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An undressed pale skinned Barbie doll sits propped up in front of tree with its torso covered by a leaf surrounded by a bed of fallen leaves. - femininity -

The tall, pale skinned woman opens the pink door of her convertible and extends an impossibly long leg out onto the pavement. She emerges from the vehicle, and you begin to wonder how she could possibly have fit inside as she towers over her surroundings. She walks quickly, and silently into her house that also seems slightly out of proportion to its occupant.

As she enters her home, she kicks off her tiny hot pink heels. Once we peer inside, we can watch as this person goes about her day, but something still seems slightly off. She makes dinner, though she herself never appears to eat, and there is no one else in the home. She lays out a bowl of water, and pet food on the kitchen floor, but we never see an animal around the home. When watching TV, she seems to sit stock still, her gaze fixed on a static screen.

It isn’t until late in the night that we catch a glimpse of something truly out of the ordinary. When the clock strikes midnight the impossibly tall, slender woman grabs a pair of binoculars from the living room cabinet and begins peering out of a living room window into the night sky. After a few short minutes, she strips off her brightly colored dress and runs into the backyard. The last we see of her is her nude form floating up into the star-studded night.

That is, until the next morning when this woman can be seen waking up in her bedroom, now inexplicably dressed in a flowery top and neon green pants. She wakes up and prepares for her busy day of work as a world-renowned supermodel.

When I was growing up the concepts of feminine beauty and sexuality were understood by those around me exclusively through the lens of the male gaze. Barbie being a perfect example of this, as she is arguably a personification of the male gaze. Whether viewed through the lens of science, second wave political feminism, or through religion, my family has only ever understood femininity as men understand it. And despite being trans, I was no exception until very recently.

Biology

The main perspective through which my family taught me about sexuality was the brutal reality of biology. My mother was both a biology and a chemistry major during her undergraduate degree and made sure both me and my sibling were aware of what our body parts looked like, their proper names and functions, and, at an appropriate age, how sex worked in a mechanical sense. There was rarely, if ever, any mention of pleasure or of queer sex.

This dry, scientific approach to human sexuality contributed heavily to my theory on Barbie. I was taught that, generally speaking, humans have genitalia, and at least partially functional mouths and anuses. The Barbie’s I played with had none of these, nor was the plastic on their lower section molded to resemble underwear, as some are now. Couple this lack of orifices with her impossibly long limbs, and rather oddly shaped breast forms and the one conclusion my mind could draw was that Barbie must be an alien who simply resembled humans in order to live more easily among them. This was how I played with Barbie’s until I lost interest in them entirely somewhere around 7 or 8 years of age.

Second wave feminism

The brand of feminism unique to the mid-20th century also deeply influenced both my mother, and her mother. Despite chafing at the demands of a deeply misogynistic capitalist system, both my mother, and grandmother fully internalized their positions as “undesirable” to the male gaze and sought empowerment within the system through the imitation of masculinity.

My grandmother went from being a hyper visible target of the male gaze as a rather attractive teenager, to consciously rejecting the male gaze during and after college. She sought to defeminize herself through smoking cigarettes and vocal training to deepen her voice. She bought suits with shoulder pads to broaden her slender frame and wore 2–3-inch (5-7.5cm) heels everyday despite being 5’-10” (178 cm) tall without them. There were many reasons for this but the main one was that my grandmother was determined to make a career for herself in public service as a social worker.

This meant fitting into the local government office work environment of the mid-1950s through the 1970s. Looking, sounding, and acting more like a man was only an advantage. Which is why my grandmother impressed upon my mother that it was better (and safer) to be deemed sexually undesirable by the male gaze. Along with this, feminine sexual desire for men was seen as problematic to the cause of feminine political equality. Being submissive to a man in any sense, even if that only meant one enjoyed a receptive role during sex, was seen as debasing oneself. Despite her best efforts, these ideas did make an impression on my mother, and continue to influence her thinking on gender and sexuality to this day.

image of barbie doll dressed in pink satin ball gown with white lace accents. - femininity -

Religion

This staunchly feminist attitude was deeply at odds with my family’s religious teachings. Both my mother and me were brought up in the Church of the Nazarene. The qualities deemed most desirable in a woman by the Church and its members were namely whiteness (or proximity to it), chastity, and submission. I was taught that beauty was to be found in one’s perceived virginity, and willingness to serve a man. Both of which naturally excluded me, a childhood sexual assault survivor who has never been interested in men sexually.

Though I did receive a lot of praise for my bright blonde hair, blue-green eyes and light skin. This told me everything I needed to know about what people actually took into account when they interacted with me, my exterior. I was forced to listen to sermons and “youth-oriented discussions” on the value of sexual purity, and how abstinence until marriage is the only righteous path. All while knowing that these same people who were seemingly so concerned about “my immortal soul” would look down on me if they knew what I had been through. Keep in mind I stopped going to church at the age of 10, so these are just the messages I absorbed as a young child.

Taking a step back

All of these perspectives were sorely lacking. They are 2 dimensional at best and serve only to flatten the powerful twin forces that are feminine beauty and feminine sexuality into something built only to serve someone else’s imagination. These common means of understanding the world around us (politics, religion, and science) seek to reduce the entirety of human experience: love, sexual tension, release, pleasure, pain, gratitude, longing, fulfillment, comfort, affection, intimacy, and identity into things that can be easily owned, manipulated, and eventually consumed. I deserved better as a kid, and we all deserve a deeper understanding and appreciation for the truly multifaceted nature of femininity.

Multiplicity and Femininity

When looking back, I find myself intrigued by this aspect of multiplicity inherent to my childhood understanding of femininity. Barbie was an alien who could successfully live and function among humans. Drag queens, a childhood fascination of mine, looked nothing like their drag personas when the makeup came off. Many people who wear it feel makeup to be something akin to a mask, a part of themself, but something that can be put on and removed at will or convenience. To my young mind, femininity was allowed to exist in so many iterations, and masculinity came in one form: loud, and dangerous.

