The Week In Transgenderism 8/31/15
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Candis Cayne
If you’ve been following the Caitlyn Jenner journey you are aware of Candis Cayne, Jenner’s gal pal who some have speculated may be her main squeeze. You might not know that Cayne has been around for awhile and was big on the New York City club scene before she went on to appear in several television shows. Learn all about her on the HNGN website.
The latest television personality to jump on the trans train is Dr. Drew. Last week he did a two part special, Wednesday and Thursday, on the HLN channel that explored what it’s like to be trans in America. His guests included Dr. Marci Bowers, Transparent actor Ian Harvie and Bamby Salcedo, president of the TransLatina coalition. Learn more in The Huffington Post.
The Stonewall Riots are seen by some as the beginning of the gay rights movement. It has been taught for years that drag queens and trans women were the first to rebel against the mass arrests the police were attempting. A new movie is about to be released that tells the story with a white male, gay hero as the catalyst for the rebellion. And the film depicts trans women as “men in dresses.” There is a call for the film to be boycotted. Learn what trans educator Susan Stryker thinks of the situation in an article in The New York Times.
Lewis
Ebony Lewis, a trans woman in the U.K., immigrated there from her home in Jamaica after she experienced scorn and harassment there for dressing like a woman. She is 6’7” tall and for several years she suffered from psychological issues over her height. Being so tall means she towers over most men and the men she met didn’t enjoy looking up at her. Eventually she even tried counseling to work through her low self esteem over being so tall. But then she had an experience that made her realize that being a woman has nothing to do with your height. Find out how she came to that realization in the Mirror.
Could The New York Times be rushing into publishing articles about trans issues and missing important facts, or getting them wrong? That might be the case. The article in the August 23 edition by Professor Richard Friedman is an example of running with it without verifying the information presented. Friedman mentioned at least two things as facts when neither one is accepted science. He also stated that trans kids might grow out of it and affirming their declared gender identity might not be a good idea. Is it possible that The NYT isn’t really interested in presenting real info on trans people, just interested in printing the word “transgender” to sell papers? Media Matters thinks that could be what’s going on.
If you are transsexual in New Brunswick, Canada don’t count on your government to help you out. That’s why a group called the New Brunswick Transgender Health Network is meeting with the province’s Health Minister next month. They are concerned that New Brunswick is the only province that does not fund at least some of the care necessary for gender change. Learn more on the Global News website.
Why is there so much violence and abuse directed toward trans women — particularly against trans women of color? One theory espoused by a transactivist is something called “transmisogyny,” a combination of transphobia and misogyny. Another theory is that men feel a trans woman is deceiving them, that she is a gay man trying to trick them into sex. Whatever the reason the violence goes on. Read one woman’s story on the NBC News website.
Brady
Wayne Brady is set to appear as his fans have never seen him before. Sure, he played a psychotic pimp on Chappelle’s Show and that was pretty far out of character for the squeaky clean Brady. Now he’s stepping into the Kinky Boots worn by Lola in the show of the same name. He’ll take over the role in the Broadway production in November. Read all about it on the Rollingout website.
Do you want to know more about San Francisco drag legend Heklina? She’s the queen behind the Trannyshack parties, which have reportedly become the more PC T-Shack and gone on the road to various cities instead of staying put in San Francisco. Learn all about her in a short documentary video on the SFist website.
The Affordable Care Act, known by some as Obamacare, requires that hospitals and healthcare providers not discriminate against transgender people. The Brooklyn Hospital Center did just that when they placed a patient who identified as female in a room with a male roommate. The Department of Health & Human Services Office of Civil Rights stepped in and for the first time enforced that portion of the ACA. Read more about it on the Lancaster hospital’s website.
Phyllis Frye
One of the pioneers in the trans rights movement is Phyllis Randolph Frye. Today Ms. Frye is a judge in Texas but she had to work for decades to discover who she was, become that person in the public eye and fight the establishment for respect and acknowledgement. She was a part of most of the major efforts toward trans rights through the 1980s and ‘90s including the conference which produced the International Bill of Gender Rights (which in our memory was mostly written by TGF founder and trans activist JoAnn Roberts. Ms. Roberts is not mentioned in the article but she was active along with Judge Frye in many of the same groups. JoAnn can be seen in the photo of Lobby Day in front of the Capital. She is the 4th person to the right of Frye, next to Alison Laing, another TG pioneer.) Learn more about Judge Frye, her journey and get some trans history in The New York Times.
From the “who knew” file we have learned that the city of Denver is something of a drag mecca. The queens who evolve there have gone on to national fame while a local production company has become “the” place to have your drag music video produced. To celebrate and document the Denver drag scene a filmmaker there has been working on a film titled The Heels Have Eyes. The “dragumentary” raised over $20,000 online and is now set to be completed. Learn more in The Denver Post.
Meow!
What do you get when you mix drag queens with cats? Drag Cats, of course. And whether this is satire or animal cruelty, we leave that up to you to decide. Bring on the kitty queens. You can see them in the GayStarNews.
