Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Hopes You Won’t Mind His Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill if It’s Called “Women’s Privacy Act”
feature image via (Rodger Mallison/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/TNS via Getty Images)
by Yvonne and Rachel
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Repackages Anti-Trans Bathroom Bill to “Women’s Privacy Act”
+ Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told the Dallas Regional Chamber that bathrooms would be a priority next legislative session. He’s hoping to rename and repackage an anti-trans bathroom bill to the “Women’s Privacy Act,” which he did not give further details about. “Transgender people have obviously been going into the ladies’ room for a long time, and there hasn’t been an issue that I know of,” Patrick said. “But, if laws are passed by cities and counties and school districts allow men to go into a bathroom because of the way they feel, we will not be able to stop sexual predators from taking advantage of that law, like sexual predators take advantage of the internet.” Equality Texas and a group of Texas businesses say they aren’t backing down and will take a stand against these bills.
Law & Order
+ On Tuesday, Judge Reed O’Connor clarified his injunction barring the Obama administration from enforcing it’s directive on transgender bathroom rights applied to all states, not just the 13 states that filed the lawsuit. This means, no school needs to abide by the guidelines that required schools to allow transgender students to use the restroom and locker room that matched their gender. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies said they will file an appeal against O’Connor’s injunction to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most conservative courts in the nation.
+ A judge rejected “riot” charges against journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!. A North Dakota state prosecutor filed charges against Goodman for participating in a riot because she filmed an intense pipeline protest that showed security guards for the oil company attacking Native American water protectors with dogs and pepper spray.
+ While we’re seeing new Russian hacks and email leaks every week, the hearing of Harold T. Martin III, an NSA contractor who “allegedly embarked on a 20-year campaign to take home national security secrets, an effort the Justice Department calls “breathtaking in its longevity and scale,” to decide if he’ll remain in US custody will soon begin.
+ An investigation by the Houston Chronicle has revealed that the state of Texas may arbitrarily be capping access to special ed services to which students with special needs are entitled to by federal law.
+ Britain has said it will pardon the gay and bisexual men once convicted of having sex with men, a crime at the time. Thousands of these men, although the exact number is unknown, are still alive today.
Police/Violence
+ About 40 police officers from eight different departments surrounded and threatened 5 Water Protectors praying near a road in Canon Ball, North Dakota. Think Progress reports:
Native News Online reports that five Water Protectors left a pipeline protest and stationed themselves on the side of a road in Cannon Ball. Soon after, roughly 40 officers from three states and eight departments arrived at the site to disband the group. Many of those officers were clad in riot gear, and equipped with firearms, batons, an acoustic weapon, and an armored vehicle. As officers blocked the road, one informed the praying men that they were unlawfully protesting, threatening to arrest them for doing so. The Water Protectors ultimately dispersed after praying for about ten minutes.
+ Milwaukee police officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, who shot and killed Sylville Smith in August and set off a period of protests and public grief in the Sherman Park neighborhood, has been charged with sexual assault, with five counts total including two felony counts. A man reports that Heaggan-Brown, “who was off-duty, had raped him at about the same time that other Milwaukee officers were responding to reports of gunshots, making arrests and having rocks thrown at them in the area of the demonstrations.” Investigators say they’ve “found evidence that Heaggan-Brown had sexually assaulted a second man and paid for sex with two others.”
+ NYPD were called to the apartment of Deborah Danner, a 66-year-old Black woman who police had occasion to know was schizophrenic based on previous 911 calls. When police arrived, Danner was naked and holding scissors; she picked up a baseball bat after police entered the apartment, a fairly reasonable reaction when strange men are entering your apartment unannounced. Although the officer in question is reported to have had a taser on him, he instead shot Danner twice in the chest, killing her. Deborah Danner’s sister, Jennifer, was present and had to experience her sister being shot firsthand.
“[Jennifer Danner] said she’d seen it done the right way and expected it to be done that way this time as well. You can only imagine the pain she feels having had to stand there and hear the shots fired and the recognition coming over her that she had lost her sister,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told press this morning. “Something went horribly wrong here. It’s quite clear our officers are supposed to use deadly force only when faced with a dire situation and it’s very hard for any of us to see that that standard was met here.”
+ The Justice Department has announced an investigation into the conditions experienced by incarcerated people in Alabama’s men’s prisons; any changes to the system didn’t come soon enough for Robert Deangelo Carter, who committed suicide in solitary confinement this week. His suicide is at least the second at the facility this year.
Trump Slump
+ It hasn’t been a banner 48 hours for Donald Trump. Multiple reporters have asked him to comment on his own racism, and he’s responded by just walking away (and, in one case, yelling back over his shoulder that he’s the “least racist person you’ve ever met”). He was very soundly booed at the Al Smith Foundation dinner last night, when his attempt at a comedy roast of Hillary bombed horrifically. Despite his claims that voter fraud is rampant, footage of Trump from 2004 shows that he actually had trouble voting because restrictions of his ability to vote to his own district were so well enforced. Also, a tenth woman has come forward to accuse him of sexual assault.
+ Billy Bush, the other person on Donald Trump’s “hot mic” tape who colluded with him about sexually assaulting women, no longer works at Today.
+ Just sort of some interesting info: when you look at them side by side, it appears that Trump’s campaign has released basically the exact same statement on each one of his scandals, variations on the statement “The campaign had no knowledge of [Latest Screwup] and strongly condemns these views.”
Election 2016
+ A Washington poll reveals Texas is now a battleground state in the election. Trump leads the polls in Texas with 44 percent and Hillary Clinton not far after him with 42 percent.
+ Are you stressed the fuck out about this election? You’re not alone! The American Psychological Association released its findings from a new survey about stress that asked about the election. It turns out more than half of the adults who responded, regardless of the party, felt very or somewhat stressed about the election.
+ As you are likely aware by now, Trump has been encouraging his supporters to “watch your polling booths,” something which sounds a lot like coded language for voter intimidation. Certainly some of his supporters seem to be interpreting it as such, like this gentleman who spoke to the Boston Globe:
Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio, told the Globe, “Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure … I’ll look for … well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American.” And what will Webb do if he finds any? “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
Unfortunately, when it comes to stopping voter intimidation and possibly violence (most states have no laws about guns in polling places), laws differ widely and may make safety and security hard to enforce. According to Slate, “in 46 states the laws permit private citizens to challenge a voter’s registration on or before Election Day. In Wisconsin, the report adds, “any voter can challenge someone’s ballot based on the suspicion that they are not qualified. The same goes in Virginia, Oregon and South Carolina.”
+ A piece on the intense Senate race in Nevada to fill the seat of retiring Dem Harry Reid, and the canvassers who are trying to make a difference.
+ Surprise! A private security group has determined that the Podesta email hack was performed by Russian foreign intelligence.
+ NPR talks to a political scientist to figure out how common the idea is that US elections are rigged. Unfortunately unsurprisingly, they find that the belief has been on the rise since the 2000 election, but is highest among Trump supporters, at an unnerving ⅔.
+ A piece on the “wall of taco trucks” that surrounded Trump’s Las Vegas hotel as part of a protest, and how “The fear of Mexican culture and “taco trucks on every corner” is, of course, a fear of Mexican women as both laborers and mothers.”
Grab Bag
+ Dr. Tamika Cross, a 28-year-old Black woman, was not believed to be a doctor when she was on a Delta flight from Detroit to Minneapolis. While on board a man suddenly became unresponsive and a flight attendant asked if there was a doctor on board and when Cross raised her hand to help the man, the flight attendant told her they were looking for “actual physicians.”
+ The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network’s (RAINN) live chat hotline has seen a 33 percent spike in the last week since more women have reported sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump.
+ A watchdog agency has determined that the EPA “had enough information and authority to issue an emergency order [in Flint, MI] under the Safe Drinking Water Act as early as June 2015.” They declined to until seven months later.
+ Surprise! When budget cuts and bad legislation close prevention programs and local health clinics, STI rates rise! The number of people with the three major sexually transmitted infections — chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis — is now at an all-time high, with teens and young adults the most affected.
+ In a city-wide action on October 19, almost 2000 Seattle educators wore Black Lives Matter shirts and conducted before-school rallies to address police violence and “opportunity gaps that disproportionately impact students of color.”
+ John McCain openly admitted in a radio interview that the Republicans plan to try to block any nominee to the Supreme Court that Democrats put up, something which wasn’t really a secret but is still not the kind of thing you’re supposed to say out loud. His office is now backpedaling on the statement, saying McCain will “thoroughly examine the record of any Supreme Court nominee put before the Senate and vote for or against that individual based on their qualifications as he has done throughout his career.”
+ A federal inquiry into NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fundraising investigates whether donations were exchanged for “beneficial city action.”
Black Trans Woman Brandi Bledsoe Is At Least the 23rd Trans Person Murdered This Year in US
Not even a week ago we were reporting on the murder of another Black trans woman, Jazz Alford, and now, here we are again. I’m extremely sorry to report that this time her name is Brandi Bledsoe, and she was 32 years old and she was from Cleveland, Ohio. As so often happens, Bledsoe is being misgendered in news and police reports about her murder. She was properly identified as the woman she was by family who talked to Cleveland.com. She worked at Home Depot and also was an artist and animator.
“She wasn’t very outgoing before she told us,” John Craggett, Bledsoe’s cousin told Cleveland.com. “She just wasn’t happy with who she was. When she told us, she was honestly a lot better as Brandi. She was happy.” He added that “She was really beautiful, she was really sweet and nice. That’s what bugs the crap out of me about this. Whoever did this can rot in hell.”Johnnie Ledbetter, Bledsoe’ grandfather agrees that she was a kind and happy woman after coming out and being able to live as herself. “We got a long great when she lived with me. I wish she was around more after she moved out.”
Her cousin said after moving out of her grandfather’s house, she had a whole new life ahead of her. “A lot of opportunities opened up for her. She was looking for freedom,” he said. Now all those opportunities and all that freedom has been taken from her.
#BrandiChill #SayHerName! 💖✊🏾💔 pic.twitter.com/cFpdTwCJOp
— Vita Cleveland (@vitae4life) October 12, 2016
She joins this ever growing list of other trans people murdered in the US this year. And, remember, these are just the trans people who have been murdered that we know about, there are probably many more who have gone unreported, whether it’s because they were misgendered or homeless or sex workers or some other reason. Trans women of color are being murdered at a massive rate and it doesn’t look like it’s stopping. We’ve added way too many names to this list this year and way too many in the last month.
Monica Loera, 43
Jasmine Sierra, 52
Kayden Clarke, 24
Veronica Banks Cano, 40
Maya Young, 25
Demarkis Stansberry, 30
Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, 16
Kourtney Yochum, 32
Shante Thompson, 34
Keyonna Blakeney, 22
Reecey Walker, 32
Mercedes Successful, 32
Amos Beede, 38
Goddess Diamond, 20
Dee Dee Dodds, 22
Dee Whigham, 25
Skye Mockabee, 26
Erykah Tijerina, 36
Rae’Lynn Thomas, 28
T.T., 27
Crystal Edmonds, 32
Jazz Alford, 30
Brandi Bledsoe, 32
Please read these names. Say these names. Spread these names, and remember these names. But please, don’t stop there, please take action. Contact your representatives to get laws changed. Trans women often face the rates of violence we do partially because we can’t get jobs, we can’t find housing and we can’t get IDs that have our real names and genders on them. Talk with the men in your life. Most of the trans women who are murdered are Black and Brown trans women who are attacked by intimate partners, most of who are men. When racism, homophobia, transmisogyny and sexism combine, they form a deadly mix. Support the trans women, especially trans women of color, who are still alive. We need to make changes if we want to see this stop.
Not As Weak As We Seem: How Punk Band G.L.O.S.S. Gave Trans Women Our Voice
THEY TOLD US WE WERE GIRLS/HOW WE TALK, DRESS, LOOK, AND CRY
THEY TOLD US WE WERE GIRLS/SO WE CLAIMED OUR FEMALE LIVES
NOW THEY TELL US WE AREN’T GIRLS/OUR FEMININITY DOESN’T FIT
WE’RE FUCKING FUTURE GIRLS LIVING OUTSIDE SOCIETY’S SHIT!
“G.L.O.S.S. (We’re From The Future)”
It had been less than two years since G.L.O.S.S. (Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit) released their debut EP when they announced that they were breaking up. The EP — simply titled DEMO — featured eight minutes of shredding guitars, blasting D-beats, and nakedly political lyrics about trans oppression and resistance. It was hailed as one of the best hardcore punk releases of 2015. In the short time since that first release, they garnered enough attention to be covered in Pitchfork and Rolling Stone, released a second EP to massive excitement and acclaim, and received an offer from Epitaph Records. In less than two years, the five like-minded punks and queers out of Olympia, Washington were on their way to massive financial success. But their most significant impact was felt not by the larger music community, but by trans women.
It came as a shock to many of us when on September 25th, 2016, G.L.O.S.S. announced that they were breaking up in a post on bassist Julaya’s Tumblr. “[W]e need to be honest about the toll this band is taking on the mental and physical health of some of us. We are not all high-functioning people, and operating at this level of visibility often feels like too much,” they wrote, typical of the raw vulnerability found in their lyrics. “We want to measure success in terms of how we’ve been able to move people and be moved by people.” By this metric, their success is unquestionable. For those of us who needed a voice for our pain and anger, G.L.O.S.S.’s shouts of rage were a rallying cry, a flag to raise, and a brick to throw.
Only recently have trans women been able to find art that speaks to our specific struggle. Before now, we had to make do with art that wasn’t quite for us. “I found my voice through Kathleen Hanna [of Bikini Kill],” writer Willow Maclay told me. “But as a whole Hanna never spoke about my concerns with gender, gender dysphoria and depression in a way that I could gravitate towards fully. G.L.O.S.S. are a band that does.”
