The Week In Transgenderism 11/19/12
Slightly scary Sharon Needles of RuPaul’s Drag Race fame has become a cover girl for Out Magazine. The magazine publishes an annual list of the top 100 most influential “out” people and out of them all Needles and three others made the cover. (Boy George is one.) Read about it and find a link to the other three covers at LezGetReal.com.
The convicted murderer who won a case in Massachusetts that forces the state to pay for her reassignment surgery is still taking them to court. Now she wants Massachusetts to pay for her electrolysis. Details of the ongoing drama are in The Boston Herald.
No one has to fight for their gender reassignment in San Francisco. The Department of Public Health has been charged with providing health care for all uninsured residents of the city and now they have been directed by the Health Commission to provide GRS as part of their health care for the uninsured. Read about it in SFGate.
If you don’t live in San Francisco then get a job working for Prudential Financial, Inc. The insurance plan may not cover you reassignment surgery but it has been named the best place to work for GLBT people by the Human Rights Campaign. Get the details from Bloomberg Businessweek.
Tased in the groin.
In 2011 a transwoman was in the desert in California doing a photo shoot with her truck and a couple of female models.They were shooting in a part of the desert that is patrolled by the Bureau of Land Management and were rangers showed up to ask what what going on. Then after asking for her ID, which she hadn’t gotten changed to the correct gender marker, one thing led to another and another and a shot in the groin from the ranger’s Taser. She’s suing because she feels she was the victim of a hate crime. The story with video is on the ABC News website.
Cuban TS Adela Hernandez
The results of the recent election are in! Not the Presidential election. We’re talking about the municipal government election in Cuba. Yes, they don’t just get ruled by the iron fist of the Castro family. They have elections for delegates to the different city governments. Why is this in TWIT? A transgender woman won her bid for delegate to the municipal government of the city of Caibarien in the central province of Villa Clara. Adela Hernandex is the first TG to hold a public office in Cuba. Read about it at ABC News.
The TG prostitute who killed her john and then tried to cover up the crime by setting fire to his Philadelphia hotel room has been sentenced. The killer who is identified in this report only by her male name has been given a 25 to 50 year sentence. The story is in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
A storm the size of hurricane Sandy no doubt damaged the property of many transgendered folks. In the area that was hit pretty hard by the winds and water, Atlantic City, New Jersey, one tragedy was the loss of all the frocks and frippery that Patti Smith (not the singer) created for AC drag divas. Over two feet of water destroyed all of her fabric and already sown gowns. What to do? Her drag queen pals are organizing a drag show for her. Read all about it In The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Leto in costume.
Last week we reported that rock vocalist and actor Jared Leto was playing a transgender prostitute in a film with Matthew McConaughey. Their characters have the AIDS virus and they start a smuggling operation to being non-toxic anti viral drugs into the U.S. where they aren’t approved. It’s based on a true story and McConaughey lost 38 pounds to play the role. The story is on movieline.com.
Antony and the Johnsons is a band fronted by Antony Hegarty. Antony is an androgynous sort of person and he sings songs of melancholy. He and the band are now featured in a documentary film that follows them on tour. The film is titled Turning and seems to be named that because the band’s stage act incorporates a screen behind the band that shows a video montage of thirteen transwomen posing on a rotating stand. Read about the film and the band in The New York Times.
A couple of weeks ago we featured a piece on the Alice Crossdressers Association, a cosplay group in China that puts on shows based on anime programs. The group recently drew an audience of 1000 screaming fans at a stadium in Wuhan. But even though they crossdress to play female roles and the name of their organization features the Chinese word for crossdresser (weiniang) they contend that they are not transvestites. In fact they don’t let transvestites join their group. Meanwhile they spend tons of money on sexy female attire and clearly enjoy acting female roles. If they keep this up we might have to award them a TWIT. Read about the in the Global Times.
Number 10?
The controversy over the Alice Crossdressers — them claiming they aren’t “transvestites” and some members of the public claiming they are corrupting young men into adopting femininity — is one aspect of the Chinese attitude toward transgender people. The other side of the coin is this celebration of the Top Ten Transsexual Entertainers in Asia. Number 10 (pictured here) is pretty hot and she’s only number 10. Check out the other nine at china.org.cn.
Transsexuals are fed up with being labeled “sick” by the World Health Organization. Just WHO do they think they are? All across the globe TS people are signing petitions to remove transsexualism from the WHO list of disorders. TS beauty pageant contestant Jenna Talackov kicked it off in Canada and since then seven countries have picked up the fight. Australia is the latest. Read about it at gaynewsnetwork.com.au.
Does transsexualism run in the family? A story from Malaysia indicates that it might. In one family there two brothers both became woman so now they are sisters. And they are both beauty pageant winners. One of the sisters just won the Miss Exotica 2012 pageant in Singapore. Meet the ladies in the Malaysia Chronicle.
TWIT
People have the idea that drag queens cause trouble. We have no idea where that came from but here’s a story in which a drag queen was the spark that lite a fire. A Spanish man came to the U.S. to visit his long distance girlfriend, who he had met in Spain. The couple went out to a club and an affectionate drag queen kissed his girlfriend after the couple danced with her. No harm there but the man became upset and tried to leave. The girlfriend wouldn’t let him. There was a push, falling down and then . . . Well, better if you get the whole sordid tale from SF Weekly. There are TWIT Awards to be given out in this case but we’re not sure who gets them.
Category: Transgender Community News
About the Author (Author Profile)
Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.Subscribe
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