The Week In Trans 5/4/20

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Rebekah Bruesehoff

Rebekah Bruesehoff, the inspiration for a transgender superhero in Marvel comics, was named a GenderCool Champion this week. She is the subject of a profile by Dawn Ennis for Forbes.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will return to the policy of allowing transgender people to serve openly in the military. Specifically, this is found in “The Biden Plan to Advance LGBTQ+ Equality in America and Around the World.” CNS News has this story.

Police in Puerto Rico have arrested two suspects in the murder by arson of two transgender women last week. This caught the attention of NBC News.

Penélope Díaz Ramírez became the third transgender person killed in Puerto Rico in eight days. She was found murdered at the Bayamon correctional complex. The New York Daily News has this story.

Researchers with the VA Puget Sound Health Care System are conducting the Health for Every Veteran Study to better understand the experiences of Veterans from all backgrounds and promote their health and well-being, including those with transgender or related identities. To learn more and participate in the study click here.

Rachel Mosby

Rachel Mosby was a firefighter who rose to the position of fire chief in Byron, Georgia. She lost her job when she transitioned genders. This week, she filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Macon, Georgia, alleging that her dismissal constitutes discrimination based on her sex. The AP’s story can be found at The Daily Mail.

Taylor Scruggs was a police officer for the Unified Police Department of Salt Lake City. He transitioned in 2015, and received little support from his superiors. He says that lack of support and other pressures of the job led to him develop a drinking problem, for which he says he also received little support at work. He was fired five days after he called a suicide support phone line. He, too, is suing. His story can be found at LGBTQ Nation.

A new class action lawsuit was filed in federal court for the District of Columbia, insisting that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has created an unsafe environment for transgender immigrants. The immigration detention centers are “death traps for transgender people,” according to the suit, which calls for transgender immigrants to be released. NBC News has this story.

ASU Now, a publication of Arizona State University, has an interview with Beth Freelander, a student graduating with a master’s degree in urban planning, who is interested in planning low-income housing, especially so for transgender people.

Amanda Lear

Columnist Michael Musto has a list at NewNowNext of “20 older transgender celebrities and why we still love them.”

What is the difference between sex and gender? How are they similar, and how are they different? And how does intersex fit into this? These topics are covered in another article on the basics of gender from Pink News.

Justin Amash is a congressman from Michigan. He left the Republican party last year, and this year, he is considering an independent run for president. While his candidacy, if he decides to run, would be a long-shot, even if he gets the nomination in the Libertarian Party, he is nonetheless getting some attention. In an interview with Dawn Ennis for Forbes, he said, “I think that people can take the term ‘sex’ that’s in federal law and interpret it to mean things beyond what it traditionally meant.” That would mean that protection from discrimination on the basis of sex could also protect against discrimination on the basis of gender.

LGBTQ Nation reports that the Human Rights Campaign has had to cut staff rather severely, due to lower fundraising in the current economic climate.

James Duke Mason writes in LGBTQ Nation that although pride parades and gatherings may get delayed or cancelled, the feeling of pride continues.

Chicago Pride in 2012.

The Endocrine Society has 30 or more other medical organizations join in signing a letter to the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services, urging it to not implement the proposed rule which would rewrite Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act and allow doctors and other health care professionals to refuse to treat a patient because of a “deeply-held religious belief” against LGBT people. You can read the Endocrine Society’s press release about this at Newswire.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine published a new study, which attempted to gauge the attitudes of pediatricians in Israel regarding transgender people. The good news is that 90% scored favorable on the “Human value” domain. The bad news is that only 68% scored favorable on interpersonal comfort with a transgender person. The conclusion is that negative opinions of transgender people are still too common among pediatricians.

Mara Gomez

We have had stories before about Mara Gomez, a soccer player from Argentina. This one includes her and Marcos Rojo, a transgender man who is also trying to get onto a soccer team in Argentina. You can read about both in The Hindu.

More than 50 gender confirmation operations were postponed at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The state of New York has asked that people postpone elective surgery due to concerns about COVID-19. They are still providing mental health counseling and doctor visits via video conferencing, and hormone prescriptions can be renewed remotely. The New York Post has this story.

On Friday, May 8, Greenhouse, a mental health facility which deals with addiction, will host a video presentation of “Supporting Trans* and Gender-Expansive Clients: Unique Considerations for Eating Disorders and Other Mental Health Concerns.” You can find out about this event here.

One good thing about the self-isolation for COVID-19 is that it is reducing the spread of HIV. This is attributable to the reduced number of hook-ups. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Dr. Rachel Levine

We told you recently about Dr. Rachel Levine, the Secretary of Health for Pennsylvania. She has been doing daily briefings for the people of her state, telling them the latest about the pandemic. While some people have made unflattering remarks about her, often referring to her gender identity, she has her fans as well, as LGBTQ Nation reports.

Men tend to get COVID-19 at a much higher rate than women. This fact has led some to suggest that perhaps estrogen protects women from this virus. Although older women have less estrogen but still are less likely to get sick from COVID-19, there are at least two studies seeing if men who are given estrogen patches are less likely to have a problem with this virus. The New York Times has the story of the trials. Pink News has the reaction of transgender women to this news.

