Stigma and Sisterhood: Life for Trans Women Since 1994’s “I Don’t Wanna Be a Boy”
A camera pans through a pre-gentrification Meatpacking District — the legendary New York City neighborhood that was home to gay clubs like The Mineshaft and more sex workers than you could shake a $100 bill at — as drums throb in the background. This is the opening for a mostly-unknown documentary about six trans sex workers called I Don’t Wanna Be A Boy. I never knew this particular documentary existed until a friend of mine sent me a video file, telling me that I’d find it interesting. They were right.
It was filmed in the early 90s, released in 1994, and largely forgotten by time, but it was something that struck a highly personal chord with me. While I was only three when it was released, New York City before it was completely gentrified was a place that will live with me forever, because it irrevocably shaped who I would become.
This documentary almost acts as the counterpoint to Paris is Burning in that there are no witty catchphrases, soundbites, or gif potential scenes. It’s just pure and unbridled realism. That’s not to say Paris is Burning wasn’t real, but that it was constructed to appeal to middle-class white people who wanted an entertaining show from poor black and brown queer people. It became evident to me, even in the deleted scenes from Paris is Burning, that the movie was meant to appeal to their sensibilities.
Fast forward from 1994, and the movie’s release, to 2002. I was about 11 years old when I started going through puberty, and had experienced dysphoria since I was 6. I didn’t have the words to describe what I wanted to be, what I wanted my body to be like, but I knew I wanted it to be different. I skipped school and slipped away when my parents weren’t around to cross-dress, to explore my gender and my sexuality away from prying eyes. My development in terms of gender and sexuality isn’t really for the faint of heart to know. It’s not something I’m used to talking about. But learning the words for what I am was an important part of it and it’s pretty tame to me.
We were in New York City to see my mother’s side of the family, and that was when saw her on completely uncensored public access TV. I saw a trans woman, dancing invitingly, like a siren, and sexually cooing about secrets, lust and fantasies of girls with cocks. Thanks to the magic of special effects, she instantly became naked. She called herself a shemale, the first word I’d ever heard to describe a person like me. It’s a word I use to identify myself on and off, a word that I’ve reclaimed. From there, of course, I absorbed trans media whenever I could (which mostly meant Jerry Springer and Maury).
Undeniably, 1994 New York and 2002 New York are like night and day, yet the city still had some of its edge. And I found freedom in that edge: public access TV, free adult mags and weekly rags that showed trans women and their bodies improved the future vision I had of myself, and the words I used to describe it.
With that vision to live up to, I worked toward that goal and lived my double life. I ended up seeing men whenever I needed anything; they taught me everything about sex and about being attractive. In 2010, after I’d hit my 18th birthday, I came out to my parents. After crying, threatening me, and other family members awkwardly “tolerating” me, things settled down and my parents are pretty much cool with it. Six years have passed since and we’ve reached a point where trans visibility has reached unprecedented heights — yet not much has really changed.
I should have known that before, I know. But it took watching I Don’t Wanna Be A Boy to show me that. It showed me that the negative attitudes towards trans women have always been pervasive in society, that from 1994 to 2016 there hasn’t been much change in how society views us. In the beginning of the film, one man openly says we’re not human. It’s not really any different from the anti-trans woman rhetoric that we hear from people now.
But it also taught me that we share a sisterhood of sorts. No matter what time and what place, trans women of color are connected by our similar experiences. To me, that was beautiful and represents what I’ve always celebrated most about being a trans woman: our resilience. Despite being hated, despite being marginalized – we survive. We survive because of our own cleverness and inventiveness. Gatekeepers – therapists and doctors who held access to hormones for trans women – required being “full time” for one year before prescribing hormones, an act of cruelty for trans women. For most of us, being forced to present femininely one year without hormones would open us up to even more harassment than we would usually get. I was spared that when I made the decision to take them. Trans women told me about a certain website that sold hormones, and for about two years, I was taking hormones on my own. We help each other buy and sell hormones black market now, just as they did back then.
All the trans women that were interviewed in I Don’t Wanna Be A Boy remind me so much of all the trans women of color I now know in real life. Whether we’re talking about nothing or talking about the serious aspects of being trans and of color in the world, the way they speak in the documentary reminds me of the way we do now. In all honestly, while there might be a nice glossy finish on the thinkpieces and on the discourse, that’s very different from how we talk to each other. And I think that’s for the best, because the language of social justice often fails us.
There come times when many of us need to hear the blunt truth. Having it watered down by saying the discourse-accepted things can cost us our lives. Disclosure and passing are a game of life and death. Trying to make everything rainbows and sunshine in discussions of that only harms us. I know I need to pass to stay alive (nobody needed to tell me that) and I know that I can’t not disclose that I am a trans woman with my birth genitalia or else I could very well die.
I Don’t Wanna Be A Boy is a very raw documentary. It’s very honest. It’s very open. Part of its openness is due to the fact it was meant for white people to gawk at the subjects, and the overall theme of being a trans woman. But it’s something that I needed to see for myself. To see trans women being as honest as they were there is important to me. And it’s important for trans women of color. Most TWOC already know the truths of what that means, but it never hurts to have a reminder.
I Don’t Wanna Be A Boy is powerful, and it shines a spotlight into trans women’s lives and existences like little else can. It allowed me to reflect upon what it means to be a trans woman of color and upon my own history. I encourage trans women – and everyone else – to watch it. It’s a darker piece, so be forewarned, but that’s to be expected, really. I notice that our dark times are very dark, but at the same time our high points are vividly high.
Trans life can be strange. It can be sad. And it can be interesting, and bright, and fun. Love and cherish trans women of color.
Reecey Walker, Black Trans Woman, Becomes 10th Trans Person Killed This Year
Reecey Walker, a 32-year-old black trans woman, was fatally stabbed on Sunday in Wichita, Kansas. A 16-year-old boy was arrested in connection with Walker’s death and charged with second-degree murder.
Officers were called to investigate a disturbance at an apartment complex Sunday night where they found Walker’s body with knife wounds. According to her sister, Walker worked at the front office of the apartment complex.
It’s unclear what the motive was but police are investigating allegations made by family members of the 16-year-old boy who say Walker attempted to sexually assault the teen. Sgt. Nikki Woodrow with the Wichita Police Department told The Advocate they weren’t investigating Walker’s death as a hate crime. The suspect’s name hasn’t been released because of his age and police expect he’ll be charged as a juvenile.
A local news station interviewed Walker’s friend, Victoria, who says she doesn’t believe the sexual assault allegations because it’s out of character for Walker.
“[She] wanted to get a degree in psychology or social work to try to become a counselor to help other people try to get through some of the same struggles [she] had been through,” Walker’s friend, only identified as Victoria said.
She also told the news station Walker was being constantly harassed at the apartment complex and around Wichita.
Social media posts made by friends describe Walker as someone who “kept us laughing all the time” and a GoFundMe page allegedly setup by friends to help with funeral costs calls Walker “a loving, playful spirit who only wanted the best for others.”
Walker is the tenth transgender person to be killed this year, most of whom are black trans women. Just last month, two black trans women were murdered: Shante Thompson was fatally shot in Houston and Keyonna Blakeney was murdered in Washington D.C. They follow Monica Loera, Jasmine Sierra, Maya Young, Kourtney Yochum and Shante Thompson, genderfluid teen Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, and trans men Kayden Clarke and Demarkis Stansberry of trans people killed this year.
We mourn Reecey Walker. Rest in power.
Drawn to Comics: In Praise of Patreon
by rory midhani
Webcomics are usually thought of as a free medium. Fans get to enjoy them as long as they have access to the internet. It’s also a medium that doesn’t have a lot of the same gatekeeping that traditional printed comics have. Because of that, webcomics are more diverse, more groundbreaking and more radical. I love webcomics. I read around thirty of them on a regular basis and then catch up on some others every now and then. They’re the best and they have some of the most talented and creative comics makers in the world behind them.
The proliferation of webcomics recently has allowed for an explosion of terrific comics by and about women of color, queer people, trans people, people with disabilities and people who live at the intersections of those identities. And because, like I said, they’re free, people belonging to those groups who previously didn’t have a chance to see themselves in any media at all, are now able to see themselves represented for the first time. This leads to an excellent increase in positive representation, but also it leads to a problem on the creator side of things.
Art by Anna Bongiovanni.
This spread of free webcomics has also lead to, unfortunately, that reading these comics for free is an inalienable right. Many writers and artists who belong to those marginalized identities find freedom in webcomics; often, they also often find themselves not being able to make money from all the hours and hours of difficult work they put in. That’s where Patreon comes in — one of my favorite things on the internet right now.
Patreon is sort of like a virtual tip jar, or a Kickstarter that keeps on going each month. Instead of paying five dollars for stickers, $15 for a digital version of a book or $25 for a physical copy, you pay a few dollars each month, and even usually get some bonus content. Patreon isn’t only for comics creators, but that’s what I use it for. I like to support the people who make comics that make my life better, and to let them know that I value their work.
Even if you don’t make a lot of money, you can still support your favorite creators. You can pay as little as $1 a month to help make your favorite comics happen and help show your favorite creators that you appreciate the hard work they do. We really need to put our money where our mouths are if we want to support comics by trans people, queer people, women, poc and people other marginalized identities.
Here are all the people who I support and links to their Patreon pages — if you support other people or have your own page, feel free to please put them in the comments!
+ Nia King is a writer, cartoonist and podcaster who’s making a really terrific podcast where she interviews QTPOC artists. I’ve previously reviewed her book of interviews from that podcast.
From Witchy by Ariel Ries.
+ Ariel Ries is a writer and artist who makes the brilliant and beautiful magic Asian fantasy webcomic Witchy. I couldn’t recommend Ariel’s comic more, seriously, go check it out.
+ Blue Delliquanti makes the really terrific sci-fi webcomic O Human Star about some gay and trans robots (and humans).
+ Chelsey Furedi makes the absolutely adorable and super funny Grease–inspired 50’s queer high school comic Rock and Riot.
+ Anna Bongiovanni makes the amazing comic here at Autostraddle, Grease Bats, about two queer bffs and their new trans gal friend who’s naturally my favorite character.
From As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman
+ Melanie Gillman is the absolutely amazing artist who works with colored pencils to make the stunning and terrific comic As the Crow Flies about a queer Black girl and the trans girl she befriends at a very white Christian girl’s camp.
+ Mildred Louis is one of my favorite artists, and makes the stupendous and absolutely beautiful webcomic Agents of the Realm, about a bunch of girls (most of whom are woc and queer) who become magical girls in college.
+ Kate Leth is one of my favorite people and comics creators. She writes great comics like Patsy Walker, AKA Hellcat and Vampirella and makes these really wonderful diary comics for her Patreon.
+ Cathy G. Johnson is a terrific writer and artist who I profiled and interviewed about her upcoming book, No Dogs Allowed, about an awesome misfit middle school soccer team.
From Aatmaja Pandya’s Travelogue
+ Aatmaja Pandya makes my favorite calming webcomic, Travelogue, and also makes other comics. Her comics are like the most relaxing parts of beautiful fantasy rpgs.
+ Wendy Xu is the artist for another of my favorite webcomics, Mooncakes, which is written by Suzanne Walker. Mooncakes is about two Asian-American young adults, one a witch and one a non-binary werewolf. It’s great.
+ Mari Costa is the person behind not just one but two webcomics I love. She recently started the fun cat-starring fantasy quest comic Roji, and has been making Peritale, a fun, funny and cute fairy tale comic for a while now.
+ Victoria Grace Elliot is another creator who makes a webcomic about witches (surprise, surprise, I like a lot of webcomics about witches), the absolutely beautiful Balderdash!
+ E Jackson makes Pretty Heart Bouquet, a kind of new webcomic about a young trans girl who becomes a magical girl. It’s very very very cute.
The greatest trans girl comic of all time, from Trans Girl Next Door.
+ Kylie Wu makes my all-time favorite webcomic about being trans, Trans Girl Next Door. She’s hilarious and sparkly and amazing. This one comic in particular is a little NSFW, but it’s, in my opinion, the pinnacle of trans comicdom.
+ Marguerite Bennett is my current favorite writer in all of comics. She writes terrific and brilliant characters (including trans women like Alysia Yeoh and Sera) in books like DC Comics Bombshells, Angela: Queen of Hel, InSEXts, and Red Sonja.
+ Valerie Halla is not only the colorist for Octopus Pie, but she also makes the super beautiful and really queernormative webcomic Goodbye to Halos.
New Releases (May 4)
Beasts of Burden: What the Cat Dragged In
Supergirl Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade TP
Steven Universe & The Crystal Gems #2
Welcome to Drawn to Comics! From diary comics to superheroes, from webcomics to graphic novels – this is where we’ll be taking a look at comics by, featuring and for queer ladies. So whether you love to look at detailed personal accounts of other people’s lives, explore new and creative worlds, or you just love to see hot ladies in spandex, we’ve got something for you.
If you have a comic that you’d like to see me review, you can email me at mey [at] autostraddle [dot] com.
105 Trans Women On American TV: A History and Analysis
Until about five years ago, it was nearly impossible to find even a mildly positive portrayal of trans women on American television. This widespread defamation has absolutely impacted the national perception of trans women as a group. It certainly had an impact on me growing up — not knowing any out trans women in real life, all I knew about them was what I saw on TV and in the movies. Trans women were pathetic, violent, disposable, or the butt of a joke. They endured misgendering and slurs from their loved ones and laughed along when humiliated. They were violently outed and interrogated about their penises, and this was considered okay. If any cis people in the story had a change of heart by the end of the episode, it was considered a positive portrayal, no matter what they’d already put the trans woman through. Trans women were treated as inhuman, basically. It remains acceptable, even today, to be openly transphobic and transmisogynistic on television.
This legacy of disrespect is what prompted an intense fan backlash when Pretty Little Liars revealed that its six-season villain, the mysterious “A,” was a trans woman named Charlotte, who the characters had previously known as Allison’s friend CeCe. It turned out that Charlotte was actually Allison’s long-lost sister, cast out of her family for being trans and subsequently gone bananas. Charlotte embodied every negative trans stereotype possible: she was deceptive about her trans status to a romantic partner and everybody who knew her, she manipulated and murdered innocent people, she wore disguises, she had mental health problems, she was referred to as “she/he/it,” she devoted her life to malicious and vengeful behavior and, after being outed, immediately turned suicidal. When the show returned in 2016, Charlotte lasted just long enough to embody one final trope: she got murdered.
The bar for positive representation is so low that in 2010, Seth MacFarlane described the following Family Guy storyline as “probably the most sympathetic portrayal of a transsexual character that has ever been on television, dare I say”: a main character’s parent comes out as a trans woman and then sleeps with another character who, when told about his lover’s trans status, vomits for 45 uninterrupted seconds.
So, I set out to do a thorough and comprehensive analysis of trans female representation on American television. Partially I’m motivated by wishing I’d had something definitive to point at when people argued the Charlotte reveal was no big deal, or that Caitlyn Jenner’s existence has summarily ended the misrepresentation conversation. But the deeper I got into the material, the more I just felt like this information needed to be gathered and presented in its entirety, because the repetitive tropes at play here are both truly horrible and rarely discussed. I was also unable to find any singularly comprehensive reference book for this topic, which surprised me.
Methodology:
Using The Prime Time Closet: A History of Gays and Lesbians on TV, Alternate Channels: The Uncensored Story of Gay and Lesbian Images on Radio and Television as well as Wikipedia, TV Tropes, Wikias, imdb, message boards and recaps, I was able to discover 105 characters who seemed to be, either overtly or subtextually, trans representations. [ETA: The comments on this post are filled with stories of other characters — many that could’ve been included here if I’d found them myself, and some that wouldn’t be but are interesting thoughts anyhow — so read those after you read this!] The majority of these 105 characters were one-episode appearances, and over the course of six weeks, I logged over 50 hours of television watching and reviewing. If I couldn’t find the episode anywhere online or at the library, I used the aforementioned sources to describe the episode. We did not include sci-fi/fantasy/supernatural characters, because that gets a little confusing/tricky, and it was hard to know where to draw the line there.
In some cases, it was difficult to discern who was or wasn’t a trans character because the language we use to talk about trans people (and even how trans people describe themselves) has evolved so rapidly and changed so dramatically over the past five decades, and many early portrayals were categorized as “cross-dressers” or “transvestites.” Some of those roles I left out, but some I included because regardless of terminology, those images contributed significantly to how people perceive trans women and I wanted to include at least a few.
This report is in two pieces, in the first I will discuss broadly what I discovered, and the second is a list of every trans character I looked at and a brief description of their role.
I. Data
By and large, trans women are rarely seen on television, and when they are, the context is either tragic or farcical. Trans women on TV do these things: they die or are dying, they kill other people or are killed, they are your old pal from college who presents as female now, they are in the hospital, they’ve come down to the station for questioning. They always wear dresses and lots of makeup, they usually date men, they’re usually white, and they’re rarely portrayed by actual trans women. They are remarkably understanding when potential partners are disgusted by them, and patient when friends make jokes about them. They speak openly about penises and any surgeries they may or may not have had to anybody at all who wants to know.
When GLAAD looked at ten years of trans male and female representation on television in 2012, they found 54% of the 102 episodes containing trans folks were categorized as containing negative representations, 35% ranged from “problematic” to “good” and 12% were considered groundbreaking, fair or accurate. 40% of the characters played a “victim,” 21% were killers or villains, 20% were sex workers, and hate speech appeared in at least 61% of the episodes.
Representation has definitely improved over the last five years, but it’s still nearly impossible to find a character who’s trans identity is an incidental element of her inclusion on the show. Still, the majority of trans characters are written by and played by cis actors, and were it not for Transparent, Orange is the New Black and Sense8, which not-so-coincidentally employ actual trans people to play parts and sometimes even to write words, the landscape would remain pretty barren. The only one-off episode I watched that really impressed me was the most recent episode on this list, from a show called Royal Pains.
This infographic, compiled for me by the fantastic Heather Hogan, presents an overview of compiled data. However, the characters from Bob’s Burger included in the appendix are not accounted for in the infographic, as they were added after the infographic had gone through so many tiny updates that we no longer had the mental or emotional capacity to proceed.
In Part II, I will walk you through the entire history of trans female characters on American television. I used the terminology used in the programs themselves, rather than updated terminology, to accurately reflect what was said at the time.
Thank you to our Trans Editor Mey Rude, who edited and vetted this entire piece and also helped me fill in some of the shows I wasn’t familiar with. LOVE YOU MEY.
II. Appendix
Nurse Betty Ames, Alfred Hitchock Presents “An Unlocked Window,” 1965
Cis male actor
Nurse Stella Crosson is shocked to discover that their new nurse Betty Ames is not a nurse at all! In fact, she is the infamous nurse-killer on the loose! Betty poses as a victim and then tries to attack Stella. They pull off her wig for THE BIG REVEAL. This episode was so popular that they remade it in 1985!
Beverly LaSalle, All in the Family, 1975-1977
Cis gay male actor
Archie is shocked to discover that Beverly, a performer who passed out in his cab, is “really a man.” They pull of her wig for the BIG REVEAL! Archie freaks out and unleashes a torrent of hate speech. Beverly eventually wins the Bunkers over with her winning personality and willingness to participate in jokes made at her own expense. Everybody continues using male pronouns for Beverly. Eventually she is beaten and killed by gay-bashers.
Pat Caddison, Medical Center, “The Fourth Sex (Parts 1 and 2),” (1975)
Cis gay male actor
*Robert Reed, a closeted gay HIV-positive actor best known for playing Mr. Brady, won an Emmy for this role.*
Pat’s family is shocked when Pat, a surgeon, comes out as a “transsexual” and announces his intent to get surgery in Los Angeles, conducted by her old pal Dr. Gannon. Pat’s family freaks out and feel betrayed. Everybody continues using male pronouns for Pat. Pat delivers a compassionate appeal for understanding. Nobody supports her transition. Doctor’s wife suggests he get psychological help instead of surgery. Attempts suicide. Has surgery. Post-surgery, tells fellow doctors to consider being compassionate towards patients with their “psychological condition.”
