to find Angela Mason guilty of voluntary manslaughter rather than second-degree murder in the killing of her husband. Both spouses are transgender. This week, Angela Mason was sentenced to 23 years in prison. The Associated Press has this story.

In July 2018, a transgender woman was shot in Detroit. Although the shooter was found, and a witness said that he had been issuing anti-transgender insults at the victim before shooting her, the judge in the case has refused to consider adding hate crime penalties. This story comes from LGBTQ Nation. Thanks to reader Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

If you’ve ever wondered what the term “pansexual” means, LGBTQ Nation has an article that might enlighten you.

A group of LGBT students of STEM were assembled at Amazon’s U.K. headquarters, where they heard that their identities are their “superpowers.” You can read about this in Pink News.

Cathy Campbell and Lauren Catlett of the University of Virginia School of Nursing have been creating a book about the health care needs of older transgender patients. It is a segment of health care that seems to be neglected, according to them. CBS 19 News did a story about them.

Dave Scott is a Canadian father who got some tremendous shout-outs on social media for how he handled his 16-year-old son’s transition. He funded a party for his son’s T-Versary. You can read about it in LGBTQ Nation.

The Daily Mail has a profile of Alex Tilinca, an 18-year-old transgender man from Long Island, who is also a bodybuilder.

The World Rugby Union is considering making a “rugby-specific” rule regarding whether a transgender player can join a women’s team. BBC Sports has the story of their two-day workshop on the subject. Sky News reports that Verity Smith, a transgender woman who plays rugby, insists that transgender women are not a threat to cisgender women.

WWE wrestler Chris Jericho has been silent about his views of transgender wrestler Nyla Rose–until this week, when he interviewed her for his podcast. You can read about it in LGBTQ Nation. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Texas state women’s wrestling champion Mack Beggs made an appearance on Tameron Hall’s syndicated talk show to talk about wrestling and about what is happening in his life at college. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has this story.

During a ceremony in which the Miami Heat retired Dwayne Wade’s number, the crowd gave a big round of applause when the recorded video showed a message from his daughter Zaya. You can read about this moment on Pink News.

Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who wrote the songs and lyrics for Frozen, Coco, and Frozen 2, told Playbill that their next project will be a movie musical based on the graphic novel The Prince and the Dressmaker, the story of a gender-fluid prince. (Given the time in which the story is set, he does not know the term “gender fluid,” but he knows the feelings.) The movie will tell the story of Prince Sebastian, who sometimes goes around Paris at night as Lady Crysaillia.

Rebecca Root has been cast as Doctor Who’s companion in an audio drama (i.e., a radio version of the show). She plays Tania, while Paul McGann will play the Doctor. (He played the role in a made-for-television movie, the eighth Doctor.) She tells Pink News that she’d like to be the first transgender performer to play the part of the Doctor.

James and Abigail Allen were a couple in the early 1800s. When he was killed while working his job at a saw mill, it became public knowledge that James Allen was assigned female at birth. After his death, came a tricky legal process, which is now the subject of an HBO movie. LGBTQ Nation has an excerpt from the book which was a source of material for the movie.

50 Cent shared a meme which had a photo of Dwayne Wade talking to R. Kelly during New York Fashion Week of 2016. In the bubble above R. Kelly were the words, “Heard yu had a daughter now.” In the bubble above Dwayne Wade, he says, “U touch her I’ll kill you.” Many people felt that the meme made fun of Zaya Wade and her gender identity, but perhaps that is because the joke is somewhat vague. To the extent that it is saying that Dwayne Wade plans to be protective of Zaya, well, true, but that’s because he’s a good father. To the extent that it’s making fun of R. Kelly as a sexual predator, well, he’s fair game. This story came from Page Six of the New York Post.

Lisa Nandy, a candidate for leadership of the Labour Party in Britain’s Parliament, said that she worried about signing the pledge to protect transgender civil rights, particularly the points that said, “There is no material conflict between trans rights and women’s rights” and the call to expel supporters of “trans-exclusionist hate groups.” However, she agreed anyway. This story appears in Pink News.

