The Week In Trans 7/20/20
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Peyton Rose Michelle won a seat on the Democratic State Central Committee in Louisiana. She is the first transgender person to win an election in that state. The Hill has this report. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.
Colorado has joined the list of states that outlawed the use of sexual orientation or gender identity as a defense in a criminal case. This story can be found in Western Slope Now. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.
The state of Maine now allows an undeclared gender marker on birth certificates. People born in the state can request that their birth certificates be changed to a non-binary gender. The Advocate has this story.
Tuesday was Non-Binary People’s Day. LGBTQ Nation has a story on that.
Meanwhile, in Pink News, Radam Ridwan writes, “The big problem for non-binary people like me isn’t just being seen–it’s being seen as human.”
Marilyn Cazares was found murdered in Brawley, California. The victim was stabbed, then her body was burnt. This story comes from The Palm Springs Desert Sun. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.
The Human Rights Campaign recorded 21 transgender or gender nonconforming people murdered so far this year. CBS News has a story.
Rita Hester’s death in 1998 was an inspiration for Transgender Day Of Remembrance. Twenty-two years later, her family remembers cleaning her apartment after she was stabbed 20 times. It is a crime that has never been solved, as NBC News reports.
Police in Macon, Georgia, have made an arrest in the murder of Candace Towns, who was shot to death on Halloween of 2017. The Macon Telegraph has this story.
Gwendolyn Ann Smith decries the lack of transgender voices in the discussion of transgender topics, such as the recent Supreme Court ruling on Title VII. This appears in her column in The Bay Area Reporter.
KAIT-TV has a story about My Sistah’s Place, which provides housing in Memphis for transgender women. For three years, they have been providing temporary housing, and now are stepping up to provide permanent housing.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune has a story about House of Tulip, which is buying up run-down houses in New Orleans and will fix them up to become homes for Black transgender women.
Meanwhile, organizations such as True Colors United are challenging the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new guidance which allows shelters for the homeless to place transgender women with males. The Advocate has this story.
Facebook and Instagram are taking steps to eliminate advertising for conversion therapy. The move has upset several social conservative groups, according to LGBTQ Nation.
Journalist and feminist writer Marie Le Conte recalls her experiences meeting transgender people, in an article entitled, “Womanhood is already a messy and crowded place, but feminism must always, always make room for trans women.” The article appears in Pink News.
Liam Papworth-Rodriguez is said to be the first transgender person to enlist in the U.S. military. He was discharged after an injury during basic training. He told CBS 2 Chicago about his problems getting his surgery bills paid.
When a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany if the president was reconsidering his ban on transgender people in the military, he got an unexpected answer. “He [President Trump] has a great record when it comes to the LGBT community.” The Advocate has this story.
The pandemic has brought on many changes and among the biggest is how New York City drag performers manage to ply their trade. Hint — it’s a lot different than it was before the virus hit. Read about the changes in the Daily News.
The state of Washington has filed suit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, arguing that the redefinition of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act is arbitrary and capricious, and violates the June 15 Supreme Court ruling that held that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is discrimination on the basis of sex. CNN has this story.
In addition to that lawsuit, there are also lawsuits in Washington, D.C., and in the state of Massachusetts. Those were brought by individuals and LGBTQ groups, according to LGBTQ Nation.
An article in Annals of Family Medicine found that more education could help providers of family medicine to better understand and handle the needs of transgender patients. You can read about it in PubMed.
An article in Psychology Today discusses the psychological stress that transgender people often have. They find that transgender people with family acceptance have less distress, while transgender activists have more distress. (This is not necessarily cause and effect, and even if it is, it is not obvious which is the cause and which is the effect.)
In India a new breed of politicized Indian drag queens have emerged over the past six years, forcing uncomfortable conversations about important issues. Learn more about them and their acts from Nikkei Asian Review.
The results of the second annual National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health was released by The Trevor Project, and they are not particularly pretty. 60% of transgender and non-binary youth report that they engaged in self-harm in the last 12 months, and more than half of transgender and non-binary participants report having seriously considered suicide. You can find the full report at The Trevor Project, or an article about it at Forbes.
In The Advocate, Dr. Alex Keurogman asks, “Why must we keep diagnosing trans people as ill?” He argues for a future where help for transgender people does not require medical intervention.
About 3/4 of Dr. Sarah Pickle’s patients are transgender, and the patients of hers who test positive for COVID-19 are mostly transgender patients. This is indicative of the fact that transgender, gender-nonconforming, and gender diverse people are more likely to catch the virus than are cisgender people, according to WVXU public radio.
The largest cervical cancer charity in the U.K., Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, insists that “everyone with a cervix” should have information about and access to smear tests. This comes in response to a hashtag that said, “only females get cervical cancer.” Pink News has this story.
Childline says that they have received a larger-than-usual number of calls regarding gender identity since lockdown started. This story comes from Pink News.
A high school basketball coach in Indianapolis quit the program he helped to set up, in response to the Archdiocese of Indianapolis’s announcement regarding transgender students in Catholic schools. The Indianapolis Star has this story.