Al, Barney Miller “Vigilante” (1975)
Cis male actor
Al, a teamster held for arrest at the police station for “wearing a disguise,” functions as comic relief for the officers dealing with other crimes. Jokes about wigs! Jokes about girdles! Jokes about penises! Male pronouns! She plays along.
Charlise Parker, Police Woman, “Night of the Full Moon” (1976)
Cis male actor
Pepper is shocked when the murderess she’s been chasing, Charlise, turns out to be “a man dressed as a woman.”
Edie Stoke, The Jeffersons, “Once a Friend” (1977)
Cis female actress.
**GLAAD noted this episode as “one of the first positive portrayals of a transgender woman in entertainment media.”**
George is shocked to learn that his old Navy buddie “Eddie” is a “transsexual” and now goes by “Edie.” George freaks out and makes a lot of jokes. Eventually he comes around. Edie tells George to stop calling her “Eddie” and using male pronouns. He reluctantly agrees. The show ends on a hopeful note!
Niki Gunter, Westside Medical, “The Mermaid” (1977)
Cis female actress
The doctors at a Los Angeles hospital are shocked when East German swimming champion Niki Gunter’s x-rays reveal that she is “transsexual.” Niki delivers a compassionate appeal for understanding — specifically, understanding that she cannot return to East Germany, where the East German government is preventing her from being socialized as a female. She confides in a female doctor about feeling like a “freak” inside and tells a male diver who’s crushing on her that she’s trans, which totally weirds him out. Reluctantly the Germans agree to be nicer to her.
Linda Murkland, All That Glitters (1977)
Played by Linda Gray, cis female actress
**First recurring transgender female character on television.**
This short-lived but delightfully subversive sitcom featured a world with reversed gender roles — women took power positions, their husbands were secretaries and stay-at-home Dads. Murkland, who came to the company when they needed a “rugged and strong” image for the company’s new cigarette line, was the first transgender character to be a series regular on network television. The show was cancelled after only six episodes.
Nikki, WKRP in Cincinnati, “Hotel Oceanview” (1980)
Cis female actress
Herb is shocked when the woman he’s about to make out with says “I used to be a man.” Furthermore, she’s actually his old buddy from high school. But that guy was so athletic! How could she be a woman! Herb feels betrayed. Sick to his stomach, he flees the room.
Margo, Charlie’s Angels, “Angel on the Line” (1981)
Cis male actor
The Angels are shocked to learn that Margo, a killer they’re tracking down, is “really a man” in a wig! They rip off her wig and she cowers, bald, in a puddle of mud.
Rachel Johnson, The Love Boat, “Gopher’s Roomate” (1982)
Cis female actress
Gopher is shocked to learn that his roommate from college, who used to present as male, is that lady he thought he recognized on the loveboat!
Too Close For Comfort, “For Every Man There’s Two Women” (1982)
Cis male actor
A man is raped by two women, both of whom are “easily over 200 pounds and terrifying” and one of whom is identified as trans. His sexual assault is played for laughs. The episode never aired in syndication and no footage of the episode is available to the public.
Bob, St. Elsewhere, “Release” (1983)
Cis male actor.
“Well, you may have convinced your wife, but not me, buddy. I know you too well to agree to anything so disgusting.”
Craig is shocked to learn that “Bob,” his athletic friend from college, has come to his hospital for a “sex change.” Craig feels betrayed. Bob delivers a compassionate appeal for understanding, but Craig, sticking to male pronouns, refuses to do the surgery. Craig’s friends urge him to reconsider while making penis jokes. Craig says he will never trust anybody ever again!
Melissa, Gimme a Break!,“Melissa” (1983)
Cis female actress.
“You know when you told me being with Melissa was like being with one of the guys? Well, you were.”
Nell is shocked to learn that the woman she set Carl up with, Melissa, “used to be a man.” When Melissa tells Nell, in hopes that she’ll break the news to Carl before things get too serious, Nell repeats her birth name “Harvey Wallace” over and over in a trance. But Nell can barely stop laughing when she tells Carl, who freaks out and says he can’t believe he was going out with “a man”! And that he liked her, too!
Charlene, Night Court, “Best of Friends” (1985)
Cis male actor
“I mean, so she has her life to lead, fine, but she doesn’t have to come here and rub YOUR face in it.”
Dan is shocked to learn that his athletic lothario college buddy “Chip” is a woman and that her name is Charlene. Dan freaks out, especially about Charlene having her penis removed. She delivers a compassionate appeal for understanding but Dan continues freaking out, feeling sick, using male pronouns, and feeling betrayed. Nor will he attend her wedding! Charlene punches Dan so he’s face-down in the salad bar! Dan’s friends implore him to be nicer to his buddy while making jokes at her expense. Dan eventually comes around, but keeps on joking about penises!
Georgette, Carol & Company, “Reunion” (1990)
Cis female actress.
Laurie is shocked to learn that her old flame the football player — who she considers the “love of her life” — is “now a woman.” “Sex-change operations are 100 times as common on TV as they are in real life, but it’s a credit to Carol & Company that this one is played tenderly and melancholically, as well as for the usual broad laughs,” wrote The Philadelphia Inquirer. I bet!
Denise Bryson, Twin Peaks (1990)
Played by cis male actor David Duchovny
When DEA Agent Denise Bryson shows up in Twin Peaks to help out on the case, the fact that she’s no longer presenting as “Dennis” isn’t a big deal to her colleagues.
Susan, L.A. Law, “Speak, Lawyers For Me” (1991)
Cis female actress
“First he’s a guy, now he’s a girl, he or she or it deserves to get fired.”
The beauty company that employed model Susan Convers is shocked to learn that she is transgender. They freak out and fire her, causing her to take them to court, employing a lawyer who misgenders her and criticizes her dress and appearance. In court, she agrees that she hid her trans status from her friends to avoid them being “repulsed.” She delivers a compassionate appeal for understanding. Eventually the lawyer comes around in order to successfully argue her case, and wins.
Louise, Picket Fences “Pageantry” (1992)
Cis female actress.
“She teaches gym! She goes into the showers! Why haven’t you arrested it? Is she a man or a woman?”
The citizens of Rome and especially Sheriff Jimmy Brock are shocked to learn that Louise, Rome’s beloved drama teacher, “is a man” who got her job with a phony resume. They’re livid. Jimmy’s wife, Louise’s doctor, implores him to reconsider. In court, Louise’s ex-boyfriend testifies that he was repulsed to learn that he “put his tongue in the mouth of a former man.” On the stand, Louise is forced to share her history of suicidal thoughts and describe her “sex change operation” in precise detail. The judge admits that she makes him “extremely squeamish, if not ill,” but that it is not okay ‘to indulge our own personal distaste at the expense of someone else’s civil rights.” Still, the parents oppose her performing in the pageant. Luckily, Rome’s children are more progressive than their parents and they revolt: they halt their performance to call out everybody for being an asshole to Louise and call her up to play her role. They’re dressed like angels! I cried a little.
Rena, E.R.,“ER Confidential” (1994)
Cis male actor
The doctors are shocked to discover that their apparently female patient has a penis. Dr. Carter is visibly angry at his patient, ignoring her as she monologues about how friends and strangers are disgusted by her and it takes three hours to put her makeup on. “Maybe they’re right,” she concludes. “Maybe I am disgusting.” Apropos of nothing, she escapes to the hospital roof, tells doctors that she’s too old now to pass as a woman, and then jumps off the roof.
Ginger, Evening Shade, “The Perfect Woman” (1994)
Cis female actress.
Diahann Caroll plays a “transsexual” who Ponder’s friends set him up with. Ossie Davis played Ponder.
Thad, Married…With Children, “Dud Bowl” (1995)
Cis male actor.
Al and his co-players are shocked when their Dud Bowl quarterback, Thad, shows up presenting as a woman. Thad now speaks with a distinct “gay lisp” and is playful when jokes are made at her expense, even when Al lifts her skirt in front of the boys to inspect her genitals! She’s still a great quarterback, though! And isn’t that really all that matters, in the end.
Vicky, Diagnosis Murder, “All-American Murder” (1995)
Cis female actress
Mark is shocked to learn that Vicky, the foxy neighbor he likes watching run down the beach, was formerly known as “Victor,” a US Marines recruit who was bullied non-stop for three weeks, causing her to leave the military. Turns out she was killed by her ex-girlfriend when she found out that Vicky had transitioned.
Azure C. Lee, The City (1995-1997)
Cis female actress
First recurring trans character on a soap opera
The first recurring transgender character on an American soap, Carlotta Chang played fashion model Azure Lee on the short-lived Morgan Fairchild vehicle The City. Apparently she was “revealed to be a male-to-female transsexual in 1996, much to the shock of her Latino fiancé Bernardo.” The Sun-Sentinal promised the episode would “serve up a shocker.” According to The Lavender Screen, trans activists found the role a sensationalized ratings tool, that of “a flamboyant gay male cross-dressing.”
Annie, Chicago Hope,“Informed Consent” (1995) and “Women on the Verge” (1996)
Cis actress
“If you’d told me you’d been married I could handle that sure. If you had a criminal record? Sure. But you tell me you had a penis? A penis? Forgive me for being just a little bit thrown.”
Bill is shocked to learn that his girlfriend, Mia, is a trans woman and that she was his best friend / hockey teammate in high school while presenting as male. He freaks out, is horrified he had sex with her. A female doctor tells him to reconsider and explains what it means to be transgender.
Bill: “You really think I could look at her without puking my intestines out?”
Doctor: “Just give this thing a chance.”
Bill: “That’s the problem — I don’t know what this thing is. A freak? A mutant? You tell me. How could I possibly be with that?”
Doctor: “Funny. I was feeling bad for her, but now I kinda feel sorry for you.”
Ultimately, he can’t get over it and continue their relationship. In a later episode, she’s a patient at the hospital and she’s diagnosed with a tumor and a condition related to her hormones. If she wants to survive, she has to stop taking hormones. She kills herself instead. Bill is devastated.
Crystal Clark, Married With Children, “Calendar Girl” (1996)
Cis female actress
Bud and Al Bundy are shocked when Crystal, the cover model for their calendar, announces on television that she was “born a man.” Bud, who’d kissed her, and the boys, who’d mooned over her calendar, flee the room to throw up.
Stephanie, Ally McBeal, “Boy To The World” (1997)
Cis queer actor.
“This boy needs help. He is the most fragile person living in the harshest of worlds. He is obviously not well.”
Ally McBeal is shocked to learn that her client, Stephanie, who has been arrested for solicitation, is transgender. Behind her back, everybody misgenders Stephanie and discusses her need for psychological help. Ally hires Stephanie to work at their law firm to save her from doing prison time, but she’s murdered before she has a chance to start her new job.
Simone Dubois, Nash Bridges, “Javelin Catcher” (1998)
Gay male drag queen actor
RuPaul plays Simone Dubois, a representative of Transsexual Sex Workers, who helps an investigator work undercover in drag for a crime involving a gangster attempting to pick up “transsexual prostitutes.”
Becker, “He Said, He Said” (1999)
From IMBD: “Becker is visited by a friend of an old friend who turns out to be the old friend.”
Inez, NYPD Blue, “A Whole In Juan” (2000)
Cis male actor
The cops find a dead baby in a trash can, and soon discover that the child’s mother, a “crack whore,” left her baby in the care of a trans prostitute for what she said would be a few hours. A few days later, the Mom hadn’t shown up, so Inez left the baby alone to go to a check-up with the doctor who installed her “feminine equipment.” While she was gone, the baby choked on its own vomit and died.
Haley and Jackie, Law & Order SVU, “Transitions” (2000)
Cis male actor and cis female actor
Hailey
Jackie
The detectives are shocked to learn that Hailey, the “son” of their assault victim is female, and the assault victim is estranged from Hailey and Hailey’s mother for refusing to accept Hailey’s gender. The NYPD Psychologist, perfect human BD Wong, explains to the detectives what it means to be transgender. Although a group of radical hormone-stealing trans activists she runs with aren’t good for it, it turns out that her school counselor did. On the stand, the prosecutor pushes Hailey’s guidance counselor Jackie ’til she reveals that she is trans and shares her own stories of assault, abuse, suicide attempts and misery. The father sees the error of his ways and asks the DA’s office to drop the charges, but they can’t.
Cindy McCauliff, Ally McBeal, “Girls’ Night Out” “Two’s a Crowd” “Without a Net” (2000)
Cis female actress
“I have nothing against transgender people, I really don’t, but no one should ever touch one, much less — [makes noise of disgust]”
Fish and Ling are shocked when their client, who is battling a discrimination lawsuit over a mandated physical, tells them, “I’m really a man.” Turns out she’d avoided the physical to avoid her penis being discovered. She’s forced to describe her entire medical transition. Unaware of her trans status, she starts dating Mark, but Fish is OBSESSED and FURIOUS that Mark’s in the dark. When she does tell Mark, he feels betrayed, calls her a man, and is sick to his stomach. He apologizes, they reunite, but ultimately he just can’t date her because Penis. His friends make jokes at her expense.
Louise, Dark Angel, “Out” (2000)
First trans woman to play a trans character on television.
“The part of Kings Road where she lives is very genderfluid. It’s where all the Mister Sisters reside. The lesbian mind can get hella tampered with in that neighborhood.”
Normal’s friends are shocked when they discover that Louise, the girl he’s going on a date with, is a trans woman. They anticipate an entertaining reveal, only to find that Normal’s unconcerned with her trans status. Unfortunately, Louise realizes that she’s a lesbian, and wants Normal to set her up with Original Cindy. Original Cindy declines because she doesn’t want to date a trans woman.
Family Law, “Are You My Father” (2000)
A transgender woman fights for the right to see her child.
Brandi, Just Shoot Me!, “Brandi, You’re a Fine Girl” (2000)
Cis female actress
“He had boobs. Two of ’em, big as yours. And God knows what’s going on downstairs.”
Finch is shocked to learn that his dear ‘ol buddy Burt is that girl “Brandi” he’s been hitting on at the bar. Finch freaks out, thinks it’s a joke, and screams running from the bar. Finch’s female friend/co-worker tells him to reconsider. Eventually he realizes they can still do dude-bro shit together despite her transition and so they do, and then he realizes he’s got feelings for her. He tries to kiss her several times and she rebuffs him with martial arts several times and says she’s not into him like that, she just wants to be friends.
Cindy McCauliff, Ally McBeal, “Hats Off To Larry” (2001)
Cis female actress
The lawyers of Cage & Fish, but especially Mark, are shocked to learn that Cindy, Mark’s transgender ex, has a fiancé with whom she’d like to sue for the right to marry despite being, in the eyes of the law, a same-sex couple. Mark can’t believe that anybody would love a woman with a penis. In court, Fish refers to their partnership as a “gay couple,” but Mark interrupts with an inspirational speech about how Cindy is a woman.
Helena Handbasket, Friends (2001 – 2002)
“Don’t you have a little too much penis to be wearing a dress like that?”
Cis female actress.
Monica encourages Chandler to reunite with and accept his father, who, according to Chandler’s childhood memories, has presented as a woman full-time since her son’s childhood, although he refers to her as a “drag performer” and everybody uses male pronouns. Everybody makes jokes at her expense and she plays along.
Sasha Wilmer, Judging Amy, “Between the Wanting and the Getting” (2001)
Cis male actor
“Maybe Sasha is transgender. Maybe he thinks that his mother or his grandmother or the Powerpuff Girls represent good qualities that he wants in his personality… or maybe he just likes girls’ clothes? At this point we can’t know any more than this child can. It’s just too soon.”
Amy is shocked to discover that the eight-year-old child who Child Welfare Services say is being neglected by their parents says that she is a girl despite being “born biologically male” and only being eight years old. Her parents allow her to dress and present female, which led to bullying, which led to them pulling her out of school. Amy rules that she can remain with her family but recommends that she dresses as a boy.
Valerie Thomlinson, Gideon’s Crossing, “Freak Show” (2001)
Cis female actress
A husband is shocked when his wife of twenty years, who is dying of cancer, reveals that she is transgender — a revelation she’s forced to make ’cause her estrogen is feeding the cancer and she’s gotta stop taking them to begin cancer treatment. But she tells doctors she’d rather die a young woman than an old man. Her husband leaves her, she tries to kill herself, and then her husband decides he’s gonna try to be her husband again.
Erica, The Education of Max Bickford (2001-2002)
Played by cisgender actress Helen Shaver
**The first TV show to include a transgender character as part of the regular cast.**
Max is shocked when his best friend Steve comes back into his life as Erica, a transgender woman, but he’s cool with it. Although largely praised as a respectful characterization, her primarily storylines consisted of: “Erica’s boyfriend (Boyd Gaines) accidentally learns that she was once a man,” “Erica’s ex returns to town, unaware that her former husband is now a woman and Max refuses to tell her the truth” and “Erica starts dating a man who tells her all about his past, but she can’t bring herself to tell him that she was once a man.”
Cheryl, Law & Order SVU, “Fallacy” (2002)
Cis queer female actress
“My problem is this he/she and her lies is the reason we have two bodies on our hands.”
Stabler and Benson are shocked to learn that Cheryl, a victim who allegedly killed her boyfriend’s brother for trying to rape her, is transgender. They refer to her as a man and out her to her boyfriend, who freaks out, feels betrayed, calls her a “freak,” gets sick to his stomach, and then goes ahead and KILLS HIMSELF.
The attorneys are sympathetic to her plight, thanks to the expertise of perfect human BD Wong. It’s clear she’s been assaulted and bullied all her life but because in this case, it wasn’t physical self-defense but fear of being outed that inspired her to attack, she’s sentenced to prison — a men’s prison, of course. On her first night she’s beaten and gang raped.
Sofia Lopez, Nip/Tuck, “Sofia Lopez” and “Sofia Lopez II” (2003)
Cis male actor
“It’d be wonderful if we could look beyond the wrapping for the real person inside. But I work in a plastic surgeon’s office, I know more than anyone that doesn’t really happen.”
Sofia needs a her tracheal shave fixed, and the doctor eventually agrees to do it despite being disgusted by her transsexual status. Later, he’s called to the ER to help a friend of Sofia’s with botched “sex change” surgery, when he learns his prior mentor is performing unsanitary surgery on trans clients while drunk, so he shuts the old doc down. She returns for “SRS,” but after a hook-up with a lesbian nurse, she questions her desire to undergo surgery, claiming a “sexual preference crisis.” It’s never explained why falling for a lesbian would make her hesitate to live as a woman, which literally makes zero sense. Anyhow, she eventually gets the surgery, so.
Lois, Karen Sisco, “Nobody’s Perfect” (2003)
Trans female actress
The U.S. Marshals are shocked to learn that the fugitive murderer and thief they’re hunting down, Louis DiMarco, is a transgender woman named “Lois” who stole $300k for her surgery.
Morgan, E.R., “Next Of Kin” (2003)
Cis female actress
Pratt: A 12-year-old cross-dresser?
Harkins: All I know is that, anatomically, she’s a he.
Pratt: And you’re sure about that?
Harkins: I’ve seen my fair share of penises.
Doctors are shocked when they learn that Morgan, a 12-year-old girl who’s just been in a car accident with her father, has a penis! This inspires the doctors to ask her “what’s the deal,” refer to her as his “son” and use male pronouns exclusively. Her father dies, and her mother — estranged from the fam due to her refusal to let Morgan present as female — shows up to chop Morgan’s hair off so she’ll be presentable to her new stepfather and calls her “my little boy.” The one doctor on Morgan’s side shows up too late to stop her from taking Morgan away. This episode is devastatingly depressing.
Julia Smith, Veronica Mars, “Meet John Smith” (2004)
Cis female actress
“So it turns out my Mom is a liar and my Dad is a circus freak.”
