danielextra:

SEE: DC Comics Introduces First Openly Transgender (Bisexual & Asian American) Character In Batgirl 

DC Comics has stomped on all kinds of boundaries by introducing readers to Alysia Yeoh, a transgender, bisexual, Asian American roommate in issue 19 of Batgirl. 

janet mock diary: TAKE ACTION: Help Seek Justice for Lorena Escalera Xtravaganza + TWoC Everywhere

janetmock:

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On May 12, 2012, the New York Times reported on Lorena Escalera’s death in the midst of a fire in Brooklyn apartment. It was a highly problematic and glaringly dehumanizing article that focused on her body, her alleged sex work profession, her sexuality and much more. GLAAD…

Loved & Respected Transgender Woman Killed In Baltimore

TW: gun violence

An ongoing investigation into the shooting death of a Baltimore transgender woman presents little information into the cause of the crime. In fact, as details are being collected it remains unclear if this act of criminal violence was part of a hate crime.

Kelly-Young

29-year-old Rodney Little, affectionately known to many as Kelly Young, was found shot in a house in the 2200 block of Barclay Street on Wednesday morning. She was taken to a local hospital but later pronounced dead. Tanya Eley had this to say about her long time friend, “God knows whatever happened to her, God has them; they’re going to regret whatever they did to her because she was loved!”

Any information leading to the identity of the perpetrator should immediately contact Baltimore Police Homicide Division at (410) 396-2100. This and another near fatal shooting Friday night in the Weaverly Shopping Center has added to the death toll or gun violence in recent weeks in the city of  Baltimore. Condolences to the family and friends of their love one.

Jamaica – Transgender women call for equality

We Are Jamaicans - Whitney

Two transgender Jamaicans, Whitney and Tiana Miller, have joined J-FLAG’s We Are Jamaicanscampaign, which seeks to encourage respect and understanding for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. We Are Jamaicans is a participatory video campaign (http://www.youtube.com/user/equalityJA), which was launched on January 17, 2013 by J-FLAG to raise awareness about LGBT identity and community.

We cannot effectively reduce the incidence of violence against women in Jamaica if we continue to ignore socio-cultural factors that make violence against women permissible. Transgender Jamaican women are often not included in our vision for women’s rights in Jamaica despite their vulnerability to violence and discrimination. The voices of transgender women in the We Are Jamaicans campaign is in an effort to bring visibility to their lives and to not limit our definition of ‘woman’ to genitalia. In her video, Whitney stated that Jamaicans “are not accepting of people whose gender identities don’t align with their biological sex,” (http://youtu.be/O9iNYKqttc4). Tiana Miller, whose video can be seen athttp://youtu.be/GCHppSFrDYE said she does not have life easy in Jamaica. “I feel alienated, always being bashed by society, but that doesn’t change who I am,” she said.

J-FLAG is encouraging Jamaicans to recognise that we must embark on implementing a more multifaceted programme to address violence against our women and girls. It is important that we recognize and appreciate the need to create support systems for victims and their families, encourage honest conversations about gender, sex and sexuality, and teach mutual respect for each other. The campaign is funded by the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition(CVC) through its Global Fund Vulnerablised Project.

TW: anti-trans* violence, murder, hate crime/Trans woman murdered near Fortaleza, Brazil

TW: anti-trans* violence, murder, hate crime

Marahouse

Cecilia Marahouse

THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — Based on a translated news report, Brazilian trans woman Cecilia Marahouse (or Mara House) was shot reportedly 6 times just outside of Fortaleza on January 11th. Marahouse was a performer and was well known in the LGBT community there. Her friends hope for justice but feel the government looks upon them as nothing more than numbers to be added to statistics.

This is pretty much all the information we have on this murder. There is also a graphic photo that I am not reproducing here, however, it does bring home the danger all of us face, especially in Brazil.

Sage Smith: The missing transgender woman, and what’s (not) being done

By Zack Budryk

There’s a particularly cynical exchange in an episode of the cult HBO series “The Wire,” wherein a couple of homicide detectives remark upon how little priority is being given to the unsolved murders of several poor African-Americans. To drive the point home, one of the detectives refers to these homicides as “misdemeanor murders”.

Complaining about the media’s exclusive fascination with kidnapped or missing white children has become something of a dead horse. At a certain point, just observing that something is a problem isn’t really helping matters; if it bothers you, logic dictates, you actually try to do something about it.

Sage Smith

That said, it’s hard not to be disturbed by the near-dearth of coverage that the case of Sage Smith has received, in Virginia or nationally, and the tone of the scant coverage that she has been given. Smith is a 19-year-old African-American transgender woman who disappeared from her Charlottesville, Va., home nearly a month ago; she was last seen leaving to meet one Eric McFadden at a train station and still had not returned two days later.