I did not have options as a child. Lack of choice was, in fact, a defining aspect of my childhood. Everything in my life, from what and when I ate, to how I dressed, sat, and spoke was policed by someone. Everyone had a fucking opinion. The aspect of femininity that I fell in love with was simply the idea of being able to conceal and reveal aspects of yourself at will. There is real power in this act. It has saved my life. And continues to do so to this day, though I now recognize that this skill is not inherently gendered.

Image of femme person with blonde hair and pale skin in front of beige background. They are holding a cut out of Barbie's eyes in front of their face. - femininity - — Photo by Leeloo Thefirst

Wrapping it all up

Despite my enduring passion for the power that others find in feminine beauty and sexuality, it is not for me to claim personally. I admire it deeply, but I do not feel a personal connection to what, for others, can be a very real means to self-fulfillment. One need only witness the amount of folks who feel personally liberated by expressing their femininity and having it validated, to understand that a great many people find joy and identity in embodying aspects of the human condition which greater society recognizes as “feminine”.

Thankfully, my understanding of the world has grown beyond that of general society to include the fact that gender is personally understood, and there are as many genders as there are people in existence. It was only through interrogating my relationship to masculinity, femininity, and gender as a whole that I came to see this truth. So, while I can’t give her all the credit, I do have to thank you, Barbie, for kicking off one queer kid’s journey into thinking critically about this bizarre thing we call gender.

Complement this with the definitive guide to facing disillusionment with masculinity or with a poem on the inherent worth of trans womanhood.

On doing what you have to (or why I’m stealth now)

By J.D.

On November 15, 2022

In Trans Life

I have not made it a habit in my day-to-day life to be out and proud about being trans. In fact, just recently I felt it necessary to completely disavow my transness, in an attempt to get someone to gender me correctly. The misgendering isn’t any fault of mine, and I didn’t necessarily have to approach the issue this way. But this is the route I chose. I don’t know all my reasons for this, but I have distilled it down to a sense of safety.

I currently work in a construction subcontractor’s office. When I first started, the man who is both my direct supervisor and the Vice President of the company routinely misgendered me, for some reason. I sat both him and his wife, the President of the company, down and had a brief discussion about my pronouns. Though they never asked outright, I denied being trans. Since this conversation, my supervisor has improved. The President has been overall really consistent in addressing me properly, but just a week ago from writing this, she misgendered me when speaking to another employee. I didn’t, and still don’t understand why this keeps happening. The “why” doesn’t matter, ultimately. I am now extremely anxious to come into work, because I am continually trying to brace myself for the inevitable. They have improved significantly over this last week, but my boss fucked up again today. Suffice it to say, I’m looking for another job.

My boss did offer to let me punch him as a means of apology. Maybe one of these days I should take him up on the offer.

I know that I am not obligated to disclose my trans status, and I am perfectly within my rights to go as stealth as possible. I have dealt with a lot of harassment, and systemic transphobia just to get to the point of being stealth. Even accepting all this, the fact that I felt the need to go to these lengths to remain stealth doesn’t sit well with me. To me, this is proof that the world is not for me, as a trans person. In order to protect my sanity and my safety, it felt safest to distance myself from my own identity, even here in sunny San Diego, California.

This is unacceptable. If I, a gigantic, white, “cis passing” trans guy doesn’t feel safe, who the fuck could? This world has been violently, and irreparably shaped to promote white, cis passing men’s welfare as much as possible. I point this out in order to offer something of a counterpoint to the ridiculous idea that “we’ve come so far” with accepting gender expansive people. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard something along the lines of “We’re so progressive here in California, you’re in a good spot!” or “We’ve come so far in accepting this gender stuff.”, I’d be a rich man. People are really out here thinking we solved transphobia. Lord, help them.

It’s exhausting to have the struggles that define your day-to-day life completely invalidated and ignored. This reminds me of the arguments my fiancee and me got into over the length of time I took to come out to one of her parents. Her parents have recently divorced so, I came out to most of my fiancee’s family all at once, and then came out to this particular parent months later. The reason for this is simple, I didn’t think they would get it, and I was right. My fiancee hated seeing how stressed and angry I got when this parent would refer to me with feminine terms, and literally said to me more than once, “If you would just come out…”. She was under the impression that it would help because her other parent had already mistakenly outed me as trans to this person. For some reason, this gave my fiancee the impression that all I needed to do was come out, and this parent would suddenly start gendering me correctly. I knew it would actually make things worse, and after I was able to calm down, I repeatedly explained as much to my fiancee. Yet, she still pushed me to come out. Eventually she dropped it, and I stuck to my own timeline. I am proud of that.

Unfortunately, I was exactly correct. The first time we visited after I came out, this parent didn’t change at all. During this holiday trip, this parent never once referred to me correctly, rarely corrected themselves, and even had the gall to leave a holiday decoration featuring my deadname on display in their home. I ended up taking this decoration down myself the night before we left.

My fiancee and me ended up getting in one of the worst arguments we have ever had over this parent’s behavior. The specifics of this fight are not important but suffice it to say neither of us are proud of the things we said. My point in addressing this argument at all is to highlight that there are always very real reasons someone is concealing aspects of their identity from people that are otherwise “close” to them. I knew I would be unable to safely cope with her parent repeatedly, and knowingly misgendering me. I have known that misgendering would be the biggest problem for me since before I even admitted that I am trans. The real fear of what emotions misgendering could bring up kept me from coming out for a very long time. I knew transitioning publicly would take a massive amount of emotional labor, and masking when I am feeling intense emotions, neither of which I have ever been very good at. So, I stayed in the closet until I just couldn’t stand it anymore. This is not a tactic I would recommend. However, it was definitely the safest option for me and my circumstances. I did what I had to, and now I am living with the consequences.