Justin is shocked to discover that his father, who his mother always told him was dead, is a woman named Julia living with her husband in San Diego. He freaks out. Turns out she’s the one who’s been visiting his video store every weekend just to see him for 45 seconds even though he never knew it was her, which Veronica Mars points out is pretty dedicated so maybe he shouldn’t be an asshole. He comes around.
Wendy, Mamosa and Mona, CSI, “C-C-Changes” (2004)
Cis actresses.
“We all get work done. Doesn’t matter if it’s up top or down low, pretty is pretty.”
Wendy, the murder victim
Mamosa, Wendy’s best friend
Mona, the murderess
The detectives are shocked to discover that their murder victim, Wendy, is “a transsexual” and the “Walter” her car is registered to. Over the course of their investigation, the detectives find an underground silicone-injection operation operated by sex workers, a group of cis and trans showgirls bragging about getting work done, a “how to act feminine” class seemingly attended by actual trans female actors, a beautiful dancer named Mamosa who tells Gil it’s hard for trans girls to find love and that everybody thinks they’re psycho and a trans female doctor lying about her identity who performs “sex change” surgery without a license, which led to a girl dying in her care, and then her Trans Ally husband going out to murder Wendy to keep her quiet. “Killed by someone in our own community,” Mamosa laments to Gil. “As if we don’t have enough enemies.”
Theresa, Judging Amy, “Slade’s Chophouse” (2004)
Cis male actor
Bruce is shocked when his old priest friend Father Ted shows up and comes out as Father Teresa, explaining that she’d been saving up her salary for a “sex-change.” Along with the recent priest-abuse scandal, Bruce says this piece of news is shaking his faith. Teresa tells him, “if you can hold on to your faith, you’ve got some hope that it’ll all make sense in the end.” Bruce says he’ll come around eventually.
Daniela, Cold Case, “Daniela” (2004)
Cis female actress
Chris’s Dad is shocked to learn that his son Chris’s girlfriend, Daniela, is transgender, and demands Chris not take her to the prom. Daniela kills herself and Chris buries her, then throws away her dress and corsage.
Kiki, Queer As Folk (2004-2005)
Cis gay male actor
Kiki, “formerly Kenny,” is a waitress at the Liberty Diner who takes over when Deb retries, but she’s not very good at it. After announcing “I’m a tranny on the verge of a nervous breakdown!” Deb saves her from a brutal lunch rush and eventually returns to her position, with Kiki returning to waitress. In the finale, she brings her “tranny support group” to a political rally.
Ava Moore, Nip/Tuck (2003-2006)
Played by cisgender actress Famke Janssen
Ava was in love with heterosexual surgeon Barrett Moore, and asked him to “transform Avery into Ava” so they could be together, which he did. The two had a child via a surrogate, and the evening before the surgery intended to make her “artificial vagina deep enough to pass as biologically natural,” she kidnapped their 12-year-old son and began a sexual relationship with him, believing he’d be too young to notice the difference in her vagina. We meet Ava when she shows up in Season Two, a life coach hired by Sean to help his wife. Sean is drawn to Ava, and unable to see that she is a devious and sociopathic sexual predator. She begins a relationship with 17-year-old Matt. She also attempts to have sex with Christian Troy, who calls her vagina “the goddamn Hope Diamond of transsexuals.” Then her husband performs surgery to give her a deeper vagina. She begs her son to run away to France with her, but instead he stabs himself to death and dies in her arms. She leaves him and flees. In later episodes, Matt deals with the “trauma” of having been involved with a transgender woman, which includes trolling bars for a trans woman who, when he realizes she is pre-op, beats her violently, which brings us to….
Cherry Peck, Nip/Tuck (2004)
Cis gay male actor
Matt is shocked to learn that Cherry Peck, a trans woman he picked up at a bar, has a penis, and results by beating her savagely. She and her friends go to his high school, chase him out, beat him up, and pee on him. She goes to Dr. McNamara, Matt’s father, demanding he fix her face for free. Her and Matt become friends. Matt’s ex-girlfriend’s father kidnaps and tortures them and forces them to perform sex acts for him, but they escape and shoot their captor.
Carmen, It’s Always Sunny (2005)
Played by cis actress Brittany Daniel
A guy who’s attracted to Carmen is shocked to learn she is transgender, but he maintains his pursuit of her in order to be “first in line” when she gets sexual reassignment surgery. According to the It’s Sunny Wikia, she “displayed an obvious bulge in her pants until she had her penis removed.” The guy hides his ongoing relationship with Carmen from his friends to the point where they suspect he is a serial killer. After her surgery, though, she decides to date a different guy who wasn’t such a jerk.
Ms. Mitchell, ER,“Skin” (2005)
Trans female actress
Ms. Mitchell’s doctor is shocked to hear that his patient requested a different doctor due to the fact that, as the different doctor tells him, “she is a he and she didn’t feel comfortable telling you that.” She’s diagnosed with testicular cancer but is okay with it ’cause she was “getting rid of the equipment anyway.”
Stephanie, Without a Trace, “Transitions” (2005)
Cis female actress
Stephanie’s boyfriend is shocked to learn that Stephanie is trans and responds by freaking out, feeling sick to his stomach, and pushing her onto the floor. She goes missing the next day. We learn that her family shunned/disowned her, she abandoned her wife and kids, and since then she has moved from place to place, changing her appearance to “keep her secret.” Turns out it wasn’t her ex who murdered her — it was her ex-wife’s transphobic and abusive husband!
Zarf/Zoe, All My Children (2006)
Played by cisgender male actor Jeffery Carlson
Bianca is shocked when Zarf, a glam rock star she’s agreed to go on a date with, shows up for their date in a dress and comes out to her as Zoe, a transgender lesbian. This is really good news because Zarf is a terrible name. She thinks Zoe is mocking her lesbian sexuality, but nope. Also, she’s in love with Bianca. The rest of the town doesn’t take to Zoe all that well, ranging from distrusting her to misgendering her to accusing her of being a serial killer — then the actual serial killer attacks her. GLAAD and trans activists worked with the show to ensure Zoe’s character was treated with respect and accuracy, even including a scene with a trans support group featuring actual trans people. (This might be becoming its own trope at this point? We don’t wanna cast trans actors, but we’ll get about 10 of them together for a support group scene!) Eventually her and Bianca left for Europe at the same time and grew apart.
MILF, Veronica Mars, “Ain’t No Magic Mountain High Enough” (2006)
Cis female actress
Dickie is shocked when the hot Mom he’s hooking up with in a car outside the carnival — a woman his friends found online to hook him up with — turns out to have a penis. He stumbles from the car, sick to his stomach, spitting all over the street while his friends — who knew she was trans — laugh at him.
Donna, Grey’s Anatomy, “Where the Boys Are” (2006)
Trans female actress
Meredith Grey is shocked to learn that they have a patient undergoing gender confirmation surgery, but Mark is really politically correct and educated and kind when explaining the situation. The patient’s wife says she’ll miss the penis. It turns out Donna has breast cancer and will need to stop taking her hormones, which’ll make her “become a man again.” She goes ahead with the surgery anyhow.
Alexis Meade, Ugly Betty (2006-2008)
Played by cis female actress Rebecca Romijn
Alexis, the daughter of the founder of MODE magazine, fakes her own death, transitions, and then comes back and takes over half the magazine. Her colleagues misgender her and anti-trans jokes exist in abundance. At one point she connects with a man at a bar only to have him laugh in her face and say he was only flirting with her as a dare. She pushes a pregnant woman down the stairs and goes to jail and then gets off and moves to Europe.
Regina Dunn, Psych, “Who You Gonna Call?” (2006)
Cis male actor
Shawn and Gus are shocked to learn that the person haunting their client’s home isn’t a ghost — it’s the client’s other two personalities, one of whom is a trans woman named Regina, who was in the process of seeking transition-related medical services when the third violent male personality thwarted her efforts by killing her doctor. Shawn and Gus make vomiting noises discussing the possibility of her “removing her parts.” Robert, dressed as Regina, makes another doctor’s appointment in order to kill yet another doctor and stop the surgery.
Carmelita, Dirty Sexy Money (2007-2009)
Played by trans female actress Candis Cayne
Patrick Darling is in love with Carmelita, and has nothing but respect for her despite the fact that his friends and family call her a “she-he” and a “tranny hooker” and seem to believe his relationship with her suggests homosexuality despite the fact that he is completely heterosexual. (As he later argues when another gay guy says he must be a little gay to date a transsexual, Carmelita “had female parts.”) Initially Carmelita is portrayed as pathetic — begging him not to leave her, as his family wants him to in order to save his marriage and political career — but eventually she emerges as a strong and powerful woman over the show’s run. Patrick’s wife Ellen discovers the affair and attacks Patrick, only to be killed by him in self-defense. Later, Patrick, against his family’s wishes, insists she accompany him to his inauguration as senator, where she is shot and killed by Ellen’s brother.
Patty, Bones, “The He In The She” (2008)
Cis female actress
Forensic anthropologists are shocked to discover the skeleton washed ashore contains both male and female indicators, leading them to realize their victim is transgender. The female scientists school the male scientist on how to respectfully talk about trans people. They theorize she was killed when her trans status was revealed, but they turn out to be wrong. In the end, her evangelical son returns to honor her by joining the church where she worked as a pastor.
Lois, ER, “Tandem Repeats” (2008)
Cis female actress
Lois’s Mom is shocked when she’s called to the emergency room because her child is very sick and the son she expected to see is a daughter. She’s sick mostly due to the black market hormones she’s been taking, and needs a liver transplant that Dad is VERY hesitant to provide.
Joanna, Eli Stone, “Two Ministers” (2008)
Trans female actress
Alexandra Billings plays a member of a support group attended by a male transgender Reverend who Keith is representing in a lawsuit for wrongful termination. They hope the group will help Keith overcome his intolerance of his client. She talks about how her boyfriend and her family left her.
Alexis Stone, Nip/Tuck, “Alexis Stone” and “Alexis Stone II” (2009)
Trans female actress
The plastic surgeon who sleeps with Alexis is shocked to hear that she is a “male-to-female transsexual” who would like surgery to “become a gay man.” The character then returns after realizing that they’d like their boobs back to better attract straight men. Although this means she’s not really a transgender character, this characterization embodies so many damaging tropes that I wanted to mention it even if it’s not part of the statistics we tallied in the infographic. Those stereotypes include: that being trans is really about being gay, that people who get surgery often regret it and are wrong to feel they require it, and that it’s a cosmetic choice.
Georgette, The Closer,“Make Over” (2009)
Cis male actor
“Just because Empty Pants here won’t bite the bullet and put on the clothes that he was born to wear doesn’t mean that we can’t have somebody read his testimony in court.”
Louie and the other detectives are shocked to learn that Detective Andrews, his old buddy and former police partner, is transgender. Everybody freaks out, calls her a man, asks her about her genital surgery, and determine her trans status prevents her from being a reliable witness for their case. She eventually wins people over with her willingness to present male for an interrogation and her ability to gamely handle jokes made on her behalf. The character is a lesbian, which is rare.
Auntie Momma, The Cleveland Show (2009)
“Her real name is Kevin. And she’s been hiding the candy for 36 years.”
Cleveland is shocked when he sees Auntie Momma in the bathroom and notices that she has a penis. He vomits for about 45 seconds after his father and Auntie Momma have sex. Later, Cleveland tells his Dad that Auntie Momma is a man with a penis, and his Dad vomits for 45 seconds.
Ida Davis, The Family Guy, “Quagmire’s Dad” (2010)
cis male actor
“What are you gonna name it, eh? What are you gonna name your he-she father-mother?”
Quagmire is shocked when his Dad, who his friends think is “super fucking gay,” comes out as a trans woman. She has surgery and is immediately good-to-go. At dinner, Lois throws out the crumble Ida brought (nothing makes me sadder than people throwing out un-eaten food somebody brought to a group meal!) and the Griffins quiz her about her surgery and how to make a vagina out of a penis. Quagmire tells Dad he just can’t accept her, so she goes for a drink at the Marriot, where she meets Brian and they hit it off. The next day he learns that she’s transgender and vomits for a solid 60 seconds and screams in terror. But! Quagmire apologizes to his Dad and tells her that he loves her. But! Then we cut to Brian scrubbing himself vigorously in the shower.
Allison Webb, Drop Dead Diva, “Queen of Mean” (2010)
Trans female actress
Grieving widow: She was everything to me.
Her Dead Wife’s Mom: You did this to yourself.
The lawyers are shocked, but react professionally, when Allison reveals that she and her wife married when she “was a man.” Now Allison’s wife has died in a car crash without a will and her parents are challenging her right to her estate now that Allison has transitioned. It has a really sweet ending.
Cha Cha, Glitter and Marbles, Bob’s Burgers, “Sheesh! Cab, Bob?” and “Lobsterfest” (2011)
Cis male actors
Glitter, Cha Cha and Marbles, with Bob in the front seat.
These are three sex workers that Bob picks up in his taxi when he gets a second job as a late-night cab driver. When we first see them, the camera zooms in on their adam’s apples, hairy faces and hairy arms and the characters repeatedly call them “transvestite hookers.” Other than that, they are largely treated with kindness and respect and treated as women. Glitter makes a joke about living in a “town full of doctors who refuse to cut off your penis” and after Marbles and Mort kiss, Mort looks confused and disturbed and says that he kissed a boy. Cha Cha had an unspeaking cameo in another episode.
Marshmallow, Bob’s Burgers (2011->)
cis male actor
Another trans sex worker who first appears in the same episode as Glitter, Cha Cha and Marbles, Marshmallow has made several reappearances, being in seven episodes in total. She’s treated with kindness and respect by Bob and the other characters, but her deep voice and appearance embody the “humorous trans woman” trope. She usually only has a cameo, but the show has a running gag where Bob always greets her with “Oh, hey, Marshmallow” and she’s become something of a fan favorite.
Amanda Knott, Harry’s Law, “Send In The Clowns” (2011)
Cis gay male actor
Photo from episode “Send In The Clowns” eps 108
Adam and Jenna are shocked to learn that their client, Amanda, is “anatomically male” and that she’s been fired for having an affair with her cis male boss! Jenna calls her a “he-she” and a “man-woman.” Amanda’s unlawful termination case fails, though, due to the fact that she’s had plenty of offers from other clubs but only wants this job to stay close to the boss, who she has called 20+ times in the last three days begging to get back together. She cries about having a penis.
Geraldine, Necessary Roughness, “Dream On” (2011)
Trans female actress
Jeanette is shocked, but not upset, when the hot blonde girl she’s talking to at her high school reunion outs herself as Geraldine, who Jeanette knew in high school as Gerald and was hoping to run into at the reunion to reconnect and ride off together into the sunset. They catch up, everything is fun and light, and Geraldine confesses that she was in love with her in high school, loved her “effortless femininity,” and wanted to be her, and then kinda did her best to live that dream, which makes Jeanette feel really good about herself.
Kyla, Hung, “What’s Going On Downstairs?” and “Money on the Floor” (2011)
Trans female actress
“The woman Ray’s on a date with is a man. She’s a man.”
Ray is shocked to learn that Kyla, the girl who hired him as an escort, “is really a man.” He learns this ’cause his booker is so disturbed to learn this info that she tracks them down at a skating rink and chases him around wildly until she’s able to tell him the truth. He freaks out and ends their date prematurely and backs out on the next date — to her high school reunion — despite having had an amazing time with her. When a competing escort is given the job, Ray wants the gig back … but refuses to dance with her and lays low as she’s outed to her classmates. He just sits there at a table full of guys making trans jokes while she stands alone on the dance floor, crowded with people whispering about her. Forced to leave the dance floor in tears, he finally gets up, tells her she’s beautiful, and asks her to dance.
Real talk: This episode broke my heart and pissed me off in a way I wasn’t expecting. Part of a sex worker’s JOB is to make the client feel sexy and desired, no matter what they look like, how repulsive their personality, even if they smell like a sweaty gym locker. That’s as big a part of the job as the sex itself is, and that’s why we see storylines on TV all the time about people perceived as “undesirable” hiring sex workers and enjoying themselves. Never before have I seen a storyline like this where the sex worker refused to do his job because of something relating to his client’s body. She paid him $1,000 to come to her high school reunion and he refused to even dance with her, or even defend her when the guys at his table realized “who she was.” Sure, he came around in the last 30 seconds, but I’m sorry, no. The message here, that even a trans girl who is as normatively attractive as Jamie Clayton can’t even PAY for it…. Jesus Christ. Disgusting.
Mia, Hit or Miss (2012)
Played by cis female actress Chloe Sevigny
“You look really nice, Mia…. not bad for a cock in a frock.”
The audience is shocked when a figure in a dark hoodie kills someone, goes home, removes her hoodie — she’s a woman! — and then removes all of her clothing — she has a penis! — and gets into the shower. The woman herself, Mia, is shocked about five minutes later to learn that she has a son, sired by her ex who has recently died of cancer. The short-lived Direct TV series is an intersection of these circumstances: Mia’s job as a contract killer, her new duty as a mother to one child and three step-children and her pursuit of a romantic life — which includes, of course, a potential love interest being repulsed when she comes out to him. Luckily, he does eventually have a change of heart.
Sophia Bursett, Orange is the New Black (2012->)
Played by trans female actress Laverne Cox
Sophia is a hairdresser and former fire-fighter imprisoned for credit card fraud, which she perpetuated largely to fund her surgical transition. Her straight wife struggled to accept her and tried to be a good sport, but her son got angry and embarrassed about it. Once in jail, Sophia’s wife leaves her for a man. For the first two seasons, she’s one of a few characters who rises above the manipulative, reckless and territorial behavior exhibited by other inmates but things take a turn in Season Three, a storyline which leads to her being attacked and beaten by a group of inmates. The prison deals with this conflict by putting her in solitary confinement.
Venus Van Damme, Sons of Anarchy (2012-2014)
Played by cis male actor Walton Goggins
Venus was raised with an abusive mother who pimped out her child and also made and distributed child pornography. She plays a sex worker who develops a romance with one of the mean guys on this show that I guess is about people shooting each other and riding motorcycles.
Sally, Fugget About It, “The Broadfather” (2013)
Jimmy is shocked when a woman he meets is like, “Hey, I’m your father!” She tells Jimmy how she killed and stole to protect her secret, then faked her own death and got surgery. She also smashes Jimmy’s face into her breasts, which gives him a hard-on.
Lucette, Mike & Molly, “The First and Last Ride-Along” (2013)
Cis gay male actor
Lucette: I have nothing to hide.
Carl: To hell you don’t! You managed to hide it for three hours and a carriage ride!
Molly is shocked when the beautiful woman who sent a milkshake to her husband’s partner (as in; police partner) turns out to be “a he,” according to everybody besides her. Molly asks her questions about penis-tucking while Carl gets defensive about a kiss they shared on New Year’s Eve. What’s better? The show already got in trouble with GLAAD for joking about the NYE kiss six months earlier, described as “the shemale incident of ’08.”
Paula, Two and a Half Men, “Numero Uno Accidente Lawyer” (2013)
Cis female actress
Alan is shocked to learn that the woman he’s dating, Paula, is transgender. He has a lot of questions about her genitals, mostly ensuring she won’t sprout a penis and become undateable. In her review, Mey Rude wrote that, “This episode was still filled to the brim with insulting “jokes” and problematic lines directed at the expense of not only the character of Paula, but all trans women who might see, or even hear about, the show.”
Ms. Hudson, Elementary, “Snow Angels” (2013)
Trans female actress
Here we have a trans woman played by a trans actress and her trans status is not the focus of her story or relevant to the plot! What a revelation! As Mey wrote, “she’s just another person in Sherlock’s life.”
Jess, Grey’s Anatomy, “The Face of Change” (2013)
Cis male actor
Brian’s father is shocked to learn that his child is having top surgery and that his girlfriend, Jess, is also trans. Jess enables Brian and his father to reconcile.
Marlena, Love That Girl, “What He Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Him” (2013)
Cis female actress
“Well listen, MISS MISTER, you better tell him, because if you don’t, I will.”
