Transgender: Celebs Rumors

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metroweekly.com
Texas School Board Restores Cross-Gender Roles in ‘Oklahoma!’
barring a transgender student from playing a male role in his high school’s production of Oklahoma! has reversed course, allowing the original casting decisions to stand.On November 13, the Sherman Independent School District board voted to reinstate the original script and cast for the musical after local community members flooded the board’s regularly scheduled meeting to defend the casting of Max Hightower, a transgender male, as the peddler Ali Hakim.According to Dallas-area ABC affiliate WFAA, more than 60 people spoke in support of Hightower and slammed the board’s decision to prohibit not only Hightower but all students from playing roles that don’t match their assigned sex at birth.Administrators had interceded after several students were cast in cross-gender roles, citing a nonexistent district policy as justification for recasting the musical.Sherman High School administrators also insisted that the musical contained “mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content,” and the production would have to be postponed for a month while the musical was rewritten to create a more “age-appropriate version.”But local community members weren’t buying the administrators’ explanation, with speaker after speaker denouncing the recasting decision and the decision to rewrite the musical.Speakers criticized the board for caving to perceived political and social pressure to enforce rigid gender roles in school productions.“I’ve played male roles in the past and it was no big deal — and guess what, that’s theater!” one actress told the board.“Reinstate the real version of Oklahoma! and let the students sing!” said another commenter.Following the public comment section of the meeting, the board went into a private,
metroweekly.com
Texas High School Removes Trans Student from ‘Oklahoma!’
Oklahoma!But soon after, the school’s principal called Hightower’s father to inform him of a new district policy.“He said we’re instituting a new policy where only males can play males, and only females can play females,” Phillip Hightower told Dallas-Fort Worth NBC affiliate KXAS-TV.The elder Hightower was “devastated” by the decision, noting that Max has never been treated differently because of his gender identity — until now.Aside from being absurd — cross-gender casting has been a reality in the theater world dating back centuries — the school district’s purported policy will likely prove logistically difficult if it tries to avoid cross-gender casting, in part because there’s frequently a dearth of males in high school production casting pools.Illustrating that point, the sudden policy change also reportedly cost several other cast members their roles, according to the New York Post.Max Hightower’s adult sister, Gracie, recounted the events involving her brother, writing that some female students cast as “cowboys” were told they could not participate in the play due to the school district’s decision to intervene in casting.“Many opportunities were ripped away from kids not for bad grades, not for bad behavior, not for attendance, but for something that has absolutely nothing to do with the production whatsoever,” she wrote.A group of parents, including Phillip Hightower, plan to appeal the decision to the school board. “I’m not an activist.
metroweekly.com
9 Governors Want the NCAA to Ban Trans Athletes
letter demanding that the NCAA ban transgender female athletes from competing in women’s sports.The letter’s signatories are Governors Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Mike Parson of Missouri, Greg Gianforte of Montana, Joe Lombardo of Nevada, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Greg Abbott of Texas, and Mark Gordon of Wyoming.All except Lombardo — who is saddled with a Democratic-led state legislature — represent states that have passed laws banning transgender participation on female-designated sports teams.The governors decry the NCAA’s current policy on transgender athletes, which allows the individual national governing body of each sport to determine criteria for eligibility.Some of those sporting bodies, including track and field and swimming, have barred transgender competitors from female events.Both bodies have also suggested holding a third “open” category in which transgender swimmers could compete at the elite or post-collegiate levels.“The NCAA has the chance to guarantee an environment where female college athletes can thrive without the concern of inequities,” the letter reads. “We trust that you also want to guarantee just such an environment.
