The Week In Transgenderism 3/23/15
Andreja
Andreja Pejic was in her adopted country, Australia, last week promoting her upcoming documentary about her transition. She appeared on a show called The Project to let viewers know she was compelled to make the documentary so people viewing it will understand more about transgender people. Read more and view video in the Daily Mail.
The “trans woman in the Planet Fitness locker room” story is not going away. Last week it blew up even bigger with conservative organizations calling for a boycott of the gym chain and an outcry on the trans side by activists who want trans correspondent Zoey Tur fired from her gig with Dr. Drew on Call after she made remarks questioning the trans-ness of the trans woman who sparked the whole mess by going to Planet Fitness as a guest. And that woman has become a victim of character assassination, being called a “fetishist” and worse. Read about it in the Montreal Gazette.
Cisgender actress plays TG
Soap opera fans already know that one of the characters on their “story” has been revealed to be trans. The only regularly featured trans character on broadcast and cable TV right now is Maya Avant on The Bold and the Beautiful. The character has been featured on the soap for two years but last week it came out that she is a trans woman. The character is portrayed by a cisgender actress. Read more about it in USA Today. There’s more history of trans soap opera characters in The Daily Beast.
The Keystone Conference in Harrisburg, Pa. took place last week and the event was so big it made the news. This was the 7th annual Conference and over 600 people attended. Our own Sophie Lynne was there and files a report today. Check out the article about Keystone on the PennLive website.
A trans man was featured on CBS News last week. Landon Wilson was a Navy sailor whose birth certificate was marked “female” but he had enlisted as a man, was discovered to be trans and kicked out of the Navy. The coverage of the story by CBS was met with approval and held up as the right way to cover a trans news story by the MediaMatters website.
Mistreated in the ER
In 2013 another trans man was in severe pain. He went to the hospital with his mother when his temperature went up and the pain became worse. After waiting in the ER for over four hours a doctor showed up and started an exam but was “hostile and aggressive” in his manner toward the man, whose labia were swollen to nearly three times the normal size. Now the FtM has filed a federal lawsuit against the hospital citing discrimination that is prohibited by The Affordable Care Act. Read about the ordeal the trans man faced in the Star Tribune.
Blackpool England’s best known drag queen, Kitty Litter, may be giving up her performance persona to run for a seat in local government. Although Kitty does a comedy act with naughty language her male persona will be running for councillor in the Conservative party. Learn more in The Independent.
Candidate Liqueur
Another queen is throwing her tiara in the mayoral race in Dresden, Germany. Lara Liqueur is her name and she’s made her fame as a drag performer and DJ. She wants to enter the race to mend political rifts that plaque Dresden and part of her campaign is free schnapps. Is she serious? Well she’s standing for the seat in Germany’s “joke party.” But she might just be what Dresden needs. Read all about it on the DW website.
Cashetta
Sad news out of Mexico. Scott Weston, a drag performer known as Cashetta, passed away in his sleep while visiting that country. Cashetta was very popular in Rehoboth Beach, Del. and was a singer and magician who had appeared on Today, Conan O’Brien and on LOGO. Get the story from the Washington Blade.
Since we’re talking about Mexico let’s take a look at the lucha libre wrestlers who are known as exoticos. These wrestlers take to the ring in makeup, garter belts and mesh hose. At least one of them is taking female hormones. The femme presentation got started in the 1980s and since then exoticos have gotten more femme, come out as gay, and also began using more powerful and aggressive wrestling moves on opponents. And when they pin a rival their trademark move is to give the defeated wrestler a kiss. Read more at the RawStory website.
John Cameron Mitchell is back in his Hedwig wig playing his iconic character on Broadway. Shortly after Mitchell returned to the show he injured his leg and had to step out for a week to rest up. Find out how he’s incorporated the injury into the show when you read the story at AM New York.
The 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards were given out last weekend in Los Angeles and Transparent got the award for Best Comedy Series. Glee got a special award for introducing LGBT characters over its six season run and for featuring a 200-person trans choir in a recent episode. Check out the other winners at Deadline.com.
Is shutting down a busy intersection with a protest the best way for trans people to call attention to the victims of transphobic violence? That’s what protesters in Los Angeles did last Friday. They took over the intersection of 3rd Street and La Cienega Blvd. with protest signs, hand drums and a “die in.” Since it was L.A. we wonder how many of those in cars held up by the event started shooting a documentary film about it, or incorporated a trans theme in their screen play. Read about it in The Los Angeles Times.
She spoke out
While there is much controversy over trans students using the restroom assigned to their true gender it isn’t always a huge issue. In Boise, Idaho there wasn’t much reaction to a trans student who talked to the media defending her right to use the girl’s room. The principal had no problem with it and the school only got three comments from the public. The girl’s statement to the press was made in response to the news that two parents were taking their children out of school because a trans girl would be using the girl’s room. They must be the only folks in town who were upset. Read the story in the Idaho Statesman.