Latrell’s gay roommate Fabian is shocked to learn that Marlena, the girl Latrell’s about to go on a date with, is a woman he once knew as “Marvin.” She begs him to keep her secret, so Fabian recruits their friends to follow them on their date to “save” Latrell from unknowingly dating “a man.” At least fifteen penis and balls jokes are made. None of Latrell’s friends are capable of telling him that Marlena is trans, so instead his old flame hooks up with him for the night (after watching The Crying Game) in order to stop him from going back to Marlena.
Unique Adams, Glee (2013-2015)
Played by cis gay male actor Alex Newell
Unique is a talented singer who joins the McKinley High Glee Club. She’s frequently ridiculed and teased by classmates and teachers, catfishes the boy she has a crush on (who is repulsed when he discovers the true identity of his online girlfriend), is bullied and is subject to a really fucked up bathroom-related storyline. Over the course of the show she eventually bonds with the other girls but is the only female cast member to never get a romantic storyline.
Angelique, Penny Dreadful (2014-2015)
Played by cis gay male actor Johnny Beaucamp
Dorian is not shocked when Angelique, the prostitute he sought out after meeting her earlier that day, disrobes to reveal her penis. The two enjoy an unpaid fling and seem to really like each other. Dorian throws her a ball so others may “gape at [their] uniqueness.” Then he basically leaves her for another woman. When Angelique discovers one of his secrets, he kills her.
Transparent (2014 ->)
Maura Pfefferman, played by cis male actor Jeffery Tambour
Maura’s family — her ex-wife, two daughters and one son — is shocked when she comes out to them as transgender and begins presenting as a woman full-time. Maura deals with coming out and handling her selfish and also very queer children as well as a myriad of other issues, thoughts and feelings, over the course of this show that you probably have already seen!
Davina, played by trans actress Alexandra Billings
Davina becomes Maura’s “trans mentor” and has a boyfriend in jail who gets out and moves back in with her midway through Season Two. She is HIV-positive, a former sex worker, and currently works at the LGBT center.
Shea, played by trans actress Trace Lysette
Shea is another friend of Maura’s. She is a yoga instructor. In the second season, her role gets even bigger and we get to see that she has a rich, full life where she volunteers at a suicide hotline, sleeps with sexy Marines and hangs out with her trans friends.
Eleanor, played by trans actress Zackary Drucker
Eleanor leads the support group that Maura joins when she first comes out.
Gittel, played by trans actress Hari Nef
Gittel is an ancestor of the Pfeffermans who lived in the famous Hirschfeld Institute in Berlin and transitioned against the wishes of her mother. Gittel was arrested by the Nazis for being trans and eventually died in the Holocaust.
Maya Avant, The Bold and The Beautiful (2013->)
Played by cis female actress Karla Mosley
**The first regular transgender character in the history of American daytime television.**
Maya’s boyfriend Rick is shocked when she comes out to him as a trans woman after he has proposed to her, and he freaks out. They eventually reconcile and do get married. Maya’s character, which came to the show in 2013 (she came out in 2015), has always been ruthless and manipulative, and Rick is pretty shitty as a human too. Other crappy stuff happens: her sister blackmails her and outs her before she tells Rick, her trans status is leaked to the press, her Dad calls her wedding a “freak show,” etc.
Adele, Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce, “Fantasyland: A Great Place To Visit” (2015)
Trans female actress
Lt. Adele Northrup is a former award recipient who gives a speech at the Family Equality Council ball to introduce this year’s winner of the same award. The beginning of her speech is somewhat overpowered by a group of cis straight white women fighting at their table about divorce-related anger.
Avery, Law & Order: SVU, “Transgender Bridge” (2015)
Cis male actor
When we first see Avery, she’s topless, which is super weird thing for a 15-year-old girl to be on primetime TV. Things only go downhill from there, as she’s bullied and called “he-she,” “tranny” and “freak” while a group of teenage boys pulls at her skirt to try to see what’s under there. One of the boys pushes her off a bridge, and she eventually dies from the wounds. She’s misgendered throughout the rest of the episode, both by the boys and by police officers and detectives.
Sheena, The Mindy Project, “What to Expect When You’re Expanding” (2015)
Trans female actress
Sheena, the cousin of Mindy’s friend Tamra, comes to visit and helps inspire Mindy to feel better about her body and regain the confidence she’s lost since getting pregnant. Tamra tells Mindy to listen to Sheena because “She had to overcome a lot to be the beautiful woman she is today.” When Mindy replies “Like what? Having too hot a face and body?” Tamra and Sheena exchange a knowing look. This was a pretty great episode.
Jill, How To Get Away With Murder, “Two Birds, One Milestone” (2015)
Trans female actress
Alexandra Billings, a trans woman, plays a trans female professor who is friends with Annalise and goes to her for help when she kills her abusive husband. Mey called it “…the best Very Special Trans Episode of a show that I’ve ever seen.”
Rosalind, Grey’s Anatomy, “The Great Pretender” (2015)
Cis male actor
Ben is shocked when his wife Bailey tells him that his brother, Rosalind, is transgender and is taking hormones after 25 years of lying about who she is. Ben freaks out. Bailey implores Ben to stop being an asshole.
Jordan, The Carmichael Show, “Gender” (2015)
Cis male actor
“Transgender? You mean he like to dress up like a little mini RuPaul?”
Jerrod is shocked when Jordan, the mentee he’s been assigned in the Big Brother/Big Sister program, comes out as gay… and then admits that she isn’t actually gay, she was just testing the waters for the real reveal: that she’s trans. Jerrod freaks out, but after a long talk with his family and some reckoning, he comes around. While Jerrod and his family misgender Jordan a bit, Mey said “it was maybe the most slept on piece of trans media of the year.”
Whiterose, Mr. Robot (2015)
Cis gay male actor
Whiterose is a legendary computer hacker obsessed with time. When accepting the role, perfect human BD Wong was clear that he did not “want to be a man disguised as a woman trying to get away with something” and playing into the “deceptive” stereotype, that he only would take it if he was assured the character was a trans woman. We’ve only seen a little bit of Whiterose so far, but she will return for Season Two.
Gisele, Blunt Talk (2015)
Trans female actress
Gisele, a trans sex worker who’s just been released from jail, has a nice catching-up dinner with Captain Picard, during which she says she’s leaving sex work and is in a really awesome relationship.
Nomi Marks, Sense8 (2015)
played by transgender actress Jamie Clayton
Nomi is a political blogger and “hacktivist” living in San Francisco with her girlfriend, Amanita, who is very supportive of her and stands up for her in front of transphobic bullies. Nomi was bullied as a child and still has scars from where she was burnt in a scalding hot shower by a group of boys. Her family is not accepting of her transition, including her mother, who continues to misgender her.
Liz Taylor, American Horror Story: Hotel (2015)
Played by gay male cis actor Dennis O’Hare
Once upon a time, Liz Taylor was a married salesman with kids, only letting her real self out in the privacy of hotel rooms. In this particular hotel, Elizabeth walked in on her, announced “you look like a man but smell like a woman” and enabled her to live her true self forever, working there as a bartender and leaving her family. When she’s bullied by other hotel workers, Elizabeth kills them. She falls in love with a male model who worries that being with her makes him gay. Elizabeth kills him too. Liz and Iris decide to kill themselves and then change their mind and decide to kill other people. Etc.
Charlotte, Pretty Little Liars (2012-2016)
Played by cisgender female actress Vanessa Ray
In 2015, Charlotte is revealed to be a criminal mastermind who has manipulated, tortured, and been involved in the murders of numerous people, mostly women. In 2016, she is murdered.
Anna, Royal Pains, “Prince of Nucleotides” (2015)
Trans actress
This episode was fantastic. Anna’s experiencing pains and shortness of breath that suggest a blood-clotting problem, exacerbated by the hormones she’s started secretly taking. Her doctor is patient, respectful and caring, and comes to her aid when she’s outed at camp and punched by another camper. He talks to Anna’s parents for her, and although he initially told her he couldn’t start her on HRT with her condition, he comes back in the last scene of the episode to tell her that he’s going to figure out a way to make it work so that she can start HRT without risking her health. This episode is probably the best one on the list.
Keyonna Blakeney, Just 22, Becomes the Latest Black Trans Woman Murdered in the US
Once again the epidemic of intimate partner violence against Black trans women has reared its horrifying head; Keyonna Blakeney, a 22 year old trans woman, was murdered in Washington, DC. Her body was found in a Red Roof Inn, and police are reporting that she may have been engaging in sex work. Blakeney becomes the ninth trans person reported murdered this year, meaning that if this pace keeps up, 2016 will break the horrible record that last year set of the most trans murders reported in the United States in one year.
From the Facebook post by Foxx Jazell.
Reports first came in on Facebook via a post by Foxx Jazell, who said that Blakeney “was celebrating her birthday” just a few days ago. Jazell also pointed out that her murder was likely due to the sex work that she was engaged in, which is often one of the few places trans women and especially trans women of color can turn to for solid employment, but is also a huge source of violence for them. While many men are much more than willing to sleep with trans women and pay us to sleep with them, many of them also associate sleeping with trans women with shame and guilt, and often turn that into rage. Whether it’s shame at what they’ve done or fear that others will find out that they slept with a trans woman, those negative feelings often manifest as real violence toward trans women, and again, usually trans women of color.
This is a huge problem, and it’s a problem that lies with men. If the men who sleep with trans women would step into the light and stop associating trans bodies with fetishes and shame, the number of trans women murdered in the US would drop significantly. I’m far from the first trans woman to say this; others like Cherno Biko, Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, Angelica Ross and Jen Richards have been saying extremely wise things on this topic for years. But honestly, there’s not much that women can do other than to tell men that they need to step up. The men who sleep with trans women have the power, and they need to use it to protect trans women.
Keyonna Blakeney joins trans women Monica Loera, Jasmine Sierra, Maya Young, Kourtney Yochum and Shante Thompson, genderfluid teen Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, and trans men Kayden Clarke and Demarkis Stansberry on the list of trans people murdered in the US this year. Once again, nearly all of these people have been Black. Police are asking people with information on Blakeney’s murder to call 240-773-5070, or 866-411-8477 if you want to remain anonymous. A reward of up to $10,000 is available. There’s a fundraiser up to raise money for her memorial services. We mourn Keyonna and hope that her death is the last one we hear of for a while.
North Carolina Governor Pretends He Cares About Equality With New Executive Order
Governor Pat McCrory Signs an Executive Order to Clarify HB2, Doesn’t Change Anything
+ Pat McCrory, governor of North Carolina, signed an executive order today that basically just reiterates HB2, the sweeping anti-LGBT bill that was passed in late March. After so much backlash against the bill with businesses pulling out from their plans to work in the state and with other states ordering non-essential travel to the North Carolina, McCrory believes “there is a great deal of misinformation, misinterpretation, confusion, a lot of passion and frankly, selective outrage and hypocrisy, especially against the great state of North Carolina” and would like to correct it by issuing the order to “affirm and improve the state’s commitment to privacy and equality.”
Here’s how what the order does, according to the Governor:
-Maintains common sense gender-specific restroom and locker room facilities in government buildings and schools
-Affirms the private sector’s right to establish its own restroom and locker room policies
-Affirms the private sector and local governments’ right to establish non-discrimination employment policies for its own employees
-Expands the state’s employment policy for state employees to cover sexual orientation and gender identity
-Seeks legislation to reinstate the right to sue in state court for discrimination
But in reality it really doesn’t do anything and just affirms HB2.
“Gov. McCrory’s actions today are a poor effort to save face after his sweeping attacks on the LGBT community, and they fall far short of correcting the damage done when he signed into law the harmful House Bill 2, which stigmatizes and mandates discrimination against gay and transgender people,” Sarah Preston, acting executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina, said in a statement.
His first point just reinforces that HB2 bans trans people from using bathrooms that match their gender and tries to pretend like it’s no big deal by saying it’s “common sense” to discriminate against trans people. The second point is just stating what was already true because HB2 didn’t affect private businesses and didn’t ban them from establishing LGBT protections. The third point sounds like it might be a sort of victory but it’s not. It would be like saying trans city employees wouldn’t be discriminated against but in reality can’t use the bathroom that matches their gender identity in government buildings. His next point would be a victory if it weren’t for the fact that trans people, state employee or not, can’t use the correct bathroom, which is still discrimination! His last point is great for others who are discriminated for other aspects of their personhood but does nothing for the LGBT community because there isn’t a state-wide nondiscrimination law.
Anti-Trans Legislation Train
+ It’s all monkey see, monkey do now with these Republican politicians and these anti-LGBT bills! South Carolina is the latest state to introduce an anti-LGBT bill somewhat similar to what was passed in North Carolina. Republican Sen. Lee Bright introduced a bill that would block local governments from adopting ordinances that would allow trans people to use the correct public restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities and also prevent trans people from using the correct facilities in state buildings and in schools. Bright used the whole trans scare tactic, saying they pose a threat to women in children.
+ Republican Kansas governor Sam Brownback is trying to change policy that would block trans people from changing their gender on their birth certificates.
A New Jersey School District Approves a Pro-Trans Bathroom Policy For a Change
+ After a heated debate at a school board meeting, the Pascack Valley Regional High School District has voted to allow trans students to use the restroom and locker room facilities that match their gender. The student has to be able to demonstrate their gender is core to their identity. The district says restrooms and changing areas are already supervised and provides individual privacy. “If you want to be called by your newly identified gender name, then we’re going to allow you the opportunity. If you want to be called by a different pronoun, you’re going to be given the opportunity to do so,” Superintendent Erik Gundersen said. “I would say that the use of the restroom and of the locker room is probably the final chapter of the student’s transformation, at least in high school.”
Backlash Against Anti-LGBT Bills in TN, NC, MS
+ Porn site XHamster.com is blocking all users from North Carolina until the state repeals HB 2.
+ Comedian Joel McHale donated all of the profits from his performance at the Durham Center for the Arts to the LGBTQ Center of Durham in protest of the state’s passing of HB2.
+ The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP is ready to sit-in at the General Assembly if HB2 isn’t repealed by April 21.
+ Students part of the UNC system aren’t happy with their universities’ compliance with HB2 and have been protesting and calling for the state to repeal the bill.
+ Canadian musician Bryan Adams cancelled a show in Mississippi in protest of the state passing an anti-LGBT bill. He joins Bruce Springsteen in canceling shows in states that have recently passed these kinds of bills.
+ GLAAD asked the Nashville music industry and other entertainment industries to speak out against two discriminatory bills.
+ Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery says the state’s anti-trans bathroom bill could cost them millions of dollars of federal funding because it would conflict with Title IX laws.
Law & Order
+ Eight married lesbian couples in Indiana say the state is discriminating against them for not allowing both women to be listed on their children’s birth certificates. The couples argue they should be treated the same as heterosexual married couples who have used artificial insemination to have children. The state says the law is fair and gives parental rights to biological parents or adoptive parents, which can be costly and lengthy. A decision on the lawsuit hasn’t been reached yet.
+ A lesbian couple in Scotland is on trial for neglecting, abusing and murdering their two-year-old son, Liam Fee, and for abusing two other boys. Their trial details the horrific abuse they inflicted on the children including locking one boy in a cage and tying another boy to a chair in a room full of rats and snakes.The trial is ongoing.
+ A transgender man in China, going by the name of C, filed a job discrimination case, the first one of its kind. He said he applied for a sales job with the Ciming Health Checkup Center in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou, passed the face-to-face interview and went to an orientation for 7 working days before he could officially be employed by the company. C was then fired before he had an official contract because his employer said he was a lesbian and said that was “unhealthy.” The company fired C for incompetence but have no proof to support it. C is asking for a week’s worth of wages for the time he spent at orientation as well as a month’s salary and an apology from the company. A ruling is expected later this month.
+ Detroit Public School Board filed a federal lawsuit against the state that alleges the state’s emergency management of the district resulted in the violation of students’ civil rights. Colorlines reports:
The suit names two-dozen plaintiffs, including Governor Rick Snyder, the three emergency managers who oversaw the district at various points and several principals who were recently indicted for taking nearly $1 million in kickbacks. It says that officials violated the Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It also specifies that not only have the emergency managers improperly managed the district, but that race was a factor in deciding which of the state’s districts would be under their unchecked control.
Grab Bag
+ A new study finds that a 15 minute conversation with a stranger can have a strong impact on their opinions on transgender issues like nondiscrimination protections. Researchers looked into the effects of door-to-door canvassing and found that conversations with an experienced canvasser helped change people’s minds about transgender issues and impacted their opinions over time, even if they were exposed to opinions of detractors. “It seems like these kinds of personal interactions can lead people to change their minds in a way that lasts,” one of the lead researchers of the study, David Broockman, told Think Progress.
+ The U.S. Department of Labor is considering changing their rules on paid sick time for federal contractors. It would allow for up to seven paid sick days and to use for themselves or anyone they recognize as family even if they’re not blood related which is really important for LGBT folks whose family takes different forms.
+ Norway’s Lutheran Church voted in favor of allowing same-sex marriages at their annual conference. Clergy who disapprove are allowed to refuse to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. Same-sex marriage has been legal in Norway since 2009.
+ The San Antonio school police officer shown in a video body slamming a 12-year-old Latina student was fired on Monday. Joshua Kehm was initially placed on paid leave after the video was released but administration said his response to apprehending the student for “verbal aggression” was “absolutely unwarranted.” In addition, the officer’s report was inconsistent with the video and was delayed.
+ In another incident of violence against students of color in Texas, a white high school teacher who was caught on video hitting a black student multiple times, was arrested and charged with one count of assault.
+ American anti-LGBT groups were present at the World Congress of Families Caribbean Regional Conference held in Barbados last weekend. The president of the National Organization for Marriage spoke at the conference that basically gathered the world’s most notorious and outspoken anti-LGBT groups to promote their hateful agenda. The Washington Blade notes “Barbados is among the Caribbean countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized.”
+ According to the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, American Indian and Native Alaskan girls are five times more likely than white girls to be incarcerated in juvenile facilities. They 40 percent more likely than white girls to be referred to a juvenile court for delinquency; 50 percent more likely to be detained; and 20 percent more likely to be adjudicated, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice.
Drawn to Comics: Webcomic “Goodbye to Halos” is Full of Cute Queer Characters and Amazing Colors
by rory midhani
You might already know Valerie Halla from when she won the Autostraddle Comic and Sequential Art Award for Favorite Colorist last year for her work on Octopus Pie or from her other work, but if you don’t, I’m really happy to introduce you to her work today. Her current webcomic Goodbye To Halos is just the kind of queernormative cute fantasy comic that’s right up my alley. There’s magic, there’s trans and queer characters, there’s romance and there’s mystery. It’s got it all.
Goodbye to Halos is a queer fantasy webcomic about a young trans woman named Fenic and her friends Leo (a gay lion kid), Louis (a rabbit guy) and Fran (a raccoon or cat girl). When Fenic was young, her father sent her through a portal from her home in Skyworld to a different world where everyone has animal ears and tails. Now, Fenic’s far from home and trying to build a new family with Leo, Louis and the other citizens of Lionsbridge while trying to learn to control her magical powers and figure out what’s going on with the portals back to her home world. If all this talk of portals and different worlds confuses you, don’t worry; Halla explains it at the beginning of Part One of the comic.
I love the main character, Fenic. She’s a lesbian trans girl, and the comic — written by Halla, a trans woman — gets her right. I love the detail that even in this fantasy setting, she still takes “girl pills” to help her transition. She’s so painfully cute the first time we see her get called “lady” in public and she decides to take her mother’s name as her own. She’s a total nerd, but also kind of a local hero, using her magic to help people in need. She’s totally cute when she’s trying to be brave and help people and really, just doing anything. Especially when she’s trying to flirt with the cute baker Elly.