nypost.com
Trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney named UK mag’s first-ever ‘Woman of the Year’
paid partnership with Bud Light — appears in a feathery white shoulderless gown and braided hair crown on the pink cover of the magazine’s awards issue.The TikToker also took to the stage Wednesday to accept her award at the mag’s ceremony, wearing two outfits on the night, including a wispy bejeweled ball grown and a near-see-through black dress.“Some see me as woman of the year — some see me as a woman of a year and some change,” she quipped, noting that she “only publicly come out online 560 days ago.”“And some people don’t see me as a woman at all,” she said of her haters.“No matter how hard I try, or what I wear, or what I say, or what surgeries I get, I will never reach an acceptable version of womanhood by those hateful people’s standards,” she said.“But as long as the queer community sees me for my truth, I’m going to be OK.”The content creator also briefly mentioned her explosive Bud Light campaign, which sparked a huge boycott of the beer company that lost tens of millions in the fallout.Mulvaney said London became her “safe space” while traveling to avoid the scandal back home, saying that she “didn’t feel that baggage that she was carrying back in the US.” “I didn’t feel like the trans beer girl,” said the TikToker, who became popular due to her Days of Girlhood series. “I didn’t walk into rooms and wonder: ‘Oh, does that person hate me?’ I was just another gal walking around in a Burberry trench coat on her way to a West End musical.” Mulvaney said that the previous year “feels like a “Black Mirror” episode, referring to the surreal Netflix show — something shared by critics aghast at the new honor.“Unbelievable.
metroweekly.com
The Riley Roundup: Cleveland Catholic Diocese’s LGBTQ Crackdown
News 5 Cleveland.This has raised questions about whether such a provision relies too heavily on gender stereotypes about clothing and behavior that could also impact non-LGBTQ students. The policy prohibits students from transitioning genders or using gender-affirming pronouns, bars same-sex couples at school events, and prohibits students from “advocat[ing] or celebrat[ing]” the LGBTQ community, including displays of the Pride flag or rainbows.A student’s biological sex will determine bathroom usage and membership on single-sex school-sponsored sports teams, although girls may join boys’ teams “when deemed appropriate.” Parents will also be notified if their child is believed to be gender-nonconforming.The new policy has been criticized by some who have claimed it appears to conflict with more welcoming remarks by Pope Francis regarding the inclusion of members of the LGBTQ community within the Church.The diocese has defended the policy as a request from church and school leaders, emphasizing the importance of training and education youth in Church teaching — even as it continues to claim that “each and every person is welcome and invited to be a part of the Church,” according to The Hill.DignityUSA, a group for LGBTQ Catholics and their families, and the organization’s Northeast Ohio chapter, have said the diocese’s policy appears to “betray the essence of Catholicism.”“The policies that our bishop has recently released send a clear message that welcome in our schools and churches is conditional,” Susan Russell, the President of Dignity Northeast Ohio, said in a statement.
metroweekly.com
The Riley Roundup: Bop Till You GOP Edition
video, published by the conservative Family Policy Alliance, emerged of her telling an interviewer, back in March, that “protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture” should be among conservative lawmakers’ top priorities.In the video, Blackburn quickly shifts to speaking about KOSA as a way to stop children from being “indoctrinated,” blaming social media platforms for “inundating” minors with information that “they are, emotionally, not mature enough to handle.”The bill, which has been endorsed by President Joe Biden, would allow parents to sue social media companies and online platforms that do not sufficiently shield children from under 13 from “harmful” content.But Blackburn’s comments in the video, coming so soon after railing against transgender visibility, have led some LGBTQ advocates to fear that Republicans will attempt to hijack the bill to censor all LGBTQ-related information online and block access to LGBTQ resources, from suicide prevention hotlines to LGBTQ resource groups to academic sites with even generic information, by deeming them “harmful,” reports NBC News.In response to that speculation, Blackburn’s legislative director, Jamie Susskind, claimed in a post on X that opponents were conflating the two issues and spreading misinformation about the bill. Citing an article titled, “U.S.
metroweekly.com
Right-Wing “Project 2025” Seeks to Eradicate LGBTQ Protections
The Associated Press.Actions to achieve that vision include reducing the scope of government, stripping away powers under the purview of Congress while endowing the president with absolute power to do whatever he wishes, and firing tens of thousands of federal workers, replacing them with political appointees willing to cater to the whims of a hypothetical Republican president elected in 2024 — whether that is former President Donald Trump or someone with similar views.As laid out in Heritage’s 920-page blueprint, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” the next Republican president is expected to engage in culture-war battles, taking the offensive in a war on “wokeness.”The blueprint calls for erasing any mention of sexual orientation and gender identity from all existing federal laws, agency rules, and regulations, as well as mentions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, gender, gender equality, gender equity, reproductive rights, and “any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights.”“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare,” the document reads.“It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.
