2018 In TWIT

This look back at the TWIT news of 2018 contains links to publications that may have removed the linked articles from their sites or moved the articles. As always, if the link opens in a new window close the window to return to this page. If it opens in a new tab close the tab to return to this page.

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January 

The FX channel and American Horror Story producer Ryan Murphy are making television history with his new show called Pose. FX has ordered eight episodes of the show and it has the largest cast of transgender actors in series regular roles, and it is the largest LGBTQ cast ever for a scripted series. Called a “dance musical drama” the show will begin production in February and premier in the summer of 2018. Learn more about the show from the E!News website.

After four courts issued preliminary injunctions against the ban on transgender people in the military and two appeals courts agreed with the lower courts, the Department of Justice has announced that they will not continue the appeal process at this time. The official announcement says that the Department of Defense will release the results of their study in February, and those results will be used in court. They should get their opportunity fairly soon; the D.C. Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments for January 27, almost a month before the date when the Department of Defense is due to release its study according to the guidance from the White House. Art Leonard wrote some commentary on the various decisions so far.

British broadcaster and model Paris Lees has become the first trans woman to be featured in the pages of British Vogue. Lees wore a black Yang Li dress and posed among a group of women considered to be a new breed of suffragettes. Learn more about the story on the ABS CBN website.

Lori Beynon has reported bullying and trolling after she became the first transgender person to be named a prom queen in Great Britain. The 16-year-old was overcome by curiosity and kept reading the comments on the news story about her, despite warnings not to read those comments. Her story is on Wales Online.

The 2018 Women’s March was held over the weekend. Some people say “that’s great but will it actually do any good?” Last year one trans woman in Georgia attended the Atlanta Women’s March and was so inspired that she decided to run for office. Her name is Stephe Koontz and she is now a member to the Doraville, Georgia City Council. Read about her move from private citizens to city council on the KTLA 5 website.

For forty years, Mariette Pathy Allen has been photographing transgender people. While photographing them, she has made a point of getting to know them and listening to their stories. Aperture did an interview with her.

February

Two members of Congress invited transgender members of the military to be their guests at the State of the Union. Representative Joseph Kennedy III invited Staff Sergeant Patricia King to attend, while Representative Jared Huffman invited Marine Corps veteran Lynda Bengtsson-Davis. This story comes from the Washington Blade.

Both The Good Doctor and Grey’s Anatomy will have story-lines involving transgender patients. Grey’s Anatomy has cast transgender actress Candis Cayne to play the part of a transgender patient. Learn more from TV Guide.

Oldie Magazine in Britain has given out some awards. April Ashleywas named the Oldie Woman Ahead Of Her Time. If you don’t know her story, you can read about her in the coverage at Pink News.

Around 40 transgender candidates have filed to run in elections in the U.S. this year. These include Alexandra Chandler, a former Navy intelligence analyst who is running for Congress in Massachusetts. Reuters takes a look at this.

A former Navy Judge Advocate General, Rear Admiral John D. Hutson (Retired) wrote an editorial for Stars and Stripes in which he argued that a ban on transgender people in the military not only costs the armed services some talented people but also creates confusion and strikes against discipline.

Months ago, when several allegations came out against Jeffrey Tambor, he said that it would be best for him to leave Transparent. This week, Amazon Studios announced that the actor will indeed not appear in the upcoming season of the show.  The Hollywood Reporter says that Tambor is disappointed in the lack of support from the producers.

Since winning the British version of Celebrity Big Brother Courtney Act has become a sought after interview in the U.K. And she is using the extra celebrity to talk about the importance of being who you are and not hiding from yourself. She said in a recent interview “When I realized my femininity was important and could be celebrated, it laid to rest a lifelong struggle with my gender.” Read more on the Pink News website.

Geraldine Roman became the first transgender person elected to the Congress of the Philippines. Now, she is also the first transgender officer in that nation’s military. She joined the Army Reserve, where she was given the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Rappler reports that she will be allowed to wear the uniform of a female officer.

Trans male high school wrestler Mack Beggs won a Texas girls state wrestling championship for the second year in a row. His win was greeted with a combination of cheers and boos. Beggs would love to be competing in the boys’ division but is kept from doing so by a ruling from the University Interscholastic League. Learn more from The Washington Post.

March

California Democrats held their state convention in San Diego, and they invited Palm Springs city councilwoman Lisa Middleton to speak to them. While she is the first transgender person elected to a non-judicial office in the state, she spends most of her time on the mundane issues of local government such as the condition of the roads, as she told the Desert Sun.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has just ruled that transgender people in that country can change their legal gender designation without having to have surgery. They merely have to fill out a form at the notary’s office. Folha di Sao Paulo has this story.

A bill passed by the New Jersey Senate will allow trans people to change the gender on their birth certificate to either gender or to “undesignated/non-binary” without requiring gender confirmation surgery after signing a statement that the change is not for nefarious purposes. Learn more on the NJ.com website.

Nguyen Huong Giang of Vietnam won the title of Miss International Queen in a beauty contest for transgender women from around the world. There were 26 women in the contest, which was held in Thailand and it was covered by the Jakarta Post.