I will say I am definitely more emotionally mature and capable than I was at 20-22 years old. I was living with my mother back then, which caused a lot of problems. That situation demanded so much of me emotionally that I did not have the bandwidth to look inward. I was working 14-hour days for a laughable amount of money. I wasn’t even brushing my teeth regularly, I barely had access to laundry facilities, and wasn’t getting adequate nutrition. I was relying on caffeine and the occasional diet pill to mitigate my hunger. I was also drinking pretty heavily until the pandemic hit. Then I had no choice but to quit drinking for months on end. I also had space, and time alone to reflect on myself and my life choices up to that point. I knew then that it was do or die, literally. The minute I could, I started applying for jobs with he/him pronouns, and I came out to my fiancee.

Then came the reconciliation. I couldn’t quite square up my reasons for waiting so damn long. I resented myself a lot. I hated the world for what it is. I was scared. So scared, even though I’ve known this was inevitable since I was teenager. I’ve spent a lot of time and brain power on this question of waiting, and the best I’ve come up with is, again, safety. I was out of control. I couldn’t have handled the things that come with moving through the world as a trans person. I would have completely self-destructed or irreparably harmed someone around me or both. I’m glad I dealt with my issues in the order that I did. I guess I just wish the world had made it easier. Maybe I wouldn’t have needed to wait so long.

Coming Out Part 1: It isn’t as important as you think

By J.D.

On September 25, 2022

In Trans Life, Trans Tips

People like to push the narrative that you can’t expect people to change the way they view you if you don’t ask them to, a.k.a coming out. And while I totally understand this on a practical level and really don’t see an alternative in the foreseeable future, I do struggle with the perception of coming out as a fix. The only thing that telling people you are trans actually gives you is the ability to say “Well, I’ve done my part.”

It is the responsibility of the people to whom we come out to do the work of changing their perceptions of us. Many people do not understand this. So many people think that if we just “educated” someone who is “ignorant about trans people” they would be a perfect ally and the trans people in their life will never have problems with them again. But that is hardly how it works.

Someone made this assertion to me once, albeit not in as many words. I was telling them that I wasn’t yet out to a mutual family member of ours because I know they have transphobic views, and this person interrupted me to say “Oh well, they’re just ignorant.” I literally could not continue with the conversation after that. This small comment changed the way I view this person, because it betrays an ignorance of it’s own. No amount of education will change someone’s view of me.

Gender is such a nebulous concept that the average person doesn’t have the time, space, or mental bandwidth to engage appropriately with this topic. This is a personal journey I am asking them to take in order to understand me better. I could talk until I’m blue in the face, but it is entirely up to the individual to whom I am coming out to change their thinking or not. Which is why coming out to others is less important than a lot of things.

Coming out isn’t as important as:

1. Active participation by the people closest to you.

Actually coming out is a hell of a lot less important than what happens afterward. In my family, I have two people for whom I knew the shift in thinking would be very difficult. One is elderly, the other is middle aged. My elderly family member has tried very hard and messes up constantly but is getting better. I know she practices in her spare time. She tries her damndest, it is still hard for me sometimes but I really appreciate the effort.

Then there is one middle aged family member that I’m 99% sure still refers to me with feminine terms behind my back, most of the time. This person also constantly misgenders me to my face, but does go out of their way to correct themselves sometimes. I won’t get too into details because they really aren’t important. All I know is that this person does not see me as a man, and is not working to change their perspective at all. This is the same person that was referred to as “ignorant” in the anecdote above.

Coming out to this person made things worse for me in some senses, and much better in others. Sure, it’s nice to be open about who I am and to know for sure that my intuition about this person was correct. But at the same time, I am now dealing with a person who is knowingly misgendering and deadnaming me. So, ultimately, coming out to this person was next to useless. Not entirely, and I certainly don’t regret it. But my part is done, and the more important part of the equation is missing.

2. Coming out to yourself and self compassion more generally

It took forever to crack this egg. I have known that I “identified outside the binary” since I was about 13-14. That language resonated with me and then I immediately proceeded to not investigate that further until I was in my 20s. I spent my teenage years trying to understand the form of masculinity with which I was most familiar. That is cisgender, heterosexual, patriarchal, white masculinity. I became deeply invested in the idea of becoming a good person through embodying the hegemonic ideals of my childhood:

Love and support a woman, maybe even a family, get a good job, work hard, exercise and get tough, be all things strong, capable, and stoic for everyone around you. (Incidentally, all of this means that anyone who is not interested in or capable of being any of these things is “less of a man”.)

In my 20s, I was finally forced to confront the fact that I am not, nor will I ever be, a cisgender man. That, by default, disqualifies me from attaining the pinnacle of the masculine ideal of my childhood. This led to a lot of shame, resentment, and hopelessness. For years, I didn’t take any steps to address anything about my gender beyond my clothing. I now have to live with, and work through the regret associated with this wait and the reasons behind it.

The “coming out to myself” process has been more of an exercise in self-compassion than I really ever expected. It is shame that has been the most painful part of this so-called “transition”, and the only antidote for shame is compassion. I have to forgive myself for the sin of not being cis, the sin of being fat, the sin of being queer. I have to forgive or I would not be who I am today.

3. Learning more about trans people and trans experiences.

This includes engaging with the creative work of trans people such as books, art, music, comics, zines, poetry, essays, podcasts, and news articles by trans/gender expansive journalists. And mutual aid. These also happen to be two of the most potent options for building a trans community around you. Start following the accounts of trans artists, and creators. The TransJoy Media Instagram account is a great place to find new and established trans artists featured as frequently as possible.

You can also start going to local craft fairs, farmers markets, and other events that feature local artisans and creators. Sure, with this method there’s not necessarily a way to know if the artist you like is trans, so I would recommend keeping an eye out for art with explicitly queer themes. Chat with the artists if you can and discuss your own identity if you’re comfortable and how their art resonates with you. As a creator myself, I love talking about my work and how people relate to it.

4. Your safety.

This is an old saw but one worth repeating. Your safety and comfort is the single most important thing about your transition. The second half of this two part series will deal with this in depth, but for now, just remember that you are never obligated to come out to anyone. Just like welcoming people into your home, you should be allowed to choose where, when, how, and to whom you come out.

