The Week In Trans April 20, 2020

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Indya Moore

Indya Moore of Pose is raising money for black transgender people who are having trouble because of the Covid-19 virus. Pink News has details. Many thanks to contributor Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Last week, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed into law the Virginia Values Act, which adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the civil rights laws of the state. LGBTQ Nation points out that Virginia is the first state in the South to add gender identity and sexual orientation to its civil rights protections.

Idaho’s new law that prohibits transgender girls from participating in school sports with other females is being challenged in federal court. It takes someone with standing to challenge this law, and it wasn’t easy to find a transgender student athlete in Idaho. NBC News has this story.

Idaho’s other new anti-transgender law, the one which prohibits the updating of the sex listed on a birth certificate, is also being challenged in court. However, this did not require filing a new lawsuit, as this law appears to violate an existing federal court order. You can read about it in The Idaho Press.

The Post-Register of Idaho Falls has two guest editorials about these anti-transgender bills. The one opposing the new laws calls them discriminatory and unnecessary. The one supporting the new laws is written by a state legislator who as involved in passing the new laws. She uses the term “biological male,” despite the fact that biologists insist that chromosomes alone do not indicate gender.

Johanna Metzger was murdered in Baltimore. WMAR-TV has a report on this stabbing. Thanks to contributor Alyssa Washington for a link to this story.

Nic Talbott

On the first anniversary of the implementation of the Mattis Plan to enforce the ban on transgender people joining the military, a profile of would-be enlistee Nic Talbott appeared in USA Today.

Pink News has not one but two stories about transgender people who are being kept out of the military by the ban. Both stories conclude that the military could use some extra people to help with the response to the virus.

Paige Kreisman is a veteran of the Army who is running for the Oregon state House of Representatives. She sat for an interview with The Advocate.

In some states, such as Oregon and Michigan, every registered voter can request to vote via absentee ballot. That’s not so in some other states. While there are efforts to expand absentee voting in some states, these are opposed by the GOP. The American Independent notes that these laws restricting voting by mail specifically hurt transgender voters.

Many schools have switched to online education in order to avoid the spread of this virus. This can be hard on transgender students whose parents do not accept their gender identities. For some students, school was where their gender identities were acknowledged, as The Raleigh News & Observer explains.

Some transgender women engage in sex work, often out of necessity. It’s a difficult job, and even tougher with stay-at-home orders. The Appeal has this story.

Nicole Maines as Dreamer.

Nicole Maines who plays Dreamer on Supergirl sat for an interview with The Wrap.

LGBTQ Nation has an opinion piece by Mark Segal in which he shows that “If HIV was God’s punishment for gays, then coronavirus is punishment for conservative Christians.” He notes that several cities which are homes of religions have been hard hit by the virus.

Parts of the United States may not open up for a while, and when they do, it will be gradual. This has caused a lot of pride events to be cancelled, including events in San Francisco and Boston. Global Pride will be held June 27, and will be a virtual event this year. Local pride organizations will contribute to the 24-hour online event, according to LGBTQ Nation.

It has often been said that hormone replacement therapy reduces fertility, and some even go so far as to say that HRT makes one sterile. A new study showed that transgender males are still fertile much further into hormone replacement therapy than was previously thought. Participants in this study had stopped taking testosterone, and their fertility returned. Yahoo News has a story about this study.

Some transgender people have been experiencing difficulties getting their HRT medications, or the money to afford the prescriptions. Other transgender people are having problems getting the doctor to prescribe HRT. This has caused some to look into alternative ways of getting those medications. We caution against using any medication from less-than-reliable sources. You can read about this at Insider.

Pink News has the story of a non-binary person who detailed their battle with COVID-19 on Facebook.

Bob the Drag Queen

While Bob the Drag Queen continues to perform, she also has been writing material for and coaching other drag queens. Out.com has this story.

Saturday was National Transgender HIV Testing Day. You can read about how important HIV testing is at The Human Rights Campaign website.

A new study from Vanderbilt University talks of how transgender people tend to have health issues and tend to be left behind economically.

During this epidemic, it is even more important than ever to have a positive attitude. The Validation Station has come to the aid of transgender people, offering daily text messages of encouragement. You can read about it at Forbes.

The musical 1776 features a cast of over 20 males, and two females. However, the American Repertory Theatre has announced a new production with an all-female, genderqueer, or nonbinary cast. Broadway News says that the show is still aiming to open on Broadway next spring, even though previews are being cancelled at the moment.