Art made by and for marginalized people is vital. It allows us to connect our experiences with others and empowers us by showing us that we are not alone. G.L.O.S.S. resonated with so many trans women because their songs reflected a lived experience which validated our own.
Vocalist Sadie Switchblade’s lyrics were unambiguous about who G.L.O.S.S. made music for:
THIS IS FOR THE OUTCASTS/REJECTS/GIRLS AND THE QUEERS
FOR THE DOWNTRODDEN WOMEN WHO HAVE SHED THEIR LAST TEARS
FOR THE FIGHTERS/PSYCHOS/FREAKS AND THE FEMMES
FOR ALL THE TRANSGENDER LADIES IN CONSTANT TRANSITION
“Outcast Stomp”
“I didn’t have to refashion them as being my band,” Willow continued. “They simply existed for girls like me. Through their music, they fucking fought for me. Hearing that music at 16 would have been life changing, but even at 23 it shook my foundations.”
The fight for the marginalized is at the heart of G.L.O.S.S.’s music. On June 13th, 2016 — the day after the massacre at Pulse in Orlando — they released their second EP, Trans Day Of Revenge. This EP and the timing of its release were a call to action, to fight against the violence and injustice of our oppressors by any means necessary. As Carrie Heckel wrote in their review of the EP for The Le Sigh, “What do you do when your home is violated, broken, set ablaze? G.L.O.S.S. answers: ‘We break the cycle with revenge.’”
Throughout their short career, G.L.O.S.S. never stopped encouraging all of us to channel our pain into the fight against the racist, transmisogynist structures which seek to destroy us. Speaking with Bitch Magazine, Sadie summed this up by saying, “Singing in G.L.O.S.S. is […] like weaponizing a lifetime of anguish and alienation.” G.L.O.S.S. empowered all of us to weaponize our struggle. They called on us to join together and take up this fight, reminding us that it’s also our fight.
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE
WE’VE GOT TO STAND UP AND MASK UP
AND DRIVE OUT THEIR KIND!
“Fight”
The need for us to join each other in resistance was central to G.L.O.S.S.’s message. Their songs nearly always framed their message in terms of “us” or “we.” They emphasized how solidarity is essential to our survival, always reinforcing that this fight belonged to all of us. “G.L.O.S.S. said no and taught us that we can say no too,” Willow told me.
I saw G.L.O.S.S. play live in September of 2015 in a sweaty basement with malfunctioning sound. As the band played, I joined the crowd of fellow freaks and queers as we sang or shouted or screamed along to the songs which were so important to us. It felt like we all knew that we weren’t alone. I felt as if we were among people who shared our pain, our struggle, our fight.
WE LIVE/FOR NIGHTS LIKE THIS
BASEMENTS PACKED WITH BURNING KIDS
WE SCREAM/JUST TO MAKE SENSE OF THINGS
STUDS AND LEATHER/SURVIVORS’ WINGS
“We Live”
G.L.O.S.S. was the band I never realized I needed until I heard them for the first time. They released just over 15 minutes of music in total. In that 15 minutes, they championed queer solidarity, queer resistance, queer power, queer rage. They argued against being passive and called for bringing the fight to racist police, to predatory men, to the entire straight patriarchal world. They proved that we are not alone in our pain, and that vulnerability is not weakness. And they gave a gift to all trans women: a voice with which to scream.
“Drunk History” Team Pick: Alexandra Grey Is Marsha P. Johnson, True Stonewall Hero
Drunk History has had some super incredibly on point casting over the years (remember Octavia Spenser as Harriet Tubman??) and so when it came time for them to (drunkenly) tell the history of the legendary Stonewall Riots, they stepped the fuck up. Not only did they actually center the story on the iconic Marsha P. Johnson, but they cast Alexandra Grey, a trans actress, in the role. And she NAILS IT y’all. This is the way the Stonewall story should be told.
The story is narrated by comedian Crissle West, and unlike a recent movie about this same event, it actually gets the story right. You won’t see cis white dudes centered here. Now, you might remember Grey from the first episode of Transparent Season Three, playing Elizah, or from her guest appearance on Code Black recently, but here she’s performing like we haven’t seen her before. She’s hilarious, powerful and has all the appropriate swagger for someone who told the courts that her middle initial stood for “Pay it no mind!” She’s everywhere on TV this fall and she totally deserves it. She can do drama and comedy, she can be muted or over the top and she demands the spotlight no matter what kind of show she’s on. Please someone give her a starring role asap. Or, hell, give her a ton of starring roles.
Of course, Marsha P. Johnson wasn’t the only trans woman of color instrumental in the Stonewall Riots, and Drunk History has you covered there too. Puerto Rican trans icon Sylvia Rivera also has a big role in this episode, played here by the talented, glamorous and gorgeous trans actor Trace Lysette, best known for playing Shea on Transparent and Giselle on Blunt Talk. In this six and half minute clip, trans actors playing trans characters get more screen time than pretty much anywhere that’s not Transparent. Good job, Drunk History.
Remembering and respecting our queer history is vital, and Drunk History does a freaking brilliant job of doing that. Trace Lysette looks fucking amazing in a jumpsuit and is hilarious and Alexandra Grey is an all star who’s taking over our TVs this fall.
Black Trans Woman Jazz Alford Killed in Alabama, the 22nd Trans Person Killed This Year
30-year-old Jazz Alford Found Dead in Her Hotel Room
+ Black trans woman and North Carolina native, Jazz Alford was found dead in her motel room in Birmingham, Alabama in late September with initial police and media reports misgendering her. She’s the 22nd trans person killed this year, which is quickly catching up to last year’s death toll of 23 reported deaths of trans people — the majority of which were Black trans women.
Alford’s sister Toya Milan, who is also transgender, told AL.com Alford was a loving person and “didn’t know anybody that would want to hurt her.”
“Her death was a huge hit for the LGBT community,” Milan told AL.com. “There was another transgender [person] shot multiple times somewhere else recently. People think [transgender people] are monsters, when really we just want to be accepted.”
On Wednesday, police arrested 23-year-old Denzell Thomas for shooting another trans woman during a home invasion and robbery on Monday. He’s now a suspect in Alford’s death. The woman was shot in the face but survived and is recovering at UAB hospital.
According to Mic, Birmingham Police Department’s homicide division knew Alford was transgender, and didn’t reveal what they knew due to “case sensitivity.” And AL.com reporter Carol Robinson didn’t know Alford was trans until Alford’s sister emailed her.
Alford’s coworkers remembered her on Facebook.
“She was a lovely, beautiful person. Always kind and smiling,” Alyssa Huggins recalled. “What a tragedy.”
Another former coworker, Sherri Johnson Pilson, shared that Alford was always quick to cover a shift.
“Whenever I needed Sundays off for church, Jazz would always cover me and say, ‘pray for me too chile!'” Pilson wrote. “Such a sweet person.”
Activism
+ In an amazing feat of activism, Polish women managed to shut down the government’s proposed total abortion ban when thousands of people boycotted work and classes and marched in the streets in Warsaw. However, the previous restrictive laws on abortion remain in place; pregnant people can only get one in “cases of incest, rape, badly damaged fetuses and situations where the mother’s life is at risk.”
+ Workers in 30 cities put together coordinated protests against McDonald’s this week in response to what workers say are constant incidents of sexual harassment that the company is informed of but does nothing to address.
Law & Order
Mary & Mollie
+ A jury found David Malcom Strickland guilty of killing 19-year-old Mollie Judith Olgin and seriously injuring her girlfriend Mary Kristene Chapa at a 2012 park shooting in South Texas. He was convicted of capital murder and automatically given a life sentence in prison because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty. Investigators say the two teen girls were sexually assaulted and then shot execution style, while at a park near Corpus Christi. Police arrested 30-year-old Strickland after receiving an anonymous letter with information regarding the case.
+ California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 1146, which would rrequire private universities to publicly disclose the Title IX exemptions granted to them. In other words, universities who discriminate against LGBT students must shine a light on their policies regarding gender identity and sexual orientation.
Politics/Election 2016
+ Courts told the state government of North Carolina that they had to stop racist voter suppression, but they’re still trying their hardest to do it anyway. Related: a video from Franchesca Ramsey about why voter ID laws are racist.
+ Depositions of Trump’s lawyers on his 1992 bankruptcy hearing revealed they used to meet with him in pairs so he “couldn’t backtrack on them” because he was such a reliable liar. They join other former Trump employees, like his former ghostwriter and architect, whose personal experience confirms he is truly a nightmare of a person.
Prison/Police/Police Violence
+ In 2015, 35-year-old Michael Sabbie was found dead in a jail cell. Now, video has been released that shows what happened leading up to his death.
The video shows that corrections officers knocked him to the ground, sprayed him with pepper spray and dragged him to a cell, all while he told them that he could not breathe. Meanwhile, the medical examiner ruled his death “natural.” But reports show that beginning on July 20, Sabbie repeatedly asked for help, saying he was having trouble breathing and that he thought he had pneumonia. He said, “I can’t breathe”—the same phrase Eric Garnerrepeated when he was choked by a New York Police Department officer—19 times on the video. He was reportedly found dead about 14 hours after he was sprayed.
+ Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan for a new agency to investigate police violence is moving forward, although concerns remain that it isn’t going to be effective enough.
Grab Bag
+ While Hurricane Matthew barrels through the east coast of Florida and makes its way to Georgia and South Carolina, it’s left Haiti in total devastation. The Category 4 hurricane killed over 300 people in Haiti with some reports saying as many as 478 people were killed. Flooding and destruction has blocked roads and damaged power lines and have completely destroyed buildings. A major bridge connecting the capital of Port-au-Prince and southern Haiti collapsed on Tuesday. Think Progress says it best here: “The hurricane, which has also reached the eastern coast of Florida, is yet another reminder that the effects of natural disasters, increasingly intensified by climate change, are most severely felt by the most vulnerable populations in the poorest countries in the world. While in Florida, there have still been no reported deaths, it has already had a severe impact on Haiti.”
+ Orlando’s Pride event is postponed and rescheduled for November because of Hurricane Matthew. Right-wing media suggested the hurricane was a result of God’s wrath to punish “sodomites.” I assure you, they’ll say that for any natural disaster/terrible event in this world. You keep living your gay life, ok?
+ Because the water around Flint, MI is (still) toxic, regular handwashing has become difficult for residents — and now the area is suffering a Shigellosis outbreak because of it, with at least 85 cases so far of the highly contagious gastrointestinal illness.
+ A new study has found that students of all races prefer to have teachers of color, possibly “because of their ability to draw on their own experiences to address issues of race and gender, which, he says, can be highly germane even to teaching subjects like math, especially in America’s majority-minority public schools.”
+ Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end his country’s civil war, although his peace proposal was rejected by a slight margin of voters the same week.
+ Fox News reporter Jesse Watters has kind of sort of apologized for his “man on the street” interview segment in Chinatown where he mostly “invoked a string of Asian stereotypes,” as NPR puts it. Watters says he was “skewering” stereotypes; it is unclear how.
+ The NY Archdiocese will begin a program that allows victims of abuse by clergy to apply for compensation, even if the abuse happened many years ago.
The 10 Best Trans Women In Comics
by rory midhani
I love comics (that’s kind of the entire premise of this column) and I love trans women (I mean, I am one), so right now I’m so overjoyed that there are enough great trans characters for me to make this list of my ten favorites. Honestly, when I first started this column three years ago, I had this idea for one of the entries but there just weren’t enough characters I liked. This is going to be a short introduction because I just got back from camp and I’m dead tired, so let’s just jump into this thing.
10. Cassandra, The Wicked and the Divine
For a long time no one was doing trans representation better than Image comics, and Cassandra from The Wicked and the Divine, is a huge part of that. Formerly a reporter who was interviewing members of the pantheon of young celebrity gods and goddesses with as much skepticism, vitriol and salt as she could fit in her body, she later became one of the goddesses in that very pantheon. Now that she’s Urdr, she’s still just as skeptical, vitriolic and salty, but she’s also a goddess.
9. Rose Master
For basically the entire history of trans representation, we’ve been portrayed as victims and villains, or a mix of both, so this villainous character who’s actually complicated and charismatic is groundbreaking. She exists in the wonderful webcomic Cucumber Quest by Gigi D.G. She’s fashionable; she’s in charge; and she’s her own woman. Exactly like every trans woman I know.
8. Mackenzie
From Agents of the Realm.
From MIldred Louis’ brilliant webcomic Agents of the Realm, Mackenzie might not be a main character, but she is the main love interest so far, and that makes her extremely rare among trans characters. She’s also so adorable that I’m as in love with her as Jordan is. I’m 100% here for charming queer trans girls of color.
7. Sydney
From As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman
Melanie Gillman just won the Autostraddle Comic Award for Favorite Cartoonist and the main reason is because of their webcomic As the Crow Flies, which features Sydney, an adorable young trans girl who’s trying to have a good time and make friends at a Christian summer camp. Just like me, you’re probably thinking, “Well, that sounds difficult, for a trans girl,” and it is, but luckily she has one friend, Charlie, another queer girl at the camp. Gillman does such a brilliant job writing Sydney, and honestly this entire comic.
6. Alysia Yeoh
Alysia Yeoh and the other Batgirls in DC Comics Bombshells #6 art by Mirka Andolfo, colors by Wendy Broome.
One of the biggest moments in the trans history of mainstream comics was when Alysia, Barbra Gordon Batgirl’s roommate and best friend, came out to the iconic superhero as trans. Gail Simone has written more quality queer characters than almost any mainstream comics writer, and she made sure that this coming out was handled well. Later, during Cameron Stewart, Brendan Fletcher and Babs Tarr’s run on Batgirl, Alysia wasn’t seen as much, but was highlighted when she got to marry her girlfriend and have a couple other cool scenes.