No one should push you into coming out before you are ready, under any circumstances. You deserve comfort and safety.

Coming out vs. Welcoming in

My own relationship to “coming out” has been rather messy, and fraught. Personally, I don’t like having to explain myself to people. I am an incredibly private person, and my transness is wrapped up in many deeply personal aspects of my history and identity. I’m certain there are plenty of other trans people out there who feel like this. Which is exactly the reason why I am working to change my perspective on this act of telling people who I am. I have heard coming out described as actually welcoming people to learn more about you as a person. Much like you would when welcoming someone into your home.

This slight shift in language helped me understand why I was so reluctant to share this incredibly private part of myself with my family. I am allowed to decide who comes into my home, and I am allowed to decide who knows I am trans. This is not always the case in practice, but I found that using this mental framework in advance of these types of conversations can feel empowering and help you approach people with confidence.

If you approach people with respect and openness the onus is on them to reciprocate or not.

Complement this with an exploration of feeling like transition never really ends, and look out for part two of this series, coming soon!

Some people are really out here not paying a shred of attention to the world around them

By hal sansone

On August 11, 2022

In Art + Photography

when i am misgendered,
beyond the sting and
the amusement and
the fear and
the numbness that follows,

i sense that
misgendering is entirely about
not me, but
the other person
and how little attention
they pay to the world around them

i have people –
from strangers to loved ones –
who see me
(in all my physical forms

i sense that
transness is Something
beyond medical

but it is worth stating that
transness is essential
to who i am
beyond the surface)

and that’s the Thing!
these people who recognize me –
who don’t misgender me –
they know me!

because transness is
woven into the fabric of the world
and they pay attention
to the world

i often say this is
one of my superpowers
as a trans person:

i sense
almost immediately
who is paying attention
and who isn’t

and i move towards
who is

Complement this poem with another work by Hal Sansone.

About the Author

hal sansone is a love poet, mystic, and pre-Nursing student with a love for trans caregiving. he currently spends his afternoons caring for dogs, cats, and critters. he spends the rest of his time existing in a vibrant and inter-dependent chosen family. he lives with two kitties – Fish, an anarchist witch, and Mr. Flamingo, her nervous but sweet protégé. he currently resides on Dakota homeland also called Minneapolis, Minnesota. he wants you to know that he loves you, whoever you are. forthcoming: featured poet (gris literatura), actor/maker in “Light My Way” (Sandbox Theatre), “winter garlic” micro chapbook (Ethel)

Turns out, the whole thing is the middle

By J.D.

On July 27, 2022

In Trans Life

I do not think there needs to be a specific “endpoint” to transition nor a “beginning”. Of course, people define their transition in all manner of ways, each of which is almost entirely unique to the individual. A lot of people do feel there to have been a definitive turning point where they began to transition. But I am not one of these people. For me, it turns out, the whole thing is the middle.

How it began

When I first understood that I am trans I thought I needed to wait until I was comfortable asserting myself as a man to tell anyone outside of myself, or (eventually) my girlfriend. This idea is wrong. This is classic internalized transphobia, which was simply a self imposed continuation of the violent need to categorize and classify every person one meets or feeling one has. This white imperialist culture in which we find ourselves has always had a problem with people just existing the way they would like to exist.

Tuck: How do we stop deferring happiness to [the future] and start just figuring out how to exist in this weird middle time and like find joy in that?

River: When you kind of realize that like the whole thing is the middle time.
gender reveal podcast, Ep. 116 53:00

How it’s going

I have since come to regret delaying my medical transition because even this feels like the whole thing is the middle.

While I don’t think there was a definitive beginning to my transition, I do feel I should have pursued medical steps much earlier. This stems from thinking back to all of the reasons I had for delaying my appointment. And unfortunately, all of those worst case scenarios came true. Albeit, in not quite so permanent a fashion as I had initially feared.

I was most worried about getting deadnamed and misgendered, and my biggest fear was starting HRT, then being forced to stop because of a job loss or lack of health coverage. Well, you can probably put together what happened when I finally did get my prescription.

Even though my name had been changed legally, my health insurance was an absolute nightmare to get in contact with. I was only ever able to change it with my local county Medi-cal office; the contractor that actually provided my coverage still has yet to correct it. This caused a lot of confusion and multiple instances of misgendering and deadnaming at the local CVS pharmacy.

I no longer have this health insurance so it isn’t an issue anymore. Luckily, I was able to weather losing insurance without a financial interruption but I did have to reduce the amount of money I save each month to pay for my meds, appointments, and blood work.

An unexpected intermission

I did end up having to deal with an interruption to my HRT, as well. Not because of anything that was my fault, nor anything I could have prevented, or forseen. No, I went a week without a shot because my pharmacy at the time rarely had my syringes in stock. I couldn’t find another pharmacy in the area that had them.

After waiting a week, the pharmacy claimed they had filled the script. They technically did, but the gauge on the needle was way too small. This made using them very difficult to use because testosterone cypionate is a very viscous suspension.

When the script was due for refill, I transferred it to a Walgreens recommended by a friend that is a 15 minute drive from my house. Which doesn’t sound bad by U.S. standards until you know that I didn’t have a reliable vehicle at the time. This meant I was using Lyft to get around and I don’t think anybody wants to pay an extra $20+ just for the privilege of paying $40 for a prescription. Conveniently, I was able to purchase a vehicle before my prescription was due for pickup.

Wrapping it all up

I was lucky and in a position of relative privilege; I’m definitely grateful for this fact. But, these legal and medical systems have so consumed my life these past few months that I have all but given up on everything else that gives my life pleasure, or would actually further the administrative side of my transition. I feel so stretched that taking the time to remember the fact that, sometimes, transition unfolds in its own way, on its own timeline helps me. It can be a comfort to know that your transition won’t necessarily end even if you lose your job, or health coverage, or your access to HRT, or if you are forced back in the closet. It only ends when you feel like it does, or it turns out the whole thing’s the middle.

