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The Week In Trans 11/15/16

ceciliab | Nov 15, 2016

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Sasha from the video.

Jamaica is an island paradise with wonderful beaches, beautiful mountains, and many, many homophobic and transphobic citizens. LGBT people in Jamaica have to be very careful and on the lookout all the time for those who would beat and kill them for what they are. A new music video from an British R&B singer name RAY BLK brings trans women out of the shadows in Jamaica by featuring four trans women, known as “Gully queens” in her music video for a song titled Chill Out. Check out the story and the video on the Vogue magazine website.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand passed away recently, and he is mourned by his subjects. Many want to go to the royal palace to pass the urn containing his cremains. The Bureau of the Royal Household is in charge of the way that such things are done. They tend to cling to tradition, but at this time, they have allowed transgender Thais to pay their respects to the king while in respectable mourning attire of their preferred gender. In this way, they are ahead of many Thai schools and universities, which require students to dress according to their birth gender even after they have transitioned. The Bangkok Post has this story.

A transgender patient has been having trouble getting health care in South Africa. The patient, identified as “Mrs. N.” was taken to the emergency room at Groote Schuur Hospital. Her identity document lists her with her male name. Although people with her told the nurses at Groote Schuur Hospital that she no longer used that male name, but the nurses continued to use the name on her identity document, as well as male pronouns. She was first placed in an all-male ward, and after the Triangle Project complained, she was taken to a private ward. She was then transferred to DP Marais Hospital Retreat, where again she was misgendered and deadnamed, though this time with no hostility, according to someone from the Triangle Project. IOL has this story.

Bradley

When you think of eastern Kentucky you think of coalminers, country music and people who live “up the holler.” You don’t think of flamboyant drag queens. Turns out eastern Kentucky just got one of their queens back. His name is Bradley Picklesimer and she lived there in the 1980s and owned a drag bar where he performed regularly. In 1991 he moved to Los Angeles where he started an even planning company. Now he’s back and showing the folks back home what glamor really is. Read about him on the kentucky.com website.

In the U.S., a service called TransLine has been providing clinician-to-clinician information since 2012. They now get about one call per day asking about transgender health care. Most of the calls are about hormones. The San Francisco Chronicle has more.

Given the political situation in the United States, transgender people may need access to legal help. There is a new hash tag, #TransLawHelp, which some lawyers are using on Twitter to offer pro-bono advice or service. This is especially for helping people wanting to get their documents set before January. This story is on Mashable.

The first 24 hours after the election results were announced saw a sharp increase in phone calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The volume of phone calls was 250% normal. The Trevor Project needed extra help to handle all the calls from LGBTQ youth who were contemplating suicide, as their volume was more than double the typical. Trans Lifeline received over 500 calls by early Wednesday evening, and they had trouble keeping up. This story fromThe Washington Post also appeared in The Denver Post.

Maloney

Kellie Maloney is leaving Britain for Portugal. The former boxing promoter is tired of the trolling and abuse she gets in Britain. The Daily Star has more.

A lot of articles have been written which claim to tell what President Trump will do about LGBT rights. Quite a few of these articles were written by people who are not lawyers, and who do not know all the ins and outs of what a president can do. One of the better articles, one which confines itself to the subjunctive (what could happen) rather than peering into a crystal ball to say what President Trump will do, can be found on Buzzfeed.

Recently, a Montreal restaurant tried to stop a trans woman from using their restroom. They were met by protests, and they have changed their tune, slightly. They now will allow transgender people to use the restrooms, but only if the transgender people tell management about it first. The protests did not stop. The Huffington Post Canada has this story.

A new bill in Alberta would make it easier for people to change their gender, in part by creating the new gender designation “X” for legal purposes. Alberta is ahead of the federal government on that part, so those who apply early may have to take extra steps later to get their gender changed to “X” at the federal level. There are two interesting new things here regarding name changes. A name change still requires going to court, but those requesting a name change no longer have to supply a reason (which means that transgender people do not have to out themselves), and the name change does not have to appear in the legal paper (where it could be found through an Internet search engine). The St. Albert Gazette has more.

Channel 4 in Britain has announced that they will show a four-part series following a group of transgender people through two years of transition. Its working title is Trans Mission. Channel 4 has more on their website.

Lily Madigan

Lily Matiga, the teenager from Kent who hired a solicitor to teach her school to respect her gender identity, has finally had an appointment with a health professional to discuss her gender issues. She is using the National Health Service, so it takes a while to get the first appointment. This is a milestone for her. The BBC has a bit about this online.

The story of Rachel Dolezal, who stepped down as president of the Spokane, Washington, chapter of the NAACP when questions arose about her claim to be black, came out within days of Caitlyn Jenner’s announcement that she is transgender. The two incidents combined led UCLA sociology professor Rogers Brubaker to come up with a new book entitled Trans: Race And Gender In An Age Of Unsettled Identities. In the book, he talks about how some people move from one racial or ethnic identity to another, much as some transgender people move from one gender to the other. It’s interesting to see how transgenderism is used to explain how some other people behave. UCLA’s press release can be found here.