Down in Texas the controversy continues to be big. Everything is big in Texas. One trans woman felt compelled to write an opinion piece in which she admits to being “pissed off, perplexed and scared” that the female Planet Fitness member was kicked out after she complained about a trans woman in the locker room. The writer’s thesis is that the TG in the locker room was a crossdresser and as such should not have been in the women’s locker room. She feels that having crossdressers, easily identified as such, using women’s facilities will just feed the right wing conservative’s point. This item is not in the TWIT section since we’re asking you to consider it. Should crossdressers be banned from women’s locker and restroom facilities so that transsexuals who have transitioned fully can use them without fear of restrictive laws? The writer asks, “Where do you draw the line?” What’s your take? Use the comment area below to let us know. The op-ed is in the Dallas Voice.
A socialist website is trying to explore the difference of opinion between feminist perspectives and trans women’s perspectives. They want to understand why some who identify as feminists seek to exclude trans women. Is this rejection of trans women as “real” women just feminists being “mean” or does it happen because the two camps are speaking a different language? Today you can read the feminist viewpoint and the website will have a second post from a trans activist laying out the trans point of view later this week. You can find it at the Socialist Resistance website.
Murder victim Jennifer Laude
The trial of the U.S. serviceman who was jailed for murdering a trans woman in the Philippines has gotten underway. It began last week but as the trial started there came news of a plea bargain that’s being negotiated and it could make the rest of the trial unnecessary. The serviceman is charged with murder for strangling the woman he met at at nightclub after taking her to a hotel and discovering she was trans. The plea bargain might lower the charge to homicide. Read more about it on the PhilStar website.
Do you have what it takes to lip sync for your life? Can you out dish, out perform and sashay with the best? Then this is your chance to sign up to try out for Season 8 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Can you believe it’s been eight years? Get all the info you need to make it on to the show at the World of Wonder website. The only other thing you’ll need is talent.
Drag fun in Brooklyn
The 2015 Brooklyn Nightlife Awards were handed out last week. (The actual award is a brick.) Back in the ‘90s Manhattan was the place to be if you wanted to see — or were an outrageous drag queen or crazy club-kid. Then a certain mayor took office and cleaned things up so all the wild party lovers moved to Brooklyn. For the past three years they’ve handed out awards in 18 categories and there are more than a few photos of fab queens to be found in the slideshow on the Village Voice website.
TWITs
The trans woman who was elected to the New Hampshire state House of Representatives but didn’t take the seat due to a criminal record has committed another crime. On February 27 someone called in a bomb threat to a medical center in Nashua. The caller turned out to be Stacie Laughton. A TWIT Award is issued to Stacie. She can pick it up after she serves her possibly seven year prison sentence. The story is on the Fox News website.
What do you do when your Islamic extremist sect finds itself being beaten badly by 20,000 Iraqi soldiers who are killing your comrades and recapturing the city that your group of evil bastards overran in the past couple of months? You try to disguise yourself in drag when you make a break for the border. But when you don’t shave your mustache and beard it doesn’t work — and you get caught. A TWIT Award to the ISIS fighters — just for being ISIS to start with — and then for thinking they could escape killing or capture by passing themselves off as women. The story is in The New York Post.
The bill designed to keep trans people out of the restroom they prefer has jumped another hurdle in Florida. It passed it’s second House committee bringing it closer to a vote. It is strange that the political party that rants at length about “government intrusion” into citizen’s private lives is the party that is introducing these restroom oppression bills. Of course the bill kindly allows trans people to use the gender neutral handicapped restrooms but isn’t that a little bit, or a lot, like making people of a certain race take seats at the back of the bus? A TWIT Award wings its way south to Florida for all those involved in writing the bill and promoting it as making the lady’s room safe for cisgender women. The story is in USA Today.
Category: Transgender Community News
About the Author (Author Profile)
Angela Gardner is a founding member of The Renaissance Transgender Assoc., Inc., former editor of its newsletter and magazine, Transgender Community News. She was the Diva of Dish for TGF in the late 1990s and Editor of LadyLike magazine until its untimely demise. She has appeared in film and television shows portraying TG characters, as well as representing Renaissance on numerous talk shows.Subscribe
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as to the Texas article–the author ignores those who are living as women to determine if transition is the right choice. she also ignores the many who live as women full time but choose to take a pass on surgery. also ignored are those who have circumstances prohibiting living as women but do same as much as they can. none of these are CROSSDRESSERS.
ps florida senate bill-SB 1464–severe penalty for restroom misconduct but no gender mentioned. hopefully the senate bill will prevail if it comes to that
So McMurray’s answer is to relegate her non-vagina sporting, hormone and transition-free ‘sister’ to the men’s locker room? It appears to be a ‘man in a dress’, so lets throw her to the men-only space… that’ll be MUCH better. It’s long past time we realize that the conservative movement has no need to ‘divide and conquer’ with us because we do such an excellent job dividing ourselves.