Jeffrey Tambor talked about the end of Transparent when he appeared on Gilbert Godfrey’s Amazing Colossal Show. He again denied the accusations of sexual misconduct, according to Pink News.

A list of fan favorites who might appear on the next season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars appears in Pink News.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are looking for a “Hunky Jesus” and a “Foxy Mary.” Out.com has this story.

Nikkie De Jager

There have been complaints that Ellen DeGeneres is not as nice as she seems, and even a campaign to replace her with Ellen Page. Nikkie de Jager, better known as NikkieTutorials, mentioned in an interview with a Dutch magazine that she got a very different experience than what she expected. You can read about it in The Daily Mail.

The murder of Mira, a transgender woman in Indonesia, has inspired an article in The Jakarta Post about how transgender people are depicted in movies and television.

Open Democracy has a story about the problems that transgender people face in Armenia.

Poland is threatening to jail teachers if their sex education course includes LGBT. Apparently, some people think that, if children don’t hear about LGBT, they will be straight. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Peru, like some other Latin American countries, had a stay-at-home order that allowed men to go out Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while women could leave the house on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and everyone was to stay home on Sundays. Like other Latin American nations with similar laws, Peru had trouble enforcing it with regards to transgender people. As you might guess, this didn’t work out well for transgender people, especially those whose national ID cards misgender them. It seems that the government has since invoked new measures, as the gender-based stay-at-home order didn’t reduce the number of people in the street well enough. This story is found in the middle of a page from The BBC. An article about this can be found in El Comercio, but it is in Spanish.

A 99-year-old veteran of World War II, Captain Tom Moore, made a little challenge to walk 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday, and asked people to donate to the NHS in his honor, to support the purchase of additional masks and personal protective equipment for health care workers. This took off in Britain, where it gained such renown that the military sent an honor guard to accompany him on his last lap, and his humble fundraising goal of £1000 turned into a £14,000,000 donation to the NHS. All wonderful, indeed, but some people took to Twitter, comparing him to non-binary singer Sam Smith, who tweeted that he was experiencing mental health issues because of the lockdown. Nice to see that show of compassion, tweeters. It’s not at all what the Captain wanted. Pink News has this story.

Sophie

Sophie, a transgender bride, has trouble with finding clothes that fit right, and she was afraid of shopping for her wedding gown. But, the folks at Say Yes To The Dress Lancashire came to help her, and she found her wedding gown. The Daily Mail.

Hannah and Jake Graf now have a daughter. She was conceived from one of Jake’s eggs, which had been frozen. This story comes from Yahoo News.

TWITs

We tend to hear a lot about de-transitioners from anti-transgender sources. Brian Belovitch reported that he detransitioned because his lifestyle as Tish was literally killing him. She was a regular on the club scene in New York, which sounds glamorous, but the fast life caught up with her. It is commendable that she detransitioned to get away from the drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, in so doing, he feels he has become a part of a trend of detransitioners. He feels that there are lots of detransitioners, even though we know that statistics does not bear that out, and he feels that other detransitioners have stories similar to his, even though their stories are quite different from his. For spreading false information about detransitioning, Brian Belovitch and The Daily Mail get a TWIT Award. (What a shame, because this story deserves to be told.)

The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct made a judge remove the rainbow flag from her courtroom. Judge Rosie Speedlin Gonzalez thought the flag showed that everyone is welcome in her courtroom, and she compared it to various symbols that other judges have in their courtrooms. However, the Commission agreed with a complaint which said that the flag is a symbol of sexuality. For shortsightedness, the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct gets a TWIT. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

The Christian Post goes on a rant about a proposed bill in California which would punish medical insurance companies which reveal to parents the “procedures” that their children have, unless the child consented to have this revealed. The word “procedures” is assumed by the authors to refer to surgery, which may be correct. Gender confirmation surgery on a minor is not performed without the consent of the parents, yet you wouldn’t know it from reading this. For publishing false information, the Christian Post gets a TWIT Award.

CCN jumped on the news that a spokesperson clarified, when Joe Biden said his vice-presidential running mate would be a female, he meant “someone who identifies as female.” They assume that this means that there could be a transgender woman as running mate, despite no transgender woman having the sort of qualifications needed for that job. For running with this story in a very wrong direction, CCN News gets a TWIT Award.

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