Janet Mock Schools Us, Inspires Us, Makes Us Cry on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday!
Towards the end of Janet Mock’s memoir Redefining Realness, she quotes Oprah Winfrey, saying “Your past does not define you. You can step out of your history and create a new day for yourself. Even if the entire culture is saying, ‘You can’t.’ Even if every single possible bad thing that can happen to you does. You can keep going forward.” So it only makes sense that on her journey as a writer and trans advocate, she would eventually end up sitting across from the very woman she quoted, taking even more steps to create that new day for herself.
Much of the conversation was spent discussing things from Redefining Realness, about Mock’s young life and how she navigated her girlhood as a girl who was told that she was supposed to be a boy. She told a story of being in kindergarten and seeing a cubby hole painted blue with her birth name on it, and how she just wanted to be able to change the name and color on that box, and how she knew that society was telling her those feelings were wrong. She talked about how knowing that she was really a girl was her first conviction, it was the first thing she knew for sure about herself. They talked about Janet being a young girl and making her father proud by playing “smear the queer,” because that’s what a boy was supposed to do. They talked about how for a while, neither she nor her parents had the language to describe who she was.
Oprah also admitted that she didn’t have all the language to talk about trans people, and asked Mock for help with that. Oprah said that she became comfortable talking about sexuality as a spectrum a long time ago, but she, and much of society, still isn’t caught up on talking about gender the same way. When Mock told her that no, she didn’t really used to be a boy, and she definitely wasn’t born a boy, Oprah was openly confused. But this wasn’t like what we’ve seen before with other interviewers being confused about how to talk to or about trans women recently. This was an honest, open and vulnerable conversation where Oprah was invited to make mistakes and ask questions, and most importantly find answers. Mock told her, “Because of the appearance of my genitals I was told that I needed to love a woman and be masculine. As I gained agency in my life, I was able to rebut that.” She was able to say that she was a girl and assert that identity no matter what other people thought she looked like. I really liked the way she put it, “what becomes fact? Was the truth I felt as a child fact, or is what society says a fact?”
Maybe my favorite moment of the entire interview was when they talked about Janet’s friend Wendi. If you recall from the book, she was the first person to acknowledge that young Janet was a trans girl, introducing herself by asking, “Mary! you mahu?” (using a Hawaiian term that can be loosely translated to ‘transgender.’) Watching Janet Mock tear up and say “At twelve years old I was given the gift of having a best friend who saw me,” was enough to destroy my heart and force me to pause the interview because I was crying too much. She talks about what a pivotal moment it was to have this friend who reflected who she was really was when everyone else was trying to deny that, and it was beautiful.
We’re lucky to have someone like Janet Mock as such a vocal advocate for trans people. She talks openly about her “pretty privilege” and how that makes her life safer and makes some parts of being trans easier. She’s very specific about how she tells her story, and she also makes sure to point out that it’s only hers. While she sees herself as having always been a girl ever since she was able to name herself, she points out that others might not identify that way. While she had surgery, she points out that there are plenty of women who are fine with never doing that. The main message that she sends is that, in a world where there’s so much that other people say that we are, we need to find our own truth and our own “most authentic self.”
As always, Mock was at the top of her game, mixing real education and information about trans women with incredibly moving stories from her personal life. There’s a moment where Oprah has to pause and take a little moment for herself before continuing on to say that she now realizes what the message of Mock’s book is. She says she had an “a-ha” moment and that she understands that the trans struggle is a universal one, that the message of the book is “I want you to see me for who I really am.” So many people are struggling to figure out a way to wrap their minds around trans people, and here Oprah and Janet Mock are able to boil it down to this simple sentence.
While the news media is still buzzing about another recent interview with a trans woman, Janet Mock sat down with Oprah and delivered one of the best discussions about trans issues I’ve ever seen on television. Oprah said, “Redefining Realness is the beginning of a new way of thinking about sexuality and gender,” and that Mock is a “trailblazing leader of this movement,” and I couldn’t agree more. This interview is a must-watch for anyone who wants to understand more about trans people, anyone who wants to be inspired to live their truth and anyone who wants to see an interview with a truly amazing, powerful and world-changing woman named Janet Mock.
You can watch the whole interview here.
25 Women Who Shook Things Up in 2014
Women. They’re so great! They do so many fucking awesome things! And so often, end-of-the-year recap lists will gloss over their accomplishments or contributions. I say f*ck that, real hard. So here’s my own list of 25 women who shook things up in 2014 – be it in politics, pop culture, or our hearts. (In alphabetical order, because ranking women is tired.)
Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi
When Twitter exploded with dialogues about racism, police brutality, and the widespread killing of unarmed black men by law enforcement officers, they were united by one trending topic: the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, which has become its own movement and a catch-all for organizing around these issues and posting updates on similar stories from around the world. It’s also a call to action, a defiant spit in the face to a culture that devalues the lives of people of color, and a rallying cry.
And it was invented by three black queer women.
Garza told the story of how she and her sisters, Cullors and Tometi, came together to launch the digital revolution (and now, an offline organizing structure) after the death of Trayvon Martin – and how, since its remergence after the death of Mike Brown, it has been stolen and co-opted, at the Feminist Wire:
Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.
We were humbled when cultural workers, artists, designers and techies offered their labor and love to expand #BlackLivesMatter beyond a social media hashtag. Opal, Patrisse, and I created the infrastructure for this movement project—moving the hashtag from social media to the streets. Our team grew through a very successful Black Lives Matter ride, led and designed by Patrisse Cullors and Darnell L. Moore, organized to support the movement that is growing in St. Louis, MO, after 18-year old Mike Brown was killed at the hands of Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. We’ve hosted national conference calls focused on issues of critical importance to Black people working hard for the liberation of our people. We’ve connected people across the country working to end the various forms of injustice impacting our people. We’ve created space for the celebration and humanization of Black lives.
Beyoncé
Another year, another surprise album, another round of empowering feminist antics, another year I’m addicted to listening to “Drunk in Love.” Here’s to a brighter and more Bey-filled future. Also, remember when she made us queer couples some matching underthings?
Cheryl Strayed
When Wild became a movie and the “Dear Sugar” column got a podcast this year, everyone’s life and ability to be deeply moved or feel less alone in the world grew exponentially. Also, Cheryl Strayed shared Riese’s deeply moving essay about her dead dad on Facebook this year and pretty much everyone on the team exploded. I’m pouring one out for Cheryl Strayed at midnight for breaking the trope of only men taking journeys in literature, being played by Reese Witherspoon, and also being generally amazing. Join me.
Elizabeth Warren
Senator Elizabeth Warren has never been one to back down. In A Fighting Chance, her book released this year, she told a story about a meeting she had with President Obama’s Chief Economic Advisor, Larry Summers, in 2009. Warren had come out swinging, as she is known to do, against the government’s response to the economic crisis. And, as she often finds herself, she spoke to him when she was in conflict with her own party.
Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. … He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule. They don’t criticize other insiders.
I had been warned.
Warren has never backed down, and she’s become known as a populist hero for decrying policies from both sides of the aisle that attack the middle and lower classes in America. Recently, she gained even more notoriety for a pointed speech on the floor condemning the now-passed spending bill package, in which Wall Street got first priority and women’s rights and human rights got the shaft:
“Mr. President, Democrats don’t like Wall Street bailouts,” Warren said. “Republicans don’t like Wall Street bailouts. The American people are disgusted by Wall Street bailouts. And yet here we are five years after Dodd-Frank with Congress on the verge of ramming through a provision that would do nothing for the middle class, do nothing for community banks, do nothing but raise the risk that taxpayers will have to bail out the biggest banks once again…
“You know, there is a lot of talk lately about how Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. There is a lot of talk coming from CitiGroup about how Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect,” Warren continued. “So let me say this to anyone listening at Citi —I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. It should have broken you into pieces. If this Congress is going to open up Dodd-Frank in the months ahead then let’s open it up to get tougher, not to create more bailout opportunities.”
Ellen Page
It was the coming out heard ’round the world, and especially around the Internet. It was also the moment where all of our dirtiest dreams became a little more possible. For that, Ellen Page deserves everything.
Emma Sulkowicz
The movement to end campus sexual assault has been gaining momentum for years, but no act of resistance against institutions of higher education that fail survivors captured America’s interest quite like “Carry That Weight,” Columbia University art student and survivor Emma Sulkowicz’s performance piece. As part of her final project in the program, Sulcowicz carried a mattress everywhere she went on campus in order to raise awareness and provoke dialogue around the 1 in 5 women there and at colleges around the nation who will survive sexual assault or rape while they’re pursuing higher education.
The piece ultimately launched a national day of action in which activists around the country carried mattresses or pillowcases to school, work, or the local coffee shop with them emblazoned with messages of support for survivors.
Erica Garner, Lesley McSpadden, Maria Hamilton, Samaria Rice, Sylvia Palmer, et al.
The women who now live without their fathers and sons due to police brutality have banded together across the nation to launch a movement for justice. And together, they are unstoppable.
Lesley McSpadden, mother to unarmed black teen Mike Brown from Ferguson, Missouri, has been supportive of protests nationwide in her son’s name and is pushing for the Mike Brown Law, which would mandate that all police wear body cameras in the United States. Maria Hamilton, whose son Dontre Hamilton was gunned down by a now-fired Chicago police officer while running away in fear, has not stopped fighting for justice for him and all victims of a racist and violent police state. Sylvia Palmer, mother to Akai Gurley – who was shot on sight by a patrolling officer in his public housing unit while walking up the stairs – has voiced support for activists on the ground while pushing for better leadership in the movement to end lethal police force and racist policing. Erica Garner, whose father Eric Garner was killed by police in Staten Island after being held in an illegal chokehold (despite repeating, multiple times, that he couldn’t breathe), has consistently participated in die-ins and marches in the area, sometimes even lying in the spot on the sidewalk where her father died. Samaria Rice, mother to the 12-year old boy, Tamir Rice, who was shot within seconds by Cleveland police for wielding a toy gun at a park, joined the families of Garner, Brown, Trayvon Martin, and John Crawford III in Washington, DC to demand federal action to end excessive force in policing and its disproportionate impact on the black community.
Since Mike Brown’s death, one black person has been murdered by police every single week. That’s why the fight isn’t over, and it’s why these women aren’t backing down.
Issa Rae
Remember that time one spectacular human being launched ColorCreative.TV and gave Brittani Nichols a platform to do her thing and turn former Autostraddle webseries “Words With Girls” into a bonafide show on the small screen? Yeah, that was Issa Rae of “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” and that sh*t all went down this year. Did you watch the WWG trailer yet, PS? Do it before midnight and you won’t turn into a pumpkin!
Janet Mock
Janet Mock truly outdid herself this year. In between publishing Redefining Realness and launching its corresponding social media movement, taking number-one douchebag Piers Morgan to hell and back, and redefining trans activism through only sheer glamour, she landed herself on the Root 100 and the Trans 100, asked us what it’s like to be cis, and encouraged our love for the words of women of color. Also, she spoke words to us right here on Autostraddle dot com in January! Basically, she’s everything and I’m completely okay with it.
Jacqueline Woodson
Author Jacqueline Woodson should have spent her night at the National Book Awards this November celebrating her victory in the Young People’s Literature category for her book Brown Girl Dreaming. Instead, total prick Lemony Snicket made a racist watermelon joke about her on stage and basically made everyone there uncomfortable and highly aware of what a series of unfortunate events actually looks like.
Luckily, she took him down. And with her words, no less:
I would have written “Brown Girl Dreaming” if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we’ve come through. Their great-great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War. Their great-grandfather, Hope, and great-grandmother, Grace, raised one of the few black families in Nelsonville, Ohio, and saw five children through college. Their grandmother’s school in Greenville, Sterling High, was set on fire and burned to the ground.
To know that we African-Americans came here enslaved to work until we died but didn’t die, and instead grew up to become doctors and teachers, architects and presidents — how can these children not carry this history with them for those many moments when someone will attempt to make light of it, or want them to forget the depth and amazingness of their journey?
How could I come from such a past and not know that I am on a mission, too?
This mission is what’s been passed down to me — to write stories that have been historically absent in this country’s body of literature, to create mirrors for the people who so rarely see themselves inside contemporary fiction, and windows for those who think we are no more than the stereotypes they’re so afraid of. To give young people — and all people — a sense of this country’s brilliant and brutal history, so that no one ever thinks they can walk onto a stage one evening and laugh at another’s too often painful past.
Jessica Williams
It was a really important year for conversations around street harassment – specifically, about racism in the movement to end catcalling and about ending a culture in which women and queer people are inundated with invasive and unwelcome accostment on the street every day. But one conversation nobody needs to have or really listen to or even acknowledge exists is the one in which men try as hard as their feeble minds will let them to justify a society in which women’s bodies are objects apparently put here for them to yell creepy and gross things at without our permission! Luckily, Jessica Williams from The Daily Show swooped in and shut that entire motherfucking mess down. Boom. Clap. The sound of patriarchy slowly, slowly dying.
Jill Soloway
Jill Soloway produced this show “Transparent” about a trans woman and her family that had hella queer characters, has a badass trans lady writer in the staff room, and motivated Rachel to recap something for this website. ‘Nuff said.
Kate McKinnon
We’ve loved super-funny and super-gay comedian Kate McKinnon here at Autostraddle for a long, long time – so imagine our excitement when she nabbed an American Comedy Award and appeared in totally great totally not-about-a-dude movie Life Partners this year! Plus, she earned an Emmy nod for her amazing work over the last few years on “Saturday Night Live,” which might give me a reason to start watching it again. All in all, it sounds like it’s been McKinnon’s year to shine on.
Kristin Russo and Dannielle Owens-Reid
First came the book that Maddie read with her amazing family members (This Is A Book for Parents of Gay Kids), then came the hilarious video tour and also the videos for those parents, then came the collaborative ‘zine project with this great place called Autostraddle that, rumors have it, is also a unicorn factory. One thing is for sure: Kristin Russo and Dannielle Owens-Reid of Everyone Is Gay put a lot of amazing shit into the world this year, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Laura Jane Grace
When Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace came out in 2012 as transgender, we were excited to see where it took her career and the punk band so close to our angsty hearts. As it turns out, there was nowhere to go for the rock-n-roll icon than up. This year, Against Me’s new album debuted higher on the Billboard charts than any of their previous work, and Grace also filmed a reality show for AOL. The good news out of 2014 is that we’re gonna be seeing a lot of Laura Jane Grace for years to come, and that can never be a bad thing.
Laverne Cox
In 2014, Laverne Cox got a book deal, deeply moved us when it came to the topic of the revolutionary act of loving trans women, won a GLAAD award, landed the cover of TIME and also the cover of The Advocate, became the first-ever trans Emmy Award nominee, taught Katie Couric a thing or two, and used her power for good to shine the light on trans youth.
I’m guessing the reason Beyoncé gave Cox a Christmas gift is because she realized exactly which girl is truly running the world.
May-Britt Moser
Remember that time May-Britt Moser, psychologist and neuroscientist, won the Nobel Prize for figuring out the cells that make up the brain’s positioning system? I’m worried not enough of us do.
Mo’ne Davis
Mere teenager Mo’ne Davis, who was the first girl to throw a shutout in Little League World Series history and the first little league player on the cover of Sports Illustrated, also became the AP’s 2014 Athlete of the Year this month. This alone might motivate me to begin watching young people play games without the motivation of monetary gain.
Nicki Minaj
I know y’all knew this was coming. I mean, remember when Nicki Minaj taught us everything we needed to know about female sexuality and empowerment and also gave us a reason to listen to that great song about loving big butts and not being able to lie about? And remember when she released “The Pinkprint,” an introspective and multifaceted album that melts genres and also your heart? I will never forget. I will always remember. 2014 is the year Nicki Minaj came back bigger, better, and more bootylicious than ever. Let’s hope she gets a Grammy or two to prove it.
Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay released two completely delicious and amazing reads this year, told Autostraddle some of her queer story, and became the butter to your toast. What more could we, as the collective world, ask for?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
I’m of the opinion that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – known more formally as “The Notorious RBG” – shakes up everything every year. But this year, she took on voter suppression, contraception access, and more, all with her usual flair and also her usual absolute perfection in every way. Then, she announced she was pretty much never throwing in her robe. For that, she wins the year once again.
Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Rhimes gave us an amazing gift this year with the release of “How to Get Away With Murder,” a totally and unapologetically homosexy drama that pairs well with her first totally amazing drama, “Scandal.” Afterward, she gave us this forever powerful and incomparably on-point series of thoughts on the glass ceiling:
“Do they know I haven’t broken through any glass ceilings,” I asked my publicist. He assures me that I have. I assure him that I have not. I have not broken through any glass ceilings. If I had broken through any glass ceilings, I would know. If I had broken through a glass ceiling, I would have felt some cuts, I would have some bruises, there’d be shards of glass in my hair… If I’d broken the glass ceiling, that would mean I made it through to the other side, where the air is rare. I would feel the wind on my face.
Sleater-Kinney
I don’t think I need to explain how a band that probably made a really big impact on your younger, queer riot grrl self reuniting (and it feels so good) made 2014 kick ass. But in case you needed a reminder, THE SLEATER-KINNEY INDEFINITE HIATUS IS OFFICIALLY OVER. Put a bird on that and tweet it, bitches.
St. Vincent
There’s not much more to say here.
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh
Artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh’s response to street harassment – posters telling folks to “stop asking women to smile” and reminding them that, like, women are people, too – was perfect from the start late in 2013, but this year it made waves within the feminist community as it spread across the Internet and tattooed itself on our hearts and souls. In the midst of dialogue about women of color and street a harassment, a woman of color stood up and fought street harassment in quite possibly my favorite way ever. For that, I am eternally grateful, and I believe you probably are, too.
Top 10 Queer and Feminist Books of 2014
Feature image via shutterstock.
2014 has been really excellent for a ton of new queer/feminist things to read. Here are some of the best.
The Top 10 Queer/Feminist Books of 2014
10. Texts From Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg
Texts From Jane Eyre is a compilation, including new material, of Mallory Ortberg’s popular texts from series. The point is less that popular canonical literary characters have phones, and more that depicting them through vapid, hilarious text message means they are dismantled, with a dash of misandry. In a review at the LARB, Sarah Mesle argues Texts From has created a whole new genre of literary criticism and expression:
“Texts from Jane Eyre isn’t really another book in the mode of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — a book I enjoy, but which stages the collision between high literature and mass culture as a joke for its own sake. Texts from Jane Eyre, by contrast, uses that collision to pointed satiric effect.
The better comparison might be that Texts from Jane Eyre is to literary culture what The Daily Show is to politics: both use satire to expose the contradictions and absurdity enabling powerful figures. And Ortberg’s satire matters because it is fantastically able to express women’s anger toward men: men both real, and imagined.”
9. Playing The Whore by Melissa Gira Grant
In Playing the Whore, Melissa Gira Grant argues that sex workers are entitled to the same rights as people in any other field, and that insisting that sex workers – and everyone – must love their jobs or risk losing them is harmful. In an interview with Carmen at Autostraddle right before Playing The Whore was published, Grant says:
“I wanted to document and question the various interests involved in insisting that any sex workers who for whatever reason still want to do sex work are both an insignificant minority and a dire threat — because they shatter stereotypes, sure, but also because they insist on speaking for themselves. Writing the essay [that led to the book] pulled my perspective around sex work into a new focus, shifting from sex workers’ experiences (including my own) to those people who want to speak for sex workers. Anti-sex work activists, police, politicians, journalists — these people produce fantasies about sex work that bear even less relationship to sex workers’ own lives than what sex workers get paid to play out with customers. Writing this was a classic script flip.”
8. Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
In Redefining Realness, Janet Mock tells her coming-of-age story with a backdrop of the intersection that “bridge[s] between those communities, between the queer and trans community and women of color communities.” In an interview with Rookie, Mock says:
“Those words [i.e., intersectionality] are very powerful tools for describing this oppression, and it’s great that some people have access to them. But most people don’t. For me, it was super important to not use those terms in the book, because they exclude a lot of people who don’t have educational access, or who may not be engaged in social-justice stuff but who want to be enlightened about things and have their political consciousnesses raised a bit. I wanted to write the book for everyone—including that girl who I was in seventh grade who didn’t even know the term transgender. I wanted to give her a book so she could also feel like she was in the know, without being talked down to or made to feel like she has to aspire to something “higher” when she already has all the knowledge she needs to define her own experience. It’s not for me to define it for her. So I wanted to use words and language that she understands.”
7. Women In Clothes edited by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton
Women In Clothes is a collaborative, lengthy, multi-form anthology that uses survey answers, personal essays, interviews, discussions, illustrations, photography and more to examine the relationships between women and the way they present themselves. At the Rumpus, Amy Feltman writes:
“In our conversation, Ms. Julavits emphasized the plasticity and continued evolution of the project. The book includes such diverse contributions as essays on perfume selection, whether to wear lipstick as a female Israeli soldier, and wardrobe choices as an Orthodox Jewish woman in an MFA program. […]
Ultimately, it is the multiplicity of perspectives that makes Women in Clothes an immersive, fascinating experience—“un-put-downable,” to borrow a term from a friend. The book is well-balanced between serious, insightful journalism (an essay by human rights journalist Mac McClelland, an account of a collapsed clothing factory in Bangladesh) and pleasurable self-reflection (Julavits’s piece on a misplaced mitten and the downfall of refusing to accept loss). The reader feels included in an intimate, ongoing conversation about the relationship between our physical and emotional selves.”
6. A Cup of Water Under My Bed by Daisy Hernández
Former Colorlines editor Daisy Hernández calls her new memoir on sexuality, family, and class and race her attempt “to answer the questions I had. What did it mean to be bi coming from a Cuban-Colombian home? What did it mean that I longed to be normal?” In a review at Feministing, Juliana Britto Schwartz writes:
“Hernandez’s coming-of-age memoir, A Cup of Water Under My Bed, explores some of the questions we face as young adults navigating gender, race, migration and sexuality in a world that imposes such strict borders on us. She writes her experiences as a queer Latina and daughter of immigrants like a compilation of anecdotes which ultimately tell a whole history.”
5. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes reads partly like a coming-of-age memoir and partly like an anti-patriarchial reclamation of death and dying. It is gross and it is glorious. (You can read an excerpt at NRP.) In a later chapter, Doughty writes:
“We can wander further into the death dystopia, denying that we will die and hiding dead bodies from our sight. Making that choice means we will continue to be terrified and ignorant of death, and the huge role it plays in how we live our lives. Let us instead reclaim our mortality, writing our own Ars Moriendi for the modern world with bold, fearless strokes.”
4. Like A Beggar by Ellen Bass
The latest poetry collection from Ellen Bass is structural, naked, vivid, and sexy in the sense of “contains lesbian sex.” In a review at the Rumpus, Julie Enszer writes:
“Bass’s deftness as a poet is breathtaking in Like a Beggar. By which I mean: I am left breathless reading these poems and witnessing her control of the line. Then, I am equally awed by my own breathlessness, which Bass, of course, has elicited artfully through her control. Reading each poem I feel as though I have been walking up and down the hills of Esalen with her. Like a Beggar sings with the clarity of a single voice alone in a large concert hall and with the gravitas of a full chorus in the finale of a sold out opera. These poems are large in their ambitions and precise in their observations.”
3. The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
Sarah Waters’s latest historical novel, set in 1922 London, comes predictably highly praised and centers on the love affair between Frances, who lives in a house newly divided with an apartment for renters, and Lilian, one of the renters. Also there is a murder. In her Year of Reading at the Millions, Emily Gould writes:
“[I]t’s a gripping page-turner in addition to being perfectly written and it’s about something important and real. I wonder whether reviewers’ understandable reticence about revealing the plot twist that changes the book halfway through from masterful historical portraiture to something more like a thriller made it a harder sell than it ought to have been? Anyway, if you like interwar London, fraught lesbian secret affairs, and hot sex scenes, plus crime, punishment, and hard moral questions that keep you thinking long after the book is over — I mean, it’s just hard to imagine anyone not loving this book.”
2. An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
Essayist, short story writer and internet hero Roxane Gay’s debut novel is about a woman who is kidnapped and held for thirteen days and who must then find her way back to herself. In the LARB, Eric Newman writes:
“An Untamed State is a novel about the cultural politics of belonging, and the precarious condition of women in a world organized by male violence. It is important to remember that it is also an exploration of a particular historical moment and place. Gay writes about a Haiti ‘that belonged to men who obeyed no kind of law.’ […]
Looking back on her experience, Mireille reasons that there are at least three Haitis: ‘The country Americans know and the country Haitians know and the country I thought I knew.’ Haiti might ultimately be unknowable to Mireille and Gay’s American readers, but An Untamed State works to illuminate the difference that sutures that unknowability across national borders. Readers won’t forget this painful, beautiful, and important novel.”
1. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
In her first essay collection, Roxane Gay addresses gender, sexuality, race and pop culture. Everything about it is amazing. In an edited version of the introduction at Buzzfeed, Gay writes:
“I’m trying to lead, in a small, imperfect way. I am raising my voice as a bad feminist. I am taking a stand as a bad feminist. I offer insights on our culture and how we consume it. The essays in my collection also examine race in contemporary film, the limits of “diversity,” and how innovation is rarely satisfying; it is rarely enough. I call for creating new, more inclusive measures for literary excellence and take a closer look at HBO’s Girls and the phenomenon of the Fifty Shades trilogy. The essays are political and they are personal. They are, like feminism, flawed, but they come from a genuine place. I am just one woman trying to make sense of this world we live in. I’m raising my voice to show all the ways we have room to want more, to do better.”
Honorable Mentions, In No Order
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Prelude to Bruise by Saeed Jones
Lumberjanes by Grace Ellis, Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters and Brooke Allen *
Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit
Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals by Patricia Lockwood
Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir by Liz Prince
Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab by Shani Mootoo
New York 1, Tel Aviv 0: Stories by Shelly Oria
* Conflict of interest disclosure: Lumberjanes is top 10 in my heart and so is one of its creators. NOT YOU GRACE DON’T WORRY.
If I missed your favorite book of this year and you have feelings about it, please comment using as much punctuation and self-righteous indignation as possible. Or just tell me about what I should read next.
On The Silencing of Trans Women of Color: A Response to Trans Glamour vs. Trans Activism
This piece was written and originally published by L’lerrét.
Trans women of color are doing the damn thing and laughing off the scrutiny and criticism of their oppressors. While this piece is a direct response to Elle Boatman and her Op-ed on Advocate.com entitled “Trans Glamour Versus Trans Activism,” I do want to start off by noting that what I say in this piece applies to all persons that seek to silence the many trans women of color who show up and show out advocating for their lives and the lives of others around them.
Before I start to truly critique the piece, let me provide you all with some context. Basically (and I mean basic-ally), Elle has written a piece about the Iconic Candy Magazine cover shoot that featured 14 trans role models and pegged this to be demeaning and harmful to the movement. She even made it look exclusionary and misleading, stating that only Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, and Geena Rocero are trans women who do any sort of activism/advocacy work. Really, Elle?
Now, I do agree with the fact that media focuses on femme women and seeks to peg that as ideal but in the scope of the original argument, to be a white person critiquing transgender women who are of color as embodying norms and not representing the whole community and invalidating the work they do as activists, I start to itch. That doesn’t sit well with me. Allow me to elaborate.
I want to first start off by critiquing the idea of celebrity. I think it’s funny that once people of color get any type of nationwide coverage on something other than violence or drugs, they’re automatically pegged as a celebrity. Celebrity is a white centered notion placing higher value on individuals who are coveted and desired. As trans women of color, we don’t have the luxury of being wholly desirable in a cisnormative, white centered society. We are plastered throughout the media only when folk find out that other male celebrities do in fact desire us and they begin to do a slander campaign to strip us down and dehumanize our very existence.
Janet Mock wrote a book and was super successful in doing so. Because she was palatable to the public and sensationalized because they “can’t believe she was born a boy”, she became a hit. Cis folk asked her to speak at various events and they put the pressure on her to try to speak for her community as a whole which she tried hard not to do. None of these women asked for ‘celebrity’. They wanted a lifestyle. They started to actualize their dreams and goals and upon achieving them, they were devalued and pegged as a “trans _________”. They can’t escape their identities nor can they escape the bigotry of the society that will forever seek to muffle all of their efforts to just make a living and be happy.
photo from Mariano Vivanco for Candy Magazine
Activism cannot be quantified and I think operating under the idea that it can makes people feel super uncomfortable. As a white woman, you may not understand this, but the simple act of getting up and being in the public eye and proclaiming your transness unapologetically is an act of revolution for every trans person of color, and in that right, they are doing the work. How dare you demean the existence of women who didn’t have to speak on their identity but chose to do so in order to work towards a more inclusive and visible society where young black and brown persons feel value and can imagine dreaming up more than trying to blend in and get “normal jobs” and be respectable; a society where they can finally feel beautiful and in charge of their own destinies. How dare you label the work of fellowshipping to the younger folks looking up to these possibility models as insignificant.
Elle proceeds to state, “Showing 14 conventionally, if not exceptionally, beautiful trans women and advertising them as the leaders of the trans community only reinforces the ‘normality’ of straight, cisgender society by pandering to the pervasive notion that your worth is intrinsically connected to how easily you can mimic the cisgender, heterosexual ideal.” This is a very dangerous statement because it’s focusing on a false notion that trans women in the public eye seek to “mimic” cis people. When was that ever the case? It’s common for trans women to be jealous of other trans women because of the way they construct their identities.
We are so focused on breaking the chains of normativity and ‘ending gender’ that we seek to take away the agency of those individuals who mold themselves in ways that just so happen to be what the greater society deems acceptable or beautiful. Demonizing femmness because it “adheres to patriarchal gaze” is problematic because, in turn, you demonize all folk that long to access femininity. And instead of decentering heteronormativity and the long history of hypersexualization, you just avoid the issue, which still centers heteronormativity and teaches women and any femme presenting folk to cover up and not do what they damn well please with their bodies because “men are watching.” What sense does that make? How does that help anyone?
It’s odd that a white woman is critiquing the ways in which trans women of color perform gender and how they “conform to the norms,” seeing that norms and everything having to do with beauty and gender and acceptability are meant to keep non white folks out. Elle says that these women “blend in” and are “conventionally beautiful,” when that just isn’t the case. Being black in the first place automatically knocks one out of this country’s historical colonialists and white imperialist convention.
Furthermore, I as well as many other black trans women can attest to the struggles of trying to navigate as a trans woman when your body was struck with years of testosterone and you grew like other black men – strong faces, muscles, wider noses, veiny arms, etc. There have been a multitude of conversations amongst trans people of color where they testify to the fact that passing in white spaces is a piece of cake while not so much in our own communities.
Just because your eyes can’t see the struggle and you think “oh they just blend on it” doesn’t mean there isn’t a struggle. Do you remember cycle 11 of ANTM when Isis was harassed by the cast members for having “man hands” or a “man face that doesn’t photograph well”? Do you remember Laverne Cox constantly opening up about her experiences walking in the street and being called a man? Did you not watch the award shows and see the Twitter response with everyone claiming her as a tranny and invalidating her womanhood? Or even comparing her size to Nicki Minaj’s when on The View, and using that to snatch her womanhood away from her?
Do you not hear about a few of the trans models who constantly feel pressure by the industry to get countless surgeries because of the ways in which their aesthetic is masculinized? But everyone is a “conventional beauty” right?
Monica Roberts commented on this issue and very eloquently remarked: “Trans women of color are demonized for their race and being trans, unlike our white counterparts. Especially in light of earlier this year when elements of the white transfeminine community were attacking Janet and Laverne, and all the murdered trans women in the US since June have been TWOC. So yeah, I’m definitely going to ask the question: Whyare glamour and activism issues in this case when it wasn’t for Christine Jorgensen, April Ashley, Caroline Cossey and most recently Jenna Talackova?” *sips tea*
It was also interesting that Elle suggested folk that should have been on the cover and they were white women. Quite typical of her to resort to that and it validates my argument that this is white tears in action and an attack on the women of color doing the work and doing it effortlessly. Are you mad that trans women of color can achieve their goals, inspire others, and look desirable all at the same time? Are you mad that we’re no longer just in the tabloids for ‘sex scandals’ but now for just being bosses and looking like them? Are you mad because they can afford to? Are you mad because the trans movement started deviating from the white people’s “I was born in the wrong body and just want to be normal” narrative and images which have not been dominated by people of color? Why can’t we finally just be allowed to be great? Folk see a lack of whiteness and cry foul when they forget the centuries that folk of color have been marginalized and considered ugly. Because you know about the three trans women of color that the white centered world deems palatable doesn’t mean they’re the only ones out here doing the work.
Elle continues, stating:
Many in the trans community are content to celebrate this as a milestone in the fight for equality. And in a fashion sense, I suppose it is. But even then it’s absolutely not representative of the majority of trans women, let alone the trans community. While it succeeds in its diversity of skin color, it fails to accurately represent the body size and shape and weight, even the sexuality, of most typical trans women, nor does it do anything to highlight how these (admittedly beautiful) women did, in fact, contribute to the fight for transgender rights.
This is quite laughable because she admitted her bigotry in this statement. These trans women of color don’t deserve the title of activists because they don’t “represent the marjoriy of trans women, let alone the trans community.” Really Elle? So you and your buddies deserve it because you all are white and do jobs that adhere to professionalism/respectability politics. And what does sexuality look like to you? I didn’t know sexuality had an aesthetic. Little do you know, not all of these folk identify as heterosexual and we can’t assume that they all even identify as women.
Also, multiple people can’t be faces of trans movement? Are you so pressed about that title that you seek to tear other trans women down for doing their shit well? Jealousy of people of color is super real, apparently. Laughable, but real. And again, these are “typical trans women.” They are just living their lives and doing outstanding work and society dubbed them trailblazers. They don’t have “ideal” bodies by any means. You can ask every single on of them. You can look at them. You can ask them about their experiences. Not all of them got work done. But even if they did, who is shaming them for their own self actualization helping the movement? The work they do doesn’t need to be highlighted explicitly because the proof is in the pudding. Just because their work does not benefit you or your friends doesn’t mean that it doesn’t benefit anyone. There are thousands of trans people of color that look up to and benefit from the work of these lovely individuals. Let me just highlight a few for you.
Isis King from ANTM
Isis King was the first transgender woman of color to ever be a part of the show America’s Next Top Model. She made it possible for other little black trans girls to feel that they are enough. She opened the door for the possibility of black trans women to begin to even conceptualize a life where they too can break into the industry and redefine the standards of beauty that long excluded them. Not only that, but Isis has been speaking at colleges around the nation and even has taken the time out to speak to young black trans women of color, one-on-one, to inspire and motivate. But she’s not really doing the work, huh?
Gisele Alecia (better known as Gisele XTRAVAGANZA) is the mother of the House of Xtravaganza in New York. If you know anything about the underground LGBTQ Ballroom culture, you’ll know that houses are made up of a mother or father who take in young LGBTQ folk that have been thrown out of their homes due to homophobia, or abandoned, or are just looking for work/money to survive or thrive. They provide shelter and survival for these folks in exchange for money that they earn walking in balls throughout the nation to help the house thrive and continue to be a force. She’s done so much more but I think that qualification is enough for your white definition of activism, right? But she’s not really doing the work, huh?
Juliana Huxtable via topicalcream
JULIANA HUXTABLE! She’s the queen of non conformity! She embraces the politics of sexuality – a concept misconstrued when adjacent to black women in general. Her style is against respectability politics and acceptability. Not only that, but Juliana blurs the gender boundaries in fashion and is even identified as a queer DJ, hoping to ensure solidarity among self identified sisters across the whole spectrum. But she’s not really doing the work, huh?
Carmen Xtravaganza is also a mother of the international house of Xtravaganza. She was in the LEGENDARY documentary Paris is Burning. In an interview with the great Monic Roberts with TransGriot, she was quoted as saying:
The kids today have a very shallow understanding of being trans. For them it’s about looks and looks only. Yes, it was about how do I look, but back then we had a sense of self and understanding about core values of community. Nowadays there is a lot out there for younger trans folks to access compared to the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s. This is something I’m on a mission to change starting with speaking out and explaining my life narrative. I am involved in developing a project with my sister Koko Jones Xtravaganza called “Stories From The Edge.” Our vision for “Stories From The Edge” is to travel to colleges and community based organizations around the country to tell our stories, which vary, and explain that everyone has a different path and no path is wrong as long as you get to where you want to be.
But she’s not really doing work, huh?
The Legendary House of Xtravaganza via carmenxtravaganza.biz
I could go on and on but I know my sisters and wouldn’t dare justify their contributions or lives to those who don’t value them. If you decided to do a little more research and not just go off of what the white cis media tells you about these folk, you would know this information and then some. If you decided to take the time out to not slander and invalidate these people, and actually learn some history outside of the white shit y’all force down our throats, you’d realize how fucking awesome these people are. If you decided to ask somebody, you’d realize that trans women of color have ALWAYS been breathing life into the movement but the media stripped their accomplishments away and hid their identities. But the women in this CANDY cover are the Marsha P. Johnsons and Sylvia Riveras and Miss. Majors. They are the legacies and the vision. They are the revolution. They are me and my sisters. They are a force and we refuse to allow you to take that away from us.
Elle ends her Op-ed with “So let’s recognize this photo shoot for what it is: a highly successful, Westernized, heteronormative, transgender fashion statement. Let’s not conflate that with an accurate portrayal of the trans* community or its activism.”
While I do believe that passing privilege is real and I do think that certain folk embody beauty norms better than others, I question the validity of the notion that trans women of color ever embodied heteronormative, westernized “transcend fashion statements.” Especially when I see dark skin, box braids, natural curly hair, curvy figures, and oh – the fact that most of them are anything but white, and they pridefully accentuate that history.
photo from Mariano Vivanco for Candy Magazine
So I ask you: Are those lists that the cis white media publishes to honor trans activists that actively exclude trans people of color — besides the few names they deem acceptable — not enough? Are the white-dominated GLAAD awards not enough? Is Trans 100 not enough? Are the multiple articles on certain white trans folk winning homecoming or fighting school battles or dating one another not enough? Was the T-Word not enough? Hell, are your history books and the indoctrination of young black and brown boys in girls in education and socially not enough? Get it together.
“Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives” is a Vital Catalogue of QTPOC Voices
Queer And Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives is a collection of interviews that author, artist, activist and podcaster Nia King has done with QTPOC artists (Nia notes in the book that QTPOC is pronounced “QT” like “cutie” and “‘POC’ as in Tupac.”) through her podcast, which you can find at her website. She had initially had the podcast interviews transcribed to make them accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, but it was soon edited into this wonderful and vitally important book.
