The Week In Transgenderism 11/10/14

Loki

There’s more gender related news from the Marvel Universe. In recent editions of Marvel comics the god of mischief Loki, has been revealed to be gender fluid and bisexual. In one story arc Loki assumes a female form and remains a woman for the whole story, being referred to as a woman and not as a male in a female form. Even Odin accepts that his adopted child is both male and female. What this means for the Marvel movies featuring Loki is hard to say but the actor who portrays him/her is pretty enough to pull off a female Loki on screen. Read more about Loki at tor.com.

Lauren Scott, the trans woman running for the state legislature in Nevada was defeated by the incumbent Democratic Assemblyman Mike Sprinkle by a 54 to 46 percent margin. Get more details at towleroad.com.

An art show at the Pacific School of Religion is devoted to Catholic saints who may have been transgendered. The show is called Queer Santas: Holy Violence. The artist picked the saints as her subject since each of them stepped outside the norms of female gender norms. Read about the santas on the Religion News Service.

Lea T

Trans models keep breaking down barriers and making history. The latest historical event is the announcement that Lea T will be the new face of the global cosmetics brand Redken. This will be the first time a trans woman has been chosen to represent a major cosmetics brand. Read more in The Huffington Post.

Another documentary series about trans women is coming to the Discovery Life Channel next year. It’s called Those Girls and it will follow four pairs of couples and their friends as they navigate transitioning genders. So don’t make a mistake and watch Girls on HBO. You want to check out Those Girls on Discovery Life. The series will debut in March. Get more info in Variety.

Adore Delano

Starbucks in Canada has enlisted Adore Delano and Del Rio to appear in a television spot promoting the chain. Both ladies have appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race and Starbucks decided that having them in the ad would help the company’s goal of embracing diversity. The spot was shot by OutTV during the Pride Festival in Toronto. Read more and view the spot in Marketing Magazine.

Chelsea Manning’s treatment by the military was the subject of a New York Times editorial this past Sunday. The Times calls the lack of treatment for Manning’s gender dysphoria a violation of her constitutional rights and basic decency. Manning has filed a lawsuit seeking hormone treatment and the government will file a reply brief to the complaint on November 20. Read what else the Times Editorial Board had to say in The New York Times.

We’ve all heard of trans men who have become pregnant and to many it seems odd that someone who identifies as male would want to go through what is a basic female experience. To some it is so odd that they get hostile when they learn the man they are talking to is carrying a baby in his womb. And what are the risks of being pregnant while you’re taking testosterone? Get doe information on why FtM transsexuals become pregnant and whether there are any negative health concerns at NPR.org.

Christine Bland

If you ask Christine Bland, “What are you? A rocket scientist?” she will answer in the affirmative. She may also let you know she is a trans woman who came out just 3 years ago and she was just awarded recognition as the 2014 LGBT Engineer of the Year by true National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals. Bland works at Lockheed Martin and she has been involved in NASA’s Juno and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions. Learn more about her in the Denver Post.

Whether you like rap music or not you have to admit it is not going away anytime soon. Fortunately sometimes it is about more than typical gangsta rap themes. And this is one of those times. A trans boy who hasn’t even stared elementary school has written a rap song about what it means to be transgendered. We’re down with that. He performed it onstage at his summer camp for TG kids and you can view it on The Huffington Post website.

There may be some relief for trans people in Malaysia. Last week a Malaysian court of appeals ruled that one state’s Sharia-law ban on crossdressing was “degrading, oppressive and inhuman.” Trans rights activists in Malaysia hope that this type of treatment will no longer be tolerated. Learn more at the Human Rights Campaign’s website.

Santiago

There’s a new Miss International Queen 2014! The contest was held last week in Pattaya, Thailand and the winner was Isabella Santiago from Venezuela. View photos from the pageant at canoe.ca.

It seems that younger people are coming to accept, many of them, that trans people are just people and once you see that happening it’s a good sign that someday discrimination against TGs will become more of a fringe activity. The University of Houston’s student paper ran an article last week on how America is becoming a friendlier place for trans folks. Look on the bright side by reading the article in The Cougar.

West Hollywood is the only city in the country to have the entire month of November dedicate to awareness of transgender issues and in remembrance of trans victims of hate crimes. Four years ago the City Council make November Transgender Awareness Month. This month a series of events will happen in WeHo including the Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20. Read more and watch a video on the Annenberg TV News website.

If you happen to be in Kenosha Wisconsin you may want to check out an art exhibit at the University of Wisconsin Parkside that explores society’s conflicts with androgyny and gender fluid individuals. The show is called Androgyny and it runs though January 9. The show is a series of photographs, three shorts films and an installation that recreates a restroom, since many androgynous people have problems going into public restrooms. Read more in the Kenosha News.

Lili Elbe

The first trans woman to have reassignment surgery was a Danish artist who took the name Lili Elbe. She went under the knife in 1931 for the first of a series of operations and the surgery was not a complete success. She died after her doctors tried to transplant a uterus. In the past few years several actresses have been mentioned in proposed projects to make a film of her life. Now we learn that the British actor who portrays Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything will take on the role of Lile Elbe. Learn more in Metro U.K.

TWITs

A former Navy chaplain and religious radio talk show host Gordon Klingenschmitt has won a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives. Klingenschmitt’s claim to fame is his exorcism of the “demonic spirit” possessing President Obama. Since then he’s railed against LGBT people and made stupid statements about trans issues. This TWIT Award doesn’t go to Klingenschmitt though. It goes to the people of the El Paso County district who voted to put him in office. It is Colorado so maybe they were smoking dope. For more on the story go to Raw Story.

Here’s another TWIT that doesn’t go to the main person in the story. A 58-year-old trans woman who is 6’ 1” and weighs 220 pounds made the decision that she could not go on being a male. As a male she was always able to support her self as a truck driver and other blue collar jobs. But when she came out to her employer last year she only lasted a week on the job. Then she lost her home. Then she stayed with a friend who was foreclosed and then she ended up living in her car. That’s where she is now. This TWIT Award goes to a society that is so intolerant of difference and so lacking in compassion or understanding that a trans woman has to live in her car. Her sad story is in the Tampa Bay Times.

Tags: Adore Delano, Chelsea Manning, Christine Bland, featured, Isabella Santiago, Lea T, Lili Elbe, news, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News