The Week In Trans 9/30/19

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Creatable World doll.

Mattel has come out with a line of gender-neutral dolls, with gender-neutral clothing, using the brand name “Creatable World.” You can read all about it at Mattel’s website.

Saturday was the day for the long-anticipated Transgender March in Washington, D.C. The Advocate has this story, as well as Kiara St. James’s statement that she is marching for justice.

In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Donald Trump claimed, “As we defend American values, we affirm the right of all people to live in dignity.” He then crowed about his administration’s stance on decriminalizing homosexuality. It is still unclear if he knows what all of the letters in LGBTQ stand for, and particularly what the T represents. This story comes from LGBTQ Nation.

The Independence Law Center says that it has dropped its case to challenge the policy of the Boyerstown School District regarding transgender students. This case involved cisgender students who allege that the policy violated their right to privacy. The Independence Law Center noted that nearly all of the students they represent have graduated high school now. The Reading Eagle has this story.

Angelica Ross

Angelica Ross hosted the first-ever Presidential Forum dedicated to LGBTQ issues. While there, she asked why Bernie Sanders did not show up for that forum or another on the same topic. She then left Twitter for awhile because of backlash she got from Bernie fans. The Advocate has more.

Freddy McConnell, a transgender man, lost his legal quest this week, when the High Court of the United Kingdom rejected his petition to be listed as the father of his child. Since he gave birth to the child, he will be listed as the child’s mother. CNN International has this story.

Dallas Police have arrested a suspect in the shooting of a transgender woman. The woman survived and told police about her assailant, and the police were able to make an arrest. This story comes from NBC News.

A man has been arrested for the murder of Celine Walker, who was found shot to death in a motel in Jacksonville, Florida, last year. This was the first of three murders of transgender women in the Jacksonville area last year. Jacksonville.com has this story.

Police have also detained a “person of interest” in connection with the murder of Bee Love Slater, whose body was found inside a burnt car. The suspect, James Richemond, is also a suspect in another murder. Pink News gives us this story.

Several transgender women are staying put at Casa Ruby in Washington, D.C., afraid to go out after someone held a gun to Keraldy Mendez and told her, “I am going to kill you. I hate transgender females.” WUSA-TV reports that efforts are being made to move people to other locations.

NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reports that a transgender woman from Tampa has gone missing in the Dallas airport, where she was supposed to change planes on a trip to Mexico. She has not been seen since September 14.

Trans Avon lady, Daniella Schofield.

A trans woman in Britain was forced to give up her lucrative job in order to care for her mother. She needed money so she started selling Avon products, becoming the first transgender Avon lady. She says she found support in the Avon community along with a way to make a living. Read her story in the Daily Mail.

A couple in Los Angeles wanted to not assign a gender to their child, but a government employee assigned the gender for the child’s Social Security registration, according to The Los Angeles Times.

A Republican candidate in Virginia paid a company $30 to delete his homophobic, transphobic, and otherwise over-the-top tweets. They deleted the tweets from his timeline, but not from Twitter. His opponent found them. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

A church in Florida filed a suit against the Southern Poverty Law Center, saying that the group libeled the church by calling it a “hate group.” This week, a federal judge said that claims that the group’s anti-LGBTQ statements come from the Bible and do not prevent the SPLC from criticizing the group’s positions, as the SPLC is guaranteed free speech. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Diane Anderson-Minshall, editorial director for The Advocate reminds Mayor Pete Buttigieg of the role that transgender people have played in securing LGBTQ rights.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson went on Fox News, to both claim that his comments about transgender people were taken out of context and to repeat the same transphobic claims. LGBTQ Nation covered this story.

Forbes has advice for avoiding a controversy such as Secretary Carson finds himself in.

Deere, founder of Stream Queens.

Are you an online gamer? If you are then you probably know that Twitch is a streaming service that lets people from all over play video games together. You might not know that a group of 29 drag queens have their own channel on Twitch. They call themselves the Stream Queens. Learn more from NBC News.

A transgender woman who wants to preserve her marriage got some advice from Dear Abby.

The 2020 Keystone Conference will be held March 25th – 29th at the Sheraton Harrisburg-Hershey Hotel in Harrisburg, Pa. Visit their website for more information.

At the American Academy of Family Physicians’ Congress of Delegates, delegates debated a resolution that stated the group supports “the medical appropriateness of gender affirmation care for transgender children and adolescents,” and oppose any bill which seeks to limit the ability of patients and their parents/guardians, with the help of their physicians, to seek gender-affirming care. Some delegates opposed this, citing the potential risk of the medications, while supporters of the resolution pointed to the mental health risks in not affirming the gender. The matter was referred to the board of directors, according to MedPage Today.

The International Olympic Committee has decided not to implement a uniform policy for transgender athletes at this time, and asked sporting federations to create their own policies. The I.O.C. found that scientists did not agree on what universal guidelines should look like. The Guardian has this story.

Trans boxer Patricio Manuel.

Everlast has signed transgender boxer Patricio Manuel to an endorsement contract, and CNBC Make It thinks that this is a big deal.

