The Week In Trans 7/22/19

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Phyllis Randolph Frye

Phyllis Frye, the famous transgender attorney and judge from Texas, will soon be a featured speaker at the Health, Labor, and Employment Institute in Wisconsin. She is the subject of a profile in the Wisconsin Bar. (The site may be down due to a power outage in Madison.)

A man has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of Zoe Spears. Spears was found shot to death on June 13, and this past week Gerardo Thomas of Baltimore was charged in connection with her murder. The Washington Post has this story.

The state of Massachusetts has announced that transgender people are welcome to join that state’s National Guard. Massachusetts is the eighth state to announce that it will not apply President Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military to the state’s National Guard. You can read about this in Mass Live..

Tinder appears to still be banning transgender people. Although the site claims that it is dedicated to diversity, reports say when a user reports a transgender or non-binary person’s profile, the reported profile gets banned, while people who harass transgender people do not get banned. This comes from an article in The Independent.

Sarah McBride

The candidacy of Sarah McBride prompted CBS News to do a piece on her campaign and the campaigns of other recent transgender candidates.

For the last four years, Kendra Lovejoy has lived in housing provided by the state of Minnesota specifically for sex offenders. The rules for residents of such facilities have made it impossible for her to transition her gender in a number of ways, such as accessing proper medical care for gender dysphoria. The Appeal has this story.

Both The Daily Beast and WUSA-TV have stories about transgender women who do sex work, and the problems they face.

The College of William and Mary has established a “trans locker,” where transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students can get free clothing. Learn more about the new service from the college’s website.

The city of Berkeley, California, is attempting to get rid of all gendered language. This effort goes so far as to refer to a “maintenance hole” rather than a “manhole.” Vice calls it “chaotic and fabulous.”

Back in the 1970s if you wanted to see a good drag show the place to be was Atlantic City, New Jersey. By the 2000s most of the places that hosted drag shows were gone. But over the past few years, ever since RuPaul’s Drag Race made drag a household word, more venues featuring drag have popped up in A.C. Those who want a break from gambling can take in a drag show at a number of new venues. Learn more about the Atlantic City drag renaissance from The Press of Atlantic City.

There is a new video on Youtube featuring friend of TGF and noted female impersonator David de Alba. Fans of The Cuban Legend will want to check it out.

The University of Southern California issued a press release touting the work of recent graduate Jonathan Vanhoecke, who is using neuroimaging technology to study the brains of transgender people. He hopes that someday, his research will lead to better prescribing of HRT medication.

Audrey Middleton

Audrey Middleton was the first out transgender person on Big Brother. This week, on Twitter, she reveals that CBS put pressure on her to come out as trans. Newsweek covered this story.

A new film by University of Pittsburgh graduate Mark Janavel, titled Transient: First 100 Days of Trump, looks at what happened to the rights of transgender people during the first one hundred days of the current U.S. president. It captures the reaction of transgender people in their own words. It was previewed in PGH Pittsburgh.

Transgender people have long been found to have a higher-than-average probability of being on the autism scale. A new study by Dr. Steven Stagg of Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K. has added non-binary people to the pool, and found that 14% had a diagnosis of autism, while another 28% exhibited some factors that are associated with autism, although they had not been diagnosed as such. Eurekalert has this story.

An article in Medical Bag talks about the problems transgender people have accessing health care, and offers some solutions.

Uninsured individuals have particular problems accessing health care, as The Orange County Register points out.

People who rely on Medicaid for their health insurance are finding that some states cover medical treatment for gender dysphoria, while others do not. The Pew Charitable Trust has an article on this.

Transgender people who rely on health insurance from their employers find that their policies don’t always cover treatment of gender dysphoria, according to Benefit News.

The television series Good Trouble touched on the subject of dating while non-binary in their latest episode. The Advocate took notice.

Jessica Zyrie

A new ad campaign by GLAAD and Absolut Vodka features Jessica Zyrie and her father, Dwayne Price, as they talk about her gender transition. KSAT in San Antonio has this story.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article that explores how to properly credit and refer to an author who has subsequently changed gender. Should one use the name of the author at the time the article was published, or the name the author uses today? The article advocates a path to change the name retroactively, a task that is easy enough for electronic copies but harder for printed copies of an article. (Those printed copies may be preserved on microfilm.) This leads to the topic of whether changing the name of the author after publication will out the author as transgender, perhaps without the author’s permission.

The Conway Daily Sun has an article about transgender characters on television portrayed by transgender actors.

The QuTheatr Ensemble of Akron, Ohio, is presenting a new play called Through His I, which deals with a transgender male who gets bullied at school. The play stars Fennel Morrison, a 17-year-old transgender actor, in the role of the transgender student. You can read about it in The Akron Beacon Journal.

Miles McKenna

Youtube celebrity Miles McKenna was deadnamed recently, according to Business Insider.