Complement this with an exploration of trans survival in a cis world.

LGBT+ Figures in History #5: Bobbie Lea Bennett

By J.D.

On March 1, 2022

In History + Research

Bobbie Lea Bennett and her contribution to history may seem like a small one on it’s face, but it was in fact, monumental. She is best remembered for forcing the United States Medicare system to consider covering gender affirming surgeries.

As opposed to previous (unsuccessful) attempts to obtain Medicare coverage for gender affirmation surgeries, Bobbie Lea occupied the uniquely advantageous position of already being a Medicare recipient. She did not need to build the case that transsexuality was itself a disability. This forced Medicare to address the singular issue of gender affirming surgeries.

In 1978, after mobilizing media interest in disability rights in her favor, she literally pushed her case into the faces of government administrators. She set off on a cross country road trip from San Diego to the Baltimore, Maryland offices of Thomas M. Tierney, the director of Medicare at the time. During the meeting, Tierney assured Bobbie Lea that a committee was assessing her case. Three days after this meeting, Bennett received a check in the mail. Medicare denied that this check was to cover Bennett’s surgery, instead claiming that they were simply correcting an error.

Bobbie Lea Bennett is best remembered for this particular instance of activism but she dedicated her life to the pursuit of liberation. In 1985, she founded the St. Tammany Parish Organization for the Handicapped, which served the interests of wheelchair users, and other disabled persons that lived within St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. This organization has since been dissolved.

We don’t have much more in the way of facts about Bobbie Lea’s life, but she is remembered as a beloved wife, and mother to 2 children.

Complement this with a look into the life of another often overlooked activist, Ernestine Eckstein, or the great Miss Major Griffin-Gracy.

How to Know Your Sources of Information on the Trans Experience

By J.D.

On January 31, 2022

In History + Research, Trans Tips

Finding reliable information on the trans experience is tough these days. There is so much anti-transgender fear mongering and manipulation of science going on online.

I ran up against this issue pretty recently when I was trying to source some informative books, more for my own edification than anything else. I’m the first to admit that beyond my own personal experience I do not have a lot of history with trans people. I have one trans friend, which I have come to find is kind of a rare thing, even among other trans people.

Ideally this guide will be found by people at all stages of their gender journey, as I believe everyone has something to learn. But, I do hope that this guide finds people who have thus far only interacted with people who are cisgender, as I feel like this is the kind of thing that I could have used when I was that person.

When I was on the hunt to find resources to better communicate my experience to the people who care about me, I wanted a one stop resource to point people to if they were interested in learning more about trans people. So, let’s start with some generally reliable sources of information on the basics of what transness is, how people come to understand that they are trans, and how varied this experience truly is.

Blog/Journal Articles/Podcasts:

TransLash Media – An excellent resource for timely information and hard hitting investigative journalism on topics that are relevant to everyone.

them.us – I recently found this blog to be a great resource for news and informative cultural articles.

TransJoy Blog – I can’t forget to recommend my own site, which is written entirely by trans people, about our own experiences. I also have to recommend the collection of the Weekly Shortcut Newsletter, which recently sent out its last issue. Simply enter your name and email address here, and you can get all ten issues of the Weekly Shortcut Newsletter right to your inbox!

Gender Reveal – Podcast hosted by the incomparable Tuck Woodstock. Currently on it’s 7th season, this is the perfect time to binge all 6 seasons of this great podcast that uses interviews to explore what exactly gender is.

TransLash Podcast – Hosted by Emmy and Peabody award-winning journalist Imara Jones, this podcast tells trans stories to save trans lives. They promote trans owned businesses and have a great Instagram page which I think everyone should follow.

Youtube Channels that Feature Information on the Trans Experience:

CopsHateMoe – Newer channel from a great non-binary creator. Super informed take on the goings on in the greater trans community online.

Ashton Daniel – This is a recent find. Ashton has been making videos online for years, but really started gaining traction on the site in the past year or two. They make great videos about a range of topics from his experiences working at a transphobic sleep-away camp this past summer, to stellar book reviews.

Jammidodger – Long time YouTuber that produces funny, wholesome, and informative content.

Ty Turner – Ty produces very funny, and interesting content from his perspective as a trans man living in conservative America.

Kat Blaque – Another creator who offers very salient points on everything from sex and body positivity to pop culture.

Milo Stewart – This particular creator’s videos have deeply informed my understanding of nonbinary identities. I will be the first to admit that I did not understand the concept of being nonbinary until I started watching this wonderful person’s content. They have an excellent video series on how using they/them pronouns for people who do not use them can be misgendering. Absolutely amazing stuff that I wish would be shown in every workplace, it is that informative and helpful.

Jessie Gender – Super well researched, long form videos that offer clarity and nuance to issues and debates that are often difficult to understand and engage with respectfully. Fantastic content, well worth watching all the way to the end.

ContraPoints – Great long form content. Very informed perspective on issues ranging from politics to bigotry.

There are, of course, more YouTubers out there and tons of great content, but I am only offering a jumping off point.

Medical Information:

Scientific American (in general, a great source of information)

Science Daily (also a great resource for the latest in research news)

HRT and Puberty Blockers:

Feminizing hormone therapy

Masculinizing hormone therapy

Books on the Trans Experience:

Transgender History by Susan Stryker

The Queer Bible edited by Jack Guinness

Miss Major Speaks by Miss Major (which you can preorder here)

There Are Trans People Here by H. Melt

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom

Gender Dysphoria Bible – This can sound a bit intimidating to people early on in their transition, at least it was for me. But the minute I took the plunge I found a treasure trove of digestible and compassionate information on the multitude of ways that dysphoria can be present in your life. I was finally able to gain some insight into why I have been going through such a tough time.

A good place to start for readers of all ages is this list.

