After 27 years in federal custody, Cristina Nichole Iglesias, is close to being approved for gender reassignment surgery. Amy Schneider, the woman who won more consecutive games than anyone in Jeopardy! history was robbed at gunpoint. Anna shares a few LGBTQ podcast recommendations for you to check out!
00:00 – Welcome & Intro
00:30 – The Qube Ad
00:54 – Intro Music
01:34 – After 27 years in federal custody, Cristina Nichole Iglesias, is close to being approved for gender reassignment surgery
04:24 – Amy Schneider, the woman who won more consecutive games than anyone in Jeopardy! history was robbed at gunpoint
05:21 – Anna shares a few LGBTQ podcast recommendations for you to check out!
06:57 – Anna’s Got a Word
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Family, this is your favorite Queer radio personality Anna DeShawn here with our Queer news from today.
After 27 years in federal custody, Cristina Nichole Iglesias, is close to being approved for gender reassignment surgery. Amy Schneider, the woman who won more consecutive games than anyone in Jeopardy! history was robbed at gunpoint. I’m sharing a few LGBTQ podcast recommendations for you to check out!
Our leading story really shocked me this morning but shocked me in a good way. The headline reads, “Judge rules trans inmate with severe dysphoria can’t be denied surgery in historic decision.” Oh really. Ya’ll know I was intrigued and so I began to learn about Cristina Nichole Iglesias. Back in 1994 she was diagnosed with “gender identity disorder” and this happened shortly after she was imprisoned. She was housed in the male prison since she was 19 years old, which we all know is the sad reality, and she was only given access to hormone therapy in 2015. Now in 2021 she was transferred to a women’s facility only after she sued the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in 2016. It took 5 years for her to actually see any change and if you’re like me and began counting the time that passed let me help. She’s been in prison for 27 years for sending death threats to the British government. At this point she’s spent more than half of her life in federal prison. Over the years, multiple doctors have approved Cristina for this surgery but the BOP told her she’d never get access to the surgery. Well that was until Judge Nancy J. Rosentengel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of ILlinois ruled that the Transgender Executive Council in the BOP must decide whether to approve Iglesias for the surgery. That was a mouthful but essentially she ruled that denying Iglesias surgery could violate her Eighth Amendment protections against “cruel and unusual punishment.” Wow. Wow to a couple of things. One that there is a Transgender Executive Council and two this judge saw fit to evoke the Eighth Amendemnt. Cristina said after the ruling, “Without [Rosenstengel’s ruling], I would continue to fall through the cracks and BOP would ignore my need for gender-affirming surgery, which I’ve been fighting to get for decades,”… “I am happy to have had the chance to tell my story and am hopeful that other transgender people will benefit from my case.” John Knight, Iglesias’ attorney and representative of the ACLU of Illinois, said in a statement, “Cristina has fought for years to get the treatment the Constitution requires,”… “The Court’s order removes the unnecessary hurdles and delays BOP has repeatedly constructed to prevent her from getting the care that she urgently needs.” We are going to keep following this story because if approved, which at this point seems like a sure thing, it would be a historic one.
Our next story is an update on Amy Schneider. I’ve talked about her over the last few weeks because she’s been rocking it on Jeopardy! As an out trans woman she has become the highest earning woman of all time with her 24th consecutive wins which now totals just over $890 thousand dollars! She also has more consecutive regular season wins than any woman in Jeopardy! history. All this winning has also qualified her to be the first trans woman to compete in the Tournament of Champions. Amy often rocks her transgender flag pin and is standing proud for all of us. If you haven’t been watching you’ve got a great Queer reason to start. Well on Monday Amy tweeted that she was robbed at gunpoint ya’ll. She started her tweet saying that she was fine and spent the day having to replace everything that was taken. We are sending Amy lots of loving energy too because you aren’t really the same in the world after something like this happens to you.
Hi all! So, first off: I'm fine. But I got robbed yesterday, lost my ID, credit cards, and phone. I then couldn't really sleep last night, and have been dragging myself around all day trying to replace everything.
— Amy Schneider (@Jeopardamy) January 4, 2022