How mourning my father helped prepare me for life in a pandemic
In July my family marked the second anniversary of my father’s death. I drove down to San Diego with my daughter so we could spend a few days with my mother, in the home where I lived for much of my childhood. We lit candles, spoke words of memory, and told stories of a man who would surely have had something thoughtful or clever to say about our current circumstances. At one point my daughter climbed into my lap, and broke into improvised song: a lilting melody about how much we missed Pop Pop, but how he would always be…
How a few simple words can produce existential trauma for trans people and what you can do to help them.
Something like this happens to all of us at some point in our transition:
“You have to give us more time. It’s very hard for us to adjust to this.” This from my mother-in-law, after over a year of me being in transition. When she deadnames or misgenders me, it is often while playing with my daughter. After one extended visit, my daughter started to use the wrong name and pronouns at home. …
Addressing common concerns about allowing transgender authors to change their names on previously published work
By Theresa Jean Tanenbaum, Robyn Speer, Irving Rettig, Teddy G. Goetz, Z Toups, Katta Spiel, & B.M. Watson
As transgender, nonbinary, and gender-non-conforming (henceforth, trans) authors and scholars, we all struggle to properly receive credit for our contributions to scholarship in the sciences and humanities. At some point in our careers the names and/or pronouns that we used to publish under stopped being correct, and we found ourselves having to fight to be called by the names that we now use in all aspects of our lives. We seek a simple remedy: to have the words that we have written…
A list of dumb things I think about doing with my testicles as a transgender woman.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled social commentary and Serious Discussion About Trans Equality to discuss something fundamentally silly: what to do with my testes after my orchiectomy.
Being trans in a transphobic society isn’t always easy. We are at higher risk for a litany of terrible things: assault, rape, harassment, murder, denial of housing, loss of healthcare, employment discrimination, and suicide. …
I fell in love with another trans woman, and I’m still catching my breath.
My love is a thistle, tenacious and beautiful Her mysteries forever unfolding, through prismatic personas aspects of past traumas etched in her bones My love was a soldier and a peacemaker and a caretaker And she’ll regale you with stories of far off lands Music flows through her hands which I know are strong enough to stitch me together when I’m falling apart My love is a lily, late blooming and delicate fighting off old fears recovering lost years from murky depths After years of gaslighting My love fights the fights that need fighting for others less free dancing in…
People who push the idea that trans women are “socialized male” should walk a mile in my shoes.
I’ve been a girl my whole life, but I didn’t always know it. As a result, many of my childhood experiences were defined by cognitive dissonance. Growing up as a trans girl is like being gaslit by the whole world and still finding the strength and confidence to say “No! THIS is who I am!” After all, no other girls are subjected to the same degree of toxic masculinity as trans girls. No other girls are forced into boys locker rooms, or men’s restrooms, or all-male prep schools. No other girls are told to “man up!” or “don’t be a…
Just by considering that you might be trans, you are doing something powerful and beautiful!
I want to talk to the gender questioning folks out there. Questioning your identity can feel like you’re slowly unravelling. But it can also feel like you’re finally putting the pieces of a puzzle together.
You don’t need to know that truth all at once. And you don’t owe that truth to anyone but yourself. You don’t need to make a decision and feel trapped by it. You don’t need to appear consistent to the people around you. Consistency is how other people control you. The world wants us to be stable. Fixed. …
Gender Transition
Notes from my first year in transition
Last year, on American Independence Day, I made my own declaration to seek freedom from my gender dysphoria. At the time I had no idea where this journey was going to take me, I just knew that I needed to take this leap of faith. I hadn’t even started hormones yet when I made the announcement; that would come a few weeks later (expect more writing and reflection on the medical aspects of transitioning on that anniversary). When I came out last July, I still considered myself nonbinary, I didn’t yet know my whole name, and I felt presumptuous and…
Reflecting on the inexorability of my gender transition
March 2, 2020
Spend enough time around trans people and eventually you will get the story of their “awakening” to their gender identity. For some it’s a persistent knowledge that they assert when they are young, insisting upon their correct gender consistently until caregivers take notice. For others, it’s a revelation! Some alignment of circumstances where a life lived out of focus suddenly becomes crystal clear. For me, it was more diffuse. My transness was always there, lurking just beneath the surface. It lay dormant, at first because I didn’t know how to explain myself, and later because I was…
A poem for us older trans women
This one is for all the girls
Who had to fight
For their womanhood
You daring sirens
Larynxes raised
To sing contralto praises
And resonant phrases
In lips, nose, tongue
Bass strings unstrung
Respecifying endocrine doctrine one more time
Yes I'm crying!
Tears that never felt so good before
Welling up from reservoirs
You magnificent star maidens
Selfie taking
Pickle craving
Spiro-graphical mavens
And broad winged raven ladies
Passing (not passing, never passing, refusing to pass) in the night skies
Born in disguise
Fourteen and forty all at once Awkward angles, aching breasts All tucked away beneath my dress My…
