LGBTQ news and entertainment
ThinkProgress asked three transgender people and a trans ally to watch the premiere of E!’s I Am Cait together to get a read on how the trans community responded to the docuseries following Caitlyn Jenner’s transition.
Interesting to see what the experts liked and what irked them.
Following a historic vote legalizing same-sex marriage in May, Ireland now becomes the fourth country in the world to allow transgender people to legally change their gender without surgery or other medical intervention.
“This is a historic moment for the trans community in Ireland,” said Sara R. Phillips, chair of the Transgender Equality Network Ireland, in a statement after lawmakers approved the Gender Recognition Bill. “Today is the first day we will be seen as who we truly are.”
Wednesday’s vote caps off more than two decades of efforts around the issue that began in 1993 when Dr. Lydia Foy tried to change the gender on her birth certificate.
Irish President Michael Higgins is expected to sign the Gender Recognition Bill into law in the coming weeks.
“This is a great moment for trans people living in Ireland,” said ILGA-Europe Executive Director Evelyne Paradis in a statement.
Activists note, however, that the new law will not apply to transgender people under the age of 18.
Ireland will become the fourth country to allow trans people to legally change their gender without surgery and other medical interventions, joining Malta, Argentina and Denmark.
In Caitlyn Jenner’s first major public appearance since announcing she is transgender, the Olympic gold medalist took the stage at ESPN’s annual awards Wednesday to assume the role of champion yet again, only this time, for a different community.
Accepting the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, Jenner spoke of the many challenging hurdles she has overcome throughout her life as an athlete, and now as one of the most public transgender people in the world:
“It’s been eye-opening, inspiring, but also frightening. All across this country, right now, all across the world, at this very moment, there are young people coming to terms with being transgender. They’re learning that they are different and they are trying to figure out how to handle that, on top of every other problem that a teenager has.
“They’re getting bullied, they’re getting beaten up, they’re getting murdered and they’re committing suicide. The numbers that you just heard before are staggering, but they are the reality of what it is like to be trans today.
“Just last month, the body of 17-year-old Mercedes Williamson, a transgender young woman of color, was found in a field in Mississippi stabbed to death. I also want to tell you about Sam Taub, a 15-year-old transgender young man from Bloomfield, Michigan. In early April, Sam took his won life. Now, Sam’s story haunts me in particular because his death was a few days before my interview with Diane Sawyer. Every time something like this happens, people wonder, ‘Could it have been different, if spotlighting this issue with more attention could have changed the way things happen?’ We’ll never know.
“If there is one thing I do know about my life, it is the power of the spotlight. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, but with attention comes responsibility. As a group, as athletes, how you conduct your lives, what you say, what you do, is absorbed and observed by millions of people, especially young people. I know I’m clear with my responsibility going forward, to tell my story the right way — for me, to keep learning, to reshape the landscape of how trans issues are viewed, how trans people are treated. And then more prominently to promote a very simple idea: accepting people for who they are. Accepting people’s differences.
“My plea to you tonight is to join me in making these issues your issues as well. How do we start? We start with education. I was fortunate to meet Arthur Ashe a few times and I know how important education was to him. Learn as much as you can about another person to understand them better.
The Associated Press has learned that Pentagon leaders are finalizing plans aimed at lifting the ban on transgender individuals serving in the military.
Senior U.S. officials say an announcement is expected this week. They say the military would have six months to determine the impact and work out details, with the presumption that they would end one of the last gender- or sexuality-based barriers to military service.
The officials say that during the transition, transgender individuals would still not be able to join the military. Decisions to force out those already serving would have to be referred to a top Defense Department leader.
E! releases the first promo pic from the upcoming I Am Cait – an 8 part doc-series series starring Caitlyn Jenner.
The 65 year old former Olympian wows in a long black gown with lace back.
Looking fab, she reminds me of Courtney Cox… Anyone else seeing it?
The series debuts on E! on July 26th at 8PM on E!
A promo video is available on E! (it was set to autoplay, which I know most of my readers hate, so hit the link to watch).
Some news stories you may have missed:
• Sean Conroy, first openly gay player in professional baseball, gets his first start this Thursday; and it’s Pride Night!
• GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush says a pro-same-sex marriage ruling from SCOTUS won’t be the final word.
• 17 year old transgender teen killed in Mississippi becomes ninth transgender person murder victim this year.
• It appears Charleston church killer Dylann Roof was highly influenced by racist group Council of Conservative Citizens, who just happened to donate to the campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum.
• Yahoo News debuts a new 30-minute documentary, “Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government’s War on Gays.”
• Let’s take one more look back at last night’s fantastic 25th Annual Broadway Bares – “Top Bottoms Of Burlesque” – which raised over $1.5 million benefiting Broadway Cares.
Google has produced this thoughtful video for Pride Month showing how a small business helped a transgender man through his transition.
From Adweek:
The first half of the spot below focuses on Jake, who was born female but identified as male from a young age. The second half introduces City Gym in Kansas City, Mo., which has given Jake a place where he can feel comfortable getting to know his changing body and find support for him and his friends. (Another gym’s tagline, “No judgments,” would be pretty apt at this place.)
With the world suddenly paying attention to transgender issues, with the spotlight on Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox, listen to the voice of performance poet Ethan Smith.
This was performed last year during finals at the 2014 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational.
A transgender man, he performs a poem he wrote to his former self titled “A Letter To The Girl I Used To Be.”
Don’t miss the “postscript” at the end of the poem.
Laverne Cox, transgender actress from the hit Netflix show “Orange Is The New Black” covers this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly.
Yay!
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| Laverne Cox |
Some stories you may have missed:
• Laverne Cox (Orange Is The New Black) will be the first transgender person to be immortalized at the famous Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum
• A straight couple in Australia plan to divorce if same-sex marriage is legalized in his country.
That’ll learn ’em.
• It seems McKinney resident Sean Toon, who stood up for the police officer who handcuffed a 14 year old girl over pool party chaos, might have had more to do with the incident that he has previously let on.
• There are 3,000 kids in Michigan waiting to be adopted and the state Senate just made that much more difficult.
• The new Netflix series Sense8 is pretty fab. And so is the handsome latin star Miguel Ángel Silvestrewho, who plays one of the show’s gay characters. Check out his teaser video below.