McLaughlin was pronounced dead at 6:51 p.m. at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.
She was convicted of first-degree murder in 2006 in the killing of Beverly Guenther, and a judge sentenced her to death after the jury deadlocked on its sentencing decision. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson denied clemency Tuesday after advocates expressed concern over her sentencing.
“McLaughlin is a violent criminal,” Parson said in a statement Tuesday. “Ms. Guenther’s family and loved ones deserve peace. The State of Missouri will carry out McLaughlin’s sentence according to the Court’s order and deliver justice.”
McLaughlin spoke quietly with a spiritual adviser at her side as the fatal dose of pentobarbital was injected. McLaughlin breathed heavily a couple of times, then shut her eyes. She was pronounced dead a few minutes later.
“I am sorry for what I did,” McLaughlin said in a final, written, statement. “I am a loving and caring person.”
McLaughlin was in a relationship with Guenther before her transition, but Guenther obtained a restraining order after McLaughlin showed up multiple times at her workplace.
Officers found a broken knife handle near Guenther’s car and a trail of blood at her office building on the night of Nov. 20, 2003, after her neighbors reported that Guenther had not returned home. McLaughlin later led police to a location near the Mississippi River in St. Louis where Guenther’s body had been dumped.
The state was ordered to give McLaughlin a new sentencing in 2016, but a federal appeals court panel reinstated the death penalty in 2021.
McLaughlin’s appeal for clemency argued that the jury did not listen to issues about her mental health. Her clemency petition included details of traumatic childhood abuse, such as a foster parent who rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler, and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her.
She suffered from depression, according to the clemency petition.
Advocates also expressed concern that McLaughlin would be put to death even though the jury was not unanimous. An online petition for clemency, supported by the organization Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, called the decision a “gross misuse of judicial power.”
“They weren’t convinced that Amber deserved the most severe punishment the justice system can offer,” the petition said. “But because of Missouri’s legal loophole, the trial judge was able to overrule the deadlock jury and impose a death sentence for Amber.”
McLaughlin began her transition in prison about three years ago, according to a fellow inmate and friend, Jessica Hicklin.
Hicklin won a lawsuit in 2018 against the Missouri Corrections Department, challenging a policy that prohibited hormone therapy for inmates who were not receiving it before they were incarcerated.
Hicklin said she rarely spoke to McLaughlin before McLaughlin’s transition, describing her fellow inmate as shy. The two spent more time together as Hicklin offered guidance about how to file paperwork for proper treatment and access to mental health counseling, as well as advice about safety within the prison.
“Definitely a vulnerable person,” Hicklin said. “Definitely afraid of being assaulted or victimized, which is more common for trans folks in Department of Corrections.”
Nancy Eves, an ambassador for LGBTQ+ young people’s charity Just Like Us, reflects on the moment they realised they were trans non-binary – and why it was truly magical.
Being non-binary in the UK right feels very strange right now. With every passing week we’re in a better place in history for the LGBTQ+ community than ever before, but it can be hard to remember this when the bad news travels faster than the good.
It’s more important than ever to make sure we celebrate the joys of gender exploration, especially as the challenges we face can be so heavy on our community.
I first questioned my gender identity over a year ago when I came across something online, urging readers to think about how they feel about their gender.
The Twitter thread said: ‘I WANT YOU TO TAKE HALF AN HOUR SOMETIME TO THINK ABOUT YOUR GENDER.’ I thought I was cisgender at the time, so I figured this would be an interesting experiment.
From the very first question, ‘What do you enjoy about being your gender?’, I was stumped. How was I supposed to answer this? As a woman? Oh. Oh. This prompted a whole journey of realising my feelings around my gender.
And so it turns out I never was a woman. Of course, I was reluctant to tell anyone about this to begin with. First of all, I had no idea how to describe what my gender is, and secondly, I had no idea how the people in my life would react.
Complicating matters further, this was happening around the same time that I discovered that I am autistic. Having two, truly world-bending, personal epiphanies at the same time was exhausting to say the least. Luckily, I found myself able to be extremely open about the latter because my brother is also autistic, therefore this realisation was not a new one in my close circles.
However, while figuring out that I am autistic was like a lightbulb finally flickering on, figuring out that I am not cisgender was like a web of dark passageways appearing before me. Out of nowhere, my gender identity went from something I had rarely even considered, to a cataclysmic, never-ending realm of possibilities.
Learning, and then accepting, that gender is a made-up cultural concept and not nearly as biologically-essential as we are made to believe wreaked havoc with my autistic brain. Why on earth are we forced to grow up confining ourselves to these predetermined categories when the human experience is so much more brilliantly complex than that?
Dr Wenn Lawson, an autistic and trans researcher, puts this brilliantly: “The non-autistic world is governed by social and traditional expectations, but we may not notice these or fail to see them as important. This frees us up to connect more readily with our true gender.”
Through the process of unmasking, learning how to live as my authentic autistic self, I have made so many discoveries, including what I feel my gender truly is. I had confirmed rather quickly that I am definitely not a woman, but I’m also not a man. That leaves the gender binary that the non-autistic world sometimes seems to love so much out of the question for me.
