In the News (with pictures & videos)

[Betty]

Jose Agustin Hernandez, who goes by the name “Adela”, is the first transsexual ever to occupy a government post in all Cuban history. She was elected municipal delegate – a kind of town councilor – by her neighbors.

Adela lives in the town of Caibarien, in the province of Villa Clara, which is located in Cuba’s north-central region. After a year in office, she agreed to an interview with Publico magazine and to draw a balance of her work during this time.

Delegates and deputies in Cuba are not professional politicians. They make their living through regular jobs and do not receive a salary for these government positions. It was thanks to her day job, in fact, that Adela was able to secure many votes.

“I am a nurse who specializes in electrocardiograms and I am also part of the ER team. I have to deal with many serious cases and I try to establish a human relationship with patients and their relatives. Because of this, they see me as a human being as well and they realize that a person’s sexual orientation is of no importance.”

Adela became her neighborhood’s political and administrative representative through a popular, direct and secret vote. “I have to address the needs of the more than 500 people who voted for me. I am also responsible for managing two ration book stores that sell subsidized food products, a fish shop, a doctor’s office and three schools. I’ve been fairly successful if you bear in mind we’ve taken seven local matters to different State entities and received positive replies everywhere,” she explains to us.

[Betty]

Brazil star had secret year-long affair with transsexual model

Brazilian icon Romario agreed that he has a year-long affair with a transgender model.

According to Thalita Zampirolli, the pair enjoyed a series of flings over the course of 12 months - although Romario didn't know she was born a man.

The former Brazilian international was spotted leaving a club with Zampirolli recently - but took to Facebook to insist they were merely good friends.

However she told the Brazilian media a different story.

She said: "We did have relations, yes. We had an affair for one year, but he didn’t know about my sex change then.

"I’m a woman and Romario stayed with me knowing this, and I don’t have to go around explaining myself to everyone.

"We also kissed at Luan Santana’s show last week; I didn't want to have to explain this, but I don’t want to be a liar either.

"Romario’s a very good person and I don’t want to do him any harm, but I don’t want to be a liar either.”

There must be something in the water in Brazil because back in 2008 fellow Brazilian legend Ronaldo was caught red handed with three prostitutes who turned out to be transsexual.

[Betty]

The new album from Florida punks Against Me! is titled Transgender Dysphoria Blues — and that's not just a metaphor. It's the first album the band has released since lead singer Laura Jane Grace went public with her transition from a man to a woman. Now, instead of hinting at feelings of gender dysphoria in her lyrics, they're all right there, front and center, beginning with her barked opening lines: "Your tells are so obvious: shoulders too broad for a girl."

Against Me! has been around more than 15 years, building significant success on the back of those growling, assertive vocals — and as Grace told Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin, her voice is one of many things about the band that haven't changed. Grace and guitarist James Bowman spoke with Martin this week from a tour stop in South Carolina, touching on the vital support of their fans, the lack of transgender representation in the media, and why it's so tough to be a songwriter with a secret.

[Betty]

Laverne Cox, the transgender actress and activist who plays Sophia in Netflix's Orange is the New Black, is writing a memoir about her personal obstacles and experiences. Harlequin will publish the book, due out in 2015.

[Betty]

TORONTO — After taking on tycoon Donald Trump and becoming an advocate for equal rights as the first transgender Miss Universe Canada contestant in 2012, Jenna Talackova was swimming in offers promising fame.

“I was pitched many shows when I was in L.A.,” the statuesque, six-foot-one blond said in a recent interview. “My agent kept sending me down there and it just didn’t align with my personality.

“Dating shows and all these kinds of things, it wasn’t the message I was trying to give out to the world and so I lost a lot of confidence.”

The 25-year-old did find one show idea she liked down there — one in which she would train to become a Victoria’s Secret model, a longtime goal of hers — but it didn’t work out.

And then she met the producers of E’s new original Canadian series Brave New Girls, which is on Sunday at 10 p.m. ET.

Talackova said she wanted to star in the reality series because it’s Canadian and offered the chance to move from Vancouver to Toronto to pursue her dreams of modelling and acting.

“I just hope I make it more socially acceptable for anybody that’s different from society’s kind of person,” said Talackova, who decided to fully transition into a woman at age 14 and had sex reassignment surgery at age 19.

