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The Week In Trans 8/5/19

ceciliab | Aug 5, 2019

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Laverne Cox, who is showing up all over these days is a cover girl for British Vogue. Cox fronts the latest issue of the style bible alongside 14 other women deemed inspirational by Prince Harry’s wife Meghan Markle. You can read about it at Gay Star News.

Almost three dozen members of the U.S. House of Representatives have signed a letter to ICE, complaining about the treatment of transgender women in the care of the agency. NBC News has this story.

Layleen Cubilette-Polanco

Layleen Cubilette-Polanco, who died at age 27 in solitary confinement at Rikers Island, died from complications of epilepsy, according to an autopsy. Apparently, sending her to solitary confinement was what caused her death, according to The New York Daily News.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday that they no longer classify gender incongruence (also known as gender dysphoria) as a mental illness. In the International Classification of Disease (ICD-11) gender incongruence has been moved from the “mental health” chapter to a newly created “sexual health” chapter. Get the details from MSN.com.

The state of Alabama still requires proof of sterilization or proof of a corrected birth certificate in order to get a change of gender on a driver’s license. Three transgender women are challenging that, with help from the ACLU. The judge seems to be receptive to their case, according to Alabama.com.

Christina Ketchum

While some transgender people are suing their insurance companies for failing to cover their gender recognition surgery, Christina Ketcham of Oregon is suing to get her insurance company to cover facial feminization surgery. The Oregonian has this story.

A transgender woman named Paige A. Thompson was arrested in connection with a massive data breach at Capital One Bank. The data breach did expose the names, addresses, banking history, and some other vital information of some applicants. LGBTQ Nation has more.

Mario Lopez, who was once a regular on Saved By The Bell and now reports on entertainment for the television show Extra, did an interview on The Candace Owens Show, a part of PragerU. The host brought up the subject of transgender children. Lopez showed little idea of what being transgender is about, to the point of mistaking it for a sexual orientation at one point. He caught a lot of flack for the comments, and has since apologized, according to Yahoo. (It is interesting to note that the public reaction comes almost a month after the interview.)

The Human Rights Campaign ran an interview with Jaspret Brar and Priya Shah, “proud parents of two elementary-school-age daughters, one transgender and one cisgender.”

Sara and Ben Kaplan of Berkeley, California, have a son and a daughter. Both of them are transgender. Their family’s story can be found in The New York Post.

Laurel Hubbard

Laurel Hubbard won two gold medals and one silver medal in power lifting at the Pacific Games. As would be expected, this led to a lot of commentary about a transgender female competing against cisgender females. Reuters has this story.

Marvel Studios has put out a casting call for a transgender woman “of any ethnicity” in her 20s or 30s, to play a character named Jessica. LGBTQ Nation thinks that they know which character and in which upcoming movie.

The most recent episode of Pose included a protest stunt which seemed similar to one pulled off by ACT UP. The thing about that is, ACT UP was “80% white gay men, and a lot of the lesbians were white, too,” while the cast of Pose is much more diverse. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Fans of The Cuban Legend, female impersonator David de Alba, will be happy to know that more of a video of David in his Las Vegas home has been posted on YouTube.

The singer Sade’s son Isaac recently underwent gender confirmation surgery, and it was quite painful, according to his posts. You can read about it in The Grio.

Two transgender women were found dead in a house in Pakistan, according to The AP.

Valentina Sampaio

Victoria’s Secret has reportedly hired their first ever transgender Angel. She is Brazilian model and actress Valentina Sampaio. Just last year the company’s CEO said he thought there would never be a transgender Victoria’s Secret Angel. Get the story from the New York Post.

Although most westerners think of Thailand as a great place for transgender people, in fact the country does not permit people to change their legal gender status, even after gender confirmation surgery. A group of transgender activists presented the government with a request to recognize their gender after surgery. Gay Star News has this story.

Gay Star News has announced that, because of financial losses, they are shutting down, as of July 30. They are keeping their content up as long as possible, but may be shut down at any time. Efforts are being made to purchase the site and keep it going, but it is uncertain whether those efforts will succeed.

Around ten year ago the government of Nepal estimated that there were 4,000 LGBTI people in the country. No the government is interested in another count of the LGBTI people in the country. A group of activists suggests that the number would be closer to 500,000. This story comes from Gay Star News.

