The Week In Transgenderism 6/29/15

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Tula in Playboy

Before the world changed in the 21st century and trans women models became stars getting jobs as the face of cosmetics companies and walking the runways of the world in designer fashions trans women who wanted a modeling career had to make no mention of their sex at birth. One model who was riding high with cover girl status on fashion magazines and a bit of background work in a Bond film was a British model named Tula. In 1982 she was outed by a tabloid as the James Bond girl who “was a boy.” Now living quietly in Atlanta, Tula has granted an interview, her first in 20 years, to Playboy, the magazine that gave her a photo spread in 1991. Read the interview and see some of the historic photos on the Playboy website.

Some trans icons from Britain.

When you count the influential trans figures in the U.S.A., those most visible in the press, you get Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner. But the U.S.A. is not the center of the universe. What about Britain? Who are their most influential trans people determined by media visibility? Find out an article in The Guardian.

Trans soldiers are still officially banned from serving in the military. The ban is responsible for the armed forces losing the skills of many trans people who wish to serve their country and pose no risk to security. In fact making them keep their gender status a secret is what makes them susceptible to the kind of blackmail that would be a threat to security. One congresswoman is introducing a bill to repeal the ban on trans service members. Read about it on the HNGN website.

Airman Ireland and his date.

President Obama supports the idea that trans members of the military should be serving openly. He sent a strong signal to that effect when he invited an Air Force trans man airman and his trans woman girlfriend to attend an LGBT pride reception at the White House. And Senior Airman Logan Ireland was given orders by his superiors to attend in uniform, a male airman’s uniform. For more on this story visit the BuzzFeed website.

So much for the positive. On the negative side, at the same reception during the President’s speech a trans woman began to heckle him with demands that the administration release LGBTQ undocumented immigrants from detention centers. That may be a way to get some press attention but it’s not a good way to have a dialogue with the president. It’s hard to determine who acted worse is this case so we’re not issuing any TWIT Awards. Read about the whole embarrassing incident and see video in The Guardian.

Possibly the more effective way of getting LGBTQ immigrants out of the detention centers is an appeal by 35 Democratic members of Congress advocating for their release. It’s important to get these folks out of the centers since they are very vulnerable to sexual assault. Learn more in The Orange County Register.

Are you a fan of the young adult series The Slayer Chronicles, or The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod? If so you know that they were written by Heather Brewer. Be advised that your fav author, nicknamed “Aunt Heather” by fans will now be known as “Uncle Zac.” Learn more about his transition in the young adult literature world on the Entertainment Weekly website.

Beck

Former Navy SEAL Kristin Beck is running for congress. She hopes to unseat the incumbent Steny H. Hoyer to represent her Maryland district. Hoyer is the second most powerful Democrat in the house of Representatives so it’s fair to say Beck has little chance of beating him, but she’s giving her all in the campaign. Learn more in The Washington Post.

Pejic

Anytime official documents are required there can be problems for trans people. One of the times you need such documents is when you travel internationally. Andreja Pejic has to travel for her livelihood so having a proper passport is very important to her. Read about her trans travel experiences on Yahoo Travel.

Thanks to Tasi Zuriack for pointing this item out. Our some-time contributor from England, Graham Holmes, made the news last week with his story of standing up to someone who pushed him and then verbally assaulted him with homophobic abuse. Graham contacted the police about the incident and the abuser was tracked down. What happened next is why the story made the news. Read all about it in Pink News.

Being in jail is punishment enough. If you’re a trans prisoner you don’t need the additional abuse of being mis-gendered by the guards or placed in the general population that doesn’t fit your gender identity. Denver Country jail in Colorado has a trans policy that allows inmates to choose what gender pronouns and name they would prefer and their placement in the male or female side of the prison is determined by a special review board. Learn more in the Denver Post.

Last Stonewall woman.

Last week same sex couples won the right to marry. While the marriage issue may not resonate with all trans people some were very affected by the Supreme Court decision. One trans woman, the last surviving trans woman to participate in the Stonewall Riots, found herself brought to tears when she heard of the ruling. Get her story in The Rainbow Times.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Google and Eastern Bank have all announced they support legislation in Massachusetts that would allow trans people to use the public restroom that matched their expressed gender. The legislation would beef up the state’s 2011 anti-discrimination law. Learn more in the Gloucester Times.

