A Beacon of Hope
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 [...]
Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Our Story?
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.
Their Past, Our Present
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?
Pride is More Than Performance
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.
Being and Becoming
There is a certain popular culture view of transgender people that cannot be easily shaken: transgender people are born as men or women, and choose to become women or men.
Transmissions: Secrets and Truths
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.
Here’s Your Sign
Being transgender in the late 2010s means you talk about restrooms. Indeed, it's a topic you end up having to revisit over and over again, with what has been years now of attacks on public [...]
Striking gold
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.
Rollback
The Trump Administration has once again attempted to ban transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. This time out, the ban was secretly drafted by Vice President Mike Pence, with assistance from Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council (FRC) and Ryan T. Anderson of the Heritage Foundation.
The Curious Case of Joseph Roman
Criminals make up excuses for their crimes. We've heard so many bad excuses for crime, that many such stories have become the things of legend, like the infamous "Twinkie defense" of Dan White for the [...]
2018: Stand Up
By the time this column reaches you, the confetti will be swept out of Times Square and the Rose Bowl parade floats will exist as only a memory. Nevertheless, we shall still be feeling the [...]
Transmission: The Return
The 21st of December is the Winter Solstice: that's the longest night of the year when light is at its scarcest. It is at this time of maximum axial tilt that those of us living [...]
Transmissions: What We Want
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 [...]