For most women putting their hair up into a pony tail is the easiest way to style it. For one trans woman pony tails had a special meaning. All her life she saw women with bouncy, high pony tails and knew that she could never have one because she could not be herself. Then she transitioned and one day her hair was long enough to pull back. Thanks to Jan Brown for the tip on this story. You can read it in Glamour.

Chris Cicchinelli is a businessman in Cincinnati, and the father of a transgender child. When he had trouble getting his child through the long waiting list at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Center for Transgender Adolescents, he set up a foundation which had the goal of raising three million dollars to expand the program. Despite Cincinnati’s reputation as a conservative town, the campaign seems to be doing well. Oh, and this father who started this foundation–he took over his mother’s business, which sells sex toys. Ad Age has this story.

Jackson Bird has written a book about his experiences as a trans man, titled Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place, and The Advocate has an excerpt on the topic of how men behave in the restroom.

Mile High owner Bettie Pages.

Mile High Comics is a big comic book store in Denver. Every month they host a Drag for All Ages event. The first such event happened March 3, 2019 and was organized by Chuck Rozanski — the owner of Mile High Comics, who performs and sometimes lives as Bettie Pages. From the beginning of the event protestors showed up. To counter the protestors a group of people formed the Parasol Patrol. They use umbrellas to block sight of any of the protestors and the patrol escorts children and their families from their cars into the monthly drag event. Learn more from the Westword website.

Patricia Arquette won the Emmy best supporting actress in a limited series or movie for her role in The Act, and in her acceptance speech, she said, “In my heart, I’m so sad I lost my sister Alexis and that trans people are still being persecuted. I’m mourning every day of my life, Alexis. CNN has this story.

Alexandra Billings is set to join the Broadway cast of Wicked, in the role of Madame Morrible, the headmistress of Shiz University. LGBTQ Nation gives us this news.

Time magazine has an article profiling transgender male actors Logan Rozos, Elliot Fletcher, and Ian Alexander.

Trace Lysette

The latest edition of the LGBTQ&A podcast has Trace Lysette talking about the accusations against Jeffrey Tambor, among others.

Izaak Theo Adu, the son of Sade, shared his thanks to all who wished him well and expressed how pleased he is, recovering from gender confirmation surgery. The Instagram message caught the attention of Metro.

Utah just had its first ever transgender pride event. Genderbands, a national nonprofit that awards grants to help transgender people afford gender confirmation surgeries, hosted Pride in the Park: Utah Trans Pride, last Saturday at Lions Park in Provo. Learn more from The Daily Herald.

At a recent transgender conference, organizers put attendees’ name badges on red lanyards if they did not wish to speak to strangers, and green if they were willing to talk. Some people criticized this, saying that being challenged makes people think. Given that the conference was largely a response to the anti-transgender strain of feminism in Britain, it’s understandable that some attendees wanted to only talk with people they know. The Telegraph has this story.

Amira Nadeem

Amira Nadeem appeared on the British reality show Naked Attraction, hoping that her appearance on the show would be a positive thing for transgender people. She now says that she is living in housing for the homeless in Scotland, but she still has hopes. The Daily Record has this story.

Baylor University is accused of having an anti-LGBT attitude. Last week their football team played Rice University and Rice’s marching band made a comment about that in a unique way. Thanks to Jamie Roberts for pointing out the story in Inside Higher Ed.

We missed mentioning this in our Emmy coverage in TransTainment column.  A film about young trans girl Kai Shappley titled Trans In America: Texas Strong, won the outstanding short documentary trophy at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards. Read more in Chron.

TWITs

When Woman’s Place U.K., a group which is known to have transphobic views, held a meeting, they were met by protests from Queer AF. The protestors did get a bit rowdy, banging on windows and shouting at attendees as they arrived, but the police were there to make sure no laws were broken. Nonetheless, The Daily Mail presents this as though the protestors were criminals and hoodlums. For slanted reporting, the Daily Mail gets a TWIT Award.

A panel entitled “Transgender Medicine and Children: What Are The Facts?” was held at Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Library. The panel featured Dr. Paul Hruz and Dr. Michelle Cretella, both notorious for spreading falsehoods about the dangers of transgender medicine for children. They undoubtedly once more told the audience that if transgender children are not coddled, 80% will revert to the gender assigned at birth. (In fact, that particular canard is included in a letter to the editor defending the panel, which can be found in The Observer.) For presenting a biased panel with no one qualified to rebut, Students for Child-Oriented Policy gets a TWIT Award.

The gender theorist Christopher Dummitt made a statement this week in which he says that he made up the theory that sex was a social construct. By this, he means to say that he created this theory, but LifeSiteNews makes it out that he created an elaborate lie. For deliberate misinterpretation, LifeSiteNews gets a TWIT.

A group calling itself The Campaign for American Principles is spending a quarter of a million dollars on an ad campaign for the Kentucky governor’s race, and their big message is that the Democratic candidate wants to let boys dominate girls’ athletics. The ad makes it sound as if this is already being done somewhere, and that the candidate wants to bring it to Kentucky. The fact that it isn’t a thing seems to be lost here. For outright fabrication (including the name of the group), the Campaign for American Principles gets a TWIT Award. You can read about this in The Louisville Courier-Journal.

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