Alysia really got a chance to shine in Marguerite Bennett’s ultra queer alternate history comic DC Comics Bombshells where she’s not only got more page time, but she actually gets to don a cute costume and mask and fight crime and oppression. In this comic she joins with other girls like Nell Little and Harper Row to form a gang of “batgirls” inspired by the lesbian superhero Batwoman.
5. Sulla
For a long, long time I’ve had a strong distrust and even hatred of robots, but Blue Delliquanti’s webcomic O Human Star, which co-stars this queer and trans teenage robot, is so great that my heart is starting to change. Sulla is so full of excitement for life and earnest about figuring out her place in the world, it’s impossible to not love her and want her to be safe and happy. I also love the background of this character. Like I said, she’s a robot, and when her father was making her, he was trying to make a robot clone of his partner, who had just died. However when she was starting to become a teenager, she came out to her father and started to transition. When an actual robot clone of her father’s partner awakens and meets this trans girl version of him, it makes her world even more complicated, but she still faces it with bright eyes and a hopeful smile.
4. Prill
From Witchy
I sing the praises of Ariel Ries’ beautiful and brilliant Asian fantasy comic Witchy regularly, and one of the reasons is the absolutely wonderful way Ries writes and illustrates her characters. My favorite, and the favorite of a lot of others, is Prill, a tall, long-haired trans witch who’s the school’s resident mean girl and later a somewhat reluctant friend to the comic’s protagonist Nyneve. While Prill’s grandness is an important part of her character and personality, she is also a well rounded and well developed character with a very distinctive voice. I’m far from the only one obsessed with Prill as she’s been nominated for Favorite Queer Character in the Autostraddle Comic Awards twice, winning last year.
3. Fenic
The lone character on this list created by a trans woman, Fenic is the main character of Valerie Halla’s stunningly gorgeous and terrifically queer fantasy comic Goodbye to Halos. She’s cute as heck, she exudes friendship and love and she’s written in a way that makes her really relatable for a lot of trans women who want to see a trans character who’s actually like them.
2. Sera
Art by Kim Jacinto, colors by Israel Silva.
I’ve already talked about Marguerite Bennett’s great work with Alysia Yeoh and here she is again, this time for creating this queer and trans angel of color who was the girlfriend of Angela, the Asgard’s Assassin, Witchhunter and Queen of Hel of her titular series. I’ve previously written about how Sera was the closest thing we had to a trans woman superhero in mainstream comics. She’s also one of the extremely rare examples of a trans woman who gets a actual happy ending in mainstream media. She’s also sassy as hell, hilarious, clever and never lets anyone make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. She’s a character after my own heart.
1. Jo
Art by Brooke A. Allen, colors by Maarta Laiho.
Lumberjanes is one of the best all-ages comics ever and also one of the most feminist, so really really it should have come as no real surprise when Jo came out as trans in a wonderfully written and beautifully touching moment that she shared with Barney, who would later come out as non-binary, largely thanks to the guidance of and support from Jo. Jo is the best example of trans girls in print comics because she’s well rounded, she gets to live happily as a girl with lots of friends who love and support her, she’s well written, she’s funny and smart, and she seems like a real life trans girl of color.
New Releases (October 5)
Avatar: The Last Airbender Adult Coloring Book TP
The Wicked + The Divine Vol 4 Rising Action TP
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up Marvel Universe OGN
Welcome to Drawn to Comics! From diary comics to superheroes, from webcomics to graphic novels – this is where we’ll be taking a look at comics by, featuring and for queer ladies. So whether you love to look at detailed personal accounts of other people’s lives, explore new and creative worlds, or you just love to see hot ladies in spandex, we’ve got something for you.
If you have a comic that you’d like to see me review, you can email me at mey [at] autostraddle [dot] com.
Transparent’s Third Season Is Beautiful, Heartbreaking And Occasionally Infuriating
Three years ago I wasn’t immediately sold on Jeffrey Tambor as a trans woman. I wasn’t even sold on the the idea that cis filmmakers could ever tell our story right. But, as a filmmaker and trans woman, I tend to be completely absorbed by trans stories no matter how painful it can be at times. When talking about Transparent‘s third season, it’s not lost on me that — for a lot of people — this show crosses lines by its continued existence and by continuing to accept accolades year after year for a man playing a trans woman. I also have complicated feelings about that aspect of the show.
With all that said, I really do love watching Transparent. This is not a detailed synopsis or review of every minor detail throughout the ten-episode third season, but a highlight reel of some of the things I liked and didn’t like this time around. I’m going to be speaking mostly to the trans aspects of the show (as much as I love “To Shell and Back”).
Early in the season Maura, who is in an emotionally desperate situation herself, is volunteering at an LGBTQ help line when she gets a call from a young woman named Elizah who is also trans. She’s at a clinic and is upset that she’s not getting the attention she needs. Maura seems to connect with her, but in a panic and assuming Maura would never understand, Elizah ends the call. Maura is understandably worried but makes an ill advised attempt to go find her. This leads to a series of trans women, like breadcrumbs, leading Maura through the city (and over some train tracks… very subtle). During this, I saw and heard more trans people in five minutes than in all media combined over the last five years. That’s one of the very cool things about this show: the nonchalant way trans people are everywhere. The fact that Transparent consistently shows trans people having conversations with each other that aren’t solely about surgeries and hormones is revolutionary.
As the season progresses we find that Maura has hit a point where she feels like she’s ticked all the boxes and it’s time to go forward even more. A lot of trans people feel this way; I’ve felt this way in the past. It’s almost like that moment when you graduate from school and people begin telling you what to do and where to go. What next? This leads Maura to eventually announce to the family at a dinner party that she wants to have surgery, and that she no longer wants to be called Moppa. This creates a rift in her current relationship and in her family, which is the kind of reality I like to see in television. Seeing the real subtle pain of life played out on-screen can be very humanizing.
The episode “If I Were A Bell” was downright revolutionary. In one flashback to Maura’s childhood, we see Maura played by trans actress Sophia Grace Gianna. It’s perhaps the most authentic portrayal of trans children I’ve ever seen. We experience some of the first moments when Maura was told who she was supposed to be and what it would mean if she stepped out of line. We see her play a painful game of Red Rover at school, where the other girls refuse to let her play and her sister publicly outs her in front of them. And you feel her pain. While I watched this season I laughed a lot and I yelled a lot. I was so angry at one point that I sprained my hand, but during this episode when a trans girl was told, “No, this is not who you are; you will never be this,” when she was caught by her grandfather and through tears she swore she would never dress up again, when her mother left and you could see the guilt in Maura’s eyes, all I could do was cry.
Now I want to talk about some things I didn’t like: One very real, but unnecessary and cruel storyline. And a trope so pervasive it even happened to Alexandra Billings years ago when she was on Grey’s Anatomy.
Early on in the season, at the very heavy dinner party, Joshie starts getting eyes for Maura’s friend Shea, played by Trace Lysette, who is fantastic in every scene in this storyline. I turned to my roommate and said, “This won’t end well.” And — surprise! — it didn’t. After a mid-season breakdown, Josh invites Shea to join him on a road trip to go see his son. It actually seems like it’s going pretty well. They’re doing your typical road trip thing: getting very personal talking about relationships. Shea talks about how hard it is to find love. She was saying things I’ve said to people before. These are the moments when I watch this show and I think, “This is for me, this show is for me.” It becomes even cuter; they clearly are growing closer by the mile.
Later on they break into an amusement park, and by now, I’m wrapped up in it. I’m seeing a trans woman, played by a trans woman. On TV. Falling for a guy who’s falling back for her. I’m seeing something I’ve never seen on TV before. Something I’ve rarely ever seen in person. I’m seeing a guy treat a trans woman like, you know, a person. But of course, that comes crashing down. Josh says something really insensitive about pregnancy to Shea, but it seems like an honest slip up. Things trend up and it starts getting hot and heavy and Shea reveals that she’s HIV positive. Josh shuts down. It’s over. The moment’s gone. And it turns out to be just like every other time before. After lamenting it only half an episode before, it’s proven again that trans women don’t deserve love. This is an artistic choice, a cruel one made at the expense of trans women, but an artistic choice to show reality over a storybook ending. That I can respect, even if I’m hurt.
What I can’t respect— and my second major complaint for season three — is when Maura is both forced off of her hormones and refused surgery because of a heart condition. The trope that hormones and surgery are inherently dangerous and ultimately secondary to other so-called “life threatening conditions” has been played out time and time again. Almost every single television show to feature trans women in a medical setting will have some pasty white doctor tell her that she’s sick and that she has to go off her hormones and that if she doesn’t they will kill her.
I understand these situations happen in real life. I also understand that the show has to make some sort of decision in regards to the fact that Jeffrey Tambor is not going to start hormones or get surgery. But at the end of the day, we’re talking about a fabricated story line and a fictional universe. Juxtaposing the fact that hormones could kill the main character, and that all choice is taken away from her in that situation, lends credence to the real world association that hormone replacement therapy and the treatments trans people choose to go forward with are themselves life-saving procedures. Here we had a perfect opportunity for Maura to make a decision about her life that was her own. She could have decided that she was ticking boxes rather than doing what was best for her. We could have shown a cis audience that being trans is what you decide; it’s not what other people tell you it is. It’s not about cultural perception or going down a list of items until you reach some finality. It’s about looking into ourselves and choosing our lives for ourselves and having the people around us respect those lives.
Watching this season was a whirlwind for me. There were so many highs and lows. Periods of emotional attachments that I crave in media and cinema and television. I saw other trans people and I saw them living their lives. I saw the love and I felt pain. I feel so mixed about the sudden inclusion that’s happening all across the media landscape. Sometimes I feel like these stories are written for us, and the show the world who we really are. But other times I just feel like our pain is put on display as some sort of sideshow variety act for cis consumption. It’s a start, but I want to see better. I want trans people have agency over their own lives. I want to see trans women of color get more than just bit parts. I want to see trans women in lesbian relationships. I want to see trans women find love. I want to see trans women getting the happily ever afters they deserve.
Queer Latinx Love is Resistance: A Collection of Vignettes
feature image by Raquel Breternitz
Welcome to Autostraddle’s queer Latinx essay series: Our Pulse. In honor of celebrating Latinxs during Hispanic Heritage Month, Autostraddle curated a collection of essays by lesbian, bisexual, queer and trans Latina and Latinx writers to showcase our experiences, our pulse.
Our love can be beautiful and dramatic like telenovelas. Our love is inherently sacred by unlearning the toxic ideas of who and what is desirable, though sometimes internalized oppression can still plague our relationships. It wouldn’t be authentic to portray the glory of our love without the bitter tastes as well.
Latinx love in times of crises and revolution is resistance. I love that our love grows with pain into beauty, like thorny rositas in their natural state.
Here’s a bouquet of love notes to old and recent loves.
i.
It was my first quarter at university. I found you on Grindr, or maybe Adam4Adam. I’m pretty sure I subtly begged you to fuck me, and I’m pretty sure I believed you would be nicer than you were. I craved your attractive, beautiful, round face. Validation that an ugly creature like me could be adored by something as precious as you. Your brown dominated mine. Not a piece of you felt or sounded like home. I found solace when you left and I began to love myself, and you, for being hurt in different ways that led us to this regretful moment. I hope we find better love and lovers.
ii.
You were the first organizer to leave class with me because I was having a panic attack. You came to my dorm and held me in my twin bed because I asked for what I needed. You saw something hurt and something beautiful in me. I saw your hands and spirit as healing ancestral magic. Memory that somewhere along our lineages, we loved each other. You had familiar full lips, that brown pink that is nameless in color but unforgettable in sight. Long dark hair, dark eyes, face kissed by beauty marks. Our bodies similar in texture, smooth in many places, soft fur in the few crevices it did grow. How I loved touching you, being enveloped in home. Sleeping with you felt like being baked into fresh pan dulce. Coming with you felt like abuelita chocolate dripping down my body, pouring into your mouth. How delicious those two short weeks were. How savory I hold this memory.
iii.
Something about your ugly brought out my own. We summoned our demons and watched them play with each other, sinking venomous fangs into each other’s flesh to see who would paralyze first and quit this evil. Neither of us did. We were uglies who desired white beauties. Settled for each other, upset with each other, hurting each other, using each other. What did we walk away with? The scum of the river, foggy car windows, poems we didn’t read to each other, tasteless jokes, clothes drenched in pool water, and a sour taste of cum.
iv.
During my second puberty, dating you felt like high school. Wrapping blunts in your race car, listening to The Weeknd, playing Five Nights at Freddy’s, making out, you always inching your hand up my skirt to feel my throbbing dick, me always grabbing you by the back of the neck for deeper kisses. Interrupted by your parent’s phone calls, hearing you tell them “Estoy con mi amiga” at night but becoming amigo by early morning. The times you called me princesa, chula, then slipped up with the occasional chulo. It hurt on a children-and-grandchildren-of-Mexican-immigrants level, where that -o and -a are significantly more affirming than English can be. Yet, I appreciate you for those late nights you brought me In-N-Out and demonstrated your DJ skills. I love that we shared intimacy in brown Caló queer languages, that you made me feel young and silly, that you grew into someone better than who you were before me.
v.
Girl, you make me hate my memory loss when it often serves as a protective shield. There’s nothing more I want to remember than every moment and sensation we shared. Our grinding hips at Queer Cumbia, feeling your drunken sweat drip onto my freshly implanted tits. The way we sloppily made out and smeared our red and burgundy lips all over our mouths, noses, forehead, and neck. Maneuvering into the club bathroom, laughing as we used a half dozen wet paper towels to clean ourselves, taking selfies for the #tbt, for the story, for the hotness of Mexi trans girls sexually into one another. Grinding and making out with your partner, sandwiching and being sandwiched between Black and brown sexual intensity with anticipating fingers, tongues, hips, and erections. All of us in bed together, whispering, sharing stories, boundaries, and STI & HIV status. Fucking so good without any of the penetration, feeling in love with my body in all its hairy trans glory, in love with all the smells of lust and spit, hearing mami and baby and more and fuck yes and please and stop and that was so fucking good. ‘Cuz it was, really fucking good.
vi.
