The Week In Trans 4/18/22

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Blair Hamilton, a transgender woman, competes on a soccer team at the University of Brighton in England. Her teammates have rallied behind her. This story appears in GoSport.

The Department of Education has proposed revisions to the language of Title IX, making it clear that transgender students are protected from discrimination. The new language says, “Discrimination on the basis of sex includes discrimination on the basis of sex stereotypes, sex-related characteristics (including intersex traits), pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” This story comes from JD Supra.

It took very little time for the families and doctors who are affected by the new Alabama law forbidding gender-affirming medical care for minors to sue. This story comes from The Advocate.

An Explainer by The Associated Press discusses what the new Alabama law does to restrict transgender children.

The Texas Tribune reports that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which was already understaffed, has had several people quit over the investigations of parents of transgender children. While that sounds like it is sending a message about the policy, realize that when the good and decent people quit, that leaves others still in the department who are less morally opposed to the problematic policy.

Kentucky’s state legislature overrode Governor Andy Beshear’s veto of a ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports. LGBTQ Nation reports that the legislation forbids one transgender student from playing field hockey.

Tennessee already has a ban on transgender athletes, but since it is an election year, the state Senate felt the need to pass a bill increasing the penalty on schools who violate the policy. (The motivation cannot be schools ignoring the law, since there is no evidence of that happening.) This story comes from ABC News.

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports. Governor Tom Wolf has promised to veto the bill, if it gets to him. Republicans do not have enough votes to override a veto in Pennsylvania. WGAL-TV has this story.

In Missouri, the legislature has approved a plan to allow voters to vote on whether to allow transgender students to participate on girls’ sports teams in their school district. This report comes from The Associated Press.

While other states are proposing ways to keep transgender athletes off of girls’ teams, Vermont is having none of that. Vermont Digger reports on some transgender athletes who have found that teammates make good friends.

Maryland is also proposing a law to protect transgender students from discrimination. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Fern Feather of Morristown, Vermont, was murdered. The killing has deeply hurt Vermont, as Vermont Digger reports. Police have made an arrest, and the accused seems to be using the transgender panic defense.

Miia Love Parker of Philadelphia was shot to death. She was 25. Police are asking for help in solving this case. The Advocate has this story.

Saoirse Gowan was attacked on a subway line in Washington, D.C. The attack was caught on video. The U.S. Attorney’s office is determining if federal charges should be filed. She talked to WUSA-TV about the incident.

WANE-TV reports that transgender migrants are waiting in Juarez, Mexico, hoping to be allowed to make their case for asylum in the U.S.

Two inmates at a women’s prison in New Jersey are pregnant, and they say that a transgender inmate is the father. While conservative media such as The Daily Mail write their stories with a “We told you this would happen” slant, they fail to realize that this goes entirely against their argument that hormones sterilize minors. (They also fail to blame this on a breach of prison security.)

An article in Medscape says that more medical schools are building up training in transgender care. Unfortunately, beyond the first paragraph and a half, the article requires a subscription.

Dr. Erica Anderson is a psychologist who has worked with many transgender children. She has become critical of some of her peers, who she feels are not doing a good job of looking to see if gender dysphoria is real and deep. She has specific cases in which she feels more review would have been good before sending the patient on for medical treatment. Mind you, she is only asking for a bit more gatekeeping, not laws that ban minors from accessing medical treatment. Still, you can imagine what these comments look like in the hands of conservatives. The Daily Mail has this story.

Management at the University of Texas Southwestern Hospital say that they alone made the decision to end Genecis, the program which brought various disciplines involved in care for transgender children into one building. The president told a judge that the decision was not made under pressure from outside influences. The Dallas Morning News has this story.

Transgender youth have special dermatology needs, according to Dermatology Times.

Do you have old wigs just taking up space in your closet? Styles you no longer like, or with fibers that are worn and fuzzy? If you’d like to do something good with them rather than see them end up in a landfill somewhere here’s a place where you can recycle old wigs. The Wig Cycle in Oregon reconditions wigs that can be saved and distributes them to people who need wigs but can’t afford them. Wigs that can’t be saved are sent to a recycling facility that turns the synthetic hair into raw material for the manufacture of new wigs. Visit The Wig Cycle website and learn how to send them your old hair, or to make a monetary donation to support their efforts.

KellyJeanne Pyne won the Texas senior women’s freestyle archery event on February 26. She will not be able to defend that title, because she is transgender. Apparently, the new transgender athlete law in Texas even applies to adult competitions. KXAN-TV has this story.

British Cycling has suspended its policy which allows transgender women to compete in women’s bicycle racing. The international body does not allow transgender women to compete, yet British Cycling did, which means that transgender women could get points towards qualifying for a race that they are not allowed to compete in. CNN has this story.

The Advocate has a review of Finlandia, a film set among the Muxe, a third gender of Mexico.

Them has a list of the best LGBTQ films on Hulu. One of them is Cowboys, a film featuring a transgender teen. It supposedly debuted in 2020, but since theaters were closed, a large segment of its audience may have missed it.