I definitely rode on the wave of novelty for the first year of identifying as non-binary, not completely minding when people misgendered me because it was so new to me as well. But more recently, as I am becoming more confident in myself, complacency just feels like a self-inflicted injustice.
To reflect this change of mindset, I recently updated my pronouns from she/they to they/them. Although I am not any more non-binary than I was before, this further detachment from my assigned gender has been extremely affirming for me. However, strangely, it also increased my awareness of how inaccessible the UK is to non-binary and trans people.
First of all, being non-binary means I am technically a trans person, and with the hate currently circulating in the media and online, this was a scary thing to admit. Secondly, there is still no way of identifying as non-binary legally, so I must endure every official process that requires a tick-box exercise as if I’m living a lie. There are endless examples I could name.
To put it bluntly, being autistic already means that the world is not built for me, but being non-binary amplifies that experience tenfold.
While, unfortunately, I cannot personally alleviate all these issues, I am comforted by the fact that being trans and autistic feels truly magical to me. When you have been called ‘weird’ by everyone for nearly 25 years, figuring out that it is because your brain was never wired to ‘fit in’ to begin with is such a relief. The best part is that I am far from alone in my experience.
Admitting that I am non-binary used to leave a funny taste in my mouth, but I absolutely do not regret that I started to open up about it.
I have been volunteering with the LGBTQ+ young people’s charity Just Like Us for just over a year now, giving talks in schools about growing up LGBT+ and how to be an ally. For the majority of that time, my story has focused on my journey with sexuality because I did not feel that I could talk confidently about my gender identity just yet.
However, while delivering my story at a volunteer training session recently, I decided to weave in my journey of gender exploration and how I have come to identify as non-binary. At first, I felt panicky, frantic and nonsensical as I spoke. But then something amazing happened – afterwards, one of the other volunteers approached me to say that what I’d said had really resonated with them. I was immensely grateful to hear that sharing my story was helping others.
Dealing with the topic of gender is really hard. It may seem to cause rifts and discomfort everywhere you look, but that is because it is important and worth exploring. No matter how you identify, I highly recommend giving yourself the time and space to get to know how you feel about your gender and gender expression.
It is rare that we are given permission to really delve into such an integral part of our identities separate from medical or political settings. Take the time to revel in the mystery and euphoria of your own existence – I promise it will be worthwhile.
He was a skilled barroom brawler, trick shooter, and dashing womanizer known for having multiple mares in his stable at any given moment. If 19th-century trans “cowboy” Harry Allen hadn’t been assigned female at birth, John Wayne—or Elliot Page, if we’re casting looks—would have played him in a sexy biopic already.
Hollywood has spent billions depicting the frontier as a gun-slinging frenzy of cisgender masculinity, but in reality, the Old West was one of the queerer places in America. This sprawl of undeveloped land drew hundreds of closeted men, women, and gender non-conforming folk from across the United States out of suburban hidey-holes, and into a difficult but liberating new ecosystem where survival meant more than gender norms.
Given the Wild West was built on the bones of indigenous tribal lands, its more relaxed approach to gender wasn’t surprising. Tribes like the Navajo and Cherokee were never moved by Christian colonizers’ binary dog-and-pony show, recognizing anywhere from four to six “genders” on average. Their tradition of accepting “two-spirits”—transgender, gender fluid, and/or non-binary tribe members—as treasured community members bled subtly into the culture of the West, creating cracks of space for other queer people to experiment. Infamously lawless, the burgeoning area was too busy dealing with murders and dysentery to make Puritanical “masquerading laws” a priority, removing the legal leverage well-established cities used to subjugate queer bodies for offenses like **checks notes** wearing a dress while male.
The ratio of men to women was also around 14:1 on the frontier, which meant three things:
“Gay sex” wasn’t always seen as homosexual, just a necessity.
Sexual violence was a significant problem across the board.
It wasn’t uncommon for women to dress in men’s clothes to prevent becoming victims of sexual violence.
Because of this, some historians have reduced overt queerness to crossdressing as a survival tactic and all Brokeback Mountain sexual partnering as a supply and demand issue.
Harry Allen is a prime example of why these historians are silly.
Born in Indiana in 1882 to poor ranch workers, Allen’s family relocated to the Pacific Northwest just as he entered puberty. His mother, Jennie Gordon, gave interviews asserting her child rejected girls’ clothes almost immediately, dressing in pants instead of skirts and learning to shoot on horseback instead of taking up needlepoint. He formally changed his name to Harry Livingston in around 1900, switching to Allen once police records attached to “Livingston” became cumbersome. This name change was not, as some historians have suggested, for employment reasons.
Allen communicated clearly in a 1908 interview with The Seattle Sunday Times that everything from his name to hat choice was rooted in gender dysphoria, saying, “I did not like to be a girl, did not feel like a girl, and never did look like a girl,” he said. “Sick at heart over the thought that I would be an outcast of the feminine gender, I conceived the idea of making myself a man.”
