The Week In Transgenderism 8/3/15

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Pooya

The day that the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in all 50 states a trans woman in New York City decided that the time was right for her to come out of the trans closet and announce her gender status to the world. Pooya Mohseni is an actress of Iranian descent and she has been a working actress in New York for the past 5 years. She had told few people about herself, even when she auditioned for an increasing number of trans roles. Read about how coming out affected her in The Advocate.

The working group tasked by the Pentagon with examining the effect openly trans soldiers would have on the services hold their first meeting today. This is the first step of what many hope will be a easy transition from serving in the shadows to being out on duty. Learn more about it in The Advocate.

Now that people are learning more about trans women some of the men who are attracted to trans women are beginning to speak up about the way they are treated. When the world finds out a man is having relations with a trans woman he gets harassed by the media and attacked on social media. But trans women are women and they deserve to be loved. What can be done to make society treat trans women and their male lovers with some respect. One man has written an article titled Stop Shaming Partners of Trans People and you can find it in The Huffington Post.

TG model Angel Qinan.

The all-trans modeling agency we mentioned in TWIT a while back has announced it’s roster of trans models. Apple Model Management L.A. has released a photo of the six women they have signed. You won’t find any of the big name trans models on their roster but it looks as if they may have some exciting new talent. Read about the agency and see a photo of the models on the PBS News Hour website.

Some would say that if you are a male to female trans person the worst thing you could do would be getting into body building. But there are plenty of female body builders so who’s to say it’s wrong? The former Matt Kroczaleski would not say it was was wrong. She came out last week as a trans woman and her new name is Janae Marie Kroc. She describes herself as a “transgender/genderfluid alpha male/girly girl lesbian in a male body.” And it’s quite a muscular body since Kroc is a world champion weightlifter. Learn more about her in the Daily News.

How has the body building world reacted to Janae’s announcement about her gender? You might think they’d be upset but two of the leading lifters have expressed support for her. They need some education about trans issues since they keep calling her “him” but at least they are supportive. Read about their reactions on the TMZ website.

Verka in the middle.

Did you go to see the Melissa McCarthy film Spy? If you did perhaps you noticed that in one scene McCarthy runs onto the stage where a drag show is in progress. The queen in the scene is Ukrainian performer Verka Seduchka. Learn more about Seduchka’s drag career in Russia and Ukraine on the LGBT Weekly website.

The film The Danish Girl will not open in theaters till 2016 but the studio has released three posters as part of the film’s publicity campaign. All three feature Eddie Redmayne as Lilli Elbe. Two of them feature his co-star Alicia Vikander. Take a look at them on The Huffington Post website.

Trans porn actress Alisa.

Trans porn is a big seller. Over the past 15 years the viewing of pornographic videos starring beautiful trans women has shot up and it turns out that the biggest consumers of trans porn are straight men. Go figure. Learn all about the trans porn industry in International Business Times.

On the other side of trans issues, directly opposite trans porn, we find the halls of academe where learned professors study the culture that has grown around transgender people over the years. One such academic undertaking is the establishment of a Digital Transgender Archive that will preserve trans publications. They are gathering everything from the early newsletters, to LadyLike magazine and Transgender Community News, to the newest online publications. For more information on the DTA visit their website.

Pammy Rose

Being a beautiful young trans woman is not all sunshine and cherry pie. If you haven’t gotten your gender reassignment surgery, or perhaps are not interested in having it done, you are presented with many problems revolving around finding a romantic partner, or partners. A young British woman named Pammy Rose has been called a freak, spat upon and told she was filthy and disgusting when she tried to be open about her gender status on dates. Read her story in the Daily Mail.

I Am Cait has hit the air and it looks as if Caitlyn Jenner will be not only be showing herself to the world but learning about things she hasn’t considered before and sharing them as well. Last week she was in a discussion with a diverse group of trans women and Ms. Jenner’s conservative values popped up when the group was talking about how to help poor trans women. See where Caitlyn stands in a clip you can watch on the US Weekly website.

This past Saturday was the start of Pride celebrations in Liverpool, England. To celebrate the celebration the Marriott Hotel hired drag performer Anna Phylactic as their Pride concierge. Ms. Phylactic’s duties included helping the hotel team check-in guests, show people to their rooms and give them tips and hints on all the aspects of the Pride celebration. The story is in the Liverpool Echo.

The bathroom wars are heating up. Conservative legislators and city council members around the country are certain that the whole reason trans people want to use the lady’s room is that they’re going to assault women while they’re in there. So they have introduced bills and ordinances aimed at keeping trans people in the public restroom that matches their birth certificate defined sex. The National Center for Transgender Equality is stepping up the fight against these bathroom bills. Learn more on the Al Jazeera America website.

