The Week In Trans 7/27/20

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Owen Bondono

Trans educator Owen Bondono was named Michigan Teacher of the Year. She is profiled in The Advocate.

23 state Attorneys General have joined together on a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s new definition of “sex” in section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. It joins several other lawsuits about the new policy. NBC News has the story.

A new report obtained by The Hill shows that only three members of the U.S. military were considered for discharge because of President Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military. No one has been discharged because of the ban, according to this report from the Pentagon to Congress.

The Palm Center says that the Pentagon could reverse President Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military in as little as 30 days after a new president takes office. The memo can be found at WGSN radio.

The new Pentagon policy on the display of flags, which bans the display of the Confederate battle flag, also bans the display of the rainbow flag and the transgender pride flag. The Washington Blade has this story.

Antonella Lerca

Antonella Lerca is a 30-year-old Roma sex worker. She is also the first transgender woman to run for elected office in Romania. She is profiled in Balkan Insights.

The New York Times notes that even a Supreme Court decision supporting the rights of transgender people has not stopped the Trump administration from its attacks on the rights of transgender people.

Federal judges heard arguments both for and against the two new Idaho laws affecting transgender people. Chief U.S. District Judge David Nye heard arguments on the law which bans transgender females from girls’ sports, while Judge Candy Dale, who previously ordered the state to allow transgender people to change their gender listed on their birth certificates, heard arguments on the new law which forbids the state from changing the gender on a person’s birth certificate. This story comes from The Idaho Falls Post-Register.

Police in Prince William County, Virginia, released photos of a man who is suspected in the vicious assault on a transgender woman as she left the beauty parlor where she works. The Prince William Times has this story.

Eduardo Gonzalez, who is said to have hurled threats and slurs at a group of transgender women at a bar, is set to be arraigned on August 7. His charges will include a hate crime charge, according to NBC Los Angeles.

Arhmani Washington

Arhmani Washington is a Black transgender woman who lives in Chicago. She says that someone broke into her house and stabbed her, and that the police have been slow to investigate. The Chicago Sun-Times has this story.

Melina Rayna has filed paperwork to run for the Florida state Senate. If she is elected, she would be the first transgender person to serve in the Florida legislature. WCJB has this story.

The Long Island Transgender Resource Center tries to create a sense of family, because many of their clients don’t have a family. It is the subject of a story in Long Island Advance.

A transgender man was denied a hysterectomy by the University of Maryland Medical System, and he is suing the hospital in court. Jesse Hammons says that, about a week before his surgical date, he was told that the operation was cancelled because it “conflicted with the hospital’s Catholic beliefs,” says the lawsuit. NBC News has this story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this and other stories.

We mentioned last week the pushback against the inaccurate hashtag that said only females get cervical cancer. Now, EuroNews picked up the story and fleshes it out.

Pink News has a story about how The Eve Appeal, a cervical cancer charity in the U.K., is fighting back against the hashtag “only females get cervical cancer.”

Spectrum: The Other Clinic is located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It specializes in transgender medicine, and patients come from all over the state to access a doctor who knows something about hormone therapy, according to a story in The Mississippi Clarion Ledger.

Theresa Jean Tanenbaum

Theresa Jean Tanenbaum writes in Nature about trying to get publishers to change her name on previously published works. It isn’t an easy task, but some organizations, such as the Association for Computing Machinery, are trying to do the right thing.

Although sports federations have until now ruled that transgender women could compete with women as long as they got their testosterone under some limit. World Rugby may become the exception to that. They tell BBC Sport, “[t]he latest peer reviewed research confirms that a reduction in testosterone does not lead to a proportionate reduction in mass, muscle mass, strength, or power.” The worry here is potential for injury.

Bob the Drag Queen has challenged Dave Chapelle to stand up for Black trans lives by no longer making jokes about transgender women. Those jokes weren’t funny anyway, at least, not to anyone who knows even one real transgender woman. Pink News has this story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

In an interview with TMZ, Caitlyn Jenner said that she texted Kanye West and asked if she could be his running mate. LGBTQ Nation has this report.

TLC has a new reality show entitled My Pregnant Husband. As the title suggests, it focuses on a pregnant man and his spouse. It so happens that the couple who are the focus are Black. This story comes from Insider.

Angelica Ross

Angelica Ross says she is planning the third TransTech Summit. What is her connection to tech? Before she got into acting, she was a webmaster. You can read about it at C|Net.

Gucci just released its first non-binary collection and they used “gender-neutral models” to display the clothes. Pink News has this story.

Shea Diamond says that the issues for the transgender community today are the same as they were in “the days of Sylvia and Marsha,” referring to Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. It is part of an interview with the LGBTQ&AA podcast, and can be found at The Advocate.

Singer-actor Todrick Hall has pledged $100,000 to the National Black Trans Advocacy Coalition as a sign of being an ally, according to Pink News.

Austin Farrell entertained his neighbors during lockdown with his rendition of Tina Turner’s Proud Mary. He even dressed up as her. LGBTQ Nation has the video.

Deadly Premonition 2 claims to have corrected the deadnaming of a transgender character. However, while the offending line is cut, the character reveals her deadname on her own a few moments later. GamesIndustry.biz has this story.

A new video game aims to tell a transgender story which is “not rooted in pain or trauma.” It’s a nice idea, but is there enough entertainment value to attract players? The title of the game is Tell Me Why, according to GameIndustry.biz.

A news site whose audience is primarily British school-age children has apologized to J.K. Rowling (and given her some money) in response to a threat of a lawsuit. The site, The Day, had rhetorically asked if it was still possible to enjoy the art of “deeply unpleasant people,” and suggested a possible boycott of her work because of her views regarding transphobic people. The Guardian has this story.

