The Week In Transgenderism 10/20/14

Nancy Clench

If you work for a political party sometimes it must seem that it’s all one big joke. One political advisor to a Member of Scottish Parliament finally decided he’d has enough of politics and traded in his suit and tie job in the halls of power to take the stage in a dress and high heels. Nathan Sparling has become a full time drag performer in London. Read about him and his drag alter ego Nancy Clench in Pink News.

There’s nothing comical about being trans but you can now be a trans character in comic books. Of course comic books are serious business these days. (Many prefer to be called graphic novels.) They are so serious that like the transgender community the comic community has conventions and those conventions have panels that discuss comic book issues. One of those panels happened at the New York Comic-Con last week. It was about that spot where our worlds collide and it was titled Secret Identities: Transgender Themes in Comic Books. Did they mention Jimmy Olsen? Find out by reading a review of the panel presentation at tor.com.

Things in gender land can get confusing. Here’s a story that’s a perfect example. A “masculine-off-center genderqueer” enrolled at Wellesley College and asked people to call him Timothy and use male pronouns when referring to him. All was well at the school and they were accepting of Timothy’s gender diversity, until he applied for the job of running the schools office of multicultural affairs. That’s the office that promotes diversity on campus. People are campaigning against him saying he can’t do the job since he’s a white male. Huh? Read about it and see if you can figure it out in The National Review.

Jazz

Time magazine has established a list of the 25 Most Influential Teens of 2014 and they published it online last week. It appears all you have to do to get on the list is transition at the age of 3, meet Bill Clinton, be interviewed by Barbara Walters and write a book about you life. At least that’s what Jazz did. She’s the 14-year-old trans girl who wrote I Am Jazz: A Family in Transition. You can read about Jazz and the list in The Advocate. There’s a link that will let you vote for the top teen at the end of the article.

Another trans student who probably isn’t on the Time list is the unidentified teen who was discriminated against by her California elementary school. She was not allowed to use the girl’s room, was harassed by fellow students and got no help from the school administration. The staff actually punished her for wearing makeup, told her not to talk about being trans and suggested that she transfer to another school. This item isn’t in our TWIT Awards section since the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights filed a claim against the school on the student’s behalf and the school has agreed to clean up its act. Read the story in The Los Angeles Times.

The U.S. State Department is making a change for the better for it’s employees. Right now there is a “transgender exclusion” in the agency’s health insurance program that denies coverage to trans people who work there or are members of a worker’s family — simply because they are trans. Starting in January that exclusion will be removed and all TG employees and family members will be able to get the health care they need. Get all the details in The Washington Post.

Last week we told you about a radio host in Britain who unexpectedly left his radio show in June and just announced the week before last that he was now a she. Simon Hirst told the world that she was now Stephanie and that changing gender was something she had to do. It seems that her fans really like her radio show and want her to return to the air. Over 22,000 people have “liked” a Facebook page dedicated to getting her to come back. Read about it in Pink News.

Delilah Brooks

Would you watch a reality television show about a drag queen psychic? Delilah Brooks hopes you will. Or does she know you will? She’s the drag queen psychic the show will be documenting. She’s a performer in New York City drag clubs and her psychic powers attracted the attention of OUTtv, a network for lesbians and gays in Canada and the Netherlands. After the show runs in those countries you’ll be able to see it on YouTube. Thrill as Brooks learns how to control her psychic talent each week. Maybe Brooks will be able to tell viewers who’s going to win RuPaul’s Drag Race. Read about it at DNAinfo New York.

How could voter ID laws in place around the country affect trans people? Strict photo ID requirements could mean that TGs without updated identification could be turned away when they go to the polls. Read more in The Scrutineer.

The Amazon series Transparent has gotten great reviews but it’s also taken heat for having a cisgendered male actor play the part of trans woman Maura. Never mind that Jeffrey Tambor is a consummate actor who could play a shaggy dog convincingly, the show is taking heat from some segments of the community for the casting decision. Perhaps to make amends for this the show is looking for trans writers who can be trained to write for television. It’s a contest! Find out how you can enter and get your big break in The Guardian.

Houston is somewhat progressive and they recently passed an equal rights ordinance to protect members of the LGBT community. The Constitution clearly provides for a separation of church and state but several pastors in Houston who have been active in opposing the ordinance, pushing the “man in the lady’s room” angle, have been accused by the city of preaching against the passage of the ordinance from their pulpits. The city has actually subpoenaed the text of their sermons. The Constitution also provides for free speech. A conundrum, no? Read about it in Time magazine online.

Dutch trans teen Mandy

A photographer in the Netherlands embarked upon a six-year-long project to document the lives of two trans girls from preteen to their late teens. One of the girls is outgoing and vivacious. The other is more reserved but both showed courage to the world by being true to themselves. Read more and see photos of the girls at mashable.com.

No doubt you’ve had those days when you felt that you really have a hard life. We all have. At those times it’s a good idea to stop being all about me, me, me and look at someone who has had real hardship. One such is Sugar, a drag performer from the U.K. who has had a crippling disability all her life. When she was a boy she could not walk at all and was told she would be confined to a wheelchair. Her three sisters helped her to walk and cope with the muscle weakness and pain and now she takes the stage to raise money for a charity that supports people with her affliction. And she does it in six inch heels. Read her story in Kent Online.

Female drag queen Fauxnique

Who wouldn’t want to be a fabulous drag queen? You get to tower over mere mortals in your six inch heels. You can be the center of attention and you get to say rude, drag queen comments punctuated by saucy finger snaps. It’s so appealing even women want to get into the act. That’s right, with the right hair, large amount of makeup and wild costuming women are creating drag alter egos. Meet one named Fauxnique in the Mail Online.

College students certainly want to be drag queens. The University of South Carolina recently held its annual Ms. Gaymecock Pageant in which students drag up and work the stage at a local gay bar. They are judged not so much on their beauty or lip synch abilities as they are by how much cash they collect from the audience. The winner of the contest gets to take their act to USC’s “biggest drag show, The Birdcage.” How many drag shows do they have down there? Read about it in the student newspaper, Campus Reform.

Drag is really popular with college students. With all the stories we find it seems that every campus must have a hoard of queens slinking off to class in thigh high leather boots and big drag hair. Here’s another student who takes time from her studies in gender and sexuality to compete in all the drag contests within driving distance of her school. Meet Sheena Arabesque in The Massachusetts Daily Collegian.

TWITs

A 26-year-old trans woman in the Philippines was murdered in a hotel room over a week ago. It appears that her murderer is a U.S. Marine. The TWIT Awards in this story must go to several winners. It seems the victim met the Marine at a nightclub. Before they left to go to a hotel would have been the correct time to let him know she was trans. Award one. The Marine is an idiot if he is guilty of this as “trans panic” is not a valid reason to kill someone. You can curse and run out of the room but murder? The newspaper where we found the story gets a TWIT for calling the victim “he” and giving out her birth name. The US Navy has the Marine in the brig and the local population is up in arms. They want him to be tried in the Philippines. Read about this tragedy in the Manila Standard Today.

Big TWIT Award for Facebook. It seems that despite their apology to members of the drag community whose accounts they suspended or deleted for violating their “real-name” policy  (what’s your “real-name” on Facebook?) they have continued to deactivate accounts. While some accounts got restored after the apology more were getting suspended. Is this actual persecution by Facebook or are they so big they don’t know what’s going on? A TWIT Award is issued in either case. Read about it in The Guardian.

Tags: Comic Con, Delilah Brooks, drag, featured, Jazz, Jeffrey Tambor, Nancy Clench, news, Transparent, TWIT

Category: Transgender Community News