The Pandemic is Trauma for Trans Disabled People

There are four main responses when faced with trauma — fight, flight, freeze and appease. But the virus is a threat that isn’t tangible — you can’t see, taste, touch, hear, or smell it, but you know it’s there. It isn’t something you can flee from since the pandemic is global, nor is it an abuser that you can appease to. So I’ve found myself fighting. Fighting to protect my health as an immunocompromised disabled person, and ultimately fighting to stay alive. I can honestly say I’ve never fought this hard for my life.

I struggle to imagine the long-term future, but I can also adapt to a new situation pretty well. So when I hear people saying “when this is all over”, I can’t imagine a different reality than the one I’m living in right now. Once the pandemic hit, I gave myself a mental time frame that it would last for a year, a length of time I continue to extend as the situation plays out. It’s my brain’s way of coping with a trauma that I have no control over.

It’s been hard observing others not taking the pandemic seriously enough by not wearing masks and not social distancing. It was also difficult to see people rushing to get back to normal as if the pandemic had magically ended. This has made disabled people feel as if we’ve somehow imagined the pandemic as we’re carrying the weight of others’ irresponsibility. We’re stuck in our homes watching other people go about their lives unburdened of any social responsibility trying to justify their carelessness. As the TikTok goes, the pandemic isn’t over just because you’re over it.

Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that makes a survivor second-guess their reality and sanity. COVID-19 gaslighting has included hearing people deny the existence of the virus, accusing others of taking too many precautions, insisting quarantine is over, trying to convince you that only old people get it, and trying to persuade you to hang out. As someone who has a neurological disorder that makes me feel detached from my environment a lot, hearing such statements has been detrimental for my recovery.

*Almost a quarter of all homeless young people are LGBT+, and having experienced homelessness myself, I know this figure must be higher for trans people. As job losses have led to evictions, COVID-19 has forced some trans people — who are often in precarious housing situations anyway — to move back in with transphobic families.

That was the experience of a university student I spoke to who wished to remain anonymous: “I had to move back in with my family because of the pandemic. Before COVID-19, I was doing full service sex work to pay my bills, but that’s quite risky now. Adjusting to a different living situation has been really difficult — I get almost no privacy as both my parents are currently working from home. It’s also been tough no longer being in an environment that’s affirming of my gender identity.”

The trepidation I feel leaving the house whilst trans has been very similar to leaving the house during COVID-19: they both involve donning extra fabric for safety. The threats might be different but the need to protect against any potential trauma is the same. With both threats, I psych myself up with upbeat music and take a deep breath once I close my front door. Having resisted the temptation to give myself a quarantine haircut, my thick black wavy locks now sit just below my shoulders. Longer hair coupled with a face mask that conceals most of my facial hair means I am now read as a cis woman and therefore misgendered as such when I manage to leave the house. I desperately miss being around people of various genders and no gender at all and having my gender identity validated.

I have heard numerous stories from countless trans people on the appalling state of trans-specific healthcare in the UK with two-year minimum wait times before a first appointment. Others simply cannot wait that long due to overwhelming gender dysphoria and opt to go private by crowdfunding the associated costs. Some Gender Identity Clinics (GICs) have shut down completely due to COVID-19 whilst others are offering video call consultations. These measures mean trans people have to wait even longer to access gender affirming healthcare, with some trans people part-way through their transition. Bucky, a non-binary individual was recently offered top surgery last minute but believes they were treated differently due to being trans and disabled. “I wasn’t allowed to have anyone with me in the hospital despite needing a carer or a friend with me. My surgeon refused to give me any pain relief after surgery because I already take some analgesia for my fibromyalgia. If it wasn’t for the anaesthetist, I would’ve been discharged without any pain relief,” Bucky said. “Due to COVID-19, I was supposed to have my drains removed at home in order to minimise the time I spent in hospital, but the district nurses they sent had no training on how to remove them so I ended up having to go back into hospital anyway. This meant I had my drains in for twice as long which caused me to be in more pain. I also wasn’t given any physiotherapy post-surgery exercises.”

Like many trans people, disabled people everywhere strive for independence in our daily lives. We have to grapple with being vulnerable to ask for and receive help with certain things and balance that with holding onto the things we are still able to do independently, and these things can change over time as disability isn’t static. The pandemic took away my ability to do my grocery shopping for myself, which in turn meant that the autonomy of being able to personally choose the foods I nourish myself with was suddenly stripped from me. As an individual who still struggles with disordered eating, ensuring that I eat something on my bad days is really important, and as a disabled person, having access to easy foods is also really important. Whilst the rest of the world was baking banana bread and making dalgona coffee, disabled people were struggling just to feed ourselves.

*At the intersection of being trans and disabled is grief. We are in a constant state of grief for our past selves, as well as a state of trepidation for the future. As for the present, we are just trying to constantly adapt to our situations, manage the expectations of others, and ultimately, survive. Many trans disabled people are made to feel like a burden, as Aisling, a trans disabled activist shared with me: “The commonalities between being trans and disabled — you’re medicalised. Everything is made about something medical, you’re a freak, you’re different, you’re weird, you’re trying to make things difficult for people whether it’s about access or trying to get people to gender you properly. I feel like the biggest thing for me is people act like you’re trying to make things difficult for them when actually you’re just trying to fit into the world.”

A huge common denominator for disabled people in general is isolation, which particularly applies to disabled folk who are housebound or have few people around them for support, but it’s a spectrum we can all place ourselves on. The pandemic has only acted to further increase the isolation that disabled people already experience because we can’t leave the house. Loneliness is an experience that trans people share too. It’s important for trans people to be able to meet and connect with other trans people and just be around like-minded people who get it. Taking this into account, trans disabled people are doubly marginalised and isolated from their communities.

At the moment, trans disabled survivors are undoubtedly experiencing unexpected amounts of re-traumatization, and we’re having to draw on our previous experiences of trauma in order to survive the pandemic. We’re taking our lives one day at a time just to make it through. We’ve had to rapidly adapt to being met with and continually process huge waves of new information, statistics and restrictions from our governments, all the while having no time and space to adequately grieve our losses.

The issue with trauma is that you cannot process it properly whilst it’s still happening to you if you are to survive it. The hindsight and healing can only happen once the body’s sympathetic nervous system is deactivated. Constantly being in survival mode is exhausting yet necessary when faced with trauma. The challenge with COVID-19 is that we have no idea when the pandemic will end, all that’s certain is that we’re in this for the long haul. Whether you contracted COVID-19 and are recovering from it, or are now experiencing the symptoms of long COVID, or you’re a trans disabled survivor, the reality is that the majority of us will not be exiting this pandemic unscathed.

When Other People Get to Give Away Their Binders

So, last week another one of my friends got top surgery and, as usual, it turned me into my least magnanimous self.

I have to bite my tongue whenever these young queers who’ve lived in their bodies — suffered in their bodies — for less time than I have, get top surgery relatively easily. When they get to have their discomfort with their chests recognized and catered to so automatically. When they get to wear t-shirts without binders and be shirtless in public, and never have to suffer again the butch indignity of wearing a bra.

Last week I was Jordan’s primary support person through their surgery. I watched beaming nurses congratulate Jordan when they came to dispense meds or whatever, as they got to witness Jordan’s elation at being boob-free, and trip over themselves trying to gender them correctly. I teared up myself with joy for Jordan, one of my favorite people, who I am thrilled gets to wear those dapper button-downs without a binder, while at the same time that slithery unspeakable feeling churned in the background. I deserve this more than you do.

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I’ve been uncomfortable with my chest for a good 20 years and out as queer for the same span. I know queers older than me may roll their eyes at my youth (I’m a 32-year-old butch). But I’m also of an age that when I came out, Melissa Etheridge was my only gay role model. I was the only out queer in my graduating high school class. There was no The Transgender Child to explain to my mother why, as a kindergartner, I became hysterical when forced to put on dresses in JC Penney’s and would beg to shop in the boys’ department.

When I was in my early twenties and at the height of my discomfort with my chest, top surgery still appeared to be something that required one to be on testosterone and committed to “fully transitioning.” The idea of butch, genderqueer, or non-binary folks getting top surgery was pretty unheard of. Had it felt like an option when I was 21, I would have jumped right on it.

But instead, around that time, something wonderful happened. I started having sex with a lot of trans people. Some of them were trans guys who had top surgery, some of them were trans guys who hadn’t; a lot of them were genderqueer and non-binary. I slutted it up with a whole bunch of people with bodies like mine, who understood my relationship to my chest, and reflexively eroticized my body as masculine. They would never dream of referring to my “breasts” — it was my chest, obviously. They also saw I had a cock, obviously. They instructed me to fuck their front holes and back holes, obviously. They queered my body as they had already queered their own. By the time I arrived in Portland, Oregon, as a more fully grown butch at age 27, my body was indestructibly queer. Flat chest or no, my body was masculine. I honored it with a heart tattoo on my chest surrounding the word butch and barbells through my nipples.

I slutted it up with a whole bunch of people with bodies like mine, who understood my relationship to my chest, and reflexively eroticized my body as masculine. They would never dream of referring to my “breasts” — it was my chest, obviously. They also saw I had a cock, obviously.

In Portland, however, compared to the small college town where I spent most of my twenties, non-binary folks with completed top surgeries abound. It is not at all unusual to meet folks who fiercely do not identify as men who have perfectly contoured flat chests. GoFundMe campaigns for friends of friends’ top surgeries regularly appear in my Facebook feed. Getting top surgery with my butch identity is no longer some unattainable fantasy. Now the question firmly rests with me: do I want to go ahead with it or not?

I don’t know. It’s complicated.

Over the last decade I have come to love my chest. The sickening feeling of having it touched has transformed into comfort and pleasure. I love when my femme partner feels me up and she loves feeling me up too. My chest no longer feels like 100% my own. I like how it’s become joint property, each of us carrying some of its weight.

I even like how it looks sometimes, the soft curve and contrast between my boyish head and size B gender signifiers. I like the liminal space I occupy — how I get sir’d and carded at bars, and also how small children read me as feminine and safe. I’m now at an age where I occasionally see young people look at me with “ring of keys” eyes, and I think about the power of showing them that you can be this kind of butch with the chest you were born with, no modifications or binding needed. My delight in my gender and my dysphoria exist in a tight balance. I think sometimes about what Jack Halberstam wrote, how “refusal to resolve my gender ambiguity has become a kind of identity for me.” To me, a big part of being butch is holding and living in that gender discomfort — making a home out of the dissonance. Is that beautiful, noble, or stupid?

I came to a sort of decision a few years ago: I’d keep my chest until I was forty-five or so and then get top surgery. That way I could, perhaps, get the best of both worlds. I’d have some more time to enjoy my chest as it is and then, hopefully, get to enjoy a few decades of being boob-free. I’d get to experience the relief of not wearing bras or binders, get to love how dress shirts looked on me, and get to throw on a t-shirt and run out the door without feeling self-conscious.

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I’d gotten comfortable with that decision and then Jordan scheduled their surgery and all my longing came to the surface again. I’ve known many friends through their top surgeries, but I’ve never been as intimately involved as with this one. I drove Jordan to the hospital, held their hand when they woke up, and took Jordan home and cared for them in the days immediately after. I got to see the scars and empty the drains in a way I never had before.

On the second day home Jordan wanted to take a shower so we unbandaged everything and went through the protocol — no scrubbing, gentle soap. I saw the sticky bits leftover from where the monitoring equipment had been attached and realized Jordan wouldn’t be able to wash it off themselves with their restricted arm movement. Last month I had surgery myself — a thyroid thing — and I remembered my partner diligently cleaning those adhesive bits off my back in the shower. I remember how it helped transition me back into my body, away from the hospital.

“Do you, um, want me to get in with you and wash your back?” I asked.

In our seven years of friendship we’ve never undressed in front of each other. But in the last few days I’d seen Jordan in all sorts of undress: when the surgeon used a marker to draw lines for where she’d cut, when Jordan practiced how to put pants on with the OT. Taking my own shirt off felt like an equalizing gesture: you can see me exposed too.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Thanks,” Jordan said.
I took my shirt and sports bra off, attempting to look relaxed, to put us both at ease.
“I’ll keep my boxers on.”
“Me too,” they said. “I can do my lower half after you get out.”

We stood in the bathroom while the shower heated up, and I couldn’t stop looking at us both in the mirror. I’ve spent a lot of time comparing myself to folks who’ve had top surgeries, but never in this early stage. Jordan’s scars looked like lacerations, with alien tubing flowing out into the bulbous plastic drains hanging on either side of their torso. I can picture how sexy their chest will look a year from now, but right now they look like they just had massive surgery. Their frontside looks raw, bruised, and defenseless. Next to Jordan’s heavily sutured chest, mine appears oddly finished, healed, like I’ve already gone through my surgery and come out on the other side.

Surprisingly, I feel like I look older than Jordan too – which I am, but I’ve always felt like AFAB people appear older than me after getting surgery or starting hormones, which I resent.

One of my struggles around top surgery and testosterone has been that, without it, I worry I’ll never look my age. Like many AFAB butches, I get read as “boy.” Without the markers of a beard or flat chest, the combination of my short hair, men’s clothes, and soft face, lead many folks to assume I’m much younger than I am. That’s largely a straight people problem, but it’s not only straight people (who lack the ability to discern butchness) who infantilize butches. Narratives persist about butches “eventually” transitioning. In many queer people’s minds, butchness is a stop on the way to trans manhood, not a final destination.

That’s a big part of my secret resentment towards friends who get top surgery or start T: I feel like they get to age and have their identity development recognized, whereas I’ll always look adolescent. For many butches, no matter how silver fox we become, there’s a perceived boyishness that remains. It’s a boyishness that many people adore, no doubt, but it can also make me feel like I’m perpetually in a younger stage of life than trans guys or other AFAB folks who physically transition. They get to look like grownups. To some people, I’ll always look like a tomboy or a male in a different stage of life than I’m actually in.

But standing next to Jordan without our shirts on, I notice I actually look the few years older that I am. I see Jordan’s fresh battle scars and my healed ones. Like an old ghost, I notice my unspoken resentment drifting away.

“You have the best tattoos,” Jordan says.

I grin, appreciating the soft pink heart with the word “butch” stamped on my chest.

Looking at my fading tattoo, I see the adult butch who has had trans guys call her daddy, who has moved across the country, had essays published in books, disentangled from her family of origin, does complicated, meaningful work, and is co-parenting a stepchild. How adult is it to care for your beloved friend post-surgery, to remove your clothing in front of them to better express that care, and to wash their body platonically while filled with love? Running the washcloth over Jordan’s back, I feel every play partner, lover, and therapist I’ve had leading me to be the adult I am in this moment: someone capable of caring for another.

For the first time, I feel a glimmer of how I don’t need a flat chest to look like a grown up. I still want it – at some point. But I think I want to hold onto this dissonance a little longer.

Why Everything Transphobes Think About Detransition Is Wrong

Feature image by Zackary Drucker of the Gender Spectrum Collection.

Detransition. By now, you may have heard the term in the news, or uttered by people like J.K. Rowling. As transgender people experience unprecedented rates of visibility in the U.S, increasing attention has been paid to “detransitioners” — a term that broadly describes people who diverge from their assigned gender and then return to living as the gender they were assigned at birth. The existence of detransitioners brings up various anxieties around trans healthcare: for instance, trans healthcare is increasingly taking a ‘gender-affirming’ stance of respecting and trusting a patient’s gender identity without judgment, but some, including some detransitioners, argue that medical professionals should challenge patients who choose to transition, rather than affirming them. (A guide to what gender-affirming care looks like can be found here.)

Detransition is a complicated topic, not least because detransitioners’ stories are often weaponized by anti-trans activists. J.K. Rowling recently referenced detransition in one of her anti-trans blog posts, and right-wing groups and fundamentalist Christian groups like The Christian Institute use it to discredit transness and transition. Statistics indicate that transition care has an overwhelmingly high satisfaction rate: Cornell University found that between 0.3% and 3.8% of people expressed regret about a variety of transition-related procedures, and that most regret was connected to “lack of social support after transition” or “poor surgical outcomes using older techniques”. Trans people may also detransition due to transphobia, or to stay safer in dangerous conditions such as homelessness, before transitioning again later.

That being said, research into both transition and detransition remains limited, and the factors that influence detransition shouldn’t mean that we stop listening to detransitioners’ experiences. This is especially the case given that many simplified detransition narratives completely ignore what detransitioners say about their own lives. Much coverage around detransition is has been designed to spread anxiety around the concept of trans people and enforce cis perspectives on gender.

Detransition narratives have become a key weapon of choice for those who wish to deny autonomy to all people who seek transition-related care. Here are some ways in which this works.

‘Detransitioner’ isn’t a neutral term

Describing yourself as a ‘detransitioner’ is a political choice, and one that some people deliberately avoid – in part because of its association with anti-trans sentiment. Some people might simply say they’ve gone off hormones, while Brian Belovitch, who was formerly a trans woman, says he ‘retransitioned’. (I use ‘detransitioner’ in this article for consistency, and to refer to those who’ve used the term to describe themselves.)

Detransition also often refers to an individual crossing from one binary gender to another, erasing the existence of genders outside the male-female binary. Some people who’ve had gender-affirming care may not have been made aware of any possibilities outside male and female. “If I was young today,” Belovitch told Paper Magazine, “I would probably fall in the middle somewhere as genderqueer or gender nonconforming…had I had the knowledge or a supportive family or supportive mentors”. The lack of knowledge about, and acceptance of, non-binary and genderqueer identities means that some people may feel pushed into a binary identity, or may believe they must be cis, when actually they would be happiest as a non-binary or genderqueer person.

Detransition stories are often more complex than they first appear

Detransition is more complicated than just the simple story of what is perceived to be a mistake. While some conceive of their transitions as unwanted and traumatising, others do not. Ellie, a person from the U.K. who underwent testosterone therapy and top surgery before detransitioning, told the BBC that “all those physical changes I experienced during my transition helped me develop a closer relationship with my body — they’re just part of my journey.” Belovitch similarly has made clear that he doesn’t regret his time as a trans woman.

Many existential questions are prompted by detransitioners that all of us can learn from: How do you deal with the difficulty of inhabiting an identity where you may feel radically separated from your past self? How do you make decisions for your future self, when you can’t predict your future feelings about gender? What if social transphobia, and familial rejection, hamper your ability to live happily — or live at all — as a trans person? These questions are deeply connected to how inhospitable the US is for trans people, and how our conception of gender as static, permanent and embodied in a specific way contributes to this problem.

Conversations with detransitioners made clear that detransition does not have simple roots, and that life after detransition tends to be given less attention than the decision to detransition itself. Alex, who preferred to use a pseudonym to maintain anonymity, detransitioned because of constraints on what their family is comfortable with. They shared with me that most people don’t understand their situation, but that total understanding shouldn’t be the goal: “Those who need to know will know! I’d like a world where we could have sojourns across and around gender with little attention paid to such journeys…It’s an imperfect world and we all need to negotiate our own way through it.”

Detransition is inextricable from transphobia

To be clear, I don’t mean that detransitioning is transphobic. I mean that detransition, and the coverage of it, cannot be separated from the fact that cis people are valued over trans people, that cis bodies are seen as superior to trans bodies, and that the stories of those who have bad experiences with transition are seen as more relatable, more sensible, than stories of those who have bad experiences with cisness. Those who seek to ban puberty blockers in the name of ‘safety’ do not care that forcing a person to undergo their ‘natural’ puberty can itself be violent.

