PinkNews: Queer Black students are being failed by universities. This non-binary academic has a plan to change that . “Queer Black students are being failed by UK universities, says Melz Owusu, who has a plan to decolonise the system. Owusu, a 25-year-old decolonial theorist and activist about to embark on a PhD at Cambridge, is the architect of the Free Black University, a plan to ‘redistribute knowledge’ among Black students with the needs of those who are also queer and trans at its very heart.”
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Washington Post: Pennsylvania governor blasts ‘vile acts’ against transgender official leading pandemic response
Washington Post: Pennsylvania governor blasts ‘vile acts’ against transgender official leading pandemic response. “The man sitting in a Pennsylvania carnival’s dunk tank at a fundraiser last weekend was going for a Marilyn Monroe look, he said, styling himself in a floral print dress and a long blond wig. But on social media, the organizers of the Bloomsburg, Pa., event said he resembled a more local public figure: Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine, an openly transgender woman who has risen to prominence in recent months leading the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.”
SF Bay Times: FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL of Transgender & Queer Performance Goes Online!
SF Bay Times: FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL of Transgender & Queer Performance Goes Online!. “June 18–27, the 19th annual festival of transgender and queer performance comes into your home—offering five programs of dance, theater, and live music. All programs will be viewable on Vimeo, and all programs will be Closed Captioned for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing audiences…. What can audiences expect? Jaw-dropping vogue, gender-bending boy bands, transgender opera, sizzling hip-hop, gay ballroom stars, queer bomba dance & music, wordsmith poets, disabled dance pioneers, gravity-defying trapeze and more will take center stage at the 2020 FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL.” The festival is free.
Dear Queerantine: A Virtual Archive For Queer Stories (Curve)
Curve: Dear Queerantine: A Virtual Archive For Queer Stories. “Dear Queerantine is a digital writing project for women & non-binary/trans people who are queer, questioning, or curious, however we self-identify (or don’t). Our goal is to crowdsource stories from around the world through writing prompts on our website. Anyone who writes a letter receives one from someone else in the community. Everyone can read excerpts on our Instagram and newsletter. Here’s the thing. Desire is complicated. We can’t be what we can’t see, and it’s hard to express what we don’t know we can feel. By writing, you make it easier for other people not just to share their story, but to let themselves feel in the first place. We hope that you’ll be moved and inspired by others in turn, as we’ve been.”
Business Insider: People are sharing hormones on Google Docs and turning to ‘grey market’ pharmacies to get gender-affirming care during the pandemic
Business Insider: People are sharing hormones on Google Docs and turning to ‘grey market’ pharmacies to get gender-affirming care during the pandemic. “Since the lockdowns came into effect across the US, mutual-aid networks for queer and transgender people have popped up, including grocery delivery and resources for people with lost incomes. Among them are efforts geared toward redistributing hormones and needles to those in need, including hormone-sharing Google Docs, and grey-market pharmacies, which buy and sell unregulated hormones.”
i-D: This video game celebrates the stories of Black trans people
I don’t know really how to categorize this. It’s fascinating. I’ll be thinking about it for a while. i-D: This video game celebrates the stories of Black trans people. “London-based artist Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s latest project, WE ARE HERE BECAUSE OF THOSE THAT ARE NOT, is an interactive digital archive video game, which aims to preserve the stories of Black trans people in a world determined to erase them. At its simplest, the game uses keyboard prompts to allow players to be diverted down different pathways, depending on their expressed gender identity. But with its trippy visuals, unsettling music and aesthetic elements — which recall traditional kente patterns — Danielle conjures up something much more than that.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Mattress Factory receives grant to digitize Greer Lankton archive
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Mattress Factory receives grant to digitize Greer Lankton archive. “Born a boy, Lankton had sexual reassignment surgery at the age of 21. The artist worked in New York City’s East Village in the 1980s, creating lifelike, sewn dolls posed in elaborate, theatrical settings. The dolls, modeled on friends or celebrities, could be glamorous and grotesque. Lankton was 38 when she died in 1996.”