A story in The Times of London said that plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act were “halted,” and that “ministers are expected to drop plans to make it easier for people to change their gender amid concerns about the impact on children. Some within the government found this to be news to them. While the government may not be stopping the effort, they certainly are not putting much effort behind it. Pink News has this story.

After Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear made history last month by posing for a photo op with androgynously attired constituents at a rally supporting LGBTQ rights, outrage erupted across the state. The constituents in question were members of the drag troupes Derby City Sisters and Kentucky Fried Sisters. Reaction from the right was swift. A state senator said, “These are the values that the Democratic party of today is out there trying to convince our children’s the right way to live.” Learn more from the New York Daily News.

Britain’s House of Lords had a debate which saw some nasty things being said about transgender people. In response, two members have pledged to increase their support of transgender rights. This story also comes from Pink News.

Although the government of the U.K. is showing no speed in reforming the Gender Recognition Act, some unelected members of the ruling Conservative Party have formed the Tory Trans Campaign. They have even adapted the oak tree symbol of the Conservative Party, putting it in the colors of the Transgender Pride flag. This story appeared in Pink News.

Britain’s High Court has agreed to hear the case of whether transgender teens should be given puberty blockers. Pink News has this story as well.

Just how bad are things in Britain with the current Gender Recognition Act? Well, transgender people do have rights in the workplace, as Lexology explains.

While Britain debates reforming their Gender Recognition Act, Israel has issued new rules to its Health Ministry for approving changes to legal gender status. The board will no longer require surgery before approving a change of gender status, and the board will respond in six months, not two years. Haaretz has this story.

Drag for All Ages, which is exactly what the name implies, is nearly a year into its turbulent run at Mile High Comics in Denver, Colorado. The event drew legions of protestors since children were being allowed near drag queens. Oh, the horror! It seems that the protestors may have finally grown tired of trying to stop the event. Learn more from The Denver Post.

Two weeks after Graham Linehan appeared on BBC Newsnight, the BBC released the feedback statistics for that appearance. It turns out that there were 115 complaints to the network (and countless complaints on social media that the network didn’t keep track of). Most of the complaints were from people who thought that it was a bad idea to give him a platform to express his views on the subject of transgender people. It was obvious that he did not know what he was talking about, and had little reason behind his position, but even so, there is worry that giving him a platform normalizes his views. Pink News has this story.

We told you last week about a panel scheduled for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras which was to have featured Arielle Scarcella, a lesbian YouTuber who still has a video titled “I Won’t Apologise for Being Transphobic” on her channel. (And no, she does not try to argue in the video that her position is being misunderstood or mis-categorized; she is saying that she wears the title of “transphobe” proudly.) This week, she uploaded a new video, titled, “I’m A Lesbian Woman & I’m Leaving The INSANE Progressive Left.” In the video, she announces that she is conservative, which really comes as a surprise to few people who are familiar with her work. This begs comparison to the tea party in Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland; how can you leave a political view that you never really expressed? This story comes from Pink News.

Two stories from Britain seem as though they were made up by anti-transgender sorts, but they did happen. The first is that Judge Stephen Mooney gave a transgender woman, Leila Le Fey, a suspended sentence, reversing his own ruling of jail time, when he found himself unable to figure out whether the transgender woman should go to a men’s prison or a women’s prison. The defendant was accused of threatening a man with a claw hammer. You can find this story in the Daily Mail.

The other hard-to-believe story is of two doctors who were suspended after they removed a transgender man’s vagina without his permission. The patient had consented to gender confirmation surgery, including certain specific procedures, but not to the removal of his vagina. When he discovered what had happened, a week after the operation, he filed suit. This story appeared on Page 6 of the New York Post.