Apple introduced their next set of emojis, and while they include same-sex couples holding hands, they do not include a transgender pride flag. Gwen Smith of LGBTQ Nation noticed the omission.

People are worried that the privacy agreement with FaceApp gives the app creators the right to do what they wish with user pictures, including the possibility of outing the user. You can read about it at LGBTQ Nation.

Stuff has an editorial about how hard it is to balance fairness when it comes to the topic of allowing transgender people to participate in sports.

A transgender man in Britain is seeking to be listed as “father” on his child’s birth certificate. The case is proceeding, but he lost a preliminary round when the court held that his name should be a part of the public record of the case. The Guardian has this story.

The government of Egypt has released Malak el-Kashef, a transgender woman who was held for over four months because of her calls for protest. The AP has this story.

The Washington Blade features the story of Leche Merchant, a transgender woman from Mexico who tried to immigrate to the United States. She is now living at a shelter for LGBT people in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.

In India, the government is moving ahead with a new transgender rights bill. India Today says that the bill has decriminalized begging by transgender people. Economic Times says that the bill would allow people to self-identify as transgender, without having to convince a panel. However, The Wire says that transgender activists are still asking to see the full text of the bill.

Samyuktha Vijayan

Samyuktha Vijayan learned computer programming in India, went to the U.S. and Europe to work as a software tech, transitioned, and now, has come back to India to create her own fashion start-up, and is the principal program manager for a food tech company named Swiggy. Her story is seen as a sign of changing times in India, according to The Hindu.

Pink News reports that the Portman & Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic in London is seeing an increasing number of patients who identify as non-binary.

Seventeen people shared what makes them proud to be non-binary on Pink News.

We mentioned last week that some towns in Poland had proclaimed themselves to be “LGBT-free zones.” This week, we hear that a newspaper, the Gazeta Polska, handed out stickers declaring whatever space to be an “LGBT-free zone.” Gay Star News ran this story.

The murders of three transgender people in Honduras this month have ignited fears that some Latin Americans are fighting back against the their government’s granting of growing rights for LGBTI citizens. Reuters has this story.

A pediatrician’s child suddenly came out at school as transgender. That pediatrician tells her story on The Los Angeles Times opinion page.

TWITs

Nabisco, the makers of Oreos, sent out a tweet announcing some special packages of Oreos which have the phrase, “Ask me my pronouns.” The packages come in blue, in pink, and in white. The tweet said that they were partnering with NCTE, referring to the National Center for Transgender Education. However, a piece for The Federalist misinterpreted the initials, and attacked the National Council of Teachers of English for having participated in this promotion. The author, Joy Pullman, went on to complain that the National Council of Teachers of English had been a “leftist” group for decades. For spreading misinformation on top of misinformation, Joy Pullman and The Federalist get a TWIT Award. Gay Star News has more on this.

At a recent press conference, Russian president Vladimir Putin said, “They’ve thought up six or five genders–transformers, trans. . .I don’t even understand what it is myself.” I don’t understand string theory, but I know that my lack of understanding is not an indication that it is untrue. For failing to heed the advice of a certain Nobel Prize winner who said, “don’t criticizing what you can’t understand, Vladimir Putin gets a TWIT Award. You can read about it in Gay Star News.

A coffee shop in Wales, Penylan Pantry, posted to social media some support for a transgender man who works there. Unfortunately, the response was not entirely positive. One person in particular referred to the employee’s top surgery as “mutilation,” while others suggested that he “seek psychotherapy.” For rudeness, as well as a lack of understanding of the procedures for getting approval for the surgery, those who posted negative comments get a TWIT. BBC Wales ran a story as well as a video.

Not satisfied after winning TWITs on consecutive weeks, MercatorNet gets the trifecta with another bit of bad science. Ironically, the article claims, “Remarkably, this revolution is happening without any credible scientific evidence to support it.” There is plenty of credible scientific evidence to support transgender theory, most notably the evidence that those whose gender identities are accepted have a far lower incidence of anxiety and depression. To which they counter, “But, chromosomes.” They are blissfully unaware that chromosomes are neither definitive nor binary as they claim. For looking down on others for lack of scientific evidence when in fact scientific evidence disagrees with their own thoughts, Mercator Net gets a third TWIT. (They also look to Dr. Paul McHugh as an authority, even though his research has tremendous holes in it, and they make the claim that 80% of transgender youth desist in their gender identity, when the study that “showed” this did not ask the subjects about their gender identities.)

The Christian Post also tries to fight “the radical transgender movement” with science. Here, they never get farther than chromosomes, which means, they never realize that grade-school-level science is an overview that is not always accurate. Chromosomes do not come in exactly two varieties, despite what you thought you learned, and people with XY chromosomes are not always male, nor are those with XX chromosomes always female. Moreover, genetics as destiny denies the concept of free will, and the whole concept of sin requires that we be able to choose our actions. For both bad science and bad religion, Michael Brown of The Christian Post gets 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