As it turns out, Harry executed his idea a little too well for the time. He secured “manly” work throughout the Washington area, including bartending and participating in prize fights. He had no trouble attracting a parade of girlfriends, some quite desperate to marry him. Harry even assimilated into a gang of young men, though they participated in little crime outside of drinking and petty theft. But everything he did, from playing the piano drunk to messy breakups, became catnip for cops and local tabloids.
By 1902 Allen was in the newspaper regularly. His first publicized arrest in 1900 was for appearing “in male attire,” despite no local or federal law saying he couldn’t wear pants. Once the arresting officer was humiliated by the revelation Allen hadn’t committed a crime—and Harry loved polished menswear, always sporting a silk hat, tie, and a walking stick even on quick trips to the barber—the young man became a punching bag for law enforcement. “Vagrancy,” an intentionally vague charge used at the turn of the century to target LGBTQ people, appears on his rap sheet multiple times alongside accusations of bootlegging and prostitution.
While the frontier may have been safer than the average “lawful” city for queer people, Allen could never escape the burden police, judges, and media heaped on him. He was jailed in 1911 for selling liquor to an indigenous person, a minor and non-violent offense, but held on a massive bail for weeks while awaiting trial. During his imprisonment, the Spokane Chief of Police made bullying Allen into petticoats under threat of solitary confinement his personal pastime. Journalists enabled this by publishing weekly updates on whether Harry had given in to skirts. (He never did.)
By the time Harry Allen died of syphilis in 1922, he had been written up by the media no less than two dozen times, mostly for living as his authentic self and dating “young women of respectable parentage.” At the time of his passing, at least two paramours had committed suicide out of unrequited love for him, though it’s unclear if these reports were accurate or sensationalized tabloid fodder.
Allen remains strong evidence that gender dysphoria and trans ideology are not, as pundits today wail from their Twitter accounts, a new “social contagion,” but a long and well-documented part of the human experience no matter where those humans settle.
Ky Schevers was confused about her gender, and detransitioned after being “sucked in” by “gender-critical feminism”. Now, she’s rebuilding her life.
Schevers, who is transmasculine, genderqueer and uses she/ her pronouns, began medical transition by taking testosterone when she was 20, after coming out as a trans man.
But Schevers soon realised that her gender wasn’t binary.
“I had tried living as a more binary trans guy but that didn’t really work out, and I felt more genderqueer,” she tells PinkNews. “Then I thought I felt more like a butch dyke, and I kind of wanted to explore that part of myself.”
Looking for support, she turned to online forums.
“I was expressing these doubts and in a psychologically vulnerable place.”
She was approached by a woman who Schevers describes as “fairly TERFy” (TERF stands for trans exclusionary radical feminist) and had, like her, been reading some content online about detransition.
“I feel like we both got sucked in towards transphobic or gender-critical feminism because, firstly, those are the people who were trying to latch on to stories [like ours],” Schevers explains.
“It kind of made sense to me, like I wasn’t sure how to reclaim the female or butch parts of myself without drawing on some of the stories I’d already heard – that there’s pressure on butch lesbians to transition, or they’re transitioning because of internalised misogyny.”
Over the next few years, Schevers descended down an anti-trans rabbit hole. She found a community in circles of detransitioned radical “feminists”, and was held up as an example of transness being a result of internalised misogyny, homophobia and trauma.
“It was very well-attended a whole lot of TERFy lesbians who showed up to hear about the poor lesbians who got sucked in… they just ate that up. Now looking back, I can see I got love-bombed, there was lots of positive attention.”
Schevers describes this sense of community and support as “intoxicating”, and adds: “It felt like we were doing this important work, and helping people. A lot of us had gone through this sort of intense conversion experience, converting to this particular interpretation of radical feminism, lesbian feminism.
“But I feel like most of us were in some kind of real distress and believing in this stuff felt good. We did find connection with each other, we were just connecting over transphobic beliefs and also, I would say, self-harm.”
It was very cult-like, it was very controlling.
Schevers is clear that there is nothing wrong with detransition, and that everyone’s journey of gender discovery is different. The problem is that when those people search for support, they are more often than not finding radicalised, anti-trans communities to lean on.
“This is one of the reasons I feel like there needs to be more talk about these issues outside of transphobic groups, if they’re the only people talking about it, it’s easier for people to get sucked in and radicalised and end up believing a bunch of transphobic crap.”
The process of extricating herself from the group she found herself embedded in was gradual, Schevers says: “It was very cult-like, it was very controlling. It’s one of those things where it’s easy to join the group, harder to leave.”
Once, before she even admitted to herself that she wanted to get out, she happened to attend a book reading by a gay man who had been through conversion therapy.
“The way he described his experiences resonated with me,” she says.
“A light bulb went off, but I was also like, ‘Oh, s**t.’ You don’t necessarily want to believe you accidentally created an ex-trans community, that you’ve been doing conversion therapy on yourself.”
Ky Schevers realised links between TERFs and the far-right
It wasn’t the first time right-wing Christians has “misused” her writing, she says.