But detransitioners, too, are capable of being transphobic: take the detransitioners who write for Feminist Current, headed by high-profile opposer of Canadian trans rights legislation Meghan Murphy, or prominent UK detransitioner Keira Bell, who has attacked the ‘transgender movement’ in a statement for an organisation which is trying to ban trans girls from using women’s school toilets. Nobody should be challenging detransitioners on their personal decisions, but challenging them on transphobic rhetoric should be par for the course — such as in the case of Thain, a detransitioner profiled by the BBC whose freely available, openly transmisogynistic writing was not mentioned.

Responsible reporting around detransition must simultaneously uphold the autonomy of detransitioners, while foregrounding how inhospitable life is for trans people, and refusing to allow anti-trans activists to weaponize detransition against those who want and need to transition. Transphobic public figures conveniently leave out the data that demonstrates the hostility inflicted upon trans people, in an effort to delegitimize transition.

The ‘damsel trope’ is prevalent in these stories

Most of the detransitioners in recent coverage are young, white, slim, and assigned female at birth (AFAB). In the worst examples, a shocked, voyeuristic attention is paid to their bodies. There may be close-ups of their faces, fetishistic asides about their ‘female’ features — small legs, delicate arms, tiny hands — and hushed mentions of mastectomies or hysterectomies. Most strikingly, the subjects of these articles are often painted as helpless, as being shuttled through trans healthcare on a kind of conveyor belt. There’s rarely any real recognition of the agency they would have been obligated to exercise at various points in the transition process.

There’s a common trope in these stories that existence as a woman is so terrible that transitioning is a kind of escape hatch out of womanhood. Not only does this ignore the vast majority of women who don’t transition, it foregrounds AFAB people as passive victims. Misogyny is pervasive and powerful, but the idea that misogyny means that AFAB people can’t be trusted to make informed decisions about their gender — or that sufferers of various gendered traumas, such as sexual assault and eating disorders, can’t make informed decisions about their gender — is both baseless and sexist. Social possessiveness over AFAB people’s femininity, and their ability to bear and nurse children, is also textbook sexism.

There’s a lack of knowledge of the terrain

New York Magazine recently raised concerns in a detransition-related article about the permanent damage some detransitioners had suffered from binding their breasts. Those effects aren’t caused by standard binding; they’re caused when people who can’t afford proper binders or surgery bind unsafely. It’s strange not to emphasize that a lack of access to transition care, rather than transition care itself, is the root of that problem. The same article worries about medical professionals “handing out testosterone like candy,” without wondering about whether any of its subjects acquired testosterone outside of the medical system (it mentions one person getting testosterone through Planned Parenthood, and another getting it, somewhat vaguely, “through the mail”).

There’s a lack of knowledge in detransition coverage about how some aspects of transness work, such as waiting times, or costs. Reference is rarely made to the established phenomenon of lesbians who take testosterone and continue to identify as lesbians. There’s little investigation about what gender dysphoria feels like, or where people learn about transness, or what the trans healthcare system is like for most people. Without the right information on this stuff, coverage crosses over from exploration into fearmongering.

Gatekeeping isn’t the solution; it’s the problem

A lot of trans people depend on transition-related healthcare for survival. Scrapping trans-related healthcare, or restricting it further, would put many of our lives in danger. But the trans healthcare system absolutely needs urgent reform. Katelyn Burns recently reported on how inconsistent standards of care are failing trans patients who undergo surgery; people who receive substandard surgical outcomes are wary of talking about it, in case other surgeons refuse to take them on — or their experiences are used by anti-trans activists to scare other trans people into avoiding surgery. An open letter to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health argued that surgeons are falsifying their success rates, failing to give informed consent for experimental surgeries, and providing insufficient aftercare.

Gatekeeping, however, doesn’t address these problems — it just makes trans people suffer and worsens the uneven power dynamic between trans people and healthcare providers. Avery, whose name I’ve changed to respect their anonymity, is a nonbinary person who stopped their testosterone therapy to maintain an ambiguous gender presentation. They criticized the risks posed by gatekeepers, who can bar access to healthcare to people who don’t perform transness in a certain way. “I hesitated stopping testosterone because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get back on it. I’ve heard of people who don’t want testosterone at all considering taking it just to get access to top surgery,” they explained. “The idea that a minuscule number of people regretting transition is enough to mean every other trans person should be denied/restricted access to medical care is bad enough. But there’s also no space for expressing doubts or exploring options when you’ve waited years for an appointment and will have to wait another 6 months or more if you don’t convince the gatekeeper you’re trans enough.”

Gatekeeping also poses a danger in the current political climate. The Trump administration has continually attempted to roll back healthcare protections for trans people, including a recent attempt to encourage healthcare discrimination against trans people by re-interpreting the Affordable Care Act, which would have made it easier for healthcare to be denied to trans people on the basis of religious belief. When trans people have reason to fear that their access to transition care may be cut off, gatekeeping crosses the line from paternalism into active endangerment.

Improving conditions for detransitioners must also mean improving them for trans people

What would the world look like if both trans people and detransitioners were afforded the dignity and complexity they need? Misogyny would be dismantled, and womanhood would be a far more hospitable territory; racism would also have been destroyed, and with it the deep enmeshment of anti-Blackness and anti-transness. (Amrou al-Kadhi talks about transphobia’s racist history here, as does C. Riley Snorton in the excellent Black on Both Sides.) We’d have far more proactive and compassionate care for the various traumas that can impact our development: assault, abuse, neglect. The idea that being cis is better than being trans would be discarded. And as Alex said above, we’d be able to make journeys across and through gender without divergence from cisness being seen as a threat or a fault.

If this sounds like the ideal world for trans people, that’s because the ways in which detransitioners are mistreated cleave closely to, or are identical to, the ways in which all trans people are mistreated. The ideal living conditions for detransitioners and for trans people are the same — they require a world in which social care, community care, and bodily autonomy are paramount, where people can present and identify and undergo transition to whatever degree they please without suffering for it, and where oppression on the basis of gender, class, race and anything else ceases to exist. That world doesn’t start with greater waiting times, or greater social fear about people mistakenly transitioning, or greater power given to doctors so that they can protect us from our desires. It starts from the ground up: committing to care for each other, to listen to each other, and to unmake the collective oppressions that prevent us from living freely.

What This Trans Survivor Wants J.K. Rowling to Know

I told myself I wouldn’t write this article. There’s enough vitriol against trans people in the world. I didn’t want to give more energy to the “toxicity,” as J.K. Rowling has dubbed it. There are so many beautiful stories about trans people that deserve attention.

And then I remembered the Sunday I spent in bed reading the last installment of the Harry Potter saga. I was a twelve-year-old queer sissy who spent much of my adolescence wondering why the world was such a hostile place for me. I drifted into novels as an oasis. For many years, Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger felt like my only real friends. I was a snobby know-it-all, just like Hermione.

Now, as an adult trans woman, a survivor of violence, someone who’s worked in the sex industry — many of which are identities named in J.K. Rowling’s letter defending sentiments that have been called transphobic — I still feel a responsibility to stories.

My life is a trans story in the making, as are the lives of my trans sisters. And to let the ignorance of a celebrity author fuel violence against me and my people under the guise of feminism isn’t acceptable. This is about me honoring my childhood self, the me who didn’t have a protector.

Rowling and I actually have much in common, our commitment to stories being one. We care about the state of women. We think about the world future generations will inherit. We work to change the material conditions that lead to violence.

And yet, the difference between us is which stories Rowling and I choose to fixate upon.

The primary narrative emphasized throughout Rowling’s controversial words is the fear that welcoming trans women into cis women’s spaces will invite violence. Rowling admits that she believes the majority of trans women to be unproblematic, but that the potential of violence alone is enough to reconsider expanding women’s spaces. This scenario, removed from context, could draw fear out of anyone. Violence against women is terrifyingly commonplace. And it’s been normalized to the point where Donald Trump was still elected after the world listened to a recording of him encouraging people to assault women.

And yet, the scenario of men harming women is very different from the scenario of trans women harming cis women. One has become part of the fabric of our society. It’s the reason why almost every parent of a young girl is hypervigilant — because violence against women is expected all across the world. The other scenario is an incredible anomaly, which has yet to have any backing. To use a hypothesis with no evidence and suggest that policies be made around it is absurd. Pushing a hypothesis that actually counters reality indicates that there may be biases at play.

Rowling conflates the two scenarios — she says that men who enter women’s shelters posing as women will use the opportunity to commit violence. What this does is reinforce the message that trans women are indiscernible from men with an ulterior motive, posing as women. This is not an apolitical statement. The brutality inflicted on women continues unabated because our society implicitly has made it acceptable. We hear it in the victim-blaming language, in the way women are made to feel ashamed of what they were doing to provoke an assault. Similarly, trans people are subject to cruelty because false narratives make it seem like trans people are a threat — by spreading myths of the menacing trans person, violence against trans people in the form of physical or legislative attacks could be framed as protective measures rather than bigotry. This is evident in the trans panic defense that allows murderers to receive more lenient sentences by claiming they were in shock after learning an intimate partner was trans: they position themselves as victims to the sinister, deceiving trans person.

Our personal sentiments influence the culture of society and the policies that govern us. In fact, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently proposed a rule that allows homeless shelters to discriminate against trans women. In the proposal, the government itself admits that there is zero evidence suggesting such a proposal is necessary because there have been no known cases of trans women posing danger to other women. There is evidence, however, indicating that trans people are the ones that are more likely to be victims of violence.

The widespread fear of men posing as women in public spaces is a relatively new phenomenon. It wasn’t until trans people received unprecedented visibility in North America and Europe that people began voicing concern. It’s become a topic of discussion for every parent, schoolteacher, athlete, activist, and more. But what isn’t new is trans people.

Trans people in fact have been living among us since the beginning of time. Trans people weren’t always struggling to be accepted. Our stories weren’t always dramatized on television. Violence against us wasn’t always a weekly news story.

This is the story I want all of us to focus on: that trans people have been shamans, priestesses, teachers, healers, and cultural leaders for generations. And we still are.

And for the amount of time we’ve been wielding our magic, with or without the public’s knowledge, there hasn’t been the fear of violence from us until the modern day. In fact, trans people are more likely to be the ones enduring violence — that’s another thing Rowling and I agree on. There is much evidence indicating that trans people are terrorized starting in early childhood and throughout our lives. So why is that well-meaning feminists seem to focus on us as assailants rather than survivors?

The story we choose to fixate upon holds meaning. It’s a political decision, even if we don’t know it.

The reason why trans people have been among us all along, but have had to blend in seamlessly in our times is to avoid the very violence that Rowling fears. Among us trans women, we know that if we’re public about who we are, people call us “men in dresses.” We lose loved ones, suffer abuse by doctors, endure assault by civilians, and are left to die in prisons. There are many more trans people in the world than people even know. It’s likely that Rowling has encountered many of us without her knowledge. In fact, she could have easily run into me on the street, without it crossing her mind at all what genitals I might have. She might wash her hands beside me in a public restroom and not think twice.

While many cis women enter a women’s bathroom with the simple intent to pee, I walk in a women’s bathroom with my chest tight, my stomach clenched, because I am waiting for what feels like the inevitable moment that a cis woman thinks I’m a man who’s pretending. I have prepared to defend myself against the cis woman who, unbeknownst to her, has the same fear in her heart as I do. We are mirrors to one another.

We are survivors, sometimes stumbling through trauma, not recognizing when we might be doing harm, ourselves. I have deep empathy for Joanne Rowling. And I have witnessed what happens when survivors tap into that empathy and create wondrous stories of triumph and friendship. Those are the stories Joanne has written for people like me.

Now is the moment we must reflect on which stories we’ll choose to emphasize. I tend to like the ones with happy endings. And in that story, cis and trans women alike remember that we’re stronger when there’s space for all of us to express our unique magical abilities, when we’re not stifling one another. But when we proliferate the stories that are not based in reality, that actually increase harm for those already at high risk of harm, it’s time to reassess. Spreading narratives that undermine trans women’s well-being does not make cis women more safe; it just makes all women more fearful. If our ultimate goal is to protect women, we should be fostering solidarity among us, so we protect one another, rather than emphasizing unfounded ideas.

Maybe the reason why so many people have a combative reaction to hearing Rowling’s words is because they’ve spent their lives in pain, or because they’ve watched their trans loved ones in pain. Maybe we’d be able to discuss all of this with more generosity of spirit if all of us weren’t so used to protecting ourselves from each other.

As a trans survivor, I want to propose to you, Joanne, that we focus on the right stories, the ones that solve violence rather than unintentionally reinforcing them. What if we pooled our efforts collectively at transforming the circumstances that lead to violence? What if we were so committed to protecting one another that assailants were deterred altogether from doing harm because they knew they’d lose to fierce resistance? What if we didn’t have to protect women in the homeless shelter, because the shelter was empty? What if those women were instead in loving homes where they didn’t live in danger?

That’s something we both want. That’s a world that is possible when we give our energy to the stories that transform, the ones that are born from our childlike inclination towards abundance and expansiveness rather than our fear of what we don’t know. That’s the world survivors deserve.

What if the woman who intended to attack me in the bathroom saw the fear in my eyes and realized that we’re both incredibly tired of being wary of peril at every turn? What if we acknowledged each other as mirror images, even with distinct lived experiences? What if we turned our focus towards addressing that fear and recognized that, in the case that a threat presents itself, it’d be much easier for the two of us to take it on together than alone?

In the Face of Government Neglect, Trans Leaders Spearhead Housing Solutions

There’s no place like it. A shelter from storms. Not a place, but a feeling. We’ve all heard those inspirational quotes about home — what it should feel like. For trans people, finding home can feel like leaping through hoops of systemic transphobia, sexism and racism to access and maintain safe and affordable accommodation.

It’s common knowledge that institutions already target trans people with housing discrimination. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed a rule in July that allows homeless shelters to deny transgender people access to single-sex shelters. As detailed by the National Center for Transgender Equality, one in five transgender people in the U.S. has been discriminated against when seeking a home, and more than one in ten have been evicted from their homes because of their gender identity. In Louisiana, one in three trans people report experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives.

Whilst governments fail, Black trans organizers excel. In the South, initiatives like the House of Tulip address the housing crisis for trans people. Based in New Orleans, Mariah Moore and Milan Nicole Sherry founded House of Tulip after launching an online fundraiser to build a long-term, more sustainable solution to housing for trans and gender non-conforming people.

The fundraiser went beyond the initial goal of raising $400,000, allowing House of Tulip, also referred to as Trans United Leading Intersectional Progress, to close on a property they will restore into four different units and offer to trans and gender nonconforming people in the city of New Orleans. Mariah and Milan have partnered with a general contractor and architects, and are looking into organizational management. They have also begun searching for more land to purchase as further additions to their land trust model.

Over 7,000 people donated to the community land trust that supports Black trans leadership and Black trans futures. “It takes organizations a lot longer to build this momentum. Being able to do it so quickly speaks volumes about the fact that people really understand and know that housing for trans people is really needed,” Mariah said.

The majority Black and women-led collective could achieve not just land justice but also autonomy within their physical spaces — especially in this era of lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing. Owning land gives people the right to grow their own crops or simply be outside. House of Tulip’s long-term housing solutions include citywide benefits such as creating safeguards around exclusionary development and gentrification, as well as paths to homeownership. “I envision smaller land purchases with decently sized homes on them that our community members actually own so that their pathway to homeownership is a reality,” said Mariah.

Mariah’s work at the House of Tulip remains grounded in the women and kin that got her this far: “I was shown so many examples of strength and resilience modeled by fierce, brilliant, brave women around me who were sex workers. They taught me that my life was still valuable, I still deserved respect and humanity. I think about all of the times they showed up for me and helped guide me – they’re part of the movement.”

Anti-trans rules and policies introduced by the U.S. administration is accompanied by a hostile culture against trans people. The current epidemic of murders — with many recent cases in the South, including Shaki Peters and Queasha D. Hardy in Louisiana and Jazzaline Ware in Tennessee — paints a bleak picture of the violence trans people continue to face and the adversity that needs to be challenged.

Mariah is not alone in creating optimism and hope for the trans community. Award-winning activist Kayla Gore founded My Sistah’s House with Ellyahnna C. Wattshall in 2016, intending to bridge the gap in services for trans and queer people of color in Memphis, Tennessee. That year, there were only 71 beds available in emergency shelters across the Memphis metro area and none of them were designated as trans-specific. Federal guidelines for these shelters don’t protect trans people. In response to the city’s lack of emergency housing and a steady decline in Black homeownership rates, My Sistah’s House provides both emergency shelter and now stable mortgage-free housing to trans people of color.

Kayla originally converted her six-bedroom house into an emergency housing facility with eight beds available for queer and trans people in need of shelter. “Housing equals safety [and the] violence that we face happens in the street more often than at home,” she wrote on the My Sistah’s House website.

Now, Kayla and Ellyahnna are raising money to build tiny homes to house trans women of color who are at higher risk of violence and discrimination when attempting to access housing in Memphis. With each home costing $13,000, they’ve been able to fundraise to build 20 micro-houses and create a neighbourhood on almost 30 acres of land they’ve purchased. They’ve received support from volunteers who have helped to build the homes. The pair plan to create community gardens in addition to housing and recreation spaces spread throughout underserved communities with any additional funds.

In a moment like this, there is so much work going into mutual aid for more vulnerable communities. As we shield ourselves in our respective homes, many of us are able to donate with a click of the mouse or share with a few taps on a smartphone. Will these fundraisers appear on our timelines when the pandemic wanes? Kayla writes on the Tiny Homes fundraiser, “Share not only our fundraisers after violence or death; share the tiring work of Black and browns [sic] trans men, women, and my Fam that said fuck all that shit!”

Black trans people have yet to fully benefit from their involvement in liberation and activism, even in movements committed to leaving no one behind. The leadership of Black trans folks like Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is finally being recognized as transformative. “It’s because of Black TGNC people that LGBTQ people remain closer to freedom,” Mariah reminds us.

In our wildest dreams, what would it feel like for trans people to have full freedom within housing? Things feel more vivid — brighter, lighter and promising. Vivid because there are possibilities of homes for generations to come. Thriving neighborhoods full of joyful trans folks, free from policing, violence and risk of homelessness, the heavy burdens and fears no longer weighing us down. Neighbourhoods abundant in interdependence and mutual care — the feeling of being at home in this world.

Share and donate to House of Tulip or My Sistah’s House to help fund housing for Black and brown trans and gender nonconforming people.

Scenes from a Gender 02: Illustrated Moments of Trans Womanhood

1. I’m in Manhattan after a meeting with my publisher. It’s a warm autumn day and I’m wearing a salwar kameez and dupatta. My hair is plaited into a single braid which I wear over my right shoulder. I’m not eager to leg it right back to Brooklyn, so I prolong my stay on the island a bit. I walk down to “Curry Hill” to stock up on some South Asian groceries. I go into my favorite shop, Foods of India, and I’m momentarily wary on entering, remembering how my clothes are strongly signifying my ethnicity and how my hair and kohl are strongly signifying my gender. And how both aspects are amplifying each other in a space like this. And though I have been lately navigating urban spaces with little-to-no hassle or bother, I still have to check myself on occasion. The owner, a Sikh man sits at the counter — I’m pretty sure he recognizes me. I say “Sat Sri Akaal” to him and he responds in kind. I’m thinking everything will be fine. I pile up my shopping basket with bitter melons, garlic pickle, pointed gourds, cumin seeds, red lentils. I make my way to the counter where the owner has been joined by another colleague. As I’m unloading my items from my basket, I notice that the owner is looking at me with some interest.

