The Week In Transgenderism 11/11/13

TG model Carmen Carrera

23,000 people have signed a petition in favor of Victoria’s Secret hiring TG model and former Drag Race star Carmen Carrera for the upcoming Victoria’s Secret lingerie fashion show. The petition says that having Carrera in the show would help end “femmephobia” and show the world that Victoria’s Secret doesn’t have to be a secret anymore — they can openly embrace their transgendered customers. Get the story from the Daily Mail.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act came up for a vote in the Senate last week and it passed by 64-32. The spotlight on ENDA has caused some people to wonder just why it has taken so long. Now a study has been done about why people get so nervous around TGs. It seems that people who don’t fit into either “male” or “female” categories cause “deep seated unease.” This can cause “gender panic” in some people. Mostly men who hit on a TG woman without realizing it. Read about the study and how transwomen in the lady’s room seem to cause more panic than transmen in the men’s room. The story is in Live Science.

On the bus to work.

A lot of people who have a conservative mindset have a lot of crazy ideas about what ENDA would mean. Some of them think that Christian bookstores would be forced to hire drag queens. Now what respectable drag queen would want to clerk in a Christian bookstore? For a list of — and debunking of — the myths around ENDA check out this article in The Atlantic Wire.

A Mormon transwoman is petitioning the church to recognize her as a woman. Leahnora Isaak of Portland, Ore. has been living a female life since 2012 and she wants to be able to attend women-only Mormon meetings. At this time she is not allowed as the church records have her listed as male and refer to her with her former name. Read about her efforts to be allowed to worship freely as a female in The Blaze.

An Oprah Show feature back in 2007 was about a teenager name Jake who was born a female and transitioned at the age of 15. At the time the show was recorded Jake and his brother Jason were not close. Jake’s transition had caused problems for brother Jason. He missed his sister and was jealous of all the attention Jake was getting. How are they doing today? That’s the thrust of an article that gives you the intricate psychological adjustments that at one point had the non-TG brother suffering from anorexia. Get the story from the Huffington Post.

Mark Rylance as Olivia

For many crossdressers one of the first times we knew that men could dress as women  was when we learned that back in Shakespeare’s day the female roles in his plays were performed by males. Shakespearian purists maintain that the only way to really experience a play by the Bard of Avon is to see one as they were originally produced. To that end Shakespeare’s Globe was created in London. They have recreated the Globe Theatre and all of their productions feature male actors in the female roles. The company has come to New York City to perform Twelfth Night and Richard III and while they cannot re-produce the total Globe experience in a Broadway theater they do their best. Read a review, which includes raves for the actors playing ladies, in the New York Times.

This is from the “you think you have a hard life” file. Much has been made, by some, of the fact that getting a sex change in Iran is totally legal. Being gay will get you arrested and executed but if you’re transgendered you can get your surgery. But it’s not a complete bed of roses there. Or rather it is but the roses have thorns. TGs are often tossed out of school, arrested, and have to become sex workers in order to support themselves. And for those who do have their surgery they are often denied the shelter of marriage since they cannot bear children. Read the story of one Iranian transsexual’s journey looking for refuge. It’s on PRI.net.

Tanya Muang

Another country that isn’t a pleasant spot to be TG is Myanmar. The subject of gender identity is taboo in that country and TGs must stay deeply hidden. One young TG woman from Myanmar left the country to go to school in Thailand. There she decided that it was time to start living the life she had always desired. Recently Tanya Muang was one of 25 contestants in the Miss International Queen contest. Quite a leap from being in the closet in her homeland to competing in a major transgendered beauty pageant. Read her story in The Nation.

Circus Fama

Have you ever wanted to run away and join the circus? That’s what 15 transgendered people in Chile decided to do. They banded together and became a traveling transgender circus called Fama. They wander around the country setting up their tent, which seats up to 400, and doing performances anywhere they can find an audience. Sometimes they do it for no audience. They aren’t getting rich and the show is no threat to Cirque de Soleil. You probably won’t see Fama in Las Vegas anytime soon. Read their interesting story in the Daily Mail.