“But at the time has book came out, I was already saying: ‘My transition didn’t really hurt me.’ I was trying to make peace with being genderqueer and trans. I couldn’t say that yet, because I would have gotten too much backlash from other detransitioned women.”
The book helped her to realise the ties between trans-exclusionary radical feminism and the far-right, as she saw that Anderson was parroting “a lot of the same arguments that these supposed feminists were making”.
“I was horrified because I thought the point of radical feminism was to fight the patriarchy and dismantle it, not like ally [with the right] to go after trans people.
“But when you’re siding with the Christian right just to go after trans people, you’re just a transphobe. You do not care about fighting the patriarchy, sexism, or homophobia, you just want to go after trans people.”
Anderson’s use of her writing made Schevers think.
“If telling my story is supposed to help uproot the patriarchy, and the patriarchy is using it, well there’s a problem here.”
As time went on, Schevers began to feel more at peace with herself and her transition, and consequently began feeling much happier.
I kind of realised that a lot of these like supposed feminists are just using me.
But what surprised her was that the anti-trans radical feminists around her were “threatened” by her happiness.
“It was actually a disturbing experience, because I’m feeling happier, but they didn’t really care. Obviously, I knew conservative Christians never had my best interests at heart, and I kind of realised that a lot of these like supposed feminists are just using me, and then I realised these other detransitioned women in my own community just want to use me.”
Getting out meant cutting off most of the people around her, Schevers says, and it took her a long time to speak out publicly about her experience.
“I felt comfortable actually sharing my story and speaking out and talking about this stuff because I don’t want people to suffer like I did,” Schevers says.
“I don’t want people to fall prey to toxic communities.”
And to those people who may be thinking about going through detransition, Schevers remarks: “People should be asking, ‘What do you need? What do you need to be well?’ We need to help people figure out if it’s transition that’s the problem, or if it’s living in a society wants everyone to see transitioning as harmful.”
We have a political climate that has exploded with anti-trans legislation, policy and rhetoric. In the leadup to last week’s election, TV ads and political mailers spread lies about trans people, denigrating our community and stoking fear in people who simply don’t understand what it means to be trans.
Now, when there is a glaring spotlight on trans people in America, we have an opportunity to show the country who we are. Telling the truth about what it means to be trans, using real data, can counter the misinformation being spread about our community. It is important that we tell our own stories and that we are heard loud and clear.
Right now, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and partners are conducting the U.S. Trans Survey, the largest ever national survey of the lives and experiences of transgender people. Whether you’re trans, nonbinary, or otherwise not cisgender, the time is now to take the U.S. Trans Survey before it closes. The last survey was conducted in 2015, and a lot has changed since then.
Since 2015, many states have advanced policies that ban gender-affirming care or ban trans youth from playing sports. Others have made it easier to change the gender marker on our identification to match who we are. Violence against trans people has gone up over the past several years, and we know from the data that Black trans women face a disproportionate amount of that violence.
Next week, Trans Awareness Week, we honor the loved ones we’ve lost to violence and celebrate those who are still here. We speak up loudly about the disparities we face in hopes that others will see and understand. We lift up the voices of the most marginalized in our community, understanding that together, we will all rise.
Much of the political focus right now is on trans youth — their right to transition-related care, their right to play sports with their friends, and their right to use the restroom. Now, more than ever, it is important to hear from young people about their experiences. That’s why this time around, youth as young as 16 years old can take the survey and share their stories.
There is a concerted effort by certain politicians and political organizations to deny that trans people are real. There is a false narrative that trans youth are “too young” to know that they’re trans, that people who transition at a young age, whether socially or medically, later regret it.
But we know from the data that this narrative is simply not true. A study came out in May this year revealing that for young people who socially transitioned, only two percent of them “detransitioned,” or went back to identifying as the gender they were assigned at birth. And another study published just last month found that at 98 percent of youth who were prescribed puberty blockers went on to be prescribed hormone replacement therapy after turning 18. Meaning, trans youth continued to be trans.
This is the importance of research. And we need this research to inform the decision makers, educators, elected officials, health care providers, and the general public about who we are and what we experience in life.
We know that trans people exist and that our lives and experiences are valid. By making this the largest trans survey in U.S. history, we can show that how strong, diverse, and how real of a community we have. And we aren’t just young people in New York and California; trans people from Wyoming to Alaska, from youth to elders; trans folks who are Indigenous, Black, Latine, white, multiracial. Every voice must be represented in the U.S. Trans Survey.
The survey in some places covers some heavy topics: mental health, experiences with religious institutions, and experiences with the police. But it also helps us reveal answers to questions like: Has having access to transition-related care improved your life? How has coming out as trans affected your mental health? Does your family accept who you are, and how does that impact you?
There are hundreds of questions in the survey to examine the details of our lives, so we recommend setting aside about an hour to take it. Tens of thousands of you already have, but we know our community is even larger. There is strength in numbers, and the more people who take the U.S. Trans Survey, the harder it is to deny that we exist and that we are real.
If you’re trans or nonbinary, I urge you to take the U.S. Trans Survey before it closes on its new deadline of Dec. 5. Let’s show this country who we are. Let’s show them that we won’t go away.