“Oh shit,” I think, “he’s clocked me.” I try not to look at him but I know he and his pal are pretty intrigued. “Here comes the shitty questions.” Sure enough, as he’s ringing me up he says: “You…you are…” I brace myself for it. “You are…Pakistani?” I look up at him, wide-eyed. “Me? Pakistani? Uh, no…no, I’m Bengali.” Sardar ji is incredulous. “Bengali?!” he exclaims. “You look like you are Pakistani!” His colleague agrees with him. “Hah! Bengali!” I’m not sure how to respond, so I say “Bahut shukriya” — thank you — for the groceries and I amble out of the shop, quite relieved.

2. A rainy afternoon in Park Slope: I’m walking to the bank to deposit a check because I am an old-fashioned girl. Maybe I’ll buy an eggplant on the way back, I’m thinking to myself as I stroll down 9th street under my cheap umbrella. By now it’s more than drizzling and has become a little heavy. Suddenly from behind me, someone tucks themself in, right under my brolly. “Excuse me,” she says, “do you mind to share your umbrella?” She’s quite small, South Asian, wearing a kurta, her hair in a plait. I’m a little taken aback, but not unpleasantly so. “No problem.” I say.

We walk a little ways in silence but soon she asks: “You are married?” I’m on my guard but I don’t have to dissemble, so I tell her I am. “How many children?” she inquires. Oh no, I think…but whatever. “Uh…we don’t have any children.” I reply. “No children?” she is incredulous. “Why no children? Your husband doesn’t want children?” I don’t think I’m grimacing, but I could be wrong. “Uh, no…we’re, uh…not ready for that…” I’m babbling. “My husband!”

I think to myself: Oh thank goddess, we’ve arrived at the bank.

“Um, I have to go in here…” I tell her. “Oh, ok. I walk to the bus stop,” she says. “Wait,” I tell her, “you don’t have an umbrella? Please, you take mine.” She smiles at me. “You are sure?” I smile back. “Of course, please take it, sister.” She takes it, thanks me, and makes her way off towards 4th avenue. I am filled with the heavy cream of sisterly kindness.

3. We’re in India. It’s Joan’s first time ever and I haven’t been here in 10 years, since my parents died. We’re in Kolkata, where my parents grew up, where they had a flat and where they used to take me every two years during childhood summers to spend a month and a half with aunts, uncles, cousins. So here I am, playing tourist for a change. I am not sure how I will be read here, in terms of gender. But it is, for someone who has never lived in India, terra incognita to some degree — and I’m thinking I need to play it safe, which means wearing clothes that are as gender-neutral as possible. I wear my hair in a bun and am trying not to draw attention to myself. I need not have worried too much though. I’m read as who I am, a woman, pretty much everywhere, which pleases me no end. People, mainly dudes, are staring to be sure – but who knows what they are thinking. Anyway. We’re walking towards the Victoria Memorial, the sun is shining and the grass is lush. As we approach the gates, I notice a trio of trans women milling about the entrance, talking amongst themselves. I had been wondering if I’d get to meet any Indian trans ladies and here they are, in a thoroughly unplanned situation. As we approach them, I catch their eye — they see me but don’t seem to take much notice until I salute them, hands together, and say “Namashkar.” They turn towards me. I say to them, in Bengali: “I’m like you!” It’s pretty clumsy, but I lack the vocabulary to put it in a more eloquent way. They see me. They light up and speak to me in rapid-fire Bengali, asking me where I’m from, what I’m doing in Kolkata, telling me I have to come with them to a puja — a Hindu ritual of worship — and I respond, in my utterly pedestrian Bengali, that I can’t (I’m still a little wary) but I thank them with a namaste and we head inside the gates. I’m a little giddy, and in retrospect, a little rueful that I didn’t go off with them, maybe even to become the fourth member of their little trans gang.

4. Joan and I are spending a weekend in Saratoga, NY. Her mother is performing in a dramatic production up there. Joan says that as long as we are in the area, we should go visit her stepmother in Schenectady since it’s quite close. It’s 2015. I have been questioning my gender for a little while but am not really sure where I am. I have been using gender-neutral pronouns but am still a little cloudy as to who I am, where I belong. Not at all certain how I even characterize myself. Joan’s stepmom has probably told her adopted 11-year-old twins that Joan and her “husband” are coming to visit, which at this point, is not something I’m willing to dispute. We arrive at the house and Joan’s stepmom introduces Joan to one of the twins — the other one is having a time-out as she has attempted to bite her sister. Before she can introduce me, the child, looking past me, says: “Where’s Bishakh?” Joan and I side-eye each other. “I’m…I’m right here. I’m Bishakh,” I say. The child is thoroughly perplexed. “Huh.” She’s not satisfied. “I was expecting a boy.” Wow, I think to myself. This is a moment.

Stepmom is trying to write off the whole thing somehow because I think she thinks I’m embarassed, which I’m not — just quietly surprised. But the child is still analyzing me. I imagine the gears revolving in her head. “I have a question!” she exclaims. Stepmom knows where this is going so she tries to head her off, but the child will not be dissuaded. “My question is,” — here it comes — “… are you transgender?” No one knows what to say, me included. No one has ever asked me that before, me included. Stepmom is making excuses for the child, saying they know a trans woman in the neighborhood and therefore, these kinds of questions. But my mind is made up. “Yes,” I say. “I am.” This is the first time I have acknowledged it to myself and I am finally recognizing a feeling that has been simmering for maybe ages now. “I am trans,” I say, definitively. “Oh, ok,” the child responds. She turns on her heels and heads for the kitchen, singing the name of the family cat in a sing-song manner.

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Read the first edition of Scenes from a Gender by Bishakh Som. 

Trans Love in Pandemic Times

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, many people were left with odd circumstances surrounding their love lives. While some had relationships jumpstart through a quarantine with a new partner, others felt the weight of the crisis exacerbate the issues they already had with an existing partner.

Many publications have reported on the landscape of romantic pursuits in the time of the coronavirus. None have captured the beauty of trans love in particular. Trans people had already been experiencing issues finding partners who affirmed our whole selves. Many trans people find ourselves placating cisgender partners, attempting to perform according to the limited script laid out by popular media. Many of us experience violence at the hands of intimate partners.

And some of us find love in other trans people. Our hearts find a new kind of warmth. Love without a blueprint leaves room for unknown possibilities. I spoke to seven trans people about how the pandemic has changed their relationships and how trans love has changed their lives.

Malaya and Lotus 

Malaya: Our relationship began as a long-distance online friendship as we were still learning about each other and getting to know each other. When NYC first began responding to the pandemic, and millions of New Yorkers were preparing for lockdown/shelter-in-place, one of my darkest fears was if I were to get sick with COVID, and not having anyone to help me or be with me in the hospital. As a person living with HIV I felt extremely vulnerable and I was afraid of dying alone. There were days and weeks that I felt sadness, loneliness, and hopelessness at levels I have never felt before. My depression and anxiety continued to get worse. Over time, having someone to text with & check in with more and more over time was very comforting. Lotus was so emotionally supportive and virtually present for me when many of my friends and family weren’t able to provide support to me. I’ve never felt so loved and cared for by anyone else before. Lotus is the man I have always dreamed of finding and more. I have been reflecting on the heartbreak, sadness, and disappointment from when I was looking for love in all the wrong places; mostly with cis men who were not capable of loving me in the ways that I wanted and needed. I’ve never been in love with another trans person before. My favorite moments so far have been: waking up to his kisses and cuddles in the morning, laying in his bed together watching the trees outside his window dance in the wind, and listening to the birds singing.

Lotus: These pandemics have invited more tenderness into our relationship. Before I asked Malaya to be my girlfriend, I prayed and asked myself and my ancestors if I was ready and able to treat her like the Queen that she is. With so many things that are uncertain in our lives, I am letting go of giving and receiving Maybe’s. I am at peace arriving into our relationship with the certainty that Yes, I can treat Malaya like the Queen she is. I shower her with roses with every opportunity that I can. I cherish her and, especially now, every moment we share together. To love and be loved by Malaya feels like the first time I floated on my back in a body of water. As I took a deep breath and surrendered to the immense power and calm of the ocean, I was lifted and held. When I close my eyes and connect with our love, I feel the ocean wash over me and harmonize with the fire inside of me. I see the sunsets that we have shared together. I see into the future, Malaya in my motherland, Việt Nam. During these times of crises, to love and be loved by Malaya feels like nothing is impossible. The future is infinite, and everything will be alright.

Mickaela, Desi, and Cris

The first photo depicts Desi and Mickaela. The second depicts Cris and Mickaela.

Desi: Mickaela and I were facing changes in our relationship with us moving in together for the first time a month prior to COVID-19. The effects of the global pandemic changed the ease of access to variety in our lives that wasn’t always related to our relationship. Coexisting during quarantine offered me an opportunity to gain a greater understanding of Mickaela as an individual, which gave me better insight on nurturing their spiritual growth, our relationship’s development, and the intimate space we share respectively. We carve out time for us by practicing yoga/meditations before bed, taking an occasional trip to Lake Alatoona to swim and picnic, hiking the local trails in our area, playing Naruto Shippuden/Soul Calibur V, watching anime, and creating recipes for infusions. The Black trans love Mickaela and I share and practice continually proves to me a world can exist beyond our current. I’ve always felt our connection weaved a pattern creating a cosmic link between us and our local trans and queer community and how we’re consciously keeping each other in our hearts and supporting one another as we venture this world. Loving Mickaela everyday is a conscious commitment that’s parallel to my beliefs and who I strive to be as a Black trans person devoted to protecting and upholding the livelihood of all Black people.

Cris: Mickaela and I were already long distance, so that COVID hasn’t changed that aspect of our relationship. What has changed is how often we’re able to see each other. We’ve experienced more virtually together, from yoga sessions, to mindfulness circles for BIPOC folks, to virtual poetry readings, we’ve done a lot. While it hasn’t been great to have to go longer without seeing them, COVID has been a push for us to go deeper into our conversations so that we can continue growing even when we’re apart for longer than we had ever planned. COVID has also made the time we are able to spend together in person, like when we traveled to North Carolina to visit beaches in June, that much more special, important, and cherished. I can say my love and appreciation for Mickaela has grown more than I could’ve imagined during this time. I visualize us truly living out Black joy and liberation when I think of our love. To be Black, queer, and trans and loving another Black queer trans person is wealth. When I think of my love for Mickaela, I feel at home and at peace. When I’m with them and even when I’m talking to them, my body relaxes so much that I sometimes forget that we’re living through a pandemic. Trans love allows me to envision a world where every trans person is able to live a life of pleasure and access to whatever they desire. If we can find love with each other, in a world aimed at making our lives more difficult because we don’t prescribe to social gender norms, we can do anything.

Mickaela: Desi and I moved into a house together in February, and barely a month later decided to quarantine together. We had been dating for a year and had no idea we’d be getting to know each other in a crash course Professor Rona intimacy training. Desi suggested protecting our quality time by scheduling a “golden hour” each week, just for us to check-in with each other about our relationship. Structure and certainty with partners forces us to slow down, smell the roses, and water them as needed. And since Cris and I are long-distance, we spent all Spring scheduling virtual hangouts, watching “Insecure” at the same time, and talking every day.  However, video conferences are not a virtual substitute for human touch. I cherish the memory of us lying on a different beach each day, melanin soaking in sun, eyes and ears on the ocean waves. We were often the only Black people on the beach, often the only people wearing masks. Still, we found some summer fun even though the shadow of uprisings loomed over our cities back home. Black rest is necessary for Black unrest.

I feel safest knowing that I am loved and protected by two Black trans partners. My partners and I are unearthing the exciting possibilities of love that doesn’t rely on monogamy for security, support, and satisfaction. My partners and I share visions of the world we want, where Black joy and trans liberation replace police & prisons. I feel supported dating two Black trans partners because they are willing to be transformed in the service of the work by organizing in Black-led political homes like SnapCo & BYP100. I envision a future sitting around a large dinner table with our families and boo thangs laughing about living through 2020 and glad we fought for the right to grow old together. I feel warmth in my chest remembering that window of time right before COVID-19. Cris, Desi, and I were watching the original “Candyman” in my room, and I realized how blessed I am to be loved by my boifriend and my boyfriend.

Nico and Asa

Nico: Our relationship started out long distance so we’re quite literally the closest we’ve ever been and maybe we’ll ever be! Yet I get the sense that we’re not just learning about what closeness is or can be (the daily social reproduction things of maintaining a home together) but the totality of separation. Two people, in love: our own subjectivities; discourse of love;  dependencies; unconscious hopes, dreams, wishes, fantasies; separating into work; into analysis or therapy; and of course separating into sleep. I love love. I love being in love. I love to be the subject of love! Hell I even love being the object of love! I love bodies in love! I love surgery, I love organs, I love stitching together and making meaning in and out of love.

Asa: It’s hard to write and speak about love even when you write and speak about it all the time. Nico and I have moved through multiple waves of writing and speaking. We are both speakers and listeners, which is foundational to our love and our relationship, we used to talk on the phone for three or four hours, each in separate places. We are learning how to be separate and together. We have been navigating infrastructural rupture and collapse, contamination and loss, uprising, work and work stoppage, surgery and recovery, mania and depression, the end of a therapy and the beginning of an analysis, material difference; deep fears, projections, insecurities, disappointments, wishes. I am learning and growing so much, it can feel enormous. I am re-learning trust. How support is sometimes uncomfortable and challenging. Learning again how to listen and speak. I have felt held and throttled, and am grateful that we’ve been able to hold and throttle each other. I am excited to visit the place where Nico is from and to meet her grandmother, I have fantasies about what that will feel like in my body, to be there together.

We Find Freedom in Black Trans Joy

When George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a fire was started that quickly ignited the world in protest against police brutality. People who had been quarantined for months because of the COVID-19 pandemic took the streets to demand justice for lives lost to a system of policing that is inherently violent. We’ve been demanding systemic change that puts that violence to an end once and for all, not just for Black cis folks, but for all Black people. In the midst of the fight for Black lives, Black trans folks are still experiencing violence and loss in our communities. We are outraged and fearful for Iyanna Dior after watching her be attacked by a group of cisgender Black men. We are mourning the loss of Tony McDade at the hands of police. We are reminded of Layleen Polanco’s death in Rikers Island jail as the nation responds to the violence of prisons. In a time of social distancing, the weight of this grief and anger is too much for any of us to bear alone.

Fear, grief, and loss are all too familiar for many Black trans femmes, and that is why it’s important to carve out space for our joy. Many of us don’t feel safe expressing our pain with Black cis communities in the form of marching and protesting, so we organize to create virtual structures of support for Black trans communities, ourselves. We are the Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective, BTFA for short. We highlight the beauty and talent within our community by curating conversations and performances about living, loving and creating as Black trans femmes.

We highlight the beauty and talent within our community by curating conversations and performances about living, loving and creating as Black trans femmes.

It’s been just under a year since we launched in September 2019 in response to a lack of scholarship and media attention around Black trans femme artists and our work. A group of us gathered to address the erasure that keeps Black trans femme artists in the shadows. Our mission is to build power within our community, organizing and advocating in and through the arts, so we can explore the possibilities of our own creativity. Our collective includes artists from all sectors: art educators, art administrators, art activists, and art curators. We organize performances and galleries that showcase our talent, host workshops that provide us with the skills to advance our careers, and connect our community with the resources and opportunities they need to be successful.

Even in a place like New York City where there is a large Black trans community, there are not many spaces where we can convene that are operated and occupied by other Black trans femmes. We often enter spaces that aren’t built with us in mind, and with that comes a performance of self that may be inauthentic or exhausting — because we aren’t given the safety to be our raw, exposed selves. When we have the chance to be among each other, we can share the parts of ourselves that are most vulnerable and tender. Standing on the sidelines of our first open mic night, we saw infectious smiles light up the room from our people, some of whom hadn’t felt motivated to leave their homes in months. For some, BTFA events are the only spaces where they feel free enough to come as their authentic selves.

It is our philosophy that, when Black trans femmes are given space to be vulnerable, we take the risks necessary to access new realms of creativity that are not welcome in cis, non-Black, and masculine spaces. We experience unprecedented freedom. Freedom to tell our truth without fear. Freedom to release expectations and limitations of what transness and blackness should look like. Freedom to breathe. We not only curate spaces where that freedom is central; we organize towards the existence of that freedom in all spaces.

One of our campaigns involved video testimonies of our collective sharing who they are, why the collective matters to them, and what they have to offer the art world.

During COVID-19, BTFA is using storytelling and performance to curate digital spaces of joy that move us towards liberation and collective healing. At the suggestion of Miss Mojo, one of our board members, we’ve brought intimate conversations between Black trans sisters to Instagram live — thus giving birth to the T Talk. Using Instagram live as a talk show platform, we’ve been able to bring in Black trans femmes to share stories about art, family, spirituality, and so much more. Mojo adds competitive flair to our programming through her Battle of the Bops, where Black trans femmes with a love for music go head-to-head in a battle playing their favorite hits, similar to the popular Verzuz battles with famous musicians on Instagram Live. These spaces have created opportunities each week for Black trans femmes to be in community virtually, to celebrate each other, and to collectively heal amidst a global sickness.

As we continue to experience loss and violence in the Black community — and specifically the Black trans community — these spaces are just as essential to our survival as material mutual aid. They are our emotional and spiritual mutual aid. There is a spiritual power in the collective when Black trans femmes come together to celebrate and spotlight our joy. We place joy at the center of our spaces, because spaces created for us are often only interested in our trauma and pain. When we center our joy, we create space for possibility and hope. While trauma and pain keeps us tethered to the past, joy allows us to dream of and push ourselves toward a brighter future.

We place joy at the center of our spaces, because spaces created for us are often only interested in our trauma and pain. When we center our joy, we create space for possibility and hope. While trauma and pain keeps us tethered to the past, joy allows us to dream of and push ourselves toward a brighter future.

Our work also addresses the material needs of our community. We work alongside other grassroots Black trans-led organizations like For the Gworls, Black Trans Travel Fund, and The Okra Project. On June 2nd, we came together to launch the Black Trans Protesters Emergency Fund to support and protect Black trans folks protesting for Black lives. The fund caught the attention of celebrities like Hari Nef, Indya Moore, Hunter Schafer and the production team of Schitt’s Creek. But we need people to not just aid Black trans people in moments of crisis; we need people to support our joy and freedom through our art. Black trans femmes need food, healthcare, and housing, but we need to be able to do more than survive. Just like any other population, Black trans femmes have dreams. We are a community filled with artists and creatives, but trans-specific funding is rarely allocated to the arts and arts-specific funding is rarely allocated to trans people, especially Black trans people. BTFA is closing that gap so we can accomplish more than just survival, because Black trans femmes have so much more to offer.

Black trans femme existence is creativity. We are constantly creating and learning new ways to live, to feel beautiful, to find joy, and to experience love in a world that wants to erase our existence. Through our art, we build our own worlds where Black trans femmes are loved and celebrated.

During this pandemic and beyond, we invite other Black trans femmes to join us in celebrating the creativity in our community and organize with us to make more space for Black trans femme joy. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to see more of our work and stay connected. For those who would like to donate to support our work, you can do so here.