It features interviews with artists including LAMBDA Award-nominated author and educator Ryka Aoki; artist and Trauma Queen author Lovemme Corazón (also known as Luna Merbruja); storyteller, performer and dancer Magnoliah Black; author, activist and fat discrimination and body image expert Virgie Tovar; writer, performer and organizer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha; and author and activist Janet Mock. In the book, King says that she wanted to make sure that each of these artists was not soon forgotten.
I wanted to create this book so that the work of these amazing artists who have influenced me will not seem like a flash in the pan if they eventually burn out or go broke and have to stop creating. I want there to be a record of their wisdom and their influence and their greatness that will inspire others to create as well. I really do believe that QTPOC art activism saves lives, and this book is just one of my many efforts to show how and why.
The voices and experiences of queer and trans people of color (especially queer and trans women of color) are so often erased, silenced or pushed to the background. When our stories are told, they are told by people outside the community who don’t always tell the story the way it really happened. This book proudly stands in direct defiance of these traditions. I don’t think I can put it any better than Toi Scott does in the introduction where they write “Nia King has passionately sought to archive the experiences of queer and trans people of color who are committed to art as a tool for political change. Her work with QTPOC artists on her podcast ‘We Want the Airwaves’ is an important and innovative contribution to the oral history record, not just for queer and trans people of color, but for everyone.”
It’s really captivating to hear how all of these artists deal with the intersectionalities of their identities while trying to navigate the art world. From Aoki talking about having to deal with when men in the publishing world to Tovar discussing the opposition she faced as a graduate student to Yosimar Reyes trying to travel to perform while being undocumented and Luna Merbruja talking about using communal care to thrive as a trans woman of color and survivor of abuse.
This is vitally valuable information. These QTPOC are making important art and are changing their communities and the world through their art and activism, and here we have them giving advice and wise words and tips for how to work as a QTPOC artist. This is simultaneously one of the most informative and inspirational books I’ve read in a long time.It’s like a primer for how to be an effective artist or community worker. But the advice isn’t just for potential artists. Some of the interviewees, like Tovar, give advice on how to best support queer and trans artists of color.
When we don’t pay artists, we sentence ourselves to a life where there won’t be art by people of color, by queers, by women, and we know that it’s struggle and critique and understanding and resilience that creates fantastic art. When the people who are experiencing those things aren’t creating work, we lose things as a culture. We lose things as a species.
There are several ways to purchase this book. You can contact King via Paypal or order it online at Amazon, or if you’d like to buy it in person, it’s available in Pegasus Books in Oakland and downtown Berkeley, Show and Tell Concept Shop in Oakland, Quimby’s in Chicago and Bluestockings in New York City.
We know the world is a dangerous place for trans women of color, and for all queer people of color. We know that there are so many ways that society tries to silence their voices. And that’s one of the reasons this book is so important. We also know that when you’re trying to succeed in art or activism, you can use all the help and advice you can get. If you’re looking to change the world, just listen to the words of these artists of color, after all, they’re already doing just that.
Please Stop Saying That Trans Women Were “Born Boys”
feature image via Shutterstock
As an out-and-proud trans woman and activist, I find myself having a lot of the same conversations about being transgender over and over again. Some of them are pretty benign, like how I chose my name or whose writing was influential in my work. Some just come with the territory, like those about harassment, discrimination, and health care access.
A few of them have reached the level of being absolutely grating.
Perhaps the one I’m most eager to never have to have again (aside from MAYBE the conversation about the t-slur) is the one where I explain why it’s so bloody hurtful when people constantly talk about how I was “born a boy” or worse, “born a man.” Yes, it’s true that some trans women do see and frame their experience in this context, but the vast majority of us do not, and that includes me. GLAAD’s guide to reporting on transgender issues explicitly informs journalists not to use the terms “biologically male,” “biologically female,” “genetically male,” “genetically female,” “born a man” and “born a woman.”
I wasn’t born a boy, and I’ve never been a boy, and it’s like a knife to my heart every single time I hear that phrase. And boy have I been hearing that phrase a lot!
We’re allegedly entering an era of unprecedented fairness regarding media coverage of transgender people. This is true, sure, although things are “getting better” relative to how things were, and “how things were” for trans women in the media was “the absolute worst” until very recently. But it’s also true that despite this progress and no matter how many times trans people make this correction, the media just can’t manage to stop flogging this particular deceased equine.
Laverne Cox made it clear to CBS’s Gayle King that while she was assigned male at birth, she was not “born a boy.” Janet Mock gave Piers Morgan some scathing retorts after he said she “was a boy until age 18,” insisting that she “was not formerly a man.” Activist Cece McDonald made it clear to Rolling Stone that she was not born a boy, rather that she was “born a baby.” Writer/activist Parker Molloy and MMA fighter Fallon Fox co-wrote an excellent op-ed in June covering this very issue. Molloy and Fox write:
“This framing only sensationalizes the identities and experiences of trans individuals as nothing more than a hook to reel the audience into a world closely resembling that of a carnival freak show. This framing in itself highlights the physical changes undergone by trans people and ignores the fact that the people they’re referring to are genuine, lovable, normal individuals.”
Neither of these people were born a boy. via E! Online
Despite all these people making it absolutely clear that this is something no one should do, IT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING. When Scarlett Lenh, a young trans woman, was voted Homecoming Queen of her Colorado Springs high school, almost everybody screwed it up. The Christian Science Monitor referred to her as “a biological boy who identifies as a girl.” The Denver Post called her “biologically a guy.” The local CBS afflilate referred to her as “biologically a boy.” Oh, and to make matters worse, many of these outlets also used her male name, a completely irrelevant piece of information.
Huffington Post Canada recently referred to transgender model Geena Rocero as “born a boy.”
Just last week, People Magazine interviewed 14 year old Jazz Jennings, who co-wrote a book for transgender children, and mentioned that she was “born a boy.”
Earlier this year, a Grantland writer violently and tragically mishandled his story about a transgender woman who’d invented an innovative golf club on so many levels including, but absolutely not limited to, sentences like, “What began as a story about a brilliant woman with a new invention had turned into a tale of a troubled man who had invented a new life for himself.” Apparently the significant backlash to that story still wasn’t enough to wake up the media.
As Mey and I recently discussed, the New York Magazine profile of transgender CEO Martine Rothblatt was full of the same unfortunate phrasing when they straight-up released a COVER STORY bearing the hook: “The Highest-Paid Female CEO in America Used To Be a Man.” That was as step better than The New York Post, I suppose, who straight up referred to Martine as “born a man” in their headline.
These are all examples from 2014 alone. So clearly, the message that it’s unacceptable to say that trans women “used to be men” or were “born boys” is simply not getting through. It’s not just the media that gets it wrong, obviously, I see the same thing happen on twitter and facebook regularly. It seems like the most common way to explain being a trans woman is “born a boy but identifies as a girl.” I’m constantly hearing references to “when you were a guy” when people talk about my pre-transition life. What I’m trying to get at is that this is a thing, and I really need it to not be a thing.
I want to make a few things perfectly clear. Trans women are women. Period. End of story. We’re not “women who used to be men.” We’re not “men who identify as women.” We’re not “males who identify as women.” We’re not “men who became women.” WE ARE WOMEN. Stop putting qualifiers on our womanhood. It’s offensive, hurtful and cruel to insinuate otherwise. Our past, present, and futures are ours to define and no one else’s. Even if we didn’t figure out that we were trans until well into our adult lives, it absolutely does not mean that we were ever boys or men. Many trans women feel that they’ve always been girls, or at the very least, that they’ve never been boys. You don’t have any right to tell me, or any other trans person, that they were ever a particular gender, just as I have no right to tell you what gender you are. A trans woman who was obligated to present as male for most of her young life is was no more “born a man” than a lesbian who was obligated to date men for most of her young life “used to be straight.”
Of course, there are people who do identify as having been a boy or a man before transition. As Mey and I discussed in our piece about Martine Rothblatt, those people ALSO have the right to define their own narrative, and it absolutely should be reported as they prefer. However, that makes it even MORE important to explain that, while this specific person identifies or describes themselves in that way, many trans people do not. As much as I’ve talked about trans people and the trans community on the whole, we’re a pretty individualistic bunch, each with our ways of discussing ourselves and our journeys. But, when you’ve got folks like Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, Fallon Fox, Parker Molloy, Cece McDonald, and now me saying “hey, this is something you have to stop using as a universal,” I feel like it’s time to pay attention.
Let’s talk a bit about why this “born a man/boy” language is dubious. Firstly, as other writers have pointed out, it’s just FACTUALLY inaccurate to say that ANYONE was born a man. No one springs forth from the womb a fully grown adult. Not even Sir Patrick Stewart (the manliest man there is, IMO) was BORN a man. He was born a baby, and grew into a totally awesome man because, well, that’s how human life works. To refer to a trans woman as “born a man” is to dehumanize her, because it’s literally impossible for any human to be a born a man. Using the phrase “born a man” over the much-preferable “assigned male at birth” forces people to juxtapose the image of a transgender woman with a prototypical man, which just serves to drive home the pervasive view that transgender women are vile freaks of sexual perversion.
The phrases “born a boy” or “born male,” while not quite as offensive, are still fraught with problems. First, defining who exactly is, or is not, a boy/girl or male/female is a much more complicated process than many people realize. That becomes especially true when add words like “biological” to that phrase. What is it to be be biologically a boy/male? Is it their genitals? That would leave some pretty serious open questions for anyone who is intersexed. Is it chromosomes? The existence of conditions like Swyer Syndrome and Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (who are frequently cisgender women with XY chromosomes) kinda shoots that right in the foot. Just where is the biology in “biologically boy/male”? It seems doubtful that the writers using those phrases checked the gentials or chromosomes of their interview subjects, so it’s little more than conjecture, really. In the end, male and female are just boxes on a form checked by a doctor making a semi-educated guess. Girl/boy are labels to describe just two of the many possible gender identities, so to designate them for others is to deny them agency in their own identity.
That point about agency is a really important one. Something that most folks find to be a pretty important right is our right to define our own identity and the terms of the narrative of our own life. This is why people react so strongly when their characters come under attack; it an undermining their fundamental right define who they are as people. When you use phrases like “she was a born a man”, you’re effectively telling someone like me that YOU know me, my history, my struggle, my identity better than I do. You’re effectively denying me agency to define myself. One the biggest struggles of the trans community for decades has the matter of agency— much of the world views our identities as men and women (or not men or women at all) as illegitimate, insisting that they must know our hearts, bodies, and being better than we do, and for so long, we were denied the right to identities medically, socially, and legally. As trans people, we have the right to say not only who we are now, but who we’ve been for entire lives. Our narratives are ours to define.
That whole agency thing is why I find the whole meme so terribly hurtful and harmful. Coming out and transitioning was the most difficult and dangerous thing I’ve done in my entire life. I literally risked absolutely everything— my job/career, my friends, my family, my financial stability, my home, my LIFE really— for the opportunity to define my identity on my own terms in way that felt genuine to me. When someone says or implied that I was “born a boy,” it feels like I’m being shoved right back in the box that I risked everything to escape. It makes me feel like I can’t ever truly get out from under the fact that I was assigned male at birth, that I’m permanently tainted in people’s eyes. I’m admittedly very fortunate— I don’t get mistaken for a guy pretty much ever, but when people say things like “when you were a guy,” it’s a gut-punch reminder that people still remember that false identity very clearly. It’s still misgendering, even if it’s happening in past tense. It suggests that being a woman was a choice I made at mid-life and an aspect of my being that wasn’t “true” until I got a doctor’s stamp of approval. It defines my womanhood as something that only began when cisgender people were able to see that I was a woman just by looking at me.
If it catches me off-guard, it can trigger a wave of dysphoria that can rattle my self-confidence and fuck up the rest of my day. There’s a pretty pervasive fear amongst trans people— the fear that everyone is just “playing along” with us out of politeness, but never really accepts us as who we are. When I hear phrases like “born male but identifies as a woman,” it’s the perfect fuel for that particular fear. When I hear or read articles discussing trans women who “used to be men”, it’s a reminder that the world still largely sees us as curiosities, and that our humanity isn’t terribly important. It feels like how I define myself isn’t important, and that my self-definition has to be adapted to the comforts of cis, straight world, like the idea that I’ve always been a girl is too much for others, so it simply cannot be true.
It’s not just harmful to currently out or transitioning trans women, either. Though things are certainly getting better, young trans people are often first exposed to the concept of being transgender long before they ever put the pieces together for themselves. If they’re encountering media or conversation uses of the whole “born a boy” narrative before they’ve figured out their identities or read more inclusive writings from within the trans community, they’re likely to swallow and internalize those concepts. That’s one of the many ways that internalized transphobia develops, and take it from me, it’s a ridiculously hard thing to overcome. It’s unfair and cruel to teach young trans people that they’re not entitled to define their own identities, that their gender identity is more tied to how they look than how they feel, that the designations made on their birth certificates are immutable concepts, especially when we’ve come so far as a community. Really, that problem doesn’t apply just to young trans people, but to anyone who’s coming to terms with being trans for the first time.
These things do not define us. Image via shutterstock
There are some who will say that writers and other media professionals use the “born a boy/man/male” language as a simplification for a public that’s simply not well informed about trans issues and terminology. It’s much of the same blowback when we hear when we ask folks to use the term “cis” or “cisgender” to refer to non-trans people— that phrases like “assigned male at birth” are too academic for the average reader, and using them will decrease clarity in the article. If that’s the concern, then I think the responsibility falls to the writer to do some education, even if that includes taking some time to educate themselves. The trans community is very small and highly vulnerable, so our representations in the media are SO much more powerful that we can really ever manage to be on an in-person level, just due to sheer numbers. Those who write about trans people have an enormous opportunity to educate the public about the issues, complications, and language of our community. I’d argue that, given how much impact a single article, interview, or new piece can have on how the world-at-large views the trans population, there’s also a DUTY to be aware of and discuss those things when covering trans issues and trans people. To take the cop-out and say “it’s too complicated for my readers” is lazy and irresponsible writing.
I’ve talked a lot about why the “born a boy/male/man” narrative is so harmful, so let’s touch briefly on better options. If you absolutely must discuss someone’s pre-transition legally-designated sex/gender, the appropriate terminology is “assigned male/female at birth or “designated male/female at birth”. This often abbreviated AFAB/AMAB/DFAB/DMAB for the sake of brevity. Some trans people will also add the word “coercively” to that phrase to emphasize that this assignment or designation was done without their assent or input. If you don’t know how someone prefers to be referred to, don’t make assumptions and ask!
I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I think anyone who’s ever used this terminology is inherently transphobic or trans misogynistic. I really think, more often than not, it’s well-intentioned people who don’t really understand the harm that can be done by perpetuating the “born a boy” narrative. When I’ve had this conversation with people in person, they’re almost always pretty taken aback about how hurtful I find it. So, if you’ve used it before, I understand. But, as trans rights and trans identities become a bigger part of the public consciousness, it’s time to be aware of how we might be denying people their right to define their own identities throughout their lives. We’ve made some serious headway on getting people to stop misgendering us in the present; now it’s time to stop misgendering us in our past.
The Root 100 Features Our Favorites Including Roxane Gay, Janet Mock and Laverne Cox
The Root has released its annual list of notable African Americans, and of course it includes some of our favorite movers, shakers and heartbreakers. The publication accepted more than 500 reader nominations that it condensed down into the people it felt “not only had standout years but also showed promise for shaping the future.” That means it includes not only obvious superstars like Beyoncé but also several of the up-and-coming writers and entertainers we love to tell you all about!
The list starts with Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose writing on race over at The Atlantic earned him the top rank. Badass writing also helped Roxane Gay and Kiese Laymon make the list. Blogger Feminista Jones and Feministing executive director Lori Adelman were honored for their contributions to discussions around feminism, race and sexuality. MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry was noted for her eponymous show, which you should absolutely be watching if you’re not already. Janet Mock was included as an activist, author and journalist.
The entertainers on the list are headed up by none other than Beyoncé and Laverne Cox, both of whom made the top five for their performance careers as well as their activism. Lena Waithe, creator of the web series-turned-BET-show “Twenties” and producer of “Dear White People,” is also on the list.
The full list is available here, and honorees will be awarded at The Root 100 Awards Gala in November. A 101st spot remains open for a People’s Choice winner who will be voted on until early October. Voting hasn’t opened quite yet (as far as I can tell) but once it does, you’d better get your say in for that last spot!
Julio Salgado and Janet Mock Upgrade the Inspirational Quote with “Heroes”
You know those inspirational quote posters you can get for your fancy corporate office? They’re framed and they say thinks like “CREATIVITY” and “COURAGE” with pictures of mountains and junk and white people doing yoga or something. This is like that, but way way way better.
Activist, author and possibility model Janet Mock teamed up with openly undocuqueer, Mexican-born artist and DREAM defender Julio Salgado to create these badass images, titled “Heroes.” Mock contributed the words in the form of quotes about the people who inspire her most. Salgado created gorgeous images of Mock in the style he is known for — illustrations that get into your heart with their sincerity and an underlying current of fierce, fierce love.
Are you having emotions yet? Yeah, I know. Beautiful work from two people who inspire me all the time: in my activism, in my creative work, in my daily life. If you haven’t read Mock’s book, Redefining Realness, I highly suggest you get on that. Check out more of Salgado’s work, which focuses on the intersections of sexuality, gender, immigration status, and race and maybe buy a print for your corporate (or not corporate) office.
If you could get an amazing artist to illustrate your heroes and sheroes, who would be on that list? Who inspires you?
VIDEO: Janet Mock Turns the Tables On Interviewer, Asks What It’s Like To Be Cis
Janet Mock Recently sat down with Fusion’s Alicia Menendez and totally flipped the script on how an interview with a trans woman normally goes. Instead of answering a barrage of uncomfortable and unnecessary questions, this time Mock gets to ask the questions. And it is beautiful.
If you’re a trans woman (or any other trans person), you probably know exactly how this feels. Especially if you’ve ever been interviewed or spoken in front of a group. Mock asks Menendez questions like, “What’s one thing people need to know about being cis,” “When did your breasts start budding,” and of course, the classic “Do you have a vagina?”
This video intentionally harkens back to Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera’s appearance on Katie Couric’s show and Mock’s own appearance on Piers Morgan’s show, and many, many more instances. In both of these examples, the women were appearing on the shows under the pretenses of talking about their projects, but instead had to deal with questions about their genitals, their childhoods as “boys” and other completely inappropriate and ignorant topics.
My favorite part is when Menendez tells Janet that they wrote many of the questions and even role-played them beforehand to test them out, she still didn’t realize that anything was wrong with them. “I thought we needed to know that as a way of bridging an understanding gap,” she said. Mock tells her that she often hears that as an excuse, that “the audience wants to know,” but that it’s almost always just the asker who wants to satisfy their own morbid curiosity. For anyone who was wondering why it’s innappropriate to ask this kind of questions, Mock answers and absolutely knocks it out of the park.
Many trans women, including Mock, want to be open about their experiences as a trans woman, and Mock is exceedingly so in her book, but still, there’s a line. So, next time you think about asking a trans woman if she has a vagina, please think twice. And then after you’re done thinking, just don’t ask.
Want to Support the Women of the Trans 100? Here’s How.