This is one really queer comic. None of it plays into the cis straight gaze, none of it is heteronormative or cisnormative. It’s a breath of fresh air. Even when Halla has her trans lesbian character kissing her femme gay guy bff, it’s still really dang queer. These are just queer characters being queer in everything they do, and this is largely due to how good Halla is at writing queerness into her characters and story. The prologue shows Fenic before she came out as a trans girl, and still in those scenes she doesn’t seem like a cis het character because Halla has done such a good job of writing and illustrating her as queer.
One of my other favorite things about promoting this comic is that it’s about a trans girl and written by a trans woman. This is the kind of trans representation I desperately wish we had much more of. I trust Halla to treat Fenic well, not that I don’t expect her to have some troubles or be in danger, but I just feel like she’s safe in her hands in a way that I don’t feel safe in media created by cis people that stars trans girls. I’m genuinely happy to read this comic. Usually when I read webcomics or books or comics by cis people about trans characters I’m always worried about what will happen to them or that they’ll be mistreated by the writer, but that’s not happening here.
Halla’s art is on a higher plane. I’ve already mentioned her amazing coloring work, but here in this fantasy world it stands out even more. Each panel seems like it’s straight out of a magical world. You have no trouble suspending any disbelief about what’s happening because it all looks so much like a beautiful new world where anything can happen. Even more than that, the character designs are just adorable, and her style of using colors and shapes without linework works extremely well for this type of character. From the facial expressions and body language to the really terrific outfits they wear, to the absolutely stunning background and setting that all of these characters live in, this comic is a visual treat.
There are a lot of interesting plotlines developing, and I can’t wait to see where they end up. There’s Fenic and Elly’s flirtation, Leo and Louis, Fenic’s thing with her parents, the mystery of the portals, Fenic’s magic and even more. It’s all really interesting and fun and it’s all just ramping up more and more as the comic goes on.
I honestly can’t believe she tricked me into falling this in love with this gay furry comic. But also, I really can. She’s a super talented artist and is really great at crafting lovable and adorable tender gay characters who you just want to see happy. I was already a huge fan of her coloring work on Octopus Pie and her previous webcomic, and so it makes sense that I’d still be a fan, but still. If you’re a fan of this comic or you’re about to become one, you can follow Halla on twitter, on tumblr and support her on Patreon.
New Releases (April 13)
Harley Quinn and Her Gang of Harleys #1
Wynonna Earp Strange Inheritance TP
Welcome to Drawn to Comics! From diary comics to superheroes, from webcomics to graphic novels – this is where we’ll be taking a look at comics by, featuring and for queer ladies. So whether you love to look at detailed personal accounts of other people’s lives, explore new and creative worlds, or you just love to see hot ladies in spandex, we’ve got something for you.
If you have a comic that you’d like to see me review, you can email me at mey [at] autostraddle [dot] com.
Shante Thompson Becomes 8th Trans Person Murdered in US So Far This Year
We’ve learned of the extremely unfortunate and depressing news that another Black trans woman has been murdered in the United States this year. Shante Thompson, a Houston native and Black trans woman, was shot along with a man named Willie Sims late last night and was pronounced dead at the scene. Once again, the trans community is mourning the loss of one of its own. Thompson was beautiful and beloved and we’re all extremely sad and disturbed to hear of this extremely violent crime.
According to reports, Thompson and Sims were talking with each other when a group of men approached them and started to beat them with crowbars or tire irons. After beating them, they were shot and killed and left lying there on the ground. Witnesses say that a group of up to eight people could have been involved in the beating. There are no suspects in police custody at this time, but detectives say they have several leads. Thompson’s mother said that a group of men in the neighborhood had been confronting her daughter recently. “They kept picking on [her]” she said, “[Shante] was telling me that for a long time, they have been bothering [her] and bothering [her].” She said that losing her child is by far the greatest heartbreak she’s ever faced.
KHOU reported on the story from the scene of the crime, and interviewed several of her friends. They say that Thompson was just one month shy of turning 35. Her friend, Kevin Braxton said that this news is devastating. “It really hurts me because I have always looked out for Shante. I have always been there for her,” he said, “When I got the call and saw her laying on the ground, it really hurt my heart.”
Thompson is the eighth trans person killed in the US this year, and the fifth trans woman. Two trans men and one genderfluid teen have also been killed. The names of the other victims are Monica Loera, Jasmine Sierra, Kayden Clarke (a trans man), Maya Young, Demarkis Stansberry (a trans man), Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson (the genderfluid teen) and Kourtney Youchum. As usual, most of these people are Black and most are women.
While it’s unclear what exactly the motive of the crime was, the details of the attack, plus the reports from friends and family make it clear that it was extremely violent and that the attackers were very aware of the fact that Thompson was a trans woman. They were familiar with her and it appears that the attack was very personal. In many cases like this, it’s trans women of color who sleep with men who are the targets of violence, often at the hands of their own intimate partners. While we don’t know at all if that’s the case here, we can be sure that we’ll see that type of crime again, even if it turns out not to have been at the root of this case.
If you have any information or tips that could lead to finding justice for Thompson and Sims, please call Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
The 12 Gayest Moments in Carly Rae Jepsen’s Extremely Gay “Boy Problems” Video
Pop star and True Gay Icon Carly Rae Jepsen’s latest album, the pop masterpiece E MO TION, has been refueling my gay gas tank every time I’m worried that I might be slipping into hetero- and cisnormativity ever since I first listened to it last summer. Jepsen injected a new level of gayness into the album when she released the Petra Collins directed music video for “Boy Problems” via Rookie the other day, showing the internet the best gal pal sleepover/dance party of all time. The song was already gay enough, as Jepsen sings about breaking up with her boyfriend and not caring, and wanting to prioritize her relationship with a gal pal over her relationship with a boy, but this video is simply transcendentally gay. It’s the gayest music video by a non-gay artist since Jenny Lewis put Brie Larson, Kristen Stewart and Anne Hathaway in drag for “Just One of the Guys.”
The video follows Jepsen as she sits in her dark bedroom wearing a tiara and crying (gay), cutting to a super stylish and gorgeous group of girls doing things like having sleepovers (gay), working at an office (gay) and taking selfies in a coffin (gay). It all ends with a gay crescendo as Jepsen and her girl gang team up and dance in a room full of glitter- and sequin-covered streamers. For a song that’s ostensibly all about boys, there’s not a single one in the video. I want to live in this music video. It’s my new aesthetic, it’s my new brand.
This music video is so gay Ali Liebert is playing it in the movie version. It’s so gay it’s legal to discriminate against it in Mississippi and North Carolina. It’s so gay the CW is planning on killing it off next week. The “Boy Problems” music video is my whole entire gay life right now. Let’s take a look at just a few of the video’s gayest moments.
12. Members of Jepsen’s Gal Pal Army, including Dounia Tazi, Tavi Gevinson and Torraine Futurum, team up for an even more fashionable and even gayer version of 9 to 5.
11. Carly Rae sits all alone in her room dressed in black and a tiara crying to herself. What lesbian hasn’t done that a million times? I literally just did this yesterday.
10. Alexandra Marzella’s selfie game is so strong she’s taking pics just for No Filter from the grave.
9. Manon Macasaet showing us the proper eye roll technique for when your “straight” bff is talking about boys rather than paying attention to you.
8. Speaking of Futurum, just the fact that Collins and Jepsen feature this model and trans girl of color so heavily in the video makes it ICONIC for all time. All jokes aside, this really is amazing and, as a twoc, I love it and I’m so happy that trans girls will get to see themselves depicted in a girl-centric video like this.
7. Having a neon-washed sleepover, talking about misandry; you know, just gals being pals.
6. Tavi crying while wearing a sharp button up, pink blazer and absolutely amazing pom-pom earrings. I love it.
5. Just posing for selfies with the girls.
4. This is literally what the dance on the last night of A-Camp looks like. Like, literally. Not joking. This is a gay dance party.
3. Rolling your eyes in your coffin because the heteronormative patriarchy is so annoying you can’t even escape it at your own funeral.
2. Look at Carly Rae’s amazingly queer mullet! This is A LOOK. She’s the 21st century pop version of Joan Jett and I love it.
1. Then there’s this moment, the moment I came out of the closet all over again even though I’ve been out for years. This moment is my root. Here she is, singing “I think I broke up with my boyfriend today” and then she turns to her gal pal, Diana Veras, gets a really gay smile on her face, and finishes the line “and I don’t really care.” She doesn’t care because she’s queer. That’s it. That’s the message of the video.
Let’s a take a (smaller) longer look at this moment.
Now, go watch that video again and get your gay life!
Campership Alert: We’ve Got a Campership WITH TRAVEL For A Lucky Trans Woman Who Could Use a Break! UPDATED WITH WINNER
For me, and many other trans women, A-Camp is one of the few spaces where we can feel safe and welcome and affirmed as the queer women that we are. It’s a really great place where you can take a break from the often tedious and exhausting, and sometimes frightening and depressing world that likes to beat us up. It’s a place that refreshes you and reminds you that there are good things, places and people in the world, and that there are people willing to fight for your right to be happy and safe in women’s spaces. If this kind of break up in the California mountains with a few hundred other queer women and folks sounds like something you could use, than I’ve got some super great news for you!
As Paige says, it never gets easier for girls like us, but we do get stronger, and we do find communities that love us.
A trans woman, member of the Autostraddle community and former A-Camper would like to send one lucky trans woman to A-Camp this year! This is seriously amazing and she’s amazing (not just for doing this, she’s a really cool person) and I’m so thankful that she’s giving a trans woman the chance to go to camp. It’s not just that she’s giving one trans woman the chance to go to camp for free, but she’s also paying for them to get there. We ask that you apply for this campership only if you otherwise wouldn’t be able to go to camp. This contest is open until next Friday, April 15th, and we’ll pick the winner over the weekend and announce it on Monday, April 18th.
Enter this contest and you can win like Paige from Her Story
What You’ll Win
- Airfare or other travel expenses to Los Angeles (this is even open to international travellers!)
- Full paid tuition, including meals and lodging
- A wonderful, unforgettable experience
How to Win This Campership
- Be a trans woman (non-binary trans women count)
- Be available to go to A-Camp in California from May 29 – June 3
- Write one paragraph on who you are and one paragraph on why you could use this break from the world or from your every day life and send them to mey (at) autostraddle (dot) com by next Friday, April 15
- That’s it!
Update: This contest is now closed and we will announce a winner on Monday!
Update Update: We’ve picked a winner, or rather two winners! Congratulations Shay and Robin! Thank you to everyone who entered, and we’re sorry we couldn’t send more of you to camp.
A Day of Visibility: Jen Richards Gets Deep and Personal About North Carolina
This Thursday, March 31, is Trans Day of Visibility, a day that was created to celebrate the trans people who populate our families, our communities, our lives and our world. Autostraddle is a website for and about queer women, and that will always, always, include queer trans women. In order to highlight just a few of the trans women we love, respect and admire here at Autostraddle, we asked several to take pictures of a day or two in their lives and answer a few questions and we’ll also be featuring several essays related to trans visibility by trans women this week.
When I think about trans women who are creating positive change across the board for trans people, Jen Richards is one of the first people I think of. She’s great at writing and tweeting about trans issues; the webseries that she co-created, co-wrote and co-stared in, Her Story, is easily one of the best pieces of trans media I’ve ever seen; she was one of the creators of the Trans 100, which did wonders to bring awareness to good work that trans people are doing across the country; and those are just a few of the things she’s done. She’s really a miracle worker and a truly great leader.
The first time I met Jen in person in Los Angeles we went out for brunch, and I accidentally ordered some sunny side up eggs. I hate sunny side up eggs. But Jen is such a cool person that I wanted her to think I was cool too, so I ate all my eggs with a fake smile on my face. I wanted so desperately to make a good impression, so I was willing to eat one of my least favorite foods in the world. I hope it worked.
I’ve been in awe of her for a long time, but now that I’ve been able to talk to her in person and get to know her better, and now that I’ve seen her amazing work on Her Story, I’m simply blown away by how talented and impactful she is. When she writes and talks and creates media, she knows just how to get to the inner truth of things. When trans people’s lives are better in twenty years, we’ll look back and recognize Jen Richards as one of the reasons why. I’ve interviewed Jen before, and so I know that she gives great answers, so when she agreed to do this, I was overjoyed.
I had originally sent Jen some questions and asked her to do a similar thing to what Devan, Luna and I did over the past three days, but then, she sent me this yesterday and said “I hope this is alright.” Once you read it and realize that this is the kind of thing Jen does and hopes it’s just alright, you’ll realize why I’m so amazed by her.
TUESDAY, MARCH 22 – WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23
I’ve never been good at filtering information, anything new, a bit of news, an overheard conversation, can be like a pebble starting an avalanche in my brain, so my ability to function depends heavily on routine. Ideally, every morning would start like this particular Tuesday. I wake up, let my dog outside while I eat an orange. I come in and do my morning ritual, a combination of meditation and a little bit of occult magic, then a quick combination of squats, sit-ups and push-ups. I drink a cup of English Breakfast Tea as I write my Morning Pages, then turn on Take Two, my local NPR morning program, as I make an everything bagel, freshly chop green onions to mix into whipped cream cheese, and grind beans for a single pour-over cup of coffee, all of which I consume while watching last night’s Daily Show and checking Twitter.
That’s when I see the news that North Carolina has called for a special session to overrule an anti-discrimination ordinance passed in Charlotte, making it illegal for any city in the state to have such protections. The primary concern is the specter of men invading women’s restrooms. These come up all frequently, and they usually fail. It’s a scare tactic used by the right to provoke voter engagement, but there’s zero evidence of an issue to justify them, and they’re nearly impossible to enforce. Nonetheless, this one hits me in the gut. My family lives in North Carolina. I’m there several times a year, and had recently spent a month in Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham. Since my Mississippi birth certificate says “male,” the new bill would make it illegal for me to use public facilities designated for women. The bill hasn’t made national news yet, but I’m about as angry as I’ve ever been. It feels personal. I fire off a series of tweets to Governor Pat McCrory, as well as the North Carolina Values Coalition and some public supporters of the bill. The few replies I get make it clear that my arguments have zero impact. This issue will consume my consciousness for the following few days.
I’m supposed to meet my new writing agent in Beverly Hills, but she has to reschedule. Instead I go to one of the two cafes that I regularly work at, a small locally owned spot in Cypress Park. I’m meeting Devon, a filmmaker, close friend, and ex-boo. We often work together here. I also run into Jerrid, the boyfriend of my sister Zackary. He’s working on an essay about his relationship to her, which makes me smile. We all catch up briefly and then I try to work.
I’m supposed to be finishing a feature script, a love story about three trans women and the relationships they’re in. I’d submitted a synopsis and 10 pages of it to Outfest’s Screenwriting Lab competition and it made it through the first round. A complete script is due Thursday and I’m less than halfway through. Instead of writing, I end up back on Twitter, posting more about the North Carolina bill.
That evening I’m feeling weak and frayed and realize I forgot to eat lunch. A new ramen shop has just opened down the street from where I stay. I came to LA a year ago, without a car or job, and have been living out of suitcases, and largely off the charity of friends, ever since. No one has been more generous than a couple who let’s me stay in their guest room. He’s a trans guy and the one largely responsible, behind the scenes, for the best aspects of I Am Cait. She’s a lawyer who focuses on LGBT family law. They’ve been together for nine years, and I’m in awe that they still seem to genuinely enjoy each other. He’s out of the country on a new project, so she and I spend most evenings together. We go to the ramen shop. It’s delicious.
I feel a little better after food, but am still on edge. My mind keeps returning to North Carolina. On an unconscious level, as with the logic of dreams, I’ve associated supporters of the bill with my family. Though my mom and I are now closer than ever, it’s been a long road to get here. There was a time when she said she’d never call me Jen because, “Jen murdered my son.” In public I battle these kinds of responses to my existence with education, reason, rhetoric, advocacy, and art. In private, I’m wracked with shame, self-doubt and self-destruction. My mom proudly introduces me as her daughter now, but I still carry that guilt with me, and have internalized a lifetime of media declaring trans people jokes or monsters.
I call Bailey on FaceTime and break down into tears. I’m the kind of person who goes weeks without talking to the people I consider my closest friends, and spend far more time alone than with anyone, but for some reason Bailey and I text or talk several times a day. She may be the only person I have ever believed loves me unconditionally. She quickly has me laughing and Googling pictures of a rapper she’s currently crushing on. Suddenly I realize I’m supposed to leave in an hour for a red eye flight and haven’t packed yet.
Luckily, I haven’t really unpacked from last week’s trips to Boston and Buffalo, so I’m out the door on time. My housemate kindly offers to drive me to LAX and we pick up Laura on the way. Laura is the co-writer and co-star of Her Story and in a very real way, its inspiration. She once had a trans waitress at a restaurant in Chicago and wrote the moment into her web series Hashtag, which I was then cast in. Our very first meeting was caught on camera.
https://vine.co/v/iJ6UnIiQpKF
I instantly developed a crush on Laura, so when her producer asked me to write a web series about a trans lesbian, I asked Laura if she’d work on it with me. We opted to reserve any personal chemistry for the screen and discovered we’re particularly well suited for collaboration. Perhaps it’s because we’re both hyper-Aquarian and classically educated, but our brains often seem like halves of a whole.
We get to the airport and I begin getting anxious. As I and many other have discussed and detailed before, the TSA’s body scanning procedures cannot accommodate trans people. Half of the times I go through one, I’m flagged. Because I’m most often read as a cis woman, the screeners often apologetically show me the screen, a yellow box on my crotch indicating the “anomaly” and I am subject to a pat down. Since I travel a lot, my patience for being touched in public by a stranger has been steadily waning. While traveling back to LA last week I had a particularly invasive pat down. After the agent fully touched my genitals a third time I recoiled. She let me go, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being violated. I decided I would opt-out of the body scan next time, in hopes that a general pat down would be less traumatizing than one focused on the area I don’t have the luxury of calling my “private parts.”
I keep rehearsing in my head what I’ll say if the agent asks why I don’t want to go through the body scan and settle on a casual “I just don’t like them” to avoid further scrutiny. When my turn comes up, I opt-out and am directed to stand in place until a female agent is available. After 10 minutes I’m taken aside and patted down. My best guess is that this is about the 25th time in the last three years. While I stand there enduring the process, I silently wonder what the cumulative cost of such additional “security” costs us. I’m cleared and try not to focus on the resentment I feel for having to choose between a short highly invasive violation of my body, or a longer, slightly less invasive one.
I can’t sleep on planes, so I read and watch a movie during the flight to the east coast. Laura’s brother picks us up at the airport. We’re doing a screening of Her Story at Keene State College that night, in central New Hampshire, and to save money we’re staying at Laura’s parent’s house.
I try to work on the script during the few hours we have at home, but I again get wrapped up in North Carolina. A few of my tweets have gone viral as the story becomes national news, so I’m getting a fair number of people in my mentions telling me I’m a man, how ugly and disgusting I am, etc. Given the sources, it’s about as hurtful as white noise. Laura pushes me to rest for a bit. I lay down, but my acting agent calls with information for an audition and then my brother begins texting me from the special session in Raleigh. He’s horrified by what he witnesses.
We make the two hour drive to Keene and meet up with Kate, the Executive Producer of Her Story, and one of the most made “bad-ass boss bitches” I’ve ever met. We have dinner with a group of students and staff and one trans girl from a local high school who is just beginning to come out. She knows some trans guys, but I’m the first trans woman she’s met in person. I take her aside, listen, and answer her questions. So much has changed in the short time since I came out. Young trans people today will have always seen people like them on the covers of magazines, get to see a few positive depictions on television. But they also have to see places like North Carolina paint us as predators who deserve neither safety nor dignity. Visibility has its benefits, but so did invisibility. She’s so excited to transition though, and it makes me remember my own enthusiasm. Being laughed at, chased, spit on, none of it gave me pause in my early days. The joy of finally being myself outshone all else.
