The Week In Transgenderism 11/2/15

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Carrera

You may recall that last year trans model Carmen Carrera wanted to be one of the Victoria’s Secret angels. She didn’t get the job but remained hopeful that she could walk the runway in angel wings at some point. Carrera fans have again started a petition to sway the company’s decision and get them to hire her for the next lingerie fashion show. Carrera says she is ready to put on the wings but so far Victoria’s Secret has not given a hint about how they feel. Read the story in the New York Daily News.

Loiza Jamers

While we’re talking about trans women in modeling we have to mention a “first” from Holland. A trans woman has won the Holland’s Next Top Model contest. Loiza Lamers kept her gender status secret until she had been picked to compete on the show. Read all about it on The Huffington Post website.

GLAAD has issued a report that finds LGBT characters are popping up on Internet streaming services much more than they are appearing on network television shows. Trans characters are leading on streaming shows like Sense8, Transparent, and Orange Is The New Black. Read more about the rise of LGBT people in The New York Times.

Caitlyn Jenner appears to be working on giving back to the trans community, at the same time she is meeting more of that community. Recently she appeared on Geena Rocero’s digital series Beautiful as I Want to Be. The show highlighted trans youth and Jenner meets, talks with and advises a young FtM artist. Read about it on the E! website.

Angela Ponce did not win.

Sadly we must report that the Spanish trans woman who was competing in the Miss World Spain contest will not be representing that country in the Miss World competition. She failed to make it into the final ten, even though she appeared to be a frontrunner. Read the story and see more photos of her at the contest in the Mirror.

Trans rights activist, the late Sylvia Rivera, has become the first trans person to be included in the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. Rivera participated in the Stonewall riots in 1969 and worked with several organizations to promote trans rights after gay organizations refused to include trans people. Learn more on the Advocate website.

Another trans teen has gotten her wish and become a cheerleader at her high school. The luck girl this time is named Anry Fuentes and she attends Denair High School in Turlock, California. Read her story in the Turlock Journal. There are more details in the Advocate.

One of the “girls” on Instagram, Brittney Bottomz.

In the “good old days” if a man wanted to express his inner woman he had to either spend a lot of money on photo equipment with a timer function and then pose for photos, get the film developed and then submit the pictures to a trans magazine like LadyLike, or he had to go out in public dressed as a woman. Then other people could take his pictures. These days men of all ages are presenting themselves as women by getting made up and dressed then taking photos with their smart phones and posting them to Instagram. Ain’t technology wonderful? Check them out on the Spy website.

Trans teen Gavin Grimm didn’t want to cheerlead. He only wanted to use the boy’s room, but it’s turned into a federal case. Well, not quite. The Virginia teen had sued his school board for the right to use the boy’s room and the boy’s locker room and the Department of Justice has weighed in on the case with a friend-of-the-court brief that says the school board is required to let Gavin in the boy’s room because Title IX says that if they don’t they are exhibiting unlawful bias. Read the details on the ABC News website.

There’s a lot of talk about the way things are “inside the beltway” but one of the activities that happens in Washington, D.D. every year is not something you hear much about in the “mainstream media.” This was the 29th year for the annual High Heels Race. Men from all walks of life put on high heels and run. It happened on Oct. 27 and the queen who won did the course in 41 seconds. Find out more about the Race and the winner with video and a story in the International Business Times.

Maloney

Former boxing promoter Kellie Maloney has been advocating in the U.K. that trans issues be included in school sex and relationship education programs. At a time when England is seeing an uptick in the number of trans youth Maloney feels that educating all youth about the nature of trans people is important. Read more of her thoughts on the Pink News website.

What will Hollywood think of next? There’s a small controversy brewing over the news that director Walter Hill will be making a film about a hitman who is punished by his enemies by being forcibly made to undergo gender reassignment. While those who need GRS to save their lives long for it, it would be a punishment for a cis male. But does that really seem like a good idea for a movie? Its called Tomboy, a Revenger’s Tale. See what you think of this plot idea after you read the story on the refinery29 website.

Another movie in pre-production is set to star a cis actress in a transsexual role. The film will star Scottish actress Kate Dickie, known in the U.S. for her portrayal of Lysa Arryn in Game of Thrones, as a trans woman who sparks turmoil when she returns to her childhood village. The film is scheduled to begin shooting in Scotland in the spring with Walter Hill in the director’s chair. Read more about it in the Scotsman.

Meanwhile, the MTV show Faking It has announced that they are seeking trans actors so they can expand the show’s already culturally and sexually diverse cast. Faking It’s theme follows a high school girl who fakes a sexual attraction for her best friend in order to be more popular at her progressive high school. The producers want to add more trans characters for the star to interact with. Read the story and view a video on the Entertainment Weekly website.

Akkai

Karnataka State in India has given their highest civilian honor to a trans woman. The Rajyotsava Award has been conferred annually to people in many different fields. Akkai Padmashali has gotten one of this years awards for her work spreading awareness about sexual diversity. Get the story from the StoryPick website.

When a trans woman is raised as a male she misses out on all the things a cis woman learns during her childhood and teen years. Often trans women will express even less interest in things like makeup and hairstyles when they are trying to hide their feminine nature than cis men. So when they transition they have to catch up on skills that cis women learned long ago. A program in Canberra, Australia provides professional makeovers for trans women. Read about it in the Canberra Times.

Group Capt. McGregor

A trans woman military officer has won the Queensland Australian of the Year award for 2016. RAAF Group Captain Catherine McGregor transitioned in 2012 and has become one of the leading faces in the Australian trans community. Learn more about her in the Brisbane Times.