For all business inquiries, please email btfacollective@gmail.com.

You Need Help: Gender Feels in Quarantine

feature image by Zachary Drucker via The Gender Spectrum Collection

Q:

I have been having such intense gender feelings since quarantine started. I have been sorting through some gender stuff — first my gender presentation, and more recently my gender identity — for a little while now, but in the last few weeks it feels like the ground has been pulled out from under me. I am raw and tender so much of the time, and when I reflect on my feelings, it often comes back to stuff around my gender. I’ve found a non-binary therapist I’m going to start working with and I’m sure that will help, but I am just feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by how much space and energy this is taking up in my life all of a sudden, especially on top of everything else going on right now. Any advice about how to find a balance with this, and how to extend compassion to myself around it?

A:

That feeling you describe, like the ground (not just the rug! the whole ground!) has been pulled out from under you is profoundly familiar. Is it like, suddenly things you took for granted your whole life have faded to sepia and there are these flashes of technicolor strangeness catching in the corner of your eye? That’s how it was for me, when I was minding my own damn business and suddenly I didn’t know how to have a body in the world any more.

Crises of such intimate dimensions hardly ever show up at a convenient time, but social isolation during a global health crisis seems particularly inopportune. Everything is heightened under quarantine, whether it’s conflict, intimacy, or delirium. The stakes feel so high. At the same time, many of us have more space and time and quiet than we’re used to. It’s not so surprising that the quieter parts of your inner self would be attempting to fill some of that void.

I’m going to give you two contradictory suggestions, so please bear with me.

When it comes to balance, I wonder if it might help to give yourself some very structured time to focus on your gender feelings. Say, every day from 1-1:45 pm, you’ll write in a journal or talk to a friend or take a walk or meet with the therapist you’ve found and get all your feelings and thoughts out of your brain and into the world where you can look at them and give them room to breathe. Sometimes that will help it feel like this thing is not taking over your entire life, but you have the peace of knowing that you are making time for it. When you find it starting to envelope you, you can soothe it with the knowledge that its time will come. You can choose any time frame, any outlet, and I hope that you can create space for it, as well as space from it. It deserves its share of energy, but you also get to save your energy for other things like literally surviving a pandemic while the “economy” “reopens.” If you need to, you might create an accountability system, whether it’s checking off a star chart you make or having a trusted friend check in with you.

When it comes to compassion, I hope you will let your gender exploration take up as much space in your life as you need it to. There is no such thing as too much as long as you are staying as well as possible and not harming yourself as others. You are not too much. Pull all of your clothes out of your closet and do a fashion show for your pet! Grab any make up or accessories you have lying around and put them all on at once and take selfies and post them on Instagram or destroy them immediately. Look in the mirror a LOT. Cover up all the mirrors in your house. Talk to the trans and gender non-conforming people you know (or find some trans and gender non-confirming people to know!! We are all over the internet and we love you already). Ask about how they came into self-knowledge and self-compassion and self-endazzlement. Ask about the things that still make it hard to get up and face the world. Let yourself breathe through this, and trust that it is not a waste of time to devote your energy to the work of becoming. You are not stealing time from something or someone else that is more deserving. We live in a morally bereft culture of fakery and bullshit, but you, my friend, are real and powerful and worthy.

Your rawness and tenderness is a primal signal that you are alive. It’s exhausting and there’s no way to turn it off. It’s like when you get a wound and your brain keeps sending pain signals there as you scrounge around your house for a bandage, and you’re like “yes body I know I am working on it!!!” Yes body, we know! Everything is bad and we can’t make it better, literally all we can do is stay in our houses! But our bodies are raw and tender, sending all these signals in hopes that we’ll notice how much care they need right now. I hope you will find ways to sync up with your body in ways that feel clarifying without being too horribly overwhelming (though sometimes it will be overwhelming).

The strange thing about gender dysphoria in isolation for me has been realizing what parts of my gender identity and expression are entirely, or at least somewhat, dependent on how I see other people reflecting back what they are getting from me — and what parts are intrinsic to the ever-boiling soup of me, even when the only people who see me for weeks at a time are my trans spouse and my dog (who does not have a gender identity). I don’t mean to set up a hierarchy by any means, because both are important and valid; gender is something we construct in community and in relationship and in society. I’ve just never had such a clear sense of what parts of my gender come from my guts and what parts feel most true when other people notice them.

Let yourself notice things you’ve ignored. Let yourself take space from noticing. Try not to make any major decisions while we’re still in full on crisis mode, but also maybe don’t feel like you have to wait until things are back to “normal,” whatever the heck that’s going to look like. I can’t tell you what balance and compassion look like for you, but I promise you deserve both. Sometimes they simply aren’t compatible, and so you have to choose. I personally hope you choose compassion in such moments. Balance has a way of presenting itself in its own time.

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You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

What It’s Like To Realize You’re Trans and Queer in Quarantine

feature image by Zachary Drucker via The Gender Spectrum Collection

Suffice to say that we’ll all be coming out of this pandemic different people than we were before — for better or for worse. The stress might grind some of us down. But there’s even more of an opportunity to find our best and truest selves. So much isolation naturally gives people the chance to find out new things about themselves, or accept parts of ourselves that have been slowly blossoming. For many people, however, being in isolation is providing the opportunity to explore their sexuality and gender in an intimate and unprecedented way, and reassess the relationships they have with themselves and others.

Within the first two weeks of isolating at home in March, two friends who previously identified as cisgender told me that they don’t think they’re cis, and one friend who has identified as queer but cis until now told me they were ready to come out as nonbinary. As the weeks have worn on, I’ve heard from more and more people about their sexual or gender awakenings. Suddenly, with so much time to think about our identities, desires, and needs, and with time to be alone and out of view from those who might judge or discriminate against us, many people are able to not only realize they’re queer, transgender, or nonbinary, but also to experiment with how they present, speak, act, and treat themselves.

“I began coming out to friends as nonbinary or gender fluid at the end of 2019, around my 25th birthday,” an anonymous person tells me. “I do think being on lockdown has forced me to kind of confront some of the gender feelings that have been so easy for me to put on the back burner when life gets hectic,” they explain. And there’s something freeing about going about your life without any exterior gazes. “Some days I put on the crop top I bought at World Pride but have always been afraid to wear. Some days I bum in leggings and a T-shirt while I ‘go to work’ on the couch. Some days I put on some short-ass overalls and water my plants. Or I tie a handkerchief around my neck. Or practice putting on a full face of makeup.”

In lockdown, there’s no need to worry about how other people will receive their experimentation, because they’re able to focus on: “What am I comfortable in? What makes me feel cute and happy? Oh, that’s fishnets? That’s heels? Cool, I’ll wear them this weekend while I vacuum.” While isolation might be lonely for them, the same way it is for most of us, it’s given many people the chance to learn about themselves and find small comforts in knowing themselves better. Other newly out queer people I spoke with affirmed similar sentiments.

While Dani, a queer person I spoke with, explains they had already discovered they’re bisexual years ago, prior to quarantine they had considered themselves possibly agender, but were still questioning. “I asked folks to use they/them or he/him pronouns for me, but the entire time I was undercutting myself, feeling like I was just a cis male who was looking for a way out of masculine expectations,” they say. “I was certain that I didn’t want to be a man, but didn’t know what I could be.” When quarantine began, however, they started feeling more comfortable presenting as more outwardly and explicitly feminine. “I currently identify as gender fluid, but I am fairly confident in saying I am a trans woman. I just want to take more time and see if anything changes,” Dani says.

Among other things, it was the isolation and comfort of being at home that helped them. However, it was also feeling like capitalism is dying and having to go without a paycheck that’s allowed them to let go of the fixation they’ve had on being a “masculine bread winner” and therefore the attachment to the idea of being cisgender at all. “When the shutdowns started, I realized I don’t need to fixate on work and the future and the plan. There is no plan, and when I let myself accept that then I suddenly had the mental strength to push through dysphoria and try shaving, try leggings, try dresses,” Dani says. “And it just makes me feel so much better about myself, I regret that I didn’t know before. And now every day I just keep realizing other signs from my childhood, how long this has been simmering.”

Another person who has newly realized they’re nonbinary during isolation, Sawyer, says that because of the lack of external noise (even the simple things, like listening to podcasts on the commute to work and running around all the time), they’ve started to gain some clarity. “Sitting with yourself and your thoughts while a global crisis grips us all, kind of puts things into perspective. It’s a kind of clarity I also felt when I had a cancer scare. That kind of thing makes you really confront your own mortality and how you exist and how you want to spend your time alive,” says Sawyer.

Why is all of this happening from a psychological perspective? It actually makes perfect sense, says somatic trauma therapist, Andrea Glik, LMSW. “Most of us don’t have the time and space in our busy schedules and within capitalism for self reflection. This time is offering us that,” she says. “Additionally, as we call into question larger questions about the world (who serves us, what does the future hold, what is even certain anymore) it leads us to question ourselves and the way we have been living, sometimes forcing us to face our truest selves.” Ultimately, trauma holds up a mirror to us and our lives and asks us what’s actually serving us, working for us, and supporting us, and what definitely isn’t.

“Many people will make many changes to their lives after this collective trauma as they see the ways they have been living haven’t allowed them to be fully alive,” Glik explains. That’s also why now is a great time to get connected to a queer or trans affirming therapist to discuss and process this new identity or other new realizations, if you’re able to access those resources, or get help finding someone right for you.

Kel, who was raised strictly evangelical, is just finishing up a philosophy and theology degree at a conservative Christian university while quarantined at their fiance’s parents’ place. Being raised by conservative evangelicals, Kel was burdened with guilt about their identity and chose to repress it, but after going to college, Kel rejected that upbringing and became openly affirming towards queer people. In recently becoming involved with queer students on campus and organizing them to push for changes to the school’s homophobic and transphobic policies and practices, they realized that the group of people they organized with, many of whom they didn’t know before, made them feel like they had a space where they didn’t have to perform masculinity just to avoid ridicule.

Going into the pandemic shutdowns and a necessary isolation period, that kinship made them realize they must be true to themselves as a nonbinary person. Now, spending extra time alone at home has resulted in new experiences surrounding gender dysphoria and navigating their identity in regards to gender presentation and pronouns.

“I winced when I called myself ‘he’ the other day. My partner is supportive and lent me some makeup to experiment with, and other friends have given me advice and helped me find inspiration for the kinds of gender presentation I want to try. Isolation has given me the change to try new outfits, to alter clothes, and to read stories of nonbinary and trans folks whose experiences resonate profoundly with my own,” Kel says. “I’m hoping that even after quarantine ends I still find ways to be true to who I am.”

Paul, a married femme nonbinary person in early transition, says that while she’s known she “didn’t fit the Cis Guy Mold since at least the middle of high school (circa 2003), possibly sooner,” actually claiming “queer” as a label for herself has only happened in the last year or so. Since beginning to claim her identity for herself, her presentation has continued to be in flux, but she’s been able to find femme blouses and skirts, and a few fancy dresses to wear that validate her identity and make her feel most herself. “Having the time and pressure of performing for other people taken away, I can experiment and not have it be Wrong In Public, which is really important to me,” Paul explains. Being isolated at home has given her the power to choose how she looks all day, not just “wedged in a couple hours between the return commute and bedtime.” While at this point Paul is out to just about all of her friends and family, she isn’t out at work, for fear of upsetting her and her family’s financial situation. Although the silver lining is that while isolated, her partner, who she describes as “a very good seamstress” has helped to make a large portion of her new wardrobe.

Along with others who were already questioning their identities before the pandemic but didn’t know how to present or carry themselves in the outside world, Jon, too, a young bi-gender person from Brooklyn, has been able to “rediscover” their gender in isolation. “Quarantine, with its vast swaths of space, time, and anxiety, has given me several new insights about my gender,” they explain. “I’ve struggled with pronouns for a long time (what am I?) and usually I dismissed ‘they’ as an option. But then I had a dream a couple weeks ago where someone called me ‘they’ and I smiled in the dream, and that smile was real. I felt it. So that means something,” they say. “Quarantine has given me the space to realize I should be insistent on what pronouns I want, and not shy away from them for fear of inconveniencing others.”

Even in quarantine, they put off “getting into girl mode” and shaving, putting on makeup, and dressing up because they told themselves it was “only worth it if I could go to events and be seen by people.” After gender dysphoria slowly built up, they dressed up and put makeup on just to go to the farmer’s market the other week. “Most people were in masks and sweatpants, and here I was all done up just to get some potatoes. I got a lot of double takes and stares,” they say. “But it felt good. That helped me remember that it’s not just about being seen as a woman by others. Deep down, it’s about embodying femininity, even if I’m completely alone.”

Derrick, who began questioning their identity as a kid but who was raised in a religious Southern family was already struggling coming out as gay before the pandemic. They didn’t have the energy to explore another identity on top of that. “For the longest time, I kept finding excuses for why I couldn’t be nonbinary: I still used male pronouns, I never experienced any dysphoria from identifying as male, maybe I was just a feminine guy, things like that. After seeing trans and nonbinary people growing platforms across social media and talking about their experiences, I realized that there isn’t a set of rules I had to follow or requirements I had to meet,” Derrick explains. “It took me a while to work through my doubts and insecurities, but during this quarantine, I finally came to terms with myself and my identity.”

Having so much time on their hands was a big part of this, but it wasn’t the sole reason why they came to this conclusion. Like Sawyer, Derrick says that the biggest factor was having to deal with new emotions and anxieties surrounding COVID-19 and this quarantine. “There’s something about a pandemic that makes coming to terms with your gender identity seem easy. I’m not even sure what prompted my realization. One day, it finally felt right to me and it all just clicked into place.”

*Names have been changed for the safety and privacy of the sources.

How Solace, the Transition App Designed by a Trans Woman, Will Lifehack Your Gender Transition

Despite assurances from the Human Rights Campaign, the insurance system surrounding a medical gender transition is still a thorny issue for Fortune 500 companies. Starbucks— the LGBTQ+ corporate inclusion behemoth—attracted a considerable working segment of the transgender community with re-vamped insurance policies that supposedly covered the “cosmetic” parts of the gender transition.

I started working at Starbucks part-time in fall 2018 with high hopes of getting a full-fledged rhinoplasty. The Seattle brewer beefed up its support system with an Office Space transgender liaison who shepherded baristas through the myriad of hurdles.

The reality? My liaison’s thoughtful responses were buried underneath a byzantine layer of corporate doublespeak gobbledygook. In Feb. 2020, a Twitter campaign confirmed the obvious. According to baristas, Starbucks didn’t live up to the trans savior hype.

Meanwhile, in some parts of the country, much-needed transgender assistance gets overwhelmed by LGBTQ+ social services geared primarily to the Gs. And that makes the medical gender transition seem even worse than it usually is, with few solutions actually propagated by transgender individuals who have completed a full transition in positions of power.

All of which explains why gender transition apps have been the next frontier for Silicon Valley developers.

Evergreen State tech entrepreneur Robbi Katherine Anthony is one of the people hoping to solve the struggles that exist for transgender individuals in the 21st century. Billed as the gender transition app, her company Solace was launched at last year’s LGBTQIA Hackathon in Austin, Tex.

The homey Oprah-style graphics immediately pop out at the user. The tone is soft, but the second page gets into the nitty-gritty. There’s aggregated information about how to buy a bra or update your gender marker with the DMV.

As a trans woman, Anthony has struggled herself. She’s a graphic design and IT support guru, who knows the importance of simplicity in a complicated gender transition. When she pulled Solace together, she filled up the interface with buttons that light up in a cherry blossom pink color for completed transition-related tasks. The interior, designed with the elements of a Siri-inspired virtual assistant, eventually gives way to more complex procedures such as laser hair removal.

Gatekeeping, the practice of doctors sometimes shrouding certain aspects of the gender transition behind their own ingrained biases of the gender construct, occasionally prevents trans patients from wading deeper into their transitions. The process varies wildly from state to state, so the trans patient can’t fully know whether the promised content is being fully delivered.

According to Anthony, Solace aims to present a comprehensive compendium that allows the latest state guidelines to be aggregated piecemeal. With new projects such as a local guide to gender transitions through Medicaid recently unveiled, Autostraddle decided to touch base with Anthony about new projects on the horizon in 2020. This interview took place over the phone on March 10, 2020. It was conducted before the Coronavirus lockdown and has been edited for length and clarity.

Autostraddle: So starting off, could you tell us how big Solace is?

Robbi Katherine Anthony: We have coverage in all 50 states. We’re looking to expand into Mexico and New Zealand later this year. We’re still in the first half of that proverbial bell curve. We’re really happy with the growth and there’s still a long way to go to reach that goal. It really exceeded our expectations. In terms of the user goal we set for 2020, we’re already eclipsed 60 percent for that.

In your experience, how have Silicon Valley executives been in terms of treating you as an equal? I imagine there’s rampant transphobia in a predominantly cisgender white male workspace.

That’s the interesting thing about going the non-profit route. We circumnavigated those traditional gatekeepers. We’re based in Spokane, Washington. The Silicon Valley types aren’t really out here in full-force. Discrimination runs rampant. Investors generally invest in people who look like them. Going the non-profit route, we were able to go around these gatekeepers and raise money from foundations and individual grants. It’s our way of kind of cheating the system.

So I don’t know much about gender transitions outside of my personal experience. With my transition, there are so many moving variables and goalposts. How is Solace able to navigate the highly individualized variables in a gender transition?

When you go through registration, there may be a couple of gender transition goals that you want to add to your list. By no means are they mandatory. You really can build the list that makes the most sense for you. We also have special filters within Solace. It gives users more individualized content based on the state in which they live and pronouns that they use. In future releases, we’re hoping to expand the concept and get into the county level with legal and medical.

Insurance has frustrated me with this gender transition. Even if you have really good insurance with transgender benefits, you have to fight denials. Does Solace have the technology to navigate the arcane insurance nuances that prevent a lot of people from transitioning?

We have a resource in Solace that speaks to insurance in terms of Medicare and being eligible for that. We also speak to getting a private plan or employer plan. We cover the different situations in saying this is something to look out for. Here are the right protocols and the language that they’re going to use. Here are the questions to ask if you’re going through an employer. Here are the laws to be aware of.

So will Solace be able to really articulate the nuances of insurance? When I attempted a gender transition at Starbucks, their corporate transgender support person was still clueless about the insurance rigmarole. I know that insurance is proprietary information, too. Do you see addressing the complexities of insurance as really workable with an app?

Yeah, I do. Currently, we’re a team of two. Our bandwidth is really constrained. As we grow and raise more money with grants, I see us hiring more people that could really flesh out the answers and help navigate. We currently try to put all that information out there and allow people to parse through it. We also have the functionality with Solace that allows people to enter in certain aspects of their life. It generates a very nuanced way to approach these things. It’s a bit of an open question. I definitely see us being able to approach it. At present, Solace has 200,000 words in it. We’ll definitely hit 250,000 words by the end of the year. In the upcoming years, I can see us around 500,000 to even a million words. The insurance part is something that we’re aware of and we’re trying to move as fast as possible.

Have users been frustrated with the unsolved insurance conundrums in Solace?

We’ve heard back from a few people about parts they wanted to flesh out more. We’ve had people point out inaccuracies. There’s a button at the bottom where people can report inaccuracy. It’s a very small percentage of our user base. Every time we get those messages, we double down.

Since you only have two people on staff, are you looking to add more members to your team?

