The Roller Rebels Defend their Trans Athletes in Long Island, New York

Nassau County is trying to ban teams that allow trans women and girls on women’s teams from County facilities. Meet the team that is fighting back.

(See video above.)

Background

Nassau County, located on Long Island, New York, has become the center of a heated controversy over transgender athletes’ participation in women’s sports.

County Executive Bruce Blakeman has been pushing to ban teams that allow transgender women and girls from using county-owned sports facilities.

This effort began in February 2024 when Blakeman issued an executive order prohibiting transgender women from competing in women’s sports events at over 100 county-owned venues.

The order required sports organizations to designate teams based on athletes’ sex assigned at birth when applying for permits to use Nassau County Parks properties.

However, this executive order faced immediate legal challenges. The Long Island Roller Rebels, a women’s flat track roller derby league that welcomes transgender women, stepped up to fight against this ban.

Founded in 2005, the Roller Rebels have spent nearly two decades building an inclusive skating community on Long Island. Teaming up with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the Roller Rebels filed a lawsuit challenging Blakeman’s order.

They argued that the ban violated New York state’s human rights and civil rights laws, which prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. In a significant victory for transgender rights, a New York judge struck down Blakeman’s executive order in May 2024.

Via The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).

Transgender Terminology – The Basics

A Gender Fluid Life has put up a helpful video where they look at the most important transgender and gender variant terms used in their YouTube channel.

Discussing transgender terminology is not always easy, as it changes over time. This transformation of the trans vocabulary is caused by an interaction between the lived lives of trans people, fundamental cultural changes in how people see LGBTQ diversity and variance, and developments within health care and social care and the associated research fields.

This is development is a learning process in itself, a process all trans and nonbinary people can contribute to.

Here’s how A Gender Fluid Life captures the ambiguity of the term “transgender”:

“So let’s take a look at that one first of all, the term trans, and this is one where I think probably you will get a different definition from different people.

It’s not an entirely clearly bounded term, it means slightly different things to different, or very different things in some cases, to different people.

So for some, for example, when I read a book on trans [lives], it is solely focused on people who have a very clear dysphoria, they have a sense of their identity, their sense of being is very much incongruent, contrary to the body they live in, and the kind of social expectations of being male or female, and therefore the term would usually, for those people, refer to someone that either has or is contemplating transition, or another way of living with this very severe dysphoria. It may be through living, as it were, with the gender expression of another, of their preferred and believed identity.

For others – and this is the way I tend to use the term – trans is much more of an umbrella term that sort of really covers anything loosely attached with gender play, right through to those situations, that circumstance I just described, where someone has a very clear gender identity condition.

So a broad range of identities, experiences, expressions that fall under the term as I use it, and as many other people do, may be to do with identity, may be to do with expression, or behavior that doesn’t conform with the binary roles that we are assigned at birth.

It also includes people like me that perhaps struggle sometimes to fit into a box of being masculine or feminine. I personally feel okay to sit in the box of being male, in that that is my biology, that is the body I occupy, and most of the time is the way I express myself, but I do have gender dysphoria, and I do flex and feel a need, an urgent and regular need to express what I understand as being the feminine from within.”

The video is available here.

President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan thanks drag queen Nymphia Wind for a great performance

DW reports that Taiwanese drag queen Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅‧瘋) and winner of the TV series “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has performed a medley of songs for outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen, thanking her for being the island’s “mother.”

As you can see from the video, the President enjoyed the performance very much. The president is clearly a strong supporter of the queer and trans communities.

Drag queens, led by “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Nymphia Wind in yellow, perform for Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen at the presidential office in Taipei, Taiwan.

Photo: Wang Yu Ching/Office of the President.

Nonbinary Swiss Singer Nemo Wins the Eurovision Song Contest!

Nemo becomes the first known nonbinary winner in the European pop contest’s history.

NBC News reports that Nemo had to “smuggle” a nonbinary flag into the event because “Eurovison said no. Nemo said: "Maybe Eurovision needs a little fixing too every now and then.”

The musician, 24, said they were “incredibly proud” to be the contest’s first nonbinary winner, adding that queer people “need to be heard and need to be understood.”

They added: “To know that a song where I speak about my story has touched so many people, and maybe inspired other people to stay true to their stories, is the most insane thing that has ever happened to me.”