Our love was the definition of what-the-f*ck, but you’re just a Scorpio and I’m just an empath who can feel right through your bullshit. I know you love me, and I wasn’t afraid to tell you that I wanted to build love with you. There was room for our learning, together. Yet I was caught in that bind as I am with most men, knowing your good, gentle-natured heart is deterred by machismo bullshit of what you should do. To be fair, you wanted something slow and I wanted something sure. I wasn’t sure cis people could genuinely love me like they would a cis woman, though now I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter if I know that answer. Love is flexible and ever-changing, like us, from romance to hot sex to indifference. I am grateful for what we learned, knowing that I won’t be repeating you or relationships like ours.
vii.
I couldn’t date you three years ago when I didn’t love trans women, but I gave it a shot this year when I knew I could. Being with you was a reprieve from the onslaught of internalized baggage I learned to carry. Being with you taught me to be present in my body, how to cherish silence as bonding when the person you’re with is breathing in sync with you. I won’t forget you icing my sore chichis or rubbing that calendula and beeswax salve onto my incision scars, then offering to give me head when I couldn’t even sit up on my own. How you treated me and my body as a blessing, unveiling mirrors that allowed me to love myself deeper. You healed me in body and love, though in our relationship I mostly took from you, felt like I was fracking your resources until I depleted us. I broke up with you because I wasn’t ready to grow. Now in our friendship, I want to give you all the love I couldn’t when romance blurred me from seeing what a true lover you were.
Top Nine Trans Characters Played by Trans Actors on Transparent
Trans representation is a big topic right now. Trans women of color are still being murdered at terrifying and heartbreaking rates, and quality trans stories are still rarely told. While some actors and filmmakers like Laverne Cox, Jen Richards, Angelica Ross and Sydney Freeland are fighting to get more roles for trans actors, much of Hollywood is ignoring them. That’s why it’s so important to celebrate shows that get it right and cast trans actors. If you’re looking for trans actors playing trans characters, the absolute best place on TV to look is Jill Soloway’s show for Amazon Prime, Transparent.
The new season, the show’s third, just debuted on Amazon and it is terrific. It also features several more trans characters played by trans actors. Some of these characters only have a few lines in one episode, but others have character growth and story arcs that span episodes and touch on really important topics. There have now been so many trans actors on this show, in just thirty episodes, that I can make this list of characters with names and multiple lines! That’s like, more trans characters than the rest of TV combined.
Just a warning: there are probably some mild spoilers in this post.
9. Omar
Played by Rocco Kayiatos
Kayiatos, who also goes by the name Katastrophe when he raps, also shows up in the first episode. He’s working at the LA LGBT center, answering the suicide hotline alongside Maura.
8. Eleanor
Played by Zackary Drucker
Drucker, who’s been a consultant on the show and also works as a co-producer, played the person moderating a trans support group all the way back in Season One.
7. Adriana, Lorena and Carmen
Played by Hailie Sahar, Harmony Santana and Mariana Marroquin
These three only make one appearance, again, in the first episode of Season 3, but I LOVED them so much. They’re three Latinas hanging out at the Slauson Swap Meet, looking at hair, when Maura comes in and asks them for some help. Here we see Maura at Peak White Transness, first calling them “familia” and then asking if they’ve seen another trans woman of color, Elizah, “on the streets.” Their reaction is priceless and they seem like people I would love hanging out with. Plus, it’s super nice to see Harmony Santana back in acting after her absolutely brilliant performance in the movie Gun Hill Road a few years ago.
6. Dale
Played by Ian Harvie
Dale served a very important role in the first season as one of the first trans people outside of their mother that any of the Pfefferman kids knowingly spent time with. Things weren’t exactly great for him, though, as Ali ends up fetishizing him as sort of the “ultimate man.”
5. Elizah
Played by Alexandra Grey
The title character of the first episode of Season Three, Grey makes quite an impression and I really cannot wait to see her in more things. She plays a young trans woman who calls the suicide hotline and talks to Maura. We don’t see a lot of her, but whenever she’s on screen, she’s magnetic.
4. Young Maura
Played by Sophia Grace Gianna
Wow. Just wow. There’s an episode in Season Three that’s maybe my all-time favorite episode of the show, and it’s a flashback to Maura’s childhood. Soloway made the correct decision and decided to cast a young trans girl as the young Maura, and the difference between her performance and when boys play young trans girls is clear. Sophia Grace brings a palpable honestly and reality to the role that taps into the truth of what it’s like to be a trans kid.
3. Shea
Played by Trace Lysette
One of Maura’s first trans friends, Shea is young, full of life, and helps Maura get into trans culture and trans slang. Her role is expanded in Season Three and we get to see what she’s like when she’s not helping out babytrans Maura. There’s one episode in particular where Trace Lysette does an absolutely brilliant job and really highlights some huge issues that many, many trans women have when trying to date men. I’m super excited that we got to learn a lot more about Shea this season and I’m really, really glad that Trace Lysette is the one bringing her to life.
2. Gittel
Played by Hari Nef
Hari Nef deserved an Emmy nomination, if not a win, for playing this Jewish trans woman who lived in Berlin before World War II. In Season Two we got a lot of flashbacks to Gittel’s story, as she’s Maura’s aunt, and we got to see the history of the Pfefferman family. Gittel’s story is so incredibly important. Thousands of LGBT people were rounded up and slaughtered by the Nazis and an entire generation of queer people and information about them was stolen. Nef plays the role to perfection. She’s a fighter and she knows who she is, and she won’t let anyone tell her she has to be someone else. Honestly, her performance in the episode “Man on the Land” is one of the best acting performances I’ve ever seen.
1. Davina
Played by Alexandra Billings
In a lot of ways, Davina is the trans heart of the show. She’s Maura’s best friend and roommate, she’s a trans woman who’s been out for a while and is able to teach Maura (and the show’s audience) about what it’s like being a trans woman. Billings is a legend of trans acting, having pioneered much of the way for trans actors in Hollywood today, and it’s good to see a show like this pay respect to that. Davina acts as a grounding force in Maura’s life, constantly reminding her that being trans isn’t the same for everyone, especially if you’re not white and wealthy like Maura is. Davina’s the trans auntie so many of us have had in our lives and that Maura so desperately needs.
6 LGBT Lawsuits To Follow On Discrimination, Restroom Access, Prisoner Rights and More
feature image via shutterstock
It’s a strange and momentous time for the American legal system. At the same time as we are all reckoning with its failures to ensure justice for many Americans as we watch police who have murdered unarmed civilians walk free and inquiries from the Justice Department maintain the status quo, we’re seeing landmark legal cases on many LGBT issues that could be building blocks of precedent that in some (limited) ways help keep people safer in the future. Right at this very moment, there are (at least) five lawsuits on behalf of LGBT people that may help shape the legal future of LGBT Americans. Let’s take a look at them:
Lesbian State Trooper Sues Under Title VII
Chelsea Raley, a lesbian Maryland State Trooper, has filed a lawsuit “accusing supervisors and co-workers of subjecting her to discrimination, retaliation, and a hostile work environment based on her sexual orientation and gender.” Her lawsuit claims that she was made to do more work than her non-lesbian counterparts, written up for more infractions, and that her personal and dating life was allowed to be discussed at work to an inappropriate degree. Raley says that even though internal complaints were filed, nothing was done on her behalf. The basis of the lawsuit is an allegation that the State Police have violated both Title VII, the federal law which bans discrimination based on gender and which is seeing increasing use in lawsuits pertaining to LGBT discrimination, and the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act, which prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation. This is kind of an interesting example because most of the cases which have relied upon Title VII have done so because the state didn’t have anti-discrimination language that included sexual orientation, which is not the case for Raley and Maryland. From the Washington Blade:
One question LGBT rights attorneys may have for Raley and her attorneys is why her lawsuit didn’t make the legal claim that Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act covers sexual orientation as a form of sex discrimination. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and some federal courts have recognized that sexual orientation “qualifies” as discrimination on the basis of “sex” within the meaning of Title VII. One possible answer to that question is Raley didn’t have to make that claim because the Maryland non-discrimination law that she has invoked in her lawsuit explicitly prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. LGBT rights attorneys have attempted to use the Title VII claim in cases filed in states that do not have legal LGBT rights protections like Maryland.
Two Students Sue for Fair Treatment in School Under Title IX
In Kenosha, WI, a young trans student is suing the school district regarding his restroom access, and a judge has found that the case so far “[supports] a plausible violation of both Title IX or unlawful discrimination under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment,” at least enough so that she’s refused to dismiss the suit, as the opposition requested. His lawsuit says that “district officials denied him access to the boys’ restrooms, intentionally and repeatedly used his birth name and female pronouns to identify him; instructed guidance counselors to issue bright green wristbands to Whitaker and any other transgender students to more easily monitor their bathroom use; and required him to room with girls on overnight school trips.”
Lance Sanderson wasn’t allowed to take his male date to homecoming last year; now he’s suing his all-boys Catholic school. Since his failed campaign to be allowed to bring his date, he says he’s faced such poor treatment at school that he decided to finish his senior year at home. (Title IX)
Both of these cases are hoping to succeed based upon an interpretation of Title IX, a federal law which has traditionally been interpreted to apply to discrimination based upon sex in school settings, as also applying to sexual orientation and gender identity. As NBC notes, this tactic has seen some success recently: “Earlier this year, a federal appeals court sided with that interpretation when it ruled in favor of a transgender boy who is suing his Virginia school board for the right to use the boys’ bathroom in accordance with his gender identity. A federal judge in California came to a similar conclusion, meanwhile, when he ruled last year in favor of two lesbians who sued their college, Pepperdine University, for prohibited discrimination under Title IX.”
Trans Prisoner Sues Prison Officials Who Allowed Her Sexual Assault
A 20-year-old trans woman incarcerated at the Orleans Justice Center for a failure to appear in court and who was housed with male inmates says that when she was raped and called for help, no one came to her aid. “At all times during the rape, Plaintiff repeatedly screamed for help, but no deputy ever came to the cell to investigate,” the lawsuit states. The plaintiff says that prisoners were allowed to choose their own cells, and she chose to be on her own, but that Mackey was later added to the cell.” The lawsuit also seeks to address the fact that the plaintiff was jailed with male prisoners at all, something which could have significance as a precedent depending upon the future of the suit.
Two North Carolina Lawsuits Come to an End
These two aren’t going to set any crucial legal precedent (because they’re not even going to be ruled on) but they are interesting.
Three couples who were suing the North Carolina law that allows “magistrates to refuse to marry same-sex couples by citing religious beliefs” have had their case dismissed, because a judge ruled they lacked legal standing and “lacked evidence showing they were harmed directly by the law.” The plaintiffs plan to appeal and are headed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
At the same time, Governor Pat McCrory has quietly withdrawn his lawsuit against the federal government that attempted to enshrine the anti-trans HB2 and oppose the Department of Justice’s ruling that HB2 should not be enforced. That link at Slate has some more commentary on that decision, but the long and short of it is that the lawsuit was never intended as a real legal challenge; it would likely be thrown out anyway if McCrory allowed it to proceed.
It’s important to remember in all of this that even unmitigated success in a courtroom is limited in terms of its impact on real people; the letter of the law requires that it be consistently and justly enforced in order to help the people it’s meant to protect, and of course we know that that doesn’t always happen. At the same time, the stronger these legal precedents can be shored up to be, the more concern any individual entity or institution might feel about risking a lawsuit. It’s slow progress, but it’s worth hoping for.
Poly Pocket: Building Intentional Community and Relationship Anarchy
When there aren’t any models for how you want to move through the world, it’s harder to move through the world. There’s no one right way to do ethical non-monogamy, just as there’s no one right way to do ethical monogamy, and no way is better or worse than any other, just better or worse for those involved. Poly Pocket looks at all the ways queer people do polyamory: what it looks like, how we think about it, how it functions (or doesn’t), how it feels, because when you don’t have models you have to create your own.
Josie Kearns is a 33-year-old queer, polyamorous, white, trans woman living in Chicago. She has been married for 12 years and also has a long-term girlfriend. She just left her job as a production manager for a local theatre for a hiatus, which she’s spending mostly with her two kids (ages seven and one). She also lives in an intentional community and helps organize Chicago’s poly scene.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Carolyn: When and how did you start to explore polyamory?
Josie: I started exploring it about five years ago. My wife and I had been married monogamously for seven years prior to that, and after we read Sex at Dawn, a book on non-monogamy, together and decided it fit us. A friend recommended it, and we brought it on a trip not even really knowing what it was. Then we started reading it and were like, “oh shit…” We ended up trading off the book the whole vacation, and on the plane ride home made the decision to give it a shot.
It was boring at first. We spent six months or so not doing anything but talking about it. Doing more reading, etc. Then I got on OKCupid and the first person I messaged blew up into a crazy intense relationship overnight. That made it harder. ☺
Carolyn: What is your relationship situation now?
Josie: My wife and I are still together, in a relationship that’s evolved into something that’s mostly platonic (though still really awesome). I also have a serious girlfriend, we’ve been together nearly two years, and a third person who lives far away but we keep in touch and flirt and get together when we can. My wife also has a boyfriend who lives with us and helps raise our kids, so even though we aren’t partners he’s really part of my relationship situation too.