A trans woman won a major Delhi region for her party during an election on Wednesday (7 December).
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Bobi won the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election after votes were counted this week.
The trans politician won Sultanpur-A ward against Congress candidate Varuna Dhaka by 6,714 votes according to Indian Express.
Her win came just hours before it was announced that the AAP crossed the finish line with 134 seats, winning against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The win means that the AAP now holds a strong majority over the municipal corporation, which makes up one of the three municipalities in Delhi, overseeing the region.
Voters line up to cast their vote in the MCD elections. (Getty)
Sultanpur’s new representative, who is often nicknamed Bobi “Darling”, has routinely said she would work in cleaning up the corruption within the MCD and “beautify” the constituency.
“I want to dedicate my victory to the people who worked so hard for me,” she said.
“I would like to thank everyone. Now I just have to work for development in my area.”
A long-time social worker, Bobi originally ran as an independent candidate during the 2017 MCD election, but later joined up with the self-proclaimed “anti-corruption” party.
She is also well known for her work toward improving education and social mobility in and around Sultanpur.
Her victory was incredibly close during pollings, with BJP regularly overtaking AAP multiple times before votes were fully counted.
In the end, BJP failed to win the constituency and the wider election, finishing with 104 seats according to NDTV.
Bobi’s win is a huge step for LGBTQ+ representation
The victory is another huge step for LGBTQ+ rights and representation in India.
While the country has many rights in place for queer minorities, it still has a long way to go in actualising true equality.
Same-sex marriage is still forbidden, despite routine attempts by activists to reverse the government’s policy.
Lead petitioners Supriyo Chakraborty and Abhay Dange argued that not extending the rights of marriage to LGBTQ+ couples is an affront to their human rights.
The inability to marry means that the couple cannot adopt together, nor can they inherit each other assets.
Additionally, it means that hospital visits for medical emergencies could be refused since the two are not legally recognised as family.
As part of Trans Awareness Week, the community honours those we’ve lost on Trans Day of Remembrance every year.
Candlelit vigils take place worldwide each year commemorating the trans lives lost to transphobic hate crimes each year. This year, those vigils will happen on Sunday (20 November).
As well as a time to remember those lost to violence, and to raise awareness of hate, Trans Awareness Week is also about honouring those who fought so hard for the community and for their right to exist.
From Mexican revolutionaries to New York drag queens, these trailblazers prove that trans and non-binary lives have always mattered.
Rita Hester
Trans woman Rita Hester’s tragic death in 1998 sparked the existence of Trans Day of Remembrance as it’s known today.
Hester was a popular part of the Boston trans community and was intertwined with the city’s rock scene. Described as a magnetic personality who “was out for good times,” there was rarely a moment when she wasn’t dancing the night away with friends
On November 28, 1998, she was killed at her home in Massachusetts in a horrendous crime that still hasn’t been solved. In response, a candlelight vigil was held, with 250 people attending.
This later inspired activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith to create a web project named Remember Our Dead which honoured trans people who were victims to horrible hate crimes.
This became Transgender Day of Remembrance and has been held in cities across the world ever since.
Lucy Hicks Anderson
Lucy Hicks Anderson was born in 1886 and became a socialite and hostess. (Twitter/@historyteller)
The story of Lucy Hicks Anderson proves that, no matter your background, the struggles of trans people across the world are ubiquitous.
Anderson was born in Kentucky in 1886. From an early age, she expressed a desire to present as female and socially transitioned in her teens under advice from doctors despite the term transgender not yet existing.
After leaving school at age 15, Anderson worked in various jobs until she was able to buy a California brothel, becoming a well-known socialite and hostess.
When claims that an outbreak of disease came from her establishment, Anderson was forced to undergo a medical examination that outed her to authorities.
Attorneys tried her for perjury, claiming that she had deceived the government about her gender. During the trial, she stated: “I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman. I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.”
The court convicted Anderson and sent her to a men’s prison. After serving her sentence, Anderson relocated to Los Angeles where she lived until her death in 1954.
Amelio Robles Ávila
The amazing thing about trans activism is it can take several forms – from street protests to simply correcting pronouns. In Mexican trans colonel Amelio Robles Ávila’s case, it was holding a pistol to a transphobic soldier until they correctly gendered him.
Born in 1889, Robles’ life was defined by the bloody conflict of the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s.
He joined the army in 1911 and was sent to the Gulf of Mexico to obtain money from oil companies for revolution efforts. Two years later, aged 24, he began to identify as a man and demanded to be treated as such.
Historical accounts detail Robles’s lengths to combat transphobia, including threatening those who called him Doña or madam with a pistol.
Robles was eventually promoted to colonel, commanding 315 men during the Agua Prieta Revolt. He donned the nickname “el coronel Robles,” and was described as a capable military leader. He died aged 95 on 8 December 1984.
SOPHIE
SOPHIE performs at Mojave Tent during the 2019 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival. (Getty)
Sophie Xeon, better known as SOPHIE, is one of the most significant trans musicians of all time and well-known for defining the hyperpop genre.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland on 17 September 1986, she became obsessed with music at a young age after her dad played electronic music in the car.