Caitlyn Jenner got a lot of negative comments when she initially supported Donald Trump in his bid of the presidency. She believed him when he said things like how great he would be for LGBT people. Since his actions have clearly shown his words to be lies Ms. Jenner has changed her opinion of our president. She now feels he is the “worst ever” for trans rights. Read about what she said at the Champions of Jewish Values International Awards Gala on the Newsweek website.

Last week House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi appeared on Drag Race All Stars as a judge. Her takeaway from the show was that “lawmakers could learn from drag queens.” And she seriously wants our president to sashay away. Get more info and a video clip from ABC News.

exas House Speaker Joe Straus and Representative Byron Cook convened a panel, and that panel has made its report on the idea of a bathroom bill. They argue that such a bill would be terrible for the local economy. Proponents of a bathroom bill say that the panel was picked to come up with this result, and that they ignored or downplayed concerns for privacy. The San Antonio Statesman has this story.

A team from the University Hospital in Essen, Germany, gave a follow-up survey to 156 transgender patients. They found that overall there were high levels of satisfaction with the outcome after gender confirmation surgery. This contradicts the experiences of people like Walt Heyer and others who obsess on the few who experience regret. Asian Age has this story.

There are transgender Republicans. The oppression of trans people by Republican legislators has prompted two of them to speak out. Jordan Evans and Jennifer Williams responded to a Republican effort to oppose the very idea of a transgender identity. They made their concerns known in a commentary for The Kansas City Star.

Dr. Rachel Levine, who has been serving as the Physician General for Pennsylvania, has a new job title; she is now that state’s Secretary of Health. She is the first transgender person to serve in either of these capacities. Philadelphia Gay News has this story.

April

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its list of questions, and the census will not ask if anyone in the household identifies as LGBTQ. At one point, that was on a list of potential questions, but it was later removed from that list, and it was said that the question was not being considered. NBC News has this story, whose timing is odd, coming so close to Transgender Day of Visibility.

n other health news, CNBC ran a report on the increase in gender confirmation surgery. They name increased insurance coverage and the Affordable Care Act as reasons for this increase. Broadly at Vice reported on several advances in transgender health. A story in Politico talks of what changes to the Affordable Care Act could mean to transgender people. And another new study shows that testosterone injections in trans men do not increase their estrogen levels. The full study can be found here, while a summary is here.

Transgender rights are moving ahead in Canada where legal protections were added last June. Along with that and other progress some Canadian trans people are becoming the “first” trans person to do something. Recently the first trans mayor was elected and a trans woman had a chart topping single. Check out seven firsts for Canadian trans people in The Huffington Post.

A bill in Tennessee which would have provided legal assistance and state funds for the defense of school districts which restrict restroom and changing room use according to birth certificates has died when a motion for debate did not get a second. Several members of the state Senate believed that the bill could be too costly. WPSD-TV has the AP story.

University of Texas-Austin researchers have found a considerable decrease in the risk of depressions and suicide among trans youth who are allowed to use the name of their choice instead of their given one. The results were published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. Learn more from the Chron website.

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has said that he will defend the ban on transgender people in the military, but he told the Armed Services Committee that he will follow the decision of the courts. There was speculation that Secretary Mattis might sign off on the policy but not defend it. This report comes to us from Stars And Stripes.

The TransYouth Project, the first large-scale national study of transgender children, is about to expand its scope with a five year, $1 million grant which was awarded last week. The grant comes from the National Science Foundation and was awarded to University of Washington psychologist Kristina Olson who is the director of the TransYouth Project. Learn more from CTV News.

In testimony to Congress, Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley and the Chiefs of Staff of the Navy and Marines said that they have not heard of any problems with morale or unit cohesion that arose from the presence of transgender troops in the military. Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller said, “The only issues I’e heard of is in some cases because of the medical requirements of some of these individuals, that there is a burnder on the commands to handle the medical stuff.”

2014 Eurovision Song Contest winner Conchita Wurst has announced to the world that she is HIV+. She decided to come out about living with the virus for years after a former friend threatened to blackmail her. Read the story in The Washington Post.

The Trump Administration has said that it plans to overturn the rule which forbade doctors and hospitals from refusing service to transgender people, and which forbade health insurance companies from refusing to cover transgender care. The move is a part of ongoing efforts to chip away at the Affordable Care Act, little by little. The New York Times reported this story.

Frank Sinatra’s hometown made the news last week and the story was pointed out to us by TGF reader Jamie Roberts. The mayor and the city council in Hoboken, NJ are making all restrooms in the city gender neutral. That includes public restrooms and restrooms in private business establishments. Learn why the city is making the move from National Public Radio.

A trans girl in Wisconsin became the first to be crowned prom queen. Nikko Nelson, who came out to her classmates at her eight grade graduation, was elected prom queen by her classmates last weekend. Learn more from PinkNews.

May

The first drag performer to make it into the Top 10 on American idolwas eliminated last week. Ada Vox performed Circle of Life from the Lion King and while this reviewer says it was stunning he felt it didn’t stand up to her performances earlier in the show which propelled her into the Top 10. Read the review and view a video of her performance on The Daily Beast website.