Jazz Jennings

Going through puberty is hard enough. Imagine if you had to do it on television. That’s what Jazz Jennings the 14-year-old trans advocate is doing. She’s doing it to get out the story of her and her family dealing with her trans nature in hopes that it will help other young people and their families. Learn more about I Am Jazz in The Advocate.

Elaine Lancaster

We may have to institute another award if more stories like this next one occur. It would be called the Hero Award and one definitely goes to Miami drag star Elaine Lancaster. She is in Greece to perform on the island of Mykonos (the Fire Island of the Mediterranean) and she saved a man’s life by pulling him out of a burning car. Seriously. Check out the story and the heroics on the Daily Grind website.

Would you be brave enough to attend your college graduation ceremony in drag? That’s what one performance and visual arts student in England did. Why did he do it? For one thing, he became interested in drag and created his drag persona while attending the school. And secondly he just wanted to take a poke at the people who said he’d never manage to get his degree. Meet Crystal Lubrikunt in the Mirror.

How often have you been on an airplane and zoned out during the flight attendant’s rote performance of the safety instructions? If you fly a lot you’ve probably stopped paying any attention to the crew while they show you how to fasten your seatbelt and find the emergency exits. An Israeli art student was given a final assignment requiring her to create a unique brand for an airline. Her airline was Priscilla Airlines and she made a flight safety video performed by drag queens for a diverse bunch of passengers. Pay close attention as you view it on the NewNowNext website.

Perry

Grayson Perry, the Turner Award winning artist/potter was back in the news last week. We reported a few TWITs ago that Perry went to a mining district of England to film footage for a documentary. The documentary is about Perry’s search for what masculinity means. Last week he was hanging out with  the Lancashire Police, going on patrol with them and finding out what the average policeman’s work day is like. Read more about it in The Citizen.

There are approximately 600 trans people in prison in Brazil. Up until recently they they were stripped of their gender identity and housed with prisoners who conformed with their biological sex, even when they had been living as their chosen gender for years. New rules instituted  in May are aimed at giving trans people respect and access to the things they need to live in their chosen gender. The story can be found in The Guardian.

The Daily Show did a segment about a town in Arkansa called Eureka Springs. They recently passed non-discrimination laws that protect people based on sexual preference and gender identity. Eureka Springs was a spot in the South that hosted a crossdresser weekend back in the ‘80s and ‘90s. It’s no surprise that they were openminded enough to add LGBT protections. But not everyone in town is happy about it. If you didn’t see this hilarious segment on Comedy Central check it out right here.

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Thanks to Jamie Roberts for pointing us to a story from North Carolina. LGBTQ students and their supporters focused on ways to improve campus life for trans students. More than 120 students and advisers from across the country came together two weeks ago for Camp Pride, an annual leadership camp sponsored by Campus Pride, a nonprofit group. The event was hosted by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Johnson C. Smith University, a historically black college. The video and story can be found in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Knowledge is power. To accumulate some power when it comes to the trans community The National Center for Transgender Equality is producing a survey that will be available online this month. One of the things they hope to learn from the survey is just how many trans people exist in the United States. Thanks to TGF reader Josy C. for telling us about the survey. You can find information on it on the Trans Survey website.

The way your religion treats you when you transition your gender depends a lot on the church you attend. What if you are going from female to male and your church is a mosque? TGF reader Robyn Byrd tipped us off to an article about a Muslim trans man who has found acceptance at his mosque, even though his own mother refuses to accept him. The story is in The Los Angeles Times.

TWITs

We’ve given Bill O’Reilly TWIT Awards before and we probably will again. But today he’s getting one for not understanding that when a trans person says they want to be referred to as one gender or the other, or none for that matter, it’s important to accept their gender identity. In a segment of his show he called Caitlyn Jenner a “he” from the waist down. Read about it and watch a video of the segment on The Wrap via Yahoo.

Dr. Michael L. Brown is a religious conservative radio show host who contends that there is no such thing as a trans identity. He bases this opinion on the fact that there is no standard test that can determine if someone is trans. Because he believes this and spreads his opinion without listening to the thousands of people worldwide who self identify as a gender that is different than the one they were assigned at birth we give Dr. Brown a large TWIT Award. Read more of his twittery on the Think Progress website.

The Pope may have had a meeting with a trans man that went fairly well but the Church is far from accepting of trans people. This is highlighted by the way they treated a Catholic trans man who wished to be a godfather to his nephew. The local diocese ruled that he could not take on that role, one that was important to him as a person of faith, strictly because in the eyes of the Church he is a woman living a life that is not “congruent with faith.” A TWIT Award is hereby given to the close minded bishop of the diocese of Cadiz and Ceuta in Spain for not recognizing that this man’s faith is what made him wish to be a godfather. Read about it on the Bustle website.

Tags: Bill O'Reilly, Caitlyn Jenner, Elaine Lancaster, featured, Grayson Perry, Jazz Jennings, news, TWIT, Verka Seduchka

Category: Transgender Community News