Women are fabulous. They are beautiful, graceful, nurturing, and all the things that crossdresser love to emulate and trans women hope to be. But there is another side to women that is often eluded to in our popular culture. Movies like Mean Girls point out that women have a competitive side that often uses indirect aggression against other women. One writer outlines three theories on why this is so. Read her op-ed in The New York Times for greater insight into the dark side of being a girl.

Patient of Thailand clinic, Amy Gangian.

You hear from time to time various places around the world being touted as “the gender-change capital.” Lately Thailand has been getting a lot of mentions as the current en vogue place to have your surgery done. Why has Thailand become one of the leading destinations for gender reassignment surgery? Read about it on the Bloomberg website.

While Facebook will allow you to chose from dozens of gender identities the U.S. government limits you to two choices. What happens when someone who identifies as neither male or female refuses to pick a gender on their passport application? They don’t get to take that trip outside the country. An intersex person named Dana Zzyym had that happen when they refused to pick a gender from the two choices on the passport application. Zzyym is suing the State Department. Learn more in the Advocate.

A Topeka, Kansas trans activist could make history by becoming the first trans member of the Kansas legislature. Stephanie Mott is hoping to be picked by the Topeka Democrats to fill the soon to be vacant seat of Rep. Harold Lane, D-Topeka who announced his retirement in October. She is facing competition though. Learn more about it in The Wichita Eagle.

All of the flak Facebook got about it’s “real name” policy being used to shut down drag performer’s Facebook pages has at last resulted in some changes to their rules that should make things easier for people not using their legal names on Facebook. One change is that no longer can someone just flag you for using a made up name. They have to explain why they are flagging you. Get all the fine print on the Law Street website.

Tina Healy and her mum.

Coming out to a parent about being trans is not an easy thing to do. It can be pretty hard to open your mouth and say who you really are to the person who has been there all your life and who you have hidden your true nature from for so long. One Australian woman has become expert at coming out to her mother. Sadly her mom suffers from dementia and every few weeks Tina Healy has to explain to her mom why she is dressed as a woman. The good news is that every time Tina tell her mother about her true nature her mother is accepting. Read the whole story on the Tech Times website.

The news that Laverne Cox would star in a remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show produced a lot of reactions and given the nature of the character you knew it wouldn’t be long before someone in the trans community took a long hard look at the 1975 film and said, “This is crap.” Well that’s not an exact quote but perhaps in order to be a fan of the original film you had to be there. Get one trans woman’s opinion on the original film and the idea of a remake on The Mary Sue website.

Cayne

Trans fans of The Young and the Restless will be excited to learn that Candice Cayne is going to join the cast of the long running daytime soap. She will first appear in the December 2 episode as wedding planner Nona Richards. Learn a bit more about it on the Realty Today website.

TWITs

Ah, bureaucracy. Without the proper form filled out in triplicate we’re afraid you have to go to the men’s prison. That’s what happened to a trans woman in Britain who was sentenced to three months in jail after her trial on an assault charge. Though she has lived as a female for the majority of her adult life Tara Hudson doesn’t have a Gender Recognition Certificate that legally makes her a woman. A TWIT Award to the inflexible bureaucrats of the British prison system. The story can be found in People. This just in: Tara has been moved to a women’s prison. The story is in The Guardian.

Our lead story about Carmen Carrera wanting to be the first trans Victoria’s Secret angel was reported slightly differently by a conservative website. The TWIT Award goes to the Brietbart website for running the story, with all the facts in place, but mis-gendering Carrera as “he” and “him” all through the piece. That’s just rude, Brietbart. Read the story here.

They just can’t help themselves. As far as Brietbart is concerned trans people are a waste of taxpayer’s money. They get a second TWIT Award this week for the way they reported the rise in funding for trans health services in Britain. The National Health Service increased the budget line for trans related care to £22.72 million a year, up from £17.13 million last year. They illustrated the story with a photo of a flamboyant drag queen and added quotes around the word “treating” when it was used in reference to what the money would be used for. Breitbart presents a mix of facts, lies, and prejudices leaving the overall impression that it’s a waste of money to provide GRS to trans people since they just commit suicide anyway. Shame on you Brietbart. You can read their biased story if you like.

Most people love the Caribbean. The warm ocean breezes, the reggae and reggaeton music; lazing on the beach and relaxing is all wonderful. What the average tourist doesn’t know is that behind the scenes the Caribbean islands are among the worst places in the world to be LGBT. As bad as the murder statistics for trans people are in the U.S. Jamaica beats the numbers every year. Most LGBT people leave the islands before they can come out and live their true lives. A TWIT Award to the Caribbean culture for clinging to sodomy laws and religious condemnations of LGBT people. Read an op-ed by a queer trans woman from Dominica in The New York Times.

Another spot on the planet that is getting a TWIT Award is Malaysia. There has been trouble for trans people there, particularly Muslim trans woman. Their Sharia Law, which is in effect in several Malay states, has a prohibition that forbids Muslims to crossdress. The law has been used to arrest trans women, some of whom sued and won. Then the law was reinstated by a federal court. Though the law is only supposed to apply to Muslim men who dress like women it is being used on many individuals who are not Muslim. Malaysia needs to clean up this mess. Learn more in the Sun Times.

Tags: Anry Fuentes, Caitlyn Jenner, Candis Cayne, Carmen Carrara, featured, Gavin Grimm, Loiza Jamers, news, Sylvia Rivera, Transgender, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News