The Week In Transgenderism 7/9/12

Miss Pejic at work.

Andrej Pejic was the star model of Jean Paul Gaultier’s last fashion show during Paris Couture Week. The theme of the show featured androgynous looks and 19th century decadence. What else would you expect from Gaultier? See photos of Pejic and the GG models in The Daily Mail.

This past Sunday the new anti-discrimination law that protects TGs in Massachusetts went into effect. Now you legally can’t be discriminated against in employment, housing, public education, credit and lending just because you’re TG. If they fire you now for being TG you can have them arrested! Yay! Get the story from WGGB.

Suanyot

Officials in Thailand get to wear official government uniforms . With epaulettes and everything. You would think that in a country that loves it’s dress up transwomen wouldn’t be criticized for wearing a skirt to work. Yolada Suanyot, a transwoman recently elected to the Nan Provincial Administrative Organization found out even though she’s changed her physical gender bureaucracy is not as open to change. She’s still officially male on her ID card and so she’s expected to wear a male uniform to meetings. Get the dumb details from the Bangkok Post.

Down south of Thailand in Australia you can get your gender changed on your documentation — but you have to have had reassignment surgery first. That has proven a hardship for transsexuals since there are no surgeons doing SRS in the entire country. Not only do you have to pay a doctor and hospital but you have to fly to some other country and pay for that, too. All while having a passport that says you’re not the gender you’re presenting to security officials. There’s a move to change that. Read about it in The Canberra Times.

Hey! The nation’s top psychiatrists have gotten together and decided they should try to set up guidelines for the treatment of Gender Identity Disorder. Wow fellas, way to go. Of course you’d imagine they would have come up with that a while ago. Or perhaps they’d have sufficient cash on hand to buy a copy of WPATH’s Standards of Care, which sort of, pretty much defines care for people with GID. But, it’s great that the psychiatrists are taking a look at this at last, even if they’re reinventing the wheel. Read the story  at cnn.com.

The first transgendered people in Argentina to get their new government ID cards were honored by receiving their cards from that nation’s president. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner  gave out the cards and made a speech lauding the benefits of treating everyone equally. Get the story in the Wisconsin Gazette.

Around the world in New Zealand they’re lining up to be like Argentina and make it easy for TGs to change their gender on their passports. Of course that is leading to controversy. There are people in the community who say the gender box should just be left empty. Huh? Try to understand when you read the story on Stuff.co.nz.

Shaw

There’s more controversy in the city of Washington, D.C. It’s over the treatment of a transwoman by the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service. Patti Hammond Shaw had a warrant out for her arrest. It’s alleged that she had filed a false police report. She did the right thing and turned herself in. She claims that the police — though her ID said she was female — threw her into a cell with male prisoners. She was then sent to the U.S. Marshals who insisted on calling her Melvin and again placed her with male prisoners. There are other alleged indignities. Read all about her lawsuit in the Washington Blade.

Yet more controversy! The British television series Hit & Miss has come to America on DirecTV. As we have reported before Chloe Sevigny plays a transsexual assassin for hire who finds out she has a child she fathered while still living as a male. The producer has said that he was bored with two plot proposals, one about a TG who has a child they didn’t know about, and the other about a low level hit man, so he decided to mash the stories together. In the mashing the controversy reared it’s head. The TG community asked “Why is a woman playing the transwoman?” and the T word was used by Ms. Sevigny when she referred to her character in an interview. Read about it in The New York Times.

Harisu

Korea’s first transgendered celebrity is back. In case you didn’t know she’d come and gone away in the first place here’s a bit of history. Harisu is a TG singer whose last album was released five years ago. She first came to fame in 2001 after she appeared in a cosmetics commercial. She release five albums in Korea and has had roles in several films and television shows. Apparently she has been taking some time off for the past few years and is now coming back with a new song called Shopping Girl. Should be a hit with our crowd. Check out her story on Yahoo.

A young woman in Colorado who was a guard for the University of Colorado women’s basketball team is battling off the court to advocate for a third gender. Born female Lauren Luben always felt both male and female. Rather than chose a gender she decided to be a third gendered person. Lubin has had her breasts removed and tries to be gender neutral. She’s the subject of a documentary film called Gender Blender: A Movie About a Third Gender. Get the story from the Daily Camera.

Kaveri

A 26-year-old transsexual woman has made history in India’s state of Karnataka. Kaveri (she has one name like Cher) was appointed to work at the high court of Karnataka as a Group D employee. Before getting her government appointment Kaveri worked for an actress who wanted to help India’s TGs. Get the story from The Hindu.

The third gender is actually to be found in the harbor of Sydney, Australia. It’s a cuttlefish that displays both male and female skin colors. It’s all part of this clever little fish’s courting strategy. Find out how that’s supposed to work in the Nambucca Guardian.

When it comes to insult comedy the grand master has to be Don Rickles. On the female side there’s the cutting wit of Joan Rivers and the nasty slices of Lisa Lampanelli. In the canine area we must give props to Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, but who speaks put downs for the drag world? Some might say Jackie Beat, who moonlights as a writer for Joan Rivers, but the current champ of drag insult humor is Bianco Del Rio. Mis Del Rio sat down last week for in interview with Michael Musto. Read the results in The Village Voice. Be warned — it ain’t PC.

Munro

Our Meet The 72-Year-Old Drag Performer comes to us from a town called Kyogle in the country of Australia. Stan Munro has been doing drag shows all around the world, singing in his own voice and doing non-insult comedy for decades since he moved to Oz from England in 1963. Meet him in The Northern Star.

TWITs

Our first TWIT Award for the week goes to the country of Sweden. The Swedish justice system is a little bit off in how it handles attempted rape of transwomen. First they don’t have laws covering “attempt” crimes. In Sweden you have to do the crime to be tried for it. A man attempted to rape a transwoman and the attack was interrupted by her ex-boyfriend who saw it taking place. The judge gave the attempted rapist a lighter sentence when he found out the victim was TG. Get the nuance of Swedish law and see why we give the TWIT to the whole county in The Advocate.

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Category: Transgender Community News