The Week In Trans 3/9/20

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Breaking News: The Keystone Conference set for March 25-29 has been canceled over the coronavirus threat. Visit the Keystone website for all the details.

Governor Jay Inslee of Washington signed the Nikki Kuhnausen Bill into law. The act outlaws the gay panic defense, and yes, it includes gender identity as well as sexual orientation. This story comes from The Associated Press.

KATU-TV has a story about a memorial service for Nikki Kuhnhausen.

The American Psychological Association just passed three resolutions at their recent conference, all of which support transgender people. One deals with adoption by LGBTQ parents, and another covers other parenting matters such as child custody. The third supports children in their sexual orientation and gender identity, and specifically “encourage[s] school-based mental health professionals to serve as allies and advocates for gender and sexually diverse children and adolescents.” You can find more about these resolutions at LGBTQ Nation.

Virginia lawmakers have approved a bill which would allow transgender people to get a new birth certificate after going through a legal change of gender. The process for requesting a legal change of gender no longer requires proof of surgery. You can read about this at WHSV-TV.

The Virginia Department of Education is directed by newly-enacted legislation to create a model for school districts regarding their treatment of transgender students. The upshot is, no more cases like  Gavin Grimm’s. Roanoke.com has the Richmond Times-Dispatch story on this. Jamie Roberts found an article in The Washington Post.

Virginia also became the first Southern state to ban conversion therapy for minors. This caught the attention of LGBTQ Nation. Another story at LGBTQ Nation notes other bills that Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam signed, which expand anti-discrimination protections and expand the definition of a hate crime.

A recent episode of Watch What Happens Next had Peppermint, Alaska, and Trinity do their best drag queen versions of Hillary Clinton. To choose the winner, the show hired –Hillary Clinton. Out.com has this story.

A contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Sherry Pie, has been disqualified. It seems that she posed as a casting director and strung some unsuspecting people along. You can read more details at Out.com.

Jinkx Monsoon came out as non-binary in an interview with Pink News, prior to a show in London.

Drag queen Shea Couleé is the latest person to sit down for an interview on LGBTQ&A at The Advocate.

Bromley Symphony Orchestra has scheduled the world premiere of a piece by Florence Anna Maunders, a transgender composer. It is the piece which the musicians chose as the “orchestra choice” for the one hundredth birthday of the orchestra. London Online has this story.

The Alabama state Senate passed its bill that would forbid surgery, cross-sex hormones, or puberty blockers for transgender minors. The bill now goes to the state House of Representatives. Alabama Daily News has this story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Chris Moiser, a transgender man who was a finalist for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team, went to Idaho to testify against that state’s bill to prevent transgender females from participating in girls’ sports. He also gave an interview to The Idaho Statesman.

Yahoo sports has a combination primer on the bills and opinion article opposing them.

The Missouri state House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on a bill which would forbid medical treatment for gender dysphoria in minors. They heard from many who say that such a ban is dangerous for patients, according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

In Utah, there is a bill which would study medical treatment in minors with gender dysphoria. This bill does not actually ban prescribing or performing surgery, but rather creates a study which will see if such a ban is needed. ABC 4 tells us that the bill has passed the House Health and Human Services Committee, and goes to the full House for consideration.

While the bill in Utah to study the issue has met with approval from LGBTQ activists, the bills that actually restrict doctors from treating transgender minors are meeting with more resistance. Columbus Alive has an editorial against the bill pending in Ohio.

In South Dakota, a clinical psychologist named Mark Daniels held a protest on the steps of the state capitol, in opposition to bills that would restrict medical treatment or sports participation for transgender people. The bill to restrict medical treatment passed the state House of Representatives, but was defeated by a committee in the state Senate. He talked to Vermillion Plain Talk about what he told people there.

In Idaho, the state House of Representatives passed a bill which would forbid changing the listed gender on a birth certificate in almost all cases. The Hill has this story. Also, the Senate Health and Welfare committee joined its counterpart in the state House of Representatives in rejecting the administrative rule which has allowed transgender people to change the sex listed on their birth certificates. The administrative rule came from a federal court order two years ago. The Post Register has this story.

The Arizona state House of Representatives became the first body to pass a bill to limit girls participation in interscholastic and intramural sports to cisgender girls. Supporters call it the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” while opponents call it the “Show Me Your Genitals” bill. The bill stipulates that genetic testing will be used when an athlete’s gender is questioned, and if that does not work, then a doctor’s note will suffice. CBS News has this story.