General Tips on Sourcing Reliable Information Online:

1. Find the citations. Independently verify if possible. – If you’re reading or watching something that is making statistical or scientific claims there should be a section below the article or video that contains the source of these statistics. If this is not present, the article or video is not a reliable source, as reliable sources are able to be independently verified!

2. Is this information up to date? – This has been important in understanding information on the trans experience as a whole. While there is not nearly enough research on trans and gender non-conforming individuals, what has been published just these past 2 years has contributed greatly to building a base of scientific representation of the trans community. A lot of people like to claim there is no scientific basis for the trans experience, when in fact the scientific understanding of gender as a binary has been under scrutiny for years and the most recent research does, in fact, support the biological existence of trans people. (Theisen et al.)

I would caution you to not focus too much energy trying to understand this type of information on the trans experience. Proving the “biological existence” of a population that we know has existed since people have existed is not generally important in understanding the lived experiences of this population.

3. Determine purpose and reliability of information. – Some questions to assess the purpose and reliability of an article:

– For whom has this article been created? Scholars, scientists, or for the general public?

– What is the purpose of this article? To provide information? To argue a point? To convince the reader to support a political position? All of these purposes would result in a different article from the same source information, which is why the purpose of a piece is an important factor to consider.

– What institution (company, government, university, etc.) supports this information? A news organization is NOT itself, alone, a reliable institution. All news articles should have reliable and properly cited source materials.

-If it is an institution, have you heard of it before? Can you find more information about it?

– Is there a non-Web equivalent of this material that would provide a way of verifying its legitimacy i.e. a regularly published in print journal?

TL;DR:

Skim through the points in this tutorial from Georgetown University on evaluating Internet sources.

Wrapping it all up

I feel I should include a good mental health and suicide hotline from the Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386. They have a lot of experience with LGBTQ+ people and have proven helpful to me personally in the past. The trans experience does not preclude suicidality, but they do often go hand in hand, especially in people under 25, for whom this hotline was specifically made.

This is something I feel that people who love trans people don’t understand. So, if you are a parent, partner, or friend of a trans person, consider how the news of another murdered trans person affects the person you love.

Every few days there are reports of another murdered trans person and it does affect us. It’s a constant reminder that the world as a whole is not for us, because no matter how supportive the people in our lives are, there are plenty of people who would like us dead. Consider using the above hotline, or joining a group for friends and family of transgender people if you are unsure how to approach these types of conversations.

Ultimately, I hope this article can function as a jumping off point for deeper research into being transgender and understanding LGBTQ+ peoples lived experiences a little better. And remember, the best source of information on the trans experience is trans people themselves. Speak to trans people, start conversations with us about our experiences, just be sure to do so in a respectful and earnest manner.

And if someone tells you that they are not up for discussing this type of stuff, be respectful of that. Trans people already deal with a lot of rude and invasive questions, and are generally forced to advocate for ourselves and other trans people on the daily. Do your own research to get the broad strokes, and then go to your trans friends to learn about the little things if you are still genuinely curious. Be sure to let me know what else I should include in the comments below!

Complement this deep dive into queerness with another dive into queer internet history.

Citations

Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University. “Gene variants provide insight into brain, body incongruence in transgender.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 5 February 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200205084203.htm>.

Journal reference for above article:

J. Graham Theisen, Viji Sundaram, Mary S. Filchak, Lynn P. Chorich, Megan E. Sullivan, James Knight, Hyung-Goo Kim, Lawrence C. Layman. The Use of Whole Exome Sequencing in a Cohort of Transgender Individuals to Identify Rare Genetic Variants. Scientific Reports, 2019; 9 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-53500-y

LGBT+ Figures in History #3: Miss Major

By J.D.

On November 1, 2021

In History + Research

Unless otherwise specified all quotes are from Miss Major’s personal website, which you can find here: missmajor.net

For those of you who aren’t aware of her, Miss Major’s website really says it best: “Miss Major is a Black, transgender activist who has fought for over fifty years for her trans/gender nonconforming community.”

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy was born on October 25, 1940 on Chicago’s South Side, where she participated in the drag scene in her youth. I appreciate that she has pointed out that she and her contemporaries were unaware that they were exploring their personal gender identities through drag, as the current vocabulary around gender identity simply did not exist back then.

[Author’s aside: I grew up in a conservative Christian household from the American South, so this explanation resonated with me on a personal level.]

Miss Major came out as a trans woman in the late 1950s, after which she was ostracized and routinely assaulted by her peers. Through the ensuing years Miss Major was on the ground during the Stonewall Riots, and survived both Dannemora Prison and Bellevue Hospital’s “queen tank.”

These experiences continue to inform her “work to uplift transgender women of color, particularly those who have survived incarceration and police brutality.”

Miss Major’s personal and professional accomplishments are next to innumerable, so I will attempt to portray the highlights:

She worked directly with people with HIV/AIDS in New York during the early 80s
This helped her create and drive the first mobile needle exchange in San Francisco
She is the former leader of the TGI Justice Project, which works “to end human rights abuses against transgender, intersex, and gender-variant people, particularly trans women of color in California prisons and detention centers.”
She now runs House Of GG, an educational leadership retreat primarily aimed at Black Trans women who live in the Southern U.S., which you can learn more about at their website: houseofgg.org
Her recent creative work includes “executive producing the series Trans in Trumpland (now streaming everywhere), and a book on her life’s activism, a collaboration with Toshio Meronek”

No amount of explanation or bullet points can accurately convey the impact that the incomparable Miss Major continues to have on the lives of the most marginalized and brutalized members of our society. She continues this valuable work to this day, including the upcoming publication of her autobiography Miss Major Speaks which you can pre-order from Verso Books.

Queer History Deep Dive: queerbychoice.com

By J.D.

On October 25, 2021

In History + Research

I’ll admit I did not know much about this particular stance from this particular time when I first heard about it. Upon looking through the site, I was pleasantly surprised to find that a lot of the arguments presented there articulate the position of “queer by choice” in a way that somewhat reflects the backbone of arguments being made in the queer community today.

