Trans News Now 3/6/23

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Zaya Wade

Zaya Wade was granted a change of name and gender at the age of 15. Out.com has this story.

Dwayne Wade and his wife, Gabrielle Union, praised their daughter Zaya at the NAACP Image Awards. Dwayne in particular said that Zaya made him “a better man.” This story comes from Them.

Recently, we told you of allegations against the gender clinic at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. A former employee said that the clinic was rushing to diagnose gender dysphoria, without much psychological examination, and then rushing to prescribe medication, without adequately describing the potential for harm. This sounds terrible. However, both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Missouri Independent contacted patients and the parents of teenage patients at the clinic, and found that the experiences of the parents were quite different from what the former employee described. The Insider newsletter at New York Magazine has this story.

With all the negative news about LGBTQ rights, here is a positive story. The Michigan state Senate passed a bill to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in anti-discrimination law. The state House is expected to follow suit and Governor Gretchen Whitmer has agreed to sign the legislation. Bridge Michigan has this story.

This week saw the end of February, which is Black History Month. U.S. Representatives Barbara Lee, Ritchie Torres, and Marc Pocan have introduced a measure in the House to celebrate the contributions of Black LGBTQ+ people. This story comes from The Advocate.

Cashay Henderson

Cashay Henderson is the third Black transgender woman killed in Milwaukee in the last nine months. She had been posting about how many friends of hers she had lost recently, and now she, too, has been killed. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has this story.

We mentioned last week that the Mississippi state legislature has passed a bill outlawing gender-affirming medical and surgical care for minors. Governor Tate Reeves signed the bill into law this week, with the usual nonsense about “genital mutilation.” This story comes from The Advocate.

Tennessee has passed a bill banning gender-affirming medical care and surgery for minors. If you thought that they already had passed a bill on the matter, they actually have passed two, and this is the third. Governor Bill Lee has signed all three into law. Governor Lee also signed a new law which forbids minors from seeing drag shows. USA Today has this story.

Bills being introduced in some state legislatures would prohibit the state’s Medicaid program from paying for gender-affirming care, and in some cases, the bills that cover minors have crept the age up from 18. In the case of Oklahoma, the minimum age for changing genders is now 26. This change has been noticed by The Washington Post.

Florida state Representative Adam Anderson, in a quest to score points with the far right, has introduced a bill which would expand the Parental Rights in Education bill to prohibit talking about sexual orientation or gender identity until at least grade 9. The bill would also ban the use of any name or pronoun which does not correspond with what is on the student’s birth certificate. The same bill has a provision which would, according to some, cause a venue to lose its liquor license if minors are allowed to attend a drag performance. PinkNews has this story.

Another bill in Florida, this one introduced by state Senator Blaise Ingoglia, would require employers who cover the cost of gender transition to also cover the cost of detransition, even if the employee has left for another company. It is part of what he calls the “Reverse Woke Act.” While few people detransition, and the cost of detransitioning for many is low, this will cause insurance companies to charge companies more for covering the cost of transition, and that might cause problems. This story is in LGBTQ Nation.

In Arizona, state Senator John Kavanaugh has introduced what he calls a “compromise” bathroom bill. It would require schools to create alternative restroom and locker room facilities for transgender students who are unwilling to use the locker room and restroom that is designated for their “biological gender.” The bill has passed a committee, and now goes to the full House. This story comes from KNAU public radio.

All of these anti-transgender bills are bringing out a lot of anti-transgender rhetoric at state legislatures. Many mental health experts worry about the effect that such talk may have on transgender children. NBC News has ths story from the Associated Press.

The opponents of drag tried to protest a Drag Queen Story Hour in Maryland, but were met with the Parasol Patrol, who protected the children attending the event from the protesters. This story comes from The Advocate”.

With so much anti-transgender sentiment, and so many armed individuals opposing transgender rights, some transgender people are taking up arms themselves. The Advocate has an article about a group of LGBTQ people in New Hampshire who are arming themselves.

Trans woman Fae Johnstone in Hershey’s ad.

Hershey’s decided to create an ad campaign around International Women’s Day. The ad makes a point of the female pronouns “her” and “she” in the name of the candy bar. In Canada, one of the five women in their ads is Fae Johnstone, who happens to be transgender. As you might imagine, several conservatives are quite upset at the ad, even though that ad did not run in the U.S. This story comes from The Advocate Channel, which gets the story from CNN Wire.

New data from the Trevor Project’s National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health shows that Black trans and non-binary youth are at an especially greater risk for suicide. This story comes from The Advocate.

The Advocate tells of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s efforts to uplift and amplify Black trans voices.

