The Week In Transgenderism 12/17/12

Guilty man with new TG girlfriend.

The headline reads “Hulking firefighter Taylor Murphy ‘not guilty’ of strangling his transgender girlfriend, but guilty on other counts.” That seems to say he’s not guilty but those “other counts” include violating a protection order, assault and criminal contempt may get him up to four years in prison. Providing moral support for Murphy during the trial was his new girlfriend, TG model Wanda Batista. The newspaper that carried the story is The New York Daily News.

A girl in Garfield, New Jersey has started a campaign to get Hasbro, the toy company, to make and market a gender-nuetral Easy-Bake Oven so boys can bake cakes too. Thanks to TGF reader Cuppie for the tip on this story. We have to wonder though, why make them gender-nuetral? Just because there are only girls depicted on the oven’s packaging why would a boy be ashamed to use it? Sounds like some boys have an issue with showing their feminine side. And besides, just tell some if the Iron Chef dudes that they’re sissies. Read about what’s cooking in the Easy-Bake Oven gender-nuetral campaign and view video at nj.com.

April Ashley in the ’60s

Hot transgender model in the 1960s, April Ashley, who is credited as the first Briton to undergo gender reassignment, has been honored with the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. She was presented with the MBE by Prince Charles in a ceremony this past summer. Getting the MBE doesn’t make her a dame, though. (We thought that happened back in the ‘60s.) Only the the Dame Grand Cross or the Dame Commander rank entitles one to use the honorific “dame.” Get the story and see pictures of the proper British old lady April has become at the BBC website.

Last week we told you about the 50-year-old TG who won a place on her college’s women’s basketball team. Some peope were not as thrilled about that as we her at TGF were. Take for example a couple of d-bags — I mean radio hosts in Washington, D.C. who called Gabrielle Ludwig an “it” while they mocked her appearance and said that transgendered people should not be allowed to play sports. Well, idiots shouldn’t be given radio shows but these clowns had one. The two have been suspended. Read about their bigotry and listend to an audio clip from their show at Awful Announcing.

Cummings in character.

There’s a new film out that puts drag queens, or at least the protagonist drag queen, in a new light. The film is called Any Day Now and Alan Cummings (Golden Eye, X-Men 2, Eyes Wide Shut) stars as a gay man doing drag shows back in 1979. He and his attorney boyfriend seek to adopt a negelected Down’s syndrome teen. Read an interview with Cummings in Bizzine.

Do you long for those bygone days when “Holly came from Miami. F.L.A., hitchhiked her way across the U.S.A., plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs and then he was a she”? Well if you never had the chance to take a Walk on the Wild Side in 1970s New York City there’s a book of photographs that has been released in England that will give you a taste of what it was like back in the day. Leee Black Childers is the photographer and the book is filled with his photos of drag queens, rock stars and Warhol superstars. A review of the book is in The Scotsman.

If you take a walk on the streets of New York City or any major metropolis you will see homeless people sleeping on the street. Many home possessing people ask why would someone sleep on the streets in freezing weather when there are homeless shelters available. Here are 10 reasons that homeless people don’t go to shelters. Number 9 is the rule that applies to GLB and transgendered people. The list is at truth-out.org.

The U.S. Justice Department is on your side. The Civil Rights Division has commited to using its law enforcement powers to fight anti-transgender discrimination and has been intervening in cases where local police departments have been biased against TGs. Read about all the areas that the D.O. J. is standing up for us in The Washington Blade.

Actor and musician Jared Leto appeared in his musician role at the Sandy benefit concert. Apparently playing the transsexual in the film Dallas Buyers Club has affected him a lot. He appeared onstage at the concert in a leather skirt. He was also photographed at LAX Airport wearing red nail polish while he was catching a flight back to the shoot in New Orleans. When the glamor is working go for it girl. Read his comments on losing weight for the role and see photos in The Daily Mail.

Peter Criss

To many young crossdressers in the 1970s the band Kiss was inspirational. Here were these hard rocking dudes in erotic leather costumes and kabuki makeup singing about rocking and rolling all night and partying all day. Some of us may have suspected that there was a GLBT influence behind the group’s image and now the truth has comeout. Although they were incredible D-bags who did all the worst stuff you can imagine rock stars doing, their stage personas were crafted and polished by GLBT men. One of them is said to be a transvestite “in his spare time. The story is in a review of the new book by former Kiss drummer Peter Criss, Makeup to Breakup. Read the dirty details at avclub.com.

RuPaul as a guidance conuselor.

Could RuPaul be the most featured drag performer in televison and film? It just might be so if you start adding up Ms. Charles’ appearances on film and video in and out of drag. And we’re not just talking about her own shows. She has been a guest star in many projects. Her next foray into sitcoms will be the ABC show Happy Endings. It will air sometime next year. For more infomation on that and a list of some of the shows she has been in check out The Daily Beast. They have video clips, too.

There are some red faces over at Apple’s Russian iTunes division. The company was finally bringing the iTunes service to entertainment and music starved Russians, along with 50 other countries when a programing glitch, something that should have been fixed before the site went live, took users to ladyboy porn sites instead of More Films in Different Languages. Maybe this will open a whole new market in Russia. Read about the goof at TechEYE.net.

TWITs

Ever wonder where some queens get their fabulous gowns and high end outfits to attend drag balls and pageants? Some of them are wonderful at sewing and create their own wonderful gowns. Three TWITs from Ohio were not good with a needle and thread but managed to scam Nordstrom’s in Ohio out of more than $150,000 by buying high end gowns and accessories with gift cards paid for with counterfeit checks and stolen credit card numbers, wearing the dresses and then returning them for cash refunds. Read the scam that gets the the TWIT Award in USA Today.

Baptists in Orange County Florida are outraged that the local school board would attempt to do something to curtail discrimination against transgendered students and faculty. They call on all good Christians to stand firmly against the school board’s attempt to extent legal protections to GLBT students, faculty and employees of the schools there. For their completley un-Christian veiws we proudly give the Florida Family Action group and the Florida Baptist Witness a major TWIT Award.

Our final TWIT Award this week goes out to the Conservative Members of Parliment in Canada who are steadfast in their opposition to a Canadian trans rights bill. They say that they need to have a more comprehensive definition of gender identity before they can allow the bill to get out of committee. To keep it tied up in committee they adopted a technigque used to assure total gridlock in the U.S. Senate — they filibustered. Shame on your Conservative MPs. Find a place on your mantle for the TWIT. The story is in Xtra!

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