The Week In Trans 6/8/20

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Amrou Al-Kadhi

The Advocate has an excerpt from Amrou Al-Kadhi’s memoir, Life As A Unicorn, in which she talks of singing in drag for a bunch of Muslim women.

Two years ago, a federal judge ruled that transgender people in Idaho have a right to change their birth certificates to reflect their lived gender. This year, the state of Idaho passed a law which rejects the idea of changing any information on a birth certificate. This conflict was back in court this week, where Judge Candy Dale ruled that the new law does not supersede her ruling. In a slight win for the state, the new ruling notes that the constitutionality of the new law is not before the court, and therefore this new ruling does not decide it. Boise State Public Radio has this story.

A demonstration in Washington, D.C. protested the killing of Tony McDade by police in Tallahassee, Florida. The demonstration also mentioned other transgender people who were recently killed. You can find this story in The American Independent.

New evidence casts a doubt on the official police report of what happened in the killing of Tony McDade. A witness says that police neither identified themselves nor issued a warning before opening fire. Out.com has this story.

Tallahassee Police have tried to protect the identity of the officer who shot and killed Tony McDade, but a judge has said that the officer’s identity must be revealed to the court. Pink News has this story.

In a recent address on black victims of police violence, former President Barack Obama mentioned the name of Tony McDade among the victims, according to The Advocate.

Iyanna Dior

Video of Iyanna Dior being attacked and beaten by a mob in Minneapolis made the rounds on social media this week. The incident occurred at a gas station, following a fender-bender. This story even caught the attention of Rolling Stone. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Ianne Fields Stewart gave a speech in front of the Stonewall Inn on the first day of Pride month, saying, “Black Trans lives matter.” Pink News has this story, and a follow-up story about a protest the next day at the site of the Stonewall Inn. Sadly, the protest on Tuesday appears to have been marked by some police violence, as a local ACT UP member ended up with a broken arm and needed stitches. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Miss Major was at the Stonewall Inn the night that the police raid turned into a conflict. She shares her memories of that event with Out.com.

The office of Pride At Work, a group that works for LGBTQ people in the labor force, was vandalized during the protests against police violence recently. The damage will be repaired, according to LGBTQ Nation.

While the organizers of Los Angeles Pride announced that the parade would be cancelled this year due to precautions to stop the spread of COVID-19, this week, organizers said that there would be a parade, on Sunday, June 14, along the route of the Pride parade. This parade will see Pride marching in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Puerto Rico feature a transgender pride flag, according to Pink News.

USA Today has some ideas about how to celebrate Pride month without a parade.

Ellis Liebskind-Blaufarb just graduated from high school in Tallahassee, Florida. As a transgender youth, he found some support from his school, and also got support from Temple Israel. He is profiled in The Tallahassee Democrat.

Christine Halquist

Two years after Christine Hallquist ran for governor of Vermont, three transgender women are running for seats in the state legislature. Vermont Digger has this story.

Representative Steve King, the Iowa congressman who is known for racist and anti-LGBTQ remarks, was defeated in a primary vote this week. Rep. King once said that transgender people in the military would be unable to defend Western civilization. While the man who defeated him shares most of the same positions on issues, his supporters hope that he will be less prone to attracting controversy with his statements. This story comes from The Advocate.

Cronkite News has a story about the bills which seek to prevent doctors from giving minors medical treatment for gender dysphoria.

A resolution introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives would end the ban on blood donations by men who have sex with men. Out.com has this story.

Gwendolyn Ann Smith found a study which confirms what so many of us already knew–that Dr. Ray Blanchard’s theory that transgender women are either effeminate homosexuals (or homosexuals who have a deep-set aversion to homosexuality) or else they have autogynephilia is bunkum. The Bay Area Reporter has her column.

Joan Westenberg, who founded her own tech venture capital company, writes about being a transgender woman in tech for The Next Web.

Many transgender people find that many doctors do not know what to do with them. This has proved to be a big problem during the era of COVID-19. Texas Monthly has this story.

