Transgender / Transsexual

  A transgender woman in South Dakota was found dead Friday night in her apartment in an apparent homicide, KSFY reports. Hers is the second reported murder of a transgender person in the United States in 2017. According to Sioux Falls Two-Spirit and Allies, 28-year-old Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow was originally from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and was a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. Police are expected to release more information about the homicide investigation on Monday. The group asked for prayers for Wounded Arrow’s family on Facebook Saturday and said they believe she was killed on […]

In the most comprehensive investigation of transgender-related homicide to date, Mic Thursday released “Unerased: Counting Transgender Lives,” a project looking at trans murder in America. Working in collaboration with transgender advocacy organizations, activists, academics and victims’ loved ones and families, a team of reporters at Mic has launched an interactive database of transgender homicides from 2010 to the present. Intended as a resource for activists, journalists and academics, the database contains a wealth of demographic data about each victim, including biographies and multimedia. In an effort to elevate the stories of marginalized populations, Mic will continue to track transgender homicides […]

The Transgender Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most anti-transgender murder cases — has yet to be solved. Although not every person represented during the Day of Remembrance self-identified as transgender — that is, as a transsexual, crossdresser, or otherwise gender-variant — each was a victim of violence based on bias […]

  The primary, if (mostly) unspoken, purpose of voter ID laws is to keep down turnout among African-American voters who prefer Democrats. But one of the side effects of the laws is that they make it harder for trans voters too. An estimated 34,000 trans voters may find it impossible to cast a ballot this election because they can’t clear the hurdles that Republican legislatures have put in place. According to a report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, eight states have laws that make voting incredibly (and perhaps intentionally) difficult for trans people. At issue is the […]

In a lawsuit challenging the North Carolina law banning transgender people from using restrooms that correspond to their gender identity, LGBT rights groups yesterday asked a federal appeals court to broaden a preliminary injunction in order to protect all transgender people in the state from discrimination. In August, a district court issued a preliminary injunction preventing the North Carolina university system from enforcing H.B. 2 against the three individual transgender plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Carcaño v. McCrory, which is scheduled for trial in May 2017. The advocates also asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite the appeal and […]

  There have been many fights over transgender rights across the country, but the showdown in Illinois’ District 211 has been particularly ugly. After “Student A” successfully fought the school for access to the same locker room other girls used, a group of anonymous students turned around and sued, claiming that her access caused them “emotional distress.” A federal judge was not impressed by their claims. On Tuesday, United States Magistrate Judge Jeffrey T. Gilbert recommended against granting these students a preliminary injunction blocking Student A and other trans students from the facilities. “High school students do not have a […]

  The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation joined with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians (ACOP), which together represent more than 66,000 pediatricians and pediatric specialists across the country, to release Supporting and Caring for Transgender Children, a new guide for community members and allies to ensure that transgender young people are affirmed, respected, and able to thrive. The resource comes at a time of unprecedented attention on transgender identities and during a national dialogue on the inclusion and rights of transgender students and youth. Recently, transgender young people have too frequently found […]