Features

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When Transgender Travelers Walk Into Scanners, Invasive Searches Sometimes Wait on the Other Side

On Sept. 15, 2017, Olivia stepped into a full-body scanner at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. When she stepped out, a female Transportation Security Administration officer approached. On the scanner’s screen was an outline of a human body with the groin highlighted. The officer told Olivia that because of something the scanner had detected, a pat-down would be necessary. As a transgender woman, Olivia, 36, had faced additional TSA scrutiny before. On those occasions, a manual search at the checkpoint had been enough to assure TSA officers that there wasn’t a weapon or explosive hidden in her undergarments. This encounter […]

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Trans Fertility in Conversation

In January of 2019, Japan’s Supreme Court upheld a law requiring trans people to be sterilized in order to legally change their gender. After the ruling, I remember seeing a tweet by the Economist sharing the article,“Should transgender people be sterilised before they are recognised?”. Posing this as a question legitimizes the idea that individual reproductive rights are up for debate. They are not.  I was infuriated, and deeply hurt. The right to reproduce is fundamental. To be told by the state that you must trade your right to have biological children to have your gender legally recognized is a chilling […]

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Trans Prisoner Must be Provided with Gender-confirmation Surgery, Court Rules

A woman in Idaho could be the first transgender inmate to receive gender-confirmation surgery through a court order. A panel of judges ruled on August 23 that Adree Edmo’s gender-confirmation surgery should be provided by Idaho and Corizon, the state’s prison healthcare provider. The surgery is estimated to cost between $20,000 and $30,000. Edmo is serving 10 years for sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy when she was 22 and is scheduled for release in 2021. She is not eligible for parole. The 9th circuit court of appeals ruling agreed with a December 2018 ruling from US District Judge B Lynn […]

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There’s No Scientific Evidence a ‘Gay Gene’ Exists

Publication of the largest-ever study of the roles of genes in homosexual behavior is fanning the debate over whether being gay is due to genes or environment.  First reported at a genetics conference in 2018, the study found five genetic variants associated with having a same-sex sexual partner (SN: 10/20/18). But those variants, called SNPs, don’t predict people’s sexual behavior, researchers report in the Aug. 30 Science.  “There is no ‘gay gene’ that determines whether someone has same-sex partners,” says Andrea Ganna, a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the University of Helsinki.  Family studies have suggested that genetics account […]

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Boyfriend Charged Over Murder of 16th Trans Woman to be Killed in US this Year

Police investigating the murder of Tracy Single, the 16th trans woman of colour killed in the US this year, have arrested a man she had been dating. Joshua Dominic Bourgeois was arrested Friday, August 23, on suspicion of Single’s murder, according to ABC News. The 25-year-old became a suspect after investigators learned he had been in a “dating relationship” with Single, also known as Tracy Williams. Police said she was found dead with a puncture wound and several lacerations in a gas station parking lot in west Houston on July 30. She was 22 years old. It took officials two weeks […]

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Philadelphia Suicide Throws ‘Transamory’ into the Spotlight

When Maurice “Reese” Willoughby died by suicide last week, it came at the tail end of months of cyberbullying after a video emerged of him defending his girlfriend — a transgender woman named Faith — to a crowd of people who were hurling transphobic and homophobic comments. “You f— what?” shouts the person holding the camera, in a video that racked up millions of views. Willoughby was an aspiring rapper from the Philadelphia area, and initial reports stated that he took his own life because of the bullying seen in the viral video. However his girlfriend, Faith Palmer, said on social […]

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Islatravir: A potential PrEP & HIV drug now being tested

There’s a new antiretroviral, from a new class of medication, currently being tested for both PrEP and HIV treatment. Named islatravir (formerly MK-8591), this Merck drug is showing promise as part of a novel drug delivery system and because of its long half-life, great potency and high barrier for resistance. Two presentations at the IAS 2019 conference in July shared Phase 2 study data on islatravir. Randolph Matthews, MD, PhD shared research of islatravir delivered through an under-the-skin implant, to test drug delivery at concentrations needed for the prevention of HIV. Professor Jean-Michel Molina, from Paris Diderot University, shared results from a […]

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She Was Taunted by Co-workers as a ‘Man in a Dress,’ Trans Woman Claims in Suit against Circle K

An African American transgender woman in the Chicago area is suing national convenience store chain Circle K, alleging she was fired from one of its stores and retaliated against after reporting co-workers’ use of racial and transphobic slurs against her. Judi Brown claims in the lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that a manager and other Circle K employees at the store in Bolingbrook, Illinois, harassed her based on her race and being transgender. Brown, 26, said she was fired after she complained about the alleged discrimination. “The discrimination and harassment were traumatizing […]

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Wisconsin Judge Rules Medicaid must Cover Transgender Healthcare

The US district judge made the ruling in the case of four trans Wisconsin residents, who were challenging a 1997 provision that excluded coverage of “transsexual surgery” for Medicaid recipients. Judge William Conley said on Friday, August 16, that the state’s Medicaid programme was discriminating against trans people by not covering trans healthcare. The four trans people who filed the lawsuit argued that gender-affirming healthcare for trans people was medically necessary due to the medically recognised condition of gender dysphoria. “There is now a consensus within the medical profession that gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition, which if left untreated or […]

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Trans Workers Not Protected by Civil Rights Law, Trump Admin Tells Supreme Court

The Trump administration on Friday filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that transgender workers are not protected by federal civil rights law and can be fired because of their gender identity. The brief was submitted in a case concerning Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman who was fired from a Detroit funeral home after she informed her employer that she was beginning her gender transition. The case, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, et al., is one of three cases concerning LGBTQ workers’ rights that the Supreme Court is expected to hear this fall. The brief, submitted by […]

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