In the province of Quebec, a bill passed in June, allowing teenagers to change their genders. Previously, they could change names at age 11, but could not change their genders until they were 18. Fifty teenagers have taken advantage of the new law. The CBC has this story.

Coy

Growing Up Coy, a documentary about the now-nine-year-old Coy Mathis, who came to public attention through Anderson Cooper’s afternoon talk show in 2013. The documentary was shown at the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival in Colorado Springs on November 12. You can read about the film, and about the Mathis family, in the Colorado Springs Independent.

A new poll by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune found that 76% of Republicans in Texas felt that transgender people should use the restroom of their birth gender, while 50% of self-identified Democrats in Texas said that transgender people should use the restroom that matches their gender identity. (Why does this not come as a surprise?) The results of this poll can be found in the Daily Texan, the newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin.

Transgender activists in Jacksonville, Florida, are still trying to get a transgender-inclusive human rights ordinance. They are working with the individual members of the city council, and the bill will not be introduced until the organizers are certain that they have at least a minimum number of votes to pass the bill. After two failed bills in the last five years, they are more cautious now. The Jacksonville Times-Union has more.

John Austin, the president of the Michigan Board of Education, lost in his bid for re-election. He had steered the board to approve a set of guidelines for schools and school boards regarding transgender students. These guidelines were based on the guidelines from the U.S. Department of Education, and they met with resistance from some (many of whom seem ot to understand the phrase, “voluntary guideline”). MLive mentions those guideline in their election review.

Jelly Beans trans youth.

The only support program specifically for transgender youth in Queensland, Australia, will close at the end of the month due to financial difficulties. Jelly Beans is for gender-variant people age 24 and under. They had four clients when they opened in 2010, and now have more than 70 clients. Unfortunately, donations have not grown with the number of children seeking their services. You can read more in the Star Observer.

The Inner City Legal Centre in Australia helps families to navigate the legal system, which requires permission from the Family Court before anyone under age 18 can start HRT. They have begun a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to help them stay in business. This group and its funding campaign are profiled on Gay News Network.

The Canadian government has started accepting applications for gender-neutral travel documents. This travel document, called the Electronic Travel Authorization, or eTA, is required of travelers to Canada who do not have a visa and who come from a country other than the United States. While the document’s application form still has a space for gender, they have added a third option to the online application form. The CBC has this story.

The U.S. Navy has decreed that any transgender person in the service must meet the physical fitness requirements for their preferred gender. This is part of a twelve-page handout in which the Navy covers various situations and regulations for transgender people in the Navy. You can read more at military.com.

There are over 100 members of the Armed Forces of the United States who have requested to begin the process of changing genders. This includes about 55 members of the Navy and at least 48 members of the Air Force. How all of this will play out under President Trump is a huge unknown. USA Today has this story.

Perry

Noted British transvestite Grayson Perry is a multi talented person. First making a name as a potter and winning the Turner Prize then going on to host television programs and create tapestries Perry now is appearing in a stage show in England. He is interviewed about the show and other things in The Star.

Tucson, Arizona, can be an uncomfortable place, physically, but it is trying to cultivate a reputation as a friendly place, and that includes being friendly to transgender people. Unfortunately, there are barriers at both the federal and the state levels. The Arizona Daily Star, which runs Tuscon.com, has this story.

A couple of weeks ago, Buzzfeed had a story about a rift between LGBT advocates over whether to accept a bill which would grant transgender people some rights, but not public accommodations. Apparently, this was not just a hypothetical discussion, but rather, it was a discussion about what to do in a real-world situation (specifically, in Pennsylvania). These people were offered a bill which would protect transgender people from discrimination in employment and housing, but not public accommodations. And, this seemed to be the best that would be offered for quite a while. The Washington Blade has this story, along with comments from some LGBT leaders in other states.

Miss Waria 2016

On Friday, November 11 the media in Jakarta, Indonesia were informed that a secret trans beauty pageant was happening. The secrecy was necessary so that Islamic hardliner groups would not show up to shut the pageant down. The new Miss Waria Indonesia 2016 is Qienabh Tappii, a 28-year-old from Jakarta. Read about the pageant and the state of trans rights in Indonesia in The Washington Post.

The American Medical Association has published an article entitled, “Why transgender patients need a welcoming medical environment.” It is hard to think of any patient who does not need a welcoming medical environment, but it is nice to know that the AMA is concerned that we do not always receive the welcoming medical environment that we need, and that they are trying to address that. You can find that article here.

The sisters of Alpha Omicron Pi’s chapter at Tufts University thought that they found a great candidate for membership — “super interesting, cool to hang out with.” The sorority sisters wanted to extend an invitation for her to join them, but when national headquarters found out that she is transgender, they started to get panicky. National claims that they only said to wait, but according to one Tufts member, “they threatened to sue us.” At any rate, about half the sisters of that chapter resigned. Eventually, they got permission to let this woman join, but the damage had already been done. You can read more about this at necn.com.

Mercedez von Clote

Not everywhere in Africa is totally hostile to trans people. It seems Namibia seems to have some well known trans women. One of them is “flamboyant socialite Mercedez von Clote. Ms. von Clote figured out all by herself that she needed to change her body to match her gender identity and set about doing it. Read her story on The New Era website.