    I hope this show sends that message — to accept people for who they are

“So I hope this show sends that message — to accept people for who they are.”

The show also stars Talackova’s friend Dajana Radovanovic, a model who’s finishing her criminology degree and wants Talackova to focus on her goals. Also featured is her more free-wheeling cousin Angela Perry, who wants her to loosen up.

Perry wanted to be on the show to support what she felt was a positive message and “a way to promote understanding and acceptance.”

“We’re not in medieval times anymore. Everyone’s different and just to accept it.”

Radovanovic felt it was “an amazing platform for young women and also just people from all walks of life.”

“Just to see Jenna living a regular life like everybody else, that’s probably the main message, and just to see that we’re all just regular girls trying to make it.”

It’s not a smooth road, though.

In the premiere of the half-hour, eight-episode series, Talackova expresses interest in an apartment but agents for the building express concern about her “profile.” Her history also scares off a guy at a bar.

“This is just such a little problem with what transgendered women go through,” said Talackova, who was originally barred from competing in Trump’s Miss Universe Canada because of her gender at birth. After threatening to take Trump to court, she was allowed in and placed in the Top 12.

[Betty]

SEVEN POINTS — Transgender woman Roxanne Joganik is facing possible mediation in her lawsuit against a property owner who kicked her out of his trailer park in Athens last year.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development filed the lawsuit in October against the park owner, George Toone.

The Justice Department is seeking to restore Joganik and her partner’s housing, as well as bar discrimination against gender identity in the Fair

Housing Act with a ruling in the case that will outline that gender identity falls under sex discrimination.

Dallas Voice was the first to report the story in August. LGBT advocates hope the case is a landmark in establishing discrimination based on gender identity, which is already covered under U.S. law as sex discrimination.

Last month, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nicole Mitchell slated a trial for Dec. 2, 2014, if the case wasn’t resolved through mediation. A mediator in

Tyler has been agreed upon, but Joganik said Toone is refusing to go to mediation because he wants more rights for property owners.

“There’s no sense in mediation,” she said.

Joganik said in the beginning of the case, she offered to settle with Toone, agreeing to dress as a man in public areas of the park if he agreed to follow HUD regulations and participate in sensitivity training. But he declined that offer.

HUD is seeking $16,000 in damages on behalf of Joganik.

“I offered to settle the case. I’m not looking for a fight,” she said, adding that if mediation is required by the court, she’d attend. “I’m waiting for mediation, but I’m not going to accept anything but a large settlement at this point.”

Joganik also is in the process of trying to receive different representation from the Justice Department. She’s filed a complaint against her attorney Lori Wagner for mishandling her case, including losing documents and making inappropriate comments about her gender identity.

“It’s just not working,” she said. “This is a case I think is a very precedent-setting case. I don’t consider it a joke.”

Wagner is also on board with resolving the case through mediation, which would likely prevent a precedent being set with a ruling about gender identity under the Fair Housing Act.  She wrote in a proposal that “this case would benefit from mediation.”

Wagner did not respond to an email request for comment. Joganik said she hopes the Justice Department assigned a new attorney to help fight for a ruling in the case at trial so she and other trans people don’t face similar discrimination again.

“It’s a civil rights issue of our time,” Joganik said about trans issues. “If a win in the 5th Circuit is done, then that will set a new precedent for this and keep these bigots from being brave enough to discriminate anymore. If we don’t fight, we lose.”

[Betty]

Transgender activist starts LGBT group

"Some of my earliest childhood memories were that there was something wrong because I should have been born female," Jody Rendall said.

She was born David Rendall, grew up in West Chicago, Ill., and became a physics teacher at Big Foot High School. She said she was uncomfortable, racked with guilt from living as something she was not — a man.

After retiring in 2006, David became Jody.

"What I've done is called transitioning," she said. "I've transitioned from male to female, which basically means I've taken on my affirmed gender."

Rendall also has become an activist. Earlier this year, she started the LGBT of Walworth County LLC, possibly the area's first organization to offer services and support directly to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

She discussed bigger plans for LGBT of Walworth County, which started out as a website listing local resources.