Megan Youngren lost her bid to represent the United States at the Olympics. She finished in 230th place in the finals. Not bad for someone who only started running in 2014. ESPN has this story.

A group of legislators in South Carolina held a press conference to discuss their bill that would limit women’s sports to cisgender women. This story comes from WBTV-TV.

A mother in Maui has filed a Title IX complaint after a transgender athlete competed against her daughter at a track meet. This story appears in Maui News.

The International Olympic Committee has said that it will release new guidelines for transgender people participating in the games, but the new guidelines will come out after the games in Tokyo later this year. At least three transgender women could participate in the Olympics this year, according to a story at CBC Sports.

World Rugby held their forum on transgender athletes, and concluded that there is a “physiological basis of performance differences between men and women.” This is the rationale for creating rules that will govern whether transgender women can participate in the sport. As with other guidelines for transgender athletes, it will no doubt be a one-size-fits-all-transgender-people rule, even though those who take puberty blockers are quite different physically from those who do not. Pink News has this story.

The Philadelphia Trans Wellness Conference is coming in July and they are accepting proposals for presentations until March 20. This year the conference focus is empowerment. As a presenter, how can you empower those who attend your workshop? For more information and submission guidelines visit the PTWC website.

A newly-discovered email has led to a media investigation of complaints about the lack of proper health care at the Cibola County Detention Facility, where ICE housed transgender immigrants. It turns out that the case of Roxsana Hernandez was not isolated, and the detainees were often not receiving the treatments that their doctors prescribed for various medical conditions. Reuters has this story.

A vigil for Alexa Negrón Luciano in New York City turned political, to the surprise of virtually no one. You can read about it at QNS. The Huffington Post has a story about reaction to Alexa, but sadly, the headline reads “Alleged murder.” (She was shot multiple times, which suicides don’t do.)

U.S. Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois took Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to task for policies he instituted which lead to the mistreatment of transgender people in homeless shelters. CNN has this story.

The Salt Lake Tribune has an audio story about the new Mormon rules regarding transgender people.

Valspar, the paint company, decided to do away with names such as “shy girl,” “dollface,” and “ladylike” for shades of pink on their color swatches. The effort is fine, but the particular person they chose, a retired linguistics professor named Jane Sutherhand, has admitted on Twitter that she “would be considered a TERF.” You can read about this at Pink News.

A person in a grocery store came up to Thomas Hudson, who is non-binary, and asked a rather agitated question about their choice of clothing. Thomas had a great response, as LGBTQ Nation reports.

The University of Minnesota School of Law held a clinic on how to navigate the process for a legal name change. Pink News has a report.

Parents of transgender children in Britain say they are afraid over a case just announced by the High Court concerning the prescribing of puberty blockers. The parents tell iNews that puberty blockers did help their transgender children. One girl has a story of waiting three years to get puberty blockers, and what a change they made in her life. Her story can also be found on iNews.

An LGBTQ activist named Cleve Jones is planning on attending the next shareholders meeting of Starbucks, with the intention of informing the company that they need to step up how they treat their LGBTQ employees, especially their transgender employees. It’s a nice move, but sadly, the folks who most need to hear it are the franchisees, not the company’s board. He wrote about his mission in The Advocate.

Eve Lindley, a transgender actress, has been cast as the romantic interest in Dispatches From Elsewhere, a new series from AMC. Episodes are currently available to stream. She talked about the series with The Advocate.

Supergirl will soon feature a storyline in which Dreamer takes on a transphobic villain, with the help of the title heroine. The episode with Dreamer, entitled Reality Bytes, will air next Sunday, March 15. Digital Spy has more on this.

Billy Porter talked to Good Morning America about playing the part of the Fairy Godmother in the live-action Cinderella.

(For more transgender news from the entertainment and arts worlds visit our TransTainment feature.)

One Million Moms has asked its supporters (is that plural deserved?) to protest Sesame Street because of Billy Porter’s upcoming visit. Billy wrote a polite response on Instagram, as LGBTQ Nation reports.