metroweekly.com
The Riley Roundup: Transgender Educational Warfare, Part 1
Sacramento Bee, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Tom Garza issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Chino Valley Unified School District from enforcing the policy, which is one of six school districts in the state to have adopted policies requiring parental notification when a student doesn’t conform to gender norms or stereotypes.The Chino Valley policy was challenged by Attorney General Rob Bonta, who argued that the policy violates the privacy rights of LGBTQ students, and endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of transgender and gender-nonconforming students.The Orange Unified School District was the most recent to adopt a policy similar to Chino Valley’s — coming after Bonta’s lawsuit was filed — with school boards in Murietta, Temecula, the Anderson Union High School District in Shasta County, in the northern part of the state, and the Rocklin School District, northeast of Sacramento.The policies are increasingly being adopted in conservative enclaves throughout the state as part of a larger societal backlash against transgender visibility — which has been encouraged by conservative influencers and Republican Party leaders.A group of activists recently filed a ballot initiative — one of three targeting transgender youth visibility — that would impose similar parental notification policies on districts throughout the state.The Alaska State Board of Education recently approved a proposed regulation barring transgender girls from competing on female-designated high school sports teams for any districts that are part of the Alaska School Activities Association.
metroweekly.com
Nebraska Governor Signs Bill Erasing Trans People from Law
executive order that defines a person’s gender as based on their biological sex and unable to be changed under state law.Dubbed the “Women’s Bill of Rights,” the order seeks to effectively erase the existence of transgender identity from law, directing all state agencies, boards, and commissions to only recognize a person’s male or female assigned sex at birth for legal and statistical purposes.Under the executive order, state agencies would be barred from recognizing a person — even one who had undergone surgical transition, or one who had had their name and gender legally changed by a court order — according to their gender identity.The order defines a “female” as a “person whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova” and a “male” as a “person whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.” The order also defines several gender-specific terms, including “woman,” “girl,” “man,” “boy,” “mother,” and “father.”Pillen has claimed the executive order is needed to ensure that women can succeed and thrive in single-sex activities or spaces and to protect the “safety” and bodily autonomy of women in multi-user public facilities where they have the expectation of privacy.“It is common sense that men do not belong in women’s only spaces,” Pillen said in a statement. “As Governor, it is my duty to protect our kids and women’s athletics, which means providing single-sex spaces for women’s sports, bathrooms, and changing rooms.”Pillen’s order is nearly identical to a similar executive order signed by Oklahoma Republican Gov.
metroweekly.com
9th Circuit Allows Arizona Trans Athletes to Play on Girls’ Teams
issued the injunction last month to block the state from enforcing its prohibitions on transgender females who seek to compete on female-designated sports teams while a lawsuit challenging those restrictions moves forward.Under the law, known as the Save Women’s Sports Act, transgender females are prohibited from competing on sex-segregated sports teams that align with their gender identity, and cisgender students who believe they lost out on athletic opportunities due to the presence of a transgender athlete can sue for damages.The law also allows for female athletes — both transgender and cisgender, particularly if a cisgender athlete does not conform to traditional stereotypes of femininity — to be subjected to genetic testing to “prove” their gender identity matches assigned sex at birth.But Zipps found that the law is “overly broad” and may be unconstitutional, violating not only female athletes’ right to equal protection, but Title IX, the federal law that bars discrimination based on sex in educational settings. As such, allowing the policy to be enforced before a final decision on the law’s constitutionality was reached would “irreparably harm” the transgender plaintiffs.Zipps also found that there was not sufficient evidence to prove that pre-pubertal athletes assigned male at birth hold a significant physiological or competitive advantage over cisgender females, as they have not yet developed secondary sex characteristics.
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