Yeah, I’d like to add at least one more full-time employee this year. Naturally, I expect us to get bigger as time goes on and the money’s there. At the very least, I see us becoming a team of three or four in 2020. With our growth and income on the pattern, we hope to keep growing.

What are some of the features in development and how will they be affected by the upcoming election? Do you believe that Joe Biden would be supportive?

In terms of features, we have a dashboard online that demonstrates some of that upcoming development. One of the things that we’re working on is a Web-only version of Solace. It’s not a complete copy of the app. It’s a different articulation of it. That’s just ensuring that more people can use it in ways that they’re comfortable with. We’re also working on a printed edition of Solace. That’s going to be for educators, professionals, school counselors, and support groups. We’re working on our second flagship application and hopefully releasing it by the end of 2020. In terms of the political scenario, we’re obviously very attuned to the news and how things change. We’ll just brace for impact based on the election. We’re generally not reactionary. We try to be very pro-active in how we approach these things. Let’s say there’s a change in the executive branch. It’s probably not going to change a whole lot in Solace until actual laws get changed.

So can you talk about this new flagship Bliss app or is it still under development?

Bliss is targeting another problem that we’ve recognized as an inhibitor in a transition. We started with a market research survey and asked: “What are the things that have held you back from a gender transition?” The top three items included a lack of access to reliable information, which is something Solace addresses. The second item was financial. Being able to afford a transition is a pretty tall order and not everyone can do that. Bliss seeks to address that problem. The third problem is the community. We are trying to cultivate the social connections that are important for the transition. We’re not sharing the feature sets right yet. We’re still very early in the development process.

I’ve researched this financial issue extensively. I talked to a transgender wealth manager on the West Coast. He sometimes advises his clients to take on more debt, which is an unconventional viewpoint. The severity of gender dysphoria sometimes requires that. Is that something you find with Solace users? Should people be putting themselves into more debt for a gender transition?

I can’t say I found a lot of evidence to support that. I haven’t focused on answering that specific question. We will be using a different financial tool and it will not put our users into debt or recommend they go into debt. I do understand the logic there. I’m in a conjecture valley right now. You would want to go through a gender transition as quickly and expeditiously as possible. It will create a better quality of life and make your job prospects easier. The debt can be repaid faster post-transition versus trying to piecemeal it. I do have a theory there. I don’t know if I’m a firm believer in it myself. You’re essentially taking a mortgage out on your most authentic self. I give credence to that.

Could you talk about your experience at the LGBT Hackathon? I’d be interested to hear about the marketing channels that exist for a gender transition app.

We’ve been really lucky that we haven’t engaged in traditional marketing yet. We see a spike in users whenever we speak to the press. We’ve got really good word-of-mouth right now. We’ve seen our user count consistently climb without lifting a finger. And part of our plan is that we would tap into the existing networks that are out there. There are communities that want to work with the transgender community and they have these channels. By virtue of being a non-profit and not monetizing our users, it governs how we spend marketing dollars because we don’t get an immediate return on investment. If I was to drop $10,000 on marketing, I wouldn’t have a way to recoup that. I sometimes reach out to people by email or groups at bigger companies Thus far, that’s what has been fueling our growth. It’s word-of-mouth. It’s a really wonderful multiplier effect.

As you look to grow further, how do you balance the capitalist realities with operating as a non-profit?

We’re pretty heavily reliant on grants. We’re a fiscally sponsored project of a larger non-profit. And then, we just have some faithful and fearless donors. They give to us on a recurring or one-time basis. The combination of all that has provided us with a budget and what we need to do. It’s extraordinarily lean. I am not getting rich off of this. It’s a little bit of luck, timing and a lot of financial savvy in getting the right people in the right roles.

Last question. I live in Nashville. And I know it’s worse in other parts of the South with gender transitions. How have you managed to address the gender transition deserts that exist in the Deep South?

Two things. Solace is very secure. There’s definitely trust that we are able to proliferate in those areas. There’s not a concern about this information being published anywhere. Secondly, we write our content in a very cautious tone. The worst-case scenario is our starting point to coach you from point A to point B.

What Self-Quarantine is Teaching Me About Gender Dysphoria

I shaved my legs a month after coming out to myself. Following the directions of an article on Deadspin titled “The Reluctant Man’s Guide to Shaving Your Legs” I first trimmed with my retired beard trimmer, then exfoliated, then shaved the right leg, then shaved the left leg, then exfoliated again, and then applied a heavy dose of lotion. Yes, I bled. Yes, it took hours.

I put on shorts that I’d force-feminized by folding them up a few times and was amazed when I looked down. Red polish on my toenails, smooth skin, my makeshift short shorts — I had women’s legs.

I began taking frequent pictures of my lower half, especially once I bought skirts. The process of transition seemed so impossible, so arduous, so slow, but this had been so easy. I could even tuck my penis between my legs when I was in the shower and with a full bush it seemed like I was years beyond my first steps.

A couple months later I shaved my armpits, my chest, and my stomach. Around the time I started hormones I shaved my arms too. Exhausted by the length of this semi-daily process I switched to epilating. I got used to the pain of having my hair literally torn out because it saved me hours each week.

Unwanted body hair certainly isn’t a trans-exclusive problem — cis women love to remind me of this — but the gender dysphoria it can instill in us is unique. The cis women in my Jewish family are hairy, but it’s nothing compared to the thick, dark AMAB hair all over my face and body, and the way it makes me feel is different than the way it makes them feel. I’m petite and because hormones gave me a C cup — the upside of my Jewish genes — hair has always been the primary source of my physical dysphoria.

As the years went on, I became more comfortable in my body and self, and I started to wonder: Why did I feel self-conscious about my body hair, while finding it hot on other women? Why did I apply societal rules of womanhood to myself that I didn’t actually believe?

Then three weeks ago I began my Coronavirus self-quarantine. Faced with the reality that I wouldn’t be seeing anyone except my roommates and twice a month grocery trip strangers, I decided to begin an experiment. I wasn’t going to shave or epilate, I wasn’t going to paint my nails, and I wasn’t going to put on makeup — until I wanted to for myself, and only myself.

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I only lasted two days before shaving my face. This wasn’t surprising. My facial hair is easily what makes me most dysphoric. Over the past three years I’ve spent thousands of dollars I barely had on electrolysis and laser. The last activity I did before starting my quarantine was go to electrolysis.

Electrolysis is painful and it leaves my skin visibly irritated for the entire week in between appointments. But the promise of someday not having any facial hair — and not having to shave — makes it worth it. I don’t hate my facial hair because “women don’t have beards.” I hate my facial hair, because I, a woman, don’t want to have one. People who have known me for years tell me that it’s become so much thinner, that they can’t even tell once I’ve shaved, but I don’t care. This isn’t for other people. It’s for me.

A few days later, I epilated my chest and shaved my stomach. I don’t have much hair on my chest after hormones and years of epilating, but during sex my chest is the most mindlessly gender euphoric part of my body — sex with other people and myself. That gender euphoria is lessened by the hair that remains, so I removed it. I’d like masturbation to be as pleasurable as possible during quarantine celibacy, thank you very much.

Next, I trimmed my bangs. As much as I hate my body hair, I cherish the hair on my head. I was supposed to have a long scheduled haircut a week after I started quarantine, but I canceled it for obvious reasons. I still planned to pay my hair stylist, so I asked if he might be willing to coach me over FaceTime on trimming my own bangs. He did and I was pleasantly surprised by the results. It had been a very tough first week self-isolating but getting my hair to look the way I wanted made me feel so much better.

Those first couple weeks, I realized that not wearing makeup and not painting my nails didn’t make me feel dysphoric, but something doesn’t have to feel dysphoric to not like it. I enjoy wearing makeup sometimes and I enjoy painting my own nails and having them painted. It was nice to realize that I didn’t need to do these things, but I started doing them again anyway.

And that’s it. Three weeks in I still haven’t shaved or epilated my arms, legs, or armpits. Hormones have thinned the hair considerably on my arms and combined with feeling more confident in myself I think I’ll probably stop removing that hair altogether. I’ll shave my legs again at some point, because I do still feel sexier with them shaved. But the acuteness of the dysphoria around it has drastically decreased.

I’ve realized I actually feel sexier with armpit hair.

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It was always important to me that I transition on my own terms. I’ve never understood why I’d go through all the effort of getting out of one box only to put myself in a slightly better one. I have the privilege to not look cis and to still be relatively safe. I intend to utilize that privilege.

I don’t know why my facial hair bothers me but my Adam’s Apple doesn’t. I don’t know why I plan to someday get bottom surgery but have no interest in FFS. I don’t know why some days I feel as uncomfortable in a dress as I do in clothing made for men.

It’s much easier for me to disregard the judgments of my family or straight society than it is to ignore messaging from my own community — especially people I want to date. Whether it’s body hair or makeup or clothing, if I presented like a lot of cis queer women, I would read as male — not masc. This isn’t fair or unfair, it’s just how it is. The question is whether I let that impact how I present.

When I first started dating in queer community I was desperate to determine if I was femme or butch. Obviously, being femme was easier — it’s what was expected of me as a trans woman — but it didn’t feel right. I relished the possible rebellion of being a butch trans woman, but that didn’t feel right either.

I realized that the only words that fit are gay, dyke, faggot, gay, gay, and gay. When I present according to these words — whatever that means to me on any given day — I feel less dysphoric. I don’t necessarily feel like there’s a map for me and my gender presentation. I’m not going to pretend that I have the same ease of presentation as cis lesbians. Maybe some trans women do! But for me, personally, certain acceptable things in our community are going to make me feel dysphoric.

The goal is never assuming that dysphoria is forever. The goal is making sure that dysphoria is coming from my gender and not from the messaging of others. It’s always going to be both, but, in the moment, I want to locate the truest source of the feeling.

Quarantine has provided an opportunity to check-in with myself at the three year mark of my transition. I feel so grateful to be weathering this moment of collective trauma in the body I currently have – even as I still long for certain changes.

I like that people think I’m attractive, but that’s not a new feeling. People thought I was attractive before I transitioned. What’s new is the experience of finding myself attractive. It’s invigorating.

Two weeks before quarantine, a date asked me how I’d describe my style and presentation. All of a sudden it dawned on me: flamboyant dyke. I still feel that way after my weeks of experimenting. Now I’m just a flamboyant dyke with armpit hair.

Six Songs You Love That Are Actually About Being Trans

“Every trans girl has one,” a Twitter mutual told me. “It’s standard t4t first date material.”

We were talking about the mental playlist we each keep — of songs that, while not technically about being trans, are, in fact, about being trans. Sometimes it’s a glib body humor joke, or sometimes a queer upending of a familiar classic (offered without explanation: “Bohemian Rhapsody”). But sometimes it’s so much more.

I’ve been especially keen on curating my list as a study in songcraft. Long before I was a woman, I was a songwriter. The first song I wrote about transness, “Farewell to my Man,” likened transitioning to the breakup of a romantic relationship. When I wanted to convey the fraughtness of familial relationships before and after coming out, I imagined my birth gender/pre-transition self to a twin brother.

I have cultivated a deep reverence for analogy. More than mere cleverness or evocation, a solid analogy has the ability to cast us into a metaphoric dreamworld, which not only resembles reality superficially, but can be manipulated and studied in intricate detail from all angles. We come back to this plane with a sense of having grasped the soul of a thing.

So to be perfectly clear, I’m not trying to win you over to my interpretation of the lyrics of any of these songs; but I am inviting you to explore the world within each of them. My short list of Songs That Are Actually About Being Trans highlights several tunes that have been my teachers about gender — which is to say about the world, and about myself.

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“She” by Green Day

Dookie came out just as I entered middle school, so this is the song on the list I have the oldest relationship to. With lines like “she’s figured out/ all her doubts were someone else’s point of view,” once I started looking at this with a trans lens, it became hard to imagine how it could possibly be about anything else. I’m struck by the juxtaposition between the chaotic “riot penetrating through her mind” and the intense calm of her “waiting for a sign to smash the silence with the brick of self-control.”

Trans people do so much of this. Biding our time, finger to the wind. Knowing that our confident expression of self-knowledge will be deliberately misconstrued as just the opposite. And then consider the speaker: “Scream at me until my ears bleed/ I’m taking heed/ just for you.” That rare person who sees us, who accepts our rage as the natural product of our disenfranchisement, who is ready to witness all of our experience.

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“Daughter” by Loudon Wainwright III

Ever since I wrote “Twin,” a new neural pathway has existed in my brain to interpret songs about interpersonal familial relationships as in fact intrapersonal. I realized being trans often means both being a new baby and birthing/parenting yourself, and that’s both the most wondrous wonder and the worst, most impossible burden. That’s the strain I feel when I listen to “Daughter.”

Just as with regular parenting, we are bound to make mistakes when nurturing our tender trans genders: to be rigid or lenient at the wrong times, to teach the wrong lessons. Just as with regular children, even as they demand and rebel, our young genders desperately need us, and are taking every single thing we tell them to heart. When we’re at our best as parents, we know our kids can live better lives than us — carrying less pain, believing in their own goodness, not limiting their imaginations in ways we take for granted — and we exult at this. But even on our worst days, we can remember that we have chosen to feed and love a child that society would have left for dead.

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“How Far I’ll Go” from Moana, Sung by Auli’i Cravalho

I happen to have experience parenting a literal human child as well as myself. So, you know, I’ve listened to the Moana soundtrack a lot over the years! There are volumes I could write about what this movie has to say about intergenerational trauma, collective healing, and attachment theory, but let’s just stick to gender for now. As with “She,” the protagonist here is poised to take a step they’ve been contemplating all their life, away from social order but towards personal truth.

When considering the symbolic water in both this and “Daughter,” I’m reminded of what Laura Jane Grace sings in Transgender Dysphoria Blues: “Rough surf on the coast/ I wish I could’ve spent the whole day alone/ with you.” We can revere our genders in all their vast, powerful, mysterious and dangerous depth and breadth. We won’t ever fully know (let alone control) them — but we don’t need that to revel in their majesty, or to traverse them to unimaginable places.

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“County Line” by Cass McCombs

We have relationships not only to and with other people, but also places and things. In a blog post from August about my transition, I wrote that my birth gender “was like my hometown: I grew up here, there are things I love and things I hate about it, it’ll always have a place in my heart. But also, maybe I’ve kept living here all this time because it was hard to imagine living anywhere else — until I did?”

Cass McCombs’ portrait of his natal place is far less ambivalent than this: Here is a place that “never even tried to love” him. This one is dedicated to all the trans homies who aren’t able to be out full-time, especially with family; for whom there’s an unrelenting pressure to remain as one was, despite never having been truly accepted or cherished as such.

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“Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell

Another one that makes you go, “Ah! Of course!” As trans people, we have regarded gender from more aspects than most; and yet we can only vaguely gesture at its true nature. And then that last verse: “Now old friends, they’re acting strange/ they shake their heads, they say I’ve changed/ Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained/ in living every day.”

Transition often entails great loss, even in the best of circumstances. For those of us who transition as adults, even as we take steps toward our wildest dreams, there is often still a mourning of the provisional ones. Transphobes will try to use any ambivalence on our part to invalidate our identities and experiences; I see the process of honoring these dreams — and then consciously letting them go — as a profound act of radical honesty and self-acceptance.

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“A Thousand Kisses Deep” by Leonard Cohen (Ten New Songs Version)

There’s more than one way to look at this one, also. When Leonard whispers to us, “You live your life as if it’s real,” is he talking to about all these cis people just walking around every day acting like gender isn’t completely made up? Or is it our fear as trans people that the life we’ve fought so hard to live is at best a lark, at worst a delusion?

When he intones, “You ditch it all to stay alive,” is he talking about trans people who forsake societal acceptance, material security and familial love to live authentically? Or to those of us who kill part of ourselves to keep those things?

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“I Was Born” by Billy Bragg, Wilco (But Actually Written by Woody Guthrie and Sung by Natalie Merchant)

If “Daughter” is about the wonder of parenting oneself, “I Was Born” is about the miracle of being a grown-ass little transsexual baby child. Forget second puberty: To be trans is to be born again and again, every year, every hour, every half hour, greener every time.

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So there’s my top six Songs About Being Trans. If you want the deluxe edition, here’s a Spotify playlist!

It has Bruce Springsteen, the Buzzcocks, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Elvis Perkins, The Smiths, and more. Let’s keep this transgender agenda rolling, y’all — if they were freaked out about us converting their kids, wait till they hear we’re coming for their pop songs!

You Need Help: How To Be A Trans Lesbian

Q:

I’m currently 19, I’m white, I’m a socialist (with anarchist sympathies), I have Asperger’s, I’m a college student in Pennsylvania… and I’ve recently realized that I’m a trans lesbian. Well, not *recently* per se. Over the past six months or so, a variety of factors, thoughts, and realizations have brought me here.

I spent time talking with trans people I know, I thought a *lot* about it in the shower, and I ultimately went to a therapist who specializes in these things… And through all of this, I’ve discovered that so many of my weird anxieties and fears make SO much more sense in the context of me wanting to be a woman, and wanting to be friends/more than friends with women… my therapist and trans friends looked at my huge bundle of issues and were like, “yeah, seems pretty trans to me.” Everything about my personality and personal history makes so much more sense in that context.

Now, this question isn’t about coming out. When that eventually happens, I’m fairly confident that my friends will be accepting, and my parents will, worst case scenario, get used to it. My question is a *much* broader one: what the hell do I do now? I haven’t started to transition or anything, so I’m in a cis male body, which certainly makes me feel a lot less… lesbiany. That’s one thing that I’m currently dealing with.

But more broadly: What habits should I adopt? What should I read? How should I think about myself in the world? What are resources that I can use? Should I seek out elders, however that all works? I basically have whatever the queer equivalent of Archive Panic is. I’ve discovered this thing, and I think I’ll be much happier with it, but I have no clue where to start.

TL;DR–I’m a hyper-anxious college sophomore who’s *just* starting to come into my own identity as a trans lesbian, and I feel totally confused and adrift.

All my best, and thank you for putting up with me,

Psychiatric Help Five Cents

A:

Hi Psychiatric Help Five Cents!

I’m a 32 year-old trans lesbian. From my point of view, two very important things are true: 1) You are very young, and you don’t have to have all of this figured out right away! There’s no rush. And 2) There’s no right way to be a woman or be a lesbian. There’s no universally-common experience that binds all cis women together, for example. Not all cis women have periods, uteri, hairless faces, breasts, or a “woman’s body.” And lesbians definitely don’t all have “habits” that you can adopt, or all read certain books, or all think about themselves the same. This is crucial! I know it doesn’t feel like that, and it’s not that simple, so the rest of this answer will dig into some of the details. But I wanted to say both of these things up front.

Now, on to the specifics. A lot of the advice below is about things I’ve done or girls I know have done. But the most important thing here is that none of this is absolutely necessary and your mileage may vary. I had a lot of the same questions as you when I first transitioned, and it took me literal years to figure it all out (actually, to be honest, nobody ever actually figures all of these things out. “Figuring it out” is overrated). So make sure to be kind and generous to yourself, give yourself plenty of time to process all of these important feelings, and don’t rush it!