Her music became incredibly influential and is one of the foundations of hyperpop. Her song “Immaterial” has been listened to over 22 million times on Spotify.
She died on 30 January 2021 after falling from a cliff while trying to take a picture of the moon. Artists including Charli XCX, Sam Smith, and Rihanna expressed their condolences.
Not a huge amount is known about Jens Andersson, but what is known is that of a life defined by transphobia and a lack of understanding about non-binary people.
Born in the 1760s, Andersson began presenting as male when he moved to Strømsø, Norway in 1778.
After getting married, his wife later privately told a minister she thought her “husband might be a woman” and as such, Andersson was accused of sodomy.
During the trial, when asked about his gender, an associate answered: “He believes he may be both.”
After awaiting punishment “by fire and flames,” Andersson somehow escaped prison before a verdict was reached, the rest of his life is a complete mystery.
Blake Brockington
A photo of Blake Brockington before his death in 2015. (Twitter)
Trans male high school student Blake Brockington gained popularity after being the first trans high school homecoming king in North Carolina.
After coming out while in tenth grade, Brockington struggled with his parent’s disapproval, eventually joining a foster family.
In 2014, he collected $2,555 during a charity drive at his school in East Mecklenburg and became the first openly trans high school homecoming king.
He his platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ youth issues and spoke during a Trans Day of Remembrance service at Charlotte Independence Square.
Brockington took his own life at just 18 years old in March 2015. He was laid to rest in South Carolina.
Sylvia Rivera
LGBTQ+ activism just wouldn’t be the same without Sylvie Rivera, a trans woman born in 1951 who was involved with the Gay Liberation Front along with icon Marsha P Johnson and fellow activists.
Born in New York City, she was abandoned by her father as a child, living on the streets in 1962 before being taken in by a local community of drag queens.
While she did not attend the Stonewall riots, Rivera still spent much of her life advocating for the rights of LGBTQ+ people in and around New York, including after Johnson’s death.
She died in 2002 due to complications with liver cancer. After her death, her activism was celebrated with a street sign in her name.
Rusty Mae Moore
Rusty Mae Moore was a trans rights activist who ran a de facto homeless shelter in the late 1990s and early 2000s known as the Trans House.
A trans woman herself, Moore ensured that trans people in New York were taken care of and protected.
She was described as a “second mother” to patrons of Transy House, with resident Antonia Cambareri saying: “She paved the way, recording our culture, allowing us to survive.”
Moore died in February 2022 in Pine-Hill, New York home at 80 years old.
Thomas Baty
One of the only images of Thomas Baty available today. (Bains News Source)
English scholar Thomas Baty, also known as Irene Clyde, was a gender binary-crushing visionary who defined his life around a rejection of societal gender norms.
Modern writers have described Baty as non-binary, though it is unclear if he identified with the term.
Baty published several books under the name Irene Clyde, most of which were feminism-based critiques of the gender binary in the form of essays or science fiction. Most notable was his book Beatrice the Sixteenth – a utopian novel set in a postgender society.
He died aged 86 in 1954 in Ichinomiya, Chiba, Japan.
Anderson Bigode Herzer
Trans man Anderson Bigode Herzer was a profound trans writer from Brazil whose experiences were used to create the film Vera by Sérgio Toledo.
Born in 1962, much of Herzer’s life was noted in a book titled A queda para o alto or Descending Upwards. He was institutionalised at 14 years old in a youth state detention centre until 17, when politician Eduardo Suplicy hired him as an intern.
Herzer struggled with mental health issues and trauma due to his detainment, taking his own life at just 20 years old.
Angie Xtravaganza talks during a clip of the documentary Paris is Burning. (Paris is Burning)
If you’ve watched the emotionally heavy documentary Paris is Burning, then Angie Xtravaganza needs no introduction. The trans performer was prominent in New York’s gay ball culture.
Xtravaganza was born in the South Bronx in 1964 where she was raised in a Catholic house of 13 children.
She started doing drag in 1980 and performed at balls at just 16. Her performances became well-known enough that she established the House of Xtravaganza in 1982.
She was diagnosed with AIDs in 1991 and died two years later at the age of 28.
A transgender member of the Asheville City Board of Education has resigned after a months-long campaign of harassment by a representative of a national hate group.
Peyton O’Conner announced her resignation from the board on Monday night, effective immediately.
Ronald Gates, a self-described pastor and “ambassador” for the Arizona-based hate group Alliance Defending Freedom, started showing up at Asheville City Board of Education meetings in October, hectoring the board with anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, denouncing critical race theory, and misgendering board member O’Conner.
“Mr. Gates is a fascist whose hatred and fear-mongering have no place within the Asheville City School’s community,” O’Conner wrote in her letter of resignation to the board. “He is dragging a well-funded group of fascists into our town in order to claim his own 15 minutes of fame. His views are ignorant, disgusting, and vile.”
O’Conner was appointed to the seat in March 2021 by the Asheville City Council to fill a term ending in 2024.