The Lou Reed song Walk on the Wild Side is one of the anthems of trans people. When it first appeared in the 1970s the idea that Holly could pluck her eyebrows, shave her legs and be a she was an amazing revelation for many trans people. But did you ever see a video of the the song? Maybe not since MTV wasn’t around and video players were not yet generally available. Here it is for you education and enjoyment.
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Sistergirl
There are some islands just north of the mainland of Australia where five percent of the population characterize themselves as “sistergirls.” These are the trans, gay, lesbian and bisexual people known also by the indigenous word “Yimpininni.” Learn more about them and see photos in the Daily Mail.
USA Today has reported that it obtained a Department of Defense memo that says trans soldiers will be able to serve openly by May 27, 2016. The existence of the memo has not been verified and it is a bit odd that the date would be put in writing when the Defense Department has just begun it’s review of trans troops. Learn more in The Advocate.
Dominique Jackson
The island of Tobago is in the Caribbean, south of Barbados and just north of Venezuela. A trans woman from that island, Dominique Jackson, now lives in New York City where she has been an entertainer and model since 1990. She has added activist and author to her list of accomplishments. Her autobiography is titled The Transsexual From Tobago. In an interview with a newspaper from her home country she talks about the book, her life, and other things. Read it in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian.
Last week we gave a TWIT Award to the Chrysalis Transsexual Support Group in the U.K. when they alerted the police to a charity event called Dames On The Run. The runners would be dressed in drag and the proceeds would benefit a children’s hospice. The Chrysalis group felt that the event was “dehumanizing” and called it a hate crime. Fortunately reason has prevailed, the police are not treating the run as a hate crime and things have been smoothed out with the support group. Learn more in the Lancashire Evening Post.
Arianna Evans
Since the recent 10th anniversary of the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina the news media has been loaded with stories about the city and the survivors. One of the Katrina anniversary features that caught our eye is the story of the nine-year-old boy who became a symbol of the tragedy when he was interviewed on NBC news and talked about the horrible conditions at the Superdome in the storm’s wake. Young Charles Evans is now 19 and her name is Arianna. Read about how she went from being a homeless nine-year-old boy to her present life as a nurse’s assistant in The New York Daily News.
Linda Jensen and her friends at Gender Mosaic pointed us to a story with a video that is meant to change the minds of doubters who believe that gender identity is a “choice.” It shows the struggles that trans people go through to just be themselves. Why would anyone make a “choice” to put up with the discrimination, harassment and violence that can happen to you when you come out as trans? The story and video are on the CBC website.
TWITs
This story us a “name the TWIT” feature. A trans comic named Sarah Franken, who I believe we have made mention of in TWIT, was onstage last week at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival entertaining a crowd of nineteen people when big name transvestite comic Eddie Izzard came on stage with her and interrupted her act. Izzard is said to have “bantered” with Franken for five minutes and then “fucked off somewhere else.” And he refused to let her post photos of his appearance. We love Eddie but is he going to get a TWIT Award here or is that honor going to Sarah? Was he interrupting her show or giving it a boost by being there? Decide after you read about it in the Evening Standard.
A lawmaker in South Dakota protested last week that his state was not part of east coast culture or west coast culture. The culture he supports is the down home South Dakota culture — that would impose a genital examination on student athletes before they could compete in high school sports. Last year the South Dakota High School Activities Association ruled that trans athletes could join the team that matched their gender identity. Legislator Roger Hunt wins a TWIT Award for introducing the genital exam bill. Learn more about his attempt to support good old South Dakota culture on the Think Progress website.
Miley Cyrus gets a TWIT Award this week. Why? Because she is confusing people. She came out a few weeks ago and said she was “gender fluid.” All the images I’ve seen of her show her to be pretty firmly in the femme camp. She even started a non-profit to help LGBTQ kids and has a pal who is definitely androgynous, but no one is mistaking Miley for a dude. Now she has announced that she is pansexual. In the opinion of TWIT we think she has confused sexuality with gender identity. Being attracted to any gender is not being transgender. Read more about Miley’s sexuality on Hollywood Life.
A town in British Columbia recognized its LGBT citizens by painting some of it’s crosswalks in rainbow colors. Hoorah! But then the backlash began. Letters to the editor arrived at the local paper decrying the money spent on rainbow paint. Other’s complained that they didn’t believe the town should support the “LGBT lifestyle.” A gay man posted a long comment on the backlash and even he complained, in a way, about the crosswalks. He said that before they were painted he and his partner never felt discriminated against but since the crosswalks went colorful some people have been emboldened to express their prejudice. A TWIT Award to the people hating on the rainbow crosswalks in Kelowna, BC. Read the backlash to the backlash in the Kelowna Daily Courier.
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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> It has been taught for years that drag queens and trans women were the first to rebel against the mass arrests the police were attempting.
In the NYTimes article Stryker says “We know nothing conclusively. Besides, it’s wrongheaded to be overly concerned with pinning one clear-cut act on one identifiable person”
I agree trans folks need to get over this one, transgenderism was drag back then anyway.
>A town in British Columbia recognized its LGBT citizens by painting some of it’s crosswalks in rainbow colors.
>Letters to the editor arrived at the local paper decrying the money spent on rainbow paint.
They are planning to do the same here in Atlanta and I agree it is a waste of taxpayer money.