Sometimes you come across someone who has established themselves as an out crossdresser and it’s often in some small town. Of course it goes against every crossdresser’s basic instinct but now and then there comes a CD who says, “to hell with it” and just starts dressing up in their day to day life. One such was Roger Bowne of Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. Mr. Bowne loved miniskirts and wore them for all of his public, and we assume, private activities. Sadly though we have learned that he has passed away at 68. Anyone want to move to Pompton? There’s an opening for town crossdresser. Mr. Bowne’s extensive obituary can be found at NorthJersey.com.

Other times being open about your crossdressing is not such a good idea. Such was the case for Mark Hogancamp, a crossdresser in New York state who met five teenagers in a bar while he was crossdressed and revealed to them that he was male. They beat him so severely they thought he was dead. Hogancamp spent almost a month and a half in the hospital and came out of a coma with no memory of his past life. While some people would have been destroyed Hogancamp became a brilliant artist who creates detailed and precise dioramas. His art started as his therapy and now he has gained artistic acclaim and is the subject of a documentary film called Marwencol. Read about him in the Las Vegas Guardian Express.

A Broadway Angel

Homophobia is most often the underlying cause of transphobia but often homosexuals don’t have an understanding of why TGs do what they do. (But then again, do we?) While compiling TWIT we came across a blog entry by a gay male student at a Washington, D.C. school who was cast as the transgendered character Angel in a production of Rent. He was appalled that he’s have to do drag in the show. He wrote that at the time he was cast as Angel he couldn’t understand why any gay man would want to dress up as a woman. Then he appeared in the production and girlfriend, did he ever change his tune. Read about his drag education in the student newspaper, The GW Hatchet.

TWITs

Pumping! It’s bad, bad, bad but there is always someone willing to get silicone shot into their tush and someone else who will charge them a pile of cash to wield the needle. A drag performer from Dallas is the latest one to be arrested for “practicing medicine without a license” and “negligent injuring.” Armani Nicole Davenport was not content to live a glamor drenched life on the pageant circuit so she started a side job pumping. In October she injected two women and in one the silicone traveled from her butt to her lungs putting her in respiratory distress. A TWIT Award is hereby presented to Miss Davenort. Get the story in the Dallas Voice.

The big TWIT Award, the one with extra gold leaf and a couple more fake marble columns, goes to Richard Thomas. This story was pointed out to us by our Ms. Bob Davis. Richard Thomas is a 16-year-old high school student who got on a bus in Oakland and saw Luke/Sasha Fleischman sleeping in a rear seat. Fleischman does not identify with binary gender norms so presents mixed gender aspects. That day Flesichman was wearing a skirt. Thomas set the skirt on fire and then ran off the bus. Fleischman was severely burned and will require skin grafts and weeks of recovery time. When the police caught the skirt arsonist he told them his homophobia made him do it. Thomas will be tried as an adult and faces a maximum life sentence. With that homophobia keeping him up at night he’s not going to do well in prison. Get the details in the San Jose Mercury News.

We usually don’t include good things in the TWIT section but these good things are related to the story above. Half of Sasha’s fellow students and some of the teachers and administrators showed their support for Sasha by wearing skirts to school last week. Some of the guys even wore short skirts. The second good thing is that in just two days over $20,000 was raised to help pay Sasha’s medical bills. The story is in the San Jose Mercury News.

There was a plethora of TWIT activity going on last week. Here’s one more story that makes you wonder what century this is. A transgendered performer from Atlanta was denied entrance to a restaurant/bar last week in that city and they told her it was because she was TG. She went to Don Pollo Bar & Grill with two friends after her performance at another club. The three were looking for some Mexican food. We can only say, if you are in Atlanta and want Mexican food don’t go to Don Pollo. These TWIT Award winners stopped her at the door and and told her she couldn’t come in because she was “a man.” Sadly the bar is within their legal rights to turn away anyone for any reason but perhaps a boycott and some picketing is in order? Read about it at Project Q Atlanta.

Tags: Carmen Carrera, ENDA, Fama, featured, news, Sasha Fleischman, TG in Myanmar, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News