The world’s oldest performing drag queen has had her club saved by the federal payroll loan program. Darcelle XV Showplace is still open for business in Portland, Oregon. Darcelle was able to keep paying 50 staffers allowing her to keep the doors open, and vows that the venue will never close. Learn more from The Oregonian website.
GLAAD released their report on last year’s mainstream American movies. While LGB representation is increasing, they report that there were no transgender characters in major movies last year. You can find the full report at GLAAD’s website, and a story about it at Polygon.
Owl wrote about the benefits of casting transgender actors to play transgender characters in a piece for Metro.
The documentary Disclosure was the subject for the Documentary Of The Week on WNYC.
During a recent virtual gathering of five LGBTQ contestants from Survivor, Zeke Smith talked about being outed as transgender on the show. The AV Club has this story.
Hideataka Suehiro, the director of Deadly Premonition 2, apologized for how the representation of a transgender character turned out. He said that “some scenes” would be rewritten, and that “a team that included diversity” would review the new material. This story can be found in Polygon.
Variety reports that sales for J.K. Rowling’s books are lagging as the book industry experiences a sales increase. Her books, including the Harry Potter books, are experiencing increased sales, but at a rate less than that of the industry as a whole.
Another spin-off from RuPaul’s Drag Race is about to begin. This time, it’s Canada’s Drag Race, and it will be seen in both Canada and the U.S. The Advocate has this story.
The European Union’s top rights court has ruled that Hungary must change the gender of an Iranian refugee living in Hungary. President Victor Orban had announced that the country would use “birth sex” rather than “gender” on official documents. This story can be found on Courthouse News Service.
CTV did a story about a Baptist minister who told her congregation that she is transgender during a transmission while Canada was under a stay-at-home order.
A transgender woman who left Hong Kong to escape discrimination on account of her gender identity is seeking asylum in Canada. However, because she is married to another woman, and because same-sex marriage is not recognized in Hong Kong, she must seek asylum in Canada as a male in order to bring her wife with her. Pink News has this story.
A month after a government official leaked the plan to The Times, The BBC reports that indeed, it is “unlikely” that reform of the Gender Recognition Act will include self-identification by transgender people.
Pink News has written an open letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, asking him to keep his promises to transgender people.
Disney, Sky, and the Financial Times are among the companies which have written to Boris Johnson regarding the reform of the Gender Recognition Act. These companies prefer self-declaration of gender, according to Pink News.
YouGov did some polling on British attitudes towards transgender people in various situations. Vic Parsons of PinK News is far from happy with the attitudes expressed. Lynne Featherstone a Liberal Democrat MP, tells Pink News that she likes how 57% of respondents told YouGov that they support self-identification of gender.
While the leadership of the Conservative Party has decided against self-declaration of gender, Liberal Democrats are pushing for an option of “X” as a gender on British passports. Pink News has this story.
Munroe Bergdorf talked with Lady Phyll, the head of U.K. Black Pride, about racism, sexism, and investment banking. You can read about it in Pink News.
The Guardian reports that Munroe Bergdorf just received a six-figure book deal for a book about how to deal with gender identity.
According to the Office for National Statistics, transgender people were twice as likely to have been victims of crime in England and Wales as cisgender people. The Straits Times has this story.
In a disturbing story, police in Malaysia have been given “full license” to arrest and detain transgender people for disobeying sharia law. This story can be found in Pink News.
Police in India report that a transgender woman was stabbed in the face during a robbery in which the assailant got £21. Pink News has this story.
Vladimir Putin promised to crack down on LGBTQ+ rights, and a new law in Russia outlaws same-sex unions, including marriages in which one partner changed sex, according to Out.com.
Parents in Akron, Ohio, threw a gender reveal party for their 17-year-old child. Assigned female at birth, Gray Schoolcraft is now non-binary, with a preference for he/him pronouns. The New York Daily News has this story.
TWITs
Member of the U.K. Parliament Jackie Doyle-Price, a Conservative, came out against puberty blockers, saying that they cause sterility, and said that transgender support groups lead a movement which “almost re-adopted gender stereotyping and almost turned it into a science.” For a total misunderstanding of the medical science behind transgender medicine, MP Jackie Doyle-Price gets a TWIT Award. The Daily Mail has this story.
The Daily Mail and The College Fix have added themselves to the list of media outlets which have written articles that promote Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. The book largely follows Lisa Littman’s study, which never bothered to talk to actual transgender teens but instead assumed that what their parents observed is a perfect reflection of what was going on in the teen’s head. It also claims that puberty blockers cause sterility. The Daily Mail and The College Fix share in the TWIT Award already issued to other outlets that swallowed this lie.
The Federalist called the inclusion of the story of a young transgender person in The Babysitters Club “transgender propaganda.” For misuse of the term “propaganda,” The Federalist gets a TWIT Award.
A transgender worker at a Burger King in Santa Monica, California, died of COVID-19. Fellow workers went on strike when management blamed the hormones she took for her death. For avoiding their own responsibility, the management of this Burger King franchise gets a TWIT Award. You can read this story of denial in LGBTQ Nation. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to 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.
Category: Transgender Community News