The second annual Trans 100 list was announced at a live event on the night of Sunday, March 30th. This list highlights trans people who are helping to make a positive impact in the trans community and the world. Jen Richards, who cofounded the Trans 100 with Antonia D’Orsay, says that the Trans 100’s goal is “to create a counter narrative that offers a growing compendium of people organizations and projects that simultaneously reveals the diversity of trans people and celebrates the work being done in the community.” She also added that the list “is not a ‘Top 100,’ ‘Best Of,’ or even the result of straight voting by the public or volunteers. It is an intentionally curated list of out trans people who are working on trans issues in the United States and having a positive impact.” The event included many great speakers and performers, including Richards, Kye Allums, Laverne Cox and members of Trans*H4CK Chicago. This year’s list was curated by 2014 Trans 100 Co-Director Asher Kollieboi. If you’d like to watch the event, it’s still available to view online (the event starts about ten minutes in).
Janet Mock, the author of Redefining Realness and one of last year’s honorees, helped to introduce the Inaugural Trans 100 Living Legend Award. She gave me some great advice on how to support trans women.
One way we can work in coalition with trans women is by embracing trans women as women, and hopefully the ones you know, as sisters. This work is one that’s harder for many to do due to the misleading and pervasive rhetoric around trans women’s identities, lives and bodies being framed as inauthentic and artifice. Combatting this misinformation and replacing it with truth is a powerful first step towards working in solidarity with trans women. Various other ways include hiring the amazing women on the Trans 100; donating your talent, time and funds to the organizations they lead; and incorporating and engaging these women in discourse and actions addressing criminalization, healthcare, reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, employment, domestic violence and much more.
I also spoke with model, Gender Proud founder and recent TED Talker Geena Rocero, who was one of the presenters at this year’s event.
It was my first time being in Chicago, so what better way to be welcomed than being at HOME, with my community of amazing trans sisters and brothers. It was a powerful weekend full of LOVE and support. I believe the Trans movement as a whole is at a turning point. We are here and we are visible. We will continue to elevate each other’s platforms!
The best way for people to support trans women is by simply supporting our work and to continue to tell our lived experiences. We have a lot of powerful stories that needs to be told NOW! And get to know a transwomen, you’ll be surprise what you find out about our feminine divine!
This list is a great way to get familiar with a huge number of trans activists, artists and workers who might not otherwise show up on your radar. It’s also a great way to find out about a huge number of ways you can support trans people. Here are some of the trans women and trans feminine folks who made this year’s list along with information and links that let you know how to support them and their projects. If I don’t have specific information, I provide info on the kind of projects they are involved with. I also talked to several of them to get special insight on how Autostraddle readers can support our trans sisters. All information comes from the 2014 Trans Booklet unless otherwise stated.
1. Gloria Allen (Inaugural Trans 100 Living Legend Award recipient)
Allen is an elder trans woman of color who started transitioning in the 1970s. She currently shares her experience and wisdom with young people in Chicago where she is known as “Mama Grace.” She runs a “Charm School” where trans youth can learn safety, skills and education in order to live and thrive in the city. Her Charm School is hosted at the Center on Halsted, which you can volunteer at or donate to.
2. A. Dionne Stallworth
Stallworth is one of the founders of Gender PAC, the first transgender political action committee in the country and one of the founders and first cochairs of the Transgender Health Action Coalition. You can support her current work by helping out Project H.O.M.E., a housing and support organization that looks to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty.
3. Alana Nicole Sholar
Sholar released a memoir, Hung in the Middle: A Journey of Gender Discovery in 2012. She currently shares her experiences as a trans woman by speaking at colleges and public events. You can buy her book (and her spouse’s book My Husband Looks Better in Lingerie Than I Do… Damn It!) online and you can check her facebook fan page to contact her about speaking engagements.
4. Alison Gill
A graduate of Rutgers and George Washington Law School, Gill now works at The Trevor Project as the government affairs director. Her job is to work through policy initiatives at the federal, state and local levels to advocate for LGTBQ youth health and safety. She also works with the Trans Legal Advocates of Washington (TransLAW), where she helps with trans advocacy in Washington, DC. You can get involved with The Trevor Project by connecting or volunteering or by donating. You can also support TransLAW by donating.
5. Angelica Ross
Ross is a modern day Renaissance Woman. She’s a writer, speaker, photographer, actress and singer/songwriter. She is also the coordinator of TransWorks, a project that works toward the economic empowerment of transgender and gender-nonconforming people. She also works as a mentor and cofacilitator for The National Trans Leadership Academy. To help out with TransWorks and Ross’ work, you can support the Chicago House or go to her website to find out about upcoming appearances and projects. We talked about the important of space and opportunity for trans women.
The trans community continues to be excluded from so many spaces including places of worship, the workplace, and even their own homes. Being excluded from so many spaces also means being excluded from so many opportunities. What can you do? Create space & opportunity. Think about the spaces you occupy, are they safe and welcoming to trans people? Creating more safe and welcoming spaces creates more opportunities for trans people to fully exist as human beings.
via vivalaluna.com
6. Askari Gonzalez
Gonzalez is a writer, performer, poet and artist. One way to support her is by buying her book, Trauma Queen, as either an ebook for yourself, or as a paperback to donate to libraries or LGBT centers. If you’d like to book her for speaking engagements, performances or workshops, you can contact her via her website. Also, for next few days, the International Trans Women of Color Gathering, which she is one of the coordinators of, is accepting money for their Indiegogo campaign. She talked to me about a few things people can do to be better trans allies.
Reach out to trans women of color in your community and ask them how to be in solidarity with them, which can look like going to LGBTQ centers and joining trans support groups that are open to non-trans members. Also, any space made safe for women *must* be safe for trans women, and especially trans women of color.
7. Bailey Jay
An AVN award winner, comedienne, B-MovieHorror Hostess and frequent podcaster, Bailey Jay is able to reach a huge audience with her wit and irreverence. She’s hosted several podcasts, but her newest one is called Gender Coaching with Bailey Jay, where she discusses spirituality, sexuality and challenging traditional gender roles. I talked to her about how she thinks people can best support trans women.
At the risk of being broad, I would say I want people not to be afraid to ask Trans women to define themselves. Including sex workers. Don’t limit us or assume what our journey was or how we feel. Ask us. Ask us what terms we prefer. Ask us how our experience was in high school. Let a Trans woman educate you. Maybe I don’t care about certain slurs. Maybe they infuriate me. Maybe I always knew I was Trans. Maybe I just found out. I want people to know there isn’t one Trans story just because the same one is portrayed by cis people over and over again. We are beautiful, multifaceted individuals like all humans are. When your readers meet a Trans woman, allow her story to organically unfold like you would any person. Don’t limit her to being your idea of Trans.
8. Bali White
White is a writer, researcher and PhD student in African Studies at Howard University. She previously earned a BA magna cum laude in Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures and an MA in Climate and Society from Columbia University. She is also a community organizer who works to address transgender identity, legal, health and social concerns. She can be found on twitter.
via Docudharma
9. Brynn Tannehill
Tannehill is the director of advocacy for SPART*A, which is an LGBTQ organization that focuses on helping service members. She works with active duty and recently discharged trans service members connect with others, find medical and mental health services and get legal support, as the current US military policy requires that all openly trans service members be discharged from service. She also advocates for a trans inclusive military and writes for the Huffington Post and Bilerico Project.
10. Carmen Carrera
After first finding the public spotlight on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Carrera came out as trans and has now earned herself a successful career as a model and showgirl. She appeared on Katie Couric’s show with Laverne Cox and on that appearance, helped to shine a light on the rude, invasive and unnecessary questions that trans women are so often asked about their genitals. She signed with Elite Modeling Management, promotes transgender equality and HIV prevention and was the subject of an online movement to have her become the first trans Victoria’s Secret model.
via yagg.com
11. CeCe McDonald
CeCe McDonald is an incredibly courageous trans woman of color who was sentenced to 41 months in prison after defending herself from a transphobic and racist attack. She’s since been released after serving nineteen months and has been advocating the rights of trans women of color and for prison reform and abolition. For more information on prison abolition, you can check out the work of Reina Gosset and Dean Spade. You can also support CeCe by supporting the documentary being made about her.
Arcila, second from left, at the 2014 Pennsylvania Youth Action Conference.
12. Charlene Jacqueline Arcila
Arcila is responsible for the largest trans conference in the US, the Philadelphia Trans-Health Conference. This conference is currently looking for donations, volunteers, workshops, vendors and advertisers. She also is working on a project called H.O.P.E. (Helping Others Pursue Excellence), which will address the needs of trans people being released from correctional facilities and substance abuse programs. Arcila is also an ordained minister at Unity Fellowship of Christ Church Philadelphia and educates liturgical staffs on how to make their chruches more trans-friendly.
13. Chella Isabel Marie Coleman
Working in Los Angeles, Coleman is an activist, artist and organizer who educates the public on issues that impact the trans community, especially low income trans women of color. She works with Gender Justice LA and the Los Angeles Poverty Department to serve high risk and low income communities. If you live in LA, you too can get involved with these groups, or you can donate to each of them.
via Quorum Columbus
14. Cherno Biko
Biko publicly came out as intersex and transgender last year in a one person show called LIFE: Lessons Learned. Since then, Biko has become a board member of TransOhio, the codirector for We Happy Trans and a codirector for Project I Am Enough. Biko talked to me about how people can support trans women.
We need funding resources to do the work we do. But even if folks can’t contribute that way, I love Laverne Cox’s speech at Creating Change. (We need to) love trans women out in public.
via Transgriot
15. Cheryl Courtney-Evans
In 1979, Courtney-Evans came to Atlanta, joined LaGender, a transgender support group, and received her certification as a transgender peer counselor. In 2007, she founded TILTT (Transgender Individuals Living Their Truth), which was the first trans support group in Atlanta to serve both trans men and trans women. TILTT helps transgender people with moral support, advocacy, resources and legal information. She also provides trainings for organizations who want to improve their employment diversity practices and is currently helping to organize a group working to establish transgender focused emergency and transitional housing in Atlanta.
via One Colorado
16. Courtney Gray
Gray founded the GLBT Community Center of Colorado in 2010 and now works as the transgender programs manager. She also worked on the Denver Sheriff Department’s Transgender Inmate Policy, the US Department of Justice Transgender Law Enforcement Training, trans inclusive health insurance and the first state-level Transgender Behavioral Health Survey. Gray also volunteers at One Colorado, on the Kitchen Cabinet and Health Advisory Committee. One Colorado is open to even more volunteersand donations.
via The Raw Story
17. Cristan Williams
William started the first trans homeless shelter, cofounded the first ever federally funded trans homeless program, pioneered Houston area affordable health care and has done countless other goods for the trans community. She is currently the editor at TransAdvocate and TheTERFS.com, a long-term member of the City of Houston HIV Prevention Planning Group and the executive director of the Transgender Foundation of America.
18. Danielle Nika Askini
A social worker and activist, Askini is the policy director of Basic Rights Oregon and was the founding executive director of Gender Justice League, which takes donations, and Trans* Pride Seattle which you can volunteer at or donate to. She currently works in both Seattle and Portland to help bring justice to trans people in the Pacific Northwest.
via whitehouse.gov
19. Dee Dee Ngozi Chamblee
Chamblee brings over 20 years of organizing and advocacy to her work which includes health HIV/AIDS research, substance about prevention, mental health, intimate partner violence and counseling. Her organization LaGender, works through SnapCo (Solutions Not Punishment Coalition), which combats police profiling of trans women of color. She also became the first trans woman to receive the Champion of Change honor from President Obama in 2011.
via Net Roots Nation
20. Dr. Jillian T. Weiss
Weiss is a professor of law and society at Ramapo College where she has authored over fifty academic publications, presentations and scholarly works and about forty article and interviews for organizations like the New York Times and Associated Press. She also is a practicing lawyer who represents trans employees across the nation and serves on the board of directors of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and as the chair of the annual Transgender Law Institute.
via wehoville
21. Drian Juarez
Juarez works as a consultant on trans issues in the workplace and helps to develop programs that help transgender people get back to work. She also served as the program manager for the Transgender Economic Empowerment Project of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.
22. Fallon Fox
The first openly trans woman to be a professional MMA fighter, Fallon Fox has had to face more adversity than almost any other athlete in her sport. One obvious way you can support her is to cheer her on whenever she fights. As a part of the bigger picture, you can check out the Trans*Athlete website to see how you can help trans athletes across the country. She told me that just reading the Trans 100 is a great first step to support trans women.
Just knowing about the people in the Trans 100 and their projects and organizations is an important step. There are an incredible number of resources contained there, so sharing the booklet online helps disseminate that information while also changing the public perception of the number and variety of trans people. Many of the organizations listed are nonprofits and will accept donations and volunteers.
via bklooks.com
23. Imogen Binnie
The author of the novel Nevada, Binnie is currently a Lambda Literary Award finalist and continues to write about trans women and trans womanhood. To support her, you can keep buying her book, reading her blog and checking out her column for Maximum Rocknroll magazine. We talked about the importance of challenging the misinformation about trans women that permeates culture.
I think my best advice is to start at zero and ask yourself: what do you know about trans women, and where did you get your information? It seems like most television and movie writers don’t know any trans women in real life, which means if you can trace what you know about trans women back to old episodes of Law & Order — or even appearances by trans people on talk shows created and edited by cis people for cis people — you might not know as much about trans women as you think you do. Read Janet Mock, Reina Gossett, Casey Plett and Ryka Aoki and ask yourself: is this similar or different from what you’ve heard from Neil Jordan, Thomas Harris, Stephen Colbert and John Irving?
via Huffington Post
24. Jazz
The youngest person on the list, Jazz is a thirteen-year-old trans girl who bravely came out and has since used the platform that she has to advocate for the rights of other trans children. One of the projects she’s involved with is the TransKids Purple Rainbow Foundation. In supporting them, you’re helping send trans kids to trans camps, supporting trans youth organizations and homeless shelters, trans youth social events and more.
via housingworks.org
25. Kiara St. James
Kiara St. James was one of the major players in highlighting and helping to change the trans-woman-denying policies that many New York City shelters had. She also has used fashion shows to raise money for the transgender community. Currently, St. James works at the Lutheran Medical Center where she teaches cultural competency, helps to link trans women looking for jobs with employment and does consulting at Housing Works, which has a bunch of ways you can donate or volunteer.
Kim Watson, far right, at the Transfeminine Show and Tell event. via Body Image 4 Justice
26. Kim Watson
The cofounder of Community Kinship Life, also known as CKLife, her organization helps trans men and women with life skills, medical needs, counseling and access to resources. The group also sponsors the CKLife scholarship fund which helps to pay for transition related procedures.
via Slate
27. Lana Wachowski
Lana Wachowski, one of half of the influential filmmaking duo The Wachowskis, who are responsible for The Matrix Trilogy, Bound, Speed Racer and several other films. They also have the movie Jupiter Ascending coming out later this year.
28. Laura Jane Grace
Laura Jane Grace is the lead singer and guitarist for the punk band Against Me!. She came out in 2012, and since then has written many songs that deal directly with trans struggles and issues. The band recently released Transgender Dysphoria Blues, which is the highest charting release of the band’s career.
via gofundme
29. Lourdes Ashley Hunter
For over twenty years Hunter has led a number of initiatives that have impacted the socio-economic growth and development of trans people of color. She is currently the cofounder and executive board char of The Trans Women of Color Collective of Greater New York, which empowers trans women of color to take charge of their own stories.
via zimbio
30. Maria Louise Roman
Roman has been one of the leaders in social services for the Latina trans community in Los Angeles for over sixteen years. She was the first trans person to be program manager for Transgeneros Unidas, which is an HIV prevention program. Now, she is a member of the West Hollywood Transgender Advisory Board, a Los Angeles County HIV commissioner and a drug and alcohol counselor at the APAIT Health Center.
31. Mattee Jim
Jim is of the Zuni People Clan, Born for the Towering House People Clan. She is originally from Tse’na’oosh’jiin, and currently works as a supervisor for the HIV Prevention Programs at First Nations Community Health Source. She also is a board member for the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico, the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health out of UCSF and a member of the Statewide HIV Prevention’s Community Planning and Action Group and the National Native Transgender Network.
32. Maya Jafer
Jafer is currently employed as a counselor at the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team where she serves people, especially trans women of color, in Los Angeles who are struggling with trauma, PTSD and substance abuse. She comes from a long line of healers and has two doctorates in holistic medicine with years of experience focused on trans women’s health in India and the US. She is also the subject of the award winning documentary Mohammed to Maya, which is currently looking for sponsors for the final stages of post production.
33. Morgan Robyn Collado
Collado is an Austin-based working class femme trans woman of color. She is of Colombian and Puerto Rican descent and works as a community organizer and family builder. She is also a poet, and you can support her work by buying her first book of poems, Make Love to Rage, which will be published through Biyuti Publishing soon. I talked to her about what people can do to support trans women of color.
I think the best way folks can support trans women of color is to know that we are alive. We are not just a headline. So if you don’t know any of us or our work, ask yourself why. Who has the most visibility in life? We are the lives of twoc celebrated when they are still alive? Examine who benefits from our erasure. And know that queers would have NOTHING without us.
34. Nancy Nangeroni
Since 2008, Nangeroni has served as chair of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC) Steering Committee, helping them pass the Massachusetts Trans Equal Rights Bill. She started her trans activism in 1990, and then in 1995 founded the GLAAD award winning radio program GenderTalk, which she cohosted until 2006. In 1998, she lead a candlelight vigil for murdered trans woman Rita Hester that inspired the International Transgender Day of Remembrance.
35. Nikki Calma
Known in the Bay Area as “Tita Aida,” she has been a part of API LGBTQ HIV/AIDS activism since the 90’s. If you’d like to help that community, you can donate, volunteer or help in other ways. She also helped to conduct the first Transgender Community Health Project Survey in San Francisco back in 1997 and served as program supervisor of TRANS: THRIVE, San Francisco’s first drop-in center for the transgender community.
via Huffington Post
36. Octavia Hamlett
Hamlett has worked on two trans inclusive bills, which advocated for employment, housing and public accommodation equality for trans people in Las Vegas in the four years since she came out as a trans woman. She is also a lobbyist at Progress Leadership of Nevada, where she raises awareness for issues important to the trans community. She recently won the QUEST: Woman of the Year title in a pageant hosted by the APAIT Health Center, which encourages the empowerment of the marginalized trans community.
via Salon
37. Parker Marie Molloy
Ms. Molloy is a talented writer who has written about feminist and trans issues for The Advocate, Huffington Post, Rolling stone and many other publications. She often brings to light stories that are often otherwise ignored by the media. She wrote a blog about her feelings on the subject, saying that not only is it an honor, but also a call to action.
I feel a true obligation to step up my game. I’m refining my approach to several aspects of my life, including how I use social media, the content of my writing, and my overall outlook on life.
I started writing about trans issues because I witnessed the lack of quality trans media coverage. If I’m going to be in it for the long haul, I need to focus. Less a firebrand, and more a unifier. I amin this for the long haul.
via We Happy Trans
38. Precious Davis
Davis is the youth outreach coordinator at the Center on Halsted. There she coordinates youth programming about HIV prevention, trans advocacy and cultural awareness. She is also an artistic associate with the About Face Theatre, a facilitator with the National Conference for Community and Justice STL’s Anytown program and she has a strong passion for challenging young people and helping them to see bigotry and prejudice in their communities.
via uiowa.edu
39. Red Durkin
Durkin is a comedian, writer and activist who was voted the 2013 MOTHA Performer of the Year. She is the managing editor of PrettyQueer.com and has written nine zines and a piece in Topside Press’ The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard. She also organized a 2013 Change.org petition against trans women’s exclusion from the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and is the originator of the Trans Ladies Picnic.