According to Daryl C. Hannah of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), since Smith’s disappearance, the only remotely “mainstream” media coverage the disappearance has received has been a local news report. During this report, despite identifying as female, Smith is repeatedly referred to using male pronouns; the local police have insisted on the same terminology, issuing a statement in which they refer to Smith as a “young man.” Even “Missing” posters in Richmond refer to Smith as “him/her.”

The case demonstrates, in microcosm, everything wrong with media coverage of trans people: the only outlet that even cares enough to cover the story cannot be bothered to even use correct pronouns, even though the Associated Press stylebook states that journalists should “use the pronoun consistent with the way the (transgender) individuals live publicly.”

Click the header link above to read the full article.

NY Times Does Not Retract Dehumanizing Coverage of Trans Woman Who Died in Fire

In response to criticism from the LGBT community and allies over its coverage of a fire that killed a transgender woman this weekend, the New York Times released a statement that reveals a lack of understanding of how serious this problem is.

New York Times Metro Editor Carolyn Ryan stated: “We typically try to capture the personal stories of those whose lives are lost in a fire, and we sought to do so in this case. We certainly did not mean any disrespect to the victim or those who knew her. But, in retrospect, we should have shown more care in our choice of words.”

Unfortunately, the problem with the Times’ article on the death of Lorena Escalera, a transgender woman of color, is bigger than their “choice of words” or with their attempt to “capture” her story. It’s their failure to recognize trans women as women.  

The decision by writers Al Baker and Nate Schweber to call her “curvaceous” in the first sentence was not a poor choice of words. It was a poor choice of focus. The way this entire article is framed comes directly from an idea that transgender women are curiosities. That they’re other. That they should be treated differently than other people.  Saying that Lorena was “called” Lorena, even though that is exactly how police identified her, was not a poor choice of words. It was a disrespectful jab at her identity as a trans woman, by implying that she wasn’t really Lorena.

Lorena was a daughter. She was a friend. She was a beloved member of a community. But the only elements of her story that writers Al Baker and Nate Schweber seemed concerned with were; what she looked like, what her neighbors thought she looked like, and whether any items that would typically belong to a woman were in her apartment when it burned. Very little of this is relevant to the actual personal story of Lorena Escalera’s life. It seems very clear that this personal information was included in order to “spice up” the story by exploiting Lorena’s status as a transgender woman – not to actually inform readers about her life.

“As my city’s and our nation’s paper of record, I would expect the New York Times to treat any subject, regardless of their path in life, with dignity,” said trans advocate and journalist Janet Mock. “In Lorena Escalera’s life she was so much more than the demeaning, sexist portrait they painted of girls like us. It goes beyond a ‘choice of words.’ According to the Times’ limiting, harmful portrait of Lorena, she was nothing more than a ‘curvaceous’ bombshell for men to gawk at. That is not the ‘personal’ story of any woman, and until we treat trans women like human beings - in life and death - with dignity, families and struggles, our society will never see us beyond pariahs in our communities.

Unfortunately, many Americans, including members of the media, do view transgender people – and trans women of color in particular – as curiosities at best, or not deserving of basic human dignity at worst. And very few Americans know any trans people in their day-to-day lives, so this viewpoint is never dispelled.  This is why extra care must be taken when reporting on a story that involves a transgender person, especially if that person is no longer able to speak for themselves, as is the case here. Writers and editors alike must be made aware of how common this underlying bias is, and make a conscious effort to remove it when they see it.

This is where the Times’ statement truly fails. Not only does it not show an understanding of what the problem with the original article was, it also makes no assurances to the community that it will educate its writers and editors about how to report on transgender people in the future. There’s nothing forward-looking in the Times statement.

GLAAD did ask the Times to detail what steps will be taken in the future to ensure this doesn’t happen again. We were told that this statement “will be all there is from us on this.”

But this statement is not good enough.  The New York Times has highlighted the personal and inspiring stories of transgender people in the recent past, including an article on Harmony Santana, Laverne Cox and other transgender actresses, a piece on triathlete Chris Mosier and one on classical pianist Sara Davis Buechner. We can be almost certain that the New York Times does understand the problems with its piece on Lorena, and is embarrassed that it ran. Now it’s time for them to say so publicly, and to tell its readers that steps are being taken to ensure that an article like this won’t be printed again.  We thank members of the LGBT community, including trans leaders like Janet Mock, Autumn Sandeen, Laverne Cox, and Jennifer Finney Boylan, trans author and New York Times contributing writer, as well as Colorlines and Feministing, for bringing attention to this story. We hope to continue putting pressure on the Times until they offer assurances that changes will be made.