The Week In Transgenderism 10/13/14

A Jodie Lynn makeover

Jodie Lynn, owner of The Boudoir London makeover service was featured in Cosmopolitan U.K. last week. She tells Cosmo readers all her tips, well maybe not all, for making men look like beautiful women. Check it out on the Cosmo U.K. website.

It’s not every day you get to use the word “labyrinthian” but that’s the only word that can describe what people transitioning in New York City have to go through to get their gender marker changed on official documents. Now we learn that the city government is preparing to bulldoze the labyrinth and made it a lot easier to change your documents. Read about it in The New York Times.

Ladyfag

Where the party people at? Back in the ‘90s New York city was the place for wild nightlife and drag was an automatic pass to walk past the velvet rope and enter the club. Different crowds mingled and drank and danced in the same space. Club kids, queens, gay men and lesbian women rubbed elbows with the straight crowd and everyone had a marvelous time. Lately NYC nightlife has been sliding into boring bottle-service bars where young bankers go to meet wanna-be models. Thankfully there is a young woman with hairy armpits who is doing something about it. She’s hosting old school parties where you can be who and what you want to be. Read all about Ladyfag in The New York Times.

Exotika

Is the world ready for a trans Pussycat Dolls group? Trans singer Nikki Exotika hopes so. She’s auditioning trans singers to put together The Secret Girls, an all TG group that will be a cross between the Pussycat Dolls and The Spice Girls. Ms. Exotika has been performing solo since 2006 and thinks it’s time for a trans group to break into the big time. She has invested around $200,000 on her transition and could probably use a hit record to pay her surgeons. Check her and the group concept out in the Daily Mail.

Just a couple of decades ago if you wanted to be a drag performer you got some makeup, a wig and a short, tight dress and went to the local gay club for amateur night. Or you went on the regular drag show night and got to know the queen in charge hoping she would give you a chance to get up and do your routine. Well all that is the passé. Now you can take a three month course in drag way down in New Orleans. Read all about Vinsantos Defonte’s drag school for kings and queens at the VICE website.

Sage Lovell

A trans teen girl in Georgia has been elected to her school’s homecoming court. The 16-year-old junior was nominated for the court along with around 50 other girls but then her class narrowed it down to her and three other young women. She can’t be homecoming queen since that honor is saved for seniors. Sage Lovell is the first trans girl to be on a homecoming court in Georgia but other trans students in other states have been given that honor. Read the story in The Marietta Daily Journal.

We are sorry there is a need for this next item. Violence against trans people seems to happen frequently and there has been enough of it reported to give you the feeling that it happens more to trans people than it does to cisgendered people. To keep track of just how much violence toward trans people goes on across the world a Trans* Violence Tracking Portal was launched earlier this year. They need volunteers to do various things to keep the portal up and running. Learn more on their website.

The Senate in Canada is being pushed to adopt a bill that would make it illegal to discriminate of incite hate on basis of gender identity. The bill is being pushed by an New Democratic Party Member of Parliament and he wants it passed with no amendments. Senator Nancy Ruth wants to add one word to the bill; sex. She maintains that as it is written the bill would protect trans women but once they had transitioned they would lose protection since women aren’t covered in the hate crimes bill. The tension mounts north of the border. Will the MP have his way or will the Senator prevail? Read the story in the Ottawa Citizen.

Trans children who want to go to school in New Delhi can now do so, enjoying a free education that has been available to poor students. Transgender students will now be considered part of a disadvantaged group and under the Right to Child to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 they will have to be accepted in all schools, public and private. Schools must have 25 percent disadvantaged students enrolled. The changes will take effect in 2015. Read about it in the Deccan Herald.

Beck

Miami Beach, Florida hosted the18th annual Sparkle dinner at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach last night. The dinner is held by the LBGTQ Task Force and honors the local LGBTQ community. This year their special honoree was Kristin Beck. See more photos and a bit more information at Gossip Extra.

The Catholic Church is not known for tolerance of sexual or gender difference. A radio series on public radio features a Catholic woman who calls herself Sister Monica who ministers to trans people. She uses a pseudonym since the Church hierarchy, despite a seemingly more tolerant Pope, does not approve of her activities. Learn more about the radio series and Sister Monica inn the National Catholic Reporter.

A transgender activist in Kenya has won a victory in her fight for official recognition as a woman. In Kenya you get a certificate after you take your high school exams and you need it to do things like continue your education or get a job. The activist tried repeatedly to get her name changed on the certificate but each time she was denied by the National Examinations Council. Now a judge has ordered them to change her certificate within 45 days. Read more at the BBC website.

The drag queens are on campus again. This time it’s male students at Louisiana State University being interviewed by the student paper about their drag activities. I do declare, back in my day if you blabbed to the student paper about your drag wardrobe the football team would beat you up. It’s a new day! Read about the student queens in The Daily Reveille.

TWIT Awards

It’s a well known fact that transgender and gender non-conforming youth have a hard time at school. They are more likely to be preyed on and bullied than other kids and we are happy that many school districts around the country are adopting policies that are meant to make trans youth more at home by providing supportive learning environments that are gender-nuetral. In an effort in that direction the Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska suggested to teachers that they refrain from using gendered expressions like “ladies and gentleman” and instead use words like “readers,” “campers” or “purple penguins.” Huh? Anyway, Fox News person Gretchen Carlson went on an on air rant accusing the school district of “banning” gendered language. She claimed it would confuse kids already facing the confusion of puberty and is a clear example of catering to the “. 001 percent” of the population that she apparently doesn’t want to see catered to. A TWIT Award goes to Gretchen Carlson. Read about it at Media Matters.

Sarah Silverman, if you know her work, is an edgy absurdist comic. Recently she was featured in a public service spot put together by The National Women’s Law Center that was aimed at drawing attention to the gender wage gap and the need for equal pay for women. In the spot, in a hospital gown in an operating room, Silverman says that she’s so tired of gender inequality she’s getting a sex change to avoid the wage gap. This caused segments of the trans community to take to Twitter to pile on Silverman as if she actually advocated changing gender to get better pay. Janet Mock tweeted “Sex reassignment doesn’t help one advance in the workplace.” If you recall a story we featured a few weeks ago transmen do find that their pay, chance for advancement and respect from colleagues does go up after they transition. It is women, whether cis or trans, who experience lower pay in the same jobs held by males. To all of those who got caught up in the spot’s premise and missed the message that all women deserve equal pay for equal work, we present a TWIT Award. Silveman said that she did not see the “transignorant” nature of the script but is glad that the blowback has people talking about the need to end gender based pay. Read the story and view the spot on MSNBC.com.

An actual thing to get outraged over is going on in South Africa. In 2003 the Alteration of Sex Description and Sex Status Act 49 was adopted and gave trans people the right to have their official documents updated with their new gender status. Despite the Act being in effect since 2003 there are trans people in South Africa who cannot get their documents changed. That means that it’s the same old story of not having the right papers to get a job, social services, open a bank account or vote. One woman took the radical step of going on a hunger strike after he applications to the Home Affairs office for the document changes went missing four times. Each application required tests from doctors that cost her money. On October 9, after she announced her hunger strike to the media the Home Affairs office told her she could get her changes. She’s still not hopeful and is continuing her hunger strike till she has the revise documents. The South African Home Affairs department is out TWIT Award winner. Read the story in Mail & Guardian. ( A minor TWIT to the paper for illustrating the story with a picture of Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria.)

Tags: featured, Jodie Lynn, Kristen Beck, Ladyfag, news, Nikki Exotika, Sage Lovell, Sarah Silverman, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News