40. Sarah McBride
One of Delaware’s favorite daughters, you might remember her from when came out as trans just after completing her term as American University’s Student Body President. Since then, she’s worked with the Center for American Progress, the Board of Directors of Equality Delaware, several political campaigns, the White House and she was extremely influential in helping to pass Delaware’s Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Act. She talked to me about the many different ways people can support trans women.
Contact your member of congress and urge them to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Contact – email, call, or write a letter – to the White House urging President Obama to issue an executive order banning discrimination against LGBT people in federal contracts. And urge him not to include any religious exemption beyond the current basic one in federal law.
If you have a story and you feel comfortable telling it, please share it. This isn’t to say everyone needs to come out or that everyone needs to be an activist, but know that your voice and experiences matter. We need to tell the stories – both positive and not-so-positive – of LGBT people.
If you have the resources, donate money to your favorite LGBTQ advocacy organization or advocacy organization that does LGBTQ advocacy within a broader portfolio.
I think Autostraddle readers can continue to stand up and articulate that queer identities, trans lives, and feminism are natural allies and intersect in both lived experiences and in cause. Autostraddle and its readers are important voices in combating anti-trans sentiments among the very small, but vocal group of trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs).
via Transgriot
41. Sharyn Grayson
Grayson recently announced her retirement after over thirty years in the nonprofit sector across several states, including her position as Program Coordinator for Transgender Programs and Services at AIDS Project of the East Bay in Oakland. She has received many awards for her work with trans people and plans to establish a national magazine and publishing house to provide an outlet for aspiring trans journalists.
via East Bay Express
42. Tiffany Woods
Woods is the Program Manager for Transgender Services at Tri-City Health Center in Fremont, California. There she helps the trans and gender neutral community gain access to healthcare, hormones and HIV prevention and care services. In 2002, she cocreated the program TransVision, which helps trans women of color with jobs, health services and mentoring.
43. Tobi Hill-Meyer
Hill-Meyer won an Award for Emerging Filmmaker of the year in 2010 after releasing her first film, Doing it Ourselves: The Trans Woman Porn Project. She helped to found Handbasket Productions and is currently working on Doing it Again and the website Doing it Online, which she hopes will help create a trans positive culture. Aside from being a filmmaker, she also serves as External Coordinator for Washington’s Gender Justice League. She gave me an entire list of ways you can support her.
Organize a screening, workshop, lecture, or talk at your campus. Donate money to the Gender Justice League or help volunteer for Seattle Trans* Pride. Buy/promote my films (use coupon code tpositive for $5 off films). Review my films – get in touch about free review screeners. Join my casting listserve or announcement listserve. Become a member of my soon to be launched website, I really need the regular income in order to keep doing this, or become an affiliate for [that] website- promote it and get a percentage of sales. You can follow me on tumblr/twitter as Tobitastic.
Garza, far left.
44. Tracy Garza
Garza is the cochair of the San Francisco Trans March, the largest trans pride organization of it’s kind in the world, which you can support through donations or by volunteering. She is a founding board member of the Transgender Law Center She also recently joined the staff at El/La Para Translatinas, which advocates for trans Latinas in the Bay Area.
via Learning Trans
45. Valerie Spencer
One of the stars of the documentary Beautiful Daughters, about a 2004 all trans woman production of The Vagina Monologues, Spencer has a long history of working within the trans community. She often focuses on health disparities in the trans community and was honored with the Berman Shaffer Award for her years of community service in progressive action.
46. Vanessa Losey
Losey is a Pima Indian from the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Scottsdale, Arizona. She is a founding member of the Salt River L.O.V.E. (Lifting Our Voices for Equality) Support Group, which serves Two-Spirit people and provides them with a community.
47. Vanessa Victoria
Vanessa Victoria is an executive board member and ambassador of the Trans Women of Color Collective of Greater New York and also works for the Anti-Violence Project in New York City., which can always use more support. Apart from her advocacy, she is also an entertainer and model who started performing when she lived in Puerto Rico.
via Believe Out Loud
48. Vivian Taylor
The Executive Director of Integrity USA, Taylor is a writer, activist and military veteran. Integrity USA is the Episcopal Church’s national LGTBQ organization, which aims to get full inclusion and access to rites for LGBTQ church members. Integrity offers training programs for people who want to help affect change at local, regional and national levels.
49. Z Jae Williams
Known affectionally as “Auntie Z,” she helped to create the Youth Lounge in Chicago, a drop-in for queer youth where they don’t have to worry about ID checks, sign-ins or removal of their possessions. She has the goal to take her work with queer youth nationwide, and with the expansion of Youth Lounge, she is starting on a new project, ARIZE.
via LA I’m Your’s
50. Zackary Drucker
Drucker is a Los Angeles based artist and performer. She uses a wide range of media to express her ideas about identity, bodies and womanhood. Her art challenges concepts of traditional power dynamics, comfort and gender roles. You can check out more of her art online
It may seem a bit overwhelming seeing all of these project and groups and people, and seeing that the best way to help them is often by donating money. However, every little bit helps. Even if you can’t donate to any of these groups, having awareness about how to help is a great first step in case your situation changes or you meet someone who can do something that you can’t. Additionally, a lot of these projects need support that isn’t monetary, and all of the amazing, hardworking and talented women on this list need support in every way that they can get it.
Ten Books For Queers And Feminists To Read This Spring
I haven’t read these but I’m absolutely dying to. Some are already out. Some are coming out. All look both amazing and also amazingly relevant to your interests.
Essential Spring Reading for Queers and Feminists
10. You Feel So Mortal: Essays on the Body, by Peggy Shinnier
In this collection of twelve essays, Peggy Shinnier examines subjects like autopsies, feet, bras and hair to shed light on individual and collective bodies, the social and political forces behind them, and the intersection of body and identity. Part of the University of Chicago’s gay and lesbian studies and Jewish studies series, You Feel So Mortal isn’t exactly memoir but is still incredibly personal.
Christine Sneer, author of Little Known Facts, calls it:
“Nearly impossible to put down, and when I was forced to do so, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Shinner’s warm and funny voice, along with her immense, enquiring, humane intelligence make the essays in this book — which concern identity, mortality, romantic and filial love, gender — a surpassing intellectual gem that entertains and engages readers with every single word.”
9. Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spent in Drag by A.K. Summers
Written and illustrated by A.K. Summers, Pregnant Butch depicts a queer pregnancy with undertones of memoir. Summers investigates reconciling female masculinity with hyper-feminine pregnancy tropes and the intersection of birth and gender. A review at Publisher’s Weekly calls it:
“A well-written, fast-moving narrative with many insights into gender roles, expectations about motherhood and femininity, and subtle homophobia. Some of the ground feels familiar, such as the trials of pregnancy and difficulties with birthing classes and unfriendly medical practitioners, but Summers, with her butch experience, definitely has a unique take, and she tells the story with candor, humor, and healthy self-criticism.”
8. Kill Marguerite and Other Stories, by Megan Milks
This debut collection of thirteen short stories from the co-editor of Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives mixes genres and feminist and queer theory with neat, sometimes weird and often good results. (The Nervous Breakdown has an excerpt.)
In a review at Lambda Literary, Daphne Sidor writes:
“Kill Marguerite maintains itself as a unified work; tracing the veins that run from piece to piece is part of the fun. The consistently disciplined prose does nearly as much to this end as the shared themes, sometimes calling to mind the similarly wry and precise Lydia Davis. This collection establishes Milks as a writer who can do just about anything but who will, one expects, keep doing the bidding of her macabre but humane imagination.”
7. An Unnecessary Woman, by Rabih Alameddine
In the Australian, Sarah Dempster writes, “Alameddine’s novel is the story of Aaliyah and her virtuoso interior world; one that sustains her femininity, feminism, strength and intellectual inquiry while the external world hammers at her door.” An Unnecessary Woman has been appearing on spring reading lists from the New Yorker to Feminists of Color and you can read an excerpt at NPR.
In a review at Lambda Literary, Viet Dinh writes:
“What Alameddine offers here, most of all, is a window into the lives of Beiruti women. Not only that of Aaliya, but of the women who surround her: the other women in her family; Fadia, her upstairs landlord and her friends; Hannah, Aaliya’s best friend. Many of these, like Aaliya herself, have shaken off societal notions of what ‘womanhood’ means — wifehood, motherhood — and forged identities for themselves. Aaliya, literary devotee, may consider herself ‘unnecessary’ — but the novel proves very necessary indeed.”
6. Boy, Snow, Bird, by Helen Oyeyemi
In her fifth novel, Helen Oyeyemi addresses identity, race, ethnicity, gender and family through reimagining Snow White in 1950s America in a postmodern tale reviews call “bewitching” and “jagged and capricious at moments, lush and rippled at others, always singular, like the voice-over of a fever dream.” In a review at the Rumpus, Anita Felicelli writes:
“Boy, Snow, Bird presents itself as a mirror of our real world, mixing fairytale and realist techniques, both convincing us and confounding our interpretive capacity. It is Oyeyemi’s most stunning novel to date, playfully confronting the racial politics that make Americans uncomfortable when addressed head-on. To mention “racial politics” in connection with a novel suggests something schematic, but Boy, Snow, Bird never preaches; it only reflects and refracts. Oyeyemi’s genius lies in her ability to show us our society and its fairytale double, both the truths we have always known and a fantastically weird dream we didn’t know we had been having.”
5. Redefining Realness, by Janet Mock
Janet Mock is known for her prolific writing and editing career, #GirlsLikeUs, and her badass discussions of trans women in media. In her new memoir, she discusses coming of age, coming out and the intersection of race, gender and identity. In an interview with Autostraddle, she says:
“I had three goals when I was young. I wanted to be myself, which meant to be a woman, I wanted to write and I wanted to live in New York City. And those three things are kind of coming together in the book that my record of my life so far. And I think that to have that access to tell my story in a mainstream way that’s all my words, my filter, no one has filtered it for me, you know, it’s my story, my record.
And there’s intense privilege there, right? To be that, to have that and to have that dream. And so I’m excited but I’m scared too because also it is probably my first body of work that is unfiltered by someone else. It’s not someone else’s gaze. It’s completely me.”
4. On Loving Women, by Diane Obomsawin
On Loving Women is a graphic novel of mostly romantic coming out vignettes. It features minimalist visuals, straightforward yet sweet stories and comes highly recommended. (MariNaomi even reviewed it in comic form at the Los Angeles Review of Books.) Ellen Forney, author of Marbles, says:
“On Loving Women is in turns wistful, sexy, goofy, bittersweet, frank, and adorable. Diane Obomsawin’s deceptively simple lifework and straightforward writing style capture the breathless sweetness of holding another girl’s hand for the first time, and the happy, lusty intimacy of a virginity-ending, drunken threesome.”
3. An Untamed State, by Roxane Gay
In her first novel, essayist and short story writer Roxane Gay depicts political and economic tensions in Haiti through the story of Mireille, who is visiting her parents in Haiti when a gang abducts her. A starred review at Kirkus, which also calls the novel “cutting and resonant,” notes:
“The closing chapters suggest that Mireille is on the path to recovery, but it’s also clear that a true recovery is impossible; many of Gay’s scenes deliberately undermine traditional novelistic methods of resolution (baking bread, acts of vengeance, acting out sexually). Among the strongest achievements of this novel is that Mireille’s story feels complete and whole while emphasizing its essential brokenness.”
Gay’s third book, Bad Feminist: Essays, is coming out in August.
2. Playing the Whore, by Melissa Gira Grant
In Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work, Melissa Gira Grant discusses recognizing sex work as actual work, and uses evidence to argue that police action against sex workers merely enables harassment rather than actually accomplishing anything. In an interview in the Awl, Grant says:
“There’s a quote in the book about a sex worker who says: ‘I don’t even like writing about this, because I don’t like having any attachment to anything that I do for money. I don’t want have to make that such a part of my identity.’ But when it’s stigmatized work, if you want to defend the value of that work, then you can sound like the Sheryl Sandberg of sex work: ‘We all just have to bend over and do our hardest.’ I want people, no what their relationship is to sex work, to be able to have access to control over their job, and not feel disenfranchised just because of what they do for a living. That extends so much further than sex work, far beyond the scope of the book. But that is where I’m leading to. We need to have these conversations about how our work defines us.
There’s such a through-line from ‘Do What You Love’ to sex work, and that’s part of why this produces so much anxiety. It commodifies the thing you’re not supposed to commodify. This is the same time that we’re being asked to change our relationship to our jobs. ‘Pursue your passion! But not THIS passion!’ At a certain point it becomes incoherent. Why is this the one thing we’re not allowed to put a price on?”
Another recent book, Sex Workers Unite: A History of the Movement from Stonewall to SlutWalk by Melinda Chateauvert, might also be relevant to your interests.
1. Lumberjanes, by Grace Ellis, Noelle Stevenson and Brooke Allen
Five girls who are best friends go to camp and fight monsters and are generally amazing. Lumberjanes is less a book-book and is maybe actually a comic book, but it’s one of the most important things coming out this spring and I’m not just saying that because I’m blinded by co-creators Forever Intern Grace Ellis’s and Shannon Watters’s amazing hair. In an interview with Comic Book Resources, Stevenson says:
“One of the biggest issues plaguing female characters is that, because there are relatively few of them, there isn’t a lot of diversity, and the conversations around them push very specific traits as being ‘more feminist’ — typically masculine traits like physical strength, emotional toughness, etc. — and there ends up not being a lot of room left for genuinely nuanced and organic female characters. Because when there’s only one woman in the cast, she has to be everything for everyone, and that’s not really possible. Every person is both strong and weak at the same time, and if you can’t show that weakness and you can’t show how there’s lots of ways to be strong, you don’t really have a real character. The best way I can figure to address that is to have way more female characters. Just, like, so many. Then it’s not on one woman’s shoulders to represent all women in a positive way. They can be heroes, villains, ambiguously moral, comic relief, femme, butch, strong, weak, etc. and what you’ve got are — people.”
And there are so many other amazing books to look for this spring! Emma Donoghue‘s literary crime novel Frog Music and Lorrie Moore‘s Bark and Susan Kuklin‘s Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out and Lenelle Moïse‘s debut poetry collection Haiti Glass and Kelly Cogswell‘s memoir Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger and even the latest editions of Best Lesbian Erotica and Best Bondage Erotica. What are you looking forward to?
Feature image by Micahrr.
It’s Trans Day of Visibility! Here’s 15 Ways To Let Trans People Know You See Them and Care
International Trans Day of Visibility is here! This event, which happens each year on March 31st, was started by Rachel Crandall, the leader of Transgender Michigan. It exists so that we can focus on the trans people around us and the good that they do. She wanted a day that celebrated and recognized trans people who are still with us to go alongside Trans Day of Remembrance, which remembers those we lost.
I was thinking… whenever I hear about our community, it seems to be from Remembrance Day which is always so negative because it’s about people who were killed. So one night I couldn’t sleep and I decided why don’t I try to do something about that… The Day of Remembrance is exactly what it is. It remembers people who died. This focuses on the living. People have told me they love Remembrance Day but it really focuses on the negative aspect of it. Isn’t there anything that could focus on the positive aspect of being trans?
There are many ways you can celebrate Trans Day of Visibility. Some places hold live events, such as readings or appearances by trans speakers, others host parties celebrating trans people. Although the event started in Michigan, it has spread all across the USA and into Canada and the UK. On a more individual level, you can celebrate Trans Day of Visibility by paying attention to and caring about trans people and trans issues. Here are some ways that you can do just that.
Pat Cordova-Goff via Aljazeera America
1. Cheer On Trans Athletes
The playing feild is a place where people seem to fight extremely hard to defend their right to discriminate agaisnt trans people. Although the Olympics and NCAA both have trans inclusive policies, other organizations, such as Crossfit and many state high school sports leagues aren’t as progressive. A couple examples of trans athletes you can support are MMA fighter Fallon Fox and Pat Cordova-Goff, a high school softball player, who is playing the right sport thanks to California’s new trans student rights bill.
2. Read Trans People’s Blogs
It’s extremely important to listen to trans people’s voices. We know what rights we want and we know the best ways to help us. One of the easiest ways to do this from your home is to read our blogs. Some blogs that you can check out include Transgriot, run by Monica Roberts, Janet Mock’s blog, and Biyuti Binaohan’s blog.
3. Support Trans People’s Projects
Trans people are constantly putting ourselves out there and accomplishing great things. However, due to discrimination in the workplace, schools and the government, trans people often could use all the help that we can get. You can support projects like the International Trans Women of Color Gathering, the Free CeCe documentary about CeCe McDonald and produced by Laverne Cox, Biyuti Publishing, which looks to publish works by marginalized people, the documenary Major! about trans pioneer Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Trans-Genre, which supports trans artists and publishes books by trans writers or the Trans Justice Funding Project, where your money will go to a variety of trans projects.
4. Watch Movies and TV Where Trans Characters are Played by Trans Actors
In case you missed the news, cis people playing trans characters not only takes jobs away from trans actors, but it usually relies on stereotypes and when it’s a cis man playing a trans woman, it also reinforces the idea that trans women are just men in dresses. So instead of watching Dallas Buyers’ Club or Hit and Miss, watch things like Orange is the New Black, The Fosters, Gun Hill Road, and other projects featuring trans actors and actresses like Laverne Cox, Harmony Santana, Angelica Ross, Tom Phelan, Jamie Clayton and Candis Cayne. It’s important that we have accurate portrayals of trans people, and the only way to do that is to let trans people play trans characters.
Imogen Binnie via youtube
5. Read Books and Listen to Music by Trans People
Speaking of accurate portrayals of trans people, another way to make sure that happens is to let trans people write their own stories. You can read memoirs like Janet Mock‘s Redefining Realness, Toni Newman‘s I Rise, and Ryka Aoki‘s Seasonal Velocities. Or you can check out fiction like Imogen Binnie‘s Nevada and Choir Boy and Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders. You can also buy and listen to music by trans artists including Angelica Ross, Kokumo, Laura Jane Grace of Against Me!, Namoli Brennet and Rae Spoon.
6. Donate to or Volunteer with Trans Organizations
Not only are there nationwide organizations like the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, The TransLatin@ Coalition and the Transgender Law Center, but many cities also have local organizations that support and provide safe spaces for trans people or trans youth.
7. Make Sure to Involve Trans Women in Women’s Spaces
This one should be a no-brainer. Trans women are women. End of sentence. Since we are women, women-only spaces, whether it’s colleges or music festivals, should clearly be open and welcoming to us.
8. Write a Letter to Your Congressperson Asking Them to Support Non-Discrimination Ordinances
Many states don’t have statewide protections for trans people in the workplace, housing and other areas. However, many cities and states are starting to pass non-discrimination ordinances that protect LGBTQ people from being fired or denied housing just because of who they are. If you want to support and protect trans people, this is a great first step that will only cost you fifteen minutes and the price of a stamp.
Reina Gosset and Janet Mock via Tumblr
9. Support the Trans People in Your Life
Trans people are often kicked out of our houses and lose friends when we come out. It can be very lonely being trans, and knowing that you have a community around you who will invite you into their lives really does help. Trans people are fun, smart, adventurous, nerdy, funny, athletic, talented and creative. If you befriend us, more than likely, we’ll have a great time together. Although we are generally Flawless, trans people are still people. We shouldn’t be treated as if we are mythical beasts who you can only talk about and support online. Get to know trans people in real life — in authentic, non-tokenizing ways — and you’ll probably find that you have a lot in common with us.