In Bialystok, Poland, a Pride parade was attacked with eggs, rotten vegetables, and even bricks. Poland has been the scene of some vicious anti-LGBT activity lately. LGBTQ Nation has this story. They also report that Polish LGBTQ celebrities and activists are fighting back with a Taylor Swift song.

A transgender woman in Nottinghamshire is tired of having to go into town every time she has to do any banking transaction. The bank won’t do her transactions over the phone because she sounds like a man, or so she tells The Nottingham Post.

Influencer Thiessa.

Transgender “influencers” are being signed up by advertisers in Brazil looking to reach new audiences. The influencers post videos and garner millions of views. They are considered a way to reach other markets that can’t be tapped using traditional celebrities as spokespeople. The BBC has the story in a video. Of course.

The 2019 China Drag Queen Contest took place in June in the city of Shanghai. Photographer Kaz Senju was there and 13 of his photos from the event can be found in the Advocate. The first two pictures don’t feature any of the contestants but if you scroll down you will see that drag is an international phenomena.

An imprisoned Brazilian gang leader attempted to escape from prison by trading places with his 19-year-old daughter. He put on her clothes, a silicone girl mask and wig and tried to walk out of the prison. The disguise failed to fool the guards who thought the “girl” seemed awfully nervous. Get the story from USA Today via Yahoo.

Vincent Garcia

Vincent Garcia, from Los Angeles, California, has been experimenting with his mother Elizabeth Leyva’s make-up and walking around their house in her stilettos since he was two. He made his drag debut at the age of 9 during Los Angeles Pride this June after becoming inspired to follow in the footsteps of his favorite stars from RuPaul’s Drag Race. Learn more from The Daily Mail.

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like for drag queens in India looking for people to date Vice has the stories of several queens. Some potential dates are attracted by the drag while others who meet the queen out of drag are turned off when they find out about their profession.

The transgender community in Czechia (that’s the Czech Republic which is changing its name) is trying to become more visible and is challenging the country’s gender recognition laws. Read the story in The Bay Area Reporter.

TWITs

Donald Trump Jr. said that he “literally can’t see anything wrong with what Mario Lopez said here that would cause the Outrage Mob try to destroy him.” Mario Lopez has spent no time whatsoever studying what he is criticizing. For being unable to see anything wrong with speaking from ignorance, Donald Trump Jr. gets a TWIT Award. Pop Culture has this story.

Carissa Pinkston, a model who sometimes uses the name Rissa Danielle, posted statements which some call transphobic, though others might label them merely ignorant. When she was criticized, she claimed that she “identifies as transgender.” She is in fact cisgender, but tried to use the verb “identify” to cover herself. For faking being transgender, as well as the transphobia or ignorance (or both) behind her original comments, Carissa Pinkston gets a TWIT. You can read about this in The Huffington Post.

The Christian Broadcasting Network is promoting a group of “concerned parents” who are asking the Surgeon General to expose the dangers of puberty blockers. While it is true that there is little evidence for their safety, there is equally little evidence for their lack of safety. That doesn’t matter to these parents. The real danger is people with no medical training pretending that their opinions are better than those of experts. For delusions of grandeur, CBN gets a TWIT Award.

In Washington state Spokane County Library District leaders are asking voters for a $2 million property tax increase to avoid laying off staff and closing libraries, but they fear that backlash from the city of Spokane library system’s Drag Queen Story Hour could turn off voters. They got over a 100 calls from people opposed to Story Hour and are doing all they can to let those prejudiced callers know that it’s not them that had the event but the city library system. A TWIT Award goes to the callers who complained and to the district library for not educating people instead of caving for a dollar. Find the story in The Spokesman-Review.

Whole Foods sponsored a Drag Queen Story Hour in Atlanta’s city hall. Miss Terra Cotta Sugarbaker was the drag performer who read to the children. Now the conservative group of harpies known as One Millions Moms has called for a boycott of Whole Foods. If you don’t like the idea of Drag Queen Story Hour don’t take your kid to one but don’t try to keep other people and organizations from supporting and enjoying the fun. Learn more from the Advocate. A TWIT Award goes to One Million Moms.

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.