“I find it much more meaningful to say, ‘I’m choosing to do this because I care about you and I know it will feel good to you,’ than to say, ‘I’m doing this because it obeys our rules.'”
Even though I dislike the pretentiousness of the label, I identify pretty strongly now with the idea of relationship anarchy. To me it means that my partners and I don’t control our relationships with other people — we set boundaries, but we don’t ask to enforce rules on each other. I find it much more meaningful to say, “I’m choosing to do this because I care about you and I know it will feel good to you,” than to say, “I’m doing this because it obeys our rules.”
Carolyn: What do you find most exciting about that approach? What’s about it is a struggle?
Josie: For me the most exciting part of it is that freedom. I probably romanticize it, but I feel a deep connection with someone when we are both in essence saying to each other, “hey, we’re defining exactly what we want this relationship to look like, and we’re both choosing every part of it of our own free will.”
I think the biggest struggle is that anarchy is a scary word. If a partner is feeling insecure it’s easy for them to say, “well you believe in relationship anarchy, that means you’re just going to do whatever the hell you want regardless of how it affects me.” I don’t view it that way at all, and I dislike the term for that reason. But I’ve had that conversation a couple of times.
Carolyn: Do any of your other partners or metamours practice different styles of poly? What’s it like negotiating between them?
Josie: I think we all have our own views on it. Most of my polycule doesn’t identify with the anarchy term, and there can be hurt feelings stemming from the differences in how we view things. But at the end of the day all of our styles are so much more similar than different, it’s not something that has a big impact on our relationships. If someone gets into a relationship with me they do so knowing that I will never give them the right to control me, and I might do so knowing that they may have another partner who does have that kind of control. It’s still a choice we both make to be together.
Carolyn: Tell me about your polycule! What relationships are there between metamours? How did it develop? What drew you to that more family-style poly network instead of a looser arrangement?
Josie: The family-style network is the main reason I was interested in polyamory to begin with. I love, love, love the concept of having a big intimate chosen family. I live in an intentional community for the same reason.
I don’t know how the family aspect will end up looking long term. At the moment my main group is a big string of people — to one side my wife and her boyfriend, to the other my girlfriend, her husband, and his long-term girlfriend. Most of us have some less serious relationships too, but those are the biggies. And on that string I’d say everyone is super close with their immediate metamours — the ones two steps away on the chain — but as you get farther away on the chain the bonds are less tight. The two extreme ends of the chain haven’t even met each other, I don’t think. So as a group we aren’t really a family at this point.
The intentional community came from my wife and me as well — we both were really drawn to the idea and bought a big house a couple of years ago. It came with five bedrooms and we built three more, so now there are eleven people living here altogether. Not everyone is poly, or queer, or genderqueer, but we have a lot of all three of those categories, and everyone is super sex positive. It’s a pretty fun group.
Carolyn: That sounds incredible! But also potentially challenging. When issues come up, how do you handle them?
Josie: It’s a LOT of talking. But for us it’s worth it.
Carolyn: Above, you mention you and your wife have children together and your wife’s boyfriend lives with you and helps raise them. What’s it like practicing polyamory and having children? (And it sounds so normie to ask “what do the kids think” but I’m also genuinely curious, what do they think? I’m imagining one extra person and then the rest of the intentional community to maybe get attention from but also in trouble with.)
Josie: Ha, yeah. The kids are seven and one, so the older one is just starting to register that our family doesn’t look like everyone else’s. But he still views adults by their relationships to him more than each other. So he basically has three parents and then some really close adult friends. Last year he didn’t want to invite any other kids to his birthday party, he just wanted the adults.
But overall we don’t hide anything from them, and we don’t go out of our way to explain it either. We just act like it’s normal, because for us it is, and then if he asks questions we’ll answer them.
Carolyn: How do your relationships or family shift when you date/sleep with/build a relationship with someone new?
Josie: The shift just sort of happens naturally. If one of us starts casually dating or sleeping with someone new, it doesn’t affect the family any more than it would if one of us started hanging out with a new friend. The existence of sex in the dynamic is pretty irrelevant to anyone who’s not actively participating in it.
If one of us starts building a new relationship, then the person would gradually start being around more and getting to know everyone more. When my girlfriend and I started dating, we spent a lot of time alone, but then she’d come hang out with me and my wife, or my roomies, or my kids. Now she has stuff in our bathroom, my kids get excited when she visits, and when she walks into the kitchen for coffee in the morning the roomies all ask her about her husband and her dogs and her job. It feels pretty boring and normal, to be honest.
“I think people get ideas in their heads that we have raucous sex parties, or elaborate drama, or something. Most of the time our days look just like anyone else’s — get the kids to school, get to work, whose turn is it to make dinner. There are just more people involved.”
Carolyn: That also sort of sounds like the dream though!
Josie: Oh it’s incredible! There’s so much love.
I think people get ideas in their heads that we have raucous sex parties, or elaborate drama, or something. Most of the time our days look just like anyone else’s — get the kids to school, get to work, whose turn is it to make dinner. There are just more people involved.
It’s more complicated in some ways, but in others it’s quite a bit simpler. It’s a lot easier for my wife and me than it is for most couples with small kids to get out on a date night.
Carolyn: How does polyamory function within your understanding of yourself?
Josie: I used to be really closed off to who I was. This, to me, is about honesty. I’m someone who wants lots of people around, who wants to be intimate with lots of people, who wants a huge family and sexual exploration.
When I was monogamous I had walls up — I’d hang out with someone but there were things I couldn’t do, couldn’t say, couldn’t think. There were rules. Now, if I want to kiss them, I do! Or whatever. It’s much more honest. And from that honesty comes intimacy, and from there, community.
It’s also freed me up to be a lot more honest about other aspects of my identity too. The whole experience has been incredibly liberating.
Carolyn: What do you want your future to look like? What vision are you working towards or hoping for?
Josie: I’m not sure! There are lots of different scenarios I could picture living in and being completely happy. Most of them, though, revolve around this idea of family. Having a tight network of life partners and their life partners, living our lives together. Maybe it’s in this house, maybe a bunch of us move to a farm together, maybe we still have little groups that keep separate lives long term but come together in specific ways. I don’t know. It’s less about a specific vision than it is a feeling. Sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, somewhere, someday, and having this loving, intimate family with us. That’s the kind of stuff I think about.
Crystal Edmonds is the Second Black Trans Woman Murdered This Week, At Least 21st This Year
Just five days ago I wrote about a Black trans woman named T.T. who was viciously murdered in Chicago. I was hoping it would be a while before I had to write another similar article. Then, this morning I saw a news story about a trans woman who was in critical condition after being shot. At least she’s still alive, I thought. Now, a few hours later, we’re learning that she’s not. 32-year-old Black trans woman Crystal Edmonds has been shot in the back of the head and murdered in Baltimore. She’s the 21st trans person that we know of who has been murdered in the United States this year. Last year, from January 9th (the date Papi Edwards was murdered) to October 15 (the date Zella Ziona was murdered) there were at least 23.
Police say right now they have no suspects and very few leads, and they are asking for tips from the community. Reports are saying that people in the neighborhood are complaining about sex workers in their area, which makes me even more worried that this case will not be given the attention it deserves. Right now police are offering a reward of up to $2,000 for information that leads to an arrest. If you have any information, you can call police at 410-396-2100 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 866-7LOCKUP or you can text a tip to 443-902-4824.
What should I say? What haven’t I said every single time this happens? I don’t have any new words, I only have sorrow and anger and fear. I have sorrow for Edmonds and her family and friends, and for all the other victims and for their families and friends. I have anger at the people, mostly men, often men who are sleeping with, or at least flirting with, these women, who then turn and beat them, murder them and destroy them. I’m afraid for my trans family, for the trans women of color in my life who don’t have the privileges I do, the ones who sleep with men and who face anti-black racism, the ones who live in poverty or engage in sex work. I’m sorry that I don’t know what else to do. I’m sorry to all of my trans sisters.
We need to say their names and we need to do something to stop this. Take a look at these names, nearly all of them are trans women. Nearly all of them are trans women of color. Most of them are Black trans women. Many have been murdered by men who were sleeping with them or flirting them or felt some kind of attraction to them and then bought into the toxic masculinity, transmisogyny, misogynoir and homophobia that says they should react violently when they feel those feelings.
Monica Loera, 43
Jasmine Sierra, 52
Kayden Clarke, 24
Veronica Banks Cano, 40
Maya Young, 25
Demarkis Stansberry, 30
Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, 16
Kourtney Yochum, 32
Shante Thompson, 34
Keyonna Blakeney, 22
Reecey Walker, 32
Mercedes Successful, 32
Amos Beede, 38
Goddess Diamond, 20
Dee Dee Dodds, 22
Dee Whigham, 25
Skye Mockabee, 26
Erykah Tijerina, 36
Rae’Lynn Thomas, 28
T.T., 27
Crystal Edmonds, 32
Trans Asylee Sues Mike Pence Because Noncitizens Can’t Legally Change Their Names
by Rachel and Yvonne
Law & Order
+ A transgender male asylee from Mexico is filing a civil rights lawsuit regarding an Indiana law that prevents noncitizens from legally changing their names, leaving the plaintiff stuck using the traditionally feminine name he was given at birth. John Doe’s suit is being headed by the Transgender Law Center and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and names Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence among other officials.
+ Diane James will replace Nigel Farage as the new leader of the UKIP party in Britain. James was previously the party’s spokesperson on justice and home affairs; Farage says he will remain involved in UKIP in Brussels.
+ A Canadian judge, Robin Camp, is facing potential removal after publicly making some truly horrific comments during the trial for a woman who was raped while homeless, asking her why she couldn’t have “skewed her pelvis” or “kept her knees together” to prevent the assault, and musing out loud that “Young women want to have sex, particularly if they’re drunk… Some sex and pain sometimes go together…[T]hat’s not necessarily a bad thing.” And: “Sex is very often a challenge.” The rape survivor in the trial testified that his comments made her suicidal, and that though she had been clean at the time of the trial, she got high repeatedly after his comments because of how they made her feel. Camp’s lawyer says that he merely needs counseling and education, and “will not make statements like this again.”
+ Congresswoman Barbara Lee opposed the Authorization for Use of Military Force that the US put in place after 9/11, saying that “As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.” Now, 15 years later, she says that what she feared has come to pass, and wants the act repealed.
“Fifteen years ago, Congress gave up its Constitutionally-mandated responsibility to give the American people a voice in matters of war and peace,” Lee told Salon. “The American people deserve better; it’s past time to restore this constitutional power,” she added.
+ An FBI agent who (poorly) impersonated an AP reporter to try to ensnare someone who had made bomb threats against a school did not violate any federal policies, according to the Justice Department.
+ Rep. Katherine Clark has introduced a new bill aimed at online harassment that would “require the FBI to include cyber crimes against individuals in their Uniform Crime Reports and the National Incidents Reporting System, as tracking experiences of online harassment has proved difficult for most authorities.”
Erykah Tijerina
+Anthony Bowden, a 21-year-old soldier, was arrested for the murder of Erykah Tijerina, a trans woman from El Paso. The FBI is investigating to see if the murder was a hate crime.
+ Marquesa Jackson-Locklear is suing William Paterson University on the grounds that, in her view, her daughter killed herself as a result of the university failing to investigate her rape.
The lawsuit states that Bivaletz, whom Locklear had directed to report the rape to the university police department, did not do so until the following month, at which point the campus police also allegedly failed to adequately address her claims; the alleged perpetrator, according to the suit, was not “confronted nor charged.” The plaintiff claims the school violated Title IX in creating “a climate in which such misconduct against women was tolerated”; according to the lawsuit, the school has failed to properly address other instances of sexual assault, as well.
+ Last Friday, the Army, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Interior said they won’t authorize construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on federal land near Lake Oahe, until agencies can determine if there’s a need to reconsider any of the previous permit decisions regarding the area. The announcement came moments after a federal court denied Native Americans’ request for construction of the pipeline to halt. Energy Transfer Partners, the oil company responsible for building the pipeline, filed a brief saying billions of dollars are at stake if the construction continues to stall. “Energy Transfer Partners chose to begin construction before acquiring all necessary permits. That decision has consequences, and may have placed their investors in a risky position,” the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said in statement to ThinkProgress.
Election 2016
+ In a “hastily arranged” visit to Flint, MI, that was ostensibly meant to address the ongoing water crisis there, Donald Trump began to turn the event into a series of attacks on Hillary Clinton. Rev. Faith Green Timmons had to walk onto the stage to remind him “Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done for Flint, not give a political speech.” At the time, Trump responded “Oh, oh, OK, OK, OK. That’s good. Then I’m going to go back onto Flint, OK.” Later, presumably embarrassed, Trump tried to spin the encounter, saying that the Reverend was visibly nervous and suggesting she had planned the intervention before the event even began, and claiming that supporters in the crowd had chanted to let him speak. A reporter who was present shares what actually happened.
Trump began his brief speech with a joke. “It used to be cars were made in Flint, and you couldn’t drink the water in Mexico. Now the cars are made in Mexico, and you can’t drink the water in Flint.” After that, Trump shifted into a version of his now-standard stump speech, blasting free-trade deals like NAFTA and pointing out that then-President Clinton completed the international trade deal. As Trump began to criticize his opponent, Hillary Clinton, Timmons slowly walked back onto the stage. “Mr. Trump, I invited you here to thank us for what we’ve done for Flint, not to give a political speech,” she said. “Oh, oh, OK, OK, OK. That’s good,” Trump said. “Then I’m going to go back onto Flint, OK.” “The audience was saying, ‘Let him speak, let him speak,’ ” Trump told Fox and Friends.