Lilly Wachowski

Following last week’s story about taking the red pill (which is used by some far-right conservatives to describe the act of joining their ranks), there has been some renewed interest in The Matrix. An interview with Lilly Wachowski in The Hollywood Reporter covers the connection between The Matrix (and its sequels) and being transgender, as well as other topics.

HBO has a new documentary, entitled Transhood, which follows four transgender children in Kansas City. It gets a positive review from Variety.

A new documentary about HIV-positive sex workers who are undocumented immigrants in the U.S. aired on Showtime. The Advocate has a story about it.

The drag queen Jujubee is interviewed for the latest LGBTQ&A podcast. Talking about her political voice, she says that there would be no Pride without a black trans woman.

On her podcast, Bob The Drag Queen talked about finding her political voice in the midst of the current atmosphere. Pink News has this story.

A former X Factor contestant back in 2013 has come out as a transgender woman. Trevi Moran posted s short video to her YouTube channel last week titled Coming Out. I Am Female. Learn more from Variety.

If you have ever wondered how much money has been awarded on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Out.com has some numbers on that.

Zión Moreno

Distractify has a profile of Zión Moreno, who plays Isabela in the Netflix series Control Z.

The creators of Hairspray have announced that future productions cannot have an all-white cast. Since a part of the plot line is the integration of a local dance show, it makes sense that they use people of color in the cast. Since the directive requires producers “to cast the show so as to accurately reflect the characters as we wrote them,” LGBTQ Nation wonders if this means that the role of Edna Turnblad will always be played by a man in drag.

Publishers Weekly reports that Trans New York is coming out with a new book that shows transgender women through portraits.

When L’Oreal tweeted a Black Lives Matter message, they got feedback from people who remember that, three years ago, the brand dropped Munroe Bergdorf as a spokesperson when she spoke out about white supremacy. Pink News has this story.

Friend of TGForum and famed female impersonator David de Alba recently informed us that his YouTube videos featuring interviews and a cappella performances have all been moved to a new channel because of some technical issue. If you’ve been wondering where The Cuban Legend went you can find all of his videos right here.

A 16-year-old transgender person wrote about how a love of metal music got her through some hard times in coming out. The article appears in Loud Wire.

On the Queen’s Birthday List, Georgina Beyer was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. She was the first openly transgender person elected mayor of a major city, and the first openly transgender member of a national legislative body. TV New Zealand has this story.

Georgie Stone

Georgie Stone, who got changes to Australia’s laws regarding the treatment of transgender minors, is still appearing on a television show Neighbours. She is profiled in HITC.

Baroness Ruth Hunt, the former head of Stonewall, appeared on the History Becomes Her podcast. She was asked about “gender-critical feminism,” and talked of some private conversations that she had with some unnamed people who held gender-critical opinions. Pink News has an article about this.

Gay Star News talked to some trans women who say that feel unsafe in Britain, as they fear that the nation will soon enact a law preventing transgender women from using “women-only spaces,” likely including public restrooms and changing areas.

Political activists campaigning to prevent the government of the United Kingdom from enacting a bathroom bill have appealed to a new ally–employers. They hope that employers will write letters in support of the “dignity and safety” of transgender people. Gay Star News has this story.

A transgender woman with AIDS in Columbia died when paramedics refused to come to her assistance. This story can be found at Out.com.

Poland is preparing for a presidential election, and incumbent Andrzey Duda looked to be on his way to an easy re-election. However, Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski has now entered the race. While several cities and towns in Poland have declared themselves to be “LGBTQ-Free Zones,” with President Duda encouraging them, Warsaw under Mayor Trzaskowski has gone in the opposite direction. The mayor has gained a lot of ground quickly, according to Gay Star News.

UN AIDS has an article about life for transgender people in Suriname and Guyana.

We mentioned last week that the Trump administration is threatening to remove funding from school districts which allow transgender women to participate in sports as females. Pink News has an article about reaction to that decision.

