The Week In Transgenderism 9/3/12

Janet Mock

Janet Mock the Staff Editor at People.com is a nationally renowned transgender activist. She transitioned at an early age and only recently came out to her employers and readers as trans. She will be giving the keynote address at the Hispanic Black Gay Coalition’s 2012 LGBTQ Youth Empowerment Conference. The Conference takes place Saturday, October 20, 2012. Read all about it in The Huffington Post.

We mentioned the relaxing of rules about what kind of psychological testing transgender pilots had been forced to undergo. It turns out that the FAA didn’t just make it easier for TG pilots out of the goodness of their hearts. The rule change happened because a transgendered pilot from San Francisco challenged the FAA rules in court and she won her case after a three year court battle. Find out what prompted her fight with the FAA in  the Edge Boston.

The transgender delegate to the Democratic National Convention from the great state of North Carolina was invited to do a sermon at the Wedgewood Church near South Park, Carolina and she delivered it two Sundays ago. Her theme was about stopping anti-TG discrimination. See how it went in The Charlotte Observer.

The breast feeding father from Canada may be getting somewhere in his fight to lead a La Leche League breastfeeding group. Read about it at thinkprogress.org.

Jennifer Leitham

A musician who has been featured in our music column Perpetual Change is the subject of a documentary film called I Stand Corrected. Jennifer Leitham is the transgendered bassist who began her career as a man and continued it after she transitioned. The film is being screened during Womanfest in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and again on October 7 as part of Womanfest Key West. Learn more in the South Florida Gay News.

Live in Fort Worth, Texas and feel in need of support for your transgender issues? The good news is there are two transgender support groups in that city. Take your pick of Fort Worth Transgender Support or Trans-cendence. Read about it in The Dallas Voice.

Avu Chan in Auris

Toyota made waves a couple of weeks ago when they used a transgender, or at least androgynous model in one of their foreign television spots. Apparently they want to stir up controversy with their marketing of the Auris model. They’ve now put out a video for the Auris starring a transgender singer. Everyone is speaking Japanese but who doesn’t love a good car chase? Read about it and see the video at autoevolution.com.

A non-profit community group that started out to just send Valentine’s Day cards to TG and gender variant prisoners is beginning to grow and serve more of the needs of  TG/GV people in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. They have just gotten a grant to help expand their services. Read about it in the Philadelphia Gay News.

An FtM who loved attending summer camp every year was dismayed and angered when, after 13 years of being a camper, a counselor and leadership team member, was told by the camp that he couldn’t come back if he planned to do it as a man. After his anger cooled a bit he decided to open his own camp and make it specifically for transgender kids. Read all about Camp Arnau’tiq in The Boston Globe.

A German man who moved his five-year-old son from Berlin to a small village was dismayed to learn that his son, who had always liked to wear dresses, was  being talked about by the locals. He decided that he wasn’t going to tell his son he must stop wearing skirts to conform to the local expectations so he started wearing skirts himself. Read about father and son on yahoo.com.

Babs Casbar Siperstien

An old friend of ours, Babs Casbar, was in the news recently under her full name, Barbra Casbar Siperstien. We got to know Babs back in the hay day of Renaissance and are happy to learn that she made the news as the first elected transgender member of the Democratic National Committee. Way to go Babs! Read about how Babs got involved in politics in The Star-Ledger.

Hurricane? What hurricane? That’s the question that was asked in New Orleans this past weekend as the 41st Official Southern Decadence event took place. Ya know how big a deal Mardi Gras is in The Big Easy? Southern Decadence is the GLBT match for Mardi Gras. It started out as a parade of drag queens. Now it’s a whole lot bigger, and no hurricane could stop it. Read all about it in Gambit.

Bergan book.

Our Meet The TS article comes to us from auburnpub.com and it’s about Danielle Bergan. Ms. Bergan transitioned in 2010 and now she’s written a book about her gender journey called It’s Always Okay to Be Me: A Journey to Recovering Lost Hope. Meet Danielle at auburnpub.com.

Many people have the impression that drag queens tend to be obnoxious. Not us. We’re just sayin’. But here’s a story that proves even drag queens can be topped when it comes to acting outrageous, The “Tan Mom,” the moron who tans herself to a deep, deep, deep brown and was accused of putting her young daughter in a tanning bed was the guest of honor at a drag queen roast at the XL Club in New York City. Either she didn’t understand just what a roast was, or she had downed one — or six — too many cocktails. At one point, after being incoherent, falling over a lot and attempting to attack one of the queens (we do hope it wasn’t The Lady Bunny) the organizers of the roast were forced to throw Tan Mom out of the club. See photos and read all about it in The New York Post.

A cartoon RuPaul.

RuPaul has CDs, television shows, modeling contracts and who knows what else going on. Now she’s got it all. They’re doing a RuPaul comic book. Not just a comic though, it’s really a graphic novel of her life story. The book is part of a series of comics about famous women like Madonna, Barbara Walters and Oprah. The series is Female Force. Look for the RuPaul book soon. See some of the art work in The Huffington Post .

TWITs

It’s bad enough that you have to turn to prostitution to support yourself. For several transgender sex workers in Santa Ana, California things got much worse when a local gang came by and told them they had to pay a “tax” to the gang to keep operating — and staying alive. Our TWIT Award goes to Cesar Valle, the punk ass gang member who tried to put the squeeze on the ladies. The story is in the OC Register.

Our second TWIT is not a violent criminal. This one is a Republican Congressman. From New Iberia, Louisiana. Rep. Jeff Landry wants the University of Louisiana at Lafayette to drop its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies minor. Of course you’d think that a Republican would be against these things being taught in school The catch is he’s trying to say the minor should be dropped because it does nothing to prepare students to get a job. He’s not the only politician who is trying to pressure the school to drop the minor. Get the dirty facts at nola.com.

And TWIT Award number three goes to the crossdresser in England who didn’t respond well to a bit of criticism about her outfit. It wasn’t what she was wearing that offended customers in a cafe where the CD was dining. It was what her outfit wasn’t covering. Rather than being a lady and covering the offending bits she threw her plate of food at the person who complained. That gets you a TWIT! The story is in The Mirror.

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Category: Transgender Community News