Our Lady J

Rub & Tug, the movie in which Scarlett Johansson was going to play a transgender man, is coming off the back burner. This time, it is to be a television series, with Our Lady J attached to the project. The Pittsburgh Tribune has this story.

We have been following the story of June Joplin, the Baptist pastor who came out as transgender during a video service to her congregation. This week, she was dismissed by her parish, according to Baptist News Global. She has, however, been offered the opportunity to be guest preacher at several other parishes, via Zoom. thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Vox has a long story about Pastor June Joplin.

In an interview with ITV, Prime Minister Boris Johnson seemed to confirm that his government will again delay any actual reform to the Gender Recognition Act, though they will reform some other transgender laws. Pink News has this story.

Labour MP Nadia Whittome said that Equalities Minister Liz Truss was “fanning the flames of populist hate” against the transgender community. Pink News has this story and another story in which she accuses some people of “fetishizing debate” about transgender people while rolling back their rights.

A longer article in Pink News tries to figure out how we got from trying to reform the Gender Recognition Act to a point where transgender people may lose rights are are well-established.

In spite of the attitudes of politicians in Britain, the hashtag “Why I’m a Trans Ally” went viral recently, as people told of why they support transgender people. Pink News has this story.

Melz Owusu

Melz Owusu says that traditional universities are not supporting queer Black students. To fix that, Owusu is starting the Free Black University. You can read about this at Pink News

Russian transgender activist Polina Simonenko was recently convicted of violating protest rules and sentenced to 14 days in jail. She will be sent to a men’s jail, where she is afraid that she will be raped. The Moscow Times has this story.

We have told you of Polish cities declaring themselves to be “LGBT-free zones.” The European Union is taking a dim view of that, and is threatening to cut off EU financial aid to these towns. This story comes from Reuters.

Police in Uganda are having trouble filling out forms when transgender people are involved, according to the Monitor.

Pakistan’s first transgender policewoman has taken on duty as a victims’ support officer. She is profiled in Pink News.

Human Rights Watch asks, “Where is justice for Moroccan transgender women?” They cannot get ID that matches their lived gender, and that opens them up for a lot of problems.

Erin Parisi

Erin Parisi is a mountain climber who wants to be the first transgender person to climb Mount Everest. She has already climbed Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas. Pink News has a profile of her. [Editor’s Note: British travel writer Jan Morris did the Everest climb in 1953 while reporting on the attempt. She did not transition till 1972 but technically she is the first transgender person to climb the mountain. That we know of.]

Did you ever shop at Lee’s Mardi Gras Boutique in New York City? Back in the day, as they say, Lee Brewster’s shop in the meat packing district was the place to go for all your drag and crossdressing needs. If you have stories about Lee a woman named Charlotte Hoelke, a lecturer in the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at West Virginia University, is compiling as much info on Lee Brewster as she can. Oral histories, photos, videos, are what she is interested in. If you share something about Lee Brewster and his historic shop it will be archived at the university and Ms. Hoelke hopes to publish a book at some point. For more information you can check out the PDF of intent right here. Thanks to Jan Brown for letting us know about the research project.

TWITs

At a county fair in Pennsylvania, a man in a dress pretended to be Dr. Rachel Levine, the state’s Secretary of Health. People paid to attempt to send the fake doctor into a dunk tank. For killing the messenger because you dislike the message, and for insulting her gender identity on top of it, the people behind this prank get a TWIT Award. ABC News has the AP’s story. Thanks to Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development issued its new rule, allowing homeless shelters to separate people by “birth sex” rather than gender. The rule lets people who run the shelters know they can identify transgender women by height, facial hair, and Adam’s apples. For creating a very imperfect list, and for not caring that transgender women are more likely to be the targets of sexual abuse than they are to be abusers, the Department of Housing and Urban Development gets a TWIT. This story comes from Vox.

A Catholic news agency called Angelus has a headline that reads, “24 states sue to block rule allowing doctors to object to transgender surgery.” The article’s first sentence mentions “performing abortions or gender reassignment surgeries.” This ignores the real objection, which comes when doctors refuse to perform more common medical procedures. For reducing the argument to the point of ignoring the subject, Angelus gets a TWIT Award.

Media Matters for America did a study of published content about transgender topics. Their biggest findings was that articles from right-wing sites, such as Breitbart, The Daily Wire, and LifeSiteNews, got more comments, reactions, and shares. These sites publish quite a few articles about transgender people, and those articles are often so inaccurate that they get mentioned here in the TWITs section. For spreading misinformation and bias, the people who share and like or love these articles get a TWIT Award. (As an aside, these articles are sometimes spread by people who want to refute them, and some comments and reactions may oppose the articles.)

As we have mentioned many times, the government of the U.K. has ignored the desire of the public to reform the Gender Recognition Act, and instead gone after existing rights, citing potential abuses and ignoring the fact that these abuses do not happen. And yet, National Review has an article which praises the U.K. government for coming “close to defeating trans overreach.” For advocating a diminishment of rights, National Review and author Debbie Hayton get a TWIT Award.

The platform of the Republican Party of North Dakota accuses LGBTQ people of “recruiting for their lifestyles.” It also repeats the claim that accommodating the needs of transgender women would “grant protection to voyeurs who wish to prey on members of the opposite sex.” Neither of these things are found to happen in places that have such bills. For ignoring reality in order to promote prejudice, the Republican party of North Dakota gets a TWIT Award. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

The American habit of political hyperbole has reached Britain. MP Danny Kruger compared children seeking help for their gender identities to Alice arriving in Wonderland. He wrote, “The Tavistock NHS Clinic, where children are told they can be the sex they want to be and given puberty-blocking hormone treatments, is our Wonderland.” For failing to even try to understand something before he condemns it, MP Danny Kruger gets a TWIT Award. You can find this story in Pink News.

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