The Trump administration is ready to rescind the interpretation of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act which says that denying a patient health care due to transgender status is discrimination on the basis of sex. The Washington Post has a story about how this is just the latest in a series of attacks on the rights of transgender people. Slate tells us that there is already a lawsuit against Wisconsin, asking a court to force the state to cover transgender health care, citing Section 1557 of the A.C.A. and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The ACLU is also preparing to file legal documents when the Department of Health and Human Services makes its new interpretation public.

Dr. Michael A. Lindsey of New York University has released the findings of a new study, which shows that transgender people who are denied access to mental health treatment are at higher risk for substance abuse and for attempted suicide.

President Trump will be going to the United Kingdom in July on a state visit. Drag queens there are planning a massive protest over his presence in their country. The queens are mad at him for the military ban on trans troops and other negative moves the administration has made in regard to LGBT rights. Get the scoop from the Newsweek website.

Jess Herbst, who came out as transgender shortly after being appointed to fill the vacancy as mayor of New Hope, Texas, lost her bid for election to a full term as mayor. OutSmart magazine has this story.

Pakistan’s parliament has passed a bill that gives the country’s trans people their fundamental rights. This is a major step. The Transgender Person (Protection of Rights) Act allows citizens to choose their gender on all official documents and prohibits discrimination in schools, workplaces, on public modes of transit and while receiving medical care. Learn more about the Act from the National Public Radio website.

While we are familiar with many people who cite their religion as a reason for disagreeing with transgender people. But some denominations have found that being friendly to LGBT people has been a benefit to them. The Advocate ran a list of churches and synagogues which are inclusive.

Danica Roem was elected to Virginia House of Delegates in the 2017 election becoming the first openly trans woman to sit in that august body. She ran on a platform that focuses on relieving highway congestion as her main issue. Last week she talked about what it was like to attend her first legislative session. Read the article on the WTOP website.

Alexandra Chandler submitted enough verifiable petition signatures, so she will be the first out transgender candidate in Massachusetts. She will be in the primary against some political veterans, all hoping to fill an open seat in Congress. WHAV radiohas this story.

This week, it has come out that the CDC has scaled back a program that collects health data relating to LGBT people. The program is a part of the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System; the program will continue, but it will no longer collect data on how many LGBT people are in the program. A part of the reason is money; the CDC has seen its budget cut in part because of its interest in LGBT health. Pink News has this story.

The anatomy of the transgender brain has been a topic of research, and was the subject of a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. A paper connected with that presentation is in the latest copy of Medscape Medical News.

A U.S. District Court Judge ruled against the Gloucester County School Board’s motion to dismiss Gavin Grimm’s case, saying that the board had discriminated against Mr. Grimm when they forbade him from using the boys’ restroom. The judge ordered the sides into a settlement conference. If they cannot agree on a settlement, she will issue a judgment. Think Progress and Buzzfeed covered this story, and Art Leonard provides a law professor’s perspective.

At least thirteen transgender people plan to run for office in Pakistan this year, according to GayStarNews. This is the first time that transgender people have run for office in the majority-Muslim nation. Many transgender people will be voting for the first time in this election, as they now have identification cards in their lived gender.

June

Dana Zzyym is an intersex veteran of the U.S. military. Eighteen years ago, Zzyym asked a court to tell the State Department to reconsider granting Zzyym a passport with the sex designation “X”. The State Department refused at the time. Eighteen years later, Zzyym is asking the same federal court in Colorado to again ask the State Department to reconsider a gender-neutral passport. This time, there is precedence for such a decision. Metro Weekly has this story.

Torin Hodgman, an eighth-grader in Grand Rapids, Michigan, decided to wear a transgender flag as a cape when Education Secretary Betsy DeVos came to visit their school. They wanted to ask Secretary DeVos, “What are you doing to ensure safe learning environments for LGBT students and others who are questioning their gender identity?” Hodgman never got to ask that question, as MLive reports.

Although the Williams Institute reported that the CDC would remove the optional LGBT question from the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System next year, the CDC told The Washington Postthat, while the new survey is not finalized, they plan to keep the optional LGBT question. Optional responses have helped to identify several risky behaviors as common among LGBT people, as the Advocate notes.

Doctors in Brazil constructed a vaginal canal for a woman who was born without one. They used the skin of the tilapia fish. Local 10 News in Miami gave us this story.

In other parade news: Next week Reggie Bullock who play basketball for the Pistons will become the first active NBA player to ride on the NBA’s float in the New York City Pride March. And he’ll have his 5-year-old son with him for the ride. He will be there showing his support for the trans community because his son’s transgender aunt was murdered in 2014. Mia Henderson was Reggie Bullocks sister. Learn more from The Chicago Tribune.

The Portland, Oregon police department made history last week by promoting the first transgender person to the rank of Captain. Stephanie Lourenco was a lieutenant until her promotion on June 15. She has been a member of the force since 1999 and is the founder of Transgender Community of Police Officers/Sheriffs, a nationwide organization connecting transgender police officers. Learn more from Willamette Week.

Scientists have found that, by snipping a bit of DNA (specifically, enhancer 13), male mice embryos became females, with ovaries and female genitalia. You can read more about this experiment at the Guardian.