There’s a good turnout for the screening. After having been up for over 30 hours, the stress of travel and my obsession with North Carolina, I’m verging on delirium. I’ve had Angelica with me at the last few events and I miss her presence. Next to Bailey, no one is a bigger part of my life. Angelica is the star of any room she’s in, bringing a degree of charisma and humor to conversations that never fails to awe me. I’m most at ease when she’s near. Nonetheless, I come alive during the Q&A. I always do, since it gives me an opportunity to talk about some of the issues that matter to me: racism, sex work, addiction, divisions within LGBT communities, domestic violence, depictions of trans people in the media and the importance of telling your own story. I use the bathroom several times during our night on campus. As a state university, I realize that if we were in North Carolina, this would be illegal. Going into a bathroom and peeing behind a closed door would be considered a threat to public safety. I can’t stop thinking about this.
We make the two hour drive back home. While the others stay up and enjoy a bottle of wine, I finally crash. Alone in my bed I realize that this was both the day I agreed to chronicle for Autostraddle and the four year anniversary of my own coming out. I think back on the events since I woke and wonder if they’ll make a good story.
Skydiving in Two Genders: An Essay on Trans Visibility
This Thursday, March 31, is Trans Day of Visibility, a day that was created to celebrate the trans people who are alive and making themselves known in the world. Autostraddle is a website for and about queer women, and that will always, always, include queer trans women. In order to highlight just a few of the trans women we love, respect and admire here at Autostraddle, we asked several to take pictures of their day-to-day lives and answer a few questions. We’ll also be featuring several essays related to trans visibility by trans women this week.
I am living as a woman the second time I prepare to leap out of an airplane, 7,000 feet above Florida, the world filled with the drone of the plane like the rumble of some metal giant’s stomach. The plane has one seat—for the pilot—and my back is pressed against it. I am facing the man I will be strapped to when, in 30 seconds, we step into the space beneath the clouds. I am not as nervous, this time, as he checks the harness.
The door of the plane cranks open, and it’s like the rush of a storm has entered the plane. I imagine I am being pulled out as my partner tells me to crawl towards the open door and I begin grabbing at the controls on the flight deck on instinct to have something to hold, until I realise the pilot is yelling at me over the twin roar of wind and plane to let go.
Let go.
I have skydived in two genders. The first time I’d gone on a tandem dive was years before I came out as queer in any sense, out of the same plane over the same patch of Quincy, Florida, but living as a male. It had felt like a strange nightmare. I was partly to blame, as I had gotten the idea of skydiving for the first time after a bad romantic breakup so as to briefly stop hearing, through sheer adrenaline, the station in my head that kept playing unhappy music. But the other reason I had not enjoyed it was my sense that I had to act masculine during the whole process, lest the girl in me become too visible, lest I seem queer — the thing I feared so much. I felt I had to move and answer my dive partner’s questions a certain, masculine way, or he would suspect something. And, to be honest, I was scared. I had to practically be pushed out of the plane because I was so afraid that I couldn’t step out of the door. We had rolled through the freefall rather than falling in a controlled way — awkward from plane to parachute.
As silly as it seemed, I wanted to look like the girls, any of them, in the photos the dive shop put out of their first-time divers on social media. It was superficial, in a way, caring about the photo more than the experience; but when you have no photos of you, but countless of someone people think is you, even something as pedestrian as a picture takes on an outsize significance. I’d had no idea I would dive again, years later, as one of those girls, both on and off the camera.
I bring up this memory because I remember, that second dive, how much visibility and trans-ness mattered. I had told no one at the small skydiving school that I was transgender; I just wanted to go as a woman, no other specific nonvisual label applied. It’s part of a project I’ve embarked upon to correct the contours of my life since coming out. I will do the big things I’d done, as a ‘male,’ as a woman, letting myself feel free to write my future by remixing my past—not erasing it under the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind, but making it right. Doing it better. Months later, when I snowboard at Breckenridge for the first time, I feel exhilarated, not just at fulfilling a dream of a largely snowless upbringing but because I’m doing so as a woman, as a person my fellow snowboarders — all strangers — call she. My womanhood feels visible, in this way small and vast all at once.
Before I can get on the plane to skydive a second time, I’m nervous, but not for the obvious reason. The fear comes from visibility. Everything is flipped from the first time; now, I want no sense of a past life’s masculinity present. The night before the dive, I worry for hours about if I can ‘pass’ at all if I tie my hair back, revealing the profile of my face, and I consider, seriously, whether or not to wear makeup simply so as to mask any trace of visual masculinity. Incredibly, there’s a tutorial on YouTube for skydiving makeup. The compass of myself is spinning madly. I watch the tutorial twice. I decide I’ll test the durability of a BB cream by Tarte at thousands of feet in the air, then feel ashamed at worrying so much about how I look, then feel the dread again, that all this might go completely wrong, not because I’ll fall to my death, but because I’ll be reduced to my past. I don’t want to be called ‘sir,’ to have that old ghost summoned by a word. I don’t want to be non-gendered, that neutrality that, sometimes, is a form of transphobia — a way of denying even the gender you present as because they cannot bring themselves to name you as such. I just want to let go, and be myself.
All seems well, I think.
When I lean back, this time, to fall off the plane’s edge, I grin like it is the best day of my life.
On this day, we celebrate the triumphs of transgender people — all transgender people must be included and championed, binary and non-binary alike — and look at how far we have come, as a global community of sorts. And I am so happy to be alive now, able to feel, for the first time in my life, that I can tell someone I’m ‘transgender’ and not necessarily expect them never to have heard this term before. I’m so happy to be alive at a time when trans women of colour are fighting fiercely against being pushed to the margins or forgotten. Janet Mock’s autobiography, the first by a trans woman I ever read, still resonates with me deeply, still helps me articulate how it means to define and redefine the ‘real.’ Jennifer Finney Boylan’s own, though a bit older, is resonant, as well. And there is so much in our growing literature of trans-ness to be proud of: we are writing fiction by and about trans persons, addressing the fact that, for a long time, most of the literature of trans experience was nonfiction autobiography. We are in the media. We exist. In my mind, this day proceeds with the carnival atmosphere of walking through the French Quarter of New Orleans, where the possibility of the wondrous seems always in the air.
We cannot only celebrate, cannot only let go.
And, just as the atmosphere on Bourbon Street is thickened for tourists’ satisfaction, we cannot allow our day of visibility to become some kind of commodity for the kind of cis persons who think giving support is merely being ‘polite’ by not using the wrong pronouns.
In my home country, like in most of the Caribbean, laws protecting or even addressing gender identity do not exist. In Iran, sex-change operations can be funded by the government, but only on the extraordinary premise that everyone is really heterosexual, and that a transgender person — who must be binary in this worldview — is merely a heterosexual person born in the wrong body. In Brazil, transgender people are attacked and killed more than anywhere else in the world, even as Brazil has increasingly adopted progressive laws regarding LGBTQ persons. Sixty-five years ago, Christine Jorgensen, then the world’s most famous trans woman, was a sensationalistic story in newspapers; only this month, Lilly Wachowski came out after being threatened with being outed by The Daily Mail. In 1989, Akira Yasuda transformed a cis female character for Final Fight, Poison, into a pre-op trans woman, justifying this by arguing that it would be more acceptable to beat up a transgender person than a ‘real’ woman and that ‘hitting women was considered rude’ in America, a statement that implicitly isolates trans women. Decades later, I am still accustomed to seeing people refer to this character as ‘a man’ and making jokes about how ‘gross’ it would be to ‘hit’ that in another sense, jokes that many trans women, like myself, are accustomed to hearing applied to ourselves. I left my home — which declared earlier this month that anal intercourse is still illegal — to find a safer life in another country because being openly transgender is far from safe everywhere. I am often afraid to go to the doctor simply because I fear my voice, if not ‘right,’ will cause someone to ask me why I am using a woman’s ID—as has happened to me before.
When I wrote a piece for Slate in January about using the women’s restroom as a trans woman in the wake of fear-mongering anti-transgender laws, I was unsurprised at the vitriol in the comments; this is just how it is in 2016, the idea that we are, despite our social gains, ‘predators’ and ‘perverts’ and ‘freaks.’ And when I was lucky to write a piece for VIDA about visibility as trans women in the Caribbean, I was reminded just why I needed to write such a piece to begin with.
We are beginning to be accepted, loved; we are still hated. And some of that hatred often, unfortunately, comes from within ourselves.
To celebrate is to focus one’s gaze, to relegate the terrors to the shadows, at least for a bit. Perhaps that’s how we do anything as humans, focusing our gaze. In his essay ‘On the Pleasures of Hating,’ The English critic William Hazlitt—famous for the acerbic way in which he took down writers in his criticism—argued that it’s impossible not to hate. “[H]atred alone is immortal,” he said. The sun is temporary; the dark is forever. I don’t want to feel hatred towards those who hate us. It’s hard for me to hate, when face to face with someone. But there is so much loathing for us out there, looping the world. And most all of it is rooted in the same ignorance from which we get misogyny, fundamentalisms, and homophobia: the belief that there is solely one, conservative way to view reality, and that anything that deviates from that must be deviant, must be evil, must be detested and destroyed. I often want to just look another direction, drifting away on an air-stream of happier dreams. But I can’t. Won’t.
On this day of beautiful diversity, we must remember, too, to celebrate ourselves, if we have spoken out against the mind-sets that would rather such people as myself never speak at all. Let us not forget: celebration, sometimes, is itself worthy of celebration. To celebrate how far we’ve come, after all, we must not hate who we are; we must love ourselves, so we can be happy for ourselves, and for others like us.
I remember standing in front my bathroom mirror a few days before I began to write this. A faint orange-yellow lamp in the background, the sink in shadow, me like a figure in a chiaroscuro. I put a hand over the space between my legs. I turned one way, then the other. For a while, I just stood there, imagining myself as if there had never been anything but a vagina there. I smiled, but I was sad. The organ I had been born with seemed, in that moment, a kind of secular curse, like the pig’s tail certain members of the Buendia family would be born with in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was not a curse. I would not have been me, really, had I been born without it, had I been born like so many cisgender women. I would not have been better or worse, even if I might have been better or worse off in other ways; I would have had an utterly different life. There it was again, that pleasant-pedestrian-painful reminder: I was always a woman, but I would have been a different woman had I been born cis. I don’t even know that that other person, that smoky dream-self that only exists in the space where genies’ wishes do, is ‘I’ at all.
This is as obvious as can be, but so easy to forget, and so important: we are who we are, and we would not be if we had been otherwise. If we wish to celebrate ourselves and others, we must start by banishing the desire, if we have one, to have been born something else. I say this, but I feel like I am surrounded by smoke as I write this, and it is not from a cigarette or a candle.
After the second dive, I’m sitting in the main room again with Cindy, the woman who runs the place, and another woman who is filling out the paperwork for her first dive. “It’s all girls today,” Cindy says to her. “No guys signed up.” I feel elated.
The other woman steps out for a moment. Cindy turns to me. She smiles and tells me she had read an essay I wrote about being a trans woman before the dive, after I’d added the skydiving school as a friend on Facebook. “I say, go girl!” she exclaims, chuckling and putting a fist in the air. She says that voice must be difficult, but that because I am from the Caribbean, I can perhaps compensate for it slightly by my accent.
At first, I feel deflated. Sad. I’d thought no one there knew. Then, as I consider it more through the day, I realise that, whether or not Cindy and my dive partner knew I was trans, they had treated me in such a way that I had no way of knowing. To my partner I was simply a woman, undefined as any category of that term; and to be a trans woman, after all, is to simply be a woman in its own category, just as it is a category to be a Dominican woman, a tall woman, any woman at all, and categories often intersect. My dive partner had neither explicitly looked down upon me for being a trans woman nor congratulated me for it; he had simply called me ‘girl’ and ‘girlie’ each time in a way that seemed natural to him. I was simply female to him, and wasn’t that, I wondered, the best possible outcome, where, ‘read’ as transgender or not, you are treated as the person you are in such a way that you wouldn’t know if anyone else had read the book of your history in your face, your body, or somewhere else?
I remember the rush of the fall through the air, and how, this time, all I felt was bliss as the air rushed into my face like a vast waterfall in reverse. And I remember when the parachute opened, and the roar of the wind stopped, replaced by a beautiful, calm stillness, as we descended on the wind to where we had set off from.
Let’s celebrate the future by taking from the past, and making it better in the present.
A Day of Visibility: Mey Rude Feels Lucky to Call Trans Women Her Community
This Thursday, March 31, is Trans Day of Visibility, a day that was created to celebrate the trans people who are alive and making themselves known in the world. Autostraddle is a website for and about queer women, and that will always, always, include queer trans women. In order to highlight just a few of the trans women we love, respect and admire here at Autostraddle, we asked several to take pictures of their day-to-day lives and answer a few questions. We’ll also be featuring several essays related to trans visibility by trans women this week.
The first time I ever wrote for Autostraddle and the first time I was published on Autostraddle were actually two different times. Back in the beginning of 2013, I was a fan and avid reader of Autostraddle, one of the very, very few queer women’s websites that made me feel like I was welcome. Then, I saw them put out a call for pieces written by queer trans women, a call they titled TransScribe. I had submitted an essay, but before I heard back about it, I got an email asking if I wanted to write a companion piece to an essay by a cis woman who had been called trnny. I assumed that the editors liked me, they just didn’t like my essay. Then a few days later, I got another email saying that my essay, about being fat and trans, was also accepted and going to be published. Ever since then, Autostraddle has been my home.
I’ve met some of my best and closest friends through working for Autostraddle. I’ve found a community. I’m able to let my voice be heard and my face be seen. Before I came out I was scared to be myself, to speak out loud, to be seen and noticed. Now, I’m more visible than ever, and that’s in large part thanks to the support, help, guidance and love I get from my Autostraddle family.
All pictures are by me and I had the other trans women contributing to Autostraddle this week each ask me a question.
Here’s the receipt from my latest therapy session. I’ve been going once a week since January, and it’s been incredibly helpful and really honestly life altering. I’m so, so glad that I finally made the decision to find a therapist.
I love my cat Sawyer. She’s wonderful and selfish and fat and she’s never done anything wrong in her entire cat life.
Luna Merbruja: If you could take a literary character on a date, who would it be and what would you do?
Oooh, this is a tough question, but I think I’ve been able to come up with an answer I’m happy with. Okay, so I love Shakespeare. Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and for the purposes of this question, especially As You Like It. As You Like It‘s heroine Rosalind is clever, witty, romantic, brave and she has a sharp tongue. Plus she comes with the bonus of being able to pull off a super hot soft butch aesthetic. As for what we’d do, I’d like to take advantage of her skills at picking out a sweet wardrobe. First we’d go shopping, and we’d pick out really killer outfits, trying on different looks for each other and making jokes and coming up with really good compliments. Then, she’d take me to a Carly Rae Jepsen concert, where we’d wear the new outfits we bought, of course, and we’d dance and smile and sing and fill up on energy and joy before heading back to her place.
This is the outside of my house, yeah, I’ve still got Christmas lights up. I’ve been volunteering for the Hillary for Idaho campaign a lot lately, making phone calls and canvassing door to door, asking people to come to the caucus and vote for her. I was quiet about my support for Hillary for a long time, but after Bernie joked in a debate about the Republican Debates being proof that we need better mental health care in the US, I started speaking up.
Devan Diaz: When the day is finished and you’re in bed, what are the thoughts that comfort you? Where do you allow your mind to go in the final moments before falling asleep?
Really, there are three things that comfort me when I’m lying in bed at night, especially after days that are harder than usual. First, I think of my friends. I think of Heather and Stef and Richell and Shan and so many others who make my life better in innumerable ways. I also think of how many dreams I’m accomplishing. For as tough and scary and lonely my life is, I’m also doing things I used to only dream of. I’m a writer, I’m working in comics, I’ve got friends who love me for who I am, I get to actually live as the woman that I am. It’s pretty amazing. I also think about music that I love, specifically music by Rebecca Sugar, her songs, and the shows they come from comfort me and calm me so much and just put my heart at ease. Specifically the song “Everything Stays” from Adventure Time. That song comforts me unlike anything else in the world.
I took this picture of two llamas lying down when I was out knocking on doors asking Democrats to come caucus for Hillary. There are a lot of farms in lots of parts of the town where I live and sometimes you luck out and run into a llama farm like this one.
This is from when I first got to the caucus. We got there around 4pm and got home after 11 that night. It was an incredibly fun, but tiring day.
Gabrielle Bellot: Is there something you particularly fear today, something you keep thinking about? Is there something always on your mind when you go out, a thought that always follows you?
I’m afraid that I’ll never move beyond the level of writer that I am today. I already said that the things I’ve accomplished and where my life is now bring me comfort, but lately I’ve been stressing out about it. I’m working on several projects right now, but I’ve run into problems with a few of them and it’s really discouraging me. It’s making me feel like this is the high point of my career and that I won’t ever be able to do better than this. Like, I’m definitely very proud of where I am today with my writing and my career, but also I feel like I could do better. And I’m afraid that I might be holding myself back, that the only reason I’m not further along or better at writing or just in a place I’d feel more comfortable is that I’m simply not good enough to do better and to be better. I really hope all of this isn’t true, but it’s been something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and its something that’s been keeping me from feeling confident in any of my work.
I wanted to get all cute for the caucus, so I wore my favorite blue dress, my red boots and this cute blazer. But as soon as the room got packed with 1,500 excited Idaho Democrats it got hot, so I took the blazer off.
Just to give everyone an idea of how packed the caucus was. It was loud and fun and electric and it was great to see this many Democrats be passionately involved in such a Red State.
Jen Richards: What are some of the special, positive experiences or moments you have that wouldn’t have happened were you not trans?
I think about this all the time. I think all the time about how lucky I am to be able to call trans women my sisters and elders and family and community. I love that I’ve been able to meet trans women both online and in person who have shaped me into the person I am today. Like, honestly, trans women are the absolute best. I love that I’ve been able to meet and befriend many trans women, whether those are close friendships, professional relationships or even just being able to meet and interview actual true life heroes and legends. Like, I got to interview Miss Major! That’s amazing! And I’ve been able to meet all the trans women who asked me questions here! I feel like every single trans woman of color I know is gorgeous and beautiful and so knowing that I’m one of them, that I’m a part of that community makes me feel infinitely more beautiful than I’ve ever felt in my life. I think about how I feel about myself a lot, and I have no idea how I’d feel about myself if I were cis, but because I’m trans and because I’ve learned from and with other trans women, I have a very special and specific kind of love for myself. If these amazing trans women are together with me, if I’m a part of them, how can I not be incredible?
Here’s me wearing my sticker and nametag at the caucus. I spent almost the entire day at the caucus and canvassing for Hillary on this day.
When I volunteered at the Idaho Caucus for Hillary I got this cool sticker and name tag. It was honestly one of the best nights of my life and I’m going to cherish that memory for a long, long time.
On Performing in The Vagina Monologues When You Don’t Have a Vagina
This Thursday, March 31, is Trans Day of Visibility, a day that was created to celebrate the trans people who are alive and making themselves known in the world. Autostraddle is a website for and about queer women, and that will always, always, include queer trans women. In order to highlight just a few of the trans women we love, respect and admire here at Autostraddle, we asked several to take pictures of their day-to-day lives and answer a few questions. We’ll also be featuring several essays related to trans visibility by trans women this week.
I don’t have a vagina. It’s fine. It’s fine. Or at least, sometimes it’s fine. Sometimes it’s a thing that I don’t mind, that I’m okay with. The thing is though, it’s never more than fine. In the times when it’s fine, I still know in the back of my mind that things could be better. In the times when it’s not fine, I want to scream because my body feels so fucking wrong. I want to go to sleep and wake up from this nightmare where I feel uncomfortable in my skin every waking moment. But mostly, I’m pretty okay being a woman who doesn’t have a vagina and likely never will.