In terms of transition, I would also advise you to take it slow. There’s not really such thing as a “cis male body.” Your body is a woman’s body if you’re a woman! Spend a few bucks at a thrift store and experiment with fashion. Experiment with pronouns; try calling yourself “she” and “her” in your own imagination and see how it lands, and ask a close friend to try different pronouns out with you for a bit. You might be able to get a clear face with just shaving, or maybe Nair will work for you? I’ve spent over $2000 over the years on laser hair removal and electrolysis. It’s overrated, but it’s one of the things a lot of us do to pass. Again, all humans have facial hair. Most women remove it to different degrees. And something like 10% of women have PCOS, so facial hair isn’t mutually exclusive with womanhood.

Talk to your therapist about getting on hormones. That might be good for you, it might not. Some girls (especially ones who start younger, like you) start to grow breasts from hormones; some don’t. Try getting a cheap sports bra, buy some cheap pads on Amazon or somewhere more discreet, put it on, and see how it feels. And maybe you won’t like them! Not all women have breasts. Some have them removed, some never grew them in the first place. I will say that I wish I’d waited to get breast implants. It felt urgent and necessary, and maybe it was. But if I’d known what I know now I might have waited.

Try tucking if you want (my opinion is that it’s overrated and painful, but do you). I honestly wouldn’t recommend it unless you plan to like, wear bikinis a lot or go out and about in panties. Few people will see a “bulge”; generally, most won’t care, and if you’re already in your panties they shouldn’t be surprised by what’s beneath anyway. I get by by wearing compression leggings every day (Old navy has cheap ones and they have tall sizes and there’s always a sale). I’m also not super femme, though. But you also don’t have to be femme! I wish I knew at 19 that if cis women are allowed to dress butch, or androgynous, or whatever, and still be women, so are trans women! Now, of course, the more femme you are, the more strangers are going to read you as a woman and the less likely you are to be misgendered, so you have to consider how important that is to you.

I’ll also say that dating is somewhat overrated. If you need to get your rocks off, your casual sex partners don’t always need to know the specifics of your identity or transition. They probably just want to fuck! So you may sleep with some “straight” girls who see you as a boy. That may feel weird or strange and you may want to avoid it. Or maybe it doesn’t matter because it’s casual! You have to figure out how you’d feel about that. Or you can just up your masturbation game.

If you’re looking to date more seriously, I’d definitely advise you to pump the brakes here. Trans women are often very misunderstood in queer community in general, and in lesbian community in particular. Especially if you’re very early in your transition. There’s a lot of fear and mistrust, especially as trans people are becoming more visible in mainstream culture, about “men” “infiltrating” “women’s” spaces. It’s also true that you don’t need to date in order to validate your identity, if that’s a concern! People’s sexualities persist even when they’re single.

Something that’s sad — but also empowering if you look at it the right way — is that to some people, you will never be a woman, or a lesbian, no matter how much you transition, or what you read, or how you talk, or what surgeries you get, or whatever. But that also means that you can essentially stop trying to please those people! The people who care — and who matter — will believe you when you say who you are. Focus on them.

That being said, I spent a couple years on Tinder and OKCupid when I openly identified as non-binary, and couple more openly identifying as a trans woman. And it felt like I didn’t get as many swipes. But I was very pleasantly surprised by how many women and non-binary people genuinely didn’t care! They mostly identified as queer, pan, or bisexual, to be sure, but it was a much smaller deal than I thought it was going to be. So don’t worry too much! Also, if you date around, and find yourself with non-binary people, or femme men, or other trans folks, you might find that “lesbian” isn’t actually the label that still feels right. That’s also OK! There are also a bunch of queer dating apps out now, like Thurst and Personals, but I can’t vouch for them personally. So maybe get out there and see what happens, and I would say don’t insist too hard on your identity. It’s probably a better idea to let things flow naturally and be open to a variety of experiences.

In terms of reading, Autostraddle is a great place to start. There are so many recommendations for comics, books, articles, films… but remember, you don’t have to read anything. You don’t have to do anything! One thing I wouldn’t do is just search “trans lesbian” on Google. You will come across a lot of TERFs and a lot of “Gender Critical” feminists… who are essentially TERFs.

The best advice I can give you is to just relax! And to definitely keep seeing your therapist. Transition is a really stressful time emotionally. Our culture is so obsessed with identity and labels and, especially in our case, transition having a definitive start and end point. But that’s not how being human actually works in the real world. Your identity is valid! Take your time. And welcome to the club!

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You can chime in with your advice in the comments and submit your own questions any time.

Trans Radiance: Sharing Food As An Act Of Love

Trans Radiance is a new, limited series of positive, empowering stories of trans people doing important, uplifting things, intended to counter the mainstream media’s obsession with our deaths.

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance (and Resilience). November 20th, 2019, marks the 20th anniversary of the original TDOR, created by Gwendolyn Smith in 1999 to honor lives lost to anti-trans violence. At least 22 trans people have died to violence this year, most of them Black trans women. It’s important to remember and celebrate the lives of our fallen sisters, and reporting on our deaths may be useful to spur political leaders to action. But other than mourning once a year, what can allies on the ground do?

This series was conceptualized in response to and as an extension of TDOV and TDOR. Increased visibility will potentially be a net positive in the long run, and remembering us after we’ve passed is important. But we’re more than murder victims. We can also focus on the love, beauty, brilliance, talent, activism — the radiance — within our community. This month, we’re talking about food.

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I first attended Black Folks’ Dinner around 2014 in Oakland. At the time, I was trying hard to reconnect with my Blackness (as a mixed person who grew up and went to college with mostly non-Black people) and my nascent queerness.

A woman I was dating invited me, saying it was run by Black queer and trans people. I figured I could feed two birds with one scone — connect with Black and queer people — and I did. But it was also transformational.

Hosted in a softly lit, open and inviting, wood beam-exposed BFD member’s home, and run by ChE and Emanuel Brown — who I met that night and with whom I’ve organized, worked, and communed with ever since — I stepped over the threshold and into a vision of Blackness that I’d never before witnessed.

Black people of all colors, body types, genders and gender expressions, and ages communed over snacks and drinks. Chill music backgrounded lovely, powerful, intentional conversations. When the dinner actually started – a lovely, home-cooked potluck  I met older people who shared their wisdom and younger people who shared their enthusiasm. I met some of the first Black trans people I’d ever had a chance to really speak to. I broke bread with my community for what felt like the first time. I laughed — a lot. Later in the evening, a former Black Panther, now in his twilight years, shared wisdom and reflections about the still-emergent Black Lives Matter movement.

Later in the evening we had a song circle. Anyone could start a refrain, either original or from a classic, as long as it was simple enough. It was repeated over and over, so that eventually everyone could join in. We harmonized effortlessly. As the chorus of voices enveloped me, the reverberations shaking my core, I transcended. BFD was queer, Black, trans, intergenerational, visionary, revolutionary.

A few years later, I moved to New Orleans and tried to recreate some of the magic I’d experienced in Oakland. I hosted a Black Folks’ Dinner of my own. But because of housing instability, and my own mental health crisis, I wasn’t able to sustain it.

When I lived in New Orleans, I primarily functioned in survival mode. Rent was cheap, but housing was seemingly lawless and usually sketchy; I lived in five different apartments in the year and a half I spent there. Jobs paid minimum wage. So I hustled, by selling art at various street markets, doing sex work (this was pre-SOSTA/FESTA), delivering pizzas, working in a tiny kitchen in the back of my local bar, being a barista, and briefly holding down “real” jobs at non-profits when mental health allowed. Eating enough, and well, was always a concern, especially when my depression was bad and ordering delivery seemed the only way I could eat. My credit card bill skyrocketed.

This was the third time in my life I survived without starving because of EBT (food stamps), but the first time I signed up out of desperation, not because I was a volunteer or a grad student.

$200 a month — the maximum amount a single person can get per month on EBT — sounds like a lot. But spread over 30 days, it averages out to around $2 per meal, which is almost doable if you can eat rice and lentils every day. When so many of your peers, lovers, and friends are also struggling, though, it’s even harder. Not everyone can get on food stamps — because of immigration status, because they have a low-paying job that regardless pushes them over the income threshold (about $12,000 per year after taxes), because they are disabled and can’t cook, or get to the grocery store, or for some other reason. So we shared our EBT cards as a community resource.

I brought homebound friends home-cooked meals when I could or sent them delivery when I could. I was brought home-cooked meals when someone else could. We had potlucks when we could, I put out calls on Facebook when I was going to the grocery store when I could. When I found a great deal, I’d either let as many of my folks know about it and/or buy extra and redistribute it when I could.

Taking care of each other in this way didn’t feel burdensome. It felt freeing. It felt like community. That’s likely because taking care of each other is a joyful experience, but it might have something to do with the practice of sharing food in particular.

“Neglect is a form of violence. We don’t often talk about how Black people die early because they live in food deserts, but that’s also violence and that’s worthy of examination and conversation.”

“Giving to others fills us in so many ways,” says Michal AviShai, a culinary arts therapist. “And even more so when it’s cooking, because feeding fulfills a survival need, and so our feeling of fulfillment comes not only from the good of the act of giving, but also the fact that we have ‘helped’ in some very primal way.”

Black people in particular, and queer and trans people in general, have long shared food as a survival strategy. Enslaved Africans shared the bits of produce they were able to grow on personal farm plots to supplement each others’ diets. Bake sales and other food projects funded, and helped participants survive, the Montgomery Bus Boycott during the Civil Rights Movement. The Black Panthers famously created free breakfast programs.

The radical tradition of showing love for one’s community by feeding members of that community continues today, and is exemplified by a project conceptualized by Ianne Fields Stewart, founder of The Okra Project, which hires Black trans chefs to go into Black trans people’s homes and cook them a delicious, nutritious meal at no cost.

“We originally thought it was just going to be a holiday thing,” Stewart told me. “The holidays can be a rough time, particularly for Black trans folks. We thought we would raise $1,000.”

They planned to use the funds to give a few Thanksgiving, and maybe Christmas, meals to Black trans people without supportive family to go home to. But they ended up raising over $6,000 in the first week.

Now with far more resources than expected, and the opportunity to do something bigger, Fields and Nyla Sampson, a friend and collaborator who runs the Black Trans Solidarity Fund, a resource that redistributes donations to Black trans people in need, had to decide what to do with the money.

She sees redistribution of resources, and feeding hungry people, as a concrete response to violence against trans women. “There’s only so long that you can watch your sisters be murdered before you find yourself craving to do something more than just hashtag,” they say. But they wanted to think beyond the headlines. She wanted to expand the scope of what we mean when we talk about violence against Black trans people. “Neglect is a form of violence. We don’t often talk about how Black people die early because they live in food deserts, but that’s also violence and that’s worthy of examination and conversation.”

So they came up with the idea for the Okra Project, named for the popular African vegetable that holds an essential place in Black cooking and Black history.

“I think food, especially for Black folks, is how we express love for each other… Whenever someone cooks for you in your home, it’s like they’re pouring a piece of themselves, their time, their love, their energy into you.”

“I think food, especially for Black folks, is how we express love for each other,” they explained. “Whenever someone cooks for you in your home, it’s like… they’re pouring a piece of themselves, their time, their love, their energy into you. And it makes you feel valued. It taps into a special place for us as Black people. Gathering and communing, and breaking bread with one another.”

After that first holiday season, donations kept pouring in. There was pressure to solidify The Okra Project into a non-profit. But Fields and Sampson were skeptical of non-profits, which don’t have a great track record in queer and trans communities. Not being a non-profit meant that they can do whatever they want with the money and aren’t beholden to funders or stakeholders.

“We continue to do our international grocery fund, which means any Black trans person can apply and we send them $40 so they can get groceries,” she explained. They also have other initiatives, and with the Black Trans Solidarity Fund, utilize funds for other community needs. “We’ve continued to do our ‘By Okra’ event series… ‘Beauty by Okra’ is for Black trans women and ‘Brotha by Okra is for Black trans men.” They’re also launching “Spectrum by Okra” for Black non-binary people. Another way they’ve spent funds was to bail a Black trans person out of prison, or give away tickets to a Broadway show. “We want to make sure we’re feeding people in every way,” she says; even when that means looking beyond food.

The project has gotten backlash for focusing specifically on Black trans people and not expanding to support other deserving communities, but Fields isn’t fazed. “The work cannot and does not happen without conflict,” they say. They appreciate criticism and accountability from the community. “Community is all about the good and the bad. It can be painful, but I think that accountability keeps us honest in the work that we’re doing. If I’m holding someone accountable, it’s because I care.”

What’s coming in the future? Fields doesn’t know. “I wasn’t trying to create an organization,” she says. As long as the donations keep coming in, they’ll keep feeding Black trans people with them. I asked her how people who want to support the Okra Project can do so.

It’s simple: “Money and resources.” One of the best ways is by signing up to be a Patron, as recurring donations provide a consistent base of support to pay for operational costs. Also essential: 100% of direct donations to the Black Trans Solidarity Fund go to feeding Black trans people in need.

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Black people, and Black trans people in particular, have always taken care of each other — in order to survive, but moreso because loving and caring for each other is and has always been a part of our culture. It has also been one of the primary ways we’ve shown resistance, ever since Europeans set foot on African soil. We hid okra on our bodies, brought it to this country, and shared the bounty when it was harvested. And we continue to feed each other.

Projects like the Okra Project tap into this cultural lineage by sharing food as a form of resistance, resilience, and love.

Today we will be bombarded with images and articles about Black trans women’s deaths — but fewer about Black trans women loving, supporting, and feeding each other. Fewer about how we keep each other alive. Few about how radiant and glorious and lovable and brilliant we are. A common refrain in trans activism is to “give us our roses while we’re still here” instead of just honoring us upon our deaths. Donating to, uplifting, and otherwise supporting Black trans-led projects like the Okra Project is a tangible way we can do exactly that.

Trans Radiance: What’s in a Name?

Trans Radiance is a new, limited series of positive, empowering stories of trans people doing important, uplifting things. Elizabeth Warren’s mention of 18 Black trans women who have been murdered in 2019 at the recent LGBTQ Forum, arguably one the largest, most mainstream discussions of queer and trans issues in American history, was important and historic. But its power as a viral moment is also reflective of mainstream and social media’s tendency to report on trans women’s issues only when they’re sensationalist; as we near the end of the year, all of the major networks will be writing stories about Black trans murder (the New York Times has already begun). But we’re more than just murder victims.

This series will attempt to add to and shift the narrative by providing another, under-reported perspective: we’re also community members, artists, leaders, activists, and regular-ass women; we love and support each other and our community members, and we do amazing things. Simply put, we’re radiant.

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A couple of months ago, my father and stepmother took my girlfriend and I out to dinner for my birthday, and our waiter was a total sweetheart. Because we arrived before my parents did, we chatted a bit as he took our drink and appetizer orders (dad’s paying! I get to eat appetizers!), and he asked my name. “Abeni? It’s beautiful,” he said. “I chose it myself,” I replied, as I usually do.

Later, during the meal, he returned to the table to check up on us. “I looked up the meaning of your name,” he told me. “It’s lovely.” I blushed, speechless. Never had I been so affirmed in that way — and the fact that he took it upon himself to look it up, rather than ask me to attempt to explain its meaning and significance, felt like being seen.

My name, by the way, is from the Yoruba language — native to West Africa — and means, essentially, “We prayed for her, and behold, we got her.” I chose a West African name as a means to superficially connect to the ancestry my people were forcibly disconnected from via slavery. As I searched around for a name, Abeni — and its meaning — jumped out at me as though the universe had highlighted it.

“Our proper name is as much a part of us as our own skin. It travels with us like a passport, testifying to our unique presence on this earth,” asserts Mavis Himes in The Power of Names. Before we have anything else — personality, agency, gender — we are given a name. It’s evidence, usually, of our membership in a family, a culture, a community. So when it doesn’t fit — whether because that membership is problematic, has been severed, or, as is the case for many trans people, it doesn’t accurately reflect who we are — it can create an existential crisis.

And a practical one. For reasons that are somewhat understandable, it’s a difficult process to legally change one’s name. When people change their names to reflect a marriage, it’s usually straightforward, if cumbersome. For trans people changing their names (and sometimes legal gender markers) to better reflect their gender(s), however, the process can be expensive, frustrating, sometimes traumatizing, and often downright confusing.

For this piece, I talked to some trans women about their names and their experiences changing them legally (or choosing not to), as well as a couple of the incredible organizations attempting the make the process more accessible to all of us.

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“I always knew I would choose the name ‘Serena,’ — the blonde-haired shero of the Sailor Moon saga,” Serena Sonoma, a writer for Out magazine, Vox, Teen Vogue, and other publications, told me. “Growing up I wasn’t allowed to express my femininity and so I would often use Sailor Moon… [w]atching Serena transform… I’d often muse that I could, someday, too.”

Sonoma’s given name was “unisex,” and she “never had an issue with it.” But she felt such a strong connection to Sailor Moon that she still chose Serena. “It served as a reminder of where I’ve been… The kid who wanted to redefine her own path, who always felt lost or didn’t quite fit in, the kid who wanted to transform and start anew.”

The act of changing one’s name can sometimes feel threatening to those from whom we received it. When I legally changed my name, I decided to use my mother’s first name as a middle name — partially to mitigate the sadness she felt when I “rejected” the one she’d chosen for me.

A similar consideration was in place for Melínda Chavela Valdivia Rude —who goes by Mey — a writer for Out.com. “I asked my mom if she had picked out a girl’s name for me before I was born, and she said Melínda, which was the first M name I found that I loved… Valdivia is my mom’s maiden name.”

It was incredibly important to her for her mother to be involved with her new name. “I absolutely ABSOLUTELY love that my mom picked out my name. Before I came out we weren’t very close, but since then we’ve become best friends and I love her so much. Reconnecting with my mom has been a huge part of my life since coming out and so I’m glad my name reflects that.”

Drew Gregory, a fellow writer for Autostraddle, decided not to change her name at all. “I thought a lot about my name when I was first transitioning. A name change can be such a powerful declaration of a trans person’s identity,” she explained. Growing up, she didn’t like her name — people thought it was short for “Andrew,” even though it wasn’t! “I really didn’t start liking it until I transitioned and saw myself as a female Drew… I also can’t pretend that Drew Barrymore didn’t play a major role in me keeping my name… she represents a certain easeful femininity that really appealed to me… I like that I’ve taken a name that was given to me and made it my own.”

For some of us, though, changing our names is about disconnecting from a community. “It was important for me to choose my own girl name, as well as having a last name connected to my family without being connected to my immediate, abusive family,” Annie Mok, a Twitch streamer, musician and writer/artist, explained.

“[Mok was my] grandfather’s original last name before being changed to Choy at US immigration.” When asked how she feels about the name she was given as a child, she answered simply: “horror.”

Given the intense introspection, relationship negotiation, and practical impact of changing one’s name, the decision is almost never made lightly. After the decision, however, comes the next step — pursuing whether to change it legally, and if so, navigating the labyrinthine, opaque, and expensive process of getting legal identity documents that match.

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That’s where organizations like the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, the Transgender Law Center, and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project come in.

“In most cases, it’s really difficult for most people to obtain [a legal name change] without some form of help or guidance,” explained Ian Anderson, Legal Services Project Manager for the TLC.

“That’s true for a number of reasons: the process involves several steps, the forms use very technical language, the laws relating to name/gender change court orders sometimes change year to year, and the process or forms can vary county by county.”

According to AC Dumlao, Program Manager at TLDEF, the name change process in particular is incredibly outdated: “New York’s name change statute, for example, dates from 1847… newspaper publication was required to alert creditors to a name change.”

Some states still require a newspaper publication, even though technology has made this completely unnecessary.