O’Conner’s resignation follows a board meeting at which she ripped up a letter transmitted by Gates that demanded “parents, school board members, and local clergy be informed if teachers plan to allow ‘indoctrination teaching’ in the school system.”
Alliance Defending Freedom identifies itself as a “legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, the sanctity of life, parental rights, and God’s design for marriage and family.” The Southern Poverty Law Center describes it as a “hate group.” ADF has joined with like-minded organizations in Europe in support of forced sterilization of transgender individuals.
When Gates took the mic for public comment, he repeatedly misgendered O’Conner, despite rebukes from the board chair. O’Conner interjected: “Mr. Gates, I would ask that you refrain from bigotry and hate speech. That is not my gender.”
Gates went on: “We should be focusing on reading, writing, math, and history, true history, instead of sexual immorality or indoctrination or CRT. As I shared, the submittal of the information, it was submitted before the board, respectfully, and the individual that took time to rip up that information is not known, as you reflect it, as ‘Miss.’ I will say ‘Mr.’ if the blood was drawn XY, which is a male.”
Board members can be heard repeating “no,” and Gates is gaveled out of order and told to yield his time. The pastor and his supporters were escorted from the room by security, as Gates continued his rant.
“The ADF has a playbook,” O’Conner wrote in her resignation letter. “Essentially, Mr. Gates will continue attacking until he is censured in a way that allows him (with the assistance of the ADF) to create a lawsuit and turn our district into the circus and s**t show that he and the ADF desire. This isn’t a guess, the ADF makes no attempt to hide its tactics. It’s a group with 1.6 million followers, they are looking for their next opportunity for their next Fox News press blitz.”
Asheville is one of the most progressive cities in the southeast. According to the last U.S. Census, the Asheville area has 83% more LGBTQ+ people than the typical American city or town. In 2021, the city council unanimously passed one of the country’s most sweeping anti-discrimination ordinances, protecting residents based on sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and several other classes.
Transgender woman Shahere “Diamond” Jackson-McDonald was found shot to death in Philadelphia the morning of November 24, Thanksgiving Day.
Jackson-McDonald, 27, was discovered at her mother’s apartment in the Germantown neighborhood, Philadelphia’s NBC affiliate reports. She had been shot several times and was pronounced dead at the scene. It didn’t appear that anyone had forced their way into the apartment.
“We are here today to honor a promising life that was violently ended by a person or persons that Philadelphia Police and our office are working tirelessly to bring to justice, so that they can be held accountable for this crime and are not able to cause any further harm to others,” Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said at a press conference last week, according to the station. “We are here to say her name: Diamond Jackson-McDonald.”
“I just want the world to know that Diamond was my rock, my shoulder, my child whom I love with every inch of me of what I have left to give,” Linda Jackson, Jackson-McDonald’s mother, said at the press conference. “Whoever you are, you took away my gem, my Diamond, someone whom was all about her family and friends. You tore many hearts, and we will not rest until we get justice. I will not sleep until you are caught. You may not have to answer to me now, but you will have to answer to God. You reap what you sow.”
“It is devastating and heart-wrenching as we mourn the loss of yet another member of our LGBTQ family, Shahere ‘Diamond’ Jackson-McDonald,” said Celena Morrison, executive director of Philadelphia’s Office of LGBT Affairs, according to the Philly Voice. “Violence against transgender people — especially our trans siblings of color — continues to be an epidemic in this country, and it is unacceptable. My office is committed to ensuring that acts of discrimination, bigotry, and hatred are never tolerated in the city of Philadelphia, and we will not stop until all of us are safe and treated with respect and honor.”
Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative, released this statement: “Diamond was a beautiful gem who should still be with us today. All of us — allies and community members alike — grieve with her family and friends. Diamond’s life mattered. We stand with her family and call for justice for Diamond. The epidemic of violence we face as Black transgender women is driven by stigma and hate. And it’s all just because we wish to live our lives. All of us, including allies, have a responsibility to hold the people in our lives accountable for their words because ideologies of hate do in fact lead to violence. It must end.”
Jackson-McDonald’s family has known other tragedies, Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents reports. Twelve relatives — nine children and three adults — died in an apartment fire last January. Her brother died in August. And she was friends with another Black trans woman who died by violence, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, who was killed in Philadelphia in 2020.
“Diamond’s social media is filled with photos of her family and acknowledgment of their impact on her life,” Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents notes. “She celebrated birthdays, honored losses, loved her nieces and nephews, and just poured her heart into all of those relationships. She was fun-loving, bold, and determined. She deserved better than we gave her and that’s on all of us to bear.”
Philadelphia police advised anyone with information on Jackson-McDonald’s death to call 911 or submit a tip by calling (215) 686-TIPS (8477). There’s an option to leave tips anonymously.
Jackson-McDonald is at least the 37th trans, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming person to die by violence in the U.S. this year. That total includes a trans man and a trans woman killed in the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs November 19 as well as a trans woman, whose name has not been released, who was killed in Vallejo, Calif., last month. That is most likely an undercount, as many of these deaths go unreported or misreported, with victims deadnamed and misgendered. The nation saw a record 57 confirmed violent deaths among this population last year.