An investigation by NBC News finds that few transgender prisoners in the U.S. are housed according to their lived gender, and this leads to problems, especially for transgender women housed in men’s prisons. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

A transgender juggler and performer named Phila Ménard had a show cancelled because the theatre wanted the space for a Kanye West “Sunday Service” during Fashion Week in Paris. Although the two events would not happen at the same time, the theater claimed the “technical incompatibility of the two events” was the reason for the cancellation. Yahoo has the AFP report.

A group of drag queens, who call themselves collectively Regias del Drag, held a “kiss-in” at a mall which had kicked out a gay couple when they kissed. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Riley Knoxx does a great Beyoncé tribute. She has been hired to do a part of her act at halftime of a Washington Wizards game. She talked about it on Good Morning America, which says that she will be the first openly transgender person to perform at halftime of an NBA game.

The Washington State Gambling Commission has sent a letter to a Drag Queen Bingo event, saying that the game violated state gambling laws. Apparently, state law not only requires the game to be licensed by the state (which makes money on the game), but also follow a very detailed code that covers all aspects of the game. They have had to cease the game, at least until they can meet all the code requirements, said LGBTQ Nation.

The Royal Australian College of Physicians came out with a call to the nation’s Health Minister to assure that transgender children and adolescents can get the medical treatment that the group recommends. You can find out more at The Guardian.

Divisions within the Scottish National Party over the reform of the Gender Recognition Act continue to grow. This week, two transgender activists left the party, because of the ongoing issues. The Herald has this story.

A group of authors has written a letter to the Scottish Poetry Library, accusing the library of giving a platform to transphobia and of siding against transgender authors. You can read about this in Pink News.

Reuters has a story about Emilia Schneider, a transgender student at the University of Chile who is the leader of their Student Federation (Fech).

Oxford International Women’s Festival planned to host a one-day event, but several feminists left when Selina Todd was scheduled to give a short thank-you speech. Professor Todd is a supporter of Women’s Place U.K., which is known for its rejection of transgender identities. Pink News has a story about that. The Guardian then opened a can of worms by running an editorial from Suzanne Moore, who supported Professor Todd and Women’s Place U.K. Ms. Moore compared the movement against transgender rights with protests against sexual assault, a false comparison. A couple of days later, The Guardian ran some letters to the editor. Unfortunately, the letters did not soften the controversy of a left-leaning paper supporting an anti-transgender organization. It didn’t help that someone emailed Dawn Foster, a columnist for The Guardian, with a hope that “a few more corrective” sexual assaults would cure her of her support for transgender people. Perhaps the anonymous email’s writer was insinuating that transgender women sexually assault cisgender women; if so, the accusation is untrue. Pink News has this part of the story. This led to the resignation of another transgender employee of The Guardian, the third transgender employee to quit the paper. Pink News has a story on that. An open letter to The Guardian was signed by more than 200 people, including many journalists, not the least of whom were staff of Pink News. The number of signatories has grown to more than 2,000, according to Pink News.

If you are upset about the lies about transgender people and the opposition to our rights, then Vic Parsons of Pink News has some action steps that you can take.

In the same week that the controversy about The Guardian was happening, the NHS of Scotland came up with a new policy regarding transgender people which turns out to be a step in the right direction. The policy encourages hospitals to treat complaints about transgender patients in the same manner as they would treat a racist complaint. Pink News has this story.

Just to prove that crossdressers will appear in any culture that has different standards of attire for males and females, the word out of Jakarta is that a hijab-wearing male crossdresser community, dubbed  crosshijaber by people on social media has arisen. The Muslim crossdressers wear traditional female hijabs or niqabs. There is no word on what they wear under their hijabs, or if they wear women’s shoes. You can learn a bit more from the article on the Tempo website.

Freddy McConnell is looking to continue his legal fight, after the High Court rejected his request to be named as the father on the birth certificate of the child to whom he gave birth. This caught the attention of The BBC.

Farid Hernandez, a transgender man, got married to Julia Ferrer Lopez. He became the first transgender person to obtain a marriage license in the Yucatan. The Yucatan Times has this story.

The government of Iran executes gay men, but transgender women are accepted (if only grudgingly) because of a ruling by the Ayatollah Khomeni. Because of this, many gay men are getting sex change operations in order to avoid potentially being executed. You can read about this in LGBTQ Nation.