Trans man photographer Loren Rex Cameron has passed away. He died on November 18, 2022. He was 63. Cameron was best known for his first book, Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits (Cleis Press), which was published in 1996. Learn more about Cameron from The Bay Area Reporter. Thanks to Ms. Bob Davis for alerting us to the story.

The increasing number of transgender people had led to an increasing number of openly transgender cancer patients. There is no known link to suggest that gender-affirming medicine is a cause of cancer, but studies are being done, and will continue to be done. Transgender cancer patients may have some special needs, including a lack of judgment by medical professionals. Cure Today has this story.

The University of Victoria hosts Moving Trans History Forward starting on March 30. The conference runs from March 30 to April 2 and will feature over 175 speakers. It is presented by the Chair in Transgender Studies and will be a hybrid event, taking place both in person at the University of Victoria and online. Learn more from the conference’s website.

JayCee Cooper

JayCee Cooper has won a two-year court battle against USA Powerlifting. The court ruling says that she can compete in the female division of the sport. This story comes from NBC News.

Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited a game in a girls’ basketball tournament rather than play against a team with a transgender female on their roster. They gave the usual excuses about “biological males” having an inherent advantage. CNN has this story.

The movie Night Ride is Norway’s entry in the Academy Awards short feature category. The 16-minute film features a homeless woman seeking shelter in a tram, which becomes active when she presses some buttons. People, including a trans woman, board the tram, thinking it is public transportation and the homeless woman is the driver. The creator of Night Ride>/i> talked about the film in an interview with Them.

Elliot Page is featured in a new ad for Gucci. Out.com has this story.

Raquel Welch’s recent death caused Messy Nessy Chic to look back at the time she played a transgender woman. Myra Breckenridge is a book that is likely impossible to turn into a film, and the film Raquel Welch appeared in certainly did not do the book justice.

In an interview with Billboard, Kim Petras says that being openly transgender made it twice as difficult for her to succeed in the music industry. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

Bill Maher told Jake Tapper that the “woke” community will “shut down debate” about transgender issues. It is true that people who believe in transgender rights are not persuaded by Bill Maher’s arguments on the subject. It is also true that this is one of the few issues on which he disagrees with that group, making it one issue he can point to as showing he does not always follow what the “woke mob” says. And it is true that there is a lot more than that going on here. The video of the interview is found on CNN.

Dylan Mulvaney

Dylan Mulvaney wonders why no one wants to date a trans woman. PinkNews has this story.

Isla Bryson, the transgender woman accused of rape, who was brought up by folks arguing against transgender women in women’s prisons, has been sentenced to eight years in prison. She will be held in a men’s prison. This story comes from The New York Post.

The top court of the European Union will take a case about Romania’s refusal to accept a trans man’s gender identity. Arian Mirzarafie-Ahi had been accepted as a male in Britain, but the government of Romania refused to accept his gender identity. Reuters has this story.

Pakistan’s first transgender TV news anchor was the subject of an attempt to assassinate her. This story comes from PinkNews.

PinkNews has a profile of a trans man who detransitioned due to the poor treatment of trans people by the National Health Services in Britain, but has now retransitioned.

Rev. Megan Rohrer

Rev. Megan Rohrer, who resigned her position as a bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is suing her denomination for discrimination and harassment. She is still a pastor in San Francisco. NBC News Bay Area has this story.

A Twitter user named Jasmine asked transgender people to tell some “nice little stories” of allyship. PinkNews has some of the responses she got.

It’s Girl Scout cookie time, and you can help some transgender girl scouts with their cookie sales. You can find their stories in Them.

Vanity Fair has a piece about the debate over the coverage of transgender issues in the New York Times.

We told you about a letter which 200 New York Times contributors signed onto, criticizing the paper’s transgender coverage. GLAAD has now received over 10,000 requests from Times subscribers, who asked to sign onto the letter as well, according to The Advocate.

GLAAD and Drag Queen Story Hour have teamed up to create a new video called Once Upon A New York Times. Written by Jessica Herthel, the co-author of I Am Jazz, the video was shown all day outside the offices of The New York Times, on a video billboard truck. Teen Vogue has this story.

Nebraska state Senator Machaela Cavanaugh is holding a filibuster in protest of the anti-trans legislation which is being proposed in her state. Since Nebraska’s legislative session is 90 days long, she feels that she can stall the bills until the session ends. This story comes from NBC News.

The Smithsonian has announced that it will include transgender women in the American Women’s History Museum. Some conservatives, including Outkick, have not bothered to wait for this to happen before announcing their displeasure with the move.

Trans News Now is assembled by Cecilia Barzyk with additional content and editing by Angela Gardner. Care to make a comment on this post? Login here and use the comment area below.

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Category: Transgender Community News