The Week In Transgenderism 11/30/15

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Elle Bradford

Most people have no idea of how much transition costs. While we all know it’s expensive it pays to know just how expensive it will be and if possible make plans to deal with the cost. One young trans woman has totaled up the amount she has paid since she transitioned at the age of 15. Meet Elle Bradford and learn what she has spent on her face and body in her article in Teen Vogue.

There is more news about the possibility that trans women might be able to become pregnant and give birth. The Cleveland Clinic is doing a uterus transplant for women with damaged or diseased wombs. Other medical practitioners around the world are also doing the surgery. One predicts that within 10 years trans women will be able to bear children. But if transition costs a lot, the cost for this surgery could be much higher. Get the story from Gay Star News.

Vietnam has taken a step forward for trans rights. It has been illegal for people there to get reassignment surgery. People wanting to physically transition have had to get the surgery in Thailand. When they returned to Vietnam they were unable to change their documentation to reflect the change. A new law was passed last week that allows those who have GRS register under their new gender and it will pave the way for the surgery to be performed in Vietnam in the future. Get the details from The Guardian.

May Peleg

An Israeli trans activist who committed suicide on November 14. Long before she died she had arranged to have her remains cremated and gave specific instructions to her attorney for the distribution of her ashes. Her body remained in police custody  for a week because her Orthodox mother fought the cremation. It took a decision of Israel’s High Court to allow the cremation. Learn what drove May Peleg to take her own life on the Forward website.

A Seattle doctor has written a book for trans kids with detailed information about how to avoid the wrong puberty. Dr. Linda Gromko has been seeing trans patients for 18 years and shares things she has learned in the new book which is titled Where’s My Book? Learn more of the KIRO TV website.

The mayor of Philadelphia Pa. signed a new law last week that mandates the creation of gender-neutral restrooms in all restaurants and bars that have single occupancy facilities. The law would not apply to multiple stall restrooms but if an establishment has two single occupancy restrooms they would be open to all. Get the details in the Gay Star News.

Brielle Harrison

The tech industry is one of the areas of employment where it shouldn’t matter what gender you are. But it turns out there are a lot “bros” working in the field and women who do work in programming often find themselves being discriminated against, usually in subtle ways. Being a trans woman in the tech industry is extremely hard. Read about one trans woman who has worked for Facebook, Netflix, Google, SmugMug and is now employed at Apple. Her name is Brielle Harrison and the article is in The Advocate.

If you’re trans and you live in Maryland here’s good news. Health care treatments that are “medically necessary” will be covered by Maryland’s Medicaid program and largest health insurer. The change didn’t come from a feeling of good will on behalf of the insurers but as the result of a lawsuit. Learn more in Metro Weekly.

Susan Stryker

The University of Arizona is offering a degree in trans studies. Susan Stryker, a longtime author, and educator in the area of trans issues is the director of the program and she is working to attract exemplary students and faculty, including researchers who will do important work exploring transgenderism. What can you do with a masters in trans studies? Read an interview with Stryker in The Huffington Post and become educated.

Tonight (Nov. 30) is Transgender Movie Night at the White House. The President and his family will see The Danish Girl, and some episodes of Transparent. One night won’t be sufficient time for the President to see all the movies with trans characters or themes. You can find a list of some of them on the Transgriot website.

A pregnant trans man walks into a medical clinic. . . No, it’s not the beginning of a bad joke. It happened to an out trans man while he was a student in college. He was raped and became pregnant. Fortunately for him he was able to find the care he needed at Planned Parenthood. Not everyone has access to the medical care they need. Read about it on the Yahoo health pages.

Virginia Velasco Condori, Bolivia’s Minister of Justice

Trans Bolivians will soon be able to have their names and gender changed on their legal documentation. It is not a completely carefree process since those seeking the gender change must submit to a psychological examination conducted by the Ministry of Justice. Learn more in the Pink News.

There’s a new holder of the title World’s Oldest Performing Drag Queen. That’s according to the Guiness Book of World Records. Who is she? It’s 84-year-old Michelle DuBarry of Toronto, Canada. Read an interview with her in which she discusses how she started doing drag in a time when you had to keep it underground. The interview is in The Star.

When you’re a full professor with tenure and a part time drag queen it’s only natural that you would do a presentation at an academic symposia in full drag. That’s what Miss Summer Clearance, a.k.a Domenick Scudera, did when she appeared at the symposium Subverting Academia and Subversive Academics. Scudera is a theater professor and teaches a course on The History of Drag Performance: From Shakespeare to RuPaul. He had never taught that course in drag and learned that doing his symposia presentation in drag brought a whole new level to the experience. Read his article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

K-Pop star treated like a queen.

For some reason Korean music stars, bands that perform the genre known as K-Pop, have dressed in drag and since they’re all young Korean men they tend to become beautiful women when made up and coiffed. The claim is that they dress up as girls to entertain their fans but you don’t see One Direction imitating Lady Gaga. We think there might be more to their onstage crossdressing but unless they tell us we won’t know for sure. One K-Pop magazine has a few of the K-Pop stars who have done drag and asks readers to pick the K-Pop Queen. See what you think on the Psyworld website.

LGBT people have been around since the dawn of time and in some periods of history they were accepted and in others, not so much. The problem we have today is that many “straight” people do not feel the same things that LGBT people feel and can’t understand why anyone would have those feelings. A group of teachers and administrators from across North Carolina have come together to teach teachers on how to educate students about LGBT issues. Read the story in The News Observer.