Maine has started issuing gender-neutral driver’s licenses and identification cards. While the state will issue cards with the gender designation “X” next year, at present they are putting a sticker on the back which says, “Gender has been changed to X- Non-binary.” The Portland Press Herald reports on this step.

Get to know the trans women candidates who are running in the November election. There are three of them profiled on the Bustle website. Alexandra Chandler is running for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Christine Hallquist is running for the governorship of Vermont, and Dana Beyer is making a bid for a seat in the Maryland State Senate. Read about them here.

The English National Ballet has recently added a gender-fluid dancer named Chase Johnsey to their female dancers. He was profiled in The New York Times last week but Pink News has more about him.

The World Health Organization, an arm of the United Nations, has released the proposal for the new International Classification of Diseases, ICD-11. This is the diagnostic manual for health care providers around the world. One of the big changes is that Gender Dysphoria is replaced by Gender Incongruence, and is moved from the category of mental health disorders to the category of sexual health disorders. This reflects the idea that being transgender is not a sign of a mental health problem. Medpage Today thinks that this is one of the biggest changes in the new diagnostic manual.

A week or two ago we told you about men in Mexico who were trying to run in political races by claiming to be women. The men were taking advantage of a law that said the transgender women known as Muxes were approved to run candidacies designated for women. 15 men tried the scam and claimed they were Muxes. The real Muxes were not amused. We can report today that the electoral tribunal has disqualified all 15 phony trans women. Get the full story from The Guardian.

In Australia, new guidelines for dealing with transgender youth were released in the Medical Journal of Australia. They expand the possibility of hormone treatment as young as 13 years old, although they still recommend waiting until the patient is 16. The Advocate reports on the first set of guidelines specific to trans youth in Australia’s history.

This month marks 25 years since Georgina Beyer was elected as New Zealand’s first transsexual councilor. She went on to become the world’s first transsexual mayor and member of parliament. She retired from parliament in 2004 and had to undergo a kidney transplant in 2017. Read her story on the Wairarapa Times-Age website.

July

Jazz Jennings is recovering from her gender confirmation surgery. She posted a photo to Instagram. A story appears in the New York Daily News.

Starbucks has announced that, in addition to covering gender confirmation surgery for transgender employees, they will also cover such things as electrolysis and facial feminization surgery. Starbucks was the first company to consult with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health on what to include in a package for transgender employees. Chain Store Agehas this story.

Angela Ponce is the first transgender woman who has won a right to compete in the Miss Universe pageant. She was crowned Miss Universe Spain on Friday night. GMA Network carried this story.

The BBC conducted an internal survey, and found they have more than 400 employees who identify as transgender. (Technically, the last word of that sentence should be in quotes, but only because the word is directly copied from the survey form.) The number, which represents roughly 2% of their total workforce, came as a surprise to management, but not in a negative way. Tunde Ogungbesan, the BBC’s Director of Diversity, said that these results would be used in rewriting the rules on “fairness and terminology” at the BBC. The Daily Mail had this story.

Buzzfeed made a list of the anti-LGBT things that President Trump and his administration have done. Eight of the thirteen items are specifically anti-transgender. In a similar vein, former TGForum contributor Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote a piece advocating the impeachment of President Trump, using the Declaration of Independence as a guide.

New Jersey has three new laws covering transgender people. These laws cover such things as birth and death certificates, including allowing a parent or guardian to update the birth certificate of a minor without requiring proof of surgery. They also have created a Transgender Equality Task Force, which will assess legal and societal barriers to equality in the state and make recommendations. This story comes to us from Gay Star News.

In Pakistan, thirteen transgender people decided to try for office in the upcoming elections. They were dismayed that the forms for candidates only listed two genders, despite the fact that national law recognizes three genders. Now, as if in response, the Free and Fare Election Network announced that 25 transgender people would be appointed as election observers. They will be among the people seeing that the election is conducted in a fair manner. The Express Tribune has this story.

In entertainment news, Scarlett Johansson has said that she would like to play the part of trans man Dante “Tex” Gill in a biopic. Gill ran a number of brothels. Several transgender actors and actresses have expressed their displeasure at the idea of having a transgender person played by a cisgender actor yet again, and they have received a lot of flack and even death threats, according to this story in Pink News. The Express used the controversy to tell the story of Tex Gill, while CNN ran a list of transgender or gender non-binary actors who could play the part. (The Express garners a TWIT Award for consistently referring the Gill with feminine pronouns.)

The latest transgender candidate to throw her fascinator hat into the ring is a high school teacher named Allison White who is running at-large for Virginia Beach City Council. Ms. White was inspired by the election of Danica Roem. Learn more about her and her campaign from GayRVA.com.

In other election news the first transgender candidate for the South Carolina Senate has announced her intention to run for a shot at the general election in November. She is running against two men for the Democratic nomination to run against a Republican candidate in an election to replace a senator who lost his senate seat after he plead guilty to misconduct in office charges. The candidate’s name is Dayna Smith and she is a trans activist in the state. Learn more from ABC Columbia.