The TLC hosts frequent legal clinics to help trans people navigate the often confusing process. In fact, attending one of the TLC’s clinics was how I was finally able to legally change my name and gender — after years of unsuccessfully trying to navigate the process on my own. In January, California amended its process to make it easier. I waited to get my documents processed until then for this reason — and it still wasn’t easy. I then attempted to do the same federally — to get a passport — which was a different, much more difficult process that took over nine months.

“Each state sets its own laws,” Anderson clarified. “[The process] may involve presenting a doctor’s letter saying that you’re receiving ‘clinically appropriate treatment for gender transition…’ a surgeon’s letter specifically saying you’ve had genital surgery, or a judge’s order… [i]n a few states, it’s still not possible to update the gender marker on your birth certificate at all, and in several states, the ‘revised’ birth certificate will still show the old information along the new.”

Some states allow nonbinary markers. Some don’t. “[M]any states, as well as the federal government, continue to only offer binary gender markers. These laws are being challenged one by one, but lawsuits do take time.”

That’s something else the TLC works on — changing these laws to make the process simpler, easier, and more accessible. This crucially-important work is also about more than the emotional and psychological impact of having a name that aligns with one’s identity — there are practical implications: “If the information on someone’s documents doesn’t align with how people typically perceive them… the documents could out them as trans and lead to discrimination or violence,” Anderson continued.

That’s part of why Mey changed her name legally. “[N]ot changing my name while presenting as a woman was leading to some potentially dangerous situations and discrimination at airports and with police and doctors. Changing my name has improved my life greatly.”

Not everyone wants to legally change their name or gender, though. “The process of changing my gender marker on my license was such a headache, I know I’m very lucky to not have to change my name too,” said Drew.

And Annie has decided not to bother with the whole process: “I’m very lazy,” she confessed. “[A]lso, I don’t want to be targeted by Trump and his cronies for being trans and having my name on a list of people who legally changed their names.” While that might sound alarmist, it’s not inconceivable given the state of American politics and technology right now.

Another hurdle? The process can be expensive. I was only able to afford it because I happened to be on MediCal at the time, and there are sometimes waivers for low-income people.

TLDEF is especially focused on making the process more affordable. “TLDEF’s Name Change Project provides pro bono legal name changes to low income trans and non-binary individuals,” said Dumlao. “More than 65 percent of TLDEF’s name change clients live below the federal poverty line.” TLDEF is usually able to make the process completely free for their clients.

While I was grateful to the TLC for hosting the name change clinic, and helping me apply for a fee waiver, the combination of which made the process possible for me — Mey credits her community for making it possible. “I was blessed to get financial help from the Autostraddle community when I changed my name. Riese was especially helpful and I’ll be forever thankful to her for that.”

Crowdfunding campaigns to raise money for name and gender changes are plentiful, and as is usually the case when trans people raise money for things like life-saving surgeries, medications, or legal documents, it’s usually other queer and trans people and organizations who show up and give what they can.

Trans Lifeline, another trans-led organization, even offers financial support in the form of “microgrants” to trans people to get legal documents. The #transcrowdfund hashtag on Twitter and Instagram is simultaneously a sobering look at financial issues trans people face and an incredibly uplifting example of a community holding each other down and lifting each other up. Trans-led community organizations like BreakOUT! In New Orleans also help members raise money for and otherwise navigate the name and gender change process. No one takes care of its own like the trans community.

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One of the loveliest experiences of my life has been realizing that I’ve forgotten a trans friend’s old name. Realizing that I consistently call myself by my own name in my own internal monologue is up there as well. Having government institutions — and, thus, TSA agents, doctors, the Postal Service, teachers, insurance companies — do the same can be transformative.

The impact of organizations like TLC and TLDEF, and the name and gender change clinics that they run, is hard to understate. It often feels like the process is intentionally confusing, difficult, and expensive, part and parcel of the trans-antagonistic culture in which we live. Our names are intimately connected with our identities, and not having access to a name that reflects who we are is damaging psychologically and practically.

These organizations, the community members who fundraise and donate to trans people trying to get access to affirming legal documents, and the family and friends who support us emotionally as we navigate a tricky process are literally saving our lives.

You Need Help: A Non-Binary Woman Working Through the Gender Feels

Q:

I identify as a non-binary woman, and, until recently, I never felt uncomfortable with my body — just with the gender roles assigned to it. But these past few months, I’ve found myself struggling with new and increasing chest dysphoria that I never asked for. And it terrifies me! I bought my first binder a while ago, and while I love the way it makes me look, it’s so difficult to get on and off that I don’t wear it nearly as often as I’d like.

Yesterday I started researching top surgery, just as a first step. But rather than making me feel better about the whole thing, it just demoralized me even more. I wasn’t happy with the way things were, but I was also surprisingly, deeply upset at the thought of going through with the procedure. My gender crisis spiraled even further. What if I was just as unhappy with a flat chest? What if queer women weren’t attracted to me anymore or wouldn’t recognize me as one of them? How would my identity change, or be forced to change, in ways I didn’t want it to? And how many of my feelings were even my own, and how many were just social conditioning? My other trans/nonbinary friends always seemed so impatient to get gender confirmation surgery, but I can’t confirm my gender when I don’t even know what it is.

So, my question isn’t so much about the surgery – I’m obviously not in that headspace yet – so much as all the Emotions I stirred up in thinking about it. I just feel like I’m in this weird limbo in between male/female where I’ll never be comfortable with any version of my body. How do you find peace when you live in that space?

A:

Sometimes, when we allow ourselves to open a door, to open a possibility, the weight of that possibility and that choice is damn heavy – and overwhelming. This is where you’re at: You took a peek into something that wasn’t previously a route you imagined in your life but now that you peeled that curtain back, it is wide open. And with it all the doubts, fears, and uncertainty come swirling out.

You’re in the thick of a gender crisis. Change is tough, knowing what we really desire is tough, too. We see so many narratives of non-binary and trans folks being SURE – 100% certain! – of what they need and what they want, but at times that means the blurred space between sure and questioning gets lost.

The first time that questions similar to yours popped into my brain, I laid down on the ground and stared at the ceiling. The next day, I did the same thing. I did it for a week. I made a lot of emotional art about it. I wrote a lot about it. I looked for others experiencing similar things online. I eventually talked to my friends about it. I talked to other non-binary individuals about it.

I don’t think “peace” is what you should be seeking right now. I think you need to take some grounding breaths and reassure yourself you’ll get there, no matter where ‘there’ is. Lean hard into these questions and these feelings. Be at peace that you’re just going to be unsure for awhile. Write about your doubts and fears. Write about why it excites you too. Think about why this might feel good or awesome. Draw your body, draw it now and draw it in the future. Read lots of things. Buy this zine and this zine. Talk to your non-binary and trans friends who’ve had surgery about your doubts and questions.

Will you be just as unhappy with a flat chest? Maybe. There are folks who feel amazing after surgery and there are folks who at times questioned their decision. They are both valid ways of being and I don’t understand why top surgery can’t be both – a little bit of happiness and a little bit of sadness. Women will still see you, they will recognize you, crush on you, date up on you. Those that don’t aren’t ones you want in your beautiful complex non-binary life anyway. Will you identity change? Yeah maybe, but whose identities aren’t always in a little bit of flux? We’re not stagnant, just because we don’t want to change doesn’t mean we shouldn’t accept change when it’s happening.

To paraphrase a note I wrote to myself once: You don’t have to love your body or your gender. You do need to compromise with your body. You need to stare it down and be all, “I don’t like you and you don’t like me but here we are – partners.” You each have what the other is lacking; you possess the ability to get up in the morning, to move and act and think, and your body literally has a body for you to do those things in. Maybe with time y’all will be on the same page.

And maybe, like all good buddy comedies, you’ll learn to laugh at each other’s stupidity and mistakes, and maybe, like all good buddy comedies, the two of you will eventually learn something from each other. Maybe, like all good buddy comedies, you’ll save each other’s life someday.

You two might not ever say the word love but there could be this fondness, this feeling of going through the war together.

3 Cheap and Approachable Starter Packers

So you’re curious about packing! Packing can be super affirming and hot and fun, and intimidating and confusing, so I want to give you many tools so you can start experimenting with it if your heart so desires.

Packing is basically wearing padding or a phallic-looking prosthetic or other object in your underwear or in front of pants to give you the appearance of a bulge. A lot of people pack! It’s most commonly talked about and practiced in trans men’s circles, but packing is actually something very accessible for absolutely everyone that feels like doing it. Before I identified as a guy and waaaay before I transitioned I felt interested in packing, but didn’t really feel like I could try it since I didn’t identify as a guy. I really wish someone would have told me I could experiment with it freely without all these connotations around it so I would have felt safer to do it way earlier. So if you just feel like it, why not! Packing doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated, I promise; it can just be fun and affirming!

How to pack

A lot of people will recommend packing underwear, and while I’ve tried and enjoyed packing underwear very much, I find it a bit unsustainable if you’re trying to do it cheaply particularly because you either don’t have a lot of money to spend on this, you don’t have a lot of money to spend on washing these weekly if you don’t own a washer and dryer, or you don’t have a lot of time to do laundry to begin with.

And while packing underwear is really cool and works very well, it can be difficult to buy and own seven of those if you find out you enjoy packing and want to do it every day. If you only want to pack every now and then, packing underwear might just be the option for you — Rodeoh has great options. I personally owned a pair of their fly boxer packing underwear back in the day and they were super soft and comfy, so if that’s your thing I definitely recommend them.

Because you’ll likely want to try it a few days in a row to see how you like it (or don’t), I want to focus on cheaper, more sustainable options than underwear that you’ll need a fresh pair of every day. I’ll refer to these objects as “handlers” since their whole purpose is to literally hold and handle the packer.

Packing with regular underwear

For handlers, people usually go three ways. They either free pack, meaning they stick the packer right in their underwear and go about their day; they use packing pouches (or make them), and or they use some sort of packing strap/harness.

If you want to pack for a few hours and aren’t planning on moving around too much, free packing is a great option. I personally free pack when I go to bed; If I’m not packing I usually feel horribly dysphoric, but sleeping with medical adhesive or a harness or even a pouch can feel uncomfortable, so free packing is always the way to go for me when it comes to just being around my house alone or sleeping. If you’re planning on running a marathon, going to the gym or even walking a lot, that might be a bit more of a challenge. Regardless of activity, if you’re planning to free pack I recommend you get tight underwear!

Packing pouches are a great option for a lot of people; you can wash them easily, you can wash them by hand if you don’t want to toss them in your laundry, and if there’s a thousand fabrics and motifs you can pick from to feel super cute! They hold your prosthetic in place so the anxiety of it moving too much or falling out isn’t there, and are a great option if you plan to pack all day long and want to go to the bathroom with the least amount of work around securing and handling your packer. Packing pouches are also great because if you’re feeling inclined toward have a bulge that seems “natural” or “passes” they move with your body when you walk.

For your final option, packing harnesses or straps are also a great option if you wanna secure the packer without thinking too much about having something down there. Before I got my most recent prosthetic, which I pack with the GenderCat self adhesive sheets, the FTM Essentials SlingShot Harness was my to go-to. It made packing super natural for me, and also extremely easy to keep up in terms of cleaning etc. I still use it to go to the gym because it makes me feel the most secure and it just keeps everything in place.

Below I’ve linked some great affordable options for both pouches and harnesses.

1. NYTC Packer Pouch with Magnetic Closure $19
2. FTM Essentials Joey Packer Pouch $12
3. FTM Essentials Joey Packer Pouch Classic $20
4. FTM Essentials Packing Strap: Classic $20
5. FTM Essentials SlingShot Harness $22

Packers

Packer Gear, $11.55

This packer is super cheap and realistic for the price. Pros are that in my experience it doesn’t get a smell if you wash it regularly, and I like that the head of the phallus was defined, though I know some people don’t. The scrotum of it is a bit more square than other packers but the texture of the balls is pretty cool if that’s your kind of feel. Cons is that it tends to sit up pretty straight rather than down, so wearing it with loose underwear is probably a no-go. If all your underwear is pretty tight to your body it can pack well down and up, whichever way you prefer. It can get a bit sticky so you might have to powder it too. Another con is that it only comes in a “caramel” and the standard white tone.

Mr Limpy, $13.95

Oh Mr. Limpy, the cheapest and best packer you can get. This is still my go-to cheap packer, it lasts forever, and in my opinion it gives you the most ‘realistic’ bulge. I pack with this to go to the gym because I wear athletic shorts and get super conscious of not having a boner out of nowhere in the middle of exercise. It has never failed me. Mr. Limpy comes in a few sizes, but literally don’t get anything but an XS; everything else is just too big. Even the small. I’ve gotten every size and I promise XS is just the way to go. Cons of this product is that it does seem to develop an odor even if you wash it every day, which is annoying, however it’s not the kind of smell that’s necessarily super strong or “unnatural.” I never powder this thing and it’s still great. Just like the Packer Gear, it also just comes in “caramel,” a white tone, and… a pink?

Sailor Soft Pack, $24

I haven’t tried this but general reviews are also pretty good, and Chase Ross reviewed it; seems like you definitely need to powder it. It goes in and out of stock on Amazon and FTM Essentials as well, and it does come in a dark chocolate tone!

You’re ready to go!

After you’ve secured your “handler” and your packer go have fun! Go experiment. Maybe pack before you go dancing, or while you’re alone at home cooking dinner. No matter where or how you pack just remember you’re dope and you look great today and always. Don’t forget to take care of your packers! And maybe if y’all feel into this how-to guide I can cover STPS, binders and pack-and-plays in the future. Happy Pride!

You Need Help: How Do I Tell If I’m a Butch Cis Woman or a Trans Non-Binary Person?

From the A+ advice inbox:

Q:

“How do you differentiate between gender-expression feels and gender-itself feels? After a couple years of introspecting on this topic (and playing around with my presentation) I still can’t tell if I’m gender non-conforming, or non-binary, or just a butch-ish cis babe. Any tips to help me find my way?”

A:

Hi friend! First, if I could tell everyone how to differentiate between gender expression feels and gender feels, I’d be Sovereign Ruler of Transness and maybe things would be easier, but probably also a lot less fun. So I can’t give you a 100% straightforward answer. But I do have a few tips on helping you figure out what brings you the most happiness in this world when it comes to a masculine gender presentation and, potentially, some sort of nonbinary gender identity situation (or hey, even some other gender identity situation because there are so many ways to be a human)! They’re things that have worked or not worked for me, so take what sounds good to you and leave the rest! Also, do know that I’m real new — I came out at the end of August 2017. I’m speaking from experience, but I am by no means an authority (if such a thing could even exist). These are all things I wish I’d known in the past two years or so.

First off, I’d recommend separating all of these words and taking them one at a time, picking each individual one up and seeing how you feel about them. First, take “butch.” What, if anything, about “butch” feels correct to you? Make a list of associations you have with the word—do those fit on your body? Do you like the word when it’s applied to you? Next, try the word “cis.” Grab your journal and write that definition down—identifying as the same gender you were assigned at birth. How does it feel to see that? What kinds of things come up for you when you apply it to you? Does it feel good to say it with your mouth? Bad? Just okay? Next try “woman,” something I notice you didn’t say in your question (you went with the word “babe” instead). While you’re at it, try “man” as well. Make lists and sentences for “gender non-conforming” and “non-binary,” taking each on its own terms. Circle all the things that feel correct to you, star them, use stickers and fun pens. Take as long as you need to do it. The reason I tell you to do this is that there’s nothing inherently butch about being transmasculine. I talked to a couple transmasculine nonbinary friends of mine, and many of them have never ever used the word butch to describe themselves. Dapper, sure. Fruity, hell yeah. Some folks who are non-binary identify strongly with the word “boy” (like me!) but don’t feel like “man” belongs anywhere near their body. One person said they were really more of a twink. The magic of this is that getting more specific, even though it can feel really hard, can help untangle things and let’s you pick and choose the things that feel good for you without necessitating choosing something that doesn’t, just because the two feel intertwined somehow. While you’re at it, try to come up with your own definition of gender. Look up a couple different ones—what do you agree with? Disagree with? Don’t simply take the word of the latest and greatest theorist—what do you think it means? What do you think it’s made out of? Because at the end of the day, the way you distinguish between presentation and gender is the way that matters. Not mine, not Judith Butler’s, not anyone else’s. Your gender is BESPOKE.

Don’t just experiment with presentation; people of all genders can look all ways. Grab a couple folks who are close to you and experiment with pronouns and names. Your fave rad trans folks are often real good friends to ask for this because they’ve been there and they know how vulnerable it can feel. A lot of people focus on avoiding dysphoria, which for me feels like a creeping discomfort that’s an icky cross between “I hate my body, no one let me see my body, no one look at my body, I am made of cotton candy and light don’t you dare tell me otherwise” and “I shouldn’t be here, something isn’t right, something bad feels like it’s about to happen” and, occasionally, results in a panic attack. That’s a valid way to go about experimentation! Like, oh, when I do this thing I have a panic attack and when I do this thing I don’t? Hell yeah, you’ve just learned something with that! But don’t forget — gender is fun, too. It isn’t a bleak hellscape of avoiding discomfort forever. So as you experiment, don’t only focus on steering clear of dysphoria. Find the things that bring you gender euphoria as well. If you don’t feel discomfort with she/her pronouns, but your heart rises when you’re called by they/them or he/him? Or hey, maybe you don’t care about pronouns but a neutral name and being called boy make you smile and blush? Those are all valid experiences of gender! And only know it if you try it. So try it all.

I want to prepare you for this experimentation feeling weird at first—I tried they/them pronouns years before I came out to myself and others, and all I felt was discomfort. I felt like people were seeing a part of myself I wasn’t ready for, that I didn’t even know about yet, like everyone was in on a secret about me except for me. Like all of a sudden all my skin had turned transparent and people were watching me digest my food. This might happen to you! And that’s okay. Take your time, and return to the experiment every so often, just to check in. There’s not a finish line to cross or a ticking clock.

I also want you to prepare for the possibility that when you ask someone to participate in this kind of experimentation with you, they might let you down. I had a lot of people let me down about this in some way or another. Letting you down doesn’t necessarily mean that person is bad or malicious or even someone you need to never speak to again. We’re all human and we all make mistakes. But it can, and forgive my language, fuck you up. Accept that and find the folks who will journey with you, sans judgement; keep those folks close to you. Thank them often. And if someone is being evil as you make yourself vulnerable and is engaged in disguised maliciousness? Well. Don’t give them the vulnerable parts of yourself anymore. Honestly, it’s okay not to give the vulnerable parts of yourself to people who are just bad at handling them, too. That’s also fine.

My next huge tip is to make community with trans people and listen to what they have to say. The number one thing that’s helped me sort out how I feel about my identity is talking it out with trans folks, and the community is also my favorite part of being trans. Everyone’s experiences are so different, but you might find yourself relating really hard to the way someone conceptualizes themself. Do their words make you feel seen and loved and like you belong? That’s something to think on. Do you love the words they use and would you like to apply them to your own gender and body? You can use those words too!

On top of making community with trans folks, read books and consume media written and created by trans folks. People are wading through this differentiation swamp every day; a lot of people have made really good art about it. You may find things that speak to your heart. Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of Thomas Page McBee and Daniel Mallory Ortberg. I also read a lot of my friends’ work here on Autostraddle — for great nonbinary writers, check out Audrey White and Al(aina) Monts. For great cartoonists, check out Cameron Glavin, A. Andrews and Archie Bongiovanni. All of our amazing creators here have been so impactful in helping me conceptualize what’s going on with my gender. I’m eternally grateful for their generosity in sharing their experiences.