The procedure known as “female circumcision” is rarely found in the United States, and therefore, is not specifically banned in some areas. Some lawmakers in Wyoming are saying that they want to outlaw the procedure, which they call “female genital mutilation.” However, some of those lawmakers say they are afraid discussion of the bill could turn into a debate over surgery for transgender patients, according to Wyoming File.

A video of a man at an airport in Florida wearing short, a men’s suit jacket and a pair of high heels went viral on Tiktok and got more than six million views. Many people commented on it with rude suggestions about his sexuality but some comments were positive. One woman said her aged mother thought the heel wearing man had “old Hollywood glamour” legs. The high heel fan told people how they could get great legs, and characterized himself as a “pretty normal dude” who enjoys wearing hose and heels now and then. Find the story in the Daily Star.

When you hear that a Catholic nun is writing about transgender people, you may be afraid of the direction this might take. However, in this case, the article is a defense of gender diversity. It can be found at Global Sisters Report.

TWITs

Boosie Badazz is a rapper who has made a point of deliberately misgendering Zaya Wade, and also of complaining about the way that Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union are treating Zaya. When was the last time you heard people ask, “What would an overrated rapper do in this situation?” For practicing psychiatry without a license and without a clue, Boosie Badazz gets a TWIT Award. Pink News has this story.

Alyssa Wruble plays hockey on the Northampton Area High School team, where her teammates and opponents are male. At a recent game, fans of the opposing team chanted “she has a penis” and “35 is a dude,” and held up a sign asking her to reveal her gender identity. While the principle at the opposing school has addressed the subject and told students how inappropriate this sort of thing is, we nonetheless award the specific students involved a TWIT Award to share for unsportsmanlike conduct. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

A transgender student in Georgia was removed from a Valentine’s Day dance at her high school because a counselor said she was “wearing a costume.” Her mother describes the outfit as, “an outfit that I or you would wear to go out to eat with a loved one.” The obvious conclusion is that the problem with the outfit is that it as being worn by a “biological male.” That term deliberately conflates transgender females with cisgender males, showing that those who use it do not care that the two are not the same. For bullying by an authority, that counselor gets a TWIT. You can read this story at WJCL.

We are hardly surprised to find this, and to find it quickly. Some Evangelicals are claiming that the coronavirus is God’s punishment for LGBTQ people, and particularly transgender people. For rushing to blame someone else, and for missing the message that Christianity is about repenting of your own sin and not repenting someone else’s, these people get a TWIT Award. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

The Federalist has a strange and confusing article about suicide and the “validation” of “transgender skepticism.” It is quite well known that accepting transgender identity reduces the probability of suicide, although there are still some transgender people who do commit suicide despite the acceptance of their gender identities. Nonetheless, the author claims that “there is no scientific research to substantiate the California legislature’s claim” that transgender people in an accepting environment are less likely to commit suicide than are those in an unaccepting environment. The author also claims that “the most LGBT-endorsing countries and cities in the world still have disproportionately high rates of suicide among LGBT individuals,” a statement which does not separate transgender people from people with minority sexual orientations. For using inappropriate and misleading statistics, and ignoring genuine scientific study on the matter, The Federalist gets a TWIT Award.

Dr. Samuel Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” The folks at Patriot Post seem to think that simply labeling themselves as “patriots” is enough to show that their political opponents are wrong. In this case, their political opponents are those who believe in civil rights for transgender people. They claim that “the transgender agenda” is “the tip of the totalitarian spear,” which clearly announces that they are using a slippery-slope argument to justify denying others civil rights. For using bad logic to defend bigotry, The Patriot Post gets a TWIT Award.

Church Militant tells us of some “ex-transgenders” who are defending Alabama’s proposed law against medically treating gender dysphoria in minors. They use the plural in the headline, but in the body of the article, it seems that they only have two de-transitioners—and one is Walt Heyer. It is probably a bit too easy to be cynical about Walt Heyer, who certainly has found detransitioning to be the gateway to a career for himself. The other person, Erin Brewer, seems to be someone whom Walt Heyer counseled in detransitioning. Both generalize their personal problems with changing genders into a bad experience for everyone, even though that is far from true. For a false generalization, the equivalent of saying, “I have a peanut allergy, therefore, stores should not be allowed to sell peanut butter to children,” and for failing to take personal responsibility for their decision to transition, Erin Brewer, Walt Heyer, and Church Militant get a TWIT.

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