In New Jersey the process for legal gender change is about to be streamlined thanks to a new law easing restrictions on changing the gender designated on a birth certificate. The “Babs Siperstein Law,” is named after the trans advocate and TGForumcontributor whose blogs you have read here for the past several years. Babs is on an extended leave from her blog due to illness. We hope she will be able to resume her blog soon. Read about her law in New Jersey Jewish News. View a video on Facebook of Babs in the legislature while the vote was taken.

Pose has been renewed for a second season. The show, which features Janet Mock as a producer and writer, covers the New York City house ball culture scene of 1986. The Washington Blade has this story.

Thousands and thousands of people came out to protest Donald Trump as he visited London. One of the protest groups is “Drag Protest for the Trump UK Visit,” which, as you probably expect, featured drag artists. They started out on their own in Soho, then joined the Women’s March London “Bring The Noise” parade to Parliament.

A trans woman has been cast as a recurring character on the long-running (at 14,000 episodes long-running is an understatement) soap opera General Hospital. Canadian born actress Cassandra James is the show’s first transgender character to be played by a transgender cast member. Learn more about her role on Canoe.com.

Nicole Maines has gone from being at the center of a pivotal lawsuit over her right to use her school’s girls’ room to becoming a sought after actress. She recently finished up a role on an independent horror film and now she has been tapped to play television’s first transgender super hero. Next season Maines will portray Nia Nal, a “…soulful young transgender woman with a fierce drive to protect others” on the CW’s Supergirl. Learn more from The Hollywood Reporter.

There was a rally at the AFL-CIO headquarters near the White House to protest the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back health care regulations for transgender people. A federal judge blocked implementation of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, and the Department of Justice has refused to appeal that decision. This story was covered by the Washington Blade.

Although the U.S. Department of Education no longer treats complaints from transgender students as a violation of Title IX, they will be treated as such in Hawaii. Governor David Ige quietly signed a law which amends the state’s corollary to Title IX, specifically stating that it covers gender identity or expression as well as sexual orientation. Metro Weekly has this story.

Ireland has a policy to permit transgender people to legally change their gender without surgery. They are still discussing updates for that policy, to allow transgender children to update their gender with their parents’ permission. They also hope to improve the means of communication within the U.K. for those born or living in Northern Ireland. Perhaps the newest twists on this are a desire to cover non-binary people and a desire for a “straightforward” process to cancel or reverse the new gender identity. This story comes from the Times of London.

A bill to end the use of the so-called “gay panic” and “trans panic” defense in federal cases has been introduced by Senator Edward Markey and Representative Joseph Kennedy III. While the bill is unlikely to get far in this Congress, it does show what could be brought up again in the future. This story comes from Edge Media.

In Pakistan four transgender candidates are standing for seats in parliament. Pakistan’s conservative society shuns the transgender community who are called hijra or khawaha sira, and for a long time they were unable to access basic services such as education, employment and healthcare. In May legislation was passed that protects the basic rights of the country’s 500,000 transgender citizens. Learn more about the candidates and the transgender situation in Pakistan from BBC News.

Last week marked the first anniversary of President Trump’s tweets announcing the intention to ban transgender people from the U.S. military. Stars And Stripes has an article on the ban and how it has not done well in courts. The first trial could begin as early as February of next year, but the way that the Justice Department is appealing every decision could cause the trials to be delayed significantly.

While transgender political candidates are still enough of a novelty that they get some publicity simply for being a transgender candidate (case in point: New Brunswick’s first openly trans candidate ‘doing it for a whole community’), The Advocate writes that just getting into the political race is an accomplishment for a trans candidate.

August

Sunday was the date of the annual Transgender March in Montreal, Canada. Hundreds took to the streets to bring attention to the problems faced by the Montreal trans community. Learn more on the story from CTV News Montreal.

The State Department has responded to the story of transgender women having their passports cancelled. It says that it has not changed its policy, and that surgery is not required to get a gender change on a passport. The National Center for Transgender Equality agrees that the State Department is not targeting transgender women. Also of note, there are not a significant number of other transgender people saying that they had trouble with their passports as well. This update comes from the Washington Blade.

Senators Kamala Harris and Tom Carper have introduced legislation which would add questions on sexual orientation and gender identity to the census. Such questions were considered for the 2020 census, but did not get included in the form by the census bureau. The Hill had this story.

Earlier this summer, Judge Joseph Kirby of the Warren County Common Pleas Court in Ohio denied a name-change request for a teenage trans man on the grounds that it was too soon. In his decision, the judge wrote, “In essence, the court isn’t saying ‘no’ to the name change. The court is simply saying, ‘not yet.’ Age. Develop. Mature.” The family which received that decision has made a decision of its own. It is suing for violation of their federal civil rights, and is being joined by two other families of transgender teens who are about to go before Judge Kirby for name changes. This story appeared in the Dayton Daily News.

As we reported, judges in three cases have decided that transgender students have a right to use the restroom of their gender identity at school. Art Leonard has analysis from the point-of-view of a law professor. Two of those cases involved cisgender students suing on a claim that their privacy was violated. In a similar case, the plaintiffs withdrew their suit, citing similar cases not going their way and an agreement from the school to improve privacy.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released 14 transgender women who had come from Central America to seek asylum in the United States. These were among a group of twenty transgender women whose release the A.C.L.U. had been pursuing. The Washington Blade has this story.