I’m happy with a lot of things about my body, which is a thing I’m able to say, really, for the first time in my life. I like my hair, I like the freckles on my shoulders, I like my brown eyes, I like my wide hips and my legs and I’m liking my boobs more and more every day. When I look in the mirror I actually feel like I’m genuinely pretty a good portion of the time. But I don’t know if I’m happy with what I have instead of a vagina.
Straight up, I look pretty dang good here.
I’m usually able to not think about it though. Obviously, there are times when I can’t ignore the genitals that I have, but throughout most of my day, I can just keep it out of my mind. When I was invited to participate in a local production of The Vagina Monologues this past February, I started thinking more and more about the vagina that I don’t have. It got harder and harder to not think about it.
Before I go further: these are my personal feelings about whether or not I want a vagina, not whether or not any other person should want one or have one, and this is absolutely not a judgement on anyone else’s womanhood or lesbianhood. You do you, as they say.
My first thoughts upon being invited to participate were about how happy I was that not only did the Vagina Monologues have a monologue about being a trans woman, but also how happy I was that my community, a city of about 50,000 people, was actively making sure they had trans women reading this monologue. When I looked at performances online, many had cis women reading this monologue and many others had men reading it.
I read the monologue titled “They Beat the Girl Out of My Boy… Or So They Tried,” which is about being a trans woman. Like the other monologues, and as one would expect in a performance of this name, the monologue focuses a lot on the speaker’s desire to have a vagina, and then how much better her life is now that she has one. A lot of the words that I read resonated deeply with me; others didn’t resonate at all. But all of them made me think, and all of them made me examine my self and my body more.
I was paired up with another trans woman to read this monologue; there are five speaking parts, she read Women 1 & 2 while I read Women 3, 4 and 5. These first lines were hers.
“At five years old/I was putting my baby sister’s/diapers on./I saw her vagina./I wanted one.”
I honestly don’t remember the first time I wanted a vagina. I remember being four years old and playing dress up with my sister. No, it was more than that, we were playing a game where I was her little sister instead of her little brother. I loved that game. I was pretending to be my sister’s little sister. I saw myself as her sister. I wanted to be her sister. But I don’t remember having a lot of dysphoria or negative feelings about my genitals until I was in middle school. But, it could just be that I’ve blocked those earlier memories out.
This is where my part began.
“I wondered why I was missing my/Bathing suit top at the beach/Why I wasn’t dressed like the other girls”
I never really wondered why I wasn’t dressed like the other girls. It was more like I wondered why I wasn’t a girl like the other girls. I always knew that everyone saw me as a boy and didn’t want me to be anything else, and this made me profoundly sad and angry. My teachers, my family members, my peers — they all constantly told me I was a boy, and when I performed boyhood incorrectly — which was a lot of the time — I would be punished for it. I knew why I wasn’t dressed like the other girls; it’s because no one wanted me to count myself as one of them.
“But in spite of the apparatus/I was forced to carry around/I always knew I was a girl.”
The thing is, I didn’t always know I was a girl. I always knew I wanted to be a girl, but I didn’t know that I could be one. I thought I was a just very broken boy. Let me tell you, that’s a hell of a way to grow up. And honestly, a part of why I felt that way was because of my genitals. I looked at my body and assumed that since that was real, the way I felt in my head was not. I felt so confused, so small and so trapped, for most of my life. I felt like I was stuck in this horrible life that I didn’t know how to live, and there was no way to make it better. If you’re actually a boy, then I’m guessing being a boy must be pretty fun — my friends made it seem that way — but if you’re actually a girl, like I was, then it’s a fucking nightmare.
“Got my first hormone shot/Got permission to be myself”
Oh man, I was so brilliantly overjoyed when I started hormones. It was the first time in my life that I actually felt like I was treating my body with the love it deserved. Being able to take active steps to have the body that I’d always wanted changed my whole life. I’ve never been as happy as I have been since starting hormones. I’ve never liked my body, or loved my body, this much. I definitely don’t think that hormones are what make me myself — a woman can be a woman no matter what her body looks like or feels like — but hot damn, I do love my estrogen pills and I love what they’re doing to my body.
Sometimes — a lot of the time — I’m pretty sure this is as far as I’m going to go in my transition. I doubt that I’m ever going to get any surgery. I just don’t think it’s in my future, even though sometimes I dream of it, sometimes I wish for it, sometimes I long for it. But I’m scared of the cost, I’m scared of something going wrong, I’m scared of being judged. I don’t like that my fear is a large part of what’s holding me back from getting surgery. I think that if I set a goal to get a vagina, I could and I would. It might take some time, but I think I’d get there. I don’t know, I don’t know. This is the part of the monologue that really got me thinking a lot. The process it shows in going from identifying as a woman to getting hormones to getting a vagina is the main thrust of the monologue. I’ve done the first two steps, but I don’t know if I’ll ever do the third, or if I’ll ever really want to.
“And my vagina is so much friendlier/I cherish it/It brings me joy”
Now, I don’t for a second think that having a vagina would make me more of a woman, or that every trans woman should have surgery or want a vagina. Not at all. Still though, damn, when I was practicing this line, I imagined saying it with truth, saying it with a vagina and I didn’t have to put on a fake smile. I was absolutely burning with joy. As the opening line says, I wanted one.
Sometimes I think, though — do I just want a vagina because that’s what’s in vogue? Because that’s what a woman “should” have? I know that there is pressure from all around for me to have a vagina; I feel that pressure. But also, sometimes society is pressuring me to do things that I love doing and that I actually want to do, like wearing dresses and makeup. I know that society is telling me as a woman that I should like those things, but also I’m telling myself that I like those things, because I do. Is it the same with wanting a vagina?
“The orgasms come in waves/Before they were jerky”
Ja, this would be nice. I’m not gonna lie, this idea is a really big selling point. I definitely don’t think having a penis stops me from being a really great lesbian; but also, when I hear from other trans women about what their sex life is like after they have surgery, I do get more than a little jealous.
“It’s like when you’re trying to sleep/And there is a loud car alarm–/When I got my vagina, it was like someone/Finally turned it off.”
For me, not having a vagina is more like there’s an annoying song that’s only playing all the way through all day long on some days. Others, I can barely hear the chorus, and others I can’t hear it all. But every day, I know that that song will be there again one day, maybe even tomorrow, maybe even later that same day. And I hate this song. It sucks. It makes me feel like I’m unlovable, like I’m fake, like I’m bad. It’s a song that taunts me. I really want it to stop, but I’m not sure if getting a vagina is the only way, or even a good way, to turn it off.
I guess if I’m being honest with myself and with all of you, I do really want a vagina. I do. And I think writing this essay has in a lot of ways helped me figure that out. But I’m also prepared to live my life if I never get one, because I think that’s what’s most likely to happen. And this isn’t the same kind of thing where I decided that I was okay living as a boy because I never thought I’d be able to live as the woman that I was — this is something different. When I decided that, I had resigned my life to hopelessness. I was okay with living as a boy because I thought that was legitimately my only option and while I thought I could do it for a while, I never really was able to imagine a future for myself at all. With this, I can imagine being a happy old lesbian who never got a vagina and is fine with that. I can also imagine being a happy old lesbian who did get a vagina, though, and maybe that imagined future is better.
The cast of the Vagina Monologues.
While being a part of the Vagina Monologues made me think a lot about how conflicted I am about whether or not I want a vagina, it also made me extremely happy to be a part of a community of women who were celebrating our womanhood. I was there, a woman without a vagina, talking about my vagina, with a group of women who never once asked me if I had a vagina or made me feel like I didn’t belong there because I didn’t have one. So even if being in the Vagina Monologues did make me wish I had a vagina, it never made me feel like I needed one to be a woman. It just reminded me of the wonderful community that I have because I’m already a woman.
When I was 29 years old, I was participating in the Vagina Monologues. I thought of having a vagina. I wanted one. I wanted one.
A Day of Visibility: Luna Merbruja Loves Her Self Love
This Thursday, March 31, is Trans Day of Visibility, a day that was created to celebrate the trans people who populate our families, our communities, our lives and our world. Autostraddle is a website for and about queer women, and that will always, always, include queer trans women. In order to highlight just a few of the trans women we love, respect and admire here at Autostraddle, we asked several to take pictures of a day or two in their lives and answer a few questions and we’ll also be featuring several essays related to trans visibility by trans women this week.
Luna Merbruja is absolutely one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She’s pure magic. She’s pure inspiration. She’s pure beauty. I’ve known her on tumblr for a long, long time, and I was blessed to be able to interview her after reading her incredibly powerful memoir, Trauma Queen. She’s written for us before and also writes for Everyday Feminism as well as performing and speaking across the country. Luna’s pretty much unfairly talented.
She’s, in my honest opinion, one of the five most beautiful women in the world (I’ve thought about this a lot) and I want her to achieve and accomplish and get every wonderful thing she hopes for in life. She’s a non-binary powerhouse who fills the world with the joy and wisdom and love that radiates out of her every time she smiles or writes or speaks. She’s one of the reasons I know that magic and brujeria are real because I can see the magic and power that she emanates.
Luna’s able to write about difficult things in a way that makes you feel better about the difficult things you’ve gone through. Her writing is like an arm around your shoulder that makes you feel less alone when you’re feeling low and lonely. When she’s writing about happiness, you can actually feel the joy that she’s put into the words. I know I’ve already said she’s magic, but she really, really is and her writing is proof of that. I love her writing and I love her.
Still from a Snapchat video at my first surgeon consultation. I was trying on different implant sizes.
1. What’s your favorite thing about yourself right now? Your second favorite?
My self love is my favorite thing about myself right now. Seeing my sometimes dry, sometimes crusty-eyed face first thing in the morning and automatically thinking, “Damn, you’re beautiful” is a joy I never thought I would experience.
My second favorite thing is my resiliency. I’ve recently come up against life changing struggles that would have utterly crumbled an earlier self. These days, I have the strength to cry and ask for support without falling apart as hard.
I got to see my beloved friends Jani and Joti, who gifted me matcha pocky and taught me to eat chicken and rice with my right hand.
After my consultation, I made a list of things to prepare for my surgery. Fortunately, mostly everything is covered!
2. What songs would be on a 3-5 song playlist describing how you feel today and why?
- “Warm Blood” by Carly Rae Jepsen because I want to record a vampire music video where I’m stripping on a pole and dancing in the blood of all my most difficult johns.
- “Bling Bling” by Junglepussy because “it’s a full-time job fucking loving yourself” and who doesn’t want to be with a bunch of hot girls dancing around and bouncing their titties? (Bonus: getting someone to practice 103 ways to suck on a clit on me.)
- “Lined Lips and Spiked Bats” by G.L.O.S.S. because “They told us to die! We chose to live!” is by far one of my favorite lines to scream-sing when I’m feeling down.
- “Bless The Telephone” by Kelis because I’ve had so many wonderful phone calls with beloved family today who aren’t always physically present in my life.
I went to Taylor Dantanavantanawong’s portfolio show and fell in love with his work enough to hire him to design my book covers! The same day, I received my new passport in the mail with my sad girl foto and updated name & gender.
Today was an errand day, where I went with my friend to get some pants hemmed, dropped off a few rolls of film to be developed, picked up surgery meds, and went grocery shopping.
3. What are you unsure about?
I’m unsure about how much I want to share about my physical transition journey. It’s an intensely intimate process that very few people within my friend circle have been a part of, but social media acts as this sort of unveiling in itself.
What I mean is that it’s hard to keep things private, especially surrounding a body because it’s visible, and social media has this pressure to share your face/body to show you’re an actual person doing actual person things.
This uncertainty was my main compromise in sharing that I’m fundraising for chichis. In an ideal world, I could have health insurance that covered this instead of having to pull upon social capital to help me embody myself.
I’m terribly afraid of what I’ll say when I come out of surgery and groggy from anesthesia, so I made a list of topics to distract me with and a list of unacceptable things for me to talk about. I’m sharing this list with my friends as a guideline for my post-op care.
I developed some fotos I took from January-February 2016 on those point-and-shoot cameras you can buy at drug stores. The top left is a shot of the snow from the back of a train on my way to Ottawa from Toronto. The bottom left foto is a wonky shot of my bedroom wall. The top right is me lying down on a red scarf and an inch or so of snow in Ottawa. The middle right foto is me with Nia King at her anti-Valentine’s Day party where we watched Medicine for Melancholy with Lexi Adsit. The bottom right foto is me making my first snow angel in Ottawa.
4. What and who is inspiring you right now?
Lately I’ve been inspired by Kai Cheng Thom to pursue sharing harsher truths, Katherine Cross to turn a piece of my narrative into a Twine game, and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha to finish editing my memoir Trauma Queen before the end of this year.
I’m currently editing a post-op playlist of songs that I love to sing and/or are about chichis. Unfortunately, not many songs are dedicated to boobs in a non-gross way BUT I’m dedicated to singing during recovery regardless.
A Day of Visibility: Devan Diaz Is a Little Less Unsure
This Thursday, March 31, is Trans Day of Visibility: a day that was created to celebrate the trans people who populate our families, our communities, our lives and our world. Autostraddle is a website for and about queer women, and that will always, always include queer trans women. In order to highlight just a few of the trans women we love, respect and admire here at Autostraddle, we asked several to take pictures of a day or two in their lives and answer a few questions and we’ll also be featuring several essays related to trans visibility by trans women this week.
I remember when I first saw Devan Diaz’s name. It was attached to this beautifully written essay she wrote for Rookie about what it was like to come out as a trans girl at school, and it was a revelation for me. I love when I find trans writers who I not only admire but relate to. And that describes Devan to a T (jaja). She has such a magical, real and vivid way of writing about herself that if there’s anything, even the smallest thing, that you find familiar in her writing, you immediately feel like you’re engulfed in the whole thing.
Devan is one of the kindest, most tender, most pure souls I’ve ever met. I feel lucky to know her. She writes like the ocean, inviting you to swim through her words and the images and memories she conjures with them. She’s an amazing writer and a makeup and fashion icon in her own right, and one day she’s going to be a wonderful and loving mother to her lucky children.
We were blessed enough to have Devan write an essay for us last year on Trans Day of Remembrance, and we’re blessed enough to feature her here again. All photos were taken by Devan Diaz; click to enlarge them.
I’ve been waking up just as the sun rises lately, and it allows me to feel like I have a life outside of my daily commitments. This is when I can check in with myself.
The subway station near my apartment has pink and yellow windows, and around 11am the sun is in the perfect spot to create these colors on the floor. As I was photographing them, the child in the photo started hopping around the colors. Their mother allowed me to use the photo, and the little one told me she thought it was a cool photo.
1. If you could make a three-five song playlist that describes how you feel today, what songs would be on that list and why?
1. “April in Paris” – Charlie Parker
Because I can’t listen to anything with words while I’m writing.
2. “Here Comes the Sun” – Nina Simone
Because Nina’s voice gives this song the texture it deserves.
3. “Living for the City” – Stevie Wonder
Because Stevie Wonder is the greatest of all time.
4. “I Know There’s Gonna be Good Times” – Jamie XX featuring ft. Young Thug, Popcaan
Because it’s spring in New York and I’m hopeful.
This is an excerpt from The Waves by Virginia Woolf, published in 1931. It’s a book that I love and that I carry around, in case I need a reminder to inject tenderness into my daily life.
The fruit guy has positioned himself right in front of my job, and I buy fruit for breakfast almost daily. He’s smiling because I’ve just told him I’m photographing him, and he asked me to make him a star. I think he was already a star.
2. What do you love about yourself right now?
I love the parts of myself that are outside of my control, but always reveal themselves when they’re most needed. I was a terribly sensitive child who cried about most things, and my father worked tirelessly to place his rigid ideas of masculinity onto me. Even then, I knew the sickness was with him. I never saw the shame in honesty and vulnerability, which has been my mantra with my work as a writer. The state of my mental health has been fluctuating lately, but my disposition always manages to resurface. I trust the parts of my personality that somehow remain unchanged by different circumstances. My job today is to nurture and protect it.
I share my office at work with two other women, and we’ve created a communal collage on the door. My favorite contribution is a little cut out from a newspaper that just says ‘Beyoncé’
I’m forever late. I’m in a cab on my way to meet someone for dinner, and this denim jacket makes me feel like Chloe Sevigny’s character in Boys Don’t Cry.
3. What’s inspiring you?
I’ve been inspired by the women of my family, specifically my mother and grandmother. As a kid my mother drew flowers and mermaids for me, and by tracing them I learned how to draw. When my grandmother was alive, she had a special relationship with literature as she learned to read and write later in life. I believe these women would’ve been artists, if their circumstances were different. If they were born in a different time, or a different place. I feel the responsibility of redemption, and I’m allowing it to inspire and guide me.
It’s spring in my neighborhood. The magnolia trees remind me of summers in Smyrna, Tennessee.
The buildings on my block are pre-war, many being older than 100 years. Many of them have private gardens, and that’s where I found the magnolia trees. I hopped a fence to look at them, and I hope they don’t mind.
4. What are you unsure about?
I’m unsure about my place in literature, as I opted out of academia. I’m learning who I am as a writer through the process of trial and error. Jamie Berrout, a Mexican trans woman, has been working closely with me. She’s a writer and editor, and she’s been editing my work and I feel her thoughtful and helpful revisions ringing in my ears while I’m writing. She’s releasing an anthology of fiction written by trans women later this year, and I’m so excited for that contribution to the history of trans female writers. Growing up Latina in an all-white community in Tennessee, connecting with Jamie has made me a little less unsure. Having an intimate creative relationship with another trans Latina has been transformative in ways I still cannot articulate. It’s beyond words and theories.
I call Jackson Heights home, in Queens. I was born in Elmhurst which isn’t very far away, and my family moved away when I was small. When I moved back, I moved back into a neighborhood not far from where I was born. Many of the streets feel like memories as a child, but they could be images from popular media. I’ll never live in Brooklyn, even though all of my friends are there.
When I first moved to New York, I kept to myself. In Tennessee I was an anomaly, and NY gave me my first taste of anonymity. Instead of friendships, I had this view of the city from my fire escape. I told the Empire State Building about my day. When it’s warm, I sit out here. It never gets old.
With the Passing of HB 2, North Carolina Signs Hate into Law
On February 22, 2016, after years of work from citizens of the city, the Charlotte city council passed ordinances that prevented businesses from discriminating against LGBTQ individuals and made it illegal to force a trans person to use a bathroom that doesn’t match their gender identity. Immediately after its passing, North Carolina Republicans vowed to overturn the ordinance, and on March 23 they called a special session in order and ended protections for LGBTQ people in North Carolina. In a little over twelve hours, North Carolina became the first state in America to make it illegal to add protection policies to laws for LGBTQ people—and to be clear, while this decision is awful for all LGBTQ North Carolinians, it is life threatening for transgender North Carolinians. North Carolina has effectively enacted a system that makes violence against trans people, especially trans women acceptable.
How did this happen? How does an ordinance affecting a specific city turn into something that changes the laws of an entire state? Well, unfortunately, it’s the Constitution’s fault. The tenth amendment to the United States Constitution says that any powers not dedicated explicitly to the federal government, “are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This idea of States rights enabled the various states in the country to create their own constitutions and govern themselves in whatever manner the people of that particular state choose (as long as those rules and regulations don’t conflict with those in the US Constitution).
This system allowed for the North Carolina constitution to give similar power to local governments just as the US Constitution gives to state governments. But in the case of North Carolina (and 19 other states), a general assembly of statewide elected officials has the final say over any local ordinances that are implemented in the state. They don’t always intervene in local issues—North Carolina local governments still are allowed to make ordinances—but they tend to intervene when an issue, in their opinion, affects more than just the population of a local government. In this case, the General Assembly chose to challenge Charlotte’s ordinance because “laws and obligations consistent statewide for all businesses, organizations, and employers doing business in the State will improve intrastate commerce.” Basically, the North Carolina General Assembly thought that Charlotte’s ordinance would negatively affect future businesses desires to come to Charlotte, so they gutted progressive anti-discrimination protections from the entire state. For protection, you know.
