The Week In Transgenderism 3/9/15

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A TG model from India

A group of trans women in India who aspire to be professional fashion models have banded together to promote their talent by creating their own transgender calendar every year. The women started the calendar project a couple of years ago as a way to showcase their abilities and their community. Read more and see photos from the calendar at The Huffington Post U.K.

Drag queens and chicken wings? That’s what’s happening in Philadelphia, Pa. on June 12. There is a yearly event in Philly called Wing Bowl which is sponsored by a local sports radio station and it’s a grizzly macho event in which dudes eat large quantities of chicken wings. A local drag performer and writer decided that it was time for a charity event to benefit the LGBT community and so Wigs and Wings was born. If you love over the top glamor and lots of wings then you might want to read all about it  on the Philebrity website.

The man who beat Islan Nettles so viciously that she died five days later has finally been arrested. The beating happened a year and a half ago on West 148th St. in New York City. Why did it take so long for an arrest? There were seven young men hanging out on the street when Nettles and two friends walked by. One of them “catcalled” Nettles and then got angry when he realized she was trans. For all the info on why it took so long for an arrest check out the story on the DNAinfo site.

Miss Richland 1981

Poor Atlantic City. Since gambling started to be legal in other states around New Jersey the shore town has been working hard to try to, as they say in England, pull in the punters. Their visitor’s bureau has been working overtime to come up with ways to entice people to the boardwalk, casinos and other attractions. Attempting to reach out to a new crowd the city has hire a spokes drag queen. Miss Richland 1981 will be paid by the city to travel around the country and promote AC at LGBT events. Nice work if you can get it. Read more in the Press of Atlantic City.

The citizens of Charlotte, North Carolina can all relax when they go to the restroom. Those nasty trans people won’t be allowed in the public restrooms that match their gender identity. What a relief, huh? The nondiscrimination ordinance that was defeated in a 6-5 vote was debated passionately by both sides with over 120 people speaking at the council meeting before the vote took place. Most of those opposed to the ordinance quoted the Bible and most of the people supporting the ordinance brought up the trials and tribulations of being trans. Read more about it in The Charlotte Observer.

While all the kerfuffle about trans people in public restrooms goes on it’s important to actually take a close look at what would really happen if laws limiting people to using the facility assigned to their sex at birth should pass into law. It might not be the paradise that the conservatives who sponsor these bills think it will be. Maybe it could be a “jobs” program though. They’d have to hire a lot of restroom police to check ID and do DNA tests. Here’s a good article that puts it all in perspective in The Huffington Post.

Linda Jensen pointed us to a YouTube video of a trans woman speaking out about Florida’s attempt to pass a bill banning trans people from public restrooms.

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A young trans woman in Victoria, Canada has found a good way to protest her government’s attempts to ban TGs from the public toilets. She follows the letter of the proposed law and uses the men’s room. That tends to make the men at the urinals a tad uncomfortable. Read about it on MSN.com.

A bill introduced in South Dakota that would have required student athletes to play on the sports team that matched the sex on their birth certificate was voted down in a South Dakota Senate committee. Unfortunately there is another bill of the same ilk to be considered. Learn more about the legislation in The Daily Republic.

Linda Jensen sent us a tip about a Planet Fitness in Michigan. It seems a female member of the gym complained about “a man” in the women’s locker room. When the gym told her they were a “no judgement” zone and the person she saw identified as a woman the offended woman came back everyday and told other women about the trans woman. Find out what happened then on MLive.com.

Calpernia with friend Down Under

Calpernia Addams, the actress/singer/entertainer/musician who has appeared in our music and entertainment columns on TGF many times, is now appearing down under in Australia. She was performing as part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras that culminated this past weekend. She was interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Company and you can watch some of the interview and read about her on the ABC website.

if you’ve read the contributions to TGF by Linda Jensen you may have heard of The Parliament House in Orlando, Fla. It is the gay club that a couple of her articles has mentioned. We learned last week that the place has been there for 40 years and it celebrated its anniversary by getting rid of millions in debt through bankruptcy. We also heard that the plan to keep it going includes the filming there of a show about why men become drag queens. Get the story in the Orlando Sentinel.

Last February Facebook introduced over 50 different gender options that users could choose from when they signed up for an account. It seems that over 50 options weren’t enough so now one of the options is “Custom” so you can describe it yourself. Read about it in Paste.

Students enrolling in Scripps College only have 10 choices when it comes to gender pronouns. They get to pick from a list that contains things like “Em,” “Per,” “Ze,” and “Just My Name Please.” Professors will have to stick to the student’s choice. Get the rest of the pronouns at the Campus Reform website.

Leyth Jamal

The former employee trans woman who sued Saks department store for discrimination has not won her case but she doesn’t need to. The store’s owner had tried to defend against the suit saying that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not cover gender identity. Attorney General Eric Holder took the wind out their sails when he announced that the Justice Department would be viewing discrimination against TGs as being covered by Title VII. Saks has settled the suit out of court. Get the details in Fortune.

Chelsea Manning won a small victory against the Army last week. An Army Court upheld her request to be referred to with feminine pronouns or in a gender neutral manner in legal papers filed in her appeal. Read the story on the NBC News website.

Often times member of the TG community get hung up about “passing” and the fear that they won’t “pass” keeps them from enjoying life presenting the gender that they want in public. We’ve always said don’t let fear of passing keep you from being who you are. Here is a blog that talks about “passing” and that first time out at the grocery store. Thanks to Jan Brown for pointing us to the article in The Huffington Post.

Late life transition is not as easy as the transition of a young person. Young people who find their gender identity while still in their teens can take steps to block secondary sex characteristics from developing. Then they can take the appropriate hormones  and develop the characteristics they desire. Older trans people have already developed and lived with the secondary characteristics that they don’t care for so fitting in in their chosen gender is not so easy. Read the stories of several late in life transitions in The New York Times.

ET interviewee

You know trans is going mainstream when Entertainment Tonight has Janet Mock working as a special correspondent. View video of Mock’s interview with several trans women in Chicago. Find it on the Entertainment Tonight website.

TWITs

The “transgenders are perverts out to molest our kids” crowd was actively confronting trans people using the restrooms in the Government Center of Charlotte, NC before the vote on the LGBT discrimination bill was held. Last week a street preacher confronted a trans teen girl after she used the lady’s room. The incident was videoed by another anti-trans activist and they claimed they would be sending the video of their harassment of a girl who didn’t cause any disturbance to Fox News. The “street preacher” reportedly called the girl a “boy” throughout the confrontation and also called her a “punk” and a “pervert.” Once again we issue TWIT Awards to all of those who seek to oppress trans people’s restroom rights out of alleged fears for the safety of cis women in public facilities. The story is available in QNotes.

Are you differently gendered? If so please don’t travel to the United Arbs Emirates. Two trans women from Portugal, one of them a teen, were arrested in UAE on charges of crossdressing. The crossdressing charges were dropped since the women’s passports say they are female but the authorities convicted them for “disrespecting moral standards, indecent behavior and resistance to authority.” A TWIT Award is issued to UAE. The story is in The Portugal News.

Tags: Calpernia Addams, Chelsea Manning, featured, Miss Richland 1981, news, restroom wars, TWIT, Wigs and Wings

Category: Transgender Community News