U.S. Representative Kathleen Rice has introduced legislation which calls on the T.S.A. to improve how it deals with transgender passengers. The Screening With Dignity Act calls for training of all officers on how to screen transgender passengers, and it calls on the TSA to improve their technology. The bill also recommends that transgender rights advocacy groups be consulted where possible. This bill was covered by the Washington Blade.

Politico ran a story about transgender students and their access to a restroom at school. It seems that the Department of Education dismissed five out of six cases, while the one remaining case is receiving little attention from the department. They talked with one student about his case.

In the case of the student in Oklahoma who received threats that caused the school to close for two days, the family of that transgender student has started a GoFundMe campaign to move out of Oklahoma. The Washington Post had this story. Also in that matter, Frontier Airlines has suspended one of their pilots for his contribution to the comments about the case.

September

British television chat show star India Willoughby transitioned at the age of 40 and was pretty happy living as her true self. After she appeared on the British edition of Celebrity Big Brother she became the target of internet trolls who attacked her looks as manly and unfeminine and her fellow contestants on the show called her “he” and made comments about how she’d never be a woman. That pushed her to take a good look at herself and decide she needed facial feminization surgery. It was a grueling 11-hour process that rebuilt her face. She writes about the whole story in The Daily Mail.

Wigstock returned this past weekend and it’s come a long way from an impromptu show put on in a park by local drag performers in New York City in 1984. It got bigger and bigger until it was rained out two years in a row and Lady Bunny and the others involved stopped presenting it officially in 2001. Then this year film and Broadway star Neil Patrick Harris said to his husband, “Why don’t we revive Wigstock?” They called Lady Bunny and the show on Saturday went for six hours and featured 50 drag queens — and a performance by Harris from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Get the story from the Associated Press.

The Prince William Times and the Gainesville Times polled their readers on various topics. Their choice for Best Local Politician was Delegate Danica Roem. She says that this is the result of lessons that she learned as a reporter for those two newspapers, where she came to know what local issues matter to people. Metro Weekly has the story.

Alexandra Chandler lost her primary election in Massachusetts. She was in a ten-way fight for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. This story came from the Washington Blade.

A new law in California will make it easier for transgender people to change their gender. The new law allows people to choose to have their gender listed as “non-binary,” rather than “male” or “female.” The Los Angeles Times has this story.

The chief rabbi of the U.K., Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, has come out with a foreword to The Wellbeing of LGBT+ Pupils: A Guide for Orthodox Jewish Schools. The rabbi actually recommends that Orthodox Jews welcome LGBT+ people into their synagogues and their schools. You can read more in Pink News.

After five years of deliberation, the Senate of Chile has finally passed a bill which would allow that country’s citizens to legally change their name and gender without surgery. The bill now goes to the House of Deputies, and if it passes there, it will go to the president. The Washington Blade has this story.

We have known for some time that transgender people have a significantly higher rate of suicide attempts than cisgender people. A new study in the journal Pediatrics reports that trans male teens are especially likely to attempt suicide, with suicide attempts by non-binary teens also rating especially high. You can read more in The Advocate.

Sweetwater High School in the San Diego area elected transgender student Karl Cruz as its homecoming queen, according to KGTV News.

A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled that the state committed “sex discrimination” when it did not cover gender reassignment surgery in its insurance program for state employees. This came in response to a suit by two University of Wisconsin-Madison employees. the Madison State Journal has been covering this story.

October

A recent international poll showed that a majority of women feel that transgender women should have the same rights as other women. One caveat is that the women polled all live in major cities; opinions in other areas may differ. The good news can be found at Reuters.

The federal government of Pakistan has made history in that country by hiring the first ever transgender federal employee. Her name is Nomi Zahid. While we applaud the government of Pakistan for hiring a trans woman it would be better if she was in a more prestigious position. Nomi is a cook who will be working in the cafeteria of the Benazir Income Support Programme. Well, people have to be fed and it’s an honest job. Learn more from The Express Tribune.

Judge Thomas Schroeder has issued decisions on some pretrial motions in a lawsuit based on North Carolina’s HB142, the replacement for that state’s HB2. The suit will go on to contest whether the state can deny local governments the right to create nondiscrimination laws prior to December of 2020, but the complaint about access to restrooms by transgender people will not go forward. The Washington Blade has this story.

A company in Bangladesh has begun recruiting trans woman to join their workforce. Denim Expert Limited announced that it would accept employment applications from trans women and to date have they have gotten 15 applicants. Two women who were the first hired are Shima Akther and Dilruba Akther. Learn more from the Dhaka Tribune.

It is well known that the percentage of transgender people who are on the autism spectrum is significantly higher than the percentage in the general population. However, when people asked the National Autism Society in Britain why they had links to the transgender charity Mermaids, they removed the links from their site. It appears to be another manifestation of the debate over transgender self-identity in Britain. Pink News has this story.

Gender “X” designation will come to New York City on January 1, 2019. Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the legislation which the City Council had passed. People will be allowed to choose between “M,” “F,” and “X” sex designations on their birth certificates and other documentation from the city, with a personal affidavit and a small fee. Mayor de Blasio said, “You be you. Live your truth, and know that New York City will have your back.” Reuters has this story.