June is Pride month, even if most Pride events are cancelled this year. In a move which surprised no one, Donald Trump failed to issue a tweet supporting Pride. His campaign nonetheless is selling a t-shirt with the phrase “Make America Great Again” in the colors of the Pride flag, and even calls it the “Make America Great Again Pride t-shirt.” LGBTQ Nation has this story. Also at LGBTQ Nation is an article which notes the incongruity between Ivanka Trump sending a Pride tweet and the policies of her father’s administration.

Resting Risk Face

San Francisco-based artist Danielle Baskin made a protective face mash in response to the virus pandemic. It has the wearer’s lower face printed on it. When you’re wearing it you look like you, with the outlines of the mask making it look a bit odd. Trans people should take note. There’s no need to feature your own lower face. You could use editing software to make you lips plumper, your nose smaller, or whatever improvements you desire. Baskin came up with the idea as a joke, calling her own mask “Resting Risk Face.” If you want to have your lower face put on a mask you can send your lower face photo to Baskin along with $40 and she’ll make you one. See the story in the Daily Mail.

With no Pride parade this year, LGBTQ Nation is posting pictures from Pride parades past. The first picture in the series comes from New York City in the 1970s. The photographer, Suzanne Poli, points out that, in the front, there is Marsha P. Johnson, fairly easy to find.

TWITs

Bob Kroll, the head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, has blamed services to transgender people as a drain on the city’s budget, and says that transgender people are the reason why police officers will not get a raise this year. All those people in the streets protesting the killing of an unarmed man–that’s not why the city has a financial problem. And this virus that stopped so much of business, and which is the reason that the union gave for recommending that the officers not get raises, is not the real cause. It’s the money spent helping transgender people. For bad math and for blaming others, Bob Kroll gets a TWIT Award. Pink News has this story.

Eugene Delgaudio, who founded Public Advocate USA (a group which the SPLC has designated as a “hate group”), has declared June to be “LMNOP+ Month.” He defines “LMNOP” to mean, “Lifestyle of Mainstream Normal Ordinary People.” For displaying the sort of arrogant behavior which shows why Pride is so necessary, Eugene Delgaudio gets a TWIT. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

MercatorNet presents most, if not quite all, of the Amicus Curiae brief submitted by Dr. Paul McHugh to the Supreme Court in the case of Aimee Stephens v. G.R. and R.G. Harris Funeral Homes. They present Dr. McHugh as a psychiatrist and a noted authority on transgender people. He was once considered a noted authority on transgender people, but his work has since come into question. Not only do his recommendations for treatment produce less than optimal results, but his writings keep citing what other psychiatrists (and psychologists, and mental health professionals) find to be inaccurate data. For propping up a formerly-respected professional with no mention of why he is lost that respect, MercatorNet gets a TWIT Award.

J.K. Rowling seems to be unable to avoid trouble lately. First, she retweeted a drawing of a character in her new children’s book, and added a line in which she appears to have misgendered a trans woman and also dropped a word that is most inappropriate for such a young person. She later deleted that sentence, and claimed it was an accident. (See the story in The Advocate.) This week, she let loose with a series of “gender-critical” tweets, denying that gender is anything but sexual characteristics, even going so far as to say, “trans women are not women.” In one tweet she seems to get hung up on menstruation, as though that defines who is and who is not female. In this, she seems not to know of androgen insensitivity syndrome. This condition causes a fetus with XY chromosome karyotype to develop a female appearance. Children with this can be identified as female from birth, raised as females, and only have that questioned when they fail to menstruate at puberty. It is rare, but it does happen. Do these teenagers stop being thought of as female because they do not menstruate? Medical science says no, but J.K. Rowling seems to think so. For disagreeing with medical science, and for disparaging transgender people based on a misunderstanding, J.K. Rowling gets a TWIT. You can find the tweets, and reaction, at Pink News. The Lancet has an article about Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.

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