It’s lesbian visibility week so lets celebrate lesbian comedians today, Cristina Nichole Iglesias will become the first federal prisoner to receive gender-affirming surgery & a homophobic Delta Airlines passenger assaults a crew member mid-flight – Thursday, April 28, 2022

Since its lesbian visiblity week lets show some love to some funny lesbian comedians, after a long battle Cristina Nichole Iglesias has won & will become the first federal prisoner to receive gender-affirming surgery & a Delta Airlines passenger assaults a crew member mid-flight and blames it on his homophobia.

00:00 – Welcome & Intro

01:10 – E3 Radio Ad, Tune-in at https://e3radio.fm #QueerRadioDoneRight 

01:33 – Intro Music by Aina Bre’Yon

02:14 – Since its lesbian visiblity week lets show some love to some funny lesbian comedians

03:22 – Cristina Nichole Iglesias has won & will become the first federal prisoner to receive gender-affirming surgery

05:47 – Delta Airlines passenger assaults a crew member mid-flight and blames it on his homophobia

07:31 – Anna’s Got A Word

Things for you to check out 

Lesbian Visibility Week

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Transcript

Family, this is your favorite queer radio personality Anna DeShawn with our queer news for today. If you enjoy what you hear rate & review us inside your fav podcasting app, okay. Also, last I finally got out of my own way and dropped my lesbian day of visibility episode. I shared some me & my friends top Black lesbian media moments. The list is fierce and my top 3 are Robin Roberts on ESPN, Queen Latifah in Set it Off &  Lena Waithe’s cannon of work from Master of None to Twenties. I didn’t have a script I just spoke from my heart. I’d love if you took a listen. Now for the news.

Since its lesbian visiblity week lets show some love to some funny lesbian comedians, after a long battle Cristina Nichole Iglesias has won & will become the first federal prisoner to receive gender-affirming surgery & a Delta Airlines passenger assaults a crew member mid-flight and blames it on his homophobia. 

It is lesbian visiblity week and so what a great opportunity to center & celebrate some of my fav lesbians. So this week I promised to highlight my fav lesbians, couples, podcasts, etc. During yesterday’s episode I shared quite a bit so today how about we give lesbian comedians some love. Especially since certain comedians like Dave Chappelle use it to spit hate we should be supporting lesbian comedians even more. So who we got? Wanda Sykes, Cameron Esposito, Gina Yashere, Kemah Bob, Lea Delaria, Punkie Johnson, Lily Tomlin I mean who doesn’t love Grace & Frankie, Sam Jay and everyone says I should give her another chance, Jane Lynch especialy in the L Word, Ellen, Rosie, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby,  Paris Sashay. I mean there are a lot of lesbian comedians out here making folks laugh. Catch one of their specials to brighten your day. 

Now this is an update on a story I did back on January 7th about Cristina Nichole Iglesias. I promised that I would continue to follow the story and I’ve got an update. Now for a little back story, Cristina is a transgender woman who has spent the last 28 years in federal prison for sending death threats & threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction agaist the British government. She spent 19 of those years in the male prison and it was only after she sued the Bureau of Prisons was she transferred to the women’s prison. In January I was reporting that Judge Nancy J. Rosentengel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois ruled that the Transgender Executive Council in the Bureau of Prisons must decide whether to approve Iglesias for gender affirming surgery. A surgery she’s been fighting to receive for years. She was diagnosed with “gender identity disorder” all the way back to 1994. Judge Rosentengel’s ruling was and is a big deal for a couple of reasons. One she called on the Transgender Executive Council within the Bureau of Prisons which was formed during the Obama presidency to make the decision and two she saw fit to evoke the Eighth Amendement. She slammed the prison bureau’s handling of Cristinas’ case and compared its “tactics” to a game of “whack-a-mole.” Well the Transgender Executive Council has come back and ordered the Bureau of Prisons to secure the very first gender-affirming surgery for a federal prisoner. Cristina provided a statement to NBC News via the ACLU who is representing her, she said “BOP has denied me gender-affirming surgery for years — and keeps raising new excuses and putting new obstacles in my way. I am grateful that the court recognized the urgency of my case and ordered BOP to act.” Congratulations to Cristina and the ACLU for having the courage to fight. The judge ruled the BOP has to provide weekly updates on the progress of getting the surgery scheduled and post-care arranged before her sentence ends in December. Come through Judge Rosentengel. I have no doubt this will pave the way for more of our incarcerated trans fam to receive gender-affirming care. 

Our last story for today is about a Delta airlines flight that went wrong fast. Christopher Morgan was riding first class on Delta Airlines when he decided to lean back and refuse to put on his seat belt before the flight even took off. Y’all know that’s against the rules so he was already annoying the crew. Then he started drinking and it got ugly. A member of the crew refused to give him a second drink so he proceeded to yell homophobic epithetes at him, throw the ice remaining in his cup in his face, and when the crew member went to alert the captain Christopher Morgan followed him grabbed the phone, shoved it in his chest and yelled more homophobic epitheses in his face. After the assault, another crew member reportedly guarded the cockpit door for the entire flight to help ensure Morgan didn’t do it again. Once the flight landed FBI agents were waiting and Morgan admitted he felt uncomfortable with the flight attendant’s perceived homosexuality and that he was angered over being denied a second drink. He went on to say that his homophobia may have caused his temper towards the flight attendant to escalate. Now he’s facing up to 20 years in prison for interfering with a flight crew which is a felony. Let me just say that folks hate is going to keep writing checks there butts can’t & don’t want to cash. I also want to say that 20 years in prison isn’t going to solve a thing. I’d rather see some mandated transformational work done to help shift a mindset. A punishment absolutely, 20 years in prison no. 

It’s that time to close the podcast with a word of the day. Y’all know I always have a word. The word today is a saying I’ve been using to encourage myself for the last couple of months. Be consistent. Be committed. Be courageous. If I can live in too these three tenants I will give my dream everything I’ve got and leave nothing behind. Try it for yourself. Till tomorrow family, peace

Sources

Court orders first gender-affirming surgery for a transgender federal prisoner

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/federal-court-orders-first-gender-affirming-surgery-trans-prisoner-rcna25377

Drunken homophobe attacked a flight attendant mid-flight. He could get locked up for 20 years.

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/04/drunken-homophobe-attacked-flight-attendant-mid-flight-get-locked-20-years/