Drag queen Morgan McMichael suffered a broken hand from punching a self-proclaimed Nazi in the face, according to Pink News. It appears to be self-defense, as the self-proclaimed Nazi had threatened to “slit your fa***t throat.”

A memo, which has been circulating among agencies of the U.S. government since this spring, claims that gender is set at birth by genitals. The New York Times reports that the Department of Health and Human Services could push this definition on other agencies before the end of the year, making transgender people no longer a recognized group under the laws of the United States. If this were to happen, court fights like those against the ban on transgender people in the military would certainly follow. The New York Times is the source of this story. (See Angela Gardner’s editorial on this move by the administration.)

Lambda Legal has filed suit against the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, over its refusal to change the gender on a birth certificate. The department’s deputy secretary for public affairs said, “The Kansas Department of Health and Environment does not have the authority to change an individual’s birth certificate, with the exception of minor corrections or by court order. Gender identity would not be considered a minor correction.” Earlier this year, a federal court in Idaho declared that that state must issue new birth certificates to transgender people who meet certain requirements. The Kansas City Star has this story.

The new guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics about how to care for transgender children prompted an article in The New York Times about medical care for transgender children.

The Burlington Free Press notes that, while Christine Halquist has tried to keep her gender identity out of her campaign for Governor of Vermont, she is proud when told that she has become a good role model for LGBTQ people and especially for the transgender community.

Érica Malunguinho, a transgender Brazilian of African ancestry, was elected to the Sao Paulo City Council. Of the more than fifty transgender people who ran in that country’s recent election, she was the only candidate to win. Into More has this story.

New Zealand is planning to reform its health care system’s policy on gender surgery, removing a maximum number of gender confirmation surgeries that the plan would pay for in any calendar year. The previous funding level was three female-to-male surgeries and one male-to-female surgery in a two-year period. This had led to an outrageous waiting list for the surgeries. This story comes from Newsroom.

Chelsea Manning sent out a picture of herself through her Twitter account which showed her in her hospital bed following gender confirmation surgery.

The Honorable Tracey Nadzieja has become a commissioner of the Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona. She is said to be one of three out transgender judges in the United States. You can read a profile of her in Arizona Capitol Times.

Linda Jensen let us know about the story of Lyra Evans, a 26-year-old trans woman who has become Ottawa’s first openly transgender school trustee. She decided to become involved in politics when she learned the Ontario government was working to drop transgender issues from being discussed in sex education classes. Classes that helped her to find herself. Learn more from Ottawa Citizen.

Uruguay is going in the opposite direction from the United States when it comes to protecting transgender people. They just passed a law which establishes rights for transgender people, including the right to medical care under the country’s health plan, and sets aside one percent of  government jobs specifically for transgender people. LGBTQ Nation has this story.

November

Caitlyn Jenner has established the Caitlyn Jenner Foundation which is helping groups working for the transgender community. Last week she was in Phoenix, Arizona to hand a $60,000 check to the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS, one of four groups her foundation has given grants to. Learn more about the story from azcentral.com.

Brianna Titone is seeking election to represent House District 27 in Jefferson County, and is hoping to make history as the first openly transgender person to hold state office in Colorado. She hails from the town of Arvada which has had transgender people elected to the city council back in the 1990s. Learn more about the story from the Highland Ranch Herald.

Lynn Conway, professor emerita of electrical engineering and computer science, and an internationally recognized transgender advocate will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree and deliver the commencement address at 2 p.m. Dec. 16 at Crisler Center Winter Commencement 2018 on the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus. Thanks to Kristina Mayhem for pointing out the story in The University Record.

Two trans women have already won election in Alaska, where some local elections are held early. Liz Lyke won election to the North Star Borough assembly in Fairbanks, while Kathy Ottersten was elected to the Fairbanks City Council. Gwendolyn Smith of LGBTQ Nation has more.

The midterm elections in the United States happened on Tuesday. The good news is that Question 3 in Massachusetts passed. Get more from Inside Higher Education. (Thanks to Jamie Roberts for the tip.) The bad news is that Christine Halquist lost in her bid to become the governor of Vermont.

Also on the plus side, Gerri Cannon and Lisa Bunker won election to the New Hampshire House of Representatives. They join Danica Roem as transgender people elected to the state assembly. This election was covered by the Los Angeles Blade.

The Democratic Party has declared Brianna Titone the winner of a close race for Colorado’s state House of Representatives. While she is leading, the margin is so thin that her Republican opponent has not yet conceded. Colorado Public Radio has this story.

Althea Garrison, a black transgender woman, has been elected to Boston’s City Council. She was elected to the Massachusetts state House of Representatives in 1992, and has run for office several times since, without success — until now. Her story can be found in The Boston Globe.

Kathy Ottersten talked to Pink News about her election to the city council in Fairbanks, Alaska.

More than 2,500 scientists, including some Nobel Prize winners, have signed onto an open letter opposing the memo which proposes a redefinition of “sex.” They say that the memo is not grounded in science, and that it is not ethical. You can find the letter here.