Black As U R is a new film which looks at the intersection of the Black Lives Matter movement and violence against transgender women, and asks why is more not being said about the violence against Black transgender women. The Advocate has a review.

Hari Nef has joined the cast of the Barbie movie that Greta Gerwig is working on. The film is becoming more and more interesting, according to them.

Michael Love Michael sponsored a concert in celebration of transgender women, entitled “Flowers Now.” The event was held in New York, and the article announcing it in them only appeared the day before the concert.

Alexandra Billings has a new autobiography out. She sat for The LGBTQ&A interview.

Tommy Dorfman talked about being trans and Jewish on a new special which is part of the Recipe For Change series. Out.com has this story.

Angelica Ross wrote on Twitter about dating as a transgender woman. She seems to especially talk about dating women, according to Out.com.

An interviewer talked to Emma Watson about sharing a restroom with a transgender woman. The actress seemed not to understand why there would be an issue. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

The new Superman: Son of Kal-El comic brings the transgender superhero Dreamer to DC comics for the first time. Nicole Maines played the character on the television series Supergirl. This story comes from Out.com.

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7 announced the queens who will be appearing. As expected, it will feature a boatload of talent from seasons past. The Advocate has the cast. The series will premiere May 20 on Paramount.

Bimini Bon Boulash, a runner-up on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season two, is on the cover of GQ. Out.com has some excerpts.

Out.com has a list of 10 transgender queens who made history on RuPaul’s Drag Race, or on an international version.

Rumors are flying that, although there were supposed to be five movies in the Fantastic Beasts series, the current movie, The Secrets Of Dumbledore, may be the last. The movies have failed to live up to box office expectations (although it is hard to match the performance of the Harry Potter films), and J.K. Rowling’s decision to climb the hill of TERFdom even if she dies there does not help. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

J.K. Rowling appears not to have promoted the release of the new Fantastic Beasts film on Twitter before it hit theaters, but she did post several tweets about a largely liquid lunch she had with some stars of the TERF world. It happened precisely as thousands of people were in the streets of London protesting the plan to exclude transgender people from the ban on conversion therapy. The bad timing was certainly noticed by PinkNews.

A petition started by Sammantha Harris which asks that transgender people be included in a ban on conversion therapy reached over 100,000 signatures in days. Having crossed that mark, it will be debated in Parliament. Good luck with that debate–the forces of good will need luck. PinkNews has this story.

Perhaps the members of the Conservative party should listen to their own members. The majority of Conservative voters in a YouGov poll said they do not support excluding transgender people from a ban on conversion therapy. This story comes from PinkNews.

In that same poll, 65% of respondents say that conversion therapy to change a person’s sexual orientation should be banned, while 62% say that conversion therapy to change a person’s gender identity should be banned. That difference is smaller than expected. PinkNews has this story

Also in Britain, National Lottery Funding has suspended its support of the LGB Alliance, after quite a few people called them out for it. This story comes from PinkNews.

Sarah Ashton-Cirillo continued her series on what it is like to be a transgender journalist in the war zone that is Ukraine. Her writing appears in LGBTQ Nation.

Grace Lemke, a senior at Penn State University, curates an exhibition on the struggle of women and transgender people for health and wellbeing. She and her project were profiled by Penn State.

Some families in Alabama are asking for donations online in order to get the money needed to move out of the state, after Alabama outlawed gender-affirming medical care for those under the age of 19. AL.com has this story.

“The Air Force is Offering to Relocate Families Impacted by Anti-Trans Laws,” says the headline in them. This offer is only extended to families of U.S. Air Force members.

A woman on TikTok explained how to “dress like a boy” in order to get past protesters at Planned Parenthood. In today’s environment, such advice might be useful for a lot of people. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

An editorial in The Florida Phoenix wonders what Republicans hope to accomplish with their attacks on transgender kids, and concludes that it is cruelty for the sake of cruelty.

Several LGBTQ news outlets, including The Advocate, report that a “group of Fox News employees” denounced the network’s anti-LGBTQ positions. The group is called Fox Pride, and yes, they did mention “gender identity” in their statement. Still, this is the LGBTQ group within Fox News.

David Mamet (yes, the playwright) went on Fox News to talk to Mark Levin. He said, “What we have is kids being-not only indoctrinated-but groomed in a very real sense, by people who are, whether they know it or not, sexual predators. . . . Teachers are inclined, particularly men because they are predators, to pedophilia.” This was picked up by others, according to LGBTQ Nation, who made out that all male teachers are predators.

All this talk about how teachers are “grooming” their students to be LGBTQ is hurting abuse victims, some of whom were victims of actual grooming. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

The Vermont Digger has an interview with educator Nikki Ellis, who created a program to teach middle school students about gender identity and expression. The program was attacked by Fox News as “grooming,” and the school district got several angry calls and letters. Ms. Ellis says that they responded with “light and love.”