“The reason everyone has the right to be queer is that everyone has the right to control their own mind and body unless it infringes on anyone else’s right to control their own mind and body.”
Gayle madwin

“Self-definition and self-determination are about the many varied decisions that we make to compose and journey toward ourselves… It’s OK if your personal definition is in a constant state of flux as you navigate the world.”
Janet mock

The use of the word “choice” initially struck me as a bit strange, because I remember staunchly advocating the position that homosexuality is not a choice in a sociology course I took in high school. (I felt that I was homosexual at the time, but I now understand that what I was experiencing was being trans). Queerbychoice dot com definitely comes from a perspective of queer sexuality, as the author appears to be a queer cisgender woman, but don’t let that put you off reading. This site contains a wealth of insight into queer life and the queer zeitgeist of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and is a great resource for exploring the idea of choice in depth. It has a list of resources and quotes on queerness, and it has quality answers to some of the arguments that people espouse against choice. The perspectives offered on the implications that declaring you are queer by choice can have, even to this day, is a bit of the site that has aged particularly well.

One of my favorite pages on the site is under the question, “When you say you chose it, do you just mean it’s a product of your social environment?”. This page contains an answer to the question that is one of the few references to trauma that the site contains.

“Of course you could argue that in a case of severe trauma, environment can produce post-traumatic stress syndrome without a person choosing to experience it. But if we’re talking about a healthy person responding in a healthy manner to a healthy social environment, then we’re usually talking about someone who’s making choices in response to that environment.”
Queer By Choice FAQ “When you say ‘chose’ it…”

Upon reflecting on this quote, I realized that I have never been in, seen, or been close with someone from a healthy family environment. I imagine this might contribute to why this thought of “choice” initially struck me as strange. Choice has never been a part of my life, or the lives of literally anyone around me, in a healthy way. Based on this quote above, I am led to think that Gayle has a much more healthy relationship with choice than many people. This may be the reason Gayle found it difficult to “know what it means to be ‘unable to change’…”, in much the same way as I initially did not understand what she meant by choice.

The last quote, and the following quotes are from a conversation between Gayle Madwin and Frank Aqueno: “…when people think that something is not an option it is because they keep questioning incessantly whether it really is one instead of just going with it and TRUSTING that the option is there” – Let’s address this issue of trust by thinking about what these choices represent for some people, and at what age these choices are presented. I will not insult anyone’s intelligence by explaining the collateral damage that can result from expressing your queerness, but I will point out that when it comes to gender queerness many people are forced to make a choice to either explore it, or deny it long before they are confronted with their sexuality.

This is the main reason I think the site falls somewhat short in it’s generalization of it’s arguments to include gender. Gender ups the stakes of one’s choices for almost everyone who wants to explore existences outside of the “norm”. (Here, and throughout, I use the concept of “the norm” to mean the cisgender/heterosexual/white/bourgeois conception of the gender binary that prevails in the majority of mainstream Western culture)

I do not believe you can equate the choices one has around living their sexuality, and living their gender because society has always had much more of a problem with public facing “deviancy” from the established norm. There are so many people that will say things like “I don’t care what you do in private but why do you have to ‘flaunt’ it in public?”. This dichotomy between tacit tolerance of one’s private behavior and the rejection of the public-facing expressions related to these behaviors has plagued every part of the LGBTQ+ community, and thus heavily affected the perceived “choice” one has around being oneself. The thinking behind this statement is what prevented the federal recognition of gay marriage for so long. And it is the same rejection and violence that trans people are still facing today.

Sexual behavior and gendered experiences are heavily related, but I argue that they are functionally different when it comes to this “development of the core” self that Gayle and Frank discuss. I believe the policing and enforcement of gender roles, which are different than the societally prescribed sexual roles, serves as a means of exerting control over the populace in general, in the interest of maintaining certain other societal systems whose frameworks were expressly designed to serve the interests of powerful, white, men. In my experience, this means that the people around you, and society as a whole, has systems in place that work much harder to ensure compliance in this particular aspect of one’s life. I bring this up in the interest of shedding light on a complicating factor to choice that queerbychoice.com does not seem to address in any kind of depth. This complication is the reality that the perception of one’s own freedom heavily influences one’s capacity for choice.

The essence of freedom, and our relationship to it, is the heart of this rhetoric of choice.

When I came out to her, my mother told me “Well, you know it’s always been your choice?”, and I assented vaguely. But in truth, no. I didn’t know that I had a choice. I knew I was never a girl, but I was never told I had the freedom to actively choose the social, public-facing role of manhood. And as for publicly declaring yourself to be anything other than a man or a woman, well, that was just not done, what else could there be? I guess I could have asserted myself, but when you’re a child, your parents and other adults around you determine the limits of your reality, and thus your choices.

Sure I knew what trans people were in a vague sense, and I understood the basics in the abstract by the age of 12 or 13. But no one ever told me that being trans was something that could explain my experience, and I never really saw myself in the limited (and hate-tinged) view of trans people to which I had access. What I am getting at, is that for me, sexual behavior was fairly obvious. However, when I was experimenting with my gender expression and using this to explore my gender as a concept, I was still constantly told that that behavior was ok for “girls”, that all “girls” did this at some point, and “you can be whatever type of woman you are”. Gender was seen as immutable, not as something that can be developed like one’s taste for food.

I’m happy to report that my thinking has evolved beyond this rigidity and I can finally see that, for me, I do have the choice to live as an out and proud trans man. And choosing to live out and proud is freedom. A freedom that deserves to be exercised to the fullest extent it can be. But this change took a ton of personal development, some of which came with age and experience, but the majority of which came from actively choosing to engage in queer media, and open my mind to many other people’s perspectives. So in this aspect, I see the element of choice in the development of my queerness.

After a lot of work to deepen my understanding, I arrived at the conclusion that there is little possible in the way of finding a “rational” explanation for gender, choice or otherwise. I personally think gender can have an essence of innate feeling for many people, and the same goes for sexuality. But even choosing to believe this is a choice isn’t it?