The Washington, D.C. school system has begun offering students the opportunity to have a non-binary gender marker. Thanks to Jamie Roberts for pointing out the story in The Washington Post.

For Transgender Awareness Week, Refinery 29 ran a profile of model Geena Rocero, along with a gallery of pictures.

Eastern Michigan University’s Women’s Resource Center will no longer host productions of The Vagina Monologues, noting that the play’s version of feminism excludes transgender women. Thanks to Kristina Mayhem for pointing out the story on the MLive Arbor News.

A segment of the “Fearless” feature of The Ellen DeGeneres Show recently featured Ricky, a trans man from Kansas City who had never met another transgender person. Well, he has now met Laverne Cox, and the encounter was captured on camera.

Dylan Ligier, is the first trans girl to be elected Homecoming Queen by their high school in New Orleans. This caught the attention of the Huffington Post.

The Human Rights Campaign marked Transgender Awareness Week and Transgender Day of Remembrance with the release of a new report which discusses an “epidemic” of violence against transgender people, especially in the United States. Their press release about the report, written by Sarah McBride, can be found here.

The Human Rights Campaign also released their 2018 Report on Gender-Expansive Youth. They find that less than one-in-four feel safe in expressing themselves at school, 72 percent have had negative comments from their families, and that they are twice as likely to be victims of sexual assault and rape as cisgender LGBQ youth.

The Alliance Defending Freedom has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a decision of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which unanimously upheld the District Court’s finding that the Boyerton Area Senior High School of Pennsylvania was within its rights to allow transgender students to use the restroom and locker room of the gender with which they identify. The ADF had filed suit on behalf of some cisgender students, saying that the presence of transgender students caused their clients discomfort. Zack Ford of Think Progress weighed in on this.

Twitter announced that their new terms of service forbid deliberate misgendering and deadnaming. Moreover, the new terms of service allow Twitter to suspend accounts and even to ban users who violate the terms of service. However, as Pink News reports, many people doubt that the social media site will really enforce the new rules.

Brazil just elected a new right-wing president, who is outspoken as a social conservative. Some are worried about what this means for the country (with some comparing President-elect Bolsonaro to Donald Trump). However, at the same time that he was elected, two trans women of African descent were elected to the state legislature for Sao Paulo. Buzzfeed ran a story about these two Afro-Brazilian trans women.

December

As the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in January, the atmosphere exists for a battle over the Defense Department’s budget. One thing which is likely to cause some debate is the ban on transgender troops, with Senate Armed Services Committee chairman James Inohofe (R-Oklahoma) being opposed to transgender people in the military. This is part of a report in Military Times.

Aldermen in Chicago passed a resolution calling on President Trump to “cease and desist” his “blatant discrimination” against transgender people. This resolution came after the mother of a transgender fifth-grader made an emotional appeal to the board. The Chicago Sun Timesreported this story.

Ms. Bob Davis let us know about a positive development for trans health in the San Francisco Bay Area. A new transgender-specific health clinic has opened inside the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose. The center is operating with limited services this month but will be full service starting in January. For more information check out the story in the Bay Area Reporter.

Sebastian Pinera, the President of Chile, has signed the new law which allows transgender people to register their new gender and to get a name change. Chile is dominated by Catholics and has been slow to legalize things which the Catholic Church does not allow, but after five years of negotiations, the legislature did approve this law. Reuters wrote about this.

Belgium’s nominee for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is called Girl, and focuses on a transgender teen. However, Oliver Whitney warns in The Hollywood Reporter that the film has some major problems beyond the director choosing a cis male, Victor Polster, to play the lead character. The camera often seems to focus on the transgender girl’s crotch, and her life seems to go downhill at the same time that she starts HRT.

The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement has a provision to protect LGBTQ workers. However, a footnote has been added to say that existing U.S. law is adequate to fulfill this obligation. The existing law does protect LGBTQ federal employees, but it does not apply to private companies who contract with the federal government. LGBTQ Nation has more.

Former congressional candidate Brianna Westbrook says that she was arrested during a protest in Phoenix and placed in solitary confinement by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. She claims that she was put in solitary because she is transgender, and was denied the estrogen that she takes daily. You can read about this in Phoenix New Times.

A new study says that there is “insufficient evidence” to support the claim that HRT drugs pose a risk during surgery. This study was summarized in Healio.

The Miss Universe pageant was underway over the weekend in Thailand and the first ever transgender contestant made waves in the media. Miss Spain, Angela Ponce, was praised for her “…bikini body, runway glamour and message of inclusion.” The winner of the contest will be revealed today. See more in the New York Post.

Last year, the General Synod of the Church of England voted to create some sort of welcoming ceremony for transgender people as they came to worship in the gender with which they identify. The House of Bishops this week approved a pastoral guidance which gives some framework for creating such a ceremony while encouraging parish priests to “get creative.” The very fact that a Christian denomination is accepting of transgender people is in itself a story. You can read more at The Guardian.

Tasmania, an island state of Australia, has passed a new law dealing with transgender people. The law makes it easier for those at least sixteen years of age to change their legal gender designation, allows for birth certificates to not contain a gender if the parents so wish, and penalizes the deliberate misgendering of an individual. More on this can be found at The Evening Standard.

TWIT 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