The Week In Transgenderism 12/22/14
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Geena Rocero in Candy Magazine
Candy Magazine is the “first transversal style magazine” and it has featured either trans people or James Franco in drag on the cover. (Other stars, male and female, have been featured.) Now they’ve put out an issue (it only comes out twice a year and they only print 1000 copies of each issue) featuring fourteen famous trans women on the cover. Check it out and learn who the ladies are in The Huffington Post.
Last Wednesday was Chelsea Manning’s birthday. We don’t imagine her prison routine was much different than it is on any other day but one nice thing for her was the number of birthday messages sent her way. The messages, many from celebs and fellow whistle blowers, have been assembled and you can find out who wished her a happy 27th and read their greetings in The Guardian.
Kosileck
In other prisoner news; Convicted wife killer Michelle Kosilek is back in the news. She is serving a life sentence in Massachusetts and filed a lawsuit seeking the have her reassignment surgery paid for by the state. in 2012 she won her suit and it looked as if the way was clear for her to transition fully and be moved to the women’s prison. She is back in the headlines because the state appealed the ruling and last week the judge’s decision was overturned. Read the details at the NECN website.
The case of the Marine who killed a Filipino woman after he discovered she was transgendered will go to trial. Government prosecutors there have charged Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton with murder for strangling Jennifer Laude in October of this year. He continues to be held by the U.S. military which is causing anger among the local population. Read more in the Marine Corps Times.
Some of the nation’s 40-plus women’s colleges are wrestling with enrollment changes that allow students who identify as trans men, and with how to integrate those students into the student body. Questions raised range from which pronouns to use to whether the schools’ mission statements should be re-written. Thanks to TGF reader Robyn Byrd for pointing us to the story in The Los Angeles Times.
Photo by Chloe Christine
Would you expect a photographer whose work centers on drag queens to be based in Salt Lake City? Probably not, but you would not be correct in that assumption. A woman named Chloe Christine moved back there after attending art school in San Francisco and has been taking artistic photos of drag performers and trans people. Her current project is a book called Life’s A Drag. Meet Chloe and see some of her photos in the Daily Feed.
If you’re a trans person and you have a job, or are looking for one, Attorney General Eric Holder has good news for you. Last Thursday he issued a memo that says the Obama administration’s position is that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination against people on the basis of gender identity “including transgender status.” Find out more about the memo in The Washington Post.
If you’re living in New York state, would like to have gender reassignment surgery and are on Medicaid, you may not have to wait to0 long to have it paid for by the state. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced that he has issued proposed Medicaid regulations that would cover surgery and hormone treatment for trans New Yorkers. The change would cost the state $6.7 million. New York would join California, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, D.C. which already cover trans healthcare. Get the whole story from syracuse.com.
So you’re quivering with anticipation of the big sales that will start after the Christmas holiday when the high end department stores will start marking down prices on those things that now are too expensive to even look at. You’d like to be able to try things on but you’re a bit hesitant about just waltzing into the women’s department and taking your bargains into the fitting room. How would knowing what the transgender policies are in several high end stores across the country help you out? Well here’s what 7 stores said to Styleite when they asked about the store’s TG policy.
Janet Mock
What is Janet Mock hoping for in the new year? For one thing she’s hoping that her new MSNBC streaming-video show is a big hit. It’s called So Popular! and it debuts on the Web next year. Recently Mock talked with the writer of a feature called In Telling The Future, a column that asks people from a variety of fields to speculate on what the future holds. You can find it in The New York Times.
Did you now that the Chinese government has been trying to get the people to be tolerant of homosexuality and transgenderism? They have but without a great deal of success. Last week China’s leading sexologist revealed to the country that she has been living with a trans man for the past 17 years. That has sparked debate and discussion. Read about it on the CTV News website.
RAF pilot Aliya
A Royal Air Force pilot who served alongside Prince William came out as trans in 2011. She not only kept her flying career but remained married to her wife and they now live as a lesbian couple. Last week she talked about her transition for the first time to Pink News.
Heklina
Drag star Heklina was the creator of the popular San Francisco TG party night called Trannyshack. Back in May she announced that due to the negative connotations attached to the word “tranny” she would be changing the party’s name. In October she teamed up with some other people to buy a venue formerly known as Oasis and then Club Caliente. The place has it’s grand opening as Oasis again on New Year’s Eve, and every Saturday night Helkina will present her Trannyshack party, transmogrified into Mother. Nothing controversial in calling your party Mother. Is there? Read all about it on the SFist website.
TWITs
Darnell Nash, a.k.a. Slayana Berts, a.k.a. Yanna, pled guilty in August to 20 counts of mail fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud. Nash was the mastermind behind a scheme collected $360,000 in unemployment benefits. She also registered to vote under nine false names in the 2008 election. Last week Nash tried to get leniency in sentencing by claiming her transgender nature contributed to her criminal enterprises. She did it all to fund her transition. She also bought a Land Rover. A TWIT Award to Yanna/Darnell. Read about it at cleveland.com.
In Malaysia if you are a trans woman and you want to be left alone and not arrested for wearing women’s clothing there is now a way to protect yourself from the attentions of the police. It is not what you would hope for, like maybe full recognition of your human rights, and it’s not something to be desired but it may keep you safe from the law. You have to submit to psychiatric testing and be found to have “gender identity disorder.” That’s seen as an incurable condition in Malaysia and gets you a pass from the anti-crossdressing laws. A TWIT Award goes to Malaysia. Read the story in USA Today.
The Kansas City, Missouri police department held a “tweet along” last week. Officers were tweeting about what they were doing while on patrol so that the department’s 58,000-plus Twitter followers could have a glimpse into what it’s like to be a policeman on duty. They stopped a woman, suspecting that she was a sex worker. They asked her why she became a sex worker and told her she should get a job in a nearby fast food place. Then they realized she was a trans woman but that’s not what they tweeted. They tweeted she was “a man” and not breaking the law so they let her go. A TWIT Award for that tweet. The department had to issue an apology to the trans community for that one. Read about it in the New York Daily News.
Ireland has a Gender Recognition Bill that was published for comment last week. Some of the first comments about the contents of the bill were along the lines of “WTF?” Under the bill, which would grant legal recognition to trans people, many trans people would have to get divorced or separate from their long time partners. Minors would have to wait till they were 18 to get legal recognition and there are other restrictions that make this a less than perfect bill. A TWIT Award to Ireland for labelling a bill the Gender Recognition Act when it’s really a Restrictions on Transgender Act. Read about it on the Amnesty International website.
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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Bravo, Graham. I also thought the claim that these people were at the forefront of the battle for transgender rights was a little grandiose. As one of my friends pointed out “you have the rebellion against and reinforcement of the gender binary” picture right there on that cover.
Not my role models and certainly not my leaders.
I’m probably going to get roasted for this, but I’m going to say it anyway.
Candy Magazine’s fourteen transgender women? Good for them. Now … what about the all transmen who’ve also done a lot of good work for the transgender movement? And what about the many more transwomen, genderfluids, and assorted gender warriors of all trans-shades who aren’t fortunate enough to fit with the image of what we in the 21st-century western world define as “beautiful”? Put bluntly, do their efforts not count because they’re not attractive enough to warrant being pictured semi-clad in a magazine?
There’s been quite a buzz about this photograph in the trans-activist newsgroups on Facebook and elsewhere. Many people – myself included – are saying that it’s entirely missing the point of what activism is about; some are even saying it’s damaging the cause by pandering to the gender binary.
So what IS the point Candy Magazine is trying to make? To show that transwomen can be just as conventionally attractive as “regular” women? If so, big deal. If not … then what?