Maybe I feel like there can be something innate and there can be an element of choice because I like to center the idea that every self-conscious being has its own unique perception of it’s existence. I cannot hope to fathom the possibilities for variety that this reality of consciousness provides. Queerbychoice.com has so many examples of people who understand their queerness to be a choice, so who am I to question the personal testimony of so many people? I am only here to hopefully continue this conversation on choice and freedom with the benefit of time and perspective.

If we take the rhetoric of choice to truly be about freedom, we then understand that we need to work on ensuring that freedom is extended to everyone. Queerbychoice dot com expresses this very same idea in it’s response to those who say that the idea of “choice” means that queer people don’t deserve equal rights:

“Perhaps the most important contribution of queer by choice people to the fight against homophobia is that when we say that we chose to be queer, we force people to realize that it’s possible to want to be queer. For too long homophobes have painted us as one-sided creatures who experience nonstop pain. To paint us this way is to paint us as something less than full and well-rounded human beings, and they paint us this way specifically to scare others into repressing their own potential queerness. The reality is that there’s much to enjoy about being a member of the queer community and we who are queer by choice want homophobes to realize and acknowledge that.”

Complement your exploration of this site with a visual history of romantic friendship, or a look into the life of a transformative member of both the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and the nascent Gay Rights movement of the ’70s and ’80s.

Why “passing” doesn’t define your transition

By J.D.

On October 4, 2021

In Trans Life

I’m just going to come right out and say it: people being jealous of you for how much you “pass” is not a worthy transition goal. This is unhealthy at worst, and unrealistic at best (for most). A better transition goal is to attempt to maintain body neutrality, or body positivity if that works for you. Through basically ignoring my body beyond the attention needed to keep myself alive and healthy, I have found that I can appreciate the changes my body goes through as they happen without giving in to the desire to constantly body check myself to see how much and in what ways my body changes.

If I allow myself to focus on the body as the main vessel of transition I am quickly met with a slippery slope back into the eating disorder and severe body dysmorphia that I have struggled with for my entire life. My body changes pretty wildly every single month, and in a variety of ways each time. Some months I gain 15lbs during my cycle, some months I lose 5lbs. Some parts of me are more swollen than they “should” be, or than they were last month. I can’t even give another example because I have been actively trying to avoid letting this topic take up space in my mind for so long. Suffice it to say that my body has been less than helpful in my quest to “feel like a man”. In fact, my body has been my largest impediment to this feeling.

All this isn’t to say that this approach is best for everyone. For some monitoring the changes your body goes through may be helpful “to see how far you have come”, and this can be affirming for some. One just has to look at the plethora of transition selfies and videos available online for proof that a lot of people find a lot affirmation in comparison. This same idea is also pushed in the weight loss industry as a way to “help” or “encourage” people to keep up healthy lifestyles.

I see monitoring my calorie intake and sometimes even focusing too much on the quality of my food (is it “healthy” enough?) as playing on my obsessive tendencies. Tendencies that have a propensity to bring to the surface a certain form of internalized transphobia that I wasn’t even aware I was dealing with. I regularly catch myself focusing on how much my body doesn’t “look like a man’s”. Yes it does. It just looks like a trans man’s body. It is a man’s body because it is my body. I have been forced to expand my cissexist definition of “man” and found that the audacity to self-define is not the exclusive domain of cis people.

This could easily have been titled “why external validation doesn’t make you trans”. Your transition is not defined by how much you look like a cisgender person. I am not cis and because of this I have to ask myself if how much I “pass” really matters to my perception of myself and my inherent masculinity.

This is not to say that “passing” itself is wrong, or the desire isn’t useful in a good many situations. A lot of trans people find comfort, and psychological and material safety in “successfully passing” or “going stealth” in their everyday lives. This essay is not designed to excoriate “passing”, itself. Rather, here I attempt to offer an alternative to the self-hatred, and dissonance that does occur when one, like myself, is visibly queer and not in imminent physical or material danger because of this. The alternative I offer is to base your perception of your transition around more than one facet, and on facets that are within your personal circle of influence.

Yes, a lot of the time hormones and surgeries can bring on the bodily changes that one should have had all along. But that does not mean that you have to focus all of your mental and emotional energy on policing your self and your actions so as to prevent “looking like a man/woman”. This is just a hamster wheel of self-hatred with a veneer of “transition goals” slapped over it. In fact, I argue that we shouldn’t base most aspects of our sense of self on “not being a man/woman” because this is just unproductive. I posit that one should focus on growing up well.

Part of growing into a mature adult is striking the appropriate balance between having an internal locus of control and understanding the limits of one’s personal circle of influence. Trans people do not have a choice but to work toward this balance because we cannot afford to let other people tell us who we are and should be. They will try, and they will always fall short of who we know ourselves to be.

My thinking on this issue has been deeply influenced through learning more about nonbinary people and their experiences. Because there isn’t really a way to “pass” as nonbinary, this “passing is the goal” problem can’t really exist. (Of course, that is not to presume that nonbinary people can not “pass”. This is not true in any sense.)

For nonbinary people “passing” cannot be the sole factor on which they define their transitions, so they must take a more multi-dimensional approach. This may sound basic to some, but for me, seeing this reality for the first time opened the door to the possibility of a more playful relationship with my gender. From watching, specifically Milo Stewart, and other nonbinary creators, I have been able to get a glance at an existence that isn’t ruled entirely by the norms of cis experience. This idea of someone wanting to live and thrive in a space that is so uncomfortable for me gives me hope that I can be happy regardless of how much my body changes, or doesn’t. And if I can be happy regardless of if I “totally pass” or not, then I can free up some of that energy I was wasting on obsessing over my body and appearance, and direct it towards the more appropriate goal of growing into a decent man, which is something over which I have total control.

Complement this with an interrogation of the disillusionment many face when exploring masculinity in earnest.