10. Stop Saying “LGBT” When You Really Mean “Gay”
Although people are getting better at this, I still see it all the time. If you’re making a list of the “Top 10 LGBT” anything, you better have at least one trans person on there. I’m also looking at you, Netflix, with your “Gay and Lesbian” section. Boys Don’t Cry and Gun Hill Road tell neither gay nor lesbian stories. On the other side of the coin, please stop saying “gay” when you mean “LGBT.” When Janet Mock was named one of the “15 Most Powerful Gay Celebrities” in 2012, I rolled my eyes so hard I went blind for a week. Many people will talk about Gay Rights or Gay History when they are talking about things that affect and involve trans people as well. This erases the hard work they have put in and ignores the fact that without trans women of color, we wouldn’t have the LGBT rights movement as we know it today.
Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson (far left) via Transgriot
11. Learn About Trans History
Like I was saying, it was trans women of color who threw the first bricks of the “Gay Rights” movement. The first step is to learn about trans (and LGBT rights) pioneers like Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson and Miss Major. It was them and other trans women of color like them who started the Stonewall Riots. Once you know about our modern history, you can move on to learn about gender variant people throughout history. Although the terminology might be new and it’s probably inaccurate to call anyone who crossed gender in ancient times “transgender” as they would have no concept of that as an identity, trans people are far from a modern phenomenon.
12. Stop Stressing “Sex vs. Gender”
This is often a way for cis people to try to bring some simplicity and rationality to that confusing thing that is Trans People. They say that “Gender is in your mind, and Sex is in between your legs” and think that since that makes sense to them, that is a good way to describe trans people. However, if you really listen to what you’re saying, you’re claiming that although you are okay saying that a trans woman’s gender is “woman,” her sex is still “male.” When you say that a trans woman’s sex is male, even though you call her a trans woman, you’re still misgendering her. This is a not a good way to be an ally and it makes it seem like you don’t see trans men as fully being men and trans women as fully being women. Repeatedly pointing out that sex and gender aren’t the same thing just ends up othering trans people and actually pushes them away while you’re acting like you’re including them. Saying that sex=genitals reinforces the idea that pre or non-op trans people aren’t as “real” as trans people who have had surgery. I know you’re trying to help, but this isn’t the best way to do it.
It’s funny because all trans women are liars.
13. Listen When Trans People Tell You That Something is Transphobic or Transmisogynistic
When a trans woman complains about RuPaul’s Drag Race having an entire game named after a transmisogynistic slur, don’t try to defend it by saying that they’re drag queens, so it’s okay. Similarly, when Stephen Colbert uses transmisogynistic slurs on his show, don’t defend him by saying that it’s “just satire.” Trans people (or at least most of us) actually do have senses of humor. We love to laugh. But we don’t like to constantly be the punchline of jokes that make light of violence against us or portray us as liars who want to trick you into sleeping with us. So please, believe us, we know when we’re being insulted.
14. Check Out This List of 52 Things You Can Do for Transgender Equality
If this list isn’t enough for you, here are dozens of more ways you can show your support.
15. Love and Defend the Trans People in Your Life
Trans people are oh so valuable, and our lives are far too often cut short. Since trans women (and especially trans women of color) face so much violence and murder, and so often those crimes go unpunished, the lives of trans women are precious things. All trans people face discrimination and oppression in so many areas of society, so make sure you tell the trans people in your life that you love them. Make sure you use your actions to show them that you love them. Make sure you tell those around you that you won’t put up with oppression of or violence against trans people. Don’t laugh at transmisogynistic jokes, don’t call trans people who don’t immediately disclose their trans status liars and don’t let your friends use transmisogynist slurs. When it comes down to it, the best way to let trans people know that they are visible and important in your life is to make sure that we are safe, comfortable and able to live the lives that we want.
Join Janet Mock, Me and Other Trans Women Writers in a Women’s History Month Google+ Hangout!
Janet Mock, trans activist and author of the New York Times bestselling book Redefining Realness has gathered up a great group of trans women writers to celebrate Women’s History Month, talk about our craft, and interact with all of you this Wednesday, March 26! In on this conversation will be Toni Newman, Ryka Aoki, Janet Mock and me! It’s such a great honor for me to be included along with these great trans women authors. This is going to be a great way to learn more about trans women writers and get to know us better. Or, as the event page puts it:
Join #RedefiningRealness author +Janet Mock for a live, intimate conversation with some of her favorite trans women writers in celebration of Women’s History Month. They’ll be on-air discussing their books, writing and craft. Watch live and join the Q&A via Google Hangouts and broadcast on YouTube.
If you’ve been reading Autostraddle for a little while, you’re probably already familiar with Janet Mock. She’s an activist, speaker, author and Piers Morgan slayer. Aoki is a “writer, performer, and educator who… was honored as a member of the “Trans 100″ list as one of 100 groundbreaking trans advocates from around the country, and named as one of “11 Trans Artists of Color You Should Know in 2013″ by the Huffington Post.” Newman is the author of I Rise: The Transformation of Toni Newman, which is the first memoir written by an African American trans woman. This is an amazing bunch of talented and inspirational women that will each bring their own unique flawlessness to the table.
The chat is happening this Wednesday, March 26 at 8pm Eastern and you can either join in on the Google Hangout, or you can watch it later on Youtube. This is going to be a great conversation, complete with readings from the writers and discussion and questions submitted by viewers. Plus, you can enjoy it from the comfort of your own home. Make sure you check out the event page, RSVP and submit your questions!
You might remember a previous chat that she hosted back when her book first came out and landed on the bestseller list. If you enjoyed that chat, enjoyed reading Redefining Realness or enjoy the work of any of the other trans women writers involved (including me!), this is the perfect event for you. Plus, it gives you an opportunity to have your questions answered by some truly talented trans women!
Again, this conversation will be happening live at 8pm Eastern on March 26 via Google Hangouts. So get out your laptops and join in. This will be my first time doing something like this, so I’d love to see a bunch of friendly Autostraddle faces joining in the conversation!
Piers Morgan Still, Like, Totally Obsessed with Janet Mock (and His Own False Victimhood)
Janet Mock once again brightened our TV screens when she appeared on The Colbert Report to promote her book, Redefining Realness, and discuss how the media should talk to trans people, as well as the importance of respecting people’s self identities. Stephen Colbert, who does have a somewhat rough past when it comes to making transmysogynistic jokes (in what he claims is satire), was making jokes at the expense of transphobes themselves. While things were copacetic over in Colbert Nation, they weren’t quite so great over on Piers Morgan‘s twitter feed.
This interview wasn’t perfect — Colbert still used terms like “transgendered” and “transgenders” — but he seemed to actually want to learn how to be a better ally. When Mock explained that people are born babies and are then assigned gender at birth, Colbert didn’t become angry or insist that she “was a boy until age 18.” Colbert used his fake indignation to highlight how ridiculous Morgan’s real indignation actually was.
At the beginning of the interview, Colbert brought out a button that Mock could press that played a recording of her saying her now infamous tweet directed at Morgan, “Get it the f*k together” whenever Colbert messed up. Colbert then asked Mock why she didn’t want her story sensationalized, since that’s what sells books. Mock brilliantly replied that she’d rather talk about issues that effect trans women of color, like being able to safely walk down the street, receive medical care and basically live their lives not in constant fear. Mock was also able to explain the importance of letting people determine how they want to identify themselves, and the importance of letting people know how you identify when you introduce yourself. Even through Colbert’s feigned confusion, this interview was obviously much more pleasant for Mock than some previous ones. Towards the end of the interview, Colbert actually asked what we should call babies, instead of gendering them before they even have a chance to understand what gender is.
This is a breath of fresh air after Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera‘s awkward conversation on Katie Couric’s show and the Piers Morgan’s double dip of misgendering Janet Mock and then attacking her with straight up transmisogyny and vitriol. However, Mock still couldn’t escape from the horrifyingly immature grip of Morgan’s twitter account.
Morgan is so self-absorbed that he couldn’t stop himself from commenting on Mock’s interview. Sure, Colbert made a couple of jokes at Morgan’s expense, but this is far from the first time he’s done that. Plus, Morgan aimed all of his hatred and crocodile tears at Mock, not at Colbert. Morgan seemed especially repulsed at the idea of letting children determine their own gender instead of gendering them from day one.
It’s getting hard to believe just how immature Morgan is being about the whole situation. He made a mistake, Janet Mock called him out on it — even went back on his show to explain in detail how he was offensive — and he’s still acting like he’s the victim here. What’s even more bizarre is how he keeps saying that Mock is “whining” and “playing the victim card,” when that’s exactly what he’s been doing this whole time. He really does seem like a spoiled child who got his hand caught in the cookie jar and doesn’t want to face the consequences. I’m almost loath to bring attention to his temper tantrum, however, he insists on throwing it in public for everyone to see. He’s even still bafflingly claiming to be the victim of “cisphobia.”
If I wasn’t seeing this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe that a grown man with his own TV show on a major cable news network would be able to act this way without any real consequences. This man, who claims to be progressive and an ally, is openly and boldly bullying not just Janet Mock, but the entire transgender community.
Here’s a tip for anyone who wants to be able to claim allyship with trans people: when the very trans people who you claim to be supporting repeatedly tell you that you’re messing up and being offensive, listen to them. Piers Morgan is apparently having a very hard time learning this lesson. This is not how you support trans people. This is not how you be an ally. This is not how you act like a mature adult.
It’s a real shame that Morgan threw this tantrum and was able to take away some of the spotlight from Mock. Let’s remember what’s really important here. Janet Mock, a trans woman of color, was a guest on The Colbert Report talking about her New York Times best selling book, and no matter what a certain transphobic and infantile TV host thinks, that is something to be celebrated.
10 Things I Learned At My First Big Queer Conference
Princeton University hosted the 5th annual IvyQ conference, which invites LGBTQ-identified students and allies who attend Ivy League Universities to get some knowledge and network the thirst. Although I’m a senior, this year marked my first (and therefore last) venture into the land of ivory-tower queerness. Here are a few things I learned from my exploits.
“But we just want to theorize about theories about the reality of oppression, all while looking uncomfortably fashionable”
1. Check your privilege — seriously
In a lot of mainstream social justice circles, the phrase “check your privilege” becomes synonymous with recognizing that social institutions and systems grant you certain benefits at the expense of other individuals or groups. At IvyQ though, the very notion of a conference almost exclusive to Ivy League students definitely invokes a brand of elitism. All of our schools were built on land violently stolen from indigenous people, constructed by slave labor, and designed to benefit from a capitalist class structure that values people based on their socioeconomic status. That’s a whole lot to work through, but we can’t hope to fight heteronormative, dominant cultures and to campaign for LGBTQ rights without challenging other systems of oppression that allowed us to be at that conference.
I’d be lying to say that everyone at the conference worked to dismantle Oppression, or that I even succeeded at checking my own privilege all of the time, but many of the workshop facilitators encouraged students to not only acknowledge our privilege(s), but also to interrogate, restrain, and rectify the faults of our privilege(s).
2. Socialize
It’s really tempting to hang out with your friends all weekend and gawk at the beautiful people who happen to be at the conference, but it’s a really good idea to… ya know, talk to some people. You can hang out with your friends back at school. Take a chance flirting with the beautiful woman with a septum piercing and a tattoo of a Toni Morrison quote. Ask an alum how they negotiated the workforce and getting hired while being a militant queer. Dress up in drag and dance your ass off in front of all of your peers, and then let them praise you for the next two days. Do all of the above.
Via Colorlines
3. Janet Mock is a goddess
“Never underestimate the power of your voice and your experience,” Janet Mock encouraged a crowd of college students at her keynote address. In the realest speech I’ve ever heard, Mock not only strove to transform disenchanted, queer students into confident activists and advocates of their own rights, but she was also so honest about her own struggles and was not ashamed to share her sorrows. Mock, without a doubt, had a horrendous week, thanks to Piers Morgan, but still took the time out to uplift a group of young scholars — many of whom (like myself) will never experience the painful reality of Black trans* womanhood. “There is strength in vulnerability,” she asserted, wiping tears from her eyes. “I can be scared and strong at the same time.” Thank you, Janet Mock. You never cease to inspire.
4. Bring Snacks
See, what some people had thought was that a school with a huge endowment like Princeton was gonna feed us like monarchs. WRONG. Lezbe real, they were not trying to spend more money on us than necessary. Being a senior, I anticipated the administrative trifling that took place when lunch time came around on the first day and they handed me half a sandwich*. Thankfully, my backpack was stuffed with two bags of Smartfood popcorn, a box full of oatmeal, a jar of peanut butter, some tortilla chips, a box of instant mediterranean couscous, an apple, an avocado, and three packets of hot chocolate. No, I did not finish the entire backpack of food in four days but I definitely was prepared.
*In all honesty, some of our meals were provided and I had the privilege of having the means to buy food if/when worst came to worst.
5. Take breaks!
At the beginning of day one, you are the bounciest, most jubilant little queer the world has ever seen. You go to event after event, trying to meet people and attending workshops with intense names like “Body Party: Queer Bodies, Sex and the Media,” or “Queer and Trans Resistance and Resilience in a Time of HIV Criminalization and Mass Incarceration”. So cute.After lunchtime, something chemical starts to happen within you and suddenly it’s so hard to keep your eyes open. Instead of listening to the workshop facilitator, you’re planning the next zine about orgasms you want to write, and you’re resisting a strong urge to play Candy Crush on your phone.
Take a break! It’s not a bad reflection of your rainbow spirit if you need some space. Go take a nap (maybe with that aforementioned cutie with the Toni Morrison tat, if you play your cards right). Wander around and explore the campus. Maybe even crash a frat event, a sports game, or another conference that happens to be taking place at the same school on the same weekend. (I personally crashed the Vegan Conference because I figured that a convention of vegans has to be pretty queer.) Once you’ve recharged, you can go back to being your bouncy, jubilant self.
6. Staceyann Chin is everything
I would consensually have her babies any day. I’ll let her humor, wit, and brilliant writing speak for themselves. Excuse the shoddy video quality.
7. Exclusion is a thing
Remember that time bisexuals said that they felt excluded from LGBTQ communities because of biphobia? Biphobia is still a thing! Remember that time trans* people were marginalized within a marginalized community? Guess who’s still marginalized. Asexual people, people with mental or physical disabilities, and intersex people, among others, join the ranks of groups within LGBTQ communities that often get placed on the back-burner as discussion topics when the rest of us run out of things to say. IvyQ reminded me that we do not have an LGBTQ community if we only talk about the “L” and the “G”. It’s not enough to refer to other identities in a gesture of inclusivity; we need to make sure that we are always tending to the needs of all members of our queer family.
Via Serfborts
8. The Beyoncé Struggle
If you don’t like Beyoncé’s latest album you’re going to struggle at parties. Generally speaking, if you don’t like or haven’t listened to Beyoncé’s latest album, you might struggle to understand more than a few queer cultural references. Your peers’ newfound fascination with surfboarts will seem odd. You’ll be unsure how everyone became ***Flawless, though you’ll appreciate the compliments, if not the uncanny punctuation. There won’t be enough partitions to separate you from the Bey-worship. Honestly, I don’t think anyone should force themselves to like Beyoncé if they don’t. Maybe skip a few parties or tell your friends to translate their Beyisms if you’re not one to conform. Or dance your ass off anyway because you woke up like this.
9. Consent is more important than quenching the thirst
I did not realize how strong the hookup culture was at a big LGBTQ conference like IvyQ until I physically attended. Once the sun went down, everyone seemed to turn up. I have nothing against hookups or hookup culture, but I think that our communities do have to challenge the role hookups play in our interactions with one another.
First of all, hyper-sexualizing our communities can leave some people feeling pressured to engage in sexual activities. Any pressure to have sex or engage in sexual activities leaves little room for consent, and if we’re going to create spaces where individuals can feel “liberated” enough to perform and pursue their sexual desires, we must also fiercely endorse consent and respect for other people’s boundaries. Furthermore, we must examine who has access to this hookup culture. For example, some asexual people might find a conference where the most emphasized and publicized social activities promote hooking up as the “norm” and unintentionally alienating of other perspectives. Also, we must consider if the venues and setup of our parties and get-togethers are accessible to people with disabilities of any kind, instead of simply assuming that everyone fits the same socially acceptable standards of ability. It’s not impossible to take multiple perspectives into account, even when we’re hooking up. Likewise, it’s not weird, uncool, or awkward to endorse consensual sex/sexual activities. Consent-focused conversations are always where our discussions should begin when it comes to thirst quenching.
10. Have fun, have real expectations
IvyQ is not without its faults, problems, or shortcomings. IvyQ is also a great place to explore your sexuality and to learn more about issues concerning LGBTQ communities. When heading to a big queer conference, it helps to keep an open-mind about the format, the events and the participants of the conference and to take advantage of every and all resources that you can. All in all, conferences like IvyQ are really about cherishing and embracing your various identities.
Did you go to IvyQ? Have you been to other queer conferences? Let me know about your experiences in the comments!
Janet Mock Returned to Piers Morgan Live Tonight: Here’s What Went Down
Even though Piers Morgan seemed to threaten her on twitter last night, when he tweeted out that he wanted Janet Mock back on his show to debate his “supposed ‘offensiveness’ live on air,” Mock agreed to come back, saying she is “Looking fwd to a fruitful discussion.” While Mock was able to make some good points and share more of her perspective on why it was offensive to say she “was a man until 18,” the discussion wasn’t quite as fruitful as I’m sure Mock was hoping it would be.
The segment started out with Morgan being completely incredulous, saying that he was “shocked when (he) became targeted by a lot of very, very angry people.” After introducing Mock, he then demanded that she explain to him “why I had to go through this.” This was the first time that he defended himself by reading off a resume of all the gay rights he supports. Mock, being the gracious one, actually apologized (something Morgan never did), saying “I’m sorry you feel annoyed and I think people in the trans community feel equally peeved.” Morgan seemed especially annoyed that Mock didn’t call him out during the interview if she found his statements so objectionable. Mock responded to this by saying that since this was her first appearance on a mainstream show, she was scared and “wanted to be a cordial guest.” She later added that, “if I called out people every time they misnamed or misidentified me, i wouldn’t have time for real issues.” Morgan wouldn’t hear it and insisted that since he was nice and complimented her, she should have been grateful, to which Mock replied with a quote that I think perfectly sums up the message that “allies” like Morgan need to hear – “being offensive and being kind are not mutually exclusive things.”
Janet’s face sums up my feelings about this interview
When he wasn’t busy saying that he’s a great ally and how supportive he is of “gay rights,” Morgan kept on pointing to a 2011 Marie Claire article written by Kierna Mayo about Mock titled “I Was Born a Boy.” Whenever Mock would say that she was “born a baby” or that she never identified as a boy, Morgan seemed very annoyed and waved around this article, saying that since she said she was born a boy three years ago, he had every right to do so now. It didn’t seem to matter to him that Mock repeatedly told him that she didn’t write the article, she didn’t come up with the headline, she’s written blogs criticizing the article and even talks about how problematic it is in the introduction to her book. In a blog entry on her website also written back in 2011, she says basically the same things she’s been saying to Morgan this whole time, that this kind of misgendering is offensive and harmful.
But I do wish I could change one thing in the piece: the term “boy” which is used a few times. Overall I’m fine with it because I was born in what doctor’s proclaim is a boy’s body. I had no choice in the assignment of my sex at birth. I take issue with the two instances in the piece: The first instance proclaims, “Until she was 18, Janet was a boy,” and then it goes on to say, “I even found other boys like me there…” My genital reconstructive surgery did not make me a girl. I was always a girl.
