The Week In Transgenderism 3/11/13

Lady Chablis

The Lady Chablis, who appeared as herself in the 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is having a birthday party. Where and when you ask? It’s happened in Savannah, Georgia and sadly you missed it. She celebrated with two shows at Club One on March 9. For Chablis it was a return to Savannah. She left the city years ago after she suddenly became famous when the film was released. What? A performer who can’t take a lot of attention? Find out how old she is and what she’s been up to since the glory days in the Savannah Morning News.

Have we made progress getting acceptance from the non-TG majority? We can answer that in the affirmative. An example of transgender progress is to be found in The New York Times‘ “Civil Behavior” column. That’s a column that deals with straight and gay etiquette. A person wrote to the column asking how to remain polite to an old friend who had identified as a pre-op TS when they hung out years ago and now they have established contact again. The writer was wondering how to politely ask that touchy question, “Did you ever . . .?” Find out how the columnist answered in The NY Times.

Another positive note is the introduction of protections for transgendered people to a hate crimes bill in Nevada. SB139 would recognize hate crimes motivated by gender biases. Get the details in The Guardian Express.

Fallon Fox

We’ve started seeing transgendered people finding their place in sports. The female to male basketball player Kye Allums, the FtM college basketball player Gabrielle Ludwig, the pro wrestler The Bloodthirsty Vixen and others are starting to get attention in the world of sports. Now we learn of a mixed martial arts fighter who is a transgender woman. Her name is Fallon Fox and she’s the first TG to participate in mixed martial arts fights. Of course there’s a controversy over what she put on her combatant license. Read all about it in Sports Illustrated.

The progress TGs have made and are making in the U.S. is the opposite of what life is like for the majority of TGs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Hundreds of transgendered people are killed every year in Latin America and next to none of the murders are investigated resulting in arrests and prosecutions. In fact many of the murders are attributed to security forces and police. Get the gruesome facts at AlertNet.

Fanny and Stella

Another place and time when men dressed in women’s clothing were assured of mistreatment under the law, at least, was Victorian England. We have mentioned Boulton and Park, the crossdressing pair who scandalized London society by becoming part of the social scene of the time. Mainly the pair are known for being arrested and tried on charges of “conspiring and inciting persons to commit unnatural acts.” That’s all we’ve learned of Fanny and Stella till now. A new review of a book titled Fanny & Stella reveals more details of their interesting story. Learn about Stella’s sojourn in Edinburgh and what happened to them both after their trial. Did you know they were acquitted? The story is in The Scotsman.

A photographer working on a project featuring women and girls had a wacky idea. Charlie White thought that as teenaged girls were in a transition, since they were starting to develop into women, and transgendered women were going through a transition induced by hormones and assisted through surgery as they became women why not put them together in photos? So he took photos of teen girls and transgendered women together who looked as if they were related. See some of the photos in The Huffington Post.

Hujar pic: Drag Queen with Curly Hair

Another photographer who is being remembered posthumously in an exhibit in New York City, Peter Hujar, made transsexuals, drag queens, gay icons (and a few horses and cows) the focus of his work. One of his stark, black and white shots is of Warhol superstar Candy Darling reclining on the hospital bed where she would die at the age of 29 in 1973. It’s titled Candy Darling on Her Deathbed. See his photos in the Daily Mail.

The transman frat guy we told you about last week, whose frat pulled together and raised $18,000 for his surgery, got more good news. He is eligible for coverage under Emerson College’s student health-care plan. So he doesn’t need the $18,000 after all. Does that mean his frat will be throwing a wicked kegger? No, he’s donating the cash to a charity that helps trans people get their surgery. Check out the story in Policymic.

Bobbi Lancaster

Our Meet the Transsexual story today has a golf spin. After almost giving up on life because of her gender identity issues Bobbi Lancaster, with her wife’s help, moved from male to female. Where’s the golf come in? Now she is hoping to compete in the LPGA. Get her story at azcentral.com.

The government of Greece has made a major move to protect transgendered Greeks. They have added “gender identity” to Article 66 of the Penal Code Amendments. That may be Greek to you but it’s the section of the law that covers hate crimes. For the story go to Gay Star News.

From the “I did not know that” file comes the story about the lead singer of the pop group One Direction that let’s the world know he has gotten a new tattoo on his torso. Why do we care? They say that Harry Styles’ latest ink is a butterfly on his stomach. They go on to say that the butterfly is a well known symbol for the transgender community. Hey! Sometimes a butterfly is just a butterfly. Read about it, if you dare, in Metro News U.K.

John Water’s most famous star was Glenn Milstead, A.K.A. Divine. Divine is the subject of a brand new documentary film called I Am Divine. To many of us she certainly was. The documentary covers Milstead’s life in detail and features everyone from John Waters to Ricki Lake, Holly Woodlawn and The Cockettes talking about the real person who portrayed Divine. Get a review online at Twitch and search the Internet Movie Database for more info on everyone who appears in the film.

A scripted drama that in a way documents the lead actor’s gender transition, the Independent film Gun Hill Road, is now out on DVD. The film stars a transgendered actor named Harmony Santana who portrays a teenage boy named Michael who is actually a transgendered girl name Vanessa. Dealing with the pressures of being a teen and also handling gender identity issues are complicated by Vanessa’s father’s expectations about his son. Read a review of the film in the South Florida Gay News.

Rüzgar

While we’re talking about actors: A female actor in Turkey has made the news by announcing that she is now a he. Rüzgar Erkoçlar broke into the business at the age of 10 starring in a sanitary pad commercial. By 15 “she” was a star in Turkey. How has the sex reassignment gone over for the 26-year-old? He’s now the most talked about celebrity in Turkey. It’s not all a bed of roses though. By law all Turkish males must serve in the military so his acting career may be put on hold while he goes into the service. Read the interesting story of how the Turks view transgendered people in Policymic.

Another actor, Sean Bean, is up for an award for his portrayal of a transgendered character in a British television drama. The actor, best known for his tough, sword swinging roles in Lord of The Rings and Game of Thrones, played a transvestite who experimentation with having a relationship with a man lands her in court. The award Bean has been nominated for is for best male actor at the Royal Television Society’s (RTS) Programme Awards 2012. The role has been described as a transvestite and a transsexual so we’re guessing you need to see Accused to figure the proper term. The story about the award is in The Independent.

Eddie Izzard

Our favorite “professional transvestite” Eddie Izzard has been given an award. It’s possible that it may have been something he said in his stage act, like comparing the Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion to vampirism and cannibalism, that made the American Humanist Association and the Harvard Community of Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics give him their 6th Annual Lifetime Achievement Award for Cultural Humanism. I could be. In any event Mr. Izzard did some of his act after accepting the award and then took questions from the audience. In the course of the Q & A he talked about his transvestism, among other things. Fortunately The Advocate was there and have printed some of the highlights.

TWIT

We’ve all seen policemen not obeying the law at one time or another. When you’re driving over the limit and they whiz on by at an even higher rate of speed we can perhaps imagine that they are speeding to assist a citizen who has been the victim of an accident or a crime. More often they are hurrying back to the barracks to clock out. In this story the office has no real excuse for ignoring the law. A sheriff’s deputy in Iowa City yelled at a transwoman who was trying to use the lady’s room in the courthouse. Part of what she yelled was that she didn’t care what the law said, the TG had better get out of there. That’s why we are giving that deputy a TWIT Award. Find out what happened afterward in the Telegraph Herald.

Tags: featured, news, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News