In discussing what this law means for LGBTQ North Carolinians, it’s important to look at what the Charlotte ordinance was hoping to accomplish. In a 7-4 vote, the city council of Charlotte approved adding LGBTQ protections to the Commercial Non-Discrimination Policy, the Public Accommodations Ordinance, and the Passenger Vehicle for Hire Ordinance. This meant that in schools, bars, stores, taxis, and places legally defined as places of public accommodation were not allowed to discriminate based on race, gender, religious affiliation, national origin, color, age, disability, and now, their perceived or actual status as LGBTQ. Had the ordinance not been challenged, it would have gone into effect on April 1st of this year. LGBTQ people would be legally protected in Charlotte, and transgender people could use their bathroom of choice.
But as soon as Charlotte passed it, Republican N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore promised lawmakers would do what was necessary to “correct this radical course.” With representatives Dan Bishop, Paul Stam, Julia Howard, and Rob Steinburg sponsoring the bill, legislators requested a special session which was initially denied by N.C. Governor Pat McCrory due to fears that legislatures might try to change more than just the Charlotte ordinances (a fear which was not unfounded, come to find out). The legislators then went behind McCrory’s back to call a special session to order through a two-thirds majority vote—something that hasn’t been done in the N.C. General Assembly since 1981.
When the General Assembly sat down on the morning of March 23, they had many motives, and almost all of them were accomplished. By the conclusion of this special session, not only were Charlotte’s anti-discrimination ordinances superseded, North Carolinian legislatures did exactly what Gov. McCrory hoped they wouldn’t and changed more than just the Charlotte decision.
On a national level, what North Carolina’s general assembly did can have a terrible influence on what happens in the rest of country with regards to anti-discrimination legislation. Heather wrote about the 9 states that have similar anti-trans bills in the work and highlights the ways North Carolina’s ‘success’ will make it easier for other states to enact their own bigotry. The decision will be fought at the court level for sure, but having a law on the books that creates a singular definition of discrimination is a clandestine way to make discrimination and violence against LGBTQ people something that while not necessarily legal, isn’t illegal. What’s so scary about HB 2 is that it doesn’t seem discriminatory when first read, but the contradictions are all over it. It says that North Carolinians have the right not to be discriminated against, but then makes the basis of that protection “biological sex”, immediately endangering anyone who isn’t cisgender. This is terrifying. North Carolina has just set a precedent for how to legally include hate in a law. And other conservative states are watching.
But what does the bill actually do? It is confusing to read and doesn’t actually seem like it is harmful to queer and trans North Carolinians, but if you really break down what’s being said in HB 2, it’s a bill that advocates for violence and bullying. House Bill 2, the official title of the law passed is three-fold. The bill
- Establishes that public schools and other public facilities may only establish single-sex multiple occupancy bathrooms (Single occupancy bathrooms do not need to be single-sex).
- Establishes statewide consistency in laws regarding employment, meaning local governments cannot create policies that would enact a minimum wage higher than the state minimum wage ($7.25), among other things.
- A statewide definition of anti-discrimination is created which cannot be amended or added to; LGBTQ people are left out of the protections given by the state.
The bill was signed into law that same night by Governor McCrory, despite his earlier “protestations” about calling forward a special session. In a tweet, he said, “Ordinance defied common sense, allowing men to use women’s bathroom/locker room for instance. That’s why I signed a bipartisan bill to stop it.” Under the guise of protecting women, Pat McCrory signed this bill, and on April 1st, this discrimination will allow for discrimination to be legal in the state.
Part one and three of the Bill are especially harmful in the violent language they invoke. Throughout the bill, the phrase “biological sex” appears over and over. By invoking the idea of biological sex, North Carolina practices a biological essentialism that equates certain sex organs to certain genders and ignores the multiplicities possible in human gender identity. These words are also dangerous because they advocate for violence against transgender people who are just trying to exist. The bill says that public locations with multiple occupancy restrooms must make those restrooms single-sex and that they must enforce those rules.
The danger of the discourse surrounding “biological sex” comes from the fact that it paints while it’s harmful to all trans folks, in the discussions around public restrooms, it usually paints all trans women as rapists and sexual assaulters. Trans women become perpetrators of violence in the restroom when in reality, trans women are much more likely to be the victims of violence, both in public and in restrooms. Bills like this get passed because their proponents suggest that trans women are going to go into women’s spaces and attack women. Like the writings of Janice Raymond in the early 1970s, this sort of talk paints trans women as monster-men who are trying to infiltrate women’s private sphere and commit acts of violence, ignoring the fact that trans women are much more likely to be at the receiving end of violence, especially in bathrooms. “Biological sex” is an insidious way to be transphobic under the guise of working for women’s rights. Men are all rapists, and trans women are men according to this false logic; to protect women, “biological sex” discourse says that it is okay to harm a trans woman. This is dangerous. It’s untrue, it’s old, and it’s got to stop.
This law also creates a situation where in North Carolina it is now legal to police the bodily appearance of people whose gender doesn’t conform to normative standards of being. North Carolina’s lawmakers have given cisgender people the power to attack trans people—to demand their birth certificate even—if they don’t believe that they belong. This hostile environment privileges the privileged over those who need protection the most. When GLAAD reports that 38.7% of students feel unsafe at school because of their gender expression and that 61.6% had no teacher intervention when they reported bullying, this law puts people in danger. I also want to point out that in North Carolina, the only way one can change their “biological sex” is through changing their birth certificate which can only happen through surgery–an intervention that isn’t always wanted or affordable for trans people, especially trans children.
It also works very hard to maintain the status quo in North Carolina. By refusing to allow the minimum wage to be raised unless the whole state raises it, North Carolina has effectively prevented liberal pockets of the state from enacting policies to keep their constituents safe. It furthers the school-to-prison pipeline by telling trans and gender nonconforming students of color in North Carolina that their options are limited: come to school and be disrespected by your government and peers, come to school and use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity and is arrested, or risk not showing up to school and being arrested for truancy. If you are not white, straight, cis, and well off in North Carolina right now, the government has just handed you a statement saying that they don’t care whether or not you live.
North Carolina is an interesting state to look at demographically—with 17 state funded colleges and universities, there is a highly educated and liberal population. But that population is younger, less likely to vote, and they exist in large concentrations in small parts of the state. So places like Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and other urban areas are trying and failing to enact legislation that reflects their progressive values because so much of the state is rural and conservative. Watching people around me react to the decision has highlighted some really unpleasant things about the way we as a state function in regards to our government.
I’ve primarily seen two reactions: #WeAreNotThis coming primarily from white communities and calls for mobilization coming from communities of color. I don’t want to imply that hashtag activism isn’t important because it is—especially from an accessibility standpoint. But it is interesting to me that most of the action coming from white people has been to distance themselves from those who put these laws into place. When I see #WeAreNotThis, I see North Carolinians doing what Southerners have been good at for centuries, hiding bigotry under Southern hospitality. #WeAreNotThis to me doesn’t do anything to for the trans youth who have effectively been expelled from school, nor does it offer solutions to communities trying to improve the quality of life. It makes me wonder about the effectiveness of separation. In a situation like this, what does separating ourselves from our lawmakers really do? Especially since in the primary election, slightly more than 17% of North Carolina’s 6.5 million registered voters voted, and that was a record high. If our communities aren’t voting, if our activism is only coming from the internet, and doesn’t participate in local government or grassroots organizing, how is it beneficial? Can we really say that we aren’t the decision our government made if we don’t even work to change the government?
On the other hand, there are communities that are working and have been working to make North Carolina a better place to live for queer and trans people. Communities of color are calling for mobilization all across the state—on March 24th, a Black Lives Matter QTPOC rally in front of the Governor’s mansion is being organized by local grassroots organizations all over the State. Queer and trans people of color are organizing collectively to make sure that their communities are safe. They’re finding the important phone numbers to call, organizing voter education seminars for the future, and (most importantly to me at least) taking the time to honor the pain this decision has caused so many in North Carolina.
In a statement put out by many local grassroots organizations in North Carolina including #BlackLivesMatter North Carolina, the Queer People of Color Collective, and Southerners on New Ground they recognized the relevance of this law passing on the same day that one year earlier, North Carolina trans teen Blake Brockington took his own life.
We honor and fight for Blake by affirming that our lives matter. Anti-transgender bias and legislation and persistent structural racism directly impact the devastating rates of suicidality, unemployment, physical and sexual violence, poverty, incarceration and homelessness experienced by transgender people of color.
Trans and Queer people of color demand a living wage and freedom from criminalization and discrimination, in the workplace and in the bathroom.
Tonight, we are calling for a Special Session of the People outside of the Governor’s mansion. For Blake Brockington, for Angel Elisha Walker, for all Black and Brown trans and queer people in North Carolina who have been murdered, disappeared, or incarcerated, it is our duty to speak. It is our duty to demand freedom, to demand a living wage, to demand education, to demand comprehensive health care that is accessible and free of charge.
Hope comes from the People in North Carolina. Separating “us” from “them” doesn’t get anything done, but as the protestors have chanted over and over in the streets this year, “The people united will never be defeated.” Mobilization after this awful passing is one of the only ways we can heal. We have to find ways to come together as a community and uplift one another collectively and fight back against powers that want us dead. #WeAreNotThis ignores the legacy North Carolina has of oppressing marginalized people. Mobilization, on the other hand, says never again, and offers creative ways for us to come together, publicly grieve, and collectively heal.
After North Carolina: 9 States Have 14 Anti-Trans Bills in The Works
The horrific anti-trans bill that North Carolina governor Pat McCrory signed into law last night is not an isolated piece of legislation. The new law, which only allows transgender people use restrooms designated for the gender they were assigned at birth, is part of a broad campaign spearheaded by the Family Research Council to scapegoat and dehumanize transgender people, and to deny them basic rights. Nine other states have “bathroom bills” pending, and some of them are joined by other pieces of legislation that seek to deny transition-related healthcare to imprisoned trans people and make it impossible for trans people to obtain vital records (like birth certificates, marriage licenses, and driver’s licenses) that accurately reflect their gender.
Last year 21 anti-trans bills were introduced into various state legislatures, and while none of them passed, it set the stage for the 44 anti-trans bills that have been introduced in the first three months of 2016. Like the one in Tennessee this week, many of these bills will die in committee, which is where they go to be scrutinized after they are introduced but before they are voted on by the general assembly. However, South Dakota’s bill made it all the way to the governor before it was vetoed. And now North Carolina’s has now made to the governor and been enacted as law.
Opening the floor for this kind of transphobic debate only preys on people’s ignorant fears and perpetuates the kind of untrue stereotypes that have led to a pandemic of violence against trans people, particularly black trans women.
Whether or not these bills are passed, the simple introduction of them into state legislatures can be deadly for trans people. These bills seek to dehumanize trans people by leaning into dangerous and untrue stigmas that trans men and women are predators and deviants, and that they deserve to be punished. Stereotypes that are reinforced year after year by what people see on TV, by the way. Opening the floor for this kind of transphobic debate only preys on people’s ignorant fears and perpetuates the kind of untrue stereotypes that have led to a pandemic of violence against trans people, particularly black trans women.
Below is a list of anti-trans legislation that is in currently in play in state legislatures around the country, and links to resources to join the fight to stop these lawmakers from making the world even more dangerous for trans people.
Public School Bathroom Bills
Status: In committee
Resources: Equality Illinois
Kansas HB 2737 // Kansas SB 513
Status: In committee with only two weeks left in session
Recourses: Contact state legislators
Status: In committee
Resources: Contact Kentucky House representatives
Missouri HB 1624 // Missouri HB2303 // Missouri SB720
Status: Introduced, no committee yet
Resources: #MoTransRights
Status: In committee
Recourses: SC Equality // National Center for Transgender Equality
Status: In committee
Recourses: Contact state legislators
General Public Bathroom Bills
Status: In committee
Resources: Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition
Minnesota H. F. No. 3396 // Minnesota SF 3002
Status: In committee
Resources: OutFront Minnesota
Status: Going to floor for full vote from the House
Resources: Contact Mississippi House representatives
Status: Introduced, no committee yet
Resources: #MoTransRights
Vital Records Denial Bills
Tennessee HB2600 // Tennessee SB2275
Status: In committee
Resources: Contact state legislators
Transition-Related Healthcare Refusal Bills
Status: Introduced, no committee yet
Resources: SC Equality // National Center for Transgender Equality
Ballot initiatives
If Washington State anti-trans group “Just Want Privacy” receives 246,372 signatures on their ballot initiative by by July 8, the public will be able to vote on the rights of transgender people in the general election in November. Their initiative seeks to overturn state protections already in place for trans people, institute a new bathroom law, and prohibit any individual municipality from issuing protection for trans people in individual districts.
For information on how to stop their initiative, check out the resources at Washington Safe Alliance.
Kourtney Yochum Becomes the 7th Trans Person Murdered This Year, We Find Ourselves Asking the Same Old Questions
Feature image via Kourtney Yochum’s Facebook
At 1:20 pm yesterday afternoon in Los Angeles, 32-year-old trans woman of color Kourtney Yochum, who also went by Quartney Davia Dawsonn-Yochum on Facebook, was shot and murdered following a domestic dispute with man who has been arrested. (Some very graphic images have been posted and removed from Kourtney Yochum’s Facebook, so please click through with caution.) Yochum, who lived at the Gateways Apartments, described as a “perm., anent supportive housing project for formerly chronically homeless individuals” by the LA Times, was a beloved member of her community and will be sorely missed. She becomes the seventh trans person murdered in the US this year.
According to Anita Nelson, the Chief Executive of SRO Housing Corporation, who identified Yochum to the Times, Yochum was walking her two dogs when the alleged gunman walked up to her and shot her. After the shooting, the suspect was taken into police custody. Nelson told the Times, “It is mind-boggling; it happened in the open. I’m heartbroken. Our residents are traumatized, our staff is traumatized.” She added that “Everybody loved her. She was very popular.”
When I saw the news that another trans woman had been murdered the same old questions started running through my head. I wondered if she was a woman of color. I wondered if she was the victim of intimate partner violence. I wondered if the number of trans people murdered would keep going up. I wondered if I knew her. When I saw the details, I found out that I was right on most accounts. She was a woman of color, she was apparently murdered after a domestic dispute with her boyfriend or partner, and her death puts us just one behind the number of murdered trans women we were at last year. While I didn’t know her, seeing the outpouring of love from her community and friends broke my heart and broke my spirit.
When all was said and done last year, there were 23 reported murders of transgender people, all of them women, most of them Black, most of the rest Latina and many of them the victims of intimate partner violence. There is a clear pattern and a clear solution to stopping this absurdly terrifying number of murders. We need to get the message across that trans women are women, and that they deserve to be treated like human beings. It sounds simple, but trans women have been saying this for years and it seems like things are just getting worse.
I don’t know what to do anymore. I keep on writing the same thing every time this happens. I keep on saying that this mostly happens to Black and Latina trans women. I keep on saying that it mostly happens to trans women who sleep with men. I keep on saying that it’s on those men to stop this epidemic of violence. I keep on saying that we need to listen to and protect trans women of color and sex workers. I keep on saying that if society will just agree to finally see and treat trans women as women, than many of these murders will stop. Because the men who sleep with trans women are often afraid of being caught, or angry they were “tricked” or ashamed of what they’ve done, or afraid sleeping with a trans woman makes them gay, they lash out and beat, abuse and kill the women they say they love. I, and many others, keep on talking about all these same things and asking all the same questions, but still, the murders keep on happening. I don’t know what new questions to ask. I don’t know what new solutions to look for.
As if to kick the trans community while we were down last night, North Carolina also passed a horrific bill that bans LGBTQ non-discrimination ordinances in the state and forces trans people to use incorrect bathrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms. This bill, signed by Republican Governor Pat McCrory, is exactly the kind of thing that encourages people to murder trans women like Yochum. Under the premise of “protecting religious liberty” and “keeping women and girls safe in restrooms and changing rooms,” bills like this one tell people that trans women are men, that they’re predators, that they’re criminals and that they’re deviants. That they’re freaks who don’t deserve to be treated with any kind of respect or humanity.
This evil law in North Carolina eclipsed the news of Yochum’s death last night. If you looked at Twitter, it would have seemed like this kind of bill has no public support. But the thing is, anti-trans bills are actually extremely politically savvy. In fact, the Republican National Committee itself, endorsed “bathroom bills” back at the beginning of this year. These aren’t fringe politicians or regional beliefs, this is part of the official national Republican platform. That’s correct: the official position of the Republican Party in the United States of America is to actively make trans people’s lives worse and to make trans people, and especially trans women, more unsafe then they are right now, which, frankly, is hard to imagine.
Yochum joins trans women of color Monica Loera, Jasmine Sierra, and Maya Young, as well as Kedarie/Kandicee Johnson, a Black, genderfluid teen and Demarkis Stansberry and Kayden Clarke, two trans men, as the seventh trans person murdered this year. Clarke, who was shot by police, was white. Seven trans people this year, six trans people of color. That’s two every month, and we’re not even done with March yet.
Pop Culture Fix: The Xena Reboot Will Be GAY GAY GAY
Welcome to your weekly Pop Culture Fix, your one-stop shop for television feelings.
Teevee
+ Xena: Warrior Princess really is getting the reboot everyone’s been speculating about and it is going to be hella gay. Here’s a little tidbit from Variety:
NBC has ordered a new Xena pilot from writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach, architect behind the CW’s cult hit The 100, and he plans to be a little more forthcoming about the undeniable chemistry between Xena and Gabrielle with this updated iteration. During a Q&A session on Tumblr, Grillo-Marxuach confirmed that the two women would be lovers, no bones about it:
i am a very different person with a very different world view than my employer on the 100 – and my work on the 100 was to use my skills to bring that vision to life. xena will be a very different show made for very different reasons. there is no reason to bring back xena if it is not there for the purpose of fully exploring a relationship that could only be shown subtextually in first-run syndication in the 1990s. it will also express my view of the world – which is only further informed by what is happening right now – and is not too difficult to know what that is if you do some digging.
+ Speaking of The 100, fans mourning the death of Commander Lexa have turned their sorrow into activism. They’ve raised an astonishing $43,000(!) for the Trevor Project. You can donate through their campaign here.
+ Variety also covered Lexa’s death on The 100. It’s the first time I have ever seen a mainstream site (especially one with real clout) push back against this trope. It’s a really good read that examines fan reaction and takes the showrunner to task for his obtuseness.
+ Her Story won Best Drama at Seattle Web Fest, a well deserved honor!
+ Soon you’ll be able to own Marceline the Vampire Queen and her true love Princess Bubblegum in Lego form! A fan actually created these things and made it all the way through the Lego Ideas vetting process!
+ This new Orphan Black season four trailer is so slick, y’all. I’ve watched it like six times since Riese sent it to me. It seems to confirm Delphine’s death, but I’m just going to stay in denial about that for a while longer.
+ Hey hey hey, CBS has finally given Person of Interest season five a premiere date! They’re actually going to show it on Monday and Tuesday nights, starting on Tuesday, May 3rd. Usually when networks decide to burn through episodes like that, it means they’re done with the show, but J.J. Abrams says a miraculous ratings event could turn things around. The season is a truncated 13 episodes and promises some intense Root and Shaw shenanigans. [Update: As of 6pm, CBS has official cancelled POI. No season six, after all. But maybe Root and Shaw will ride off into the sunset!]
+ How white, conservative, and male are Sunday news talk shows without Melissa Harris-Perry? Flavorwire has the answer.
+ TV Land is rebooting Heathers. Heather McNamara will be a black lesbian. One Heather will be “a male who identifies as gender-queer whose real name is Heath.” (So you mean they are a genderqueer person named Heath, TV Land.)
Movies
+ We’re giving away five Carol DVDs, have you heard?
+ Cannes will debut Jodie Foster’s new film, Money Monster.
Queer People In The World
+ Laverne Cox is set to appear on Jane Lynch’s Hollywood Game Night this Sunday night!