Morgan finally stopped talking about the Marie Claire article (which apparently was the only research he did on Mock for an interview that was supposed to be about her book, Redefining Realness) when she told him that “that piece should not have been the basis of our interview” and “my life is in Redefining Realness,” which I’m sure she thought the interview was going to be about. However, he still insisted that he did nothing wrong.
The main problem he seemed to be having was that he was still considered her a boy until she had surgery. Despite her saying “I was a baby, I was assigned male gender because of my genitals” earlier in the interview when asked if she was “a boy until 18,” he asked her again and again, “do you dispute that you were born a boy?” He told her “I don’t think that terminology is wrong,” and asked her to explain to him why it’s offensive to say that she was a boy, when the phrase “gender reassignment” means that she went from male to female. Mock told him that “it’s not about what surgeries I may or may not have had” and she didn’t start identifying as a girl when she “went to Thailand,” she started identifying that way “as soon as I had enough agency” to actually know what identifying as a certain gender meant.
Again, Morgan revealed exactly what kind of trans ally he is throughout the interview. When he was asking why Mock got so upset, he explained to Mock, “I’ve always been supportive of gay rights and gay marriage.” Mock shut that down immediately and told him “gay rights are not transgender rights” and that supporting gay marriage does not make him an ally to trans people. Still, spoke down to her, offering her unsolicited advice and saying “it doesn’t do you or your community any service to make me look bad.” It’s bizarre how good he is at making this issue revolve around him and his feelings.
Things got really strange after Mock left and when Morgan brought on a panel to discuss the interview just moments after it ended. Two of the panelists, Amy Holmes and Ben Ferguson were just as bad as Morgan, and the only redeeming quality of this segment was Marc Lamont Hill’s contributions. Holmes started off by saying that Mock shouldn’t be upset that she was misgendered because the only reason she is on TV is that she was born with male genitalia and that that’s a “pretty sensational story.” So apparently her activism, speaking, advocacy and writing don’t matter at all. Hill responded by saying that trans identity does not hinge on surgery. He then pointed out that perhaps Morgan isn’t quite the trans ally he thinks he is and that he sounded like “when white people point to the number of black friends they have” every time he tried to say how supportive he is of the LGBT community. It all went downhill when Ferguson had a chance to speak, which he somehow decided to use to shout things like “this is fake outrage,” “she was born a man,” and “doctors and science agree with me on this one!”
Morgan showing a fundamental misunderstanding of oppression dynamics.
Overall, it didn’t really seem like Morgan learned much or really realized what he did wrong. He ended this part of the show by saying that he has learned that “there’s a difference between sex and gender” which kind of totally misses the point. It still would have been offensive if he had spent half the initial interview saying “she was a male until she had surgery at the age of 18.” Morgan really seems to have some really fundamental misunderstandings about how oppression works. He seemed to think that trans people calling him transphobic is just as bad as the oppression that trans women of color face every day. He tried to make himself into the victim, and even though he invited Mock back on his show, he clearly didn’t want to listen to her or learn from this experience. It would have been nice to see a wealthy, white cis man with all the privilege in the world be quiet for a little while, listen to a trans woman of color and actually learn from his mistakes, but unfortunately, that’s not what happened tonight.
Piers Morgan Misgenders Janet Mock on CNN, Insults Her on Twitter
Last night on CNN’s Piers Morgan Live, trans woman, author and advocate Janet Mock showed up to talk about her new memoir Redefining Realness. What should have been a great and informative appearance by one of the country’s leading trans activists instead turned into a long series of misgendering by the show’s host, followed by a twitter temper tantrum when Mock called out Piers Morgan for the way he dehumanized and sensationalized her on his show.
Janet Mock was not a boy until age 18
The show very quickly took an uncomfortable turn. Every time Piers Morgan prefaced the story, he talked about how Mock “was a boy until age 18” when she became a woman. When he actually started talking to her it was even worse. He introduced her by saying “Janet was born a boy and at the age of 18 she took an extraordinary step to become the woman she is today.” Okay, so right off the bat he’s misgendering her. Then, the first thing he says to her is, “this is the amazing thing about you- had I not known anything about your story, I would have had absolutely not a clue that you had ever been a boy, a male, which makes me absolutely believe you should always have been a woman.” This is not how you compliment trans women. He’s essentially saying, “you don’t look like all of those ugly, manly trans women, so I’m going to be nice to you.” If he had been talking to a trans woman who doesn’t pass as well as Ms. Mock, he seems to be implying that he wouldn’t believe that she was meant to be trans.
Morgan’s interview didn’t really get any better from there, as he used Mock’s birth name several times, said that she used to be a man multiple more times and even said that she “became a woman” only when she had “a transgender operation.” Again, had Morgan’s guest been a different trans woman, one who perhaps didn’t pass as well as Janet Mock, one who hadn’t yet had (or perhaps even never planned on having) “the surgery,” would he consider her to still be a man?
Piers, that’s not how being transgender works.
When she was growing up as a young trans woman, Janet Mock wasn’t a man, no matter how much or how little transitioning she had done. Having a surgery that’s just one step in some trans people’s journeys didn’t magically change her from being a man to being a woman. She already was one. Even the show’s graphics misgendered her, saying “Janet Mock: Was a boy until age 18.”
Mock started tweeting her reactions to the interview (which was filmed several days ago) from an event celebrating the release of her new book Redefining Realness. In her tweets, she called out Morgan for saying that she used to be a boy and reminded him that she was never a man and he needs to learn how to better talk about trans people. At the event were several other trans women, and Mock tweeted out a flawless picture of herself standing with actress and fellow trans advocate Laverne Cox, giving the perfect reaction faces to Morgan’s misgendering.
Morgan soon caught wind of Mock’s tweets and apparently reverted into an eight year old child who was just told that he has to eat his vegetables. Morgan’s childish, entitled and overly aggressive response started when several twitter users started calling him out on his lack of tact and understanding when it comes to treating trans women like human beings. Morgan immediately got defensive and again misgendered Mock. He then tweeted out, “A lot of very irate people accusing me of ‘transphobia’ because I devoted a third of my show to @JanetMock ‘s inspiring story. Weird.” Morgan continued by tweeting “…wish I’d never booked her.” Now that he knows that Janet Mock will call him out when she is misgendered and dehumanized, he regrets giving a voice to her cause (the transgender one) that he claims to support so much.
Showing just how great of an ally he is, Morgan tweeted out, “As for all the enraged transgender supporters, look at how STUPID you’re being. I’m on your side, you dimwits.” Because there really is no better way to show how supportive you are of an oppressed community than to dismiss, belittle and insult them in public. Morgan seems to think that he did the transgender community the ultimate favor. He allowed one of us on his show and he expects us to be eternally grateful. Morgan put the cherry on top of his twitter tirade by actually threatening Janet Mock, saying “I’ll deal with you tomorrow night on air @janetmock – never been treated in such a disgraceful manner. Be proud.” This is what happens when rich, white, male “allies” get called out on their messed up behavior.
Did he learn nothing from Laverne Cox’s and Carmen Carrera’s recent appearance on Katie Couric’s show and the backlash that ensued when she failed to learn the proper guidelines for interviewing (or really just talking to) trans women? The guidelines aren’t even that difficult to follow, they pretty much boil down to a few things: don’t ask about a stranger’s genitals, don’t call a woman a man and don’t treat trans women as if we’re oddities in a sideshow. When he broke those rules, he was rightfully called out on it. However, instead of apologizing and admitting that he should have treated Mock better, he called Mock and her supporters “disgusting,” “shameful,” “pitiful” and “pathetic,” among a litany of other insults. Is it really that ridiculous and shameful to request to not be consistently misgendered and dehumanized? There’s a gifset going around tumblr right now showing a quote from Laverne Cox’s speech at the recent Creating Change conference. In it she says, “When a trans woman is called a man, that is an act of violence.” Trans activists like Cox and Toni D’Orsay have been saying this for years, but apparently people like Morgan haven’t been listening.
Morgan is perpetuating the idea that Janet Mock, and by extension other trans women, are men. He is insisting on othering her and focusing on his notions of what bodies should look like. These ideas are why trans women get beaten when they use women’s restrooms; why, when trans students are forced to go out of their way to use a separate bathroom ,we think it’s progress; and why trans women of color are murdered after the person flirting with them finds out they “used to be a man.” What might be worse is his reaction to the backlash. He seems to think that since Janet Mock didn’t immediately interrupt and correct him while she was on set, she has no right to stand up and demand to be treated with respect, and that she’s being completely disrespectful by doing so. Morgan added several more tweets this morning, saying again that Mock is “pretending” and “lying” and even challenging her to come back on his show to debate whether or not he was offensive. That’ s not how being offensive works. Mock clearly pointed out which direct quotes from Morgan’s show were offensive and transphobic, and still he is trying to make her seem like the irrational one. I’m not sure how Morgan thinks he can debate the objective fact that he repeatedly said that Mock was a man.
Trans women are already seen as aggressive and irrational, or even crazy, and when Morgan dismisses Mock in this way and claims that he’s never been treated so horribly by a guest, he is saying that those stereotypes are correct. He’s acting like he’s the victim here, and that a “mad black trans woman” is attacking him for no reason. He’s trying to completely discredit her, claiming that she was perfectly happy with the interview and only now “pretends she was mortally offended” and that she set out to “distort” the facts to “create a fake furore and sell books.” The only claims Mock has made were that Morgan said she “was a boy until 18” and “formerly a man,” and that she didn’t appreciate or agree with those statements. Morgan is participating in a very insidious form of transmisogyny, where trans women are first mistreated, then attempt to point out the oppression only to have their oppressors turn the tables on them. We’re told that we’re too sensitive and that a lot of the transphobia we point out is made up. I’m honestly getting tired of having to write about trans women being disrespected by “journalists” like this. I’m tired of trans women being treated as though we’re oddities who don’t even deserve basic human decency. I’m tired of trans women being told that we should be happy with the crumbs that we’re offered. Piers Morgan thinks that he did trans women a huge favor on Tuesday night, when in reality he slapped us in the face. Far too often trans women are told that we have no right to complain when those claiming to support us are actually harming us, and I’m extremely happy to see Janet Mock refuse to stand for it any more.
Be prepared to watch Janet Mock LIVE tonight at 9 EST when she shuts Piers Morgan down on his own show.
Looking fwd to a fruitful discussion. MT @piersmorgan: So @janetmock has agreed to come back on my show LIVE tonight. CNN 9pmET.
— Janet Mock (@janetmock) February 5, 2014
Get Excited About Janet Mock’s Project, I AM #RedefiningRealness
Mey’s Team Pick:
Have we mentioned lately how excited we are for Janet Mock’s memoir coming out in just a few days? Well, in case you’ve missed our one million posts on the subject, the book is called Redefining Realness and in it, Mock tells her life story and gets to define her own reality and share her story under her own terms. Since Mock regularly talks about the importance of being true to oneself and sharing your story with others, with the help of her editorial assistant, Erika Turner, she made a tumblr where people from all around the world can submit their own stories and redefine realness for themselves.
The I AM #RedefiningRealness tumblr asks people to submit their name, a selfie, five words they feel define themselves and their story. Turner will take it from there and put it together in an awesome graphic and tumblr post. So far, the around two dozen people that have submitted cover a wide range of genders, sexualities and ethnicities, and all of them have important stories to tell. The tumblr itself says it better than I ever could:
The book is about discovering, becoming and revealing ourselves to the world. It’s about authenticity and owning our stories in a world that tells us that who we are is wrong, shameful and should be kept secret. We’re banishing this silence together through storysharing.
I AM #RedefiningRealness is a space where readers can share parts of their lives, proclaim and declare their identities and discuss where their journey intersects with the messages in the book.
I think this is a brilliant idea and one of my favorite tumblrs right now. So get submitting! I can’t wait to see a bunch of Autostraddler’s smiling faces on the site.
Janet Mock Redefines Realness: The Autostraddle Interview
Janet Mock had kept a secret for over 25 years when she wrote the column heard ’round the world: “I was born a boy.” Already an established member of the publishing world, she was coming out as a trans woman.
At the time, Mock was known for her work with People magazine, where she served as Online Editor; now, she’s known for her advocacy and writing around trans* issues.
There are key moments in a person’s life when you just know your destiny is about to change. For me, this moment came when Wendi, whom I remained friends with despite being in different schools, started taking female hormone pills. When she graduated to injections a few months later, she sold me her pills for $1 a pop. The timing was divine, as I’d already begun to detect a hint of an Adam’s apple on my throat. The changes in my 15-year-old body horrified me. Sometimes while showering, my thoughts got dark: What if I just cut this thing off? Wendi’s pills were my savior. For three months, I took estrogen and watched my body’s slow metamorphosis: softer skin, budding breasts, a fuller face.
But I knew that taking them without the supervision of a doctor was risky. I needed someone to monitor my progress. That’s when I finally confessed to my mom what I’d been doing. A single, working mother, she didn’t have the luxury or will to micromanage my life and allowed me to do what I wanted so long as I continued making honor roll. That was our unspoken deal. But the medical changes were different — she recognized that my desperation to be a woman was not just teen angst or rebellion; it was a matter of life or death. “If that’s what you want,” she said, looking me straight in the eye, “we’re going to do it the right way.” So she signed off on a local endocrinologist’s regimen of treatments, which involved weekly hormone shots in the butt and daily estrogen pills. For the first time, I could visualize heading off to college as a woman, pursuing a career as a woman. No more dress-up, no more pretending.
The world learned in 2011 that Janet Mock was trans, and also that she was a hell of a writer. Her work was far-reaching, approachable, poignant: she wrote firsthand about coming out to her boyfriend, the murders and violence directed at trans women of color, and what she wants from her community. And we couldn’t get enough. Now, Mock is a regular on The Melissa Harris-Perry Show, NPR, Huffington Post, and, of course, Twitter – a rare land where the most intersectional, awe-inspiring, and thought-provoking feminists rise to the top.
#GirlsLikeUs is for ALL trans women, regardless of color, but all who lend their voice to amplify ours knows that intersectionality matters.
— Janet Mock (@janetmock) May 15, 2012
Mock took some time out of her media circuit to pen her so-far memoir, Redefining Realness; in it, she finally gets to tell us the full story. The book, out in February, is sure to sound just like the Mock we know and love: honest, frank, bright. (In her undeniable perfection, she also led a Storygiving campaign to make the book more accessible to trans women of color.)
Janet Mock is an inspiration to anyone attempting to live authentically. She’s unabashedly human, insanely dignified, humble and generous with her efforts. She’s been helping other women – and particularly other trans women of color – tell their stories, and it’s made the world richer and more understanding. When faced with what must have felt like impossibility, she barely showed fear.
Mock came out defiantly into the world as the person she knew she wanted to be, and she accepted and has handled the responsibilities of being both a spokesperson and a mentor with grace. I recently sat down for a phone interview with her to ask ten(ish) questions about stories and what comes after she’s done telling this particular one.
I’m really excited to start off the new year with such a great interview! I wanted to sort of start out with your switch to advocacy – you sort of totally 180-ed from being an editor at People to being this outspoken trans* advocate. Have you ever looked back?
I haven’t looked back, ever. I think it was the best choice that I had at the time to tell my story on my own terms and then to hopefully use that story to raise awareness about a very marginalized group of women: young, transgender women. I think the biggest thing for me is the plug-in to this amazing trans* and queer community that’s out there that’s been doing this work that’s, I think, at a point where it’s really ready to take the lead from people who live in many multiplicities, right, who have many different identities, not just people who are gay or lesbian, cisgender, but people who tend to be kind of muddied in their identities. And I think that I came around at the right time to be a part of this new kind of “intersectional” blend of the movement.
The next biggest part was just kind of connecting to all kinds of young women who found, I guess, some semblance of reflection in my story and in my writings. And I just want to continue to make them proud and make them proud of themselves and just feel as though they can tap into themselves and tell their stories so they can be heard.
And I know a lot of your activism is sort of tied up in the gay community since queer and trans* issues are so close together. So how do you feel about the relationship that sort of exists there between gay rights and trans* rights and just sort of the LGBT movement as a whole?
You know, I really I wish that we could really talk about gender expectations within the movement. I think that when we’re all born we’re told that if you’re assigned male or female at birth and you’re supposed to, you know, like the “opposite sex,” that’s who you’re supposed to be with. I think it’s about all of those supposed gender expectations. And I think that if we would have kind of started the movement there in that sense, I think we could have been more cohesive in our journeys forward without excluding people. I think the relationship is exactly what Autostraddle talks about often – you know, telling different stories.
I think that that’s what’s very important is showing that it’s also not a monolith, even though that we are in the movement together moving forward that there’s many different little movements within this movement that hopefully pushes forward when the louder part of the movement is heard, you know? We’re not going to be silenced, the rest of us. I just hope that young queer, gay, lesbian, trans, bi – whatever – continue to lift up the erased history and they continue to lift marginalized voices.
It’s always a tricky question, but obviously it is a community, right? Because that’s how the world sees us. Often they see LGBT, they don’t see QQIA, you know? But they see LGBT and so they think that it’s a brand. And so how do we use that brand to forward the movement, move the movement forward and also hold people within the brand accountable to those who often aren’t heard? I think that’s the work of a lot of us that we’ve been doing, a lot of us who actually do a lot of our mobilizing through media, through social media and through the internet. I think that that’s what’s amazing about YouTube and about Tumblr. You hear the voices that often aren’t heard when it goes onto MSNBC or when it goes onto “Modern Family” and “Glee” and all that stuff. And so I’m happy that younger voices and voices of color and marginalized voices are being heard.
You started the #GirlsLikeUs hashtag, which continues to be a really strong and powerful place for trans women to connect or people to even just talk about trans* issues. And prior to your advocacy, you were also doing work online. So how do you feel about a lot of the people out there who doubt the ability of the Internet to connect and inspire and educate people?
I think it’s uniquely positioned for marginalized people who have access to the Internet. And I think that for me specifically, when I started #GirlsLikeUs, it was actually for the women who wrote to me and told me that they couldn’t come out. Either they couldn’t come out as trans* or they could not even start the journey of saying that they’re trans*, right? And so I knew that the internet, because of the physical difference of trans women, obviously there’s visible difference there for trans women because a lot of it is about body image and self image and self representation determination, sometimes it’s hard to leave your apartment where you feel safe and you feel like no one is going to throw slurs at you or say anything ridiculous about you. So the Internet often is the first place of refuge.
And so I knew this and I was like, how can I empower those women by showing women who are living “visibly” out in the world and who can send messages of support and affirmation about their lives and just kind of live their lives very publicly and have a space where we can all tap into this level of visibility. Whatever visibility you’re comfortable with, whether it’s just at the computer and your little studio apartment or if you’re out on the streets and you’re taking photos of yourself with your friends. There’s different levels of visibilty and all levels of visibilities matter for our movement. Because until trans women specifically are seen in the world beyond someone else’s gaze, beyond someone else’s gate keeping and lens, we’re never going to be seen as who we truly are, which is very, very different kind of woman.
So I think that for me I’d noticed that the most successful “hashtag” or social media movement based activism are the ones that are very targeted towards marginalized voices that tend not to be heard. And so then when we activate those voices and we amplify them and we collect them together, it shows a very strong portrait. And so I think that in this day and age, I think it’s the quickest, probably cheapest way of getting people to be heard in media is through web platforms.
And you’re also making the switch from web to print with your book that’s slated for February. Are you super excited, terrified?
