The Week In Transgenderism 2/18/13

| Feb 18, 2013
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Carla Lewis

Carla Lewis

We’re sad to have to tell your that friend of TGForum, Marisa Richmond, has lost a job. Ever since 2003 in addition to being a professor at MTSU Marisa was the president of the Tennessee Transgender Political Coaliton. That group’s bylaws states that no one can hold office for longer than 9 years so, even though she is much beloved, Marisa had to go. What will the TTPC do now? They have elected a new president, Carla Lewis. Find out what her goals are for the organization in Metro Pulse. (Maybe we can get Marisa to write a politics column for TGF now that she’s got some spare time.)

The CBS hit show Mike & Molly has been called out by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for defaming the honor of transwomen. On their February 11 episode Mike’s police partner is talking about his less than stellar romantic adventures. You guessed it. One of the ladies in his past didn’t have the anatomy he expected. Of course the writer’s went to an almost “Family Guy” place with the dialogue. Find out what got GLAAD going after them at lgbtqnation.com.

Laverne Cox

Laverne Cox

If we have a transgender “star” actress at this time that person has to be Laverne Cox. She’s a veteran of the P Diddy reality show, I Want to Work for Diddy, and she has starred in several films and her own spin off reality show. In a recent interview she talks about her career and how sometimes the worst criticism came from unexpected places. Read the interview in The Huffington Post.

Transgender people in many places around the world have a hard time getting a job, experience rejection by their families and often must turn to prostitution to support themselves. In Jakarta, Indonesia a group of women realized that segments of the TG sex worker population was aging and could no longer support themselves that way. They were turning to begging on the streets. The women decided to do something about it and are building a home for elderly TGs. Listen to a podcast with the story on Free Speech Radio News.

You wouldn’t expect a a college named Saddleback to be very progressive and that proves to be the case. The California school recently told a a student who had returned to the campus as a woman after dropping out of the school as a male that she would be arrested if she tried using the woman’s restroom in the girl’s locker room. Find out what happened by reading the badly written report in the school’s student newspaper, The Lariat. While you’re rounding up the news try to get those pronouns right, kids.

Aunt Barbara

Have I got Tupperware for you.

How would you like to get paid to dress up? Oh sure, not everyone has the talent to go on stage and do female impersonation so you’re saying to yourself, “What are you talking about? How could a non-performer get paid to do drag?” Ask Robert Suchan how he does it and he’ll tell you he’s making $250,000 a year selling Tupperware in drag as Aunt Barbara. That’s a lot of plastic. Find out how Aunt Barbara does it in The Huffington Post.

Other men are being paid to dress up in the more traditional role of actors playing drag queens in Yorkshire, U.K. Les Cages Aux Folles is opening in two weeks and the lads playing the Caggelles are not only getting paid — they’re being sent to a “transvestite academy” for lessons in how to be a woman. The headmistress of the academy is also a real life drag queen and will be playing the role of Zaza in the upcoming production. Read the story and view a video of the boys in training in The Star.

Are English universities anymore understanding about TGs? The university yes. Some of the students? No. A transitioning TG woman trying to use the women’s restroom in the Union on the Leed’s campus was pushed and shoved out of the facility by two outraged female students. The school has had a gender neutral toilet policy since 2010 so in this case, while the female students were unenlightened, it was explained to them by Leeds security people that they couldn’t push the TG out. Read the story in Leeds Student.

Sometimes drag queens are known to “read” people. That is, they take it upon themselves to offer “helpful” criticisms while they’re out and about. One queen in Toronto spotted a candidate who desperately needed her advice on how to look like pop music diva Nicki Minaj. Find out how she got schooled when she was taken by surprise about just who she was criticizing. Read it in the National Inquirer.

Sylvester

Sylvester

Do you know about Sylvester? Not the one who was the nemesis of Tweety Bird. The disco singer from the 1970s who was known as the “Queen of Disco.” You’ve probably hit the dance floor to his songs like You Make Me Feel Mighty Real and Dance (Disco Heat) but you’ve probably never known that he was raised in the Pentacostal church, was a friend of Etta James and a member to the drag performance group The Cockettes. Sylvester broke the rules by performing in drag and wearing high heels on his album covers. Read all about a performer who was ahead of his time at Pop Matters.

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Marcel Duchamp as a lady.

Duchamp

The famed photographer Man Ray is linked to the avante garde of the early 20th century. He often used the artist Marcel Duchamp as a model, photographing him in drag as Duchamp’s alter ego Rrose Sélavy. Ray also took many photos of glamorus Hollywood leading ladies and a Parisian transvestitte named Babette. His work is on exhibit in a new collection in London, England through May. Read about it and view some photos in The London Evening Standard.

These days it seems everyone is designing a clothing line and transgender model and reality show star Isis King simply will not be left out. She debuted her fashion collection in New York City last week during Fashion Week. TG actress Laverne Cox and TG editor, writer and activist Janet Mock were in attendance. Read about the fashions and the people in The Huffington Post.

Singer Lucas Silveira

Silveira

Some transgender artistes are satisfied just to be singers. Lucas Silveira, the transman vocalist for a band we have featured in our Perpetual Change music column several times, The Cliks, is one of them. (As of this writing. Who knows, he might be putting out a line of designer jackets someday.) In 2007 a Canadian newspaper named him a TG “pop hearttrob.” Learn more about Silveira in The Huffingtom Post.

Why does it sometimes seem that what one group of people think is a good thing is seen by another group of people as a very bad thing? The good thing in this piece is the fact that Massachusetts has decided that transgender students in their public school system should be treated with respect. They will be allowed to use the restroom of the gender they identify with and play on sport teams appropriate to their gender. The bad thing is that one group of people, The Massachusetts Family Institute, (why do they always have the word “family” in their name?) has come out strongly against it because your gender is “a basic truth of anatomy” to them. Read about the new rules and the gender bullies who want them blocked at WBUR radio’s website.

TWITS

From the exotic land of India comes a story that is far too mundane. An Indian crossdresser name Babu could find no job and instead of turning to prostitution as many of India’s TGs must do, she decided to use her womanly wiles to take advantage of people who would stop to give her a lift by robbing them and running off into the night. We must award a TWIT to India for allowing their TGs to be so badly treated that they have to turn to crime and we give a TWIT Award to the newspaper who called Babu “he” throughout the story. Babu will not receive a TWIT Award today but she has our sympathy. Th estory is in the Deccan Herald.

A crossdresser from Lackawana County, Pennsylvania doesn’t so much have our sympathy as our concern. The CD, a 26-year-old, had a 12-year-old Facebook friend and he started asking the girl for some of her underwear and other clothing she had worn. The girl turned him in and he was arrested and found guilty of corruption of minors. Let’s line up those TWIT Awards. Number one goes to the crossdresser. hi attorney said he was just reaching out to someone he felt comfortable talking to about wearing women’s clothes. Dude! Find a local support group. Don’t hassle a kid. Award two is delivered to the court and the jury for making this about corrupting a minor. If the girl has watched any reality televison she’s already corrupted. I imagine she was skeeved out by the requests or she wouldn’t have turned him in but “corrupted”? And TWIT Award number three also goes to the crossdresser. What the hell were you thinking? Get the story in the Scranton Times-Tribune.

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Category: Transgender Community News

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About the Author ()

Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.

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