From New England we turn our attention to the island of Guam, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific. Did you know Guam has one voting representative in the U.S. Congress? It also has no anti-discrimination law covering transgender people in the workplace or housing. That may soon change. Get the story from the KUAM News website.

New Zealand is supposed to be providing government funded gender reassignment surgery for its transsexual population. It’s written into their law that they must provide three MtF and one FtM operation every two years. They haven’t provided any surgery for three years. Why? There aren’t any surgeons in New Zealand who can do the procedure. Read more on the Radio New Zealand website.

Chase Culpepper

The trans teen in South Carolina who was made to remove her makeup when she went for a driver’s license photo finally got her picture taken with her makeup on. Now 17 Chase Culpepper said she finally feels like her license picture accurately depicts who she is. Read more and watch a video of Chase going to the DMV to get her new photo on the WYFF 4 website.

Last week the governor of Connecticut signed a bill that allows trans people to change the sex listed on their birth certificates without undergoing gender reassignment surgery. The law goes into effect on October 1. After that all that will be necessary for the document change is a notarized statement saying the individual has had appropriate treatment for transgender issues. Learn more on the WNPR website.

Last week Nicole Maines appeared on the television show Royal Pains. She portrayed a trans teen whose hormone treatments were causing health problems. How did she do in the role and how was the story handled? Read a review in The New York Daily News.

Amazon Eve with her little pal.

Another trans actress is a co-star on American Horror. Erika Ervin was doing paralegal work and being a lady wrestler when she told her manager to find something an almost 7-foot tall trans woman could do in showbiz. She exhorted him to think outside the box and he came up with an audition for a male role on America Horror. Ervin got the part and the producers changed the strongman part to a strong-woman part. Read her story on the Edge Boston website.

The makeup artists hired to work on the Amazon series Transparent knew as little about trans people as the star of the show did. They thought they were going to be doing drag queen glitter everyday. Jeffrey Tambor admitted that he knew very little about trans issues before he took the role but has said that after playing Maura was the best part he’s ever had and she teaches him something new every time he steps into her shoes. The makeup artists learned that Maura was not a drag queen but a woman, with a masculine face, and their job was to make her look as pretty as possible. Learn more about Maura’s makeup regime in The Daily Mail.

If you were a student at St. Catherine’s College at Cambridge University in Britain during the past 650 years you know that at formal events men were required to wear “smart” trousers (it’s a university, ya know) and a jacket and tie while women (only gaining admittance in the 20th century) had to wear a skirt and blouse, or a dress. After protests started by an America trans woman student the dress code has been re-written and students can wear anything they like to a formal event as long as it’s “suitably smart dress.” Learn more on the Reuters website.

TWITs

There has been another trans suicide. This one by Jess Shipps, an Air Force veteran who transitioned after she left the service. She became an advocate for trans people in the military and had a major presence on YouTube and Reddit with videos in which she discussed everything from the day-to-day life of a trans person to deeply personal issues. While being out there working actively for trans people she fell prey to the severe depression caused by the problems that trans people have to deal with everyday. The TWIT Award goes to society for not accepting, loving and supporting their trans brothers and sisters. Read more about Shipps in The Advocate.

A former drag queen in Sydney has been fined and forced to write an apology over his decade-long harassment of a trans woman who lives across the courtyard in his building. The two were friends shortly after Troy Hancock moved into the housing unit but after Pindi Stevens (the trans woman) made remarks about his “gay personality” he started calling her things like “a man in a red wig.” Ladies! Please. So a TWIT Award goes to Troy Hancock, but also, we give one to Stevens since in 2013 she physically assaulted an elderly neighbor who had been verbally abusing her with anti-trans remarks. (And Hancock testified against her.) We also give a TWIT Award to that housing complex. Talk about bad vibes. Read the whole sordid story in The Daily Mail.

A drag queen from Boston wrote an essay on the gay site grabhim.net in which she asked if men would date her if they met her while she was in male mode but found out she was a drag queen. Eileen Dover asked that question because she had found that there was a lot of reluctance on the part of gay guys to date drag performers. Can a drag queen get some respect from the gay community? Apparently only onstage. That’s why we’re giving those uptight gay guys a TWIT Award for being freaked out by a man who can be feminine. Read more in The Huffington Post.

Tags: Amazon Eve, Andreja Pejic, featured, Heather Brewer, Kristin Beck, Logan Ireland, news, Nicole Maines, Transparent, Tula, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News