That isn’t true. In fact, several audience members began to heckle Trump, asking pointed questions about whether he racially discriminated against black tenants as a landlord. And that’s when Timmons — who Trump said Thursday had planned to ambush him — stepped in to defend Trump, saying the Republican nominee was “a guest of my church, and you will respect him.” “Thank you. Thank you, Pastor,” Trump responded. The pointed questions for Trump continued as he wrapped up his remarks, though — and that’s the moment when the press traveling with Trump were hastily escorted out of the room.
+ Shirley Teter, a 69-year-old protester at a Donald Trump rally, was suckerpunched by Richard Campbell, a Trump supporter, causing her to fall on her oxygen tank. Campbell was one of five people arrested and two more warrants issued for violence in or outside of the rally.
+ If Hillary Clinton wins the election in November, the Clinton Health Access Initiative will become an independent organization, in an effort to “alleviate concerns about potential conflicts of interest.”
+ Trump signed a $25,000 check sent from his personal foundation to a political committee supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013. House Democrats are calling for a federal investigation into the donation.
Police/Violence
Geneva Reed-Veal, Sandra Bland’s mother. Pat Sullivan / AP Photo
+ Sandra Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, has won a wrongful death lawsuit in civil court with a settlement of $1.9 million dollars regarding the death of her daughter, who was found deceased in Waller County Jail after being wrongfully arrested. More significant than the money, Reed-Veal says, are the other concessions they won: the Waller County judge has pledged to “seek state legislation to grant increased funding for police training,” and any laws that result from it are to be named after Bland.
+ 13-year-old Tyre King was shot and killed by police in Columbus, Ohio after police claim he matched descriptions of a robbery suspect and that he was carrying a BB gun they believed to be real. King’s family and attorney say they want an independent investigation into the shooting, instead of having the Columbus police department investigate itself. Bryan Mason, the officer who fired the shots, is on paid administrative leave.
Grab Bag
+ A typhoon in North Korea has caused flooding that’s killed at least 138 and displaced at least 100,000.
+ A Texas textbook on Mexican-American studies is being heavily criticized for being “riddled with factual errors, is missing content and promotes racism and culturally offensive stereotypes, such as Mexicans being lazy, not valuing hard work and bringing crime and drugs into the United States.” As one example, the textbook lists English as the official language of the US (the US has no official language), and contains the following passage:
“Industrialists were very driven, competitive men who were always on the clock and continually concerned about efficiency. They were used to their workers putting in a full day’s work, quietly and obediently, and respecting rules, authority, and property. In contrast, Mexican laborers were not reared to put in a full day’s work so vigorously. There was a cultural attitude of “mañana,” or “tomorrow,” when it came to high-gear production. It was also traditional to skip work on Mondays, and drinking on the job could be a problem.”
The book’s publisher says “The reality is there is nothing racist in the book.” The Texas Board of Education will make a decision on whether the book should be used in classrooms later this fall.
+ Protestors took to the street in Mexico City to demand the resignation of President Enrique Peña Nieto as Mexico’s Independence Day celebrations began.
Gigi Gorgeous Is a Lesbian: Transgender Youtube Star Comes Out, Loves Her Girlfriend Nats Getty
Gigi Gorgeous, a 24-year-old trans woman, has been vlogging on Youtube for eight years. If you go back far enough you can find the video where she came out as gay and then, in 2013, the one where she came out as a trans woman. In her newest video, Gigi comes out as a lesbian.
The Canadian model/actress has over 2.3 million YouTube followers and has appeared on Project Runway, Entertainment Tonight, E! Celebrity Style Story, and numerous MTV shows and commercials. She’s walked in fashion shows, appeared in tons of magazines, and won a LogoTV Trailblazing Social Creator Award in 2014 for her work with LGBT youth.
“I fell in love with somebody, and that person happens to be a female,” Gigi says a few minutes into her coming out video, before continuing to talk about how this identification happened.
Gigi Gorgeous has been inspiring her viewers and fans for a long, long time, and she’s continuing to do so in this video. While the video is focused on her own coming out, she also spends a ton of time talking directly to fans who might be going through the same thing. “I want to let anyone out there questioning their sexuality or what’s normal or how they should act that it’s okay to feel this way,” she reassures her fans, telling them that even though she herself is surprised to identify this way, “no one can tell me otherwise because it’s my sexual identity, just like it’s your sexual identity. Don’t let anyone bully you or tell you that you are something that you don’t feel that you are, and take a stand for who you are.”
Gorgeous has shown her girlfriend, Nats Getty (yes, model/oil heiress Nats Getty) in a few other videos, but she hasn’t actually come out as a lesbian until now. In her videos with Getty, Gorgeous hits up fashion shows via private jet, hangs out on a yacht, and generally seems pretty thrilled to be alive.
She’s visibly nervous and excited in the video, but she says so many wonderful things and by the end of the video you can see her happiness radiating out of her body. She’s clearly in love, and it’s something she’s never felt before. “I’ve been in several relationships with men and I’ve experienced a relationship and companionship with men, but I’ve never experienced this feeling until I met this girl” Gorgeous says, “and that’s how i know that i’m a lesbian.” She also talks about how not only being in this relationship, but knowing this part of her, helps her to feel comfortable, saying “I would not have seen falling in love with a girl from a mile away, but now that I’m here and now that i’m telling everyone and officially letting everybody know, I feel super happy.”
It’s really awesome to see a young trans woman celebrity come out as a lesbian and be in a relationship with a masculine-of-center cis lesbian. You don’t see that very often — hardly at all, really. Often in queer women’s communities, trans women don’t feel desired or even desirable, and there are very few examples of trans lesbian celebrities, so Gigi Gorgeous is a welcome addition to that club.
With this video and being public about her relationship, Gigi Gorgeous is continuing to be a role model both for trans women, queer cis women and all other people who consider themselves to be allies to ether group or feminists. Gorgeous and Getty make a, well, gorgeous, couple and they look extremely happy together, we wish them all the best and give our sincerest congratulations to Gigi, we’re happy to have you on our team!
Pop Culture Fix: Laverne Cox, Angelica Ross, and Jen Richards Want To Be In The Room Where It Happens
The Room Where It Happens
I just want to say that my main celebrity crush is Jen Richards and I know it’s unprofessional to say you have a celebrity crush but every time I write about Jen Richards without revealing to you that she is my celebrity crush I feel like I am not being completely honest with you and so I’m just going to go ahead and get it out there. Jen Richards is my celebrity crush and has been ever since I moderated a panel she was on at A-Camp this spring and that doesn’t mean I can’t be even-handed when reviewing or critiquing every perfect thing she creates, okay?
For example, the best episodes in Nashville‘s history, which Jen will star in this coming season when the show moves to CMT. She’s CMT’s first out trans actress! She’ll play a “tough but understanding physical therapist” named Allyson who helps a main character “through one of their most difficult challenges.”
It’s very easy to see how Her Story led to her role on Nashville. While the web series didn’t win the Emmy on Sunday night, its success is going to literally open doors into casting offices and writers rooms for trans actresses and writers, especially Jen Richards and Angelica Ross.
#GirlsLikeUs repping at the #CreativeArtsEmmys. @HerStoryShow @angelicaross pic.twitter.com/sdcxnRMkoU
— Jen Richards (@SmartAssJen) September 11, 2016
(Mey always teases me for calling Jen Richards “Jen,” like I’m on a first-name basis with her, but now that my crush is out in the open, I feel okay about it.)
Also, while we’re talking about growing trans representation and opening doors, Fast Company interviewed Laverne Cox about her upcoming role in the Rocky Horror remake and led with this headline: Laverne Cox: “I Just Wanted To Get In The Room,” which, of course, echos what so many trans actors and trans writers have been saying for years. You’re not going to find trans women with A-list cred to play trans women in big budget movies if you don’t let trans women in the door to audition for small TV roles that lead to big TV roles, like everyone else. It’s a very good interview, I think, because it covers so many of Laverne’s upcoming projects, her career so far, and it’s not afraid to talk about her activism.
I remember having a conversation years ago with my brother about this. I’m political anyway, so the question was: Do I speak up, do I speak out? [There had never been] a conversation in the mainstream media that challenged the ways in which trans stories were told. I wanted to change that, to create space for myself as a full, multi-dimensional human being, and hopefully give other trans people space to do that as well. A lot of it is just about seeing a need and speaking out, ’cause somebody’s gotta do it. It’s a civic responsibility.
Also, this is the most brilliant answer to “What inspires you?” Laverne: “I love excellence.”
Being on the red carpet at the Emmys is a huge deal. Not only does having your name attached to “Emmy-nominated” make people pay attention, but when you’re there, in person, looking oh so gorgeous, people are forced to pay attention. If you want to find out how to do Angelica Ross’ glamorous ponytail, Fashion Bomb Daily’s got you covered, for example. Just these subtle acts of celebrating trans women in everyday life helps conquer the bullshit GOP scapegoating and horrific trans storylines on our TV.
Teevee
+ Sue and Mel are leaving Great British Bake Off when it goes to Channel 4. I can’t talk about it.
+ Some queer things won some Creative Arts Emmys: Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi for Making a Murderer. Transparent for production design. Jessica Jones for theme music. ‘Til It Happens To You from The Hunting Ground for Best Song. The Wiz Live! for costumes. Also, Amy Poehler finally won an Emmy. And The People vs. O.J. Simpson cleaned up, which bodes well for Ms. Sarah Paulson.
+ Heather Matarazzo — who you probably remember most from The Princess Diaries, but who I will always remember as the person who led to the greatest Jenny Schecter meltdown of all time — has a new film in the works. It’s called Stuck.
+ While the New York Times is worried about the white men under siege on this fall’s new TV shows, WaPo is more concerned with the lack of visibility for disabled people.
+ Storm Reid is going to be the lead in Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of A Wrinkle In Time. It’s very exciting to see so many people of color associated with and cast in this project. In addition to Reid, Mindy Kaling and Oprah are two of the three heads of Madeleine L’Engle’s trinity-style endgame wizard.
Variety‘s Maureen Ryan, who has done outstanding work calling for diversity on TV in recent years, is really excited about 2017 TV.
These five programs all take on matters of race, sex, class, sexual orientation and other charged topics, but within the context of personal tales that have a hand-crafted, artisanal feel. Their tones, settings and worldviews vary, but we may have to officially retire our notions about comedy that “punches up” or “punches down.” These shows find a ton of fruitful dramatic and comedic potential in every direction. The artfully handled, unpredictable collisions are so often what make these shows outstanding.
Movies(?)
+ Here are some names associated with a short film about a fashion line? I think? Carrie Brownstein (director), Natasha Lyonne (model/actor), Rowan Blanchard (model/actor). AdWeek says it’s a “brilliantly creepy short film about internet fandom.” So, commercial?
https://youtu.be/VbfSRa5BRhk
Queer Folks, Out and About
+ El Sanchez made Yahoo!’s list of 4 Latinx comedians you should know, and if you’ve ever seen them at A-Camp, you’ll totally agree Yahoo!’s summary of their stand-up:
I recently saw Sanchez perform at The Bell House and it was the first time I didn’t want an opening act to leave the stage. (sorry, Hari) I’m pretty sure everyone else agreed with me because Kondabolu threatened to fire Sanchez when he noticed how much the audience loved them.
Black Trans Woman T.T. Murdered In Chicago, Is At Least the 20th Trans Person Murdered In 2016
As if playing some kind of gross cosmic joke, exactly one month after the last article I wrote like this, another Black trans woman, this one named T.T., has been murdered. She was found dead on Sunday night in Garfield Park in Chicago. While we don’t know the exact number and almost certainly never will, we know that she is at least the 20th trans person murdered this year, most of them being Black and Brown trans women. My heart, and the hearts of all of us at Autostraddle, are broken. We are crying for T.T. and we are crying for her friends and family. This never gets easier, as Angelica Ross said in the Emmy-Nominated Her Story; we do get stronger, though. But sometimes, like right now, it seems like we’re not getting strong enough fast enough. It seems like we never will.
There’s not a lot of information about who T.T. was, but her friend Jaliyah, who organized a vigil for her, said she was 26 or 27 and described her as “a lovely person” who was “laughing all the time.”
“You could be going through a bad day, but once you saw T.T., she was such a happy cheerful person all that changed,” she said of her friend. She also said that the two of them had been incarcerated together and that T.T. had helped her make it through that ordeal. According to Jaliyah, T.T. wanted to be a hair stylist.
The details, the few that we have right now, are grim and make this case even more horrifying. I don’t want to go into details about how she was murdered, you can read those details elsewhere. Trans women, and in particular, trans women of color and specifically Black Trans women face disgusting rates of violence, and it’s often disgustingly brutal. Those rates grow even more when these women live at the intersections of poverty, sex work or even just sleeping with men.
T.T.’s friend Jaliyah told the Windy City Times that “people don’t know what we go though out here. They don’t see the struggle being transgender on the West Side. It’s crazy. I just want justice for my friend. Trans lives matter. She is the third person killed around here and there is nothing done about it.”
The other two people she’s referring to are Paige Clay and Tiffany Gooden, two other Black trans women who were murdered in this area in 2012. Jaliyah says she fears that her friend’s case will be ignored, just like those women’s were. T.T. has already been misgendered by local police and media. So often the murders of trans women, especially Black and Brown trans women, go unsolved. It’s exhausting to live as a trans woman and it’s exhausting to die as one. We never get to rest. We’re always fighting to be seen, be recognized and be respected. But it’s a battle many of us lose.
This week has been exceedingly hard for trans women. Trans comedian Jordan Wieleba, absolute legend Lady Chablis and actress Alexis Arquette have all died in a very short span, and now there’s this murder. It’s a horrible period to end the horrible sentence that has been this week. Rest in peace and power, Jordan, Lady Chablis, Alexis and T.T.
This list of murdered trans people, just in America, just in 2016 is already far, far too long, and now we’re adding T.T. to it. Who knows who will be next.