Penn State University is holding it’s first ever Transgender Visibility Week starting today and going till the twentieth. The university joins other institutions across the country in working to remove barriers to full inclusion of everyone who identifies with one of the many letters in CLGBTQE. For more info on the events being held at PSU during the week visit the Penn State website.

TWITs

Southern Baptists in Arkansas passed eight resolutions during a state-wide convention. One of those resolutions described gender dysphoria as “a mental issue and not a physical issue.” The resolution opposed “efforts by any governmental agencies or authorities seeking to validate transgender identity as morally praiseworthy.” Does Arkansas recognize the Bible as a medical textbook these days? Even if they did, the Bible does not mention gender dysphoria. On the other hand, denying people who need medical help is in the Bible — as something not to do. (It’s the example followed by those who were found to be less praiseworthy than the Good Samaritan.) For rewriting the Bible, and for then making claims about morality based on that, Arkansas Baptists get a TWIT Award. You can read about this in Baptist News Global.

Cardinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht in the Netherlands has condemned “gender theory,” the idea that people can “gender is a social construct and not solely a biological matter.” He complained that parents only hear the idea of “gender theory” and do not hear anything contrary, just as they do not hear anything contrary to euthanasia and assisted suicide. Apparently, he hasn’t heard from certain Republican politicians. He seems to have also filtered out anything which Pope Francis said that was contrary to his simplistic, black-and-white view of gender theory. (The Pope’s view is complicated, although he does have quite a few negative things to say about gender theory.) For relying on the straw-man argument that being transgender is a choice, and for refuting it with the statement that gender is solely based on biology (with no reasoning for that given), the Cardinal gets a TWIT Award. You can read more at Gay Star News.

A Chinese transgender person is suing the man whom she hired to perform an orchiectomy. The person doing the operation is not a doctor, but managed to get scalpels, anesthesia, and other supplies online. The procedure was performed, but there was much more bleeding than the make-shift surgeon had anticipated. The pseudo-surgeon is being charged with illegal medical practice. The pseudo-surgeon also gets a TWIT Award. GBTimes has this story.

Morgan Givens, a 30-year-old transgender man in Washington, D.C., is suing Kaiser Permanente for refusing to cover his top surgery. He claims that he spent six months trying to get information on how to get the insurer to cover this surgery. “Employees would ‘lose’ my paperwork, hang up the phone when they realized what I was attempting to gather information about, say they were transferring me when they found out what I was calling about only to have the line go dead a few minutes later.” For giving transgender patients the runaround instead of the help that they need, Kaiser Permanente gets a TWIT. You can read about in the Washington Blade.

A transgender veteran in Nashville had her truck spray-painted with the name “Trump” and then set on fire while the vehicle was in her driveway with her and her 3-year-old son inside. The police are investigating this as a hate crime. Whoever did this gets a TWIT Award Award and hopefully a day in court. Channel 11 News in Nashville has this story. As an update, the sheriff is no longer investigating this as a hate crime. The sheriff’s department has classified this incident as part of a series of suspicious fires in Putnam County. There may be other suspicious fires, but they did not have the political overtones that this one has. The update is in The Tennesseean.

The Daily Mail claims that transgender children are being pressured to “fit in” through the gender services from the NHS. These same “experts” claim that “sex change hormones” can cause permanent infertility. (All of that is in the sub-headlines to the article.) The article itself starts by introducing Ash, an eight-year-old who has changed genders socially. Given that she is not yet on puberty blockers, she receives no hormones, despite the lead-in. They then introduce Dr. Polly Carmichael, who is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist Director at Tavistock clinic in London, and who helps transgender children as they seek to work in the medical system. The doctor admits, “We don’t really know if this is the right treatment for everyone or whether there are long term implications for this treatment but for families and young people if can be very difficult.” [sic] That is the level of not-entirely-positive comments that were in the interviews. So, why the scary sub-headlines? For creating an unnecessary panic, the Daily Mail gets a TWIT. You can read the article (which is actually rather good) here.

The title of an article on OneNewsNow says it all: “Feds forcing doctors to perform sex changes on kids.” Of course, the “sex changes” they refer to are not surgical. but merely giving the minors access to puberty blockers and, eventually, hormones of the preferred gender. And doctors can refuse to offer such treatment to minors, if they so choose. What they cannot do is to block the patient from seeking another health-care professional who will provide such treatment. In the body of the article they do talk about hormones, but then, they claim that it is impossible to convert a child from one gender to another, as though gender were entirely biological. For not letting little thing like reality and science get in the way of their rant, OneNewsNow gets a TWIT Award. You can find this story on their website.

The 2016 election has left trans people feeling fearful of losing hard fought rights under the Trump administration. Here are several sources of information from trans lawyers and activists on what we should fear and what may not turn out badly.

Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Kris Hayachi of the Transgender Law Center.

Julian Weiss of Transgender Legal.

Rachel B. Tiven of Lambda Legal.

This edition of TWIT was largely researched and written by Cecilia Barzyk. Editing and additional stories by Angela Gardner.