Hypoxia, or altitude sickness, reduces the amount of oxygen in the brain causing a variety of symptoms including mental confusion. Many in the LGBT community suffer from advocacy hypoxia, a condition that I define as one who has reached a certain level within the advocacy community that causes altitude sickness, creating mental confusion. Let me…
In the past week, respected drag performer Lady Bunny weighed in on a topic that seems to still be ongoing in social media. It’s terminology still; it’s over their perception that trans women are trying to ban use of terms such as “tranny” and “shemale.” “Tranny is an abbreviation for transvestite and transsexual, so I’m…
http://youtu.be/YPgoLY7KmCE On the Heels of Laverne Cox’s Time magazine cover comes What’s the T? a documentary that explores the lives of five transgender women. What Paris is Burning was to drag balls – What’s the T? is to transgender life – a documentary that explores the challenges, successes and lives of five transgender women; a…
When I nominated six-year-old Ryland Whittington and his wonderful parents for this year’s Harvey Milk Inspirational Award, I knew the 1,000+ people attending the Sixth Annual Harvey Milk Diversity Breakfast would react in the same way as I did when first meeting the Whittington family … I cried, getting emotional over this beautiful story of…
I took a few things I consider positive away from my Pentecostal upbringing, and one of those things was a non-religious concept of how to apologize. In the Foursquare church I was raised in the concept was called “repentance,” but I separate repentance as a tool to apologize from the term’s religious connotations. I think…
In a move consistent with the growing recognition of the rights of the transgender community, Rochester, New York recently passed legislation that would include transgender health care benefits for employees and their families under the city’s medical plan. Local news outlet the Democrat and Chronicle reported that, “Under the new coverage, effective Jan. 1, city…
When trans people are imagined in the minds of many folk who’ve never actually met a trans person, we often are imagined as one or two-dimensional male creatures dressed as females that are interested in sex and trans related surgeries. Thoughts of trans people having parents, children, jobs and hobbies seem lost to caricature. Well,…
What a weekend it was for the LGBT community this past Mother’s Day weekend. Michael Sam became the first openly gay football player drafted by an NFL team, drag performer Conchita Wurst won the annual Eurovision Song contest and the Arkansas State Supreme Court ruled for marriage equality. But in a development that truly made…
WASHINGTON – Over the weekend on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in response to a question about military health regulations which effectively bar military service by transgender persons, said he believes that regulations should be reviewed. Hagel said: I do think it continually should be reviewed. I’m open to that….
INDIA — A public service video campaign using transgender women to get motorists to use their seat belts while driving on Indian roads has gone viral on the InterneT, reports GayAsiaNews.com. Almost 2 million people have watched the video of transgender women dressed as cabin crew exhorting Indian motorists at a traffic crossing to buckle…
