The Week In Transgenderism 4/27/15

Links in TWIT will open in a new window. Use your browser’s Back button to return to this page.

Andreja

Has the Fashion Industry Reached a Transgender Turning Point? That’s the question Vogue magazine asks as the headline for their profile of Andreja Pejic. In the interview Pejic says that she spent her youth trying to pass as a boy when femininity came naturally to her. But the profile is about more than Andreja. It goes on to talk about how the fashion industry and the entertainment industry have begun to embrace trans people. Read the whole article in Vogue’s May issue.

We say muy bien to the Latin television network Univision for featuring a special on the Latino members of the trans community. It ran a couple of weeks ago and was titled En Cuerpo Ajeno which translates to In Another Body. They told the stories of four trans people; two trans women, a boy and a man. Read about it on the HRC website.

Culpepper

The South Carolina teenage trans girl, Chase Culpepper, who was told to remove her makeup before her DMV photo could be taken has won her federal lawsuit against the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles. She will now be able to have her driver’s license photo taken in makeup and feminine clothing. This is also great for all other trans people in the state as the DMV must change its photo policy and train its employees on how to treat non-conforming individuals. Get the story from The Los Angeles Times.

Last Wednesday California Congressman Mike Honda’s 8-year-old trans granddaughter was featured on NBC Nightly News. The show also featured a trans boy and his parents. Learn more on the HRC Blog.

If you want to head out to Camp Trans to protest the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival’s exclusion of trans women you better do that this August. The festival which has being going on for around 40 years is shutting down after the August event. Speculation is that they may be shutting it down so it can be re-created as a trans inclusive event. Or not. Read more on Buzzfeed.

Jenner

Friday night was the night. Bruce Jenner’s interview with Diane Sawyer aired on ABC. Of major concern to the trans community was that Jenner would bring the patina of reality television to the coming out story but that didn’t happen. Jenner acquitted himself (he asked to be referred to with male pronouns in this “last interview” as Bruce) well and  stated that while he will be the subject of an 8-episode documentary about his transition it will not be done as a reality show with unlimited access to his personal life and medical procedures. Did he reveal his new femme name? Find out in The New York Times.

What sex you look like to other people determines how you will be treated by the general public. Everyone who has thought about it even a bit knows that women are treated differently. Last year’s video of a woman walking in Manhattan and being catcalled and harassed more than 100 times is proof of that. But trans people who have transitioned are often surprised to learn what it’s like to be out and about on the other side. Read about two people, a black trans man and a trans woman were both surprised with how they were treated after transition. Read their stories at vox.com.

Collins

Dating can be difficult no matter what gender you are. It can be much harder for trans women. Do they keep their gender status to themselves? Should they tell their date? One trans woman in England, part-time model Alex Collins, says she has never had a good date. She’s so disgusted with the dating scene that she went on a television show called First Dates to talk about some of her dating disasters. Read about them in The Huffington Post, U.K.

The Nevada “bathroom bill” that would have restricted trans people’s access to public restrooms and locker rooms has been rejected by the Nevada Assembly. The legislators stood up for our right to pee where we want with a vote of 22-20. Five Republicans joined all the Democrats to vote against the bill. Learn more in the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Laverne Cox was in Washington. D.C. last week for the White House Correspondent’s Dinner and she was asked what she thought about the bathroom bill being put forward in Florida, and the other bills aimed at keeping trans people out of public restrooms. You can learn what she thinks about the issue in Time magazine.

Meanwhile, in the land of the four year drought, California, the bathroom bill that got passed was one that protected the right of trans students to use the facilities they were comfortable using. (Just don’t flush more than once. Water shortage, ya know.) That made the conservatives in the state go crazy with talk of men dressed as women raping their way through the public toilet facilities. Thwarted at the legislative level these crusaders against improper potty use are working to get a ballot measure in the next election to pass their Personal Privacy Protection Act that would allow anyone who ran into someone of the “wrong” sex in a public restroom to sue that person for $4000. I don’t know about you but when I go to the restroom in public I go into a stall that offers all the privacy in the world. These people are just plain sick. Read more about their paranoia in The Los Angeles Times.

An embalmer/funeral director at a Detroit-area funeral home was fired in 2013 when he said he would be transitioning to being a woman. Aimee Stephens filed a federal lawsuit with help from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a judge has ruled that the case can go to trial. The funeral home contended that it had the right to control how its employees appeared to the public and if the EEOC prevails it will be gender chaos for businesses. That would be interesting. Read the story on the ABC News website.