Rendall said she wants the group to organize an ambitious event — a one-day anti-bullying workshop involving the county's public high schools.

"We hope that, by the time that day is over, people will go back to their schools with an action plan (to stop) bullying," she said.

Through the group and her focus on transgender issues, Rendall has drawn several into the group, such as volunteer Chuck Dimick, of East Troy.

"I think she has courage," said Dimick. "Courage and smarts. Her focus, the way she's pulling together this anti-bullying campaign, this is somebody I can get behind."

Dimick said the bullying issue could help make LGBT of Walworth County more visible. Rendall and Dimick said it isn't just an LGBT issue — it affects everyone.

Take Dimick, for example. Although he came out as being gay in 1980, he said he was bullied "because I had acne and because I got straight As," not because of his sexuality.

Rendall was also bullied, and for years, lived in fear.

[Betty]

As photos of Kaoru Oshima rack up thousands of favorites and retweets on Twitter, it seems the Japanese model and adult video star is being showered with questions about gender and sexuality – and handling the queries with aplomb.

In April this year, Kaoru tweeted this pretty awesome “I am what I am” statement:

    “My name is Kaoru Oshima.
    I am a boy.
    I dress as a girl.
    I’m not a “new half” [male-to-female transsexual].
    I don’t want to be a girl. But I want to look like a girl.
    Sexual preference? I like both women and men.
    Some people might call me transgender, transvestite, or a cross-dresser, but none of those labels really fit.”

Crossdressing in Japan is at once ubiquitous and invisible. As in many other countries, it’s often assumed that all men who wear “women’s clothes” want to change their gender, or are gay. But Kaoru seems to spell out in simple terms that the clothes he wears and his sexuality are separate things. He also says that although people try to categorise him, none of the words feel quite right.

One thing’s for sure: Kaoru’s already got thousands of fans. And at least no one’s accusing him of “trapping” them or pretending to be something he’s not.

[Betty]

So it's now legal in Indiana for same sex marriage. Cool. Now for the antagonists, get over it! 102 years ago in Crown Point, two men married.

Yes, in 1912, Fred G. Thompson, a male transvestite, was legally married to Frank Carrick.

According to a 2001 thesis written by a University of Illinois history student, the justice of the peace in Crown Point didn't realize Fred was posing as Frances Williams. An Illinois judge did rule their marriage was legal.

Perhaps it's time to celebrate that historic event. “Let Freedom Ring!”

[Betty]

Orange Is the New Black" actress Laverne Cox knows her Emmy history. The self-described awards-show junkie even went online last night, checking out her Emmy chances on a predictions website, and went to bed thinking she didn't have much of a chance of landing a nomination.

"I went to sleep and I let it go," says Cox, a transgender actress who plays transgender inmate Sophia Burset on the Netflix show. "I said, 'OK, God, I think the show's going to be nominated. And that's amazing.' And I closed my eyes and let it go."

Eight hours later, Cox woke up to discover she'd become the first openly transgender woman nominated for an Emmy award. Cox herself makes the distinction "openly trans," as she says she knows of another transgender woman who won an Emmy years ago, but was not out. That minor qualification aside, she's "over the moon, effervescent and every cliche that's related to super-happy" about her "game-changing" Emmy nomination in the guest actress comedy category.

"Oh, my god, it's going to take me awhile to get used to saying 'Emmy-nominated actress,'" Cox said in a phone call from New York, where "Orange" is in production for its third season. "I only quit my restaurant job a year ago, so let me tell you, this is pretty good."

GLAAD President and chief executive Sarah Kate Ellis hailed Cox's nomination in a statement.

"Today, countless transgender youth will hear the message that they can be who they are and still achieve their dreams – nothing is out of reach," Ellis said. "Laverne’s success on a hit series is a clear indication that audiences are ready for more trans characters on television."

Ellis also pointed out that this year's Emmy nominees included openly gay actors Jim Parsons, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sarah Paulson and Kate McKinnon as well as shows ("Orange," "Modern Family," "Game of Thrones") sporting LGBT characters and stories.

Cox believes that the media exposure will help the viewers who don't know trans people to understand and connect with them, much in the same way that "Orange" fosters an empathy for its incarcerated characters. But she also cautions that the nation has a long way to go in accepting transgender people.