Camille is a twentysomething working in the LGBT nonprofit industry. She runs an LGBT news blog at gaywrites.org.
For the first time ever, Glamour magazine is honoring a transgender woman with its Woman of the Year award. The magazine will recognize Caitlyn Jenner for her contribution to the visibility of the trans community, her bravery, and her honesty over the past year. For thousands of trans girls who read Glamour, this could be a game-changing moment — proof that you can be trans and successful, even in a society that so often tells us otherwise. At least that’s what some will take from the announcement. Conservative Matt Barber, on the other hand, thinks it’s the end of the world. Which is funny, because being your true self in a world full of Matt Barbers is part of what makes Jenner and other trans people so inspiring. Brace yourself for this vitriol: Read more
Rep. Louie Gohmert, a hyper-conservative Republican Congress member from Texas, is obsessed with this question. He asked it at a Phyllis Schlafly event back in July. He brought it up again during a lecture at Liberty University recently, and Right Wing Watch nabbed a recording. Gohmert is obsessed with what would happen if gay and straight people were separated on two desert islands: Read more
Gender stereotyping is the oldest trick in the book. But according to Jennifer Fitz, it’s the “hot new thing.” In a recent piece for her Patheos blog, Fitz denounces the existence of transgender identities, saying that trans people are merely playing into gender stereotypes when they transition. Read more
Close your eyes and think back for a minute. When was the last time you used a public restroom? How many other people were in the restroom? What did their genitals look like? I’m certain you can’t answer that last question and that you’re horrified by it. (As you should be!) But Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute seems to think of public restrooms and changing facilities as much more communal than they actually are. And she’s using this non-logic to defame transgender children. In a school district in Chicago, a high school trans girl has sued her school for the right to use the women’s locker room. Superintendent Daniel Cates is refusing to abide by Title IX guidelines on this matter, instead offering the girl a separate private facility to use as an alternative. Put another way, Cates will go so far as to disqualify his district from getting federal funding in order to break the law and continue demeaning the trans girl: Read more
Last week, we wrote about Larry Kowalczyk, a Catholic school board trustee in Edmonton who claimed transgender people are mentally disordered. The impetus for his demeaning comments: a seven-year-old transgender girl’s fight to be able to use the girls’ bathroom at her elementary school. The girl’s mother reached out to Patheos to talk more about what her family has gone through: tumultuous closed-door school board meetings, biting criticism from clergy, segregation at school, a loss of faith in the Catholic church, and every other hurdle imaginable since they took on the school board in January. The next episode of their fight will take place in October, when the school board will meet to discuss a trans-inclusive school policy that could finally allow her daughter to be treated just like any other girl at her school. Until then, the girl’s mother will stop at nothing to protect her child and urges other parents of trans kids to do the same. Read more