TWITs

The title of an article at The Daily Signal is “On the Left, a New Clash Between Feminists and Transgender Activists.” First off, the clash is between feminists who feel that gender-based rights should extend to transgender people, and feminists who are more trans-exclusionary (or, as they refer to themselves, “gender critical”). There are feminists on both sides. Secondly, the argument is not new–Germaine Greer has held the same anti-transgender-woman position since she first came to fame, and other feminists took exception to her position from the start. The article, however, tries to subtly say that those who disagree with the concept of transgender rights are true feminists, while those who are not “gender critical” are false feminists. The Daily Signal is known for its social conservative views, which are not endorsed by any major feminists; they are more aligned with the views of Phyllis Schafly, who was a staunch opponent of the feminist movement. For attempting to present themselves as the proper arbiter of a movement that they do not really support, The Daily Signal gets a TWIT Award.

In an appearance on The View, U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz claimed that both he and President Trump oppose the ban on transgender people in the military. He said, “We shouldn’t be banning anybody based on who they are and who they love. That’s not the kind of Republican I am, and that’s not the kind of Republican the President is.” President Trump put the ban in place, reversing the previous administration’s policy, and Representative Gaetz tweeted at the time, “This is the right thing to do.” For deliberate misrepresentation, Representative Matt Gaetz gets a TWIT Award. You can read about this in LGBTQ Nation.

February 27 was a day that several groups advocated as a good day for reading about transgender people. However, such conservative sites as The Daily Signal, OneNewsNow, and CNS News advocated that parents not allow their children to hear a story about a transgender person, with the latter two even advocating that parents keep their children at home rather than have them hear a story about a transgender person. For advocating keeping children ignorant about gender, these sites get a TWIT.

Some members of the Connecticut Republican Party are planning to honor the student athletes who are suing to prevent transgender students from participating in high school athletics. Moreover, the honor will occur at a fundraising event. For using bias as a way to raise money, these members of the Connecticut Republican Party get a TWIT Award. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for providing a link to this story, which appears in NBC News.

Over a third of Poland has now declared itself to be “LGBT Free.” Of course these places still have LGBTQ people, but the politicians there have announced that they will conveniently ignore that reality in order to promote how they have gone beyond denying equal rights to these people and actually gone so far as to deny that these people even exist. For taking pride in extreme bias, the politicians behind these declarations of “LGBT-Free Zones” get a TWIT Award. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

For a week, a veteran journalist in Sweden, Malou von Sivers, devoted every episode of her nightly TV talk show to the rise in transgender diagnoses in Swedish teens. The show planned to have no serious transgender activists as guests, but did announce that a loud dissenter would be given a long interview. For a one-sided examination of a topic, Malou vot Sivers gets a TWIT. You can read about it at The Guardian.

The Federalist has an article entitled, “Dwayne Wade’s Kid Underscores How Gender Fluidity Is Erasing Homosexuality.” First off, Zaya is transgender, not gender fluid; the fact that she took some time to figure out that she is transgender does not mean she is something other than transgender. Secondly, sexual orientation is about who one wants to have sex with, while gender is about who one perceives oneself to be, and about how one wishes to express that knowledge; the two concepts are separate. For showing yet again how little they understand what they are writing about, The Federalist gets another TWIT Award.

Above we mentioned the nasty debate in the House of Lords about the rights of transgender people. During that debate, Lord Lucas decried the idea of gender-neutral restrooms, saying that women need to be able to “wash their bloody underwear” in private. While the word “bloody” can be a bit of British slang, in this case, he means it literally, and is referring to menstruation. Perhaps he thinks that women take their underwear off, wash them in the sink, wring them dry with their hands, then put them back on while still quite damp. For bringing to mind the phrase, “That not how any of this works,” Lord Lucas gets a TWIT Award. Pink News has this hard-to-believe but true 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: Alexa Luciano Ruiz, Camila Prins, featured, news, Rebecca Root, RuPaul, Sarah McBride, Transgender, Trixie Mattel, TWIT, Zaya Wade

Category: Transgender Community News