Julie Hesmondhalgh is a veteran actress. Much of Britain still remembers her playing Hayley, a transgender character, on Coronation Street. She joined the cast in 1998, and from the start, she noticed how the audience was seeing this transgender woman as a human being. However, in an interview with The Guardian says that it would not be right for a cisgender woman to take on the role of a transgender woman today, and would hope that she would not even be asked to play such a part.

Gigi Goode with hair.

Gigi Goode is drawing criticism for a recent tweet. The contestant from RuPaul’s Drag Race has a December 2 birthday, as does Britney Spears, a fact which caused Gigi to tweet that they were “birthday twins.” The tweet contained a side-by-side snapshot of the two. For the picture of herself, Gigi wore a bald skullcap, which reminded many of the time when Britney Spears shaved her head as part of a mental health problem. You can read about it at Pink News.

While the current situation has delayed the start of hormone replacement therapy or surgery for some transgender patients (including facial feminization, breast augmentation, mastectomy, and other surgeries), in some parts of the world, access to transgender health care is even harder to obtain. The BBC has this story.

While you’re stuck at home don’t waste the extra time you have. Use it to improve your femme image. Of course experimenting with new makeup ideas is always fun and putting together outfit ideas always works to pass the time, but how about doing some exercises that can help to feminize your body? Alyssa Washington let us know about blogger Lucille Sorrela’s “5 Feminizing Workouts to Transform Your Body.”

Madona Kiparoidze set herself on fire during a protest at Tblisi City Hall in the Republic of Georgia. Her flaming jacket was removed, and she was detained by the police. OC Media has this story.

We told you that Victor Orban has been rewriting the laws of Hungary to deny transgender people equal rights. This has lead to a deterioration in the mental health of many transgender people in the country, according to Pink News.

“Ballooni”

Not so long ago if a little boy told his mamma that he wanted to do drag, things would not have gone well. Fortunately at least some of the mothers today, especially mothers who are makeup artists, are fine with helping their sons dress up and be fierce. One such mother is Mikli Feria Jorge who did her son’s makeup and dubbed him Ballooni. See his new look here.

Freddy McConnell has lost another round in his fight to be listed as the father of his child. You can read about this in The BBC. Pink News reports that he will take his fight to the Supreme Court.

The LGB Alliance, the anti-transgender group, had their fundraising page removed twice. Both removals were for violation of rules, according to the site which hosted the fundraiser. Pink News has this story.

The lawsuit on behalf of a 13-year-old girl from Oxfordshire who objects to sharing facilities with transgender girls is cleared to be heard by the High Court. The court has ruled against pre-trial motions to dismiss the case. This story comes from Pink News.

Australia has lifted proof of sterilization as a prerequisite for changing the gender listed on a birth certificate. The Daily Mail has this story.

In Greece, the government is giving citizens payments to cover missed wages, but transgender sex workers are not included, according to a story in Pink News. (To paraphrase a certain character from Seinfeld, “No money for you.”)

Dragman!

British cartoonist, and recently out crossdresser Steven Appleby has produced a 336 page graphic novel, titled Dragman. It’s a full-on super hero story in which the hero only has super powers when dressed in feminine attire. August Crimp is Dragman’s male name and he first appeared in Appleby’s Guardian newspaper strip in 2002. Appleby was not out as a crossdresser at that time and was surprised when readers of his strip seemed to really like Dragman. Learn more and see some of his art on the Bleeding Cool website.

In Namibia, three men were arrested for assaulting a transgender woman. One of the men was a former presidential candidate. The Namibian has this story.

Forward has the story of a renaming ceremony for a Jewish transgender man.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski runs the Vatican charities. He has been giving out cash gifts to some people, in the name of Pope Francis. Among the people receiving his charity at this time of virus lockdown are transgender sex workers. Thomson Reuters Trust has this story.

TWITs

Blair White writes that the rules governing who is transgender have changed recently, and she thinks it is diminishing people like her, who are really transgender. She calls people without gender dysphoria “transtrenders,” and says that people are looking down at her because they associate all transgender people with these new “transtrenders.” These people are transgender, their gender identities are valid, even if they do not feel any dysphoria about being transgender. For assuming that she can rewrite the rules set forth by medical and mental health authorities, and for looking down on others precisely the way she claims others look down on her, Blair White gets a TWIT Award. Her writing can be found at The Post-Millennial.

The Daily Signal has an article about the Israeli television series Transkids. In the article, Nicole Russell attempts to portray the documentary as telling lies, when in fact, her article lies about the reality of what transgender people face. She includes the whopper, “There is little scientific or medical information available to support treating gender dysphoris (sic) with hormone therapy or sex-change surgeries. In fact, any such information typically shows such drastic changes are harmful.” In fact, there is a lot of medical and scientific evidence showing that hormone therapy and surgery produce better outcomes for many transgender patients. For being out of touch with reality, Nicole Russell gets 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.

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Category: Transgender Community News