At the heart of many of society's "-isms" is a laundry list of stereotypes that seek to characterize a group in ways that both provide an easy, if inaccurate, method of describing that group, while [...]

I'll admit: as I write this, I am quite out of sorts. Last week, a friend of mine died due to complications from COVID-19. Another friend's mom passed of the virus. Yet a third friend [...]

While I typically write about trans issues, this particular column will not start with a story about a transgender or nonbinary person. Rather, it begins with a story about hair. Specifically, DeAndre Arnold's hair. Arnold [...]

Transphobia, like homophobia, isn't generally using the suffix "-phobia" to mean "fear," but to mean "aversion." It's the same notion as hydrophobic surfaces refer to their ability to repel water. That said, I feel there [...]

On Nov. 20, transgender and non-binary people — and our allies — across the world come together to honor those murdered due to anti-trans violence. This year marks the 20th since a group of people [...]

In 2008, a woman named Jenna Karvunidis sliced open a cake, revealing pink frosting within the layers. With her, the "gender reveal party" entered the popular lexicon. A decade or so later, the gender reveal has gone a long way from those humble beginnings becoming something far different from that cake.

Halloween is a time of magic and mystery. Traditionally, it once served as the end of the year, where autumn — and the abundance of the harvest — gave way to the dark and dim days of winter. In that liminal space between the seasons, one could get a moment to pierce the veil between other states, even between life and death itself.

Every week, in my email, I receive dozens of story pitches. Some are quite good, connecting me with engaging people and interesting stories that I might otherwise have missed. Most, however, are pretty useless to me in the overall scheme of things. A lot only tangentially veer into any topic I write about, or are blatant product pitches or just an overall bad fit.

I have always been intrigued by history. I love to look at how things came together over time, and how advances in knowledge, technology and society — for both good and ill — helped to [...]

Gavin Grimm, at long last, has won his case. When Grimm was a sophomore at Gloucester County High School in Virginia, he came out as a transgender boy. As soon as he opted to use the boys' restroom, the Gloucester County School Board decided to require that all changing rooms and bathrooms, "shall be limited to the corresponding biological genders, and students with gender identity issues shall be provided an alternative appropriate private facility."

At long last, North Carolina's House Bill 2 is dead. For those few who are reading who may not know the significance, I'll explain: The Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, otherwise known as HB2, was a bill passed in North Carolina in 2016.

So often when people who are not transgender speak of transgender people, there is one important thing that is gotten terribly wrong, and I think it's a core part of understanding exactly what it is to be transgender.

Centuries ago, during the witch trials of the medieval era, a unique way of determining who was or wasn't a witch was created. A woman suspected of being a witch would have her right thumb bound to the big toe on her left foot. She would then have a rope tied around her waist, and be thrown into a nearby pond or river.

So, once again, we reach the closing of the year. For many of us, this is a time of trees festooned with tinsel and glass baubles, or nights filled with candlelight or a myriad of holiday traditions. It's a time of gingerbread and gelt, kinara or hanukkiyah, and all sorts of things we hold dear.

Recent reports say that 0.7 percent of teens identify as transgender. At the same time, a recent study from the American Academy of Pediatrics reports that 50.8 percent of trans masculine people attempt suicide, with [...]

To me, it becomes an issue of accuracy versus truth. It may indeed be accurate, for example, to include the name I was born under, answered to and used on legal documents until I was in my early 20s — but this isn't exactly my truth. That surely isn't me, and isn't my identity now. It's not the person who pens these words, or has been under this name and gender for the more than half of this life.

I look at that photo from 1921, at those proud, resolute transgender people from nearly 100 years ago. How many of them were able to escape what was happening around them, or were they forced into hiding? We're any of them amongst those beaten when the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was destroyed? Dare I even ponder if these folks enjoying a nice day in the sun would, just a few years later, be forced to wear the pink triangle and live out their remaining days in a concentration camp?

It's pride month, and this means a whole lot of people will take or have taken to the streets across the world, festooned in their best rainbow gear. We'll march, party and do all those things we'll do at pride. It will be crazy and chaotic, and we will be the big messy community we are, in all our glory.

Trans people - and I am using the term in its broadest sense, inclusive of gender fluidity and nonbinary identities - tend to have a pretty short list of wants. Really, I can boil it down to one simple statement: we just want to live our lives.

To be transgender in 2018 is to deal with challenging, difficult times. We face attacks from all sides, and the specter of death itself lays heavy upon our community. As a result, I find I often have to spend a lot of time ringing the alarm bells, and warning of dire times.

A week or two ago, a headline passed my eyes: "The transgender zealots are destroying truth itself," it seemed to scream, on an article by Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail. Hitchens' point seems to [...]