So I’m definitely about the book. It’s like a mix of like exhilaration, fear, excitement, obviously a dream being realized is probably the biggest part of it. I had three goals when I was young. I wanted to be myself, which meant to be a woman, I wanted to write and I wanted to live in New York City. And those three things are kind of coming together in the book that my record of my life so far. And I think that to have that access to tell my story in a mainstream way that’s all my words, my filter, no one has filtered it for me, you know, it’s my story, my record.
And there’s intense privilege there, right? To be that, to have that and to have that dream. And so I’m excited but I’m scared too because also it is probably my first body of work that is unfiltered by someone else. It’s not someone else’s gaze. It’s completely me. And so that’s the scary part, right? And so criticism or whatever comes. And also being scared of the unknown and all this stuff. So putting myself out there. So yeah, I’m excited. I’m excited though. Mostly I’m excited. I’m very, very excited.
Well, how did it happen? How did the sort of process start and what were some of your favorite parts of the process?
It started I think three years ago right when I was in talks to tell my story in Marie Claire. I had already been writing stories and memories from my life just to myself. I didn’t really know that it was memoir yet, it kind of felt more like a journal. And then once I stepped out publicly in my life, I realized that there was a need or a gap within the quote, unquote, “trans* memoirs” and even within women of color memoirs it kind of missed that intersection of transness and woman of colorness. And so I wanted to put that together. I wanted this book to be the bridge between those communities, between the queer and trans* community and women of color communities and say, kind of how Barbara Smith said, kind of how Gloria Anzaldua said in their times. Those women were sticking the claim — and Audre Lorde — they were sticking the claims on their lives and saying, “We exist.” And that’s kind of what I want this book to be is the same. Young trans women, a lot of them poor, a lot of them of color exist. And I can share their experiences through the lens of my story.
And so that’s how the book became a book, those journals became a book. And so now the book has been worked on in the past three years and now it’s ready for the world and I’m really excited to share it with a lot of people. And I hope that it’s an accessible read for people who may not understand these issues and an uplifting one for those who kind of do understand but they may want to see themselves on the page in some way.
That’s awesome. What sort of stuff do you see happening sort of after it’s done? Are there any new projects that you’re going to start working on or any ventures that you’re going to do once the book is out?
Yeah, I have some things lined up for sure. I think this book will be at my side for the next three years. I’ll probably be touring intensely for probably the first two years, you know, to be honest. So I’m excited to have deeper conversations about the themes of the book, about authenticity, about trans womanhood, about being a woman of color.
But beyond that, I think I just want to continue storytelling. That’s kind of why I studied journalism, that’s why I came out with my story, that’s why I shared my story. And so I just want to continue to do that on different platforms. I’m thinking about making the transition to television, figure out what that looks like, as a showrunner or either someone who has her own conversation series.
And of course, writing more books. Because at the end of the day I’m a writer and that’s what I want to do. I don’t know what that next book project is. But I think that really what’s important for me is to create the media that I should have had growing up, as Alice Walker said when she wrote The Color Purple. She said she wanted to write the book or the books that she should have been able to read growing up, and that’s what I want to do.
What’s some of your favorite stuff that you’ve done thus far, sort of breaking into the whole advocacy queer activism community? And what’s some stuff that you’re dreaming of that have yet to do?
Oh my God. I think the number one thing, to be honest, was connecting with other trans women. Because I think that the way that I grew up was kind of like, you “transitioned” and then you move on with your life and you move on because you need to survive, right? So you move on away from the community that kind of raised you. Like I was raised with trans women, like a group in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was older trans women. My best friend was a trans woman. You graduate away from that once you can kind of live this “realness” life, right?
And so telling my story connected me to a whole network of women. And that has been the biggest strength for me. I have new friends in my life who are amazing trans women. Writers, artists, activists. And now I can tap into that network of women and really know what community is. It’s uplifting one another, it’s affirming one another, it’s challenging one another, it’s caring for one another. That has been the biggest gift in my life so far. And that all came through the act of stepping forward and telling my story and just speaking up. And so my voice connected me to other voices and it only enriches my voice. And so that has been the biggest gift in my life so far, being able to do that.
And I just want to continue storytelling and letting other women see themselves, right? Because when we create media, like I know how Autostraddle has done, you tap into other women. They start creating media and they start doing things. So that’s been the most inspiring thing is to see young trans women come to me, or just young women of color, queer women of color, who say that my story has meant this to them and so they created this project or meant this to them or they started telling their story or created a blog. And so I just love how that’s the part of the story’s sharing process, right? The telling is just step one, but the sharing part, you don’t know where that’s going to take you and it encourages other people to share their stories. And I think that we need more and more stories, our own stories.
What’s your ultimate advice to someone who is trying to live true to themselves or who is struggling with who they are?
I think number one is tap into yourself and take your time. I think that we tend to also see a lot of people — a lot of the stories tend to be people who are not in the process, right? When we’re the most vulnerable is when we’re in the process of finding ourselves, that process of self discovery. And so we tend to see from I went from scared, bullied child to this amazing person now and this is where I am now and, look, you can do it too. And that’s why I do like Tumblr and I do like YouTube because I feel like it’s a lot of people in process of self revelation, self determination.
And I think that a lot of those things, when you see people in the messiness of their journeys, that’s more empowering. So what I would say to someone is don’t look to these big role models that now you hold up on a pedestal. Look to those who are right in process with you. Because you see that they’re taking their time, that it takes a long time to find yourself. So take your time finding yourself, take your time finding and honing your voice, if you’re a writer or storyteller or an artist, whatever that point of view is, and to really tap into yourself.
And when I say tap into yourself, I mean like really find out who you are. Like beyond the labels that people may have embraced for themselves and find the labels that are you, you know? And specifically when I’m talking to trans and queer women it’s like really don’t go based on someone’s expectation who’ve said that these labels are fine with me. And so I’ve noticed that with a lot of people they’re like, “Well, I don’t really live up to trans*, I don’t really live up to queer, I don’t really live up to dyke, I don’t really live up to this and that. I’m not that because I don’t look like this person or I don’t seem as self assured as this person.” So really tap into yourself. It’s really great that you have these around you. They’re there to inspire you, not to dictate a path for you. And so tap into yourself and find your own path and take your time journeying on that path.
That would be the best advice I can give anyone, if anyone would ask me.
Idol Worship is a biweekly devotional to whoever the fuck I’m into. This is a no-holds-barred lovefest for my favorite celebrities, rebels and biker chicks; women qualify for this column simply by changing my life and/or moving me deeply. Graphic by Rory Midhani.
35 Trans Women I Had #Herocrushes On In 2013
A #HeroCrush has nothing to do with romantic or sexual attraction. You don’t even have to want to be friends with the person. Instead, it’s all about people you admire and look to for inspiration and influence. It’s that special feeling you get when you look at someone and you think, “dang girl, I want to smash the patriarchy with you!” You can see yourself holding hands with them marching in a parade or creating a human blockade. You fantasize about a future spent together dismantling systems of oppression side by side. You want to follow them on twitter and you make sure to tune in when you hear that they’re going to be on MSNBC or NPR. For me, a lot of my #herocrushes in 2013 happened to be trans women. Some of these people are heroes because they faced serious oppression or obstacles, others are heroes because they’re thriving in their fields, but all of these trans women deserve to be recognized and remembered this year.
via colorlines
1. Janet Mock
Every time she puts out another blog post or appears on Melissa Harris Perry or HuffPost Live I have to stop and pay attention. She is consistantly bringing up issues that others who have audiences her size simply don’t talk about. Whether it’s talking about Islan Nettles being misgendered at her own vigil, the fact that trans women of color’s indiegogo campaigns don’t seem to raise a lot of money or talking about Kerry Washington on Scandal, she always brings important points and a unique perspective to the issue. She has a book called Redefining Realness coming out in February and she’s poised to have a great 2014. She’s a great leader not just for trans women, not just for women of color, but for all women.
via okgorgeous
2. Laverne Cox
I know we seem to talk about how much we love her a lot, but that’s only because she deserves it. She’s the only trans woman of color who is a regular on a TV show, and on top of that, she’s playing a trans woman character who is one of the most fascinating and enthralling characters on TV this year. Outside of TV, she’s an outspoken advocate for the rights of trans women of color everywhere. She’s producing a documentary on CeCe McDonald, appears on TV and the internet to talk about being a black trans woman in America and is just an all-around awesome person. Cox is radically changing the way television and television viewers see trans women for the better and I can’t wait for the next season of Orange is the New Black.
via colorlines
3. CeCe McDonald
Thrown in a men’s prison for defending herself from racist and transphobic attackers, she has been able to smile and inspire all of us. McDonald has brought to light a huge issue that most in America did not know about- the horrible and unfair treatment that trans women face in the prison system. McDonald continues to speak out about trans issues from inside prison and you can support her by writing to her.
4. Carmen Carrera
Not only does she continue to wow me every time she comes out with a new photoshoot or video showing off her impeccable style and amazing looks, but she also knows how to speak up about important issues. A change.org petition was started by her fans and supporters asking Victoria’s Secret to make her the first transgender model to walk in their show and got over 45,000 signatures. Plus, she’s not afraid to call out her friend (who is in the room) when she says she doesn’t want Carmen to go out clubbing with her because it’s “straight night” at the club.
5. Miss Major
Miss Major is one of the true legends of the American queer rights movement. (She was actually at Stonewall!) This year we saw a documentary about her illustrious life being made called Major!. The documentary won Project of the Month at IndieWire and has been covered by GLAAD, Colorlines, and Huffington Post.
via ABC News
6. Coy Mathis
Only six years old and already winning life changing battles for the rights of her peers. When her school in Colorado was trying to force her to use the boy’s bathroom, her parent’s sued and won a landmark court case saying that trans students are allowed to use the correct facilities for their gender. Coy is just trying to live her life, and in doing so is making life better for transgender students all around her state.
via Newsday
7. Fallon Fox
She seems to face almost as many verbal punches from transphobes outside the ring as she does actual punches from opponents in the ring, and she manages to bounce back from all of them. Even though she’s faced bullying and incorrect allegations that she has an unfair advantage, she hasn’t backed down and continues to fight in the sport she loves. She currently has a record of 3-1-0.
via News Tribune
8. Eli Erlick
The founder and director of the Trans Student Equality Resources, national advisory council member for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and an activist who fights for trans students’ rights in California and across the country. One of the things she worked toward was to bring about California’s sweeping new student’s rights bill. She was named to both the Trans 100 and Refinery29’s 30 Under 30 lists.
9. Lovemme Corazón
Their memoir Trauma Queen was released this year and is one of the most moving and powerful pieces of writing I’ve read in a long time. In it, they talk about gender, abuse, depression, activism and racism. By publishing their memoirs and writing such an open book, they are telling a story that a lot of trans women experience but few get to tell about. Plus, their blogging, videos and self-created media posted on tumblr and elsewhere continues to change my life.
via Angels of Change
10. All the ladies who are in the Angels of Change calendar
This calendar raises money for the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Division of Adolescent Medicine Center for TransYouth Health and Development and gives young trans people the opportunity to get all dressed up and show off. Proceeds from all all of the calendars purchased go directly to the center. It is coordinated by Bamby Salcedo and according to the website, “Although they are always an attractive bunch, they’re not chosen not based on their looks, but on their willingness to create change, within themselves, and within their community.”
11. Alysia Yeoh and Tong, comic book characters
The first realistic and positive portrayal of a trans woman in the mainstream DC comics universe, Alysia was created and introduced by Gail Simone in Batgirl and came out as trans in issue #19. She’s the most prominent and mainstream trans woman to ever appear in comics and is also one of the few whose transness isn’t tied into fantasy or sci fi elements. Another comic book character who came out as a trans girl this year, Tong is one of the Moloid (a race of underground humanoids) children who are members of the Future Foundation, a sort-of spin off of Marvel Comic’s Fantastic Four. Her interactions with her siblings, friends and teachers in FF are some of the cutest depictions of trans youth in fiction that I’ve ever seen.
via Delaware Liberal
12. Sarah McBride
Former student body president at American University and current trans activist in her home state of Deleware, she was influential in passing the state’s transgender non-discrimination law this year. She spoke at the 17th Annual HRC dinner, talking about her experiences coming out as transgender and fighting for trans rights in Delaware. We talked with Sarah back in 2012, and she’s only gone on to do bigger and better things since then.
13. Laura Jane Grace
The lead singer and guitarist for the band Against Me! came out as trans last year and has just gotten more and more rock and roll as time goes on. She released the kickass True Trans EP this year and continues to have one of the cutest families around. Against Me! is releasing a new CD, Transgender Dysphoria Blues in January and is touring right now.
via Ryan Harding Photography
14. Paris Lees
Lees keeps on getting named one of the most influential LGBTQ people in the UK, and the more I read her articles and watch her TV appearances the more I can see why. She was a part of the BBC’s “100 Women” event, appeared on BBC’s Question Time and continues to advocate for trans rights in her native country.
via zimbio
15. Andy Marra
Marra’s article on her experiences being a Korean adoptee, going back to that country to find her Korean mother and coming out to her as transgender makes me cry every single time I read it. I wish that more coming out stories were as touching as this one. If you haven’t checked it out, please, go do so now.
via wehoville
16. Bamby Salcedo
She’s not only the president of the Trans-Latin@ Coalition, which advocates for the needs of transgender Latin@s in the US, she also works with the HIV positive community (of which she is a member) and trans and Latin@ youth. She’s the person behind the Angels of Change Calendar.
via We Happy Trans
17. Kokumo
Kokumo is an African-American transgender advocate, performer, artist, writer, organizer and singer. In addition to all of her activism, she also released an EP, There Will Come A Day, in February and released a video for the title track in September. She dedicated the video to the countless trans women of color who have lost their lives due to violence.
via oyunga pala
18. Audrey Mbugua
She’s a transgender woman from Kenya who is suing the Kenya National Examinations Council and the Attorney General in order to have them recognize her status as a woman. While the government argues that since she “was born male” and “hasn’t completed her transition,” she is having a hard time finding employment and is trying to change her national ID card and passport so that she can travel, continue her education and start a career.
via ABC Local
19. Cecilia Chung
Chung was the first openly trans woman and first openly HIV positive person to serve on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. One of the founding producers of Trans March, this immigrant from Hong Kong also works tirelessly to educate the medical community on trans* health issues.
via Huffington Post
20. Sadie
An eleven-year-old trans girl who decided to write an essay to President Obama after he mentioned gay rights in his inaugural speech but left out trans* people. Her essay was earnest, touching and brave.
21. All the trans women who have written for Autostraddle
Not only was the trans*scribe series filled with amazing and diverse stories about trans women’s experiences and attitudes, but trans women like Morgan M., Morgan Collado, Vivian, Maryam and Savannah have continued to contribute great pieces to Autostraddle.
via Flux Hawaii
22. Ari South
South had previously competed on Project Runway before coming out as trans, and returned this year to the show’s All-Star edition. Despite being misgendered on the show and being the first person to leave, she managed to show that she’s talented and one to watch in the fashion world.
via NY Daily News
23. Cassidy Lynn Campbell
Only sixteen years old, Campbell was the first openly transgender girl elected homecoming queen in California. After winning, she was unfortunately bombarded with transphobic and transmisogynistic attacks. Even after facing that, she says she is moving on to “amazing opportunities” and “bigger and better things.”
via news in 15
24. All the trans women who were murdered or violently attacked for being trans
I’m certainly not including these women on this list to celebrate the “accomplishment” of being murdered. They’re on here for a different reason than everyone else. A hero doesn’t just have to be someone who you want to work alongside, it can also be someone who’s memory you want to honor in your actions and daily life. These are women who are our sisters, friends and loved ones and who I want to do right by. These are women who really deserve to be honored and revered. They are the kind of heroes who we should never forget, who we should make sure to memorialize. This year, like many years before, we saw far, far too many trans women being attacked because of their trans status. This is especially true of trans women of color, and especially black trans women in the United States and Latina trans women in South and Central America. We need to remember these names and honor their memories.
via Spark Summit
27. Calliope Wong
Wong applied to Smith College (a women’s college) in 2012, but was denied admission because her FAFSA form was marked “male.” She brought to light the issues with many women’s colleges admittance policies and became the face for the fight to make sure that women’s colleges are safe spaces for trans women.
28. Naomi Fontanos
A transgender woman from the Philippines, she is the co-founder of Gender and Development Advocates and has spoken in front of the Philippine House of Representatives to advocate for trans women’s rights. One of the many goals she is working toward is to pass anti-discrimination bills that would protect trans workers.
Clockwise from left: Rau, Wenzel, Wanzer, Talackova
29. Ines Rau, Kylan Wenzel, Jenna Talackova and Arisce Wanzer, models and beauty queens
While some might think that there’s nothing revolutionary about trans women modeling or entering beauty pageants, I would have to disagree. Holding up trans women (and especially trans women of color) as fashion and beauty icons who society is supposed to look up to and follow goes against everything trans women and women of color are taught about beauty standards.
via Huff Post Live
30. Jazz
Another star of the bright future of trans advocates, this twelve year old has been the subject of a documentary, I Am Jazz, has appeared multiple times on TV, has won several youth advocate awards, and was honored at the GLAAD Media Awards for her work.
31. Brandi Ahzionae
Ahzionae is a hair stylist and community builder in Washington, DC who was featured in JET Magazine this year. She is the creator of the DMV Trans Circulator, which “is directly responsible for spreading information within the trans community” and building connections between trans people in and out of prison. By standing up and being a notable voice for African-American trans women, she is helping to change the way media and society views trans women of color.
32. Jen Richards and Angelica Ross, roommates
Richards is a writer, organizer and master of the internet. She’s the creator of We Happy Trans and one of the directors of The Trans 100, (which was founded by Toni D’orsay, another #herocrush worthy trans woman) both of which highlight positive stories within the transgender community. Ross is a speaker, singer/songwriter and activist. She is the coordinator of the TransWorks program, which is an “employment initiative geared towards the economic empowerment of transgender and gender non-conforming people.”
33. Mia Tu Mutch
A program assistant at LYRIC (Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center) in San Francisco, Mutch works hard to make things better for queer youth in the Bay Area. She has also fought for “racial justice, LGBTQ equality, affordable housing, street safety, and much more” in her community. She also works as the Chair of the Housing LGBTQ and TAY Committee of the San Francisco Youth Commission.
Clockwise: Roman, Castro, Inurritegui-LInt
34. Danielle Castro, Maria Roman and Arianna Inurritegui-Lint, Latina Activists
Three of the honorees on the Honor41 list, which looks at 41 Latin@s who are role models in the LGBTQ community. Inurritegui-Lint is East Chair for TransLatin@ Coalition and works with the Florida Health Department in the HIV/AIDS community. Roman is an actress, beauty queen and Risk Reduction Counselor in Los Angeles who works toward HIV prevention and transgender rights. Castro is the Community Mobilization Specialist at The Center of Excellence for Transgender Health in San Francisco and works as an HIV test counselor and transgender cultural sensitivity training educator.
Gossett on right via reinagosset.com
35. Reina Gossett
Gossett is the Director of Membership at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, working to build community there. She speaks out and writes out for the rights of trans and gender non-conforming people to be in charge of their own genders and advocates for the remembrance and celebration of trans history. She is a powerful advocate for trans people of color and a strong voice for trans victims of prison and police brutality.
I’m sure I left off a ton of awesome, amazing and world-changing trans women, so if I left you off, please forgive me. Who do you think should be added to this list?