Monica Loera, 43
Jasmine Sierra, 52
Kayden Clarke, 24
Veronica Banks Cano, 40
Maya Young, 25
Demarkis Stansberry, 30
Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, 16
Kourtney Yochum, 32
Shante Thompson, 34
Keyonna Blakeney, 22
Reecey Walker, 32
Mercedes Successful, 32
Amos Beede, 38
Goddess Diamond, 20
Dee Dee Dodds, 22
Dee Whigham, 25
Skye Mockabee, 26
Erykah Tijerina, 36
Rae’Lynn Thomas, 28
T.T., 26 or 27
Things Men Tell You When They Think You’re One of Them
Feature image via Shutterstock
It’s time for another edition of SE(N)O, an essay series on A+ for personal stories we wish we could tell on the accessible-to-our-employers-and-everyone-we’ve-ever-known mainsite, but can’t for personal and professional reasons.
When Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince came out, my friends and were right in the middle of Harry Potter fever. We were wearing Harry Potter shirts and ties, had just sat through a marathon of all the previous Harry Potter movies, and were excited to see the latest installment. The movies were really heating up, and the characters were full on teenagers, acting their most emo and ridiculous. I was there with my brother and some of our guy friends, including the Youth Pastor at my church, a married man of 25.
As we walked out of the theater after the closing credits, we looked around the lobby still buzzing with excitement from the film, and we saw the giant posters of the characters hung from the ceiling. They were ten feet tall and amazing, right above a large cardboard cutout of Hogwarts itself. The whole lobby looked like it was a magical part of the Wizarding World. All that magic was sucked right out of the room when my Youth Pastor friend pointed to the Hermione poster.
In the movie, Hermione was 16 or 17, but when it came out, the actress who plays her, Emma Watson, was 19. It was her first film in the series where she was over 18. Well, technically she was 17 for most of the filming, but that didn’t matter to the men who could now lust after he legally. The Youth Pastor pointed at her poster, smiled smugly at us and said “I’m glad she’s finally legal. Now I can say out loud how hot she’s gotten in these last few movies.” No, it wasn’t a smug smile, it was a hungry smile, a predatory smile. It was a predatory smile that he flashed at us, the rest of his pack, expecting us to become predators with him and start howling along.
This came from a man who’s job was to take care of teenagers, including teenage girls, the same age as Emma Watson in the film. We had all been talking and laughing before that, but when he said that I shut up and didn’t talk for the rest of the night. That movie was ruined for me for years and I never felt safe around him again. This was far from the only time something like that happened to me when I was hanging out with men who thought I was one of them.
Before I came out, I was depressed, dysphoric and I hated a lot about myself, but easily one of the worst about being a closeted trans woman was having to put up with all the things that the men around me would say about women when they thought that no women were around. Not only were these things disgusting, misogynistic, slut-shaming and oftentimes frightening, but as someone who was seen as a guy but thought of herself as Definitely Not A Guy, it makes me feel like absolute garbage.
While I wasn’t confident enough to call myself a trans woman, even in my own head, until after college, I definitely knew that I was not one of the guys from an early age, and as I got older I definitely started identifying more and more closely with womanhood. This already made it difficult for me to make male friends, and then when I finally did make them, I found myself unable to contribute to their conversations. The way they talked about all sorts of things, but especially girls and women, seemed like a foreign tongue to me, and an ugly one at that. But even more than that, since I saw myself as more of a girl than a boy, I started to internalize all of the horrible things they would say and it made me want to be anything other than trans. If I was a woman, what kind of terrifying things would men say about me?
As soon as women aren’t around, or at least as soon as men think that women aren’t around, they often turn into a hivemind of cisnormative, heteronormative, patriarchal bullshit. They love outdoing each other, and so when one of them starts spewing some good ol’ fashioned misogyny, others will jump in, trying to be even more disgusting than the last. When I was hanging out at friends’ houses, or at Boy Scout meetings, or in the boy’s bathroom, I’d withdraw into myself to avoid having to think about the way everyone else in the conversation was talking about women.
It’s not just how they would talk about women, though, it’s how they saw them. A lot of men I’ve known have had a lot of trouble being close friends with women they aren’t dating. There might be girls or women in their friend group, but they’d never hang out with them one-on-one, unless that girl was pretending to be a boy, like I was. On the off chance that they would hang out with a girl, there was always the expectation (or at least the hope) that something more than “just” hanging out was going to happen. It’s like they were physically unable of seeing women as something other than sexual objects they want to conquer.
Going to the bathroom in high school was a complete nightmare for me. In one particular bathroom in my school, one that was in the basement away from the eyes of teachers, high school boys would masturbate onto the walls of the bathroom stalls and even into the soap dispensers. This is where boys went to be boys.
I would get sick to my stomach every time my friends led me into this bathroom, but not because of the disgusting walls and shady soap, it was because of the conversations that I knew we would start. I’d pretend I wasn’t listening while my friends would talk about which girls they wanted to fuck and how they wanted to do it. They had a game where they’d look up sex acts on urban dictionary and then say which girl they wanted to do that particular move on, or rather to. I already was called gay by the people who didn’t like me, so around my friends, I’d pretend to laugh and then completely hate myself for it a minute later.
When they aren’t talking about who they’d like to have sex with, men love to talk about the actual women they’ve already kissed, had sex with and dated. By “talk about” I really mean spread rumors about, go into graphic (and often completely made up) detail and brag about how slutty they were. All throughout high school and college I had to listen to stories about how this girl — who was in our friend group, she was our friend — was willing to give a hand job if you said she was pretty, or that girl — another person the guys called a friend — would give you a blow job if you said she didn’t look fat. And how pathetic these girls were for being so desperate to touch these guys dicks.
It gets even weirder though, because they don’t just tell these stories to brag about how much action they’re getting, they serve the double purpose of also being a way that they can backdoor insult all the women they know. If you can make yourself sound cool and make that girl in your fifth period sound like a slut, you’re having an extra great day. If you can make her sound like a slut who’s also a mess, that’s even better. The only thing a man likes to tell other men more than the name of a girl who gave him a blowjob is the name of a girl who gave him a sloppy blowjob.
Since I was usually much closer with the girls they were talking about than the actual guys doing all the talking, I had to sit there knowing that their stories were complete bullshit while the half dozen guys in the room hooted and hollered and offered up their own exaggerated or completely bullshit stories. On the rare occasions that I told them to not talk about our friends that way, they’d get mad and start making fun of me too. I still get furious about the way my guy friends would talk about the girls that were my best friends. It’s disgusting, it’s infuriating and I hated it, but I was also afraid to do anything about it. Instead I just filled myself up with self-hate, shame and the desire to disappear.
Even the “good Christian boys” that I knew would tell these kinds of jokes and stories, so the way I saw myself, I wasn’t even good enough at being a boy to be a total square. Why was I so bad at being a boy? Why didn’t I see girls the way all my friends did? Why didn’t I even want to? Still though, being a failure of a boy was safer than being a girl. At least then I didn’t have to worry about being called anything worse than a sissy and a queer. And I had dealt with that since elementary school. I was used to being called a pussy, but I was terrified of being seen as a disembodied one. I withdrew into myself in high school, and it was largely because I didn’t know how to participate in this part of guy culture. I wasn’t like them and so I tried to not be like anyone, not even like myself.
Things got even worse when I got into college. At least before I was only dealing with high school boys talking about high school girls. Now I had to deal with something new. Waiting for girls to turn 18 is a favorite hobby among adult men. When a girl finally does, men are immediately completely open about how hot they think they are. The example with Harry Potter is just one of the many instances from my memory. This is a regular thing, men telling other men that they get excited whenever a girl turns 18. It means that that girl is fair game, that she’s fresh meat. It’s not only said by men who you’d think of as pedophiles, it’s widespread, and not only that, but they’re completely open about how they’ve been turned on by the underage girls for years, and it’s just now they’re relieved that they can finally say it “without sounding like a perv.” The Youth Pastor at my church wasn’t the only man there who would talk to me about this kind of thing, a lot of them did. This was the kind of men my church lifted up and held as an example to all the other men. These were Good Christian Men who liked to talk about Sexy 18-Year-Old Girls.
My church taught me some of the worst lessons about how men were supposed to treat women, and this was done in the pretense of raising good, Godly men. According to a lot Straight White Men, modern society is getting way too feminized, women are getting way too much influence, and they must be stopped. It’s like they’re scared that women actually be better than them at something or that they might have a woman telling them what to do. They can’t handle that thought, even on a person-to-person basis. A lot of people are surprised at the disgusting way Donald Trump is talking about women this election season, but he would’ve honestly fit right in with a lot of the Men’s Groups at my old church. It’s terrifying.
I can’t even tell you how many men I’ve known who’ve quit jobs or stopped volunteering at the church because they were tired of having a woman for their boss, or even just put off by the general idea. They would publically give some other reason — he was overextending himself, he needed to put school first, it just wasn’t a good fit — but in private he would tell us it was because he just straight up didn’t like being told what to do by a woman.
For a lot of men, women are seen as inherently weak, and so if one of them is in charge of you, you must be weak, which as a man, is the worst thing you can be. Other than feminine, of course. When you’re a woman and your guy friends are telling you about how they quit their job because a female coworker got promoted to their manager, and he’s expected you to be on his side, it’s so fucking frustrating. I felt confused, I felt angry, I felt sad. I was still trying to be a guy, so I was trying to agree, but agreeing meant that I was insulting myself. I was caught between hating myself for trying to convince myself I was someone I wasn’t and hating myself because I actually knew who I was.
When I was still in the thick of trying to be myself, I would go to monthly Men’s Breakfasts at my church. One topic that would be brought up again and again at every breakfast was how the men of the congregation could take back the church from the women. Seriously. They talked about “big” issues, like how there were more women on the staff than men (but of course the three top ranking staff members were all men), that more women volunteered to help with church activities than men and that more women were regular church attenders. I had to shove biscuits and gravy into my mouth to stop from laughing. At least a couple of the men knew how to cook.
Other things we talked about were even more ridiculous. One piece of evidence that the women were taking over the church, and our lives, was that in one of the gender neutral bathrooms in the church, there was a small painting of a rabbit sitting among some flowers. When the man leading the discussion asked how the church could become more man-friendly, how we could get more men to regularly attend on Sundays, a whole group of men suggested painting over that rabbit. They refused to use that bathroom because on the inside they thought it looked too much like a women’s bathroom. This was the nicest bathroom in the church, and after that issue was brought up, I started liking it even more.
That level of immaturity and aversion to all things feminine was par for the course with most of the men I would hang out with. They didn’t expect any of their bros to call them out if they made a women-belong-in-the-kitchen joke, when they bragged about their latest conquest or when they’d make crude comments about their favorite starlet. I can still remember the look on my friends’ faces when I was brave enough to tell them that they were being gross. They expected that kind of thing from a girl, but this was guy time, and I was breaking the Bro Code.
Sometimes they would just turn the jokes and insults on me, but sometimes they’d get mad, like, really mad. Men are taught to violently reject femininity in their lives. They’re taught to mock it and belittle it, and in a way, be afraid of it. When the men I knew saw femininity in people they viewed as women, they tried to control, dominate and deride it. When they saw it in me, someone they viewed as one of the guys, it was to be mocked and forced out of me.
For a long, long time I hated how much my femininity would show through. I never really was good at being one of the guys, but I tried for so long that still to this day I’m afraid I’m acting like one. Whenever I tell a girl I like her, whenever I just compliment a girl on her hair or smile, whenever I take the lead in anything, I feel guilty about it and I hate myself for it. I don’t want to be like all those guys who tried to make me one of them. Being a trans woman makes me afraid to take up space, to raise my voice and to even have a sexuality, because I associate all of those things with the overly aggressive and often predatory and violent versions of those things that men taught me I should have if I wanted to be like them. I have an especially hard time being around men, who remind me of how much they wanted me to hate the person I was inside.
Just recently I was hanging out with my only straight cis guy friend, and he started to tell a story about one of my best friends — a woman we’ve both been friends with for years — one that he used to gleefully tell me before I came out. I’m not even going to talk about it, but it was a story about how much of a “slut” she was in high school. Back then, I let him finish the story and didn’t laugh when he expected me to, and just change the subject. This time I interrupted and didn’t even let him get started. “I don’t want you to ever tell story again. I’m serious. Not ever again,” I told him as I turned our fun-filled night serious for the moment. I don’t think he had fully realized that I wasn’t “one of the guys” anymore, and that he couldn’t talk about other women like that around me.
Of course, #NotAllMen act or talk or think this way, just more than enough of them do.
You Need Help: Talking to Your Family About Your Partner’s Pronouns
by Maddie and Audrey
Welcome to You Need Help! Where you’ve got a problem and yo, we solve it. Or we at least try.
Q:
My awesome partner is thinking about going by they/them pronouns. I’ve found it easy to use these in queer spaces, but a lot harder to use it around straight cis people with limited genderqueer/trans knowledge. My partner presents pretty femme so people usually are confused when they don’t use she. I want to be supportive, but I’m anxious about introducing the topic to older relatives. Most internet stuff is directed toward the person going through the identity changes, and rightfully so, but some guidance on how I can help my partner navigate this would be rad.
A:
Hello wonderful person! We, Audrey and Maddie, have teamed up to offer you some ideas and feedback. Audrey is a genderqueer human whose identity mostly involves waving their arms in the air and running away. They use they/them pronouns and tolerate she/her pronouns. Maddie is a queer cis woman who uses she/her pronouns. She has talked to her family a bunch about using they/them pronouns correctly for her partners and friends.