Ina Fried has created #letters4transkids, a way to tell transgender children that they have a future. Into has this story.

As a child, Charlee Corra was adopted by Roy P. Disney, the great-nephew of Walt Disney. Charlee came out as transgender to the family four years ago, and recently made that declaration publicly, according to People magazine. And now, this member of the Disney family is speaking out as a defender of LGBTQ children, especially transgender children.

TWITs

Last week, we told you about Will Larkins, who posted a video of himself making a presentation on the history of Stonewall. Will is a high school junior, and the presentation was in a high school history class, so it was well outside of the age range which was supposed to be the limit of those prohibitions in the “Parental Rights in Education” law. And yet, Will seems to be under investigation because of the presentation. For showing that the you won’t be satisfied, everyone behind an investigation of Will Larkins gets a TWIT Award. This story comes from The Advocate.

Recently, Senator Marsha Blackburn asked Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to define a “woman.” When the Supreme Court nominee refused, she and several other Republicans joined in complaining about the answer. However, LGBTQ Nation reports that, when asked the same question many Republicans either gave an answer based on having two X chromosomes or something similar, despite the fact that that definition excludes some who were assigned female at birth (those with only one X chromosome, those with androgen insensitivity syndrome, etc.) and includes others (XXY males, for example). For failing the test which they themselves devised, and for being too sure of their own wrong answer to accept authorities which tell them their answer is wrong, Republicans who attacked Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s answer get a TWIT Award.

An article in The Federalist bears the title, “Transgender Activists Use Unreliable Surveys To Emotionally Blackmail America.” Among the “unreliable” survey results is this: “These Transgender Suicide Surveys Are Trash.” The surveys in question show a startling increase in suicide attempts among transgender youth compared to cisgender youth. Even gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are less prone to suicide attempts. For denying good evidence, and for putting up no real evidence of their own to back this up, The Federalist gets yet another TWIT.

Donald Trump Jr. said that groomers “may go camouflage. If you’re so desperate that you need to do this, you gotta think there’s a reason behind it,” he said, unaware that, within the same sentence, he just used the same second person pronoun to refer to both the people he was attacking and the people he was addressing. The alleged “camouflage groomers” are teachers who talk about sexual orientation and gender identity. For feeling threatened by the truth, and for making up accusations as he goes along, Donald Trump Jr. gets a TWIT Award. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Tim James, a candidate for governor of Alabama, has a new ad out. It attacks the Magic City Acceptance Academy, a charter school which accepts students as they are, including LGBTQ students. His ad attacking the school features the faces of current students at the school, despite no evidence that those students or their parents agreed to have their images used in the ad. For creating a hostile environment for students, and for an incredible lack of concern for the well-being of others, Tim James and his campaign get a TWIT Award. This story comes from The Advocate.

A woman recently wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, in which she expressed regret for her “sex re-assignment surgery.” The writer, Corinna Cohn, said that she was “not old enough” to make a choice which would affect her life for so long. She and Fox News believe that her case is proof that no one should be allowed to have gender reassignment surgery prior to some age or other. The fact is, few people regret their gender reassignment surgery, regardless of the age at which they had it. While some amount of additional scrutiny of candidates may be a good idea, the idea that so few problems should require an outright ban is like outlawing peanut butter because a few people have a peanut allergy. For lack of concern for others, and for rushing to use the power of government to stop something based on very little data, Fox News gets a TWIT Award.

Vernon Jones, a congressional candidate whom Donald Trump endorses for Speaker of the House, says that he opposes LGBTQ rights because people “can actually change” their sexual orientation or gender identity. He starts by saying that he cannot tell who is LGBTQ on sight, as people can tell that he is Black on sight. (There are some people whose race is not immediately evident, but we’ll just leave that thought there while we look at his next statements.) He then said that, unlike race, LGBTQ identity can change. Well, in the sense that one can become aware of something at any age, yes, it is possible to “change” your sexual orientation or gender identity. He continued, “You can go from being straight, to being gay, to being transgender and all these genders.” He never did say how this was possible in his opinion. For making it up as he goes along, and for using his made-up ideas to denigrate others, Vernon Jones gets a TWIT. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Charlie Kirk is one of those conservative pundits who makes you wonder, “How did he get a show?” It certainly wasn’t because of the quality of this thoughts. He has a new idea about why inflation is a problem right now–it’s because Americans are too accepting of transgender people. You see, inflation is a punishment from God. Now, most economists say that inflation is caused by too many dollars chasing too few goods, while others blame human greed for inflation. But, this is an entirely new theory indeed. For violating Occam’s Razor, for ignoring the obvious and adequate explanations already at hand, and for rushing to blame others for not being as righteous as he, Charlie Kirk gets a TWIT Award. Media Matters for America has this story.

Florida Republicans are threatening the Disney Company with retaliation, over the company’s opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” law. What are they going to do, refuse to take campaign donations from Disney? For biting the hand that feeds them, and for not bothering with reflection, Florida Republicans who attack Disney get a TWIT Award. The Advocate 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