BBC: Transgender users accuse TikTok of censorship
BBC: Transgender users accuse TikTok of censorship. “Transgender users on TikTok have complained of censorship after their posts were removed. Videos, including some of people discussing their lives, were taken down and others had the sound removed, according to some posters.”
Fast Company: I’m a trans woman. Google Photos doesn’t know how to categorize me
Fast Company: I’m a trans woman. Google Photos doesn’t know how to categorize me. “The world is full of traps like this for me, whether it’s the bouncer who looks at my driver’s license and demands a second ID before letting me into the bar, or the unchangeable email address that uses an old name. Trans people are constantly having to reckon with the fact that the world has no clear idea of who we are; either we’re the same as we used to be, and thus are called the wrong name or gender at every turn, or we’re different, a stranger to our friends and a threat to airport security. There’s no way to win.”
Remezcla: This Photo Archive Holds the Untold History of Colombia’s Trans Community
Remezcla: This Photo Archive Holds the Untold History of Colombia’s Trans Community. “Each photograph is a gateway to many stories. That’s what the Bogotá-born artist Manuel Parra, known as Manu Mojito, learned early on as he met the trans ‘mothers’ of Colombia’s capital. These women shared with him vintage photographs from their family albums — of parties, beauty pageants, pride parades and of complex lives that had gone unnoticed by most of society. Then, almost eight years ago, Parra conceived the idea of Colombia Trans History. He imagined an archive of images, taken from the photo albums of trans women, that could weave together an alternative telling of trans women’s history in relation to what had been narrated by the predominant media of the times, which usually framed trans women as criminals.”
BBC: Transgender people treated ‘inhumanely’ online
BBC: Transgender people treated ‘inhumanely’ online. “Researchers analysed 10 million posts on the topic of transgender identity, shared from the UK and the US over a period of three-and-a-half years. They said more than 1.5 million of them were anti-trans. Other common transphobic themes of online posts included misgendering people – purposefully labelling somebody as a gender that they do not identify as.”
Playbill: Parity Productions Expands Women and TGNC Artists Database
New-to-me, from Playbill: Parity Productions Expands Women and TGNC Artists Database. “Parity Productions’ Women and Trans and Gender Nonconforming (TGNC) Artists database now features a distinction between union and non-union artists. The free, online database, which hosts over 400 artists across 22 theatrical disciplines, provides opportunities for designers, playwrights, composers, dramaturgs, producers, and more to view other artist profiles and connect.”
New York Daily News: After protests from LGBTQ groups, IMDb will allow removal of birth names from database
New York Daily News: After protests from LGBTQ groups, IMDb will allow removal of birth names from database. “On Monday, IMDb — the world’s largest online database of information related to movies, television, cast and crew — announced that it’d finally start allowing transgender individuals to remove their birth names from the site, when requested.”
Refinery29: The Snapchat Gender Swap Filter Is Taking Over The Internet — But Is It Problematic?
Refinery29: The Snapchat Gender Swap Filter Is Taking Over The Internet — But Is It Problematic?. “The filters (of which there are only two) reinforce long-held traditional gender norms. With the woman filter, I had a softer look: airbrushed skin, an angular face, long hair, and doe eyes. And as a man, I was gifted a strong jaw and some admirable scruff. But while this was all in good fun, and I now know what I’d look like with a beard, some are calling on Snapchat users to check their privilege when using the gender-swapping filters so frivolously.”
The Daily Iowan: Transgender Oral History Project celebrates and preserves trans history in Iowa
The Daily Iowan: Transgender Oral History Project celebrates and preserves trans history in Iowa. “An oral-history project can help preserve history of communities and serves as an important archive for those hoping to do research. A University of Iowa researcher hopes to create that kind of archive for the transgender community across the state with the Transgender Oral History Project of Iowa.”