Audrey: Sweet letter writer, I want to tell you that your partner is very lucky to be with someone who genuinely wants to affirm them even when the going gets tough. I hope you don’t mind if I frame this in terms of my own experience, because in some ways, my partner Wynn is a better advocate for me than I am for myself. I tell a lot of people about my pronouns, but I rarely correct them if they use she/her because of a brutal mix of insecurity, anxiety and my compulsion to make others feel comfortable at my own expense. In fact, I’m much more likely to correct people about other people’s pronouns than my own. But around Wynn’s coworkers, family and friends, she gently and consistently reminds them of my pronouns every single time. She teaches her older gay male colleagues about genderqueer and non-binary identities and gender-neutral pronouns. When we’re at check-out counters, she refers to me with they pronouns whether the clerk looks confused or not.
By Anna Archie Bongiovonni
This makes life easier in a lot of ways, but there’s also this: Wynn’s loving and determined use of the pronouns I like best makes me believe that I might just deserve to feel that good. She makes me feel brave about telling my friends and reminds me that I have the power to ask and perhaps some day even insist that people follow through. But she also never pressures me or judges me if I’m in a space where I don’t feel comfortable or safe using they pronouns. If we are in a new environment or around my family, she always checks in about what I want her to do in that space. It’s a kind of solidarity I never knew I could have in a partner, and it blows my mind.
Sweet letter writer, I can tell from your letter that you want to be that kind of partner, and I promise you it’s possible. Not everyone will get it, but most people — unless they’re confrontational assholes — will just accept what you tell them. They may not “believe” it, whatever that means, but most people will do what you ask even if it’s not in good faith. In a way, it’s easier coming from you. They can’t as easily argue with you, devoted partner, about someone else’s gender. You and your partner could work together on a 1-3 sentence explanation you can use, kind of like an elevator speech. It can be something like this:
“Just so you know, like many people, my partner uses they/them pronouns, which have been used as a singular pronoun for centuries. I realize this may be hard for you to understand or remember, but it’s really important to both of us that you make an effort.”
In that vein, it’s definitely ideal for you and your human to discuss just how hard you should push. Do they want you to correct people in front of them or in the middle of a conversation? Or would they rather you pull someone aside or text that person to remind them about your partner’s pronouns?
One of the most important things you can do is affirm your partner. It sounds like they are still in the process of deciding how to navigate pronouns and what feels right to them. They probably won’t need you to tell your sweet great grandma right away, ya know? This is a journey you two can take together, and you will both learn a lot, screw up some, and find the ways that feel right and work for you. If they are feeling hurt by people who don’t want to use their pronouns or just by a long day of having to gender in the world, listen to them and ask how you can help ease the stress.
Maddie It’s true. You probably won’t need to explain this all to your sweet great grandma tomorrow, but at some point, depending on your partner’s needs, that might become the thing that needs to happen. I have had conversations with 3/3 living grandparents about gender-neutral pronouns in various contexts, over multiple years, making reference to multiple partners and friends. There are a lot of ways for that conversation to go.
From my experience, even the most well-intentioned, liberal, gay-friendly older people have no idea how to deal with gender-neutral pronouns when they learn about them for the first time. (Honestly, they don’t even have to be that old.) What I’ve discovered is that with older relatives, if you want them to use the right pronouns for your partner, you’re probably going to need to make some time to have a real conversation (or several real conversations) with them. Otherwise, they will be confused and default to gendering everyone the way they’re used to doing.
When you do sit down with your relative, don’t make the conversation confrontational. This is not a test for your parents or grandparents. It’s about making your family a safe place for your partner. Chances are, your relatives want your partner to feel welcome, and using your partner’s correct pronouns are a way for your relatives to extend that welcome.
First of all, make sure you introduce the concept of “they” as a singular pronoun. The elevator speech Audrey explained is awesome. If you just say, “My partner uses they pronouns,” it will probably not get through. I’ve done this in the past, and I have had a variety of reactions, ranging from completely ignoring me, to a who’s-on-first-esque conversation where my family thought my partner identified as more than one person, which was not the case.
Give your relative some examples. Tell them other things about your partner using the singular they and them, both so your relatives get used to hearing they/them and so they know more things about your partner than what their pronouns are. Even though we do use the singular they all the time without thinking about it, it’s important to affirm that adapting to it is a learning process. Explain that if they mess up, it’s not the end of the world.
By Anna Archie Bongiovonni
Your relative will likely have questions. Answer them if they are reasonable. Respectfully and emphatically refrain from answering questions about the gender your partner was assigned at birth or what genitals they have, unless your partner has explicitly told you they want these types of questions answered. These are really personal questions and not appropriate for you to share, and that’s all you need to say in response, no matter how curious someone may be.
In my own experience, I’ve had family members who aren’t against my partner’s gender, per se, but who have had suggestions of other pronouns or approaches to gender my partner could adapt. If this comes up, tell your relative to get over themselves in the nicest way you can. Explain that your partner’s pronouns are not a rhetorical exercise or puzzle. Remind your relative that making you and your partner feel welcome in the family is more important than stubborn feelings on grammar. Point your relative to articles that point out that the singular “they” is used all the time, and that the argument that the singular “they” is incorrect is misguided and irrelevant.
There is also the possibility that some of your family members are excited about your partner, eager to be supportive, but just cannot remember or internalize an unfamiliar way of speaking because they are old and their brains aren’t wired to learn in that way anymore. Audrey and I experienced this recently, when they came to visit me and we stayed with my grandmother. (FTR Audrey and I aren’t partners, but all this stuff still applies with best friends.)
Audrey It’s true! Maddie handled it in a way that made me feel really safe. First, she asked me in advance how I wanted me her talk to her grandmother about my pronouns. We agreed that the most important thing would be to make her aware of my chosen pronouns and explain that Maddie would be using they/them for me. Maddie had the conversation before our trip, and Phyllis admitted that it would be really hard for her to remember. In the end, Phyllis referred to me with she/her pronouns the whole weekend, and Maddie used they/them. This was fine! But also, this may not work for everyone. In my case, she/her is not ideal and always catches my ear funny, but I don’t experience it as misgendering. However, if your partner, now or in the future, feels like they/them are the only appropriate pronouns, you will have to figure out other strategies to help the people in your life get it right. Share the load with your partner and take the heat when necessary.
Maddie We’ve mostly focused on the mechanics of introducing they/them pronouns to family members, but you also mentioned that your partner is femme and that people are sometimes confused when they don’t use she. This is really important to be aware of and ready for. When it comes to your older relatives, they likely won’t have internalized the false assumption common to queer communities that nonbinary identities and they/them pronouns connote masc-of-center presentation. But as my femme nonbinary partner pointed out to me, you still might hear “but your partner looks like a girl!” because people generally have a hard time with the distinction between what is femme and what is female. You can do the work of helping your family understand nonbinary identities in a framework that honors and lifts up your partner and their gender.
By Anna Archie Bongiovonni
Finally, after you’ve had conversations with your family and it comes time for your fam and your partner to share space, try not to make it weird! Use their pronouns as you would in everyday conversation, without flinching or pausing. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the point isn’t for your relatives to pass a test on pronouns. The point is to help your family build the tools they need so that your partner feels safe and welcome around your relatives.
Hollywood Is Out of Excuses for Dangerous Trans Representation
It is a stone cold fact that pop culture representation of marginalized communities affects the real lives of people in those communities. On a personal level, humans have an intrinsic need to see themselves represented in stories; it’s how we figure out how to move through the world. On a broader level, depictions of marginalized people on TV and in film inform the way our culture views and treats minorities. GLAAD confirms this year after year with the research they put into their Where We Are On TV reports. Support of marriage equality in the United States, for example, rose in almost direct proportion to the number of gay characters on TV, and when GLAAD surveyed Americans who’d changed their minds about same-sex marriage, they found that “knowing” a gay TV character was commensurate to knowing a gay person in real life (and people are much less likely to support anti-gay legislation when they know a gay person).
It’s because of this irrefutable reality that trans women are, once again, being forced to speak out against a major film that will feature a cis man playing a trans women. The film is called Anything and it’s based on Timothy McNeil’s play of the same name. In it, a grieving widower falls in love with a transgender sex worker. That transgender sex worker will be played by Matt Bomer. Mark Ruffalo is the executive producer.
Before we dig into this specific film, let me just throw some numbers at you. According to a months-long deep dive Riese did earlier this year, of the 105 trans women we’ve seen in all of TV history, 59% of them have been subjected to hate speech, 68% of them have been intentionally misgendered, and almost half of them fall into the “deceptive trans person” trope. Prior to 2001, a trans woman had never played a trans woman on TV. Since then, only 20% of fictional trans women on TV have been played by actual trans women, and the most popular and critically acclaimed TV and films about trans women — Transparent, Dallas Buyer’s Club, The Danish Girl — all star cis men in the leading trans role.
Stories don’t happen inside a vacuum, so it’s important to contextualize those bleak numbers with what’s happening in the real world. 2016 has already seen the murder of at least 19 trans people in the United States, which means we’re on track to break last year’s already record-breaking year of reported trans murders. (We wrote more obituaries for murdered trans women last year than recaps for any single TV show we cover.) North Carolina implemented HB2, but it wasn’t an isolated incident. Over 50 anti-trans bills were introduced into state legislatures this year. Many of them were “bathroom bills,” but others tried to halt transition-related healthcare for incarcerated trans people or deny trans people the basic rights to their vital records.
Trans women face a trifecta of oppression every single day: toxic pop culture representation, bigoted legislation, and the threat of horrific violence.
That’s the world Matt Bomer and Mark Ruffalo’s new movie is landing in.
On Twitter earlier this week, Her Story actress and co-writer Jen Richards — who auditioned for a role in Anything — articulated the problems with casting cis men to play trans women.
She posted a video — that Laverne Cox retweeted — to unpack the discussion further. In it, she reiterates that it is most often Black and brown trans women, often those who are poor, and often those who sleep with men, who are the most at risk for being murdered.
https://youtu.be/nLzM7BuNdIo
Both Ruffalo and Bomer seem surprised by the backlash to anything, which feels a little disingenuous given that even the most cursory research would have shown him how troubling it is to the trans community when cis men play trans women. But while Bomer has taken to blocking all dissenters on social media, including very well known trans actors and activists, Ruffalo seems more open to a conversation. At the end of her video and her Twitter statement, Jen Richards asked him to reach out to her.
There are other encouraging things about the response to Anything.
Firstly, the outcry has been pretty universal and plenty of mainstream media outlets have picked up on the story, including The Hollywood Reporter; they published an op-ed from GLAAD’s Nick Adams titled “Matt Bomer and Men Who Play Transgender Women Send a “Toxic and Dangerous” Message.”
But the most encouraging thing of all is that so many trans women can assert their rightful place in this conversation. Jen Richards declaring that she is the co-writer/co-EP/co-star of the Emmy-nominated web series Her Story at the beginning of her video is a huge deal. The bottom line in Hollywood is the bottom line. It’s all about the money. And so the argument goes that you can’t have a trans woman starring in a movie about trans women because there are no trans actresses, or that there are no trans actresses with names that are big enough to get studio funding. Trophies change the conversation. Her Story centers on the experiences of trans women, includes trans women in every step of the production process, and now it is nominated for an Emmy Award. Laverne Cox has also been nominated for an Emmy Award. Critical success isn’t reserved for cis men telling trans women’s stories. Trans actresses do exist and they are talented enough to pull down major award show nominations.
Anything has already been filmed. It will be in theaters. As will Michelle Rodriguez’s film, (Re)Assignment. Hollywood is not running out of ways to make movies than endanger trans women, but it is running out of excuses. The trans women who are being rightly lauded for their acting and writing and directing and producing are making damn sure of that.
Texas Is The Worst and Files Another Federal Lawsuit Against Transgender Rights
feature photo by Marjorie Kamys Cotera via the Texas Tribune
Texas is back at it again filing lawsuits left and right against the Obama administration and wasting my good ‘ole tax-payer money— spending more than $5.9 million on 43 cases since Obama took office in 2009 to be exact. This time Texas along with Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kentucky, Kansas, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) and the Franciscan Alliance — a network of religious hospitals — filed a lawsuit claiming a federal nondiscrimination rule on health care forces doctors to act against their religious beliefs.
The complaint challenges regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services that prohibits discrimination against transgender patients. The rule ensures transgender people get equal treatment by insurers and medical providers which “prohibits denying or limiting coverage for transgender individuals, including health services related to gender transition.” It applies to hospitals and doctors that accept federal funding and insurance plans offered through the federal marketplace.
The five states, the CMDA and the Franciscan Alliance argue the federal regulation redefines the term “sex,” “forces healthcare professionals to violate their medical judgment,” and violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act by forcing religiously affiliated health organizations to violate their religious beliefs. In other words, they think providing services for transition-related care or providing insurance for transition-related health care violates their religious beliefs.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, the same judge who sided with Texas and 12 other states on Monday and temporarily blocked the Obama administration’s directive to accommodate transgender students. The guidelines stated that Title IX’s nondiscrimination protections on the basis of “sex” also protect trans students from discrimination which allows them equal access to school programs and activities and let’s them use bathrooms and locker rooms in accordance to their gender. O’Connor issued an injunction that said federal officials didn’t follow proper procedures when creating the directives.
Think Progress has more on the impact of this injunction:
The scope of O’Connor’s order is vast. It dictates that the federal government can not intervene on behalf of trans students in any school nationwide. If the departments were already investigating claims of anti-trans discrimination, they must suspend those investigations immediately. In other words, so long as this injunction is in place, it’s as if the guidance protecting trans students doesn’t exist at all. It doesn’t, however, prevent schools from continuing to follow the guidance.
The Obama administration is expected to immediately appeal this decision.
As for the lawsuit against nondiscrimination in health care, it could have even greater consequences for trans people. This case has the possibility of setting a dangerous precedent of legally denying trans people their basic human right to medically necessary treatment and health care.