Zooey Zephyr, the first out transgender woman elected to the Montana Legislature, was inspired to run after her state passed three pieces of legislation targeting the LGBTQ community.
“My goal has always been to be in the room where my voice can do the most good,” the Democrat told NBC News after her win this month.
Zephyr said she had been working with the city of Missoula to draft human rights legislation but came to the conclusion that real change would have to be made at the state level.
“It became clear that is where the bulk of the attacks and damage was happening, and that was the most valuable room to be in,” she said.
Zooey Zephyr of Montana.Courtesy Victory Fund
So far this year, at least 340 anti-LGBTQ bills have been proposed in state legislatures across the United States, with more than 140 targeting transgender rights specifically, according to Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group.
Gabriele Magni, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and the founding director of the university’s LGBTQ+ Politics Research Initiative, said this wave of bills inspired an increasing number of queer candidates to run “to protect LGBTQ rights.”
“If you have so many more candidates, some of them are going to be strong candidates,” he added.
The historic number of bills targeting LGBTQ rights coincided with a record number of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer political candidates: At least 1,065 LGBTQ people ran for office this year, with an estimated 416 running for seats in state legislatures, according to an October report from the LGBTQ Victory Fund, an organization that supports queer people running for office. Of these 416 candidates, 281 made it to the general election, and 185 won — an Election Day win rate of 66%, its post-election analysis found.
The success of these candidates means that more openly LGBTQ people, including more transgender and nonbinary people, will hold office in state legislatures than ever before. Once all of the newly elected officials are seated, there will be nine transgender state legislators (up from eight this year) and nine nonbinary state legislators across the U.S., according to the LGBTQ Victory Institute, the group’s research arm.
The 26-year-old said he decided to run for office due, in part, to the wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation introduced in states across the country, including in New Hampshire.
“Especially as a trans person, seeing all of the new political action happening towards my community really kind of inspired me to be a voice for trans people to be visible and help be a concrete part of making these decisions,” he said.
Roesener’s platform included expanding nondiscrimination laws in health care, affordable housing, raising the state minimum wage to at least $15 per hour and legalizing marijuana.
“I think that people do care about others,” he said. “I think people are all concerned about really basically the same thing. It’s like, are we going to have enough food to eat? Do we have a roof over our heads? Am I going to have time with my family off of work? These are very unifying issues.”
James Roesener of New Hampshire is the first transgender man elected to a state legislature.Courtesy James Roesener
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Another new state legislator will be Leigh Finke, who earlier this month became the first transgender person elected to the Minnesota state Legislature. She told the Minnesota Reformer in June that her decision to run was “largely in response to the building anti-trans movement and seeing bills introduced and laws starting to pass last year” in her home state and beyond.
“It suddenly became an absolute top-level priority for state-level Republicans to attack trans communities and not just to make it a talking point, but to actively take away rights from trans people and trans youth,” she said.
Finke specifically mentioned a bill proposed in Minnesota last year that, if it had passed, would have made participation in girls’ athletics or accessing a women’s locker room a misdemeanor for trans girls. The bill failed, but she told the Minnesota Reformer that it “really shook me and made me realize that someone has to be in the room.” StartingJan. 3, she will be that someone.
‘Real, tangible effects on trans people’
State legislatures have increasingly become battlegrounds over LGBTQ rights. Republicans began introducing legislation targeting queer rights at an increased clip in the wake of the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationally.
This year, at least 340 such bills have been introduced in 23 states, with at least 25 bills becoming law in 13 states so far,according to the Human Rights Campaign.
More than 40% of these proposed bills specifically target transgender people, limiting trans people’s ability to play sports, use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity and receive gender-affirming health care. At least 17 of these bills have become law, the Human Rights Campaign said.
“The legislation has real, tangible effects on trans people and their families that love them and their communities that care for them,” Zephyr said. “I lost friends who fled the state, and I lost friends who ended their lives.”
A strategy that ‘probably backfired’
Whether or not bills targeting the LGBTQ community — particularly transgender people — pass, they act as a “wedge issue” to motivate right-wing voters in advance of an election, Magni said.
He said this strategy worked in the primaries by helping conservative candidates raise money and motivate their base to show up at the polls.
“But then in the general election, when you have a broader electorate, it didn’t really work. It didn’t convince moderate voters,” Magni said. “As an electoral strategy, it probably backfired.”
In addition to inspiring people such as Zephyr, Roesener and Finke to run for office, he said, this strategy may have also helped pro-LGBTQ candidates fundraise and may have motivated supporters to head to the polls.
Given the Democrats’ better-than-expected performance in the midterms, Republicans could change course with their legislation, though Magni and Zephyr said they expect to continue to see anti-LGBTQ bills for the time being.
“We are seeing pre-filed legislation in Tennessee, in Montana, in states across the country,” Zephyr said. However, she believes bills targeting LGBTQ rights are ultimately a losing strategy.
“My feeling is, the more the right pushes this, the more they will lose. People are standing up for us,” she added.