As you strengthen your community of trans folks and engage in art made by trans folks, I want to prepare you for the possibility of some jealousy. That’s what I felt; every time someone booked top surgery, I’d wish for a reason to book mine (though please note, medical procedures are not necessary for nor necessarily an indication of trans identities!). Every time someone’s pronouns were recognized by the wider world, I’d inexplicably find a way to be sour and jealous about some other aspect of their life. Inevitably, though, these longings always lead me back to wishing I was recognized as trans in the ways they were. I felt mean, and I wish someone had told me it didn’t make me a bad person. Pay attention to where your longing (and your jealousies) lead you, and give yourself permission to try the things you see other people doing and saying that you want to do and say too.

If you have access to a therapist who specializes in this stuff or, at the very least, is trans-competent, I highly recommend taking advantage of that access. Talking things through with a therapist has been invaluable to me, and I wasn’t a person who went to therapy before all this started. If your therapist doesn’t know anything about gender or spouts anti-trans propaganda during your sessions, you should fire your therapist. That therapist isn’t the right one for you at this time.

My third piece of advice: Admitting you’re trans can be super scary because the world right now is super scary, so dig deep and really interrogate whether or not the confusion is masking a desire for safety. It might not be! It might be good ole confusion, and that’s okay! But my confusion was resistance. Every night for years, as I was falling asleep, I thought the fully-formed sentence “I am probably trans and I will never do anything about it.” And then I would promptly forget I had ever thought that sentence. I didn’t remember it until MONTHS after I’d come out, that this had been happening, that it was a pattern. Brains are amazing and we’re good at protecting ourselves. But what feels like safety will eventually become unsustainable, or at least that’s how it was for me. All the little ways I felt horrible as I moved through the world eventually added up and surpassed my threshold for what felt like safety. Is this happening to you as well?

And lastly: Remember that the way you relate to your gender identity and presentation might change during different eras of your life, and that’s okay! Gender isn’t something immutable and innate; humans make it up every day. That’s why what gender means changes based on culture and place. Often we argue for an innateness that doesn’t feel correct to all folks; we argue for it as a protection, as a way to explain to cis people why they should treat trans people like human beings (ugh, I sure wish we didn’t have to do that!). But that doesn’t mean that your gender is fixed. So take some of the pressure off yourself in trying to answer this question, and know that your answer to it will probably change. It’s okay to be in a state of flux; it’s as okay to be sure of something, and be sure of a different thing later. Do what makes you feel good; use the words that feel good to use. And you, my friend, will be just fine.

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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this piece included edits made after publication that attempted to widen the scope of the author’s response beyond their own experience to show a variety of viewpoints. The piece has since been republished as originally written by the author in order to accurately convey their own experience and opinions.

30 Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer Trans Women Who Make Our Worlds Turn

This past March, on the Trans Day of Visibility, Abeni Jones wrote a powerful plea to balance “homicide-focused posting” with “equal amounts of trans-affirming material.” In recent years, there has been a push to commemorate today, The Trans Day of Remembrance, which exists to acknowledge and remember victims of anti-trans violence — who are primarily Black trans woman — as not just a time to remember who we have lost, but to honor who we still have. Abeni wrote:

Overall, the focus on trans murder has an admirable goal — publicly remembering our dead is at its core an effort to show the world that our lives matter — but the way we’ve gone about it has had myriad unintended consequences. If we’re going to shift a culture that does not value black trans women’s lives, we have to shift the way we report on black trans women — including and especially when we report on our deaths. I implore our peers in media, as well as our readers and everyone else who cares about trans people and especially about black trans women — to take this plea to heart and work on creating this necessary shift.

Today, we encourage you to visit the Trans Day of Resilience, an initiative of Forward Together, is an “annual culture shift campaign” designed to uplift the lives and resistance of trans people of color. The HRC released a new report today on the epidemic of violence against transgender people in America, which has claimed at least 22 lives this year. GLAAD has extensive resources on commemorating the Trans Day of Remembrance. You can find a list of honored lives and local events on the official TDOR website. You can find our archive of incredible writing from trans women of color we’ve featured on previous TDORs here.

Although transphobia and particularly transmisogyny permeate mainstream culture, over the past year, there has been a real, shall we say, elevating of anti-trans sentiment from within the queer women’s community specifically. So when thinking about what we could do today to offer hope, as a website targeted at that community and committed to the idea that trans women are women and also that trans women date and love other women, we decided to highlight lesbian, bisexual and queer trans women who are doing incredible things in the world, including, often, finding love with other women or non-binary people.

Some of these women you already know about; some you’ve never heard of. This isn’t a comprehensive list, by any means (and the sexual orientation of many icons we wanted to include was too elusive to grasp), but it’s a start. Tell us about the queer trans women you love in the comments — and remember that we’re always, always, always interested in paying trans women, and especially trans women of color, to write things for this website, and you can submit your work right here.

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Jari Jones

Model / Actress / Singer / Creative

In addition to having one of the most gorgeous instagrams in human history, Jones got her start in theater, appearing in The Public Theater’s “The Runaways,” Here Art Center’s “The Sex Myth: A Devised Play” and Lin Manuel’s “In The Heights.” She has been featured in Pose and recently finished filming a Scorcese film with Leyna Bloom. After successfully working as a fashion photographer, lately Jones has been clocking more time in front of the camera — modeling for Universal Standard, Chromat and The Phluid Project and walking in DapperQ’s New York Fashion Week. If you’re open to the idea that love is not a lie, Jari Jones appeared on Momotaro with her (also trans) girlfriend, Corey Daniella Kemster, looking cute as hell and adorably in love in a feature that detailed their radical, transformative relationship.

instagram: @iamjarijones

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Marcela

Performer and choreographer

Marcela is a founding member of St. Cloud’s premier burlesque and vaudeville revue, Carnivale Revolver, as well as a cast member of Visions of Sugarplims, and Dykes do Drag. She’s a multidisciplinary background interested in subverting conventional notions of eroticism who has performed at Queertopia, Patrick’s Cabaret, the Minneapolis Burlesque Festival, and regular Minneapolis queer variety night Daddy, where she femcees.

Instagram: @marcelampls

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Vivek Shraya

Musician, writer, visual artist

Shraya is multitalented, writing in a range of genres from poetry to literary fiction to Children’s/YA as well as working as a visual artist, with her photo series Trisha, and as a musical artist, most recently with her band Too Attached. Shraya has her own imprint with Arsenal Pulp Press; her most recent book project, I’m Afraid of Men, has been roundly celebrated and acclaimed since its release in August. We interviewed her back in 2016 and Kai Cheng Thom, also on this list, reviewed her latest album in 2017!
Twitter: @vivekshraya
Instagram: @vivekshraya

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Exquisite

Disco Musician, Sateen

Exquisite first got underground-famous in the New York nightlife as one-half of a “sensationalized ‘hetero drag couple’ with her wife and bandmate, Queen Sateen. Then she came out as trans, the two became “glamorous lesbian wives and, last year, released the Sateen EP, which OUT describes as “a flamboyant celebration of the couples journey, channeling their collective queerness into music that’s equally a political war cry and flashy pop project. Proudly femme and proudly independent vintage disco musicians with a very sexy instagram presence, they just wrapped up a national tour and were named one of the “50 LGBTQ Musicians You Should Prioritize” by Paper Magazine.

instagram: @sateenmusic
soundcloud: sateen

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Jess Herbst

Former Mayor of New Hope, Texas

Jess Herbst became the first openly gay mayor in Texas when she was appointed Mayor pro-tem after the incumbent Mayor passed away.  She served for two years. Prior to that, she served the city as alderman, road commissioner, and head of public works. In January 2017, Herbst made news by waiting in line until 3:15 am to speak in front of the Texas Legislature to opposed Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s “bathroom bill.” When she was voted out this May, Herbst told NBC News she now has her eyes set on the state house of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Twitter: @_jessherbst

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Munroe Bergdorf

Model, Social Activist, Writer

Bergdorf is an Afro-Jamaican-English model from the UK who started modeling in her early twenties while hosting a club night called “Pussy Palace. She now regularly appears on television (including in her BBC documentary “What Makes a Woman”) and has been featured in magazines including Vogue, i-D, LOVE, Dazed and Playboy. In 2018, Cosmopolitan declared her ‘Disrupter of the Year’, she scored a spot on the Out 100 and she joined Dazed Beauty as their LGBTQ+ editor. She is in a relationship with the very hot and brilliant French photographer Ava Fersi.

website: mbergdorf
instagram: @munroebergdorf
twitter: @munroebergdorf

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Alexandra Billings

Actress

Alexandra Billings is on of the most celebrated trans actresses in TV history. Her resume includes ER, Eli Stone, Goliath, Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder, and a critically acclaimed role on Transparent. In 2016 she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and this year the Online Film & Television Association nominated her for Best Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. She’s also won the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award. If you watch her present the 2015 commencement speech at CSULB College of the Arts, you can hear her talk about how she originally met her wife when they were 16 years old!

Instagram: @therealalexandrabillings

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Noel’le Longhaul

Tattoo Artist & Musician

Broadly writes that Longhaul’s incredible artwork “combines the gloomy delicacy of an Edward Gorey illustration with the familiar nature iconography drawn from folklore: ravens, twisted vines and wildflowers, and beasts of prey. A self-taught tattoo artist based in Massachusetts, she also plays in the band Loone (“queer dirges and hymnals. Doom and flight”) and is part of Lupinewood, an arts, organizing and living collective by/for trans people in Western Massachusetts. According to her instagram, she is married to Beyon Wren Moor, a trans Cree/Ukraninan artist and activist.

instagram: @laughingloone // @noellelonghaul

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Angelica Ross

Actress

Angelica Ross is probably best known for her brilliant acting on Her Story (which was nominated for an Emmy Award for  Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama) and Pose — but she’s also founder and CEO of TransTech Social Enterprises, which she created to help trans people in the tech industry, after teaching herself to code. She’s also guest starred on Transparent and Doubt.

Twitter: @angelicaross
Instagram: @angelicaross

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Victoria Kolakowski

Lawyer and Judge

Kolakowski, who has served as the judge of the Alameda County Superior Court since January 2011, was the first openly transgender person to serve as a trial court judge of general jurisdiction in the United States, the first elected to a judgeship, and the first to serve as any type of judge in California. She’s also a retired ordained minister in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, has been honored by the East Bay Lesbian/Gay Democratic Club, Equality California and the Minority Bar Coalition (among others) and, in 2008, married Cynthia Laird, news editor of The Bay Area Reporter. She’s currently hoping that Gavin Newsom will become the first U.S. governor to appoint an out trans person to a judgeship by appointing her to the California Supreme Court, which would make her the first out lesbian trans woman to hold that position.

twitter: @vkolakowski

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Jen Richards

Actress

Jen Richards starred alongside Angelica Ross in the Emmy-nominated Her Story, after which she became the first trans actress on CMT when she landed a role on Nashville. She’s also guest starred on Doubt, Better Things,Take My Wife, and Blindspot. She’s currently working on HBO’s adaptation of Miss Fletcher; she’ll play the recurring role of Margo Fairchild, “a transgender woman who teaches Eve’s community college writing course.” She’s also our friend and co-led an incredible film development workshop at A-Camp X.

Twitter: @SmartAssJen
Instagram: @SmartAssJen

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J. Jennifer Espinoza

Poet & Sad Girl

J. Jennifer Espinoza is a California-based poet who describes herself as “the gayest gay who ever gayed. Her poems have been published in Granta, Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Lambda Literary, The Offing and in her debut full-length collection, There Should Be Flowers, published in 2016; her first book, 2014’s i’m alive / it hurts / i love, and the chapbook she put out this year, OUTSIDE OF THE BODY THERE IS SOMETHING LIKE HOPE. Her work, wrote Kai Cheng, “articulates the expression of feminine sadness… as a necessary political theme, in opposition to prevailing social attitudes that characterize sad girls as frivolous and shallow.” Despite the sadness, she is reportedly happily married to a very lovely girl.

twitter: @sadgirlforlife

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Jazz Jennings

Actress

After appearing in several high profile interviews and documentaries in her childhood, pansexual actress Jazz Jennings started her own YouTube series, I Am Jazz. The concept was ultimately picked up and broadcast on TLC starting in 2015. It’s been running for four seasons. Jennings voiced a young trans character on Amazon’s celebrated animated series Danger & Eggs and has already published a memoir, Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen. Most recently, Tonner Doll Company announced a trans doll, the first of its kind, to be based on Jennings.

Twitter: @jazzjennings__
Instagram: @jazzjennings_

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Raquel Willis

Writer

Raquel Willis is a National Organizer for the Transgender Law Center and a Jack Jones Literary Arts Sylvia Rivera Fellow. Last year, Essence named her one of the Woke 100 Women. In addition to her activism, she is also a pop culture critic. Her writing has been featured all over the internet, including right here at Autostraddle dot com. She was also the last host of Black Girl Dangerous’ BGD Podcast.

Twitter: @RaquelWillis_
Instagram: @raquel_willis

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Gabby Bellot

Writer

Gabby Bellot is one of the most celebrated trans writers working on the internet today. She’s a staff writer for Literary Hub and her work has also appeared in “the New Yorker, the New York Times, The Atlantic, Shondaland, Guernica, Slate, Tin House, The Paris Review Daily, The Los Angeles Review of Books, New York Magazine’s The Cut, VICE, The Normal School, Electric Literature, Lambda Literary, The Toast, TOR.com, the Caribbean Review of Books, Small Axe” — and oh, hey, on Autostraddle!

Twitter: @gabbybellot

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Avery Edison

Comedian

London-based lesbian comedian Avery Edison has been published in The Bygone Bureau, The Guardian, McSweeney’s and The Toast and has performed across the U.S. and Canada. She also sells hot pics of herself and sexts she’s sent for money on the internet, which is an admirable side hustle. You can download her essay collection, Right Body Wrong Junk, here.

twitter: @aedison

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Hari Nef

Actress

Hari Nef made her modeling debut in 2015 at New York Fashion Week; afterward, she became the first openly trans woman to sign with IMG Models. During last year’s Golden Globes, her first L’Oréal Paris commercial — which she starred in with Blake Lively, Lara Stone, and Xiao Wen Ju — premiered. Nef if also an actress. She’s guest starred on HBO’s Camping and snagged recurring roles on both Transparent and Lifetime’s You.

Twitter: @harinef
Instagram: @harinef

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Teddy Geiger

Musician

Teddy Geiger got her start with Columbia Records in 2006 with her album Underage Thinking; her debut single from the album, “For You I Will (Confidence),” reached #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went platinum in the U.S. These days Geiger mostly writes and produces for other artists, including One Direction, James Blunt, and Shawn Mendes. She’s also very recently engaged to Emily Hampshire, an actress you may recognize from Schitt’s Creek. They are very cute.

Twitter: @teddygeiger
Instagram: @teddygeiger

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Gwen Benaway

Poet/writer

Celebrated poet with three currently published books available, Benaway has been published in many national publications, including CBC Arts, Maclean’s Magazine, and the Globe and Mail. In her most recent, Holy Wild, Benaway explores the complexities of being an Indigenous trans woman in expansive lyric poems. Benaway is of Anishinaabe and Métis descent; her fourth collection of poetry, Aperture, is forthcoming from Book*hug in Spring 2020.

Twitter: @GwenBenaway
Instagram: @RunawaySupernova

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Tourmaline Gossett

Filmmaker, speaker and trainer

Tourmaline Gossett wrote, directed and produced Happy Birthday, Marsha! along with Sasha Wortzel, and has served on the Activist-In-Residence at Barnard College’s Center for Research on Women, where she produced and directed No One Is Disposable. Along with Eric Stanley and Johanna Burton, Tourmaline is an editor of the forthcoming New Museum anthology on trans art and cultural production to be published by MIT Press in 2017. She’s currently working on a short animated film, The Personal Things, about Miss Major. We spoke with her about everyday activism back in 2015!

Twitter: @tourmaliiine
Instagram: @tourmaliiine

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Laura Jane Grace

Musician

Laura Jane Grace famously came out in 2012 in the pages of Rolling Stone as the already-famous frontwoman of Against Me! She later also penned Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout. Her newest project, Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers, released their debut album Bought to Rot this month.

Twitter: @LauraJaneGrace
Instagram: @laurajanegrace

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Ryka Aoki

Writer

Ryka Aoki is the author of Seasonal Velocities, He Mele a Hilo (A Hilo Song) and Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul. She’s been in the recent documentaries “Diagnosing Difference and “Riot Acts,” and was the inaugural performer for the first ever Transgender Stage at San Francisco Pride, and is a former national judo champion and the founder of the International Transgender Martial Arts Alliance.

Twitter: @ryka_aoki
Instagram: @rykaaoki

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Martine Rothblatt

Lawyer, author, and engineer

Rothblatt is the CEO of GeoStar and the creator of Sirius XM Radio; she’s also an aviator who flew the world’s first electric-powered full-size helicopter. She’s married to Bina Aspen and the couple have four children; she has also explored building robots and AI sentience, including of her of her wife. She’s also a pastor for the Terasem Movement, a transhumanist school of thought focused on promoting joy, diversity, and the prospect of technological immortality via mind uploading and geoethical nanotechnology.

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Andrea Jenkins

City Councilwoman in Minneapolis

In addition to her political career, Jenkins is a performance artist, poet and writer who has worked with Trans Lives Matter, served as the Grand Marshal in the Twin Cities Pride Parade, and has masters’ degrees in creative writing and community economic development. She worked for 10 years as a vocational counselor in Hennepin County before winning her election to City Council in 2017 with 70% of the vote.

Twitter: @andreaforward8
Instagram: @shesgotgame1

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Kai Cheng Thom

Writer and social worker

Kai Cheng Thom has written two literary books, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir and poetry collection A Place Called No Homeland, as well as cowriting children’s book From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea. Cheng Thom has also published essays and critical work, including on Autostraddle.com. She is the recipient of the 2017 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for Emerging LGBT Writers.
Twitter: @razorfemme

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Sophie Bee

Party hostess, speaker and organizer

Sophie Bee is resident host of Formerly Known As, and self-described bisexual transsexual as well as advocate for sex workers. She organizes for sex workers’ rights, autonomy and safety in the Chicago area.

Twitter: @pogform
Instagram: @vontenbateau

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Gigi Gorgeous

YouTuber, Socialite, Actress & Model

Gigi Lazzarato has grown up on YouTube, and in 2017 released her full-length documentary This is Everything: Gigi Gorgeous. She’s also appeared in the short film I Hate My Selfie, and appeared on TV series like Me and My Grandma, Nightcap, and Project Runway. She’s now engaged to Getty heiress and clothing designer Nats Getty, has appeared on the cover of Paper Magazine and been featured in Galore, People, Refinery29 and Out.

twitter: @TheGigiGorgeous
instagram: @GigiGorgeous

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Fallon Fox

MMA Fighter

Fox is the first openly trans athlete in MMA history, as well as having served in the US Navy. She came out as trans in 2013, and was inducted into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame in 2014. In the face of public controversy and attacks from opponents like Ronda Rousey, she’s used her platform to speak out and educate about the realities of trans athletes competing in sports divided by gender.

Twitter: @fallonfox
Instagram: @fallon_fox