From the lyrics:

Welcome to the show, let everybody know
I’m done playing the game, I’ll break out of the chains
You better buckle up, I’ll pour another cup
This is my bohème, so drink it up, my friend
…
I, I went to Hell and back
To find myself on track
I broke the code, whoa-oh-oh
Like ammonites
I just gave it some time
Now I found paradise
I broke the code, whoa-oh-oh
…
Somewhere between the O’s and ones
That’s where I found my kingdom come
My heart beats like a drum

Here are the most LGBTQ-friendly cities in the world

The FTM prosthetics experts at Emisil have identified the top 10 friendliest cities in the world for queer and trans travelers.

Lisbon, Portugal
Copenhagen, Denmark
New York City, USA
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Taipei, Taiwan
Barcelona, Spain
Reykjavik, Iceland
Toronto, Canada
Tokyo, Japan
Paris, France

Photo from Copenhagen by Shutterstock

The draft of the new German law for gender self-identification is not as pro transgender as it might seem

Over at YouTube Unruly Juli reports on how anti-trans activists are trying to introduce transphobic policies in the German new self-identification law.

The new law, which will get rid of the old requirement for two psychological assessments before you can have your legal gender changed in official documents, makes it easier for trans, intersex, and non-binary people to legally change name and gender.

So far, so good.

But as Juliana points out in the video:

The Selbstbestimmungsgesetz [self-determination law] proves that letting people assert their identity in a more self-determined way can be combined with undermining that assertion at every turn and [with] increasing state repression against the people using that possibility in the same law.

Some trans people, like asylum seekers and refugees, may lose their residence permit if they make use of the opportunity given by the law, Juliana explains.

Trans women may also be drafted into the military as men if there is an emergency:

If a return to a compulsory military service was to actually happen and if it was to take the form in which it is laid down in the German constitution, everyone over 18 who has the registered gender male would be eligible to be drafted.

The draft bill says that if someone assigned male at birth tries to change legal gender in “a case of tension or defense” they would still be considered male for the purposes of military conscription.

Moreover, the law does not fully protect trans women from harassment in women’s spaces. Business owners can deny trans women access to women’s bathrooms on their premises.

Children are not properly protected, either. Minors aged 14 or older can make use the new process, but they need their parents to agree to it, or they need to go in front of a family court and let that court decide on the change.

Juliana puts it this way:

Meaning, for instance, if a 16 years old trans boy happens to have unsupportive parents, he’ll also have to deal with all the invalidation and abuse in school stemming from having a female name and a female ID registered on his documents.

Or he’ll have to take the burden of going in front of a family court and basically win a case against the people under whose roof he has to live with.

You can watch Juliana’s video here:

Photo: Alvaro Moreno Perez

The draft law can be found here (in German): Selbstbestimmungsgesetz 2.0: Entwurf eines Gesetzes
über die Selbstbestimmung in Bezug auf die Geschlechtszugehörigkeit und zur Änderung weiterer Vorschriften

A Practical Guide to Transgender YouTube

A practical list of categories for the best transgender influencers on YouTube

Medium

Transgender influencers on YouTube

Stephanie Magister shares a list of her favorite transgender and nonbinary vloggers on YouTube.

She writes:

“My goal is to create a resource for people who are trans, trans-adjacent, or otherwise genderfluid or nonconforming but haven’t discovered many (or any) genderqueer content creators on YouTube.”

Stephanie includes presentations, selected videos, as well as an extensive list of accounts that are no longer active, but available.

You can see the complete list here. (Requires Medium membership, which is free).

Here are links to the main active influencers listed:

Nonbinary comedian Mae Martin and The Nature of Things look at sex and gender.

In Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary, Martin introduces some of the scientists responsible for recent discoveries about gender and sexual fluidity in both the human and non-human world.

Via CBC Docs and Gem.

Watch: Trans folk share heartwarming stories in new video for Trans Day of Visibility 2024

Featuring a special appearance from Dr Lydia Foy, the new film, Sharing Trans Stories, marks Trans Day of Visibility 2024 with joy and hope.

GCN

GCN looks at the release of a touching video in anticipation of Trans Day of Visibility. The video features a diverse range of transgender and non-binary individuals sharing their personal stories and experiences. It aims to celebrate the resilience, strength, and diversity within the trans community.

‘The Bodyguard’ but trans, a movie shot entirely… on iPhones?! & more awesome trans-inclusive films to stream this weekend

In honor of International Trans Day Of Visibility on March 31, here are four genre-spanning trans films you can watch right now.

Queerty

Imagine a twist on “The Bodyguard” with a trans storyline. In this 2021 indie action flick, trans singer-songwriter Nomi Ruiz takes the lead as a vocalist who enlists the help of retired Muay Thai champ Nicky “Mitts” Malloy (played and directed by Nick Sasso) as her protector. Amidst the chaos of a comical action-romance, Nomi and Nicky find themselves falling for each other.