Non-discrimination ordinances such as Houston’s HERO have been under attack from the right and they have used a group of myths to sway the public against adopting such laws. These myths are outright lies as none of the things they warn about have ever happened. More people are shot by their dogs in a year than are raped by someone posing as a trans woman to enter a restroom. Get the information to counter the myths when your crazy uncle brings them up at Christmas dinner. You can find the debunking in The Huffington Post. In case you need extra info as you attempt to change crazy uncle’s mind you can try stuff from this article on Care2.com.

Irish drag queen Panti Bliss

Irish drag star and LGBT rights activist Panti Bliss is getting a honorary degree from Trinity College in Dublin for her services to LGBT activism. She gained fame early this year when she labelled a Catholic lobbying group “homophobes” while appearing on an Irish talk show. Read more about Panti and the degree in Pink News.

It’s good to know that not all of the religious community is against trans people. How do we know? There was a letter published last week that called upon the state if Indiana to add gender identity and sexual orientation to the state’s civil rights law. It was signed by six prominent religious leaders from the state of Indiana. See what they said on the Current in Carmel website.

A foundation in Ohio is giving a grant to a non-profit support group for trans male children in northeast Ohio. The money will be used to buy chest binders for at least 40 trans boys. Learn more about the effort of OutSupport, Inc on Ohio.com.

If you’re ready to get into a Christmas mood what could be better than a new album of holiday tunes performed by well known drag performers? The album you want is Christmas Queens and it’s now available wherever music recordings are sold. Learn more about the project on the Perez Hilton website.

TWITs

A trans man who transitioned on the job as a prison guard in Arizona has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections alleging that he has been subjected to “severe and pervasive discriminatory harassment by his co-workers and supervisors.” He alleges that in addition to verbal mis-gendering he learned from prisoners that if he was in a bad situation and called for backup the other guards would not come to assist him. A TWIT Award to the Arizona Department of Corrections. Read the story in the Arizona Daily Star.

Trans people cause problems for the “straight” world since they don’t fit easily into the slots and bureaucracy is all about putting people in a niche that can be dealt with the same way every time. The FAA is no different. That’s the Federal Aviation Administration. They require pilots to go to an annual medial checkup to maintain their pilot’s license. When trans pilots report that they’re going through transition the FAA suddenly finds it necessary to subject them to additional scrutiny, including psychological evaluations that weren’t done before. A TWIT Award to the FAA for treating trans pilots as needing extra checking. Read more about it from the Aero News Network.

Lunacy. The word means insanity at worst and at best “sheer folly or eccentricity.” That’s the word Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz used to describe the administration’s trans policy for public schools. Cruz said it on a radio talk show, elaborating that the federal government is forcing school districts to let boys shower with “little girls.” A TWIT Award to the senator for his stupid and ignorant remarks. Read more and watch a video on the Buzzfeed website.

It’s sad when the truly ignorant are given a mass media outlet on which to spread their ignorance. Such is the case with a “chat show” on Britain’s ITV channel. The show is called Loose Women and on a recent program they took on the topic of transgender kid. Then they promptly compared it to “fashionable” self-harming and bulimia before confusing gender issues with sexuality. A TWIT Award is hereby given to the Loose Women. See video and read more in Pink News.

Mount Horab Primary Center (an elementary school) in Wisconsin was going to read the book I Am Jazz to a group of students, but that was cancelled because of a lawsuit by the Liberty Council. The Liberty Council which is headquartered in Florida bullied the school board of a Wisconsin school into doing what it wanted. They begging for another TWIT award. So here is one more TWIT Award for them. Sadly, they seem to wear these awards as a badge of honor. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies The Liberty Council as a hate group. Read about their latest act of hate on the WORT website.

The Princeton, New Jersey schools are considering a policy on trans students and the attacks from conservatives has already begun. The reporting on the Board of Education’s proposed policy put forth on the right wing LifeSite website is biased and skewed to show the policy in a negative light. Making it an undermining of parental authority rather than a recognition of trans student’s rights. A TWIT Award goes to the reported and the website. For a more factual story about the trans policy visit the NJ.com website.

“I have no animosity toward that person. It’s just inappropriate. I choose not to undress in front of a man I do not know.” That’s what a woman who canceled her YMCA membership said when asked why she was upset about a trans woman using the women’s locker room. We give her a TWIT Award and suggest that perhaps she get to know the other woman instead of rejecting her and her gender presentation out of hand. The YMCA gets kudos for upholding the trans woman’s choice of locker room. The story is on the PostStar website.

A person described as a would be political candidate, activist and crossdresser has been arrested in Hong Kong for scamming 2.17 million Hong Kong dollars from an electronics company in China. If you follow Princess Hitsujiko online and haven’t heard from her from awhile it’s because she is in jail. A TWIT Award goes to this lovely young woman with a bent for crime, and we also present one to the publication carrying the story for not making her gender status clear. The article is in The Standard.

Many thanks to TGF user Cecilia who contributed many of the stories and some of the writing to today’s TWIT.

Tags: Brielle Harrison, crossdressing, Dr. Linda Gromko, drag, featured, Identity, K-Pop, Michelle DuBarry, news, Panti Bliss, Susan Stryker, Transgender, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News