Tag: Transgender

The Trump/Pence administration is continuing it's assault on the LGBTQ community as the Department of Health and Human Services has proposed a new, extremely narrow definition of 'sex' that would virtually erase the existence of 1.4 million transgender Americans. The move would exclude transgender people from federal non-discrimination protections. From The New York Times: The Department of Health and Human Services is spearheading an effort to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans...

Jack and Jace Grafe, who live in Georgia, recently shared their amazing journey as identical twins who came out to each other as transgender and transitioned together. Fox5Atlanta recently reported the story of the twins who were identified as female at birth, but came out to each other at the age of 15. That was just a year after they had even heard the word ‘transgender.’ “It’s like being in prison except it’s in your own body,” Jack told Fox5Atlanta. “And...

A new study led by a Belgian neurologist found that brain activity in transgender people resembles that found in cisgender people of their gender more than their sex assigned at birth. Julie Bakker of the University of Liege led the research, which involved MRI scans of 160 transgender people diagnosed with gender dysphoria who were children and teenagers. The scans also measures brain microstructures using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging. Their brain scans were compared to people of comparable age...

My name is Ahmed* and I’m 18-years-old. I’ve lived in Iraq my entire life. For the first 14 years of my life, my family was everything to me. Although they’re very strict, I loved them very much. But when I came out as a transgender man four years ago, my life changed for the worse. There was hardly a day when I wasn’t verbally abused, beaten, or locked up by someone in my family after I came out. I started running away...

With the Winter Olympics around the corner, the global spotlight is on Korea. In just a few days, hundreds of athletes will descend on Pyeongchang, South Korea, for the 2018 Winter Olympics, including a number of gay and lesbian Olympians. But what’s the state of LGBT equality in South Korea? Historically, the country’s conservative government and large Christian population has meant slow progress: In 2013, a Pew Research poll indicated almost 60% of Koreans believed society shouldn’t accept homosexuality. There have never been...

A landmark court ruling has ordered 16 new countries to make same-sex marriage legal. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights reached a decision today on a marriage equality petition submitted two years ago by Costa Rica President Luis Guillermo Solis. 20 countries agreed to follow the court’s rulings when they signed the American Convention on Human Rights, including 16 which have not yet legalised same-sex marriage. These countries are Barbados, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti,...

Jetstar say its staff were only made aware of the abuse after the incident on the Australia flight A couple in Australia say their New Year celebrations were ruined by a fellow passenger aboard a Melbourne to Perth flight. Cat Franke, 23, and Julz Evans, 26, were on the night flight to visit family. Franke, a cosmetic tattooist and model, took to Facebook to explain what happened. She said that the man sat directly behind her transgender partner was behaving erratically. ‘The man started...

'What the training is aimed at, is to teach our field officers to appreciate that minorities have rights that should be respected' Police in Uganda got sensitivity training to help protect the rights of LGBTI people, even though it is illegal to be gay there. Uganda is one of the worst countries in the world to be LGBTI, with some lawmakers wanting to introduce a ‘Kill the Gays’ bill. Police have often been the worst perpetrators of violence and persecution of Uganda’s...

A New York State heath teacher was suspended with pay after parents complained that their seventh-grade students were given information about transgender issues. “The parents have concerns, and they are mine as well,” Superintendent Vince Canini said Tuesday. He also added that, “We have never had this issue before. We may have to make some policy changes because of it.” The “issue” at hand concerns handouts that were given to students. All students, between seventh and tenth grade, received a 42-paged...

A big win for Frank Ocean today. We first reported back in February that the talented R&B singer was being sued by his estranged father, Calvin Cooksey, for $14.5 million dollars for defamation of character. This was largely in part due to a post that Frank made on his Tumblr back in 2016, when he recalled his father dragging him out of a diner after calling their transgendered waitress a "faggot". Here's an excerpt from that post: “Many are annoyed by our...

Westboro Baptist Church members met their match when they tried to protest at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. The hate group decided to protest the school after finding out that the university not only allows transgender people to go to the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity, but also that the school provides non-gendered bathroom options. But when students and locals caught wind of the Baptist Church’s presence, they decided to have a party… and it was glorious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJHlhsok5mo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9107EZ2D8Q Counter-protestors gathered, with police...

"Whether it’s an increase in reporting, an increase in violence, or some combination thereof, it should be a wake-up call." We’ve still got more than a third of the year left, but a new report revels that more LGBT Americans have been killed so far in 2017 than in all of 2016. According to National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, there have been 33 homicides so far linked to the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. That works out to more than...

You may recall Trystan Reese and his husband, Biff Chaplow as the gay Portland couple to publicly announce their pregnancy, earlier this summer. Trystan, who is a transgender man, was pregnant with BIff's child. And now, the happpy couple has given birth! From The Washington Post: Reese and Chaplow documented the pregnancy in blog posts and on social media, hoping to demystify what it means for a transgender man to give birth and to create a new sense of normalcy for people in...

A former Navy SEAL Team 6 member who is transgender, who also helped track down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, is calling out President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender soldiers. Kristin Beck, who served 20 years as Chris Beck in the Navy SEALS, told Business Insider in an interview on Wednesday that Trump’s military ban unfairly discriminates people like her. “Being transgender doesn’t affect anyone else,” Beck said, alluding to Trump’s concerns that transgender service members would be a distraction. Beck also...