Dr. Bowers

Cast your memory back to the late 20th century when the Sex Change Capital of the World was Trinidad, Colorado. The man who got it that name was Dr. Stanley Biber. He retired in 2003 and his practice was taken over by the first trans surgeon to be trans, Dr. Marci Bowers. In 2010 Bowers moved her surgical practice out of Colorado to take up residence in California. The doctor who was dubbed a “rock star” of reassignment surgery is still performing operations. Read about her on the ABC7 website.

When Joan Rivers was the host of Fashion Police on the E! network the show was a hoot. Rivers could dish on celebrity fashion faux pas like no other. The chemistry of the original team also worked but after Rivers passed away the show lost its sparkle and zing. Then Kelly Osbourne left in a huff over remarks make by Giuliana Rancic and the new gay guy who replaced George Kotsiopoulos was really dull. Now we have learned that there is a new name in the running to host when the show returns in the fall. Could RuPaul be as good as Joan Rivers? Read more on the loot.co.za website.

Jay

The outrageous comic Amy Schumer featured a segment on her massively irreverent Comedy Central show Inside Amy Schumer that was a no-nonsense one on one interview with a transsexual named Bailey Jay. While some found the tone of the interview and the questions that were asked (and promptly answered) to be matter-of-fact and concise others viewed the interview as the antithesis of the respect the trans community has been striving to obtain. To them the questions were intrusive and Ms. Jay was not a valid representative since she is, gasp!, an adult film actress. Watch the interview and read the bad review at slate.com.

Zoe (R) and family.

Imagine a political race for parliament in which one of the candidates was a trans woman. Of course that’s happened in a few countries so no big deal, right? Further imagine that the candidate was in a polyamorous relationship with two other women. One, another trans woman, and the other the cisgender ex-wife of that trans woman. Do you think that could happen anywhere on the planet? Well, it’s happening in England where Zoe O’Connell and her partners are campaigning to get her a seat in parliament. The article about her does slant more to the sensational aspects of her family life but overall isn’t the worst the Mirror has published.

TWITs

Last week Fox News had a couple of guests on to discuss the “Trouble With Schools.” A major part of the discussion was the exposure of the kids at the Mitchell Primary School in Kittery, Maine to the book by Jazz Jennings, I Am Jazz. The school has admitted that it should have informed the parents that they were going to read the book to everyone as part of their commitment to honoring the Maine Supreme Court’s decision that trans students had to be recognized in schools. One of the guests on Fox, Dr. Susan Pipkins, told Fox viewers that young children should never be exposed to teaching about sexuality and gender, and another guest, Tammy Bruce said that at one point in her youth she thought she was “a cocker spaniel.” A TWIT Award goes to Fox News and both guests for trying to keep anything related to trans issues in the dark and away from impressionable children who could easily believe they were a dog, or the wrong gender. The story can be found with supporting video at Think Progress.

Just because colleges all over the United States have been holding student drag events doesn’t mean that they’re all enlightened and tolerant of diversity. There were plans for a drag show on April 17 at St. Thomas Aquinas College was canceled by administrators when it came time for them to give final approval. Their excuse? They were afraid that without previous education on gender identity and drag culture the students with no understanding of what the show was about would make fun of the participants. A TWIT Award goes to College President Margaret Mary Fitzpatrick (could she get any more Catholic?) for using that lame excuse. This is the 21st century and RuPaul has educated all young people about drag culture. Read the story in The Journal News.

A member of the Fairfax County Virginia school board proposed an amendment to the system’s non-discrimination policy that would include sexual orientation and gender identity as things that were protected from discrimination. That proposal was put forth last fall and the Fairfax board voted to adopt the sexual orientation part at that time. The transgender coverage is due to be voted on next month. Last week two Republican state delegates — who are not from the Fairfax area — spoke at a board meeting to condemn the protection for trans people, demagoguing that it would put “she-males” in the classrooms and the children need to be protected from that. A TWIT Award goes to Del. Robert G. Marshall (R) and Del. David A. LaRock (R) along with Fairfax resident Andrea Lafferty, the president of the Traditional Values Coalition who was there to support the effort against the protections. What traditional values is she supporting? The fear of anyone who is different? Read the story in The Washington Post.

Tags: Amy Schumer, Andreja Pejic, Bailey Jay, Bruce Jenner, Chase Culpepper, featured, Laverne Cox, Marci Bowers, news, restroom wars, Transgender, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News